The Taiwanauts

We had always talked about taking the family to either China or Taiwan for a year. We realized that the 2017-2018 academic year would be the best timing for the kids’ school, but it seemed hard to disconnect from work and everything else at home in California. However, when Mike quit his job in April 2017, we started talking about this adventure as a concrete possibility. By mid-June we had committed to taking the kids out of school in the U.S. for a year, and by mid-August we were in Taipei!

Other countries have always fascinated me, be it anywhere from France to China to (who would’ve guessed?) Taiwan. Our family loves to travel, and I have often glanced up from the novel I’m currently reading (I’m a complete bookworm) and found myself in all corners of the world: Europe, Asia, and South America, to mention a few. But those trips were all short vacations, nothing longer than a month. Though I’ve always fantasized about living abroad, my daydreams always took place far in the future somewhere during or following my college years. So I can’t say I ever imagined living long-term anywhere but the United States until I was much older, which is why I was so shocked when my parents asked Clifford and I how we would feel about moving to Taiwan for a year.

In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. When my brother and I were younger, my parents had often talked about living somewhere in China for a while to improve our Mandarin. Clifford and I grew up speaking Mandarin with our mom, who was born in Taiwan, and until third grade we took part in the Mandarin-immersion program at our school. After that, we went to a Mandarin program on the weekends, and later took lessons from a tutor. So I can speak Mandarin pretty well, but my reading and writing falls somewhere around a fourth grade level. My parents thought living abroad was a good way to improve these skills, but I guess I never really took them all that seriously, being so young at the time. We certainly have our fair share of visits to China, and even one to Taiwan, under our belts, but I definitely didn’t expect to be moving to one of those countries.

Unlike Clifford, I was… fairly upset, to say the least, when my parents first brought it up. In fact, for several months, I refused to even talk about moving whenever my parents mentioned the subject. I didn’t want to think about leaving all my friends behind for an entire year, or, even worse, being a grade behind everyone when I returned to the United States. Over time, though, I came to be as excited about the prospect of moving as the rest of the family. I had been on the brink of relenting for a while, but I think the moment I finally made the decision was the one following a remark made by Ms. McGourty, my school counselor in the US, when I discussed with her the possibility of moving: “Think about it like this. Could you forgive yourself if you didn’t take this opportunity?” I thought about that for a split second, then came to my conclusion: no, I couldn’t. In that split second, several things were going through my mind, one of which was what I talked about at the beginning of this post. I love adventure. I love the thought of the big, wide world out there, just waiting for me to explore it. And I love all the diverse cultures, people, languages and religions that come with it. In that moment, I knew this was one chance I simply couldn’t waste.

When I first walked into 民族國中 (Taipei Municipal Minzu Junior High School) on the first day of school, I didn’t know what to expect. I made my way up the two flights of stairs with my entire family in tow: my dad, mom, and brother had ALL insisted on coming along for the ride. The second I stepped foot in the classroom, I could feel the stares. The fact that I was a 外國人(foreigner) was enough to set off the whispering that immediately broke out upon my arrival, not to mention that I wasn’t even wearing the correct school uniform, having just registered the day prior. To make matters worse, my overenthusiastic family waving from the window of the classroom was not really helping matters. (see the above picture of me *politely* asking my parents to STOP TAKING PICTURES AND LEAVE) That was obviously a mortifying experience, but once I got past it, I immediately began feeling at home. At first, my classmates were afraid to talk to me, presumably because they weren’t sure if I could speak Mandarin. This problem was easily solved by someone (I don’t remember who) asking bluntly “你會講中文嗎？(Do you know how to speak Chinese?)” I answered that I did, and the tension seemed to ease. Now that I’ve gotten to know them better, I am so thankful for my classmates. Whenever I don’t understand a teacher’s question, they explain it to me with patience. When I can’t read a test, one of my friends will help read it to me. It’s not just my classmates, either. Many people have come up to me in the hallways, library, etc. and asked me everything from “Why did you move to Taiwan?” to “Do you dye your hair?” It’s such a funny experience having so many people constantly interested in my story: I’m almost a celebrity here! I’ve formed so many wonderful friendships with so many kind and funny individuals, and I will look back on these memories with a smile long after I’ve left Taiwan.

Yesterday, we went to the beach at Tam Sui. First we took the metro to Beitou to drop Charlotte off with her friends, but we ended up being a little late so Charlotte’s friend’s mom had to come back to get her on a scooter.

After we dropped off Charlotte, we continued on the metro to Tam Sui and ate lunch at a sushi restaurant. Then, we walked to the Ferryboat Wharf and got a two-foot-tall frozen yogurt in a cone. When we finished the frozen yogurt (which took quite a long time), we got on a ferry which took us to the Fisherman’s Wharf.

At the Fisherman’s Wharf, we took a bus to a stop in the middle of nowhere, climbed over a stone wall, through a bunch of trees and broken fences to get to the beach. The beach didn’t have any people on it, but had these really cool tide pool things with little riverbeds flowing into the sea. In one of the tide pools, there were little Hermit crabs scuttling around, and when my dad picked one up, it tried to pinch him, but its claws were to small so it couldn’t pinch him and so it hid in its shell.

I had a fun time on the beach playing in the sand. First i made a dam to stop water from spreading all over the place and only got into a canal I had dug. Then, I made the canal thiner the farther I dug it so the water would flow fast. Next, I let the water flow into a little tide pool I made. When I finished, I put a few stranded clams in to the tide pool. The canal kept widening, so I was constantly putting more sand to patch it up. In the end, the dam that I had made broke, so I let the water flow as it wanted.

In December, my friend Samantha from my figure skating team in the US visited us in Taipei during her school’s winter break. However, most Taiwanese don’t celebrate Christmas/Hanukah/other winter holidays, so there are no winter breaks at Taiwanese public schools. Naturally, since we celebrate Christmas and since Sam was going to be in Taipei for a while, we decided to take an extended “religious holiday.” 😉 During that time, Sam and I went skating at Taipei Arena, visited a temple, took a trip to the Taipei 101, and one day, went on a “leisure tea tour” in a minibus with her extended family (aunt, cousins, grandparents and all) We made several stops, including one at a noodle factory where we made our own hand-pulled noodles! We even got to try them at the end, prepared with their famous sauce. (unfortunately not the ones we pulled… the staff informed us that there were several other steps before our noodles would be ready to cook, but I’m pretty sure they just put them back in the dough pile as we were at times a little overenthusiastic with the pulling) After that, we headed to a tea plantation to pick tea leaves, fry them, and drink samples of different teas. (again, not the ones we picked… this time because “those aren’t in season anymore”… are you sensing a pattern here?) But forgive and forget, right? Especially because they also provided us with some delicious tea-infused sweet peanut bars for a snack. (I ended up buying two bags to share at home.) All in all, I had a lot of fun on the tea tour and with Sam, and I can’t wait for my other friend, Mea, and our violin teacher, Ms. Mann, to visit later this year! Thanks for reading, and I hope I persuaded you to come see us in Taipei too!

Frying tea leaves with Sam!

大隊接力 – Relay Race

In school we have P.E. just like any American school. We have badminton, basketball, dancing, baseball and relay races. The relay races are a little different from the ones we have in the U.S.,and are called 大隊接力(which roughly translates to “relay races with a big team”). 大隊接力 is basically just a relay race, but with sixteen-twenty people. We had to chose who would run in the relay race, so in P.E. we each ran one hundred meters while the teacher timed us, I ended up coming in fourth so I got to be fifteenth in the lineup for running.

Before the relay races, we were all really nervous because if we won, we would have to go to represent our school for the next race. During the race, I was even more jumpy because I had never run very competitively before, but it turned out to be easy and fun. All I had to do was cheer, grab the baton, run, hand the baton to the next runner and cheer again. We were all really nervous as it came down to the last runner as the other teams were catching up, but just managed to squeeze into first place.

While on the plane back to Taipei from our break in Indonesia, I looked up at the map screen on the back of the seat in front of me. I was shocked never to have heard of any of these places!

• Palawan Trough
• Kota Kinabalu
• Bander Seri Begawan
• Miri
• Long Akah
• SULU SEA
• Sandakan
• Jolo
• Zamboanga
• Butuan
• Davao
• Koronadal
• CELEBS SEA

They sound like place names out of an Ursula K. Le Guin novel! I felt like I was looking down across the new cities built on Mars after it had been terraformed by Elon Musk. (Maybe I missed class on the day our Geography class covered SE Asia?)