Hello from Taiwan!

Hello everybody. I arrived in Taiwan December 30th so I've been here less than a week and let me tell you everything is different. First off very few people speak English. I think most people can say hi and bye but that's about it. People working in retail places like coffee shops and convenience stores can say a little more but not much at all. So far I can say hi (knee-how), bye (tsi-chien), thank you (shea-shea), and you're welcome (boo-ka-chee). I figure that's pretty good for 5 days.

There is literally a 7-11 or Family Mart of Hi-Life on every corner. They're pretty much the same thing. And you can buy beer and hard liquor in all of them! God bless Taiwan. You know we Ontarians could learn a lot from the Taiwanese. Western food is hard to come by unless you know where to go. I did manage to find a Pizza Hut within walking distance. However pizza toppings are much different than they are in the west. They did have a menu in English and as soon as I figure out how to put pictures up I will show you what I mean. Just as an example they have shrimp on pizza. When I get up enough courage I plan to try the crazy toppings.

Ann, Rob's girlfriend, and some of her friends and I went down to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world for about a week I think, to watch fireworks on New Year's. It was lots of fun. I also discovered that night that Taiwanese are light weights when it comes to drinking. After one girly vodka cooler most of them were done, guys too. Only Ann's friend Debbie could keep up with me and I'm not even a big drinker.

Transportation is very different from home. First off scooters outnumber cars probably about 5 to 1. And everyone drives like a maniac. Stop lights, lane markers, even sides of the road are merely suggestions. As a pedestrian you really are the bottom rung of the ladder. It is pretty much up to you to make sure you don't get run over. I have very quickly become accustomed to looking in several directions before crossing the road. Sidewalks are purely for scooter parking and most of the time you have to walk on the road or maneuver your your way between the parked scooters to walk down a sidewalk. The cars here are a lot different than in Canada. There are many models I have never heard of. Surprisingly there are very few actual motorcycles. I figured there would be lots of dirt bikes and dual purpose bikes but almost everyone is a scooter or bicycle.

As a foreigner here I do get stared at. Mostly by very young kids and old people. I actually thought I would get stared at more. Usually if you flash them a smile or say hi in Mandarin they will smile back or say hi. Everyone here is really nice. Pretty much the only westerners I have seen have been in the school I'm working at. I went to the night market with Debbie and saw a white guy and we said hi to each other and I laughed about it for the next 5 minutes. I dunno why but it cracked me up that just because we're both westerners we felt the need to say hi even though we didn't know each other.

I am pretty much taller than everyone else and and I kinda enjoy that. I went on the subway to get to Taipei 101 on New Year's and I could see almost all the way down the subway train. Everything here is designed to be as efficient as possible. There are people who work in the subway stations, MRTs, whose job it is to make sure that things move as efficiently as possible. The train doors always stop in the same place so you know where to get on and off. Also you have to take a number at the banks to get service, and they always have many tellers open. Again we could learn from them.

Getting meals has been a challenge. When I'm on my own it's been a bit of a struggle as most menus aren't in English and they don't have pictures. Again thanks to Ann and Debbie for making sure I don't go hungry. I've also noticed that a lot of people say good morning as if it means hi how are you. I don't think they realize that it is based on the time of day.

The school is really nice and big and everyone there is amazingly helpful and friendly. I have been observing classes and have only taught one 30 minute class so far. In one of the classes I observed some of the kids have taken to calling me teacher monkey. All of the teachers are called teacher (name). I think some of the kids are a little freightned of me but some have become quite friendly with me and that's cool. As the newbie teacher I have been stuck with the toughtest grade 1 class. I have observed them once and they are very easily distracted and don't like to pay attention to the teacher. However I plan to be really strict with them and not take any shit, then we'll see how quickly they call me teacher monkey.

Anyways I guess that's it for now. I'll try to update this as much as possible and as soon as I figure out how to get my pictures on I will do so. Bye bye for now, or should I say tsi chien.