I opened my mouth, and shut it again. Recalibrated. Opened it again. "Careful!"
It happened first with the ubiquitous "mmn"; then "thank you," I think, and spread quickly to "really?" and "yeah!": in my mind, they existed first and foremost in Chinese. Someone gives me something? 謝謝 (Xie xie)! Someone says something unbelievable? 真的嗎 (Zhen de ma)? I need to confirm that something is correct? "mmn" or 對阿 (dui aa) will do the job just fine.
小心 (xiao xin) as my go-to word is new for me, though, and it has the advantage (?) over the others of concerning situations in which you really don't have time to translate before speaking. If you're telling someone to be careful, you usually need to do so immediately--and, really, that's the reason why 小心 made its way into my vocabulary in the first place: being an elementary school teacher gives you ample times when you need to caution people quickly, and be sure that they understand you.
We talked in our Fulbright sessions earlier this year about the tenets of language learning; one of the goals towards which we strive as English teachers is for English words to come naturally. This is referred to in the language teaching community as automaticity. And yes, automaticity is great, and yes, I'm more than a little excited that, for some words at least, Chinese has supplanted English in my mind.
But when, as happened in Australia, I found myself about to caution someone in Chinese, I started wondering about the dangers of these substitutions. No wonder second (or third, or whatever) languages are lost so easily if you don't use them! Seems to me like a natural defense mechanism: if you hold a rarely-used language at the forefront of your mind, you run the risk of not being able to communicate with those around you at a moment's notice--and that is, after all, the main purpose for which language was developed.
I'd just like to take this moment to apologize in advance to all my friends in America, for the moments when Chinese will almost certainly slip from my mouth instead of English. Just give me a few months and, I'm sure, I'll recalibrate.
Showing posts with label Chinese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Back "home" and Internet-less
So here's the thing: my apartment no longer has Internet. As I write this, I'm sitting in Brunch across the street, one eye on my battery meter as it drops closer and closer to the point where it will automatically shut down.
The pros of this situation:
As for today, it consisted almost entirely in travel. I was up and out of my hostel by 6am; one local train, one express train, one flight, two buses, an MRT ride and a walk later, at 5:30pm, I arrived back home in Kaohsiung. Along the way, much ado was made about various forms of cash--I was carrying three (AUD, NTD, Japanese yen)--and trying to keep the coolest coins from each. I ended up making a small purchase specifically so I could get more Japanese change--some of their coins, the value of which I haven't been able to determine, have holes in them!
Another, erm, interesting moment came with the appointment of a sign at the entrance of my Osaka-Taipei flight telling me to "enjoy your "safe" and "comfortable" flight"--hardly encouraging.
AND--and if I had more time/wasn't feeling quite so lazy I would have led with this and made it a post of its own--I realized that hearing spoken Chinese and seeing Chinese signs is a comforting, homelike thing for me now. Being in Japan, even for a very short time, made me remember how awkward it is to not know a single word of the language being spoken around you (especially disorienting was the fact that Japan uses some Chinese characters, though mostly of the simplified variety, in its writing), and it let me see how far I've come in this year in Taiwan. The trilingual announcements at the airport (Japanese/Chinese/English) were great for showing me that I can now safely say I'd probably be alright if they had cut out the English--and that was a wonderful realization.
Well, it's about time I pack up and head back to my Internet-free home--and then get to work packing for my return to my other home.
The pros of this situation:
- Harder to distract myself while packing;
- Much more likely to spend fewer than 8 hours a day on the computer;
- New time requirements for my blog will mean less late-night typing
- I have no Internet in my apartment. That pretty much sums it up, but if you want more, here:
- I have to buy a coffee/tea whenever I want to check my email;
- I have infinitely fewer opportunities to get in contact with people (internationally and nationally; my phone's almost out of funds, too);
- When I start forcing myself back onto a US time schedule (which I'm thinking of doing starting maybe Monday or Tuesday), I'll be up all night with nothing to do;
- Updates and photos will take longer getting posted.
As for today, it consisted almost entirely in travel. I was up and out of my hostel by 6am; one local train, one express train, one flight, two buses, an MRT ride and a walk later, at 5:30pm, I arrived back home in Kaohsiung. Along the way, much ado was made about various forms of cash--I was carrying three (AUD, NTD, Japanese yen)--and trying to keep the coolest coins from each. I ended up making a small purchase specifically so I could get more Japanese change--some of their coins, the value of which I haven't been able to determine, have holes in them!
Another, erm, interesting moment came with the appointment of a sign at the entrance of my Osaka-Taipei flight telling me to "enjoy your "safe" and "comfortable" flight"--hardly encouraging.
AND--and if I had more time/wasn't feeling quite so lazy I would have led with this and made it a post of its own--I realized that hearing spoken Chinese and seeing Chinese signs is a comforting, homelike thing for me now. Being in Japan, even for a very short time, made me remember how awkward it is to not know a single word of the language being spoken around you (especially disorienting was the fact that Japan uses some Chinese characters, though mostly of the simplified variety, in its writing), and it let me see how far I've come in this year in Taiwan. The trilingual announcements at the airport (Japanese/Chinese/English) were great for showing me that I can now safely say I'd probably be alright if they had cut out the English--and that was a wonderful realization.
Well, it's about time I pack up and head back to my Internet-free home--and then get to work packing for my return to my other home.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Top 10 Things I Won't Miss About Taiwan
Author's note: I have had a WONDERFUL time in Taiwan; please check out my companion list to this one for proof of that. But I thought it fitting, since I'm leaving, to remind myself of why it's not all bad to be going home--so this was my way of doing that.
10. Having to check all movies etc to make sure they are in English
OK, so this was only actually an issue once, last week when Tiffiany, Rachel and I went to see Brave and left two Chinese-dubbed lines in. But it will be very nice when I won't have to scrutinize every film title and description to be sure it's in English. In general, having English-language media readily available again will be a wonderful thing.
9. Having to watch my vocabulary and speed when talking
I don't particularly mind doing this, and I've gotten quite used to adjusting my speech to the English level of those around me--my students, for instance--but it will be much easier when I can turn that part of my brain off and just talk.
8. Being dirty all the time
In the same category: having my clothes get dirty all the time; having my shoes get dirty all the time; having my apartment be dirty all the time. No amount of caution or cleaning can help you when it's in the air.
7. Cockroaches
*Shudder* 'Nuff said.
6. Scootering in the rain
I love scootering--when it's nice out. When it's not, well...just see the last post I wrote on the subject. Being the constant subject of showers of street water is not exactly my idea of a good time.
5. Not being able to find potatoes on any menu, ever
I love potatoes. When asked my favorite food, that is usually my answer. So, when the only variety you can ever find them in is french fried, and that rarely, I get a little sad. And then a lot sad. Really, Taiwan, you're missing out on an amazing food here!
4. Being surrounded by bad drivers on poorly designed streets
I've written before my conclusions of why scootering in Taiwan is so difficult. Several times, actually. What it boils down to is this: badly designed roads and people who don't pay attention to things like right-of-way or the traffic laws. I won't miss that. (And yes, I realize that in conjunction with what I said yesterday, this makes me a massive hypocrite. I don't care.)
3. Having bones and skin and fat make up the majority of every "meat" dish on any menu
In America, we like our meat as meat only: no skin (too much fat!), no bones (too much work!), no fat (see "no skin"). In Taiwan, they're much better about not wasting things (and/or have less of a market for our other uses for these materials, like hot dogs, perhaps?), and so a slab of "meat" is never a slab: it's a little crosscut of a bone, whichever bone they had handy; your job is to get the bits off it that you like and leave the rest. I will like having "meat" mean just "meat" again.
2. Being drenched in sweat within 5 minutes of walking outside
I'm from the Pacific Northwest. I don't particularly like sweating, and less still do I like having heat dictate how I dress and how I look--that is, never well. I get quite excited in Taiwan when I'm being picked up (in a car!!) to go somewhere inside (air-conditioning!!), and so can do things like put on makeup and do my hair without the knowledge that it will all be for naught the instant I put on my scooter helmet or walk the few blocks to wherever I'm going.
1. Not being able to communicate above a very basic level
I've written about this more times than I can count, and certainly more times than I'd like to cross-reference for you now: it is so terribly hard sometimes not to be able to talk to most of the people you come across.Your world becomes very small, excepting the Internet, consisting of the few friends you have that speak English and the few places where you know you can communicate in Chinese--some well-trusted restaurants, for instance, and a single bank. Going anywhere else or doing anything else requires a massive effort, and even when you make that effort, is often incredibly frustrating and may or may not end in success. One very small example is in the realm of small talk, which I wrote about before--I feel so rude not making small talk with people I come across! And yet, the terrible truth is that, at least at the moment, I have no choice in Taiwan. And I won't miss that.
10. Having to check all movies etc to make sure they are in English
OK, so this was only actually an issue once, last week when Tiffiany, Rachel and I went to see Brave and left two Chinese-dubbed lines in. But it will be very nice when I won't have to scrutinize every film title and description to be sure it's in English. In general, having English-language media readily available again will be a wonderful thing.
9. Having to watch my vocabulary and speed when talking
I don't particularly mind doing this, and I've gotten quite used to adjusting my speech to the English level of those around me--my students, for instance--but it will be much easier when I can turn that part of my brain off and just talk.
8. Being dirty all the time
In the same category: having my clothes get dirty all the time; having my shoes get dirty all the time; having my apartment be dirty all the time. No amount of caution or cleaning can help you when it's in the air.
7. Cockroaches
*Shudder* 'Nuff said.
6. Scootering in the rain
I love scootering--when it's nice out. When it's not, well...just see the last post I wrote on the subject. Being the constant subject of showers of street water is not exactly my idea of a good time.
5. Not being able to find potatoes on any menu, ever
I love potatoes. When asked my favorite food, that is usually my answer. So, when the only variety you can ever find them in is french fried, and that rarely, I get a little sad. And then a lot sad. Really, Taiwan, you're missing out on an amazing food here!
4. Being surrounded by bad drivers on poorly designed streets
I've written before my conclusions of why scootering in Taiwan is so difficult. Several times, actually. What it boils down to is this: badly designed roads and people who don't pay attention to things like right-of-way or the traffic laws. I won't miss that. (And yes, I realize that in conjunction with what I said yesterday, this makes me a massive hypocrite. I don't care.)
3. Having bones and skin and fat make up the majority of every "meat" dish on any menu
In America, we like our meat as meat only: no skin (too much fat!), no bones (too much work!), no fat (see "no skin"). In Taiwan, they're much better about not wasting things (and/or have less of a market for our other uses for these materials, like hot dogs, perhaps?), and so a slab of "meat" is never a slab: it's a little crosscut of a bone, whichever bone they had handy; your job is to get the bits off it that you like and leave the rest. I will like having "meat" mean just "meat" again.
2. Being drenched in sweat within 5 minutes of walking outside
I'm from the Pacific Northwest. I don't particularly like sweating, and less still do I like having heat dictate how I dress and how I look--that is, never well. I get quite excited in Taiwan when I'm being picked up (in a car!!) to go somewhere inside (air-conditioning!!), and so can do things like put on makeup and do my hair without the knowledge that it will all be for naught the instant I put on my scooter helmet or walk the few blocks to wherever I'm going.
1. Not being able to communicate above a very basic level
I've written about this more times than I can count, and certainly more times than I'd like to cross-reference for you now: it is so terribly hard sometimes not to be able to talk to most of the people you come across.Your world becomes very small, excepting the Internet, consisting of the few friends you have that speak English and the few places where you know you can communicate in Chinese--some well-trusted restaurants, for instance, and a single bank. Going anywhere else or doing anything else requires a massive effort, and even when you make that effort, is often incredibly frustrating and may or may not end in success. One very small example is in the realm of small talk, which I wrote about before--I feel so rude not making small talk with people I come across! And yet, the terrible truth is that, at least at the moment, I have no choice in Taiwan. And I won't miss that.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Murphy's Law
I woke up today with simple plans. Here's how things were supposed to go down: 1) Meet Karina to see The Hunger Games in the afternoon; 2) Come home and eat dinner; 3) Meet Mandy, Rachel and Tiffiany to see Brave. Too bad it was one of those days where nothing goes according to plan.
Here's how things actually played out.
1) I rolled over, turned off my alarm, and willed myself into a sitting position. It was time to get up. Wait, when was I supposed to be meeting Karina? How much time did I have to get stuff done before I actually had to go? I shot off a text and drifted almost back to sleep. My phone buzzed: Karina, saying she couldn't make it because she had too much stuff to do. Oh. Okay. Just the one movie today, then.
2) I had eaten at awkward times all day, so I didn't really feel the call to eat anything until about a quarter till 7. Feeling lazy, and a little Taiwanese, there was only one obvious choice for where to procure my delicious foodstuffs: 7-11. I meandered down, grabbed some frozen pasta and frozen pork buns and some watermelon milk--dinner of champions!--and headed back upstairs to prepare my dinner for eating, (read: nuke it). That accomplished, I was chatting with Rachel when my phone rang. I looked at the screen: Hal, my tutee. I looked at the clock: 7:05. Crap.
Yep, after a full four months or so of having a tutoring session every Sunday at 7pm, never missing a session and never being late, I had completely forgotten about our last session ever. And that, even with the fact that I'd prepared a little gift as a going-away present for Hal, a gift I'd thought about both earlier in the day and earlier the previous day, as I had made conflicting movie-going plans with Mandy and Tiffiany. Whoops. Hal was gracious as I arrived 15 minutes late, and was even willing to put up with my request that we cut the length of our session from an hour and a half to an hour, so I could leave in just enough time to make the movie with Mandy, Tiffiany, Rachel, and Chialing, whom Rachel'd invited. It would work.
3) Partway through my session with Hal, I got a text from Mandy saying that the wedding she'd been invited to (and which had, thankfully, already moved our movie time back from 6-something to 8-something, or my session with Hal would have been COMPLETELY derailed) had been delayed to the point where it hadn't even started yet, so she wouldn't be able to come. Sadface. After I finished up with Hal, I rushed home to find Rachel waiting for me downstairs, lest we miss the beginning of the movie, with the news that Chialing also wouldn't be able to come. Again, sadface.
So Rachel and I jetted off into the night and, after a few quick U-turns, found the movie theater we were looking for, retrieved our tickets from Tiffiany, and sat down in the correct theater right as the movie began. There was only one problem: the movie was in Chinese. Not just with Chinese subtitles, but dubbed in Chinese. And, call me crazy, but when I, as a native English speaker, go to see a movie set in Scotland, it just isn't the same without the Scottish accents. We left within three or four lines.
But we didn't go far--Rachel found an employee in the hall and asked her if they had Brave playing in English (it's really not uncommon here, I promise: most theaters I've seen have popular American movies like this offered in both languages, with Chinese subtitles under all of them). They didn't. BUT, she was quick to point out, we could exchange our tickets for another film playing just then--they had an English version of Men In Black 3 that began in just a few minutes. So we exchanged our tickets and took the elevator to the third floor. They told us it was on the fourth, but when we made it to the third and didn't immediately get off we were met with several employees frantically waving at us to get off here, from which I gather that if we had continued up in the elevator, rather than the stairs they pointed us to, we would have been victims to some sort of Tower-of-Terror-style horrors or something.
So, to recap: I began the day thinking I would have a leisurely time of watching two movies, including an animated one with Scottish accents, with five friends, with plenty of time between in which to do nothing, and I ended it having nearly missed a work appointment, and having watched, with two friends, one movie, including not a single fierce animated Scottish girl, but with no dearth of aliens and Will Smith. And, in the process, we all managed to make a little bit of a fool of ourselves in front of everyone. Hooray, Murphy's Law!
Here's how things actually played out.
1) I rolled over, turned off my alarm, and willed myself into a sitting position. It was time to get up. Wait, when was I supposed to be meeting Karina? How much time did I have to get stuff done before I actually had to go? I shot off a text and drifted almost back to sleep. My phone buzzed: Karina, saying she couldn't make it because she had too much stuff to do. Oh. Okay. Just the one movie today, then.
2) I had eaten at awkward times all day, so I didn't really feel the call to eat anything until about a quarter till 7. Feeling lazy, and a little Taiwanese, there was only one obvious choice for where to procure my delicious foodstuffs: 7-11. I meandered down, grabbed some frozen pasta and frozen pork buns and some watermelon milk--dinner of champions!--and headed back upstairs to prepare my dinner for eating, (read: nuke it). That accomplished, I was chatting with Rachel when my phone rang. I looked at the screen: Hal, my tutee. I looked at the clock: 7:05. Crap.
Yep, after a full four months or so of having a tutoring session every Sunday at 7pm, never missing a session and never being late, I had completely forgotten about our last session ever. And that, even with the fact that I'd prepared a little gift as a going-away present for Hal, a gift I'd thought about both earlier in the day and earlier the previous day, as I had made conflicting movie-going plans with Mandy and Tiffiany. Whoops. Hal was gracious as I arrived 15 minutes late, and was even willing to put up with my request that we cut the length of our session from an hour and a half to an hour, so I could leave in just enough time to make the movie with Mandy, Tiffiany, Rachel, and Chialing, whom Rachel'd invited. It would work.
3) Partway through my session with Hal, I got a text from Mandy saying that the wedding she'd been invited to (and which had, thankfully, already moved our movie time back from 6-something to 8-something, or my session with Hal would have been COMPLETELY derailed) had been delayed to the point where it hadn't even started yet, so she wouldn't be able to come. Sadface. After I finished up with Hal, I rushed home to find Rachel waiting for me downstairs, lest we miss the beginning of the movie, with the news that Chialing also wouldn't be able to come. Again, sadface.
So Rachel and I jetted off into the night and, after a few quick U-turns, found the movie theater we were looking for, retrieved our tickets from Tiffiany, and sat down in the correct theater right as the movie began. There was only one problem: the movie was in Chinese. Not just with Chinese subtitles, but dubbed in Chinese. And, call me crazy, but when I, as a native English speaker, go to see a movie set in Scotland, it just isn't the same without the Scottish accents. We left within three or four lines.
But we didn't go far--Rachel found an employee in the hall and asked her if they had Brave playing in English (it's really not uncommon here, I promise: most theaters I've seen have popular American movies like this offered in both languages, with Chinese subtitles under all of them). They didn't. BUT, she was quick to point out, we could exchange our tickets for another film playing just then--they had an English version of Men In Black 3 that began in just a few minutes. So we exchanged our tickets and took the elevator to the third floor. They told us it was on the fourth, but when we made it to the third and didn't immediately get off we were met with several employees frantically waving at us to get off here, from which I gather that if we had continued up in the elevator, rather than the stairs they pointed us to, we would have been victims to some sort of Tower-of-Terror-style horrors or something.
 |
| We went to see this... |
 |
| And somehow got this instead. |
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Life
Wow, it does NOT feel like 3am. And that is a VERY bad thing for my sleep cycles. But, also, a not-so-bad thing for my blog.
I had a pretty decent day, all considered. Watched most of a Scottish miniseries starring David Tennant--which, obviously, made me want to throw all my stuff in a bag and MOVE THERE NOW, though I resisted. FINALLY turned in my application for what I might do come September--and then accidentally half-way applied to a job in New York, which was odd. And grotesquely ironic: this job was posted on the website for a major publisher, and was one of FOUR fantastic jobs now posted on that site for which I may actually be qualified. Of course, I found them directly after mentally committing to another program. Sigh. Now to determine whether I should apply to them anyway...probably?
But the highlight of my day was easily my dinner plans. I met up with Tiffiany and our Chinese teacher, Mandy, at a great little Western-style restaurant on the Love River called Sandwich Island (and, stupid person that I am, I completely spaced that the dragon boat races going on would mean parking would be impossible--so I was 15 minutes late). The food was scrumptious, of course (fried chicken sandwich--mmm), and Mandy was so sweet--she brought Tiffiany and I some fantastic going away presents! Cue the part where I wish I'd brought more gifts to give away...
So we had our little meal, and then strolled along the Love River with the hordes of other people, watching dragon boat-ers who DIDN'T suck. And Tiffiany utilized her Chinese to ask a very nervous (but adorable) little girl to take our picture:
Next up was some continued strolling and a stop by my personal favorite Kaohsiung gelato place--two scoops for 100NT (~3USD) of some of the BEST gelato ever. Tonight, I went for dark cherry and mulberry (2 separate flavors) and they were to DIE for. Then we kept strolling.
And, thankfully, this ISN'T actually going to be our last hang-out like we'd originally thought. We made plans to go see BRAVE tomorrow (wow, I'm big on the Caps Lock tonight...sorry about that). Brave, for those who don't know, is this:
All I have to say is: Disney/Pixar? Check. Scottish? Check. Archery? Check. COUNT ME IN!
I had a pretty decent day, all considered. Watched most of a Scottish miniseries starring David Tennant--which, obviously, made me want to throw all my stuff in a bag and MOVE THERE NOW, though I resisted. FINALLY turned in my application for what I might do come September--and then accidentally half-way applied to a job in New York, which was odd. And grotesquely ironic: this job was posted on the website for a major publisher, and was one of FOUR fantastic jobs now posted on that site for which I may actually be qualified. Of course, I found them directly after mentally committing to another program. Sigh. Now to determine whether I should apply to them anyway...probably?
But the highlight of my day was easily my dinner plans. I met up with Tiffiany and our Chinese teacher, Mandy, at a great little Western-style restaurant on the Love River called Sandwich Island (and, stupid person that I am, I completely spaced that the dragon boat races going on would mean parking would be impossible--so I was 15 minutes late). The food was scrumptious, of course (fried chicken sandwich--mmm), and Mandy was so sweet--she brought Tiffiany and I some fantastic going away presents! Cue the part where I wish I'd brought more gifts to give away...
So we had our little meal, and then strolled along the Love River with the hordes of other people, watching dragon boat-ers who DIDN'T suck. And Tiffiany utilized her Chinese to ask a very nervous (but adorable) little girl to take our picture:
 |
| Extra smiles for our new 小朋友! |
 |
| It's so PRETTY when you're not being forced down it with paddles in your hands! |
 |
| Hey look, they're winning by almost as much as we lost by! (butnotreally) |
And, thankfully, this ISN'T actually going to be our last hang-out like we'd originally thought. We made plans to go see BRAVE tomorrow (wow, I'm big on the Caps Lock tonight...sorry about that). Brave, for those who don't know, is this:
All I have to say is: Disney/Pixar? Check. Scottish? Check. Archery? Check. COUNT ME IN!
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Small Talk
Small talk. Used daily by everyone, yet spoken of with sneering cynicism: the weather? The local sports team? Who cares! Well, as it turns out, everyone--or, at least, they would if they knew what life without it would be like.
One of the little things you don't think about missing when you move to another country is the ability to have a conversation with the person ringing up your groceries. Yet, as it happens, once you're actually in another country, it's one of the first things you notice, and one of the single largest drivers for you to work harder to learn whatever language it is that the grocery checkers (and, hopefully, everyone else) happen to speak.
It really is amazing, though. After nine and a half months here in Taiwan, being able to have those tiny, meaningless conversations with the random people you see every day is one of the single biggest things I miss. Of course, I learned long ago the questions and answers needed for a basic check-out: numbers, how much, change, rewards card, bagging, etc. Those are just logistics, though; mechanical and automated, they aren't real conversations at all. Those are much harder; those are what I aim for with every Chinese class I attend (we don't follow a book, so it's basically Tiffiany and I asking our teacher to cover whatever topics we want to know). Listening and understanding is one thing--following what the other person is saying is usually the easy part. It's being able to respond that's hard, and that I'm still very intently working on.
All this to say, it's a minor celebration for me whenever I actually can have a little conversation with the people I interact with during the day. Whether they're a cab driver or a mom on a scooter asking me what grade I teach (happened a few weeks ago at Qingshan), it's always so exciting for me if I can talk with them--about anything. And today? I had two conversations.
My first one was at the fruit stand. My roommates and I usually frequent a certain fruit stand down the street: their prices are good, and it's pretty close, both to our apartment, and to a grocery store and the major road that leads to the gym. All factors highly in its favor. Not in its favor, however, is the man who works there. Brittany has dubbed him "Nasty Mouth" because, his age notwithstanding (he's probably in his 30s), he's missing countless teeth, with those remaining emaciated red stubs. Beyond this, he's notoriously hard to talk to (hard to understand him because of his lack of teeth, if nothing else), and yet he insists on holding long conversations with us when we're there, a fact which is made more difficult by his apparent, and very awkward, obsession with us. I've actually started avoiding the stand because I don't like interacting with him.
Today, however, I was thinking with my wallet, so I stopped on over. And, once there, I discovered a wonderful thing: he wasn't working! In his place was a lovely older Taiwanese woman (Rachel later told me she's his mother), with whom I had a nice, if short, conversation about the watermelons I was considering getting--whether they were good; whether they were red or yellow; whether red or yellow watermelons tasted better. It was such a small thing, yet it was so wonderful--besides restoring my estimation of the fruit stand (on Friday afternoons, anyway, since apparently that's when she works), it was a little touch of human contact in Chinese. And I was able to participate.
The second one was at 7-11 tonight. I absolutely love one of the ladies who works there, a middle aged woman who is always so friendly and helpful and who--and this is important--always makes an effort to speak to me, but in a slow, measured way such that I can understand her. Tonight, the topic of discussion was what I was doing here, studying or working. I told her I was an English teacher, and then she asked where. I told her, and she identified the district and we said goodbye. Such a small moment; such small talk.
But it was small talk. In Chinese. And I could participate. Life is good.
One of the little things you don't think about missing when you move to another country is the ability to have a conversation with the person ringing up your groceries. Yet, as it happens, once you're actually in another country, it's one of the first things you notice, and one of the single largest drivers for you to work harder to learn whatever language it is that the grocery checkers (and, hopefully, everyone else) happen to speak.
It really is amazing, though. After nine and a half months here in Taiwan, being able to have those tiny, meaningless conversations with the random people you see every day is one of the single biggest things I miss. Of course, I learned long ago the questions and answers needed for a basic check-out: numbers, how much, change, rewards card, bagging, etc. Those are just logistics, though; mechanical and automated, they aren't real conversations at all. Those are much harder; those are what I aim for with every Chinese class I attend (we don't follow a book, so it's basically Tiffiany and I asking our teacher to cover whatever topics we want to know). Listening and understanding is one thing--following what the other person is saying is usually the easy part. It's being able to respond that's hard, and that I'm still very intently working on.
All this to say, it's a minor celebration for me whenever I actually can have a little conversation with the people I interact with during the day. Whether they're a cab driver or a mom on a scooter asking me what grade I teach (happened a few weeks ago at Qingshan), it's always so exciting for me if I can talk with them--about anything. And today? I had two conversations.
My first one was at the fruit stand. My roommates and I usually frequent a certain fruit stand down the street: their prices are good, and it's pretty close, both to our apartment, and to a grocery store and the major road that leads to the gym. All factors highly in its favor. Not in its favor, however, is the man who works there. Brittany has dubbed him "Nasty Mouth" because, his age notwithstanding (he's probably in his 30s), he's missing countless teeth, with those remaining emaciated red stubs. Beyond this, he's notoriously hard to talk to (hard to understand him because of his lack of teeth, if nothing else), and yet he insists on holding long conversations with us when we're there, a fact which is made more difficult by his apparent, and very awkward, obsession with us. I've actually started avoiding the stand because I don't like interacting with him.
Today, however, I was thinking with my wallet, so I stopped on over. And, once there, I discovered a wonderful thing: he wasn't working! In his place was a lovely older Taiwanese woman (Rachel later told me she's his mother), with whom I had a nice, if short, conversation about the watermelons I was considering getting--whether they were good; whether they were red or yellow; whether red or yellow watermelons tasted better. It was such a small thing, yet it was so wonderful--besides restoring my estimation of the fruit stand (on Friday afternoons, anyway, since apparently that's when she works), it was a little touch of human contact in Chinese. And I was able to participate.
The second one was at 7-11 tonight. I absolutely love one of the ladies who works there, a middle aged woman who is always so friendly and helpful and who--and this is important--always makes an effort to speak to me, but in a slow, measured way such that I can understand her. Tonight, the topic of discussion was what I was doing here, studying or working. I told her I was an English teacher, and then she asked where. I told her, and she identified the district and we said goodbye. Such a small moment; such small talk.
But it was small talk. In Chinese. And I could participate. Life is good.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
(Host) Mother's Day
母親天快樂! That's a sentence that, prior to this evening, I was not capable of uttering. But now, having been taught it and practiced it many times before a group of 20 or so people, I am well able of saying "Happy Mother's Day!" in Chinese.
Tonight, James, Margaret and Emily picked me up to go to an early celebration of Mother's Day. I grabbed some flowers for Margaret (it is Mother's Day, after all!) and figured I was set for an evening with my wonderful host family.
And I was. What I hadn't realized, though, was that tonight would be my whole host family--that is, James' mom, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews. (Later explanation revealed that only perhaps 3 or 4 people from the extended family were missing.) We met at a Japanese restaurant, where we were treated to a multi-course, multi-toast meal the likes of which I'd only seen here before at a wedding.
Dinner conversation was peppered with various uncles and aunts trying to make their kids talk to me in English--it was cool to hear "我的英文不好" (My English is bad) coming from so many mouths, having uttered the reverse, "我的中文不好," so many times myself--and a rather fun mixture of English, Chinese, and Hakka coming from all sides.
Filled to bursting, both with food and with new-learned vocabulary, we then relocated to James', Margaret's and Emily's home, where we drank tea, ate corn, and continued our trilingual conversation.
All in all, quite a fun night, though infinitely different from the one I had thought was coming. Being with James' family reminded me of being with my Mom's side of the family, always a fun occasion, and as always I loved being able to simply slide into belonging, not just to my immediate host family, but to my extended one, too. So, to all my mothers, Happy (Host) Mother's Day!
Tonight, James, Margaret and Emily picked me up to go to an early celebration of Mother's Day. I grabbed some flowers for Margaret (it is Mother's Day, after all!) and figured I was set for an evening with my wonderful host family.
And I was. What I hadn't realized, though, was that tonight would be my whole host family--that is, James' mom, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews. (Later explanation revealed that only perhaps 3 or 4 people from the extended family were missing.) We met at a Japanese restaurant, where we were treated to a multi-course, multi-toast meal the likes of which I'd only seen here before at a wedding.
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| What the table looked like BEFORE it disappeared beneath a mountain of food |
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| Movies playing on the wall <3 |
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| It was a pretty epic restaurant, really... |
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| Eating 米苔目 for the first time: delicious! (or 可口) |
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| The Japanese place's sister restaurant provided the towelettes: yay for Seattle! |
Filled to bursting, both with food and with new-learned vocabulary, we then relocated to James', Margaret's and Emily's home, where we drank tea, ate corn, and continued our trilingual conversation.
All in all, quite a fun night, though infinitely different from the one I had thought was coming. Being with James' family reminded me of being with my Mom's side of the family, always a fun occasion, and as always I loved being able to simply slide into belonging, not just to my immediate host family, but to my extended one, too. So, to all my mothers, Happy (Host) Mother's Day!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Chinese
I took a huge step today. I--now be ready for this--added Chinese to my languages on Facebook. Phew. Got that out of the way.
Ever since I came to Taiwan, I've been learning Chinese--slowly, surely, and with various levels of discipline, but always learning all the same. To some extent, it's a natural effect of living in a Chinese-speaking country: you pick things up. 現在, for instance--I picked it up watching TV (translation: "now"). But unless you're still part of the under-10 crowd, almost nine months of language acquisition (Am I really coming up on nine months in Taiwan? Unbelievable!) and language study is peanuts when it comes to learning a language like Chinese.
I find it odd, but incredibly telling, that one of the first phrases I learned in Chinese was "一點點," ("a little bit") which became my standard response to the inevitable "你可以講中文嗎?" ("Can you speak Chinese?")--and that, for all these months of study, my response has not changed in the slightest. When I got here, I could, indeed, speak 一點點中文, a little bit almost entirely comprised of set phrases like 你好 (hello), 謝謝 (thank you), and 我的名字是百合 (My name is Baihe).
And now? Well, now, I can tell cab drivers where I live, and give directions and approximate times as needed (從這裡到三多商圈騎摩托車大約十分鐘. / From here to SanDuo Shopping District is 10 minutes by scooter.).
I can usually order food, assuming the waiter/waitress is willing to tell me what's on the menu rather than expecting me to read it (I can read basic meat types, etc., but since when is that actually helpful in knowing what to get?).
I can answer more complex questions in more complex sentence patterns, such as why I want to take a scooter instead of the MRT (因為摩托車比較快也比較方便, 所以我要騎摩托車. / I want to ride a scooter because scooters are faster and more convenient.).
I can engage in structured paragraph-long discourses on select subjects. I can travel without a translator. And, most significantly, I can follow most, though certainly not all, of the conversations happening around me.
It's a long way to come in nine months, but then again, it's also a long way from anything even remotely resembling proficiency. Which is why it seems so strange to add Chinese to my Facebook list of languages spoken. At what point can you claim to speak a language? When you know enough of the language to get around without a guide? When you know enough to join in random conversations? When you can converse on any subject, or when you can read a newspaper? When you know enough to correct other peoples' grammar?
I'm not even remotely close to most of these markers, and that, combined with the fact that most of my ETA colleagues here in Kaohsiung are at least at the random conversations stage, while I feel accomplished to have grasped survival elements and the general drift of conversations around me, has kept me from claiming, ever, in any capacity, that I can speak Chinese.
But, in my own limited capacity, I can. And it's exciting, though terrifying, to claim it. I live in terror that my apparent understanding will lead people into deeper conversation which I absolutely can't follow (I can parrot words and sentences just fine, but trust me, that means nothing!), but my days are punctuated with joyous moments when I catch a new word I've learned in actual use, and am newly able to understand. Those moments are perfect. They make me want to know more.
Yet, ironically, I'm writing this post on a day I didn't make it to Chinese class. Earlier today I did some recording homework, but apart from that and ordering dinner, this blog post is the most I've used Chinese all day. I feel like an imposter.
I wish Facebook let you write whatever you wanted in the language category--I'd write "一點點中文" and leave it that way forever, if I could. But it doesn't, so I guess now is as good a time as any to claim it--I can speak (some, a little, and in pretty much every way limited) Chinese!
Ever since I came to Taiwan, I've been learning Chinese--slowly, surely, and with various levels of discipline, but always learning all the same. To some extent, it's a natural effect of living in a Chinese-speaking country: you pick things up. 現在, for instance--I picked it up watching TV (translation: "now"). But unless you're still part of the under-10 crowd, almost nine months of language acquisition (Am I really coming up on nine months in Taiwan? Unbelievable!) and language study is peanuts when it comes to learning a language like Chinese.
I find it odd, but incredibly telling, that one of the first phrases I learned in Chinese was "一點點," ("a little bit") which became my standard response to the inevitable "你可以講中文嗎?" ("Can you speak Chinese?")--and that, for all these months of study, my response has not changed in the slightest. When I got here, I could, indeed, speak 一點點中文, a little bit almost entirely comprised of set phrases like 你好 (hello), 謝謝 (thank you), and 我的名字是百合 (My name is Baihe).
And now? Well, now, I can tell cab drivers where I live, and give directions and approximate times as needed (從這裡到三多商圈騎摩托車大約十分鐘. / From here to SanDuo Shopping District is 10 minutes by scooter.).
I can usually order food, assuming the waiter/waitress is willing to tell me what's on the menu rather than expecting me to read it (I can read basic meat types, etc., but since when is that actually helpful in knowing what to get?).
I can answer more complex questions in more complex sentence patterns, such as why I want to take a scooter instead of the MRT (因為摩托車比較快也比較方便, 所以我要騎摩托車. / I want to ride a scooter because scooters are faster and more convenient.).
I can engage in structured paragraph-long discourses on select subjects. I can travel without a translator. And, most significantly, I can follow most, though certainly not all, of the conversations happening around me.
It's a long way to come in nine months, but then again, it's also a long way from anything even remotely resembling proficiency. Which is why it seems so strange to add Chinese to my Facebook list of languages spoken. At what point can you claim to speak a language? When you know enough of the language to get around without a guide? When you know enough to join in random conversations? When you can converse on any subject, or when you can read a newspaper? When you know enough to correct other peoples' grammar?
I'm not even remotely close to most of these markers, and that, combined with the fact that most of my ETA colleagues here in Kaohsiung are at least at the random conversations stage, while I feel accomplished to have grasped survival elements and the general drift of conversations around me, has kept me from claiming, ever, in any capacity, that I can speak Chinese.
But, in my own limited capacity, I can. And it's exciting, though terrifying, to claim it. I live in terror that my apparent understanding will lead people into deeper conversation which I absolutely can't follow (I can parrot words and sentences just fine, but trust me, that means nothing!), but my days are punctuated with joyous moments when I catch a new word I've learned in actual use, and am newly able to understand. Those moments are perfect. They make me want to know more.
Yet, ironically, I'm writing this post on a day I didn't make it to Chinese class. Earlier today I did some recording homework, but apart from that and ordering dinner, this blog post is the most I've used Chinese all day. I feel like an imposter.
I wish Facebook let you write whatever you wanted in the language category--I'd write "一點點中文" and leave it that way forever, if I could. But it doesn't, so I guess now is as good a time as any to claim it--I can speak (some, a little, and in pretty much every way limited) Chinese!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Squirrel! and other stories
As usual when I put a lot of effort into a post (see below), I find myself the next day wondering how on earth I will follow it, short of welding myself to my computer for another couple of hours and pounding out another Tolstoy-length treatise on my life here.
And, also as usual when I reach this point, my answer is the same: I can't. I'm all treatise-d out for the moment. But what do have, and happen to have in spades today, is fun little stories of how wonderful life is here. So let's do that, instead!
Squirrel!
This morning found me all but sprinting down the 3rd floor hallway at Hanmin in my typical attempt to avoid being late. (For the record, so far, so good.) Now, my first class of the day on Mondays is actually my students' second or third. (Because, clearly, elementary schoolers were meant to be in school from 8am til 4pm, then hit the cram schools for hours afterward. But I digress.) And, since Hanmin, like most (maybe all?) schools in Taiwan, is built up rather than out, with wide covered breezeways serving as most kids' between-class play area, my path from the elevator to my office involved ducking and weaving between 2nd graders jumping rope, then taking a blind corner in the hope that this would be the one time that the 5th grade boys playing tag would think to look in front of them, rather than behind, as they took rounded the edge at a full gallop.
But while I was disappointed in that last hope--though thankfully he turned just in time to see me and avoid the collision--that little mishap was almost instantly forgotten in the discovery of something far more interesting and strange: a squirrel.
That's right, there, scurrying its way along the stone floor beside the banister, was a scawny black squirrel--that looked absolutely scared out of its mind. Of course, so would you if you had a horde of hyperactive giants closing in around you from all sides, trying to cut off your every escape route.
If squirrels think, I imagine this particular one's thought process went something like this:
"Oh, look, a giant white thing to climb. I like to climb. Let's climb the giant white thing and see if I can find food." (it climbs up the school building and stops at the third floor) "This looks nice. But it smells weird--lots of different sm--some food, some dirt, some anim- AHHHHHHH!!!!! They're coming! They're coming! THEY'RE COMING AFTER MEEEEE!!!!! Must get away, must get a--AH! WHERE DID THIS GIANT FOOT COME FROM?! I'll go--OH NO ANOTHER ONE! SAVE MEEEE!!!!"
All things considered, our little squirrel friend was making pretty good time down the hallway, flocked by a dozen or so kids doing their best to corral him so they could play. Fortunately (for the squirrel, anyway), I don't think they succeeded.
Although, later in the day, I did come across a stuffed squirrel, lying on its back in the middle of the hallway as if begging for mercy from a horde of giants....nah, must have been a coincidence.
Mr. 7 and Mr. 8
I think I've mentioned it before, but at Hanmin, we don't have an English classroom; rather, myself and Maggie or Alison (depending on the day's schedule) are the roving English duo, taking our cue from the bell just like our students and setting forth to whichever classroom is expecting us next. Or not expecting us next, as the case may be, if we've lost track of what period it is, but they're usually pretty quick at setting us straight with a big laugh and a chorus of "hellos."
Anyway. On the way to class today with Maggie, we were accompanied, as is usual here in Taiwan, by our classroom helpers--ie, those kids who'd decided to voluntarily come down and help us carry our stuff. (Gotta love Taiwan!) Also behind us as we walked were Ingrid and Fiona, another English co-teaching pair who commute to their classrooms, along with their helpers. A few other kids scurried about, too, rushing towards their appropriate home rooms.
I mention all this to say that I don't really know who's responsible for what happened next.
Out of the corner of my ear, I heard what I thought was "七月," (qi yue), which translates as 7th month, or July. July? I thought, Why is he talking about July?
Partly out of curiosity and partly because I wanted to check my Chinese listening comprehension skills, I asked Maggie about what I'd heard. Turns out that my Chinese listening comprehension skills suck (or, half suck, anyway--I had the 七 part right), and the student had actually said "qi ye"--I have no idea how it's actually written--which was a reference to a Chinese fable.
In the fable, apparently, there are two men, Mister Seven and Mister Eight, who lead people to Hell. Mister Seven is very tall, and Mister Eight is very short.
Hm. Have I mentioned that Maggie is probably about 4'11", and I'm a whopping (in Taiwan) 5'6"? No? Oh, well then I should probably just spell it out that they were talking about us. As the two who lead people down to Hell. Good to know they have such a good impression of English class...
Well, that's it for the night. It's no lengthy tome, but some days just don't need that sort of post. Some days just need a little shot of the small glories of life--a reminder that terrified squirrels and backhanded Chinese insults can, many times, make your day.
And, also as usual when I reach this point, my answer is the same: I can't. I'm all treatise-d out for the moment. But what do have, and happen to have in spades today, is fun little stories of how wonderful life is here. So let's do that, instead!
Squirrel!
This morning found me all but sprinting down the 3rd floor hallway at Hanmin in my typical attempt to avoid being late. (For the record, so far, so good.) Now, my first class of the day on Mondays is actually my students' second or third. (Because, clearly, elementary schoolers were meant to be in school from 8am til 4pm, then hit the cram schools for hours afterward. But I digress.) And, since Hanmin, like most (maybe all?) schools in Taiwan, is built up rather than out, with wide covered breezeways serving as most kids' between-class play area, my path from the elevator to my office involved ducking and weaving between 2nd graders jumping rope, then taking a blind corner in the hope that this would be the one time that the 5th grade boys playing tag would think to look in front of them, rather than behind, as they took rounded the edge at a full gallop.
But while I was disappointed in that last hope--though thankfully he turned just in time to see me and avoid the collision--that little mishap was almost instantly forgotten in the discovery of something far more interesting and strange: a squirrel.
That's right, there, scurrying its way along the stone floor beside the banister, was a scawny black squirrel--that looked absolutely scared out of its mind. Of course, so would you if you had a horde of hyperactive giants closing in around you from all sides, trying to cut off your every escape route.
If squirrels think, I imagine this particular one's thought process went something like this:
"Oh, look, a giant white thing to climb. I like to climb. Let's climb the giant white thing and see if I can find food." (it climbs up the school building and stops at the third floor) "This looks nice. But it smells weird--lots of different sm--some food, some dirt, some anim- AHHHHHHH!!!!! They're coming! They're coming! THEY'RE COMING AFTER MEEEEE!!!!! Must get away, must get a--AH! WHERE DID THIS GIANT FOOT COME FROM?! I'll go--OH NO ANOTHER ONE! SAVE MEEEE!!!!"
All things considered, our little squirrel friend was making pretty good time down the hallway, flocked by a dozen or so kids doing their best to corral him so they could play. Fortunately (for the squirrel, anyway), I don't think they succeeded.
Although, later in the day, I did come across a stuffed squirrel, lying on its back in the middle of the hallway as if begging for mercy from a horde of giants....nah, must have been a coincidence.
Mr. 7 and Mr. 8
I think I've mentioned it before, but at Hanmin, we don't have an English classroom; rather, myself and Maggie or Alison (depending on the day's schedule) are the roving English duo, taking our cue from the bell just like our students and setting forth to whichever classroom is expecting us next. Or not expecting us next, as the case may be, if we've lost track of what period it is, but they're usually pretty quick at setting us straight with a big laugh and a chorus of "hellos."
Anyway. On the way to class today with Maggie, we were accompanied, as is usual here in Taiwan, by our classroom helpers--ie, those kids who'd decided to voluntarily come down and help us carry our stuff. (Gotta love Taiwan!) Also behind us as we walked were Ingrid and Fiona, another English co-teaching pair who commute to their classrooms, along with their helpers. A few other kids scurried about, too, rushing towards their appropriate home rooms.
I mention all this to say that I don't really know who's responsible for what happened next.
Out of the corner of my ear, I heard what I thought was "七月," (qi yue), which translates as 7th month, or July. July? I thought, Why is he talking about July?
Partly out of curiosity and partly because I wanted to check my Chinese listening comprehension skills, I asked Maggie about what I'd heard. Turns out that my Chinese listening comprehension skills suck (or, half suck, anyway--I had the 七 part right), and the student had actually said "qi ye"--I have no idea how it's actually written--which was a reference to a Chinese fable.
In the fable, apparently, there are two men, Mister Seven and Mister Eight, who lead people to Hell. Mister Seven is very tall, and Mister Eight is very short.
Hm. Have I mentioned that Maggie is probably about 4'11", and I'm a whopping (in Taiwan) 5'6"? No? Oh, well then I should probably just spell it out that they were talking about us. As the two who lead people down to Hell. Good to know they have such a good impression of English class...
Well, that's it for the night. It's no lengthy tome, but some days just don't need that sort of post. Some days just need a little shot of the small glories of life--a reminder that terrified squirrels and backhanded Chinese insults can, many times, make your day.
Monday, April 16, 2012
6 Ways Living in a Foreign Country Changes Your POV
I'm noted on here before that I enjoy occasionally delving into the ridiculous, but funny, annals of Cracked.com. For those who don't share my hobby (if you visit, be warned: its humor can get dirty), one of the hallmarks of their website is their list-format articles. For instance, the two stories currently leading on their homepage are "The 7 Most Insane Ways People Legally Avoided Paying Taxes" and "5 Things Flight Safety Presentations Should Mention."
I like this format. And, just now, I feel inspired to try it out. So, apart from the literal change in view that comes from being on a different side of the globe, how does living in a foreign country change your POV? Well...
1. All your holidays become multi-day events
I've written about this, I believe, at every holiday I've experienced here in Taiwan. Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Easter, rolls around. "Aw," I think, "Another holiday away from home! Time to have a search for a turkey meal/Christmas Eve service/Eggs Benedict-making fest to compensate." I have said festivities, miss my family, but do the best I can to have a good holiday. Then I go to sleep.
And the next morning, surprise! It's still Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter! Yep, due to the wonder of time zones and the fact that my hometown is a solid 15 or 16 hours (depending on Daylight Savings Time) behind Taiwan, my family is usually having their big celebration right around the time I'm eating breakfast and driving to school the next day.
Let's take Easter for our first example, since it happened most recently and my family was disappointed because I (whoops!) forgot to Skype in with them for the holiday. But, as I figured out afterwards, there was a reason for that. See, my family celebrates Easter in the early afternoon, like, say 1pm-4pm or so. Which, in Taiwan, would be 4am-7am. And, on any given Monday, my alarm goes off at 8am. So...yeah.
On the more successful Skype holidays, say, Christmas, for example, I Skyped my family three times over the course of two days: noon on Christmas (Christmas Eve at home), late at night on Christmas (Christmas morning), and afternoon on Boxing Day (Christmas night). Or, take Thanksgiving, which found me Skyping in the next day at lunchtime, with my Subway turkey sandwich, as my family cleaned off their Thanksgiving late-night snacks. It's bizarre, but it's something you eventually adjust to: holidays are as fluid as time zones when it comes to when they're celebrated. And you'd better be there for all of them.
2. Everyone's online at the wrong time.
All this talk about time zones brings me to my second point: you know all those people who've hassled you your whole life about not staying up too late? You know, the early birds who consider staying up past 11pm or sleeping past 9am to be some sort of freakish abnormality, not to be tolerated under any circumstances? Well---they are now your most reliable contacts.
On the flip side, never have I felt more rewarded to keep an abnormal sleeping schedule than I have since I moved here. Want to talk to someone? Better be okay with staying up till 2am. Want a lot of people to read your blog? Well then forget about posting before midnight, it's best if you wait till at least 3am to maximize readership. (True numbers there: Google Analytics tells all.)
And, really, developing dual communities on opposite sides of the globe just means you have twice as much stuff to do online, and doing it in sync with the local community necessitates more and more hours spent there. At this point, just about every time I open my Facebook I have a notification or four waiting--after all, while I'm sleeping or teaching, my friends back home are in their late-night Facebook mode! And then, on top of that, once I'm in my late-night Facebook mode, so are my friends here in Taiwan.
So I'm not actually complaining about this shift. It really works out pretty well for a night owl/online addict like me. But still, time zone shifts can be confusing, especially when you're dealing with facts like...
3. You have to re-memorize all publication schedules
This may not be a big deal for other people. And, truthfully, it's not *that* big of a deal for me, most of the time, since I had no functioning television in my house last year and so relied exclusively on Internet versions of shows, which always come out later to begin with. But. You still get used to certain release dates; you still (if you're me) know *exactly* when Bones will be up, and *exactly* when The Office will be. You also have to get used to the fact that none of the reputable sites you know and love are licensed for use where you are.
And there are websites that get updated on a time schedule, too--usually something like Monday/Wednesday/Friday, yet now rendered Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Or, if it's a daily site, perhaps it will seem to be updated twice-daily, since it posts directly in the middle of your viewing session.
So it's a mixed bag of good and bad, and it makes Internet content completely unpredictable until you master its patterns (which I haven't), and unfortunate fact given that, living in another country, you are 100% dependent on the Internet for everything, from translations to communications to media to procrastination. Take your normal dependence, multiply it by 100, and you've got a rough idea.
Now take into consideration that you don't know when stuff will be available. Of course, 'not knowing' is a normal state of being while living abroad, which leads us to how...
4. You acquire a deep empathy with all immigrants, ever.
This is actually the number 1 reason why I truly believe that EVERYONE should be required to live somewhere they can't communicate at some point in their lives. Preferably while they're young, since it's easier then and it avoids years of misunderstandings.
See, if there's one thing I've realized since moving to Taiwan, it's that living in a foreign country is hard! You don't know your way around, you don't know the culture, you know next to no one, and, to top it off (in my case, at least), you can't even find the answers to these things because you don't know the language.
Let me give you an example. When I was in high school/the beginning of college, I worked for Jamba Juice. And I remember, some of our best customers were foreigners from Asian countries. They would come in, looking earnest, and spend what seemed like hours studying the menu before coming to the front and ordering, pretty invariably, an orange-carrot juice. Asking size was a struggle, and when they had finished ordering and paying--usually in cash, with a $20 bill, you could see the look of relief on their faces as they stepped back to wait for their juice.
I'm not going to lie, as employees, we hated this: orange juice and carrot juice come from two massive, hard-to-clean machines which would sometimes otherwise go a day without being used; beside that, these customers always seemed to come right after we'd finished cleaning both machines for the night. It was pretty annoying.
Well...I'm pretty sure I now am that person. I think of them every time I step foot inside a coffee shop, or a juice shop, or a restaurant of any kind, and stare unknowing at the massive menu of indistinguishable words which must, I know, be the dishes I'm supposed to be ordering. I'll stare, and stare, pick out the few words I recognize, and then, usually, place one of my stock orders--drinks: latte (hot or cold; hazelnut or almond), watermelon juice, or milk tea, and meals: beef noodles, hamburger (if it's a Western place) or, more frequently, "this one," with a point at the menu. I feel accomplished, and happy, if I can pull this trick off without a hitch. Anything beyond it is unthinkably hard.
I then pay--always in cash, and quite frequently in the local equivalent of a $20 bill (ie the one most ATMs use), a 1,000NT (~$30USD) note, because that's how my money comes to me. Hopefully I'm not inconveniencing the employees with a notoriously hard order, but truth be told, if I were I would have no way of knowing, and they would have no way of telling me.
In another side story, I remember foreigners U-picking at the orchards I also worked at in high school. They would frequently come back with fruit they weren't supposed to have picked, and I remember one of my co-workers in particular getting very frustrated over the fact. Sometimes it was an honest mistake, but sometimes--and you could tell the difference--they were just playing the "I don't understand" card.
Now, I know that card. I love that card. It really is true, too: not knowing the dominant language in the country you're living in (or not knowing it well enough) is a HUGE get-out-of-jail-free card. Not literally, of course, but the fact is you can get away with quite a lot when you really don't know the rules, or have any way of finding them out. Playing the foreigner card can come in quite handy and, previous frustrations about it aside, it's actually pretty wonderful.
See, all these little things bundle together to make you know, in pretty good anagram, exactly how immigrants feel in YOUR country. And, while it's easy to write people off who can't speak your language at home (You're in America! Learn the language!), it's much more difficult to do so when the situation's been reversed, and you see firsthand exactly how difficult it is, and, more importantly, how long it takes, to do so.
This also applies to ethnic enclaves, another phenomenon I never quite understood until I moved here, and realized that, while living abroad...
5. You develop a sudden, simultaneous love for and mistrust of all things 'foreign'--aka, from home.
I've written about this before: whenever I go to church here, or, really, whenever I see a foreigner here, a little alarm goes off in my head. What is going on? What is/are he/she/they doing here? Why are there so many foreigners in one place? Something is not right!!!
See, when you're living in a country where you stick out like a sore thumb, you go through a couple of phases. 1: WOW I am seriously the only white person in a 10-mile radius right now. 2: Well obviously I'm the only white person in a 10-mile radius right now, this is TAIWAN. 3: Yes, I'm the only white person in a 10-mile radius right now, move along, folks.
Right around when you hit that third stage, it becomes absolutely shocking whenever you're proven wrong. It happens occasionally that I'll draw some stares when I'm out on my scooter or on the MRT (I learned to ignore it sometime around stage 2 above), but when I see a white person in a similar context, I full-on stare. I can't seem to help myself. All memories of how much I dislike being stared at go out the window as I grapple with the unnerving realization that there's more than one of us here! It actually makes me quite uncomfortable, a fact which bodes interestingly for when I go back home in July...
And of course alongside this is the sudden idolization of all things American. We're going out to Western food? Fantastic! There's a Starbucks on that corner? Hooray! They serve red meat there? My day is made!
It's an odd juxtaposition, really, this love-hate relationship you develop with 'home,' and one which I suppose reinforces somewhat the idea that...
6. The whole world suddenly seems like it's just a whim (and a few saved paychecks) away
Obviously, moving across the world is a huge step, and one that involves a TON of planning, paying, and travel time. But, once you've done it, it becomes remarkably apparent just how feasible it is to do. Pick up and move to another country? Sure, why not!
As an outgrowth of that, then, travel becomes the most natural thing in the world. Want go to Thailand for a week? Sure, why not! How about Australia? Why yes I would, sign me up!
I've yet to determine whether these impulses come solely, or just primarily, from living abroad, or if they're more a product of having a full-time job (and salary) for the first time. But, for me, at least, I can't help but think it's probably largely because I'm living abroad. I mean, really, my wages are pretty low by US standards, and flight prices don't vary based on local cost of living (a bum deal, really), but even so it seems 100% natural and easy to travel widely while I'm here.
At the core of it is the realization that long plane rides really aren't that long, and that international travel, if you can keep a cool head about it, is pretty easy. And, especially once you've adjusted to living in a culture in an infantile state of non-knowing, it doesn't really matter where you display your ignorance; beyond that, you've developed the very specific skill-set necessary to navigate an unknown location using only hand signals and whatever level of English whoever you're talking to happens to know.
It's liberating, really: when you known nothing, and know you know nothing, you can go anywhere. Now that's a sentence I never would have written before moving here...oh, the joys of a fresh POV.
I like this format. And, just now, I feel inspired to try it out. So, apart from the literal change in view that comes from being on a different side of the globe, how does living in a foreign country change your POV? Well...
1. All your holidays become multi-day events
I've written about this, I believe, at every holiday I've experienced here in Taiwan. Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Easter, rolls around. "Aw," I think, "Another holiday away from home! Time to have a search for a turkey meal/Christmas Eve service/Eggs Benedict-making fest to compensate." I have said festivities, miss my family, but do the best I can to have a good holiday. Then I go to sleep.
And the next morning, surprise! It's still Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter! Yep, due to the wonder of time zones and the fact that my hometown is a solid 15 or 16 hours (depending on Daylight Savings Time) behind Taiwan, my family is usually having their big celebration right around the time I'm eating breakfast and driving to school the next day.
Let's take Easter for our first example, since it happened most recently and my family was disappointed because I (whoops!) forgot to Skype in with them for the holiday. But, as I figured out afterwards, there was a reason for that. See, my family celebrates Easter in the early afternoon, like, say 1pm-4pm or so. Which, in Taiwan, would be 4am-7am. And, on any given Monday, my alarm goes off at 8am. So...yeah.
On the more successful Skype holidays, say, Christmas, for example, I Skyped my family three times over the course of two days: noon on Christmas (Christmas Eve at home), late at night on Christmas (Christmas morning), and afternoon on Boxing Day (Christmas night). Or, take Thanksgiving, which found me Skyping in the next day at lunchtime, with my Subway turkey sandwich, as my family cleaned off their Thanksgiving late-night snacks. It's bizarre, but it's something you eventually adjust to: holidays are as fluid as time zones when it comes to when they're celebrated. And you'd better be there for all of them.
2. Everyone's online at the wrong time.
All this talk about time zones brings me to my second point: you know all those people who've hassled you your whole life about not staying up too late? You know, the early birds who consider staying up past 11pm or sleeping past 9am to be some sort of freakish abnormality, not to be tolerated under any circumstances? Well---they are now your most reliable contacts.
On the flip side, never have I felt more rewarded to keep an abnormal sleeping schedule than I have since I moved here. Want to talk to someone? Better be okay with staying up till 2am. Want a lot of people to read your blog? Well then forget about posting before midnight, it's best if you wait till at least 3am to maximize readership. (True numbers there: Google Analytics tells all.)
And, really, developing dual communities on opposite sides of the globe just means you have twice as much stuff to do online, and doing it in sync with the local community necessitates more and more hours spent there. At this point, just about every time I open my Facebook I have a notification or four waiting--after all, while I'm sleeping or teaching, my friends back home are in their late-night Facebook mode! And then, on top of that, once I'm in my late-night Facebook mode, so are my friends here in Taiwan.
So I'm not actually complaining about this shift. It really works out pretty well for a night owl/online addict like me. But still, time zone shifts can be confusing, especially when you're dealing with facts like...
3. You have to re-memorize all publication schedules
This may not be a big deal for other people. And, truthfully, it's not *that* big of a deal for me, most of the time, since I had no functioning television in my house last year and so relied exclusively on Internet versions of shows, which always come out later to begin with. But. You still get used to certain release dates; you still (if you're me) know *exactly* when Bones will be up, and *exactly* when The Office will be. You also have to get used to the fact that none of the reputable sites you know and love are licensed for use where you are.
And there are websites that get updated on a time schedule, too--usually something like Monday/Wednesday/Friday, yet now rendered Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Or, if it's a daily site, perhaps it will seem to be updated twice-daily, since it posts directly in the middle of your viewing session.
So it's a mixed bag of good and bad, and it makes Internet content completely unpredictable until you master its patterns (which I haven't), and unfortunate fact given that, living in another country, you are 100% dependent on the Internet for everything, from translations to communications to media to procrastination. Take your normal dependence, multiply it by 100, and you've got a rough idea.
Now take into consideration that you don't know when stuff will be available. Of course, 'not knowing' is a normal state of being while living abroad, which leads us to how...
4. You acquire a deep empathy with all immigrants, ever.
This is actually the number 1 reason why I truly believe that EVERYONE should be required to live somewhere they can't communicate at some point in their lives. Preferably while they're young, since it's easier then and it avoids years of misunderstandings.
See, if there's one thing I've realized since moving to Taiwan, it's that living in a foreign country is hard! You don't know your way around, you don't know the culture, you know next to no one, and, to top it off (in my case, at least), you can't even find the answers to these things because you don't know the language.
Let me give you an example. When I was in high school/the beginning of college, I worked for Jamba Juice. And I remember, some of our best customers were foreigners from Asian countries. They would come in, looking earnest, and spend what seemed like hours studying the menu before coming to the front and ordering, pretty invariably, an orange-carrot juice. Asking size was a struggle, and when they had finished ordering and paying--usually in cash, with a $20 bill, you could see the look of relief on their faces as they stepped back to wait for their juice.
I'm not going to lie, as employees, we hated this: orange juice and carrot juice come from two massive, hard-to-clean machines which would sometimes otherwise go a day without being used; beside that, these customers always seemed to come right after we'd finished cleaning both machines for the night. It was pretty annoying.
Well...I'm pretty sure I now am that person. I think of them every time I step foot inside a coffee shop, or a juice shop, or a restaurant of any kind, and stare unknowing at the massive menu of indistinguishable words which must, I know, be the dishes I'm supposed to be ordering. I'll stare, and stare, pick out the few words I recognize, and then, usually, place one of my stock orders--drinks: latte (hot or cold; hazelnut or almond), watermelon juice, or milk tea, and meals: beef noodles, hamburger (if it's a Western place) or, more frequently, "this one," with a point at the menu. I feel accomplished, and happy, if I can pull this trick off without a hitch. Anything beyond it is unthinkably hard.
I then pay--always in cash, and quite frequently in the local equivalent of a $20 bill (ie the one most ATMs use), a 1,000NT (~$30USD) note, because that's how my money comes to me. Hopefully I'm not inconveniencing the employees with a notoriously hard order, but truth be told, if I were I would have no way of knowing, and they would have no way of telling me.
In another side story, I remember foreigners U-picking at the orchards I also worked at in high school. They would frequently come back with fruit they weren't supposed to have picked, and I remember one of my co-workers in particular getting very frustrated over the fact. Sometimes it was an honest mistake, but sometimes--and you could tell the difference--they were just playing the "I don't understand" card.
Now, I know that card. I love that card. It really is true, too: not knowing the dominant language in the country you're living in (or not knowing it well enough) is a HUGE get-out-of-jail-free card. Not literally, of course, but the fact is you can get away with quite a lot when you really don't know the rules, or have any way of finding them out. Playing the foreigner card can come in quite handy and, previous frustrations about it aside, it's actually pretty wonderful.
See, all these little things bundle together to make you know, in pretty good anagram, exactly how immigrants feel in YOUR country. And, while it's easy to write people off who can't speak your language at home (You're in America! Learn the language!), it's much more difficult to do so when the situation's been reversed, and you see firsthand exactly how difficult it is, and, more importantly, how long it takes, to do so.
This also applies to ethnic enclaves, another phenomenon I never quite understood until I moved here, and realized that, while living abroad...
5. You develop a sudden, simultaneous love for and mistrust of all things 'foreign'--aka, from home.
I've written about this before: whenever I go to church here, or, really, whenever I see a foreigner here, a little alarm goes off in my head. What is going on? What is/are he/she/they doing here? Why are there so many foreigners in one place? Something is not right!!!
See, when you're living in a country where you stick out like a sore thumb, you go through a couple of phases. 1: WOW I am seriously the only white person in a 10-mile radius right now. 2: Well obviously I'm the only white person in a 10-mile radius right now, this is TAIWAN. 3: Yes, I'm the only white person in a 10-mile radius right now, move along, folks.
Right around when you hit that third stage, it becomes absolutely shocking whenever you're proven wrong. It happens occasionally that I'll draw some stares when I'm out on my scooter or on the MRT (I learned to ignore it sometime around stage 2 above), but when I see a white person in a similar context, I full-on stare. I can't seem to help myself. All memories of how much I dislike being stared at go out the window as I grapple with the unnerving realization that there's more than one of us here! It actually makes me quite uncomfortable, a fact which bodes interestingly for when I go back home in July...
And of course alongside this is the sudden idolization of all things American. We're going out to Western food? Fantastic! There's a Starbucks on that corner? Hooray! They serve red meat there? My day is made!
It's an odd juxtaposition, really, this love-hate relationship you develop with 'home,' and one which I suppose reinforces somewhat the idea that...
6. The whole world suddenly seems like it's just a whim (and a few saved paychecks) away
Obviously, moving across the world is a huge step, and one that involves a TON of planning, paying, and travel time. But, once you've done it, it becomes remarkably apparent just how feasible it is to do. Pick up and move to another country? Sure, why not!
As an outgrowth of that, then, travel becomes the most natural thing in the world. Want go to Thailand for a week? Sure, why not! How about Australia? Why yes I would, sign me up!
I've yet to determine whether these impulses come solely, or just primarily, from living abroad, or if they're more a product of having a full-time job (and salary) for the first time. But, for me, at least, I can't help but think it's probably largely because I'm living abroad. I mean, really, my wages are pretty low by US standards, and flight prices don't vary based on local cost of living (a bum deal, really), but even so it seems 100% natural and easy to travel widely while I'm here.
At the core of it is the realization that long plane rides really aren't that long, and that international travel, if you can keep a cool head about it, is pretty easy. And, especially once you've adjusted to living in a culture in an infantile state of non-knowing, it doesn't really matter where you display your ignorance; beyond that, you've developed the very specific skill-set necessary to navigate an unknown location using only hand signals and whatever level of English whoever you're talking to happens to know.
It's liberating, really: when you known nothing, and know you know nothing, you can go anywhere. Now that's a sentence I never would have written before moving here...oh, the joys of a fresh POV.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
(Belated) Breakthroughs
There are some things I've just had to accept about my experience here in Taiwan. For instance, that I will never be able to remember the names of every one of my students. And that those students will never be able to properly pronounce the letter "z."
Then today happened.
This first thing is embarrassing to admit, but a breakthrough nonetheless: today I realized, after 7 months of teaching them, that my 3rd class of 5th graders on Fridays at Qingshan has four twins from three pairs in it. I already knew that Bess and Kyle were in that class, while their respective twins were in other classes, but I had somehow missed up until today that this class also has Bruce and Chris in it--identical brothers whom I'd failed to notice were, in fact, twins.
I guess I just thought they were the same person or something? Weird.
The letter "z" has been a major headache for me this year. It's an incredibly difficult sound for Chinese speakers learning English, yet for some unfathomable reason, it features pretty prominently in textbooks. Rachel's told me about her adventures trying to get kids to say the word "zebra," and I have had run-in after run-in with the word "zoo," which invariably comes out as "loo" or "lroo" or "roo."
To me, "l" and "r" bear almost no phonetic similarity to "z"--so why do they always resort to this? Why is this sound so hard? I honestly don't know. But I was thinking about it the other day, and realized that at least Chinese has the initial sound of "在" (tzai), which is admittedly not perfect, with the t sound before the z, but does at least feature a sound that, if said with "oo," would be recognizable as "zoo" (tzoo), not as "bathroom" (loo) or "regret" (roo/rue).
So I mentioned this breakthrough to Patty, who liked it and shared it with the classes via BoPoMoFo (Taiwanese phonetic system). The results? Whereas at the beginning of the class maybe 30% of the students could say their "zoo" correctly, towards the end I'd say about 75% could. Not bad! Now, just to retroactively teach this breakthrough to all of my students...
But it's pointless to "rue" the consequences of being slow on the uptake on this one. Just because I left my brain in the "loo" before doesn't mean its retrieval can't be meaningful--and it is, for Chris, Bruce, and the letter "z"!
Then today happened.
This first thing is embarrassing to admit, but a breakthrough nonetheless: today I realized, after 7 months of teaching them, that my 3rd class of 5th graders on Fridays at Qingshan has four twins from three pairs in it. I already knew that Bess and Kyle were in that class, while their respective twins were in other classes, but I had somehow missed up until today that this class also has Bruce and Chris in it--identical brothers whom I'd failed to notice were, in fact, twins.
I guess I just thought they were the same person or something? Weird.
 |
| Pictured here on the right: either Chris or Bruce. Chruce? |
To me, "l" and "r" bear almost no phonetic similarity to "z"--so why do they always resort to this? Why is this sound so hard? I honestly don't know. But I was thinking about it the other day, and realized that at least Chinese has the initial sound of "在" (tzai), which is admittedly not perfect, with the t sound before the z, but does at least feature a sound that, if said with "oo," would be recognizable as "zoo" (tzoo), not as "bathroom" (loo) or "regret" (roo/rue).
So I mentioned this breakthrough to Patty, who liked it and shared it with the classes via BoPoMoFo (Taiwanese phonetic system). The results? Whereas at the beginning of the class maybe 30% of the students could say their "zoo" correctly, towards the end I'd say about 75% could. Not bad! Now, just to retroactively teach this breakthrough to all of my students...
But it's pointless to "rue" the consequences of being slow on the uptake on this one. Just because I left my brain in the "loo" before doesn't mean its retrieval can't be meaningful--and it is, for Chris, Bruce, and the letter "z"!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Digging Deeper in Kaohsiung
I've mentioned before that when friends come to visit, I get to play the tourist again and rediscover all the things that make Kaohsiung so great. I've visited all my favorite places again whenever out-of-towners come to visit, showing them what I consider to be the best of Kaohsiung. What I hadn't done before, though, is take the opportunity of their coming to stretch my own knowledge of the area. Until today.
Today, after taking Kaitlin to school with me and enjoying delicious lunch at Ali's and then a quick nap/rest (see, we are Taiwanese!), we went to Cijin and Siziwan. Now, I've been to both of these places often; they are easily among my favorite places in Kaohsiung (though also among the most touristy). Yet, even so, this trip was entirely different, because....
- We took my scooter! Odd though it may seem, I had never before driven to Siziwan. There's an MRT stop nearby, and getting there doesn't even involve a transfer, so it's pretty simple to just go that route. However, it just so happens that Kaitlin, like myself, absolutely loves scootering, so I figured, why not? It turns out it's amazingly easy to get there, and, it being a Tuesday afternoon, parking was a breeze, too. (Unintended pun, given the wind today.)
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| I don't take pictures while scootering...here's the ferry, though! |
- After renting bikes (admittedly at the same place I always do, but with the caveat that it's cheapest there and we did get different types this time...), we set out, not along the sea shore where I usually take people, but to the right, where I had never been. It was absolutely GORGEOUS!...until we were stopped by apparent construction, that is.
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| Sometimes I forget how gorgeous the ocean is. Then I see places like this. :) |
- We went to the lighthouse! Somehow, I had never made it up there before. I've seen it from afar from the ferry, from Cijin beach, from Zhongshan Dashue, from the old British Embassy, but never in person! A call to Fonda that got forwarded to Dr. Sun helped us figure out where to turn off to get there, and we arrived just in time, 5 minutes or so before they kicked us out. But that was okay, because...
 |
| In other news, it is officially HOT in Kaohsiung again... |
- We went to the fortress! I'll be honest, before today I didn't even know there was a fortress on Cijin. It was fantastic. As we walked through the crumbling outskirts, I told Kaitlin it reminded me of the fortress I would have loved to build and never leave when I was 10 years old; when we got to the main building, I thoroughly enjoyed walking around on the roof in the gusting sea wind: adventure and a view!
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| Seconds before Kaitlin was attacked by a fire ant...true story. |
That's about it for original explorations on this trip; the standards of buying delicious fresh fruit juice on Cijin and then delicious mixed fruit shave ice back at Siziwan were the same (though I did spring for the sweetened condensed milk variety, which was new and DELICIOUS), because you just can't lose on some things.
 |
| Like this. |
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| And also this. :) |
(Bonus: cooking with Chialing!)
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Haha point
I'm no comic. I'm well aware of the fact that, my frequent attempts to the contrary, I will never be the next big thing in the world of comedic writing.
But I am a foreigner. And an English teacher. And that, as it turns out, is all you need to be qualified to judge an English language joke competition in Kaohsiung!
It was brilliant. After a week of others wondering what sort of horrible butchering of jokes I'd gotten myself into, I found instead a group of marvelous performers who, for the most part, could tell a decent joke!
One of my favorite moments from the evening:
The first performer stands up and begins to speak. In a near flawless British accent! I must say, it actually threw me off for a bit, considering that one of the things I was evaluating was pronunciation, and I'm just not well-versed enough in British accents to know if some of the words he said were said wrong, or said in a British accent. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and he did a great job with his anecdotal joke of bad husband "Bobby" (easily the most British-pronounced word in the whole bit) who forgets his wedding anniversary. His wife says "When I wake up tomorrow morning, there better be a gift sitting in the driveway that can go from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds." And what does she find the next morning? A bathroom scale. And, as the young comedian went on to note, Bobby had not been heard from since.
For that little gem, he got third place.
The remainder of the (actually pretty short) evening consisted of some hilarious voices, some wonderfully physical comedy, some great comedic timing--and yes, a little nervousness and a few mispronounced words, but generally just great performance after great performance after great performance.
And they did come right on like that: one after the other, many lasting no more than about 45 seconds, and the next person ascending the stage long before I'd finished scoring the person before, let alone making the more detailed notes I was supposed to give each team. I wrote like mad, but even so, when the time came to give notes, I found myself with a gaping hole where my notes for Team 6 should be.
"That's okay," I thought. "I'm sure they'll come up one group at a time for feedback, and when I see who it is I'll remember what I was going to say."
Then the other judge, a professor at NKNU, stood up to say a few words.
"Great!" I thought. "She'll jog my memory and I can go from there."
Then she sat down, having given no more than a few sentences, and all in Chinese. Wait, she isn't giving individual feedback? My turn? Gulp.
I managed something, though, and then the results were tallied, awarding my faux-British friend third, a girl with absolutely flawless English and a pretty good joke to boot in second, and a group of three with a high production quality and even higher energy levels scoring the top spot with their simple, yet well-executed sketch about a tourist and an old man's dog.
And me? Well, I got a doctorate, apparently. No, really:
Yes, that certificate is thanking me, Professor Rebekah (and I finally learned to doctor pictures for privacy's sake, woo!) for serving as a judge. I like the looks of that! What's better, it reminds me of a favorite college professor of mine who refused to let us call her "doctor" because she technically didn't have her doctorate. Having now been on the receiving end, I say, why not? It's a great thing to be artificially honored!
So no, I'm still not a humor writer. But now, with a full 40 minutes of experience now behind me, I am apparently a full Professor of Comedy! How very appropriate that my title also be a joke...
But I am a foreigner. And an English teacher. And that, as it turns out, is all you need to be qualified to judge an English language joke competition in Kaohsiung!
It was brilliant. After a week of others wondering what sort of horrible butchering of jokes I'd gotten myself into, I found instead a group of marvelous performers who, for the most part, could tell a decent joke!
One of my favorite moments from the evening:
The first performer stands up and begins to speak. In a near flawless British accent! I must say, it actually threw me off for a bit, considering that one of the things I was evaluating was pronunciation, and I'm just not well-versed enough in British accents to know if some of the words he said were said wrong, or said in a British accent. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and he did a great job with his anecdotal joke of bad husband "Bobby" (easily the most British-pronounced word in the whole bit) who forgets his wedding anniversary. His wife says "When I wake up tomorrow morning, there better be a gift sitting in the driveway that can go from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds." And what does she find the next morning? A bathroom scale. And, as the young comedian went on to note, Bobby had not been heard from since.
For that little gem, he got third place.
The remainder of the (actually pretty short) evening consisted of some hilarious voices, some wonderfully physical comedy, some great comedic timing--and yes, a little nervousness and a few mispronounced words, but generally just great performance after great performance after great performance.
And they did come right on like that: one after the other, many lasting no more than about 45 seconds, and the next person ascending the stage long before I'd finished scoring the person before, let alone making the more detailed notes I was supposed to give each team. I wrote like mad, but even so, when the time came to give notes, I found myself with a gaping hole where my notes for Team 6 should be.
"That's okay," I thought. "I'm sure they'll come up one group at a time for feedback, and when I see who it is I'll remember what I was going to say."
Then the other judge, a professor at NKNU, stood up to say a few words.
"Great!" I thought. "She'll jog my memory and I can go from there."
Then she sat down, having given no more than a few sentences, and all in Chinese. Wait, she isn't giving individual feedback? My turn? Gulp.
I managed something, though, and then the results were tallied, awarding my faux-British friend third, a girl with absolutely flawless English and a pretty good joke to boot in second, and a group of three with a high production quality and even higher energy levels scoring the top spot with their simple, yet well-executed sketch about a tourist and an old man's dog.
And me? Well, I got a doctorate, apparently. No, really:
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| Easiest 4 years of my life! |
So no, I'm still not a humor writer. But now, with a full 40 minutes of experience now behind me, I am apparently a full Professor of Comedy! How very appropriate that my title also be a joke...
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Good Food, Good Company
Here I am again, posting about food. But it deserves it--and, besides, the next-most exciting thing I did today was cleaning. So...onward with the food!
I'll be honest. After last night's dinner with my host family, I didn't know if I would eat again, ever. Which was slightly problematic, in that I knew that I had dinner plans tonight--so I ate next to nothing today in preparation. And, by 7pm, when Rachel and I set out, I had finally succeeded: I was hungry!
Rachel and I met up with Issac (our trainer from the gym) and his friend Juna at Foster Hewitt's, a Canadian-run restaurant in Zuoying where I had happened to go for Thanksgiving on my unsuccessful quest for turkey. Then, I settled for steak.
Today, however, was different. I ordered the BBQ beef burger, and then Rachel, Issac, Juna and I entered into a wonderful and several hours long conversation, mostly in English but with Chinese and even some Taiwanese thrown in for good measure, in which we discovered things like that "haha point" is the direct translation of "punchline"; why many Taiwanese people don't eat beef; that "all guys are alike" (from Issac), "yeah, all guys are ***holes" (from Rachel); and that Issac is a major lightweight.
Also in debate were whether or not Asian girls have butts (Issac said some do; Rachel said they don't), whether it's "study aboard" (Issac) or "study abroad" (the rest of us), and which of the many foreign guys in the busy restaurant was most attractive (question from Issac to Rachel and I).
So many other wonderful moments; far too many to tell. And the food--fabulous. Wish I had pictures to show for it. All in all a great night, and one I'm still full from now, four hours later...might necessitate another fast tomorrow.
I'll be honest. After last night's dinner with my host family, I didn't know if I would eat again, ever. Which was slightly problematic, in that I knew that I had dinner plans tonight--so I ate next to nothing today in preparation. And, by 7pm, when Rachel and I set out, I had finally succeeded: I was hungry!
Rachel and I met up with Issac (our trainer from the gym) and his friend Juna at Foster Hewitt's, a Canadian-run restaurant in Zuoying where I had happened to go for Thanksgiving on my unsuccessful quest for turkey. Then, I settled for steak.
Today, however, was different. I ordered the BBQ beef burger, and then Rachel, Issac, Juna and I entered into a wonderful and several hours long conversation, mostly in English but with Chinese and even some Taiwanese thrown in for good measure, in which we discovered things like that "haha point" is the direct translation of "punchline"; why many Taiwanese people don't eat beef; that "all guys are alike" (from Issac), "yeah, all guys are ***holes" (from Rachel); and that Issac is a major lightweight.
Also in debate were whether or not Asian girls have butts (Issac said some do; Rachel said they don't), whether it's "study aboard" (Issac) or "study abroad" (the rest of us), and which of the many foreign guys in the busy restaurant was most attractive (question from Issac to Rachel and I).
So many other wonderful moments; far too many to tell. And the food--fabulous. Wish I had pictures to show for it. All in all a great night, and one I'm still full from now, four hours later...might necessitate another fast tomorrow.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Cockroaches and Chicken Soup
My name drifts out of the conversation in the corner, once, twice, three times: "Bekah 老師...Bekah 老師..."
I look over to see that a group of my 5th graders from last semester in excited conversation with Maggie, who is shaking her head.
"What's going on?"
As it turns out, she explains, this particular class has just finished a group competition on different foods, and as part of the competition, each group has to get as many teachers' votes as possible. Each teacher is allowed to vote twice; there are four groups in the class, and so far, both include one of my favorite students. Ohhh dear.
Maggie tells me she's already abstained from the vote--too hard to choose--and told the kids I won't vote either; I reaffirm what she's said but feel a twinge of desire to help this wonderful group of kids toward their goal.
But not to worry, they're not done yet. Five minutes later, a group swoops into my office, now bearing their project poster on various Korean foods, and while I protest that I "看不懂" what they're showing me, a mixture of pictures and Fiona's translation assures me that they're presenting on tea, chicken soup, and a few other yummy-and-innocuous-sounding things. And these are some of my favorite kids, some of the sweet girls who bring me my lunch everyday...I finally agree to sign it.
No sooner is their poster off my desk, though, than another one lands there, this one lauding the culinary properties of cockroaches and spiders. (Yes, it was a group of boys.) "It's good!" They tell me, pointing repeatedly to the drawn pictures of sauteed spiders and fried-up cockroaches. I know these boys, too, and they are absolutely wonderful, but, spiders and cockroaches? No can do.
"Sorry, boys, I don't like eating insects!"
They don't go down without a fight, though, pointing furiously and giving me their very best puppy dog eyes, but to no avail. They came back several times, and I almost relented--but really? Insects?
I spent the rest of my lunch break chatting with my colleagues and finishing my Chinese writing homework--which, incidentally, the boys said was "好漂亮," though it was clearly anything but beautiful. Nonetheless, I left Hanmin with a smile on my face, as I always do when I get to spend quality time with my students truly feel myself to be "Bekah 老師."
I look over to see that a group of my 5th graders from last semester in excited conversation with Maggie, who is shaking her head.
"What's going on?"
As it turns out, she explains, this particular class has just finished a group competition on different foods, and as part of the competition, each group has to get as many teachers' votes as possible. Each teacher is allowed to vote twice; there are four groups in the class, and so far, both include one of my favorite students. Ohhh dear.
Maggie tells me she's already abstained from the vote--too hard to choose--and told the kids I won't vote either; I reaffirm what she's said but feel a twinge of desire to help this wonderful group of kids toward their goal.
But not to worry, they're not done yet. Five minutes later, a group swoops into my office, now bearing their project poster on various Korean foods, and while I protest that I "看不懂" what they're showing me, a mixture of pictures and Fiona's translation assures me that they're presenting on tea, chicken soup, and a few other yummy-and-innocuous-sounding things. And these are some of my favorite kids, some of the sweet girls who bring me my lunch everyday...I finally agree to sign it.
No sooner is their poster off my desk, though, than another one lands there, this one lauding the culinary properties of cockroaches and spiders. (Yes, it was a group of boys.) "It's good!" They tell me, pointing repeatedly to the drawn pictures of sauteed spiders and fried-up cockroaches. I know these boys, too, and they are absolutely wonderful, but, spiders and cockroaches? No can do.
"Sorry, boys, I don't like eating insects!"
They don't go down without a fight, though, pointing furiously and giving me their very best puppy dog eyes, but to no avail. They came back several times, and I almost relented--but really? Insects?
I spent the rest of my lunch break chatting with my colleagues and finishing my Chinese writing homework--which, incidentally, the boys said was "好漂亮," though it was clearly anything but beautiful. Nonetheless, I left Hanmin with a smile on my face, as I always do when I get to spend quality time with my students truly feel myself to be "Bekah 老師."
Friday, February 10, 2012
Small accomplishments
Often, it's the smallest things that determine how I feel about today. The same is true today--I feel like the day went great: I made dinner.
I also taught, of course, giving my past-tense-and-Thailand Powerpoint to the 6th graders at Qingshan, and continued work on my class-by-class seating chart I'm making for myself for all of my classes. And I got/am getting more organized, which always makes me feel accomplished; I made a calendar for cleaning duties in our apartment and am in the process of making a daily schedule for myself which will (or so the theory goes) make me actually go the gym when I plan to go the gym--I hate not doing things that are set in stone, or, you know, written on paper with ink.
But those are not today's triumphs, in my rather illogical mind; no, the triumph was making dinner.
Part of that is because today's dinner was the first I've cooked since the beginning of CNY break a month ago, but the bigger parts come from the fact that, in making this meal, I felt like a local.
No, not in flavor. But in ingredients, and how I got them. The drive back from school found me starving and ambitious, so I took a detour and found a big outdoor vegetable market I'd been to once before a few months ago--yeah, that's right, once--and was able to, not only find parking in the rush hour madness, but communicate with the vegetable vendors in Chinese, seek out the best produce and prices, and buy them without a hitch. (Getting home my creativity was not quite so productive, and involved a somewhat less planned detour, but that's beside the point.)
I ended up with a pair of onions for 30NT (~$1), a red pepper and a good-sized yellow pepper for 45NT (~$1.50, and the more exciting for having seen my roommates' supermarket-bought peppers priced at 45NT for one), a couple of green onions the guy threw in for free, and a spectacularly massive carrot for 14NT (~$.50).
At home, I already had a chicken breast thawing, but no marinade, so I popped over to the local Taiwanese grocery store, explored their mostly-Chinese-written-and-flavored sauce section, and picked one labeled as BBQ satay which, once I got it home, smelled slightly fishy. I mixed a few teaspoons of that with oil and soy sauce and voila! Marinade. After throwing some rice and bullion in the rice maker, it was time to chop up the veggies, and boy were there a lot of them:
Then it was just a stir frying away from deliciousness and the knowledge that, for ~$2.25US plus the chicken and rice, I'd made at least three or four meals worth of wonderful, healthy food.
It's a small accomplishment, to say the least. But to make this meal, I had to navigate the city successfully to place I didn't know well--in rush hour, nonetheless, use my Chinese to get the vegetables I was after, and experiment in completely unknown sauces to make it all come together nicely. And it did! So yeah, it's small, but it also happens to have made my day.
I also taught, of course, giving my past-tense-and-Thailand Powerpoint to the 6th graders at Qingshan, and continued work on my class-by-class seating chart I'm making for myself for all of my classes. And I got/am getting more organized, which always makes me feel accomplished; I made a calendar for cleaning duties in our apartment and am in the process of making a daily schedule for myself which will (or so the theory goes) make me actually go the gym when I plan to go the gym--I hate not doing things that are set in stone, or, you know, written on paper with ink.
But those are not today's triumphs, in my rather illogical mind; no, the triumph was making dinner.
Part of that is because today's dinner was the first I've cooked since the beginning of CNY break a month ago, but the bigger parts come from the fact that, in making this meal, I felt like a local.
No, not in flavor. But in ingredients, and how I got them. The drive back from school found me starving and ambitious, so I took a detour and found a big outdoor vegetable market I'd been to once before a few months ago--yeah, that's right, once--and was able to, not only find parking in the rush hour madness, but communicate with the vegetable vendors in Chinese, seek out the best produce and prices, and buy them without a hitch. (Getting home my creativity was not quite so productive, and involved a somewhat less planned detour, but that's beside the point.)
I ended up with a pair of onions for 30NT (~$1), a red pepper and a good-sized yellow pepper for 45NT (~$1.50, and the more exciting for having seen my roommates' supermarket-bought peppers priced at 45NT for one), a couple of green onions the guy threw in for free, and a spectacularly massive carrot for 14NT (~$.50).
At home, I already had a chicken breast thawing, but no marinade, so I popped over to the local Taiwanese grocery store, explored their mostly-Chinese-written-and-flavored sauce section, and picked one labeled as BBQ satay which, once I got it home, smelled slightly fishy. I mixed a few teaspoons of that with oil and soy sauce and voila! Marinade. After throwing some rice and bullion in the rice maker, it was time to chop up the veggies, and boy were there a lot of them:
It's a small accomplishment, to say the least. But to make this meal, I had to navigate the city successfully to place I didn't know well--in rush hour, nonetheless, use my Chinese to get the vegetables I was after, and experiment in completely unknown sauces to make it all come together nicely. And it did! So yeah, it's small, but it also happens to have made my day.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Halfway
As of today, I am halfway through my time here in Kaohsiung. I didn't figure this out on my own; rather, fellow Taiwan ETA Elaine posted about it on her Facebook and made me do a double take.
She said: "Today marks the halfway point of my time in Taiwan. It's been an amazing 5 and a half months and I'm sure the next 5 and a half will be even better."
Wait, it's been 5 and a half months? And I only get 5 and a half more months here? Both of those statements seem impossible to me.
Did I really not know Fonda, or Maggie, or Alison, or Patty, or Fiona, or Chialing, or Tom, or any of my other Taiwanese friends before 5 months ago? Did I really not know Margaret, James, and Emily, or Bunny and Jenny? Did I really not know my students? Had I really only met Karina, and Rachel, and Brittany, and Analacia, and Tiffiany, Emily, Lydia, Samia, Esther, Andrew and Steven only once, at a conference? Had I really never driven a scooter, or taught an English class, or planned a trip to Taipei (or anywhere else, independently), or grown to love tea, or tried stinky tofu, or had a conversation in Mandarin?
Have I really not seen my family or US friends, or driven a car, or stepped foot in America for five months?
It seems unfathomable.
On the flip side, will I really only be in Taiwan for 5 and a half more months? Will I really just be a plain old American living in America, then, just another of the horde of college graduates looking for a real job? Will I really be able to call up or stop by my family's place, or hang out with American friends, at will? Will I really just slip back into my old routines, old activities, old mindsets, as if I'd never left?
I'm determined that that last one, at least, won't happen: my year as a Fulbright ETA in Taiwan will never be reduced to just a line on my resume that I have to explain to every potential employer for the rest of my life. Even now, there are aspects of my thought processes which are irrevocably changed for the better. But some of it is irresistible: I will leave Taiwan. I will no longer drive a scooter, and there will no longer be tea shops on every corner to cater to my craving for grapefruit green tea, or fresh milk tea, and of course a weekend trip to Taipei will be out of the question.
I will be overjoyed to return to all my American loved ones. But I can't even think about the people I'll leave behind yet. That's the hardest part about building multiple home bases across the world from each other: you never get to have everyone you love in the same place at the same time. I have 5 and a half more months with my loved ones here, and I refuse to confront how short a time that is until I absolutely have to.
Wow, this post has taken a turn toward the depressing. But halfway does also mean that I still have half of my time to spend here, and 5 and a half months is still a pretty long time to squeeze in as much of the amazingness of life here in Taiwan as possible. And I will certainly try. After all, I'm only halfway.
She said: "Today marks the halfway point of my time in Taiwan. It's been an amazing 5 and a half months and I'm sure the next 5 and a half will be even better."
Wait, it's been 5 and a half months? And I only get 5 and a half more months here? Both of those statements seem impossible to me.
Did I really not know Fonda, or Maggie, or Alison, or Patty, or Fiona, or Chialing, or Tom, or any of my other Taiwanese friends before 5 months ago? Did I really not know Margaret, James, and Emily, or Bunny and Jenny? Did I really not know my students? Had I really only met Karina, and Rachel, and Brittany, and Analacia, and Tiffiany, Emily, Lydia, Samia, Esther, Andrew and Steven only once, at a conference? Had I really never driven a scooter, or taught an English class, or planned a trip to Taipei (or anywhere else, independently), or grown to love tea, or tried stinky tofu, or had a conversation in Mandarin?
Have I really not seen my family or US friends, or driven a car, or stepped foot in America for five months?
It seems unfathomable.
On the flip side, will I really only be in Taiwan for 5 and a half more months? Will I really just be a plain old American living in America, then, just another of the horde of college graduates looking for a real job? Will I really be able to call up or stop by my family's place, or hang out with American friends, at will? Will I really just slip back into my old routines, old activities, old mindsets, as if I'd never left?
I'm determined that that last one, at least, won't happen: my year as a Fulbright ETA in Taiwan will never be reduced to just a line on my resume that I have to explain to every potential employer for the rest of my life. Even now, there are aspects of my thought processes which are irrevocably changed for the better. But some of it is irresistible: I will leave Taiwan. I will no longer drive a scooter, and there will no longer be tea shops on every corner to cater to my craving for grapefruit green tea, or fresh milk tea, and of course a weekend trip to Taipei will be out of the question.
I will be overjoyed to return to all my American loved ones. But I can't even think about the people I'll leave behind yet. That's the hardest part about building multiple home bases across the world from each other: you never get to have everyone you love in the same place at the same time. I have 5 and a half more months with my loved ones here, and I refuse to confront how short a time that is until I absolutely have to.
Wow, this post has taken a turn toward the depressing. But halfway does also mean that I still have half of my time to spend here, and 5 and a half months is still a pretty long time to squeeze in as much of the amazingness of life here in Taiwan as possible. And I will certainly try. After all, I'm only halfway.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Dumplings on Election Day
Tonight, incumbent Ma Ying-jeou beat out challenger Tsai Ying-wen to win a second term as President of Taiwan. (Note: I don't know enough to claim an opinion on this.) But, while I received updates of the race in real time from the TV, I have to admit my attention wasn't fully fixed on the screen, since I was spending the evening with my extended host family, making dumplings and learning Chinese out of a first grade Chinese textbook.
It was glorious.
Seriously, I've said it before, but I really REALLY love my host family and extended host family. There's a whole new level of comfort and amazingness with just hanging out at a three-generational gathering that counts you as one of them, whether you are biologically or not.
This time we went to my host cousins' house, which happens to be across the street from Margaret's parents' house, and when we got there they weren't home, leading to a search of the grandparents' house and several phone calls by Bunny, who was over visiting, to her parents. And all of this just served to confirm the wonderfulness of being part of a close-knit family, running back and forth and being comfortable enough to take off for tea when they're coming, and not mind in the slightest that you have to wait for a few minutes to get in.
And then we made dumplings. Mine weren't beautiful like my host aunt's were--of course, she does have a bit more practice, and had made several hundred this morning before we came--but they did at least beat out Jenny's, which tended to be flat and semi-circular, rather than rounded and crescent-shaped. Bunny taught me how to make them and then set me loose, and I had a ball, sitting around the kitchen table with all the women and girls in the family (momentarily distracted by all the international gender norms going on as the men sat in the room next door watching the election unfold) and shoving a mixture of pork, leek, onion and mushroom into little pre-made dough squares and folding and crimping the edges.
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| Finished! |
As we crimped the edges on the final dumpling, Jenny hauled us back into the living room, where we debated Monopoly or Uno for a while before choosing the latter, which we played until it was time to actually cook the dumplings, which we did (just plopped them in boiling water and put the lid on--so easy!) before resuming our game.
Dinner itself was scrumptious, and included not just our homemade dumplings, but some yummy curry Margaret had made, seafood pizza and roasted chicken from Costco (baby Mumu particularly enjoyed just putting her face down and gnawing on the chicken before it was served, seeing as it was positioned just so perfectly at her height), some soup which I was too full to taste, and vanilla pudding.
After our meal (and some initial prodding by her parents), Jenny set about to teach me Chinese. At first it was a group effort, with Margaret, Bunny, Jenny and their mom all drawing characters on both Bunny's Asus tablet and Mumu's play table (it has a magnetic drawing board with one of those slide erasers on it--and yes, I loved the vast gap between the technologies being used), as everyone shouted out various words or phrases for me to learn. Then, at Margaret's request, Jenny (who's 9, by the way) got out her old 1st grade Chinese book, and the lesson began in earnest.
Seriously, I've never had a more determined teacher. Together, we plowed through four complete lessons in the course of about an hour, and as I repeatedly mistook similar characters for each other (在 and 左, for instance), she would stop the lesson, pull out Mumu's table, and write each one in turn: "What's this? (writes 左)" "Zai?" "No." "Zuo?" "Yes." (draws 在) "What's this?" "Zai." "Yes." (repeats process several more times, pointing out the specific points where the characters vary and connecting their various radicals to other characters which I should, in theory, know).
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| And she's nine. Born teacher if I've ever seen one! |
Both her mom and Margaret helped her along, making her translate the little chants she was teaching me into English and say them for me to follow, so she could practice her English at the same time. And whenever I would forget a part of the chant--as I routinely did, given that I knew very few of the vocabulary words before this little lesson--she would frown and say "no English!" before launching into yet another explanation of what word I should be saying. "坐下来," for instance, not "something 下来." After a while, Margaret and her mom started urging her to leave off with the lesson, since there was no way I'd remember everything she was teaching me (truth), but she would not be deterred. Even when she was finally satisfied with my ability to recite lesson 4 without help, it took some persuading to keep her from going on to lesson 5, and she continued quizzing me on other things as we moved on to Wii.
The rest of the evening was spent losing various video games to Bunny and Jenny, with the whole family looking on. That, and a lot of fun family self-portraits.
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| Bunny has bunny ears. :) |
So yes, Taiwan re-elected a president today, as the world looked on. But for me, good or bad, that was hardly the highlight of the evening.
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