Blogs from Taiwan, Asia - page 121

Less than two days left. I left Taipei yesterday to go to Taichung further down the island. Taichung is Mavis' home town and the third largest city in Taiwan. My last days in Taipei contained some more good shopping as well as a visit to the worlds tallest building Taipei 101 and a backstage sneak-in to see the West Side Story. Michelle, another friend of Mavis', is a professional musician and plays the bassoon in the orchestra, so she brought us in through the backdoor. Even though musicals isn't my favourite art form, I enjoyed the show! Taipei 101 was very touristy and in the fastest elevator in the world they displayed the speed in the very common unit meters per minute just so that they could reach the magic number of 1000. The view was ... read more

So after unknowingly using face-wash as body lotion for the past 2 weeks I have concluded that my deductive reasoning skills may not be as sharp as I once thought they were…either that or four months of being in Taiwan hasn’t made my Chinese any better… The past month has been hectic as the Dragon Boat races are coming up soon. These days we’re practicing about 5 times a week and have started to use the actual boat we will be competing in, on the Love River. The river practices have been much better in many ways since it’s nice NOT to be sitting by the side of a swimming pool rowing water and never getting anywhere…however, the course on the river is a lot longer than I had expected. My arms and back are starting ... read more

Mother...this post is just for you on a very happy Mother's Day. Even as I sit and write this, I can see the lights on Taipei 101 read M-O-M with a heart for the O. Maybe I should do some reminiscing about travels in the past with my family...all which are some of the great memories I own...but unfortunately, there is just too much to write to do that now. I am finally making some great friends here. And fortunately, they come in the form of very local Taiwanese people that are incredibly welcoming and friendly. One of the coteachers that I work this, Lee Jia Feng, invited me to go on a white water rafting trip with her last weekend. She actually assumed I would say no, because the group included 16 other Taiwanese locals, ... read more

So, a funny thing happened to me last Thursday. While I was preparing for a demonstration in front of all the students' parents, I was summoned by a fellow Chinese teacher to quickly run up to the 6th floor. There, I was instructed to hide as our small little school was getting RAIDED by the Taiwanese government. The official law prohibits foreigners from teaching English to Kindergarten-aged children. They believe that children should have the benefits of learning Chinese first before they start learning English. So...this law has been around for a while, and is almost never enforced. Today there are roughly 8000 foreigners teaching Kindergarteners English! The law is very outdated, and the Taiwanese government is slowly starting to make it easier for foreigners to teach kindergarters. But...anyway, the way my school gets around this ... 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