Thanksgiving in January

This is horribly late... But better late than never.. Right?

As you all know, one of the major holidays in the US is Thanksgiving. Considering the fact that there are no Indians or Pilgrims in Taiwan, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here. I wasn't really planning on doing anything to celebrate.. Well, I was planning on getting a little bit homesick and then skyping my dad's side of the family and wishing I was there so I could eat all of the yummy food (I miss mashed potatoes sooo much), do a puzzle with my cousin and try my hardest to kick my extended family's butts at cards. Alas, it was not to be...

I told one of my Chinese teachers about this wonderful holiday and everything I was missing in a "Look at what we do in America!" sort of way. She must've seen my homesickness because she came by during one of my other Chinese classes (Don't forget, I have three Chinese teachers), and asked if I wanted to do something during lunch for Thanksgiving.

Heck to the yes!

She and two other teachers went and got two pizza, two roasted chickens and two huge bottles of Coke. They brought it back to the school and we had quite the feast! The pizzas were interesting. One was American style- I think it had pepperoni on it- and the other was a shrimp pizza. Believe it or not, I liked that shrimp one better. :3 The chicken was super yummy. We ate them with plastic gloves.. Which was interesting..

There were six of us. Me, two of my Chinese teachers, (Katy and Lizzie) a two student teachers, (I know one's name is Pobby) and one of the PE teachers (I don't know her Chinese name.. It sounds really close to Ron-Ron so that's what I call her in my head)

While we worked our way though all of the food, we talked about the differences between life in the USA and Taiwan and a variety of other things.. They even tried to teach me a bit of Taiwanese but I don't remember any of it. After we finished our food, Katy, Pobby and I borrowed some guitars from the music classroom and Pobby taught me a Taiwanese song about friendship. (I think...) It was pretty nifty :) After that, I joined Ron-Ron's PE class for a little bit. We played kickball. It was super duper fun :)

All in all, my Thanksgiving was pretty freaking amazing. I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Yes, I am still alive

Hello! It's been too long since I last wrote. More than a month. Bad Kathryn. I would've written sooner but I changed families and blogspot decided to be a butthead and not work unless I have Google Chrome. The school computers don't have Google Chrome and I haven't figured out how to get on the internet on the computer at home... :( I will remedy that ASAP. I also didn't know where to start since so much has happened since I posted... I've decided to dedicate today to getting everything written down. I'm pretty sure it's going to take alllll day. Uhg... Where to start...    

Lovely Language

So.. I went to speak Japanese the other day and it came out this awkward mix of Chinese and Japanese... wo daisuki ni... (I'm pretty sure my Japanese isn't even correct.) It took my Chinese teacher looking at me like I had grown a second head for me to realize my mistake. It was embarrassing.

Maybe this means my brain is finally switching over to Chinese.. One can only hope.

Speaking of switching to Chinese...

So.. This is a close up of the sheet music for the Taiwanese song.
I didn't have it completely translated until about a week ago so I had to
mumble through the last half of the song. I felt really special.

There is going to be this big choir competition at school tomorrow. I have no idea what's going on other than
1) My class is going first
2) I have to wear my skirt and short sleeved shirt
3)Each class is singing two songs: Alleluia (Canon?) and a song of their choosing. My class chose a song called, wait for it...


母親的名叫台灣 

Yah. Imagine my reaction when I got the sheet music. It was something along the lines of.. You expect me to sing this? haha I can totally read Chinese. I don't know what your talking abo-It's Taiwanese?! Great. Never mind. I take that back. HELP!!

I now know it's pronounced Mu Chin E Mia Gyo Daiwan and a rough English translation is Mother's Name is Taiwan.  It's actually a really pretty song. (I found a video of the Kaohsiung Chamber performing this song here. The only difference is that we don't have guys to sing it with us.)

I'll let you know how things go tomorrow. I'll even bring my camera and see if I can rope someone into taking pictures so you can play Where's The Foreigner :)

You have Mail :)

One of my best friends, Aubrey, is on exchange in Bolivia. According to her, internet in Bolivia is not as... available.. as it is in the US or Taiwan. Because of that, we have to resort to snail mail. :)

To be honest, I've never corresponded with someone via airmail. I've never really had a reason to. Emails have always been more convenient so this is a welcome change.

(Granted, I totally cramped up my hand writing my three page response but whatever)

Getting this letter was really exciting. I talked a little bit with Aubrey this morning on FB and she asked if I had received her letter yet. (To which I replied 'No.. :(' ) Our conversation continued and eventually came to a close.

My day went on as usual.. PE, Chinese, lunch, naptime... It literally flew by. Soon it was time for dinner. When I went downstairs for dinner, my host mom had a little surprise for me.....

Mail from Bolivia <3

Mail! From Aubrey!! Super duper exciting! Today's been a really good day but tearing open this little white envelope was certainly the best part! :D

I read the letter while I quickly ate dinner and then I booked upstairs to write my return letter. It looks something like this......

Don't ask me why it's sideways. I blame the camera. :)

********

On to other things...


Yilan has the weirdest weather. It can be overcast when I go to school, sunny after about 9am and raining when I go home. I'm too lazy to check the weather in the morning so it's always a surprise.

It rained a whole bunch on Tuesday (my host mom got mad at me for riding my bike home in the rain..) But these last few days have been really really nice. So nice, I was motivated to take my camera with me to school. :)

These top two pictures are from Wednesday morning. I'm really happy with how the colors turned out. They were taken on the road that I take to get to school. I've been meaning to take pictures of this area but never had my camera with me.

The bottom three were taken around 5pm. Same road as before but from the opposite direction. 

One thing I love about the scenery here is that the mountains look like they belong in an ancient Chinese scroll painting. (With good reason considering the artists based their images off their surroundings..) 

Funny little tidbit about me...

When I was little, whenever the sunset was particularly breathtaking, my mom would always say something about how god painted the sky. I don't really remember her saying that (she told me the stories) but I've always seen the sky as a huge canvas and my surrounding are a picture to be taken.

There are more pictures in Worth a Thousand Words :)

***********
I feel like that last part didn't make sense.... But I can't think of how to make it make sense... Ahh... I'm losing my English and I really can't speak Chinese at all.. HELP!

I'm gonna stop before I confuse you even more...

Byeee

K

2 Months??

The girls of Yilan <3

As of today, October 25th, I've been in Taiwan for two whole months. I really don't know how this happened. I feel like my sense of time is all twisted.. (Or broken. It's most likely broken.)  It seems like yesterday that I was getting ready to leave and at the same time it feels like I've been here for an eternity. School is painfully long and yet the days fly by.

Watch, all a sudden it will be Thanksgiving... and then Christmas... and then New Years.. Then my birthday... Chinese New Years.. Valentine's day... Easter.. Dragon boat festival... the year end trip...

It's rather mind blowing when you put it in perspective with holidays and events, eh?

I vacillate between wanting it to be the end (because then I will finally be able to speak Chinese and my Taiwanese friends and family can start planning their trips to see me in the US) and wanting Hermione Granger's time-turner so I never have to reapply for a visa and can stay here forever. :D

Anywho... I have nothing else to say except time flies and I wouldn't trade these last two months for the world. :)

~K

Erhu and Jia Ren Gu

Hey all!

I have quite the list of things to tell you about. Hopefully it will make up for my lack of an update..... Pfft. Who am I kidding? Of course it will. ;)

I'm going to start with this afternoon because, well, it was pretty freaking awesome.

This is how far we biked.

 Lea and I went exploring today. We got out of school early and rode our bikes around Yilan. We found a variety of things. A Domino's Pizza, several tea shops, a book store and a park...

As cool as those things are, they weren't our main accomplishments for this afternoon.

We managed to have two conversations in Chinese. Not one, but TWO!!! How amazing is that?? We were pretty stoked. The first took place at a store that sells uniforms and went something like this:

Lea: do you have Lan Yang bei se mao yi? (Lan Yang's white sweater)
Shopkeeper: wo you (I have)
~Lea tries it on~
Me: duo shao qian (how much?)
SK: si bai ba ($480)

We learned colors and the names of clothing about a week ago but never really had a use for it until now. :)

The second occurred at the park. We were sitting at a table chatting when a woman in a bright red shirt stopped her bike beside us and started talking to us. I can't quote that conversation word for word like the last one but we managed to convey that we are exchange students (not that our hair/skin color didn't do that for us); that we're going to be here for one year (yi nian); that we don't have class right now (sheng ku? meiyou); that Lea is from Canada while I'm from the US (wo mei guo/ wo lai zi janada).

Granted, we still didn't get 70% of what the woman said but if you compare it to how much we would've understood last month (which is none of it) I'd say we did pretty good. :)

********

I fell in love last week.

We were in Chinese class when we heard this obnoxious squawking noise. Our teacher, Kim, told us that the Chinese orchestra practicing in the building next to us and that the sound was from the an instrument similar to a trumpet.

Our curiosity was temporarily quenched only to be rekindled when we went to relocate to the library. Our gazes Kim asked us if we wanted to go look at the orchestra.

How could I possibly say no?

We walked down a short hallway and up a set of stairs, all the while listening to the most interesting sound. We turned a corner and what is that??

This, my friends, is an Erhu also known as the Chinese Violin. It was love at first sight, no joke. There were about 7 girls sitting around practicing and one of them was nice enough to let me and Lea try them. She taught me how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Oh my god. Life made right there. I can die now.


.....
..........
.....


Okay, maybe not. But when I can make music like these people THEN I can die a happy woman

Erhu Solo
Coldplay's Clocks  <


********

I am a kung fu fan master ninja. Beware. :)

********

My other fixation is this song.

「佳人歌」李延年

北方有佳人
絕世而獨立
一顧傾人城
再顧傾人國
寧不知傾城與傾國
佳人難再得

Jia Ren Gu - Li Yan Nian

Bei fang you jia ren,
jue shi er du li
Yi gu qing ren cheng
Zai gu qing ren guo
Ning bu zhi qing cheng yu cheng guo
Jia ren nan zai de

A rare beauty from the north, she's the finest lady on Earth
A glance from her, the whole city goes down
A second glance leaves the nation in ruins
There exists no city or nation, that has been more cherished
That a beauty like this.

 Jia Ren Gu is commonly studied in Chinese/Taiwanese schools as a poem but it was originally a song. The composer, Li Yan Nian, was a government official/court musician. He wrote this song to advertise his sister to the emperor. The emperor was intrigued by the mysterious beauty from the North and ordered that she come to court. He married her and she eventually was promoted to the status of wife/queen. (I don't know the exact details but this is the best summary I can give without Wiki-ing anything)

Beauty Song (Jia Ren Gu)


The clip is from the movie House of Flying Daggers. (That movie is EPIC). I first heard this song in that movie. I'd pretty much forgotten about it until I went to go find videos of people playing the Erhu and I stumbled upon this video. I remembered how much I loved it so I told my Chinese teacher that I wanted to learn that song... I almost have it memorized. I can hum the tune and sing the first line.. :)

*********

I have more to write but I'm out of creative juices for tonight.. No promises about updates because I've been pretty bad about following through.. Enjoy the videos :)

K

Fireworks

I just gotta say I love love love looking at where my blog is getting hits from... Russia, Chile, Australia, the UK, Sweden, the US, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Czech Republic, Taiwan.... Sometimes I can guess who represents which country and other times I have no clue!


I saw fireworks out my bedroom window the other night. These are totally illegal in Oregon so it was really special. So special I decided to share it with YOU!!

I took the video sideways not thinking about what it would be like when I posted it. I'm smart. I promise. ;)

Oh and the reason it sounds fuzzy was because it was raining. 

*********************

So I kinda had fun with messing with the blog today.. I spent well over five hours (while chatting with my mom) adding two new pages.

The Fine Details is a little opening blurb similar to the Better than Wikipedia. If you want to see my Chinese typing skills head over that direction. I doubt much is going to change about that page. I might add a recording of me speaking Chinese that I've been meaning to post for a while but I think I'll leave it for another lazy day.

Worth a Thousand Words are all the pictures I haven't figured out how to incorporate into posts but I felt like sharing. For the most part, they're in chronological order starting from the bottom. I'm planning on posting more  pictures every now and then, so periodically check back. I'll do my best to let you know if there are new pics but no promises.

I also went back through my older posts and added some pictures to break up the text. :)

I'm pretty proud of my work but I'm a total graphic design nerd.

Shortest post to date but I don't feel like I can add anything else and still have it be relevant....
I'll probably write something later this week because I have several good rants floating around my brain


K

It's Raining! It's Pouring!

Certainly nothing new to a girl who's lived in Oregon for her entire life. In winter we don't get snow, we get rain and lots of it. One full winter alone offers more than enough time for rain-based thought and I've often thought about how much bank you would make if you somehow collected all of our rainwater (God knows we don't want it) and send it off to somewhere that needs (read: wants) it like, say, the Middle East or the Sahara desert.

All this to say, I thought I knew everything there is to know about rainy weather.

Enter Typhoon Nanmadol.

This lovely little rainstorm (sarcasm) has been watering the parched landscape (more sarcasm) since Friday.

I've already had several run-ins with Typhoon Nanmadol, the most notable being when I was soaked on my way home from the train station Friday night. Lucky for me, it's still warm when it rains so I'm not sick.. Yet.

The typhoon spited me again yesterday when it made going to the top of the second tallest building in the world (Taipei 101) completely pointless. Not happy. I had to walk around a mall that literally reeked of riches instead. That was torture, let me tell you.

The only good thing it's done is free me from school at 11am instead of the usual 5:10pm. A flimsy reason you might say, but check out these photos --->

LOOK AT HOW DEEP THAT WATER IS!!

These girls are only in ankle deep water but there were spots where the water went halfway up my calf!

Not only were the track and field completely flooded, but walkways of the lower levels on some of the buildings were almost non-navigable from all the water. (It was more annoying than anything else because the water was quick to soak any part of you it could reach.)

Needless to say, by 10am everyone had removed their wet socks and rolled up their pants. Some even ditched their shoes so they could take a romp in the newly created Yan-Lang lake during their twenty minute break.

I am unashamed to say that I joined them and frolicked like a little water nymph. I couldn't stay away. When the girls went back to their classes I made up excuses to leave so I could walk through the monster puddle.

Not that I really needed the excuses. Nobody expects me to stay in class anyway...

It's now almost 5pm and still raining. Maybe we won't have school tomorrow... Crossing my fingers AND my toes on that one. :D

I wonder if all the tricks you do to summon snow days would work for typhoon days... Hmmm....

Zaijan!
Kat

By the way.. these pictures aren't mine. Credit to 李怡萱, 戴婕, and 柯苦馨! Thanks for posting these pictures ladies!

Adventure Time

I have quite the story for you. I'm almost positive that every traveler worth their salt has had an experience like this so it should make it all the more laughable. (I meant to post it last night but I was so tired, I started to not make sense. Soo you get it a day later. :) I'm too lazy to change the tenses so pretend you're reading this at 11 o'clock pm on Saturday night.I think it actually makes more sense that way...)

******

Ana and I... Aren't we pretty? ;)

This morning, Ana (my Brazilian friend) invited me and Leanne (who was MIA for all of Saturday) to go to the Luodong night market. I said yes and, typical me, put off asking my host mom until just under an hour before I was planning on meeting Ana.

Can you see where this is going? I'd like to call it the Path of Laughingly Epic Failure. It's really pretty this time of year. The trees have just started to turn purple in preparation for the coming fall. Nights (and days for that matter) are steadily getting cooler and despite the weather, there are actually quite a few people around... Sorry. I couldn't resist. Back to the story.

For the last several nighttime outings, my host mom has given off the vibe that she's getting irritated with driving me places. She's been an absolute doll about it don't get me wrong, but I could just tell that she was getting close to her breaking point. It was only a matter of time before she decided that something needed to change.

Tonight was the night. It was time to learn how to use public transportation.

Gulp.

I've never used public transportation by myself. In Austria, Ines (my Austrian twin-sister) took care of all that. My only responsibility was to make sure that my tush got on/off the train when Ines' did. Any other encounters with public transportation were handled by my parents as I was too young to work it myself.

Granted, my hometown isn't big enough to have an underground or anything nifty like that, so transportation is limited to cars, bikes, walking and buses. There are some pretty... interesting... people that take the bus so that was never really encouraged. Eugene is a total hippy town too. A lot of people are super eco-friendly and ride their bikes everywhere. That and (I swear to god) it's pretty much a cultural thing to have a car and drive yourself around. All of these factors added up to me not ever needing to learn how to use public transportation.

Anyway.

Here's what was supposed to happen.

1. Ride my bike to the train station
2. Catch a bus to Luodong
3. Hang out with Ana
4. Take the bus back to Yilan
5. Bike home.

Theoretically, problem isn't.

Reality. Problem is...

1. My host mom drove me to the train station because we mutually decided that I don't know how to get there.

2. We couldn't figure out where I should get on the bus. We spend a good ten minutes driving in circles before we asked someone where I should wait. I ended up sitting on the curb about a block away from the train station.

3. I watched two buses pass me on their way to places unknown before I got up to ask the driver of the next bus if that bus goes to Luodong. (Think about how much easier this would be if I was with someone who spoke Chinese.)

4. The bus driver wasn't too terribly helpful (stupid language barrier). The only thing I got from that conversation was "No. Seven." and he pointed back towards the train station and the 7-11 on the corner.  I decided to try the 7-11. All I got from them was "Train Station" Okayyy. Back to where I started then.

5. I went to the train station and found the time table. You'd think that would make things easier. Not so. I wasn't able to decipher any of it. (Chinese...) So I went to the visitor's center and asked the guy there about the Luodong bus.

His answer: "uh sorry. There isn't a bus to Luodong. You're gonna have to take the train."

You're kidding me. My mom spent a good twenty minutes trying to figure out where I need to go all for nothing!

6. I went back into the train station and bought a ticket to Luodong. That wasn't very helpful either. No boarding time or platform number. I decided to wing it and went to the guy manning the gate into the platforms. He gave me the most helpful piece of advice.

"Platform 2"

Xie xie!

I made my way over to platform two and see a train waiting. I double check my not-so-helpful ticket. Naturally, it lived up to it's name so I decide to wing it again. I go on the train and quickly found a seat.

7. To pass the time, I came up with nearly all of the worst case scenarios.

What if I'm on the wrong train? What if I end up somewhere so far away that I can't get back? Oh god. Oh god..
No. You're fine. You know where to sto- 
!%$^ I don't know how to get to the night market from the train station. Im doooommmmmmmeeeeedddddddddddddddddd.
Kathryn. Stop it. You figured out how to get to Luodong. Don't even pretend that you don't know how to ask people how to get there. You know that these people are nice and that they want to help you. Knock. It. Off. 
But what if they're a rapist and give me the wrong directions and stalk me and and and... hionsdfgb saerahiganergtlkaergdosdfhstnnnnxffffyj..........
You done?
...Yes.
Good cause we're here.
Gulp.


8. It took me forever to figure out how to get to the night market. It was ridiculous. First I tried to find a info desk or tourist center. (No luck there.) Then I went to the ticket counter and asked the person working how to get to the night market.

"...bu do (I don't understand)." He handed me a pen and paper so I could write the question. "Night market? bu do."

Really?! Gahhhhh.... xie xie.

Then I tried calling my mom. No dice. She told me to ask people. (Lovely. Thanks. I'll plan on see you later then. No promises though) I tried the little convenience store in the train station next. Just my luck, the guy didn't speak English. I went outside and called Ana in hopes that she would be able to hand the phone over to our friend Nina who is fluent in English AND knows the area.

Nope. No help there.

Super easy right? 

Then I saw the map. Could it be? Did I just find the X that marks the spot? I rushed over and found that, yes, I had in fact struck gold. Here was the train station and there was the night market only some five blocks away! Hurray!

I quickly snapped a picture on my phone for future reference, asked someone if I was on the right street and I was on my way.

I found the McDonald's where I was supposed to meet Ana at with relative ease and from there the night was an absolute blast! We ate good food, did some shopping, and talked about all the things that were new, different, and exciting in our lives.

****

Please tell me you laughed at this. I know I'd be laughing my butt off if this happened to one of my friends, so you don't need to feel bad. I'd be a failure as a person and writer if you didn't even smile a little bit. I know I can't wait to tell this story in person. (Mostly for the gestures, facial expressions, and vocal changes. ;D)

Does anybody think they can top this? Comments/emails are welcome!

****

There will be another post soon. Probably tomorrow. :)
~K





PS- I'd just like to say that I don't know if "bu do" is the correct pinyin translation. All I know is that "bu do" is what it sounds like to my untrained ear. Anybody who speaks Chinese is free to correct me. 

Pictures pictures pictures pictures pictures pictures pictures....

Eureka!

I've done it!

I finally got the computer in my room to go on the internet (Thanks Jerry!) and now I can post pictures!! Whoopie!! :D

I'd post them all in one folder titled "Taiwan" and leave you to figure out what's going on but that goes against my inner perfectionist. (She does exist...She just doesn't come out to play as often as she should ;D)

Soooooo... here's how it works. So far there are three folders. (To those of you who are my friends on FB, this is all old news. Skip this next part)

August/September

Host Family Pics

Luodong Night Market

I hope you enjoy this glimpse into my life as a foreigner in Taiwan. To those of you living vicariously through me, I hope my writings and pictures are enough! It's been amazing so far and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!

Now. Enough with the sappiness. You have pictures to browse. SCOOT!

XOXO
~K

Dearest Auntie Tam

At a beach in/near Su-ao

Is the suspence killing you yet? Have I delayed writing long enough? Or should I wait longer next time I post?

I have no suitable excuse as to why I havent written. I could say it was because I was frightfully busy, or that I fell of the face of the planet, but that would be a lie. Nor can I say that I had nothing to write about because truthfully, I have more than enough writing material and a plethora of stories to share.

I guess its just a matter of sitting myself down and forcing whats in my head out through my fingers and into this computer. Haha

Ready?
Set!
Go!

*****

So...

This last weekend was the Moon Festival. It's one of the three most important festivals in the Chinese calendar. The Chinese New Year and the Dragon Boat Festival hold the other two postitions as most noteable.

Me and my Baba

From my understanding, this festival is basically an excuse to have BBQs with friends and family. The family part is important, so important that my host dad came over from Mainland China to be with us for this festival. Up until this weekend, I'd never met him. It was really cool because his presence added a certain livelyness to the family. You could tell that they missed him. He went back to China yesterday and I can't wait until he comes back.

Even though we spend the entire weekend "partying", Monday was the actual festival. My family went to Leanne's house. (Apparently my mom and her mom are cousins.) It was a fun gathering. I tried my hand at BBQing and I failed miserably the first time around. It wasnt meat, it was charcoal on a stick, no joke. Everybody there was making fun of me. Hell, I was making fun of me it was so bad. I had to bully Leanne's brother into teaching me how to do it so I didnt further shame myself as an American. I mean, Leanne and I were competing for goodness sake.

Honestly, I didnt care that much about shaming myself. I just wanted to know how to do it without charcoaling everything on the grill. Haha

Anyway...

BBQ at Gustavo's house

Taiwanese BBQs arent anything like American or Canadian BBQs. They don't have big grills like we do in the US. They use little portable BBQs. They're acutally kinda cool because you can only do a small amount of food at one time so multiple people can cook throughout the night rather than just having one cook. They also cook very different things. (Big suprise there). Chicken heart and pigs blood are the most...exotic.. of all the choices. There was also corn on the cob, fish, pork and shrimp. The main differences were that the shrimp still had their heads and it was the full fish rather than just a fillet.

Im going to another BBQ this weekend in Luotong for one of the exchange student's birthdays. I'm super excited for that. I went to a BBQ at his place last friday night and it was falling down funny.

Drunk Uni students + Kareoke = The best night of my life. Just sayin.

****

Hope that satisfies your curiosity Auntie. :D

Until next time!!

Kathryn

A Chinese Alphabet??

Did you know that Chinese has an alphabet?

Neither did I. 

I heard about it my first full day here. I was at Leanne's house and one of the Brazilian kids was showing off his skills at Bopomofo, which is the common name of the alphabet. The characters system is called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols (MPS).

Here's how it works. There are initial sounds -- which I've written below along with their pinyin translation -- and the final sounds... Essentially consonants and vowels. 

We looked at the initials in my first Chinese class. I'll explain it to the best of my ability. 

The first eleven are pretty easy. Just read them like there's a "uh" after the letter. Buh, puh, muh, fuh....... 

ㄅ b 
ㄆ p 
ㄇ m
ㄈ f

ㄉ d
ㄊ t
ㄋ n
ㄌ l

ㄍ g
ㄎ k
ㄏ h

These three are said with a big smile :) 
ㄐ j       "jee"
ㄑ q    "chee"
ㄒ x     "shee"

Curl your tongue back in your mouth for these. 
ㄓ zh 
ㄔ ch
ㄕ sh
ㄖ r      

"r"  is the hardest to pronounce because it sounds like a mix between a j and an r. Your tongue gets pulled back the farthest for this one. 

These are like a hissing sound. 
ㄗ z 
ㄘ c
ㄙ s


Fun fact: Chinese keyboards have both English and MPS. I separated the characters above the same way that they're separated on the MPS keyboard. It goes from left to right. The initials dominate the left side of they keyboard while the finals reside on the right. The four tone buttons are above the groups of three. If you're having a hard time visualizing this and have a iTouch/iPad/iPhone, the MPS keyboard is called "Chinese - Traditional - Zhuyin." Check it out. That's your homework. :D

Knock knock!!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Interrupting cow.

Interrupting cow--MOO!!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Hatch.
Hatch who?
Bless you!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Repeat
Repeat who?
Who! Who! Who! *sounds like laughter*

Knock knock
Who's there?
Mary
Mary who?
Merry Christmas!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Koni
Koni who?
Konichiwa!

These girls are so clever :)

*******

You know, I've never had problems with math. More often than not, the classes were so easy that I could read something like through the notes and still manage to ace the tests.

Not so in Taiwan.

The language barrier is putting me at a distinct disadvantage here (No need to point out the obvious Kathryn)

My class is learning geometry at the moment. Sine, cosine, tangents, the works. I learned all this freshman year... And to be honest, I barely remember any of it. Maybe it was because I hated my teacher or maybe its just the long summers and lack of use have effectively erased all but basic recognition from my brain.

For example, I took three pages of notes and still don't remember how to get from the "cartesian coordinate" to the "polar coordinate" (I swear to god, they use different terminology over here... Or maybe it's just been THAT long.) At least they use the same mathematical formats otherwise I would be completely lost.

Luckily for me, our teacher Peter is falling down funny. He frequently stops the class and asks me questions or writes the English words on the board.

"What is this called in English?"
"Uh.. Arrow? Equal sign? Something in the middle? I don't know. I don't think we have a word for that..."

"You know the Basic Theory of Algebra right? 1199 Gauss. Gauss. You know Gauss"
"Um no. I feel like it goes by a different name in English but it's been like two years since I've studied this so I'm really not the person to ask. Hehe sorry."

He told me at one point that if I'm gonna be taking his class that I need to have the textbook... I think he was kidding. *crosses fingers*

*******

I talked with the woman who's giving me Chinese lessons today.

Guess what she told me!!

The window into my classroom.. You can see the class rep
Camel through the window

I get to spend half of the day at the university learning to cook!! How freaking cool is that?!

To those of you that didn't know, I spent my last two weeks at my (biological) mom's baking something different everyday and then I made an array of sweets for my going away party. I don't know why, but I've been on a cooking kick lately and spending half of my day learning to cook is probably going to be one of the highlights of this experience. I mean, this ability will be hard to lose and honesty, how many people in the US can say they can cook traditional Taiwanese/Chinese food?

Don't give me any smart alecky remarks about people who grew up here and immigrated. I'd say they aren't included in the group of people we'd be polling for this statistic. Not to downplay their ability or anything but they simply don't count.

*******

I finally went to go get my alien residency card today. (haha I'm an alien. OooOooohhhhhh) I left school right after lunch to do so. It's still kinda awkward to be in the car with my host mum as neither of us speak much of the other's language. Although this is mostly pretty annoying, it does allow for me to observe my surroundings.

The stairs up to my classroom..

Today I saw a woman texting and driving her scooter one handed. Just think, they just passed a law about texting and driving in the US!

Bike+cell phone
Scooter+cell phone
Car+cell phone
Which is worse?

Its the funniest when you see a person on their bike and texting because, really, you can't get going that fast and you end up moving in a funny swervey line... It's a marvelous visual. The scooter combination looks plain dangerous and a car combo gets too much publicity. But that's just my humble opinion ;)

Driving here is insane. (and that opinion is NOT humble by the way.. Lol) People pull u-turns wherever they want and it's an awkward dance to get to school. There's this one s-curve on my way to school that's murder. I'm so not excited to be biking that one later. I'll post a picture as soon as I figure out how exactly I'm going to upload them (it hurts me to write that... I pride myself on being quite the techie... Or at least in comparison to my mother ;) )

*******

Wednesday is no AC day. I want to cry. I feel so sweaty and gross. I don't think I've ever wanted a shower this bad. At least we get to have the fans on and I wore my skirt today. Soooo much better than pants! :)

********

I got my schedule today! :D
For the most part I have class with the girls... Pretty much I get to hang out and read (hope you don't mind Dad :) ) I'm gonna write out my schedule (don't creep on me, I will use Kung Fu AND Taekwondo on you!!!!). Class with the girls will from now on be known as... 212! Lol

(English is with the girls... It's just labeled specially on my schedule.)

Monday- Chinese, PE, English (2hr), lunch, cooking lessons at the university for the rest of the day

Another picture from outside my classroom.
The striped building is where all the teacher's offices are.

Tuesday- 212, Chinese (3hrs), lunch, 212, music with class 108, English, hang time in the counseling office with Leanne (known as Leanne lol)
Wednesday- English, Chinese (3hrs), lunch, Kung Fu (2hr), 212, Leanne
Thurs- 212, PE, Chinese, 212, lunch, 212, English, 212, Leanne
Friday- 212, Art with 104, English, art with 205, lunch, english, music, 212, Leanne.

Exciting huh??

Here's the mind boggling part. I get to school by 7:20 and get out at 5:10. Yah. I thought my day was long in the US (a humble 3:22). Yah, I've been proven wrong on so many levels!! So no complaining!! You Americans get out earlier and understand everything. Double whammy right there. Buuuuuuuttt it could be worse. I could have to go to cram school after class is out. :)

********

I must say, it was wonderful to read everybody's comments and see all the 'likes' on Facebook. It's nice to know you all are having fun living vicariously through me. (Notice how that wasn't sentimental? :P)

Drop me a line. Hit the Like button. Join my fanclub. Whatever floats your boat. :D

Till next time!

K

School!!

As promised, here's the second post. Hopefully this is easier to write than the last one. Lol

***********

Uniform shirt and pants...

School. Freaking scary on its own. Teachers, fellow students, projects, homework... You know the vibe. Or at least you think you do until you add in that extra element of not understanding a WORD your teacher is saying.... Unless it's my English teacher, Allen (I hope I got his name right lol) He goes back and forth between English and Chinese, seemingly at the drop of a hat. Its pretty nifty :)

Anyway,  I was a tangled mess of nerves when I went to school this morning. I felt self-conscious in my uniform (you're SURE it's not too big?) and like I stood out like a sore thumb (well duh you did Kathryn. You're tall and blond. Not much you can do there) My steps were quick as I made my way to the councilors office. He lead me to my class and that sickening feeling in my stomach deepened.

What if they don't like me?

Shirt, skirt and socks. Perfect for hot weather

What if they can't speak English?
What if I totally bomb my speech in front of the entire school?
OH MY GOD, WHAT IF?!

I told you I was a mess.

"This is the new exchange student. She's from the US" said Mr Chen.

Or at least that's what I thought he said. I don't quite speak Chinese.

The girls in the room looked at me. I looked at them, you know, that awkward expectant look that near decides it all. Then they were all surrounding me.

Whats your name?
Where are you from?
Do you speak Chinese?
Are you a rotary student?

All a sudden I wasn't feeling so ill. The more questions I answered, the better I felt. I met Winnie ("like Winnie the Pooh" she was quick to assure me) who was a fellow rotary kid. She was one of the potential outbound students. She was the girl who, for all intents and purposes*, held my hand for that first hour or so.

Now that's not to say the rest of the class wasn't interested. I had quite the crowd around my desk, each girl a well of questions and information both.we all chatted until it was time to go to the opening ceremonies.

The only good thing about
this is my hair...

Now that was interesting. Leanne and I sat on stage with the staff and watched as the girls quite literally filled the auditorium. I'm pretty sure the amount of people in that room broke several fire safety laws. Maybe they're different here. Lol
As an overview, the ceremony consisted of the national anthem, the school song, select students taking photos with the principal (who is freaking adorable) wile holding awards of some sort, an introduction of the teachers and of the resident exchange students, aka me and Leanne.

Now for the details.

During the teacher introductions, the students would scream and cheer for their favorite teachers (read: crushes) It was freaking hilarious. I feel like a lot of American parents would get their knickers in a twist over such blatant adoration for the attractive male staff. Either way, They have good taste ;)

Now, Leanne and I had to give a one to two minute speech about ourselves. That was a riot. Leanne wrote hers out and I completely winged it. Mine went something along the lines of;

Principal: *handing me the mic* English or Chinese
Me: English.
*laughter*
Me: 你好! My name is Kathryn. I'm 16
*collective gasp/murmuring*
Me: *thinking* Okaaayyyy. What did I say wrong? *keeps talking* I'm from the US, Oregon to be specific. Now I dont speak a lot of Chinese but I hope to learn. You all seem super fun and I'm excited to be going to school here.... Thank you..?

Not bad right?? I'm hoping not. I got a lot of cheers afterwards. That has to be a good sign. :)

After that we went back to our class and I started talking with two girls from my class. (I feel really bad for not remembering their names :( )

Guess what we talked about. Yah. That's right. Boys.

This is my default flirting face. Bwahahah kidding.  

Do you like Serbian boys?
Uh. Sure? I don't know if I've ever seen a Serbian boy.
Oh. What kind of boy do you like?
Ummm...Europeans? Africans. Yah definantly Africans.
*Squealing laughter*
What do you think of the last guy on stage?
The one with the long hair? He's hottt.
*more squealing*
We like you a lot.

I was pretty much on cloud nine after that. These girls are amazing. They helped me get lunch, taught me some Chinese phrases, and even went as far as to have someone sitting next to me and translating parts of our history and ethics(?) classes so I could get the gist of it all. <3 <3

I'm so excited for tomorrow!!

Till next time!
K





*Notice how I used the phrase right Mom? ;)

Beginnings...

This is probably the fourth time I've rewritten this stupid post. There's so much to tell and I feel like I'm behind on it all. Ive put waaay too much effort into something that should be simpler than breathing. So here's what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna post this and then write a whole new post about my first day of school. Luck you. Two posts in one day.

Sorry about any awkwardness... Im going to try and make it as logical as possible :)

********

Wednesday- August 24, 2011

4:00- #%$&!!! I was supposed to be up an a hour ago!! Mom! Wake up!
4:20- I think that's the fastest I have ever gotten ready for anything. *closes the car door* Whew!
4:30- The airport doesn't look that busy... Double Whew!
4:33- Auntie Carla!! Hi!! I can't believe you made it!! *hugs*
4:40- Wait a second, you're telling me that I have to go find this magical thing you call "United counter" in the San Fran airport to get my last ticket and I might have to re-check my luggage?! *chokes*
4:42- You can check my luggage straight through?? *jumps over the counter* *hugs the woman* thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
4:45- *inline for security* *slightly worried* hurry up.. My flight is boarding in ten minutes...
4:50- *front of security* ohhhh group hug!! Bye mom! Bye dad! See you next year! .... Oh my god I just said that out loud... Weird. *goes through security before the sobbing starts*
4:53- that shirt looks familiar... Graham? Oh hi it is you! Where are you going? LA? Cool. Oh me? I'm going to San Fran....

********

And thus I started the greatest adventure of my life. (that statement is so cliche lol)
16+ hours in the air, customs, one airplane dinner, security, five airports, one book, numerous naps, one rotary blazer, another two rotary blazers, security again, six rotary blazers, a rousing game of Fruit Ninja, and conversations with fellow exchange students. All these things filled the hours between Oregon and Taipei. It all lead to the moment when I stepped off the plane into the muggy airport in search of a bed, food and a brand new family.

I so far, I've found everything I wanted and stumbled upon a whole lot more.

For starters, Humidity isn't as bad as one would think. They have the system down to the T. There's at least one air-conditioning unit in every room and in outdoor performance areas there are misters. Not that the misters are that important because it's always pretty moist. I think one of the coolest things is that the rain is warm. Yah, thats right. Warm. In Oregon, the rain is that miserable combination of cold and wet. Here it's warm. I'm pretty sure that people think we exchange students are crazy because we just walk around sans umbrella. But then again, they have their umbrellas out when there is barely a drizzle so the feeling goes both ways. ;)

*****

PF Changs has nothing on real Chinese food. It's so Americanized it isn't even funny. I have yet to see anything that looks remotely like lettus wraps or 'Shanghi Cucumbers'. The flavors are nothing I have ever tasted. Its rare that you find something as sweet or carb infested as doughnuts or a PB&J sandwich.... But then again, I couldnt tell you half the things I've eaten since I got here so that last statement should probably taken with a bag of salt. All that I can tell you is that it always comes with rice and chopsticks and more often than not you actually eat most things out of your rice bowl. No plates necessary. It all takes some getting used to but I'm hoping that by Thanksgiving I'll be good.

*****

I found it surprising how quickly I became friends with the other exchange students in the area. Call me crazy but I thought it would take a whole lot longer. We are quite the group that's for sure. Leanne from Canada, Ana from Brazil, Carlos from Mexico and me. There are more exchange students but the four of just got back from a two day trip to central (?) Taiwan. That was loads of fun and deserves it's own post.. Anybody interested?? ;)



Till next time,
K

Better than Wikipedia

您好! Nin Hao!

My name is Kathryn and I am the authoress of this blog. I am going to be an exchange student to Yilan, Taiwan. Mandarin Chinese is my chosen form of communication followed by the dialect of Taiwanese. At the moment, I know little to no Mandarin. Anything that I 'know' is carryover from eight years worth of Japanese and that's still not much. Side note, my brother thinks it's funny to take the names of countries and add -ese or -ish to the end and say that his new word is the official language of that country. Austriaish, Americaese, Canadaish... you get the picture. Imagine his surprise when I told him that yes, Taiwanese is an actual language.

Taiwan is an island off the southeastern coast of China. It lies on the Tropic of Cancer and, according to Wikipedia, is roughly 10 miles north of Oahu, Hawaii. The northern part of the island has a rainy season that lasts from January through late March during the northeast monsoon. The entire island experiences hot, humid weather from June through September.  My hair is curly and by curly, I mean that it has a mind of it's own. Somehow, my hair and I have come to an agreement over who's boss. I'm not sure how that agreement is going to hold up in the humidity. The only thing I know for sure is that there is no way I'm going to be able to straighten it. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

Taiwan was first 'discovered' by the Portuguese in 1544. They were so enchanted by the landscape that they named the island Ilha Formosa or the Beautiful Island.

My new hometown of Yilan (宜蘭市) is located in a northeastern part of Taiwan and in a county of the same name. I honestly don't know much about it. I tried looking on Wikipedia but there wasn't much information. When I find out more, I will definitely share. Haha, that's the point of this blog isn't it? To share my experiences. 

I'm so much better than Wikipedia.


K