Taiwanese Language

The Taiwan official language is Chinese. There is actually 3 different dialects of Chinese spoken in Taiwan. The main dialect used is Mandarin. It is estimated that 900 million people in the world (1/4 of the world population) speak a dialect of Chinese. Mandarin is spoken by at least half of the people in China as their mother tongue and is the official language of Taiwan and Mainland China.

Chinese is said to be one of the hardest languages to learn if not the hardest. Most of the sounds can be found in the English languages, but the biggest difference is the variation of tones. There are four different tones. The Chart below helps explain how the tones work:

You can pronounce the same sound, but depending on the pitch of your voice, can completely change the meaning of the word.  The picture below demonstrates the different meanings of words by the tone you use.

The written language is also very difficult. They do not use a alphabet like we do but symbols. Education Chinese people can recognize about 6,000-7,000 characters. To read a newspaper you need to know about 2,000-3,000 characters. There are over 40,000 characters, including obscure, variant, rare, and archaic characters, however less then a quarter of these are still commonly used today.

Sick Christmas

The 3rd annual Sick Christmas Party aka Dale Nolan Jr.'s Special Invite Chaos Christmas Party was a blast. You were required to were an ugly sweater and bring a gift for the gift exchange (which you sport for the day).

We had our gift exchange, which is demonstrated by the photo above.

Then we played Two Story Clue (invented by Rebecca and myself). The game took us about 2 hours to complete. There was double the weapons, double the rooms, and 7 players. (double the fun!).

After our game of clue ended, we baked some peanut butter chocolate cookies.

Taiwan Religion

Taiwan is a land of many different beliefs. They practice Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Christianity, Mormonism, the Unification Church, Islam, and Hinduism, as well as native sects such as Yiguandao and others.


Taiwan has freedom of religion, they embrace their tradition while also welcoming new beliefs into their country.

Taiwan has a population of 23 million people


35% of that population puts their faith in Buddha


While 33% are Taoist, some even consider themselves both Taoist and Buddhist.

Many believe in a collection of beliefs engrained in Chinese culture termed "Chinese folk religion"


These beliefs include ancestor worship, belief in ghosts and spirits, among other things.


It is estimated that up to 80% of the population believe in some form of traditional folk religion.

There is a small percentage that consider themselves to be Protestant, Roman Catholic, Sunni Muslim, Church of Scientology, the Baha'i, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mahikari Religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the Unification Church , Presbyterians, the True Jesus Church, Baptists, Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, and Episcopalians. 


From the list above that is only 475,000 people out of the entire population of Taiwan of 23 million, which means a even lower number of Evangelical Christians.


As I teach English I will not only be ministering to the country of Taiwan, but will also be training our students to better reach out to their own country.


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(These are not my photos)

Snow Life

Winter Edit

I'm working on a winter video.

Field of Snowmen

We got some more snow fall, the sun was shinning bright, making the snow perfect for rolling snowmen. The first rolled together by myself within half an hour. Kurtis rolled his own also. Then we made one big one with the remaining snow left in our yard. The tallest snowman is probably about 8ft tall. This puts the snowman count to 4 so far.

Martin Fobes and Deezle Barn Sesh

Probably the two best skaters in Michigan, shredding the best home skatepark (at Martin's house).

Learning Chinese

Photo from Google

I have begun learning chinese beyond trying to studying it online. I am now being taught through skype from a former Word of Life Student, Iris. She lives in Hong Kong right now and is willing to take the time out of her week to teach me chinese every other day.

I also have gotten in contact with a friend of my cousin's who went to Taiwan as part of his ministry on the ship "Doulos". Betty is going to skype with me once a week.  Being able to hear someone speak Chinese and ask them conversation is going to really help me to learn pronunciation correctly and culture, giving me a head start for learning Chinese when I get to Taiwan.

I am very excited about learning a 2nd language over the course of the next 2 years, it is something I hope I will be able to use forever.

Martin Fobes and PK's

This is a video of J-town local Martin Fobes and his friends (pk dudes?).


PK OG's from RobSorich on Vimeo.

Snow Alert!

The Government has issued a pollution of snow alert, warning families/children to stay out of the snow and immediate removal of the snow is a highly important. Please begin by rolling balls of snow for fasted removal. I have eliminated 33% of the snow in my house reducing the snow pollution down to only 77%. meaning that I have lowered the amount of snow on my street by 0.3%, in my neighborhood by .03% and in my city by about .003%. As you can see by the little I have down I am keeping the snow pollution. Do your part in removing snow and roll up some snowmen. And maybe we can bring out warm weather back...

Stay Alert for further updates about the snow dilemma!