Déjà Vu

It's been a hot second since I last posted on our blog, but I finally mustered up the time and energy this weekend. 

A couple of weeks ago there was community spread of Covid-19 for the first time in Taiwan since the pandemic started. At school we started having our temperature checked, and bleached the desks every morning. The government also made a mask mandate. On May 18th we started the first day of our two day mid-term testing. After the first day, all schools in Taiwan closed. The next day students had a stay-at-home rest day while teachers (my parents) were frantically learning how to teach online.

For the past two weeks I’ve been learning new content online. Some of my teachers film a lecture and put it up on YouTube for students to watch and take notes on, while others have the class gather on Google Meet to learn synchronously. For some teachers I imagine filming a lecture once is much easier than teaching the same thing over and over to 10 different classes. For me, remote learning has its benefits and drawbacks. I spend every weekday from 8:00AM to 3:45PM on the computer completing assignments which is surprisingly exhausting even though all I do is sit on my butt. I also spend all day at home by myself and I don’t see anyone in person besides my parents. 🙄 One of the benefits is I have access to online translators. Google translate and Pleco (a Chinese-English dictionary app) have helped me understand instructions and content much better than I am able to at school with just my paper dictionary. Even with this benefit, I still much prefer in-person school.

Since this is the first time there has been major community spread in Taiwan, some people here are learning the ways of the pandemic lifestyle for the first time, but for us foreigners this is déjà vu. When school was first cancelled they said we’d be back in 10 days. Then a week in (just like we predicted) they extended remote learning a couple more weeks. You might remember in the USA there was a massive toilet paper shortage, well over here it’s been difficult to find fresh vegetables at the grocery store. One thing that is not similar to what we experienced in March of 2020 is people here are already accustomed to wearing masks. There is also an app that you can download on your mobile device that tracks where you go and if someone who also has that app and was near you at some point tests positive for Covid-19 the app will notify you as a way to contact trace. Unfortunately, vaccines have not been widely distributed among the population and when Covid started to spread, vaccine distribution was stopped to prevent more spread.

In the midst of all this craziness we are also preparing to head home to Maine. We’ve been booking plane tickets and trying to also bring a cello on the airplane, which is super complicated and expensive apparently. Now that people are getting vaccinated it seems safer in Maine than Taiwan now. I feel like we just keep running away from the coronavirus. Anyways, I am super excited to return to Maine. The weather here is getting hotter and hotter every day, so I am excited to be able to enjoy swimming in Keyes Pond at grandma’s house in Maine. I am also looking forward to raspberries and blueberries and PIE!

~Soleil Huang-Dale

In Our Prayers

 Church is one feature of our lives that remained consistent when we moved from Maine to Hsinchu.  We still get up on Sunday morning, have breakfast and listen to NPR news (from Saturday).  Then head to Liujia Presbyterian for worship.  Although the service is entirely in Chinese we manage to sing along to hymns we recognize, greet neighbors in the passing of peace ceremony and read English translations of the bible verse chosen for the day's sermon. And thanks to modern technology, a handheld translator (also known as a cell phone) I can read the announcements for the week.

1. Prayers for the elders with health problems, that they may be relieved of their pain and recover quickly.

2. Prayers for the sisters who are expecting new children in their homes.  (There are many of these as a result of the influx of young families in this area drawn by the growth of the tech industry).

3. Prayers for the countries facing an increase in novel coronavirus infections and deaths, including the USA, Brazil and India.  

It's this last one that surprises me a bit.  I know back home we often pray for those in other countries suffering from war and hunger.  We lift our thoughts to those who face drought and natural disasters in far away places.  And yet I never consider that those people might just as well be praying for us.

This month Taiwan made news in the US twice.  We heard from many of you regarding the news of the tragic train accident on the east coast of the island.  Although it was several hours drive from where we live, it was still close enough to wonder... would we know anyone, who knew anyone in the accident.  And then this past week we received notice regarding possible water shut-offs in our homes if rains don't soon come and refill the reservoirs. Taiwan has made the news in the US again.  But besides praying for rain for us, you might consider the impact it has on you!

As it turns out, Taiwan's drought may have an impact on the US economy.  As Americans have started buying new cars again, a shortage of computer chips has put a damper on production.  And as it turns out, the city of Hsinchu where we live is the hub of the semiconductor industry.  The young families who are filling our church are also the people hired by the tech boom in Taiwan where the lion's share of computer chips in Asia are produced. This feeds the production of many things in the US, automobiles among them.

And as it turns out, the two issues - water and semiconductors - are quite closely linked.  The semiconductor industry uses around 63,000 tons of water a day.  That's only likely to increase in the coming months and years.  To take some pressure off the public water supply, the industry has developed a water recycling system as well as a desalination plant to provide fresh water, but water limits have threatened chip production.  

These are just a couple ways we still feel connected to our home and we understand even more how the world is linked in a global network.  Thank you for your prayers and we continue to pray for all of you.

Who am I? Storytime

This is the Storytime video that Claire and I made. Of course she would be very happy if you open the video link above in Youtube and click the LIKE button.

The book is called 我是誰？

How to Read a Language You Can't sound Out

 How to Read a Language You Can't sound Out

Introduction to zhùyīnfúhào 注音符號

ㄓㄨˋ ㄧㄣ ㄈㄨˊ ㄏㄠˋ

A Trip to the Library in Zhubei

A Trip to the Library in Zhubei

新竹縣文化局圖書館

by Jenny

 

可艾小廚房 Claire’s Kitchen - Making Granola Bilingual Instructional Video

Our friends from church came over and we taught them how to make granola. We made a video for Claire's cooking show youtube channel. Claire would very much appreciate if you would open the video in youtube and hit the like button! 請按讚！Thank you!

Art in the Park

 As a matter of sanity, it's my habit to pick up the mandolin a few times a week and play through some old familiar tunes.  This week I've been reviewing music by one of my early inspirations, Peter Ostroushko. I was fortunate to hear him play live a few times with his Duo partner, Dean Macgraw, when I was at Macalester College in the late 1980s.  Both of them were local Twin Cities musicians who were frequently featured on A Prairie Home Companion.  My friends and I loved to emulate the humor and music that we heard on that show, so seeing them live and laughing at their antics remains planted deep in my grey matter.

I'm also lucky to be part of a duo here in Taiwan.  Not my lifelong duet singer, Jenny Huang, but a local misfit who keeps his guitar handy too.  Van grew up in Tennessee having played many genres of rock music, but could never escape his bluegrass and country roots.  So Van and I occasionally text each other "Up for some tunes in the park?" and "How about we meet to play at the Duck Park before it gets dark?"  It's a weather dependent habit, but the spontaneity of it makes it all the more enticing.  Late in the afternoon after a day of teaching, it's a great way for me to switch gears and get out of my rut.  A grey day that turned sunny and warm in the afternoon is one of the best times.

We have a small but expanding repertoire of favorites we run through each evening.  Certainly not all bluegrass, but the mando-guitar combo along with simple vocal harmonies lend themselves to bluesy folksy songs and old-timey fiddle tunes.  The park is not particularly known for buskers, so passers-by sometimes glance our way but rarely stop to listen.  That is, adults.  They are cautiously polite about giving us too much attention when we're clearly just enjoying our own company albeit loudly, and in a public space.  Forgivable for foreigners.  But kids can't help but look and listen and move.

Just the other day as we ran through our version of  Lady Madonna a kid no older than 2 with his grandpa in tow started bouncing at the knees and waving his arms to the beat.  In spite of his grandpa's coaxing he could not be redirected.  The music had caught hold and like a preacher at a Pentecostal church he was wild with joy.  When we finished he climbed up on the stone stool in front of me and reached out to start my mandolin again.  I leaned back and started chunking on Freight Train, the old Elizabeth Cotton favorite, then segued into CCR's Down on the Corner.  Other kids came to listen and I sang out loudly with smiling parents in the background, "You don't need a penny, just to hang around..."

Just another walk in the park, ya never know what you might see or hear.