Final Countdown

Down to just a few hours in Taiwan.  Last couple of weeks have been fairly stressful with the boss changing our schedules five minutes before class. In the end, we just planned generic lessons and went with it. I had to tell students goodbye 18 times, because I never knew which would be the last class—chaotic for everyone.  Some students cried and some were kind enough to make me gifts.  

To add to the stress, Matt was hit by four cars in a matter of two hours. He was ok, just bruised and angry.  He was hit twice in Taichung in front of a police officer, who did nothing because, apparently in Taiwanese culture, if you move after an accident you’re ok, so in order to get a police officer to pay attention, you must sit down in the middle of traffic and not move—yeah that sounds like a brilliant idea.

We made it to Hemei, to food, and almost home when a car headed straight for Matt. It was so bizarre how every single vehicle was trying to run us over. The next day was nearly as bad, as Matt saw several accidents on his way to work and I saw one on my way home. 

Thursday went with the boss to the tax office. Met him at eight thirty in the morning in front of the school (who knows the last time we were out of the apartment that early) and drove right by our place on our way to a “short cut” that took 45 minutes for a normally 15 minute drive.  After discussing Matt’s injuries from the “car accidents,” G made a left turn in front of oncoming traffic which was blocking said short cut. We were in the middle of three lanes as a tanker came barreling towards us, narrowly missing the car, G kept his smiling countenance.

Finally made it to Changhua, only to park on the side of a busy road and wait for several minutes until it was made clear that we were waiting for the accountant. The accountant appeared across the street, wearing a purple shirt dress with some sort of cat on it and some pink shorts. She carried a manila envelope. G hopped out of the car, crossed the busy street and spoke with her for a few seconds as he checked over documents. Then the deal was done.

After the shady encounter with the accountant, we went to the tax office, which smelled and looked like an Asian hospital. The only difference really, was that the employees were wearing t-shirts and jeans of the most informal kind, some were just one step up from pjs. We filled out our forms and went to the ground floor where I realized my blouse had come unbuttoned and I was walking with my bra hanging out. I rushed to cover myself and failed to notice that G , typically Taiwanese, hadn’t held the door open, so I walked into the door. Drove past our apartment on our way to the school where we were let out.

Saturday, our last full day, started with a visit from the landlord. I had spent the entire week cleaning and gathering up our possessions. The landlord walked in and started complaining that he couldn’t possibly give us our money because how could he see from the “clutter” and we had better get that stuff (one pile of our luggage) out of the apartment. He then tried to knock off my lap top and overcharge us on the rent and then claimed we had stolen a magnetic fob from the spare key (which we had to have made because he wouldn’t give us spare keys). We did get our deposit back and a dirty floor to boot.

G kindly took us to the new teachers’ apartments to help unload their new furniture. G made sure all of their stuff was out of the car and drove off, leaving Matt and I to walk back home across town. Cooled off and then met with a couple of co-teachers for a farewell dinner in Taichung. Watched as bats flew out of the neighbor’s roof, like mice coming from a crack, and started devouring insects in the sunlight. 

Flea Circus

Came back from Dragon Boat Festival to find out that the teacher who had been here for only three months had gone.  Three weeks of G covering the lessons until the new replacements arrived on the 20th. As part of their training, they have to observe several classes.  The have only observed one of my classes. It is a class of 15 kids ranging in age between eight to eleven, who after being in school all day, have finally snapped.

I introduced the new teachers and encouraged the students to ask them questions. They asked the normal “How old are you?” “Where are you from?”  and they laughed at Minnesota, thinking it was “little soda.” During the questioning, one student randomly started meowing, followed by another cat, and a monkey. Joseph, the smartass of the class, asked in a high pitched, baby voice “Do you speak English” followed by a maniacal laugh. Completely ridiculous, especially paired with the looks on the new teachers’ faces.

At the end of the training week, one of the new teachers had to teach while I observed. It is a class of eight, six to nine year olds; a challenging class with moody twins and a hyper active six year old. The new teacher messed up and started to panic slightly. The six year old, feeling the rise in tension, stood up in his chair and started singing at the top of his lungs. Each class he takes the opportunity to stretch out his diaphragm, but this was particularly loud. The new teacher stood in shock as seven children ran to subdue the six year old, and the six year old started backhanding the students as he sang his finale. Stacy and I sat back in amusement.

One of my classes includes the aforementioned hula dancing kid, who has since developed a multi-personality disorder. When he takes off his glasses, he is no longer Angus, but his twin brother, Ongus.  The barking kid has calmed down a bit, but he still pants. That class also has a loud child who claims he likes to eat babies… I am a bit worried.  

The “gay” class is still at it, but is now including heterosexual relationships after they claimed I was gay and I said “No, I like boys.” and then had to hastily explain that I meant boys over the age of twenty. One boy offered to hook me up with his eighteen year old cousin and a girl offered to set me up with her dad. I should mention this is the class that draws pictures of me surrounded by ghosts, or me throwing grenades at students.

I will be curious to know how the new teachers handle these classes. I hope they don’t try to stifle their creativity and weirdness. These kids are the only redeeming feature of Hemei, let alone the school.

In other news, summer is here. Temperatures are between 31-43 degrees Celsius. The air conditioners only seem to be able to get the rooms down to 28 degrees. Despite the heat, we’re still walking around Taichung and Hemei. This heat is just plain useless without water to swim in.

Erecting an Egg?

Once upon a time there was an advisor named Qu Yuan who told the emperor to quit being such a greedy liar. The emperor didn’t take kindly to the advice and banished the advisor. Qu Yuan spent his days of exile writing poetry (because being a poet somehow makes you important in China). One day, a warring kingdom overtook the greedy, lying, emperor’s kingdom. The advisor was so sad that he threw himself into the river. 

One night, Qu Yuan came to a neighbor in a dream and complained that the fish were eating his body, why not throw some rice into the water to distract the fish. Well, rice brought more fish, which attracted bigger fish. The advisor came again and suggested that the village make sticky rice wrapped it in bamboo leaves, that way it would last longer. So the villagers sacrificed their meagre food for a corpse and threw these rice dumplings into the river. But this just attracted more fish.

Desperate to save his rotting corpse, Qu Yuan came again and suggested that the village make a boat shaped like a dragon, because everyone knows that fish are scared of dragons. So the villagers made a dragon boat, put a drum into the boat, and went about the river making a racket and scared the fish away. Presumably, because the fish got scared away—for an entire year, I might add—the villagers had nothing to eat, so they were forced to eat the rice dumplings.  Now every year, across China and Taiwan, they race boats shaped like Dragons and beat gongs or drums and make one hell of a splashing racket.

Other traditions to do during this holiday are putting out special plants to ward off ghosts and bugs, wearing a perfumed satchel made to look like the dumplings, and balancing a raw egg for good luck  (or as our school says: erecting an egg).

I get a three day weekend. The boss suggested a trip to Lukang, but the river is ugly and a teenage student told me there was nothing to do there during the festival but wade through people. Decided to go south back to Tainan, instead. Caught up with a friend from Korea, who has recently moved a bit north of Tainan. Got a room in a love motel for a whopping thirty dollars per night inclusive of a round bed, a clean bathroom stocked with one towel, a razor, toothbrushes, and a comb, not to mention the complimentary condom.

Woke up terribly early on Sunday to go to Guanziling, a famous hot spring resort up in the mountains. Judging by the one-lane road and debris littering the river below, we were just a couple of days shy of a mud slide. The town is built on the side of the mountain, the only safe pedestrian route is the historical “Hero’s Path,” aka 300 steps of hell.  I am no hero, I rode the bus to the top and walked up ten stairs for a photo op.

We wandered up a path to get a good jungle photo, but stumbled onto private property. The owner shared some of his bayberries with us (don’t worry, these are the edible kind).  We arrived at the outdoor spa covered in red juice from the berries, but they allowed us in anyway.

Enjoyed the mud and various other types of pools, but avoided the sauna, figuring we had already sweated enough for one day. Broke for lunch, eating local boar something or other and some noodles. For desert, we shared an expensive coffee from the famous Dongshan coffee plantations. Relaxed for a couple of hours in the spa, before heading back to Xinying.

Arrived at the bar in Xinying and ordered drinks, only to be told that the owner, Shou-ting  (aka Sue), was taking us and the bar tender to the night market. Desperately tried to down our beers, but Sue promised that someone would put the beers in the fridge. We wandered with our local guides through a typical night market of greasy food, strange clothes, and mountains of hair accessories.  When we got back to the bar, our drinks were still on the table, hot and flat.

Slept in a bit longer on Monday before catching the train an hour south to Tainan. The bus to the historical district took nearly as long as the train and the heat was excruciating. But we still wandered through the historical markets and sampled Asia’s version corn dogs. Watched the dragon boat race through a sea of umbrellas.  Gave up and decided to beat the crowd to the train station so we could have a seat for half of the journey, stood near the bathroom for the other half.

It was a well-deserved relaxing break! 

Funny Farm

Another long gap between blog posts. I blame the computer. It seems that, not only are certain keys on my keyboard not working, but the USB drivers like to randomly eject things plugged into the USB. Rather annoying when attempting to type or transfer files onto the external drive.  Anyway, I’ve been told I must, must, must quit procrastinating and just fight with the cranky computer to produce a blog post.

Sometime after Koahsiung, we finally made it the two stops past Taichung, to the Houli horse farm and bicycle path. Got off the bus at the “Horse Farm” stop, only to see large nameless buildings, presumably belonging to the military base. We walked uphill past the guards and found the tired looking horse farm. Reviews had said it was a bustling farm full of picnic areas, food stalls, and horses. It looked like a run-down military base with some cartoon statues, and a few horses thrown in. The horses were well taken care of, except for their desperate need of salt and reprieve from the flies. We excitedly paid the extortionate amount to ride the horses in a warn track around and around and around. The horses refused to accept that we had paid for some fun, not moody horses.

Quite disappointed, we followed the many signs promising coffee, only to wind up in a village a mile down the road, the only hint of coffee was another cup of coffee with an arrow pointing the direction. We turned around and headed back to the bus stop. However, there wasn’t a bus stop on the opposite side of the road. So we wandered back towards Fengyuan, where we came across a betel nut vendor selling coffee and waffles. She led us to a nice, wooden patio with umbrellas and lawn furniture.

Caught a bus back to Fengyuan, noticed a Time Crisis 2 arcade game in the window of an arcade gambling room, and watched Matt play a game or two. Afterwards, enjoyed pork cutlet at a mall food court before heading back to Hemei.

Another weekend headed back to Taichung to scout out a big red man we had seen perched on top a temple.  We easily found him, but the dreary day made it hard to enjoy what we had hoped would be a good photo shoot.

Rainy season has started. Luckily, it seems to be one day black and gray, the next day blue sky and rainless.  The temperature is up to 90s with 95% humidity. It feels like a wet blanket. I’m hating the constant damp and dark.

The kids are feeling it too and have become crazy. The barking kid is getting a bit yippier, the hula dancing musician is getting a bit more “May-gic”-al, the karate kid is getting a tad bit kickier, a class has discovered the word “gay,” so now everyone is gay. A fight breaks out in almost every class now, but I’m able to silence it in one look, making at least one student cry. I feel powerful. 

Kaohsiung

Parade

Had a three day weekend at the end of February and decided to take the opportunity to see more of the island. Heading down south to Kaohsiung, took the afternoon train, arriving at night. Directions given to us were straight from a beginners’ English book:

“When you exit the Kaiyuan MRT station, turn right and walk a couple of blocks. Turn left, and walk one block, then turn right and walk until you see the hostel on your right hand side.”

Google Maps didn’t give any sound advice either, so we thought we’d just wing it. When we got to Kaiyuan Station, there were several exits. We took the one suggested by Google. We walked and walked and walked and found a huge night market (turned out to be the most famous night market in Kaohsiung). Decided to turn around and try a different direction, but couldn’t decipher what was considered “a block.”

An older man saw our confusion, took us into his house, and allowed us to use the phone. The hostel owner agreed to pick us up at Dream Mall—South East Asia’s biggest mall, supposedly. We were surprised to find an American behind the wheel and mentioned that perhaps, since he speaks English and all, should add some nouns and adjectives to the directions, such as “walk towards the GIANT FERRIS WHEEL of Dream Mall!”

After getting settled into the hostel we set out trying to find food and had to walk back to the night market, over a mile away. Ate pizza and enjoyed ice cream served in plastic pink toilet bowls. Crashed when we got back, only to be awoken by a swarm of mosquitoes that had been feasting on Matt. To the hostel owner’s credit, he went out to get us mosquito repellent and coils, but his dogs had separation issues and howled throughout the night.

Got up the next morning and hit Mr. Donut at Dream Mall then to Lotus Pond, which can only be described as a temple theme park. Gaudy rules here. But it is a nice few miles’ walk around the pond. We stopped for lunch at a pizza place where we ate duck pizza and for desert, chocolate banana pizza topped with cheese (imagine our surprise). Headed to Dream Mall for some pork cutlet where we were surrounded by people wearing plastic gloves while eating whole chickens or ham hocks. Later ventured up to try out the Dream Mall Ferris Wheel, which is really small and expensive so instead took photos with a random Teddy Roosevelt statue (resembling Robin Williams) tucked away in a corner.

Sunday, headed to an island just off the harbor of Kaohsiung. The weather was warm, and the tourists were flocking. Walked up the mountain to the lighthouse and the remnants of a fort where we were warned against “Striding” then contemplated swimming at the beach, but couldn’t bring ourselves to take off our shoes on the littered beach, let alone swim in the black water.

Got a frozen banana for lunch, sat down to enjoy the Vietnamese Irish coffee only to be kicked off of the chairs to make room for a parade. Was more interested in the people bowing before the procession and police pulling them back, rather than the actual parade. Spent the rest of the evening enjoying downtown Kaoshiung. Caught the very late train back to Changhua and then a taxi to Hemei.

Taiwan Culture

When you type “living in Taiwan” into the search bar, you are going to get a lot of info on why you should live here. The list usually includes the cost of living, the scenery, how nice the people are, how easy it is to find jobs (for Westerners that is), the weather is great, the girls are great, the food is an interesting, and you get to experience Taiwanese culture.

People are right, the cost of living is quite nice here. Even in Taipei, you can afford an apartment, metro fees, and eating out at street vendors every meal with money left over for travel, clothing, or fun. It’s also true in rural Taiwan, because there is no place to have fun. There are no coffee shops to sit and drink coffee and there aren’t any bars to enjoy a beer after work. There are very little movie theatres and nice restaurants. But you find you spend all of your money on getting somewhere that has more things to do. Also “normal” items, like coffee (even ground coffee), decent cookies, beer (even local), wine, 100% juice (instead of 90% syrup), and tampons are quite a chunk of your salary comparatively.

The scenery is nice, if you live near the mountains or travel to the mountains often. Taiwanese value their green, jungle-like national parks, but really only national parks. You will not find a valued city park in rural areas. Instead you’ll find a bit of green over grown area and a pagoda that is occupied by homeless people, construction workers trying to take a break from the heat, or older couples trying to find a quiet space to get a quickie in (Matt found that one out the hard way-iiicccckkkk). Many small towns haven’t found the value of trees. Nor can I say that any of the towns or cities are pretty, they all look the same—they hired one city architect

People are the same as anywhere else in terms of kindness. I’ve met some very kind, helpful people and I have met some terribly rude people too. If I hadn’t met co-teachers and a select few other people, I would have assumed that most of the residents of central Taiwan were animal-abusing, led-foot, creepy people.

Jobs are easily found in the ESL sector. Some schools will even hire if you have no experience or TEFL certificate, though parents will be concerned and pull out their children, meaning you’ll get fired for loosing clients. Stated from previous blogs, you’ll notice that the hours (unless you get a public school job) are not so great, especially living in a rural area. You’ll eat 7-Eleven a lot, which is expensive.

I cannot comment on the girls, but Matt finds the giant contacts and fake eye-lashes a bit creepy. Says he is reminded of the X Files with the murdering doll. It reminds me of the creepy dolls on Dr. Who. I’m just saying, that the girls will be a lot prettier showing their natural beauty, but not so much that I can see butt cheeks, please.

I’ve commented on the food before, I am sure. MSG, soybean oil, boiled lettuce, no fresh veg because of dangerous and heavy pesticides (which I’m glad because I don’t want to find maggots in my food). I am tired of the taste of soybean oil though! Not to mention, the smell of sticky tofu (think rotting garbage). I mean, even Zimmerman can only stomach some recipes of it.

What sites don’t tell you about experiencing Taiwan culture, is that you cannot escape it. I know, I know, that is why you go somewhere, right? But when you go to some places, it is little Westlandia in your apartment, usually the only signs of living in a foreign country are the TV channels and the strange writing in your fridge. However, no matter how western your apartment may be, it will always be Taiwanese.

Sure, you can handle the Taiwanese layout of the shower being right at the bathroom door, or the washer being in the bathroom or on the balcony. Perhaps you can get used to the fact that you don’t have a kitchen and your fridge is full of used take out containers instead of produce because food attracts cockroaches and flies and you are only home once a week in time to throw the garbage onto the passing truck. However, I cannot get used to the sewage and exhaust smell that wafts through the apartment, or mold that grows because dehumidifiers are too expensive and heavy, or the greasy dirt that seems to find its way in.

Nor can I get over the sleepless nights and mornings because Taiwanese culture is so wonderfully traditional, that they have fireworks and ceremonies for every little thing at every hour. So if you want the complete immersion experience, Taiwan is the place for you.

The Long Awaited Hong Kong Post

Arrived in Hong Kong in the early morning and took the bus to the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Hong Kong. We got off at our stop and wandered around looking for the Chung King Mansion, which we thought to be a giant, derelict building by guest descriptions. After going in a circle, we started looking at signs instead of buildings, and found that the mansion wasn’t really that bad of a building (at least by Taiwanese standards). About the only correct guest description was concerning the queue to get on the elevator at night.

We entered the main area, full of money changers, peddlers, and so forth, feeling slightly uneasy to be around so many nationalities after only seeing Chinese/Taiwanese people for several months, and headed up to our amazingly clean hostel. We dropped our bags off and went in search of coffee, found a speedo sale, and the Kowloon Park behind the mosque. We wandered the quiet Temple Street (a market area, not a temple area) and all the way to Kowloon Pier. Totally not worth the long walk because of the construction and lack of activities to do once at the peir. My ankle and the heat began to bother me. We sat and watched tourists before heading back to the train station, to be told that we were no longer in Hong Kong, which confused us until we realized they meant the island. After resting, we found some dinner at a Turkish restaurant run by Pakistanis. Then we wandered to the waterfront for some nice night shots of the harbor lights.

The casinos especially look better at night.

We woke up later than expected the next day. We headed to Starbucks and to the MTR to the last stop on the blue line on Hong Kong island. We were disappointed by the long line to board the ferry to Macau, but we did it anyway. It was a great idea! We mistakenly got off the bus in the north of Macau, but it allowed us to see the less touristy areas and reach St. Paul’s ruins at dusk. Night time is the best way to see Macau, the lanterns add a nice touch to the beautiful Portuguese architecture and hide the derelict modern South East Asian buildings. We ate some Macanese food (soup and tea for me as my cold was starting to make itself known) and then got on the ferry at eleven.

Wednesday we headed for the peak in Hong Kong, but the line for the tram wound around the block twice, so we decided to explore Hong Kong instead. We spent several hours in the aviary and surrounding area of Hong Kong Park before settling on more McDonalds for lunch. We met up with a friend from Korea, now teaching in Hong Kong. From Time Square (a fancy mall, not an actual square), we headed to Happy Valley Horse Races. We bet on a few horses and enjoyed catching up.

Thursday I woke up with green liquid pouring from my nose and eyes. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see. I was miserable.  However, we got up and decided to take the tram to the peak. We paid a little extra to visit the viewing platform on the peak—so not worth it. It is just as good of a view from down below, and way less crowded. On our way back we found the free zoo at Hong Kong Park as well as a pizza parlor that sold pizza by the slice. We met Tom (our friend from Korea) for dinner and had tacos just off the world’s longest covered escalator chain (how do these records get started). We called it an early night as I was feeling terrible and Matt was beginning to feel a cold coming on too.

Friday we spent in Kowloon Park, enjoying the small zoo and aviary. Mainly, I sat on a park bench in the sun and slept. Luckily, I managed to avoid having a fever as I went through the quarantine check at the airport back in Taipei. But as soon as we reached the hostel in Taipei I had a raging fever and a horrible cough. Naturally, we were sharing the room with two other people. Those poor people.

We woke up early and checked out of the hostel. We wandered to the nearest hospital, a colonial-looking building that is part of one of the universities in Taipei. After many friendly helpers, and having to check my own weight, height, blood pressure, and heart rate, I was able to see a doctor.  The doctor couldn’t really explain the green ooze from my eye and looked extremely shocked when I told him about it.

We managed to catch the train to Changhua just after my doctor’s visit and we headed back, happy to have a weekend to rest and recover from my cold. 

Finally, Taipei!

It has been nearly two weeks since arriving home from our holiday and I am just now getting around to posting something about it. You can blame laryngitis and tonsillitis and a cold (all at once) for that.

We waved our co-workers goodbye on Wednesday night, frantically packed our two surprisingly heavy backpacks, and enjoyed our night of freedom. We woke up early to head to Changhua, not wanting to accidently miss our train (those tickets were a pain to buy). Our train left Changhua at 1:30, and we were happy to have seats as we watched all the poor souls that had to stand in the isle getting hit by the service carts. Nothing exciting happened on the trip. I would to have to pee on one of the roughest parts of the track, but I managed to stagger over that squat like a champ.  Who would have thought growing up in rural Idaho would have been so beneficial to traveling abroad?

We arrived in Taipei at 3:50 PM. The city was quite dead because of the new year. The homeless people were taking advantage of the lack of police officers and nice weather to take showers in the fountain and air out their meager possessions. We escaped the smell and I immediately sent us in the wrong direction, so we turned around and went immediately in another wrong direction (again I blame Asian maps never being oriented to a consistent point). Finally Matt used his skills at philosophy and deducted the correct direction. It took us across intersections with zebra crossings that went into elevated highways or shrubs, past a hut made entirely from umbrellas (we would have taken a photo but the smell alerted us that the owner was home). Eventually, after asking many helpful people, we found our way to the Zebra Apartment and Bike Rental in Ximen District.

The owner came by and offered to move us to a private room down the street at the Leopard Garden. We accepted and followed her a few blocks to a better located hostel. This place was quite clean for Taiwan. We had our own room on the front porch. It was a tall, narrow room of three tiered bunks, which could sleep at least four, six if need-be, but considering Matt and I couldn’t stand together in the room without having to climb a level, it would have been very uncomfortably for six. 

For more photos of the hostel visit Matt's photo
page (here).

This place can sleep at least thirty people, if no one is claustrophobic as everything is either dark wood or leopard print (I mean EVERYTHING). There are no windows in any of the rooms, which are located in four “normal” bedrooms and at least three lofts. Despite it’s weird interior, the place was quite homey and the guests quite nice. We often relaxed and watched TV together.

We left our garden and headed to the market area of Ximen. It is near the university, so all of the shops are cheap clothing, accessory, make-up, and shoe stores. Also there are about six large cinemas on the street. Eating is surprisingly sparse, unless you hit the street at the right times. We passed on the stinky tofu and got ddeok boki and 7-Eleven ice cream and beer instead.

The next day we found ourselves at Starbucks drinking chestnut macchiatos and eating cinnamon rolls. We left feeling quite content and marveled at the large sidewalks and the many trash bins (the first we have seen in many months). We sunned ourselves on a bench in a Japanese memorial temple—basically a large cement foundation covered with a metal roof and some reproduced wooden structures. Then we walked around old town to a cordoned off old street, Haxi Street Market (where we fought for our right to walk), Longshan Temple (apparently New Year’s day is the busiest time to visit a temple), and to Snake Alley. Snake Alley is the oldest tourist market in the city named after snake charmers and such. Now deemed terrible because of the poor treatment of the snakes and less desirable prostitutes, it has tamed down. But you can still buy adult toys from old ladies and sample some snake meat or snake venom wine.

See, nothing around it.

From there we ate Subway and got on the metro to visit Taipei 101. It is the tallest building in Taiwan and still one of the tallest residential buildings in the world. We decided to try to go in, but it was too busy, so we got on metro and went on quest to find Mexican food. We failed and ate at a Japanese restaurant where you had to order and pay from a machine while ten waiters stand around watching. But it was cheap and the steak and pork cutlet with an endless supply of miso, white rice, and cabbage was delicious. After dinner, we ended up back in Ximen behind the Red House for drinks at one of Taiwan’s first “gay friendly” bars.

The next day we continued what would become a tradition of the trip: a pastry and coffee at Starbucks (who would have thought). As we finished our coffee we headed to a destination I got from a Chinese guidebook about a Lin Family Mansion in west Taipei. It was worth the trip and the large amount of annoying tourists. It is a compound of old architecture and a maze of gardens and ponds. It was easy to forget that a city was just outside the walls as we climbed up fake mountains and under old trees.

After spending quite a long time at the mansion, we went to Chiang Kai Shek’s memorial. It is quite huge and imposing and the heat radiated off of the pavement. We went in search of the Mexican food again, and didn’t find it. But I did manage to twist my ankle in a typical uneven pavement, of course, I was wearing boots.

We gave up on the dream of edible food and went into a 7-Eleven for a hot dog. Because of miss-communication, Matt was told to put one hot dog bun in the microwave for the wrong setting. As Matt was asking me what I wanted on my hot dog, smoke came billowing out behind him and the store was in chaos. I sat there like an idiot as the owner shooed Matt away from the flaming bun and everyone stood dumbfounded. The owner took over preparing our hot dogs and even made sure we could put the condiments on it properly. Worth every embarrassing moment.

We tried the 101 again, but the line was even longer, so back to Ximen and the hunt for real food. We settled on Bimbibap. Not quite my definition of real food. We washed it down with Cold Stone and a beer behind the Red House.

On our last day in Taipei, the line at the 101 was shorter, so we braved it. The queue to buy the ticket moved fast, but the line to get up to the tower was forty minutes long, thanks to two tiny elevators (though those elevators are the fastest in the world). We entertained ourselves in line with a tourist photo and complaining about how terrible life in rural Taiwan is.   

 

The view from the 101

We jumped out of the crammed elevator and rushed to claim a spot at the window for the specular view. The problem with the world’s tallest buildings is that you are above the clouds, making the view not worth the money. We stayed up, wandering around the observation deck, the world’s highest (and ugliest) jewelry store, and learning about all four wind damper mascots trying to get our money’s worth. It was a miserable time, as the quick change in elevation alerted me to the start of a cold.  To add insult to injury, we had to wait nearly another forty minutes to go down.

My ankle and head were killing me, so we found an out of the way area between shopping malls to enjoy some coffee. When I finally felt rested enough, we headed back to Ximen where we watched TV until nine PM, when we caught the bus to the airport. We had five hours to wait until check in. Luckily, the food court was left open (sort of) for sleepers. We snagged a stuffed bench and spent the night, freezing. It would have been miserable if it wasn’t for the various people sleeping squished between the benches and the table in order to block out the light, or the group of forty or so Chinese tourists who ran for the bathroom in a large herd and blocked the bathroom in order to take group photos.

Happy New Year!

Happy late holidays! They have come and gone in a flash.  Before I knew it, I was tossing out all of the crinkled holiday song papers. We were pushed to teach the children all about Santa and Christmas, teaching them thirty special words on top of their normal vocabulary words, plus songs and stories. We were to perform them during Christmas, first at local businesses, and then just in the lobby, but it never happened. Surprise, surprise. The students of course were very disappointed to find out that they had not received anything from Santa. I felt like a missionary.

Some students did receive Christmas cards from Santa. The ones from Germany were actually written in English, the cards from Norway weren’t. All of the cards were very generic, except for a couple of post scripts on the cards from Canada which answered various strange questions the children had asked Santa.

Before Christmas, we had a school dinner. Matt was too ill to attend, so I went with Jenny. We all sat, making awkward conversation until the food arrived. We ate at a restaurant that has become famous in Taiwan. Apparently, it is all cooked somewhere else, packaged, and then delivered to the restaurant to be heated up upon ordering, much like airplane food, and it tastes similar too. Apparently, this is so you can get the feel of a nice cooked-to-order restaurant without the wait, sure.

 The conversation kind of picked up after dinner, mostly with news about my co-worker’s upcoming wedding in Bali before Chinese New Year. Apparently, Chinese New Year is THE season to get married in Taiwan. The saying goes, it is warmer with two in a bed than one. To which I stuck my foot in my mouth and replied that it would be cheaper to buy a heater… dead silence until the boss got it. I don’t think the co-worker has forgiven me yet. We opened presents from our revealed secret Santas. Jenny was my secret Santa, so I got nail polish. Matt got a scarf from his secret Santa. My co-worker forgot to buy the boss something, so he sat alone, giftless.

The next day, the girls took me out to eat hot pot. It was a fun day, where little bits of gossip were translated into English now and again so I could “understand” what they were talking about. But it was fun and I got a free meal as well as some more gifts.

Matt and I treated ourselves to the new Hobbit movie in 3D where we missed the first few minutes because of people coming in to the theatre late, cellophane wrapped popcorn, and just people having to chit chat about whatever. The cellophane and cell phones continued throughout the movie, much to my annoyance, so I went to the bathroom and stomped my heels down each step (we were at the top of the theatre) and I made as much noise going back to my seat. Not that it really mattered, because everyone was reading the subtitles anyway and laughing at the gruesome beheadings.

I was surprised to find out that we had a day off on New Year’s Day. Thankfully, I found out New Year’s Eve as I was leaving work. Matt and I spent our day off wandering around Taichung. We ate Mexican food and Matt played Time Crisis, while I watched. I played a terrible game of air hockey, but how good can you be when there are four pucks coming at you at once? We topped off the New Year with a buy one, get one Cold Stone—talk about calorie overload!  

Spent Saturday with the boss. He wanted to make up for Matt missing the “feast” so he made a “register” at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, Nantou County. We wound along tiny raised county roads to this European-style house that had been turned into a restaurant. The walls were bare concrete inside, but artwork lined the walls, and a baby grand sat in the corner. The food was Taiwanese, but it wasn’t so bad. After eating, the boss took us to a local craft park, which was just a gallery of expensive rocks painted like cats, pottery, woven grass figurines, and blue- dyed clothing.

People have been commenting on how wet Taipei is at the moment. I cannot even imagine! This place is so damp! A backpack hasn’t been moved in two days and it is completely covered in mold! Shoes become moldy in two days, tops become smelly very quickly. I don’t know how people live like this!  

'Tis the Season... oh bah humbug...

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the cram school in Taiwan. The TAs have worked very hard hand making paper decorations and cutting out tiny white letters for a poem claiming that a snowman is the best boyfriend ever. Red and green cellophane cover the windows, a cardboard tree is being used as a Christmas vocabulary advent calendar (get all twenty-five right and you can get a pencil and eraser!), giant nutcrackers and mini Santas line the desk behind the receptionist. On top of that the school had a great idea to have to students make snowmen for a contest. I thought we were going to die in an avalanche of snowmen! The students had a blast making them, though some may be suffering from PTSD after watching me accidently decapitate some of the less stable snowmen. It is payback for having to listen to “Ten Little Snowmen,” “Where is Santa?” and “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” over and over again.

Around Hemei, many of the shops have mini Christmas trees decorated for the holiday. Terrible Christmas music (surprisingly very religious songs) loop over and over again in every store. It seems like they sort of get into the Holiday spirit around here. However, it still doesn’t feel like Christmas is six days away...especially when I have to work on Christmas.  I have managed to get some of the Christmas cards out, but the only Christmas shopping I have done is to my secret Santa at work. There are so many rules, it is difficult to buy or sneak the damn present anywhere. Matt has benefited greatly by getting little treats I had intended for my person, but the boss caught me and lectured about how I need to be sneakier and blah blah blah...it is very hard to be sneaky when everybody watches your every move...

In other news, weekends have been incredibly busy. Last weekend we graded papers and treated ourselves to delicious Egyptian food. That was possibly the most expensive meal we have had in Taiwan yet, but so worth every penny! I suggested that I wanted to go there for my birthday celebration this weekend, but my co-worker claimed that she didn’t like Egyptian food, and then proceeded to ask what Egyptian food tasted like. She didn’t believe me when I told her it tasted like heaven!

One weekend we made it to Tainan, the old capitol of Taiwan. It was colonized by the Dutch in the 1600s, but the Taiwanese didn’t have much patience for the Dutch laws of replacing wood shacks with less-combustible brick huts, putting the pigs at the back of the house instead of in the front or letting them run wild in the street, and having a designated garbage dumps (and compost piles). The Chinese came in and set the Dutch sailing.

Another weekend we made it to the new Hunger Games movie... getting front row seats so that everyone could make a fool of themselves getting up every fifteen minutes to go the bathrooms, which were located on the right side of the video screen...Other weekends we’ve made treks to Taichung for Huge Burgers, Indian food, and hummus... all heaven for the eyes and taste buds... I don’t know why in Homei they cannot make the food look or taste appetizing.

I have definitely hit that six month senioritis mark. Everything is getting to me... the food, the miscommunication, the dirt, the mold, the lack of sunshine, lack of roof gutters and street gutters... it is only lightened by the free coffees that we get sometimes or the incredibly cheap clothing and shoes I can get. The boss has realized that I am “upset” about things at work... we had a special one hour meeting about the things that were bothering me in which the only thing resolved was that because I am a woman, I have to work extra hard to accept change, because women cannot adapt to change very well...oh boy.

Here is to making it to Christmas and then surviving the holidays! Happy holidays to all!

The Lost Art of Letter-writing

As Yuletide approaches, we are told by the boss to ignore any other holidays and focus on Christmas. First order of business: to teach the students how to write a letter to Santa. We had two lessons to do this, but we were supposed to only take ten minutes per lesson. Sure.  Most of my students are under the age of ten and have never heard the English name for Santa. In fact, many of my students had no idea who Santa is. So, the first lesson was spent showing them Christmas. The only convenient book was a pop-up book and I don’t care how old you are, you are always more fascinated by what pops up than whatever else is going on.

In the next lesson, a sample letter was written out for them that already said “Dear Santa, My name is____________.” This was the first snag…

The trouble with Asian English education is that the students memorize language for a certain situation, but they never learn that sometimes the language can be used in another situation. For example, if I am in class and I ask a student “What is your name?” The student will reply in a robotic voice, “My name is [Peers].” But if you ask outside of school, on a test paper, or on a letter to Santa, it might as well be Cantonese.

Confused student impression.

Therefore I got a bunch of “Teacher, what!?!” I said, “Write your name.” And they do their best pug impression and go “HUH?” I go write my name on board. And they go “Ohhh!” Eight out of ten students will write their name, but the other two will write my name. Ok. That is finished and fixed.

Now onto line two: “I have been really good this year.” Oh jeeze, now we have “I’ve ben rely gob tis yen” Ok so fix that as many students are saying “Teacher! Teacher! Finished.” And I am saying “No! Check it!” And of course they don’t. Now, the class is over time and hasn’t finished the last lines of the letter.

Next lesson: for the more advanced students they wrote “May I get some toys?” The little kids just finish off with a “Merry Christmas!” (mainly because I cannot be bothered to go any further). Amazingly enough, this has also gone over time. The addition of a school-wide Christmas bingo game in which my first semester English kids are expected to read and say “decorations,” “ornaments,” and “gingerbread,” when they cannot even tell the difference between the words “orange” and “red” adds more confusion.

Their homework was to write the letter into a nice card for Santa and to have their parents go onto Google maps to find their mailing address. Oh the age of electronics where nothing is ever snail mailed anymore! Now the students have their card (which they’ve somehow managed to mess up by attempting to copy incorrectly, but Santa is forgiving), and their addresses. The TA teaches them how to address the envelope. She writes her name to show that the students need to put their names on the return address. Of course, several students write the TA’s name instead of theirs. Then they start writing the return address at the bottom of the envelope, at the stamp side, or wrapped around the entire envelope. Ok, so they cannot judge distance yet with their writing.

Next we glue Santa’s address to the envelope. The TA freaks out because many people haven’t written “To: Santa” even though the printed address is addressed to Santa Claus already. Time to put on the postage! It usually costs about $13 to $18 NTD to mail a card to the US and the UK. But these kids had one $1 stamp or six $5 stamps. All the stamps are the lick kind, but the kids are fighting over glue sticks to glue the stamps on ALL OVER the envelopes. I show them that all they have to do is lick the stamps, but that concept seems foreign and disturbing to them.

A student started handing out stickers for the other kids. All the children grabbed the stickers and sealed up their envelopes with the cards still lying on the desk. I can’t wait to teach them Christmas carols.

Huge Burgers and Super Girl Babies

Glass temple outside  Lukang.

Spent two weekends in a row in Changhua walking around various districts. Matt found a shopping street that is about three city blocks long. Every stall has the same cheaply-made shoes, purses, and shirts. I cannot make myself pay for that kind of thing.

One Saturday, already tired from walking down the clothing market, Matt and I walked across Changhua to Carrefour, a large supermarket that carries almost everything.  We had a few major things on the list: ground coffee, a bathmat, contact lens solution, and hair wax. They didn’t have any hair wax and the contact solution was pretty expensive. But we did find coffee and a bathmat on offer, as well as chocolate chip cookies. It was a successful day, until we went to the checkout. Apparently, the specials were for members only, putting the original price of our chosen items to nearly forty USD (the coffee alone was nearly $20). I did the most logical thing any sane person would have done-- I took the cookies and left the rest behind. At least we weren’t burdened by heavy purchases as we hiked to the bus stop, paused to look at a gun store, and then waited for the bus for fifteen minutes.

The next morning, motivated by lack of coffee, we hiked across Hemei to a grocery store I keep forgetting exists. And wouldn’t you know, not only did we find a bag of coffee and a bathmat, but apple cider vinegar for my hair too. Spurred by our success we treated ourselves to McDonalds.  But, since McDonalds is nearly two miles away from the apartment, and we were carrying groceries, most of the calories and guilt-induced sickness had passed.

Monday through Wednesday I did my whole teaching thing. Nothing too major to report, other than I am getting tired of teaching five to nine year olds for five hours a day. Luckily, when it reaches the point where I think I am going to lose it and throw my teaching materials up in the air and stomp out, a student does something ridiculously funny.  Such as little Angus insisting that he no longer be named “Angus,” but “Super Girl Baby.” Or how the students, when learning short “a” phonics and the word “dam” have already figured out the right inflection and then you have a sea of innocent faces saying “DAMN.”

Thursday was a national holiday, so no work! We had planned on going to some festival, but slept in. By the time we made it to Changhua, we realized we’d miss the last bus back to Changhua from our destination because of travel time. We hopped on the train and headed to Taichung, discovering new and exciting parts of the city.

We found ourselves standing in front of “Huge Burger,” we were lured in by the cardboard cutouts of the Obamas as well as the Americana lining the outer wall. We ordered a peanut butter beef burger to split. It would have fed four of us! I was dubious about the peanut butter, but it worked and tasted a lot better than that processed cheese you normally get on burgers.

We literally waddled out of the restaurant, feeling quite like the Walrus, until we were distracted by more shiny and exciting objects.  We had an hour to wait for the train home, so we grabbed a beer and sat in this ridiculously large cafeteria at the top of 7 Eleven.

Saturday we met up with Jenny and her cousin, who took us to Lukang to see the glass temple and glass museum. In reality, both are just showcasing the work of a neighboring glass factory. It was good to see, but not all the hype that everything led me to believe.  Sunday, I met up with Jenny again to celebrate her birthday. 

September

Lukang

The entire month in one post, deep breath:

 I was sick for nearly two weeks. I went the doctor and was prescribed a ton of pills that made me feel better. Amazing how that works!  I started to feel human around the time Matt was scheduled to arrive in Taiwan. As his luck would have it, he got stranded in Bangkok for three days because of stupid airline policies with Hong Kong Airlines. Finally, they allowed him to come on to Taiwan, but not before making him buy a ticket back to London in November. Ug. London vacation, perhaps?

Poor Matt was very jetlagged and drained from the stress of the past few days, but we still managed to get enough energy to go to Taichung on Sunday. We wandered around various malls and found a random park, apparently built by the Japanese during the colonial period. Its main features are a pond, a giant goat sculpture, and black squirrels.

Matt spent Monday through Wednesday preparing and wandering the streets of Hemei and Changhua looking for English schools. He got some pretty good job offers when he was needed to cover for a day at my school. He is now employed at my school, but we rarely see each other at work because of, well, work.

One weekend we took a break from it all and headed to Changhua to check out the giant Buddha. It was an easy climb through a jungle park to find the massive Buddha and good views of Changhua. We danced merrily as “Under the Sea” and “Mickey Mouse” played over loud speakers… very odd for a temple setting, I must say! 

Moon Festival was on Thursday. We had a long three day work week before having a short four-day weekend. Because a typhoon of dramatic proportions was coming, we didn’t make any plans to go anywhere and our hiking trip to Ali Mountain was canceled, forever.

Thursday we had beautiful weather and a BBQ at my co-teacher’s house along with two of my students (ages six and nine), they both screamed and ran away at the sight of me. But later warmed up to Matt and me and we were all playing “Ghost” and other running games until Matt and I thought we’d die—I’ll blame the mountains of food we consumed. We had a feast of beef, pork, fish, mushrooms, onions, and other nameless vegetables, sweet potatoes, and toast.  Matt, of course, tried the chicken, oysters, clams, and shrimp that were also available. It felt like the first real meal I have had since the hot pot they had cooked for me!

We got up early on Friday to meet with our co-workers for drinks, to find out that they had canceled on us! Since we were already heading towards Changhua, we went further to Taichung and had another shopping trip. We rushed home to meet with my neighbor, only to have him cancel on us too. Saturday we were warned of the huge typhoon, but the weather was so wonderful, we headed to Lukang anyway and enjoyed an amazing day with little rain. Apparently the typhoon skipped Changhua County.

By Sunday we were zombies, Monday was just painful, Tuesday long, and Wednesday the students were driving me crazy. Thank goodness for easy Thursdays with my nice classes! Friday was actually pleasant; most Fridays are very stressful with five hours teaching children between the ages of five and eight.

In random news: won the Taiwan receipt lottery. I won a whole 200 NTD (that is almost 7 USD).  This lottery was set up in order to keep stores from not reporting their total sales. Naturally, the only places I receive receipts are the big chain stores, all the local stores have a cash-only, no receipt policy.

Tis the Season for Typhoons

Two typhoons in two weeks. The wind is at a minimum, just enough to wreak havoc on the already abused umbrella.  I found myself thinking like Forrest Gump, “We been through every kind of rain there is: little bitty stingin' rain and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways and sometimes, rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night...” Luckily, it hasn’t rained straight for four months…yet. But three days last weekend and four days this week is enough for me!  Was supposed to go on a hiking trip to Alishan, but the park has been closed due to landslides.


Nothing is drying out with all this moisture. I have already had to toss one pair of shoes because the mold set in right away. The windows have a nice sheen of mist on the inside. The clothes and paper have a distinct damp feel. Despite the colder temperatures (26 degrees C/ 78 degrees F), I’ve put on the dehumidifier on the air conditioner, but it hasn’t seemed to help.


On top of all that, I’m battling strep throat. I finally figured out what it was on Wednesday and demanded that I be taken to a doctor. But because my boss didn’t apply for the Alien Registration Card fast enough, I had no national ID and of course, no insurance. He thought it would cost too much to take me to the doctor. We fought and fought and fought until I stormed out to ask a TA to take me. But because the boss said no, she wouldn’t do it, but she took me to the pharmacy and demanded they give me penicillin. However, I’m still not functioning and it hasn’t occurred to me to ask a TA where the doctor is so I can go on my own.


After all that fussing and crabbing at my boss on Wednesday, I taught a two hour-long class. After which, I was too exhausted to carry on, my boss “graciously” sent me home after prodding from the TAs and co-workers. I stumbled home and attempted to sleep. Mostly I remember bits and pieces of “The Nanny Diaries” on TV and the “Jacuzzi” of the front of the tea box. I eventually got so hungry that I ventured outside. Somehow I made it to the store and back, despite the sea of nausea, neon lights, cockroaches, and smiling neighbors.


Sometime in the wee hours of morning I finally fell into a restful sleep, only to be woken at seven when the landlord decided to come and do some very loud handiwork. I gave up and went to work in the afternoon. 

Observation Week

The week after Sanyi brought Cheech the Cockroach into my apartment. I was having a lovely, relaxing morning before work when I felt an icky tickle and I looked down at my feet to see a cockroach running away. Naturally, I yelped and jumped out of bed. By the time I reached for a shoe, the cockroach had gone between the bed and the wall, and since the landlord is a thinking landlord, he bolted the bed to the wall. I stayed sentinel by the bed with my shoe, calling the cockroach all kinds of names, but he chose not to come out.

I slept terribly for the next few nights, waiting for the cockroach, but I never saw him. On Saturday I had a girl day at my apartment, another manicure! Then Sunday, as I prepared to go to Taichung with the girls, the cockroach jumped at me after I had gotten out of the shower. By the time I had dropped my towel and found the fly swatter, it had gone behind the wardrobe.

The next Saturday, still no cockroach. We had a birthday party for one of the TAs at my apartment. We had Pizza Hut and dark chocolate brownie… yum! I spent Sunday relaxing and preparing for Observation Week at work.

Observation Week is a special kind of hell. Basically the boss observes one class per day, sometimes two. But you have to arrive early to work (unpaid) and give him your lesson plan. Then you have a special meeting about your lesson plan that cuts into your lesson planning for other classes, so you fall behind. Then you teach your classes with the boss either staring at you from the back row or through a one-way window they have in the classroom. Then you have another meeting afterwards. So that was my week. On top of that, I had a final to prepare for and a Parent’s Day to prepare for. Also we had to take a trip to Yuanlin, Changhua County seat, to apply for our ARC. Needless to say, I was a stressed out wreck.

Wednesday I was in the middle of downward dog split when I saw the cockroach on the wall. I dropped and rolled and sprayed the wall with poison—missed him. I went back to yoga and saw him run across my bed (seriously?) and sprayed my bed with poison (yes I washed the bedding), missed again. He emerged under my desk, apparently the effects of the poison had taken their toll and he was wiggling in pain. I smacked him and put him out of his misery. I then relieved some stress by doing a victory dance. And like all wars, you have to take a photo of your kill.

I was a drooling bag of bones by Saturday. Monday was a bit more cheerful as payday rolled around, but it was a sad pay day because of all the “loans” I had “taken” out from my boss—basically, the landlord collects his rent a day early and comes before I ever get to work, so the boss pays him the rent and takes it out of my paycheck. Also the ARC fees were three times higher than quoted. Something I learned in Korea, never trust any quotes, even if they are supposed to be an authority on it.

The joy I felt at not having a particular class anymore was struck dead when I found out that I teach them in their new class. They are cute, sometimes. With only four girls—three of them pretty clueless most of the time—and twelve boys, it makes for a pretty active class. For the first time in teaching history at Inter, I had my hair down. One boy, I call him The Screamer, started screeching and pointing, “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher! Hair! Hair! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOTIIIIIFUL!” I think he has a thing for long, strawberry hair.  However, the cuteness soon dissipated. I have one kid who no matter what I do, is always in La La Land. So when I call on him to participate in a game, he is always late at reacting, and the other team scores, and then he cries. But he has never learned that he has to pay attention. As my TA says, “This class is, ummm, special.” In their defense, they have had at least three teachers in the last five months, so that is a lot to get used to when you are seven years old.

A Day out with the Boss

In front of the Sanyi Sculpture Museum

The week after the typhoon I went to one of the TA’s house for hot pot. A few of us girls gathered at the house and we scootered around town trying to find all the ingredients. I then sat back and watched the girls prepare the hot pot, since I am the foreigner who doesn’t know anything about hot pots! Instead I got to know the niece. We played grocery store for nearly an hour. I was incredibly grateful for the dinner call because there are only so many times you can buy the same four items!

After stuffing ourselves on two flavors of hot pot, we headed upstairs and had our nails done. The host TA had studied nail art so we got a free manicure. Then we took the customary half hour photo shoot before heading home. It is very hard to get four women, a little girl, and a little dog into the range of a Galaxy phone camera!

The next morning I had to get up bright at early for a Taiwan culture day out with the boss. My co-worker bowed out and so it was just the New TA and me with the boss. The boss wanted to show me how to take the bus and train. So we took the bus instead of his car. He remembered as we got on the bus that I had spent my first week in Taiwan riding the bus back and forth between villages. But this was the first time to ride the bus all the way to Changhua. Then my boss showed me how to take the train by walking to the train station (conveniently located behind the bus station-how amazing is that!), making me wait in the middle of the train station while he purchased the tickets and then leading me to the platform and not telling me how to tell which platform was which.

The train ride was over an hour long and on an older Korean underground train—so seating was limited and we had to stand. Half way through the train ride, my boss got the horrible realization that we were on the wrong train. So we got off at the next stop and talked to the conductor to find out that no, we were on the correct train, so we got back on.

When we reached Sanyi, a town famous for sculptures and furniture made from cedar and camphor wood, it was still early in the morning. It was already hot, and I really had to go to the bathroom. Nothing was open yet as it wasn’t the major tourist season for the town. No shuttle bus and the regular bus came once every hour, and we had just missed it. The wood museum is two kilometers from the train station. My boss decided to walk. It was a miserable five blocks until I found the forestry building, which was thankfully open on a Sunday!

After visiting and confirming the direction of the museum and shops, we headed out with renewed energy. I unfortunately brought only a small bottle of water with me, which was soon gone, especially at the terribly slow pace of my co-workers. Eventually we made it to the street with all the wood shops.  Quite beautiful stuff, but nothing any average person has room or money for. Each shop smelled of cedar and camphor—to the point of being nauseating. My boss drug us into each shop and the TA and I walked around stiff as boards afraid we’d knock some ivory or jade figurine off a shelf or accidently knock a flower off a wooden sculpture.  It was quite stressful! The highlight was when the TA and I snuck away for five minutes and enjoyed a large Buddha overlooking a car park with the mountains behind him. MOUNTAINS!

Then we got smoothies to cool us down. My boss and the ticket booth ignored the “NO DRINKS” sign, and we went into the art museum, had our tickets taken, and then told to wait in the lobby until we finished our drinks. The boss was the first to finish, so the TA and I had a massive brain freeze for the first floor of the museum.

I am not a fan of art museums and this was an art museum. It was neat to see the more traditional art with wood cut as thin as paper. I liked the art from the native Taiwanese tribes. There were blasts from the past with Andong masks. This museum is obsessed with Japanese art, and I find Japanese art to be just weird—it is dominated with misplaced, abnormally large breasts and giant penises, oh and also terrifying looking, sexually charged children.

By the time we got out of the museum the tour buses arrived at all the restaurants. So we had to hike one kilometer back towards new town to find a noodle place, which was so full we had to sit in the back without a fan. We then hiked the rest of the way back to the train station, where we actually got to sit the entire way to Changhua! When I arrived back home I realized I was dehydrated and sick, so I spent the night trying to drink electrolytes and eat watermelon and bananas.

It's All About Hemei!

Daodong Academy in Hemei

The last two weekends I have spent in Hemei. The weekend of the sixth, attempts to visit the sea fell through. Instead, I graded mid-term exams while the next door neighbor practiced Fur Elise and the wedding march over and over and over again on the piano during a thunderstorm. On Sunday, I headed out in search of a stationary store to buy birthday cards. I went to the catch-all general dry-goods store—I think it’s called 101. This store carries just about anything.

I spend almost an hour each trip to 101 just trying to find what I need. I found the cartoon- themed cotton swaps on isle 14, but when I got to isle 5, there were the regular, cheaper ones in with the nail polish, and then some surgical ones in the first aide items on isle 3. Feminine pads everywhere around the store—like a mad game of hide the maxis (seriously, why have tampons not caught on here!?!).  Anyway, after what seemed like an eternity, I made it up to the counter with my 4 items that came to six USD. I left the store and turned right instead of the customary left.

I walked a bit down the road to an unassuming open gate. I peeked in to find a beautiful Chinese-style house. I cautiously stepped into the gate, not really sure if it was a public or private place. No one shooed me away, so I causally walked around the yard. My attempts at taking pictures were thwarted by two cute kids coming over to say hello and introduce me to their parents and the owner of the teashop next door who asked to please, please come by and have tea with him.

I eventually found the stationary store and managed to kill forty-five minutes buying cards. I went back to the academy on Monday to write the cards, enjoying the cool winds that were bringing a typhoon. The week went on without too much happening. The typhoon started on Friday night, but I went to the language exchange anyway. We played games and ate tons of junk food to send off the native teacher I am replacing.  We called it a night at 11, and I got a very windy ride back to my apartment.

By the time I woke up on Saturday morning, the typhoon was in full force. Heavy rains and heavy winds prevented everyone from leaving their houses. I sat twiddling my thumbs for most of the day. I did attempt to open the window at one point, only to get a face full of water, cartoon style. Some parts of Hemei flooded, not too badly, but enough to cause some issues. It lasted all day, but by nine PM, I was able to wander out and get food. On Sunday, I met up with the teacher who is leaving to eat hot pot with the TAs and collect some things for my apartment.

Lukang

In my attempts to befriend the neighborhood cat and the geckos, I seem to have attracted the attention of some overly friendly, creepy neighbors. How I came to be so lucky when it comes to being irresistible to blood suckers, creepers, and gravity, I’ll never know. And after all that, I still haven’t won over the four-legged creatures. I have however befriended the ladies at the sandwich shop across the street from the temple. We had a lovely conversation the other morning. They were very curious if I am married to the other teacher, and if I have kids. Then they seemed to suggest that I was a mother to seven children, but I am guessing it was their way of asking if I was a teacher. But it is hard to tell exactly what was being said, with my Chinese being so great and all.

I am learning Chinese slowly. I have learned the symbols for rice, noodles, beef, pork, chicken, and small. Please don’t ask me to pronounce them though. I have also learned how to say “delicious,” “thank you,” and “hello.” Also thankfully, “bye-bye” works pretty well here. I have joined a language exchange group and was gifted a set of flashcards, so I should be well on my way to learning Chinese. I’ve also learned my first word in Taiwanese. Apparently “decide,” is almost the exact pronunciation for the Taiwanese word for pig poop. Of course that would be the first word I’d learn. Have to love nine year olds.

Teaching is going well so far. The nine year olds find me satisfactory and are warming up to me quickly. I’m already adored by the six year olds and I adore them, especially when they get upset when I make them take a potty break after 40 minutes of class. The jury is still out with the high school students. There is quite a Mean Girls scenario going on in that class. So let’s hope I can get through to them. I have met one private student so far, and we are so much alike—down to the love of writing essays. And, a fact that all of us foreign teachers are in awe of, her sister has blue eyes.

I am also getting to know my co-workers fairly well. On Saturday, one of my co-workers took me to her grandmother’s house. Her grandmother lives out in the country in a little park called “Baggie Park.” The house the grandmother grew up in occupies the park, but is now just a squat crumbling, red-brick shack used for storage. The grandmother and some of her children live in a three story “modern” house, with an identical house next door for the grandfather’s family. Several aunts and uncles live in neighboring houses too. So, naturally, I met many of the aunts and uncles, cousins, and nieces. Surprisingly, quite a few of them speak a bit of English.

After ensuring I was stuffed with a traditional meal of fish, tofu, rice, eggplant, lotus, and other veggies, four of us girls piled in one car, and two boys and the six-year old niece got into another. We drove to the neighboring town of Lukang—one of the oldest towns in Taiwan. It used to be a center for Dutch trading. Much of the architecture has a European feel to it, while still being distinctly South-East Asian.

Matzu

Once in Lukang, we abandoned the car and headed to the most famous temple in Lukang—Matzu (of course worshiping the God, Matzu). We accompanied one of the girls around the temple as she burned incense (yumm incense) and money (don’t worry, it isn’t real) and prayed for a safe trip to America, as well as good grades in her intensive English course. It was great to have my co-worker as a tour guide to explain the various gods and rooms of the temples.

Hanging out at the mouth of "Touch Breast Lane"

After the temple, we wandered around the old city market area, eating some local ice cream, then to the more modern market to eat pineapple and grass jelly shaved ices. I drank my first bubble tea too. And then we headed to another temple and then to Lukang’s narrowest street (no longer used except by tourists), “Touch-Breast Lane.” It’s pretty dang narrow. Could have made for some pretty interesting photo ops, but sadly, it just didn’t happen. Then we crammed back into the cars, headed back to the grandmother’s house and had mango shaved ice. Exhausted and burned from the heat of the day, I headed home and relaxed.

This week could be deemed as the Koreans call “nothing special.” I have spent a lot of time remembering too late that I need to purchase some sort of slipper for the apartment. I am getting really tired of practicing my figure skating and gymnastics whenever I step out of the bathroom with wet feet.

  

Otherwise, I’ve had a few adventures in communication both here and at home. Also, as I mentioned above, I have joined a language exchange group—basically a very small group from the local church who want to learn English and in exchange teach the English teachers Chinese. I’ve decided to continue the tradition, even if I don’t learn any Chinese, they are a great group of people. For example, my ride home warned me that she was a “crazy driver” and that if I fell off the back of the scooter, not to worry because she’d come back and get me.