Happy Halloween!

No time to write or celebrate, so I just thought I'd share some goofy pics.

Making Peace

Had a couple of meetings today.  Today was bizarrely smooth and peaceful, given the recent nature of relations.

I'm just doing the best I can, not sweating it, and rolling with the punches.  I'm here for a year, and I can't get upset about any pre-existing problems or complex interpersonal issues going on behind the scenes that don't even involve me.

I think I'm learning to just accept things the way they are, and go with the flow as best I can.  I've decided to keep my head down and do my thing and not worry.

I had a meeting with one of the advisors and a local principal concerning this video project we're now doing.  That went pretty well, although there was some conflict between higher powers that didn't involve me at all.  I'm fortunate to have good people looking out for me where it counts.  I know this is all ambiguous, but I can't write too much about it here.

Then we had the weekly ETA meeting, and a joint meeting with all the co-teachers.  It seemed to go pretty well.

From 6:30-8:30 I had the final session of the night class for students and parents.  That went pretty well.  Then I headed home.

Luke has moved from the aboriginal village to our building.  He, Ben and Viktor came over to sit around with Zach and Conroy and I for a while.  It was nice to just talk openly about the program and bond a little.  We've all realized our need to stick together here.

I was worried about leading this project, but I think I can make it work.  I've had lots of encouragement from the other ETAs.  They say they're in 100%, I can count on them, and they'll do what I need them to do.  Big relief.  And I trust them all!  So, I'm happy about that.

I thought before I came here that everything I'd heard about cultural differences and working in a foreign culture and facing conflict would be irrelevant.  I thought, "How hard can it be?  I know that I'm a good person.  I know I have good intentions, and I know that I respect people, so that should guide me through any problems."  But it doesn't work that way.  I've come to see that everything I thought I knew about showing someone respect, addressing problems, assuming responsiblity, and yadda yadda is pretty near worthless here.  It just doesn't apply.  It's not something you see on the street everyday, but people interact in a very different way.  I can't predict anything.  So I don't worry about it anymore, as of today.  I just try to keep a low profile and do what I'm told.  Everything will be fine.

AIT Party

Well, things have been a little tense lately, but they'll be fine. I didn't mean to alarm anyone. But thanks for your concern!

We all went to a party at a university in Taipei on Friday night. It was hosted by the American Institute in Taiwan, the closest thing to an embassy here. There's no embassy because the US doesn't recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. The party was the first annual AIT reception/reunion for current and past Fulbrights in Taiwan. There was a bar and buffet, a couple of speeches, and a modern dance performance by the Battery Dance Company from NYC. Frankly the dance was a lot of solos and quite boring.

The morning before the party, I noticed in the 7-11 that the head of AIT, Stephen Young, was all over the front page of every newspaper on the racks. So I read an English paper. The story was about the US pressuring Taiwan to come through on a five year old agreement to buy submarines, missles and helicopters to protect itself against a possible invasion or attack by China. Read it if you want:

U.S. demands arms decision

2006/10/27
The China Post staff

StephenYoung, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, called on theLegislative Yuan yesterday to vote on a long-delayed arms purchase fromthe United States before the end of this year.

So, another 007 moment kicked in early in the party when Stephen Young strolled up to me, Luke, Ben, and Gina and started discussing the issue, talking about the Russians "shamelessly selling warplanes to the Chinese," and the 800 missles pointed at Taiwan's coast, and "complicated issue" of the submarines. It was kind of fun to talk about this stuff with the top representative of the US in Taiwan.

After the party, I was pretty tired, so I crashed at the hotel.

The next day, I met my friend Allen and he took me to Ikea, where I bought a wardrobe and a lot of crap for my apartment, and had it shipped here. Should arrive on Tuesday!

We went to Danshuei and caught the tail end of a free concert by a famous Taiwanese singer named Coco Lee, and some other pop star.

I want to move to Danshuei!

I took a cab home last night.

Today, I slept in, got a little homework done, and went to nearby recreational kind of area with a teacher at my school (also named Allen) who invited me to go hiking. We went up a mountain, visited a huge Taoist temple. Allen helped me draw a fortune for advice on a current predicament. Apparently I should stay calm and expect to meet someone kind and helpful. :-)

Luodong, from a mountain to the west. My building is the biggest one in the center.

Here's a load of photos from the last few days of teaching.

Look who's eating.

Taiwanese Images of Native Americans

So what's the deal with Taiwan's obsession with Native Americans?  I see this stuff everywhere.  There's the cartoony version, like on the photo below, but even more common is the overly-romanticized version of the noble American Indian in some sort of solemn pose with a head full of feathers.  It's very strange.  It's like they didn't get the memo that the whole ethnic exploitation/patronization thing isn't cool anymore.  We got rid of that in the US at least 10 years ago.  Besides, Taiwan has its own indigenous people, so why does it have to appropriate images of ours?

I just decided to post this little rant after I noticed the brand name and logo of these CD sleeves I bought today.  But really, this stuff is everywhere.  All kinds of brands, logos, and just designs, like t-shirts and stuff.

Flute Concert, English Contest, Photos from the Daily Grind

Last weekend Bobo invited me to a latin jazz flute concert.  We went on Tuesday.  It was at the Yilan Performing Arts Center.  Bobo's dad took us, and he had VIP tickets because principals get hooked up around here.  But he was too busy to stay, so just dropped us off.  The YPAC is actually quite nice.  The auditorium is a small, two level affair, probably seating about 700 or so.  It was very simple with kind of a Japanese style.  Lots of bare wood, straight lines, and a very warm feel.  I hope to go back!  Saw my fellow ETA Ben there.  We were the only two whiteys in the place.  The act was Nestor Torres and his band, whom I'd never heard of before.  They're from all over Latin America, but addressed the audience in English, and there was a translator.  At one point, he said, "It seems like a lot of you understand English-- could you raise your hands?"  I looked sheepishly across at Ben and raised my hand high, to the delight of Bobo and other people around me, hahaha.  The music was surprisingly good, with as little Yanni-factor as possible.  Traditional Asian music is so different from traditional western music, and a lot of Asian pop is just a poor derivative of western pop.  I'm not sure how well it comes across, or how the audience related to the performance.  They applauded, but sat very still...  I was gyrating a little in my seat.  I've been deprived of good live music for too long now.

There was some middle-aged Taiwanese woman who popped out a couple times as the "special guest."  She reminded me of the token asian woman on a televangelist program.  She traded some cheesy banter with Torres, and then sang a really broke-down version of "Besame Mucho."  I did my best to interpret a little for Bobo, but half of her lines were gibberish.  I think the audience was rather proud of her, though, being totally unaware of what she was saying, so it was a little embarassing.  She came back at the end for an absurd performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," where I had to bite the inside of my mouth a little to keep from laughing.  No photos of this, because it was prohibited.

Thursday afternoon was the second and final round of the English Easy Go contest.  I'm happy to say that my little champ brought home the gold!  Gongrats to Justin.  He won first place out of a county-wide contest involving 72 schools!  I'd like to think I had a small role in it, but I could only give him pointers.  He's been studying hard for years to do so well.  We also had a sixth place and an honorable mention in the speech contest, and a fourth (?) place and an honorable mention in the reading contest.

Number 1!

And here are some photos I took at school over the course the week.  As you can see, we were teaching parts of the face one day.

I was trying to get a shot of the girl with the pink t-shirt.  It says "JESUS LOVES SAY."  People will wear anything with roman letters here.

This is Jimmy.  A class clown and a perpetual struggle, but he charms his way through.

I have no idea what this kid was singing, but the whole class joined in.

I don't remember workbooks coming with stickers when I was a kid.

Point to your eyes!

This is a nose!  A cat's nose, actually.

This girl is one of the class leaders.

This is the boy that always eats.  He's got his mouthful, and a bag of little dumplings in his lap.

This is just the beginning! Not a great video, but better ones are sure to follow. Stay tuned.

Dinner with the Kids

This weekend we had school on Saturday, as I mentioned.  That was our penance for getting Monday off.  :-T

Saturday night, I had dinner with Luke and Conroy.  Then we went to see The Departed at the movie theater.  My review: two thumbs up!  Really liked it a lot.  A bit hard to follow near the end, but the pacing was really great and suspenseful.  A slightly uncomfortable moment arose...  There's a scene where the mobsters are selling stolen computer parts to some Chinese men in a warehouse.  The parts are supposed to be capable of operating nuclear missles or something.  There's some tension, both sides are well armed and spooked and neither wants to make the hand off first.  Jack Nicholson says something like, "Well if you boys want to nuke Taiwan anytime soon, you better hand over the money."  I laughed a little, and then remembered, "Oh-- I'm in Taiwan!"  and looked around nervously.  Ha

Sunday I walked around the sports park for a couple of hours.  I really had only jogged through it before.  This time I tried to explore thoroughly.  i almost finished, and I took a lot of photos, but I ran out of time before I saw the last part of it.  I had to meet my host family for dinner at 6.

These guys were real proud of themselves for their ability to say, "Hello, where are you from?"  But their English stopped there.  All Vietnamese people, but also spoke Chinese, and they wanted to talk but since I can only say about five things in Chinese, we didn't talk much.  The sports park gets huge buses full of tourists, strangely.

The goldfish situation is really insane.  It's almost kind of gross when families are feeding them and these catfish sized goldfish are scrambling...  some of them are actually out of the water, sucking for air for a few seconds because there are so many pushing up benath them.

Bobo, the boy in the family, called me earlier on Sunday to invite me.  It's funny that most of my correspondence with the family has been through him.  The mother, after all, is an English teacher.  I think they push him to be the liason, because it's good practice.  Anyway, it was just Bobo and his sister Francin (sic-- she spells it that way) that night.  By the way, Bobo is the name of a popular Japanese cartoon character here.

They met me downstairs and we walked about a half a block to a tea house I had never been to before.  The "Make Your Dreams Come True" Teahouse.  Just as there's no sense of irony in Chinese language and culture, there's also no sense of cheesiness or the value of verbal restraint.  Anyway, the place was great, and dinner was fun.  The kids are always funny and sweet.  Francin was a bit sick, but still in good spirits.  I can tell when they want to ask me something but are too shy or a can't think of it in English.  Sometimes, they'll quietly converse in Mandarin until the come up with it, then look at me, pause a couple seconds, and one of them will blurt out a perfectly formulated question.  Adorable but hard to explain.

It's raining hard now.  Started just about 6pm, in time for me to get soaked to the bone on the way to teach my night class.