Shortly after all of the exchange students arrived, we were all placed in a cram school for two months to hopefully cram some Mandarin into our heads. There are a lot of different languages spoken in Taiwan: Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka, plus a variety of aboriginal languages, but it was felt that Mandarin would be the most useful for us.

It’s funny, though, after we all picked up enough Chinese to know when the Rotarians or our host families were talking about us in right in front of us, they’d switch over to Taiwanese. I imagine that if we started learning Taiwanese, they’d start in on ANOTHER language, just to keep a step ahead of us. Furthermore, it didn’t matter how much Chinese we learned, it seemed as if the Taiwanese had special flaps over their ears so they could only hear English coming from foreigners. We’d approach a vendor, ask for what we wanted in Chinese, and they’d turn around and say “We….uh…no English.” Yes…but…ok, but I was speaking to you in CHINESE.

I digress. They placed all ~30 of us in this cram school (all exchange students went to Taipei that year…in future years, possibly because of US, students would be sent all over the country) to learn the language and also to bond with each other. After a couple of weeks, they tested us and placed us in three different classes based on one’s aptitude with the language. The best students went into Class A. bethy824 was assigned to Class B. *I* went into Class C. Apparently my retardation showed up sort of early. It was interesting, though: The way they divided us up became very indicative as to whom we would spend the majority of our time with over the rest of the year. A lot of the Class A students disappeared on us after the first two months were up, whereas Class B and C bonded and formed our own group of super awesomeosity. Actually, I take that back. It was mostly the Germans who disappeared on us. Lisa locked herself in her room and studied Chinese all day long, Max thought everything we did was ‘a little bit stupid’, I saw Jerry maybe twice after cram school ended, and Hannah was perhaps the only one of us to fit right in with her Taiwanese classmates. Eva and Lukas apparently enjoyed slumming as they still hung around with us. My class consisted of Natacha, Claire, Audrey, Marie (all French), Eva and Lisa (Germany), Maria (Russia) and Jerome (Belgium). As another side note, I furthermore find it interesting that in a culture that reveres males so highly, so many female exchange students were chosen by the Taiwanese Rotary. After our two months were up, each class had to put on a play for the Rotary clubs. Class A did a play about what life was like for an exchange student in Taiwan. Class B did a series of skits. Class C did a re-interpretation of Snow White. Re-interpretation meaning “what we could do with our limited Chinese, plus Snow White and the Handsome Prince meet in a disco instead of in the forest, and some creative changes so Natacha did not have to kiss Jerome, because that was an aspect she was totally not thrilled about.” Marie played a dwarf and the assassin. I like the idea of a dwarf assassin very much.

I think the rice paddy hats were a nice touch.

My narcissistic ass got to play the wicked witch. After the dwarves knocked me down, Snow White STABBED ME. After the plays were all over, they handed out awards for ‘best chinese speakers’ and whatnot. Somehow, even as a Class C student, I managed to walk away with first place. I think there were some politics going on there, because I certainly was NOT the most fluent at that point. My host mother and CP Su Mei both mentioned that the Taiwanese especially like the way that Americans speak Chinese, as they consider us to have less of an ‘accent’ when we speak.

bethy824 also received an award for being superawesomeOMGWOW. All of our accomplishments as exchange students were important to our host families, because it gave them ‘face’. Face is an essential component of the Chinese national psyche. Having face means having a high status in the eyes of one’s peers, and is a mark of personal dignity. The Chinese are acutely sensitive to gaining and maintaining face in all aspects of social and business life. Face is a prized commodity which can be given, lost, taken away or earned. My being #1 most awesome speaker did have an amazing prize to go with it, though: All of the exchange students were to go to meet the President of Taiwan, Chen Shui-Bian, who also happened to be a Rotarian. I got to meet with him personally and give a speech. My host mother was my speechwriter, because, yeah, even as #1mostawesomeChinesespeaker, my Chinese…not that hot. The speech went something like this: Honorable President, how are you? Honorable men, how are you? I am a Rotary exchange student; my name is Pure Plum Blossom. We all are very thankful to the Rotary for giving us this chance to live here in Taiwan, and also to meet your Honorable President. We hope to learn a lot, and make a lot of new friends here in Taiwan. We are thankful to our host families for opening their homes and hearts to us. Thank you all. I love you all. Very evidently I was not the speechwriter for that. I’d make a voice post with it in Chinese, but over these last 5 years my Chinese has deteriorated to the point that I would be embarrased to do so; I’ve got all of the vocab in the speech written down so I haven’t lost THAT at least, but my pronunciation is shit now. It was an interesting time to meet with Taiwan’s president, because it was the first time that the Democratic Progressive Party had won the election over the Kuomintang. The DPP is strongly for Taiwanese Independence. However, the symbol on the Taiwanese flag is actually that of the Kuomintang. Chang Kai-Shek is revered there, and is the founder of the Kuomintang in Taiwan, and there are many monuments built for him throughout the country. Additionally, his face appears on all of their money. In order to win office, the DPP actually had to promise that they would not change any of their national symbols to reflect their party; so even as the head of government, they are surrounded by symbols of the other political party.

All of us in the Presidential building. No, we aren’t all leaning to one side, the picture was too damn big to scan properly.

The business card of Chen Shui-Bian on the gift he gave me. The gift itself is a crystal with an image of Taiwan carved out inside with lasers, and the base says ‘From the Office of the President’. I’ve got it sitting out on my coffee table; it’s right up there as one of the coolest things I own.

Apparently it was a slow news day.

The Rotary application process was fairly arduous. I had to write essays about myself, my family, what I was planning on doing with my life, and send it in with photographs of these things as well. After the initial screening, they conducted psychological testing, and I had to go through a series of interviews with Rotarians, psychologists, and former/current exchange students, who graded me based on my responses and my appearance(?!). So long as one is good at telling people what they want to hear, it’s not an issue getting through these things. I am quite good at telling people what they want to hear.

Before they conducted these interviews, I was given a list of 50 countries to choose from, which I had to rate from 1-50 in my order of preference. As I would be 18/19 at the time of my exchange, a few countries made it clear that they did not want a student my age to be there on exchange (Australia, Germany, and a couple of others that I cannot recall at the moment) and I can only presume it is because I would be considered an adult there. Those countries I ranked last on the list, as there was no point in ranking them higher. My first five choices, in order, were: Finland, Japan, Costa Rica, Italy, and Taiwan. Finland and Italy because I wanted to see and learn more about my family’s history, Costa Rica because of the exchange student in my advanced math analysis class who showed me all of these gorgeous pictures and had some incredible stories, and Japan and Taiwan because I had a fascination with asian culture. I would’ve included Singapore and Indonesia higher on my list because of my grandparents, but I learned in advance that they were not sending students there as they were considered ‘unsafe’ at that point in time. I learned later that they were not sending students to Costa Rica for the same reason. Scratch one from my top three.

During the interviews they grilled me about my choices of countries, why I ranked them the way I did, and then asked me about the countries I ranked last, and how I would feel if I were sent there instead of to one of my top three (which generally is the case). I explained my reasoning behind my last choices, and that seemed to satisfy everyone on the panel except the current exchange student on the board, who happened to be from Australia. She seemed displeased that I had ranked her country last, and I received the lowest scores from her out of everyone, especially savaging my appearance.

After I was deemed mentally stable and a good candidate for exchange, it was time for the waiting game. They sent your application off to your top choices and tried to match you with a Rotary club in that country who was willing to sponsor you. In January of 2000, I was called by the Kenosha Rotarians and told that I would be going to Taiwan, that the Chung Ho Full May Rotary Club (a Rotary club of all women, which was and is quite remarkable!) had sponsored me, and I would be living in Taipei. Time to start getting excited/nervous. I didn’t know any Chinese, and there weren’t a lot of resources in Smalltown, Wisconsin to draw from in making ANY sort of attempt to learn. My first host mother emailed me, and told me about her, her husband, and his son Edward. She also told me which school I’d be going to (Chung Cheng Gao Chung, which roughly means Chang Kai-Shek High), and that it was a mixed-gender school, which is fairly rare in Taiwan. I felt much more at ease after writing back and forth with her, as I knew that learning Chinese could be transitionary and she’d help me, as opposed to having to play charades.

Over the summer, all exchange students (in the midwest) who were going out, all students who were in the midwest on exchange (poor, poor kids. Who wants to go to the US and watch corn grow?), and a majority of the students who’d just come back from exchange met for a long weekend in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for some bonding exercises, but mostly for more meetings, meetings, meetings. Rotarians know how to talk. They love to talk. There were points where I wondered if it caused Rotarians physical pain to NOT talk, if perhaps their jaws would lock up and they’d die. We all were required to buy/bring navy blue jackets with us which would identify us as Rotary exchange students. At Grand Rapids, all of the exchange students exchanged tchotchkes from our respective countries which were then attached to the jacket. These items were like good luck charms to us, our grigri. By the time I got home from Taiwan, my jacket weighed over 10 pounds, and felt like 50 when worn for extended periods of time. In July, my family moved to California from Wisconsin, so I had to say goodbye to my friends and my boyfriend a month before I was to get on the plane, which was the hardest thing, because I knew that unlike my friends that had gone on exchange before, I wouldn’t be coming ‘home’ again. Pre-flight jitters were really starting to set in. It didn’t become ‘real’ to me until I was on the first plane. I flew from San Diego to Seattle to meet and ride with other exchange students going to the far East. After a 10 hour flight, the plane landed in Tokyo, and it was time again to say goodbye to everyone and go on alone. Some 3 hours of layover plus four more hours of flying put me in Taipei, for a grand total of over 24 hours of travel time. The bags under my eyes are particularly spectacular in this picture.

From left to right, my host brother (弟弟/didi) Edward, Tracy (伯母/Ah-e), myself, CP Su Mei (the Taiwanese Martha Stewart) and Huang (伯父/Su-su) (Tracy’s husband). Some host families are very pushy about you calling them Mom and Dad, but Tracy was not among them. It made us both more comfortable, and I called them Aunt Tracy and Uncle Huang for the duration of my stay, Aunt and Uncle being more of an honorific than an actual designation of blood relation After about a week, Uncle Huang consulted his books to determine an appropriate Chinese name for me. My last name is very close to ‘Lee’, so from now until forever, I get to pretend that I’m in Bruce Lee’s family. Based off of a number of factors I cannot understand–number of strokes, balance, luck, etc construed from the I-Ching, it was determined that my name would be (in honky pinyin) Lee E Jieh. The characters for my name make up the icon I use for all of these posts relating to Taiwan. Again, roughly translated, it means ‘pure plum blossom’. You may feel free to laugh; those of you who know me personally, or have read my journal for more than a day or two, are likely to laugh hardest. I’ve always laughed about it.