I am by no means a mystery cache expert but I enjoy them very much. This Puzzle Gym series is intended as way for new cachers to build up their puzzle stamina and for the old timers to get in a bit of training to stop them becoming rusty. Please ask for help if you’re stuck, I want these to be solvable. Enjoy!

I have always been enchanted by the playful potential of words. When I was younger that took the form of bad jokes, (Q: Why was six afraid of seven? A: Because seven ate nine), and singing Mairzy Doats at music school, as I’ve grown older and acquired more knowledge this has expanded to include puns and places where my native language overlaps with other languages I’ve encountered, (I can’t be the only English speaker to think of the white condiment every time I say 沒有). Luckily for me, it seems that geocachers also enjoy a whole lot of word play.

Quite often you’ll find that a puzzle cache contains a clue to the solution or final GZ in the title, description or hint of the cache, from example a cache hidden in a tree might have the clue “stumped?”, or one hidden in the vicinity of a clock might be titled “Time to find a puzzle cache”. But the potential for giving clues in text is as infinite as language itself. 

Some of the easier to solve puzzles include those where the location or clues are given using other languages. Sometimes it’s possible to decode those by running stuff through google translate but at other times the language might be fictional or dead (think Elvish, Dothraki, Klingon, Old Norse or Egyptian Hieroglyphs). There are also a whole load of languages which are commonly used by geocachers which aren’t technically spoken or written - these include braille, semaphore, morse code, nautical flags and sign language - to solve these it’s just a case of working out which language you’re dealing with and then decoding the message. 

If you don’t need to translate or decode something you might find that the information is concealed in the text of the geocache listing. Check for anything which could be read as numbers and remember that since we’re living in a place where many geocachers are familiar with at least two languages it is common to find puzzle caches which need you to use your knowledge of both languages.

We are spoilt for local linguistic caches as it seems are several caches who enjoy playing with words. For example you could uncover Steve4nlaguage’s The Written Word (GC6WH05), Jefferyh’s Language (GC609N7), luisloco514’s A Challenge of Languages (GC5GH7H) or Haima’s Smoke gets in your eye (GC39N72).

PUZZLE GYM SERIES

WRITTEN RIDDLES

WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

There must be only one answer to that question! Of course not!

Would I lie to you is a British panel-show comedy. Panellists compete to sneak the most lies past their opponents. I have taken a similar approach with this cache. Identifying the lies in the (mostly) factual history of Taipei National University of the Arts will lead you to the cache.

In 1970, the Executive Yuan decided to set up a higher education institution which would be dedicated to nurturing talents for fine arts, performing arts and academic research. With these lofty goals in mind, the school was established with very high standards and the government at the time invested large amounts of resources in the project. Further to this, they assembled a team of elite artists and thinkers in order to provide new momentum for the development of the nation's arts. On October 28, 1980 a committee was formed with the goal of creating a new vision for arts education in Taiwan, and on July 1, 1982 the National Institute of the Arts was born.

The school was founded with two departments: Fine Arts and Theatre Arts. Since the school hadn’t yet got property of its own, classes were taught in rooms borrowed from the Taipei International Youth Center. In 1983, the school added the Departments of Dance and Music and as student numbers grew, in April 1984, classes were moved to facilities borrowed from the National Overseas Chinese Student University Preparatory School at Luchou, Taipei County. In September 1990, construction work on the Kuandu campus was completed. In late July 1991, the school was formally relocated to Kuandu. The school's entire staff and students took part in a parade to the new campus, symbolically marking a brand new stage of the school's development.        

In 1992, the Center for Art and Technology was set up to become a champion of cross-disciplinary integration between art and technology and a little later in 1992, the school founded the Performance Arts Center, becoming the only higher education institute in Taiwan to own a professional concert hall, dance theatre and experimental theatre. It was renamed as the Performing Art Center in 1994. (Does dropping the ’s’ constitute a name change, or is this one of those lost in translation things, I wonder?)

On August 1, 2002 the school was officially renamed as Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) with five branches of study: Music, Fine Arts, Theatre Arts, Dance, and Culture Resources.

In addition, in order to enhance its academic performance and expand its international presence, TNUA turned its research and development center into the Office of Research and Development and created the International Exchange Center on August 8, 2004. And to promote arts education with the local community, the Center for Continuing Education and the Creative Resource Center for Traditional Arts were merged to form the Center for Arts Resources and Continuing Educational Outreach in 2008. In the same year, the Arts and Activity Complex was unveiled, with its movie theatre formally opened in October.

To further shape TNUA into a comprehensive arts university, the School of Film and New Media was founded in 2009. In 2010, the Department of Filmmaking and the Department of New Media Art were introduced as new branches on this creative tree of learning. It was around this time that the school moved in a herd of 38 cattle onto the campus to manage the grass in the site’s meadow.

Now TNUA has six schools covering major areas in arts and culture: Music, Fine Arts, Theatre Arts, Dance, Film and New Media, and Culture Resources. Its comprehensiveness and range of facilities－including a Concert Hall, Dance Theatre 

Experimental Theatre, Movie Theatre and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts －are rare among the world’s universities. It is an ideal training ground for arts talents through a pedagogy that places equal emphases on the academic and practical sides.

Beware of athletic muggles.