D67 Installation Ceremony 2012

Golden ladies Toastmasters became the talk of town after their eye opening folk dance performance at Legacy Toastmasters Club's 15th Anniversary Friday, June 15th. The moment seven goldies Toastmasters stepped down from the stage, Incoming D67 Governor YS Liao offered them another stage time at D67 Installation Ceremony, June 30th. In order to inject more of vitality and energy to incoming District 67 Officers 2012, Toastmaster Trini Ding decided to invite Peter Wee, Jennie Wang, and me to perform "Jimmy" choreographed by John Bishop and Peter Wee, along with Golden Ladies Toastmasters trademark dance  Kungfu Fighting.

Peter Wee comes from Melbourne to Taiwan every year. He has been given Summer Clogging Workshop in Taipei for consecutive four years. It's a bliss to Taipei Happy Cloggers to learn with a passionate and enthusiastic clogger and cuer from down under. Whenever we clog with Peter, everybody gets so much uplifted. How I wish that I could jump higher and move swifter! Whenever Peter is in town, I won't miss his workshop. I love to clog, particularly the dances choreographed by him. After the workshop, there is always a beer party waiting for us to quench our thirst! Kanpai to all cloggers around the world! A la vôtre!

Jennie Wang is the instructor of Taipei Happy Cloggers. She has been a devoted clogger and cuer for more than a decade. Trini and I started clogging with her five years ago. Jennie took Trini to a clogging convention in the US a few years ago. It's my hope Jennie can lead a group of golden ladies clogging Toastmasters and Taipei happy cloggers to Australia Clogging Convention 2013 in Canberra. In the meantime, I must clog more diligently with Jennie to get familiar with more basic clogging steps.

Peter, Jennie, Trini, and I had an awesome demo D67 Installation Ceremony, despite Jennie hurt her right wrist at Peter's workshop this afternoon and I suffered a leg cramp (first time in my life, my legs must feel exhausted after Peter's three hours intensive workshop, hey Pete, see how excited I was clogging right behind you) at the last minute before our performance. Murphy Law made Jennie and I wear wrong clogging shoes, as Jennie forgot to bring her clogging shoes. Luckily, she borrowed a pair two sizes larger. After I had a leg cramp, we swapped our clogging shoes. In the end, both Jennie and I danced with clogging shoes one size larger, fortunately we didn't dance with two left feet!

Many thanks to Peter for coming all the way from Australia to coach us patiently the dance steps of "Jimmy" and "Just the Way You Are" of his 2011 Summer Clogging Workshop for our performance at D67 Installation Ceremony. It was indeed a joyful clogging day, with five dances, including "Bounce With Me", "Broken Hearted", "Friday", "Good Night", and "Missing You" at Peter's 2012 Suumer Clogging Workshop from 2:30PM till 5:30PM Saturday afternoon, June 30th!

It is my hope that more and more Toastmasters get to know about the clogging dance. More and more Toastmasters get interested in putting on the clogging shoes. In the world of clogging, let's stay high and fit, let's stay young and beautiful, let's clog and laugh together.

Six Characters in search of An Author

Upon the invitation of Director Daniel Ingi Petursson of Tellus Theatre, I went to the last show of "Six Characters in search of An Author" by Luigi Pirandello Sunday evening, June 24th. As soon as I received the text message from Daniel to inform me of the last show, I thought I was obliged to see it to encourage and support Tellus Theater members whom I worked with for two months in March and in April.

After the weekly Shakespeare Theater rehearsal at the Red Room Sunday afternoon, I rushed to the venue at the basement of a vegetarian restaurant on Ningpo East Road. I was delighted to see Daniel at the ticket office, I was happy being the first customer to pay for the entrance fee NT$350.

Despite the economical scale of the theater, cast, props, costumes, I enjoyed the show with two dozen guests. Most of them, I believe, were invited by Tellus members to support the actors on stage and director behind the scene. I'd like to compliment Daniel for making it happen independently with a bunch of amateur actors in such a short period of time without any financial support whatsoever.

Even most actors were playing themselves, in stead of the designated characters, the lady who played the mother of the six characters caught my attention from the beginning till the end. I would give her the award of the best supporting actress. She wore a dark mourning dress with tears in black on her face. Her facial expression, hand gestures, body language were simply awesome, on top of that her lines in English were pleasant to the ears. I love her. She must be professional, as I had never seen her during 8 rehearsals with Daniel.

It was a new experience for me to see a play at a small experimental theater in Taipei knowing all the lines in advance. In stead of being a common viewer in the audience,  I felt like being a theater critic evaluating the performance of the actors on stage as well as the knowhow of the director.

Many thanks must go to Daniel for introducing to me the basics of the theater and the famous Pirandello. I wish I could see Pirandello's commedia dell'arte at his home town in Sicily one day in the future. I wish one day I could take a role in Pirandello's six characters in search of an author no matter when and where I am. What a wishing thinking of mine!

Vegetarian Food

My father-in-law passed away in June. My mother-in-law insisted on having meals without meat for 100 days. At beginning, I found it difficult to make three meals without meat.

After studying the cookbook for vegetarians, I enjoyed making vegetarian food for family and friends, Curry Rice Gratin with Mozerella cheese; Homemade Japanese style Paella with seed weed, dry mushroom, konyaku, fried bean curd, carrot, burdock root; Spanish Omelet with Potato, spinach, tomato, Vietnamese spring rolls, and assorted Sushi rolls just to name a few!

My father-in-law’s funeral was held at home in Chia-yi. My sister and brother came to the funeral. They didn’t stay for vegetarian lunch after the funeral service.

The Cooking Toastmasters--Chapter Four

In Galaxy, every member is a star! ~~Pamela Yang, President of Galaxy Toastmasters Club

Upon the invitation of Incoming President Pamela Yang of Galaxy Toastmasters Club, I made up my mind to overcome the intimidating imaginary distance between her place and mine. With an aim to give Pamela a pat on her shoulder, I traveled afar to give her my heartfelt wishes and my full support of her presidency with two beautiful pumpkins freshly picked from the family farm in Chia-yi. I was eager to share with Pamela my newly developed recipes of pumpkin pies, pumpkin spaghetti, and pumpkin rice noodles.

I took the MRT Green Line from Hsin-tien to Taipei Main Station, transferred to the MRT Blue Line to Nankang, got on Bus 211. After I got off Bus 212 at the terminal stop—Old Village, I walked along a creek to a huge high-rise apartment complex at the foot of the mountain hills. It was an auspicious location of good fengsui in Chinese thinking, river in front and mountain at the back. Before long, I could smell the homemade food at the gate, 100 meters away from Pamela's door. Moses, the better half of Pamela, was greeting the guests at the door. I was the first one to arrive!

The moment I walked into the kitchen, I saw two lady Toastmasters working diligently, one was none other than the beautiful hostess Pamela, the other was Toastmaster YiHsin Tsai, Past President of Galaxy Toastmasters Club. YiHsin was busy looking after her patella on the stove. It was super yummy at the first sight! My mouth was watering! It was well worth the long journey from Hsin-tien to Nankang. How was I glad that I made it!

When Pamela called everybody à la table, we saw a magician unveil a full table of colorful European dishes, including assorted green salads, Italian appetizers, Mexican Salsa Source, Quiche Lorraine, Paella, homemade bread, and homemade thirst-quenching Summer punch, roselle lemon tea. Good cuisine went along with three bottles of good wine, Mythique, Jacob's Creek, and Pinot Noir. A homemade blueberry cheese cake was served after lunch with two kinds of coffee, first blue, followed by red. It was simply a feast of arts for olfactory and palate senses of delight and satisfaction.

Around the table, there were seven incoming officers from Galaxy. We were touched when Pamela told us she took one day off work Friday to prepare the materials for the luncheon this afternoon. It was not only the exquisitely selected and prepared food from the nature, but also the hearts of the chefs who engineered the products on the table.

After lunch, Pamela chaired the officers' meeting, every officer was eager to bring new members to the club, every officer was eager to upgrade the club quality. Even thought we didn't have time to read the article "A Quality Club Experience--Members thrive in clubs with high standards" written by Lance Miller, DTM, in the Toastmaster Magazine May issue. I'm sure I would see many rising Toastmasters stars at the best Toastmasters club--Galaxy in the future.

It was eight months ago, I wrote the Cooking Toastmasters—Chapter Three, and I hope I could soon write another chapter of the cooking Toastmasters on my blog! Many thanks to Pamela for being the fourth cooking Toastmaster and I look forward to meeting up with many more cooking Toastmasters in District 67 and beyond in the near future.