1. Description of Our Community
Taiwan, which has also been called “Formosa”, is an island with warm weather and prosperous produce. From high-tech computer products to traditional Taiwanese food, the various Taiwanese culture created by hard-working Taiwanese people, is the performance that all Taiwanese people should be proud of. Taipei, as the capital and an internationally well-known city, is full of different aspects of culture and also a paradise to gourmands. “Tan-a-Mi” are continuously spreading the traditional good taste of Taiwanese cuisine in different ways. We have found that at Howgi Tan-a-Mi. which is located on the intersection of Chung-chuan Road and Chi-lin Road in Taipei, the owner not only sells the traditional Taiwanese taste they insist through the noodles but also their strong love towards Taiwan. By introducing Tan-a-Mi and the restaurant, we hope that people all over the world will not only like Taiwanese cuisine but also know more about Taiwanese culture.
2. Summary of Our Project
First cook a little bit of noodles or spring noodles in boiling water with green leeks and bean sprouts. Put the noodles in a bowl and then add some grinded garlic, vinegar, and a shrimp. Finally add some specially-made meat sauce, broth, and Chinese parsley. Follow the above three easy steps, and you will get a bowl of authentic Chinese cuisine, Tan-a-Mi. Our project is aimed to introduce the history of Tan-a-Mi through the information we have gathered by interviewing, making survey, visiting, and reading journals. In addition, we introduce a famous restaurant in Taipei , Howgi Tan-a-Mi, about how the owners inherit the traditional great taste and how they reserve and promote the culture of traditional Chinese cuisine. We hope we can introduce this restaurant and this special product of Taiwan to our friends from all over the world so they can know more about Taiwanese culture, like Taiwan, and eventually support Taiwan.
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:1
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
Our school has excellent computer facilities. Now we have two brand new computer labs and a multi-media studio, and each teacher has a computer. There are over 200 computers to satisfy every teacher’s and student’s needs. We have an ADSL provided by the Department of Education (Downstream speed: 2Mb, upstream speed: 512k). We also have another ADSL (Downstream speed: 8Mb, Upstream speed: 640k) for our teachers and students to use. Besides, we provide our teachers and students with other equipments such as digital cameras, DVs, scanners, recording systems and software for photos and sound effect. Our school also provide everybody with his or her own e-mail account, space for personal websites and a hardware space of 120MB (1GB for each teacher) to satisfy everybody’s needs for the internet service so as to establish his or her personal website. With those facilities, we cherish every equipment we can use and every chance we can learn. The teachers at the computer lab also make every effort to organize learning programs and all kinds of on-line competitions to improve the ability of the teachers and the students with the hope that everyone will be a master in using computers and the internet service.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Since we started this project in June 2005, we’ve done lots of interviews and surveys. We had to spend a lot of time because we had trouble interviewing foreigners. It’s not that difficult to communicate with English speakers; however, we had to count on our body language when talking with Japanese. In addition to that, we had some pretty good Taiwanese lessons through the interviews. The students who are not familiar with Taiwanese caused us a lot of trouble. Fortunately all of the teachers can speak Taiwanese and eventually the students get to know quite a lot of Taiwanese slang.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
By participating in this project, we’ve found that a tasty meal doesn’t have to be luxurious. A small bowl of Tan-a-Mi can also bring you a sense of after-delight. During our visiting, we’ve also found that there are different ways and aspects to run a Tan-a-Mi selling business. In addition to the insistence on the traditional flavor, what really touches us is the restaurant owner’s love towards Taiwan. We could tell that from those Taiwanese traditional antiques we saw while we were enjoying the noodles, from the Taiwanese slang written on the walls, from the tables, chairs or even a tiny candy of the old times. All the things in the restaurant made us recollect the spirit and wisdom of our ancestors. And this moving feeling is just as unforgettable as the taste of Tan-a-Mi.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
The theme of our project is about Taiwanese traditional food – Tan-a-Mi and how “Howgi Tan-a-Mi” keeps Taiwanese folk cultural relic and introduces Taiwanese culture to the world through the noodles. The content of the project includes Taiwanese slang, folk art and cultural relic, traditional toys, history, maps and diet, which covers the fields of art and humanities, languages, social studies, and synthesis activities in Nine years consistent curriculum. Taiwanese slang is a part of the curriculum of local dialects. Students learned to speak some of the phrases and sentences and understood the means, and they also learned to compose comics using Taiwanese slang. For synthesis activities, Mr. Chen, Hon was invited to give a speech about the relationship between life and cuisine. Moreover, the students had to visit the Tantzi noodle restaurants in their neighborhood to compare their differences.
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