So Sunday was my last day before I started class and I decided to do a bit more walking around in Taibei Shi (Taipei City). My friend and I ended up just walking around near the Taibei Che Zhan (Taiwan Main Station). We walked around just taking in more the city and saw a few cool buildings, some dutch colonial, and some with much more an asian flare. After walking around for a little over an hour we came across the old North Gate that was entrance to the city. Built it 1884, the North Gate alone retains the original appearances. It is a two-story closed blockhouse of solid construction with traditional Chinese wooden roof truss. It even has the old gates build into the blockhouse even though they do not close anymore.
After walking around and exploring the city for a little while it was time to head in a get a good nights rest for the start of term. My classes started Monday at 2:10pm-5:00pm and run five days a week at that time. When I arrived in my class, my first impression was just like the Christmas Story... OHHHHH F-U-D-G-E. For about the first hour of class I just felt lost. Our teacher does not speak any English to us at all, okay maybe 5 words were said in English over the entire 3 hours. My class had 8 people in it on the first day, and our first assignment together was to translate our class objective and guildlines into Chinese. If this seems like an easy task let me assure you otherwise. Item number 4 on Intensive Course Guidelines: Generally, one chapter will be covered every three days, but the teachers will do the necessary adjustments based on the absorption of students and the contents of that chapter. A test will be given upon completion of each chapter... now try speaking about that in another language, not fun. Once these items were done we were off to the races, asking questions of all of our classmates in a general review of lessons 1-15 in the textbook. That took us to the end of the first day.
Right at the end of our first day our teacher announced that we would have a quiz on Tuesday covering review vocabulary from lessons 11-15. When I got home i started to get a little freaked out. Over 80 characters worth of material, and a lot of it new to me because I used a different text book back home. So I spent about 5 hours working on homework Monday night and another 3 hours during the day. The result... I only knew about half the words that she spoke and I still felt lost. I started to get a little bit worried but I talked with my Professor and she told me to stick it out. At the end of our second 3 hour lesson we were giving the same task of reviewing lesson 11-15 for our quiz on Wednesday. I again hit the books for about 5 hours at night and 4 hours during the day. I didn't think things would stick since I was cramming so much in my brain, but it seemed to work. I got very very few errors on my second quiz and felt a lot more confident in todays class. Oh also today our class was reduced to only 4 people rather than the 8 we had in the beginning. A few thought it was to hard and a few thought it was to easy. So in theory I get 1 hour of one on one time with my professor every single day... not to bad, not to bad at all.
That is all for now, I am going to be hitting the books a lot while the semester is in full swing but I will be sure to keep you all informed of any new developments in Taipei.
6 comments:
Jake,
Keep plugging away. Good Luck with the rest of your studying. I guess a small room with few distractions has worked out for you so far.
I remember the first couple days of some of my engineering classes with my first foreign professors. It was culture shock because it was very difficult at first to sift through the accent and word pronunciations. Sometimes it felt like another language.
You'll do well. I look forward to hearing more.
No pain, no gain. Remember you are in an immersion environment. Take the advantage of it; yet be sure to relax yourself during the break.
Hi Jake,
I'm impressed-you'll do great. I would've been crying. The immersion is the best way and you'll be so proud of yourself when you become fluent. My sister's friend Nicole is from New York, lives and works in Norway and when I was there it was so neat to see her speak fluently. Have a great day-sending positive vibes your way!!
Gao Jian (I keep forgetting what that means...) - like all new and meaningful pursuits, you have to give yourself over to the process to reap the deep rewards. You have, and you will!
Having seen your Chinese go from zero to a hundred (metaphorically speaking), we know that you've got the capacity and tenacity to expand your neural network to boldly go where few have gone, ie., using your second language to LIVE with the locals and not just pass some quizzes. Keep pounding the books (and the noodles and the pavement...) - Dad
I'm proud of you, Jake! You have tenacity. You will succeed and whatever you learn in the next 9 months is that much more than you knew going in.
I still haven't heard about any stinky tofu. That Andrew guy on cable says it is the national food of Taiwan. Have you had any?
Boy, this story sure sounds familiar. I remember spending about the first half of my first semester at Shida just getting caught because of the differences in textbooks. Just keep studying hard and each semester will become less and less frustrating.
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