Sijhou Township is located in the south of Changhua County, separated from Xiluo Township of Yunlin County to the south by Jhuoshuei River. Xiluo’s martial arts and lion dance performances are renowned throughout Taiwan, for instance Xiluo Qikan. Xiluo’s neighboring Sijhou Township also boasts a rich martial arts tradition, the Zunliao Community being no exception. Puhsuan Temple is the religious center of the Zunliao Community, also where Zunliao Community’s tradition of martial arts and lion dance originated. The Community masters inaugurated Zhen Xing She at Puhsuan Temple in order to teach martial arts and lion dance. According to the masters, this had been done in the past to protect people from harm, to prevent robbers and bandits from ravaging Zunliao Village; today, the two arts are both for strengthening the body, and carrying on ancestral heritage. As members of Zunliao, we are all obligated to learn the arts in hopes of carrying forward our legacies far into the future, and at the same time to innovate these practices so that they remain up-to-date and relevant.

  Traditional lion dances are performed in out community, aside from which community masters teach the art to students at our school, so that students may perform lion dance in the community festivities as well. This year, the Sijhou Township Office collaborated with the Yunlin County Xiluo Township Office to hold the Xiluo Culture Festival street parade, Township officials invited three outstanding artists from the Tainan National University of the Arts to teach students how to make modern lion headpieces, utilizing recycled materials, and modern lion dance costumes. The resonance and reverberations resulting from this cocktail of traditional Taiwanese and Samba was so inspiring, we are anxious to take the opportunity afforded by this project to further integrate these different components, and to create an entirely new style of lion dance specific to the Zunliao Community.

  Internet access is available in all offices and classrooms of our school, including both LAN networks and the school’s wireless network; we have one computer classroom, each and every classroom is also equipped with a computer. The school wireless network is a 100M dedicated fiber-optic cable directly connected with the Zhanghua County Educational Network Center, and we are able to gain access through classroom computers or our teachers’ notebook computers. All eight team members have computers and ADSL internet access at home, information access poses no issue at all.

1. Organizing Team Schedules:
  We established a research team over winter break, comprising of students from the 4th, 5th and 6th grades only, and while team research conducted during winter break met with no problems, we could only utilize lunch break or after-school hours after the start of the semester. It became even more difficult to coincide our schedules for the purposes of interviews or publicizing. Division of labor became an important factor, we had to make the most of our lunch breaks for communicating and arranging tasks, and while tight schedules sometimes put our interviews or publicizing efforts at risk, we were fortunate to have overcome all issues.

2.Transcribing Interviews:
  When we first began conducting interviews, we naively believed it to be an easy task of simply asking questions, getting answers, and writing them down. It was only after we realized that our instructor had provided us with recording devices did we discover the enormity of the situation. For purposes of accuracy as well as out of respect for our subjects, all interviews were audio and visually recorded, then transcribed word by word into written scripts. If interviewees answered in Taiwanese, we were obliged to translate it into Mandarin Chinese, and if we could find no corresponding words or phrases in our vocabulary, we had to consult the Taiwanese language instructor of our school. After the scripts were completed, copies were sent to the interviewees for proofing in order to ensure accuracy. Often, interviews with a duration of one to two hours take the same number of days to edit, thus we learned the hard way how difficult it is to produce written scripts.

  Interviews of Artists:"When the street parades had taken place, we thought that would be the end to the story, but much to our surprise and pleasure, the opportunity offered by the Cyberfair gave you another chance to further explore and enlarge your project. Learning how to make different types of lion headpieces, getting to know the intricate histories of traditional folklore and art forms are all excellent lessons for your kids to have learned." Students experiences from participating in the Cyberfair Project:"My participation in the Cyberfair Project has enabled me to experience the sense of accomplishment that follows engaging in teamwork and completing a project in spite of obstacles and hardships. I realized what it felt like to reap the fruits of hard labor. The project took up much of my time, but now I am in possession of valuable and indelible memories."

  Students experiences from participating in the Cyberfair Project:"My participation in the Cyberfair Project has enabled me to experience the sense of accomplishment that follows engaging in teamwork and completing a project in spite of obstacles and hardships. I realized what it felt like to reap the fruits of hard labor. The project took up much of my time, but now I am in possession of valuable and indelible memories."