Thanksgiving in Taipei!

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I spent four days and 3 nights in Taipei. Here's how my 4-day weekend went!

Pictured: The six grantees from the Late Arrival Grantee Orientation.

My trip started on Wednesday because I attended a Late Arrival Grantee Orientation for two days. Wednesday's workshops discussed the theory behind the type of teaching we are doing. Teaching acronyms mentioned were CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), and TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).  Thursday's workshops integrated the teaching pedagogies we examined with activities to share how we could use them in the classroom. These workshops were great reminders and encouragements for teaching in the classroom and creating a positive English learning environment for the students. 

At my elementary school, the second graders have one English class, and the sixth graders have two English classes. I am one of the sixth graders' English classes. For my classes, I teach a more CLIL-based class on food cultures around the world. My lessons are not defined by the textbook, so I have more creative liberty with what and how I teach. Not all Fulbrighters have that ability in the classroom as some have to base their lessons on the textbook or strictly follow the curriculum. I see my classes as the fun English class because they aren't graded or have to work through the textbook.

In the Late Arrival Grantees Orientation, there were six of us. Some from Penghu, Chiayi, and Taichung were in attendance. On Thursday night, we had a group dinner at Din Tai Fung. One of the grantees' friends from college came to Taipei to visit. We had a pretty good time getting to know each other during the orientation and at dinner. Afterwards, we walked through the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (which was on my list of places to go for the next day). The memorial is HUGE! Look at me standing at the site. It was really beautiful. There are museums, cafes, and theaters within the square. At one of the theaters, they were playing jazz music! The memorial was not open due to it being night time, but the theaters were open, playing shows for different audiences even at 9 p.m. Most places close as early as 7:30 p.m., so I was a little surprised that the buildings were open.

Me standing at the entrance of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Arch at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Friday was the big day, Fulbright Thanksgiving! Friday's events were separated into two sections: one in the afternoon containing keynotes on tree planting and the history of tea in Taiwan, the second one was the Thanksgiving dinner. 

The keynotes were really interesting (a little random, but interesting). So, there's this program that plants trees in different counties in Taiwan and in Mongolia to help the environment in its protection against typhoons and other elements. In some counties, there aren't many trees, especially near the beaches. The program uses man-made tree planters to sustain tree growth in areas that aren't privy to sustaining trees-- at a survival rate of 70% compared to the original survival rate without their tree planters of 10%! The second keynote shared the history of tea in Taiwan. Quite compelling! As a person who didn't drink tea much to someone who drinks milk tea and hot tea more frequently, I did not know the history of tea in Taiwan. The speaker talked about different types of tea: jasmine, oolong, etc. There had been chemistry research on how this tea that didn't use the jasmine flower for the fragrance still had jasmine in it. The speaker was a chemist and showed chromatograms from the GC-MS about the identification of this fragrant tea. I was reminded of my research days in the Keck Lab! Also, this tea called Oriental Beauty tea is a type of oolong tea that tastes like fruit and honey. I was really interested in this tea because I like teas with that taste. Have yet to try it, but I do like the taste of oolong tea.

My Kinmen cohort and coordinators

After the keynotes, we had an hour break before the dinner. I spent mine checking in to my hotel and taking a little break in my room. The room was quite luxurious-- the bathroom had a shower AND a full length bathtub. The Thanksgiving Dinner was fun! Dr. Nadeau, the Executive Director of the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (FSE/Fulbright Taiwan) and Mr. Raymond Greene, the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) cut turkey! All the cohorts sat at tables for each site. A lady and her band sang jazz renditions of pop songs while we ate the Thanksgiving food. There was an array of turkey, braised beef, mashed potatoes, salads, fruits, and desserts like mango cheesecake, brownies, and mini lemon custard tarts. I mainly focused on the sweet treats as usual. While I was at the dinner, I connected with some cool people from other sites. Many complimented my dress!

The Black Fulbrighters and Master's students within the FSE program took a group photo. It was so nice to see my community in such prestigious programs abroad. We had a great time sharing our experiences as school teachers in Taiwan and seeing each other represent. Some of us thought only a handful of us would be in the program before arriving in Taiwan. 

Overall, Friday was a beautiful experience meeting and talking to people within the Fulbright Taiwan program from advisors to degree-seeking students to fellow Fulbrighters. I had a wonderful time in Taipei! I did a few different things while I was there.

Taipei 101

One, I navigated the MRT by myself after not understanding how people used the MRT. It does have English translations of the locations, and I did use Google Maps. For some reasons, directions no matter how simple, still find a way to confuse me a bit. It was fun using my EasyCard to get on and off the train. My EasyCard has Fulbright Taiwan on it. On one of my MRT stops, I saw Taipei 101! One of my friends told me that it was designed to look like takeout boxes. I did not know that, and that's so cute. I liked when the MRT said 101 in Mandarin-- it's 一零一 (yi ling yi) and sounds like "ee leeng ee". 

Other things I did include going to a Japanese restaurant and a pasta place during the lunch breaks for the workshops, eating egg custard buns and shrimp fried rice, shopping at NET, visiting a space museum (super cool!), and finding a cinnamon roll place. 

You may be wondering if I went to a night market. There are so many night markets in Taipei! (There used to be one in Kinmen, but it's no longer there.) Yes, I did, but I mostly walked through the whole night market in Ximending a couple times. I wasn't hungry, and I was a little scared trying to order by myself. There were so many options and cool things I'd want to see and try for my next visit. I've been told to go with a group next time to the night market to share and get more food.

I'll leave you with a cute panda egg custard bun! See you next time~

Brittany