About Me

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Yilan, Taiwan
I just returned back to the States after 11 years in Taiwan with my daughter. Taiwan is an excellent base for us explore Asia, while living in relative (gun free) safety, while benefiting from a cheap and efficient national health care system. The people are amazing too. I have Taiwanese friendships that are 20 years old and I'm always making new ones! My coworker here in CO is from Taiwan.

Monday, September 28, 2015

I Love My School! Happy Teacher's Day to Me

Days are getting shorter, front entrance
Today is Confucius birthday but was celebrated on Friday at schools across Asia. That whole day the intercom kept on repeating the same sappy song in Chinese, "Thank you teacher.." It influenced the kids. I had students walk into my office and give me a card their class signed, no expensive bribes (chuckle), not that I expected any.



There are moments throughout my day where I am clicking my heels on the inside, counting my lucky stars that I am here, that this school has found me. I teach social justice, to 9th graders and some ESL to 7th and 8th graders. I was given the choice to teach all social justice classes, but for variety's sake, I decided to take just the 9th graders and my coworker was given the 8th graders. Its good for them to have different teachers. I am creating my own curriculum, my managers who are my co-teachers, are transparent conspirators, good people, real educators, who went to grad school in the States and appreciate a liberal Western education. This is a subject I care passionately about, that I went to graduate school for. I worked 7 years like a slave for this job to fall in my lap, like the Judaic narrative of Jacob working 7 years for his bride. This is my year of jubilee. Even the petty annoyances of kids losing their papers here and there aren't enough to rattle me. I am just too damn happy to be here.



The 15 minute drive to Yuanshan is gorgeous. I skim the outkirts of Yilan city, the fields of flooded rice patties near the sports park, the mountains reflecting in their waters and head towards the mountains, never the same perfect color on the morning drive in the scooter, tho the car is safer and I have tunes. The campus is beautiful, immaculate, surrounded by fields of fruit orchards, dragon fruits vines growing on the fences, nestled at the base of the mountains. Wisps of fog and clouds trail the small peaks, the air is sweet from farmers burning grass in the distance. Every morning the kids are busy cleaning the floors and classrooms, all is spick and span. I teach 28 classes but amazingly I have time, more than enough time. Teaching the same 2 subjects and materials to different classes, prep is minimal and by the 3rd repeat class, I would have tweeked and perfected what didn't work the first time.


The kids are comparatively well behaved, compared to my semester at their competitor Chung Dau in Zhuangwei (which really isn't competition). The lowest level 8th graders who my manager thought might be too much trouble actually are the sweetest class, all 36 of them.  After junior high hell at Chung Dau, where the wealthy socially challenged controlled the classroom and their paying parents bought the board, these kids at Huey Deng are absolute angels. I think my current "bad" class just didn't test so well, actually their English is good enough. For Teacher's Day on Friday, they sang me a song which they rehearsed independent of their homeroom teacher. Acutally I have a few students who were in my nightmare classes in Chung Dau and here they are totally different students, dare I say they are thriving and so am I. The culture of this school is positive. I can teach at a slower pace for the kids to genuinely learn, I don't have to dumb down tests (yes that's a thing) and I am not seen as a babysitter/entertainer, but an actual teacher.



I am really enjoying this age group. Maybe its God's way for preparing me to parent a teen soon. Teenagers are just little kids in bigger bodies and even some of the 7th graders still literally are little kids; not all the boys have hit puberty and they are dwarfed by the girls and bigger classmates. On Monday morning they cry quietly for their parents, still homesick, getting used to life at a boarding school (they go home on weekends).


 On Friday afternoons I am free. Between prepping I was walking around the track listening to my headphones just flabbergasted at the civility of the students, some playing basketball in the many courts, some jogging,  a few playing catch with a baseball and gloves, others raking leaves and bagging old grass. Kids feel invested to care for their school, there is accountability for their behavior in and out of the classroom. Sure they are extremely wealthy and pay 82,000NT a semester, but they don't act spoiled rotten. Its obvious most live in a bubble, they haven't known much hardships and its difficult for them to relate to some topics such as human rights violations in Taiwan, poverty or even people with disabilities. Their comfortable lives is their biggest hurdle in educating them about social justice, but their EQ as a whole are high, so they are open and kind-hearted enough to listen and that's everything.

I cannot reiterate enough that on a daily basis I am communing to higher powers my utter gratitude. This constant communion of thankfulness is invigorating, I look forward to everyday. I didn't think there were schools, students, managers in Taiwan that function on such a professional level, a well oiled machine.  Every job prior has been a stepping stone for this present moment. I am basking in this victory.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

The Confuscius Confusion and Swimming Against the Current

                          (Preschool winter concerts turn into elaborate kindy graduation performances)
 
I'm all for going with the flow, most of the time. But I have had to put my foot down when it comes to navigating the dire straights of parenting a child in the Taiwanese education system. It certainly has enlightened my understanding of being a teacher here myself. Confucius birthday, better knows as "Teacher's Day" ironically is coming up (September 28th) so now is a good time as any to indulge our private and recent struggles of at times swimming against the currents.

                                                        (Here Z as a toddler is pretending to teach her friends)

For the most part Z's teachers have been amazing, from preschool and kindergarten teachers laid the foundation of "bopomo" the phonetic alphabet of the traditional characters. She was memorizing Tang dynasty poetry like a parrot, perfecting her impeccable pronunciation as a wee child. Elementary school was unknown territory, but her homeroom teacher and anchingban owner  (in Tainan) were superb; we all communicated well together, despite language and cultural barriers, which was helpful as my kid was going through a kind of lying phase, trying to use her drama skills to see how much sympathy she could arouse from adults. But with support and cooperation we got through it.

                        (learning Mandarin was easy when it was a song, the good ol' days)

There was one major incident where her Taiwanese language teacher in Tainan without my consent (or without informing Z's home teacher and anchingban) were filming my kid for promoting Taiwanese language, which scared the bejeez out of me and her anchingban for ten terrible minutes, as she was MIA. Then there was her homeroom teacher giving Z a flu vaccination without my consent, subsequently getting sick, which I was livid about, but let it go.



But what kind of education?

Recently, it was new territory going to a private, wealthy elementary school. It was in fact a terrible experience for my kid, being bullied ("haha you have no Dad, you have no one to take care of your mom!") on a daily basis. That class went thru 3 homeroom teachers in one year as the class was utterly unmanageable. She lasted a semester there before returning to the public education system in Yilan.

Its been a test in patience and understanding on my part to deal with this young teacher, and most likely the reverse is true as well! My kid certainly didn't help her relationship early on by inciting a class mutiny against teacher, for giving the kids too much homework. (Z was organizing the class to demand less homework- future labor organizer perhaps?). At the time I had to side with the teacher that the classroom isn't a democracy and the teacher is the captain. Now  considering the past few weeks of this new semester, I think my kid brilliant and perhaps forward thinking after all. There were times when I had to LINE message her, Z had been spending 4 hours doing her homework and was crying, and teacher responded by reducing the amount of copying of characters, which is great, but, I wish it was already at a sane amount to begin with.

                                  It bares repeating, kid learn better by creative playing. Here they are running  a noodle shop.

Last semester I had to have several meetings and even met with the principals to demand that my child be allowed to have her precious recess. Teacher being a good, traditional teacher, was taking away Z's only breaks to inflict academic punishment (copy and memorize). My view is that's counterproductive and harmful and teacher can be more creative with her punishments and rewards other than taking recess away. Even prisoners get time everyday to walk around outside.

I understand they have to copy a character a zillion times to get it in their minds. I copy characters myself and unfortunately those characters don't stay in my memory very long. Mandarin is indeed a time consuming language. I understand this is a Confucius culture where there was no need to think and question as that would lead to dissent, as much as recite. I appreciate my child can read and write Chinese, but when it affects her quality of life I am obligated as her mom to stop the madness and find the balance.

The proverbial dung hit the fan last night as my child in tears confessed that the past 5 days of trying to memorize her current assignment was an exercise in futility. Yes, once again its a Tang dynasty poem written over a thousand plus years ago and yes no one uses the language like that anymore, except possibly in a University essay, but still she has to memorize it. I was kind of shocked she was having so much difficulty. Her memory is in fact one of her greatest strengths (unfortunately for me sometimes). I tried to help her with her memorization (the blind leading the blind) as I can read the "bopomo". Yet she wasn't making any progress and was getting headaches and being generally stressed out.

The poem she doesn't understand

You can imagine my surprise when she confessed she had no clue what the poem was about, it was all meaningless. Yes she knows the characters, but the sentences? The poem's significance was totally unappreciated. Her teacher didn't even bother to explain the meanings and nuances, no one asked her to either. Even having lived here for seven years and understanding the influence of a Confucian rote memory system, I was still floored. No wonder she couldn't memorize it. Unlike being a toddler who could memorize poems mindlessly like a parrot, she is now a more sophisticated, thinking being. I am now suggesting her teacher to explain the meaning of future poems as I am unable to. I hope this approach would help her memorize it easier. I'm still appalled that I have to tell her teacher to in fact teach.

Its frustrating, most Taiwanese friends want to help, but they still don't understand where I'm coming from. They suggested books she had in preschool, or looking up the meaning myself on Google, or having their kid help drill Z. They don't get that memorizing something mindlessly is whats totally bizarre (to me). They say its useful for expressing moods, writing essays in the future, and I don't disagree, but that would require Z to actually understand the poem first. When I told a friend that this kind of education was why Taiwan was suffering in innovation he took it personally. I can't even communicate this with people who are supposedly friends, can I hope to communicate this with her teacher?

Fortunately, her teacher this afternoon backtracked and explained the poem to the kids so much that my kid feels like she understands the poem. Happy Teacher's Day to her indeed. I hope she will continue to do explain poems from the beginning for the rest of her long career. I learned that 1500 year old poetry is not to be taken lightly.  If its so highly esteemed than it should be explained in language kids can understand, so that they can draw their own meanings. My dear friend of 15 years told me she learned that poem in Junior High and her teacher took great time and care to explain it. She thought Z too young to appreciate it.



I love my new job and life in Yilan, if we go home prematurely its because I can't help my kid navigate a balanced life in this education system. She talked about wanting to "escape". I tried to explain its a stressful world, whether we are living in Denver or France or Yilan and she has to learn to manage her stress. We can't just run away or change schools. I suggest she ask questions early if she doesn't understand until waiting til the last minute to admit she's clueless (another legacy of the learning system here, students are afraid to ask questions and lose face.)

I've reached the point where I am planning to just flat out tell the principals she wont be going to University here, she wont be testing her Junior High years away to get into a local University. Heck, if we are still here when she's 20 its doubtful she could even be a legal citizen considering the current web of confusion for children of APRC holders. I'm just happy enough she is fluent and can read and write well enough. If I'm ok with that why isn't everyone else? Why is asking her teacher to teach, opening up a can of worms for some individuals? (who don't have kids and are not teachers of course.) The teacher handled it gracefully, I regret keeping her on her toes but she took a test for her enviable position out countless applicants, so I hold her to a professional standard.

Now I know why when I ask questions to my 9th grade social justice classes, that require them to think critically I get these blank stares. They never really have to think about meanings before, they cram just enough to answer a, b, c or d or mindlessly recite a beautiful poem.



9/ 25 Post update: Later last night my friend gave me the English version, and her opinion (being a teacher and Taiwanese) is that this poem isn't appropriate for children (being a drunken ode to wine and drinking written by a notorious and much venerated alcoholic), but it is beautiful and even in English quite difficult to understand, read here: I doubt my kid could appreciate this in English!

I made my descent from the Zhongnan Mountains that twilight had tainted blue,
The mountain moon followed me down as it rose high.
I looked back on the path taken,
Only to see belts of viridian traverse the hillside.
On my way I encountered a mountaineer and followed him home,
Where children came to open a gate made of twigs intertwined.
I passed the threshold to find a secluded path behind green bamboos,
As we walked along, our clothes brushed pass various vines.
Inside the lodge pleasant conversations abounded and I had a resting place for the night,
Accompanies by good wine, we were chatty all the while.
We got on to sing folk songs like Wind in the Pines,
By the time we had finished singing, many heavenly stars have retired.
I was drunk in merriment and in high spirit my company was,
In such ambience of joy, the world of concerns and politics was out of mind.

Immigration Headaches for APRC parents in Taiwan

I have shared this with my students and Facebook posts, so I better also share to a wider audience. The current Taiwanese immigration system is like most, flawed, confusing and in need of reform. Long standing APRC holders who have been a positive influence in Taiwan are being punished along with their family members because nothing has been done to improve current laws.

My friend Toby is a perfect example of an upstanding long term expat whose family is suffering under the current immigration system. Tomorrow he is meeting with Taiwanese immigration to see if they can change his son's visa from 90 days to 180. Watch this video posted September 9th.


My friend's son will be 20 soon and they are trying to figure it out. Basically if I am still here when my daughter Z is 20, she is no longer my dependent and yet cannot apply for an APRC herself. She can't legally work here despite being in the school system since preschool. She would have to do Hong Kong runs to renew her tourist visa, or stay as a student under a student visa. But perhaps if I transfer her visa before she turns 20 I might be able to secure something. Ask a different immigration officer and you get a different answer.

There is a FB group Foreigners for Taiwan Immigration and the private Taiwan DREAM group for parents. On one of the most recent DREAM posts (Sept 10), supposedly there is a new law, that no one including the immigration officers know about, which is confusing. The father whose 20 year old got an ARC dependency status recommended an immigration officer named Eric who was willing to help anyone in this situation. A month before his son turned 20 he turned in the paperwork that his son has been living in Taiwan for 10 years and applied for a Dependency ARC, but apparently this only works if you transfer an existing visa, not if your child has already been enduring visa runs, like my friend Tobie. [NIA Officer Eric Chen. 886-7-623-6334 E-mail: eric817@immigrations.gov.tw.]

There has been a petition in the past, and since this law isnt' legit for every child of an APRC holder, I am thinking of organizing a letter campaign with my students to write to the main immigration office. Taiwanese people need to stand up for long-term foreign friends and call elected officials to rewrite some of the current immigration laws. Here is an excellent article published September 10th to share with your Taiwanese friends.
 

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

A Buzzin' Consumerist

Its been 4 weeks since we returned from our trip home and I am still buzzing. My fantastic job certainly helps maintain the positive vibes (worthy of its own post). There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think fondly about Colorado, conversations with friends, my family. It was all like a dream.

I had to face the reality that I am a consumerist. Stocking up on goodies was in order, literally. I had so much joy buying products through Amazon and iHerb that I could not get in Taiwan- ok iHerb does ship here but if I could stuff it in my carry on, why not?

I still benefit daily from the cruelty free products I bought. Here are my top 5 of many.

1. Vega Protein shake.  Recommended from my Canadian friend who is a kindred spirit in all things healthy. The whey based junk at Costco and the gyms are filled with sugar and all kind of weird chemicals, and all Herbalife protein products in Taiwan are soy based, I have an allergy to soy. Why is it so difficult to find a vegetable based protein shake on the island?



2.  Nature's Way Hemp Protein powder. Used every other day alternatively with Vega. Each serving has 11 gm of protein and 13 gm of fiber.

3. Organic Tulsi tea- Boulder based Organic India company. I mix tulsi loose leaf  with the loose leaf yerba mate which is bitter. Tulsi is the queen of Indian ayruvedic herbs and has dozens of health benefits like being top in antioxidants, boosts metabolism, anti-aging, combats cancer and are full of minerals (here are 33 more). I also got some tea bags of tulsi and lemongrass. I'd like to grow it actually.

benefits of Tulsi tea


4.  Now Stevia in packets. I got 2 boxes, one has chromium which helps regulate blood sugar. I've seen only flavored stevia from a yoga studio in Loudong.

5. Minerals Fusion  SPF 40 Moisturizer, another local brand from Littleton, Colorado. No junk, easily absorbed and lasts a while.

Honorable mentions: Now almond oil, Dr Bonner's Mint and Hemp pure castille soap, Giovanni dry shampoo, the crystal deodorant, bosu ball, Dabur clove toothpaste, neem oil, Bragg Liquid Aminos soy sauce alternative, a psychedelic new yoga mat,  and much needed workout shoes.




What I wish I would of brought back: spelt tortillas, sourdough bread, books, my violin, special gel inserts for my left heel.

But back to reality. There's more to life than things. Also there's been little consumption this month, not having worked last month, my car needed some repairs, and also I am still catching up on bills.

Might come in handy if in a hurry post workout or traveling through Java.


I am counting down the days to my first full time paycheck since December and making plane for CNY in February (everything books out fast). Life is good!