New Year New Classes

Taroko Gorge!

Sun Moon Lake!

Fail boat. A italian tanker ran aground in
one of the typhoons this summer.

Cute couple.

A beautiful island with all sorts of cool tide pools and
stuff connected to the mainland by a bridge that
looks like a dragon.

haha we went shrimp fishing when we
were in Hualien and ate the spoils. Fun night.

Random block of text in the Confucius Temple
in Tainan. I could read the whole thing and
understand it! In classical Chinese! Exciting.

This random couple was following me everywhere.

Winter break, as with all breaks it seems, was all too short. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, my parents were here for about three weeks, and those were three action-packed weeks. We visited so many places that were all so awesome in all very different ways by so many different modes of transportation it was ridiculous. We took the high-speed rail to Tainan, rented a car and drove (much to the amazement of our Taiwanese-American friends in the US) around the island, took a bus to Sun-Moon Lake, and finally the slow train to Yingge, with stops in Taipei in-between.

I won’t spend too much time on the traveling, but rather let the pictures do the talking. It was interesting being the sort of guide/translator though. My parents sort of relied on me much more than they needed to, and at times I found myself simply translating and deferring to them rather than just going ahead and making decisions. It made me realize how strange that position of translator can be. You may know the answers or what to do, but out of respect for the position of translator or just out of the trained passivity you’re left standing, waiting to be told what to do without even knowing it—a weird position to be in. Nonetheless, I’m amazed at my parents’ willingness to travel, without worry, to countries where they know absolutely none of the language. Obviously I could help them out here, and knowing English always makes things easier, but it’s definitely a different experience that I haven’t really had in a while. Maybe something to think about for some travel in the future.

Classes started last week, and I’m definitely more excited about class this semester. I’ve chosen my classes and they’re all relatively challenging, covering interesting topics, and allow for good discussion beyond just understanding the text usually. I’m in a listening class with no text, there’s just the new vocabulary and the recordings. We listen to 15-20 minutes per day and discuss it the next. These are real speeches that were part of a university series, so it’s nice to be listening to real speeches, and learn better how speeches are given in Chinese. I’m taking a similar class that’s reading-based. My one-on-one class is focused on problems of Taiwanese identity and history, which I’m excited about learning. Taiwan is all too often overlooked in the history of China, and it’s got a lot of really fascinating, unique social problems that have roots in its history. Finally, I’ve got a classical Chinese class, which is going well so far.

That’s all for now. It’s been raining a lot as of late, but it’s beautiful out today so I’m going to take the opportunity to get out for a bit.

Peace

Fall Term Interim Report

Looking down the above-ground metro tracks near
my apartment during rush hour.

Jeffrey Hartsough
Interim Report
Fall 2009
ICLP, Taipei, Taiwan

Classes:
Introductory Classical Chinese
This was a solid introduction to classical Chinese using the textbook A First Course in Literary Chinese by Harold Shadick. The class covers a range of texts from various authors and a wide range of topics mostly in prose but also including one unit on Tang dynasty poetry. After taking eight weeks of classical Chinese over the summer, the class was not as challenging as it could have been, especially in the beginning and with two classmates who hadn’t studied classical Chinese before. At the same time, however, that allowed me to do a little extra preparation for the class in less time and understand the text more fully. The teacher was great, and did a good job of keeping the class moving. He not only knew the linguistic aspects of the lessons, but also the historical and philosophical background of it all, and would always be sure to include as much of that as he could, while still managing class time well. He was also available in the afternoons to meet with for any additional questions, which was of course great. I should have used that more than I did, however.
Thought and Society, Review (one-on-one class)
This was my one-on-one class, which was a “review” class of a book that I’d never studied. Thy had me take the calss because it was a core text and they wanted to make sure I had a grasp of the material, which it turned out I already knew about 80+% of the new vocabulary and the text wasn’t particularly challenging. Again, while it was nice to have an easier class at times, especially while trying to get used to life here in Taipei, it was also frustrating to feel like the class wasn’t helping me progress. My teacher was really nice and always came well prepared with copious notes and exercises, but it was hard to really get something out of it when I already knew most of it, and therefore had less motivation for the class. I also felt it took a while for her to really open up, she was always nice and courteous, but I felt like it took a while for her to feel comfortable and really relax. It seems like the teachers here are very serious about their work and have all undergone extensive training in teaching Chinese, but sometimes they can also be a bit too serious and not really willing to go beyond the strict student-teacher passing-on-of-knowledge relationship.
Aspects of Life in Taiwan
This was my best class because of the challenging textbook which covered a lot of different topics in greater detail than the Thought and Society class, I had challenging classmates, and the teacher was excellent. The teacher did a great job of balancing time between going over sentence patterns (not so much grammar anymore), correct and subtle understanding of how to use new vocabulary, discussion of the text, general debate, and writing formal speeches. The class was run superbly and this was easily the class that I got the most out of, and it was also fun. One of the biggest realizations I made last semester was through that class: the difference in logic between Americans and Taiwanese/Chinese. There were numerous occasions in the class where the teacher would sit for a silent moment after hearing my response, and then start the following sentence with “your grammar was correct, but…”My Chinese-American classmates didn’t have a problem with the logic of my sentence, and my teacher understood it grammatically, but my mind would connect the dots or think of the question in a different way. I think that’s going to be a big challenge, not necessarily to overcome, but to be more conscious of, as my Chinese improves and in tougher topics.

The gorgeous scenery in Kenting national park--one of the best
aspects of life in Taiwan? I think so.

Newspaper reading class
This was an interesting class. We didn’t have a textbook, so we had to choose articles on our own, and then our teacher would prepare a glossary of vocabulary, grammar, and background information. Our teacher worked really hard on the preparation, but her control of class time wasn’t as good as it could have been. It was nice every once in a while to have a class where we would talk about something completely random, but towards the end there was a bit too much of that. Nonetheless, thanks to her thorough knowledge and willingness to use and teach new words when having those random conversations, even those were great learning opportunities. The articles we read weren’t necessarily on the most useful or interesting of topics, but we had topics ranging from retina implants to basketball and the mafia to fireworks, so each had a different set of vocabulary, which is always a good thing.

A classmate blowing glass at one of our activities during the
Thanksgiving week break. I made a glass, with the help of
the real glassblower, right. Definitely one of those 10,000
hours things.

Overall
I’d say that the teaching was excellent, and every teacher had a very firm grasp both of the language and of teaching methods. There are also extra group classes, of which I took the pronunciation clinic and the one on Chinese characters. The Chinese characters one was absolutely worthless/uninformative for me, and the but the pronunciation clinic was definitely helpful. The only real problem with classes was placement. I don’t think I can really blame to program per se, because there’s always the problem of where to place someone when they’re coming from a different program, and that’s the second time I’ve done that this year. I think that in the end it was all right though, and I’m in a good place going into the next quarter. Each class had it’s own rewards.

A nighttime view of Taipei 101--my parents and I went up it on its last
night as the tallest building in the world, without even knowing it!

Living in Taipei

Apartment
My apartment has been great. It’s only 5 minutes or so from class, 5 minutes from the MRT subway system, and right next to dozens upon dozens of restaurants from every corner of the world—and all wonderfully cheap. It’s a simple studio with all the basics and a decent amount of space. The really great thing is the location though—right next to class, which means no time wasted commuting to school on a regular basis. It actually takes me less time to get to class here than it does from Pierson back at school haha. And my neighbors have finally started to talking to me! Haha, I know that sounds bad, but it just took some time and a little more proactive effort on my part. I have dinner with one of them on a weekly basis too, which is nice.

Extra-curriculars

My parents visited over the winter break, and we visited Tainan (above),
Pinglin, Hualien, Taroko Gorge, Taitung, Chiben, Kenting, Kaohsiung,
Sun-moon lake, Yingge, and of course, Taipei.

My dad after his spill showing my mom how to go down a hill on the
electric scooters we rented one day to go around Sun-moon Lake.
Luckily my mom was smart enough to not follow his example.

My guitar and calligraphy brush haven’t gotten much use in the last three weeks between finals and my parents coming, but I’ve definitely improved. More importantly, however, I’ve been able to meet some other NTU students through them, and they’re both fun. The calligraphy club isn’t quite as silent, focused, and hard-working as I thought it was at the beginning of the semester. It’s a great way to spend my Fridays after a long week, practicing my characters, listening to the teacher mindlessly lecture on, and then everyone relax and just hang out after the teacher leaves. I’ve also been exercising on a regular basis, which comes with occasional conversation with other students in the gym.

Bikes litter the floor on Friday nights at the Zhongshan Hall Square,
inconspicuously tucked away behind the 10-something story KTV
palace called Party World

My other consistent activity has been riding my fixed gear bike that I purchased here in October. It’s fun and good exercise, but I’ve also met a bunch of cool people through it. Every Friday night that it’s not raining (it rains so much it seems!) I make my way over to Ximending after calligraphy on my bike, and hang out with some other people who ride bikes until late at night. It’s a nice diverse group who’s just there to ride their bikes and hang out, which is cool, and in terms of language, it’s good exposure to a completely different setting from what you learn in class. I feel like that’s been pretty good for my informal speaking.

The annual gay pride parade in Taipei--an interesting experience,
and definitely not something that you'd see in the mainland.

The other thing that I may do a bit too much of, but I use the excuse of language practice to justify it, is watching TV. There’s all sorts of… I hesitate to say good, but interesting programs here. I haven’t become a Taiwanese soap opera fanboy, but I do watch them on a relatively regular basis, and there are of course the incredible number of variety shows. TV here is definitely much different than in China—definitely more advanced in terms of the topics, variety, advertisement, etc.

Now that's a bird. Unfortunately, I forgot it's name.

Hanging out and exploring the city
To be honest, I haven’t explored as much of the city as I maybe should have. I’ve definitely seen quite a bit of the city, but I haven’t been doing the tourist thing so much. Before my parents came over the break, I think I’d opened up the Lonely Planet a total of like 3 times after the first week of being here. At the same time though, I don’t have a problem with that. I’m not a tourist here, I’m living here. I’d rather take this chance to understand what it’s like to live here on a regular basis, what things people do on weekends (like write Light Fellowship reports in their room ;) haha), instead of feeling the pressure to get to every sight and activity in the Lonely Planet. It was wonderful to get to do a lot of that stuff with my parents over the break though, and I’ll definitely use breaks in the future to do some more of that as well.

Temple kit #37: sensory overload cupola supreme.

Moving Forward

I think I’m in a good place to attack these next two quarters academically and in terms of motivation. It’s not about comparing the experience to other experiences, be it my SYA experience in 11th grade or time in Harbin this summer, and it’s not about what it isn’t or about your expectations, it’s about what it IS, about being in the moment and appreciating what you’ve got. I have to accept ICLP and Taiwan for what they are and make the best of it.

More details soon as the blog continues!

And a kitten for your viewing pleasure.