Taiwanese Teenager

My cousin's son, Ben, is in senior high. He starts school at 7:30 am. His school day consists of 8 class sessions, a one-hour lunch break and two ten minute breaks and ends at 5 pm. After school, he hangs out with his friends, usually playing a game of basketball. He then heads home sometime between 6 and 6:30 and eats supper with his parents. After dinner, he does his homework, if he has any, reads graphic novels, regular novels or plays computer games until about midnight when he goes to bed.

Some of his cousins and friends go to tutorial classes in the evening, which they call cram school or buxiban to work on any kind of academic lesson, such as music, art, math, and science. It's a traditional belief that parents should send their children to all kinds of cram schools in order to compete against other talented children. Therefore, most children in Taiwan have a schedule packed with all sorts of cram school lessons. Cram schools in Taiwan also focus on motivating students to study harder. They prepare many hand-made posters and print motivational messages on study notes.

Ben says that he constantly has quizzes at school, at least once a day, but sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. He says his favourite subject is P.E., but likes all the other subjects too. Ben also gets up at 6:30 am on Sunday to go to school to work on a science project with two other classmates. But he does this quite willingly, because he likes it. His older brother, Peter, who is away at university all week, prefers to sleep on Sunday, and that's okay with his parents too.

Since the age of 8 or 9, my cousin's kids were walking to school by themselves, and buying their own breakfast along the way. Most kids at this age also go to bed around 10. My father's Taiwanese friend found that North American children go to bed quite early.

My cousin and his wife, are very easy-going people who give their children wide berth in decision-making and following their own individual paths. Their children are also very well-behaved and polite, and will go down to the lobby to bring their relatives up to the apartment or accompany us to the elevator to bid my father and me good-bye.