Haunted Halloween!

There is Halloween in Taiwan!  Not super crazy or anything like in the States, but it does exist.  The bigger stores carry a small Halloween section, which mainly has a limited variety of children’s costumes, some witch hats, weird glasses and masks, devil forks and broomsticks.  Oh, and the scream guy mask, of course.  They also have some cool decorative garlands and window stickies. 

This past Saturday (Oct. 22^nd) we put on a Haunted House at the branch I work at!  It took some work to get everything set up, with some long, unpaid nights, but I think in the end it was pretty worth it.  We started the process about 2 weeks ago with just light decoration making during down time, and ended with the night before staying until almost 1 a.m.  We made everything, including a coffin, some tombstones, covering the walls in black and so on.  So on Friday night after classes were done at 9 we got right to work. 

One of the girls came equipped with a few bags of traditional fried Taiwanese goodness.  The contents of which the locals I work with aren’t even exactly sure!  I was snacking away at something that looked like a French fry, but not the same taste, when I asked what it was.  Someone said it was a type of fish, and then they started arguing about what it really was in Chinese.  The consensus ended up being that the older one didn’t know anything about what the new cool food is.  Also in the mix was some pig’s blood cake, (yes that’s what it really is) which I opted to stay away from.  I have tried it before, and just knowing that I was chewing on blood cake and swallowing it… made me feel ill, so I think I’ve had my fill on that one.  Then there was some chicken butt on a stick (they eat EVERY part of the chicken, and all other animals here for that matter) and something that looked like sweet potato wedges and tasted really good.  It all made me feel pretty healthy about myself.

So the manager had said she didn’t want us staying very late, so around 10:30 she called to make sure we were on our way out and leaving.  This actually was the case, until my co-workers told me we were just moving to the McDonalds to continue our crafty work so the manager wouldn’t get mad. Yahooo!

I then spent the next 2 hours cutting out ghost after ghost after ghost.  My 32 oz. coke kept me company while the other teachers spoke in Chinese, but they were nice and tried to speak mainly in English for me.  Some other customers seemed interested in what we were doing, and one guy came up to me and asked, practicing his English!  Then the conversation turned to me and he was curious about where I was from, why I was here, etc. explaining that he could tell I didn’t look Taiwanese... good eye on that guy. The night finally came to an end, and we got to go home.  The next day was show time!

The Haunted House started at 5, but naturally I needed to arrive earlier.  I had decided that it was probably in my best interest to get dressed up and in my full make-up before getting there.  I was going as a witch (really awesome, I know but I couldn’t be too creative with these kids).  This meant that I would walk from my apartment to the bus stop (around a 10 minute walk) dressed as a witch, carrying my broomstick and all.  It was definitely a good decision, and I couldn’t help but laugh as I walked down the streets and saw people bend their necks and nudging their friends to get a look at me.  Waiting at the bus stop was really fun as well.

Right before leaving my apt!

So I arrived at my branch in YangMei.  They all started clapping as I walked in, they were impressed with me and my outfit!  The manager was there and she busted up laughing, asking wide eyed “Didn’t you take the bus here?!” and hearing my response of yes. 

Everyone was set up and ready for action, I helped some of the other teachers get their faces made up and the kids started to arrive.  The Haunted House was set to last for 2 hours, with 4 different rotations, each lasting 25 minutes:  3 classrooms with games and one as the actual “scary room.”  I was working in one of the games classrooms, teaching the Halloweeny words:  vampire, ghost, jack-o-lantern, bat, pumpkin, witch, broomstick, skeleton, and trick or treat.  Of course I gave them all actions as well.  Then I played just a variety or games getting them to use the words and such.  I think the real fun was to be had in “scary room,” and I heard they counted at least 10 kids started to cry, with one even hitting one of the girls working up there!  She said it was because “she scared her,” well… yeah?!  Overall there were 76 kids that came and at the end I taught them all the chant “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.”  It was a success!                                             

Here's what part of the Haunted Room looked like.
Note the coffin that I helped make!

A view of going down one of the stairways.  Note it was still light
at this time, it did get a bit darker before we started.

My scary monster that I made!
Those are cockroaches in his "heart," if you can't tell!

The classroom I was in for the night. Note the huge eyeball I made! 

My spider buddy chillin' above my desk area.
 He has friends in all of the other rooms as well.

Helen and I at the entrance to the Haunted House

Me and most of my co-workers at my branch!

                                

Korean BBQ

            We recently went to a Korean BBQ restaurant, after trying to eat here a few times over the past month, we arrived early enough to get in right away without a 2 hour wait.  Once we were seated and things were under way, I realized why they must have such long waits sometimes!

                                                              Here it is!

            The first time we tried to go was when my step-mom was visiting, she’s from Taiwan and without her pointing out the place, we never would have had any idea as to what it was.  Not being able to read Chinese characters is a drag.  Our waitress even asked us how we found out about the restaurant. Luckily there was one lady working there who spoke English, and rather well too.  It turns out she had just returned from a summer of living and working at Yellowstone!  She’s the first person I’ve met who when I say I’m from South Dakota, actually knows where it is! Without her help, eating here would have been a bit more challenging, but probably still do-able.  When she came over to our table she told us how they all rushed to get her right away because they were afraid of trying to help the foreigners. 

            They did have an English menu, but having never eaten at this style of restaurant before, we weren’t sure on what to do.  So the Korean BBQ is like you order your meat uncooked, beef, pork, lamb, seafood.  In the center of our table is a little grill with coals that clocked out around 500 degrees, Celsius- the guy who turned it on showed us! That’s just insanely hot.  Our waitress totally recommended the beef, so Anthony and I got a plate of beef, and Greta got some lamb with chicken.  Both plates came with corn on the cob, pumpkin pieces, onions, and lettuce to cook with the meat.  And that’s just the “main” ish course.  It all started out with a salad, soup, rice, and slushie drinks.  Yea, the slushies seemed kinda out of place, but they were sooo good, available in lemon or cranberry!  All of the soups and salads came in a variety of about 4 to choose from.  We tried to get an assortment so we could try a lot of things.

                                                                            I got a tomato "salad" sooo yummy!

Getting hot!

            The waitress showed us how to cook the meat, and explained that it only takes about 10 seconds for one piece to fully cook, and it was true. It was super fast!  The food was so delicious, we ate a lot. Once our meals were done, we then moved to another seating area, kind of like a lounge area, where we were served a dessert and another drink selection of libations such as espresso or milk tea.  Overall a really awesome place.  Of course it was a bit more expensive than somewhere I’d eat every day, but really nice for every now and then.  And now we even know how to order for next time!  

            

                                                                     


         Anthony's dessert had 
      a little message, too bad we 
    haven't a clue what it says! 

What's that you say? Acid Rain?! Can your umbrella handle that?

      So not only do I live in an armpit... I live in a big sweaty armpit that perspires acid!  One of Greta's older classes informed her that there it acid rain's here in Taiwan.  And the largest amount of it occurs in good ole Jhongli! (Yes, that's where I live).  It makes sense once I stop to think about it a bit, tons of factories with pollutants going up into the air, mixing with the clouds, incessant rainfall, BAM. There it is. Acid drops falling on my windoooowww.
       After some looking into the issue, I've also discovered that China is a contributor to our dirty downfall.  This too, makes a lot of sense.  Farmer's crops are dying! Where these crops are located to begin with, I know not.  The normal Ph level of water is around 7, the rain here is usually at about a 5 or less.  
     I wish I were still oblivious to this newly discovered reality.  I quite enjoy walking in the rain every now and then (for a short amount of time), it's also damn near impossible to keep an umbrella alive for an extended period of time over here.  Although I believe Typhoon Season is on the way out, it's still very windy, which is not a friend to the umbrellas.  Anthony has had the same umbrella for SEVEN years, mind you maybe it hasn't had a very eventful life, but after being here for less than 3 months.. it's dunzo.  I brought an umbrella with me as well, it has seen better days.  I'm trying to keep him alive though.  It's been buckled upwards from the wind and half of the metal poles on the inside are snapped, which causes that half to droop down, whatever.  I'm not giving up on it yet though! It now makes sense why there are umbrella's sold EVERYWHERE, like seriously, everywhere you go, even out on the streets, umbrellas!  
     This leads me into another point.  The Taiwanese use umbreallas, at ALL TIMES.  Whether it's raining acid rain, or over 100 degrees ( I was going to try and use Celsius, like they do here, but who am I kidding) the people are all about the umbrellas.  This is because when it's sunny, they don't want the warm sunshine on their skin, apparently it's not a nice feeling for them?  They just don't want to turn brown. It's crazy coming form a culture that is so obsessed with being tan that people have their own tanning booths in their homes, going to a place where they literally sell "whitening" lotion, bye-bye Jergens natural glow, it's all about the pastey porcelain!  The umbrellas start to really piss me off because obviously they take up more space than a person, and they are held around my face area, it's hard to get around them without being darted in the head.  When it's raining, fine, I understand you don't want to be covered in acidity wetness, but when it's just a little sunshine?!  I bet their rates of skin cancer are non-existent compared to the States.  

What's in a Name?

     A few weeks after to moving to Jhongli we went out to a "foreigners bar" called The River, which is conveniently located just a short walk from our apartment.  Let me tell you, it was culture shock alll over again walking into a place with that many white people speaking English. There really weren't even so many people there, but all together in one place, it was weird. What's more is that once we walked in, I felt like I was back in my hometown at a local bar, had that same kinda dumpy feel to it. (Maya's, for those of you who know it)
     The inside was actually pretty neat.  There was lots of interesting artwork painted across the walls, some pretty strange, and we were loudly greeted by Ginger, who was working behind the bar, along with a "You must be new here!"( said in pretty decent English!) We sat at the bar and ordered the specialty, Taiwan Beer, as Ginger and the other bar tender asked us our names, where we were from, and what the hell we were doing in Jhongli.  That night we didn't stay long, just one drink to check it out.



     A few days later we decided to go back, as after checking out the website I discovered they had an American food menu!  This night was Wednesday, and in true Wednesday night bar fashion, it was "all you can drink." My friends from home will recognize this as "Drown Night" at the Char in Verm. In Taiwan, it is pretty common to come across bars that are actually "all you can drink" EVERY night, sounds scary.  Well maybe because The River is a foreigners bar, they only have it once a week.  So by chance we went there again on Wednesday night, this time there were a few more people, even a D.J spinning beats, like Avril...
      So we order some food, have some beer, and start interacting with the others in the bar.  Not so surprisingly, most of the other people there are also teaching English here.  One guy I talked to has been living in Jhongli for 11 years teaching.  He gave us a bit of the low down on our new city.
     Apparently Jhongli is referred to as the armpit of Taiwan.  What exactly does that mean?  Well, it's smelly? Yes, ok. It's hella smelly here, and the air is thick and white with a presence that is more than what I need to keep me breathing.  There are tons of "small" surrounding towns here with a lot of industrial factories pumping such goodness out and about.  Also, Taiwan is verrrrryyy populated, almost 23 MILLION (all crammed into an island about 1/5 the size of South Dakota!) people live here, most of these people, have scooters, drive scooters, some that leave foggy trails behind them. Adds up pretty quickly.
    The view from our apartment, it's pretty nice, we can see quite a bit of the city, a park, speckled air stained on our windows.  Turns out, there are mountains, big ones, hiding behind the tissued air, more often than not.  We can see them most vividly right before or after a big rain storm.  It's kind of sickening to look out and now know that there are mountains, just covered by the air, that we can't see.  I like seeing the mountains!
    Another, better, reason for our city having such a nickname, is that it's "easy" to go pretty much anywhere in Taiwan from Jhongli.  There's the airport very close, the only international one, a train station which hosts multiple types of trains (local, high speed rail, express), and bus stations/stops galore.  I say easy hesitantly, because trying to actually get tickets to get to said places, proved to bit challenging as someone who doesn't speak Chinese.  We finally got it figured out though, I think?
     Anyways, although Jhongli may have a slightly bad rep, if that dude has lived here for 11 years, I think I can handle it for a while.  Oh, also, it's considered a smaller city, the population is about 370,000 people. Small? Yeah.... not so much to me!

Here's me, Anthony, Nate, Ginger, aaannd I think that guy was the DJ? Ginger insisted we all share a shot of tequila   She said Jose is the only man she trusts in her life. Ohh boy. Also, notice the vibrant wall behind us!
 

This'll Make You Feel Better!

     This past week my throat's been feeling pretty sore and slightly swollen.  I'm sure it's from all the yelling and screaming I do at my Treehouse 1 kids (age 5/6) to stop hitting each other in the face.  Before work one day I go to the 7-11 with Anthony and am debating on what I should get to drink.  Orange juice, tea, just water?  Anthony recommends this tea, it's not very sweetened he says.  I decide to try it.  I twist off the top just outside the convenience store and report that it tastes like I'm drinking a flower.  There is a picture of a white flower on the bottle, accompanied by a bunch of Chinese characters.  So who knows, really.  I step into the branch where I'm meeting my ride, and see that Anthony has the same bottle sitting on his desk.  

"Ohhh," I say to him, "you just wanted me to get this because you're drinking it!"

He laughs and slightly agrees,  "I figured I'd tell you to pick something I've tried, rather than take a poopshoot guess."

                 The 2 on the left is what I was drinking. 

I continue sipping it, and soon my ride arrives.  One of the Chinese Teachers I work with let's me drive with her to the branch that we work at.  While we're in the car, I ask her about the beverage.  

"Helen, what kind of tea is this?"  I ask, flashing her my bottle. 

"Uhmm, green tea." She says

"So why is there a flower on it? Is there flowers in the tea?"

"Mmmh, maybe."  Slight pause,  "It is a drink for weight loss."

.....

I laugh and say "Oh, perfect. Hopefully it makes me skinny."  With sarcasm I hope she catches.

I keep on with the drink once I get to my branch. Although I'm slightly subconscious that the other Chinese Teachers will think I'm on some sort of hoax diet if they see me drinking the tea.  Once my first class starts I bring the bottle into my class and take a sip of it during an activity.  One of the kids up front starts laughing and definitely points at my drink.  I just KNOW he does!  Then of course he starts speaking Chinese and all the other kids, okay maybe only like 2 others, were looking at me.  The smirk on his face is ridiculous. His name is "Mars." He's judging me for sure.  

Now I know only to bring water into my classroom, and to try strange drinks at caution. 

Who knows what the hell I could be ingesting over here.