Today, we decided to visit the Taipei National University of the Arts with a former student, David, and a current student, Daniel. They were happy enough to volunteer to show us around their campus and the contributions the students have made towards their artistic journey.
We were shown around a couple of the exhibits created by students and the art was astounding and also a little perplexing. The exhibit displayed art from many different methods of art storytelling. Some told a more personal story with its art, like the history of important figures and/or family members and their life in early Taiwan. Others were more abstract art that had meaning displayed but needed more time to actually decipher and understand. Others were more grotesque, especially on the second floor with the NSFW art pieces. But the one thing they all had in common was the fact that they were all created by the students of the university. These pieces were all different methods of how they saw the world or one of the ways they see the world, which I could respect and understand regardless of how it may have looked.
The next gallery was especially fun. The gallery was filled with multiple smaller art pieces surrounding two large banners hanging from the ceiling. We were also able to make on our own special art on the side, in which I created something (I still don’t know what I created but it was certainly something.). I wrote 好吃for Jennifer since she just loves to learn more Chinese characters and phrases for herself.
We visited more areas around the school and their cafeteria. It was cool to learn how the school was built over a cemetery and that they have different statues in order to ward off any spirits or evil demons from them. The food from the cafeteria was great and the library we visited had some cool topics to read, like the music sheet for wind orchestra.
Afterwards, we went to the Jade market (something that Joelle seemed just a tiny bit excited for). I didn’t buy anything from the market but I really wanted to. However, the things that I wanted to buy were stuff that I could not bring with me on the flight. The market made me realize that I really need to decorate my room. Its so barren in hindsight.
Daniel gave us a good spot to go for a nightclub. It was a very open space which I was not used to. The places that I went to in Australia felt more private and needed to usually pay a tab to get in, but the places we went to here felt as if anyone could walk in and out at any given moment. Weird but cool fact was that there were a lot of foreigners at this place, including Africans which was very nice to see as I never see black people in Asia. Overall it was a great night.
