It’s OVER!

One of the largest milestones, and most stressful teaching moments, has been accomplished. On Saturday Adam and I participated in A1’s annual Christmas Show, a traditionally long and hectic day. We’ve been working with our classes for over a month to get ready and things went surprisingly smoothly.

THE CLASSES

Uranus

My youngest class (which also has a very large range in abilities) performed three songs with hand motions and introduced themselves by sharing their name and age. This is a rather large accomplishment since a few of them usually speak no more than 15 different words of English per day, mostly made up of the phrases “may I go to the bathroom” and “may I borrow….” They sang one song about snowflakes set to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “I’m a Little Snowman” set to the tune of “I’m a little Teapot,” and “Up on the Housetop” without any of the verses and Raffi for back-up. In order to make it a more photo-worthy event for the parents, I also constructed corrugated-plastic snowmen for each of them to hang around their necks and topped them off with Santa hats to create a row of adorable Taiwanese snowmen.

Moon

For the Moon class, made up of mostly 8 and 9 year olds I wrote a play. Looking back, it was a decidedly overambitious undertaking for both me and the children, but somehow we pulled it off. The play was entitled “The Christmas Pirates.” One new pirate wants to go home and celebrate Christmas with her family, but the captain decides that kidnapping Santa is a better idea. The pirates try to kidnap Santa, but they’re thwarted by the elves and Santa’s Christmas magic. For children that don’t speak English as a first language and have no acting experience, I was proud of the performance they delivered, even though it was far from perfect.

Planet and Orion

The oldest classes are required to do a speech contest, but luckily each class was judged separately from the others. My Monday Wednesday Friday class (the less advanced class) wrote and recited their own Christmas myths, ranging from why we have Christmas trees to why Santa is fat. The Tuesday Thursday class talked about a fictional trip they took to a planet of their own invention and celebrating a holiday there. Each student got a prize for participating and the top three in each class earned larger rewards.

If all of that sounds time consuming and hectic, remember that I only taught 4 of the 15 classes in the school. Each teacher had to put together roughly 15 minutes of material for each class (slightly shorter for the young-uns and slightly longer for the older kids).

Adam’s Classes

Two of Adam’s classes performed songs and he too wrote an almost-original play. One of the cutest moments all day was his little kids wearing giant teeth around their necks singing “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth” and then talking about how gross it is when their mommies and daddies kiss before singing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” while wearing giant lips. Adam’s middle group sang some of the toughest songs all day, starting with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, then singing Puff the Magic Dragon and ending with Do You Believe in Magic. His oldest group performed Adam’s Japanese adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves entitled “Snow Smart and the Seven Samurai.” Instead of being beautiful, the main character is Smart, and she teaches the Seven Samurai to speak English instead of cleaning the house. If you think that sounds like a progressive adaptation, then add in the consideration that Snow Smart was also a played by a ten year old boy!

THE ATMOSPHERE

Considering the number of things that could have gone really wrong on Saturday, the day went fairly smoothly. Adam and I even managed to get into and out of Santa costumes twice for photo-ops with the kids (not by choice). One of the most disconcerting things about the day was that children would come up to you and thrust a gift into your hands before running away giggling. Luckily, we’d been forewarned by the other teachers and traveled armed with pens or markers so that we could immediately write the kid’s name on the present. Also, no matter what your student was supposed to be doing, the parents wanted to document it on film (or memory card). The hardest moments were when I was single-handedly tying 14 small children into snowman costumes, climbing around parents with cameras, being approached by parents who wanted to discuss their child’s performance in class, explaining to students in my other class that they didn’t need to put their costumes on yet since they wouldn’t be performing for another hour, graciously and quickly accepting presents from parents and children, and smiling calmly and keeping the kids from going crazy. Those were moments that every one of the teachers experienced (except without the snowmen) and are the reason that the Christmas show had been discussed with such foreboding tones for the months precluding the big day.

THE END

When it was over, the sense of accomplishment among the teachers and students was great. But, now it's done, and Christmas is over as far as the school is concerned. We'll have put in a full day at work by the time you wake up to open presents, so if you think of it, have an extra bite of mashed potatoes or pecan pie for me!

Tea, Mountains, and Mist

Long before computer chips and wireless network routers, oolong tea was Taiwan’s top export. Tea and tea culture remain central to the fabric of modern Taiwan. On Sunday Devin and I visited Pinglin, a town of 7,000 people in the heart of tea country. Eighty-five minutes of snaking mountain roads on a Taipei city bus brought us to a place dominated by thick vegetation, steep mountains, and mist.

Appropriately, a tea house was our our first stop. Our waitress and an English-speaking customer taught us the proper method to brew tea. It was easy. All you need is loose tea, a clay tea pot, a separate pot of boiling water, a tiny stove, a shallow bowl to collect excess water, a fine wire filter, a glass pitcher, a dish for waste water and used tea, a watch with a seconds hand, and a tea cup. We were a long way from 50 teabags for $2.49 at Target. I’ll let you guess what tastes better.

Another difference: Taiwanese “agriculture” does not imply 160-acre squares of flat land. Tea fields are about the size of a large American back yard, with neat rows lying almost vertically on top of each other. After relaxing for an hour in the tea house we climbed through a fallow field to reach a hilltop with spectacular views. Two thirty-five foot-tall statues of Guanyin (the bodhisattva of compassion) watch over Pinglin from either side of the river valley. Mountains upon mountains line the horizon. We stood, catching our breath, in amazement.

A True Teaching Moment

I haven't posted in a while, but I recently remembered an incident that occurred during my first month of teaching here that I wanted to share. In school they always talked about turning things into "teaching moments," where you can impart some bit of knowledge to a student through almost anything. Although this is one of the more obvious ones, it's also one of the cutest and funniest.

One of the boys in the Moon class, Titus, is around 8 years old. He's very talkative (too much so, sometimes) and always has something to share. On Mondays the kids have the opportunity to tell me and the rest of the class about what they did over the weekend and Titus is usually one of the first to get his hand in the air. On this particular Monday I called on Titus and he excitedly told us "I have go to a mitten and I have sleep in a tree." Titus tends to have a bigger vocabulary that some of the other kids, and a very active imagination, but no one in the classroom could figure out what he was talking about. There is a "no Chinese" rule that the kids police themselves very strictly on, and, whereas Adam would have just gone with it, I took this to be a good opportunity for vocabulary building and a mini-lesson on circumlocution.

First, I drew a picture of a mitten on the board. I then wrote the word next to the picture and explained that a mitten was something that you put on your hand to stay warm, and usually they come in pairs. I asked Titus if he went to one of these, to which the whole class laughed hysterically (because they're at an age where almost everything is funny). He chuckled, and said no, then made an upside down V with his hands to show what he meant. "Oh, a MOUNTAIN!" I quickly realized, and drew a picture with the word next to it on the board. After the whole class practiced pronouncing the two words with audible differences, we moved on to the second half of a puzzle.

I asked Titus if he really slept IN a tree. He realized that must not be right, so he modified it to "a tree house." In my head, I immediately thought "that must have been awesome! I want to go sleep in a tree-house for a weekend. This kid's parents must be really cool!" At which point logic and reason kicked in and my next thought was "Oh, right. There's no way his whole family climbed into a tree house, not to mention a shortage of rental properties in trees." So, I drew a picture of a tree house on the board, the kind perched on a limb of a tree, complete with rope ladder. Again I asked Titus if this was what he meant, the whole class laughed (including Titus), and I got another shake of the head. He tried explaining that the house was on the ground, not in the air, so for some reason my next thought was that maybe he slept in the hollowed out base of a giant tree, like a redwood. I know that not everyone would have had that thought next, but apparently I was really thinking outside of the box that day. I drew a picture of a house in the trunk of a tree, got more laughter (possibly just at my poor drawing skills that time), and another negative response. Finally, Titus had a stroke of inspiration, and showed me using hand gestures that the house was made out of lots of trees, and the trees were lying down, not standing up. Eureka! A log cabin! I drew yet another picture on the board and was rewarded with a resounding "yes!" The name and concept were explained to the rest of the class and we all gave Titus a round of applause for not giving up.

Yes, we had spent all of the allotted "sharing time" on the one story, and we didn't get through the planned lesson for the day, but it was SUCH a good way to show the kids that even the largest communication gaps can be overcome. This story might have lost a bit of its magic and humor in the writing, but trust me, if you'd been there, you would have known how great a moment it was.

First Post of November (Blame Law Schools)!

Thirteen law school applications plus full-time teaching equals long days, short nights, and no time to blog. That's what the past four weeks has taught Devin and me.

Evenings find me glued to my computer, revising application essays and phoning law schools in the United States. Thanks to the end of daylight savings time, Taiwan is now 13 hours ahead of Eastern Time, 14 hours ahead of Central Time, and 16 hours ahead of Pacific Time. So my "evenings" go very, very late. I now know that Hsinchu is deathly silent at 3:42 am.

Devin has been instrumental in the application process, and she repeatedly proved herself a wonderful source of encouragement and excellent editor. She's also been working on developing songs and short plays for our school's Christmas show. She'll write more on that later...

The weather here has been beautiful. Sunny and dry, with temperatures in the high 60s. Anybody jealous out there?

Stay tuned!

It’s Halloween!

Our school has two holiday celebrations each year. Christmas is the biggest, and, you guessed it, Halloween is number two. Today the five teachers at A1 Language Academy entertained over 200 students with games, crafts, ghost stories, candy, and shrimp crackers (yes, shrimp crackers. Kids love that stuff here).

And we dressed up. Devin transformed into a one-eyed, hook-handed pirate. I became “Teacher Viking,” although Devin says that I just looked like a dirty biker wearing a Viking helmet.

Left: Devin with Hannah, 4 and Catrina, 5, and Phillip, 7. Below: Teacher Viking at the craft table with Will, 5, Carl, 6, and Wayne, 6.

The kids wore costumes too. The little ones were the cutest, but all the teachers were impressed by the effort from the older students. We had Sam, the head-to-toe mummy. Then there was Yvonne, who wore full-face paint with her witch costume, and Annie, who combed her long black hair forward for hours to look like the girl from the Japanese horror movie The Ring.

Check out the pictures below! Also, our apologies for the erratic blogging during October. Expect more frequent posts after I finish my law school applications!

Left: Devin's five-year olds from the "baby- class," Uranus: Kevin, Verna, Catrina, and Ben. All too cute for their own good. Below: Adam's girls from Galaxy class: Amy, 8, Zoe ,7, New-New, 7, and Sunny, 7.

Left: Annie, 13, and Yvonne, 13. Right: Sam The Mummy, 13.

From One Island to Another (and then another) -- Part 1

Last weekend Toby, Adam and I headed out early Saturday morning for the Matsu (Ma-zu) Islands. Adam and I were excited since it was our first trip going somewhere farther than Taipei since we got here, and it was a chance to explore somewhere new with Toby. The islands are located just off of the coast of China's Fujian province, so the prospect of getting a glimpse of our nearest neighbor was also kind of thrilling. Although there are 18 islands, our timeline limited us to Beigan and Nangan, two of the four islands that have towns on them. The islands are also home to military bases, where Taiwanese men in their twenties serve out their mandatory 1-year military service, which promised to add an interesting element to the trip.

After a bus ride, a subway ride, a fifteen minute walk, and a ride on a twin-prop puddle jumper airplane we arrived on Nangan. After walking down the stairs onto the tarmac and into the airport, we stopped by the visitor's center which was conveniently staffed by an English speaker. He gave us instructions on how to get to the ferry so we could move on to Beigan, but not without adding "Beigan? Why would you want to go there? They don't have anything. Just a bunch of temples." To us, that sounded perfect.

We had a bit of a wait for the ferry, then piled onto a motor boat full of soldiers and islanders for a choppy fifteen minute ride to Beigan. Once there we somehow conveyed through our map pointing and Adam's impressive jabbering in Chinese that we wanted the taxi driver to take us to Tangchi Village, what appeared to be the best starting point for finding a hotel and scooter rentals in our travel guide. Since we didn't know exactly where in the town we wanted to go, 7-11 was the natural landmark to start our search. Walking around, though, we determined that we'd stumbled into a town much smaller than we'd expected, only two long blocks wide and three blocks deep!

After a few laps we figured out that the street signs were all in characters, none of the buildings had the word "hotel" on them in English, and our illiteracy had definitely caught up with us. Again utilizing our pointing skills and the traditional standby of talking louder and slower in hopes that someone will figure out what you're saying, we finally headed into a hotel (which I had SAID was a hotel the last 3 times we walked by it, but, who's counting). Somehow the cards were in our favor when we were greeted in English and accommodated in one of the most interesting rooms I've been in with a 5 flight walk up but a great view of a temple out our window. Although we spent a tiny bit more than we'd hoped to on the room, the atmosphere (and relief that we weren't spending a night on the beach), breakfast, and help with a scooter rental were worth it.
(the view out of our window!)

Once we'd dropped off our bags and climbed on the scooters, Adam and I were met with another surprise. Toby's only previous two-wheeled transportation experiences were limited to the type with pedals and gears, a far cry from the 125cc scooter that he found himself sitting on. He caught the hang of it, though, and we cautiously sped off with Toby in the middle of our caravan to explore the island. Since we'd spent quite a bit of the day getting to Beigan and getting situated, we only had a few hours before it got dark and we'd have to park for the night. As it turned out, though, a few hours were just enough to see most of the island even if we couldn't explore it thoroughly. We saw temples, traditional Fujian buildings, fishing villages, and fabulous views of beach, ocean, and greenery around every corner.

(Toby and Adam on their scooters by a fishing village full of traditional Fujian architecture)

The government here is aiming to make the Matsu Islands into a bigger tourist destination, which means that many of the sights have at least a sign in English pointing it out, if not an explanation of its significance. Also, many of the streets and temples have been renovated, making for an easier drive on the scooters, but at times a slight feeling of inauthenticity when looking at something that has recently been fixed up. On the other hand, living in Hsinchu we've had firsthand experience with seeing temples that have been overwhelmed by modernity and darkened by smog and general lack of upkeep.

(a renovated temple near the port on Beigan)


The drive was a spectacular, relaxing few hours of discovery which led to a meal of traditional foods such as fish-noodles (yes, made of fish!), fried eel, sweet potato dumpling soup, cooked greens, red pork, and "Matsu bagels." Since we ordered whatever they told us to at the restaurant, we were quite surprised to be served smallish sesame seed bagels and then be told that they were typical islander fare, but between the three of us we didn't leave a scrap on the lazy susan. Adam and I took a quick nighttime scoot (the verb form of the noun scooter) down past the airport and then up to a hillside park, and a short walk on the beach and then the three of us bunked down on our big platform bed. Luckily, it was big enough for multiple mattresses!




Since this is already WAY to long for most people's attention spans, more about the rest of the trip will follow. To see more pictures, though, click here.

Two Visitors at Once

It's been a while since the last post because Adam and I have been trying to get everything done before our first visitor from the US arrived on Friday. On Friday night we took another one of Tony's (the cab driver) wild rides to the airport to pick up Toby, battling traffic and heavy rains and winds. The rain and wind were brought by our second visitor, Typhon Krosa. Unfortunately, the itineraries of both guests clashed.

The storm was the most powerful one we've seen yet, and a Taiwanese guy our age even said that it was the worst storm he'd ever seen. It blew down trees and ripped up signs and billboards. Most stores and restaurants were closed, but we were rewarded for braving the gusting horizontal winds at lunch time when one of our favorite restaurants was open. They looked at us like we were crazy when we walked through the door in our assorted rain gear, but we were served a delicious meal. Dinner time was slightly less successful. Although the storm had moved enough that we were inside the enormous eye, so few restaurants were open that places were running out of food. We ended up holed up with two of the other teachers and some of their friends with three of the last pizzas at Dominos, a bucket of fried chicken, and a refrigerator of beer. Things could have been worse.

By the time Adam, Toby, and I woke up this morning the storm had moved on to China and stores and restaurants were open again. Flooding in Taipei kept us from the majority of the sightseeing on our list, but we were able to trek around town in the rain so the weekend wasn't totally wasted. Hopefully the rest of Toby's trip will be slightly less eventful weather-wise. Next weekend we're heading to the Matsu (Ma-Tzu) islands just off of the coast of China, so cross your fingers that the typhoons stay away!


Below: Our two visitors (on invited, one uninvited)

The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

When we woke up this morning our clothing smelled like charcoal briquettes. Little surprise, for the past four days have been Taiwanese revelry at it's best - the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.

Americans have Thanksgiving Day, Germans have Oktoberfest, and the Chinese have the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. It is a celebration of the successful autumn harvest dating to 10th century BC. The moon symbolizes completeness, and people travel far and wide to join their extended families on the full moon of the eight lunar month. The nation goes mad for moon cakes, small, dense pastries filled with nuts, sweet pastes, and egg yolks. To this day, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, along with Chinese New Year.

It is also the prime occasion for what seems to be the most cherished of all Taiwanese customs - the barbecue. Every third door stoop in the nation has a group of people gathered about tiny hibachi grills cooking skewered chicken, pork, sausages, hot dogs, fish balls, corn-on-the-cob, shrimp, and whatever else fits on a 8-inch long toothpick. That's why our clothes, and everything else in this nation, smells like charcoal.

There is no way to overstate the Taiwanese love of barbecueing. My informal poll today found that 24 out of of 25 of my students had barbecued within the past 72 hours. Self-appointed culture critics complain that barbecues threaten to over-shadow Moon Festival traditions. Government officials request restraint for environmental reasons - last year carbon monoxide levels in Northern Taiwan spiked by 45% on the evening of the Moon Festival.

Needless to say, it is impossible to cook food on an open fire without consuming beer. During the holiday, Devin and I were repeated greeted by large groups of middle-aged men who huddled around a 12-inch by 18-inch grill while throwing back Taiwan Beer (probably the foulest brew in creation). They called out a few words in English, laughed at each other for speaking English, gestured for us to join them. The universe of strange encounters reached its highpoint at 1 pm on the Moon Festival, when a guy in his 20s leapt off his scooter as we exited a 7-11.

Crazy Man: Hello! Are you Americans? My English name is Anthony Chang! What are your names?

Adam: My name is Adam.

Devin: I'm Dev...

Anthony Chang: [pointing frantically at Devin] Is your girlfriend? Very beautiful!

Adam: Yes I kn...

Anthony Chang: Do you support Taiwan?

Adam: You mean for the United Nations? Yes, I...

Anthony Chang: China not bad! Taiwan very good!

Adam: China not bad?

Anthony Chang: China not bad! Taiwan very good! Goodbye! Anthony Chang! Support Taiwan!

And then he was gone. And now the Moon Festival is gone, too. My advice to anyone who wants a whole new kind of party: come to Taiwan during the Mid-Autumn Mood Festival. Bring something for the barbecue.

The National Palace Museum

Today, Devin and I visited the world's greatest exhibition of Chinese art and culture. The National Palace Museum in Taipei has 650,000 individual items; to view them all would take the average person three years. The Museum is widely considered to be one of the world's finest, standing alongside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, and the Louvre.

We loved it. The scope of art and artifacts, dating back to 6,000 BC, is stunning. Classic examples of Chinese culture and history are expertly displayed. Our favorites were an intricate river boat carved out of a one-inch-long olive pit with a 300-character poem inscribed on the bottom, and seven concentric balls carved out of a single piece of ivory (see the short video below for a better explanation). We plan to return to the museum in early October when our friend Toby visits from New York.



Like most things in this strange nation, the backstory of the National Palace Museum is just as interesting as its surface. Chinese emperors gradually assembled the collection in Beijing's Forbidden City starting in the10th century AD. After the imperial system collasped, China's Nationalist government held the first public art exhibition in 1925. But World War II forced the government to pack the collection into almost 20,000 crates and squirrel it away in the Chinese hinterlands. After the war, conflict exploded between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Chairman Mao's Communists. In 1949 the Nationalists retreated from mainland China to the tiny island of Taiwan. They brought nearly all of the art with them, leaving only 700 crates to the Communists.

Needless to say, China remains incensed over Taiwan's possession of 8,000 years of Chinese history. However, many people contend that Taiwan served humanity by preserving the collection from 1966 to 1976 when China's Red Guards would have destroyed the art for embodying Chairman Mao's forbidden "Four Olds": Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas.

In 2007, I believe that Taiwan is still in a better moral and developmental position to protect this priceless treasure. I trust Taiwan's transparent democracy and modern infrastructure more than the nation that brings us poisoned toothpaste, tainted food, lead-coated toys, the world's worst industrial safety record, unbridled environmental degradation, and a never-ending sea of human rights abuses against Christians, Tibetans, Falun Dafa practitioners, journalists, and internet users. If China swallows up Taiwan, the loss of this art would be a crime against all people.

Moon Class

My 4:40-6:10 class is a lively bunch, mixed in age and ability. I've got a high-achieving seven year old and a low achieving 10 year old and everything in the middle. One of the boys has the craziest inability to sit still I've even seen; on my second day observing the class I witnessed him put his entire head into his backpack and zip the zippers to his neck, not removing it until he was asked to. He's also known for doing handstands in class, bringing strange objects to class and making obnoxious noises with them, and presuming he knows everything about the English language. There's also the adorable but insecure girl who wants you to help her through absolutely every worksheet and question (even if she knows the answer), the girl who thinks she's brilliant even though she never gets more than half of the questions on her homework right, the boy who just won't stop talking, and the silent but brilliant genius girl who recently earned her 20th sticker (meaning she's gotten As on 20 tests!).

Some of the kids have the classic disease where they think that if they finish first then they must be the best, even if they've got all of the answers wrong. Luckily, though, they're still at an age when they think teachers know everything. No matter how crazy the classroom gets they're afraid of getting sent into the hall or getting an F for their behavior grades. Also, there's never a shortage of hands in the air when I need an answer for a question and the majority of them earnestly try to get As on tests (especially since that earns them a sticker).

The subject matter for the class is mostly typical of a second to third grade English class. We work on reading comprehension, phonics, and grammar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we focus on spelling and a poem. Ideally I'd like for them to be reading a book and then utilizing the skills from their reading comprehension textbook on a story and drawing our spelling and phonics words from there, but the class and school aren't set up for that (in regards to time and parental focus on textbook achievement). The poem we're currently working on is actually the lyrics to "On Top of Spaghetti," one of my favorite songs from when I was little. Since it's fairly long I broke it into sections and we just finished the first two last week. We had ANOTHER typhoon yesterday, when we were supposed to start the third and fourth sections, but I'm quite alright with spending a day at home instead of teaching the kids to memorize a poem.

Even though this class can have some rough days, we've definitely come to a point where we know what to expect of each other and that's lead to some great progress lately. They may not always behave the best or do all their homework, but at least they're still easily bribed by stickers and candy!

The Worst Day in the History of Education

Believe it or not, A1 Language school entrusts me with a fleet of small children. Fifty-two children in four classes, to be exact. I've come to the conclusion that teaching is like eating a poop-sandwich. Some days I have more bread, some days I have less bread. But every day I eat poop.

Let me tell you about the worst day in the history of education. It happened to me on Friday.

I was beginning to introduce a spelling test to my last class of the day, Neptune. The class is roughly a fourth grade English class, but children range in age from seven to thirteen. There was some commotion over 9-year old Eli's missing spelling packet. Everybody searched for it. Eli even looked out on the playground. After three minutes of nonsense, 12-year old Kevin plopped the spelling packet on Eli's desk. He had stolen it, then huddled with 10-year old Willy and 13-year old Sam. I called the three felons to the front of the room, verbally reamed them, then announced that they each had received an "F" for the week's behavior grade.

Perhaps I overreacted, but I run a tight ship.

Kevin and Sam beamed hate at me. Willy, the youngest and softest of the three, sat down at his desk, buried his face in a book, and burst into uncontrollable tears. He was beyond help. I have a strict policy when it comes to crying students: I ignore them. We began our grammar lesson on "a," "an," and "the." The class was silent except for Willy's weeping. It didn't stop. I asked him if he wanted to step into the hall, drink some water, visit the bathroom, and come back to class when he was ready. No response. He just choked on his tears.

And then he vomited. He vomited on the floor, on his chair, and all down the front of his baby-blue jersey-knit Chinese School uniform.

Pandemonium erupted. I blotted some of the liquid vomit with Kleenex, and convinced hysterical Willy to go to the bathroom and clean himself. Alice and Grandma Rose, the school's custodians/cooks/playground monitors, came into class and wiped away the remaining puke.

I sat at the head of class and stared out at the room. Willy's vomit-strewn desk was against the wall, half the students were in the wrong seats, the other half were shouting at me for being a bad teacher. There were seven minutes left in the day. It was too early to let everyone go, but too little time to regain control of my class.

I heard Willy sniffling in the hall. I told him to stay outside while I gathered his backpack, books, and pencils. No need to take away his last gram of dignity. I brought out his things, and told him to not worry about the "F." I wished him a good weekend and said that the next week would be better for everybody.

I stepped back into utter chaos. While I was in the hall 12-year old Luke had wrapped his hands around 7-year old Jensen's head and drove it into a table. Jensen's cried as a goose-egg grew out of his forehead. Alice walked back into the second fiasco. She shouted at Luke in Chinese, then began to treat Jensen's skull with ointment that smelled like Vick's vapor rub. Alice and I made eye-contact just long enough to confirm that I was the most pathetic teacher she had ever seen.

I told everyone to go home. No homework this weekend.

The room emptied except for Sam and Kevin, the original two spelling-packet thieves. They begged for mercy, but I had none of it. I felt like a home plate umpire who knows he made a bad call. I said some junk they didn't understand about morality and honesty. Kevin left, as sullen as ever.

Then Sam started crying.

There was almost no bread that day.

It's not ALL fun and games (but most of it is)

If you were reading this blog unawares of what Adam and I actually do every day, it may seem like we just wander around Taiwan looking for adventures and natural disasters. While we are making the most of our free time, at least 40 hours in the week are spent teaching. The school is conveniently located a 5-7 minute walk from our apartment, depending on the traffic light. In one building there are 5 classrooms and a yard with rubberized tiling and extra desks and chairs. Across the street is the office for the teachers and the copier.

All of the kids except for a few in my beginner class attend Chinese school in the morning and then head to English school. The classes at A1 are scheduled with youngest and usually least advanced kids from 1:30-4:30, older and advanced-beginner to intermediate students from 4:40-6:10, and the intermediate to advanced students have class from 6:40-8:10. The classes are named after different planets and outer-space features, but I haven't really figured out how the naming process works. Here's a breakdown of my first class of the day, with more to come later this week.


URANUS (1:30-4:00)
This is what's known as a "baby" class. All of the kids started out at the school without knowing any English and range from 5-7 years old. Four of the kids in the picture were just added to the class last week when we switched from morning classes to afternoon classes (it used to be held from 9-12). All of the classes held at this time slot are generally younger kids who get out of school earlier and hence know less English. One of the four newbies doesn't speak or write any English at all, one falls asleep daily (even when we're singing!), one can speak really well but can't write her name, and the fourth looks permanently half asleep and likes to sniff other kids. The rest of the class is also full of unique personalities, but I'm used to them by now. One of the girls pouts through coloring since she doesn't like her markers, another kid yells at the top of her lungs whenever anyone uses Chinese, one little boy loves beetles (they're the trendy pet here), and another can't write a capital G to save his life. One of the girls is sought after by all the boys, and one of the boys has to go to the bathroom every half-hour. Not pictured is another new boy who still hasn't made a sound in class and didn't have a name on the first day, so I had to name him. All in all they're an adorable, lovable class.

Even though I don't have any training or experience teaching kids this young, other than buying supplies for the SED preschool, I think I'm getting the hang of it. We're currently working on handwriting (we're through capital W), short vowel sounds, fine motor skills (aka coloring inside the lines), and vegetable vocabulary (since we finished fruits). New kids excluded, we've mastered colors, the alphabet, days of the week, pieces of clothing, shapes, and numbers 1-50. We sing songs with hand motions at the beginning of every class, too. A recent hit was a variation of "I like to eat apples and bananas" by Raffi, filling in OUR favorite fruits. Since this is a tropical island, we added mangoes, papayas, kiwis, and other goodies.

My favorite part of class is coloring time. The kids all come up with very unique results even if they're all coloring the same picture, but the best is listening to them talk and sing while they work. The previous teacher taught them the phrase "May I please borrow..." and nearly all of the kids have mastered it. Even though at any other time of the class you might hear yelling, giggling, or crying, this is the only time when the classroom is full of the most polite 5-7 year olds I've ever met.

If this house is rockin'....

...it must be an earthquake! Last night, around 2am our time, an earthquake occurred just off of one of the small islands to the east of Taiwan. Even though it was all the way across the island we still experienced some shaking here in Hsinchu. At the time I yelled at Adam for swinging his foot, which he vehemently denied. When the shaking continued (almost rocking, really) and the dogs started barking, we realized we were experiencing our first Taiwan earthquake. We quite calmly rode it out and drifted back to sleep. For an official report on the quake, click here.

Taipei, Round One

We took a bus into Taipei this past Sunday, our first forage outside of sleepy Hsinchu. Although Taipei did not feel like the center of the universe (certainly no London, Madrid, or Washington D.C.), it was a welcome change. Vendors at outdoor markets hawk everything from ornate Buddha sculptures, to $1.10 DVDs of classic American movies, to homemade wines. I did not try the homemade wine.

Taipei has a diverse collection of museums, such as The Museum of Drinking Water, the Paper Making Museum, the Museum of World Religions, and the world-renowned National Palace Museum. On route to the Taipei Discovery Museum, I was accosted by terrible robots from the future. See the picture below.

We stopped by Taipei 101, currently the worlds tallest finished building. The 1670 foot-tall building looks like a stalk of bamboo lashed together. Although I’m not generally a skyscraper nut, I appreciate that Taipei 101 has a distinctive Asian feel. Devin concurs, but she argues that it looks “like a bunch of take-out boxes stacked on top of each other.”

We capped the day with a visit to the Sun Yat-sen memorial. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the person most responsible for ending 5,000 years of Chinese dynastic rule to establish the Chinese Republic in 1911. Think of Sun as 100 George Washingtons standing on top of each other. His hall and outdoor garden in central Taipei are appropriately gorgeous.

We’ll head back to Taipei on September 25 to visit the National Palace Museum. Stay tuned!

Full Moon Ghost Month Parade

The gates to the spirit world are open widest on the 15^th day of Ghost Month, the night of the full moon. The people of Hsinchu celebrate with an enormous, cacophonous parade that stretches for miles and lasts hours. Men demonstrate their spiritual faith and physical strength by marching with masks that weigh eighty pounds or more. Small trucks with antiquated PA systems trace the parade route to welcome returning ancestors and steer away evil spirits with wild music of drums and horns.

On Monday, I stepped out during my school breaks to see all the raucous. Watch the video below to hear the music yourself. I shot the video and the pictures within 100 yards of our apartment.

The weather hovered in the mid-90s with 80% humidity, and at mid-day the sun was unforgiving. Sweat drenched the marchers. The jet-black City God was the parade’s most common figure, a different version walked by every 200 feet. (Each city in China and Taiwan has its own god.) Look below for a close-up photo of one City God mask.

Another Week of Firsts

Yes, it's been a while since I posted anything. I've got a good excuse, though, I've been sick. Being sick in the summer is never fun, and especially not when the temperature is in the 90s and you have to teach three classes between 9am and 8pm. I'm sure I caught whatever I have from one of the "babies," the 4-5 year olds in my 9am-12pm class. The kids are continually coughing, sneezing, and sniffling, and then touching me, so it was only a matter of time before I came down with something.

Adam was sick last week, and I prided myself in keeping away from him and not catching what he had. Monday night, however, my throat was scratchy and my nose was stuffy. By Tuesday my voice was barely holding out in class and Wednesday brought about the end of my voice and a general feeling of misery. I taught a nearly-silent 3 hours with the babies, involving lots of coloring, gesturing, and bribery with stickers, I could barely swallow my soup for lunch and went home to take a nap. On my way back to school for my 4:40 class I felt like death on two legs. I had a sore throat that made my eyes tear when I swallowed, pain in my ears, and aching all over. I ran into Teacher Sharon (Teacher Bob's wife and the Mom of the operation) on my way into the office and she asked how I was doing. When she heard my voice she immediately decided to send me to the doctor and packed me off to the doctor with some money and Teacher Wendy (the substitute teacher/translator/nurse/office manager/ambulance driver of the school).

I rode on the back of Teacher Wendy's scooter to the pediatrician's office. For my first scooter ride in Taiwan, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Having seen some terrifying moves in scooters since I got here, I was a bit apprehensive. However, I didn't die and we didn't run into anything, nor did I eat or inhale any bugs (and yes, I wore a helmet). The pediatrician was the only choice for a doctor since a) I don't have my insurance card here yet b)he was trained in the US and c) he speaks "enough" English and is friends with Bob and Sharon. For 500NT (<$14) he listened to my lungs, looked at my throat and ears, took my temperature, and diagnosed me with a "virus." Apparently my ears were only hurting because the nerves in my throat were so "overloaded" that the pain radiated up there. After the exam, a prescription printed in the front of the office and the receptionists/pharmacists put together a packet of pills and sent me on my way. The pills are in a long strip of waxed-paper packets with perforations so I can tear off each dose of four pills (see picture below). Teacher Wendy translated that I needed to take the pills 4 times each day, "after eat and before sleep, stop pills when better." Then we headed back to school where I put together some sub lessons and went home for the day. I was still so miserable that night that Adam ran to the pharmacy and got me some cough syrup that they definitely don't sell in the states and I slept a hard, drugged sleep.

I taught another quiet morning class yesterday, withered by lunch again, and finally made it through the day today. I'm feeling better, but my throat still hurts and my voice isn't totally back so I'm still taking the pills (even though I don't know what they are). Hopefully, since I survived the scooter ride, the doctor, the pills, and the "virus," I'll be able to survive just about anything in Taiwan.
(note: Adam took a picture of me with the pills wrapped around my neck like a scarf on the day I went to the doctor, but we both decided it was too scary for the internet, especially if there are any small children reading)

Ghost Month in Taiwan

Hsinchu is on the west coast of Taiwan, so we had the 13,000 foot tall Central Mountain Range to shield us from the worst of Typhoon Sepat's wrath on the east coast. Instead of untold destruction, we received 72 hours of rain. Not too bad.

When you walk outside and your neighbors are standing in front of their homes with full tables of food, burning incense, and repeatedly tossing fake money into flaming waste paper baskets, you know it’s Ghost Month. Chinese traditional religion stipulates that the Gates of Hell open on the first day of the seventh lunar month and ancestors get a second chance to make amends for their sins on earth. Taiwanese offer food and money to the ghosts for several hours before dinner-time then go inside to finish the leftovers. The meals are complete and delicious, including dishes of chicken, pork, and rice, as well as full pineapples, cantaloupes, gineps, and boxes of fruit juice. I saw some neighbors had set out sixteen-ounce cans of Miller High Life. Yet another reason to be good to your family in this world – they’ll keep you stocked with beer in the next.

Below – A guerilla-style photo of a Ghost Month table setting and fake-money trash bin. Photo 2 - Like everything else, the Taiwanese celebrate Ghost Month with fireworks.

Winds and Rain and Typhoons, Oh My!

It's only our second full week here, but our third typhoon/tropical weather system is bearing down. The first two were fairly weak by the time they reached our side of the island, but this new one is definitely more intense. The evening classes for tonight are being canceled since it's so windy (some of our kids are tiny, they might blow away!). Don't worry, though, Adam and I headed to the grocery store yesterday to stock up on supplies like water and instant noodles. (Check out this link for a dynamic weather map)

Adam Tries a Betel Nut

The almond-sized seeds of the tropical betel palm tree, betel nuts are chewed throughout southeast Asia for their distinctive buzz. Taiwan has the most developed betel nut culture of any country in the region. Taxi cab and truck drivers chew the nuts for stimulation sans the diuretic effects of coffee and tea. Young women dressed in lingerie sell the nuts from neon-lit glass cubicles along roadways. Although many Taiwanese assume that these “betel nut beauties” are connected with prostitution and crime, the girls also have supporters, including feminists who argue that the practice is empowering (See Tobie Openshaw’s documentary trailer at YouTube). Unfortunately, betel nuts are known to be addictive, carcinogenic, and notorious for staining teeth, gums, and spit-strewn sidewalks bright red.

Of course, I had to try one.

Teacher John came to my rescue. While hanging at an all-you-can-drink lounge Saturday night with the A1 Language School family, John presented me with a pack of 20 nuts (price tag of 100 NTD, slightly less than $3 US). Apparently, veteran male teachers at our school have a custom of buying rookies their first pack. The newcomers generally try one nut, nearly vomit, then discard the rest.

First, John and I offered a nut to everyone in the bar, and each time we were greeted by a look of unabashed revulsion. Then, stepping into a Taiwanese thundershower (its typhoon season here) I popped one into my mouth. The taste was indescribable, so I won’t try. The buzz felt like smoking three Lucky Strikes, drinking two shots of espresso, and spinning around in circles for a minute– all at the same time. We spat furiously into a shared Dixie cup, then hawked the blood-red pulp into some bushes.

I still have the pack, now with eighteen nuts, and I keep threatening Devin that I’m going out on the porch to chew them. But I don’t think I will. The thought of losing my lower jaw or esophagus to cancer isn’t very appealing; and I can’t imagine much worse than becoming addicted to these things. But, my motto is “trying everything twice,” so it may just be a matter of time…

Above: Photo of my remaining betel nuts, with the package. Devin makes a great "ewwww" face when she says they look like "alien seed pods."

Trivia Answers, Finally

I tried to put these up a few days a go, with pictures and everything, but I hit "post" and it never showed up! It doesn't help that, for some reason, I can't ready ANY of the buttons (they all come up as ?????). So, here they are:

1. The mango! It's thicker by a few inches, and much more delicious.

2. Well, no one could get this right since I got the options wrong. I actually got the money part off by a factor of ten. Option A was the closest, but it only cost $30 USD, not $300.

3. On Monday night we were served 8 delicious dishes for dinner. We get fed a home-cooked meal Monday through Thursday, and this Friday we had pizza! It's a fabulous perk of the job, especially since we wouldn't have time to cook for ourselves and cooking anything would heat up the whole apartment.

4. Well, even though this is sideways, you still get the idea, right? The showerhead is to the left of the mirror and there's a plastic box above the toilet tank that we keep the toilet paper in. It seems to work pretty well, but we do still have to clean the bathroom every so often.

Devin's Taiwan Trivia Game

1. Which weighs more, 1 mango from the fruit stand near our apartment or the 8th Harry Potter book?

2. Devin and Adam went to the hospital for their physicals on Monday. They had blood tests, chest x-rays, eye tests, blood pressure tests, and an exam by a doctor. Which option most accurately reflects the time and money the trip cost per person?
a. 1 hour, $300 USD
b. 2 hours, $500 USD
c. 3 hours, $700 USD
d. 4 hours, $1000 USD

3. Adam and Devin work at a great school that serves homemade dinner during the week for the teachers. How many different dishes were prepared (not including rice) for all 8 teachers on Monday night?

4. Devin and Adam have a "self cleaning bathroom," meaning you shower right where the sink and toilet are. That poses a problem for keeping things dry. What happens to the toilet paper?

Post your answers in the comments section. I'll post the real answers, with some pictures, tomorrow!

First Thoughts on Hsinchu

I have new appreciation for the word “overwhelmed.” Without a background in spoken Mandarin or written Chinese, Devin and I are stumbling about the crowded downtown streets of Hsinchu (pronounced "Shinzu," population approximately 400,000) feeling at times both ignorant and rude. Hopefully our Pimsleur language lessons and Chinese character workbooks will remedy that. The jet lag is another issue. At 4 pm each day I start to feel like I’m going through the first-stages of heroin withdrawal (I would know, my hometown of Northfield, Minnesota has a well-documented scag problem). Hopefully we’ll both adjust by the end of the week.

In the meantime we’re exploring our new home. Food is one of Hsinchu’s highpoints. It is diverse, plentiful, inexpensive, and delicious. The beef noodle shop is just a block away, and an excellent fruit market is even closer. The produce selection is incredible. Gineps, foot-ball sized mangoes, and fresh pineapples are all available. We’ve also been introduced to new items, such as dragon fruit and Buddha-head fruit. We’re hoping to try the sushi restaurant near school sometime soon.

We're Here!

After a few hours delay in Michigan and the longest airplane ride of our lives with considerably little nappin, Adam and I were almost just as happy for our stop in Osaka with it's redundant security check as we were to get off of the airplane in Taiwan. After breezing through Immigration our bags were, obviously, the last ones off the belt. While I went to get a cart for the bags, Adam was greeted by a friendly Taiwanese beagle. The dog sniffed the guitar case and the camping backpack and then went crazy for Adam's carry-on. Apparently the beagles are trained to sniff out agricultural items (like parrots) and the dog could smell the apple that had been in Adam's bag the whole trip that had finally been eaten before we landed. Luckily, you can't get put in jail for smelling like an apple so the customs officer let us pet the dog and move on.

Since the airplane landed around 9:30 we finally walked out of the baggage area by 10:15 and were greeted by Teacher Bob and Tony the taxi driver holding up a sign with our names on it. We proceeded to ride the moving walkways of the future (the carts automatically lock while you're on) to the parking garage and stuff more luggage into the taxi than it had ever held before. The drive was under an hour, but filled with revelations, including: if there are bags in the passenger seat then the driver can't see out the window; there aren't any familiar signs except 7-11 because THEY'RE NOT IN ENGLISH; Tony is a skilled betel-nut spitter (i didn't get hit once); stoplights are far less tedious when they count down the amount of time you have to sit at them; not everyone obeys stoplights; 7-11 is to Hsinchu what Dunkin' Donuts is to Boston.

After getting the bags upstairs (thanks Adam!) we explored a bit by walking down to the 7-11 to get some bottled water. I spotted a Starbucks on the way (hooray!) but since it was after midnight we didn't make a stop. Our first instance of using Taiwanese Dollars occurred at the 7-11 where we purchased two 5L bottles of water, two juices presumed to be tropical fruit flavor (luckily we guessed correctly and didn't end up with asparagus juice), and a box of kleenex. We were also aided by the handy screens at the registers so that we could figure out how much to pay. After that it was back home for bedtime.

Our apartment is down an alleyway off of a side-street that is full of all of the wonderful smells an urban environment has to offer in 90+ degree heat. Luckily we're fully equipped with air conditioning that reaches everywhere except the bathroom. The bedrooms are quite nicely sized, and even the bathroom was bigger than I expected. The beds themselves are pretty different from American beds. Ours have wooden frames with headboards, then a modified box-spring with a tatami mat on top. It seemed really hard, but we were both so tired that we easily fell asleep since after the excursion to the store and a test of the self-cleaning bathroom it was after 1pm.

Even more happened today, but it will have to wait for another post!

devinandadamgotoniagarafallsandmilwaukee

Four days and fourteen-hundred miles from the Old East Coast, we arrived safely in Northberg last Sunday. We stopped along the way at Niagara Falls, the University of Michigan Law School, and Tad Johnson's swinging bachelor pad in Milwaukee. Tad suggested renting a silly four-person bicycle along the lake front (think Flintstones car with pedals). It was a great idea until our off-roading and Chinese-fire drills caught up with the contraption, breaking one of the pedals. The day was capped with free pie and beer at a hipster diner. Delicious.

We made it back!

Well, despite the fact that the window seal came undone on the front winshield, the rear bumper was a mere 4-6 inches from the ground, and we couldn't drive faster than 65mph, we made it back to Northfield on Monday evening in one piece. I'll be on vacation for the next week, but I bet if you ask Adam really nicely he'll put up some pictures of the trip back home, including stops at Niagra Falls and crazy shenanigans in Milwaukee with Tad.

Adam's First Blog Post!

Hello everyone! I’m excited about my first blog; it brings my net citizenship index to a new level. Still in Worcester, I will hopefully finish my final paper for the history Masters by next Monday. This one is concerns how New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199/SEIU used civil rights rhetoric to build solidarity within its diverse membership. I’m running on an accelerated schedule, and my time is divided by my full time job at Clark University’s Information Technology Services, so the paper has necessarily been fueled by coffee and Tom Waits. I’m looking forward to being done with all this school stuff; there are daunting levels of wine drinking, mountain climbing, and kung fu watching to catch up with. Stay tuned and I'll keep you posted!

That's one day less to pack!!!

So, it's now been decided that we're leaving MA on the 12th and not the 13th so that we can fit in a Friday tour of the U of Mich. Law School. Adam smartly figured out that we're probably not going to drive fast enough to make it there by 1pm if we left that morning (nor could the van even if we wanted it to). Plus, from what I understand of the admissions process, they appreciate it if you take the time to not look like you just spent 12 hours in a van.

Yup, we're going!

While some have threatened to steal our passports, and others have threatened to lock us in our rooms, Adam and I are really going to Taiwan! We've gotten our visas and bought our tickets, now all we need to do is pack, right? Well, actually there's quite a bit going on before that. Adam is working hard to finish his last paper for his Master's degree in History at Clark while still fitting in time to work at ITS. I finished school in May but I'll still be working full-time until July 5th (yes, the day after the 4th, and a Thursday...don't ask). Having somehow just realized today that I only have 2 1/2 weeks left in my apartment, much of my time will be spent packing and throwing things away. We're leaving Massachusetts on the 13th and taking a leisurely drive back to Minnesota, getting there on the 17th. I'll then be packing up again and heading to Tortola for a week with my family on the 18th while Adam...does something else really fun? We'll try to squeeze in every last bit of time with our friends and family (and doctors, dentists, and hairdressers) and then leave for good on the 2nd of August. Hopefully between the blog, e-mail, Skype, and web-cams we'll get to keep in touch with all of you (until you can come visit!).