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Published: March 5th 2008
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With 802, Resting on Their Laurels.
The students all showed great enthusiasm for the Sports Day, and the teachers had a blast as well. Insofar as life is ever "normal" for foreigners living in Taiwan, life has returned to normal after our wonderful holiday. Lunar New Year has come and gone, as has Lantern Festival.
We had Thursday February 28th off for Peace Memorial Day. This is a politically charged pro-independence holiday, to commemorate the massacre of peaceful anti-KMT protesters in 1948, and it will likely be taken away as soon as the KMT gets back in on March 22. The KMT already swept the DPP (pro-independence) people from power in the legislative elections, and will no doubt get rid of the DPP presidential candidate. It promises to be a lively election day.
Our school’s Sports Day was on Saturday last week, but we got the following Monday March 3rd off to make up for it. Sports Days are very different over here. Each class designs a flag, and there is a march-past just before the national anthem and flag-raising song. The class leader barks out the “eyes-right”, and the bearer dips the flag as the class salute the reviewing stand, or waves, or whatever. One class, I guess not understanding the cultural message, give the dignitaries the straight-armed "sieg heil" It’s quite
impressive actually—they’re dressed off half-decently and there are no more than a handful out of step in each class. One division made face masks out of big tropical leaves, and another (having just finished a unit on sex education) sported signs urging abstinence, safe sex, safer sex, and “sufer sex” (whatever that is). It could have been “suffer sex” or “surfer sex”, or maybe just Chinese phonics, but you never know--what with California nonsense and shenanigans and so on. Some of the kids were in aboriginal dress, as their culture is alive and vibrant here on the east coast. The local dance group was there too. It was great fun. The kids sprinted and relayed and tugged-of-war as if the future of the free world depended on the outcome.
It would sure be nice if people buzzed English advertising past a native speaker before use. With a few minutes to kill before my train, I wandered into the Canadian Tire equivalent and poked around in the auto supply section. The store was selling a tailpipe attachment that promised to provide “superb ass sounds”. (On my oath, I’m not kidding). I wondered which noun was being modified by the adjective,
It was nice to see some of the grads.
They survived my classes, and many are now building their lives and careers in Hualien and Taipei. Some will stay in Guangfu. because sound inarguably detracts from the superbness of an ass. I guess they’re referring to the “ass end” of a car—as teenagers talk.
I must admit to having had a twinge of homesickness the other day. First light is earlier these days, and it now happens halfway through my morning train ride to Guangfu. It was a clear day, for once, and the distant mountains of the Central Range were covered in snow! Just like at home. Whenever it snows up in the mountains here, people like to go up to see it. Some of my students have never seen snow up close. I guess I'm coming to think about home anyway these days, as I am beginning to get a sense that my time here is no longer unlimited.
July will come soon enough. In the meantime, the Gods have relented (or at least the Ministry of Education has), and we are getting Friday April 4th off for Tomb-Sweeping Day. Betty tells us that a number of the foreign teachers from around Taiwan are coming to Hualien for the break, so I will see some old friends and make some new ones. They are also planning a
Ling-ling
We can only hope that things turn out well for her.
UPDATE: Ling ling HAS BEEN ADOPTED into a good home!! trip to Kinmen Island another weekend, but Lao-puo and I will not be able to go.
Renée (our daughter) will be coming out to visit as soon as her university exams are over on April 24th. She has been on a salary deferral to finish up her degree. As an early graduation gift, Lao-puo and Renee will tootle around Asia for a few weeks. Lao-puo has cooked up a most interesting plan, including Taipei and Hong Kong…I can’t keep up with it! They will just have to tell me about it when they get back. I have to work, and this will be one of those female-bonding things for them. I'm sure to be able to amuse myself while they are gone. We will have a few days in Taipei before Renee goes home, and we will see to it that she gets a good overview of Taiwan while she's at it.
Talk about a long flight for the poor girl. Kingston to Toronto on a local carrier, Toronto to Vancouver on Air Canada, and Vancouver to Taipei non-stop on EVA Airlines. She will be arriving at 0540 on Sunday morning April 27th. Lao-puo and I will drive to Taipeii the day before to run her home, but it's another three hours in the car from Taipei to Hualien. Excited? Who, me?
It seems that I'm no better than Lao-puo for taking on unwanted dogs. I came upon a little waif on the street late last Saturday afternoon—a purebred French bulldog (we found out later) with a rabies tab and dragging a leash. “Someone’s lost pet,” says Sir Douglas (riding to the rescue on his little blue motorbike). She jumped on the bike, and I rode her home.
Chinese people double up monosyllabic words under certain circumstances. I wanted to name the little dog “Lung-lung” (even though “lung” is “dragon” in Chinese) because her breathing makes her sound like a steam engine with asthma. Suzanne suggested Ling-ling, which is even better. (“Ling” is “zero” in Chinese, and “Ling-ling” reflects the chances we’ll keep her—with two of our own already.
“We can look after her until Monday morning, then trace her through the rabies tag,” continues brave Sir Douglas. Yeah right. There was no microchip, and the tag belonged to another dog. Our kindly animal hospital took Ling-ling, and agreed to try to find a home for her. She will be a hard sell—not house trained, blind in one eye from a cataract, and puffing and snorting to beat the band. She falls all the time too, because she has poor depth perception from the monocular vision. She’s a nice little dog, all the same.
My cousin Bob and Tomomi will visit us from Hong Kong on March 20th. They get the Easter long weekend off in Hong Kong, but Good Friday and Easter Monday are just regular workdays over here. We will probably go downtown to catch the election shenanigans. It promises to be lively.
I forgot to take my camera to Sports Day, so I will have to use pictures my colleagues and students took. Since I haven't done a blog entry for a few weeks now, I'll get this off now and add some more pictures later.
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