mommysquad

My friend is a new mother who recently started a community for those essential lists of what you need when you're pregnant or have a newborn baby. It's not just advice on items, but also where to go like parks and activities. It's a blossoming place for a new mom or moms-to-be to get advice and help, especially for those around the Chicago area. Check out www.mommysquad.org and their forums.

Meh

I haven't posted for a while. That's not an accident. I don't want to post about boring daily life. I did however upload a ton of pictures to flickr recently, check those out at the flickr link.

I might post about my visit to Tokyo and Senday in Japan I took in May and how I got radiation poisoning and lost 2 toes.














No, not really.

A real estate gig

So my brother recently moved to San Diego and has just setup a company that creates floor plans of homes to help them reach their "peak potential" in marketing. The name is Summit Floorplans and if you happen to know someone in the San Diego real estate business who needs a high-quality proof, then there you go.

Spring screamin'

pictures are up on flickr, blog post to come and some indeterminate point in the future

The Resurrection

Howdy there. You still read this? Can’t say I know why as I haven’t given you much (any) reason to even check lately. I thought about pounding out another wall of cultural commentary and teaching trials but then thought back to English class. How does a student get out of a creative writing assignment? Poetry of course, and especially haiku! The 17 magic syllables give a veneer of erudition, yet are the effluence of indolence. So shamelessly, knowing full well I take the easy way out, here are my last several weekends.

Weekend of 2/12

Pingxi with Irene;

Lantern Festival was fun.

A packed train station.

2/19

Overrated club,

But good DJs and dancers.

Where’d my money go?

2/26

A three day weekend!

Many possibilities.

Some good and some bad.

Sun Moon Lake I heard

Would be fun, I have to go!

Sadly mistaken.

An attic to sleep,

Our mattress was three blankets.

Ouch, ow, @#%^! Cheap place.

The mountaintop farm

Qingjing’s quite cool sheepdog show

Did not disappoint.

3/5

Two days to payday,

So a pretty tame weekend.

Uh oh, rent is due?

3/12

Friends to visit us;

Simultaneously sick.

See you next weekend.

3/19

A house party here.

Flip cup, beer pong, both fun games.

Floor smells like college.

3/26

Have no big plans yet;

My friend has a new girlfriend.

You’re welcome, C*******

4/2

Spring Scream Spring Scream Spring

Scream Spring Scream Spring Scream Spring Scream

Spring Scream Spring Scream YEAHHHHHHHHH

So there you go, a quick look at the past, present and future. Some interesting teaching related things: I was doing an oral test which is just a 1-on-1 Q & A session with students. This was quite a low level, and I asked “What’s your favorite color?” Although the finer meaning of ‘favorite’ is lost on them, they (should) know the pattern and say “My favorite color is ___.” Not this all-star. His response? “MONKEY!” Yes. For real.

On one quiz the students were filling in charts of verb, verb past tense, and verb past participle like drink/drank/drunk throw/threw/thrown, etc… For fly, one student wrote fly/fland/flet. I don’t know why. Still, I rank this student far smarter than the few whom left the boxes blank even after I said not to and it would cost points.

Overall though teaching is going quite well. I can tell I’m developing as not only are my classes responding better to me, but when I sub a class or otherwise go in cold, they are still better. Is it going well enough for me to want to stay another year? I don’t know yet. I’m still quite interested in improving my Chinese and see myself landing a job denominated in American dollars. That said I also find it hard to believe I wouldn’t come back out here again for some reason or another.

The Chinese is getting much better. Irene is helping me dramatically; I think we’ve reached a point where we speak more Chinese than English. Speaking at length can be quite a pain but responding to a pointed question is not difficult, and my listening has improved the most out of the 4 facets from being in Taiwan. This is no shock since it’s Chinese is literally unavoidable here, I hope I can translate it (pun intended) into speaking improvement.

A milestone: I am now able to drive legally in Taiwan, for both scooters and cars. Whoop! I extended my International Driving Permit which expires in Taiwan when you become a permanent resident. Why is this relevant? Doesn’t every foreigner and even some Chinese drive their scooters unlicensed? Yes. But for Spring Scream, my roommates, Irene, and another training friend will take Irene’s parents’ car to Kending for the 4-day weekend. Have I met them? No. Do they even know about me and Irene? I don’t think so. Am I surprised? Yes. Will I commit vehicular manslaughter when some aggressive scooter zips in front of me? Sweet lord I hope not.

As far as money goes, March has plenty of hours so after we get paid for it I should be on fine fiscal footing from there on. February was short and we lost a week with Chinese New Year so everybody was hurting a little. Hourly work isn’t fun that way. The receipt lottery drawing is tomorrow so that always provides a little excitement, even if I’ve been stiffed both times so far.

There have been a few other things I have since forgotten to blog about that I thought might have provided an entertaining anecdote. Oh well. Now that I’m working full time and have become acclimated my desire to blog has decreased. I’m sorry if that means drier entries for you, I know exactly how it feels to read something that you don’t necessarily have to but feel a loose obligation to do so. I did go to college after all.

Go Badgers, congratulations Tubs, and good luck Japan!

pictures, again

Pictures up on flickr from Chinese New Year zoo trip, and this past weekend's trip to Pingxi for a lantern festival. Going to try to get a post about that up within 24 hours to avoid the backlog problem I've been creating for myself the past couple months.

新竹站到了

Well time keeps on slippin’ while I stay right here. It’s been a month since updates, and why you ask? First of all, the daily grind is quite pedestrian. I get up, do nothing significant, go to work, come back and do more nothing, then sleep. Second the weekends can be quite fun, but then when there’s something to write about, I either don’t have the time, or have the time but want to spend it doing something that isn’t so laborious.

I’m going to cover a whole lot as quick as I can so stay with me. New Year’s has been discussed, then the next week was my birthday. I’m still the youngest at my branch, hooray! My actual birthday wasn’t on a weekend, so instead we waited until Saturday to go out. First people gathered at our apartment for just a few drinks, then off to local American restaurant #1, Squares. I had a quite nice burger there though I have since found better. After that, we went to a (pretty crappy) nightclub called Goethburg. It has really tacky décor and a subpar sound system, with a meh DJ. I didn’t really mind however; since clubs in general aren’t my thing I spent the vast majority of my time playing foosball outside the main bar area. I already won a couple games during training and I fancy myself pretty good, so I challenged my friends first and then some strangers. I won more than I lost but still came out with a disappointing record around ~.667 but I guess that’s what happens when you’re out of practice. After everyone else got tired of the club we called it a night.

This party pretty much just consisted of people in my extended network of work friends. We got a new roommate that Friday however and she joined us too. Hailing from New York, there are now 3 of us in the apartment, making rent much lower but also just adding another person to talk to, so really everyone is a winner in the arrangement. In an example of mind-numbing bureaucracy, she needed an original lease in order to apply for the Alien Resident Card, not a copy. Sounds normal, right? Well, her name isn’t anywhere on it. In fact there’s nothing to indicate she didn’t steal it or outright invent some fictional property, but the office needs a piece of paper and the gears of government must turn.

The weekend after amounted to nothing much. During the week I went to a meeting about teaching at an elementary school. This is a unique program to this elementary school, apparently because some rich sponsor went there decades ago and now wants to fund English classes for the whole school or something, complete with real live foreigners. It will add an extra 4 hours a week to my pay so that will be nice, and will also serve to get me up in the morning instead of being so lazy.

On the 22^nd/23^rd, my roommates went to Taipei to see LMFAO do a show at a high-end club called Luxy. Since I was not as enthralled with this group, I went to Taichung. Met up with Yvonne, went to a housewarming party, went to another club, and watched a bunch of movies. One of them was Deliverance which is a mightily messed up movie, but truly excellent in every way. I came back Sunday night and graded a bunch of homework.

A week after that, it was almost Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is the only extended vacation time I get. There are a couple random national holidays we get off, but CNY is 6 days, Feb 2-7. Before that though, was the weekend then a couple days. The work was easy; the weekend was a little more eventful. Yvonne came up, and on Saturday we two and my roommates went for hot pot with about a dozen friends. That went well, then the guys split up and we went to a bar while the girls went to a club. We talked, they danced, and both got back late. To make a long story short, Yvonne and I had something of a falling out. She left on Sunday, for good.

Having a two-day workweek was nice, getting paid early was nicer, and actual CNY was the nicest. At first it was weird; every non-chain shop was abandoned all day for several days. Tuesday was the last day of work, Wednesday was CNY eve which we spent in Hsinchu lighting off bottle rockets (I’m sort of a pro at lighting 4 at a time, arcing, and the simultaneous cross-direction light) on top of our building’s roof. Thursday we went to Taipei, dropped our stuff at the Happy Family Hostel, got food and then waited for a training friend to come up from Taichung. Did that hostel sound familiar? Before you go looking, yes it was the one I stayed at prior to training and yes, I remembered the way back perfectly without having to wander aimlessly for kilometers.

We retrieved our friend at the train station, dropped off his stuff, and made our way to the zoo. It was actually quite cool. We only got there at 2:30 or so but spent all 2.5 hours we could there until it closed and still didn’t see it all. The highlights were the huge nocturnal house which was the largest I’ve ever been in by far and of course the giant pandas. They are named Tuantuan and Yuanyuan which if put together i.e. tuanyuan or 團圓 as it would be written in characters, means “reunion.” It’s the same word used for what families do during Chinese New Year when they all gather together back at their parents’ home. Why name a pair of pandas after something so silly? Do you name your dogs Thanks and Giving?

The pandas, like every giant panda everywhere in the world, are actually on a loan from China. And seeing as how “reunification” is a top priority for the glorious people’s republic across the strait, the names were chosen with obvious intent. Still, the pandas draw huge crowds and at least when you’re at the zoo, nobody seems to mind what the cute and fuzzy bamboo-munchers are called. Random side note: one of the bathrooms at the zoo was covered in fecal matter. Paintings, photos, and diagrams of how they harvest poop and what it’s used for adorn the outside of this bathroom. I didn’t use it and see the inside, though now I’m wishing I had.

The zoo closing, we took the MRT back downtown. After changing we went to the Brass Monkey, the most popular foreigner bar in Taipei. It’s really nothing that special and the beer is overpriced, but they had Eric’s favorite, foosball. I played against the friends I was with and for the most part crushed them. Then I played the locals, who were another beast entirely. As I said I think I’m pretty good at the game. I always did well in Thanksgiving tournaments. I played against an Italian and a local, and the games were razor-thin. Both I had to come back from; one I won 10-9 after being down 3-6, the other I won 5-4 after being down 1-3. Yet despite those wins, I don’t honestly think I was the superior player. I got the lucky bounces and amazing saves I needed. Still, it was a rush just to play. Then I ran into Tom.

Tom is an ace. He’s could be a better hustler than Terrence Howard. He had every facet of the game refined to diamantine perfection. The through passes from defense, quick goalie moves, and best of all, the quick-strike offense were all a clinic. He knew how to place the ball absolutely perfectly, and most impressively, he was just so fast. I knew what was happening. By the time it was 1-3 (my determination not to get skunked paid off) I already knew the drill, but I was helpless against the next two goals. He placed the ball so immaculately I couldn’t help but stand amused. After such a shellacking I walked off head held high, albeit in defeat.

From the Brass Monkey we went to Room 18, yet another club. After paying for cover and a drink, I opened my red envelope to discover three casino chips. They had a blackjack table as part of their CNY festivities. I played pretty close to optimum play, or at least as close as I could for having three drinks in me, no recollection of the blackjack card, and a burning desire to win. I didn’t do anything super stupid like splitting tens, and tried to hold off when the dealer had a low up-card. It didn’t help, and I never got higher than 5 chips before busting out. I honestly didn’t ever care however, since I still have no clue what the chips were even good for. All I know is they didn’t exchange them for drinks, so how useful could they be?

Three hours burned away pretty quickly at Room 18. Before long we were outside and on the way to Family Mart. Why pay a 5-10x premium in a club when there’s a perfectly good convenience store nearby? Around 3:30AM someone had the idea we should get bagels. I wasn’t about to disagree so I got in the cab. We got out at a KTV parlor. In the middle of the trip, I overheard a phone conversation that they were closed. I don’t know why this then meant we had to go to a KTV place, but 6 of us did anyway, and we stayed until past 7:00 AM. Truly, this was not my idea. It was made even more difficult by the fact that there were 3 Taiwanese, 3 foreigners, and one of the foreigners simply didn’t sing; he took the mic, danced, but made no audible sound. Now I swear to you I like KTV when of a sufficient BAC, but even this was a bit much for me. Thankfully as my voice died and the night turned to morning more and more Chinese songs were added to the playlist. I wasn’t complaining.

We exited KTV and immediately noticed Taipei was saturated by the glow of natural vitamin D. Not having slept yet, this was quite odd. My roommate and I flagged a taxi (new roommate and friend had retired at various points already) and shuffled over to our hostel rooms. Three and a half hours later, there was a knock on the door saying we had to get out. We did, moseyed over to the train station across the street, and bought our tickets. My heart sank as the ticket lady informed us “沒有位子。” No seats. Well damn, normally I can take a standing ride with the best of them, but I was not feeling at the top of my game. No one was. We boarded the train with dread in our eyes. Thankfully, Taipei was the first stop for this train. We got on and commandeered some still-empty seats, dreading the time they would be claimed by their rightful owners.

Miraculously, it never happened. I don’t know how no one badgered us, but all four of us rode on in tranquility to Hsinchu. It might be because we were foreign. Or maybe the people who had our seats took other seats and were never evicted themselves – I certainly noticed people checking tickets and looking at us. Whatever it was, it was heavenly. Ninety minutes later the loudspeaker announced some of the most comforting words ever: “新竹站到了。” or “We have arrived at Hsinchu Station.” We left, ate, and slept.

This was not the end of CNY, indeed it was only the beginning. The rest was less frenetic though, and while we went to a club in Hsinchu for a psy-trance party another friend had been dying to go to, everyone was very chill and it wasn’t a comparatively late night.

That’s where I stand. Short week this week since we started on Tuesday, but otherwise back to normalcy. I’ll try to get back to weekly updates, or at least every two weeks since I know these long posts are a lot to digest. But really if you think it takes a long time to read, remember how much longer the creation process is. I know pretty pictures break up the monotony and I do have a few pictures to upload, but I can’t be bothered to do that at 2:30AM. I’ll get some of my scooter up too at some point.

PS The scooter tow story is unremarkable, I just got the borrowed scooter towed then had to get a coworker to help me find it and pay the fine. Nothing special there other than my advice to not park in the handicap spot in front of the train station. Not a good idea, even if it did work once before.

下次！

new stuff

coming in <26 hours! Yes, I said 26.

photos!

Additions to flickr. Hess Banquet and my birthday party in two separate blocs

Christmas Past

December got busy in a hurry, and as things tend to do with my blog it got shoved to the back burner. I’d be lying if I said I never had a single free moment to update, but time has been scarce. Let’s power on.

So what’s happened in a month?

First there was Christmas. Or at least another Christmas party. I went to Taichung again (this will become a theme) for another holiday party, this time hosted by a different English teacher. We met at the bottom of her apartment building and were ushered into an empty karaoke room. Amazingly, she cooked a complete Christmas meal and had been at it all day. We also had a round of Yankee Secret Santa, complete with the necessary stealing. My turn came up pretty late; there was a snowglobe and mug set I desperately wanted. The only problem was that the person who had it was the 12-year-old child of a security guard at the apartment. He was so pumped when he opened it, I couldn’t bear to take it from him. When my name was picked I faked as if to take his stuff. He was confused, then saddened, but I quickly made for the present pile and let him keep his loot. My reward: a bottle of Tunnel 88, only the finest in blinding alcohol. After the Christmas party we adjourned to a bar called FM that was on a rooftop over a Starbucks. It was actually pretty cool, though the Hoegaarden was awfully expensive coming in at $340 a pop. I didn’t order one that particular night. At said bar I had a lively discussion with some of the guests of the previous parties. One guy who was a little bit older was perfectly nice but perhaps hadn’t taken his meds regularly. If you’ve ever played Civilization IV, he looked exactly like the Montezuma character. If you haven’t, here you go:

He had a headdress. I don’t know why. I never got around to asking about it. Instead he went on about Sodium Fluoride and how it’s used as both rat poison (true) and fluoridation for the water supply (true) while I tried in vain to demonstrate how our body needs lots of things in little quantities. You need iron, but do you go around eating nails from Ace Hardware? He had none of it. We also talked about vaccines (they’re killing you, and not just by the one in a million averse reaction) chem trails, (killing you too) and other inane subjects. I thought for sure he was going to bring up fan death next. He was a really nice guy though and had some really lucid things to say about religion though, so it was still a good talk.

That night, at 4am, I went to eat Hot Pot. Hot Pot is not a proper noun, and I don’t capitalize dumplings, fried rice, or even pizza puffs for that matter. I capitalize it because it really is That Damn Good. It’s my favorite Chinese food, bar none. I wish dumplings were more available in the states. I wish beef noodles didn’t actually mean ramen in the US. I wish I owned a Hot Pot restaurant. Yvonne woke me up and insisted we go. Who is Yvonne? Yvonne is the girl I had met the week before when we discussed the future of Taiwan. Yvonne loves Hot Pot, probably more than life itself. At 4am she demanded we go. I resisted – beds and comforters are warm and soft, night scooter rides are cold and bumpy. Then I decided that I didn’t fly 14,000 miles to a semi-tropical rogue province just to bitch out because it was ‘late’ or ‘cold.’ No, it was time for the game face.

So on with the jacket, the scooter helmet, and the yawns. Yvonne tore through Taichung, and red lights served no obstacle. It was obvious she was on a mission. As we flew through the night I wondered to myself what on earth kind of establishment is open until 6:30AM?

The establishment god himself would dine at every night, if he’s Asian and likes spicy food.

We entered and Yvonne started regaling me with the lore about the place. Getting in is not sort of impossible during non-nocturnal business hours, you have to book ahead a week and know the maître’d on shift. I took this with a grain of salt, but then when we went my second time (I’ll get to that later) we actually had to wait for a table at 5 AM. We were seated quickly this time though, and the place had a sort of class to it. To start with, all the waitresses are super formal, using all the right honorifics and performing the low bow whenever they come by to refill tea or broth, take orders, or the like. The main attraction though is clearly the food. Fundamentally it’s like any other hot pot place. For the uninitiated, hot pot is basically a pot stuck over a massive flame in the middle of your table. The good places will have a partition for two different broths, both of which should be at a rolling boil. You have several trays of raw food at your table and you simply drop them into the oily broth and let physics do work. Thin beef strips cook in seconds, solid meatballs can be several minutes.

This place, 鼎王/dingwang/Tripod King, just does everything in a superb fashion. There is sauce available for after the broth, and that is delicious. The beer is cold, the rice is sticky, and the meat is marvelous. We also ordered fishballs, mushrooms, greens, and god knows what else. A thousand and many dollars later, I was nearly unable to move. It was the most full I have ever felt from a place that was not all-you-can-eat. (I refer not to the glorious Old Country Buffet but rather to the Bellagio dinner buffet at which I literally ate so much that for 15 minutes I could not walk without a bodily function.) I did not want to move, so I didn’t. And that was Hot Pot and Taichung II.

All that occurred over the weekend of Dec 18-19. On December 21^st, I went to you guessed it, Taichung! This time, for training. Hess does follow-up trainings at 1, 3, 6 and 9 month intervals ostensibly to teach you more about teaching. I think it’s an ingenius way to increase retention rates by getting people back together with friends forged during training, showing corporate is there for support, and giving a day off in the middle of the week. Ours was on Tuesday, so I went to Taichung Monday night. Yvonne met me at the train station and we drove off to eat. I forget where. After that we went to an indoor sports facility/arcade that had bowling, ping pong, batting cages, pool, whack-a-mole, DDR, and more. We bowled. After a few warm-up frames that saw 4 or 5 consecutive goose eggs on the scoreboard for me, I dropped the first game but won the next 4 convincingly and delivered a richly deserved beatdown in a “sport” I know nothing about but like to pretend Americans invented anyway. Sufficiently humiliated, Yvonne committed ritual suicide in the lanes while still in her bowling shoes to regain her family’s honor. Not really. She just felt silly after maybe a bit too much trash talk.

Training itself was nothing special. We reviewed culture shock and grammar. In tangentially related culture shock news, I saw a family of 5 lined up on a scooter in the past month. I’ve seen 6 riders in images online, but seeing 5 in the flesh and blood made me feel pretty proud. We learned more about obscure tenses mostly involving the word ‘perfect,’ and other stuff useless outside of my current profession. The training ended at 6 and we walked to dinner together, where we found a surprisingly good restaurant called Tapa Tapa. It wasn’t just passable, it was genuinely tasty. Taichung III was short but sweet.

From training the week passed and soon it was Christmas Eve, a Friday. Native Speaking Teachers (NSTs) are exempt from teaching Christmas if they so choose, and I chose so another NST friend and I went out to our regular neighborhood bar for a couple hours and ordered pitchers. It was a really weird Christmas Eve. Not a weird night, it was about as typical as typical nights get: going out for drinks after work then hitting up fast food (Mos Burger, google it) but it was the weirdest Christmas Eve ever for me. Not leaving work until 10pm, then doing nothing Christmas related. The next day brought Christmas, and that afternoon I went to a braai. A braai is a South African barbeque. True to the name, there were 3 Americans and about two dozen South Africans present at this shindig. I learned how to make braai brickies, which are sandwiches that are bread, chutney, tomatoes, salt, onion, cheese, bread in that bottom to top order. They were awesome, and apparently they weren’t even done properly. I also ate grilled mushrooms and grilled chicken, and it was nice to get away from something that wasn’t fried.

The braai lasted the rest of the day and then on Sunday my friend Ed came. Ed went to high school with me and is a Taiwanese-American so he was over here for a couple weeks. We went to another Christmas lunch at my boss’ apartment then played a little basketball. With work resuming on Monday though and Hsinchu not being the throbbing metropolis one might hope, he was only in town for two days and a night. The following week passed without event, and midway through I confirmed my plans. You have one guess as to my destination.

If you said anything other than Taichung, your reading comprehension may be worse than my students’, or I’ve been boring you enough to make you feel this blog is more of an obligation than anything. I hope this isn’t the case, and that’s what the comment section is for. Heck you can even post anonymously. But back to the story.

I knew I was to be in Taichung on New Year’s Eve. I knew my work ended at 9pm and if I could get out at 9:05 it would be a blessing. This was all moot however as the normal train tickets were sold out way in advance. High Speed Rail tickets were only available for the 10:27, and the HSR station is on the opposite end of town, about 30 minutes away. So I dropped off a coworker at the train station trying to make a 9:20 for Taipei (she made it) and zoomed off to the HSR station. I arrived, scanned for parking, and didn’t see any. So doing what any self-respecting Taiwanese person would do, I created some. Rather than move another scooter and risk damage, I simply moved a traffic cone. First I parked up against the street, picked up the cone on the left side of my scooter, and moved it to the right. It was precisely as easy as it sounds. I made my train with time to spare and 27 minute later arrived at the Taichung HSR station. I followed the signs to the taxi area. On my left was the normal taxi queue. On my right were two guys yelling for me to get in their taxis that were in the dropoff/kiss’n’ride area, quite illegally. I decided to go with the first guy I encountered.

Best decision ever.

This man was simply the most insane driver I have ever had the pleasure of riding with. I don’t claim to be the guru of taxis, but this man was missing something in his brain that should have been shouting “DANGER WILL ROBINSON!” First, he was a pure speed junky. My train arrived at 10:52. I was at my destination at 11:03. I beat Yvonne by 30 minutes. He was always punching the accelerator. His only brake was the friction between the tires and road, with one exception. The brake was for running red lights.

We went 0 for 2 on actually stopping at red lights. This wasn’t 4am on a random night, this was 11pm on New Year’s Eve. Thankfully we never got downtown and went basically outskirt to outskirt, but there were many people on the road. The first one I didn’t think much of; it was a T intersection and we were in the right lane on the ‘safe’ side, far away from the bisecting road. He didn’t even actually brake for that one. Then the next one blew me away. We were still on the major road we had turned onto off the highway. Getting closer to the bar though, we needed to go left. There were 4 lanes: a left turn lane, car lane, car lane, and scooter/right turn lane. The left turn lane was backed up, as were the car lanes. So my guy cruised to the empty right lane, then cut across the front cars to the front of the left turn lane and in the intersection. I liked this but didn’t think too much of it. What qualifies as a first-class moving violation in America is standard taxi school in some places. But then this guy kept going. But I shouldn’t say kept going as that implies a sense of stability and continuity. He eased into the left turn lane then put his foot on the ground.

A yellow bat out of hell, the taxi roared forward. I think I only regained consciousness when we reached the destination, the awesomeness blew me away so hard. I praised his driving abilities and paid the fare. I got out and immediately met several middle-aged women whom were looking for the same bar I was. This surprised me. We walked around, up a street, back down it, asking everyone, no one seemed to know where this phantasmal “89k” bar was which didn’t bode well. I called Yvonne who was of limited use. I convinced the women to ask a patrolling cop for directions. They balked, but I said if anyone knew where the foreigner bar was it would definitely be the police. Relenting, the leader asked the cops who kindly pointed us in the right direction. On seeing that it was more of a traditional bar and not a club (both are usually translated as bar into Chinese) they decided instead to go to one of the nearby clubs. We parted and they told me they opened up this new restaurant. 

“Cool” I said, “Where?”

“Datong street” I was told. Hmmm I didn’t know it, but might they have a business card? Searching, searching…

“No I can’t find it but it’s a tapas restau-“

“You mean Tapa Tapa!?” I interrupted.

“Yes!”

“Yeah, I’ve already been there. It was great.”

“Good! I’m Jennifer. If you go there, free coffee, whatever. Bye!”

So I’ve been promised free coffee by the owner of a sweet restaurant that I have previously visited. Nice.

Yvonne arrived at half past and we got drinks. The year came and went, as we popped the streamer things and listened to a nice cover band. Not sure why, but they covered Flight of the Concords among others. From there we just stayed at the bar for hours. Toward the end we left and made my second trip to 鼎王 heavenliness.

I’ll stop there, as I need to sleep. My next post will cover a birthday party, new roommate, homework, elementary school, and a scooter towing that actually happened in December but needs due justice. Pictures as I have time Woohooo!

soon!

New post coming in <24 hours! Of this I swear!

The Sick and the Dread

Oi, long time no see. Last time we met I had finished my training and just moved to Hsinchu and observed some classes.

Now, I am officially Teacher Eric. I walked into my classes and all of them except the teenagers just started laughing. It actually surprised me a little, because I figured of all people to find foreigners funny, kids who see and interact with them weekly would be more resistant to the novelty. Figured wrong. My first week one girl requested to touch my hair. She said it was like Barbie hair.

I walked into my first class and they were going berserk. Kids tend to do that when they are forced to attend night classes after already being cooped up in their soul-sucking elementary schools for the past 8 hours. I also found out that my CT (co-teacher or Chinese Teacher, take your pick) Vera was the head CT for my branch. Although not technically my boss since the NSTs (Native Speaking Teachers) have a separate chain of command, she says “jump” and I ask “how high?” She is definitely my superior.

Class itself was rough the first day. I forgot to introduce some vocab and students were correspondingly lost on the story. I did a terrible job explaining grammar points, and the students were again appropriately confused. It was definitely a fake-it-til-you-make-it experience. Show no fear and the students won’t devour you whole, or something like that but nonetheless my brow was accumulating sweat beads as I made an idiot of myself for 110 minutes. When it was all finally over I immediately apologized to Vera for the mistakes I knew I made and the ones I didn’t know about too. I hope she is warming to me.

My second class that day was with the oldest students I have, around 14.There are about a dozen of them and every single one has quite strong English. The curriculum for them tackles fairly advanced concepts like pollution, transportation, evolution, and for this level at least, natural-world themes. Most of my other classes are with young kids, some as young as 5. The young ones are awesome. They are jazzed to be in class, like to move around, yell loudly when repeating words, and find Teacher Eric’s impersonation of lions, tigers, and bears to be just the awesomest thing ever. For the super young ones, there is even story time when I sit on a chair and the kids gather around me. The most challenging are the middle ones, who are taking the English seriously (if you’re five you certainly don’t) but still aren’t that good at it.

Getting to work was an adventure in itself for a while. I bummed rides from my boss the head NST for a while, but my HNST Japie had to go all the way across town, and occasionally he had early classes so I took taxis a bunch of times. It got to be a huge pain, but getting a scooter proved harder than I had thought. My apartment complex is relatively far from downtown by Hsinchu standards, definitely not something you walk. The few scooter stores I found near me all wanted proper documentation or gave prices too high. I am not licensed for Taiwan as an international license is not enough, so they refused to hand me the deed. Apparently many places sell under the table to foreigners but all I’ve got near me are legit.

I was worried my boss would get annoyed for another reason too; I called in sick on my second day of work. I agonized over it, tossed it over in my mind. But after I had spent half an hour feeling crappy in my local convenience store, I realized that were it not my second day and I’d been at the company I would call in sick in a heartbeat. I soon phoned my HNST Japie and he didn’t seem too surprised or miffed.

So what did I have? I think it was Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Why, you ask? Well put these together: first our fire alarm goes off at 1:00am. Then the next morning we discover the fridge is broken and not cooling, though still plugged in. Throughout the night I am nauseous, have a pounding headache, and feeling kind of like it feels when you’re massively hungover yet still slightly drunk from the night before, only I’d been straight sober for a week. I looked up the CO poisoning symptoms and they matched. I looked up refrigerators and though many models are not a risk, some in America before the 1970s are, and I’m not confident standards are better here. The final kicker is that they only are a problem when the cooling unit is broken.

One thing I’m not sure of is if it was entirely responsible for the ensuing 3 days of bowel movement. Extremely regular bowel movements. That could have been something I ate, I’m not sure and I’m definitely not a doctor. Either way it sucked and it carried over into much of that weekend of the 4^th. Another problem was that our freezer died and it took all our food with it including the two dozen chicken breasts I had just bought. They started to rot and since I still had my cold I mentioned at the end of last post, I couldn’t really smell it. My poor roommate, however, could. I cleaned it out and bleached it but it’s still an absolute stinkbomb to open the freezer. I’ll probably have another go at washing it soon.

Speaking of food, some things truly exist only in America. While watching my daily dose of ESPN.com clips, I saw an ad for a Papa John’s Double Bacon Six Cheese XL pizza. If you think that exists anywhere outside the USA and the Great White North then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. There is Costco pizza here and it’s the closest thing you get to back home, but nothing that makes your jaw drop and your cholesterol rise.

Not that I haven’t cooked however; since the repair of the fridge I bought some steaks and have already cooked two of them, with fried potatoes. I like cooking, though I only have a stove. I don’t know if it’s ironic or just plain makes sense, but I’m pretty sure that I won’t learn anything about making Chinese food here since it’s all so readily available and good, while I am my own best source for Western food and should see that ability rise. My first steak was marinated in too much soy sauce, but it seemed to leave to all be concentrated towards one end so it wasn’t too bad.

Last weekend I was able to get out once and go to bar alley. There isn’t much to it, just 2 bars that are open nightly and a third that seems dead. At the end of the alley there’s another bar close by. It’s foreigner haunt #1, but they show sweet movies like 300 as well as EPL matches. The beers on special are only 100 bucks which isn’t bad for a bar but is still  expensive compared to any sort of store.

During the week I was also able to explore a little bit more of Hsinchu. One of my CTs Lara wanted a Language Exchange so I met her and her friend Eunice and we went to a market and then they took me around downtown Hsinchu a little, including to a temple. It was nice to see something that wasn’t the road to work or a bar and I tried some meatballs that were surrounded by a gloopy starch. I also had a weird omelet sort of thing but the oysters it came with were a bit past their prime so it wasn’t that good.

I survived teaching my full load of 10 classes last week, and managed to enjoy the weekend now that I wasn’t sick, moving into an apartment, or getting worked to the bone in training. I am lucky enough to not have any Saturday classes for a little bit (all changing next weekend) so on Friday night I might another NST from my branch at a bar near the central canal in Hsinchu, close to bar alley but not on it. It was a lot more relaxed and without the creepy foreigner vibe. There I met two other guys who had worked at Hess previously. We talked about work, the benefits and drawbacks of a structured company, then got on our scooters and zoomed off away from the bar, up a hill, and to some random creek. We were planning on going to a temple but decided against breaking in.

Oh wait, the scooter.

I am borrowing one from an NST currently on vacation back in South Africa. It has more than 60,000km on it so each time I ride I wonder if I won’t be going back on it. Starting it up requires you to start it, wait for it to die once, then start it again. Still, it’s a godsend. I can go anywhere in a flash. No more bumming rides, I can schedule my own time however I want. It doesn’t have the greatest pickup in the world, and the horn doesn’t work, but it’s so convenient. After going up to the creek and having a nice late-night/early-morning debate about the future of tribalism and nationalism with regards to Africa, I returned home to sleep. The next day I would need my energy.

My roommate Marné wanted to go to Taichung a few days back, so we planned on it this Saturday. After her class we took off in the afternoon and I scootered our way to the train station. Having a backseat driver is not fun. The oohs and ahhs are enough, but then there’s the shifting of balance and clenching of fists as I pull off maneuvers common to Taiwan and frankly drive quite conservatively. We got to the train station, I parked in a ‘handicapped zone’ and we went to wait in line. We bought our tickets and 2 minutes later were on the train, standing-room only. An hour after that we arrived in Taichung, found dinner (dumplings!) and waited for another friend to arrive. The 3 of us then met a guy we all trained with and he took us to a holiday party a friend of his was having. It was nice to get into the holiday spirit. They had a fierce punch, eggnog, lots of Christmas decorations, and a KTV Christmas CD. There were no microphones so we had to make do with singing loudly, but I sang a couple anyway. I love Christmas music and I love KTV, so it was only natural. From there we went to a club called Spin. $600 for all-you-can-drink. Girls had it even better than guys at $350 each.  There wasn’t exactly dancing inside, just people sort of swaying. Worse yet, there was no Liar’s Dice. It ended up okay though as I met a Taiwanese friend of someone from the holiday party. We found a stairwell where the decibel level was under 100 and talked about the future of Taiwan and how screwed it is. Like it or not, it is. Sorry.

After suffering through many a poorly made Long Island Iced Tea the police showed up, or at least idled around outside. At first I noticed I could hear myself think, then long lines for the bar formed. The club manager turned off the music and stopped serving alcohol. I don’t know what kind of place is too cheap to invest in soundproof walls , but I guess the answer would be ‘apparently the kind of place you go to Eric.’ Eventually the party was restarted but the club never really recovered that night. We went back to the training friend’s apartment and crashed on various flat surfaces searching for sleep. After fitful rest, the next day we went to McDonald’s then the train station and headed back. Standing room only of course, but when it’s only 1 hour who cares?

That’s that, my first truly fun weekend here. I’ll be in Taichung several more times, as that is where follow-up training is on the 21^st, and then again January 16^th for our yearly banquet. I doubt I’ll go to Taipei before I get my first paycheck, perhaps not even until the second. Turns out things cost money and they want me to work here. That’s okay with me though.

Until next time! I’ll try to get one done before New Year’s.

P.S. Clarence, Kenny, notice the time. 5 AM on a weeknight. That’s how much I care.

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!