Jenny Goes to Taiwan

Weekly Mandarin: 48

2008-06-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

48th edition: Zai Jian

(For the ultimate irony, this final Weekly Mandarin was written in Hawaii! Where they don't speak Mandarin!)

This last week has been a week of many "last"'s. Last meal at the awesome vegetarian restaurant. Last class as a teacher. Last time in Taiwan (maybe). And lots and lots of goodbyes. (I'll post some of the best pictures here when I get them.)

Through all of this, I have absolutely determined that I prefer Chinese for this one. People in Taiwan say "bye bye" a lot, 'cause it's easy to say. But Chinese's standard farewell is "zai jian." It translates to "next time I see you" and I think it's just a better way to end things than an English "goodbye." It's open ended and is filled with possibility. And exactly how I want to leave Taiwan.

So with that, I finish my last post on JennygoestoTaiwan. Thanks for reading.

Backblog: Yes, they laugh back

2008-06-28T02:44:00.000-07:00

So, there's the website that keeps track of stupid things that are printed in "English" (meaning English letters and often very messed up English words). And we laugh at the silly people using English when they don't understand it.

And they laugh back when we do the same thing! Like the badass looking white-on-black screen print of traditional character calligraphy that reads "I am very smart. I am very cool. But I'm not smart enough to read my own shirt." Or the teacher who laughed for 20 minutes when she met a guy with a tatoo of the Chinese characters for "table."

Backblog: Kids Names

2008-06-28T02:41:00.000-07:00

I don't have kids any more 'cause I'm not a teacher any more. But here are some of the best real "English names" given to students:

Apple (super popular)
Drean
Canthy
Bony
Jewey
(paired with) Devil
and my personal favorite: Godspeed (If you did an auditory double take, and asked the kid again, he'd say " Godspeeeeeed!!" And put one hand out to fly like superman

Backblog: School Lunch

2008-06-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

(This one almost made Anne lose it)

Early on, someone told me I should order a serving of the vegetarian lunch, rather than the meat lunch option at school. They presented the rationale that the school makes 30-some-odd trays of meat lunch and 1 tray of vegetarian lunch, so meat lunch is just likely to be bad since it's made in such mass.

Makes sense.

Then I hear about another school's emergency drill: All of the kids pretend they get food poisoning and the teachers try to help them (I think this included re-hydrating and mopping more than anything else). This would be hugely entertaining with my hammy little munchkins. And some of them would probably forget to pretend and actually toss their cookies. One clever teacher pointed out to a nurse that the teachers all eat the same meals as the students, so they'd be food poisoned too. And the nurse responded that the vegetarian eaters, young and old, would be least likely to be sick simply because the vegetables won't make you sick from under cooking.

Makes more sense.

Unfortunately, at my main school, the kids and teachers who ate vegetarian ate from the same large trays. Eventually, when I stopped being so tickled pink by the opportunity to casually ask them what foods they were picking (in English), I noticed the kids behaviors... Like when they put things back in the main dish to reject it from their own dish. Or when they show me "LOOK JennyWei. I have a cold sore in my mouth" and then serve. Then I stopped eating lunch at school at all.

I'm a slow learner.

Backblog: Drilling

2008-06-28T02:29:00.000-07:00

You may have noted that my griping about the earthquakes in Taiwan hit the internet close to the time the really bad earthquakes hit the mainland and caused a lot of destruction. I felt awkward about that, but I guess it was a busy time for tectonic plates in the Asia-Pacific region.

And because of all the destruction, we had a school-wide discussion of earthquake preparedness, and an earthquake drill. So the bell rang, and the kids were supposed to go under their desks. And there I am trying to convince them to do it head first to protect their brains, when, HELLO, that would block the view of watching their classmates trying to crawl awkwardly under their desks. Then when that was adequately performed, the students all marched down to the blacktop to sit in a file and be counted.

That's when I decided to give them a little lesson about America and the Cold War. We learned the words "duck" and "cover"!

Backblog: Impromptu Vocabulary Review

2008-06-28T02:23:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the airport known as "TPE-Taipei International Airport" is actually about an hour outside of Taipei. And there's no train or subway to get there, so you're stuck taking a taxi, van, or bus. (In appropriate order of expense)

And just getting to and from the airport should be considered part of your adventure away from home. One time I was riding the bus, and this woman on the bus started yelling/moaning to her captive audience. She was clearly begging for money and listing the reasons why she needed money. It took me a while for me to realize that I could understand her! She was screaming out the very vocabulary words I had just learned: "My mother!" "My little brother!" "My big sister!" "My father's brother!" And I was just totally psyched that I could understand her, even though I, along with the other passengers, was not buying her family sob story.

Then she started throwing things around the bus, and wouldn't stop. And the bus had to pull over to the side of the road and wait for the cops to show. So it took a while to get back. But it's a funny story, eh?

Backblog: Teacher vs. Mouse

2008-06-28T02:17:00.001-07:00

This little story made me feel better about how hard I think it was to learn Chinese. It's hard for the native speakers too!

When Brian and I were visiting the Zoo, we visited the nocturnal mammal house (where, incidentally we saw this animal totally freaking out). And as we walked by one family, we heard the dad saying over and over to his little daughter "lao shur, lao si, lao shur, lao si" and trying to get her to repeat after him, making a distinction. She kept failing, and would therefore could be cursed to a lifetime of accidentally mixing up the words "teacher" and "mouse."

Backblog: Highway Stop

2008-06-28T02:12:00.000-07:00

So y'know when you're looking for some food on the highway in the US. You look for the blue sign with the food logo: fork and knife.

In Taiwan, you're looking for some food on the highway.... You look for the blue sign with the bowl, spoon, and chopsticks. The sign never failed to amuse me when I passed it. I'll keep searching for an image, though.

Backblog: Preface

2008-06-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

Backblog is what I think happens to me when I have a good story, but I forget to write about it. And now that I'm getting ready to close up my blog, I'm getting ready to post the stories, out of context. I'm backblogged.

Weekly Mandarin:47

2008-06-20T17:09:00.001-07:00

47th edition: Coo

Emotional woman + last day of classes with very small, very cute people = coo

Good-bye dinners with people who have taken care of me all year = coo

It is, unbelievably, that time of year. My little first graders are going to grow up into 2nd graders. My fourth graders, who have come SO far in English class this year, are going to be 5th graders, which are practically graduating 6th graders.... But I won't be here to see it. And despite my frustration with our school and program administration, I love many of my fellow teachers and the kids we teach.

"Coo" means "cry," something that is essentially unavoidable during transitions in my life.

Every first grader was given a little heart-shaped sticky note. Which they then took turns trying to stick to me. It was difficult to communicate to them "No, sticking it to my skin will not work. I am simply perspiring too much." They did, however, cover the front and back of my shirt, part of my capris, and even one on my glasses.

One of the first grade homeroom teachers made me a handmade book with photos from teaching her class all year. And she collected all the students' notes into a little portfolio. When I started looking at these, one of the first graders turned to my co-teacher, who was taking pictures. He said "She's going to cry. 3...2...1.... she's crying." Smart boy, learning to read women that early in life.

I don't pick favorites. Really. But if I did... Ken (on my right shoulder) would be one of them. He spent the entire day of Dragonboating with our team. And he was the little guy who ran along the bank of the river with our flag while we were racing.

I'm tearing up just thinking about these kids.

Weekly Mandarin: 46

2008-06-18T16:31:00.000-07:00

46th edition: Bing Chee Ling

I can't believe it has taken me this long to admit it.... I have an obsession with Taiwanese ice cream. While my friend was visiting Taiwan this past week, I realized that the things I really felt that I had to feed her were the ice creams (or "bing chee ling).

Properly, the foods are more like "ices", since they don't usually include milk, but "ices" to me are shaved, unflavored ices with drippy syrup poured over them. (Think Jersey Shore in summer time "ices") These bing chee ling are closer to sorbets, but really unlike anything I've had before.

(Pictures to come-- sorry for the loser post)

Weekly Mandarin: 45

2008-06-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

45th edition: Lei

They promised us that the second semester of our program would feel about 6 seconds long. That was inaccurate, but I've officially been in a time warp for the last month.

I successfully adjusted my sleeping schedule to wake up everyday between 5:30 and 6:30 so that I could dragonboat practice. Plus, the dragonboating itself. And we're in final assessment period for our students. My Chinese teachers have a fresh dedication to getting me through as much of the textbook as humanly possible.

So suddenly May is over, June is half over, and woah, I have been crazy busy. Now I'm exhausted-- lei. This term can also be put into one of my favorite phrases "My (tiredness/hunger/....) is killlllling me."

It's nine-thirty. It's past my bedtime. Gnight!

Then you kick.... bum

2008-06-07T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is officially my favorite Taiwanese holiday. I mean, Moon Festival had fruit hats, and Lunar New Year had sweet red envelopes, but dragonboat festival is better than all the rest.

As I previously mentioned, we had two races during the preliminary races on Saturday and we had an unusually bad seed in the tournament, but it was awesome.

First race (Runs 1 and 2): Chinese Language Students (FOREIGNERS) vs. The Iron Barbies of Ilan University
We didn't get to warm up on the water, so this first run was kind of like our warm up, only it counted.

(Our boat is the one with the blonde girls) The team that rows together...

Wins together. Suckas. We beat the Iron Barbies on both runs, by a larger margin on the second run. My students, Chinese teachers, co-teachers, haircut family, and the rest of the cohort were there to cheer me on, and they really made all the difference!

And this is where we gave it our ALL. We were against a team with a ten-year history and a tradition of doing very well. Last year, they won second place in the entire race. But on our second run against them, we had them, as recounted by a bystander, "So scared, poo was coming out their bottoms." We lost by about two feet.

Despite the killer headwind on our second two runs, our race times improved with each race. (Down to 2:28 on our final race run-- race times can be slower than practice times because you are also fighting against the water the other boat is sloshing around)

And we ran into the shore on our turn-around after the race.

My friends tell me that I should send this picture to any potential employer as a simple statement of "THIS is what you could have. THIS kind of effort and row-till-you-almost-puke energy."

Weekly Mandarin 44

2008-06-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

44th edition: Mai

As I'm now in my final month of living in Taiwan, I have a new justification for just about anything: I'm in my last month of living here. I'm running out of chances to _____.

So, tonight I had ice cream for dinner (great for dragonboat training, I know). Because I won't get to eat delicious icecream and peanut brittle type icecreamburritos when I get to the US. And this month's goal is to average snowflake ice every other day.

And, even though I'm packing up my things and hoping to go home with fewer suitcases than I came, the "running out of time" argument justifies lots of... buying (mai). This also leads to one of my favorite Chinese nouns dong xi which literally translates to "east and west" but means "stuff, things, chatchkis, gadgets, widgets, etc, " anything that you could find between the east and the west. So I'm buying silly stuff. Like a dress I'll only wear once (but, hey, it didn't cost me much), presents for other people (stocking stuffers can be purchased at any time in the year, right?), and a fabulous "solar powered" frog on a swing. I'm solar-powered, it's solar-powered.... I needed it.

So if you want me to mai anything to gei (give) you, now's the time to send an e-mail.

Oh, and try not to cry

2008-06-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

Lately, dragonboat practices have been pretty brutal. But that's not why I almost cried yesterday.

As we were doing a coloring thing with our first graders, little Geoffrey (who always finishes first) finished first. So I told him to turn over the paper and draw a picture of him rowing a dragonboat. He didn't want to do that. So I suggested he draw Teacher Jenny rowing a dragonboat. He shrieked, started shaking his head violently, and insisted at a yell "You are a girl! Girls can't row dragonboats! Only boys can row dragonboats."

If he would yell this at his teacher, what would he say to his female peers? It broke my heart. He's such a little guy and he's already thinking in "can't's" and "boys can do things that girls can't."

So I ran a lot at the gym yesterday for cross-training. And today our boat shaved 15 seconds off our 400 meter sprint. (From 2:41 to 2:25)

We got an unusually bad seed in the tournament: We must win two races on Saturday to move on to races on Sunday for the main festival. And our second Saturday race is against a team that annually competes, and competes well. The good news is that even if we don't win and can't be competitive, we can still do scrimmage races on Saturday afternoon so we don't feel like we trained for two-and-a-half-minutes of disappointing racing.

Cross-blog pollination

2008-05-30T17:19:00.001-07:00

I love this blog with cute, geeky comics. Not surprisingly, it was sent to me from my cute, geeky boyfriend:)

Next, you get really messy...

2008-05-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

Dragonboating is a messy process. Here's why...

The river we row in is pretty dirty, and when rowing correctly, we are practically half IN the water. So we get wet from the river.
It's really hot here. We wake up early in the morning, but it's already hot out. And we work hard, so we're sweating A LOT.
The boat is painted like a dragon, naturally, but in our furious rowing, we chip paint all over the place. It's kind of fascinating how long little flecks of blue paint can stick to a person. I sit at my desk at work, after showering, redressing, and spending six hours outside of a dragonboat, and I still have blue paint on myself.

It's also hard not to give up. There are about 33 dragonboat teams in our races. But we only see about the three best teams out on the river with us. We've started to scrimmage and we haven't won a scrimmage yet. It's kind of sad, but we're trying not to give up. We'll at least go up against teams that haven't really practiced.

Post Number 100

2008-05-26T04:33:00.000-07:00

I officially feel like a rockstar, simply for having successfully uploaded 100 posts to my blog.

This entry is a weird one. The place I take Chinese classes also has afterschool-type classes for young learners, where they do arts and crafts or get homework help. Unlike cram schools, they don't actually seem to want to push kids PAST the point that their public school classes are going (which I sincerely appreciate). But here's some of the kid artwork that is lining the entranceway of the building.*

I think this one should be titled "Why Dodgeball Was Outlawed in East Brunswick School Systems" (where I grew up... after Columbine, our school couldn't do archery or play dodgeball, it would apparently make us violent)

This uses the fairly sophisticated visual device of using a mirror. To show the worst haircut a kid could ever get, and all the kids laughing at him while his (mom?) haircutter is pleased with her work. Evil, sadistic life-ruiner.

... that day my water bottle blew up in the middle of class. And all the girls laughed at me. And a ghost.

I feel this kid's pain. Dragonboat at 6 AM is killing me. And this girl has not only her homework to worry about, but also an apparent problem with liquid output during sleep.

This is my favorite. I think this is a cram school, because there are textbooks for every school subject on the shelf. And I do believe that the center figure, notable for her burning aura and blonde hair, is a foreign teacher. Yay us! (Please note young man flipping off the teacher)

This one is totally open to interpretation. Best interpretation in a comment gets a cookie when I get home.

*- I have no context for knowing if these are things that happened, worst nightmares, or what. But they seem pretty realistic interpretations of some of the stress I see these poor kids going through.

Weekly Mandarin: 43

2008-05-24T02:31:00.001-07:00

43rd edition: Suh Luh Bing

I officially have no idea how I lasted through August and September without melting. It's only three days into it being kind of hot here and I feel dead. Yesterday, if I turned on the air conditioner, I could muster the energy to read. Otherwise, it was best to just lie on the tile floor and wait for the sun to go down. Or for it to rain. Or for the weather to magically change into a nice temperate May day at home.

But without magic, all I've got is my suh luh bing. That's right, your favorite summertime treat.... slurpees. Literally, the name translates to something like "means happy frozen." And it does make me happy and beats the heat for a few minutes. Also, as opposed to the remarkably wonderful snowflake ices or other famous ice cream, slurpees are CHEAP here. A 9 oz slurpee for the US equivalent of 30 cents. (Yes, I just now noticed that they're labeled in ounces here. Weird.)

Happy start of summer!

Then, you have to wake up very early...

2008-05-21T03:56:00.000-07:00

Dragonboat practice begins for our team at 6 AM. Other teams are already on the water when we start, and the jazzercise class that meets nearby is already in full-swing. But waking up at 5:30, rowing for and hour and a half, then teaching, then going to Chinese class... It can be pretty exhausting.

But the practicing has been going well. Our coach speaks only Chinese, and is kind of a grizzly teddy bear of a coach. And we haven't had the same team on any one day of practice so far. But we're learning. One of our runs this morning actually yielded a "very good" from our coach, even though it wasn't even half the length of the race (400 meters total). I have overcome my tyrannosaurus-rex proportions and have a new, powerful, though slightly awkward and "uh so I'm dangling off the boat", posture. It's kind of entertaining.

And today, I totally flaunted my "guns" (aka rippling biceps) to some of the competition (see the picture of the team here). And they told me I should switch to their boat. I bet it's more about me being cute than about me being the super powerful rower that I am.

Weekly Mandarin: 42

2008-05-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

42nd edition: Hou zi

I love the Taipei Zoo. I love most zoos, almost as much as my boyfriend does, but I seriously love the Taipei Zoo. It has outstanding visitor services (free bug spray, cheap vending machines, even provides toilet paper in its unusually clean bathrooms!) and has some really lovely animals. So this weekend, since I didn't have anything else inspiring to do, I planned an early morning trip to the Zoo. Unfortunately, the Zoo only opens at 9, but I still got to see the animals doing their morning frolic.

And most importantly, I got to see monkeys! (hou zi!) I love monkeys. I think I should go back to school to get lots of degrees in biological anthropology and primate morphology, so that someone someday will pay me to look at monkeys all day. But here's what I saw at the Zoo!

In this video, you can see the itty bitty baby Japanese Macaque and her family. Last time I went to the Zoo (two weeks ago), she was totally fuzz-less. She was so tiny that we didn't see her until about 15 minutes of watching the enclosure. Now she's a little more grown up and mama monkey lets her do a little more.

...More baby monkey. Awwwwww. "Let's go this way, mama!"
Here are the white-faced gibbons. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a decent shot of their baby. What was really awesome, but blogger won't let me upload, about the gibbons was that they were calling like crazy in the morning. I'm pretty sure they were calling to some of the other primates in the zoo!
And the siamangs. There were three of them and they were calling to each other too. You can see the big sack under their throats, which helps them be louder. They had an interesting vocal range, too. Send me an email and I'll send you the audio clips:)

(Not the brightest bulb on the tree, I just realized I wouldn't hit 50 Weekly Mandarin entries. :sigh: )

Weekly Mandarin: 39

2008-05-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

39th edition: Yan Ki Shi

This one is out of order, sorry. But I forgot that I had selected a Weekly Mandarin for week 39, but slacked terribly in posting it.

Before it gets painfully hot, most elementary schools host a kind of field day event for their students. Usually, these are just little weekend events at the school's campus, where the kids do a their bi-weekly workout dance together and run races. But, because my school at the time had more students than the high school I attended, it was in the local soccer stadium.

It was MESMERIZING to watch over 2,000 children do roughly the same dance at the same time (the younger students have a simplified form of the dance). And the kids more than filled the soccer field they were placed on.

My job for the day was to sit in the stands and watch their little backpacks. Challenging, I know. But I'm a Fulbright Scholar;) But luckily, the art teacher I've become friends with brought her son to practice his English on. And his wide range of knowledge related to... the Yan Ki Shi.

This kid knew his baseball inside and out. He knew facts about different players, and the logos of the teams, and probably learned all of his US geography (because Taiwanese students learn some of that, unlike American students) relative to baseball teams. But this kid was a rabid Yankees (Yan Ki Shi) fan. He absolutely went above and beyond the usual "I'm from Taiwan and so is Wang Chien Ming, so you bet I'm a Yankees fan" thing. Beyond watching the YES channel with Mandarin subtitles. This kid was like Raymond from the Rainman as far as baseball trivia was concerned. We had a great time.

Yes, within a few days, I'm hoping to replace that plain blue baseball cap with a proper Yankees cap. (Thanks to my Dad!)

First, you have to wake up the dragon...

2008-05-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

So the top three festivals in Taiwan are the Lunar New Year (Spring Festival), the Moon Festival, and the Dragon Boat Festival.

I'll be racing in the Dragon Boat Festival, so I'll give you step-by-step coverage of exactly what it takes to race. This is part one in the series.

Naturally, before racing your dragon boat, you need to wake up your dragon and pray that it will keep you safe. Let me walk you through the ceremony:

1. Bring your dragon boats...
... and your chicken.
2. Have a priest spit water on the dragons.
(As you can see from the angle of this picture, I was absolutely in range for the spit. Mmmmm)
3. Pretend to kill your chicken. Then rub its head on the eyes and mouth of your dragon.
(Return chicken to cage.)
4. Have someone important paint the middles of the dragon's eyes.

(Don't get intimidated by the competition...raaaarrrr. He's not scary, he's just confused what on earth a handful of foreigners are doing here. Actually, the foriegners team traditionally does VERY well. No pressure.)
5. Push the boat into the water for it's maiden voyage of the year.

Happy Sailing!
(First practice is tomorrow, at 6 AM! I'll keep you updated on our progress.)

Weekly Mandarin: 41

2008-05-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

41st edition: Di zhen

Earthquakes (di jhen) scare me. Having never had one growing up, they're even worse. Living on the 13th floor of an apartment building, they're eeeeeven worse. And when they wake me up in the middle of the night to the sense that someone is shaking my bed... yeah, you get the point.

Last night, at 3:45, we had a di zhen. The center was about 65 miles from where I live, and the magnitude on the Richter scale was 5.6. It wasn't my first quake, but it was my scariest so far mostly because it was late and I was home alone.

But, I suppose the earthquakes and typhoons are just part of the once-in-a-lifetime aspect of living here. Consider me pretty much ready to go home now.

Kids.

2008-05-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

For learning phonics, the first graders learn to say the letter's name ("A"), the letter's most common sound ("aaah"), and the vocabulary word for the letter ("apple!").

But we had one kid who reveled in a word he'd learned somewhere else, and instead of U-uh-umbrella, we got:

U-UH-UNDERWEAR!!! hehehehehe

Weekly Mandarin: 40

2008-05-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

40th edition: Nanpengyou!!

Boyfriend!! Brian came to visit last week, so last week's word is boyfriend!!

We had a lot of fun. We went to...
hot springs (where Brian loved the doctor fishies)
school (which was much like visiting the zoo)
Taroko Gorge (where we hiked SO many steps)
the ZOO! (which was a wonderful, if very hot, free choice learning environment)
a dancing club
and a REALLY nice hotel.

It was great:)

Weekly Mandarin: 38

2008-04-22T21:57:00.000-07:00

38th edition: Heh

Someone must have proven that the standard Taiwanese stomach is 864 cubic centimeters. Because that is the size of every portable lunch that is sold in Taiwan. You buy lunch (or many dinners) in these little cardboard boxes that are ALL the same size.

Many places of business have a restaurant that always makes their office lunchboxes, and everyone gets lunch delivered from the same place, which means that everyone gets the same lunch. And no one gets to pick their lunch. This is what happened all summer. And why I started exploring vegetarianism.

But, the great thing is that sometimes you can get your own box at a buffet, and fill it with anything you want. This is how I had the most delicious lunchbox ever. It was filled with: vegetarian fried rice, asparagus, broccoli, green beans, and tofu nuggets. I was seriously in lunch box heaven: it was all green, and I didn't have to wonder what anything in it was made out of! And, it was SO tasty.

So this week's word is "heh", or "box."

...and why my family is just getting more awesome.

2008-04-17T13:46:00.001-07:00

Because my future brother-in-law blogs about us. Ok, but just because his blog is better written and more entertaining, don't stop reading mine!

Why My Name Is Awesome!

2008-04-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so of course my name is awesome because it has gold, and it's got my grandma's character in it. But really, it's most awesome because it's the name that Ginny Weasley has in Chinese translations of Harry Potter! Ginny marries Harry Potter-- could I possibly have a cooler Chinese name!

Weekly Mandarin: 37

2008-04-12T20:28:00.001-07:00

37th edition: Chuan

This word was actually in my textbook this week! I had a legitimate application for a vocabulary word, unlike the Chinese characters for "Germany."

Though, honestly, the word "boat" isn't usually a critical vocabulary word.

But this weekend, I went rafting with my "haircut family" and some of the other Fulbrighters. We went down to the area near Taroko Gorge, and paddled on a river that was mostly flatwater, but had some exciting rapids too!

Unfortunately, we didn't bring cameras because they would've gotten soaked. But the attire was pretty entertaining: The helmets weren't really going to save us because they were basically seizure helmets (think Natalie Portman in Garden State). But the life jackets were pretty serious.... They even had those awkward straps between your legs to help lift you out of the water if you fall in. I affectionately call them the "safety wedgie" and was therefore able to teach a 5th grader the term "wedgie."

In Taiwan, you don't sit all the way in the raft most of the time. Maybe because it gives you a better center, or maybe because really the aim of the trip seemed to be to get soaked, you straddle the side of the boat and dangle one foot in the water. And paddle from there. It was pretty funny.

And one final note: Our boat kicked BUTT. We totally raced past all the other boats with our mix of brute strength, communication, and cunning wit. We almost even made it to the Pacific.

Ri ben! (Japan!)

2008-04-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

There's a weird network going on between people who teach English in Asia. If you know everyone in the world through six degrees of separation, I know all of the English teachers in Asia through two or three degrees. Luckily, that makes it much easier to travel!

I spent four days of last weekend in middle-to-Western Japan, mostly in the area near Nara/Kyoto/Kobe. Jeannie and I stayed with one of her good friends who is teaching English in Japan as part of the JET program.

I was really amazed by Japan. It seemed like many of the everyday things like language, clothes, trains, and buildings reflected the deeply rooted traditions and cultural values of the country. I loved their ability to (albeit selectively) absorb Western and modern aspects of life and preserve their own histories. Here are some of my highlights in the trip:

We saw geisha. Real geisha going to engagements for the evening! We didn't take pictures, but we did pick our dinner restaurant specifically so that we could watch them walking down the street in full-dress.

Kobe beef. In Kobe, Japan. I thought it would be tasteless to take a picture of the guy cooking my steak or me eating my steak in the restaurant. It was not, however, tasteless to pose like a cow outside the restaurant;)

Hanamei (Cherry blossom viewing) This wasn't even the peak of the blossom season yet! But it was positively gorgeous. And we had a lovely picnic in the mountains.

I was in love with the roofs. Most of the homes and buildings in the Kyoto-area had these gorgeous clay roof tiles. This one is on a temple in Kyoto.

(Picture to come)
Nara has famous, sacred deer. There were too many tourists so our deer weren't especially interested in our deer-crackers. But it was fun to feed them!

(Picture to come)
I think this must have been developed by a monk with an MBA because I guarantee this hole contributes greatly to the revenue of the temple: One of the hot-spots in Nara is a temple with a huge buddah. But there are plenty of temples with Buddahs in Asia. This one was special partially because there was a column in the temple, with a hole carved in it exactly the size of the Buddah's nostril. And anyone who could squeeze through it would gain enlightenment. So we stood in line, behind lots of kids who were going to go through it, and we didn't actually get REALLY stuck. Just stuck for a second or so;)

Now that I've been to Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, I feel like I should figure out how to squeeze in a visit to Mainland China, but it looks pretty impossible at the moment...

Weekly Mandarin: 36

2008-04-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

36th edition: Hua

Week 36 overlapped with my visit to Japan! So I'm writing bout a Mandarin word that kind of is also included in Japanese (though it is pronounced "Han").

So "hua" is flower. And springtime's hitting Taiwan and our archipelago friend Japan. Yilan City is a pretty legitimate city, so there aren't too many flowers blooming, but the outlying areas of Taiwan and Japan were full of flowers. Most notably, Japan's Nara Prefecture is home to some of the most famous cherry blossoms in the world.

In fact, the cherry blossoms in DC were originally from Nara! So I saw the REAL cherry blossoms while I was in Japan.

Fun, extraordinarily useful fact: Hua is also part of the name of peanuts/peanut butter. I've just made it more possible for my readers to visit a Chinese speaking country.

Oh New York Times

2008-03-31T05:44:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-20T06:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-16T01:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-03-15T05:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-08T22:11:00.000-08:00

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

2008-03-02T03:59:00.001-08:00

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

2008-03-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

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;)

Weekly Mandarin 30

2008-02-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

30th edition: Yuan Xiao

The festivities for the Lunar New Year end with the first full moon of the new year, which is called Lantern Festival, or Yuan Xiao.

Everyone at my school asked to make sure I was going to the nearby celebration of Lantern Festival-- they promised great food, good music, and huge fireworks displays. The Festival was the biggest I've gone to yet, and gave me some serious large-crowd-anxiety, but it was great! I had some delicious fried shrimp cake and the best fireworks show I've ever seen. The locals said it wasn't as good as other years, but all the Americans agreed that it was the best show we've ever seen.

Also, my personal highlight was writing on and floating a "sky lantern." These are large paper lanterns, which people write wishes on for the year. They then set a fire with ghost money at the base of the lantern (like a hot air balloon) and float them into the night. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Me and my shrimp cake. You can't see that both me and the shrimp (whole, still in its shell, and fried) are looking at you.

Getting ready to float the sky lantern (full chronology of the sky lantern life cycle to come).

...and a few of the fireworks, plus a lantern! These fireworks were HUGE. The small ones you see here are the size of normal US fireworks.

Weekly Mandarin: 29

2008-02-19T04:54:00.000-08:00

29th edition: Bing Gan

(Slacking, I know. Sorry for the delay)

While I was home, I remembered how much I love to bake. Feeding people makes me happy. And it's just satisfying to turn a pile of ingredients into something tasty. So I baked a lot in Brian's glorious kitchen.

Unfortunately, back here in Taiwan, the apartments aren't built for cooking. There's a huge eating-out/take-out food culture here and not a ton of at-home cooking, especially among young-ish people who live in apartments rather than proper houses. So... I am making do with the toaster oven in the other apartment. I've resolved to bake weekly, the night before our weekly group meetings so I can feed people my creations and be sure I won't have to eat the aftermath of my baking alone. Mostly, I'll be baking bing gan (cookies!) since they're my favorite things to bake and they're easy to transport by scooter. Plus, I can make cookies from scratch, whereas I have a limited supply of hand-carried cake mix and frosting. But seriously, if you're thinking "I need to send that JennyWei girl a care package" send me some more things to bake:)

Weather

2008-02-13T05:54:00.001-08:00

The weather here is miserable. It's cold (like 11 degrees Celsius indoors). And it rains a lot. And it's all about three times worse when you're scootering.

This cartoon made me think of the mental games we play with ourselves to believe the weather isn't so bad.

Some Folks Just Know How to Party

2008-02-09T05:38:00.000-08:00

I have always loved fireworks, but I will absolutely never forget the fireworks here in Yilan. It's not that they're actually different kinds of fireworks, it's that they're set off by regular people, almost constantly, throughout the New Year celebration. Obviously, it's dangerous. But it seems so empowering to perform your own personal firework show. And it's incredibly beautiful to watch in the middle of the other twinkly lights in the city.

Starting off again

2008-02-07T21:53:00.000-08:00

I knew, from the second that I was granted this Fulbright, that I would be coming back to the U.S. for a visit over Chinese New Year. I have so many people that I love at home that I knew I would have to visit. At the time, I didn't know I would also have a long list of things I would want to eat (pizza, bagels, gnocchi, Mexican food, and blueberries) and little daily experiences I would be desperate for (electric dryers, flushing toilet paper, indoor heating, and trashy TV) And United Airlines made it even more tempting to stay through some really miserable ground services.

But eventually, I landed in Taiwan again. I feel a little, tiny bit wiser about what I'm getting into. I'm also in a better position now to see how much Chinese I've learned, even if there is a lot more to learn. And I feel like I'm going to be making more of a push to cross off personal goals while I'm here for the second semester. I'm going to travel around Taiwan (and even to Japan!) and otherwise just try to do more for ME. So I'll keep you posted on that and I'll also continue my countdown to the end of my scholarship without shame...144 days and counting.

Weekly Mandarin: 28

2008-02-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

28th edition: Chur

We will now resume our regular programming...

I came back from the U.S. a week before the end of vacation partly because I wanted to get adjusted to the time zones and food, and oh!, wait for my luggage to arrive, but also to enjoy the Lunar New Year as celebrated in Taiwan. The firecrackers have been constant and amazing, if occasionally a little too close for comfort. And the decorations around town are fun. But, like most holidays in the U.S., the main event is getting together with friends and family for the end-of-the-year feast.

So, this week's word is "chur", meaning "eat." And I ate a LOT at my co-teacher's family dinner. The dinner was hosted by the grandparents (who looked awesome for being near 90 years old) and cooked almost entirely by my co-teacher's mom. Here are some of the things I ate at the dinner...

abalone, imported from Mexico
veggies grown on the family farm
breaded, possibly fried, shark
chicken with the head sitting on the platter
long-life vegetables
and much, much more, some of which I probably don't want to know what it was.

"Equality Before the Law" sheds a silent tear

2008-01-31T21:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've been home in the US for about two weeks. But the damage may have already been done by living outside of the country for a whole six months...

Tonight, I couldn't name all of the amendments to the Constitution. And, worse, I couldn't name all of the Chief Justices who have ever presided over the Supreme Court of the United States.

On the bright side, I could still describe the American flag.

Weekly Mandarin: 25

2008-01-17T02:11:00.000-08:00

25th week: Ju Shou

Next semester, I'll be teaching different grades at the same school I've been working with this year. So this was my last week of classes with the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th graders. And silly me, I thought that giving them candy, telling them they're smart, and reminding them that this was their last impression on me would be enough to get us peacefully through the last week.

However, their misbehaviors did solidify the term "ju shou" in my brain: raise your hand. I don't know it from Chinese class cause I'm a spoiled kid in a one-on-one tutoring class:)

There may be a hiatus in Weekly Mandarin while I'm in the US... which will not be a place to improve my Mandarin, but will be a place full of new wonders, like salad bars, pizza, family, and indoor heating.

Weekly Mandarin: 24

2008-01-13T05:01:00.000-08:00

24th edition: Kao shur

Kao shur, kinda rhymes with lao shur (teacher)... and they happen at the middle and end of the school term... that's right. Kao shur is an exam.

Luckily, I didn't have to take an exam myself during the past few weeks because I'm an adult and I chose to take Chinese class.

Unluckily, I spent a remarkable amount of time writing, rewriting, administering, and grading kao shur (s) for my students. And I personally graded almost all of them (about 285 out of 315).

The whole experience reminded me of a major reason why I wouldn't want to be a classroom teacher for the rest of my life. I hate giving tests. They have the potential to break kids down and make them feel like they haven't accomplished anything. They're really hard to make valid measures of a student's learning. And here, they are really really important to kids and parents.

Entire families are committed to their childrens' success, even on elementary school midterms. I was shocked to hear my students tell me about what their parents thought of their grades and the corporal punishment used in homes to respond to anything but perfect scores. I've had kids tell me they failed because they got a grade below a 90. And, honestly, that just makes me want to give all the kids A+s because they're good people and shouldn't be emotionally or physically hurt over English class. But then it would just lead to more chaos later down the line when the same student has a less constructivist teacher and ends up "failing" later on.

The importance of testing here is a real culture shock for me. The last classroom I was a part of ran on the paradigm of giving A's to everyone because students and teachers are doing the best they can. Honestly, this testing season has made me even more convinced that testing is a bunch of bunk and nothing I want to ever do again.

On a related note, here's a picture I took pretty soon after I arrived here in Taiwan. This was the front of one of the local high schools, and the red sheets you see here are the students' scores on their college entrance exams. Posted, on the sidewalk, for everyone to see. They're even lit up at night.

It's intense, and I have no idea how students survive this educational culture with any interest at all in learning.

Comments

2008-01-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks to anyone who reads my blogs and leave comments. It's nice to know people are reading:)

I've started getting comment spam (which makes me sad, because I think "Oh boy, someone else wanted to write something about what I wrote" and then get disappointed by offers to enlarge my... heh.) Anyways, please don't be surprised if you're asked to type in a smooshed word when you want to post a comment. Hopefully it'll cut the spam, but please don't let it prevent you from saying "Hi" or "Gee, Korea was COLD?!"

Hanguo!!! (Korea)

2008-01-04T03:11:00.001-08:00

I spent the 5 days surrounding New Years in Korea with my great friend Hwa Jeong. We met during grad school and she was a wonderful hostess in her home city of Seoul! I think this is a story best-told through pictures: enjoy!

I didn't have a thorough understanding of how cold it would be in Korea. Heh. It was REALLY cold. But to deal with that fact, the Koreans came up with this brilliant heating system a long time ago. All the heat, radiating from the floor, but none of the smoke. Genius! If only they could do it to the sidewalks too.
Awesome apotropaic stone figure. Didn't really scare me though.

Having fun with the giant plastic figure...

..and the giant stuffed figure.

Hwa Jeong took me to visit Korea's National Folklife Museum. It was really interesting (and they had a cool proximity triggered electronic self-guide). Their special exhibit was about the Chinese zodiac system, which obviously isn't just used in China, but also Chinese restaurants all over the world;) It focused on art including the rat-- this upcoming year and MY zodiac year! Outside the Museum, they had an arrangement of the zodiac figures! Here's me and the rat:)

Who says my sister should have all the fun trying on wedding dresses? Me in a Korean wedding dress:)
Hwa Jeong and I took an awesome Korean drumming lesson. We were really good at it. AND THEN, we clapped the same rhythm during the Nanta performance a few days later. How cool.

Me and the cute drummer guys. Right now they're not wearing their beanie hats with ribbon-dancer ribbons on them. But it was pretty awesome when they were dancing, drumming, and ribbon-dancing.

Korea has Outback. I couldn't have been happier.

For New Years Eve, Hwa Jeong and I went to Lotte World (any MEPs out there, you KNOW that's funny!). We ended up going on a rollercoaster at about 11 PM and then watching indoor fire works. (Side note: not us) What a great way to ring in the New Year-- at Asia's largest indoor theme park...

Ok... but not all of it was indoors. I almost turned into an icicle on the swing ride.
Cold + going fast = really cold.

It only snows on mountain tops in Taiwan. So I wanted to see some snow in Korea. It actually led me to get really excited when I saw about 5 snowflakes in a flurry one day. But the most snow I experienced was in an aquarium with a snow machine. I don't think there are polar bears in Korea.

Hwa Jeong got us tickets to the Must See performance in Korea-- Nanta! It's a percussion show based around the sounds and drum-able things in the kitchen. It was highly participatory; Hwa Jeong went on stage to make dumplings with the cast during the show. And my personal favorite part was when they quoted Street Fighter 3. And I understood it. (Brian, be proud)

Hwa Jeong was a reaaaaaally generous hostess.
She even gave me a departing gift--mousy goodies for the lunar new year!

Weekly Mandarin: 23

2008-01-04T02:56:00.000-08:00

23rd edition: Men

I was in Korea for a week, which I'll go into more detail in another post, but I resisted the temptation to bow out of a Weekly Mandarin 'cause they don't speak Mandarin in Korea.

They speak Korean. Duh.

I like Korean a lot. There are no tones. There are clever little tag words that identify what word is what part of the sentence. And a lot of Korean is phonetic. But, because they were a part of the whole China thing for a while, they still use a lot of Chinese characters (which, haha, of course, are not phonetic).

But while we were touring Seoul, I was really thrilled to see and use Chinese to understand what was going on around me. A great example of this was "men" meaning gate or door. Seoul has lots of old, fancy gates which have been preserved and kept in place right in the middle of the city. And I kept being so excited to read the labels on them "West Gate," "East Gate!" It was all just exciting and made the Chinese studying seem a little more useful.

Weekly Mandarin: 22

2008-01-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

22nd edition: Jia ren

I'm late, I know! I've just been busy: Christmas, teaching, globe trotting. Sorry.

In any case, Christmas week's Weekly Mandarin was jia ren, which means "family people." Christmas abroad wasn't the easiest thing ever, because you don't really realize what you've got until you don't have it available. So I was definitely thinking wistfully of real Christmas trees, ovens to bake cookies in, and the friends and family I've spent so many Christmases with. But, I ended up with a pretty good Christmas with a few gifts and calls from the families at home (Dad's family, Mom, my sister, the Brian, AND the Williammees of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia) and the families I'm creating here, with my host family, haircut family, co-teachers, fellow Fellows, and of course, my students. Here are the highlights of Christmas in Taiwan...

With the sixth graders, we had a little Christmas party where we sneakily made them practice their new grammar structure and vocabulary. And they needed to put the hat on me.
I don't think most of them understood that in the US, sometimes we have real trees as Christmas trees.
Or for that matter, yes, my dad is a Chinese-American.

Christmas pictionary with the second graders-- what's he drawing?

T is for Christmas TREE.

Me? I don't pick favorites. At all. Technically, she's not even one of my students! This is the famous Gladys:)

Didn't hurt yah, just scared yah.

2007-12-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

As if working on Christmas Eve and Christmas, IN TAIWAN, weren't bad enough... This morning I got in a minor scooter accident. I wasn't hurt at all, the scooter wasn't hurt, the other people weren't hurt and the other car wasn't hurt.

However, the sheer shock of the event and trying to resolve it all in broken Chinese (ok, only "I don't understaaaand!) and hand gestures made it necessary for me to spend the next 2 hours crying.

Didn't hurt me, just scared the BEJEZZUZES outa me.

Wo de Sheng Re (My birthday!)

2007-12-21T21:51:00.000-08:00

This year, my birthday was on a Monday, which meant I was at work. But it was pretty great, really because some of the kids really got into it. I thought my coteacher must have paid the 5th graders because so many of them came up to me and said "JENNYWEI teacher! Happy Birsday!" and... I don't teach them:)

But class 601 definitely took the cake for decorating the blackboard and singing to me. And then fabulous Kate brought the little bitties she teaches in to sing to me too! It was great!

And then afterschool, I went out to coffee with Kate and Angela, and a very good time was had by all.

I was also pretty pleased with myself for displaying enough self-restraint to NOT open birthday presents until my actual birthday. (Christmas presents haven't faired as well, hehe)

Overall, I had a pretty great birthday this year. Last year, I refused to tell anyone at work about my birthday because then they would know I really was THAT young. So this year, it was great to have a public birthday:)

Weekly Mandarin: 21

2007-12-21T21:45:00.001-08:00

21st edition: Bu hao ting

I'm a little disappointed to admit that this is the bit of Chinese from this week that will stick with me the most, but I have yet to learn how to let insults roll off me.

I've had a sore throat for the past two weeks, but Christmas carols will wait for no man or woman, so I still had to sing Christmas carols with my kids. Unfortunately, one of my sixth graders found it necessary to shout out "bu hao ting" as I tried to get the class excited about Jingle Bells. That means "that sounds bad."

And, honestly, I would have been a lot more ok about it if she had even bothered to use the English we JUST taught the class: how to say things smell/sound/taste bad or good. Insult + injury

I will never voluntarily teach classroom middle school.

Weekly Mandarin: 20

2007-12-12T05:31:00.001-08:00

20th edition: Fangsong (Holy Macaroni, I've spent 20 weeks here.)

Anyone who has ever met me knows I'm tightly wound. I freak out when I don't learn something quickly; I prefer not to risk making a fool of myself; and I really really hate looking like everything isn't going according to plans. Well, here in Taiwan, I'm experiencing double my usual amount of stress and craziness because Taiwan just isn't an according-to-plans kind of place. (Sometimes because there are no plans to start with!)

(Deep breath) So this week, I learned a new word: fangsong, meaning relax.

Special thanks go out to Jeannie's yoga class for using the word in a sentence (Hue fangsong hue hao-- the more relaxed, the better), Jeannie for writing it on my computer desktop, and my wonderful yoga teacher for using it again and again and again when I'm actually relaxed enough to learn!

Picture Update

2007-12-08T18:36:00.001-08:00

Hey, finally got some pics up for Super Awesome Halloween. Feel free to check out the unbelievable cuteness under October's posts.

Weekly Mandarin:19

2007-12-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

19th edition: Shia Yu

I've actually been working on this word for a while, but it only seems to have stuck recently. It rains a lot here. A lot. A lot. A lot. Like today will be something like the 80th straight day it has rained in Yilan.

But the other day, I had an unforgettable rain experience. Kate and I decided to scooter about 50 minutes away to the National Traditional Arts Center on what started off as a very temperate and cloudy but not rainy day (that counts as "good weather" here). Unfortunately, within 25 minutes on the road, it started to shia yu. And then it started to shia da yu (downpour). We kept scootering, but the rain was coming down in drops the size of M&Ms and felt like hail. We were both soaked when we got to the Center, and I stopped to watch the rain falling for a second, and realized that each rain drop splashed about 8 inches on impact...

Needless to say, we had a great time anyway and it makes a decent story. But, I still will never miss scootering in the shia yu.

English Easy Go

2007-12-06T02:36:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, the name of the competition isn't correct. But its supposed to showcase English prowess in Yilan County. It was... a time- and effort- consuming challenge that actually wrapped up for the fall about a month ago, but I only just got around to bringing the pictures and footage home.

Me and a pretend prop. My one mission in life is to humiliate myself.

Work. It.

This is why I needed to be in the audience trying to make my students smile. DUDE--it's just a song.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Moment in the Life of a Halfy

2007-12-02T00:21:00.000-08:00

("Halfy" being my preferred affectionate term for being multiracial)

I had a really striking moment the other night on my way back to my apartment: I got into an elevator with 2 Taiwanese people, whose conversation stopped immediately upon noticing that I was a foreigner. We all left the elevator; they turned left and I turned right. As I was walking away, one said to the other (in Chinese) "foreigner." I'm used to that, and it's ok.

Then I walked back to my apartment, and ended up a few steps behind a white couple speaking English who apparently live in our building. I said mumbled a quick thanks to the guy who held the door open for a second so I could pass through. And then he kept talking to his girlfriend like I couldn't understand what they were saying.

I had kind of expected being too white to fit in here. And I already knew I was too Asian to be completely standard at home. But in the span of 3 minutes, that all displayed itself in shocking clarity. It's not bad or racist or a problem, really, it's just noticeable.

Weekly Mandarin: 18

2007-11-29T02:31:00.000-08:00

18th edition: Jai you

This is a word that I am quite certain will be a part of my spoken vocabulary from now on. It even slipped out accidentally during one of my third grade classes (the students are supposed to think I don't know any Chinese).

Jai you is something along the lines of "go go GO!" like a cheer. I hear it a lot: like from the soccer fields 13 floors down from my window, like during yoga class when we'd really all prefer to curl up into child's pose but instead get coaxed into bridges. It's also nearly impossible to say without doing a shoulder wiggle or full out air punches.

So when I'm home in America watching a frisbee game, now Brian will know when I'm cheering. Because it'll be in Mandarin.

Lotto, baby

2007-11-26T03:03:00.000-08:00

Ok, so apparently, the Taiwanese government wasn't getting taxes from stores like they felt they should be getting, so they developed a system of standardized receipts to somehow facilitate their getting accurate records from the stores. To motivate people to go to the stores with the receipts, they made up a lottery where people check the standardized numbers on their receipts.

And that, my friends, is how I won a whopping 400 NT tonight. ($12 USD)

Typhoon Mitag

2007-11-26T02:20:00.000-08:00

Another typhoon. This one's very very late in the season and not terribly strong, but they aren't cancelling anything because of it, so I still get the full experience. I just hope the predictions are all right about it veering away from Taiwan...

Weekly Mandarin: 17

2007-11-23T03:55:00.000-08:00

17th edition: Pongyou

So, this week was full of Thanksgiving festivities. My personal favorite was having the second graders write things they were thankful for on turkey feathers, and then making paper turkeys out of them.

But, as you might imagine, I was a little extra homesick during the holiday. Luckily, I have more than one outstanding "pongyou" or "friend" here. My co-teacher wrote me a really sweet Thanksgiving note, and another co-teacher took us all out to tea. And my fellow Fellows here are all gathering for a makeshift Thanksgiving on Sunday. My family of "pongyoumen" (friends) here make life bearable... though they're of course, no replacement for the family and friends I have at home. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

At provisional Thanksgiving, I gave part of my thanks in Mandarin. I feel like a rockstar. I am thankful for my friends and, of course, for my reflective bumblebee raincoat.

Weekly Mandarin:16

2007-11-23T03:52:00.000-08:00

16th edition: Re

(Sorry, sorry, I know it's late)

Re means "hot," which is no longer a good descriptor for the weather, but is a good adjective for the type of tea we consume every minute of every day here....

And it's also the name of the new dance class Kate and I found. Thanks to "hot dance" class, Kate and I are now dancing again... and we are, as Justin Timberlake would say, "bringing sexy back."

Medicine in Taiwan

2007-11-12T03:32:00.000-08:00

So, I got quite sick this past week, and got to know a bit more about medicine here in Taiwan. To be fair, my host dad happens to be a doctor who owns his own practice, but I think the point remains: It's better to have a cold in Taiwan than in the US.

Host dad scheduled two appointments for me and a fellow sick fellow, and my wonderful host mom drove us to the office. Host dad listened to my story and took a quick look at my tonsils, then shot me up with some penecillin and wrote out a prescription... which he then handed to my host mom at the front of the office, who doled out the drugs. Then they don't only give you the drugs with the instructions, right there in the office, but they also wrap the drugs up in tiny little papers, so you eat all the pills in one bundle of paper, no thought required. And the whole thing should have cost me about 12 USD, I'm told (though, host parents wouldn't hear of me paying). Two appointments took twenty minutes, from sitting down in the waiting room to leaving with drugs.

Then there's also the soft medicine here: Moms! Like my host mommy who lept out of the car yielding an ear thermometer (which read in celcius, so I had no concept of what my temperature was!), insisted that we take 3 liters of sports drink each and some traditional Taiwanese pancakes, and then... this is a little overwhelmingly sweet... after sending me back to bed after the doctor's appointment, dropped by with a whole pot of freshly made chicken soup from scratch. Being sick has its perks.

Hot Springs!

2007-11-12T03:27:00.000-08:00

This is the real reason I took the Fulbright: Not for the glory of being a Fulbrighter for the rest of my life, not to help people, but to be within a half hours drive of hot and cold natural springs.

Katie and I took our first trip to the hot springs this weekend! Like the cold springs, they weren't what I expected. For one thing, it was clearly an all-day event for most of the people there. They were complete with a concession stand, saunas, a gigantic slide, and about 25 different pools. Some of the pools had different herbs added to them that were supposed to help the body, but really all Katie and I could pick up without Chinese was that... they were all different colors! So, naturally, we needed to visit each of them, in reverse rainbow order. The weirdest one, however, was the one that was clear, with live fish in it. You sat, the fish swam, oh, and they nibbled dead skin off your body. Very. very. strange.

Weekly Mandarin: 15

2007-11-06T06:15:00.001-08:00

15th edition: Liu bi shwei

Ok, the cursed "real Chinese" wins. After learning how to say running nose (liu bi shwei), the running nose turned into a chest cold, a fever, and a need to stay in bed for 72 hours. I've recovered; but man, that was a bad cold. I'll have to be even better at observing the first commandment of teaching: Thou shalt use antibacterial gel. Every six seconds.

Things I Forgot to Mention About School

2007-11-04T04:01:00.001-08:00

So, I kind of forgot to write about school in general, and how it compares to the U.S. for better and for worse and some other reflections. Thanks for the reminder, Loraine!

I was very very confused by the introduction to Taiwanese schools that we got during orientation. They explained that we (meaning Fulbright English Teaching Assistants and our coteachers) teach with "learning through play" but that the rest of the school teaches in a drill-and-grill approach. Most classes (core subjects like math and Chinese) are taught by "homeroom teachers" and then we are some of the special subject teachers. Sometimes I feel bad playing some crazy game and getting the kids all wild, and then turning them back over to their homeroom teachers to do sit-down-and-listen class.

As far as class hours, the structure is actually really fascinating! Kids begin public school at first grade, and in first grade, they take classes 4 half days and one full day per week, with full days running from 7:40 to 4:10. The second graders have 3 half days and two full days, etc, etc. I think it's pretty developmentally sensitive-- although teaching those second graders on one of the few afternoons they're at school is tough! I should also mention that these are only the hours that the students are in public schools, about 70% of my students also attend afterschool "cram schools," sometimes for 5 hours again after public school. It's pretty intense stuff and causes some painful gaps in the classroom, unfortunately along socio-economic lines.

The actual structure of individual days include 10 minute breaks between each class when the kids are supposed to go outside and run around, and one twenty minute morning break for the school's exercise dance. There are also twenty minute periods for cleaning time, when the students are responsible for many aspects of the school's upkeep, like sweeping, window washing, picking up litter, etc. It could be interpreted as child labor, but I think it gives them a sense of belonging to and responsibility for the school grounds and community. My favorite bit of the schedule is that lunch time also includes a 40 minute nap time period for students and teachers alike!

Weekly Mandarin: 14

2007-11-02T01:51:00.000-07:00

14th edition: Jiao

This is what Weekly Mandarin is supposed to be like... I have learned about twenty traditional characters by now, all in the greetings and introductions chapter. But I actually got to use one of them yesterday.

I stopped by my favorite tea shop (the one where the lady already knows that I want honey green tea, so instead of having me butcher "fung me liu cha," she just asks if I want one or two cups). And the shop was all lit up, but the lady was no where to be found. So I looked around and found a piece of paper with some writing on it (at which point I think... uh-oh, I can't read). But I looked down, and I recognized what it said! It had the character "jiao," which means "call." So I called out "hello!" and the lady appeared. I couldn't have been happier. Not only did I get two cups of positively ambrosial tea, I actually got to use some of the Chinese I'm learning.

The Commies Are Coming... or not.

2007-11-02T01:48:00.000-07:00

As opposed to my last apartment, where all planes heading into Reagan or Dulles flew over head, there are never ever any airplanes or helicopters over my apartment in Yilan. So, you can imagine my surprise when there were helicopters directly above my apartment the other day. And I was convinced it was because China was deciding they wanted the Renegade Province back and I was going to have to escape. My co-teacher thought that was funny.

Super Awesome Halloween

2007-10-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the pumpkins here are... smaller and more like squash. And there sure isn't any real trick-or-treating. But I did have a really excellent Halloween anyway, thanks to my fabulous boyfriend and my wonderful host family. I got two different sets of Halloween candies and so very much more.

The school trick-or-treating didn't go so well, considering the TONS of rain and tired kiddies, but I was in love with their costumes. In so many cases, their families had clearly made the costumes themselves, and the kids where honestly proud of their cape made of a garbage bag with sparkles glued onto it. If there were more kids in the US who would be pleased with a simple, creative, homemade costume, the world would be a better place.

One of my personal favorites is on the left, with the spiderman mask, a floral house dress, and an inflatable hammer. Yes. Halloween at its best.
Garbage bag guy, he's got "I want candy" written on his back. Very direct.

Ok, I know you still want my picture up:)

Weekly Mandarin: 13

2007-10-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

13th Edition: Shuxie

So, I have really been learning more than one word per week. Especially now that I've got 4 hours of Mandarin per week in one-on-one and two-on-one classes.

And yesterday, I made a new milestone: I successfully produced some shuxie, or writing. Take a look:

This says "I am American" and "Is your family name Wei?" However, it probably looks to native Mandarin speakers like my 3rd graders' alphabet looks like to me.

Weekly Mandarin: 12

2007-10-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

12th edition: Ke ai

My school has 1st through 6th graders, and I only teach the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th graders. This is a good thing, because honestly, I'd spend all my time with the 1st graders just wanting to pinch their cheeks. All I can think about during story time with the 1st graders is how darn cute, or "ke ai," they are.

Of course, the 2nd and 3rd graders are ke ai too... like the adorably round girl named "Apple" and the little guy who gives me his lunch snack everyday. But, I'll have to take a picture of Gladys, my co-teacher's 1st grade daughter, and you'll understand.

Fun in Taipei

2007-10-16T17:16:00.001-07:00

We stumbled across the Taiwan Pride Parade while we were waiting for seats at the bagel cafe!

As we meandered, Meg and I found the Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. We took tourist photos...

...and were sure not to leave our turtles in the lake.

Museum of World Religions

2007-10-16T16:00:00.001-07:00

The epic quest to visit museums in Taiwan continues...

This weekend, Meg and I paid a visit to the Museum of World Religions in Taipei. I'd heard that it was very new, very interactive, and that it would be great. It was very new, fairly interesting, and once again interpreted in both Chinese and English. The tours, however, were only in Chinese, so I wonder if they added more to the tour than what we weiguoren (foreigners) were able to absorb.

The aesthetic of the Museum was superb-- it really set a visitor up for reflection and a peaceful experience. The models of famous houses of worship were definitely the best, everything from Chartres to the Dome of the Rock and even a Frank Lloyd Wright meeting house.

And then there was the "step into the scene" Annunciation...

Weekly Mandarin: 11

2007-10-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

11th edition: Qiuji

I had more than enough to say about the summer here, I'm sure it even bordered on whining. But then, this week, overnight, the weather changed drastically.

And it is now qiuji, or autumn! That's to say that instead of being really hot and humid, it's chilly and humid and doesn't stop raining. But this is just the predecessor to winter, when its cold, and humid, and doesn't stop raining. Needless to say, I expect I'll miss the summer a bit after a few months of this. At least there was sun.

The National Palace Museum

2007-10-14T04:34:00.000-07:00

As part of a recent trip to Taipei, my colleagues and I visited the National Palace Museum, probably the best-known museum in Taiwan. Basically, all the good stuff from Mainland China was sent to Taiwan for protection, and when Taiwan became independent, they kept all the goodies, at the National Palace Museum.

The Museum was very impressive, and positively huge. The collections were entirely Asian, which was interesting for me, and the exhibits were mostly chronological, which didn't tap into the collection's potential in my opinion. However, I was thrilled to see that the wall text was bilingual, if not trilingual, Chinese, English and sometimes Japanese. It made me think for a moment about how cocky it is that the national museums in the US only use English. They are, after all, a huge tourist pilgrimage location.

The tour was tough-- millions of years in an hour, on a very crowded holiday. But overall, it was a typical museum tour. I think we made something like twenty stops, which made my head spin, and by the end I was one of the awful learners singing and dancing in the back of the tour group. (Ok, it the docent was explaining how scholars were judged partially by how good their inkwells were, and would attract followers by having good inkwells. That somehow needed to become "My inkwell brings all the boys to the yard..." with a dance.)

Extreme Cuteness Alphabet

2007-10-11T07:37:00.001-07:00

H

I
J (which, of course, stands for "JENNY")

Storytime!

2007-10-11T07:28:00.001-07:00

Besides my classroom teaching (17 periods per week, plus prep) I'm also reading stories to 2 or 3 classes per week. This can be a challenge with language learners-- since my sixth graders have the English of a native second grader, but think that they're too old for picture books. I would love to know some very short, simple language stories that aren't really picture books per say, so I welcome your suggestions. Right now, I think I've found an option with a book of minimally illustrated Aesop's fables. With the older kids, they already know the story so it's really a language exercise for them. So far so good.

I'm a narcissist. We did a book about a teacher for Teacher's Day.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar with fifth grade kids

A silhouette game after a Dr. Seuss book on shapes
(with Gladys, the adorable and brilliant daughter of my co-teacher, Hopkins)

Super Typhoon Krosa

2007-10-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

I guess the international news circuit was slow and decided to mention our super typhoon this weekend. Never fear, I haven't been washed into the Pacific Ocean. In fact, I didn't even lose power or internet. I just sat around watching Grey's Anatomy episodes and eating:)

My host mom was worried for my well-being, so she insisted on coming by on Friday night with a care package of food for me: 3 kinds of fresh bread, butter, soup mix, coke, sprite, and potato chips. I am definitely well-loved.

Don't tell Kelly (the Taiwanese Fulbright staff person assigned to keeping us safe), but we did go out before the typhoon got bad, because Kate and I realized we had an emergency situation: We didn't have enough bananas to last the typhoon! It's all about risk-management.

Weekly Mandarin: 10

2007-10-08T04:17:00.001-07:00

10th Edition: Ting Bu Dong

This could just be my most useful phrase yet, and I think it's both expressive in its accents and a little philosophical.

"Ting bu dong" is a phrase I have heard... probably about 100 times so far in my teaching career. It translates to "I hear, but I don't understand." It is not only helpful to know when my students are groaning this at me, but also when the lady at the fruit stand thinks "well, she looks Chinese, she must speak Chinese."

Teaching and Learning Tidbit

2007-10-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

So far, I haven't made any kids cry in class yet. One of my kids did start putting a plastic bag over his head today in class, but I don't think it was a comment on my teaching.

I did, however, make myself cry in Chinese class today. (To clarify: I was crying while I was a student in a Chinese class at the University. To anyone who knows the phonetic alphabet, I was absolutely failing at distinguishing the zi, tzi, si. And my teacher wouldn't let me sit down and give up despite my protests of "but, I'm really stressed out.") I have so much more empathy for these kids now that I'm in their shoes (as a language-learner myself).

Kids are great but...

2007-10-01T07:20:00.001-07:00

My friend Kate told me about an admissions question to her education grad program that posed that question.

After only a month of teaching in a classroom, and reflecting on my other teaching experiences, I would fill it in with the following options:
... they can be real jerks! Like the kid at the Constitution Center who kindly informed me that I was breaking out, kids can be quite insulting. Sometimes they don't realize they're saying things that are unkind, but several of the angels I've taught know perfectly well where the line is and how far past it they are. I'm glad I don't speak Mandarin, so so it's easier to let it roll right off.
... they're really stinky sometimes. At least I know I'm not the only person on this island who sweats constantly.
... sometimes, enough is enough. We had classes on Saturday, specifically, we did a my most demanding class schedule on Saturday. And then we did it again on Monday. I can say without a doubt that I'd sincerely prefer the company of my boyfriend, my family, my boyfriend's family, my friends, or my own peace of mind.

Weekly Mandarin: 9

2007-10-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

9th edition: Jiaotache

This Weekly Mandarin is late because I had to make sure the drama actually had a happy ending before I could tell the happy ending online.

Jiaotache is the word for bicycle. And here is the recent history of me and my jiaotache:

First, I didn't have a bike, so I bought one.
Then I couldn't ride it, so I learned (courtesy of Michelle and my friendly neighbors at the time).
Then I left my bike parked at the train station near my old apartment, as I couldn't understand how the train company wanted me to package my bike for shipping and couldn't just take the darn thing on the train with me. So last weekend, I sucked it up, woke up at 6:30 on a Sunday morning, and biked the thing 6 miles to my new apartment. It was a pretty uneventful ride, except for that I finished thinking I was superwoman.
In any case, so I decided this weekend I would take my bike for a ride to get used to it again. After getting rained out at one point in the morning, I went back in the afternoon, figuring I could bike to my errands. And I put the key in the lock... and the key ripped off the handle, with part of the key still stuck in the lock.
So, finally, today, I mentioned it to my co-teacher, who had one of the other teachers come to my apartment to unstick the key.
... And finally, I have my jiaotache back to usable. And I still prefer my scooter.

Moon Festival

2007-09-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest traditional holidays here in Taiwan is the Moon Festival, celebrated in mid-autumn on the autumnal equinox. It feels a lot like Thanksgiving in the US, and is a time when families get together and celebrate harvest. However, rather than turkey and cranberry sauce, there are some different food traditions here, including:

The barbecue. Since the festival is all about the moon, it makes sense to eat outdoors under the moon and it's certainly still warm enough to do so. Unfortunately, it also rains here almost everyday, so barbecues end up moving into garages or covered spaces and you can't see the moon. However, I happen to think BBQs here are pretty fantastic. Everything, from vegetables to tofu squares and every kind of animal is put over charcoals and eaten off a stick. And neither of the parties I've been to have had real sit-around-360-days-out-of-the-year barbecues, instead there have been little cinderblock constructions sitting on cement floors, which make more sense to me. And in case you were wondering, blowtorches and an electric fan do wonders to get charcoal going.

The moon cakes: Little ball-shaped cakes flavored with sesame seed or taro. Total number of moon cakes given to me this year: 18 and counting.

Pomelos: Pomelos, like Hershey's kisses and crack cocaine, are highly addictive. Lucky for me, they're not as unhealthy as chocolate or illegal drugs. Not only is it traditional to eat Pomelos (it looks like most families get at least one crate of them) for Moon Festival, but also to wear the rinds on one's head. Entertainment, hair treatment, and bug repellent in one. My kind of celebration.

Happy Moon Festival, everyone!

Tidbit on Turtle Island

2007-09-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

Please feel free to check out the modified Turtle Island post-- now with dolphin footage directly on the page!

Google Maps

2007-09-24T00:48:00.000-07:00

For anyone wondering what life is like here in Yilan, here are a few of my favorite haunts embedded in a GoogleMap. Mostly, these are the things that are truly important to me... the dumpling shop, the pizza restaurant, and... school. Please don't add or move things around on me unless you live here with me and want to set me straight. If you plugged a Wendy's into my map, you could light a glimmer of hope that I might spend hours chasing down.

View Larger Map

Also, you can zoom all the way out on my map and see that I really am just about as far from home as I could possibly be, but still on Earth. (A warm fuzzy thought for us all.)

Weekly Mandarin: 8

2007-09-21T05:10:00.000-07:00

8th Edition: Bu Yow...

Apologies to anyone who read the temporary 8th Weekly Mandarin. It was lame to say the least. Here is its improved replacement:

It's somewhat fascinating that I have survived in Taiwan thus far with my vocabulary of approximately a dozen words. But it's even more fascinating that I've been the opposite of undernourished, as...

Most everyone who knows me knows that I am a picky eater. So now I have the grammatical tools to deal with that. Besides the name for what I do want, I now know how to say what I "bu yow" or don't want as well. This means I can order my rice without eggs, or my tea without milk, or sandwiches without sauce and life is automatically a bit better for me.

This sentence was driven home for by stories of Jeannie's lovely student. The one who expresses all responses prefaced by "Bu yow." For example, he answers questions like "What letter does Apple start with?" with "Bu yow A." He just doesn't want English.

Turtle Island

2007-09-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday, rather than working, we were taken on an awesome field trip to Turtle Island. The Island seriously looks like a turtle, with a head, shell, and tail. It is a preserved ecological resource and its visitation is strictly limited.

Of course, we took a boat to get to the Island. Which meant I needed some serious motion sickness drugs (for some reason Taiwan makes me motion sick more than anywhere else I've ever been). But it was totally worth it because we ended up seeing about 200 dolphins playing in the Pacific Ocean on our way. I took only mental pictures and tried to soak in the experience. But if you're itching for some footage, here's a bit courtesy of Katie:

Once we got to the shore, we made a b-line for the restrooms and met our guide, who told us that the hike to the summit would be "about seven hundred" steps up. Actually, this seems to have been a breakdown in translation. Because once we got to 700, we realized he'd meant "seventeen hundred." But it was totally worth it because check out the view from 401 meters above sea level.

(Turtle head)

(Turtle Tail)

(Finally... but it was totally worth it)

Jin

2007-09-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

You might remember that I was kind of handed a Chinese name on my first day in Taiwan. I'd come in with my grandmother's name (Kim Ling Wei) and came out with a different character for Wei, and a Jin-Nee. Considering that all of the other non-Chinese speaking Fulbrighters were assigned names that sounded like their American names and surnames, I kind of let go of my grandma's name and surrendered.

But actually, I found out last weekend that there's a lot more to "jin" than sounding like "jen." "Jin," seen below, is the character for gold (quite auspicious), but it's also pronounced "Kim" in Cantonese. So I did get my grandmother's name after all, through some cosmic blessing that my English name sounds like her character in Mandarin. I kind of got teared up because it didn't hit me how much it meant to me until I was so relieved that it had happened after all.

Weekly Mandarin: 7

2007-09-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

7th Edition: Yujia

Kate and I decided to have an adventure by signing up for some dance classes at the local community center. Since we couldn't get dancing shoes shipped in fast enough, we decided we'd ease into the whole classes-instructed-in-Chinese thing with some nice easy yoga, or yujia.

HA. The class is taught by a 46 year old mini-Amazon. And it's half aerobics and half intense stretching with some yoga poses. For example: while trying to get me and Kate (both former dancers) to clench our butt cheeks really tightly together during plank, she took out a toothbrush and held it between her buttocks. She is my hero. And we're planning on taking the class until we can do the same. Besides that, we'll come out of the whole year with a great vocabulary of anatomy and movement verbs.

Weekly Mandarin: 6

2007-09-09T05:26:00.000-07:00

6^th Edition: Cha

cha-cha-cha. No. I haven't started ballroom dancing again yet. But I did get a very elaborate tea-tasting during a visit to the local tea farms. So this week's word is “cha” for tea.

Of course, here there are so many kinds of tea. And usually I just drink whatever I get handed. But during my tea tasting, I got to eat some wonderful (and addictive) tea-roasted peanuts and I tried 4 varieties of tea. Personally, I seem to be a weak-tea drinker who doesn't care too much about the scent of the tea but hates an aftertaste, so ended up with a lovely green tea (which, I was told, is so called because it is not roasted like many other teas). It was really quite an experience!

This is me with the sniffing cup. There was one short-squat cup for sipping from and one tall cup for sniffing out of. The sniffing was fun but really didn't make or break the tea, in my mind.

As a bonus, I can also recognize the character for cha, which I believe is supposed to look like a leaf. But to me, it looks more like a little tea house... whatever gets me through my menu.

Museum MADNESS

2007-09-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, not really. But I did visit two historical houses this past weekend.

One Museum, which was about a 15 minute walk from my apartment, was the historical seat of the Yilan County government. It was a recently restored Japanese-style house and was positively beautiful inside. The teak wood (a local crop that's been exploited for years, especially during Japanese occupation) smelled wonderful! It had a mix of historically accurate living spaces and exhibition space with a timeline of the government and culture in Yilan County. And I taught the friend I was with the word “restoration.”

...which she then used during our outing the next day to the historical center of the lumber trade in Luodong (the city I had been living in until this month). The most remarkable thing about the site was the large, perfectly still artificial lake on which the lumber used to be floated. Since it's not used for lumber any more, it's become a protected bird habitat. And it was a perfect mirror of the evening sky when we stopped by.

I also visited a great scenic lookout (with a very romantic cafe on top of it).

Weekly Mandarin: 5

2007-09-04T07:05:00.001-07:00

5th Edition: Pah boo

Food is a huge part of the culture here. I've had a few moments of "oh. my. gosh. get-this-out-of-my-mouth" but mostly, the food has been pretty great. However, this causes its own problems. Because I'd prefer not to return home the size of a hippo, I've taken up a new hobby: pah boo.

"Pah boo" is "running" in Chinese. It's the one thing every class, regardless of grade, understood when I was introducing myself and my hobbies. It has become a very important part of my day, mostly so I don't feel too rolly polly. And, luckily, across the street from my apartment is a huge high school with a nice track.

Jenny Lao Shur!

2007-08-30T05:18:00.000-07:00

Those of you keeping up on your Weekly Mandarin already know that this entry is about teaching--specifically, my first day at my school! I'm going to be working with Sing-Sheng Elementary School in the lovely city of Yilan, co-teaching classes for 2nd, 3rd, and 6th graders with my partner teachers Hopkins and Angela. Everyone at the school is GREAT. All of the teachers and administrators, despite a sometimes wide language-gap, are unbelievably helpful. We're talking help switching apartments, walking me through my scooter purchasing and riding, help finding ballroom dancing classes in the neighborhood, and the suggestion that, really, the vegetarian lunch is much better than the meat.

And the kids run the gamut from precious to precocious in the not-so-good ways. Here are some of the best questions I heard during my self-introduction:

Are you married?
Are you rich?
Is it fun to play in the snow?
How big are the bugs in America?
Are you pregnant? (Misinterpretation of the belly-rubbing gesture for "yummy")
How old is your boyfriend? Is he rich? (By the way, sweetheart, they decided you were cool.)
Do dogs in America listen to commands in English? (This is a sign of higher-level thinking, seriously)

One class started off by guessing I was 35 years old. No, I only feel that way after having 5 classes today.

Baby, I was born to ride

2007-08-30T05:09:00.001-07:00

(Just for my wonderful Bruce fans at home in New Jersey)

But check this puppy out:What you can't tell from the other side of the Pacific Ocean is that the decal says "Fever" and my awesome helmet with the pink visor says "Sprot" instead of "sport." And the license plate is WUG.

I'll try to get some video of me driving my scooter. I must have spent a good hour on it today between school and running errands. And it is very fuel efficient! The bad thing is that the drivers here are pretty nuts. So left turns scare the living daylights out of me; so rather than turn left, I turn right at a stop light and turn around so I can go straight later. Maybe once I'm more comfortable with driving in general I'll do some real left turns by choice.

Of course, the day I get my scooter is the day the city starts tearing up streets to repave them. The new pavement is great, the gnawed up pavement-base is a nightmare. But don't worry, I drive fairly slow, always wear my "sprot" helmet and I have insurance.

I'm seriously considering trying to get a vespa back in the States:)

Vroooom Vrooooom

2007-08-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

I have my first motor vehicle license! I can legally drive a 50 cc scooter in Taiwan! The scary thing is that all I needed to do was pass a test. I don't even know how to turn my blinkers on but I can drive legally. And to pass the exam, you needed to get an 85.... guess what score I got: 85! Fear not, I will wear a helmet.

Tomorrow I'll go to purchase my first motor vehicle--- and I am sincerely hoping for hot pink. It would make Brian feel extra special when he's forced to ride behind me on the seat during his visit. And it would make me feel extra special all the time.

Pictures to come!

What Used to Be the World's Tallest Building

2007-08-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

This is Taipei 101. It used to be the tallest building in the world. The entire 5 bottom floors are filled with designer boutiques, mostly from Western fashion lines-- I now know where to find the Tiffany's in Taiwan if I'm in the market for some bling. But, more importantly, I found a shop on the map named Piaget. And I got to joke, with someone who understood, that it would sell developmentally appropriate toys... like water glasses that pour into each other, or things that temporarily hide. We thought it was funny and it proved that I am not alone.

In Taipei, we also...
... watched a super cool underground-esque Tap Dance show. It had tappers with an attitude from all across the world. My personal fav was "Summertime," that's right, from Porgy and Bess.
... stayed with a hostile hostel-er. He cursed. A lot. And made me stay up most of the night wondering if I would be slaughtered in my sleep. No, I was actually safe considering it would have been one against nine.
... ate superb American breakfast... complete with French toast.