Last year’s Instagram caption didn’t age well. With the pandemic, police brutality, not to mention the election, I am happy to see 2020 end. Although I can’t completely say the year was a waste. I traveled, learned lots, left Taiwan and came back to Taiwan, and continued teaching all in the course of a year.
I took the chance to reread my new years reflection from 2019 before writing this post. I had been in Taiwan for 5 months; I was close to halfway through my original grant period. I thought I had everything figured out. I had made great strides in my teaching presence in class (which has been an excellent basis for me to build on this year). I also had high hopes for my photography and video skills at the end of 2020. I’d say I made good on those resolutions. I have taught more classes solo this year than last year, going so far as to develop a curriculum for three classes this year. I also worked with Fulbright in making a video to be shown at the Midyear Conference for the new ETAs joining us as well as countless other small vids for instagram. Despite my high expectations on what my editing work should be, I have been able to try regardless of potential failure. Before, I prevented myself from even trying. Labeling myself as not a technology person, I just avoided the computer. Having edited I realize that I could do it all along, all I needed was time and patience. That is not to say I think all my editing work is fabulous. There are still so many details and edits I know are possible and have yet to learn or master i.e. fixing shaky camera or color correction. I just am happy to see improvement.
Staring this improvement in the face gives me hope. Hope that I can be that much better at what I do. I vow that 2021 will be the year I focus not on my skills, but deeper than that. I want to just have more confidence in myself and my abilities. So let’s see where that brings me in 2022.
My New Year’s celebration
mirrored my improvement in myself and my connections in Taiwan.
I was invited by my school colleagues to the Chulu Beinan Harvest Festival. The festival not only celebrates the new year, but it is the coming of age ceremony for men in this aboriginal community. Starting at 10pm, the men of the Beinan community dance around a big bonfire while the elders sit in chairs in the center. The women who are elders in the community are tasked with singing through the night. The dance is what I would describe as a line dance. All the people hold the hands of the people next to them. With their arms crossed, about 30 men become one as they move in a circle with a series of dance steps. At times it's reminiscent of a modern jazz square, but others it was hard to pick up. Just observing the dance you can see how close and accepting the community is as a whole. After the beginning dances (around an hour into the festival) others of the community as well as other guests are welcome to join in the dancing.
Wanting to fulfill the wish and somewhat pressure from one of my colleagues who is an elder in the community as well as two of the grandmothers I teach english to, I asked the high-ranking male community member if Sean and I could join. He agreed and found us a part between songs to join the dance along with some other people. The catch is that no one teaches you the dance before you jump in. I was placed between an elderly couple on one side and then Sean and my friend, a History teacher, on the other. The older couple seems to know some of the steps, or at least caught on faster than I did. However, when I tried to copy them or the other half of the circle that has already looped in front of me I always seemed to have extra steps. I also didn’t expect to feel such pulling and exertion trying to keep holding the hands of the group. I enjoyed the couple of songs I danced. Dancing while we counted down to the New Year in Mandarin. However, I felt somewhat like an imposter. That although my friends in the high ranks of the community welcomed me and encouraged me to dance, that I was preventing them from having the celebration they wanted because of my inability to dance. I know I was probably just seeing things and everyone was having fun, but I took my leave from the dance circle and decided to photograph what I could and observe with the other people.
There were also a cool dance with jumping, but I was too busy watching that I forgot to take pictures or videos.
I hadn’t realized how many of the people I interact with were part of the community. It was entertaining to have some of my students meet Sean (so far he’s got some rave reviews from my students- I think he has the stamp of approval) and to see the class of grandmothers singing and drinking outside of school.
"真的嗎？你的男朋友很帥." - Vicky (8th grade student)
Thank you Vicky, I to agree that he is very handsome.
I learned so much about the community and didn’t feel as much of an outsider when I wasn’t dancing. I was even pressured into buying a flower crown, a headdress worn by the Beinan people when they wear their traditional clothing.
The dance went till 8am. The men who the community was celebrating coming of age had to dance nonstop till then. People in the community would walk down the line and give cups of beer to them to keep them warm and with energy as they danced the night away. The cold weather and long drive meant I drove home around 2:30 in the morning. Smelling of smoke, we got home like icicles after the 30 min drive.
Sean and I didn’t get to rest too much because the following day had the ceremony for those boys, now men who had made it the whole night dancing. At 2pm the ceremony started. I joined my fellow teachers as we supported Jialiang, a colleague that was becoming a man. Jialiang is Han Chinese, so not Beinan by blood. Nevertheless, when he started working at Chulu Junior High School he became interested and devoted to the community. After 3 years of study of the language, culture, history, and dance he was being rewarded and formally becoming a Beinan man. This ceremony meant so much more because I knew someone in it and that he went through so much to learn and become a part of the community once he began to work. To show our support of Jialiang’s accomplishment (as well as the other boys honored), the faculty and his family bring boxes of beer. The taller your stack, the more you are loved. The other boys becoming men were definitely not only enough to drink mind you. Nevertheless, I’d say Jialiang is pretty loved as his stack was filled with beer, liquor, and juice boxes (the boxes which have now ended up in my office fridge).
After speeches each of the boys’ parents, or in the case of Jialiang his adopted parents from the community help them dress in their official traditional clothing. The clothing of men. Jialiang’s adopted parents are actually the 9th grade homeroom teacher and her husband who used to also be an English teacher at Chulu. They are both high-ranking members in the community.
After dressing, each man then must take a shield that has metal bells on the side and perform a ceremonial walk except it’s not a walk, but more of a dance again. With each step, they must go down in a squat on their toes and alternate each step when they put a hand up. Each step is marked by a ring of the bells of the shield. Watching from the sidelines I could see how difficult the task was. It was like doing countless squats while an entire crowd watched you and to make it worse you danced the entire night before. Jialiang started it off and finished the entire walk there and back without any steps! Such an accomplishment and you could see it on some of the audience’s faces that they were impressed.
Following the festivities we joined Jialiang, my other colleagues, and Jialiang’s family at the 9th grade teachers house for a feast. I was sitting at the table with other teachers, two of my students, and a representative of the local government who is involved in Chulu Junior High School activities. Each table had bowls of different soups and platters of meat. Sean being a little clumsy found a way to drop chopsticks on the floor which led to the other teachers going above and beyond trying to find him another pair which was both really nice and embarrassing.
This is one of the foods they had. It is an aboriginal dish where they stick a mixture of rice and pork inside of bamboo. To eat it you must bang the bamboo against the ground to open it up. It took Sean and my students 10 minutes to get this one open. It shouldn't take that long.
The teachers at my table happened to be ones I’ve attempted to talk to more and more. The history teacher loves to talk politics and seemed to have a bromance with Sean as they discussed the different Beinan customs throughout the night. The other table mates were a little quieter. Thankfully with Sean by my side that maybe 40 minutes into us being there he had them wrapped around his finger. We were speaking Chinese, laughing, and completely included in the conversation. It made me really excited to see that side of my teachers and be included that much where I wasn’t a burden.
After another very long night feasting and celebrating Jialiang, Sean and I went back to Taitung City and had a pretty low-key rest of the weekend exploring.
Now in writing this New Year article, which took me a little longer to post than I thought, I believed 2021 was going to bring us back to life. A vaccine is available. Biden is set to become the next president with a Democartic Senate (Thanks Stacey Abrams!). But what I find is worse. A new year doesn’t erase the crazy and extremism that has grown in our country. I stared with horror at my computer last week, astonished by the pictures, videos, and articles of the coup attempt. Never in my wildest dreams did I think the USA would have a terrorism attempt on government from its own people. Being abroad, the event brought overwhelming embarrassment for my country. I wanted to distance myself from being American. Here I am trying to help build a cross-cultural exchange between our countries, but why would Taiwan even want to be tied with us? The other teachers in my office thought the images were out of a movie and it was a little scary how realistic films like Olympus has Fallen were.
I feel saddened by the shape our country is in and pray that no other terrorist attack on the US government will happen in the upcoming weeks. I guess there is only up from here for the rest of the year.
2020 left a low standard, let’s hope 2021 brings some peace to the world.
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