A transition, the return, and new frontiers

THe pages turn and life goes on.

It's all coming to an end. As I sit here time has brought my own personal experiences of living in Taiwan. I'm off to China with an equal mixture of excitement and trepidation. Taiwan has been good to me but I have reservations about my return home. I will be leaving a lot of good friends and a wonderful mix of work, learning and recreation. From the vibrant nightlife to the exciting diversity, Taipei has been a great hub for seeing the rest of the country. There is still a lot of things I haven't seen or covered which brings me to my new thought.


In the future I'd like to hear from my fellow friends and family who have their own stories of Taiwan.

For my stories of China watch this space soon.

Green Island

The trip to Green Island was amazing just a bunch of friends heading down south to a beautiful island paradise. I loved Green Island despite the continued obstacles. In hindsight the trip was poorly planned and much of our success was due to shrewd Taiwanese Language skill and a seasoned vet who'd visited the island several times all of which kept the newbie traveller clear headed and anxiety neutral.

The trip started off on Saturday night. We met Ben and PHoebe and the van at 9pm. There was some problems earlier with a locked apartment and misplaced keys but like McGuiver I managed to solve the issue with a little wit, determination and a broken umbrella. After the initial meet up our drivers took us to pick up the rest of our cohort and we were off on our adventure down south.

We were a motley crew of newbies, locals and fresh arrivals to Taiwan. Sam and I have been in Taiwan for almost a year now. Sam's roommate Don was a seasoned traveller and has been in Taiwan for the last three years. We had two Taiwanese Sunny and Phoebe not to mention our Chinese American Anna to round out the pack of Asian interpreters. We were prepared and excited to head down south.

The initial trip out of the city was a little bumpy but after taking a brief stop to play a game of electric basketball where Ben was crowned Dream Hooter, Don took us on a whirlwind pass to through the winding mountain roads in the pitch of night. We arrived at dawn at the harbor to register on the waiting list for the ferry to Green Island. Green Island which used to be a little known tourist spot has seen quite a bit of development since the government has started putting money into local tourism develloping the sites and growing awareness about the tourist spots around the island.

We managed to get on a ferry easy enough after badgering a clerk for an hour and arrived to find a lack of scooters available for rent. Suffice it to say after a great deal of effort and broken interchanges we wound up with tents, scooters and a wide variety of amenities to carry us through the rainy nights and sun scorched days. One of the higlights of the trip had to be the visit to one of the few salt water hotsprings in the world and the bevy of snorkeling sites. I got coral cuts and wound up with heat stroke. But simpy cruising around the island was good enough for me. I had a great time and I'll post some pictures later when I have more time.

More food stuff

Living in Taiwan gives you an interesting selection of tasty and sometimes strange Chinese food. From dumplings, to fried rice to pickeled turnips there's something for everyone. I'm always quite pleased with my selection of foods.

The busy life in Taiwan

Nothing too exiciting to report. I went to Ximending last night. Its' the youth focused fashion district where all manner of shops cater to the spending habits of Taiwan's youth. I took some pictures and had some sushi with my buddy Kevin and his girlfriend. We took some stupid pictures and I crashed early. The Jet lag is all but gone, now its' just the hectic schedule of teaching and learning Chinese which has got me worn out.

The journey home and a Return

Hey let me just say thanks to all of you who I saw the last two weeks. It's been great to get in touch with all of you guys. I'm ecstatic about seeing home and it was simply wonderful to see all my good friends if at least for a coffee. To the friends I missed I am truly sorry and saddened. It will be great to finally get caught up when I come back later this year for good.

For the particulars of my trip it was quite relaxed and almost slothful the amount of sleeping I caught up on. I was happiest about seeing my family and the dinner we had on wednesday really can't be carried through words the happiness it brought. I'm glad to be back in Taiwan and I miss you guys already.

I'm motivated to post more now but the return flight hardly carries any stories. I shall post more upon future reflection.

Urban Exploration - Jiuzhiciu

Like a great Naturalist or explorer, I set off today to explore the urban jungles of Taipei. With me on my journey was my trusty camera and travel companion Nate. We headed off to Jiuzhiciu MRT and proceeded to spend a good hour in search of a non-existent bike rental spot. After venturing further we found a tempting set of stairs which carried us over Keelung river and back into Taipei proper. The landscape of Taiwan is really beautiful and the slapped together quality of outlying burroughs gives the area a really forbodding atmosphere. One highlight was the urban agriculture fenced in by old matresses. Within sight of two overpasses sat a small plot of land growing small vegetables.

As we hiked across the freeway span we felt a slight tremor at almost the precise midway point a sign of structural failing or minor earthquake. As we went further clinging in the most tenuous of places lay a series of bonsai trees atop the guard railings of the freeway. Some greening projects are more successful then others and those trees must capture quite a bit of toxic emissions in areas where cars pass by. We descended into Longshan temple area the old timer residence of prostitutes and monks. As our hunger grew the quest for an elusive McD creature proved to be a growing challenge. It was when we came upon the signs of corporate advertising and KTV partyworlds of Ximen the teenage dominated shopping district just north of the old-young dividing line of Longshan that we found release. Satiated we ventured into the women's clothing store masquerading as an English bookstore of Eslite 151. Exhausted and tired we took one of the local buses from Ximen back to our residences in Zhongshan where this story ended in a great long nap.

Well it's been a while but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Life at the old school has settled into a routine of which I'm somewhat bored. On other notes living in Taiwan has provided me with a few curious situations and opportunities.

First let me share something about the living arrangements which many of you fine readers at home may not be entirely aware. I am still living in the temporary housing that my employer provides for new arrivals and for a number of reasons I have decided to stay for the remainder of my time while employed with them. It is convenient, close to my work, and most of all the best bang for my buck with a japanese style floor and working kitchen all for the tidy sum of 8000 NT less then 300CAD. Suffice to say living in the housing has it's advantages with me meeting a variety of strange and interesting people.

Which brings me to one of the reasons for my absence of witty posts and interesting observations. Aside from a general malaise and a desire to study more Chinese, I have also been working on a few projects one of them is a little website which I am working on with one of my old roommates. Baseballintaiwan.com is a website which caters to an interesting niche, as the sport is quite popular here it is only mildly surprising that there are so few websites dedicated to it that have english content. So check it out we're still working out a lot but we have an url and we're trying to post something substantial at least weekly. Hopefully we'll get som quality content this weekend that you'll get to see on our little site. Check us out BaseballinTaiwan.com

Finally on a personal note, I'll be coming back to Canada in less then a month. I've been missing all of you my friends and family hopefully we'll meet for a coffee or drink to reminisce and share stories. I'm coming back the weeks of 17th to 29th of April. Mark your calendars folks. I'm on my way.

New Year's a time for work

In the west the beginning of January is a time for people to adopt new practices for the coming year, whether losing some weight or doing something new. Here in Taiwan the new year is a time for work. Chinese New Year's is coming up in a few weeks and people are scrambling to finish things in time for the holidays. I haven't been working as much as I'd like but I'm rather busy nonetheless, applying for grad schools is going to be a little tight for this year, I'm thinking of doing some more work on my chinese and maybe some mark upgrades here or there. I've been playing board games on weekends and practicing my Chinese here and there it's time I went to the gym tho' so here's a pic to tide things over.

What ESL Teaching can be like

A little moment of Zen from the advertising folks at Berlitz. Courtesy of Youtube.

the lame blog/diary post

So this weekend I didn't do much of anything besides right some fairly mundane and time consuming reports. How's that for a Sunday night?! Saturday I met up with my old roommate and his girlfriend


I'm also in the process of applying for gradschools, I still want to learn more Chinese so I'm looking at another year in maybe PRC! Taiwan is beautiful but its too westernized an there is a strong dicincentive to learn Chinese, besides the foreigners I've met are all just modestly committed. The hardcore ones some of them have been here for years, if I went to China the money would be less but I could study more. Too many distractions here.


I started doing some volunteer work for Gigavox media hopefully I can spin it into an internship or reference of some kind. I'll also be studying more chinese so this already infrequent blog may drop off the Radar for a while. But I'm still alive so don't be worried.

As for things outside travel I really enjoyed this week's big ideas segment, check them out both are carrying some 'conservative' baggage but I'd say from different ranges of the field. Check it out. Click the link audio to listen.

Christopher Hitchins

Roger Scruton

Getting Lost in Taipei

So I got lost one weekend and found a park in the northern half of Tapei.
Here's the YouTube embed

Christmas Alone, Going South and Journeys not Destinations

I wrote this note on my travel back from Kenting on Christmas day.

This is holiday season in what seems not only the western world but also here in the far east. Christmas has come and (almost) gone here in Taiwan. Teaching English here in Taiwan meant signing a contract for a year and due to the timing at which I arrived I ended up not being able to go home for the holdays. I'd like to wish everyone a happy holidays no matter their faith and a happy New Year to boot. Taiwan has been an interesting place to spend my 24th Christmas and I must say a little lonely.

I am currently on a train back to Taipei after spending a weekend travelling the south of Taiwan. I must say that the southern half of the island is quite beautiful and a lot cleaner then the crowded and smoggy streets of central Taipei. On my journey by Train, foot and minibus I saw a new side to an island which had been nothing but a series of large urban sprawls on an island far away from home.

In Kaoshuing I saw a lot of things which reminded me of home. The city of one and half millions reminded me a great deal of my hometown of Toronto. Although the signs were in Chinese and the city lacked an extensive transit system. It was refreshing to walk more then three blocks without running into a 7/11 or Starbucks. Kaoshiung is definitely less westernized then Taipei and I got a great deal more looks at my hight and appearance then in Taipei. My first day in Kaoshiung was cut a little short and I regret that I didn't go on a different day as the scenery was quite beautiful, I'd like to go back sometime. Staying there was quite cheap and I got a nice hotel room near the train station for 1000 NT. Finding activities to do at night was a little difficult and I think Kaoshiung is a lot sleepier then the bustling streets of Taipei.

After a night and morning in Kaoshiung I headed off to Kenting orignally unsure as to whether it was a good idea or bad. I must say the country side is quite beautiful although next time I'd like to take a guide or friend to share it with as Kending was somewhat lonely this time of year, and the small little beach resort town had a lot to see. It's ironic that I found more clothes to try on in Kenting then even the most bustling shopping centers in Taipei. Kenting has a lot of kitch value and had my phone battery lasted longer I would have loved to share the beauty of the small in I stayed at (only 800NT!) and the magnificently constructed Newport Beach scuba training facility. Kenting is a place to go with friends and the journey back was quite an adventure. While there I did look into scuba classes although it seemed the trainering spots were all closed and I was unable to find copies of papers in English or with any sort of pricing details.

As for my vacation on the whole I'm happy about the places I visited but it's really the journey that played the prime spot in my little adventure. I think more then the beautiful countryside and quaintness of Kaoshiung it will be the strange characters and tribulations of my voyage that I'll carry with me the longest. The first day I headed out to Kaoshiung I had hoped to get to Kenting before night fall but by the time I got to Kaoshiung the night was already approaching and I was already quite tired of sitting after the five hour rapid train journey between Kaoshiung and Taipei.
Wanting to stretch my legs I went for a little walk around Kaoshiung hoping to secure lodging for a night. After finding a place that had rooms starting at 2200 NT a night I quickly realized I'd have to find a place a little more suitable if I didn't want to blow a big chunk of my savings on a layover night. I thus wandered for an hour or so nigh falling while I searched the confusing back streets for a place to stay.

I finally settled on a small inn the name of which I now forget located close to the Train station. After seeing the plush carpeted room and unloading my bag I went off for a wander through the night markets of which I ran into an ice cream vendor who is something of a novelty and celebrity amongst travel programs detailing a journey to Kaoshiung. One final note on my journey to Kaoshiung the place was quite suitable if a little old, the staff not speaking more then a few words of English were extremely eager to see to my needs and while the offer of a female for company at 11 o'clock was somewhat appealing did shoot the seediness of the place up to a new level. I was quick to leave the place early the next day for fear of what other 'nicities' might be visited upon me should I have stayed another evening.

After an unfruitful search for the tourist center marked in my Lonely Planet book I decided it was best to hed for Kenting. The earliest bus I caught left at around 2pm and I arrived in Kenting at a little past 4pm. Tired from my early walking I was quick to settle on the Sunnyside Hotel a quaint little building that was more converted appartment housing come hotel then a five start accomodation. After wandering the main strip of Kenting I was beginning to realize that there was no bus station within easy reach and it was a story in itself on how I managed to get back to Kaoshiung in one piece. Concerned about finding a bus stop and wanting to hike the mountain in the daytime I called it an early night and slept blissfully with no midnight knocking with offers of sordid delights.

The next day I arose early and ate a quick bite at the breakfast shop outside the hotel run by the owner and his wife. A sandwich with bacon and eggs combined with a glass of Orange juice had me fuelled and ready to go in search of a bus station. Realizing there would be no time to hike the mountain I headed east in what was logically the location of the bus station. I reasoned that not seeing it on the way in I must have gotten off the bus too soon as I had come from the Northwest the day before. Hiking a good km I ran into a bus that said it was headed from Kaoshiung to Kenting. The driver spoke very little English but we were able to establish that he was not going back. I asked him in English where I could go and after waving in the easterly direction I assumed my original presumption was correct. After hiking another 2 km to the next small town I came to realize first hand the Chinese propensity for providing help (and in this case erronius) help.

Frustrated and realizing I would not be getting into Kaoshiung at the time I had hoped I began the slow hike back to Kenting. I was quite frustrated, isolated, my phone out of battery power and a little homesick I got back to Kenting in a little less then 45 minutes. It was at this point that fortune smiled ironically upon me with a Christmas present of questionable safety. A middle aged woman on a scooter asked me in stuttering English if I was headed to Kaoshiung and quickly wisked me away to her husband's minibus only 5 minutes up the road. I was greeted by a gap toothed betel nut stained grin and against my better judgment decided against looking for a more reputable form of transportation. We stayed in the nearbye vicinty for a good part of a half hour and it was just at the point that I was ready to jump out and hitch hike back that my friendly driver pulled over and offered me what he called 'Taiwan Whisky' but tasted like sour strawberry fresca. Determined to get back to Kaoshiung I decided to sip his alcoholic brew out of courtesy then get out and hitch hike back. I was half way through the drink when my driver and his wife finally climbed into our rig and sallied off to Kaoshiung.

Having passed through another small town on the way to Kaoshiung I know realized what my guidebook had neglected to mention. That being that the bus terminal was actually located in the town to the north of Kenting and was not even marked on my empty map of Kenting. Shooting our way back to Kaoshiung our ride picked up an odd assortment of characters and my time getting back to Taipei from Kaoshiung are all the topic of another story.

Happy Holidays. I miss you all!

Banking Nonsense

Its been over three months I've been here and I must say by far the worst thing so far has been the shoddy Banking services provided. No admittedly I don't speak Chinese and this is a big one which if one thinks its a clincher I'll seed the point but that being said service was atrocious. Firstly, I must say that banking hours are nothing short of ridiculous here, in a society where 12 hour days is the norm banks ALL close at 3:30pm. That's right 3:30pm. So getting a visa bill is next to a nightmare. Thankfully I've got a great family at home that's been really helpful with making sure that the VISA corp. doesn't send one of its goon squads to repossess my meager possessions.

Short and Sweet - Stream of conciousness

Just a short update, technical difficulties have made it difficult for me to get online with my pics due to a malfunctioning camera phone who's signal keeps crapping out it may be a little time before I can embed some video in the blog or anything. Work is really becoming chillax, I'm getting a lot better at teaching, and I am actually beginning to enjoy it!

As for the living thing, I've started to do some grocery shopping of my own and after watching a lot of the food and travel network I've become anxious to flex my culinary muscles. The side bonus of my own cooking is I don't need to worry as much about the amount of oil and shit that they put in a lot of the food here, sometimes it's a real crapshoot the only thing I can honestly say was a real dissappointment so far has been a bit of starfruit juice that tasted a little like rotten apple cider.

I feel a little out of it writing this post as I look back on it I can see that my English skills are starting to grow a little stale. SPeaking broken English directions to five year olds can get fatiguing after for years of essay writing. I miss learning but I'm also a little happy to be away from the grind of paper writing and endless due dates. That being said I do have these reports to write every two weeks that last time I check clock in at around 4000 words. It's a lot of BS but still time consuming. This teaching English stuff is a lot of superficial learning. BUt then maybe language learning is mostly superficial, without the cultural context. I am happy that I'm learning a lot about chinese culture, face and Sino-Taiwanese relations. Living in the real world after 18 years of formal education has been really an eye opener. The theory is really showing itself off at times I wish I'd taken a few more business classes or economics classes in University as I can begin to see how capital shapes the dialogue of so much of our lives.

I got a little introspective there, and reading back I can see this stream of conciousness is all over the place. I'll try to produce something a little more coherent next time. This blog is more of a sketch book for my prose then anything else.

Cheers,

Video Blogging, Boredom and C.K.S

So I was bored and decided to post something on youtube.
Video blogging is the future!

Staying smart, e-learning, and living in a foreign country

So having just graduated most students would luxuriate in the lack of material they have to process on a daily basis. After years of education and learning I was initially quite satisfied to be free from the world of education and curriculum. Having started teaching English I get to see curriculum from the other side and try and figure out ways to transfer the knowledge from myself to my students. However, teaching five year olds the basics of English pronunciation and grammar can become somewhat tedious after years of analyzing the history of ancient civilizations and the pantheon of human thought.

That being said I have a keen interests in staying active in my intellectual pursuits and sometimes all I really want is some English content which is a little more complex than the formulaic C movies they are so fond of playing on the television here. As such, there's a number of things I've been doing to stay in touch with acedemia besides developping my teaching skills. The most useful and vital point of access for me has been the internet and in particular the number of excellent podcasts available on the internet. As such I list my top 5 listens and give a brief synopsis of each.

1. TVO Big Ideas - an online discussion series free from the television of TVO to your headphones. The topics are quite broad and written for an educated audience who might not be familiar with particular technical aspects of the discussion.

2. Stanford Faculty Lectures - Similar to Big Ideas, although the sound quality is a lot more spotty and sometimes the lectures are not written as much for a public audience

3. This Week in Tech (TWiT) - An IT news and commentary show with the latest in news from a number of in the know journalists. Hosted by Leo Laporte from TechTV my favorite personnage on the show has to be the always grouchy John C. Dvorak

4. CBC Radio: The Best of Ideas - Similar to the TVO series of lectures I find the topics are generally of less critical analysis and will sometimes venture into the realms of fancy and speculation. Nonetheless, a good show for interesting talking points. The show hosted by Paul Kennedy is fond of issuing series of discussions including one on organic food, healing through mindfulness, and a history of leftist thought.

5. IT conversations - not one podcast but many separate discussions check out the Accelerating Change 2005, and Globeshakers with Tim Zak. It's a part of the Gigavox Media network.

As a side note you may want to download an RSS feed reader which is a program that downloads many of these podcasts. Myself I use iTunes to manage my audio files and RSS feeds but there are many other sources available online.

Taipei Photoset 1

I went for a walk through Taipei today. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Graffiti 1

Construction

Windwheel Market

Taipei City Buildings

Living and Teaching in Taiwan: One month later

So it's been a little over a month since I got here in Taiwan and what was once a dream has increasingly become a reality. After one month almost two in fact, I'd have to say that the life of an expat is a mixed bag. For me a lot of things that other people expressed concern over have been a non-issue such as the legality issue, teaching material qualities or finding edible food. You definitely should develop a taste for asian food if you plan on living here unless you plan on cooking your own food all the time or eating at Burger King or McDonalds for most of your meals. Movies and television are readily available and if you'd like to see an English movie they tend toward subtitles for English a real bonus for the movie buff. The club scene is there for those who are interested but if you're like me a place where you can chill out and drink a beer or two your best option is often the local 7/11.

Teaching is a mixed bag, I would have to say that the curriculum at our school is quite solid and our staff is quite professional and decent about informing us about upcoming events. We always know well in advance of any upcoming events as well as any work we'll need to prep for it. The kids are generally decent and the work is usually pretty simple. That being said the simplicity is sometimes frustrating and your ability to recall petty details is a lot more important then giving a consistent and whole description of the children. Our trainer is also somewhat caught between worlds, between teaching us and trying to discipline the teachers. There hasn't been any problems yet but he is constantly waving threats above our heads about not talking to him enough which is really a case of his generally surly attitude. I've heard some similar stories about Directors at other schools and the simple fact is that most people who wind up directors are not usually professionals but more often those who have devellopped their skills teaching at the schools for a great deal of time. The negative aspect of this is that their theoretical and leadership skills can be somewhat weak but they've always maintained an excellent degree of professionalism if not always an open dialogue.

As for social activity I have been dividing my time between going for language exhcanges, resting and working out. The language exchanges have not been as fruitful as I had originally hoped. I have been doing Language Exchanges consistently for the past month with little to show besides some numbers and a handful of pronunciations. They have been good opportunities for meeting other people and talking about general stuff, I imagine they will prove more fruitful once I start Mandarin classes properly in November.

I miss home at leastonce every day, my friends, my family, and the cool air of Canada funny enough to say. I miss wearing jackets and sweaters and seeing people going about their day in Toronto, the MRT here just doesn't have the same feel to it as the good ole' TTC. I miss having conversations with the people back home. But I think this has been a good experience, an eye opener and I am constantly finding new things out about myself. It changes you I think and I hope that when I go home the people I care for will still be relatable, I think that's thing that concerns me most that when I go back I won't fit there anymore then I feel I do here.

Moon Festival/Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's the moon festival right now in Taiwan and I have been receiving a number of small cakes and presents from my students in the last couple weeks. Life has been settling into a normal routine at last and I must say I am getting used to living in Taiwan. Life is less hectic and I think I'll be staying in the same appartment for the time being. I have met a lot of new teachers staying in the School's appartment. It has been interesting to meet the sort of people who are willing to come over here and teach English leaving behind whatever for a life in a foreign land. Aside from expats I've also met a number of Taiwanese who have been very friendly who are interested in learning English and making friends. I'm still getting used to their work attitude which is a lot different from the people I knew in university.

As for the Moon Festival it's a lot like thanksgiving back home, with the major premise being getting together with family and eating a large meal. Today my roommate and I visited Taoyouan just outside of Taipei with one of our Taiwanese friends, we visited his family
and ate a number of BBQ'd foods. I was going to take some pictures but my phone died on me before I could take any of them. There was some really good bean noodles, roasted pork and squid-ka-bobs I'm still feeling stuffed. It was really nice weather wise and we have a few days off till wednesday.

I'm going to the beach tommorow. I'll be sure to take some pictures of that as well.

Holidays are hard when living abroad not being with family and all that. I miss my family and wish I could be home for thanksgiving its one of our bigger traditions at home and I'm sad I'm missing it. Once, again. Happy Thanksgiving!

Night Life in Taipei

Last night I was fortunate enough to get some free passes to a show of DJ Qbert. Playing at the club Luxy the time was quite amusing. His rapid beats produced a lively show that while not entirely danceable was a huge improvement according to local fans over his last show here in Taiwan. Now I'm not a big house fan by any stretch of the word but I enjoyed myself nonetheless and it seems Taipei has an active night life with a large contingent of westerners with my guess placing their presence compromising around 30-40% in the case of Luxy nightclub last night.

As for the dress code, style and music selection one can expect to see much of the same thing as back home. Drinks are comparable to western prices with a mixed drink at Luxy costing around 200NT which amounts to a $7 drink back home. When you factor in the lack of tipping and quality of service drinking is quite comparable within the club. Where the scene differs as to drinking is in the outside drinking. It is more then acceptable to leave the club for a little bit head down to the 7/11 around the corner and drink a little more before going back in. Once you've been stamped getting back in is no hassle. Furthermore, the attitude to drinking is a lot prohibitive one of my friends in fact was right about to go in while cutting in line with a can of beer to where some other friends of ours meant he got to finish his beer and be right in front of the line avoiding a good forty minute wait to get in.

As for the music and fashion scene I'll let the pictures show the clothing style. Dress code is fairly relaxed at Luxy with a no shorts rule being pretty much the only one. People come out to the club dressed in tailored suits to a pair of jeans, sandals and a printed shirt. As for female fashions, bikini tops seemed a popular choice with shrugs or wraps for modesty sake. Clothing is bright and summery even as the cool fall weather has begun to set in. Music on the other hand tends toward the poppy and also shows a lot of western influence. Chinese raps will throw in English words periodically and most of the music is only about six months behind the cutting edge in North America.