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!

post soon!

Hey sports fans,

Sorry for the delay. My first week in Taipei amounted to very little, and then when training started it has been just a blur so there was at first nothing to write about and thereafter no time. I'm moving into an apartment tomorrow in my new city Hsinchu and hope to have a post up a few days afterward, ideally by Sunday. Anyhow, you'll hear from me soon!

It’s My Way or the Taipei

Most compliments I get here aren’t worth telling you about. You bust out anything more complex than ni hao and there’s instant cooing. Walk down the street and I know I’ll turn a few heads, no big deal. Sometimes though, I still get my socks blown off. And the place where I talk the most English to the most girls is English Corner. For some reason the students there are predominantly female. I don’t know the ratio of the university, but even when I’m not there, I’m walking in or out, it’s always girls. Guys tend to be outnumbered around 3:1 or maybe even 5:1 some days. In my presence some get extremely shy and will literally not say a word all session. Others are just emboldened, so a group conversation usually ends up me engaging about 3 people. I try to periodically ask the others questions at some point, but this never really does much. So last Wednesday I was doing my time, asking my questions. “What’s your favorite food? Do you watch the NBA?” etc… The conversation was hitting somewhat of a lull as my last answer petered out into nowhere and I tried to think of a simpler way to explain it in English. Out of the blue, one of the girls whom were actively engaged in conversation says “I like your fur.”

I was not wearing any fur.

I looked at her, searching for a meaning. Faced with such a strange statement I decided to go with the blunt businesslike approach and informed her that whatever she mean she said it wrong.

She leaned over the table and pointed at my arm, quite close. Her face was wracked with hesitation – Do I dare touch the golden-haired giant?

She didn’t, but the pointing was enough and at first I grinned then couldn’t suppress the laugh. The hesitation melted away, replaced by a sense of dread. She had no clue what she just said. A quick chat with her neighbor made everything clear, and she quickly buried her face in her arms. I blushed too, but when she summoned courage again to face the table she was redder than Rudolph’s nose. She giggled, the rest of the table laughed, and for the next whole minute no one really strung together a coherent series of words.

Finally, I broke it: “You mean my arm hair.”

“Yes! Yes I like it very much.”

And so ends that encounter with weird stuff I’ve been complimented on. During the same teaching session I was also asked what girls do in America when they like a boy. At first I thought she was asking about guys pursuing girls but nope. So I borrowed a translator and looked up ‘flirt.’ When everyone saw it the response seemed to pretty much be ‘Girls don’t do that in Taiwan. We’re too shy.’

Could have fooled me.

Last English corner tidbit: I have found a new frontrunner for best name. Although I have heard a random person on the internet claim to meet someone who chose the English name ‘Toaster’ my best so far, from last week, is Smilina. I had met Smiles before, and people whose name meant smile in Chinese, but Smilina, of the storied etymology ‘Smile + -ina,’ is the best I have personally met.

I’ve noted how chaotically the classes seem to go here. Projects meetings don’t happen, information about classes goes out minutes before you need to know, and other minor fiascoes. One odd thing is the requirements made of students; one of my professors wanted to invite us to lunch Saturday, and had this planned for three weeks. I can handle a little weekend time relating to a class, especially when there’s no grading pressure. The lunch was supposed to be this Saturday, and in class at 5pm on Friday, he dropped some news on us. For starters, his car only held four passengers, and there were supposed to be seven students plus him. He then solicited the entire class for bikes. A guy next to me raised his hand, and the professor instantly assigned me to borrow his bike and follow along. Where exactly we still didn’t know. Then I found out it was to his house which was ten minutes away. By car. Saturday came and went and I definitely didn’t go. For one the guy never gave me his bike (though I never asked). And then there was my lack of desire to comply with arbitrary impositions made with little regard for anyone else involved. And for closure, that group project I’d been mentioning did finally happen Wednesday. After the replacement professor lectured for the first two hours, we presented. Our group leader was first and he was formidable. Then the heart of the order totally let us down. They took the microphone, mumbled into it and read off straight from slides or printed material. Then one guy showed a video for his presentation. When he put it on I thought it looked pretty well done. It was actually pretty high quality stuff. Too high quality, as it turned out. My suspicions gathered quickly when graphics beyond Windows Movie Maker appeared. Then I realized everything in the first minute was spelled correctly. At last I saw the word ‘fiefdom’ and all doubts were shattered. Coming back to the group, he admitted to the theft straight-up and without shame.

All of this is moot.

I am now in Taipei, along with all of my stuff. I am in a hostel room that is almost 60 square feet. I have left the Great Asia State University permanently. I didn’t let on about this earlier since I was still going through paperwork and talking to my new employer, Hess. Hess is a large English-teaching chain in Taiwan, and yours truly will be a cram school teacher dealing with rugrats in one month’s time. Training starts Nov 15^th, there’s a medical checkup Nov 12^th, and I got here earlier because I didn’t see much of a point in hanging around. Why did I leave? First, I wasn’t learning enough Chinese. Every class was in English, and I was always the one people wanted to speak English with. The dorm + class situation left me without much communication with locals. Most importantly though, I just couldn’t stand class. Every minute was pulling teeth. Short of Chinese class, I don’t think I could stand any class right now. Much as I love history, I think there would be a similar negative reaction to a history master’s in America. Signing up for a 2-year MBA program was simply a huge mistake. So here I sit in Taipei, planning nothing but to while away some days with photography and exploring.

Most of my ending time at Asia U was spent with Mongolians, specifically Jackie, Golden, and Yahoo. And here they are!

This was taken Sunday night, and Monday morning I departed. At 7:10AM I just walked out of the building. The student on desk duty just looked at me and Yahoo (he helped me carry some stuff) and while clearly confused, said nothing. Being white lets you get away with a lot over here. I am understandably forgiven for any cultural faux pas I commit, and no one ever approaches me to ask something important. I’m inundated with poorly-pronounced ‘Hello’ on an hourly basis, but again, nothing substantive. So away I went from the dorm and didn’t look back. I said goodbye to Yahoo and gave him a handshake. Hopefully I’ll meet up with some of them over winter break. I walked down the road, foregoing the bus-of-uncertain-schedule, and also not wanting to be spotted by a professor or anyone I know.

So I trundled off away from campus. I was only going maybe half a mile, but it took forever. I was weighed down by every single item I brought from America, plus a lamp and blanket I purchased here. Backpack on both shoulders, messenger bag sashed across from left to right, pulling a massive suitcase with a bulging duffel bag on top, which every so often would tilt and flip over to be dragged on the ground. I was probably averaging a grand 2 mph. My goal was just to walk to a main thoroughfare where I could find a cab. Eventually I did, but not before I had to go right by an elementary school that was just starting its day. The students were all in their uniforms and thronged the sidewalk. When they approached a crosswalk a huge line formed. I wasn’t inclined to wait however and went from the smooth road that served as sidewalk to the adjacent gutter. It was very shallow, only a 1” difference, but also had holes every meter or so. I accelerated a little to better hop these pitfalls. With each one my angled suitcase emitted a satisfying click-clack but seemed to handle them otherwise well. Where the crosswalk started a true sidewalk began from the opposite direction, and after an unceremonious hoist of my stuff I was on to smoother sailing. During this whole time, precisely zero of the students in line looked at me. In fact on this whole minitrip, I received fewer stares than I did during a walk to class. I don’t know if it’s legendary student discipline or what, but it was a pleasant surprise. Finally I hit the T-intersection I had been gunning for and waited.

Forty-five minutes later, I had my cab. They were still quite sparse out there. I rode on to the HSR (High Speed Rail) station where I found the McDonald’s and plunked down. I took some pictures  of the station, then went on a macro spree with the foliage nearby.

 My flickr stream has all the ones that aren’t abysmal.

After that I watched some TV, read more Dune, and had another go at a Chinese newspaper. It’s still tough reading, but it’s also fun to see characters appear in real life that I have just been studying. Finally 2pm rolled around and I was able to board my sleek Japanese-engineered carriage of the future. Naturally in total foreigner fashion I got on the train at the exact wrong end, and had to stumble past 15 rows of seats with all my luggage, bumping into others on the way. After just an hour even including the 3 extra stops, we arrived at Taipei main station. And that’s when this odyssey really began.

I disembarked and looked both ways. East exits and West exits out of the platform. Fair enough, I read online from my hostel’s website to take the east one. So far, so good. Good in the sense I almost-but-didn’t-quite let my overburdened suitcase fall down the escalator and into a crowd while alighting. At the top of that escalator I was able to locate a map. Unfortunately, when I looked for the hostel online the night before, I found that for starters, Google Maps could not agree on where it was. To add to the pain, the official hostel website had the address only in English – not terribly helpful when asking directions – and to make matters worse, there are actually two of the very same hostel within the same city block. I know not why. So there I stood, pondering this map. It didn’t actually show where I was but rather different places I could exit to, so I knew neither where I was nor where to be going which is always  a recipe for success. My choices were the Y district, R district, or M district. After consulting my comparative maps and prophetic tea leaves, I went with Y. But then I was faced with another problem: the Y area had exits both north and south of a huge street, the kind you can only cross on an underpass. Ultimately I trusted my innate sense of direction and went the way I felt was north. It worked, at least that time. I wish my east-west worked that well. (Kidding, I know they’re linked.) I also wish the hostel had been mapped halfway decently.

I took one more escalator down and a final one up to get to the north side of Civic Boulevard. Finding the light of day at last, I stopped to take off the hoodie I was wearing for cargo-space purposes. Still carrying/dragging/force-pulling the nearly 100lbs of junk I slowly made my way in the totally wrong direction. I hit a large street, continued north, then decided I should go back the other way. Although correct, this proved to be a very, very bad move. I proceeded to get lost in crazy alleys and unmarked paved areas which could have been long driveways. I was tired, but not defeated, when suddenly I saw, Family Mart! The hostel said they were right next to a Family Mart! My heart leapt and pace quickened. Arrival! I got to the front of the store and started looking around intently. That’s when I descended into my own personal madness; I seemed to round every corner twice, but never see the same people. I thought I had mapped out lanes when a new one would spring up like a chasm sundered from hell. Where was I going? I had just made it back to the first Family Mart to buy a map. I was studying it intently. Without name or address in Chinese, asking around bore little fruit. Suddenly white Jesus approached.

“Need some help?” It was one of those non-American accents.

Approximation of walking path to hostel. Red is train station, blue is where the underpass spat me out, green is the hostel.

I acknowledged my utter inability to find this godforsaken place and he pointed me to the closest one, as he too seemed to realize there were several of this particular establishment. He had me head to the nearest big corner, turn right, then turn again at the next corner which would have a different Family Mart, and I should see it. Marvelous! I wanted to hug him but somehow felt it might not be acceptable. I was home free! I sort-of ran to the corner and turned right. I was on fire, and -*screeuncchhhh*.

Hmmm. That sounded suspiciously similar to plastic on brick, and there was sudden resistance to my suitcase moving forward I turned around and saw my duffel bag, being wider than the suitcase is, had clipped a slightly protruding wall where this new property started. I examined it to make sure there was no structural damage and decided this was as good as time as any to rearrange my messenger bag shoulder and suitcase hand. I had been facing the wall which gave way to a store window while doing this, but was rather preoccupied with looking down at the luggage situation. I turned toward the street and saw a woman give me a dirty look. Whatever, lady. I turned back to the sidewalk planning on finishing the last leg of my journey but the entire right side of my vision was bombarded by the store. A lingerie store, replete with pink panties, black bras, and whatever else they sell. And as far as this woman had seen, I was running, stopped abruptly as soon as the lingerie came within view, and turned to stare for a good half minute.

Hearts and minds, hearts and minds.

After feeling ashamed of something I didn’t even do, I found the hostel which can accurately be described in one word: janky. If you don’t know what that means, I suggest www.urbandictionary.com/janky definition #3. When you turn the light on in my room, it actually flickers several times like they do in movie interrogation scenes, and the wiring is entirely exposed. The climate control consists of one fan placed on my desk, which feels like it will break any second, and actually came with 3 unopened-yet-yellowing bars of Ivory soap. There’s no screen and I’ve kept the windows closed but I still have an unwelcome mosquito I’ve been trying to swat with my passport.

And that’s literally where I sit right now. A room not even 8’x8’, with clothes drying on my headboard, desk, luggage, doorknob, anywhere with a protrusion. Tomorrow I plan on exploring a little, then after that I might try to meet up with friends of friends that are also in Taipei. Other than moving into the training hotel on the 14^th there is very little set in stone.

It’s freedom, I can taste it, and I love it.

So long!

Cornered

Going back to the earlier posting on the receipt lottery, it definitely has its downsides. Or rather one very specific one; some people are just ignorant and/or arrogant enough to request the cashier process each item as a separate purchase. So instead of opening the till and making change once it’s six times. During the rush hour. Right before class. With all four registers operating and dealing with lines six customers deep. Naturally I was behind this idiot. I was sort of surprised the clerk acquiesced to her request but very few people in this country ever initiate any conflict. I tried to give the customer the evil eye but she never turned to look at me.

I think that conflict avoidance is why I effectively blindsided a clerk at another 7-11 yesterday. Sundays pretty much everything closes down so I went in to pick up some ramen and baozi for lunch. I was charged for three baozi instead of the two I had ordered. I brought this to the clerk’s attention. He declared that I was only charged for two even upon showing the receipt to him. It might have just been reflexive, he may have just assumed I didn’t know what I was talking about, I’m not sure. His boss came over and looked at it. She quickly saw the error and apologized to me several times. For what it’s worth, the guy has been working there at least the month that I’ve been in Taiwan but still doesn’t know the price of a baozi (all are NT$20) or how to ring up items without a built-in barcode so maybe it just had everything to do with this employee.

A couple weeks ago I was riding the bus and saw three firetrucks pass. A minute later we met them again, only now they were at the site of the fire. I looked up at a cheap apartment building and although I could see no flames, smoke was pouring out of a top floor unit. The fire department seemed to have it under control though and no one seemed to be freaking out. Just a few days ago, the fire alarm went off in the dorm. First it made an announcement in Chinese to something along the lines of “A fire has been detected in the building,” which was followed up with English that literally just said “FIRE FIRE FIRE” without any of the rhetorical niceties. Ignoring the urgency of the voice, Yahoo and I opted to stay in our room. I couldn’t smell anything and wasn’t convinced the building was in fact burning down. And in the most unsurprising development ever, the smoke detector went off because some guy was smoking indoors. Smooth.

Many of the international students smoke here, but not that many Taiwanese do. While in McDonald’s after a Post Office run, I was looking out the window and noticed an old man walking by. He had no uniform on that I could see, and he was just picking up cigarettes that were on the pavement. Simply a cool old guy walking along doing his thing.

Speaking of walking or a lack thereof, I was returning to my dorm today from picking up some mail and was getting the usual stares. One was particularly long from some random guy, so I just stared back and held my ground until he looked away sheepishly. I continued on as normal and kept getting the standard looks. One girl turned around in response to some friend’s voice or the like and caught sight of me. She kept walking, kept staring, and walked right into a concrete flower planter. She checked herself and almost did a dive into it. She quickly looked around to see if anyone saw, and I wasn’t the only one. Recovering, she looked embarrassed then quickly went to catch up with her friend who was laughing.

The stares are thus continuing at a pretty standard rate. Waiting at the bus stop a couple days ago three girls came over to wait as well, then immediately started talking about me. Sometimes they tried to be subtle about it, but sometimes they would just blurt out whatever came to mind.

Many people here will ask me whatever comes to mind. One of the most common questions I get in English Corner is “Do you like black people?” Invariably what follows is a 15 minute communications fiasco of me trying to turn the question on its head. I’ll end up talking about the history of the slave trade, American treatment of other minorities like Irish and Chinese, violent crime statistics, affirmative action, redlining, and the parts of US history conveniently left out of 4^th grade textbooks. Then I ultimately ask them why they didn’t ask if I like white people. I know the answer of course, but it’s to prove a point. I tell the students that I can no easier lump black people together than I can whites just because blacks are a minority in America. Then I advise them that at the most generous I could be with sweeping stereotypes would be questions on people from a country, because they at least have some sort of material commonality. Am I changing minds? Who knows, I sure don’t. I at least hope I can get them to have a worldview not so black and white. Pun intended.

I didn’t do anything Halloween themed this weekend, but I did spend a night drinking with my roommate Yahoo. Though his English is pretty subpar he always manages to surprise me. He taught me all about Mongolia, a massacre of monks by the communists, logistical problems, mining rights, and more. Then he surprised me even more by dropping the word ‘liberalism.’ That’s a word most Americans wouldn’t even define correctly. He continued to amaze with his knowledge of Churchill, including the famous quote on democracy as a form of government. Wow. So after some heavier discussion and fried chicken we headed back.

Finally, our project is coming up on Wednesday. Now we finally know that we are in fact going. Our professor should in theory be back from her illness.

And that’s pretty much it.

Observations

People are pretty much the same the world over.

In class, students pull out their laptops and the first site that comes up is Facebook. You can be in America, Europe, or Taiwan, and that’s how the world works now. You could probably be in Cameroon and still see the same thing. I also didn’t figure I’d see a student answer her phone in class here. Well, it happened. I guess Americans don’t have a monopoly on disrespecting teachers.

Parents are no different either. Is that child shrieking their head off about some inane crap? Throwing a tantrum because the parent didn’t get fries and won’t let the offspring play in the McPlayplace? Well you could be anywhere, there are inconsiderate people all over.

Both of these happened to me in the last week. First in Friday class I noticed everyone in front of me had Facebook open at one point during the lecture. Then the girl next to me answered her phone which I found pretty shocking and rude, but that’s also the same way I thought when it happened at a lecture in college. And I went to McDonald’s to spend some time reading, and there were kids there that just would not shut up. Having a noisy child is one thing, and I understand every infant will at some point be annoying; being completely oblivious to the looks of everyone around you and not saying a single word encouraging proper decorum is another.

There are also some stark differences. Everyone, for example, leaves their helmet unlocked in or on their moped when they park it and go inside. This is something that would only happen in rural small-town America. Here I am in the fairly near suburbs of a big city, though in America no one in such a situation would leave anything worth more than $5 lying about.

Additionally, the international students here are… not quite as diligent as I thought. Here we are in graduate school, and we have a project due this week, Wednesday. Last week the professor was not in class as she was still under the effects of her fever and consequently the first scheduled group did not present their project. The TA didn’t tell us anything about the next week. So the days pass, no one is communicating. Finally it is suddenly Sunday night. I email the entire group, asking whether anyone has spoken to the professor, or what our two leaders plan on doing. These leaders are official positions. The email I sent at 9pm gets 2 responses before I go to sleep 4 hours later. One is addressed solely to me that asks what time we are getting together, the other is from the group leader later asking for ‘opinions’ on what to do. No taking charge, everyone clueless, and most people are simply MIA. We didn’t meet today. No word on tomorrow. I think Wednesday might just be hilarious. Never in college did I ever consider simply ‘not doing’ a project but that’s the way this is going right now. I’ll keep you posted.

One drag here is the showers. I never know whether they are going to be cold or hot. At this point, my ‘hot’ is a sort of lukewarm that I probably considered cold a month ago. Now though, if I can get 5 minutes of precious non-freezing water I feel like a champ. I’m on a roll with two days in a row of not-freezing showers, going for three tomorrow.

One crazy thing here is the receipt lottery. Every two months, the government holds a drawing. They pick about half a dozen numbers. Three of these are grand prize numbers, and if you match all 8 digits, you get a cool 2 million NT$. The others are general prizes, and you can win for matching all the digits but it’s only 200k, though the prizes go all the way down to matching 3 digits for a paltry $200. So how do you enter? Get a receipt. Really. Ask for your receipt from any purchase. Tiny hole-in-the-wall places still won’t have a receipt available, but 7-Eleven and any chain or large store will provide them. Your receipt looks like this:

The purple-pink number at the top is your number. The blue stamp below that is verification from the store that it’s real. The rest of it is regular receipt, with 7-Eleven branding, their own rewards program, and information about the purchase. So why does the government run this gig? Well in theory, it’s to help keep transactions above board and prevent tax fraud. The idea is that the customers request receipts which means the company has to print a copy and then it has its own official record that can be audited. Does it work? I haven’t seen the stats. Anecdotally it seems to be better as a proverbial stick than a carrot. Nobody seems to shy away from the small restaurants that serve all of the cheap and most of the good food here, the ones that don’t give receipts. I can imagine it would be pretty easy for the government to prosecute a halfway-large company that didn’t issue receipts as part of a consistent business plan.

Some other things: election trucks are quite popular here. They are little trucks fitted with bullhorns and painted to be mobile billboards. The bullhorns blare a candidate’s catchy message and idle up and down main streets. One of the Vietnamese students let himself into my room last night. Again no knocking, verbal call, just an opened door. The same guy that corrected my tones. I’ve also been dragooned into doing things around the school I had to give some interview about the dorms and how totally wonderful they all are. I’m sure it will be used in advertising. I also am talking at some panel about culture or something. My English Corner audience is still rapt one said I had beautiful eyes and a beautiful nose. Yes, nose. I was definitely expecting eyes/hair for the blue/blonde thing, but the nose has it. I’ve also found a regular place to get smoothies/冰沙 which rock socks. Of course I don’t even know what most of them are even after tasting them , but that’s not important.

And that’s all I’ve got. The project will be interesting, at the very least in how it comes together or doesn’t.

晚安

Just some odd pictures

 Proof that Obama is a member of the Coffee Party.

 (From Family Mart, a 7-11 clone)

Two percent homme, so 98 percent woman? I suppose based on the picture it's pretty plausible.

(On the table of a restaurant.)

The Zoo Stories

I’ll get classes out of the way again early. Theory of Organization Management was another three hours eradicated. The professor wasn’t there as she was wrestling with something of a fever, but the TA was and we were made to do presentations anyway. The same presentations we had to do because the previous week neither of the two groups that overlapped with each other stepped up to the plate. Our group went second of seven. I regurgitated some stuff from our textbook about horizontal and vertical structures while simultaneously wowing them with the talent I refer to as “White Lighting.” It’s quite easy to pull off. Pick a spot and stand there. Look at people, and be white. Then return to what you were doing; reading, fiddling with your phone, or in my case making a presentation. Continue being white and looking around. Wash, rinse, repeat. For advanced studies in White Lightning, there are courses on idly stroking your thick beard, muttering barely audible words of English, and nonchalantly pulling out your American passport to fan yourself. Personally, I say keep it simple.

Sometimes though, it can backfire. In my class on Marketing Management, I was the lightning rod. With every new example in the powerpoint, the professor quickly turns to me, interrupting my ever-so-diligent studies.

“Er-uh-ka!” Crap. This always happens with Chinese people. They don’t have a hard k sound that isn’t followed by a vowel. Thankfully most of my classmates don’t seem to get it.

“Yes?” I give him the three second look, then a quick glance at my computer and a drawn out examination of the projector, showing how enthralled I am.

“Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi?” As an American of course, I am not presented the opportunity of liking neither. But I live up to this stereotype and like all colas, so I play ball. (For the record, I am an RC Cola man.)

“Ummm… I don’t know. Both, I don’t care.” Pause.

Maybe it was a tiny cock of the head, or his smile drooping a tiny bit, or a furrowed brow. But I knew instantly; in a question with only right answers, I managed to get it wrong.

Rather than backtrack I went the explain-my-fault route. “Whichever one is cheaper.” Hey, this is a business class, right? And it’s true besides.

Good enough. “Hah! Okay! When I went to America I drink the Coke...” He starts in on an example of marketing product to local consumers. I drift back to the internet. He quizzed me three times over the course of the lecture. Before you say that’s not a lot, it was three times as much as the rest of the class combined.

Which brings me to the White Lightning-vs-Dancing Monkey problem. They are rooted in the same thing, i.e. skin pigmentation. The White Lightning is about receiving respect that I quite frankly don’t deserve, or perhaps haven’t merited. I haven’t been particularly brilliant in class, I don’t ask insightful questions, hell I barely talk. Yet there is an unmistakable sense of awe, even by people who are deemed educated. Then there is getting poked and prodded, told to go this way or dance that way. Sometimes literally. While passing another group studying in the hall of my dorm I was accosted and asked if I like to dance, if I could dance. The truth is grey (alcohol helps in both departments, but if I ever need to dance my way out of a political prison I will pop lock and drop it so fast Huey wouldn’t know what hit him) but I said no, because I wasn’t feeling in the mood for a public showing.

“All Americans can dance!” The guy proclaiming as such was from Vietnam.

I left no time for more groupmates to pile on: “Do you know kung-fu?”

“No! I’m from Vietnam!” He might have been offended.

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, “All Asians know kung-fu.”

“No we don’t!” I don’t know who said it, but from the group makeup she must have been Indonesian, Mongolian, or Vietnamese.

“Same with Americans and dancing.” I continued on to my room and awaiting noodle dinner.

The constant attention can truly get annoying. When I go to 7-11 for a Coke and some crackers, I don’t want the world to stop, gawk, and gossip. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, not having a bunch of other Americans at my back means there is no way to deflect this, even if the reaction is the same as it ever was. So over the past few weeks I’ve been feeling like all the attention has made me paranoid and given me an undeserved superiority complex. Surely not everyone staring cares that much, or thinks I’m that awesome right? If only.

A few days ago I went to many of the side streets near campus, stalking restaurants for 餃子jiaozi aka 水餃shuijiao which is simplest to describe as potstickers, or at least an ancestor of them. I ordered two servings, paid, got my food, and moved over one shop to a tea stall. Purchased my coffee smoothie, and as usual charmed the pants off all the shopkeepers with such linguistic wonders as “Hello,” “Two, please,” and “How much money?” The typical meal protocol for new places, with typical compliment deflection. Happy with a 3 dollar meal-and drink combo reaching an 8.5 on the deliciousness scale, I wheeled and started toward the main boulevard that cuts through campus and leads to all the good-eats side streets. Not ten yards away was a couple of cute girls looking at me. Not uncommon. As I was getting at earlier, everybody looks; professor and student, girl and boy, dog and goldfish. I returned the look, but then something weird happened, or rather didn’t happen. They kept looking, making eye contact. Nobody here does that! How dare they! Wait a second, this means, uh oh…

You know those moments where you just know what’s coming next, but it’s already too late? Like when you’re leaning back in your chair, your center of gravity is too far over, and you reach for the desk to pull you back but your hands grasp air and for .2 seconds you achieve perfect clarity of thought, when your mind instantly and totally refocuses on the impending disaster? Yeah, that happened. I knew where this was heading.

One of them opened up. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Sure hit that one out of the park, Eric. The other grew tired of all the small talk, apparently.

“You are very handsome.”

“(stupid silence)” Even when the chair hits, you’re still stunned. And I definitely wasn’t expecting anything that blunt. After maybe a second: “Uh, thanks.” This would be the time to respond with something like “You’re very pretty,” or perhaps “That’s a pretty dress,” or even “Did you catch that Yankees-Rangers game!” Anything but blank staring.

The one that greeted me giggles. She is wearing jeans.

Pretty Dress is only getting started. “Do you have a girlfriend?” Jeans laughs again.

At this point I’ve more or less recovered, able to respond to her English questions in Chinese. “No.”

“Why not!? You-”

“I’ve only been here two weeks!” Admittedly, I’m flustered. Thankfully she reins it in a little, though I don’t think it was out of pity. She moves on to another question.

“Where are you from?”

“America.”

“Oh.” (Approving nod.) And if there is a god, he certainly shined his good graces down at that moment. A mother and little boy walked past. The mom was so pleased I spoke Chinese. She and Pretty Dress had a small conversation, blessed reprieve! The boy asked me in surprisingly clear English, “What is your name?”

“Ma Ai Rui.” He laughed a little bit and ran around. Pretty Dress picked him under the shoulders in a Simba grab and said something pretty fast. Then Jeans spoke again.

“Do you have MSN?”

“Ehhh… uhhh.” I do, but I hate using it because it sucks. Not a problem though! Everybody has Facebook, and that was her next question. I exchanged my email address for Pretty Dress’ real name in characters and Jeans’ Facebook username.

“Okay! Bye-bye!”

And then I just walked away, replaying the conversation in my head and wondering endlessly. Being so popular is truly an embarrassment of riches. It’s annoying, and hard to deal with. Being upfront and aggressive is one thing, and I can definitely understand that. If she knows what she wants and goes for it, kudos to her. The problem is my lack of information. I don’t know her. I do know that she doesn’t know me, which means I have been selected solely due to my whiteness. Is it a ploy to anger her parents? Is she looking for a foreign boyfriend because she thinks white guys are here only for girls and I’m an easy mark; or perhaps it’s because she thinks that as a Westerner I’ll play by some different set of dating rules? If she thinks I’m super attractive, am I even going to get the opportunity to show her my personality and find hers or is that not even on the radar? I know this all may sound like spoiled whining and don’t get me wrong I’d much rather be in this situation than being regarded as hideous or invisible. Still it’s important to realize that while being white in this highly homogenized place can make you seem like a C or D list celebrity, it cuts both ways.

Adding to the list of differences, the international students on my floor don’t seem to knock. Bathroom door closed? No problem, just go ahead and open it! Don’t knock, don’t say anything, don’t knock and wait two seconds, just walk in like you own the place! I know this is a cultural thing and we all need to learn to respect differences, etc… but I must disagree on the grounds that when you throw a bunch of people together, everyone’s reaction should be to be as cautious and accommodating as possible. If it makes me insensitive for thinking everyone else should be sensitive, then I guess I’m just a cultural imperialist. Related: the Vietnamese guys come into my room and touch my stuff. Oh is this a metal die on your desk yes I’ll just pick this up and throw it to myself while chatting with you. And don’t mind me while I help myself to your Coke Zero as I ‘ask’ while it’s already in the air flowing down into my mouth. Also I’m going to help myself to a couple of these empty water bottles on your desk. I don’t really care about any of those things in the slightest, and if they asked or even mentioned it I’d be pleased to say yes. But I haven’t known them for a decade much less a month, so it’s not typical American behavior. Builds some sort of understanding I guess, and I can forgive it. I just hope whatever terrible faux pas I commit are likewise excused.

While we’re on the subject of things that irk me, a Vietnamese guy (not the Mr. David Tran who went to Taichung with me) was correcting my tones just earlier today. Now, being brutally honest is great when it comes from a native speaker or someone who has studied it for a long time. It’s the only way to learn and correct entrenched mistakes. When he has been studying for a month or two, has obvious pronunciation deficiencies of his own, and doesn’t even know the correct order of the tones, my reaction is not just neutral, it’s outright disdain. Funny karma: his employer called while we were talking and he started speaking in Chinese but had to repeat several phrases five times before dropping it entirely and moving on. I’m no savant at this whole Mandarin thing but I’m a Buckeye fan before I let him give me sass.

Things that don’t irk me are the baozi at 7-11. Seriously, they sell steamed pork buns in a convenience store. They aren’t exactly the most authentic thing around, but they work in a pinch and are totally adequate. Their hot dogs are actually pretty tasty too.

I also started my tutoring at the English Corner this past week. I am one of two native speakers they have, and if the rest of this post hasn’t given you an idea, the time I’m there it’s often quite crowded. Thankfully one of my three hours is during prime class time so I can rest a little then. Mostly I just talked about mundane subjects, the usual name/age/major/city and then go from there. Some people are very talkative and others sit back and do not respond to any attempts to get them involved. Their choice, not mine. In some of that downtime I was able to chat with the Mongolians who were seated with me. One, an MBA classmate, was officially a tutor as well, but all of them knew pretty good English. The other two I discovered were sixteen. They knew more Chinese than me, spoke pretty damn fine English, and really I mean they’re sixteen. I feel like it’s too early for me to start saying this, but when I was their age I played Magic Cards and World of Warcraft. So I sat there for a little while tossing that around in my head but before I could inquire further some students came in looking for conversation so we had to start conversing with them.

That’s pretty much how this last week has shaken out, or at least the highlights. The shuijiao I discovered really taste great, they’re deep-fried and come with some sort of plum sauce and fries. I also found another mom and pop restaurant with solid fried rice. The food’s getting tastier which only makes everything better. And sorry for no pictures, just didn’t happen this week. 

再見

P.S. I tried to friend Pretty Dress on Facebook but Facebook thinks I’m spamming unknown people so blocked it, Jeans’ profile seems not to exist, and I haven’t received an email.