Be Your Everything

Four letter word
But I don't have the guts to say it
Smile til it hurts
Let's not make it complicated
We got a story
But I'm about to change the ending
You're perfect for me
More than just a friend so we can just stop pretending now
Gotta let you know somehow

I'll be your shelter
I'll be your storm
I'll make you shiver
I'll keep you warm
Whatever weather
Baby I'm yours
Be your forever, Be your fling
Baby, I will be your everything

Boys like Girls - Be Your Everything

Result of the Taiwanese Education System

Sitting on my bike at the front gate of NTU, I was waiting for my friend to grab lunch. Usually at that time, my friends from elementary school and I would meet up at the front gate to grab lunch, and there would be three girls and me. But today, one of the girls wanted to watch a basketball match and another girl had last minute family plans, so she could not come as well. That leaves me with only one girl to grab lunch with. Considering that I'm a relatively awkward person (I said relatively), I was thinking of things to talk about with her to avoid any awkward silences. And then I thought about how she was the only local Taiwanese student out of the four of us. So I thought maybe I should ask her about my favorite topic of discussion; Education in Taiwan

As some of you might already know, the education system in Taiwan is very different from the American system, which is the system I grew up in, fortunately. Elementary school is six years, middle school is three years, and high school is three years. To get to high school or college, students must take a standardized country-wide examination to place into a school. As a result, if there was one word in Chinese to describe the goal of the education system here in Taiwan, it would be 升學, which in English means to get to the next level of education. Not so much in kindergarten and elementary school, but as soon as you get to middle school, teachers and parents will become very concerned with your grades. There will be a lot of quizzes, tests. Students either stay at school to study after class ends, or they will leave school to attend cram school. Why do they do this? Because they want you to do good so that you can get into a good high school. Long story short, as soon as you get into middle school, your (temporary) life goal is to get to the next level of education, until the day you get into college. Parents will tell you, "don't think too much, just focus on school." Teachers will tell you, "don't think too much, just focus on getting the right answer." After you get into high school, you're next goal is to get into college, and there's another three years of "don't think too much, just focus on school."

Now back to my lunch.

After we had the typical "how was your week" or "what did you do this weekend" conversation, I popped up with the question of "What do you think people in other countries think about Taiwan?" Her answer to that question will be discussed in another article that I will put out about Taiwanese National Spirit. Then, somehow our discussion led me to the point where asked her this: "What went through your mind the day you got into college?" She sat there for a couple of seconds, to think about it, and she finally responded: "Nothing, absolutely nothing." She said as soon as the goal of getting to the next level of education was gone, she had no direction; she did not know where to go, what to do, or how to even think about what to do. To someone like me, that was very shocking. A little background knowledge, to get into our university, National Taiwan University, you need to be top 5% of the country to get into NTU. So my friend was smart enough to get into NTU and I would say she is well-informed about the world. But a typical student like her cannot tell you what she wants to do with her life.

This is the result of the Taiwanese Education System. Starting from the day students enter middle school, to the day they get their college entrance exam results, they are forced to focus on study and nothing else. This restricts students to not think about anything other than their test scores, and school material. Furthermore, students schedules and time are all pre-occupied with studying, and they won't have time to discover their passions, their interests, their hobbies, and sometimes, even themselves.

Another case in point is when I first got back to Taiwan last year summer and I attended an elementary school class reunion. As a result of skipping a year in Greece, I was a year ahead of my elementary school classmates, so I was about to enter college, while they were entering their last year of high school, preparing for the college entrance exam, which is the hardest year in high school. While we were eating, my classmates were very curious about what happened with me for the past 5 and a half years I was aboard. I told them some things about Greece and some things about America. And then out of curiosity, I asked them what they wanted to study in college, and almost everyone of them responded with the same sentence, "不知道，把分數考好再說" which means "I really don't know, I'll see when the results come out." Another quick background information, in order to place in a particular major, one has to meet the minimum required test score on the entrance exam to apply for that particular major, therefore if you want to do medicine but your score did not meet the requirement, then there's no way you can get in. 
These responses also really appalled me because it just goes to show that Taiwanese students have been in a sense "brainwashed" to the point where their concern is nothing but focusing on test scores. Furthermore, when they're so focused on test scores, they have no time and no interest in caring about their what their passion or interest is.

That is all I will say this time, but next time I will discuss the Taiwanese National Spirit, the importance of passion, and more on Education in Taiwan, specifically how we should change it. Until then, see you next time.

Retrospect

Sometimes when I look back into my past, one year ago, two years ago, or even five years ago, I just smile think to myself 'good times man, good times'.

Middle School

I went to an International School for middle school in Athens, Greece. At that time, I was, what I like to call, a dork. I literally had two hoodies and two cargo pants, and every other day, I would wear the same thing. I did that for about 2 years, until my parents and my sister finally took me shopping. Academically, I was rather strong because our school had pretty low standards so I was sometimes known as a nerd, partially because I had decent grades, partially because I looked like one, and partially because I was Asian. I didn't have that many friends at that time, and those whom I occasionally hung out with were just people to hang out with when I had no one else to hang out with. I liked three girls within the three years I was there. I told the first one by writing it in a happy birthday card on her birthday. The second one never knew but always thought of me as a really good friend. The third one knew because it was so obvious apparently, and when she asked why I liked her, I said because she was Asian too. I also played a lot of tennis back in those days, and I would frequently hang out around the tennis court, with the coach and the others who had lessons, even though I didn't always have lessons. My best memories of middle school were probably at those tennis courts. Good times.

High school


High school was much more fun but also much more dramatic than I thought it would be. But I did learn a lot from high school. I moved to Maryland after living three years in Athens and attended a public high school in Montgomery County. Montgomery county was also were I grew up as a child, therefore I had a lot of childhood friends, all of which I met again in high school. The first group of people I hung out with were the friends of my childhood best friend. We got along pretty well but I still couldn't consider myself as one of them because I didn't know how to fit in. In late sophomore year, I met a girl in my English class that was really friendly, and I eventually became friends with her. In the first half of junior year, I hung out with her and her friends, which were all girls but I didn't mind. After winter break, some stuff happened and I ended up not hanging out with them anymore. For the rest of junior year, I struggled to have friends to hang out with until I befriended a new group of friends around junior banquet. My time with this group of people was probably the highlight of my high school life. We went to the pool, we went to play pool, and we did many other things. But towards the beginning of senior year, I realized that they weren't the people I wanted to hang out with. I just wanted to be cool and belong to a group. Therefore, I left that group and started hanging out with the FOBs (Fresh off the boat). They were all Taiwanese people and they always spoke chinese around each other. I liked hanging out with them but they were a very segregated group from all the other people, due to the language barrier. Up until the end of senior year I hung out with the FOBs and I even went to Prom with them. Good times.

Conclusion


Now that I think back to all these things, I realized how much I have grown and matured. I thought I was the coolest kid ever to hang out with that group of people in junior year but now I think that was the stupidest thing I have ever done. I remember there was this one girl who obviously disliked me because I apparently wasn't "good enough" for her, but now that I think about it, I honestly don't care if you like me or not because I'm not gonna waste my time on people like her. In conclusion, I think it's all part of the learning process and it's normal to make mistakes in your life. The most important part of that is to learn from those mistakes and do better in the future.

Asian invasion

Minorities have always been overlooked in the United States. African American fought for their rights for decades and finally succeed in the 1960s. Other minorities continued to fight for their place in the mainstream American society. Although the law forbids discrimination against race, racism still exists in people's minds. Asian-Americans are among one of these minorities. For the longest time, Asians have been thought of as nerds, geeks, anti-socialists, etc. We have strived to change this stereotype. In addition, we want to spread Asian American culture to mainstream society. Sadly, the reality of mainstream society did not accept Asians because we simply appeared to not be "good enough." However recently, it seems that all this is about to change.

In early 2010, the song 'Like a G6' by Far East Movement became a popular hit in United States. Every single person knew that song and it was a "must-play" song at every high school dance. What people didn't know was that Far East Movement was an Asian American group that consisted of four Asians who all grew up in the United States and they have been recording music since 2003. In 2010, they final made an impression. In the same year, Far East Movement signed a major record deal with Cherrytree Records, which is part of the famous Interscope Records. In October, they debuted their first album 'Free Wired', which took number 24 on Billboard 200. In the following month, the song 'Like A G6' took number one spot on Billboard 100. This was not only a big step for Far East Movement but also a big step for the Asian American community; it is an indication that Asian Americans are finally being accepted into mainstream society and that Asians Americans can do just as well as caucasians. In their first album, they had the opportunity to work with Ryan Tedder, Keri Hilson, Lil Jon, Snoop Dogg, and Bruno Mars. In their newest album, they continued to work with famous artists, including Justin Bieber, LMFAO, Pitbull, Cassie, and many other artists.

In early 2012, an American born Asian Jeremy Lin showed America that Asians can play basketball too. In a 107-93 win over Washington Wizards, Jeremy scored 23 points and had 10 assists in that game. On February 10, Jeremy scored 38 points and seven assists against the LA Lakers, which set a new career-high and beat Kobe Bryant, who had 34 points. On February 11, Jeremy scored 20 points and had 8 assists in a narrow 100-98 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. On February 14, with less than a second remaining, Lin scored a game-winning three-pointer against the Toronto Raptors. The basket so amazed the Lakers, watching on TV, that veteran player Metta World Peace ran by reporters shouting "Linsanity! Linsanity!" and waving his hands above his head. Lin became the first NBA player to score at least 20 points and have seven assists in each of his first five starts. There are so many more accomplishments about Jeremy Lin that I can be said but the point is that Jeremy changed the impression of Asians not only in the NBA, but also in America. "Linsanity" also sparked more Asians to play basketball and confidently compete with other Americans. He contributed to the Asian American Movement and also strengthened Asian Americans' confidence in the American society.

The last group of people I want to talk about are not prominent in the mainstream society, but they have been working hard in the Asian American community to bring Asian American culture into mainstream society as well; they are what I like to call the "Social Media Artists." These artists use social media such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and many other websites to publish and spread their work. One of these artists is the company Wong Fu Production. This company consists of only three Asian Americans and they produce short films targeted towards Asian-Americans in the United States. Many of their work reflect the lives and the situations faced by Asian-Americans, such as being known for a "Nice Guy", made fun of for poses when taking pictures, and many other cultural symbols. Their work has been featured in the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, San Diego Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, and many others. In addition, WFP started an annual concert with Far East Movement called International Secret Agents. This concert is held every year in the United States, where they invite talented Asian American Artists such as Quest Crew, Poreotics, Ryan Higa, Kevjumba, Jay Park, Kina Grannis, David Choi, and WFP, Far East Movement themselves, to perform and simultaneously celebrate Asian American Culture. They also try to bring the Asian American community together and encourage them to fit into mainstream society. There are also many artists like WFP who promote Asian American culture via social media, and they include: David So, Clara Chung, Michelle Phan, Jason Chen, Arden Cho, Just Kidding Films, Jayesslee, JRA, Cathy Nguyen, Peter Chao, and many others.

Asians have always put to the sides in America, but due to the Asian American Movement, we have more confidence in who we are, and therefore we are not afraid to express our culture. We are more confident than ever, and proud that we are Asian because we can do just as well if not better than other Americans. So beware America, for the Asian Invasion!

First Post

It is 1:46 in the morning, and I sit here in front of my laptop blogging for the first time. The reason why I'm writing this is actually because I'm waiting for my hair to dry and I don't want to blow dry my hair because everyone else is sleeping and I don't want to wake them up. Therefore, I decide to let it dry naturally, in the extremely humid weather of Taipei. On to some more meaningful matter, I decided to start a blog because I encounter unique experiences on a daily basis and I wish to record these experiences. It may be something personal, spiritual, inspirational, creative, or others. Ideas for my company and thoughts on Taiwanese education emerge spontaneously as well. As I will not remember these ideas for an extended period of time, it is necessary for me to preserve them before they vanish from my mind. Thus, this is the reason for my blog.