the week i missed Taiwan like it was home (spoilers: it's not home)

hello lovely,

class of 2020 walked at graduation in Beloit Wisconsin this weekend. our silly 2 year delayed (not denied) graduation where Scotty B. handed out baseball caps instead of diplomas and I wore cowboy boots and a Packers-colored 'Drink Wisconsinbly' t-shirt. it was an emotional rollercoaster that sent me flying out of the routine i had built up in urbana so far, and had me to scrolling through years worth of photos late into the night the week before i found some gems i want to share but that's not what this post is about.

instead i want to talk about taiwan.

I missed Taiwan a lot last week, nikki shared with me some footage i hadn't ever seen before and i tried biking to a river i could swim in only to be told no such river exists here. i wrote about my first weeks on Penghu for an assignment in Grad Synthesis Laboratory class that id like to share with you all. I added a few photos and videos to flush it out.  I plan on taking more time to think about graduation and create some sort of longer reflection/video/performance. . .

The writing prompt;

"describe an experience you have of learning something from a specific place or locality. Describe the relationships necessary for understanding this teaching. Negotiate your own relationship to these kinds of knowings and belongings. How does this learning shape your choreographic process? How would you offer this learning experience to others even if you are away from the original land that taught you this? What is it that you value? How can you extend/welcome others into this through a movement experience. This paper will help you to formulate the score that you will offer to the class next week." - Learning From Place, DANC 520 Synthesis Laboratory 2022

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Gabriel Gonzalez 9/2/2022

I have found it hard not to relate everything recently through my time in Taiwan. I feel annoying in the way that people who come back from study abroad feel. I can't help it. I want to share the excitement I have of being somewhere so different from here. And learning so much. I want to compare everything to being in 澎湖.

A year is so long to live somewhere. And yet, a year is not enough to learn how to live somewhere. but it is enough time to see all four seasons exactly once. I wonder if the seasons are the same this year. I wonder if the summer is as warm, if the sand is as soft, if there will be a typhoon for the first week of school this year. Although last year, my principal warned me that it was unseasonal. The waves were mountains that day and the water was warm, nikki and i felt like we were jumping from rooftop to rooftop, we remembered quickly how to dive under the ones we thought were too big: it's a lesson from freezing in the california oceans with my two brothers.

I am working on a video for my former students. I am still in contact with my teacher friends and principals so my plan is: to teach what life is like in the US since they taught me so much about what island life is like. I will create an energetic, silly, informative video building upon the jokes, personality, and friendships from taiwan (see example i used as warm up on wednesdays).

When writing my script I start with a reflection: what did I learn? who were my teachers? how did they teach? what can I share? how will I teach?

What did i learn:

I taught at two separate elementary schools with Fulbright and I had to write different reflections throughout the program in order to receive my funding. These reflections were incredibly helpful but I did find it difficult to know what to write about sometimes. So I took a lot of field notes. Borrowing from my sociology background, I wanted to be as descriptive and specific as possible while limiting  bias in my voice and presentation of people. I aimed to do so by starting with things I could see, hear and touch and relying on observations from stationary positions in order to be an observer. It worked only sometimes and could be further refined through a more ethnographic methods approach.

the following field notes were written from my desk in the teachers office and is about two different days. I start with a description of my previous day which turns into a description of the desk i am writing from:

Aug 31st 2021 - Yesterday, I spent the morning with Fenggui [Elementary School] wading through tidepools and finding the elusive, supposedly Kinmen-exclusive creature: the Horseshoe Crab. The pools stretch out for about two miles during low tide, revealing a semicircle bay of grey slippery rocks. I have on my feet grippy water proof slippers that look like castings of real loafers. They even have the texture of leather but are totally made of rubber. There are 11 students with me, 3 teachers, one grandma, and a guide. Everyone is speaking in Chinese but Sarah, a coworker of mine, who occasionally stops to tell me what's being said.

“You can eat these snails,” Sarah says as one student fills her yellow lunch box with handfuls. I ask the student in my choppy chinese “喜歡嗎好吃嗎” (do you like to eat these? Are they yummy?) she shakes her head at me and shrugs “我不道我沒有吃 這個東西” (i don't know, i've never eaten these). Sarah tells me her parents have brought these back for her. In the distance, a woman wrapped in sun protective gear has her own bucket and bright orange slippers. I wonder how you cook these as I lose my balance on a rock.

[at my desk] I feel embarrassed for dressing like I was going to the beach, but I am also a little surprised that it is an issue given the proximity to the most beautiful beach….

The water is like glass and on either side are lush cliffs that harshly fall away into the ocean. When you stare out into the ocean, an ornate temple stands tall and proud to your left, one of hundreds on Penghu alone, on your right are boats that local fishermen use to practice traditional fishing methods. Every so often they have shows for tourists, they will take the net between two boats and float out on sea during high tide, when low tide comes in, everyone pulls the net up the beach and sort through the flopping fish. There are only a few that are legal to eat, and even those are protected until they get older. As the tourists laugh and take pictures, three older locals are hard at work sorting the fish and placing selected ones into a basket on their hip, they toss the others back into the ocean. One of the grandpas puts a pufferfish on my hand and studys my squeamish face.

… I'm wearing a black tank top, flip flops (which my co-teacher calls slippers), and shorts. I do not look like the rest of the teachers here and I get questioned if I'm a lost highschooler before I get introduced to my desk. My desk is on the far left side of the office, separated from the rest of the teachers by two bookshelves, a row of computers, a printer, and a fridge. To the right of my desk a man in a white polo shirt and running shorts leans his back against a cabinet with an egg roll sticking out of his mouth like a cigar. He’s tan, really tan. I learn his name is Mr. Huang and he teaches the 5th grade. He shows me his collection of drones and woodworking materials and the paddleboard he keeps propped up by his desk. He wears oakley sunglasses on his forehead and reminds me of one of my uncles who lives in the woods and shoots deers. This man has a wild youthfulness to him yet I am sure he must be in his late forties. to my diagonal left stands a woman who dismisses the kid pulling at her pants to play on the ipad, and is then annoyed by the noise of the cocomelon youtube video, giving a light but authoritative smack on the head. She wears her long dyed red hair in a pony tail and keeps a golden necklace on top of her snug gray v neck tee. Simple gold necklaces are the few pieces of jewelry I see teachers wearing. She maintains the campus and refuses to use english when the other teachers tell her to practice with me. I understand her hesitation and feel awful that I can't communicate well with her. When she needs to sweep under my desk she just points and gives me a polite smile.

The air conditioning howls as the 6th grade teacher, who is also new this year, tells me about how she loves to bike to school every day. I have to ask her to repeat herself a few times but she does and is impressed and excited when I speak to her with my little Chinese knowledge. "You will speak in Chinese and I will reply in English," she tells me. I nod and laugh nervously before she goes to the other side of the office to exclaim about our agreement to the rest of the teachers. I can picture her as a mixed media art professor from California with her wide legged striped pants and cloud-like linen shirt. Her shoulder length hair is tied in a neat half up half down and she has kind, warm eyes.

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This reflection was written almost a year ago exactly, and is a good representation of how much I learned, and saw, and dealt with in my body and mind all day, every day for a year and a half!

In re-engaging with this writing I noticed some distinct ways I learn:

1. Observation: I brought my grandfather's old camera with me this year. A Film nikon camera from the 80s. I love how nonthreatening it is. People are quick to let their guard down and act naturally with it pointed at them. I spent the first few years with this camera shooting without film. I just lined up the shot and imagined what it looked like. looking through this lens became a way to make sense of the world around me, in Taiwan the camera's power at observation proved to be no different. I witness, I take a snapshot or I write but I observe.

2. Writing and speaking in Chinese: I tried my hardest to practice. I had two tutors I paid, many youtube channels and songs that fred showed me, and all my coworkers and students to practice with. I kept a journal for new slang and Penghu-specific vocabulary that I then worked with my co teacher to create fun youtube videos sharing with my students the English translations. I learned so much by making these, I learned about working with kids on creative projects, I learned about their excitement for video ideas, and I learned a lot of vocabulary for Lunar new year.

3. Reflections: I tried to put the required reflections to good use during my time on the island, focusing on synthesizing and contextualizing what i was learning as; an asian american, as a teacher, as a gay man, and as a 外國人. Everything I learned was filtered through these identities. And have helped me really understand them for myself. And with a better understanding of myself, I am better positioned to create and speak to my intended audience. I know what it took for me to feel like I know myself, I know the process is far from over but I feel so connected to process and learning and being in new places because through learning new things, I learn deeper truths about myself and the world around me. The choreography I create moving forward, the lessons and videos I create to continue my learning and the learning of my communities back in Taiwan, have the possibility of honoring the work I've done to better understand myself and my world. Through these lessons of observation, language, and reflection I can create work that centers honesty and research and learning! I have powerful tools of creation that can have nothing or everything to do with dance and art making.

xoxo

goob