FOOD AND FUN

Last Sunday, Phil and I and another foreign guy, Mike, took some Chinese/Taiwanese cooking lessons! A local friend of ours, Adelaide, who owns an English cram school (where Mike works), invited us over to have her mom show us how to make some dishes. Her mom was so kind. She showed us how to make six or seven different things. We were all stuffed by the end! Her mom didn’t speak much English, but occasionally she would throw in comments like, “So easy...you can do it!” It was so cute!

(These are pictures of Adelaide's school. It's located on the first floor of their house. This is the case with most shops and businesses in Taiwan.)

After our cooking lessons, we all went to a Taiwan professional league baseball game. Phil and I had been to an all-star/charity game before, but we had never been to an actual game. It was fun and interesting. At baseball games in Taiwan, there is noise constantly. We weren’t used to this. Fans have organized cheers they do with noise makers, drums, instruments, etc... throughout the entire game. It’s crazy! There are a few videos of some of the cheers below.

There weren’t many people at the game, so Phil, Mike and I really stuck out. We got on the scoreboard screen at least three times and had multiple people tell us the next day at school that they saw us on TV a bunch of times. Only in Taiwan! :)

POTLUCK

This past Tuesday, we spent the evening at one of Phil’s co-worker’s house for a potluck. We had a fun time hanging out, eating and singing KTV (of course). There were a few things that we found interesting and some that really made us chuckle.

First, we found it funny how different Taiwanese potlucks are compared to American potlucks...

Second, we were fascinated by how much Hello Kitty stuff his co-worker, Roro, had. Roro was so proud of her collection and urged us to take a lot of pictures! :) She told us, compared to a lot of other Taiwanese women, her collection wasn’t that big. Roro is married...notice their bedroom...poor guy! :)

Third, whenever you enter a Taiwanese person’s house, you are asked to take off your shoes and put on “slippers” (which are more like sandals). Take a look at the ones we wore all night...we felt pretty hot...

Finally, we were lucky enough to capture some video of little girl, Wendy, doing KTV, singing “Twinkle, Twinkle” in Chinese. Too cute!

OUR MISCELLANEOUS MONTH OF MAY

We haven’t been doing much traveling this month, we’ve mostly just been hanging out in Douliu. So, our May has been filled with a bunch of small, yet memorable, miscellaneous events and activities, starting with a...

Mother’s Day Celebration

On Saturday, May 1^st, my (Annalicia’s) school hosted what was kind of like an open house/carnival thing. The intention behind it was to try to promote the school and get more students interested in coming to Yunlin Elementary.

My students put on a program in honor of Mother’s Day at this event. All the songs were in English, but most of them had nothing to do with moms. :) There’s a video below of part of the Kindergarteners’ song and dance. These Kindergarteners are so good at organized dance, it’s unbelievable! This song was about McDonald’s and Pizza Hut (notice their costumes)...I cringed a little at the promotion of these American entities, but the kids were so cute, Phil and I couldn’t help but thoroughly enjoy the performance! :)

“Ice” Hockey

We found out a few weeks ago that, in the words of a Taiwanese friend of ours, “Taiwan has ice hockey!” Ice hockey? Hmmmm...we were surprised. We went to check it out...it was roller hockey...that made more sense. :)

Hard Rock

Taiwan continues to surprise us. One night we were walking and came across a hard core, heavy metal band performing in the park. This challenged our perceptions of the Taiwanese. We were used to most people here loving things that are “so cute”, like the Hello Kitty stuffed animals (even as adults) and singing love songs on KTV...not screaming into microphones. It was a good reminder for us of the diversity that exists within cultures and the potential danger involved with generalizing. There’s a short clip of the performance below. Believe it or not, the “singer” was a cute, petite woman. :)

Night Market

Douliu’s Saturday night market used to be right by our apartment. Awhile ago, though, it got moved to a different location. Since then, we hadn’t been. So, we decided to hit it up a couple times this month. This night market is the biggest one in Yunlin County and draws a huge amount of people in every week.

Mike

One of our Taiwanese friends owns an English cram school in Douliu. Awhile ago she found a guy from Ohio to come work as a foreign English teacher at her school. His name is Mike and he just arrived in the beginning of May. He lives in an apartment right down the road from us. His schedule is opposite of ours (he works at night), but it’s been fun to hang out with him on the weekends. It’s been weird, but good to have another “foreigner” around in Douliu.

Mobile Library Opening Ceremony

Yunlin County granted my school a large sum of money to be the host of a mobile library. Basically what our mobile library consists of is two trucks filled with books and other things. There’s a team here at Yunlin Elementary who brings these trucks around to other schools in the county (mostly in the countryside), who do not have libraries of their own. Kind of a cool idea! Of course, none of this would be official without a proper ceremony to mark its beginning! :) I think I’ve been to more opening ceremonies during my time here than most Americans will ever go to throughout their entire lives!

Sidewalk Chalking

One day I was talking to one of my co-teachers and somehow we got on the subject of sidewalk chalk. I came to find out that, after discussing if for a few minutes, he had no idea what I was talking about! (That happens a lot here! :) Apparently sidewalk chalking is something most Taiwanese people have never done or even heard of.

After I explained it to him and showed him some pictures online, he asked if I could plan a lesson around sidewalk chalking so the kids could experience it. What a good idea! So, that’s what I did. There are some pictures of my students chalking below. They are so cute! Usually right at the beginning of the lesson, they all just sit there because they don’t really believe they can draw on the ground. :)

A Field Trip to Phil’s School

Last week I took a day off of work at my school to go with Phil to his school. I had been to his school twice before, but both of those trips were way back in August. And, on those past trips I didn’t get to meet any of his students or ride the bus with him. I decided I wanted to see what a day was like for him, with his commute and everything, and his students kept telling him they wanted to meet me.

We had a great day! I definitely appreciate, even more, the hour long (one way) bike, bus, walking commute he does everyday. And, his students were really fun to interact with. Their English is so much more advanced than most of my students’ English (obviously)...so, I could actually have conversations with some of them! In one of his classes, students decided they wanted Phil and I to sign our names on their folders and then they drew hearts around our signatures. :)

It was fun to spend time with his co-worker too! We had a lot of tea that day! :) We spent about 45 minutes having tea with his principal. He played three different Chinese instruments for us and ended up giving us a Chinese flute/recorder as a gift! Fun! (There’s a picture of Phil’s principal below.)