I am in ecstasy!

The Adorable Taiwan Moment of the Week happened today when B and I were sitting around a Taiwanese snack shop after work with some teachers who are new to Taiwan. We were all chatting and eating, and noticed that some of the staff had been giving us the eye - possibly implying we should leave? No, turns out one of the staff (an adorable older man named Rock) wanted to ask us a question! He approached us and asked if we could help him practice some English, and he specifically wanted to know how to use the word "ecstasy" in a sentence! We helped him out with a couple of variations, and he said "My son will get married soon, so I am in ecstasy!" Turns out, his brother owns a Chinese restaurant in LA and he lived there for a few years and helped him out with the business, so his English is terrific. We all already love the food there, but it's little interactions like this one that really make a loyal customer out of me! I'm sure I'll be seeing more of Rock in the near future!

Seven Drinks (A Foolproof Hiccup Cure)

Hiccups are pretty annoying, but before yesterday I had never before considered how problematic they might be if I ever got them while teaching. In the middle of one of my higher level classes, I came down with a noisy case of the hiccups! I got the kids working on some individual writing practice and was trying some deep breathing, but couldn't stop. I was really lucky this happened in one of my more well-behaved classes. They're so adorable and thought it was funny but kept doing their work as though nothing was wrong.

One of my students eventually looked up from quietly working on his assignment and asked, "Teacher, are you uncomfortable?" One of his classmates chimed in and said "You should do the seven drinks!" What's that, you might ask? A popular hiccups remedy among my students, taught to them by their moms, is to take seven sips of water without breathing any air in between. After you take seven sips you don't have the hiccups anymore! I knew I'd learn as much as I taught in this job, but I never thought I'd learn a trick like this. Many thanks to my wonderful Taiwanese students!

Happy Merry!

First of all, Happy Festivus and Merry Christmas!

Yesterday morning was pretty amazing. Brett and I woke up at a halfway decent hour to Skype with our friends as they celebrated Festivus back home. I thought it would make me feel incredibly homesick, but I actually felt way better! Yesterday flew by and it was hard to feel sad about missing our friends and family when we had so many frantic errands and tasks to do to prepare for the weekend. I also spent the afternoon at the branch teaching kids in an English social club how to bake sugar cookies. The catch was that we were using a "Taiwanese" oven the size of my microwave. My co-teacher at the branch did an amazing job of pulling together all the baking ingredients I needed which is quite a feat on short notice in a country where home baking isn't a big thing. We were still missing a few key things (like one-cup measuring devices, for instance!) but we improvised with an elaborate system of tablespoons and plastic cups.

The kids were split into two groups and they all got to take turns measuring ingredients and mixing them together. They all did a pretty good job. I tried not to micromanage and I think as a result of the cold medicine I was on I kept my cool pretty well. There was considerable spillage. There were erroneous measurements. There was flour on a boy's face. The girls team eventually forgave me for convincing them to make "purple" dough which actually turned out pretty grey. They even baked me a Thank You cookie!

This evening, our friend, Denton, came into town from the county. We went out for an amazing Indian dinner at a restaurant called Bollywood near the Science Museum. Nothing says Christmas Eve like onion pakoras and a selection of rich curries! We then went for a stroll to SOGO nearby and had some lovely Christmassy encounters with Taiwanese people. As we walked through an underground tunnel to the department store, we came across a Taiwanese man playing the harmonica. He asked us where we were from and when we told him Canada, he busted out a beautiful rendition of Red River Valley. What a hustler - our wallets were out ASAP.

We had a lovely evening of Christmas movies and Star Trek episodes (though I must admit I snoozed through half of it) and we had a great Christmas morning of Skyping with our families and enjoying a leisurely breakfast. We're going out for Christmas dinner with some other foreigners in Taichung tonight, and I can't wait!

Cookies baked by Amanda's students

Care package from Annemarie & Kenny!

Xmas Feast, 7-11 style

Denton & Amanda at at Taichung's Sogo

A Taiwanese BBQ!

This weekend, Boje and I went to our first ever Taiwanese barbeque! It was a staff party at my branch and I loved it. My branch has a “back yard” of sorts that leads to a small outbuilding occasionally used as a classroom. We arrived late due to some taxi problems (if you’re any good at hailing a cab in the dark on a busy road in Taichung, please tell me your secret) but were greeted immediately by happy people and the smoky smell of our dinner. We munched on pizza while we waited for my colleagues to expertly grill meat, wraps, and veggies on small portable units set up on the deck. We had a vegetarian grill as well as a pork-and-chicken grill going at the same time, and I must say both were very appealing! (Though after some night market scares I’ve learned my lesson about saying haphazard things like “I’ll eat anything if it’s slathered in BBQ sauce!”)

After we’d eaten our fill, they set up a table for Mahjong. Boje and I watched a few rounds and I’m really interested in learning to play! Before I do that, however, I’ve got to learn to read numbers in Mandarin. And learn how to keep a poker face. As it turns out, Mahjong is a lot like poker but with domino-like tiles instead. So interesting! I was tired from the cold that had been bugging me all week so we went home early, but I really enjoyed the whole experience!

The next day we went to Carrefour to find some sheets for our king size bed (which is smaller than a Western king size, but larger than a Western queen). If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll know all about the headache we’ve had trying to find sheets. Our first trip to Carrefour was a bust as we’d forgotten our notes about the mattress dimensions at home. The second trip was made solo by Brett so I could nurse my cold and migraine. He came home with a set of bedding but upon taking it out of the package we discovered the sheets inside were a size smaller than advertised! This time I went back with him and we triple-checked the bedding we exchanged before bringing it home! Success! And just in time for our first house guests! I think we’ll be pretty busy this week putting together an itinerary for our visit from Brett’s parents next weekend, but we’re both getting really excited to see loved ones from back home!

Today I was pretty sick and grouchy when I got to work but things really improved as the day went on! I made a pretty major breakthrough with the class who used to make fun of the way I talk. “Zach” and his posse have now learned that I will never understand what I’m doing wrong with his name and they just smirk instead of actually screaming and laughing. I even got a very sincere and sweet verbal apology from one particularly unruly student! On the flip side, another student smacked me right in the self-esteem with this little gem:

S: Teacher Amanda, today you look so terrible and so tired.
A: …
S: And why you breathe like that? Do you have asthma? Or are you tired from the stairs?
A: … I’m sick!

The kicker is that she's one of the kids who spent last week's class coughing and sneezing right in my face!

Lost in Translation

Every day when I walk home from school, I go over the day in my head and wonder how I survived the psychological beating my students gave me in class. Yesterday was no exception. One of my students, who I’ll call “Zach”, volunteered a lot of answers. Every time I said “Yes, Zach?” or “Zach, what’s the answer?” the whole class would dissolve into laughter, jeering, and outright taunting over my apparent mispronunciation of his name. I’d say “Zach?”, they’d screech “ZACH!” I mulled over it in my head for four hours and still can’t make heads or tails of it. Their “Zach” sounded exactly the same to me as my “Zach”. I know this class’ last teacher was from New Zealand. Maybe if I try sounding like a Kiwi I’ll get it right?

95% of the time, I’m not being mocked by the students and they’re actually very sweet. When they do laugh at some gaffe I’ve made, I often catch myself thinking, “If only these kids knew what I know now. They’d be so much easier on their teachers!” Then I remember that the only thing I can do is laugh at my own mistakes and at the cultural differences between us. As soon as you start taking yourself too seriously, you lose any chance of being taken seriously by your students.

This weekend we’ve made some social plans and I’m REALLY hoping we can go to the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung for the Silk Road exhibit on Saturday. We’ll keep you posted!

Also PS - The typhoon day was a total anticlimax. It drizzled a little in the afternoon but it was otherwise a lovely day off. I had lunch with a girlfriend and went shopping for stuff for the apartment, and Boje spent the afternoon catching up on correspondence and doing lesson planning. We did a little laundry, we went out for beef noodles. No biggie. The rest of the week, however, has been so rainy! I’ve even been forced to take a cab to work to keep my books from being soaked during the walk!

Some beers, a tea, and a trip to Kaohsiung!

Week 1 of teaching in Taichung = complete. Have I eaten too many chips this week while staying up until midnight planning lessons? Yes. Have Boje and I found multiple nasty surprises where we opened our teachers guide to find that for the lesson we were planning we were supposed to "review everything the students have learned so far"? Yes. Have I come home from work with dry erase marker smudged all over my hands and face? Yes. Have I spent more money each day chugging caffeine-rich green teas than I have on my actual dinner? Yes. Am I ready for more? Absolutely! 

Last night Boje and I were invited out by one of my colleagues for some dinner and drinks with other Taichung-area teachers at a restaurant called Reichburg Beer Restaurant. We shared an elevator down to the lobby of our apartment building with a nice young Taiwanese man. When you live on the 18th floor, the ride down can really take a while! By the time we made it into the reception area, we’d already made tentative dinner plans and exchanged names and numbers with “Eddie”, our new neighbour! Taiwanese people are so sweet!

We then had quite a nice time at Reichburg! They had a large covered patio decorated with Christmas lights and small German flags and they served German-style beer in 2500cc towers. The menu was best described as international... There were some of the typical fried pub snacks available as well as Thai, Chinese, and Taiwanese main dishes. It ended up being quite a large group of us there, and B and I really enjoyed having some “grown up time” after our first week spent mainly in the company of 7-year-olds with runny noses.

Once we finish getting our act together this morning, we’ll be popping down to Kaohsiung for the day on the HSR. We’d had big aspirations about getting up at the crack of dawn and spending the morning at a scenic spot, but I’m now reluctant to leave the comfortable bubble of our first day off at too unreasonable an hour!

PS - One more nice local person story! The lady who runs the tea shop two doors down from my school has been so sweet to me. She’s actually from Hong Kong and speaks tons of languages (including English!) and has only recently opened the shop with her family. After multiple days of me ordering the same thing, she has decided to write an English menu for myself and one of the other girls at work to enjoy! We’re going to edit it for her too! This is the kind of stuff I hoped I’d have a chance to do in Taiwan! Also, on Friday night after I handed over $20NT for a tea in my usual sweaty rush to start on my 30-minute walk home at 9 pm, I left her shop without my frigging tea. So embarrassing. The next morning, however, one of the other ladies who works in the tea shop insisted I take a free tea and didn’t even smirk at me like I’m an idiot! That shop has earned my eternal custom and loyalty.

Teaching in Taichung

We have almost finished our first week of teaching. We knew it would be tiring and a difficult initial adjustment and it has met those expectations... but I think we can both say that we are really happy with how things have gone so far! 

I remind myself that in all of our observations - when we get to watch another teacher/trainer show us how it should be done - we have been watching “5 star veterans” and for us to hold ourselves to the same yardstick in the first week of teaching is a very unfair expectation. Nevertheless, after each class you can’t help but forget what went well and ponder on why was that one kid so disinterested or was my activity boring or did I teach the grammar pattern well enough, etc. I know we will get better at teaching and we mustn’t be hard on ourselves for the first little while. 

With all the lesson prep we haven’t had too much time to do any exploring just yet. Pretty much the only parts of Taichung we have seen have been while walking between home and our branches. 

Fortunately we live right by a Carrefour and an A-mart so we have been able to pick up a few essentials to help us get set up in our apartment. Our most extravagant purchase so far has been a fancy Philips blender that we will use to make all kinds of fruit smoothies. 

In a few weeks we will receive our ARCs (Alien Resident Cards) and at that point we will be in the market for a scooter! We plan to buy just one for the two of us and so we will be looking for a 150cc engine. I can’t wait to have the scooter. It will be a few days at least until I’m comfortable taking a passenger on the back (Amanda!) but once at that point, it will really broaden our horizons. We can see the mountains so clearly from our apartment window... I can’t wait to go exploring. 

There aren’t any touristy pictures yet for me to share, so this one is just a picture of the view out of our living room window.

Straight up Laoshi

Days like today, I am 100% in love with Taiwan. I love walking home from my second day of the job and being cheerfully waved at by the girl from the neighbourhood tea shop. I love taking the elevator up to my 18th floor apartment, confident that no cockroaches will be lurking in the hallway. I love meeting my squeeze, a.k.a. Teacher Brett outside the 24-hourCarrefour after we get off work to buy some late-night groceries. I love hearing adorable little Taiwanese children call me “Teacher Amanda” and giggle nervously when I ask their names.

“Laoshi” is Mandarin for “teacher”, and when an old man called me that as I was purchasing a boat load of school supplies the other night, I felt so happy. So far, the job is pretty stressful, but the rewards are huge. I don’t even mind the 6-year-old kid who told me I’m a poo because I gave him his first-ever homework assignment. Lesson planning has been extremely time-consuming, but I get the feeling it’s going to be a lot easier each week, especially as we get to know the kids we’re teaching.

In addition to getting used to our new work routines (since this is Boje’s first time back to work since August, 2010!) we’ve also been growing more comfortable with our area in Taichung. We live in a nice, relatively new neighbourhood with broad streets and sidewalks as well as plenty of lovely tea shops and restaurants. There’s a jade market just a few blocks away, and I’ve been told by one of my colleagues that “Little Europe” is pretty close to our building as well! We’re hoping to make a quick trip to Kaohsiung this weekend to pick up the stuff we left behind and see our friends if possible, but the next few weekends after this will hopefully be spent exploring Taichung and learning as much as we can about our new city!

Training Week!

Training for our new jobs this week has been insane. Sorry for the lack of updates, but we haven’t been doing much to write home about! We head out the door at 8 am every morning and usually get home about twelve hours later, so by the time we take off our shoes we’re too exhausted to do anything else. We've been learning a lot about teaching English and I'm looking forward to putting it into practice, but our grueling schedule at the moment is a little overwhelming!

Today is our one day off so I’ve been Skyping (and festering) all morning while waiting for Brett to get home from some additional stuff he needs to do for his work permit. This afternoon we’ll be doing lots of laundry and then this evening we’re going out for dinner with our new Taiwanese friends from last weekend.

I guess there is one newsworthy item: We were told this week that we’ll be spending the year teaching in Taichung City (臺中市). Brett and I will be teaching at branches that are about twenty minutes apart, so on Thursday when we arrive in Taichung (臺中) we’ll be looking at apartments somewhere between the two schools. Taichung is the third largest city in Taiwan, and is located about halfway down the west coast between Taipei and Kaohsiung. It’s home to a lot of museums, performing arts venues, and cultural centers as well as a winery!

On the minus side, I’ve been told that there is very little Romanization of street signs in Taichung, so B and I will most likely be carrying around maps at all times. There’s also no MRT which means we’ll be relying a lot more on our feet and the bus system, at least until we figure out how to get a scooter. I’m not terribly worried about all this. It’s nothing we won’t get used to!

Before I go get ready for the rest of my day, I’ll leave you with a fun fact! Taichung’s Canadian sister city is Winnipeg, Manitoba! This relationship was established in 1982! How exciting!