對於這趟旅程,訪問的、上學的,各自發表心得。大小兒子應我要求盡量以英文撰寫,我僅略微編輯。沒有人要求我,所以我寫中文。共分四個面向:School, Life, Travel, Reflections。
1. School
大兒子:
The school is very different from what we have in Taiwan. There is not really a “schedule”; our home-room teachers are in charge of it. And I love how their teacher can design their class and they can design their own assignment; but the lunch in school is worse than our school in Taiwan, that makes me a bit sad. I enjoyed our projects and works that we’ve done during my fifth grade.
After summer 2022, I went to middle school that’s for 6-8th graders, a new school, new schedule and new teachers. Also, we need to run between classes in 2 minutes, and classes start giving letter grades, using semesters for class’s length. We also have more work to do. I’m having fun with my new school, working hard on assignments, learning while working. I’ve made a good amount of progress in every subject. And I’d never forget about our concert, project, teachers and the whole school.
小兒子:
In Taiwan, between 40 minutes of teaching, students can have a break, but in the U.S. they don’t, they only have 30 minutes to play on the playground after lunch. In Taiwan for lunch, you have an empty box for lunch and an empty box for soup and fruit. In the U.S., you buy lunch and there are some choices that you could choose, like Hot lunch and Bagel bag. There are some drinks like juices, milks, ice creams, fruit punches, and waters. If you buy a hot lunch or bagel bag it will be $3.15. If you buy drinks it will be $1, only water $0.50. A hot lunch is the lunch for the day and it’s hot, usually. Bagel is my choice if I don’t like the hot lunch for the day.
My favorite subject in school is PE. I really like to play games like tag, dodgeball, soccer, hockey. I wish we could play baseball but the teacher didn’t say that we could. I like basketball too but I don’t like to play with children, because they will push you very hard, cheating, so that’s why I don’t like it.
我:
大學因疫情關閉了一年半左右,Fall 2021學期重新開放,但又遇到一波Omicron,因此真正回歸正軌大約是Fall 2022,訪問多少受影響,但所幸平安度過。工程系館位於學校邊陲,一樓有一間Cafe,賣些冷的三明治、生菜沙拉和熱湯,冬天時是個溫暖方便的選擇,當然附近外面也有不少餐廳。上課仍以傳統寫板書和投影片為主,相較起來,硬體設備不如USC,USC的工學院在20年前就有DEN(Distance Education Network),一個相當先進的即時轉播老師上課和筆書的系統。學校網域可自由下載IEEE Xplore資料庫的論文,對研究極有助益,這本是研究單位該有的標準配備,中研院卻沒有,不是出不起錢,而是未將資源用在刀口上。
2. Life
大兒子:
In Taipei, we have subways and buses to take us everywhere, but we don’t have those here in Princeton, so how do we go to different places? That’s actually a big question. We often use Uber for grocery shopping and we often walk. It’s not that hard if you try because we have cool and fresh air and paths for people to walk, that’s something I like. But I still like how we have subways and buses in Taipei. It’s very useful and helpful, and you don’t need to walk that much.
小兒子:
I liked to play some games in Taiwan, a lot of them were too big, so we can’t bring them to the U.S., we also can’t bring them back to Taiwan. In the U.S., I also got some fun toys, but I played them a lot already, so it’s kind of boring. In Taiwan we have a lot of toys, so I can play something first and then another, so that I would not be bored.
我:
普林斯頓生活花費很高,尤其是住的花費,有屋者每年繳很高的房屋稅(property tax),其中大約一半用在中小學的教育開支。高額的房屋稅轉嫁到租屋者,因此房租也相當貴,不輸南加州。食的花費在美國普林斯頓19: 見山又是山分享過。行的花費也不少,因為搭了不下百次的Uber/Lyft,加上幾次租車的費用。在美國生活,要習慣獨立自主、能自得其樂,喜歡串門子、東家長西家短、樓下就有便利商店、走幾步路就有好幾間餐廳的都市人,可能不適合。
3. Travel
大兒子:
Niagara Falls: I’ve heard that it’s beautiful and it’s huge, and it’s true. It’s at the border of the US and Canada. It includes the state park path for you to walk around it, and it’s a fantastic view from the top and the bottom. It’s amazing to see the beauty of water. It has boats you can travel on, and be prepared to get wet and have fun with water!
Baseball: Baseball is my favorite sport, and I couldn’t believe that I had some chances to watch the games with teams I’ve heard of. Even though the team I cheered for lost, that’s okay, I still enjoyed the whole thing. I remember the excitement and those “Let’s go!” and “Come on!” moments. We yelled and screamed during the game.
Statue of Liberty: Statue of Liberty is a famous place in New York. I’m really amazed at how the inside looks like, how big and tall it is; but unfortunately, we can’t go to the very top inside. It would have been really fun to look at the top inside instead of outside. Also, I learned a lot about the history of the Statue of Liberty. It was really interesting.
Art Museums: It could be boring for some people, but not for me. I love how artists work hard, have their own ideas, spend their time working on art, and create their own unique beautiful artworks.
小兒子:
Niagara Falls: We went to Niagara Falls during summer break. We all thought that it won’t be that wet if you go on the boat, but when we got on the boat it’s like a bucket of water dumped on us, and kept dumping until we got down. Then we went to walk on a trail. It is like water dumping on you too. The trail ends really fast so we have to go back. When we finished, we changed our shoes, then walked back to Hampton Inn, and when we finished changing in Hampton Inn, we walked back to Niagara Falls to take some pictures.
US Open: We went to the US Open during August during summer break. I did play some tennis too, I played on Court 14. I saw Carlos Alcaraz practice, and I saw Daniil Medvedev practice too. I also saw Andrey Rublev practice with Taylor Fritz. In a court I saw some children that know a little bit of the skills.
Coney Island: We went to Coney Island during summer break, and we played rides. The first ride we played was Twist and Shout, the second ride Roller Coaster, the third Bumper Cars. In Bumper Cars I’m not tall enough to be in the car, so my mom rode with me. After that we played Twist and Shout again. I kind of wanted to play in the water at the beach, but we didn’t bring any swimsuits, so we couldn’t go into the water. It was really fun with the rides that we had played. I saw some adults playing Twist and Shout, but that Twist and Shout was WAY more scary than the Twist and Shout we’ve played, and those adults looked like they were VERY scared!
我:
租車花了不少錢,但看到平常沒車坐的大小兒子期待租到什麼車的眼神,也就值得了。
4. Reflections
大兒子:
We have English class in Taiwan and I have been learning for about 4 years before I came here, but I didn’t make any progress. Why? Because it’s a “subject”! It’s not something useful that you’ll use in your daily life; you only use it in English class. Also, teachers use Chinese to teach students, so of course we didn’t learn English! I think teachers in Taiwan should speak more English during class, and watch useful videos with students. Because if you only learn things from the textbook, you would learn a bunch of unuseful things.
小兒子:
I like that the U.S. has less homework, but I don’t really like that homework is too easy for me. That will be too boring. In Taiwan we have harder homework and more homework. I like to have PE in Taiwan. In Taiwan I’m lucky, I have a teacher that we need to do some jump ropes first, and if we do it well, we can play tag or dodgeball.
我:
訪問的系所近幾年有幾位新聘的外國籍(含中國籍)助理教授,訪問學者、博士後研究員和博士生人數也相當多,反之台灣人數很少。有機會應多補助和鼓勵台灣學者和學生出國念書、訪問或研究,提升視野和研究能量,增加台灣的國際競爭力和能見度。
但台灣的文化氛圍,對於公費補助出國的人,總是另眼看待,處處防著,骨子裡沒那麼鼓勵的,總覺得是出國玩。這次我的來回機票自己貼了不少錢,就是以防弊為出發點和欠缺彈性的規定的受害者,疫情期間機票費高漲(核定補助的時間點在新冠疫情之前)、最直捷航程往往不只一種(圖1)、核定清單載明機票費可由其他項目流用報支等事實,都不能動搖補助單位的決心。
圖1:離普林斯頓最近的機場Newark Liberty International Airport沒有直飛台北,必須經美西的洛杉磯或舊金山轉機到台北,或是花二倍的車程到較遠的John F. Kennedy International Airport直飛台北,二者都是常見的最直捷航程且花費相當,但補助單位卻只認定後者(來源:Google Flights)
出國補助金額與當地生活物價水平有相當差距,以及諸多的設防與限制,都與鼓勵出國背道而馳。更不用說出國去港澳陸的複雜手續,等於變相不鼓勵去該地區,形同畫地自限,但倒是很政治正確。
在國外看到他國學者研究產出數量和品質均優,其來有自,絕非其個人有三頭六臂,而是整個體制和環境的促成。相較之下,台灣的現況是缺乏博士生,碩士生大量向上移動至頂大而動機程度差異極大,研究主力延伸至大學生,如何跟國外由博士後研究員和博士生組成的團隊競爭?未來少子化情況只會每下愈況,研究事倍功半,苟延殘喘,看不到緩解的辦法,亦不受重視,或狗吠火車,無能為力。
圖2:中央研究院延聘博士後研究申請人數,幾乎每年遞減,短短六年(2017-2023)近乎砍半(181到95),為維持接近的通過數,錄取率愈來愈高(來源:https://daais.sinica.edu.tw/posts/30906)
訪問的系所開課的教授來自世界各地,旁聽上課有一心得。許多教授英文同樣不是母語,但在美國用英文上課,會受到環境的正面激勵,形成語言層面教學相長的正向循環。且因出自於溝通上的必要性,做起來非常自然。反之在台灣,大學教師被迫用英文上課,較難從同學和整體環境得到正面激勵和回饋,難以形成正向循環,教師和學生皆難以在此過程中受惠,甚至雙方皆覺此舉刻意或略顯尷尬,因此成效不彰。現在又在推行雙語政策,且常以新加坡為範例(但新加坡已在檢討其政策,因華語程度低落),然不論是新加坡或印度,皆有其歷史背景,或是多元種族溝通上的必要性。為推雙語而推雙語,不如創造真正需要雙語的環境,較能事半功倍。新加坡和美國等國都以加速簽證辦理和高薪吸引專業人才移民,台灣相較仍落後甚多。如果移民夠多,除部分解決勞動人力不足和人才短缺的問題,同時創造台灣成為「真正需要雙語」的環境。移民的來源不應只局限於東南亞國家,歐美先進國家(含英語系國家)更應是積極爭取的對象,才能讓台灣整體環境在語言層面提升。要吸引歐美先進國家人才,不是向他們的語言文化靠攏,而是自信的宣揚自己的語言文化甚至居住、就業、就醫環境,令其嚮往、慕名而來台灣工作和居住。