CFP: "Applied English Education" Conference

The Applied English Department of I-Shou University invites interested presenters and guests for an international symposium on

"Applied English Education:
Trends, Issues & Interconnections"

Conference Date: March 9 (Friday), 2007
Venue: I-Shou University, Kaohsiung County

(International Conference Room, 10th Floor, Administration Building)

About the symposium:

The concept of ‘applied English’, unlike the one of ‘applied sciences’, is controversial. The successful use of a foreign language in job-related contexts requires a sufficient command of general language skills in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Our symposium focuses on current trends and issues in this field, such as the dis/advantages of teaching applied English for specific purposes, the practical outcome for graduates, and the incorporation of research findings into curricula. As well, our symposium seeks to explore the integration of applied English teaching with other disciplines, and also seeks ways and means to foster and facilitate interconnections among diverse scholars.
In addition, topics related to a broader concept of “applied English” may also be accepted.

Several panels and workshops will be organized for the symposium. Papers will be selected for publication after the conference.

Registration: Free.
Please register on-line at: www.ae.isu.edu.tw/englishsymposium/registration
Accommodation and transport will be facilitated by the organizers.

Important deadlines:
Submission of abstracts: December 31, 2006
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: January 15, 2007
Submission of draft papers: February 15, 2007
Further information: www.ae.isu.edu.tw/englishsymposium


Please email or mail your abstracts (100-200 words) until Dec. 31, 2006 to:
cytsai [at] isu.edu.tw
Applied English Dept.
I-Shou University.
1. Sect. 1. Shiuecheng Rd. Dashu Shuang.
Kaohsiung County. Taiwan. 840. ROC.
Ph: + 886-7-65 777 11 ext 5652
Fax: + 886-7-65 770 56

You will be notified about the acceptance of your paper no later than January 15, 2007.

For further information please check our web site (after October 25, 2006):
www.ae.isu.edu.tw/englishsymposium

I don't know how this happened...

Which Jane Austen Character Are You?

You are Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. You're pretty arrogant, but that pride stems from the deep-seated knowledge that you are generally the most superior creature in any given room. The good news is that you are deeply loyal to your family, and you have a generous and charitable streak, even though most people don't notice because you are too busy practicing a large vocabulary of stern looks.
Take this quiz!








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The two things I remember from elementary school

My wife and I were talking this evening about the things we heard classmates and teachers say in elementary school that have managed to stick with us over the years. Here are the two things I remember:

1. Ricky Scott's explanation of chocolate milk: "Chocolate milk is actually sour milk, sweetened so much that it tastes like chocolate." (You really have to emphasize the "so much" when you say it.)
2. Mr. Beck's (6th grade teacher) punishment for talking in class--we had to write the following sentence 10 times: "It is exceedingly disrespectful to disregard a teacher's request for verbal non-communication."

What are the two quotes that have stuck with you from elementary school?

Now they tell me...

Your Learning Style: Practical and Cooperative

You like to test out what you learn, and you excel when you can jump right in and try something. You Should Study: Dentistry Environmental Science Fashion Merchandising Interior Design International Studies Marketing Medicine Music Nursing Criminal Justice Physical Therapy

What Should You Study?

Karen Kingsbury in the news

In case you didn't catch it, Sunday's Taipei Times had an article about our friend and former Tunghai colleague/teacher Karen Kingbury. (As I mentioned a while back, Karen and Michael Jacques and their son Henry moved [back] to the States this summer.) The article is about the publication of Karen's translations of some of Eileen Chang's work. The translations are collected in the book, Love in a Fallen City.

(Thanks to Douglas Jarvie for the link.)

Where my nephew discovers a secret about his uncle

During our Mid-Autumn Festival cookout the other night, my sister-in-law told me that not long ago my 3 1/2 year-old nephew came home from pre-school and asked her, "媽媽, Uncle 是不是一個外國人?" (Mom, is Uncle a foreigner?)

I wondered how long it would be before he had a label that explained my big nose...

Kerim Friedman on Freshman Chinese

Kerim, who bravely grades papers written in Chinese (something I don't think I'd ever dare), comments on the need for Freshman Chinese classes in Taiwan's universities to teach research writing rather than (or in addition to?) literature. At Tunghai, we just finished a four-year freshman language instruction reform project that focused on the first-year English and Chinese classes. The English abstract for the Chinese part of the project (written toward the beginning of the project, I believe), reads as follows:

The goal of Freshman Chinese is aimed at improving student’s language skills. However, the average size of 60 students per class makes it impossible for any teacher to help the students efficiently. Therefore, we decided to reduce the class size down to 30 students in the reading & writing class. For the first two years, we plan to offer 12 classes for the incoming students in the six different colleges, namely, the Colleges of Arts, Management, Social Science, Engineering, Science, and Agriculture. These classes focus on writing, but the theme and reading materials for each class is designed by individual instructor based on his or her specialty. We feel that this arrangement would allow individual instructor to demonstrate his or her teaching skills in a more effective way. Student writing could be creative or expository depending on the nature of the assigned topics. Each student is required to hand in at least 4 short papers and one research paper with substantial length each semester. We hope that we can double the number of such classes in the 3rd and 4th year, i.e., the academic years 2004 and 2005, when the Humanities Building is completed. For the first year of this project, we have published an anthology of Freshman writings in Chinese in June, 2003. In addition, we have finished editing a textbook on literary analysis of short stories and prose of contemporary writers and sent it to the Wheat Field Publisher for publication. We held seminars on teaching with outside speakers and our website provides information on our program and channels for communication. Finally, we have a team of faculty devoted to the teaching of Freshman Chinese reading and writing classes.

You can see that this abstract addresses one of the problems that Kerim mentions--the typically large size of Freshman Chinese classes. There does still seem to be an emphasis on creative writing and literary analysis, however. (One comment made at the final meeting on the reform project was that the Chinese department should cooperate with the different colleges to meet their needs and their students' needs--this sounded like a suggestion in the direction of a Chinese WAC [Writing Across the Curriculum] program.) There's more on the Freshman Chinese project here (in Chinese) at the Chinese Department's website. Perhaps I'll take a closer look at this later.

[Update, 6/23/21: I did go back to the Freshman Chinese program in this post, written six and a half years after this first one. (And I'm adding this link almost eight years after writing the post!)]

De/construction

Now that the summer is over and I'm not at home as much, the destruction/construction work in the downstairs apartment that went on for over two noisy and smelly months is also wrapping up. This is the good news. Now that I'm at the office more, though, they've begun ripping out the (concrete) walls in the Chinese Language Center downstairs from me and drilling through what's left. It's like I'm leaving a path of construction in my wake...

On being "borrowed"

I was going to write some comments about an article I just read on a topic near and dear to me, but as I was reading through the article I found that some of the language and ideas were a little ... too familiar. I saw that the writer cited in the bibliography an essay I had posted on the web several years ago. I made a little comparison between the two and found the following:

• Near the beginning, there are some phrases that are almost exactly the same as my phrasings. The phrases are all part of one sentence in the introduction. (I'm not Shakespeare or anything, but the phrasing is almost word-for-word.)
  
• The writer also used sources that I had used, which is perhaps not surprising, although we are not in quite the same disciplines. The writer used a couple of quotations I had also used.
  
• In one case, I had put a long quotation from a secondary source in block quotation format. The writer of this article used the same passage, changed a couple of words, and included the passage in the body of the article without marking it by quotation marks or block quotation format (although there was a parenthetical citation of the source).
• In another case, the writer used the same two short quotations from primary sources that I had also used in my paper. These were not "obvious" quotes (partly because they are from primary sources). Also, the writer didn't cite the source of those quotations in the bibliography. And the writer's translation of one of the quotations is almost identical to mine. (Again, there is no indication given whether or not my paper was the source of these quotations.)
  
• There were also several references to a key concept/term that I had used, but no definition of that concept (something I had provided) or citation of the source of that concept.

The article itself is rather wide-ranging and is longer and goes into more detail than my short paper did. It makes use of secondary sources that I didn't use--mainly because the writer is not in the same discipline as I. So I'm not saying that the writer just copied my ideas--there's quite a bit in the article that wasn't in my paper.

I think it's possible that the writer of the article didn't mean to borrow ideas/language without properly citing them. (Which is also why I'm not saying what the article was or who the writer was, though some readers can probably guess what the topic was.) And I am glad that my paper was at least mentioned in the bibliography and in an in-text citation. And I guess I'm not too surprised that the editors and reviewers of a highly-ranked journal like the one that published this article wouldn't be able to catch these problems before publication. But it makes me sad, and it makes me less willing to put more scholarly stuff on the web. I don't have a lot of great ideas (maybe none!), and if my future as an academic depends on getting my ideas published in some scholarly forum, maybe I'd better keep my mouth shut about those ideas before they're published.

I'm sure I'm not the only person this has happened to. What did you do when it happened to you?

Quotation meme

Seen at CultureCat. She says, "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."

1. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."--Robert Frost
   
2. "Books to the ceiling,
   Books to the sky,
   My pile of books are a mile high.
   How I love them! How I need them!
   I'll have a long beard by the time I read them."--Arnold Lobel [But there's a grammatical error in the third line...]
   
3. "One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time."--Nancy Astor
   
4. "No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up."--Lily Tomlin
   
5. "If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live."--George E. Woodberry
   

Tell you a secret...

I'm already drinking a Pepsi. And Rain is still on the can. And the semester hasn't even started yet. (Don't tell anyone.)

Priceless

This has been circulating around the net--if you haven't seen it yet, take a look! It's hilarious!



(Thanks to Emily for the link to this video...)

New year's resolutions

Susan did this, so I'm going to do it, too: make some resolutions for the new school year (or at least for this semester). The semester is starting soon and I'm not particularly rested for it. (In fact I've got bags under my eyes that you could could put a week's groceries in.) But there's something hopeful about a new semester, so here goes:

1. "Write incrementally." (I'm putting this in quotes because Krista at Thinkery and Susan said it first. If you don't know what it means, see Thinkery's explanation here.)
2. Finish the dissertation. (This is one of Susan's goals, too. And Heather's, too. And half the world's, it seems. We'll see who manages to get done first. Bet it won't be me! [There's some positive thinking for you...])
3. Keep drinking a lot of water. (One thing I've done right this summer is drink tons of water. It's helped me lose some weight and move the "poisons" out of me. Gotta keep up this good habit.)
4. Stay away from the Pepsis and other sugary drinks. (Colleagues, students, if you see me with a Pepsi in hand, you have my permission to take it away from me. But don't touch my Dr Pepper...)
   
5. When weather permits (i.e., it's not super-hot and humid and it's not raining), make every effort to walk to school instead of driving. (Don't want to get there stinky and sweaty, but if I can get up early enough maybe I can actually take my time walking there instead of being in a rush.)
6. Keep to a schedule enough so that at the end of every day I can look at my daybook and feel satisfied that I accomplished a few important things. (Hope that doesn't sound too ambitious...)
7. Spend more quality time with the former native Chinese speaker. (We're both going to be really busy this semester, so our time together should be spent on things other than TV-watching and web-surfing. Ahem--so what is it I'm doing now???)
   
8. Don't make too many resolutions, promises, and/or commitments that I won't be able to keep. (What was that weekend composition class that I just volunteered to teach? Shoot--I guess I've already sort of broken this resolution. Oh well...)

That oughtta do it.

The "Spicy Blog" of Fengyuan

Went to Fengyuan today on some "family business" ("Yo Adrian!" oops, wrong movie) and came across this sign outside a "hot pot" restaurant. "Spicy Blog"... now that's an eye-catching name for a restaurant. (I'm leaving up the phone number. I figure if I'm going to make fun of their name, it's only fair that I give them some free advertising. Maybe we'll even try it out this winter...)

Favorite motivational line...

From an e-mail from my friend Jon K., who's also dissertating:

Two more weeks until school starts for you. Don't enjoy them, write your dissertation.

Heh heh...

CFP: Special issue, Asian Journal of Communication

Asian Journal of Communication

Call for Papers

Special Issue Editors:

Chingching Chang, Ph.D., Department of Advertising, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Ven-hwei Lo, Ph.D., Department of Journalism, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan

Title of the Special Issue:
Internet vs. Traditional Media: Influences on Political Attitudes and Behaviors

Exposure to mass media constructs our view of the world and shapes our political attitudes. Early research has demonstrated the influences of traditional media on different aspects of social and political life. As the Internet penetration rate reaches 50% in many Asian countries, and Internet use displaces time for traditional media, it is important to understand the role that Internet use plays in shaping our world views or political attitudes. The special issue will focus on the influences of the Internet use or compare the influences of the Internet and traditional media in political arenas. Manuscripts submitted for the special issue should compare such influences as (but are not limited to):

• political knowledge
• issue learning in elections
• political attitudes
• political participation
• political efficacy, trust, and alienation
• political mobilization
• social capital
• civic engagement
• public opinions
• agenda setting
  

Submission Information:

Deadline for Submission: 31st December, 2006. Submitted manuscripts should follow the format as indicated in the Submission Guidelines on the Journal website (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/rajcauth.asp). The manuscript should be prepared in Microsoft Word format. The names, affiliations, and contact information (i.e., phone, fax, email addresses) of all authors should be provided on the cover page only. The author(s) should not be identified elsewhere in the manuscript. Submitted papers will undergo a double-blind review. Authors may submit completed manuscripts electronically at any time prior to the deadline, 31st December, 2006. Manuscripts and any questions should be directed to:

Chingching Chang, Ph.D.
Department of Advertising
National Chengchi University
e-mail: shenccchang [at] yahoo.com.tw
Tel: + (02) 29393091 ext. 88144
Fax: + (02) 27605662

Ven-hwei Lo, Ph.D.
Department of Journalism
National Chengchi University
e-mail: loven [at] nccu.edu.tw
Tel: + (02) 29393091 ext. 67075
Fax: + (02) 29382063

(Hope some folks from Taiwan will submit manuscripts!)

Dr Pepper update, and a theory about macaroni and shui jiao

Since, judging from comments, my most popular posts are about either donuts or Dr Pepper, I present this update for your examination.

This morning we took Tim Maddog's advice and headed down (over?) to Mei Chen Siang to get ourselves some Dr Pepper (a.k.a. "nectar of the gods").

Mei Chen Siang is a bakery/import store located in one of the older sections of downtown Taichung. You can see some interesting old architecture in that area. Next time I go down there I'm going to go spelunking down some of those old alleys. And I'll bring a camera with me, of course. (The former native Chinese speaker says I must have lived in Taichung in a past life. Maybe I'm looking for "my" old home?)

Anyway, we got the Dr Pepper. I bought only one six-pack as a way to force myself to enjoy each can (and also so I have an excuse to go back again...). Also bought some other goodies like Pop-Tarts and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Every time I see a box of macaroni and cheese I remember something said by a friend from my days at Feng Chia University. I won't mention her name, but her first name starts with an "H". (hee hee) We used to eat shui jiao (水餃) a lot back then at a place near the university. Then one day after she had eaten some macaroni and cheese that she'd bought at Mei Chen Siang, H made an observation to the effect that although shui jiao and macaroni are both delicious, after you eat shui jiao you tend to want to brush your teeth right away. (Anyone who's ever been stuck in a car with me when I've burped after eating shui jiao will agree with that. [ewwwww...].) But, H continued, after you eat macaroni and cheese you don't want to brush your teeth right away because you want to experience that flavor longer.

I don't know if H still holds to that opinion, but I've found that it pretty accurately matches my experience. But I want to test it again soon.

(If I don't post again, it's probably because H has killed me...)

[Update: I am still alive. Just wanted to mention the joy I just had eating some canned ravioli. And don't try to scare me by telling me what's in that stuff. Remember Homer Simpson's reaction to Marge's comment that the dog's food was "mostly snouts and entrails": "Mmmmmm... snouts..."]

"What Your Freshmen Don't Know"

Inside Higher Ed has posted Beloit College's annual list of what first-year college students do and don't know about the world. As a public service to faculty members in Taiwan, I'm posting the ones that seem most relevant to our context. Please add more Taiwan-specific items in the comments.

1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union. [Do schools in Taiwan even have student unions?]
2. They have known only two presidents. [But that could be said about almost any generation of college freshmen in Taiwan...]
3. There has always been only one Germany.
4. They are wireless, yet always connected.
5. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.
6. "Google" has always been a verb. [This one is a stretch... but I liked it.]
7. Text messaging is their e-mail. [IM is, too.]
8. Young women's fashions have never been concerned with where the waist is. [Actually, I'm not sure about this one...]
9. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.
10. Being techno-savvy has always been inversely proportional to age.
11. They have always been able to watch wars and revolutions live on television. [Except that TV news here seems mainly concerned with the scandals of entertainers and presidential families.]
12. They have always had access to their own credit cards. [Possibly. And cell phones, too!]
13. Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti have always been luxury cars of choice. [At least Lexus.]
14. ...

I await your additions (either English or Chinese are fine) with gleeful anticipation.

Things and memories and memories and things

I've been moving to a new office lately, in the process (almost literally) unearthing various pictures, notes, papers that students never came to pick up (ahem!), cards given or sent to me on Teacher's Day or Christmas. I even found one huge card that students gave me on my birthday 11 years ago. (I'm not sure how they knew when my birthday was--it's not like department stores hold sales on that day or anything.)

I don't seem to be willing to throw anything away, for fear of forgetting people or forgetting the feelings associated with those things. I remember when I moved to the US I had to throw away a pair of shoes that one of my FENM classes gave me for Christmas in 1993 (that had to be about the oddest gift I've ever received from students). They bought the shoes after asking me about my shoe size (I figured they were just curious, since I have big "foreigner feet"). Unfortunately, the shoes didn't fit very well and were uncomfortable to wear, so I didn't get much use out of them. I kept them for almost 6 years, though, as if I expected to be able to wear them some day, or as if I were afraid some day I'd run into one of those students and they'd ask about the shoes. Or that by throwing something away, I'd be throwing someone away. (The shoes thing proves it--I don't remember any of those students' names.)

I seem to have inherited this from my parents--my mother, at least. She has boxes and boxes of letters, Christmas cards, birthday cards, etc. that she has saved over the years. Now that my parents are at an age where they're thinking about what they'll leave behind to my brother and me, my mother mentioned that she was thinking of throwing away all those letters. My brother's and my responses (not surprisingly) were "Don't!" So one of these days (if the world doesn't end first) I'll have even more things and memories on my hands.

My research also relies on memories, and things, and memories of things. Using archival documents and interviewing people about events that happened to them 30, 40, 50 years ago involve a lot of work with memories. I'm constantly presenting to someone something they wrote long ago, hoping to get a glimpse of what they remember about how and why they wrote it. I always get answers that are helpful, even when the person says, "I wrote that?!"

But working with those people and materials (whether they're archival documents or the letters my mother has kept) also gives me a sad feeling sometimes--kind of an awareness of mortality and of how lives can go in completely different directions from what people expected when they were younger and perhaps more idealistic. To quote one of my interviewees, "The worst part about time isn't growing old, it's the increasing distance from experiences and emotions that have been so important in shaping one's life. The power and intensity fade, and you're left with so little you can put your finger on." Maybe that's another reason I keep all those old things from my own past. They connect me with that other me.

Hole-y draft! (Or drafty ...)

Just sent my diss. advisor 60 pages of Swiss Cheese. Time for bed.

Guess I'll have to stop drinking Pepsi for a while...

...at least until they get these pictures of Rain off the cans. I'm afraid my 渴望 isn't 突破ed by his presence. (Bleah!)


Where'd all the Dr. Pepper in this town go, by the way? Someone at Finga's told me they couldn't import it anymore...

Going crazy...

For the past two weeks, workers in the apartment downstairs have been knocking out walls, drilling into concrete, and doing whatever else they can do to make as much noise as possible. It's not only driving me absolutely insane, but it's also got me worried that some day we're going to wake up in the morning and find ourselves in the basement. Grrrrr...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the chemicals they're spraying down there. Paint? Paint remover? I don't know... For some reason, though, it reminds me of "The Cloud Minders" from Star Trek...

[Update, Sep. 5: They're still doing work--hammering, sawing, drilling, shouting, smoking, all as loudly as they can. I hear they'll only be doing it for 10 more days, though...]

New ICC course blog stimulates thoughts and a request for help

I never took a course is newswriting, so pardon my headline.

I've been working on moving my Intercultural Communication course's website/blog/whatchamacallit to its new home here. In addition, I've been working on lining up new online exchange partners, since my previous partner has moved on. I've ordered the new textbook, Communication Between Cultures, and am working out the course schedule.

In light of recent events in the world, though, I've been having some dark Apocalyptic thoughts that question what possible good a little course like ICC can do in the world. I'm going to resist being overwhelmed by those kinds of thoughts, but suffice it to say that this semester's course will be a darker, leaner ICC--sort of a Spider-Man 3 of ICC courses. (Hmmm... that'll have people scratching their heads...)

Anyway, I'm somewhat happy with the new site (and a prospective student has already pronounced it "more fabulous", so it can't be that bad). But I have been working, in my own low-tech way, on putting the posts on the ICC blog into categories, and I have a couple of questions. I'm not particularly confident with the way in which I'm tagging the posts--the descriptor choices, the number of categories I'm putting each post into, the (growing) total number of categories... So my question is, when you're tagging posts to put them into categories, how do you decide these things (descriptors, number of categories, number of total categories)? Or, is there some sort of website someone can direct me to, kind of a "Tagging for Dummies" that would give me some pointers? Thanks...

A new book in the former native speaker's library

To get my mind off Mei-mei, let me mention a new book that I just received the other day.

• The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, by Frances Stonor Saunders (NY: New Press, 1999).
  This was originally published in the UK as Who Paid the Piper? I just started reading it, and so far it's pretty interesting. It traces the history of the CIA's involvement in the ideological war against the Communists during the Cold War. Its focus appears to be mainly on the Cold War in Europe.
  

[books] [Cold War] [Frances Stonor Saunders]

Just had to post this...

I was up late last night looking through our pictures of Mei-mei. Every once in a while I'd let out a laugh and tell Mei-mei's "mom" to stop in and check out a particularly funny one.

Here's one from 2004 that we thought was cute--Mei-mei's either giving me a kiss or trying to tell me a secret. (Or maybe she's trying to help me clean my ears.)


I was up until about 3:00 trying to post it, but our Internet connection wasn't being very cooperative. But here it is, finally.

[Update: A friend says this picture reminds her of "Beauty and the Beast", but she's not sure which is which...]

Mei-mei (妹妹), 1994-2006

Some more pictures of Mei-mei

Mei-mei passed away today at about 3:00 p.m. after complications from diabetes. She taught us a lot about living and dying, and we're sure she's in a better place now.

愛情故事

Tomorrow is Chinese Lovers' Day, so it seems appropriate to resurrect a story that I wrote--with lots of help from the former native Chinese speaker--for a Chinese class that I took during the summer of 1996. My teacher asked us to write some sentences using Chinese idiomatic phrases (成語) that we had learned in the course, but I decided to write a story instead. Any mistakes in grammar or usage are mine!

每年一到七夕，人們成雙成對上街，情人濃情密意地赴約會，卿卿我我。而我每年七夕有自己的習慣：身上穿著黑衣服，臉上帶著憔悴的表情，晚上七點睡覺。

今年七夕也不例外：電視新聞的播報員一開始眉開眼笑地報告有關台灣貪官污吏搜刮人民財產的事情，我就生氣的關了電視、關了燈，並上床睡覺。可是，我在床上輾轉反側，無法入眠；千頭萬緒，環繞我心。

想起我的老母常常苦口婆心地對我說：「兒子，我以我這輩子最寶貴的經驗告訴你，你如果覺得煩惱，無法接受世界快速變遷的話，你就去夜市走走，因為，夜市反映了人生百態。千萬記得，可別光說不練！」

母親的啟示讓我怦然心動，所以我就到了夜市。到了夜市之後，我遇到了一位和尚，他手上拿著一個缽。我丟了一個十塊錢的銅板進去。和尚對我說：「祝您多子多孫多福壽，生意昌隆。」我問他這句話有甚麼涵義，他說，就是祝我能有很多的子孫。我告訴他說，世界那麼亂，社會形態瞬息萬變，我不想有孩子。和尚說，我的話是大逆不道的，生孩子就是一件理所當然的事。古人說：「不孝有三，無後為大。」然後，我罵他是個墨守成規的老頭子。之後，我們就吵得天翻地覆，不可開交。最後，我把我的十塊錢從他的缽中拿回來。

其實，我是想用那十塊錢去買隔壁攤子的木瓜牛奶。我問賣木瓜牛奶的小姐說：「妳認識那位和尚嗎？」她說：「認識。他常常來夜市跟市民講道。他非常關心世界大問題，尤其是政府勞民傷財的情況。」我跟她說，他好像要以增加人口數量來救世濟民。她說：「他是個言行合一的人，已經有好幾個孩子了！」

我常常回去夜市幫那位賣木瓜牛奶的小姐，我們分工合作：她賣木瓜，我賣牛奶。雖然生意不是很好，但是我們兩個很談得來。不久之後，我們便結婚了。

P.S. The former native Chinese speaker wants everyone to know that she never sold papaya milkshakes at the night market. ;-)

Something of an update

Still working on the diss. Have been working on a chapter that I intended to send to my advisor this weekend. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to (in the words of my high school classmate Dwight) "aggregate my fecal matter". (Dwight is, I imagine, a high-powered lawyer by now. He'll probably sue me for quoting him here.) So the chapter will take a little longer to get together. I can probably focus more on it during this typhoon that will hit us this week.

Saying goodbye to friends

Just saw off my friend and colleague Michael Jacques at the bus station. Didn't get mushy or anything, but I hope he and Karen (and Henry!) know that I'll miss them a lot. Although it's easy to stay in touch through e-mail, Skype, etc., their leaving Tunghai/Taiwan still feels so ... permanent.

Best of luck in your new lives (back) in the States! (And by the way, Karen's got a book of translations of Zhang Ailing novellas coming out in October. You can preorder at Amazon ;) ...)

Bilis coming for a visit... and a weird dream...

Here's how it looks as of midnight 7/13...


Click here for a more up-to-date satellite image from the Central Weather Bureau.

In other news, I had a disturbing dream last night: Our department received official notification that because of an oversupply of university graduates and a worsening economy, English majors who graduated in the bottom third of their class were to be executed on the athletic field immediately following the graduation ceremony. The most frightening thing about the dream was how calmly everybody (including the graduating students) was taking the news. Students just said, "Wow--I hope it's not me..."

Open Call for Proposals: Writing Research Across Borders

Hoping we can get some representatives from Taiwan to go...

Open Call for Proposals: Writing Research Across Borders
February 22-24, 2008
University of California Santa Barbara

Conference website; http://education.ucsb.edu/netshare/wrconf08/

Proposal Deadline: May 1, 2007
Email: writing@education.ucsb.edu

Recent decades have seen the growth of writing studies in many nations, focused on all levels of education, and all uses of writing in society, using the resources of many different disciplines. This increased research attention to writing reflects an increased recognition of the importance of writing in modern societies. Yet to a large extent the many emerging traditions of writing research have neither connected fully nor shared their work.

This conference brings together the many writing researchers from around the world, drawing on all disciplines, and focused on all aspects of writing at all levels of development and in all segments of society. This will be an opportunity to learn from different research traditions, share our findings, seek common agendas, and lay the groundwork for future communication and alliances.

As a first step to building this important conversation we have invited some of the leading writing researchers, and those listed at the bottom of this call have already committed to participating.

We are now issuing an open call for proposals for panels, roundtables, individual presentations, and poster presentations addressing

* current research on writing,
* methodological issues
* reflections on ongoing research programs
* considerations of national or disciplinary trajectories of research
* agendas for further research

We anticipate a program of up to two hundred and fifty presentations.

Proposals to present current research should specify research questions, methods, data corpus, and findings, as well as the scope and duration of the research project. Proposals to provide overviews of and reflections on research traditions and agendas should identify clearly the relevant literatures to be considered.

Proposals for individual and poster presentations should be from 250 to 500 words in length and panel and roundtable proposals, 500 to 1000 words. Please indicate your preferred format.

Proposals should be sent by May 1, 2007 via email to writing@education.ucsb.edu. Please include complete contact information.

For further information please visit our conference website:
http://education.ucsb.edu/netshare/wrconf08/
If you have any questions contact us at writing@education.ucsb.edu

INVITED SPEAKERS already committed to participating:

Paula Carlino, Argentina, University of Buenos Aires
Caroline Channock, Australia, Latrobe
Rosemary Clerehan, Australia, Monash University
Luuk van Waes, Belgium, University of Antwerp
Angela Dionisio, Brazil, UFP, Recife
Angela Kleiman, Brazil, Unicamp-Sao Paulo
Marilyn Chapman, Canada, University of British Columbia
Graham Smart, Canada, Carleton University
Denis Alamargot, France, University of Poitiers
Michel Fayol, France, University Blaise Pascal
Frederic Francoise, France, Universit� de Paris V
Annie Piolat, France, University de Provence
Sylvie Plane, France, IUF de Paris
Yves Reuter, France, Universit� Lille
Joachim Grabowski, Germany, University of Education, Heidelberg, Germany
Pietro Boscolo, Italy, University of Padua
Emilia Ferreiro, Mexico, National Polytechnic Institute
Gert Rijlarsdam, Netherlands, University of Amsterdam
Lisa Emerson, New Zealand, Massey University
Olga Dysthe, Norway, University of Bergen
Rochelle Kapp, South Africa, University of Cape Town
Liliana Tolchinsky, Spain, University of Barcelona
Linda Allal, Switzerland, Universite de Geneve
Otto Kruse, Switzerland, University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, Switzerland
David Galbraith, UK, University of Staffordshire
Ken Hyland, UK, University of London
Roz Ivanic, UK, Lancaster University
Theresa Lillis, UK, Open University
Brian Street, UK, Kings College- London
Mark Torrance, UK, University of Staffordshire
Arnetha Ball, USA, Stanford University
Charles Bazerman, USA, University of California Santa Barbara
Anne Beaufort, USA, SUNY Stony Brook
Carol Berkenkotter, USA, University of Minnesota
Virginia Berninger, USA, University of Washington
Sheridan Blau, USA, University of California Santa Barbara
Ulla Connor, USA, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Christiane Donahue, USA, University of Maine, Farmington
Ann Dyson, USA, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Jill Fitzgerald, USA, University North Carolina Chapel Hill
Steve Graham, USA, Vanderbilt
Kris Gutierrez, USA, University of California Los Angeles
Christina Haas, USA, Kent State University
Richard Haswell, USA, TAMU Corpus Christi
John R. Hayes, USA, Carnegie Mellon University
George Hillocks, USA, University of Chicago
Tom Huckin, USA, University of Utah
Susan Jarratt, USA, University of California Irvine
Ilona Leki, USA, University of Tennessee
Paul LeMahieu, USA, University of California Berkeley
Andrea Lunsford, USA, Stanford University
Karen Lunsford, USA, University of California Santa Barbara
Charles MacArthur, USA, University of Delaware
Paul Matsuda, USA, University of New Hampshire
Debra McCutcheon, USA, University of Washington
Heidi McKee, USA, Miami University
Sandy Murphy, USA, UC Davis
Bill Nagy, USA, Seattle Pacific University
Sondra Perl, USA, CUNY Graduate Center
Jim Porter, USA, Michigan State University
Paul Prior, USA, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
David Russell, USA, State University
Rebecca Rickly, USA, Texas Technological University
Tony Silva, USA, Purdue University
Peter Smagorinsky, USA, University of Georgia
Melanie Sperling, USA, University of California Riverside
Clay Spinuzzi, USA, University of Texas Austin
John Swales, USA, University of Michigan
Chris Thaiss, USA, University of California Davis
Gary Troia, USA, Michigan State University
Kathleen Blake Yancey, USA, Florida State University

Summer vacation begins

Just turned in my final grades, so that means the get back to the Big D on a fulltime basis season begins. Big D also means "Big Deadline" looming, so there'll be at most about 2 posts coming out of here this summer (probably around the end of July, if anyone cares). I'll still check my e-mail, but only once or so a day. Wish me luck!

[Update: OK, so I lied about the "2 posts". There might be a few more than that.]

Vacation

I won't be posting here for a while. I also intend (with help) to cut back drastically on my other online activities. I have some offline priorities that I need to make priorities again.

Have a good summer if you're in the northern hemisphere or winter if you're in the south! Be good to yourself!

Land of a million Britneys

Sorry, but my reference here is to how Britney drove around with her baby in her lap instead of in a safety seat.

In Taiwan, as Michael Turton illustrates (literally), we have thousands--possibly millions?--of parents who neglect their children's safety by carrying them "unhelmeted" around town on motorcycles or scooters. Michael's next project should be to photograph parents who don't put their kids in child safety seats. I don't know how many kids I've seen bouncing around in the front seats of cars or sticking their heads out of the sun roofs of Benzes...

Update: Taiwanonymous, coincidentally, also blogs about traffic problems in Taiwan: "Road Rage Scooter Style".

Five new books in the former native speaker's library

(Warning: mixed romanization follows. Proceed with caution.)

After our interesting non-vegetarian meal, the former native Chinese speaker and I wandered up to the 18th floor of Sogo, where there was in progress a large book sale benefitting the Cheng Feng Hsi Cultural and Educational Fund (鄭豐喜文化教育基金會). The fund is named after Cheng Feng Hsi, a famous writer who was born with severely handicapped legs. Despite the hardships of being disabled and poor, he graduated from National Chung Hsing University and returned to his native village to teach. He also wrote a best-selling book, A Boat on the Boundless Ocean (汪洋中的一條船). After Cheng succumbed to liver cancer at the age of 31 in 1975, his widow Wu Chi-chao (吳繼釗) started a foundation for helping the disabled and poor. (The book sale at Sogo goes until June 11, by the way. Books were donated by area bookstores and are on sale for half the cover price.)

OK--the books I bought are:

• Photographs of Taiwan During the 1960's (六十年代台灣攝影圖像), by Ellen Johnston Laing (藝術家出版社, 2002).
  This book has a nice bilingual introduction in which Laing describes her life in Taiwan during the early 1960s. She had received a Fulbright to study Chinese language and art in Taiwan, and she lived in Taipei and Taichung. While in Taichung, she and her husband Richard lived in an old Japanese-style house on a lane off Minquan Road and she took the bus to Tunghai to study Chinese. She also went to the pre-Taipei National Palace Museum, which she describes as "a few unpretentious buildings nestled below the foothills outside Wu-feng and guarded by military police" (26-7). This book has some wonderful pictures of her house and 1960s Taichung. By the way, its "intended" English title seems to be Photographs of Bygone Taiwan: Taiwan in the 1960s, but it's also (mysteriously) titled Photography of Taiwan During the 1960s on the National Library stamp in the back of the book.
  
  
• 台灣五大家族 (Taiwan's Rich and Powerful Families: The Old Monies), by Sima Xiaoqing (司馬嘨青) (玉山社, 2000).
  This book introduces the Yans of Keelung, the Lins of Banqiao, the Lins of Wufeng, the Gus of Lugang, and the Chens of Kaohsiung.
  
  
• 阿樺:台灣建國烈士詹益樺紀念專書 (Ah-Hua: A Book Commemorating Chan Yi-hua, Martyr for the Cause of Building the Taiwanese Nation), ed. Zeng Xinyi (曾心儀) (editor, 1989)
  Chan Yi-hua committed suicide by self-immolation on May 19, 1989, during a funeral procession for Cheng Nan-jung, a pro-independence journalist who also committed self-immolation when police tried to arrest him for sedition. (More information on this is available in this issue (PDF) of the pro-independence Taiwan Communique. There's also an article available here.)
  
  
• 台灣歷史年表:終戰篇 I (1945-1965) (A Chronology of Taiwan History: 1945-1965), chief ed. Xue Huayuan (薛化元) (Institute for National Policy Research, 1993)
• 台灣歷史年表:終戰篇 II (1966-1978) chief ed. Xue Huayuan (薛化元) (Institute for National Policy Research, 1994)
  These two volumes list major political, economic, social, and international events that affected Taiwan. They also cite contemporary newspaper and magazine articles that covered those events.

All in all, the five books cost me less than the cover price of the last two books. Not a bad deal.

[books] [Taiwan] [Taiwan history]

Tunghai symposium on distance language learning

This afternoon I attended a symposium at Tunghai on the topic of "Issues in Distance Language Learning." It was run by the MOE-sponsored Distance Language Learning project at Tunghai. There two speakers: Professors Herng Yow Chen (陳恒佑) of National Chi Nan University and Michael Jacques of Tunghai University.

Professor Chen, of the Computer Science and Information Engineering department, was the first to talk. He introduced us to Chi Nan's impressive multimedia language program infrastructure. He explained how the multimedia language learning program was making use of kiosks and the wireless net to allow students to make use of language learning programs from all over campus, not only through computers, but also via cell phones and PDAs. He emphasized that the advantage of online learning is reusability, and explained how the multimedia system makes use of live and recorded versions of "English Corner" activities to provide students with Video on Demand (VoD) and Audio on Demand (AoD). He demonstrated some of the resources to which the Chi Nan students had access.

Most interesting to me was the student-produced materials located at NCNU's Mountain Media site. With Prof. Chen's assistance, students write the news items and record and edit audio and video presentations for this site. Prof. Chen mentioned that participating students are paid part-time workers. In answer to a question I asked, he said that students have to be recruited for these jobs--and they're not exactly knocking down the doors to participate--and don't get paid a great deal, but that they receive a lot of training and practical experience in producing online multimedia content in English. One of the challenges that the program has to face is the difficulty of paying teachers (and students) to stay active in these kinds of activities. Although the program is part of an MOE Teaching Excellence project, the money isn't coming in very regularly to help pay for things and people. (Also, as I understand it, full-time faculty cannot be paid out of the MOE grant money.)

Prof. Chen also introduced an online English writing program that Chi Nan is using to require students to write more in English and get feedback from their teachers (or TAs) regarding grammar, spelling, and other formal issues. Right now only first-year students are making use of this online program, but he hopes that in the future all students from the first to the third year are required to participate.

During the break, I was talking with Prof. Chen and he mentioned that the school is thinking of phasing out the Freshman English program (大一英文) in favor of requiring students to study English during their first, second, and third years of attendance. This would require some major changes in staffing, however, and the logistical issues haven't been completely worked out. The idea is intriguing, though.

The next speaker, Michael Jacques, demonstrated the FLLD Online materials that he has developed for the students and teachers at Tunghai. He also discussed three key questions related to online language learning:

1. Who should be the audience for online language learning materials?
   This is a huge issue, he said, because users can be added for "free" (in terms of the costs to the school of providing the materials online to other users). While this doesn't affect the technical details of the online project, it does affect how producers of the materials should view their pedagogical aims and approaches.
   
2. Who is going to do all the work?
   Here he mentioned the need for language teachers, computer scientists, and computational linguists to work together on the project. All these parties have expertise in certain important areas, but they do not have enough expertise in other areas--so, for instance, a language teacher might have ideas about how to teach, but not know how to write a program to do what he or she wants to do.
   
3. How and when do you compensate people?
   Prof. Jacques, who has a JD, emphasized that producing these online materials does not exactly seem to fall under the umbrella of "work for hire", which isn't really a concept often used among academics. Since creating these materials is not explicitly part of anyone's job description, he said, this work "challenges the boundaries" between academic work and work for hire. Also, it appears that the laws and university policies governing producing distance learning materials are not very well developed in Taiwan (this might be my own observation).

This was an informative and interesting symposium. Unfortunately, Michael Jacques is leaving Tunghai at the end of this semester to return to the U.S., so he won't be able to continue working on the Distance Language Learning project for Tunghai. (By the way, he has a list of items for sale in case you're looking for furniture or other equipment.)

[academia] [distance learning] [ELT] [language learning] [Taiwan]

CFP: Tamkang Review issue on "The Neighbor: Literature, Politics and Ethics in the Age of Globalization"

TAMKANG REVIEW
English Department, Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan 251
TEL: 886-2-26215656 EXT. 2329 E-MAIL: tfwx@www2.tku.edu.tw

CALL FOR PAPERS
The Neighbor:
Literature, Politics and Ethics in the Age of Globalization

Deadline for Submissions: 20 September 2006

The neighbor, as a central figure in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, and Lacan’s Ethics of Psychoanalysis, is a nebulous, enigmatic category that calls for rethinking in terms of subjectivity, desire, fantasy, communication, and community. The neighbor in its various manifestations―immigrants, ideal egos, ethnic Other, enjoyment, for example―provokes ambivalent responses of love and hate, fascination and fear, and problematizes the demarcations of the private and public, proximity and distance, inside and outside, hospitability and aggressivity, law and transgression. In our age of globalization, driven by fluidity, becoming, and deterritorialization, the neighbor turns out to be an unavoidable issue in the fields of literature, politics and ethics.

Tamkang Review will launch a special issue on the neighbor in spring 2007. Papers addressing the following topics are particularly welcome:

• ethnic differences and conflicts
• Neo-Nazism and xenophobia
• fundamentalist and terrorist violence
• urbanization, immigration, and diaspora
• global consumerism and tourism
• cultural translation
• monsters in Gothic fiction or horror films
  

Please note:

1. Tamkang Review only publishes papers in English not being simultaneously submitted elsewhere.
2. Please send your MLA-styled manuscript, an abstract of (no more than 250 words), a list of no more than 10 keywords, and a curriculum vita as Word-attachments to tfwx@www2.tku.edu.tw.
3. The manuscript should be anonymous. Your name and affiliation should only appear in the curriculum vita.

A book the former Bianchi-rider hopes someone will buy for him...

• The Tour de France: A Cultural History, by Christopher S. Thompson (U of California P, 2006)

Get my copy now! ;-)

Taiwan fails to get into the World Health Assembly again...

...and neither the BBC's nor CNN's websites even mention it.

For those who are counting, this was the tenth attempt by Taiwan to get observer status (not even full status as a member!) in the World Health Assembly. For those who are not counting, you should be.

As the Taipei Times reports, the assembly refused (again) even to include Taiwan's application on its meeting agenda (pdf). This was after the assembly listened to protests from Pakistan and the PRC (those role models of humanitarianism). (If you're interested in the discussion of the adoption of the agenda, you can find it in this document [pdf], page 10, Item 1.4)

The Taipei Times quotes "Ambassador and permanent representative to the UN Sha Zukang (沙祖康)" as lying saying, "'We have been very concerned about the [Taiwanese people's] health. This is absolutely for sure'." As the Times editorialized during the SARS crisis of 2003, "the biggest contribution China has made to the health of the people of Taiwan and the world lately is the transmission of the SARS virus." Those of us with memories that go back to the 921 earthquake also recall how China's Red Cross demanded international Red Cross organizations work with it if they wanted to help Taiwan. Typically, what the PRC says and what it does regarding its "concern" for the people of Taiwan are diametrically opposed.

Maybe the reason that CNN and the BBC haven't reported on this is that, after 10 years, it isn't news anymore.

[health] [Taiwan] [WHA] [WHO]

On the bright side, it's impossible to be denied tenure here...

[Update: I've made some changes to this, based on some informative comments from Clyde Warden.]

Got this in our mailboxes on Friday. It confirms something I heard about earlier, but didn't want to mention here because I didn't have all the details.

The university is following an MOE mandate to evaluate teachers every three years. Teachers are evaluated by four categories: Teaching (40-50%), Research (20-40%), Service (10-30%) and Student counseling (10-30%). Teachers need to have 70 points in total to pass the evaluation. There is no minimal point requirement for each category, but there has to be at least some points for each category. Teachers will be evaluated every three years and the evaluation is done at the college level, not the department level. If a teacher does not pass the first time, then s/he will be evaluated once a year (maximum of 6 years) also, the teacher will not be allowed to teach part-time outside of Tunghai, will not be paid overtime, annual-promotion-pay will be frozen, and cannot be "lent to other institution". If a teacher does not pass after 6 years of yearly review, s/he will be referred to the university FAC, which reserves the right to terminate his/her contract. Each college needs to come up with guidelines to calculate points for evaluation. These guidelines have to be approved by the college FAC and university FAC, but they also have to meet the MOE mandate. Each college has flexibility in assigning points. We need to create guidelines to submit to the college that will meet the needs of the teachers in our department.

The main conclusion that I draw from this is that there is no tenure system in Taiwan the tenure system in Taiwan is quite different from what many applicants might expect. (Some say there was never any tenure system--this is probably true. [But see Clyde's comments below.]) If any department or university in Taiwan is advertising for a "tenure-track position", the writers of the ad have either been misinformed and/or are misinforming the audience need to make sure applicants understand what exactly is meant by "tenure" in the Taiwan system.

My questions:

1. Are other schools doing this? Is this only new for private universities or is it new for public and private schools?
2. Can someone point me to the relevant MOE guidelines/mandate? I'd just like to take a gander at it myself.

Feel free to discuss.

[academia] [higher education] [Ministry of Education] [Taiwan] [tenure]

Comparative driving

Had to link to this description of driving practices in Burlington, NC. Sounds so much like home (here), only without the motorcyles and scooters:

See, over the last three years, I've lived in a town where there are no rules, exactly, for driving. They're more like suggestions. You know: "if it's not too much trouble, you might want to consider keeping your car right of the center line--but no biggie. We know sometimes you just need the whole road." Since moving here, Lee and I have (in most cases, many times) seen drivers:
turn left from the right lane
turn right from the left lane
wait in the right
lane until traffic clears so they can get into the left lane to turn left
back up on the interstate to take an exit
back up on a busy four-lane
road to turn into a business (and then still just drive onto the curb and into the grass between the street and the parking lot)
stop in the middle of the road to hand a package from one DHL van to another
park in the entry drive of the TJ Maxx lot because it's easier than finding a spot
pull up to an intersection, wait until we were upon said intersection, then pull out in front of us (and proceed to go 15 mph below the posted limit)
come to a complete stop to turn right from a busy street

There are more, too, but my neural net can only process so much at once.

Sound familiar?

[driving] [North Carolina] [Taiwan]

Two more books that the former native speaker ordered, and one that he didn't...

Today I received my last shipment of books from the University of California Press sale that I mentioned earlier. One of the books that I ordered didn't arrive, though, and was replaced with a book on a completely unrelated subject. I wrote to UCP to find out what happened, as no explanation was given on the invoice.

Here are the two books I ordered:

• Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II, by Gerd Horten (Berkeley: U of California P, 2002)
• Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program, by David L. McConnell (Berkeley: U of California P, 2000)

And the book I didn't order:

• The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen, by Jeffrey L. Broughton (Berkeley: U of California P, 1999) (One of my colleagues has already laid claim to it if I am unable to return it!)

[Update, 5/20/06: The representative I e-mailed apologized for the error and sent out the book I had actually ordered. She asked me to tear off the cover of The Bodhidharma Anthology and send it back so that they can count it for inventory purposes. So I cut off the cover (if you're reading, Mr. Broughton, my apologies!) with one of those razor-knives that all Taiwanese elementary students seem to carry around, and I'll send it back on Monday.]

[books]

A Pail of Oysters III

Published version of this post available here (pdf).

"Perspectives on the Language Centers in Taiwan's Universities" Symposium

I know I'm supposed to be finishing up that third post on A Pail of Oysters, but I wanted to mention a couple of other things in the mean time. One is the symposium that Tunghai's FLLD held this past Saturday (May 6). Our department hosted nine invited speakers who run language centers at different universities around Taiwan. The directors were asked to address the following questions about their programs:

1. What is the mission of your language center?
2. What is the history/development/reasons for creation?
3. Introduce your language center (staff, faculty, students, structure within the universities, etc.).
4. What are the facilities (space, allotment/office space)?
5. What is the number of faculty and staff?
6. What is the status of teachers/kind of contracts?
7. What are the requirements in terms of teaching load and responsibilities for teachers?
8. What programs/classes do you offer?
9. What are some of the pros and cons of having a language center?
10. How are teachers in the language center evaluated?

The basic motivation behind this workshop was that Tunghai is in the process of developing its own language center and wanted to learn about the pros and cons of having one. I am not on any of the committees that are in the process of developing this center, but from what I understand as of the last time the school's president came to the FLLD to talk with us, the language center would be primarily a teaching unit, separate from the FLLD. It would be under the College of Arts, if I remember correctly. It would have its own director, who would be of the same rank as a department chair. So the purpose of the symposium was to find out what other universities' language centers have dealt with in their development, so we can learn from both their successes and their difficulties.

I'm not going to summarize each person's presentation, but I want to mention a few of the major themes that came out of the presentations. In no particular order, here they are:

• There's an increasing attempt to reach out to honors or otherwise advanced students through special semester-long or short-term courses. The program at one school (and possibly more) is also feeling pressure from the rest of the school to offer courses and other kinds of help to graduate students and faculty who now are feeling more pressure to publish in English-language international academic journals.
  
  
• Most of the language centers would probably be better labelled "language programs" because they are responsible for the required first-year English courses and elective language courses. There was one (if I remember correctly) language center that did not have the responsibility for the FY-English program. It operates more as a center that offers short-term courses, lectures, study groups, and other activities for extracurricular English learning. (And the staff there consists of one director, 2 staff members, and no faculty.)
  
  
• There are more and more attempts to make use of computer-aided self-study systems so that students can learn on their own. Some programs require the computer-aided learning to be graded as part of required courses; some just provide the learning stations and hope that students will come. (One director mentioned that they had increased the number of computers in one lab from 7 to 41, but only the same 7 students were showing up...)
  
  
• Most of the directors complained of being understaffed, particularly in terms of full-time faculty. As one director put it, the problem is not a sense that part-time teachers are not as hard-working; the problem is that because it is difficult to give part-time teachers the same level of pay and facilities as full-timers (office space, etc.), part-timers usually have to teach at more than one school and therefore cannot be around for program activities, office hours, or important program meetings. This makes it harder both for students to have more interaction with their teachers outside of the classroom and for programs to be as unified as directors would like. [This is my recollection of what was said--if it doesn't quite accurate to others who were there, please let me know!]
  
  
• I felt a sense that teachers and administrators in the language center are not as highly respected as teachers or administrators in regular departments. The term "second-class citizens" was used more than once in characterizing the language centers' status.
  
  
• Related to this, I noticed a concern that language center faculty will end up being evaluated in the same way as faculty in other departments (in other words, a heavy emphasis on research), despite the heavier teaching responsibilities that come with teaching English to the entire freshman class, teaching English electives to upperclass students, and running various programs to encourage students to use English outside of class and to ensure that the English proficiency of the students meets some sort of externally defined standard (the GEPT or TOEFL, for example).

Part of the problem, from my perspective, seems to be that the schools are stuck in a situation where the MOE's requirements put them at cross-purposes vis-a-vis the language centers. On the one hand they want the language centers to ensure that everybody's English meets a certain vaguely defined standard (and I do mean "everybody's"--not just undergrads, but graduate students and faculty and staff make use of the language centers in at least some schools). On the other hand, it sounded like several program directors felt hamstrung in terms of hiring because of the emphasis on hiring assistant professors and people who are going to publish. National universities don't allow the hiring of full-time lecturers, and there is quite a bit of pressure on private universities to follow suit. (I have more to say about this, but I'm going to hold off on that for a while. In the mean time, see this post on Michael Turton's blog that raises the question, how are all the universities in Taiwan going to hire PhDs to teach in their English departments/language centers?) At this point, I'm not sure to what extent language centers will be able to offer their faculty alternatives to the research/teaching/service (where "research" means publications in big-name journals) promotion/"tenure" model. This is going to become a much more pressing issue, too, as the MOE gives private universities more pressure to require lecturers to apply for promotion (more on that later, too!).

Again, this summary of the symposium is based on my impressions/memories of the meeting. I'd appreciate the corrections of anyone else who was there. (Like Kris Vicca, who in a careless moment admitted that he's read this blog before!) I have thought about whether or not I should mention who said what, but have opted not to at this point, though if the directors want their names attached to particular comments or opinions, I'll be happy to comply with their requests. And the paragraph above is based almost entirely on my own slightly muddled view of things. I'll try to develop these ideas in more depth at some point in the future.

[academia] [ELT] [language centers] [Taiwan]

Two brief comments on Silent Hill, which we just got back from seeing

1. I pretty much agree with Roger Ebert's review of it. 'Specially the part where he says that "everybody wanders through the town for two hours while the art direction looks great." That's basically the whole story.


2. There's a scene where the main character's husband (who's looking for her and their child) breaks into a small-town archives, finds the burnt boxes of the Silent Hill police records in plain sight, and discovers in seconds exactly the record that he seems to be looking for. (I say "seems" because I'm not even sure why he wanted to check out the police records in the first place.) As someone who has done research in several archives, I just have 5 words in response to the situation I've just described: Not. In. A. Million. Years.

A Pail of Oysters II

[Note: I took this down for a while, but have re-posted it. Some of what is below is developed in more detail in my 2007 article, "Empathy and its Others: The Voice of Asia, A Pail of Oysters, and the Empathetic Writing of Formosa" (Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, 33(2), 35 - 60).]

In my earlier post I mentioned what little criticism or analysis I could find about A Pail of Oysters. Here I'm not going to summarize the entire novel, but I want to point out a few things that were interesting to me about the book.

There are four main characters in A Pail of Oysters:

• Li Liu, a part-Hakka, part-Pepohuan (Plains Aborigine--or literally, "plains savage") who has been sent by his ailing father to bring back their god (a framed picture, possibly like this, which was stolen by some KMT soldiers);
• Precious Jade, a young prostitute who escapes the House of the Laughing Gods;
• her younger brother, a middle school graduate who is about Li Liu's age; and
• Ralph Barton, an American reporter who is being dragged around Taiwan by KMT people so that he can write glowing accounts of how the Nationalists are running Taiwan.

After escaping the House of the Laughing Gods, Precious Jade finds her brother in the house of their adoptive father (the same man who sold her to the house of prostitution) and they both escape. In the process, Precious Jade's brother puts the identity cards of some of the other prostitutes in a place where they can find them and then escape. This, of course, makes his rich adoptive father very angry at the both of them, since the prostitutes are one of his main sources of income. He's also upset that Precious Jade's brother has escaped, since he had invested a lot of money in the boy in hopes that in the future he would have a son to honor him after his death.

The two run into Li Liu, who has accidentally ended up in Taipei after he hitched a ride on the jeep carrying Ralph Barton. Precious Jade's brother buys some food for Li Liu and invites Li to live with Precious Jade and him, despite Precious Jade's objections.

I want to dwell, at this point, on an interesting part in the story where Precious Jade's brother and Li Liu are talking and Li Liu asks the brother what to call him:

"...I was thinking. You call me by my name. You call me Li Liu, and I do not know what to call you."

"I see."

"You said you thought your name was Yamamuro at one time, and more recently Wang, but that you did not want these names any more. Truly, though, you must have a first name by which I can address you."

"The one who was supposed to be my real father used to call me Modiharu," the youth said slowly. "And the one who bought me named me Ching-Meng." He considered. "But I don't want those names either."

"Then what am I to call you?"

"I do not know. Would you want to call me nameless one?"

Li Liu shook his head. "No."

"I see." (120-1)

Eventually, they agree that Li Liu should call him "Didi" (younger brother), just as Precious Jade does. Later on, Precious Jade's brother gets a job at the Friends of China Club and meets Barton. The two of them get to talk a lot (Precious Jade's brother is trying to improve his English), and Barton gives the boy the English name Billy.

I don't know if Sneider intended it, but Didi's (or "Billy's") issues with his name and parentage (distinguishing clearly between "the one who was supposed to be my real father" and "the one who bought me") sound like a metaphor for Taiwan's situation at the time. The boy's confusion about his name involves the same confusion over national identity that people in Taiwan might have been experiencing at the time. The use of Japanese and Chinese names mirrors the problems of identification for the Taiwanese. Each "father" gives a different name that requires the child to reject the previous identity.

In the end, Precious Jade's brother rejects both his Japanese names and his Chinese names, settling first for the label "Didi", then also for an English name that is given to him by an American. Did Sneider mean this to be symbolic of the ideal American relationship with Taiwan--one in which the Americans would help the Taiwanese people establish an identity for themselves that would not only reject the oppressive identities forced upon them by the Chinese but also be friendly to the American people?

Another narrative thread in the book suggests that this conclusion might not be too far off. Barton also becomes involved with a Mr. Chou, the head of an architectural firm who arranges secret meetings with the American to tell him about the plans some Formosans have to try to reform the Nationalist government by getting rid of the "Communistic-technique" faction of the KMT. (Here Sneider alludes to Chiang Ching-kuo, not by name, but as a member of the "Communistic-technique" faction who "has lived almost half his life" in Russia [177]). Chou wants Barton to write articles about Formosa in order to let Americans know about the problems there so that the "Democratic-technique" faction can overcome the Communistic-technique faction. He also describes the Formosans' plans to build Formosa's democracy through economic development, specifically via "free enterprise," and their hopes that the Americans will help with this. Chou assures Barton that their plan to "build Formosa" will also "be helping to build all of Asia" (180). He argues that building a strong capitalist economy on Taiwan that breaks up government monopolies and allows for the participation of Formosans will help build a better society and more appealing alternative than that of Red China. Chou implies, then, that a democratic and capitalistic Taiwan would help further the U.S.'s fight against Communism in Asia.

Chou (or Sneider?) is at pains to emphasize that the opponents of the government are not Communists, even labelling CCK's faction of the KMT as the "Communistic-technique" faction. (I'm not going to argue with that characterization, though.) The future of Asia, it is implied, lies in developing a strong free-market economy in Taiwan, which will lead to a more democratic Taiwan that would be more friendly to U.S. interests.

This is, by the way, in sharp contrast to the impressions James Michener gives of the situation in The Voice of Asia, which was published only 2 years prior to Sneider's book. After interviewing a few Mainlanders on Taiwan (see my list of his interviewees here), Michener gives the following answer to the question, "Is the present Formosa Government responsible?"

It is probably the most efficient government in Asia today, not even excepting Japan's. It has solved the food problem. It has rationed goods so that everyone gets a fair break. It polices the island so that even white men can move about at night without risk of murder. It has launched an education program, prints liberal newspapers and insures just trials. Furthermore, in order to erase evil memories of initial Chinese occupation, the Government has specifically worked to protect the indigenous Taiwanese population. (106)

Michener's "Observations" section consists almost entirely of issues related to how and when the Mainland should be retaken militarily. He doesn't suggest any changes are needed on Formosa, and in the above paragraph gives unstinting praise to the KMT regime for reforms that the characters in Sneider's novel would say hadn't even happened. To Michener, the KMT government is taking care of the Taiwanese people and Americans don't need to worry about it. Sneider's book argues that American ignorance of the real conditions on Taiwan--ignorance exacerbated by reportage like Michener's--would be disasterous for Asia.

Toward the end of the novel, Barton finds out that Billy and Precious Jade have been caught by the "Peace Preservation Corps" and taken to a racetrack in Tamshui and shot. (Their adoptive "father" found out where they were and turned them in, accusing them of being Communists.) At first Barton is sick of Taiwan and wants to leave. Then, after he runs into Li Liu, he "borrows" a jeep and helps him escape back to the South before Li Liu can be arrested. As Barton drives, the car, he changes his mind about staying in Taiwan:

No, he told himself, he wasn't finished with this part of the world. His glance slid to the boy who held his god. He would stay here. He would learn all that he could. And then he would reveal--in articles and fiction--in any way he could, the utter stupidity, the ignorance of a small group who not only enslaved eight million people, but who endangered all of Asia. (304)

This is the last we see of him. And perhaps the alleged fate of A Pail of Oysters--pulled out of libraries then and virtually ignored now--might tell us what the fate of Barton's words would have been.

More here... [Not yet...]

[A Pail of Oysters] [books] [Vern Sneider] [Taiwan] [白色恐怖] [White Terror]

A Pail of Oysters I

I finished reading A Pail of Oysters the day after the book arrived. I should mention that the copy I finally bought is a little water-stained and lacks a jacket, but it didn't cost me nearly as much as a lot of the copies that I've seen for sale (a quick check of one on-line book dealer shows copies selling from US$45 to US$290). One of the reasons for this is probably the relative scarcity of the book. As I mentioned previously, the story is that the KMT had some student spies steal copies of the book from libraries in the U.S. (I'm curious if anyone has any hard evidence for this story, though. I'm not doubting that this kind of thing happened; I'm just wondering if anyone has heard of any evidence that people from the KMT identified this particular book as one to systematically steal from U.S. libraries.)

Before I make my own comments about A Pail of Oysters in another post, I'll quote a few sources that summarize it or comment on it. I checked around the web and in some academic databases and didn't find much about this book. It doesn't get mentioned in any Asian Studies journals or Asia-related magazines that I have access to, and the only comments I could find in English-studies journals were two brief mentions in 1950s issues of the English Journal (one was an article about using literature to teach American schoolchildren about other cultures, and the other was a one-paragraph review of the book).

Gale's Contemporary Authors Online has some contemporary reviews of the book that praised it:

In A Pail of Oysters Sneider again drew upon his first-hand experience in the Far East to write a novel about the political problems of that area. A more serious book than Teahouse, A Pail of Oysters was described by Margaret Parton in the New York Herald Tribune Book Review as "a serious and sometimes tragic story of a sad and troubled country." Set on the island of Formosa, where the defeated Nationalist Chinese government fled after the takeover of mainland China by the communists, the novel examines the corruption and injustices of the Nationalist government. "For anyone who has served as a correspondent with the Nationalists," wrote Gordon Walker in the Christian Science Monitor, "it sounds realistic and generally accurate." Pat Frank in Saturday Review thought the novel "combines beauty of expression, originality of thought, and contemporary historical importance; it is a bright light thrust into the infected peritonium of Formosa, into a region murky with propaganda."

I should note that Christina Klein described Saturday Review as a more left-leaning publication for middlebrow Americans, as compared with a magazine like Reader's Digest. My guess is that if Reader's Digest had a review of the book (did they do book reviews?), it wouldn't have been as complimentary.

On the web, the speech by Keelung Hong that I mentioned in a previous post has this short summary of the book, including some background on its writing:

It describes not just the foibles of confused Americans out of their depths across the Pacific, but accounts of KMT terror, including the shooting of the character based on the interpreter Ed Paine recommended to Vern Sneider. The book opens with a KMT patrol seizing oysters gathered by Taiwanese coast dwellers. Sneider makes very vivid the terror in which Taiwanese lived in the late 1940s, the oppression of KMT bandit-troops, the massacre of 2-28, and also makes clear the common Taiwanese views that what land reform was really about was breaking up any Taiwanese power bases.

And a summary of the book that I found on a booklist at Forumosa has this to say:

This is a fictional story, but the tale might as well be real to a Taiwanese. The story starts in near Lukang when KMT soldiers steal the god from a family and he is sent to bring it back. Much of the story focuses around an American newsman stationed in Taipei and how he learns Nationalist Taiwan is not what it seems. The true story behind the fiction is that Sneider met Ed Paine, an eye witness to the 228 massacre and Paine hooked Sneider up with his interpreter. The history is fuzzy, the places are not where they should be, but the story is more an allegory of 50's Taipei with the dreaded race track and deaths. This book is now considered rare following years of KMT student spies stealing it from libraries.

I don't know enough about 1950s Taipei to judge the accuracy of book's descriptions, but it does give a good feeling of what the city might have been like back then, with its descriptions of both main roads like South Chungking Road, where you would find places like "Cave's Book Store and the Bank of Formosa", and some of the small alleyways and fetid apartments where many poorer people lived. It's possible, though, that Sneider spent more time in Taipei and thus his descriptions of the countryside are a bit more sketchy and superficial.

I have more to say about the book in another post.

[Update, 3/2/2007: According to the March 11, 1954 issue (pdf) of The Grosse Pointe News of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, A Pail of Oysters was selected by the Notable Books Committee of the American Library Association as one of the 50 books "of the previous year which it considers meritorious in terms of literary excellence, factual correctness and sincerity and honesty of presentation" (10). Interesting...]

[A Pail of Oysters] [books] [Vern Sneider] [Taiwan] [白色恐怖] [White Terror]