My Final Days in Taiwan

Originally I had planned to return to Chicago at the end of May/ beginning of June, but the flights were very crowded so it was best for me to get on a flight on May 3rd. I was only able to give my work a week's notice, but since I was only working 5 hours a week anyways, I figured it wouldn't be too hard for them to replace me in my classes.
On the last day of my M1 children's class with 6-8 year olds, I announced to them that I was leaving and that they would have a new teacher. They took it well, and two students came up with parting gifts for me; a crumpled up packet of hot chocolate, and an old pen. I thought it was very nice of them.

Wednesday evening after our classes Carolyn, our friends, and I all went for some Indian food together, and to a swank lounge near the top of the Hotel One building. It's always sad when you have to say farewell to people you think you may never see again. We had a good time though, even though the prices were exorbitant.

Thursday evening was pub quiz. Our team didn't do so well but again it was fun to see some friends and to get out of the apartment where I kept brooding over my eventual departure. I hid a bunch of notes around the apartment for Carolyn to randomly find during the next few months of her stay in Taiwan, so hopefully it will feel like I'm kind of there.

We decided we should do something big together while I was still there, so on Saturday we went to Kaohsiung, a port city in Southern Taiwan, and the second largest city in Taiwan. We took the High Speed Rail, a super-fast train that looks like an airplane inside. What would have taken us 5 hours by bus took us one hour by this train. The tickets were rather expensive ($40U.S. roundtrip) but the time saved was worth it.

The first thing in Kaohsiung we visited was the old British Consulate on a mountain overlooking the port. The view at the top was spectacular, and the building itself was rather interesting. It was built in 1864 as a trade house, and later converted into the consulate. Now it's just a tourist site with a temple built on the grounds. We rested here (because we walked for 30 minutes in the heat to reach the place) and got some tea at the outdoor tea garden. It was nice and relaxing. Nearby we visited the shore and admired the expansive ocean.


Afterwards we walked back to the port and found the ferry to Cijin island, a large island across the bay from Kaohsiung. The ferry was very Taiwanese-esque, crowded, and full of scooters. At least it was cheap. It dropped us off at the tourist part of the island, which opened into a food street. Of course the entire food street smelled like stinky tofu (rotting corpse) so I lost my appetite and we quickly walked to the beach instead. The Lonely Planet guidebook said the beach was alright, but when we got there it was very small and dirty. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anybody looking for a beach. Carolyn was less discriminating than I so she took off her shoes and walked around in the sand (mud) and put her feet into the water (water and oil mixture). We relaxed here for awhile and then returned to the ferry to go back to Kaohsiung.

Next we stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant. The food was cheap but not great, and it was covered in melted Taiwanese cheese, which kind of just tastes like salt and oil. But it was filling and that's what I was looking for, so I shouldn't complain. We hopped into a cab after eating and took it to the Love River.
The Love River is a canal that runs through Kaohsiung City. It used to be very dirty but the city has started cleaning it up to promote tourism. It's pretty nice and there are biking paths and parks along the shore. There are also some shops and restaurants (we found an Outback Steakhouse). There were also some rental bikes but the machine was broken so we couldn't rent any. We walked along the shore for an hour or so, and saw some dragon boats. At this point we were getting very sunburnt and tired.

We decided to go to the next tourist spot, the Lotus Pond. So we hopped into another cab and went there. It turns out it's not so much a pond as it is a lake. It's pretty big and it has a bunch of pagodas which would have looked nice expect for the circus-themed giant animals littering the area. A bunch of temples lined the streets along the pond and everyone was out and about having a good Sunday afternoon. At the northern tip of the pond was a giant Confucius temple.

By the end of all this we were very exhausted, so we went back to the High Speed Rail station and took the train back to Taichung. We went to dinner at the hot pot restaurant we've been to a few times in the past (once with Bobby and Jennifer, once for a different occasion). The food was good and a nice sendoff as my last real Taiwanese meal in Taiwan.

The next morning we got back on the High Speed Rail, took it to the airport stop, and then took a bus to the airport. Carolyn and I were both very depressed that I was leaving, and it was very hard for me to leave her there, even though I'm sure she will be fine because she is very strong and independent and capable. I'm going to call her every day until she is back to make sure she is okay.

I had no problem getting on to either standby flight. For both flights I was put in business class. The first flight from Taipei to Tokyo I sat next to an old senile Chinese woman who had no idea where she was or what she was doing. The flight attendants kept giving her water, which she kept accidentally knocking over everywhere. One full cup she knocked completely on me. Each time she knocked her cup over she wasn't even aware of it. I was very happy to get off the flight because I didn't want to be completely soaked for my 13 hour flight, and I was worried I wouldn't look neat and clean so the attendants at the Tokyo to Chicago gate wouldn't put me on business.

I waited 3 hours at the Tokyo airport for the connecting flight. I had no problem getting into business on this flight either. This time I had a Chinese man sitting next to me and he was much more aware than my prior placement. The flight was fine and there were some decent movies. In particular I didn't expect to enjoy Yes Man as much as I did. I hated Taken though, it was full of cliche lines and awful script-writing. The action scenes were incredibly dull as well. The one problem I had with this flight though was that for the first 6 hours straight we had turbulence. It was ridiculous. I started feeling nauseous because of the constant bouncing, like we were on a boat in choppy waters. Finally it let up and I was able to relax more and eat. I wasn't able to fall asleep on the flight though so by the time I got off I had been awake for 25 hours. But since it was 2:20pm I had to stay awake until 9 or 10pm if I wanted to beat jet lag. So I was very out of it the whole evening. But I was struck at how clean the air is here, and how nice it smells. Where are all the scooters, the brown skies, the smell of sewers and stinky tofu? Where are the advertisement trucks rolling around shouting Chinese slogans into our ears? And where are all the 7-11s? I am glad all those things are absent. It feels good to be back, even though I'm sad Carolyn couldn't come back with me.

Law School

So I got into law school! It looks like I will be attending John Marshall Law School in Chicago in August. Orientation starts August 15th to be exact, which means I will be leaving Taiwan earlier than originally intended. But I will need to get back to the U.S. probably a few months earlier, so maybe I will most likely be back in June. The reason for this is twofold: I need to do a lot of administrative stuff (such as get my immunizations from an American doctor), and second I need to earn more than I am here so I will have some money to start with (for transportation, living expenses, etc). So I will most likely see all of you in June!

Hot Springs and All You Can Eat

This weekend we went to the hot spring that you may have read about in Carolyn's blog. It is located in the mountains near Taichung (Dakeng). Supposedly they are natural hot springs, but they are new and I'm not so sure of that claim. The place itself is quite nice. It's a hotel resort and the prices are very reasonable.

The spa has two hot spring jacuzzis, both of which I sat in for awhile but they really burn. I couldn't stay in them too long because they were too hot for me. I did however enjoy the warm water pool with the various fountains. I particularly liked the fountain that felt like a waterfall giving you a back massage. I also tried out the pool with the fish that you stick your feet in and they eat the dead skin off your feet. Unlike Carolyn, I found the fish to be very unpleasant. It's like a tiny biting sensation and it's very startling every time a new fish comes to eat your feet. The bigger fish are downright painful. But the spa did give us free ice cream, which is very nice after having spent 4-5 hours in a hot spring.

Afterwards we went to an all-you-can-eat barbecue. It was similar to a Korean barbecue I visited in Taiwan. In the middle of the table is a barbecue pit where you can cook your food, and they also have a hot pot with soup cooking on the corner of the table. For about $12 US it's all you can eat for 2 hours. We had 4 rounds with about 10 dishes per round, for 4 people. We ate a ton and most of it was good. I still have a boycott on organs but Carolyn tried the chicken hearts and cow tongue. On the other hand I ate the raw beef while she still refuses.

So to sum things up, it was a long day but it was well worth it.

Catharsis

As of late I’ve been doing a lot more children’s classes because I think I’m on the outs in the adult department. Our managers work on a system of passive aggressive punishment. A couple of weeks ago I received a complaint in the adult’s department that I wasn’t checking their homework to make sure they were doing it correctly. Instead I was going over the answers in the class so they can check it, and the process is more active. However this student didn’t want that, she wanted me to take all of their workbooks home and spend 3 hours each night grading them. I don’t get paid for class preparation, and I don’t get paid for grading homework. For a 3 hour adult class I put in 2 hours of preparation time. Now add to that 3 hours of homework grading a class, and I will be spending 5 hours of my own time for a 3 hour class. The 3 hour class pays about $60 U.S. a day. So in the end if I brought the homework home that means I’d be getting paid $60 for 8 hours of my work time. That comes out to $7.50 an hour. I was making $7.50 an hour 5 years ago as a tuxedo store clerk. When confronted about it by the secretary, I told her there is no way I’m bringing the workbooks home to grade. I suppose this was foolish of me, but I was just being honest. If I wanted to tell her “no” in the Chinese bureaucratic way I should have said “hmmm….. that will be very difficult. I will see what I can do.” Later that day the adult manager called me at home (at 10pm) and also asked me to do it. This time I gave him the second response, but it doesn’t work on him really because he’s not Chinese.

So what is the result of this supposedly little issue? Well as it turns out over this past month I’ve been repeatedly skipped in adult class assignment. Not a single adult class has come my way even though I have the most availability and I ask the manager for classes nonstop. Even Carolyn, who is already at nearly 20 hours a week (Compared to my 14, soon to be 6), was offered a 4 hour Saturday adult class. The time this class is at I also have free, so the manager could have called me, but he gave it to Carolyn, who has way more hours than me. I’m glad at least Carolyn got it because she also needs the money, and she’s an excellent adult teacher, but I find it ridiculous how this management at my school works. The funny thing is that when the manager offered the class to Carolyn he said “See eventually you get enough hours and then get to choose whether to accept classes or not.” Well I have never been given this option. And she really didn’t have the option to accept it or not, because if she rejected it she would never receive another adult class offer again. That’s how passive aggressive they are.

Here’s another funny little tidbit. A co-worker of ours just re-signed a 2nd year contract with our school (It boggles my mind why she would do this because there are much better jobs here in Taiwan for those with experience and the willingness to teach children.) She filled out the application and signed the contract and applied for the ARC. Well she wanted a copy of the contract for her records and when she asked the manager, the manager said she doesn’t think it will be possible.!!! I know it’s illegal in Taiwan to not provide a contract (well technically if you have enough money nothing is illegal in Taiwan), but our stupid manager wouldn’t provide her a copy. I am beginning to suspect she is under orders from the owners not to provide contracts because later on if there is a dispute the employee will have nothing to give his/her attorney, thus putting the school at an advantage.

So now that I’m getting dropped from adult classes I’ve received a few children’s classes. Lately I’ve begun to absolutely loathe teaching children. My older class with teenagers has become pretty awful. They were behaving for the first semester, but now they have started reverting to infancy. Yesterday we were doing a project involving cutting up newspaper pictures to make an advertisement for tourists in Taiwan. Well one group of students instead just decided that it was hilarious to shred all the newspaper into little pieces and throw them about the room. I haven’t encountered this behavior since my dogs got a hold of newspaper. These are teenagers ranging from 12 to 16, not elementary children! What’s worse is that a few children decided to make newspaper balls and start chucking them at girls (who were seriously working on their advertisement). It was beginning to escalate so I told one student to get out of the classroom and go sit with the secretaries. And guess what, he refused to my face! I was very stern, threatening and menacing, and finally he got up and came with me after refusing for like a minute. I brought him downstairs and told the secretaries, and later he came back and helped another student pick up all the newspaper scraps they had produced.

The children here are so disrespectful compared to students from schools I have previously attended (Woodland and Warren). I never ever disobeyed a teacher like that, especially to his/her face. I have a variety of theories that I will share.

First, I believe the Chinese have a penchant for spoiling their sons (it’s every parent’s dream to have a fat pampered son). So half the boys here are really rotten, mean, and cruel, to me and to their classmates.

Second, at my school children come at night after having spent the whole day at another school. So they are stressed out and overworked. They do want to have fun and play. So they often goof off and don’t pay attention. Unfortunately their parents are paying us to teach them English (and to baby-sit them), so we try our hardest to prevent goofing off.

Third, these children tend to be a lot more disrespectful to white teachers compared to Chinese teachers. The reason for this may be racism. They don’t see their white teachers as real people or valuable members of society. So they feel that it is alright to disrespect them.

Fourth, as the white teacher who only speaks English, we can’t call their parents and tell them what their children are doing. So the children recognize we have no power of punishment beyond the classroom. If we want to punish outside of the class we have to get the Chinese teacher or secretaries involved.

Last, white teachers come and go constantly, and the quality of teachers is very low. We are not trained as teachers, and they may see as many as 4 different teachers in one semester. Because of this they figure it’s alright to be disrespectful because if it puts them on the teacher’s bad side, the teacher will be gone in a few weeks anyways. Furthermore, a lot of teachers they have had in the past probably have been pushovers, so they expect me to be a pushover as well, and when I punish them they really refuse because they don’t think I will escalate the punishment.

So those are all my problems with the school system in Taiwan and the particular school I work for. It’s truly a mess and I seriously want to get out of it as soon as possible. I’m highly considering going back to law school (because I don’t want to have to do disagreeable jobs like this for the rest of my life) and I already applied for John Marshall with an August start. If I don’t get in for August I will reapply for January. Hopefully I can get back to school soon. In the meantime I’m making plans to move back to Chicago and find some temporary work to hold me over until I start school. Carolyn on the other hand is doing very well here and we both agree she should stay to finish out the contract. She thinks she may want to be a teacher, so this experience, and the references, will be quite valuable. Of course I will miss her a lot and I wish she could come back with me, but we will only be apart for 3 or 4 months, and it’s the best thing for our future.

I want to apologize for spending this whole post complaining. But I really feel some catharsis when typing up all my feelings. I hope to see all of you soon!

Shitou: Not nearly as bad as the name sounds.

Shi-Tou is a mountainous forest area in the middle of the island of Taiwan. The elevation is quite high and it feels very different from the rest of Taiwan. Our friends (my former students who we have been hanging out with) offered to drive us there and take us around for the day. I am not one to refuse a free, great experience like this so we accepted and met them at 8a.m. this morning (Sunday).

Beforehand Carolyn and I both got breakfast because we were expecting to head straight to Shi-Tou as soon as we met our friends. But instead, they drove us back to one of their houses, where they gave us breakfast, cookies, candy, tea, and coffee. It was very hospitable and I was incredibly full. This house is an awesome house. It's outside of the city near the High Speed Rail station, and it's pretty large. It has 4 stories (and possibly a basement). The main living room on the first floor has this gigantic table made out of a tree trunk, encircled with tree stumps turned into chairs. The table and chairs alone must have cost a fortune. Our friend's family was quite nice to us and after meeting them and eating we were off to Shi-Tou.

The drive probably took 45 minutes there and it was raining and foggy. At first I was worried that it was going to be no fun because of the rain, but once we arrived there I realized the rain was actually making it look quite nice and cool. As you can see from the pictures the place is very alpine. It's a high elevation and the area looks like the Pacific Northwest, perhaps Oregon or Washington-esque. The temperature was cooler but not especially cold.

So we hiked for a couple of hours. We first walked along this elevated walkway that allows you to walk through the tops of the trees. It was a bit scary and I didn't feel that the architecture was sound enough for me to be standing on. Afterwards we came across this old tree there that is supposed to be 2000 years old. We ate some local food there as well : sausage, sticky rice, pork, and mushrooms cooked in bamboo, and bamboo shoot soup.

We were pretty tired from all the hiking so we headed back to the cars, only to discover that one of the drivers left the headlights of their car on so the battery was dead. Someone driving by in the parking lot jumped the car so it was alright in the end.

Our friends took us back to the house we were at in the morning, and this time we were taught how to play mahjongg. It's fun to play, I wouldn't say amazing, but Carolyn really enjoys it. We didn't play for money but I suppose it would be more exciting if we had. We played it for a few hours and then returned home. It was quite an exciting day and once again a good look into the lives of the local Taiwanese.

Random Scenes of Taiwanese Life

Things have been pretty normal here for the past few weeks, which explains my reluctance to post about it. Carolyn and I are taking turns being sick and I recently caught the flu and got bronchitis. I’ve recovered from the flu but I’m still coughing a lot, but my lungs no longer gurgle when I breathe so that’s a plus. I went to the chest doctor and he gave me antibiotics to take. It doesn’t help that this past week has been one of the smokiest, most polluted weeks I have seen in Taichung. I’m hoping my cough doesn’t turn into a lingering cough like Carolyn’s has.

I have a new private one on one student, which I am excited about. She contacted me online through a service that helps Taiwanese find English tutors. We met last Tuesday (when I was extremely sick but I needed the money), and the lesson worked out well. She’s very friendly and easy to get along with. At first I was afraid she would be looking for something more than tutoring lessons (people often set up tutoring lessons here when they are looking for a foreign boyfriend) but it turns out she is legitimately interested in learning English because she uses it at work. Hopefully the lessons last because it’s a nice source of extra income, and I receive cash right away instead of having to wait a month for a paycheck like at my school.

So a Canadian friend of ours who works at our school put in her one month’s notice last week and the school dropped her to 6 hours a week. At this point it’s cheaper for her to go home now instead of finishing the one month. It’s sad that the system our school creates provides an incentive to teachers to be dishonest. She has decided (and rightly so) that she should just stop showing up to work and she got plane tickets for this coming Monday. While it will put a little undue stress on whichever foreign teacher has to substitute her class, it’s better than her having to pay a lot of money to stay for the remaining month while only making $200. I hope she feels no remorse for putting the school in a difficult situation, because they do it to us all the time and I would certainly feel no remorse (perhaps I would even get some pleasure out of making the children’s director scramble to solve the problem). So this is what I have to look forward to during last month of being here in Taiwan.

On the plus side (I don’t know if I already mentioned this), I have received two new children’s classes. Teaching children is so incredibly different from teaching adults. Teaching adult classes are generally much easier because you don’t have to strive to keep them entertained (for the most part, I have a group of college-aged students who still require entertainment). The one children’s class I teach Thursday nights for two hours. These children are young (age 7-8) and for the most part they are very cooperative and happy children. I haven’t had to do any disciplining yet. The only problem I have is that they don’t understand the concept of taking quizzes and tests, so I have a very energetic boy who screams out answers he recognizes. And all the students keep asking me if their answers are correct during the test. I had to have the Chinese teacher explain to them how to take quizzes and tests, but they still were very confused. It’s okay, quizzing and testing 7-8 year olds is pretty ridiculous I think and it really just exists to make the parents feel good about the school.
The other children’s class I received is on Friday nights after my old children’s class. It lasts one hour from 9pm to 10pm. These kids are great and are definitely my favorite class. They are between the ages of 10 and 13. They are a lot of fun, they like to play practical jokes so they put an eraser on top of the door, and my Chinese co-teacher walked in and it fell on her and we all laughed about it. We have to cover a lot of boring material in this hour (mostly bookwork) but they still remain positive and friendly. I’m going to introduce more fun games into the class because it could be a lot of fun for everybody.

Outside of school we haven’t been doing much because doing things costs money. We did celebrate my birthday by getting a ton of delicious Indian food at a local Indian restaurant. Carolyn also got me a cake and new headphones because mine broke. It was quite a nice birthday! The cake is a coffee flavored cake with frosting squirrels and chocolate logs on top. It’s very delicious, we had got a similar one for our friend Michael’s birthday a few months ago. This coming weekend we are going to a tourist forest recreation area in Nantou county with our local Taiwanese friends (they are driving us ☺ ). That should be fun and I will post some pictures on Sunday. We also want to take the High Speed Rail to Kaohsiung sometime soon and go to Kenting as well. Kenting is the tropical beach area in the southern part of the island. I could really use a tropical retreat! Have a great week everybody.

Half-Time Reflection

So it's just about been 6 months since I left the United States to come to Taiwan. I'm at the halfway mark of my stay (possibly) and I have been reflecting on what I have learned here so far. I have also been considering how it has benefited me to be here (I'm trying to look at things positively since I often find myself being negative about my situation).

So the following is a list of what I have learned:

1. How to drive a scooter.
2. How Chinese businesses are run and managed.
3. How the Taiwanese government operates.
4. How to teach adults (teaching children is still a mystery to me).
5. The basics of the Spanish language (yes I realize I'm in Taiwan and I should be learning Chinese, but I am tone deaf and speaking Mandarin is all about tones. I have lots of free time so I've been listening to a program called Coffee Break Spanish on iTunes, I guess to prepare for my return to North America).
6. The last 400 years of Taiwanese history.
7. Stinky tofu is the worst smell in the entire world.
8. How to make a meal entirely from items purchased at 7-11.
9. How to live on $300 for a month.
10. The probability of surviving a fall off of a cliff while hiking.
11. How to entertain myself for a week with $0 and my 8 year old laptop computer.
12. The importance of having a well-paying job.
13. The probability that I will never find a job that I love, so I should find a job that compensates me handsomely.
14. How to kill and avoid cockroaches.
15. How much I love, appreciate, and understand American culture (absence makes the heart grow fonder!)

So as I reflect I find there are several reasons why it has benefited me to be here. The first is that when I return I will appreciate almost any job I get because compared to the work system here, I will be in heaven. The second benefit is that when I return I will be more appreciative of the environment, because it's wonderful knowing/understanding/ being familiar with everything/everyone you come across. I will also appreciate the simple things such as clean air and clean water (things that are not available to me here). I have also developed leadership skills, such as the ability to motivate adults to perform a difficult task. And I now have much better public speaking skills as well. Also, having a stable work history will work in my benefit when I return to look for new work.

So there you have it, my attempt at keeping a positive outlook on my experiences here thus far. There have been a lot of benefits to my being here, although they aren't necessarily related to Taiwan in particular. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me about particular experiences, go ahead and post a comment and I will try to respond. I hope you have enjoyed this post of self-reflection!

Balderdash

Hello everybody,
I've been looking for work recently and while I haven't had much luck there have been some promising signs. I've had two interviews/ teaching demos, and while neither of them ended up hiring me, I feel like I did fairly well during them. The reason I didn't get the jobs is that they are both part-time evening positions, which is what I already have (well my job is actually supposed to be full-time but of course it never turns out to be) so they would conflict with my schedule. And I can't quit my current job to work a part-time job because it's technically illegal to be working part-time and so a part-time position would not be able to supply me an Alien Resident Card like my current school does. I've also found some other schools hiring but so far they've all conflicted with my schedule as well. It turns out every school in Taichung wants English teachers to work at night and on Saturday mornings.

I'm hoping to find a part-time morning and afternoon position for maybe 2 hours a day. That would put me up to work about 25 hours a week, which considering the pay rate of $21U.S. an hour and the low cost of living here, I'd be doing pretty well. Carolyn has had more success than I have, she has been substituting in the mornings and she is being considered for a part-time morning job at a local elementary school. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because we could really use some extra work to survive here.

Speaking of extra work, my school gave me a new class to replace my other class that just ended, so I am back to 10 hours per week. In addition, I am being given a children's class (very young, maybe 7-8 years old) to teach on Thursday evenings, putting me at 12 hours per week. Up until now I've been typecast as an adult teacher (from what I've read online women tend to get the jobs teaching children while men are given the jobs teaching teenagers and adults). To be fair, the only reason I was given this class is because every single other white English teacher at my school already has a Thursday evening class. Therefore, I have become a final resort, haha! Not only that, but the full reason I am getting this class is because a fellow teacher friend of ours who works at our school just quit for a real job at an elementary school. So the school was in a pickle and they decided that while they strictly want me to teach only adults they had to grudgingly give me a children's class.

In other news, our school just hired two more white English teachers, completely over-saturating itself and therefore lowering all the current teacher's teaching hours dramatically. They expect teachers to quit so they hire new teachers even when they are unneeded, and thus drive the current teachers to quit! In a way, it's comical to step back and look at the idiocy of this situation and school. In another way, it's depressing that I have to put up with this sort of mismanagement for 7 more months.

Which brings me to another point, I am still applying to jobs back in Chicago, and if I find something decent and it looks promising I would highly consider taking it if I don't find work here soon. So please continue to keep an eye out for any jobs you know of that I am qualified to do.

Lately for recreation we've had to find cheap or free ways to entertain ourselves. Watching movies and television shows online is one thing we have started to do a lot of. We've also been hanging out with our fellow teachers more often as well. Two weekends ago we spent over 8 hours at our friend's house playing Balderdash. Well we weren't actually playing Balderdash because we didn't have the game itself. Instead, we took turns looking up people, dates, acronyms, words, and movie titles online and we would all write down a lie to convince people our answer was correct. It was great fun and I have learned many new english words such as gimcrack, costive, organza, and canaille. And do you know what the acronym V.O.M.I.T. stands for? Carolyn had the best lie, Victorian Old-school Murderers In Training. In actuality the answer was Victims Of Medical Imaging Technology.

So I've been in Taiwan for over 5 months and by this time I believe the honeymoon stage of living abroad is over, as well as the frustration stage. I am starting to feel more homesick though (I mostly miss family/friends/food/Marge). I've grown to accept living here (although a great many things still frustrate me). But things aren't as interesting to me as they initially were. I suppose if I had more work and I was making more money to use for travel I'd be finding more interesting things. Hopefully I do get some work so I can afford the tourist destinations that I want to visit before I leave in 7 months. Perhaps if I work really really hard over the summer I can even make enough money to visit India for two weeks like I wanted to. It's probably a pipe-dream for now but we will see.

I hope you are all doing well, please leave comments because I like to read what you have to say about what I have to say. Plus it lets me know who is still reading this.
-Michael

The Lantern Festival

Saturday, February 7th is the Lantern Festival here, so we headed to PingXi with our friends Matt and Kristin where they have an annual celebration. PingXi is in the mountains just east of Taipei, so we had to take a bus to Taipei, then hop on the MRT to the Taipei Zoo area, and then a shuttle bus up the mountain for 45 minutes to the final destination. In total it was 4 hours of travel time each way, so we spent 8 hours traveling and probably 3 hours of actual celebrating.
But the festival was definitely worth it. It is one of those sights you would never see in the United States because of the obvious dangers and lack of appeal to the average American. So we were dropped off on a road with thousands of other people near PingXi, and we had to walk to the city on foot. While we were walking we could already see the lanterns from the distance, and it was quite amazing. If you have ever watched the discovery channel and you have seen when thousands of electric jelly-fish are mating in the ocean, well the sky kind of looked like that. There were thousands of lanterns floating around in the night sky. As we got closer we found that groups of people were releasing lanterns in waves, so all of the sudden a couple hundred lanterns would fly up into the sky and everybody would gasp in awe and cheer. Many people were also setting off lanterns on their own, so the sky was constantly filled with glowing orbs of fire.

The main street in PingXi was the location of the night market which we walked down and grabbed some food to eat. I got a corn dog, which was okay but definitely not authentic. I also bought some mountain pig on a kebob and a banana covered in chocolate with sprinkles. Carolyn got tomatoes and strawberries covered in chocolate which also looked very good. This area was extremely crowded and I was more or less pushed along in the crowd down the street. This celebration was by far the largest gathering of people I have ever seen in my life. There were people everywhere, people stacked on top of people for miles and miles.


We decided to have the full experience so we bought a lantern for ourselves. The lady who sold it to us also helped us set it up. We got to write whatever we wanted on it. Usually people write their wishes for the new year on it and then send it up into the sky. Originally the lanterns were used to warn the townsfolk of invaders but now it's all just for fun and tradition. I wished for a new job. The lady who sold it to us also ran and bought some fireworks for us to attach to it as well. After we finished writing on it she came back and we held it up while she put the fire into it. The lantern quickly filled up with hot air and started floating. The lady attached the fireworks to it and we let go. It took off and then the fireworks exploded right over our heads. It was pretty interesting.

As we walked around we found a ton of these lanterns caught in trees. Luckily it had just rained so it was unlikely any would cause a fire. Some lanterns whose fires went out came crashing down back into the crowds. They usually fall slowly though as they cool down and they don't weigh much so I doubt there were any injuries.
After we had finished eating and sightseeing we decided to get back on the bus to Taipei. The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall had an exhibition on Andy Warhol that we wanted to see before it closed, and supposedly they had a lantern show there also. So we walked to where we originally got on the bus only to discover the longest line I have ever seen in my life. Forget about the 2 hour lines at Great America. This line stretched forever and for the first 30 minutes it did not move an inch. Luckily it was well organized and they had hundreds of buses so after 30 minutes it started to move quickly and we were back on a bus within an hour and a half. But by this time it was late so we skipped going to the exhibition and just took the bus back to Taichung. It was a great experience though and if you ever find yourself in Taiwan for the next Lantern Festival, I highly recommend going unless you have a phobia of large crowds.

Finally Tainan!

We finally made it to Tainan! I hate when I plan to do something and I keep pushing it back endlessly, so it was nice to finally go to Tainan and accomplish what I wanted to do. Tainan is the former capital of Taiwan, one of the oldest cities in Taiwan, and currently the fourth largest city. It is about 2 hours south of where we live in Taichung and definitely much warmer. We got up at 7:00a.m. on Tuesday morning and drove our scooter down to the bus station. For some reason the bus company had discounted fares for all, so instead of paying $10 U.S. each way for the bus we only paid $2.50 U.S.

After a 2 hour bus ride we arrived at the Tainan bus station. We have the Lonely Planet Guidebook to Taiwan, and they have a neat walking tour of Tainan in it. Fortunately the bus station is near the start of the walking tour so it was quite convenient. The first stop on the walking tour was the Taiwanese Literary Museum. The museum itself was very boring for me (I think it is designed more for children and teenagers), but the building is a wonderful example of Japanese colonial architecture so I took some photos of it.


We didn't stay at the museum long because I found it boring and since we had limited time to see the entire city I wanted to keep going and find more interesting sights.

Next we found the Confucius Temple. It seems every temple in Taiwan is named either the Confucius Temple or Longshan Temple. This temple was actually used for teaching children and I don't think any religious statues or artifacts were in the place. I believe it was built in the 1700's. There were a lot of steles with rules for the students, as well as lessons of instruction. And there were also a lot of banyon trees that Carolyn was absolutely fascinated with. She took a lot of pictures and I'm sure some will appear on her blog for you to check out.


The next sight I found much more interesting. We walked about a block and came across the Great South Gate of Tainan. It's a wonderfully preserved gate and wall built in the 1600's to keep out the Manchus and Europeans. There was almost nobody at this sight which made it feel even more authentic. This is the beauty of traveling on a Tuesday, everybody has to work but me and Carolyn. We sat here for awhile and just took in the atmosphere. Here is a picture of the gate and the surrounding wall.




Next we stopped at another temple (Wufei Temple) dedicated to the 5 concubines of Koxinga's son, the last leader of the Ming Dynasty. The story goes that when he surrendered to the Manchus his concubines were so loyal they hung themselves to join him in death. This temple is dedicated to their loyalty. It's a very small temple situated in a nice park as you can see from the photo. I didn't want to stay at this sight too long either because I am so incredibly bored of temples and up to this point this temple was the most average one I have come across. So we didn't stay more than 15 minutes before going to the next sight on the tour.


As it turns out, the next sight was yet another temple! Fahua temple to be exact, and now I had finally arrived at the most ho-hum temple imaginable. Needless to say we did not stay long. Instead we continued on to Koxinga's shrine. Koxinga was the Ming general who fled China in the 1600's when the Manchus took over mainland China. His plan, (similar to the KMT's plan to retake Mainland China from the communists) was to regroup in Taiwan and muster forces to retake the mainland from the foreign invaders. Instead (like the KMT), he never made it back to Mainland China and the Manchus held control over China for 300 years. The Manchus also invaded Taiwan and forced Koxinga's son to surrender. Koxinga did develop a lot of infrastructure in Taiwan, and a lot of the schools and temples were built in his time. This particular shrine dedicated to him was originally built long ago, but it was rebuilt by the KMT in the northern Chinese style of architecture and plastered with the KMT logo. It was interesting to see though because Koxinga is looked at with reverence by a lot of Taiwanese. Apparently the day we were visiting there was also a farmer's market taking place inside the shrine. Near the shrine is also a nice garden with a carp pond and dragon fountain, and a large statue of Koxinga himself.




Across the street from Koxinga's shrine is Lady Linshui's temple. At this point I remember begging, "please no more temples! I don't want to see anymore!" So we decided to skip the 4 other temples on the walking tour and head to the more interesting sights. Lady Linshui's temple is mainly for women. Women go there to pray for various womanly interests and when we visited there were actually a lot of women and girls there praying. One thing that interested me with the temple was the lantern display in the front. I have taken a picture of it for you to see.


So since we decided to skip the remaining temples we headed straight to Chihkan Towers, or Fort Proventia as it was called by the Dutch. I was very excited to see Chihkan towers because it was a Dutch fort built in the early 1600's to protect the Netherlands' colonial interests. When Koxinga came to the island and forced the Dutch to surrender, he tore part of the fort down and put up a temple called Hong Mao temple (which translates to the Temple of the Red-haired Barbarians, or something like that). Yes it was funny that I was present at the fort and the Taiwanese visiting it were also intrigued with my presence. At this point we were very hungry so we tried to get some food from the concession stand at the tower. One lone girl was staffing the stand and there were a lot of hungry Taiwanese demanding food from her. I ordered pizza and Carolyn got some waffles. We waited and waited for food, and Carolyn's waffles finally arrived. My pizza however did not come after maybe 20 minutes or so and finally the girl came over and said something like "No time, I give you money. No pizza." She handed me the money I had paid for the pizza and walked away. Apparently she was busy and had refused to serve me food! It happened so quickly I had no idea what was going on. I wonder if she would have refused to serve food to a Taiwanese person. Either way she didn't speak English so I couldn't argue with her, and I can't speak Chinese so we just walked around the fort instead and I went hungry.

The fort was very nice as you can see from the photos. The outer walls of the fort remain, as well as the foundations. The Chinese built a temple on the top of the foundations. They also included 8 stone tablets on top of turtles. And they also erected a statue of a Dutchman surrendering to Koxinga and two attendants. Overall this sight was quite nice, besides the very strange and rude concession girl.



From Chihkan Tower we took a taxi to the second Dutch fort in Tainan called Anping Fort, or Fort Zeelandia by the Dutch. This fort is right near the ocean and was meant to protect against invading ships. It was also built by the Dutch, but it was thoroughly destroyed by the Chinese and Japanese. The Japanese built a mansion inside the walls and the Taiwanese added an observation tower. The sight was still nice though and had some historical relics from the Dutch era. Although the sight was mostly rebuilt in the 1960's it still felt like I was in a real fort being used for protection against marauding ships.


By now we were very tired and so we found some food and rested a bit. Afterwards we just did some random exploring around the city and Carolyn got a sweet dessert from a street vendor. It was a fruit/vegetable kabob glazed in sugar. She really enjoyed it, and oddly enough her favorite part was the cherry tomato glazed in sugar.

To conclude we wandered around looking for the bus station again and finally found it after 40 minutes of walking. We were beat and ready to stop walking, so the two hour bus ride back was a nice respite.

The New Year

Gong hay fat choy (Cantonese)! Xi nian kuai le (Mandarin)! Happy Chinese New Year! Chinese New Year is a big deal here in Taiwan, and most businesses are closed for an entire week. Some people take two weeks off of work. Most of the time is spent eating with family and traveling. Our school has given us a week off, which is nice but at the same time it's tough because we are paid hourly.
We decided we needed to do something for our break because we have no idea how much longer we will be here for, and it would be a shame not to see as much as we can. So on Saturday morning we got up very early and met two other teachers, and we took a bus back up to Taipei. I must say, Taipei is cold compared to Taichung. It was probably around 50 degrees fahrenheit, rainy, windy, and humid (which makes it feel much colder).
We had a good time in Taipei. We were supposed to meet the teacher recruiting agency we used (Reach To Teach) for a hiking trip at Yangmingshan Mountain, but when we arrived at the train station the group was nowhere to be found, so we decided to do our own thing. Since Carolyn and I hadn't been to the National Museum we thought it would be a great time to go. We got on the MRT (Taipei subway, very efficient and nice) and rode it to the nearest stop where we got on a bus that brought us the rest of the way to the museum. The museum is quite nice. Apparently when the KMT were fleeing the communists in China they rescued (or plundered depending on how you look at it) all of the artifacts from the Forbidden City. They have a gigantic collection of ancient Chinese artifacts, jewelry, weapons, furniture, religious statues, and paintings. Supposedly the collection is so huge that they rotate the exhibits frequently so there is always something new to look at.
We ended up spending maybe 3 or 4 hours at the museum so we didn't pursue our planned follow-up activity of hiking. Instead we got back on the MRT and rode it out to Danshui, a suburb of Taipei where the Danshui River meets the ocean. Danshui is a nice town with a boardwalk, plenty of restaurants and stores, and a fishball museum. Yes we decided we should visit the fishball museum, but it wasn't nearly as awesome as I thought it would be. Fishballs here are essentially fish and various other ingredients formed into balls and fried. They use many different types of fish, squid, octopus, lobster, crab, and shrimp. The museum itself was rather empty. It only had some pictures, some old equipment used to make fishballs, and some scale models of fishing boats. There were some lonely fishballs in a freezer. I was hoping we could see fishballs being made and on display, but no such luck. It's OK though, I don't like fishballs. Carolyn however was sad.
After the museum we bought some piping hot sausage on the street which was nice considering the temperature. We strolled down to the boardwalk area where our friends played the carnival games for a bit, and then we took some pictures along the river. We were getting very cold by this point so we got back on the MRT and took it all the way back to Taipei. We then got on a shuttle bus and rode to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world (though I think one somewhere in Dubai may be taller now). We were going to ride the elevator to the top of the building to see the view but we decided against it because it was expensive and dark out so we wouldn't be able to see much. Instead we ate dinner at the food court, got some ice cream, and checked out a nice bookstore.
It was a long day, so by 10p.m. we got back on the bus to Taichung. Since it was Chinese New Year's Eve every city we passed on the way back to Taichung was shooting off fireworks. It was pretty cool to see fireworks at night constantly on the bus ride home.
We don't have much else planned for the week but we are considering going to Tainan, the old capital of Taiwan. We will probably go hiking in Dakeng again and visit a hot spring to relax. I start working again on Monday, February 1st. My Tuesday/Thursday evening class ended so tentatively I work Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday morning for a total of 10 hours :( . I'm still looking for a job in Chicago though and I am still looking for work here so hopefully I find something!
Our friends Matt and Kristin are on a road trip/camping trip in Southern Taiwan for the week, so we are watching their dog. It's technically not their dog, they found it abandoned and are fostering it until they find a home for it. It's a small little white fluffy lap dog that you can imagine Taiwanese women love. It's personality is nice enough, but it smells awful and it must have been trained to urinate on newspaper in an apartment because after every walk when it gets back into our apartment it urinates on the floor. It's not a dog I would want to have but it's fine watching it for just a week (and Carolyn gets to clean up the urine because it was her decision to watch it!).

One Foot From a Scooter Accident

Sorry I have not written a blog post in awhile! Here is a new one that I hope is interesting.
This Saturday (1/18), Carolyn and I decided to drive our scooter down to another part of Taichung City that is rather far from where we live. I wanted to go there because I have an interview for a part-time English job at a school in the area and because Tunghai University is there which supposedly has a very nice campus. The drive down there was nice, although it takes awhile and I am having second thoughts about doing this commute every day if I get this job. We parked at the university and looked around the campus. The buildings are all very nice and seem to be Japanese inspired. In the middle of the campus is a landmark building in Taichung called Luce Chapel. It's a giant Christian Chapel that was designed to look like an upside down boat.

It's a pretty neat building and I bet it looks cool at night when all the spotlights are on it. It was nice walking around Tunghai because it was a lot quieter than the downtown where we live, and it smelled like grass and trees (a smell I only experience here when I go hiking). The smell where we live is predominantly car exhaust/sewage/stinky tofu. I am afraid of what the pollution here is doing to my lungs.
After walking around Tunghai we drove to a promenade with a bunch of shops nearby. It was here that I found the only Yoshinoya I have seen in Taichung City. If you have read my first post you will see that I ate at Yoshinoya my first full day in Taiwan. Yoshinoya is my favorite fast-food Japanese restaurant. The food is good, quick, fresh tasting, and cheap.
We were both getting pretty tired and it was starting to get dark so we decided to head back to our apartment. Since I drove to the university (with Carolyn sitting in the back), we agreed that Carolyn would drive us home. At this point in the day, around 5:30, the streets were starting to get packed. I realize driving here in Taiwan you have to assume that every motorist will make the least safe maneuver possible in every situation. Halfway home we had a prime example of a scooter driver doing something completely stupid. We were waiting at a stoplight with a pack of scooters and cars and the light changed to green. A guy from the other side on his scooter decides to zip out in front of the traffic and make it across before us scooters pulled into the intersection. Unfortunately we couldn't see him because cars were blocking our view and so all the scooters pulled out. We were in the front of the line along with a guy to our right who was also on a scooter. Well as we started into the middle of the intersection this guy zips across at a very fast speed and just plows into the left side of the guy to our right. Their scooters collided within 1 foot of us and it was scary. The guy zipping across making the stupid maneuver must not have had his helmet on all the way because it popped right off him as soon as he hit the other guy. Their scooters were really banged up but they both seemed alive fortunately. We did not stop to help because we were in the middle of the intersection and the people behind us were not stopping. Accidents must be so commonplace here that people just continue driving around without stopping or trying to make the scene safe.
That was the third accident I have personally seen occur here. The first one I saw was when a car making a left turn in an intersection pulled out in front of a scooter coming the opposite way. The guy on the scooter did a faceplant right into the car door. He had a helmet on so he got up and was blindly stumbling around. Luckily he did not die traveling at that speed, but I'm sure he had a concussion and possibly some broken bones. His scooter was smashed up and the car was also severely dented.
The large amount of accidents here makes me think twice about getting a job that requires me to commute by scooter. I would have to travel around during rush hour on a scooter with thousands of maniacs 4 days a week. I suppose I'd rather be broke and alive than dead with some money.
Today however was brighter. The weather was very nice, maybe 75 degrees and sunny with a cool breeze. We ate lunch at the park and then walked to the art museum. The art museum is nice but the exhibits kind of bored me. They were mostly modern art which I just don't find interesting. Afterwards we walked back to People's Park and looked at all the dogs people brought out to play. Later we went to PJ's Cafe which is a cool little cafe/pub with a very friendly owner named PJ. We had been there once before for Thanksgiving dinner. The food is pretty good and not too expensive. We got burritos and they were delicious.
So I want to tell everybody reading this that I am looking for a full time job back in the U.S. If you or anybody you know knows of such a position please please please e-mail me and let me know. The economy is so bad in Taiwan that people aren't signing up for English classes so I only work 12 hours a week average and Carolyn the same. I'm not rushing back without a job because at least I have an income here, and if things pick up here I will stay here for the full year like I planned. But at this point I'm not going to hold out hope that the economy will improve and more people will want to learn English. Please keep your eyes open and be sure to let me know if you see anything. I really appreciate it!

More Posts to Come

Hello everybody, I know I haven't posted much recently. I have taken a winter break from posting but I will soon begin to make some new posts. Things have been rather slow here (work and travel) so I haven't had many exciting things to talk about. But be sure to check back next week for a new blog post that is sure to be interesting!