The Life

Here's a little video I made, mostly from a first person point of view. It's bits and pieces of a typical week day working in the salt mines. Enjoy!

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.

Turkey Day

It's what you do,

Not who you were, or what you wear, or where you've been.

So...

The end is near!

Who are we blaming everything on these days?

For those of us who can't keep up, why not just make a list of everything that's wrong with the world these days, then print it on a pencil case, then sell it in a stationary store in Taiwan?

Mortgage!

World Depression!

Arrogant!

Anxiety!

Stock Market!

Emergency!

I love arrogant!

Fear!

News!

The humanity!

This is awkward

I'll start off by easing the tension with a joke:

What do you say to a woman with 2 black eyes?

Zen ma ban?

"Zen ma ban?" or "怎麼辦" is a pretty common expression used in Taiwan, literally translated as "how to do?" As far as I've been told, it is basically a semi-rhetorical way to say "Now what?" or (with a cocked head and eyebrows and shoulders raised) "Welp, what can we do?" It is sometimes, in a way, implying that there isn't actually anything that can be done.

Dora-Fearing Students

Recently at my kindergarten we had our Parent/Teacher meeting. This also consisted of a 40 minute demo lesson, in which the parents were able to sit inside the classroom to watch me teach. Does anybody else find this concept ridiculous? As a teacher of 3-year-olds, it's my job to set the foundation for classroom behavior. Therefore, most of my efforts involve getting the children to stop screaming out for Mommy and Daddy, sit still, and listen to me. Now they want me to do that with Mommy and Daddy in the room??

Nothing in particular

Allow me to fill in the missing pieces between the last post and this one with fluff pictures, until I come up with something interesting to write about...

Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

If a Taiwan professional baseball game is your first baseball game, you probably won't like the MLB that much. Just sayin.

A Material (Under)World

Today when I was driving my scooter home, once on the little alleys and lanes near my apartment, it became necessary to start weaving and zig-zagging around clusters of people watching paper burn in metal wastebaskets.

Enter "Ghost Month," or the 7th month of the Lunar Year

Target Audiences

Watching a sporting event on television in the U.S., you'd be likely to see advertisements for Axe, Old Spice, Miller Lite, car wax, and Viagra in between innings, periods, halves, quarters, etc.

Right now, I'm watching a baseball game between two Taiwanese teams, and

Back in Action

I'm back in Incheon International Airport in Korea's capital city, smack dab in the middle of a 7 hour layover. After spending 14 hours on a place in a middle seat (limiting my arms to T-rex style usage only), I arrived here at about 3:00 in the morning Korea-time, then had to wait about another three hours until anything in the airport opened. Oh, the joys of travelling.

Hello, My name is...

JOHN is the most popular 1.st name in USA (... 1.john , 2.david , 3.michael , 4.robert , 5.james ...). One in every 25 Americans are named as JOHN and popularity of name JOHN is 39.93 people per thousand.

If we compare the popularity statistics of JOHN to USA's population statistics, we can estimate that as of August.02.2010 04:40there are 12,372,824 people named as JOHN in the United States and the number of JOHN's are increasing by 104,925 people every year.

Usage of John as a first name is 72.86% and its usage as a middle name is 27.14%. The sum of alphabetical order of letters in JOHN is 47 and this makes JOHN arithmetic buddies with words like Elated. Add "Courtesy of PokeMyName.com' tag and feel free to distribute, copy, republish this interesting, accurate and also useless report about name JOHN. :)

To balance these statistics out, hardly any Taiwanese people choose that name when browsing for an English name.

Apparently they are sick of hearing the names John and Mary because they are used in every guided conversation in every English text book distributed in Asia. Two times in as many days, I've heard someone mock this conversation:

"Hello, John, how are you... Hello, Mary. I'm fine thank you..." and so on and so forth.

Sorry, Mom. Apparently we have boring names.

(what does YOUR name look like in sign language, morse code, marine flag language, and barcode????)

PS. I'm in Korea!

Celebs?

For the most part, I've gotten really used to daily life in Taiwan. The scooters, the sugary bread, the questionable street-side cuisine, the signs I can't read, the lot of it. For the past 14 or so months, I've come to terms with it and I'm hardly phased.

Some of the Taiwanese, however, can't meet me half way on that front.

Trips to the supermarket, certain restaurants, and just about everywhere in Taipei are hardly ever uneventful. I still get that paranoid feeling that everybody is staring at me because I'm a foreigner. By definition, though, it's not paranoia. I don't have a baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others. They are actually staring at me.

Eyes of children are locked on target with mouths stuck open as I walk down the aisle at the store. They creep to safety behind a parent's leg without ever disengaging their curious stare.

On the subway, children peer through limbs down the car at the strange looking man with no hair and whose skin has a pinkish hue. I've seen a child whisper something to her mother while pointing at me, and her mother gently slapped her hand. I can't even imagine what she was saying.

Another encounter with children involves them being forced by their parents to come and say "hello" to the foreigner to practice their English. Then it's time to throw on a quick smile that I thought I had abandoned at 3:30 on Friday afternoon.

I get it. Kids worldwide are ignorantly shameless when it comes to pointing and staring. In all fairness, compared to a place like the U.S., it doesn't seem like Taiwanese kids get exposure to as diverse a population at such an early age. It's just that I kind of wish they would grow out of the fascination...

"Ah-scuse me. May I take picture wiss you?"

I'm walking through the subway station with Mike. Two high school aged looking Taiwanese girls come up to us with that question. We look at each other with identical puzzled expressions. We say "sure." The girls giggle, turn around and about eight other girls appear from the crowd and surround us. Once the camera appears, pinkies, ring fingers, and thumbs instinctively fold down due to years of conditioning. The giggling continues as they walk away, passing the camera around and inspecting the pictures, which I'm sure contain a Canadian and an American with "What the (expletive) is happening right now?" looks across their faces.

Without exaggerating, I'd estimate this happens on a monthly basis (twice in 10 minutes at a museum one time). It's always the same routine: send the cutest, most confident one of the group, and after compliance, swarm the foreigners with "peace sign" two fingers already glued to their faces in "cute" pose.

One of my favorite things to do is imagine if something like this happened back home. A group high schoolers (girls and boys alike) see an Asian person at the train station and run up to them to take their picture. Will somebody please try that and let me know how it goes?

(the lack of "peace signs" in this picture is almost creepy...)

Free money

How great is it when you put on your coat for the first time since last winter, only to discover you left a $5 bill in it? That's essentially free money. You just got paid to wear that coat.

Having an extremely optimistic attitude towards everything helps grasp this crazy "free money" logic

When it rains

With just about two weeks to go until I come home, the seams of my life are starting to show signs of wear and tear.

Last weekend, my new(ish) camera, that had been battle-tested according to the previous post, didn't survive a beach music festival. The "waterproof" tag on my camera holds true only in the sense that there is proof that it's been in the water.

Dusk

It's nearing the end of another chapter in my story in Taiwan. In a short 4 weeks, I'll be leaving Shijr, my school, and my Squirrel class for good. Although I'm headed for what I hope to be greener pastures, I'm not looking forward to leaving them!

I recently bought a water-proof/drop-proof digital camera

Gutted

Apparently somebody already came up with the idea that tortured pets are suicidal...

Anyway, I found the poster-dog for suicidal Taiwanese dogs:

Ups and Downs

Day 3: Wufengchi Waterfall Trifecta and the Highway from Hell

After a solid night's sleep at Surfer Inn, I got a good start on Day 3. I hopped back on the highway and went south towards Ilan city (which I had been aimlessly exploring the previous day, looking for a hostel). Armed with my Lonely Planet guide book and some random tourists maps I'd collected along the way, I searched for something to do. Wufengchi Waterfall was next on my to do list.

What goes up...

Day 2: Sandiaojiao, Caoling Trail (Dali), Wai'ao

Bearing in mind my closing thought from Day 1, I woke up at around 4:00 am on Day 2. Longmen campsite is only a few miles away from Sandiaojiao, which happens to be the most eastern point in Taiwan. How can you visit a sight like this at a time other than sunrise?

Turn right at Bitou

Day 1: Nanya, Bitou, Longdong, Fulong (for more photos, clickski)

I jumped on my scooter and pointed it in the direction of the nearest beach and took off. For the first while, I was driving behind buses and choking on exhaust. Finally, the highway dumped me onto the Rt. 2 coastal highway with a smile smeared across my face as I stared out over the ocean. It was about 10:30 AM and the sun was at full strength above me. Tracing the northern part of the North East coast, I began my journey.

Hating Life 2

I'm back from my scooter adventure! Both my scooter and I made it back in one piece (that's one piece each, although it feels as though we are conjoined). I did a lot of sightseeing and took about 1,000 pictures. I only got back a few hours ago, so you can't possibly expect this post to be about my trip. Instead I bring you...

More dogs in Taiwan that hate their lives...

No, this is not a stylish new t-shirt. To make matters worse, this guy (yes) was so proud to have me take the picture.

Found this little guy in Taroko Gorge being carted around in a little doggy cart. He may hate his life, but sled dogs are green with envy.

"How can this adorable thing hate his life??" you ask. Well, he doesn't exactly have a home. And he was swarming with flies. And I stopped to take a picture of him, not feed him, making him a certified Life-Hater.

I feel terrible putting this picture up, but this is not an uncommon sight. This dog is actually offended that I am posting pictures of dogs wearing clothes and claiming they hate their lives. This is the reason why I attended an event and contributed to helping the ever-growing Taiwan SPCA.

This dog... wait, is that a deer? Given their current relative situations, that dog in the background loves its life. The rope around that deer's neck is just long enough for it to stand up, making that deer a Life-Hater for sure.

...East Coast

(props to you if you get the reference in the title)

I'm outa here! I'm taking my trusty (knock on wood) scooter down the scenic East Coast of Taiwan!

Tomorrow I'll be making a pit stop at the eastern most point of Taiwan, and over the following 2 weeks, the plan is to make it down the coastal highway all the way to the southern most point, and back up. I lost interest in actually circling the entire island when I started actually mapping out the route. East side is where it's at.

If you are interested to see where I'm going, check out these 2 sites:

http://www.necoast-nsa.gov.tw/user/Article.aspx?Lang=2&SNo=02000005

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/taiwan/east-coast

...or just wait until I come back, and you can see all my pictures.

See ya later!

To flush, or not to flush?

***Disclaimer: If you are eating, I'd recommend checking back later. We're discussing bathroom etiquette today.

In many stalls in many bathrooms throughout Taiwan, there is a little trash can situated next to the toilet. It is apparently widely understood that, upon completing what we can refer to as "#2," the tissue should be placed in the trash can, and not flushed down the toilet.

(It's about to get graphic...)

This custom raises a lot of questions and crosses many, many moral boundaries. I understand the fear of clogging the pipes, but honestly, if what I just flushed can make it through the plumbing, then a little bit of wet paper should have no problem following it. I'm just sayin'.

And here's another thing: I don't want to smell, and I REALLY don't want to see the remnants of your business while I'm taking care of mine. It's a bit nauseating, to say the least. Along those same lines, Taiwan has some really interesting, greasy foods that sometimes don't agree with my stomach. Therefore, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you also don't want to have to look at my very own oil-spill clean up efforts. It's just gross, and we'll leave it at that.

According to my ClustrMaps counter (which tracks where/when you people check my blog, so yes, I know there are more than 10), 79 viewers that are located in Taiwan have checked my blog in the past month and a half.

If you are one of those 50 people (because let's be honest, at least 30 of those views are from me), please continue reading:

When researching for this post, I stumbled across this Reuters article. If you aren't interested in clicking it, look here:

It's called "Flush so we don't blush, Taiwan city says," with {commentary from me!}

(Reuters) - A city in south Taiwan began training potty users this week to flush toilet paper instead of throwing it in the trash, to reduce 340 tonnes of stinky waste generated daily, local media and officials said on Tuesday. {Potty training?? Is the bowl so small that they need to practice their aim?}

"An old habit is to throw toilet paper in the trash can beside the toilet, which causes a major stink that's bad for public sanitation," city Environmental Protection Bureau Director Chang Hwang-jen told Reuters.

"Japanese and Western visitors {That's me!!} who come to Taiwan find this Taiwan toilet habit to be quite poor," she added.

Taiwan's plumbing can now handle toilet paper without clogging the pipes, a break from the past, the city of Tainan told its 764,000 citizens at a news conference {was the conference called for this reason only? because that's awesome} on Monday.

Leaders in other Taiwan cities haven't gotten off the pot on the issue, Chang said. {haha, I get it!}

Toilet sitters in Taiwan and China customarily target {implying they don't always hit it?} trash bins instead of the porcelain because of pipe backup worries. Clogged pipes in Tainan are caused by the flushing of other objects, such as toothbrushes, Chang said.

Sticking non-recyclable toilet paper in the trash also costs the city T$4,600 ($151) per tonne, or T$600 million per year, to treat, local media said. {that's basically like wiping your ass with dolla bills.}

This article is almost 2 years old, and I can assure you that not everyone has converted. This is my effort to spread the word.

Well, Taiwan. The ball is in your court, and the paper is in your hand. Where do you want to put it?

(and stop flushing toothbrushes down the toilet...)

Extended reading: http://www.poopreport.com/Techniques/good_ass_bad_ass.html

Taiwan's Hidden Gem

As I may have mentioned before, our school goes on a "monthly outing." It's a chance for the students (and teachers) to get out of school and see things around Taipei that they might not normally get a chance to do. For example, we've been to the Taipei Zoo, Guandu Nature Park, Songshan Airport, a glass museum, Taipei Botanical Garden, and many of the beautiful parks that Taipei has to offer.

Even though my class has been on all different outings over the past 2 and a half years they've been at the school, nothing could prepare them, or anybody for the outing of a lifetime:

The Postal Museum.

We rolled up to the Postal Museum that Tuesday and were very surprised to find that there was no line to get in. Each class got its own tour guide, and we split up throughout the multi-floor museum.

The first thing we saw was a giant portrait of H.E. Sheng Hsuan Huai, Minister of Yu-Ch'uan Pu (the Minister of Posts and Communications), who memorialized the throne recommending separation of Posts from Customs. It was a great opportunity to remind my students of his lasting legacy and the importance of the separation of Posts and Customs.

I spent the morning being dragged around by my 6-year-olds as they shouted things to me, like "Teacher John! Look at the "Scales used by the Postal Service" exhibit!" and "Check out all the stamp cancelling machines at the "Stamp cancelling machines" exhibit!"

The excitement they displayed brought to light the fact that not many kids get to see "Various hung-up boxes of different countries," or all of the "Historical Sites of the Universal Postal Congresses," and I had a moment of proud satisfaction that I could share the experience with my class.

If you can believe it, there was a real mailbox set up inside the museum. I had the pull out all of my discipline/class control tricks to keep order as we lined up to pose for individual pictures putting an envelope in the slot.

As always, I feed off the energy created by my students, and I quickly took them by hand to the "Equipment for Mail Sealing and Mailbags for Mail Distribution" exhibit. I told them, "Squirrels, this is the equipment they use for mail sealing! And these are the mailbags they use for mail distribution!" My enthusiasm was met with wide-eyes and a gentle applause.

Together, we marveled over the "Postal Museums in the world," and gawked at the "Postal Emblems of different countries" until it was time to leave.

The kindergarten manager came to round up all of the classes, and we reluctantly lined up and headed towards the exit. However, on our way out, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one exhibit we missed. I waited for the manager to turn her back, and quickly led my class to the one exhibit that I highlighted on my map of the museum:

"Equipment used by the Postal Savings Department."

By the time we actually got on the bus and started heading back towards school, the Squirrels and I knew that with this newfound appreciation and knowledge of the Postal Service, mailing a letter would never be the same.

Wednesday Shirts

That's right. T-shirts for $100 NT, or roughly $3.15 USD.

Every Wednesday at school is Casual Day, which obviously means we don't have to wear our uniforms. As a result, Wednesday has become an excellent way to show some originality in a school that prides itself in it's ability to produce cookie-cutter teachers.

One night, my Bri-ish buddy, Rory, and I found an awesome clothing store in a night market near our apartment. Spotting a rack of shirts that said "100元," we went to check it out.

See, the thing is, both Rory and I are tall and have fairly broad shoulders, which makes shopping in Taiwan nearly impossible, especially in the night market scene. Most of the clothes are designed to fit, well, Asians.

With low expectations, we started flipping through the rack and found some pretty hilarious shirts. The most amazing part is that the shirts looked like they could actually fit (which we later decided was the reason they were so cheap...too big for everybody)! Splurging the $100, I decided to buy some. To be honest, I still haven't decided whether I actually like these shirts, or if it's just funny.

What do you think?

Pretty normal, actually...

"Leave me alone. I am not a lonely guy."

Nothin' like a stick man singing a love song through a megaphone...

Last, but certainly not least, Spiderman!

(Did you also notice that I've developed a thing for hearts?)

How's the weather?

The weather? In a word: wet.

In the month of May, the average precipitation for Taipei is 8.4 inches. That's over double what Port Jefferson gets (3.97 inches). Even PJ's rainiest month of the year is only 4.22 inches. For added comparison, the average rainfall for May in London is 1.86 inches, and in Seattle is 2.03 inches.

To be fair, it's not always May. With that being said, in a year, Taipei averages about 80 inches of rain to New York's 40. We're practically drowning over here!*

I read a poem to my class the other day about the 5 senses, which opened with the following lines:

Hear the winds blow,

See the blue skies.

After reading it first, I explain each line, then we get interactive with it.

Hear the winds blow, (have all of the kids blow and make wind noises.)

See the blue skies. (have all of the kids look outside at the ... uh oh.)

"Teacher John, the sky is white."

"Well, in some countries, they have blue skies."

If it's not raining in Taipei, it's probably cloudy. I used a phrase awhile back, "perma-fog," to describe how there's always a blanket of clouds hovering over northern Taiwan. The rain coupled with the almost rain can really create a dreary atmosphere sometimes. That's why whenever I see a ray of sunshine, I try to get outside as soon as possible.

In just over a week, I'm taking my 3 week vacation. I still have tentative plans to thoroughly explore the entire island of Taiwan. As I travel around, I'm also looking for a place to relocate to. I've heard that as soon as you leave Taipei County, the weather gets better the further south you. (Better weather = less extreme temperatures in the summer and winter, and a LOT less rain!)

So, world, how's the weather?

*some of the numbers I used were approximations from http://www.worldclimate.com and www.weather.com.

Hating Life

Dogs in Taiwan hate life. Most of them aren't even real dogs. They go for walks in handbags instead of on leashes. A lot of them can't even wipe their own ass.

They really are more like accessories than pets. In fact, the word for "pet" in Chinese is 宠物, which literally means "pamper-object."

Here are some of the "objects" that get pampered:

"Please don't put this picture up on the internet..."

"I wonder what running through grass feels like..."

"I want to crawl in front of a bus."

"Yo quiero chicken feet, meng!"

Do you see this where you live?

Obstacle Course

I'm not saying that Taiwanese people are completely oblivious to personal space/their surroundings, but they're somewhere between that and hyper-aware.

If you'd like, you can attribute some of this ranting to the fact that most of the situations happen in the morning on the way to work, so I might be a little cranky. My only argument is that it's not the only time of day it happens.

There are quite a few people that start their daily commute at around 8:00 AM, including myself. Living on the 23rd floor (out of a possible 24), I'm usually the first one on the elevator. I also usually plan for the elevator taking an extra 3 or 4 minutes to get to the 1st floor, since we stop. at. every. floor. on. the. way. down. Being the first one aboard the elevator, I inevitably end up in the back. This morning, as 1 of 7 passengers, I was the only one getting off on the 1st floor. The rest were waiting for B1, B2, or B3 to get to their vehicles. However, when the elevator stopped at the 1st floor, not a single person thought anyone would want to get off. Even as I tried to politely say "excuse me" and squeeze my way to the doors, everybody in the mirror-walled elevator pretended not to see or hear me. They were content with not pushing the "<||>" button and letting me join them in the basement. With a fair amount of force, I finally broke free from my corner and made it to the door just as it closed on my shoulders, then spit me out, and I stumbled outside.

I shook my head in disbelief the whole way to work as I dodged fellow pedestrians on the sidewalk. And when I say "sidewalk," I really mean "scooter parking area." The space between a row of parked scooters and the wall of a building is just big enough for an average sized person to fit. In Taiwan, these areas are used as pit stops so you can adjust your shoe, put up/down your umbrella, decide to suddenly start walking like a snail, or, my favorite, wait with 4 other people for your breakfast. Amazing.

Rainy days are the most interesting days because every single person has an umbrella. Just another thing to not be aware of how big it is or how it's going to affect other people around you.

On the bright side, walking to work wakes me up because it forces me to be alert and think outside the box for solutions to what seem like easy problems. I'm just sayin'...

[by the way... thanks for all the comment love! I think the joke was lost in translation, but I wasn't just fishing for responses or for you to say you miss me. I know you do! All 10 of you!!!]

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!)

A Post a Day

Mission: 7 posts in 7 days.

Objective: Unknown.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers in the world! It's Sunday night and I'm pretty bored, so I decided to put into action a plan that I've been thinking about for awhile: 7 posts in 7 days. I don't know why I want to do this, but I'm thinking it might bring out some more interesting things that happen to me in Taiwan on a day to day basis. I tend to save up all my stories for a long post every few weeks. Sometimes that doesn't reflect the flow of life here.

Well, the Sunday evening blues have definitely kicked in. Weekends are awesome, but I don't think there is anything worse than the feeling of another week creeping in on a Sunday night.

Rather than fear the week, I'll talk about the weekend. One cool thing about living in Taiwan that I don't think I mention enough is the foreigner scene. At a party this weekend, I was drinking with people from the US (Florida, Washington, Chicago, and even a Port Jeff Station native!), England, Canada, Mexico, Honduras, South Africa, Hong Kong, and of course, Taiwan. There's nothing like having a drink and exchanging some stereotype digs from country to country. It's pretty amazing to see the collection of people who share the common thread of "foreigner in Taiwan," yet amongst ourselves, we are really different, reminding us that there is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.

*worth mentioning:

-I know only like 10 people read my blog

-I like to pretend more people do

-Most of my posts are peppered with sarcasm

So when I say something like "Before you get all "Johnny's coming home!", I'm not actually being so narcissistic that I think any of the 10 people that read that actually for a moment got excited that I'm coming home. So before you get all "How many people do you think actually got all "Johnny's coming home!"?", I know the answer is "probably nobody."

A Quick Update

Well, if you're like me, you're probably thinking "Where did April go?" Chalk another month up for the "now I understand how people spend 5 years here" realization.

As with previous months that went missing, it's because nothing really eventful has happened. But I'll do my best to fill you in:

To start, I've recently just put in my 3 months notice at my current job. Before you get all "Johnny's coming home!" let it be known that I plan on doing (at least) another year before I'm ready to come home for good.

Along that same line, since I'm leaving my school pretty soon, I felt it necessary to take the vacation that I've earned after putting in a year of service. I have 3 weeks (end of May/beginning of June) of glorious vacation coming up. As of now, I'm planning on doing a solo road trip around (literally, all the way around) Taiwan. I've scoped out some spots to stop and it looks like it's going to be great. I'll be sure to avoid this highway that's a mere 5 miles from my apartment.

I've joined a Muay Thai (boxing) club quite recently (I have my 3rd class tomorrow). So far it's great, and I look forward to kicking some ass when I come home.

Oh yeah...I had my first visitor!!!! He goes by the name Flat Stanley and he came via envelope from a 2nd grader in Port Jefferson. If you can't read the subtext, I'm actually asking when you all are going to come and visit(???).

Although I'm far from what I'd even consider "conversational" in terms of Chinese speaking ability, I'm happy with how far I've come. I frequently get complimented on my tones, and I understand a lot of the grammar. I can speak to cab drivers and people at restaurants slightly beyond the necessary information.

My Squirrel class is graduating kindergarten this summer, and for our graduation show, I adapted the story of Robin Hood to fit my class, and we are well into production. I'll be sure to get access to videos of that once it comes around.

Well, world, that's about it from my side. What's new with you?

The Beach Over the Mountain

(a photographic adventure. as always, click the pictures for a better view.)

On the way up and over the mountain, Rory and I stopped at an abandoned building...

...for a Quidditch match.

Next we stopped at a National Park "no swimming area"....

...for a swim

We finally got to the beach in Wanli....

...which was where we decided to land our spacecraft.

We found a what must be a real estate gold mine....

...filled with creepy, abandoned, oddly-shaped beach bungalows right on the water.

Spring Scream

I don't know why I'm even bothering trying to describe Spring Scream. You really had to be there...

By the numbers:

Spring Scream is a mega music festival in Taiwan that's been happening once a year for about 14 years now. It's been growing every year, and this year there were around 200 bands playing on 7 stages over the course of 3 days.

Where to?

The festival takes place in Kenting, which is the southern most part of Taiwan. At Eluanbi National Park, where the stages are, you can see the Pacific Ocean and the Taiwan Strait. Kenting is basically a laid-back, sea-side vacation town. There's swimming, surfing, scuba-diving, and beach lounging all year because the weather is beautiful all year. Where else would you hold an outdoor music festival?

Accommodations:

Instead of throwing down a massive amount of money for a hotel for the weekend, Rory, Jeff, and I decided to bring a tent and use the campgrounds at the national park where everything was happening. We were pretty much in Spring Scream.

Survey says:

The weekend was a blur of awesomeness. By day we walked around the park soaking up the sunshine we rarely see up north, and as soon as the afternoon hit, we were in Spring Scream. We drank, danced, rocked and drank the nights away. Roaming around the venue, we found everything from hip-hop, ska, rock, metal, all kinds of DJs, and anything else that you can imagine. We made friends with other Spring Screamers from all over the island, some of the bands, and lots of people selling food, t-shirts, and promotion products.

After the concert was over? A proper DJ'd beach party:

In essence, the long holiday weekend in Kenting was the opposite of my usual daily life. The weather, the excitement, the variety of people I interacted with, and my location on the island of Taiwan. An excellent change of pace.

I give both Spring Scream and Kenting 5 out of 5 stars. Rock on!

Right of Passage

I think now that I've been here for over a year, I can start to vent some pet peeves and idiosyncrasies about Taiwan. Every place has them, and most probably aren't exclusively practiced in one place, so that makes it fair to point them out.

When navigating your way through Taipei's train/subway system, the "right of way" is granted exclusively to those pedestrians boarding the train/subway car. And in crowded Taipei, there are a lot of people trying to board trains. As soon as the car doors open, they simultaneously drop their shoulders and try squeeze through.

Here's the issue: You're heading into the city and Taipei Main Station is your stop. You and everybody else in the train are bunched together in a cluster at the door, they slide open and you're met by a frenzied group of juggernauts that have no regard for you, each other, or anything but the inside of that train. They can't put it together that the train passengers need to "alight" before they can get on. But they try to make it happen anyway.

So the typical situation is you standing in the doorway with nowhere to go. You are a stone in rapids, a rioter against a fire hose, Simba against stampeding wildebeests. Frozen in place, catching shoulder after shoulder to the chest until somebody realizes that if people get off, there will be more room on the train.

What may be even more obnoxious is that it also happens on a smaller scale. In my building, when I take the elevator down to the 1^st floor, where it's quite obvious that I'm getting off, I'm never surprised to be in a 1-on-1 battle with somebody who insists on getting in the elevator before I get out.



To be fair, I don't think everyone in Taiwan does this.

Dreams Do Come True

Two days after my year anniversary in Taiwan, I finally found Dr. Pepper.

On no particular Monday, when casually asked if I wanted a drink from the store, I responded in a typically sarcastic way by saying, "Yeah, I'll take a Dr. Pepper," both parties knowing full well that Dr. Pepper doesn't exist in Taiwan.

This time, the right person over-heard and piped up that there was a store in Taipei that consistently supplied DP.

The only bad news was that it was around 1:00 in the afternoon, and I still had another 6 hours of teaching to go, but the thought of a nice cold DP helped me power through my 10 hour Monday.

As soon as I finished teaching, I headed down to XXXXXXXXXXXX* and sure enough found a stock of about 20 warm Dr. Pepper cans (imported from Japan). Resisting the pent up urge to chug one on the spot, I kept calm and only bought 6 to take home and refrigerate. No point in waiting all that time to drink a warm DP... yuck.

My first sip was as euphoric as I thought it would be, and now that I know XXXXXXXXXX* has DP on the regular, I can't think of anything that specific that Taiwan doesn't have.



Dr. Pepper, you really do make the world taste better.


*The location of this supplier remains undisclosed, mostly because I'm a selfish.

Parallel Universe

The weather is changing. It's getting warmer. That's great, except that means the kids are getting sick. Every kid needs a mask.

At lunch time, the masks are next to the bowls as the students are hurried to finish their rice and vegetables, interrupted only by getting up to take a tissue to dam the constant flow of snot.

One by one, they finish and bring their bowls to my co-teacher for soup, then take a piece of fruit.

"If you're sick, you don't eat the fruit," she orders. Caught off-guard by that statement, I glanced over at the tray of fruit. It was orange slices...

I proceeded to ask about why, when the kids are sick, they are to be deprived of oranges, or any fruit for that matter. I got a brief lesson in how cold fruit when you are sick is bad "chi," which apparently trumps any scientific proof about the nutrition of an orange.

So the healthy kids eat oranges, and the sick kids finish their soup and the masks go back on.

I scratched my head over this for the whole day, and pretty much forgot about until the next morning. The breakfast tray came into the class and it was full of cake. Each student got a slice of cake that had some sort of pudding filling.

Once I was reassured that the kids needed to drink some water after they finished their cake, I confirmed with my co-teacher that they weren't going to be eating any fruit that day.

Amazing...

A Useless Lesson

Super Kids 6, Unit 2: Lost in Hawaii
Peter is at the airport and can't find his sister. A man helping asks, "What is she wearing?" and "What does she look like?"


The goal of this lesson is to get the students to be able to ask and answer both of those questions, while also using objective and subjective pronouns (He is taller than her. She is shorter than him.)

The vocabulary: long blond hair, short brown hair, straight black hair, curly red hair.
(She has long blond hair and blue eyes.)

Easy enough, right? I had some great ideas for activities, like bring in some magazines and let the students go through and describe the people in the ads.

See the problem yet?

I stood there in 7-Eleven staring at the magazine rack after flipping through about 8 magazines, picturing how my activity was going to pan out... He has straight black hair and black eyes. She has straight black hair and black eyes. She has straight black hair and black eyes...

I'm just sayin...

I never knew...

Even though it rained almost every single day during Chinese New Year, I made a point to get out and try to and explore the north of Taiwan. Prior to this vacation, my view of Taiwan was restricted to the cool, yet polluted city of Taipei, and the smaller, polluted city that I live in. With a scooter, and a fresh spark of energy from some new foreigners, we set out to see more than cement and parks.

First stop: Wulai. About a 1 hour bus ride south of Taipei, deep in the mountains, there is a beautiful aboriginal town, famous for hot springs and a waterfall. There is a cable car going to the top of the waterfall, where there is a huge resort. Although it was a bit far away, the scenery was refreshingly exotic.

Next stop: Keelung. There was an attempt to explore the NE coast of Taiwan, but pouring rain stopped that, so we settled for some of the best seafood in Taiwan in downtown Keelung near the harbor on the Northeast.

Next stop: Pingxi. Another small place deep within the mountains, yet a very short distance from Taipei City. Pingxi is where the Lantern Festival is, where people write their wishes for the New Year on a lantern and set it adrift. Again, the rain put a damper on a lot potential exploring.

Next stop: Wanli. More specifically, Yehliu Geopark. Wind, rain, and ocean waves can do some serious damage over time in terms of erosion, and we saw some of the crazy rock shapes that have been in the works for a long time (like "the Queen Head"). Another place I would have enjoyed more had it not been freezing and pouring, but a trip to the steaming Xinbeitou hot springs took care of potential frostbite.

Final stop: a mountain trip through Shijr on my trusty scooter. As crappy as I sometimes make where I live sound, a 15 minute scooter ride in any direction (except towards Taipei) brings you to a beautiful mountain road where you can give your lungs a bath and forget what apartment buildings look like. On the only decent day of the whole vacation, I had coffee on a peak with a 360 view of the mountain ranges of northern Taiwan.



Basically, rain sucks and Taiwan is a cool place, given the appropriate weather and transportation.

Chinese New Year

My week off, in pictures (click for a better view):

[more pictures from Yehliu Geopark]



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Is there a Dr. in the house?

It's been more than 8 months since I've had a Dr. Pepper, the delicious beverage which has been the single item that I miss the most from home.

Taiwan has a lot of great things, unique to the country, but also a lot of things that are imported or otherwise distributed globally. But even in Costco, the mecca for imported/western food, there isn't a Dr. Pepper to be found. Since I've been in Taiwan, I've searched and read comment threads on the internet regarding the subject. For too long I've been yearning for the 23 flavors of the drink I once dubbed as "the new water."

A few weeks ago, Forrest Gump was on TV, and after watching him drink 15 Dr. Peppers at the White House, I took my craving to my Facebook status ("Johnny Fleckenstein would do unspeakable things for a Dr. Pepper"). To my astonishment, I had two people reply that they actually had cans of DP in Taiwan. Not long after that, I heard that a teacher at my school returned from Guam with a few cans! With so much evidence of it actually being in the country, I had my heart set on the fact that I was finally going to get my hands on some!

I did some research and talked to a few people and found out where the end of the rainbow was: Jake's Country Kitchen in Tianmu, which is north of Taipei City, and a solid hour of travel time no matter what transportation you use. Of course, I just recently purchased a scooter so I decided to log a few more miles and make the trek.

On Thursday afternoon, I took to the streets of Taipei in the middle of rush hour, practically eating my way through the pollution. The entire way I had a nervous feeling, as if I was on my way to ask the hottest girl in school to prom. What do I say? Do I cut right to the chase? For the entire 1 hour and 10 minute trip, I replayed different scenarios in my head, sometimes drinking it very fast, sometimes taking small sips to savor it, and fantasizing about buying a case and stocking up.

When I finally arrived in Tianmu, I parked my scooter, took one last look in my small side-view mirrors and stepped into Jake's.

"Do you want eat here or take out?"
"Um... uh. Well... I heard you have Dr. Pepper."
"No Dr. Pepper."
"What? Why?"
"We sold out."

I still have a bruise on my chin from when my jaw hit the floor as I stared at the drink menu and saw where Dr. Pepper had been crossed out. Feelings of rejection, defeat, depression, and shock took over my body as I sat down. Not wanting to leave empty handed after such a long journey, I settled for a bacon cheeseburger and a lousy Coke.

When I left, I asked when they were going to get Dr. Pepper again.

"Never. No more."

Those words, spoken like daggers going into my soul, haunt my dreams every night. And so the quest continues...

The Fountain of Youth

Well, I finally discovered why Asians age so well. Fortunately, it's not the squid, the stinky tofu, or the chicken feet. There's a simple practice that we can all take part in to make ourselves look younger: Lying.

After a lengthy conversation with my co-teacher about age recognition in Chinese culture, I found out that although I am actually only 23 years old, in Chinese years I am going to be 24 this Chinese New Year.

Years, as we know them, are based on the solar calendar, giving us 365 days. Contrary to the system used by the rest of the world, the Chinese use a lunar system, so the "years" aren't ever the same length. (Even on official documents at banks they use the lunar years. It is currently the year 98, marking the 98th year since the founding of the Republic of China.) Chinese New Year usually falls between January 20 and February 20.

The Year of the Tiger

Back to the age thing... it's to my understanding (making this not very credible at all) that everybody gets a year older at the start of the new lunar year. For example, my 24th birthday falls during this upcoming lunar year, so for this entire lunar year (Feb.-Feb.), I will be 24. In my situation, for 10 months I would be saying I'm older than I am according to the solar calendar. Tricky, right?

Some of the very traditional Chinese are also convinced that you are 1 year old when you are born, which is just a false idea. Using that, err... logic, when I was born (December), I was 1 year old already, and the following Jan/Feb, I turned 2 on Chinese New Year.

So at the ripe age of 2 months, I could actually have claimed to have been 2 years old. If I knew then what I know now...

To add to the confusion, some of the really traditional folks skip the age of 4, because the number 4 is bad luck in Chinese culture (the word for "four" sounds almost exactly the same as the word for "death"). I guess this is on par with buildings that "don't have" a 13th floor?

So there are students at school that claim to be 6, but how can I believe that? Add 1 for the time spent in the womb, add 1 for Chinese New Year, and that one that you might have skipped because it was bad luck, this 6-year-old is only 3 if he's anywhere but Asia.

Don't feel bad if you are confused, I feel your pain. Just know that this February 14th is not only Valentine's Day, but it is also Chinese New Year and we are ringing in the 99th Year of the Republic by relaxing for a government mandated one week!