東南西北

Break quickly turned from a relaxing, empty, potentially lonely 2 weeks to me going everywhere with family I didn't know I had.

My dad has friends from the U of I who now live in Taizhong that took me in over Thanksgiving break and part of Christmas break. Taizhong just means "Middle Taiwan", it is on the East Coast about 2-3 hours from Taipei by rail or bus, and the city is the third largest in Taiwan. They actually live in Houli, which is a bit north of Taizhong and a lot more rural.

Houli is a growing city, which means for the most part undeveloped in most of town which is old, and polluted in the new, growing industrial parts on the edges. (Central and Southern Taiwan have noticeably worse air quality - I get the impression that they are growing but unlike Taipei haven't advanced to caring about environmental protection). Walking around, it's mostly run down buildings or crowded shops. In Taipei when I walk around, I choose where to eat based on how crowded the restaurant is. In Houli, as in many places in Taiwan, shop hours are short and still none of the restaurants are crowded.

Like basically everywhere in Taiwan, sidewalks are non-existent and you walk along with the trucks and motorcycles. I bought some sugar cane on the street:

Sugar cane is one of the main products in Houli. So are, strangely, saxophones, which Houli is famous for making and which appear all over the town:

Fake seven eleven...(even funnier in Chinese because the word for "plus" and the word for "fake" sound similar in Chinese - so this is the jia Seven - the fake one, the one with the plus sign):

It's a good place to live though if you can take advantage of the highways connecting Houli to Taizhong as well as the beautiful mountains and countryside surrounding it. (In 20 years it might even be a good place to live without qualification.) My dad's friends have an amazing, American style house here. They are so amazingly hospitable and nice and I just love staying there.

REAL Christmas tree in a real size house!

I also feel that when I'm there I get a lot more authentic Chinese culture and language than I do during the school year. They've taken me to tons of fun places like the family orchard where we picked oranges, the Taizhong art museum, a really good shrimp restaurant (my favorite!), a Kejia restaurant, a mushroom farm to pick mushrooms, a bikepath through a train tunnel on an electric bike, a shop that makes lots of things out of wood, a lavender-themed park, night markets...um yeah basically everywhere that could increase my suspicion that Taiwan is actually just a large theme park for children.

Lavender field with lavender-wearing gardener

Mushrooms I picked!

Playground!

Million dollar high-rises in central Taizhong, outside of the art museum

Wood games at the wood park place

The house is also amazing (the bathroom has HEAT!), and there is a huge karaoke in the basement which is a huge help to learning Chinese. Like most Chinese households, there are relatives and people of unclear relation coming in and out of the house all the time, especially to eat and play Mahjiang. I used to think poker players looked pretty cool, well Mahjiang is way more intense. And the special electronic table that shuffles all the tiles is pretty baller.

Best of all, they have kids, a girl who just turned 6 on Saturday and a boy aged 7! They are so cute. If you know me at all you know that when I am there I am in heaven. We play baseball and soccer in the yard (there is a YARD!), sing karaoke, put together puzzles, play games, watch television.

Jonathan, age 7

Belle, just turned 6

I am learning a lot of Chinese children's games - there are so many and they all involve chanting or singing - and I'm teaching a bit of English.

Chinese children's game

I really think that being with kids is the best way to learn Chinese in the world. When I read books to them, I have figured out that when encountering words I cannot read (sandcastle?), I just pretend that I am asking them to see if THEY know what the thing in the picture is, then I can learn how to read it. Same thing with little issues like measure words or things like that. They are also really talkative and really nice to me about not being Taiwanese.

Other reasons kids are generally the best teachers:

1. Kids still remember what it feels like to be learning a language, since they are still doing it
2. Kids are still in school and so know how teaching and learning work in general
3. Kids don't gloss over misunderstandings because they are embarrassed. Instead, they are curious and ask lots of questions and if you make a mistake they let you know it
4. Kids are impatient and you have to try to keep up
5. At the same time, kids like to explain things they understand step by step
6. Kids have better pronunciation than adults in Taiwan. They also don't speak Taiwanese to you
7. Kids think a lot of things are really interesting that adults find too boring to discuss
8. Kids have a lot of games and books and homework that can teach you basic things you may have missed
9. Kids are more fun so you can talk and play with them for longer
10. Whereas adults are interested in communicating information as efficiently as possible, kids are interested in expressing themselves

So basically I wish ICLP were a preschool. And also I love vacation.

I had dinner with Lance and Xu laoshi, my teacher from the summer before, on the 23rd. It was really wonderful and I received what would be my only Christmas present for the year from Xu laoshi! It was really nice and now I have more children's stories to listen to (Christmas themed) and a game to play! Plus it's just so nice to get to know your teachers as people and Lance is awesome.

On the way back on the subway, I was feeling really Christmasy but also missing that Christmas atmosphere, you know the thing they sing about on Muppet A Christmas Carol or whatever. Like Yale post-finals, when strangers outside of the dining hall make fun of Courtney for wearing sandals in the snow, or even in the airport when people lament together about canceled flights. Then I realized, the whole subway was actually abuzz with chatter (yes, abuzz). Most of the time on the subway you are staring blankly at other people who are miserable and silent and, especially in Taipei, asleep. Not that night! So I found Christmas here too. (As a kind of weird note, Christmas is also "Constitution Day" for the R.O.C.)

I had to rush to get to the night train to go to Taidong, where one of my cousins lives with his family and where my grandpa lives in a retirement home for veterans. Taidong means "Eastern Taiwan" and is on the east coast, about five hours south of Taipei. It feels like the frontiers of civilization. Since the mountains in the middle of Taiwan are so huge, eastern Taiwan has been slower in developing. Aboriginal culture is much more authentic and stronger and there is just so much SPACE everywhere, like being in Kansas.

Everything is too far apart and it feels like there are no other people. Even in the city - the tourist night market does not feel like a night market at all, because it is just one street and you don't get jostled at all. There isn't even a shopping center...

The good thing was, I was there to see family. Also, the surrounding mountains are beautiful and the air is really fresh and clean.

This is the yard in my grandpa's retirement home. There is just so so much space, and grass and flowers, and you can sit in the pavilion and there is WIND because there are no buildings anywhere to block the wind.

Taidong is famous for Shijia, which as you may remember, look weird and were one of my favorites at the fruit party. There are stands everywhere and fields of shijia all over, essentially like corn in Illinois:

My grandpa loves hot pot so we ate hot pot two nights in a row. Also, Taidong didn't really have a lot of choices in terms of nice restaurants...my aunt and uncle looked literally for an hour without finding another place to eat. So my uncle treated us to two Christmas feasts, on Christmas and Christmas eve. From left to right, my aunt (eating something...), cousin (on the phone), other cousin, and uncle:

We went to visit the museum and accompanying park and saw: water dancing! Most interesting was watching the kids watching the water performance:

The Taidong museum of aboriginal culture was pretty interesting, though like everything in Taidong, waaaay spread out, no other people, and low on content. My new hand tattoos, which indicate I was born into the family of a chief:

Chilling with my grandpa:

I also got to see my disowned uncle in Yuli. (It didn't occur to me for most of my childhood that I had a second uncle and littlest uncle and so on but no first one. The pressure on the first son is really huge and I don't think this is uncommon. It's also something I've been reading about in my short stories, conflict within the family arising out of problems communicating, especially between men.) I was really happy to be able to be with my family, especially on Christmas weekend.

When we got back to Taipei, I went with my other uncle and aunt, my cousin, and my aunt from LA to visit my grandma. (It occurs to me that talking about family this way in English is ridiculous sounding. Since I refer to them not by name but by their Chinese title, which distinguishes by age and side of the family, but then in English everything becomes the generic "cousin"...). My grandma was really happy to see all of us and we took a beautiful walk in the cold:

Besides just being happy to have time to spend with family and get to know them, I'm really happy to be able to communicate! My grandparents are hard of hearing and speak with a Fujian accent but I am finally able to understand a good deal of what they say (constantly reminding myself that 'h' is 'f', etc.) and even to write things down when they can't hear. Almost all of the phone calls and meals go smoothly in Chinese :) oh yay! And being completely in a Chinese environment for the last week and a half, where I have to say the things I want to say instead of the things a textbook wants me to say, has at least temporarily moved my Chinese along the scale from 'halting' to 'fluent except the odd word'. For so long it's been frustrating to not be able to communicate what I want with my relatives, and I've wished my Chinese could improve to this point - I want to thank the Light Fellowship once again for making my wish a reality. And Merry Christmas once again, may your subway rides be 熱鬧 and cheery!

♥Katie