Overall, everyone I have come into contact here is so nice. I have been out and about quite a bit for only being here two and a half weeks, but there's definitely truth to the fact that a smile goes a very long way.
When walking on the street, people automatically stare at us because we don't look like them, but by simply smiling at them and saying "Hello, how are you?" ("Nǐ hǎo,") and "Thank you!" ("Xièxiè"), not only do we get a smile in return, but sometimes they will keep talking to us in Chinese with a huge smile on their face!
We quickly had to learn how to say "Sorry" ("bào qiàn") and "I don't know a lot of Chinese," ("Wǒ kěyǐ shuō yī diǎndiǎn zhōngwén") and then they say something back to us, still smiling, and then we wave, and then they smile and say more things, and then we slowly turn and walk away, still smiling of course.
For all we know, they're saying "How could you come here and not speak the language?!" But everyone is so nice here that they mean it in the nicest way possible because they physically can't stop smiling at us.
Another great thing about living here with the people I live with is that two of them are very tall. This is a short man's country. Tall people are hard to come by in Taiwan. When we went to Carrefour last week, the children could not stop staring at our tall ones. I'm pretty sure people have already taken pictures of them while we have walked on the street.
And the cherry on top is little kids' reactions to seeing any of us in public places. Groups of them will run up to us and say "Hello!" and then we will exclaim "Hello!" and then they will run away giggling.
We are basically celebrities.
Until we have to order pizza... then we are the worst people in the world.
Last night, a group of us were craving pizza, and in denial of the cafeteria food, so we went over to the apartments and attempted to order pizza online. I navigated to the Domino's webpage but when I got there, I had no idea what it said, obviously. My Chinese-reading ability extends to "you," "one," "two," "three," "he/she," and "exit."
So, after staring at the screen for about fifteen minutes and making guess-clicks on pictures that looked delicious, we decided it was in the best interest of the group of we had someone who spoke the language do it for us.
We called one of the R.A.s on duty and asked him to go to the main office and have one of the secretaries call us so we could ask her. It sounds very confusing, but at the time it actually worked. Tina called us and we asked her to order 5 large pizzas for us, one cheese, one pepperoni, and three sausage and pepperoni. She made the call and told us that she would give them our number to call when they had arrived at the apartments.
Jeff's phone went off about 30 minutes later. We had the total amount ready to go so Shannon and Chris went downstairs to make the exchange. When they came back upstairs, they had two medium pizza boxes, three small pizza boxes, and one miniature box filled with chicken wings. And a 1.25L of Coca-Cola.
Apparently, the delivery boy wouldn't take 400NT of our original price so Shannon and Chris came upstairs with change, which we happily divided among the group.
About 25 minutes and six full bellies later, Jeff's phone rings and he answers. Domino's wanted their 400NT back. Unfortunately, the man on the other end of the line didn't speak English and Jeff only knows "Bù" ("no") and "bào qiàn" ("sorry") so those words kept flying all over the place. The phone calls didn't stop there. They kept calling and calling and calling until the last phone call was another teacher who was letting us know that our delivery boy was downstairs with our pizzas.
I took my phone and went downstairs and he basically said that we owed him 400NT. After agreeing that we did not get the order that we asked for, we still had to pay him.**
**THIS IS NOTHING LIKE AMERICA. IF THE COMPANY MAKES THE MISTAKE, THE CUSTOMER HAS TO PAY THE PRICE AGREED UPON.
Culture shock at its finest, folks.
While Shannon went back upstairs to get the money, I talked with the delivery boy for a little bit about his English, which was very good, even though he said it wasn't. The poor kid; he was just doing his job and we did not make it any easier for him.
Oh well; you live and you learn, and we're learning something new every day! Sometimes it's really hard, but being with some really cool and supportive people makes everything completely worth it.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Thursday, July 11, 2013
My arrival and first day
It's 2:45 AM and I can't sleep for a couple of reasons- 1. jet lag and 2. my air conditioner has been dripping water since yesterday afternoon. I looked it up online and there's some hose that's supposed to drain the condensation out of the unit... Looks like I'm putting a request in maintenance's box tomorrow! As for the jet lag, I went to bed at 9:30 after a very long day so I thought I'd sleep through the night. Now that I'm awake, I have a few options of what to do with my time.
1. Unpack
2. Read the summer reading circle book for my class of 8th graders, A Symphony of Whales
3. Learn how to work my new phone
4. Watch Japanese television with Mandarin subtitles
5. Watch Mandarin television without English subtitles
The options are truly endless.
I will do the secret 0. option and sit on my computer and write about what I've done so far.
We got into Taipei around 9pm on Wednesday night. We essentially lost an entire day while flying from Minnesota to Tokyo- literally flying with the sun the entire trip. While the lights were off on the plane, if someone opened their window (for whatever reason) heads would snap in their direction as if to say, "Close that window!"
I have never seen anything more beautiful than Taipei at night from an airplane. Yellow and white lights lined the coast and seemed to be pretty close together because as they got more inland, they became more spread apart. I haven't seen the topography in the daytime, but I can only assume that there was some sort of mountain right off of the coast.
Not only were the lights on the land amazing, but there were fishing boats in the water that were lit up too. It was as if they had a giant light bulb under their boats and it was shining into the water. It was absolutely incredible.
So when we made it through customs and got all of our bags, we made our way outside to the nice man who was there to pick us up and take us to the school. We loaded our belongings into the bus and were on our way! When I say loaded, I mean stacked and crammed every piece of luggage into each corner of the bus. Like we had to climb over the seats to get to an empty one because there were suitcases in the aisles and when all of us were in our seats, the driver barricaded us in with more suitcases.
Anyway, two hours later, we arrived. We got into our rooms in the dorm (three of our group went over to Rainbow House to the apartments were they are living). Sarah and I got our stuff up to the third floor and when we got into our room, it was a blast of cold air that we hadn't felt since... February. At least that's what it felt like. It was awesome.
Jeff, Sarah, and I went exploring a little bit because we couldn't sleep but then we decided to call it quits and hit the hay. We had to get to work right away the next morning.
In typical Katie-fashion, I woke up three minutes before my alarm went off. After getting ready and picking our super cute first-day dresses, Sarah and I made our way downstairs to the lobby for breakfast and greeted our fellow teachers, a couple of them were just arriving because their original flight was delayed eight hours.
We had orientation all morning about the school and our headmaster, who's a super cool guy. Sometime in the afternoon, we got the low-down of summer school. I have been assigned middle school listening and speaking, middle school literature, upper school listening and speaking, and upper school literature. Those classes are Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, I have two sections of SAT prep for the upper school students.
Also, once a day for thirty minutes, they have a class called Reading Circles. Every teacher, no matter the subject area, leads one of these groups. I have been assigned the 8th graders and we are going to read A Symphony of Whales. I checked all of them out from the library and have one in my room but haven't opened it yet.
After dinner, a group of us decided to go on a bike ride around town. We were all exhausted but needed to stay awake for a little longer before going to bed. We had also been inside all day and needed to be out in the open. ICA has a bike rack full of mountain bikes so we each picked one and went on our way.
Jeff led us to what we can only imagine is some form of downtown Taichung. I thought the U.S. was over-stimulating with ads and lights... holy cow! It could also seem like a lot when one doesn't know what any of the characters mean... Anyway, we made our way down the stretch without getting hit by any cars or scooters! P.S. scooters don't follow traffic laws. They're supposed to, but don't. Like if cars are sitting at a red light and they think they can dodge the traffic and make it through, they do. They don't stay in one lane either. If they can fit between two cars, both going 40 mph, they squeeze their way through. So six Americans riding bikes on the side of the road was probably a funny sight for the locals.
At one point we decided to go down another busy street and we came across a night market! We parked our bikes and made our way through the crowd weaving down different paths and looking at the different things to buy. We could have came here with nothing and would be able to buy everything at this market, including underwear. But only if you're a size zero and a half. There was also gambling and carnival games and this tiny ride for little kids. It was the cutest thing: ten Taiwanese kids, probably between the ages of three and five, sitting in these little cars each holding a balloon on a stick. Freaking adorable.
We made our way back to the school safely without anyone getting almost hit by a car and went to the second floor to relax for a bit. Then, after a much needed shower (which couldn't be above 75 degrees) I went to bed. And now I'm awake, so that's cool.
1. Unpack
2. Read the summer reading circle book for my class of 8th graders, A Symphony of Whales
3. Learn how to work my new phone
4. Watch Japanese television with Mandarin subtitles
5. Watch Mandarin television without English subtitles
The options are truly endless.
I will do the secret 0. option and sit on my computer and write about what I've done so far.
We got into Taipei around 9pm on Wednesday night. We essentially lost an entire day while flying from Minnesota to Tokyo- literally flying with the sun the entire trip. While the lights were off on the plane, if someone opened their window (for whatever reason) heads would snap in their direction as if to say, "Close that window!"
I have never seen anything more beautiful than Taipei at night from an airplane. Yellow and white lights lined the coast and seemed to be pretty close together because as they got more inland, they became more spread apart. I haven't seen the topography in the daytime, but I can only assume that there was some sort of mountain right off of the coast.
Not only were the lights on the land amazing, but there were fishing boats in the water that were lit up too. It was as if they had a giant light bulb under their boats and it was shining into the water. It was absolutely incredible.
So when we made it through customs and got all of our bags, we made our way outside to the nice man who was there to pick us up and take us to the school. We loaded our belongings into the bus and were on our way! When I say loaded, I mean stacked and crammed every piece of luggage into each corner of the bus. Like we had to climb over the seats to get to an empty one because there were suitcases in the aisles and when all of us were in our seats, the driver barricaded us in with more suitcases.
Anyway, two hours later, we arrived. We got into our rooms in the dorm (three of our group went over to Rainbow House to the apartments were they are living). Sarah and I got our stuff up to the third floor and when we got into our room, it was a blast of cold air that we hadn't felt since... February. At least that's what it felt like. It was awesome.
Jeff, Sarah, and I went exploring a little bit because we couldn't sleep but then we decided to call it quits and hit the hay. We had to get to work right away the next morning.
In typical Katie-fashion, I woke up three minutes before my alarm went off. After getting ready and picking our super cute first-day dresses, Sarah and I made our way downstairs to the lobby for breakfast and greeted our fellow teachers, a couple of them were just arriving because their original flight was delayed eight hours.
We had orientation all morning about the school and our headmaster, who's a super cool guy. Sometime in the afternoon, we got the low-down of summer school. I have been assigned middle school listening and speaking, middle school literature, upper school listening and speaking, and upper school literature. Those classes are Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, I have two sections of SAT prep for the upper school students.
Also, once a day for thirty minutes, they have a class called Reading Circles. Every teacher, no matter the subject area, leads one of these groups. I have been assigned the 8th graders and we are going to read A Symphony of Whales. I checked all of them out from the library and have one in my room but haven't opened it yet.
After dinner, a group of us decided to go on a bike ride around town. We were all exhausted but needed to stay awake for a little longer before going to bed. We had also been inside all day and needed to be out in the open. ICA has a bike rack full of mountain bikes so we each picked one and went on our way.
Jeff led us to what we can only imagine is some form of downtown Taichung. I thought the U.S. was over-stimulating with ads and lights... holy cow! It could also seem like a lot when one doesn't know what any of the characters mean... Anyway, we made our way down the stretch without getting hit by any cars or scooters! P.S. scooters don't follow traffic laws. They're supposed to, but don't. Like if cars are sitting at a red light and they think they can dodge the traffic and make it through, they do. They don't stay in one lane either. If they can fit between two cars, both going 40 mph, they squeeze their way through. So six Americans riding bikes on the side of the road was probably a funny sight for the locals.
At one point we decided to go down another busy street and we came across a night market! We parked our bikes and made our way through the crowd weaving down different paths and looking at the different things to buy. We could have came here with nothing and would be able to buy everything at this market, including underwear. But only if you're a size zero and a half. There was also gambling and carnival games and this tiny ride for little kids. It was the cutest thing: ten Taiwanese kids, probably between the ages of three and five, sitting in these little cars each holding a balloon on a stick. Freaking adorable.
We made our way back to the school safely without anyone getting almost hit by a car and went to the second floor to relax for a bit. Then, after a much needed shower (which couldn't be above 75 degrees) I went to bed. And now I'm awake, so that's cool.
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