Argus Winter Vacation Article

With my first semester of teaching and winter vacation behind me, I want to reflect on the many new things I have learned about the Taiwanese education system. My biggest surprise is the fact that although there are three weeks on the school calendar marked as “winter vacation,” two of the weeks some teachers are still required to be in school. I have mentioned before how much emphasis the Chinese put on their children’s’ education, and this reiterates that fact. Although these three weeks were considered vacation time, I was required to have office hours at school from 8-5, more than my normal work week of 8-4, for one week. Part of this time was spent teaching in the camp which I will describe later in this article. The remainder of the time was used to prepare lessons and activities for the first few weeks of the new semester, even though I didn’t get my teaching supplies until the day before classes began.

The second week I actually did have off and I took full advantage of it by going to Japan (also to be addressed later in this article). This was the government mandated time off due to the celebration of the Chinese New Year. For this Holiday, four weekdays are given off for all businesses, but the fifth day of the week, Friday, is not. Since most people traveled in order to be with their families, my school was gracious enough to give the additional day off………..with one catch; we have to make it up. In Taiwan culture when a day of work or school is given off, it must be made up. Because this Friday was given off, we will have a regular school day on a Saturday. This has happened before and each time I am surprised. Parents just do not want their students missing any days of school; so every day must be accounted for. I would assume the government has a certain amount of mandated days the students must be in school each semester as well but I don’t know this for sure. At any rate, there are times in Taiwan that teachers and students attend school on the weekends.

About the camp I mentioned above: the first and third weeks of our “break” we held an English camp, essentially two weeks of extra English practice for everyone. Although the students are considered to be on break during this time most, if not all of them, attended the two weeks of “English camp.” The students only come to school for half of a day, but the teachers have office hours until 5. The camp was a project given to the three foreign English teachers, which ended up practically being a project of my own. For each day, I prepared lessons and activities for three teachers to teach in rotating stations.

Because the project ended up in my hands, I wanted to have every student get the chance to be in each of the three foreign teachers’ classrooms. We had an hour session, three times in the morning, each the same lesson. The lessons, depending on the grade level, consisted of: acting out a story, role-playing how to buy candy at a store, and learning the months of the year. My other foreign co-workers failed to prepare any other lessons, so on the days that I did not prepare a structured lesson for them, they played an English version of bingo with the students. Though it was a very stressful time for me, it was a great experience and I was able to further develop my leadership skills.

In America, winter and summer vacations are times for teachers to re-energize, possibly travel with their friends\family or continue their education. Here in Taiwan, a few teachers, I believe the newer ones, are expected to work for the school during their “vacations.” What’s more, I don’t think there is any supplemental pay for this duty; it is just expected. I still haven’t quite figured this all out yet. My mindset is still that of an American teacher so this entire concept is something I don’t fully comprehend.

As I stated above, I did get to do some traveling during my one week of semester break. A small group of foreign English teachers organized a quick trip to Japan. It is not the best time to visit Japan because it is the winter season and many attractions, especially the botanical gardens, aren’t as impressive as they otherwise would be in the Spring or Summer but I don’t have time off then so, I took advantage of the opportunity while I had it. Because of a foot injury early in the week, I was unable to see and experience everything on my group’s itinerary but still saw a portion of the Japanese culture. We visited many temples and gardens in the historical cities of Kyoto and Nara.

The day trip to Nara is the most memorable day of my Japan experience. The train ride from Kyoto took about an hour and as we reached our destination it began to rain but even this did not deter us from seeing the sites. We rented bicycles, causing a little shock to the bicycle rental worker, and set off to the main park. After an uphill ride, we arrived at some tourist attractions. I assumed it was a zoo because I saw deer grazing in a gated area. Then I saw deer grazing in a non-gated area as well as in the street, near the temple and even trying to get into stores! There were wild deer EVERYWHERE. I couldn’t’ believe that this was accepted throughout the town. The deer were as much inhabitants of this town as the people! The deer were actually obnoxious. They came up to people begging for food, head butting them (and us!) and, in general, harassing everyone.

My two friends and I biked through the most beautiful parks and trails, stopping at shrines and temples. Then we came to an attraction that led us to Todai-ji, the temple that houses the biggest Buddha in Japan, and the largest wood carvings in the world. Nothing could have prepared me for the enormity of this Buddha. His eyes alone were three feet wide. Because temples are candle lit, pictures could not capture the essence of the Buddha or the temple, I still got a few nice shots though.

As I write this, the second semester of school has started and my year in Taiwan is more than half over. I hope to continue learning about the country and its people. My next article is going to discuss culture shock that goes beyond the initial reactions of visitors: living in a foreign land. Thank you again for reading, and I wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year.