Diversity

People keep asking me how different Taiwan is from the way it was in the early '70s when I lived here before. The biggest, and most significant, is the homogenation of the population.

When I lived here before, there was a clear difference between "Chinese" (those whose families had come with Chiang Kai Shek in 1949), and "Taiwanese" (those whose families had also come from China but much earlier. In addition were "others" (aborigines ) who lived in the mountains and were more of a curiosity. The differences were profound and almost racial. Spots in the best schools went to Chinese, the best professions were populated by Chinese, freedom of travel was for Chinese. It was important to maintain the difference since they would be returning to "retake the mainland" as soon as the US "unleashed Chiang".

With the passage of time and the tremendous surge in the Taiwan economy, most folks here now have no interest in moving back to the mainland. Life is better for them here. Many have been back to visit and are glad they went but were even happier to come back. Therefore, the distinction has gone away. Now everyone refers to themselves as Taiwanese, it is non-pc to call yourself Chinese, and there is at least a show of interest in enjoying the diversity provided by the minority groups -- Hakka and the various aborigine tribes.

An interesting story: one of the teachers in my program was born in Taiwan but her family emigrated to Canada when she was 5. She was raised in Toronto and is a Canadian citizen. When we applied for this program we had to submit our birth certificates. Hers says that she is Chinese born in Taiwan. Before she could be hired for the job, she had to write a letter to the Taiwanese government stating that her birth certificate was incorrect, that actually she was Taiwanese from birth!

This Saturday my school is sponsoring a trip for the teachers and staff to a Hakka village about 3 hours drive north. Apparently Hakkas are "in" this year and there is some talk of our county adopting this village. It is somewhat unclear what we could do for them but it will be an interesting trip.

Naming

One of the most fun things I get to do here is bestow English names. Most Chinese by the time they reach 10 or 11 have either been given or have adopted an English name, but some have not or others had one but didn't like it.

For my students it is a necessity. There are 520 of them. I will be lucky if I learn even half of their names in English and would NEVER learn them in Chinese. Then there are teachers, teachers' children, street vendors --- I am getting a reputation.

I try to do something with their Chinese names or sometimes they just "look like" an Amy. Some who have adopted names for themselves need to be convinced that Spiderman is not a viable name, or that there are already enough "Kobe"s in Taiwan. I am also amazed at the cruelty that some of the earlier teachers must have felt to name a little kid "Moon", or "Venus"or "Lotus". Their English textbook characters have caused several to be named "Sky", both male and female. There are also a bunch of common misspellings that cause a little hilarity -- Windy, or Beety, for example. Some you can only wonder about -- my favorite is "Courlt". This is a math teacher (male) who insists that is the correct spelling.

About every one of you now has a namesake in Taiwan!

Good News

After 29 days of pointing out to these people that I could only stay in Taiwan for 30 days if they didn't get moving on my working visa, it finally came through. I don't have it in hand yet, of course, but the logjam appears to be broken. I hope the others who are having similar problems manage to get what they need also.

The next step is a physical and an application for an Alien Registration Card (similar to green card), which, when received will make it legal for the school to pay me. Won't that be nice? I am so glad that I worked for a bureaucracy for 20 years so I don't take all this as personally as some of the younger teachers in the program who seem to think this is an al Qaeda plot! It has been extremely aggravating but the best part was the support I got from my school.

Now that I have a television, I feel a little more connected to the world.. Getting the BBC version is only annoying since they don't cover American football at all. Soccer games from ALL over the world, also American tennis and American golf, but football isn't mentioned. Thank heavens for washingtonpost.com or I would never know how bad the Redskins lost!

9/11 commemoration events got big play but I couldn't find any students who had any idea what happened that day, and precious few teachers.

I have also found 3 movie channels which are mostly in English but where do they find these movies? I was so excited to find "The Hunt For Red October" the other night, I stayed up until 1 AM to watch! I now know why I only had basic cable in the states.

Free Money

This is a good time to talk about a really inventive thing the Taiwanese government has instituted. Apparently there was some trouble getting store keeprs to truthfully report their receipts, thus the government couldn't account for the sales tax money.

Some smart soul came up with the idea of receipts with preprinted consecutive numbers on them. Every time you buy something, you get one of these receipts. On the 26th of every other month, there is a lottery drawing. You compare the numbers on the receipts with the number drawn and maybe win money. There are 9 digits so it is nearly impossible to match them all, hence that person wins 2 million NT (about $650,000) but you only need to match 3 numbers to get 200 NT ($6.50) and LOTS of people win that. Considering you were going to spend the money anyway, people refer to it as free money. People now demand receipts from stores so the government gets their money, too. Smart, hunh?

The drawing will be the 26th of September. I'll let you know if I will be quitting early...

Taichung weekend

This was the first of, I hope, many fun weekends spent with my two new teacher friends. One is Rochelle, the woman who works in the big town near me, and the other is Lyneice, the Detroit big-city gal who is up in the mountains with the aborigines. It was good for all of us to get together and compare notes.

I hitched a ride to Douliou with one of the teachers here on Friday after school. Met up with the one friend and we took a train to Taichung. The trip lasted about an hour and the only stress was buying the ticket, getting on the right train and making sure we got off in the right place. We had some trouble finding where our other friend was staying and never did meet up with her that night. Next day, though, we had a great reunion and began a day and a half of shopping, talking, laughing and eating good food. The woman from the mountains has not been in a store at all since we saw her last -- it's even an hour to any place she can buy food. All in all a fun weekend, but didn't really have anything to do with Taichung. There are some very famous temples, etc, there so we will have to go back.

Taichung is the third largest city in Taiwan and noticeably more expensive than my little backwater. (sorry, I mean pastoral rural village). We will make sure to enjoy the place more next time.

coffee and t-shirts

I must have sounded really needy in my first blog because several people offered to be my coffee supplier! I thank you all but the situation is better controlled. First, you can get "2 in 1" instant mix instead of "3 in 1". This means that there is no sweetener in it, which I much prefer. I also found Maxwell House 2 in 1, which, if you don't dilute it too much with water, is not bad. Also, Taiwan has a coffee plantation, actually not too far from here, and I understand that instant is very good. I realized that the reason everyone drinks instant here is because the water must be boiled, and maintained at a boiling temperature, which your regular coffee pot doesn't do.

There is a continual source of entertainment in the t-shirts which have interesting English sayings on them. The choice of words/or their spelling can lay a native speaker out with hilarity. This weekend while I am in Taichung, I will write some down and share.

Chinese decorate their cars. I can't quite explain this but the fascination with the "cutesy", even by adult males, is amazing. "Hello Kitty" (if your remember that whole campaign) is still alive and well in Asia. I understand it is even more so in Japan. It amazes me that any cars still have rear view mirrors since they hang so much stuff off them!

Little tidbits

Taiwan seems to be a year of so behind the US in the great "social movements".

They are currently getting concerned with childhood obesity (with visible good reason) and have removed all vending machines from the schools. Everyone talks about healthy eating and they are religious about recycling. The garbage men can fine you if you don't separate your garbage properly! I have not been fined, but I have been yelled at.

There is a definite decrease in the amount of smoking. I rarely see anyone smoking and when I lived here last, everybody did.

In 1972, we drank the tap water. With the increase in heavy industry, that is no longer possible. The heavy metals will kill you now or later.

Some things never change, though. We all have lunch from 12:00 until 1:15. A rather pleasant time with quite good food shared by all teachers in a nicely cool room. For everyone except me, though, lunch is something to be bolted so that you can get back to your desk and take a nap.

We have no water in the school today. Some plumbing issue that has caused an increase in employment for the plumbers of the area, but still not resolved. At lunch I mentioned that if this was in the United States, the Health Department would close the school. They all looked at me in confusion and wondered why.

Last night, they gave me a television! I never realized how much I missed it but with no TV, no radio, and no telephone, the nights are pretty empty. I've been going to bed too early, then waking up too early. The school had one they weren't using and my building is prewired for cable so now I am all set. There are 99 channels, only 3 in English, but Discovery, National Geo, and CNN (British version) will definitely improve my life.

This weekend, two of the other American teachers from the program and I are meeting in Taichung for a little R&R to the big city. It's not all that far but when limited to public transportation, it's a bit of a production.

More About School

Note: I have heard from many of you and it sounds like this is going over better than I would have expected. I will do them more often. I am also getting used to the site, now. It was very easy to set up, but not so easy to continue. Remember, any "page" I get to that I haven't actually written on, is in Chinese characters.

I had a few more comments about the school that I didn't have room for on the last post.

The building is U-shaped, covered on the outside with white tiles. The middle part of the "U" is a pretty grassy, flowery area. the bottom of the U is mostly Admin offices with the classrooms in the "uprights". All rooms have windows on both sides and open onto balcony/walkways so there is lots of light and (on the odd ocasion that there is any) and breeze. Every room has ceiling fans or we would all be dead by now. Picture 38 15-year olds in one room all day without air conditioning when the weather is 95 degrees!

Yes, the students stay in one place and the teachers go to them. Classes are heterogeneously grouped although they may not know it. Some was just coincidental. Actually, the big "cut" came earlier. At the end of elementary school, those parents who are really of an academic bent (and/or can afford it) send their kids to private school beginning in the 7th grade. We get the other 40%. They aren't slow kids (in most cases) or even really poor ones, they are what we call "country". I haven't found one yet who knows who Bush is.

It's a great school, though. The teachers are really dedicated and are less overwhelmed by the numbers than I am. Or they have gotten over it, one or the other.

I had forgotten the basic frugality of schools after working for the profligate government for 20 years. Students, and teachers, supply their own pens, paper, notebooks, and anything else you want them to have. It is also hard to ask because you don't know what will be involved with them getting it.

When you are done with the xerox machine, you turn it off. When you leave a room, you turn the fans off.

School

Although I have only had 2 days of actual classes, I can talk in generalities about the school.

Cihtong Middle School has 880 students. Frankly, I don't know where they come from -- there sure aren't 880 houses around here. The school has 3 grades, 7,8 and 9. It is the highest level these kids can achieve in Cihtong, ater this they must leave town to go to school.

The students are quite well behaved compared to American students this age, but it is a squirrelly age at best, both here and there. The first class I had was so similar in makeup to the first 9th grade I taught in 1969, that I had to laugh. One big loudmouth kid, 6 "most popular" girls, one heartthrob, etc.

Students wear uniforms, 2 actually. If there is the slightest excuse for doing something physical (PE, sports, whatever) they can wear shorts and a polo shirt with trim to match the shorts -- navy for the boys, maroon for the girls. It seems it doesn't take much of an excuse, since I have rarely seen the real uniform. I can also see why. For girls it is a truly ugly color blue pleated skirt with a pink blouse with the blue trim. Boys wear blue shorts and a mint green shirt. Grim.

I have 520 different students each week! That is 8 8th grade classes and 8 9ths. Each class is 45 minutes. The other teachers are wildly jealous of my "light load". They don't face as many different faces as I do but they often have 20-22 classes. For me, though, if I give up on trying to learn their names, it's pretty easy since so far it is only 1 prep. Eventually it will be two but, hey, no tests, no homework to grade, etc.

The principal is a young fellow who seems nice but speaks n0 English so we haven't spoken much. He has a passion for badminton and there is a pickup game every day after school for him, teachers and students. I may join them later but right now I can't get too excited about playing killer badminton in an unairconditioned gym when it is about 95 degrees.

They serve a catered lunch to the teachers every day. Not bad for less than $1 a day, paid monthly upfront.

One thing I find interesting is that the students are responsible for building maintenance. Good idea since it keeps them neat and makes them a part of the whole school deal. The sports teams maintain the playing fields. Others mop floors, wash windows, clean restrooms, etc. Everyone has a job and does it, probably without much enthusiasm but no overt griping either.

Other interesting points: each grade has a "sports class". These are kids who are showing some special sports ability and have been culled out for special treatment. They even wear a different uniform. For the teachers, it makes for at least one small class, the sports classes average about 18. It is somehow difficult, though to picture the next Michael Jordan coming from Cihtong Twp., but they think it is possible.