Tuesday 17 November 2015

Hockey with a Taiwanese Twist

Honestly, I have lost track of time, which is why this blog post is coming so long after my previous post.  That explains why my memory may be patchy.

You may remember that I had spent an exhausting but fun long weekend in Taipei.  After I had caught up on sleep, I was straight into revising for my Mid-term exam, whenever I had a moment.  I didn’t have that many moments, so I came away feeling that I could have done more, but I was reasonably happy after it.

The final two days of that week were spent finishing off another audio book.  They are actually quite a challenge so it took me the full two days and some high blood pressure to complete it.  If you would like to learn about dental hygiene, just let me know.

For some reason, the only thing I remember about that weekend was going out on Saturday night with Winnie for dinner and a visit to the Tainan Culture Centre (台南文化中心) to watch a performance by the Vienna Boys Choir.  Now, I must remind you that this was not a date!  Vienna reminds me of hockey (watching my sister play for Scotland in the U21 Europeans in 2014), which brings me to my next noteworthy memory during the week. 

It occurred on Wednesday 4th November.  On that day, I was invited to Mr Hong's class.  Mr Hong is a PE teacher and he asked me to teach his class how to play hockey.  Yes, hockey, the one true love of my life, which has been missing in Taiwan.  I could hardly contain my excitement, but I was to learn why I had not seen or heard of hockey in Taiwan so far.  There were no hockey balls, no hockey sticks, no hockey goal and no hockey pitch!  So, we had to be creative.   We played 5-a-side in the games hall with barriers so there were no "outs" with small goals about the size of ice hockey goals.  We replaced the ball with a lacrosse ball and the sticks with a roller hockey stick.  



Despite these minor setbacks, introducing the class to hockey has been by far my favourite activity so far.   I can really see what a difference I can make here.  I hope that over the next few weeks and months I can develop the hockey and get more kids involved.  Most of the kids seemed to enjoy it.  

In reality, the opportunities to make a difference to the school day are everywhere.  You don’t have to be a hockey freak like me.  There are pupils crying out for all sorts of different activities.  It makes me think about who might be next to take up the challenge provided by this scholarship.  I have only been here for a couple of months and I'm already starting to affect the lives of the Jhongsiao pupils...in a good way!  If you’re out there reading this and thinking about it, keep thinking.  It’s an awesome experience. 

And you don’t have to miss out on the things that are the talk of the town back home.  After my hockey intro, I had one thing on my mind - "Spectre".  And yes, YuYing had come up strong again and asked if I wanted to see "Spectre" in IMAX on Saturday.  I wouldn’t rate it the best Bond film I've seen, but it was definitely worth going to see.  Keep in mind that you would do well to ignore my opinion as I am probably the world’s worst film critic.   Homework and a gym session brought me to the end of another weekend, which is where I shall leave it for this entry.  I won’t leave it so long until the next update…



2 comments:

  1. I think the reason could be no ice in Taiwan. Most of Taiwanese think playing Hockey should be on the ice.

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  2. 不過我們可以在遊樂場投幣玩桌上曲棍球!XD

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