More Learning

I wanted to start by saying - never learn English in a foreign country. Most people don't have much choice, though, which is very unfortunate.
After a while, you stop noticing the mangling of your native language. Signs that you might have laughed at before barely catch your interest. Only the exceptionally bad, or the unintentionally hilarious, will be noticable. I would give you an example, but I've been making a conscious effort not to remember the horrifically bad signs I've seen, for fear that it'll degrade my English even further than the destitute state it already is in. It's like being poor, but knowing that you could be living in India, scheming about chopping off your children's arms so they'll be better beggars.
Hmm. That was kind of ghastly. So....

This morning I was riding the bus to school, like every day. It traveled the same route, like every day. Today, though, I was sitting (a rarity) by the window. I just chanced to turn my head at a sign I hadn't noticed before - it read, "Just do eat." For the first split-second, I thought nothing of the artwork below, a piece of bread, and assumed it was just one more atrocity committed against my favorite (and admittedly only) language. Then I really noticed the shape of the bread. It was the Nike swoosh. On a bakery. "Just do eat", right? It's far too clever a use of English to fit in here, so I might have to stop by that shop and see how that happened. Maybe they could change it to "Just Dough Eat" - do you think so? That'd probably be too much. Even in America.


Anyway, as I ended my last post, I was worrying about God's having a sense of humor. I woke up the very next morning, thinking of ways to re-write my post (like usual, I was unhappy with it as it was (and as it is)), and dragged my way through my morning preparations. I was running late, and, what's worse, I needed to copy some music I'd downloaded the night before for a class on Western music. So I was rushing around. And let me say now, yes, God does possess an a keen sense of the comical. I'd said I'd like something differently painful to keep me humble.

Ask and ye shall receive.

It's not really important that you know this, unless you come here, but there are almost no dishwashers in Taiwan. Instead, people wash dishes by hand. Then they put them in this sissified wanna-be oven that hangs over the sink, where they drip dry (no one has ever used the heater feature, so far as I know). The important thing to note, however, is that there is a door that, when open, sticks straight out. And it's directly at eye-level. My eye level, anyway.
So here I was, rushing. I went to the kitchen to clean my dishes, quickly. And, as my foreshadowing has almost certainly clued you in, I had good reason to notice that open metal door - I slammed my face into the corner of it. As foreshadowing also revealed, it hit right at eye-level. Very hard.
For that first surprising instant, I thought I might have just blinded myself. It would fit my pattern of getting stupid, and somewhat embarassing, injuries, but actually it hit a whole third of an inch below eye level.

So I was not blinded! It did get my attention, though. And some of my skin. In return for my attention and some skin (I do have some instinct for business, after all), I got a bruise and an inch and a half long bloody line at a 45 degree angle from my eye. So, yet another thing to keep me humble - I am still clumsy and pathetically frail. Just as a side note, I am constantly surprised that we aren't all dead - by all rights, as easy as it is to die or be badly injured, we should be. Of course, being constantly surprised may also be a sign of idiocy, so the situation might not be as mysterious as I think it is.

I've been walking around with that injury since Wednesday, I think. The students and other teachers all tell me it looks kind of cool, though, so I guess it's not a total loss.


Of course my narrative doesn't end there. No. That would be too easy. And God has only had all of eternity to work on amusing situations (I asked if he would kindly stop burning me, which has actually happened...of course, I'm also taking some steps to avoid that). Now, lest you think he is unneccessarily malicious, remember that I did tell him I was getting kind of arrogant, and needed a little help.

As I mentioned at the terminal end of my last blog, though the sun had gone down, the curtain hadn't fallen on my evening - yet. After the ending that's written, I went to a mall to meet some of my students. They 'forced' me to go to an arcade, and even paid for me to play some games (thank you all, if you're reading this), so I retaliated by losing. A lot. Well, except at air hockey. No one could withstand my mighty airynes. heh. Well, I also played this punching game. You wear a boxing glove. A thing comes up, slowly, and then you punch it. Pretty easy to understand. If you read Chinese. I thought I was supposed to punch that sucker first chance I got, like you would in a real fight, but that's apparently not how it works. You're supposed to wait for it to get completely vertical, then punch it, which really is stupid. Ah, well. Anyway, after the first two quick jabs, my students told me I was supposed to wait. So I did, and clobbered that inanimate metal rod real good. I guess I won. I'm still not clear on if/whether you can win, since the game ended right after that.

I was enjoying myself, except for the sunburn, and except for being exhausted. After some time spent at the mall, we went next door, to the nightmarket. Like most nightmarkets, it was crowded, noisy, and chock-full of goods of questionable value and desirability. And food. There's always food.
My students kept paying for me to do all sorts of things (and I did try to pay for myself, or pay them back, but was only successful on one or two occasions when they weren't looking), most of which were fun. Of course, we also ate a whole lot of food. (And I learned that "yubyubyub", which sounds as hilarious as it looks, means (maybe) something like "sound you make for eating food with chopsticks when you're stabbing the food and you're really hungry.")
I guess they were concerned I wasn't having fun, but I really was. It's just that I was burned, tired, and couldn't hear anything they were saying (nightmarkets are noisy).

On Monday, when we met again (this is going somewhere), they told me they wanted to take me and some other teachers to dinner on Wednesday. I agreed, of course.
It was Korean, and it was good. In Taiwan, though, it is very difficult to get enough water, especially at restaurants. And I ate the food of several people who couldn't finish their own. So I didn't get enough to drink. I thought it'd be no problem. I'd just get some water at home. Then it was decided we'd go to get pictures at a photo booth.
If you've never seen one, think of it like this - there is an incredibly tacky, and loud, plastic and metal tent/box, which you go inside of. The inside has all sorts of flashing lights, pink frilly...things?, and at least one camera lens and touch-screen.
People here tend to be somewhat shy and reserved. If you were to somehow enter Taiwan through a magical photo booth, however, you would not believe me. Everyone is expected - no, required - to make a fool of themselves. Different poses are struck, and the more ridiculous the better. The photos are also taken at somewhat random intervals (you usually don't control it directly), and you have to last through at least 10 or so. At the end you go to a central terminal, review your photos, pick the best ones, then desecrate them with lots of bubbly/frilly/fancy pink/orange/pastel/girly colors, and hugely inappropriate phrases like "kind love". Then you print them out as stickers so small no one would ever know what's supposed to be happening in the picture.
Oh - I didn't mention that this all happens inside a vinyl tent thing, did I? With no ventilation? And lots of people crowded inside? In a building open to the air? You might have guessed - it gets warm. So I'm thinking, why pay for a sauna when you can use a photo booth instead? You even get pictures out of it.

So we were there an hour and a half or so. I still hadn't had enough to drink. It was only towards the end that I realized I was badly dehydrated. And by then it was too late, of course.

So all of yesterday I spent in misery - with burning throat, aching head, and the occasional overwhelming urge to empty my guts through the proper channels (or proper channel, I suppose) because I'd gotten dehydrated. I should also mention that bathrooms here come with neither toilet paper nor soap, so if you don't have quite enough of your own, things are...uncomfortable.
I still taught, of course.

I have to say it's hard to think very highly of yourself when you're afraid you'll crap your pants.

So, moral of the story: God sure does listen. Ask and ye shall receive.


Oh, and I've recovered now.
I'll write more later, how about that? For now, though -

Well, for now, I wish I had a clever ending line, a tagline that would make you say, "wow". But I don't.
Bye!

A little lesson

One strange thing about Taiwan is that, as a foreigner, you have a status just slightly below that of a rockstar, and quite high above that of President (though that isn't terribly hard right now, as no one here appears to like President Chen). As I'm sure you can imagine, this begins to influence the way one thinks.

Just being foreign, for example, is enough to get even the prettiest girls interested in you. This is probably true most places; here, though, even having a lousy personality and no personal grooming ability isn't enough to scare them away. Seriously. (Those of you who have lousy personalities and no personal hygiene, please don't take that as an invitation. Not that anyone reading this fits that description. You're all lovely people, of course. I'm just typing this for posterity, in case anyone fitting that description should ever read this.)

Schoolchildren look up to you, too - simply because you are foreign. And adults are often glad to have foreigners show up in their shops or houses, and will offer you things free of charge.
And then there's the fact that I am so much bigger (and possibly stronger?) than a lot of the people here, and the fact that I will be attending NTU (their most presitigous university) ...so I usually am admired and complimented. Oh, and I guess saying some of your favorite things to do are "read and write" are hugely impressive to people here.

I realized several times that I needed some humbling, and, it turns out, "ask and you shall recieve" is more than a saying.

Last week, for example, I walked out of the World Passport Office, looking for food. This is a short digression, by the way, but it is going somewhere (and ending in Taiwan...heh). On my way, I saw the girl at the coffeeshop, Mimi, and decided to ask her what's good to eat. She couldn't decide what to tell me, so she passed the problem on to her boss. He doesn't speak English. Nonetheless, he decided he would personally walk me over to a shop with good food and order it for me. Keep in mind, this is during working hours. He was willing to just walk off and help someone he barely knew. Obviously I appreciated that.
Anyway, he was able to communicate to me that a couple things were good at this food stand, so I agreed to order them. One was a dish with lamb or goat, I'm not exactly sure, and the other was some sort of soup.
He then took me back to his coffeeshop (which is called Magic Coffee (I like the name)...oh, and he also owns the internet cafe next door, which is very large and prosperous - and he's a year older than me. Grr.), and offered me a seat. Then he brought me a free drink, which was as excellent as it was mystifying. It was icy-cold tea with some minty and citrus-y flavors.

So I was sitting there reflecting on how much like infants we all are here - we can't speak, or do anything for ourselves, and must rely totally on the kindness of strangers (who are admittedly very kind). I admit, my Chinese probably even sounds infantile. I ate some of my food, then decided I'd try my soup. Now, you need to know soup works differently here: it does not come in a soup bowl. Instead you are given soup in a plastic bag, and you then can pour it into the soup bowl you are also given, all at your convenience. It seems it would be more convenient just to have it in the bowl to start with, but, I am just a guest here.

Foreshadowing aside, I decided to introduce the soup into the bowl that it was so obviously destined to meet. I decided they wouldn't give me more soup than they would bowl, as that would be silly, and would be totally impossible, as the two were so obviously designed for each other.
I was wrong, of course. I was also a little hasty in pouring: I poured it all at once.

Fortunately, I managed to spare my shirt. Unfortunately, I did so at the expense of my shorts...and the legs they covered with their admirably thin fabric. That thin fabric is very nice for keeping me cool - usually. It actually doesn't keep me cool against boiling soup, however.
It burned.
So here I am, thinking what infants we are, and then I dump scalding soup all over myself. So there I sat, with my lunch spilled all over myself. (Unlike an infant, though, I didn't cry about it - I didn't even make a noise. I calmly, but with some haste, tried to get the remaining liquid on the table to spill away from me).

So, God, thank you for reminding me that you do listen. Thankfulness is a little hard to muster when you've been soup-burned. heh. But, I was quite painfully reminded that I'm only human, and a rather careless one at that. I did need it.

(oh, and as an aside, I decided I might as well stay and finish my soup. It, and the food, were both very good, and I felt as though the soup put up a fair fight, so I had some satisfaction from that.)

But, you know me. Well, probably everyone else who's ever lived, too. I need reminders.

This last weekend, I was invited to see a bit of Jia Yi (the city I'm in - though for whatever reason, they spell it Chiai, or Chia yi) by my assistant, Shakira (she named herself), and some of my students.
So Shakira took me by scooter to a college campus nearby, and showed me around. It's a beautiful campus, surrounded be trees and water, very large, and up on a hill looking down on the city. I wish I had pictures. Shakira did offer to let me use her camera, but I knew exactly what would happen if I did borrow it - I'd have to spend at least another hour there photographing everything. And it was really hot out. And it mostly would've been pictures of trees. I've noticed I have a thing for trees. I don't think other people exactly share my passion, so I decided in the interest of not boring my gracious guide, and in not being out in the hot sun, that I should avoid the camera.
Anyway - after that, we drove to her great-grandmothers' house for her 95th birthday. She likes lots of company, I'm told, so she enjoyed having me there. And I'm also told she has never seen a foreigner in person, so she enjoyed that, too. And her memory is very bad, so it was probably a constant pleasant surprise seeing me there. Heh. Ok, that's probably a little disrespectful.

This is about a half-hour drive from the college campus. The college campus is about 20 minutes from the school we met at. And I was walking around the campus for about 45 minutes.
As I mentioned, you start thinking of yourself as being invincible here. So, though it would at home, it never occured to me that I was getting an awful lot of sun.

I should mention again that I was riding a scooter. They do not have roofs.

I should mention also, people here admire lily-white skin, which I usually posses.
Usually. At the moment, though, I have horrible burns on my knees. And my neck. And my face got a little burned, too.
But the knees are the worst.

I think I must have provided some entertainment for Shakira's family - when I arrived at their great-grandmother's house, they asked me why some of my skin was red. I looked, and sure enough, it was. It was then I realized it might have been a good idea to use sunscreen.
So I spent a few hours applying ice and aloe, which did help, like trying to calm a raging fire by making it do yoga. I think my idiotic misery probably was a pretty entertaining gift for the great-grandmother, though I doubt anyone would ever tell me so. (Shakira was also burned, but only on her arms; it still looked fairly painful.)

To make things worse, I did bring aspirin with me. If you take it right after you get burned, your burns will not become as serious, and they'll heal faster. I think. I say it made things worse, though, because I brought it with me...to Tainan. It is still in my other bag, which is still in...Tainan. And people here seem not to believe in taking the stuff. And the place Shakira and her family live is quite a ways away from anything (well, from stores, anyway. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get more than 100 feet away from other people in this country).

So that was another humbling reminder of my humanity. heh. And quite painful.

The day didn't end there though, and neither did my misery (not to say my evening was unpleasant! It was enjoyable, except for the pain!). But, here this blog will end.


So, I am dedicating this particular entry to God: thank you. I know I've mostly done a fine job of hurting/humbling myself, but I can't help but feel you've influenced something, somewhere. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to kindly ask you to please stop burning me. I get it. Well, the more obvious parts. I'm sure there are deeper levels of meaning that could be found. I know, burning sinners and prideful people and all that. If it's not too much trouble, I'd prefer something differently painful next time - I know there will be a next time (but you better than me, naturally). Variety's the spice of life and all that. Of course, you have a sense of humor, too, so you'll probably humor me, which terrifies me. Ah, well. I suppose that keeps things interesting.