Taichung

 

    On August 31, our class had the opportunity to visit Chen’s Wood, a workshop in the central district of Taichung city. Naomi, our kind and fashionable translator, explained to us the history behind this family business. 

“This shop first opened almost 100 years ago in 1926.” She said, “The first location was in Taipei, but after the bombing of World War 2, they had to move back home to be with their parents. Back then,” she continued, “there were 20-30 other woodships. Now, this is the only one left.”

    The grandaughter showed us many of the tools used to work the wood before electricity and power tools were common. I’ve illustrated some of them below:

    We learned how certain numbers in Chinese are “lucky” and many people believe furniture should be made with these numbers to bring good fortune. We also were taught to use a couple of the tools, including a spokeshave, to create wood shavings. They smelled soooooo good. I put my goodie bags into an airtight recycled ziplock to preserve the smell, in order to smell it again in Seattle when I return and will miss Taiwan.

    As Elden was carving, he was shy and considerate, saying “I want to save some corners for you guys,” as if there wasn’t enough wood. Our professor, Meichen, replied gently, “we can always make new corners.” I loved this little quote and had to write it down in my pocket notebook, because it's true! We CAN always make new corners. We can make new roads, new paths, new connections, new everything, anything. There is nothing more fitting for design than to be reminded of our ability as humans to constantly create.

    Our lunch afterwards was phenomenal. Chun Shui Tang was the first shop to create "bubbles" for bubble tea. I tried the milk fish set, and it reminded me a lot of my grandma's cooking. The Home Work sustainable studio was inspiring, and fun to shop in. I enjoyed also the tour we had in the Star Hostel, where our class learned about the material sourcing and user experience intentions behind the interior design. During our free time, I explored the other floors of our building, shopping with Heather, my new NCKU friend, (spending more money on stationary), and going for dinner to a cute place Jaimie saw on Tik Tok. The gym was also huge, and running + stretching + lifting really refreshed my mind, relieving the tension and anxiety I was feeling.

    The National Taiwan Craft Research Institute was full of amazing curiosities. What I found truly memorable was the view from the toilet on the 3rd floor bathroom. It was a real emperor throne, with an almost 360 view of the entire city!

On our walk to the restaurant, where we enjoyed another traditional round table Chinese meal, I found an “egg flower” bush. I picked a flower off the ground to put in my hair, admired koi fish, and I also thought the snail eggs in the rice paddy were very yummy looking. They closely resemble raspberries! 

The bamboo weaving workshop felt like navigating a midlife crisis. I felt every stage of the creative process, starting with “WOW, this is awesome!” to “holy crap, I suck.” then “okay, maybe this might be okay” and ending up with something I really liked and was proud of. I battle a lot with my own perfectionist tendencies, and recently, have been trying to experiment with art in order to find my own unique drawing style. When I decided to stop following the given pattern everyone else was, I took the reins into my own hands, relinquishing control over the outcome, and trusting my intuition to guide me into creating something different, yet equally beautiful. I was partly tempted to finish the 3x3 directions with both brown and green, but I had a stopping point where I undid 2 rows. I realized there: “more is not better.” Much like with my fear of empty space, or how I tend to eat past satisfaction if the food is really good, I am learning again and again the concept of “enough.” When a distinguishable line is not made, how can we be goldilocks and feel out the “just-right-ness” without needing to taste too much, and not-enough?