I was in the middle of an entry on my trip to Lotus Lake with Lauren when the sound of several fireworks in loud succession coming from very close by interrupted my train of thought. I was forced to investigate.
Apparently, the temple across the street from my apartment building is having some sort of temple parade right now. I saw some temple parades in Tainan, but they were all around 10am on a Saturday (or was it Sunday?) morning. A very logical time. Right now, at 10:30pm on a Tuesday, I would not expect this amount of liveliness (read: loudness). But alas... fireworks, cymbals, Asian horns, and deities shrouded in neon lights are filling the street in front of my apartment and pouring into my very large window. The dog is going crazy, racing from my bedroom door to my lap and back again, trying to find a way to escape the noise and/or find its source.
I took this video from the porch. Not a great view, but maybe it will give you an idea of what is going on (and has been going on for at least 30 minutes) and what will prevent me from falling asleep until it has finished. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this wouldn't happen back home... at least, not on a Tuesday night at 10:30.
Also, in my family, this is not just an average Tuesday. It is my 奶奶's birthday today. Happy birthday, Nan!
31 March 2009
30 March 2009
Kaohsiung earns more tourist dollars because of American Fulbrighters...
Last week, my friend Lauren (also Harvard '08) decided to take her own spring break and visit me in Taiwan. This was very fun and exciting for me, as I don't get a spring break. So during her visit, I gave her a sampler of things essential to Kaohsiung City and my life there. Things like...
...eating 雪花冰 at Ice Art:
...taking a boat ride on the 愛河:
...getting all-you-can-eat 火鍋:
...going shopping at 新崛江, one of Kaohsiung's many 夜市s:
...hanging out with Chia-ling (and making peace signs in every picture):
...teaching some classes at 復興國小:
...and even stopping by the 太平國小 English Village:
Lauren and I also ventured to Lotus Lake, a place I hadn't been since August (when it was more like Lotus all-dry-and-smelly-because-it-was-dug-up-for-the-WorldGames), and spent the weekend in the mountains of central Taiwan. Blog posts on these adventures and more coming soon!
...eating 雪花冰 at Ice Art:
...taking a boat ride on the 愛河:
...getting all-you-can-eat 火鍋:
...going shopping at 新崛江, one of Kaohsiung's many 夜市s:
...hanging out with Chia-ling (and making peace signs in every picture):
...teaching some classes at 復興國小:
...and even stopping by the 太平國小 English Village:
Lauren and I also ventured to Lotus Lake, a place I hadn't been since August (when it was more like Lotus all-dry-and-smelly-because-it-was-dug-up-for-the-WorldGames), and spent the weekend in the mountains of central Taiwan. Blog posts on these adventures and more coming soon!
25 March 2009
If you're coming to Taiwan...
Hang out with my newest friend who lives at the Taipei Taoyuan airport:
On a related note, my friend Lauren from college days is visiting this week. As usual, when I'm with an actual person, I spend less time with my computer. You can expect a blog or two about our adventures once she heads out of town. But a sneak preview: she has come to school (Fu Xing and English Village) with me every day so far, which means our post-work activities have mainly involved naps.
On a related note, my friend Lauren from college days is visiting this week. As usual, when I'm with an actual person, I spend less time with my computer. You can expect a blog or two about our adventures once she heads out of town. But a sneak preview: she has come to school (Fu Xing and English Village) with me every day so far, which means our post-work activities have mainly involved naps.
20 March 2009
English Village consumes yet another day of my life
Alternative title: My first step toward becoming a Taiwanese soap opera star.
The Backstory
I don't know if you all remember, but there's this thing called English Village that is a big part of my job here in Kaohsiung. Two days a week, every week, I go to an elementary school other than my own Fu Xing (last semester it was Fu Dong, this semester it is Tai-Ping) and work the English Village. What does this mean? For over two hours I act as a "waitress" and repeat the same dialogue/activity eight times with a different group of fifth graders from Kaohsiung. Every ten minutes it's a new group that I've never seen before and will never see again. The amount of times I've said "menu" and "restaurant" since September is probably in the quadruple-digit-range, and I'm not at all exaggerating. I won't say it's not mindless, and sometimes my least favorite part of working here, but I acknowledge that it's a good experience for all of the fifth graders in Kaohsiung to get a chance to practice English and learn that speaking to foreigners isn't that scary.
Anyway, many schools throughout Kaohsiung also have their own English Village (though it's not yet part of the field trip circuit like Fu Dong and Tai-Ping). Fu Xing is lucky enough to have its own English Village convenience store and post office. Working at Fu Xing's English Village is far less painful, as I know many of the students and I don't have to do the same restaurant/menu/"I want blahblahblah" routine.
How this relates to my eventual fame and fortune
So someone, somewhere (read: probably the Kaohsiung Bureau of Education) decided to document the success of Kaohsiung's English Village program by making a film at each English Village, large and small. No one really knew what to do, though, so it has turned into a "let's show off our school and its best English students" video. Whatever. All I know is, I spent four hours this morning with a handful of our best fifth and sixth grade English students and a guy with a camera in all of our faces. Not something I expected to be doing this year, but as I've learned this year, when working in Taiwan, one must expect the unexpected.
I tried to minimize my actual on-camera time by giving the big parts to students, but I still did my part. Most of the day I just spent taking pictures and shaking my head in amusement and disbelief at the strange things that have happened since moving to Taiwan. Oh, culture!
The pictures you will all skip to instead of reading the above text
The pivotal Convenience Store scene:
The principal gets involved:
The recorder ensemble is featured, of course (sorry for the bad angle):
Fu Xing Decor?
And some weird World Games art created out of recyclable material. I'm unsure whether these were made for the video or whether kids putting up these art projects the day before the filming was unrelated.
A robot with all of the World Games sports on it:
The World Games mascots atop some empty bottles:
This one was actually pretty, made of cardboard and old CDs:
And this one wouldn't be nearly as creepy if it weren't wearing a sweater:
And that was how I spent my Friday. What did YOU do?
The Backstory
I don't know if you all remember, but there's this thing called English Village that is a big part of my job here in Kaohsiung. Two days a week, every week, I go to an elementary school other than my own Fu Xing (last semester it was Fu Dong, this semester it is Tai-Ping) and work the English Village. What does this mean? For over two hours I act as a "waitress" and repeat the same dialogue/activity eight times with a different group of fifth graders from Kaohsiung. Every ten minutes it's a new group that I've never seen before and will never see again. The amount of times I've said "menu" and "restaurant" since September is probably in the quadruple-digit-range, and I'm not at all exaggerating. I won't say it's not mindless, and sometimes my least favorite part of working here, but I acknowledge that it's a good experience for all of the fifth graders in Kaohsiung to get a chance to practice English and learn that speaking to foreigners isn't that scary.
Anyway, many schools throughout Kaohsiung also have their own English Village (though it's not yet part of the field trip circuit like Fu Dong and Tai-Ping). Fu Xing is lucky enough to have its own English Village convenience store and post office. Working at Fu Xing's English Village is far less painful, as I know many of the students and I don't have to do the same restaurant/menu/"I want blahblahblah" routine.
How this relates to my eventual fame and fortune
So someone, somewhere (read: probably the Kaohsiung Bureau of Education) decided to document the success of Kaohsiung's English Village program by making a film at each English Village, large and small. No one really knew what to do, though, so it has turned into a "let's show off our school and its best English students" video. Whatever. All I know is, I spent four hours this morning with a handful of our best fifth and sixth grade English students and a guy with a camera in all of our faces. Not something I expected to be doing this year, but as I've learned this year, when working in Taiwan, one must expect the unexpected.
I tried to minimize my actual on-camera time by giving the big parts to students, but I still did my part. Most of the day I just spent taking pictures and shaking my head in amusement and disbelief at the strange things that have happened since moving to Taiwan. Oh, culture!
The pictures you will all skip to instead of reading the above text
The pivotal Convenience Store scene:
The principal gets involved:
The recorder ensemble is featured, of course (sorry for the bad angle):
Fu Xing Decor?
And some weird World Games art created out of recyclable material. I'm unsure whether these were made for the video or whether kids putting up these art projects the day before the filming was unrelated.
A robot with all of the World Games sports on it:
The World Games mascots atop some empty bottles:
This one was actually pretty, made of cardboard and old CDs:
And this one wouldn't be nearly as creepy if it weren't wearing a sweater:
And that was how I spent my Friday. What did YOU do?
16 March 2009
C-Bikes
Long time no blog.
A week has gone by and I haven't given you any entertaining updates on my Taiwan existence. Oops! That really means I have nothing exciting to report... sorry.
But as a filler, here's something that I passed by a couple weeks ago and found kind of cool.
It looks like Kaohsiung City is "going green," both literally and figuratively, in a new program that's like Zipcar for bicycles. The lime green bikes could catch anyone's attention:
Basically, in an effort to promote both eco-friendly travel and Kaohsiung tourism, the city is setting up these bike rental locations all around the city and developing tourist-friendly bike trails (which I'm hoping are not, but I'm guessing are, largely composed of scooter lanes on major roads). Here's the kiosk by the Cultural Center:
The rates are fairly cheap... NT $30 for the first half hour, NT $15 after that. So, an hour of biking costs you less than US $1.50. Plus, you get to ride around in an awesomely lime green bike. What could be better?
For more info, check out the C-Bike English website.
A week has gone by and I haven't given you any entertaining updates on my Taiwan existence. Oops! That really means I have nothing exciting to report... sorry.
But as a filler, here's something that I passed by a couple weeks ago and found kind of cool.
It looks like Kaohsiung City is "going green," both literally and figuratively, in a new program that's like Zipcar for bicycles. The lime green bikes could catch anyone's attention:
Basically, in an effort to promote both eco-friendly travel and Kaohsiung tourism, the city is setting up these bike rental locations all around the city and developing tourist-friendly bike trails (which I'm hoping are not, but I'm guessing are, largely composed of scooter lanes on major roads). Here's the kiosk by the Cultural Center:
The rates are fairly cheap... NT $30 for the first half hour, NT $15 after that. So, an hour of biking costs you less than US $1.50. Plus, you get to ride around in an awesomely lime green bike. What could be better?
For more info, check out the C-Bike English website.
09 March 2009
A language anecdote
On Thursday, like every other Thursday, I was leading Fu Xing's English Village class. We have a different class come through every Thursday morning to do English-related activities. Last Thursday, we had two first grade classes come to play a simple game with post office vocabulary, then get a sticker.
Students don't start learning English in public school until 3rd grade, so the 1st graders don't really know any English except maybe "Hello" and "1, 2, 3." Maybe a few go to private English schools outside of class. We just play an easy game, make sure they say things like "Ready" and "Thank you," then they're on their way.
At the end of the game, as I handed out stickers to the winning team, one of the 1st grade boys stuck his sticker to his hand and then held the sticker back, looking confused. He said, in Chinese, "Teacher, there is no trash can, what should I do with the back to my sticker?" So I reached out my hand and took the sticker back from his. Then his face lit up and he smiled. This is the point where other students have said, "Katie 老師聽得董國語!"
But being in 1st grade and in a different linguistic mindset, he made what seemed to him a perfectly valid assumption. He said, in Chinese, "Wow! I can speak English!"
I don't think being a linguistics major is a prerequisite for finding this adorable.
Students don't start learning English in public school until 3rd grade, so the 1st graders don't really know any English except maybe "Hello" and "1, 2, 3." Maybe a few go to private English schools outside of class. We just play an easy game, make sure they say things like "Ready" and "Thank you," then they're on their way.
At the end of the game, as I handed out stickers to the winning team, one of the 1st grade boys stuck his sticker to his hand and then held the sticker back, looking confused. He said, in Chinese, "Teacher, there is no trash can, what should I do with the back to my sticker?" So I reached out my hand and took the sticker back from his. Then his face lit up and he smiled. This is the point where other students have said, "Katie 老師聽得董國語!"
But being in 1st grade and in a different linguistic mindset, he made what seemed to him a perfectly valid assumption. He said, in Chinese, "Wow! I can speak English!"
I don't think being a linguistics major is a prerequisite for finding this adorable.
07 March 2009
They grow up so fast
So, our little Milo is about 7 months old these days (or 6... that's what you get when you adopt a stray) and already at the "he won't get any bigger than" weight that the adoption vet told us (15 kilograms). But of course, he's still getting bigger. And just got his 結紮 yesterday. Though I declined to see his 蛋蛋... do they offer that service in America?
He goes on walks (often walks us), sleeps through the night, and, as a couple vets have said, "很會吃."
Anyway, here are the pictures that everyone wants to see of the little Taiwan 流浪狗 that could.
Little post-op Milo (a.k.a. Coneface) walks home from the vet...
He goes on walks (often walks us), sleeps through the night, and, as a couple vets have said, "很會吃."
Anyway, here are the pictures that everyone wants to see of the little Taiwan 流浪狗 that could.
Little post-op Milo (a.k.a. Coneface) walks home from the vet...
05 March 2009
Extra(-)Krakow Adventures
Jonathan and I had two big adventures outside of the city of Krakow. If you watched my school Powerpoint, you've already gotten a preview.
First, we went to Wieliczka Salt Mine, about 30 minutes (on a very, very crowded public bus) outside of the city. The salt mine is one of the biggest tourist attractions Krakow has to offer, or so say all the travel guides and websites, so we figured we better go. Having never been on a mine tour in recent memory, and having never been to a salt mine ever, it was an interesting experience, and most of the other members of the English tour agreed. I paid the 10 zlotys (3 USD) to take pictures (I'm an educator, after all!), so here are the pictures from this very old, very touristy salt mine.
Note that everything in these pictures that's not made of wood or water is made of salt.
Nicolas Copernicus... made of salt! By salt miners!
A chandelier... made of salt!
A Catholic church... made of salt!
General mine picture. (Not entirely made of salt.)
The salt mine was really cool to see, and our tour guide had awesomely dry humor. Of course, it's the kind of place I'd love to wander and get lost on my own, but with 300km of tunnels, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have found my way out.
Trip Two: Zakopane
After a recommendation from a friend (thanks Carissa!), Jonathan and I spent a day in Zakopane, a little mountain town about two hours by (a less crowded but more teenagery) bus from Krakow. Because Jon's lack of health insurance did not go well with his snowboarding abilities, we didn't try to go skiing and just opted for sight-seeing. It's a good thing we weren't going to ski, because we went on an unusually warm (50 degrees Fahrenheit) day, and half the mountain was melting.
So we took a ride on the train/gondola/whatever-it-was up a mountain and took in the sights:
We also walked around the town for quite a bit, watching vendors trying to entertain and sell to anyone and everyone that passed. We even tried some of the local mountain cheese, but I think we picked the wrong kind, because it just ended up tasting like ham.
After the sun set and Jonathan and I had finished his birthday pizza and apple pie, we got on a very long, winding train back to Krakow (how the train takes twice as long as a bus, I will never understand).
And with that, I think, the blogging of my winter vacation to Krakow (nearly a month ago) has come to an end. Hope you enjoyed it!
First, we went to Wieliczka Salt Mine, about 30 minutes (on a very, very crowded public bus) outside of the city. The salt mine is one of the biggest tourist attractions Krakow has to offer, or so say all the travel guides and websites, so we figured we better go. Having never been on a mine tour in recent memory, and having never been to a salt mine ever, it was an interesting experience, and most of the other members of the English tour agreed. I paid the 10 zlotys (3 USD) to take pictures (I'm an educator, after all!), so here are the pictures from this very old, very touristy salt mine.
Note that everything in these pictures that's not made of wood or water is made of salt.
Nicolas Copernicus... made of salt! By salt miners!
A chandelier... made of salt!
A Catholic church... made of salt!
General mine picture. (Not entirely made of salt.)
The salt mine was really cool to see, and our tour guide had awesomely dry humor. Of course, it's the kind of place I'd love to wander and get lost on my own, but with 300km of tunnels, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have found my way out.
Trip Two: Zakopane
After a recommendation from a friend (thanks Carissa!), Jonathan and I spent a day in Zakopane, a little mountain town about two hours by (a less crowded but more teenagery) bus from Krakow. Because Jon's lack of health insurance did not go well with his snowboarding abilities, we didn't try to go skiing and just opted for sight-seeing. It's a good thing we weren't going to ski, because we went on an unusually warm (50 degrees Fahrenheit) day, and half the mountain was melting.
So we took a ride on the train/gondola/whatever-it-was up a mountain and took in the sights:
We also walked around the town for quite a bit, watching vendors trying to entertain and sell to anyone and everyone that passed. We even tried some of the local mountain cheese, but I think we picked the wrong kind, because it just ended up tasting like ham.
After the sun set and Jonathan and I had finished his birthday pizza and apple pie, we got on a very long, winding train back to Krakow (how the train takes twice as long as a bus, I will never understand).
And with that, I think, the blogging of my winter vacation to Krakow (nearly a month ago) has come to an end. Hope you enjoyed it!
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