There's Music in the Air!

I really enjoyed this week at school, not because anything particular happened, it might have just been because the stress of Mother's Day activities had finally ended.  The thing that I didn't enjoy, however, was the ending of an era in my Homei Shane School life.  Thankfully this isn't my usual sad post about how weird it is when my friends here move away, this is just about a co-worker changing schools, and while it will be sad not to have him in the office, it is so nice when people not only decide to stay, but are given the opportunity to as well.  There are a lot of memories I could use to summarize the last 9 months of working together, but without a doubt, our office time boils down to two phrases, "Homei's for life" (taken from the pinyin spelling of our city's name, which looks remarkably similar to "homeys") and "Teachers In Formation" (taken from a misreading of a folder in our teacher's room which said "Teacher's information" but was read with the wrong parsing").

Graeme, Tash, and I - Homei's for life, Teachers-In-Formation.

This weekend centered around the Compass Music Festival, which is one of central Taiwan's largest gatherings of foreigners, all coming together to enjoy music and food.  The event lasted for 2-days, and was scheduled to showcase 18 bands (all of the bands on day-1 were foreigners, but I can't speak for day-2's performers) and be feature food from around the world..  The thing that is amazing about event's like this is that they remind you how many foreigners out in this small country, and how many countries we come from.  I would say the only downside to the day was how incredibly how it was (I think it must be due to the amount of rain lately, but the humidity has become horrible as we move into the summer months making a day of 85 degrees feel between 87-105 degrees (the range of highs in this week's temperature)).
There wasn't much to the rest of the weekend.  A bit of shopping, a bit of eating, a lot of rain.  It was a really nice, relaxing weekend, that was it.

Our newest teacher, performing spoken word at the Compass Music Festival.

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A delicious Thai dinner to finish off the weekend.

The additional thoughts of the week are focused on the tensions between Taiwan and the Philippines at the moment, which began with the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman in the Bashi Strait, the area of water separating Taiwan and the Philippines.  The Philippine coast guard, the ship responsible for the shooting of the fisherman claimed the shot to be in self-defense, saying that the fishing boat was in Philippine waters and was going to hit a Philippine ship.  Condolences were sent to Taiwan following the incident, but Taiwan has still issued a freeze on the intake of new Filipino employees.  This is a huge 'attack' on the Filipino people, because many of them rely on employment in Taiwan to support their families.  It is not uncommon for people from the Philippines to spend a few years in Taiwan, making money where the rate-of-pay is better and the cost-of-living is lower, so they can send back funds to their families.  Approximately 30,000 Filipino employees are hired in Taiwan every year, and there are currently about 85,000 Filipino employees on this island.  Taiwan's freeze on hiring from the Philippines will not only affect future generations of employees, but it is also likely to cause the Filipino-companies in Taiwan to close-down when they are no-longer able to staff themselves.

It has been interesting to hear people speculate what will come of this tension, particularly what will happen involving allies of the two countries.  With the US being an ally to both countries, it should not pick a side in the issue, but people are worried that with the US military bases already in the Philippines, the benefits in supporting that alliance are stronger.  The other wildcard is China, who have attempted to claim the death of the fisherman as an attack on themselves as well (because they want the world to believe they control Taiwan, even though the two countries have been separate for 102 years).  Some people worry that, if Taiwan preoccupies itself with a war against the Philippines, that it will leave the island susceptible to an attack from main-land China.  It should go without saying that I am hoping nothing comes of this tension, because I love Taiwan, and I would love to visit the Philippines, and war between any countries is a travesty, but was between two smaller island nations like this could cause irreparable damage.