Za School: A Free Exhibition Funded by Bankrupt Savings, Opened by the Vice President 11 Years Later

30-Second Overview: Za School (ZA SHARE) is Taiwan's alternative education carnival starting in 2015. Its predecessor, the "Not Quite Obedient Education Festival," was initiated by Su Yang-chih, who had a background in advertising curation, one year after the 318 Student Movement. The first edition was free for two days, attracting about 30,000 visitors, and ended with a loss of 7 million. In 2016, it was renamed Za School and began selling tickets. In 2017, it rented the entire Huashan 1914 Cultural and Creative Industry Park, with 500 educational innovation units exhibiting. In 2019, Vice President Chen Chien-jen, State Councilor Tang Feng, and Deputy Minister of Education Fan Hsü-lü took the stage together for the opening. In October 2024, for its 10th anniversary, it co-hosted the "Education World Expo" with IDEC (International Democratic Education Conference), bringing together over 500 educational leaders from more than 50 countries. In 2025, the brand was reshaped into EDit and moved to the Taoyuan Convention Center. Su Yang-chih self-evaluates: "Commercially, it was a complete failure; spiritually, it was a huge success" ¹. But after 11 years, the first half of that statement is no longer true.

The Not-Quite-Obedient Confucius

Hey, did you know that on May 9, 2015, on the walls of the East 2BCD Hall of the Huashan 1914 Cultural and Creative Industry Park, there was a poster of "Jolin Kong" ².

The main visual transformed Confucius into various forms of internet influencer images, mixed with pop symbols. This was the memorable point of the first edition of the "Not Quite Obedient Education Festival." An advertiser wanted to use the "most hijacked educational totem" as a slogan of rebellion: "Confucius proposed the concept of 'education without discrimination' over two thousand years ago, which perfectly fits our 'not quite obedient' spirit," Su Yang-chih later told INSIDE ¹.

For the two-day exhibition, entry was free, attracting about 30,000 visitors. There was no ticketing mechanism, no business model, and no sponsorship arrangement. "I invited all people in Taiwan with 'crazy' ideas about education to set up stalls for free" ¹. In the Huashan 1914 exhibition records, the scale of the first edition actually only occupied a part of the East 2BCD Hall ³. But the people who squeezed in during those two days included experimental educators, homeschooling families, veterans of educational reform, and parents wanting to fight the system. Su Yang-chih was a new father; his child was just over a year old. He said, "Being a father made me feel that education seems to be related to me. I should stand up and fight for some things" ¹.

The Not Quite Obedient Education Festival was an alternative continuation of the 318 Student Movement one year later. The people on the streets dispersed, the legislative proceedings returned to routine procedures, but some things did not disperse: the distrust of the system, the impulse to reorganize the social contract from the bottom up. Su Yang-chih's version was to package it into an exhibition.

Lost 7 Million, But I Was Satisfied

Su Yang-chih's main profession is advertising curation, not education. He graduated from the Master's Program in Fine Arts at National Taiwan University of Arts, obtained a Master's degree in Image and Video Technology from Pittsburgh State University in the US in 2006, and his first entrepreneurship in 2004 was opening an advertising design company in Shanghai, which ended in failure; he once had suicidal thoughts ¹. He calculated himself that before the Not Quite Obedient Education Festival, he had failed six times, and Za School was his "seventh entrepreneurship" ⁴.

The beginning of the seventh attempt involved investing 1.5 million in profit from his design company: "I took the 1.5 million in profit from the design company I was operating at the time to host the exhibition, and ended up losing 7 million" ⁵. The headline of a 2018 interview by Ubrand was "Bankrupting Savings to Host an Exhibition." Ten years later, he looked back on those two days: "To be able to do this, even losing money was enough" ⁵.

But the phrase "enough" feels strange in the context of Taiwan's education. The standard questions in Taiwan's educational culture are "Did you pass the exam?", "Which school did you go to?", "What were your scores?"—all answers assume "you cannot lose." Su Yang-chih's "losing money was enough" is not defeatism; it is a counter-question: If 30,000 people can walk through a rebellious exhibition in the rain at Huashan, the meaning of that event is not recorded in a balance sheet.

It is this very point that distances the Not Quite Obedient Education Festival from the label of "educational entrepreneurship." The contemporarily established "Teach For Taiwan (TFT)" followed an organizational recruitment route ⁶; Za School followed a carnival route. The former is a talent pipeline for educational services; the latter is an open field for educational imagination. Both received visibility from people in Taiwan after the 318 Student Movement, but their methods were completely different.

The following year—November 26–27, 2016—Su Yang-chih renamed it "Za School" and started selling tickets. Over 63,000 tickets were sold in two days, setting a record for single-day ticket sales exceeding 10,000 at Huashan 1914 ⁷. The scent of "not quite obedient" remained, but the business model caught up.

The Entire Huashan Campus, Is It Education?

From October 20–22, 2017, Za School rented the entire Huashan 1914.

Over 500 educational innovation units exhibited, attracting about 50,000 visitors over three days. The theme was "Asia's Largest Innovative Education Expo" ⁸. Early bird tickets were 300 NTD, online tickets 320 NTD, and on-site tickets 350 NTD. The ticket pricing design was clear: to live up to the status of a cross-national scale expo.

The physical event of renting the entire Huashan actually had a political subtext. Huashan 1914 is a cultural and creative industry park supervised by the Ministry of Culture, with a mainstream positioning of "cultural and creative industries": exhibitions, markets, product selection, lifestyle. Za School used the entire park to host an education carnival, effectively pushing the narrative framework of "cultural and creative" towards "education." A venue originally designed to display mature crafts and brand commodities became a square for discussing "why Taiwan's education is like this" for those three days.

This is a territorial invasion of curation. It does not ask "Will the Ministry of Education provide the venue?" It asks "Can a cultural park hold this issue?"

In 2018, the Za School theme was "DARE TO BE Brave Without Limits," divided into two sub-curated sections: "Za School Exhibition" + "Za School Exhibition: Children and Youth Hall" ⁹. In April of the same year, Su Yang-chih held a public dialogue with Wang Rong-wen, Chairman of Huashan, discussing "How education grows determines how culture grows" ¹⁰. This narrative line embeds education into culture, and culture into industry, pulling the education issue out of institutional discourse and beyond simple marketing rhetoric.

The 2019 theme was "Life Drag Show" ¹¹. Rhetorically, it was a counterattack against the "standard answers of academic advancement": life should not have only one template. The cumulative numbers for that year were also presented: over 1,400 educational new brands in five years, and 200,000 paid visitors.

But what everyone remembered that year was not these numbers.

The Vice President Came, Is Rebellion Still Rebellion?

On the afternoon of November 28, 2019, the East 2A/B/C/D + Middle 4A/B + West 1 of the Huashan 1914 Cultural and Creative Industry Park were all rented. The words "Life Drag Show" were printed on the backdrop. Sitting below were 1,400 educational new brand stall owners, among them were self-learners, experimental educators, veterans of educational reform, and someone who found direction after seven entrepreneurial failures.

Vice President Chen Chien-jen stood at the opening podium, delivering a speech expressing affirmation for educational innovation ¹². On stage were also State Councilor Tang Feng, Deputy Minister of Education Fan Hsü-lü, and Legislator Su Hsiao-hui. The Za School official website placed this image as a milestone: the rebellious site now had witnesses at the national level.

Four years prior, those two days, Su Yang-chih had borrowed 1.5 million in profit from a design company to host a free exhibition and lost 7 million. No one could have imagined the Vice President would come to the opening.

But this is also Za School's most "not quite obedient" aspect. It allows "rebellion" to take the stage, receive awards, be recognized by the system, and enter official rhetoric. This itself is a contradiction. Social movements fear co-optation the most: when the system gives you a stage, applause, and a Vice President's attendance for the opening, how much of the originally "not quite obedient" posture remains?

Su Yang-chih did not avoid this contradiction. In multiple interviews, he repeatedly emphasized "Commercially, it was a complete failure; spiritually, it was a huge success" ¹—by 2019, this sentence had become a rhetoric of self-doubt rather than a description. Za School was no longer a "commercial failure"; it sold 60,000 tickets, moved into the entire Huashan campus, and had the Vice President attend the opening. Its spiritual "success" began to require new standards for testing.

During the COVID years of 2020 and 2021, Za School did not hold physical large-scale exhibitions, only continuing with online content ¹³. This forced pause actually gave it a window for reflection.

Crossing the Zhuoshui River

From November 12–13, 2022, Za School held its seventh exhibition in Chiayi.

"Chiayi City Rebels Education Festival." This name is more direct than "Za School," translating "not quite obedient" into "rebel" ¹⁴. The venue was not a convention center or a cultural park, but six major sites including Chiayi City God Temple and the Old Prison ¹⁵. 16 small-scale forums were scattered across these historical spaces, with speakers such as Chen Mei-ling, Chairman of the Taiwan Local Vitalization Foundation, Li Hsin, Secretary-General of the Taiwan Youth Democratic Association, and Huang Yi-zhong, a热血 (hot-blooded) citizen and social studies teacher, traveling south to participate ¹⁶.

Crossing the Zhuoshui River has specific significance in Taiwan's cultural politics. Taiwan's alternative education, experimental education, and innovative education have long been stories centered on Taipei: resources, media, communities, and occasions to see each other were concentrated in the Greater Taipei area. Holding the exhibition in Chiayi meant that the issue of "alternative education" crossed from Taipei's minority self-curation into local life textures.

The City God Temple and the Old Prison are two specific types of Taiwanese memory: folk belief and martial law history. Za School embedded the education issue into these venues, effectively saying: Education is about how the memory of the entire society is placed, not limited to within the walls of schools.

After the 2022 Chiayi event, the format of Za School entered a new stage. It is no longer just an annual large-scale exhibition in Taipei Huashan; it has become a methodology that can co-curate with localities.

A Unique Species of Education

From July 19–21, 2024, the 10th anniversary. Za School moved into the Yuanshan Flower Expo Zhengyan Hall, with the theme "Education Unique Species" ¹⁷.

The biggest difference from the previous 9 years is the co-hosting partner. This year, IDEC (International Democratic Education Conference) was held in a Chinese-speaking country for the first time ¹⁸. IDEC was established in 1993, rotating annually in different countries around the world. Taiwan in 2024 was the first Chinese-speaking host. Over 50 countries, over 500 educational leaders, nearly 150 submissions, 73 selected, and 55 exhibited on-site ¹⁷.

This international expansion route is actually different from general imagination. Za School did not open branch offices in Tokyo, did not hold satellite exhibitions in Seoul, and did not pursue outbound expansion. It brought global educators to Taiwan; it was an inbound strategy. In a 2024 interview, Ubrand mentioned: "Surrounding countries such as Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore纷纷 (one after another) came to Taiwan to learn from experience and invited Za School to settle and develop" ¹⁹, but in recent years, Za School chose "to let the world see Taiwan's alternative education ecosystem" rather than exporting the brand.

This strategic choice has two readings. One is commercially conservative: resources are insufficient, unable to achieve true multi-national branch offices. One is curatorial confidence: Taiwan's alternative education ecosystem itself is a specimen worth 50 countries coming to see. The theme word "Unique Species" perfectly captures both readings: a unique species is one that can only survive in this ecosystem and cannot be transplanted. Za School is talking about the uniqueness of Taiwan's educational species.

"Education Unique Species" is also a leap in self-positioning for the 10th anniversary. From "Not Quite Obedient" (individual posture) in 2015 to "Unique Species" (species ontology) in 2024, this narrative shift repositions Za School from "an exhibition" to "part of an ecosystem."

EDit: Treating Education as Editing, Not Production

From October 23–26, 2025, Za School's brand was reshaped into "EDit Taiwan International Education Innovation Expo" (Education Innovation Taiwan), moving the venue to the Taoyuan Convention Center, with free entry ²⁰. Theme: "Edit the Future with Education."

The brand name "EDit" is quite interesting. It stacks "Education" and "Edit" into one word, meaning treating education as editing: a conscious process of selection, deletion, reorganization, and emphasis, rather than one-way production and indoctrination. This semantics actually fits Su Yang-chih's years of curation logic: he was never from an educational background; he treated education as a curatorial object to handle.

The redefinition of roles from "Principal" to "Editor" is also worth noting. Su Yang-chih is known in the circles as "Dirt Potato Principal." The identity of "Principal" was the core framing of Za School from 2015 to 2024. But after renaming to EDit in 2025, the narrative of "Principal" was replaced by "Editor." A principal is a rank within the system; an editor is a decision-making role in the creative process. This difference is not a semantic game; it means Za School is pushing its positioning from "alternative school" towards "cultural infrastructure."

Ticket prices returned to the free entry of the first edition, which is another marker. Over ten years, Za School proved it could sell tickets, but EDit in 2025 actively abandoned the threshold. One reading is a commercial strategy: free entry can increase participation volume and expand social influence data. Another reading is returning to the original intention of 2015: using the lowest threshold to allow anyone who wants to see to enter.

Both readings make sense. Za School's 11 years have always been a tug-of-war between "commercial" and "rebellion," rather than one side压倒 (overwhelming) the other.

Things Still Growing

Placing Za School's 11 years on the timeline of Taiwan's educational history, what has it solved?

It did not change the academic advancementism. Taiwan's mainstream educational narrative is still the college entrance exam, distribution, top universities, and employment. Za School's 11 years of exhibitions did not shake this structure. It did not make experimental education a mainstream choice. According to Ministry of Education statistics, the number of students participating in experimental education in Taiwan has always been a minority; Za School's exhibition popularity does not equal an experimental education enrollment boom ²¹. It also did not truly enter the system: Za School did not become a regular seat in the curriculum consultation meetings, nor did it become a required content in teacher training.

But it did one thing that fewer people noticed: it pulled "alternative education" from a marginal issue into a visible cultural event.

In the past, Taiwan's alternative education—experimental schools, homeschooling families, out-of-system learning communities—had limited information flow between each other. A homeschooling family in Kaohsiung might not know that Yang Yi-fan, an 8th-grade student at Yilan Humanities Elementary School, started filming the documentary The Reason for Learning at age 14 ²². A Taipei-based alternative education entrepreneur might not know that next to the Chiayi City God Temple, someone is creating a learning space for local vitalization. Za School, as an annual gathering point, gave these scattered people a moment of recognition: "You are here too."

This moment of recognition has a name in social movements: "Collective Presence." You know you are not a lonely minority; you are part of a larger group. For Taiwan's alternative education ecosystem, the accumulation of this collective presence is more important than the sales volume of any single exhibition.

Of course, after 11 years, there are still unresolved tensions. The more commercialized Za School becomes, the harder it is to maintain the original posture of "not quite obedient." The free exhibition became a ticketed exhibition; the Vice President came to the opening; the brand was reshaped into an operable IP. Each step makes the narrative of "rebellion" harder to tell. Su Yang-chih himself is aware of this tension; in a 2024 interview, he said "Za is the original appearance of the world; everyone is unique" ¹⁹. This sentence is more like a reminder to himself, reminding the brand not to forget why it existed in the first place.

Renaming to EDit in 2025 is a fresh start, and possibly a farewell. The three characters "Za School" carry the rebellious memory from 2015 to 2024; EDit is the beginning of another brand cycle. If we look back ten years from now, 2025 might be seen as a阶段性 (phased) conclusion of the Za School IP. Or maybe not. Maybe EDit brings Za School's core to the next decade, translating "not quite obedient" into "editing," continuing to find exits on the margins of Taiwan's education.

Su Yang-chih told INSIDE Side Chat E376: "Commercially, it was a complete failure; spiritually, it was a huge success." Eleven years later, the first half is no longer true—Za School now sells 60,000 tickets, moves into Yuanshan Flower Expo, co-hosts IDEC, and reshapes its brand into EDit. But the second half has also become difficult to test. When the Trojan horse of education has truly entered the city, when the Vice President has come to the opening, when the Ministry of Culture has given the 10th anniversary venue, how is "spiritual success" measured? This question has no answer, but the most interesting thing about Za School's 11 years is that it has always been willing to leave this question on the stage.

"Not quite obedient" was originally resentment and protest against the system, but after growing into Asia's largest, best-selling education expo brand, is that spirit still there? This may be the most important question Za School leaves for the next decade—the same question that all things in Taiwan that once wanted to rebel and were later caught by the system need to answer.

Further Reading:

• Education System and Academic Advancement Culture — The object of Za School's rebellion: How Taiwan's academic advancementism is structurally replicated
• Teach For Taiwan (TFT) — Alternative education startups after the 318 Student Movement; the organizational recruitment route of TFT and the carnival route of Za School are two different curation methods
• The Birth of a Teacher: Taiwan's Teacher Training System — How system-internal teachers are cultivated; how to place Za School's "Principal" identity in this control group
• Sunflower Student Movement — The historical background of Za School: How the 318 Student Movement continued as out-of-system social practice after dispersing from the streets
• Complex Life Festival — The version of "deliberately staying small" from the same wave of 318 energy: the 8th-grade "Failed Forum" with two or three hundred people, compared with Za School growing into Asia's largest education carnival, are two curation choices of intimacy and scale
• Rural Education in Taiwan — Another main line of educational inequality, forming the two ends of Taiwan's education with Za School's "alternative" position

References