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Indian culture enthusiasts wear Indian outfits to see a Bollywood movie in Taipei |
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(With CNA photo No.86) By Rachel Chan CNA Staff Reporter Although the finer details of Indian culture can leave many Taiwanese at sea, there seems to be an undertow that is drawing people toward the South Asian country.
This is evident not only from the full-house screenings of the award-winning hit movie Slumdog Millionaire, but also from the packed Bollywood dance classes, yoga classes, and the growing market for Indian clothes and accessories.
Slumdog Millionaire, which swept this year's Oscars with eight awards and won the hearts of people everywhere with its rags-to-riches story, turned the eyes of the world on social issues in India. It has also fueled a craze in many countries for Indian music, dance and other aspects of culture.
The question of whether the movie presents an accurate portrait of India or is just another Bollywood-style melodrama has been discussed at length in the international media and elsewhere.
But for the people in Taiwan who already felt some degree of affinity for India, the movie serves as point of reference and a touchstone for the culture.
In Taipei, an Indian accessory store called Rana Legend in the Ximen pedestrian area is a popular gathering point for Indian culture enthusiasts.
On the day the Central News Agency reporter visited the store, a dozen women dressed in saris and wearing exotic bangles, earrings, necklaces and bindis were preparing to hit the streets. Their mission was wear their Indian outfits to the movie theater where they were going to see a Bollywood movie Taare Zameen Par (Stars on Earth).
The group, which included a public servant, a student, a school nurse and a housewife, said that what they love is the profoundity and richness of the Indian culture.
Candy Sun, who teaches Bollywood dance to more than 500 students at community schools and sports centers, said that she can sense a growing interest in Indian culture, as more and more women, and even some men, are taking her dance classes.
Sun said that destiny took her to India five years ago to learn Indian dance and she fell in love with the country for no discernible reason.
"I can feel it in my blood, " said Sun, who at first was a belly dance instructor." I learned Hindi really fast and I can identify with everything in India." Sun said her strong feelings for India were later explained to her by an Indian guru whom she met during a pilgrimage to an upstream area of the Ganges River.
According to Sun, the guru told her that in one of her previous lives she was Indian.
And "you knew that yourself," she said she was told.
Another of the women in the group, Lu Li-huei, said that she has visited the subcontinent five times and when she went to India, she found the country even more fun and the culture even more diverse than she had imagined.
"To gain a good understanding of India, you have to make personal contact with it, " said Lu, a civil servant at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications' Civil Aeronautics Administration who practices yoga and has learned Indian dance.
She, however, admitted that she found it hard to identify with some aspects of the culture, such as the deep-rooted caste system.
"As an outsider visiting the country, I can only look at the culture from the perspective of an observer," she said.
The movie Slumdog Millionaire epitomizes the squalid poverty in the Indian slums, Lu said. "However, it is a movie with a conveniently fluid notion of reality and it does not reproduce how shocked and upset I was when I personally saw children competing with dogs to look for food in a filthy and stinking dump," she added.
For school nurse Helen Chen, her fascination with India started two years ago when she began learning belly dance and Indian dance.
She said she was particulary taken with the beauty of the Indian sari.
"How amazing it is that a five-meter length of exquisitely embroidered cloth can perfectly complement the curves of a woman's body, " said Chen, who was dressed in a carefully draped beige sari with delicate pink beadwork.
"Moreover, it is extraordinary that the same sari can look completely different on different women," she added.
The sari also holds an attraction for Galina Chang, a freshman who is majoring in Russian at National Chengchi University, although her interest is more that of a collector.
But from it was from her hobby of collecting of traditional garments from countries around the world that her passion for the Indian culture grew.
Chang, who owns 20 saris, said when she wears them the feeling is more degage, compared to the punctilious feeling she experiences when wearing Japanese kimonos.
India might be some 4,400 kilometers away from Taiwan, but it can be brought closer simply by sharing one's passion for the culture with other aficionados, said Veney Ting, a self-taught henna artist.
The women said they would like to see this achieved through the current interest in Slumdog Millionaire, which they think could raise awarness in Taiwan of India so that people would want to learn more about that part of the world.
 新聞稿二 【英文中國郵報 The China Post】
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/art/movies-&-films/2009/03/23/201225/p1/Slumdog%2DMillionaire.htm
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Wearing traditional Indian saris, a group of Taipei residents join their Indian friends to a screening of the award-winning hit movie Slumdog Millionaire. More people in Taiwan intrigued by the diversity and richness of the Indian culture have helped create a growing market for Indian cuisine, Bollywood dance classes, yoga classes as well as Indian clothes and accessories. (CNA)
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Updated Monday, March 23, 2009 9:57 am TWN, By Rachel Chan, CNA
Another of the women in the group, Lu Li-huei, said that she has visited the subcontinent five times and when she went to India, she found the country even more fun and the culture even more diverse than she had imagined.
“To gain a good understanding of India, you have to make personal contact with it,” said Lu, a civil servant at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications' Civil Aeronautics Administration who practices yoga and has learned Indian dance.
She, however, admitted that she found it hard to identify with some aspects of the culture, such as the deep-rooted caste system.
“As an outsider visiting the country, I can only look at the culture from the perspective of an observer,” she said.
The movie Slumdog Millionaire epitomizes the squalid poverty in the Indian slums, Lu said.
“However, it is a movie with a conveniently fluid notion of reality and it does not reproduce how shocked and upset I was when I personally saw children competing with dogs to look for food in a filthy and stinking dump,” she added.
For school nurse Helen Chen, her fascination with India started two years ago when she began learning belly dance and Indian dance.
She said she was particularly taken with the beauty of the Indian sari.
“How amazing it is that a five-meter length of exquisitely embroidered cloth can perfectly complement the curves of a woman's body,” said Chen, who was dressed in a carefully draped beige sari with delicate pink beadwork.
“Moreover, it is extraordinary that the same sari can look completely different on different women,” she added.
The sari also holds an attraction for Galina Chang, a freshman who is majoring in Russian at National Chengchi University, although her interest is more that of a collector.
But it was from her hobby of collecting of traditional garments from countries around the world that her passion for the Indian culture grew.
Chang, who owns 20 saris, said when she wears them the feeling is more degage, compared to the punctilious feeling she experiences when wearing Japanese kimonos.
India might be some 4,400 kilometers away from Taiwan, but it can be brought closer simply by sharing one's passion for the culture with other aficionados, said Veney Ting, a self-taught henna artist.
The women said they would like to see this achieved through the current interest in Slumdog Millionaire, which they think could raise awareness in Taiwan of India so that people would want to learn more about that part of the world.
新聞稿三 【Taiwan News】
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=899744&lang=eng_news&cate_img=142.jpg&cate_rss=news_Art_Leisure_TAIWAN
Slumdog Millionaire deepens Taiwanese interest in Indian culture |
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Central News Agency
2009-03-22 09:21 PM |
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(With CNA photo No.86) By Rachel Chan CNA Staff Reporter Although the finer details of Indian culture can leave many Taiwanese at sea, there seems to be an undertow that is drawing people toward the South Asian country.
This is evident not only from the full-house screenings of the award-winning hit movie Slumdog Millionaire, but also from the packed Bollywood dance classes, yoga classes, and the growing market for Indian clothes and accessories.
Slumdog Millionaire, which swept this year's Oscars with eight awards and won the hearts of people everywhere with its rags-to-riches story, turned the eyes of the world on social issues in India. It has also fueled a craze in many countries for Indian music, dance and other aspects of culture.
The question of whether the movie presents an accurate portrait of India or is just another Bollywood-style melodrama has been discussed at length in the international media and elsewhere.
But for the people in Taiwan who already felt some degree of affinity for India, the movie serves as point of reference and a touchstone for the culture.
In Taipei, an Indian accessory store called Rana Legend in the Ximen pedestrian area is a popular gathering point for Indian culture enthusiasts.
On the day the Central News Agency reporter visited the store, a dozen women dressed in saris and wearing exotic bangles, earrings, necklaces and bindis were preparing to hit the streets. Their mission was wear their Indian outfits to the movie theater where they were going to see a Bollywood movie Taare Zameen Par (Stars on Earth).
The group, which included a public servant, a student, a school nurse and a housewife, said that what they love is the profoundity and richness of the Indian culture.
Candy Sun, who teaches Bollywood dance to more than 500 students at community schools and sports centers, said that she can sense a growing interest in Indian culture, as more and more women, and even some men, are taking her dance classes.
Sun said that destiny took her to India five years ago to learn Indian dance and she fell in love with the country for no discernible reason.
"I can feel it in my blood, " said Sun, who at first was a belly dance instructor." I learned Hindi really fast and I can identify with everything in India." Sun said her strong feelings for India were later explained to her by an Indian guru whom she met during a pilgrimage to an upstream area of the Ganges River.
According to Sun, the guru told her that in one of her previous lives she was Indian.
And "you knew that yourself," she said she was told.
Another of the women in the group, Lu Li-huei, said that she has visited the subcontinent five times and when she went to India, she found the country even more fun and the culture even more diverse than she had imagined.
"To gain a good understanding of India, you have to make personal contact with it, " said Lu, a civil servant at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications' Civil Aeronautics Administration who practices yoga and has learned Indian dance.
She, however, admitted that she found it hard to identify with some aspects of the culture, such as the deep-rooted caste system.
"As an outsider visiting the country, I can only look at the culture from the perspective of an observer," she said.
The movie Slumdog Millionaire epitomizes the squalid poverty in the Indian slums, Lu said. "However, it is a movie with a conveniently fluid notion of reality and it does not reproduce how shocked and upset I was when I personally saw children competing with dogs to look for food in a filthy and stinking dump," she added.
For school nurse Helen Chen, her fascination with India started two years ago when she began learning belly dance and Indian dance.
She said she was particulary taken with the beauty of the Indian sari.
"How amazing it is that a five-meter length of exquisitely embroidered cloth can perfectly complement the curves of a woman's body, " said Chen, who was dressed in a carefully draped beige sari with delicate pink beadwork.
"Moreover, it is extraordinary that the same sari can look completely different on different women," she added.
The sari also holds an attraction for Galina Chang, a freshman who is majoring in Russian at National Chengchi University, although her interest is more that of a collector.
But from it was from her hobby of collecting of traditional garments from countries around the world that her passion for the Indian culture grew.
Chang, who owns 20 saris, said when she wears them the feeling is more degage, compared to the punctilious feeling she experiences when wearing Japanese kimonos.
India might be some 4,400 kilometers away from Taiwan, but it can be brought closer simply by sharing one's passion for the culture with other aficionados, said Veney Ting, a self-taught henna artist.
The women said they would like to see this achieved through the current interest in Slumdog Millionaire, which they think could raise awarness in Taiwan of India so that people would want to learn more about that part of the world.
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回答給詢問的同學~，「細低，童鞋，老師會美美的出席啦
」
