Xiufeng High School & National Palace Museum

Kelly eating her breakfast dumpling & Andrew

Today is day two of our Social Studies Camp with students from the New Taipei City School District.  We were supposed to meet Andrew at the train station at 8am but Jim made us late and stressed out our conscientious host, Andrew (a history teacher at Shuangxi High School) who will all hope will be one of the Taiwanese teachers to come visit us in January of 2013. Since we missed the train, we had some time to kill so we walked around the market in front of the Shuangxi train station and bought some fruit and breakfast dumplings.  We were so involved with our purchase of breakfast dumplings that we almost missed the train again!  Poor Andrew….we stress him out so much!  He is a wonderful teacher and so caring to us and his students.  We finally made it to Xiufeng High School a few minutes late (again!).  Mr. Chou, a history teacher at one of the prestigious all-boys high schools in New Taipei City was lecturing on Museums:  A Hidden Gem of Knowledge in preparation for our visit to the National Palace Museum.  Mr. Chou is incredible!!!  His enthusiasm and passion is contagious and even though I couldn’t understand what he was staying I could tell what he was talking about by his intonation and gestures.  I would listen to another one of his lectures in Chinese any day!  Unfortunately I am unable to post a video of Mr. Chou, but you'll have trust me on this one!  Here's a picture though. 

At the first break in Mr. Chou’s lecture, Huang Chiung Hui, an administrator for Xiufeng High School, our version of an Assistant Principal, took us on a tour of the school.  Today was the final day of examinations for the students.  We were able to stop by the teacher’s lounge and see the distribution of exams and even some students preparing for their upcoming exam later in the day.  They had a study period prior to their exams in their classrooms.  In almost every classroom, the students were seated at their desk reading and studying quietly.  Several classrooms were very excited to see us as we walked by and waved.  We were interested to know if they have SOL-like testing and they do have a national exam at the end of their high school years.  I still can’t quite figure out the entirety of the process, but do know that students take entrance exams to get into high school and their score on that exam determines which high schools they can attend.  For instance, if a student does not score well enough on the exam they may not be able to go to their neighbor school and may have to live away from home. 

As I mentioned in my last post, the high schools in Taipei are like mini-college campuses and beautifully kept.  We learned that schools here there are no custodians and students are responsible for keeping their school clean.  Rod and Patty, I think you need to look in to this!  We also saw several signs against bullying.  Unfortunately it seems bullying in school in a universal problem. 

After our tour, we had lunch at school and then boarded a bus for the National Palace Museum which houses almost 700,000 ancient artifacts from Chinese history.   The museum can only display 6,000 artifacts at a time and even with rotating the displays every 3 months, it would take someone 12 years to see all of the artifacts!  Several of the most famous pieces are the Jadeite Cabbage with Insects and the Ting Ware Ceramic Pillow in the Shape of a Child.  The pieces are very small, but pretty spectacular when you see them up close.  It is very cool to see relics from the Ming and Qing Dynasties that I taught in World History 2.  Mr. Chou led the students are around the museum and shared detailed stories with them about the history and uses of the relics we viewed.  It was interesting that most of the boys were fascinated by Mr. Chou’s words and the artifacts, while many of the girls and some of the boys were more interested in talking to each other or us.  To be fair, many of the students had already been to the museum several times, so it would be like us going to the Air & Space Museum or something. 

We took the train back to Shuangxi and when we arrived at our B&B, Alice and all of our hosts for the past four days were there to have dinner with us.  Even Jim’s new best friends were there but unfortunately Jim lost his voice at the museum so his night was much more subdued that I am sure he wanted.  Francis bought us all rice farmer hats and Jack brought Kelly and I bread that has ham and cheese baked into it.  It is so delicious!  Jack drove Kelly and I from the airport the night we arrived and had a loaf of that bread in the car that he offered us.  Kelly and I practically ate the entire loaf that night he picked us up.  It was so thoughtful that he remembered how much we loved that bread and brought us some.  I know we are going to continue to have such wonderful experiences here, but everyone here in Shuangxi has set the bar so high, I don’t know how it can get much better.   I have never met more thoughtful and caring people.

We had a great time laughing, eating and becoming Facebook friends over dinner.  Unfortunately, we have to pack up tonight since we will be leaving Shuangxi in the morning.  I called it an early night and came upstairs to start packing only to starting re-packing my suitcase to find a cockroach!!!  And he was not small.  Yeekkkkk!!  Needless to say, I then spend an hour emptying my suitcase and repacking it to ensure there were no more bugs of any type in any of my bags.  I only found one more.  Traveling is an adventure!!!