Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from the Dream Mall in Kaohsiung, Taiwan!

More lengthy update to come.

Storytelling Competition

Or should I say, storytelling/showing/dancing/singing/costuming/setdesigning competition. See my friend Vicky's post for her apt rant on the latest English competition my students endured. Vicky's complaints about the competition differ in detail but reflect my feelings in general.

About three weeks ago, I was told to write a seven-minute story about "making dreams real" that students would be able to memorize and recite. So I tried my best to come up with something that, I thought, ended up being a pretty good story. Not performance, not play. Story. After roster-changes and writing-changes galore, my final three team members were handed the final version of the story four days before the competition. We added in props as late as an hour before. When they went up on stage, I was nervous for them. So many changes, and having to memorize it all? Thankfully (unlike for Reader's Theater) there was no time minimum, so we didn't have to worry about them speeding up because of nerves.

But they didn't! I sat in the second row, recording with my camera while trembling a bit out of nerves for them. And they did it perfectly. There wasn't a forgotten line, and any word left out still kept the story intact. And the moral was delivered perfectly: "Don't wait for a magical wizard to show you the way. Love your family, work hard, respect others, and watch your dreams come true!" I was brimming with pride and confidence for them.

After all was said and done, we got one of the 4th place awards. I'm not going to complain, because I know some teams didn't place at all. But in a society where it seems like the predominant educational philosophy is "first place or bust," I have no idea how to explain why my students didn't do better. I just hope that they are proud of their hard work and accomplishment, and don't resent us too much for not giving them stage directions and head-to-toe costuming.

Anyway, here are the kids that will always be first place to me: Marvin, John, and Mina read "Andy and the Wizard."

Christmas in Kaohsiung

Now that I've gone over my classroom activities, I can tell you about the "traditional" Christmas I managed to pull together in this land without any apparent Christmas tradition.

Every Christmas since I can remember, I have been in Berwyn with my family. We go to church on Christmas Eve at 11pm, where we sing Silent Night in candlelight. Christmas day, we wake up in the morning (or afternoon, in recent years) and open presents and stockings together under the tree. "We" of course is my mom, dad, brothers, usually grandmother, and more recently, Cressy, our high-school-days' foreign exchange student from China. Then we have an extended family Christmas dinner, either at my family's house, my grandmother's house, or my cousins' house nearby. We call family further away, and then occasionally my brothers will run off to a movie and maybe invite me along, too. Or we'll all fall into turkey-and-sugar coma and fall asleep.

I was more than a little bummed about being away from home for Christmas. Right after Thanksgiving, my roommates and I decorated our apartment with a small (fake-- duh) tree, lights, and even some stockings. We found all the Christmas movies we could get our hands on, but that's all we could do.

As Christmas came closer, though, it started to seem a little more real. I was angry about having to be here, I tried to pretend it wasn't Christmas, I got sad about it, and finally, I got over it. I managed to find an English-speaking (in fact, foreigner-run) candlelight service on Christmas Eve, with Silent Night and readings from Luke and everything. We ordered a turkey from a hotel nearby, and some Fulbrighters even made some homemade mashed potatoes. So those Fulbrighters around brought a dish, came to our apartment, had a Christmas dinner, and watched Christmas movies. After our guests left, my roommates and I exchanged presents under the tree. It wasn't home, but it was something.

My roommate Dan, carving the turkey:

Decorating gingerbread cookies, care of Nicki:

Christmas revelry. You can see our decorations in the background:

After the gift exchange. Vicky is "that kid" who has to wear every gift she receives...

After watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" over a dozen times last week, I finally had to learn my lesson...

Christmas Day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.

Christmas comes to Fu Xing

I could either write one really long update about the holiday season in Taiwan, or I can break it up into hopefully digestible bites. So, here's the holiday update on how Christmas came and went at Fu Xing Primary School. We spent about two weeks of class doing holiday-related activities... I could write about it, or I could show pictures. I think I know what all my blog-readers prefer.

First, I taught them about the holiday season in the US (I even tried to talk about Chanukah before Susan told me it was too hard to understand...). Then they drew/colored pictures to decorate the classroom and listened to Christmas music. No pictures of that.

Second, they wrote letters to Santa. Some choice entries:

(As you can see, some didn't quite grasp the concept of a form letter.)

Third, my fifth graders put on a Christmas recital in their music class. It involved "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Santa Claus is coming to Town," in English!

Here they are, performing "Jingle Bells," or 叮叮當, on the recorder. Did you know that recorders come in soprano, alto, tenor, and bass varieties?

A performance of "We Wish you a Merry Christmas:"

Also, we watched the old cartoon version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in all my classes... 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders alike found it hilarious, captivating, and comprehensible-- even without subtitles. I'm sad that I no longer have the ability to laugh at cartoons just for being funny-looking. Anyway, the movie got across the message that I thought many of them needed to hear: Christmas is not defined by presents or decorations or fancy food.

A picture of the kids enjoying the Grinch (I'd never seen them pay this much attention all semester):

My grinch lesson board:

For those classes who had time, I wanted to tell my favorite Christmas story, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." The language is a little steep, though, even for native English speakers of the same age, so, with the help of my fantastic co-teacher Susan, I translated it into a Chinese poem with (approximately...) the same meter and rhyme scheme. Then the students drew/wrote their reactions:

Some sample "reflections" on the poem:
Stanley, from class 4-5:

I like this poem, but is very long. X'mas's night is quiet so is good. reindeer it's fling very high. He is very fat. He has elf and toys, he want give many children. He can go any ( ), Many children has a stocking. children want a gift any years. They are happy in this day. The world is love X'mas. so I like x'mas, too.

Heidi, from class 5-3:

I like this poem, this poem is old, it is 200 years old, I like their's Santa. hope Santa can give me a computer, but Santa is not here, this poem is long, the picture is beautiful, the Santa is fat, and teh Santa is nice, hope can listen again. Merry Christmas.

If anyone is interested in my (illustrated!) Powerpoint of "Twas the Night before Christmas" with Chinese and English, let me know.

And finally, since I did have to work all day on Christmas, I figured the only way to get through it was to bring it. So, of course, I brought it. And "it" was a reindeer sweater and antlers.

So, a belated Merry Christmas to all of you, from Fu Xing Primary School!

Katie is going to Krakow?!?; a filler post.

It's been too long since I've updated, but all my blogworthy goings-on lately connect somehow to the holiday season. I'd prefer to let that wrap up before I start summarizing and describing, so until then, here's a post that needs posting to tide you over.

---
Sometimes, life happens in mysterious ways. You find connections in two seemingly unrelated parts of your life, and those connections reinforce that your life might actually make sense after all.

An example? My winter break trip to Krakow, Poland.

As you all know by now, I'm working at Fu Xing Primary School in Kaohsiung city. Kaohsiung is to be the host of the World Games in July 2009, so the city is making all sorts of preparations to show the world that it is an international, developed, tourist-worthy city. Every elementary school has "adopted" a World Games country. I'm not sure how and why the countries were assigned as they were. My roommate Dan's school has a really strong English program, and its adopted country is the United States. Makes sense. My roommate Vicky's school has adopted Uzbekistan. Why? Who knows. One of the schools up north has adopted Cuba. And my school, Fu Xing, has adopted Poland.

Before the boyfriend Jonathan ever got a job offer to work in Poland, I was spending at least one period a week teaching in a room with a huge map of Poland on the wall, and cardboard cut-outs with traditional Polish clothing. I've translated messages for banners and posters to welcome the Polish World Game athletes. In case you don't believe me...

Wall-sized Polish map with cultural tidbits in Chinese:

Polish cardboard cutouts. The dude on the right is our English Village postman... obviously.

So even though planning a Lunar New Year trip from Kaohsiung to Krakow was neither easy nor inexpensive, the fact that I'll be spending my only school vacation in Poland actually, somehow, makes sense. My principal even wants to give me a stipend to buy cultural and educational souvenirs to bring back for the school.

Now, I leave for this trip in about a month. This is the first time I'll be going to a foreign country where I don't speak the language and/or don't have a native speaker contact in the area. So let's get your Poland/traveling/Europe/learninganewlanguagereallyfast tips rolling!

Getting political

Taiwan has a very interesting political situation. Aside from the obvious ambiguous status in its relations with China, the domestic politics can get pretty intense.

This article describes one of the many recent antics of the two rivaling parties. I kind of wish congress got this hilariously personal... or at least had article titles with such stupid humor.

So click and be merry: Man who snatched wig will have toupee.

My new(ish) bike

You may remember a post from a month or two ago referencing my spontaneous desire to buy an electric bike in the context of other spontaneous desires. Well, I've become well-known here for my follow-through. In early November, after lots of price-checking and research, I found a used electric bike on a craigslist-esque Taiwanese website, contacted the owner, checked it out, and got myself a new toy.

The bike is about a year old and is the same size (maybe a bit shorter) than an average bike. It's equipped with a lead-acid battery that weighs about 25 pounds, which would render the bike totally impractical if it didn't so handily fit in my building's elevator. With the battery off, you ride it just like a regular bike. With the battery on, you can "rev" the "engine" to about 15mph without pedaling. All this for a mere 5000 TWD (about $165 US).

This means that I can now ride to work sweat-free and fee-free in about the same time as the bus would take. I pass most of the regular bikes on the road, except this one stubborn old man who pedals furiously and manages to pull just ahead. This is by far the best mode of transportation for me. I plug it into the wall for a few hours at night, and voila, I have four hours of battery. An efficient and effortless way to get around, it doesn't require a license and doesn't emit any form of exhaust. The best part? People here think electric bikes are extremely nerdy, so it will probably never get stolen.

And now, a grainy picture of my electric bike.

My new shoes

Before they get any dirtier. My most important souvenir from Tainan.


Yes, they are so Asian, thank you for noticing.

A weekend in Tainan

This weekend, Dan, Dani, Nicki, Shana, and I ventured into the city of 台南, about an hour north of 高雄, led by Shana's host family. Tainan is the former capital of Taiwan, known for its beautiful architecture and numerous old temples. It had a pleasant old-town feel, and though it's also a large city for Taiwan, it felt much less like a city than dear old Kaohsiung.

Anyway, I'm tired and it's been a long day, so enjoy your favorite kind of blog post: light on narrative, heavy on pictures.

Saturday night, a nice alley/side-street (in black and white-- I was fooling with my camera settings):

The front of Shana's host father's favorite temple:

A nominee for my Taiwanese food hall of fame, 鱔魚米粉, for the categories "thing I least wanted to eat" and "thing that made me feel sick the longest:"

Sunday morning, scenes from the temple parade (switch to phone camera as my real one ran out of batteries):


The Confucius temple:


A very old tree outside the temple:

And a nice garden:

And those are the highlights from my weekend trip to Tainan.

I will also note, it was no colder than 55 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday night, and we found ourselves shivering in sweatshirts, hoods pulled up, and blowing on our hands to keep warm. Oh, Taiwanese winter...

Television musings

One of the things that minimizes the homesickness and keeps me sane is being able to watch good old American TV, whether found online, recorded via Slingbox, or rented at Blockbuster. There are a handful of shows that I'm keeping up with, and by "keeping up with," I mean some days I can't wait to get home to watch my recording from a few hours earlier, and other days I'll realize I haven't seen the show in weeks and should probably catch up. In any case, my TV repertoire strikes an interesting balance.

Mondays

• Chuck (NBC): half-action, half-comedy with a dash of never-gonna-happen romance.
• How I Met Your Mother (CBS): romantic comedy, twenty-something humor.

Wednesdays

• Private Practice (ABC): total guilty pleasure. Primetime soap opera.
  
• Pushing Daisies (ABC): whimsical, artistic, clever.

Thursdays

• Grey's Anatomy (ABC): total guilty pleasure. Primetime soap opera.
  
• The Office (NBC): smart, awkward comedy with a dash of romance.
• 30 Rock (NBC): smart, awkward comedy.

Anyway, mid-season schedules have been released, and it appears that Chuck will be on hiatus until February, and Pushing Daisies is being canceled completely. If you take a look at what's left, that leaves a lot of awkward humor and guilty pleasures. Where's the substance? Where's the legitimacy?

Many of you laugh at how seriously I take TV (whatever, please observe my stress levels, even during peak thesis season at Harvard), but I'm not the only one. I read this article mourning the cancelation of Pushing Daisies, in the meantime jabbing at this season of Grey's Anatomy. The comparison was too entertaining to pass up:

Well in terms of artistic legitmacy (which is a relevant topic when talking about “Pushing Daisies”) at least ABC still has “Grey’s Anatomy,” right? Aren’t the critics wild for that [...]? Yeaaah, no. My wife still watches it despite the fact it officially jumped the shark after the second season... “Grey’s Anatomy” seems to circle around and find a new stunt to jump over the shark every week. The other week it had a robot on it. Yes, a [...] robot! And then I noticed the other night they’re telling a ghost story with the dude who died from a bad heart a few seasons ago. It’s time to retire the phrase “jumped the shark.” We’re now in the era of “Grey’s Anatomy” and when a show screws itself beyond repair I’m saying it’s either “gone robot” or “ghosted Denny.”

Anyway, of my few loyal blog readers, I'm sure that none-to-one of you actually cares about the content of this post. But still, I had to throw it out there. When English storytelling competitions and teaching observations and travel plans and scheduled-and-rescheduled events are around, it's nice to have something that keeps me sane.