My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

Even though there are still two more weeks in the semester, they will be occupied with review and prep for the final exams. Since our boys aren’t taking those tests, we decided to pull them out early. Tuesday, the day before the Dragon Boat Festival vacation, was their last day at school.

Evan’s school celebrated the end of the semester a bit early yesterday with a concert. Every member of the school’s special music class (20 students), which Evan was a part of, performed their solo instrument.

There were the usual instruments, piano, violin, cello, etc. One student played the xylophone!

Two students played Chinese classical instruments, like the PiPa

Evan played a nice Mozart piece:

Then there was a surprise: Evan’s classmates prepared a special song for him. They sang the pop song “I’m so proud of you.”

It was very touching and moving. At the beginning of the year, we were so worried about Evan. But he had a very good year at his middle school, and the experience will enrich his life.

This small town between Yilan and Taipei, called Fulong 福隆, is famous for its boxed lunches, called “bian dang” 便儅. There are places near the train station where you can get them, but also there are old ladies standing on the train platform, selling them to people as the train makes a quick stop at the station.

We were on our way to Taipei last weekend, and so we just had to have one of these marvelous things. Stacy volunteered to run off the train, buy some, then run back onto the train before it left.

Flagging down the bian dang lady.

Run! The train is leaving!

Got the goods!

The box reads “Fulong train station platform box lunch.” A descriptive, if inelegant, name.

It’s not hard to see why they’re so popular. They put lots of goodies in there, meat, vegetables, plus a whole hard-boiled egg  (most places cut them in half, then put the cut side facing down, so you can’t see that you’re only getting half an egg).

Yes, they’re yummy, and at NT$60, less than US$2, it’s a cheap lunch.

We’re in the Just Sleep hotel in Taipei. A couple of cute things to share.

First is the icon on the door to the toilet. Maybe a suitable caption is “convulsion room?”

Second is the tiny fridge. I love this little thing!

Because it’s situated along a fault line, Taiwan experiences earthquakes, has active volcanos, and has a plethora of hot springs. While visiting the national park on Tai Ping Mountain 太平山, we enjoyed the hot springs (200+ degrees, cooled down to a tolerable 107 degrees Fahrenheit) in Turtledove Marsh 鳩之澤.

I was observing a 4th grade class this morning. The teacher was covering the vocabulary for the new lesson. One of the words was “CD Player.” The kids had no idea what a CD player is.

The big computer trade show Computex opened in Taipei today. I managed to get admission to the show, based on my status as an academic. In contrast to academic conferences, admission to the show was free for me.

The show itself was like being in the computer section of a Best Buy store, times one thousand. I saw a lot of cool emerging technology, like 3D computer monitors, color e-ink readers, touchscreens of every size and shape, tiny video cameras that you can stick to your fridge and record video notes for your kids, and about a thousand different kind of computer mouse. Completely absent from the show were optical drives (not even a Blu-Ray).

And booth babes were everywhere. Ah, the booth babes. For those of you who don’t know what a booth babe is, it’s a young attractive lady dressed to the nines, whose sole purpose is to attract your eyeballs to the booth. While Chinese booth babes aren’t as buxom as they are in the States, the same effect is achieved.

The highlight of my visit came in the morning. I saw a huge group of press near a booth, so I figured there was either some bigwig from the technology world, or a local politician. It turned out to be the latter. The President of the Republic of China, Ma Ying-jiu 馬英九, made a brief appearance at the show. He walked right past where I was standing. Seeing him in person again was even more cool than seeing all the electronic gizmos!

The Taipei Zoo has made great strides forward since Stacy and I last visited in the early 1990s. For one thing, they have a pair of Giant Pandas.

They also have a very good selection of animals, like the Great Apes:

But the best thing about the Taipei Zoo has got to be the awesome Hippo Surfing: Kowabunga, dude!

Taiwan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, if not THE lowest. While this has positive effects for things like the carbon footprint of the island, the squeeze on the housing market, and the overall sustainability of the quality of life, there are serious long-term consequences, such as the pressure on the smaller next generation to support the large population of retirees who are living longer.

A more immediate negative side effect, one that we are already seeing, is the effect on the schools. Fewer babies means fewer students, which means less need for teachers. Of course, if we need fewer teachers, then we hire fewer teachers, and the ones who can’t get a teaching job retrain themselves for a different career. That’s the easy part.

The hard part is dealing with the need to maintain and increase the quality of education in the schools. An article in a local news magazine points out that this year, Pingdong County, the southernmost county in Taiwan, will have no openings for new teachers in the entire county. They need to eliminate 60 teaching positions in the county, and retirements and attrition will take care of all of the reductions. No new teachers will be hired in the county for next year.

As long as nothing else changes, then this shouldn’t be too big of a problem, right?

Unfortunately, the county has to increase the amount of English instruction, because of a national mandate.  That means that they need more English instructors. The schools can’t hire full-time permanent teachers, and so they have to hire hourly (US$8-10 per hour) teachers. You can imagine the caliber of teacher that they can find for that kind of money.

The quality of English instruction in the rural areas of Taiwan is already shaky. Lower birth rates will only make things worse.

Here’s the original article, for those of you who can read Chinese:

http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage.jsp?f_ART_ID=247523

Before you read this, let me just say, I know that I’m a dork. I admit it, acknowledge it, accept it, and even embrace it. Let’s move on.

My sister Margaret says that everyone has his porn. Well, for me, porn is a well-stocked stationary store. I am obsessed with pens. I am on a constant quest for the perfect pen. For years,my choice was the Pilot VBall (Extra Fine, of course). I carried it with me everywhere I went, usually in my shirt pocket. In fact, my sons still refer to this kind of pen as a “shirt pocket pen.”

In Taiwan, I fell in love with another Pilot pen, the HI-TEC-C. Here’s what they look like:

I know that you might be thinking: it looks kind of cheap. I agree. But don’t let appearances deceive you. This might be the perfect pen.

This pen comes in many size tips, from .18mm up to .7mm. The sweet spot for me is the .4mm.

I can’t say it enough: I love this pen. I bought one on December 1, 2009, and have been using it since. It’s almost out of ink, I expect it to run out any day now. I will actually be sad when this pen is dead. I will miss this pen. Yes, there are millions more available down the street in the stationary store, but let me say it again: I love this pen.

The point is small, so you can write small. The metal point gives just enough bite to the paper (I use a Moleskine notebook), and the ink flow is smooth and generous, yet never splotchy. The ink dries very quickly, so it never smears. This is as close to the perfect writing experience as I have ever had. And they’re cheap: for less than US$3, I bought a disposable pen that has lasted for six months.

Now that I’m looking down the gun barrel of my return to the US, I’ve started to look for places where I can find this pen in America. I have never seen this pen in the US. I might have to arrange for someone in Taiwan to send me a box of these every six months or so. Otherwise, I may go through withdrawal.

Yes, I know, and yes, I agree that it bears repeating, so let me say it for you: I’m a dork. I don’t care, though. I’ve been in writing heaven over here, and I don’t care what you think. 🙂

A huge electronics manufacturing company, Foxconn, makes a great number of electronics that are in use in the US, such as cell phones, iPods, computers, etc. The company does most of its manufacturing in China, but the company itself is based in Taiwan.

Lately several factory employees at a plant in China have committed suicide by jumping from the top of a building. Today was the 12th suicide.

The CEO of the company visited the factory yesterday, and as soon as he returned to Taiwan, the 12th suicide happened, and he rushed back to China.

The story is making headlines in Taiwan. On today’s evening news, an historian observed that Taiwan experienced a similar wave of suicides in the late 1960s, when the manufacturing sector here was first taking off. The same symptoms existed then: young people who moved to the city from the country to pursue economic opportunities, but experienced difficulties and lost hope. Maybe this is a side effect of economic development?