"The past is behind-- we must learn from it. The future is ahead-- we must prepare for it. The present is now-- we must live in it."
As I was trying to think of what to title this blog and what quote to begin it with I decided that all heroes, on their journey, must stop for a minute and look around them. While on their ongoing adventure they must have a moment to pause and appreciate the life that is surrounding them. And so, in this blog I want to take the time to appreciate the little everyday things around me. And of course why not throw a little Halloween celebration in the mix. Here is a little taste of the everyday goings on in the life of an English teacher in Taiwan...
As the days pass, so do the years, and so comes another birthday :) Our dear Annalisa had her 27th birthday this last month and we certainly did what we could to celebrate....
The day of her birth fell on a weekday, which prevented us from doing anything too extravagant. She did, however, get not just one, but THREE cakes that day. First one from our student's Barbie and Eilleen. Second from our boss and the secretaries at our school. And last but certainly not least, our own little cake from a box. It was quite the delicious day.
That weekend we got to do some good old fashioned tie dye thanks to a package Kailey received from home.
It was Anna's first time ever doing tie dye!
I must say, tie dye is one of my favorite artistic endeavors. It very rarely goes wrong.
Here we are with our little projects after we had dyed everything we could find that was white and needing to be spruced up a bit...
What and enjoyable evening. I'm so glad I got to be there for Anna's first.
The next day was another simple adventure in the good old city of Taichung. Real quick story: Several months ago, we were riding our bikes home from some adventure, when we heard Anna call out "I really want a whopper." (Well, okay, we couldn't fully understand what it was she said... what she really said was something completely different that none of us can recall... ) We all found her sudden craving for American fast food quite amusing, and ever since we have not let her live it down (even though she never really said it.) Therefore we felt it expedient that we make a journey to the closest Burger King in honor of her birthday...
Where we enjoyed ourselves a good old fashioned American fast food meal...
Anna got the whopper of course...
As did I...
And Liz did too. Here she is enjoying your classic French fry...
Now these foods may seem typical and mundane but please do not take them for granted. Never before was a whopper so welcome before me.
And then there was Miss Kailey who chose to eat a side salad...
Haha yes, she is pulling that face. "All the girls pose the same for pictures..." Now don't get the wrong idea about Kailey here. She was very conscious of the face she was pulling.
After lunch we were finally able to make our way to the biggest Confucius temple in Taichung.
Here we are at the doors of the "gate of perceivable purity" or something like that...
You know we do come across many temples during our travels, but despite their similarities, we do occasionally come across one that has something new to offer...
I am pleased to say that I can tell the difference between Confucius temples and Buddhist temples now. A useful skill I daresay.
Here we have a view of the classrooms that are typical of the Confucius temples. Usually when I have seen them they have been vacant but in this case there were some sort of adult classes going on. Good to know that those rooms aren't just for show.
Now the next couple of pictures are something special to the Taichung Confucius temple. This is the only temple in Taiwan that has working basin's such as these. The first one is used for burning silk and parchment... they do this on Confucius's birthday every year.
And this one is called the "Sacrificial Basin." In this basin, they bury hair and blood. Just who's hair and just who's blood I couldn't tell you....
...very interesting...
Later that evening we were invited to attend our students, Barbie and Eilleen's, little dance recital. We eagerly made our way to where we thought it was supposed to take place at and found ourselves in the midst of a dance concert being performed outside. Assuming that the likelihood of two dance concerts being held on one night to be a small one, we found seats and looked around eagerly for our students. As the show progressed we were overwhelmed with the low quality of the show. They didn't have very many dancers and they overused the ones they did have so much that you could feel their exhaustion from the audience. One little boy in particular was quite good at doing back bends. Therefore the dance teachers seemed to think it necessary to do a full dance where basically all he did was back bend after back band after back bend. It was dizzying just watching this poor little child exhaust himself for the meager applause that greeted him as he finished. It was sickening. I was frightened for what our little students would be forced to do for a little attention. Just then, we were relieved by their father coming towards us that, thankfully we were at the wrong show. So it was that Changhua City is big enough to have to dance concerts in one evening. When we were finally settled down at the correct show we were very much relieved to see that the quality of this show was ten times that of the previous one. It was very well put together and quite cute. After the show we got to see our girls and a few others we happened to know there as well...
One such person was my former student Joshua. You may or may not recall my mentioning this little twit before but I assure you I was beyond excited to see him again. :)
Indeed I was even surprised to discover just how much I missed this little guy. It both broke and mended my heart in one leap to see him emerge from behind his sister. I called out "Joshua!" and knelt down clasping his little hands in mine. He held tightly back showing me that he was just as happy to see me as I was to see him. It's moments like these that make motherhood not seem like such a foreboding task. I can't help but wonder, however, how hard it is going to be for me to part with all 24 of my students when it was this difficult to part with just one....
The next evening we put into use a beautiful little Mahjong set that I was happy enough to discover in a little thrift store tucked away in a winding street of Taichung. I bought it with a feeble hope that all the pieces would be there, and was happy to find when I returned home that indeed they were all there. Quite a little miracle seeing as it was kept in a little desk drawer within a plastic bag. I will probably keep both the mahjong set and the desk drawers as treasures for a good part of my life. Quite the find for a mere NT$200 (roughly 6 American dollars.)
Naturally I was eager to play the game again so we instated "Moahjong Sunday."
Here we are in the throws of a full fledged classic game :)
....and in our newly made tie dye shirts.
The next couple of days we began to notice it cooling down considerably. This was indeed a welcome change after the sweltering heat of the never ending summer months. We were just as pleased as ever to continue wearing short sleeves comfortably, but the dear people of Taiwan took the change in weather a bit more seriously than we...
And these cute little outfits are breezy compared to some of the thick snow coats we saw throughout the city. It's kind of funny because in Utah people are ridiculous about the weather in just the opposite sense. People will wear flip flops and shorts until a thick snow blankets the earth. But not in Taiwan. As soon as the weather drops below 60 degrees they are in their full winter garb. I guess they really don't want to catch a cold...
And then came Halloween!!!
Kailey must be in the middle of a good old "wingardium leviosa" in this picture.
And Anna is the perfect pumpkin.
A happy Halloween spirit was in the air and it was quite infectious as the students lined up for class. Many of them dressed up in costumes that were a bit less extravagant than those found in America, but not any less affective.
I decided to go as a small mustached man and by the end of the day I was TK1's boyfriend. (TK1 being the nickname given to me by my Basic Readers.) And so here I am as TK1's boyfriend with little Barbie and Eilleen as a pumpkin and Dracula...
Gotta love these little kiddles...
At the end of our little afternoon class we had a costume contest and here are the winners, or rather, the only ones in costume.
Here is Jimmy...
And here is Kerry...
And the oh so adorable Flora...
And here we have all three together. I must say this picture expresses all three of their personalities perfectly.
Flora is one of the sweetest girls I have ever met. She is beautiful and graceful and she is truly a friend to everyone. When some of the kids are not welcoming to newer students, she is always right there making them feel quite at home. Jimmy is as hilarious as can be. I am always astonished at the funny things that come out of that little boys mouth. If you recall, I posted a video of him singing his favorite song "I want it that way." He knows several other backstreet boys songs as well. Whenever I am feeling at all impatient with my students he never fails to say or do something to break me of my negativity by making me laugh. Kerry too is a very amusing young lad. During break time he will often come over to my desk and we will have a street-fighter type fight in which Kerry always somehow comes out as the victor.
After class we took the students to a little haunted house we set up in one of the classrooms. Here is Kailey trying to coax Joe into feeling the eye balls (peeled grapes) of the dead man on the table.
It was a simple little haunted alley but with the lights dimmed and the eerie music playing the kids were easily frightened by every turn of the corner. The scariest part for them was when they uncovered the screaming head of Teacher Liz...
We also got to go trick-or-treating to the different classrooms and when we went to the secretaries, Emily got a picture of us all together...
The Basic Reading class is a good one indeed. I feel so lucky to have been chosen to be their teacher :)
Once the afternoon class was over, a few of my 4A students came to help with the haunted house for the evening classes.
Ivy and Winnie are two of my rather rambunctious 4A's. This class is definitely a fun one to teach as well. My students are all about the age of sixth graders and they are all so facetious and clever that I can't help but stop and laugh with them whenever they out wit me. I have mentioned Ivy before. Her sister is Mimi from my Basic Reader class. Winnie, however, I have not mentioned before and what a shame. She is certainly one of my favorites. She is so smart and so excited to learn- and not to mention, she LOVES Harry Potter. In fact, ever since she learned of my appreciation of the books, she never fails to include in her writing something or other from the Potterverse. Good girls.
And then came Round Two: the evening classes. My evening Basic Readers are just as dear to my heart as my afternoon class. Despite their class size being much smaller than the afternoon class, there were more costumes. In fact, only one of them did not dress up. And their costumes were quite my favorite of the day.
Here is Sara. She is certainly a princess if ever I've met one. I very much adore this child...
She came in as she always does: a little late, and with toys and candy to share with everyone. I could tell that she had put her little outfit together very carefully right down to the many spurts of perfume and the sparkle goop she put in her hair. If ever there was a little girl that embraced childhood, it would be Sara.
And then there was Ray...
My little pirate...
I have long thought of Ray as my little Riley away from home. He is just as spirited and just as imaginative as my very missed brother. He even lost a tooth in my class the same week that I learned of Riley's losing his first tooth. I know that if the two of them were to meet they would be instant friends. His little voice and laugh and heart melting black eyes have brought me a lot of comfort when I have been missing my Riley....
And here we have Justin. An interesting fellow he is indeed.
He is as smart as ever could be. Yet he often day dreams and takes twice as long as the rest of the class to do any work- not because he doesn't understand it, because he most likely understands it better than anyone else, but because he is a regular Speed Racer when it comes to staying focused. He calls for my patience daily but he is still very lovable.
And here is Patric...
Patric is simply adorable. He too has embraced childhood to it's fullest. His costume is a good illustration of the fact. I love his random assortment of props and the like. Right down to the fairy wings on his back. As you see, he had been sick the past couple of days... everyone who has ever been at all sick- even just a little cold- wears the sick masks, whether contagious or not. Patric is a delight to teach. He giggles at everything and is so willing to do anything I ask him to. What a sweet lad.
And of course there is Candy. She is very much 10 years old. She acts as though she's indifferent to everything and as if she doesn't want to do well but every now and then I can detect her pleasure in my praise of her and her excitement towards being a kid. For example, her costume alone was proof of her enjoyment of life as a kid :)
And here are all the costumers in my evening class...
Once again we made our way down to Penny and Emily for trick-or-treats...
After a long but fun day of high energy and chaos we made our way home on our usual route. As we were stopped at the longest light in the world, we looked over and saw a full family of five on one scooter. Now seeing three on a scooter is very common. Even four isn't that unusual. But the family of five just called for a photo op. Thank you Liz for providing the perfect creeper shot angle of this photograph. The kids weren't fooled though...
And what better way to spend a Halloween weekend then to go to the temple in Taipei for the third time :) We didn't have much time afterwards so we just walked over to the Chang Kai Shek Memorial again, which is a sight that never grows old...
It really is quite a remarkable structure. I love Anna in this picture...
Our timing was just right this time. Just as we made our way up the steps, it was time for the changing of the guard.
While we were watching it, we heard this charming old English woman mention the fact that she had lived near London all her life and had never seen the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We talked with her and her family for awhile and what a charming group of people they were. In my opinion one of the greatest things about traveling is the interesting people you get to meet.
And here is the man himself...
The grounds around the memorial are just as impressive as the building itself. Here are Katy and I enjoying our surroundings...
Oh yes, and how could I forget. Anna and I have become very accomplished at the fake-smiled-fist-pump pictures that speak of political power in this country...
We based our poses on posters such as the one below that can be found in any big city in Taiwan...
...Notice the reassuring handhold. I know these men are united in their ideals and committed to their duty. I would vote for them... ha but then again who knows if thats really the purpose of this banner... seeing as I can't read Chinese, I wouldn't be the one to go by...
Alas, another Macdonald' s trip has come and gone. It is so much fun to get to play with our students outside of school. I only wish they could all be there and not just my Super Students. It is a good way to reward their hard work though...
Here are Flora and Patric. Hard little workers the both of them...
And here's Candy, once again unintentionally revealing her excitement by eagerly accepting the invitation to Le Macdo....
And last but not least, Kerry... who has a chicken nugget decoratively speared by his straw...
And despite their efforts to avoid being photographed, we do catch good ones here and there...
Quite possibly one of the best photo's of Kerry ever taken, if I do say so myself...
As always, our trip resulted in mass chaos in the little play area but also, as always, it was one of the most entertaining evenings we've had lately... always and adventure.
This afternoon Liz and I went on another little excursion up Baguashan. There is so much to explore up there. With out fail, we always come across something new. Ever since our arrival, however, there has been one thing that we have wanted to try and today we finally did it...
The rocky foot path. The theory is that after a painful little stroll, your whole body will feel so much better...so we decided to give it a go. We weren't the only one's either. There was a delightful older gentleman who went before us, leading the way with his bare feet and walking stick...
After seeing him do it we decided we would be able to handle it...
Let me tell you. That foot path was one of the most excruciatingly painful things I have ever put myself through. We must have looked totally ridiculous as we wobbled along. But I am pleased to say that we made it all the way through it. It was hard but it was worth it. After wards I felt like I had had an extremely deep foot massage. It was quite lovely. Would I be able to do it again? Maybe not the whole thing...
As we wandered around, we came across a couple of different beautiful gardens. I won't bore you with the many pictures I took. Just know that it was lovely and the perfect way to escape the city that is ever present in our lives. In one of these said gardens there were dozens of rocks that had been carved in a decorative manner. They were really quite cool. I would consider doing something similar in my own garden one day. But only if I could have the exact replica of this old man here...
While we were up on the mountain we couldn't pass up the chance to pay a little visit my favorite Buddha...
He is just as beautiful in the day time as at night.
Everywhere you look up on the mountain, there is greenery and flowers. It just grows on and around everything making the most mundane things pleasing to the eye. The jungle simply cannot be tamed up there. They cut it back to build something but it just weedle's it's way back in. Not that it's something to be complained of...
After a lovely day we got to finish off our evening in the very best way possible: a baptism! A couple of weeks ago we attended the Changhua Chinese Branch instead of going to the English Branch we usually attend. It was a good thing we did too because by doing so we learned that one of our college students, Tiffany, had been investigating the church and was going to be baptized. And so, tonight was the night. :) She was so beautiful and so humble and excited. It was incredible to be able to be a part of it. I'm certain that we will get to continue to build this friendship with her and I am so so grateful for it.
Here was the program from the baptism written on the white board. Obviously I couldn't read most of it, but what I could I liked :)
When the baptism was over we were invited to participate in a little ward activity. It was a "Hallowgiving" party. Complete with turkey and haunted house. I really love this little branch here in Changhua. I hope we will be able to create ties and friendships with the members here as we can only come so often- being so tied up in our actual branch and all.
While we were enjoying the festivities and food, I happened to see a plate of octopuses...
Since coming to Taiwan, I have become rather adventurous about the foods I eat. I thought I wasn't a picky eater before, but I certainly am even less so now. I am willing and delighted to try anything -as long as it is in accordance to the Word of Wisdom of course. And why not? Who knows when you will discover the greatest thing you have ever eaten?? So yes, I did eat the octopus and it wasn't bad. I might even eat another should the opportunity present itself.
And so, that concludes another blog from a very happy adventurer in the crossroads of the east. Again I leave you from within the smog of the ever polluted cities. May peace be with you this day and always...( Dad, you can go ahead and burst into song here should you feel so inclined.)
Zai Jian!
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