Wendell Barnes in Taiwan --Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I'm certainly not the most proficient blogger ever, since I wrote one this morning but then it did not post. I had written about our experiences in Taipei doing service and seeing the sights. Mark and Kevin and their families have truly pulled out all of the stops in planning our trip and especially showing off their home town. I told Mark and Kevin how true it is that we don't always visit the sites in our own home towns until someone comes to visit and you take them around, and they agreed. Today I had probably the most unique and memorable birthday of my life! We began the day at the National Palace Museum visiting all of the art antiquities there, including a large piece of jadeite carved into the shape of a bok choy cabbage and part of the Ching Dynasty collection. A restful morning in the beautiful modern museum housed in a gorgeous antique building. Then we went to Wang Steak for lunch and had a gourmet meal in a very nice modern downtown restaurant--all black glass and outstanding service and food. Following that we returned to the shopping mall near our hotel, shopped a bit and then 12 of the 14 of us went to see the latest Harry Potter that just came out today. After 25 minutes of Chinese commercials in which we tried to figure out what they were selling, the film finally started, and it was in English and captioned in Chinese. I noticed that the 99% Chinese audience could read the captions faster than they could be spoken in English, so sometimes the audience's laughter drowned out the punch line of what we were listening to! But it was still a cool experience. Then we took cabs to Mark's family's restaurant, where we had another of our endless course meals in a private dining room, followed by a delicious fancy strawberries in jello topped cake with so many sparkling candles on top that they caught on fire ( but no damage to the cake!), and poppers for everone that filled the air with tiny paper hearts, and a traditional Chinese cake in the shape of a giant peach, that when slit open, produced a large number of smaller peaches with a red bean sweet filling in them. The Huangs also gave me a beautiful titanium braclet for a birthday present and even paid for all of our cab rides back to the hotel. The hospitality here has been overwhelming and we are so grateful for all of our Taiwanese friends here.
The post I somehow deleted this morning also included the fact that several of the Taiwanese Dar students have been coming from nearby towns and neighborhoods to join us for some of our activities in Taipei. So far we have seen Jason Lui, Min Jin Liu, Erin Wu, Wesley Kuo, Ariel Tang, and incoming freshman Tim Huang, Mark's brother. Some of these have come and joined our group more than once, and they, Mark and Kevin have been so invaluable in translating for us when needed. However, it is very interesting to see how many Taiwanese people can get by with English--certainly a lot better than our Chinese! Taiwan has a national promotional motto "Touch Your Heart." It has and it will be difficult to leave all of the wonderful friends we have made on Friday. But because the country has touched our heart, we will take part of Taiwan and its people home with us.
WB

So Far...

So far Taiwan has been awesome! The night markets we have gone to have been great and the hospitality here is exceptional. Also there are really good deals on a lot of things all around Taipei. Teaching the kids was a great experience and I had a lot of fun. The places around Hualien, like Taroko National Park, were awesome and I really enjyed them. Today we visited a Buddhist school and also a geological park. The school was located on Dharma Drum Mountain which is beautiful. The geological park was very interesting in the fact that a rock there was shaped like a queen's head. There were many high cliffs that had extravagant views from the top. Although the weather was very humid and hot, it did not take away from the magnificent view.


Alex Pickle

Photo Update

These are pictures of Taroko National Park. The mountains and rivers flowing through the park were quite spectacular. The park is home to several aboriginal tribes as well as the largest marble gorge on Earth.

These images depict a large Daoist temple. These temples are all around Taiwan, and they are much more ornate than the Buddhist ones.

Fish eyes are the best food ever! Chicken butt is a close second, but it is not as salty. Ho shi wa ni Mrs. Pan! :)))

So far, Taiwan has been amazing. The food is especially scrumptious. Annelise and I have really been enjoying trying all the exotic foods. I have been picking up all kinds of cool souveniers at the night market. It has been a great experience so far, and I am not looking forward to the plane ride home.

I find the culture interesting. It is so different from ours.

-Lucas, Annelise, and Scott

Post from Mark after the first week

"http://www.wretch.cc/album/album.php?id=donna4488&book=13" this is where our Tour guide in Hualien, Donna, posts some of the pictures she has taken.

It has been 10 days since the beginging of the trip. I can say that this trip is definitely one of the very best things in my life. If has been the best memory of the whole summer vacation. When I see everyone's smile or amazement when people see something, I know that all the preparations and waitings before the trip are all worthy.

The weather of Taiwan has not been very cooperative, hot and humid. I have not sweat so much ever since I graduated from middle school. But all the services and the visiting have been fantastic. I feel like we are having some future kindergarten teachers after our last teaching section last Friday.

I have been expecting the trip to take place since the trip has been confirmed. I myself has learned a lot about Taiwan from the trip too. Beyond that, I got some friends from the host families, and I get to be even better friends with people on the trip. There are a lot of events in this trip to be described, but all I can say is that every single moment in the trip, no matter happy, exciting, tiring, or stressing out, has been fabulous.

The trip is not yet finished, and more surprises are to come.

Monday of Week 2

Today we visited the President's Hall. It was a very cool building with lots of history of Taiwan, the past presidents of Taiwan, the architecture of the building, and many other cool things about the government of Taiwan. It was interesting to see how the Taiwanese people view the world through their history and how they view the American government. We then went to lunch at this cool dumpling place which most of us would agree with me in saying that they love dumplings. After lunch, we drove to a pottery place where we got to use a potter's wheel and make our own creation. We also got to paint mugs as well. After looking around the shops around the pottery place, we drove to a night market. The night market was certainly an experience. I have never seen so many people cramped into one place trying to buy or barter decently priced items. There was so much stuff to look at it was almost overwhelming. It was a great experience though to see what types of items people go crazy over and which ones people will try to talk to price down for. After a long day, we are finally back in the hotel. Tomorrow is suppose to be even busier!

I'll write again soon!
-Abby Vincent

Hello from across the world! - Reba Barnes

It is Sunday and we have just returned from a morning of service at the Recycling Center. Mr. Kinney you would have loved being with us. We separated paper, separated plastic bottles, crushed them and disassembled VHS tapes. The Tzu-Chi Foundation manages this facility and it is totally staffed by volunteers that help to make the Taipei area a cleaner place. They recycle everything. We had a vegetarian lunch today and it was great. We are now back at the hotel for a little rest before we head to Taipei 101 one of the tallest buildings in the world that we can see from some of hotel rooms.
The Huang and Shen families have been so gracious and we look forward to the next few days and know that they will continue to be as incredible as our trip has been so far. Thanks parents for sharing these incredible young people with us. Everywhere we go the Taiwanese people are overwheled by their servant hearts.

Thomas Moore--Saturday Night

You had some experiences? I asked you a question; you there, reading these words with your eyes, feeling a slight flush because you know I am talking about you. So, you had some experiences?

Perhaps you have driven along a coast at sunset and saw the sun light the ocean on fire as it made it's days journey around the world. Cool. I bet that was beautiful or whatever. Maybe you have paraglided off a mountain top in Tibet with the Dali Lama. Transcendental, right? At least you got that going for you. Heck, there is a chance that you rock climbed down the freakin Grand Canyon and then hiked back up the very same way. I bet that was hard or something.

Well, good for you and your experiences. But I got one that will blow all those out of the water. So, sorry in advance.

Today, Wale and I cleaned eight toilets, two floors and three mops in a Taiwanese bakery's bathrooms.

OMGz

That.
Just.
Happened.

Mind, we weren't the only folks working today by any means. We had folks that were mixing cookie dough with corn flakes. Peeps that were plopping said cereal covered dough balls on baking sheets. And at least 12 hands putting cookies in packages, sealing them, stacking them ready for shipping.

All this was going on at the Children Are Us bakery here in Taipei, a foundation set up to help adults in the community that suffer from Down's Syndrome, cerebral palsy and other mental illnesses (this taken from the information that we were given at the bakery).

And so we arrived, suited up in aprons, hairnets and masks and got to work in our respective positions. Wale and I started by cleaning baking sheets and big plastic tubs. We were among 10 or so of the workers who were equally suited out as us. Now, earlier I was thinking over what I was going to write about my day and I thought about how I could really only see the eyes of those around me as their mouths and noses were covered, and I was thinking about how even though I only had those two little portions of their faces to see, I could instantly tell when they were smiling. I thought of something like this; a true smile is the heart on fire, lighting up the eyes. Then I realized that would make a great Hallmark Card and that put me off a bit to be honest.

But the point is that I speak, as of now, four or five phrases in Chinese and the workers spoke around the same number in English. But we got the work done through short conversations (mostly just, "Yes!" or "very good!") and through high fives. And we got the work done through our smiles, through the fact that I would finish cleaning a pan, high five the person beside me and watch their eyes smile at me, hear their muffled laughter through their masks, catch a glimpse of Wale having a similar conversation with another worker. We didn't need a common language or a common culture or life experience. All we needed was a warm-water-soaked rag, some greasy pans and two eyes showing the smile that was tucked away behind our masks.