My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

We’re packed, loaded, and on the road. The Michigan Flyer bus takes travelers from East Lansing to the Detroit airport.

Our itinerary takes us from Detroit to Chicago, then to Seattle, finally to Taipei. We are scheduled to arrive in Taipei at 5:15 am local time.

Packing day is Thursday. This is what we are taking to Taiwan. Will it fit into our suitcases?

We’ve “inherited” some stuff from my predecessors. The Academic Advisers accumulate stuff while in Taiwan, then hand it off to the new guy when he comes. The program officer dropped a load of household goods at our apartment, so it will be waiting for us when we get there on Sunday.

There’s also a clothes dryer, which has to stay outside on the balcony, because there’s no exhaust port on it.

Welcome, and thanks for taking the time to read this post. You’re probably here because you got a link from me. This post is some introductory and background information about my plans for the 2009-2010 school year.

Huge news:

I was selected to be a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan. Specifically, I will be in Yilan County, which is on the northeast coast of the island. Yilan county is marked in red on this map:

Yilan County, Taiwan

My job responsibilities will focus on training and mentoring American English teachers who will be teaching in select elementary and junior-high schools throughout the county.

As I’ve talked with various people about my Fulbright award, I noticed a theme in the questions that they asked, so in true computer geek form, I’ve compiled a of frequently asked questions (FAQ).

Why Taiwan?

I got my start in language teaching in Taiwan. I spent a year there while I was in college, and I fell in love with the island, the culture, the people and the language. Subsequently, I lived in Taiwan for many years. My interest in language and language teaching originated from my experiences in Taiwan. So when the opportunity presented itself to spend a year there doing what I love, I jumped at it.

Wait, I thought you were a computer guy. Now you’re telling me you’re a language teacher?

While it’s true that technology-related work is my bread and butter, remember that I work in the Language Learning Center and the Center for Language Education And Research. I’ve always been in the language field, and my professional work has always involved language teaching and learning.

How long will you be there?

The award is for 11 months, from August 2009 through June 2010. We will return to the US in late June or early July.

Is your whole family going?

Yes, we operate as a team, so we’re all going along.

Your wife must be excited.

Even before our children were born, we thought that it would be great for them if we were to spend some time in Taiwan. My wife’s family is still in Taiwan, so this is a great chance for her to be geographically closer to them for a while.

What about your kids’ education?

Our boys will enroll in the local schools. Their Chinese is good enough for essential communication, and although their language skills aren’t high enough for academic work in Taiwan, that’s part of the point of bringing them. As a linguist and language teacher, I am convinced that the best (and possibly only) way to achieve high proficiency in a language is to spend a significant amount of time in country.

While we’re in Taiwan, they will take a few online classes through the Michigan Virtual High School, subjects that aren’t offered in Taiwan, so that they can articulate back to the US schools when we return, without losing time to graduation. We’ve talked with the schools, and we know what we’re doing. Trust us. 😉

Are your kids excited? Anxious?

As any parent can guess, they weren’t on-board when we first announced the plan. We got the silent treatment for a while. My wife and I are convinced that once they’re in a routine over there, they will be fine, and afterward, they will look back on this as a worthwhile experience.

While we wish that they had the same level of excitement that we do, we recognize that as the parents, we have insight and perspective that they don’t. They don’t like eating broccoli, either, but we make them eat it, because it’s good for them, and they will thank us later for making them. Sometimes parents have to make unpopular decisions. As I sometimes tell my boys, the family isn’t run as a democracy, but as a benevolent dictatorship.

Where will you live?

The Foundation provides an apartment for us. We actually found it ourselves when we visited Taiwan in June. Here’s my wife in front of the building:

Will you still be in contact with us in the States?

Of course! Taiwan has terrific Internet connectivity, and aside from the 12-hour time difference, we will be able to communicate via email, Skype, Facebook, and of course this blog. Feel free to drop us a line.

We shot this video in Yilan when we visited in June. It’s in the older part of town.

This Friday, July 31, will be our last day in the US until July 2010. We dumped all of the stuff that we need to pack onto the living room couch. It’s a big pile, but not as big as we thought it would be.

The boys received their iPods, and they’re feverishly downloading games, music and movies to them, in preparation for the long, long plane ride.

The program officer called us last night, telling us that the apartment is ready for us, and that she will meet us at the airport when we arrive in Taipei.

I think we’re ready!

This is Turtle Mountain Island, 10 km off the coast of Taiwan at Yilan. Picture taken from a mountain on the outskirts of Yilan.

It used to take four hours to get from Tainan to Taipei by train. Now it only takes 90 minutes. Is the island shrinking?

No, the trains are getting faster. Taiwan has a bullet train. For $27, you can take a high-speed train from south to north. The trains are on time, clean, speedy, and comfortable.

They look cool, too:

My in-laws live in Tainan, in the south part of the island. The live in the country, near the small town of Hsinhua (新化). Early in the morning, before it gets too hot, you can ride your bike through the fields to town.

Riding:

And you can get some good eats at 7-11!

When you need to get out of the sticky heat, where do you go? A coffee shop, of course. That’s where you can pay $2.50 for a tiny cup of coffee, but get free WiFi, A/C, and no one will care if you sit there all day. This is something that is commonplace in the US nowadays, but it’s something that I was enjoying in Taiwan back in the 1980s (minus the WiFi, of course).

I was talking about this with my mother-in-law this morning. She sais that she saw a mother and her child in a coffee shop one day. The mother was drinking coffee and doing paperwork for her job, and her child was eating a snack and doing his homework. My mother-in-law thought it was so strange that someone could actually get work done in that kind of environment. I told her that many people, especially college kids, find that they get more work done in a coffee shop than in their own room or even in the library. When they are in a quiet room with no distractions, they actually find it harder to concentrate.

In response to this, my mother-in-law gave me her famous sideways look that says, “I understand the words coming out of your mouth, but I think you’re out of your mind.” I find that when I try to explain my world to her, I often get look.