Boop Oop A Doop

One of my students has a pair of shorts she wears regularly. Embroidered along the cuff in curly red script is "Botty BooB."

And that, my friends, may be the epitome of unfortunate rip-off children's clothing choices.

In America, wouldn't you get sent home for that?

Letters to Leslie

I made my 12-year-old class write me letters using the new vocabulary they learned. Results were as follows (vocabulary words are underlined, spelling errors intact):

Dear Leslie,

We take turns to talk to the Chinese and you are angry. I'm sorry for you. I will fill up my apologize in a box for you.

That one was from Teresa. She's known to burp loudly in class and then give me a satisfied smile. She prefers that I call her "E.T." (like the movie). The other kids are always telling me what a brain she is. She's a fun kid. Her letter references the fact that two or three times per class I bark "NO CHINESE!" which makes them giggle.

Dear Leslie,

According to the teacher I can sleep. Can the kids take turns sleep? I fill up I bag with the book I am sleep in the class. Don't talk to me. I will sleep, when you take thie letter.

That's from the one boy in the class. Every class I have to threaten to take away his chair if he can't sit up with his eyes open. Not that I don't feel bad for him: The class is 4:30 to 6:30 on a Friday and he's been in school all day and all week.

Bless you fill up wallet with blenty of money.

An excerpt from Bella's letter. I'll accept that blessing.

Dear Leslie,

According to you said, where are you from, I know you live in America. We learn to take turns to play game. You fill up more happy. You wear yellow clothes in class.

From Annie. And it's true, I really like yellow.

Dear Leslien,

According to your letter say. You have runny nose. We go to look you, I friends and classment take turns to bring fruit and food and bring fill up the wather. but we go to you home in uniforms.

That's Michelle. She wont speak English in class unless I force her to.

Betty's letter included this lovely anime drawing of me.
I'd say it's a fairly accurate depiction, except I don't think I have a klingon forehead. And for the record, my boots are flat-soled and I didn't wear fishnets to class, I wore black tights.

Lost in Translation: Laundromat

Everywhere I go in Taiwan, I see stilted English. Awkward menu items, obtuse signage - but nothing beats my laundromat. Clearly the owners didn't want to trouble anyone who'd even had basic English lessons with a little proofreading. The best I can figure is they plastered their walls with English words translated through an online program, no humans necessary.

Ever wondered what the family of a high-ranking military officer has to do with baking clothes? Look no further:

James' rough translation of the Chinese: "Pull door hard to open."

Garbage Sort

For recycling your pot bottle.

Only omnivorousness will save the planet

Lost in Translation: Burned Cheese

Signage for a European fusion restaurant in central Taipei. I think I'll eat elsewhere.

Adventures in Taichung

James and I were at the station buying our high-speed rail tickets to Taichung before 7 a.m. Friday. I tried to stay awake for the 40-minute ride south, but staying up late watching Wild at Heart got the best of me and I slept the whole way.

Jojo was asked to give a keynote speech at an ecotourism conference at Yushan National Park. He and Joma invited James and me along. When the four of us stepped off the train we were greeted by a man with park-service green pants and betel-nut brown teeth. He drove us to the Yushan National Park building, about an hour from the train station.

We abandoned Jojo for his speech-making, and the park service dude drove Joma, James and me to ChuCheng, a small town once supported by logging, now supported by tourism.

Once supported by logging, now supported by tourism ... that's an apt description for Florence, Oregon - my "permanent" address.

Like good tourists, we went to the logging museum. I took pictures of pictures in the logging museum because they reminded me of photos I've seen of the olden-days Flo'.


The museum also had a piece of meat-shaped wood and a cabbage-shaped wood, akin to the meat-shaped rock and jade cabbage at the National Palace Museum.

Outside the museum there were several pairs of stilts. I had the opportunity to demonstrate the fruits of 11 years spent as an only child.

See how happy I am?

It's because I'm totally owning James at stilts.

Before I had to wipe poo off Billy and Ricky's asses, I spent many a summer day by myself. I walked up and down my driveway on my plastic stilts. Up and down. All alone. It was a long driveway. And here I am today with all the obnoxious winning traits of a first/only child plus a black belt in stilt walking.

This was another fun toy outside the museum, the trick was to walk in unison.


We visited a plum winery. I don't like plum wine, too sweet. They also distill liquor from plum here, which is more gag-inducing than a warm shot of your cheapest grocery-store label vodka. Horrible. I did buy some plum vinegar, though. Joma told me Asian women drink vinegar to keep their weight down. I have dim hopes of ever acquiring the figure of an Asian woman, but plum vinegar is delicious - not too bitter - so I'm going to drink a little every night. After lunch Jojo rejoined us and we drove down to Sun Moon Lake for a boat ride. Sun Moon Lake is Taiwan's biggest honeymoon destination.


At the risk of infuriating any Taiwan Touch Your Heart tourism officials who may stumble upon my blog, I was underwhelmed. I spent the summer before last in my hometown Anchorage, Alaska. Every other weekend I hiked into some new, beautiful, frigid mountainy valley with an alpine lake. The weekends I wasn't backpacking, I was driving from Anchorage to Seward to crew sail races. That drive is replete with gorgeous views of mountains and water. I've been making that drive since I was 9 months old. I'm a hard sell for lake views.

After the lake we drove to an experimental tea factory. I was hoping it would be staffed with midgets wearing feathers and body paint doing interpretive dance. Unfortunately, the only experimentation going on was with the tea itself. This particular factory was cultivating red tea to sell to Russians who will pay top-dollar for it. On our way out of the factory, the tea people gave each of us several boxes of different teas and one box each of their top tea. Jojo looked extremely uncomfortable, which makes me think that one box of tea was pretty expensive.

At dinner we were joined by three more college professors who were conference attendees. They'd all studied in the U.S. and were kind enough to converse in English at the table. When we finished eating it was dark out. The seven of us piled into a van for a two-hour ride up a twisty mountain road to our accommodations.

We spent the night in a Japanese-style lodge built in the 1920s (when Taiwan was a Japanese colony). There wasn't any heating, there were no bathroom towels, and no pillowcase covers. The bed, like a lot of Asian beds, was very hard. But there was a boss karaoke system in the common area. Priorities, right?

Two hours of withstanding hairpin turns in the backseat coupled with the change in barometric pressure gave James a splitting headache. That - or he is developing migraines. He's hoping it was the former.

James is usually exceptionally healthy. When he gets a cold, I get pneumonia. Once we went out with friends at 'SC to our favorite burrito stand and all ordered chili fries. The rest of us dashed home clutching our stomachs and squeezing our sphincters. James strolled back hunting for more food he could maybe eat off the ground since he wasn't quite full. For having such a strong constitution, he's been a sick old goat since we got here.

I went to bed feeling awesome about how much healthier I am than he. Then I got up in the middle of the night, and when I came back to bed I hit the headboard and gave myself a small black eye. I guess that makes us even.

Saturday we hiked around Lulin Mountain.

From Taichung Weekend

Pretty

Saturday night we moved down the mountain to a different Japanese-style lodge with even more uncomfortable beds tatami mats. The Japanese got sleep all wrong. In the morning my back hurt so much I tucked my knees under my chest and attempted to get another twenty minutes' shut eye in the earthquake-drill position.

I think I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese...

But before we went to sleepy-sleep, the college profs and we busted out the boss karaoke system that this Japanese lodge had as well. Taiwanese culture is very musical. I challenge you to find four random middle-aged professionals in the U.S. who can carry a tune together when handed a mic. And do so willingly.

There was a limited English selection. James and I sang "Unchatined Melody"

We got back to Nankan late this afternoon, and not before we received an open invitation to visit some of the profs in Hualien!

Check out more pictures from the weekend here.

I' COMING!!

I don't know what this bus ad is selling, but whatever it is I'm buying. Don't you dig it?

More on Culture

I was lucky enough to attend a few Chinese New Year dinners with the family of a friend back in Los Angeles. When I was in high school I saw James perform in a lion dance. I've been to Dim Sum a time or two back in the States. But living in Taiwan is a whole different plate of tamales than a day trip to Rowland Heights. Every day is a new chapter in my Chinese cultural education.

The thing that's impressed me most thus far is the way people stretch a dollar.

As a product of America where the average credit card owner owes Visa something like $6,000, I am in awe of Chinese thrift. If you make $10, save $3. That's the wisdom, sayeth James' mom. In America, saving is for chumps: If you make $10 spend it because maybe you'll be rich someday. Unfortunately, this culture extends to our system of government, and it's no wonder China owns half America's debt.

Examples of thrift are everywhere. No one wastes much on external building appearances unless it's in downtown Taipei. I'm always picking my away around rows of motorcycles parked on the sidewalk to get into shops in Nankan.

Funny English is so ubiquitous that it lost its funniness. I can't blame my grocer for selling "self handmade sausages" when I'm one of just a few native English speakers who will shop there in a week. But it's odd that Taipei 101, a monument built as testament to Taiwan's international prominence, would have ungrammatical reader boards like "The World Fastest Elevator." Taipei is lousy with native English speakers. Shouldn't someone have shelled out for a copy editor with full mastery of English mechanics?

The most amazing thing though has been the penny pinching that goes on at both schools I teach at. They both use textbooks that are flimsy paperback things that look like they should cost about $7. Neither school ever has any extras though, or enough teacher guides to accompany each book.

At one school if the owner can't find the teacher's guide I need, he just throws teacher guides for different books at me. At the other school the owner simply doesn't have a teacher's guide for the unit I'm teaching. Nor can I have my own copy of the accompanying workbook the students use. That means every classtime I have to snag a kid's workbook so I can copy the day's homework for myself.

Yesterday I was hovering over the printer about to make a couple copies. That's two pages. The owner trotted over to save me from myself:

"See you can do double sided," he said. He proceeded to tap the screen, which is all in Chinese so it's not like I'm going to remember what he's doing, and voilà, he handed me a lovely double-sided piece of paper. Thank you kindly cram school owner, God forbid I use two pieces of copy paper.

James and I bought our own whiteboard markers, because the school's hardly work. And though they hardly work, people are assigned whiteboard markers at this school - a wonderful solution to the marker embezzlement problem, I'm sure.

All my college internships were at newspapers, one of America's most embattled industries. My first internship paid me only in beer. My last newspaper shaved two weeks off the initial 12 they offered due to budget. Two newsrooms I worked at did away with the communal coffeepot. Times are tight. Despite all this, every office had a well-stocked supply closet. Duh, right? There's always enough pens, pencils, sticky notes, paper to get the job done.

Not so in the cram school classroom. No paper, no pens, no markers, no crayons, no rulers, no kiddie scissors. Them kids best be learning with whatever they brought from home.

When I wanted to take a copy of the textbook home, I had to sign it out. I asked to take home the cd that goes with the book. The reaction I got from the owner was what I'd expect had I asked to take home a piece of the school's furniture.

The owner's assistant pressed her fingers around the jewel case and gave me a look like, "We hired you because we thought you could divine the course material. This is going to be a problem."

Eventually she gave me the cd, but I had to sign for it too. Alas, all my plans to sell English textbooks for 9-year-olds on the black market must be postponed. Nor will I be able to accumulate a library of "English is Fun!" picture books for personal enjoyment. Pretty much, if you're thinking about teaching English in Taiwan, don't do it for the sweet kickbacks.