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:
Extra smiles for our new 小朋友!
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.
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!
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.
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!
So, about that whole "real post" thing...yeah, that's not happening.
Why? Well, because mostly what happened today is I felt crummy. Woke up with some sort of virus--to be more specific, that something woke me up an hour before my alarm, bowepfiasdjfpokj--but was at least able to make it through the day, though I pretty closely resembled a pile of sludge for energy level.
I then came home, almost forgot about a Skype date with Lindsey, DIDN'T forget the Skype date with Lindsey, and then had the Skype date with Lindsey. Which was wonderful, of course.
I then fell into a semi-conscious state for several hours which ended with a phone call from Tiffiany asking if I was coming to Chinese class--which had started 20 minutes previous. Whoops. So apparently it's a memory-devouring virus? I don't know.
In any case, I've decided it'd be best to take a sick day tomorrow, which is somewhat of an odd coincidence given that Patty, who I would be teaching with, is also gone for the week, though for a decidedly more serious reason: the wind slammed a door into her face. Very painful, and I'm so glad she's taking some time to recover--she deserves a break! I hope she feels better soon!
By comparison, I should really not even be allowed to call myself "sick." Really, the English language should have another, less serious word for use. But it doesn't, and I'm certainly not feeling Shakespearean enough right now to come up with one for posterity. So, I feel "sick," but not nearly so bad as poor Patty.
Nonetheless, sleep can't hurt in making me feel better...
It was a long day: Morning English, classroom observation, more class, Fulbright workshop, Chinese class...and then finally a bit of fun at Love River. I feel so bad for Kaitlin! Of course, the good news is that this is the last of these horrible long days full of responsibilities--and Kaitlin has been an excellent sport about all of this. I feel so bad that she's had to be, though...
But at least our night was nice! The Love River never fails to provide gorgeousness at night, and this time brought more new things in old places, like some DELICIOUS fresh kiwi gelato and rose grapefruit gelato, and a stroll as far down the river as the Love Pier, which I realized today I'd never seen before.
Also, we had some oh-so-lovely moments hating on Kaohsiung traffic. Great night, though! And tomorrow will be even better. Here's some pictures:
Today was a great mix of new and established, and Western and Taiwanese. It was my ordinary routine, with a few necessary tweaks that simultaneously confirmed and utterly transformed my day.
To begin with, I started the day on the couch (Kaitlin's still jet lagged and I have a twin bed), awakened by the unfamiliar sounds of Brittany's alarm clock and Analicia asking if I needed to shower any time soon. I then got ready for the day in the living room and bathroom, and went down to 7-11 for a very Taiwanese breakfast at the counter.
Then I went to school. After what began as a hectic morning--until this morning I had forgotten to prepare some pictures of people wearing different items of clothing for an in-class game, so I came to school with blank pages, a fistful of markers and sheer determination--classes went wonderfully, and I was even able to nail down the details for tutoring the son of a home room teacher at Hanmin. Just a great day, really, as my memory lapse taught me the (perhaps not so great) lesson that I am still capable of pulling things through at the last second, if need be.
Also at school, I was the very grateful recipient of my very own set of wedding cake! See, in Taiwan, that's the tradition: when a woman gets engaged, she gives all the women she knows a box of cake. (Incidentally, the groom is the one paying for this, yet his friends get nothing...) And, since Hanmin's principal's daughter got formally engaged this weekend, I was somehow included on the list! And it was quite the box of cake:
The box is probably 10" x 10" by 5" or so.
And the contents: candy, cookies, and a large "cake" which seems to contain some sort of meat/seafood and onions, based on Rachel's label-reading...
At home, I met up with Kaitlin, who'd had a great recovery day and even ventured out into the city unarmed to explore and buy coffee, and we took a stroll down to Wu Pao Chun bakery (the line was too long, though, so we left), then grabbed some delicious tea (Kaitlin's first real Taiwanese bubble tea!) and set out for Chialing's for sumptuous noodles.
Then came Chinese class where Kaitlin, good sport that she is, was willing to sit with us for 2 hours before we set out for the night market.
An hour later, we found it. A combination of miscommunications--my mistaking which market would be open tonight, and a wrong turn on Zhonghua--took us nearly to Zuoying, then back to our starting point at Sanmin, then to Zhongshan as far north as Kaohsiung Arena. Eventually, I found the night market I had meant, Rueifong--and discovered that it was closed. By a marvelous stroke of luck, though, our ride home took us straight past Liouhe--aka the market my teacher had tried to direct me to, the biggest in Kaohsiung and one that was actually open on a Monday night.
So, fail-fail, win-win. All in the course of an hour. And at least Kaitlin got a nice little tour out of it!
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."
This morning, my mom and I boarded the "barf barge." That's not its real name, of course--but it fits. After our night in Taitung last night, we were headed across the strait to Green Island (綠島), over a stretch of ocean which, as numerous people on numerous occasions warned us, has the nasty habit of making even those not prone to motion-sickness wish they hadn't eaten breakfast.
Unfortunately, it lived up to its reputation.
For me (and, based on their reactions, for a good-sized group of people on the ferry), the first 10 minutes or so were fun--as I kept telling myself, it's just like a bonus roller coaster ride thrown in with our journey! The swells were huge, but they were also pretty gentle, and their deep clear teal color was enough to keep me focused on their beauty, rather than their motion. After that, though, the water got choppier and my stomach decided it wasn't a fan of a roller coaster that goes on for an hour. From about the half hour mark onward, I spent my time fixated on a solitary dot on the front wall of the ferry (I named it Harvey, since I had to stare at it and I had no other way of entertaining myself without getting sick), telling myself that I could make it to the island without getting sick and trying to ignore the people around me taking regular advantage of the strings of clear plastic bags hanging from every other seat back.
This was not an easy task, given that my mom was one of them. Yep, though she's never been motion sick before in her life, and she (unlike me) did the responsible thing and took her Dramamine a half hour before we boarded, there was nothing for it: the ocean won.
Let's be clear here: these are not small waves we are talking about. Though we were pretty far offshore--it's an hour ferry ride from the mainland to the island--we never hit the theoretical calm I'd heard exists after you get past the breakers. No, what we got was closer to what you'd see on an old pirate film, or a rendition of Moby Dick or some such ocean adventure story: what almost made me sick several times was not so much the motion of the boat, but the fact that, if you glanced out the window on the other side of the boat, you could watch the sky disappear entirely behind a 40 foot wall of green water, only to reemerge in a few seconds as your side of the boat sunk down. And that's when you could see out the windows at all, when they weren't thoroughly covered in seething white foam.
Though I have full faith in modern ships (I'm here to write about it, after all), the experience certainly left me with new empathy for ancient travelers, and a certain awe for those who venture out on this particular stretch of sea in the many much smaller boats we saw docked on either end.
Having survived the tumultuous journey (and having sat for a moment to let our stomachs settle), my mom and I ventured out onto the island to discover that we were in the midst of a full-out wind-and-rain storm. After quickly procuring some ponchos from a nearby bakery (yes, odd to me too, but I wasn't asking questions!) and less quickly procuring a scooter, we took off around the island.
The next four hours (It's a short gap between ferries!) we spent circumnavigating the island on the crappy, rusty scooter the guys at the scooter shop rented us for a mere $200NT, stopping at several pull-outs to admire the view, missing several other attractions (we could not, for the life of us, find where to pull off for the lighthouse, for instance), discovering that most of the island was shut down for the off season, and getting pelted in the face by tiny ice-daggers of rain that made it almost impossible to see half the time.
The chief exception to this stinging, windy stress (on my part) was our stop at Zhaori Saltwater Hot Springs, one of only three natural salt water hot springs in the world. In better weather, you can go down on the beach and sit in pools at sea level; as it was, we watched from the safety of some more elevated springs as the pools below got slammed with wave after wave. The hot water felt so good after a day of getting whipped around by rain and wind.
And then it was time to cautiously eat a light meal (half a cup of hot milk tea and half a bagel for me), take our Dramamine (WELL in advance this time) and board the ferry again. Fortunately, either because the weather was better, the boat was lighter, or we picked better seats (back-middle, as opposed to front-side), this time we weren't puking or trying not to: I took a nap, and my mom was able to read. Much more pleasant when you're not counting down the minutes every minute for an hour.
Back in Taitung, we wandered around for a bit and eventually made our way to the train station, way too early, just because we had run out of things to do. It took a bit of creative work on my part (my final solution involved my known vocabulary, old notes from my Chinese class, a borrowed Chinese-English dictionary and a bit of sign language), but eventually I convinced the man at the information desk that I had already purchased my tickets online and needed only to pick them up, and he was able to retrieve them for me.
And now we're in Hualien, at a lovely little B & B called Roseland/Rose House, depending on what sign you look at, which is absolutely adorable and was a pretty good price, too. Tomorrow, we head out for Taroko gorge, via bus and taxi, based on what the man who picked us up at the train station was able to tell us.
Today has been an adventure, to be sure, but we're surviving! Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds--on dry land.
I've recently come to the conclusion that I am a terrible language student. It's not that I don't want to learn, or that I am incapable of learning, or refuse to study. Rather, it's because I'm a perfectionist. I don't like to fail.
And that, as it turns out, is a fatal blow to a budding linguist.
See, probably the single biggest advantage to learning a language while living in a country where people speak it is that you get to use what you learn every single day--which, obviously, means you learn it better. You get to take whatever new vocabulary, phrases and sentence patterns you learn one day and start using it from the moment you step out of the door of your classroom, whether it sounds right or not and, through this process of direct exchange with those around you, you learn better and faster.
This doesn't work, of course, if you're too chicken to try it.
And that's where the perfectionism ties in: I like being able to open my mouth and know that the words coming out are correct, and that the person I'm talking to will understand them, rather than laugh or look confused. Yet, as a language learner, this is simply not possible. And that freaks me out.
I miss being able to communicate, and I have a few tools at the ready now, but how do I know that when I swing that hammer I won't be trying to pound in a light switch or something? Sorry for the lame metaphor, but there it is.
Today, Tiffiany and I walked from Sanmin to the nearest Subway in between workshop and Chinese class so I could grab dinner (this was, for the record, my first American restaurant meal in about a month) and we chatted about how terrible I am at putting my newly-learned Chinese phrases to use, and she told me she is the complete opposite, totally willing to thrash about the language until she either hits on the right word/sentence of the person she's talking to figures out what she means.
At Subway, I was taking a while to decide and was on the verge of telling the lady helping us to "deng yi xia" (wait a moment), then second-guessed my memory and just stood there as Tiffiany turned to me and said "Why don't you say 'Deng yi xia?" As we ordered, she began asking the person helping us the names of the different vegetables, while I, coming right after her, just pointed and threw out my old stand-by "Wo yao zhege" -- "I want this one."
I wish I could think like Tiffiany. As it is, I'm trying to conquer my perfectionism on things I obviously won't get perfect the first few times, but it's difficult. Yesterday, I tried out my new ordering phrases twice: the first time, the lady understood perfectly what I was asking; the second time, I got frazzled and stumbled, only to be met with a confused stare before finally having to resort, once again, to "duibuqi, wo yao zhege" (Sorry, I want this one" and pointing to the menu I could see.
A fifty percent success rate is hardly encouraging. But it's a start, and if I manage to overcome my perfectionism here, perhaps I can actually get something meaningful out of my flailing beginnings at Chinese.
I just love it when I pull up my new post window--early, even--and realize I have nothing whatsoever to blog about. Usually, I solve this problem by thinking for several more hours, then staying up late to pour whatever psychological drivel I culled out onto paper. (Or, well...pixels?) But not so today.
Today, I am going to unabashedly embrace my laziness and sheer exhaustion and not write much. Because, ironically, today's laziness stems from not being lazy for the rest of the day--made it to Chinese class, the gym, and the fruit market, exhaustion notwithstanding--so I think I've been self-disciplined enough for the day. And, besides, this is still (technically) a blog post!
(Insert mental image of someone screaming "WORDS! WORDS!" a la zombies screaming "BRAINS!", crossed with Patrick from Spongebob.)
To subsidize my post's brevity, allow me to direct you to one of my favorite sites ever, which--OH MY GOSH HAS A NEW POST FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS!
First of all, I'd just like to point out that this is my hundredth consecutive post on this blog. And, while the perfectionist in me would like to pour hours and hours of time into it so that it does not suck, I'm fairly certain that a) none of you really care; b) I've killed any chances of it being epic by simply mentioning that this is my 100th post; and c) I do actually care about getting some sleep tonight.
And not without reason: tomorrow, I will sing the American national anthem at a MLB game. Not alone, of course, and not in America, but STILL: tomorrow myself, 5 other Fulbrighters, and a group of high school students from the Kaohsiung American school will sing the American national anthem a the Taiwanese MLB All-Star Game.
So, yeah, we'll be on international TV.
Today, though, was just practice, which essentially entailed the group of us standing in the hot sun in the baseball stadium, waiting our turn to run-through the song a couple times. That, and taking jumping pictures.
Umm, I think we have a problem here...
Love the facial expressions...and we're getting closer!
Win!
Annnd epic win!
But I'll have plenty to write about on that account tomorrow and Sunday, after we've actually done more than a run-through followed by a long speech by the mayor, who came for the performance.
So, to rewind a bit: this morning, my 5th and 6th graders had a field trip! And I, naturally, went with them. It was a short affair; we walked the five or so blocks to our destination, and the whole trip took about an hour and a half. But it was fun! We went to Qing-Shan's original building, which has since been converted into a government factory which manufactures clothes for Taiwanese soldiers.
We meandered around the old complex, the kids getting important tidbits of information from the Director of Academic Affairs, in Chinese, while I savored the scenery and absorbed the occasional paraphrase by Patty. The complex was actually quite picturesque.
When we went inside for the actual tour, I found myself wondering who would wear the clothes, and about the home lives of the workers--I had been told that a good number of my students' parents work here, and I wondered which ones they were? No way to tell--when they saw me trailing along at the tail end of the procession, their reactions were universally gasps and occasionally a proffered English phrase like "Hello!"
Our procession.
So that was our field trip.
Fast forwarding a bit, past the MLB practice, song came into my life a second time today, at Zhong Shan Da Shue's (中山大學) 13th annual "Singing Contest in Chinese & Taiwanese for the Foreign Students." In other words, glorified karaoke.
Here's how that went down: some people sucked. Like really, really sucked. The first guy to lead off was one of those, which I appreciated as a boost to everyone's confidence. Then there were a few people who were okay, and a few who were absolutely fantastic and need a record label to notice them now.
That would be this guy. He also needs to stop wearing v-neck shirts now, but I won't quibble.
One group even dressed up in costume and did a comedic bit, which was pretty great.
And then there was us.
At the last second, Tiffiany had to leave because she had a bus to Kenting to catch for her birthday weekend (because sometimes life is just rough, you know?), and so our teacher recruited some of her other students, a group of French guys, to help us sing our song.
Yeah...that did not go so smoothly.
The thing is, they knew the chorus of the song, but that was about it. Not that we were too much better--we had our lyrics sheets in hand--but we had at least practiced it; knew what we were doing and had agreed weeks in advance to standing in front of a crowd and singing this particular song. (I blogged about it clear back in the beginning of October.)
So here's what ended up happening: the four of us who had prepared stood on one side of the stage, intermittently singing and laughing at ourselves, with a single microphone pointed, not at any of our mouths, but at a generalized point in the middle. I'm fairly certain no one could hear us.
On the other side of the stage stood the French guys, leading the crowd in clapping (clapping??? For Wode Bao Bei???) and chiming in whenever the chorus rolled around. And did I mention they had their own mike?
Fortunately, as I mentioned, we were still laughing. A few audience members laughed, too, which was more a relief than anything else. Because what else could we expect from that scenario? As Lydia said while we were leaving, in that sort of situation you have to be either completely amazing, or completely sucky and able to laugh at yourselves. I'd say we probably fell into the latter category.
Nonetheless, We'll be back out on the baseball field tomorrow, singing our hearts out for an international audience: proof that talent matters infinitely less than tenacity and happening to be one of the only Americans in Kaohsiung. And, as this 100th post attests, I have no talent but the talent of staying constant, whether to blogging, to being American, or to singing--poorly.
No, Kaohsiung hasn't been hit by a recent heat wave. This is overheating of a different sort. Or, rather, several different sorts (do you see a list coming? 'Cause I do!):
1.) My computer, Petey. (Yes, I named him. Moving on.) Being a laptop, and so quite logically resting on my lap, I'm heatedly regretting all the work I've asked him to do lately. I mean, really, emptying my several-hundred-photos full camera chip, sorting through and editing said photos, and finally, uploading them to Facebook...it's a lot to do, especially when I force him to simultaneously provide me with fantastic Seattleite music via Click 98.9 live streaming (,a favorite memory of home I can revive at will).
"Be kind to me," my computer screams, "what do you have to gain if I overheat and die?"
The answer is, of course, nothing. But sometimes, you've just gotta battle through, even though you're hopelessly behind in uploading so that, next time, you won't be so hopelessly behind as to make it seem utterly impossible. So, I'm sorry, Petey, but you're overheating days are far from over.
2.) My brain. I had Chinese class today, so this entry pretty much writes itself. But, in addition to the typical strain put on it by our biweekly marathon Chinese lessons, after class today, I went to the gym. And at the gym, Phoebe, who happens to be one of my favorite people here in Kaohsiung and who works at the gym, asked me to show her what I had learned.
On the plus side, my brain didn't completely empty out, as it did last month when Chialing asked me the same thing. I remembered that we had learned about making phone calls and arranging plans, and I told her this. So she 'called' me to test it out. And then my brain went blank. We made it about 3 sentences into the 'conversation,' which consisted of me fumbling through a few ways of saying "It's me, Bekah," and then combining two ways of saying "Do you have free time Monday?" into some weird amalgamation which promptly made Phoebe and the other employees standing nearby burst out laughing.
"It's cute!" Phoebe said when I asked how terribly I had done, then ran up the stairs for the comparatively less embarrassing feat of actually working out. Maybe one of these days my brain will accept the need to actually use the patterns I learn in class on an immediate basis, but that's just something I'll have to work on, for now.
3.) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Yes, I know that it makes little to no sense to say that a story is overheating; in this case the more accurate word would be "fried," and even then, it would once again apply to my perception of the story, but who cares. The point is, over the past two days, I've read a shortened version of this story 6 times. Monday, I'll get to read it another 5 times. And that, my friends, is far too many times.
It's my own fault, of course: I suggested we read a Halloween story as part of our lesson, and of course whenever I make a suggestion like that for "us" to do, I'm fully cognizant that it means me. Actually, in this case, that's not even true--poor Maggie and Alison are stuck translating the whole story after me, line by line, because the kids' version of the story that I found online, cut by about half, and then simplified, still needs to be translated for most of the kids to catch the nuances of the story. It's pretty complicated, when you think about it!
I am very grateful that tomorrow and Friday, though still Halloween-themed and still requiring my massive bags of candy and my pirate costume, will be Sleepy Hollow-free. Another inherent advantage of having an actual, fully-equipped English classroom at Qingshan is that we can show video clips for this sort of thing!
Anyway, with all that said and done, I'm off now to give my computer, brain, and story-telling abilities a rest. Time to sleep, before the rest of me starts overheating, too.
Dan and Danny left this morning sometime after I did, and I was instantly plunged back into my occasionally unrelenting (oxymoron, I know) schedule. And today was one of the unrelenting ones.
I've often meant to detail my schedule on here to give you a glimpse into my actual day-to-day life, and I suppose I have done that in snippets so far, but now let me just give you the timetable I follow every other Wednesday.
6:45am -- Wake up and get ready for the day, assuming I remembered to shower the night before (otherwise, the alarm is set for 6:20am)
7:20am -- Leave for Han-Min, on the expectation that it will take a good 10 or 15 minutes longer than a normal day, as I will have to fight through the morning rush all trying to get to Siaogang by 8am
7:50am -- Arrive at Han-Min, with any luck
8:00am -- Begin Morning English! I switch off teaching this with Alison and Maggie, and we teach 5 classes of a single grade every week; by the end of the semester, we will have seen every class once and we'll start over again. Today Maggie and I taught a new dialogue for our first "middle grade" group of 4th graders; first times always have a few bumps, but overall, it went pretty well.
8:30am -- Begin the awkward hour break before my next class, usually rendered un-awkward by a coffee/tea trip with Maggie and/or Alison. Today it went by really quickly, thanks to a few great conversations with both of them and the fact that we used the time to plan for our Halloween lesson plans. Going to be great, by the way!
9:30am -- First *real* class of the day; all adorable 5th graders with Maggie on Wednesdays.
12:00pm -- Lunch. My last class of the three I teach on Wednesdays bring me my lunch in the teachers' office, where I thank them in English and they, without fail, giggle a response and run away. Love it. :) Another highlight of lunch is always sitting and talking with Maggie, Alison, and Fiona, the other English teacher at Hanmin; our desks are close together and we just sit and chat and teach each other new vocabulary. It's fantastic.
12:30pm ish -- Lesson plan time! Alison and Maggie and I plan for next week
1:00/1:30pm -- Go home to pick stuff up if I have time (I did today); if not, straight to Sanmin for our massive LET-ETA-Fonda-Alex-Education Bureau people-Dr. Sun meeting!
2:00pm -- Here begins our meeting.
4:00pm (if we're lucky) -- Here ends our meeting. Nothing much of importance happens in between.
4:25pm -- We (ETAs) finish our post-meeting meeting with Fonda and Alex, and either quickly run home for stuff if there wasn't time before (this option would make us late) or run out for food at the local market and/or 7-11. Oh, the nutritious dinners we eat on Wednesdays...
5:10pm -- Chinese class begins. "Surprisingly," we make horrible students on these days...
7:10pm ish -- Chinese class ends.
7:40pm ish -- Rachel and I reach the gym (if we coordinated and have managed to conquer our exhaustion--which didn't happen today)
8:40pm ish -- Rachel and I head home, where I drop exhausted onto whatever flat surface I see first.
I know that, in writing this, I'm inviting comparisons from people who routinely work 14 hour days etc, and I have no answer for that. I'm just sharing my day.
Today, I got out of school at noon, leaving me ample time to show Dan
and Danny the sights, such as they are. Still not enough time to see
everything, unfortunately--not even I have seen everything yet, and I've
lived here for two months so far--but at least we got to most of the
staples.
1.) Cijin Island. This happened yesterday.
2.)
Chialing's noodle shop. This also happened yesterday. And also today.
Because she's just that amazing, and her food is just that delicious. We
couldn't stay away; I firmly believe that no one who tries her food
could possibly feel any different. She even had rice and green bean
noodles for Dan. She's amazing.
3.) Wu Pao-chun bakery. It's kind of a big deal--beat out pastry chefs from around the world with its French bread--and
it just so happens to be roughly 6 blocks from my apartment. We bought a
loaf of red wine and dried berry bread (can't remember the kind of
berry, which is embarrassing but true), still warm, and brought it back
to the apartment for a sample, where both Dan and Danny declared it to
be the best bread they had ever tasted. The statement "I could eat only
this bread for the rest of my life" was definitely used.
We then hopped a Kaohsiung Cultural tour bus (itself an
adventure, between figuring out where it was, fighting off a
betel-nut-chewing cabbie who wanted to take us instead, and listening to
the tour guides alternately try to explain things in halting
English--maybe once or twice--and speaking in rapid-fire Chinese), and
set out for the higher coastal area; that is...
4.) The Former British Consulate. Easily one of my favorite
places in Kaohsiung, it was used in roughly the 1860s and it sits atop a
hill which can see the entire city on one side, the lighthouse on
another, the whole broad stretch of coastline on a third, and the lush
greenery of ZhongShan on the last. All complemented by a constant light
breeze, and set to the backdrop of a charming brick building with huge
arches and white-painted wood doors. Lovely.
5.) 國立中山大學 (ZhongShanDaShue)
After a leisurely stroll after the passing bus, which somehow
succeeded, we discovered that it only took us the very short distance to
the bottom of the university's sprawling campus. We (and by we I mean
I) decided we simply must climb to the top, which had gorgeous
views--including the one which is currently the background on this blog.
On the way we saw lots of foreign students, lots of feral dogs, a
terrifyingly large spider, lots of great views, and disappointingly few
monkeys (read: none). Seriously, though, this mountain is gorgeous; in
my view, no trip to Kaohsiung is complete without it.
6.) Thailand Burma Restaurant. It's 3 blocks from my apartment. It's the best Thai you've ever tasted. Enough said.
7.) Kaohsiung 85 Sky Tower. I've posted about this before--2nd
tallest building in Taiwan, 13th tallest building in the world. Still
has its uber-awkward Tokyo photographers exhibit. Still a cool place to
visit, though, with fantastic views of, well, everything.
Other moments of note today: I randomly met another American on
my way to school! A guy pulled up to me and said "hello," and I turned,
expecting it to be a Taiwanese person practicing their English. We both
did double-takes. Turns out, he though I was his co-worker at the cram
school down the street from Han-min. We got stopped at 5 lights in a
row, so we got to have a nice little conversation! Gotta love random moments like that.
Also, I was the navigator in taxis to and from Kaohsiung 85. And
both times, the cab driver knew what I was saying. Chinese lessons ftw.
Well this has been one of my most random, rambling blogs, the
apparently straightforward formatting notwithstanding. But hey, at least
it covers all the staples!
Just a few little things from today--a few little moments which, by themselves, don't look like much, but which, taken together, make for a nice day.
1.) Class 6-1 at Cing-Shan, my first class of the day every Thursday and the one which is notorious school-wide for bad behavior, was a little better today (or at least they seemed a little better to me). In fact, the whole day today at Cing-Shan went really well, I thought; the kids were engaged, I was enjoying myself, and the teaching really seemed to flow and tie it all together, which is something of a first for me.
I think I may have hit upon a better way of teaching vocabulary, actually. Our lesson this week involves household chores-- "do the dishes," "get the mail," take out the trash," "feed the fish," "walk the dog," and "clean the room." In our lesson planning, Patty asked that, while teaching these new words, I first explain the verb and then add on the prepositional phrase. But really, how do you explain a verb? I explained it by telling the kids all the other things they could "do," "get," "take out," "feed," "walk," and "clean"--and not just telling them, but asking them to fill in the blanks. "What else can you do?" "What else can you clean?" When they answered, I'd act out whatever they said, which led to some fun moments--walking a lion and an elephant, for instance, and a boy saying he would feed his girlfriend (which I suppose is better than not feeding her)--and which actually had the kids all focused on me and enjoying themselves.
This was new for a lot of these kids. The kids at Cing-Shan sit at tables facing each other in cramped quarters, and possibly because of this, almost every class has issues of paying more attention to each other than to the teaching. Today was an epiphany: I made them all focus on me from the beginning (I wouldn't begin until I had everyone's eyes on me, I told them, and my heart warmed when one boy reached across the table to nudge someone who wasn't looking--self-managing classroom glimmering in the far distance!), and then I managed to hold their attention by directing their talking into productive replies.
Lesson learned: make them talk, but talk to me!
2.) I learned I can pick up finger-picking guitar fairly easily. I can play the bass guitar, of course, but I'd never really tried to pick up an acoustic before; I don't know chords, and I have not the slightest idea what note the upper two strings on a six-string are tuned to.
But tonight in Chinese class, Andrew announced he didn't want to play guitar for our performance (we're still trying to persuade him otherwise), and Analicia volunteered that I play the bass. I picked up the teacher's guitar and in a few minutes I was able to recreate, by ear-training/bass knowledge/piano theory training, "Wode Bao Bei." And it sounded decent! Granted, it's a simple song, but it was a thrill for me nonetheless. I still hope Andrew can be rallied to the cause, but if he can't, I guess I'll be well-practiced soon enough.
Lesson learned: I should buy an acoustic and teach myself!
3.) After Chinese class, I forced myself to go the gym. I had a headache, it was almost 9pm, and everything in me wanted to just stay at home, but I hadn't been to the gym since Monday, and I actually kind of missed it. And I was rewarded! My headache all but left me, and I got all the wonderful warm-and-fuzzy endorphins that makes gym-going addicting.
Lesson learned: couch potatoes can be retrained!
So that was my day--some nice surprises, making strides in teaching, music transferability, gym motivation; nothing major, but altogether great.
This song is currently playing on repeat in my head, and that is not at all a bad thing--it's quite peaceful and lovely! We're learning it for Chinese class; next month there's a foreigners-singing-Chinese competition which we may or may not be entering, depending on how confident we're feeling and whether or not we can all be convinced to sing/play the guitar (Andrew) in front of an audience.
"Wode bao bei" means "My baby," if you were wondering.
Singing in Chinese is interesting; or, at least, singing this song in Chinese is interesting. Chinese is a tonal language, of course, but when you sing you have to hit the notes you're playing, which may or may not match up with the tones you're supposed to be saying to make the words make sense. I've been told that, typically, as a result of this tones don't matter when singing.
In this song, however, she follows the music about 60% of the time and the actual tones about 40% of the time, making the singing-slash-talking alternative acoustic style work, and making those English speakers attempting to sing with her work, too. Her fun little vocal plays are half stylistic and half tonal, meaning the tones marked on the pinyin version of her lyrics (no tones on my linked version, sorry) which I have are right about half the time. So that's fun.
Actually, though, it is: her music reminds me of Ingrid Michaelson, whom I love, and it's quite fun to be able to sing in another language, however poorly. And who knows, come next month maybe we'll even win something from it.
If nothing else, we will have won ourselves a nice little KTV song!
I had Chinese class again tonight, and while the hours I put in studying after last week's fiasco definitely paid off, my overwhelming though at the end of class was still one of being overwhelmed. Near the end, Tiffiany began singing this song, and I thought it apt, so I couldn't help but replicate it here:
Congratulations, you will now all have Avril Lavigne stuck in your head for weeks. (Of course, if you're like me and had a younger brother who was obsessed with Weird Al for a while, you may know it better in this form:)
In any case, on the drive home I had both versions playing through my head and alternating between lyrics--with very odd results, I might add. (Though, in my defense, I had forgotten the gross-out lyrics and skipped to the cousin stanza.)
Anyway, back to Chinese. It's complicated! But you know, even its complications are complicated; to be honest, I can't just say it's complicated and leave it at that, because every thing that makes Chinese hard also makes it easy, and vice versa. Check it out:
Hey look, a pros and cons list for learning Chinese!
PRO #1:
Chinese has a limited, and definitive, set of sounds--21 initials, 35 finals. All Chinese words consist of a combination of these, meaning there are really on 411 sound-combinations available in Chinese--infinitely fewer than English, if you think about all the different ways you can combine our 26 little letters (I'm not a mathematician; if anyone wants to tell me how many sound combinations there are in English, feel free. I found my Chinese stats online :) Alternately, of course, you can just pick up a dictionary and see how many unique words you can find in there, but I'm guessing theoretical math is easier in this case..). But 411 sound combinations is puny--anyone should be able to knock through those in no time flat! Which leads us to...
CON #1:
INFINITE HOMONYMS. For the non-grammar-minded among us, a homonym is a word which sounds exactly like another word, but which means something entirely different. In English, these are usually spelled differently, as well; some examples would be heir and air, wood and would, eight and ate--I'm sure you can think of more if you want to. In English, you pick up which homonym is being used by the context--if someone says they're going to give their gold ring to their heir, for instance, you can pretty well guess they mean their next of kin, not the oxygen which happens to be floating past their face. Homonyms are confusing, to be sure, but at least in English, they're a fairly limited set.
Not so in Chinese. As Pro #1 pointed out, in Chinese there are only. 411. Sounds. Possible. Just try listening for context when almost every word is the same. As a result of this homogeneity, in my most recent Chinese unit, for instance, we learned "zai" twice--with the same tone (I'll get to tones in a second--for now, just realize that they're usually what's used to make 411 sounds stretch to fit a language full of words.) So, in the simple question-and-answer of "Where is the post office located?" "Go straight, then turn right," you use "zai" twice, once to mean "located" (郵局在哪裡?) and then to mean "then" (直走, 再右轉.) Even typing those two sentences was difficult--I have pinyin input installed on my computer, so I type each word phonetically and indicate tone by number, yet even so I had to scroll through several pages of choices to find the right characters to use--and not just for zai!
As you can see, the characters for each "zai," 4th tone are different, but that just leads us into our 2nd con...
CON #2: So. Many. Characters. As part of solving the whole every-word-sounds-the-same problem, maybe, Chinese has more than 80,000 characters; you need to memorize at least a few thousand to be considered literate in the language. According to Wikipedia, educated Chinese-speakers know 4,000. Wait, 4,000? Out of 80,000? And these are the educated people??? Annnd here we run into how very very difficult and--wait for it--COMPLICATED the Chinese language truly is. It's not unimaginable at all for a very well educated Chinese-speaking person to run across completely unknown characters while reading something slightly more obscure. Sure, this happens to English-speakers, too, but at least with a phonetic language and a basic knowledge of linguistic etymology (such as the educated person in our scenario would have), you would have a pretty good shot at pronouncing it at least in the ballpark of correctly. Not so in Chinese-- from what I can tell, at least, a new character is a new character: you may be able to derive the meaning from the radicals (patterns based on meaning which get repeated across characters), but there's absolutely no guarantee that you could pronounce it. Maybe that's just my flawed understanding of the language, but so far as I can tell, that's it: a new character is absolutely unknowable, even for a very educated person. So good luck when you run into those lesser-used 76,000 words, I guess.
But at least you know to expect them. Which brings us to...
PRO #2: You can't change the characters. No, really, you can't change them. So, you know that whole irregularity thing you get in most languages, things like verb conjugations, pluralizations, all that crap? Throw it out the window. A word is a word is a word. "I go" is the same as "He goes" is the same as "She goes" is the same as "They went." (Man, where did English come up with those screwy changes, anyway? "Go" to "went"? Almost as bad as Spanish's "voy" to "fuí," from a verb called "ir." Almost.)
It's kind of refreshing in Chinese, coming from a language chock full of verb- and tense-confusion and irregularities: suddenly, "I go to the beach;" "Yesterday I go to the beach;" and "Tomorrow, he and I go to the beach" are all perfectly correct. Lovely for a new learner, especially when there are so many/so few words to work with all of a sudden. Just add a modifier like "de" (的) to most anything and it's possessive/adjectival (我 is "me/I," 我的 is "mine;" 中山路 is "ZhongShan Road," 中山路的 is "on ZhongShan Road"); add "le" (了), or just specify a time like yesterday, and you've made it past tense. And that's glorious.
And another glorious fact brought about by unchanging characters is...
PRO #3: They started combining words to make more words--and their compound words actually make SENSE. This is actually probably the single best thing about Chinese: if you know what each of the characters in a compound word means, you can probably figure out what the word means as a whole. Conversely, if you have absolutely no idea what the word you're searching for is, you can talk your way around the unknown word and, chances are, you might actually hit on the right one. As an example, the other day Rachel and I went out looking for a helmet store; on the way there, Rachel (who actually knows Chinese, unlike me) told me she didn't know the word for helmet, but she knew the words for head, scooter, safety, and thing. So, the plan was to ask if they had any "scooter head safety things." And sure, that strategy might also work in English, but the likelihood of actually guessing the word in English is infinitely smaller than in Chinese.
I mean, come on, just look at English compound words. There's neither "pine" nor "apple" in a pineapple, for instance. Chinese is much more sensical: the word for "school," for instance, "學校," is literally "study school;" an elementary school is "小學校," or "small study school;" and college is "大學," or "big study." As a language learner, there's no way not to love how literal it can be.
BUT...
PRO/CON #4: It's ironic that this is my fourth and last pro/con--and odd for me that I even have a fourth point--because what I'm going to talk about here is TONES, and there are four regular tones in Chinese (technically 5, but the 5th is a non-tone). And I don't quite know where to stick them.
On the one hand, tones are great--they provide a great non-context way out of the sticky homonym situation, and they make you sound super animated all the time.
But on the other hand, they're terrible--for English-speakers who are used to infusing our daily speech with tone to convey emotion, not meaning, the prospect of accidentally putting that question-mark tone (the 2nd tone in Chinese sounds like us asking a question in English) on a word accidentally, AND CHANGING THE ENTIRE MEANING OF THE WORD, is terrifying. Take the seemingly innocent and wonderful word "love"--in Chinese, pronounced "ai" (as in "eye;" 愛), with the fourth tone (which goes down from high to low, and sounds like a very serious definitive--not very loving in English). BUT the 4th tone is absolutely crucial here. Say "ai" with a first tone (like singing) and it means "sorrow;" with a second tone (question mark) and it means "cancer;" with a third tone (dropping and rising) and it means "low."
And that's just one example--and, for that matter, just one set of what each of those tones can mean, because, as I mentioned earlier, the same sounds and the same tones can have different meanings. Just, you know, for fun.
Maybe I do know where to stick tones--in the "cons" category. Because no one wants to accidentally tell someone that they "sorrow" them.
So yeah, that's my pros and cons list. I'll likely add more as I learn more, but now I'm still at an extremely low level of study. How low, you ask? Well, today during my breaks at Han-Min I was studying the words 圖書館 (library), 花店 (flower shop), and 銀行 (bank), amongst others, at my desk--and all three of those words were in our lesson for the 6th graders today. What's more, most of them were able to volunteer other locations when prompted, places like the swimming pool or the department store. I don't know how to say swimming pool.
But I'll learn! Because, for all its complications, Chinese is worth it, and I'm loving growing in my knowledge of it daily, however slowly.
Again with the two-days thing. Today was actually worse--Wednesdays in general are going to be rough, really. My brain is fried.
My day today began with Morning English at Hanmin at 8am, meaning I had to be out the door here by no later than 7:15 or so. After that I had (and always will have) an hour break (in which I get coffee; this morning Maggie and I went out and brought back some for Alison, too), and then taught from 9:30-noon. Then, after eating lunch, I lesson planned with Alison and Maggie, then set out for Sanmin for our biweekly Fulbright meeting, which began at 2pm. It was interesting at times, but the general mood of teachers (LETs and ETAs alike) was exhaustion. When that finished (10 minutes late), the ETAs had a chat with Alex and Fonda, then had about a half hour to go grab a snack (奶茶--milk tea--and 7-11 garlic bread for me) before Chinese classes started at 5:10. Then we had class for 2 hours. When I got home, around 7:45 (after a brief detour to Chialing's with Emily and Lydia, where we were disappointed to find her closing up already), I took the opportunity to run some errands: pick up flashcards from the stationary store (more on that later), buy pineapple and nectarines from a fruit stand (dinner), and pick up some milk.
So around 8:30, just over 13 hours after I left the house, I sat down to a nice relaxing evening of painstakingly copying foreign characters and building a stack of unknown words the height of Taipei 101.
Why, you may ask?
Well, the title refers to more than just my present inability to think straight, or my inability to remember the first part of my day--on the drive from Hanmin to Sanmin I decided I was going to write my scooter rant today--traffic inspired me--but that rant is lost now--though that does of course play a part.
But it also refers to Chinese class. Maybe it was a function of the long day, but today in class I was absolutely worthless in anything related to Chinese. Usually pronunciation can be my saving grace, even when my memory fails (often), but tonight, I couldn't even get that right. When we met up with Chialing, she asked me what we learned today, and I couldn't remember a single thing to tell her. The word "zai" (4th tone--在/ 再) popped into my head--it means either "located" or "then," depending on context/character--but that was it. One word, from an entire lesson which included pretty much everything about how to ask for/give directions.
Crap.
The kicker was that I had spent all of my breaks at school today studying--going over old vocabulary, studying the dialogues we would be doing tonight--all for nothing. This may seem like the most self-evident statement in the history of the world, but Chinese is hard!
Also, today while ordering 奶茶 with Karina today, she told me I've been saying "you" (有) instead of "yao" (搖) when ordering recently--telling everyone that I have whatever I'm ordering, instead of saying that I want it. The one phrase I thought I had down. And the worst part is that I know the difference between those two words! Yet even this failed me today.
So now I have a freakishly tall stack of cards with the Chinese character and a picture on one side, and the pinyin (phonetic Chinese) and English translation written on the back. I'll be staring hard at these puppies on a daily basis, and adding to them, too, which my writers' cramp-y hands are not looking forward to right now.
On a positive note, I received my official invitation to the 10/10 celebration in Taipei next month. It's kind of a big deal.
You can tell by the envelope. And, you know, the return address: "Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
So yeah, all the Fulbright scholars this year are invited to celebrate the Republic of China's 100th Anniversary, in the capital, with the president, as the guests of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The invitation states that "national dress or western style dress" is required (time to break out my silk from China!), and "guest pass is enclosed and required for entry."
Of course, ours didn't have the guest passes--Vivian, a Fulbright coordinator in Taipei took them for us so we don't forget them--but the prestige of the invitation still oozes forth. I am so excited, humbled, and blessed to be in Taiwan at such a great moment in its history!
If you were curious, here's the invitation itself.
Perhaps I should have mentioned at the beginning of this post that I don't have school tomorrow, thanks to Cing-Shan's students' 6th grade trip. This is, after all, the only reason I'm still up at 3am local time: no set time frame tomorrow. Which means that I will (try to remember to) hit up the gym and then shut myself up at Brunch Cafe to finish my application, which is due Friday, Seattle time.
So I guess I should go to bed now. Time to let my brain recover.
It's finally stopped pouring outside right now--but pour it did, for several hours, beginning, of course when I was just getting ready to drive back from Chinese class.
And I discovered several things about the rain:
It's absolutely wonderful. It cools you down, the humidity's not as bad, somehow, and overall it just feels like you're sitting in the middle of a perfect waterfall in the middle of the jungle. And of course, given that this is a subtropical region, that's not too far from the truth.
It's absolutely inescapable. Remember that waterfall simile? Yeah...that actually applies to force and drop size, it's not just a stereotype of something wonderful. Leaving San-Min, where we have Chinese classes, I wasn't quite insane enough to think I could make it home unprotected, so my first instinct was simple: drive across the street, where there was a 7-11 which, Fonda informed me, would be selling ponchos. Yeah...in the time it took for me to get to my scooter, put on my helmet, stop at the light and drive across the street, I was drenched. As in my white skirt was clinging to my legs, my shoulders were wet through and my sandals were sponging water. Even after I put on my newly-purchased pale yellow all-body poncho, my shoes were under what felt like a running faucet, my face was being constantly smattered with rain, and the small triangle of my shirt left exposed by the poncho was soaked through by the time we made it back to the apartment.
When it rains in Taiwan, ponchos emerge out of nowhere like umbrellas in New York or cicadas in their long-awaited season. Everyone expects torrential rain; everyone prepares for it. Everyone, that is, except foreigners. (Well, not quite only foreigners--I was in good company at 7-11, and they had a stash of raincoats by the check-out.)
And, well you know me and my lists. They have 3 items each (a nice round number which happens to be my favorite and into which my thoughts on a subject almost invariably fall naturally), and are usually a sign that I'm tired and/or have been reading too many Cracked.com articles. In this case, both are true. So I'm signing off for now.
I've been here a month and a half now, and I'm surprised about how many things I've completely gotten used to, things that not too long ago I would have balked at which now seem perfectly normal.
So, here comes another of my lists--things I have changed my entire perspective on since I moved to Taiwan:
1.) Dish washing. There is the obvious aspect of this, of course, in that I have never before lived in a house without a dishwasher. But more than that, my perspective has shifted about what constitutes clean. Having spent a good three or four summer and winter breaks in the service industry, I've been trained that cleaning a dish requires four stages: spray down; wash (in as hot of water as my hands can stand); rinse (ditto to wash, but often hotter than I can stand); chemically sanitize. At home, of course, that last step was skipped, but the necessity of hot water was still upheld.
But here in Kaohsiung, our kitchen sink does not get hot water. At all, so far as we can tell--and it's not just here! Every restaurant we go to, no matter if it's a street cart or a walk-in restaurant, uses hose water in an outdoor sink to wash dishes. At my schools, the kids and teachers wash dishes after lunch--in cold or lukewarm water in outdoor sinks. We use soap, true, but no hot water anywhere. And it makes total sense--who wants to touch hot water in steaming hot weather? So what constitutes a clean dish? Something which as been passed under water, swished around (and scrubbed, if necessary) with soap, and rinsed. And that's it! Nothing could be more natural.
2.) Chopsticks. While we're on the subject of eating utensils, I can't help but remark on this one--every time I sit down to eat, I am amazed at how easily and how fast chopsticks became second nature for me. It was no earlier than June of this year when I was struggling for every bite, and reaching across the table for food at family-style meals in China was torture. My chopsticks would cross, or slip, or just prove generally unmanageable. I wondered how anyone could ever do it on a regular basis.
But now, I often find myself using chopsticks for things most Taiwanese people eat with a spoon, like rice. I mean, why not? Once you get the hang of it, chopsticks are quite easy and convenient. I even find myself now eating like a native, chopsticks in my right hand and spoon in my left, scooping when necessary and eating bites of whatever without a qualm.
3.) Driving. I could (and will, at some point,) devote an entire post sometime to my driving experiences here in Kaohsiung, but for now, allow me just to say that I used to think there were rules to driving. In Eugene and in Seattle, I followed rules like these: stay in your lane; go the right direction on every street; leave a big space between yourself and the next vehicle in any direction; stop for every red (or yellow) light; never drive on the sidewalk; yield the right of way to the other drivers, and especially--and always--to pedestrians.
But here, I've discovered, none of these apply. And, more than that, I've learned to accept this fact and live accordingly! Just to clarify, I still stop for lights, I still don't drive on the sidewalks, and I still go the right direction on the streets. BUT, when in Rome! And I'm not gonna lie--after four years of entitled Seattle pedestrians expecting nothing less but that you miss your light so they can meander through the crosswalk, it's refreshing and wonderful to be able to squeeze past them without a qualm. The only rule of driving here? Don't kill anyone--yourself included. And obviously, those are the only real rules you need!
So that's my list! For now. I seem to be fond of lists these days, though, so look for more as time goes on.
In other news, I started Morning English today at Han-Min, an 8 o'clock half hour 5-class session in which we taught a supermarket conversation. It was fun! Taught apple, banana, orange, kiwis, grapes, mangoes, lime, and yogurt. My character was making fruit salad. :) The kids seemed to enjoy it, especially toward the end, but we'll do more games next time. Beginning of a weekly event!
I started Chinese classes today, at long last! I'm in a beginning/basic (no one's quite sure) class with Andrew, Tiffiany and Analicia--when we started Esther was in our class too, but since she's had a good 2 years of classes, she decided to move up to the intermediate level. Which is good, I guess, since before we basically had 3 distinct skill levels, and Tiffiany is a true beginner.
So yeah, we'll see how that goes--we still have 2 levels jammed together and right now we're quickly reviewing basics like name, age, numbers, family, nationality, time, etc. Learned a lot today! I'm actually just hoping we can keep our review pace for the whole time--I want to learn, and now!
After all, I won't be truly acclimatized until I can speak Chinese.
