Ten Drum Cultural Village-Tainan Metropolitan Park

     Our schedule for the day would be light and easy especally for my mom who is 70+ years old and still picking tea leaves or doing farm works. Traveling to her was of time and consumed money. She likes working on a farm all day and without complaining but traveling for some distances was unbearable. She complained that she could not walk too long because her knees were not good. Some of my sisters had a tendency to spoil her instead of encouraging her to take a walk as an exercise. The definition of enjoying life is totally different between me and my mother. 

     However, I understand her past and appreciate her working hard to raise 6  children. She grew up in a generation which women were less educated or received no education at all. They were also asked to work hard and sacrifice themselves for glory and to respect their husbands and their husbands' families without any questions. There was not gender equality in her time. Also when they get old, they have to embrace the change of the social norm and the society. The younger generations are not taught to work hard or have to sacrifice themselves to respect their husbands and husband's family. The young generations receive more education. There is more gender equality in the younger generations. So for my mom's generation, they have to learn and adjust their thinking to accept the ways of their daughters in laws' thinking at home. Also they lose their absolute authority as a mother-in-laws for governing their sons and sons' families.

The view of Tainan city in the early morning from our hotel room.

This was our breakfast which offered many foods including western style and Asia style (Japanese or Taiwanese style.) Most hotels offered many variety of foods. This was why I missed Taiwan breakfast style when I traveled in the States which offered only coffee, donuts, and sometimes cold eggs.    

There were at least 7 dogs in this Mercedes Benz. My mom and my sisters were talking about this driver for the way he represented himself in public. I told them not to underestimate people who wear very ordinary or sloppy clothes in the southern part of Taiwan. Rich people in this part of Taiwan are very humble. They don't show off themselves. You can't judge their social status just by what they wear in the public. 

The was the entrance to the Ten Drum Cultural Village which was not too far away from Zenda Suites that we stayed the night before.

The entrance fee was NT$ 300 per person. This location of the village originally was an old retired sugar cane refinery.  The highlight of the village was a drum performance at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm.  

Drum Museum exhibited drums from East Asia Countries. 

Visitors could interact and perform on this fictitious dream stage. 

He was the drum making master at the drum making exhibit hall. He has been in this profession for 35 years and has seen the decline of drum making in Taiwan.  He explained to us that because of the development of modern farming methods,  farmers no longer raised water buffalos for farming. Therefore they could not find enough water buffalos' skins for making drums in Taiwan. They has to rely on importing the skins from China which increases the cost of the drums and decrease the demand of the drums. Some of his friends or colleagues had changed their profession or jobs. It is sad to hear the drum making skills are gradually being lost in Taiwan due to the lack of skillful masters and the younger generation doesn't want to learn this skill. This problem is not only existed in drum making also in other traditional craft making.     

The village offered a short train ride which used to be a sugar cane transportation railroad. Now it is converted to a tourist sightseeing train. 

A group of kindergarten students were waiting for the train ride. The train ride would run for a group of 20 people and above. If there were some seats available, individual travelers could get on the train for the short ride.  

We were taken by one of village guides to the drum percussion learning room to learn the fundamental skills. This cultural village has many guides who will assist individual tourists around this village when they are available. However, the question is whether their language ability could accommodate foreigners?   

There were 4 tunes for the drum performance. This Ten Drum Art Percussion Group won the Best Traditional World Music Album at the 52th Annual Grammy Awards. Most of drum melodies in Taiwan are from China. This group composed their own drum melodies with the integration of Taiwan's cultures and histories. 

Talking to the performers 

This was one of the restaurant sections which used to be a railroad car to give its customers a sense of privacy. This was not a place for tasting a traditional or gourmet Taiwanese food. There was no restaurant surrounding in this area. 

Butterfly Garden
I just found out my camera had some problems after taking photo during the drum percussion performance.

This was the first time that my mom held a camera in her entire life. We tried to teach her to see through the viewfinder. She kept saying that was impossible for people to fit in the tiny viewfinder and she could not use the viewfinder. We tried to get my husband back for helping us to take pictures. My mom was very confident that she could take a good photo for us. She was willing to try and we should give her a chance.

This was the first picture she took. There were 5 beautiful ladies but this picture only showed 4 people and two were cut off. We tried to teach her for more than 10 minutes and we all cackled with tears in our eyes. My husband? He was more than 100 meter away from us and he could hear our laugh. 

Next to the Ten Drum Cultural Village was the sugar cane factory store which sold ice creams and popsicles. We won't escape this place. 

This was the Tainan Metropolitan park which was listed as the third largest metropolitan park on the wikipedia website. But there are only four metropolitan parks in Tainan which are: one in Taichung, two in Kaohsiung, and one in Tainan. This park will also include a museum which will exhibit western arts. It is under construction in this picture. It is totally funded and sponsored by the Chimei Corporation including the future art pieces.  Actually, the Chimei Corporation has a private museum which is opened to the public for free near this metropolitan park. The chairman of the corporation lends his own collections of expensive violins to the musical students or artists without any charge. He personally contributed a lot to Tainan city. What a good business man.  Anyway, the museum is expected to open in 2014. This park is close to the Ten Drum Culture Village less than 20 minutes drive.. 

This was the children park section.

This was the playground which was very simple in the children park. We only stayed at this park for 30 minutes. However, we will be back once the museum is done and opened to the public.

Visiting Persimmon Factory in Chiayi County

It is an unnecessary custom to purchase small gifts or food for family or colleagues when traveling to other places in Taiwan. But because Taiwanese are humble and polite, it became a custom for us to share our traveling joyce with our colleagues and families. So visiting the persimmon factory was one of the sharing issues with others. Another aspect was persimmon is the special agricultural products in this area. That was why we were here.

Persimmons' skins were peeled and were prepared to put into the dry processing room.

Only one worker took care of this preparation process. The visiting of the processing area was quick which was about 5 minutes. There is another persimmon processing place in Hsinchu County. It uses the traditional way which puts persimmons under the sun to dry.

There are two different kinds of dried persimmons. The best dried persimmons are coated with a natural formed glucose which requires more time and a different technique to make it. Also these persimmons are special selected. Only the best quality of persimmons can naturally coat with a thin layer of glucose around itself. Another one is a regular process of dried persimmon which is less sweet and quality.
Also the factory makes a special persimmon ice cream which is a hollow persimmon with ice cream in the center. I saw my sisters were very happy with this shopping stop. Everyone contributed some money for their products to improve the local economy. I thought it was good to support and keep farmers or people employed by buying their products in their hometowns.

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飲冰柿茶集地址：嘉義縣番路鄉下坑村菜公店109-1號　
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