The Finger Prince

Teacher John: A "clue" is something that helps the police or a detective solve a case. That's why Sherlock Holmes is always holding a magnifying glass, so he can look for clues. For example, a piece of hair can be a clue. What else might be a clue?

ESL Student: The finger's here (motioning towards the tip of the finger).

Teacher John: That's right! Those are called "fingerprints." Fingerprints can definitely be a clue.

ESL Student: Teacher John, is there a "finger princess?"

Soccer vs. Football vs. Rugby

This post is in reference to some particular games that involve people playing in a field, on foot, with a goal of somehow getting a ball to the opponent's side of the field. These sports go by any of these names:

• Football
• Soccer
• Rugby
• (American) Football

Here is the history-

He said "gao wan!"

If you know for a fact that nobody around you can hear/understand what you're saying, that's basically a free pass to talk about whatever you want. This applies to people who go hiking by themselves, adults who talk about "grown up things" in front of the kids, friends who have code words for other people, and people in the U.S. who speak any language other then English. This also applies for Taiwanese students in the presence of their English teacher who doesn't know any Chinese. The difference is, recently I am able to understand a lot of what they are saying, and they don't know!!

Forgive me...

for I have sinned. This post is to confess my disrespect towards Taiwanese culture and the Chinese-English language. It's shameful to say that there are too many instances to list, but nothing is more shameful than the reason for this is because I disrespect the Taiwanese for a living.

One of my 3 year old students: "Teacher John, my home has blue cock."

My response: "You can say: I have a blue clock at home."

In retrospect, I wish I had asked my student whether or not he believes his house can have possessions, asked him what he believed a "cock"is, and then respected his choice to call a mechanism used for keeping time a "cock."

4 Reasons Why You aren't an ESL Teacher

Here is the latest addition to the debate between a white middle class male English teacher, a 6 year old Taiwanese ESL student, and a white middle class female teacher (the comments keep getting deleted, but I received them in pieces, so I'm not sure if they are 100% accurate in terms of the intended order of paragraphs):

Step 1: Recognize the issue, Step 2: Make relevant arguments

"...words in both languages that appear to refer to the same object or concept on the surface, but actually refer to quite different things."

A comment on my most recent post was accidentally deleted, but I wouldn't want to deprive anyone that may be following this debate (click here to see all the posts leading up to this). I've recovered the comment, which is displayed here, and below that is my response.

I understand what you believe to be true comes from your understanding of New York and Taiwan culture because these are the only places you have been.

Directly Translated 3

I have to keep stressing the fact that the direct translations I'm brining up aren't actually translated incorrectly. They do have a tendency to be used incorrectly, though, so there are plenty of instances where it will be incorrect. Like this example:

Just like Aunties and Uncles, any person that is maybe a little bit older than you can be called "older sister" or "older brother." This especially includes cousins. While there is a word for cousin, it is much more common to hear an older female cousin referred to as, "older sister," directly translated.

Once, back in the days of the Squirrel Class,

Directly Translated 2

Here's something interesting that my recent Chinese studies have led me to. Presented below is a list of 3 Chinese characters and their English meanings.

Watch carefully...

Directly Translated

I am a teacher of the English language. My job description is pretty clear: teach English. The way this differs from a translation website or a dictionary is that, although some things CAN be directly translated, it doesn't always sound right.

So my job is not only to teach English, but to make sure it's being used properly. Here's how things can get interesting:

White Noise

Someone once asked me why I like living in Taiwan. Of all the dozens of reasons I could have named, I responded, "Because it's quiet."

Even though the subway, the buses, the streets, the food courts, the restaurants, etc. are usually rammed with people, as a foreigner, I still find peace and quiet in all of these places. My brain hasn't been programmed (yet) to understand the Chinese language, therefore it doesn't ask my ears to do the useless task of trying to listen. After about a minute or 2

Animals, mostly

Here are the answers! If you didn't get a chance to guess yet, click here first.

Direct Translation / English

"oak mouse" / squirrel

Open Heart Nut

In the year and 8 months or so that I've been here, I've been through a lot of "phases." I go through 3- or 4-week spans where I start doing something productive with a head of steam, such as exercise, focus on learning Chinese, writing, reading, doing things on the weekend, etc. It has been inevitable, for the most part, that these runs of productivity come to a end, due to any variety of reasons.

Wǒ kàn bù dǒng.

Directly translated that means "I read don't understand," or more accurately, "What the hell does this say?"

I frequently use this phrase at restaurants upon receiving a menu of Chinese characters, prompting the wait staff to bring me an English menu. It works like a charm.

Tonight, I went for a tasty bowl of beef noodle soup after a long day of work, and the same thing happened. Only this time, I decided to play a matching game, where I look at the Chinese characters on the English menu, then try my best to find the same ones on the Chinese menu, that looks a little bit like this:

...then I can mark the quantity desired.

It's a fun game.

Until you get two extra giant bowls of beef dumpling soup, that although you claim to not want, you've clearly indicated on the menu that you do. Cue the facepalm.

My conclusion: I still can't, and won't ever be able to, read Chinese. I can say most of the things I eat these days, so I should probably stick to that. (But hey! Now I'm a fan of beef dumpling soup!)

Bills

Me: Hey did you see that notice on our door?
Mike: Yeah, any idea what it's for?
Me: Nope, you?
Mike: No, but I guess we'll find out when they turn it off.



Oh yeah... remember that ice cream/squid combo?

A stroke of curiousity

When I come home, would it be at all rude or presumptuous for me to try to speak Chinese to any Asian-looking people I see on the street?

[That is rhetorical, depending on whether anyone answers it.]

Eureka!

I've discovered a way to learn Chinese while teaching! A simple, yet coy, operation where both parties can share a language exchange. My students and I have formed a successful symbiotic relationship. Here's the catch: My Chinese lessons are all in English. Sometimes terrible, broken English.

But that's just it. My students are at a level which they are both able and competent enough to use their English abilities and run with it beyond their comfort zone. They don't need to stick to the grammar patterns we've been learning, but they rather say whatever is on their mind using what they already know.

This is an idea that I've taken into consideration in the past few weeks:

I've stopped trying to teach, as one might conventionally think of teaching; filling someone's head with facts. Instead, I've started teaching by asking "how," and "why," and "what if" questions.

Try to remember what you learned when you were in kindergarten. Really. Try. Or don't, because it doesn't matter. The purpose of kindergarten is to build a foundation for education. I would put a large sum of NTD(New Taiwan Dollars) on the claim that my students won't remember what a stethoscope is or that a giraffe's tongue is 50 cm long(almost 2 feet...gross). However, assuming they continue their English studies, I hope that it will benefit them knowing that if someone asks them to describe a trip to the doctor, they have the confidence and ability to take a situation that happens in Chinese and recap it in English.

It's during these moments, which Oxford seminars has appropriately labeled "magic moments," when you, as a teacher, realize that the kid has just uttered a series of English words by utilizing every tool and every resource they've ever learned from you. It's pretty incredible listening to a kid try to tell you something, then stop mid-sentence because he realizes he doesn't know the English for the word he wants to use, start from the beginning and take a completely different approach on the same thought, using what he does know, and ultimately achieve his goal, which is usually teacher comprehension and satisfaction.

However precious these moments are, perfection is hardly the aim and almost never the result. And this is where my Chinese lessons come in(you either forgot or thought I forgot what I was talking about).

For months I've been teaching English without understanding exactly who I'm teaching it to. I've been trying my best to abolish what my class now refers to as "Baby Sentences," which I've come to realize are only literal translations from Chinese to English. Cue the lighting of the epiphanic light bulb because my job just got easier. After a few conversations with some of my Chinese speaking friends, they've translated the Baby Sentences back into Chinese, and I can understand what the students are trying to say, therefore making it easier for me to correct them.

"There have cockroach." This sentence pattern drove me nuts! That is, until I realized what it means. There (that place, i.e. the wall) have (in this case we'd say 'has,' as in 'in its possession') cockroach (species of indestructible insects that are ever-present in my classroom). "That wall has a cockroach," or how we'd probably say it in English, "There's a cockroach."

And what I extract from the situation is the Chinese grammar. In Chinese, it seems like everything "has" something; here, there, he, I. With the same approach, I've learned grammar patterns that make sense out of "I give you see," "So big check," "He used me," so on and so forth.

At the end of this long-winded post, I can only compare myself to the very kids that I teach. I, too, but at a much lower level, am taking words that I already know and using them in sentences that I've picked up on. While this may come across as logical, because yeah, it is, but like so many other things in life, without that "eureka" moment, logic just doesn't seem that logical.

What's the soup du jour?

"It's the 'Soup of the Day'"

"Mmmmm. That sounds good. I'll have that."

* * *

As some of you may remember, awhile back I had a post displaying some of the unique names I've encountered here in Taiwan. Fortunately, the fun didn't stop there. Here are a few more:

Soup and Haha from the ticket counter at the movies. Perhaps they are acquaintances of Destroy and Icey from the previous names posting.

Smark is a new student of mine. Why not just drop the "s"? How does someone even come up with a name like that?

Smark's classmates also have some interesting, yet surprisingly more acceptable because they're Asian-sounding, names: Yuki, Momoko, Lulu, and Waylen.

Meanwhile, I've become "Jong" to many (mostly older people) who can't seem to get their tongue off their bottom teeth and behind their upper teeth to get that crisp "n" sound. And my class calls me "Teacher...Superman, Spiderman, Optimus Prime, Michael Jackson, Handsome Man, Roller Coaster, Send E-mails, Eyes, Hair, Koo-Koo Head, Crazy, (insert first word that pops into a child's mind)."

Oh well, it's like I always used to say... you can call me anything you want, just don't call me "Late For Dinner." Har har har...

What's in a name?

"Names are a great mystery. I've never known whether the name is molded by the child or the child changed to fit the name. But you can be sure of this -- whenever a human has a nickname it is a proof that the name given him was wrong."

~John Steinbeck

Here is a list of great names I heard on Saturday:

Destroy and Icey: 2 dudes that work at the movie theater where I saw the new Terminator movie.
Liz: the guy that sold Mike a new pair of flip-flops. His name is very fitting.
Cola: an attractive girl that works at a jewelry counter in Ximending. C-O-L-A, Cola.
Skeet: a random guy we met at a grocery store that speaks great English. Wondering if he's aware of his name's implications.
Not Band: a rock and roll cover band consisting of a bunch of 17-year-olds that we met on the train.

Here we are rocking out with Not Band on the train:


Speaking of names, how about these names for students: Legal, Genius, Zero, Lion, Eagle, Apple, Christ... (it's a goal of mine to be asked to help assign English names to our new classes).

Finally, taking the award for awkward naming, here is a picture of me and Mike shopping for new hoods:

Lights... camera... action!

...well, minus the lights. And the action. So with no lights or action, what do we need a camera for anyway?


So apparently even in Taiwan you need to pay your electric bill in order to ensure the output of electricity. Also, hopefully at this point not to anyone's surprise, the bills are in Chinese. Goodbye lights and action.

Assuming everyone has seen the movie "Office Space," (if you haven't: shame on you. If you're lucky, Blockbuster is still open. Go.) our power outage resulted in what played out to be exactly the "TPS report memo" situation. Once the news got around that Mike and I were having romantic candlelit evenings, here are some of the conversations we had at school...

"Do you know where your mailbox is?"
"Yeah, we check the mail pretty much everyday. We just don't think we got the bill."
"Okay. Because the bills usually come in the mail."

"Do you check your mail?"
"Yep. Our mailbox is empty, but we can't read Chinese."
"Okay. Maybe we'll send somebody over to help you check your mail."

"Do you know how to check your mail?"
"Yeah...we do. I checked today. Empty."
"Really. The bills come in the mail, so you have to make sure you check your mail and pay them."

...we'll make sure you get another copy of that memo.




to see me in a rice-picker hat, click here.

to read about David in Taipei City, click here.


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I only wear Korean shoes

After deciding to get a breath of fresh air and maybe some tea with boba in it (which is really good by the way. Its got jelly balls and I like to chew it), Mike and I stepped out of the school to walk around the block. Immediately after exiting, we saw a Taiwanese man standing on the corner with a handful of pamphlets. In any city in the States, this activates a reflex to pretend like you are reading a sign on the opposite side of the street in order to avoid being guilted into taking an advertisement. In Taiwan however, while these birdcage-lining distributors are not hard to find, I don't have pretend these people don't exist. They see my skin and avoid me like the plague, not having the patience to try to explain to a foreigner about the incredible sale they are having at their store around the corner. Normally I walk by unscathed.

But not this guy. He saw me and Mike and smiled as he trotted up to us with two pamphlets in his outstretched arm.

"Do yoo wan Korean shoes?" He was obviously very excited to speak English to us, so I took the piece of paper hanging inches from my face and looked at it. For what? I don't know. I saw some numbers. "We Korean shoes," he insisted.

"Are they better than other kinds of shoes?" Mike asked. It was about that time that I noticed a number on the paper: 150 NTD, roughly $5 US.

"That's pretty cheap for shoes." I looked down at the man's shoes. "Are those Korean shoes?"

"No, no-"

"How can you try to sell us Korean shoes if you don't even wear them? That's not a good marketing strategy."

"Korean shoes!" He started moving his hand back and forth quickly in a scrubbing motion. Of course, only then did it all make sense.

"You want to clean our shoes?"

"Yes, yes! We korean shoes. Very cheap!" He even offered to korean my shoelaces and said he could lace them up exactly the way they are now. I tried to get a job weaving shoelaces, but no dice. We eventually told the man, "no thanks," we can korean our own shoes and walked away.

Moral of the story? Talk to strangers.

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