Taiwan’s next generation takes on its fear of the deep

Students in Taiwan participate in an ocean safety class with teacher Tseng Ching-ming, who is trying to turn around the low rates of swimming and a deeply entrenched fear of the ocean. Photograph: Helen Davidson/The Guardian

A dozen excited 10-year-olds are bouncing in their chairs. The small classroom’s walls are lined with racks of wetsuits and water equipment, and decorated with posters of turtles. But the students’ eyes are trained on their teacher, Tseng Ching-ming, describing the currents and sea conditions at nearby Banana Bay, where they’ll soon be going.

“Today you have one mission: to take off your equipment and float in the water,” he says. Some of the kids grin, nervously. They don’t know it, but the students from Kenting-Eluan elementary school on Taiwan’s southernmost point, are rare among their peers and predecessors.