The China/Taiwan Post

Okay, so here it is. Nobody here wants to talk about it, and my friends back in Beijing will surely cringe. But I need to get it out of my system (insert Taiwan stinky tofu joke here).

I've been in Taiwan for well over a month now and think I'm getting a good feel for the people and attitudes here. I wrote in my first blog post that "Taiwan is not China," and that initial reaction was correct, I think. But there's so much more to the story.

A few months ago, before I left America, I spoke to a friend of mine from Beijing. I told her, "Yeah, I'll actually be back in Asia this summer. I'm teaching English in Taiwan." "Oh," she said immediately, "you're coming to China!" "No," I said, somewhat aggravated. "Taiwan."

I told this little story to two of my 15-year old classes this week during a 2-hour "mock debate." I had no idea what a passionate and angry response I would get. I loved seeing the students that had been shy for 2 weeks finally spring into action, voicing their opinions about a tough issue. They rose to my "Devil's advocate" challenges and defended their country (at the end, I of course made it clear that I agreed with their views, which I do).

I've been surprised by the general venom amongst the Taiwanese people for any mention of China. We all know of the odd/awkward political struggle between China and Taiwan (if you're not familiar, read my first blog post), but I had incorrectly assumed that the Taiwanese people, especially young ones, would be at peace with a conflict that was at its hottest a couple decades ago. That was wrong. Taiwanese young and old make snappy, sarcastic remarks about the mainland, and tend to regard the vast majority of Chinese as uncivilized, dirty, and loud.

This weekend I went to the capital, Taipei, with my TA friends Emily and Patricia. We visited the National Palace Museum, a sprawling complex just outside the city. The museum is essentially one giant 'eff you' to China, a massive metaphoric middle finger reminding everyone of who the Taiwanese think is the rightful government of China. When Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalist party were expelled from Beijing by Mao and the Communists in 1949, they made one last tactical move before abandoning the city; they took a gigantic percentage of the country's historic treasures and artifacts, which were housed in Beijing's Forbidden City. 90% of the cultural treasures in the National Palace Museum are in Taiwan because of that "liberation" 62 years ago.

The museum is a major tourist draw, and for the first time, I saw the direct juxtaposition of Taiwanese, Japanese, and Chinese people. It seems (and this is just my opinion) that the Japanese and Chinese lie on opposite ends of a spectrum: the Japanese appeared cool, quiet, smooth, and well-dressed, while the Chinese tourists resembled massive hordes of loud-talking, photo-snapping, loogie-hocking mongrels. Please remember that I love the Chinese people, have many friends in Beijing, and had some of the best months of my life in their beautiful country. But from Taiwan, that's how it looks.

The Taiwanese are somewhere in between, but closer to the Japanese end of the spectrum. Young Taiwanese are well dressed, level-headed, and seem well-educated. And they don't spit.

While Japan and Taiwan both give dirty looks at any mention of the rising Chinese superpower, the pair seem to be in love each other. The best way to describe the way Taiwan and Japan talk about each other is like a couple that was forced to split up for reasons other than their relationship, but still secretly love each other. Many Taiwanese talk of the Japanese occupation of the island with nostalgia, and my friends here in Tainan proudly show off the Japanese phrases they know. Conversely, the Japanese flock to the island in waves, and many public venues and works were gifts from the Japanese government.

My friends in Beijing have said that one of the reasons Chinese look down on the Taiwanese is their infatuation with the Japanese, a people that have done so much harm to mainland China over the centuries and still refuse to officially apologize for atrocities like the Rape of Nanjing.

My friend Hannah, a TA with half Taiwanese and half Japanese blood, never pulls punches when talking about China. She told me that many resent Chinese tourists because of a series of incidents where they vandalized Taiwanese artifacts in Taipei, and because they move in massive packs that clog up roads and sidewalks. Not to mention their lovely habits of spitting and peeing wherever they please.

People keep asking me the obvious question: which do you like better? China or Taiwan? And it's honestly impossible to answer, an apples-and-oranges scenario. As with any international travel, I think I'll have to let this Taiwanese experience digest for a few months this fall before I can truly draw a conclusion about these two similar but vastly different nations.

The Joys of Teaching & Taiwan

I'm currently in the midst of my 5th week of teaching English here in southern Taiwan, and I'd say I'm in "the zone." I've always been comfortable in front of groups, but I think I'm developing a knack for managing the unexpected changes and curveballs that come with teaching 15 year olds. I've taught in 4 schools now (Hsing Hwa in Chiayi City, Fu Jen in Chiayi City, Li Ming in Tainan, and now Sheng Kung in Tainan), and have learned that not all Taiwanese high schools were created equal.

After our warm, friendly welcome to Taiwanese children back at Hsing Hwa HS, we plunged right into the deep end, with what would be our most challenging assignment of the summer. While the kids at Hsing Hwa essentially chose to attend our summer camp, the 15 and 16-year olds at Fu Jen (curiously pronounced Fu-Ren... don't ask, I don't know) were mandatory attendees. The difference was massive. In the friendliest and most diplomatic way possible, I'll say that most teachers and TA's agreed that I had the "most challenging" class of the week. As teachers we've learned that it's better to have students with zero English skills but great respect and work ethic than it is to have students with great English skills but no motivation. Fu Jen featured kids that were largely apathetic and that had English skills far inferior to my 13-year olds at Hsing Hwa. The first days were simply brutal. The kind where I had to physically, literally move children to get them to take part in activities. I taught a dance class several times where I attempted to get the 'too cool for school' boys to do the Electric Slide. Not a success.

Despite our struggles in the classroom, the nearly constant rain, and the fact that our dorm was slightly reminiscent of Alcatraz, we teachers and TAs managed to have fun by going out to awesome hotpot dinners, walking through downtown Chiayi's market street, and meeting up with some of our favorite students from Hsing Hwa (the ones who fed us dinner in the dormitory one night) for a Korean BBQ night. Spending time with those kids, 4 girls and 2 guys, was a reassuring experience and will surely be one of the enduring memories of my time in Taiwan. Bouncing between English and Chinese, we talked and laughed about everything from Taiwanese dating procedures to Vince's inane logic games. As our cabs pulled away and we waved goodbye to the teary-eyed students standing outside the restaurant, it was easy to look past the oddities and challenges of Fu Jen and remember exactly why we're doing what we are.

While Fu Jen will not be remembered as our favorite high school, there were certainly exceptions to the rule. We met some very special kids there, kids whose outpouring of thanks and hugs at the end of the week were hugely appreciated. We had a great closing ceremony where my ridiculous antics in a teachers-only skit on stage were greeted with near-celebrity treatment.

After a fun weekend hanging out in Tainan, we began another one-week assignment at Li Ming High School. Li Ming, barring a transformational and life-altering experience at one of our next two schools, will be my best memory of the summer. The school's summer camp was actually two, with one group of kids coming in the morning and another in the afternoon. The wonderful, inspiring young men and women I met were an absolute privilege to teach (at right is me, my beloved TA Ning, and the awesome kids in my afternoon class). For the first time, I had kids with the maturity and English skills to understand sarcasm, and express their emotions, and to show genuine interest in the people around them. From the first day, we teachers knew that Li Ming was in a league of its own. It was truly difficult on the last day to say goodbye to the kids that had made it such a meaningful week; I meant what I said when I told star students like Cindy, Daisy, Henry, James, and Jill that I wanted to keep in touch because I can't wait to see what they achieve in the coming years.

That weekend I traveled with a bunch of the girls to Taiwan's famous Sun Moon Lake, the country's largest body of water. It's tucked between a couple of mountains, with the lake surface something like 1000 meters above sea level. After a haphazard series of bus rides we arrived late on Saturday evening in driving rain. We visited the tourist help center in the small lakeside town, where they told us that all the hostels were booked. The only option was a "wooden house" near the lake, which could be rented for 900$NT (US$30). After one tourism center employee awkwardly asked us to feature in a promotional video (he then forgot), we agreed to take the house, just to make a decision. Seeing 6 girls and one guy heading to a lakeside house in the rain, the tourism agent seemed to get the wrong idea; "You guys can do WHATEVER you want," he said while looking us in the eye. "There's a Seven-11 nearby. You can buy beer." Oh.

After missing our stop on the lake-circling bus, we finally reached our house just after sunset. Operated by the neighboring Christian hostel, the house ended up being absolutely beautiful. Whereas I had been picturing a bug-infested cabin in the damp woods, we found a gorgeous, 3-bedroom house with a massive living room and awesome view of the mountains. We hung out in the house that night, having some drinks and playing card games. The next day we rose early to get breakfast and then take in the sights around the lake, which include mountain-top vistas of the water and surrounding landscapes, and precariously-placed temples that seem as if they're located in the sky. While most of the joys of Sun Moon Lake involve just taking in the scenery, it's definitely a worthwhile weekend trip.