Publication date:September 14, 2018
Publisher:Youth Development Administration
Coordinator: Chun-Fan Wu
Telephone/Mobile phone:02-77365583/0988-225-304
E-mail:chunfanwu@mail.yda.gov.tw
Contact person for the press: Section director, Rong-Mang Ma
Telephone/Mobile phone:02-77365579/0912-830-696
The Youth Development Administration of the Ministry of Education promoted "Youth Travel in Taiwan – Exploring Love with The Map Program" to encourage young people to step out, explore all corners in Taiwan and experience the beauty of Taiwan. In 2018, there are 67 groups of young people participate in the project and have completed their project.
Feeling pity to witness the decline of Taiwan's traditional industries, two female students from Medical Management Department of Taipei Medical University and Law Department of National Taiwan University independently proposed to participate in this year's program as team "Kyotalks". They came up with the idea of creating a "mobile museum cafe", they visited traditional industries, businesses and local cultures that are facing threat to survive nowadays. Moreover, they keep detailed records on everything they experienced then turn their experiences into cultural and creative merchandise. During Museum opening hours, Kyotalks invites everyone to sit down and have a cup of coffee and to listen to them telling these old stories they learnt. They have drawn more attention for people to learn and respect more about Taiwan's traditional industries.
Seeing carving knife waving and carving on pieces of wood, watching and sensing the sawdust fluttering with fragrance were the memories when Kyotalks visited Mr. Hung Yao-Huei at his studio. Mr. Hung Yao-Huei is a master of wood carving and is known as a “national treasure” in wood craving. Mr. Hong worked as an apprentice and began his woodcarving career at the age of seventeen. His life has been accompanied by traditional wood carvings, and he has participated in numerous traditional temple constructions and historic sites restoration. Now he is committed to the inheritance of craftsmanship. Even though the style of students' creation nowadays is different from then, Mr. Hong keeps his open mind, devotes to combining traditional and modern technology as well as maintaining the sustainability of wood craving traditional craft.
Nantou ZhuShan produced bamboo shoots all year round; bamboo shoots can be cut into a tool for farmers to make a living. Kyotalk has also set up a base here to visit the handmade iron shop, which is called Guo Qing-Shun iron shop, the only traditional iron craft site left in Taiwan. Master Guo's iron shop specialized in customized special fishing gears. Guo can replicate all tools that people placed order even he has never seen them before. Iron crafts are mostly complicated, delicate, and time consuming, what’s worst is that the workplace for iron crafts are full of high temperature stove, which makes it even more challenging in summer. Therefore, throughout a hundred years of iron craft developing, they have only less than three apprentices who had all failed at the end. Guo had shown the sadness during the interview, worrying about the skill has graduall