Plan Overview
1. Category: Local Culture, Music, and Art Forms
2. Description of “Our Community”
Luzhou: Lu represents the reeds, zhou represents the water dwelling. The name of Luzhou clearly describes the geographical features of Luzhou: a livable and cultivable sandbar covered with reeds in Tamsui River. Luzhou is an alluvial sandbar. Since its low geographical position caused constant floods, the residents struggled with the river to live in the habitat. Therefore, It used to be named “The continent in the river”. Due to the flooding, most residents were hardworking poor people who migrated from southern Taiwan; the population brought a different culture to northern Taiwan. The plentiful temples and constant temple festivals did not only unite the residents but also led to the development of various industries in Luzhou.
The religious ceremonies in Luzhou always attracted and gathered numerous pilgrims and Shenjiang troupes. When people praised the abundant and vast festivals of the temples, we, the Luzhou residents, always felt proud of it. However, with the changes of time, modern society has gradually lost its touch of humanity, the tradition of the temple festivals are gradually fading away as well. Therefore, we hope to evoke the buried memories in the locals and make the culture of Luzhou known again by more people through the project, “The Rhythm of Dance Steps~The Hallmark of Blessings~The Shenjiang Culture of Luzhou.”
3. Summary of Our Project
The culture of “Shenjiang,” temple god statues, began a century ago. It is said that a merchant brought eight heads of Shenjiang for sale from Mainland China, Shancai, Longnu, Weituo, Jialan, and two pairs of the Seventh Lord and Eighth Lord. Since the major god of Yonglian Temple is Guanyin Buddha and Shancai, Longnu, Weituo and Jialan are gods who work for Guanyin, local musical clubs, Nanyixuan and Anlexuan, which led parades for Guanyin Buddha, purchased the statues. Since then, the merchant has disappeared. This is the legend of how these Shenjiang statues came to Luzhou.
Around the end of sixties, the “Shenjiang” became the key of the development for local god troupes and common interests of the residents. This was mainly due to Ganhui and Wanli, the Shenjiang statues produced by Lelele, which were exhibited by the Taiwan venue in the World Fair, held in Japan in 1935, during the Japanese occupancy in Taiwan. After the recovery of Taiwan, Weituo and Jialan, the Shenjiang statues of Anlexuan, were invited to the Retrocession Day parade. President Chiang Kai-shek was fond of their mighty posture and wanted to purchase them with a large sum of money, but the community was strongly opposed to it.
However, Chiang Kai-shek still praised the Shenjiang statues and bestowed them with identity cards. To this day, only these two Shenjiang statues have this honor in Taiwan. Because of this unique piece of history, residents felt proud of the Shenjiang gods of their hometown and naturally developed recognition for the Shenjiang culture. The town paid a lot of attention to the productions and performances in the Shenjiang parade. The Shenjiang statues in the parades of temple festivals always amazed the masses. When the Taiwan economy took off, temples in Luzhou were capable of purchasing more Shenjiang statues and believers offered money to pay for their crowns and armor. Lots of Shenjiang statues were made starting some time between the 70s and 80s for about twenty years.
There are more than two hundred Shenjiang statues in Luzhou, both the quality and quantity are the highest among the country. The Shenjiang statues have become an important asset to Luzhou and give Luzhou the reputation of “Cave of Shenjiang” and “Homeland of Shenjiang.” The folk customs of the unique culture of “Shenjiang” deeply attract us. Therefore, through observations, interviews, information and documents analysis, we record the Luzhou “Shenjiang” culture, compile our process, and produce this website. We hope to convey the simple humanistic spirit of Luzhou to the world through the project.
4. Our Computers and Internet Access
We have a complete IT system on campus. There are computers in each classroom, four computer labs, a computer center in the library, 100MB fiber optic for campus intranet, a Windows2008 server and a few Linux servers. All team members work on the project through the Internet at home, broadband or fiber optic, and communicate with each other through the school blog, network drive, and email.
5. Problems We Had To Overcome
Difficulty 1: Different time allocations and common times
Most members needed to attend afterschool programs; even their weekends and holidays were occupied. Therefore, we could only meet daily during one-hour lunch breaks to work on the project. Our meetings included the following activities: learning about web page design, assigning work, collecting and sorting data, discussing activities, rehearsing for skits, filming, making posters. As for off-campus events, we had to ask to be excused from afterschool programs 。
Difficulty 2: Interviews and Research Capabilities
It is our first year participating in the Cyberfair project. Due to insufficient experience, we searched for as much information as possible without knowing the efficient ways to begin. In this process, we continually got new ideas and worked on them immediately if we felt they were good ideas. Soon, we figured out there was too much research we could do for our theme, so learning to choose was our first step. After many discussions, we started to carefully, clearly set goals. Before the interview, the teachers collected information regarding interviewing skills. They taught the team appropriate interview conduct in questions, skills and manners, since most of us did not have interviewing experience. After rehearsing for more than two hours, we finally completed the questions for the interview. Certainly, some unpredictable things happened during the interview, yet we completed it.
Difficulty 3: Attitude of the parents
Due to insufficient time, we had to get absence permits from afterschool programs and sacrifice weekends and spare time to meet for the project. This caused some parents to question whether it would affect academic work. Therefore, the teachers had to convince parents of the positive and influential effects that would be associated with participating in the Cyberfair project; thus, changing the parents’ attitudes towards supporting the activity.
Difficulty 4: Contacting people in the community
We never had experience with interviewing the locals, communicating with them, inviting them over to our commentary, or even entering into the community to promote our project. Because of their participation, our activities were more abundant. We also want to thank our advising teachers for giving us support and teaching us to work through the project smoothly. We are no longer afraid of strangers, but instead willing to open our hearts to absorb new knowledge.
6. Our Project Sound Bite
It has been nearly four months since the Cyberfair project started and we have worked very hard up to the end. We are deeply touched with this sense of accomplishment! We never gave up, even though we sometimes were exhausted and wanted to escape. Now, looking at the growing, rich contents of the project, we are truly touched. We have learned very much during this time. Not only do we know more about our hometown and the community, but we also understand that “protecting our culture” is an important mission.