Golden Birthday!

I had no idea that golden birthdays even existed until I decided to have one. Yesterday, I turned 26 on the 26th. Supposedly this year will prove to be my most prosperous yet. I have reason to believe it as it seems that life just keeps getting more exciting as time goes on.

Leave it to Molly to come up with an awesome way to celebrate. She would lick mice as a child and I caught her the other day rubbing tomatoes on her nose to improve her skin. She decided that we should go to the bike path and have a parade. Just imagine the smiles, laughs and quizzical looks we brought to people as they saw 6 foreigners on 3-person bikes laughing hysterically. If you haven't been on a 3-person bike lately, you had better do it ASAP. Time is precious. Spend it well. Ride 3-person bikes...


Or you could try your hand at the fastest go-karts I've ever ridden. I had a difficult time keeping my head attached to my neck...that's how fast we were going. Of course I drooled on myself because I was so excited. (The dentist says I have overactive salivary glands...that's my excuse.)



I felt like a king today, man! It was almost like I had two celebrations. The first took place with the American peeps and round two began with the Taiwanese. Gloria, Janae and Princess Victoria (the guy in the hat...i'll explain later) took me out to get what they call a "Mango Milk." Basically, it's shaved ice on steroids. Shaved ice, condensed milk, plum sauce and tons of mango combine for a wonderful treat.

I think it's been quite a while since I've even celebrated my birthday. I just haven't been with anyone I really know the last few years wandering around Alaska doing odd-jobs. From now on I'm going to make sure I'm living with 8 girls every time that day rolls around. They just know how to make someone feel special.

Fertility Rate?

The reason most Taiwanese keep their families to one or two children:



One of the most common phrases I hear is, "but that's too dangerous." I've been told this on multiple occasions, ranging from the mundane, 'kids can't stand on a chair to erase the board because it's too dangerous,' to the slightly and I do mean slightly more believable, 'you can't go hiking because it's too dangerous.' Oh, the best one was being told that balloon volleyball wasn't kosher because of the dangers involved. How many people were seriously injured last year while playing? Maybe more people die from it than I'm aware. It's fascinating to me that in a country that is perpetually petrified of everything (people were in a frenzy because stores ran out of face masks when swine flu broke out), they would throw this many kids on a scooter without helmets. Contradictions have always intrigued me.

Two Taiwanese Fruits

Taiwan has exposed me to a variety of fruits that I've never seen anywhere else. Some, like Durian, I never care to eat again. In case you choose to not follow that link, let me include a paragraph that sums it up pretty well:

"The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust. The odour has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia."

I personally think it should be banned from the world, but whatever.

And then we have the glorious Litchi of which I just can't get enough. I know wikipedia isn't the most reliable of sources, but it says Litchi can be found in California, Hawaii and Florida. How come I've never seen it? Any Americans out there seen fresh litchi in their local grocery store? Cause if you have, then I'm moving in with you...this stuff's delicious.

A Couple of Cool Old Men and 12,749 Feet

I knew absolutely nothing about our (Gloria, Joseph and I plus our hiking club buddies) trip to Syue Mountain before leaving. Everything was a surprise. Since Taiwan is a relatively small island, I figured getting there would be a relatively short trip. Boy was I wrong! We left Feng Yuan on Saturday at 7:40 P.M. and arrived at our mountain hostel nearly 6.5 hours later at 2:00 A.M. The bus ride was perhaps the most grueling I've ever experienced. You know that feeling when you're completely exhausted but you just can't sleep? Well, don't worry, the bus driver clicked the tube onto the Yankees vs. Blue Jays game and we all know how exciting baseball is to watch on T.V., right? It's almost a toss up between baseball and golf with baseball barely edging out golf in the enjoyment category. I was asleep by the bottom of the 1st inning.

My first thought upon disembarking our chariot of fire was, "Wow, I'm breathing fresh mountain air!" This is certainly a novelty here in Taiwan. I was thrilled to be in nature with the sounds of bugs and frogs serenading me to sleep instead of cars, scooters and fireworks. I slept soundly that first night, although I never did catch the name of the guy sleeping next to me whom I most certainly clobbered with elbows at some point during the night seeing we were sleeping close enough for me to feel (and luckily not smell) his breath.


The Confucian group-mindedness was at times great cause for frustration for us individualistic Americans. These pre-hiking calisthenics were a wonderful opportunity for a round of laughter, though. I've never begun a hike this way before. The matching vests served to designate us as trash collectors. I thought it was a cool thing to help take care of the environment, especially while wearing the sexy vests.

Mr. Gi, the man wearing rubber boots, was one of our guides. This guy was a certified bad mamma jamma. He is 74 years old, ran a marathon last year...barefoot, spends 260 days out of the year on mountains, packed all of our cooking gear and most of our food and then cooked it for us (DELECTABLE!), and never spoke a word of Chinese. This added to his mountain man, untouchable aura as Taiwanese sounds so powerful and rustic. Keep in mind that the trail was 14 miles in length and changed from 6,561 ft. elevation at the trailhead to 12,749 ft. at the top, where Mr. Gi became a celebrity with a line of folks waiting to get their pictures taken with him. I was inspired by his endurance and his obvious joy at doing what he loves.



Dick was a climbing instructor on both Mount Everest and K2. He is now 74 years old and ran his last marathon 3 years ago. Doesn't this picture just scream mountain man? He was our other guide and since he spent a lot of time in English speaking climbing schools, we could communicate pretty well.



Our second night's, concentration camp-esque accomodations turned out to be a blessing as far as keeping warm goes. But, somehow, sleeping on plywood like a sardine with a roomful of 20 snoring people didn't lend itself to much rest. Luckily we got up at 3:00 A.M. to start hiking that day so we could see the sunrise. I don't know how much longer I could've endured rolling from side to side in hopes of catching a few Zs.


The rhododendrons were in full bloom and were spectacular.


Gloria, Joseph and I from the top of the trail. Often I hear people talk about going into nature to commune with God and to feel his presence in greater abundance. I certainly felt that on this trip, but even more I felt the inspiring power of human beings. The people I met and the already-existing friendships I deepened were definitely the highlights of the trip.

Theme Park Thrills

Has anyone noticed my unnecessarily heavy use of alliterations in my blog titles? Anywho, Yamay theme park is comparable to Lagoon in size and thrill level of the rides. The reflections of the extremely conservative culture were apparent at this park. For example, the line for the off-track roller-coaster pictured below was completely non-existent. Jaimie and I were asked to wait for other people to join us so that they didn't have to make the uneconomical move and allow the coaster to run its course empty. I admit, the ride from the front was quite thrilling as we came to the edge of the track. It seemed as though the coaster would just continue and plunge 300 feet into the ground below. Then, the track slowly rotated to attach itself to the rest of the coaster and the ride unexpectedly began.



Example number two: The wave pool at the water park required patrons to wear life jackets if they went past a certain depth...a rule that was very strictly enforced (the water wasn't even up to my nipples). The waves were also quite puny, but maybe my memory of wave pools past is obscured by the fact that I was merely a boy and everything seemed big back then. I'll stop here with number three: The water park had an area where we could try our hand at body surfing. Perhaps this is standard procedure everywhere, but it intrigued me that we were equipped with helmets, gloves and protective footwear before we were allowed to participate.

By no means does this mean that we didn't laugh ourselves silly and have a great time celebrating Jaimie's birthday. Do you ever wonder if you have different personalities that fit different situations? Maybe the emotions I experienced on this day were just side affects of an adrenaline overdose, but I felt like my body and mind underwent some sort of magical modification the second I stepped foot in that park. As I reflect, I'm quite certain that it happens every time I enter a theme park. The only drawbacks I ever have are: waiting in long lines and expensive food that tastes like a cat covered in sawdust. Neither of these were even a question as we visited the park on an idle Tuesday. The park was like a ghost town and I bought a chicken curry dish for six Washingtons that made my taste buds sing the Hallelujah chorus! It was such an awesome day!

Water and Falling

This past week I've been flooded with inexplicable desires to ride my bike while wearing my bike shorts...and nothing else. Saturday, these longings were dammed as Jaimie and I embarked on a 1.5 hour scooter ride with a waterfall as our ultimate destination and I was fortunate enough to wear...you guessed it...nothing but my bike shorts. It felt liberating, let me tell you. We certainly attracted a lot more attention than usual. These are a few buddies (all chewing betel nut, by the way, which turns your teeth an attractive red color) who waved at us as we drove by so we stopped and visited with them. They offered us betel nut and fermented eggs. Ok, they smell fermented and the last time I ate one it was a completely unnatural black color. I declined the offer (mostly because my previous experience with eating one caused me to dry heave for at least 5 minutes prior to, during and after eating).


A backhoe was doing reconstructive surgery on the road we wanted to take, so we were forced to resort to a mountain path that was probably more suited for dirtbikes now that I think about it. Jaimie tried to get me to pretend I didn't speak Chinese so that the backhoe operator would just dismiss us as another pair of stupid foreigners and thus allow us to continue on our merry way. I may have spared myself some embarrassment had I followed her advice. The above-mentioned mountain path decided to eat part of my knee as it was forcefully jammed into the gravel by Jaimie and a falling scooter. A couple of lucky spectators were certainly provided some good entertainment.


Water is so refreshing!


I just finished reading, "The River of Doubt," a travel log documenting Teddy Roosevelt's journey down an uncharted river of the Amazon jungle. It's a fascinating read, however, I must admit that as I was diving underneath the waterfall, I kept having flashbacks to the accounts of people being completely devoured by piranhas. I guess I should've focused more on the time I spent in the Amazon...without being devoured. The mind is such a funny thing.


This spider was beautiful.




This reminded me of all the great times spent cliff jumping in the canals and rivers up home.

P.S. I put my shirt on for the drive home.

You Always Want What You Can't Have

It's interesting that women in America flock to the cancer booths (aka tanning beds) like Olympic runners dash for the finish line, while here in Taiwan, women avoid the sun as if the slightest exposure would bring certain death. The American equation for beauty seems to be: skin + brown = beauty. The Taiwanese arithmetic is strikingly different: skin + white = beauty. This picture is just one example of an effort made to maintain whiteness--Molly wrapped every inch of exposed skin in her sarong out of fear of becoming tan.

Women here will wear sweaters while hiking, complain that it's too hot (which it certainly is when wearing a sweater), but then refuse to take off the very thing that is making them uncomfortable because doing so would mean exposure to the sun. Contrast this with American thinking, where generally speaking, tan lines are the major concern and women will roll up sleeves to expose as much skin as possible so the whole body becomes darker. Here they have makeup that will make you appear whiter. In America we have lotions that will make you look darker, etcetera, etcetera.

Basically:

As a rule, man's a fool.
When it's hot, he wants it cool.
When it's cool, he wants it hot,
always wanting what it's not
and never wanting what he's got.

Vanity

These kids are some of my 'Kindergarten Enrichment' students. KE students generally have no prior exposure to English, so we have to keep things extremely basic. I don't know where this pre-class routine came from, but the kids look forward to making fun of my small muscles more than anything else. They can often be heard chanting, "You're weak! You're weak! You're weak!" I pretend to be uber-offended and proceed to try to break their hands, but they always end up inflicting more pain upon me due to my weakness. Repetition is the best teacher and no matter how hard I try to skirt around it, I'm convinced that I'm stuck doing this routine for the remaining 6 weeks of teaching. The kids would crush me otherwise.

Claustrophobia, Anyone?

Molly and I (along with the camera man, Princess Victoria) visited this ant hill after our oyster harvest. Night markets are extremely popular in Taiwan. I really like the small-scale ones we have in Fengyuan, but Taichung's night markets are a little too chaotic for me to become a regular visitor. Once in a while, they're fun to visit, though.

Oh, The Oyster Harvest

Have you ever harvested oysters? Apparently, it's an extremely popular activity at Gao Mei wetlands. I was fascinated by the various techniques people were using to gather the tasty treat. I wandered from person to person chatting with them about what they were doing, how many oysters they had and secretly hoped that one of them would invite me to join in the fun. A betel nut chewing buddy extended the long awaited invitation and put me to work. Within a span of 2 minutes I had gathered up a half dozen oysters and was feeling pretty perky. So, I decided to celebrate with some squid on a stick.

Cindysaurus

Lately, Cindy has been my prime source of entertainment in my Basic Reading class. She makes the most unique sounds every time I even act like I'm about to touch her. It's when I actually do that she starts ramming my butt like it's mating season in the Rocky Mountains where she’s a sheep and my butt is the head of a competing male. Cindy is the top student in her whole Chinese class and she does really well in my English class, too. An outside observer would have extreme difficulty believing this story, however, because all they would see is Cindy headbutting anything and everything in sight. Most of the time, it's my rear end, but her targets have also included: the wall, my shinbones (my least favorite), desks, chairs, other students, my head, the whiteboard, the door, etc.

Her behavior began to concern me a while back (and my shins were getting bruised) so I asked the secretaries if they didn't think Cindy was a bit strange. Gloria told me, "Yeah, she's very strange. When she was in kindergarten, she wouldn't talk to anyone. She just pretended to be a dinosaur all day long. She would try to eat people and attack them. Carrie (one of the other secretaries) was so scared by her that she didn't want her to come to school anymore." I guess that says it.

Mr. Danger, Mr. Danger!!

Cinco de Mayo!!

That's Spanish for, "Man, I love guacamole and I sure wish Taiwan had some avocados." For those of you who are unaware, Cinco de Mayo is an essential holiday in Taiwan. It all began when a few days ago (on May 5th), a whole bunch of Mexicans (about 13) arrived here in Taiwan to give us the pig flu. We were so excited that we decided to celebrate and speak some Spanish.





P.S. The kids have no idea that I was teaching them Spanish that day and not English. 'Yo quiero Taco Bell' never sounded so good as it did coming out of those Taiwanese toddlers' lips!

Julia Goolia

I know one is not to play favorites as a teacher, but one is also not encouraged to: hit students with bamboo sticks, fall asleep in class, speak Chinese with students, allow students to use four letter words (hey, it's good English practice, right?), or give students breaks that are over half as long as the total class period, but it happens.

Reasons that Julia is my favorite:

1. She's probably the only student I teach that I haven't caught with her finger buried up her nostril to the second knuckle. I'm sometimes extremely apprehensive about giving kids high fives and being left with a little present on my palm, but not with Julia.

Ok, maybe that's the solitary reason.

No, wait. I think I like her because she giggles at my mere presence. She is very easily amused by me for some reason. The other teachers often talk about her crying sporadically during class, but I have never heard her do anything except snicker, snort, shriek, split her sides, chuckle, chortle, cachinnate, guffaw, roll in the aisles, die laughing, be in stitches, and titter.

Feeding Ray

Remember how Ray was so so so so so so hun hun hun hun hungry? So hungry, in fact, that he ate my arm fur? Well, we finally fed Ray some real food at the:

Ray's Mom wanted to tell me thank you for donating parts of my body to Ray's diet, so we went out for a nice dinner. Who would've thought I'd be eating German food and drinking Malzbier in Taiwan? German music sparkled in the background throughout the evening and as we left, the waitress told us "Dankeschoen." I always feel so strange when my mission life is resurrected in obscure restaurants in Taiwan. It happens more than you'd think. Like, once.

This one's for my shrimp-loving mother and grandmother. Yumm

By Taiwan standards, this restaurant was extremely expensive and classy. My meal cost about fifteen U.S. bones. Contrast that with my last night's meal of delicious bean noodles, veggies, and meat that cost me less than one dollar and you get some idea of just how elegant this place was attempting to be. That's why the bendy plastic straws surprised me. They actually made a valid effort to classify (as in, add class to...sorry, but I have no concept of speaking good English anymore after spending all day with persons who have no clue what English is) them, though. They were tied into various shapes and knots as they floated in our sparkling fruit tea desserts. Ray hooked everyone's together and tried drinking from this gigantic thing. What a funny guy! Weren't/aren't bendy straws such a great blessing?