And our world is still turning...

A lot has happened in the world since I last updated. Protests for freedom spread throughout Northern Africa, Congress renewed attacks on women's rights in the name of budget cuts, and we all experienced sudden or gradual changes in our lives. There are two major differences in my Taiwan 的生活 (shenghuo means life or lifestyle) that aren't pictured in the photos below.
Last week I began my final semester studying Chinese here and I have a new teacher. I am delighted to be studying with her because she is very dedicated to our progress, critiques our pronunciation, and assigns a lot of homework. My previous teacher was very relaxed, focusing more on conversation and building our confidence in using the language, but three months of intense study is really what I need before I head back to the States.
Secondly, two weeks ago I began working as a volunteer with the Garden of Hope Foundation (http://www.goh.org.tw/english/aboutusbackground.htm). This organization is phenomenal and has offices throughout Taiwan, as well as in Cambodia and New York. What we do here in Kaohsiung is multifaceted. Firstly, women who seek to escape dangerous domestic or workplace situations are given safe housing, counseling and a six month position working for the Foundation. The women, in Chinese we call them 'the mothers', run a store in the heart of Kaohsiung City. This store takes donated items and provides free clothing, amenities, and food to poor persons in our community, while also selling the highest quality donations at a very cheap price. I work in the store with the mothers, most of whom moved to Taiwan from Mainland China. I get to spend my afternoons speaking Chinese and making friends with very kind, giving people. It has been a huge blessing already.
Okay, enough talking, below are the photos. They are all collages I made as I have recently become more interested in photography.

During our Chinese New Year vacation, I went traveling with Winnie and her family. We went to Puli, Sun Moon Lake and Miaoli. Out of all the places we visited, this temple was the most beautiful place. The Mother Earth Temple is set in a mountain overlooking the small country town of Puli.

The photo of this second temple was taken when I went to Taipei during our break between semesters. Named Dragon Mountain Temple, the oasis is set in the center of Taipei City and many people were there to pray. If you look closely you can see the same man in two of the three pictures.

Also during my trip to Taipei, I was able to enjoy time with my friends and really appreciate the beauty of Taiwan. But my real reason for traveling up north was to visit several alums of Michigan Law. They were very gracious and offered me invaluable insight into practicing law in Asia and how to make the best of my time in law school. Meeting with them got me even more excited about moving to Ann Arbor in August.

My excitement about going back west has somewhat transferred to my eating habits. Pictured above is cream of pumpkin soup, a tomato mozzarella sandwich, and curry chicken quesadillas. Carol and I have been eating more and more Western foods lately, but I'm also trying to enjoy my favorite Taiwanese dishes as much as I can these last few months.

One of my favorite things to do in Taiwan is laugh at weird English t-shirts. They are unbelievably popular amongst Taiwanese of all ages. Sometimes the shirts miraculously hit the right note, as with the far right photo proclaiming 'GIRLS SAVE THE EARTH.' I agree with that significantly more than 'Circus is not Uncle McDonald!'

Overall, during my time in Taiwan, I have genuinely changed to become more of the woman I want to be. I love myself, I am disciplined in my studies and devote my free time to positive endeavors. Thank you all for your prayers and support that have made a difference in making my life here peaceful.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day! May love be a source of strength and exhilaration in all of our lives.

2010 最後一個月

Photos from the last month of 2010...

Carol and I decorated the house a little bit for Christmas

Outside a department store with beautiful decorations

My classmates and I went out for Vietnamese food, sooo delicious!

Carol and I wore these hats to and during school on Christmas Eve. Everyone stares at us anyway!

Two of my classmates and my teacher

Christmas Eve night, we went to Kaohsiung's most famous Catholic church

For Christmas, I went to see my classmate, Kelly, in Taipei. This is from the Christmas concert at her church

I spoke Chinese all day, from morning til night, with Kelly and her friends. I stayed in Taipei about 5 days

Beautiful bus ride to Kelly's family's home in Taipei County

Taiwanese-style hair for 2011, 5 months to go :)

好久不見 (Long Time No See)

This is a long overdue, photo-based blog update. I would love to hear more from everyone at home!

Beautiful clear day viewed from my balcony

On Cijin Island outside Kaohsiung

With my teacher and best friend/classmate from Brazil, also named Kelly. We took a boat tour along the Love River

Outside of my language center

Free concert weekend in the huge park near our house

Elementary school "lion dance" performance outside the department store

Zi Yu, Fu An and Teacher Lai with a little bit of Gong Zhu's head. I only know my classmate's Chinese names!

Check out that scooter traffic, so typical

Eating Taiwanese hot pot with my favorite girl, Lily

Having class outside the Cultural Center with Meng Shi, Jing Shen, and Ding Shan (Vietnamese, Australian and Korean. Kelly is Brazilian and there is also another American in my class!)

My former coworker got married and invited me and our former student, Janet, to her wedding!

The wedding is basically just a giant reception. We all ate fresh seafood non-stop for 3 hours. The bride and groom came out a few times to hold a raffle and toast with the guests, each time wearing a different outfit!

 

Went to dinner with Kelly, her friends from church and their pastor. See anything strange??

Winnie, my former coteacher, and I won a prize from Taiwan's GreaTeach 2010 competition for our international net pal exchange program!!!

Ding Shan, Zi Yu, me and Kelly at our farewell dinner. Zi Yu, Kelly and the only other girl in class, Hui Lin, won't be studying with us next semester :(

Our class and the Center director at the graduation ceremony (minus Jing Shen who already went traveling!). I was really surprised and happy to receive the 1st place award for my class. We all voted for who should get the award, so it means a lot that my classmates think I've done the best!

October is Here and So Am I

My apologies for disappearing :) The past few weeks have been interesting and busy. I'm in the Intermediate level Chinese course, so I've been working hard in my free time to catch up with grammar and vocabulary.  Hope all is well with everyone.

 

Video of Typhoon Fanapi from my balcony. 

Our building shook from the wind and our classes were canceled for a day. But Carol and I were very lucky. Many people in Kaohsiung experienced severe flooding. Entire first floors were filled with water, scooters and cars floated away. Other cities, particularly on the east coast of Taiwan, were the most damaged. Luckily, the government took greater precautions this year and evacuated high risk areas beforehand. The Taiwanese would not stand for a repeat of August 2009's Typhoon Morakot, which took many lives and destroyed entire villages in mudslides.

We attempted to go out in the typhoon, but this was the mess that resulted. Luckily, our friends in Taiwan go to ridiculous extremes to take care of us. One friend went out and bought us dinner and enough food to last a few days! She brought it to our house in the middle of the storm!

 

I've recently purchased a pool pass and I swim 4 to 5 times each week. It is a great way to exercise in this heat! Swimming caps are a requirement in Taiwan, thus me and my little friends looking like eggheads.

These three photos are from a very traditional home in the countryside of Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan. It is my friend Winnie's aunt's home and I went with her family to celebrate 中秋節, the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Winnie's parents, her two daughters and her sister went with us to celebrate. We barbecued, rode bikes, set off fireworks and sparklers, and looked at the moon. The holiday is also called Moon Festival because it is celebrated on the day when the moon is fullest. There is an ancient folk story about the woman who lives in the moon. 

 

Fish on sticks, spicy sausages, and corn...why do I look so freaked out?

Though I'm very focused on Chinese, I am also applying for scholarships to help me pay for U Michigan Law next year. I need to find outside funding targeted at women, Chinese speakers, or persons interested in international financial or human rights law. If anyone knows of any relevant scholarships, please point me in the right direction!

Fun in Kaohsiung / 在高雄玩了

I've been in Kaohsiung for three weeks now, mostly having fun! Classes started Monday, but all schools were closed today due to the typhoons surrounding Taiwan. 我在高雄玩了三個星期. 這個星期一開學 可是今天不上課因為三個颱風來台灣. I am still studying a lot on my own and with friends, but grammar is the most difficult part of Chinese for me now. 我還有自己學也跟我朋友 但是現在最難的部分是中文語法.

Hopefully my Chinese isn't quite as bad as this horribly wrong, but hilarious, English t-shirt that my friends and I discovered at a department store.

I plan to spend my free time meeting with my friends and asking them questions, trying to make sentences and listening to what they say. Unfortunately, this typhoon may keep us inside for more than one day! It is difficult to get around by walking in the wind and rain.

Luckily, the storm is not as bad as last year's, which destroyed several villages and killed more than 700 people. 

 

 Last week, before the typhoon and before classes started, Carol and I met up with many of our friends. One night in particular, we celebrated my friend Winnie's birthday. She and I taught together last year and she has been like an older sister to me for the past year. We went to a party at her home and then out dancing together.

We brought a (heavy) plate of fruit to Winnie's potluck birthday dinner. I held it on my head to attract even more attention while we waited for the bus to her house.

We also finished setting up our house. I wanted to buy curtains for my room, which faces the other apartments in the building next to ours, so that our neighbors couldn't see me sleeping every morning!

I also succeeded in buying an actual mattress to sleep on!

I am not sure how much more exciting these posts will get, though I will share more about my classes soon. I will be tutoring one high school student for an hour each week, and may pick up more students if I need the money. I am trying to live simply and focus on learning Chinese. What I love is that I can do that just by making friends and spending time with them. We may save up to travel around Taiwan a bit and host some small gatherings for our new friends.

There is much beauty to be found in the world every day.

Return to Kaohsiung

As most of you know, I am spending another year living in Taiwan. I anticipate that I will write more and more of my blog in Chinese, with English translation, as time goes on. Seeing as I've been in Kaohsiung for only four days now, this post is entirely in English.

View from my new 11th floor apartment

That's not to say I haven't started studying yet. I've spent about three hours each day studying flashcards on my own. I can't seem to sleep past 6 am yet and go to "bed" around 9 pm. I say "bed" because I currently reside on a wooden mat covered with a thin layer of cloth. Mattress shopping is high on my To Do list. Overall, Carol and I are happily adjusting to our new neighborhood in Fongshan City, a suburb of Kaohsiung City. We are a few metro stops from our old neighborhood and current school. We leave our shoes outside the door of our apartment, turn the water on and off during our curtain-less showers, and drinks lots and lots and lots of the tea we both missed terribly this summer.

Welcome to our/Firefly's apartment and the TV we're guarding with our lives!

The neighborhood has everything we could ever need: a 7-11, Good Morning breakfast shop, 24 hour outdoor market/indoor convenient store, a mosque complete with faux Mexican burrito stand, and an MRT within 10 minutes walking distance. There is even a store selling mace, which we each purchased, in the event that the overly-friendly stray dogs and men take their curiosity to the next level.

Internet is obviously our first priority, above feng shui (風水)

We will begin language classes at National Kaohsiung Normal University (高市大) on August 30th. For the first few weeks, beyond studying, I expect to sort out my visa and health insurance, hopefully get a bed and some curtains, and figure out what I'll be eating that won't cause people to comment further than they do on my weight. So check out a few photos of our new spot (above and below). Thanks to Firefly, my former co-teacher, who is now living in Hungary with her husband!

No, I don't have a dog, just a weird English t-shirt.

Life is good, Chinese is fascinating, and Taiwan is beautiful. More photos to come.

May Montage

As usual, I haven't updated as frequently as I would like. I've really been enjoying day to day life in Taiwan; being a teacher, learning Chinese, and making friends. Since I know where I'm going during the next several years, it is unbelievably enjoyable to rest a moment in that certainty. Luckily, I have been taking more photos than usual and am making this update a montage from recent events. I'd love your comments or emails.

Last month, I went with my 12 year old student, Janet, and her family to visit Dong Shi. This is an outdoor recreational area near Taichung where we played on obstacle courses, saw massive amounts of fireflies, and ate seafood...the Taiwanese favorite. Her little brother, Lucas, is the cutest little boy I've ever seen! He loves to call his sister a "bad egg" and me a "dinosaur egg."

Carol and I have been continuing our elderly center class, but we have a new group of students this month. Pictured above is our former group of students who treated us to a delicious Japanese lunch to celebrate completing the course. They really want us to teach them again when we come back to Taiwan in September.

A few of my students from my teacher's class at Fushan took me to Tainan two weeks ago. I asked them each to present in English on a city in Taiwan, so we decided to visit the closest city together. This photo is at one of the oldest Confucian temples in Taiwan.

For some reason, there was a squirrel feeding area at the temple. Of course, I tried it.

It is incredibly hot in Kaohsiung now.  A popular, cool dessert is "shaved ice" with different kinds of sweet beans and potatoes. I love it. Here Janet and I are eating some together before I took her shopping in Xin Jue Jiang. This is one of the most popular teen markets in the city and it was her first time to go without her parents. A big deal!

This is one of my classes who is currently doing a pen pal exchange with some American students in Atlanta. My Economics professor at Agnes Scott, Professor Cunningham, set me up with her daughter's 5th grade teacher and we've been sharing videos, photos and letters online throughout the semester. You can check out some of my students' video letters here

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I've also spent some time with my host family. This weekend I went to lunch with my host sister, next to me in the glasses, her best friend, Amy, and Amy's little brother and sister. Hard to believe I'll be home seeing my American family and friends in just one month!