In the morning, Eleanor and I went to the old market near LAN’s house and then set down for breakfast in a family-mart where she should could get a coffee. We set there for a while for talking and then said good-bye.
I again set down in café Louisa, mainly for preparing what I wanted to say during the presentation at school and then went on to the next café, Carrie’s Dessert Hyvä to get one of a creative and delicious compositions.
Later, a friend of her came and took another cake, that Carrie only recently had created because of the death of her husband Leo’s grandpa. The friend is chef in another café/restaurant, and I planned to go there the next day.
Amy, Lien and I went to the Xinguang Junior High School
and first got a guided tour by Monica.
a teacher took those photos of birds in the school!
At 4, the students and some teachers came, and I started talking about my trip and soon started to feel a bit uncomfortable, because I could see that something is going wrong, I could not get a contact to the pupil’s, I even couldn’t catch their attention. One explanation for that was that their English was not good enough for following easily. When I started talking about the topics I really wanted to share, Ecosia and “2000m2” it was not getting better, because they had no connection to these topics. But it was too late to find a way out of this situation, because it was near to 5 o’clock, so it was not possible to start a question round or some other way to meet their interest.
After this, they gave me a bag with cards and stickers and some cakes, and it was time to take photos. Now there was more life in the room and some students even started asking questions (how old and how tall are you, why do have one earring). Some wanted signatures on the information paper that Monica had prepared and extra photos. This was a strange situation for me, because I didn’t expect that after having bored and confused them, they would want to take pictures with me.
never understood why to pose in general and like this in particular – it is a flower…
On the way home, Amy explained that pupils are very much focussed on there studies and do not bother too much about those bigger topics.
Before that, I had wondered why there are still so many bicycles in the school yard
of course, the spaces are not only marked but also numbered 
and Han, who had launched the project “Couchsurfers in Class” and who had accompanied Amy, Lien and me, had told me that many pupils stay at school for getting extra support, then pupils go to extra private classes in the evening and even later, at home study and do their home-exercises. You could fear for good old Europe with our relaxed system and lazy pupils for the future, but there is something to add: the students are not really interested in what they learn, just in getting good grades and many of their studies seem to be of low relevance for later, not to talk about meaningful in the “outside” world, something my pupils often complain about (“Where will we need to know this?”).
This experience leaves me thoughtful.
There is a country that I like that much for its nice people and careful organisation of many things but in the end it seems a bit superficial and irrelevant what they care about. For example, I felt a bit unsure where to put my bike when I want to lock it to go in a shop. You find parking for motorcycles, neatly drawn on the street, but is this also for a bicycle? I didn’t find any other one there, so I guessed maybe not, but where to lock it in the best Taiwanese manner? Before I would do it wrong, I asked in my café-office and the solution was surprising, I should put it in the café ?
Another thought:
I know Amy and her sister Carrie a bit, and they care more about other stuff. (In Carrie’s café you find a photo about plastic, killing wales and turtles, she uses washable metal drinking “straws” and you find meaningful writings on the walls).
Where, when and how did they and others learn about topics that are more relevant for the progress of our societies and survival on this planet than filling your head with figures and facts for a multiple choice test?
At least at my school, pupils come from primary school with a high level of awareness and knowledge and many teachers try to integrate important issues in their program or offer extra activities.
But, depressing enough, this still doesn’t mean that Austria is ahead on the way to a sustainable lifestyle that would protect our planet for later generations.