My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

Yesterday we visited two elementary schools in the remote village area of Nan Ao 南澳. It’s a 40-minute train ride from Yilan 宜蘭.

Here’s what the town looks like. Check out the mountains in the background.

The English teacher met us at the train station, and led us to the school, which is a few minutes’ walk up the mountain. The school’s population consists mainly of aboriginal children, so in addition English, the school also offers classes in the aboriginal language of the area.

Because of the remoteness of the school, teachers can choose to live in a dormitory, the cost of which is subsidized by the local government.

There is also another elementary school nearby. The English teacher teaches in both schools.

The two schools are each quite small, less than 100 students in total for grades 1 through 6. It was very different from most of the other elementary schools in the county, which can have 1,000 or more students.

After we visited the schools, it was time to walk back to the train station for the ride back to Yilan.

We finally got to a night market. The boys have been bugging us for years to take them to a night market, probably because we rave about the food and excitement that you find there. Luodong (the sister town to Yilan) has a famous night market, so this afternoon we took a train (10 minutes from Yilan, tickets cost NT$18, about 55 cents) to Luodong.

We had good eats (street food). We also saw some street performers. The guy doing tricks with the Chinese top was especially entertaining. Here’s his finale trick:

Typhoon Morakot was incredibly dangerous and damaging to the island, but it Yilan was spared almost all of it. It was headed directly for us, but then at the last moment, it shifted to the south. The eye of the typhoon stayed right over Yilan, so while the south was getting pounded, we had mostly cloudy skies with just a little rain. The southern county of Pingdong got more rain in the last two days than they usually get in an entire year. Some houses were swept away by the water, and many people were affected by the storm. For some reason, Yilan, which usually gets the brunt of typhoons because of its proximity to the ocean, saw almost nothing of this one. So if you were worried about us, don’t be – we escaped this one.

Yesterday our program coordinator, Kelly, gave a session on “keeping safe and healthy.”

First she had to tell us about typhoons. This was especially important because of the imminent arrival of the typhoon that eventually caused work to be cancelled for the next day. Kelly told us to stay indoors, because when the wind is strong, people can get hit by flying debris. She showed some videos on YouTube that an ETA took in previous years, showing people walking on the street and being blown over by strong typhoon winds. Some ETAs started giving each other nervous looks.

Then Kelly talked about driving. The ETAs will have to commute to their schools, so they will have to buy scooters. Many of the ETAs were apprehensive about driving a scooter in the first place. When she covered topics like defensive driving and what to do if you get in a scooter accident, some of the ETAs asked if anyone had ever gotten in an accident before. Kelly had to admit that yes, it happened. “How bad?” they asked. Well, one person broke her leg and had to be in the hospital for a month. That didn’t go over well with the ETAs.

Then Kelly had to move on to the next topic, which was avoiding predatory behavior from the local male population. Kelly asked the female ETAs not to go out too late alone, not to give out their cell phone numbers to people that they just met, and not to take a taxi alone at night. “Is harassment common in Taiwan?” some asked. Again, Kelly had to say yes, it does happen.

Next topic: earthquakes. By this point, we were all overwhelmed, so it was just funny. Many ETAs are from California, and others have been in China before, so few have never experienced an earthquake before. Still, it’s a scary topic. One of the local English teachers, whose English name is Ellen, had some advice for everyone. If you’re in a bad earthquake, don’t stand in a doorframe, but get as close as possible to your refrigerator. If the building collapses, and you get trapped in the rubble, you can survive on the food in the fridge until the rescue teams are able to pull you out. 😀

By this point, a lot of people were freaking out. I can remember having a similar feeling when I was about their age, the realization that yes, I am mortal, and am not immune to the bad things that can happen to people. So I thought that I should jump in and remind the ETAs that although some of the dangers that Kelly talked about are specific to Taiwan, nevertheless we face other dangers in the US as well. I talked about foreign scholars at Michigan State getting into accidents and having health problems. There are dangers everywhere, I reminded them, so you should always be careful.

It’s probably a good idea to give them a sense of caution, especially when they are still getting familiar with the environment here in Taiwan. Still, they had a pretty heavy afternoon yesterday.

Part of the orientation program for the ETAs is to visit the schools where they will be placed. We took a trip to several schools, so the ETAs could get a sense of schools in Taiwan, meet the English teachers, and ask questions.

We met in the local 7-11 in the morning.

After the bus arrived, we loaded up.

At each school, we were met by a teacher or a principal, who showed us around.

The ETAs got to interact with some of the kids at one of the schools. The ping-pong team was practicing, and a few ETAs asked if they could play, too. We went to the activity center and saw the kids practicing. There were about 10 tables crammed in the room. Ping-pong balls were flying everywhere. These kids were really good. They made room for one of the ETAs, who promptly got schooled by a kid who could barely see the top of the table. We later learned that that kid was the national ping-pong champion for his age group. Gulp!

Later, we ate lunch at the school. The principal was so excited to have so many “handsome men and beautiful women” in her school that she wanted a group picture. Her son was there, too, and he wanted to be in the picture as well.

The last school that we visited was far out of town, and was literally right in front of the ocean.

There’s a bay nearby, with excellent surfing conditions. For gym class, the kids learn to surf!

This afternoon we had an orientation session on keeping safe during typhoons. As long as we stay indoors, we shouldn’t be in any danger. Just in time! Typhoon Morakot is scheduled to make landfall on Thursday night. At 8:00 pm, we got notice that work is canceled for Friday. In Michigan, we have snow days. In Taiwan, they have typhoon days!

Can you even see Taiwan?

The Fulbright people met us at the airport. Besides my family, there are 16 “English Teaching Assistants” (ETA), who will be the teachers. These are recent college grads from across the US. Although we all came on different parts of the US, the foundation arranged everyone’s flights so that we all arrived in Taiwan at about the same time. After we had all cleared customs, they loaded us on a bus and drove us to Taipei.

We had about an hour in a hotel room to shower and change clothes, then we had to go to the Fulbright office to start the process of applying for our Alien Resident Cards, Taiwan’s equivalent of the US green card. We went to have our pictures taken, and filled out forms. We also had a brief Q&A session with the foundation people. I was very glad to have done all the information gathering with my predecessors, so I was able to answer many of their questions.

I am very impressed with this batch of ETAs. Many of them have studied abroad, several have studied Chinese and been to China. They’re very bright and enthusiastic. I am optimistic that they will be good teachers, and have a rewarding experience here.

Finally that day, we had a big welcome dinner at Hakka (客家) restaurant in Taipei. This was 12 hours after we landed in Taiwan, after a long day of traveling with too little sleep. Both Ian and Evan were pooped. Evan was literally falling asleep on his feet. Stacy decided that she should stay in the hotel with the boys, while I went to the dinner with the ETAs.

The director of the Fulbright foundation in Taiwan joined us for dinner at the restaurant, which is an old house of Chinese architecture converted to a restaurant. It was a very charming atmosphere. We had an absolutely HUGE dinner: ten dishes, plus three desserts. Most of the dishes were completely new to me, which shouldn’t have been surprising to me, but it was. After 20-plus years of exposure to Chinese food, I thought I had seen a large part of the range of dishes. I was wrong. Some of the ingredients were new to me, let alone the whole dish. It was very good food, and we were stuffed, but we left at least half of the food on the table unfinished. I felt bad about the waste, but this a part of Chinese culture is to treat guests to a lavish dinner. They sure accomplished that goal!

Our itinerary for going to Taiwan consisted of three legs: Detroit-Chicago, Chicago-Seattle, and Seattle-Taiwan. The itinerary had nice, long spans of times between, so we could get from gate to gate without rushing. I even went on the airports’ websites to look at maps of the terminals, and found out where each flight was leaving from and taking off from, so I could mentally map out the transitions.

The switch in Seattle had me worried. We had to change airlines and terminals, which meant that we had to check in with the other airline in Seattle. But we were scheduled to have three hours between flights, so I wasn’t worried.

The brown stuff hit the fan in Chicago. When we landed there, and checked the flight status of our next leg, we saw that the flight was delayed two hours, apparently because of weather. That gave us only one hour to make our connection in Seattle.

We immediately contacted the airline to make alternate arrangements. For some reason, the airline couldn’t come up with an alternative that made any sense. Our options were to fly back to Toronto then route through Hong Kong the next day, flying to Tokyo and then … nothing was available beyond that leg. The last option was to try to make the connection in Seattle despite the tight time. We decided to get to Seattle, try to connect, and if we didn’t make it, to try something else from there.

We also called the other airline’s office in Seattle. The guy who talked with us was very nice and helpful. We explained our situation to him, and he was very practical. “You have a 30% chance of making the connection,” he said, advising us to try. What about our luggage though? That was a different story. “About 5% chance” of our luggage making the connection. We figured that we could live without our luggage for 24 hours in Taipei, so we told him that we would be running to the airline’s counter as fast as we could get off the plane.

I sent a few panicked emails to the Fulbright people in Taipei, alerting them to the situation, and warning them that we might be a day late (I copied the emails in an earlier post).

Here’s where my faith in humanity got a boost. As the plane was descending into Seattle, we explained our situation to the flight attendant. She announced over the plane’s PA system that a family was trying to make a tight connection, and would everyone wait to get out of their seats and let them get off the plane first. And I still can’t believe it, but when the seat belt sign went off, not a single person got out of their seat! We dashed out of the plane to cries of “good luck!” from several passengers.

At this point, we still faced a dire situation. It was 1:20 am. The other flight was scheduled to leave at 2:10. In theory, that’s plenty of time, right? Well, remember that international flights begin boarding at least 45 minutes ahead of departure time, and the door closes before that. Departure time often means wheels-up time, or at least time to depart the gate. So we were really looking at minus 5 minutes to make the flight.

In March, I was flying with a colleague, and faced a similar situation. We tried and failed to make a connection in Minneapolis, after literally running from one end of that huge airport to another. It was a crazy experience, one that I didn’t want to repeat. That particular time, I wound up renting a car in Detroit and making it home at 3:30 am. I couldn’t imagine trying to get a hotel in Seattle at 1:30 am.

As we exited the plane, an airline employee was at the plane’s door, and pointed out our route. We raced through Seattle’s airport. We had to take a train to the other terminal, which added more time to the trip. All this time my heart was pounding, planning for the worst. I kept thinking of a mother and daughter in the Chicago airport, who had missed their connection. The mother was reporting the situation to someone on her cell phone, and her daughter was crying, clearly crushed by the experience. I didn’t want my kids to get upset if we missed the connection, so I tried to stay cheerful, spinning the experience as yet another adventure.

We raced up the steps from the train to the terminal, and rushed to the airline counter. Hundreds of people were milling around. Boarding had just started. We ran up to the counter and plopped our passports down, gasping that we were connecting from Chicago. The airline employees’ eyes popped and exclaimed that they were just about to close the flight. Another guy behind the counter looked at me, nodded, and said “You made it!” It was the same guy that I had talked to on the phone in Chicago!

He got on his radio and called down to the luggage handlers. In less than a minute, they reported that they had all of our luggage, and were putting it onto the plane. We had beaten the odds!

In retrospect, I think that it was smart to have called to the airline in Seattle. That gave them a heads-up. We also got lucky to have talked to airline employees who really cared about customer service. I’m convinced that because they had been alerted to our situation, they were prepared to move quickly. All in all, I’m very impressed with EVA airlines, and can highly recommend the airline, especially if you’re connecting out of Seattle.

The end of this story is that we had a comfortable (if long and tedious) flight to Taipei, and arrived right on time. As the saying goes, all’s well that ends well.

Yup, it fits!

Here are some emails that I had to send during our trip to Taiwan:

July 31, 2009 9:18:00 PM EDT

We are stuck in Chicago airport now. There is a delay in our connecting flight, so we probably will miss the flight from Seattle to Taipei. If we miss the flight, then we will try to get on the next one, but that does not arrive in Taiwan until the following day. We will try to get our flight, but if we do make it, there will be no way to contact you until we arrive in Taiwan.

If someone else should know about our situation, please forward this email to them.

I will try to check my email before we leave Chicago, so if there is anything you can do,…..

—
July 31, 2009 10:04:51 PM EDT

We talked for a long time with American Airlines, and there is nothing much that they can do. The only option that they have is for us to fly to Toronto tonight, then to Hong Kong tomorrow morning, and finally to Taipei, arriving at 4:00 pm on 8/2. We think that is ridiculous and impossible, so if we do not make tonight’s flight, then we will try to get on the same flight tomorrow (there is only one flight per day from Seattle).

So, if you don’t hear from us again, then we DID make tonight’s flight, but we didn’t have time to send an email. If you do hear back from us, then we did NOT make tonight’s flight, and we will give you our travel plans when we have them.

See you soon (but maybe not as soon as we originally thought, ha ha).