First day of school

Today is the first day of school and so far it has been an interesting experience. Since I do not have a scooter yet I walked to school this morning. In theory it is quite a simple and short walk from my apartment taking about 10-15 minutes. I was excited and ready for the first day and following the map my LETs drew me I started walking. About 10 minutes later I realized that I'd been walking in the same direction for awhile and it felt like I had gone too far. Being the awesome Chinese speaker that I am and uninhibited about asking for help I asked a woman where Fu-Shing Guo Zhong was. She pointed in the opposite direction that I had come and then proceeded to speak rapidly in Taiwanese. I gathered from our short conversation that I had gone the wrong way and that I should turn around and then ask someone at the grocery store. I asked 2 more people the same question and finally found the school. Success! After a good 30 minute walk I finally arrived.

When I am at school I can not speak any Chinese and no one is supposed to know that I am somewhat fluent. It is pretty much an English only policy even with the other teachers. Unfortunately for the students when they come into the office to look for teachers and see me an obviously Chinese looking person they ask me their questions in Chinese. But I can't answer them since I'm supposed to only speak English at school making every conversation a little awkward. They always seem rather puzzled at my lack of understanding. Finally after I speak completely in English they give up and look for someone else. I feel sorry for them because the students asking me questions are generally 7th graders that are new to the school and already experiencing a new environment. Then they encounter someone like me who cannot answer their questions or respond in Chinese. Poor kids!

On top of the not speaking Chinese to students I have proceeded to incorrectly read my schedule twice today. I have gone to two of my classes early because I did not realize I had a free period in between. This has further confused students because they do not know who I am or why I have come to their class. It's good for them in terms of practicing their English since they have to explain that they don't have English class next of what time lunch is. What an adventure! Hopefully students don't think I'm crazy since I have to teach them for the rest of the year. Maybe tomorrow will be less eventful...

Fu-Shing Junior High

(it has over 2,000 students - grades 7-9)

My desk - in the 1st grade (7th) homeroom teacher's office

(notice that I am in my own individual island whereas all the other desks in the office are grouped but they probably didn't know what to do with me)

My lunchbox

(they gave me this whole set so I can eat lunch!)

Getting my lunch

(I eat lunch with one class of my students everyday)

Students have a lot of responsibilities at school. They each have different jobs that they must do each day. As a class they must clean the classroom twice a day.

Getting ready to start cleaning after lunch and before their nap. Lunchtime/cleaning/nap is from 12-1:30 every day.

The other school that I am working at this year is Shin-Jhong Junior High.

School Assembly

(this happens everyday before they go home)

Week 4

This weekend I stayed in Luodong and explored various places in that area with Jessica and Kat (a friend who came to visit us from Taipei). While waiting for Kat to arrive we browsed a few shops and found some funny combinations of English words on t-shirts. We also had mani/pedicures and went to the Yilan Rain Festival. At the rain festival we saw a Chinese acrobat performance and fireworks!

shopping

(funny english shirts)

who would wear this?

(at least it's spelled correctly and make sense)

Yilan Rain Festival

(in front of a bridge with Kat)

Chinese acrobats

(this girl was awesome she was twirling the table on it's leg)

Taiwanese people love Michael Jackson

(fireworks were going off to Thriller)

Church Sunday

(in the bathroom as a tiny toilet -

I guess we were in the kids restroom)

Korean bowl of something with meat

The last week of training was packed full of activities making it an incredibly long, tiring, and stressful week. We visited the English Village on Monday and saw the place where many elementary school kids get to go to practice their English with native speakers (i.e. ETAs). With money from donations this building was created and opened in 2008 to improve the students English speaking ability. It has realistic decor like an airplane and situations that students may encounter.

English Village

(the stairs and Nikka)

Shopping Mall

(Ariel and I are going to buy some produce)

Bank/Post Office

(look at that money!)

Hospital/Doctor's Office

(some LETs - Jodi, Lydia, Crystal and Jill)

The Dance Studio

(lovely ladies striking a pose Maria & Lillian)

Airport/Airplane

(it was so real! Aimee and LETs in the back)

The Restaurant

(I think it was supposed to be Mr. Brown's coffee shop)

Free Dessert

(some type of drink/soup with seeds in it possibly passionfruit)

Wednesday was Judgement Day for us when we all found out which schools we had been placed in. I was placed at Fu-Shing and Shin-Jhong Junior High. I was happy with this placement because it was one of my top 2 choices for schools. Since these two schools are closer to Yilan city it meant unfortunately that I had to move from my lovely apartment in Luodong. Thankfully my roommate Jessica was moving to Yilan for her school as well so we could continue being roommates.

Throughout my time in Taiwan and while visiting various schools I have observed a high value given to whiteness. It seems that many schools prefer having a white ETA placed at their school because they look different and thus are more "American" than the rest of us. This assumption was especially apparent in the selection of ETAs by LETs. The people on the top of most LETs lists were white males. It seemed that little to no value was given to teaching experience and being of Chinese descent was a definite drawback. In my case since I was working with junior high schools this type of preference for the white American was not as strong. Perhaps because there were only 4 choices among the junior high group and of that there were 3 Chinese females and only 1 white male. However, there was still an instance where the school principal basically welcomed the male ETA to their school and strongly encouraged him to come to their school.

However, the preference for and high value given to whiteness was disappointing. It made me question why whiteness is so valued throughout the world and where I belong as an ABC (American born Chinese). If I am not really truly accepted here in Taiwan and always thought of as a foreigner within the United States then where should I find my identity. I know that as a Christian I should find my identity in Christ but there are still parts of who I am that has been shaped by my cultural heritage and the country of my birth.

After finding out what schools we would be teaching in and our new roommates for moving we went to take the scooter test. There are 2 components to this test. First is the written portion which is more difficult than it should be for our group specifically because of the poorly translated test questions. Only after that portion of the test is passed can one move on to the driving test. Thankfully I passed both sections on the first try. The majority of our group did not pass and only 4/16 of us got our scooter license.

Wednesday was also Chinese Valentine's Day for Taiwan. After our long day we played some basketball with the boys and walked around the Luodong Sports Park. The story is for this Valentine's Day that a man and woman that were in love and were separated. They could only meet each other once a year on when the crossed a bridge of magpies. For more detailed information read this.

Last Supper in Luodong

(hong shao niu rou mien)

Bridge in Luodong Sports Park

Welcome to the park

(Y is for Yilan!)

Bridge with fountains

(music is coordinated)

Thursday we moved to Yilan and our new apartment from Luodong. Moving and unpacking was tiring and still an ongoing process but it's nice to finally be settled and know where I will be living for the rest of the year.

My room

(the view is not as nice as in Luodong and I'll decorate when I have time)

Living Room

(still organizing/cleaning)

We went to the cold springs in Su-Ao on Saturday. It was awesome and very cold the perfect way to spend a relaxing Saturday. Su-Ao is pretty close to Yilan only a few stops on the train and we walked from the train station to the springs. You can choose to go into the public pool or do a private bath. We did both and also played in the fountains which I believe was a children's area since there were so many of them there.

Pictures to be updated as soon as I get them from Nikka.

I cooked my first meal in the new apartment on Sunday. Rather, Eric and I did and invited over some of the girls to eat soup and shui jiao.

Soup!

(isn't it impressive)

The Chefs for the night

(dumplings and soup)

Week 3

This week we met many of our Local English Teachers (LETs) and began to work with them in planning sample lessons. I'm also posting some pictures of a school that I visited in Nan-An near the coast. We also met some people from the Yilan School board and saw the current and former director of the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (FSE - the people in charge of us here) at dinner. I went to Taipei again for the weekend and visited some famous sites there but I forgot my camera. So in order to show all of you I looked them up and then got some picture online.

View from Nan-An Junior High

Nan-An Junior High

Vegetarian Buffet

(it's all you can eat for only 85NT!! soo good)

Midnight Snack of Almond tofu

(we took it back from the nice restaurant we went to with the LETs and school board members)

Kickin' it with Geoffrey in Luna Plaza

Fort San Domingo (Hong Mao Cheng)

(this is located in Danshui and was a fort occupied by various countries for many years)

Chicken Steak

(large piece of fried chicken from Shi-ling Night Market)

National Palace Museum

(I spent a few hours here with Aunt Daphne and saw many old treasures from China that were brought over during the Cultural Revolution I think)

Week 2

After the typhoon most of our team went into Taipei to explore. We went to Taipei 101, the Pixar Museum, Wu Fen Pu (cheap shopping area), and Ding Tai Fung.

The second week of training involved daily lectures, a food scavenger hunt in the Luodong Night Market, scooter practice, a practice teaching session in Fu-Shing Junior High (one of the schools the junior high ETAs may be placed), and a visit to the Yilan County traditional arts center. For that particular outing we were followed around by cameras so that we could help advertise the center. Well, mostly to show that foreigners could visit and appreciate it as well.

Chua Bing

(in the Loudong Night Market we had an amazing dessert dish made of ice combined with condensed milk and green mung bean = deliciousness!)

Taipei 101

(Maria, Kim, Monica, Carmen)

Pixar Museum

(I took lots of illegal pictures here since you weren't supposed take pictures of anything but it was cool.)

Fish from Finding Nemo

Ding Tai Fung

(famous xiao long bao place)

Xiao Long Bao

(so yummy!)

Scooter Practice

(this scooter is a little large for me so I think I'm sticking with the 100 cc ones. We practice for the scooter test after training every day.)

Luodong Night Market Scavenger Hunt

(These girls are awesome!! We finished first but unfortunately got one question wrong. However, we learned about many new places for traditional food. This place was a peanut brittle ice cream crepe like place.)

Cong You Bing

(soo good but a little oily)

Stinky Tofu!

(I tried the crispy kind and it was good)

Bao Xing Fen Yuan 包心粉圓

(sherbet and boba with a red bean inside)

Traditional Arts Center

(making sugarcane candy - he stretched it like taffy and the candy looked like long columns that were hollow)

Resting in front of a store

(f-b: Eric, Gabe, Kevin, Kelly, Jessica, Ellen, standing Jill & Lillian)

Glass blowing

(he was making a cow)

Wooden slippers racing game

(Kim and I)