Taiwan is a small Pacific island with rich natural resources because of its varied terrain. Besides vast natural resources, Taiwan's culture is also rich. There are many traditions because of the variety of race origins including Han, Hakka... But over years Taiwan also developed its own unique characteristics, including our topic: charcoal making. There is a special craft that has been kept through generations, it’s the culture of charcoal making. Modern days people use gasoline and electric stoves, almost no one uses charcoal in their daily lives, people even thought the craft of charcoal making is already dead, but this craftsmanship has been kept for a long time here in Taiwan, just without being widely noticed.
Charcoal making is a traditional industry in Taiwan, it's often forgotten by people in the present days since almost every citizen has gas in their home, but charcoals still acts a critical role in the Taiwanese culture, especially during the moon festival. Barbecue is one of the traditions of the moon festival since 1986, started by a barbecue sauce advertisement slogan, the tradition requires charcoal to roast food. In addition, there are many other uses of charcoal in Taiwanese society. For instance, dehumidification, support blood circulation, and more. The existence of charcoal is overlooked, but in fact, indispensable. This motivates us to dig deeper into charcoal research and spread the information out.
As natural gas replaces charcoal due to pollution issues and production efficiency, the product and its industry begin to vanish from Taiwan’s market. This results in a cultural loss since the charcoal industry is part of Taiwanese culture. Charcoal producers, losing popularity among local customers, seek alternative solutions such as decorations and air purifiers to survive. However, Mr. Lee Yung-Xing, an expert regarding the production of charcoal, insists to burn wood for charcoal. He is one of the few who keep the traditional kiln for the production of charcoal. After research and interviews, our team noticed how Mr. Lee views his life differently compared to others. For example, he believes he should continue and preserve the tradition of charcoal, although the industry is not making profit. Mr. Lee's beliefs toward his life provides us a different perspective regarding the tradition and preservation of charcoal.
As internet nowadays is much more innovative, we can now work during class while accessing the internet. During the class, mostly all of us are accessing to the internet during class for additional research and making surveys. While we are working at school, we used the internet in the school for the progress of our work. While we are working in class, we used the internet in our homes to continue working.The upload connection speed used in the classroom is about 10.58 Mbps, download about 2 Mbps, since we our school is in the mountains, the connection speed is very inconsistent and very unstable. When the Wifi is broken, we use wired internet, the school’s PCs to do our work.
When we were researching this project, we could only find limited information about Mr. Lee Yung-Xing, including his career and the history of the cast since the main resource we have is his Facebook page and some other reports. In order to solve this problem, we visited Mr. Lee at his charcoal kiln for an interview, so that we can learn more about him, the culture, methods of charcoal making, and the inheritance of coal. Another problem we faced during this project is that many classes are skipped due to the Taiwanese festivals’ break. To overcome this problem, we used online communicators such as LINE, Google Hangout to discuss our project. We completed most of the research and work at home and uploaded it to Google Drive.
Participation in International Schools Cyber Fair makes us a more active citizen, we have gained precious cultural inheritance and learned the hardship behind those unsung heroes who sacrificed themselves to preserve the ancient Taiwanese culture for the next generation, who's silent dedications created present Taiwan. From this learning, we think participation in International Schools Cyber Fair can help promote these groups of people who are caring for the Taiwanese culture and help them gain attention from not just Taiwanese society but the whole world.
The Cyber Fair project addresses the background history and the manufacturing process of charcoal, related to school academic content of Taiwan history. Students learned the knowledge of creating a website that links to the technology classes we are learning academically, as well as scripting for an interview, cooperating collectively to coordinate internal issues and communicate effectively to complete the project within the due date. Our group conducts “teamwork” throughout the process since we distribute the work evenly and urge each other to produce the most out of each person. Moreover, our team used the internet to research for additional information which enhances the overall understanding of the project.