School: Sandwo Elemantary School
    Shilin, Taipei, Taiwan

20 students, ages 11-13 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 17, 2006. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2004

Classes and Teachers: Su-Wa Hu,Pei-Yu Bai ,Shr-Ming Hu

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://163.20.138.5

1. Description of Our Community

Our community, Wen-Long, being located at Taipei County in Taiwan .Wen-Long was an excellent graveyard filled with the spiritual influence that could bless the posterity of resident to be a new ruler. But in Manchu dynasty, Emperor Guangxu built the railroad to destroy the spiritual influence and divided Wen-Long into three administrative areas. From now on, Wen-Long became an area that nobody wanted to be responsible for. There are factories everywhere at Wen-Long, eighty percent of the resident is out-comer. Not knowing the history of this area, they do not pay attention to safeguard and cherish the environment. Therefore, Wen-Long has lost her elegant appearance at present. But a lot of the resident still fell hopeful about the future of our community; they are pleasure to devoting himself to make the area beautiful and glory again!

2. Summary of Our Project

Budaixi (hand-puppet show) is the most popular and variable puppet show in Taiwan. We would investigate the origins, development, taboo and specialty about Budaixi. Then, comparing the difference between the 'Traditional Budaixi 'and 'New-Style Budaixi ',interview 'Super Fans' who dressed themselves as the dramatic characters, and visiting 'Budaixi Boutique ','Budaixi Museum ','Budaixi Restaurant '. We would show you lots of ' Cultural Heritage' in Budaixi. At last, we hope you would learn to appreciate and enjoy playing Budaixi with us.

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:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dial-up modem

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:2-3

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

1. The Language: The puppeteers speak Fukien dialect which we do not acquaint with. We consulted our teachers and parents in order to understand what they said when interviewing. Now we are good at speaking Fukien dialect. We all agreed that “Learning South Fukien dialect is helpful to the expansion of Budaixi.” 2.Different schedules: Team members involving in this project had different schedules such as cram school. In order to work on the project smoothly; we needed to communicate more often by MSN and kept every one updated. All work was done in our spare time. 3. Technical obstacles: Most of us were novice of making homepage and processing images. Our teachers spent about NT$80000 buying a digital camera, a scanner, and eight computers for us to use. The big brothers and sisters from Fu Jen Catholic University gave us one-on-one tutorship. We learned web-making after school everyday, neither windy nor rainy day. We are very appreciative.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Living does not mean to have a great numbers of treasures, but in what you can offer to the world? We have made up our mind to propagate Budaixi as our national treasure. Though we are young and weak, but we have a strong will. Success would belong to the people that persist till the last.

6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

1. To combine with Language: In order to interview the puppeteers, we almost practice speak Fukien dialect everyday. Now we are good at speaking Fukien dialect. 2. To combine with Sport: We practice the control of Budaixi to expand it at our school. Now we have learned some high-technique control of Budaixi. 3. To combine with Society: We make efforts to collect related data and we are familiar with the origins, development, taboo and everything about Budaixi. We become to value our traditional art culture more. 4. To combine with Art: We learned DIY making the figure, and our class planed to make of an exhibition by displaying them. We also leaned to play Bakuan musical instruments; it was funny and easy to learn. 5. To combine with Information Technology: Lots of our parent regards computers as another game machine, and they avoid us getting in touch with. But we proved the technology itself is neutral, we can use it to learn by our own and make better interaction with society. We applied what we learned from the project and felt that these techniques were close to our lives more.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?

Interview: Visit puppeteers of Puppet Theatres, managers of Puppet Museums, and Cosplayer. Digital camera: Most of our photos are taken from the digital camera bought by our teachers. Telephone:We always use telephone to contact interviewees to arrange time. Tape recorder: We use three tape recorders and lots of tapes during our interviews. Scanner: Scan the pictures, photos and information. Computer and Internet:Find out the necessary information. Software: Use FrontPage2002, Photo Impact 8, Word, Excel, WsFtp. E-mail, MSN: Connect the students at home and kept every one updated. Books and Reporters: Collect related information.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.

While interview, we gained respect for and culture-worker for caring about the preservation of Budaixi. They were glad to know that more and more persons value the culture treasure gradually. We hope to propagate Budaixi into our school. Thus, we invited Hsiao Hsi Yuan Puppet Theater to hold a Budaixi Show at our school. Every student was amazing and asked our principal to have the Budaixi lesson. The puppeteers promised that if our school establishes the Budaixi club, they will be free to teach us. Maybe we would have a Budaixi club soon!

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

Formerly, learning was limited to language, mathematics, music, and sports etc in school. But the process of study is not confined to the classroom or schoolbooks. While education is becoming more global we should cherish our own indigenous culture at the same time. We wished to enable our community to understand the beauty of our traditional art further by establishing this topical homepage. Through the internet we could strengthen the understanding and concern about Budaixi. We hope to propagate Budaixi into our community. Wen-Long, Being an industrial zone, residents do not care about what they do in the free time. There are not many places for them to go, and children only like to watch TV, play computer games. We would like to have a circuit of teaching in our community. We could teach them DIY making the figure, and maybe hold a contest or exhibition. Some villages show their interest to learn, some want to help. Maybe our dream would come true soon.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

We want to thanks many persons who provided us a lot of valuable information, enriching the contents of our website. They are as follow: Puppeteers of Hsiao Hsi Yuan Puppet Theater, Puppeteers of Happy Puppetry Company, Puppeteers of Iwan Jan Puppet Theater, Puppeteers of Seden Taiwanese Puppet Troupe, Mr. Robin of Da-Daucheng Puppet Museum, Miss Cheng of Song Song Song Children’s Puppet Theater, Miss Wang of Taiwan Theater Museum, Mr. Chuan-Tsan Li of Ten-Lu Li Puppet Museum, Mr. Chen of Budaixi Boutique, Cosplayers whose names are secrets, And big brothers and sisters from Fu Jen Catholic University taught us web-making. Lastly, we have to thank our several enthusiastic parents who stayed by our side all the time.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Along with the change of society, traditional art culture was forgotten by the people gradually. In this project, we realize the burden to be a cultural art performer. Budaixi is the culture product that combines Fukien dialect, Bakuan music, carvings, color-painting, embroidery and technique of controlling the puppet. We hope to make more people understand Budaixi; even learn to' play” it. Perhaps, Budaixi would be as popular as Disney cartoon, or become a widely popular amusement such as NBA.