Last Spring, I brought my students to a bookstore near Shida for two visits. The bookstore is called Moose, 白鹿洞, and it offers book and DVD rentals in comics, romance, martial arts novels, nonfiction, anime, blockbuster movies, and art films.
I chose to have a field trip to Moose because the space is like a living archive of global and Asian pop culture—which matches the theme of the course (Popular Culture and Inter-Asia Dialogues). The store also lived through an intriguing history about the business of media circulation in Taiwan. It has transformed from a chain store to a full-on independent operation. Besides, the place is nearby. It’s just a few blocks away from the Shida campus.
Our first visit was a simple “come check it out” trip. The second time, we got creative in there. I had graduate students set up recording stations and invited the students to create some audio material for the Shida Stories series.
In this episode, you’ll hear what some of my Gen-Z students say about Moose as a place. Though books are constantly challenged by other media and digital distractions, they too bring new experiences. Books are not old-fashioned. They could be a new fashion. And they still beat boredom.
🦔 Credit:
Producer/editor/music/mixing: Eva Tsai 蔡如音
Story collaborators: Yang Hao-yu 楊皓宇、Wang Ying-zhu 王映筑、Regina Rusman 陳瑞香, and Eugenia Nicole Sudjati 鄭優琴
Recording assistants: Jake Huang黃貫之, Eno Liao廖彥琳, Frank Chen陳奕銓, Paul Lin林欣賢, Jean Wang王璟, and Emma Yen顏郁恩
Cover design: Jihan Liao 廖紀涵
Special thanks to Hsieh Yung-Hua 解永華 for accommodating and collaborating in the “Recorded in Moose” project.
🦔 Shida Stories is an ongoing podcast series about the lives, memories, and imaginations of the diverse people who lived, worked, and played in Shida area.
