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Published: August 31st 2007
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Long Distance Connection
Lucy, Carol, and Amy talking to lao-puo in Canada, from my desk in the teachers' workroom. Skype is great, because it allows video conferencing. That is to say, this is Chapter 11 of my book, not Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The two concepts are somewhat connected, because many of us do not get paid until early October, and only for the last two weeks of August because the school holds a month’s pay, to be used as a penalty if anyone bails before the end of the contract.
There are only two financial institutions in Guangfu, the Farmers’ Bank, and the Post Office. Neither can handle international ATM cards, so I’ll have to find a larger bank in Hualien City when I go there on Monday to apply for my ARC.
I have already overused the adjective “glorious” on the scenery around here, and I am perilously close to overusing “legendary” to describe Chinese hospitality. Principal Lee didn’t want me being wet or uncomfortable by taking Esmerelda to my medical exam in the rain last week (about 10 km), so he made arrangements for Joe to borrow someone’s car.
Do you remember when, as kids, we used to hold our books in front of our faces so the teachers wouldn’t see us chewing gum? It didn’t occur to us, until a few thousand
Hualien Street Scene
At first, the traffic was very intimidating. There seemed to be rules, just a sort of "sauve qui peut" attitude. A year later, it all made sense. lines later, that holding a book up was in fact a neon sign advertising what we were up to. Well, there is a new twist on that. Pretend to have a cold, and wear a cotton mask to conceal the sin of verboten mastication. I caught a girl right away this morning. Pretending not to see, I wrote on my computer, “A girl chewing gum looks like a cow chewing its cud”, selected “English to Chinese (traditional)”, and then “translate”. There was a gasp of horror from the Grade 7 girls as the Chinese came up on the screen, and a guffaw from the boys. Without saying a word, I repeated the process with “A boy chewing gum looks like a cow that has turned around and is walking away”.
The kids don’t quite know what to make of me, because my classroom control techniques are very different from those of my Chinese colleagues. I think the reason they obey me is partly just because I am a teacher, but mostly because they don’t quite know what to expect from me. I try not to use Chinese procedures, because I’m not Chinese but also because my reason for being
A Nice Picture of Lao-puo
I took this picture at Taroko Gorge some years ago. I am including it for no reason other than it is a good picture of her. here is as much cultural as linguistic.
One of my colleagues is a retired ROC army major, and I think he saves a lot of money on his long-distance phone calls. He was up on the second floor outdoor hallway, and I saw that he noticed that two girls were sauntering along, outside the school and a good half-block away, after the bell had rung. He barked at them in a voice you could have heard in Manila, and the two kids immediately sprinted to class.
I have wireless Internet in “my” language lab, and it was wonderful talking to Lao-puo this morning. I unplugged my power source and, working on battery, I walked around the room and held the notebook computer (with integrated webcam) up to the window. She saw my flowering tree and my mountains. When I went out into the hall (outdoor corridor in Chinese schools) I could give her yet another view—a panorama of the schoolyard, beautiful downtown Guangfu, and more mountains in the distance.
My new-found fondness for Chinese tea having worked its inevitable effect, I followed the bilingual sign to “teachers restroom.” That’s right, a unisex job. There is a row of urinals on one side of the room—no door at the entrance, by the way—you point peter at the porcelain with 500 kids walking by. There is a row of cubicles along the other side—Asian jobs. Don’t ask me how you use one—I don’t know squat about Asian toilets.
Some of the public restrooms in Taiwan have some Asian toilets, and some western ones. A few years ago I took a picture of the symbol for Asian fixtures that was on a cubicle door, and called the photo “shark viewing is best done from a squatting position”.
Being about as mature as some of my junior high kids, I sent it as an e-card to some of my classmates from the orientation.
One reply made my day. “Thanks Doug. I’m a visual learner, and I now see that I’ve been doing this ass-backwards.” The only thing I enjoy more than being a center-of-attention comedian is being one-upped.
Hualien City is certainly different from Taipei. Joe took me in today to get my Alien Resident Certificate, which was issued on the spot instead of the usual three-day wait. We then went over to the Hualien County Government Office (where he worked until 7 months ago), to shoot the breeze with his former colleagues. I had mentioned that I wanted an English-language map of Hualien City, so he took me to the Tourist Office. They gave me a map, and a tourism CD of the place.
We popped over to the bus terminal (right beside the train station in Hualien), then over to the motorcycle place to get two spare keys for Esmerelda. The keys were very expensive (NTD 710 for two—that’s $24 Canadian), because they have a microchip in them. You cannot just copy them on a grinder. Provided I remember the U-lock for the front wheel (as well as remembering to remove it before I try to drive away), and if I don’t leave the key in the ignition, Esmerelda is pretty theft-proof.
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