You're Getting Old, America!

From the other side of the world, I would like to say 'Happy 4th of July'! It is a little weird to think of how much can happen in one year.  For instance, on July 4th last year, as the fireworks were about to start, I was on the phone with my recruiter for Taiwan, contemplating whether I should switch my efforts towards a job in South Korea or not, because I was frustrated at the number of Kindergarten jobs I was being offered in Taiwan.  Lucky for me, she was very persuasive, and here I am, 11 months into my contract, on the edge of a second year's stay here, and so happy with what my life has become.
Well, it is officially summer vacation here in Taiwan, but that doesn't mean the same thing for Taiwanese children as it does for their American counterparts.  While the children are granted a short break from the elementary, junior high, and high schools, many are still sent to spend their days in buxibans learning their extra curricular skills.  That means that I do not get the perk of 'time off' just because it is summer, in fact, my hours have increased (which is greatly appreciated, seeing as they have been very low recently).  Now, every week, one of the teachers will host an activity lesson (for last of a better phrase) rather than a traditional grammar and vocabulary-focused class.  In these activity lessons the teacher will chose any topic and teach that activity/skill in English, with the hope that the children will acquire the language without explicitly being taught it.  While I don't know that these lessons are a very effective way of teaching English, I know they are a great way of entertaining the kids.  I taught the first of these summer activity lessons this week, and my lesson was how to make homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered peanut butter balls.  I haven't seem my students that happy in a long time, the promise of sweets and no spelling tests is a winning combination.  Some of the things that I learned during this lesson were: Taiwanese people appear to like peanut butter balls nearly as much as western teachers do, vanilla is exceptionally hard to find in Taiwan, and chocolate ice cream stains shirts.

The CEI students, rolling peanut butter balls for our chocolate truffles  

Now it is time for a cultural note that I have known existed for the last 11 months, but I hadn't experienced until this week: Bin Lang (also known as Betel nut).  Bin Lang is made from the seed of the areca palm tree, and is the second largest crop in Taiwan, and is purchased primarily by men, to be chewed like chewing tobacco.  The nut is hard, stringy, and not intended to be swallowed, instead you hold it in your cheek and bite into it when you are ready for another burst of flavor.  Unfortunately, those bursts of flavor are accompanied by an increased production of saliva which causes you to spit repeatedly.  Even worse is that the nut dyes your saliva, gums, and teeth a blood-red color leaving the marks of your chewing experience on your mouth as well as the street.  So why is bin lang popular? There are some who enjoy bin lang for its slightly intoxicating effects.  Others chew this nut for medicinal purposes, mainly to solve problems within the digestive system.  Still seem to buy it just to interact with the vendors (known as bin lang girls) who can be found at all hours of the day in glass box booths, often in revealing outfits (and in a country like Taiwan where low-cut clothing is not very common, they tend to stand out.  

I tried bin lang for the first time since coming to Taiwan, and I don't particularly know what to think of the experience.  I definitely have no intent of going out to buy my own supply of seeds, but if offered it again, I might not turn it down.  The feeling you get when chewing bin lang was similar to the feeling you would get when you are getting drunk: it affected my vision a little, and I'm sure it affected my rate of speech, but the effects wore off almost instantly after spitting out the seed.  The main thing holding me back from enjoying bin lang is my strong liking of oral hygiene, I have seen so many people with stained mouths full of bright red teeth, and that is enough to convince me not to form a habit of it.