Oct28
So after I finish teaching class every day, I usually stay in the classroom to grade my student’s workbooks. Meanwhile, another teacher come in to teach an after-school program for first graders. Most of it involves review for the students or them doing their normal homework. But I think the cutest thing ever is when the students were practicing their Chinese.
They sat there repeating over and over again, “nu sheng…nu…nuh yu…san sheng…nu…sheng…shi…eng…yi sheng…sheng…nu sheng” (This breaks the Chinese word down to its bopomofo counterparts and identifies the tone). It was so cute how they broke apart every word and chanted it out. I guess it’s the Chinese equivalent of our spelling bees in America and how we drill spelling the first few years in elementary school.
Then, I began thinking about language acquisition in general. Like how it amazes me how I can understand much of what these first graders say but then by the time they’re sixth graders I definitely can’t understand the vast majority of what they say and they pretty much understand anything in Chinese (to a certain extent). How amazing is it that kids can just acquire language and how we study it in school too.
I wish I could be a Taiwanese first grader and learn Mandarin. Hehe.
Oct26
So, I’m not sure what happened or who got fired, but somehow, last Tuesday I managed to pass my scooter driving test. I don’t know how, but i somehow managed to stay going straight long enough and not kill anyone or run into anything (or at least the judge didn’t notice) and left the Luodong DMV with a license to drive a 50cc-250cc scooter!
My Mode of Transportation Before
(above) Before getting my scooter, Eric was my mode of transportation. Trust me, the helmet was necessary. Haha, okay kai wan xiao. But, seriously, people would just sandbag me everywhere. I was the Official Yilan ETA Sandbag. I had to say the word zai so often, I made it a Chinglish word. For example, you can use it in the context of asking for a ride: “Hey, can you zai me tonight?”, or also in the past tense: “Yeah, my friend zai-ed wo.”
Soon after the crazy miracle, I bought my very own scooter (pictures to come)! It’s a cute 100cc and I’m so happy that I finally, after like two months of living in Yilan, have a scooter! Driving on the road is super scary though, I must say.
Life Skills Learned in Taiwan:
X - Riding a Bicycle
X - Driving a Scooter
O - Swimming
Oct12
Headed into Taipei this weekend for the Double Tenth day.
Let me preface this entry by saying that I am an extremely unbalanced individual. I think most people that have actually met me will agree with this. I suppose that this title of being unbalanced all began in eighth grade when I fell out of my chair in computer class. The curse of being unbalanced has never left me since.
So when we arrived in August, it became quite evident that the only way we were going to get around was to scooter. We were also convinced that every previous ETA had tested to be licensed to drive a scooter and subsequently bought a scooter to ride around the entire year through sunshine, rain, and wind. Naive little Jessica assumed that she too would be able to master scooter driving.
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There’s something indescribably satisfying about being able to read a Chinese menu and order a dish without needing to ask for any explanations or help. Unfortunately, this does not happen often. Since Chinese is not at all phonetic, even if I know how to say the name of a dish, this does not help when I am handed a menu completely written in Chinese. However, now that I have been living in Taiwan for two months, I can say that we’re finally starting to recognize a few characters and sometimes we manage to order without the help of the waiter!
Salty Soybean Milk
Taiwanese food is awesome and cheap, which is sometimes dangerous for me! Haha. My favorite is zao can (breakfast). There are loads of different breakfast restaurants all around and many of them specialize in either Taiwanese or Western breakfasts. A typical Taiwanese breakfast might include xian dou jiang (salty soybean milk) and you tiao (crispy fried dough). I also often order dan bing (egg pancake) or zhua bing (a pancake that has been ripped and fried a bit). Aside from these, you can also order an assortment of different tu si (toasts) or san ming zhi (sandwiches) or han bao (hamburgers).
