The Land Where It's Already Tomorrow, Chapter 17: Busted in Da Ba Long, Reading Material, Elastic Shenanigans, Ami Yodels

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I’m starting this on my Monday night, early Monday morning at home. Where is home? I don’t know anymore.

Esmerelda is tucked away, because it’s raining.

I forgot to mention that I was busted the other day.

I don’t like to buy my beer in Guangfu, because there are always kids around who would see me, and comment. (The only thing I don’t like about being a teacher is being obliged to set a good example). I went to the next little town, about 5 km away, and popped into a ma and pa store. Just as I was coughing up, I heard a girl’s voice say “Hello Teacher Doug!” I whipped around in astonishment, and there was Amy—one of the favourites that I’m not supposed to have. It was her parents’ store—the family lives upstairs—and it was Amy’s grandmother that I was paying for the beer. Her grandmother is my age, by the way. How in the hell did Amy get home from school that fast, on her bike?

It seems a guy can’t even go to the bathroom around here without something interesting happening. As if the unisex “teachers’ restroom” with no door to the outside isn’t noteworthy enough. There is paper with Chinese writing in front of the urinals, with fine print—presumably to encourage the guys to stand close—so I to put on my reading glasses on before I could see more than a blur--at the bottom of the page was written in red, in English, (on my oath)—

Charlotte: I mean, orgasms don’t send you flowers on Valentine’s Day, or hold your hand during sad movies.

God knows what all the Chinese above it was about, but given its location it must have been directed at a male readership.

Valentine’s Day is always interesting at home—the husbands are three-deep at the card display doing their last-minute “damn-it’s-Valentine’s-Day-and-I-forgot” shopping. I remember one year a fellow consulted me about the card he had selected. Granted, it was slim pickings by then, but I told him that I thought it seemed awfully mushy. The guy disregarded my counsel, and with a “bugger it—close enough”, he made his way to the cashier.

It’s starting to get cold again. Last night I had to shut the window and the screen door in the bedroom. I tested the new heater, and it works like be damned. Only testing it, mind you. The temperature only drops to 25 overnight. The real cold will come later, in another month or so.

The only chore left to do will be a load of laundry, and then I’ll be ready for Lao-puo’s arrival. I will get an early breakfast on Saturday morning, and be in plenty of time for my 8:04 a.m. train to Taipei. By the way, the 804 does not arrive at 803 or 805. Trains are punctual, and very clean and comfortable over here.

I was pleased to find out that it is inexpensive to fly from Hualien to Taipei. It takes 40 minutes to fly, and 3+a bit hours on the train. The aircraft can go over the mountains, but the trains must go around them.

The flight is convenient too—we can ditch Esmerelda at Hualien Airport, and land at Songshan Airport in Taipei, walking distance to the Brown Line MRT (Skytrain). The flight costs about $70 Canadian dollars return. Alice, the Special Education teacher, told me that there is a hostel in Taipei for teachers on Nan Hai Lu that is very inexpensive—about $30 per night for a room. “South Seas St” has a nice ring to it, but I don’t know where that is. Taipei will be a nice occasional outing for us.

Weekend trips around here, and day trips, will keep Lao-puo and I busy for a long time.

I understand that Chiang Kai-shek International Airport has been renamed Taoyuan Taiwan International Airport. People are always trying to rewrite history.

Whenever it’s not raining I like to go for a spin before breakfast. I turn right on to Zhong Shan Lu (the main drag through Guangfu), left just past the sugar refinery, first right and then next first right again so I can cross the highway at a light. Even with a green light I still have to be careful crossing—guys think nothing of punting a full red and expecting the motorbikes to get out of the way. I cross the railway tracks and then a bridge, and sometimes there is a water buffalo grazing in the tall grass at the riverbank. Second left and first right, past the little fish farms to the T intersection in the little hamlet. Left, along the base of the hills, up the hill to the temple, right at the riverbank, bear left at the rice paddies (nicely ready for harvest, by the way), through the betel palms groves, left again and over the bridge, left again to the aboriginal village, and back along the highway. What a splendid way to start a morning!

It seems that I spoke too soon about the kids not availing themselves of the elastic waistbands on their casual school uniforms for the opportunity to pull each other’s pants down. I divided the class into three groups of cheerleading squads the other day, to learn the new cheer for this week.

Go back, go back, go back to the woods.
You don’t have the money and you don’t have the goods.
You might have the team, and you might have the jazz,
But you don’t have the spirit that our class has.

This is to the accompaniment of exaggerated movements of rocking on their heels and jerking their thumbs behind their ears. This is called the TPR (total physical response) method of language acquisition. It’s a pity they didn’t use TPR for sex education when we were kids those decades ago, but that’s as may be.

Just as I directed everyone’s attention to one group, a little monkey stepped behind his pal and whipped his pants down right in front of the whole class. Naturally, pandemonium broke out, and that was the end of the cheerleading for the morning.

I had conflicting thoughts, as follows.
· That little so-and-so deliberately disrupted my class. I can’t allow that.
· It was funny, mind you.
· I must punish him.
· That’s hypocritical. I would have done the same thing, at that age. But I’m not his age so it’s not hypocritical.
· He exposed his friend, (there will now be a brief pause while the reader expresses whatever at my lame puns), to humiliation in front of everyone, and I have to deal with that.
· If his pal was so humiliated, why is he laughing his head off?

The lecture after class, with Teacher Amber translating into elegant Mandarin, went something like this:

Your own parents, and the parents of your classmates, work very hard to make money to pay their taxes and the tuition fees so that you and everyone else in the class can have an education and thus a better life—if you want it. (even public schools charge modest tuition fees here). What are they paying for? For me to come all the way from Canada to teach you English, or for you to act the fool pulling someone’s pants down? On second thought, you aren’t acting the fool, you are the fool. Don’t give me that fake humble look, and don’t say “I’m sorry” just because you think it’s what I want to hear. You aren’t sorry in the slightest, and I’m not impressed in the slightest.” After a pause for dramatic effect, I continue. OK. I have scolded you, and forgiven you. Go and get your lunch.”

Junior high students are still children, and often I feel like I have 520 grandchildren.

I had a treat last weekend. There was a big crowd at the school when I drove by on my way to Hualien, so I whipped in to see what was going on. There was some kind of an aboriginal dance activity going on, and the gym floor and bleachers were both full of people in traditional clothing doing the most incredible dancing. There were no spectators, everyone was participating in part of the festivities. It was as good as anything in Hawaii—and it was free.

This (Wednesday) morning, I had another treat. “What’s everyone doing in the gym?” I asked myself as I rode into the school grounds. Therein lies a tale—I feel like a hypocrite riding a motorbike not only onto the school grounds but then indoors, when the kids are told to walk their bikes and they get a blast if they don’t.

If a reader were to accuse me of wild exaggeration at this point, I would be hard-pressed to blame you. The entire school was there, doing the movements of what I later learned to be an Ami war dance, in the style of American line-dancing, to the tune of Swiss yodeling!

On my oath, I’m not making this stuff up.

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Photos

Lao-puo, Skyped Up and on the Screen...
...and one of my grade seven classes enjoying talking to her.

Amy's Brother Mike is a Good Kid...
...who kept his mouth shut about the beer too.

And We Get to Actually Live Here!
We get paid to do so, instead of paying the moon for a few weeks of it.