Saturday, June 28, 2008

Weekly Mandarin: 48

48th edition: Zai Jian

(For the ultimate irony, this final Weekly Mandarin was written in Hawaii! Where they don't speak Mandarin!)

This last week has been a week of many "last"'s. Last meal at the awesome vegetarian restaurant. Last class as a teacher. Last time in Taiwan (maybe). And lots and lots of goodbyes. (I'll post some of the best pictures here when I get them.)

Through all of this, I have absolutely determined that I prefer Chinese for this one. People in Taiwan say "bye bye" a lot, 'cause it's easy to say. But Chinese's standard farewell is "zai jian." It translates to "next time I see you" and I think it's just a better way to end things than an English "goodbye." It's open ended and is filled with possibility. And exactly how I want to leave Taiwan.

So with that, I finish my last post on JennygoestoTaiwan. Thanks for reading.

Backblog: Yes, they laugh back

So, there's the website that keeps track of stupid things that are printed in "English" (meaning English letters and often very messed up English words). And we laugh at the silly people using English when they don't understand it.

And they laugh back when we do the same thing! Like the badass looking white-on-black screen print of traditional character calligraphy that reads "I am very smart. I am very cool. But I'm not smart enough to read my own shirt." Or the teacher who laughed for 20 minutes when she met a guy with a tatoo of the Chinese characters for "table."

Backblog: Kids Names

I don't have kids any more 'cause I'm not a teacher any more. But here are some of the best real "English names" given to students:

Apple (super popular)
Drean
Canthy
Bony
Jewey
(paired with) Devil
and my personal favorite: Godspeed (If you did an auditory double take, and asked the kid again, he'd say " Godspeeeeeed!!" And put one hand out to fly like superman

Backblog: School Lunch

(This one almost made Anne lose it)

Early on, someone told me I should order a serving of the vegetarian lunch, rather than the meat lunch option at school. They presented the rationale that the school makes 30-some-odd trays of meat lunch and 1 tray of vegetarian lunch, so meat lunch is just likely to be bad since it's made in such mass.

Makes sense.

Then I hear about another school's emergency drill: All of the kids pretend they get food poisoning and the teachers try to help them (I think this included re-hydrating and mopping more than anything else). This would be hugely entertaining with my hammy little munchkins. And some of them would probably forget to pretend and actually toss their cookies. One clever teacher pointed out to a nurse that the teachers all eat the same meals as the students, so they'd be food poisoned too. And the nurse responded that the vegetarian eaters, young and old, would be least likely to be sick simply because the vegetables won't make you sick from under cooking.

Makes more sense.

Unfortunately, at my main school, the kids and teachers who ate vegetarian ate from the same large trays. Eventually, when I stopped being so tickled pink by the opportunity to casually ask them what foods they were picking (in English), I noticed the kids behaviors... Like when they put things back in the main dish to reject it from their own dish. Or when they show me "LOOK JennyWei. I have a cold sore in my mouth" and then serve. Then I stopped eating lunch at school at all.

I'm a slow learner.

Backblog: Drilling

You may have noted that my griping about the earthquakes in Taiwan hit the internet close to the time the really bad earthquakes hit the mainland and caused a lot of destruction. I felt awkward about that, but I guess it was a busy time for tectonic plates in the Asia-Pacific region.

And because of all the destruction, we had a school-wide discussion of earthquake preparedness, and an earthquake drill. So the bell rang, and the kids were supposed to go under their desks. And there I am trying to convince them to do it head first to protect their brains, when, HELLO, that would block the view of watching their classmates trying to crawl awkwardly under their desks. Then when that was adequately performed, the students all marched down to the blacktop to sit in a file and be counted.

That's when I decided to give them a little lesson about America and the Cold War. We learned the words "duck" and "cover"!

Backblog: Impromptu Vocabulary Review

Unfortunately, the airport known as "TPE-Taipei International Airport" is actually about an hour outside of Taipei. And there's no train or subway to get there, so you're stuck taking a taxi, van, or bus. (In appropriate order of expense)

And just getting to and from the airport should be considered part of your adventure away from home. One time I was riding the bus, and this woman on the bus started yelling/moaning to her captive audience. She was clearly begging for money and listing the reasons why she needed money. It took me a while for me to realize that I could understand her! She was screaming out the very vocabulary words I had just learned: "My mother!" "My little brother!" "My big sister!" "My father's brother!" And I was just totally psyched that I could understand her, even though I, along with the other passengers, was not buying her family sob story.

Then she started throwing things around the bus, and wouldn't stop. And the bus had to pull over to the side of the road and wait for the cops to show. So it took a while to get back. But it's a funny story, eh?

Backblog: Teacher vs. Mouse

This little story made me feel better about how hard I think it was to learn Chinese. It's hard for the native speakers too!

When Brian and I were visiting the Zoo, we visited the nocturnal mammal house (where, incidentally we saw this animal totally freaking out). And as we walked by one family, we heard the dad saying over and over to his little daughter "lao shur, lao si, lao shur, lao si" and trying to get her to repeat after him, making a distinction. She kept failing, and would therefore could be cursed to a lifetime of accidentally mixing up the words "teacher" and "mouse."

Backblog: Highway Stop

So y'know when you're looking for some food on the highway in the US. You look for the blue sign with the food logo: fork and knife.

In Taiwan, you're looking for some food on the highway.... You look for the blue sign with the bowl, spoon, and chopsticks. The sign never failed to amuse me when I passed it. I'll keep searching for an image, though.

Backblog: Preface

Backblog is what I think happens to me when I have a good story, but I forget to write about it. And now that I'm getting ready to close up my blog, I'm getting ready to post the stories, out of context. I'm backblogged.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Weekly Mandarin:47

47th edition: Coo

Emotional woman + last day of classes with very small, very cute people = coo

Good-bye dinners with people who have taken care of me all year = coo

It is, unbelievably, that time of year. My little first graders are going to grow up into 2nd graders. My fourth graders, who have come SO far in English class this year, are going to be 5th graders, which are practically graduating 6th graders.... But I won't be here to see it. And despite my frustration with our school and program administration, I love many of my fellow teachers and the kids we teach.

"Coo" means "cry," something that is essentially unavoidable during transitions in my life.

Every first grader was given a little heart-shaped sticky note. Which they then took turns trying to stick to me. It was difficult to communicate to them "No, sticking it to my skin will not work. I am simply perspiring too much." They did, however, cover the front and back of my shirt, part of my capris, and even one on my glasses.

One of the first grade homeroom teachers made me a handmade book with photos from teaching her class all year. And she collected all the students' notes into a little portfolio. When I started looking at these, one of the first graders turned to my co-teacher, who was taking pictures. He said "She's going to cry. 3...2...1.... she's crying." Smart boy, learning to read women that early in life.


I don't pick favorites. Really. But if I did... Ken (on my right shoulder) would be one of them. He spent the entire day of Dragonboating with our team. And he was the little guy who ran along the bank of the river with our flag while we were racing.

I'm tearing up just thinking about these kids.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Weekly Mandarin: 46

46th edition: Bing Chee Ling

I can't believe it has taken me this long to admit it.... I have an obsession with Taiwanese ice cream. While my friend was visiting Taiwan this past week, I realized that the things I really felt that I had to feed her were the ice creams (or "bing chee ling).

Properly, the foods are more like "ices", since they don't usually include milk, but "ices" to me are shaved, unflavored ices with drippy syrup poured over them. (Think Jersey Shore in summer time "ices") These bing chee ling are closer to sorbets, but really unlike anything I've had before.

(Pictures to come-- sorry for the loser post)

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Weekly Mandarin: 45

45th edition: Lei

They promised us that the second semester of our program would feel about 6 seconds long. That was inaccurate, but I've officially been in a time warp for the last month.

I successfully adjusted my sleeping schedule to wake up everyday between 5:30 and 6:30 so that I could dragonboat practice. Plus, the dragonboating itself. And we're in final assessment period for our students. My Chinese teachers have a fresh dedication to getting me through as much of the textbook as humanly possible.

So suddenly May is over, June is half over, and woah, I have been crazy busy. Now I'm exhausted-- lei. This term can also be put into one of my favorite phrases "My (tiredness/hunger/....) is killlllling me."

It's nine-thirty. It's past my bedtime. Gnight!

Then you kick.... bum

This is officially my favorite Taiwanese holiday. I mean, Moon Festival had fruit hats, and Lunar New Year had sweet red envelopes, but dragonboat festival is better than all the rest.

As I previously mentioned, we had two races during the preliminary races on Saturday and we had an unusually bad seed in the tournament, but it was awesome.
First race (Runs 1 and 2): Chinese Language Students (FOREIGNERS) vs. The Iron Barbies of Ilan University
We didn't get to warm up on the water, so this first run was kind of like our warm up, only it counted.

(Our boat is the one with the blonde girls) The team that rows together...

Wins together. Suckas. We beat the Iron Barbies on both runs, by a larger margin on the second run. My students, Chinese teachers, co-teachers, haircut family, and the rest of the cohort were there to cheer me on, and they really made all the difference!

And this is where we gave it our ALL. We were against a team with a ten-year history and a tradition of doing very well. Last year, they won second place in the entire race. But on our second run against them, we had them, as recounted by a bystander, "So scared, poo was coming out their bottoms." We lost by about two feet.

Despite the killer headwind on our second two runs, our race times improved with each race. (Down to 2:28 on our final race run-- race times can be slower than practice times because you are also fighting against the water the other boat is sloshing around)

And we ran into the shore on our turn-around after the race.

My friends tell me that I should send this picture to any potential employer as a simple statement of "THIS is what you could have. THIS kind of effort and row-till-you-almost-puke energy."

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Weekly Mandarin 44

44th edition: Mai

As I'm now in my final month of living in Taiwan, I have a new justification for just about anything: I'm in my last month of living here. I'm running out of chances to _____.

So, tonight I had ice cream for dinner (great for dragonboat training, I know). Because I won't get to eat delicious icecream and peanut brittle type icecreamburritos when I get to the US. And this month's goal is to average snowflake ice every other day.

And, even though I'm packing up my things and hoping to go home with fewer suitcases than I came, the "running out of time" argument justifies lots of... buying (mai). This also leads to one of my favorite Chinese nouns dong xi which literally translates to "east and west" but means "stuff, things, chatchkis, gadgets, widgets, etc, " anything that you could find between the east and the west. So I'm buying silly stuff. Like a dress I'll only wear once (but, hey, it didn't cost me much), presents for other people (stocking stuffers can be purchased at any time in the year, right?), and a fabulous "solar powered" frog on a swing. I'm solar-powered, it's solar-powered.... I needed it.

So if you want me to mai anything to gei (give) you, now's the time to send an e-mail.

Oh, and try not to cry

Lately, dragonboat practices have been pretty brutal. But that's not why I almost cried yesterday.

As we were doing a coloring thing with our first graders, little Geoffrey (who always finishes first) finished first. So I told him to turn over the paper and draw a picture of him rowing a dragonboat. He didn't want to do that. So I suggested he draw Teacher Jenny rowing a dragonboat. He shrieked, started shaking his head violently, and insisted at a yell "You are a girl! Girls can't row dragonboats! Only boys can row dragonboats."

If he would yell this at his teacher, what would he say to his female peers? It broke my heart. He's such a little guy and he's already thinking in "can't's" and "boys can do things that girls can't."

So I ran a lot at the gym yesterday for cross-training. And today our boat shaved 15 seconds off our 400 meter sprint. (From 2:41 to 2:25)

We got an unusually bad seed in the tournament: We must win two races on Saturday to move on to races on Sunday for the main festival. And our second Saturday race is against a team that annually competes, and competes well. The good news is that even if we don't win and can't be competitive, we can still do scrimmage races on Saturday afternoon so we don't feel like we trained for two-and-a-half-minutes of disappointing racing.