Albert goes to driving school

Part one of a reflection on cram schools (buxiban), parenting, student anxiety, and test-taking culture, which permeates Taiwanese education and society—and beyond

Hello dear readers, happy May Day!

Here in Taiwan, the COVID case count has exploded, breaking the 10,000 daily case count last week. The government has abandoned its “zero-COVID” policy and moved to a “living-with-the-virus” policy. The transition has … not gone well. The government announces new quarantine and self-management policies almost daily, and much of the information is self-contradictory. Most pressingly, the country has seen a widespread shortage of rapid tests, with people lining up for hours at pharmacies to try to procure tests. Our baby’s day-care requires a weekly negative rapid test result before we can send the child to school, but it took us a two-day long wild goose chase before we could get a test. Nonetheless, there are silver linings—so far the vast majority of cases are mild or asymptomatic, and there have been few deaths.

This week, Albert talks about going to Taiwanese driving school. This is the first in a two-part series on driving, Taiwanese test-taking cu…