A Week in the Mountains: Language, Culture, and Exchange at the Padan School

At the end of our midterm Mandarin exams, the NSLI-Y Kaohsiung cohort took a week-long break, heading to the mountains to do an exchange with a local indigenous elementary school. This school, called the Padan School, is an experimental school, largely since it incorporates aspects of Bunun culture, one of the 16 recognized indigenous groups in Taiwan,  into each class. While the curriculum emphasized Bunan culture, the students came from incredibly diverse backgrounds, including Bunan, Amis, Pawian, Taiwanese, and American students. 

Arriving on the first day to their local town, we were each assigned two students to be our "language buddies” for the experience! I was paired up with two 12 year olds, both keen on learning about my life back home, and we were quickly escorted onto a bus into the mountains! There, we worked together to pull rattan vines off of the trees, which were purposefully grown to weave baskets together. The next hour and a half were consumed with playing tug-a-war against the colossal trees these vines had wrapped their way around. 

Soon afterwards, we hopped back on the bus, returning to the school where we collectively worked to split each vine into 4 sections–perfect sizes for basket making. Throughout the entirety of the trip, my two language partners didn’t speak English with me, and it was incredible to see the progression of my Chinese in each conversation. From just five months ago having zero experience, I now aptly listened as my students excitedly pointed out the old Bunun school, explaining its history, and talked about their favorite singers, classes, and activities to do in town. 

The next day, we started the day by heading outside to one of their outdoor classrooms where the NSLI-Y students learned a traditional song in the Bunun language. Soon afterwards, they put our own singing skills up to the task! We each stood in a different section of an outdoor field, singing a two person call and response song, typically between husband and wife. The song is sung as the husband came back from a long day of hunting, letting the wife know that he is near and that dinner should be prepared soon. Some of the students, as young as 8, had such powerful voices you could hear them across the school! 

After singing, we split up into groups to practice archery, wood chopping, and slingshot. Then, it was straight into metal working (carving art onto pendants), crafting bead bracelets for each other, and making clay snake bowls in pottery class. The significance of the snake is that, in Bunun culture, the snake is revered not as a terrifying predator, but as a sacred ancestral figure and friend. Another lesson this trip, and especially that day, taught me is to not worry about missing a few words of a conversation. I’ve learned, through experiences like these, that listening attentively to our language partners, even if we missed a word or two, was by far the most important factor. I tried not to ridicule myself or stay too long when I didn’t understand a word of phrase, as the conservation could still run smoothly afterwards. Plus, every student was amazing at providing secondary sentences to explain a word I didn’t understand. Getting to that point, where you can explain one word with others, feels so rewarding in the language process.

On the third and final day, the topic switched from Bunun culture to American culture. We spent the morning talking about our lives in America, teaching them anything from American handshakes to dances and games. Furthermore, as the final part of the trip, our language skills were put to the test. A Maori Indigenous studies professor from New Zealand visited the school in the afternoon to present to us all. Unbeknownst to him, the Padan school students didn’t speak English, so our teachers had us NSLI-Y students give real-time translations of what was happening–covering complex topics about language migration. Together, we learned about how connected the indigenous languages in Taiwan are to Austronesian and Polynesian languages. In fact, many indigenous communities across these Pacific island regions consider Taiwan an ancestral homeland. Despite the stress of translation, it was incredibly interesting learning about Hakka culture, Maori language, and the core values of the Maori people and connectedness to other indigenous groups. 

As we left that afternoon for the final bus ride back to Kaohsiung, everyone was hit with a wave of sadness. The students read out loud their final notes of appreciation to us, and it was warming seeing how big an impact and how deep our connections with the students had grown. Like many other NSLI-Y Kaohsiung students have done in the past, I hope to return to the school on later trips to Taiwan; I’m excited to see the future of the school and take the experience back with me to Kaohsiung. 

Best,

Zara