Hello Taiwan

We began our 2+ travel day at 4:30 am to get on a bus and head to the JFK International Airport in New York City.  We checked in at China Airlines, which was incredibly busy in addition to the 100 students, luggage, and tech equipment that we carried with us.  It took our group so long to check in and get through security that we delayed the flight by 45 minutes.  Our flight departed at 3:30 pm and we flew non-stop 16 hours to Osaka, Japan.  I watched four movies during the flight and took a brief snooze, but surprisingly, the flight went rather quickly.

From Japan we got off the plane, went through security again, and boarded the same plane to fly two hours to Taipei, Taiwan.  By the time we landed, I had no idea what time it was nor what time my body thought it was back home.  All I know is that it was dark when we got to Taipei.  From Taipei, we took a two hour bus ride to a temple near Erlin, which is on the central west coast.  Our first night in Taiwan was spent sleeping in a beautiful temple.  The boys slept in one room and the girls were in the other.  The room was basically two long bunk beds made of wood.  Needless to say, none of us got much sleep the first night sleeping on wood.  However, the experience of sleeping in a temple was worth the restless night.

The next morning half the group went sightseeing, while the other half participated in a press conference and mini show.  I had the opportunity to go sightseeing and we visited a massive Buddha that overlooked the city.  We then went to a Lions Club, one of our sponsors, and had a special tea ceremony.  We learned how to properly drink tea-you first smell the tea, then you take a small sip, and then you must finish the tea in two more drinks.  We met up with the other group for lunch at a bicycle museum and had the chance to explore the museum for a while and ride some of the bikes.

After lunch, we headed to another temple in the center of Erlin and watched children perform a dragon dance in the street.  We then headed inside the temple to watch a special ritual and offering to the gods.  From the temple, we headed to a facility to meet our host families and eat dinner with them before heading home.

For the next two weeks, I am roomed with Miguel, a student from Mexico and we are staying with a wonderful host mom and dad that we call mama and papa.  They live very close to our facility for the week in a very nice four story home with a rooftop walkabout that overlooks the city.

On Thursday we had our first community impact day in Taiwan.  I was in a small group that visited a nursing home.  The nursing home was an hour away so by the time we arrived, the residents were just finishing lunch and getting ready to take an afternoon nap.  So, our group just talked until 1:30 when the residents woke up.  We began by taking some of the residents outside for a walk.  Kelli, one of our Education Coordinators and I were working together in one building and one employee, who spoke English, asked us if we would sing a karaoke song for the residents.  Kelli and I both had a little panic attack, but decided it would make the residents happy.  By the time we finished the song, the employee had wheeled all the residents from their room into the lobby where we were singing.  The rest of our hour was spent performing karaoke on the machine in front of 15 residents who did not speak English.  Kelli and I have very limited options for songs in English on the Karaoke machine so we ended up singing our hearts out to Happy Birthday, You are My Sunshine, Doe-Re-Mi, and Jingle Bells.  One of the employees even decided to select some songs for Kelli and I to sing, which we had never heard before and since we were on a roll, we just made up the tune of the songs and pretended we knew exactly what we were doing.  As horrified as I was in the beginning to sing at the nursing home, I had the time of my life putting smiles on the faces of the residents.  

Thursday night Papa took Miguel and I to a small city nearby to see a beautiful temple.  He was not able to explain to us who the temple honored, but I felt like I had stepped back into ancient times with bright, beautiful colors and the intricate details on the walls and ceiling.

Friday we traveled to Yuanlin, two hours away, where we set up for our first show.  The theater was an incredibly beautiful auditorium that made me feel like I was in the Kodak Theater in Hollywood looking out into thousands of seats.  

That evening, Mama and Papa took us to Tzu Chi, which at the time, Miguel and I had no idea what it was.  We now know that it is a huge non-profit international organization that cultivates sincerity, integrity, faith, and honesty within while exercising kindness, compassion, joy, and selflessness to humanity through concrete actions.  Papa, who speaks enough English to communicate, took us to see Mama, who can barely speak English.  Mama was performing at Tzu Chi where she sang and did sign language.  When we entered the Tzu Chi temple, we had to take off our shoes and Papa explained to us that every morning at 4 am, employees clean the entire complex from floor to ceiling.  There was not a speck of dust to be found anywhere in the huge building.  We entered this massive complex, with auditoriums, both inside and outside, and made our way to the main room.  When we walked in, everyone watched us and several people escorted us to special seats.  After a few minutes, several photographers came over to take pictures of me and Miguel.  Miguel and I had no idea what was going on so we just smiled.  Soon after, a woman who seemed rather excited to see us, came over and told us that she wanted to interview us for a documentary that would be shown around the world.  Miguel and I immediately began to panic because, at this time, we still had no idea what Tzu Chi was.  However, we agreed to the interview and followed the woman over to the corner of the room where we sat down to first have tea on the floor.  After our tea, the nice woman took me out in the lobby to interview me.  She asked me questions about volunteering and why it is important to me.  It was a pretty easy interview until she asked me what I thought about Tzu Chi.  All I had to go off of was the concert that was taking place inside the auditorium so I proceeded to say "I think Tzu Chi is a wonderful organization and is doing a lot to help the world.  I think the music is beautiful."  Although I somewhat made that statement up at the time, after the fact, it seems to be an accurate statement.  It was a chaotic whirlwind night with many unknowns, but I sure had a great time and a memorable, humorous experience.  

On Saturday morning, we headed back to Yaunlin for our first show in Taiwan!  I spent the morning working with three other cast mates on a presentation that we have later on next week about poverty and hunger.  Members of the cast are selected to be a part of a series of presentations called Global Series where we, as students, are given the opportunity to present information about global issues to the cast.  Nirite from California, Linnea from Denmark, Annelies from Belgium, and I have been working on our poverty and hunger presentation for several weeks and we spent the morning trying to finalize the presentation.  

In the afternoon we had a full run-through of our show since we were on a new stage without our own familiar equipment.  We did not bring most of our tech equipment with us to Asia that we used for our tour in the United States, so we rent the lights, sound equipment, and stage equipment.

Our first show in Taiwan was a success and was well received by the Taiwanese people.  They especially loved our two Taiwanese songs that we added to the show for our tour in Taiwan.

Sunday we had the opportunity to attend and participate in an International Culture Fair at a university.  This was a really unique opportunity for us because the university students had spent four months preparing their booths and it was our job to join their booth and share with people about our cultures with the information and games they had prepared for us.  Throughout the day, we had the chance to visit other booths and appreciate all the time that the university students put into the culture fair.  The fair was full of people all day long and it was a huge success.  The Up With People students spent most of their day dancing to the international music that was playing and, I must say, the international culture fair was one of the most fun days that I have had with the cast on our tour.    

Goodbye USA

Our final city on our U.S. tour was to Plymouth.  Our goal as interns is to be able to run the city the last week of our internship.  Running the city meant that we had to prepare several education workshops as well as be in charge of our community impact days.  Our first task for Dristy and I was to develop a presentation for the cast.  Dristy and I chose to teach the cast about effective communication and dialogue.  I spent my senior year of college studying and researching dialogue, so I was very excited to share what I had learned with the rest of the cast.  Dristy and I spent a lot of time preparing for our first presentation and it was so nice to have our cast mates tell us how much they enjoyed what we had done.  Definitely a great way to start off the intern week!

After our presentation, the cast got to spend several hours at Plimoth Plantation, which is a living museum where you can interact with Native Americans who share what life is like as a native people as well as talk with pilgrims who settled in the area.  It was such a neat opportunity to hear about life for the settlers who came on the Mayflower as well as hear the other side of the story from the Native Americans.

This week I stayed with Sandy and her 17-year-old son Austin.  Sandy is an inspirational speaker, a spiritual author, and a spirit medium.  She has her own business where she helps spiritually heal people who have lost a loved one.  She also speaks across the country giving motivational talks in addition to her two books and self-help discs.  It so great spending the week learning about Sandy's inspirational work.  

Tuesday was a Community Impact day and I had the opportunity to work at Plimoth Plantation cleaning up some of the trails and making the area look nicer.  Tuesday afternoon, Dristy and I facilitated a USA wrap up where we reflected on our time in the US.  Our two Chinese students then took over and prepared our cast on what to expect while we are in Taiwan and the cultural differences of which we need to be aware like taking off our shoes when we enter the home, or never laying our chop sticks in our bowl when we are finished.  

My friend from college, Mishayla, and her mother came to Massachusetts to visit me and see the show.  Tuesday night, Mishayla and her mother Joyce took me out to dinner along the sea across from the Mayflower.

Wednesday was another Community Impact day where I went to The Center for Natural Sciences, which was a natural science museum.  We cleaned up the entry area and removed large bushes and an overgrowth of weeds.  Mishayla joined our community impact day, and it was really fun to have her spend the day doing what we do on a weekly basis. 

Wednesday afternoon was our second culture fair for the Europeans and Asians.  As education interns, Dristy and I organized culture fair.  Just like the last fair, I was blown away by the enthusiasm and dedication of the presenters.  The North and South Americans visited the different booths and played games, learned cheers, listened to music, and ate food from the European and Asian countries.  Dristy and I were so pleased at how well the culture fair went and we were so happy to be a part of such an educational event.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were our final three shows in the United States.  During rehearsals we continued to work on our Taiwanese songs as well as begin to learn the music to our Philippine songs.  All three of our final shows were well received and we had very engaged and excited audiences.  It was a great way to end our tour in the U.S.  

Sunday, on our host family, day Sandy took Austin and I along with another cast mate, Julia from Germany, out to a nice brunch.  In the afternoon, Julia, Sandy, and I went apple picking.  It was nearing the end of apple picking season because the only apples left were the ones at the very top of the tree.  So, I decided to put Julia on my shoulders so we could reach the apples.  I must say it was a success and we filled our bag to the top with delicious apples.  That evening Sandy made us a wonderful dinner and we invited another cast mate and his host mother over to join us.  The rest of the night was spent laughing and  having a nice time together...until it was time to pack for our 17 hour flight to Taiwan the next day.

I am very blessed to have had the chance to live with Sandy during my final week in the U.S.  Sandy's positive outlook of life was so inspiring and uplifting.  I only wish I had more time to spend learning how to think in such a positive way in any situation.  Sandy was so kind and gracious and she truly inspired me to be a better person not only in my actions but also in the way I think and respond to situations and experiences.  

Positive Impact

From Hamilton we made our way to Boston before we continued on to Concord.  We spent the afternoon exploring the city and following the Freedom Trail, which is a walking path that hits all the major historical sites of Boston. 

This week I lived with Paulette and her 16-year-old son Sean in a small city outside of Concord.  Sean is very involved in marching band, so it was a lot of fun to spend time sharing my memories of marching band with him and hearing about his experiences. 

Tuesday and Wednesday some of the cast facilitated anti-bullying workshops in all the middle schools in Concord.  Anti-bullying is a large part of the curriculum for middle school students so we facilitated a 90 minute workshop that allowed the students to reflect on bullying in their school and stand up against it. 

I was so amazed at how well the students responded to the workshop and how much they appreciated our time with them.  One of the most memorable moments was when we were working in an 8^th classroom with students who were not at all interested in hearing yet another presentation on anti-bullying.  The two other facilitators and I were very frustrated with the lack of participation with the students.  However, halfway through the workshop, when we were doing an activity that required the students to take a stance on a particular statement about bullying, something changed in the students and they began listening to one another.  I was blown away at how engaged the students became and how they openingly shared personal experiences with their classmates.  It’s moments like that where I am reminded that I can help make a positive impact in someone’s life.

This week was an extremely exhausting week with four shows in three days.  Thursday and Friday night we had shows in two different locations.

Saturday was host family day and Paulette wanted me to have a relaxing afternoon after having a busy week.  I slept in until 11am which was so great and I spent the afternoon catching up with friends from home as well as organizing my presentations for the next week for my education internship.  After a much needed relaxing afternoon, Paulette, Sean and I went into Boston to have dinner in the North end.  We ate at a delicious authentic Italian restaurant and ended the evening by walking around downtown.

Sunday was the first time that we had two shows in one day.  It was so tiring, yet we all had so much fun performing two shows together.  Because we are getting ready to head to Taiwan, we spent some of our rehearsal time working on our Taiwanese songs for the show.  We will be adding two songs to our show-one is a folk song and the other is a popular boy band song in Mandarin. 

I had a wonderful week with Paulette and Sean.  Paulette told me the first night I met her that her husband had passed away two years ago from cancer and I could see how much he was missed in the family.  The most special memory that I will never forget is when Paulette sat with me and told me about her wonderful husband and all of the fun memories she had with him.