I Hate Buses

Okay, this upcoming week I am going on the aournd Taiwan tour with all the inbounds and outbounds. It's a week long trip. We're travelling by bus. I may or may not go insane. I'm taking lots of pictures, but not with the digital camera, because I lost the battery recharger and it only takes damn specialized lithium batteries. Soo, I'm buying a couple throw-aways and sending home copies. (This way, I can fill my cute photo albulm too.) I'll let you all know what's up next week. Later!

Song and Dance

Warning: This is not the usual, light, funny fare. I am feeling distinctly bitchy and since I'm in a country where public outbursts of emotion are deeply frowned upon, I am venting through written words rather than screaming into a pillow or beating someone up. So if you don't want to read through my diatribe, I'd suggest you scram. Come back tomorrow.

I feel slightly put out with my host mothers. They want to make me sing and dance to a stupid song in front of my Rotary club, all dolled up in formal (and hideous) dress. I say 'dolled', as my host mom specifically described my hair being similar to a Barbie doll's. At the 'mature' age of 16, where Barbie is deeply uncool, I feel slightly insulted. Oooh, yes, Jane's a fecking Barbie 'cause her hair's curly. But I'm feeling distinctly out-of-sorts with the world today. It'll pass. However, I'm pissed off now.

Especially since I've noticed a few things.

I'm never going to fit in here. Oh, yes, people will get used to me, but I'll never be one of the family. I'm the foreigner, who's here for a little while, just humor her until she leaves. I think maybe 3 Taiwanese people I know want to meet me for me. But I'm probably wrong.

My opinions don't matter. My current host mom has 3 children. She knows what a kid looks like when they're doing something they don't want to do (homework, chores, etc.) and sees the signs. But since I'm me (lucky, no?) she sees the grimace on my face and the horror of wearing a dress and dancing and singing, all at the same time, in front of an audience I'd prefer to never meet, and she laughs. She smiles and says, oh, this is going to be fun. Fun? I'd rather go through 3 painful years of braces again rather than that. And yet, here I am, practicing the stupid song.

Any confidence I make will tell the nearest source of authority, almost immediately, with my still sitting there. Any time I speak to my host sister or a Rotary mom, whatever I say makes the rounds throughout all the neihghborhood. In fact, the gossip is so high priority that they don't even wait for me to leave the room. I was sitting right next to my host sister when she repeated (with better grammer) what I said directly to the host mom. So much for 'sibling' solidarity. Teach me a lesson about trusting people.

There. I've been suffiecntly witch for a week or so. If you've got suggestions, don't talk to Rotary. Honest. While I'm having a problem, RI only further fucks up the situation. Trust me, I've seen it in action. Just leave a comment or something.
(Not that i'm expecting much. What good can i do against centuries of ingrained social interactions?)

McDonalds

Well, I had my Chinese lesson this morning and since the teacher didn't have a formal plan for today, we just talked. Eventually, we ran into the differences between food in the US and in Taiwan. You couldn't imagine their surprise when I told them McDonalds in the US doesn't have rice burgers or fish wraps (last time I checked). Nor does it serve corn soup with a pastry on top, and by the way, your Pizza Hut is immensely different as well.

One of the teacher, upon hearing this, burst out in Chinese, "Well, what have we been eating all this time? I thought this was American food!"
I replied, "It's like Chinese food in the US. I think it's okay, you'd think it's insane."

She nodded and muttered a few words under her breath, ones I will not be translating. But I did write them down. XD

Oh, the Irony

This week's cover story in Time Asia: 'Are We Pushing Our Kids Too Hard?'

I think they're a bit late. Say, by a couple centuries or so. The Asians have ingrained over-working their children in school since the dawn of Confucian scholars.

But it's nice to have Time magazine vindicate your opinions.

Tisese

Hmm. I just spent an unusually interesting two hours in Home Ec. class. Usually, I'm quite bored. Today's topic was cohabitation before marriage. The teacher wasn't actively against it, but you could tell she personally disapproved and wouldn't like it if her children did so. They asked me, I said it was cool, and yes, my parents lived together before marriage. Not a big deal.

The second hour, we watched a documentary on the women of Masou in Northern China, a matriarchal society. Before the Han (Chinese) arrived, they had no concept of marriage. A woam lives with her mother and her siblings. She has no husband. The father of any of her children is refered to as such and lives with his mother and siblings. They enjoy big families and three generations will usually live together under one roof. The whole idea is called tisese and is favored among the Masou. In the 70's, the women were forced to practice monogamy by the government and the resulting marriages were not happy ones. There were cultural differences and going from a large family to a small one was not appreciated. These days, those rules are gone and tisese is back in practice.

I enjoyed it and was disappointed when the teacher cut the program short to talk about it. My classmates were ambivalent towards the subject, but since they don't have a test on it, they won't pay attention. Such is life.

AC

Okay, this has been irking me for the longest time. No matter what the temperature outside is, my host parents insist on the AC of the car to be slightly warmer than an artic blizzard. While this isn't bad when the weather's hot, it's a pain in the tuckus when the mercury drops. And when I try to show them the joys of, say turning up the heat, they smile, nod, and change it back the second I'm outta the car. Grr.

This bugs me right now, cause it's raining, I don't have a coat, and I slide into the SUV to find the interior colder than the exterior. Almost to the point where condensation appears on the windows (beyond raindrops, thank you). Gack!

One of Those Days

You know those kinds of days, when immediately upon waking up, you realize you're fucked? Like nothing you do will go right and you'd be better off crawling back under the covers? Yeah. It's one of those days.

Maybe it's got something to do with me only sleeping two hours total last night.

...

Nah.

Beach Houses

Right. After I posted that last one, Dennis was hanging around and generally mking me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't know why he comes over here (i mean, his current house has a computer) and I got off so he could 'talk to his family'. Riiight. And now I feel like a gullible idiot.

Anyways, yesterday we went to a family friend's house on the beach. The view was gorgeous and even though the weather was kinda bad, I ran around in the surf with my littlest host sister. I seem to have more fun with her than with my other host sisters. Probably 'cause she's not been totally brainwashed by the education system yet. We had a barbieque, which is honestly one of the funniest things here. I'll get the pictures up. Eventually. After that, we went home and then watched about 5 hours of movies (Urban Legends:Bloody Mary, and Saw) and TV (Bump Off Lover 17 and Circus (which is like Taiwan's version of Jackass).)

Today I went shopping with my host moms 'cause I didn't have school (test day, so I don't have to go, yay!) and we went and bought nice formal clothes. There was this cranberry colored dress that I liked, but it had this ugly floral print, so no. I"ll go back and look at some skirts on my own, so my moms won't try to buy 'em for me. (I need one to go with my shirt that I bought a year ago in Taichung.) Hung around first moms house and I'm staying the night here. Yay. I'll go back home tomorrow - still no school. Yay!

Airsoft Sucks.

The title says all.

My Saturdays are pretty basic. I sleep 'til noon, grab a light breakfast, hang around 'til 1.30. We go to 7-11 and get lunch (I Love 7-11 here) and then I go to art with my littlest host sister. Then, we all go to the restaurantand hang for hours on end. I had planned to work on my sketchbook, considering Mette is beating me, and was kinda miffed when my host mom called and asked if I wanted to go paintballing. Anyways, I said yes, and then proceeded to go back home and change. You know, because skirts just aren't the best things to wear when running for your life. I prefer jeans. Anyways, to make a long and quite droll story short, we did not go paintballing, we went airsoft-ing. Which sucks. Pellets hurt. And playing in the dark with your glasses off? Not recommended. I was quite glad when we finally got to leave. I am not going again next weekend.

What I Did This Week

Wah. I realized I hadn't written anything recently. Quick recap:

Tuesday: went to the local college. Met German speaking Taiwanese professor, who proceeded to speak (le gasp!) German to Dennis and Fabian, two exchange students from Germany. Also met a nice physics professor, who showed us around his lab.
Wednesday: Had Japanese class and actually did well for once. Wahoo.
Thursday: Had one class today. Yah. And yet I still had to be there from 7.00 to 5.00.
Friday: No Chinese today, my teacher was at her college. Drawing class ws canceled, 'cause my classmates have exams on Monday and Tuesday. So I had no class at all today. Right.

Today, Mette and I are planning to do something for St. Patrick's Day. We'll see.

My Hot Pot Personality

Well, I jsut did a Chinese personality quiz. All based on what kind of seasonings and such that one eats with a hot pot. (FYI: A hot pot is basically soup, cooked at the table. It's quite good.)

I am a Japanese hot pot. Apparently, I am a gentle sheep (ha!), one who has lots of good friend but not many great ones, a good person, a follower. I can talk to people, have no ideas of my own, and am a solid, steady person. I avoid confrontation and am a yes-man.

(snerk.) Right.

French Choirs

I've decided there is nothing funnier than a bunch of Asian schoolgirls trying to sing a French song. Honest.

We're singing 'Vois sur ton chemin'. Go look it up, it's from a relatively famous French movie about some kid's choir. It's not bad.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Weekends

My weekends at my new host family are kind of nice. See, my last family was... absent. My host dad (whom I did not like) was almost always ar work or passed out on the couch and my host sister spent all her time at school, the library, or her mom's place. So I was home alone, usually, and went out to shop or get food, 'cause they obviously missed the memo on me getting room and board. But my new family takes me out. Which is really nice.

Saturday, I'm on my own until noon-ish. I sleep in, watch MTV Asia with my host sisters, steal the remote to catch some CNN, etc. We leave the house around 1.30, stopping at 7-11 for drinks and lunch (I'll tell you all about that later), and drop each of the kids off at their respective activities for 2 hours, so Mom can have her alone time. My littlest sister and I go to art class. I like it, cause it's art. And I'm not at cram school or guitar class, where my other sisters go. (#2 and #1, respectively.) We get out at 4 and go to the restaurant, usually til about 11.30. We kids hang out in the staff room, and watch tv, play on the computer, and generally goof around. It's fun, really. (No, I'm not being sarcastic.)

Sunday we veg out til noon. Lunch is usally late, and we go see a movie, or go shopping, or whatever needs to be done. Yesterday, I went shopping with my friend Mette. I bought a new CD and a few t-shirts that I like. I just can't seem to stop spending money here.

After dinner, we went home and watched a movie. (Shinobi: Heart Under Blade.) It was Japanese, with Chinese subtitles. Yah. I understood absolutely nothing, but hey. Ninjas!

Driving

Have I mentioned how scary the Taiwanese are at driving cars, scooters, motorcycles, and bicycles? It's insane. Like the rules of the road are mere guidelines. It's not so bad when I'm with my first host mom, cause she almost never goes above 40 km per hour. But my current parents (who equally ignoregeneral common sense rules) get twitchy if they're not going above 60km. Since I'm in the front seat usually, it's bloody scary. And I'm the only one who wears a seat belt.

And yet their accident rates are so much lower than the US's, it's not even funny. I have no idea how this works out.

Cosmic Jokes

Okay, here in the Taiwanese public school system, there is a position called jiao guan, like a security guard, with power. They give speeches, make sure we don't escape, etc. (I'm quite sure they're the ones behind the barbed wire fences.) Anyways, this mornings speech was about the dress code. Uh huh. See, one of the jiao guan actually ran around, had us lift up our pant legs, just to make sure we were wearing white socks. I shit you not. You wanna know what I was thinking?

Whew. Glad I wore non-regulation shoes and the right kind of socks.

And they had no problem with my sneakers. Cause I was wearing white socks.



This moment has been brought to you by Taiwan. We're Not The Middle East, But We Try.

Teaching 206

Yesterday, I spent one hour in 206, assisting the student teacher. Mainly, we spent the whole hour answering questions about me in English. Today, their student teacher (who is also my Chinese teacher) told me that yesterday afternoon, the class was more interested and involved than she had ever seen before. Well, no offense, but I'm an interesting foreigner, and you're their English grammer teacher. It's not hard to guess who'd win.

Me and Meteorology

Well, scratch my last post. It turned out to be rainy, humid, and kind of cool. I guess I shouldn't be a weather girl.

Sunny Days

Today weather is beautiful. It's a little hazy right now, but you just know it'll be glorious out later. The fact that the ocean is a block away is not making things any better. In fact, the temptation to play hooky and just go lie on the beach is enourmous. Gah! Must... resist... sandy... beach...

Where'd I put that Advil?

This semester in gym, the first years are playing volleyball. After school, kids also generally play the sport of the semester. So, it's not unusual for me to shoot baskets with my host sister and her friends. At least, we did that last semester. Now we play volleyball. (Duh.)

Or, they attempt to play volleyball and I try not to wince. To be honest, most of them play like I did back in 8th grade. Which is to say, miserably. Right now, my game is passable in the class. But playing with these girls is giving me bruises. Uncomfortable ones. And now my wrists feel like not moving. At all. For the unforseeable future.

So of course I trip down the stairs and wrench my wrists in an attempt not to fall to my doom.

Let's just say it hurts, and leave it at that.

Envy

Well, Grandma's got a blog. She updates regularly. I should too. We'll see.