Day 26: More Research

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        Today was a super busy for everyone on the dialogue! We have all been using this week to prepare our research methods and apply them. This has been a challenge because all our interviews and surveys need to be conducted in Chinese, which is nobody on the trip’s first language. To make it even more tedious, in our surveys, the characters need to be in traditional, while we have all been used to learning simplified.

    I started my day off with a breakfast from 7/11 (as usual), with Savannah, Sam, and Derrick. We took bets on who would show up next: Ryan, Kevin, or Jack. Kevin was first.

       In Chinese class today, we gave our presentations about what our opinions were on getting plastic surgery. After that finished, we engaged in a group activity where we practiced some of the grammar we were learning on Google Jamboard. After that, we played a game where we learned the measure words for different food dishes; the teacher projected the dishes on the board, and we got to throw a sticky ball at the board, and whichever dish the ball stuck to, was the dish we had to “order” in Mandarin.

       After class, I met with Anya, Grace, and Jack to make discussion questions for tomorrow, as we are the discussion leaders this week. We all got lunch together and discussed over our different dishes that we had all ordered. 

Hard at work on the discussion

       After lunch, I helped Sam and Savannah out with their research projects. Us, Anya, and Sienna, all went to catch a bus to the downtown area to find secondhand shops so that Sam could ask her questions about sustainable fashion. We ran into a parade while we were looking for stores and they were playing music that sounded like it came from a European club but had lyrics in Chinese. Unfortunately, secondhand shops do not generally exist here in Taiwan due to a superstition about wearing someone else’s clothes. We were, however, able to find a vintage store that sold clothes that had clearly been used in the past, and I was able to help Sam interview the shop owner. There were some super cool clothes in there, but they were way too expensive because they were imported from the US. After that, we went and walked around the shopping area, and made our way to a mall where we bought nail polish, and I got a couple pieces of jewelry.

Sam and Savannah in the shopping area


       We then went to a night market to conduct interviews because Savannah’s research is focused on the environmental impacts of night markets. I helped her interview a couple of different people, and we got some interesting feedback. We interviewed very nice woman who ran a 地瓜球 (di4 gua1 qiu2), sweet potato ball, stand; when we were finished with the interview, we tried to buy a small bag of the balls, but she refused to let me pay and proceeded to give us a bag for free.

Sam with our free 地瓜球


       We took the bus back toward campus and stopped at the dumpling place nearby for the second night in a row for some dumplings. Derrick and Karina also joined us, and we ended up getting 11 plates of dumplings. That’s 110 dumplings between the 5 of us! Super yummy and super cheap.

Us when we first got our dumplings


 

Us after we finished 11 plates of dumplings (Karina left :( )

       I ended the night by meeting with my discussion group again to provide some background on the questions we are going to ask in the discussion tomorrow. Now, I’m off to turn this blog in, do some Chinese homework, and head to bed!


~Fiona

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