MY RING!

Last Thursday I (Phil) decided to play baseball with some students after school. I borrowed a boy’s glove and played a rousing round of catch. So much so that when I took my glove off my wedding ring came off with it. I didn’t notice my ring was missing until I was on the bus home, too late to go look for it. I suppose I could’ve asked the bus driver to pull over because I needed to go and look for my wedding ring, but I figured that would have been pretty hard to communicate.

So, on Friday I had a class during first hour and towards the end of class I told my co-teacher to tell the students that I lost my wedding ring outside somewhere around the track. My students were very concerned right away. They all let out a collective, “Oh my God!!” After they all settled down and adjusted to the fact that I lost my ring I asked them if they could help me look for it if they had time. As the bell rang, all of my students rushed out of the classroom and onto the track. A couple of students gathered around me and started asking questions like; “You need your ring to stay with your wife?” and “Your wife will be so ANGRY?!” I responded yes to both of them because I didn’t feel like explaining that I could just by a new ring if I wanted to and either way I could stay married to “Anna”.

When I was done talking with those students I looked around and realized that more students were recruited to help me find my ring and save my marriage. There were 50-60 students combing through grass and dirt desperately trying to help me keep my wife. It was amazing to see all of these students so worried and eager to help even though my ring held very little meaning to them personally.

As the break time was coming to a close, a student (that I played catch with the previous day) found my ring on a set of stairs. I offered to buy him a bubble tea, thanked him for finding my ring, and assured all of my students that my wife would not leave me now.

LIBRARY OPENING CEREMONY

Last Thursday (March 18^th), my (Annalicia’s) school had an opening ceremony for our brand new library. They have been working on this library ever since I’ve been here and it turned out absolutely beautiful!

At the opening ceremony, they had all the students line the halls and pass the books from where they were being stored to the new library. It was really cool! I went to watch and take some pictures and ended up being interviewed by three different news camera crews. Only in Taiwan! :)

A few interesting things to note: First, at the ceremony a group of students played, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” on recorders. It got me in the Christmas mood! :) Also, no one is allowed to go in the library with shoes on.

CHINESE YO-YO

I (Annalicia) got the chance to learn how to play with a Chinese yo-yo a few weeks ago! The physical education teacher at my school put on a little “in-service” for us! He can do some really cool tricks with it. He got first place at a Yunlin County Chinese yo-yo competition!

One of the tricks he taught us was throwing the yo-yo in the air and catching it. Well, the first time I tried it, I threw mine way too high and I could see it was going to hit another teacher so without thinking I started yelling, “Heads up! Heads up! Heads up!” No one moved...they had no idea what I was saying...my yo-yo hit the teacher! (She was okay.) :)

SESAME STREET?

Phil: That guy just asked me if I worked on “Sesame Street”!?!

Annalicia: What?

Phil: Yeah...do you think they have a Taiwanese version of the show here?

Annalicia: I have no idea!

Phil: He said he knows a lot of foreigners here who work on “Sesame Street”.

Annalicia: Really?!?

Phil and Annalicia: Hmmm?!? (shrug they’re shoulders and let it go easily knowing it’s not the most strange or confusing thing they’ve ever heard, seen or been asked in Taiwan)

(A few days later, Phil and Annalicia found out “Sesame Street” is a chain of English cram schools! :)

"NOBODY"

You might remember us mentioning a song called “Sorry, Sorry” in one of our entries this fall. Well, along with that song, another song that’s huge here right now is “Nobody” by the Wonder Girls. The Wonder Girls are a Korean music group, just like Super Junior (the artists of “Sorry, Sorry”). As we were looking for the You Tube video of the song, we discovered that they have an all English version of it and it has debuted in the States. So, you may have already heard it.

Anyways, for the past few months here, we’ve heard the song at least once a day when our beloved little blue advertising trucks drive past our apartment and/or school. We have no idea what or who they’re advertising, but they sure do like to use the song!

Our favorite, though, is when we’re out and we hear little kids start singing. When we were on a boat at Sun Moon Lake, we were next a really young boy (maybe two or three) who kept singing, “nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody...” over and over again! It was dang cute! :)

If you’re interested, here’s the original Korean/English version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwf-Lh8QbzY

Here’s the all English version (kind of an interesting video?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA7fdSkp8ds

THE LANTERN FESTIVAL

Last Saturday night, March 6^th, Phil and I headed 30 minutes south on the train to the city of Chiayi. This city was chosen to be the main site for Taiwan’s Lantern Festival this year. From what we know, many cities do things in celebration of this festival, but there’s only one city (a different one each year) that hosts “the main event”.

Technically, the Lantern Festival is held on the 15^th day of the lunar year (15 days after Chinese New Year), but we’ve noticed that many Lantern Festival events/celebrations started before that date and have continued after. We’ve asked people about the significance behind the event and the clearest answer we’ve gotten is simply, beauty. :)

For some reason, Phil and I were expecting the atmosphere to be peaceful and quaint. We were envisioning beautiful lanterns being displayed and lifted off. Well, our expectations were way off! (We have no idea where they came from anyway.) We were not disappointed, though, just surprised. The atmosphere would best be described as...carnival-like. And, we felt “Light Show” might have been a more accurate title for the event.

This year is the year of the tiger...my year! So, that’s why the main “lantern” is a tiger. For more information on the Chinese Zodiac, you can visit the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac

Despite our crushed expectations, it was very fun event and really interesting! We are really happy we had the opportunity to go. If anyone is looking for an overdose on visual stimuli, this would definitely be an event you’d want to hit up at some point! :)

http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/festival_c/glue_e/glue.htm

FIELD TRIP DAY...ANOTHER ONE!

Last Thursday, March 4th, my (Annalicia’s) school had another “Field Trip Day”. And, I got to go with the fourth graders to a small village in Yunlin County, up in the mountains, known as Gukeng. (Gukeng is especially famous here for its coffee.)

A tiny elementary school in Gukeng hosted our students. From what I was told, the government wanted to close this school down a few years ago (because it was so low in numbers), but the school made an agreement with the government instead. They said if they were allowed to stay open, they would host other Yunlin students for educational purposes. So, that’s what we went there for.

We were taken on an ecology tour of the beautiful area in the morning. In the afternoon, we tie-dyed bags. The blue dye we used was derived from the leaves of a tree native to the area. It was very fun! The kids seemed to love it!

TAIWAN'S NATIONAL ANTHEM

Every Tuesday and Friday morning, all my (Annalicia’s) students and co-workers gather outside on the track for the “Flag Raising Ceremony”. At this time, Taiwan’s national anthem is played. (After the national anthem all sorts of miscellaneous things are done...awards are handed out, students are reminded of certain rules they maybe aren’t following well, announcements are made, etc...)

Just this week, I finally got around to recording the first part of the ceremony. So, if you’re interested in hearing Taiwan’s national anthem, you can listen below!

EARTHQUAKE

We had yet another earthquake experience here last Thursday, March 4th. This earthquake was measured at a 6.4 magnitude. It caused some injuries and damage in the southern part of the island, but there were no fatalities and we've noticed no significant damage in our area.

At the time of the quake, I (Annalicia) was in a bus, up in the mountains with some fourth grade students for field trip day. And, we felt absolutely nothing. We have no idea how this happened, since even small earthquakes can be felt in moving vehicles, but everyone on the bus was happy to bypass that potential chaotic and nerve wrecking experience. The only thing I felt was an aftershock around 4:00 pm.

Phil's experience, on the other hand, was a bit scarier than mine. He said the initial quake started with just some rattling. The rattling stopped, came back again, stopped and then the building (his school) actually started swaying and felt like it was shifting for about 30 seconds. He hid under his desk. A lot of people evacuated his building.

Here's some more information about it, if you're interested:

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2010/03/04/246807/Magnitude-64-earthquake.htm

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2010/03/05/246938/64-quake.htm

HOT POT

Hot pot is a very big part of the Taiwanese culture and one of my (Annalicia’s) favorite aspects of Taiwanese cuisine. When people are enjoying hot pot, there will either be individual pots for each person (this is Japanese style) or a shared pot (this is Chinese style) of boiling broth for an entire table. Vegetables, meat and sometimes various kinds of noodles are thrown into the pot, cooked, taken out, usually dipped in different spices and eaten (most often with rice). Most people drink the broth after the noodles, meat and vegetables have been cooked.

Hot pot is fun and delicious! Phil and I hadn’t heard of it prior to coming to Taiwan and we’re actually really surprised it’s not more prevalent in the States...we think a lot of people would enjoy it! A lot of restaurants here will often offer BBQ along with hot pot. You’ll see that in some of our pictures below. If you’re interested, along with the pictures, there’s a link to more information about hot pot below too.

(BBQ)

(Hot Pot and BBQ)

(Hot Pot and BBQ)

(BBQ)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot