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Published: August 28th 2007
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View Across the Schoolyard
The East Rift Valley is between the Coastal and the Central Mountain Ranges. The mountains are green all year around here, and there is always some kind of flower blooming. Today was a big transition—from the sheltered environment of the academy to the real world of teaching English in rural and isolated Taiwan. The closing ceremony was a bit rushed because we all had trains to catch. I gave a little speech as class leader, and got my certificate and a photo op with the da lao ban (director) of the place.The train takes a little over three hours from Taipei to Guangfu, but that is partly because we have to go north to avoid the mountains before swinging south. The first part of the rail journey—getting out of Taipei—is uninspiring. Taipei is rather like a person whose lack of physical attractiveness belies a fine character and a sharp intellect. It is worth the effort to get to know such a city, and such a person. From Taipei to Keelung is mostly stained concrete and industrial sites, but the north coast on the East China Sea is quite stunning. As we hit the east coast, the scenery got even better—the mist-shrouded Pacific on one side and the towering cliffs on the other.Guangfu is inland a bit and, being up in the hills in a beautiful valley, is a bit cooler than
Beautiful Downtown Guangfu
Some people keep chickens, and there is even a pig or two here and there. at sea level. My first impression of the place was the quiet and the uncrowdedness, and the fact that it was only 28 degrees. There was a beautiful smell of flowers in the air around the school. That is certainly a change from Taipei! It seems everyone has been awaiting my arrival with eager anticipation—nowhere near enough people applied for the available positions, and a lot of the schools that wanted a native-speaking English teacher will be doing without. One of the women in my group is going even further south than I am, and she will be spreading herself between three schools.My lodgings are just fine—a big one-bedroom furnished apartment in the teachers’ dormitory. Bedding and dishes and whatnot are provided. A place this size would set you back a cool thou in Victoria, and even more in Vancouver. It’s more like an apartment than a res or a dorm, because there are actual units here instead of shared rooms. The dorm building is quite big, with one wing for the teachers and a second wing for the 150 or so kids who stay here. I don’t know if they go home for the weekend, but I suppose they
Some of my Gaggle...
...at Monday morning assembly. do.The floor in the apartment is white (at least it will be after I sweep and mop it) ceramic tile with grey flecks. Unless the flecks mop out too, that is. The walls have a brick accent at the bottom, but they are the inevitable white painted concrete and there is of course the ever-popular sectional black leather couch. My bed is really something—the orange mattress has the slogan “collecting the most beautiful memories in dreamland”, and the green sheets say “for your goodnight, funny happy day memory”. The bedspread is peach with pink and grey flowers, and the two comforters have brown bunnies on a red background and teddy bears on a blue background respectively. On my oath, I’m not making this stuff up. The colour scheme will remind me to trot out my favourite joke at the first opportunity (the ship loaded with red paint collided with the ship loaded with blue paint, and both crews were marooned). I have a nice bathroom and beautiful wooden doors, a ceiling fan that doesn’t rattle or click, air conditioners that work, a washer that doesn’t but Mr. Chen is on to it, a TV that will show me a selection of Korean, Japanese and Cantonese movies subtitled in Chinese (and maybe even HBO and CNN) once they hook up my cable, a nice little work area, and lots of closet and drawer space. I will have to pay for my Internet connection, and I can probably split that with Amber (the English teacher across the hall in room 207 whom I just met a few minutes ago—everything is wireless these days.This place is bachelor heaven. Joe (the trusty school clerk) tells me that most of the teachers who live here are unmarried women. The Gods mock me, by having me born thirty years too soon. Everyone is very excited that Lao-puo Suzanne is coming out. Guangfu JHS is getting two-for-one native speakers out of the Stephen family.I told Joe that there was no hot water. I even got that buggered up. “Mei yo re shui”. What’s so hard about that? The next thing I know, a crew is knocking at my door with a new hot-and-cold drinking water dispenser. I can have an ice tea before my cold shower, and a hot cup of coffee afterwards.I understand that I am the only western person on a staff of fifty teachers, and so far I am the only western person in the whole town. There are evidently a lot of young “foreign” people around here, but they all hang around at a nearby beach where the surfing is supposed to be fabulous.Housing is an employee benefit, but I must pay my own utilities. Electricity will be low because I don’t use the aircons very much. The Ministry also provides round-trip annual air fare for two. If there is anywhere other than home where a foreign teacher would like to go MOE will pay for that instead—up to what it would have cost to send the person home. For reasons I don’t understand but for which I am grateful, there is no ROC income tax on my earnings. They make us pay into “Labor Insurance” (pogey) even though we would never be eligible. You must leave the country if you lose your job and cannot find another one. It’s par for the course—the Government of Canada robbed me blind for thirty years—taking pogey off my pay even though I would never have been eligible.I will have to pay for my lunch and dinner here, but for 40 NTD (about $1.30 or so) per meal I’m not going to be doing too much squawking.Things will become clearer for me tomorrow.I met the head teacher at 0800, and he showed me around the school. There is a language lab here, from which I will be giving most of my lessons. It was untidy and dusty, but Stephen said not to worry because they will get a gang of kids buckled to and have it set right. He even said he’d send over another bunch to clean up my pad, but I assured him that it would not be necessary. The teachers that I’ve met so far have very limited English (except of course for the ones who teach it), and over 50% of the kids are aboriginal. The school offers Ami language classes for the kids here.I do not yet have my timetable, but it seems that I will be teaching a lot of kids. The class size is OK (32), but I wonder if I will get the same kids often enough to help them learn. Stephen says they want me to do speaking and listening skills with the students, and the Chinese teachers will handle all the grammar and vocabulary and such.I went out for a walk just now, and prudently came home when it started to spit. Now I am experiencing one of those warm, drenching tropical rainstorms that I love so much. I am just north of the Tropic of Cancer, so technically we are subtropical for a few km or so.
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