International education exchange has been continually engaged in multidimensional approaches by Taiwan’s secondary and elementary schools. A recent unique example was the Taipei Youth Folk Sports Group (TYFSG), which had a performance tour in the San Francisco Bay Area from August 14th to August 18th, 2013.
Composed of twenty-six Taipei’s junior and elementary school students, this group presented three separate series of Taiwanese folk sports performance to the audience throughout several cities of the San Francisco Bay Area. In Cupertino on August 17th, the TYFSG was featured in the “2013 Happy Kids Day”, which was a large annual multi-cultural local festival with over ten thousand attendees since 2010. And their each fabulous show was followed by bursts of applause, turning out to be this event’s highlight.
The TYFSG has a long and reputed overseas performance history of more than twenty years. This year, the group’s members were represented by students from Xi-Yuan Elementary School, Wu-Xing Elementary School, and Hong-Dao Junior High School in Taipei. Ages 11 to 14, these young performers were little experts in shuttlecock kicking, diabolo spinning, and rope skipping. Prior to coming to San Francisco, they also stopped in Seattle, Portland and Los Angles in the 13-day western-American tour.
The great success the TYFSG has achieved in the overseas on-stage performances came from all the group members’ daily diligent practice at school. In order to enhance the team spirit, they had also stayed together on campus for a 21-day intensive training program before their tour departure. The motive which supported them through training challenges was their hope of sharing the beauty of Taiwan’s folk sports and culture with people from other international communities.
This trip has made all these enthusiastic TYFSG members become successful cultural ambassadors. Their brilliant performance brought the audience old childhood memories as well as excitement and laughter. Instead of just being fun children’s games, Taiwan’s traditional pastimes have become delicate folk art to impress international audience. And the Taiwanese students’ teamwork, great effort, and passion were even more touching.
