繍球／Marriage Ball

11月11日は成功大学の成立記念日だった。台湾では、11／11は独身の人の日でも有るらしい。でも台湾人の友達に「じゃ、彼氏／彼女が居ない人はその日に何をするのか？家にこもって泣くの？」と聞いて見たら、彼女は「いや、別に何もしない」と教えた。

とにかく、話を大学に戻そう。運動会と他にお祝いが有った。下の写真にちょっとその様子が見える。まあ、大体日本の高校の文化祭とあまり変わらないかな。（大学にも有るかな？日本の大学の様子あまり知らない。）

成功では、それぞれの「系」（学部）は出し物をした。或る学部は食べ物系の屋台にした、或る学部はゲームの屋台にした。また、中文系（中国文学部）は面白い演技をした。（下に説明を続ける）

11/11 was the anniversary of the founding of Cheng Kung University.  The university has a schoolwide track meet and other celebrations on this day every year.  I took a couple pictures of the balloon display below.

Interestingly, 11/11 is also "Singles' Day" in Taiwan.  Know what they don't celebrate on 11/11?  The end of "World War" 1.  It's a big deal holiday in Europe, but that's because WWI is an extremely Euro-centric misnomer.  WWI was Europe's war, thank you very much.  Some colonies got dragged into it, and Japan made a land grab when they saw that Germany's Pacific possessions were vulnerable, but it was hardly a real world war.  Maybe that sounds really unnecessarily bitter, especially since I bear no animus towards the millions of young men who went through the meat grinder that was WWI, but the name does really kind of bother me.  It should be "Europe's War".  And WWII could be "The Northern Hemisphere and South Pacific War", though now that I've gone and typed that out, I can kind of see what that won't be catching on any time soon.

 下の写真は中国文学部の演技で撮った写真だ。彼等は「繍球」の競争（と言っていいかな）をした。本来は「繍球」はアジサイと言う花の中華名だ。昔の結婚式で女性はアジサイの形をしている球を投げて、それをキャッチした人と今回結婚するという慣習が有った。（ご免、現代も台湾や中国でこの儀式をやっているかどうかちょっと分からない。友達の中国語での話で分からなかったし、ウィキで見たけど、アジサイの記載ばかり出て来た。ウィキペディア！裏切り者！）
兎に角、中国文学部は顔を隠した女子学生をバルコニーに出して、その子の特徴などを紹介した。そして、最後にその子の顔を見せて、女子学生は球を投げて、キャッチした人がどこかに行って彼女と何かをする。最後のところははっきり分からない（キャッチ出来なかった！悔しい！）でも怪しい事は無いよ。大学の出し物だからね。
中には女性の服を着ている男性も出てきた。（ハズレということね）彼等が投げた球は皆避けた。面白かったなぁ。

 These two photos are from the game the Chinese Literature Department put on.  In ancient China (and possibly even now, though I wasn't clear on that point) at weddings a single woman would throw a ball into a crowd and she was supposed to marry whoever caught it.  I think.  Something like that.  The ball is named after the Hydrangea, which it resembles.  I think.
The Chinese Lit Department made a game of this.  They paraded out young women from the department onto this balcony with their faces covered.  They then introduced them and their special talents.  (One of them played a flute while she had her face still shrouded!)  At the end they would reveal the young woman's face and she would throw the red ball to the waiting crowd.  Whoever caught it got to go backstage and get some sort of prize from her.  I wasn't clear on that part either.  I find I often don't know 100% what's going on in Taiwan...
As a side note, the hostess (in the pink dress with the microphone) was hilarious.  I say this even though I barely understood anything she said.  There's something about someone with good stage presence; you don't even have to know what they're saying to know that they're funny; you can just feel their energy.