Singing in the Rain

I don't think I've stopped coughing all week, is have become quite a nuisance at work (though my students think it is hilarious to drill sentences that have ben disrupted with coughs).  I finally visited the doctor late in the week and have consumed my prescribed medications, but my health does not seem to be improving quickly.  The interesting thing about Taiwan is that you can pretty much tell how 'severe' a doctor perceives your illness to be based on how many pills you are prescribed, so the fact that I was only given three pills a day for three days practically means the doctor considered me healthy.  The struggle I go through to regain my breath after each coughing fit begs to differ, however.
For anyone living in Taiwan, the following will not come as a surprise, but to those living in the west, you might enjoy this insight into Taiwanese thinking.  I did a presentation for the parents of one of my youngest classes this past week, and as soon as the children were done, I broke out into a fit of coughing.  My manager decided to ask the children (in Chinese) what I should do to feel healthy again.  One after another, as if they were stating original responses, each child told me to "take medication".  They did not even use different phrasing, six students in a row responded "chi yao", which to me shows a lack of creativity as well as an engrained response to illness.  Could no one think to tell me to drink water? to sleep more?
Aside from the coughing, this week was also a little depressing due to the rain.  We are currently in the midst of the rainy season, which means I practically live in my plastic bag poncho or under my umbrella.  I have to ask myself daily whether it is worth it to apply make-up and dry my hair before driving to school, or if I should just bring some stuff to the teacher's room and get ready there.  The rain has been so heavy that it seems to have destroyed something in my scooter (a fuse or something?), so Monday morning, before heading to the school, I had to spend quality time walking 'Street Fighter' (my scooter's name) to the nearest shop for repairs.  Thankfully we were up and running within 30 minutes and still at school on time.
The rain was kind enough to clear in time for the weekend, which allowed what seemed like every foreigner in central Taiwan to attend the Compass Food and Music festival.  The festival is a two-day event which features 17 local bands (with both Taiwanese and English speaking singers), and a variety of global foods (such as Italian, Tibetan, Indian, Mexican, and Chinese).  After 8 hours of hearing other people sing, the music bug had hit us all, and we decided the best thing to do was to book a KTV room.  Clearly I have spent a lot of weeks singing while here in Taiwan, but this was one of my favorite karaoke nights.  Combined with a few other groups from the music festival, this was one of the largest groups I have gone to KTV with, and it was just nice to hear a new set of voices and a new selection of songs.

Nothing screams Asia like pandas.

At the Compass Festival

I find myself particularly proud of Changhua for this week's note, which is simply a regional note rather than a cultural one.  It appears that my county has begun the project of setting up 30 public bike rental stations which will provide access to more than 700 bikes.  All day today I saw groups of people checking out the bike racks, or peddling around town.  While some of the big cities, like Taipei and Kaohsiung have bike rentals, it was surprising to see this program start in Changhua, however I think it is a great idea.  The purpose is to decrease public transportation and move towards being a 'greener', low-carbon city, while also encouraging exercise.  One thing I am interested in seeing, however, is how well the bikes are maintained.  Almost everyone that has owned a bike from my group of friends has had it stolen or broken, which means the risk of non-returns or destructive behaviors is likely for these public bikes as well.  This is something we will need to see play out over the next few months (or years).

A Friend From Afar!

“Let it go, let it go, can’t hold it back anymore…” Has everyone else been hearing this song as often as I have lately?  It appears Disney has succeeded in creating an incurably addictive song, and my students are all infected as well.  Even my oldest class has requested the lyrics so we can sing it together (and they never sing anything).  The song’s popularity, while initially started by the movie, was clearly fueled by the daily rehearsals of our mid-level CEI class for last weekend’s mother’s day show, but before we get into that, it’s time for a catch-up for the first 2/3 of May. 

May started in one of the best ways imaginable, with a visit from one of university friends.  It was inevitable that Anastasia and I would start talking, with our practically identical semesterly selection of linguistics and TESOL classes we shared a lot of time in the same classroom, doing the same projects, and even co-student teaching the same classes.  We lived such similar lives that even after graduation we found ourselves on the same path, and as we met for an end-of-the-summer going-away lunch we both broke the news of impending moves to Asia (she would be going to South Korea and I would be going to Taiwan).  It may sound silly but it was a relief to have a friend on this side of the world with me as I was acclimating to my new life, even if she was a few hours away, she was much closer than the people I had left back in the states.  We both adjusted so well to our new lives that we renewed our contracts, but we still hadn’t actually made it to visiting each other.  Finally, last month and almost-last minute trip was planned, and she flew into Taipei for an extended weekend at the beginning of the month.  I taught my Friday classes, jumped on my scooter, a local train, and the high speed train, and arrived at her bus stop only minutes before her bus arrived.  After a few mishaps getting to the hostel (my navigation of Taipei is atrocious) we got started on the desperately needed catch-up discussions that brought us to 4 am and ruined our chance at accomplishing any sightseeing in the morning hours. 

Saturday’s adventuring was pretty minimal, due to the late start and our intended evening plans.  We tried to visit the Taipei zoo, but arrived at closing time, and instead rode the Maokong Gondola through the mountains and by a scenic view of the city.  We were blessed with good company in both directions of the gondola journey.  On the way up, we were seated with a Taiwanese couple, a Chinese woman, and a Korean woman.  The country details are important because they created a perfect situation for two linguists to watch three different languages interact and allowing all six of us to chat.  The hours flew by and before we knew it we were late to our evening plans.  We raced back to the hostel to change, and made our way to the opening night of a comedy club to see my friend and the last few performers of a 3-hour show.  We got a few good laughs from the show, but we really weren’t there long enough to call it a highlight for the evening.  What we did get from the night was a couple of new friends who dragged us along to a well-known foreigner bar.  Determined to call it an early night, we only stayed out until 5am (as you can see, that didn’t work out so well).

Somehow we still managed to wake up at a reasonable time, and accomplish everything on our Taipei To-Do list.  Chiang Kai Shek memorial, Sun Yat Sen memorial, Longshan Temple, a fortune teller, dinner at Modern Toilet, and dessert at the Shilin night market; it was a busy day.  The highlight of the day came around dinner time, when the simplest of things became strangely memorable.  For starters, at dinner it is customary to sign a napkin or paper and slide it into the glass table to leave your mark on the restaurant.  Deciding the best way to showcase ourselves was through various languages, so we picked a simple word, “hello”, and wrote it in the 9 languages we have studied between the two of us.  Following dinner we were walking through the streets of Ximending, looking at jewelry, when Anastasia said she was considering a new piercing, and minutes later we both had needles through our ears and fresh studs set in our cartilage.  Walking away from the shop we heard a few people begin to squeal and scream behind us.  While I might joke that this is a normal reaction to foreigners in Taiwan, that is far from true, so we turned around to check out the commotion.  There, small and terrified, was a young mouse, surrounded by a whole swarm of Taiwanese people poking at it and photographing it.  The poor mouse could barely move out of fear, and we were afraid it wouldn’t be long before someone stepped on it.  I sent Anastasia off to get a cup from McDonalds to catch the mouse in, but before she returned I had managed to ask a nearby shop owner for a box and had already picked up our new rodent friend.  Not wanting to be stopped by locals, I caught Anastasia’s eyes and we marched right out of the busy streets and to a quiet park nearby to free it.  It is not that any of these events are amazing on their own, but the random nature of each unrelated event kept us thoroughly entertained.

Greetings in Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and English.

Outside of one of my favorite temples in Taipei, the Longshan Temple

At the Sun Yat Sen memorial.

Anastasia is having her fortune read.

Asia, a section of the world that considers poop to be cute.

Anastasia stayed to explore Taipei for a few extra hours on Monday, but I had to catch a high-speed train and race back to Homei to start my teaching day.  It took most of the week to recover my energy from the weekend. 

The majority of my downtime for the following two weeks was spent on preparing for the Mother’s Day show we hosted last weekend.  While the school hours were spent singing and rehearsing various poems and theater skits, my evening hours were spent testing my artistic abilities with the sketching and coloring of puppets for Where the Wild Things Are.  It was a time consuming project, but the results, coupled with a story corner reading of the book made for a cute little show. 

Along with the story corner, the Mother’s Day show consisted of six acts from four of our classes.  The songs performed that morning included a nursery rhyme style song called “Mommy, I Love You”, Taylor Swift’s “The Best Day”, Abba’s “S.O.S”, and Idina Menzel’s “Let it go”, so I can now recite each of these songs…backwards…without music…while undergoing and form of distraction you can think of, they are imprinted on my brain.   We also put together a reader theater version of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and a poetry reading called “Super Mom”.  The whole thing was co-hosted by me (in English) and one of my TAs (in Chinese).  I am proud of the final results, it was great to see the kids pull off such a great show, but my favorite thing about it is that the whole thing is over now and we can resume our normal class schedules (1.5 hours might seem like a lot of time for a class, but it is hard enough to cover the necessary components without the addition of 10-15 minutes of song rehearsals added into it). 

Immediately following the show the TAs invited me and another teacher to lunch in a nearby pasta shop, and we quickly lost track of the next two hours.  I rushed home, changed for the evening’s festivities, and rode off to Taichung for the goodbye dinner of our franchise’s senior teacher.  Dinner was served in a nice little Thai restaurant, provided a wonderful location to reunite with all of the teachers from our now overpopulated staff (the only problem was that the tables were too small and we were separated not only from the Taiwanese members of staff, but into two tables of foreigners as well).  We shared some jokes over hours of drinks (then left the restaurant and enjoyed still more drinks), wandered Taichung, played some Scrabble (After all, what is a night out without Scrabble?) and ended up having a massive slumber party (Why were these such a hit as kids? I find the comfort of my own bed and waking up of my own accord to be far more preferable.).  We woke up to heavy rain the next morning and by mid-afternoon realized that our plans for a scenic scooter trip would be to no avail, so we donned our ponchos and practically swam our bikes back to Changhua.

A panorama of the dining area at our Thai dinner.

I was talking to my manager the other day, and I came across another interesting cultural difference between Eastern and Western cultures.  This time we were discussing names.  I was helping address envelopes to the mother of one of my students by writing names and streets in Pinyin so they could be mailed.  I don’t typically refer to my students by their last names, so I don’t know most of them, but for one boy in the class I was aware that he and his brother share the last name Liu.  I was about to write this on the envelope when my manager told me that their mother’s last name was Wu.  Why would this be the case?  Well, I asked my manager and she seemed confused at first, “Because she is their mother” was her response, but this made me equally confused.  As it turns out, when couples are married in Taiwan, the last name is often not replaced, so a husband and wife will typically retain their birth names (though they can choose to tack on the new last name to the end if they want), and the children are named using the father’s surname.  This shows that there is still a strong emphasis placed on males in Taiwanese society (which shouldn’t come as a surprise). 

Another Week

Busy, busy, busy, there has been a lot happening around the school this week.  Mother’s Day is just around the corner we have been organizing another student showcase (similar to the Halloween Extravaganza that happened last October).  The halls are filled with singing, and the classes are filled with countless pink hearts being hurriedly filled with lines of poetry, just the way all holidays should be.  From time-to-time these additions to class are fun, but when planning a lesson they are nothing but a nuisance.  With classroom minutes already limited, it is hard to make time for the necessities, and adding time-sensitive projects makes it almost impossible to complete everything on time.  Still, it is nice to think that every kid will be able to present his mother with a card this year, reminding her of how important she is (and of what the tuition dollars are going towards).

This weekend I played “zoo animal” again, as my foreign status was put on display at a nearby elementary school.  The school was celebrating its 115^th anniversary with a marketplace and track and field day, and hundreds of parents and students flooded the school grounds to be part of the event.  I spent hours listening to students dare their friends to say “hello” to me, and watched them run away laughing as soon as they had completed their task, but rather than being annoyed by the gawking, it genuinely amused me for hours.  In fact, it inspired me to be even sillier with the kids I did know, begging them for hugs, making them pose in my pictures, and chasing them around when they wouldn’t answer my questions.  Once I was off the clock I stayed around the school for another hour letting my students talk me into buying the trinkets and food they were selling, while I wished them luck in their upcoming races.

Just a handful of the students who said "hi" to me at Saturday's promotional event.

The remainder of my weekend was nothing spectacular, but it was exactly what I had been craving.  Some movies, some drinks, entertaining conversations with some good friends, I couldn’t have asked for more from it. 

Now for a brief look into what’s happening outside of my ‘personal bubble’.  The political protests of Taipei have consumed the majority of recent news in Taiwan, and this week is no exception.  As the student protests have wound down following the 24-day occupation of the legislative building, a new protest has taken over the streets of the country’s capital.  The target of this protest has been a highly debated topic in many countries recently, with a strong divide in public opinion regarding its necessity.  Protesters gathered in the rain, sporting signs that read “No Nukes, No Fear”, as they attempted to talk the government out of completing the construction of Taiwan’s fourth nuclear plant, a project which began in 1999 and has been halted several times since then.  Around $300 billion NT (about $10 billion US) has already been invested in the project’s construction, yet president Ma has agreed to close off the completed reactor and stop construction of the nearly completed second reactor (a decision which could bankrupt Taipower Company).  The latest wave of public opposition to the nuclear power plant is inspired by the 2011 disaster in Fukushima Japan in which a large scale earthquake and subsequent tsunami resulted in a radiation leak and mass evacuations.  Concerned about a similar fate for Taiwan, due to the island’s location in the “Ring of Fire” (an arch bordering the Pacific Ocean which experiences many earthquakes and is home to many volcanoes), protesters’ goals were to stop the current construction of the 4^th plant, and to close the island’s existing plants.

Protesters have good reason to be concerned about increasing the number of nuclear reactors in Taiwan.  With the construction sites being relatively close densely populated cities, evacuation in the case of an emergency, would be difficult to accomplish.   On the other hand, the operating 3 plants in Taiwan provide about 20% of the island’s energy, meaning that Taiwan is not yet prepared to be a “No Nukes” country.   Are the other energy sources substantial enough to cover that percentage? Only time will tell. 

"I'm sorry teacher, I forgot to do my homework"

All of those annoying tendencies from my high school years are coming back to me I fear, and I find myself thinking of a list of excuses as to why I haven’t written in weeks.  It isn’t for lack of excitement in my life, on the contrary, I have found myself too busy on Sunday nights, and for as much as I love writing about my adventures, living them is the preferable experience, and so my virtual diary was temporarily put on hold.  Bear with me over the next few months, for I worry that this pattern will continue as a sort of defensive mechanism, allowing me to remain in denial about limited number of weeks I have left here. 

Lets journey back in time to the not so distant past, three weeks ago, where the story left off.  It was a week like any other, there were classes to plan, students to teach, and papers to grade. That is, until Friday rolled around, and the normalcy of a standard week was thrown away to allow Taiwanese families time to pay respect to their relatives by cleaning out the family tombs.  Seizing the short work week, a group of 9 teachers rented cars and took to the roads for our first road trip in Taiwan.  The plan was to cut through the mountains using the central cross-island highway and to spend our weekend in Hualien and Taroko gorge (two locations which were new to the majority of the group, but that I have visited twice before).  We set off bright and early Friday morning with half of our group sharing a Honda Civic, and the other half sharing a Toyota Tercel, which means we were pretty close once bags and leg room were accounted for.  Several hours into the mountains we were proud of our progress, but as the altitude climbed, the weather worsened, and for hours on end we were in clouds, unable to see more than 10 feet in front of us (at many times I struggled to see more than 1 dotted line on the road) desperately following the twisting yellow lines on the side of the road. 

There are some very strange things about driving on Taiwanese roads.  The most noticeable is the lack of concern Taiwanese drivers show for their surroundings.  Using speeds far exceeding the limits, passing cars on curvy mountain roads (in ‘no passing’ zones), and not turning on their headlights in visually difficult situations are just a few that come to mind at the moment, but while I was driving they were the most terrifying factors imaginable. 

About half-way through the driving portion of our departure day (though no one realized we were still so far away from our destination), we found ourselves in an out-of-place line of traffic.  Considering we were on mountain roads with no lights or signs, we were confused, so we sent ‘scouts’ to find the source of the stop (as well as bathrooms, it had been a long drive at this point).  Reports came back, we were being held up by a rock-and-mud-slide which had completely coated the road and was continuing to rain down debris into our path, and the workers predicted a 3-hour wait for the roads to clear up.  So, was it better to wait it out, or turn back to take a different route?  Once we had emptied our bladders (in a cloud, behind a tarp, next to the side of a cliff…that was a unique bathroom experience), we had no more pressing issues to attend to, so we settled in for the long wait, and before we knew it (about an hour later), we were moving again.  The rock fall slowed and one-by-one the workers allowed cars to sneak through the ‘danger zone’ and carry on.  We drove, and drove, and drove, and eventually the sun set, but the road signs showed we were still hours from our destination.  We arrived in Hualien city at about 11:30, 14 hours after the journey began, which is an almost unfathomable amount of time considering the size of Taiwan.  We settled into our hostel (which, due to a booking error was about $400NT/$14US cheaper per person, and was only occupied by us on the 2^nd night), then went out for a ‘congratulations on the completion of an epic drive’ drink at the nearest bar (where the staff taunted us with English songs until we took over the stage and serenaded the practically non-existent audience for hours). 

Happily watching the falling mud and rocks

We woke up early the next morning to begin the hiking portion of our weekend.  As I’ve mentioned before, Taroko Gorge is the gorge formed between the marble cliff faces of the mountains along the fault lines cutting through Taiwan’s east coast.  The result of plate movement, as well as erosion, have chiseled out a gorgeous canyon filled with natural waterfalls and unnatural bridges/tunnels to reach them by.  There is a lot to explore in the gorge, but the last two times I visited, I didn’t venture further than the Eternal Springs Shrine, so when we drove past that temple and went on instead to the Baiyang Falls and Water Curtain trail, I couldn’t have been more excited.  The trail began with a long, dark tunnel, and from the onset we knew it was a mistake not to have flashlights (as we all clung to handrails in the following tunnels).   After a few kilometers we arrived at a suspension bridge and a beautiful view of the Baiyang waterfall, which runs about 50 feet high.  Continuing on from this we reached the sight I was most excited about this trip: the water curtain.  This is an unnatural waterfall, formed during the tunnel’s construction, which now leaks heavy streams of water into a lime coated corridor.  The result is an almost deafeningly loud, and constant stream of water which flows in the tunnel and has resulted in the closing of this portion of the trail.  Who am I to let signs stop me though, and I (along with many other people) ventured into the caves to see the spectacle for myself.  I must admit, I think the novelty was in the fact that people are advised not to visit the location, for there isn’t much to see, and the lighting ruins the opportunity for most pictures.

Two "waterfalls", the Baiyang falls (left) and Water Curtain (right)

We went to the trail head for Swallows Grotto, but seeing our daylight hours were already growing short, we went back towards the Eternal Springs Shrine, because I was the only one who had seen it before.  To our surprise, the roads were blocked, and no one could access the shrine, but I remembered the hiking trail from a nearby Buddhist temple, so we reconvened in that parking lot and worked our way to the temple in reverse.  At the top of the walking trail we realized access to the shrine had been blocked in this direction as well (due to what appears to have been minor rock fall problems), so most people abandoned interest in visiting the shrine (while a few of us covered the bright articles of our clothing, snuck past the barriers, and descended the staircase). 

Upon return to the cars, we spotted a Buddhist monk carrying a heavy load of food.  She called us over, offered us countless pieces of fruit, and gestured a request for help, so we helped her move the load to a food elevator on the opposite side of the temple.  In return she showered us with even more foods, including fruits, breads, and a colorful paste, which we never successfully identified. 

That night I kidnapped one of my co-workers and we wandered Hualien city for hours.  It began as a disinterest in getting chicken from a street vendor, and resulted in us eating a sit down chicken dinner (so we didn’t get too far really), but was filled with several hours of being so lost we couldn’t find the car. 

The Road Trip Crew, out of the cars and loving nature.

The next morning, after deciding to take the southern route around the island rather than cutting through the mountains again, we jumped back in the cars and began driving again.  The first stop of the allowed me to complete my minor goal of seeing all three tropic of cancer markers in Taiwan, and while here we also watched some aboriginal dancing.  It was a short lived break from the road though and we were all getting anxious to return to Changhua.  We drove all day with very few breaks, and somehow the journey still took us 10 hours.

The third installment of my Tropic of Cancer collection: Hualien.

With the aboriginal dancers (who called me "mother").  

So, what do five people in their mid 20’s do when stuck in a car together for 24 hours?  For as much as my car-mates would have appreciated the quiet time, I need to keep my mind busy when I am driving, so we were constantly playing various games, or having interesting conversations, or singing.  Some of the highlights in terms of games were Mad Libs, word association, a song chain (where you need to sing a new song based on a word in the previous song), and my favorite, Fantasy Lasagna (where you simply design the perfect lasagna).  The trip was all about being on the road, and to have survived three days, in confined vehicles, with no accidents and no tension is an obvious sign of a successful trip.

On Monday evening, as I was helping to gas up the cars and prepare for their return the following day I spotted a large number of people waiting outside.  If I hadn’t been here last year I wouldn’t have understood what was happening, but the fireworks, and the flags, and the people, triggered the memory of last year’s Matsu parade and I was certain she was on her pilgrimage from Dajia again.  Sure enough, within a few minutes of searching, I was able to find her carriage, and her crowd of faithful followers.  So many people in Taiwan thing so highly of Matsu that it is hard not to do the same, and so I got into the spirit of the march (even more so than last year).  First I joined the line of people who, in the middle of the marching crowds had found space to crouch down in front of the carriage so she would pass over them and bring them luck.  After enduring a few comments about being foreign, I was invited to crouch down, and was pushed very low to the ground so she could be carried by.  I followed closely for some time, made sure to touch the carriage (also intended to bring good luck), watched her bless the temple nearest my apartment, and was about to go home when one of the carriers caught my eye.  He motioned for me to come closer to the carriage, then asked me (through gesture and Chinese) to carry one of the two large, red fans that accompanies the procession (fans of this size can only be used for deities in Taiwan, they are not intended for fanning people).  It felt amazing to be a central part of the procession.

The carriage of Matsu, walking the crowded streets of Changhua.

Getting back into the swing of things after the drive was difficult, however.  I find extended amount of time behind the wheel really wears me out, and I spend the next few days wanting constant sleep and knowing I needed to work.  We welcomed three new teachers to the schools this week (one for each of the following: Changhua, Homei, Lukang), and it wasn’t long until the weekend was upon us again.  I fought my exhaustion on Friday to stay out all night singing karaoke and playing darts.  The thing about Taiwan is, when you say ‘all night’ you mean it.  We were out so late that the sun had risen and we went to get breakfast before going home, which is not a pattern most people are used to when they aren’t heavy drinkers. 

Before even going to bed I had made plans to have a friend from Taipei come visit, so I snuck in a few hours of sleep and played hostess for the weekend.  I adore Changhua, but it is really difficult to find things in Changhua that are impressive to people from other areas of Taiwan.  I had basically exhausted the list of attractions after the Buddha statue and had to resort to a scooter trip to Nantou to occupy Sunday’s time. 

Some weeks the classes drag on, and as a teacher I worry I’m not making any process.  Other weeks, this one included, everything seems to be going perfectly.  My classes were great this week and I had so many time where they reminded me of how thankful I am to be here.  One of my students was recently in the Philippines, and she brought me back a bracelet, which melted my heart.  I also had a weird moment where one of my classes wanted to ‘decorate’ my arm, so they wrote their names all over me as a sort-of tattoo.  The classes which are learning mother’s day songs were really projecting their lyrics this week, and the ones doing reader theater were enunciated almost perfectly.  A comical addition to my daily teaching routine, is my new usage of ‘punishment kisses’ for my younger classes.  Inspired by one of my TAs, I have begun to purse my lips and make kissing noises at students who won’t speak or behave properly, and it is a great incentive for them to get to work, because they would do anything to avoid teacher kisses.  Adding to the cuteness factor of this week, when introducing this to my second-youngest class, one of the students actually told me he wanted a kiss when I pecked one of his classmates on the top of the head, so it appears he will be functioning on a reward system while his classmates are on a punishment one.  The main benefit to this system is that it is a light-hearted approach to behavior issues, and anything that can help teachers avoid loud voices and physical punishments is to be sought after.

The start to my weekend was not as relaxing as normal weekends should be.  I woke up early (by my standards) so do a promotional event at one of the local elementary schools.  This is the intake season for new students to enroll in the fall terms at all of the cram schools, so representatives from buxibans near and far gather around and harass parents into enrolling their children into the school.  Each school has an ‘attention grabber’, such as fliers, tables, inflatable toys, or in the case of my school: foreigners.  To be honest, I had fun at the promo, I got to hang out with my TAs and give notebooks to adorable children, but it was hard not to feel like a zoo animal each time the sentence, “This is one of our foreign teachers,” was said to a passerby. 

Saturday was relatively uneventful after the promotional event, thankfully Sunday made up for it.  Along with quite a few other teachers, I made my way to People’s Park in Taichung for an Easter potluck picnic.  We brought some snack foods and wandered off to drink stalls several times during the day, while we hung out in a park playing games and talking.  We even decorated Easter eggs (though we couldn’t find any dye, so we drew on them with crayons instead). 

A collection of eggs to celebrate the holiday (Mine is the tie-dye one on the left)

May you enjoy the rest of this beautiful spring day with your families or friends, making the most of the increasing temperatures and watching for a certain bunny.  Happy Easter!

The Third-Year Question

It was pointed out to me today (though not for the first time) that you can always tell if I have considered a week to be exciting based on the number of words I manage to jot down about it.  That is true, but this week is deceptive, I see so many words below these, but I don't like them.  If It weren't for the sake of this project, I would delete them all.  Not because they are meaningless, not because they are negative, but because they are failing to express the thoughts running through my mind right now.  

I underwent my second year appraisal and was asked to stay on for a third year, which has left me spending most of the week weighing through the pro's and con's of a renewed contract.  Here is a short summary of the key points:

The PRO's

*I love my students, there isn't a single class that I don't enjoy, so the idea of giving them up is heartbreaking. 

*I have a system that works for me, with a lot of freedom to plan my own lessons and implement new ideas to the classroom.  It is a great way to allow teachers to not only find their teaching identity but also to keep improving upon it.  

*I have established such a strong group of friends who get me through every week.

*Every week feels like an adventure, even when there is nothing 'new' to write about, each day is a new day, and even the repeated locations hold new adventures.  I constantly add to the list of things I want to do in Taiwan, and my list of things I want to do in Asia has barely been skimmed.

*My transportation, housing, and employment are all established here (there will be a lot of work involved in re-establishing myself in the US).  

The CON's

*My eventual post-Taiwan plan is to continue my education in the form of a Master's Degree.  In doing so, I will need to be settled in the location of my future school prior to the start of the fall semester (which could be in any given year, but at the current time I am aiming to start in the fall of 2015).  Another year's contract will leave me finishing in Taiwan in the fall and finding a creative way to spend the rest of the year waiting for a new school year to start.

*I have several big commitments in the fall, spanning from August-November.  I could return for a partial-year contract and following this time, but I would be spending a lot of that time working towards the cost of the flight.

*There is no financial incentive to remain with the school past the second year.  Pay is capped at $620NT per hour (about $20US), leaving the school with very little to motivate their teachers with, except a continuation of what they already have.

*I'm not a 'life-r'.  Some people have settled in Taiwan, and intend to be here the rest of their lives.  After five years in the country you can apply for permanent residency, but I still feel like there are aspects of my life which are 'on hold' while I am here, and permanent residency won't solve that.  

If I'm being honest with myself, this is the 'after-the-fact' list, because I know I am going home.  It is almost like I am assessing the pro's and con's incase I find myself miserable a year down the road (which is not unheard of among the foreign teacher population here).  I am excited for the weddings, I'm excited to spend time with my family, I'm excited to do some of the traveling in the US that I've been neglecting, but most importantly, I am so excited to see what I come up with to occupy my time.  That slight tinge of fear about not having a job, a house, a car, gives me endless possibilities (and the knowledge that I have people who will save me if I start drowning in those possibilities gives me courage).  Should I find that the polar vortexes are too cold to handle, or the constant presence of English to convenient, I always have the option to leave again, I hold two years of teaching experience and the ability to resume this Taiwanese adventure or pick a new country.  With my mind made up, I know I will only be strengthening the unwanted 'countdown' until August, but I hope it won't be overwhelmingly present in my writing.

On a note of things that are far more positive, the weather has been gorgeous this week, which allowed for our first outdoor weekend of spring.  Abandoning my jacket, holding social events on roofs, outdoor meals, and parades, I have barely been inside for two days.  The most exciting thing though, was the first scooter trip of the year.  While the destinations were not new to me, it was nice to play 'tour guide' and show off two enjoyable places in Nantou County: Sunny Hills (a pineapple farm/ pineapple cake distributer) and the Skybridge (a 204 meter long suspension bridge across a canyon).  I look forward to more weekends like this one.

Satisfied by our pineapple cakes and smoothies, it was time to leave the farm, but not before we got our group picture taken.

On the Skybridge over the mountains of Nantou.

Spring has Sprung!

What a beautiful week! The weather is finally warming up, the sky is brighter, the animals are happier, and driving around on my scooter is once again one of my favorite activities (it is far less pleasant when the air was cold).  I know I’ll want to complain before long when I find myself sweating bullets and uninspired to step outside of my apartment, but for now I get to enjoy the gentle breeze wafting through my open window. 

To celebrate the emergence of spring I spent the majority of my weekend outdoors.  Taichung is known for hosting a wide variety of fundraisers and concerts, this weekend’s event was a book exchange.  Hundreds of books, written in Chinese and English, had been donated, and were each sold for $50NT (just less that $2US).  The unfortunate thing is that most of the available books lacked love in their past lives and were in rough shape, which didn’t inspire me to purchase any, but it was still a great idea.  Visitors also came to enjoy the 10 hours of entertainment planned for the park’s stage, including musicians and clowns.  As far as I’m concerned the event was a success, and the proceeds were donated to a children’s charity, giving it all a purpose.

The charity book sale in Taichung.

My cultural thought of the week focuses on part of the “seedy underbelly” of Taiwan, specifically an aspect most appreciated by single males.  As you probably know by now, I love KTV, and could probably go to one of these karaoke establishments every week if a group were interested in it.  Since arriving in Taiwan, I had known about the ‘yellow KTVs’ as well, but I had been blessed by never encountering one, until this weekend.  What is a ‘yellow KTV’? Essentially it is a combination of singing, bar culture, and a strip club (though for enough money, that strip club quickly evolves into prostitution).  Patrons will go, order a room, receive their alcohol, then have a line of girls paraded through (so they can select the ones they wish to accompany them for the rest of the evening).  The girls are initially bartenders, there to keep your drinks topped up, then they begin drinking, singing, dancing, chatting with, and making out with the male patrons.  For the right amount of money, these harmless interactions can progress to any level of indecency the patron is searching for as well.  My experience in one of these KTVs was short-lived to say the least.  Unaware of what we had gotten ourselves into, when four different staff members came into our room to explain the ‘club rules’ and set our price at $8,000NT (just over $250US) regardless of if we wanted girls or not, we politely excused ourselves and laughed about the situation for quite a while afterwards. 

It would be impossible not to acknowledge Taiwan’s presence in international news this week, as hundreds of students are still occupying the main chamber of parliament in Taipei.  On Monday, a pact, known as the “Cross-Straight Services Trade Agreement”, intended to open trades in service between China and Taiwan after a 65-year break, passed its first stage in parliament.  Outraged by the unconstitutional means by which the pact was passed (bypassing a committee review and sending it straight to legislative vote), and consumed with the fear that it will result not only in an increase of Beijing’s economic power but the production of an unnecessary reliance on China, students of the capital took action.  They stormed the parliament building on Tuesday and barricaded themselves inside with chairs so they could not be removed.  Despite the initial illegality associated with the seizure of the main chamber, the protesters have conducted themselves in a non-violent fashion and have called themselves the Sunflower Movement.  Outside the building, the streets are filled with thousands more protesters, as well as their supporters who have been supplying food, drink, blankets, and encouragement.  Requests of the president to allow regular operation of parliament to resume were met with the students’ vow to continue their occupation, however no direct dialogue has taken place between the president and the protesting party.   Escalating the movement, this evening the executive offices were seized as well, but they have been met with police orders for eviction and only time will tell the success of this movement. International responses to the controversy primarily support the continued implementation of the trade agreement, which is a disappointing display of how Taiwan and China are perceived by the rest of the world.