Taiwan through my eyes

So FINALLY after oh -- six months or so and a high demand for my skillful writing ;-) I've decided to go back to the blog.

I went home for the month of July and had a ridiculously marvelous time with my friends and family -- so much that it made coming back for my FINAL second year, a wee bit difficult. HOWEVER, with new roomies and a new position as a kindergartner teacher, the change boded well --- after some emotional break downs and non-stop whining that was exchanged between me and Emily who also went home during that time and was feeling a similar reaction -- I am now feeling good about it.

Of course one of the many things that keeps me going are the trips. Last year I went to Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Philippines -- three AMAZING places. Hong Kong was a nice "americanized trip". Thailand had an incredible beach and we got to go on an even more amazing trek through the jungle where we stayed with a tribe who was having their New Year celebration. We got to watch them in their native wear as they danced. THAT was beyond amazing -- definitely a high light of the whole Taiwan adventure. Then, Joel and I went to Philippines which had an indescribable beach. Candle-light dinners DIRECTLY in the sand. It was utopia. We want to go back there with everyone as a 'last trip' together.

This year, as of now anyway, I am going to Japan with Emily and Laura (my two original roomies), Vietnam with Ashley (my new roomie from St. Mary's) and Malayasia and Bali with Joel during Chinese New Year. :-) Bring on the culture!!!!

Now, for the other reason I am here -- the children. Switching from 2nd and 4th grade down to kindergarten was DEFINITELY an adjustment. It's hard work, but a different kind. There is much more prepping and of course the exhaustion that comes with telling children to sit down and stop wiping their butts on the wall is quite the feat. I have found myself to be an old woman at the age of 23 going to bed at 9:30. HOWEVER -- these children are indescribable as most I would like to hide in my suitcase and ship them back to America. On the cuteness level, these kids are 11's. They will say and do inappropriate things but smile with their ridiculously pudgy cute faces and I like the sucker I am, can not help but smile and say "OK, just don't do it again, please" as I hug them -- oxymoron in my teaching, I am aware.

It is true -- kids say the darndest things. On numerous occassions I've had kids ask me why my eyes are blue and my nose is big... "That's how they're made in America, kids". ;-) And they are SO sweet one another. The other day I called a child to come up and play a subtraction game -- she was scared so I kept encouraging and helped her -- when she got it correct, the class started cheering and clapping -- two girls got up to give her a hug. It was amazing... and ridiculously cute. My new vocabulary word for them is "courteous' so now whenever anyone does ANYTHING wrong like accidentally push someone or budge in line I hear an echoes of, "OOOOOO, that's not courteous!" HAHA it gets me everytime.

Kindergarten is also MUCH more rewarding. With yves, I felt like I had to teach out of the books or I would not have gotten curriculum finished, with kindergarten I am creating my own lessons and using art and song to teach. My job ---though exhausting -- is just plain fun. I'll keep you updated on what we're doing in the classroom as the year goes on.

Here are some various pics of the kids and my classroom...
I'll also attach some of the new "Cornel crew". All the newbies are amazing (as I really do believe teaching abroad attracts adventurous and just in general fun loving people). It is also extremely nice having Ashley (a fellow St. Mary's student) as my roomie.

Since I've been back to Taiwan (one and a half months) I've done alot of hiking and seeing new things. I will continue to attach my facebook links which have my pictures of things I've been up to. I am really really lucky to have this experience. The travel bug just doesn't seem to go away.

Some more insights of my Taiwanese life...

I am suddenly awoken every Sunday morning by a mangled xylophone version of Beethoven's most well-known tune, known to most American children as the ice cream truck song blaring from a loudspeaker on a truck. When one hears Fur Elise wafting up from the city street, it is not time to get ice cream, rather time to gather none other than... your garbage and charge down the stairs in a frantic hurry not to miss the sanitation man. Yes, it is true, the song is for the garbage truck. But wait, it gets even better. Starting next July they have announced that every Taiwanese household will be required to recycle its waste cooking oil (for biodisel production I believe). So now when residents hear the mangled version of Beethoven's "Song in A Minor" they will proudly grab their used cooking oil and deposit it in special bins attached to the garbage trucks. I hope people know their classical tunes.

Now I know scooters have been the topic of discussion before but they play such an interesting part of my experience that they have earned yet another spot in my blog. These little speed demons are far the most common set of wheels on the road and the best for manuevering in heavy traffic and squeezing between gobs of cars in order to reach the front of the pack. They are equipped with a handy little horn to alert other motorists to their existence. Now in America when you hear someone laying on the horn it's usually followed by a nice finger gesture. Here you just give the horns a couple taps and it literally translates as "Watch out. I am here. Don’t drive into me and maim/kill me." -- most often used when going through red lights. Oddly, this system works quite well...

I apparently don't have it figured out quite yet though. This past weekend I got in my first official scooter crash -- though I remain unharmed. Some dude was driving next me in a car and decided to turn right into an alley without putting his blinker on and clearly didn't see me. I swerved, he hit my mirror off my scooter, and with my righteous reflexes I managed to jump off my bike and just let it fall. First official scooter crash... CHECK. AND I survived... I'm known around school as a superhero now. Which I'll take. Unfortunately, my friend ALSO got into a scooter crash (uncannily on the same day) but he didn't quite have the amazing reflexes and he is now hurting from a fractured hip. :-/ The thing that gets me is in both of our cases... NO ONE STOPPED (not even the guilty parties). He was even sprawled out on the cement and people drove AROUND. Now I know I told you about their ideas of "saving face" but that seems a tad ridiculous to me.

Some more hilarity that is known as the scooter... Now what I can only imagine is an economical decision, it is quite normal to see more than one person on a scooter. Big deal ya say. What if I said a family. An ENTIRE family. You CAN fit all four children on your scooter, whether they be 2 months old or twelve years old. Pack them all in. Make sure the one and only helmet between the five of you goes to yourself of course. Don’t think just because it is smaller than a car that your scooter can fit any less on it. That footrest ain’t just for those feet of yours. Groceries, bedding, small children, pigs. All fit nicely down there. Oh and don't forget about the family dog. Or even better, if you need to take man’s best friend for a walk but your legs don’t feel up to it? Simple. Grab a leash, attach it to the pooch, wrap it around your wrist and jump on your scooter, leaving dog to run along beside. Don’t worry about the other traffic. Dogs have amazing reflexes, right?

No joke -- only in Taiwan.

You know you're Taiwanese when...
You find yourself staring at other white people (Meiguorans as they are referred to here). I've been here for four months now. After the first 2, I started getting accustomed to the not-so-subtle stares and jaw drops of people as they yell "Meiguoran... Meiguoran...!' Now, another 2 months have passed and I've found myself joining them. At first it's just excitement and astonishment to see fellow foreigners. "Oh look there's a foreigner" slowly turned into, "Oh look, Meiguoran!" which now has turned into a more blunt form of, "MEIGUORAN, MEIGUROAN" followed by some hardcore staring that I'm sure scares the poor white folk. It's weird because among our group the word "meiguroan" seems like some sort of code that we feel only we understand and laugh at.... but then when we say it aloud it's brought to our attention by the Taiwanese giggles and points as we realize no... it's not our code... it's Chinese. They can understand us. I'm sure the sight of white people yelling "FOREIGNER" aloud is probably just as humorous.

Anyway, it is amazing that life here in Taiwan has the same drama as back home. 7,000 miles means nothing to drama. Boys. Family. (not on my side -- don't worry mom i'm not referring to your constant worrying) And the job. Now I really do have a great job here -- I'm not going to argue with that but by the end of the day, I lay defeated, emotionally spent and drained from my energy-sucking children (freakin little vacuums). My 4th graders are an energetic and overall great group of kids. Now I'm sure most of you have heard my S-white stories. He's like an ADD child combined with someone who suffers from tourettes. If I ask him to be quiet I can literally see him physically shaking to keep his mouth shut.
"OH but teacha... teacha... ohhh...."
"Stop talking S-White."
"OK... OK... but teacha... ahhh O-"
"Stop. Just please, not another word."
"OK OK....."
1.45 minutes later...
"But teacha...."
This is the vacuum I speak of.

And yes, you read that correctly, his name is S-White... also I have an Iron and Apple in my class (perhaps stolen from Gwenyth Paltrow... or perhaps vice versa). They are to pick an English name that is kind of close to their Chinese name.... I have no idea. I don't ask.

Enough of my rants. Now my travels. 2 weekends ago the entire staff went on a 3 day weekend (their Independence Day) to the ocean to lay at the beach called Kenting. On the way we took a huge karoake bus. Fun you'd think, right? Well 4.5 hours of karoaking starting at 8:00 AM gets old.... quickly. But overall, the trip was AMAZING. I want to be back. Going there just makes me realize how much I miss water. ANY kind of water. There are no oceans in Taichung. Or lakes. Or rivers. Hell, I haven't even seen a pond. There is something so incredibly soothing about the ocean and the waves. Anyway, the weekend went too quickly and I found myself back at my desk all way too fast. Kenting is great. We laid out on the beach (some of the crew took surfing lessons... something I am DEFINITELY going to splurge on next time we go) and we shopped (go in one surf shop and you've been in all of them) and ate ... AMERICAN food. YESSSSSSS. During the day I was actually quite surprised that not THAT many people were there considering it was a holiday....

...but then night time hit. Kenting at night is like the Dells on speed. Crowded. Overwhelming and dirty.

There is a huge night market (only about 4 blocks) that opens at like 7:00 p.m. --now hidden in this mess you can find gems but it does take a lot of digging and patience (and elbow grease to get past everyone) but you find yourself loving every minute. Booths and more booths filled with pretty much whatever you want... including my personal favorite, stinky tofu (it's real name) whose aroma emulates for blocks.... absolutely disgusting, you can not help but gag when walking by. Clothes. Jewelery. Sunglasses. Food. Clocks. We shopped, ate and played some vendor games in which we won SEVERAL glow up sticks that later served as our "fire" when we placed them in the sand in a circle. It was funny... 4 of us girls were about to play a game and we turned around and the next thing we knew there was literally 50 taiwanese people standing behind us cheering us on. GO MEIGORANS! HAHA.

We ended the night on the beach. Drinks. Snacks. GREAT people and a band. Perfect ending to a picture perfect weekend.
Now it's back to grading writing that doesn't even make sense. My children make me laugh every day though. They always have something hilarious and witty. It's why I teach.

As for everything else -- well really there isn't anything else. Even though there's drama, I'm with SUCH an amazing group of people. My roommates and I feel like we've known each other for years. We keep each other in check and grounded. I'm actually goign to Hong Kong with one of my roommates next month and then it's off to Thailand and Bali during Chinese New Year (end of January/beginning of February). The experiences here are pretty indescribable. Every day is a new adventure, seriously.

Bring it on, Taiwan. :-) Until more adventures continue.... thanks for readin my rants.

It's now quarter to 12:00 at night... I'll add the pictures that go with this tomorrow.
Love you all. Especially you, mom.

Oh and to my recent discoveries... my theatrical performance as "Winnie the Witch" a story read by me and my roomie at the Cultural center has become famous! HAHA. Click this website.
Keep in mind it's VERY poorly translated which makes it all the more hilarious...
http://http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-TW&u=http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/corneltai/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/corneltai/article%253Fmid%253D-2%2526next%253D2759%2526l%253Df%2526fid%253D5%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den

Preconceived thoughts of what teaching little Taiwanese children would be like have officially failed within minutes of walking into the classroom. Ideallic thoughts of students eagerly waiting in their desks quietly -because it's an Asian country so they must really value the importance of education- was....wrong.

2nd graders are 2nd graders ANYWHERE. I have never felt exhaustion, or a better form of birth control, than teaching these 2nd graders. Do not get me wrong, they make me laugh every single day with their cute accents and hilarious questions. But the cute"Teacha Katie" has now just formed into the repetitive "Teacha Teacha Teacha. Teacha I need to go bathroom. Teacha I'm done. Teacha, Johnny speak Chinese" that now haunts me in my sleep and it's only been 3 weeks. But overall, they're cute as hell.

Teaching here is... different. Everything that I have been taught in my 4 years of preparation seems to have gone out the window. We were taught to differentiate and use group collaboration -- you can't do that here. The Chinese have a VERY hard work ethic which emuluates through their school work. Listen to a typical Taiwanese child's schedule: wake up early to go to Chinese school until 3:00, come to our English school until 7:00, go home and do homework and often piano or other lesson and then go to bed finally at 11;30 at night - get up and do it all over again. They have 5 different workbooks in which they are expected to get through the ENTIRE thing. Every night we are to assign 3 pieces of homework or the parents will be angry. They pay biiiig bucks to have their children go to Cornel Language School. (Haven't asked the exact amount because frankly, I don't want to know). This leaves very little room for differentiating or alternative teaching methods. It is all pretty much whole group instruction. I'm not saying our way of teaching is better, I'm just glad I was taught the way I was. They work their butts off to learn English to get out of Taiwan. Their parents are also STRICT. My fellow co-worker wrote in a child's assignment book that they need to pay attention in class. The next day the mother came in and handed her, what originally looked like a back scratcher with a hand on the end of a stick. "You can use this to beat my child". After having to explain to the mother that this NOT how it works at Cornel, my friend has decided to keep it in the corner of her classroom - never to be used of course but perhaps it will evoke some fear. ;-)

There are however, several perks. I have never worked in an atmosphere where the whole staff was so friendly and helpful. Our desks are all in the same room where we prep and we share all of our ideas and in general - just have a great time in the office. In America teachers tend to shy away from working together.. and if you have a truly great idea, forget it. No one wants to share. NOT how it goes here. The free Chinese lunch is also a major perk.

All in all it goes along with the Taiwan adventure.

And speaking of adventure, we officially have an unwanted visitor at the Red Door House (name of our place) in the form of a RAT. Oh the wonders of Taiwan....

Here are some pictures of my ridiculously cute yet exhausting class...

Well this blog is LONG overdue seeing as I have officially been in Taiwan for one month. Because I am starting so late in my adventure I will update you on my surroundings and everyday occurrences and leave the good stories and adventures for another blog posting.

Where to begin... my city: Taichung, Taiwan is a city of a million filled with bustling people and buildings side by side. Every street looks similar with bright signs, Chinese writing and the notorious scooters which whiz by you at an alarming rate. Busy markets crammed with tons of people and the smells of stinky tofu and squid on a stick create a sensory overload. However, one trip down the block you will find, home is not far. Each corner is equipped with a 7-eleven and what city would not be complete without the iconic symbols of the golden arches, and of course, Pizza Hut. Taichung is filled with vendors and an abundance of tea shops. At night, the city comes alive with neon glowing signs and night markets that are filled with food, obscure drinks, jewelery, shoes, and bad translation shirts that seem to be a big hit here in Taiwan.

Upon my first arrival into the city I was at best -- overwhelmed. There is so much to see here. The city is surrounded by mountains that I was not even aware of until the 2nd week as the pollution and smog often covers the beautiful scenery. It is quite the fascinating city and lifestyle. The crowded streets leave me missing the bluffs of Winona but then to my surprise, I turn a corner or take a short scooter ride and a beautiful park, temple, or mountain exists that reminds me of the true beauty of this country. And this country IS, truly beautiful.

I can say without a doubt, beside the true beauty, the most remarkable part of the country is the people. Friendly does not due justice to the natives. One would think with mazes for streets and Chinese names it would be difficult to find one's way. Well those of you who know my righteous navigational skills realize this is true, but for my other new friends, it is quite simple. We find some way of determing who the next guinea pig is and we take turns standing in the middle of the street with our maps and puzzled looks and surely within 2 minutes, someone comes and help. One woman even left her register at a 7-11 to come outside, get on her bike and actually take us to our destination. At first I was unsure if they were just friendly because we are Americans or if they are like that with everyone. After some time I've come to the conclusion -- it is both. There are not many foreigners here -- and needless to say, we stick out - especially now that we have all developed the ever so stylish farmer tans -- no more like burns. We have come accustomed to the incessant curious stares and the "HELLO. Where are you from?" that echoes from every corner, even when stopped at a red light. We're different. They're curious. We are intriguing. Upon the first week, we were stopped by SEVERAL teenagers "Can we take a picture with you"? What was odd at first has now almost become a nuissance to which you want to reply "Go practice your English with someone else". But you can't help but smile because they are so damn friendly -- including to one another. 'Saving face' is very important to the Taiwanese. They do not show anger or frustration, a smile is often common place when they are being yelled at or feeling angry because they feel the need to 'save face' and hide their embarrassment.

My biggest accomplishment to date has been mastering the art of the scooter and driving like a true Taiwanese, which I can say will be very difficult to readjust to obeying red lights and speed limits when I go back to the States (don't worry mom -- I always wear a helmet). The other accomplishment which stands very close to the latter would be trying squid on a stick. Those of you who know me knows that when it comes to food I usually stick close to pizza and anything with carbs. Seafood is not usually on my menu. After some persuasion I realized, heck I'm in Taiwan. Taiwan. That is like 7,000 miles away from home. Trying squid on a stick is nothing compared to that. Scot bought it. I tried it. Haven't touched it since.

Squid on a stick and fried bumblebees are among the things in which my friends and I have now coined the common phrase "ONLY in Taiwan" as our experiences have produced a number of ridiculous sights and adventures that we have learned to laugh off, and actually enjoy as they bring a multitude of humorous stories. Most of you have heard the monkey at the farm story, the countless miscommunicated gestures, and the "Love Hotel" which are really only smidgens of the things one sees here. Don't get me wrong though, there are those delightful foods that have shortly become a ritual for our group. There is the ever so famous and ever so fattening dam bing which is a delightful breakfast treat served conveinently right across the street from our school. Then there is our new Sunday dinner ritual, Tambinyaki which is rice and whatever meat you want cooked right in front of you with spices. Mmmm.

Everyday is an adventure in which I have learned something new. I can already say that I am not the same person as I was when I left. Although I am missing my friends and family dearly and pray that they will come visit me. Pray THEY WILL COME VISIT ME. Hint, hint. I'm also really having an incredible time and meeting some new friends here that I hope to have for a long time. I love the group I'm with as we're having a blast adventuring out and experiencing new things. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the e-mails, facebook messages and letters/packages you guys have been sending me. Honestly, it makes my entire week!!! Right now I am writing this in the middle of a typhoon. Must not be as bad as the last one because we still have power, yet it was a treat not having to work on a Monday. These are pictures that have already been taken today from outside our house...