My fingertips are thicker, and Taiwan has nice fruit after all

Well, that Leavenworth granite really did a number on my hands, but the double salve in conjunction with not climbing anything at all for a few days has put them into ready shape. They’re tough and want some action. Trouble is, there is no action to be had. I think there may be some rock climbing somewhere in Taiwan, but finding it will be an endeavor, and one that I’m just not ready to embark on yet. In the mean time my fingertips will find contentment in peeling god’s perfect fruit: the banana. I don’t know how much it cost me, but all together the two bananas and two oranges ran me about 85 centavos. So far the fruit is in the top three of the fruit I’ve ever had in my life. Somewhere up there with those avocados in Costa Rica and such…

Yesterday was good. Louis had some business to attend to. Namely he needed to close the bank account and ship the books to China. The bank account went all right once we got to the right bank. There are two branches of the National Bank of Taiwan here in Tainan. The one we went to could have drawn his account down to zero and closed it for him, but it would have taken four days. Louis had about 24 hours. So we didn’t walk and didn’t bus to the other side of town cause the first was hot and muggy and life inspring and the second was damn near impossible. The taxis are pretty convenient though, air conditioned and all, if a bit expensive as things go. I guess it’s cause of the paper, which is to say the banks here have large piles of paper everywhere and the amount of money they can dispense to you at any given time due to the balance of money you have in your account is kept on paper. And your name is kept on paper, with your signature. If your signature at the bank is not the exact same as the signature they have on the paper, they make you do it again. Many people but little signature-stamps for this reason, much like you would see in old Chinese artwork or something. Many people wait in line for alont time, also for this reason: they have to go get the paper from the pile and cross check it with the paper they’re about to add to the file. So I think what would have had to happen is that Louis would have signed his name saying he wanted to close the account. Bank1 would then send the paper to Bank2 with the signature. Bank2 would cross reference the signature with the pile, and then send the paper back to Bank1. Takes about four days. We went to Bank2. It only took 45 minutes.

In that way Taiwan is really efficient. You just gotta know how to get in the 45 minute line. But that took most of the day, so the boxes waited till today. The post office doesn’t sell boxes. You have to buy them from 7-11, or another authorized distributor. The line was short, but the paper filling out to send the boxes to China took about 40 minutes, then there was probably some more pile-paper-signature cross referencing, which took about 20 minutes. I guess we were in the 1.25 hour line today, I’m not sure if it’s the fast or slow one but it cost about US$200. China is big, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure they’re not even going to get there, so it’s a lot of money for spending quality time with the nice post office lady to throw your books away. They may get there, but Harbin gets real cold, like -30C cold, so they may freeze too.

Last night Steven took Louis and me out to dinner. I think he does this with new international teachers, but maybe this was particularly fancy because Louis was leaving and I was coming and there was overlap and we know each other. Steven is the professor and owner of Happy Valley American Language School or shenme shenme 美国学 except in traditional which Microsoft doesn’t believe in. Steven is also Buddhist and a vegetarian. He did know that I was a vegetarian too, but I think got caught up in treating us to a nice dinner. So it was Japanese/Korean BBQ. And it went something like this:

“Oh…Oh, oh, oh, Jonasan, I am so sorry. Oh, yes, I know that, I know, but oh, I forgot…Oh, yes I know you are vegetarian, but I forgot, oh oh oh Jonasan.”

I assured him it was all right because he is also vegetarian, and we could eat similar things. And that’s what we did, which was also nice because there was some degree of camaraderie and it was really nice. It was a very chic place. Picture something you would see if some like rich Korean people came to Belltown and had some Japanese people help design the place and had lots of Taiwanese friends but wanted to cater to a kind of Western population that liked Asian things a lot. The tables were low to the ground so you thought you were going to sit cross legged, but then there was an inconspicuous pit in the floor right under the table so you actually could just sit like you were in a chair kind of thing. But it was really good, and Steven’s wife and two daughters came.

I fell asleep in the car around 9:30pm on the way to silken tofu dessert in Anping district of Tainan, which is on the Ocean. My jet lag feels a bit better tonight, but I wasn’t having it last night. I woke up long enough to eat tofu and red beans, and fell asleep long enough to get home, and woke up long enough to go to bed.

So it was a nice orientation and nice to know that Steven cares about poor little me and has a family and a soul and I really like them all quite a bit.

I also think the school is going to work out. I will have three classes of younger-ish kids, which I will teach every day for 40 minutes apiece. I will also have a test-prep class of more mature but still youngish kids twice a week for one hour each class, as well as a class of 5 adults twice a week for two hours at a time. I taught the adults and the youngish older kids today for the first time without a hitch – it will be really interesting to see if they actually learn anything over time though. Tomorrow I will get my first go with the younger ones… they really liked Louis a lot.

That’s what I’m up to. The landlord suggested I learn Chinese really fast so she can communicate with me, and then smiled a big nice smile. I think I’m going to take her advice best as I can. Matt, check out chinesepod.com

Also, Louis wasn’t a big tea critic, I guess. I asked him about tea several times and I got back information that would fall more into the 7-11/Bubble Tea/sugary stuff more than anything else. Today, while he was teaching and I wasn’t watching I went on my mini-first excursion. I got dry erase makers and stumbled upon a 茶馆 which may or may not be correct simplified for cha guan. Anyhow, the lady reminded me of Lydia on the kindness scale, and her daughter was there and she wants me to teach her English, which would be easy cause she’s in high school and also cause she already seemed to know quite a bit, and also attractive cause I could probably spend hours at the tea shop. Anyway 他们有阿里山茶 and it ran me like 15 bucks. I can’t wait to see how it is. Love to all. Jonathan.