Ryan DeVries, a Fulbright ETA, teaches students in Kaohsiung.

Recently at night, I circled Kaohsiung's Cultural Center in jeans and a cotton T-shirt, enjoying the warm harbor air and wondering how Christmas arrived so soon. In Michigan, I was used to seeing signs of the holidays: knee-high mounds of snow, road salt to melt the ice, and snow on the streets. People in Kaohsiung would find these unusual.
Here in southern Taiwan, my third graders trudge to English class in down parkas, clearly surprised that their foreign teacher still wears shorts. “Teacher Ryan,” one brave, pudgy little boy pokes my side, “你不會冷嗎？” I can only smile and shake my head, “No, I'm not cold.”
With only early nightfall to remind me of winter, Kaohsiung's mild weather often makes me forget that my teaching is almost half over. As the calendar switches to 2013, I feel that I should think deeply about my first semester with elementary school students in this beautiful city.
I don't doubt that most people, on their best days, want to leave an imprint on the world through how they treat other people. Yet measuring that impact is much more difficult, and the hardest thing of all is actually leaving an imprint. I hope that I am.
One thing I've learned in my short time as an English language teacher and Chinese student is that each day gives only the smallest insight about our progress. One morning I struggle, out of nervousness, simply to greet my school principal. Then I spend the next afternoon chatting with my Taiwanese coworkers for a half hour over steamed dumplings. That night, I am tongue-tied and confused by a grocery clerk's simple question at the store.
I frequently see my students do the same thing. One morning, Zach tells me “he is great” when I ask him, and the next morning he uncertainly repeats the question back to me:“How are you?” One afternoon, little Tina greets me enthusiastically in the hall: “Hi, Teacher Jenny!”(my co-teacher’s name). Later after school, a hushed conversation with little Penny (with a few whispered words of Mandarin), allows us to share how much we both like Kaohsiung's art museum and Disneyland.
Most of my students are not the same kids I met in September. Alma no longer looks (or rather runs) away when she sees me. Instead, she scampers up to me with her short little legs and jabbers a sentence or two of English we've just learned, before returning to Chinese. Mario no longer flashes a stubborn, uncomfortable smile to decline practicing sentences in class, at least not as often as he used to.
And then there's Jimmy. Quiet for a third grader, his English is average. When he notices me looking at him in class, he smiles back hesitantly, as though afraid of getting in trouble. Last week, I hurried past his classroom on my way to another lesson, stopping only to wave quickly through the window. He waved back. Then I heard, “I love you.” in English.
The bell rang then, but I stopped. I hadn't taught him that. I glanced at the window, but he was gone. Did I hear wrong? Suddenly a small blur in a blue uniform collided with me, and I felt short arms wrap around my middle. A second later he disappeared.
Maybe I shouldn't need these quiet moments of affirmation. Until hearing the words, I didn't realize how much I needed them. These words warm my heart on nightly walks through Kaohsiung's snowless December streets. Between steps, I shake my head and smile to myself: “No, I'm not cold. And that's okay.”