Teach Your Kids Taiwanese

Well, here I am now, blogging from Taiwan. It's been a very beneficial experience so far. Although I haven't started the missions/ILT portion of the trip yet, I've learned a lot from just visiting tourist sites and meeting many people! I have talked to people about schooling in Taiwan; rather, about how English is taught in schools, how to speak mandarin and Taiwanese better, the need for Taiwanese to be a stable language, and much more.

There's a lot to be aware of in Taiwan, whether it be a speeding car that doesn't turn on its signal before cutting you off, or the respect that you need to show to elderly people. Something that many people aren't aware of is that children are growingly more and more not learning the nation's language of Taiwanese. I've been talking to some elders of a church that my aunt brought me to. That church is very special, to me at least, because they have only one service. It is completely in Taiwanese. The age groups are from junior high to 65 or more. And they all speak Taiwanese fluently. The elders have told me that sundays are the only opportunity for the youth to speak Taiwanese! At home, their parents might speak to them in Taiwanese, but they usually respond in Mandarin. Education in schools is done in Mandarin also.

Alas, there is hope. My current generation still has many who can already speak Taiwanese. One of the elders who has grandchildren told me in Taiwanese, "I MADE sure that my grandchildren know Taiwanese. You know why, because I want them to know they are Taiwanese. They should change ABC to ABT. You'd do well to correct anyone who says ABC!" So yeah, this is how it is. Some parents of this generation have already forgotten the language, so there's not much hope for their children to learn it either.

Consequently, TEACH YOUR KIDS TAIWANESE! I don't care if you have to fly them back to Taiwan during summers for them to pick up the language, just make sure they know where they holla back.