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Published: October 8th 2007
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National Academy for Education Research
NAER is in Sansia, Taipei County, and it's a great place to start a Taiwan experience. February 27, 96 (as I start to write this)
This week will be short and crazy. I must start the new semester with a two-day week, with the Peace Memorial Day national holiday breaking up the week on Wednesday. We (the Hualien County contingent of six foreign English teachers) will be using Wednesday morning to travel to Taipei for a conference, and I will not be home again until Sunday afternoon. Lao-puo is staying home, because it is really easy to get behind on her intensive Chinese course. The conference will be over at noon on Saturday, but I’m staying until the next day to have dinner with some friends and to hang out in the big city.
There are only two national holidays left in the school year—Tomb Sweeping Day on April 5th and Dragon Boat Festival on June 19th. People get the stat on the day in which it falls. Tomb Sweeping is on a Thursday this year, so we get the Friday off but must work the following Saturday to make up for it. No worries—I’ll ride the motorbike out to Guangfu on Saturday. Lao-puo can use my train pass to meet me after school,
Detail of Beautiful NAER Architecture
This is very Asian styling, and the designs can be more elaborate because the cost of labour is so much cheaper in Taiwan than in Canada. and we will whip down to the hot springs at Rueiseui for a dinner and a soak and an overnight rest. It’s only about 20 minutes from my school to the hot springs.
All my classes were cancelled this (Monday) afternoon, for a professional development meeting. It’s hard to say just how much my professionalism got developed, as the entire activity was in Chinese. At least I got my semester plans distributed to my colleagues, and my schedule more or less figured out. Unless the Hualien County Board of Education puts a broom handle in my spokes, it looks like I’ll be returning to my school in September. The first year in a new school is laying a lot of foundation work, from which the benefits can be reaped the following year.
There isn’t as much difference between the number of hours of sunlight and darkness here as there is farther north, but it is now light as I roll through the valley on my way to school. Yesterday was a real treat—I saw someone’s water buffalo grazing in a field, and a beautiful ring-necked pheasant enjoying his breakfast buffet of newly planted rice.
On Sunday night
Our Gaggle in the Lecture Hall...
...waiting for the da lao-ban to come to talk to us. we had a wonderful buffet at a nearby vegetarian place. I don’t usually use the words “wonderful” and “vegetarian” in the same sentence, but the food over here has to be tasted to be believed.
It is now Tuesday the 6th, and my run in the big city is now over. Whenever I go to Taipei, I am always impressed by how stylish the place is—more so than Guangfu and even Hualien. The fashion is for women to wear tight short shorts with hose and high-heeled shoes (the ones we used to call “Saturday night shit-kickers” in my day). Everyone seems to dress very fashionably, even for leisure activities.
It was a wonderful conference, and I was left with mixed feelings of admiration for the talent of my colleagues and my determination to emulate them. Many kind colleagues invited Lao-puo and I to visit—everywhere from Taitung in the southeast to Kaohsiung in the southwest to Kinmen in Taiwan Strait.
Kinmen Island is actually PRC territory occupied by ROC troops (Beijing argues that so is all Taiwan), and it’s less than 2 km from the mainland. One of the major industries on the island is distilling kaoliang liquor,
Beautiful Gardens
This is a plumeria tree in the "Good Teacher Garden". presumably for use in the armed forces’ flame-throwers. I understand that Kinmen is heavily mined, some of the beaches are unsafe, and that the military is spending a fortune to lift the mines out. I was aghast to learn that the fellows digging out the mines are civilians from Zimbabwe, not combat engineers. I guess that even though they don’t make much money it’s a lot more than they can get at home.
There are no silly laws over here about liquor with meals, or having to buy food to get a drink, or any of that nonsense. We had hot pot last Wednesday night in Sansia, in a place that didn’t serve alcohol, so we just whipped out to the corner store for our beer. On Thursday night after dinner we occupied some riverside tables at a seafood place, and had so much beer that the lao-ban fed us anyway. The breakfast at the National Academy for Education Research was more western this time—even if we did eat our bacon and eggs with chopsticks. One morning they gave us a kind of almond-flavoured soy drink instead of coffee.
I sometimes wonder what if anything I am accomplishing
Covered Walkways at NAER...
...are necessary because of the frequent, sudden downpours. here, but once in a while I find a diamond in my gravel. Most of my students stay around Guangfu for the break, but one girl went to Thailand with her family. She excitedly told me, when school started again, that she actually initiated a conversation with a foreign guy! I often think that if I accomplish nothing more than the students having less fear and shyness around foreign people, and willingness to speak up in English, I will have done something in my year.
Last night Lao-puo reached yet another milestone—she rode her motorbike at night in the rain. She was more or less alone, because I kept my distance from her so that she would figure things out. The only remaining skills are not critical for her to master, but convenient for me—Lao-puo has never carried a passenger. I want her to master that skill, so that she can bring me home from parties.
Speaking of which, we will be having a little do in “the submarine” as I call our lodgings, on Saturday night. Sushi and DVD’s, and wine and talk, can make for a nice evening. It will have to be a very small
Paul and I at Lunch
The pop bottle is sealed with a marble. You have to push against the marble with a little plastic doodad to open the bottle. group, but fun nevertheless. We can have a larger group when we move to a bigger place once Lao-puo’s course is over and we can figure out what we want to do. Both of us really like the neighbourhood where we are now.
I managed to twist my knee playing basketball at the winter camp, but physiotherapy (for which the user fee is a dollar and half Canadian) and anti-inflammatory pills were helping a lot. I used up the pills, missed my daily physio because I was away for the conference, and now I’m worse than when I had the injury in the first place. Walking from one end of Taipei to the other didn’t help. To make a long story short (the opposite of what I usually do), I’m walking with a cane for few days now. I ride my motorbike (no foot controls) down to the train station, where there is free parking within 10 m of the entrance. It’s strange to pull up on a scooter, whip out a collapsible cane from under the seat, and limp away. My train pass does not provide a reserved seat, but if the train is crowded in the afternoon someone will usually let me sit down. I then give up my seat for anyone elderly or pregnant, or worse off physically that I am for the moment. After my recovery I should keep the collapsible cane handy--so I can whip it out and glare at the louts taking up the priority seating.
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