Basketball

I wrote this post back in May but forgot to post:

Taiping is famous for its basketball team. There are three classes in each grade and in fifth and sixth grade 1/3 classes is a special basketball class. The students are put in new homerooms each two years.  So a teacher and a class stay together for two years (ie. your teacher and class are the same in first and in second grade). Before entering fifth grade students are tested and placed in classes in terms of athletic ability so that the boys and girls basketball team members are grouped together in their own homeroom class.   They spend two years learning and practicing together. I teach all the third through sixth graders and the sixth grade basketball class is one of my most enjoyable classes.

This past weekend they had a big basketball tournament and they invited me to come watch them play. I went with Kristin to watch the girls play on Saturday and then I met Shuting (my co-teacher) Sunday to watch the boys’ game.

Let me tell you, I was impressed. They play so well, and they are only in sixth grade. The girls played hard, but lost Saturday. The other team was vicious, which resulted in a lot of injuries.

The boys won Saturday and were matched up against the returning champions on Sunday. The team they played had three huge boys on their team.  They were 180 cm in sixth grade! Despite their lack of height, the boys played really clean and showed their skill. They lost in the end, but they kept the score really close the entire game.

I think the best part of watching them play was watching them interact so positively with one another. Although sixth grade is an awkward age, epecially in terms of boy-girl friendships, the girls team was so excited and supportive of the boys team and vice versa.When I first arrived the girls greeted me and they exclaimed ”the boys are winners!”. After the girls’ game began the boys watched the girls play, and took turns taking pictures and videos with the school’s camera.

Here are some pictures from the game:

Although they lost, they did a wonderful job. We are hoping to use basketball in English class as a dictation exercise. We want to play a game with English commentary and work on decoding it together. They could then write commentary for a video of themselves playing…actually there isn’t enough time probably, but I think it is a good idea.

EV ends!

Last week I checked my last “customer” out of the FuTong Clothing shop and stamped their passports…and all I could do was smile.

This semester each ETA spends four hours working in a Kaohsiung City English Village. English Villages simulate real life situations for using English. The English Villages have real looking restaurants, airports, airplanes, subways, supermarkets, etc.  This way students can practice buying a banana, while holding a banana- it makes English seem more practical and also fun. All students in Kaohsiung City public schools get to attend an English Village once for two hours. While at the English Village they travel in groups of eight or nine go to eight different stations. They get a stamp in a “passport” and after completing each station they receive a stamp in their passport. They are also scored secretly at each station. At the end the winning team gets pinned by the foreign teachers (Kevin and I in this case) while celebratory music plays in the background.  The marching music at the end is my favorite part- partially because it is so obnoxious, mostly because it means EV is over. Most stations have English games (matching vocabulary, etc.), but two stations have a foreigner, who simulates a real life dialog with the students.

The dialog goes like this:

Student: How much is this ____________?

Clerk (me): The _______ is  __________ dollars.

Student: Ok, here you go.

Clerk: Thank you, have a nice day.

Student: Thank you, you too.

What is important to realize is that while each fifth grader gets to have one conversation with each foreigner, the foreigner teachers get to have the same conversation with different fifth graders over 64  times in one English Village day and over 6656 times over the course of one year.

Understand why I was happy?  hehe Below are some pictures of the FuTong EnglishVillage staff and I after our last EV.

Gigi, Vicky, myself and Eddy

Each EV has two managers, volunteers and usually the school’s military workers helps out too. (all men have to do one year of military service in Taiwan).

This is a picture of Kevin and I. Ordinarily Kevin is my EV “buddy”, but he already departed Taiwan to start a masters program in China. This was our farewell “EV buddy” shot.

As I close this post I would like to say that although I do not think my skills or my BA degree in English was utilized to its full potential, I would like to highlight the benefits of having a foreigner at English Village. Although I did not do innovative work with the students at English Village I believe that having a foreigner at English Village does generate an interest in English for students. I have had really fun groups of kids at EV, who are really excited to practice English and be in the new environment.

Cultural Choiring

When I applied to the Fulbright Taiwan ETA program they asked for a statement of purpose. Obviously my first purpose was to teach English, but the question asked for what else we might like to do in Taiwan. Since I traveled to Taiwan thee years ago with my choir, I wrote in my application that I would like to join a Taiwanese choir.

Well my friends I did just that. This semester I attended at least one three hour rehearsal with the Kaohsiung City Chamber Choir each week. Until the beginning of June all rehearsals and emails were in straight up Chinese.As you expect, I was not always entirely sure what was going on all the time.

While my lack of comprehension was frustrating to me at times, overall the experience was unforgettable in the most positive way. True to my interaction with most Taiwanese people, the choir was  incredibly kind and welcoming to me. People would often translate for me, offer me food, compliment my long eyelashes, etc.

Aside from the social experience, I also realized how much body language and demonstration is involved in directing a choir. I say this because although I could not understand what was going on sometimes, I generally understood what sort of feeling or dynamic the director wanted by watching her face, her hands, and her general body position. We also sang repetoire in a variety of languages, none of which were Chinese. Therefore the music was telling the story for all of us. Essentially we all learned the songs together.

Although I attended Chinese run rehearsals for the first  three months the last month had double the rehearsals and all of these rehearsals were conducted in English. Why?…because this semester the choir arranged for a foreign, guest conductor to come from Norway. Karl Hanken, was our guest conductor, and he spoke only English as he does not speak Chinese. The tables turned completely. When the director called out a measure in Chinese, I often took second longer to find it as I was trying to translate quickly in my mind. The girl sitting next to me would often point it out to me, so that I could not miss the entrance. Now I was able to do the same for her! Our repetoire included one song in English and one in Taiwanese. The rest of the pieces were in Latin, German and Norwegian. Two young sopranos who I sat with each rehearsals and I formed a language alliance of sorts. I was  able to help them pronounce the English words in the English song we sang, and they helped me to grasp the sounds of the Taiwanese words in the Taiwanese song. It was a real cultural exchange, as cliche as it sounds.

One Sunday June 20, we performed with the foreign director at the Cultural Center across the street from my house. I sang thirteen songs and wore a blue silky dress.

Below are pictures from backstage:

the woman on the left gave me a ride home every night after choir and the woman on the right sat next to me and was really nice to me all semester

Pei Ying sat next to me, she was so friendly and nice. she helped me with everything this semester...she also did my make-up for me before the concert!

the ladies with Dr. Hanken the guest conductor from Norway

Although the experience of the choir was incredibly special, what was most touching about the evening was that my friends here in Taiwan came to see me. It meant so much that they all showed up and were so genuinely excited for me.  I really have a great support system here. I often do not recognize this fact day to day, but the people I have met here are so wonderful and they mean very much to me.

Fonda, Kristin, Grace, Katherine, Cristina (another LET) and Bekah all came and sent me two HUGE flowers backstage.

A group from my school came, which included my co-teacher Shuting, Justin(my school’s EV manager), MinZ i (another teacher), and ShyenTz (the military worker). They brought me beautiful flowers to, which are sitting on my desk.

Charles and his friend also came, although he was departing the next day to start his journey home to America.

I am truly going to miss everyone here. Saying goodbye in six days will be soooooooooooooooooo hard.

Little Me

My school threw a farewell party today for the teachers who are leaving Taiping this year. It was at set party that I met this:

My gift, from my principal to me.

Yes, it is a miniature me, mounted and protected by a glass box.

Never before have I received such a gift and I am not sure if I will ever get something this good again. What will I do with this….I don’t know, any suggestions?

The speech that accompanied the gift made this little voodoo woman I know own even better. He spoke entirely in English, thanking me for my hard work (that was the first thing he wanted to say).  In the second part of his speech he wished that I find success in my future work OR, even better, a good, rich man to marry. He wishes I have a romantic and passionate life full of happiness with my future husband. They will all pray for me that I find this man in America and then come back to Taiwan to visit.  Looking out at the audience, I knew exactly who understands English and who doesn’t. One word to describe this moment: Amazing…

Aside from gift giving, there was a buffet, a bunch of speeches, and also karaoke. My principal really wanted me to sing an English song with him…too bad my throat was so sore, hehe

Goodbyes Begin

Last week we started the dreaded goodbye process. Our group of 12 is now officially a group of 9.

Sunday June 9, we all got together for our final dinner with just the 12 of us.  We used this opportunity to dress up really nice and take final pictures of ourselves as a group.

After a short photo session we all went out to eat at the Bayou, our favorite Western Style restaurant in Kaohsiung. They have a great selection of really good food and organic ingredients.

At dinner we gave Fonda an 18 month calendar full of pictures from this year. Each ETA will sign a note in the calendar too. We made the calendar online and then had it shipped to Kristin’s sister who came to visit the first week in June and brought it along with her.

Later on in the week instead of our final workshop, we had a final farewell party, thrown by the Bureau of Education. The director of the Bureau was there as well as our co-teachers, school principals, and host families. Each ETA had a table. There were speeches, video slide shows, and awards.All of the ETA’s and LET’s were honored individually .  It was a really nice event. I feel so lucky to have had so much support and appreciation this year.

Below are some photos from the event:

My table: My co-teacher Shuting, Me, My Spirited Principal, and Justin.  I love them all… You may also note the bananas in the center of the table, this is because the event was hosted at the banana pier (famous as the sight of imported bananas).  I have eaten at least two bananas a day since this party.

We all got called up one by one to the stage and had to make a speech. I hate public speaking, so Shuting gave me some essential oils to sniff. She often sniffs them in class to wake her qi up before class, I partake occasionally. Naturally we joke around about  how we “do drugs” in the back at important events like this.

accepting my award from Dr. Tsai (the head of the Education Bureau) and Professor Lee, my wonderful advisor.

all of the ETAs on stage with Alex, Chris, Jim, Joy and Fonda

Shuting accepting her award with Professor Lee.

Finally, on Friday we all traveled to Taipei for the official Fulbright Farewell Party. It was such a nice event. The Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (FSE) rented out an entire restaurant in one of the trendy neighborhoods downtown. The restaurant had two levels for eating and mingling. Dr. Chen and the  Fulbright staff planned and executed a beautiful farewell for this year’s scholars.

Charles and his girls

Kristin and I keeping it classy

Fonda, Kristin, and Alex (Fulbright’s ETA director)

Dr. Chen the director of Fulbright Taiwan

Katherine, Bakah, Kristin, Fonda, Grace in a cosy corner

So after three farewell parties and three departures, I leave you. I now have one week longer to write blog posts and one week longer to enjoy the things in Taiwan that I have grown to love.

It’s How I Rowed My Boat…

We raced our dragon boat this Sunday evening. Guess what?  Yes, yes, we lost. Or to put an optimistic spin on it you could say, we placed fourth! (out of 4)

Also I would like to assure everyone, that I did indeed grab the flag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I didn’t fall into the love river!!!! Hurray!

I will give you a quick run down of game day. To begin it poured, thundered and lightninged, all day long. Our first race at 4:30 was canceled because of the stormy weather. The bad weather continued and Grace, Kristin and I played hermits all day. Around 6 Fonda told us that the second race was still on. We didn’t believe her, the weather looked terrible. Around 7:30 Fonda left for the love river… I started to think she was being serious. Around 7:45 Charles returned home and rallied us off the couch, at this point I finally realized “we have to race!”. We turned on Lady Gaga (to pump ourselves up) and rushed around the house, putting on VELOCITY team T-shirts as we ran out to door.

We scootered to the love river adorned in our water gear:

We met up with our team and as we lined up into the holding area, we began to realize how small our team’s overall body stature was. National Sun Yat Sen’s Dragon Boat team (our competition and the ultimate winners of our bracket) consisted of all foreigners with muscle. 90% of the foreigners on their team were blond,  buff, trained rowers. 90% of our team was  slender and untrained. Looking around we all couldn’t help but chuckle.

We took to our boat quickly and began rowing out to the start. I was a little nervous to grab the flag. I did get practice positioning myself on the nose of the dragon at the night rehearsal before the race, but I was still unclear about where this flag would be and how far I would need to hang off the boat to grab it.

Below are some pictures of my flag grabbing training. You will see me surrounded by a large group of people. The Taiwanese men are yelling things at me, everyone else is attempting to translate simultaneously. Confusion ensues.

So yes to get the flag I had to straddle the nose of the dragon and reach out. I kept hold of the boat with my legs and also by hanging on to a red rope.

So we lined up, the gun shot went off, and we began to race.

While my team rowed their hearts out I waited until Chris gave me the go ahead and then I climbed over the dragon’s head and onto its nose. I saw the flag, I held on, and I grabbed it! haha

Our final time was not too terrible: 3:21.37, the winning boat got 2 minutes and some seconds, and we were not more than a boat length behind the boat that came in third. All in all, I think we performed well enough.

Below are some pictures of us on game night:

Eddy (my co-worker at English Village) and Justin sport their official dragon boat IDs

Shuting and I told our students about it, they were all very interested in how you go about grabbing the flag, naturally we did a demonstration. My academic dean also told us that he came and cheered us on. We also came to find out that the blow horn we heard in the beginning was him!

Today, Wednesday June 16th is officially Dragon Boat Festival, which means no school and sleep!

Happy Dragon Boat Festival to all!

VELOCITY

Our dragon boat race is tonight. Before I detail its outcome I find it necessary to explain our team name and shirt:

Team Name: VELOCITY

Inspiration: the best T-shirt EVER.

Overall I find Chinglish to be a highly entertaining part of my daily life here in Taiwan. I do not mean to be offensive in anyway of course. After attempting to learn Chinese (and failing miserably in communication everyday) I have much respect for any native Chinese speaker who attempts English translation. I also would like to point out that many many Americans could be judged in the same way when they tattoo Chinese symbols on their bodies with no knowledge of the Chinese language aside from a character’s literal meaning perhaps.

I will now relate  my FAVORITE example of Chinglish BY FAR:

On a rainy post-typhoon day in August, Charles, Kelly, John and I explored the San Duo Shopping Mall. We hoped in the elevator and read the floor descriptions to decide which floor we wanted to explore first. Floor Ten read: “Unigenerational Clothing“. Naturally we were curious, “what is uni-generational”?

Little did we know “uni- generational” would only be the first fabulous English phrase we encountered that day.

Consider this my friends:

VELOCITY

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

I just LOVE shadow art

Snappy Snappy accidentally crossprocessed my film.

The real deal:

Never before has one piece of clothing had such impact on me.

Hence when I designed our dragon boat T-shirt, I used this as inspiration.

We will all proudly wear our red VELOCITY T-shirts on the river this Sunday night! Are you excited? Clearly, I am.

In conclusion,  I appreciate Chinglish. When in Asia, the English language has much more potential.

Row Row Row your Boat

So I will be part of a foreign dragon boat team. The Dragon Boat race is one of the ways the Taiwanese celebrate Dragon Boat festival. Dragon Boat Festival is one of Taiwan’s major, national holidays.  This year it falls on June16th. It always takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar.

Dragon Boat Festival Background:

The most famous story of Dragon Boat festival is that it commemorates the death of a famous poet. Those in power did not like the poet, hence they accused him of treason and he was sent into exile. IN exile he wrote lots of poetry and gained the love of the people. Years later the people in power came to the town the poet was living in, in exile, and the poet committed suicide by throwing himself in the river. The people of the town then threw food into the river so that the fish would eat the food instead of the poet, but it was too late. They then paddled out into the river quickly to scare the fish away so that they could retrieve his body.

Traditional Activities:

Eating Zhongzi- The people threw food in the river so the fish would not eat the poet and this is where the traditional food Zhongzi is from. Zhongzi are rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves.

Racing Dragon Boats- The people rushed out to save the poet’s body form the fish and they scared the fish with their paddles. Therefore it is now a tradition to race dragon boats.

Kaohsiung City has a large Dragon Boat rowing competition. It takes place in the Love River, which runs down the center of Kaohsiung City. We were volunteered to row in the foreigner bracket by Chris. According to our loyal and spirited Captain John, there has never been a foreign ETA dragon boat that has not finished dead last. I admire John’s spirit, especially given how clueless we are as a group about this whole dragon rowing thing. Clearly we are facing good odds in our race this Sunday!

Dragon Boat Team:

To begin we need a boat:

Then you need 24 people:

10 of these people need to be foreign, because the only way we qualify to row is if we are in the foreign bracket.

General Manager: Fonda is our GM, appropriate I think. Although Fonda has managed herself out of rowing/being in the boat alongside us, lucky- she claims it is her job to take pictures from the shore.

Sweep/Coach: Chris, our Kaohsiung Bureau of Ed boss. He steers and yells.

Captain: John is our fearless leader. I look forward to his pep-talk on game day.

Rowers: the powerhouse… The other ETAs and our recruited Taiwanese friends do the hard work of rowing with the beat. I am very impressed with their strength!

Drummer: The drummer stands on the front of the boat facing the rowers. They keep the beat, so that everyone rows together and at the correct speed. Kristin, Grace and I had a vision of singing to the beat of Lady Gaga’s recent single: “roma roma ma roma roma ma, row my dragon boat”.

Flag Grabber: Yours Truly. I am not sure what I have gotten myself into. I am a little scared after observing my Fourth Grade Textbook’s Dragon Boat Lesson:

As you see I am supposed to hang off the front of the boat and grab a flag to ensure victory for my team. Therefore if they manage to row into the lead, I am in deep _____. This could be terrible…

The race is tomorrow (Sunday) so I shall update soon!

Below are some pictures from our first practice:

The Taiping Elementary School Contingency (Justin, myself, Shuting)

we had an audience for our practice: clueless foreigners are entertaining!

here we go!

Mask Yourself

This is just a short blog post to comment on a common cultural feature. It is so common that I forgot that I ever found it strange.  From September through January face masks are worn by almost all school children and many adults. This is the Taiwanese flu season. For the most part my students have stopped wearing masks as it is way past flu season, however the other day one of my cute students, Ji Fu, showed up masked to English class.

He had a cold. What I remembered when I saw Ji Fu, was how shocked I was, (when I first arrived) to find entire classes of students in masks. During the H1N1 flu season every child wore a face mask, sick or not.

Masks are worn to shield the world from your germs and also to prevent your own illness. In Taiwan masks are sold in every seven 11.

In addition to masks for the entire first semester my temperature was taken every day when I arrived at school. If you  have a fever, then you go no further than the front gate.

I found it confusing in the winter when I got sick. I didn’t have a fever, but I had a cold, should I wear a mask? Is it impolite to not mask yourself? I am not sure I ever came to any conclusion. We did mask Rebekah as a joke though- she was the one ETA to contract the swine flu this year:

Journeys With My Host Family

My host family is a really sweet bunch. I have two host parents: Linna and Sam. Sam is an academic director at GuangWu Elementary School and his wife is the science teacher at the same school. They both used to teach special education and this was how they met.   They have two girls: May and Uni.  May is in junior high school (7th grade) and she studies like crazy all the time. She actually can’t come to a lot of our events because she has to study. She works so hard, I am amazed at her dedication to her studies. Uni is in 4th grade and cute as a button.

I realized I never published an account I had written about traveling with them so I shall do so now. These events occurred in October and November.

1. Meinong

My host family took me to a traditional Hakka area outside of Kaohsiung. Hakka people should not be confused with Taiwan’s aboriginal people. Hakka people immigrated to Taiwan in the 17th Century from mainland China. Aboriginals were here before this.

Before heading to the Hakka village they took me to see their school. My host sister May was still at cram school when this was taking, studying from 7 to 10 am on a Saturday!

a visit to Guang Wu Primary School, where my host parents work and my host sister goes to school

Once we picked up May, we headed off to Meinong, which is about 45 minutes-1 hour away. We began by looking at Hakka art and products in a little village.

This is May, Uni and I in the Hakka park. I think we are holding Hakka instruments or something

Hakka people are famous for making oil painted umbrellas, they are beautiful

After shopping a little we ate some traditional Hakka food. The food is very salty because traditionally it needed to keep the people very full so that they could have the stamina to work long hours in the fields.

We also made out own Hakka tea by grinding up nuts and seeds into a powder and adding hot water. The tea was very thick and filling.

After our meal we journeyed to a ceramics pottery studio and made our own pottery. I made a sign with the Chinese character for “Welcome”. A few weeks later my host dad went and picked up the finished product, after it had been fired and glazed.

Finally we took a long bike ride around the fields in Meinong. Meinong and the Hakka people are famous for their agricultural products.

2. Cihou: Salt Mountain, December 12, 2009

My host family took me to the salt mining fields in Tainan county to show me some of Taiwan’s beautiful countryside.  The older of my two host sisters was unable to come on our journey this day because she had too much studying to do (no time for salt!).  So Sam, Linna, Uni, and I drove to Tainan (1 hour drive) and met up with Linna’s brother, David, who lives with his wife and 5th grade daughter in Tainan. David accompanied us on our journey. Unfortunately his daughter had the dreaded H1N1 so she couldn’t come along.

First we went to the giant salt mountain.

After this we went to the salt museum. The salt museum detailed the history of salt productionin Tainan. It was interesting because I have honestly never thought about how salt comes to be. The museum had a lot of DIY, my host family’s favorite acronym. DIY is do it yourself, and almost everything we do involves DIY. Therefore do not be surprised that I learned about salt in Tainan through DIY activities:

1.

Linna, Uni and I made our own colored salt bottles out of Taiwan salt.

2. I practiced mining salt myself in the salt mining field behind the museum.

The salt mining area of Tainan is very close to the ocean. The salt water is brougth from the ocean and put into pools. The people used to use human powered water wheels to move the water from larger pools into smaller pools. With the invention of the windmill, human powered wheels became less popular. The salt water is moved into smaller and smaller pools until rakes are used to drag all the salt into a pile. Eventually all the water evaporates leaving only the salt behind. The salt is put into baskets and transported to be cleaned and sold.

Here is a picture of me discovering the process:

After exploring the ways salt is mined we had fresh seafood at a local Taiwanese restuarant.  This would be a good time to comment on the fact that my host family constantly eats, like most Taiwanese. Therefore lunch included noodles, fish, clams, vegetables, rice, and more fish. Immediately after lunch, while waiting to take boatride, we roasted oysters that were harvested fresh.  This is the point I almost exploded from being overfed. As a result of this one afternoon, I am confident now that I do not like oysters, especially not fresh and not before a long boat ride.

After roasting oysters we took a two hour boat ride out through the oyster harvesting nets to the Taiwan straight. After a brief walk on the beach, another snack (fried oyster and vegetable pancake, another form of oyster that does not appeal to me) and a boat ride back, we hunted around for another snack (fried shrimp this time). I silently prayed that I could make it through dinner. Thankfully my host family drove me back to Kaohsiung instead of completing our 12 hour long itinerary with dinner!

I am very thankful to have such a lovely host family, even if they do love oysters and all sorts of fried food.

writing English in the sand