Project category

4.Local Specialties

Project Title

Connecting people - A Special Courier Service in Beitou, Taipei

Research Subject

Motorcycle Courier Service in Beitou, Taipei

Research Method :

Interviews~ The motorcycle messengers were interviewed and recorded.Interview focus was put on the founding time of the motorcycle courier team, number of riders, main purposes of this establishment, and principles of recruiting, service domain, service hours, and service area. The recorded audio clips were transcribed verbatim for later categorization and analysis.

Questionnaire~ The research team constructed a questionnaire to collect opinions from the local residents. The researchers used a random sampling method to obtain the samples. This questionnaire aimed to collect the data on the local residents’ perspectives towards the motorcycle courier service.

Field notes~ To understand the geographic features of Beitou area, the teachers and the students in this project conducted several field investigation trips and took notes. It is important to document the geographic features of Beitou since it is one of the key reasons for making the motorcycle couriers existing.

Reflective journals~ Students were divided into groups to experience the motorcycle courier rides. They wrote down how they felt and what their opinions were when riding the motorcycles. Students also discussed their findings among groups. Through personal experiencing the riding and experimenting the feasibility of the courier service, students could examine the motorcycle courier service from the local

Residents’ point of view and be convinced by the data collected.

Document review~ The research team also collected data by viewing the preserved documents related to the motorcycle courier service and interviewed the local community groups for undocumented anecdotal records.They categorized and analyzed the data and finally a report was compiled.Through systematically collecting and analyzing the data from multiple sources, the process of making this project possible enhanced students’ ability of correspondence, critical thinking, and logical thinking.

More specifically, a research involving community material encouraged and inspired the students to explore the unknown area and deepened their love for the community. This is definitely an unexpected gain in studying this “Motorcycle Courier Service in Beitou” theme during the process of collecting data and interacting with students.

Description of "Our Community"

Geographically, Taipei City is a basin surrounded by mountains. Beitou area in particular, is located at the foot of the DaTun volcanic belt in northern Taipei. Covered with lots of bumpy roads, meandering trails and wide-spreading hot spring network, Beitou has become an active commercial area in Taipei soon after the Japanese colonial rule. To cope with such prosperity, waitresses, freelance band musicians, and massagers gathered here to provide service to the large amount of visitors. Thus, the need for a more flexible, easier to load, and lower-priced method of transportation urged the motorcycle couriers to be in service.

After terminating the sex industry in Beitou, motorcycle courier service has not only added its function of a neighborhood watch but also switched the potential passengers from the above mentioned to the working class, housewives, meal providers and shoppers. Moreover, it is also an indispensable transportation method for the residents in the deep Datun Mountains. Distinguishing from the various modernized mass transportation, such as MRT system and bus networks, the motorcycle courier service available in Beitou can be taken as a community transportation network that contains the most local elements.

The history of the local motorcycle courier service has been there for more than half a century. Not only is it unique but also sole to the transportation nowadays. Most of all, it is deeply emerged into the Beitou residents’ everyday lives.

Summary of Our Project

The current school, Taipei Municipal Linong Elementary School, has been in the Beitou neighborhood for more than thirty years. All students are raised and grow up here. The purpose of this project aims to let the local students obtain more knowledge about the special lifestyle of Beitou residents, so as to arise their awareness of the local culture.

The project, Connecting People – A Special Motorcycle Courier Service in Beitou, stemmed from the Taipei City Government’s recent recommendation for Beitou as one of the major scenery spots in Taipei. As a matter of fact, Beitou has long been renowned for its availabilities of hot spring resorts, museums, green library, Geothermal Valley (also known as Hell Valley), and Xinbeitou Park (or New Beitou Park). However, the unique way of transportation which is highly related to Beitou residents’ everyday lives has seldom been mentioned. Therefore, a local school like us takes this opportunity to investigate this rare-touched topic. By probing into different issues of this special courier service, students get to know the humane aspect and life-connected domain of this profession.

Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home: 20%∼50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom: none

C. Connection speed used in the classroom: dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet: more than 6

Problems We Had Overcome

Activity of Experience~ The measuring instrument was designed by us and simple. Some topography and scenes could not be measured. We have to find some topography with steepest slopes to get the readings, which may be accurate enough.

Interview~ We have visited a dozen of people, and the interviews are our key activity. In the activity, though we have already planned the outline well before interview, the visitor gave an irrelevant answer. When we want to summarize by writing, we find that there is no content that can be noted down. The interviewees this time mostly use Taiwanese as the mother tongue.  To reach full understanding, we will ask their teachers or parents again.

Collect the materials~ When we looked for the materials in old newspaper and through the Internet n, all of us felt so difficult and time-consuming,, but  not certain to find usable materials. But some classmates could utilize the key word, finding a lot of materials quickly, and let everybody share the method quickly to search for relevant information again and find out the materials we needed.

The transcription of interview~ Interview takes the most time and portion in this activity. But we couldn’t require enough useful information through the transcription of interview, though which has took us a lot of time.  Later on, we have to do phone interview again afterwards to fill the materials incompletely.

Questionnaire investigation~ We’ve issued 230 copies of questionnaires and returned with only 180 copies which were usable. There are too many open-ended questions in the questionnaire and caused the statistical difficulty, we spent more time to arrange in to order for counting. But everybody feel a sense of fulfillment very much after the counting is done.

Webpage making~ We’ve not used the software of webpage making for a long time and nearly forgot all. So everybody is teased by the teacher that the skill is returned to a teacher again. After studying again, we feel fun and refreshed. Though cartoon making is interesting, it also took most time. Finally, we see the efforts that we make represented into the webpage, and it make us feel a sense of fulfillment very much.

Our Project Sound Bite

This project could make more people around the world to meet the traditional Taipei and witness our great efforts. It would be our big honor to present such a special culture in Beitou to the world.