Last week, I was at the beautiful Tou Southwind café, with friends Naomi Sím, and the crew from the Lâm-tõo Project, running a bilingual Taiwanese / English workshop, working with new learners of Taiwanese, and experienced Taiwanese speakers, on writing creative tales about family legends.
The workshop was a part of the government-funded Taiwanese-speaking Household campaign, encouraging families who already use Taiwanese to deepen their knowledge, and working with families who want to learn to upgrade their skills.
This was particularly fun for me, because we were presenting mainly in Taiwanese—a language I am still hard at work learning. The group was a mixture of Taiwanese language old-hands, and learners like myself. The workshop involved tales of crazy uncles, games exploring Taiwanese Romanisation, and a magic hat that gave its wearer enhanced skills in speaking this beautiful, fascinating language.
