It has been a good week. The weather has been wonderful, so I’ve been able to get outside more than usual. Time is really beginning to fly, and I’m feeling the crunch of my final two months here in Taiwan. I guess I have been saying this every week, though.
Last Thursday, I met up with Hannah, Anna, and Julia from my cohort for a roast duck dinner. We all lived together for our first month in Taiwan before getting our school placements, so it was fun to catch up and reflect on the crazy first month we all shared. It feels like I am in a whole different place now. My memories of that first month have a sort of mental sparkle to them—so much newness and adjustment that every day felt like an adventure. I (obviously) still have great days here, but the novelty of Taiwan has worn off a bit compared to last August. I have to search a bit harder to find these awe-inspiring moments and experiences.
This roast duck dinner, however, was one of those moments. The duck came from a shop in Yilan near our old shared apartment, and you have to order your platter for take out a day in advance. No option for dine in. The duck came with thin millet pancakes, green onions, plum sauce, and a big plastic bag full of the less-pretty cuts. Anna brought (and cooked!) some birds-nest fern picked right behind her school, rounding out an awesome family-style meal. Making a little taco out of the pancake, plum sauce, onions, and roast duck produced a heavenly bite.1 Not sure exactly how they make this duck, but it was one of the best things I’ve consumed in weeks.
On Friday, the weather looked solid, so I zipped straight from school to Peng Peng hot springs for an afternoon soak. Eric, Hannah, and Anna came along too, and we relaxed and chatted for a few hours before heading back home. In the evening, I went to go see my fly fishing guide, Ding, who recently moved his rod building operation to Luodong. He grew up here and the fishing is better down this direction, making the move a no-brainer. His shop was unbelievable, chock-full of woodworking machinery, and I had a blast picking his brain about rod making, fishing, and everything in between for a few hours.2 Lucky for Ding, I had a date with Audrey in the evening, so my barrage of questions was cut short.
On Saturday, I headed into the mountains south of town to try a new-ish hike. A few weeks back, I tried to hike from Jiuliao Falls to Xinliao Falls and began down a treacherously steep staircase (approaching Xinliao Falls) before giving up and turning around. This time, I wanted to try starting at Xinliao Falls and climbing this staircase from the bottom (instead of descending from the top), but when I arrived, the stairs were roped off.3 Regardless, Xinliao Falls was stunning. I had to restrain myself from taking a swim in front of all the tourists snapping photos.
With the sky darkening a bit overhead, I hit a nearby hike leading to a lookout pavilion and tried to do some reading.4 At the pavilion, two young brothers fought aggressively with sticks while their parents yammered away on speakerphone(s), so my reading session was relatively short-lived.
I had been looking forward to Sunday for a long time. My host mother’s mother (host grandmother?) had offered to teach me how to make Taiwanese beef noodle soup, and this was the first day that we both had time.5 I headed over to her town house around 11am expecting a full-day ordeal, ready to jot notes and stay out of the way in the kitchen until dinnertime, if necessary. We (she) got to work immediately upon my arrival, leaving me to scrawl down the recipe and interject with questions when I was confused.6 All measurements were extremely rough, with most of them in 斤 (jin, 1 jin is 600g), which added to the confusion.7 The broth was a sweet, tomato-heavy broth with a ton of 豆瓣醬 (doubanjiang, or chili bean sauce) mixed in. She used fresh knife-cut noodles, which are the ideal chewy-thick noodle for this dish, in my opinion. I managed to get most everything written down, so if you want the recipe, shoot me an email. Definitely replicable back home, but might take some fine-tuning given the loose measurements.
Everything came together in just an hour and a half, and the final product was delicious. The whole family came over to eat, and we spent the early afternoon chatting and playing with my host mom’s 2-year-old niece. My host grandmother loves to fish and hunt for crabs and lamented to me that all her daughters found fishing boring. I’m hoping next time I see her we can do some fishing—her fishing spot is the same place where I went snorkeling last week.
I missed being home for Easter, but this was the best Easter I can imagine having while so far from family. I’m immensely grateful that my host family has invited me into their lives the way that they have. They are endlessly patient with my stumbling Chinese and constant questions about Taiwan, eager to involve me in family activities, and go out of their way to make me feel comfortable and at home. Repaying them for the kindness they have shown me would be impossible. I want to be more deliberate about trying to see them more often these last few months, as time is moving uncomfortably fast.
Tuesday was an entertaining day at school. My 5th grade students finally opened up their letters from my cousin’s students in Houston, and due to the difference in class size (4 here vs. 20+ in Houston), each of my students got 2-4 responses. Each response is full of a bunch of different questions, so I plan to put together some worksheets to help my students respond to all of them.
In the afternoon, me and Ms. Yeh were faced with a difficult task—teaching countable and uncountable nouns. Getting my students to understand why you can say “a hamburger” and “two hamburgers” but can’t say “a water” and “two waters” was not easy.8 To drive the point home, we poured out some water on the desk and asked them how many waters it was. Nobody could answer, and they seemed to understand better after that. I think the disconnect here is how things are quantified in Chinese—most nouns/groups of nouns have measure words and are not countable/uncountable, per se. For example, 一隻狗 (yizhigou) means “one dog,” with 隻 being the measure word required to make the phrase grammatically correct in Chinese. Unique measure words are used for trees and plants (棵, or ke), machines (台, or tai), objects with handles (把, or ba), among many other things. As a Chinese learner, measure words are one of the most frustrating aspects of the language. Nothing is without a measure word, so the divide of countable/uncountable does not exist like it does in the English language.
After class wrapped up, I sped south to Jiuliao Falls for an evening hike. The sun was beating down, and ascending the mountain near Jiuliao Falls, I was quickly drenched head to toe in sweat. I made it to the minor peak (where I’ve been a few times already) in about 45 minutes, so I decided to push on another 0.7km up the ridge to the summit of Jiuliao Mountain. I was glad to have finally made it to the top, and the beautiful sunset on the ride home was the perfect reward. It’s awesome having such a steep and compact hike so close to my house. I worked it out, and this hike (just over 2 miles each way) is actually steeper on average than the big overnight hike I am doing next month. I plan to keep hitting this hike weekly in preparation.
On Thursday, I joined my students on a field trip to the Yilan Green Expo. There were tons of attractions/rides/activities that relied solely on physics, with no electric components. It was cool to see, and it kept the hundreds of elementary schoolers prowling around the expo quite entertained. While exploring a Taiwanese aboriginal food and art exhibit, one of my 3rd graders (herself a member of the Atayal tribe) asked me which tribe I was in back home. I didn’t quite know how to answer, so I told her I wasn’t in one, and she seemed disappointed. Field trips like this help get to know my students on a personal level. I’ll speak Chinese with students in between classes sometimes, but most of the time they are busy playing or running around campus, so the conversations don’t last long.9 It felt like I spent all morning juggling 5 separate Chinese conversations at once with all my students, which was a refreshing change from the norm. I hope my students had as much fun as I did.
After the Green Expo, I headed to Taipei for a concert. Usually I save this sort of trip for the weekends, but this was not just a random bar show. I only realized Yin Yin was playing Taipei a few days ago, and had waited until the last minute to buy tickets. Yin Yin is a Dutch band that plays SE-Asian inspired disco & psychedelic tunes. My buddy Owen introduced me to them late last year, and I knew the opportunity to see a rock band I actually liked in Taipei was not one I should pass up.10 The show was amazing—YIN YIN’s live sound reminded me more of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard than Khruangbin, and their stage presence was infectious. The drummer emerged after the show to thank the crowd and introduce the band in Chinese (stumbling over typed pinyin in his notes app), a nice touch that the whole crowd really loved. After taking the bus back home, I was in bed by 12:30am. Not too bad for a weeknight concert.
Soundtracks to my week have included…
Nautilius by Yin Yin
Rhythm is What Makes Jazz Jazz by the Bahama Soul Club (whole album)
Blood and Roses by the Smithereens
Feel free to email me at bwcopel@gmail.com with any questions, complaints or concerns.
A taquito, perhaps
It was still being set up, so I sadly did not get to see any of the machines in action. Upstairs was a living area and a space set up for fly-tying classes. I hope these classes start before I head home.
This was definitely for the best. Descending/ascending these stairs was absolutely awful when I tried the first time. There were multiple sections where the stairs had eroded away, and I had to pull myself up with what remained of the rope railings. I figured starting on these brutal stairs wouldn’t be as bad as descending/re-climbing them after already climbing the opposing side of the mountain.
Probably more accurately described as a nature walk. It was only around 20 minutes to get to the top.
Many people hear “host mother” and assume I live with a Taiwanese family, but to be clear, I do not. All Fulbrights here are paired with a local family as a way to kick-start relationships with people outside the Fulbright program. People can spend as much or as little time with them as they choose.
My host mom was super helpful as a translator between us. Most of the steps I was able to figure out, but older Taiwanese people often speak Taiwanese better than Mandarin Chinese, meaning a heavy accent, which is tough for me to understand. I lack depth with my ingredient/cooking method/measurement vocabulary, so my host mom helped me ask questions, too.
From what I can tell, this is an exclusively Taiwanese measurement. A 斤 is 500g in China and 604g in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore.
I know that this phrasing is actually used pretty often, but telling my students this would have added to the confusion.
I continue to only speak English during class time.
Not to say other live shows haven’t been good, but enjoying a bar band is much different than seeing a band you already know and like.
We totally need to make some beef noodle soup when you get back?
So grateful for your host fam!!