7 Month Report

Another month has passed brining me even closer to my departure date. Each month I spend here just makes me fall even more in love with this beautiful country. Which will make going home even harder. This month I changed host families again. My new family actually owns a restaurant here in kinmen. They have many wedding celebrations and funeral dinners here. It has been a really good opportunity for me to practice my Chinese.I often get to help out with simple tasks. All of the employees at the restaurant talk to me and tell me how to say different things in Chinese. My younger host sister, Kitty, will be going to Italy next year on exchange. She is a first year student at the vocational school (her schedule isn't very busy) so we have become really good friends. She helps me with my Chinese and I help her with her English. My host family has also been teaching me how to cook. School has been really good too. I feel like I've become much more involved at my school. I like how the students in each class become so close. Which makes sense because they spend so much time together. I can see a really big difference in school here compared to American high school. It may just be the language barrier, but I don't notice any form of bullying or harassment in school here in Taiwan. This month I also had a trip to Taipei where we went to the National Palace Museum. We learned about many different bronze, ceramic, and jade pieces. In Taiwan you often see older women wearing a jade bracelet on there hand for protection. Jade is really important in Chinese culture. It has been another amazing as well as relaxing month. This place feels like home. All I can think is I don't want this experience to end!

6 Month Report

It has officially been six months since I moved to Taiwan! Each month I comment on how quickly time is flying by, and I must do that again. In only one hundred and ten days I will be flying back to America. The smaller that number gets, the scarier the whole idea is. How does a person just go back to normal after an experience like this? It is an indescribable feeling knowing that overnight I will go from living in Taiwan back to living in America. I have become so accustomed to life here. This city feels like home and I feel like returning will be equivalent to adjusting to a foreign country again.
This month has been another amazing one. For the most part I was on winter vacation and the first few days I had a trip with the other exchange students. We travelled to Hualien in eastern Taiwan where we visited an aboriginal village, went rafting, and went to a marine park. It was incredible to see another part of Taiwan outside of the big city and Kinmen. We took a train threw huge fields and mountains, the journey alone was beautiful. By the time we returned to Kinmen it was almost Chinese New Year. During the Chinese New Year my host family's home was always full of relatives. Because the grandparents originate in Kinmen all the family members came to the island to celebrate. I probably met thirty or forty aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandchildren. It was crazy! Many of the older family members spoke only Taiwanese, which meant even my less than perfect Chinese was useless. But everyone was so kind and made me feel like part of the family. After dinner on New Years Day we got to watch and play with sparklers, firecrackers, and fireworks. At the end of the night we all received red envelopes ( hong bao ) with money in them. It was a fun night! A few days later it was time to return to school. I was a little happy because as much as I love living in Kinmen, there is not a whole lot to do. It was awesome seeing my classmates again. I feel like over the winter break my Chinese really improved and as a result I'm starting to have real friends here, not just classmates that say hello to me during break. Another event that took place this month was the Lantern Festival. I went with my old host family, along with the exchange student they are currently hosting, to make a lantern. The sight of all the glowing red lanterns floating up into the sky was stunning. It looked like it was straight out of a movie. This month was a very important month in Chinese culture and I feel so lucky that I was able to be a part of it.