Blogs from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Asia - page 11

and I am now heading off to see my friends---god help me as i venture on the train by myself-most know I had a hard enough time in Germany with someone with me, now by myself--yikes!! Ok well I just finished my last class of the day and it went ok. I say ok because I am not for sure if my students really understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, but I can see that they react well to gestural movements and love to do memory and repetition games--total plus! The kids enjoyed the pig noises I made as i explained to them that Iowa, the state I am from, has a lot of pigs---they even put their finger on their nose and scrunched it up flat like a pig---we had some ... read more

There are some people in life, who just seem to be prepared - you know, for any and every situation…they are never at a loss for words, and they certainly always have something fitting to say when an awkward silence ensues. This is exactly the type of person I WISH I could be… a revelation that came to me the other night when tutoring my 14 year old private, Terry. Terry is a really smart kid, who is extremely shy - it’s taken months for me to get him to really chat with me. Up until now, the best I could do was get him to read an English text…and the other half of the lesson was me acting like a circus animal, desperately trying to get a rise outta him. Tough crowd. The other week, ... read more

The wife and I hopped on a flight from Taipei to Kaoshiung on impulse, and because it was so cheap (she being a flight attendant). When got out of the taxi at Sungshan domestic airport here in Taipei, there was a plane leaving in 15 minutes. It was a clear day and I had a window seat overlooking the Taiwan's Central Mountain Range. It was close to 100 degrees outside, a the blue skies seemed to be frying the clouds into cotton balls of white phosphorous in the sky. Rivers and puffs of clouds glided through the massive valleys of mountain peaks, which seemed to rip up the atmosphere with their jagged summits. 40 minutes later we began out descent, entering a yellow smog zone of napalm scooter and factory exhaust. Three distinct layers of atmosphere ... read more

They say that on average, it takes a person 21 times of repeating a new behaviour to shed a bad habit. Apparently nose-picking in children wasn’t being tested in this study…. Teaching - still something I am learning about, and loving more and more as each week passes…although… if one more kid sneezes in my face I think I might snap! Unleashing ones ‘natural’ bodily functions / noises anywhere, anytime is common practice here, so there are a lot of those ‘functions’ that happening all the time (aren’t you glad I’m telling you this?!). It’s something to get used to… One great policy they enforce at many schools is that anyone who is sick has to wear a hospital mask when at school...sure it may look a little Silence-of-the-Lambs-ish, but without it, we would all have ... read more

Wow!!!! I think we are a tad behind on the blogs, but the trip continues to be great with wonderful surprises around the corners. We arrived in Kaoshiung, Taiwan where Rob (my brother) and Rita (my sister-in-law) live. The trip was awesome! We were able to see the school (see below), eat great food, climb monkey mountain (one of rob's favorites), and really explore the mountains and cities/ villages of taiwan. It was also a special trip for everyone, as rob, rita, surya and I were able to spend great quality time together- a commodity with us living in boston and them in taiwan. Over a year ago Rob and Rita opened a buxiban school- an after-school school that many taiwainese children goto daily to learn different subjects. "Robert's American School" is an english buxiban (pronouned ... read more