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...

Halloween Extravaganza

The project began in July, and has been several months in the making.  Students have auditioned, scripts have been written, songs have been rehearsed, and dances have been choreographed, all to culminate this Friday with the Halloween Extravaganza.  The Halloween Extravaganza has been the 'pet project' of Homei Shane School, and was brainstormed with the intent of showing off the many talents of our students.  five of our group classes rehearsed English songs and choreographed dances to accompany them, including Under the Sea (performed by my CEI08 class), This is Halloween (performed by the CEI13 class), and three Halloween-themed children's songs that I helped write verses for called Have a Happy Halloween (performed to the tune of Clementine by the CEI01 class), The Halloween Song (performed to the tune of Frere Jacque by the CE02 class of Lukang) and Great Pumpkin is Coming to Town (performed to the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town by the CE03 class).  Each of the classes did a great job performing, and it is really weird for me to look back on the day I first introduced each of these songs, the day when I would have said "they are never going to learn this in time".  I'm so proud of my students.  We also hosted several competitions during the showcase: a spelling bee and a trivia game.  I would say that the spelling bee was the least successful part of the show.  We hosted two levels of spelling contestants, in the first level the students were given a spelling list that eventually proved to be too easy for them, and the contestants knew most of the words making it a time-consuming process to eliminate each contestant (and eventually we had to announce two winners at this level).  In the higher level spelling bee, I experienced the opposite problem.  While the first few rounds went alright, but I eventually eliminated all but one contestant in the same round making it a very short spelling bee.  The trivia was successful mainly due to how much the contestants studied.  With questions in genres like sports, history, geography, pop culture, and English, the students were able to answer every question I threw at them with barely any question-to-answer wait time.  Outside of these main group events, we also saw several instrumental acts (including a zither and a violin), a puppet show, two reader theater productions, and a song done by me and two of my private students.  Lastly, the largest number of participants came in the form of our student hosts. Each act was introduced with a dialogue between me and one of the students, and each of those dialogues was written as a collaboration between a teacher and that student so it reflected something about the host, like their sense of humor, or their interests.  I was most excited to see this aspect of the show turn out well, mainly because it showcased a more natural use of English for the parents than songs or trivia do.

The main flaw of the show was how long it ended up being, the predicted 1.5 hour show turned out to be 2.5 hours, and while I am usually to blame for issues of timing, I am certain it was not due to me this time.  My Chinese-speaking counter host was nice enough to provide commentary between each of the acts to allow the parents who don't speak English to hear about the act and performers.  The awkward turn around for me is that, while I was warned that if I spoke too much English it could potentially bore the parents or make them feel uncomfortable about not understanding me, but in turn I had to spend at least half of the show's time feeling uncomfortable and bored about the Chinese I wasn't understanding.  

Right now, I'm just so happy the show is over, and that to the best of my knowledge, it was a success.  It was nice to be able to use my old theater days in a completely new context, but it was a lot of under-appreciated and unpaid hours of work which I will be happier not being responsible for anymore.  And now, with only a few days left, it is time for the next project: pulling together a Halloween costume...

The winners of the singing competition: CEI13 with the song "This is Halloween".

One of our younger classes: CE04 singing a re-write of a Christmas song: "Great Pumpkin is Coming to Town".

My private students and I singing "Call Me Maybe".

Double 10th

Any short work week is a good work week, and by that logic, it follows that this was a good work week.  Why might that be? Every year, on October 10th, the Taiwanese celebrate the National Day of the Republic of China, more often referred to as "Double 10th Day" or simply "10-10".  Last year to celebrate 10-10, a group of friends and I took a scooter trip through the mountains of Taichung, and this year, while in a different county, a similar event occurred.  On an 'earthquake-themed' day, we went to Nantou county to explore some of the reminders of the 921 earthquake.  The 921 earthquake occurred in September of 1999, and, with a magnitude of 7.3 (on the Richter scale), it was the second most deadly earthquake in Taiwan's history.  The epicenter of the earthquake occurred along the Chenglongpu fault line and caused some sections of the fault to raise up to 7 meters which created new mountains and caused many landslides.  The origin of the earthquake is signposted, and if you go there you can see the jagged edges and of the affected fault line, as well as the remains of a house that (supposedly, though my source is the internet, so it might not be trustworthy) has (collapsed and) moved approximately 100 meters away from it's original location.

The epicenter of the 921 earthquake.

Slightly further down the mountain from this point is another house which was affected by the earthquake, only, unlike the previous image, this house, while now unlivable, is still in tact.  When the ground began to shake and break around, this well-built house moved with it and earned itself the title of the "slanted/sloped house".  Something very strange happened to this house after the earthquake, most likely due to its located near the epicenter of the earthquake, the brick walls became magnetized, which gives people a slightly disorienting and dizzy feeling when they step inside.  The magnetization of the house can be proven by pressing any 5NT or 10NT coin against the front wall of the house and watching them stick.

Nantou County's slanted house.

I'm relatively certain it is school-related pressure associated with our upcoming showcase, but I have had a terrible bout of insomnia this week.  I have always been a 'night owl' so staying up late is something I am used to doing, but I don't appreciate the feeling of not being able to sleep when I want to, and unfortunately, I keep doing things that don't help the situation.  For example, last night I stayed out until 7:30am celebrating my friend's birthday in Taichung.  The thing to consider, when attending any nighttime event out of Changhua, is the fact that after midnight the trains won't run again until 6am, and a taxi home will cost between 400-600NT (from the main cities I find myself in at night).  So, there comes a time in every out-of-city festivity, where you weigh your options and decide whether you are going home early, taking a taxi in the middle of the night, or catching the first train in the morning.  This weekend, option number 3 was the victor.  And here I find myself again, well past the hour of midnight (though thankfully, I'm in my apartment tonight), and awake yet again.

Today's cultural thought is about public transportation.  As you may know, western people tend to speak in a louder voice than Asian people.  This is not an issue of respect, or attention-seeking behavior, or in any real way a reflection on either cultures, it is just statement.  As such, many foreigners living in Taiwan have found themselves in a situation of being told to 'quiet down' while on public transport (buses and trains primarily).  I could easily argue the legitimacy of both parties actions in these situations.  On one hand, I can understand being on a bus or train for an extended period of time, and just wanting to relax, but being unable to because of unfamiliar noises.  On the other hand, if we pay the same amount as anyone else to sit on a train, then we have as much of a right to talk as any other person on the train.  Obviously the solution is that foreigners need to watch their volume when in quieter environments, but the frustrating juxtaposition are the environments which should be silent but Taiwanese people choose to talk during them.  For example, I was doing a parent presentation last week with my beginner class.  It was the first time these parents observed their students in my classroom environment, and one of the dad's phones rang - and he answered it! Right there, in my classroom, while I am teaching, he began talking on his cell phone.  I can't say that his actions were right or wrong, he obviously felt it was an acceptable action, and equally, those of us who speak on the train, and those who complain about the speakers all feel their actions are acceptable as well.  As someone living abroad, however, if our actions aren't viewed as acceptable, it really is our job to change them.  After all, most of us are only guests here, and will move-on eventually.

Acclimating Further...

It occurs to me that you are probably as bored with hearing about my internet problems as I am with writing about my internet problems.  Therefore, I am excited to announce that my problems are resolved, I have returned to the world-wide-web, and I could not even begin to tell you how we went about solving the connectivity problems (let's just say I'm thankful for friendly, technologically-skilled, Chinese speakers).
I realize, as the weeks pass, that I find it increasingly more difficult to think of things that are worth writing about.  What once seemed unique and exciting has begun to lose a bit of its 'sparkle' for me.  I still love Taiwan, the problem is that it is just home to me now, and I would have struggled thinking of exciting events for every week of my Milwaukee life, or every week of my Apple Valley life, and so it appears Changhua is no different.  This city, this country, they are my life right now, and all of the elaborate temples, quirky locals, and even the language (however little of it I understand) are things I barely notice anymore.  It is a little bitter-sweet, being so acclimated to my life here.  It was fun thinking that everything was amazing and picture-worthy, and that thinking the experiences like being stared at by strangers (or watching them sneak pictures of you) were funny, but you can't live on the outside forever.  Before moving here, I had an in-depth conversation with someone, and their advise was to "truly live there".  It meant that I shouldn't try to survive off of a year-supply of things I brought from the US, or rely on care-packages from home, but I should embrace how Taiwanese people live.  I do live here, I shop in markets, I order in Chinese, I swerve around obstacles on my scooter, and all the other things this list implies.  I know there are still aspects that I have managed not to fully immerse myself in, namely the language (which, while I have taken lessons for months) but because of the large number of English-speakers in my daily life I have gotten by without dramatically increasing my fluency, but I still have hopes of improving that as well. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that there is nothing new in my life right now.
But even when my life doesn't hold updates, it still usually encounters something that makes me cock my head and think 'huh?'.  This week, my thought was about how easy it would be (or is) for foreigners to get away with breaking the laws in Taiwan.  Most police officers know limited or no English, so when they are confronted with a situation where they need to interact with foreigners, they often choose to just ignore it.  Confused? I have a few examples.  The other day I was driving my scooter home from work, and the police had barricaded one of the intersections.  Right now the police are cracking down on drunk driving, so all scooters that arrived at the intersection had to pass a breathalyzer before moving on.  I waited in line on my scooter as each of the drivers ahead of me blew into the tube, and when I reached the front of the line they just waved me past.  Also this week, one of my friends was pulled over by an officer for running a red light.  She pulled her scooter over, the police officer approached her, and then she was free to go.  It would be impossible to expect every police officer to learn English, but the non-confrontational approach gives foreigners a lot more freedom than they deserve.
To complicate things for the Taiwanese law enforcement, government, and people in general, there is the realization that not all foreigners speak English to consider.  There are a large number of German engineers who live here, but the appearance of a white face automatically triggers an "English mode" in   the Taiwanese population (which is something that was drilled into them in their school and work days).  Luckily with the popularization of English around the world, most white foreigners living in Taiwan, regardless of their ethnicity, have at least some grasp of English.

A Get-Away to Celebrate the Moon

Ironically, it was this time last year that I missed my first weekly update, and here I am, for only the second time in over a year, trying to fit two weeks of adventure into a few short paragraphs.  The first vital update, which is also my excuse for my tardiness, is that I still have no internet in my apartment.  The funny thing I have been discovering about the internet is that its importance has changed so much in our everyday lives, and while I can’t remember not having it in my house as a child, I can remember using dial-up connections and essentially only using it for school and e-mail.  Then the age of social networking happened, and everyone was using Xanga, or MySpace, or eventually Facebook, and staying in contact with people wasn’t just easy anymore, it was second nature.  Most people can sit down at a computer and without even realizing it, Facebook has been typed into the search bar.  Plus, now with smart phones, most people never miss a message, they are constantly in contact with the world.  Have you gotten the chance to really experience not having that connection lately?  I would have guessed that I would be fine without it, but to be honest, right now it is really accentuating the distance between the US and Taiwan for me right now, which is upsetting me a bit.  One of the things that has made living abroad so easy has been being able to talk to friends and family on a regular basis, but compensating for the time distance, and accounting for the limited number of establishments with free WiFi around Taiwan, communication has been exceptionally difficult this month.  The other thing that is upsetting is the helplessness of not being able to fix the situation for myself.  I’m quite certain there must be an easy solution, whether it is through calling my internet service provider, or through calling my router’s help line, but I don’t have the Chinese required to do either, and don’t have access to a translator due to the lack of internet in the fist place, so I feel stuck.  This weekend I have sent my routers (yes, I have two) off with some of the TA’s from my school, so hopefully they can help me with some solutions soon, I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Enough about that, let’s talk Taiwan.  One of the main family holidays around here, which falls on the 15^th day of the 8^th lunar month, occurs around this time every year.  It goes by several names including Mid-Autumn Festival and Moon Festival, and is celebrated with moon cakes and barbecues outside of every storefront.  Moon cakes are a traditional dessert item year-round in Taiwan, but during this season they fill every bakery.  A moon cake is a slightly flakey dessert pastry filled with red bean paste and a sweetened egg yolk, and while you are thinking it sounds like something you wouldn’t enjoy, you are probably right.  They appear to be an acquired taste, and while I have pleasantly smiled my way through many of them this year, I have only had one that I thought was really good. 

After celebrating the eve of moon festival with a school barbeque and an all-night karaoke session, a few friends and I hopped on a plane and travelled to the near-by island of Penghu.  Penghu, also called the Pescadores, is an archipelago owned by Taiwan along its west coast.  The archipelago is made up of three main inter-connected islands: Penghu, Baisha, and Xiyu and 61 other small islands (most of which are uninhabited).  It has been colonized by many countries for its strategic placement in the Taiwan Straights, but now it is primarily a tourist location, particularly for those interested in watersports due to being one of the windiest places in Taiwan.  We only had a few days to explore the islands, but luckily due to their size we managed to visit most of the main attractions, and didn’t let the fact that a super-typhoon was blowing across Taiwan slow us down.  That’s right, while strong winds and rains were a constant threat, we were out on scooters, driving across inter-island bridges as waves splashed over us.  The whole thing sounds much riskier in words that it was in reality however.

The sites of Penghu are mostly beach or temple related.  On our first travel day we scooted through all three of the main islands and saw a vast number of temples along the way.  The most unique of these temples (though I never learned its name) had a green turtle sanctuary in the basement.  Green turtles are celebrated in Taiwan as a symbol of longevity, and this temple has a coral-wonderland in the basement with pools for several huge turtles to swim around in.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Another unique temple was the Baoan Temple, home of the Tongliang Banyan, estimated to be more than 200 (and in some guesses more than 300) years old, this tree has now dropped roots all over an adjoining courtyard.   Also included in the day’s site-seeing was an abandoned military fort and a lighthouse, but I would say the biggest accomplishment were the two new foods I get to add to my “I’ve eaten that” list.  I don’t think most people will think it too shocking, but I ate cactus fruit  and cactus fruit ice cream, but it makes the list because I can’t imagine most people will get to try it.  Cactus fruit is an almost unnaturally red color that when eaten on its own will dye your tongue red, but the ice cream, while being that same color, doesn’t change the color of your mouth.  When looking at it, one would guess the ice cream will be either very tart or very sweet because of its dark color, but it doesn’t have an overpowering flavor, still, I would gladly eat it again.  The accomplishment, in terms of food consumption, was eating live sea urchin.  The sea urchin is served already halved, but the meat needs to be scraped from the inside ‘shell’ while avoiding the outside spikes.  The consistency of the meat is slimy, grainy, and not very filling, but the flavor isn’t too bad (especially for someone who eats sushi as often as I do), so unlike the ice cream, I don’t think I will put this on my recommendation list.  The second day of travel was more of a beach day, though the weather was appropriate enough to actually enjoy the water (in fact, on one beach we were stopped by the coast guards for prancing around on the beach in swimsuits without attempting to swim at all).  We were able to watch some kite surfers on one beach who were literally flying over the waves.  The benefit of the weather is it kept us moving from location to location so we could see several beaches, a temple, and a ‘blow hole’ (a hole in a rock that when the waves hit it produce a blow-hole similar to a whale), but nicer weather would have allowed us to properly enjoy each location.

Posing with a plate of sea urchin sashimi

The coral-wonderland, home to the green turtles

Look carefully, there are 'soldiers' all over this fort.

Jumping for joy - excited to be in Penghu

We got back to Changhua late Sunday night, and I went through a fairly normal week.  Lots of classes, lots of sleep, lots of Chinese, you know the routine.  I felt really busy this week, but I don’t really know why.  I had a presentation, and I did some planning for our upcoming student showcase, but overall my workweek was pretty easy.  Maybe it was just a side-effect of the slight cold I appear to be getting.  Hopefully my nice, relaxing weekend will rejuvenate me for next week.  Saturday morning started with a drive to Taiping and a dip in out now multi-frequented waterfall.  I don’t know what I’m going to do in the future when I don’t have the option of freshwater pools to swim in, they are perfect.  A few hours of river rock climbing and splashing around and we were off to celebrate my good friend’s birthday with a taste of home (TGI Fridays), and a few big city bars, and, since my age is catching up with me (haha) I spent most of today lounging around my apartment.

I guess that’s it for now, another two weeks of adventure come and gone.  Hopefully this time next week I will be writing from the comfort of my own home, with my newly operational WiFi, well, that’s what will be happening in a perfect world at least.

Back to the Real World...

Taiwan can be a silly country at times.  Sometimes, when there is a national holiday that falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, the holiday will be expanded into a long weekend by displacing the previous or following workday (either the Monday or the Friday, depending on when the holiday falls).  The hours from that non-holiday day-off will be worked on a Saturday instead.  This is true of most businesses, including schools, offices, shops.  This week was one of those “extended work weeks” which is intended to reward employees with a 4-day weekend for Moon Festival (which falls next weekend).  The thing that is most irritating about this week being a 6-day work week isn’t the extra hours (I quite enjoyed my classes on Saturday), nor is it the short weekend (I wouldn’t have done much more than lounge anyway), it is the fact that there was no forewarning about our Saturday hours.  When I arrived back in Taiwan last weekend my co-worker gave me a copy of my official schedule for the week (it didn’t include Saturday), when I got to work on Monday my manager gave me a copy of the week’s schedule to post in the Teacher’s Room (it didn’t include Saturday), I signed out on my work schedule after each class of the week (it didn’t include Saturday).  The first indication that I was given of these extra work hours came at 9:30pm on Thursday night in the form of a note, stating that the school had neglected to pass on this information.   I think my main frustration with the whole situation is the fact that I work for a school that employs foreigners, a school that relies on people from other countries to draw in their customers, yet they forget that being from other countries means we don’t know everything about Taiwan.  I may have lived here for a year, but last year Moon Festival fell on a Sunday and wasn’t a long weekend, so I couldn’t have used that memory to predict this week’s schedule.

It has been nice to be back around my students again, my crazy, adorable students.  While I was on my contract break in the US our school picked up two new beginner classes which were added to my schedule, thus putting me at a comfortable 24 classroom hours a week (which is much better than the 18 I was working a few months ago).  The beginning weeks with a new class can be a little out of control, and my two 01-level classes (one intensive and one regular) are no exception.  I have students who wont speak, students who won’t stop speaking, students who can’t stay in their seats, students who know nothing about English, and strangely, one student who can hold basic dialogues with me already.  Within a term or two I expect the levels will have evened out pretty well, but for a while the main challenge will be to teach all of these kids how to behave in a classroom setting (which is easier said than done). 

On a completely non-Taiwanese note, I have been internet-less for about 10 days now due to my lack of technical comprehension.  I returned to Taiwan with a Mac rather than a PC, and despite my Ethernet convertor and cable, and my WiFi router, I can’t seem to connect to the internet.  The problem seems to be that I need the internet to recognize the router, and I need the router to get the internet, what an unfortunate cycle.