Home Page
BackgroundsBackgrounds

The concept of the home page design derives from a children’s ballad familiar to the Taiwanese people—“Chhau-Me Long Koe-Kang” (〈草蜢弄雞公〉; or “The Grasshopper Playing with the Rooster.”) The image of yam on the top left of the home page symbolizes the perpetual vitality of the island of Taiwan, while also standing for the Taiwanese peoples’ perseverance, which is as strong and tough as the yam.

The database of Chinese character fonts The database of Chinese character fonts

The database of Chinese character fonts is provided by the Laboratory for Classical Literature Data Processing, Academia Sinica. The link is below the home page.
To access this, click The database of Chinese character fontsDOWNLOAD and execute INSTALL. Your personal computer will reveal all of the words on the home page which were processed by the Not-Found Word Program.

About the Museum of Taiwan Folk LiteratureAbout the Museum of Taiwan Folk Literature

The establishment of the Web site of the Museum of Taiwan Folk Literature is intended to digitalize the content of folk tales, ballads, and adages collected by scholars, providing for literature conservation, promotion, study, and teaching. The goal of the project is to enable the Taiwanese people to understand the wisdom of their ancestors via the contents of the Web site and to help all the world become better acquainted with the folk customs, culture, and languages of the island of Taiwan. Drag the mouse to this section, and two pop up sections will appear, as follows.

1. The Purpose of the Establishment of the Museum” Click on the link, and a page will appear concerning the text.
2. “What Is Folk Literature?” Drag the mouse to this section and five pop up menus will appear: “Foreword”, “How to Understand Folk Literature?”, “The Importance of Folk Literature”, “The Scope of Folk Literature”, and “Conclusion.” Users can select the passage that they are interested in reading.
Information of Literary GeographyInformation of Literary Geography
1. In order to make users understand exactly where folk ballads are collected, we make use of the hi-tech GIS (Geographic Information System) to set up Literary Geographic Information System, which enables users to visit the places where these folk ballads are circulating and get a closer look at the authentic Taiwan via folk ballads, adages, and tales.
2. Select the spot you intend to visit by clicking the mouse. You can browse the folklore related to that locality. If you want to consult the map in detail, click the map in detail. (For the present there are only maps of Taoyuan County and Taichung County and the detailed map of Shihkang Township available.)
Appreciation of Literary Works Appreciation of Literary Works

The content of this section comes from the collected works of folk literature from Taichung and Taoyuan counties, collected and edited by Professor Wan-Chuan Hu and his team. In the section on Appreciation of Literary Works, users can easily browse and search for the information they need using the Search and Index. If users encounter incomprehensible vocabulary in Southern Min dialect or Hakka dialect, there is a Click and Show Function in the system to reveal the pronunciation and explications of the vocabulary by reducing reading obstacles and providing an opportunity to learn the vocabulary of both dialects for users.
There are two search strategies in this system. There is also a Checklist of Not-Found and Coined Words:

1.Full-Text Search Section:
  There are nine options in the menu: Region, Language, Style, Narrator, Recorder, Recording Time, Recording Place, Title, and Content. Users can select one or more columns to key-in the search strategy; a Boolean Search Function is available, too. More strategies are included, and the narrower the search range is, the faster is the speed of search.
2.Full-Text Index Section:
  (1)By the Locality of Area:
  There are two tiers in the pull-down menu: the county and city levels and their subordinate townships. At the present there is only data on folk literature from Taichung County and Taoyuan County. We will continue working on the project to include other areas.
(2)By the Genre of Folklore:
  The pull-down menu provides classification search by the genre of folk literature. There are fourteen genres: Children’s Ballad, Ballad, Mythology, Joke, Adage, Legend, Tag Line, Dialogue, Reversed Word Reversed Ballad, Riddle, Tongue Twister, Folk Tale, and Other.
(3)By the languages:
  There are four kinds of languages for option in the pull-down menu: Ho Lo dialect, Hakka dialect, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese.
3.A Checklist of Not-Found and Coined Word:
  The Chinese characters which cannot be revealed in Unicode come from Chinese Glyph Structure Database provided by the Laboratory for Classic Literature Data Processing, Academia Sinica. There is a Contrastive Table of Not-Found Images and Image Codes. When the words in the search strategy fall in the category of the Not-Found words in Unicode, type the contrastive codes in the search system to search for the target content.
Lexicon with Vocabulary and SemanticsLexicon with Vocabulary and Semantics

For ethnic groups are unfamiliar with Ho Lo dialect and Hakka dialect, we specially set up a database of Lexicon with Vocabulary and Semantics to explicate the denotation of the vocabulary and to indicate its pronunciation.

There are two kinds of search strategy in the system—Vocabulary Search and Index of Chinese Character Strokes. In addition, there is also a list of Rules for Phonetic Transcription:

1.Vocabulary Search:
  Select all of the vocabulary in the database as the coverage data, or limit the keywords within the coverage data of Hakka dialect or Ho Lo dialect.
2.Index of Chinese Character Strokes:
  These pages are arranged according to the stroke numbers of the first word of the vocabulary. Select the first word of the vocabulary for search and click it with the mouse. The screen will shift to the page beginning with the first word of the vocabulary along with related vocabulary, explications, and pronunciation. Click any word and you can browse further the works that contain the term.
3.Rules for Phonetic Transcription:
  There are two kinds of rules for phonetic transcription—Ho Lo dialect and Hakka dialect. Click the language that you want to browse, the screen will shift to the page indicating a list of Rules of Phonetic Transcription of the language.
Learning SectionLearning Section

There are two units in this section: Phrase and Idiom Learning and Children’s Theater.

1. Phrase and Idiom Learning:
After selecting a term in the Ho Lo dialect or Hakka dialect, you can make sentences using the vocabulary. Fill in your name and click Postpost, the sentence that you have made will post to the home page of this unit. Reply Function is available in the system, too. Users or other people can aim at the same vocabulary to make sentences repeatedly. Also, teachers can make use of the function to post on the same page sentences that students have made after he/she corrects them. If you want to browse the content of other sentence making exercises, click A Glimpse at the Content of Sentence-Making Practice.
2. Children’s Theater:

There are children’s plays adapted from literary works to increase interest in learning. Written in Ho Lo dialect, Hakka dialect, and Mandarin Chinese, these interesting plays introduce users to have a view of the educational connotations of folk tales, and help the children understand the significance of traditional heritages embedded in the stories. Click the play that you want to browse, the screen will switch to the play. Whenever there is a term that you do not know, drag the mouse to that term, and it will automatically reveal the explications and pronunciation of the term as in the diagram below.
ClicClick and Show Function
Research Section Upload Section
You can upload text or phonetic data about Taiwan folk literature on this section.
Research SectionResearch Section

This section conserves the folk voice file of some terms of the Ho Lo dialect and Hakka dialect which still have no written form. The database is only for the use of research and pedagogy. Those who want to use the database, please apply for written permission. Our team will provide the user with an account and password. There are three search options in this section: Region, Language, and Style.

Sitemap The complete Web Site Structural Diagram helps users understand the contents of the Web site and the structure of knowledge in the Web site.
Copyrights Announcement of Copyrights indicates the commission and execution organizations of the project and the completion date of the project, states the rules of Web site links and the copyright holders and regulations of legitimate use of all of the contents in the Web site, and acknowledges all of the copyright holders who provide information for the Web site.
Feedback This page gives users a channel to share their experience or to send suggestions and questions to the Web site.
1、 Users fill in Name, E-mail, Subject, and Content, then press Send button to send out the message.
2、 If you want to view the feedback remarks by others, click feedbackRead the Feedback on the top to enter into the Feedback Section. You can select any items of the feedback remarks to read.
Directions for Web Site Utilization This part illustrates the contents of each section of the Web site and their directions for utilization. To select and click any one of the items of the table of contents in any Direction, users will link to the illustration paragraphs of the subject that they are intending to browse. Select one of the items in the menu on left, you can go to the page directly. Close the page, you will return to the Directions page of the Web site.
About us About us About Museum of Taiwan Folk Literature
    What Is Folk Literature
Literary GIS Literary GIS Literary Geographic Information System
Literary Works Literary Works By the Locality of Area
    By the Genre of Folklore
    By the languages
    Advanced Search
Semantic Dictionary Semantic Dictionary Vocabulary Search
    Index of Chinese Character Strokes
eLearning eLearning Phrase and Idiom Learning
    Children’s Theater
    Teaching Lessons on Folklore Ballads
Research Area Upload Section You can upload text or phonetic data about Taiwan folk literature on this section.
Research Area Research Area The database is only for the use of research and pedagogy. Those who want to use the database, please apply for written permission. Our team will provide the user with an account and password.
Our Team This part introduces the team working on the project, including, the conductor and co-conductor of the project, all of the personnel involved in information processing and analysis and the construction of the Web site, the writing of English edition of the home page, information collection and processing, and home page design and construction.
繁體中文版