So, just in case you’re confused by dates, after the weekend of 7/8 November, it was back into regular days “commuting” between Jhong Siao (school) and Cheng Da (university). I spent the week focusing on Cheng Da homework and attending Polan's (my mentor’s) classes.
The time had come when I would be introduced to the other English teachers – my initial training was complete. I was filmed during Polan's classes on Tuesday and then the film had its world premiere the next day at a meeting in school. No red carpet! The idea was that the teachers could assess how best to use my undoubted talents in their classes. The good news is that my talents are in demand – I have already been asked to assist some other teachers. Sam Mendes should hear about this – I’m guessing he’ll be looking for a new 007 one of these days. No offence, Daniel!
My next major engagement was a dinner sponsored by some of the school donors on Friday 13th. And who else would be attending? None other than the Wei family, of Winnie fame! Now, given that my colleagues tease me relentlessly about Winnie, I was less than thrilled about the prospect of her attending the dinner. (For the avoidance of doubt, I like Winnie very much as a friend.) Despite her presence, I attended and enjoyed the evening very much. There was nothing unlucky about the 13th.
The weekend got off to a slow start – I didn’t see Saturday morning – but it livened up when Kun Rong messaged me suggesting a 按摩 (massage). Figuring that it would a nice, relaxing experience, I said yes. Big mistake and definitely near the top of my "most-painful-ever experience" list! My masseur was either a man who had no concept of pain or a man of sadistic tendencies. He dug his thumbs deep into ALMOST every part of my body. I can’t be absolutely sure of this, but I'm highly suspicious that Kun Rong asked the man to cause me extra pain. I guess I’m going to have to ‘man-up’ if I want the 007 role.
Sunday was a fairly early start with Kun Rong picking me up at 8:00am for breakfast with Xie Long and En Rou. En Rou was heading to church and the boys were heading for their long anticipated baseball game. To add some interest to proceedings, the winner would be the person who hit the most balls and the loser would suffer a forfeit. Guess what? I lost! So, when the exchange students come to Taiwan, I must perform my forfeit. More on that later…
Post defeat, I was treated to lunch in Xie Long's house with his parents, sister and brother-in-law. We watched some baseball (Taiwan vs Puerto Rico), presumably because I had some learning to do. I freely admit that I know nothing about baseball, but I’m learning.
As usual, the weekend ended with some last minute homework. Does that happen to anyone else?
Thursday, 26 November 2015
Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Hockey with a Taiwanese Twist
Honestly, I have lost track of time, which is why this blog post is coming so long after my previous post. That explains why my memory may be patchy.
You may remember that I had spent an exhausting but fun long weekend in Taipei. After I had caught up on sleep, I was straight into revising for my Mid-term exam, whenever I had a moment. I didn’t have that many moments, so I came away feeling that I could have done more, but I was reasonably happy after it.
The final two days of that week were spent finishing off another audio book. They are actually quite a challenge so it took me the full two days and some high blood pressure to complete it. If you would like to learn about dental hygiene, just let me know.
For some reason, the only thing I remember about that weekend was going out on Saturday night with Winnie for dinner and a visit to the Tainan Culture Centre (台南文化中心) to watch a performance by the Vienna Boys Choir. Now, I must remind you that this was not a date! Vienna reminds me of hockey (watching my sister play for Scotland in the U21 Europeans in 2014), which brings me to my next noteworthy memory during the week.
It occurred on Wednesday 4th November. On that day, I was invited to Mr Hong's class. Mr Hong is a PE teacher and he asked me to teach his class how to play hockey. Yes, hockey, the one true love of my life, which has been missing in Taiwan. I could hardly contain my excitement, but I was to learn why I had not seen or heard of hockey in Taiwan so far. There were no hockey balls, no hockey sticks, no hockey goal and no hockey pitch! So, we had to be creative. We played 5-a-side in the games hall with barriers so there were no "outs" with small goals about the size of ice hockey goals. We replaced the ball with a lacrosse ball and the sticks with a roller hockey stick.
Despite these minor setbacks, introducing the class to hockey has been by far my favourite activity so far. I can really see what a difference I can make here. I hope that over the next few weeks and months I can develop the hockey and get more kids involved. Most of the kids seemed to enjoy it.
In reality, the opportunities to make a difference to the school day are everywhere. You don’t have to be a hockey freak like me. There are pupils crying out for all sorts of different activities. It makes me think about who might be next to take up the challenge provided by this scholarship. I have only been here for a couple of months and I'm already starting to affect the lives of the Jhongsiao pupils...in a good way! If you’re out there reading this and thinking about it, keep thinking. It’s an awesome experience.
And you don’t have to miss out on the things that are the talk of the town back home. After my hockey intro, I had one thing on my mind - "Spectre". And yes, YuYing had come up strong again and asked if I wanted to see "Spectre" in IMAX on Saturday. I wouldn’t rate it the best Bond film I've seen, but it was definitely worth going to see. Keep in mind that you would do well to ignore my opinion as I am probably the world’s worst film critic. Homework and a gym session brought me to the end of another weekend, which is where I shall leave it for this entry. I won’t leave it so long until the next update…
Friday, 30 October 2015
Crisis in Taipei (Mel's 18)
Crisis in Taipei (Mel's 18)
Back to where I left off. The week preceding the trip to Chia Yi with YuYing and her family, I went with the Principal, Polan and Wei Chang to a Primary School just around the corner. This was by far the largest audience to which I have presented - nearly four hundred kids. Yes, it was pretty daunting. And yes, I'm pretty sure they didn't understand a word I said. Still, I survived to try to be understood another day. In fact, before my presentation, there was a performance of the Virginia Reel by the Jhong Siao students that I had taught to dance. The massive improvement they had made has given me my first sense of achievement since I arrived here. It feels pretty good.
The rest of the week was a standard week, slowly working away at homework and the audio books I am creating. The last one I recorded was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", so if you feel like listening to my soothing voice reading out a childhood classic, just let me know. I finished that and the weekend had arrived.
Friday evening involved an outing with YuYing, her professor and some of her friends to a hot pot restaurant. However, this was no ordinary hot pot restaurant. The hot pots not only contained boiling
water, but also a large quantity of rice wine - definitely the most intoxicating meal I've ever had.
Saturday the 17th was noteworthy as the first time I can remember having a long lie. Bliss! When I woke I had lunch. Yes, lunch.
A quick aside: I've been calling my host’s son, "Danny". Rather embarrassingly, I found out a few days ago that he's actually called "Denny". However, I’ve decided that for the purposes of this blog (and my sanity) I'm going to continue to call him "Danny"!
Back to the weekend… After lunch, Danny took me to play badminton with his friends, Sam and "Oh Yeah"... I have no idea how he got that English name but he did. We played doubles for 2 hours, which was far too long for me as I was still tired from what seemed like a long week. Not much rest for the wicked as Winnie was taking me to the cinema (again not a date) to see "Crimson Peak". Other than her dreadful parking and her screaming/ squealing at the "scary" bits, I feel our non-date went well.
After a relaxing Sunday spent with YuYing, and later with Danny and Oh Yeah (table tennis this time), reality hit. I faced a mountain of homework, which I finished in the early hours of the morning.
Yet, I went to school a few hours later in a very positive mood – it was a 4-day week! I'll skip the detail of 4 regular days: to school, audio book work, research for presentations (latest subject kilts), to Cheng Da (Uni) for Chinese classes, some exercise and finally homework in the evening.
On Thursday evening, life became more exciting. I was bound for Taipei on the High Speed Railway. Andie met me there and thankfully guided me on the Taipei metro system to my hostel because my brain hurt after a Chinese test in the afternoon. Andie and her friend Lily entertained me over the weekend showing me parts of Taipei, including a cool exhibition, a shop with the craziest hats I’ve ever seen (extortionately priced), a creepy puppet display (puppets freak me out) and the Taipei National Palace Museum (which has so many artefacts that they change them everyday and if you go every day for a year, you still wouldn’t see them all – see photo below), after which we collapsed in a heap at the hostel.
Then I really freaked out. Why?
It was Mel. It was her 18th birthday. I had almost forgotten. So, I sent her a message wishing her a happy birthday. She was not amused. Surely this was an inadequate way to mark the occasion given a friendship as old as ours. I couldn’t agree more, so my second photo for this blog is nothing to do with Taiwan. It is a reflection of the high esteem in which I hold my old friend, Mel. I don’t do collages (if you can call it that – artists look away now) for just anyone
Happy (belated) Birthday Mel!
Back in Taiwan, Andie and Lily were keen to show me the Taipei nightlife, so they took me to what seemed like a normal pub. It was a normal pub until some girls jumped on to the bar and started dancing in a way that you will just have to imagine. Better still, one of the girls came and sat at our table…but only because she was a friend of one of our group. So, I now have interesting connections in Taipei.
Sunday was no less exhausting – I met Paige (my exchange partner from 4 years ago), took a gondola up a hill to see an incredible view and sample its famous Tea Ice-Cream – seeing as I am not a Taiwanese tea enthusiast, I left that to Paige, who rated it highly – ate Vietnamese food for lunch, met Andie and Lily to visit the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, an attractive white concrete and marble monument erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China, otherwise known as Taiwan.
After dinner, I was safely deposited on the High Speed Railway back to Tainan. Many thanks to Andie, Lily and Paige for a memorable weekend and for keeping me alive in Taipei. I’ll be back.
Saturday, 17 October 2015
National Day
National Day
I feel like I'm apologising a lot, but this time I really do need to. It's been quite a while since I last posted a blog and with all that has happened, inevitably I’m going to forget important details. Sorry.
So, let’s start as far back as my memory will allow - Friday the 5th of October. This date sticks in my mind because I was teaching some students and teachers to dance the Gay Gordons. Honestly, it could have gone better. This teaching is not easy if your knowledge is a bit ropey to start with. The good news is that we have two more rehearsals to learn it; the bad news is that we have to learn the Virginia Reel too.
However, it was not just the dancing that made this day memorable. It was also the day I delivered a short presentation on Scotland to some of the Cheng Kung University students studying English. Who would believe it, but they wanted to keep in touch, so I left them with my LINE (Taiwanese WhatsApp equivalent) and email address, before I headed for my Chinese language class. It was a Friday so I had a test. Damn. That’s where my memory goes blurry again. Maybe I went for a run after that... who knows?
The good news was that the next day was Saturday. I was taken to Chia Yi, a city about 45 miles north of Tainan by Molly (another teacher at Jhong Siao) and her family. We were joined by a huge number of families, who were either on a pilgrimage of some sort or were just a group of likeminded nature lovers. They all had nature names, so I had to pick one. Naturally, I chose "Rock" because I was standing on one at the time!
We made a few stops on the way to the hostel where we would spend the night. The most significant was to pay homage to one of the oldest trees in Taiwan, which is over 2000 years old, and as one might expect, rather large. I was a little confused when I was asked what the tree was telling me. I have yet to have a tree talk to me – I guess I’ve just never tried to engage in conversation before.
So, you can tell that I’m meeting plenty of interesting people and that continued when we arrived at the hostel. I met a couple (French man and Australian woman) who were preparing to climb up (sneak up) Mount Jade (玉山）at 3am to avoid the police, as they had failed to apply for a permit.
You can imagine the kerfuffle there was at the hostel finding the right number of beds for all the people in our group (about 100). It mostly flew over my head thankfully. After dinner and a shower, I was ready from bed, but that was not in the plan. I was invited to see the stars, which blew me away. Just for a moment, I want you to take me seriously. The night sky in the Taiwanese mountains is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The darkness caused by the lack of light pollution showed the true beauty of the Universe. The picture below doesn’t really do justice to it, but it shows the sky before the Sun had fully gone down.
And after the Sun had completely gone down and it was pitch black, we could see the Milky Way faintly. Maybe I’ll switch from engineering to astronomy – that was one special night!
The next morning, we travelled by minibus to a trail that winds up the mountain through a bamboo forest. We walked the trail in double quick time – we completed the route that was meant to take the whole day before 11 o'clock in the morning and so we had lunch and waited in the Wildlife Centre for the bus to come to take us home.
I always seem to be arriving home knackered (knackered but happy) and I always seem to be arriving home with loads of homework to finish, and so it was last weekend.
Now my memory loss kicks in again. All I really remember of last week at school is that Kwung Rong, En Rong, Xie Long and I didn't get to play badminton because some young miscreants were kept in after school (school children are the same all over the world!). The silver lining is that I was able to complete my own homework.
And then, on Friday, there was no dance practice thanks to it being a holiday. This was because Saturday 10th October was National Day (双十节) here in Taiwan, which commemorates the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1912.
On Friday, I met up with Winnie again at 11am and she drove me to lunch with her parents. She is a horrendous driver. That's all I'm going to say on the subject. Lunch was very fancy. According to Winnie's father it's the number 1 restaurant in all of Tainan. I must have deserved this because I looked after his daughter so well in Edinburgh! The meal was fantastic. After lunch, Winnie and her father took me to a few sites in Tainan. Fortunately her father was driving this time. We went to the Confucius temple built in 1665 and made a wish. I obviously can't tell you what I wished for or it won't come true.
A great day on Friday was rounded off with more food. Yu Ying (she sits across from me in the office) took me for dinner in the Dream Shopping Mall and then to see "The Martian" at a cinema with her husband and her son, who is 16. Fortunately for me, lots of films are in English with Chinese subtitles.
Yu Ying looked after me on Saturday too. She took me to Chia Yi to meet her extended family. Here is one of the pictures we took half way up the mountain where we met up with the rest of the family before continuing in a small convoy to the hotel where we were staying.
My sleeping arrangements have, on occasions, been interesting. This was one of those occasions. I was sharing a bed with Yu Ying's son. You can understand why he kept rolling over my side to hug me by wrapping his arm and leg around me, but it wasn’t that restful for me. As my side of the bed was against the wall there was no escape. I ended up using my pillow as a shield and sleeping with no pillow. Traumatic experience aside it was a very nice hotel!
On Sunday, we saw more of the mountain before heading home to a heap of homework. I thanked Yu Ying for a lovely weekend and thought about the week ahead, which will be the subject of my next blog...
Sunday, 4 October 2015
Mid Autumn Festival
Mid Autumn Festival
It's been another week or so and I have been busy as ever.
But that’s not where it ends. My latest task is to teach some Scottish Ceilidh dances to a number of students and teachers. If you've ever seen me dance you'll know this can't go very well. Apparently, our "mission" is to go on a recruitment drive to a nearby primary school to attract the children to go to our junior high school, Jhong Siao, when they are old enough.
I had my first Chinese test on Friday (I am studying) after going out for lunch with Andie, who very kindly gave me a lift to Cheng Da University. It turns out that she was in the same class as my pronunciation teacher. I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling pretty good about the test...famous last words.
On the same day, I received a message from none other than Winnie, my exchange student from four years ago. I think it's fair to say that exchange didn’t go well. Not only did I slam the car boot on her head (by accident), but we also managed to lose her on Arthur's seat, which resulted in a 999 call for help. Fortunately, she has changed. She still hits me - a lot - but now she is slightly more mature. I always thought she was younger than I am, but she's actually older by six months, which is a major surprise because she looks about twelve.
So on Friday night, Winnie took me to the same night market that I had gone to four years before. There are lots of different types of food to try, many games to play for prizes and a couple shops for clothes and general bits and bobs. I revisited the games, or should I say game (singular), that I had been good at a few years ago – popping balloons by shooting them with plastic pellets. I won a Mike Wozawski soft toy by shooting 9/10 and then 10/10 of the balloons. I hadn’t lost my touch!
Winnie invited me out to the cinema on Saturday - I promise it wasn't a date. After the film, we went bowling. It’s fair to say that I was shattered when I returned home, but we were having a barbecue (the food was great) in the evening to celebrate 中秋節 (mid autumn festival) – it’s a celebration of the harvest at the time of the autumn full moon. Danny and Irene had some friends over and Andie came to keep me company. The celebration involved sparklers and fireworks, which were definitely not a safe distance away – I guess the Chinese know what they are doing with fireworks since they invented them - and a water balloon fight, essentially Irene and her friend pelting me with water balloons. All in all, it was a very good night.
On Sunday, I had a 5am wake up call to be ready for Mr Su, our mountain guide, who took me by motorbike to collect the Principal and her husband. We did switch from the motorbike to a car at that point, in case you are wondering! And it happened again - I fell asleep. This time, it was definitely justified by the 5am start. But of course I lost track of where I was and what mountain I was climbing. Suffice to say, we made it near the top of the hill （合歡山北下). The evidence is below and you can see the view was incredible.
Not only were we climbing, we were camping too. Su (that’s him in the photo) and I were sharing a tent. As soon as we arrived at the campsite after descending the mountain, we pitched the tent and went for a shower.... separately. I managed to FaceTime my parents from the campsite to be reminded that Scotland were playing the USA at rugby. It was all very nice to catch up, but I now have near no mobile data left.
I guess Monday was better than Sunday – it was a 6am rather than a 5am wake up call. Nobody warned me about the early starts. After breakfast we drove back to Tainan, making a few stops again, the most significant being at Su's second house just outside Tainan... I think... sorry I fell asleep again. His house was full of evidence of all his climbing successes, the most significant being his walk from the north of Taiwan to the south in a straight line in 46 days. He’s a real adventurer and may well be the Taiwanese equivalent of Bear Grylls – he certainly pointed out all the edible plants to me on our expedition.
I have to say that when I finally arrived home I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was sleep. Unfortunately, I had a lot of Chinese homework to finish for Tuesday. Andie to the rescue! She came round and helped me with/corrected what I had done.
Then it was Mel to the rescue. I FaceTimed her late that night, which was really good because it reminded me that I still have friends back home. My life is very different here and I am content with that life, but it is nice to know that I have a life back home too. Thanks, Mel.
Till next time…
Monday, 21 September 2015
Back to School
Back to School
As promised, more about school, but I won’t be covering everything as it has been such a hectic week.
I had to introduce myself to the students at an assembly on Monday. Of course, I attempted my introduction in Chinese, which may have been a little foolhardy. The combination of a malfunctioning microphone and my horrendous Chinese must have sounded like gobbledygook. The students may still be wondering who I am. After the excitement of facing a sea of young Taiwanese faces at assembly, the rest of Monday passed rather sedately and monotonously.
Tuesday, it turns out, is badminton day. But before I made it to badminton last Tuesday, I had to make a few presentations for the first years and second years. A general introduction about myself for the first years and my old school schedule for the second years. It is a group of teachers, including Kwung Rong, who play badminton, and since I am now a teacher (strictly speaking a teaching assistant), I am invited along. It turns out that Thursday is also badminton day so at least I know that I shall be doing some exercise and losing a few pounds – I haven’t played sport in this temperature and humidity before and some of the players like to make me run.
So, my routine is falling into place…I think. But then again, the weekend is not predictable. No regular Saturday morning hockey for me following Mr Leonard’s instructions to the letter. Yesterday was much more interesting (no offence Mr Leonard). The only drawback was a horrifically early wake up at six o'clock - I had rather impetuously agreed to participate in a school trip to an aquarium. We took a coach there, wherever ‘there’ is – I fell asleep on the bus! All I know is that we went south. And the day was well worthwhile – amongst other things, I learned about turtle reproduction and that the whale shark is the largest fish in the sea.
Returning to school at 6pm was not the end of the day. Far from it! I was met by Yuying Feng, her husband and son and two other teachers from Jhong Siao, who took me for dinner in a restaurant on the side of a mountain. You can see the assembled group with delicious hot pot in the foreground and the beautiful view of Tainan in the background.
Sunday morning was a bit more reasonable. Yuying and her husband picked me up from the house at 10am. They had plans for me. First we went to a sausage museum. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but there should be more of them, because they provide yummy samples. (And before you ask, yes I have put on weight.) Then we went to An Ping for some more food! This time it came in the form of "An Ping Bean Jelly", which is palatable due to the accompanying lemon syrup. Stop three was an old sugar factory. I'm afraid I can't tell you where it is - I fell asleep in the car. I think I may still have jetlag.
In case you think that was all the eating for the day, we still hadn’t reached lunchtime. We met an ex-English teacher from the school and ate rice and beef at a restaurant for lunch.
So, that’s my brief recap of the last 7 days. Back to school tomorrow to share some English language with the students. And I’ll try to supply some geographic information next time I report!
20 September 2015
Saturday, 12 September 2015
Entry 1
Entry 1
My first photograph below shows me, Principal Lee (headmistress of the school where I shall teach English), Danny (the 15 year old son in my new family) and Andie (我的中文老师), who taught at GWC last year.
We were on an outing for lunch to welcome me. We were all treated to beef noodles as well as some extra dishes that appeared courtesy of Principal Lee's husband’s extensive "connections" around Tainan.
Today was also the day I said farewell to my mother as she has headed to Taipei for her flight back to the UK. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. Obviously less embarrassing without her, but it also means that my translator has gone and I shall be forced to speak Mandarin Chinese.
Unfortunately (I mean fortunately), I have already been cornered on my way from the house to the University where I shall be attending Chinese language classes. There was no way out - I had to explain my presence to a security guard. Let’s put it this way: it was a far longer interaction than it needed to be, but eventually I succeeded in persuading him that my visit was legitimate!
So, there we have it. I’m in Taiwan at last. I have landed on my feet with a lovely family. The headmistress seems to recognise that I shall be much more productive if I am well fed. And I have seen some familiar faces, including Andie and my exchange student from S2, Paige. My next challenge is getting up in time for school. More about my new school anon…
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