Not as easy as ABC: Uncovering a Taiwanese Classroom Mystery

So the other day as I was sitting through 8th grade English class taught in Chinese, I noticed that my co-teacher was reading off the answers to a worksheet in a rather strange way. As she rattled off the answers, "D" was missing! In it's place was a strange sound more like "joo," but sometimes life is strange in a foreign country, so I dismissed it.

On Monday in Chinese class, an exercise sparked the memory, so I asked my Chinese teacher. She started laughing and explained that it is very difficult for the Taiwanese to distinguish between "be" and "di." Since "di" is Taiwanese for pig, they translated it into Mandarin -- "zhu" (pronounced "joo"), hence the strange sounds. So in Taiwan, I guess to learn your alphabet you have to learn your A, B, C, pigs.

Happy Birthday, San Sing Junior High School!

San Sing Guo Zong (San Sing Junior High School), one of the two schools at which I teach, had their 50th birthday celebration on Saturday! The teachers have been very busy for the past few weeks to prepare for the occasion, but when I would ask what the celebration entailed, I could ascertain very little information. I did learn that there would be speeches from 830 to 1030 in the gym, and then a teacher told me that at 1130 "we sell things...french fries."

So with little to expect other than french fries, I headed for San Sing with my host mom, Janet, and her son Tom. Janet is also a junior high school English teacher, and she actually used to teach at San Sing before taking a job at a school in Luodong so she could spend more time with her son.

The day was drizzly, but as we pulled up you could just see swarms of people milling around the school. We missed the speeches (fortunately), but made it just in time for what seemed to be a small fair. Each homeroom arranged a tent on the tennis courts and sold all kinds of food from boba tea (iced tea with these chewy tapioca "pearls" in them) to "pizza" (ham, pineapple and cheese melted on a piece of white bread) to chicken nuggets.

As a teacher I was given 50 NT worth of tickets to use at the booths. I had intended to wander around the stalls and choose what looked most delicious (my taste isn't all that Taiwanese, still), but as soon as I set foot on the tennis courts I was heralded with calls of "Jill! Here!" as my students tried to sell me their wares. I would up buying boba tea from 804 and chocolates from 801, as well as a piece of black sugar cake from one of the 7th grade homerooms. It was very hard to decline a lot of the offers from my students, as they were so excited to see and interact with me (or maybe they just wanted to make the sale). Either way, I like to see them trying to use English to communicate with me. It would be easier to shut down, but as two girls stumbled through trying to tell me the price in English, they were thinking and applying what they have been learning in class. And for lower level students like these two girls, the fact that they were trying is so important!

Janet and I wandered and spoke with some of the teachers while Tom ate as much food as he could. Those conversations with Janet, though, were really enlightening. We knew many of the same people -- I knew their English names, she their Chinese. I could relate my observations, while she had a history of conversation and depth. The result of the language gap is huge, but being with Janet helped to bridge a little bit of that gap. (Left: Me with Angus, one of the soldiers stationed at San Sing to help improve English literacy. Angus is Taiwanese, but went to high school, college and graduate school in the US before coming back to do his mandatory military service.)

There were also a few ceremonies and performances, including aboriginal dancers and traditional Chinese opera performers, but unfortunately we had to leave before their big costumed performance. More than anything, though, it was great to see the school decked out and on display. Everyone there just wanted to celebrate the school and the work done there. I feel lucky to be part of such a community!

The State of Taiwan

This has been (obviously) a very political week. We celebrated Obama's election victory on Wednesday with a large Yilan Fulbright gathering over pizza. Many Taiwanese have followed the election and were also as happy as we were with the results. Most conversations go: "Obama, yeah? He is your party? You like him? You vote? You return to America to vote?" They are surprised to learn that we can vote from here by absentee ballot. (In Taiwan you have to return here to vote in person.)

One of the conversations turned, almost immediately, from the joy of the election results to Obama's policy towards Taiwan. Obama, I later found out, supports greater communication between Taiwan and China; McCain, on the other hand, supports arming Taiwan so it can defend itself against China. He is more pro-independence than Obama, so some Taiwanese were disappointed with the results of the election. And while I explained that I like Obama's position on so many other issues that he was the better choice, it is interesting that an election which I had previously hailed as placing us in a better position internationally is actually not always viewed as such by some people in Taiwan, whose issues I am now so surrounded by.

In Taiwan, meanwhile, the highest ranking Chinese envoy to ever visit Taiwan met with President Ma this week. He did not call President Ma by his title, thus not recognizing Taiwan's government as a sovereign entity. However, the fact that he did visit seems to be a softening of Chinese policy towards Taiwan.

In Taipei, the visit was met with huge protests outside of the envoy's hotel. Police in riot gear had to disperse a crowd so that the envoy could exit a building. These are definitely historical times, not just in America, but also in Taiwan. Read more about it in this Washington Post article.

Superheroes storm Taipei.

As a white American in an Asian country, I've found that I stick out like a sore thumb. In rural Yilan County where I live, just simply trying to order dinner can create a disturbance. (Just last weekend, a waitress at a Thai restaurant was barely able to take our order, despite the fact that we could tell her in Chinese. Seeing five foreigners together was almost too much, though, as she broke down into fits of shy giggling.) Here foreigners are a rarer species, especially if you venture into "local" restaurants and shops and stray from the more famous, touristy areas.

When we have ventured into Taipei, though, the story changes. Foreigners are actually pretty common in the capital, as with any major city. It has been a rather interesting adjustment to lose that sense of international celebrity (coming from small-town Yilan) and shift towards big city anonymity. This weekend, though, we completely shattered this latter idea, though, distinguishing ourselves as minor international celebrities in Taipei, as well!

Halloween is known here as a big American holiday. Many schools offered small celebrations or lessons on the holiday. I, myself, taught a Halloween lesson to the eighth grade at San Sing Junior High School and, played Halloween/English vocabulary Connect-Four at Xin Zhong Junior High School on Halloween day. My students and the other teachers at Xin Zhong definitely got a kick out of the fact that I showed up to work in an orange shirt and promptly put on a witch's hat for the remainder of the morning I was at school. As the resident American, I felt it part of my job to share such a typical snippet of American culture. Such exchange is, after all, part of why I'm here!

After Chinese class in the afternoon, Mary, Paige, Brittany and I set off for Taipei. We planned to meet up with Faith and Nell and celebrate Halloween in our costumes while enjoying the nightlife of the big city. So after finding dinner at a Taiwanese Italian restaurant (cabbage in pasta isn't exactly authentic Italian...) and settling into our hostel (a triumphant return to Taiwanmex), we started changing into costumes. Mary was a pirate, Brittany was a she-devil, Nell was a black cat, Faith was Lucy Liu from Charlie's Angels, Paige was Lara Crofts, and I dressed as Wonder Woman. (We had originally talked about doing all superhero costumes but a few people jumped ship because of the challenge of costuming.)

Once everyone was dressed we headed out for the first bar where we were meeting Matt, a friend of Mary's sister, and his girlfriend, Lydia. We planned to take the MRT (subway), so headed out. Immediately we caused quite a stir as we ran around in our costumes, posing for pictures. Of course, we had to change trains three times to get to the stop we were supposed to meet Matt at, so the scene lasted for quite a while and spread throughout the Taipei subway system, including Taipei Main Station which is always packed.

The bars were fun: the first was a small, local bar that was having a special Halloween party, although we were there early before it was very crowded. Nice to just hang out and play foosball and darts, though, as well as talk to the locals in the bar. We left around 1130, though, and headed for Room 18 which had free admission with Halloween costumes. The line for the club was pretty long, and as we were waiting people would come up and ask to take pictures with me. Inside the club we danced, attracting crowds of people to the American show in the front by the stage.

The next morning we headed for breakfast/lunch at Grandma Nitti's, a restaurant popular in the ex-pat community for it's western food. After an incredibly filling meal of a chicken fajita sub, salad with vinegarette dressing, rootbeer and pecan pie, we headed to Ximen for a little shopping and then Faith and I split off from the group to visit Taipei 101 and, more specifically, the Page One bookstore.

Taipei 101 is currently the tallest skyscraper in the world. The first few floors are a shopping mall that carries a lot of high-end, designer goods from Gucci and Coach to Dior and Louis Vuitton. About five floors up, though, the mall opens into a large atrium, and on that floor, amidst the smells of chocolate and the sights of fine restaurants, you will find Page One. This is one of the bookstores that carries a lot of English language books and a must-visit for ex-pats like us. Faith and I joked that the Fulbright is great, because almost any of us would visit Taipei 101 seemingly to window shop, but in reality spend most of our time scouring the shelves in the bookstore.

By the time we finished at 101, Faith had to go meet up with her relatives, so we headed back to the hostel so she could get her bags. As we traveled through the subway, though, we noticed that people would stop and stare. One guy outright recognized us from the club the night before and as we rode a train from City Hall to Main Station, another guy looked at me and said, "Wonder Woman?" All of a sudden the stares seemed to make sense: people recognized us from our spectacle the night before!

Brittany and I stopped for a while in Starbucks to rest and enjoy a cup of coffee, only to discover that Paige, who had met up with a friend that afternoon, was also in the same Starbucks but a floor up. We joined her and Lobsang, a Tibetan currently living in Taiwan, and after some more lounging, decided to head for Indian food in Ximen. After a delicious dinner, we wandered through the Ximen night market where I was stopped by a silhouette cutter who offered a free silhouette so that he could draw a crowd. And draw a crowd he did, singing and making me dance while cutting my silhouette. My favorite sang that he sang was "La Bamboo" (actually "La Bamba")! All in all, an excellent weekend in Taipei!