A Taste of Soup Noodle in Luzhou

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Project Overview

1. Category: Local Specialties:Sports and Health

2. Description of Our Community:
Luzhou City is situated near the western bank of Tamsui River. Shilin District, Taipei is across the river and to the northeast of Luzhou. Wugu Township is to the west of Luzhou, while Sanchong City is to the southeast, which forms a diamond. Louzhou City's area amounts to 8,321 square kilometers, which is slightly bigger than Yonghe City among the 29 counties, townships, and cities in Taipei County. In the Qing Dynasty, Luzhou Yonglian Temple was renovated and expanded to gradually become the local religious center. During the period of Japanese occupation, a big fair developed in front of Yonglian Temple with businessmen, travelers, and believers passing by in an endless stream. Soup Noodle was also sold in front of the gate of the temple at that time. Today, nearly a hundred years later, Yonglian Temple is lively as before. The several stalls of Soup Noodle have been run by three generations successively. Now, Soup Noodle has become a part of the local snacks of Luzhou.

3. Summary of Our Project
(1)Origin
Our school is located near the business district of Luzhou Yonglian Temple, surrounded by shops of Soup Noodle which are always full of customers at mealtime. And we have grown up eating Soup Noodle. The warm greeting by the owners, good scents of noodles, and antique flavor of appetizer dishes mingled together to form the taste of our childhood. This is the common memory of Luzhou residents, so we planned to study Luzhou Soup Noodle, write its stories, and share them with friends all over the world.
(2)Research content and method
We carried out our study and promotion of the cultural delicacy of Soup Noodle by collection of data, interviews, field surveys, promotion, questionnaires, and experience. Through activities, we hoped that we could better understand the relationship between the culture of Soup Noodle and the history of Luzhou. Besides, we participated to experience how to make noodles in person and took specific actions to promote the traditional delicacy. Therefore, we have deeper understanding of Luzhou and hold the wisdom of our ancestors in awe and veneration.
a. Collection of information: We first collected information related to Luzhou Soup Noodle from the Internet, including the origin of Soup Noodle, Soup Noodle Festival, Luzhou century-old noodle shops, and so old so as to have preliminary knowledge and understanding of the culture of Soup Noodle.
b. Interviews: To get the most real and accurate information, we stepped out of our school to have several interviews with people related to Soup Noodle, including Mr. Lian-fu Yang, a scholar, the shopkeeper of Asan Noodle Shop, the shopkeeper of Damiaokou Noodle Shop, and Ms. Yueh-e Li Weng, the City Councilor and driving force behind Luzhou Soup Noodle Festival.
Each interview was rewarding. And we were touched by the inheritance and promotion of the culture of Luzhou.
c. Field survey: In order to make a map of Luzhou Soup Noodle, we first used Google Maps to check the actual distribution of the Soup Noodle shops in Luzhou, and then visited each shop to form a 3D map which was displayed in the anteroom of our school.
d. Firsthand experience: Under the patient guidance of a shop owner, we learned how to cook a bowl of Soup Noodle by following the steps of picking up noodles, cooking noodles, sprinkling marinade, and adding bean sprouts, each with different know-how and skills. In addition to experience the joy of cooking, we also feel the hard work of the noodle shop owners.
e. Promotion in our school: After interviews and experience, we decided to promote the culture and history of Soup Noodle, let our schoolmates taste the unique flavor of the local delicacy, and share the stories about the efforts to inherit the traditional cuisine. Hence, we designed a series of promotional activities held in our school—Broadcasting the stories about Soup Noodle to the students and faculties via radio, publishing articles on the culture of Soup Culture at the Achievements Presentation of Associations of our school, promoting our research results class by class, and holding a drawing contest so that our schoolmates could express their ideas through drawings.
f. Questionnaire: We designed a questionnaire to investigate whether the customer groups of Soup Noodle are mainly local people or visitors, their frequencies to come to the shops, they think of Soup Noodle, and so on. From the feedbacks of the questionnaire, we had a clearer view of the degree of acceptance of Soup Noodle by its customers and the way to promote Soup Noodle to more people.

4. Our Computers and Internet Access :
Our school boasts complete information equipment. Each classroom has a computer. There are four computer rooms and an information center in the library with a 100MB fiber optic network. The host computer room is equipped with Window 2003 and several Linux servers. Our team members have computers at the home mostly connected to a broadband or fiber-optic network to communicate via our school blog, hard disk, email, and so on.

5. Problems We Had to Overcome :
Challenge 1: Difficulty to balance between schoolwork and the project Before the implementation of each task, our team members must make a task plan. And then visit here and there in their spare time after school. For the activities of promotion, they must make posts and props during each noon break and often stayed up till midnight to write journals. Therefore, it was our biggest headache to complete the schoolwork as well as the CyberFair project. Fortunately, our instructors used their noon breaks to guide us how to prepare interview manuscripts and how to write a good journal effectively. Finally, all the seven members of our team had not lagged behind in our schoolwork due to the CyberFair project. Moreover, we learned how to schedule our time more efficiently.

Challenge 2: Limited capabilities of interview and research
Since a child, the way of learning for us was to sit and listened to the explanation of all kinds of knowledge by our teachers in a systematic manner. However, for this project, we must search data by ourselves, take the initiative to interview scholars and professionals, and summarize interview manuscripts, which was totally fresh to us.
Fortunately, our instructors offered us tips on interviews before the interviews, reminded us constantly the do's and don'ts during the interviews, and taught us patiently how to summarize and simplify piles of interview recordings. Through the project, my biggest gain was that I learned how to make an interview and summarize an interview manuscript.

Challenge 3: Requiring a strong ability of integration and summarization
From September last year, the seven members of our team started to conduct the activities related to the CyberFair project, including 5 off-campus interviews, 2 firsthand experiences, and various promotional activities. For the past five months, each interview and activity generated mountains of text data and other information, which we incessant grumbled at. Fortunately, our instructors reminded us to write journals after each activity and draw a concept and framework diagram to systematize the information so as to present the information clearly on the website.

Challenge 4: Difficult to build a website
The production of a website requires various abilities, including the abilities to use image processing software and web page production software, and writing skills, which cannot be achieved overnight.
During the production, our instructors guided us carefully and spent their whole winter holiday in the computer rooms with us. And we finally completed the website by the deadline of the contest.

6.Experience feelings：
The five-month CyberFair project was about to end. No matter what the results are, I would always believe that our team is the best. During this time, we divided tasks, cooperated and supported with each other, and gave full play of each other's strengths. I realized that as long as a team could unit together, there would be no impossible missions. During our activities, we made acquaintance with many who devoted themselves to Luzhou, served the place by working diligently at work, and contributed to the inheritance of the culture of Luzhou. Through the interviews with them, we had deeper understanding of Luzhou and hoped to contribute to our hometown in the future as well.