Emotional Rollercoaster

Here we go, almost 3 weeks of updates, all piles into one, mid-week post.  I’d like to start with the most frustrating realization of my week, which is actually the cause of the delay in my posts: my neighbor.  It appears that the lack of internet I have been re-experiencing for the last few weeks was not due to my router, or my computer, or any logical problem at all.  It was due to the fact that my new neighbor has decided to unplug my room’s cords from the building modem, thus rendering my wall-port useless.  While I would like to grant her the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was not unplugged maliciously, since sitting at home this evening she has returned to the modem and unplugged it again.  For the first time in my life, I am worried about my living situation, oh dear…

Well, I have had a very busy few weeks which have put me through a rollercoaster emotions.  I started off two weeks ago feeling overworked, underappreciated, and generally unhappy with my work life. Most of the mood was a byproduct of a culture conflict involving one of the biggest holidays in Western culture: Christmas.  To be entirely honest, coming to a Buddhist country, I did not expect much recognition for the holiday from the locals, and I expected to celebrate on the weekends with my foreign friends, and in early morning Skype calls with my family back home.  So it follows that I was shocked last year to discover that since I work for a British-owned company, the day is a holiday and we are not required to work on it.  Instead of teaching, I spent a wonderful day in Yuanlin with my friends, drinking mulled wine, eating steak, playing games and exchanging presents.  We were informed this year that we would not be granted the same luxury this year, that because Christmas is not a national holiday in Taiwan it wasn’t possible to cancel the classes, which is a reasonable thing, because it means the parents who are working do not need to arrange special care-taking for the day, but the presentation of the news was not done well by the management.  As I have already mentioned, our company closes on Christmas, and it is in our official work calendars that it is a recognized day-off, so when informed that it would be a work day, several teachers questioned how the company’s head-office felt about the news, and we were informed that ‘franchise schools are given permission to make adjustments to the holiday calendar’.  Accepting this as true, many of the teachers voiced concerns to head office (some in the form of complains, some in the form of suggestions for future implementations of this rule, and some with an air of general sadness), and what we got in return were e-mails stating that no such permission was given to the franchise, and that for the past 17 years Shane has been open in Taiwan, Christmas has been a holiday, and there is no intent on changing that now or in the future.  Since the initial conflict, the schools have resolved to cancel classes on Christmas and allow us the day off, but the issue still stand that we were lied to, and we have no real way of knowing how common of a trend lies like this are.  What I do know is that it changes the dynamic between management and staff and put unnecessary strain on all involved.

The entire situation had me upset for a few days, but a dangerous trek through Wulai and a night in Taipei brought my spirits back up.  Wulai is a small city about 40 minutes outside of Taipei, and is home to an aboriginal population and an 80 meter tall waterfall.  The waterfall was gorgeous, but before getting to that simple beauty there were a few dangerous adventures to be had.  We started by searching downstream of the waterfall for a natural rock slide, which is said to be smooth enough to slide down without a wetsuit, but it is only accessible via river trekking.  Unprepared for what the trek would entail, we set out into the river carrying our bags and belongings for the weekend.  Within a short distance up the river we decided to abandon our belongings (not wishing them to be soaked and destroyed in the river), and we began adding short stints of swimming to our trek.  Bruised bodies and pained feet (from stepping on sharp stones) didn’t successfully get us to the waterslide, and with the fear of missing the waterfall in the air, we abandoned our quest.  We made it back out of the river and switched to walking along a nature path back to the main city.  Changhua isn’t known for it’s greenery, so it was nice to be around all of the plants, and we happily walked along for about 40 minutes, then, it became…an adventure.  Ahead of us were several locals who had stopped and were beginning to turn back.  Now, why would they be doing that 40 minutes into the hike? Because an area which most likely used to contain a bridge, was now nothing more than a cliff-face with two ropes strung along its wall.  Trendsetters that we are, however, we grabbed that rope climbed across.  Shortly after we came across obstacle number two, a landslide had destroyed another bridge, but there were no cliff-faces, just a few 2x4’s across the rocks and water, so again we climbed across.  Within a few minutes, we were confused by the streams of water being sprayed into the air from a busted pipe.  Why are there pipes in the middle of a mountain trail? If we had stopped to think about it, we would have realized they were carrying natural hot spring water to the local hot spring bath houses., but we didn’t think of that until after the sting of scalded feet had occurred.  When we reached the end of the trail, there was a huge gate, and several warning signs about how the path was out of commission, it would have been a completely different day if we had been walking in the opposite direction.  Seeking a slightly safer location in the mountains, we next made our way to the Wulai waterfall, which is about 80 meters fall and splashes down on into a popular hot springs area.

Hanging out at the Wulai Waterfall.

The rest of the night was, eccentric, but not full of as many stories as I would have liked.  I found myself in the place where “gay” meets “Halloween”, no really, both Taipei’s gay pride parade and Halloween festival/party appeared to occur on the same day, which led to an interesting assortment of people on the streets that night.  The main thing that stood out about the gay bars this year was the pricing.  As with other countries, there is a trend in a lot of bars in Taiwan to host a special where women get reduced entry or drink prices or something, but for pride weekend there was a ‘reverse special’ where men’s prices were cheaper.  On the outside, this seems like a fair enough deal, there were two glaring faults in it however, the first is that, the men’s prices weren’t actually reduced, the women’s prices were just increased (they wanted $500NT for men (about $17 US) and $800 for women (about $27 US)).  I’m all for a good bar, gay or straight, but especially at 3am, I was not about to spend that kind of money to squish into a crowded room of drunk, sweaty people.  The second fault is that in a weekend where the theme is equality, and everyone is fighting for a similar cause, this pricing does not just discriminate against straight women, but lesbians as well.  So, what is essentially being said with this statement is ‘Thanks for all of your help this afternoon, ladies, but we don’t need you anymore’.  Seems like the wrong weekend to be making those kinds of statements if you ask me.  That became an almost angry commentary, but to be honest, I was tired and discovering an expensive bar was a perfect excuse for me to go home, no hard feeling from me, just thoughts.

After the anger week, my rollercoaster veered onto a more enjoyable course, and I had a pleasantly routine week.  I worked, slept, ate, and, oh yea, celebrated Halloween.  I spent a while dreading the return of the Halloween season because it is so difficult to figure out costumes in Taiwan (considering it isn't a popular holiday here for anyone except the students in English buxibans), but all of the costumes my friends and I put together turned out really well.  For the first time, I chose to do a scary costume this year, and went as a scarecrow, using lots of face paint, a plaid shirt, cut up jeans, and shredded paper instead of straw.  It came together well, and watching students jump when they saw me lurking in the dark doorways made it worthwhile.  I appear to have been the nominated foreign representative for Halloween, and so I taught a theme lesson (we made pipe-cleaner spiders, paper plate webs, and had toilet paper mummy races), then brought the classes trick-or-treating to the local businesses, then I helped the TA's host a haunted house.  It was really fun.

The teachers on Halloween.

That weekend I crossed off a few more things on my Taiwan bucket list, starting with something I mentioned almost a year ago.  Although it is now a dying art, I can now prove it still exists in Taiwan: funeral stripping.  Performing for the deities, and the deceased, as well as the men, women, and children who gather around the truck bed stages, scantily clad women do public pole dances to popular music (the music that I heard was all in English too). 

I also scooted 2 hours away to see one of the first sites I put onto my bucket list, marker of the Tropic of Cancer in Chiayi.  The thing about this site is that the reviews aren’t very favorable, and I’ve been to the marker in Hualian (another county which the Tropic intersects), but still, it had to be visited.  And so, accompanied by one of my friends, we followed the highway and arrived (without a single wrong turn), at one of the most unique structures in Taiwan.  Somewhat resembling a spaceship, or a water tower, instead of the typical design of a vertical pole (which is the typical design because it’s location on the Tropic will not cause it to cast a shadow on the solstice) Chiayi’s marker is a space exploration center.  Complete with inaccurate models of the planets in our solar system, momentos (or models of momentos) of space exploration, and a lot of poorly translated astronomy exhibits, the location provided at least an hour of entertainment for us.  Would I say it is worth a two hour drive? Probably not.  Would I say it is worth seeing while you are in the area? Certainly. 

The Tropic of Cancer marker: Chiayi.

And here we are again, drawing much nearer to the weekend that I am used to when I post.  It's been a good week, but you'll have to wait to hear these stories...