when i came to taiwan, there were garbage trucks,
and they sung songs that were fresh to my ears.
now i know the songs are but one song,
and it is not worthy of admiration.
it is notable only for its appropriateness,
calling all to the streets to feed it,
so it can come back tomorrow and sing the same song.
ps
I hear christmas happened in some parts of the world, so merry that to all of you. i will wait till january 26th for taiwan's "christmas"
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A Golly Good Garble ofthings
Yes, so photographs serve as memory triggers, I think. But lacking a camera, I spend the vast minority of my time making these things.
This was taken on 23 November, right after class had "started". It looked as if it was going to be a particularly difficult day (notice the person in the back standing out of her chair, and the ball about to be thrown in the lower right hand corner). After my pleas to sit down and at least talk less loudly were received and thrown back at me, I decided to change the pace and start taking pictures. This at least got their attention - whether I was able to hold it, I cannot recall.
It was around this time that I decided I would stop working there. I had kicked and punched and subdued and stimulated and caressed this idea in my head for a few weeks, but finally decided to go through with it. I let Steven, my boss and owner of the school, know my plans. I was pretty sure I could find work teaching adults, which I had convinced myself would be less tiring.
A couple days later, I - half persuaded, half with a change of heart - reneged on my commitment to leave. Let me take a moment to explain something about myself here. I despise being bad at things. If I am bad at something, I will either work very hard to be better at it, or I will avoid it as best I can. I suppose I had come to the conclusion that I was bad at teaching young children English. At first I tried very hard, but when that effort was met with... nothing, I decided to quit. Steven appealed to my desire to be good at everything I do and suggested I stick with it. This seemed like an amazing idea, albeit one that had been driving me (unconsciously) for months. I took his advice.
Before quitting, I created a list of reasons why I should leave, or in other words, why I was bad at teaching little children English. Most of these served to deflect the blame from myself - justly or not. But one large and, I feel, legitimate gripe I had was structural.
A handful of the kids' English is pretty good. I can communicate most things to them, with some over exaggerated facial expressions, pantomimes, and rephrasing, that I can communicate to any average 10 or 11 year old in the states. However, the others have trouble moving beyond "I am wearing a t-shirt and pants, and yellow socks and slippers," "Today is sunny and hot," "My name is Mandy," and "I like lemon." Furthermore, because of scheduling and financial limitations, a number of classes are composed of students with skill levels as disparate as anyone would not want them to be.
This is fine, actually. I can do my best to work around these problems: that is, in fact, my job. The problem is that the relationship that has developed between myself and several of my students is one marked by monotony, one-sidedness and shallowness. It is a relationship borne of directing, requesting, miscommunication, and ambiguity. If my students were my girlfriend this would be a prototypical example of psychological abuse.
To be fair, I'm probably exaggerating reality, and the relationship between teacher and student should not be compared to that of lovers. Still, I would prefer my students to have an expanded knowledge set of their teacher, me. Mavis, the native Taiwanese teacher, faces many of the same problems I do, but they are tempered by a deeper relationship borne of jokes, mutual understanding (to some degree) and pretty crystal clear communication.
Really, this all comes down to the fact that I do not know Chinese.
But, even if I did know it, I'm not "supposed" to use it in the classroom.
I recently pleaded with Mavis to let me watch her class. Usually our classes overlap and this is not possible. She finally obliged me, after assuring me that it wouldn't be any better and would probably be worse than my class. She did in fact miss some grammatical mistakes in the sentences the children wrote, but the environment of the class was very different. And she spoke Chinese about 60% of the time (and this was the "advanced" class).
A couple things have happened since then. Especially with the younger kids, I speak Chinese when I feel relatively confident, to explain things or even just to communicate. This I think is beneficial. Secondly, the holidays have rolled around.
So we have to put on a Christmas something or other. Mavis and I decided on a play. The younger kids will do The Three Little Pigs (really Christmasy, I know) and the older kids will do a tamed version of A Christmas Carol. Beginning this week we have had daily rehearsal. This means that I do not teach half the classes at all, and the other half have their time cut short. As luck would have it, the half of classes that I do not teach is completely composed of my most troublesome classes. I think this is putting a well deserved and well placed spacer between myself and those students, in the classroom environment at least.
The other effect of the play is to create an environment outside of the classroom within which we are able to interact. I think this will serve to better establish a bond less defined by "teacher-student", and subdue emotions that recently had been the source of utterances such as "you are a stranger," (not sure if the seven-year-olds actually know what this means) and "you do not like me."
I really do like all my students, even the ones that are absolutely impossible, and when we do have the pleasure of interacting outside the classroom, the interactions are in fact pleasurable. I also know somewhere in their heart they like and look to me: whenever something goes wrong amongst them, they usually come to me to grab my arm and look up, teary eyed and quivery lipped.
Yes, this is a process. I think I knew that.
And these are my roommates from Panama. This was right after they performed traditional dance and song as part of a larger festival celebrating 成大 birthday (the University where I take classes).
Also, I went back to the coffee mountain (actually 東山), with Steven. This time we were without his family, but a large smattering of lawyers and judges from different areas of Taiwan. Recently there have been several arrests regarding fraudulent appointments as well as misuse of public funds, etc (you know, the kind of thing that goes on in Illinois), and apparently some of these guys were involved in prosecuting or defending people involved, and Stephen's wife was not on the same page as them, so she did not attend.
I also went to 高雄 (KaoSiung or GaoXiong depending on how you like to romanize pictographs) to see what I believe is the second largest city in Taiwan. It is a twenty to thirty minute trip by train, to the south of Tainan. What used to be a sewage dump turned river has been converted into the "Love River." Some may not consider it even as lovely as a sewage dump might be in, oh, say France. But it was highOKah (my very own romanization of 還OK阿).
Actually, the view is supposed to be better at night. City night views, with all the bright colored lights, I would say are one of Asia's highlights as far as modern architecture goes. Unless lots of tile and concrete really do it for you. This seems to stem from a general preference for strict practicality in recent years. I'm not sure when the transition was made (though - just speculating - it seems to have coincided with the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power), but it was swift and sweeping. I've been reading a recreated history of Zhang Dai, who lived during the late Ming dynasty, and it's apparent that practicality over aesthetics was not always the mode.
In some ways the change is probably good. For instance, a bathroom was being repaired or revamped or something at school. The place was a complete shit hole (please don't overlook the pun there), and upon peeking my head in, my initial reaction was to turn around and head upstairs. The floor was uprooted, pipes were strewn about, etc - the kind of thing that would shut down the entire floor of a building, if not the building itself, back home for fear of a lawsuit. But before fully turning around, I thought better of it and politely asked if I could use the urinal. The man said of course, just 小心 (lit., small heart - be careful :). I stepped over holes, ducked under pipes, pissed, ducked under pipes, stepped over holes, thanked the man and left.
But in other areas, perhaps this over obsession with practicality ought to be better balanced. I recently met a senior at school. We were with a group of friends, but he was talking to me about any number of things. Our topic fell upon his major, which was related to design. He seemed disheartened though, as if he should be ashamed, and I probed a bit. His friend, who graduated last year is working in Taipei, about 16 hours a day 6 days a week, and making NT$20-25,000 per month. I believe the average income in Taiwan is around NT$30,000 or between US$800-900. I make about NT$36,000, after relatively higher taxes, and work a lot less. Basically, he was hating it. I had a hard time believing this and double checked all the numbers to ensure I was not misunderstanding. Nope.
"Why?" was the obvious question. "Taiwanese don't care about design," was the obvious response. This is a generalization and is perhaps in the process of changing, but seemingly currently true on average. "If there are two comparable products and one is much better designed than the other, but more expensive, all Taiwanese will buy the cheaper one."
And so we have the "Love River."
If you are tired of reading I will inform you now that I have only two things left to write about.
The first is this photo.
It took a second to remember why I took this picture as I was reviewing my photos. If it's not apparent, you can e-mail me.
And lastly, I went karaokiing (that just will have to be spelled incorrectly) with my tea shop lady and family and friends.
Thanks for bearing with me this time around friends, family and folks. I'm headed to 九份 tomorrow, which is an old town leftover, relatively untouched, from Japanese days with lots of tea houses. Wish me luck.
'Till then!
This was taken on 23 November, right after class had "started". It looked as if it was going to be a particularly difficult day (notice the person in the back standing out of her chair, and the ball about to be thrown in the lower right hand corner). After my pleas to sit down and at least talk less loudly were received and thrown back at me, I decided to change the pace and start taking pictures. This at least got their attention - whether I was able to hold it, I cannot recall.
It was around this time that I decided I would stop working there. I had kicked and punched and subdued and stimulated and caressed this idea in my head for a few weeks, but finally decided to go through with it. I let Steven, my boss and owner of the school, know my plans. I was pretty sure I could find work teaching adults, which I had convinced myself would be less tiring.
A couple days later, I - half persuaded, half with a change of heart - reneged on my commitment to leave. Let me take a moment to explain something about myself here. I despise being bad at things. If I am bad at something, I will either work very hard to be better at it, or I will avoid it as best I can. I suppose I had come to the conclusion that I was bad at teaching young children English. At first I tried very hard, but when that effort was met with... nothing, I decided to quit. Steven appealed to my desire to be good at everything I do and suggested I stick with it. This seemed like an amazing idea, albeit one that had been driving me (unconsciously) for months. I took his advice.
Before quitting, I created a list of reasons why I should leave, or in other words, why I was bad at teaching little children English. Most of these served to deflect the blame from myself - justly or not. But one large and, I feel, legitimate gripe I had was structural.
A handful of the kids' English is pretty good. I can communicate most things to them, with some over exaggerated facial expressions, pantomimes, and rephrasing, that I can communicate to any average 10 or 11 year old in the states. However, the others have trouble moving beyond "I am wearing a t-shirt and pants, and yellow socks and slippers," "Today is sunny and hot," "My name is Mandy," and "I like lemon." Furthermore, because of scheduling and financial limitations, a number of classes are composed of students with skill levels as disparate as anyone would not want them to be.
This is fine, actually. I can do my best to work around these problems: that is, in fact, my job. The problem is that the relationship that has developed between myself and several of my students is one marked by monotony, one-sidedness and shallowness. It is a relationship borne of directing, requesting, miscommunication, and ambiguity. If my students were my girlfriend this would be a prototypical example of psychological abuse.
To be fair, I'm probably exaggerating reality, and the relationship between teacher and student should not be compared to that of lovers. Still, I would prefer my students to have an expanded knowledge set of their teacher, me. Mavis, the native Taiwanese teacher, faces many of the same problems I do, but they are tempered by a deeper relationship borne of jokes, mutual understanding (to some degree) and pretty crystal clear communication.
Really, this all comes down to the fact that I do not know Chinese.
But, even if I did know it, I'm not "supposed" to use it in the classroom.
I recently pleaded with Mavis to let me watch her class. Usually our classes overlap and this is not possible. She finally obliged me, after assuring me that it wouldn't be any better and would probably be worse than my class. She did in fact miss some grammatical mistakes in the sentences the children wrote, but the environment of the class was very different. And she spoke Chinese about 60% of the time (and this was the "advanced" class).
A couple things have happened since then. Especially with the younger kids, I speak Chinese when I feel relatively confident, to explain things or even just to communicate. This I think is beneficial. Secondly, the holidays have rolled around.
So we have to put on a Christmas something or other. Mavis and I decided on a play. The younger kids will do The Three Little Pigs (really Christmasy, I know) and the older kids will do a tamed version of A Christmas Carol. Beginning this week we have had daily rehearsal. This means that I do not teach half the classes at all, and the other half have their time cut short. As luck would have it, the half of classes that I do not teach is completely composed of my most troublesome classes. I think this is putting a well deserved and well placed spacer between myself and those students, in the classroom environment at least.
The other effect of the play is to create an environment outside of the classroom within which we are able to interact. I think this will serve to better establish a bond less defined by "teacher-student", and subdue emotions that recently had been the source of utterances such as "you are a stranger," (not sure if the seven-year-olds actually know what this means) and "you do not like me."
I really do like all my students, even the ones that are absolutely impossible, and when we do have the pleasure of interacting outside the classroom, the interactions are in fact pleasurable. I also know somewhere in their heart they like and look to me: whenever something goes wrong amongst them, they usually come to me to grab my arm and look up, teary eyed and quivery lipped.
Yes, this is a process. I think I knew that.
And these are my roommates from Panama. This was right after they performed traditional dance and song as part of a larger festival celebrating 成大 birthday (the University where I take classes).
Also, I went back to the coffee mountain (actually 東山), with Steven. This time we were without his family, but a large smattering of lawyers and judges from different areas of Taiwan. Recently there have been several arrests regarding fraudulent appointments as well as misuse of public funds, etc (you know, the kind of thing that goes on in Illinois), and apparently some of these guys were involved in prosecuting or defending people involved, and Stephen's wife was not on the same page as them, so she did not attend.
I also went to 高雄 (KaoSiung or GaoXiong depending on how you like to romanize pictographs) to see what I believe is the second largest city in Taiwan. It is a twenty to thirty minute trip by train, to the south of Tainan. What used to be a sewage dump turned river has been converted into the "Love River." Some may not consider it even as lovely as a sewage dump might be in, oh, say France. But it was highOKah (my very own romanization of 還OK阿).
Actually, the view is supposed to be better at night. City night views, with all the bright colored lights, I would say are one of Asia's highlights as far as modern architecture goes. Unless lots of tile and concrete really do it for you. This seems to stem from a general preference for strict practicality in recent years. I'm not sure when the transition was made (though - just speculating - it seems to have coincided with the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power), but it was swift and sweeping. I've been reading a recreated history of Zhang Dai, who lived during the late Ming dynasty, and it's apparent that practicality over aesthetics was not always the mode.
In some ways the change is probably good. For instance, a bathroom was being repaired or revamped or something at school. The place was a complete shit hole (please don't overlook the pun there), and upon peeking my head in, my initial reaction was to turn around and head upstairs. The floor was uprooted, pipes were strewn about, etc - the kind of thing that would shut down the entire floor of a building, if not the building itself, back home for fear of a lawsuit. But before fully turning around, I thought better of it and politely asked if I could use the urinal. The man said of course, just 小心 (lit., small heart - be careful :). I stepped over holes, ducked under pipes, pissed, ducked under pipes, stepped over holes, thanked the man and left.
But in other areas, perhaps this over obsession with practicality ought to be better balanced. I recently met a senior at school. We were with a group of friends, but he was talking to me about any number of things. Our topic fell upon his major, which was related to design. He seemed disheartened though, as if he should be ashamed, and I probed a bit. His friend, who graduated last year is working in Taipei, about 16 hours a day 6 days a week, and making NT$20-25,000 per month. I believe the average income in Taiwan is around NT$30,000 or between US$800-900. I make about NT$36,000, after relatively higher taxes, and work a lot less. Basically, he was hating it. I had a hard time believing this and double checked all the numbers to ensure I was not misunderstanding. Nope.
"Why?" was the obvious question. "Taiwanese don't care about design," was the obvious response. This is a generalization and is perhaps in the process of changing, but seemingly currently true on average. "If there are two comparable products and one is much better designed than the other, but more expensive, all Taiwanese will buy the cheaper one."
And so we have the "Love River."
If you are tired of reading I will inform you now that I have only two things left to write about.
The first is this photo.
It took a second to remember why I took this picture as I was reviewing my photos. If it's not apparent, you can e-mail me.
And lastly, I went karaokiing (that just will have to be spelled incorrectly) with my tea shop lady and family and friends.
Thanks for bearing with me this time around friends, family and folks. I'm headed to 九份 tomorrow, which is an old town leftover, relatively untouched, from Japanese days with lots of tea houses. Wish me luck.
'Till then!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
walks and nationalism and other thoughts all rolled into one
Tuesday was my university’s birthday. The original significance of this was that I had to be at school at 7:50 am (twenty minutes earlier than normal) on account of my committing myself to take part in a “walk” with my fellow classmates and teachers.
That morning proved me wrong. I was sure everyone was lying and Tainan never got cold, but that morning was cold. Perhaps I have just become accustomed to warmer weather over the last few months, like the locals. Anyway, I sported my Mont-Bel synthetic fleece out the door, and was happy about my decision.
The participants of the “walk” were grouped by department. So we had our own Chinese Language Center group. We all were given free t-shirts and flags that corresponded to our respective home nation-state-countries. I had a United States of America flag because I am from the United States of America.
The “walk” itself took place in the school’s stadium. We waited on the track for a long time before haphazardly organizing ourselves into rows of six and walking almost half way around the track. Then it was done – for us, anyhow. The other groups, after this epoch journey almost half way around the track, seemed to be placing themselves on the field in an organized manner. There was to be a long speech. We foreigners did not have to stay for the long speech because we are foreigners and seem to be exempt from a lot of things.
But whoever was leading our group of foreigners was unaware of our exemption, and headed our group onto the field. There was obvious confusion at the front of the group, which steadily trickled down to the back of the group. I think something was even said over the loudspeaker about the foreigners. The foreigners were in distress and started going astray. Amidst all the careful planning and obvious organization of the other groups, the clump of very foreign looking foreigners (lots of white people) started trampling across lines and boundaries, running around in circles and lines, every last one of them carrying a bright flag over their head. I think I was the first one to notice the knee slapping humor of the situation, and just stopped to stand and look and laugh like Matt.
I spent the free from class day with classmates, mostly with two German students. The day got warmer and I took off my jacket and we walked around the city for a few hours and ate food and talked. Until today I had been feeling a sense of nostalgia for fall. There still are not any red leaves, but the brisk air, bright sun and slight breeze did me well.
Later there was a kind of Dawg Daze thing on campus. A small festival carnival activities bazaar of sorts. My roommates performed with other Panamanians, singing and dancing and drumming and accordioning. They drew a big crowd, including a Chinese looking person even more enthusiastic than the rest. After dancing to one song, he came up to me, took my hand at about neck height, and shook it very awkwardly. (It was a cross between a high five, a handshake and a kiss on the cheek.) “I am Chinese!” he exclaimed, showing me his official identification card hanging around his neck. I acknowledged his Chineseness, and let him get back to dancing.
After one of the students from Paraguay had me sample some food and asked how I liked it, I responded that it was good, and said it reminded me of papusas from Ecuador. After dancing and shaking hands/throats with the Chinese man, the Parguanian (??) brought his friend over to me. “She is from Ecuador! You can tell her about the food you like.” I obliged.
She responded with a facial expression more expressive than words, and I tried again. No luck. Then she started speaking to me in perfect English. “You must have your countries mixed up,” she said with a degree of accusation. No, no, no. But maybe it’s the wrong name. I thought for a second, and decided that it was the right name, and tried one more time, futilely. “I think you don’t know which country you visited.”
I thought about it very hard, and realized I had said Ecuador and meant El Salvador. I sucked it up and let her know I realized my mistake. The conversation ended quickly thereafter, and I was left standing amid the crowd feeling like a bit of an ass.
If someone were to give me a blank map, I promise I could find both El Salvador and Ecuador and label them correctly. I have done it before (thanks Jackson School). It is not that I am unaware that Latin America is not one country, or that Ecuador is not north of the equator. It is just that I mix those two up with the same frequency I confuse “tiger” and “lion” or “wheel” and “tire”.
But the way she left me, the way she ended our conversation, made me feel guilty – more guilty than if I had called her wheel a tire. And I started thinking about this and I wondered why I had offended her. There was some sort of ego, some sort of national pride, that I had disturbed. How could I confuse Ecuador and El Salvador? “I guess they are kind of close,” she had said.
I do not have to worry about people mixing up the US and Canada, or the US and France, or England. People know where I am from, and it is hard to say how different I would feel about her reaction if people did not know where my home was. Maybe I would be more sympathetic.
Often, when I am sitting down at a restaurant and I make a new Taiwanese friend by virtue of being not Taiwanese, he will ask me how it is I know about Taiwan. The first several times I was asked this, I chuckled. I wanted to say, “Well, you know, you’re right there on the map with all the other countries.”
I have yet to say this, instead explaining that I wanted to study Chinese and I know people that have been here, etc. And now I do not chuckle anymore. It is a sincere question, no joking at all. It is a question borne mostly out of domination by big sister China, but also by many people’s disinterest in affairs outside of their daily life: often my new Taiwanese friend’s response to my explanation of why I have come here is “I thought Americans thought Taiwan was Thailand.”
And, alas, before I came to Taiwan, and even still (from some people, thanks to the internet) I get questions such as “How is China?!” and “You’re in Thailand, right?”
As I was holding my flag over my head, trampling around the field with my classmates like an idiot, no one was looking at me and thinking, “Where is he from?” In fact, I think it is quite the opposite. People look at me, flag or not, and see me first and foremost as an American.
I can have my issues and disagreements with this, but I am not going to change anyone’s first impressions. As long as people understand our little world in terms of nation-states it is probably best that I accept the fact that I am representing some 300 million odd people. So I will study my map a bit harder and smile a bit more and speak Chinese as best as I can – if not for the sake of America, then for the sake of avoiding any animosity between two groups of people whose only connection is a guy named Jonathan Brown that did not know the name of El Salvador.
...
PS
Today at work I was discussing cultural differences between Taiwan and the US with the Taiwanese teacher. Our conversation was revolving around when children moved out of their parent’s house. I suggested I thought it was nice that Taiwanese tended to stick around a bit longer. She asked why the same was not true in the US, and I replied as best as I could. Then, “Oh... So, it isn’t illegal?”
???
I tried not to chuckle, but mustered a “Huh?”
“I thought there was a law that children had to move out, and if they don’t they have to pay their parents.”
This amazed me. She majored in English at university, yet still had this bizarre idea. So I will continue to correct these misperceptions and do my best to persuade everyone I meet that Americans, on the whole, are not that different than anyone else. Yes, yes.
That morning proved me wrong. I was sure everyone was lying and Tainan never got cold, but that morning was cold. Perhaps I have just become accustomed to warmer weather over the last few months, like the locals. Anyway, I sported my Mont-Bel synthetic fleece out the door, and was happy about my decision.
The participants of the “walk” were grouped by department. So we had our own Chinese Language Center group. We all were given free t-shirts and flags that corresponded to our respective home nation-state-countries. I had a United States of America flag because I am from the United States of America.
The “walk” itself took place in the school’s stadium. We waited on the track for a long time before haphazardly organizing ourselves into rows of six and walking almost half way around the track. Then it was done – for us, anyhow. The other groups, after this epoch journey almost half way around the track, seemed to be placing themselves on the field in an organized manner. There was to be a long speech. We foreigners did not have to stay for the long speech because we are foreigners and seem to be exempt from a lot of things.
But whoever was leading our group of foreigners was unaware of our exemption, and headed our group onto the field. There was obvious confusion at the front of the group, which steadily trickled down to the back of the group. I think something was even said over the loudspeaker about the foreigners. The foreigners were in distress and started going astray. Amidst all the careful planning and obvious organization of the other groups, the clump of very foreign looking foreigners (lots of white people) started trampling across lines and boundaries, running around in circles and lines, every last one of them carrying a bright flag over their head. I think I was the first one to notice the knee slapping humor of the situation, and just stopped to stand and look and laugh like Matt.
I spent the free from class day with classmates, mostly with two German students. The day got warmer and I took off my jacket and we walked around the city for a few hours and ate food and talked. Until today I had been feeling a sense of nostalgia for fall. There still are not any red leaves, but the brisk air, bright sun and slight breeze did me well.
Later there was a kind of Dawg Daze thing on campus. A small festival carnival activities bazaar of sorts. My roommates performed with other Panamanians, singing and dancing and drumming and accordioning. They drew a big crowd, including a Chinese looking person even more enthusiastic than the rest. After dancing to one song, he came up to me, took my hand at about neck height, and shook it very awkwardly. (It was a cross between a high five, a handshake and a kiss on the cheek.) “I am Chinese!” he exclaimed, showing me his official identification card hanging around his neck. I acknowledged his Chineseness, and let him get back to dancing.
After one of the students from Paraguay had me sample some food and asked how I liked it, I responded that it was good, and said it reminded me of papusas from Ecuador. After dancing and shaking hands/throats with the Chinese man, the Parguanian (??) brought his friend over to me. “She is from Ecuador! You can tell her about the food you like.” I obliged.
She responded with a facial expression more expressive than words, and I tried again. No luck. Then she started speaking to me in perfect English. “You must have your countries mixed up,” she said with a degree of accusation. No, no, no. But maybe it’s the wrong name. I thought for a second, and decided that it was the right name, and tried one more time, futilely. “I think you don’t know which country you visited.”
I thought about it very hard, and realized I had said Ecuador and meant El Salvador. I sucked it up and let her know I realized my mistake. The conversation ended quickly thereafter, and I was left standing amid the crowd feeling like a bit of an ass.
If someone were to give me a blank map, I promise I could find both El Salvador and Ecuador and label them correctly. I have done it before (thanks Jackson School). It is not that I am unaware that Latin America is not one country, or that Ecuador is not north of the equator. It is just that I mix those two up with the same frequency I confuse “tiger” and “lion” or “wheel” and “tire”.
But the way she left me, the way she ended our conversation, made me feel guilty – more guilty than if I had called her wheel a tire. And I started thinking about this and I wondered why I had offended her. There was some sort of ego, some sort of national pride, that I had disturbed. How could I confuse Ecuador and El Salvador? “I guess they are kind of close,” she had said.
I do not have to worry about people mixing up the US and Canada, or the US and France, or England. People know where I am from, and it is hard to say how different I would feel about her reaction if people did not know where my home was. Maybe I would be more sympathetic.
Often, when I am sitting down at a restaurant and I make a new Taiwanese friend by virtue of being not Taiwanese, he will ask me how it is I know about Taiwan. The first several times I was asked this, I chuckled. I wanted to say, “Well, you know, you’re right there on the map with all the other countries.”
I have yet to say this, instead explaining that I wanted to study Chinese and I know people that have been here, etc. And now I do not chuckle anymore. It is a sincere question, no joking at all. It is a question borne mostly out of domination by big sister China, but also by many people’s disinterest in affairs outside of their daily life: often my new Taiwanese friend’s response to my explanation of why I have come here is “I thought Americans thought Taiwan was Thailand.”
And, alas, before I came to Taiwan, and even still (from some people, thanks to the internet) I get questions such as “How is China?!” and “You’re in Thailand, right?”
As I was holding my flag over my head, trampling around the field with my classmates like an idiot, no one was looking at me and thinking, “Where is he from?” In fact, I think it is quite the opposite. People look at me, flag or not, and see me first and foremost as an American.
I can have my issues and disagreements with this, but I am not going to change anyone’s first impressions. As long as people understand our little world in terms of nation-states it is probably best that I accept the fact that I am representing some 300 million odd people. So I will study my map a bit harder and smile a bit more and speak Chinese as best as I can – if not for the sake of America, then for the sake of avoiding any animosity between two groups of people whose only connection is a guy named Jonathan Brown that did not know the name of El Salvador.
...
PS
Today at work I was discussing cultural differences between Taiwan and the US with the Taiwanese teacher. Our conversation was revolving around when children moved out of their parent’s house. I suggested I thought it was nice that Taiwanese tended to stick around a bit longer. She asked why the same was not true in the US, and I replied as best as I could. Then, “Oh... So, it isn’t illegal?”
???
I tried not to chuckle, but mustered a “Huh?”
“I thought there was a law that children had to move out, and if they don’t they have to pay their parents.”
This amazed me. She majored in English at university, yet still had this bizarre idea. So I will continue to correct these misperceptions and do my best to persuade everyone I meet that Americans, on the whole, are not that different than anyone else. Yes, yes.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Moving
As I write this, I am sitting in my new home. There is a drizzle outside, cooling the breeze that comes in through the sliding door of the balcony. Having a balcony is nice – it offers views of things that, while not spectacular, are preferable to a reddish solid metal wall. It is also nice having a kitchen with a kitchen table, as well as a living room complete with two couches and a coffee table.
My bedroom in and of itself is not as nice as my previous (bed)room. It did not come furnished with a closet, a chair or a small bookshelf, so those must be obtained. In the meantime, I am living from my floor – which is proving manageable to such a degree that the purchasing of real furniture will most likely be delayed for some time. There are also a few dings and marks on the wall, though if this is an indication that I am allowed to adhere things to the borders of my room (and I am making an assumption that it is), this could be viewed as a plus.
Furthermore, my new roommates have not yet turned out to be demonic in anyway. Instead they are maintaining the same degree of graciousness and civility as they do in classes. They also seem to have their own lives outside of the apartment, so it is not infrequently that I am home alone – on the whole, another plus. When they are around and we are communicating, we mostly use Spanish. Sometimes I will slip into Mandarin, as these days it is closer to the tip of my tongue, and I also intentionally impose English on them every once in a while (I am not sure how this is received yet). Inevitably, though, the phrases in foreign languages are repeated in Spanish for the sake of actual comprehension.
This has had two consequences. First, my Spanish has been rejuvenated after three months of severe malnourishment. And second, I have come to the realization that my Spanish is rather bad.
I persuaded my old landlord to sell me her son’s bicycle, so it is now my bicycle. There is want of something better still, however. The options are a sweeter bike (possibly a fixie which I am sure would be one of, if not the first in Tainan), the more convenient Vespa style scooter, or the more awesome motorcycle. In the same way the floor in my bedroom is sufficing as a closet and shelf, however, I am quite sure my current medium of transportation will last for some time.
And in fact, my bicycle is sufficient. Tainan is relatively small (though it is Taiwan’s fourth largest city) and flat, and I ride around with ease. Every week I encounter a new something or other. Two weeks ago it was the vegetarian Jiaozi (I think these are called dumplings in English, but am honestly not sure) place; last week, another tea shop from which I will buy a bag of tea tomorrow to try out; today it was the bakery and an Indian restaurant I will try next week.
The constants in my life are progressing. I feel I am getting a better grasp on teaching, and I picked up a few books on the subject, which will be an additional aid. This is the first job I have had where my responsibilities are not clearly defined. Well, on one hand that is not true. It is pretty straightforward: teach them English. But the methods by which I fulfill that requirement are malleable.
This realization was the first big step in the right direction, as far as teaching goes. It has led to some thinking about what my aims and expectations should be for different classes, which in turn has led to reconsiderations in how I deal with the students. I do not think that I want to be a teacher for a significant part of my life, but I do prefer doing things well to doing things not well. I also think many traits and skills that make a good teacher (of any level) are invaluable even when I am not in front of the class. So, I will continue to try to be better at what I am doing.
The other constant, the one where I am looking at the person in front of the class, is also going well. My ability to communicate with people that only speak Chinese is improving week by week. Still, successful communication is just as rewarding as unsuccessful attempts at communication are frustrating. I have both a carrot and a stick pulling and pushing me onward.
For instance, as my Chinese improves I hear more and more, “Oh, your Chinese is pretty good. How long have been here?”
After I have this brief conversation, which I have had several times and at which I have become quite adept, the conversation regarding how much lettuce I want or where the post office is or by when I need to be moved out, begins.
And this is where that stick really starts beating me over the head. My partner in dialogue is convinced my Chinese is great and usually starts conversing with me in a matter which I find 80% incomprehensible. I, thankfully having just received a complement, am unwilling to stop them mid-tempest-of-incomprehension to explain that they are wrong and my Chinese is still bad, but prefer to smile and squint and bend forward and ask for repetition every once in a while.
Sometimes this works and sometimes it does not. Sometimes I do not get any lettuce, sometimes I go to the bakery instead of the post office, and sometimes I move out a week too early.
The weather is cooling down, forcing me to recognize that it was in fact disgustingly hot this summer. Still, I am currently in shorts and a t-shirt and do not understand when I see people donning Mountain Hardware alpine jackets, complete with snow hats.
It was fun watching the election from afar. It made me realize I do like and care about America, was less apathetic toward than frustrated with our little nation, and am happy to see something a little different. I guess we will see how things go, yeah?
My bedroom in and of itself is not as nice as my previous (bed)room. It did not come furnished with a closet, a chair or a small bookshelf, so those must be obtained. In the meantime, I am living from my floor – which is proving manageable to such a degree that the purchasing of real furniture will most likely be delayed for some time. There are also a few dings and marks on the wall, though if this is an indication that I am allowed to adhere things to the borders of my room (and I am making an assumption that it is), this could be viewed as a plus.
Furthermore, my new roommates have not yet turned out to be demonic in anyway. Instead they are maintaining the same degree of graciousness and civility as they do in classes. They also seem to have their own lives outside of the apartment, so it is not infrequently that I am home alone – on the whole, another plus. When they are around and we are communicating, we mostly use Spanish. Sometimes I will slip into Mandarin, as these days it is closer to the tip of my tongue, and I also intentionally impose English on them every once in a while (I am not sure how this is received yet). Inevitably, though, the phrases in foreign languages are repeated in Spanish for the sake of actual comprehension.
This has had two consequences. First, my Spanish has been rejuvenated after three months of severe malnourishment. And second, I have come to the realization that my Spanish is rather bad.
I persuaded my old landlord to sell me her son’s bicycle, so it is now my bicycle. There is want of something better still, however. The options are a sweeter bike (possibly a fixie which I am sure would be one of, if not the first in Tainan), the more convenient Vespa style scooter, or the more awesome motorcycle. In the same way the floor in my bedroom is sufficing as a closet and shelf, however, I am quite sure my current medium of transportation will last for some time.
And in fact, my bicycle is sufficient. Tainan is relatively small (though it is Taiwan’s fourth largest city) and flat, and I ride around with ease. Every week I encounter a new something or other. Two weeks ago it was the vegetarian Jiaozi (I think these are called dumplings in English, but am honestly not sure) place; last week, another tea shop from which I will buy a bag of tea tomorrow to try out; today it was the bakery and an Indian restaurant I will try next week.
The constants in my life are progressing. I feel I am getting a better grasp on teaching, and I picked up a few books on the subject, which will be an additional aid. This is the first job I have had where my responsibilities are not clearly defined. Well, on one hand that is not true. It is pretty straightforward: teach them English. But the methods by which I fulfill that requirement are malleable.
This realization was the first big step in the right direction, as far as teaching goes. It has led to some thinking about what my aims and expectations should be for different classes, which in turn has led to reconsiderations in how I deal with the students. I do not think that I want to be a teacher for a significant part of my life, but I do prefer doing things well to doing things not well. I also think many traits and skills that make a good teacher (of any level) are invaluable even when I am not in front of the class. So, I will continue to try to be better at what I am doing.
The other constant, the one where I am looking at the person in front of the class, is also going well. My ability to communicate with people that only speak Chinese is improving week by week. Still, successful communication is just as rewarding as unsuccessful attempts at communication are frustrating. I have both a carrot and a stick pulling and pushing me onward.
For instance, as my Chinese improves I hear more and more, “Oh, your Chinese is pretty good. How long have been here?”
After I have this brief conversation, which I have had several times and at which I have become quite adept, the conversation regarding how much lettuce I want or where the post office is or by when I need to be moved out, begins.
And this is where that stick really starts beating me over the head. My partner in dialogue is convinced my Chinese is great and usually starts conversing with me in a matter which I find 80% incomprehensible. I, thankfully having just received a complement, am unwilling to stop them mid-tempest-of-incomprehension to explain that they are wrong and my Chinese is still bad, but prefer to smile and squint and bend forward and ask for repetition every once in a while.
Sometimes this works and sometimes it does not. Sometimes I do not get any lettuce, sometimes I go to the bakery instead of the post office, and sometimes I move out a week too early.
The weather is cooling down, forcing me to recognize that it was in fact disgustingly hot this summer. Still, I am currently in shorts and a t-shirt and do not understand when I see people donning Mountain Hardware alpine jackets, complete with snow hats.
It was fun watching the election from afar. It made me realize I do like and care about America, was less apathetic toward than frustrated with our little nation, and am happy to see something a little different. I guess we will see how things go, yeah?
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Administrative stuff
I opened a bank account, and am currently without regular access to the world wide web. Please forgive the post paucity.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Friday Evenings in Tainan
There really is not a shortage of things for me to write about these days. Life in Taiwan has become less surprising, but not much less extraordinary. Subtleties of everyday happenings I have become more and more accustomed to. Yet, instead of this resulting in a numbness to life’s absurdities, it has accentuated my perceptions.
But in many ways everything I experience is set in a very 'different' context, and it is exceedingly difficult to convey the peculiarities without first setting them in their proper environment. Rather than spend my time documenting I often prefer to engage, and so I am increasingly particular in my choice of scenes to convey.
A bit troubling, though, is that my recent intentions to write about particular events do not result in any sort of product, and many really rather entertaining or enchanting experiences fade into memories that I only hope to recall. There is a line to be straddled between a focus on engagement and a dedication to recording that engagement.
...
Last Friday evening I came home from work early: the private tutoring session I usually hold with Stephen’s daughter Sophia had been cancelled because she was busy. The next morning I was teaching at LiMing Zhongxue, but I had not yet finished my lesson plan.
As an aside, these lesson plans tend to take several hours to complete because I am not using a text and the class is large and long enough (40 students for three hours) that it demands I have what would seem an excess of material. If I were to do every exercise with every student I would probably only need to prepare a handful, but everyone would be sleeping until I called on them. Thus I am forced to be inventive and creative and entertaining while only covering a marginal amount of material.
I was in the process of being this inventive, creative and entertaining person when my cell phone rang, a rather rare occurrence. It was Judy, from my adult class, which had just the day before indefinitely postponed further classes because someone’s father was in the hospital. The class consists of three young-middle aged ladies who have incredibly disparate commands of the English language and listen hard and pretend to understand everything I say despite my best efforts to get them to confess when they do not. They are kind and have lives outside of our class and seem very unwilling to study.
I like them very much. They are a nice change of pace from the children, two times a week for two hours at a time.
So Judy, who is the most conversational in English, called to say that there was a big problem and she would be over soon to pick me up. It was 10:00 pm or so, and I had a significant amount of work to do on this lesson plan, but I of course told her I would be waiting outside.
We scootered to a place not far from the school where I teach, and parked and disembarked. The street was pretty quiet already, and not many people were around, but the room we parked in front of on the bottom floor of a large building was well lit with fluorescent lights and full of six or seven young-middle aged women, all working ferociously on computers.
Shelly, one of my students, was one of them. She had a report due the next day for her marketing class. The emergency was that she could not understand the English research paper on which the report was to be based at all. She handed me a copy of the 30 odd paged report, and asked if I could help.
I sat down and immediately felt like a real university student again. I had never read any marketing papers in my life, I had just been handed 30 pages of dense material and a report was due in several hours.
The only difference was that I was in Tainan in a room which turned out to be the bottom floor of the house of one of my youngest students, Tony, and was full of these women who were apparently all classmates. I asked Judy why everyone studied here. Everyone studied there because it was quiet and bright and there were lots of computers. Never mind it was what would normally be the living room of someones house.
It was actually amazing. This room, the bottom floor of this house, had been converted into what could have been mistaken for a black market brokering room. There were more computers than people, but all the computers seemed to be in use. Desks created a maze through which Tony’s father had to walk to get to the stairs to his hopefully more tranquil and less illegal upstairs. Instead of the 'quiet' that Judy described, there was a constant back and forth of chit chat. The doors were wide open to the city street outside.
Judy sat down in a large office chair and another lady immediately and silently stood up from her desk to begin massaging Judy's back. Judy is a larger lady, and a bit older than the rest. She is very kind, but has a burly kind of appearance that demands respect, the kind of lady you would never talk back to or interrupt. She has worked at the post office for decades, and this has probably accentuated this trait.
I returned to the research paper, but was forced to look up again when the belching from Judy's chair reached levels no longer ignorable. The lady doing the massaging could have been trying to kill Judy. She was striking her with such blows as to produce a belch nearly every time. I would not have been surprised, but may not have been able to retain my laughter, if the lady had simply grabbed the back-underside of the chair and flipped Judy onto the ground where she could more efficiently deal life threatening blows with the heels of her feet and point of her elbows.
Instead, both women were content to proceed as things were, and of course no one else was at all concerned or surprised or displayed any emotion at all.
I once again returned my gaze to the paper and carried on amidst all the black market trading and belching and studying in the living room of Tony’s house.
Not surprising at all, but no less extraordinary.
But in many ways everything I experience is set in a very 'different' context, and it is exceedingly difficult to convey the peculiarities without first setting them in their proper environment. Rather than spend my time documenting I often prefer to engage, and so I am increasingly particular in my choice of scenes to convey.
A bit troubling, though, is that my recent intentions to write about particular events do not result in any sort of product, and many really rather entertaining or enchanting experiences fade into memories that I only hope to recall. There is a line to be straddled between a focus on engagement and a dedication to recording that engagement.
...
Last Friday evening I came home from work early: the private tutoring session I usually hold with Stephen’s daughter Sophia had been cancelled because she was busy. The next morning I was teaching at LiMing Zhongxue, but I had not yet finished my lesson plan.
As an aside, these lesson plans tend to take several hours to complete because I am not using a text and the class is large and long enough (40 students for three hours) that it demands I have what would seem an excess of material. If I were to do every exercise with every student I would probably only need to prepare a handful, but everyone would be sleeping until I called on them. Thus I am forced to be inventive and creative and entertaining while only covering a marginal amount of material.
I was in the process of being this inventive, creative and entertaining person when my cell phone rang, a rather rare occurrence. It was Judy, from my adult class, which had just the day before indefinitely postponed further classes because someone’s father was in the hospital. The class consists of three young-middle aged ladies who have incredibly disparate commands of the English language and listen hard and pretend to understand everything I say despite my best efforts to get them to confess when they do not. They are kind and have lives outside of our class and seem very unwilling to study.
I like them very much. They are a nice change of pace from the children, two times a week for two hours at a time.
So Judy, who is the most conversational in English, called to say that there was a big problem and she would be over soon to pick me up. It was 10:00 pm or so, and I had a significant amount of work to do on this lesson plan, but I of course told her I would be waiting outside.
We scootered to a place not far from the school where I teach, and parked and disembarked. The street was pretty quiet already, and not many people were around, but the room we parked in front of on the bottom floor of a large building was well lit with fluorescent lights and full of six or seven young-middle aged women, all working ferociously on computers.
Shelly, one of my students, was one of them. She had a report due the next day for her marketing class. The emergency was that she could not understand the English research paper on which the report was to be based at all. She handed me a copy of the 30 odd paged report, and asked if I could help.
I sat down and immediately felt like a real university student again. I had never read any marketing papers in my life, I had just been handed 30 pages of dense material and a report was due in several hours.
The only difference was that I was in Tainan in a room which turned out to be the bottom floor of the house of one of my youngest students, Tony, and was full of these women who were apparently all classmates. I asked Judy why everyone studied here. Everyone studied there because it was quiet and bright and there were lots of computers. Never mind it was what would normally be the living room of someones house.
It was actually amazing. This room, the bottom floor of this house, had been converted into what could have been mistaken for a black market brokering room. There were more computers than people, but all the computers seemed to be in use. Desks created a maze through which Tony’s father had to walk to get to the stairs to his hopefully more tranquil and less illegal upstairs. Instead of the 'quiet' that Judy described, there was a constant back and forth of chit chat. The doors were wide open to the city street outside.
Judy sat down in a large office chair and another lady immediately and silently stood up from her desk to begin massaging Judy's back. Judy is a larger lady, and a bit older than the rest. She is very kind, but has a burly kind of appearance that demands respect, the kind of lady you would never talk back to or interrupt. She has worked at the post office for decades, and this has probably accentuated this trait.
I returned to the research paper, but was forced to look up again when the belching from Judy's chair reached levels no longer ignorable. The lady doing the massaging could have been trying to kill Judy. She was striking her with such blows as to produce a belch nearly every time. I would not have been surprised, but may not have been able to retain my laughter, if the lady had simply grabbed the back-underside of the chair and flipped Judy onto the ground where she could more efficiently deal life threatening blows with the heels of her feet and point of her elbows.
Instead, both women were content to proceed as things were, and of course no one else was at all concerned or surprised or displayed any emotion at all.
I once again returned my gaze to the paper and carried on amidst all the black market trading and belching and studying in the living room of Tony’s house.
Not surprising at all, but no less extraordinary.
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