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