Hello from Avery

This is my inaugural entry to the Ince Family Blog (or to any blog anywhere). The connection mightn't be immediately apparent to you, but I choose to view it as a foreshadowing of the inauguration of Senator Obama as President-elect on Nov 5, 2008 and his ultimate inauguration as President on Jan 20, 2009. Good stuff, all of it.

Like Senator Obama, I'm a black man born in the 60s. We both have immigrant fathers who first came to the US as university students and who married US women. The senator and I both grew up on tropical islands, Hawaii and Trinidad, respectively, before making our ways to the US mainland for college and for graduate school. We both married women with legal training whose names begin with the letter 'M'. Barack married Michelle and I married Manuradha. Thereafter, our families proceeded (separately) to live active, full lives- the Obamas with their two beautiful girls in Chicago, and the Inces with the amazing Yani and Ayo in Boston/New York. It is common knowledge worldwide that Barack is about to become POTUS (President of the United States of America). About 35 people on the island of Trinidad know I was once POMHSC (President of My High School Class). It's like we're twins born to different mommas (and poppas) and separated at birth. . by time, space, circumstance and several other things. At this point, you can no doubt see why it's so exciting for me to be here, experiencing this inaugural (blogging) event of sorts. I'm keeping my part of the cosmic BWB (Bargain with Barack).. and I'm fulfilling my destiny. All the best and catch you later.

Impressions and thoughts from our initial exploratory visit to Taiwan in 9/08

Avery, the girls and I are really loving our exploratory trip to what will be our new home starting in mid November. Upon arriving in Taipei my first impression: this is going to be a real challenge! We have discovered that a lot of Taiwanese do speak some English, but for many it is limited. The great thing is that despite the language barrier, people are SUPER friendly and willing to try and assist foreigners via universal body language/gestures/ and mime. Everything is in Mandarin and all the signage (except for major signs for hospitals, roads, the fire dept, western establishments., etc.) is in the Chinese characters. It is very disconcerting to be in a parking garage for instance and to realize that you cannot read any of the posted signs, i.e. "is that the exit or the entrance, does that sign point to the elevator or to the stairwell?" Even the numbers for the floors are encrypted in, what for me right now are indecipherable and indistinguishable, characters! I can imagine myself going to the mall never to find my way back to my car and not even being able to distinguish the way to the phone versus the bathroom! All that being said, I am excited. I love the adventure of it all, and once I got over my initial anxiety/ "what the heck are we doing this for" bad attitude I began to appreciate what an enriching experience this will truly be for our entire family, excluding the earthquakes and typhoons.....

So, we were having a really great, regular old Tuesday over here in Taiwan, except for the minor earthquake, no joke. Avery and I leapt out of our chairs and braced for action after our hotel in Taipei began to shake noticeably in the late afternoon. After the tremor was over (lasted about 10 seconds), I made a quick call the front desk to see what the procedure was. They couldn't have been less impressed. "Yeah.. It's an earthquake" is what the gal said. "We'll call you if there's anything you need to do". Avery checked out cnn.com and bbcnews.com (places at which he had gotten instantaneous reports of the May earthquake in China when he was in Beijing) but nothing materialized over the course of about 30 mins. Apparently it's not on anyone's radar screen- we found out later that evening from our babysitter that their was a "small" earthquake about outside of Taipei (about 4 hours away by car), but no one was hurt- "happens all the time."

On a lighter note, we found a terrific bilingual school for the girls! The school is called Cat's Kindergarten (www.catsschool.com.tw) -named after the owner/principal Catherine Wu who explained that often in Taiwan preschools and K are named after their owners; she was trying to avoid this but found that all of the parents would call the place Cat's place as they could not pronounce Catherine. Catherine herself has a very extensive and interesting teaching background, as does her husband. Being the daughter of a Taiwanese diplomat, she found her formative years spent in several countries throughout Asia, Europe and the US. She did her masters work in education in Boston and returned to Taiwan to fulfill her dream of establishing a top notch early childhood focused bilingual school. Ave and I both feel that the school she and her husband have built is a very special place.

The school day is divided into English instruction mornings, followed by lunch and a rest time, and then Mandarin only afternoons. Each student will thus have an English teacher and a Mandarin teacher who work very closely with each other in order to be thematically in sync in terms of the subjects taught in the morning and afternoons. So if the kids are learning about plants in the "English" morning classes, this topic will extend into the "Chinese" afternoon classes. The school has a beautiful facility with a dedicated bilingual library room (parents can check out books to bring home), a music room, an art room, and a computer lab with about 20 computer terminals. There are specific music and dance teachers who come in once per week each. The English curriculum is at least one to two years ahead of what the girls would be learning in the States, i.e. what they will be doing here in Kindergarten is what would be done by a 1st or 2nd grader back in the U.S.. All of the teachers are certified/ extensively experienced to teach preschool and kindergarten; the English teachers are from the U.S., Canada, and England, the Chinese teachers are from Taiwan and were all trained in the U.S.. The kids from the school come from all over the world, with the majority being Taiwanese. The school has a major focus on teaching through the themes centered on the "stories and cultures of the world." So as an example, when the kids learn about transportation, they will learn about different methods of transportation around the world, and read books both in English and Chinese from all over the world.

For us, the aim of this bilingual pre-k and K is to have Yani and Ayo ready to go into a FULL Chinese elementary school starting in Grade 1. For Yani that will be in Sept of 09 (assuming we get to Taiwan in Nov, she starts school in Dec, that will be about 8-9 months of the bilingual Mandarin instruction completed) and for Ayo in Sept of 2010 (20 months post being in Taiwan). Basically they need to have enough facility with Mandarin by the time the enter the 100% Chinese elementary school and this seems like the most gentle way to accomplish the transition. Of course, we may opt for bilingual elementary school when the time comes, rather than a full on Chinese school, but these are apparently hard to find in Taiwan. Most expats opt for one of the international schools starting in first grade instead of the Chinese elementary schools, but there is less of an emphasis on Mandarin proficiency in those settings and most kids, even if fluent when they entered, will loose their ability to read and write Chinese, only being able to speak. We would like the girls to leave Taiwan fluent in speaking, reading and writing Mandarin, or at least on their way to such.

On the apartment end of things, we found a great spot in Tien Mou ( a suburb nestled at the base of the mountains that rim the northern edge of Taipei). Tien Mou has a high concentration of expats- the housing tends to be a little newer and the green space more extensive than in other parts of Taipei. Also, the international schools and bilingual schools are concentrated in this area. Our apartment is very close to the train line that goes straight into downtown Taipei, hopefully making for an easy commute for Avery and for ALL OF OUR FRIENDS WHO WANT TO COME AND VISIT, HINT, HINT!

Welcome to our blog!

Hello Friends and Family

As our family will soon be heading off on an overseas adventure, we thought a blog would be fun way to keep in touch with everyone.

We just confirmed our ONE WAY tickets to Taipei, Taiwan (via Anchorage, Alaska) for November 16th 2008! Ninety-nine percent of our household goods were loaded up into a shipping container about three weeks ago and and set out to sea, hopefully to be reunited with us shortly after our arrival in Taipei. We are currently living in temporary corporate housing in lower Manhattan which has proven to be very convenient and comfortable. As a family we have been trying to "cram" in all the uniquely NYC type fun excursions that the girls will miss once in Taiwan; so far that has included the Central Park Zoo, strolling around Time Square, and eating way too many times at the California Pizza Kitchen on the corner of Park Avenue and 30th Street!