Fun in the Sun

I hit a strange milestone in my life abroad this week, I looked at flights home for the first time.  I don’t have words for it, especially since I haven’t made any purchases yet (I suspect that is this week’s hurdle) but it has made my upcoming departure seem much sooner.  Knowing that my time is coming to an end, I know I need to make the most of all of my weekends left.

It seems a silly thing to say, but I often forget how much I love being in the water.  I have always enjoyed swimming, but when if you asked me what I wanted to do on any given weekend, going to the beach or pool probably isn’t my first thought.  Perhaps it is because I feel like I have been to all of our standard swimming holes? Regardless, I had a sunny, water-filled weekend, and loved every minute of it. 

Saturday was the summer solstice, so to celebrate the longest day of sunlight the year will provide us with, a group of locals and foreigners alike gathered Zhunan’s largest beach.  Zhunan is about 1.5 hours north of Changhua, in Maoli county.  I had only been to Zhunan once before this weekend, and that was during my Chinese New Year (2013) road trip when we slept in the park and woke up to the red-face of the agricultural deity staring back at us.  This weekend we were not on the lookout for temples however, we were heading straight to the water for some swimming, barbequing, and bonfiring.  I have been told before that the beaches in Zhunan can get pretty windy, which makes them idea for kite surfing and wake boarding (someday I’d love to learn how to do either of those sports) and it lived up to that reputation (the windmill-lined skyline can attest to that).  When the sun finally set on our day we set up a grill and cooked up some barbecue meat while we sat around talking.  Before I knew it, it was time to catch the train home.

Summer Solstice in Zhunan, this is the "volleyball court".

This morning I met up with some friends for a ‘small trip to the waterfalls,’ which turned into a massive group adventure through the mountains of Taichung.  I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting a full-sized group, but by departure time there were 18 of us, helmet-clad and ready.  We drove out to Taiping (which is an area I have explored several times now) and made a brief stop at the bat caves.  Though I swore to myself well over a year ago that 1-time through the caves was more than enough, I grabbed a flashlight and crept inside.  The bat cave is an interesting experience because the walking trails are only about the size of a person, and when you have a flashlight (I didn’t last time), you see the mud and poop-caked walls clearly the entire way.  We made the mistake of entering the caves from two different directions (past exploration of the caves had lead to dead ends), and ended up colliding with each other (both groups equally scaring the bats closer to the other groups’ faces).  Squished against the walls we managed to slide past, and a few minutes later we were back in the light of day and on the road to the waterfalls.  The waterfall itself was particularly difficult to reach today.  Last year was a dry summer, but the rains this year have caused a slippery layer of moss along the tops of most of our climbing rocks.  We must have been quite a spectacle, falling all over each other or flat on our butts the whole way up the river.

The "scooter gang" making our way through Taichung

Climbing up the rocks as the river rushes by.

We made it!

Now, as a temporary memory of the weekend, I am surprised to see I have a slight sunburn.  Hopefully that fades quickly, I don’t think countries with vast assortments of whitening products will be impressed with my new color.

"It was spontaneous, and ad hoc"

So it begins, the first talk of typhoons this season has worked its way across the island.  The weather bureau issued the first typhoon warning of 2014, but Taiwan appears to have stayed out of its path, leaving us dampened by a little rain but otherwise unaffected.  Fear that the storm would be stronger, all of the established plans for the weekend (including a trip to Sun Moon Lake and a swim in the waterfalls of Taiping) were cancelled. 

Determined not to let the weekend go to waste, I went on a day trip to a little district in the western part of New Taipei City.  Yingge is a pottery district, which is known for porcelain production.  It is home to over 800 different ceramic-related businesses, including stores, Do-It-Yourself studios, and museums.  We started our exploration in the ceramics museum, which compared the Taiwanese ceramic production techniques to those of other countries.  I was surprised by how well the signs were translated into English, which is likely due to its presence in Taipei rather than its popularity amongst tourists.  A short walk across the river is a “Pottery Park” with sculptures depicting different stages in the ceramic-making process including sculpting tools, clay, and complete pots and dishes.  Inspired by the oversized cups and bowls, we sang through “Be Our Guest” as we walked through the park, then walked along to the main attraction: The Yingge Old Street.  The old street is a brick-lined carless street lined with souvenir shops (primarily containing pottery or woodwork).  While some of the stores contained mass-produced pieces that you could find all over the country, most of them housed unique pieces made by local potters.

A cup of...me?

Stacks of pottery for sale on the old street.

At the start of the pottery Old Street

Some cute little panda pots

The trip is over, catching the local train back to Taoyuan.

Exhausted from the heat, we took a nap on our train ride back to Changhua so we would feel rejuvenated for our evening’s plan.  Changhua is full of a variety of foreigners, of all ages, who have been in Taiwan for vastly different spans of time, but because of the city’s small size, a lot of those foreigners move on to bigger cities eventually.  Last night, we all reunited to partake in everyone’s favorite past time: drinking.  Five of the local bars agreed to host our oversized group and treat us to drink specials.  My timing didn’t work out to “crawl” with the other foreigners, so my friend and I got seats in the final bar and waited until the crowd came to us.  It was great to see people that I haven’t seen in weeks, months, or close to a year even (although the hazard of seeing so many people is that it wasn’t a wallet-friendly evening). 

Televisions around the world this week have been tuned in to the FIFA World Cup, and Taiwan is no exception.  Despite not having a team in the competition, bars and restaurants are still showing the games.  I find I have been more involved in watching the games than I expected to be, even now, the Chinese-speaking announcers are the background noise while I type.  The thing that is difficult for avid soccer fans in Taiwan though is that the games times are at midnight, 3am, and 6am, which means we either commit to an all-nighter, wake up sporadically during the night, or catch up on the game the next day.  Lucky for me, I’m not devastated by missing most of the action.

Quarter of a Century

Aren't birthdays interesting? As children, we like them because of the presents we get, and the attention placed on us, and the fact that we can claim an extra year in our age.  For most people there is an age though, where the wonder of childhood birthdays fades, and the realization of an additional year to our age isn't welcome.  I haven't reached that dreaded age yet, I still love all my birthdays.  I particularly love knowing the unique location of celebration for this milestone, afterall, most American’s weren’t living in Taiwan when they turned 25.  The celebration started with a typical teacher’s pastime, late-night test grading with one of my coworkers.  At 12:01 the date was brought to my attention and I was surprised with cake (the first of many piece, I have never had such a cake-filled birthday).   A few hours of sleep later I was up at ready for a day of celebrations.  My birthday fell on a Friday this year, so I had three classes to teach.  Walking into both of my younger classes, I was immediately serenaded with “Happy Birthday”, and a couple students in my older class arranged gifts for me (so I rewarded them with birthday cake number two).  During the day my desk was decorated with gifts, cards, and so much glitter that I am still finding it a week later.  At the end of the day, the TAs took turns distracting me as they raced around setting up birthday cake number three then called me downstairs to sign our attendance sheets for the month and “double-check the English on a document” (and by that I mean, I walked into a room where the TAs were hiding with ripped up paper to throw at me and a cake).  After a later-than-expected departure from school I went to my dinner party in one of our regular bars: Flamingos.  I was surrounded by good friends, enjoyed delicious food, and finished the night reading cards and opening more gifts than I could have imagined (including a special international card from the US and package from the Czech Republic). 

I know I am spoiled by my life here, I have some of the best experiences, and I managed to drag out my celebrations for three more days.  The next afternoon, a group of friends and I caught a train south to one of my favorite cities, Tainan.  Thankfully the train ride is less than two hours, because we spent that time sitting on the floor and shuffling around at each station.  Stepping off the train we were overwhelmed by the heat almost immediately, so we ditched our bags at the hostel and went to the beach.  Despite the large “No Swimming signs”, we jumped in the water with the crowds of wading tourists and cooled down.  For dinner we went American (TGI Fridays) and finished up the evening with drinks and board games back in the hostel. 

Wrapping up the evening at the Sunset Beach.

Birthday Dinner: Part 

There were no set plans for any of the days, but I was very excited about a river cruise my Chinese teacher had explained to me, so I talked the group into getting traveling out to the canal where we waited in Taiwan’s longest line to board the boat.  The ‘cruise’ was about 30 minutes, and traveled through some of the mangroves in the Annan District to see the wildlife (mainly crabs and birds) as well as various trees and flowers.  The trip was lead by a Chinese-speaking tour guide who helped point out the interesting sites along the route.  

The Sicao Green Tunnel of Tainan.

River boats on the Anping Canal.

The night we temporarily split up and I helped to take on the role of tour guide in the Anping district as we explored the tree house (a former warehouse which has now been ‘consumed’ by a giant banyan tree and the market streets around the old Dutch fort before making our way to the beach for the second night in a row (seriously, it was hot!).  A pizza dinner and a walk around the Streets and we were tucked in for another night’s sleep.

Our last day of vacation was also a national holiday, so we spent all day near the Anping Canal watching Dragon Boat races.  I have to admit, Dragon Boat Festival was one of the holidays I was most excited for prior to living in Taiwan, but it isn’t as exciting as it sounds.  There is a long wait between each race, it is hard to see the entire race, and it is usually difficult to know which boat won.  Still, the weather was gorgeous, and the canal was filled with food, drink, and souvenir vendors to keep us entertained when the races didn’t work. 

Dragon Boat races on the Anping Canal

Work this week flew by, I guess that’s what happens when it is a short week.  Because it is almost the start of our “summer season” I am on the schedule for several demo lessons, the first of which was last week.  Our attendance was a little lower than expected, only two girls came to the lesson, but I think it is safe to say they had a good time watching me run around like a fool, and singing so long it made us all cough, and showing off their English abilities.  Demo lesson number two will be taking place this week.

I’m proud to say, my voice is still holding up, because this was a vocally straining weekend.  I think you all know by now that I have an addiction to Asian Karaoke, but it is safe to say, going to KTV twice in the same day is a sign that the problem is getting out of hand.  Seriously though, it made for a wonderful Saturday.  We started off the afternoon gathered with the Homei School staff of teachers, TAs, and our manager and finished off the evening with several teachers from various schools in the KTV until 5am (which meant that we had stayed out long enough to avoid the taxi costs and just take a train home).  With a Saturday like that, it goes without saying that Sunday didn't stand a chance at being eventful.  Five hours of sleep in I was thoroughly woken by the sunlight and heat.  I went out into the mountains for some fresh air and temple exploring, before going to a movie.  Those were some good weeks!

Homei School karaoke party!

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).