Weekend Trips, Field Trips...trips, trips, trips!

It's nice to shake things up a bit, it helps avoid monotony, and this week was exactly the change of pace I needed.

For starters, while most of the school week was fairly typical, the highlight would have to be my first school field trip.  I took the school's intensive classes (CEI03 and CEI09) on a trip to the high speed rail (HSR) station to teach them how to use the trains and what different areas of the station are called in English (like elevators, tickets booths, and information desks).  I really enjoyed the trip, it was nice to deal with the kids outside of the classroom, but don't let anyone lie tell you differently, simultaneously teaching student's at such vastly different levels is hard (okay, so I don't think anyone was going to argue with that).  My solution to the levels problem was to mainly conduct the lesson through worksheets which translated pictures and Chinese characters into English, but when in doubt, I have learned that songs always work with younger students of all levels, and watching them sing "I've been working on the railroad", was probably as entertaining for everyone who walked by as it was for me.

Look at the youngsters! My CEI03 and CEI09 classes at the HSR station

Also among the highlight reels for my school week was the start of my first evenly shared class, but more excitingly, it was my first chance to teach day 1 to a beginner class which means that, while most of the students have probably been subjected to English in kindergarten and Chinese school, I am probably their first foreign teacher ever!

I feel like I haven't had a weekend trip in ages, so much to my relief I got a chance to visit Tainan this weekend.  Tainan is one of my favorite cities here, and it wasn't entirely because the temperature was around 25 degrees Celsius (which is significantly warmer than Changhua has been recently), though that was a bonus, and it allowed us to spend most of the night on the beach (telling ghost stories and practicing our cheer-leading moves, a logical combination).  Tainan is such an old city that there is so history, and I won't be able to do this trip justice in my writing (but of course, I'll leave you with a summary).  We began our temple tours at the Chihkan Tower (also called Fort Providentia), a fort built by the Dutch in 1653.  The original site of the temples were leveled over a century ago in an earthquake, but the site has been rebuilt and the grounds are garnished with stone turtles, a garden, and banyan trees.  Seeing as it is a temple city, we also visited several of the key temples, including the Confucius temple which was built in 1665 and is the oldest Confucian temple in Taiwan, the God of War temple, which was originally built for the worship of Guan Di, the patron saint of soldiers, and the Beiji temple.  One of my favorite sites, which  was surprising to me, it is called the Tree House, and is an old shed which has been taken over by giant banyan trees whose roofs cover the walls and non-existent ceiling.

A banyan tree growing through the Tree House

Informational tidbit of the week: A lot of people when they first arrive in Taiwan notice a rather surprising surplus of swastikas among the food stands and temples of various cities.  Upon closer examination, these people eventually realize that they are not actually looking at a swastika, but are looking at an ancient Buddhist symbol which has been used for about 2500 years (whereas, the image of the swastika as used by Germany was not used until 1920).  In Chinese countries, the reverse swastika (called a sauvastika) marks a Buddhist building, and, when used on a food stall, marks vegetarian food.

Found in a temple, this is a Buddhist suavastika

Reminiscing

I've said it before, and I will say it again every time, the constant fluctuations of the social group in Taiwan are easily the best and worst things about this job (and about this lifestyle in general).  I love the opportunity to meet new people, especially in an environment like this where everyone comes from vastly different places and different lives, but we go together like we were cut from the same cloth.  The problem, however, is that each job opening is created only by the departure of a current teacher, and in a job where the average contract duration is 1-2 years, people seem to come and go too quickly. This weekend I have said goodbye to one another one of my closest friends in Taiwan, Sakina.  One of the great things about a friendship is that each one is filled with a series of defining moments, those moments that when you think of a person's name you think, "I remember this one time when...".  For starters, I remember how it was Sakina who taught me how to drive a scooter.  Now, we'd both be lying if we didn't admit that the reason she taught me was in the hopes that I could chauffeur her around on her own scooter (thus taking the pressure of driving off of her), but that doesn't change the fact that I will always associate driving with her.  Our other major connection over these past few months has been guitar lessons.  Sakina's sudden and intense urge to learn the guitar is what motivated me to buy my guitar and take lessons, and while my playing is still pretty awful, it is still a connection to her.  If I had to pick my 'I remember this one time when...' moment though, it would be the night we were wandering the streets of Kaohsiung, desperately trying to find an ATM that would allow me to withdraw money with my international debit card.  We tried probably 6 different ATMs, got completely lost, missed countless calls from our group, and were gone for about an hour, but none of that mattered.  I would say that was the night we had our first 'deep' conversations, that was where we really got to know each other, and that was when I realized anyone who is willing to leave our friends and the night club to wander aimlessly with me for an hour is someone to be thankful for.

Goodbye Sakina

I really enjoyed this week, but most of it was just part of what we dubbed 'the goodbye tour', which consisted of visiting a lot of the local hang-outs including teppanyaki, the pool hall, Johnny Pub, and KTV.  I made a few purchases throughout the week as well (I'm like a kid in a candy store here, I just want all of the souvenirs), including my first name chop.  One of the common accessories for everyone in Chinese countries is to have a stamp and ink pad to easily sign your name, apparently known as a name chop (though I just call it a stamp), so now I too am part of that!  Its not much, just a small wooden stamp with a frog pattern (it's me, of course it has a frog), which 'lives' in a koi-decorated case, but I love it because it is mine.
My favorite moment in school this week was bitter-sweet.  The sweet was that two students brought me the first gift I have received as a teacher, which was a box of pineapple cakes and cookies from one of the famous old shops in Taichung).  The bitter is that, I took on a couple of adult students for 8-weeks of English classes which focused on business language, which came to a close this week.  These students were easily one of my favorite classes because their level of English knowledge was so high that they challenged me each week, and I was able to do a variety of things including reading/discussing articles, teaching common idioms (which I have recently decided is one of my favorite classroom topics), and teaching work-related topics like problem solving and phone etiquette.  Starting next week I will be starting a new class which is completely opposite from that class, another CE01 level class (I do love the little ones though, so this should be fun).
Thought of the week: when you imagine the food in Taiwan, what do you think of? I know that immediately you probably think of something weird like eating chicken feet, or lots of rice, which are, of course both parts of the cuisine here.  Overall, do you think of a fairly healthy food selection? I know I had the picture of automatically losing weight here because my image of food included a lot of fresh veggies and non-processed foods.  I was shocked when I got here by the amount of fried food, and more so by the fact that it is the only food choice.  Even vegetables (which are always cooked before served) are occasionally fried.  Speaking of vegetables, I often find myself feeling bad for vegetarians here, because it is not uncommon for vegetable platters to be served with pork on top or with small shrimp (pun acknowledged) hiding in them.
Wish me luck these next few weeks, the students are on break from Chinese school until the middle of February for Chinese New Year (this is essentially the equivalent of the US Christmas and Easter breaks combined), but we will continue teaching in the buxibans (which means students are not likely to be in much of a school mood).

Stay classy Taiwan

"It can't be closing, I'm still drinking"

My instinct is to say "Happy Chinese New Year", but, that would be wildly mistimed (seeing as that holiday falls in February).  The only reason, I suppose, that I am inclined to write about it is that this weekend my school held our annual Chinese New Year dinner.  The teachers, TA staff, and managers of the four Linda Wu schools (Changhua, Homei, Yuanlin, and Dali) enjoyed a family style Thai dinner in Taichung.  The food was delicious, the company was great, the only problem was that the restaurant couldn't accommodate the size of our group well, so we were separated into different tables based on the schools we work at, which made it more difficult to mingle.  Also, it was a relief to see that after the 'horror stories' of ice breaker games the teachers were forced to play last year, this gathering involved very little alcohol and no awkward games.

This is the full staff of foreign teachers in my school's franchise

As I've said before, the group of teachers in Taiwan is constantly changing, this week we have welcomed two new teachers.  Seeing new people reminds me not only of my first few weeks in Taiwan, but also of the fact that I have been in Taiwan for 5 months already! I still have a lot to learn about this country (shoot, I've still got a lot to learn about this city), but having new people around gives me the chance to give advice, directions, etc., which is a nice change.  I'm not the 'newbie' anymore.

Speaking of not being the 'newbie', now that I have been here for a while, I am starting to really know the strengths and weaknesses of my classes.  I have primarily older students, and while I would say their speaking, listening, and reading are at reasonable levels, their writing skills are below par (by my standards).  Because of this my TA's and I have implemented composition notebooks with two of my classes.  This is based off of one of my Linguistics professor's classroom techniques (look at that, I'm making use of what I learned in college!).  For one of my classes this composition notebook will be a form of conversation between me and my students; every week they will write to me about their day, or their goals, or tell me a story, or whatever they are motivated to write about at the time, and my writing will be a personalized response to them.  For the other class, this notebook is more of an assignment, and I will prompt them with various topics to write about.  For both classes, one of my side goals for this project is to motivate my students to enter the Shane writing competition that happens in late spring.

I'm not going to lie, I'm having a hard time coming up with unique aspects to this week.  I don't think I will ever call a day in Taiwan 'mundane', but this week lacked the stand out moments that some of my other weeks have consisted of.  We did a lot of the usual activities, like dinner at Flamingos, and shooting pool, which are always fun, but certainly not noteworthy.  I'd say the only big thing (other than the Chinese New Year dinner) was our evening at TC18 (a night club in Taichung).  I wouldn't say nightclubs are unique, but I would say having waiter service and a private booth are not an everyday experience (and certainly a first time experience for me).  Also, the evening in TC18 is where the 'less-than-classy' title of this post came from (we don't allow people to live down quotes in this group).
My mistake, there was a rather unique thing that happened this week, and my research has still not yielded a full explanation of this Taiwanese tradition.  It appears in Taiwan (though possibly only in the Changhua area) that when a person commits suicide via hanging (which happened during New Years in the old school in Homei) there is a tradition which the entire city takes part in.  Not long after the discovery of the body (it was about a week in this case) it is believed that the ghost wanders from the location of the suicide to either the sea or the hospital (I have heard both explanations).  All city residents are expected to be inside their homes by 10pm, and when the 11 o'clock ceremony (which I believe is a procession) and fireworks occur, you are supposed to close the blinds and not look outside.  If you see the ghost you must join it (in the procession and potentially to the afterworld).  I'm happy to say I survived this ghost day, even though I was naughty and stayed outside after 10pm.

Comparison time! Taiwan is remarkable, and there are certain things that are so amazingly cheap.  The cost of gas is currently around 35NT per liter (which is just over US $1), a pack of cigarettes (as always I have a lot of smoking friends) on average ranges between 45NT-85NT (between US $1.50-2.50), a full variety of scarves are 100NT (about US $3.50), but for some reason electronics are ridiculously expensive!  I went to the store to look into repairing my old camera (because all that is wrong with it is the lens has sand in it) and that will cost me over 3,000NT (over US $100) to repair.  Buying an identical camera is only 2,900NT, how much sense does that make?

And a Happy New Year

I'm not entirely certain how it happened, but the year is now 2013.  Don't get me wrong, I understand how the progression of days works, what I don't understand is at what age you stop thinking "I wish time would move faster!" and start thinking "slow down! I don't want to miss a thing!".
This New Year's celebration was one for the books!  Several of my friends and I caught a bus to Taipei on Monday morning, and spent our day in the hot springs of Xinbeitou (a mountainous district of Taipei City).  Taiwan is very well known for its hot springs, which are pools of clean, clear water that are formed by the collision zone of the Yangtze and Philippine tectonic plates and heated to varying temperatures (ranging from cold to very hot) by a volcanic system.  The hot spring we went to was a 5-pool public spring, which was around 112 degrees Fahrenheit during our visit.  After our warm-up in the springs, and a brief night market dinner, we were off to the main event: fireworks at Taipei 101.  Around the world there are many iconic ways to countdown the new year, and in Taiwan that is through watching the ignition of fireworks off of the former tallest building in the world: Taipei 101.  Words can't describe how amazing it was to watch fireworks coming off of different tiers of a building which is approximately 1,670 feet tall.  With each ignition there was the illusion that the building itself was exploding.  The holiday didn't end there, we continued on for several hours longer in Ximen awaiting our bus back to Changhua (instead of booking a hotel room, we booked tickets for the first available bus and pulled one of my first all-nighters in a long time).  The entire experience was amazing (and the nap after it was over wasn't too bad either).

The New Years crew in Ximen

Taipei 101: reminding us all what year it is via fireworks

One of the nicest things about this week (holidays aside, of course) was the fact that it was only a 3-day work week.  It made my time at the school pass very quickly and brought me to an enjoyable weekend of group dinners and Filipino discos.

In honor of embracing Taiwanese culture, I have made it a tradition to visit a local night market every Friday night after work.  The trip is brief, but it gives me a chance to peruse the clothing and trinkets, and a chance to try new foods (speaking of food, though it was not at a night market, I feel it should be documented that I finally ate one of the delicacies of Asia: chicken feet, and I would review it as being good, but not filling enough for the effort required to eat it).  This week at the night market, I decided to learn one of the local gambling games as well.  While it was essentially a game of bingo played on a three-numbered card, it was an excellent chance for me to practice my Chinese comprehension (which still doesn't extend far beyond numbers), as well as entertain the other vendors and guests of the night market (mainly because the booth owner kept announcing that I was his "good, American friend: Marie").

Wondering why he called me "Marie"? My Chinese name (though I have never seen it Romanized in Pinyin, so I may be spelling it wrong) is Katamari (Kata coming from the beginning of 'Kaitlin' and Mari coming from my middle name 'Marie') so the main nicknames are 'Kat' and 'Mari' (though most people are kind enough to refer to me by my English name).  For anyone who doesn't know, a Katamari is a sticky ball which picks up everything from people to mountains (and eventually turns into a star) in the video game Katamari Damacy.  Considering I had no choice in the selection of my name, I really enjoy the fact that it shares reference with pop-culture.  

This is a Katamari

I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but I'm still sick.  I know it is just a cold, one of those common illnesses most people get annually (especially when the temperature starts dropping), so I haven't thought much of it, but illness makes people very uncomfortable here.  In Taiwan (and most of Asia), it is customary for you to wear a face mask, even for something as small as a cough, so they are fairly common to see in public and in the classroom (however, they don't accommodate western noses well, so they are very uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time).  I finally went to the doctor (well, actually it was a hospital, because it was a guarantee that I could find an English speaker there) and got some medicine, so I should be better soon!  Everything about the medical field is far more intense when you don't understand the language around you, and I was led like a lost puppy through a series of medical exams, x-rays (unlike American hospitals, x-rays appear to be commonplace and inexpensive in Taiwan), and people asking if I speak Chinese.   In the end I was diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection (cold) and given a ridiculous amount of medication.  Pharmacists in western hospitals have consolidated pills so that the necessary antibiotics and vitamins are in very few pills (usually only one), but pharmacists in Taiwan hand patients separate pills for each symptom (as well as vitamins and preventative medications), so something like a cold is treated with six different medications (totaling over 50 pills/powders).  I have to give it to the Taiwanese medical system in terms of prices, however.  Including an x-ray, tests, analysis, and my prescriptions I paid about $80 US, without any insurance (and when I receive my insurance card I get the majority of that refunded to me).  I've got my fingers crossed that this will be the last week I will be reporting on this illness.