Our Hearts We Cannot Steel

In Which An Orphanage Is Visited

My new student's English name is Kevin.  I don't know his Chinese name, but that's pretty standard.  He's an athletic kid, a little stocky, energetic, desperate to be special.  He knows more English than he lets on, but he's embarrassed by how little that really is.  It's less shameful to pretend that he knows nothing, and start from scratch.  

The orphanage is in the southern part of Taipei, right up against a mountain (possibly a little taller than Yuan Shan).  The city around it feels a little different than the rest of Taipei, a little cleaner, a little fresher, a little less oily with consumerism.  The stores are similar, but they seem less looming.  Perhaps it's just that they don't have overhangs.  

There are birds in a cage outside the door - parakeets and finches, hopping around and making enough racket for a small family of howler monkeys.  Sandy, the woman who met me at the MRT station today, took me in and introduced me to Christina, one of the secretaries, before leading me up to the 3rd floor classroom where I'd be teaching.  Classroom is deeply misleading.  It's a room with three empty bunk-bed-desk combinations in it.  It's spacious and bright and airy.  It has wood floors.  Kevin came in and we sat on the floor and played with alphabet tiles and conversation.  I taught him basic pronouns and am/is/are, and how to say "I am a boy," and "I live in Xindian."  I gave him flashcards and vocabulary to memorize.  Next time I'll bring chocolate for prizes and a CD with which he can practice his listening skills.

The Joy Orphanage itself was first put together in 1951, in the wake of Japan's retreat from Taiwan.  The granddaughter of General Governor Liu Mingchuan (builder of railroads, among other things), drew on her familial connections and lands to provide a place for the children left without families after the war.  At its opening, there were some 400 kids living there.  Now they have two facilities, and 70 kids total - 25 or so in the emergency facilities for temporary and immediate placement, and 45 or so in the permanent facilities while they wait for adoption.  A family from the United States is interested in adopting Kevin, but there are still many legalities to go through, so "nothing is certain," said Sandy.

I am not at all sad that I went, and I hope it's something with which I can continue to be involved, whether the tutoring keeps going or not.

Numbers

In Which It Is A Typical Tuesday Night

There were seven people in the teacher's room tonight after classes were over at 9:00.  Rita the librarian, Steven, Wendy, Stacey, Jasmine, Jesse, and me.  We trickled out as we finished our post-class clean-up, made plans for the week, and said our goodnights.  By the time I left, in conversation with Steven, Rita was the only one left.  The light in the room was yellow.  I thought of leaving a Subway at 11:00 pm in Ashland with three friends.

I got to the bus stop just in time to catch the 226.  Nine people were scattered through the bus, and the light was the same yellow light--the kind of light that accompanies quiet, and separates people, even if they came in together.  Someone's cellphone rang, a MIDI of the first four bars of "It's a Small World," but it was cut off.  It wasn't answered, but I could nevertheless hear with perfect clarity how the conversation would have gone, even in another language, and even though I'd have understood the first two words and then perhaps one word in four after that.  I could hear how each word would have fallen perfectly into prefabricated holes in the silence, made to fit them, sliding into place with nearly audible clicks and resting there level with the quiet and nearly indistinguishable from it.

I left the bus at the stop across from the coffee shop near our apartment.  There were two employees left, cleaning up under the same yellow light, facing in different directions, moving with equal slowness.  Above the street, the fat moon.

In the park, fourteen older women learned a new line dance, moved their feet in almost perfect synchrony.  Tomorrow they will probably add music.  A boy gave a girl a stuffed animal on one of the benches.  Someone was smoking.

Two doormen and four bouncers were on the ground floor of our apartment building.  One of them was also smoking, and pushed button three for three of the girls in the elevator.  The two men got out on the fourth floor.  I got out on floor five.

It is 10:30, and I am happy to be where I am.

The New Year (Part The Second)

In Which Eastern Holidays Are Experienced, And More Visitors Come To Town

People ask me, with relative frequency, "How's Taiwan?"  I never know what to say to this.  When people ask "How was your day?" or "How is the food?" acceptable answers include "Fine," "Good," "Delicious," "Started out great, but it's raining a lot now," or possibly "Lovely, but I wish it weren't so pink."  I don't know how to encapsulate Taiwan in a single phrase or sentence, and I know better than to believe that anyone asking so flippantly wants a full blown dissertation of an explanation.  I suppose I could direct any and all inquiries here, but that seems a bit arrogant and presumptuous.

Taiwan - Taipei, really - is a city in which I'm living, like any other city I've inhabited.  It is a place, to me, not a tourist destination, and certainly not something I can break apart and offer to people who want it in convenient chunks.  I can only approximate my experience of this city in carefully thought-out and nevertheless longwinded and untidy parcels.  I cannot make them stand alone, because they are part of something much larger that even I don't have a handle on.

Katy's parents came for the week of Chinese New Year, which is the major holiday here.  It's a bit like Christmas and Thanksgiving all rolled into one, and while the actual celebration is an Eve and a Day, the vacation time lasts all week.  The Roads (Hi, guys) arrived on the Friday before the holiday, late in the evening, so Katy went to collect them while I conducted my last A10 class. (I will miss them, but they're being combined with another class for A11 and transferred to another teacher.  The class next door to the A10 never got along with their teacher, so I have rescued them from one another.)  

I got home on Friday in time to welcome the Roads family back from the airport (sans Paul, who is still in Spain), but I had to get up for my Saturday morning class, so I went to bed.  I think they crashed shortly thereafter.  I didn't see a lot of them over the week, since Katy took them south to see the rest of Taiwan - or some of it, anyway - and to have some family time, but it helped solidify the difficulty we (or I, anyway) face when asked to be an interface between representatives from the home we came from and the home we share now.  I didn't feel nearly adequately prepared to show the city off, because to me it is just where I live.  I remember my grandmother saying similar things about Chicago (Hi, Grandma), and about being eternally startled when she saw tourists there.  Since I'm not here for tourism, I can't see the city in that light.  

Apart from feeling woefully unprepared, the week went well.  It was good to see Katy's family, and very nice to have a week off.  Although, I confess that I missed my students.  I spent Chinese New Year's Eve at the home of one of my co-teachers.  Her family was very nice, and there was a lot of food.  After dinner, she and I and another of our co-teachers went to a night market, bought fire crackers, and lit them off in an empty lot until someone told us to stop.  I discovered I don't much like fire crackers, although I'll admit to being a total girl and enjoying the sparklers.  (What? They were pretty!)

While Katy and her parents were in the South, I slept a lot, and went to Sebastian's house one evening for a very enjoyable bit of conversation and friendly banter with his friend Michael and himself.  Sebastian was one of the people in China via the program I used, and it's nice to see him on occasion.  I also went to the National Palace Museum again with Yu-Cheng.  I think I could spend a long time there for several days (or perhaps weeks, or months) in a row without knowing everything it could teach me.  When the Family Roads returned to Taipei, I joined them at Taipei 101.  We went up to the very top and wandered about, looking at the ridiculous golden sculptures of ants and butterflies, and peering out the windows at the city below, which drifted in and out of fog as the light faded.  We had dinner in a restaurant with a similar view, a floor or two below (although we had to go all the way down to the bottom again and take a different elevator to get back up to the restaurant).  The food was quite good, and we returned home well-fed and sleepy.

They spent the rest of their time in Taipei seeing the sights, and I spent my last day of freedom trying to get in as much rest as possible before the next morning.  The winter classes are ending tomorrow, and it will be nice to have the ability to wake up at 7:30 without an alarm, instead of at 8 with one.  I don't pretend to understand the way my subconscious rules my sleep schedule.

I am now back into the swing of teaching, and it's going pretty well.  There have been no spectacular successes (or failures, fortunately), but I am beginning to feel more confident at the front of the classroom.  The A7 class that I just took over seems quite nice, although hopelessly adolescent.  Adolescence is something I can commiserate with, however, having fallen prey to the disease myself not so long ago, and they seem willing to cooperate.  This week I taught them about "What a day!" and "Such an idiot!" and "So much money that he could buy the Earth."  They are to write an adventure story for me by next week.  I look forward to reading the submissions.  One of the ideas submitted was "turned tiny and climbed into the principal's underpants."  I'll keep you posted.

Katy and I are reading the Lord of the Rings.  We've gotten about 1/4 of the way through the first book.  It is a delight to see her reactions to things I have always considered established parts of my personal history.  It's a little like reading it for the first time again myself.  This is why I love reading to people, why I love teaching.

And speaking of teaching, I'll be starting to volunteer at an orphanage on Sundays for the next couple of months.  I know, I know, just when I've managed to get Sundays off, I take up a volunteer position.  But this is by my own choice, not because I've been half-tricked into it.  It is for one hour every week, tutoring an 11 year old boy who has been adopted by an English speaking family so that he'll be able to communicate at least a little when he reaches his destination.  Reading this over, I realize I sound nauseatingly ... well, nice, but it is something I genuinely find myself looking forward to.  I am not doing it because it would be the right thing to do, but because it appeals to me.  I like the kids I work with, and I am downright delighted to have this opportunity.  Don't hold it against me.

Skipping

In Which I Rediscover An Old Form Of Exercise

I've been looking for some form of exercise since I arrived.  The exercise I can enjoy must fulfill the following:  It must not be tedious (running is out, sorry guys).  It must be cheap (ballet's out, so are tennis, ice skating, and anything else that requires special and expensive equipment).  It must be available to me at any time (my class schedule doesn't really allow for taking other classes at regular times).  

One of the other foreign teachers at School 8 is a former boxer, and out of the blue one day he said, "Rowan, how do you feel about skipping?"  I thought he was talking about the practice of avoiding school or work, but he clarified - "You know, skipping rope."  I think the last time I jumped rope was in third grade when we pledged to jump rope for a syphilis cure (I'm sure it was something like that).  I hated it at the time, because I was being forced to do it.  But suddenly it sounded like a fantastic idea.

So I went out and bought a jump rope for the equivalent of US $2.  I took it with me to the park across the street last night after class and skipped for a while.  And you know what?  I think it's workable.  It requires enough concentration that I don't get bored, the rope was cheap, and I can pack it up in a little bundle and take it with me.  

Maybe next I'll try Hoop Rolling.

Xǐ Bù Xǐhuan?

In Which I Get More Personal Than Usual 

I have no shortage of friends and family that find it difficult or unacceptable to talk about their feelings.  I don't mean to imply that my social sphere is populated entirely with expressionless stoics.  However, while I know many people who will discuss their deepest desires and shames at the drop of a hat, I also know quite a few who run almost entirely on logic.  I was not raised to run exclusively on logic.  I understand it, and it helps me, but if I were asked (as I have been in the past) to ignore my feelings, or to not feel them at all, I wouldn't know how to respond.  The ways I feel about things - my likes and dislikes, my awe and fear and excitement and anger, my love and faith and hope - are as much a part of my interface with the world as is my skin.  I could no more peel it away than I could flay myself.  Sometimes, because of this, it's hard for me to interact with those who do not admit feeling into their spheres of life, or at least their spheres of discourse.  I say something like, "I am sad about such-and-such," and they say, "Just change it," and the conversation is over.

I recently had a discussion here about making plans.  A friend and I were trying to decide what to do over Chinese New Year.  My friend asked me to suggest some places, so I considered for a few days and concluded that I'd like to see the Palace Museum again, and also take a little walk somewhere in the mountains.  Then, having given my input, I asked my friend, "What would you like to do over Chinese New Year?"  Communication suddenly broke down.  

According to my friend, this is a cultural difference.  While I agree wholeheartedly, I don't think that the cultural split in this case lies on international political boundaries.  Some people both here and in the States appear to be as open to feeling hope and sadness and anger and glee as most people are to seeing shapes and colors.  And some, in both countries, seem to be deliberately closing their eyes, saying that the information is too much, too confusing, too extreme.  Too inconvenient, too dangerous.  There is, perhaps, a traditional predisposition towards that kind of thinking here.  There are so many rules, and sometimes it's easier to follow them than to think about them.  Taiwan's Yoda says "Do or do not, there is no like."

Call me a hippy (and some of you will, derisively), but I'd much rather be affected by love and wonder and loss than live in a world that had none.  I am a collector and collator of data, and how I feel about the world is information as valuable to me as logical thought.  I see no reason they cannot co-exist and improve upon each other.

Perhaps all of this sounds a bit defensive.  I am grateful to my friend for talking about this subject, one which I've never found anyone "stoic" able to talk about before.  It made me think, and I'm glad to have a better understanding of why someone might choose only logic, why someone might choose only black and white.  More, I'm glad to have that understanding and still know that I choose to like things.

(Note: The title of this post asks "Do you like it or not?")

The Visitor

In which Hobbes Sees Our Lives Up Close (Poor Thing)

Hobbes flew in on the evening of Saturday the third.  Katy and I took a bus (a very posh bus) to the airport.  We were both excited, and reminisced about our own arrival.  Katy made a welcome sign in Chinese.  We held it up through various stages of excitement, anticipation, hope, and then weariness at entirely the wrong terminal for a while, before figuring out that there was a much bigger terminal accessible by sky train (creepily deserted, but effective).  We collected a somewhat worried Hobbes and found our bus back. 

We came back to our apartment and more or less slept immediately that first night.  The next morning I had a one-on-one class at School 8, so we met up afterwards and had dinner at a very nice little noodle place next to Da'an park.  After eating, we went to to see the flowers again.  Katy and Hobbes hadn't seen the show yet, so we wandered around for a bit and tried the candied tomatoes (Hobbes was a fan).  I saw some sections of the display I hadn't come across yet, but went home pretty quickly afterward due to exhaustion.  Katy and Hobbes split off and went to find dinner and the meditation group.

The week was, for me, a blur.  I left on Monday morning to do some editing, met Hobbes and Katy at the vegetarian buffet that I frequent, took Hobbes with me to the School 8 area, and deposited her at a Starbucks with instructions to meet me there after I was done with my classes.  I unfortunately (and unusually) had two that day - a regular class and a make-up.  I picked up Hobbes at 9:10ish and we made our way back to the Linsen area.  On Tuesday Hobbes and Katy went up to do some walking in the northern area of Taipei, while I prepped for my Tuesday class and graded their homework.  They had an oral quiz, and all did pretty well, apart from the two girls who have been entirely uninterested in the whole class.  

Wednesday morning Hobbes and I went to walk around the area with the art park and the art museum.  The art park was closed, but we finally made it into the Story House.  Weird stuff.  It was, when we went, housing a display of television and newspaper advertisements for nine or ten Taiwanese brandnames.  Soap, soy sauce, snake oil, stationary, toothpaste (see hei ren for a somewhat amusing history), and the necessary overpriced gift shop.  No photos were allowed in the building.  After my Sanchong class, Hobbes hung out at home until both Katy and I returned from our classes (another unusual thing - I had another make-up class on Wednesday).  On Thursday Hobbes took herself around and saw the touristy bits of Taipei - Taipei 101, etc - while Katy and I had class and editing.  I got done at 7 on Thursday, after a somewhat disturbing class in which one student was upset and wouldn't tell me why, and met Hobbes at the Taipei Main Station where we got some dinner and hit up the cultural gift shop for "hey, I've been to Taiwan" gifts for the folks back home, I presume.  I tried to find a trinket with the Taipei Railroad symbol on it, but the only one available was a hiddeous little alien figure with the symbol for a head.  Anyone wishing to take up metalsmithing is welcome to send me a Taipei Railroad symbol necklace.  Perhaps I'll find an arc-welder.

Friday morning we headed to the Peace Park area.  It was a pretty park, and we had lunch before-hand at another vegetarian buffet that was quite tasty.  The Peace Park (2-28 Park) commemorates an incident on February 28, 1947.  We wandered around until both of our cameras lost batteries, and then I had to go into work.  I dropped Hobbes off at the Starbucks again, and she uploaded her photos while I taught a couple of classes.  I finished my classes at ten, by which time Katy and Hobbes had eaten dinner at a little restaurant somewhere in the Da'an area.  We all met up back at our apartment and Hobbes and I stayed up while Katy took a nap.  We left the apartment to find transportation to the airport at 4 AM.  The busses weren't running yet, but we were approached by an extra-enthusiastic taxi driver who insisted that he could take us there.

The taxi driver was very nice, in spite of our initial suspicions.  He charged a bit less than the others (we considered the possibility that it might be a scam), and he was non-intrusive for the duration of the forty-minute ride.  He played a CD quietly and let us be giddy from exhaustion in the back seat.  At the end of the ride, we noticed that the music had a lot of harmonics in common with ABBA, and no sooner had that occured to us then a Chinese version of Gimme Gimme Gimme came on.  I asked him to write down the name of the guy singing, and he pulled one better and gave us the CD.  It turns out to be a CD he burned, and written on the disc are the words "hǎo tīng de gē."

We arrived at the airport at about 5:00.  It was deserted.  There was no one at the check-in desk, and after some peering blearily around, we discovered that it would not open until 6:15.  So we sat down in the waiting area and variously went to sleep (Katy), noticed our surroundings (Hobbes), or fought an all-consuming battle against startlingly heavy eyelids (me).  The staff got there promptly at 6:15, and Hobbes checked in and we hugged our goodbyes, then Katy and I made our way back to the terminal from which the busses left.  On our way to the sky-train, we ran into a young mother with a kid on her hip, one on the way, and a touchingly devoted husband who was having trouble with their metric ton of luggage.  We helped them get their baggage together and listened to her spout "Ai-o!"s and gratitude.  We made the bus and I spent most of the trip back staring vacantly at the seat in front of me.  When we got home, I made myself a cup of tea and promptly fell asleep before being able to drink it.

The New Year (Part The First)

In Which Western Holidays Are Documented

First, of course, you all must indulge me in a small bit of reminiscence - as far back as mid-December!  The Christmas decorations in Taiwan started going up before that, of course, but I'm only willing to delve so far into nostalgia -- even in the spirit of seasonal goodwill.  

I went with Sarah to a Chrysanthemum show a while back, and am finally putting up a few of the pictures.  It was surreal and dim, but lovely in the way that gardens are at night.  We wandered around for a while before coming back to join Katy for a game night we ended up not attending.  That was the last extra-curricular thing I took pictures of for a little while, apart from the views to and from work every day.

The daily commute featured such things as Strange Wall Decor, Stores With Dubious Wares, my students' Writing Books, Buildings, the Santa Clause Bus Drivers (none too pleased), and Sunset.

Sarah and I went out to dinner at a thoroughly charming little restaurant that reminded me in a not unpleasant way of the Black Cat Café in Ashland.  On our way there we were dizzied by one church's display of Faith and Electricity in honor of the season.  We ate and talked, and determined to return someday (we haven't yet, but we've been unavoidably distracted by other things - like holidays).  On our way back, Sarah declared her desire to introduce me to a friend of hers (I believe I mentioned him in an earlier post), Xie Yu-Cheng.  I met with him for a lovely dinner shortly thereafter and we have been having charming and extremely helpful (for me, at least) exchanges since.

My A10 class had a unit on ghosts, so I told them the story of Taily-Po.  Ann, the oldest girl (14) started out skittish, and when I got to the point where the story goes "Boo!" everyone jumped.  But Ann screamed.  It wasn't a little shriek of startlement, either, it was an outright scream.  One of the teachers next door stuck his head round, and I reassured him.  The rest of the class thought it was hilarious.  To my delight, about five minutes later the quietest girl in class pulled the balcony curtain aside a little, peered out, and said in Ann's general direction, "Oh! What's that?"  For the first time, that class was unified and interested.  They spent the break drawing their rendition of the monster.

On the twenty-third, there was a new addition to Taiwan from their mainland cousin, commemorated by very cute bread-things in the local bakeries.

We had a quiet and homey Christmas/Chanukah dinner.  Katy and I made dinner and invited Sarah and Jenny to join us.  We had mashed potatoes and squash and latkes (I made them in a wok) before opening presents under the bamboo-cum-Christmas-tree and lighting the menorah (while wearing a Santa hat).  Oh, we are so terribly multicultural it hurts.

I had dinner with Yu-Cheng on New Year's Eve, then went to Sarah's house to see the fireworks.  Her family's apartment building has a roof from which there's a pretty clear view of Taipei 101, and at midnight there were a lot of fireworks off of the building.  I'm not entirely certain of how to take photos of fireworks at night - anyone with input is welcome to advise.

New Year's Day, I went to Da'an Park with Sarah and her family.  There were a lot of flowers.  We met up with Jenny and Katy and went back to Sarah's house to bake cookies.  They were delicious.  Cranberries and chocolate chips and coconut and walnuts and lip-smacking goodness.  I do like making cookies.

Further New Year updates when Chinese New Year comes around.  In the mean time, our friend Hobbes is coming to visit (hi, Hobbes!) for a week or so very soon.  Our first visitor!