One-Year Taiwan-niversary

As of this Friday, I have been living in Taiwan for 1 year.  Second only to college, this has been the longest adventure of my life in terms physical time, but the days, weeks, months, they have all flown by.  I have seen some amazing places, met some wonderful people, started learning (a difficult, but) beautiful language, but I stand by the decision I made 6-months ago, 1 year is not enough time here!
Saturday was dedicated to the celebration of this achievement with what started as an anniversary and inadvertently morphed into a birthday party...ready for the story? While at our dinner restaurant I was given a sparkly purple party hat and a Hawaiian lei to wear (which of course, I wore gladly).  My accessories caught the eye of the wait-staff who asked our table if it was my birthday, and, despite my initial response "uhh, not exactly", the table continued to insist that it was my birthday and that presenting me with a birthday song and the cake (which we had brought) was an excellent idea.  So, the lights dimmed, the waiters lined up, at the table adorned over-sized bow headbands and serenaded me.  Realizing that we were too full to eat the cake, we boxed it up, and so the tradition of singing 'Happy Birthday'  became part of every stage of the evening.  We followed up dinner with bowling where the front desk clerk was the lucky singer asked to serenade me, and finally we ended up in KTV where there was no 'Happy Birthday' song on the karaoke playlist, so the next best thing was sung: 'Happy New Year'.

The Taiwan-ni-birthday celebration, part 1: dinner

The Taiwan-ni-birthday celebration, part 2: bowling

The Taiwan-ni-birthday celebration, part 3: KTV

I make it sounds like my whole week was crammed into this weekend, but really, I had a good seven days.  My main school project this week was a tribute to my theatrical past as I held auditions for my the Autumn Showcase my school will be hosting in October.  For the show we planned on having 8 students co-host various portions of the show, and I had 14 students audition for me! What an overwhelming feeling to have so many children want to show-off their English abilities (especially remembering how small my school is).  The auditions were designed by me and included a self-introduction, a script-read, a question/answer interview, and a free-response section.  My favorite section of the audition was the free-response section where each student had to listen to me sing then compliment my performance (which is something they will need to do in the showcase), can I just say, it was fun having my students be so nice!  I should also note, on the feel-good side of things, the manager from one of the other schools in my chain came to observe the auditions, and she complimented me on the professionalism of the audition process and my singing voice.
I've kept you posted on my Tuesday theme-lessons all summer, and this week was my final summer lesson: making board games.  I was really proud of this idea because it isn't something I drew on from my childhood, it was a new experience for me as well as the children.  I was lying in bed last weekend thinking about what sort of craft I could do, when suddenly it dawned on me how easily designed board games are, and therefore how easy they would be to recreate. From there, it wasn't hard to work out my lesson plan.  So, on Tuesday my students were divided into two groups, and half of them created their own version of Chutes (snakes) and Ladders, and the other being a version of Candy Land.  In an unofficial class poll, the students said that making games and playing the games was equally fun, which I will take as a sign of another successful lesson.
Last, but not least, I wanted to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day.  What? You thought Valentine's Day was in February? I recall commenting on the strange timing of this holiday last year, but this year I have learned some extra facts.  Chinese Valentine's Day is also called the Qixi festival, and occurs on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar.  The holiday originated, not based on the traditional stories of Saint Valentine, but instead on the Chinese myth of a weaver and a cowherd.  As the story goes, there were two lovers, a weaver girl named Zhinu and a cowherd boy named Niulang.  Their love was forbidden, so they were punished by being banished to opposite sizes of the Silver River, but once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month, magpies would form a bridge between the lovers which allowed them to walk to each other.  Traditionally it is meant to be a more religious holiday with prayers and offerings from the young girls asking for wisdom and dexterity as well as wishing for a good and loving husband, however most of the couples that I witnessed celebrating the holiday did so in a western-traditional style, with gifts or flowers.  We'd better hide this news from Hallmark or they'll start marketing the holiday twice in the states as well!