July 27

豆豆做豆腐 - Doudou zuo doufu

Last Saturday (July 27) marked the beginning of my long (and exciting) weekend as I didn't have Monday or Tuesday for classes. This break from ICLP classes was supplemented with Language Missions, with an aim to get students out of the classroom to use their Chinese language studies in out in the real world.

Starting bright and early at 8:40 I met the rest of the students on this language activity at ICLP to get bussed out to the location. When I was checking in, every single teacher I encountered asked "你叫什麼名字？“ which is "What is your name?" When I answered “My name was 豆豆。豆腐(tofu)的豆豆 " They all thought it was incredibly cute and funny. After a short 30-40 minutes out to our location we made it to Shenkeng Old Street, the sight of my Language Mission Activity.

The exciting morning began making tofu. Once our entire group of ICLP students gathered into a local tofu shop, we separated into small groups and began listening to the store's 老闆 (boss). As this was an activity aimed to stretch our Chinese skills, everything was in Mandarin. He spoke no English whatsoever. I'm honestly a little bit surprised that everything worked out as well as it did, however, we somehow managed to follow all of his steps. From boiling, to mixing, to stirring, too scooping, to pressing, a group of over 20 Americans managed to make tofu from scratch.

The entire process went fairly quickly, and I'm definitely happy that I was able to participate in this activity.

After all the students had finished our fair share of tofu, we headed to our next excursion: interacting with shop owners on the old street. This area of Taipei is particularly famous because all of the shops have been influenced by tofu in one way or another. Whether it was a stinky tofu vendor, tofu rolls, or even tofu ice scream there was something for all tofu lovers. In our small tofu making groups we were given a bingo board with tasks and things to find on the old street.

My personal job was to go and take pictures of this particular old street. This area of Taipei looked nothing like what I have been getting used to. It definitely looked more old and removed from tourism and foreigners, and I personally believe that it helped add beauty to the area. I specifically found that the pot hole covers were very interesting with their unique designs and stories that they told.

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So that was my Saturday morning, and exciting language mission. The rest of my weekend is soon to come (and it will definitely be interesting)!