Training Days

Howdy there,

So I arrived in Taipei at eternity ago after making the aforementioned daring escape from Asia State U. I have moved into an apartment complex called Holland Village, which is conveniently next to Drinking University. In between however is a good deal to cover.

Arriving in Taipei I had tons of free time. My schedule usually involved sleeping in and trying to ignore the fact that the distance between the headboard and baseboard of my hostel bed was definitely less than 72 inches. Then I’d wake up, cruise the internet, head out for lunch, walk around a ton, get tired, come back, rest a couple hours, go out again, and walk around aimlessly sort of searching for dinner. As it turns out, walking on sandals for five hours a day is not something conducive to good foot health. I was rocking serious right-leg problems after two days of it and developed a nice limp to boot. (Pun intended.) So I relaxed on the whole walking thing, and settled in. On the 12^th I made my way over to the hotel Hess provided us for training and listened to their introduction presentation. We went on a city tour, saw the Chiang Kai-shek memorial, a temple, and other landmarks. Finally we got lunch then proceeded to the central hospital for physicals. It was actually surprisingly fast. We numbered almost 30 all told and were able to get blood drawn, vision tests, chest X-rays, height/weight measurements, blood pressure tests, and a short conversation with the doctor all in just  under 3 hours time, including all the waiting.

After the test the tour bus returned everyone to the hotel and I ambled back to my hostel. The day after we had an informal trip to Danshui, north of Taipei City and sitting on the intersection of a river and the ocean. In the drizzle we walked down the quay toward an old Portuguese fort. As a museum it was pretty unremarkable. On one floor however they had installed a tribute to Canadian culture, out of respect for George Mackay who had a considerable effect on the island. This little shrine consisted of a signed Gretzky jersey, some boring exhibits, and foosball. I owned at foosball, and never got the chance to not enjoy the rest of the fort. We returned on the main street, getting a snack lunch that included corn dogs, dumplings, hot dogs, and whatever popped up. Next we piled into the MRT and went back to Taipei, took a brief trip through the National Museum and saw some calligraphy and a jade cabbage, then finally went back to the hostel.

Sunday we had off and I moved into the Hess-provided hotel. I ran into some other trainees and we went out to get some Kung Pao chicken. The next day, training truly began.

First, I want you to keep in mind that it was unpaid. This shouldn’t be surprising really, but it still sucked. An income can really take the edge off of 80-90 hours of instruction but alas it was not the case. In a typical day we would sit through a powerpoint presentation, then see a demo of the teaching lesson afterward and rinse, repeat. We had occasional breaks but it was still less than enthralling. Training also involved three teaching demos, one for kindergarten, and two for the after-school programs they have. Mine steadily progressed in quality so I feel alright about them. The demos were only done in front of one observer and 3 other trainees, but most importantly gave us a feel for lesson flows.

After completing the first demo we went out to celebrate. Seeing as how there are very few proper bars around where you can order a drink and just chillax, and what exists tends to be expensive dingy foreigner dives, we instead embarked on an evening of Family Mart/7-Eleven hopping. Many convenience stores have a few tables and chairs outside, so you can pop inside to get your drink and any snack that strikes your fancy, then sit down. Our conversations often turned to American politics, and when convenience stores lacked furniture there was a local park available for use.

We got 1 day off in the 10 day training period, and the night before we decided to make a party of it. First there was convenience store pregaming, and this was followed by a club that was on the entertainment sheet provided to us by Hess. Although not unexpected in the least, it is worth it to stop and consider the implications of such a sheet. Our future employer, during training, gave us a double-sided piece of paper with the most popular bars and clubs on it (in addition to several normal restaurants and some other non-party spots) right before we got out of training that night. It included names, addresses in Chinese and English, and even prices. Think about how many American companies would do the same during their training. Each would naturally turn a blind eye to any such extracurricular activities, but how many would encourage it, much less put it in writing? How badly would they get sued if one idiot got too drunk and ended up in the ER or the bottom of a river? Refreshingly, that doesn’t seem to be a much of a worry here. Anyhow, we went to a club that turned out to have a different name and be undergoing a renovation. Though supposed to be 2 floors only the bottom one was open, and it wasn’t exactly a rocking club. It was better than Harbin in summer but in general seemed lackluster.

Except for Liar’s Dice. I taught everyone I could how to play, and had a blast doing so. If I could only play one game for eternity, that might be it.

Not everyone made it through training. One guy got fired for saying such gems as “I don’t believe in tests,” and “I don’t work well with kids.” Almost as mindblowing as saying those statements at  teacher training, he was surprised when he got the news. Another girl received tragic news about a death in the family, but three others simply dropped out. Apparently they decided either Hess or just teaching were not for them. One guy was going to be my roommate, but thankfully there was another trainee going to Hsinchu I’m now training with so it didn’t end up costing me anything.

One of the best parts about being over here is the authentic food. At training I was able to find a guy who was actually from Shandong on the mainland, and made some pretty damn fine dumplings. I’ve already found another place here in Hsinchu a single block from my apartment. It also claims to serve fried rice but for the past 2 days has been out (how can they be out!?) of rice somehow.

Throughout training we were divided into teams. For doing mundane tasks like sitting down first or answering questions correctly we were awarded points. The concept of this was to make it sort of like a classroom environment we would be teaching, as all the lower levels use a very basic points reward system to motivate students. For training, we were promised some mysterious prize at the end that would help us teach. Our team did pretty well out of the 8 and it soon became a two-horse race, with us marginally in front. On the last day we held a slim lead of around 95-90. As the final points event, there was a quiz on Taiwan trivia.

I dominated.

All those hours on Wikipedia finally paid off. The questions built up in points from 1 to 5, and by the end of it we had the competition firmly in hand, 114 to 92 or 98 or something. I was able to answer fairly easy questions like the current president, 3 cities other than the 3 largest cities, colors of the flag, population, etc… The prize turned out to be pretty decent, and is a package of teaching supplies including different colored pens, stamps, folders, and more.

After the graduation party for new teachers and the contract signing, we hit up karaoke/KTV. I love KTV, and to be honest probably sang more than my fair share. I love BYOB KTV even more. Many people were perfectly content, or even happy to not be involved though so it worked out for pretty much everyone. For anyone wondering, some of the songs were Viva la Vida, A Whole New World, and House of the Rising Sun so there was quite the diversity of tunes. After that we went back to the training hotel and I lost my suit in a friend’s room.

The next morning I was running around frantically. I had mostly packed the night before, but wearing the suit, it was not packed and I knew it was missing. I ran all over the hotel, and asked a few of the housekeepers to let me into friends’ rooms that had already checked out. The response I got from one of them was a sort of slackjawed stuttering of “You speak Mandarin!?” I had to repeat the request before I got anywhere.

And that brings me to my real point. My Mandarin is good enough to impress, but that’s about it. It’s a pain because the bar is set quite low. I also know that some of the higher level students I’ll be teaching soon will have better English. That they’ve been studying longer doesn’t mitigate it for me, since I know for them English has not been as central as I have made Chinese for me. Hopefully I can turn it into motivation to hit that coveted 3 on the ILR scale. I now have exactly one year to do that, so we shall see.

Getting in to Hsinchu was somewhat interesting in itself. Hess employees picked us up at the hotel and we procured cabs to the train station. The Gaoxiong people went on the shiny HSR, the same line that took me from Taichung to Taipei. My roommate and I meanwhile went one platform farther and one century back as we boarded the TRA (Taiwanese Railway Authority) train. Before we did however we ran into an exasperated French lady who spoke surprisingly little English. (Most foreigners rich enough to travel overseas tend to be educated enough to speak conversational English, Europeans especially.) We spent a few minutes as she talked to me in French, I spoke to the Hess guide in English, who then talked to the station personnel in Mandarin. It was quite the obtuse process but eventually we were able to send her on her way to an automated ticket counter. Finally we boarded the TRA train which seemed rickety. It lurched, bounced, and meandered for an hour as we pulled away from tall buildings, then through suburbs, fields, and back into suburbs. The tall buildings however never returned. Such is Hsinchu.

My supervisor met us at the train station and after a company-paid lunch, we went apartment hunting. It was quite easy. We went to a place where Marné, my roommate, has a cousin. In the same compound of 15 apartment buildings we found a good apartment with tons of space at a decent price, NT$15000/month. It was two days until we were able to move in however, so we crashed at her cousin’s apartment. Here I discovered our neighbors were the 499^th Tactical Fighter Wing. No kidding, they have a base in the northern Hsinchu, which is where I am. I found the sound of landing jets odd since I knew there was no commercial airport here, but sure enough several Mirage 2000-5 live next door. Finally, this apartment is somewhat far from the branch I’m posted at. It’s definitely a scooter ride away, and I have been bombarded by scooter horror stories. My boss just had a plate in his heel removed, some other Americans crashed one last month, and other tales of fun. Regardless, I’ll be buying one since it’s the only way to get freedom of movement around here, and my boss won’t be providing rides forever. Hopefully I won’t turn into just another red splotch on the pavement, though the scary part is that it’s not entirely up to me. Oh well, I’ll treat driving like Forza and should be good to go.

That’s all I’ve got. I’ve been observing and actual teaching (and money making) start Wednesday which should give me plenty to talk about. Already, the students are literally tripping over themselves to talk to me. I know I can entertain the young ones, I just hope I can hold the preteens in check too. Also, this damn cold better subside before I have  to get into the trenches.

Later!