Oh, Ink Burn

Friends,

The above sign shows my Mandarin name — 歐墨然, pronounced roughly “Oh Mo Rahn.” I chose this name a year and a half ago: at the time, the senior class bought all teachers a chop with their name. I stressed about the choice a lot. I knew I wanted the last name that sounded like “Oh” to line up with Oliver, but for the two first name characters I wasn’t sure. At first I leaned towards something that sounded like “ge rahn” to be phonetically similar to Graham, but there’s not a normal name that sounds like that. 墨/mo sounds kind of like the end of Graham plus the beginning of Oliver, but even more importantly it means ink, so it connects to my profession as a teacher/writer. 然/rahn sounds kind of similar to Graham and technically means to burn something, but is more commonly used in combination with other words to form a variety of meanings (當然 means “of course,” 然後 means “then”). Together, 歐 is a very common last name, while 墨然 is recognizable as a name but would be considered more old-fashioned or a name from a novel, not one you’d find out in the wild often. Overall, I like my choice.

Except that 墨然 kind of sounds like “moron.” But, ah well. Apt in many cases.

The name sat unused for a year after I received the chop, but my new university employer requires everyone to have a Mandarin name, even international students and foreign teachers, and for that name to be officially added to my government ID. It’s interesting to see how everyone handles it differently. For example, the large majority of names in Mandarin are three characters: one last name followed by two first name, though some first names are only one character. However, some people make their names a good bit longer to try to phoneticize their full name, often using characters that are not typically names at all. My Mandarin name continues to go largely unused, only showing up on official paperwork and course listings, but it’s funny because sometimes it’ll be at the top of an email and I’ll instinctively use Google Translate before remembering. But it gave me a big dose of bureaucratic fun, requiring me to get a new ID card, which gave me a new ID number, which required updating two banks, my health insurance (and then my hospital account), and probably something else I’m forgetting.

The name plate above sat at my desk during my first “consultation” working for AWEC. My first two appointments were helping someone write an abstract for an article about their research team’s project to automatically diagram the grammar of audio recordings, followed by a conference proposal for a talk on the translation process of wuxia novels. I love it, not just the wonderful variety, but also the fact that in both cases the students were eager to work on their writing, not just to complete a deadline or to improve a grade. Best part of teaching by far.

Teaching is going well. I’ve learned all the AC and projector controls. Next week I’ll be part of a workshop helping international students prepare for interacting with grade school students (apparently international university students are required to visit schools on a regular basis?). Gave my first test today and besides accidentally printing the answer to one question, everything went okay.

So far, I’m actually astonished how similar it is to the United States. I’ve told Taiwanese friends this and they’re surprised, they expect me to find Taiwanese students much quieter than American students. I think they don’t realize that no one wants to talk in American classrooms either, except for the about 10% of students who really, really, want to talk. And as far as that goes, I’ve found Taiwan to be about the same.

The differences are small. For example, today during the test I gave them an hour, expected it to take about 45 minutes, and told them they were dismissed when they turned it in. In the US, students would often finish really early, either because they definitely knew the material well or because they didn’t know it at all, but here every single student stayed the full hour even when it was clear they were done. I’m not sure if it’s engrained in them to triple check answers as long as they can, or they thought it’d be disrespectful to be the first one to leave, or what. There’s a really wide variety of international students compared to my US classes. There are bells for when each “period” is over, and most classes seem to follow the schedule more tightly than in the US (e.g. a three hour class having 10 minute breaks after exactly 50 mins of class). Random restaurants are scattered all over campus as opposed to being concentrated in a few main buildings. The chalkboards are immaculate. So far, fewer absences and fewer nodding off students, but I’m not going to bank on that.

One of my favorite differences are the faculty lounges. Almost every floor of every building has a small room with ~five comfortable chairs, AC, a water cooler, and a museum-like shelf of coffee mugs that do not appear to ever be used. Some have newspapers, some have condiment stashes. My colleagues nod, but I have not heard a single person speak inside of one. It’s so wonderful to hide in silence for the breaks.

Now, the part I’m anticipating: what will the emails post-test grades look like?

Further reading:

• It’s the most, wonderful time of the year: Nobel Prize season! I have not read winner Annie Ernaux , but that’s not the reason to celebrate. Instead, it’s to read Alex Shepherd outdoing himself annually with his literature prize analysis for The New Republic . Especially love this collection of his increasingly in-character assessment of Cormac McCarthy’s chances. However, I’m angry to have to learn about Rushdie’s texts like this. (For the record, I was fine with Dylan winning it if it was going to go to another American, I wish Didion had won it when she was lucid, and I don’t have a strong pick for this year [I don’t want another American to win it but I do want Marilynne Robinson to win it] though I think in another book or two I’ll be pulling for both Han Kang and Wu Ming-Yi.)
• Taiwan is reopening for tourism next month, but the desire to travel is no longer there for me like it used to be. Part of it is Covid, part of it is contentment, and part of it is that airports are awful. Especially the TSA . I don’t think anything in that article is surprising, but it definitely lays things out with clarity.
• In other Taiwan news, TaiwanPlus has just launched its 24-hour news programming as a government-sponsored bilingual outlet. I’m pretty negative towards this endeavor — Taiwan’s government already had multiple publicly funded news outlets with English reporting, so spinning up a new brand seems like a poor use of money instead of enriching the existing organizations. Government-sponsored news is, unsurprisingly, a contentious topic here as in the US, but before you compare it to NPR, read this incredibly well-researched critique of NPR’s evolution from scrappy storytelling to corporate America mouthpiece .
• Can I make my further reading list without linking Helen Rosner, Tressie McMillan Cottom, or Anne Helen Petersen? No. Loved this interview with Rosner , specifically about nuanced ways to think about authenticity.
• I’ve been loving dispatches from last year’s seniors about their first impressions of American university life. If you want a peek into one such account, check out Quinn’s article “Subway Encounters, Shared Smiles, and First Dates.”
• Beloved weirdo YouTube content creator Brian David Gilbert spent thirty minutes explaining the basics of US health insurance to his audience . Like many of his videos, it will fill you with existential dread. Speaking of, if someone has advice on travel insurance for visiting the US, drop me a line.
• Book rec: Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu ’s book club selected Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit for their last meeting, and it’s a really wonderful short collection of essays tenuously linked by George Orwell’s love of nature. It’s so thoughtful and centers gardening and nature as resistance to the terribleness of the world and yeah. Big fan.
• Self plug! I wrote an article about the upcoming video game Nine Sols and the Taiwanese developer behind it, Red Candle Games. Check it out .

Cooler weather has finally arrived here in Taipei, along with a gasp of relief. I’m looking forward to finding the best coffee and best snacks on campus now that I can be outside for longer than five minutes without sweating. There are rumors of a delicious vegetarian curry that I intend to investigate as well. Wish me luck in finding tantalizing methods of procrastination, and I will do the same for you.

-g