Taiwan Opened Its Heart to Us

Helloooo readers! It’s Akeel again, here to give you all one final post about my time here in Taiwan. I just want to preface this post with a huge 感谢你们！That means “thank you all”! You’ve stuck with me throughout this awesome three week experience, and even though you may not have been with me physically, it was always nice to see the views on this blog increase every week. Hopefully you enjoyed reading it at least as much as I enjoyed writing it! Now with the formalities out of the way, let’s dive into this final post!

祝你生日快乐艾莉！(Happy Birthday Erica!)

Throughout my stay here in Taiwan, I’ve encountered so many wonderful people. From our TamKang liasons, Cindy and Travis, to my Chinese teacher, 孟老师 (Ms.Meng), people have dedicated so much of their time to making us feel at home in a country that, for most of us, is extremely foreign. That said, this week I felt it would be appropriate to discuss the hospitality of the people of Taiwan. As you may remember from my last blog post, Taiwan has a strong Confucian influence, and it is especially highlighted in their interactions with foreigners (10 points to whoever can name the Confucian quote that applies to this). For example,  Cindy, Travis and our two local student friends Elaine and Vina also helped us to plan a surprise karaoke party for one of our American classmate Erica’s birthday this past Tuesday! Now when I say helped, I mean booked the place, helped work out the time with us, met us at the subway to take us to the place, and stayed and did karaoke with us. It was probably the most fun that I’ve had here in Taiwan outside of...well New Year’s Eve which we also spent with Cindy, Elaine, Vina, and two of Cindy’s friends! I’m not going to say that there aren’t people in America who are willing to give up their New Year’s Eve celebrations to show foreigners what the celebrations are like in their country...but I definitely feel like they are few and far between.

That brings me to the topic of my absolutely awesome teacher, 孟老师. This small woman has probably the biggest heart of anyone that I have ever encountered in my life. She’s also one of the best Chinese teachers that I’ve ever had-- second only to my first Chinese teacher, 龙老师(Mr. Long). From the very first day of class, Ms.Meng greeted us with a bright smile and helped us to get to know our classmates very quickly through humor and in Chinese (with a few english words thrown in if we looked super confused). From then on, she made learning Chinese extremely fun. She acted out words, drew pictures, made funny noises, made us sing and share information about ourselves and even had us solve Chinese riddles. The icing on the cake, however, is that she has consistently gone out of her way to bring us Taiwanese candy and tell us about good Taiwanese restaurants in the area. She even bought the entire bubble tea, during one of the breaks, on Tuesday. Yeah, the entire class. Was it expensive? Eh. Was it kind? Unbelievably.

This first of Travis' remarkable selfies!

If that isn’t enough for you,our first weekend in Taiwan, we went to our program director’s nephew’s wedding (we got there in time to watch a bit of the wedding rehearsal which happens a few hours before the wedding). If that seems a bit weird to you, don’t worry-- it was weird for a few of us too! Don’t get me wrong, all of us were excited to go and see a real Taiwanese wedding, but...it was a wedding. And we were foreign students whom the bride and groom had never met before in their lives. Despite that fact, however, we received the warmest greetings, signed the wedding banner and even had the chance to take a picture with the bride and groom! We were actually so warmly welcomed that at one point, it felt as though we were the main attraction, and not the bride and groom! That would never have happened at an American wedding...like ever. We left with carry out boxes of food that they would have served at the wedding-- we didn’t have the time to see the actual wedding-- and hearts warmed by the kindness of the family. Our director’s older sister then proceeded to split the cost that went into all of us American students eating at a vegetarian restaurant this past Tuesday. Then gave us all presents. For anyone keeping score, that 一万(10,000) points for Dr.Liu’s family and 0 for 美国 (America).

I could honestly go on for probably a good five pages on all of the hospitality that we’ve received on this trip and I still would be able to address all of it, nor would I be able to express the gratitude that I have for each and every person who I’ve have the honor and the pleasure of interacting with on this trip. I am definitely going to miss Taiwan and all of the friends that I’ve made here; this country has definitely earned its title as “The heart of Asia”.

Peace, Love and 台灣,

Akeel (埃克利)

I think this one is self explanatory.

Death, Nature and Confucius

Hey everyone! 好久不见了！That means long time no see (although I guess long time no write would be more appropriate in this case)! It's another Monday here in Taipei which means that you all get to read another of my posts about Taiwanese culture! Even more exciting is the fact that I am actually going to talk about the permeation of Confucian teachings into Taiwanese culture! Woooo Confucius!

See? Beauty!

Before I do any of that, however, let me brief you all on the happenings of this past weekend! I almost died several times. While...sort of. We went on an excursion to Easter Taiwan this weekend and stayed in Hua Lien and Yi Lan, but the ride to those places was treacherous and bumpy and beautiful all at the same time. For example, while driving up hill on a narrow mountain road, our tour bus (roughly the size of a regular double decker bus) was passed by a small white Yaris. Keep in mind, there's only only lane for each direction on this road and we're going somewhere between 55mph and 80mph. Oh, there were also cheerful signs that warned of rock slides littered along the route as well! If you're interested I'm attaching a video at the bottom of my blog that has my death wish and an introduction of a few of my classmates recorded in it for your viewing pleasure. But besides that, we also visited one of the most beautiful agricultural spots I've ever been to!

So nature! So amazing!

 It was up in the mountains of Hua Lian, it was called Toucheng Farm and if there's one thing to take away from the place, it's “DIY” or “Do it yourself”. YOLO had nothing on DIY in this place. We went on a hike through the mountains where we fed water buffalo and picked kumquats (all of which we did ourselves...with a little coaching), then stopped to make our own t-shirts or bags with leaves that we had collected from the forest. If that wasn't enough, we also made sky lanterns in small groups and put our own designs on them and everything! I felt like a strong independent American who didn't need any help from people who spoke better Chinese than me, and it was a lot of fun! The next day we went to the Taroko Gorge National Park, and even though we couldn't visit the Gorge itself, the scenery around it was breath-taking. This weekend, though full of danger and flashbacks of my life, was probably one of my most favorite weekends here in Taiwan.

Through out these last few weeks, through the weekend excursions and the interactions that I've had with Taiwanese people, both in and out side of class, I've been able to see how people act towards each other, towards foreigners and towards their country. Through these observations, I have definitely been able to see signs of lingering Confucian values. Confucius has a saying, for instance, that goes “what a pleasure when friends visit from afar” which translates to getting joy when people come from far away just to visit you. The Taiwanese people that I've met definitely have that joy when it comes to foreigners who have come here to study Chinese and learn about their culture. Most peoples' eyes light up whenever I use Chinese to speak to them, and there's no shortage of “Your Chinese is so good” or “你说的很好啊 (You speak very well)!” There's just something meaningful to them about someone taking the time to learn how to communicate with them in their native tongue that I feel as though most people in America take for granted.

On the other hand, there are also signs of a decline in Confucian values that I've also noticed. Nowadays most students in Taiwan aren't necessarily looking to get jobs in their field of study when they graduate; they just want something that pays well. As a result, many young women are taking jobs as housekeepers instead of pursuing a career because the pay is so good and the job is currently in demand. This phenomenon is a stark contrast to the Confucian philosophy of getting an education and using it to better your community and the government. Instead, young people dream more of opening up their own food shops where they sell bubble tea or dumplings rather than becoming government officials in order to aid in the struggle for Taiwan's independence or reunification with China. 

Despite the internal struggle to maintain some of its Confucian values, Taiwan is a country full of people who cherish every bit of their tradition and culture. A people who are proud to entertain anyone who has an interest in that culture, and a people who are proud to call themselves Taiwanese. Until next time, folks, when I wrap up my time here in Taiwan with my final blogpost on celebrations in Taiwan!

Peace and Love,

Akeel (埃克利)

'Till next time!

History is the same everywhere!

It's that time again folks, blog time!

Longshan Temple！

I know I said that I would be talking about the permeation of Confucian culture into Taiwanese/Chinese culture, but something else grabbed my attention throughout the week and I decided to save the Confucius topic for a later post (more incentive to stick around though;])! That said, this week we filled a lot of our free time this week on more historical excursions! We visited the oldest part of Taipei, Manka (艋舺),  which is the indigenous word for the boats that the indigenous people of Taiwan used for the boats that they carried sweet potatoes on and it was the area that the people would meet in order to trade potatoes with. There we learned about Kuan-yin, the Goddes of Mercy as well as other Daoist and Buddhist figures at the Long Shan Temple (龍山寺).After the Temple, we visited Bopiliao, specifically the Lao-shan Elementary School where traditional Chinese schooling was perfected and much modern medicine was introduced to the Taiwanese people! All of that was just on Tuesday! Yesterday we visited Tamkang University's main campus in Danshui (淡水) and I think I fell in love. I sincerely began to think about studying in Taiwan for graduate school like...seriously. The facilities are clean and well-kept, the students seem to really care about their studies-- I love Club Mckeldin and all, but finals week in the libraries here was completely different...and quiet-- and I met a black guy from Seattle who was handling a lot of the translation affairs for the school! As shallow as it sounds, seeing other black people making a career out of utilization of the Chinese language is really empowering because it makes me feel like I'm not as much of an anomaly when it comes to my interests and aspirations. On another note, the faculty were also extremely welcoming and it made it that much easier for me to see myself applying to grad school here; that's a few years from now though and a lot of things could change between now and then so no promises just yet!

Fort Santa Domingo!

As you can see, we have done a lot in the past few days, so you can see how I may have encountered something that would inspire a cultural comparison, and that something was the preservation of historical places. I've repeatedly said to people throughout this trip “I'm learning so much history” and it's true, but the only reason that I'm able to learn so much is because so much has been preserved in the first place! Every memorial or historical building or landmark has been either well preserved, restored to its original condition, or some combination of the above. It's just like back home in America! If you were to take a trip to Gettysburg, you will still see the old buildings and be able to walk down cobblestone streets that are hundreds of years old. The same thing goes for historical places here in Taiwan; plaques are set up with information about why or how or when the thing behind it came into being and the significance of it in the grand scheme of the entire site. In a way it's a comforting reminder of home in a place that I would least expect it since it's meant to show me the history of a culture that's very different from that of America.

Honestly, I might love the historical sites here more than I love the ones (that I've been to) in America, but that could also be that I find the history a bit more fascinating :P. That said however, I am genuinely hoping to see less of these sites as we enter the weekend and move on to our final week here in Taiwan. History is cool, but my feet hate me for making them walk so much and so far and in sometimes very uncomfortable shoes. So here's to some interesting history, but less walking this weekend! I'll talk to you all next time when I actually will (hopefully) post on the permeation of Confucius teachings into Taiwanese/Chinese culture! Until next time friends!

Peace and Love,

Akeel (埃克利)

There was an Australian dude at the Buddist Temple.

大家好！By now, I hope that you're all familiar with that term and know what it means by now, but if not...look it up. Knowledge is power. Once you've gotten that out of the way, you will be one step closer to enlightenment! Or at least enlightenment of the Chinese language. Before I go any further, though, I want to give a shout out to our awesome Tour Guide, bus driver and all of the wonderful people in the hotels and tourist sites in the south of Taiwan! You all made my weekend awesome. Also special well wishes to the newlywed nephew and niece-in-law of our trip's program director, Jia Zhong and Miao Xuan! 祝你们多子多孙！（I wish you many children and grandchildren--it's not a weird thing to say in Chinese, I promise.)

Real enlightenment is on a whole other level, although knowledge is a big part of it as I learned this weekend on our excursion through southern Taiwan. What started out as a four hour drive full into the unknown, lightened (then quickly darkened) by a "friendly" game of Monopoly turned into an exciting exploration of 台南（Tainan) and Kaoshuing. Being that it was the first place that the Dutch settled and then the site of the first colonization in the island's history, there were many historical sites to visit and learn from--and boy did we visit and learn from them! From learning about the God of Education in Chihkan Tower and how young people pray to him before their entrance exams to the history of the Eternal Golden Fort and the use of the weaponry there to defend against the Japanese in 1874, our weekend was packed full of touristy sites with deeply meaningful backgrounds! However, last week I promised a post on Buddhism and thus I'll talk about my personal favorite stop on the trip: the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial Center. A little background, the Memorial Center is part museum, part Buddhist temple and is situated in the Dashu District of Kaohsiung City. It was built by the Master Hsuing Yun to help teach people from all over the world about Buddhism and houses one of three sacred tooth relics of the Buddha!

It has four stupas that represent the four Noble Truths and eight pagodas that each emphasize an important principle in Buddhism. Past all of these pagodas is the main museum which has a giant statue of the Buddha sitting full-lotus style and watching over the entire complex. Also the assistant tour guide was from Australia. What. His accent made everything that much more cryptic, I promise you.

For me, the museum, and the entire complex for that matter, was awesome. It was very spiritual and though in hindsight it was a bit extra--over the top for those not familiar with the slang extra--it was just the right mix of reverence and modernity in the moment and it really allowed me to get a sense for how the religion is supposed to feel. Buddhism is based on meditation and finding enlightenment within oneself by learning to let go of all attachments and desires. That doesn't mean that you become a lifeless husk incapable of loving or feeling, though! It simply translates to keeping one's emotions in line, avoiding extremes in order to see things clearly for what they are in every moment. At least that's how I interpreted it, and it makes sense! If you discover the ability to keep your emotions in check, you can take better care of your body because you avoid indulgence and you can be constantly at peace because nothing really bothers you. This teaching of moderation is apparent in Christianity as well. There's a reason that we are told to avoid the Seven Deadly Sins: they're all extremes that, if partaken in, will lead you down a path that strays far from the teachings of God and his way of living. Another similarity that I also found very interesting was the fact that is said to have gone to heaven and then return to Earth again before finally dying and leaving his Siddhartha disciples to spread his teachings around the world so that everyone could become enlightened. Jesus' story of death and rebirth is very similar: he dies, goes to Heaven, then returns to tell his disciples that they should spread the gospel and in a way solidify the fact that everything that he's said is true--I mean he just came back from the dead after all. Including the fact that both also fasted for in human lengths of time and traveled their respective lands speaking to those who would listen and gaining a large following on the way (Siddhartha even has a Judas-like character who happens to be his cousin), these two religions share many common themes that really came to light during my visit to the Memorial Center.

These similarities reminded me of what the Dali Lama said about religion when he came to visit UMD last year-- that all religions are just different interpretations of the same fundamental principles that people need in order to truly be the best humans that they can be; in other words "different strokes for different folks"! If it wasn't for my devotion to my Christian upbringing, I would have converted to Buddhism on the spot; I just agreed with so many of the teachings that I saw there, but as I just pointed out above, I also see many of the same teachings in Christianity so I suppose converting wouldn't be all that necessary after all! Anyway, until next time friends when I talk about the permeation of Confucius beliefs into Chinese/Taiwanese culture, but here's a bit of wisdom to carry around with you for...well hopefully a long time!

"A look, a smirk, or a small action can trigger a moment of understanding."

Peace and Love,

Akeel

Happy (quiet) New Year!

你们好！I know I said that my next blog post would be on Buddhism and Christianity, but I didn't think that New Year's here would be so distinctly different from New Year's back home! Like I felt very much like a foreigner last night for three specific reasons: 1) We angered a lot of people, 2) no one that was Taiwanese yelled at us, 3) people were so. quiet.

Team USA and friends!

So I will be one of the first to acknowledge that Americans have many moments where we do some dumb things, especially in other countries. Last night, however, when our group of 12 American students led by 3 Taiwanese teachers and 2 students, sat down at the edge of this sidewalk to get a good view of Taipei 101 (at 10pm), was not one of these moments. For one thing, one of the faculty members found us the spot and told us to sit down; no American prompting necessary. Secondly, EVERYONE WAS SITTING DOWN ON THIS SIDEWALK. To our left, we had some soon-to-be-angry French people, to our right and to our front we had dozens of people just chillin' and waiting to see Taipei 101 sparkling with explosions and New Year's delight. Conclusion: we ain't done nothing wrong. Thus you can imagine our frustration when people started flooding in and getting angry with us in Chinese! I'm spreading my arms and pushing against the crowd trying to knock me over and thinking : 什么！你们应该早点来了！别挤我们！（You all should have gotten here earlier, quit jostling us!) However, this is where I made my first cultural observation-- no one was yelling at us. At all. People may have been talking amongst themselves about the 外国人 (foreigners) sitting in the middle of the walk way, but nobody yelled or said anything super mean--as far as I could hear. In fact, most people said excuse me and that pushed behind us and rubbed their heels into our backs and stepped on our fingers!

It was so different for all of us that we even comment as a group on how different this scene would have gone if we have been in NYC watching the ball drop or even in DC on the Fourth of July! That said, we did have one wonderful reminder of home when a pleasant young man who we flagged as hailing from the state of New Jersey not only pushed into the circle, he walked straight through with blatant disregard for his fellow Statesmen and women sitting vulnerable beneath his belligerent sneakers. After he had passed through, he proceeded to yell at us for sitting in the walk way, to which we responded "Look around, everyone is sitting in the walk way". His anger not yet quelled, he replied, "It wasn't like this 10 minutes ago!" But of course, we being the intelligent college students that we were decided to end the conflict with a quick "We've been sitting here for 40 minutes...so yes it was." (Props to classmates Will and Emily for shutting Jersey down!) But yeah, that was the most anger that we encountered for the rest of the night! Good job Taipei!

So anger: check, Jersey Jerk: check, the last and probably most disorienting difference for me between New Years in the States and New Years here was the fact that outside of yelling  “新年快乐！” (Happy New Year!) at midnight and the occasional gasp at the magnificent fireworks show, no one said anything. No wooing, no cheering, just...watching fireworks--well that's not entirely true; Susan (another of my classmates) did America justice and wowed and screamed during the fireworks like a mad woman, but that's a 美国人 (American) for you! Anyway, it was different to say the least, especially since I'm the kind of person who runs around outside with pots and pans on New Year's in the street (true story)! At the end (or beginning?) of the day, however, I definitely enjoyed this New Year's Eve in Taiwan and I am definitely looking forward to the rest of the experiences I'll have here! Until next time friends, when I talk about Buddhism and Christianity!

Peace and Love

Akeel(埃克利）

Doing New Year's Eve right.

There's no place like...wait a second.

Hello everyone  大家，你好！ Since I'm here in Taiwan, I'm trying to use as much Chinese as possible, and that will definitely translate over into my blog (see what I did there? ;])! But now that I've given a disclaimer, let's get into this blog post!

Look at how happy we are on this clean train!

For those of you who don't know, I'm in Taiwan! Woo! I've been in this country for two days and some change now and there has been so much to see and so much to take in! The thing that has really surprised and impressed me the most so far, however, is the pride that the people (or at least the government) takes in its country and its presentation of its country. A few weeks before we left the States, my cohort was able to visit the Taiwanese Embassy in DC and view a promotional video for Taiwan. I thought that it was awesome. The background music seemed to capture the culture so well, the people seemed happy and the culture very distinct. It made me want  to get to know more about this mystical place! Fast forward to the present and I've ridden on the cleanest metro station that I've ever seen in my life, stood in line--yes there are actual lines laid out on the floor for people to queue up in--to get on the metro, and seen so much information about the island that I would now consider myself an expert--okay maybe not, but at least very knowledgeable--on the making of Taiwan. While I recognize that I'm being bombarded by promotional videos and culture and history because I'm in a three week immersion program about Taiwan, I can't help but feel as though the people of this island are bursting with pride. That being Taiwanese isn't just a matter of nationality to them; it's a huge part of their personal identities that they've worked hard to figure out, and even harder to win recognition for.

With all of this pride and love bombarding me from every angle here in Taiwan, I wonder why I don't get that feeling in America. I know I don't actively look up promotional videos for our nation and that may be part of the reason, but that doesn't explain why the only times that I feel as if people are proud of their nationality as Americans are around the 4th of July and when we talk about our soldiers. That said, I feel as though in America, the war that we waged for our right to identify ourselves as Americans is so far behind us that we take it for granted, and thus we take our nation and its benefits for granted-- and it shows in the way we treat the amenities that are provided for us. Taiwan, however, is still fighting to find its identity, both as a people and as a nation, and because of that its people are passionate about the health and presentation of the island and its amenities. 

Look out Taiwan, the Americans are here!

Despite my doubts about the general passion that its citizens have for their country, however, I love America and I do my best to represent it well everywhere that I go in Taiwan. Knowing the stereotypes that many countries hold about Americans (closed-minded,fat,inconsiderate,etc.), in addition to being one of the only black people that most of these people will ever meet in their lives, I am acutely aware of the impact that I can make on the people that I meet, and I will make sure that it is a positive one! That said, stay tuned for next week to see how Buddhism in Taiwan compares to Christianity in the US!

Peace and Love,

Akeel( 埃克利）