There are no noteworthy moments from my teaching week, which is a positive sign that teaching has morphed into being second nature for me. I have spent the week introducing some new games to my classes, teaching Christmas Carols, and prepping most of my classes for the fact that final exam and parent presentation 'season' is upon us (yet again). Within the next 3 weeks ALL of my classes will have had an exam, that'll be a lot of work!
I believe I have gone on more trips to the movie theater in the 3.5 months I have spent living in Taiwan than I did in the rest of 2012 (which isn't saying much, since I have only seen four movies here, but since two of them were this week it seems like a big deal). Many people are curious about what the movie viewing experience is like here, since I am in a country where English is not the primary language. My experience does not summarize the entire film industry of Taiwan, simply the limited selection of movies which I have viewed, which were all in English with Mandarin subtitles (no dubbing!). As you have probably already realized, Taiwan is not particularly a film capital, so many of the movies here are foreign, and a lot of them are played in their original format (and therefore original language) because the process of dubbing movies is a time-consuming and expensive process. The only real differences between seeing these movies here, and what I imagine seeing them at home would have been like, is that the cost was cheaper here (190NT per ticket, which is approximately $6USD), the theaters are smaller, there isn't always a huge concession stand in the theater's lobby (and if there is a concession stand, it doesn't sell buttered popcorn since that is primarily an American snack), and the movie doesn't play through all of the credits following the film. These are all differences which I am willing so accept, so on Wednesday several of the Changhua teachers went to Life of Pi, which was recently released both here and in the states (one of the frustrating things about movies in Taiwan is that their release dates are often delayed, sometimes by multiple months, from their US release dates). I'll start by saying that this was a beautifully filmed movie, and I recommend everyone see it, but I don't intend on providing a review of it here. Instead I would like to talk about why this movie is important to Taiwan, which is a short list starting with the mention of its director, Ang Lee (did you know he is Taiwanese?), and ending with the fact that some of the scenes were filmed in Taiwan in Taichung and Kenting. It may not seem like much, but when you think about all the times 'movie magic' is used instead of location-shooting, and when you think about how often people think about Taiwan (which, for the average American (those American's that don't know anyone who has moved here) is not too often), it is a little more impressive. I also saw, and don't make fun of me for too long about this, part 2 of Twilight: Breaking Dawn. This movie had no significance to Taiwan, but I have to hand it to everyone involved, I found this to be a monumental improvement from the other movies in the series.
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| I inadvertently ended up at the outdoor portion of the Life of Pi exhibit at the Taichung Science Museum. |
Saturday was a strange day. The activities of the day were normal enough, the strangeness came in those moments that trailed between the main events of going to the art museum, eating at a western restaurant, and having a game night. The adventure started with my taxi ride through Taichung to meet up with my friends at the art museum. For starters, taking a taxi has become a semi-regular means of transportation for me, because the cost here is far more reasonable than back home (for example, I can get home from my school, which is about a 15 minute ride, for 200NT (about $6), or I can get anywhere in Changhua for 100-150NT ($3-5)). I should have known this would be an interesting taxi ride when the driver handed my phone out the window to a different taxi driver to get directions, and I really should have known when I heard the driver shouting out the window that he was driving a foreigner (wai guo ren) around town, but it was when he tried to sell me his cell phone that the oddities clicked for me. The irritating, yet somehow fitting thing about this taxi ride was that he ended up dropping me off at the wrong museum (I was at the science museum, not the art museum), and I had already paid and left the taxi by the time I discovered this, so I had to catch another cab to get to the right location. Somehow, many hours later, destiny saw fit for me (and several other people this time) to find the first taxi driver again, in our quest for a ride back to the train station. This time, while there were no phone sales tactics, he did decide that getting into the car to back it into a suitable loading zone required too much effort, so instead he just pushed it (literally, pushed this mid-sized car) several feet backwards. The other noteworthy moments of the day were: finding Dr. Pepper (in Taiwan the soda selection is limited to Sprite and Coca-Cola), seeing Christmas displays, and eating enchiladas (enchiladas are so much more exciting when you haven't seen Mexican food in 4 months).
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| 'TEACHERS, ASSEMBLE! Standing strong with the metallic silhouettes at the entrance to the Taichung art museum |
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| Getting in the Christmas spirit by riding reindeer in Taichung |
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