The Land Where It's Already Tomorrow, Chapter Chapter 03: Fractured English, NAER at Sansia, Pole-Dancing Fools

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I continue to be baffled by some of the English slogans I see over here. Just before I left Taipei on Monday morning, I saw a young woman wearing a t-shirt that said “Don’t be jealous”. She appeared to have been bitten by a mosquito that came back for seconds, so I concluded that she could not possibly be directing her comment to other women. These days later, I still have no idea regarding the significance of the words.The driver arrived at Banchiao Train Station on the dot, and took me to the National Academy for Educational Research. This is a lovely facility here, and I share a dorm room with an affable young fellow from Langley. Most of the other teachers are Americans. The outfit feeds us well, Chinese style. The tables are pre-set with fish, chicken, pork, two kinds of vegetables, rice noodles, fruit, broth with tofu and seaweed, and sweet bean soup for desert. The dining hall is very pleasant, with nice music in the background. One woman can’t eat anything because she’s vegan, so they dished her up a nice plate. However, they gave her “cho dofu” instead of meat. I’m not kidding, ‘cho dofu” is “stinky tofu” and that’s the real name. There was even an opening ceremony yesterday morning, with keynote speakers—bigwigs from the Ministry of Education—who thanked us and welcomed us. Three of the four speakers, including the deputy, didn’t speak English, so I guess that means we have our work cut out for us. A gaggle of us went to the night market after the evening session, and stopped for “a beer” on the way home. Yeah right. It was a karaoke place, with a minimum charge of $NT 200 per person. We ordered a box of “da bei Taiwan pijo” (big bottles of Taiwan beer), and got busy. We were an approximately equal number of men and women, so we sang, danced, did a can-can and even a pole dance, and almost missed curfew. They lock the dorms at 2300. Even at that, one of the guys tapped on our window and said “Hey Doug! Mike! Let me in, willya?”. I guess he lingered to chat up the servers, or stopped for a whiz on the way back. Possibly in a futile effort to make me responsible and cure me of pole-dancing, the administrator asked me to be class leader this morning. Tonight we had a temple tour, and tomorrow night we have to work again doing lesson plans for our demo lessons that we’ll be doing the next day.I’m enjoying the material, and they even give us a certificate when we’re done.To be honest, I’ve no idea what to expect when I get to Hualien County next Thursday. Some good and some bad, it seems. Guangfu Township is at least half an hour south of Hualien City, and the road is dangerous in heavy traffic and at night. Da Ma Village doesn’t even show on the map. I understand that the majority of the students at Guangfu Junior High School might be aboriginal, which is a good thing because their language is phonetic thus making English (hopefully) a bit easier for them. One of the other teachers here (Danny) lives in Hualien County with his family. He rents a house, as opposed to an apartment, for half of what we paid for our apartment in Taipei. Whatever the challenges, I have confidence in my ability to do a good job here.

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Photos

MOE Teachers, Class of 95
Our gaggle had a temple tour one night. Every time I go on one, I learn something new.

Happy Doug, in Class
It was a great ten days at the National Academy for Educational Research in Sansia, Taipei County.

The "Good Teacher" Garden
Both the grounds and the buildings at NAER were very beautiful.