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Project
Overview
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Category¡G
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Local Music and Art Forms
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Description of "Our
Community"
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Our community, ¡§Fanpo Village¡¨, is located in
Fuhsing Township, Changhua County. The development of Fanpo Village is
concentrated along Changlu Road. The land once belonged to the Babuza of the
Mazlan Tribe. Later some of the women of the Plains aborigines also called
¡§fanpo, continued to reside here. This is how our village got its name. The
major public facilities of the village are Rixin Elementary School, and
temples; such as Long Hsing Temple, Sheng De Temple, and Hsuan Cheng Temple.
The local residents mostly worked in the agriculture industry. The community¡¦s
major transportation route is Changlu Road. The community is close to the
¡§second Lu¡¨ (Lukang) of the three most prominent places in Taiwan; first Fu,
second Lu, and third Monga. In the early days, shops stood along the two sides
of Zhongshan Road of Lukang Township; especially shops of Buddhist woodworks
and holy palanquins. Later due to the expansion of Changlu Road and that it¡¦s
also the main road to Lukang Township from Changhua City, the merchants of
Buddhist woodworks and holy palanquins moved their business to Changlu
Road. In fact, there are about eight to
nine ancestral table and holy palanquin shops around our community.
Furthermore, the holy palanquin shops are all owned by descendants of the Chen
Clan. The business of holy palanquins has become a stronghold for Fanpo Village
and it is also important to the business of the art and cultural industry.
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Summary of Our Project
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Every year the holy palanquins play important roles in temple festivals
and pilgrimage parades. It¡¦s as if the palanquins were the gods¡¦ private
vehicles and the believers the gods¡¦ private chauffeurs; taking the gods out
for a ride. The sense of prestige is tremendous. Along the way, believers
welcomed their gods by setting off firecrackers, worshiping with incenses in
their hands, and crawling under the palanquins. They hope their gods would
bring peace and good health to their entire family. Just like a car has
different brands, prices, styles, and features, a holy palanquin also comes in
different sizes and styles. The palanquins can always attract our curiosity,
and the part about them that truly caught our attention is the exquisiteness of
the carvings on them. Driven by curiosity and in the hope to take a glimpse of
the secrets behind holy palanquins, students and teachers of our school
established the ¡§Holy Palanquin Exploration Team.¡¨ Luckily, the road where our
school stood, Changlu Road, has eleven holy palanquin shops. Furthermore, nine
out of the elven shops were owned by the Chen Clan who has a shop across from
our school. This brought us closer to the world of the holy palanquins, and we
were able to search for the origin of the palanquin, its carvings, and its
symbolic meaning. We wish to contribute to the carrying on of this traditional
local art craft.
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Problems We Had to Overcome
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Through the past six
months the amount of materials we¡¦ve obtained from visits of various events is
tremendous. We had written records, pictures, films, and sound recordings, and
to put all these materials into the PPT form we use for webpage and presentation
is extremely difficult.
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While making our own holypalanquin, we noticed that when using corrugated cardboard and other materials
the palanquin collapses easily. Luckily the father of one of our classmates is
a carpenter, and through his help we were able to use other forms of materials
to successfully complete the palanquin. On top of that, the decorations on the
palanquin fall off easily. With the advice of our teacher we were able to solve
the problem by applying the latching concept to it.
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When we begin to look over the interviewphotos we¡¦ve taken, we noticed that a lot of the photos taken were
inappropriate. From this we learned that before taking a photo we must first
take note of the main subject and the theme of the photo. This way we will have
less chance of taking bad photos
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We had no interview
experience; needless to say any knowledge of interview script writing skills.
Luckily the school invited a reporter to instruct us on the techniques of
interviews and the main points in writing interview scripts.
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Our Project Sound Bite
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The students and parents of the entire school were
given a chance to get to know how this deeply rooted industry presented art
through the beauty of its carvings. We
also hope that through the international Cyberfair, the whole world would know
the existence of such beautiful artistry in Taiwan
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