Chloe's Reflections on Xin Yi Elementary, one-month in

I'm the one with the blue backpack.

Well, I don't have many friends here, mostly because it's a little hard to communicate, because they speak super fast. But the girl walking next to me is my sort-of-friend - in case you didn't know I am the girl with the blue backpack - and I also have this other sort-of-friend, she is also a new student, but unlike me she just moved from a different school in Taiwan. 

My class room. That's me sitting down in the middle.

This is my class room, it is quite small. It has a chalk board instead of a white board, the desks are in rows instead of table-groups, there is only a chalk board, desks, drawers, a small desk for the teacher at the very back, and two basketballs, and you have to bring your own everything: your own pencils, watercolor, color pencils, markers, glue, scissors, ruler, everything! At Ohlone they provide everything and have books you can pick from in the classroom, here the teacher just gives everyone the same book to read, or you can go to the library if you want to read for fun.

This is math, the main reason why it is hard is because most of the time I can only read some parts of each question.

When you make a mistake, the teacher folds your paper and gives the book back to you. You can see that my paper is folded above. It bothers me.

Chinese reading.

Reading comprehension, It is the HARDEST! First of all, many of the words I don't know, second of all, if I don't get help I have no idea what the story is talking about.

A test. It was also really hard because I can't even read it, I was actually surprised that I got some right.

Another reading passage...😑. My mom says that the writing is very classic and poetic, people don't talk like this nowadays.

Here are the hardest subjects: Social Studies, science, Chinese. Social Studies is also my least favorite subject, it's funny because at Ohlone Social Studies is one of my favorite subjects. The only reason why I think Social Studies here is boring is because I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE TEACHER IS TALKING ABOUT! But how am I supposed to know? It's not that I don't pay attention, It's that I never learned Taiwanese history. Science is hard also because it's hard to understand the teacher, but it's at least less hard than Social Studies. Chinese=😩. The stories all use super weird language and words and I can't even read a lot of them, and the worksheets are very hard because most of the time I can't read all the words in the question.

English class is the easiest! So it is sort of boring. the question would be something like this:

Tommy is not feeling well, so he can't go to school, he might have to see a doctor, why can't he go to school?

1. He is going on vacation

2. He is hurt

3. He is not feeling well

But I really shouldn't brag because many people in my class think it's hard, and I can understand because English isn't their first language. I am the English teachers assistant, so I get to teach people how to write their English homework, and turn in the whole class's homework, it's pretty cool. I also quite like the English teacher because she is really friendly.

Taiwanese language class is super hard. Honestly, the language sounds so foreign to me, that's only because I never learned a single word in Taiwanese before. Taiwanese is also really hard to pronounce, for example wo我 in Taiwanese is pronounced something like ngwa which I find really hard to pronounced.

Another very different thing is that you have to bow before each class and say "Greetings teacher." Then after every class you bow and say "Thank you teacher." And whenever the teacher is speaking to you you have to stand up whether it's a good thing that the teacher is saying or a bad thing. Also the teachers here yell so loud when they are mad even if it is just a little thing. These three boys were just messing with the tablecloth and then the teacher got so mad that they had to stand on the little stage where he teaches, and the boys had to stay right there and not move a bit then the teacher started scolding them like some crazy person, he yelled so loud that he nearly gave me a heart-attack. But that's not all, after that they had to stand up there in front of everyone and not move a single bit, one of the boys just moved his hand slightly and got scolded again, then they had to stand there for probably about five minutes. I saw that type of thing happen more than once. But I think one of the reasons why the kids here are so nice is because of how strict the teachers are, even though my teacher can be very strict, he still can be very generous. The strictness of the teachers is scary but also good. 

All in all, I am having a pretty good time here, and it is interesting to experience all the differences.