你好朋友們！

I've now been in Taiwan for two months, and these last few weeks at Wenzao have been really great. Jubbie and I celebrated Taiwan’s National Holiday (10/10) with her extended family at a seafood restaurant. The seafood here is super fresh; we’re in a huge Taiwanese port city.

 Food from 10/10 & Jubbie's cousin

Living in Kaohsiung makes me practice listening a lot. Even though I love to talk in English, I can’t communicate in the same way in Chinese, so I’m getting used to doing more listening. Letting other people make decisions for me sometime leads to pretty awesome experiences. This week, I ate lunch with Ben, Nora, two Korean girls, one Japanese guy, and my Korean guy classmate from my chess class. The Korean guy doesn’t speak much Chinese or English, but he’s really good at chess. Within our group, we could speak Japanese, Korean, English, and some Chinese, but there was a mutual language that everyone could understand.

Language skills were distributed as such:

Nora: English

Ben: English, pretty good Chinese-definitely the best of our group

Me: English, ok Chinese-can communicate some

Japanese classmate: Japanese, Korean (lived there for a year), pretty good Chinese

Korean guy: Korean (he’s really, really good at Chinese chess, but in class no one can talk to him because he doesn’t speak English or Chinese.)

Korean girl: Korean, pretty good Chinese-has been here a semester

Ester (other Korean girl): English, Korean (fluent in both, lived in Australia and US, also on the bellydancing team (WHICH BY THE WAY DID I MENTION NORA AND I MADE THE TEAM!?!??!?!?!)

It was so cool. Ester order us a bunch of Korean food; I tried my best to pronounce Korean dish names. If I want to talk to the Korean guy, my question went through Ester.

IEARN took us on another field trip this weekend! It was like being on a fourth grade field trip in a very pleasant way. We painted paper umbrellas and made clay pots in a pottery place in Meinong, and then visited a library where an American was reading little kids English stories (we may volunteer there next semester). Enjoy the snapshots!

Jubbie and her clay pot

Brandon and I represent the South.

Story Time (in english)

Nora's artistic. 

Jane (Taiwanese IEARN lady) watches over Ben.

Koi food machine

It was one of the best field trips so far.

Also, thank you to everyone who has sent mail recently!!! 謝謝 Chris, Gary, Melora, Carie Lee, and Kathy! Today, I got a package from home that really made my day. Special thanks to Christie for a super thoughtful package. Happy Halloween!!! Jubbie was really excited to get an authentic Halloween pumpkin, because she had only studied about it in school.

外國人's Field Trip

On October 8th and 9th, the Office of International Programs arranged a field trip for 35 foreign students at Wenzao! We traveled to the Bantaoyao Crafts studio, Singang Incense Artistic Culture Garden, Tao-Mi Paper Dome, Gwanhsing Paper Factory, and Sun Moon Lake. Crowds were out because Monday is Taiwan's National Day (10/10!). 10/10 is the equivalent of America's 4th of July. This year is particularly cool, because it's Taiwan's 100th anniversary of nationhood!!! 

Enjoy the weekend's snapshots. 

We made paper and printed on it. Guess who it is!

Nora the Explorer

Ben and I up in the air     

The NSLI-Y Crew

Excerpt from my NSLI-Y homework

Every day, I take a train for 20 minutes, and then a bus for another 15 to get to Wenzao with my host sister, Jubbie. The streets are filled with bikes, motorcycles, and cars, and there’s more fluidity between where people live (lots of apartments, we live on the 16^th floor of our building) and where people do their work/ buy their food and clothes. The shopping here is much cheaper than the United States; my host sister and I bought matching dresses for 12 dollars.

All of the NSLI-Y students take Chinese class for two hours a day at Wenzao. Though I studied Chinese for four years in high school, my class here is particularly conducive Chinese, because we hail from multiple nations. In my class, there are four American students, two Japanese students, one Mexican student, and one French student. Because not everyone speaks English, we use Chinese to communicate with each other and sharpen our language skills.

In the background, Ben and I are embracing. We’re celebrating Teacher Appreciation Day (September 28) with chocolate cake.

 


PS
I tried to change my blog's settings so readers can leave comments. If I was successful, please leave questions and comments! 

Laundry In Taiwan

A cultural difference between Nashville and Kaohsiung is laundry. Earlier this week, my closet was becoming dangerously close to having no underwear; therefore, I decided to wash my clothes.

sTePs tO dOiNg lAuNdRy:

1.     Put soap in the washer, add clothes

2.     Remove a single item of clothing

3.     Rinse off suds from individual item of clothing

4.     Wring out the said item of clothing

5.     Repeat steps 2-4 until all of the soapy clothes have been rinsed off

6.     Stick wet clothes into other side of washing machine

7.     Remove items individually and place on hangers to dry

8.     (repeat steps for dark or light laundry)

It was actually pretty fun, especially when Jubbie, her mom, and I were all helping to rinse and hang up clothes.  I figure I’ll need to laundry about 3 times a month or go naked. 

 The outside said “Shake it up girlfriend”. Thanks DG (won't use your name to avoid the stalkers). This was an absolutely amazing postcard. Also thanks McDad, Asha, and Mikeie!!!

1st Week of Wenzao

TAIWAN!!!!!!!!

We had a long weekend September 10-12 in honor of 中秋節 (Mid-Autumn Festival). We celebrated by barbequing (very, very popular here) and fireworks and no school on Monday. Ya Shu Mammy brought home super delicious moon cakes. At our barbeques, we enjoyed vegetable-green things, something that looked like hearts of palm, okra, corn-shrimps, and a plethora of beefs and sausages. Jubbie said the most important part of this festival is spending time with your family, and my large, extended Taiwanese family got together for a barbeque on Sunday night. 

 Jubbie’s extended family (and me) at the BBQ

Wikipedia on the Mid-Autumn Festival

It’s so beautiful here! I feel like I’m still on summer vacation, because it’s hot, and I’ve been able to read a lot for pleasure. Our NSLI group took a day trip within Kaohsiung, and IEARN did a great showing us around. 

Decoration on the dragon building

Enter through the dragon's mouth and exit through the tiger's for good luck!

NSLI Taiwan Year +Jubbie+ IEARN coordinators=A Great Time

Ready to carry a Taiwanese baby (at Kaohsiung's history museum)

Taiwanese Flag from when Japanese were occupying Taiwan

 keai, keai

Couples here like to wear matching T-shirts in public.

I’ve started to establish my Taiwanese routine and adjust to my new life. After our weekend of barbequed foods, Jubbie had her first day of the new semester on Tuesday, and I began my new classes. (We started our official Chinese class a week before the Taiwanese students.) It’s great being at Wenzao; they have so many class/language options.

            My current class schedule includes two-hours of Chinese a day and then other classes that meet for two hours on various days of the week. My non-Chinese classes include Spanish Conversation, Aerobic Dance, Spanish Movies, History of Spain, Introduction to Italian, Spanish Writing, and a Calculus class taught in Chinese.  It’s pretty sweet. One Spanish teacher is from Mexico City, two are from Spain (adjusting to vosotros), and one is Taiwanese. The Calculus class was an hour of half of introduction in Chinese (so I was lost) and then the teacher put a number line on the blackboard and defined real numbers and I understood. I’m really excited about my upcoming semester. The library at Wenzao has eight floors, and the fifth floor is full of movies in tons of languages along with a bunch of computers with DVD players. The second floor is filled with the most current issue of magazines in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, and English. I can read Forbes or The Economist or Seventeen or Cosmopolitan (in Spanish or English) or Time or Muy Interesante.  It’s so awesome. The library is incredible. 

            Gideon Yu in Forbes in Taiwan

It’s busy and great. I got my first package from home, (thank you family!) and I’m enjoying rationing my new stash of granola and granola bars from Nashville.

 I love getting mail from the United States (hint, hint). Holler at Henriette, Shannon, Kathy Greene, Sandra, Christie, McDad, Charlie, and the rest of the clan in Nashville. (It takes about two weeks to go home or get here.) I’ll write more soon. Let me know when you get my postcards!

Love,
McKenzie

Blogging and Biking!

Last weekend, Nora and I biked 50 kilometers to Tainan! We're triumphantly finishing our ride back to Wenzao.



OTHER EPIC PICS

Our group before the 50 km ride. Our group consisted of 3 NSLI students (Brandon, Nora, myself), our Resident Director, Abby, the Wenzao Outdoors Club leaders, and cool Indonesian students & Taiwanese students from Wenzao.


Taking off from Wenzao...



On the road...



Resting at "Lover's Wharf"

Energy still running high. The "palm-out peace" is very popular in Kaohsiung.

Group picture in Tainan!

Hey Y'all!

Nora, my friend and NSLI scholarship winner, also has a blog! Check it out using this link:  http://noranoranoratheexplorer.tumblr.com/.









After biking for over SIX HOURS, I'm partially crazed and extremely

excited to make it to the Tainan train station.

Acupuncture

Just Another Breakfast in Kaohsiung:

Nutella toast, blueberry flavored oreos, tea

Recent highlights: seeing the Taiwanese film, “You’re the Apple of My Eye” with Jubbie and her friend Jennifer, eating Family Mart Bueno Bars, trying the Night Market’s stinky tofu for the first time, realizing Starbucks takes American Express and serves frappacinos (green tea flavored is 很好), discovering the great curry restaurant near Wenzao. (So much of this is food related. I’m going to document a sample of the delicious, different dishes I’ve eaten and share. 我愛包子.)

Green Tea Frappacino

Because I’m in a continued battle with my knee, a woman in the Chinese Language Center at Wenzao offered to take me a to Taiwanese doctor after school this week. I had my surgery about 5 months ago, but it had been particularly sore (and ice hadn’t helped) that day, so I agreed to go to the acupuncture doctor. Accompanied by Abby the RD and the Taiwanese teacher, we walked to the office at 4:oopm. I paid the medical fee and sat. (Our student group will actually qualify for Taiwanese medical insurance after living here for 4 months. If I had this universal insurance, the medical visit would have been 100 NT dollars cheaper.) Almost immediately, the doctor invited us into his office, and I explained my ACL surgery and pain with the help of my two adult translators. When everyone was on the same page, he asked me if I wanted to try acupuncture. I’d already paid to be there, so I said yes.

They say I have great legs...

Should I go into details? The 10 minutes of needle in my calf didn’t hurt as much as pulling the needle out (it was a bit like an IV) and the pre-needle, aggressive, left-cheek massage. It was painful, and after the doctor recommended 6 sessions to help with my knee. I’m doubt I’ll go again, but my health problem gave me an interesting experience.