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!