10. My students, my co-teachers, my colleagues, my friends...
This one is obviously actually #1, but it's far too serious to put as my ending note. So, this is actually the thing I will miss the absolute most about Taiwan...but I don't have the heart to put it there. I love my students; I love my co-teachers; I love my colleagues; I love my friends here, and I don't want to think about the fact that I'm leaving then soon. *ahem* Movingon.
9. Standing out in every crowd
It gets annoying at times, but it's still kind of cool to be The Foreigner, worthy of stares and smiles and awe. And I'm not gonna lie, it's nice getting "你很漂亮啊" all the time from strangers. I won't quite know how to deal with blending in again...
8. The ability to pop up to Taipei or Taitung on a whim, or to fly to Thailand in just 6 hours or so
I've mentioned this before, but I have absolutely LOVED the ability to travel that this year has given me, coupled with an absolutely fantastic array of locations at my feet.
7. Living amongst the nicest people on the planet
I genuinely believe this to be true. I have NEVER met more kindhearted people than the Taiwanese locals, especially Kaohsiung locals, are. It's partly Southern hospitality (the same the world over), but mostly just an ingrained wonderful friendliness all over the island of Taiwan. They are simply wonderful.
6. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon off work
This was just a lovely quirk of my schedule all year: no class after noon three days a week. Never gonna get THAT again!
5. Playing the foreigner card
Not being able to communicate definitely has its upside. This is it: the foreigner card. "I don't understand!" Annnnnd you can now do anything you want.
4. Drinking ALL THE TEA
I didn't even drink tea before I came to Taiwan. But I will miss all the fabulous varieties of tea I've grown to love this year, and will no doubt try to replicate them on my own: grapefruit green tea, Oolong milk tea, Earl Grey milk tea (at least this one I can still get at home), yogurt green tea, mango green tea, the list goes on...and I will always remember being the sole one still ordering it iced when the temperature dropped to a "frigid" 60F or so.
3. Beautiful sunshiney days on my scooter
When the sun is out, my scooter is perfect. Wind in my hair, zipping along, getting tanned (avoiding the slowpokes...); in essence, perfection.
2. Fresh fruit, everywhere, all the time
Taiwan's fruit is the best thing ever. EVER. And it's cheap. I will forever miss being able to go down to the fruit stand on a whim and buy pineapples, mangoes, and watermelon and for less than 3USD.
1. Driving like a maniac with no repercussions
'Nuff said. Here's hoping I readjust before I get buried in tickets at home...
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Friday, June 29, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Cinderella
...but not really. "Cinderella" just happens to be the most imaginative way I could think of to describe how I spent my day today--essentially, with housework.
And well, that's not entirely true, either, unless you count sitting on my bed and editing as "housework," and even by that definition I doubt you'd consider the prolonged breaks I took to talk to friends and read articles online as "work."
(Also, as I did my housework without the help of magical mice and of my own volition, sans the orders of an evil stepmother, and as it's past midnight now and I haven't had any magical transformations or lost any shoes, let alone found a Prince Charming, I really can't claim the title.)
So...I should have called this post "Cinderella and lies," apparently.
But on the plus side, I did complete all but one of the items on my to-do list today! The final item is choosing the hostels for my trip this summer: one where I'll spend the bulk of my time, in Cairns, Australia, and one in Osaka, Japan, which I'm flying through at night on my way home. (Special considerations for the Japanese hostel: how can I squeeze as much out of Japan as possible in a single night, while still making my flight the next morning?) So, if anyone knows of a good place to stay in Cairns or Osaka...hit me up!
Side Notes with "Th":
(because they are not enough to write a lot about, but I feel like sharing)
Thunder. It has woken me up two mornings in a row, now, and this morning did so so loudly that I practically shot out of bed, my subconscious evidently under the impression that I would be murdered if I stayed where I was. Thunder itself isn't too odd, I guess, but what is is that, by the time I've gotten up for real, both yesterday and today, it was not only no longer stormy, it was not even raining, and, apart from the water on the roads, I would never have guessed the thunder was anything other than a particularly vivid part of my dream. We'll see if the pattern holds tomorrow; hopefully not, for my subconscious paranoia's sake...
Things I will miss about Taiwan. The following is an exchange I had with the sweet, motherly woman who works downstairs at the local 7-11:
Me: (give her the money for the eggs and bread I'm buying)
And well, that's not entirely true, either, unless you count sitting on my bed and editing as "housework," and even by that definition I doubt you'd consider the prolonged breaks I took to talk to friends and read articles online as "work."
(Also, as I did my housework without the help of magical mice and of my own volition, sans the orders of an evil stepmother, and as it's past midnight now and I haven't had any magical transformations or lost any shoes, let alone found a Prince Charming, I really can't claim the title.)
So...I should have called this post "Cinderella and lies," apparently.
But on the plus side, I did complete all but one of the items on my to-do list today! The final item is choosing the hostels for my trip this summer: one where I'll spend the bulk of my time, in Cairns, Australia, and one in Osaka, Japan, which I'm flying through at night on my way home. (Special considerations for the Japanese hostel: how can I squeeze as much out of Japan as possible in a single night, while still making my flight the next morning?) So, if anyone knows of a good place to stay in Cairns or Osaka...hit me up!
Side Notes with "Th":
(because they are not enough to write a lot about, but I feel like sharing)
Thunder. It has woken me up two mornings in a row, now, and this morning did so so loudly that I practically shot out of bed, my subconscious evidently under the impression that I would be murdered if I stayed where I was. Thunder itself isn't too odd, I guess, but what is is that, by the time I've gotten up for real, both yesterday and today, it was not only no longer stormy, it was not even raining, and, apart from the water on the roads, I would never have guessed the thunder was anything other than a particularly vivid part of my dream. We'll see if the pattern holds tomorrow; hopefully not, for my subconscious paranoia's sake...
Things I will miss about Taiwan. The following is an exchange I had with the sweet, motherly woman who works downstairs at the local 7-11:
Me: (give her the money for the eggs and bread I'm buying)
Her: 謝謝.
*I smile. A pause.*
Her: “很漂亮”
“so beautiful” 是不是?
Me: 對!
Her: (to me) So beautiful!
Me: Aww, 謝謝!
It absolutely made my night! (Even though I answered incorrectly...oh well, the point was served. :) )
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.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
6 Days of Pirate-hood
After spending 6 of the past 7 days dressed as a pirate, and spending 5 of those 6 teaching Halloween to 5th and 6th graders, I feel like I've learned a lot. For instance...
Eye patches are cool. And they also suck. Not too long before I "became" a pirate, my online browsing took me to this article (warning: some language), where #5 of their list of 6 Absurd Pirate Myths informed me that pirates did not, in fact, wear eye patches to cover missing eyes, but rather wore them to keep one eye adjusted to the dark when attacking ships, at which point they would need to be able to move quickly--and non-blindly--from the bright light of the deck into the pitch darkness of the cabins, all while swinging a sword and trying not to get killed.
Turns out, this works for haunted houses, too. With kids cycling through a darkened room, letting in streams of light at each end, it helps to work the door with an eye patch on--lower it when the door's open, lift it when it's closed. It actually helped: a lot. Visible difference when I was using the eye-patched eye. So yeah, pirates had a nifty idea for looting ships! And, you know, scaring 5th graders.
The sucky part? More accurate: parts. First off, there's the obvious discomfort--it's just weird to have something covering one of your eyes for an extended period of time; I found myself scrunching up one side of my face trying to keep that eye close for some bizarre subconscious reason. I made mine out of felt, which is pretty good on a skin irritability scale, especially when coupled with the fact that it was held on not with an elastic round-head strap, but a normal headband beneath my hat. But still uncomfortable; a large number of my pictures from teaching this week feature my eye patch folded up on itself and pushed under the brim of my hat to keep it out of the way, and by the end of the day, I was always ready to tear that thing off my head.
And that's not to mention the inevitable loss of depth perception and peripheral vision. Many missed steps, missed food portions and misshapen letters later (in an unfortunate coincidence, the week I was a pirate brought with it the most board-writing I've had in a lesson plan in quite some time), I've never valued my ability to see what's around me--and know where it is around me--more.
If you think your students have gotten used to having a foreign teacher around, donning an eye patch, hat, and sword will turn that assumption right around! It was kind of funny how much attention I suddenly got once I donned my costume. I hadn't realized how used to me students had gotten until I changed the stakes a bit--if a foreign teacher is normal, how about a pirate foreign teacher! Along the same lines, I was surprised at how many kids were actually a little nervous because of my costume--it wasn't anything particularly scary; to my mind, it was actually pretty tame. But an eye patch, watch out! And, on a related note...
Wooden swords work well as attention-getting objects. For some reason, this did not occur to me until I was halfway through the week, but it's fantastic! Teaching vocabulary words on a blackboard has never been more fun than when you can smack it with a wooden sword and ask "What is this?" And kids pay more attention when you're swinging a sword around anyway--highly unusual, and so highly worth paying attention to.
And, of course, if they're still not paying attention, a quick rap on the desk (I said desk, not hand, just to be clear) works infinitely better than a ruler to get a student to sit up and listen! I'm only half joking in all of this, of course. :)
I never want to hear "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" again. Yes, I know, this is not directly related to being a pirate, but in the context of Halloween, it fits perfectly. Over the past week, I have read a simplified version of that story precisely eleven times, line by line, as I waited for my co-teachers to translate into Chinese. The original story is okay, but when you take a kids' version from the Internet and simplify it further for kids who don't speak English, the story becomes unbearable and odd.
Each translation pause opened up a gulf of self-doubting questions about the story: should I have left that detail in? Should I have cut this one out? Why in the world did Washington Irving have a fake ghost in the middle of the story? Should I have read that sentence on its own, or should I have read those two together? And how impactful can a ghost story really be when kids hear each line twice, just in two different languages? Which leads me to...
If you hear the same thing in two different languages enough times, you start to understand bits and pieces of both. This is the one upside of reading "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" so many times. Among other things, I now have the word "誰" ("who," as in "Wh-who are you," or "你, 你 是 誰?") and the word "南瓜" ("pumpkin"--not hard to think of where that fits in the story), as well as "馬" (horse) and "頭" ("head," as in "he was headless," or "他沒有投"). So yeah, at least Teacher Bekah was learning from the story! Hopefully the kiddos were as well, but it's less likely since they only heard it once.
And now, at last, I can retire my trusty pirate costume of hat, belt, sword, and eye patch. Perhaps in another year I will have achieved enough distance between my over-exposure to don it again, maybe even unite it with my trusty pirate costume which I stupidly left at home in the States, but for now, I'll just sit back and relax...no rum required.
Eye patches are cool. And they also suck. Not too long before I "became" a pirate, my online browsing took me to this article (warning: some language), where #5 of their list of 6 Absurd Pirate Myths informed me that pirates did not, in fact, wear eye patches to cover missing eyes, but rather wore them to keep one eye adjusted to the dark when attacking ships, at which point they would need to be able to move quickly--and non-blindly--from the bright light of the deck into the pitch darkness of the cabins, all while swinging a sword and trying not to get killed.
Turns out, this works for haunted houses, too. With kids cycling through a darkened room, letting in streams of light at each end, it helps to work the door with an eye patch on--lower it when the door's open, lift it when it's closed. It actually helped: a lot. Visible difference when I was using the eye-patched eye. So yeah, pirates had a nifty idea for looting ships! And, you know, scaring 5th graders.
The sucky part? More accurate: parts. First off, there's the obvious discomfort--it's just weird to have something covering one of your eyes for an extended period of time; I found myself scrunching up one side of my face trying to keep that eye close for some bizarre subconscious reason. I made mine out of felt, which is pretty good on a skin irritability scale, especially when coupled with the fact that it was held on not with an elastic round-head strap, but a normal headband beneath my hat. But still uncomfortable; a large number of my pictures from teaching this week feature my eye patch folded up on itself and pushed under the brim of my hat to keep it out of the way, and by the end of the day, I was always ready to tear that thing off my head.
 |
| See the thin strap of black on my forehead? Yeah...and this was my FIRST DAY! |
And that's not to mention the inevitable loss of depth perception and peripheral vision. Many missed steps, missed food portions and misshapen letters later (in an unfortunate coincidence, the week I was a pirate brought with it the most board-writing I've had in a lesson plan in quite some time), I've never valued my ability to see what's around me--and know where it is around me--more.
 |
| Not pictured: six other hand-written flashcard words |
If you think your students have gotten used to having a foreign teacher around, donning an eye patch, hat, and sword will turn that assumption right around! It was kind of funny how much attention I suddenly got once I donned my costume. I hadn't realized how used to me students had gotten until I changed the stakes a bit--if a foreign teacher is normal, how about a pirate foreign teacher! Along the same lines, I was surprised at how many kids were actually a little nervous because of my costume--it wasn't anything particularly scary; to my mind, it was actually pretty tame. But an eye patch, watch out! And, on a related note...
Wooden swords work well as attention-getting objects. For some reason, this did not occur to me until I was halfway through the week, but it's fantastic! Teaching vocabulary words on a blackboard has never been more fun than when you can smack it with a wooden sword and ask "What is this?" And kids pay more attention when you're swinging a sword around anyway--highly unusual, and so highly worth paying attention to.
 |
| Yarr, matey! |
And, of course, if they're still not paying attention, a quick rap on the desk (I said desk, not hand, just to be clear) works infinitely better than a ruler to get a student to sit up and listen! I'm only half joking in all of this, of course. :)
I never want to hear "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" again. Yes, I know, this is not directly related to being a pirate, but in the context of Halloween, it fits perfectly. Over the past week, I have read a simplified version of that story precisely eleven times, line by line, as I waited for my co-teachers to translate into Chinese. The original story is okay, but when you take a kids' version from the Internet and simplify it further for kids who don't speak English, the story becomes unbearable and odd.
Each translation pause opened up a gulf of self-doubting questions about the story: should I have left that detail in? Should I have cut this one out? Why in the world did Washington Irving have a fake ghost in the middle of the story? Should I have read that sentence on its own, or should I have read those two together? And how impactful can a ghost story really be when kids hear each line twice, just in two different languages? Which leads me to...
If you hear the same thing in two different languages enough times, you start to understand bits and pieces of both. This is the one upside of reading "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" so many times. Among other things, I now have the word "誰" ("who," as in "Wh-who are you," or "你, 你 是 誰?") and the word "南瓜" ("pumpkin"--not hard to think of where that fits in the story), as well as "馬" (horse) and "頭" ("head," as in "he was headless," or "他沒有投"). So yeah, at least Teacher Bekah was learning from the story! Hopefully the kiddos were as well, but it's less likely since they only heard it once.
 |
| 他們的南瓜! / Their pumpkins! |
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Rediscovering Kaohsiung, part 2
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!
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!
Monday, September 19, 2011
Drenching
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:
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.)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Obsessions
Another uneventful day--which is not altogether a bad thing! The only moment of productivity today came first thing in the morning when, at 9am, we met up to go get physicals for our drivers licenses at the local hospital. After that, it was a nap, then some studying for said license test (which we will now be taking next week, since we didn't today), then reading and TV-watching for the rest of the day. It was glorious.
But, all that to say, not much to blog about. So, instead of an update on my day, I'll use my favorite little content-building technique: a list. And I shall call this list...
Taiwanese Obsessions I've Noticed Thus Far
1. The people of Taiwan are obsessed with plastic. Plastic bags, plastic seals, plastic straws, plastic bottles--it's everywhere.
Anytime you order iced tea or juice here, you receive a plastic cup topped by a plastic seal which, together with a plastic-enshrined plastic straw, come nestled inside a plastic bag. Anytime you buy a beverage at 7-11--which you do daily, often in plastic bottles, and often water, thanks to the non-potable tap water--you receive a plastic straw. Today at McDonald's, I saw them put three paper bags full of food inside a larger plastic bag before giving it to the customer. From what I can tell, this phenomenon stems in part from the fact that most people commute via scooter, and the one storage capacity scooters always have (besides room in the seat) is a hook for bags. But still, this plastic obsession is odd when combined with....
2. Their obsession with recycling. I'm quite glad about this obsession, given #1 on this list, and the fact that until recently Kaohsiung was one of the most polluted cities in Southeast Asia, and the most polluted city in Taiwan. They used to say you could write calligraphy with the water from the Love River. This is, fortunately, no longer the case; now, the emphasis on recycling makes me feel like I'm back in Seattle, with many restaurants having multiple trash cans for different types of waste. It is a bit annoying, though, having to rinse and sort everything, including food waste, all the time--after lunch each day, we have a whole ordeal of scraping out our (cardboard) lunch boxes which we can never finish into one bag, then putting the boxes themselves in another bag, and putting our used napkins and disposable chopsticks into a third bag. Our plastic drink cups/bottles do, I think, go in a fourth bag after they are rinsed, but I've never quite been able to figure that part out.
3. Another thing I've not quite figured out is the Taiwanese obsession with receipts. You get a receipt with absolutely every purchase and, as I've mentioned with the whole drinks situation, you make a lot of small purchases. And each and every receipt you get is long and thin and about three times the size it needs to be to contain all the information. I know that, with 7-11 at least, they have a lottery based on your receipt numbers, but I haven't been able to figure out yet whether or not that system is universal, or how and when you find out if you've won. So I just throw mine away, but somehow they still seem to show up constantly clogging my wallet and falling out of my purse. It's obnoxious.
I know the point of this program is to spread cultural exchange, so I have the feeling my lists will proliferate with more little amusing quirks of Taiwanese culture in the coming months. But for now, I'll leave my list at this: two ways in which Taiwanese people use a lot of resources, and one way in which they deal with the leftovers.
But, all that to say, not much to blog about. So, instead of an update on my day, I'll use my favorite little content-building technique: a list. And I shall call this list...
Taiwanese Obsessions I've Noticed Thus Far
1. The people of Taiwan are obsessed with plastic. Plastic bags, plastic seals, plastic straws, plastic bottles--it's everywhere.
 |
| This is just a very small sampling of the bottles I've used since I got here--the ones I finished at home and been too lazy to take out to the recycling right away. Also worth noting is that I go through one of the large water bottles about once every two or three days. You do the math. |
2. Their obsession with recycling. I'm quite glad about this obsession, given #1 on this list, and the fact that until recently Kaohsiung was one of the most polluted cities in Southeast Asia, and the most polluted city in Taiwan. They used to say you could write calligraphy with the water from the Love River. This is, fortunately, no longer the case; now, the emphasis on recycling makes me feel like I'm back in Seattle, with many restaurants having multiple trash cans for different types of waste. It is a bit annoying, though, having to rinse and sort everything, including food waste, all the time--after lunch each day, we have a whole ordeal of scraping out our (cardboard) lunch boxes which we can never finish into one bag, then putting the boxes themselves in another bag, and putting our used napkins and disposable chopsticks into a third bag. Our plastic drink cups/bottles do, I think, go in a fourth bag after they are rinsed, but I've never quite been able to figure that part out.
3. Another thing I've not quite figured out is the Taiwanese obsession with receipts. You get a receipt with absolutely every purchase and, as I've mentioned with the whole drinks situation, you make a lot of small purchases. And each and every receipt you get is long and thin and about three times the size it needs to be to contain all the information. I know that, with 7-11 at least, they have a lottery based on your receipt numbers, but I haven't been able to figure out yet whether or not that system is universal, or how and when you find out if you've won. So I just throw mine away, but somehow they still seem to show up constantly clogging my wallet and falling out of my purse. It's obnoxious.
 |
| Again, a very small selection: those receipts collected after I found out there was a lottery and before I realized that I have no clue how that information can be of any use to me and began throwing them away again. |
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