At it again

It may be hard to start anew, but we often forget the lessons of the past and are thus allowed to move forward with more rewarding mistakes. I am "at it again" writing this blog, which begins in in December because I accidently erased it. I am "at it again" living abroad because I I erased from my memory the continous miscommunication and confusion of it. Luckly you can sit back in the comforts of your native language and culture and enjoy my adventures, hopefully with a laugh or snicker.

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Busy weekend

I had a busy weekend, one of those good busy wekends that makes you want not want to go towork and then makes you want to sleep at work.

Friday I went out to eat with my co-workers. I love them, to put it simply, their awesome.

Staurday was my schools sports day. Basically all the students come to school on Saturday along with a big chunk of the community to play games, run races, and maybe make money (the school I mean). It was generally boring, but hilighted by me running in the teacher relay that required me to eat a cookie hanging precariously from a wire suspended perpendicular to a flagpole. When my turn came, I bit and pulled and pulled down the whole cookie tree. Yup, embarrassing. We also got taken out to a banquet by the PTA. Taiwanese banquets are a combination offun and strange and tiring. Food is brought out in waves and you are never sure when it will stop so you don't know how much of each thing to eat and basically nibble for 2 hours. Meanwhile the head hanchos of the event, in our case the Principal and various PTA guys (yes in Taiwan what they call PTA is a money raising organization populated mostly by men) go around to each table again and again toasting them with whisky. Luckily green tea looks just like wiskey in color and most women get away not drinking (or better or for worse, I often feel I would prefer the wiskey, but I try not to unsettle things).

Sunday I was in Taipei to run a race with Colin. I decided to do it because it was at Yuanmingshan which is a beautiful mountain. Silly thing I didn't consider was that running at a mountain was going to mean running up a mountain. We had serious hills up for the first five km and then ran down them in the second half. I walked up the major hills and was still panting and I am sore today. I didn't run the half marathon like Colin though, which sounded really brutal.

We returned to Colin's appartment to find his landlord their with some guy. It's really creepy to me that Taiwan doesn't have that law that they have in the States where the landlord can't come over without notifying you. Anyway we were soaked with sweat but couldn't shower so we ate a pineapple instead. Finally Colin's landlord decides to talk to him and let him know he was being evicted so they could remodel and move in. He asked if many people would be coming over and if the landlord could tell him when they would be coming over and the response was "maybe not." So it's not a huge loss except that this month is busy with his parents and my dad coming to visit, plus his dragon boat race and moving is a pain. We did manage to check out an appartment that day though. One of Colin's classmates is moving out of his appartment. It was perfect. Clean, beautiful, in a suburb (sortof) against the hills and along the river and near the metro. Unfortunately they didn't want him because I will be moving in in July and August. This might be a challenge.

We also went to wedding photographers. We found a few good ones and tones of super cheesy places. If you just stop outside these places to look at the photos you get ushered in, feed tea and cookies and then they pitch the wares. It was pretty exhausting, especially if you didn't like the place you were in and were just trying to escape. Now we just have to bargain, or see if that is appropriate.

We also applied this weekend to be on the Travel channel and travel around the world. It's more than a long shot, but you got to throw in your hat to get a chance.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Taiwanese wedding

So I will say right now, if I were Taiwanese, I would elope. Not that I'm not American and doing that more or less, but if I was Taiwanese it wouldn't even be a question.

I went to my first Taiwanese wedding last weekend. One of my Chinese teachers got married. It was actually her engagement which is like wedding part one, for the bride, and the actual wedding is for the groom. There is a difference of ceremony, but it is so unlike the states that I can't explain that too you, especially since it's only for close family and friends. So basically I did what would be rude in the states, I went to the reception, but not the ceremony. The reception was on the 3rd floor of a seafood restaurant. There were weddings on the 1st and 2nd floor too. Actually I think it must have been an auspicious day for weddings because on the drive to the wedding, Colin and I saw at least 5 other receptions.

We walked in and handed over our hongbao, that's the red envelope full of money that you give as a gift for these sorts of things. The wedding planners wrote down how much we had given (you know, so you know who your real friends are) and we were handed a big bag before being accosted with the English question "Sophie's friends? Sofia's friends?" and shuffled off to one of the last open tables. The bag had a big box with a cookie inside that was maybe 18' diameter. That is what our hongbao got us apparently. The cookie is very traditional and has to do with the bride's luck. I was kinda excited about it until I found out that it was stuffed with dried sweetened meat. I've made the mistake of eating that before and was not going to do it again. I don't understand how meat can go in a cookie, but my Taiwanese co-workers like it so I've given it over to them.

After sitting down, plates upon plates of seafood came out. We were sitting with strangers and it was very loud, what with the kareoke in the background and all. I couldn't understand anything anyone was saying, but Colin mangaged to and had a nice conversation that broke the "we have foreigners at our table" tension. We ate for about 2 hours. In that time many people sang kareoke, there were several speeches and they played "Volare" 4 times. Sophia wore 3 different dresses and went around to toast everyone. In the end, people started to pack up the leftovers and soemone took the wiskey too. We got goodie bags of long life soy milk and that was it.

I must say, it made my slight sadness at not being able to have everyone I know at my wedding fade. I wouldn't get to talk to you anyway.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

When grading tests is fun

For my 6th grade's Midterm extra credit I asked them to write about what they wanted to be and why. This example is awesome and so you know my situation, this was among the best in the class.

It said:
I want to be a doctor.
Because I have a small cold.
I want to be a scientist.
Because my scientist is very good.
I want to be a English teacher.
Because my English is very very good.
I want to be a fire fighter.
Because fire fighter is cool!!!!!!

This is the kind of stuff that makes my day.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

What I've been up to

I have been negligent of my blogger duties. Alas, perhaps my dreams of being a celeberty blogger will not come true. But things have been busy here.

As most of you (I think) know, Colin and I got engaged two weeks ago. We had been talking for a while about a quite romatic wedding in Italy at the end of the Great Journey which will follow our time in Taiwan. We had mulled, talked, more or less decided, but not done anything that could make it official in my mind. We went on a hike above the hotsprings town of Jiaoxi and in meandering conversation came upon this odd nugget of official vs. supposed. I'll keep the details to us because it is so distinctly us that I almost feel like sharing is telling a little secret bit of us and I don't want to do that. Anyway, despite the fact that we both anticipated this and nothing inside ourselves has changed over it, we were fuzzy and excited all weekend. We told our parents, but kept the secret mostly to ourselves until the next week.

The reaction in Taiwan has been interesting. In part that is because of the difference between what and engagement means in the US and what it means here. Here it is an elaborate ceremony, half of the whole wedding process and if we were Taiwanese, Colin would have gone to my parents' house, asked their blessing, probably prayed to my ancestors and been involved in a traditional ceremony. Then we would have had a big dinner with our friends and I would have given everyone cookies or a traditional wedding cake. It took me a little while to figure out the best way to say in Chinese that I was engaged so that it would correlate to the American meaning. Our doorman gave us a box of Taiwanese foodstuffs to celebrate and my housemates took me out to a drink where the friendly bar owner asked if I was pregnant after buying me two drinks on the house to celebrate the engagement. I was triplly insulted, first that he thought I would be getting married because I was pregnant, second that I looked pregnant and third that I would go to a bar and drink while pregnant. Other funny things have popped up too. Apparently while local teachers were discussing the teaching of Fulbright teachers, my co-teachers had said there were no problems and I was fine. Someone quickly attributed this to the new fact that I was going to be a wife (Or was that reality actually conflated to mother) and thus was obviously more mature. Humm. I mean, I think I'm mature, but I wouldn't attribute it to our engagement.

Finally something both Colin and I had been thinking has come out of the mouths of our American and Taiwanese friends alike- "Are you going to get pictures taken in Taiwan?" I wouldn't expect anyone to know this, but Taiwan has a wedding photography industry famous thoughout Asia. Colin first heard about it from a Japanese classmate, but the industry has also been exported by Taiwanese businessmen to the Mainland which is crazy about it. I'm not sure I can explain the visual difference between these outfits and wedding photography in the states, but I can definately explain how the process is different. Taiwanese couples go to the wedding photographer's studio sometimes months before their actual wedding. They spend a whole day with the photographer and his crew. The bride's hair and makeup are done not once, but up to five times. Each change of face and hair is also a change of outfit. The bride chooses different wedding dresses and different formal dresses. The men also change suits or tuxes with the bride and I can't be sure, but they might get some makeup done too. Some couples take pictures as basketball players dressed up in jerseys and some dress up in traditional Chinese costumes akin to what those of you who have been to the Mainland would recognize at tourist sights as traps for proud parents of little emperors to get their pictures in. They also have Kimonos and ninja suits to daun. The couples have a variety of shots done indoors and then go on location to parks and farms and gaverment buildings.

Today Colin and I went over to a coworkers house in the afternoon where several other teachers showed up with their suitcases (no I am not exagerating) filled with huge wedding albums. These teachers are all quite young, married in the last five years with tottlers running around the house, but how different they look from the pictures is incredible. We all got a good laugh as Grace opened her album up to her 2 1/2 year old daughter and the girl pointed at her father and made the correct assessment "Baba!" and then when asked who the woman was said "Aiyi!", aunt. I could barely recognize my own co-teacher in photos taken five years ago. She and her husband joke about having kids and getting fat, but that camera lens or makeup artist seems to have done more than time could have. As we passes the books around we also jokes about the size. Each album is a huge 18' by 22' and when you opend them almost evey page had a full picture of the couple or the bride some printed with photoshoped flowers on cardstock and some just large durible matte prints. Roxanna had one book, she joked because she was poor. Both Sonia and Grace had two, but that is not the entire standerd package. The standard package includes the huge albums, two giant framed photos, a scroll photograph or a metal wedding certificate, a small album for the brides family (since presumably she will leave her parents and live with his) and wallet size shots of the framed photos to give to wedding guests.

So this is something that Colin and I have to do, it's expensive (though not as expensive as American wedding photographers), but I think it is a cultural experience we can't pass up. We will have to figure out how we can get away with only half the basic package (please don't make me take giant framed photos of myself back to America), but I think we will figure something out, we jsut have to walk down nuptual lane near ChangKaiShek memorial hall were all the wedding planners are.