Parting

Back to Pittsburgh...though by myself.
Parting from my dear husband and back to the city filled with our memories is worse and more unbearable than I though it would be.

Parting -- NOT so sweet.

I just recently saw my wife get on a plane bound for home, and I won't see her for at least a couple of months. For some reason, right now that pithy saying in Romeo&Juliet (of all things) is one of the first things that comes to mind, and it really bugs me. I'll grant it to Juliet that she was young and naive, and 'parting' for just one night, so what does she know about sorrow (at least, up until the last act). Right now, I don't feel anything that could quite be considered sweet. Even though we knew this was coming, and was a recognized possibility even when we were dating, it doesn't make it any better.

In case you're wondering why YT doesn't just stay here with me and the rest of her family, well, it has to do with her green card. We applied early this year, and were really hoping to receive it before we left to come to Taiwan. It still hadn't arrived by the day we had to leave, so we'd made arrangments with a friend to send it to TW through the mail when it came, which would have been a big worry and an extra headache. But, fortunately, as it turns out, we realized half an hour outside of Pittsburgh that we'd forgotten the plane tickets, so we went back to get them. Guess what the mailman had delivered just after we had left that morning? Yep, the green card. So we didn't have to have it sent to us. I like that story, but it's not my point.

The point is that it's a conditional green card, which means we have to be married for at least two years before we can apply to have the conditional status removed, at which point it would be unconditional and/or permanent (yay). If we don't succeed in having it removed, it's very bad news. We'd have to go through the whole application process from the beginning, which is now even more expensive and a bigger pain in the tuckus than it was before. Officially, it's okay for her to be abroad through the duration allowed by her travel documents, which is about a year. However, we were counselled that if she is gone too long, regardless of having the proper legal documentation, the government could think she might abandon her residency and isn't serious about living in the US. They could make that claim at least, and that would likely mean the conditional status would not be removed. We were told that she could still go abroad, but the total amount shouldn't exceed a certain number of months. So, she'll spend part of her time here in Taiwan, and part of her time back in the US finishing up her dissertation. That's the plan, at least.

So now it's just me and the in-laws, which is going great except for the part where my wife is no longer here too. It's like (perhaps) when you were a kid and your best friend, your favorite person in the world, had to go away to camp for the summer. Things just aren't as fun anymore. I now just have a few articles of left-behind clothing and ticket stubs and pictures, and needless to say, it's not quite enough. We will, of course, also have the telephone and internet chats and webcams, and almost all that the magic of the digital era can provide, but you can't put your arms around a digital picture, even if it's uploading at 30 frames per second. It is much better than nothing, granted; however I do hate the feeling that, as it may come to seem, my wife flew to Pittsburgh and somehow ended up getting stuck inside my computer. Strangely enough, she only comes out at certain times of day, and somehow, Oliver is there, too. I guess it's a good thing I never saw the movie Tron.
This is now my wife, sort of:


We do know that my work here will also allow me to (among other things) understand her cultural background and language much better and be a stronger part of her family. So we both think it will have many positive effects in the long run. But for now, though, I have to say, sorry to disagree with you Juliet, but parting is just sorrow. You'll learn that too soon enough, though. If you want some advice, don't pay too much attention to the Friar at the end of Scene 1 in Act IV, but, I'm no literary theorist.

Okay, I've got to go. Till next time, BB

PS: For what it's worth, I should say it does feel really good to be able to communicate using the webcam. It's not as good as face-to-face, of course, but it does help a lot.

It's a Small (Mennonite) World

There is, actually, a couple more thoughts about the funeral I have been experiencing (it will last several weeks). Since I had lived in China for several years previously, it is very interesting to see these kinds of services being performed at all. It is not controversial (in my opinion) to state that traditional Chinese religious practices are much better preserved here, as Taiwan did not witness the Cultural Revolution that took place on the mainland.

In my understanding, Taiwan has also been more open to practices of other faiths, including evangelism from foreign missionaries. Though this had been active in China as well, with different levels of acceptance and rejection through the ages, the church is now supposed to be more indigenous, or at least more independent from foreign influences. There is really only one Chinese protestant church in China, which I attended while I was there. So, it is different to be here and witness the presence of different denominations. The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan is by far the most prevalent.

Yesterday, YT and I went to a Mennonite church in Taiwan that is in a nearby neighborhood. The church was started in 1975 by a couple from Lancaster (?? Sprunger), and we found the church through the internet. There were about 30 people there or so this Sunday. The hymns were in Taiwanese, though the sermon was in Mandarin and translated into Taiwanese. For the hymns, I had the choice of either trying to follow the same words as everyone else through the Taiwanese hymnal, or knowing more of the meaning through the Mandarin hymnal, or choose one and just sing 'oo' to the right notes. Most of the time I chose the latter. I'm not used to translations being given, so I found it hard to stop paying attention when it is said in Taiwanese. That means I was still trying to follow what was being said in a language I can't understand, no matter how hard I concentrate, and it got very tiring. YT was suggesting during the service that I try to go to an English-Chinese church in the city, and I was thinking that would be a good idea.

We were, naturally, introduced during the guest-introduction time, and there was a sound of general approval when I said I am a Mennonite. After the service, everyone was very welcoming, and we were invited several times to stay afterwards to have lunch with them, sort of a weekly potluck. We at first declined, since I wasn't sure whether I'd keep coming in the future, and we said we had things to do. We kept talking with people, though, and several did speak English pretty well. It also turns out that the pastor's son had studied at Carnegie Mellon, so he was familiar with Pittsburgh. A lot of others had at least one child studying in the US. Someone soon announced that lunch was ready, and we had no option but to stay : ) Everyone was very welcoming, and it really did have a similar feeling to the small Mennonite churches I've attended or been part of in the US. So, I'll likely go back, whether I can understand well enough or not.

Anyway, tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Festival, so no classes today or tomorrow. There is already a small gathering of family out on the porch getting ready to barbeque, and I fear being anti-social if I keep writing right now.

So, till later, and happy harvest time! BB

台灣補請的照片

我知道我很懶
補請已經過了一個月,我居然還沒有把照片po出來

The Funeral (or, Plans Interrupted, part II)

Okay, part II. We left Tainan and got back to Taibei around 630 or so, then went to visit with the rest of the family and pay our respects. There were already a lot of the family there, sitting around talking, eating, drinking tea, and folding paper money to burn. I have to say, it was (obviously) very different from funerals I'd attended in the US. It did feel as if there was a greater deal of fear of death involved in the process. Dad gave YT and I a leaf to hold that was supposed to help ward off, well, anything 'otherworldly' that might affect us negatively. We were supposed to wash our face from a bucket with some herbs in it before we went home for the evening, again, to ward off potentially bad things that might linger around us otherwise.

As I'm a Christian and most of YT's family follow Buddhist traditions, I also couldn't help but reflect on the differences in cultural practices. The preparations being made were to help YT's grandfather's soul make it safely into the afterworld, and to have a prosperous eternity after that. There were also a lot of prayers to beseech him to bless the rest of the family while he's there. Fundamentally, that seems to be (and as YT has said) a lot of what it's about. With these emphases, I feel I haven't had a chance to learn about YT's grandfather's life and who he was while he was here. I haven't seen much to recall the past, relive memories, and honor and cherish a father, grandfather, or friend, or to glorify the legacy of one who has been in this world for 98 years. I miss that aspect of funerals in my own tradition, and I know that YT does as well.

This is not to say that the family is not doing something special to commemorate YT's gradfather and his long life. Since he lived to the age of 98, the family wanted to hold a very traditional service, which is not as commonly performed as before. I can't quite figure out what is or is not often done now, but in this case, the period of mourning will last for about 1-2 months for a traditional funeral. The funeral will be conducted in cycles, the beginning of which I had the opportunity to observe. I was even invited (ok, ok, given advanced permission) to take pictures, some of which are posted here. The first of the cycles will take place this Saturday (the 22nd).

The point of the service was essentially to help YT's grandfather cross into the afterworld safely and not feel a desire to come back. The services have been held in the family's garage, since (as mentioned) he passed away at home (actually, the eldest son's home where he'd been in hospice care). There was the general chanting of scriptures and bowing, along with the banging of cymbals and drums and playing of reed instruments you'd associate with Chinese opera. In one part, one of the service-leaders hired for the occasion went person-to-person with a string tied loosely around his finger. Each person was to tug on the string to untie it, which symbolized a final release of unfulfilled desires. At another point, the monks ran around and around the altar in the middle of the room, with one of them carrying a scripture, one a paper horse, and one a paper figure. This was to represent a horse riding ahead to inform the necessary 'authorities' in the afterworld that YT's grandfather was coming. It did really look the the guys were having fun : )

One other aspect involved one of the monks taking a basic roll call, reading the names of the family, each of whom would say 'here' (if someone wasn't there, someone else would attest their presence on their behalf). There was also a ritual involving the family walking around the altar in a large circle. A basin of water had been placed underneath it, and the family stepped one-by-one onto a small platform nearby that represented a bridge. This was, of course, to help YT's grandfather make the trip successfully. The evening ended with the whole family sitting outside with two metal basins piled high with paper money, which was burnt to ensure that YT's grandfather would not want of anything.

I am glad to learn more about YT's culture and background, and to be part of the family in this fashion. I have really appreciated the way the family gets together to help each other out at this time. However, I couldn't help but think that, well, I'm glad to have a belief where my eternal rest does not depend on what my family does on my behalf after I'm gone. I appreciate the thought that some representation of Jesus (or Peter) will be there to help and comfort me. In a more cynical sense, I'd also prefer to keep representations of money and riches out of my conceptions of what comes next. Sometimes people here are known to burn effigies of BMWs or large houses in hopes that their loved-ones will have a better after-life. I'd rather think that heaven is devoid of brand-consciousness and affluence, and that there are no streets paved with gold. If Heaven means coming more fully into the presence of God, well, what could possibly compare with that?

A lot more could be said about comparative practices of faith systems in Taiwan and the US, and of YT and myself, but I think I will just leave it at that. It's probably long enough already, and well, I'm no expert. I will say, though, that I highly appreciate the view of God and heaven that C.S. Lewis implies in Till We Have Faces. It is part of why I am a deeply committed Christian but more agnostic toward other faiths. I can't know the answer, and in some ways, it's not really the right question to be asking. He writes, “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.”

Peacefully, and respectfully, yours in Christ, BB

Plans Interrupted (part I)

Well, as I'd mentioned, last weekend was rather interesting. YT and I left last Friday for Tainan in the south to visit some friends and look aroud. We took the train, and it took us about four hours to get there. Our friend picked us up, then we went to the 17th century Confucian Temple, then another friend (and one of her friends) came to meet us for dinner. Tainan is famous for it's xiao chi [小吃] which is in essence similar (in size/function but not in taste) to Spanish tapas, and that's pretty much what we had to eat. Then we went to a night market to walk around (though it was packed), then drove out to the seashore to sit for a while. The next day we saw a lot of other things, including what had been Fort Zeelandia and Fort Provincia when Taiwan was a Dutch colony in the early and mid-17th century, and ate more xiao chi. This pic was taken at a place that makes tea out of dong gua [冬瓜], or winter melon. Not sure about the details : ) There are more pictures on my smugmug site here.

We had also received a phone call from Mom Friday evening that YT's mother's (biological) father was in deteriorating condition and was being taken to the hospital. He was 98, and had been ill for a very long time and was on a feeding tube, so this did not come as a great shock. Saturday morning we got another call that he was coming home from the hospital. This was actually foreboding news, because people here prefer their loved ones to pass away at home with family when possible. He did, in fact, pass away later that morning.

Although we had planned to go back to Taibei on Sunday, we decided to head back Saturday afternoon instead. We took the new high-speed railway back, which, as the name suggests, is pretty fast. It's elevated, based on a Japanese design, and was built to compete with cross-island air travel. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get back.

Well, there is more to say, obviously, which I believe I will leave to a future post for sake of thematics and length of posts. Till soon, BB

School called on a count of rain...

...and heavy winds. That's right, no classes tomorrow due to a typhoon about to grace the northern part of the island with it's torrential winds and rain. Yay for me, I guess, since I have a lot of things to do, one of which, incidentally, involves staying warm and dry. I already got soaked walking home from the bus stop this evening (despite my umbrella).

I also want to blog about this past weekend, which you might find of interest. So, keep your browsers tuned to this spot. Till then, hope your days are sunnier and warmer than my next one is likely to be. Cheers! : )

BB

You can also get good information on this weather pattern at the link below, if you are so inclined. http://www.tealit.com/article_categories.php?section=weather&article=typhoon

If you are one of the (apparently) many who aren't sure about the difference between a typhoon, a hurricane, and a monsoon, click, uh, on one of those links.

Addendum: The nephews and neices came over for the day and helped to bake cookies. Though it did rain pretty much all day, the storm didn't really hit that hard here. The news does indicate that it's going to hit China much harder, as this indicates. Just thought you might like to know.

Further Adjustments

So, I'm getting up around 6am every morning, since I have an 8am class. This is taking some adjustments, since, well, I'm used to getting up (and staying up) much later. I have to get up two hours earlier because it takes more than an hour to get there by bus. I was even late twice last week due to the traffic. Ok, I also got off at the wrong stop the first day. I thought it was the right place, even after wandering around and asking a few people, so I was a little perplexed when I (eventually) wandered to the metro station that I thought was in the opposite direction. I just got off at a different branch of the school. The next couple of days I took a bus and the metro, which is much quicker, but I was still late once because of the traffic (really). Since I have a graded dictation every morning right at the beginning of class, I completely miss it if I'm late. So, the only way I to get to class on time was to get up even earlier, around 545am, to get the bus at 640am. Or so it seemed...

YT's cousin, who lives just down the road, heard about my plight from my dad, and he said that he drives past my university everyday on his way to work. He leaves every morning just after 7am. So, lucky for me, I have now been enjoying a chauffered ride on the highway with my cousin-in-law and his wife and child, who also have work and school in that area. It also means that I can, to my extreme delight, sleep a bit later and still get to school half an hour before class starts. I miss out on some quality NPR (podcast) time on the bus ride there, which I was really starting to appreciate, but I still squeeze it in on the way back. It's been working out pretty well so far this week, and it's nice getting to know more of YT's (extensive extended) family, most of whom live in the surrounding area.

Another point of adjustment. As I'd mentioned earlier, I haven't studied Chinese in about five years, and it's taking some time to get back up to speed, especially in terms of writing. This will be the last time I complain about this (I promise), but I not only have to learn the new characters in the lesson, I have to retrain myself to write the characters I used to be able to write, which in some cases are now completely different and much more complex. Since I had been in China earlier, I had more exposure to simplified characters, and so I learned to write those. In Taiwan, as in most places outside of mainland China, they use traditional characters. For those of you not initiated into what this (very significant) difference means to me right here right now in the middle of the expression of these thoughts...

Though I first learned to write the following character (ji3: how many, several, some) in two strokes


I now have to write it in 11 strokes, like this:


Or while I learned the following character (me: a particle) in three strokes


I now write it in 14 strokes as this:


Please don't get me wrong, I appreciate the complex characters as they seem more 'lexically complete', if that makes any sense. However, usually people (with foresight and brains) learn traditional characters first, because it's easier to move to the simplified version later. I mean to make no judgments on the value of one system over the other, it's just a pain to learn simplified characters first. And I mean that literally, since my hand is starting to get tired from all the repetitive character-writing, which is really the only way to learn. But, I'll get used to it.

Okay, that's all the complaining about language study I'll do. Honest. YT is also tired of me talking about it, too, but it may just be because she doesn't like simplified characters all that much. Politics. Anyway, till next time. I have more writing to do.

Your dear family member, friend, or random bloggist, BB

What is the German for 'KimChee'?

A little bit more about the MTC and my class. According to the orientation materials, there are over 1600 foreign students learning Chinese here. Almost 70% of them, naturally, are from Asia. Only about 17% are from any of 'the Americas', and 12% are from European countries. I'm more as likely to hear Spanish or Russian spoken around here than I am English, and Korean or Japanese are definitely more dominant.

My own class somewhat reflects these demographics as well. Out of 8 students, I am one of only two native English-speakers (both from the US). The others are from either Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, or Mongolia. So, it is a new feeling to converse with others where neither I or they speak Chinese as a first language. It felt like a new bridge where one hadn't existed before. "What a great opportunity to learn from people of different cultures," I thought to myself, "all thanks to Chinese." Ha ha ha, duh (...).

Yesterday, while I was speaking and learning from a classmate from Indonesia, I saw that she had written a strange combination of Roman letters in her textbook by the vocabulary list. They made no sense to me. "What is this strange combination of Roman letters that to me makes no sense?" I thought to myself again. I quickly recognized, of course, that it was Indonesian, her native language. The textbook is Chinese-English, and she had to translate some of the new vocabulary words to be sure what they meant. With this came the striking realization that my fellow students are essentially studying Chinese through, yep, you guessed it, English.

So, if you need another example of the power of English and it's influence as an international language, look no further than my textbook. It is developed here by the MTC, and all the vocabulary and grammar points are explained in English, and the dialogues are set in the US. Even though me and my kind make up less than 17% of the apparent audience (I don't know if the book is published overseas), I feel like it has been marketed to me. I tried to imagine what it would be like to go to Germany to learn German, and all the textbooks are in, say, Korean, and set in, say, the Korean cultural milieu. Sorry, just a slight obstacle, but if you want to learn German here you have to be proficient in Korean first. How do you say 'kimchee' in German, anyway?

I know, I know, of course it's in English, you might say, what other language should the MTC use to publish their book? Anything but English would marginalize a whole swath of students who don't speak, say, for instance (again), Korean. There would also be a lot of prestige lost, because using English means much more and says much more about you worldwide than does knowing (say) Korean. It would imply that the MTC is competing on a regional basis rather than the global market, or second- rather than first-rate. I just sort of took this for granted, and I'm pretty sure that my classmates did/do too. That is the pervasiveness and power of language ideologies, or unquestioned assumptions we have about the use of language. "It's just the way things are," one could say, without being further bothered to ask why or how come. I thought I should be more enlightened than that, though.

So, my bubble has been popped (once again), new light has shone into the darkness of my day-to-day assumptions, and I see again the advantages that I have and take for granted. Chinese is hard enough to learn as it is--I'm glad I don't have to do it in a different language. Kudos, and a deeper sense of respect, to my fellow students.

BB

Briefly, and on a different note, the other night I was awoken by a weird feeling of a rumbling under the bed. It felt like the subway train passing by underneath, which is quite strange because the metro is nowhere near here. YT woke up, too, and she said "dizhen [地震]", which means 'earthquake'. I said, "Oh, dizhen [地震]", then went back to sleep two seconds later, once the walls had stopped shaking. It turns out that (according to my teacher) it was the third strongest earthquake to hit around Taiwan, but the epicenter was about 46 miles off the coast, so it had weakened considerably by the time it reached here. It was still strong enough to wake me up in the middle of the night, though no damage was done here. Here's more info if you want it, or for a wider selection, click here.

A little bit of guanxi [關係] helps the student settle in

Hey ya, now that I just finished my first week of classes, I have a bit of time to recuperate. In case you didn't know, I'm in Taiwan through a Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship (FLAS), by which I am (officially) studying Chinese at the Mandarin Training Center (MTC) at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) in Taibei. Things are starting to settle in, though it did take a few days. Without help from a friend, it would have been much more difficult. Allow me to explain (dot dot dot).

To begin with, it feels good to be studying Chinese formally again. The last (and actually, the first) time I studied Chinese was in an intensive summer program about five years ago. So, my skills have deteriorated a lot since then, and I really need a good review. As a new student, however, I was assigned (based on a screening interview and proficiency exam) to a level that, I felt, wouldn't offer much more than that. After the first day, I knew I wanted something more challenging, and the teacher said I could switch classes. I found out that moving to a different course meant finding a class with available space, or a teacher willing to admit more students.

ENTER, my friend. She had been a teacher at the MTC before, so she knows the ins-and-outs quite well, and she had already told me to call her the first day of class to help me settle in. She is now getting her PhD at NTNU in Applied Linguistics, and still has a lot of contacts among the teachers here. She had also been a teacher in the summer program where I had studied before, so since she knew what level I had already completed she had a general idea of what course here might help me the most. My friend arranged, with a good friend of hers, for me to sit in on a higher level course without having to change my registration, to see first if it would suit me. She also said she is energetic and friendly and a good teacher. The course turned out to be a really good fit, so I officially changed classes right away.

I realized what sort of favor I received when, that day and the next, different students kept knocking on the door to see if they could join our class. In each case, our teacher apologized and said the room was already too full. They then had to go off to find some other class to join, while I continued learning in peace, thankful that I didn't have to go through all that trouble. So, that was very helpful, and it's not the least of it (dot dot dot).

As part of the FLAS requirements, I have to be enrolled in a language course and an area-studies course. I'm essentially at the MTC because they apparently offer both, while another program I wanted to attend (ICLP at NTU) only offers language. Early on, however, a problem arose in that the culture courses listed on the MTC website were deemed, in the words of the FLAS administrator at Pitt, too "Mickey Mouse". Not at all related to an animated rodent, as you might think, but too hands-on or how-to, such as 'calligraphy' or 'cooking'. Though they allow you to experience and commune with traditional cultural practices, they don't really offer all that much content in the broader academic sense.

With further digging into the website, I found other more in-depth culture-related courses, though they were still oriented to language teaching rather than 'cultural content'. It seemed they might work though, especially the courses at the higher levels. My friend offered essential help here, too. She told me that though the courses are listed on the website, they aren't necessarily offered every semester, or at all. Obviously, that was a good thing to know in advance. The solution was that I could take one of the classes individually if there were no other options, so it was decided best to just come and see and figure things out after I got here.

So, after registering at the MTC, it was apparent that only the non-area-studies qualifying classes were being offered, and I would need an individual course. I could have tried to manage through official means to arrange things if I'd had to, but I think it would have been a difficult and time-consuming ordeal. I'm just another student out of hundreds. My friend knew my situation and what I needed, and found a good teacher for me by the third day. She said she had to ask a lot of her friends before finding someone agreeable, and I know it would have been a particular challenge to do on my own. I don't know if I would ever have been able to set up the individual course without my friend's help.

So, a little bit of guanxi (~connections) goes a long way. She's already helped me a lot before this, as well, and I owe her a lot. After thanking her profusely, she said "don't worry, I was already thinking of asking you for help with my English essays next semester." No problem, that's just sort of the way things work here sometimes, and I am very grateful. More later.

你親愛的朋友或家人，
白睿恩
(BB)