Porco Rosso/紅の豚

 キャンパスに有るココナツの木。俺がいつも三線を練習する場所の池の周りに二本有るんだ。一昨日初めてココナツの木だと言う事に気が付いた。危ないなぁ。実が落ちる時に、もし下に居れば、もう死ぬかも。本当ばい。こういうのキャンパスに植えていいかな？

I took these pictures of this coconut tree at the pond where I often practice sanshin.  Coconut trees are pretty tall, so I actually never noticed before that these trees were coconut trees.  It's kind of dangerous really.  There are two of them around the pond, and it's a pretty area with lots of benches where people hang out.  If anyone were to be standing under one of these trees when the fruit fell...  From what I understand, coconuts are pretty dangerous really.

で、今日はジブリーの「紅の豚」を中国語で見た。聴力の練習する為に中国語のアニメを見る事にした。アニメは基本的に子供を相手にする物だから、分かりやすいだろうと思ってアニメにした。因みに、宮崎の映画の中に、「紅の豚」だけは見た事が無かったので、今日は本当に聴力のテストだった。、、、恐らく５０％も分かっとらんかも。あ〜、まだまだねぇ。でもゼロじゃなかったから良かった！これからも頑張っていかんばさぁ。
実は、ジブリーならこういう体験は以前も有った。大学生の時に、日本に留学して、学期の終わり頃、「ハウルの動く城」を映画館で見に行った。殆ど分からなかった。（でもね、あの映画のストーリーは元々分かりにくいと思う。そのせいも有るたい。）その何年後、もう一回ハウルを日本語で見て、問題無く分かったので、中国語の映画を分かるには、単に時間と努力の問題に過ぎないね。いつか絶対来るだろう。

On a totally unrelated note, I decided recently to start watching cartoons in Chinese to help my listening ability.  I watched "Porco Rosso" today.  It's one of the Ghibli movies, and the only one by Ghibli's most well known director, Miyazaki, that I've never seen before.  I didn't know what the story was ahead of time, so it was probably not such a bad test of my ability to understand.  Unfortunately, I didn't pass.  I doubt I understood even 50% of what was said, though since it's a movie I of course still knew what was going on for the most part thanks to the visual component.  But still, I did better than zero %, so that's good.
Actually, I remember watching another Ghibli movie, "Howl's Moving Castle" when I was studying abroad in Japan in college.  At the time I didn't understand much of that movie either--though in my defense, the plot was pretty tangled in that one to begin with.  I later on saw it again in Japanese though and was able to understand all of it, so it's just a matter of time and continued effort, right?

この間見掛けたキノコ

キノコが可愛いと思う。キノコの写真ば撮るの好きやけん、撮って載せて見ただけ。何の意味も無いけどね。

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.

Happy Birthday Cheng Da!/成大、お誕生日おめでとう！

今日は成功大学の誕生日だった。８１年前、日本時代に成立された。誕生日を祝う為に、運動会が有って、私達華語中心の学生は20人21脚のレースに出た。競走の結果はちょっと残念だったので、その話を流して、Tシャツの話をしようと。

可愛いだろう？中学生の体育の衣服を思い出す。スカイブルーの選択も可愛らしい。（また、ぽいっと置いた甚平も写真の右下に出ている。写真をパソコンに入れて見てから分かった。恥ずかしいけど、もう一枚の写真を撮る気は無いんだから、許して。）

Today is the 81st birthday of Cheng Kung University.  If you count back the years, you can see that it was founded during the Japanese period.  As part of the celebrations, there were a bunch of races with different teams from different departments.  The Mandarin Center fielded a team in the 21-legged race.  We, uh, didn't do so well...

At any rate, our T-shirts were really cute!  Look at this!  Isn't it adorable?  (Also, check out my bedsheets.  I got them when I joined the Freemasons, but don't tell anyone, ok?)

 しかも、メードイン台湾だ！台湾に来てから、台湾製の物の多さに吃驚した。台湾の工場はアメリカのより大分元気みたいだ。アメリカでは滅多にアメリカ製の物を見掛けないから。
The T-shirts are Made in Taiwan too.  From what I've heard, Taiwan is suffering from some of the same de-factorization (is that a word?) that most developed countries have had to deal with.  A lot of factories have moved to cheaper places, China especially.  However, it seems like Taiwan is still making a decent amount of their own stuff.  I see "Made in Taiwan" products all the time.  It's a pretty stark contrast with the US.

柴山／Monkey Mountain

I actually had a whole day free today for the first time in a long while, so I took advantage of it to get a lot done.  I thought I'd write about my trip last week to Monkey Mountain in Kaohsiung as well.

今日は本当に久しぶりに一日何の用事も無かった。先週は高雄の柴山に行って来たので、その話もちょっと書いてみようと。

柴山は「猴山」とも呼ばれている。猿が沢山居るから。自然が残って、猿が沢山居る山なのに、本当に台湾の二番目の都市高雄の中心地に近い。私達は電車から地下鉄に乗り換えて、そしてバスに乗って行った。グーグルとかの地図を見てみると、都市の中心より西、海沿いに緑のところが有るだろう？それは柴山だ。めっちゃ近いなぁ。

Even though Monkey Mountain is fairly close to the center of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city, it's totally covered in trees and full of monkeys.  We went there by getting the subway after getting off the train down to Kaohsiung, then getting on a bus.
Check out Kaohsiung on a map.  The big green blob in the west part of the city bordering the ocean is the mountain.

In front of the park area is a temple.

Buddhist flags

Welcome to monkey mountain!

変な葉っぱ。

猿の登場！山に入ってわずかに歩いて行ったところで発見した。
After climbing for only a couple of minutes, we see our first monkeys.

人間も、、、

猿もこの板を使って歩く。

The monkeys here are obviously very used to people.  Actually, it creeped me out a bit.  It strikes me as kind of dangerous.  Wild animals that are not afraid of people are bad news.

And here we are at one clearing.  It was kind of hazy on this day though.  It's hard to tell, but we're looking right at central Kaohsiung here.

微かに見える建物は高雄市だ。

コンニャクについての看板も有った。花が臭いらしい。初めて知った。中国語の名前の漢字も面白い。英語に「悪魔の舌」みたいな俗名が有ると聞いた事が有る。中国語の名前はそっちに似ている。

This strange looking flower is the Konjac flower.  It's used in East Asia to make a gelatin for use in food.  I believe it's also colloquially known as "Devil's Tongue".

This are reminded me a lot of walking around in the woods in northern Okinawa.  The rocks are the same kind.  This area must have been under water at some point, with lots of coral reefs that later became these rocks.

沖縄にも見える風景だ。見た目から判断すれば、これらは元珊瑚礁で出来ている岩だ。

蟻が何か食っている。

頂上に着いた！真っ直ぐ前に海が有るけど、ぼんやりとした天気のせいで全然見えない。
This is the top of the mountain.  We're looking at the sea here, not that you can tell with all of the haze.

My obnoxiously bright shoes.

After walking down off the mountain, we took a bus back to the subway.  I saw this gate on the way.

バスに乗っている時見掛けた門だ。

美麗島駅。高雄地下鉄の線が二本ここに会っているから、地下鉄会社はちょっと頑張って駅を綺麗にした。
This is a photo from inside Formosa Boulevard Station.  It's the station where the two subway lines in Kaohsiung meet, so they made it extra pretty.

On the way home we stopped for a bit at the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery.  It's a museum about sugar refining now.  We were all pretty tired already, so we didn't look very carefully at everything, but I have some neat photos of trains and art made out of old machines.
最後に行ったのはこの橋頭製糖の博物館だ。みんなが疲れて、詳しくは見ていないけど、ちょっと古い機械を使った美術品や汽車などの写真を載せとこう。

ART

以上で柴山などの旅だった。もう二回高雄に行ったのに、まだ全然都市の中心見ていない。今度また行かんば！
That's it for my trip last week.  It's my second time to Kaohsiung, but I still haven't even seen any of the center of the city.  I'll have to do that next time.