A look back at the Cold War, 30 years after it ended

My daughter just interviewed me about growing up during the Cold War for a school project. The way I described it: It was constantly in the background and a source of great concern, kind of like Global Warming is now.

As a young kid in the 70s, awareness of the Cold War was driven by some types of activities, such as drills in our elementary school to file down to the school basement which was supposedly a fallout shelter. I was also aware of news events driven by Cold War conflicts, such as the Boat People crisis, defectors or athletes crossing over or seeking asylum, the 1980 Summer Olympics being cut short, and concern when Brezhnev died or stepped down - would someone even more grim take over the USSR?

As a teen in the 80s, we knew about the risk of a full-on nuclear war breaking out and M.A.D. ("mutually assured destruction" IIRC). And there were the hot wars and conflicts popping up, usually in hot places. Grenada, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Angola ...

We were the good guys and they were the bad guys, as evidenced by our value on freedom and the fact that they kept their people in line with fences, minefields, and cruelty. Hollywood played up this good guy/bad guy thing too, from Rambo to Rocky to Red Dawn.

But there were some questions in the backs of our young minds when it came to things about the Cold War that didn't quite make sense. Like: the leaders in client states we backed and gave free reign to oppress and kill in the name of "freedom." Were our strongmen morally superior to their strongmen? Were their policies and goals all bad?

And what about the people who lived under these regimes? The media was good at concentrating our loathing on the evil leaders, military forces, and the extensive police-state apparatus. We didn't know much about the ordinary people, except that some went to great lengths to get out. But most of them didn't. Was it because they were incapable, didn't want to go, or didn't care?

Sometimes media made us ponder the divide. The ending to the movie "Wargames" was kind of corny, but it made a point. And that Sting lyric: "Do the Russians love their children too?" I had issues with Sting breaking up his fun pop band and turning into a pretentious artiste, but nevertheless that particular line struck a chord, and made me think.

What are your Cold War memories or stories?

Chinese Summer Camp Review (2018)

In the summer of 2018, our son returned to National Taiwan Normal University to attend the NTNU Mandarin Training Center summer program for children and teens. We liked the Chinese summer camp in Taiwan experience the first time around when both of our kids attended.

This time, we wanted to help our son's Mandarin improve while having a special cultural experience in Taiwan. This is a review of his 2018 Chinese Summer Camp experience at NTNU. I will also talk a little about other things to do in Taipei and Taiwan while you are on the island, and how we handled living arrangements via AirBnB.

The 2018 Chinese summer camp experience

My son was in the "Little 1" group four years previously; this time he was in the "Big 3" group as his Chinese had improved in the interim, thanks to classes in his American middle school.

One issue I noticed this time is the program has many students can actually speak Mandarin quite well (thanks to exposure at home) but cannot write. As a result, at the "big" levels for older kids, many students are bunched up at the big 2 and big 3 level, but they don't have enough kids to attend the higher level classes (4 and 5). As a result, they encourage kids from the middle levels to attend the higher-level classes.

On the one hand, this really challenges the kids to improve rapidly on their spoken and written Chinese. On the other hand, it may be too much for some. My son was placed in the level 4 class, but it was just too hard -- his written Chinese was better than many, but his spoken Mandarin was not as good and he couldn't understand the level 4 vocabulary. The program is very good about moving kids up or down in the first week, so he dropped down to level 3 which was just right.

My advice to anyone attending the Chinese summer camp program in 2019 or beyond is to really pay attention to what the kids are saying (too easy, too hard) in the first few days. Also ask for feedback from the teachers and assistants. If it doesn't seem like a good fit, let the teachers know in the first week and they can reassign your child.

Not many things changed in terms of the structure or approach to education. Mandarin is spoken almost all of the time at the middle and higher levels. The quality of the instruction was identical, and a very high level. But some of the learning materials did change -- I actually preferred the older Chinese textbooks for the beginner levels as the printing was better quality and they had side-by-side simplified and traditional versions of each lesson. My son was able to learn a lot regardless -- in fact his aunt and uncle were honestly quite impressed at the improvement over one month.

Even better: The 2018 summer experience at NTNU in Taiwan supercharged his Chinese writing and speaking ability for his middle school Chinese class in the Boston area. It made a huge difference. He was average in his 7th grade Chinese class at school before he went to Taiwan, when he came back in the fall for 8th grade he was advanced. He surged ahead and qualified for honors-level Chinese for 9th grade, when he starts high school. I asked him how/why he thinks he was able to do so well in 8th grade Chinese, and his answer was "Chinese summer camp."

Taiwan summer camp: side trips

One other thing about this trip that is worth mentioning: I made a point of doing a lot of extra stuff with him over the four-week period. Almost every night we went somewhere to eat, and two or three nights per week we did special excursions to night markets or other attractions. He was older, and our apartment (an Airbnb about 15 minutes' walk from National Taiwan Normal University) was far more convenient for getting on the MRT subway system and getting to the Taipei Main Train Station. Sometimes we went with relatives, but most of the time we were on our own using public transport or sometimes a rented car. Our 2018 excursions included:

• Ximending markets and arcade at night (twice - so much fun for teens)
• Shilin night market
• CKS Memorial, Taipei
• Jilong night market
• Tamsui night market
• National Palace Museum 
• L'Amigo Monkeys professional baseball game in Taoyuan (bought tickets at convenience store, took high speed train to and from Taoyuan)
• Many restaurants all over Taipei
• Three-day excursion to Taroko Gorge, Taitung County (rift valley and coast), and South Cross-Island highway. 

For the last side trip, I pulled him out of the summer camp on a Friday (it was field trip that day, not classes) and took a train to Hualian, where I rented a car from Avis and did all of the driving. It was a lot of driving that weekend, but it was utterly spectacular mountain and country scenery and an amazing experience for us both. You can also take tour busses to Taroko directly from Hualian, too. It's amazing and worth a side trip!

There are many more opportunities for trips near Taipei or further afield: Shopping, Taipei 101, fishing in cement pools, travel to the beach, travel to other cities and towns ... there are too many things to list! 

During the day while he was in camp, I usually worked at a coworking center in Taipei (I have my own publishing and consulting business) but I also made a point to do a hike in the nearby hills on my own or with friends once per week. How many other chances will I get in my life to do something like this?

A few photos from our summer in Taiwan are below:

Jilong night market

Northern style Chinese restaurant in Taipei

Our Airbnb

Taiwan professional baseball game in Taoyuan

Doing homework on the balcony of our Airbnb

Taroko gorge

Taroko gorge

Tea harvest, Taidong county

Chinese summer camp homework project

Cliffside temple, Xindian, New Taipei City

Hiking markers near Maokong station, Taipei

Puppet show on the last day of the Chinese summer program

Tang Dynasty sculpture at National Palace Museum

Notes: I was not paid money to write this post, and we don't have any affiliation with NTNU other than sending our kids to camp there in the summer of 2014 and again in 2018. I just wanted to share my experience, after finding it so difficult to locate real reviews about the program!

However, since posting this review, I have added affiliate links for Amazon and Airbnb on this page. I get a small commission or travel credit if you click on them and spend money on those sites. If you don't want to use the links, here are the plain old links: Amazon/Airbnb. I also use advertising on the page, which you can turn off by switching to reader view in Firefox or Safari, or by using an ad blocker. 

One week in Taiwan in autumn: Where to go

A friend who lives in Singapore recently wrote me, asking about places to visit in Taiwan to see fall foliage and good beaches.

The question about foliage was interesting. I lived in Taiwan for 6 years and don't recall autumn scenes, other than some yellowing leaves on a few types of trees in the parks and hillsides near Taipei. Most of the island remains green throughout the winter, at least at the lower altitudes.

I did a little Internet research and found that there are a few places on Taiwan to see autumn foliage. Can it compare with what I'm used to, here in New England? Probably not. But where Taiwan excels in natural scenery is in the mountains, which cover 50% of the island.

Over the summer, I took my son to Taroko Gorge (太魯閣) in eastern Taiwan and the first 25 kilometers of the South Cross Island highway in the southeast, which follows another massive gorge deep into Taiwan's interior. They are quite amazing -- possibly two of the most spectacular roads outside of the Himalayas or southwest China. Here's a brief clip from our drive through Taroko:



Another area which is spectacular and has lots of hiking areas is Alishan National Scenic Area in Chiayi County. I used to like to go up to Hehuanshan (合歡山), too, for hiking and scenery, which includes the "sea of clouds" phenomenon. The advantage of going to these areas in the fall is there are fewer tourists, the air is drier, and there are probably opportunities to see some foliage, especially at the higher altitudes.

As for beaches, unfortunately the once-sleepy beach town of Kenting in the southwest has been totally overrun by commercial development in the past 20 years, including hotels somehow cordoning off sections of the beach for private use, even though it's within the grounds of a national seashore. However, this summer when I drove down to the southeast there were many beaches between the industrial city of Hualian (you can rent a car right outside the train station) and Taitung in the southeast, about a three hour drive along route 11. The ones close to Taitung are rocky, but the small towns and cities on the coast further north from Taitung are sandy and look deserted for the most part ... which is good if you like deserted beaches but not so good in terms of a lack of lodging and infrastructure for tourists (there might be some B&Bs, though).

There are alternatives to beaches which I think would make a fun fall vacation in Taiwan. B&Bs in the countryside around Ilan County are easy to get to from Taipei and are quite striking. I stayed in one about ten years ago right in the middle of the rice fields, and you can do things like rent bikes, go to local town markets, etc. There are also similar B&Bs in the rift valley north of Taitung. The scenery there is really beautiful with many Taiwanese and Aboriginal farming communities and mountains on either side. It's possible to rent bikes and travel these roads and lanes, and I think in the fall it would be really nice as the temps are moderate and the air is dry. Here's a clip of the tea harvest in early August in the rift valley:



Bottom line: If you only have a week in Taiwan in the fall, I would recommend going to Hualien, renting a car, driving to Taroko Gorge where there are some hiking opps of varying difficulty and you can stay in Tianhsiang (or Tianxiang) about 25km up the gorge. After a few days, drive back down the gorge and head south on Route 11 in the direction of Taitung, finding some B&B to stay at near the beach, and exploring around by car or bike. You can also do the return trip to Hualian via the rift valley mentioned earlier. Taroko is one of the natural and man-made wonders of the world -- there's nothing quite like it that I am aware of outside of remote parts of China or India or Nepal, and it's something adventurous travelers should try to see once in their lives.

Chinese as a world language?

There's an interesting article in LitHub by Tom Mullaney titled TO ABOLISH THE CHINESE LANGUAGE: ON A CENTURY OF REFORMIST RHETORIC. A couple of thoughts to share, as someone who studied Mandarin in Taiwan the 1990s, encouraged his kids to learn Mandarin here and in Taiwan, and still loves to study 4-character colloquialisms:

• "Chinese is a world script" - The author notes the rising popularity of Chinese classes in schools all over the world. I love the challenge of learning this beautifully complex system of communication, but I think Chinese script is actually holding back Mandarin (and other Chinese dialects) from becoming more widely spoken. It's difficult to write properly, and adds another layer of complexity to remembering vocabulary. I think it's much easier for people to learn a language that has an alphabet-based script, and it's possible to go further with such a language in a given period of time. For students in the West, the prospect of gaining a little proficiency in Spanish in two or three years' time -- not to mention being able to read and write a fair amount of Spanish -- seems very appealing. I don't think that's possible with Chinese, unless the student makes a significant effort and/or endeavors to do an immersion program in Taiwan or China. (One interesting exception: Japanese students have very little trouble with written Chinese, thanks to their own use of kanji, a set of 1,000 or so Chinese characters used for place and personal names and certain vocabulary).
•  The rise of software to write Chinese characters has really made it much easier to write. I say this as someone who learned in the dark ages before such software was widely available. If I had to write a sentence in Chinese using a pen and paper it would be painful for both myself and the reader ... but on my phone or using a laptop or desktop computer I can manage social media, email, and other lightweight uses thanks to easy pinyin input systems. It's improved my reading ability, too, because now I am interacting in Chinese on my devices using written language that's more like spoken Mandarin, whereas 20 years ago most of the printed materials I encountered tended to be written in more formal style.
• Mandarin as a world language. The increasing importance of the Chinese economy is becoming a big driver for spoken Mandarin in other parts of the world. I've encountered Thais and Vietnamese who can speak it quite well (but not write) in order to do business or interact with Chinese tourists. A friend who recently visited Italy saw the same thing in high-end shops with young Italians behind the counters being able to speak proficient Mandarin.
• I disagree with the idea that the lack of spaces between words are a problem. Chinese grammar is very straightforward, and once you have sentence structure and a large enough vocabulary it's not hard to figure where words start and end (even if you don't know a specific term).
• There are interesting examples in Vietnam and Korea of societies that abandoned Chinese characters in favor of their own alphabets. It's true that cultures lose the connection with ancient literature and older historical documents ... but not their history, thanks to the spread of literacy and public education combined with a strong interest in history and famous people from centuries past.

Hacking Chinese

I was recently asked an unusual question: What was my biggest non-technical hack? How had I found a workaround or trick that let me do something that ordinarily wouldn't be possible or allowed.

That made me think. The best example I can think of involves the study of Chinese. I was able to study the language in a way that reaped major benefits for my career and overseas lifestyle in just six months.

Backstory: I arrived in Taiwan in early 1993 to study Mandarin and continue an overseas adventure that had started in London two years prior. While Chinese grammar and syntax is quite simple, Western students are often tripped up by two extremely difficult elements: Tones in the spoken language and characters in the written language. Most curricula emphasize the latter through rote memorization (necessary for reading) and stroke order (necessary for writing). Writing/memorization exercises take up 75% of a student’s time.

Speaking was given short shrift in many programs at the time -- it’s difficult to effectively teach tones and vocabulary is always taught in conjunction with reading/writing. This really slows progress, as a single term takes extra long to learn, thanks to the emphasis on learning the characters as well as the spoken form.

The result is many people who have formally studied Chinese for a year or more are unable to effectively talk in Mandarin, but will be able to understand characters and even write calligraphy. I had actually taken this approach in the United States in high school and college for two years total, but only knew the words for numbers and a few simple phrases when I arrived in Taipei.

My "hack" was to skip writing and concentrate on the spoken language, with a minimal amount of attention devoted to learning characters. In other words, instead of spending 25% of my time on verbal exercises and practice, I spent 90% of my time on learning how to speak Mandarin.

 My first experiment involved self-immersion, living with a family on the outskirts of Taipei, where I thought I could have a chance to practice talking. It didn’t work -- the children in the family wanted mainly to speak English, and the parents spoke a different dialect that is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin. The experiment failed. I learned almost nothing.

I then decided to take formal classes. Most Western students studied at local universities, but I found a private language school that didn’t force character study at the early levels, and had teachers that really emphasized spoken Mandarin (to the point that no English was spoken in class).

Ten hours of study in school and hours of additional practice every day on the streets of Taipei really worked. I was intensely focused on getting the tones and pronunciation right. Within two months I had the local accent and tones down cold, to the point where some people hearing me answer the phone initially supposed I was local. Within six months I had learned enough vocabulary and grammar to become a highly proficient speaker. I could barely read and my stroke order was positively embarrassing, but it didn’t matter -- I was interacting with local people at a very high level on a face-to-face level and really becoming immersed in social life there.

 The proof of my competency came in mid-1994, less than a year after I had restarted my studies, when I was invited to take part in a highly competitive job interview for a news editor at one of Taiwan’s largest television networks. The interview was completely in Mandarin with three station executives. I passed with flying colors, beating out 300 other applicants. A few years later, I wrote and composed a Mandarin song for my rock band that became a minor underground hit in Taiwan and Hong Kong. It wasn't fine calligraphy, but it made it possible for me to interact with people and improve my own career.

Unearthing a forgotten Taiwan music video: 廢物樂隊：這不是一首芭樂歌

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I was a member of the Taiwan indie rock band Feiwu (廢物樂隊). The band existed from 1997 through 2001. Here's how I described the band in 2012:

The songs we wrote were original. Some were English, some were Mandarin. We recorded two CDs, and were signed to a local music label. We played all over the island, at clubs, festivals, universities, on the streets and under highway overpasses. One of the songs, "我愛台灣啤酒" ("I love Taiwan Beer") was a minor underground hit, and is still covered by local bands today.

One of the best things about Feiwu, besides writing and performing music with a group of close friends, was becoming a part of the local indie music scene. It was small when we started, but very dedicated. There were about three or four dozen bands around the island writing and recording their own music, a few practice spaces and recording studios in the main cities, clubs where we could perform, and the Spring Scream music festival (春天吶喊) which we played in 1998, 1999 and 2000 (see the inset picture below). There was a very strong DIY spirit throughout the small scene, and a feeling that people who loved music could make special music on their own terms.

Feiwu disbanded in 2001. We had two reunion concerts in 2013 in Taipei and Queens that were well-received -- in fact if we weren't so dispersed geographically (with members living in Taipei, Taidong, New York, and the Boston area) I am sure we would have done a few more shows.

As we were preparing for the Taipei reunion show, we unearthed lots of old photos, flyers, magazine articles, and even some practice videos which you can see on our Facebook page. As we went through the old materials, Andrew (guitar and vocals) mentioned a low-budget music video that I dimly remember being shot at some of our shows in the late 1990s but never saw in its completed version. I'm not even sure where we could have distributed it, as this was in the early days of the Internet when streaming video was rare and expensive (there was no YouTube at the time) and local television shied away from indie rock. Andrew said he had a tape somewhere, but we never got around to finding it or converting it to digital formats.

Earlier this year, I opened up my 20th-century media vault, which contains old audio cassettes, digital audio masters for music projects, videotapes of the newscast I used to work on, and even old film reels. I was looking for the old betacam tapes of the newscast to convert to digital, but I also found an old VHS video tape marked simply "KD Studios." Something clicked -- "KD" was the guy who had shot the concert videos so many years before! Someone had probably sent me a copy and I never got around to watching it (I didn't own a VHS player). I thought, I am already converting the betacam, why not convert the music video too?

This week I got the USB drive with the mp4 of the videos. The music video was awesome -- it's a song that Andrew wrote and sang, called "這不是一首芭樂歌" which translates to "This is not a ballad" but we often referred to as "Ballad." KD had spliced together concert footage from 1998 and 1999 along with Taiwan street life. Here's the video:



There are a few rough patches, but overall it's a lot of fun to watch and brings back some fun memories.

If you're interested in learning more about the band, check out our Facebook page or the interview we did with GigGuide. We also have two Feiwu albums for sale on Amazon.

Our review of Chinese summer camp in Taiwan

(2018 Update: One of our kids returned to NTNU's Mandarin camp in 2018, see update below) Over the summer of 2014, our kids attended Chinese summer camp in Taiwan. Actually, they attended two camps: the Mandarin Training Center (MTC) camp at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei (師範大學), and a shorter program called Camp Taiwan in Wanli, near Keelung. This blog post will serve as a brief review of the two Taiwan summer camps and also to share some of our thoughts about Chinese education for non-native speakers. Overall the programs were wonderful, but there were a few unexpected issues that we had to deal with.

Why study Mandarin in Taiwan?

There are a few reasons why we chose these unconventional summer camp programs in Taiwan:

1. We have family and friends in Taiwan, and for our children, it is important to maintain these family and cultural connections.
2. We wanted our kids' Mandarin to improve. For our oldest, it was shaky before she started (despite lessons in her American public school), and for our youngest, it was practically nonexistent. An immersive language program was the ideal situation for us.
3. Since I started my own publishing company for how-to guides, it is possible for me to work practically anywhere, including overseas, so I could supervise them in Taiwan.
4. Taiwan is safer than China, which has chronic air pollution, poor food safety standards, a "Big Brother" surveillance state based on citizens' (and some visitors') online and offline activity, and questionable rule of law.   

For those readers who are unaware of Taiwan's history, it is a modern democratic island nation of more than 20 million people that China's communist government claims as its territory. Most people in Taiwan speak Mandarin (the same dialect spoken in China) as well as a much more difficult dialect known as Taiwanese. Taiwan uses Chinese characters, although the more traditional "difficult" characters (繁體字) that China largely abandoned in favor of "simplified" Chinese (簡體字) more than 50 years ago.

Summer camp in Taiwan - how we picked them

We began to research summer language programs in Taiwan late last year. I quickly discovered there were very few resources to turn to. Of course, there were about a half-dozen summer camps in Taiwan that had their own websites, but there were no independent reviews that I could find for any of them, other than some short posts on expat forums. Besides having a strong Mandarin language component, we wanted to make sure the summer camps we selected were age-appropriate (many are aimed at kids under 8) and affordable.

We eventually settled on the NTNU Mandarin summer camp in Taipei. The university's reputation was an important reason -- it's the premier teachers' college in Taiwan, and the Mandarin Training Center has been running the camp for more than 5 years, which seemed to validate the quality of the program. The cost was surprisingly affordable compared to American camps, although our Taiwanese friends with kids who are used to more subsidized experiences thought it was expensive. It came to roughly $1500 per student per 4-week term, with classes starting at 9 and ending at 3. They also fed them lunch and a snack, and had all kinds of activities, from arts and crafts to limited sports. I thought that was very reasonable, considering many American day camps cost more than $2,000 for one month, and sometimes a lot more, particularly if there is some special sports activity, technical specialty, or artistic element involved.

We also decided to enroll them in Camp Taiwan, which was billed as a "North American-style" overnight camp for a week in a rural area of northern Taiwan. It targeted Taiwanese parents who wanted this sort of experience for their kids (the official camp language is English) and it was staffed with a mixture of Taiwanese and foreign young people, and had all kinds of outdoor activities, from archery to kayaking to ziplining. Importantly, there were no electronics which was very appealing. The cost was about $500 per child per week, which I also thought was reasonable, although most of the other kids appeared to come from well-off families.

I have to say that the registration and pre-start communication for both camps left a lot to be desired. Here were the specific issues that we encountered:

1. Fees for international students had to be paid by bank wire, which is an absolutely terrible arrangement that is prone to error and extra fees (2018 update: This is still the case for the NTNU MTC program). I understand why a Taiwan business would be reluctant to accept a personal check from someone in another country, but credit cards are widely used in Taiwan and offer various protections for all parties involved.
2. There was no confirmation in writing that our payments were received and the kids were all set. We had to circle back to the staff via phone and email to confirm, and even then it was like "we have recorded the deposit" not "we have received the deposit and your kids are confirmed for term X." NTNU had a website confirmation, but it was simply a "Yes" next to our kids' registration numbers. The fact that the confirmation was not clearly explained in writing meant if we were asked by anyone -- such as airport immigration officials -- what we were doing in Taiwan for the summer, it would have been quite difficult to prove that we had registered and paid for camp, and had a legitimate reason for being in Taiwan for such a long period of time. 
3. Communication from the time we paid to the time the camp started was poor. American camps send emails from the directors, reminders about XYZ, and lots of other information before camp even begins, but this sort of communication was practically nonexistent from NTNU and only partially handled by Camp Taiwan, which sent a big information packet to my brother-in-law about two weeks before camp started. However, once camp started daily communications was great (see below) -- maybe even better than most American camps.
4. While both programs had nurses on staff, neither one asked for health confirmations/vaccination history/physicals. We did them anyway before we left for Taiwan in case they asked, but the two programs didn't ask for the forms. I suspect it probably relates to local regulations (or lack thereof) as well as differences in the way countries handle vaccinations and health information.

We arrived in Taiwan in early July. We stayed with friends in a suburban area of Taipei, which was conveniently located near the MRT, which is the capital city's inexpensive and well-run subway system. It took us about an hour to get to camp each day, via walking, the MRT, and a bus. It was roasting hot and very humid. My weather app said "Temp: 91, feels like 105" and it was true. Fortunately, the NTNU camp was almost entirely indoors with air conditioning.

The NTNU Mandarin summer camp started the following Monday. It was the second term, which ran until August 8. There were counselors outside the building on Taipei's Heping East Road to point us to the right place to go on campus. We had to finish up some registration details (including giving local phone numbers and addresses) and then the kids had a placement test while the parents went to the orientation.

Immediately it became clear the NTNU program staff were very, very serious about Chinese language instruction. The materials, pedagogy, and other elements were very well thought out, and it was immensely reassuring.

To give you an example, the textbooks used both traditional (繁體字) and simplified characters (簡體字), and students could use pinyin (the romanization system used in China) or bopomofo (the phonetic system used in Taiwanese schools). The faculty understood that some students may have studied Mandarin with mainland teachers or teaching materials based on simplified characters, and wanted to make them feel comfortable. On the other hand, if the kids wanted to learn traditional characters, that was OK, too.

We were warned that the teachers would not speak English in class, but that was not completely true -- if someone was struggling, or didn't get a particular word, the teachers and their assistants would switch to English to help them.

All of my interactions with the teachers (usually the assistants, who I would see every morning when I dropped off my kids) were in Mandarin. The orientation was also in Mandarin, although they translated some parts of the presentation (not the Q&A session, though). For parents who couldn't speak Mandarin, this might have been difficult, although at the end of the day everyone seemed to make it through the program OK (also, if you don't speak any Chinese but want to learn a little Mandarin before you go to Taiwan I recommend the Duolingo Mandarin app). You won't become fluent, but you will learn important basics, including tones and some basic phrases). NTNU was very good about communication during the program, compared to the lack of communication before the start of camp. 

There were about 85 students in all, most of them American- or Canadian-born Chinese with parents or grandparents from Taiwan. There was a sizable number of students who attended expat schools in Hong Kong, some Europeans and Australians, and a small number of Japanese and Korean kids. About a quarter of the kids were mixed race. When they all got together, they were loud (or louder than Taiwanese students in the presence of teachers) but clearly they had a fun time being together.

The camp was organized according to age and ability -- five classes for "big" (大) and five for little (小). The youngest students in the little classes were about 7 or 8, while the youngest in the big classes were 12, going up to about 15 or 16 (2018 update: This has since changed - there are now three groups roughly mirroring primary, middle, and high school age groups). Our children were placed in the beginner levels for their respective age groups. We found that the range of abilities even within a group was large -- for instance, there was a child in the little beginner's class who could actually speak Mandarin pretty well, but could barely write.

There were four core activities that were emphasized: Listening, speaking, reading and writing. My youngest, who had almost no Chinese language skills before he started, made very great progress in all four, to the point where he could ask and answer very simple questions and even write down the characters after a few weeks. I was so impressed.

Mandarin Homework at NTNU

There was a lot of homework, but it was varied -- sometimes they had to practice writing, other times they were supposed to read sentences or ask questions. It was about 60-90 minutes each day after camp. I found that I had to be involved with this -- my kids didn't understand some of the characters in their homework, or needed to practice Q&A with someone speaking Chinese. Fortunately, my own Mandarin and Chinese reading was sufficient to assist (I lived in Taiwan in the 1990s) and I was happy to help them and keep track of their progress (it even boosted my own Mandarin and Chinese reading comprehension, which was a nice bonus).

The only drawback to this is I had planned on doing work every evening, and between homework, getting dinner, doing laundry, and making sure they cleaned up, there was very little time (I was the only parent in Taiwan in July). This impacted the amount of work I could do, which was basically limited to about 5 or 6 hours during the day (I went to a local coworking space not far from NTNU called CLBC, and worked on my guides, including a title that's kind of like Dropbox for Dummies).

The NTNU program wasn't all work, though. One of the teachers told me they did not want to cram the kids with Chinese, because they wouldn't be able to remember it all and they would be miserable. Therefore, there was a daily limit of about 6 characters, plus speaking and listening exercises, and lots of opportunities for other activities, from field trips (glass and pottery factories, kung fu) to arts and crafts and basketball on campus.  It was just the right pace, in my opinion. Of course, we had lots of other family and cultural activities on our own (see my video about this, called Quick Taipei), and there is so much to do in Taipei that we rarely felt bored.

The program had a nice graduation ceremony, which included performances and the receipt of certificates and grades. The school also made sure that we had access to all kinds of online resources, although in our case we try to keep up their Chinese at home with one-on-one instruction from my wife.

Camp Taiwan

After NTNU ended, we got the kids ready for Camp Taiwan. We had to get some supplies (poncho, flashlight, etc.) but once we dropped them off at the bus they were the camp's responsibility for the next 5 or 6 days.

Before Camp Taiwan started, I was honestly worried because of the heat and humidity, but it turned out that the camp was in the hills near the coast, so it was notably cooler. There were all kinds of outdoor activities except swimming, but they did manage some water activities -- river tracing and kayaking for our older child. The camp was a lot of fun for them, even for my oldest who is not an outdoorsy kid. The camp was also great with communication -- there was a daily password-protected blog with pictures and an account of the day's activity that we could review every night. The camp warned parents about attempting to contact their kids or drive to the camp during the session, which I think speaks to the fact that overnight camps are a bit unusual for most Taiwanese kids and parents.

One other thing about Camp Taiwan: Even though the official language of the camp is English, and some of the counselors only speak English, practically speaking it was mostly Mandarin when the kids were amongst themselves. There were very few non-Taiwanese kids at the camp -- I'm guessing maybe 5% or 10% during the session they were enrolled in. This was fine with us -- it gave our children more opportunities to practice Mandarin and make friends from different backgrounds.

Where to live in Taipei during the summer

While we stayed in a friends' apartment over the summer, during previous stays we have rented out an executive-stay family apartment in Neihu (a northern suburb about 40 minutes away from NTNU). It cost about $1,000 for two weeks for two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living room/kitchenette, and included cleaning and a light breakfast (fruit and Chinese-style bread). I have also used Airbnb when staying in other cities. This is an option for Taipei, and about half of the listings are in English. After registering for Airbnb (or logging in) search the Taipei listings, looking for apartments that are A) near NTNU on Heping East Road or B) near the Taipei subway system's Songshan-Xindian line or Zhonghe-Xinlu line (both connect to Guting station, which is right down the street from NTNU).       

Summary of our Chinese summer camp experience

Overall, both NTNU MTC Mandarin Camp and Camp Taiwan were positive experiences that really expanded our children's perspective and language ability. It is something they will remember for the rest of their lives. I would definitely do it again, if the flights to Taiwan weren't so expensive (about $1500 round trip, Boston-Taipei).

Feel free to ask questions about Camp Taiwan or NTNU's Mandarin Training Center summer program below.

2018 Update

Please see my separate post on my son's experience at the NTNU summer Mandarin program in 2018 (Chinese Summer Camp Review 2018). 

Notes: I was not paid money to write this post, and we don't have any affiliation with NTNU or Camp Taiwan other than sending our kids to camp there in the summer of 2014. I just wanted to share my experience, after finding it so difficult to locate real reviews about either program!

However, since posting this review, I have added affiliate links for Amazon and Airbnb on this page. I get a small commission or travel credit if you click on them and spend money on those sites. If you don't want to use the links, here are the plain old links: Amazon/Airbnb. I also use advertising on the page, which you can turn off by switching to reader view in Firefox or Safari, or by using an ad blocker.

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Update October 2015: I am unable to post comments so here is my reply to Mike Santana:

Hi Mike,

Thanks! I know that Shida/Mandarin Training Center has a program for younger kids but I don't know the minimum age. I saw them meeting in the same building while we were there.

For what it's worth, when my kids were much younger (4 years old for my son and 6 for my daughter) my wife spent the entire summer in Taiwan and was able to enroll them in local neighborhood summer daycare program in Taipei and southern Taiwan. We thought these were great - it wasn't formal Chinese instruction but they were in a Chinese-speaking environment (an air conditioned center) with other kids their age, having fun and being exposed to the language. It was also very cheap ... like $250 per month, including meals and snacks. These are available in almost every city neighborhood -- I would have your in-laws or wife call around or check them out.

One other thing ... the programs aren't going to magically transform children into fluent speakers. But it sets a foundation and gives them a special summer experience, too.

Good luck!

Ian

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Update March 2017: I am unable to post comments so here is my reply to Danika:

Danika, there are other summer programs at NTNU, including one for younger kids (up to age 8 or 9) and young people in college. The one that my kids attended were for tweens and teens (8 to 15).

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Update July 2017: I am unable to post comments so here is my reply to Gin:

Camp Taiwan is not a Mandarin-teaching camp. Kids will get some exposure to the language, but I don't think it's the best way to improve your child's Mandarin skills. It's also very short -- just one or two weeks long for most campers.

For Mandarin instruction, I would recommend the NTNU program described in my post.

Good luck,

Ian

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Update January 2018: I am unable to post comments so here is my reply to Anonymous:

Yes, they did like it. Not, "Dad, take me back next year" (after all, the educational component was pretty heavy) but they have fond memories. They made friends, which was crucial, and also the activities and the experience of living abroad for the summer were stimulating. They talk about it still, four years later, and my younger one is going back this year, very willingly!

Ian

Feiwu/廢物樂隊 interview: From Taiwan Beer to Cuckoo For Coco

My old band, Feiwu, got written up in the Taipei Times in advance of our February 17 show at Taipei's Legacy club. The article is here (scroll to the bottom of the first page, the interview continues to page 2). The reporter was limited in the material from the interview that he could use, so I've decided to post the rest of the interview here.

Taipei Times: The song I Love Taiwan Beer ~ how did you come up with such a thing!? does the song have an official English name? What year does it date to?

Ian: The song 我愛台灣啤酒 ("I Love Taiwan Beer" or the "Taiwan Beer Song") dates to 1997. It's our most well-known song. It really resonated with fans, and some local bands still cover it today. The studio version is the lead track on our first CD 物以類聚 ("Birds of a Feather"), but we also have a really good live version on the second CD 跳火圈 ("Ring of Fire").

I wrote the music and Mandarin lyrics one night, sipping brew from a blue and white can. I brought it to the other guys for the next practice and they picked it right up, and added some nice touches, too. The influences, besides the beer? I was really interested in "nakashi" music you'd hear in local stores and restaurants, taxis, and other places. At the same time, some of the other underground acts around us like LTK and Clippers used Taiwanese or Taiwan themes in their music, which was a very sharp contrast to mainstream Mando-pop that dominated the music industry. I can't speak Taiwanese, but I could write a simple nakashi-influenced guitar melody and sing in Mandarin about something that was very characteristic of Taiwan -- the local beer! I was also heavily influenced by punk and hard rock. In the 1980s had seen a lot of live club performances by bands like Bad Brains, Fugazi, Suicidal Tendencies, Rollins Band, as well as local Boston bands. I think you can hear that hard edge in the loud part and gang chorus of "I Love Taiwan Beer".

Some surprising cultural and musical connections started popping up the more we wrote and played and learned about Taiwanese and Chinese music. For instance, nakashi was actually related to a Japanese style of country music, and was present in Taiwan thanks to the Japanese colonial and cultural connections. I also learned that one crowd favorite we played, a Ramones style cover of Grace Chang's 我要妳的愛 ("I want your love"), was in turn a cover of an American R&B hit from the 1950s called "I Want You To Be My Baby".

Another Taiwan/American musical connection: Before Spring Scream '98 I decided to write a surf instrumental in the vein of "Pipeline" or "Apache" that we could play at the festival. This is when Spring Scream was still by the beach in Kenting. The first time I played it for the guys during practice, our drummer Steve Tsai said, "布袋戲!". This was the Taiwanese puppet opera that is performed live, and was later ported to Taiwanese TV. I didn't understand the connection at first. But Steve explained that the soundtrack for some broadcasts was none other than American surf instrumentals from the early 1960s. We immediately dubbed the song 布袋戲, and gave it the English title "Puppetmaster" (nod to Metallica!). It's on our first CD, 物以類聚 ("Birds of a Feather").

Taipei Times: What do you know about the legacy of the Taiwan Beer song? any TV commercials? use in film or TV? radio? other? did Taiwan Beer ever contact you, comment or acknowledge it in any way?

Ian: Funny you should ask. We just found out that Legacy Taipei has worked out a promotion with Taiwan Beer to provide free beer to ticketholders at our February 17 show. The company is supplying something like 900 beers. Another reason to go to the show! It's actually the first time in 15 years that Taiwan Beer has done something like this. Until now, we didn't know for sure if anyone at the brewery was even aware of the song.

To my knowledge the song was never used in TV or film. But when we started performing it, audiences really took notice. It really resonated with people. Even before we released the first CD, people at our shows knew the melody and chorus and would sing along ("台灣啤酒很好喝，台灣啤酒喝完了。台灣啤酒三十塊,台灣啤酒我最愛").

Taipei Times: What was the song about Coco Lee? and the scandal? somehow i cant remember....

"Cuckoo for Coco" was a song on the second CD, 跳火圈 ("Ring of Fire"). It appears twice, once in Mandarin and in a secret track at the end of the CD that's in English. Andrew wrote the music and the original English lyrics, which have nothing to do with Coco Lee -- it's an homage to breakfast cereal! I wrote the Mandarin verses, kind of a twisted ode to Coco and her ubiquitous media presence at the time. She was overexposed -- songs, TV appearances, commercials, magazines … it was inescapable. The Mandarin lyrics are a love letter from an obsessed foreign fan who wants to get closer: "我聽說妳在國外長大，跟我差不多。 來到台灣你很出風頭，我要作朋友" ("I heard you grew up overseas, just like me. You came to Taiwan and entered the limelight … Let's be friends!")

Our bassist, Bob Hsiung, and guitarist Andrew Watson, heard that she was interviewed on a radio station and they asked her about the song and even played it for her. She apparently said she was "flattered".

Taipei Times: What year was the band formed?

Ian: Spring of 1997. Bob and I had been in another band called The M9s from 1995-1996. We wrote mostly in English and played at a few clubs around Taipei -- and actually after one of our shows I met Steve Tsai, who had been a drummer for Sissey Zhao. The M9s broke up after I went to China and Southeast Asia for six months. By the time I returned to the island in early 1997, Bob was already playing in another band, Smut, which had a lead guitarist named Andrew Watson. They broke up right after Spring Scream '97, so the three of us decided to get together with Steve Tsai for a jam session in April. It clicked, and the band was born. After I left Taiwan in 1999, the Jojoe Huang joined Feiwu as a second guitarist.

Taipei Times: What bars or clubs did you play in most often?

Ian: Feiwu was a regular at Vibe for a few years. We played there more than a dozen times.

Feiwu's first gig was at a place in Taipei called Witches. Steve set up the show. We performed practically everywhere else in town that would let us play, including Underground and one of the Roxy clubs on Shida Road. We also appeared at alternative venues like department stores, parties, universities, and once under a highway overpass near the Grand Hotel (that gig was set up by some TAS kids in the band Nipple).

Feiwu also began playing elsewhere on the island -- every Spring Scream from 1998 to 2001, plus other festivals. I have an old T-shirt from something called "Shroom Festival". That took place in 1998 on a rooftop in an industrial area outside Taichung. It brought together a bunch of underground bands, plus club music later in the night. We played bars in Taichung and in the far south … I remember once having a club owner in southern Taiwan rip the plug of our amp out of the wall after we started playing. He was expecting "Lemon Tree" or Air Supply covers or something lightweight ... instead we played distorted guitars and wicked fast drums.

One thing that's worth mentioning was Taiwan's underground music scene had reached a critical mass by that time. There were underground bands doing their own music in the 80s and early to mid 1990s, but their efforts were isolated. Around 1996 or 1997 that changed. There were finally enough local bands writing and recording their own music, including LTK, 董事長, 1976, 瓢蟲，私分街，啊德， 甜梅號， 夾子，Chthonic, Sticky Rice, and 海豚. There were also enough fans to support live music performances. I think Spring Scream, and Ling Wei's clubs like Vibe and Roxy Plus were very important for giving new bands opportunities to perform, develop original material, and connect with fans. Once that critical mass was reached, the music was there to stay.

Taipei Times: You were weekend editor at the China News, correct? Where has your career taken you since?

Ian: Yes, my day job was weekend editor at the China News. The pay wasn't much, but it was a lot of fun working with some great writers, translators and photojournalists covering local culture, arts, food, music, film and travel. It would take a long time to explain all of the twists and turns since then, but I came back to Boston in 1999 and made a career in digital media. I also went back to grad school full-time to get a business degree from MIT. Since then, I have started my own ebook publishing company -- a series of guides on business and technology topics called the "In 30 Minutes" series. There are five or six titles already, including "Dropbox In 30 Minutes" and a Google Docs for Dummies-type book.

If you're interested in learning more about the band, check out our Facebook page or the interview we did with GigGuide. We also have two Feiwu albums for sale on Amazon.

Quick Taipei

I'm getting ready for a trip next month to Taipei, for Chinese New Year and for a reunion performance of my old band, Feiwu (廢物樂隊). I lived in Taiwan for many years, and during one visit in 2006 or 2007 I made this video about some of the non-touristy parts of the city and surrounding areas:



One thing I've learn about the city in 20 years of interactions is some parts never change. And that's OK with me ...

廢物樂隊 Live

What was Feiwu (廢物樂隊) like live? The last show I played with them was more than 13 years ago, but I remember them as being a lot of fun, particularly after we developed a fan base. Our December 1998 CD release party, from which the following audio was taken, had a few hundred people attending. You can hear the crowd getting into it:



The song is 我要你的愛, which was a cover of an old Chinese big band tune (which was in turn a cover of an old American big band tune). We did it like the Ramones.

Note that the pictures are from many different shows and practice sessions from 1997 to 2001. The art is public domain from Ookaboo.com.

If you want to follow what the band is doing (including a reunion show planned for 2013) be sure to like the official Feiwu Facebook page.

A flyer from a concert we did with Sugarplum Fairy (甜梅號) at a local college in 1999:

If you're interested in learning more about the band, check out our Facebook page or the interview we did with GigGuide. We also have two Feiwu albums for sale on Amazon.

Feiwu returns/廢物樂隊回去台灣

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Tweet

When I lived in Taiwan in the 1990s, I was in a hard rock band called Feiwu. The Chinese name was 廢物樂隊, meaning "good for nothings" or, as Google Translate says, "waste orchestra".

The band had five members in all from 1997 to 2001. Three of us were from the Boston area (Andrew, Bob and I), two of us from Taiwan (Steve and JoJoe).

The songs we wrote were original. Some were English, some were Mandarin. We recorded two CDs, and were signed to a local music label. We played all over the island, at clubs, festivals, universities, on the streets and under highway overpasses. One of the songs, "我愛台灣啤酒" ("I love Taiwan Beer") was a minor underground hit, and is still covered by local bands today.

One of the best things about Feiwu, besides writing and performing music with a group of close friends, was becoming a part of the local indie music scene. It was small when we started, but very dedicated. There were about three or four dozen bands around the island writing and recording their own music, a few practice spaces and recording studios in the main cities, clubs where we could perform, and the Spring Scream music festival (春天吶喊) which we played in 1998, 1999 and 2000 (see the inset picture below). There was a very strong DIY spirit throughout the small scene, and a feeling that people who loved music could make special music on their own terms.

Andrew and the Spring Scream crowd, 2000:

Importantly, there were a core of enthusiastic scenesters and casual fans who loved to see original bands perform. Once in 1998 I saw an outdoor show on the grounds of an abandoned brewery in the center of Taipei. It was pouring rain, yet there were hundreds of people right up front with huge smiles on their faces, soaking in the experience.

I left Taiwan in 1999, but Feiwu continued on until 2001. We had a brief reunion in 2003 when Steve came to Boston to study English, but we haven't played since then.

But ten years is a long time. Too long, for us. For the past few months, the band and some long-time supporters have been working on a reunion show in Taipei in 2013. It's not a done deal, but we really want to make it happen.

Stay tuned.

Update: If you're interested in learning more about the band, check out our Facebook page or the interview we did with GigGuide. We also have two Feiwu albums for sale on Amazon.


The local indie music scene, which was just emerging in the late 1990s, is now very strong (with thousands of bands, according to our old friend Freddy from Chthonic, interviewed in part 1 of the Garageland video series). Here's part 3 from the same series, featuring some more old-school scenesters, including LTK:

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Easy Chinese cooking: "Three Cups Chicken"/三杯雞

Three Cups Chicken recipe

This is a very good home-style Chinese recipe called "three cups chicken" (video and recipe below) which is part of Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes. As explained in the video we made at home, it's supposed to have a cup of soy sauce, a cup of rice wine, and a cup of sesame oil, but this is a variation -- we're using a lot less of all three ingredients and we skipped one ingredient, basil. For these reasons, in Chinese we are calling it “差不多”的三杯雞 or "懶人"的三杯雞, which means "just about" or "lazy man's" three cups chicken. But it still tastes great.

Another advantage of this Three Cups Chicken recipe: The main, must-have ingredients (chicken, garlic, ginger, soy, etc.) can be found in any American supermarket. For the special Asian ingredients such as rice wine (米酒), we give alternatives (in this case, water, beer or dry white wine).

It tastes great over rice, and we also recommend serving another vegetable dish with it (stir fried cabbage or mixed vegetables, etc.)

Three Cups Chicken recipe

“差不多”的三杯雞 or "懶人"的三杯雞
"Almost" three cups chicken or "lazy man's" three cups chicken

• Six or seven garlic cloves, smashed
• 2 inch long piece of ginger, skin cut off and sliced into 1/8" thick slices
• (Optional) Three scallions, cut down the center and chopped into thirds
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil (we used vegetable oil)
• 10 pieces dark meat chicken - we used boneless thighs
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice wine, white wine, water or beer
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil (you can probably live without this, but it adds a nice flavor)
• some rock sugar -- start with 6 small cubes, then adjust to taste. Or use a teaspoon of white or brown sugar.
• Handful of Thai or Italian basil, thick stems removed. (You should have this to make authentic three cups chicken, but you can get away without it, hence the name in Chinese, "lazy man's three cups chicken")

Put a large pot on the gas range, turn up heat to high. Throw in the ginger and scallion and garlic in that order. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Throw in the chicken in batches so at least one side gets browned. Stir it around so everything is slightly cooked on the outside (browning is ideal, but not required), maybe 10 minutes or so. Add the liquids. It should start boiling quickly. Note the chicken should throw off some liquid, too. Turn down heat to low-medium, cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Open lid, add the sugar, check the liquid. You're going to end up with a thick sauce that coats the chicken but doesn't really pool at the bottom, so if it's thin and an inch deep it's time to turn up the heat and leave the lid off. Pay close attention and stir regularly so it doesn't burn. Do this until the sauce is thick, around 20-30 minutes. Turn off the heat. Add the basil, stir it around. Serve on white or brown rice.

Three Cups Chicken recipe video

Learning Taiwanese

I am proficient Mandarin speaker. I spent most of the 1990s in Taiwan, studied at the Taipei Language Institute, and had to use Mandarin in the course of my work and living my life there. Some people I am close with, including my in-laws and the drummer for my old band Feiwu (廢物樂隊), speak little English, so Mandarin is how we communicate.

Sometimes I get asked, "do you speak Taiwanese?" The answer is no. The Taiwanese/Southern Min dialect is widely spoken in Taiwan, especially outside of Taipei. However, Taiwanese sounds nothing like Mandarin and is difficult to learn. There are seven or eight tones, instead of Mandarin's four, and there are sounds which are difficult for Westerners to make.

But from time to time I have had opportunities to learn a word or phrase in Taiwanese. The story below is one humorous example.

It's 1995. Taipei. I'm living in an apartment at was then the quiet end of Hsinyi Road (信義路), but is now the center of the city (Taipei 101, which was briefly the world's tallest building, is only a few blocks away). Like every single one of my apartments during the first three years I lived there, it's number 4, 4th floor (四號四樓). In Mandarin, "four" is a homonym for the word for "death" (死) and is therefore considered unlucky by many Chinese people -- but not foreign renters like me.

Anyway, every day when I come home, I notice the neighbor's parrot, which is kept on the balcony, speaks a few words. Mostly it's cute Mandarin phrases (小朋友!, meaning "kid" or "little friend").

One day, inexplicably, I hear it speak a strange English food word. We don't have any contact with the neighbors or their bird, so I don't know how it learned that word. Maybe TV?

Nevertheless, it's remarkable. A local parrot has managed to learn another language! When my roommates (an American and a Taiwanese) return home, I say, "Hey, the parrot next door can speak English."

The Taiwanese roommate asks, "Really? What did it say?"

I reply, "A vegetable. 'Tomato'."

She starts cracking up. The American roommate starts laughing too. His Chinese is better than mine, and he knows a little Taiwanese. He tells me "That's not 'tomato', it's 'ta ma de', which is like 'motherf______' in Taiwanese."

Image: A parrot. Flickr/Bilal Kamoon. Creative commons license.