37 students. 1 mountain.

This past Tuesday, my entire school took a field trip. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th grades went to the Traditional Arts Center and the 5th grade went hiking. Since I had already been to the Center, I chose to go hiking with the 5th grade. When I asked how long we'd be hiking, I was told "half the day." Now, having heard my housemate's story of how "half a day" quite literally meant half of a 24 hour period, I really didn't know what to expect. In addition, I wasn't quite sure how we were going to get 37 5th graders to climb a mountain for an extended period of time.

My 5th graders

Starting off.

Turtle Island. My students were amazed that I climbed it. Goal: impress 11 year olds? Check.

After collecting our lunches (sushi? Would a school in the US ever give their students sushi for lunch on a field trip? I left my home-packed PB&J in my scooter), we took a 45-minute bus ride to the trail. We would be hiking the Caoling Historic trail, which was the only route connecting Taipei and Ilan to the eastern part of the country during the Qing Dynasty. It was constructed in 1807, and back then, it would take 3 months to walk from Ilan to Taipei, due to the condition of the path, but now the walkable part of the trail only takes 3-4 hours to complete. Phew. I was slightly relieved that we wouldn't have to be dragging 5th graders for 12 hours.

At the bottom of the mountain is a beautiful temple and a museum (unfortunately all in Chinese- but my students attempted to translate for me) depicting the changes in the land. Along the path there are a number of relics from the Qing Dynasty. One is a giant carving on the word "tiger." Allegedly, when travelers were on the path, the wind was incredibly strong and they feared for their lives. They carved the "tiger" character into the stone and the wind stopped and they were able to carry on.

You can't really tell from this pictures, but this picture was 3-D. These were all over the temple.

The tiger stone.

Another inscription is a thank you to the individuals who lived around the mountain for "allowing" the path to be built. I'm not sure they had much of a choice...

Giving some perspective as to how large the stone actually was.

All in all, it was a successful day. With the exception of one sprained wrist (which I didn't know occurred until 2 days later) and one boy lost for 10 minutes (apparently he missed the memo that we were leaving the area). The students found out that they could purchase hermit crabs at the bottom of the mountain for $10NT, so they loaded up. Not sure how parents would react to their children coming home with 8 hermit crabs.

Where we stopped for lunch.

A snake we saw on the way down. The girls screamed, the boys threw rocks at it. Children are the same all over the world, huh?

Other amusing anecdotes: I found out that two of my students were "in love" and had kissed during the field trip. Despite not wanting to get caught up in 5th grade drama, I was slightly taken aback that they would tell a "teacher" about the incident. I suppose I'm not really a teacher in their eyes... considering, also, that they're trying to set me up with the soldier (who acts as more of a security guard) at school... who is at least 18 but looks like he could be 15. While I'm unsure of this "non-teacher" position, I'm attempting to view the relationship as more of an older friend who can encourage them that English is useful, instead of something they have to learn. I've never taught kids this old for such an extended period of time, so I'm still getting used to it. I enjoy the challenge, but I have to admit that it's difficult for me.

Me and Steven.

On a completely different note:

Today is a beautiful day, and while I'm inside (attempting) Chinese homework, the weather is really incredible. I decided to take pictures of my room. Not extremely exciting, but at least you can see where I... sleep?

Ahem. Please excuse the dirty laundry.

At a certain point, you transition from temporary residing in a place to actually living there. I've realized that this shift usually goes unnoticed until something tips you off. In this case, I think it was a solo trip to the night market for dinner one evening. Strolling back to my scooter, greasy night market food in hand, it hit me that I live here. Reinforced the next morning as I went to get soy milk for breakfast and, upon walking in the shop, the woman who works there looked at me, said "cold soy milk?" and went to get it out of the fridge. I hadn't said anything. This is home for now. It's incredible how almost 3 months have passed; on one hand it seems like the weeks are flying by, on the other, I can't believe how much I've learned about the place I'm calling home. My students are finally warming up to me: they run over and grab my hand in the morning when I'm walking through school, you can see them trying to use their English more and more. I'm getting used to the politics of the school and learning how to suggest new ideas and how to put my personality into my teaching. Things are still frustrating, things are still hard at times, but it's nice to see some change and some settling.

I'm going hiking with my 5th graders all day tomorrow, so I'm sure there will be a post about that, but for now, just something to whet your appetite (thanks, momma!).

5th grade vocabulary. Always thrilling.

First grade learning math terms.

Parts of the face. Where is your...um...nose?

National Palace Museum

Today was Double 10 day here in Taiwan. It's basically celebrates the Wuchang Uprising (which happened October 10, 1911). The uprising led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, so 10/10 is considered Taiwan's birthday, basically. There are lots of parades, both military and otherwise, and it's generally a patriotic day.

We Fulbrighters celebrated by going to the National Palace Museum in the early afternoon. As we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, you'll just have to take my word that it's a spectacular museum, one which you can spend days in. We saw a ton of artifacts, including a tiny tiny carved ship with working windows, and a piece of stone which looked like a piece of meat. Since we only spent an hour there today, I know a number of us are planning on going back to cover more ground.

After changing into formal wear in the museum bathroom (and gathering more stares than usual as we all came out of the handicap bathroom and proceeded to put on make up in the mirror by the sinks), we were taken over to the Taipei Guest House, as we were invited by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to a 10/10 celebration. Walking up the red carpet, I think it hit us that none of us had ever been in this position before, and possibly will never experience anything like it again (unless we really make the right connections).

Waiting to get in, we were passed by many black town cars. Needless to say, we were curious as to who could be in those cars.Who could it be?

Tons of foreigners were invited to the celebration, including, but not limited to, various US state senators, a bunch of students from a college in Illinois, foreign diplomats, and THE PRESIDENT OF TAIWAN. Although I didn't get a picture of him, it was pretty cool to say that I've seen the president of Taiwan, and he was at a party I attended. He stayed for all of 15 minutes, but still.

Miss Taiwan and Miss Teen Taiwan were in attendance.

Feeling glamorous.


Katie, Jeannie and me with various officials and the grandson of the King of Swaziland.
Jeannie, Meg, Jenny, Katie and me with the Prince of Swaziland.

Needless to say, it was a big bash. Many of us got calligraphy of our names on large sheets of paper (mine says "May luck be with you," in addition to our name), there was a ton of food and entertainment. Including these acrobats who could balance on various objects (the picture doesn't do it justice).

And these girls who spun things with their feet and rode tall tall unicycles. Crazy. What a day.

The typhoon this weekend was intense. Much scarier than the first one we experienced while living in Luodong. It was mostly the wind, which, on many occasions, made the building shake. My housemate lost her screen off her window. We made a fort in our living room and spent all day in it (ate two meals, watched three movies...). Bikes were blown over; scooters fell; many of the traffic lights on the way to school were torn off the poles. As you can see in the following pictures, there was massive damage to many of the natural areas too.


The students spent a good 45 minutes cleaning up the school this morning. The bulletin board about Columbus Day that I worked so long on was completely torn to shreds. I suppose that's what you get for having outside bulletin boards.

The day progressed as usual, despite the lack of electricity for most of the morning (and for parts of the afternoon). As you can see, not all my students caught up on sleep during the weekend.
A frustration of mine (that I've realized over the past month) is the lack of useful vocabulary that my students are learning. It's all well and good to teach them words to illustrate the alphabet and to help them remember what letters sound like, but when in the world is "camel" going to come up in conversation? Case in point. We've been working on the word "alligator" for the past month and a half with out second graders. But since they never use it except in class, it doesn't stick. As you can see, they're still struggling with it. I'm all for inventive spelling and simply encouraging the students to TRY to write in English, but in this system, it's either right or it's wrong, there's no space for attempts.

"Alligator"

As one might be able to surmise, this frustrates me to no end. So, today I decided I would teach my first graders something they could actually use: plus and equals. Success! They could demonstrate that they understood the vocabulary immediately. It was something they could actually use! By the end of the class, every single student was raising his/her hand to volunteer to do a English math problem on the board.

I have never learned a language so completely different from my native one. Looking at a page of Chinese looks like gibberish: there is seemingly no connection between the character, the sound it indicates and, finally, what it actually means. To be surrounded by this for the last two months is, to say the least, frustrating, isolating and anxiety-inducing. True, I've picked up some key phrases simply through living here (they usually revolve around the topic of food...), but for the most part, I've remained ignorant to what is going on around me, at least in the language sense.

Chinese class started last week. Just me, my friend Meg, and our instructor; two hours a class, twice a week. Honestly, I was nervous before our first class. I was already overwhelmed with the langauge and this was even before I looked at a textbook. However, it turns out I had nothing to worry about. We have two different teachers: the one on Tuesday seems to focus more on vocabulary and the one on Wednesday really emphasizes pronunciation. While it is sometimes difficult to have two teachers who don't know what the other one has taught (there's a tendency to have things repeated), I'm not sure repetition is a bad thing, in this case.

And, for the first time today, I was able to put my new-found Chinese skills to use. In our first grade class, we were talking about the letter L, and my co-teacher pointed out that there is a ruler shaped like an L. Lucky raised his hand excitedly and said (in Chinese): "My father has one!" I was so happy I was able to understand that (seemigly insignificant) bit of information. Come on, Chinese. Hit me with your best shot!

School? On Saturday? Most certainly. Everyone worked this Saturday. Why? Because we had Monday and Tuesday off for the Moon Festival.

The Moon Festival (also referred to as the Mid-Autumn Festival) is huge here. It happens yearly on the 15th moon day of the 8th Chinese lunar Month. So this year it was September 25. The legend of the Moon Festival is as follows (taken from a website):

"Once upon a time there was a famous archer, Hou Yi, who with his arrows was able to slay mankind’s worst enemies, ferocious beasts that inhabited the earth. Yi was married to Chang-O, a beautiful but inquisitive woman who had been an attendant of the queen mother of the west before her marriage. Now at this time, there were 10 suns that took turns circling the earth-one every 10 days. One day, all 10 of the orbs circled, together, causing the earth’s surface to burn and threatening mankind. The wise emperor of China summoned Yi and commanded him to kill but one of the suns. This Yi proceeded to do. Upon the completion of his task, Yi was rewarded with a pill, the elixir of life, and advised: "make no haste to swallow this pill, but first prepare yourself with prayer and fasting for a year." Being a wise man, Yi took the pill home and hid it under a rafter while he began healing his spirit, In the midst of this, Yi was summoned again by the emperor.

While her husband was gone, Chang-O noticed a beam of white light beckoning from the rafter. She followed it and a fragrant perfume, discovered the pill and swallowed it. Immediately, Chang-O found she could fly. Just at that moment her husband returned home, realize what had happened and began to reprimand his wife. Chang-O flew out the window into the sky. Yi sped after her, bow in hand, and the pursuit continued halfway across the heavens. Finally, Yi had to return to the earth because of the force of the wind.

His wife reached the moon and there, breathless, she coughed and part of the pill fell from her mouth. Now, the hare was already on the moon and Chang-O commanded the animal to take pestle and mortar and pound another pill so that she return to earth and her husband. The hare is still pounding.

As for Yi, he built himself a palace in the sun as Yang (the sun and the male principle), Chang-O as Yin (the moon and the female principle).

Once a year, on the 15th day of the full moon, Yi visits his wife. That is why the moon is full and beautiful on that night."

The moon really was amazing that night. The Moon Festival is a really great excuse for family reunions. There are tons of bbqs- not the kind that we have in the states. The whole extended family gathers around and grills anything and everything. From vegetables, to bread, to seafood, to every kind of meat you can possibly think of. It's really incredible- both the food and the family atmosphere.

You're also supposed to eat a moon cake on the moon festival for good luck. Moon cakes are everywhere for the time leading up to the Moon Festival, and my housemates and I received our weight in them. They're little round, dense cakes filled with different things. Most commonly found is the yolk moon cake, with a duck egg yolk in the middle. Definitely threw me for a loop the first time I encountered it. Not going to lie, it still kind of weirds me out. If you're interested, I've put a like to a moon cake recipe at the bottom of this post.

Another popular food item on the Moon Festival is the pomelo. They're huge and you can buy them quite literally everywhere for very very cheap. They taste like sweet grapefruits and you're supposed to make the peel into a crown to wear, with the hopes that the gods will protect you. I am totally in love with this fruit and have to watch it or I eat about 5 of them a day.

I was invited to a bbq with my host family on Sunday night. We drove about 30 minutes outside of Yilan to this tiny Aboriginal village where basically the entire village was gathered for bbqs. My host family was incredible- they had tons of vegetables and seafood for me and were concerned that I wasn't well fed the entire night. They had nothing to worry about. I had a fantastic time, and maybe next time I'm in a situation like that, I'll actually sing a karaoke song, like they all wanted me to.

On Monday evening I went with my LET, Anne, to her father's birthday party. Anne's dad has 8 brothers and sisters, so all through the night, Anne kept saying: "this is my cousin... I can't remember her name." The party was huge, again, with tons of courses and very nice people. It's customary to go around and greet/thank everyone for coming to the party. All the tables take turns doing it, and when they come over, you're supposed to raise your glass and drink it. Usually you take your cue from how much the others drink, but frequently (at this event, at least), everyone was downing their entire glass. Now, mind you, the glasses aren't much bigger than a shot glass. But when they're frequently filled with beer, there is a tendency for one to indulge a little too much.

All of Anne's relatives kept coming over because they wanted to "have a toast with the American." Which means they were very intent on my glass being filled constantly. At a certain point, I decided I was done with beer, and I certainly didn't want any of the deadly looking clear liquid they were passing around. So, in desperation, I turned to the music teacher from my school, Harmony, who was sitting next to me, and asked for help. She pulled out a pitcher that she was hiding under her chair, dumped my beer into, and then refilled my cup with green tea from a bottle that she was keeping under the table. Slick. Apparently she was doing this all night and no one was the wiser. I just had to watch it when someone tried to refill my glass with the real stuff.

So although it was weird to be in school on Saturday (although this was a fairly productive, uplifting day), and it'll be hard to only have one day off, this past weekend totally makes up for it.
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Moon cake recipe

Last Wednesday, we were introduced to our host families. Families sign up for the job, with the desire to share their culture and their lifestyle to the ETAs through the year. Often, from what I have heard, they invite us to holiday events, family events, etc. My family is great: it consists of two teachers, both originally from Aboriginal villages, and their six-year-old son, Cliff. Not only was I invited to a beach volleyball tournament and picnic to celebrate the Moon Festival (more about that in a later post) on Monday, I was also asked to attend a wedding party on Friday night. Having been to few weddings in my life, and certainly none here, I immediately agreed.

We arrived at the hotel at 6, but the party didn't start until close to 7 when the bride and groom arrived. It was explained that the actual ceremony takes place earlier in the day at the homes of the bride and groom, so this was just for celebrating. Apparently, the groom and his family pay for the wedding, so all of his friends and guests are invited to the wedding party. The bride and her family are in charge of the engagement party, so that's when all of her guests come. Usually the engagement party is before the wedding party, but on occasion, the two are combined, so both friends of the bride AND groom attend the same celebration.

There were tons of dishes. Many of them were significant for various reasons, and it was great sitting with my host mother who spoke English and who could explain what the dishes were for. The bride and groom came around and took shots of alcohol as people toasted them. There was also some official from Yilan there- someone told me that before election time, all the candidates go to all the weddings around Taiwan to try and drum up more votes.

No dancing at weddings here. But Kendra (my host mom) told me that in Aboriginal weddings (like hers) they set up karaoke so people can come up and sing to the bride and groom. The bride had 3 different dresses (two of them are pictured below) and after she changed into the third one, it signaled to the guests that the party was over. We all got gift bags containing soy milk (still haven't figured that one out yet...), and left, after taking candy from the bride to symbolize the hope that they have a good marriage and give birth soon.

One of the many, amazing dishes. Seriously, the plates kept coming.

This was a sweet soup with red bean, rice dumplings, pineapple and other little pieces of fruit. You eat it with the hopes of giving birth to a son.

Both the bride and groom are teachers at my host mom's school.


The double happiness symbol. Each half of the character is "hsi" which means happiness. This character is "shuang-hsi" which means "double happiness" and is used exclusively for weddings to depict marital happiness.


All of us with the bride (in her 3rd and last dress) and groom. That's my host mom, Kendra, in the front right with the pink shirt on. (Mom- I know you can't really see, but I'm wearing the shawl you made me!)