Buying snow online in Kinmen

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Buying snow online in Kinmen

Here in Kinmen, that means most days are rainy, grey, polluted, or so foggy that planes are unable to fly in and out of the local airport. Most afternoons and nights you can find me huddled in front of my space heater, desperately clutching a mug of hot tea as I read a book or try to teach myself a new coding language in preparation for grad school. These events provided a much needed relief from the daily grind of classes and a chance to interact with my students in a more informal setting. Watching them stirs up nostalgic memories of my childhood T-ball, soccer, and cross-country days. Early in the month, my good friend, classmate and fellow Project Pengyou member Jon came to Kinmen for the second time. Again, it was great to see a familiar face and be reminded that even on an island of sixty square miles there are still places left to explore. On February 28, I ran the Kinmen Marathon, my first. Considering how sparse my training had been the months previous, I was just happy to finish. The race drew thousands from China, Taiwan, and Kinmen, and of course a couple of insanely fast Kenyans who came to claim the ,NT prize. The course circled most of the island and I loved running past the locals and old folk who came out to sit on the government-provided bleachers and wave Taiwanese flags. What I love about marathons, distance running, and endurance sports in general is that physical ability only takes you so far. How to finish a marathon? Pace yourself i. Although these may seem like simple runners platitudes, I think they can also be extended to life. It amazes me how much following these simply principles can enhance my experiences, especially this emotional rollercoaster that is called living and teaching abroad. Last week I asked all my students to journal in Chinese about two questions: 1 Do you like English class? Most students responded with very standard answers. However, a few answers really stood out to me. The single-focused mindsets of my students seem to improve their test scores but I worry it limits their perspective of life beyond external accomplishments yet I recognizing this is coming from my very privileged and Western perspective. Humor aside, there were an equal number of responses that troubled me. Even though our stay was brief, the places we saw and the people we met in India still managed to weave their ways into my heart. We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes, into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste the hardship, and be compelled to work desperately for a moment no matter what. During our trip, I tried to be very intentional. I left my laptop at home and turned off my phone. We resorted to paper maps and asking people on the street for directions. Social media and our ability to constantly be connected have perpetuated ambient intimacy and in turn destroying true, face-to-face connections. I am perpetuating the ambient intimacy by putting my ideas online. Ultimately, I think we need to balance the solitude and reflection that travel brings with the productivity, ease, and connection that modern technology fosters. This is India! Men buy these things for women. This was only the first in what would be our many encounters of gendered separation of spheres in India. When we rode the Delhi metro we rode in the first two or three cars were exclusively for women. In the airport and the metro, men and women waited in different security lines so the women could be examined by a female officer behind a curtained area. Instead, it made me feel much more safe and secure. And we were shown unprecedented help and kindness by other women in the cities. Before going to India countless people warned us against going. They reiterated the dangers of being harassed, raped, and kidnapped. How much of this came from their own ignorance and insecurity? Yes, India is dangerous. I found it ironic that I on our trip I met several Europeans who said they were very hesitant to travel to the US they days but they were traveling in India! In no way am I advocating being reckless or purposefully putting yourself in danger. Lily and did a lot of research prior to traveling and we were overly cautious when we were there. We bought a guidebook and consulting everyone we knew who had traveled to India about the safest places to stay and how to transport ourselves safely to and from cities. We were in our hostel by 7pm most nights, and when we did go out at dark Lily armed us with pocketknives, whistles, and flashlights. We learned quickly not to trust any tuk-tuk or taxi driver no matter how personable they seemed. In the end, I felt like our caution and skepticism made the positive encounters we had with people all the more meaningful. Be smart but just go! Also feel free to contact me at any time. I am more than happy to share what little I know and experienced. Our biggest goal during our trip was to avoid being those white tourists in India. We wondered if Westerners buying and wearing saris was a form of cultural appropriation. The whole time we tried to keep in mind how our racial, educational, and economic backgrounds affected how we were traveling. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. For me, traveling has always generated more questions than it has answered. After traveling in India, I wonder about colonialism and how actions of greed from long ago still reverberate in post-colonial societies like India. The most important moments of our journey were not able to be captured by a camera. I will forever remember our night dancing to Bollywood music with local hostel workers after a few Kingfisher beers, and I will forever treasure the long conversations Lily and I had had about history, culture, love, and life. Happy year of the monkey! We had January 20 through February 13 off from school for Chinese New Year and all of the Fulbright Taiwan grantees convened at Great Roots Forestry hotel and hot springs for a three day conference. I was fortunate enough to have about two weeks on either side of my trip to India to travel around Taiwan and now I am even more in love with the natural beauty of the country than I was before. Here are glimpses of my trip with another post soon to come about India. For most of my life, Christmas has meant driving around my neighborhood to see the lights and luminaries, iceskating on local frozen ponds, and skiing the cold smoke powder of Bridger Bowl. Here, Christmas was just another day of work. Sure I taught my students to sing Jingle Bells and a parent came to school dressed as Santa. For New Years, I flew to Kaohsiung, the second-largest city in Taiwan located in the south-west part of the country. He took us to a bonfire with one of his local friends who happens to be a kung-fu master. I spent the first day of eating barbecued squid around a fire and watching young kung-fu students break bricks with their bare hands This later inspired me to watch Ip Man when I was back home in Kinmen. It exactly how I wanted to bring in the New Year—with travel, spontaneity, and new companions. Last Wednesday was one of my favorite days here on Kinmen. It was seventy degrees, zero pollution, and beautiful blue skies. I finally made the trek to the Guningtou War Museum on the Western coast of the island. The war lasted from to with a brief interlude during World War II. The Communists estimated there were only 12, Nationalist soldiers on Kinmen but in fact there were 40, In the months leading up to the battle, the Nationalists laid 7, land mines and constructed earthen bunkers. At am on October 25, , boats carrying roughly 9, Communist soldiers landed around Guningtou. In the next three days, 4, Communist troops were killed and the other 5, were captured. There was something very visceral about visiting the physical place where all this bloodshed occurred. I walked on the beach of Guningtou and could see China in the distance. There I closed my eyes and easy to imagine the hundreds of boats making the silent passage in the night. Metal spikes still scar most beaches on this island. They are a constant reminder of the horrors of the past. How does one both preserve the local culture and at the same time raise the standards of living for everyone? Can economic development also be culturally and environmentally sustainable? In my Kinmenese friends, I see people who have endured so much but at the same time retain an intense pride of their home. Every day before lunch I try to learn a phrase in either Kinmenese or Taiwanese. Often, I learn that these phrases in Kinmense and Taiwanese are completely distinct and I am again struck by the layers of complexity in the identities of people here. For my students, how will the competing influences of learning Kinmenese, Taiwanese, Chinese, and English shape who they are? What will their futures hold? Time is starting to pass more quickly than I can keep track of it, and I feel like I need to solidify the random thoughts and events of the last three weeks before they disappear. The first weekend in December, a few of us took the thirty minute ferry ride to Xiamen—the first time I had been back to China since leaving Beijing in June, The smells, sounds, and feelings of China were jolting. Yet there is a sense of adventure in China there that I feel like I sometimes miss in my comfortable, relatively quiet life on Kinmen. So I hopped on my scooter and within five minutes I was sitting outside in the freezing cold listening to traditional opera in Taiwanese. Later I found out the event was paid for by a local politician who was hoping to rally the support of voters. Reality check. Yup, definitely not in America. The American students asked very questions simple questions: What do you do with hair everyday? Do you have a lot of tsunamis? What do you eat for breakfast? Do you have a phone? How do you get to school? Because of the pen-pal exchange, I learned that out of the thirty-two students in my fifth and sixth grades fourteen have their own cellphones. I signed up for the Kinmen marathon on Februrary 28, but training has been spotty at best. The next day I scootered to the swim pool to try to avoid the air, but was told the heater of the pool was broken indefinitely. Yet even this newfound flexibility has not completely eliminated the anxiety and uncertainty of the future. Where are we going? How do we decided what to dedicate ourselves? How can we balance being present in Taiwan and simultaneously prepare for the future? I know I should be grateful to have the privilege of choose where I want to go and what I want to do, but the uncertainty still eats away at me. Last Saturday, my friend Raven set out to find a Taoist temple where people in Kinmen pray for jobs and examinations. Now days high school students will go to the temple to pray for their success in their college entrance exams. After leaving the temple, felt a sense of peace knowing that I was not alone agonizing over the future. People, in every walk of life and every culture of the world, worry about the future. All I can do is try to embrace the uncertainty as an essential, an incredibly valuable, part of this period in my life. Last Tuesday I returned from an eight day trip to the US. I flew to San Fransisco and Seattle for finalist interviews for the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. This is my first Thanksgiving away from home and my gratitude list is a lot simpler this year. When I was back in the US I was most grateful for:. Clean air. Sometimes the wind blows from Xiamen, China and pollution engulfs Jinmen. On these grey days I would give anything just to breathe deeply and run without worrying about damaging my lungs. Clean water. One of the biggest culture shocks returning to the US was being able to turn on the tap to fill up a water bottle. I have to boil water, buy bottled water, or place my trust in local water containers at bus stops or schools. Proximity to family. I was lucky that my mom surprised me and flew to Seattle for the weekend. Her hugs and positive affirmations reminded me of the comfort and stability of home. When I was back in the US, I was struck by the abundance and variety there. In only three and a half days in San Fransisco, I ate an American breakfast, authentic Mexican, French cuisine, a Northwest veggie burger, and Indian food. Simple comforts aside, what I really want to do this Thanksgiving is acknowledge my white privilege. These events put my fellowship rejections into perspective and left me angered and frustrated. Now, more than ever, I believe being silent is also an act of racism! In the past, talking about racism often left me itchy and uncomfortable. I feel that white people should not rely on people of color to start the dialogue about race. We must take responsibility for our own education. Yet, acknowledging that privilege, I want to be someone makes myself worthy of it by trying to be the best teacher I can possibly be and reminding myself to be grateful for the life I was born into. This will not be a very verbose blog entry, that I can assure you. Nevertheless, I want to record some major events from last few weeks, lest I forget them indefinitely. It was a very surreal experience. Classical music streamed from the performers as they sailed back and forth on a raft in the middle of the tunnel. I spent about two weeks worth of classes teaching Halloween. On the night of Halloween, a few Fulbrighters and I helped to organize a community-wide Halloween party to give adults the chance to practice their English. Last Saturday, October 10, was the th anniversary of the Republic of China. The day commemorates the start of Wuchang Uprising on October 10, which led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. Throw on soggy running clothes, wet from the rainy run the day before. Weave through crazy early morning scooter traffic to the Tamsui river. Run, lost in thought, for an hour until you notice a few wild dogs on either side of the running path. Keep running only to hear the dogs barking louder and louder as they follow you. Watch as their numbers grow from two to two-dozen. Go away! Finally manage to escape in the other direction when a biker pedals past and distracts the dogs. Arrive with a friend at an old, dilapidated building tucked away in the alleyways of Nanfuxing MRT. Listen as she scolds waiguoren foreigners in Chinese for their inability to endure hard massages. Agonize as your feet get viscously kneaded by the massage lady. Agree with her prognosis. Fall into a painful lull as your back and neck get massaged with a toughness that not even four years of deep-tissue running massages have prepared you for. Shower and change in less than 45 minutes. Attempt to close your jaw when you see the red carpet and streaming with well-dressed ambassadors, dignitaries, and politicians. Stumble into the food area, still in awe. Break your vegetarian streak to try famous squid scallion pancakes and sushi. Try to get close to him but only manage to see the back of his head. While the rest of the invitees will continue to politic and network you will return to teaching your second graders, who are currently stuck on learning the letter H. My fifth grade class The weeks are starting to pass by more quickly than I can keep track of them. Sometimes I feel lost in an endless procession of demanding tasks: learning how to be a teacher, submitting applications for next year, studying Chinese, moving apartments etc. The clocks in every classroom are a few minutes off. My school cancels a presentation that I spent hours preparing. One of my favorite Chinese idioms, which comes from the Analects of Confucius, is. It means where there are three people, one of them will be a teacher. When teachers have problems with students they deal with them directly. Here, parents are more hands-off and trust teachers to teach their kids both academic content and societal values. The students revealed pictures they had drawn of the teachers and gave us gifts. I have never seen so many toasts in my life. My mom is a teacher in the US, and I had never seen her or here co-workers celebrated quite as much as the teachers here in Jinmen. Why do Americans have such little respect for teachers in comparison? Teaching has forced me to rethink the idea of face-to-face relationships that define it, something I had always taken for granted before. Many of us think we can teach ourselves everything online. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. On every street, I saw families and friends squatting in small plastic chairs as they barbecued around a small fire pit. There was something so simple in sharing a meal with my friends, and yet it filled me with such contentment and peace. People matter. This is a theme I keep coming back to over and over again in my life. It sounds so simple, and yet I have to continuously remind myself of this fact, because it is so easy to forget. More and more is demanded of our time, and technology only adds to the distraction. But I never feel more satisfied than when I have the opportunity to slow down and express gratitude for people around me that make my life worth living. Week three of teaching—done. There were a total of grantees attending, and, in my opinion, the sheer number of grantees makes the Fulbright experience in Taiwan distinct from that in other countries. It was intriguing to hear about the variety of projects Fulbright funds including: digital equity initiatives in remote areas of Taiwan, communication objectives in bilingual health communication, and de-familiarizing familiar sensations in experimental theatre. Personally, I appreciate that Fulbright Taiwan recognizes and caters to this. During the orientation, I was able to meet ETAs from other places, and after hearing about their experiences I appreciate my placement in Jinmen even more. As a student, the vast majority of my time was spent consuming. I was consuming information to better and forward myself. Now, no matter how much or little effort I put in, the students learning, something outside of myself, is the end result. As a teacher, the vast majority of my time is spent designing, creating, and producing. I have to process cultural norms, methods of second language aquisition, developmental psychology, and student learning styles, and somehow create a plan to transfer knowledge to my students. In reaction to these nebulous goals, I gave my students a short, informal survey. We had a thought-provoking diversity workshop as part of our Jinmen orientation and it has made me think more critically about these issues of American identity. I need your help my dear friends, family, and readers. I welcome any and all suggestions as to which aspects of American culture I should teach my second to sixth grade students. Disclaimer: these thoughts are purely my own and in no way reflect the opinions of the Fulbright Program or the U. State Department. Third and fourth grade track stars and me. Fastest of our fourth grade boys. Fourth grade T-ball tournament. Nanputuo, Xiamen. Results of the marathon! Kinmen marathon course. My lovely face during mile One of my favorite windlions. Qionglin, Kinmen. Tree near Nanputuo, Xiamen. Lily and me in a rickshaw. Old Delhi. Delhi spice market. On the streets of Jaipur. Palace in Jaipur. Anuja, Lily and me in front of the Amber Fort, Jaipur. Amber fort Jaipur. Lily at the Amber Fort, Jaipur. Taj Mahal. Lily and I in front of the Taj Mahal. Gifts of flowers to the Ganga river. Water Palace in Jaipur. Elephants in Agra. Gazing out the train window. Food tour in Varanasi. Temple in Varanasi. Lily and Anuja at the Amber Fort. Sunrise on the Ganga River. Sunset in Agra. Taipei city skyline on a rainy day. Hiking on the outskirts of Taipei. Taipei on my birthday. Trying on traditional Chinese opera shoes after a Chinese opera performance. Pagoda on the opposite side of Sun Moon Lake. Santa and me. Jake, Grace, and me on top of Qi Shan. Spikes on the beaches of Guningtou. Arch commemorating battle of Guningtou. Local Methodology meeting. Carrie and me in Xiamen On traveling to China The first weekend in December, a few of us took the thirty minute ferry ride to Xiamen—the first time I had been back to China since leaving Beijing in June, Ferry to China. View of China from the ferry. Old building in Jincheng. Remnants of Artillery shells. Old friends in San Fransisco Rhodes Scholar Finalists This is my first Thanksgiving away from home and my gratitude list is a lot simpler this year. When I was back in the US I was most grateful for: 1. My third graders and me Fourth graders First graders dressed up for Halloween Halloween! Community Halloween party Trying to soak up the calm. Traditional Chinese massage 10am. Red carpet for pm. Fulbright Taiwan group on the Red Carpet 5pm. One of several open bars pm. A surprise from the local barista. Fulbright orientation banquet Week three of teaching—done. Fulbright Taiwan orientation Fulbrighters outside of the museum During the orientation, I was able to meet ETAs from other places, and after hearing about their experiences I appreciate my placement in Jinmen even more. Linjiang St. Older posts. One Year within the Golden Gate. Create a free website or blog at WordPress. Subscribe Subscribed. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments Email Required Name Required Website. Design a site like this with WordPress.

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Buying snow online in Kinmen

The pair of books will be out in May Lions and tigers are held in high esteem by the Chinese, although thankfully not only for the perceived benefits of their various body parts in dodgy Chinese medicine prescriptions. The power symbolized by both animals is perceived to protect, and to have a calming effect on negative forces. Blame for reducing the once wooded island to a treeless, dusty expanse rests squarely on the broad shoulders of Chen Chenggong Koxinga , who, during his attempt to defeat the Manchu government and restore the recently toppled Ming dynasty in the mids, landed on Kinmen and proceeded to chop down all its trees for timber to build a fleet of warships for the impending battle. Koxinga was unsuccessful of course, and Kinmen was left largely bare of trees until another exiled leader, Chiang Kai-shek visited the island three centuries later, similarly bent on retaking China from the enemy. As the long war with Communist China started to drag on, he ordered the Nationalist army to begin a program of reforestation on the island. In addition to commanding the winds, the statues were also considered to be village guardians, repelling evil spirits and misfortune. About 80 of these unique statues plus another hundred or so smaller statues, mounted on rooftops can be found on Kinmen. Over half are to be found in Jinsha township, which bears the full brunt of the relentless northeast monsoon winds each winter. Most of the statues the oldest of which are thought to date back to the late seventeenth century are made of white granite quarried at Quanzhou on the mainland. The lions come in a variety of shapes, sizes and poses, and although they generally stand upright, some are crouching, laying, sitting down, or even look set to pounce. The majority of wind lion gods are unpainted, but others have been decorated, almost always in bright, exuberant colors. By the way locals believe that touching the hulu of a male wind lion god statue help expectants mothers give birth to a male heir. No visit to Kinmen is complete without seeking out a few wind lion gods, and searching for some of them is one of the best ways to explore the island and get into some really out-of-the-way places. The free island maps handed out by tourist information centers on the island mark almost all of them, but even with map in hand a few are very tricky to find. Statue near the Qing dynasty Chenjian Tomb, east Kinmen. The first wind lion god most visitors to Kinmen see is a brand new one that stands right outside the entrance to the terminal building at Shangyi Airport. Beside Huandao South Road. Once tricky to find, a path has recently been laid to it from the nearest road, and the lower half of the statue is now hidden in a rather plain marble plinth. Not as atmospheric as it was, but still worth seeing. In the center of the village. Check out the wartime Chenggong Tunnels nearby and the Chen Jing-lan Western-style House one of the finest on Kinmen with its outrageous winged Statue of Liberty, just behind the lion. The new setting is an improvement however, and the painted orange statue with its rather cute expression, is one of the most photographed on the island. At road junction in middle of village. The two most interesting statues lie either side of Huishan Temple on the eastern edge of the village. The statue in front of the temple is old and eroded, while the larger one a hundred meters away is brightly painted, with a large red nose. One lies in vegetation behind one of the Western houses, and the second, finer one GPS coordinates below is at the end of a short lane on the northern edge of the village. The tiny statue, painted deep blue, is shaded by a pair of small banyan trees. A bit tricky to find in the maze of narrow alleyways, the village has a second lion, also a bit of a challenge to find. A second similar statue its mate stands fifty meters away, behind the temple. A small one, looking out over rough grassland, stands to the right of the road shortly before arriving at the entrance to Mashan. A much larger one with a proud grin and prominent, goat-like legs is less than a hundred meters away, beside the new road along the sea dyke to Guanao village. The third, of similar size, is meters further south, just off the old road south from Mashan to Guanao. Turn left at the pink tiled house. Sounds great. I am looking forward to your new books! Thanks for the mention, and hope you enjoyed Green Island! Wow, so detailed! I traveled to Kinmen this past January and only found a few of these statues, most notably the one by the wetland park in the north of the island. I think the free map I had just had a handful of these statutes on it, so maybe I need to seek out a different map. Thanks Luke! The best map is the a free one in Chineseonly which shows vertually all 80 of the statues. The problem is some are really, really hard to find, even with the map, which is quite detailed, and you have to ask the villagers to find them. I have been to Taiwan 4 times so far and I am thinking about coming back, but I was thinking about walking across the island. I know you can cycle the island and I have seen some reports of people walking across in different directions, but I can not seem to find one source other than yours :p that gives if it is possible and which side of the island would be best. Do you know of any resources that you could point me to? I was also thinking about contacting the Taiwan tourism board to see if they would have some information. There are various lower-lying trails that cross stretches of the island and need no permit, or an easier to get police permit which would shorten the road walk, but some of those are often out of action because of typhoons. A better bet, which I was considering, might be bike paths, which now cross the whole island although many use quiet roads. I remember hearing somewhere that a new one is going to open along the patches of the original road between Suao and Hualien on the east coast, which, if true, would solve the biggest problem of any North-South route. Using cycle paths might be your best bet in the end. There are lots of resources on the Net — one of the best places to start is Taiwan In Cycles blog, which is very comprehensive. I did go ahead and contact the Taiwan tourism board to see if they have any information. I did find a couple that recently walked across in a news article, but I can not find anyway to contact them to find out more information. I have been looking at cycling blogs to get route information, but do you know of any websites that might give me more information? One other thing that comes to mid is whether you want to walk one way north to south or all around the island. The west coast is far less scenic than the east, and walking long stretches of it could be pretty monotonous. Alternatively there are various minor routes back up north through the eastern foothills of the central mountains that would make for a more interesting return if you want to walk both ways. Wind Lion God at Xiyuan. Near Dongxiao, eastern Kinmen. Wind rooster on Lesser Kinmen. Lion at Dongxiawei, in the east of Kinmen. Oucuo lion a few years ago…. Yangzhai Huishanm Temple. Yangzhai in village. Share this: Email Facebook Twitter. Like Loading Looking forward to your new book. Best regards, mirjam. Hello, Excellent information! Leave a comment Cancel reply. Comment Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments Email Required Name Required Website.

Buying snow online in Kinmen