It Seems Like Just Yesterday <3

Taipei, District Conference

我會想念你，臺灣. 我愛這個美麗的國家

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.

Chinese New Years!

Taipei Zoo

5 Month Report!

Five Months. I still cannot believe I have actually been living in Taiwan for five months. My exchange has officially passed the halfway mark, and I have such mixed feelings about this! I am happy because I actually made it this long and I do miss my family very much and cannot wait to see them. However, it is also quite sad to think about the fact that I will be home in five months. This amazing adventure will eventually come to an end. I remind myself this everyday. That each minute is precious and I should make the most of it! This month has been yet another incredible one. Finally, I got my winter vacation! I was actually a little bit worried because as much as I love Kinmen there isn't a whole lot to do here. I didn't know how it would be with my host family either because we had never spent long periods of time together. But it turned out wonderfully! My Chinese teacher offered Naima and I calligraphy lessons, my host brothers and I played lots of Mario bros, I went out with my classmates (not often because they still have cram school and studying), and the Rotary Club kept us busy. In mid January I went to Taipei for the second inbound orientation and a culture class. For the most part we listened to the Rotarians talk about safety and rules for the Eastern Taiwan trip. Then we had to get up and talk about the first half of our year in Taiwan. For the culture class we learned Chinese calligraphy. It was so beautiful, and so much harder than it looked! We wrote on the red paper that is hung outside of doors for Chinese New Year. The Chinese characters often symbolize the welcoming of spring, or good wishes for the new year. Although most of the exchange students red paper was not the most beautiful, we still had fun with it. In Taipei we also got to go out with the other exchange students which is always memorable. Back in Kinmen the weather is amazing so I have been spending almost everyday outside. I went biking with Naima out into the countryside and we found this old traditional village to walk through. My host brothers also took me to Zhongshan Lin, a biking park with trails. I went into Jincheng with a couple of my classmates where i tried coconut nai cha for the first time. It's times like these that make my exchange special. I feel so fortunate to have these people in my life in this beautiful place. The five unbelievable months I have been here have been life changing. I feel so lucky to still have five more to go!

Jincheng

New Word! Penguin

企鵝
Qì'é

Halfway

As I approach the halfway mark in my exchange, I decided to write a little Chinese for my blog.

時間過得真快，一轉眼，我在金門已經待了將近五個月的時間了。金門就像一個大家庭，也是學習中文的好地方。在這樣一個小島上，不需要花太多的時間就能感受到它像家一樣的溫暖，因為這裡的人們都非常友善。回想起我剛到這個小島時，心裡充滿了害怕。我害怕因為自己完全不會說中文，而沒有辦法結交新朋友。尤其難熬的時間是假日，每當假日來到，我就特別想念我的家人。但是，我的接待家庭和同學們都非常的親切和友善，每一天，他們都熱心的教我很多中文。有三個月的時間，我幾乎忘了想念美國。
我在這裡的前半年，認識了很多很多的朋友，也經歷了許多的冒險和體驗。我期待在接下來的半年裡，可以學到更多，體驗更多，我相信這一年的交換學生生活，將永遠在我心裡留下最美好也最難忘的回憶。

Jincheng

I took the day to explore my city