A fond 'farewell'

As is the nature with most travelers, nothing is permanent.  For the majority of the teachers living in Taiwan, we understand that we will eventually move on from here, possibly to another school, or to another country, or back to our previous homelands.  The last of which is in the near future for one of my close friends here in Taiwan, who will be moving back to the states on Thursday after 3.5 years of living here.  By the time I leave, I know I will have seen the majority of my current friends leave, but this is my first real 'goodbye' since arriving, and unlike in the states where I have always been within a few hours of my friends, now when we part, they will be worlds away from me.  It certainly is hard to say 'goodbye' to people.  The optimist side of me adores the realization that I could meet up with friends all over the world now, while the realist side of me remembers just how expensive that will be (its a good thing my optimistic side always wins).
As some people have observed, I don't often reference people by names in my writing.  I don't know if it is to avoid sounding too repetitive each week, or if it is to avoid boring my readers with those 'you had to be there' moments, but it has been an intentional effort.  I have decided, however, that since this is primarily a means for me to remember my time here, that is the first of what I imagine will be a long list of 'dedication posts' where I will reflect upon some of the defining moments of my close friendships here.  Today's post is to Zach, one of the first friends that I made here in Taiwan.  Most of my memories of Taiwan thus far have involved this man, which makes whittling the list down to 'defining memories' more difficult.  Zach is credited with being the reason why I know my Chinese numbers, was the 'cause' of the first bee sting I've ever had, and was the person who introduced me to a lot of my favorite restaurants here in Taiwan, but I'd say the race for 'defining moment in a friendship' goes to either our 'non-dating date night' which consisted of dinner, waltzing lessons in front of the train station, and my first trip to Johnny Bar (where we were sold the worst smelling flower I have ever experienced and split a frozen potato) OR the night his scooter ran out of gas and we pushed it across the city to the nearest gas station and spent a lot of the walk reminiscing on other key moments in our friendship.  He's been a great friend these past few months, this move wouldn't have been the same without him.

Goodbye Zach

This 'goodbye', however, is coupled with a 'hello'.  On Friday we welcomed my manager's baby into the world.  He's a healthy, 3kg baby boy (who does not have an English name yet, and I don't know his Chinese name).  The biggest change that this will bring about (in my life) is that the school will be functioning without our manager for at least the next month.  While the TA staff has been trained in how to run the school while she is away, there will still be an interesting work dynamic for the next few weeks.
The most time consuming event of the week is actually an extension from last week, and that is because, as you know, Chanukkah lasts for eight nights.  As I previously mentioned, we began lighting Chanukkah candles last week on Saturday, and that has continued through the week, with the commencement of Chanukkah being sundown tonight.  We observed many [not-so-traditional] traditions of Chanukkah over the last several days, such as the traditional making of the Jewish puns, the traditional breaking of the candles, and the traditional sharing of the convenient store foods.  While these are obviously not 'Chanukkah traditions', they were a fun addition to the traditional candle lighting ceremony we observed each night.
This week's unrelated thought process reflects on the availability of certain products in Taiwan.  There are things that we accept as not only normal in our lives, but also as necessity, but we rarely think about how necessary other people would consider these items.  In other cultures, the items which westerners find essential, may hold very little importance at all, and I have found this to be the case especially when looking for certain toiletries here.  For example, there is no stigma attached to women having hairy legs in Taiwan, which means that products like shaving cream are not made for women (which has resulted in my use of men's shaving cream).  Another note that I doubt most people have considered (though women who enjoy travel should look into) is the prominence of tampons abroad.  In many countries, Taiwan included, pads are the popular choice for women, and the tampon selection is limited to one or two brands (quite a difference when compared to an aisle of similar products in any US store).  Some of my male friends have also commented on the limited number of deodorants/antiperspirants designed for men in Taiwan (I have not found this to be the case for women's deodorants/antiperspirants, though I have noticed that the selection of products for females contains far more spray products and far fewer roll-on products that I am used to).  This is only the skimmed surface of the differences between toiletry shopping in Taiwan versus the US, but overall the differences don't matter, a good traveler learns to acclimate to their surroundings after all.

Merry Christmas from TeaWork

By the way, the countdown to Christmas is 8 day! My goodness, where has the time gone?!