Return

So I'm back from my three+ weeks of vacation and back at work. I'll write more about Beijing when I get the chance, but overall it was just nice to be somewhere else and to be with people who have known me for more than 6 months. I probably would have gotten a closer, more inside look at Chinese New Year staying here and going to people's houses, but I really don't mind.

Coming back to Taiwan, I realized how much I like this place. I love the green everywhere, the rice fields everywhere, the general human warmth. I was also able to see anew some things, like how much of this country is built with aluminum siding and how truly ugly Taiwanese fashion tends to be. My elation was tempered by reality a bit. I went out shopping to pick up some things I had decided I need and I remembered just how hard it is to find somethings you want. I went to at least 4 stores looking for candles, before finding them at a random stuff store. In the States I know what kind of stores sell candles, but often it doesn't translate. I also don't carry a dictionary around like I should and am thus unable to look up words like candle and ask. I suppose I could go up to the clerk and say in Chinese "I want a thing that has fire, a lamp, but not," but I'm not willing to face the confusion that would ensue so I'm left wandering.

I returned to work yesterday and that has put me right back into normalcy. I realized though, something that I have been telling myself, but not believing, that everyday at school is really an intense cultural exchange. After 3 weeks spending my time almost exclusively with other Americans I realized how much simpler that is than the communication I had grown used to. My work is not hard, but I'm tired at the end of the day because each class I teach I teach with a local teacher and we struggle amiably to understand eachother's ideas and plans for the classroom and more often than not I'm not sure I understood everything they wanted and I'm not sure if they understood me. Plus our perceived execution of the idea is often different as well and plays out in the classroom. I think that co-teaching may be best for the students and I know it is providing a more valuable experience for both myself and my co-teachers, but I also think I would be a more effective teacher if I could simply plan a class as I wanted to and then have the class, without having to incorporate another person and their ideas and before the class check my ideas out and explain them to another teacher who is not always available.

On another note, I think I have clarified some of my priorities for the next semester. I am going to try (and I hope I can find) a Chinese tutor to work with me one on one for 2-3 hours a week instead of spending 6 hours a week, 2 of which are commuting to go to Fo Guang. I think it is still important that I take Chinese here as I never want to be on of those foreigners that puts out no effort to learn the language, but there are things that are more important to me and I think potentially more important to my future that I am neglecting, like my photography. At Eben's house there was a discussion amongst us and his housemate about people studying Chinese. Wendy said "But I think it is like Med school and enough people will find it hard enough to not follow through." I said that I felt I was the equivalent to that med school dropout, but then I have to remind myself that if I look back in time I took Chinese by chance, because I didn't like German and had a Chinese Art History professor who praised me for my first time in my Reed career. That would be like going to med school on a whim because your friends were doing it.