Amy Chen

       When I was in kindergarten, I went with my family to America because my father studied abroad for his PhD program. I was quite small then, so I don't remember much about my return to Taiwan. All I remember is that I somehow had trouble communicating with my classmates for a few weeks, and my Chinese grades weren't very good, either. Maybe I missed America a lot. When I went to the CKS Memorial Hall and saw some foreigners, I wanted to talk with them and practice my English.

       When I was in fifth grade, my father went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, as a post-doctoral fellow, so my family and I went to United States again. I was homesick as first, and I took any chance I could to speak in Chinese with my friends. I missed the rice (the kind of rice you could buy from a Chinese store was usually imported from Thailand, and it had a strange smell), my native language, and other things. I was pretty happy to come back to Taiwan after I graduated from Wellwood Elementary School. I missed my American teacher and friends, but "There's no place like home."

       As I stepped out of the airport, I felt the strong hot breeze of July, the hottest time in Taiwan. Once again, my familiar mother tongue floated in the air everywhere. I had been pulled out of the place I had been living in and now "splash!" I was back again. Sometimes I got tongue-tied. I couldn't remember how to say some things in Chinese! It took me two to three weeks to speak normally again, and my classmates still say that I have a weird accent which I can never change. Everything seemed so interesting when I came back. Taipei is changing every second, and getting used to it is a little hard after you have been away for a year. But it's still home sweet home.

2. My Readjustment Coming Back to Taiwan

Nadia Chung

       I was seven when I went to the States, and came back after staying with my aunt's best friend and going to a local school for one semester. When my stay first began, I spoke English like a typical Chinese. As my mother put it, I couldn't even say "here" when I wanted to hand something to someone–I would say "give you." But I guess it's true that kids have a great ability to adapt; in just a few months, or maybe much less, I was just like a native. I didn't make speaking mistakes anymore, only spelling ones.

       Then my mother came to pick me up to go back home. I was very happy to see my family again. But very soon I found I had communication problems. I could not talk with the Chinese part of my family anymore! I could understand everything they said to me, but had no way to respond. Only English was in my head, and I could not squeeze even a single Chinese word out of my mouth. It took me about a month to overcome that. That wasn't really a very big problem, but it was quite a shock to me. I never knew that kind of thing would be a problem.
        
       Then I had to readjust my behavior. Being who I was when I was with my US friends didn't seem to work here. When I stayed with my host family in the States, I was used to being a little spoiled. They didn't yell at me often, and they didn't tell me when my behavior disturbed people. But in a few years' time I changed my attitude and got used to being a normal member of my own family again.

       It's been over eight years since I've been back now, and although I didn't feel it then, now I know how much my half-year in the States has changed me. I am truly thankful to all the people who let it happen, and will always remember what it was like to change back into a Taiwanese from a normal American.

3. My Readjustment

Iris Chen

       In fact, I readapted very quickly to Taiwanese society. It might be that I was born in Taiwan and spent more than 16 years here in this land. I define myself as a Taiwanese who was in America for one year, not a Chinese-American. In other words, the Chinese part of my character is more dominant than the American part.

       My friends and family were really a great help to me when I was confused and "homesick." They were always my strong allies. My family gave me advice on everything. My friends from before didn't see me as a different person at all; I was still their same old pal. Although most of them are busy struggling with their work in the twelfth grade, we still visit each other every once in a while. With the assistance of my old and new friends, I overcame most of my adjustment problems with ease.

       I sometimes pretend that I'm a foreign exchange student in Taiwan and try to be open-minded to all kinds of possibilities. To me, "problems" and "challenges" are the two sides of the same coin, just depending on how you look at them.

4. My Readjustment to Taiwan

Kristine Li

       When I first went to America, I had already finished fourth grade, that is, my Chinese was based only on my four years in elementary school. Mom was thoughtful and brought along all the materials which the students studied in Taiwan. The bad thing was that I didn't even try to read any of the books. That's why I forgot how to write Chinese. After two and a half years, I even thought and dreamed in English. I rarely talked Chinese at home, which led to difficulties when I returned to Taiwan.

       In the first semester in Taiwan, I had tried hard to get back my writing, reading, and grammar skills in Chinese. I'd always spoken Chinese in an American way, and this was very funny to others. I think that because I had done well in elementary school in Taiwan, however, I still remembered some basic stuff. That's why it took me only half a year to catch up with the other students. And I was always among the top three in the class after one semester. When I got to ninth grade, I was number one in class every single exam. I think that because I'd had to adjust to many different environments (I moved once in America), it was easier for me to catch up with the other students fairly quickly.

5. Getting Used to Taiwan

Shiuan Kuo

       It wasn't exactly easy for me to adjust to living in Taiwan. I went to the States at age 3 when I could only speak a bit of Chinese and knew little about Taiwan. I went into a full-time daycare center right after arriving in Boston and soon made a lot of American friends and learned to use English as my main language in daily life. I also learned to read English storybooks before entering kindergarten and enjoyed reading a lot. We used Chinese at home so I could speak Chinese fluently. However, even though my mother tried very hard to teach me how to read and write Chinese characters, I found them very difficult and disliked them. Every time she made me write something in Chinese, I found an excuse to get out of it, so she finally gave up. As you can guess, when I came back to Taiwan at age eight, I could read and write no Chinese at all except for my on name, not even the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols.

       In order to enter third grade, I had to catch up on all the Chinese that others had learned in the first and second grade. I had only one month to do this. My grandmother, a former elementary school teacher, helped me prepare. I memorized and wrote Chinese the whole day long, from twilight to midnight, for a whole month. It was a nightmare. I hated Chinese characters so much that my grandmother had to bribe me into doing my lessons.
       
     I also disliked Taiwan at first because I missed America so much. Although I had came back to Taiwan for short visits several times during those years, all my friends and memories were in Boston, including my first pet, first bike ride, and first taste of roller-skating. I got used to life in Taiwan gradually. After improving my Chinese, life went more smoothly. I went to school, made friends, did my homework, and watched TV. But I still missed Boston. I stayed in touch with my old friends, talking about our school and Boston.

       I think the reason I adjusted to my new life so fast was because my parents had bought me a hamster, and I found that Taiwanese Opera was pretty good. I had kept at least one hamster as a pet in the States since I was five years old. Our seventh hamster died when we were driving from Boston to California, on our way back to Taiwan, and I missed him. My parents guessed that a hamster would make me happier, and they were right. I also liked to watch Taiwanese Opera, and soon forgot Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street.

        The worst part of leaving America, not to mention leaving Boston, was leaving behind American stuff, like frosting and English muffins, plus all the holidays and fairs and carnivals and trick-or-treating. I missed those things terribly, and wasn't much consoled by the big red envelope I received on Chinese New Year's Eve. I can never forget all the fun things I used to do, like baking a cake in a big built-in oven, something quite rare in Taiwan. But I got over it eventually.

       All in all, the big move was a big event in my life, but adjusting to my new life wasn't very hard. It just took some time, that's all.

6. My Readjustment to Taiwan Society

Joanne Liang

       When I came back to Taiwan in 1996, my parents didn't want me to miss any school, so I was put in the local elementary school right away. That wasn't much of a problem, since it was the beginning of the school year. But for me, I had a hard time adjusting to my new life here in Taiwan. Maybe it was because I wasn't really used to how the system worked in Taiwan, or maybe it was because I had genuinely grown accustomed to the school-life in the States. Either way, my first semester in school was pretty rocky.

       I was an active student in America, but I found out the hard way that things weren't quite the same way here. When I first started asking and answering questions in class, my classmates shot weird looks at me. Back then I didn't really get the message that they were sending, but now I see that I had broken an unspoken rule between the students of our school. My classmates thought that I was trying to show off and did not have the warmest feelings towards me.

       By the time the first exams of the semester rolled around, I had pretty much gotten the picture that academic grades were extremely important in the system of education here in Taiwan. Some of the girls in our class judged people by their grades only. If you didn't have outstanding grades, you simply weren't good enough to be friends with them. That was unexpected for me. I knew that they thought that tests were crucial and they often used tests for a basis in your overall grades, but I always thought that was only with the teachers. I never imagined that the students in our class would share the same idea.

       At first, I tried hard to fit in with the "in" crowd. I studied hard to get good grades, and I even changed my whole attitude in class just so they could accept me. After the grades from the exams were posted, no one was more surprised than me. I was actually 11th in our class! But even more surprising was the reaction of the girls in my class. They said that I must have cheated on the test because I had just come back from America and couldn't have gotten such a high grade in Chinese (my score was 89). This was ridiculous, since I didn't really know anyone who might pass me any answers. It didn't help the matter that our teacher wanted me to teach English during our free time. They started to spread rumors that I was conceited and a cheater. That really hurt! It was the all time low of my elementary school life. With time, I gradually got over it, made other true friends, and had a blast the rest of 6th grade!

       In junior high, the people in my class, unlike the ones in my fifth and sixth grade class, didn't care that much about grades. Sure, grades were important, but students didn't let tests and grades rule their lives! I got along great with my new classmates, and learned a lot from them. I had finally found a place for myself here in Taiwan.

7. Readjusting

Carole Chen

       I lived in Singapore for six years starting from kindergarten. I went there because my father was appointed to an official post and my mother couldn't bear having the family separated, nor would she have her children growing up away from their father. In the end, my mom took my brother and me to Singapore four years after my father went there. I spent most of my childhood days there, and all my friends are there. Six years passed, my father was appointed to a post in Taiwan, and we had to come back.

       It was really difficult for me to decide to finish my education in Singapore with my brother, or to come back with the rest of my family. Finally, I decided that it would be best if we stayed together. I had completed my primary school education in Singapore. After returning to Taiwan in 1996, I spent three months at Jen-Ai Elementary School before entering Jen-Ai Junior High School. Those three months were a nightmare! Everyone spoke Chinese a mile a minute and I couldn't keep up with them. Instead of trying harder to communicate with them, I kept quiet most of the time unless it was necessary to talk.

       That's definitely not my true self! I'm very sociable and friendly! That wasn't the only problem. All the subjects in Singapore were all taught in English, except for Chinese class. Here, all subjects are taught in Chinese, and I couldn't understand the special terms they use in mathematics and science. That caused me a lot of problems in understanding the questions asked on the test papers.

       Luckily, my teacher was very patient with me and taught me slowly. In the end, I passed my graduation examinations with flying colors. My next three years in junior high school were quite a challenge for me. I stopped being timid and I went back to being my old self. I made new friends and learned a lot from them. Readjusting became easier once I had friends. Adapting to a new living environments or education takes a lot of time if one has to do it alone. But with friends, I managed to adjust to the culture and the style of education in Taiwan.

       The hardest thing was learning to understand Chinese completely. I am really weak in the formal terms used in mathematics, science and ancient Chinese essays. I hope I will overcome this difficulty as time goes by.

8. My readjustment

Jenny Tang

       It is critical to try to "blend in" when you are always on the road. Sometimes, an adjustment to a place could go very fast, other times it could take forever! The truth is, the rate of one's adjustment to a new place actually has a lot to do with one's age!

       Take my personal experience for example.. I've moved back and forth between Taiwan and Central America since Kindergarten. After all these years of adjustments, the time it takes to get used to another place seems to increase year by year.

       My hardest readjustment was surely the last one. Why? When we compare the different cultural systems in the world, the biggest division is that between East and West. There is a large gap between Taiwanese and Americans. And as a student, the key difference to me is their education systems. The American system prefers a student to do research on their own, whereas the Chinese system depends on a great extent of memorization, facts, and practice. Junior high school was like a starting point, to a transformation for "the hard way" of the Chinese system. Since I finished Middle School in Central America, I missed this part of the"training". Trying to continue the next stage in Taiwan was hard to bear. Because I had missed out on many important facts, I had to study all the harder.

       Most Taiwanese people are already well accustomed to the school life here. But for me, it was like jumping from elementary school to high school, and the three years in between were just like a huge blank. The amount of pressure I was under is indescribable!

       Well, one year has passed since my return. It seems that things are slowly falling into place. Luckily I was never turned into an absolute foreigner by my years abroad. I am used to the way of life, dressing and eating in Taiwan. Although I'm still in the readjustment stage, I know it's coming to an end.

9. How I Adjusted To Taiwanese Life

Amy Wang

       When I came back to Taiwan from New Zealand two years ago, in 2000, I had just graduated from the intermediate school which I was in. That school was very important to me; I learned a lot of things there that I know I will never, ever forget, and will not have any other opportunity to learn them again. My time there was full of happy memories; I didn't want to leave at all. Another thing which I left behind was my very good friends from church. It was just like parting with my second family, which was hard for me, too. So I experienced one gloomy period right after I came back.

       After I started school as an 8th-Grader, there was a time when I had problems understanding and following the culture, mostly at school. Although I was trying very hard to make that time short, I still had some unhappy experiences. For example, I couldn't quite get how people would react to the things I said, because their reactions were so different to how my friends back in New Zealand would react. Maybe the way I said it was weird, too, after all, I wasn't used to speak fully in Mandarin then. That was probably the most difficult part of adjusting to Taiwanese life for me.

        I didn't really have many problems with my schoolwork because I was so happy that I could finally learn some advanced stuff from the teachers and textbooks (I met some great teachers). In New Zealand, there're no textbooks until high school. Students learn things mainly by finding information out for themselves or by the ones classmates shared. I really enjoyed every subject in school, since the courses answered most of the problems I had in mind about anything. So with great interest, I brought my grades up pretty quickly. I found my own way of studying, which helped me to catch up on the things I hadn't learned before. The three semesters I missed out in junior high had to be all self-taught. Some things were very difficult to understand and remember just by biting through the pages, without listening to teachers, but at least I picked up most of the main ideas, and that was all I needed for the Basic Test! And now I'm in First Girls High.

       That, more or less, is how I had adjusted. For me, the whole thing right up to now has been just a great big blessing; I couldn't have come this far without some very good help from the wonderfully lovely people around me - plus a few miracles.

10. My adjustment to a new life after staying in the U.S. for one year

Jennifer Peng

       When I was only four years old, we moved to the U.S. and stayed there for one year. Dad had to do research abroad and he chose California. During that year, I attended a preschool called Child Faith. I felt uncomfortable in the strange surroundings at first. But after my English improved and I could communicate with others, I started to love the life there. I made friends with my classmates at school and we also met many good friends through mutual friends. I also experienced festivals such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. I don't think I'll ever forget all the interesting customs associated with these holidays. But happy days never last long. Just as I was having a great time, it was time to go back to Taiwan.

       In fact, readjusting wasn't a difficult task for me. I didn't have pressure from school, and at least Taiwan was once very familiar to me. The only thing I had to do was to regain that feeling. Well, of course, I did have jet lag; I usually woke up at 4 or 5 in the morning and couldn't fall asleep at night. And sometimes I just couldn't get used to the cartoons dubbed in Chinese. These things didn't bother me at all though. I was happy to see my old friends again. After a year staying apart, our friendships had became deeper. Mom sent me to Kindercare, an English studying center that offered a three-hour lesson every day.

       Because of the foundation I got in the U.S., I learned pretty well and never got tired of the class. Our house was being renovated at that time. I was busy arranging my toys brought back from the States. Setting up a brand new playhouse was fun. Many relatives came to visit us. Trying to recognize them boosted my brainpower. With all these chores to do, I readjusted to life in Taiwan naturally. Staying in the States was a great experience for me.

       I have a wonderful memory of that year, and I built a good foundation for learning English.

11. My Adjustment After Coming Back To Taiwan

Lillian Su

       I lived in Holland for three years and came back to Taiwan when I was in the third grade. It was really hard work for me to get used to everything here, which is so different from abroad.

       The most difficult part was school. When I was in Holland, my mother used some textbooks from Taiwan to teach me how to speak and write Chinese. After we came back to Taiwan, a friend of my aunt's, who is a primary school teacher, taught me what I missed in the past three years, including Chinese, math, and science. It was very difficult to learn all these things in just a few weeks, and I had to study very hard to catch up with my classmates.

       School in Taiwan was so different from the American school I went to in Holland. We have to wear uniforms to school here. There are around forty students in one class and each student has an assigned seat. But in Holland, we used to have a big classroom with a small playing corner full of toys, a reading corner with some storybooks, only a few desks, and about sixteen students in each class. Here, instead of having only gym, music, art, drama, and Dutch classes, we had many different kinds of classes everyday. And there are always lots of homework assignments and test in Taiwan, which never happened in Holland. School start at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 4:10 p.m., and I have to get up at 6 o'clock everyday. But school in Holland used to start at 9:00 a.m. and ended at 3:00 p.m., so I always got up at 8:00 a.m. I had lots of difficulties getting used to life here, and always find myself exhausted after a day at school.

       The language was quite a big problem, too. In Holland, I spoke English most of the time. But in Taiwan, I had to speak Chinese whether at school or at home. At that time, English was much easier than Chinese for me. So when I spoke to someone, I had to think in English and then translate it into Chinese. It took me a long time to get used to it.

       I also didn't know how to cross the street when I first came back to Taiwan because there were so many cars and scooters. The weather here is very hot and it made me uncomfortable. The temperature here in winter is just about like summer in Holland! But there is something I really enjoy about Taiwan. It's the food. We used to have to drive half an hour to get to the nearest McDonalds in Holland. But here, there are always lots of different kinds of food to choose from at any time. So I gained quite a bit of weight after coming back to Taiwan.

       I think I like Taiwan better than Holland, because I have so many friends with the same culture here. And I'm really enjoying life here. After all, this is my own country.


12.  My Readjustment to Taiwan

Grace Lin

     My whole family moved to Australia when I was five, and I was only eight when we moved back to Taiwan. It seems lucky for me that my mom taught me the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols and some Chinese words when I was still in Australia, though at that time, I hated studying Chinese. I used to speak English at school, and Chinese at home, so that I still could communicate with others when I first came back from Australia. Although I couldn't speak good Chinese, people still understood what I meant.

     I will never forget the first day of school here in Taiwan. I was only in second grade. It was quite strange for me that we had to stand up and bow to the teacher before and after every class, because we never did this in Australia. And at first, I couldn't understand the words they used to tell people to stand up, so I sat in my seat until the teacher said "stand up" to me in English. That was quite a special experience, I think.

     Of all my subjects, Chinese was the most difficult one for me, although I had learned some before. But my mom helped me with my Chinese, how to write the words, and how we say them. That was really a hard period of time for me. After several months of practicing, my Chinese improved a lot, but on the other hand, my English has been regressing. I used to be able to argue with people in English, but I can't now. I have forgotten nearly everything I learned in Australia. I started studying English again when I was in fifth grade, but my vocabulary was very weak. I hope that I can improve my English and leaarn more words and things about English, and speak more and much better English than before.

13.  My Readjustment Coming Back to Taiwan

Christine Lu

     Many people find it hard to adjust when they go to another country. They might be uncomfortable with the culture or with some special traditions. But to tell the truth, it wasn't very difficult for me when I came back. Although I was very young when our family moved to America, I still remembered the lifestyle in Taiwan and got along easily after coming back. Also my dad had taught me math in the U.S., and I had been to a Chinese school before, so it was easy to catch up with the rest of the class here.

     The most difficult thing about coming back to Taiwan was communicating with people. At that time I could only speak very simple Chinese. So lots of times I would think of something to say in English, but didn't know how to say it in Chinese. I was very lucky though; my classmates accepted me and didn't laugh at me when I said something wrong.

     Another thing that troubled me at that time was homework. We hardly had any homework in the United States at all. (I was in the third grade at the time.) But in Taiwan tons of homework were waiting for me to do!

     Except for the first two things, everything was pretty much OK. But I do miss the open spaces there, the beautiful trees in the fall, the fresh air, and the squirrels! Back in the U.S. there were always lots of squirrels in front of our porch. But the thing I miss most is the snow and ice. It's been a long time since I've seen snow and have gone ice skating. So I would really really really like to go back sometime. In fact, I've promised myself that I will go back someday!

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