國際志工第八週來台心得

It is already my last week in Taiwan. I could not believe two months had gone by so fast. It felt like I had only been here for one month instead of two. On that Monday night, one of the directors brought 6 of us to a restaurant up on Huashan which is on the borders of Yunlin and Chiayi. He treated us to dinner at that restaurant and also brought us to have a look down at the night scenery of Chiayi. The food at the restaurant was really good; every dish is delicious which is not common in almost all other restaurants. We did not get a good view of the night scenery though, as the fog up on the mountains was thick that night. On Tuesday night, another director treated everyone in the office where I sit in everyday to dinner in Minxiong. Two teachers and I reached a little late because we played badminton beforehand but it was all good – dinner that night was palatable as well. The next morning, I woke up earlier than usual to prepare as it was my performance day. I first played clarinet to ‘Libertango’ and another Chinese song with two other teachers played flute and keyboard. Then, I sang two songs – ‘Tong Hua’ by Guang Liang and ‘Ai Pia Chia Ee Ya’ by葉啟田 – before ending my performance with a one minute dance to Jason Chen’s ‘Thank You’. I was unlucky enough to realise that I had accidentally stepped on dog dung right before my performance. Nevertheless, it was a good performance in my opinion. Apart from that, I gave a speech – first in English, then in Hokkien – and also received loads of gifts from the teachers in the school which I had them sent back to Malaysia by post on the following Monday. On the fourth day of the week, I went to Pinyin Elementary School in the morning and gave two lessons to the kids in the school. Some of them were really brilliant; they managed to answer my question at the end of the class without needing the teacher to translate the question into Mandarin. Later in the afternoon, one of the teachers took me to a place called Pan Tao Yao before going back to the school just in time for the dinner feast with all the teachers including a few other parents who were invited. That weekend, I went to Kenting with six other people – four of them were teachers and the other two were on national service working for the school. When we reached, we first checked into our stay for the night before going for lunch in a restaurant serving Thailand cuisine. Then, we went for a thrilling jeep ride full of bumps and ups and downs which lasted for two hours. Near the end of the ride, we were also brought to a lake where we were splashed with water that got me soaking wet because my disposable raincoat tore earlier on. At night, we had a small barbeque behind our stay which turned out really bad as we were not given butter. Besides that, we were also only given a piece of aluminium foil which turned black easily without having the butter. Luckily we managed to borrow aluminium foil from the owner of that place to barbeque the rest of the food. Afterwards, we walked around the night market in Kenting before going back to our stay to play card games. Next morning, we woke up early to go down for breakfast. The weather was not on our side – it was raining and the wind was really strong. And so, we changed our plan from playing the rides available to visiting the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium where we saw many different types of aquatic animals such as jellyfish, catfish, corals, eels and whales. After that, the rain abated completely which we took that opportunity to go go-cart racing and rolling down a slope inside a ball. The latter was a really dizzy game that actually made one of the teachers vomit slightly. Finally, we left Kenting and drove back to Dalin. And that was how I ended my 8 weeks of volunteering in Taiwan. Over this period of time, I have made many friends who had had a large impact in my life. These teachers had taken care of me and kept entertaining me the entire time. They had brought me to various places in Taiwan, so many that the only place that I have not been to yet in Taiwan is Eastern Taiwan. I have tried and eaten almost, if not all the famous food in Taiwan introduced by the teachers. They also treated me to so many meals that I even lost count. Apart from that, the students in this school had also been really welcoming. They listened attentively to what I teach and are also very responsive. Hence, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people I have met in Taiwan; every single one of you plays a part in making this trip a memorable one. I will not forget this wonderful experience as it has also taught me to better appreciate the culture in every country i.e. the things that differentiate the country itself from the others.