Daily reflection: 30 May

Today was a fruitful day. We woke up early so that we could finish our schedule on time but were disrupted as we made a mistake of not being punctual. Hence, we were delayed. Then, it was time for departure! We took the coach to Wulai and after an hour of driving, we finally reached the school which was located just outside Taipei and high up in the mountains.

When we went there, we were greeted by a friendly member of the school, probably a teacher. He welcomed us with warmth and introduced us to the school. The school is rather interesting as it is an aboriginal school. Next, we were led to a classroom consisting of 10 year olds. They introduced us to the culture and history of their race, called the "Tai Ya" (泰雅族）. The children were very adorable and one could easily tell that they practiced very hard for the presentation. They were also very polite as they agreed to take some photos with us and some would attempt to keep a conversation with us. 

Next, we learnt how to make bracelets according to the "Tai Ya"'s way of making it. When we finished it, the bracelet was extremely pretty and of course satisfactory.

Next, we had some performances and then we had lunch.

Lastly, we were taught some greetings in Tai Ya's language and then went back to the coach to go to the high-speed train station. When we reached there, we took the high speed train to Taichung. 

Then, after an hour, we were brought to Carton King, a place where paper models are made. We were also taught how to make a simple windmill paper model. 

After that, we bought several souvenirs and went for dinner!

After dinner, we visited Feng Jia night market. It was definitely not a disappointment! The night market was bustling with people and rows and rows of shops lined the streets. However, I was not really interested in buying things but rather in the food! One does not simply visit a night market without eating the food there. The foods in the night market were cheap and delicious. Oh the aroma! However, due to the time constraint, we only managed to buy a chicken cutlet but I was happy nonetheless. Finally, we returned to the hotel and retired to our rooms after debrief.

During the debrief, we talked about many stuff. Punctuality was emphasised during the debrief as some of us woke up late and had to delay the whole trip. It was as if we did not have any sense of urgency. Also, it was also mentioned that we should inform the teachers early when something is amiss. I believe that this is very important as it shows our sense of responsibility. We should always be alert and sense it immediately when something is wrong. Most of us would try to avoid being involved in such situations so that we will not be held responsible. I believe this is a common norm seen in RVians. From what I observe, many of us do not take initiative or help out one another, and I admit I do so sometimes as well. This is caused by not only the influence of friends but mainly parents. We should not just keep shut and ignore the situation if we know something is wrong. If not, this may cause a lot of problems such as the delay of the trip. Moreover, we were still not urgent even though we were already late. This made the teachers very disappointed and we seemed not to care. If we were a little quicker, we could solve the problem of being late, and yet we were not serious about it at all. This certainly reflects the morals of us students. 

We also discussed our thoughts on the visit to Wulai school. We talked about our first impressions before visiting and our impression after visiting. For me, I thought Wulai would be a very run down and backward as it is located deep in the mountains. Our tour guide also mentioned that students can take up to two hours to travel to school and most of them won't make it pass high school. This made me feel a little sympathetic for them. 

I also felt that I should appreciate my learning environment more instead of constantly complaining about unnecessary things. During the visit, I realised that actually the children weren't so unfortunate after all. They were content with what little they had and this made me feel very touched. I feel that if we were content with how much we had, our lives would be much more thrilling and happier. The children were also very polite and weren't as naughty as children I see in Singapore of the same age. This made me feel a little embarrassed as our society seemed to be more uncivilised. Then, we talked about our behaviour in Carton King. Though it wasn't very obvious that I did not notice it, our behaviour wasn't really good. We did not follow the group accordingly and left a lot of gaps in the middle, and we were also very slow in our movements. We also should give more respect to the teachers as most of us ignored their attempts to make us quicker. 

Then, we discussed about the night market. However, it was not about our behaviour but rather about the reasons why night markets in Taiwan are so successful. The teachers did not mention anything further and they left us to think about it. Personally, I think that Taiwan night markets are so successful because they provide more variety of things like all kinds of food, clothes and etc. the items are also very cheap and reasonable. Whereas in Singapore, the 'night markets' consist of common things, like burgers, phone covers, etc. Moreover, the prices are not far off cheaper. The Taiwan night markets are also more successful as the sales people are more active as they will try to attract people. 

All in all, I feel that our behaviour today was not really good and we could improve further. I think that we should be more alert, have a sense of urgency and listen to teachers seriously. We should also be more active such as taking initiatives instead of not caring about anything. Nevertheless, I think that we indeed have the potential to improve and do better.