Hong Kong and Back

Well, it’s Christmas Day and it’s time to report on a brief trip to Hong Kong earlier in December.  I’m now back to Taiwan and back to normality, or at least what I have grown to know as that. 

My 5-day adventure began on a wet, Thursday morning.  Just the morning for the bus to be very late!  It was so late that I engaged in conversation with a boy with a scooter, who offered me a ride.  With no evidence that the bus was coming, I accepted.  Of course, as I prepared to mount the bike, the bus rounded the corner.  Reluctantly, I climbed aboard the bus, but the good news is that I seem to have made a friend.  The boy (he’s about my age) left his details with the Grandma at my house and we're now talking. 

So, I got soaked and I missed out on a scooter ride, but there was worse to come at Tao Yuan airport where the plane sat on the tarmac for 1.5 hours as some engineers tinkered with a faulty engine.  Of course, I’m delighted that they found the problem before the plane took off! 

All the hanging around was worth it though.  I landed in Hong Kong to be greeted by my Uncle Tony (mum's younger brother), a man who appreciates that a growing lad needs good food.  So, that evening he took his favourite nephew to his favourite steak restaurant, and so began my Hong Kong Weight Gain.  It was a short trip; it lacked much physical exercise; and I ate lots.  But hey, that’s what holidays are – a change of routine!

For the first full day in Hong Kong, I found myself experiencing the life of an 80 something year old man.  I was staying in my Granddad’s flat, so I spent the first day drinking tea and talking to his friends, which is not that easy.  They don’t speak English and I don’t speak Cantonese.Fortunately, Mandarin and Cantonese use the same Chinese characters, so we were able to communicate by writing. Usually mum does the hard graft translating.

The theme after leaving the house in Taiwan was waiting.  Waiting for buses, waiting for planes and, on the first day in Hong Kong, it was waiting for my sister to send me a message.  She was flying in from Beijing and her boyfriend (Kyle) was flying in from Edinburgh for a few days. I was only there to resume my role as "third-wheel", as I have done many times before.  They enjoy my company! 

After a long day of writing Chinese characters, we met up in the evening to plan the following day, which had already been planned.  Courtesy of Aunt Athena (mum’s younger sister) and Uncle Bruce, we were heading for Ocean Park (a leisure park).  I know it well as I'm pretty sure I have gone there almost every time I have visited Hong Kong.  Athena and Bruce brought their two kids, Tin Lai and Tin Yue, who are as cute as ever, despite 2 years passing since I saw them last.   Then it was out for a family meal when I came face to face with my worst nightmare - my eldest Asian cousin (Dong Dong) has outgrown me.  The perception that the Chinese are a small nation had lulled me into the false expectation that I would be taller than my young cousin – he’s six foot tall and may still be growing! 

The hectic social whirl continued the following morning with our next appointment, breakfast with a very important person – mum’s best friend Eddy and Waverley’s god-mother.  She really is wonderful – apart from her incomparable chat, she fed the hungry students and even brought them all (including Kyle) a present. I spent the final day in Hong Kong with my Granddad (aka Gong Gong) before meeting up with Kyle in the evening for a romantic boat ride across Hong Kong harbour in the Star Ferry.  I think Waverley was too tired to come but I can't really remember - it wouldn't be my blog if I didn't forget at least one thing.  

Then, I was escorted to the airport on Tuesday 15^th by Uncle Tony’s wife and Gong Gong.  Surprisingly, all of my travel arrangements went perfectly on the way back to Tainan. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas!

Tested to Destruction - Time for a Break

Monday arrived and so too did my end of term exams at Cheng Kung University.  My school workload reduced considerably and my university workload increased massively.  I can’t say my Chinese revision went well, but every morning I at least started to study at the expense of my usual trips to the gym - I had many chapters of the textbook to revise!  There were plenty of distractions during the day, but I can honestly say that I did work hard during the evenings.

Before leaving for Cheng Da on Friday, I had one last class to teach – both class 102 and I learned about prepositional phrases.  This was a difficult but rewarding lesson for me as the kids taught me the meaning of the English words in Chinese.  For someone with "the attention span of a gnat", to quote my father, it was a long session.  At one juncture, I was grateful that Polan spotted my fatigue and lifted my spirits by reassuring me that there were only two groups left.  If only she could count – four groups stood up!  

Tiring as it was, it was the perfect ‘warm up’ for my final university test and my last day with the Cheng Da class.   I will definitely miss them all not least Dayna and Federico, whom I have got to know quite well.  I don’t really know if I will ever see them again. ☹  So before our final exam, we ate at a Hot Pot restaurant and drank too much Coke.  This may have contributed to a successful grammar test, but I can’t prove it yet as I await the result.

You can see my lovely class below:
 

  

Front row from the left: Midori (Japanese), Dayna (Belizean), 田蘋老師 Our teacher (Taiwanese), Wen Xiang (Japanese). 
Back Row from left: Zhou San (Japanese), Me, Federico (Italian) and Hao Zhi (Japanese)

As we are now into December, my thoughts turned to Christmas at the weekend.  Time to buy some Christmas presents.   (I won’t mention who might be recipients on the off chance that they read this.)  And who better to take me shopping than Winnie?  I really needed her guidance, as I don’t have a history of shopping.  In fact, I don’t much like shopping – that’s inherited from my father. 

I did have one great idea for my sister.  She sounds like she is being a bit lazy over in Beijing, so I thought of buying her some new running shoes.  I entered the Nike shop with the best of intentions, and I spotted the coolest running shoes I have ever seen.  So I bought them for myself.  Yes, I know, go ahead and judge me!

After a relaxing Sunday, I was refreshed for the week ahead at school.  And as I no longer attend the Chinese classes (I am away for a chunk of the next term), my workload is much reduced.  That has left me with more free time to spend on subjects I find interesting (eg Physics).  I have even managed to pick up a book!

One new project this week has been helping out with teaching a Christmas song.  I was quickly replaced on piano by En Rou, who is a far better pianist than I am, but I retained my status as lead vocalist.  I was also allowed to select the song.  I opted for "Fairytale of New York" as we sang it in my Music class last year, and it has more "life" to it than some other Christmas songs.  (Thank you Ms B!)  At the time of writing, En Rou and I have practised it a few times.  I think it should be good. 

That’s it for now - I'll be reporting on a short holiday next time.  Till then…

Wasted Weekend

I have some catching up to do as I left the blog back on 15 November.  Some of the last couple of weeks is eminently forgettable, as you will shortly discover.  

The school week began with some “Reading Theatre” on Monday morning.  To explain, the students are currently preparing for an English speaking competition and they are performing a play.  My job is simply to correct pronunciation errors.  To be completely honest, I had relatively few corrections to make – most of the students’ pronunciation is really rather good.   I don’t know the standard of the opposition, but the kids in my class can be proud of their ability already.  Clearly competition is a useful motivator.  I should probably enter a Mandarin Chinese competition!

My next job that week was not an English class.  It was a music class.  I had arranged these classes a few weeks ago.  I was listening to Taiwanese and trying to retain it, not very successfully.   The follow up to this lesson came on Friday when I met the music teacher to find a key that was comfortable for us to sing "Auld Lang Syne".  It was a kind of music exchange.  They introduced some Taiwanese or Chinese songs and I introduced "Auld Lang Syne".  At the time of writing, I still have to teach them "Loch Lomond" as my voice began to fail me as I was developing a sore throat, for which singing is not the best medicine.

By Saturday morning, I was completely miserable.  Joining my throat in pain, were my head and my eyes.  I was generally exhausted.  Suffice to say, literally nothing happened that weekend.   My phone reports that my number of steps plummeted from over ten thousand on Friday to four hundred on Saturday.  Sunday was equally inactive as I lay in bed all day.

Shirley took me to the doctor on Monday, but of course, I was feeling a little better and the doctor didn’t show me the sympathy I craved.  Instead, she gave me a ridiculously fast check up and some pills to take after every meal.  There was no Jhong Siao that day, but I did manage to muster enough energy to cycle to Cheng Da and attend my language class.  There was an incentive as attendance counts towards the final grade!  The problem with this system is that everybody comes and spreads their germs to earn an extra mark.  That Monday, I wasn’t the only one – there were two of us effectively quarantined in the "sick corner” for the duration of the class.  

I returned to Jhong Siao on Tuesday, mostly slumped in my chair catching up on the homework I had failed to complete at the weekend.  I slowly improved over the week and by Thursday managed to play badminton with the other teachers followed by dinner at Wang Zhu Ren's house.  Thursday was a good day for another reason - the temperature had dropped dramatically from the high 20s to the high teens, so I was much more comfortable during the day, especially on my daily cycle to and from Cheng Da.  

Back track to Wednesday the 25th – that’s the day Winnie's father picked me up from Jhong Siao to go for dinner in Tainan, or so I thought.  Inevitably, after a hard day at school, it wasn’t long until I was asleep.  Imagine my surprise to wake up to a sign for  "Kaohsiung University" – it’s about 45 miles from Tainan.  My language skills had let me down again.  

We were there to attend a festival-type event, but first we ate.  This was no ordinary meal, as I had to hit a block of mud with a hammer to unveil a chicken.  We strolled around the stalls and watched performers before sitting down to enjoy a snack of deep fried flour dipped in almond milk. (See photo kindly taken by Winnie.)  

That was another late night, which impinged on my homework, but you have to grab these opportunities to smash a chicken.  When would that happen back home?

On Friday, I was even up to singing "Auld Lang Syne" with the music teacher (slightly croakily) to the class as well as explaining the meaning of the Scottish words.  I have to be honest - these classes are just as good for me as they are for the students.  They do require some preparation!  

I have to say, I am experiencing an incredible variety of activities in Taiwan.  This past weekend is a case in point.  On Saturday, I was invited to the wedding of one of Shirley’s colleagues, so it was probably just as well that I had a haircut the night before to smarten myself up.  The wedding didn’t seem too different from one in the UK until the bride and groom entered the room suspended from the ceiling in a giant swan throwing "mushrooms" to all the guests.   Other than that startling entrance, it was the standard "lovey dovey" event with a classic slideshow of cute pictures.  The food was really nice though and I much appreciated the invitation and enjoyed the occasion.

Sunday was a bit of a struggle - the Wei family seems to be early risers, so they picked me up at 6:40am.  It wasn’t long before I was sound asleep on a bus tour, meaning that once again, I had no idea where I was most of the time.  I do know one place we visited: 彰化 - the pin ying is "jiang hua".  There we ate dinner, but not before an expedition to find cockles, oysters and other shellfish.  We waded around in the water searching for about half an hour.  Luckily the water temperature was nothing like it is in Scotland!   Should I be struggling to find employment, this could be my ‘fall back’ job.  In all modesty, I was pretty good.  

After a hard day (half hour) hunting for food, I returned home in time to catch the end of the Davis Cup final.  It was a great result, but late evening scheduling by the organisers (and my failure to prioritise appropriately) meant that homework had to wait until Monday morning – not ideal!