Anyway, it was a real fancy shindig, held at the President's mansion, and there were tons and tons of guests in attendance, most of whom were bona fide dignitaries of some kind, as opposed to elementary school teachers. I caught a glimpse of the President himself, but having been unceremoniously pushed aside by an army of security guards, I was unable to shake his hand, as some lucky Yilan ETAs got to do. There were people in traditional costume performing traditional arts around the party, like weaving on a loom, or mashing rice with a giant wooden smashing stick. In fact, after the President's triumphant entrance on the red carpet, he came down and did a little rice-smashing himself. I think it's one of those things that presidents do sometimes, like throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game or whatever. Anyway, I guess he smashed the rice pretty well, because everyone seemed very pleased.
The rest of the party mostly consisted of waiting in line to get things to eat, eating things, and walking around awkwardly, not knowing how to begin introducing myself to random dignitaries. (Side note: I was having lunch at school the day before the party, and talking about anticipating this kind of awkwardness, and I taught the other teachers at my table the word "schmooze." Score!) I ate a lot of delicious things, although there was one incident in which, intending to get a red bean cake (the desserty sort), I got one with salted dried turnip in the middle instead. Fabulous. There was a traditional Chinese opera-type performance, with lots of high singing and ridiculous slow-motion fight scenes, so of course that was excellent. And the house itself was huge and elaborately decorated...the most amazing part was actually the walk to the bathroom, which involved going through almost a maze of corridors with crazy glass floors. And did I mention there was FOOD everywhere?
Here I am being fancy in front of a tasteful display of produce:
The Chinese character for the number 10 looks like a cross, so the big red thing on top of the fruit is sort of the 10/10 logo - two 10s put together. The 97 is because it's the year 97 in the Taiwanese Minguo calendar, which is measured from the founding of the R.O.C. I must confess that my first thought upon seeing the abbreviation ROC is usually "hey, Rochester!" Then I remember where I am, and that it's slightly more probable that they mean Republic of China.
Although the party was theoretically from 6-7 pm, we kind of went a bit earlier than that and stayed a bit later. They were definitely turning off lights and playing slow, boring, go-home music by the time the Fulbright crew finally headed out. Afterwards, I opted to go out to karaoke with the Yilan posse and a couple of Fulbright staff. Maya and I were the only Kaohsiung folks in attendance, but we represented to the best of our ability. We sang and danced and were generally silly for a full 3 hours, when our time ran up after a magnificent rendition of Gettin' Jiggy With It. Then we went out dancing! It was an exhausting night, but so good for me to get out what seemed to be a reserve of pent-up ridiculousness. Of course I am silly on a regular basis, but usually to a milder extent.
On Saturday, I spent the whole morning sleeping until the very last possible minute before I had to check out. As I was leaving, I noticed that the room I stayed in last time was open and had been vacated, so I snuck in real quick to get a picture of the spectacular Love Tub. Here it is, in all its heart-shaped glory:
Yes, that's the kind of hotel Fulbright puts us up in! It's pretty super.
In the afternoon, I wandered with Gered up to Danshui, which is north of Taipei, on the coast. We went to what seemed essentially to be the boardwalk. It was cobblestone, but definitely the same concept. With the exception of the university that we went and strolled around, the town of Danshui was a densely packed mass of humanity. On the bright side, there was Dunkin' Donuts at the Danshui train station! Their Boston Cream didn't quite live up to my expectations, but still: Dunkin' Donuts! Unhealthy fast food chains have got to be America's first or second biggest export, right up there with pop culture. No wonder the rest of the world thinks we're so silly.
Came back from Taipei Saturday night. Sunday I went to church and made some new friends (I don't think I've ever escaped a church service in Taiwan without making some new friends and probably getting a couple phone numbers), and I went out to lunch with this gal Vivian, after which we went to Costco! Haha I have never been to Costco in the U.S., I don't think, but now I have been in Taiwan. I think Vivian figured I would want to go because, I don't know, Costco is a bastion of American-ness in Taiwan? Also I kind of did really want to get lettuce. Taiwanese people don't really believe in raw vegetables, so salad is kind of rare here, and often consists of shredded cabbage and Thousand Island dressing. (Asia's favorite kind of salad dressing, right up there with straight mayonnaise!) So I got a giant thing of lettuce, and today I went out and bought tomatoes and chicken and Parmesan cheese and salad dressing, so now I have to eat chicken caesar salad like a fiend or else I won't finish the lettuce before it goes bad. I had some tonight and mmm I miss salads! And raw vegetables! Taiwanese food is pretty good, but the vegetables are rather few, and often are cooked into oily oblivion. Also, it's nice to cook my own meat so I know it isn't full of surprise fat globs. A lot of times meat here is covered in/chock full of fat, which I guess Taiwanese people think is super, but I think it's kind of gross.
Oh man, so this next weekend I don't have anything on Friday (no English Village this week!) so Gered and I are planning a trip to Hualien on the east coast. I think it's a sort of sleepy little town, but Taroko Gorge National Park is right next to it, which is supposed to be pretty spectacular, and has lots of hiking and majestic views and hot springs and whatnot. Also Patty says you can go whale watching in Hualien? Might be fun...
Today was tiring. No English Village this morning, but I still felt exhausted at the end of the school day. My kids are on such drastically different levels that it's impossible to work with everyone effectively. On one hand, I have kids like Ryan, who's from Pennsylvania and is bored to tears when I'm teaching everyone how to say things like "I feel happy." On the other hand, I have kids who know next to nothing. My troublemaker Kevin is at such a loss when we do workbook activities that he writes down random strings of letters. I sat down with him a little bit today, and I had to break out a little bit of Chinese, but we were making some progress. Unfortunately, we don't have the class time for me to sit down with each kid who's fallen behind, especially when some of the others are so far ahead. Several times today I was in the middle of helping some student who was having a lot of trouble when Patty steamed on to the next activity, obliging me to move on as well. I know that we can't pace the whole class to suit the lowest common denominator, because it's so low, but I wish there was more I could do. It makes me a little annoyed that they have me teaching the gifted kids to sing English songs in my free period, and I don't have enough time to work with the kids who really need help. Not that it isn't fun to teach the good students to sing Y.M.C.A., but the English Angels program is really just to make the school look good, not really to serve the students. And of course it's our priority to look good! ...LAME.
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