Heading in a NNW direction from my home, we were on our way to the town of Jiangjun, only a few kilometers away. The town’s name is rather strange as it translates directly to “General” as in the military kind. Not sure why, but there you go.

We were on our way through the town and were actually on our way to go out, when we stumbled upon this place. Not too sure what it was, but liking the look of it, we stopped and looked around.

Fangyuan Museum

Fangyuan is a small art museum in the house of a generous army guy who lived in the town many years ago. HIs residence was reconstructed and is home to the small collection of pictures of local things, some of the old guy’s possessions, and other Chinesey things that I was happily told had nothing to do with the old man or anything else in the area.

Outside there was this small stage and grassed area, where the kids had a little run around, and I had a lie down before taking this picture.

A traditional Chinese bed that has nothing to do with anything related to the house and it’s previous owner.

On our way out we spotted this old church on the other side of the road. From the looks of the washing hanging outside, I wonder if it is really still used as a church, or is just someone’s house. Very quaint though.

Now that we were done with our distraction we headed off to find the place that we had originally set out to discover. Although the tourist map of the area indicates both of these places, there is a lot to be left to the imagination.

The map is only in English, which is rather annoying as nobody else can understand anything on it. The other thing is that the marking for these sites has no address, no exact location, and could be anywhere in the area.

This second place proved a little difficult to find. And I doubt any locals know there is anything special there.

As it turns out, I simply went to the near vicinity, visually located the biggest building apart from the temple and headed straight towards it.

I was spot on.

And this is what we found…

Jiangjun Memorial

… and I still don’t know what it is. Well, it’s a memorial to someone or something, but he must be a very local hero because nobody I have shown this to knows who he is. Even the plaque with details doesn’t help ring any bells.

The highlight was that the kids went climbing on the rocks, Christopher plopped his leg straight into a murky green puddle of water that went half-way up his leg. A nice little adventure for them I think.

— It’s really easy to forget, especially with Taiwan’s culture that aims to entertain kids, that kids are quite content with very small and simple things. I bet my two could have spent over an hour there, just exploring, but we had to get on our way a little sooner than that.—

Heading Home

The rest of the journey doesn’t provide anything too interesting to look at. I did find out that the riverside path is NOT complete and had to take other roads and wander around to find out where to go.

Quite a bit of meandering through farms, which is actually quite pleasant in itself, as long as you avoid any dogs. Not always easy though.

But I did manage to get this shot of something which I really just can’t figure out. It makes no sense any way I can think of.

The Tree in the Middle of the Road

Just this had to be included as it is so odd.

I have obvious missed the memo on this one.

Why have the tree in the middle of the road? Couldn’t the road be built with a bend in it to go around this probably sacred tree? My amazement is not that there is a sacred tree and they won’t cut it down, but that it’s just plop, smack bang in the middle of one lane.

I think it falls into the selective blindness that afflicts so many in Taiwan. It’s as if someone looked at the tree, then decided that by not acknowledging that the tree is actually there, things would go easier for everyone. So the road just goes straight through it. Absolutely no attempt to make way for it at all. They also chose to not have any official warning signs of any kind that there is a friggin’ tree in the road.

It’s these little things that really make my day in Taiwan. They are just beyond my foreign understanding, and at the end of the day, just give me a little giggle.

Obligatory Posed Shots

I believe it is impossible for any kid to not pick up this habit here. Posing for shots is mandatory, or it so seems.

Christina does it…

…and Christopher is still in the learning phase.

Click here to see the album on Picasa.

Continuing with my quest to do a little more touring in my local area, I decided to drag the kiddies along to the black-faced spoonbill reserve, quite nearby our home.

The decision to go here was not completely random. Christina has been doing some stuff about the black-faced spoonbills at school and had brought a book home about them.

The black-faced spoonbills migrate to Taiwan, specifically the Qigu area in Tainan, for a lot of the winter as the climate in Taiwan is not as cold as the other place they stay. They are an endangered species with less than a thousand or so in the world.

When we were almost at the main visitor center we stumbled on this sign. Looks like there are a few other things to add to our tour list there. We headed on to the conservation center to see what we could see.

Aside from just being there, I don’t have too much to report about the center itself. It was fairly interesting with quite a lot of people making their way through the center.

A fair number of tour bus passers through.

I headed home as it was getting late in the day, and dragging the kids on the crappy bike for 40km in total was a bit of a test. Next time I’ll head to the actually conservation area and see what we can see there.

Till next time!

Saturday morning started as usual, except that this day I was amped to get out on the bike with the kids.

We headed off at around 3 o’clock for the 10km or so trip towards the coast. At this time I had no idea of exactly where we were going to end up. I had planned to go to the black-faced spoonbill reserve, but this ended up as a good alternative.

As I nearly reached the Taiwan Salt Museum, all about the areas main product, I notice a small building that had never caught my attention before. Being at the towing kids speed, I pulled over and noticed it was a visitors center. Hardly anyone around, but gave me a chance to have a look around.

It is filled with pictures of beautiful views in Taiwan, but many didn’t look like they were from the area. Sure enough, a great majority of the pictures are of other areas of Taiwan, although apparently all within Tainan. I grabbed a map for future reference, and other places to go.

I inquired with the lady there, a youngster who didn’t really seem to know much about what there was to do in the area, but she did give me one gem that was supposed to be quite close by.

So off we went.

As it turns out, I had been this way before in search of the coast (often blocked by the salt fields) but had just missed the final turnoff.

What I discovered was a picturesque view of the estuary by the sea. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of these picture-perfect views, but wow.

The viewing area itself is nice enough, being a wooden structure on a flood wall. It was great for the kids to run around on and to get a good view of the sea. There was also ample opportunity to take in the scenery. The weather was just perfect as the rain was holding off and the sun beaming down through the clouds beamed off the ocean below.

I will certainly be back when I can get there.

Click here to see the album on Picasa

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
________.
________ who?
[ridiculously lame punchline]

Then you explain how the punchline works together with the “____ who?” line. Try your absolute best to explain how a pun works.

Next: prompt students to put on their best smirk or laugh because it’s just good manners.

Well, I challenged one class to find some and one student came back with a few gems. Here they are for your viewing pleasure.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Abe.
Abe who?
A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Doughnut.
Doughnut who?
Do not worry, it’s only a joke.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Cows go.
Cows go who?
No, cows go moo.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Says.
Says who?
Says me, that’s who.

There are two classics below:

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn’t say apple?

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Thermos.
Thermos who?
There must be a better joke than this.

The entire week was a surprise and a challenge for me. I was not sure what to expect from a summer camp as I had never done one before. The camp itself was an English summer camp, so the focus of the entire thing was on English and I was interested to see what the result of an English class combined with a traditional summer camp would look like. Although it was a summer camp (the temperatures confirmed it), it was not the outdoors kind, all of our lessons were conducted in the classroom. This was to avoid disruption of the other people on the campus as the other students were still doing their regular activities.

There were 12 classes in total with around 24 students per class, we were one shy of 24 because one of the students couldn’t attend for some reason or another.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5482189053508080738

Monday started off with a new class of mixed students. The class was bundled together from different students from different faculties, some of them already knew each other, but most of them didn’t. This day was about getting to know each other getting into the flow of the week.

The start of the day required us to make a war cry of sorts. Now I should of realized it, but later in the morning we had to perform that war cry for the rest of the classes at the school. But not having realized it, we got to the venue and then were escorted outside and told we had to perform, and we were first. So all of us were taken by surprise on this one, but managed to compose ourselves pretty well.

The rest of the day was devoted to activities in the classroom, or course all English related. I ran into the problem that I had underestimated how much extra time there would be and had to think on my feet to expand things and fill the available time.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5482189178589423874

The afternoon was also the start of practice for the show we would have to put on on Friday afternoon. We tentatively started to put it together, first trying to brainstorm as a class and figuring out what the topic of the show would be. This took quite a bit of time and there were only a few ideas put forward. This posed a bit of challenge as they got very excited about some topics, like a remix of The Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood. The problem would have been how to put those together into a show that was supposed to be only five minutes long. We left the discussion to be continued the next day.

The one thing that became very clear right away was the eagerness to do a song and dance. In contrast to South Africa where the men try to be quite “manly” the whole class which consisted of 16 guys and 7 girls were keen on doing a song and dance. There are few qualms with this and actually it’s pretty fun. The tradition of doing these singing shows starts from kindergarten and they get a chance to do these shows pretty much every year until the finish university. Funnily enough they still have some in companies as I witnessed at the year-end party at my company last year.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5482190974219083106

Tuesday was the first day of actual teaching. We had already started on Monday as there is always lag time built into the schedule. We focused on greetings and basic conversations. I had planned my lessons around teaching just what was in the book which turned out to be too little for the students as their ability was quite a bit beyond the chosen material.

Due to our slower than expected speed for choosing the show topic, and my being a little nervous about not finishing (after the scare of the previous day’s war cry) we started off the afternoon by choosing a topic. We finally settled on Cinderella and hastily started putting together a script and other stuff.

After asking for a little guidance on putting the show together I picked teams to do the different parts of the show. We had a group to put together the final song, choosing it, cutting it down, preparing the music and deciding on the actions for it. Another team was in charge of creating the costumes. The final group was in charge of preparing lines for the actors and how they would perform.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5482191392911255154

Wednesday was another filled with teaching and in the afternoon we hit the show again. Progress was again slow, so we put a concerted effort into finalizing and having a first run. Setting targets for a first run in the afternoon helped to speed up their progress and we ran through it as best we could. Afterwards we decided to cut the lines a bit and practice the actors roles more.

Thursday morning was probably the best of the English classes. After a week of being a little unsure of how to handle the class I did what I should have done all along and just approached it like any other class I would have had, I threw in a whole lot of games with a whole bunch of speaking and we finished off pretty well.

In the afternoon we had our materials for the show ready and got most of the props finished. The lines were pretty much done and the song “That’s How You Know” from the movie enchanted had been chosen as our final song. This song has been in the back of my head ever since then reminding me of the fun we had and bringing back memories of the week.

Friday was the wrap-up for the week and the morning was devoted to having some final time with the students, just chatting about stuff. We also had lunch together in the classroom, which was a bit of a treat for them as they have to get permission from their company leaders to be absent from their usual lunch with their company.

The biggest surprise was the twists and changes that were made to the show at the last minute. Cinderella’s shoe became her bra, the kids started making their own new lines and doing some impromptu acting. This got me worried a little about not having a perfect show, but I did have to realize that this was the aim of the show, to get them to just use the English they had learned and to feel comfortable using it. So I pushed any ideas about a perfect show aside and just let them flow.

The afternoon was awesome. Everyone was excited to a fever-pitch when the last of the shows started, the atmosphere became better and better as the evening moved on with cries of support and laughter during all the performances. Most of the shows were pretty darn good, and of course ours was not exception.

At the end of the day my students presented me with Cinderella’s pumpkin as a thank you card for the week. I got a few strange looks carrying a big pumpkin cutout onto the subway, but at the same time I was really proud of what my class managed to achieve.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5482191490800139474

Looking back there are a few things I would take away from this and apply the next time I do a summer camp.

Firstly I would prepare a lot more short activities. Perhaps my lack of experience with planning so many classes or confusion about the format of the week left me with gaps during the day. Next time I need many, short, easy to setup activities to fill in any quiet moments.

Secondly I would insist on English only from the start of the week. It was only on Thursday that I made a “punishment” for speaking anything but English. This only consisted of singing a song for the class, but was enough to get them to stick to this rule. It was not easy for all of them, but they all managed to get their meaning across in one way or another.

Thirdly, plan for any level. In a week, there is very little time to get to know the class. Sure, you’ll know each other better by the end of the week, but it’s very hard to adjust a schedule in such a short time. I would aim for all the basics and lots of conversational activities only. These always work and can be adjusted on the fly. Together with this I won’t be obsessed with the workbook, if we have to finish it for some reason, then just quickly finish those as a task at the end of the morning or something.

The week went by in a blur, I was quite ill at the beginning of the week, which improved by the end. The days were long, but the interactions with the students were great. On a side note it was an absolute pleasure staying at Paul and Queenie’s place for the week, two of the greatest friends anyone could hope for.

To my students: You guys rock, and thanks for making the week as great as it was. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you around.