Taiwan Travelogue: Day 4 - Reflections

When I was a toddler, I figured out how to slide down the stairs on my stomach. One time I was doing this, I took hold of the end of a toilet paper roll and went down the stairs with it in my hand.

My aunt laughed as she told my mom and my wife this story as we sat in a Starbucks in a food court. My wife shared some similar stories with my aunt and mom like the time one of her younger brothers sprayed baby powder all over the room explaining, “I didn’t know I wasn’t suppose to do that.”

Our last full day in Taiwan was spent with family . . . shopping.  My mom took my wife and I, first thing the morning, to a gold smith shop where my aunt met up with us and then we went to a mall. We bought some baby clothes for my niece and I found a nice sports coat.  Through it all, we shared some great stories.

That afternoon my wife and I met up with my cousins and we explored the shopping area at the bottom of the Taipei 101 Tower and later went up to the top of that building. While the view was nice, going up the world’s fastest elevator really isn’t that much fun.

Hanging out with my cousins was a lot of fun. Diana and I had met up with each of those cousins in the past couple years but this was the first time we all got to hang out as a group. We had a great time, mostly being silly and pointing out odd things that we saw in stores and randomly sharing a box of macaroons.

When I think about the past four days, I feel admiration for my family.

You look at people outside your family for inspiration and you wish you could emulate them. But when you see your family being strong in difficult situations, you come to believe that you share these same qualities. 

The good in my family is the good within myself.

The death of my grandmother is not an ending for my family. Through the lives that we lead, new unions of marriage, and new generations being born, the story of my family continues.

I’m not saying that the last four days changed my life, but they meant more to me than I can express. It may be a while before I can fully understand all that I’ve experienced, but I know it all felt right.

When I hugged my mom goodbye before leaving for the airport, that simple gesture that once felt so ordinary, felt special.  It was like the spirits of my grandparents and my ancestors came together and surrounded us with love.

Year 3: Week 5 – Giving Them A Voice

It seems like there’s one in every class.

 I’m talking about that kid who is disrespectful, disrupts the class, makes jokes at inappropriate time and doesn’t seem to care when you address his or her behavior. It’s the kid you sometimes wish would be absent so that you could actually focus on teaching.

So how do we deal with these kids? There’s immediate consequences like detentions but this negative stimulus really only hits the lower reptilian part of the brain and in my experiences doesn’t really change behavior.

Sometimes what kids really need is to simply have a voice.

Helping students develop a voice so that can express their thoughts is one of the most important goals of education. This is skill that students develop in every subject and contribute not only to the financial success of a student but also their emotional development. One of the signs that someone is well adjusted is that they can speak or write about how they feel.

Let’s break this down for a minute.

A 2nd grade boy is confused during math class. Instead of asking for help, he disengages and makes distracting jokes. The teachers express anger to this boy and he gets punished. As the kid gets older, this continues to happen. In 5th grade, he is now behind his peers in his ability to self-advocate so instead to get attention he makes inappropriate comments during class. The school has developed a systematic way to deal with discipline so this student gets detentions and looses other privileges.

No one ever asks this boy, what he is thinking or how he is feeling, instead every teacher and authority figure simply punishes this student for his disruptive actions. He has things to wants to say, and whenever a teacher talks to him, which is usually when he is getting punished he is not allowed to speak in his own defense.

Have you ever disciplined a kid and not let them speak about the way they felt about the situation? I’ve done that a couple time, but now I make sure to let the kid do most of the talking when they get in trouble.

The problem is that most teachers have too many students and not enough prep time to have these conversations with students. But we have got to try.

Yes, when you ask them how they feel, they may say things that are immature, they may make things up and they will probably exaggerate but let them finish. Instead of trying to tell them they are wrong, help them express the truth inside of their feelings.

Having an open and honest discussion, not a lecture, but a real two-way discussion about a student’s feelings is one of the fastest ways to build a relationship. No, having one of these talks probably will not immediately change behavior, but it will help.

So next time a kid is disruptive, don’t go on the attack. Of course you need to put them on notice that what they are doing is not okay, but follow up the situation with a talk. Don’t start by asking them how they feel about their behavior. Ask them how their day is going and how they feel about the class in general. You’ll be surprised at what you find out and how it’s impossible to dislike a student no matter how disruptive they are in class when you have heard their true voice.

Taiwan Travelogue: Euglogy For My Grandmother

On Saturday 15th, 2012 in Taipei, Taiwan, I shared my thoughts about my grandmother along with my cousins.  While the experience was difficult the writing and sharing of these words was important for my family and I.

I've started this school year talking to my students about choices. Every day we make thousands of choices, from what pants to put on in the morning to whether or not we acknowledge a homeless person who asks us for money as we walk by.

Like children, we don't alway put a lot of thought into our actions and the effect they have on the people around us. In the same way we often overlook the way that other people's choices effect us. For me, this is what this day is about.

The choices my grandmother made resonate in all of our lives. From the seemingly insignificant to the immediately profound, she chose for herself a life full of love and family and through these choices taught us all how to be a family.

I love how I have a cousin who is half Swiss and an aunt in Taiwan, and while the miles between us make it more difficult to stay connected, it's makes it that much more meaningful that we choose to be hear today as a family.

When I was in elementary school grandmother chose to come and help teach me and me classmates how to make paper cranes. When I was married she chose to come to our wedding and share in that amazing day, and whenever my mother visited her she would chose to go shopping and make sure to have a gift for my mom to bring home to Diana.

I think about these things and I know that I'm a better person because of them, and while she may not have not thought too much about these choices, they changed my life. In this way her choice to foster relationships with all of us has sent ripples throughout our lives and led to us making the profound choice to share this day together as one. In this way, grandmother is always with us and through her life we are all connected.

So like my grandmother, choose to love, choose to be a family and choose to remember and honor the ones that come before. Because it is in understanding how the choices of the past effect our lives can we be mindful of how our choices can change the lives of the people around us for the better.

Taiwan Travelogue: Day 3 - Grateful

What happens to your possessions after you die? The ancient Egyptian Pharaohs packed all their stuff away with them in their pyramids but most of us don’t have that luxury.

As we started going through my grandmother’s positions, it felt weird and almost sacrilegious. But then it started to make sense. What was my family going to do with all of this stuff? What would my grandmother prefer, for the family to take things of her that they wanted or for this stuff to be given away to charity or thrown away?

So all of the women in my family went to my grandmother’s bedroom and looked through her clothes trying things on and claiming clothes to take home. My cousin and I started looking through the curio cabinet in the living room.

There was a lot of really interesting things in that cabinet. We found a metal toy car from the early 1910s, honorary gifts for my grandfathers years of service in various organizations and souvenirs from all over the world. I found a small stone carved into two dogs playing with each other that reminded me of Buffy that I took for my own.

I went in and checked on how Diana and the rest of the women in my family were doing. Diana had found a couple sweaters and a old fashioned but very nice wool suit jacket. As I was looking through this stuff my aunt started pulling out my grandmother’s numerous handbags and I instantly recognized a small brown one as my grandmothers.

I never really thought about her handbags or even consciously noticed them but seeing that bag immediately brought and image into my minds eyes of my grandmother holding that bag.

My mom took this bag into the main living room and started going through the bag. She explained to my wife and I that my grandmother always made sure to have certain things in her handbag. There was a small container of tiger balm, a small packet of tissue, three of four plastic bags just in case there was extra food from a restaurant she wanted to keep, and emergency money hidden away in some corner of the purse.

My mom explained how she learned to carry most of these things in her purse all of the time from her mom. As I thought about the kleenix packet, lip balm, and emergency money hidden away in my work bag, I realized that I was as much my mother’s son as my mom was her mother’s daughter.

That evening we went to my grandmother’s favorite sushi restaurant. It was a authentic sushi bar that only had about twenty seats. As soon as we walked in one of the sushi chefs asked my uncle where my grandmother was and he pointed up and explained that she had passed away.

At the end of the meal we had miso soup. This soup was authentically made with random pieces of left over seafood creating and fresh and subtle mix of flavors. My mom explained to me that this was my grandmother’s favorite dish. As I inhaled the aroma of the soup and tasted the smooth broth, it felt like she was sharing her world with me.

For that experience and that day, I am truly grateful.

Year 3: Week 4 – The 190

Let me introduce you to my students this year, all 190 of them.

My youngest student is 8 years old and my oldest one is 14. I’m taller than some of my students and many of them are taller then me. They come from some of the wealthiest communities in the Chicagoland area while others come from some of the poorest. I have a student who regularly travels to Europe for vacation and I have another one who has never been outside of America.

My students have parents, adopted parents, stepparents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents all doing their part to help raise them. Even though some people in this country don’t value some of these families because there are two moms or two dads, I am proud to have these families in our community. If you really think being raised by two people of the same gender harms a child then you clearly haven’t met my students.

My students have faced the tragedy of cancer and the senselessness of violence. They go home and comfort loved ones with terminal diseases and cradle babies just beginning to know the world. Some of them walk to school; some are dropped off by parents while others have a much longer journey.

My students are coming to know who they are. My 3rd grade girls are trying to figure out what it means to be in a group of friends, not so unlike the way my 8th grade girls are dealing with social issues. I have 5th grade boys who value humor in social interactions and 7th grade boys who are trying to break out of the role of the class clown which they now find limiting.  As my 6th graders confidently assert themselves as new middle school students they are finding that the freedoms they are enjoying come with even more walls then they had in 5th grade.

My students are remarkable athletes, scientist, mathematicians, musicians, writers and artists. What’s more impressive is that they are nice people, respectful citizens and caring friends.

My students have weaknesses and they struggle. They have senses that distract them, hormones that betray them and emotions that leave them conflicted and confused. Behind smiles there are tears and in anger there’s a longing to be understood.

My students are my kids. They come to my mind when I’m cooking at home or running along the lake. They frustrate, delight and never cease to amaze me.

I hope that one day you will meet my 190. They would love to share their world with you. 

Cultural Weirdness in Taipei

To the left of the toilet in our hotel bathroom was this panel.  My favorite button was "oscillating."  I actually didn't use any of the buttons except for the ones across the top.  It was all just so intimidating.   

Mom, two kids, and cups of hot soup, all on one scooter.  I know Americans can sometimes go a little overboard with safety things, but really Taipei? 

That's a normal size tea cup and a normal sized fork.  Those little glasses are Chinese shot glasses.  They were about the size of thimble.  When I use them I felt like a giant.  It was awesome. 

Taiwan Travelogue: Day 2 - The Service

As I positioned the chopsticks between my fingers, I looked down at the steel tray holding my grandmothers cremated remains. I always imagined that cremated remains were a fine grey powder but instead they were white and in pieces.  Some of these fragments were the size of a coin while others were the size of a rosebud.

The chopsticks were larger than normal, almost a foot in length. I carefully gripped a piece with the chopsticks and used my other hand to brace the middle of the chopsticks. I methodically moved my hands towards the urn and gently placed the remains inside, put the chopsticks down carefully and took a step back to join the rest of my family.

All of my grandmother's children, grandchildren and spouses who were present took part in moving the remains. Then the person working at the crematorium placed the rest of the remains into the urn, sealed it carefully, place the container in a embroidered bag and carefully gave the package to my uncle.  It was now the late afternoon and it was time to leave the place of worship where my grandmothers service was held and her remains were cremated for one more important trip to go on with my grandmother.

My mother waiting for the service to begin.

We arrived earlier that morning in a funeral service facility in Taipei. There were many different rooms in the grounds where numerous services were held. As we got there, workers were bustling around moving flowers, chairs and carpets setting up services in a hurry. Once we got organized, the person presenting our service showed us our part in the ceremony.

We were split up by gender and put in a specific order according to our station in he family and birth order. The family stood in the front facing the audience for the whole ceremony acting as hosts.

After a speaker talked about my grandmothers life, different groups of people lined up in the aisle facing a portrait of my grandmother and bowed to her spirit in prayer. First they bowed with incense in their hands three times. After the incenses were collected and they vowed three more times, then at the the end people bowed all the way to the ground touching their foreheads to the ground three times.

The groups went in order of closeness to my grandmother starting with her children and their spouses, then grandchildren, cousins, family friends and so on.

Waves of people in different groups came up to honor my grandmother. There was not enough room for all of these people to sit in the room so many people lined up outside to pay their respects. After each of these groups bowed to my grandmother, they bowed to us.

My grandfather was active in the Taipei Rotary club and served as the president. My grandmother and him made many lifelong friends through this organization. They had a sister chapter in Japan and one member wrote letters back and forth to my grandmother. My uncles were concerned about him finding out about my grandmothers death because he was very old and they weren't sure he could travel and they knew he would try. He found out and flew in barely making it to the ceremony on time.

Even though I didn't know who he was at the time, I knew there was something special about this man when he paid his respect to my grandmother. He was the oldest man there and had a profound look of reverence on his face. As he left the room, my uncle chased after him and handed him an envelope.

Inside the envelope, there was a letter my grandmother had been writing to him that she had not yet finished. In that letter were the final words between life-long friends.

After the ceremony my family was led to the back of the room where we viewed my grandmothers body. The guest followed our family around the room and once the guest were done, my family lined up. Then we followed the coffin as it was wheeled to the crematorium.

We held another small ceremony in the lobby of that building and then the coffin was wheeled into another larger room with ten cremation chambers, five on each side of the wall. We stood in the entryway and watched as the coffin was carefully pushed into the chamber.

For the next couple hours, we sat in a waiting room as my grandmother was cremated. We ate some lunch, talked a little bit and tried to pass the time. We weren't as loud and energized as we were the night before at dinner but we managed to enjoy each others company after such an intense experience.

I wasn't really prepared to be so close to the process of the cremation. I had seen bodies at funerals but I never saw a coffin enter an cremation chamber or had handle remains. While this was difficult, there was a high level of respect involved. The fact that we witnessed these parts of the process meant that the people working there had to take great care in handling my grandmother. It felt like we were truly taking care of her in death to remember how she took care of us in her life.

Our whole family took an hour bus ride to our families' Buddhist temple. The nuns received the urn and after a ceremony of chanting and prayer my grandmother's urn was placed below my grandfather's. They shared a cabinet in the wall of the building. As we walked by my mother told me that her parents were finally together and to say goodbye.

Looking to the urns, I said goodbye and felt for the first time that day, a feeling of happiness. Part of it was the calm serenity of the nuns and the beauty of the temple but more than that it was knowing that my grandparents were finally back together.

Standing outside the temple, the grey overcast skies didn't seem so sad and as I heard my family talking, I felt ready to live the rest of my life.