KAILEIGH CHOW'S REFLECTIONS

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REFLECTION ON VLOG 1

While filming this first vlog, we came across many challenges as well as many thought provoking questions, we wanted to explore. Initially, we had planned an organized, but surface level, “easy” set of vlogs, focusing on sport and how it influences people’s values, lifestyle and community. Sport has always been such a big part of our lives and we wanted to focus on the differences in exercise routine and methods in Taiwanese. For instance, what do people think exercise adds to their lives and how these ideas compare to exercise culture in Vancouver. Does exercise give them confidence, routine, fitness and a sense of community? We were planning to do a series of interviews with people doing different activities, like playing basketball, lifting at the gym and doing tai chi.  We wanted to ask them about their weekly exercise schedule and what they think exercise adds to their lives。

We were a bit overwhelmed with the scale of our topic; there were an infinite number of options regarding perspective and organization choices to make with the three vlogs, so we chose the most simple option. However, while working in office hours, 张老师, our mentor for the project, approached me and we just talked about what my initial plans for the vlogs were. 张老师 was very honest with me and bluntly said that if we continued with our initial plan, it would likely be quite “ordinary.” We could easily interview Taiwanese people in Vancouver, so sticking with our initial project plan would result in a series of vlogs that were not representative of our unique experience in Taiwan. We talked and brainstormed new angles on exercise and project and were able to find an interesting and specific focus for the project. 

Now, we plan to focus our final project on exercise methods that are uniquely popular in Taiwan, such as dragon boating and martial arts. This project plan will encourage us to step outside our comfort zone and learn something new and different than what we already know from our sporting experience in Vancouver. It also allows us to educate our viewers on Taiwanese culture and introduce them to these new sports. In our next vlog, we plan to focus on martial arts. 张老师 has asked her friend to help us with our project, so that we can attend a martial arts class and ask questions to learn about the popularity and community of martial arts. I believe this will be an interesting adventure because martial arts are much more popular in Taiwan than in Vancouver. Martial arts are unique compared to the sports I typically play in Vancouver; there is natural balance of aggression and grace that I think is very cool. I look forward to learning more about when and how people start learning martial arts, why they choose martial arts as their form of exercise, and what martial arts adds to their life.

Another challenge we came across were technical difficulties and common issues that are inevitable when filming a first vlog. Firstly, we struggled with finding a good and free editing program. We found and downloaded an editing program that was easy to use. However, after 4 hours of learning how to use the program and editing, when we went to upload the video, we were surprised and stressed to find a huge watermark across the middle of the video. We were a bit stressed at first but were able to “second-hand” record the video using our phone and upload it without the watermark. I shared this stressful experience with 张老师, who was quick to recommend a new editing program for me that was easy to download and use, with a free month trial. So, we are looking forward to using that for the next few vlogs. Another issue that we encountered was a lack of footage for our voice over. We mostly filmed videos of ourselves talking about the project in relevant locations. But, when we went to edit the video, we realized that the resulting project would be a pretty boring series of videos of us just talking to the camera. Our solution was to add some videos of traditional Taiwanese exercise, like dragon boating and martial arts. We also added some videos of us playing field hockey from Vancouver to make the vlogs more personal and diverse. We felt that by adding these video clips, we were able to show our ideas to our viewers rather than simply telling them, which is what vlogs are really all about. Overall, we were very happy with the final vlog, which was diverse, interesting and really showed our viewers what we want to focus on for our final project.

我们三岁开始做运动。因为我们觉得跟朋友做运动好玩，我们最喜欢做运动。我们常常打篮球，打网球，游泳。我们下个vlog 我们打算去武术(wu3 shu4, martial arts)中心。张老师问她的朋友帮我们学武术。我们想问台湾人几个问题：为什么他们喜欢武术？他们几岁开始学武术？我们觉得武术难学，可是觉得武术不但很酷，而且很有意思。我觉得武术的比赛有一点危险，所以你得穿特别的运动服。

REFLECTION ON VLOG 2

nitially going into this project, our plan was to focus on unique traditional sports in Taiwan in order to compare them with western sports and exercise culture. However, upon filming this vlog, I am starting to realize that as the world continues to become more connected, through technology and globalization, cultures and activities are becoming more and more similar. While globalization has some positive effects, such as learning about new cultures and improving communication, this vlog and experience has revealed one of the more unfortunate effects of globalization - the loss of unique traditional activities and culture as Taiwanese people begin to enjoy Western sports, like basketball and working out, over traditional sports, like kung fu and martial arts.

The biggest challenge of this project was trying to interview locals using Mandarin. It is sometimes frustrating to not understand the answers to your questions and not be able to ask follow up questions. I believe follow up questions are very helpful to get a full and satisfying answer to interview questions. It is also quite difficult to analyze the interview and information when I can only understand bits and pieces, because I need to rely on others to help me translate before I can analyze the information. So, the process of creating the vlog becomes quite drawn out, in my opinion, and tough to execute during a busy. However, in future, I know I can be more proactive and try to get help with the translation either right after the interview or as early as possible, so that I have more time to organize my thoughts and create a better analysis. 

It was very cool to go to a kung fu studio in Taiwan because it was not what I expected. Because I initially thought that kung fu was very popular among Taiwanese people, I was expecting a large gym-like space with a big class of people. However, when we attended the class, it was in a quaint apartment-like room with a small class of 6 people. To me, it felt very authentic because it was not so commercialized, which was very cool. I felt a great sense of achievement from being able to capture and share the master’s passion for kung fu. He was a such a nice man, who was very passionate about kung fu and was very happy to share his story and experience. It was a pleasure to chat with him and learn about kung fu in Taiwan through his perspective. 

After talking with the kung fu master, I began to realize that Canada and Taiwan are similarly affected by larger societal influences like the rise social media and technology. Over time, there has been a shift in focus as individual achievement and goals have taken priority over community. The kung fu master described how learning kung fu used to be a lot more about community, because people used to learn from neighbours and from friends. However, with the rise of individualism, I feel that this sense of community is fading as people begin to focus more on their careers, education and goals to achieve a certain style of life. It is very similar to how in Canada, children have stopped playing outside together and chatting on the phone – now, everyone simply posts an update on social media instead of really connecting.

Despite the decrease in popularity of kung fu, I also think that it is interesting that sport culture is merging and becoming more unified. I think that it is great that due to Western influences, people are beginning to prioritize exercise and health more. Whether it be teammates working together to score a goal or citizens of a country cheering on their nation’s team, sport has always been an activity that can bring people together. It is possible that unifying sport culture could have a positive impact, where people can form connections via a common sport or exercise. However, unique cultures and sports in different countries are also what makes the world so diverse and interesting. In my opinion, it would be unfortunate if over time, globalization caused the world to lose all of the unique traditional and cultural aspects that make each country and place special. For our next vlog, we hope to explore more about this trend of increasing globalization and loss of tradition. 

我跟功夫师傅一起聊天让我很高兴，是因为我喜欢听他的故事和经验。我去功夫中心跟师傅聊天以后，我觉得不太多人学功夫，是因为很多人常常看电视，用手机和学习，所以没有空学功夫。我觉得美国的运动文化跟台湾的运动文化越来越像。很多台湾人喜欢打篮球，打棒球。录音的时候，我觉得有一点难受，是因为我常常听不懂。我想问难的问题，可是我只听懂了很简单的中文，所以我觉得有一点难过。台湾的人说中文说得很快让我很紧张和不好意思，可是我知道我得多练习，然后就可以听懂。

REFLECTION ON VLOG 3

Throughout this study abroad experience, I have learned a lot about Taiwanese culture and I have had the opportunity to learn a lot of about myself and grow as a person. It has been such a great experience to do cool activities, like tea leaf picking and river trekking, and chat with locals in Taiwan; I feel that I have really expanded my mind and cultural awareness through this experience. Even just walking the streets and people watching has been an enthralling learning experience. In addition, I have improved my confidence in speaking Mandarin and improved my studying and time management skills. I am also so grateful to have had such a great group of classmates; I have learned from all of them. We were so lucky to have such a diverse class with people from all around the world, places like Peru, California, Thailand etc. I felt very lucky to have met all my fellow students and learn from their life experiences as well as from their series of vlogs focusing on other aspects of Taiwanese culture. 

This project was very cool to me, because although I recognize that technology and globalization are becoming more prevalent in the world, I had never really thought about the connection between these societal changes and sport culture. So, this project really opened my mind to all the aspects of life that these large social changes impact. 

Through this project, I have learned that exercise culture is related to society and how it has evolved over time. In this project, we see that the prevalence of unique and traditional sports in Taiwan is directly influenced by larger societal changes, for example technology and globalization. Many of the people we interviewed brought up the rise of technology, increasingly busy lifestyles and increasingly dominant western culture as reasons for the decline in prevalence of kung fu and tai chi.

I believe the increasing focus on more individual goals, related to careers, money, and passion have resulted in a lack of priority placed on community. This lack of community is demonstrated through the decline in popularity of traditional, “community” sports among younger generations, as more people begin to prefer solo gym workouts. Many of the people we interviewed said that young people chose to workout at the gym as their primary form of exercise. I think that this may be because less and less people view exercise as a community activity. My personal experience in playing team sports, like basketball and field hockey, has always been very team and community focused. To me, building relationships with teammates and coaches is what makes the exercise so enjoyable and worthwhile.  So in my opinion, it is a bit unfortunate that for younger generations, exercise in Taiwan is becoming more individual-focused and less community-focused. The older generations may value community more because they grew up in a time where community was more prevalent and important, a more Asian point of view. Therefore, they continue to seek this community and belonging in forms of traditional sport like Tai Chi. It was awesome to see such a large group of older people getting active together and see their commitment and dedication to tai chi and the tai chi community. 

In this series of vlogs, I see myself as a student and as a fellow athlete striving to learn more about exercise methods and culture in Taiwan. It was very cool to have the opportunity to chat with Taiwanese people who are passionate about tai chi and kung fu because I can relate to their passion and motivation for their sport and it makes me so feel very grateful to listen to and share their stories. The goal of this project was to learn more about Taiwanese exercise culture and to educate my fellow students and athletes that may be curious about sport and exercise in Taiwan, and I feel that our final project has done just that. Even my Taiwanese friends, who I showed the video to, said they wanted to show their grandmother the vlog, so that she could start practicing tai chi!

在这些影片里, 我觉得我像一个学生也像一个运动员。我最喜欢跟台湾人聊天，我对台湾人的印象特别好，是因为他们人很好。他们帮我们回答问题，还会兴奋地跟我们聊天。我们早上五点半去了师大运动场问台湾人几个问题。台湾人觉得身体健康很重要，所以很多人常常做运动。我觉得台湾地的运动文化很有意思，可是年轻人不常做传统运动， 比如太极拳，还有功夫。