yuan Ze university
小强- he is the one from yuanze that ensure that I am settling well here.
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The primary school I am attached to is 霞云国小，located in 霞云村. Generally it is a peaceful and safe village here, apart from the fact that since it is at the mountain area, you can easily spot all kind of insects like mosquitos (as usual), bugs, spiders, cockroaches and even snakes. And to live with limitations like not much food to buy coz they are mainly small-sized family own provision shop.
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Other than that, this is a good place to live in because it is very near to mother nature. Apart from mountains, flowers and river, there are beautiful waterfalls! Not bragging, just near my village, there are 2 majestic waterfalls! No cars, no pollution, Clean air!
Scenery of Hsia Yun Village 1
xia-yun village
小巫来
Hsia Yun scenery 2 铁幕瀑布
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The villagers are the indengious tribe called 泰雅族 and they are one of the biggest 原注民 tribes other than the 阿美族。阿美族 are usually fairer in skin while 泰雅族 are generally darker in skin. In taiwan, their 国语 is chinese and for those living in the city, their 母语 is generally 闽南语（quite close to our hokkien but slightly different in accent) or hakka. For the 泰雅族, their 母语 is 泰雅语, which the kids have to learn 3 languages in school - chinese, 泰雅语 and english. Basically in Taiwan, those from the indengious tribes those people whom early forefathers are the ones that stayed in Taiwan for ages. Only until the later years, then got "chinese" coming down from china to Taiwan. These " chinese" are those living in the cities ,and subsequently their future generation. that's why taiwanese living in the city looks very different from the 原注民. 泰雅语 sounded a bit alike malay and in my village, generally all of them are christians or catholics. unlike the cities, where you can see quite a lot of temples. but here, no temple but churches.
泰雅boys
泰雅girls
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As for the kids here, they are mischievous (for sure!), adorable ( needless to say) and irritating (sometimes ). Most of them reach here as early as 6.30am and they will eat breakfast together. The school pop isnt big ,around 64 people. And the smallest class size is 7 (pri 3) and biggest class is 16 (pri 5). Lessons can stretch as long as till 5pm because their parents knock off only that time. Most of the kids stay relatively far from the school. For those lucky kids who has vehicle to come - good for them , but for some of them whom dont, the kids have to walk for as long as 45mins to reach the school. So tiring!
kids 1 plentiful of siblings in the school - which one look alike?
water time with the kids
feel the gush of watershiok shiok
soaking in water in the river
taking a nap
BBQ at the river-side. Freshly caught fish!
Glory of table tennis in Hsia yun
Birthday babies celebration
Election for 小乡长-alike our student council.
Kids here are generally well-trained, to the extent i feel like I am in an army camp not a school!
they fall in
do the usual se-dia, senang diri
do ker-kanan rulus
got handover of squad IC every week
do area cleaning!!! yes, the whole campus is cleaned by them
eat lunch together and only 25minutes are allowed
wash their own utensils, containers for the food and everything
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How I spend my days here?
I am supposed to conduct proper english lesson for the kids. However, there is one good permanent english teacher here. Thus I need to constantly think of new ideas for enrichment class to help them in their english.
Fly England - it is a book that aids them in their pronounciation of simple english words
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English corner
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I also conducted english enrichment class daily for them ,do up a Singapore Presentation as part of the 认识世界 lesson and prepare worksheets for them to write simple english words. Generally the teaching here is not too taxing for me.
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During my free time, I played basketball ,badminton and table tennis with them. Yes! the kids here are very good in table tennis! and i learnt a bit of piano from them too! the school here trained them to be an all rounded person.
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part of teacher enrichment course - learning how to sew an owl
Hand made owl by yours truly!
Dinner time by chef henry.
Usually we will be given dinner allowance by the school to prepare dinner. Lunch breakfast we will eat together with the kids. Nutritious meals for even more growth !
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and of course, guess guess guess !!!
