Letter 12

Merry Xmas!
It didn't feel so Christmas-y in Taiwan because the lowest temperature on Christmas Eve was 18°C.
But, me and William still went out on Sunday and here is a picture of me sitting on his shoulder, in front of the most iconic building of Taiwan, the Taipei 101.

 

We were assigned to post a picture of a Christmas Tree, here's a cute little one I found at Xinyi District.

Letter 11

I couldn't stop drooling when I saw those photos on your news letter!
Speaking of Mexican food, I've always wanted to go to Taco Bell and many other mexican food places if I ever visited the U.S. Many Americans seems to be obsessed with burritos and tacos, sadly I can only enjoy the pictures...
Last week, we were told to write 5 postcards to different people who have lost their basic human rights, there are so many stories of people trying to protect their environment, their family, friends and even neighbours. Some stories brought me to tears, and I hope the letters I wrote can help them as much as possible.
Responding to the question you've commented on my post, My aunt has not mentioned anything about the wild fire, so I'm guessing it's probably, hopefully not near where she lives. However, I have seen videos of the incident, I was quite shocked, also, I hope the wealthier group of people in the U.S. can be more focused on this problem and help to slow it down.

Write 4 Rights

Cambodia, Tep Vanny

Bangladesh, Xulhaz Mannan

China, YuLan-Ni

Madagascar, Clovis Razafimalala

Jamaica, Shakelia

Letter 10

hiya!

Answering to your comment from my previous letter, my aunt, uncle and cousin currently live in San Jose, they live in a dreamy environment with several differnt types of animals like racoons, cats , deers and when there was a drought they were told that there were wolves in their neighborhood{looking for water}.
Yesterday was the Victoria Secret Show and the fashion community has been talking about it for the past week. It took place in Shanhai, China and top models from around the world are coming to be on the runway, showing their beautiful yet unrealistic bodies.
One of the most famous model was Gigi Hadid, she wasnt allowed to come to China because a while ago she posted a video mocking "chinese eyes". To me, she probably didnt even know it was such a bad gesture, since it happens in white schools quite often. But what dissapointed me was, her father was a imigrant, she herself like the rest of her family are all muslims, so i thought maybe she would be more understanding towards respecting others' cultures, both looks and religion. Oh well, perhaps she is still learning.

Letter 9

What's up!

After reading your letter, it reminded me of my little cousin, Lawrence, who immigrated to the United States 3 years ago, and every year my aunt would diy costumes for my cousin. He had been adapting well to the new environment and participated in Trick-or-Treat in his neighborhood. To me, it sounds so dreamy, I wish I grew up in such a coulture, where you don't live in apartments and all neighbors treat each other as families.

They're planning to come back to Taiwan for Chinese New Year, and my mom told me that I can ask them to buy some things from the US, the problem is, I'm too excited to think of any.  Perhaps I would ask my aunt to help me bring some clothes from specific brands which doesn't exist in Taiwan.  (Victoria's Secret? Haha just kidding)

What I'm looking more forward to is the day when I can finally go to the US myself..

Letter 8

G'day

Happy Halloween!

 (left to right: Patrick, Jack, William, Aubrey, Jay)

This is even better than the halloween from last year! Everyone had insane costumes and it was just amazing, I'm glad that we took a bunch of pictures, I'm sure I might just cry so hard when it's our graduation. 

Dead pool, Diego, Shark, Zombie and No-Face from Spirited Away! Don't we look so cute together?

You were right, it took us some time for the new and old students to get to know each other better, and once we do, things go out of control! We had so much fun playing in our little characters in school, not many classes did it together, so we did get some awkward glances from others... BUT THATS OKAY BECAUSE WE LOVE IT!!!

At first I was scared that everyone would be too shy to dress up, perhaps they would just come with a cute devil horn or some fairy wings. But NOPE, they went all the way and all the costumes were remarkable. 

Can't wait till next year, Things will be even more crazier.

Letter 7

Hey there

I can't believe it's finally happening again! Halloween is coming! It had seemed to be a trend in the U.S. to visit a pumpkin farm during this season, but I have never heard of a pumpkin farm in Taiwan, sadly.

I have been thinking about what i should be wearing for halloween, to me, the most exciting thing about Halloween is that you get to go crazy with any makeup you have! i love makeup so tricking much!! I've been watching millions of makeup tutorials on YouTube for quite a long time, there is so much to learn about makeup and I believe I will never ever have enough makeup in my collection.

Our class are very excited to be able to dress up for halloween in school, we might scare some people in the school and it would be hilarious to see those looks on their face.

In letter 8 I will be revealing the 2 costumes I chose for this spooky holiday!

Letter 6

Hello!

There is one good news and one bad news.
Good news: 4 days break because of our national holiday
Bad news: students must stay home during the holidays because we have our mid-term exam as soon as the holiday ends.
I had been sitting on my chair for four days straight (except when I need to use the restroom or have a meal), in front of me was just piles of textbooks and caffeine. It was horrifying when I realised the power of caffeine. I started studying a week before the holiday, and thats where I began my journey of consuming a deadly amount of nespresso and energy drinks. Everyday for that week, I would start my morning by a nice cup of iced coffee, then in the afternoon when i get home from school, I would take out my secret stash of red bull and drink it at around  11pm when i feel like i might fall asleep any time soon. The closer the date of the exam, the more caffeine i consumed. I remember on the last day, I combined two brands of energy drinks : red bull and monster. That entire day my heart was pumping, literally pumping so hard i thought it was going to fall out of my chest.
At least I finally passed my math exam for the first time! yay!

Letter 5

Hey

If I had posted this letter on time, it should be the famous mid-autumn festival today!! yay! amazing! marvellous! fabulous! awesome!
I didn't go barbecuing like the most Taiwanese teens, I went to my grandparents place and hung out for a bit.
I don't really understand why people insist on having barbecue during mid- autumn festivals, though. But the thing I can assure you is that if a high school student told their parents that he/she is going out with some friends to have some fun barbecuing on the rooftop, there's a 90% that they will come home extremely late and drunk. (Legal drinking age in Taiwan is 18, but most of us are 16 and 17)
Also, I do not enjoy the moon cakes, When you bite it, next thing you know you are bathing in the crumbs of the cake, plus it is way too sweet for my taste.
Have you had any moon cakes before? There are so many Taiwanese food waiting for you to try out!

Letter 4

Welp, Back again!

Hello, I apologise for delaying so many letters...
I'll be updating weekly from now on, well, before achieving that, I will have a huge pile of letters sworn in in your timeline, 5, to be exact.
If I don't finish these letters by today, our teacher, Summer is most likely to strangle me to death tomorrow.
Whoo, I can taste the sarcasm of your comments from all the way here! Sorry again, I'll be more active.
Update on life: I have been chosen by the school to attend the regional English Speech Contest, I'm nervous as hell and I'm scared that I will be stuttering in front of the judges... The competition is on December 10th, so I still have a little bit of time to practice... Gahhh!!
As a teacher, do you have any tips on public speaking? No matter how prepared I am, I will never be able to stop shaking!! Even my lips tremble when I speak in front of a bunch of poker-faces watching me..

Letter 3

Hey :)

Yes I'm back and I'm so happy to be able to write to you again...
Since you asked about the new students
Lemme tell you the things I know
I'm not so close with the new girls (Sabrina and Amy)
They're pretty shy... but I'm sure they're nice girls
Then we have Patrick, the more outgoing guy of the new students, he's a really cool guy, very humorous guy.
Next we have Jack, he's pretty cool too.
Now let me introduce you to the cutest guy in our class, Jay!
His seat is assigned to be between me and William, he's super nice and down to earth.
And the last guy is Otto, we were in the same club last year (Youth Rotary Club: it's a club where we do charities and stuff) he's really smart.

Our original classmates and the new ones are getting along pretty well, stay tuned!

Letter 2

Greetings, Tim!

I just received one of the most exciting text messages EVER!
Finn, my childhood friend from Germany just arrived in Quanzhou, China as an exchange student. And he told me that he's visiting Taiwan soon!!
My heart pounded so fast when he told me the news, because it has been my dream to reunite with my european friends... I've always wanted to fly back to Germany, but there are barely any holidays in Taiwan (we fricking love education and work), plus the plane tickets are mad expensive...
So I never had the chance to go bad and visit them.
Hearing the news from Finn just made me feel like I can fulfil one of my goals!
can't wait.

Letter 1

Hello Tim:

Long time no talk!
I just turned 17 a while ago and I'm feeling super duper great!
Sorry I had a full schedule last week and I couldn't find a time to go on my laptop to write weekly letters to you...
But here I am, well and alive ( and a little rebellious ;) )
I'm happy to have the opportunity to stay in contact with you for my 2nd year in the EHP class, looking forward to your amazing letters!
See you in the next letter!

Letter 30

G'day Tim,

About the newly coming EHP students, I volunteered to help during the exam of EHP entry. Which means I will also take the exam and interview with the people who signed up for it. I'm sooooo excited! One of the reason was because I get to see the possible new students before everyone else!
Can't wait till that day :)
And I asked Melvyn about the ragbrai thing. My jaws dropped. My little, unsporty body is not capable of that sort of activity LOL, but maybe a chance to visit the place by car or bus may be less scary for me haha.
My aunt immigrated to San Josè in the recent years, and I'm so jealous to see my cousin enjoying the beautiful life in the American neighborhood. Hopefully I can visit them soon!
Btw, my favorite thing about the U.S. is that they sell Arizona Green Tea in giant bottles, they don't sell this drink in Taiwan :(

Letter 29

Greeeeeeeetings Tim:

From what I have heard from different teachers, there are 12 of us planning to stay. 10 girls and 2 guys (Hugo and William), let's just hope that there are some other guys who are able to be accepted into this class, or else the next 2 years is going to be super boringggg. It would feel nothing different to going to a girl's school. We need more annoying, noisy, immature male students in our class!!
I can't believe that Summer Vacation is only 2 weeks away, everything went by so fast! I'm going to miss the good times of 2017. Now I hope I can come up with a productive plan for the holiday!

Letter 28

Hello Tim!

Back to your comment on the previous post, yes a tour of taiwan sounds amazing! I can't remember who I talked with about this topic, I only know that Candy was one of them haha. And yes, that's be in the blue dress. :)

Speaking of ChangHua, there is a joke taiwanese students played on me for my whole life.

So here's how it goes:

My Chinese name is Zhang-Hua, which is incredibly similar to that city name.

And my family name is Chu, which sounds similar to zhù, which means 'live' in chinese.

So overtime i'm introduced to a new friend, they would be like, "so like you live in ChangHua, right? haha! nudge nudge wink wink"

Then I will just act like it's the most original joke I've ever heard, stops laughing and tell them with a straight face, "there are like 150 people who has said this joke to me before."

letter 27

after reading the letter, it reminded me of the wonderful time last year, when we had our school fair. the people didnt know each other so well, we were so polite and friendly to each other. now we just poke each other and play flight every once in a while. im so sad that the classes will b rearranged in a month, class 120 will be ising some people, however, there will be new people coming in! looking forward for our newclassmates

letter 26

replying to your comment on the previous letter, yes! in fact, i wold love to go to all the must-visit places of taiwan before i go to college. some of my classmates even asked me if i wanted to go on a trip with them, im so excited because that would mean ill be achieving my goals in summer!

Letter 25

Hello Tim!

Previously, you asked if we have any more plans as class 120, and sure we do have a big thing coming up! We are participating in the 11th grade EHP performance! I volunteered as a host, I hope I can be helpful to them, and i also hope i don't get stage fright :/
It is hard to believe that summer vacation is only 48 days away!! I was planing on going to southern Taiwan and go to some beaches, my mom destroyed all my beautiful fantasies by reminding me how I wasn't even willing to get out of the house last summer... Taiwan is too hot!!! help!!!!

Letter 24

We Won!

After 1 month of hardcore practice, our work has finally paid off!
We were so proud to earn ALL of the prizes of the competition, we were screaming at the top of our lungs when we heard our names.
First, all of us were confused, because why would the English Honour class sing a japanese song? but then slowly, we got used to it, and i learned to put feelings and emotions into the song, because our teachers told me about the importance of a conductor, they may not feel like they are not paying as much attention, but in fact, every move i make can influence the way they change their breaths and volume, and it was true!
It felt great to earn the prize and compliments after spending so much time on this piece, i am proud to be in 120 and know that i have some dedications to it.

Letter 23

Hello, Tim

Yes, i totally agree with that statement(from your previous comment)!
My mom is from Taichung (which is a bit north-ish central), and her entire family is so darn good at taiwanese, and when i was younger, I would try and speak with them in taiwanese, but I realised that i couldn't make a proper sentence at all, so I kind of gave up haha. I can understand them when they are having a conversation, and lately during class we would say some little phrases in Taiwanese, i think this is a good opportunity for me to learn this fascinating language.

Letter 22

What's up, Tim!

It's so cool to see foreign students getting to stay at your place, this reminded me of the time back in Germany, when i sleep over at my friends' house, their parents always have millions of questions about my nationality, history and culture. They tend to ask questions like, so which one would be a typical taiwanese child's mother language? Chinese? or Taiwanese?
They're always so interested in these type of asian culture, and I'm always proud to answer them.
Do you ask these students about their home country?

Letter 21

Letter 21

Dear Tim,

It's so caring of you to ask about Ericson and the ball game! Let me tell you, he had been squeezing his brains out trying to figure out who to recruit for the competition, it is very challenging for him to find such big numbers of team members when we only have 21 people in class 120 and all other classes in CCSH have up to 40 people. Not to mention, we are the English advanced class, many of us would prefer sitting down reading, writing or discussing, sometimes walking around or standing for presentations than running around in the basketball court risking our lives.

Letter 20

Hello Tim!

Although I don't really keep up with baseball as much as I keep up with the Kardashians, I sure did hear about the loss of our team. I didn't really have much to say about it, but I still find it disappointing since baseball is Taiwan's favorite sports.
And thanks for the diet tips from last time! Made me feel much better about my body image. I have to admit that as a teenage girl sometimes we set unrealistic goals for ourselves and just end up unhappy with our appearances. Now I'm trying to ditch sweet drinks and consume more water.

Best Wishes, Aubrey Chu

Letter 19

Aloha Tim!

I literally laughed out loud when I saw you mentioning Snapchat! I didn't expect grownups to know about this media, but it makes sense since you are constantly surrounded by younger generations. Plus, I'm sure there's still a playful teen boy living in your heart, hahaha!

I regretted clicking into Alice's Blog..... It was painful to look at it, because I'm currently on a healthy diet right now (summer's around the corner! I need that beach body!!). And scrolling through Alice's food blog just makes me want to say "screw my diet" and try out every single recipe she posted. I admire her for being able to take care of her website so beautifully and keeping her feed organized, and the photography skills is definitely unbeatable. Respect!

The Portfolio of My Literature Circles (Aubrey)

Book: Loser 

Author: Jerry Spinelli

LC 1: Passage Picker  Word Watcher

LC 2: Connector  Summarizer

LC 3: Word Watcher  Discussion Director

LC 4: Summarizer

LC 5: Discussion Director  Word Watcher

Reading Reflection 

Letter 18

Hiya!

I'm sorry about your lost jacket, hope you find a replacement that's better than the first one (I just realized that it sounded like I was talking to a broken hearted teen boy haha).

There's this girl in my class (I'm not gonna mention the name because she would probably kill me for that), who is known for her goofiness and goldfish-memory. She told me that she has lost her phone multiple times and always have the fortune to get it back. One time it happened on a bus, her mother called the people who run the bus company, told them the exact time she got off the bus, and they found her phone and returned it shortly. But that's also because taiwan is such a tiny country, you can find anything or anyone easily (including criminals that are trying to run away, it really doesn't take long to find them).

I can smell your passion for baseball all the way from here! Pardon me but I cannot start any conversation about baseball because I don't know much about this sport, I have never watched an entire game before, ever!

Best wishes  Aubrey Chu~

Letter 17: My Holiday Booklet

My Holiday Booklet

We were asked to make a little journal about our winter vacation, 

this is how mine looks like.

Letter 16: Hello again, Tim!

It seemed like 3 years since we've received each other's letters. How's it going? I hope you and your family are doing well.

The winter holiday went by really quick, it only took a blink of an eye for us classmates to reunite again.

I didn't get to celebrate a proper Lunar New Year from 2011 to 2015 since I was abroad, we would still travel from Berlin to Hamburg by train to attend a big dinner party for the Chinese-speaking people. The people from the embassy, including the ambassador of Taiwan would attend that dinner. But it didn't feel like the New Year I remembered in my childhood. Now that I can celebrate the holiday properly in the country, I visit both sides of my grandparents. The tradition has a rule that the family must visit the grandparents of the father's side first, due to the gender inequality of the Chinese culture.

We gather everyone in the house and have lunch and dinner together. People would start to give out red envelopes and the children would say some blessings to the elderlies like wishing for them to be healthy and wealthy.

This holiday is one of a kind, you must at least experience it once in your life.

                                                               Warm Wishes, Aubrey Chu 

Letter 1~14

Letter 1: Say hello

Letter 2: Terrorism

Letter 3: Typhoon break

Letter 4: Politics

Letter 5: Trump's debate

Letter 6: Visitors

Letter 7: Halloween

Letter 8: Trump's victory

Letter 9: School fair

Letter 12: Human rights

Letter 13: Christmas

Letter 14: New Year