The singing sparrows in Chia-yi PAC

The Domspatzen means the sparrows of the cathedral in German. Today, the sparrows from the St. Peter Cathedral in Regensburg flew to Chia-yi Performing Arts Center (PAC) to give their first workshop and first concert in Taiwan. Being a native of Chia-yi, I was excited that I finally got to visit the Chia-yi PAC since its completion in 2005.

We arrived at Hsin-kang Incense Artistic Culture Garden in Chia-yi County at 10:30. After being warmly greeted by two Mandarin speaking guides, Mr. Wu led the little boys to tour the incense factory and gallery by interpreting in German. I led the big boys by interpreting in English.

Hsin-kang Incense Artistic Culture Garden was established by three brothers in 1988. It started with a small family incense factory. In 1997, the factory of handmade incense was transformed and expanded to a big modern facotry of automated machine and equipment. In 2004, the culture garden was built to promote the art of incense.

Like most Chinese, I was brought up to burn the incense to pray in the temple and to worship the ancestors at home. Be the incense burning one of the cultural activities, besides drinking tea, arranging flowers, and viewing paintings among Chinese people, I didn't know that burning incense was originated to be therapeutic till today. The more I knew about the incense ingredients of herbal medicine, the more I was curious about the incense treatment in ancient China.

The lunch was hosted by Hsin-kang Elementary School at the Culture Garden. The full table of food didn't stimulate the appetite of the little boys. Most of the young kids didn't extend their chopsticks to adventure the unknown dishes in front of them. Only if one boy had the courage to trial taste and agreed upon the flavor, others would follow the suit. At the end of the lunch, Hsin-kang Elementary School chorus members and the RD exchanged greeting cards with one another.

At 13:15, we arrived at Chia-yi PAC. Three big boys felt sick, one of them threw up all the lunch in his stomach. They must have caught heat stroke. After allocating them in the VIP room for the conductor, I asked the accompanying staff if anyone knew about Gua sha, an ancient medical treatment, literally "to scrape away fever" in Chinese. Fortunately, we had an expert with us. While walking between the dressing rooms and the VIP room, I also had the chance to tour the entire PAC.

The PAC occupies 6.6 hectares in area, including the center and the cultural park. The center of the Southern Fu-kien style architecture was remarkable. It must be very comfortable inside, so that quite a few singing swallows built nests there. The surrounding park was big and there was a lotus pond in the middle. It would be an ideal place for people to take a walk before or after the concert.

While Conductor Büchner gave a Workshop on vocalization skills at the experimental theater from 2PM to 3PM, I was in the dressing room with the little boys, teaching them to write Chinese characters on the i-pod, to play sumo, and to have fun. Everybody was full of energy. At 3PM, half of the young boys participated in the demo session at the experimental theater, half of them stayed to play in the dressing room.