The Recession Connection

I’ve got a lot of holiday time coming up. I have three trips to prepare for: Hong Kong, Manila, and Canada. Even though I got some deals on my airfare, my time off will inevitably cost a sizable chunk of dough. I’m trying to save as much as possible, so several pages of my neurosis-notebook are filled with currency conversions, cost estimates, and budgets. Looking at such a page from a few months, or even weeks, ago is a shocking experience.

1 month ago: $30,000 NT = $969 CAD
Today: $30,000 NT = $1,135 CAD

2 months ago: $100 HK = $13 CAD
2 weeks ago: $100 HK = $15 CAD
Today: $100 HK = $16 CAD

If I had any money to send home, I would be very happy right now. I would have $166 CAD for free. Unfortunately I spent my last paycheck on airline tickets, which are costing more and more in Canadian dollars every day. Everything costs more than previously thought. Three days in Hong Kong is getting particularly pricey. My $39 CAD hotel will now cost $48! Perhaps this doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re the type of person who flies to Hong Kong and stays in the nation’s cheapest hotel, it’s a big difference.

National Snapshot
Taiwan makes its money in the service sector, and with its dazzling array of electronics. There are about a dozen Taiwanese computer companies (the only one I’ve seen in Canada is Acer) and a dozen more accessory and parts companies. So if people around the world can’t afford computers, Taiwan is in trouble. This happened in late 2001, and Taiwan was in a recession for about a year.

The current global recession is increasing the unemployment rate. In August, the unemployment rate was 4.14 per cent. In September, the rate was 4.27 per cent, or about an additional 12,000 unemployed people. The first nine months of the year averaged 3.96 per cent.

A lot of people blame President Ma. There was a protest held in Taipei yesterday, and over 500,000 people attended. Half a million. The last time this happened was… well, about two months ago with a protest of about 300,000. I’ve learned that Taiwanese people are one with the streets. Constant parades, protests, and overall lack of rules make the streets like the yard they never had. Anyways, these protests both called for President Ma to step down. The protesters are frustrated that Taiwan was bowing to China without any economic gain. They want an independent Taiwan with an independent economy, and they want to be protected from China’s dangerous products. Or something.

During campaigning in the spring, Ma promised to “make our society immediately better.” Well, people believed him. If Ma doesn’t stop giving privilege to China, a member of the opposing party has a fresh idea: “If the government continues to refuse to listen to the anger of the people, we will take to the streets again and show them the consequences of not listening to our voices,” she said.

Sources: http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=772274
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=772526

Mystery Puddles Finally Understood

Two weeks ago, Typhoon Sinlaku came to Taiwan for an extended visit. This was a big deal for people in parts of south and central Taiwan. The last I read, 11 people were killed. A tunnel collapsed on occupied vehicles, a bridge collapsed causing cars to plunge into the fast-flowing river, and flood waters caused a seven-storey hotel to fall on its side. The BBC posted some terrifying videos online here and here.

Typhoons are indeed very dramatic events – unless you live in a big city. For those of us around Taipei, we had to deal with heavy rain and wind only strong enough to foil umbrella usage. The power and water stayed on, and 7-Eleven stayed open. All in all, the typhoon experience was extremely boring. Schools and offices were closed, which would have at least meant a day off for me, but it was the weekend. Public transit was suspended, so there was no way to get anywhere even if I didn’t mind getting soaked. I stayed inside from Friday night to Monday morning. I watched a lot of CNN reporters worrying about a storm in Texas (they didn’t cover Sinlaku until it was downgraded to a tropical storm and headed for Japan), and I watched the movie channels even after they were on repeats. I ate constantly, and obsessively checked the lame posts on an online forum for ex-pats.

It was a very lackluster weekend and not worth talking about, let alone writing about. But during the typhoon, I found mysterious puddles on my floor. There was nothing coming from the ceiling, and nothing coming from the windows. My air conditioner wasn’t dripping, and my fridge was working fine. The water wasn’t coming from any source. It was just in a puddle on a random spot on the floor. This evening, I came home to a big puddle again. After 30 seconds of detective work, I came up with a satisfactory explanation; the puddles are coming out of thin air.

The humidity as of 8 p.m. was 89 per cent. The daytime humidity was likely in the low 90s, and it would have been even more extreme during the typhoon. The puddles wouldn’t be mysterious to most people in the world, but humidity has never been a talking point of mine. So, in the spirit of personal growth, here are some fun *wince* conversation starters about humidity:

- About 0.001 per cent of the Earth’s water is in the air as vapor, clouds, or precipitation at any given time.
- Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and therefore increases temperature as well as increases with temperature.
- Humidity with heat can kill you. Humidity can trap the sweat on your body so no heat can escape.
- The most humid places in the world are usually close to the equator and near a coast. They include many cities in South and Southeast Asia like Kolkata, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore.
(sources: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/whumdef.htm and Wikipedia for list of humid cities)

Moon Festival

Taiwanese people celebrate a multitude of fascinating Chinese holidays. I have been here for Chinese New Year, Tomb Sweeping Day, Chinese Valentines Day, Ghost Month, birthdays of various gods, and now Moon Festival. These holidays follow the lunar calendar, which nobody can explain to me. I don’t think anyone knows how to calculate when the holiday is coming; word just gets out somehow. Moon Festival is on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, or Sept. 14 this year. The parties start a week in advance, and may go on afterwards if the weather doesn’t cooperate in time.


Moon Festival is celebrated by eating a lot of barbecue, as well as moon cakes and pomelos. The actual grill is not like a western barbecue at all. I went to a Moon Fest barbecue for work the other weekend, and learned how it is done. First, you get some big charcoal sticks and bash them up with a hammer or any other tool. Then you put all the charcoal bits into a little metal pan with legs. This is the barbecue. It sits on the ground with a little fire built inside, and you cook on top of a wire grill. This device is less than a foot tall. It’s not very macho, but it sure seems portable – and I enjoy that in a food preparation method.


Moon cakes are also involved in traditional celebrations. There are many styles of moon cakes, and I’m not sure which is the real deal. My employer gave me a box and told me that it must be kept frozen. Inside were four “cakes” made of a fluffy type of ice cream on top of a thin layer of cake, all wrapped up in sheets of rice dough. Each of the four cakes had a different surprise inside. One had cherries, one had orange, and one had sweet potato. I haven’t eaten the fourth yet.
Then, another day at work, I was told to try a moon cake. They told me to hurry because it was still hot. Hot is good in this style of moon cake I guess. It was a small flaky ball covered with poppy seeds, or lotus seeds. Inside was black seed paste. Then, there was a surprise in the middle – a super hard egg yolk. I pretended to eat the flaky pastry over the garbage bin to avoid a mess, but I really had to chuck that yolk.

Moon cakes also have some historical significance. It is said that during the 14^th Century, Ming revolutionaries otherthrew the Mongolian rulers in China using moon cakes. Mongolians don’t eat moon cakes, so only the Chinese read the messages hidden inside. The message was to revolt on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month.

The last must-eat Moon Fest food is pomelo. I had to teach this word to students, yet I hade never seen one before. Anyways, it’s a big pear-shaped fruit with a thick green skin that you peel off like an orange. The fruit inside is round and clear, but in big slices like a grapefruit. It’s not very tasty and a little bitter, but you can cut the green skin into a pomelo hat. Pomelo hats are beloved around here, but it just looks like you went digging in the trash and got fruit scraps on your head.

The moon is at its biggest and fullest during Moon Festival, so you are supposed to look at the moon. But there is a lot of light pollution in and around the cities, plus lots of clouds and smog, and there was a typhoon this year. So I think moon gazing is optional.

During the work barbecue, I asked my boss Molly to tell me the story of Moon Festival. Here’s how it went:

“A long time ago there was an emperor. He was not a good king, but he had a beautiful wife named Chang’e. He wanted to live forever, but he was not a good king to the people. So his wife took the medicine and went to the moon. She will live on the moon forever. There is also something about 10 burning suns, but I don’t remember.”

I did a little browsing online to crack the case, and found out that nobody agrees on the exact story. It’s not even agreed whether the emperor was good or bad. But I will provide another butchered version of the story to complement Molly’s.

“Ahem. Gather around children. Gather, I said. Gather means come here! A long time ago there was a man named Houyi. He was a very good archer. In fact, he was the emperor’s best archer. This was so long ago that the earth had 10 suns. One day, the suns all circled together and the earth started to burn. The emperor sent Houyi to shoot down all but one sun. Houyi was a hero and became emperor. Everyone doted on him so much that he became very self-superior, and wanted to live forever. His advisors found a way for him to live forever; it was a pill made out of 100 dead schoolboys. Each night for 100 nights he ground up a schoolboy for his pill. Houyi’s beautiful wife Chang’e couldn’t let her tyrannical husband rule the world forever, so she stole the pill. She took the pill and floated to the moon. She is still there today with the jade rabbit. Chang’e and the jade rabbit pound medicines for the gods. So… don’t do drugs kids.”

Happy Moon Festival! I will post some pictures and hopefully some video soon.

Always Open

There is an elephant in the room. I’ve danced around this issue many times, but now it’s time to confront it head on. Convenience stores run this country. Hardly an exaggeration. In fact, a Government of Canada website states that Taiwan has the highest concentration of convenience stores in the world. At the end of 2005, there were 8,709 chain-owned convenience stores in the country, which is about four stores per square kilometer. About 46 per cent of the stores are 7-Elevens, and 21 per cent are FamilyMarts. So it’s safe to say that 7-Eleven is the king of the jungle over here.

Almost any problem can be solved with a trip to the convenience store. They sell junk food and drinks like a regular store, but they also have frozen meals, hot food on a stick, cold noodle salads, fruit, coffee, baked goods, and booze. Some stores even have spaces to sit down and eat. Then there’s the REAL convenience – the ability to pay your bills. I go to a convenience store to pay every bill. I pay my rent through the ATM, and I take all my other bills to the clerk who simply scans them and tells me the total. I have a pay-as-you-go phone, so I pick up my phone cards there too. Most stores have a photocopier/scanner, and some FamilyMarts have a machine for buying tickets to events. Really. And you can do all of this 24-hours a day every day. Even on typhoon days.

Seven-Eleven and FamilyMart are the most popular, and the quirkiest, convenience stores. Sev has a cartoon mascot. It’s a little beige dog with the 7-Eleven colours in a rainbow on its head. Most locations will sell merchandise with this dog on it, whether it be a facecloth, notepad, eraser, T-shirt, or watch. Some of the merchandise helps you find out this dog’s back story, and who his friends are. FamilyMart’s quirk is that every time the door opens, a lengthy electronic chime is played. By lengthy I mean that it’s longer than three seconds. I guess it’s supposed to make you feel special by having a song played just for your arrival, but I don’t know how the employees endure it.

For a while, I was not excited about the convenience stores. Shopping in a 7-Eleven made me feel like such a xenophobic foreigner. But I now realize that it really is a part of the local culture, and not just a system set up to baby foreigners. I thought the local stores were imitations of American convenience stores, but they are really something else. Something custom designed for life in Taiwan.

Sources:
http://www.ats.agr.gc.ca/asia/4319_e.htm
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2006/02/14/2003293007

The Cruelty of Cuteness

Generally speaking, Taiwanese people love cute things. They obsess over cute things. In fact, the very first thing I saw after I landed in this country was a Hello Kitty jumbo jet. Really. Cutesy pie cartoons are everywhere. People of all ages wear cartoons on their clothing, and I can’t seem to find a wallet without a bastardized version of Mickey Mouse on it. I even see clothing with cute literally written all over it. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The love of cuteness can be very sinister.

People here love to carry tiny dogs around with them. The main reason is that the dogs are cute, but another reason is that small dogs just work better in apartments. So when a dog is no longer cute, and no longer small, it’s time for it to move out.

Any visitor to Taipei will be alarmed at the sight of big stray dogs wandering the streets. Anywhere you visit, you are likely to see a stray dog or two. They are on the main streets, in the small alleys, and in the counties. According to a 2004 Taipei Times report, there are about 40,000 strays nationwide. But there is no reason to be afraid of these mangy beasts– most of the dogs are friendly former house pets, and the country is proudly rabies-free. Many other strays were born on the street, but they all keep to themselves. They don’t beg for food, and they don’t stalk people. I have never even seen two strays fight.

The dogs survive off of the goodwill of restaurant owners who leave leftovers on the street. But when it comes to medical attention, it seems like nobody can help. A few months ago, I saw a very skinny dog with a shriveled-up front paw hopping across the street. It was such a sad sight, and I wondered how long he had to live. I just saw the same dog again today, but there is nothing I can do to help. Taipei has a pound, but if the dogs aren’t adopted within one week, they are euthanized. This sickly dog would last longer without the pound’s help.

Every time it storms, or there is talk of a typhoon coming, I think about the poor dogs that are hungry, scared and cold just because they grew up.

I should mention that many individuals do adopt or care for strays. There are even small-scale rescue facilities, but only a small percentage of strays ever get help.

Commercial Appeal

I can’t read. And I can’t speak or understand more than a dozen words. But I can appreciate TV commercials.

Many of the commercials have the same kind of zany humour as North American commercials. It’s fun to figure out the jokes and all, but my favourite ads are the low-budget locally made ones where the company owner appears in the flesh. I can’t get enough of the nervously sung songs, the thumbs up, and the phone number recitals. It helps me learn numbers anyway.

Some of my least favourite ads are the Orlando Bloom car ads, for Toyota Corolla. Yes, he made more than one. In one ad, Orlando gets the girl then stands around looking glamorous. He doesn’t say anything, and then the slogan, “Born to be a Star,” comes up. The other ads in the series aren't much different. Maybe they’re aired in North America too, but they’re still worth condemning.

Alcohol commercials in Taiwan are shocking. Not only is there a noticeable lack of cleavage, but there seem to be very few women featured at all. The whisky ads star high-class men doing archery or working in a modern office in the sky – these guys drink booze for the prestige of it. The beer commercials are fairly righteous too. During a Taiwan Beer ad, some men enjoy a beer after a successful work day, while some girls comfort their heartbroken friend and some other guys have a birthday party. Everybody in the ad has a good and honest reason to be at the bar. There’s also an uplifting theme song for that one.

Taiwan’s alcohol commercials are cheesy, but they seem to be deliberately modest (even though they can actually show people drinking). I think this is because Taiwanese people are just not as enthused about drinking. For example, you can drink in public, but only foreigners walk around with a can of beer. As for the bars and clubs, not everybody actually drinks alcohol there. Binge drinking seems a lot less common, and I think I know why; puking into a squatter toilet would be very unpleasant. But there’s also the influence of celebrities. You see, a popular Taiwanese singer had a bit more than an “incident” last year. Shino Lin was driving a car legally drunk (the limit is 0.05% BAC) when she hit and killed a nurse driving a scooter. So long Bacardi endorsement.*

On another channel, I’m starting to notice a possible archetype in commercials for sweets. She’s the adorable big lady. She’s a well made-up overweight woman who giggles and enjoys her sweets. One has geisha makeup, and she’s in a spa. She locks everyone out so she can eat her candy alone inside. Believe me, her giggle is nothing less than delightful. Now there is another big lady selling ice-cream bars. She looks kind of like a mermaid and has a catchy siren song about the product. Both ads are just strange, but the fact that an overweight person is on TV is what makes you think. Fat people barely make it into weight-loss ads in North America, but they can sell junk food in Taiwan. Maybe the overweight body is some kind of novelty here. It’s not as novel as it used to be though. McDonalds and KFC are considered cool places to hang out, study, or get private English lessons. It’s pretty common for a fast-food place to take up three floors.

Finally, I need to mention air conditioners. They are big business here. Air conditioner commercials range from bland product shots with phone numbers to high-budget, 20-second, mini romantic-comedies. I had never even considered that commercials for air conditioners existed before I moved to Taiwan. But now I have this great nation to thank for enlightening me.

*Shino Lin did not ever endorse Bacardi

The Students

I expected Taiwanese kids to be very well behaved, and to follow very strict manners. They don’t. They scream and argue, jump out of their seats to kick other students, and constantly interrupt me to ask for bathroom breaks. Sometimes they put their jackets on their heads, sometimes they pretend to sleep, and sometimes they do rank things like make spit bubbles. If there’s a mosquito or a fly in the room, it will be a few minutes until the lesson can continue. My “after class” students are seemingly normal Grade 1 and 2 students, so I sometimes have to remind myself that they have more stress and pressure in their lives than I do.

The day of an elementary-school student typically starts at 7:30 a.m. Classes start at 7:40 a.m. They wear uniforms and clean their own classrooms. Grade 1 and 2 students will finish at lunch time, and Grade 3-6 students won’t finish until 4 p.m. After school, most will go to a cram school. Many students go to more than one cram school. They may go to English classes and math classes on top of other activities like violin lessons or karate practice. Some have different backpacks filled with books for each school they attend. They don’t get to play very often, so they actually really love the spelling and writing games we play in class. They will seriously jump up and down and cheer while their teammate tries to spell “cereal” the quickest.

Punishment

At my school, we have a reward system based on cards. If you collect enough cards, than you can trade them for gifts like pencil cases and stickers. If a student is bad, we take some cards away. We can also yell (my coworkers sometimes yell in Chinese until they cry), assign more homework and talk to the parents. Parents will punish kids based on their performance at school. Some non-issues in North American classrooms are big deals in Taiwan. For example, if you lose a pencil, you just get new one, right? Not in Taiwan. I learned about this one day when I heard my coworker Shauna talking to a parent on the phone in her calm, professional voice for parents. When I asked her what it was all about, she said that one student said he traded pencils with a girl, but the girl said the boy took the pencil. Shauna had to call each parent twice about this, and talk to them in person. Now, both parents were coming to meet at the school. All because of one pencil! I asked Shauna why she was putting so much time into the issue, and she told me that when the girl came home that day without the pencil, her mother hit her. This mother is not considered a psycho either. I have another student who cries every time he does poorly on a test at public school because he will get hit. My Taiwanese co-teachers think this particular student is very weak for crying about it. It’s just a fact of life that poor test scores mean you will be punished. Even adults get smacked by their parents on occasion.

Exams

After Grade 6 comes junior high, which is basically three years of preparation for the national senior high school entrance exams. Students are assigned to senior high schools based on their test scores, not on the location of their homes. It's important to get into a good senior high. Then, at the end of senior high comes the national entrance exam for universities. Almost 67 per cent of those who write the exam go on to a post-secondary institution. Entrance into the best schools is obviously very competitive, especially for the most popular programs. Engineering degrees account for over 25 per cent of the bachelor degrees awarded in Taiwan. Leaving the country for school is also a very popular ambition. If a family has enough money, it is likely that the student will be trying to get into a university in the States. This means English proficiency exams. It is the hope of many parents in Taiwan that their kids will be able to leave the country. I can’t really elaborate on this, but I’ve been told that it’s just better to live outside Taiwan. I suppose it has something to do with the amount of brilliant engineers working as taxi drivers and garbage collectors in this country.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Sometimes, my students aren’t bad, and actually make me laugh.

• The other day, I started class and had begun reviewing some vocabulary. Nick interrupts me saying, “Teacher Amy! Teacher Amy!” This always happens. It’s usually about how someone else is doing something wrong. “What?” I said back. Nick had a very concerned expression on his face. He said, “Teacher Amy, I have a hamburger and some juice.” Yes, he looked very worried indeed.

• On my birthday, my co-teachers got together and made my after class students sing happy birthday to me. One student named Amy gave me a striped pencil with a pony eraser and said “Happy Birthday.” The next day, some students tried to say “Happy Birthday” again, but I told them it’s over. But Amy really likes me, so she gave me some crackers and a small chocolate ball and said “Happy Mother’s Day.”

• A few of my Grade 1 students have taken to saying “baby.” I will ask them something with flashcards like “What is it?” And they will say, “It is an eraser, baby!”