A penchant for tragedy

On Friday my school had a New Years party where all the parents came, the kids performed dances and songs by class and they raffled off everything from a TV to bags of rice. Some of my 6th graders performed in a short play that was above all horribly depressing. There were really only two actors, an old mother and a grown son, played by two of my favorite students, but all the misfit boys of the class stood on the stage as trees or walked back and forth with cloud costumes on. I imagine they got out of class for this and were thus willing to wear funny costumes and stand there the whoe time. The story as I could tell went something like this. Family is poor, son works the fields, mom makes him food. Everytime she gives him something he complains and yells at her. One day when walking up the mountain to bring lunch to her son she falls off the cliff into the river and drowns. Then the son feels really bad. What was weird about this was not the awful tragedy played out by 6th graders, but that it was almost the exact some theme as the English play Colin and I saw on Christmas eve. There seems to be some sort of draw towards tragedies of mistreated mothers.
On another note, I was one of the 1/3 of the people attending who won in the raffle. Unfortuately I did not get one of the many useful items such as oil or a space heater, or one of the awesome items like a DVD play, instead I got an ugly framed piece with shells and a gold stick glued inside. Lucky me.

It's amazing what a little sunshine can do

I should not be able to complain about the weather here. For all of the gross cloudy, rainy days occasionally we have some nice warm sunny days, even in January, and sometimes they are on the weekend. Sometimes, two weekends in a row.
Yesterday I woke Colin up before he was ready because the light flooding into my room was the strongest since summer. We went for a run, made breakfast and went out to explore the parts of Ilan that are no fun in the rain. We headed out to Datong, an aboriginal area noted for hikes and tea. It took nearly 40 minutes by scooter and normally I would have complained about that too, but the air was crisp and clean and I started to think I could live in Taiwan forever.
I wasn't really sure where we were going and thought we might be able to hike up to one of the tea farms. We ended up hiking along a creek on the most substantial hike I have yet to find in Taiwan, it took us at least an hour and a half one way, though the first quarter was, as I have come to find typical more of a service road than a hike. We got past that part and risked sliding off the mossy rock path into the river several times, but were rewarded in the end with a waterfall and a trail that just ends.
By the time we returned to the trail head we were quite hungry, but I was insistant that we find the tea garden on the mountain. It took several tries, but soon we were under a tent in a field of tea plants with a pot of tea and some overly expensive bad food. The view was postcard perfect, we could see the whole county and as the clouds began to roll in we saw the Datong rivervalley bathed in streaks of light that reminded me more of American landscape paintings more than anything else.

E-mails become blog fodder- Christmas

I wrote a lot of e-mails today and decided afterwards that I should post parts of them so here they are.
Colin and I had a very calm Christmas. I went up to Taipei and we went to a party of Fulbright folks on Christmas eve. First event to remind me of a Reed event. It was a potluck and everyone just sat calmly around a too small room and chatted. Because the real academics (I mean the people getting PhDs and doing research) all came, it felt even more Reed like as the conversations leaned toward academic more than I am used to here. We then saw an English play put together by one of Colin's language exchange partners. It was a 9 hour series of plays and we only went to the last one, which was really depressing. Sort of like Beckett, but without the absurdity and beautiful language that make Beckett good.

Christmas day was almost hot, around 70 degrees, weird. We went for a run, made pancakes and then sat around the tiny plastic tree we bought and decorated and opened presents. We walked in the park and then made a Chinese/college-student Christmas dinner which we ate sitting on the concrete floor of Colin's apartment. All in all I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. Colin was a little spooked though, as he kept expecting a whole herd of distant relatives to come knocking at the door. He said repeatedly "It's so quiet." I kept saying "how is it supposed to be?"

It is very funny to be at school here when I think I should be having my break, kinda kills motivation. I talked to Eben who is doing more school, but like me doesn't get a break til mid-January and he was really feeling the need for a break. We will go up and visit him for part of Chinese New Year. School is also winding down in as strange way. I've spent way too much time correcting students' corrections in their workbooks this week and it has made me very sarcastic. Luckily what I've heard, that Chinese people don't understand sarcasm, is not entirely true and when my co-teacher handed me another pile of workbooks and I said that my life wouldn't be complete without them, she thought it was funny and not weird.

I just sat with some other co-workers for a half hour or so and had tea. It's warm and raining making for perfect sit out on the covered patio, think and drink tea kind of weather. We will all stay later tonight because at 6 we will have a New Year's event for families so I guess there is no real rush to work.

Goo Food

I just got hit with a bout of depression/sadness. I think it is because my job today has been at best boring and at worst grueling. All we did in classes was have students correct a semester’s worth of workbooks, which is more troublesome and unnerving then one might expect. In the afternoon after some grade data entry, I went to a workshop that I didn’t have to go to that was about something I already knew, but in Chinese. I went because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. I will cheer myself and entertain with stories about funny Taiwanese food, one of which I got at the workshop. I have grown to like these things without really recognizing that they might come off as very strange. The first is douhua. It is a very very soft tofu in a bowl with some slightly sweet liquid. To this can be added a number of things boiled peanuts, red beans, green beans, taro or chewy things like the bubbles that come in bubble tea. At my favorite place they will also add some liquid ginger that gives it a real kick. It took me a long time to try that one because I didn’t know the word for ginger and the proprietor kept describing it as la, or hot. I thought who wants hot in a dessert, but apparently I do. The second food is a little stranger it’s called shao xiancai. It is a gooey black liquid, well it starts as a liquid, but f you wait too long the good stuff turns into a jelly. This is also a little sweet and apparently made from boiling a grass like herb. You can also add all the above-mentioned chewy things to it as well. I call these things dessert and I think I may have finally found another dessert besides fruit that is good for me. This may be more of a hindrance than a help, but if anyone comes to Taiwan I will show you this really yummy goo.

The things you overlook

The msot common writing book among my students is a small green notebook with pigs in cooks outfits dancing on it. This book is made especially for writing non-character languages and even has an English phrase on the bottom. I have been here nearly five months and have read this passage more than once, but because of the excess of meaningless English phrases in a world already saturated with slogans I have only now processed what it says. It says "Learning a new foreign language is like enjoying a nutritious meal." Now what kid of message is that sending kids. I have never met a kid under 14 who wanted to eat nutritious meals. This phrase seems to say, learning a foreign language sucks but it's good for you. or Learning a foreign language isn't good, but your mom makes you do it or even learning a foreign language is impossible since I think many children would argue that enjoying a nutritious meal is impossible. Luckily I don't think most people read English on things and moreover I don't think even the best Buxiban kids know what nutritious means.

The things I do for love, or because its my job and I have too

In the world of Elementary school teaching and of teaching a foreign languages especially, doing things that seem foolish and embarrassing to a normal person are simply a matter of course. I daily jump around, sing and dance to really poorly written children’s music and wear funny holiday hats. I have no problem with this, what it takes for me to get embarrassed is much greater than what it was, but it can still happen. Like today.
The other day my co-teacher came to me and told me that we would be taking a group of students to have a class at the local Daoist temple dedicated to the Earth God. It sounded great. Then she said “and you will be Santa Claus.” Yes that’s right this morning I got dressed up as Santa Claus and took a group of kids to a Daoist temple. Now why might we do that? It leads me to my next question “Will anyone else be there?” “Only the TV cameras and reporters.” See the temple gives us money for students and the school wanted to show some gratitude. Apparently the best way to do that is to have some sort of event that the media can be invited to, and given that the Season is Christmas, Santa Claus was our selling point.
We wrote up our lesson plan in which we would compare Santa to the Earth God. I tried to say that I thought it wasn’t the best comparison given that mostly only children believe in Santa while many real grownups believe faithfully in the Earth God. Roxanna didn’t think it was a problem and she is the Taiwanese person to I just went with the flow. I looked up the relationship between Santa and St. Nick so that I might find some ground on which to justify the comparison. I learned some interesting things, but none of it came out in the lesson. Did you know that Santa as we know him today is little more than 100 years old?
When we got to the temple, it seemed pretty comfortable and I even diluded myself into thinking that maybe the news people might not show. Ha Ha, foolish me. While going over Earth God and Santa vocabulary the swarm decended. There must have been 3 or 4 reporters with cameras and at least 3 TV cameras. The lesson came apart at the seams and we all started simply heeding the reporters directives. “Move over there,” “Children stand here” etc. Then they had my principle put on an Earthgod costume that must have weighed 30 pounds. I see this as retribution since I think it was his idea that I wear the Santa costume. I said Merry Christmas to the Earth God a lot and then got separately interviewed and was stuck with questions like “What do you think of Taiwan?” and “What are the differences between Santa and the earth god?” Instead of giving insightful answers like “well for one, Santa is not a god” I said things like “Taiwan is very special” and “There are many differences, but they are both important traditions.”
The locusts left just as quickly as they had appeared and I was given a little relief. I pulled down my beard and ate some tang yuan (sweet soup). Then I was freed from the torture and appeared the next day in several newspapers. I’ll try to upload the article soon.

a quick update and some answers

It's now been almost exactly 7 months since I graduated. I wouldn't have thought about it but for the fact that my hair has grown quite long. I noticed the other day that it is now past my shoulders and thought of my last cut, right before graduation when my hair was right at my chin. It doesn't seem like it's been long enough for that kind of growth, but I guess 7 months is longer than it feels. I will continue to use the length of my hair as a measure of time since graduation if only because it keeps my neck warm. Well that and the typical Taiwanese female haircut is more like a mullet and I don't trust my Chinese enough to risk it.

In other news, my kids did alright in the speech contest. No one won, that honor was given to the kids from the big schools who have lots of private tutoring and Bushiban classes, but they all did really well. None of the total panic that I half-expected and only a few mistakes each. I was very proud and now I'm glad it's over.

I also figured out what people do on Christmas. Most people spend the day with their boyfriend or girlfriend, wife or husband. That sort of makes it another Valentine's day and given that they also celebrate our Valentine's day, Chinese Valentine's day and Jananese Valentine's day. For those of you out there who hate Valentine's day, when February 14 finally rolls around, just be glad you are not Taiwanese.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like some sort of holiday.

It’s funny to be in a country that doesn’t actively celebrate Christmas but has taken up some of it’s elements here and there. In Loudong they signs of Christmas are few. There is no snow, but it is nippy. I don’t get time off for Christmas or anything for that matter until Chinese New Year. I have been barraged with Musaky versions of Christmas carols in certain places, like, oddly enough, the stationary store. Sometimes I can barely tell that things are intended to be in the Christmas spirit. For example we went to a Hot springs hotel last weekend and the whole place was covered in Christmas lights. It didn’t occur to me that they were for Christmas until we went to the lobby and saw a tree. Even then I didn’t notice. It took my housemate commenting on how lovely their Christmas decorations were to understand what was going on.
Taipei is a different story. It is always more in the swing of Western things than my little town and you could tell this weekend. Lots of places had Christmas trees up inside. Some were English schools, where it makes more sense, but some were just random places. The city still doesn’t have that Christmas feeling and some of it’s attempts come out strangely. Colin and I got on a bus the other day just as it lurched from it’s stop. As I fell into a seat I thought, “who is the crazy person driving this bus?” Turns out, the crazy person was Santa or at least a thin bus driver dressed as such. Again, throughout the day I ran across Christmas music and stores selling a variety of plastic trees. Then when it was time to go home the cashiers at the 7-11 express in the train station were all wearing Santa hats.
I wonder what most people do for Christmas. It seems obvious that people recognize it from the signs listed above, but when the day comes then what? This time its on the weekend, but how about when its not. No time to sit with the family and open presents on Christmas morning if you have school and work. It’s certainly not a religious holiday as the translation into Chinese is Santa Day. I’m pretty sure people don’t eat a Christmas dinner, so what do they do? Just celebrate it at school in the English classroom with the foreign teacher? That’s what I suspect.

Memorizing Life

I’ve been working with 5 students for the past 2 1/2 weeks on preparing for a speech competition in English. I’m sure some of you out there did this as children and I know I did. When I think about it I mostly think about running lines for a play with my mom which was fun, but every once in a while I get a lurking pain in my memory. I think that part is from having to memorize speeches. If anyone else has that memory it would be good for you to know that it is only more painful for the person helping you, especially if you are doing poorly. This is because they can’t make you memorize the speech they can just hear you repeat the same lines over and over and over again. That’s what I did this week. The first week was spent having the kids write their speeches, which most English teachers do for them, but which I wanted them to do themselves. Ha! It really required a lot of translating that I was only half up to and asking a lot of other people about the cartoon so I could make the speeches make more sense. Oh yes, I couldn’t do the elaborating without help because the theme is about their favorite cartoon and unfortunately I have no TV and can not watch the 700 crazy Japanese cartoons dubbed in Chinese. I know a lot about them now though. Doraemon, the most famous, is a blue robot cat from the future that uses magic to help a little boy, while Bubuchacha is the story of a boy and his talking toy car. Of course the others are about witches in training, ninjas and boy detectives. What happened to shows like Rainbow Bright and the Killer Tomatoes?
When I started this I thought we were a little short on time, but that it would be fun for them and me. Who was I kidding? I have learned that competitions are not supposed to be fun; they are supposed to be painful and nerve racking upon the minds of young children who already don’t get to have enough fun. I suppose me thinking a speech competition was supposed to be fun is along the lines with me thinking it would be a great idea to make my kids memorize poetry. Most of my friends in Italy could spout out at least 20 poems memorized by heart and I like to attribute my occasional inability to remember what I did yesterday to the fact that I had to memorize very little as a child. I thought every child should have to memorize poems until I heard a dear friend’s trauma of having to recite poetry to her grandparents and after weeks of torment being proud of her Emily Dickinson poem until her sister started reciting the whole of “The Walrus and the Pussycat.” The experience with these speeches has been similar. I think something is a great idea until I run up into the actuality of the situation.
Well, we have finished practicing and now all that is left is to pick the kids up tomorrow morning, encourage them in a language they mostly don’t understand and then hope that they don’t mess up too bad. I hate the feeling of having worked with someone and then see it lost and to see their pain. Let’s just hope it’s not that and is rather the really happy feeling of success along with them so that I can take them to have a celebratory lunch and not a conciliatory lunch.

Welp, We're back- less in tact

Well, I've started again. You may have noticed the lack of writing that now accompaning this blog, or you may have noticed that you couldn't find it for a week or so. Or given the number of e-mails of concern I received maybe you didn't. I erased my blog and will never again try to make changes to the settings of my blog from a Chinese computer. See, when you use a Chinese computer the site comes up in Chinese and the second box that is supposed to keep you from accidently deleting your blog- Are you sure you want to delete this blog?- doesn't do any good when you can't read it, or the words on the first button you pressed. Funny thing is, I was trying to put a site counter up so as to see how many people look at this. Given that no one (except my family who I e-mailed in panic) e-mailed me about it's disappearance, it seems clear that I don't need a site counter and that the truth is that no one except my folks and my uncle read my blog. None the less, they seem to like it and usually I don't write things down if not for this, so here it is again.

And yes, I e-mailled blogger help. The best I got was a page that said- Don't worry, if you didn't actually erase your blog, it's probably still there, you just need to find it. Ha, what if you did actually erase it. I waited a week hoping they might magically make it come back, but I know it will not happen so here you go.

I will shortly put up the rest of the articles that I had saved to my computer (about 10 of 45) so if there is time confusion, that is why.