Addendum

After going by 貝小梅 all year, my Chinese teacher bestowed upon me a new name this afternoon, one that is more sophisticated and appropriate for a young woman (xiao, meaning small, is associated with things that are cute, young, and small, not really so great for being taken seriously). From now on, my new Chinese name shall be 貝梅雅. The “mei hua” is the Taiwanese national flower, and in traditional Chinese thinking, is held up as a symbol of beauty and strength. The flowers are delicate and lovely to behold, but they are strong because they will only bloom in the coldest winter weather. “Ya” means elegant, graceful, or refined, so I make this announcement now that the next time I find myself in need of a Chinese name, I shall be Bei Mei-Ya.

The Final Countdown

So, I have all of three days left in Taiwan. Thursday afternoon, I depart Taiwan, my return date unknown, but hopefully I will be back sooner than later. I’ve had a truly wonderful time here, and there are many stories, adventures, and photos left to post, which I’m sure I will have ample time to do when I get home.

For the time being though, I am packing, saying my goodbyes, and losing my internet connection tomorrow afternoon, so until the next time I post, 再見

Dragon Boat Festival

This weekend has been a glorious, four day long extravaganza of doing absolutely nothing. Granted, Friday was one of those fake holidays that the Taiwanese government tantalizes us with (I have to go in next Saturday to make it up), but while it lasted, it was great.

While I have been generally lazy, the majority of the other Fulbrighters decided to be ambitious and put together a Dragon Boat team to race in the annual Dragon Boat Festival at the Love River. After a mad scramble to assemble the requisite number of foreigners, a concerted recruitment effort of half a dozen Taiwanese people (not all known to us at the beginning of this process), and several intense practices on the Love River, our team, Hamburger Breakfast, was ready to make their big debut.

Tuesday night marked the first night of the time trials, and Team Hamburger Breakfast was up against three other groups: a team of burly Germans from 中山大學, a group of Europeans from Wenzao, and a motley crew from some kind of drinking club. On Wednesday night came the second round of time trials, and unfortunately, they did not make it to the semi-finals, but a good time was had by all:

Lining up to start (Our team is the furthest from the camera):

And they’re off!

Chris talking strategy after night 1:

Rowing on night 2 (the further boat):

And to give you an idea of just how strenuous the rowing was:

A weekend full of 特色, part 2

A very long time ago, I wrote about the trip I took to Alishan with a group of other Fulbrighters.  Now, at long last, here is part 2 of our weekend full of 特色.

When the rest of us non-morning hikers awoke the next morning, we headed downstairs to a breakfast full of 特色, including rice gruel, the requisite vegetables covered in some kind of mayonnaise, and a pickled dish that none of us found to be to our liking, though our hotel owner assured us it was a delicious 特色 of Rueili, even if it wasn’t a “美國的漢堡“ which is of course, what all Americans eat for breakfast. Every day.

Nevertheless, off we set for the hugely popular mountain town of Alishan. Full of so much 特色, even the mist is a 特色.

The sea of clouds:

A really cool, giant butterfly that landed in front of the clouds:

Then we set off to see the famed cherry trees of Alishan, only they were no longer really in bloom. Not that this mattered to the hordes of people we encountered there, but still. At the start of our journey to the path that followed the giant, ancient trees, we were informed as to the ambiguous nature of the fire risk that day:

The Three-Generation Tree, another feature unique to Alishan. The oldest part of the tree is several centuries old, and the tree has grown back three separate times, causing the unique formation:

Some of the trees were upto 900 years old, and walking around really reminded me of visiting the redwoods last spring with Becky and Mel:

Beautiful mountain rhododendron in bloom (potentially mistaken by the Taiwanese for the cherry blossoms):

After lunch we headed over to the train station to take the famed Alishan Toy Train back to Fengchihu, but not before getting to witness a semi-exploitative and entirely tourist-oriented Aboriginal performance:

Finally, it was onto the train (here Rebekah shows just why waking up at the crack of dawn was not the best plan ever):

with some beautiful scenery on the ride down the mountain:

We spent the night in Fengchihu and then headed back to Kaohsiung the next morning. All in all, it was a lovely weekend filled with nature, trees, and 很多的特色.

Disappointment

Last week was probably the worst experience of my year here in Taiwan, which, aside from the occasional run in with shrimp and a hefty dose of TEH CRAZY has been rather lovely.   I’d gone out to buy lunch before heading back to meet with some students who needed help with their letters, and when we got inside the classroom, I left my wallet out on the desk to act as a paperweight on my lunch leftovers. 

The rest of the day passed in a blur and I left feeling really frazzled.  I took a taxi home because I was in a rush to get home in time to regroup before Chinese class.  I paid, got out, and remembered to check the back seat because I had multiple bags with me and felt so frazzled.  About an hour later, I woke up and left for Chinese class in a minor panic because I couldn’t find my wallet.  No worries, I thought, I must have left it in class.  Only it turned out that I hadn’t.   A niggling feeling told me that I had not left it in the taxi, but it seemed improbable that a student could have stolen it.  

Only it wasn’t.  It came out last week that one of my sixth graders, a very quiet girl who I barely noticed had stolen it in the middle of class.  Yes, with me, Lucy, and her classmates around her, she had slipped unnoticed to my desk and pocketed the wallet.  She has a history of mental problems and theft, which made me feel a little better (as in providing a rationale for her theft).  I returned from our Fulbright rafting trip to Ruei Sui to Lucy telling me that she had discovered who was responsible, and that we would be meeting with the girl and her mother on Monday during cleaning time.  

The meeting was alright, but watching how much anguish the girl’s mother was in was awful.  By the end of the meeting, her mother was sobbing and when she bowed to me to apologize (something which I get is a cultural thing but makes me SO uncomfortable), she was crying so much her tears were spilling out onto the ground.  It sucked.  I wanted to dissolve into tears on the spot myself, but figured that wouldn’t be the best course of action.  It was also deeply uncomfortable reciting off how much I had paid to replace my cards and how much money was in the wallet.  Not that I didn’t feel I wasn’t owed compensation, it’s just never a place I wanted to go in the first place.   

The student in question has started to get professional help, and has to do work for the school as part of her punishment.  All in all, I think the situation was handled quite well – the school took pains to make sure the student in question was not found out to be a thief by her classmates, and the meeting was non-confrontational even if it was an unpleasant experience to endure.  

There’s still the fact that I am not convinced she threw out my wallet as she says she did because her story doesn’t add up on a number of different points, but it looks like I am not getting my cards back, which is annoying and sad (my WesID was in there and I loved the picture on it, vain, I know).  Still, in the grand scheme of things, it’s better that it was a student than some random stranger who might well have used my credit card and gone to town.

Tainan

I’ve been meaning to write this post for ages, given that my first trip to Tainan was in November and my second was in January, but oh well. Life and all that jazz. Let me start by saying that I loved Tainan. It feels (and is) much smaller than Kaohsiung and has a completely different vibe to it despite being only 50 km away from Kaohsiung. My favorite parts of the city were the multitude of temples, but I found it quite interesting to learn what a varied and extensive history with the Europeans Tainan once had. The temples are also lovely, and I only wish I knew more about the details (like Mel telling me that the darker the statue of the god, the holier it is – I saw some extremely sacred statues in that case).

So, pictures!

There was a massive temple celebration happening in Tainan the first time I went, so I got the opportunity to see some fairly amazing sights:

Our next stop was the famed Confucius Temple which, while not spectacular, was still rather lovely to wander about: 

 

 

From there we went to a monument celebrating Koxinga, the Chinese warrior who forced the Dutch to surrender their control of Tainan:

And from there to the other forts that remain as a testament to the European presence in Tainan: 

The second time I returned to Tainan was with my parents and Akhil when they visited in late December.  I had a Monday off due to Sports Day, and so we hopped on the train and spent the morning exploring Tainan.  In addition to revisiting the Confucius Temple and the memorial to Konxinga, we also took time to wander into some of the temples Tainan is so famous for, including the Matsu Temple and the God of War Temple:

All in all, I am very glad to have had the chance to go to Tainan twice this year.  It’s such a lovely gem of a city, and a definite must-see for anyone planning a trip to Taiwan.    That’s it for now, but stay tuned for more posts from the past!

Trip to Lotus Lake

When Alissa came to visit, we decided to make the trek out to Lotus Lake after she came to watch me teach. I’d only been out there once, when we went to visit Chiu Cheng, and had always intended on returning, so Alissa gave me a good reason to do so.

The area is filled with old temples, and we explored the dragon and tiger pagodas first before moving on to the two temples that sit immediately next to that side of the lake.

Fooling around inside the entrance to the dragon’s mouth:

The first temple was quite beautiful on the inside, and I was struck, as always, by the vibrant interplay of the colors: reds, golds, blues, greens, and purples:

The second temple, however, was truly an amazing experience. We stumbled upon a temple prayer ceremony, complete with a live musical ensemble and a group of devotees praying together. The music was a cacophony, it was dissonant, clanging, and yet really fascinating to listen to because it sounded so unlike anything I’d ever heard before:

 

 

We then headed to the upper levels of the temple, and when we reached the third floor, I literally gasped out loud. The entire space was decorated in gold, glittering and gleaming. It was silent save for the clatter of the fortune telling blocks on the floor, and it really felt like a separate universe from the music we’d heard down below.

As a bonus, there was a man doing the most graceful, rapid form of Tai Chi I’ve ever seen (Tai Chi is generally characterized by very slow, deliberate movements). Watching him was hypnotizing, almost as though he were dancing:

We headed back downstairs and the prayers had ended, but we were in for a treat. The celebrants were enjoying food and drink at the temple entrance, and before we knew it, we were seated and being offered buns, red bean cake, red bean soup and tea to drink. It was an awesome experience, and I’m really glad we decided to follow our instincts and see where the music was coming from. Exhausted, we headed home where I proceeded to come down with a nasty cold and a fever.

For your viewing pleasure

 

 

 

An impromptu dance   performance from one of my fourth grade classes this morning.

Inspiration

If you follow my Tweets on the side of my blog entries, you may have noticed that the other day I was reasonably frustrated over a wasted four hours spent filming a video for the Bureau of Education. I’m still not quite sure what this video is being used for, only that most of the ETAs had to write scripts/be in the video in some way, and that the film crew came back to San Min on Friday to film little kids running around the track.

Originally, we were told (well, my administration told me) that I had to make a video that was like English Village, only using the pharmacy and the MRT because that was what my principal wanted. So I sat down, wrote up two scripts, recorded the dialogues for the students who were filming it with me so they could memorize it, and we spent four hours one Tuesday afternoon filming these two scenes.

Well, apparently the principal wasn’t at all impressed (insert eyeroll here) because of stupid things, like the kids weren’t acting excited (listen, I’m celebrating the fact that they understand their lines and don’t speak in a monotone. Expressiveness is asking a bit much), and not making eye contact with me. The real kicker though, was that she wanted ‘a story’ for both scenarios.

Which of course meant that the old footage was completely unusable and I had to start from square one again.

Can you blame me for being more than a little ticked off? It would have been nice to know this the first time round to avoid wasting everyone’s time (mine, the kids, the film crew), but what can you do.

So I sat down to think.

How could I have a story in a five minute segment featuring six kids that took place on an MRT? Luckily, that story presented itself relatively quickly (i.e. once I had cooled down from hearing the news from Lucy). The pharmacy, however, was a bigger sticking point. How the hell was I going to come up with a story for the doctor’s office? The problem with public places like doctor’s offices and MRTs (and post offices, in Gered/Kate’s case), is that you do not generally have exciting story lines happening in these places in real life. A restaurant? Sure! A shopping excursion? Naturally. But not a doctor’s office.

And then, at 1:30 a.m., inspiration struck. I would write a script that had a group of friends who had stayed at a hotel and four of them had fallen sick. In short, I ripped off our lovely experience post-Kenting, when Rebekah, Shana, Kate, Dan, Dani and I (with Amanda) spent several hours in a hospital in varying states of nausea and digestive discomfort. Who would’ve thought that a really unpleasant (yet humorous in some ways) evening would turn out to have a practical purpose? Added bonus: the kids get to use material they’ve actually learned because I ask them what they had to eat and drink. I am very proud of myself right now.

Getting to know you

Throughout the year, I have felt sad at times that I do not speak Chinese. My students do not know how to express themselves and their personalities, their likes and dislikes in English, and so many stay silent. These same kids become animated, chattering, vibrant kids the moment they break into Chinese though, and I’ve continually wished I could get to know them better. Alas, language barriers being what they are, this isn’t really possible.

I got a small glimpse at who they are as individuals last semester when we talked about what they wanted to be when they got older (lawyers, judges, computer hackers, taxi drivers, doctors, scientists, pilots, teachers and more), and when they talked about what they could do (as in what they’re good at). That exercise had me a little nervous at first because I wondered if I would get a litany of academic successes. The Taiwanese school system/general academic climate is not known for being nuturing or condusive to extracurriculars in the way American society is (though we go overboard in America, I think). But I was suprised. I had artists, singers, dancers, erhu players, computer gamers, and a whole host of interesting things the kids felt they were good at. It was heartening, to say the very least. They do have the chance to develop non-academic skills despite the intense pressure to succeed and the prevalence of buxibans galore.

And now, editing their letters for the penpal project, I am learning more things about them. Some have lived in America, or at least visited. One girl loves to ride horses, but says that not many people do this in Taiwan, so she feels very lucky. Some have shared their funny nicknames (watermelon, because “my head is shaped like a watermelon”, little elder uncle, duck, niu niu (cow cow), and how in one family, the older sister is called ‘didi’, meaning older brother, and the younger sister is called jie jie, meaning older sister). Others have told me of their love of baseball, basketball, and dodgeball. One student has pet beetles. A pet rhinocerous beetle, to be exact. I’m not sure I want to google to find out what that is.

I am so grateful for this opportunity, and it makes me ever more conscious of just how attached I am to these kids, to being their teacher, and just how difficult it will be in two short months when this is all over.