Back in Taiwan

Hi everyone!

I just got back from a 2-week trip to the US.  My main purpose for going was to attend my good friends Ako and Lisa's wedding.  It was a great wedding and we had a wonderful time - I'm very happy for them!  Congratulations, Ako and Lisa!  Of course, I also went to visit friends and family.  Being over here in Taiwan, it's very easy to miss them!

On my trip my friends and I went to Las Vegas with Ako for kind of a bachelor party thing.  That was a lot of fun, though, as always, Vegas gets old quickly.  A bunch of my friends and my parents came out on the 12th for my birthday, which was nice - thanks guys!  31 years old... ew.  Oh well, can't stop the progress of time.  Over the next couple of days was the rehearsal and the wedding itself.  After that... I flew to Hawaii to visit my dad.

I spent some good time with my dad in Hawaii.  I got to meet his "cute" new pet pig (haha) and see how his latest building project is coming.  We met up in Oahu, then flew back to Kauai where I stayed for a couple days.  I went back to Oahu for the remaining few days of my trip.  Dad came over to meet me on the final day.  Tom, Loan, and Kris & Kumiko all also happened to be on Oahu during those final days so I also had fun hanging out with them.  I also got to meet a couple of new friends at my favorite hangout spot on Oahu - The Spot karaoke.

After a pleasant couple of weeks in the US, I am now back in Taiwan, back to "the old grind," as they say.

I decided back in early June that I don't want to continue teaching English in my current job.  I have found that I just don't like teaching kids and trying to manage a classroom full of kids.  Fundamentally, I would prefer to teach students that are already eager to learn; with my students, that is not always the case.  For the most part they are there because their parents think it is important for them to learn English, not because they choose to be there.  Well, I suppose most kids aren't in school because they want to be.

I am leaving my job at the end of August.  That will be on a Friday, and I will start school on the following Monday.  I am going to attend a university in Taipei - to study Chinese.

This will be the first time that I will have studied Chinese in a formalized institution, so I'm not quite sure at which level I will be placed.  Most academic institutions of Chinese language instruction place heavy importance on Chinese character writing, a skill that I have never had an interest in undertaking.  Since my speaking and listening are so far beyond my writing ability, I fear that I may end up being bored in a more beginning class trying to play catch-up with my writing :).  It's all good, though.  I love learning Chinese and at least I'll be doing something that I love to do.

Well, that's all for now.  At this rate I suppose I'll be writing again in another three months?  Haha.

Thanks for reading.  Bye!

A Nice Weekend

I had a pretty fun weekend!  Weekends are now, naturally, my favorite part of the week. 

Friday was an interesting day at work.  About midweek I was imagining how I could continue to teach at this school for an entire year.  The kids don't really want to be there and learn English, it's their parents who put them there; the school manager cares more about keeping students in the school than whether they actually learn English; and the school has stupid rules like absolutely no Chinese in the classroom, as some braniac decided that an "all-English" classroom would be a superior language learning environment.  Something just seems wrong about an environment in which I fight my way through the day to do something very basic - teach English.

Anyway, I decided to stop fighting.  I instituted 3 basic rules for my classroom - 1) Speak English in English class.  2) Be quiet unless told to speak.  3) Stay in your seat until told to get up.  These seem very basic, I know -  I don't remember a classroom during my childhood where we thought we could just get up out of our seats whenever we wanted and talk whenever we wanted.  These kids do.

By Friday, I had decided to start governing my classes with an iron fist.  I'll make the kids hate me first, then they will start to respect me, and then they will gradually start to like me.  I think I managed to make my class of older, more advanced students take that first step, to the point that they were being covertly hostile in the end (not speaking when I asked them to or speaking unclearly, muttering stuff under their breath in Chinese, etc.)  They broke the three rules too much, so I took away their break and made them write each rule 10 times.  I am done being nice... it's just not worth it.  This is English class, not playtime.  Games and breaktimes will be a privilege, not a right.  And, I will not tolerate dreading going to work anymore.

Friday evening was a blast.  First, my friend Kyle (a teacher at a different branch of Shane whom I met in training) and I went to the newly-opened TGI Friday's near where I live.  It's the first time I ate American-style food since I've been here.  It was so good to eat... a burger and fries, haha.  It didn't quite taste as good as it would in the US, but I didn't care.  The ambience and decor was close to what we would expect in the US, and so were the prices .

We met a couple of westerners there.  They told us about a bar in Taoyuan called Rodeo's, so we decided to go meet them there later.  A lot of westerners go to this bar, as well as locals.  Kyle and I hopped on his scooter and went down there.  It was quite a bit too smoky and a bit narrow, but other than that, it was fine.  There was a live local band performing... American songs, hahaha.  They actually did a decent job, even attempting songs like Crazy in Love by Beyonce.  The bass player tore it up.

At one point, they sang a Chinese song.  I knew the song pretty well.  Though I had never seen the lyrics, I knew some of them from having heard it many times.  I sang along at the parts that I knew.  After awhile, Kyle informed me that the two singers were noticing me singing along.  The next thing I know, they are announcing to the entire bar (in Chinese) that there's a foreign friend here that can sing Chinese.  I get ushered up onto the stage and - they have me sing the song!  Hahaha.  Fortunately they had the lyrics there so I could read them... otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to get through it.  Well, everyone loved it, and I had a blast.

Saturday was pretty relaxing.  In the afternoon I went to the local park near my apartment.  There were lots of people there, as well as their pet dogs - big ones, little ones, furry ones, fat ones.  I mean the dogs, of course .  There were also a lot of people in the park doing some choreographed aerobic dancing, to a sound system and music.  I wondered if they had this type of activity every Saturday.  They had older ladies doing one set, then some teenaged kids doing another set.  It was fun to watch.

After that I went to the local computer store and bought myself a 19" flat screen monitor.  It cost me about US$160, which I thought was a good deal.  Now I have my desktop running in my apartment along with my laptop.  WoW looks much better on it .

At night Kyle and I went to a housewarming party for a friend of his.  I met a bunch of new people, mostly westerners who live here and teach English.  It seems to be what we westerners do here .  After that we went to a local bar.  It was there that I finally got to speak some Chinese, hahaha.  I hang out with English speakers way too much when I'm here - I'm finding it a little difficult to break into the Taiwanese community.  Perhaps it's because I relate to it as... breaking in... .

Today was also relaxing.  After I got up I decided to play WoW with Tom for like four hours.  Haha.  I've played WoW maybe 3 or 4 times since I've been in Taiwan.  After that I went up to Taipei to meet up with my friends David and Karen.  David's a Taiwanese-born guy who has lived in LA for most of his life.  His English is as fluent as mine, and so is Karen's.  She was born to Taiwanese parents in New York, but also speaks fluent Chinese.  We all went to the big night market in Taipei at Shilin.  There were people everywhere .  It's always very busy and bustling at this night market.

Well, it's back to work tomorrow.  My first class is with the kids with which I was very heavy-handed on Friday.  We'll see how that one goes .

I'll write again soon!

My first week at work is behind me...

So, my first week of teaching is over.

I survived.

On Monday I thought I was going to die.  My schedule for Monday included 3 different classes taught over a period of 5 hours, all children classes, ranging from beginning to more advanced.  I began my lesson planning on Saturday, continued for about 6 hours on Sunday, and panicked my way from 11:30 to 4pm (when my first classes was scheduled to begin) on Monday.  It was the most miserable feeling I'd felt in a long time.  I was completely panicking to the point of tears.  I had no idea what to expect and, for someone who always wants to know what to expect, that didn't sit too well.

Well, in my first class I screwed up royally.  I didn't know any games to play with the kids, they were bored out of their minds, and I was fumbling through my notes the entire time.  It turns out, however, that it doesn't matter.  I found that screwing up itself is no big deal.  Of course, in this same class (the advanced students' class), I improved greatly by my second and third lessons this week.  In fact, I improved so much more in my first week of teaching than I could have with 1000 trainings.  Someone could probably say I told you so... feel free.

This week was a rollercoaster ride for sure.  I taught of total of 25 hours this week.  At times I felt that I couldn't imagine doing this for an entire year and that I hated teaching, and at times I had lots of fun.  I think my experience over at least the next year will lie somewhere in between, though I intend for it to lean more toward the "having fun" side.

My students are so cute and full of energy.  I can hardly keep up... after a day of teaching, I'm completely exhausted, only to realize that I have to do it all again the next day.  I had to teach an advanced class of kids who have attitude and really don't want to be there for my first class ever (a class that has the boss' daughter in it, who has the most attitude of anyone); teach a class of complete beginner kids, some of whom yell "ew, disgusting!" in Chinese everytime I touch them or their books; give a final exam to a class I'd never seen before, then in the following days write an evaluation of their performance and give a presentation class to their parents; and teach a private class to two adults, both at completely different levels.  What a week.

As I said, however, I have lived to tell about it.  I think it's all downhill from here.  I have learned so much in my first week and gotten my lesson preparation times down significantly.  I think the biggest advancement has come in the area of games playing with the kids.  Let's face it - most of these kids have no idea why they are there learning English, so playing games with them which drill them in the English language and, in fact, fool them into learning it, is the best way to go.  It really seems to be the key to teaching kids.

Unfortunately, as a result, I feel like I'm just training a bunch of robots.  They learn how to reproduce specific language in response to specific cues.  They do not really gain a conversational use of the English language in this process.  I have come to justify this with the notion that I am providing them with a basis of language that they will be able to draw on when they are older and make the choice themselves to learn and master the English language for real.  For now, I'm just providing a service that these kids' parents are paying for.

Now it's time for me to learn how to gain control of my classes.  I spend so much time trying to keep the kids behaving... they are always talking between each other, speaking Chinese (in English class), getting up out of their seats, throwing stuff and playing with stuff... it's exhausting.  Granted, they are kids, but I doubt they behave in these ways in their regular Chinese school classes.  It's all a process of trial and error, adding one good teaching practice in at a time.  I can't expect to be a great teacher straight out of the gate.

That's it for now.  I am very much looking forward to this weekend... I finally get to relax!  Tomorrow will be spent cleaning every inch of my new apartment.  I finally have the time!

Bye for now.

I moved into my new place!

Today, I finally moved into my new place!  It's so great.  The teacher whom I'm replacing left Taiwan today, and she passed me the keys, so now it's official!  I also signed the lease with the landlord.  He's a cool guy.  I have a little bit of cleaning and reorganizing to do in the place but it already feels like home.  And, I'll be getting INTERNET on Thursday (FINALLY!!!!!).

Yesterday I finished up my week of teacher training for Shane English Schools (my employer).  We learned stuff like how to structure and plan lessons, what the different cirricula offered by Shane are, some games to use to teach English to kids, scoring (incentive) systems for kids, how to teach listening and phonics to kids, and a bunch of other stuff.  Most of the classes offered are taught to elementary school-aged children.  I imagine when this generation matures, English will practically be a second language in Taiwan :).

I got my schedule for next week.  I'll be teaching 5 different classes of various levels (though they are all elementary school-aged kids classes) and one private (one on one) class.  I begin at 4pm and end around 9pm everyday.  Each class meets on several days so I'll have a total of around 25 hours of teaching to do next week.  I am by no means easing into this thing, and I'm all but freaking out about Monday.  It's time to put a whole lot of theory into practice in a major way and there's no way I expect myself to be smooth the first few classes.  I asked the school owner if he can let me into the teachers room tomorrow so I can spend extra time preparing my first few lessons.

If I make it through next week it's smooth sailing for the rest of the year, I'm sure of it.  Wish me luck, everyone!

Back From My Week in China

I'm back in Taiwan again after spending a week in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Macao.  I had an absolutely wonderful time.

I got into Hong Kong last Wednesday night.  As I took the bus to the downtown Kowloon area, I absolutely fell in love with the place.  Hong Kong is incredible!  The only words I can use to describe it are huge, bustling, and crazy!  I hope to return many times.

Hong Kong really seems like a perfect blend of Western and Chinese cultures.  I clearly had a feeling the two were not stepping on one another's toes; rather, there was sound integration.  Most people there can speak English so it's very outsider-friendly.

Now Hong Kong is the first place I've been where they drive on the left-hand side of the road.  I got to thinking... now I assume that the English and Americans developed automobile technology at roughly the same time.  Was there some meeting between an American dude and an English dude in which they said, "Ok, since we don't know which side of the road we should designate as correct, how about you guys try the left side and we'll try the right.  Whichever one turns out to be better, we'll go with!"  And then, by the time one of the methods was seen to be superior (I don't know which), it was already too late for the other to switch over?  Haha.  Who knows.  I'm sure a simple internet search will reveal the answer but I'll save that for some other time.

When I got to Kowloon, I went to the hotel that Ryan recommended to me.  It turned out to be booked.  The guy said that pretty much all of the hotels in the area were completely booked due to a jewelry convention taking place in the convention center.  I went to check at another hotel, and there was a guy there who was very helpful.  He first helped me call several hotels and showed me a map of the area (and also told me how to get to the visa office for the next day to apply for my Chinese visa), then when they were all full, he pulled out his rolodex of other business cards and helped me call around.  We finally found a place just down the street that had one more opening.

Now this place was a guest house and was the tiniest thing I've ever seen.  I'd say shady but the place was not actually dirty or anything.  The building sure was shady, though.  It only cost me about $65 to stay there which was just fine.  I was really only in Hong Kong to apply for my visa to get into China.  The guy from the hotel even walked to the place with me because he'd never really seen it before and wanted to see it for himself.  I'd say pretty much everywhere I went in Hong Kong there was someone who offered to help me and direct me.  It was just a great experience.

I went out and walked around Kowloon for a bit.  Kowloon is actually to the north of the island of Hong Kong.  There is a channel between the two areas but it's connected by several ferry routes and a couple of underwater trains (the word for this slips my mind at the moment).  As in Taiwan, the rail system in Hong Kong is very well developed and convenient.

The next morning I went to the Hong Kong island to apply for my visa.  I applied for a rush visa so I could pick it up that same afternoon.  It's nice to hold an American passport :).  Otherwise, I may have had to wait for up to 5 days.  After applying basically just walked around Hong Kong and took lots of pictures of the tall, pretty buildings.

Once I got my visa at around 4:30 I went to the train station and took a train to Guangzhou.  This train ride was about two hours.  Of course, I had to fill out a form to indicate I was departing Hong Kong, and then fill in another form to indicate I was entering China proper when I got to Guangzhou.

Now this is one crazy thing about China.  I went to Hong Kong, Guangzhou (China proper), Macao, and back to Taiwan, and all four places required me to get a different visa.  My passport is now full of stamps :).  Then, last night my friend Ryan told me that to go between different european countries you don't even need a passport, let alone different visas!  And these are completely different countries!  I guess China's afraid that if they allow unrestricted passage to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan that people would leave the mainland in droves and overpopulate those places :).  If that's true, it's more of an ecomonic reason than a political one.  It makes sense.

My friend Martin, at whose house I stayed for the duration of my time in Guangzhou, came to the train station to pick me up.  I didn't realize it was so far from his house so I ended up standing outside in the cold and occasional rain for almost an hour!  The locals must have wondered what the heck I was doing there.  In Guangzhou everywhere I went I tended to get lots of stares :).  There are not a lot of foreigners out and about in Guangzhou.

Now, Guangzhou is HUGE.  I swear you could drive an hour in any direction and still be in the city limits.  It seemed that everywhere we went, it took an hour worth of driving.

I absolutely loved my time in Guangzhou.  I got to see all my friends from the Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Troupe that I met when they were touring in the Bay Area and LA.  We shared many meals together, went singing (such fun!), went to bars for drinks (and played lots of drinking games, haha), and went sight-seeing.  I really love those guys!  I'm so glad that they had time off from work so I could spend time with them.

Martin was especially great.  He was pretty much the chauffeur the entire time and we did no small amount of driving around :).  It was great that he let me stay in his place.  That saved some money.  In fact, I didn't spend any money at all when I was there.  The Chinese are very hospitable :).  Of course, I treated them very well when they were in my hometown, so they were just doing the same for me.

Oh, dimsum in Guangzhou was incredible.  Blows dimsum in San Francisco out of the water.  I also ate snake meat, drank snake's blood and venom (now that's an interesting taste), and ate posionous toad.  (My mom will freak when she hears about this, haha).  Well, I'm still alive, so it must not be all that bad :).  I just couldn't bring myself to eat scorpions, however.  That's just too... freaky.

I felt really sad when I had to leave Monday morning.  I told everyone that we can meet up from time to time in Hong Kong or even Macao.  It's easy for both me and them to get to those places, but not so convenient for me to get to China.

I took the bus to Zhuhai which it turns out is walking distance from Macao.  Once again, I filled out corresponding departure and entry cards.  I met another lady on the bus with whom I chatted the entire way to Zhuhai and who was also going to Macao so she was also very helpful.

My friend Wing picked me up at the bus station.  Wing is the girl I met in Hawaii about a year and a half ago, on Oahu.  We've been in contact ever since.  She was supposed to come to California to visit and see the place last August but instead she decided that work is more important :).  She works as a baccarat dealer in one of the casinos in Macao.

At first I didn't like Macao at all.  Unlike Hong Kong, it did not seem to be an integration of the East and the West.  As the British are to Hong Kong, the Portuguese are to Macao.  It was in 1999 (if I'm not mistaken) that Macao was given back over to the Chinese by Portugal.  It was strange seeing Portuguese along with Chinese on all the signs.  However, it seemed like there were two completely distinct cultures there.  It was not a blend like Hong Kong.

I also did not like the casinos much.  They was an identical design of the Wynn casino that is also new to Las Vegas.  They are building a new Venetian casino that is just gigantic.  It just doesn't feel like China being there.

The final day I was there I walked around central Macao.  I visited the museum there, which was nice.  I took lots of pictures :).  As I got lost in the center of the city I realized that Macao truly still is China.  It just didn't seem that way when I was in the casino area :).  I must have walked for three hours until I found my way back to the casinos.

I really didn't get to spend all that much time with Wing since she worked each day from noon until 8pm.  I also didn't go into the casinos that much.  The casinos are a bit different from the ones in Las Vegas in that there are a ton of tables and relatively few slot machines.  I did manage to contribute about $60 total or thereabouts to the slot machines, however.  I guess my luck is not too great :).

I'll definitely have to return to Macao again now that I know where to go :).  Actually it wasn't until the final day, as I was leaving, that I got my hands on a map.  Haha.  Oh well, as I said before, it's very easy to get there from Taiwan.  I live maybe 20 minutes from the airport here, and the flight time is only about an hour and a half to both Macao and Hong Kong.

All in all, I had an excellent time.  Every since I got to this side of the world I feel like my life has started back up again.  There is just so much to look forward to here for me, and I'm also looking forward to traveling to and seeing many new places in the future.

By the way, I saw the apartment that I will be living in starting in a week, and I love it!  It's perfect.  I can't wait!  So, everyone, hop on a plane and come visit me!

Later!