Spring Break in Taiwan: Day 6

Our day started by saying goodbye to Hong Wen. We lined up outside in front of the entire Hong Wen assembled upper school and gave impromptu speeches about ourselves. We all expressed how excited we were to talk with the local Taiwanese students and thanked the school for hosting. We then promptly boarded a bus for Taipei.

On the way, our amazing guide Daphne, who grew up in Taipei, gave us a crash course in Taipei history, culture, and its significance to Taiwan. This was much needed as the first stop on our whirlwind tour around the city was the memorial building of Chiang Kai-shek, a complicated historical figure, controversial for implementing martial law and shutting down free speech in a period from 1949 to 1992 known as the “White Terror.”. We toured the underbelly of the memorial which housed a plethora of incredibly maintained documents from the Kuomingtang, a major political party initially based in Chinese, from its foundation to establishment in Taiwan. The top floor, much like the Lincoln Memorial, features a large, sitting version of Chiang Kai-shek. We watched the stepping (performance? dance?) military ritual at the changing of the guard, where four guards moved in total sync stepwise and rifle throwing-wise, and replaced the old guards at their posts. It was beautiful, surreal, and hypnotic.

Next up was lunch–a traditional Taiwanese seafood spread. The food wasn’t my favorite, but the meal (and desert) was super enjoyable. We then walked around a shopping district in historic Old Taipei, where a blend of European-inspired buildings from the 1970s have been reworked as smaller shops and apartment buildings. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many dried fruit/mushroom/spice blend sellers, much less on the same street.

Next we visited the temple of Guanyin, the Taoist Goddess of Mercy. Daphne walked us through the history of Taiwanese religion, as well as her own personal beliefs and values. She showed us the traditional and still common practice jiaobei, in which a person throws two crescent shaped pieces of wood to seek answers for any questions. For particularly complicated questions, there was a system of number pulling, crescent throwing, and finally, a conference with the resident master, there to interpret results from 8am to 6:45pm.

After the temple tour we took a brief break/free time in a modern shopping district outside of the temple. I introduced the group to traditional shaved Taiwanese ice and excused myself to have a minute to walk around by myself to take in the sights (and bubble tea and several pastries). I returned to find that the group had devoured both ices I had ordered–but they’d ordered another for me to compensate. So we’ll call it even.

We then completely veered off the track of tours and shopping to hike a local mountain. This, dear reader, I was not expecting, as I had conveniently forgotten to read the agenda. But I persevered making it to the top of the climb to meet the stunning view of Taipei. After heading down the mountains and sharing a bowl of passion fruit juice/tea and jelly, we learned that we had in fact not made it to the top of the mountain but a random observation deck before, but we quietly counted our wins (that we made it back in one piece) and continued to sip the tea.

Our last official adventure for the night was the Taipei night market–which was huge, linear, and by far the most foreign-catering night market I’ve experienced. I’ve never before had a vendor give me a quick once over and ask for my order in English. But the food was excellent (as always) and I have my favorite fruit, bala, ready for tomorrow.

Our real last adventure was short, but a wonderful way to end the night. After saying goodnight to Daphne, the students split off to go to the local Family Mart (a 7-11 equivalent), and we bought pretty much every snack under the sun. We then retired to a hotel room to unwind, chatting about the day, our experiences, and pretty much nothing important. As it is always true at late hours, everything was extremely hilarious.

I’m writing this now near falling asleep while I wait for my turn to shower. I’ll post this in the morning as it needs a coherent re-read and midnight-me is not cut out for that type of work. Goodnight and good morning (and good morning and goodnight).

Spring Break in Taiwan: Day 5

Hong Wen high school is split into two sections: the International and ‘Taiwanese’ section. The international section is the private school that serves to prepare Taiwanese high schoolers for studying abroad, so all the classes are taught in English (this is where we spent yesterday). The other section is taught in Mandarin and is where we spent today.

It turns out it is much, much harder to follow what is going on in class if you don’t speak the language and can’t read the textbooks. And, Mandarin is much harder to follow when these things are happening at the same time: the teacher is talking, every other student is chatting at their tables, half the students are wearing masks, there’s a video demonstration playing, and then one of the masked kids at your table leans forward to ask you a question and you know you have about two seconds to give an answer before the dreaded attempted English translation beings. So. It’s a lot.

I feel happy with my process but so incredibly frustrated, because I can feel in my ears and tongue how on the cusp of fluency I am–it’s tangible, always squirming around in my hands, in reach, but never quite steady. But I think today was more fulfilling than yesterday, partially because I used a ton more Mandarin, and partially because I simply liked the ‘Taiwanese’ section of the school more. It felt more Park-like, despite the larger classes and (mostly) lack of English. The students in this section seemed less stressed, much more carefree, and yet they seemed to work harder and were more respectful in general. They were also much more friendly and more curious about the exchange trip. I’m actually kind of sad to be leaving this wing of the school tomorrow, despite the eight classes from 8 to 5.

The Park students spent the day bouncing between the eight different classes. Somehow, after every single one of us having no idea where to go and having an awesome time wandering around, a chaperone found us and shepherded us back to our next class. We ate lunch again on the roof, which was a much needed resurfacing from the almost overwhelming amount of language and stares. We then bought matching sweatshirts from the school store (which I later learned were made for the middle school; and therefore, we spent the better part of the day parading around as self proclaimed middle schoolers). We did calligraphy in the Chinese class, math with Sophomores, English with Juniors, and physics where everyone was equally confused, language barrier or not. Last period was entirely dedicated to splitting into groups and talking to the Americans. I ended up having a great conversation about my favorite Taiwanese foods (all of them) and my time living in Gaoxiong. Our final class at Hong Wen ended somehow with gentle karaoke to Baby and Love Yourself by Justin Bieber, featuring yours truly on backup vocals.

The evening with our host family was quiet. We ate a delicious dumpling dinner at home. But seeing as it was only 7:00pm when we finished eating, our host mom gave us a key to the building and texted us a google map location of a local bookstore. This was perfect for me and Simone as we were planning on trying to figure out how to ask if we could jump ship to explore the city for a bit. Our host mom is truly wonderful and very insightful. Simone and I hit the town and walked through the massive streets to the bookstore, stopping inside the National Taichung Theatre to poke around on the way. The bookstore was a wonderful mix of hundreds of new books and stationary; and, as we couldn’t really read any of the books, we spent the better part of our time carefully picking out pens, pencils, and letters to buy and bring home. Simone and I fit perfectly into the bookstore-loving, stationary-hunting mold, and I couldn’t have picked a better roommate for late-night bookstore crashing. I did buy the one book in the shop I could read, a pocket sized collection of work from a Japanese artist who paints watercolor sketches of urban and rural landscapes. They’re super reminiscent of the style I try to emulate when I draw my surroundings in my travel sketchbook. I’m hoping some more inspiration will rub off.

We came back just in time to procrastinate writing this blog and, instead of packing for our trip to Taipei tomorrow, take an amazing shower. I’m in for a fun and hectic morning tomorrow, complete with Violet style frantic packing.

Goodnight and goodmorning all!

New friends :)

My morning view from my host family's apartment

Me and Sarah

Half of the Park pack

The character for dragon (guess what year it is)

Our math/Chinese classroom

The center courtyard of Hong Wen

The Park Maul, plus friends

Basketball and volleyball courts (hot.)

Bus ride home

Taichung theatre

Night outside the theatre

Night in Taichung

Gorgeous bookstore

Mouthwatering stationary corner in said gorgeous book store

Soap for sale here too...amazing place

Spring Break in Taiwan: Day 4

Day four dawned bright and early, arriving at school and heading to classes with our host students. I’ve slipped very much back into my rhythm, in terms of language and general comfort in Taiwan.

I feel very lucky that my summer in Gaoxiong allowed me to adjust so quickly. I’ve talked with the other Park students and some of them feel like everyone is staring at them. I feel that a bit as well, but not to the same level—but I think I might just be used to it. Taiwan is in no way a monolithic culture, but when roughly 99% of the population is of Chinese descent, anyone of non Asian descent tends to stick out quite a bit.

Classes were intensive and relaxed at the same time. I get the impression that the students here are a little burnt out from 8 classes a day from 8am to 5pm. But everyone is wonderfully friendly, and very curious about who we are and what we’re doing at the school. There’s been a lot of exchanged instagrams and selfies.

I’m starting to feel the effects of homesickness but in a different way than I expected. Of course I miss my home in Baltimore, my friends and family, but right now I really miss Gaoxiong. I miss the routine I had carved out for myself that I’ve unconsciously thought of as what living in Taiwan is like. I miss my nightly ritual of walking down Wenzao Street to buy myself dinner, snacks, boba, more snacks, and breakfast. I miss hanging in coffee shops to study. Part of me misses cramming to finish the homework on time. I miss quiet moments alone on the bus, and mad dashes around the city with my friends. Part of me really misses the freedom that my time in Taiwan before afforded me. Another part of me is so happy for the structure this trip has provided, how everything is so thoughtfully and carefully planned. Today that structure was weighing on me a bit, and around lunch I was itching to hop on a bus and strike out for some midday adventure.

I started feeling more at ease once we ate lunch at the cafeteria (that usually helps a lot), after a quick wander around in the school, in which Sarah and I found a music room and jammed out, and when I purchased what I think was the equivalent of celery Gatorade. The rest of classes, American Literature, Human Geography, Ecology, passed without anything too crazy happening. An interesting aspect of this part of the school, the international school, is that all the classes are taught in English. So while it’s definitely a struggle to parse what’s going on between students, at least it’s easy to understand what’s actually going on in class. A couple of the teachers also incorporated some of Baltimore’s history into their lesson plans, and gave us room to answer questions about our home. It was raining too hard to play basketball, so a group of students and I spent our last period, PE, on the roof next to a hydroponic mint garden, chatting and enjoying getting some fresh air.

All and all, today was by far the most exhausting day yet. I was so drained that by dinnertime with my host family, I dejectedly defaulted to English when Mandarin started to hit my ears like wet slabs of tofu. But it was also an incredibly rewarding day, and I’m super excited for our final day exchanging with Hong Wen. Goodnight, and goodmorning.