The Story of the Banana Kingdom and Fo Guang Shan

Thanks to New Years Eve and New Years Day, I had a four-day weekend last week, so my friend, Karina (another ETA in Hualien) and I took a 6 a.m. train to Kaohsiung, a city on Taiwan's Southeastern coast. Since most of the hostels and hotels in city were booked for the holiday, I reserved two beds in a hostel away from the city center. I didn't understand just how far away until after we had driven two hours on our rental scooter to get there.

Our hostel was in the Qishan township of Kaohsiung. Qishan is a charming, historical little community with many buildings and streets dating back to before the Japanese colonial period. It also happens to be the banana capitol of Taiwan. Banana cakes, banana tea, banana shakes and merchandise. Our hostel was called the Youthbanana Hostel and was located above a "Banana Creativity Shop." The entire place smelled of banana bread. The parks have banana sculptures and even the 7-11's have banana-themed wallpaper. Of course, we tried the fresh bananas, and yes, they were worth the hype.

Tiny banana cake

Banana bread

Banana-themed 7-11

The people in Qishan were friendly and helpful, even more than Taiwanese people usually are. They don't encounter a lot of foreigners there, so many of them came up to talk to me, which gave me a lot of opportunity to practice speaking Chinese. After we chatted for a while, they would often tell me that my Chinese is very good. I know they're just being nice to this sun-burnt blonde chick barely pronouncing tones, but I also think my Chinese has improved a lot while living in Taiwan.

Banana cart outside our hostel

The next day, we intended to set out at 9 a.m. for the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Museum, at which point we promptly locked the keys in the scooter. I began to panic, believing we were stranded and our day of sightseeing was instantly ruined, but we slowly began to figure the problem out. After we tried the nearest mechanic (closed) and the nearest key shop (also closed), I found another mechanic online and called them. Meanwhile, it seemed like everyone in the hostel came out to check on us. The mechanic drove to where we were, opened the front of our scooter, popped the trunk, and we had the keys back. I tried to give the mechanic money, but he refused, driving away without any pay.

So we finally got on the road to the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Museum. This sight, run by one of Taiwan's largest Buddhist organizations, is a massive complex containing several museum halls, hotels, a school, and a monastery. We entered through the main hall (which contained multiple buffets and a Starbucks) and exited onto a white tile courtyard. The courtyard, boarded by eight pagodas, lead toward the 40 meter tall, bronze-cast seated Buddha the site is famous for. Looking up at the shining statue gazing down with peace and kindness upon the visitors, one can understand why so many people make a point to visit this place while in Kaohsiung. In total, we spent over six hours at the site looking at art depicting the Buddha's life and disciples, visiting various shrines, practicing calligraphy, and sampling tea in the twins pagodas in the museum's garden.

However, the most moving part of the day for me happened when we first arrived. As we entered the main hall, we noticed young women in gigantic dresses and golden, lotus-shaped headpieces walking about, followed by men with drums and trumpets. Next thing we knew, we were front row for a performance by a college dance troupe from the Philippines. Right in front of us, the women and their partners danced and twirled as the trumpets blared. It was a beautiful, festive musical offering with which to start out the day. And I kept thinking about how if we hadn't locked the keys in the scooter, we wouldn't have arrived at the exact right moment to have that experience. Just like if I hadn't had to book a hostel so far out of the city, we wouldn't have experienced Qishan and all its charms. So much of my time in Taiwan feels like I'm stumbling from one mishap to another, but that stumbling at its worst leads to minor accidents and at its best leads to incredible experiences.

The Story of Five Months

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Best Wishes to you and your family, wherever in the world you may be!

Zhong Hua Elementary School

Now, this blog usually concerns adventurous ramblings around Taiwan and all the cool stories I stumble up along the way. But that's only a partial picture of what it's like living abroad. The truth is, I've been having some rough times the past couple of weeks. It's incredibly hard to be away from my family during the holiday season. As much fun as I'm having teaching my kids about Christmas in America and learning a lot about how they celebrate Christmas in Taiwan, I miss the warmth and familiarity of my traditions back home.

Performing a story at the school Christmas pagent

Besides the homesickness, I'm reaching the halfway point of my time here in Hualien and it's caused me to take stock of what I've done so far. There's a lot that's frustrating about teaching, especially teaching in another country. I only see my children for 1.5 hours a week, if I'm lucky, and that's not enough time to counter the political, cultural, and historical factors I feel like I'm up against. In the classroom, I often feel inexperienced and uncertain, and then I feel like my children deserve better than me stumbling through this process.

In periods of doubt, I hold onto the little moments I share with my students that make me feel like I'm having an impact, even a small one, on their lives. There's Tommy, a fifth grader who seeks me out in the hallways because we joke around about the gifs he likes and he found out that I'm learning Chinese just like he is learning English. There's also Jake, a fourth grader who I play "Up High, Down Low, Too Slow" with before after-school tutoring so that he goes into learning smiling. And in archery club, there's Zack, who really wants to be my buddy and has realized that if he wants to talk to me, he's going to have to practice his English. It's hard to get the students speaking English outside of class, but he's trying his best so that he can communicate with me.

A bracelet made by one of my students

Going to first grade Chinese class always lifts my spirits too. In Hualien, children don't start attending English class until third grade, so the only interaction I have with the first graders is when I am their classmate in Chinese grammar class. The students always come running when they see me, eager to show me that they can count to ten or say "Merry Christmas" in English. They are curious about everything about me. They gather around my desk to touch my hair, my earrings, even my scooter keys. I hope that in interacting with me, they begin to learn to welcome those that look different from them.

These past five months have been both wonderful and frustrating, welcoming and lonely. At the high points, I'm so glad I came here. At the low points, I try to remember my students, and they remind me why I am here in the first place.

The Story of Accidentally Climbing a Mountain

One aspects of Taiwan that surprised me the most is how quickly the land transitions from city to nature. You can be in the largest metropolitan area in the country, with a population of over 7 million people, and then travel less than 30 minutes and be in a wide open, nearly completely undeveloped green space. By contrast, in Minnesota, you can drive an hour outside of Minneapolis and still be in the suburbs. Last week, I had a free day in Taipei, so I took a bus out of the city to Yanmingshan National Forest Park 陽明山國家公園, for what I thought would be a day of sightseeing and light walking in this beautiful natural environment.

After the short bus ride, I arrived at the park’s visitor center late morning. The park attendant suggested I take the shuttle up to the beginning of the trail that led up and down the highest peak in the park. He described the hike as very scenic and very possible, so I thought why not and boarded the shuttle.

It’s not an overstatement to say that the shuttle ride was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. The bus was so packed I had to press against the other standing passengers just so the door could open at each stop. Several of the passengers had already been hiking and the cramped quarters smelled like it. The woman next to me spent the entire shaky, jerky ride hunched over, clutching her boyfriend’s arm. Thankfully, she didn’t vomit until immediately after we got off the bus.

As soon as the bus dropped us off, I smelled the familiar rotten egg scent of sulfur. To my right, gas erupted off the side of the mountain and floated down into the valley. Mt. Qixing 七星山 (in English, Seven Star Mountain) is Taiwan’s largest dormant volcano. This creates the hot springs and fumaroles that pop up along the stone steps leading to the top of the mountain. The trail snaked through tall Chinese silvergrass and Usawa cane, running over several peaks until it reached the highest one. The air at that elevation was clear with a slight chill. I began my ascent.

It turned out what on the map was only 1.6 kilometers to the peak was in reality a constant steep incline. At some points, my legs were bent into 90-degree angles climbing up the side of the mountain. Nearly every time I took a deep breath, I swallowed the pungent odor of sulfur. Dressed in jeans and sneakers and running on a few hours of restless hotel sleep, I was completely unprepared. But I had endured that hellish bus ride all the way up there, so I was going to make it to the top.

After about two hours, I did in fact make it. Standing on the peak, I could look out on the rolling green mountains of the park. On one side stretched the ocean and Taiwan’s northern coast, pointing towards China. On the other, I gazed down the valley to Taipei, the silhouette of Taipei 101 standing out among the skyscrapers. Beyond Taipei, the mountains spread on and on until they faded into the deep blue sky. Standing at 1,120 meters above sea level, I understood why the view was worth the climb.

I’ll try not to get obnoxiously metaphorical here, ala Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb.” But I will say that while living abroad, there are the mountains you expect, the ones you fret over the night before and meticulously prepare to climb, and there are the mountains you don’t realize you’re climbing until you’ve already begun. And by then, you’ve already came all this way, so you really have no choice but to keep going until you reach the top. The view from the top isn’t what you expected it to be, but it is vast and open and beautiful, and you are happy for the random combination of luck and effort that brought you there.

The Story of Sun Moon Lake

This weekend, I traveled to Sun Moon Lake, the largest lake in Taiwan, to help put on an English Camp at a local elementary school. Getting there was a hassle, because getting anywhere in Taiwan is a hassle, due to the mountains that take up much of the center of the island. To go Sun Moon Lake, which, as the crow flies, is about two hours away from where I live in Hualien, I had to take a four hour train ride up and around the northern tip and down the east coast, and then take a one and a half hour ride inland to the lake. By the time I arrived on Friday night, it was too dark to see the lake or practically anything in the area.

On Saturday morning, I met up with English Teaching Assistants from all different sites in Taiwan to prepare for camp. Our theme was space (because “Sun” “Moon” Lake, get it?) and we divided the kids based on grade level. Along with two other ETAs, I taught a group of eleven fifth and sixth graders. We decoded “alien” messages, designed our own planets, and drew flying rockets/boats. Beyond being energetic and friendly, the kids were all amazingly patient with the lesson. They listened carefully as we gave instructions in English, allowing us to reword or act out the instructions if there was any confusion. During the breaks, they talked to us teachers in English and let us teach them dances to American songs.

At the end of the day, I realized I had not spoken any Chinese all day nor had I heard much from the other teachers or the students. I was surprised because the amount of English used in a language-learning classroom in Taiwan varies widely. Teaching methods can fall anywhere between two extremes. On one end of the spectrum, the only English the teacher uses are the target vocabulary and sentences in the textbook. All instructions and descriptions in the classroom are in the students’ native language. The other extreme involves teaching entirely in English, modeling the instructions for activities and using tools like drawing and acting to describe new vocabulary. Some teachers of this style discourage their students from speaking in their native language at all within the English classroom. Elementary schools in Taiwan tend to favor the first, more Chinese language focused style, whereas higher grade levels begin to increase the level of English, striving for fluency (similarly, my beginner Chinese class at the local university contains absolutely no English during the lesson). But there’s a diversity of amounts of classroom English used even among the teachers I work with, as well as diversity from school to school and from rural to urban areas.

In my own teaching, I use as much English as possible, so my students can become familiar with a native speaker’s tone and pronunciation. But I’m not hesitant to use Chinese for brief instructions. I guess because I am a language learner as well, I understand how one’s mind can glaze over when confronted with too much unknown vocabulary. I also never want my students to feel like their native language is less important than English. My goal in teaching is to help my students graduate feeling confident and comfortable (though not necessarily equally so) with both languages.

But life here is not all linguistics and pedagogy (thank god!). Us ETAs had a free morning the day after camp, so many of us rented bicycles and rode along the lake. Taiwan is relentlessly beautiful and Sun Moon Lake is exemplary of this. Taiwan as a whole is very conscious of preserving its natural resources and, perhaps as a result, the lake is perfectly blue and surrounded by wilderness. Temples pop out from the thick forest along the trail, their red walls standing out against the green of the trees. Paddleboarders share the lake with gigantic herons that glide over the water before landing on tiny islands. Of course, Taiwan’s mountains frame the entire scene.

Sunday saw another late night return to Hualien. The weekend was so full and I was glad to be home. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to see Sun Moon Lake and to meet some awesome kids. Every time I travel around Taiwan, I realize I still have so much more to see and to learn about this place.

The Story of Taipei Pride

   

Last Saturday, I took a spur of the moment day trip to Taipei to attend the largest LGBTQ Pride Parade in Asia. This year over 130,000 people from around the world marched through Taipei’s streets, in an event that is part celebration, part protest. This parade was especially important because last year, Taiwan’s highest court ruled that current civil codes defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman were unconstitutional. The court declared that same-sex marriage will either be legalized automatically in May 2019 or as soon as November 2018 by referendum.

I took the 6:00 am train from Hualien through the mountains. I arrived in Taipei around 9:30 and took the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) to the 2/28 Peace Park in the Zhongzheng District. I walked around the park, observing its ponds and pagodas and massive 2/28 memorial, and drank coffee at a little café on Hengyang Road, before heading over to the square where the opening rally was beginning.

 

 

2/28 Peace Park in Taipei

Before the parade began, I met up with many other Fulbright English Teaching Assistants. All in all, almost 30 ETAS, representing all the different cities Fulbright Taiwan serves, attended the parade together. At 2:00 pm, along with thousands of people, we began to march through Taipei’s streets, waving flags and dancing. For over two hours, we walked alongside trucks blaring pop music, drag queens strutting in platform heels, and people of all ages wearing everything from kakis and button-ups to full latex bodysuits.

 

It was incredible to see so many people come together to express their identities, support one another, and work towards equality. One of the main reasons I chose to come to Taiwan is because of the country’s progress and democratization in recent years. This progress is owed to the many people like those in Taipei that Saturday who have taken to the streets to demand justice and freedom throughout Taiwan’s history. I returned to Hualien at midnight that day exhausted but grateful that I could play a tiny part in this great history of pride and protest in Taiwan.

Fulbright ETAs at Pride

The Story of Green Island

Hello! I’m off of school Moday because Taiwan is celebrating the Moon Festival. During the Moon Festival, Taiwanese families get together, barbeque sausages and corn on the cob, and watch the moon. They exchange the traditional holiday snacks of pomelos (green fruits that kind of taste like grapefruit) and mooncakes (round cakes filled with red bean paste and egg yolk). The holiday is based upon traditional legends about a woman who lives in the moon.

Since we had a long weekend, the other Hualien English Teaching Assistants and I took a train to Taitung City on the southeast coast of Taiwan. We spent the first day exploring the city and its nature parks on bicycles, but on the second day, we took a ferry out to Green Island.

We arrived on the small island around 8:30 am. From the harbor, we booked a short snorkeling trip. The guide took us to a coral reef right offshore. We floated along for about an hour and a half, watching parrot fish and angel fish pick their way through the coral and clown fish defend their anemones.

Scooter photos by Jenna Salisbury (Insta: @jssalisbury73)

Back on shore, we rented scooters and rode all the way around the coast of the island. Our scooters climbed up and down the mountainous terrain, the road snaking around miles of uninterrupted lush green forest. We frequently stopped to observe the incredible landscapes of the coast. On the northwest point of the island, a white lighthouse guards over the sea between Green Island and Taiwan. Green Island is a volcanic island, and black igneous rock outcroppings boarder the impossibly blue water and white sand beaches. Rock outcroppings with names like “Sleeping Beauty Rock” and “Pekinese Rock” rise out of the ocean just offshore. At one point, we stopped and walked across the “Little Great Wall,” a boardwalk that cut through the green shrubbery toward pavilions that offered expansive views of the ocean. It was the most beautiful view I had ever seen.

But there’s a darkness to this island. The Taiwanese government used Green Island as a penal colony for political prisoners between the late 1940s and the late 1980s. Under martial law, the government imprisoned on the island suspected Communist sympathizers, political dissidents, and ordinary Taiwanese citizens accused of one way or another being an enemy to the state. The government condemned prisoners to isolation and reeducation through hard labor on the island, with the prisoners never knowing when or if they would ever leave. This period in Taiwanese history is known as the White Terror and only ended in the nineties with the advent of progressive democracy in Taiwan.

The experience is surreal, to arrive on the ferry with a crowd of tourists excited for a day of sightseeing, knowing that prisoners once arrived with hearts filled with dread. These prisoners looked out upon the same sprawling coastal landscapes as I did and wondered if they would ever see their homes and families again. Locals refer to one of the natural rock formations tourists merrily take pictures as the “Gate of Hell,” because prisoners would pass through it on the way to the prison complex, not knowing if on the other end they would live or die.

The concrete prison complex still rises out of the wild overgrown green forest, serving as a memorial to all those who suffered there. One can now walk through the tiny cells of plaster walls and wooden floors where men and women spent years and even decades awaiting their fate.

It’s difficult to comprehend how a tiny island can represent both beauty and brutality, wonder and oppression, paradise and suffering. Green Island shows how much Taiwan has transformed in the last 30 years. It’s important to enjoy the natural beauty of Taiwan while also remembering the complicated and difficult context of the nation’s history. If you are ever in Taiwan, I would recommend you take the ferry out to Green Island to see both the landscapes of Taiwan’s present and the memorials to Taiwan’s past.