Day 18-21 Embroidery, Incense, Movie Posters, and Mooncakes

As this study abroad trip came to a close, I felt really sad that it was over, so grateful that I was able to participate, and happy to be in Taiwan in the moment. Our professor Meichun and the other professors at the Taiwanese universities have been so awesome and have created such a wonderful program. I would love to study design in such a cross-cultural setting for a longer period of time, which has me strongly contemplating about my future life decisions.

Embroidery, Incense, Movie Posters, and Mooncakes

On one of our last field trip days, we visited an embroidery studio where they made a very unique style of embroidery where the letters and designs have a three dimensional effect achieved by putting stuffing beneath the embroidery. I was able to try the technique involving sewing down the stuffing with the help of the embroidery expert! We also stopped by an incense shop and learned about the importance of quality in incense and significance of use in temples such as the local temples that we visited on our trip. Another detour we made was at Chin Men theater, a movie theater that still hand paints their movie posters, which could be seen outside displayed above the theater. Many of us bought postcards featuring said hand painted posters that they had put up in the past. A postcard that caught my eye was one for a movie called "Marry My Dead Body" which is a Taiwanese film that I really enjoyed.

We ended the day at a mooncake bakery that makes traditional as well as unique modern flavors of mooncakes. I was able to try a variety of mooncakes. I did a bit of internet searching due to my own curiosity and learned about regional styles of mooncakes. I recognize the Taiwanese style from a childhood memory of mooncakes that my childhood best friend's mom made. I think my all time favorite is the kind with salted egg yolk, red bean filling, and flaky exterior crust. I have most commonly eaten Cantonese style mooncakes throughout my life (which makes sense because I am Cantonese). This is interesting to learn, since I did not realize these were Cantonese style, I just knew them as regular mooncakes. I have been having a lot of fun noticing and learning about regional culinary and linguistic nuances while on this trip.

This was my first time spending mid-autumn festival in a place where is a normal holiday. I learned that barbecuing meat is a common and uniquely Taiwanese way to celebrate this holiday. Walking around Tainan on the weekend of the holiday, we saw a block party with a large group of people barbecuing on the street while a stage was set up at the front where some people were singing.

Paper Crafting and Tea

On our last field trip day, we participated in a paper craft and tea ceremony workshops. I could feel the tiredness in the air from my peers, so it was refreshing coming into the paper craft workshop and the paper master saying that he wanted us to relax and have fun. I feel like I did just that. I have really enjoyed the hands on crafting elements such as this during the program. During this workshop, each student crafted a decorative gold paper ornament that was hand cut and glued into a unique shape. During the tea workshop, we learned about how to prepare matcha tea and had the chance to practice and try the tea ourselves.

UW x NCKU Final Designs

I was so impressed to see the final results at our final presentation. My group's design process was all over the place at the beginning. We had some crazy creative ideas such as a shoe box made of tea leaves, a tea vending machine for convenience stores, sea life inspired furniture, and a variety of other interesting things. Our final proposal was a modular drop ceiling tile made of recycled PET from plastic bottles such as laundry detergent and shampoo bottles. We proposed sourcing materials through a partnership with a company like Proctor & Gamble. We also proposed using a singular material for our final design to make continued recycling easier, aiming to improve the circularity of the life cycle of the product. We made a prototype out of styrofoam and cardboard and Professor Chang from NCKU even let us test it out in her office's ceiling.

The other students from UW and NCKU are such talented and passionate people. I saw it in my own group up close - Pfeifer excels at branding design, Ned is highly skilled at sketching and physical prototyping, David can throw together a 3D model impressively quickly, and Ming clearly puts a lot of depth and thoughtfulness into his research. I did not know anyone in the group prior to this trip, so every person I met was new. It was great meeting and working with all the students and seeing the amazing work that all the groups came up with. I may have had a late start to my design career, but now that I've begun my design journey, I do not think I could do anything else.