Something Super: Living, Learning and Teaching in Taiwan

7/29/2019 Something Super: Living, Learning and Teaching in Taiwan

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Something Super:Living, Learning and Teaching

in Taiwan


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Something Super:Living, Learning and Teaching

in Taiwan


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Copyright 2013 by Lynx Publishing Company

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any


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Contents

1 Preface .............................................................................. 9

2 Stranger in a Strange Land ............................................. 14

3 The Lighting of a Fire: Teaching in Taiwan .................. 30

4 Hit the Books ................................................................. 53

5 A Door Opens ................................................................ 64

6 I Think Im Turning Chinese, I Think Im

Turning Chinese, I Really Think So .............................. 72

7 News Junkie .................................................................... 87

8 Whats so Great About Taiwan? .................................. 107


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For my wife Hope.

And thanks to my friend George Liao.


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National Concert Hall at night.

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.


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Temple at Miaokou (temple entrance), Keelung.

Temple ceiling near Taipei.

Qing Shui Zu Shi () temple art, near

Kaohsiung.


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Preface

I have wanted to write of my experiences in Taiwan over the

last twelve years but, for various reasons, have not found the timeto make the effort. For the most part, my life hereteaching and

other academic responsibilities, studying languages and other

subjects, family life (I am married with no children), travel, and

various hobbies (including tennis, reading, biking, and guitar

playing)have kept me so busy that I have been unable to launch

this project. A friend of mine in the US once commented that I

should spin all this new life in Asia into a tale, and perhaps

now I am ready to do that. Mine has been the vibrant, exciting,

and ever-stimulating life of an expatriate in Asia in the twenty-

first century, chock-full of the unique, exhilarating, and

illuminating challenges, rewards, and opportunities that this

region offers.

I will in the following relate my sometimes-agitated initiation

into Taiwanese life and culture since I moved here in 2000, my

rich teaching life and experiences with students, my assiduous

studies and attainment of a Ph.D., my memorable wedding, myfurther-agitated studies of the Chinese language, and comments

on the heated politics and other issues in Taiwan. In a

concluding chapter, I will show in even more detail what has

been great about Taiwan for me during the last twelve years.

Ultimately, readers will see that although I have encountered myshare of difficulties and trials since I moved here, I have as well

experienced a veritable wealth of good fortune, growth, and


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Stranger in a Strange Land

I stepped with Hope, her mom, and sister into the old Liu

school, an aged traditional Chinese construction in Miaoli that issuch a classic that it has become a small tourist attraction and is

even a county historical landmark, with visitors arriving to view the

time-honored architectural structure and fine, fragile features of the

edifice. There is even a special Chinese word for a building like this:

(c tng), which means ancestral hall or temple. Hanging in

the front room is a list of Liu family names that goes back forgenerations and generations, a traditional Chinese custom. Such

beliefs and inheritance, veritably reaching back into Chinese history,

were moving, and the names seemed to gently pulsate beneath the

display lights. We also traveled to another home that goes back for

generations, where Hopes grandparents lived. This home was

abandoned and dilapidated, with piles of old belongings heaped

around, some of which Hope recognized from her youth. I reflected

on how this was where she used to play with her siblings and

relatives when she was a child, walking across the rice paddies and

fields of vegetables, to the river (a dry trickle now), and into the

small town to buy candy. She often talks with a note of joy in hervoice when she remembers these bucolic days of her youth.

The visit was a consummation and blessing of our marriage, led

by Hopes mom. I wanted to say something more to her during our

visit but managed only to eke out , (Thank you, Mrs.

Liu) and later a (Thank you

all, today I am very happy, very happy). I was moved by the activitiesand reflected on my new life and new home.


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journal, truly a stranger in a strange land (hats off to Robert A.

Heinlein), and even in 2003 when I visited Hopes family home,

after three years in Taiwan, I still had feelings of dislocation,

discomfort, and even disillusion. I can definitely say that I had

not always comported myself easily within Taiwanese life andculture, and I had experienced some pain, frustration, touches of

privation, and even loss. This said, however, even then I also

realized that I had encountered opportunity, pleasure, good

fortune, and happiness. My life in Taiwan had been an

agglomeration, at best a cornucopia, but also something of a

Pandoras box that had released some discomfiting realities, but

had left hope and sometimes even bliss to flit out and comfort

me in the end. All of these ideas, experiences, expectations,

senses, judgments, and reckonings I will comment on at length in

this narrative. For now, as I think back to that day in the arcadian,

hilly localities of Miaoli () nine years ago, I realize that

although this was not my first taste of Taiwanese culture and

family life, it would become one of my most meaningful. On that

day I joined a Taiwanese family as a member, and I knew that my

life had entered a new phase, which opened onto new vistas,

unlike any I had ever seen before. As a result of my marriage (andalso as a result of my having virtually transplanted to Taiwan

from my home country), I was truly entering into another culture,

adopting something like a new home, a new language, new beliefs,

and new aspirations. Throw your dreams into space like a kite,

and you do not know what it will bring back, wrote Anas Nin(19031977), but you will likely find a new life, a new friend, a

new love, a new country. This could hardly describe my life in


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The Lighting of a Fire: Teaching in

Taiwan

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of

a fire.

William Butler Yeats

Needless to say, I have a great deal of experience with

students and education in Taiwan and have continually involved

myself, taught countless classes, attended meetings in schools (the

majority of which were held in Chinese), spoken in conferencesat various universities, conducted research on student experience

and attitudes, and observed the lives and development of

students in ever more profound ways. The truth is that I had

been looking forward to a teaching job even in the US in the

years before I arrived in Taiwan. I was a writer, journalist, andanalyst at that time, but somewhere along the line the teaching

bug had bitten me.

I had looked for a job in the California Community College

System in 1999 and just about landed a job teaching journalism

studies in Los Angeles as well as the Bay Area, but things did notwork out and I was forced to decline both jobs. Even when I was

living in Nashua, New Hampshire, in summer 2000 as I was


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but I may only be able to touch on a handful of these tales in the

following.

I have mentioned my job at a cram school in Taiwan, and

although it was a good bit less than fully satisfying, it did

introduce to me certain of the joys of teaching. I could pause herejust to consider these pleasures. Without doubt, many a teacher

asks, What is it about this career? It is by no means one endless

bed of roses, and there are many frustrations and

disappointments, hurts and bruises, conflicts and disagreements.

I have not had a great many such problems during my teaching inTaiwan, but there have been a few dismaying low points,

troublesome groups, and cantankerous students. The rapport

between teachers and students can be sensitive, and some things

we are called on to do, such as failing students, can be

uncomfortable and cause some hard feelings. As well, the

relationship at times can be brittle and based on a hierarchical

worldview, which I avoid at all costsbut which sometimes creeps

into relations with students. As I have often thought, students

and teachers rarely if ever become friends (if they do, this is often

suspicious), and although we can be outwardly amicable, it rarely

goes beyond that into a deeper emotional connection, outside of

the value of any good student/teacher connection.

Even furtherI seem to be starting with the low points in my

examination of Taiwanese students and education, but I will turn

to the high points soonTaiwanese students often exhibit a

disquieting lack of awareness about greater possibilities in theirlives and education and seem to be living cloistered existences

that ignore world affairs and genuinely modern lifestyles trends


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playing this game and that, texting this message and that, and

engaging on Facebook more than they engage with friends and

family (this is hardly limited to Taiwanese students, and such

wasteful dallying is becoming common worldwide). In a related,

but even more disconcerting turn, I have encountered studentswho were coolly and selfishly manipulative within their

educational environments and often unmindfully dismissive of

any idea of higher aims and the hard road to a valuable education.

In a word, too many Taiwanese students can be immature, too

focused on the prize as opposed to the process, and always toobusy to focus on constructive studies (though I can understand

how Taiwanese students can be made to be too busy).

In any event, and in spite of the above problems, I have

treated all of my students equally and well. You win some, you

lose some, I suppose, and teachers have to soldier on against

certain difficulties and problems. But none of this detracts from

the high pointsand oh, the high points I have had. The truth is

that a great many of my students have very nearly venerated me.

In June 2003 when I was leaving NTUT my students gave me a

rousing send-off with a big dinner and a card with the following

sentiments:

The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the

inheritance of a great example.

Benjamin Disraeli

I have received hundreds of cards from students during my

years in Taiwan, but none has touched me this deeply.7


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Another time, in the spring semester 2001, I conducted a

Multimedia English course at NTUT, which featured some

excellent final projects by the students (in fact, I made a project of

my own in this course, an online poetry cycle entitled San

Francisco Journal, and presented it to the students on the finalday). I wrote of the final day of that course in my journal:

Finished the Multimedia English course on Tuesday on a very

high note, with a few of the projects real standouts, including

Eugenias bound comic book, which was a masterpiece. We stayed

late, until 7:00, because of long-running presentations. Only two

students left, and with another student Shelley sitting in, it was like

a full class when we finished up. Quite exciting, everyone seemed to

really enjoy it.

A third fine experience was in June 2004, as I was leavingShih Hsin University because of my acceptance into the doctoral

English literature program at National Chengchi University (

). On my last day of work, a Friday morning, I

walked into my Journalism English classand not a soul was there.

Two of my male students, Edward and Jason, walked in a fewmoments later and asked, seemingly sincerely, Where is

everyone?

Who knows? I answered, and in my mind I was imagining

an entire class of negligent students taking a day off on the last

day of the semester.Hmm, said the two students, Maybe we should just take a

look next door.


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followed up this first semester with a course in which the

students, working in groups, designed and published their own

newspapers every four weeks. The class was a thrilling success,

and the students absolutely loved the opportunity to write and

publish their own newspapers. I have used this same coursedesign a number of other times in Taiwan, almost always with

great success. A course like this reverses any negative feelings one

may have about student life in Taiwan, as pupils dive into the

work with passion and produce truly excellent results (I still have

all the papers they published, valued mementoes). Our last course

together reassembled in the Shih Hsin plaza, and we all enjoyed

the time together, drank coffee, said our good-byes, with the best

feelings I have ever had in teaching.


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Hit the Books

Without question, I have fostered a rich study life in Taiwan,

probably deeper and more encompassing than I have ever had

before. At the heart of this experience is my study of Chinese, but

I will describe this in another chapter. The other important

element of this facet of my life arose when I launched my

doctoral studies in 2004. By this time, I had observed the glass

ceiling that prevents the progress of many teachers in Taiwan

without a Ph.D., and I had considered the possibility of

breeching this barrier. But I knew there was only one way to do

thisI had to get a Ph.D.! No easy task in Taiwan, and of course

the bottom line was that I would need an English-taught program(my Chinese skills would not have been strong enough in 2004).

Although there are a few such programs available here, it is by no

means an easy or straightforward path. I began by inquiring into

possible journalism programs, given that I had obtained my

masters degree in journalism at BU. I made a few phone callsand once again tested my Chinese to the limit as I asked around

about this possibility, but it quickly became clear that this would

not be doable. I briefly considered the idea of studying

international relations (also impossible in Taiwan at that time,

although there is now an English program in Asian studies atNational Chengchi University). In the end, my way was clear: It

would have to be an English program, studying English literature.


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I inquired about programs at various universities and

received a rude reply from National Taiwan University (NTU), a

more-or-less confused response from Fu Jen University, and did

not really hear from any other schools. In the end, I settled on

National Chengchi University, and it quickly became clear thatthis was my best possible choice. I had landed that part-time job

at the school I have referred to, and this job was connected to the

English department. In this way I met Chen Chao-ming (),

the chairman of the English department at the time and a very

well-known academic in Taiwan. This relationship would proveto be momentous for me. Dr. Chen took a liking to me and was

soon inquiring if I might be interested in entering the Chengchi

doctoral English literature programI think he liked the idea of a

native-English-speaking foreigner in the program. Dr. Chen was

aware that I had never studied English, but he noted I was wellread and knowledgeable about English and American literature

and culture, and so he felt I could enter the program. This I duly

did, with all of the necessary requirements, including letters of

recommendation, an entrance examination, and other

submissions (I submitted my masters thesis from BU as one of

my writing samples, an online work of literary journalism that

covered the Boston subway music scene). I was notified in July

2004 that I had been accepted, and I began that fall. I had in fact

already begun to dabble in the program, auditing three courses in

fall 2003 and spring 2004, getting a feel for this level of study.

Even at this time, however, I often expressed doubts aboutthe possibility of entering a doctoral program. At one point in

2003 I wrote in my journal If Im going to go for this Ph D


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including document design/publishing; purposes and methods of

communication, including cultural parameters and philosophy of

communication; creative writing and composition; and media,

culture, and journalism. Only later did I consider Acts of

memory and memoir in fiction, realism and how it isfictionalized. Is there such a thing as fiction?which did

roughly become one of the topics of my dissertation.

With my acceptance into the program, I plunged into the

densely theoretical studies of English literature. This changed my

life, and on the whole, this was a wonderful, if at timesdiscomfiting, learning experience. Although I was in a field that

was almost over my head, I dove into the theoretical, literary,

aesthetic, and historical studies with abandon. Oh, the enjoyable

times spent studying during those years! I read book after book

after book (sometimes 150200 pages a day), including Bleak

House by Dickens, Moby Dick byMelville (this masterpiece I had

first read when I was about fifteen), The History of Tom Jones, a

Foundlingby Fielding,A Bend in the Riverby V. S. Naipaul,Jude the

Obscure and Tess of the dUrbervilles by Hardy, and To the Lighthouse

and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolfall read two or more times

each. I spent hours studying in parks (often reading as I walkedalong my favorite paths), in libraries, or in Starbucks (Hope and I

would search out quieter outlets and park for three hours

sipping coffee, both of us reading voraciously, she doing research

for her job as a translator and business writer). All of this study in

turn led to homework writing assignments, which was my truepassion. I mean here not only writing skills but also the planning

and execution required to complete complex compositions I


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best methods as I indicated above in my quotes from Sheridan

Baker.

I wrestled with the veritably byzantine theoretical constructs

and paradigms that torture students of English literature

worldwideanyone who has had to plod through the dense,convoluted, and mostly badly written works of Julia Kristeva,

Jean-Franois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Max

Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Flix Guattari, or

Jacques Lacan will tell you what a painful process this is. This was

exacerbated by the fact that most of the professors at Chengchi

were slavishly reverential of these authors, and they made every

effort they could to emulate their silly constructs, with complete

disregard for constructive, pragmatic theory and historically

mediated literary studies (approaches endorsed by the likes of

Stanley Fish, Richard Rorty, Wolfgang Iser, J. L. Austin or Erich

Auerbach, I might suggest). It is very much a theoretical programat Chengchi, I feel impelled to warn any students interested in

going there.

In spite of a bit of frustration with this obtuse approach, and

the occasional conflict (I never hesitated to speak my mind in

class, and there were a few dustups), I continued. I had goodsuccess, graduating with an average over 90 and publishing my

first academic paper only four months into the programa piece

written about the Chinese diaspora to the US from 1850 to 2000,

and other cultural topics. I landed my first international

conference presentation a few months later, at the University ofTurku in Finland (the travel to which, in a generous turn, was

funded by Chengchi; the school also funded my conference trip


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A Door Opens

At the end of 2003, I once again did something in Taiwan

that I had never done in the USI got married, twice (yes, twice).In early 2003, in a park along a river in Taipei, I proposed to

Hope and gave her a ring (I had spent a few weeks before

searching for this jewelry with a translating acquaintance). It may

not have been the most romantic location or scene, but it

remains a pleasant memory. Hope may have balked slightly (it wascertainly a first for her), but she was devoted to me, so her answer

was a definite yes. Our minds leaped with the possibilities, but

something important had to happen first, earlier in the year. I

will relate this, but lets cut back in time even further, to how I

met Hope just after I graduated from Boston University (BU) inJune 1997.

I met Hope at BU, when she arrived as one of a group of

international students studying in the College of Communication.

I was the teaching assistant in this program, helping the two

professors and aiding the students with whatever they needed.

These students hailed from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Russia,

Brazil, and other nations, and it was a true cross-cultural

educational experience. I remember meeting them all in our first

get-together early in July, in a common room in the College of

Communication. Even then I noticed Hope, but I had no idea

what was in store. This woman was an excellent, hardworking

student with exceptional English skills she had polished for years

i T i d th US W b f i d d h th d h d t


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horse, Traveler, which I noted they were fascinated by. When the

program came to a close in August, the students gave me a card

indeed, that was the first card I ever received from students

which I have kept. Hope wrote, I have already thanked you

many times, but I still want to say thank you again. That fall,Hope and I began dating, and by the end of the year, we had

fallen in love. (The first Chinese word she ever taught me was ,

yu, moon, on an evening ride back to Boston from Cape Cod.)

A gap appeared in our relationship, however, when I moved

back to San Francisco that December. If I may share, on my lastday in Boston, we waited at the airport for hours as a heavy snow

blanketed Boston, playing games and drinking coffee. When I

was finally set to leave, as we said good-bye at the gate, Hope burst

into tears and wept pitifully, which moved me deeply. I called her

only thirty minutes later after takeoff, to assure her, Its not over.

We kept in touch for the next two years until she finished her

masters program in journalism (I traveled to her graduation in

June 1999). Hope actually moved back to Taiwan after that (it

was a necessary move for her familys sake), but then she realized

she did not want to be without me, and she moved back to the

US. At that time, I took a job in Nashua, New Hampshire, which

became the above-mentioned disaster, leading to the above-

mentioned fruitless search, and in turn leading to my journey to

Taiwan. Now cut to the beginning of 2003.

I have noted that I did not really have relations with Hopes

parents after I moved to Taiwan, and in fact, they were unawareof my presence here. Her mother, with a strong traditional strain,

was essentially against the idea of her marrying a foreigner The


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fell swoop in February 2003. At that time, my mother came to

Taiwan for her first visit to the country. Hope and I planned a

nice visit full of fun activities, and as we were doing this, word got

out in her family and her father and mother picked up on what

was happening. They began to appreciate the import of mymothers visit, and then they discovered that a dinner was

planned at my apartment near Shih Hsin Universitywith Hopes

family invited. When Hopes father realized this, he announced,

If the family is invited, then I as head of the family must go.

And so he did, and met my mother in what turned out to bea delightful evening of affable interaction spent with hilariously

broken English and Chinese tossed back and forth (my mother

was in a daze the whole night). In the end, Hopes father

overwhelmingly approved of my mother and essentially welcomed

me into the family. This was an amazing and gratifying success

that paved the way into my future, for only the very next week,

Hopes mother announced that a truce was in effect and that I

was welcome into the family (at this time, she realized I would be

staying in Taiwan, and she approved of this). At the drop of this

hat, she became a fine friend and has treated me with the utmost

cordiality and respect ever since. I cant tell you the manydelicious dinners she has cooked, tailoring them to my vegetarian

diet, and often delivering them to our door in Yong He (where

my wife and I began purchasing a house in 2006). Ive practiced

my Chinese with her to the hiltbut she rarely understands my

less-than-perfect pronunciation and lack of native skill. Sheherself studies English fairly diligently, but I have to say she has

never been able to speak a single sentence to me The exactitudes


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Express,A Streetcar Named Desire, Roman Holiday, and others. (The

table cards were so popular at the wedding that one Audrey

Hepburn fan filched the Roman Holiday card!) We also had a

friend create a montage video with scenes from these movies,

which was shown to some acclaim at the reception (he really didan excellent job).

Our plans came to a head in November 2003, when we were

married (, ji hn) in a Taipei courthouse by a presiding

magistrate who spoke English, Chinese, and Japanese to three

couples he married that day. We married this first time for

certain legal reasons but also planned a second ceremony in a

local park. Hope had a veritable army of friends who participated

and helped with everything, and our wedding was a joy, held in a

bowl area of the park, such that our families, flower girls, ring

bearers, and then we could walk down a winding path to the

bottom. I had ordered a custom-made vest and bow tie in theRussell family tartan (plaid), chosen to match my middle name.

(Movie lovers will remember that Mel Gibson wore such a vest

made of the Gibson family tartan, to the Academy Awards when

he won best director in 1995.)


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I Think Im Turning Chinese, I

Think Im Turning Chinese, I

Really Think So9

Aside from developing a career as a teacher and studying for

a Ph.D., studying Chinese has no doubt had the most significant

intellectual influence on my life since moving to Taiwan, and

provided me endless hours of both pleasure and pain. My first

encounter with Chinese occurred in the spring semester 1999 at

San Francisco City College, during which I took a Chinese course

( I did this for Hope). Although City College is a fine institution

set on the beautiful hills of south San Francisco, with excellent

teachers and good facilities, this was not a very successful venture.

I remember looking on perplexedly as the teacher (a Taiwanese

woman, I believe) spoke to us entirely in Chinese from the first

day, and I was always somewhat lost, even when she voiced the

simple phrase ? (dng b dng, Do you understand?).10

When she gave the class a test, speaking sentences in Chinese,which we had to transcribe, I felt no more comfortable. In a word,

although I passed the course and managed to give a short speech

in the language on the final day of class, I never seemed to really

get it (however, my fondness for writing in Chinese may stem

from this time).As to my life in Taipei, I have noted that when I arrived in

Taipei, I did not have much of any intention of studying Chinese.


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local I had met. This was largely a disaster. I remember how he

became angry with me because I had trouble differentiating

between the words (ch, to go out) and (q, to go). (Both

of these words have a number of other definitions.) I am pretty

sure that all beginners have this trouble, but my teacher thatnight was seething with frustration over my difficulties. That was

our last lesson. At this same time, I also remember going to a

class offered by the cram school I worked at, and being

flummoxed by their use of the Bopomofo system of

pronunciation (a set of thirty-seven phonetic pronunciationsymbols with the tone marks I have discussed, also called

Mandarin Phonetic Symbols), which I had no experience with;

this was one misstep on my Chinese journey that left me

nonplussed, but I soon learned the system expertly. To learn

Chinese well, Westerners must master this system, which is

commonly used to train children in Taiwan.

It was not until December of 2000 when I began to

appreciate that a language gap was present in my life (it was my

interview at ICDF that made me realize this), and that I would

have to get serious. I poked around a few no-name schools in

Taipei, found a little school, and started going to classes afterteaching at NTUT. At this time I dove into the standard

audiovisual Chinese textbook by Zhong Zheng Publishing, used

by all foreigners in Taiwan (Hope notes that this is the very book

used for Chinese study at Harvard University). This book has

proved largely useful, if at times rather sloppily constructed. Itgives an endless list of functions and usages in Chinese, some

grammatical some simply convention a reasonably good list of


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memorizing vocabulary (one of the big challenges of second-

language learning, as my students often tell me), and practicing

reading and writing.

My lifelong wrestle with this bear of a language was now

under way. And ah, the stories I could tell about studying thistrying, enervating but ever fascinating vernacular! There have

been more blood, sweat, and tears shed during this endeavor

than in any other in my life, and my relationship with Chinese

sometimes straddles love and hate. Oh, the byzantine world of

Chineses frayed grammar and usages (rather than a grammar, per

se, the language seems largely to be a mass of usages and

conventions that one must simply memorize and adapt to); its

seemingly useless tone pronunciation system (which even

Chinese speakers often largely ignore, but oh the dumbstruck

stares if you say two words in Chinese and vaguely mispronounce

the necessary tones! At times, I have considered that some

Taiwanese people cannot understand their native language unlessit is spoken by a native speaker); the written languages essential

disconnect from pronunciation (this is not entirely true, but it

seems as much to Westerners); the pronunciation of individual

phonemes, many of which have no parallels in English and soundpeculiar to our ears (q, ch in the Wade-Giles system), (yu

or y in Wade-Giles), (shi, with its vexing requirement to push

the sound into the back of the throat), (zi, tzu in Wade-Giles),

(ci or tz`u in Wade-Giles), (x or hs in Wade-Giles), (a

purring r, j in Wade-Giles), (er), (o), (e), and (, eh

in Wade-Giles); and note that some of phonemes, such as and


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tones of the phoneme and found something like 250 different

possible definitions (I am told that Chinese people can hear a

sentence that says ma ma m m mn ma ()

and it can be understood as a meaningful sentenceand my

friend Charles Chen tells me the sentence means Because thehorse was slow, did the mother scold the horse?); and finally, the

often-incomprehensible experience of actually hearing a native

speaker speak the language (often lightning fastthe language can

make Spanish look positively languid), which is as often as not

mixed with one or another language or dialect related to Chinese,to say nothing of the sounds of those phonemes examined above,

which seem to purr and squeak and chortle and hiss and gurgle

out of Chinese speakers mouths. As an acquaintance of mine

(who spoke the language with some competence) once said, Its

as close as you can come to gibberish while still actually being a

language.

Some analysts (such as Professor Albert Borgmann) have

explained that the reduction of language to alphabet systems, as

opposed to logographic, pictographic, or ideographic methods,

was a major development in human culture, and that it

represented a huge step forward in efficiency. The English

alphabet, with twenty-six characters, is a good example, and the

ultimate efficient conversion is the reduction of all human data

and/or communication to digital systemswith two symbols, 1

and 0. The Chinese language compared to these systems can

appear veritably labyrinthine and inordinately complexthemost complex writing system the world has ever known, as the

scholar Walter Ong (1912 2003) wrote in Orality and Literacy (86)


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some twenty years (Orality and Literacy, 87). But even here,

people would disagree. Charles Chen tells me, Most Chinese

people wouldnt agree with that observation. Although Chinese

spend time on studying the words, we have other ways of

facilitating language expression. Chen notes that common four-word idioms, which are an essential part of Chinese

communication and culture, are a type of information capsule

that economically includes not only literal meaning but also

historical and connotative significance, and these make learning

the language more efficient, as it were (however, others tell me

that in fact learning these idioms is difficult).11


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News Junkie

This chapter may be a bit more objective and detached than

my prior personal narrative, but the media, news, and politics I

will examine fascinate me and are very much a part of my core

personality. As well, if in a once-removed way, they are important

in my life in Taiwan. I am a news junkie, and I consider being up

on the news a vital part of ones life wherever one lives. Evenfurther, I have a serious passion for knowledge about nations

decision-making capacities and methods, their commitments and

views in terms of freedom, order, and equality, their

constitutional laws and canons, their courts and legalist structures,

and their federalist theories and philosophies (this traces to myeducation in international relations at SFSU and also my

graduate study at BU). Taiwan, as a veritably new democracy in

world affairs, has much to offer in these respects. Although the

following discussion and issues may be a bit more clinical than

the other experiences I have related, they are of continuinginterest to me, and in any case, given Taiwans highly politicized

media environment (particularly), and not a little ardent flag-

waving here, its hard to fully exclude yourself from these issues.

In spite of these interests and my efforts to keep up on the

news, I should at the outset say that in part because I cannot votein Taiwan (and also due to my language skills), I have not been

truly connected to political issues here. Indeed, some might ask


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politically neutral, neither KMT nor DPP.14 The KMT has a

troublesome, dark historical legacy hanging over its head, and the

DPP to me appears to be a feckless and ineffective party with

weak leadership. Both parties seem to indulge more in

combustible party politics, name-calling, and not a little dirtydealing, as opposed to operative policy making in Taiwan. I have

had no interest in involving myself in the fiery anger and enmity

you see across these party lines, although I have had a few sharp

discussions with acquaintances in Taiwan as I have faced off

against either a KMT or DPP partisan.

As to the issues, I read the news and keep up, such as on a

large media merger that is currently being proposed here (with

hints of Chinese influence in the deal, which always raises the

intensity of an issue); a recent controversy over the construction

of new housing and urban development in Taipei; financial

turmoil in both the national pension funding and national health

care systems; elections and occasional referendum issues (I

remember particularly the 2004 election pitting the DPPs Chen

Shui-bian and the KMTs Lien Chan, complete with an

assassination attempt against Chen, and a tearful claim by Lien at

14I refer here to the two major political parties in Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT,

) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, ). I will not go into the

details of the platforms of these two parties except to say that the somewhat

conservative KMT (transferred from China after the Nationalists lost the civil war)

ruled Taiwan as an authoritarian one-party state until the lifting of martial law andfirst democratic elections in the 1980s and 1990s. The DPP, nominally a more

liberal, perhaps center-left party, was founded in 1986 in this free era. The two


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the close that the razor-thin vote had been tainted by political

machinations); aboriginal peoples issues; occasional news

involving Taiwans twenty-three diplomatic allies (I had more

contact with this news when I was a writer at ICDF); news of

Taiwanese citizens and activism in the US; a fair number ofanimal rights and welfare cases in the country; the ever-present

economic news, including that of the Economic Cooperation

Framework Agreement signed with China in 2010 and updated

since then; the environmental and traffic issues I have referred to;

various fishing and farming issues; and larger incidents such as

natural or manmade disasters, or major crimes such as a

campaign shooting in Taipei that killed a man in 2010. I have

also followed the imprisonment of Chen since his conviction on

corruption charges after his last term ended in 2008 and would

have to say that I agree with the liberal view that he should be

released on a medical parole or even pardoned by President MaYing-jeou. Another issue in the news is foreign spouses, which

could have some impact on me, but this tends to focus on wives

from other countries and their children in Taiwan. I also keep up

with a good bit of cultural and softer Taiwan news (the Taipei

Times provides a fairly good selection of these stories).One key larger issue in Taiwan is a focus on Taiwanese

identity and cultural/national sovereignty, colored by the several

colonial eras that have impacted Taiwan (European, Chinese, and

in many ways most importantly, Japanese, from 1895 to 1945), as

well as the influence of Taiwanese aboriginal affairs, and that ofother nationalities and ethnicities that currently reside in Taiwan.

I will refrain from going into more detail here but those


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which is often seen in less-than-savory journalistic practices and

professionalism (in both English and Chinese publications).

In terms of news, the truth is that except for several news

English and international affairs classes I have taught, I have

found that students are generally not terribly interested in thedaily news, and thus I havent found myself speaking about these

issues a lot in my everyday life. I do however discuss political and

social issues with my wife, friends and colleagues, and I have

made some public comments about issues in the Taipei Times,

which I will share below.

Though I find the politics in Taiwan to be messy (those

famous pictures of Taiwanese legislators fist-fighting in their

assemblies and hurling chairs at one another are rather

unpalatable, but this has been known to happen in other

countries as well), there are to be sure commendable assets here.

At the highest level, no doubt that Taiwan transitioned into afree democratic polity after its years of suppressive rule under the

former KMT government is a major achievement that deserves

the highest acclaim. Though I cannot vote in Taiwan, I am proud

to live in such a free democratic nation. However, the fact that I

cannot vote is bothersome and is related to essentially Cold Warera limits on how foreigners can obtain citizenship and voting

rights in Taiwan. One has to give up ones home citizenship in

order to do this. This limit is a shame in a free democracy like

Taiwan and, to be sure, has limited my ability to participate in

civic affairs. I will not exceed this limitation, as I have nointention of ever giving up my US citizenship (I have continued

to vote by absentee ballot in the 2000 2004 2008 and 2012 US


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the people, ensure social tranquility, and promote the welfare of

the people, that the nation is a democratic republic of the

people, to be governed by the people and for the people, and

that all citizens of the Republic of China, irrespective of sex,

religion, race, class, or party affiliation, shall be equal before the

law. So far so good, but in a bizarre and essentially hostile turn,

the document claims Tibet, Mongolia, and even mainland China

as its own territory (something of Taiwans own one China

principlebut Taiwan is not truly culpable, as this document was

mostly created in China in a different age; note that in my

reading, rather than China proper, the ROC constitution refersto the voting rights and interests of Chinese citizens residing

abroad). These are completely impossible claims, and I (with

quite a few others in Taiwan, I believe) feel they should be

eradicated. This points to the possibility of amending or rewriting

the constitution, an option endorsed by a number of liberals here,as well as (as far as I know) Taiwan independence advocates. In

any event, it is necessary if Taiwan ever hopes to enter the

modern world as anything resembling an independent nation.


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Whats So Great About Taiwan?

I have criticized elements of Taiwans life and culture,

sometimes strongly, in this narrative. Some people will resentthisfor these people, there could not be a better land than

Taiwan, and to critique it is absolutely off limits. But as I have

discussed, this is not the way I think, and I hope, needless to say,

my aim has never been to heap blame on Taiwan. I have simply

felt the need to point out some problems in this nation that Ihope can be solved. I should not have to repeat that I like living

in Taiwan, and as much as or more than any other foreigner in

this nation, I am here for the long haul.

Without question, in spite of my complaints and criticisms,

there is much to love about life in Taiwan. I mean particularly life

in Taipei, but I have had great times all around Taiwan. In the

following, my aim is to look at some of the real pleasures of living

here. Readers from other lands are going to discover some details

about a miracle called Taiwan, a miracle that has given pleasure

to people of all ages, nationalities, and ethnicities for years and

years, and has offered up a world of at once joy and gratification,liberty and opportunity, majesty and revelation, and achievement

and prosperity. Such successes may be hardly matched by many

others nations around the world. I have described exactly these

advantages and assets in this narrative thus farbut lets take a

further look at all Taiwan has to offer!In some ways, first and foremost, the outdoor locations in

T i h id d f th b t ti f h Th


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also spelled Taitung) are all enjoyable, bucolic regions with nice

cultural activities.

Taiwan has very nice national and local park systems, with

locations such as Yangmingshan, Ali Shan (a mountain with

famed sunrises lighting banks of clouds, which Hope and Iobserved early one morning in 2001, in a near-mystical setting),

Guandu Nature Park, the Xitou Nature Education Area (where

my wife and I were treated to gorgeous forest canopy scenery as

we strolled along a highly-elevated walkway), the Northeast Coast

National Scenic Area, Puli Mountain Town, the waterfalls at Shi

Fen, the Xin Beitou Hot Springs, Sun Moon Lake, and Taroko

Gorge. Taroko Gorge is one of the major natural landmarks in

Taiwan, replete with mystical, cultural, and spiritual significance.

Unfortunately, I have never fully explored this mecca, and the

closest we came was a scooter ride a kilometer or two into the

main mouth, where we debarked and took a rigorous hikestraight uphill (you find these sorts of trails in Taiwans steep

terrain, ladder trails I call them), where we entered a Buddhist

temple, aglow with candles, incense smoking, perched high on an

overlook with a magnificent view of the area.

But there is yet more, and in another natural turn, my goodfriend George Liao and I began a series of hiking and biking

excursions in the north part of Taiwan in summer 2011, which

developed into a wonderful succession of vigorous outdoor

activities and expeditions to some of the finest natural locales on

this island. These journeys included biking trips to Fushan,during which we biked along the old highway that goes along the

Nanshih Stream; the bikeway near Fulong on which we traveled


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included the well-known Wuliaojian trail, at the end of which we

encountered a desiccated lake, evaporated in the summer heat; a

muddy hike to Sunluo Lake in Datong Township, during which I

slipped and fell more than once (the slick, mossy trails in Taiwan

can be treacherous); and a hike to the Wufengqi Falls, with theirbeautiful plummeting curtains of water (even more astounding

after a recent rain, George told me). After some of these hikes

and rides, we soaked in the phenomenal Jiaoxi hot springs,

stocked with mineral baths, bubbling and pouring water massages,

a delightful childrens water slide, the standard ice pool (dip in

there if you dare; my friend George, the nut, spends tens of

minutes at a time lolling in them), and baths so hot they leave

you gasping (nothing better in the world for sore legs and back).

The natural wonders that Hope and George have treated me

to so many times have themselves left me gasping in Taiwan and

provided a spiritual fulfillment that touches that which is mostessential in me. If readers will allow me room for a bit of reverie,

upon retiring to his Walden Pond cottage, Henry David Thoreau

wrote, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,

to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn

what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that Ihad not lived.16 I of course have not lived the life that Thoreau

didone would hardly expect that from this city boy in Taipei,

with a population of over 2.5 million peoplebut in small ways, if

only on weekend trips to the country, I have reached for

something deliberate and essential, and, in Thoreaus view, I havetried to live. Hiking high in forested hills in Taiwan, ambling

along warm sunlit beachfronts biking on moonlit evenings


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and me warily from nearby trees on a hike near Ali Shan, or the

six-foot king rat snake I saw two men wrestling from under a

footbridge on one of my hikes), or reveling in the wondrous

butterfly population here (Taiwan is justly known as a land of

butterflies, with as many as four hundred species fluttering

colorfully through the air)all of this does more than just provide

welcome relief from the chaotic, crowded conditions in Taipei; it

has given me deep satisfaction and insight into a spectacular

Asian environment that has opened my eyes and provided new

appreciation for our interconnected world with its shared natural

wonders, which eclipse all that is nationalthe earth, mother ofall peoples. Citizens in Taiwan are fortunate that the government

is doing a fairly good job of providing sanctuaries for feelings and

experiences like this.

I will now endeavor to conclude my story about my life inTaiwan. Readers have seen that my life here has opened new


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40/44

doors and offered unexpected new opportunities, which have

given me endless satisfaction and gratification. I have continued

to enjoy the incongruity and continuing unfamiliarity of this all,

at one point writing that it is nice to think that there is still time

to just be a foreigner here, a stranger in a strange land. I have

literally grown older in Taipeiand I may be looking at growing

older still (but beware, the second half goes faster, as the father

Nathaniel Fisher said to his son in an installment of HBOs Six

Feet Under).

Reflective as always, one day, in my journal I wrote:

If anyone has multiple identities, its me. It does make life

interesting. Yet its not just having the different hats, its coming up

with something interesting surrounding all the different experiences.

I would like to have a story to write, an adventure tale of sorts,

conveying what I have learned. Not a groundbreaking story, but thestory of a move and a lot of changes that occur in lifechanges in

location, culture, language, friendships, family relations,

work/career, and environment. What lessons can I pass on? Life is

full of change and challenge? People always either underestimate or

overestimate you? Keep your eyes on the prize, and always keep

learning? Enjoy life, take it easy, one day at a time? Work hard, playhard, and maintain high standards? Kick back, relax, and meditate

daily? Trust yourself, be confident? It seems I have learned it all in

Taiwan.

I continued:

My story would need a conflict, something to make life less


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It seems I have encountered something like this in Taiwan. I

have found conflict, been tested and changedno endless coffee

klatches or boozing in pubs for mefelt a bit of suffering, sought

and found adventure, traveled to new places, met new people,

forged new friendships, experimented artistically and

intellectually, and through it all grown and developed in

meaningful ways. In sum, it seems that I did find something like

inspiration for a new life and history in Taiwanor so I hope this

book has indicated. I concluded the above explorations in my

journal, interrogating the most personal aspects of my story, and I

found that after some challenging problems and losses, boy

meets girl, and then

Boy and girl decide to relocate to her strange, distant, Asian

home. I guess this is where the excitement starts, adjusting to a

cluttered new culture and drifting along, hoping that boy and girlcan find the spark that will enable them to get married and do

something meaningful.

Where the excitement starts, indeed. After something of a

bumpy beginning, the excitement started for this boy in Taipei,and it has amplified and flourished and expanded and diffused

and increased. That boy and that girl did find that spark, and got

married and did something meaningful. As to the future, I hope I

enjoy it as much as I have the recent years. I never saw this

coming back in 2000! Its almost like some magical Chinese tale

maybe a Monkey King (, sn w kng) emerging from a

mythical stone!with transformation, something of a pilgrimage,


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feelings of (to say nothing of!)18 lead you to the

best and most prosperous futures you can find.


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Sources Cited

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the

Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 2006.Baker, Sheridan. The Practical Stylist, with Readings and Handbook.

Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1989.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988,

1971, 1963.

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.

London: Routledge, 1982.Smith, Anthony. National Identity. Middlesex, England: Penguin

Books, 1991.

Wickberg, Daniel. What Is the History of Sensibilities? On Cultural

Histories, Old and New. The American Historical Review 112 (3)

(2007): 661684.

Som

Something Super: One American Lives, Learns and Teaches inTaiwan is a personal memoir about American David Penderys life in


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meth

ingSuper:On

eAmericanLives,LearnsandTeaches

inTaiwan

Taiwan since he moved there in 2000. His story examines political andeducational issues in Taiwan, the many unique elements of Taiwanese life

and culture, and his personal experience in the Asian country.

Drawing on notes from his personal journal and other of his ownwritings, personal communication, numerous published writings, andreferences to other writers and scholars, Pendery crafts a collage that tellshis story of life and travel in Taiwan, teaching and student life, satisfyingfriendships, his new family life, his educational path, studying Chinese,and his employment in schools and other locations.

The prose in the work is sophisticated, but at times hard-hitting,as Pendery does not shy from criticizing what he feels are problems inTaiwan, while suggesting improvements. In spite of the criticisms, the bookconcludes with a heartfelt affirmation of the nations outdoor grandeur, the

rich aesthetic life to be found in Taiwan, and the rewards and surprises hehas found in his work, education, and new relationships during the last 12years. In the end he finds his journey has been like some magical Chinesetale, and he has found something super in Taiwan.

David Penderywas born in Cincinnati, Ohio,and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.He moved to San Francisco, California inhis early 20s. He completed his B.A. inInternational Relations at San Francisco StateUniversity, and his M.S. in Journalism at

Boston University. After working in journalismfor several years in the United States, herelocated to Taipei, Taiwan in 2000. In Taiwanhe has worked as an editor and teacher. Heobtained his Ph.D. in English Literature from

National Chengchi University in Taipei in 2010. He is currently an assistant

professor at National Taipei College of Business in Taipei. He is marriedwith no children.

Documents

Something Super: Living, Learning and Teaching in Taiwan