♪Oh what fun it is to scythe through a field of golden rice!

The theme of the day yesterday was rice.  We began the morning with a trip to the NTU Farm, which is actually right down the street from our conference room.  I had no idea it was there! Anyway, we geared up with traditional hats and scythes and went out into the ripened research field of rice for the harvest.  It was hot and we were all drenched in sweat, but it was a really cool experience.  Of course, nowadays they use combines to harvest rice, but we used the traditional hand cutting method on the small research plot.  After cutting down the stalks, the rice grain is threshed off the heads with an old-fashioned thresher that runs on foot-pedal power.  We were pretty good rice farmers, which inspired someone, I think Yang Fan, to sing the Farmer's Insurance jingle...♪We are farmers. Buum bum bum bum bum bum bum.

NTU Farm

Rice!

Rice thresher

Me and Ivy

After our harvest, we went to the classroom to watch a video about rice production and culture in Taiwan.  Just in case you didn't know, rice is really important.  The Taiwanese don't hardly eat a meal without rice, either boiled or as a main ingredient.  In addition to the video, we had a special lunch of traditional sticky rice dumplings which are steamed in a bamboo leaf, rice noodles, and some other things made out of rice.  It was really good.

In the afternoon we went back out to the rice paddy to experience planting.  Seedlings that are about three inches tall are transplanted into thick mud paddy.  We got into the mud halfway up our calves and planted 3-5 seedlings at each cross on the grid that was marked into the mud.  Everyone did three rows all the way across the field.  It was a little tricky to walk through the mud because it tried to stay sucked to your feet, but it was so much fun!

Mixed in with all of the fun, there was a little bit of sadness because we had to say goodbye to Tom and Robin. They leave early tomorrow morning and couldn't be with us today. :(  I really loved talking to them and am so glad that they were on the trip with us.  Dr. Tom was always good for the typical American dad type of humor and Robin is unceasingly happy, excited about life, and sweet.  Thanks so much for joining us!

Robin, me, Jenny, and Tom

Yesterday we went to the 921 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan.  It is located at the ruins of Kuang-Fu Junior High School, which was destroyed during the Chi-Chi earthquake of 2004.  They built the museum around the wrecked school grounds to preserve the damaged site.  The museum also features educational exhibits about earthquakes, a 3-D movie theater, and a moving theater "earthquake experience."  Unfortunately we didn't get to go in the moving theater because there were too many people ahead of us and our group was too large to get finished before our time ran out.  We did watch the 3-D movie.  It was an animated cartoon called Tree Robo that was essentially a children's environmentalist propaganda movie.  The animation was really cute and the score was great (the Taiwanese really know how to score epic educational videos). Long story short, little boy and solar powered robot live happily in a gorgeous mountain valley.  New, advanced nuclear-powered robots come and destroy the land to take it's resources and take the solar powered robot to do forced labor.  In the smog the solar powered robot can't work, he goes to sleep, and wars destroy the nuclear powered robot world.  Many years later the sun penetrates the clouds and a tree seed that was protected in the robots body sprouts, "revitalizes" him and grows on his back.  Robot goes back to look for the boy, who is now an old man that spent his life trying to replant the valley. The robot is decrepit and about to die, but borne of it's desire to make the land whole again, he and the tree on his back magically restore it to its original splendor (the robot disappears but the tree is still there).  The old man spends his last days in happiness.  Why you needed to know the whole story, I have no idea.

In the afternoon we went to the Biotechnology Center of the Taiwan Agriculture Research Institute for a presentation and brief tour.  The center is only five years old, and the government spent US $10 million to build it.  The focus of the center is maintaining, propagating, and evaluating genetic recombination events (GM crops) for commercial potential and environmental risk.  They have airtight and semi-airtight greenhouses, net houses, and field plots in addition to their lab space.  A few of the projects they are working on include fusarium resistant banana, chrysanthemums and orchids with new coloration, and ring spot and mosaic virus resistant papaya. 

Since I didn't get around to putting up many pictures of Xitou Experimental Forest while we were there, I will go ahead and put a few up now.

Frog eggs inside a bamboo fence post

 Epiphytic ferns! Don't ask me why, but I love them.

Big boulder that broke off a cliff durning an earthquake and rolled down here

Bamboo arboretum

Cryptomeria japonica (a type of cypress) is the predominant species of tree in Xitou.  They were all planted by the Japanese around 1960.

The famous bamboo bridge over the University Pond.  There's some folk tale about crossing this bridge so that you will get accepted to NTU.

Skywalk

My project group and all of the plant species samples we collected

Yesterday felt strange because we did a lot of waiting.  In the morning my group went to the classroom so that we could use the internet for a while after breakfast (there wasn't any in the cottage).  We also got started on our project paper, but we were still waiting for the pH meter to come so that we could test our soil samples.  During lunch they told us that the man with the pH meter would come at 1pm, so we waited for him.  When 1pm came someone told us that it would be 2pm, so we waited some more.  He finally did show up and we got to take our pH readings.  But as with all pH meters, this one was slow and finicky and we had to wait a long time for each sample to finally stabilize on a particular pH.  By the time we were finished it was nearly time for dinner.  It was pretty frustrating, but we got it done.

Field day

Today was our big day of field research.  My group got to work around 8:45am and finished five 1 m² survey plots before lunch.  At each plot we counted all of the plants present, keeping a sample of each unique species for later identification, and took a soil sample.  After lunch we had to move our luggage into the cottage that we are now sharing with four more girls.  The hotel-type lodging was in high demand, so we had to relocate to the cottages.  In a way it is nice because we have a living room now, but we don’t have any internet and the bathrooms don’t have shower curtains.  There are three bedrooms, one with just a double bed, one with two twin beds, and one with two twins and a double.  My team (Janet, Angela, Rebecca and I) is in the latter.  The stairs in this cottage are crazy.  The steps are at least a foot tall, and what’s worse, is that there is a really shallow step about two feet from the top of the stairs that is really tough to see, so I’ve almost died on it twice.  In the afternoon we surveyed three more plots and walked further into the forest in two places to take control soil samples.  We finished all of the surveying that we needed to do, so tomorrow we just have to work on the pH tests and analyzing the data.  Before dinner, the botanist, Dr. Chang, helped us to identify all of the species we had collected, 26 in all.

Yesterday morning we finished up our tea education with a lecture about the history of the tea industry in Taiwan and further details about the science of producing tea, given by Dr. Kai-Hsien Chen.  He is one cool cat.  His research focus is on the chemical composition of different teas, and he studies these compounds using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.  Sweet!  In addition to lecturing, Dr. Chen gave us samples of a few tea varieties using both a smelling and a drinking cup.  The way the smelling cup is used is that the tea is first poured into the tall, narrow smelling cup about 3/4 full.  Then the drinking cup is placed over the top.  The pair is quickly flipped over so that the tea pours into the drinking cup and the head/air space over the top of the tea is in the bottom of the smelling cup to collect the aroma.  The scent is first appreciated in the smelling cup, then the tea is drunk from the drinking cup.

This is actually the set from the head table during our tea ceremony, but I didn't take a picture of the plain white ones we used yesterday.  Left is the smelling cup and right is the drinking cup.

Dr. Chen in the pink demonstrating his mad tea pouring skills.

Nifty teapots

In addition to the tea lecture, we had a lecture from Dr. Yuan on birds.  After the classroom portion we went out into the park for a brief bird-watching experience.  This was also important because it was the first time we had the opportunity to see more of Xitou so that we could start to think seriously about ideas for our group project.  We actually spent the afternoon and evening preparing our proposals for our projects, which we presented this afternoon.  My group decided to make our project a study of soil pH and plant species growing alongside a paved road versus a wood chip trail.  We plan to survey somewhere between 3-5 sites with a plot next to each material at every site.  We will also take at least one pH sample somewhere further into the forest where there is no trail.

This morning we had our last two lectures before our transition into just working on our research projects.  The first was on soil biodiversity, and the second was a Dr. Tom lecture on biodiversity and conservation biology.  For his lecture we went outside to a deck where they had set up a white board for him.  It was really more of a discussion that he came up with on the spot, and it was quite enjoyable. 

Dr. Tom Gavin

After lunch all of the groups presented their project proposals to their teachers and peers.  Our proposal was well received, so it looks like everything should work out.  We will have to see whether or not they can actually get a pH meter for us to use, but hopefully they will.  When all of the presentations were finished we went back out to the trail that we will be studying to scout out the sites we want to survey.  I think we found plenty of suitable locations.  The biggest challenge will be having to count lots of small and/or viney plants.  When the serious business was finished we walked further into Xitou to see the skywalk.  This is a metal walkway that is up on poles about ten feet from the tops of the trees.  It was pretty neat, and we got a group picture up there.  Thanks to Janet for the Dr. Tom and skywalk pics :)

Project group! From left to right: Angela, Me, Rebecca, Dominique, Janet

Tea time

I loved yesterday!  We spent almost an entire day devoted to tea.  In the morning we toured a small part of the Phoenix Tea Farm, walking up the hill to a scenery viewing pavilion.  The view of the valleys and cities below and the mountains off to the side was wonderful.  We have been having unusually good weather lately, with little rain, so there was not a lot of fog.  In most years, we would not have been able to see nearly as well because of the fog that occurs daily. 

The rail alongside the stairs is used to carry tools and supplies up the mountain.

Back at the visitor's center, we spent two hours learning the art of tea brewing and drinking.  This was one of the things that I was looking forward to doing the most on this trip, and it did not disappoint.  In the traditional tea ceremony, there are many steps, beginning with warming the teapot, pitcher, and cups with hot water.  This water is discarded in a bowl, and then the proper amount of tea leaves are put into the teapot.  The amount of leaves depends on how tightly rolled they are.  With tightly rolled leaves, the pot is filled 1/4 full, while with unrolled leaves the pot is filled 1/2 full.  Then, the pot is filled with hot water to warm the leaves.  This water is immediately poured into the smelling cups (or drinking cups if smelling cups aren't being used), and then is poured from the cups over the outside of the teapot.  This is to keep the temperature of the inside and outside of the pot even, and to make the pot appear shiny and more beautiful.  The pot is then filled again and allowed to steep for one minute for the first round of tea to be drunk.  When the steeping is complete, the tea is poured into a pitcher and then into the cups.  This process is repeated for up to six rounds of tea, but the steeping time is altered for each round.  The second is only 20 seconds because the tea leaves have already been unfurled and the flavors released from the first round.  The third round is lengthened back to 45 seconds because the tea strength has started to dissipate.  15 seconds is added for each subsequent round after that.  ("This is only a rule of thumb and should be adjusted based on the tea's release time and personal preference for tea strength.")  I think this line was repeated three times in the video we watched about the art of brewing tea :)  We tried both DongTing Oolong tea (the specialty at Phoenix Tea Farm), and Oriental Beauty tea during our tasting.  Oolong tea is a semi-oxidized, tightly rolled tea that has a little bit bitter taste but a sweeter aftertaste.  Oriental Beauty is also semi-oxidized, but it is loosely rolled and can only be made from tea leaves that have been damaged by a species of leaf hopper.  It has a sweeter taste than oolong. 

I really enjoyed the tea ceremony, and felt completely sedate afterwards.  It was so relaxing, and it made me want to buy a Chinese tea set to bring home with me.

After our tasting, we learned about the production of tea from the tea master at Phoenix.  Tea making is a many-step process that is different based upon the type of tea being produced.  Teas may be unoxidized (green), partially oxidized (white, oolong, gold), or fully oxidized ("black"/red).  In tea terminology, the oxidation is referred to as fermentation, a name that was given before the more scientific definition of the word which implies microbial activity was firmly established.  Only the young tea leaves are used, usually the top three leaves on a stem of new growth, for making tea.  Leaves may be harvested up to four times a year, and there will be very slight differences in taste between the tea harvested from the same plants during different seasons.  One slight complication was that the tea master did not speak English, so what he said had to be translated for us.  This really wouldn't have been a problem except that three different people were competing with each other trying to translate.  It was almost comical, a perfect example of the phrase "too many cooks in the kitchen."

Finishing up our tea lesson, we ate lunch and left the farm.  Our next stop was bamboola, a shop that specializes in high quality bamboo products.  One of the items they are known for are their puzzle boxes.  Each one has a different secret locking mechanism, ranging from simple to very difficult to discover.  We spent quite a while working on figuring out how the most difficult boxes worked, but we got them all J  I had a lot of fun solving them. 

This shop was our last official stop for the day, so after leaving there, we headed to Sitou Experimental Forest.  We will stay for five nights in this location and complete our research project here.  I was expecting Sitou to be a remote, natural forest similar to natural parks in the United States.  This was completely wrong.  Sitou is actually more like a giant city park filled with tourists.  It is forested, but much of the forest is actually not the native forest, but stands of a variety of cypress from Japan that the Japanese planted in 1960 during their occupation.  In Japan this tree is very good for timber, but in Taiwan it grows much faster, so the wood is not of good quality.  In an attempt to increase the “natural” aspect of the forest, it has not been heavily managed in recent years, so the undergrowth is mainly native plants.  There are apparently parts of Sitou that have native forest if you travel further into the park and away from the tourist epicenter.  Hopefully I will have the chance to hike there sometime before we leave.