Oh New York Times

Directly quoted from the New York Times. Awesome quote.

Or there’s the National Palace Museum, set back in the steep, green mountains that rise at the northern edge of the city. When it fled the mainland, Chiang’s army brought along the world’s most significant collection of Chinese art, which fills the museum’s galleries. "I was always fascinated by that decision,” Irmin Pao, the publisher, told me. "They’ve lost the battle, they’re trying to get out of China, bullets are flying, and someone has to pack all those vases. It’s very Indiana Jones,” he joked. "For that reason alone, China will never let us be independent.”

Weekly Mandarin: 35

35th edition: Man guo

Goodness gracious-- it's a cognate!

So we have a favorite dessert place here in Yilan. I actually can purchase a dessert that I love more than gelato within a 3 minute power-walk from my house. It's like super fine shaved ice that feels almost dry when you put it in your mouth until it starts to melt and compacts as you're eating it, and it comes in like 200 flavors and variations. Life is good. And now, the snowflake ice shop has REOPENED for the season. So life is amazing.

In honor of the snowflake ice shop, I offer you my favorite flavor: man guo. You don't need to be too creative to figure out what I'm eating... it's a soft pinky-orange color, very sweet, and snow flake ice is the first time I've enjoyed the fruit.

So there, I'm not telling you what it translates to. You're going to figure it out on your own, because I'm the teacher and I'm makin' you work.

Weekly Mandarin: 34

34th edition: Zuo Fan

This one's really going to make you think I've turned into Sally-Home-Maker. But keep reading for another update;)

The food here is pretty good. There are some real culinary gems but, honestly, the cohort and I have been getting a little fed up with the food (gosh, I am so funny). So, I've turned over a new leaf. I'm learning how to zuo fan, or cook. If taken separately, the characters mean "make" and "rice," but actually there's a separate verb for "making rice" and zuo fan refers to cooking in general. This brings to mind the whole thing about Eskimos having so many words for snow.... there's that much rice here.

Anyway, I've been going at it pretty much with trial and error. There's fresh produce here, and the kitchen in our neighboring apartment of foreigners is a decent size. We are, however, limited by things like the lack of real oven, lack of time, having two almost-vegetarian best friends, and not understanding most of the labels in the grocery store. But I'm learning to make a pretty awesome veggie stir fry. We even got adventurous with pineapple and shrimp this weekend and it went fabulously!

On a completely different, non-nesting, note: I'm thinking of applying to an internship with UNESCO in Paris. It would be working for the World Heritage Conservation office on increasing accessibility and financial viability of some of the WHC sites. I won't know anything until June, and since the only competitors are also Fulbrighters, it's pretty likely I'll be back in Philly for good after June, but... we'll see;)

Weekly Mandarin:33

33rd edition: Mang (Actually, I have a lot of trouble saying this word)

One of the members of our Advisory Panel assured us that the last semester would last exactly 20 seconds. I can definitely attest to it lasting longer than 20 seconds, but it's going by more quickly than the first, at least. Why? Because it's so mang, or busy!

Now I'm teaching at two schools. And I love taking my Chinese classes in 1 hour chunks, but dividing the three hours over three days means that there are three sets of homework each week. I'm also working away at the English Neighborhood teacher resource website (yeah, I know, big surprise I'm working on another teacher resource website). AND I'm spending more time on the weekends going and doing things while the weather's good and before I leave Taiwan in general (this morning, in the glorious weather, I went for a bike ride!).

So, if the blog posts are a little brief or not so creative, please blame the busy-ness.

Also, I actually learned this word in the second chapter of my Chinese textbook. So, before I could say "Where's the bathroom?", I could say "I am very busy." Oh, the close ties between language and culture.

Good question.

I just remembered this conversation with an American Citizen Services person in Taiwan (from the technically-not-a-US-embassy).

"You know, you kids living down in Yilan ask the funniest questions."
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"Like if you can use a passport if it's gone moldy."

The hot, humid weather is on its way back to Yilan. And the clothing funk is already back.

Weekly Mandarin: 32

32nd edition: shiao shin!

In all honesty, there is no exclamation point included in the character itself, but it just seems appropriate. This weekend, we spent a day in Taroko Gorge, one of Taiwan's most famous natural attractions. We stayed in a swanky hotel and spent all of Saturday hiking.

I should say that "hiking" is a term that is used pretty loosely here. It includes everything from walking on a flat, paved road that doesn't allow cars, to creeping along the inside of an unlit cave with waterfalls shooting out the walls. And we enjoyed all varieties of hiking in Taroko.

Because Taroko is still very much of an active geological site (what with the tectonic plates bashing about), almost every sign in the Gorge began with shiao shin! Or... "Be careful." For those of us who are not yet blessed with Mandarin fluency, this was also expressed in "ROCKFALL!" signs, large red exclamation points painted on the ground, and great pictures of stick people dangling off the side of a cliff while rocks are falling on them. Obviously, we had a great time.


Shiao Shin! Extreme geekiness approaching!

On a sidenote, this is also a fabulous example of how darn complex Chinese is. "Shiao" on its own means "small" and "shin" on its own means "heart." And, I actually can read and write those characters too... So how the heck do we end up with "small heart" meaning "be careful"? This is one of the many reasons it will take me forever to really learn Mandarin.

And, here, I betray my profound geekiness yet again: So Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous American architect, felt strongly that the most powerful use of space was in contrasts. To make the maximum impact, place a tight space before an open space, or a light space before a dark space. Taroko's development into a tourist area includes many people-made tunnels to give hikers access to the best parts of the Gorge. For me, these tunnels made the expanses of the Gorge even more striking... going from this...

to this...

... in a matter of footsteps. Incredible!

Taichung

So, it's finally hitting me that I really have less than 4 months left in Taiwan, which means I'm suddenly in a big rush to actually see the island. First on my check list was Taichung, which many people know exclusively for it being the birthplace of bubble tea.

I was actually headed that way because of the museums. Someone told me that the Natural Science Museum is the place where progressive thinking in museum education happens in Taiwan, so I naturally (hehe... I'm so punny) had to go there. We took a road trip with one of the local English teachers and her adorable daughter and actually hit three museums in one day. Here are my thoughts on the museums:

Taichung Folklore Park... it was largely a relocated historical house museum with an underground exhibit area as well. I loved the site! It was smack dab in the middle of the city, but had really welcoming grounds that felt like insulation from the skyscrapers next door. Everything was minimally interpreted (in English or Chinese) so you probably had to come in knowing something about the culture. My favorite part was that besides holding traditional games in the exhibit cases (since they are valuable relics of the past) but they also had games laid out on tables to play with.


The Natural Science Museum was HUGE, as promised! They had a huge campus with lots of outdoor experiences that worked well in the beautiful weather that is apparently normal in Taichung. Since it was so huge, I decided to focus on the specifically Chinese parts of the museum, which focused on Chinese traditions and Chinese sciences. Interestingly, one of the key reasons for the Museum building this area was to supplement the Taiwanese public school curriculum! The museum was a little less interactive than the best science museums in the US, but seemed like it worked well for the visitors.

Chinglish in action: One of my favorite exhibit panels (for an exhibit on global warming).
It reads: "Love him, don't hot him!"

We also visited the National Museum of Art. It was pretty much entirely contemporary art, which isn't really my thing. But it had a killer gift shop. AND, they had a huge experience area for children. The map of it looked so cool. But they didn't let adults play without a little person. What the heck is that about--ageists.

Weekly Mandarin: 31

31st edition: Ke Yi?

Ke yi means "could..." and I'm glad to have finally learned it because it makes me feel more polite. I don't just tell people "I want..." or just say whatever it is and hope that they understand they are the intended actor of some verb. But it's "uuuhhh could you...."?

And my Mandarin teacher, if she was reading this (which... gosh, she could be because the internet's like that), would think that I was wrong because really I was supposed to learn this last chapter. But here's where I really mastered it:

Here in Taiwan, there is a phenomenon called "KTV" meaning Karaoke TV. You get a small room to do private karaoke in with however many of your friends you want. And you get to pick the songs, of course. So Katie and I wanted to karaoke to our favorite Asian singer's superspy hit Agent J, but didn't know how to write it! So, invoking both "ke yi" and Weekly Mandarin 13's word... I successfully asked the KTV host to write the name of the song so we could dance to it. And dance to it we did (though we don't really know the words, so... it wasn't so much on the karaoke).

So this week's Mandarin goes out to Jolin. Here's here kick-butt video on YouTube. I'll let you guess which parts we recreate in dance class;)