American Stereotypes in Taiwan

Nora and I joined forces to make a video featuring some of the people in our Taiwanese life and their perception of the American lifestyle. We're lucky to be exposed to a lot of international students and tons of Taiwanese people at Wenzao. I can pretty safely say that I have about 5 (if I'm being generous) friends from America here, and Nora and I often find ourselves representing the US in and outside of class.

My Canadian classmate is found of saying "美國人" (American in Chinese), whenever I do anything in class. We played with an Chinese hacky-sack on Friday during our break at 9, and I got a little too excited   when I was kicking it to another classmate. After Canadian said "美國人”， I told him I had a name, and then my French classmate started speaking under his breath in English saying "I'm not just an American. I'm a human being!"

It was pretty funny, but we've encountered quite a few misconceptions about our homeland while we've been here.

Second Semester Chinese!

Enjoy!

American Stereotypes! (by Nora and Mack)

Benson's Come to 台灣！

This last week, the Benson family came to visit Kaohsiung! It was great to have Nora's family in town, and we had a lot of fun showing them what we've been doing here for the last 8 months. We took them to our favorite Italian restaurant (Cafe Grazi), gave them a whole roast chicken to eat with their hands, and watched them struggle with chopsticks-a skill we mastered long ago. Talking with Americans refreshed my memory of what it was like when I first came to Taiwan: there are 7-11's everywhere.

(The Bensons, Diego, and I eating traditional Taiwanese food)

Our weekend with the Bensons, Jubbie helped us organize a really fun trip to 阿里山, a beautiful mountain near 高雄。 We stayed in a cozy cabin after a pretty terrifying ride there in a taxi (the yellow line in the middle of the road was more of a suggestion for our driver), and it felt like a girl scout camp out as I spent time with some of my closest friends here in Taiwan. I enjoyed chatting with Nora's family, and I was in awe once again about how capable and wonderful my host sister Jubbie is. (She planned our Korean trip, and the Alishan trip with Nora's family <3) 

Hot Pot with part of the Benson family!

On Monday, Nora's family came to Wenzao, and I got to give them a tour of the campus while Nora has class from 10 to 12. It was really fun to walk around the back gate and point out shops we buy tea at and our normal lunch spots such as the dumplings place, duck rice store, Subway, curry restaurant, the Taiwanese bakery, and--of course-- the tea shops. There are at least four shops within a minute from school. I also gave them a tour of the library and gym. There are a group of guys and then me who work out nearly everyday, so it was fun to introduce Nora's sisters to a few of my gym rat friends. (Sentences I occasionally hear from other international friends in the 健身室: "Shakira going hard!" or "Shakira's hitting the gym!" ) 

A few weeks ago, a Taiwanese friend actually gave me hairdryer, because I shower at school, and he thought it'd be better if I started drying my hair. 

Group picture with friends and friend's family post-hot pot.

Looks like we have the Asian pictures poses down.

During my campus tour with the Bensons, I took them to the delicious fresh fruit juice store on Wenzao's campus, I got to serve as a translator so they could order juice. It was my first time I had helped a group of people that really don't speak any Chinese navigate the life here, and it was a pretty awesome feeling to be able to translate a menu in Chinese, take a order in English, and then relay it back to Taiwanese juice blending lady in Chinese in order to get some fresh juice. I realized in Taiwan that I love translating for people in real life situations; it's pretty awesome to be the link that helps two people communicate. 

Jubbie and Me at 阿里山！

Nora's statement on her family's visit: "It was a good time".  On Thursday, they flew out to visit another cousin in Hong Kong; hopefully with some fond memories of Taiwan. We certainly love it here, and its crazy to think that there are less than three months to cherish before we're back home. We got our return ticket information, and we leave Taiwan on June 25th. It's been an amazing ride so far. 

花蓮 and 運動會

The last few weeks have been pretty exciting. Our NSLI-Y group traveled to Hualian (see Ben's Recap Video)  for the weekend. 花蓮 is in beautiful Northeast Taiwan, and for some reason, NSLI-Y payed for us to take a plane there (about 30 minutes in the air). While waiting in at the airport, I treated myself to a massage which cost a little less than two US dollars.

The mountains in Hualian are beautiful, and the air there is so clean! It was great to get out of the city for a few days and experience a bit of Mother Nature in Taiwan. We also found a store that had some of the best ice cream we've found in Taiwan.

The NSLI-Y Taiwan Crew

Wearing Helmets to Protect Ourselves from Possible Falling Rocks

Finding Home

Brandon and his girls

We like to take pictures of ourselves

 It was great to finally experience Hualian in its glory, and at the end of the weekend, we took a 5 hour train ride back to Kaohsiung.

Last Friday at Wenzao, we had 運動會 (SPORTS DAY!!) I bought an American flag bandana from the English department and experienced the Taiwanese equivalent of Field Day. Jubbie's Spanish Department (西文系）won for the five year school, and the English Department （英文系）won for the four year college. It was cool to see so many people on campus supporting their classmates in various relay races, and students shouting "加油！" completely surrounding the track.

Orange shirts are Japanese Department's students 

  

Fun in 台灣

It's hard to believe we're already over a month into our second semester! Recently, time has flown as I've been living out my new schedule and spending time with new and old friends at Wenzao. I've become friends with my new Chinese classmates, and there also new faces at the Chinese Center to greet me after taking the train to school at 7:15. On my commute in the morning, I run into so many high school students, and it's fascinating to see how many of the them are studying English on the way to school (but will never speak to me). There also a few students at the Kaohsiung America School that often have their noses in English textbooks of "Biology" or "Chemistry". I talked to one students from KAS, a private, much more expensive high school that only teaches in English, and he told me how they recently switched to an IB program, and how difficult it was, especially for his classmates who were working for an IB diploma.

(the group takes self pictures)

I felt myself getting busier and busier these days, especially since my day starts 2 to 3 hours earlier these days than it did last semester. Belly dancing this semester is a hour three times a week (excessive? maybe, maybe not) in preparation for our May performance, and we most recently learned the beginning of a dance to Shakira's Rabiosa. 

(hot pot dinner with friends during the school week)

It's been great to see friends from last semester since we came back, and there's definitely a camaraderie between the internationals students are here for the year. Much like in high school, I spend tons of time at school everyday, and it's nice to grab lunch or dinner with friends after class. It's also getting to be graduation season, and several of my friends (Diego, Alfredo, Ivette) will be heading into a world outside of Wenzao after this May. Recently at 文藻, you can spot various students from the 5-year school and 4 year college taking cap and gown pictures around campus. 

Alfredo! He lived in Spain for three months and will start his mandatory, one-year military service after graduation. My friend is hoping to serve somewhere in Latin or South America, because of his foreign language skills and the fact that's where Taiwan has some diplomatic relations. In Taiwan, every male has a year of required year of military service.

(外國人！！ We're from the US, the UK, and Indonesia.)

On the weekends, there's been a lot of bike riding by the beach since school started. For three US dollars, you can rent a bike for the day, and it's super beautiful to go up and down the coastline or up into the mountains for the day. In the mountains, you sometimes see wild monkeys. Over winter break, I saw one jump Nora and steal a bag of almonds out of her pocket. 

Nora recently figured out I-movie. Check out her new videos on Youtube!

Nora's First Semester Video Wrap Up

Nora's Artsy Taiwan Video

Confession: Over winter break, I found a guitar shop on the way home from the train station in Gangshan. This semester, I'm starting to learn my first stringed instrument (see reference above), and I had my first lesson two weeks ago. It's a great opportunity to practice Chinese, and if I get there earlier, I can casually drink some tea and talk with the employees and shop owner. I was probably worrying out loud about my Chinese abilities, when the owner advised "不想太多” which means "don't think too much".

A bit more on winter break:

Over winter break, our group volunteered at a week long Winter Camp for little kids in Taiwan. Nora did a great job writing about this on her blog: http://noranoranoratheexplorer.tumblr.com/ . One of the highlights of our week was giving informative presentations about "Our Hometown". I just realized IEARN filmed these, so if you're interested, check out Nora's blog or the links below for the recording of our presentations.


Part of my Tennessee Presentation in Chinese!
The end of my presentation

If you're from Nashville, you should recognize some of the special things from Tennessee I highlight in my powerpoint. There are also several pictures of friends and family doing various American things, so look for yourself in my PPT.

~Mack~

Second Semester Senior Part 2?

The last few weeks have been pretty busy as we've been figuring out our second semester schedules. The biggest change for me is that my Chinese class moved from 10-12 every day to 8-10. I live pretty far from school, so it's been an adjustment waking up around 6 every day to get to Wenzao. The 6:56 train has a lot more high school students and a lot less old people than the train around 9. My host family gave me a bike for a Chinese New Year/Birthday gift, so I've also started biking to and from the 岡山 train station rather than walking or waiting for a ride.

This semester, my schedule looks something like this:
Monday-Friday: 中文課， 8-10am. My new class has lots of native French speakers (two from Belgium, one from France, and one from Canada), two Japanese girls, one Spaniard, my Mexican classmate from last semester, and a student from Vietnam. It's also really early.

Monday: 1-3, 成語課/idioms class, 3-4 Spanish history, 4-5, Spanish-English language exchange

Tuesday: 2-4, "Fitting in in Chinese", (This class has gotten really great reviews from other foreign students and is similar to our morning Chinese class.)

Wednesday: 1-3, my year long Spanish writing class, 3-5, year long calculus class

Thursday: 1-3, auditing a Spanish grammer class taught by one of the best Spanish professors at Wenzao. Brandon's also taking this class, and many of my Taiwanese classmates in this class took other Spanish classes with me last semester, so it's cool to already have some friends. The professor has been really engaging in the last two classes, and she's my first female Spanish professor I've had whose from Spain.  Then, from 3-6 on Thursday, I'm taking "International Political Economy" with Nora. This class is my first (and only) 文藻 class taught in English, and the professor seems very good. He's a joint professor at Wenzao and the London School of Economics and has a very British accent. The class has some foreigners, but there are also a lot of Taiwanese students, and I'm amazed that they can follow his lectures on topics like mercantilism, political liberalism, and civil society. My group will eventually do a presentation on BRIC later in the semester, and we'll cover topics like transnational corporations, Sino-US relations in the 21st century and its implications for Taiwan, the rise of the Chinese Middle Classes, and the January 2012 elections in Taiwan during the semester. I'm quite excited to learn more about Taiwan outside of studying the language, and I think this class will be quite interesting (though a bit long). These sorts of classes were my jam in high school, and it will be cool to get a European perspective on United States' and China's political and economic relationship. I'm also excited to be expected to speak English in class.

Friday: 1-3 year long Spanish conversation course

I think it's a great schedule, and I'm especially excited about adding new Chinese classes and a political science class in English. With my new free block from 10-12 every morning, I've been trying to get my ACL physical therapy/work out done early in the morning, and I've been getting it done so far. Public service announcement: morning workouts make you feel great for the rest of the day.

Also,
I'M 19!

Thanks for all FB and real life birthday wishes. Last weekend marked my first beach birthday party, and we ate cupcakes my family sent from America. Delicious and very sweet.

frisbee

Me and Nora

我愛台灣！

Korea! 韓國！한국

From February 8th to the 16th, I took a temporary leave from Taiwan to see Korea! Jubbie, my awesome host sister, organized a winter vacation trip to Seoul. I've got to admit it was pretty cool to travel to a foreign country with two young adults (our friend, Wendy, joined us) and have everything work out wonderfully.  We took the high speed rail to Taipei early in the morning, and then flew out of the airport on our first long day of travel.

The first three days, we stayed at the Hi Seoul Youth Hostel. It was really spacious and the bed was so comfortable. One night, I met a recent university graduate from Australia who was taking a bit of a gap before starting a job in law that he already had lined up. He had already traveled Japan and now was in Korea to be followed by Taiwan, Europe, and then Egypt. I also met a 18 and 19 year old German couple while I was traveling who had spent the last 4 or 5 months on a working holiday/gap year in Australia and had picked vegetables and lived in working hostels while traveling in Australia and New Zealand. Meeting new people was definitely one of the highlights to our Korean trip.

We moved youth hostels after a few days to experience a different part of Seoul (it's a huge city), and in our second hostel, there were tons of tourists from Taiwan. In the kitchen, it was cool to be able to make friends by speaking Chinese (especially after feeling mute and ignorant with my inability to speak any Korean). Korean pop culture is really big in Taiwan--a lot of people copy their clothing style and are huge fans of Kpop (korean pop music, ex. Wonder Girls, Girl Generation, Super Junior-I hear these names a lot and occasionally their songs in Taiwan) and the Korean TV dramas.

Luckily for us, two of our 文藻 Korean classmates from Taiwan were able to help us get an authentic Korean experience. Last semester, we met Ester and Jenna (who also joined the bellydance team) and met us while were in Seoul to help us navigate 韓國。When it was the three of us that spoke no Korean, we got food, and it tasted pretty good, but after Esther and Jenna came, the Korean food was SO GOOD. Lots of kimchi and meat. Ester treated us to her mom's restaurant as well as helping us order bibimbap, jeon, bulgulgi, kimchi soup, Korean barbecue, and different street foods-all of which were delicious. Our Korean friends who had studied in Taiwan also showed us where to shop and help us communicate with shop owners. There were a lot of small, private business men and women selling clothes in Dongdaemun, one of the largest shopping districts in Seoul. It was a big contrast to department stores where the individual workers are pretty far removed from the CEOs at the top and gave an interesting flavor to the entire shopping area. Outside one building, young people were dancing on a performance stage, and people everywhere were bundled in warm clothing trying to beat the freezing cold.

A kind person (who spoke English and Korean) helped us order this for lunch!

Jubbie buys a Korean pancake 

Delicious meal at Esther's family restaurant

Seafood pancake (jeon), tofu, and a Korean style salad

One of Esther's favorite meals

Korean chopsticks are flatter and made of metal

Korea is famous for their banana milk.

Korea has oreos (and I saw Smoothie King and Krispy Kreme too!)

We did a lot of shopping, sleeping, eating, and exploring the city while we were there. The subway was huge and could get you to anywhere you wanted in Seoul. The biggest shocks compared to Taiwan were the cold and cost of food. It would be a lot more expensive to live in Korea compared to 高雄, so I was glad to be there on vacation and not permanently (especially with the cold).

Korean statue 

I think they meant Narnia

So beautiful, so cold

Just beautiful

Starbucks

Despite our language barrier, everyone we met was really kind. When we were carrying luggage in the subways, strangers helped with our extra bags. One day, when I was looking for Korean-style chopsticks, I met a student my age who helped me get lunch, and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the day.

New friend! He taught me about Korean eating culture (and helped me experience it!) along with the mandatory two-years military requirement for all Korean men. He said the army's when most Korean men start smoking. (There was a lot of smoking in Seoul.)

Me with jeon (seafood pancake)

The last three days, we stayed with Esther and her family in one of the more suburban-like areas of Seoul. We went to a Korean folk village, and were lucky enough to run into a Korean drama crew filming. The saw me and said "hello!"

With the Korean drama crew

A tightrope walker at the folk village

a women in traditional clothing

cow

Korea was super fun, but I'm so glad to be back in Taiwan. The weather is wonderful, and food is cheap.

Second semester here I come!