Chapter 19

Monday, October 26th

Tabbi was supposed to arrive back in Taiwan last night, but there’s been some type of fluke with the plane….she’s stuck in Tokyo for another day….one more day of craziness, I can do this!!!

I went on my weekly hike with Peggy and her two friends this morning. We don’t go that early, about 8ish, but for some reason, I am still so tired. When I get home I always want to get back into bed! After hiking today, the girls wanted to go get some coffee. I told them I’m not much of a coffee drinker—they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. One of the other ladies is Christian, so she knows a little bit about Mormons, “It’s okay,” she said, “we will get you cocoa milk.” Who doesn’t love a little Ovaltine after a good workout? I love that I was just sippin’ my ‘cocoa milk’ and chatting with the ladies as they were drinking their coffee. The Christian sister turned to me, “You like cocoa milk; I give it to my kids—very healthy!” Yep, sure is.

Tuesday, October 27th

After four months of living together, us girls decided to have our very first Roommate Dinner. We eat together quite often, but never have we cooked a meal together—our kitchen just doesn’t suffice. Hanna’s mom sent her a Halloween package with some fish taco seasoning, so we decided to try our hands at fish tacos. There actually wasn’t much cooking involved; we bought pre-cooked fish, got Hit Cookie tortillas from our friend Jerry, and then picked up some cabbage and limes. However, we did mix up our own sauce. The tacos were amazing…so delicious! After stuffing our faces with one taco, we went in for a second. Our best decision all day was that first taco…but our worst decision, unfortunately, was the second. We all felt sick afterward. I guess we’ve adjusted to the Asian style of eating far too well—just a little bit at a time.

It’s official, I’m going backpacking throughout SE Asia. Hanna, Tabbi, and I held our first official Lady Business meeting this evening, and….we made our first big purchase….we booked our flights to Singapore! We’re going to start there, train up to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and then land ourselves on the beautiful beaches of Thailand….that’s what we have planned so far anyway, there’s still more to come! I’m sooooo excited!

Wednesday, October 28th

Well, you’ll be surprised to know that today was just another average day. I don’t have a funny story about one of my stinky, sweaty kids; nor do I have an embarrassing moment about me walking into a boy’s bathroom again…just a normal day. However, tomorrow we are celebrating Halloween with our students! I’m so excited….ghosts, goblins, and witches….I can’t wait. We don’t have a lot of resources around these parts, so hopefully we teachers can be scrappy enough to put something together!

Thursday, October 29th

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! A little early I know, but that’s how we do it here in the Orient. The other teachers and I woke up early to get ourselves ready for the big day. I was a witch, Sarah was a skeleton, Hanna still wasn’t sure, Sammy was a pirate, and Tabbi was cute, little Minnie Mouse. With limited supplies, we tried to deck ourselves out: hair, make-up, dress, the works….Sarah was still struggling with her hair though, so when we got to school, I pulled out my professional hair-doing skills! I had a pick, Sarah had hair spray, and Maryland school had a blow dryer….the combination was deadly. Growing up in southern Utah, I know all about the poof, not to mention my mother is an expert stylist—she taught me well. Tabbi couldn’t believe the sight she saw when she arrived at work, she had no idea we were dressing up as Death….caught in a tornado! Ha, after Sarah’s coiffure was finished, I moved on to my next victim....Hanna! Since Hanna didn’t know what she wanted to be, we turned her into a black widow: credit must be given to her mother, Ray Ray, she was our inspiration because she sent Hanna some fun spider earrings. I used Tabbi’s flat iron to curl Hanna’s hair into some fun spirals, and then we ratted that head of hers to the high heavens! We also gave her some nice face makeup. Due to my novice abilities, Black Widow met Kiss at approximately 12:00 noon, haha….nonetheless, she looked great!

When the children arrived to school I pulled out my witch cackle and ran after them as if I were the wicked witch of the west! Little Tim didn’t know what to do, he practically tried to get back into the van he had just stepped out of, he could hardly get past me without having the gibes scared out of him. …and then there was Scott, I’m not sure whether it was Sarah or me, but one of us put the boy in tears—poor kid. Sarah just kept trying to consol him, but I think she forgot what she looked like; creatures from the grave don’t exactly put someone at rest.

The rest of the day we played Halloween Bingo, made Oreo Spiders, and had a costume contest. We also made a makeshift haunted house in our tiny gym. I was surprised by how scared some of the kids got in the haunted house—I practically had to push my three girls, Annie, Megan, and Vicky through the whole thing. What a spooky and crazy day!

After work, us girls couldn’t just go straight home to get in our pj’s. We wanted to show off our costumes, so we decided to go out to dinner, ha! We went to Max and Vivian’s, currently our new favorite place—everyone knows us there. As if we don’t get stared down enough, WOW…we got some major double takes on the bike ride to Viv’s, let’s see: (1) we’re Americans (2) with outrageous costumes (3) dressed up for no apparent reason….(remember, Halloween isn’t exactly celebrated here, and we did celebrate a little early too). One of the cooks at Max and Vivian’s just kept saying, “Oh My Gosh!!!” then he continued to tell Hanna, AKA Kiss, that she was sexy!!! We had a great time!

Friday, October 30th

Today it was confirmed to me that my little kids do understand what I am saying, and therefore, they are learning English. Maybe they aren’t exactly the best at speaking English, but they can definitely hear and understand English. In gym today, we were playing Ghost in the Graveyard, only fitting for the weekend. Basically, its freeze tag with the lights down low….the kids go crazy whenever we play this game, something about no lights, they love it. Well, Kerry was the Ghost and he accidently clocked Joe in the face when he was running around tagging people. Joe doesn’t do so well being hit, accident or not, he has a temper and he hasn’t yet figured out how to control it. I had to stop the game, turn on the lights, and try to explain to Joe that the whole thing was an accident. Joe was mad at Kerry for hitting him, and Joe was mad at me for not getting mad at Kerry…I tried to explain to Joe what an ‘accident’ meant, but he was having none of it. As I was talking to him and trying to calm him down, I kept saying, “Joe, it’s okay, listen to teacher….listen to teacher….listen to teacher…..” It was about at that moment that Joe decided to stick his fingers in his ears as if he wasn’t listening. Ooooh that boy! I couldn’t believe it, at least I know the kids understand me, maybe not in the way I’d wish, but they’re definitely catching on.

Another story from Jimmy and Scott: once again, the boys showed me to my seat in kitchen. They won’t sit down until I do, so respectful. I always ask for a hug after I sit down, and most of the time, I’ll get one. Today, Jimmy jumped on my lap for a BIG hug; Scott just started to walk away. As Scott was going to his seat, Jimmy blurted out, “SCOTT, hug teacher!” It was so funny….

Saturday, October 31st

All of us teachers spent the day at Mingdao University with one of our students, Kitty, and her parents, George and Grace. George and Grace are both professors and they are the nicest people ever; they are always making sure us teachers are taken care of. Well, George asked a favor of us. His department was putting together some international event for all their students, and they wanted The Americans to come talk about their experiences in a foreign land. So yes, we went and told all of our experiences. George assured us that the students would understand English as well as our students at Maryland, but judging by the blank stares we got, I don’t think they understood a lick of what we were saying. Oh well, it wasn’t like we prepared some great presentation.

For the rest of the day, we split into groups for some fun activities: paintballing and kayaking (two things I’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t had the chance yet). My group didn’t really have any English speakers….we sat in silence. I can’t believe how much Chinese I’ve lost since stopping language exchange, I mean, I never knew much, but what I did know is all out the window. There were two cute girls in my group, we just wanted to talk to each other, but the language barrier made it impossible. I decided to have them teach me some Chinese so we could at least exchange a few words.

Paintballing was a blast! Hanna and I were a little nervous at first because we didn’t know what to expect. We had to sit in on a half-hour orientation, which only built up our anxiousness. After we passed through all the ‘safety’ talk, we got geared up with some face masks and bullet-proof vests—that was our only protection. As we hit the battlefield, our hearts were pounding; we didn’t know what we were doing. “Three, Two, One…..FIRE,” yelled our instructor….war was on! I slid to a nearby barrel that acted as a shield, and then the shooting began. It was so fun, I really got into it. I was doing well, until the end, I got a little careless thinking I was invisible or something, and of course, I was shot….dead in the face. Whoops. No worries, it didn’t hurt, just a little sting.

After paintballing, Hanna and I were led by our groups to our next adventure: kayaking! We got together in a double-person kayak. It took us a minute to get our rowing synchronized, but once we did, we were the dream team out on that lake. What a fun time!

George and Grace took us teachers out to dinner after the day’s events. We went to a cool restaurant up the mountain near the high speed railway. We sat out on a balcony that was situated right beside the railway tracks. Every 15 minutes or so, the high speed train would zoom past us—it was pretty sweet. We got our fruit teas (not really tea), watched a gorgeous sunset, and enjoyed the company of friends.

Emily’s Birthday! When we got back from our excursion with George and Grace, the day was hardly over. We were home long enough to use the restroom and then we were off again. It was our secretary, Emily’s, birthday, so we went bowling! I haven’t been bowling forever!!!! None of us are expert bowlers, but we had so much fun. Best part, the bowling alley didn’t smell like smoke. After a little bowling, we went and had waffles and ice cream, so yummy! On our way home we saw one of our old summer students, Jamie, she’s adorable! She was riding front-saddle on her mom’s scooter. I miss having her at school.

Sunday, November 1st

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve hung out with JoAnna and Martin’s family (my high school students), so tonight we made dinner plans. Frank (the kids’ dad) was going to pick me up at the apartment around sixish. So there I was, getting ready for the evening, when all of the sudden, I heard Hanna yell from the stair well, “SPIDER!” I came out of my room to see what the fuss was about…..and oh my goodness, the sight I saw was horrific….there, perched on the plant shelf, was a huge, furry, eight-legged creature!!! I couldn’t help myself from screaming.

Hanna practically ran away (she also had dinner plans), so she just left me standing there, not knowing what to do. Thanks. When Sarah heard the commotion, she came out to see what was going on. We yelled for Sammy to come save us from the creature, but he himself was a little shocked at the size of IT….yes, the spider was about as big as my entire hand…..ewh, SO GROSS! At first, Mr. Furry Legs wasn’t moving, so we calmed down a bit, thinking, maybe he’s dead??? That thought was too good to be true. A moment later, he started to creep across the ledge. Pretty soon, Sarah and I couldn’t see Furry Legs anymore….we started freaking out again. We couldn’t go to bed with that THING crawling around our house. We had a hunch that he crawled behind a picture frame, the only one resting on the ledge. Sammy grabbed a broom, and with one stab, he pinned the picture upright against the wall, hopefully smashing Furry Legs with it….a little nervous to look behind the picture, I got the courage to take a peak. Sure enough, Furry Legs was there, poor thing was crumpled all up…I then sprayed him with some nasty bug killer to make sure he wouldn’t suddenly regain movement in his legs and jump on me! Ooooh, I hate spiders!

Well, soon after the Furry Legs episode, Frank came to pick me up for dinner. Wow, Martin and JoAnna’s family is so kind—they definitely wine and dine me. They took me to a very nice Japanese restaurant where we actually had an entire room to ourselves…I’m sure the restaurant was super expensive, but I never saw any prices.

The menu: First dish, Sashimi. No, I didn’t eat sushi; I ate sashimi, fresh RAW fish. It was the real deal, served on ice, with dipping sauce, wasabi, and ginger. I have no idea what kind of fish I ate, but it was good….I’m sure a little salmon and tuna was in the mix, but there were other selections as well. Second, apple salad served in an apple; we ate the whole dish. Third, Shrimp soup; I had to snap off the head of the shrimp and tear off the legs, so much work. Fourth, rice and caviar. Fifth, a couple legs of mutton; quite tasty might I add. I really liked it, not joking. Sixth, baked shrimp with a layer of melted cheese. Seventh, Fruit; guava and watermelon. This was probably one of the best seven course meals I’ve ever had!

After dinner I went back to Martin and JoAnna’s house. It was funny because Martin and JoAnna went right upstairs and I never saw them again…at dinner they hardly spoke two words too! It’s Taiwanese culture to keep quiet when you’re in the presence of your elders, and Frank and Helen are very traditional. So, back at the house I chatted with Frank and Helen. Their home is amazing! I felt like I was in a real American house. For American standards, it would still be considered a bit small, but it was beautiful….decorated, and not cluttered. They have soft couches, a nice flat screen TV, and beautiful tile floors….everything you don’t usually see in a regular home in Asia. Outside their home they have a small yard, too, with a courtyard, plants, and flowers. What? I really enjoyed my time with Frank and Helen. Frank wants me to come back and get my MBA at Taipei University….haha, we shall see!

Another great week in Taiwan!