Speed Dating

My fellow Fulbright ETAs and I have been Speed Dating with the Local English Teachers (LETs) for the past week or so, trying to find our perfect co-teaching match. Today was our last day of madness with a harrowing, 2 hour, 12-round speed dating session with all of the LETs before ranking our final choices.

I must admit, the whole ordeal has made us super-competitive. There are a few teachers who probably topped everyone's list and a few who ended up at the bottom of everyone's list. It feels like a big popularity contest--those of us ETAs who are more well-liked will probably get our top picks, while those of us who made a less-favorable impression (which is different from a bad impression) will have to make the most of their matches.

In short, there are 12 neurotic, competitive, over-achieving recent college grads anxiously awaiting the results of the matching process. To make matters worse, we just received the following email from Dr. Phillip Elliot (aka Dr. Phil), our program adviser:

Dear all,

Amanda, Chris and I finished matching you with your LET(s) at about 8:40pm this evening. Joy joined us as well, for dinner and discussion.
We hope the matching will be acceptable to you. We will inform you of the results tomorrow morning at 11am at San Min.

Dr. Phil

Now you may be asking yourself, Why don't they just tell you your matches over email? Yeah, I've been wondering that myself. I hope this means we'll find out about our matches by having our co-teachers pop out of individual cakes or something like that. But I try not to hope for too many things.

To add to the suspense, my flatmates and I are playing a game: we each made a list of who we think will be matched with whom. 1 point for each correct match, and 5 points for correctly guessing who will be matched with a teacher we'll call Mildred, the perceived least-favorite of the bunch. The four of us have agreed not to open our guessing lists until after the coordinators reveal the matches and we eat lunch and sing karaoke to celebrate the upcoming year of teaching. (If you think this sounds like a really "Asian" thing to do, you're correct--in approximately 12 hours, I will be in Asia, singing an off-key duet with my new co-worker.) The three losers each will buy the winner a McDonald's Caramel McFlurry, all in one glorious, gluttonous trip to everyone's favorite slice of Americana. Hopefully hilarity (or tons of vomit) will ensue.

Stay tuned for contest results and possibly some terrible KTV MP3's, if you're lucky.

--The Chao

Abortion Laws and Lies in South Dakota

If you don't already read Slate Magazine, a daily web-mag that covers news, politics, and culture, on a regular basis, I'd suggest you check it out. That is, in lieu of writing a real entry about someting in Taiwan, I'm redirecting you to this article on Slate about a South Dakota law that requires doctors who perform abortions to lie about "increased risk of suicide" (it's not scientifically proven that this is true) to their patients.

Happy reading!

Panda Eats, Shoots and Leaves

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days. I won't get too far into the bad stuff because apparently people can get in trouble for what they post on the internet, but it has all the elements of great literature: youthful strangers in a strange land, local politicking behind closed doors, racism, culture clash and tears--throw in an extramarital affair and we'd be all set.

And onto the good stuff: the 12 Kaohsiung Fulbright ETAs (that's English Teaching Assistants) will visit each of the 13 elementary schools where we could be placed by the end of Thursday. *aside: The process of placing us with an LET (Local English Teacher) also involves "speed dating" where the ETAs form an inner circle and the LETs form an outer circle and we rotate every minute until we meet all of our potential co-teachers. Why the foundation has decided to adopt such an awkward environment for social interaction is beyond my comprehension, but it's kind of funny so whatever.* We visited the first three schools today, and they made great efforts to woo us into making them our first choice school. A teacher at the first school argued that their school had the nicest facilities since it was only built 6 years ago AND tried to set me up with the national badminton champion gym teacher (you may think I'm joking... I wish you were right). At the second school, the principal boasted that his school was the oldest AND bought us bottled water and a laundry basket full of dragon eye fruit. The third school bought us iced coffee--a welcome treat on a searingly hot day.

And when we arrived at a fourth school (also a potential work site though not part of the day's official school tour) for a conference, the principal gave us buttons that he picked up in Beijing the previous week. Here's the one I chose:


Here's to a new tomorrow, hopefully one with more gunslinging pandas and fewer unpleasant encounters with messy, hidden politics. Cheers!

The Gates of Hell are Wide Open!!

Ghost month offerings outside my apartment complex. Offerings are made at temples, schools, stores, banks, residences and just about everywhere else around here.

Happy Ghost Month, everyone! According to Daoist tradition, the gates of hell open this (lunar) month to let the ghosts of dead relatives visit their families. On the first day, middle, and end of the month, people make offerings for the ghosts' safe passage into this world. The time is ripe for the mid-month offerings, and I've been privileged enough to witness and/or participate in the following Ghost Month ceremonies:

1. The first time I encountered this holiday was at the school where the Fulbright office is located, Sanmin Elementary School. The school principal, Principal Lin, brought us down to give offerings to the school ghost (who knew we had one?) while she prayed for us to become healthier, smarter, and more beautiful with each passing day (her wishes for us, not mine though I'm not opposed to either of these things). We learned to properly pray to the ghost, or bai, which involved holding a stick in incense between two hands and bowing three times. Then the principal instructed us to leave the incense in the food offerings. Each food represents a different wish for the school, though I can only remember that apples represent peace since they're called pingguo in Chinese which sounds like ping'an, the Chinese word for peace. Like a good liberal, I left my incense in the apples...

2. The next day, three of my friends and I encountered another offering ceremony outside a temple while rooting around the city for food. Technically, we encountered many offerings, since most stores will have a small bonfire to burn symbolic money for the ghosts. The ceremony of note, however, was huge. Unfortunately none of us had cameras with us, and it would probably be rude to photograph an actual religious ceremony. They set up a tent that took up half of the 2-lane street with tables full of food and made a huge bonfire in the middle of an intersection to burn a gigantic pile of symbolic money. Seriously, the pile of money was as big as a couch.

This is not a photo of the giant pile of money. It's a small pile from the ceremony outside my apartment. I just wanted to assure the more financially conscious that Taiwanese people aren't actually burning real money in a time of economic crisis (or ever).

We stood on the other side of the street and watched as they chanted, lifting and lowering their arms in unison. When they finally noticed us standing there, they gave us little red slips of paper saying it would bring us good luck. We folded them and slipped them into our pockets. They fed us a sweet, cold soup that tasted like licorice and was unbearable after the first 3 bites, but we finished it anyway because we were guests and leaving scraps seemed rude.

3. More of the same went down in the lobby of my apartment, except apparently the apartment ghost has a taste for American food....

Greetings from Taiwan!

Photo courtesy of Shiela Lee, www.shielalee.com

Dajia hao (translation: "Hello everyone!")! I've been telling myself that I would start blogging after I've settled in, and then in true Chao fashion, I put it off. Today I ran out of socks which means I'm probably pretty settled in. And now I'll try a little harder to live up to my blog name.

I'm spending the year in Kaohsiung Taiwan on a Fulbright Fellowship to serve as an English Teaching Assistant with the Kaohsiung City Education Bureau. This means I'm not a lead teacher, but a co-teacher with a local English teacher (you know, someone with real teaching experience and training). In addition to teaching kids proper grammar and pronunciation, I am to serve as a "cultural ambassador" (note: I assure you that the term came from the Fulbright Foundation, not from me)--for some of these kids, I'll be their first encounter with a real American person.

Kaohsiung has made a huge push for earlier English as a Foreign Language instruction in recent years. It's partly in rivalry with Taipei--wikipedia describes Kaohsiung as the "political mirror image" of the capital in the north--and all the taxi drivers keep thanking me for coming to teach English so they can be as good as Taipei. Part of the increased interest in English language is also wrapped up in Kaohsiung's attempts to become a part of the international community. This July, the city will host the 2009 World Games and everyone who is not worried about high school or college entrance exams is really excited. I think they see this as their big coming out party, similar to the way Beijing felt about this year's Olympics, and they want to make a good impression by speaking English really well.

I also get the sense that a change in educational philosophy is emerging--at least among the administration. The school officials who spoke to us said they wanted us to inspire their students to be more creative. They seem disillusioned with the Taiwanese educational system's heavy emphasis on rote memorization and testing and warn us that we may have trouble engaging kids because they're more worried about getting the right answer on exams than thinking about English as a means of communication. They also, however, take great pride in joking that "in Taiwan, we want our kids to focus less on testing so they will become more creative like american students. In America, they want their kids to do better on tests so they can compete with Taiwan." Somehow, it only makes me laugh a little.

The Not-So-Daily-Chao

Unfortunately my place has shoddy internet, and I feel guilty posting from work.  The updates will be occasional for the rest of the summer, but I will be updating regularly on the NPR Intern Edition  Summer 2008 blog (coming soon!).  

In Taiwan, things will be different

My God This Place is Green (Goodbye, Dublin)

After 2 days of driving form Providence, I was relieved to see the familiar Avery-Muirfield exit off of Route 161.

• Excessive display of opulence in the form of a fountain on the highway exit--check.
• Expensive car dealership--check
• Stoplight--check

And as I perfunctorily checked off my list of familiar landmarks along Muirfield Drive, six words rose to my lips and I felt as if I'd finally opened my eyes and really seen my hometown:

MY GOD THIS PLACE IS GREEN

When John Sells arrived on that patch of land in central Ohio, he named in Dublin because the verdant fields reminded him of his own home, Ireland. My guess is that he was filled with awe when he arrived on that plot of grass. It sounds tacky, but I think I got a taste of that feeling as we drove down the main drag of town.

When I've brought up this feeling with family and friends, they all ask the same question, "Don't you have grass in Rhode Island?" The answer is "yes," but it's different in Dublin. In New England, there are trees and lawns, but it's all interspersed among buildings and statues and people and busses. In short, New England (or urban New England, to be precise) is filled with stuff. In my Ohio suburb, the green stretchs on uninterrupted for what seems like miles. Driving along the curved roads and rounding the traffic circles feels like a long, satisfying yawn.

I'm writing this on the airplane as I depart for my first post-college job. A year ago, this entry would have ranted about how the unnaturally green lawns were the result of an appalling lack of biodiversity and excessive fertilizer use. I'd rage at the ridiculous building codes that require us to paint our basketball hoops the same color as the trim on our houses. I still believe these things. The difference is, I'm no longer afraid of never leaving the state. But there's no reason to feel bitter anymore. I'm free and I'm never moving back. I finally see Dublin as my parents see it--a beautiful, vibrant, and chemically-enhanced green.