144th Hakka Toastmasters Meeting (12/29/2012)

12/29/2012 at San Gabriel Hilton Hotel - Trinity Restaurant, our 144th Hakka Toastmasters' monthly meeting has a great turn out, 33 friends gathered for a wonderful event before the year of 2012 is going by.  Our term speaker Wen Sung has prepared a wonderful presentation.  Chang-Ting is such a great MC as usual.
Our volunteers have delivered again.  Of course, only the volunteers know there is an accident about Projector.  (It ends up, our good friend also the manager of Hilton, Juli Costanzo helps us to get a good projector in time.  Ivan's projector might need a new light bulb. Thanks Richard Chen did make a run to Taiwan Center to borrow one, which we has it as back up and luckily did not use it...I love our volunteers...they have done so many things behind the scenes, always.)   Josephine has made a great arrangement for the venue, also works with the crew in the restaurant to make sure our friends to enjoy the best service during our lunch buffet.
From the photos...we know this is a happy gathering.  We will hope to keep this monthly meeting moving on.  Brother Shih-Hung will retire and move back to Taiwan in January, so many great photography service he has volunteered for our events...we surely will miss him.  All the best to his moving back to our homeland...to take care his mom and stay with Mrs. Lo...We know many of their "kids" in the camp are waiting for him....We hope he will join us whenever he visit L.A.
There are so many Hakka friends in the Los Angeles, we just hope this monthly meeting at least will be a good practice for using our mother tongue to meet and share our life experience...also to get our teamwork leadership training for the community service.  Maybe...one day this Hakka Toastmasters Meeting could be everywhere in Taiwan and all over the World, that we Hakka Taiwanese can plug along wherever we are.  Maybe that is a New Year 2013 Resolution for our Hakka Toastmasters Meeting.
At the end, we also think Wen's presentation - 漫談台灣介古典建築 should be considered to bring back...maybe as one of the program for our 2013 Taiwanese American Heritage Week Celebration.

Enjoy the slideshow....
 

143rd Hakka Toastmasters Meeting (11/24/2012)

This weekend is within Thanksgiving Holiday break... many friends are having their own family gatherings, yet how glad that we still have a good turn-out, this proves we are indeed a big family and most of our friends treasure the monthly gathering and to practice our mother tongue.
This month, we have the following jobs assignment:
Thomas is the MC, Wen is our Evaluator, Chan-Ting is Timer... and our speaker is
Ivan Huang, with his topic: 睽違台灣12年的感觸
Ivan has well prepared for this one, and he wisely to invite his "classmates" who were in Taiwan for the same project to come to this meeting.  Glad to see Rong-Ju and Wen-Jen couple, also Michael Fan to join us and share with us their comments about the HAC's "Hakka Teachers Training Camp".
We also have every attendant to use Hakka to share what his/her recent status or new findings. Indeed very warm and touchy.
This month, we practice and sing along Hakka version  
福爾摩莎頌  (鄭瑞堂 ／鄭智仁 詞曲    三合水    客家語詞)

FORMOSA 恩介望  恩介愛    

就像阿母    喊捱介名 

搖啊搖 啊搖 惜啊惜

永遠攬著    美好希望

FORMOSA 恩介望  恩介愛     

有恩祖先    流過介汗  

搖啊搖 啊搖 惜啊惜

永遠攬著    美好希望

FORMOSA 恩介望  恩介愛    

冇怨冇悔   來期待

搖啊搖 啊搖 惜啊惜

永遠攬著    恩希望

142nd Hakka Toastmasters Meeting (10/27/2012)

October 2012 Hakka Toastmasters Meeting featuring the term speaker -
黄 温 文 子   女士
with the Topic:

山歌唱出喜怒哀樂

家庭手工柿餅

客家熝湯穧

Here are 7 video clips that Brother Shih-Hung Lo helps to record for our review:
Video One   Video Two   Video 3    Video 4
Video 5     Video 6   Video 7

141th Hakka Toastmasters Meeting (9/23/2012 @Taiwan Center)

朱真一醫師, 新竹新埔人，從聖路易來洛杉磯参加北美台灣人醫師公會年會, 並且是大會邀請的專題講師. 我們事先確定他的行程, 特意邀約與我們在洛杉磯地區的鄉親做一塲客語的健康講座.  朱醫師的講題  "糖尿病、蠶豆症lau地中海貧血-  客家台灣人介健康大問題 "   很適合鄉親們多加留意. 因此我們決定請 南加州台灣客家會 來主辦這次活動.  感謝曾德鏡會長與該會諸位理事協助連繫. 一塲鄉親健康講座在朱醫師精彩豐富的內容, 加上從客家人的節儉基因切入, 把歷史文化結合保健預防的解說, 眾人受益匪淺.  朱醫師本身習慣海陸腔,當天全塲用四邑腔 亳無困難. 他的PPS是用漢英 華語準備, 讓不會客家話的鄉親, 也能無礙學習.  這真是一個客家語言文化推廣的最好示範.  

當天正式開塲前, 我們全体鄉親有練唱 朱醫師2008年填詞的  
新桃花開
桃花開來　菊花那裡黃　客家台灣(人)　追求兩三項
 一想(來)愛有　自由撈民主　 二想(來)愛有　幸福撈平安
台(阿)灣　三想 來做主人　翁(啊) 唉喲

心肝阿哥　你(啊)樣按知　客家台灣(人)　分明大是非
自由民主 法治做基礎　 無(mo)分个黨派 大家行正路
台(阿)灣　 國家正常 正會有 尊 嚴(啊) 唉喲

140th Hakka Toastmasters Meeting (8/25/2012)

On 8/25 (Saturday) afternoon, we have 15 Hakka friends attended our 140th meeting at Baldwin Park.  This month our term speaker is Mr. Mu-Lien Lai. (賴木連) from 竹東.  His topic supposed to be "回首移民趣事".  Mr. Lai's Hakka is fluently for sure...but maybe he did prepare too much for this presentation... By the time is up, he still stayed at the time that he just returned from his army service...  (Our audience are very nice to him and we all agree he is having the topic changed to "回首移民前趣事") ...Lisa Wu has served her Evaluation well and James Leu helps control Time.

During our sharing, we got to meet with our new friends, Mr. Joe Jou and his sister Irene, who happens to visit Joe from Taiwan...We hope Irene can lead a similar gathering in Taiwan, too.

In the Tai3Route Forum,  James Leu did his google search to find out exactly Tai 3 Route in the Map...and actually it is a lot longer than we aware.  Nowadays, when we have Tai3Route in mind, we always thought only... from FengYuan, Taichung to Chunli, Taoyuan. (mainly in the section of Tao-Chu-Miao).  Wen Sung also suggested to have Google Earth to check...plus use showmystreet.com to get to visualize the current Tai3Route's actual scenery.  Wen also suggests that we can have more details study on the reference about
Siverado Trail in Northern California
Leuis & Clark's Historic Trail  in Oregon
Route 66 in Southern California
We do suggest our good friends, Chan-Ting & Hui-Yuan, who retired from LA Unified School District 3 years ago...might help check into these historic routes and gather good reference information for our Tai3Route to tailor its uniqueness.

This month, we practice a very enlightening Hakka song together...

阿爸介紙鷂      鄭智仁     詞曲     
                                  許正龍客家語詞       黃令先     編曲

                                                                       

捱阿爸  教捱來  做紙鷂   伊講   汝詌知 
俺人生  盡像紙鷂  恁樣飛

飛呀飛   風越大越高    有時會飛入濛霧中

飛呀飛   風越大越高    有時會畀風來作弄

*

捱阿爸  帶捱去  放紙鷂   伊講   有一日 
汝也會  盡像紙鷂  恁樣飛

飛呀飛   越飛越高   看到介東西越不清

飛呀飛   越飛越高   不好毋記得線介源頭  介雙手

(repeat *)

**

紙鷂呀飛    紙鷂呀飛   飛過  捱細時   一直有介夢  

紙鷂呀飛    紙鷂呀飛   飛過  捱懵懂介夢  

Let us not to forget where we're from...
Let us carry on the heritage and have our mother tongue passed on.

139th Hakka Toastmasters Meeting (7/29/2012)

Our 139th Meeting was successfully taken place on 7/29/2012 (Sunday) afternoon.  We apologize for the inconvenience to some of our friends who are so used to Saturday gathering.  (*Brother Peng Yuan-Hsiang actually scheduled to be here on 7/28 and found out the day is wrong...yet he got his Sunday commitment already...) We also have to do the assignments changes at the last minute...Josephine Pan replace Brother Peng to be our Timer, and Thomas Shu must replace Ivan Huang as MC.  In the bright side, we got a few new friends to join us this month.

One very interesting remark for this month...
it is indeed very Hakka 3 Line Poem in the spirit of this meeting.  Before the meeting, we received an email sent by brother CS Lou from Kuanshi, Hsinchu, with his message in Hakka Haiku to support our meeting. And the term speaker, brother James Leu has written his Hakka Haiku for his topic: 雜貨營生甘苦談 each poem means a special story...  This is really something special and a great way to tell stories.  You can review total 24 Hakka poems that cover his presentation:

Followed by the evaluation review by Chan-Ting Lin..., we invited all attendants to recite one
Hakka song:  
白鶴       客家民歌     陳永淘詞曲

一條大路直直大大   〈一條大馬路直直大大的在眼前延伸〉
一枝腳頭生鹵二捱   〈一把鋤頭滿覆重銹在屋角落放著〉          
一間泥屋連山愛賣   〈有一間泥屋要連著山一起賣掉〉
一坵良田鋪著水泥   〈有一塊良田已被鋪上了水泥〉
嗯………                    〈一群白鶴在哭泣…〉 
一條大路直直大大   〈一條大馬路直直大大的在眼前延伸〉
一間工廠生意不壞   〈一間工廠生意不錯的運作著〉   
一頭大樹連根出賣   〈有一棵大樹要連著根一起出賣〉
一潭污水冇魚 冇 蟈 〈有一潭污水裏面沒有魚也沒有蛙〉
嗯………                    〈一群白鶴在哭泣…〉
一條大路直直大大   〈一條大馬路直直大大的在眼前延伸〉
一種遊戲捱毋瞭解   〈有一種遊戲是我無法明瞭的〉   
一家子女毋知去哪   〈一整家子女散布各方不知到哪去了〉
一群白鶴尋無所在   〈一群白鶴找不到地方棲息〉
嗯………                   〈一群白鶴在哭泣…〉

With this song, we started our first forum discussion on  
台３線願景論壇...
It turned out very hot all of a sudden, with Wen Sung who gave his first opinion....All the friends do come up so many great suggestions, and we try to summarize all here:
1.) 應有一份明確Google Map to indicate the exact Tai3 Route.  So we all know exactly...
2.) Invite seniors to share their stories...but we need to have a volunteer team of field study to trace the story.  It could be a 全民運動. 
3.) 鼓勵大家轉貼家中收存老相簿的相片  (set up a site for posting the old photos)
4.) No need to emphasize "Hakka" - it should not be for the Hakka... Make it as simple as possible.
5.) Not to be trapped as 選舉花招, or 空洞的政見., should be a consensus shared by the people. No matter who執政 should carry along. 
6.) 整理既有的相関台３線研究与調查，集中方便查閱。
7.) 產業面，對現有相関業者的經營意願訪查、與未來展望？現實狀况掌握明確，不要舊問題不能解決，又帶新困擾給現有業者。
8.) 先找到"火車頭"動力方案, 重點要明確 有特色 能吸引投資經營 而不是綁樁、消耗預算

We ended our first "Tai 3 Route" forum discussion with sharing an article:   伯公下

Attached a few links to Hakka 3 line Poem posts with reference to this discussion...
 台三線願景
 浪漫台３線（2）
 浪漫台３線(3)
we look forward to reading more Hakka poems very soon...

Los Angeles Hakka Toastmasters Meeting group also sincerely encourage that there will be many more friends to lead their local communities to gather and share their insights about "Tai 3 Route" project.   Share your comments right below this post.

2012 L.A. River CleanUp

惜大地阿母
清河壩全家參與
作環保社區合力

Continuously, our Hakka Toastmasters Meeting group has dedicated our monthly meeting for this outdoor community activity.  This is our 136th monthly meeting and we do it at Lower Compton Creek again on 4/28/2012.  In the past, we need to have big pulling from our Taiwanese American community to get this event going.  After a few years' persistence...we know that fermentation is on... Besides our Hakka Taiwanese, there are so many volunteers already committed to this meaningful event, they will quietly chip in, and be there on time.  We salute to these friends for their being so supportive:  Dr. KK Hsu and Dr. Hsieh from North Ridge, each has car-full volunteers... Friends from 西北區同鄉會 are such a wonderful group. 
Last year, we got over-crowded in this site, which might scare away many long time partners, such as Kaiser Permanente group and also Starbucks...  Yet, we have seen so many local Compton residents stepped forward...plus a group of teems that organized by Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) Junior Rangers...  This is something we have been waiting to happen --- the local community's involvement.  Maybe it is just a few hours' trash picking...yet it will change our minds and understanding what kind of practice should be done in our daily life to keep this earth clean.
I hope next year, we will have more people come forward....


4.27.12 James Leu  
環保公益事 
洛城清河年年有 
客人帶頭功德修

135th Hakka Toastmasters Meeting (3/31/2012)

3/31/2012, our 135th meeting at Baldwain Park.
Ivan Huang is the MC., Yuan-Hsiang Peng is evaluator., Thomas Shu controls time.
Lisa Wu has prepared well for her presentation...sharing own experience always easy to touch others' hearts. This topic: Taking care of senior family members  is a very practical one.  Everyone has been dealing with different situations, and the discussion and sharing session is also highly responsive.
I received email from 溫英樹老師 to echo this topic, he asked me to have his comments during the sharing session, so I did.

"為免打擾Lisa演講起見,煩請將拙見留到座談會尾聲- "心得分享"時,再代為報告為荷.相信Lisa演講的內容更充實.
   我的經驗談(為節省時間,以條列式表達)如下:
1.多陪老人家講話或散步
2.浴室內或走道要開燈(20-30燭光的即可),地板鋪設 "止滑板"為佳
3.設備坐式馬桶,讓男性老者也以坐姿如廁
4.老者出門時,建議他們著淺色衣服
5.老者上下車或爬小坡時要攙扶
6.老者胃口欠佳時多順其意願
7.和顏悅色對待老人家
以上諸點,大都為老人家生活起居設想(未盡事宜請大家補充),為人子女者應盡孝順之責."

============
During the sharing session, there is an topic - 認識老人癡呆...  Hui-Yuan did mention one book "Still Alice" that she thought will be useful to help us understand this disease.  We all want to know more about it... Here is the information from Hui-Yuan.
"The author of the 'Still Alice' is Lisa Genova; 中文本譯名為 '我想念我自己', 由穆卓芸翻譯,遠流出版事業股份有限公司發行,譯本封面上寫道：我想不起自己的家該怎麼回去，連在家裡都會迷路。我想不起眼前叫自己'媽'的女孩是誰，丈夫的面貌也逐漸模糊。我的昨天消失了，明天還是未知數，我該為了什麼而活？記憶不斷消退，僅存的一點點'自己'也不斷隨風而逝。我想念曾經精彩的生命與摯愛的家人。我想念，我自己。
正如一書評家所言，這本書讓我們一窺阿玆海默症病患者的人生故事，不管是心智健全、失智症患者或家屬，都能在書中找到共鳴、印證、新觀念，体會到失智症患者對一個友善社會的渴望與需求。"
希望透過本書，能讓朋友們對失智症患者的行為有些許的認識與包容。
=========
Our next month meeting will be an outdoor activity - Los Angeles River Clean-Up on 4/28/2012.