Dragon Boats, Taipei, and a "goodbye"

Well, it happened...I wore my parents out so they had to flee the country to recover.  Well, maybe that isn't exactly what happened, perhaps it was just the end of their vacation time here in Taiwan.  Either way, they have safely returned to the states and I will have to wait a few more months before I see them again.
The adventures of this week were marginally more relaxed than last week, and didn't involve nearly as many cities (which was probably appreciated).  Monday and Tuesday were regular work days, so my parents and I settled back down in Changhua, again.  The unique this about these work days though, was having my parents as 'students' in my class.  I don't think most teachers can say that their parents have observed them in action, and even fewer are likely to say that they participated in the lesson, but mine can now say just that.  In the younger of the two classes my parents were their own team (team 'old people') and, while they fought hard, they lost to the students (team 'young people'), and in the older class they observed from the back of the room.
The weekend started on Wednesday, just as it did last week, but this week it kicked off with a national holiday.  The 5th day of the 5th lunar month is known as the Duanwu Festival, which, in English, is known as Dragon Boat Festival.  Dragon Boat Festival originated in China, and its observance has been recognized in many Asian countries, including Taiwan.  The holiday centers around the racing (or simply watching the racing) of long, motor-less boats which are propelled by a team of rowers.  Each boat is traditionally adorned with a dragon's face and tail decorations for the race, and is manned by a team of 22 people (1 drummer who sets the timing for the paddlers, 1 person who steers the boat, and 20 people who paddle the boat).  Each race takes only a few minutes and the standard distance of the race is 500 meters.
Another tradition of the Duanwu Festival is eating zongzi, which is a sticky rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo.  Chinese history attributes the significance of these dumplings to the death of a famous poet.  The poet tried warn others that their land was at risk due to the expansion of neighboring peoples, and when his people lost the poet drowned himself.  To try and stop the fish from eating the poet's body, the townspeople threw zongzi-like packets of rice into the water.  After having finally eaten one of these rice dumplings, many of us agree that fish-food is their best use.  Their flavor, and the consistency of the sticky rice do not combine to being one of Asia's better food items.
One of the main cities to watch the races from in the Changhua area is Lukang, so that is exactly where my parents and most of my fellow teachers went.  I have to say, while I love the concept of Dragon Boat Festival, I was let down by the reality of this holiday; only two boats raced at a time, none of the spectators seemed to be paying attention or cheering, it was hard to see who won, and for our safety we had to abandon our river-front seats.

The Dragon Boat races in Lukang

Thursday was my parents last full day in Taiwan, so we spent it in Taipei (to be close to the airport).  We spent several hours exploring Ximen, which is one of the big shopping/eating areas in Taiwan, and (almost unintentionally) wandered over to the Longshan Temple and Snake Alley again (night markets, teppanyki, and McDonalds seemed to be the staple food providers for my parents during their stay).

I had so many plans for my weekend, but none of them actually came to fruition.  However, I would say the weekend I had was much better than what I originally intended on doing.  Alone again, after the departure of my parents, I decided to explore some of the sites in Taipei that I had never visited before, namely the Chiang Kai-Shek and Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Halls, two buildings which were constructed to commemorate two of the most influential political figures in the history of Taiwan.  

This is me, in front of the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei.

The Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei

Realizing that I didn't want to spend my weekend alone in Taipei when everyone else was back in Changhua, I took a bus back to my city and spent the weekend with my friends.  Due to the influx of new teachers in the group it was time for a walking tour of Changhua which included the major sites of the Confucius temple, the water features of Baguashan, the Great Buddha statue, and LA Lounge (a bar which happened to be featuring KTV).

To finish off the weekend, and to cope with the heat of a Taiwanese summer, today was a day dedicated to cooling off.  Several people jumped on our scooters and traveled into the mountains around Taichung to see the waterfall in Taiping.  Along the way we tackled an obstacle that I have approached with friends several times now: the Bat Cave.  In Taiping there are a series of old water tunnels which have been claimed as a home to the bats for centuries I imagine, but it has been modified with tourist features (like bridges, bathrooms, and picnic areas) more recently than that.  I have been brought here two times in the past, but both times the group turned back before we properly explored the tunnels, but this time we made it through the whole thing  I have always been told that the bats have vacated the primary tunnels due to stream of visitors that disrupt them, but there were probably about 50 bats in the cave today.  The tunnel itself was very small at points, causing us to bend down as we walked, and walk sideways at points, but the most uncomfortable aspect of the experience was the mud which coated (and other unidentified substances) which coated the floors up to knee-level at times and tried to steal out shoes at ever step.  Thankfully we were on our way to swim in the mountain streams, so it wasn't hard to clean off afterwards.  It was a perfect wrap-up to a great week!

Memorable conversation of the week: I find that as a teacher I say some ridiculous things to my students from time-to-time, and it always amazes me when my students retain these things.  Last week there was a cockroach on the wall of my CEI 11 classroom.  My students pointed it out to me, but seeing that it was near the ceiling and thus out of reach, I did not want to deal with killing it, so I told them "That is my friend Derek, I invited him to our class today".  My students laughed, then accepted this explanation, and didn't comment on its presence for the remainder of the class.  One of my co-teachers taught the same class this week in my absence, and while she was teaching a cockroach crawled out from behind the whiteboard, so she removed her shoe and promptly killed the cockroach, to which my class' response was "You can't do that! That is Teacher Kaitlin's friend!".  Take a minute to savor the mental image of a group of children mourning the death of a cockroach like that.