Another Week

Busy, busy, busy, there has been a lot happening around the school this week.  Mother’s Day is just around the corner we have been organizing another student showcase (similar to the Halloween Extravaganza that happened last October).  The halls are filled with singing, and the classes are filled with countless pink hearts being hurriedly filled with lines of poetry, just the way all holidays should be.  From time-to-time these additions to class are fun, but when planning a lesson they are nothing but a nuisance.  With classroom minutes already limited, it is hard to make time for the necessities, and adding time-sensitive projects makes it almost impossible to complete everything on time.  Still, it is nice to think that every kid will be able to present his mother with a card this year, reminding her of how important she is (and of what the tuition dollars are going towards).

This weekend I played “zoo animal” again, as my foreign status was put on display at a nearby elementary school.  The school was celebrating its 115^th anniversary with a marketplace and track and field day, and hundreds of parents and students flooded the school grounds to be part of the event.  I spent hours listening to students dare their friends to say “hello” to me, and watched them run away laughing as soon as they had completed their task, but rather than being annoyed by the gawking, it genuinely amused me for hours.  In fact, it inspired me to be even sillier with the kids I did know, begging them for hugs, making them pose in my pictures, and chasing them around when they wouldn’t answer my questions.  Once I was off the clock I stayed around the school for another hour letting my students talk me into buying the trinkets and food they were selling, while I wished them luck in their upcoming races.

Just a handful of the students who said "hi" to me at Saturday's promotional event.

The remainder of my weekend was nothing spectacular, but it was exactly what I had been craving.  Some movies, some drinks, entertaining conversations with some good friends, I couldn’t have asked for more from it. 

Now for a brief look into what’s happening outside of my ‘personal bubble’.  The political protests of Taipei have consumed the majority of recent news in Taiwan, and this week is no exception.  As the student protests have wound down following the 24-day occupation of the legislative building, a new protest has taken over the streets of the country’s capital.  The target of this protest has been a highly debated topic in many countries recently, with a strong divide in public opinion regarding its necessity.  Protesters gathered in the rain, sporting signs that read “No Nukes, No Fear”, as they attempted to talk the government out of completing the construction of Taiwan’s fourth nuclear plant, a project which began in 1999 and has been halted several times since then.  Around $300 billion NT (about $10 billion US) has already been invested in the project’s construction, yet president Ma has agreed to close off the completed reactor and stop construction of the nearly completed second reactor (a decision which could bankrupt Taipower Company).  The latest wave of public opposition to the nuclear power plant is inspired by the 2011 disaster in Fukushima Japan in which a large scale earthquake and subsequent tsunami resulted in a radiation leak and mass evacuations.  Concerned about a similar fate for Taiwan, due to the island’s location in the “Ring of Fire” (an arch bordering the Pacific Ocean which experiences many earthquakes and is home to many volcanoes), protesters’ goals were to stop the current construction of the 4^th plant, and to close the island’s existing plants.

Protesters have good reason to be concerned about increasing the number of nuclear reactors in Taiwan.  With the construction sites being relatively close densely populated cities, evacuation in the case of an emergency, would be difficult to accomplish.   On the other hand, the operating 3 plants in Taiwan provide about 20% of the island’s energy, meaning that Taiwan is not yet prepared to be a “No Nukes” country.   Are the other energy sources substantial enough to cover that percentage? Only time will tell.