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This Saturday Jeannie and I went to Taipei to take the paper-based GRE.¹ We took it at National Taipei University (台大)—the gorgeous weather complemented the beautiful campus. (The last photo in the bunch here is Jeannie, post GRE.)

I walked around and successfully found 台灣e店 (Tâi-ûan ê Tiàm), the bookstore with everything Taiwanese. If you ever want to learn Taiwanese, learn any of the other languages of Taiwan, or learn about her native peoples, this is the place to go. Edith Aldridge recommended the store to me for finding some Atayal resources, and I picked up a Beginning Atayal book and a reference grammar both by Lillian Huang (黃美金). The dialect described is Mayrinax, a subdialect of C’ioli, rather than the Squliq that I’m studying, but it should still be a useful reference and starting point for studying the morphosyntax.

Afterwards, we met up with some other girls (Katie, Kate, and Meg) and walked around Taipei 101. I also checked out the local Muji, but quickly realized that what was borderline expensive in Japan wasn’t getting any cheaper with my Taiwanese sense of money. In the same vein, there’s Katie saddened by the roughly-equal-to-the-U.S. Coldstone ice cream prices. As consolation, though, we got some gelato gently and carefully served as perfect pyramids on our cones, thanks to a perfectionist gelato stand owner.

Here’s a poster I saw for the new Hero movie coming out in Taiwan in November! I’m there!

We then checked out the (relatively) new Sogo department store, built across the street from an older Sogo.² I’d heard about this huge new Sogo from a couple Taipei friends, but had yet to check it out. The whole building is in a gorgeous blue glass. While the inside is like any glamorous Sogo (Fendi bedsheets? Why, yes!) the top floors house an open courtyard area, complete with Japanese zen garden and tea house. We spent some time taking pictures, especially looking down at the intersection.

We walked around and found a nice little faux-Western restaurant to eat at and got some desert. Afterwards we went to a bar decked out in Halloween decor, as many of the bars seemed to be.

It was an altogether great (albeit long) day!

Today I went with Peng-lai Elementary on their field trip to the Guan-xing Educational Farm (廣興農園). The farm has ducks, pigs, and some rabbits, as well as a large carp pond.

Steven (seen below rolling down a hill—he also goes by the name Seven Eleven) started referring to this pig as “mitcho.”

We also had a hands-on activity—or, as they say in Chinese, “DIY.” The kids were given bowls of cooked taro and sweet potato and a plate of flour, potato starch, and a little sugar. The kids kneaded them into small balls (粉圓) which were later boiled and put in a sweet bean soup and served with lunch.

I was excited enough to buy a stuffed animal boar at the gift shop. It was just so cute!

After lunch we went to the Luodong Sports Park to hang out and play for an hour and a half. The weather was great and it was an altogether wonderful day.

Last night there was an Atayal cultural festival: a traditional Atayal wedding demonstration supplemented by a variety of cultural acts. The wedding demonstration (which actually was a wedding—four couples got married) included:

1. the first proposal with tribal elders meeting with the families to discuss whether the two should get married—the first proposal always fails, to add value to the marriage;
2. the second proposal, again with tribal elders, this time accepting the terms of the marriage;
3. an offering from the groom’s family to the bride’s;
4. the wedding itself, with the groom carrying off the bride on his back.

A couple famous aboriginal singers came, as well as a number of local primary and secondary school dance groups (complete with pyrotechnics). The (very nice) high school gymnasium was packed.

We sat near the Nan-ao elementary school contingent—here’s a photo of me with some of my kids:

A few other ETA’s came to check out the event as well, and got to play with my kids. (One later told me, in English, that Jeannie is beautiful.)

The real highlight of the show, though, was my kids’ dancing act. Somehow I was under the impression that they were going to do a traditional dance, but it turns out it was a hip-hop routine set to Beyoncé and Sean Paul’s Baby Boy and what I believe to be an Amuro Namie single. Remember, these are elementary school kids. Pretty amazing talent, especially given that this is over 10% of the students at the school.

(Some photos courtesy of Katie.)

Yesterday (Saturday), Katie came over to Nanao and we explored more on my scooter. We first went to the Nan-ao hot spring (南澳溫泉). Wang laoshi took me a while back, telling me you can’t really find it with a map—you just have to go. It really is a hole in the wall—er, ground. There are three “tubs” of concrete and rock built into the ground by this local retired guy in his spare time (whom I only know to refer as “Joe”). While we were there for maybe an hour and a half, three or four groups of people came through to dip their feet in: some college kids from Yilan, some women in their thirties from Taipei, a guy from Taipei who apparently comes often to walk up rivers (?), and finally a group of 15 or so tourists from someplace. And of course a couple locals (you can tell because they come wearing slippers, a swimsuit, and a jacket). Quite the social scene!

We also drove around and found the Jin-yue waterfall (金岳瀑布). There isn’t much of a big drop or anything, but there were some neat rapids and the water was so blue! There was also some construction around, apparently some agricultural engineering.

Finally we stopped to check out the beach. Unfortunately the tide was rolling in and I had a run-in with the waves.

This past Sunday Michelle came to Nanao and we explored some sights together on my scooter. Here’s a beautiful photo of the port of Nanao. It’s a small little fishing port, and you can fish right there too, as Wang laoshi once took me there to do. The building there is a coast guard building.

Right by the port is a small gravely beach, covered with driftwood.

Walking down the beach, there were some interesting and beautiful geology. First, we found a portion of the mountain that was eroded in the recent typhoon. The red dirt had rolled off and solidified on the beach, leaving some interesting ground.

Next, we saw a number of points where the sedimentary rock of the coastal mountain had been cut out over and over by waves, leaving some interesting sheets of rock exposed.

There were also some natural caves here. The ceiling looks kind of like slabs of wood, but it’s all rock! We also found a stream.

One of my first graders, Evan (I gave them their English names—this one of course after my dear Evan Jenkins) acts like he wants to be a teacher, today parroting our instructions and telling his classmates to hand in their workbooks to him. Last week he finished his workbook earlier than the others and started walking around looking at the others’ workbooks, saying “goo[d]!” and pretending to draw a star on their pages. He was pretending to be me—it was the cutest thing ever. :)I think Evan was a good name for him.

From tribe says its dialect needs official recognition for exam:

Under an affirmative action program set up by the Ministry of Education, members of Taiwan’s tribes are entitled to have their high school and college entrance exam scores raised by 25 percent. Under a policy expected to be made effective next year, those who pass a tribal language exam would have an additional 10 percent added to their scores.

The article is directly addressing the Kangke (寒溪) dialect of Atayal, which apparently received more Japanese influence during the occupation than did other dialects, making the new Atayal aboriginal language tests difficult for their students to pass.

I’ve heard Jennifer mention a couple times now how some student (often in their middle elementary years) who is half-Atayal had changed their last name from their father’s clearly-Chinese last name to that of their mother’s, precisely to be (more) eligible for such affirmative action down the line. While it struck me as strange that the student’s last name would be a real consideration in such policies, the language incentive makes more sense for me. My views on affirmative action aside (I’m not sure exactly where I stand, and of course Taiwan’s diversity is a whole other ballgame), I’m a fan of government systematically encouraging the continued use and study of aboriginal languages, especially given their rich connections to heritage and culture.

Even though this is hanging on my door. Recall that the swastika is a common sign in Buddhism… In Japan the symbol is used to mark temples on maps—I remember putting a swastika on a map of a fictional city we created in 8th grade social studies and my teacher Mr. Stevens not knowing what to think of that, until I explained it. Here in Taiwan, you often see it to mark 素食 (vegetarian cuisine).

Jennifer, my co-teacher, told me to keep anything I want that was left in my dorm room, and throw away anything I don’t need… I’m still not quite sure what to do about this one.

Welcome to mitcho’s 部落格 (bùlùogé)! While some people may be surprised to hear that I am just starting to blog, this post is my first ever blog post. I hope to update any and all readers on life in Taiwan: teaching, learning, and doing.

The goal is to document my experience and thoughts. I fully expect my biggest reader to be myself. ^^

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” -Confucius (citation needed)

mitcho

ps: I’m experimenting with WordPress and my custom theme… please be patient as I tweak this setup to match my needs.

pps: Oh no! My Chinese is MIA! Wehave to fix that, won’t we? UPDATE: Fixed.