A Golly Good Garble ofthings

Yes, so photographs serve as memory triggers, I think. But lacking a camera, I spend the vast minority of my time making these things.


This was taken on 23 November, right after class had "started". It looked as if it was going to be a particularly difficult day (notice the person in the back standing out of her chair, and the ball about to be thrown in the lower right hand corner). After my pleas to sit down and at least talk less loudly were received and thrown back at me, I decided to change the pace and start taking pictures. This at least got their attention - whether I was able to hold it, I cannot recall.

It was around this time that I decided I would stop working there. I had kicked and punched and subdued and stimulated and caressed this idea in my head for a few weeks, but finally decided to go through with it. I let Steven, my boss and owner of the school, know my plans. I was pretty sure I could find work teaching adults, which I had convinced myself would be less tiring.

A couple days later, I - half persuaded, half with a change of heart - reneged on my commitment to leave. Let me take a moment to explain something about myself here. I despise being bad at things. If I am bad at something, I will either work very hard to be better at it, or I will avoid it as best I can. I suppose I had come to the conclusion that I was bad at teaching young children English. At first I tried very hard, but when that effort was met with... nothing, I decided to quit. Steven appealed to my desire to be good at everything I do and suggested I stick with it. This seemed like an amazing idea, albeit one that had been driving me (unconsciously) for months. I took his advice.

Before quitting, I created a list of reasons why I should leave, or in other words, why I was bad at teaching little children English. Most of these served to deflect the blame from myself - justly or not. But one large and, I feel, legitimate gripe I had was structural.

A handful of the kids' English is pretty good. I can communicate most things to them, with some over exaggerated facial expressions, pantomimes, and rephrasing, that I can communicate to any average 10 or 11 year old in the states. However, the others have trouble moving beyond "I am wearing a t-shirt and pants, and yellow socks and slippers," "Today is sunny and hot," "My name is Mandy," and "I like lemon." Furthermore, because of scheduling and financial limitations, a number of classes are composed of students with skill levels as disparate as anyone would not want them to be.

This is fine, actually. I can do my best to work around these problems: that is, in fact, my job. The problem is that the relationship that has developed between myself and several of my students is one marked by monotony, one-sidedness and shallowness. It is a relationship borne of directing, requesting, miscommunication, and ambiguity. If my students were my girlfriend this would be a prototypical example of psychological abuse.

To be fair, I'm probably exaggerating reality, and the relationship between teacher and student should not be compared to that of lovers. Still, I would prefer my students to have an expanded knowledge set of their teacher, me. Mavis, the native Taiwanese teacher, faces many of the same problems I do, but they are tempered by a deeper relationship borne of jokes, mutual understanding (to some degree) and pretty crystal clear communication.

Really, this all comes down to the fact that I do not know Chinese.

But, even if I did know it, I'm not "supposed" to use it in the classroom.

I recently pleaded with Mavis to let me watch her class. Usually our classes overlap and this is not possible. She finally obliged me, after assuring me that it wouldn't be any better and would probably be worse than my class. She did in fact miss some grammatical mistakes in the sentences the children wrote, but the environment of the class was very different. And she spoke Chinese about 60% of the time (and this was the "advanced" class).

A couple things have happened since then. Especially with the younger kids, I speak Chinese when I feel relatively confident, to explain things or even just to communicate. This I think is beneficial. Secondly, the holidays have rolled around.

So we have to put on a Christmas something or other. Mavis and I decided on a play. The younger kids will do The Three Little Pigs (really Christmasy, I know) and the older kids will do a tamed version of A Christmas Carol. Beginning this week we have had daily rehearsal. This means that I do not teach half the classes at all, and the other half have their time cut short. As luck would have it, the half of classes that I do not teach is completely composed of my most troublesome classes. I think this is putting a well deserved and well placed spacer between myself and those students, in the classroom environment at least.

The other effect of the play is to create an environment outside of the classroom within which we are able to interact. I think this will serve to better establish a bond less defined by "teacher-student", and subdue emotions that recently had been the source of utterances such as "you are a stranger," (not sure if the seven-year-olds actually know what this means) and "you do not like me."

I really do like all my students, even the ones that are absolutely impossible, and when we do have the pleasure of interacting outside the classroom, the interactions are in fact pleasurable. I also know somewhere in their heart they like and look to me: whenever something goes wrong amongst them, they usually come to me to grab my arm and look up, teary eyed and quivery lipped.

Yes, this is a process. I think I knew that.






And these are my roommates from Panama. This was right after they performed traditional dance and song as part of a larger festival celebrating 成大 birthday (the University where I take classes).


Also, I went back to the coffee mountain (actually 東山), with Steven. This time we were without his family, but a large smattering of lawyers and judges from different areas of Taiwan. Recently there have been several arrests regarding fraudulent appointments as well as misuse of public funds, etc (you know, the kind of thing that goes on in Illinois), and apparently some of these guys were involved in prosecuting or defending people involved, and Stephen's wife was not on the same page as them, so she did not attend.


I also went to 高雄 (KaoSiung or GaoXiong depending on how you like to romanize pictographs) to see what I believe is the second largest city in Taiwan. It is a twenty to thirty minute trip by train, to the south of Tainan. What used to be a sewage dump turned river has been converted into the "Love River." Some may not consider it even as lovely as a sewage dump might be in, oh, say France. But it was highOKah (my very own romanization of 還OK阿).


Actually, the view is supposed to be better at night. City night views, with all the bright colored lights, I would say are one of Asia's highlights as far as modern architecture goes. Unless lots of tile and concrete really do it for you. This seems to stem from a general preference for strict practicality in recent years. I'm not sure when the transition was made (though - just speculating - it seems to have coincided with the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power), but it was swift and sweeping. I've been reading a recreated history of Zhang Dai, who lived during the late Ming dynasty, and it's apparent that practicality over aesthetics was not always the mode.

In some ways the change is probably good. For instance, a bathroom was being repaired or revamped or something at school. The place was a complete shit hole (please don't overlook the pun there), and upon peeking my head in, my initial reaction was to turn around and head upstairs. The floor was uprooted, pipes were strewn about, etc - the kind of thing that would shut down the entire floor of a building, if not the building itself, back home for fear of a lawsuit. But before fully turning around, I thought better of it and politely asked if I could use the urinal. The man said of course, just 小心 (lit., small heart - be careful :). I stepped over holes, ducked under pipes, pissed, ducked under pipes, stepped over holes, thanked the man and left.

But in other areas, perhaps this over obsession with practicality ought to be better balanced. I recently met a senior at school. We were with a group of friends, but he was talking to me about any number of things. Our topic fell upon his major, which was related to design. He seemed disheartened though, as if he should be ashamed, and I probed a bit. His friend, who graduated last year is working in Taipei, about 16 hours a day 6 days a week, and making NT$20-25,000 per month. I believe the average income in Taiwan is around NT$30,000 or between US$800-900. I make about NT$36,000, after relatively higher taxes, and work a lot less. Basically, he was hating it. I had a hard time believing this and double checked all the numbers to ensure I was not misunderstanding. Nope.

"Why?" was the obvious question. "Taiwanese don't care about design," was the obvious response. This is a generalization and is perhaps in the process of changing, but seemingly currently true on average. "If there are two comparable products and one is much better designed than the other, but more expensive, all Taiwanese will buy the cheaper one."

And so we have the "Love River."

If you are tired of reading I will inform you now that I have only two things left to write about.

The first is this photo.


It took a second to remember why I took this picture as I was reviewing my photos. If it's not apparent, you can e-mail me.

And lastly, I went karaokiing (that just will have to be spelled incorrectly) with my tea shop lady and family and friends.


Thanks for bearing with me this time around friends, family and folks. I'm headed to 九份 tomorrow, which is an old town leftover, relatively untouched, from Japanese days with lots of tea houses. Wish me luck.

'Till then!

coffee

A real post is in the works, but for now I think everyone who may be keeping tabs on this will enjoy this other blog post.

walks and nationalism and other thoughts all rolled into one

Tuesday was my university’s birthday. The original significance of this was that I had to be at school at 7:50 am (twenty minutes earlier than normal) on account of my committing myself to take part in a “walk” with my fellow classmates and teachers.

That morning proved me wrong. I was sure everyone was lying and Tainan never got cold, but that morning was cold. Perhaps I have just become accustomed to warmer weather over the last few months, like the locals. Anyway, I sported my Mont-Bel synthetic fleece out the door, and was happy about my decision.

The participants of the “walk” were grouped by department. So we had our own Chinese Language Center group. We all were given free t-shirts and flags that corresponded to our respective home nation-state-countries. I had a United States of America flag because I am from the United States of America.

The “walk” itself took place in the school’s stadium. We waited on the track for a long time before haphazardly organizing ourselves into rows of six and walking almost half way around the track. Then it was done – for us, anyhow. The other groups, after this epoch journey almost half way around the track, seemed to be placing themselves on the field in an organized manner. There was to be a long speech. We foreigners did not have to stay for the long speech because we are foreigners and seem to be exempt from a lot of things.

But whoever was leading our group of foreigners was unaware of our exemption, and headed our group onto the field. There was obvious confusion at the front of the group, which steadily trickled down to the back of the group. I think something was even said over the loudspeaker about the foreigners. The foreigners were in distress and started going astray. Amidst all the careful planning and obvious organization of the other groups, the clump of very foreign looking foreigners (lots of white people) started trampling across lines and boundaries, running around in circles and lines, every last one of them carrying a bright flag over their head. I think I was the first one to notice the knee slapping humor of the situation, and just stopped to stand and look and laugh like Matt.

I spent the free from class day with classmates, mostly with two German students. The day got warmer and I took off my jacket and we walked around the city for a few hours and ate food and talked. Until today I had been feeling a sense of nostalgia for fall. There still are not any red leaves, but the brisk air, bright sun and slight breeze did me well.

Later there was a kind of Dawg Daze thing on campus. A small festival carnival activities bazaar of sorts. My roommates performed with other Panamanians, singing and dancing and drumming and accordioning. They drew a big crowd, including a Chinese looking person even more enthusiastic than the rest. After dancing to one song, he came up to me, took my hand at about neck height, and shook it very awkwardly. (It was a cross between a high five, a handshake and a kiss on the cheek.) “I am Chinese!” he exclaimed, showing me his official identification card hanging around his neck. I acknowledged his Chineseness, and let him get back to dancing.

After one of the students from Paraguay had me sample some food and asked how I liked it, I responded that it was good, and said it reminded me of papusas from Ecuador. After dancing and shaking hands/throats with the Chinese man, the Parguanian (??) brought his friend over to me. “She is from Ecuador! You can tell her about the food you like.” I obliged.

She responded with a facial expression more expressive than words, and I tried again. No luck. Then she started speaking to me in perfect English. “You must have your countries mixed up,” she said with a degree of accusation. No, no, no. But maybe it’s the wrong name. I thought for a second, and decided that it was the right name, and tried one more time, futilely. “I think you don’t know which country you visited.”

I thought about it very hard, and realized I had said Ecuador and meant El Salvador. I sucked it up and let her know I realized my mistake. The conversation ended quickly thereafter, and I was left standing amid the crowd feeling like a bit of an ass.

If someone were to give me a blank map, I promise I could find both El Salvador and Ecuador and label them correctly. I have done it before (thanks Jackson School). It is not that I am unaware that Latin America is not one country, or that Ecuador is not north of the equator. It is just that I mix those two up with the same frequency I confuse “tiger” and “lion” or “wheel” and “tire”.

But the way she left me, the way she ended our conversation, made me feel guilty – more guilty than if I had called her wheel a tire. And I started thinking about this and I wondered why I had offended her. There was some sort of ego, some sort of national pride, that I had disturbed. How could I confuse Ecuador and El Salvador? “I guess they are kind of close,” she had said.

I do not have to worry about people mixing up the US and Canada, or the US and France, or England. People know where I am from, and it is hard to say how different I would feel about her reaction if people did not know where my home was. Maybe I would be more sympathetic.

Often, when I am sitting down at a restaurant and I make a new Taiwanese friend by virtue of being not Taiwanese, he will ask me how it is I know about Taiwan. The first several times I was asked this, I chuckled. I wanted to say, “Well, you know, you’re right there on the map with all the other countries.”

I have yet to say this, instead explaining that I wanted to study Chinese and I know people that have been here, etc. And now I do not chuckle anymore. It is a sincere question, no joking at all. It is a question borne mostly out of domination by big sister China, but also by many people’s disinterest in affairs outside of their daily life: often my new Taiwanese friend’s response to my explanation of why I have come here is “I thought Americans thought Taiwan was Thailand.”

And, alas, before I came to Taiwan, and even still (from some people, thanks to the internet) I get questions such as “How is China?!” and “You’re in Thailand, right?”

As I was holding my flag over my head, trampling around the field with my classmates like an idiot, no one was looking at me and thinking, “Where is he from?” In fact, I think it is quite the opposite. People look at me, flag or not, and see me first and foremost as an American.

I can have my issues and disagreements with this, but I am not going to change anyone’s first impressions. As long as people understand our little world in terms of nation-states it is probably best that I accept the fact that I am representing some 300 million odd people. So I will study my map a bit harder and smile a bit more and speak Chinese as best as I can – if not for the sake of America, then for the sake of avoiding any animosity between two groups of people whose only connection is a guy named Jonathan Brown that did not know the name of El Salvador.

...

PS

Today at work I was discussing cultural differences between Taiwan and the US with the Taiwanese teacher. Our conversation was revolving around when children moved out of their parent’s house. I suggested I thought it was nice that Taiwanese tended to stick around a bit longer. She asked why the same was not true in the US, and I replied as best as I could. Then, “Oh... So, it isn’t illegal?”

???

I tried not to chuckle, but mustered a “Huh?”

“I thought there was a law that children had to move out, and if they don’t they have to pay their parents.”

This amazed me. She majored in English at university, yet still had this bizarre idea. So I will continue to correct these misperceptions and do my best to persuade everyone I meet that Americans, on the whole, are not that different than anyone else. Yes, yes.

Moving

As I write this, I am sitting in my new home. There is a drizzle outside, cooling the breeze that comes in through the sliding door of the balcony. Having a balcony is nice – it offers views of things that, while not spectacular, are preferable to a reddish solid metal wall. It is also nice having a kitchen with a kitchen table, as well as a living room complete with two couches and a coffee table.

My bedroom in and of itself is not as nice as my previous (bed)room. It did not come furnished with a closet, a chair or a small bookshelf, so those must be obtained. In the meantime, I am living from my floor – which is proving manageable to such a degree that the purchasing of real furniture will most likely be delayed for some time. There are also a few dings and marks on the wall, though if this is an indication that I am allowed to adhere things to the borders of my room (and I am making an assumption that it is), this could be viewed as a plus.

Furthermore, my new roommates have not yet turned out to be demonic in anyway. Instead they are maintaining the same degree of graciousness and civility as they do in classes. They also seem to have their own lives outside of the apartment, so it is not infrequently that I am home alone – on the whole, another plus. When they are around and we are communicating, we mostly use Spanish. Sometimes I will slip into Mandarin, as these days it is closer to the tip of my tongue, and I also intentionally impose English on them every once in a while (I am not sure how this is received yet). Inevitably, though, the phrases in foreign languages are repeated in Spanish for the sake of actual comprehension.

This has had two consequences. First, my Spanish has been rejuvenated after three months of severe malnourishment. And second, I have come to the realization that my Spanish is rather bad.

I persuaded my old landlord to sell me her son’s bicycle, so it is now my bicycle. There is want of something better still, however. The options are a sweeter bike (possibly a fixie which I am sure would be one of, if not the first in Tainan), the more convenient Vespa style scooter, or the more awesome motorcycle. In the same way the floor in my bedroom is sufficing as a closet and shelf, however, I am quite sure my current medium of transportation will last for some time.

And in fact, my bicycle is sufficient. Tainan is relatively small (though it is Taiwan’s fourth largest city) and flat, and I ride around with ease. Every week I encounter a new something or other. Two weeks ago it was the vegetarian Jiaozi (I think these are called dumplings in English, but am honestly not sure) place; last week, another tea shop from which I will buy a bag of tea tomorrow to try out; today it was the bakery and an Indian restaurant I will try next week.

The constants in my life are progressing. I feel I am getting a better grasp on teaching, and I picked up a few books on the subject, which will be an additional aid. This is the first job I have had where my responsibilities are not clearly defined. Well, on one hand that is not true. It is pretty straightforward: teach them English. But the methods by which I fulfill that requirement are malleable.

This realization was the first big step in the right direction, as far as teaching goes. It has led to some thinking about what my aims and expectations should be for different classes, which in turn has led to reconsiderations in how I deal with the students. I do not think that I want to be a teacher for a significant part of my life, but I do prefer doing things well to doing things not well. I also think many traits and skills that make a good teacher (of any level) are invaluable even when I am not in front of the class. So, I will continue to try to be better at what I am doing.

The other constant, the one where I am looking at the person in front of the class, is also going well. My ability to communicate with people that only speak Chinese is improving week by week. Still, successful communication is just as rewarding as unsuccessful attempts at communication are frustrating. I have both a carrot and a stick pulling and pushing me onward.

For instance, as my Chinese improves I hear more and more, “Oh, your Chinese is pretty good. How long have been here?”

After I have this brief conversation, which I have had several times and at which I have become quite adept, the conversation regarding how much lettuce I want or where the post office is or by when I need to be moved out, begins.

And this is where that stick really starts beating me over the head. My partner in dialogue is convinced my Chinese is great and usually starts conversing with me in a matter which I find 80% incomprehensible. I, thankfully having just received a complement, am unwilling to stop them mid-tempest-of-incomprehension to explain that they are wrong and my Chinese is still bad, but prefer to smile and squint and bend forward and ask for repetition every once in a while.

Sometimes this works and sometimes it does not. Sometimes I do not get any lettuce, sometimes I go to the bakery instead of the post office, and sometimes I move out a week too early.

The weather is cooling down, forcing me to recognize that it was in fact disgustingly hot this summer. Still, I am currently in shorts and a t-shirt and do not understand when I see people donning Mountain Hardware alpine jackets, complete with snow hats.

It was fun watching the election from afar. It made me realize I do like and care about America, was less apathetic toward than frustrated with our little nation, and am happy to see something a little different. I guess we will see how things go, yeah?

Administrative stuff

I opened a bank account, and am currently without regular access to the world wide web. Please forgive the post paucity.

Friday Evenings in Tainan

There really is not a shortage of things for me to write about these days. Life in Taiwan has become less surprising, but not much less extraordinary. Subtleties of everyday happenings I have become more and more accustomed to. Yet, instead of this resulting in a numbness to life’s absurdities, it has accentuated my perceptions.

But in many ways everything I experience is set in a very 'different' context, and it is exceedingly difficult to convey the peculiarities without first setting them in their proper environment. Rather than spend my time documenting I often prefer to engage, and so I am increasingly particular in my choice of scenes to convey.

A bit troubling, though, is that my recent intentions to write about particular events do not result in any sort of product, and many really rather entertaining or enchanting experiences fade into memories that I only hope to recall. There is a line to be straddled between a focus on engagement and a dedication to recording that engagement.

...

Last Friday evening I came home from work early: the private tutoring session I usually hold with Stephen’s daughter Sophia had been cancelled because she was busy. The next morning I was teaching at LiMing Zhongxue, but I had not yet finished my lesson plan.

As an aside, these lesson plans tend to take several hours to complete because I am not using a text and the class is large and long enough (40 students for three hours) that it demands I have what would seem an excess of material. If I were to do every exercise with every student I would probably only need to prepare a handful, but everyone would be sleeping until I called on them. Thus I am forced to be inventive and creative and entertaining while only covering a marginal amount of material.

I was in the process of being this inventive, creative and entertaining person when my cell phone rang, a rather rare occurrence. It was Judy, from my adult class, which had just the day before indefinitely postponed further classes because someone’s father was in the hospital. The class consists of three young-middle aged ladies who have incredibly disparate commands of the English language and listen hard and pretend to understand everything I say despite my best efforts to get them to confess when they do not. They are kind and have lives outside of our class and seem very unwilling to study.

I like them very much. They are a nice change of pace from the children, two times a week for two hours at a time.

So Judy, who is the most conversational in English, called to say that there was a big problem and she would be over soon to pick me up. It was 10:00 pm or so, and I had a significant amount of work to do on this lesson plan, but I of course told her I would be waiting outside.

We scootered to a place not far from the school where I teach, and parked and disembarked. The street was pretty quiet already, and not many people were around, but the room we parked in front of on the bottom floor of a large building was well lit with fluorescent lights and full of six or seven young-middle aged women, all working ferociously on computers.

Shelly, one of my students, was one of them. She had a report due the next day for her marketing class. The emergency was that she could not understand the English research paper on which the report was to be based at all. She handed me a copy of the 30 odd paged report, and asked if I could help.

I sat down and immediately felt like a real university student again. I had never read any marketing papers in my life, I had just been handed 30 pages of dense material and a report was due in several hours.

The only difference was that I was in Tainan in a room which turned out to be the bottom floor of the house of one of my youngest students, Tony, and was full of these women who were apparently all classmates. I asked Judy why everyone studied here. Everyone studied there because it was quiet and bright and there were lots of computers. Never mind it was what would normally be the living room of someones house.

It was actually amazing. This room, the bottom floor of this house, had been converted into what could have been mistaken for a black market brokering room. There were more computers than people, but all the computers seemed to be in use. Desks created a maze through which Tony’s father had to walk to get to the stairs to his hopefully more tranquil and less illegal upstairs. Instead of the 'quiet' that Judy described, there was a constant back and forth of chit chat. The doors were wide open to the city street outside.

Judy sat down in a large office chair and another lady immediately and silently stood up from her desk to begin massaging Judy's back. Judy is a larger lady, and a bit older than the rest. She is very kind, but has a burly kind of appearance that demands respect, the kind of lady you would never talk back to or interrupt. She has worked at the post office for decades, and this has probably accentuated this trait.

I returned to the research paper, but was forced to look up again when the belching from Judy's chair reached levels no longer ignorable. The lady doing the massaging could have been trying to kill Judy. She was striking her with such blows as to produce a belch nearly every time. I would not have been surprised, but may not have been able to retain my laughter, if the lady had simply grabbed the back-underside of the chair and flipped Judy onto the ground where she could more efficiently deal life threatening blows with the heels of her feet and point of her elbows.

Instead, both women were content to proceed as things were, and of course no one else was at all concerned or surprised or displayed any emotion at all.

I once again returned my gaze to the paper and carried on amidst all the black market trading and belching and studying in the living room of Tony’s house.

Not surprising at all, but no less extraordinary.

An Accidental Weekend

So I was going to go to the tea farm last week, but then the typhoon came. There was a large earthquake a few years back and apparently all of the soil in Taiwan is now extremely unstable. As a result, heavy rain (aka typhoons) create massive landslides in the mountains, and other sorts of things that kill.

So the trip was postponed until this weekend, which was a three-dayer. We left Friday morning with the intention of coming back Saturday evening. We got on the...

Well, let me preface this. People are not excellent drivers in Taiwan. That is to say, when the traffic lights go from green to red, people in the "halted" lanes continue to drive through the intersection for 2-7 seconds. That is also to say that before the lights go from red to green, people in the "waiting" lanes tend to be at least halfway through the intersection.

Okay. So really, maybe Taiwanese drivers are especially excellent because I have never seen any accidents - until this week.

I was going to work on Thursday, obeying traffic lights on my landlord's bicycle, when a car running a red light hit a girl on a scooter jumping the gun on the green. She slid perhaps fifteen feet, laid on the ground for a minute, and stood up. The driver of the car opened his door, got out (but did not come out from around the door) and asked if she was all right. She seemed like she was in fact still alive, and upon the establishment of this the driver of the car, a young professional looking type, helped her upright her scooter and walk it to the side the road. At this point he got in his car and drove away. No exchange of information, no yelling, no nothing. I was stunned.

Right. So fast forward to Friday morning. We get on the freeway and I am sitting in the back seat with tea shop lady's older sister trying to explain the bath houses in Korea in Mandarin, and just when I succeed and everyone laughs with joy, our celebration is interrupted by somewhat hysteric bursts of shrieking from the driver of our car. I am not wearing a seat belt because, one, it does not work, and two, older sister explained that people in Taiwan do not wear seat belts in the back seat - they are not necessary.

It turns out she was right. I think I looked up about three seconds before we hit the car in front of us. It took one second to realize that it was going to happen. It took another second to slide as low as possible into my seat to avoid whatever might have happened. And then about a half second of waiting for the inevitable.

No one was injured: I think we were probably going 25 or 30 when we actually hit the car, and no one was caught off guard thanks to the shrieking. But the car in front of us had a detached muffler and the rear wheel wells were rubbing quite hard up against the rear tires. Our car had a severely bent hood, and all the lights and bumper were completely destroyed. I think if we had been going even a mile or two per hour faster the radiator would have been smashed. But as it was everything under the hood just compacted a bit, and the car was able to run. The two drivers of the cars, both ladies, hugged each other and we continued on our journey. Though, it had to be cut short by a day.



The tea farms did not care that we hit a car and lunch still tasted good and in fact no one seemed to mind too much about anything at all.



We came back home that evening and I hung around the tea shop for a while as family members dissipated. Drinking tea at the massive, unitary piece of wood that serves as the tea table, I was less surprised than I would have been twenty four hours previously as I watched another car collide into yet another car, right outside the front door...

Tainan Sleeps Too

It was very early in the morning. Riding my landlord's bike home, I was struck by how quiet and empty the streets were. The sides of buildings, normally aglow with artificial hues of neon light from massive signs, were cast in a dim moonlight. The occasional motor passed me by. I saw a mother on a bicycle, her young daughter riding in an affixed seat behind her. As I passed, I was able to hear the creak of her pedals.

I turned down my alley to find a local taking pictures of buildings and streetlights and sidewalks - like me, enjoying a different city by night.

Another Saturday

Lee is the name of the lady with the son, whom I met several Saturdays ago at the children's bookstore. A number of weeks ago I told Lee I would go with her and her son to a large Buddhist temple in Tainan County. An opportunity to go to a tea farm persuaded me to tell Lee I could not go with her on what would have been today. Not wanting to disappoint either her or her son, I said I could come over for lunch on Saturday, yesterday, at 11:00.

I was late. I had rejected her offer to come and pick me up from my apartment, preferring to ride my bike independently despite the distance. I left ten minutes before 11:00 for a journey that would take me three quarters of an hour. It would not have taken quite this long, but I could not recognize her particular apartment building, even though I was sure I was on her street. It turns out on the outskirts of Tainan City all of the apartment buildings off the busy main road, down the alleyways and side streets, all look very similar.

I tried to call to ask for directions or help, hating to do so as I was sure she would never let me ride there myself again, insisting on picking me up instead. However, I had missed one digit in the telephone number I punched into my phone before I left, and could not call her. I was forced to find it myself, which I eventually did.

Then I had to remember which apartment was hers. There was no bypassing the huge metal door that is the entrance to her apartment building. The first couple buttons I pushed were the result of failed memory recall. After that I implemented a strict methodology of pushing every button, starting at the top and moving down the list. After the third or fourth try an old lady answered. It was not Lee, but I asked if it was anyway. In response I got what sounded like Taiwanese. Despite my inability to understand her words, I understood her meaning. "Who is this?" I was finally able to make her understand who I was looking for - the only option, because she would not hang up the phone and allow me to continue down the list.

She gave me the floor and room number and I called and went up and said hello.

Lee was the same as before. A large smile spread across her face, under eyes that were somehow troubled. But she was glad to see me, and food was laid out across the table. She had obviously spent a lot of time preparing a lot of food, and I felt guilty for being late.

The apartment was the same, though her son was much more active than last time. He was excited to have company, Lee said. Usually it was just her and her son and he was quiet.

We ate and talked and her son ran around and did not eat. He threw balls and jumped behind and on top of things. Every once in a while Lee would try to get him to calm down or eat by either asking calmly or spurting out a river of hurried, angry Chinese followed by another smile aimed in my direction. Neither worked and it did not seem like Lee expected it to. At times it reminded me of trying to interact with my young students.

I tried to get to know Lee a little bit better, but it was not much use. For my part, I felt more bold than the last time I was in her home. I pushed gently in ways that for any number of reasons I normally would not. I wanted to know if this was someone I wanted to know and to be around. I wanted to know if I wanted to come back.

I asked where she was from, but did not receive much of an answer. I asked what she did for a living, and I received a very different answer than last time. I asked where the boy's father lived and after a long silence she said it was not too far from here. I stopped here, pressing no further. Despite her invitations, generosity, and pleasantries, she was not doing a good job of making me feel comfortable.

The phone rang and her son ran and picked it up in one of the two other rooms in the apartment. She followed, and shortly came back. I had the notion that someone was coming up. I politely asked if this was the case, and Lee confirmed. "Two people from the temple, and two children."

They were husband and wife, though Lee introduced the lady as Chu Jie, or sister Chu. These two were very amicable, but not regulars to Lee's apartment. From the body language and polite manner I understood that this was their first time visiting. They spoke Chinese for a while, and Lee frequently apologized and I responded in turn, saying it was good listening practice.

I gathered that Lee had invited them here and they knew a friend of hers would be visiting, but they seemed surprised that I was not Taiwanese. She soon asked if I wanted to go to the temple with them.

Understanding that the day's events would most likely spread beyond lunch, I had freed my Saturday of any obligations. I had all day, but I had given Lee an artificial deadline. I needed to be back by six to study with classmates.

I accepted the invitation, less because I sincerely wanted to go at this point than because I wanted to pull all the stops. I wanted to explore as much of Lee's life as I could while I was there. I wanted to explore before committing myself to be a regular part of their life.

I thought it was curious that her fellow temple goers showed up for the first time while I was there. I thought it was odd that she only invited me to the temple after I had arrived. The scenario had obviously been planned in advance, but I had the feeling I was not being shown the blueprints. I was being led along. This was fine and I smiled as Chu Jie offered me the front seat.

The temple was beautiful. It was a new building, huge and square and prominent in the countryside. The landscaping past the gate, before the temple itself, was well manicured and pleasant. (Still, as with all the temples I have seen and visited here, none begin to compare to those in Korea. I have very high expectations now, and they have not been met and I long for Korea's temples every time I visit one here.)

The temple consisted of three large floors. Each floor had a large room, or hall, and outside the halls were side rooms for various purposes. The people were kind, and there seemed to be a scurry to find someone when we arrived.

There happened to be a very pleasant, bright man who spoke nearly perfect English as a result of five years of study in a Ph.D program in Nebraska. He introduced himself, and I did the same and he asked if we should sit down to talk. I was under the impression that we had come to the temple to look around and see the country side. This man was under the impression that I was there to find out more information about the temple and religion. I do not think that he gave himself this impression, but that it was impressed upon him by someone else.

It turns out that it was a Daoist temple, not Buddhist, per se. And he continued to expand upon Daoist philosophy as well as the particulars of what this temple's religion put forth. It was fine and interesting and not completely foreign. He showed me around afterward, and we soon left. I declined to take part in the ceremony whereby I would commit myself to the temple and practicing Dao. The monthly ceremony happened to be taking place that weekend, though I am not sure it was simply incidentally.

We drove back and the sun was getting lower and I was tired. It was hot and I was sweaty. The couple and their kids dropped us off and drove away. Lee asked if I wanted to come up to have something to drink. Again, wanting to explore as much as possible, I accepted. It was only five and I did not "need" to leave for another half hour.

Her son was tired and went to the back room and fell asleep. Lee poured me cold fruit tea made from pear and mango and asked if I liked the temple and if I was happy. I told her I did like the temple and I was happy. It was quiet and she sat across the low table. We were face to face and it was dark and gloomy outside now. A typhoon was on the way.

She asked if I was scared of the typhoon. I said no, but that I perhaps should be. They seem to be more dangerous than I am willing to recognize. She replied that she was not scared and asked if I believed in fate. I said I believed things were half out of my control, or fate, and half in my control. She said she did not believe in fate in the past but that she did now, so she was not scared about the typhoon or anything else. I told her I thought it was important not to worry, and it was good if it helped her not to worry.

The clothes on the balcony blew in a gust of wind and clinked against the glass door. I looked at the clock, past her head. I asked about the boys father again.

She looked at me, and instead of hesitating she seemed freed by the fact that no one was around or coming. She told me in measured pace, like a metronome, in words that seemed rehearsed, that when the boys father left she did not know why, she did not understand and that she was very sad. She said she used to forget many things, she would forget how to get home. She said she came from a miserable life. But, she said, since she started going to the temple, and studying "the Bible" (the book of Dao), she had been better. She said she went to a doctor and she took medicine and she remembered things now. She confided that now she only hoped the boys father was happy, she was not sad anymore. She paused for a moment, breaking the measured pace of her words. Through the last several minutes the tip of her nose had reddened. Tears looked like they may have been welling in the bottoms of her eyes. Her throat seemed strained. I asked if she thought the boys father was happy. This seemed like it might break the thin seal that was shielding her from tears. She said she did not know, but she hoped that he was happy. She hoped.

Whatever had motivated her nervous hands in the car several Saturdays ago had now spread through most of her body. Only her words were conveying complacency and happiness. Her eyes, lips, nose and body disagreed with her words and became progressively distressed and sad. I let some time pass in silence before I glanced at the clock and said I needed to leave.

She burdened me with several times the amount of food she did last time, none of which I wanted. I did not want to owe her anything. I felt like I was talking to a student, imploring her to stop giving me food, this time my face without a smile. A large can of raisins, mangos, other tropical fruit, several unopened boxes of cookies, a box of cereal, packages of dried seaweed... I finally just turned to leave.

"Thank you," I said. "Take care."

I did not belong there and I did not think I would see her again.

黑人亮白

I hadn't yet, but I was about to run out of toothpaste. And while I felt I would make it through the night with what I had left, I decided not to risk it. I put on my Birkenstocks, just outside my front door, and made the very short trip to "Watson's: your personal store".

This would be my first time. Watson's sits on the corner of 長榮路　and 東寧路, the two streets that form the intersection into which my alley juts. I see it every day several times. It's a bright store and when you walk by, even from a distance, you can feel the air conditioning overflowing onto the street.

I walked in and saw what I needed right away but decided to walk the short aisles before leaving. It proved to be well stocked, a good store to know about. I grabbed the cheapest of what was available, which was not cheap at all, and headed to the counter.

While I waited in line I looked at the display I saw when I first walked in. It was stocked with sale items, among them toothpaste and mouthwash. On one box of toothpaste I realized I could read all the characters that made up the name of the product: 黑人亮白. I returned my gaze to the counter and mulled the characters over in my head.

Literally, they are translated as "black person _____ white." I knew how to pronounce the _____, but only knew the character in the context of 漂亮, which means pretty.

Intrigued, I turned back to the display and noticed that on the same toothpaste box was a kind of outline of what might be described as a Jim Crow era black man caricature. I decided a less literal translation, but perhaps more accurate would be "Black People Pearly Whites."

I have not seen one black person in Tainan since I have been here, and it is interesting to note how the absence of a shared history of subjugation and oppression works in conjunction with different cultural norms to produce things like toothpaste.

I like it.

Chinese is not always sufficient

I taught a class today. It's less and less of a big deal, but today was a little different. I accepted a position teaching a Saturday class every other weekend at a private Catholic school in the country, or 台南縣. I finished making my three hour lesson plan last night around two in the morning and woke up a few hours later to leave my house by seven thirty to get on the eight o'clock bus.

I got off the bus at nine sixteen. My class started at 9:15. The academic administrator was waiting in the classroom with the students seated. I could not tell if he was happy I was there, upset I was late, or did not care either way. I did not care too much. I was tired and felt like I was doing someone a favor. The class applauded as I walked in.

Three hours later, I walked out of the classroom. The students were respectful, if a bit shy. I did a good job entertaining them in English, and was satisfied but tired. Deciding not to swing by the office to make sure they understood why I was late, and that it might not be avoidable in the future; to ask when and how I get paid; to tell them they would do better to have three one hour classes of thirteen or fourteen students instead of one three hour class with forty, I headed for the bus stop.

When the driver dropped me off he had pointed at a green sign and a green awning and told me when I needed to go home to wait there. So I obediently walked up the road, the smell of manure replacing the more typical smell of exhaust.

I soon arrived at the awning and stood, looking for a sign affirming I was in the right place. I never saw one. The awning belonged to an ancestor of today's 7-11. The little store front sold juice and a few other snack like items. It was not really a store, though. Peeking past the counters and shelves I saw a back room that strongly resembled living quarters. It was like there was a large roadside indent in this person's house and they filled it with odds and ends and juice and a table and took money from the occasional passerby.

As I walked up the ancient man who was nearly a foot shorter than me stared without blinking. I turned and faced the road. I glanced back at him, still staring. There were two young grandchildren running around, and another man at a plastic table built at kids' height. He was reading the paper and seemed oblivious to everything, though there was not much to be oblivious to.

The road was quiet, and the only sound came from the children running around. No one said anything, but the old man continued to stare.

"你知道幾點鐘這輛公共汽車來到了麽?" I was not sure it was correct, but I was pretty sure it would be intelligible. I thought if I asked what time the bus came I could kill two birds, confirming there was indeed a bus that was coming to this location, and also saving myself from the trouble of constant lookout, straining to see the first sign of a bus for the next however long it would be.

I was pretty sure it would be intelligible and I was wrong. He stared at me with the blankest stare a five foot tall, ninety nine year old man with wicked eyebrows and nose hair could muster. I tried one more time, paying especially close attention to all my tones. Nothing. The scent of manure reacted more than this man.

"不好意思," I apologized, and turned back to face the road. As I did so, I heard something aside from the kids running around. The old man slowly disappeared into what I took to be his home and slowly emerged with two green, plastic stools. He pulled them apart and sat them directly behind me, side by side. There was no "請坐" as is the custom when you ask someone to sit. He simply gestured.

I sat down, and to my amazement he spoke. During the time it took him to find the chairs he had apparently planned a sentence. "我會日本," literally, "I am able Japan."

His Chinese is worse than mine, I thought. Looking at him now, he appeared very Japanese, which perhaps was just coincidence. I have heard many elderly people speak Japanese and Taiwanese, but not Chinese, as a result of Japan's colonization of Taiwan not too long ago. Before Japan left, Japanese was well on its way to becoming the national language here.

A bit relieved, I replied that I was not able to speak Japanese, which I am sure he did not understand. But he did not seem to question my presence, he did not seem uncomfortable, and I took this as a good sign that he understood why I was standing and now sitting in front of his indented house store. He got up and went into the back again.

While he was away a bus came by. I stood up and waved my arms, a bit unsure of myself. The man who was sitting at the plastic, foot high table looked up from his paper to watch me - I was probably creating one of the day's more exiting events. The bus did not notice or did not care, and kept moving. The man with the paper waved his hands dismissively at me and looked back down. I took this to mean that was not my bus.

Eventually the old man returned from his dwelling, bearing a piece of chalk and something else. He stooped down in front of me, and wrote on the road, "12點37分". I thought it was neat that he had not even adopted the now common practice of writing times in the Western format of 12:37, preferring characters.

Well, I am in the right place then, I thought, and with good company. As I smiled and nodded appreciatively at the old man he handed me the unknown object in his other hand: a small plastic cup of water, sealed in the same manner bubble tea is sealed, with a thin, plastic sheet on top. I took it from him, and looked at it, not sure if I was supposed to drink it: there was not any good way of getting at the water inside. Before I finished that thought he had jabbed a straw straight through the middle of the plastic "lid". He smiled and sat down and we waited in near silence, the kids running around.

Good Morning, Tainan

I was up at 7:15. School started the day before, and this would be my second day. I had reviewed, showered, reviewed again, filled my water bottle, and locked my door. Coming out from my side alley to the main alley, there was a thick mist, a fog.

I am never up this early.

Riding my landlord's bike onto the main road, I realized Tainan had been up for a while. Through the mist I saw the hustle and bustle of a city preparing for another day. I rode the bike down the familiar roads, but with a different, morning time appearance. More than the day before, when I was distracted with the advent of school, I noticed the masses of students on bikes and scooters, all heading where I was heading. I was one of many, just like a real university.

After class, I jumped on my bike and headed home, realizing I forgot my wallet. As I neared my place, I passed the 素食 where I eat religiously. The owner, preparing what would soon be lunch, saw me on the road. "早安!" he called. Good morning, I replied, realizing it was still before I was usually out and about.

I crossed the street, turning left by using the sidewalks, just as everyone else does, and passed the morning lady with the 菜包 stand. She spotted me, and yelled "早安!" I replied appropriately, and as I passed I heard another "早安!"

Turning my head, I saw the young man who had pulled up next to me on his scooter late one night last week. "I live there," he had said, pointing down the alley across from my place. "Oh. Nice. I live there," and pointed in the direction of my home. "Nice to meet you," he said before driving away.

This morning, he was beaming, just as before. He seemed happy to see me again.

Again, I replied with a smile, Good Morning!, and continued my ride home, happy to be so welcome in Tainan.

Saturday

I was tired because I had to get up at 9:30. I was tired because I never make it to bed before 2:00. I was tired, but I got out of bed and showered and brushed my teeth and drank my tea and got on my landlord’s bike.

It was the first time I have ever noticed the air being fresh. It is usually muggy and hot and very used by the time I get out of my apartment. By the time I turned onto the main road from my little alleyway, the air was muggy and hot and very used. But I enjoyed the morning breeze and the new smells from all of the morning food carts that had not yet traded existences with their lunchtime counterparts. I enjoyed the ride past my normal place of employment, into generally unexplored territory. I enjoyed getting a little bit lost until I only had 10 minutes left.

I needed to be at the bookstore by 10:30 to read oversized children’s books with large pictures in the books and parents and children not in the books. The bookstore was new, or at least newly moved, and had different white people read books every Saturday morning as a kind of promotion. This weekend they were trying me out. I had come to be introduced to Charles, the guy in charge, through Diana.

I stopped riding my landlord's bike, looked around, thought about it, and then rode to the front of the bookstore. I walked in with 5 minutes to spare, but more sweaty than I wanted to be. There were already fifteen or twenty scooters outside. It looked like I had an audience. I walked in, past the gawking children and sat down in the reading room. I made very small talk with the kids, peeked through the books, ensuring I could ask simple questions about the pictures and words, making sure I would not look stupid in five minutes.

Five children’s books later I was more exhausted than I thought I would be, and thankful that if they had me come back it wouldn’t be for at least a few weeks. Charles was not around, but I did want to get paid so I sat down next to the checkout counter. The bookstore was in a new building, in a new part of town with big(er) houses and wide(r) roads. Things were shiny on the inside, too shiny for a bookstore, but all the children rambunctious and energetic for no apparent reason took the edge off. I did not mind sitting for an indefinite amount of time to get paid. I was usually sleeping right then, and didn’t have anywhere in particular I needed to be.

“Okay, just sign anywhere.” The lady behind the desk was now behind me and handed me six hundred and fifty dollars and a piece of paper that looked like she pulled it out of the garbage can. I signed my name on the piece of garbage, gave it back, smiled, and kept the money. “謝謝.”

My attention turned back to the mom and her son in front of me. They had made to leave several times, but had not. I felt like I was included in their group for some reason, like we were one party. Maybe they could not leave yet because I had not said goodbye. They were looking at other books now. “他想看別的書嗎?” I asked. The mom looked up from the books, with a large smile. I do not think she even said anything, but just sat down at my table, sat her child down, and then set the book down. I recognized her now. She had helped me hold one of the oversized oversized books. She had seemed to be able to speak some English, and her son of five years had seemed anxious to turn every page before I was done asking all of my silly questions.

When we finished reading, I said goodbye so they would be able to leave. They walked out the door, but not before bestowing enough drink and snack upon me that it was going to be difficult to ride my landlord’s bike home. I soon followed suit, saying goodbye to the money handling woman behind the counter.

As I was arranging all of my new possessions on my pseudo-rack that sits over my landlord’s back wheel, the mom and her son asked where I lived. “東寧路.” I realized I must have pronounced it horribly because it is one of the largest streets in Tainan and it was only two blocks away and she had no idea what I was talking about. “東寧路,” I tried again. No luck.

We made more small talk for several minutes before she said goodbye. But when she said goodbye she actually said, “Do you want to follow us to our house? It’s very quick.”

“Sure.”

She had a motor and I had legs and pedals. She could not seem to find a comfortable speed for both of us. Rather, the distance between us would grow at a rate of 20-30 kilometers per hour for a matter of seconds, until it started to decrease at about the same rate: just as I had reached maximum pedaling speed, she essentially came to a complete stop. Losing all momentum to come to a stop next to her, or sometimes to avoid hitting her, I would find myself once again trying to catch up just moments later. This continued for the two or three kilometers to her apartment.

Her apartment building reminded me of Korea, probably because, at least from the outside, it resembled the only apartment building I saw in Korea. It was older, and colder than other apartments. It was actually hotter: she did not have air conditioning, but it was more sterile, aside from the dirt. The door was heavier. The halls were darker. I was comparing it to my apartment. It probably should have reminded me of Taiwan, but I had not been in any apartments outside of my own new, clean, bright one.

She did not live in her apartment hallway, though. She and her son lived in their apartment.

She is a small lady, bordering on fragile, except for her strong presence. She is not short, but skinny. She has an angular face, high cheekbones, and kind eyes, if a bit sad. But it would be difficult to describe her without including her son. It was immediately apparent that she lives for her son, in a way I have not encountered before. “This is where he and I live. We live here together.” she said. “Please sit down.” She invited me to eat with them. “I would love to. I am a vegetarian, though.” She is a vegetarian too, and she was thrilled.

She started cooking. She did not once lose track of her son. She continued to engage me in conversation. She told her son to pick up his things and help clear the table. She oversaw the entire operation from her small corner, in the kitchen.

The apartment was warm, but not cozy in the Western sense. It had three rooms, of which I only could see one. The kitchen occupied one corner of the room, a large wooden bench with a heavy lacquer occupied one wall, on one side of a small table, and a large bookshelf and a television occupied the opposite wall. I could see the laundry hanging outside in the sun, through the kitchen window. The fan kept the air from sinking to the ground.

She set food down, dumplings and another dish, impossible to describe. “Please serve yourself,” she said as she served me half of either dish. “Thank you very much,” I replied. I waited for her to sit down, or for her son to sit down. He was now watching a kids' English TV show with Chinese subtitles a couple feet in front of me. We were playing with toy cars on the table until his mom told him to put things away.

She went back and appeared to be cooking more food. He continued watching TV. “Please serve yourself,” she repeated. “Please don’t wait. Please eat.” I obliged. I ate all of what she had served me. It was delicious. Her son came by to have a couple bites before returning to the floor.

“Please serve yourself,” she said again, and served me the rest of the food on the table before refilling both plates.

“Maybe you can live here. There is an empty room next to us. How much do you pay?”

...

I was not sure what to make of this. Taiwanese are all very generous, very friendly, and generally very open. I have often been asked how much I pay for rent. From the reaction I get I have come to understand that I pay a bit above average for the place I describe. “One furnished room in a new building without a kitchen, and internet and TV included.” I am okay with this. I like where I live and do not have any desire to start shopping for a new place yet.

But never has it been suggested that I move in next door to someone.

I avoided addressing the first part of her statement, by answering the second part.

“Oh, that is cheap. We pay $7,500,” she replied. I was surprised at her response. I reiterated that my place was small, and did not have a kitchen, but I did not think she understood.

“Do you like it here? Is the food good?” I told her the food was very good, and I was very comfortable.

A man walked in from the hallway. It was not apparent whether he was expected or not. “This is his father,” she explained. It seemed obvious that they were not together; she called him “his father” and specifically had said “We live here. This is where he and I live.” Still, they were the friendliest separated couple I have seen, and he seemed very comfortable. He sat down across from me, and she served him in the same manner she had me. He and I spoke about politics and economics in very broken Chinese (on my part) and regular translation assistance from her. She refilled the plates again, and I realized it would not stop until I just completely stopped eating, which I did, completely full.

“Maybe you can join our family.” I smiled and said I thought my mom would be sad if I joined her family, and she seemed to sadden slightly at my statement. After a short silence, she asked “Why would your mother be sad?” I explained that my mother would miss me very much if I was not in her family anymore. “Oh, your mother misses you very much?” she brightened. “Yes, I think so,” I replied, relieved I did not have to join her family or make her sad.

His father suggested we go pick fruit in the countryside. I was wearing nice English-children’s-books reading clothes, and voiced my concerns, but it was no trouble at all he assured me. I was curious to get outside of the city a bit, so I let him assure me my clothes were no trouble at all, and we all four went down to his car, but not before she gifted/burdened me with another grocery bag full of food.

I ignored what I knew was his father telling his son to get out of the front seat, and sat down in the back next to his mother. The twenty minute drive to the countryside was comfortable and friendly, talking the whole way and introducing each other to our different lives and worlds and words. But at times his father and her son would be distracted with each other, availing the open space between his mother and me to be filled with our own words. She told me about her son, how they lived together, how she studied English at school but had not spoken it for ten years and how she was studying on her own so that she could teach her son. She explained that he was very shy, but curious. She explained that during his first few years of life, she did not take him out enough, so he was very reserved. Because of this he was shy to practice English, he was shy at school. She offered to cook me lunch whenever I had free time, and I could be friends with her son. She could help me with my Chinese. Maybe I could move in next door.

The entire car ride, she was stroking the lose strands of straw coming unraveled from her sunhat in her lap. It was not a calm sort of stroking, but nervous. I did not see anything to be nervous about, and it was not apparent in her face, but only in her hands. Her hands were detached from whatever was dictating directions to her eyes, mouth, nose. They were motivated by something else.

We picked the fruit, and looked around. We went through an old abandoned house where the pigs lived and slept one wall away from the people. We got stung by fire ants, and we got back in the car.

It was a comfortable ride back, but her hands continued stroking.

I tried to understand my place in this scenario. I was pushing my puzzle piece against all the others, seeing what fit. I was trying to understand the dynamic between the four people in the car, and making a conscious effort not to be unnecessarily wary. Her hands betrayed her face and worked with her words to portray an uneasiness. I felt she was asking me if I would like to fill a void somewhere. If I could be her son’s friend, if I liked to be there, if I wanted to come over. And yet, my thoughts were mostly inferences. I was reading between double spaced lines of language barriers and cultural differences. I zoomed out and looked at planet earth from outer space and reveled in the fact that I found myself in this car in this city on this island with these people I had not known existed just hours before.

When we arrived at her apartment building his dad washed the fruit, and his mom handed me another grocery bag, this one full of the fruit. He had to go, so he did. I had to go too. I had plans to go to a Moon Festival ceremony.

She asked if I needed to be led back, if I could find my way. I declined, thinking I would make better time on my own, avoiding the stop and go pace of the journey there. I also was positive I could find my way back and I was ready to be alone for a bit. She said okay, and led me back anyway.

This time we ended up side by side most of the time, her son staring at me from between her legs on the scooter, as children in Taiwan ride. A number of times I thought one of us would be hit, as our combined berth was twice as wide as it should have been. Halfway to the bookstore, or a sixth of the way home, she told me her son wanted to see my place. I laughed and smiled, and the light turned green.

At the next light he looked at me sincerely and said “我想去.” I smiled and said, “You want to go?” and he nodded earnestly and the light turned green. As we rode next to each other, I heard over the scooter engine, “我想去!” We arrived at the bookstore. I had come there by myself that morning, and there could not be any question of whether I needed help going back to my place. But he looked up in earnest. I laughed and smiled, and he persisted and looked.

I decided not to push against the grain any longer, and asked if she had time. “If you do not mind, then I have time,” she said.

I felt half anxious that I was involving myself too deeply in something I did not understand, and half happy to see her son’s beaming face. When they walked in to see my place, the first feeling dissipated as she commented, “Maybe $5,500 is a little bit expensive. This is not very big.”

I racked my brain for something I could give her son to return the generous gesture of burdening me with grocery bags full of food. I remembered I had been given some dried and salted plums, Taiwanese candy. “你喜歡這個嗎?” He nodded, and smiled when I gave them to him.

She dragged her son out, leaving me to shower and get ready. I waved them goodbye and watched them drive away on their scooter.

What is this? A PhotoMediaJournal?

It is difficult to decide if this internet space of mine is more of a journal or more of a broadcast. It would be easy to ramble, rant, rave and jot down thoughts in general. It would be easy to lose the attention of my readers, too. And that’s just it. I do not even know if anyone reads this but me… Ah, yes. The intricacies of blogging. I think today will lean toward journal.

Tainan is full of single speed bicycles. I thought, at first, they were fixies, as most of them are conspicuously lacking visible breaks. But a late night walk with no one looking revealed the ones without handle breaks have backpedal breaks. Remember the bikes you rode as a little person, where you could skid at will? Yes, those. It makes sense, though. Tainan is very, very flat and I cannot help but miss my shiny red bicycle.

I was thinking about all this while hanging on to the back of a scooter as the night lights of the city wizzed by. I think it’s common practice to hang on to the driver, but retaining my North American personal bubble space, I preferred to grasp not much of anything on the rear of the little moto. Imagine your hands handcuffed behind you, at buttocks level, and kind of digging your thumbs into a rack type thing, rather intensely digging at times. I couldn’t stop thinking how my thumbs would break if we got in an accident. But no accidents had occurred as we approached the night market.

Diana was my driver. She was also in the graduating class of ’01 at my Highline High School. She also attended UW. And she has lived here for two years. Half through chance, half not, our paths have directly crossed for the first time here in Tainan. Bumping through the crowds, we ate stinky dofu (smells like wet dog, tastes great), noodles and Tainan’s famous fruit. We watched people play games, and meandered through makeshift streets full of vendors that would vanish by morning. A carnival like atmosphere, loud colors, bright sounds and aromas that penetrate the thickest of skin watched as we scootered away into the night.

In many ways the night market is a miniature model of Taiwanese culture. Yes, there is so, so much more, but you can see a little representation of the real thing in every vendor, every eater, every sign, every sound, every player, every shopper. It is a good snapshot.

The next day finds me back to my usual antics: sitting on the street in front of tea shops, walking around near the university. I saw five white people on Friday. I saw six today. This is anywhere from six to infinitely more white people than I see on any other given day. Perhaps it signals the start of the quarter.

This is exciting, though a foreigner suggested to me that most of the foreigners who come here come because they couldn’t really make it back home, and here they hold a higher social status by default. As in, perhaps they weren’t able to get a girlfriend, so they came here. Or maybe they weren’t liked, so they came here. Or maybe they were dumb, so they came here… It’s like a “Taiwan is a voluntary Australia” theory. I suppose I haven’t been overly impressed with the white person eavesdropping I’ve done so far, so maybe this theory holds water, but hopefully not universally (i.e. I hope I am not in that category of barrel scrapers).

‘Till next time, journal/audience.

Photographic memories @

http://flickr.com/photos/25753538@N07/sets/72157606966065175/

Getting Adjusted, or Less Travelling, More Living

Yes, Taiwan's starting to feel less like a foreign country, and more like the place where I live. (Though, this morning I woke up absolutely positive I was in Costa Rica.) This may translate into less frequent blog posts, and hopefully a higher incidence of Chinese characters within each post. Or perhaps as I discover the intricacies of this little city (it is smaller than I thought when I arrived) these entries will just become exponentially more interesting.

I don't know if it's the heat, humidity, or lack of a rigid schedule, but I cannot get myself to sleep before the early hours of the morning, and I tend to sleep in quite late. Perhaps I am just permanently jet lagged, but blame may be placed on the internet as well. I still have quite strong ties to some in Seattle, and Seattle just isn't in the same time zone as Taiwan.

Speaking of heat and humidity, I am under the impression that Tainan is experiencing an abnormally mild summer. According to wunderground.com, the humidity and temperature tend to hover around 70-80% and 28-32°C, respectively, as opposed to the seeming norm of 85-95% and 30-34°C. On a recent day Seattle was hotter and more humid (though I'm sure that is an anomaly). Lucky me, I guess.

But what this post is really about is food. I just wanted to share some standard fare with everyone:




This is from one of many 素食 (su4shi3) or vegetarian houses. Basically, to be a 素食 you need a husband at the cash register and a wife cooking hell of food, and two rice cookers always filled to the brim, one with white, the other with brown rice. And then you need a scale, to decide how much money to get from people. And some 白人(white people - you can pronounce that, yeah Roy?) to eat more food than anyone else.

I pay about twice as much as everyone else every time I go to one of these places (every day), not because they're scamming me, but because I eat about twice as much food as everyone else. It's amazing what people subside on. This was a particularly large and expensive (as things go) meal, running me NT$130, or a bit over US$4. I thought about not finishing it, twice. (The picture was taken during one of my breaks.)

That is all. I was just excited about another picture. Oh, and there was supposed to be a typhoon today, but I think it did a bad job, because it was just sunny and a little breezy and I was under the impression that typhoons are not very sunny and more than breezy. Next time, eh?

Wanderings

"Am I lost?"

No you're not lost. You live in that direction, to your left. You went under the railroad, then walked in this direction. But you did take a lot of not right angled turns back there; now it's dark and seems like the ocean could be in front of you, or to your left, or even...

"I am kind of lost..."

No you're not lost, you're looking for downtown Tainan. It will be obvious.

I'll just keep walking on this street, there are lots of interesting things on this street. Look at th-- Holy shit, that's the closest you've come to being hit by a car. Don't get so comfortable. Pay attention.

I am paying attention, there's just a lot to pay attention to... That's a fun looking alley. This is where Taiwanese people live. No right angles here either. Just dark windy little alleyways with windows and doors into people's lives, and, is that a dry cleaners? Matt said there weren't any dry cleaners in China. I guess Taiwan and China are different. No, there must be dry cleaners in China, Matt didn't look hard enough. But Matt wasn't looking, his native friend was asking around and people didn't know what he was talking about. I know but it was Shanghai, there must...

Man I am hungry. What time is it. No you didn't bring your phone with the time on it, just like you decided not to bring that map.

Explorers don't have maps, they just go. That's what you're doing, just going. Just don't get so close to the cars. Look, maybe that food doesn't have meat in it.

"你好。有沒有素的飯？"

"有。"

She's staring at you, and that guy she was talking to is staring at you too.

"不好意思。我吃素。"

I just eat vegetables. Does your food have meat? That's what I said, right? Just smile.

Why are they staring at me, she said she had food without meat. Now she's making a joke with that guy. They're smiling at me; are they laughing at me? Just smile.

"你的鼻子很長."

My nose is long? I think that's what she said, why are they both beaming at me? What does she mean? What if she's asking me something?

"Uhh... I'm sorry, I don't understand. 你可以再説一次嗎?" Could you please say that again?

(At my request, she pointed to her nose, once again said bizi (nose) and then pushed her flattened hand against it. She then drew her hand out away from her, indicating a degree of leangth. She finished with a thumbs up. The gentlemen next to her raised his thumb in agreement.)

She sold me two pieces of bread.

Friends

I was standing, waiting – no, not waiting, just watching, maybe enjoying – the friendly street vendor lady prepare my food. I had just left the school and it was a bit after ten in the evening. Louis introduced me to the vendor lady. She has a vegetarian cart off the main road, Dong-ning 路, that opens late and closes late. The cart is always cast in a fluorescent glow from the large signs above and around. But it’s not a harsh fluorescent; it’s a tainted red, blue fluorescent. It adds a kind of warm, nostalgic quality to the narrow side road. So I was standing there, watching, with the usual two or three other people standing there, watching or waiting, when a nice looking young lady rode up on her bike. I suppose at first glance she looked a bit Western. I usually try not to stare at people, and I made no exception here, but I did glance at her as she rode up, and then again as she was picking her food from the glowing cart with the nice lady and the frying pan behind it. And then she walked up to me.

“Are you a vegetarian?” she asked in near perfect English.

“Um, yes… Are you?” I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. People here have been consistently friendly, but not particularly outgoing. Someone riding up on their bike and asking if I was a vegetarian just because I was at a late night food stand is definitely not part of my daily routine.

“Oh, yes. It’s always great to meet other vegetarians. Do you recognize me from the restaurant earlier?”

So there is this restaurant across the street from school that I frequent, the one with the meal on page two, second one down (although I have tried other things there now). I had been there for lunch that day, and apparently she had been there too. I absolutely did not recognize her.

“Oh… That one?” And I pointed vaguely in the direction of the restaurant, which received a nod. “No, I guess not.”

I was thinking in my head, “Every time I go there the menu and the characters receive my exclusive attention as I hope they morph into something a bit more intelligible,” but I didn’t want my really very poor Chinese to become the topic of our conversation, so I didn't make excuses for my not recognizing everyone in the restaurant.

“Yes, I saw you there earlier. Where are you from, what brings you to Tainan?” and so on, and so on. She did an exquisite job of keeping this conversation going, as well as tactfully finding out that I lived alone, didn’t know many people, just arrived, and didn’t speak Chinese very well (though, this last point is probably pretty obvious, despite my efforts).

“I lived in Florida for a year, and I know it’s very difficult sometimes moving to a completely different place. If you’d like I could help you with your Chinese or introduce you to my friends, or maybe just show you around Tainan.”

I said any one of those would be really nice, and that it was very kind of her to go out of her way to introduce herself to me. Of course it was no problem, her pleasure. After I gave her my email address, and we exchanged some more words, she got on her bike to ride away. We had both received our meals some time ago.

A bit giddy at the prospect of making my first real Taiwanese friend, I went to pay the food vendor. As I did so I heard from behind me, “Oh, I gave her some money for your dinner.”

I thought, "You mean you just bought my dinner."

Just a real first rate lass, that one.

Teaching English

I'll write about the three younger-kid classes, because I have them every day and they are the trickiest. So right now the classes are kind of small: a lot of people are vacationing, etc. The youngest class has two girls in it, which is a horrible combo. They seem to like the female Taiwanese teacher who teaches right before me, but as soon as i get in the classroom things usually start to go downhill. Louis said he had trouble with them too and they didn't like males. Usually as soon as I enter they start moving all the desks and "building a house". the first couple times I just kind of let them, and "taught" through the whole thing. Yesterday I stopped them a quarter through by moving the desks back. They really didn't like that at all, and the day was pretty hard. At the end, Betsy said, "We want to build the house. We'll do (whatever it was) if you let us build the house." Well, I was pretty sure that wouldn't work, but I said, "You can build the house after (whatever it was)." So we did the thing, then I let them build the house and tried to talk to them in English as much as I could while they were doing it. It seemed to work ok.

So today, I moved the first desks back as soon as they started to do anything. I told them they could build the house after we did everything we needed to do. Betsy seemed ok with this compromise, though Amanda wasn't really having it. Class was touch and go, with Betsy being much more cooperative than Amanda, but much better than previous classes. I had brought down a Clifford (big red dog?) book, because both girls seemed to like reading with me outside of class. When I opened that up Amanda still wasn't really having it, and just kind of pretended to read while Betsy actually read, but that was fine or whatever. Finally, Amanda was like "WHEN are we going to get to BUILD the HOUSE???" so i picked a point about three pages later in the book and said "when we get to here." Then I had full cooperation from both of them for about 5 minutes, while I asked them questions about the pictures, etc. and they both actually came over and sat in my lap (at that point I had succumbed to sit on the floor with them). They were even relatively cooperative with me while and after they built their house. So that's working out. I need to tell them tomorrow that when more people join the class we won't be able to build houses anymore; I don't think they'll like it, but i think it's best to prep them now. we'll tackle that when it comes around.

The other class just has 9 kids and is hectic as hell... there are usually a couple points in any given class where I have to chase kids around and grab the ball from them. The only time I can get much done is when Steven's wife comes in (i need to learn her name) and "observes". she's really really nice, doesn't speak much English, but a little, and can read along with the kids, etc. She teaches Chinese at a local high school. I think that lends her an aura of authority that I just don't possess yet, because the kids are all perfect when she's there. Yesterday she came in as I was physically moving Luke outside the class room as some sort of punishment. Luke and Samuel are brothers. They are in the same class and they usually make 7 other kids' time there pointless. Well, I had a gut reaction to stop picking-Luke-up-and-setting-

him-down-in-the-hallway when Steven's wife walked down the corridor, thinking that perhaps that wasn't appropriate in Taiwanese culture (or in any culture?) but I stuck to my guns, and followed up with a "You can stand in the hallway, or be quiet and sit down in class." Of course, with the real teacher in the room, I didn't need to do anything but teach, as all the kids magically appeared in the center and stopped talking and answered everything I asked them. Luckily, I had prepared what would have been a complete excess of material on any other day where I spent a third of the time trying to get anyone to pay attention to me.

side note: After the next class, which I will write about below, I went upstairs and sat down at my desk. Steven's wife came up and sat down at the desk next to me. I thought she was going to give me some suggestions, or tell me that maybe I shouldn't physically apprehend the children. She said she thought I was really a very good teacher. Nothing more. I was dumbstruck. I did my usual thing, which is to deflect the complement in as many directions as possible, which I think is not too well received at home. I think I usually end up convincing people that I didn't deserve the complement in the first place, then I feel like an idiot. "Oh no. They're a hard class, they were really well behaved while you were there..." yada yada yada. In Chinese/Taiwanese culture, where you receive compliments by saying "where" as in A: "you look nice today." b: "where?" this went over a bit better. Also, like I mentioned, she doesn't really speak English. anyhow, it was really very nice to hear.

The last class is four boys who seem to like me quite a bit. They are the most advanced of the younger kids, so it's a bit easier. That, compounded with the fact that any threat of not playing the inevitable game (basketball, soccer, dodgeball, baseball, etc. all played with a soft, cube pillow dice using desks as props) makes class pretty enjoyable/easy. It's a nice way to end the day.

Everyone should have to teach some level of children before owning a child, I think. I'm talking below 14 here. It gives one an idea of parenthood, and also would probably ease the burden on teachers, who I hear feel stretched thin between parents and students. Shit ain't easy. It's not all bad, though, either. It can be really, really rewarding. I've been doing it for like ten seconds and I can already tell. So here's to the teachers! 加油! (add oil, or fill your tank, as in Go for it!)

I also had a really great chat with Steven after work today. He talked about how thankful he is he had such a great opportunity to study in Japan and New Zealand with many scholarships, etc. and how he tries to impart that sense of gratitude on his children, one of whom has a full ride to Wesleyan. It's nice to work for someone you have respect for and agree with. He told me to tell him if I have any problems at all (maybe his wife talked to him :). He told me to work hard and "master" Chinese. And he told me 加油!

大家加油!

Sincerely,
Jonathan