MOFA's Centennial Double Ten Celebration

October 10th, or Double Ten Day, is celebrated here in Taiwan every year as the National Day. It commemorates the uprising that led to the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912. In other words, it's kind of like the Taiwanese version of the 4th of July. This year, 10-10 was especially exciting because the ROC is celebrating its 100th anniversary!

Commemorative arch set up for the occasion on a street shut down for the occasion 

Every year, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds a swanky Double Ten gala for all the diplomats and other important people in Taiwan. This year, all the Fulbrighters were invited. It was very exciting getting to go to a bona fide red carpet affair. We may be just lowly elementary school English teachers but lot of dignitaries and diplomats also attended. The president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, even made an appearance.

My lovely roomie and I on the red carpet

"I'm President Ma and I approve these dumplings." I didn't actually get to meet
him but I did get a chance to stand a few feet away and take his picture!

There were lots of interesting people from all over the world, more delicious food than I could possibly eat, and there was a fantastic traditional dance/drum performance in the middle of the little lake on the property. To be honest, I didn't really make a lot of fancy new political connections. The most famous person I actually talked to was Miss Taiwan (who, I found out after attempting to speak with her in Chinese, is actually from California). I mostly ate a lot of free food and enjoyed the spectacle. All in all, it was a pretty awesome party.

This one's for you, Dad.

Making custard cakes

Yum! We approve.

Giant flowering Taiwan! Let's hear it for agriculture, everyone.

They even hired some artists to make little clay figurines for guests. Apparently making clay miniatures on a stick is a type of traditional handicraft here in Taiwan. Back in the day, they used to be made of edible materials but now they're just for show (and therefore full of toxic chemicals that make the clay easier to mold). Either way, my parrot was way too cute to eat. 

The artist and my fun new souvenir. Getting him home in one piece
was a definite challenge but he's very happy at home on my desk now.

Chinese traditional painting: A first attempt

Every other Wednesday all of the Fulbright ETAs and their LETs get together for three hour continued TEFL training seminars. Usually, they're at the teacher's center in Yilan city but this week they decided to shake things up and send us someplace new. So we headed over to Tamkang University's Lanyang campus, which is situated literally on the top of Mt. Linmei in Jiaoxi.

Showing us how to paint a goldfish

We got to meet some of the students who are currently studying to become English teachers and we talked about ways to incorporate Halloween and other holidays into the classroom. But the real fun came when we headed down the hall for a lesson on calligraphy and Chinese traditional painting with one of the school's resident artists.

After a few quick but beautiful examples of each, he let us try for ourselves. Since I've been taking weekly calligraphy classes at Pei Cheng Elementary (which, for the record, I'm not so good at), I decided to try my hand at Chinese traditional painting.

Christine, Ellen, and I got to keep his example paintings! 

The best part? Since I was paining pictures instead of Chinese characters, this teacher actually let me use my left hand! (Note: The fact that I've been attempting to learn calligraphy with my lame hand is probably a large part of why it's not looking so good).

As you can see, I must have been channeling my Aunt Janet because I painted a tea pot:

Not so bad for a first attempt, right? Maybe, if my life here ever slows down long enough, I'll take up a new hobby.

My Life as a "Cultural Ambassador"

Taiwan is awesome and, in general, I think its home to some of the nicest people in the world. That being said, I have stumbled across some interesting misconceptions or just plain odd questions about myself and my country over the last month and a half.

Some of the best questions/comments I've heard:

• If you're from America, why aren't your eyes blue?
• Does everyone in America have a huge house and an SUV?
• Your family only has two kids?!?! But all Americans have huge families!
• Everyone in America wants to be a lawyer (but lawyers are professional liars)
• Do you have a baby? 
• First grader to Christine: Why are your boobs so big?

There is also a lot of interest in my nose ring. In fact, the reason I learned the Chinese word for nose is because children kept coming up to me, pointing at their noses, and asking me what the thing in my nose is. Unfortunately, I still don't know the actual Chinese word for nose ring and therefore often resort to pointing at my earrings and then pulling my nose ring part way out so that they can see that it is IN my nose. But curiosity abounds. This week, three of my third graders at wore sparkly pink gemstones on their noses to class just so we could all match. They were so proud of themselves when they showed up to class and pointed at their noses. It was pretty adorable.

Fulbright Orientation Part II: Taiwan

Last weekend I headed up to Taipei to attend the Fulbright Taiwan orientation/welcome activities. I technically already attended an orientation in DC back in July but that one was for ETAs only so I was pretty excited to meet all the other Taiwan grantees (not to mention rubbing elbows with all the political big wigs from the American Institute in Taiwan or AIT, which is basically the unofficial Taiwanese version of an embassy). Also, getting a free trip to Taipei was a definite plus. 

Arriving in style with my Yilan homegirls

We had an opening reception/dinner on Friday night at the old (as in occupation era) Japanese Mayor's house in downtown Taipei. Getting to see all of the ETAs from Kaohsiung again and comparing teaching/life in Taiwan stories was really great. And there are some researchers here on Fulbright doing some amazing work. There was no lack of interesting conversation. And then there was the fact that the food was awesome. I had an actual salad (which sounds silly but is a feat of work here in Taiwan), sashimi, and pasta with actual cheese! In other words, it was a good night.

William A. Stanton, the director of AIT (basically the American
Ambassador to Taiwan except that Taiwan is not officially
allowed to have ambassadors)

On Saturday, we were officially received at both the Aboriginal Museum in Taipei and the National palace Museum (okay, I'm bragging a little bit here but sometimes it's nice to be a big, fancy, special "cultural ambassador").

The whole Fulbright group outside the Aboriginal Museum

Fancy lunch

The National Palace Museum

Both museums were fantastic. I learned a lot about the history of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan and where you can still go today to visit some of the tribes at the Aboriginal Museum. But I was especially excited about going to the National Palace Museum. It houses the world's largest collection of ancient Chinese artifacts and artworks.

Quick history lesson: Most of the pieces currently in the museum were collected by China's ancient emperors over the last 8,000 years or so but, after the last emperor was dethroned in 1925, the collection fell into the hands of the new Nationalist Government under Chiang Kai-sheck. When the Japanese invaded in the 1930s, the government ordered the most valuable pieces to be taken out of Beijing and hidden to keep them from the Imperial Japanese Army. Then, after WWII was over and the Japanese had left, the Chinese civil war broke out between Chiang Kai-sheck's Nationalists and Mao Zedong's Communists. As the fighting grew worse, the directors of the Palace Museum in Beijing decided to send some of the most important pieces in the collection to Taiwan for safekeeping. In the end, the National Palace Museum wound up with about a quarter of the original collection. In the end, this turned out to be a very good thing because much of what was left in China was destroyed in the during Mao's Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. Today, there is still some debate surrounding the museum and it's collection. While the Chinese government argues that the collection was stolen and that it legitimately belongs in China, Taiwan defends the collection as a necessary act to protect the pieces from destruction, especially during the Cultural Revolution.

Okay, that's enough history for now. The point is, the museum is super interesting (especially if you're a history nerd like me) and it's collection is phenomenal. Unfortunately, there is no photography allowed in the museum but, if you're interested, you should check out the museum website by clicking here. You can take a look at the exhibits or a virtual tour of the museum. Fun stuff!

After we left the museum, I decided to help a fellow Fulbrighter out with her project. Brenda Zlamany is an artist and a Fulbright senior scholar. For more on her art, you can visit her website at http://brendazlamany.com/. Her current project is about "the Face of Taiwan." She's painting 888 (8 is a lucky number in Asia) watercolor portraits of people in Taiwan with a special emphasis on aboriginal areas and people. 

Brenda's notebooks of paintings. She's completed about 650 so far.

Brenda's portrait of Vivian, one of Fulbright Taiwan's
many awesome staff members. She's pretty great.

So we headed back to the Taipei Artist Village with Brenda and she painted me and 8 or 9 other volunteers on Saturday night. 

Hard at work

Ta-da!

What do you think? Does it look like me?

Placement

I have officially been given my placement (drumroll please): it looks like I'll be spending the next year teaching at a public elementary school in the beautiful Yilan County, Taiwan!

Cilan Forest Recreation Area in Yilan

For those of you who have absolutely no idea where that is, Yilan is up in the north east corner of  the island, about an hour away from the capitol city of Taipei. It's scenically located smack dab in between the mountains and the sea (they're about 10-20 minutes in either direction) and is known for its environmental protection efforts and natural beauty (in other words, lots of opportunities for eco-tourism!). Yilan County has as a population of about 400,000 people. Its two biggest cities are Yilan City and Luodong. I'm not sure exactly which city I'll be living in because the Fulbright Taiwan has not placed me at a specific school yet but they're very close to each other so it won't make a big difference either way.

For more information about Yilan, click here: http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/pda/m1.aspx?sNo=0002106 (Taiwan Tourism Bureau) or here: http://tourism.e-land.gov.tw/EN/ (Yilan Tourism Bureau).

The adventure begins...

Hello world! 

I just found out yesterday that I received a Fulbright ETA (English Teaching Assistantship) award to Taiwan for the 2011-2012 school year. Not too much to report yet but, at the request of pretty much everyone, I've decided to start a blog to chronicle my experiences abroad which, in case you were wondering, are going to be AWESOME.  

I figure maybe, just maybe, if I start it now, I'll actually keep up with it. My last attempt at blogging, which I took on while studying abroad in Beijing, ended up being (with a little help from the "great fire-wall of China") a sad and neglected little corner of the internet. This time, I have no excuse, I'm going to do better. In fact, if it were January instead of the end of April, I would make that my New Years resolution (because those always turn out so well). 

Anyhow, without further ado, I now officially begin the record of my Fulbright!