Our school puts on an event every year around Christmas time where they feed the homeless and the needy on the school grounds. It is a really big event and the students cook the meal themselves. Rob and I went to see our students in action. It was really touching to see our students working so hard and also hilarious because it was very apparent that this was the first time some of them had ever fixed a meal. Some of our more mischievous boys struggled a bit and I think they ended up with burns. It was a good learning experience.
This is a teacher trying to teach the boys how to cook some cabbage
The girl in the very back to the left is one of our very favorite students. She was the one that invited us to her sisters wedding.
I just think this picture is so cute. Rob in the Santa hat :)
Many people have asked how we celebrated Christmas this year. Even though we had work and it was not a very big celebration we still had some festivities. We actually had a very lovely Christmas dinner at our favorite hot pot where we opened some Christmas Eve presents. I got a necklace and some earrings from my parents and Rob got a very nice tie.
For Christmas morning we had a lovely breakfast with Rob's famous beautiful pineapple and we opened the rest of our presents. We had some wonderful Christmas cards, books (of course), and some other treasures from parents and grandparents. We also had a wonderful gift through email. Thank you all so much for your thoughtfulness!!
Even though we are so far away we really felt close to family on this day and we love you all. Thank you for making time for our calls early in the morning when you could sleep in on your holiday. It meant a lot to us.
Christmas evening we went to our bosses house for a Christmas feast. When Helena, our bosses wife, found out that I had some food allergies she called Rob to see what she could fix for us (the vegetarian and the kind of vegan). It was excellent. I couldn't believe how good everything was and it was pretty much all just fruit and vegetables. In Taiwan vegetarianism is very common and they know how to fix some mean vegetables and their fruit is so good. Yum!
It was a different, but very special Christmas for us. I think we will always remember this Christmas.
On one of our first weeks in Taiwan, we were talking with our friend Sarah about a wedding she had recently attended. She went on and on about how beautiful the whole thing was and she told us that we needed to go to a Taiwanese wedding if we had the chance. We sort of laughed at her when she said that because we were skeptical about the likelihood of us getting to know someone well enough to merit an invitation to their wedding. Sarah didn't seem put off by our scoffing. She just reiterated how lovely traditional weddings were: the bride and groom put on a small fashion show, modeling several outfits of both western and eastern styles; and the food, oh the food! Apparently the food was the real kicker for Sarah, and we just had to experience it.
We didn't maintain much semblance of hope after our brief conversation with Sarah. We knew the probability was low, and it didn't really bother us--at least not me. I mean, it's a wedding. We did sometimes talk about how fun it would be to see a wedding when something loosely associated with weddings stimulated our conversation, though. For example, one time we were eating cookies, and Lauren said "Wouldn't it be so fun to see a Taiwanese wedding." Another time, we were in a stationary store looking for envelopes and Lauren said, "I think it would be awesome to go to a Taiwanese wedding." Something told me, that despite my indifference, Lauren was secretly harboring a desire to attend a wedding. Maybe it was the fact that she was the one making these associations in the first place. And the fact that she was making seemingly arbitrary associations only further aroused my suspicion.
To be fair, in retrospect the associations Lauren was making were not arbitrary at all. For instance: Prior to a wedding, the bride and groom will send all of the invitees a box of cookies as a solicitation for money. Guests are then expected to bring money to the wedding (in even amounts that increase with your familiarity to the bride or groom) in a red envelope. Sarah had informed us of these customs and Lauren had paid close attention, I guess.
I wonder if hope really is a force powerful enough to actualize desire because a few weeks ago one of our students, Agatha, presented Lauren with a big pink box full of cookies. The package was intricately wrapped with ribbon and plastered with platitudes like, "Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours," and "May the joy you share on your wedding day/Be the kind you'll share all along life's way." Agatha told Lauren that her sister was getting married and she wanted to invite us.
We weren't exactly sure why Agatha's sister, who we have never met, would want us to go to her wedding, but we knew enough to know that when the gods send you a blessing, you don't ask why it was sent. We worked out all the details and waited eagerly for the day to roll around. As I am writing this now, I don't know who was more excited for the day to finally arrive: Lauren or the bride.
The interior of the dining hall
And let me tell you, Lauren's excitement was not misguided. The reception hall was magnificent. The meticulously carved wood paneling was blanketed in the warm glow of the large red paper lanterns hanging from the elevated ceilings. The room was crowded with dinner guests sitting at circular tables with lantern centerpieces. Agatha, who looked so different in her formal gown than she does in her baggy scholl uniform that we hardly recognized her, greeted us joyously and led us to our seats at the vegetarian table. Not long after that, the bride and groom paraded in and had a ceremonial toast. Then, it was time for the food.
The food came copiously and frequently. Each dish was delicious. There were tofu and vegetable kebabs, fried mushrooms, sizzling platters of marinated vegetables, crispy lettuce wrapped noodles, seaweed wraps, and soups, lots and lots of savory soup. The meal lasted for a good two hours, a new dish arriving every ten minutes or so. Five hours later, as I write this, I am still stuffed.
Throughout the dinner, the bride and groom would greet the guests in a different outfit. At one point, they visited each table and had a celebratory toast. I imagine they were a little tipsy after visiting the thirty or so tables of guests. When they arrived at our table, the very last table on their rotation, the groom looked around the table and smiled at all the well wishers. When his eyes landed on Lauren he was somewhat taken aback (I'd like to think that it was because of her unsurpassable beauty, but, seeing as he was getting married, it was more likely the fact that there were two random white people at his wedding luncheon), and a startled look registered on his face and he blurted out an audible "Oh!" I don't know if he was scared, or what. He quickly regained his composure and smiled at us, saying "Thank you!"
We said thank you back and we meant it. It was a wonderful day.
Lauren, or "Luarn" as the invitation read, with Agatha
Rob and I are keeping the holiday alive in Taiwan by putting up some Christmas decorations around the apartment. By some, I mean a Christmas tree and stockings. What else do we really need? I was feeling apprehensive about spending the holiday in a foreign country away from tradition, family and friends, (I really really love Christmas) and Rob must have known because he surprised me on December 1st by putting up two stockings and filling mine with a little present. He is the greatest.
After that, we decided we needed a tree. We didn't want to buy one because it would just end up as garbage so we got crafty. Our ornaments are memories. A bowtie from Rob's Halloween costume. A scroll from a trip to a Buddhist temple. A toy car from a Halloween party. A postcard from a bed and breakfast in Haulien. A CD from school. An iPhone case from the SIM card Rob bought but has yet to activate. And a shell from the beach in Kenting. Of course we have traditional golden balls as well. I think it is the most beautiful tree.
Here is our Christmas card picture this year :)
Here's another gem that we found at our grocery store. I thought this rendition of "ginger bread house"
It’s widely understood
that holidays are difficult when you are far from family, but we did our best
to make the most of our situation this year. We decided to spend most of
the week talking about Thanksgiving in our classes, and we developed several
different lesson plans that all centered around Thanksgiving.
With our listening and
conversation classes we watched “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” We
watched “The Great Pumpkin” for Halloween and the students really enjoyed it, so
we figured they’d appreciate an encore. And they did. It was more
entertaining watching the students than the movie at times. There’s one
scene where Snoopy sets the table and perfectly executes a difficult “bishop’s
hat” napkin fold with a simple flick of his wrist. The students in the
hospitality majors literally squealed with delight when he did that. We
guess they’ve had to do that before.
Our English Honors
classes have been working on a unit about “happy endings,” so we took one hour
of the writing classes to have them think of bad things and spin them in a
positive way that they could be thankful for. As you can imagine,
responses varied from inspirational to bizarre. Here are some of their
thoughts:
I am grateful my sister ate my
cake so I don’t get fat.
I am grateful for gross meals
because it means I have food to eat.
I am grateful for arguments
with my mom because it means I have a family.
I am grateful my dad blames
things on me because it means I still have a dad.
I am thankful for the broken
TV because it makes me more hard working.
I am thankful for missing the
bus because it makes me meet the handsome boy at the next bus.
I am thankful for those stupid
guys because it means I am not the stupidest person.
I am thankful for a dirty
bathroom because it makes me know how to clean it.
I am thankful for the runny
nose because I can have such a charming voice.
I am thankful for the broken
car because it makes me see some beautiful view.
I am grateful for the crying
baby because it reminds me I am not alone.
I am grateful for the
drillmasters becaue it means someone noticed me.**
I am very thankful for Hulk
because he bit Rocky away. ***
I am thankful for I can run
because it means I don’t have paralysis.
I am grateful I don’t have
much money, so I could enjoy anything in life.
I am grateful for bad friends
because they let me know what kinds of people shouldn’t be friends.
I suppose Lauren and I could
do a similar exercise and express our thankfulness for being far away from family
because it reminds us how much we really do love and miss and need our
families, or our gratitude for living in a place where we struggle to
communicate with others because it forces us to speak more openly with one
another and strengthens the bonds of our relationship.
We did a small art
assignment, the classic turkey hand, with some of our other students and made
them write four things they are thankful for: one small thing for the pinky;
one person they love for the ring finger; one thing they own for the middle
finger; and something they think, feel or believe for the pointer finger. Again, we received a wide range of
responses from our students. We
picked a few of our favorite turkeys—or at least a few of the strangest—and put
them up for your enjoyment.
This is supposedly Bane, the bad guy from the latest Batman movie. He obviously dislikes bats and takes steroids.
Hopefully you all ate turkeys at least this big for Thanksgiving. Not because it's important to eat the traditional food, but because it's important to prevent these Goliath Turkeys from taking over the planet. Not all of them are amiable like this one.
Angry Birds: what every adolescent discreetly plays under the table while their great uncle chronicles his medical history.
The 'hamsa' turkey. It tastes delicious and protects you from evil.
I don't know what to say about this mutant bird, other than I know it is wearing thong underwear (and now you know that too, and you probably don't want to know that. Oh well. Sorry). I know that because I made the student erase what they had originally drawn. This is what we ended up with. I have no idea.
I thing I want to become bread master too.
Chowder is one of my favorite students and it is in no small way because of her amazing name.
Everything about this Turkey is beautiful. Except maybe the excrement.
This turkey has caught on to Chic-fil-A's clever advertising techniques. Not the homophobic ones, you know, the ones where the cows ask to live and suggest chiken as an alternative.
Short answer: not really. Better answer: I sure hope so.
These activities
kept us busy all week, but they didn’t diminish our excitement in the
least. If anything, they amplified
our eagerness. When four thirty
finally rolled around on Thursday afternoon, we booked it home and began making
our meal. We described the whole
thing in some videos, so I won’t waste space on written explanation. Suffice it to say: We ate good.
After dinner, we
watched the “Seinfeld” Thanksgiving special and The Blindside.
Watching the latter seemed appropriate because it has scenes of the
family at Thanksgiving, and there’s a good deal of football in the movie. I doubt there are very many people
reading this who have not seen the movie, but if you haven’t, you may want to
head to your favorite Redbox or internet piracy website**** and procure a copy
for the evening. It’s good fun for
the whole family. Here's the trailer in case you've never seen it:
In the end, it was a
great day. We did miss our
families, but we know that you love us and we feel your love, even from
afar. We love you too. We are so thankful for your love and
support. We will leave you with
the indelible words of Linus van Pelt:
In the
year 1621, the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast. They invited the
great Indian chief Massasoit, who brought ninety of his brave Indians and a great
abundance of food. Governor William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish were
honored guests. Elder William Brewster, who was a minister, said a prayer that
went something like this: 'We thank God for our homes and our food and our
safety in a new land. We thank God for the opportunity to create a new world
for freedom and justice.’*****
* I have been reading a lot of
work by David Foster Wallace lately, and am paying homage to the late, great
writer in this blog post. Please
forgive my neurotic use of footnotes.
** Our school has a strong
military presence and several guards, or drillmasters, patrol the hallways
during class time looking for students who are breaking school rules (cell
phone use, sleeping, being loud). You don’t want to be noticed by the
guards, obviously.**b
**b Lauren had an unfortunate
dealing with a guard who didn’t approve of her approach to classroom
management. Lauren was allowing group work, and students were talking to
one another while completing their assignment. This notoriously bitchy**c guard interrupted her class to reprimand the students (completely ignorant of
what the assignment was, I might add) for being off task. Apparently,
she’d have had a word with Lauren too if she were more confident in her English
abilities. After leaving Lauren’s class she phoned Steve, our office
director, and told him that foreign teachers should not be allowed to teach
third year students because we can’t handle them. And there’s more! She
went to the discipline office and filed a formal complaint against Lauren, so
Lauren had to explain why her students were misbehaving even though they
weren’t. Lauren’s classy answer was, I encourage my students to work
together and talk in their conversation classes. It’s incredibly annoying
to have these military marionettes monitoring our every move.
<sarcasm>I’m sure it does a lot to foster free thinking and free
expression in our students. I know the students love it.</sarcasm>
**c Lauren feels it is important to clarify that this adjective is taken directly from our Taiwanese co-workers, and that she would never refer to someone using that term. Rob doesn't feel apologetic, or a need to explain himself, for using adjectives, especially when they apply.
*** Your guess is as good as
ours to the meaning of this enigmatic statement. My best research suggests it may be referring to a scene in Rocky III where the boxer named
Thunderlips (played by Terry Bollea, AKA Hulk Hogan) has a dirty fight with the
title character, Rocky, played by Sylvester Stallone. There are a few problems with this theory, however. For one, Rocky didn’t lose the match,
it was declared a draw. Secondly,
this movie is now thirty years old and came out at least thirteen years before
this student was even born. There
was also an episode of “The Incredible Hulk” TV show where the Hulk’s alter
ego, Bruce Banner (under the pseudonym, David Benson), is mugged by a couple of
thugs and subsequently rescued by a man named Rocky (who is coincidentally a
boxer). This theory seems even
less probable than the first though due to the show’s even older age and far
less widely distributed release, and obviously because Rocky actually saved the
Hulk in this instance.
**** I’m sure my lawyer
brothers would advise the Redbox alternative, even though I know at least one
of them has proclivities for certain Russian websites. ****b
****b If anyone reading this
is in any way affiliated with the MPAA, I would like to publicly state that I do
not endorse internet piracy. I was simply acknowledging its existence,
ease and affordability.
***** Historians suggest
Brewster’s invocation is apocryphal.
Nevertheless, it embodies much of the American spirit which permeates
the holiday.
The school anniversary was really quite a celebration. The aboriginal students did a traditional dance that was amazing. There were a lot of drums and singing, and kids passing out. To explain that last one, there are ten thousand students at this school and they all had to stand at attention while the principal and his cronies were giving themselves a "pat on the back" speech. We couldn't understand them of course but I can imagine it was something like... "your test scores are up, our sports teams are doing well, and our school is better than everyone else." Isn't that how they usually go? Anyways, about halfway through the speech a student in the very front totally fainted. Rob and I started to watch carefully after that and sure enough kids were dropping like flies. They were standing for about two hours in the sun and I'm sure it was miserable. Crazy!
These Chinese dogs (not dragons) were really fun to watch. They even had
little tales that wagged. If you can see the building behind them there are students standing
at attention on every floor. There's also students on the field and every building
surrounding the field as well.
The aboriginal drummers.
Anyways, I ran a relay race with my team as some of you know. I was really quite nervous for it because one, it's running and two, they take competition extremely serious here. There was a cash price too so I guess that means it's serious. I was pleasantly surprised though when I ended up crushing the competition. When the baton came to me it was pretty neck and neck because I was second to run. I look like I'm jogging in the video but here it is. We ask that you view it on silent because the sound of students is horrendous.
So, it’s been awhile since we updated the blog, and there’s much to say. We took a group of kids trick-or-treating for Halloween, but this required some careful orchestration since Taiwanese people don’t celebrate this holiday. Judy, a teacher in the English department, and about ten of her friends and neighbors wanted to give their kids a real Halloween experience, so they recruited the friendly American couple to dress up in costumes and teach them the “Trick or Treat Song”--which, this American didn’t even know was a song to begin with.
Anyways, because of the language barrier, we couldn’t do much with the kids besides smile and give them candy (sugar is a universal language for children). Even so, we still had a blast hanging out with the kids on Halloween. They seemed to have a good time too. The best part, at least for me, was seeing all the proud parents carrying their cameras, snapping hundreds of pictures of the train of costumed children and their Anglo-American guides.
It was really nice to be able to celebrate the holiday and make some new friends.
Part of our Halloween crew. The lady bug is just really excited.
Getting ready for the march. Sorry it's so blurry
Rob was the leader of the parade. All the children loved following the white devil guy :)
This one is for my parents who loving dressed me as a bunny for the first years of my Halloween experiences. I still feel sad I broke my bunny years or I'd be wearing them for Halloween now.
I'll put a spell on you!
The real leader of all this is in the sparkly wig. She was amazing and I couldn't believe she organized everything. She was a really good friend to meet.
So a week or so ago I stayed home from school with a headache. Lauren, who is always wonderful beyond description, filled in for me and watched my classes. During my writing class, she had the students pen some “get well soon” cards for me. They are just delightful. Here’s a few samples (they have not been altered from their original grammar and punctuation for obvious reasons):
Dear Rob,
Get better soon, you are a good. teacher. I hope your sick can get out of away, and than come soon. I miss your humorous and your smile. You get a sick, you want to eat many vegetables and drink warm water, and the sick devil will leave you alone. :)
God bless you!!
By, Tiffany.
Dear Rob,
Get better soon... I hear of you sick. I hope you can get better soon.
We are so miss your laugh. You have to restore health. We are hope to you can restore health soon.
PS: We are miss you.
Sincerely Angela
Dear Rob,
Get better soon, you are the best teacher, but you sick, today, Friday, we can’t see you. You gave us a lot of happy, when the class was boring, you can use your humor let us feel happy. We miss your laugh and your cute smile. But in luck is we can see your beautiful wife teaches us. So hope you can get better soon, in Chung Shan, you as if our God, our Angel and our life.
Eddie
Dear Rob:
I hope you get better soon ~ Because I feel very funny in your class, and you teach very good, finally, I just want to say, I miss you a lot, and come back to school quickly please ~ !!
Sincerely, Handsome Ivan.
So, there you go. Those kids are too funny. PS: I am fine, it was just a headache.
Since moving to Taiwan Rob and I have experienced some really wonderful adventures. We have both loved and hated teaching at our school. We have traveled to places without knowing where we were going and we've pretty much enjoyed it all. We usually take the scooter on our trips (even on 40 min drives) because we've become accustomed to it and it is fun. Well yesterday we decided to take the train for a little trip to a book store that sells books in English. It's pretty far away and the train gets us there faster, I think. By the bookstore, there was a little festival going on with a ton of booths selling great Taiwanese food, usually a bunch of strange looking meat roasted or fried, but we happened upon a nice little dish called, Korean rice sticks. One of Rob's students made some for Rob and he really likes them. Here he is enjoying them.
Anyways, later that night we decided to go grocery shopping and we took the scooter. Rob must have been a little out of practice because he left the keys in the scooter. We've been told that scooter theft is a pretty common thing so leaving the keys where everyone can see is pretty much asking for someone to take your scooter. We were also parked in the front so everyone would see our scooter. We had been in the store for 30-40 minutes before we even realized we didn't have the keys. My heart started pounding and I was sure we were stranded. We had no phone with us. I paid for the groceries while Rob ran out to check. I couldn't believe it when I came out to see our scooter.
I don't know if God is aware of little things like that, because let's be honest he's a pretty busy guy, but I sure felt like he was watching over us. I couldn't stop thanking him on our way home. It's little tender mercies like that that keep me going. I'm so grateful for the comfort of my Heavenly Father's love.
Last weekend we went to Kenting to see the eagles migrating, or something. It's kind of hard to know what they mean when everyone speaks Chinese. We did see a lot of Eagles. It was a wonderful weekend with lots of walking, hiking and nature seeing.
The tree in the picture with Rob and this tree are all technically the same tree. This was the coolest thing
we saw on our first day and it was awesome. The movie Life of Pi was partly filmed here.
This fire never stops burning because there is gas coming from the ground. Kind of cool.
Our second day hike. We're just climbing around in the jungle. This time I remembered bug spray.
This is one of my kindergarten boys and his name is Samuel. He was such a little stud hiking down the river. His mom could barely keep up with him.
Yvonne from our office and Rob
We hiked up through the jungle and then followed the river out to the ocean. The beach was beautiful and the spray from the waves was really nice.
We spent a lot of our time at this farm and they cooked our meals here. The food was amazing and they cooked everything with this stove.
We had an activity hour where we all did DIY projects. This is Rob preparing his tie-dye.
The Eagles. My camera does not do this justice at all.
The dragon fruit field at the farm. Dragon fruit is really amazing.
We pulled off the side of the road on the way home to wait for a sunset that never came. The ocean behind Rob was still beautiful. (and so is Rob;)
This tent was out in front of our apartment building when we got home. We have no idea what they were celebrating but the whole block was filled with festivities. They had a ton of food.
We went up to the roof the other day to just take in some fresh air and get a nice breeze. We're on the top floor so we really just have to walk some steps to get to the roof. We step up there and there is a pig just hanging around up there. He wasn't very big but I'm sure he was headed to be someone's dinner that night. He was awfully friendly with us. Oh the crazy things we see here.
We celebrated Taiwan's birthday this Wednesday which meant that Rob and I had a day off form work. It was wonderful. Rob knew about a book store that had an English floor in it so we thought we would go check it out. We ended up spending quite a pretty penny on some really great books. I have really missed having books. In my opinion (and Rob would like to second this sentiment), ereaders can not compare to an actual book. After indulging our book fetishes we went across the street to a bakery called The Petit Prince. We just got done reading a book called The Little Prince (everyone should read this book!!) and thought it was a perfect coincidence.
We thought that we would go exploring a little after this since we had the day off. We ended up at the Martyrs Shrine. We just happened to run into a friendly gentleman who told us that this was the perfect place to be on this day because it was a shrine dedicated to all the soldiers in Taiwan. It also had a very beautiful view of the harbor. It was a blissfully wonderful day.
The girl working in the shop gave me a free cupcake. I think she thought it was my birthday because I kept looking at their awesome cakes.
This would look much better if the air wasn't so polluted, but it is still quite a site to see.
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