Day 6 – Tai Chi & Xiao Ding Dang

Today’s Programme
Morning	To experience Taiwan's martial art - Tai Chi
Afternoon	To create folklore craft - Kite
Evening	Mandarin Singing
Hotel	Crown Hotel, TaiChung

On the 6th day, we learned Tai Chi. There were two LaoShi (Laoshi=teacher) who taught us 4 basic moves of Tai Chi. I don’t know how they count the moves, but I felt like I learned more than 4 moves. We spent the whole morning doing Tai Chi. It was fun but I forget everything I learned now. After the class was done, the female LaoShi and another two women showed us how to do Tai Chi along with the song.


In the afternoon, we learned to mould dolls. They wanted us to know how to mould a Chinese Doll called Nia Mian De. Those dolls are made of Pian Fen. It’s something like coloured-clay that is made of flour. The dolls they showed us looked so Chinese. I was wondering if we could really make something like that, but finally they taught us to mould "Xiao Ding Dang" hahaha I wondered what Xiao Ding Dang is. I had to laugh when I realized that Doraemon is called Xiao Ding Dang in Chinese.

Done with Xiao Ding Dang, we had to paint the kite because we had a plan to play kite in the programme. While we were painting, they explained us that kite is originally from Japan (Why the heck do I have to paint the kite then? I am visiting Taiwan, not Japan.) I spent long time painting because the kite is made of something like plastic sheet. I started painting with blue colour to be the sky but it looked bad. So, I added green to be the grass. I then added a tree. It looked not bad and made me think of the Korean series—Full House. So, I added a bench but this bench made it look ugly :-(


In the evening, we gathered at Miao Qiang Guang Chang (the place in front of the temple, between the two buildings of the hotel. Fu Dao Yuans taught us how to sing a local song called “Shang San”, then my favourite song, “Peng You”, and finally “Qi Li Xiang” which a male Fu Dao Yuan dressed like Jay Chou (Qi Li Xiang is his song) and appeared with the song. He was very funny.

During the night, we had farewell party for Jessica who left us because she had an exam. We sang Peng You and danced for her. It was a touching moment. After the song, Jessica revealed that she understands Thai. She can even speak Thai like a native. This is because she lived in Thailand since she was 3. She just returned to Taiwan a couple of years ago. She and I were in the same kindergarten and primary school too. The boys were shocked ‘cos they flirted with her a lot in Thai and thought that she wouldn’t understand, but the girls weren’t surprised ‘cos we got her since we were at TaoYuan. P’Arm was the fastest. He got her since day 2 because he said something funny in Thai when we were in the bus and he saw that she tried hard not to laugh.