"I DON'T HAVE CHINA! I DON'T HAVE CHINA!"

Miscommunication fails through languages can be super hilarious. Back when I was studying Spanish in high school, I remember a kid who stood up in front of the entire school in Spain we did our exchange program at and proudly announced that he had an erection instead of that telling them he liked running. Another instance, a girl ordered a penis sandwich on accident. 

My students, too, are always saying accidentally inappropriate things. Last week, for instance, a kid spelled "short" as "shart" on his homework. Two of my 4 year olds often say the word "bitch" because they can't pronounce "fish" or other similar sounding words. One student left out the "-ry" when writing "Are you hungry? Yes, I am hungry". Etc, etc. I need to take pictures of these and start uploading them to facebook or seomthing.

And of course, 80% of things translated to English from Chinese here are atrocious. Take my last field trip with the kiddos to the bug museum:

I am far from immune from translation errors. Since my Chinese skills are positively awful, I am sure I've said some ridiculous things without realizing it. I've been in Taiwan for 10 months and just now realized I've been confusing the country of England and the English language. I've been running up to cab drivers and 7-11 workers yelling, "ENGLAND?! ENGLAND?!" I can only imagine that they think I've fallen on my head, woke up with amnesia, and am trying to figure out the country I'm in. 

Then, today, some Taiwanese chick called me and started speaking Chinese to me. I tried to tell her I didn't understand Chinese but she kept talking so I just started yelling "MEI YO ZHONG GUA" which I later realized is the equivalent of yelling "I DON'T HAVE CHINA!". While it is true that I do not own the country of China, it was not the exact message I was trying to convey...

why yellow fever vaccines and fried chicken sellers suck

Time's slowly creeping closer to the end of my first year in Taiwan and my vacay to Africa.


In preparation for Africa, I decided to head to the hospital to get pills and vaccinations. In particular, I have to get a Yellow Fever vaccination certificate to authorize my visa into Ghana (SEE! I'm not gonna get kicked out this time!!). I went to the hospital, got lost, and took a cab there. The cab driver had no idea what I wanted even though I though I had the Chinese address and kept saying "hospital" and coughing and acting sick so he'd bring me to the hospital. A few loops later, I reached my destination only to be told that said hospital did not have a yellow fever vaccination. Ok, no problem. Jumped in another cab and went to hospital 2. Hospital 2 was severely lacking in English-speaking staff and getting them to understand I wanted a vaccine for an upcoming trip to Ghana with my limited Chinese was about as possible as me training a legless man to tap dance. Finally, an English speaking doctor brought me upstairs and told me they too did not have the vaccine. They wrote down the Chinese address of a third hospital and I jumped in another cab. I walked in this hospital to ask the service desk where to go only to be bombarded by a random Taiwanese chick chatting away to me in Chinese. I just looked at her and said, "no" because I felt approximately like this:

Unfortunately, she switched to English and asked me if I was an English teacher. Guilty - I was wearing my work polo with HESS plastered on it. I told her I was, and she told me her friend sometimes sells me fried chicken sometimes. WHAT. 

She proceeded to talk to me for about 15 minutes, asking me questions like, "where is your Taiwanese friend to help you?". She was the female equivalent to the annoying guy at the bar who keeps pestering, "where's your boyfriend tonight?" except wanting to be my friend. Apparently she asked my name back in September and actually remembered it, which is both impressive and downright creepy, especially since I have no recollection of ever talking to my fried chicken vendor's bff. 


After I finally got rid of her, surprise! Hospital 3's yellow vaccinator doesn't work past 3pm.


Total counts for this afternoon: 4 cab rides, 3 hospitals, 2 hours lost, 1 head ache, and 0 yellow fever vaccines.

On the plus side, according to a random Taiwanese girl, I have very sexy arm hair. 

Don't act like your not impressed.

oh hey, giant panda in the movie theater. so normal.

What's new in the oh-so-glamorous world of the English teacher in Taiwan?

Me and Pony, who shares the same bday as me

A few weeks back I celebrated my 2-year anniversary of my 21st birthday. The day of was pretty normal, I went to work like usual. The weekend after I went out to dinner with a few friends at a hot-pot / all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurant. I don't think I've described the awesomeness of these places yet in a blog post, so get ready. Basically they're pretty much the same as a Mongolian Barbecue restaurant at home, where you pick out raw meat and have it grilled in front of you, except for here you have a mini grill in the middle of your table and you grill it yourself. The waiters bring out menus with different types of meat and you order as much raw meat (and veggies and other snacks) as you'd like.


On top of that, many restaurants offer all-you-can drink beer on top of that. Because most Taiwanese don't drink that much, they don't lose much money off of this. However, us Americans like to take advantage of awesome deals like that. Can you imagine the chaos that would occur if restaurants offered all-you-can drink deals back home?



Also, this past weekend was a 2-day weekend for me (I work Saturdays, remember? I usually only get 1 day off) because Monday was a holiday - Dragon Boat Festival. It's on the fifth day of the fifth month, like Cinco de Mayo, except on the Chinese year, and there are a lot less burritos and alcohol than Cinco de Mayo. Apparently once upon a time, there was this important Chinese dude, and then he died, but no one wanted the fish to eat him so they threw Zong Zi (described to me as a "glutinous rice ball". How appetizing) in the water so the fish would eat that instead of the famous dude. Now, they race boats shaped like dragons to commemorate this, which I don't really get the connection between the dead dude, glutinous rice balls, and the dragon boats, but I get a day off of work so I'm quite satisfied. I asked my students if they were going to go and watch the races but they all kind of rolled their eyes and said no. For those familiar with Holland, Dragon Boat festival is probably equivalent to Tulip Time -- awesome for anyone under the age of 8 or over the age of 60, but everyone else just ignores it and thinks it's moderately lame.


I went out to see the races anyway. They were pretty anticlimactic indeed, but hey, I'm in Taiwan, I gotta watch the festivals. I looked for the rice balls of glutin, but alas, I came back rice-ball-less. We did get some watermelon drinks (just blendified watermelon - literally, that's it) and ice cream that's about 1% cream and 99% ice (they're not huge on their dairy products like we are).

Here are some more pictures from Dragon Boat Festival:

In conclusion, I'll share with you a picture of Potato which shows how we're meant to be together:

Oh, and a random Panda I saw at the movie theater.

So normal.

moo-ing at waiters and falling off surfboards

This past weekend I went to Yilan and learned how to surf! Four other people and I rented one long board + our own personal surf instructor for the entire day for a whopping total of 150NT, or about 5US$ each. First, they taught us how to jump on the board while the board was still stable on the sand. 

Then we jumped in the water and tried it! The water was pretty cold for Taiwan standards, but still warmer than Lake Mich at ANY time of the year. The surf instructor held the surf board for me, I laid down, and he pushed me onto the wave. If I didn't immediately fall off, I kind of stood on the board, but then immediately fell off after that. The falling off part wasn't so fun, especially since I got sand in places that sand should never be. But surfing was pretty cool and I'd recommend trying it at least once. I'm not rushing to go back and do it again, but I'd definitely go if the opportunity came.

Not only was it super cheap to do, but the guys who we rented from gave us a ride back for free. They just let a group of 5 randos hop in their SUV and drove us back. I'm blown away by the kindness of the Taiwanese some times... can you imagine letting a group of foreigners who didn't speak English into your car that you didn't know and driving them around for free? I didn't think so. The moral system here is very different from back home. Things like that aren't uncommon - the Taiwanese can be downright nice in ways that Americans rarely are.

For instance, I clearly don't know Chinese, but I still have to function in society. I order food out a lot and use a variety of techniques. 

• The point and giggle. This technique works best in places with pictures and people who are sympathetic to my illiteracy. 
• Have a coworker write down what I want on a piece of paper in Chinese and I hand the paper over to the worker. This is a bit more effective but still embarrassing. 
• Other desperate measures are acting out the type of animal I want to eat. I once moo-ed to a waiter.

Why not just speak Chinese to them? Oh, because nobody has any idea what the fuck I'm saying when I speak Chinese. The tones are ridiculously hard for me and I've pretty much just given up.

Anyway, for the most part, people put up with this ridiculousness and try to help me out when ordering food or buying something. Occasionally someone will pop up and translate for me if the worker can't speak English. I try to at least start in Chinese every time to not be rude, but I know some less culturally sensitive people who just walk up and speak English to the workers. And you know what? A lot of them don't mind and really try to help. They even apologize for not speaking English better. Seriously?! I'm in your country! Imagine that back home... someone just walking up to a worker and speaking Spanish? Hells to the no. Pointing at a picture to order food? You might get service, but the workers most likely would be gossiping about you and secretly telling you to "go back to your country" or "learn some friggen' English already." I can't comprehend that situation working back home.

Don't take this as a Taiwanese > Americans or that Americans > Taiwanese. Although the Taiwanese have proven to be kind in ways that would probably not happen back in the States, we similarly have several courtesies that aren't practiced here often. People bump into me without apologizing, rarely hold doors open for each other, don't follow traffic laws AT ALL, and even the most decent of people pull illegal activities all the time, like companies reporting less income so they pay less taxes (happens A LOT). Oh, and I'm illegal here. Even though I do work for Hess, all the kindergarten teachers are technically not allowed to teach and to the government officials, we don't exist and our companies just lie about us. The police have come into my work and I've had to hide on the roof. Seriously. So both cultures have their awesome points and low points.

Speaking of low points, I got robbed last week :-/ I had 10,000 NT, or around 350US$, sitting in an envelope in my apartment and last Sunday I noticed the envelope was missing.

It sucks because I've always felt like Taipei was a really safe place. I never thought I'd actually have someone break into my apartment and steal money. Luckily, they only stole the cash and didn't take my laptop or any electronics. But still, it's not fun getting robbed, especially weeks after I buy an insanely expensive plane ticket to Africa and don't have a bunch of cash to throw away.

------------------------------------

Since I live in Taiwan and internet sites register this, I keep getting ads in Chinese, despite the fact that I can read hardly any Chinese symbols. These three symbols constitute about half of what I can read: 一二三. They mean yī, èr, sān, or 1, 2, 3. I know, I know, you're super impressed that it only took me 8 months to learn such complicated symbols. Anyway, sometimes I'm curious and my browser, google chrome, will translate it. For instance, when I saw this ad, I wanted to know wtf it was trying to tell me. Today, I was curious and translated, and I got this gem.

I was blown away by the depth of this ad. Clearly green men are being used in a metaphorical sense, and the repetition is surely a literary tool of geniousness. How could only 1,736 people like this?! 

barbie museums and african vacays

I'm going to Africa!!!


*cue Shakira music*

I'm visiting my friend Katie, who is volunteering in Tamale, Ghana in the Peace Corps. My stay will be a total of 2 and a half weeks in late July / early August and I will also be staying a few nights in Hong Kong.


In the process of purchasing said ticket, of course something had to go wrong. I tried to book my ticket through Cheapoair.com. I learned a valuable lesson: don't book anything from any company with the word "cheapo" in the name. Très sketch. I might have to cancel my credit card and reissue it and also have some Cheapoair worker from India inviting me to go visit him. Why do I have so many problems with India?
Moral of the story, don't book anything from Cheapoair.com or onetravel.com, they're a scam.


In other news, today I took my kids on a field trip to a Barbie museum.


Yup.


A Barbie museum.


It was actually pretty boring. I expected a museum of Barbies from the 50s and 60s up until now. In reality, it's just a bunch of new-ish Barbies with clothing sewn by members of the community. It's kind of a cool idea, but nonetheless, boring. Everything was in Chinese, so I had to amuse myself by creating names for the Barbies such as "Jungle whore Barbie" and "Drunken frat boy Ken."

I don't actually know any of these people. I found it on google. Sorry. Actually, this isn't even the same Barbie museum I went to - apparently there are more than one of these things in Taiwan?! 


The road trip back consisted in me teaching my kiddos important life lessons, like how to properly engage in a thumb war and how to count to three in Spanish.


In other news, according to an e-mail I just got, I will be soon getting a lot of money! Right there in my junk mail folder was an e-mail from Ghadaffi's son saying he'd like to give me 20.5 million dollars in off shore account funds from Libya. All I have to do is give him my credit card information, and BAM! Instant millionaire! Thanks, Saif! If you need a flight from Libya, let me tell you about this great deal I heard about from Cheapoair.com...

how my students learn the word "shit" from my school

This is probably too early to announce to the world, but whatever; I'm unofficially staying another year in Taiwan. I was offered to teach double kindergarten classes after I complete my contract and I won't have to work at the buxiban (cram school) anymore. This means more hours, but more consistent hours - I'll be working closer to a 9-5 job (9-4 Tues/Thurs, 9-7 MWF, and NO SATURDAYS!). I haven't signed anything yet, which is why I say "unofficial"; you never know what could happen in the next few months. 

The past weekend, I took another scooter road trip with Victoria. This time we decided to head to Wulai, located south of Taipei. It's famous for a waterfall, as seen below.

A bit underwhelming, no? Or perhaps just whelming. Definitely not overwhelming.

After feeling whelmed, we saw a gondola that went above the waterfall and thought, why not take it? So we did, and I was expecting a pretty lookout, maybe a coffee stand or something up on top of the waterfall. Instead we found....

...An archery range. Really? ARCHERY? What?

Oh, and then an ostrich came storming by us. It's just so normal.

Then I shot at stuff. Again, what normal people do on top of waterfalls in Asia.

There were some hiking paths with very inviting signs on their entrances.

Here are some more [normal] pictures of Wulai:

view from the top

In conclusion of this blog post, I give to you the following: a poster that is placed outside both schools I work at and throughout the city of LuZhou. I think it provides for great English language learning through new vocabulary!

"teacher robin! you are bum-bum SO BIG!"

You know those moments they talk about when teachers realize the absolute beauty in their work because they've educated a child, taught them an invaluable life lesson, touched the life of a child and given meaning to both the student's life and your own?


Well, I didn't have one of those moments today. 


I did, however, have this moment today:
"Teacher Robin! You are bum-bum SO BIG!"
Translated from 4-year-old-who-is-just-learning-English: "Girrrl, your ass is HUGE!"

Thanks, Henry. SEE IF I LET YOU PICK OUT THE STORY TIME BOOK EVER AGAIN.




Also, blogspot.com tells me where my traffic comes from. Apparently if you google search Celine Dion Drinking Games I am the fourth popular website and if you google image search Dolphins Doing Math I am the second popular image. 


Google associates my blog with the phrases "Celion Dion drinking games" and "Dolphins doing math"? Only two words can describe this. 
FUCK. YES.