My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

I received some very interesting questions/comments from a friend, and I thought that more than one person would be interested in the answers, so I’m posting my responses here:

Q: Aboriginal artwork resembles Native American artwork. What’s with that?

A: You’re absolutely right about Taiwanese Aboriginal artwork bearing an uncanny resemblance to Native American style. Many people have commented on that over the years. The Aboriginal people were a stone-age civilization until the Chinese invaded in the 1600s, so it isn’t surprising that their culture was similar to that of the Native Americans. There are many unfortunate parallels between the two groups in how they were treated by the majority population over the years, by the way. 🙁

Q:About the marble in the soda pop bottles: if you push the marble down into the bottle, don’t people accidentally swallow the marbles?

A: Don’t worry about the swallowing the marbles in the soda pop. There is a large plastic cover over the bottleneck to prevent the marble from escaping.

Here’s a (pretty bad) video showing how it works:

Q: How’s Ian adjusting to school?

A: Ian is actually having some more problems finding his niche in school than Evan. He is in and out of school a lot, taking Chinese lessons at a local University, Fo Guang 佛光, running on the track team, and taking some classes via the Michigan Virtual High School. He is also used to having the teachers available to students before and after classes. He likes to ask questions and get follow-up information. Unfortunately, the teachers in his high school seem to leave school right after their classes, so Ian can’t find them.

Ian has also discovered a fatal flaw in the Taiwanese educational culture: students rarely ask questions in class. This should come as no surprise to American educators who have have Taiwanese students (or from other Asian countries) in their classes. The culture here has teachers as sages on the stage, and students as humble and passive receivers of knowledge and wisdom. Of course this isn’t the American way of learning, which Ian is accustomed to. He said that he only dares to ask one or two questions per class, because after that, he starts getting weird looks from the other kids in the class.

Although this isn’t the best experience for Ian, it’s still a valuable experience, and we don’t think that the year here will warp his brain (too much, anyway).

Thanks for the questions. Keep them coming!