Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
Random Realization
The thought occurred to me when my teacher was explaining a classical Chinese term. This is impossible, I thought to myself grumpily. I wish she would just speak English like we usually do.
Then I realized: I don't remember my teacher ever speaking more than a few difficult words in English. Everything we had discussed, from idioms to petty gossip, had been in Chinese. She spoke one full sentence in English once, and I freaked at how weird it sounded. My other teacher has never spoken one word of English as far as I can remember.
I'm not trying to pat myself on the back here. I make horribly stupid mistakes and am still working on what they say the total price is at the cash register...even numbers can throw me if said fast! It's just amazing at how far I've come in the past months. I feel like it has gone by so quickly and that I haven't really learned anything, but when I look back to where I was in my days at Notre Dame, to Beijing, where the teacher sometimes used excessive English (much to the dismay of some Kygers among us) to here, where I have been challenged to the point of brain-mushing by full Chinese classes teaching philosophy normally taught to us in our native language. Throw in the major differences between Taiwanese Chinese and Beijing Chinese, and it becomes quite the challenge.
It's not that Chinese has suddenly become easy to me in entirety. It's sort of like driving around a city without a GPS. At first, going anywhere is stressful and challenging because you often have no idea where you are apart from your front door. Everything is a blur. But over time, you get used to your own street. After that, maybe you can navigate a few blocks. After months and months of driving, you know many parts like the back of your hand--this is here, that is there, and then comes this. You are comfortable here. You zone out to the "Call Me Maybe" or Adele playing for the seventieth time on the radio because the wheel practically steers itself. But there are always parts--neighborhoods, districts--that are still completely foreign. That is the best way I can explain learning Chinese. Many topics are comfortable. Others are mind-boggling in their unfamiliarity. But you just have to take a deep breath and look around--the only way to learn is to keep on driving.
So I may feel like the fumbling fool in my newspaper class. The white boy who can't read the sentences as perfectly as the Japanese girls. That idiot kid who spent more time writing a blog post than studying for his test. But looking back, and looking hard, I can see anyone, even yours truly, can really get used to a language.
 |
| Yeah! We can dooo it! |
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Taiwanese Friends
I've been terrible at keeping this up. Surprise surprise. I try to tie together themes, but recently I've been terrible at writing them down.
SO starting today, I'm going to be posting something--a thought, a picture, or maybe a full-fledged novel--every day. I know people like my blog because it's not just a "here's what I did and when I did it" type of format, so I'll still try to keep it theme-based and reflective on Taiwan and studying abroad.
Today: Taiwanese Friends
Making friends abroad is tough, especially when there's a language barrier. They're not in your classes. They're not in your cultural activities. They aren't in your classroom building, and you definitely can't just go up to them and ask to be friends! Asian culture is a lot less extroverted than Western culture, so it's even harder to strike up a conversation.
For the first four weeks here, we didn't have any Taiwanese friends. Take it from me: it sucked. There's nothing worse than being in the country and not being connected to it. You can live in the land and see what is to be seen, but for me, a place is all about the people who live there. When I look back on my experience in Beijing, it's not China I really miss--it's my friends who live there and are tied to it. I know if I go back, they will still be there. It was distressing to have no Taiwanese friends, because I felt like it would forever feel like a tourist run-through for me, not an experience of living abroad.
BUT--just when hope was dying, the planets aligned. We were asked to help out at Fu Jen's "English Camp" for incoming freshman, and it was there we met Valerie, one of the TAs, Henry, one of the campers, Mark, the photographer, and several other characters who have really made us feel at home here. The weekend after the camp, we went around the city and nommed the best food I've had here! We also got iced lemon green tea. Anyone who knows me knows I like tea. But this...this was SOMETHING ELSE! I'll spare the intimate details, but I'm going back to that shop. For. Sure.
The next day, our language partner, Jasmine, and her friend, Angela (nicknamed "Jellyfish" in Chinese) took us to an AMAZING hotpot buffet. It was absolutely incredible, and led to some hardcore bonding through conversation. I'm so glad they took us out...it seems the locals definitely know where to eat around here!
For the first time, I felt as though I was digging my heels into Taipei--the people we have met along the way are really making me fond of this place and giving me a reason to come back. Every time we've hung out, my face has hurt from laughing so much. From subway ninja to batting cages and arcades, I'm lucky to have made the friends I have. I really hope I can strengthen these ties before I leave, and maybe even make a couple new friends!
SO starting today, I'm going to be posting something--a thought, a picture, or maybe a full-fledged novel--every day. I know people like my blog because it's not just a "here's what I did and when I did it" type of format, so I'll still try to keep it theme-based and reflective on Taiwan and studying abroad.
Today: Taiwanese Friends
Making friends abroad is tough, especially when there's a language barrier. They're not in your classes. They're not in your cultural activities. They aren't in your classroom building, and you definitely can't just go up to them and ask to be friends! Asian culture is a lot less extroverted than Western culture, so it's even harder to strike up a conversation.
For the first four weeks here, we didn't have any Taiwanese friends. Take it from me: it sucked. There's nothing worse than being in the country and not being connected to it. You can live in the land and see what is to be seen, but for me, a place is all about the people who live there. When I look back on my experience in Beijing, it's not China I really miss--it's my friends who live there and are tied to it. I know if I go back, they will still be there. It was distressing to have no Taiwanese friends, because I felt like it would forever feel like a tourist run-through for me, not an experience of living abroad.
BUT--just when hope was dying, the planets aligned. We were asked to help out at Fu Jen's "English Camp" for incoming freshman, and it was there we met Valerie, one of the TAs, Henry, one of the campers, Mark, the photographer, and several other characters who have really made us feel at home here. The weekend after the camp, we went around the city and nommed the best food I've had here! We also got iced lemon green tea. Anyone who knows me knows I like tea. But this...this was SOMETHING ELSE! I'll spare the intimate details, but I'm going back to that shop. For. Sure.
The next day, our language partner, Jasmine, and her friend, Angela (nicknamed "Jellyfish" in Chinese) took us to an AMAZING hotpot buffet. It was absolutely incredible, and led to some hardcore bonding through conversation. I'm so glad they took us out...it seems the locals definitely know where to eat around here!
For the first time, I felt as though I was digging my heels into Taipei--the people we have met along the way are really making me fond of this place and giving me a reason to come back. Every time we've hung out, my face has hurt from laughing so much. From subway ninja to batting cages and arcades, I'm lucky to have made the friends I have. I really hope I can strengthen these ties before I leave, and maybe even make a couple new friends!
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Callibration
The last couple of weeks have been both challenging and rewarding. For the most part, I have been attempting to adapt to life in the Fu Jen program after CIEE's Peking University program. Many assume Taiwan and China, or all of Asia, for that matter, are very similar. This could not be further from the truth!
The strangest part of my experience here is the size of the program: there are five of us here from Notre Dame. Aside from a few foreigners, mostly from Japan or Indonesia, there are no other foreigners in our classes. It's a little daunting to me after the sheer size of Beijing Daxue's program: there were almost fifty of us spread out across the levels, all American students, put together with several thousand other international students. Needless to say, there was always someone to hang out with. Here, there are five of us. Luckily, we've gotten on pretty well, but it can be a bit lonely when the four other people are busy, tired, etc.
Classes are also kind of odd at the moment. There are only four levels of Chinese instruction at Fu Jen as opposed to the 35 at PKU. There was no placement test, but I somehow ended up in the most advanced classes, after coming from a solidly intermediate class in Beijing. This makes me a little nervous, for obvious reasons. The classes I'm in are extremely small. For two of the three classes, it is just Wendy(also from ND), myself, and the teacher. The main class has a few Japanese, Indonesian, and Vietnamese kids who are akin to Chinese-speaking robots--they never make mistakes. On every single test, no matter how badly Wendy and I have done, they have all gotten perfect scores. Intimidating? Yeah.
I have three classes--the first is one centered around reading the newspaper, the second around Confucian Philosophy, and the third on ancient history. The topics seem to be a handful in English, but these are in Chinese all the way. The teacher for two of them is awesome, super nice and always up for a detour to talk about something else. I often steer the conversation to something more useful, like, say politics! <junkie!> Honestly though, Confucian ethics is useful, but sometimes I just want to practice speaking regular Chinese...
My brain pretty much turns to mush every afternoon after four to six hours of full language immersion, but I'm beginning to think I can hold my own if I prepare enough. We go so fast! There are no activities really, it's just vocab-news article-next chapter vocab-article...etc. The history one is this old lady who wears a back brace and is quite Catholic school in terms of personality and strictness, if you catch my drift! I'm totally scared of her, but we'll see if I can't get on her good side. If there is one. She will blab on for about twenty minutes at a stretch and then quickly say "understand?!" Needless to say, it's a little tough to tell her you had no idea what she said...I also kind of like teasing her though! Sometimes I tell her I can't understand her Taiwanese accent, which makes her really flustered. "WHAT TAIWANESE ACCENT?!" she moans at me. I tell her Beijing is the standard and Taiwanese is way different. That usually prompts a smack with the dictionary, hahaha!
Overall, though, I am rising to the challenge. It may require a lot more work than Beida, but I feel like the rewards will be much greater!
The strangest part of my experience here is the size of the program: there are five of us here from Notre Dame. Aside from a few foreigners, mostly from Japan or Indonesia, there are no other foreigners in our classes. It's a little daunting to me after the sheer size of Beijing Daxue's program: there were almost fifty of us spread out across the levels, all American students, put together with several thousand other international students. Needless to say, there was always someone to hang out with. Here, there are five of us. Luckily, we've gotten on pretty well, but it can be a bit lonely when the four other people are busy, tired, etc.
Classes are also kind of odd at the moment. There are only four levels of Chinese instruction at Fu Jen as opposed to the 35 at PKU. There was no placement test, but I somehow ended up in the most advanced classes, after coming from a solidly intermediate class in Beijing. This makes me a little nervous, for obvious reasons. The classes I'm in are extremely small. For two of the three classes, it is just Wendy(also from ND), myself, and the teacher. The main class has a few Japanese, Indonesian, and Vietnamese kids who are akin to Chinese-speaking robots--they never make mistakes. On every single test, no matter how badly Wendy and I have done, they have all gotten perfect scores. Intimidating? Yeah.
I have three classes--the first is one centered around reading the newspaper, the second around Confucian Philosophy, and the third on ancient history. The topics seem to be a handful in English, but these are in Chinese all the way. The teacher for two of them is awesome, super nice and always up for a detour to talk about something else. I often steer the conversation to something more useful, like, say politics! <junkie!> Honestly though, Confucian ethics is useful, but sometimes I just want to practice speaking regular Chinese...
My brain pretty much turns to mush every afternoon after four to six hours of full language immersion, but I'm beginning to think I can hold my own if I prepare enough. We go so fast! There are no activities really, it's just vocab-news article-next chapter vocab-article...etc. The history one is this old lady who wears a back brace and is quite Catholic school in terms of personality and strictness, if you catch my drift! I'm totally scared of her, but we'll see if I can't get on her good side. If there is one. She will blab on for about twenty minutes at a stretch and then quickly say "understand?!" Needless to say, it's a little tough to tell her you had no idea what she said...I also kind of like teasing her though! Sometimes I tell her I can't understand her Taiwanese accent, which makes her really flustered. "WHAT TAIWANESE ACCENT?!" she moans at me. I tell her Beijing is the standard and Taiwanese is way different. That usually prompts a smack with the dictionary, hahaha!
Overall, though, I am rising to the challenge. It may require a lot more work than Beida, but I feel like the rewards will be much greater!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Level 2
Alright, my fair people, I have arrived in Taipei! Getting here was so-so, mainly because, while it was a bit more challenging in ways, I was better equipped to handle it from Beijing. So it's kind of like Pokemon...I leveled up my Charizard, so now it can handle the tougher opponents!
Twenty hours of plane. Twenty. But everything went relatively smoothly. Except for when my medical cooler got cross-examined at LAX. I feel like people who work at airport security act like they have senses of humor but really don't...it's happened multiple times where they smile as they goofily tell me to take out my laptop, and I reply, in a very friendly manner, "I know the deal..."
But then she will retort something like "Well. A lot of people don't know the 'deal'". Well excuse me for trying to brighten your day, lady. Psh.
But after an eternity of Hunger Games-the-airport-version competitions for outlets, overhead bins, and passage through immigration, I was set free onto the streets of Taipei! The university sent a girl named Gloria to pick me up. Yes, Gloria, as in the ghost who haunts my room.
I could tell immediately that Taiwan really is worlds apart from mainland China, or at least Beijing. The geography is gorgeous: rolling, green mountains, dotted with palm trees and strange, tropical vegetation. They skies are the kind of electric gray, as if they are ready to produce epic thunderstorms at any minute. Gloria told me that if you get caught in the rain, your hair would fall out cause of the acid in it. UUUUMMMMM.
We're staying in a hotel-dorm thing across the street from the university. I have a single with a bathroom, fridge, tv, desk, and bed. AND AIR CONDITIONING. YES! I'm pretty sure I can see Taipei 101 from my window (eeep!).
This time around, things are a bit more challenging just because of the solitude of the trip. No Bobby accompanying me on the flight, looking back with a mischievous smile every so often. No Ali waiting at the airport, ready to red guard anyone who gets in our way, or break out mad Chinese skills. Even the program directors have been absent thus far. The other four kids in the program haven't gotten in yet, so I've been by myself setting up. It's good and bad: I like peace and quiet sometimes, and it's nice to be so free to explore. On the other hand, I'm in this new place with no guidance at all, and it kind of freaks me out to be going this alone! But, after my experience in Beijing, I knew I couldn't hide in my room! It's odd how when you are dropped into a new environment, on your own, you just want to hole up. It took me about three hours to get out of my room after I finished unpacking. I changed my clothes three times because I had some primal need to look my best just to scout the area.
The neighborhood is idyllic. Long streets with colorful signs and interesting shops along the way. Mopeds are the main thing here, and I snicker as I see Hello Kitty and Pikachu themed helmets.
After a lunch at the chain Yoshinoya (which had WAY different food than Beijing! I also freaked when the bill was $160 for one bowl--but which translates to only $5.33 USD), I made my way into the Fu Jen campus. I knew immediately being at a Catholic school in Asia would be really unique, and it permeates the campus. Exotic trees shelter the paths, and twisted roots dance along the ground. Peking University had tame stray cats, and Fu Jen has DOGS! Everywhere, semi-stray dogs run and play. The students seem to take care of them. I saw three people pinning down one dog while he got a bath! I heard that Taiwan has some of the worst treatment of strays in the world, and I'm not sure if that was wrong, or if Fu Jen does this as a Catholic charity type thing, but it made me really happy. So happy that I pet a pathetic-looking dog, who nuzzled right up to me and asked for a belly rub. After fifty hand-washings and a good rub down of purell, I think I'm safe from the mange I noticed she had...but maybe fifty-one to be sure?
Taiwanese people are so POLITE. A guy accidentally cut me in 7/11 and apologized before getting behind me. In Beijing, the guy would have knocked me over to get to the front! (No offense to my Beijing buddies, of course!) I don't know why the culture is so different here, but I'm looking forward to more observations like this...if only I could UNDERSTAND THEIR DIALECT x_x
Anyways, that's all for the first day! This is definitely a rambling post, but I wanted to get out my first impressions. YOU probably just look at the pictures anyways. Go back to Facebook now.
 |
| I'm sorry...it had to happen |
Twenty hours of plane. Twenty. But everything went relatively smoothly. Except for when my medical cooler got cross-examined at LAX. I feel like people who work at airport security act like they have senses of humor but really don't...it's happened multiple times where they smile as they goofily tell me to take out my laptop, and I reply, in a very friendly manner, "I know the deal..."
But then she will retort something like "Well. A lot of people don't know the 'deal'". Well excuse me for trying to brighten your day, lady. Psh.
But after an eternity of Hunger Games-the-airport-version competitions for outlets, overhead bins, and passage through immigration, I was set free onto the streets of Taipei! The university sent a girl named Gloria to pick me up. Yes, Gloria, as in the ghost who haunts my room.
I could tell immediately that Taiwan really is worlds apart from mainland China, or at least Beijing. The geography is gorgeous: rolling, green mountains, dotted with palm trees and strange, tropical vegetation. They skies are the kind of electric gray, as if they are ready to produce epic thunderstorms at any minute. Gloria told me that if you get caught in the rain, your hair would fall out cause of the acid in it. UUUUMMMMM.
We're staying in a hotel-dorm thing across the street from the university. I have a single with a bathroom, fridge, tv, desk, and bed. AND AIR CONDITIONING. YES! I'm pretty sure I can see Taipei 101 from my window (eeep!).
 |
| Look way back in the skyline to what I think might be Taipei 101 |
This time around, things are a bit more challenging just because of the solitude of the trip. No Bobby accompanying me on the flight, looking back with a mischievous smile every so often. No Ali waiting at the airport, ready to red guard anyone who gets in our way, or break out mad Chinese skills. Even the program directors have been absent thus far. The other four kids in the program haven't gotten in yet, so I've been by myself setting up. It's good and bad: I like peace and quiet sometimes, and it's nice to be so free to explore. On the other hand, I'm in this new place with no guidance at all, and it kind of freaks me out to be going this alone! But, after my experience in Beijing, I knew I couldn't hide in my room! It's odd how when you are dropped into a new environment, on your own, you just want to hole up. It took me about three hours to get out of my room after I finished unpacking. I changed my clothes three times because I had some primal need to look my best just to scout the area.
The neighborhood is idyllic. Long streets with colorful signs and interesting shops along the way. Mopeds are the main thing here, and I snicker as I see Hello Kitty and Pikachu themed helmets.
 |
| Fu Jen on the right, FOOD Jen on the left! Get it? Get it? |
 |
| The beginning of a Mario Kart race? |
After a lunch at the chain Yoshinoya (which had WAY different food than Beijing! I also freaked when the bill was $160 for one bowl--but which translates to only $5.33 USD), I made my way into the Fu Jen campus. I knew immediately being at a Catholic school in Asia would be really unique, and it permeates the campus. Exotic trees shelter the paths, and twisted roots dance along the ground. Peking University had tame stray cats, and Fu Jen has DOGS! Everywhere, semi-stray dogs run and play. The students seem to take care of them. I saw three people pinning down one dog while he got a bath! I heard that Taiwan has some of the worst treatment of strays in the world, and I'm not sure if that was wrong, or if Fu Jen does this as a Catholic charity type thing, but it made me really happy. So happy that I pet a pathetic-looking dog, who nuzzled right up to me and asked for a belly rub. After fifty hand-washings and a good rub down of purell, I think I'm safe from the mange I noticed she had...but maybe fifty-one to be sure?
 |
| Dog being washed against his will. |
Friday, June 1, 2012
Deja Vu
Today I leave for Taiwan. I've been home for the past week, doing pretty much nothing. The best kind of nothing. In a lot of ways, packing for this trip is a lot like packing for Beijing--but a million times easier.
This program is eight weeks long, as opposed to Beijing's fourteen. I feel so much better having gone through the motions once already--what to bring, what not to bring, and most importantly, what to expect. My language skills are much better than before, so I am confident of my ability to get around. Learning traditional characters is going to be a problem, as about a quarter of characters are written differently than on the mainland. They are simply not as simple as the simplified characters of the PRC!
I have a lot of hopes for Taiwan--that I will improve significantly in my Chinese (without having to pull my teeth out), that I will learn about Taiwan's way-of-life, and really make Taipei my own. I think I'm most excited to compare Taipei with Beijing, and how the political split of 1949 has affected their respective societies. Oh, and, apparently the food is really good too :P
Anyways, there's this song that's just surfacing, and it's been in my head all day. It applies to this blog because it's a Chinese girl named Wanting (曲婉婷) . Her music is amazing. I think she's from Harbin, which is a Northern city famous for its ice buildings. Take a listen--Jar of Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgqnkT3ehfg&feature=related
Anyways, my flight is here and I am on my way to LA, then to Taipei. See you after 20 hours of plane...!
This program is eight weeks long, as opposed to Beijing's fourteen. I feel so much better having gone through the motions once already--what to bring, what not to bring, and most importantly, what to expect. My language skills are much better than before, so I am confident of my ability to get around. Learning traditional characters is going to be a problem, as about a quarter of characters are written differently than on the mainland. They are simply not as simple as the simplified characters of the PRC!
I have a lot of hopes for Taiwan--that I will improve significantly in my Chinese (without having to pull my teeth out), that I will learn about Taiwan's way-of-life, and really make Taipei my own. I think I'm most excited to compare Taipei with Beijing, and how the political split of 1949 has affected their respective societies. Oh, and, apparently the food is really good too :P
Anyways, there's this song that's just surfacing, and it's been in my head all day. It applies to this blog because it's a Chinese girl named Wanting (曲婉婷) . Her music is amazing. I think she's from Harbin, which is a Northern city famous for its ice buildings. Take a listen--Jar of Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgqnkT3ehfg&feature=related
Anyways, my flight is here and I am on my way to LA, then to Taipei. See you after 20 hours of plane...!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)