It’s been quite a while since I sat down to write. We have begun our orientation with the five other returning ETAs in Taitung. Orientation is supposed to go from 10am to 4pm everyday addressing topics from safety and weather precautions to teaching workshops. The Taitung specific presentations were completely review. I felt almost bad for our coordinator because she was trying so hard to not only cover the information the Taipei Fulbright office gave her, but also make it somewhat entertaining for us too. In the end, Ina (our coordinator) flew through the presentations and then after would teach us Taiwanese phrases- like learning Chinese isn’t enough. I thought Chinese was difficult, but at least that language has a written form. Taiwanese does not, instead in my notes I was sounding out how Ina was saying each phrase and making up my own word using phonics for my notes. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever use it, but now I can ask people if they’re hungry, what do you want to eat, I’ve already eaten, and I’m hungry. So, a very successful well-rounded conversation. In all seriousness, most of my coworkers last year would speak in a combination of Taiwanese and Chinese. If I couldn’t understand him there was a high likelihood, he was combining the two languages.
Since moving to the city, I have taken full advantage of living near the ocean. I studied Chinese on the beach over the weekend relaxing while I could before last week’s online teaching workshops for orientation.
Amanda and I on the Abandoned Hotel beach, also known as Shanyuan Beach
We were given the choice (my county was the only one who was given a choice- thanks Ina) to either come to the school where we host orientation and get lunch paid for by Fulbright or take the online workshop anywhere, but pay for your own lunch. At first I was enthusiastic to not go into the school for the workshops. I could in theory go to a café with wifi or stay at home. However, upon looking closer I realized that typically café’s in the city don’t open till later in the day so that they can stay open into the night. Unlike the US where you can go to a café in the morning, the cafes won’t open till around 1ish and close at the latest around 6-9pm. With workshop hosted at 10am I opted for the Fulbright paid lunch.
The teacher workshops were review as well and I’m happy that they are over at least for the time being. One good thing came out of the workshops, we met all the current Fulbright advisors this year. There are 5 located in Koahsiung, a large city 3 hours by train, and one (Megan) is staying in Taitung for the first semester. I realized early on that we got the best advisor in our county. Megan is very outdoorsy and isn’t like past advisors who try too hard to be your friend. She’s very go with the flow and knows everything to do with Taiwanese music as her fiancé is in a band. She also happens to be from Naperville which took me by surprise. Upon first meeting her she already made fun of the Ignatius football team, having been a student at Benet. The other advisors don’t seem to be on her wave length. There were very long introductions and definitely different teaching methods utilized. This year will be different though as a result of Covid, the advisors will be teaching in Taiwanese schools as well so I am optimistic that their input will be applicable to our students' levels. Another advisor who happened to previously know me started our workshop by asking what my real name is because I think she was trying to say that Briggs was more like a nickname. Since her workshop in which she either forgot me or spelling my name wrong in her responses (I am now Biggs I guess?), my friends have now taken to spelling my name as such so at least a good comradery has come out of these workshops. I truly am hoping that Megan is my personal advisor who will judge and give feedback on my teaching this year. She just seems so cool and approachable. Although, the other advisors are growing on me over time.
That brings me to yet another fun and exciting thing that finally became official, I will be teaching at Chu Luh Junior High. We gave an introduction presentation to a room of directors and LETs and then were able to play a Taitung version of monopoly we created with our new schools to get to know each other. I met the director and one of the LETs I will be teaching with, Susan. After monopoly they brought me to the school (a 25 minute drive from the city) where we had lunch, more like I ate the lunch the got me (beef noodle soup) and they left to do some other work while I awkwardly sat in the common area. Despite that uncomfortable lunch for me, I met with some of the teachers, got a tour of the school, and had what seemed was an interview in Chinese. There have been 3 previous ETAs at the school. The first two had no Chinese language experience while last years, Benton, excelled at it. Coming from having two extremes of knowing nothing versus being fluent enough for participating in teacher meetings, the director seemed excited about my own language fluency. I’ve been asked to prepare and introductory speech for the first day of school which I think will be in Chinese now since they think I’m competent enough to do that. I don’t know much else about the school other than I might be solo teaching my own classes this year and may have a chance to help coach basketball as well! I met some of my 9th grade students who all love basketball and want to make the NBA. Sadly, unless any of them have a growth spurt, I’m not sure how their dreams of the Lakers will play out.
Meeting the 9th graders has kindled a fear I didn’t even consider when I was returning, that junior high has a lot more need for classroom management. I didn’t have to deal with that too much last year. If a second or first grader got out of hand playing a game I would just have the group stand up and move to a different activity or change the game. Now, having only met the students once I have already been told I am beautiful and asked out. My director even jokingly proposed marriage for his son who is around my age as well. I didn’t have to think about bad words or innuendos in class last year. I’ve asked Sean to prepare a list of Chinese slang so I might be able to stop any misbehaving before it gets worse. I’m hoping to channel my inner Morgan so that this year I can still be a fun, creative teacher, but also being no-nonsense. I am excited though that although keeping the students on task will be harder, I might have a chance at making a deeper connection with my students because they will have a higher language level and be a little older than having conversations about our favorite animals like my chats with the first graders.
Before school starts at the end of August, I want to enjoy all that Taitung has to offer first being the Pasiwali Music Festival. It’s an annual music festival that usually hosts acts from around Asia representing different aboriginal groups. We were fortunate enough that last year Pasiwali was our first weekend in the county, so it marks our official welcome back. This year’s festival was a little different because of Covid though. There were no international groups performing and definitely less food stands along with a mandate to wear a mask just in case. I had been hoping for a cinnamon roll like the one I happened upon last year to no luck and instead opted for a weird almost gyro which turned out pretty good. The two-day (free) event seemed to draw all the young 20-year old’s out of the woodwork that I never knew existed in Taitung. All the people brought blankets and chairs to watch the concert, surrounding makeshift tables with cups of beer and assorted food from the food stands.
Sean trained down to Taitung just for this festival because last year it had a lot of aboriginal music groups. This year as a result of the small changes because of Covid there was definitely a different vibe going on. To accommodate for the change in musical guests, the lineup included more famous groups from the wider Taiwan area. There were rappers and punk rock groups. Thanks to Megan we got the low down on all the group dynamics on how this band is really nice while the other’s guitarist is stuck up. I loved the concert because it was a chance to relax with all my friends. In the group of us there were 15 ETAs, all the returning ETAs who were placed in Taitung last year came back just for the festival bringing with them some other ETAs and then outside friends or in my case, boyfriend. It was a large group to talk, dance, and enjoy the music with.
Boxing, my favorite Taiwanese band now
The festival did start a little late so by 9:00 pm it was already 2 hours late. Sean and I left at 10:30pm hoping that we wouldn’t miss anyone good by leaving early. I wasn’t prepared to stay till the 11:30 end time. When we got back to my apartment, I didn’t really give Sean much time to sleep because I wanted to fill the weekend with all the Taitung summer experiences that are dwindling now towards the end of the season. At 4:30am we woke up and by 4:45 we were on the road on my scooter for the Luye Highlands. The highlands are a little past where my new school will be and is halfway between the city and Guanshan (the town I lived last year). If you were to ask anyone what symbol represented Taitung best everyone would say the hot air balloon. The county hosts a 2-month long festival with changing balloons that even offers balloon rides. There is an early morning show and an afternoon show in which for 2 hours the balloons are all blown up and you can walk around and see them take off. Last year we attempted to go to the afternoon take off, but the weather didn’t permit the balloons to be taken out. This year I made a personal promise to go see them. I’d been trying for a week, getting up at 4:30 to see if the weather would allow (it was raining the days I attempted to go), but this weekend was different.
Sorry about the layout of the phone video- but I couldn't not include it. Sean took it on the back of the scooter while we rode to Luye.
My timing was a little off and we got there after the sunrise which is supposed to look amazing with the balloons, but alas we saw about 15 balloons in the sky. There are character balloons that are brought or sponsored by different countries. Brazil had three I think this year in the festival. Then there are other balloons that you can take for a ride. I was adamant that I would go on a ride in one of the balloons. When we got there, we realized that a balloon ride was the equivalent to a glorified petting zoo where you could go up to the length of the rope and then back down for a 15-minute trip. I declined the need to go up after that lackluster showing. The balloons did look amazing and with the scenery of early morning in the mountains the views were astonishing. Just another experience I can now cross off my list for Taiwan this year.
Hoping this ramble brings to light everything that has been happening in my life recently.
So, in short, I’ve seen hot air balloons, sung along with Taiwanese rap, begun teacher workshops and been asked out by a student already. This year is going to be fun.
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