This was originally posted on blogger. Hello hello!

Happy New Year! This is the second installment of my biannual life update to friends and family. Keeping in touch is a two-way street, so please do feel free to share your updates – long or short – back my way.

In this issue I’ve writing about teaching English, Chinese language study, and adulting in Taiwan.

Be well all… and happy Year of the Rabbit!

Rohan

Teaching English

Amazingly, I’ve been teaching for over five months now. For many hours in a day, I’m the de facto adult in the room: the enforcer of rules, the master of ceremonies, the entertainer. Being a student is far easier – you just listen to someone talk, take notes or do worksheets. But teaching kids I hardly ever have a moment’s rest. I must my eyes on the kids around the room whilst ideating our next activity whilst teaching why Sam-I-am does not want green eggs and ham. Do the kids want “duck, duck, goose” or “the jumping game” next?

Some memorable moments have been telling a boy off for writing “f*#$” on the whiteboard, asking young Anne how she wanted to deal with her tooth that fell out during class, and scaring a first grader with my (I guess) creepy clown costume. It’s at these times that I think – wow, I really am an adult.

The students themselves are wonderful. They’re inventive, hard-working, playful, fun. We operate in a “language-immersion” setting which means that they’re only allowed to speak English (otherwise we do terrible things like take away stars or hold them after class). And even with their understandably limited vocabularies, I feel their personalities in full force. Each class is complete with its own class clowns, trouble-makers and do-gooders. I see myself in the kids – the quiet boy doing his homework early or the chatty bunch all feels like me at different ages.

I’ve learned a great deal about English itself. Why is it that “she teaches” but “I teach” but “we both taught”? When do you say “I saw that movie” vs “I have seen that movie”? And did you know you can invent an invention but you can’t solute a solution? English is a wild thing, especially for 7-13 year-olds. And it’s wildly different from Chinese, a language entirely without articles, past/future tense and even an alphabet. I’m slowly learning to find order in the chaos, and ways to present it all best to second language learners.

Teaching is a challenge, no doubt. But it makes me think and keeps me motivated and feels like something worth getting out of bed for.

related blogpost here

Chinese

Being in Taiwan is of course a way for me to be immersed in Mandarin, the official language of the island (they also speak Taiwanese Hokkien, though not often in official contexts; and there’s Hakka and a number of indigenous languages). I was thrilled when I arrived to find out that my Chinese is better than most people’s English. That’s been helpful, because though people like to practice their English and know a fair few words, they have little practice stringing together sentences and navigating the relatively complex subject of English grammar.

Which is to say I’ve gotten my fair share of Chinese practice. At times too much. When I first got here it hit me how much I don’t know in Chinese. My 7 years of study in middle/high school felt like it got me nowhere except “Hello. I am American. What is your favorite color?”. Conversations deviate rather quickly from that. My roommate Leon has had an excellent ear for Mandarin from the start – his parents are Taiwanese – and so I’ve often envied his ways of grasping the gist of a conversation.

But things have improved. I’ve been intentional about my study – much moreso than I was in school – and had plenty of places to learn new words and their applications. So after these six months, I feel confident taking phone calls, communicating via. text; and doing things like buying a new phone and or going to a Chinese-only speaking dentist (we made it work). I went to a co-worker’s New Year’s party and learned about my colleague’s friend who’s done ship maintenance in the Falkland Islands (in Chinese). It’s the little things that make me feel the 成就感 (sense of accomplishment). It’s quite the feeling to successfully fire off horrid dad jokes or make small talk – it tells me I’m getting somewhere. Of course many topics continue to elude my grasp. You’d find my thoughts on Korean dramas and mattress firmness rather lacking, to name a couple examples.

Language learning continues to be extremely fascinating. On the one hand, it seems to get harder and harder the more I do it (as I wrote about recently); but it also grows increasingly intoxicating. I feel closer day-by-day to understanding current events and the political climate in the Chinese-speaking world. Fascinating, to say the least, and markedly differnent from the struggles in Western politics. To some extent I believe in that old cliche quote, “to speak another language is to possess another soul.”

related blogpost here and the one linked above

Adulting in Taiwan

Being in Taiwan has also been my first time “adulting” in full force. I mean adulting in the way of having a real job, a paycheck every two weeks, bills and rent to pay, money to manage… the whole nine yards.

Most relevant is perhaps the fact of not being in a university environment. College friends and social circles are ready-made through classes, clubs and the campus space. But in Kaohsiung, a city of 3 million people, community must be intentionally sought after. In Chinese, they have a handy word 約 (yuē) which means to arrange time with someone. 約 maybe has become my middle-name, in that I do it as often as I can. But I think that’s the kind of proactivity that it takes to be social out in the real world. I’ve done my best to find my people. I do language exchange with two friends every Friday night; I play badminton with a group of people (who I just walked up to in a park) near work; I take a flute class at a Buddhist temple with a bunch of middle-aged ladies. And there’s people I’ve met at restaurants or through animal rights activism who’ve turned into good friends. I feel grateful for the people I’ve met, but there are times I feel lonely, maybe just by nature of being so far from my family and home of four years. I think that’s part of adulting, as well – to be comfortable in your own skin. I’m ever grateful for my buddy Leon, who came from Berkeley with me to teach and learn Chinese as well. Having a friend, roommate, and companion for this life transition has been really invaluable.

I’ve felt light on responsibility here, and in many ways that feels weird. In university it felt like there was so much I could and had to be doing at every moment. But in the work-force (if you can call teaching kids “the work-force”), I come home from class and basically have complete freedom over what I want to do. I’ve read a couple novels; sometimes I read books about Taiwanese/Chinese history and politics; I listen to Mandarin podcasts and endlessly review flashcards; I’ve gone biking late out on the city streets. Being free and financially independent is quite a trip. Did you know I could buy boba tea every day, and sometimes do?

And then there’s Kaohsiung as a city. People say that Taiwan is the heart of Asia, because people are so damn nice here. It’s true. And it’s especially true in the South. People are always open to talking to strangers, helping you on the street, or cutting you a discount on boba tea if you’re missing a quarter. Kaohsiung’s lacking in touristy stuff – in fact, if you came my best recommendation might be the public library. But to me, what feels more important is the day-to-day. In my own way, I feel myself becoming a Kaohsiung-er… learning the names of Kaohsiung’s streets, relaxingly into my morning cup of tea, and gifting guava to friends (the Taiwanese don’t hug, but they have other ways of saying 我愛你).

Many people ask, both here and in the states, how long I’ll stay in Taiwan, and what I plan to do next. I normally reply by flexing one of the two Chinese proverbs I know:且看且走 (to see as you walk) or 順其自然 (to let nature take its course). In English, I think that means I’ll stay until something else calls out to me, or until I feel I’m no longer living life to its fullest. Which basically means, I don’t know, and that’s part of the fun.