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The Taiwan Diaries
Volume 5
(12.17.02)
Wow, it's Christmas! I can't believe it. The time is just flying by. Here's Volume 5.
Paying Bills
Here in Taiwan, if you don't pay your bills on time you have to go to the electric building or the phone building or whatever building the bill is from and pay the bill. We don't mail stuff here. It's really strange. You just walk over to 7-11 (The Sev) and pay your bill but if it is overdue you have to go all the way across town. Since all of my mail is in Chinese I couldn't read when the due date was. There were about 5 dates and I didn't know which one it was so, of course 1 week later my bill was overdue and I had to go to the electric office. Well, I had no idea where the electric office was and so I asked a Chinese friend. She said go to where road A dead ends into road B and the big building there is the office. So I hopped on my hot pink scooter and drove all the way across town to where road A dead ended into road B and went in the building there. It was not the electric office. So I went to the building next door. This was a construction site with electricians doing wiring. I didn't go in, obviously. The next building down the road looked somewhat promising so I went in, but there were all the electricians again. It was still part of the construction site. So I'm walking along to the next building down the road when some man comes running after me, "hello, hello." I turned around and after we established that I didn't speak Chinese and he didn't speak much English, he indicated that he wanted me to go the other way with him down road B. I thought great, he's going to take me to the building, I was just going the wrong way. So we're walking along and he is looking at my electric bill and we get back to the construction site. He walks inside and goes over to talk to someone and is pointing at me and showing them my bill. I was so so confused. Anyway, next thing I know he pulls up on his scooter and says "you,motorcycle, I take" So I thought, okay, why not. So I hop on the back of this guy's scooter and he takes me the same way I was walking down road B. We drive along for a good 5 or 6 minutes when we get to some huge building. I don't know why my friend said it was where road A dead ends into road B because it was no where near there and I never would have found it without this guy. So I said thank you and hopped off. He said "wait, wait" so I turned around and stood there then he said "no I wait, I wait" and he did! I was inside for about 15 min paying my bill and when I came out he was there waiting for me. He took me back to the construction site. When we got back I was blundering along in Chinese trying to say how grateful I was when all of a sudden a huge dump truck backed up into me and knocked me to the ground. The guy I was talking to ran around and started yelling at the driver and I think every person on the construction site ran over to make sure I was okay. The whole experience was totally nuts but at least I payed my bill before I got hit by the dump truck.
Going to the Hospital
Healthcare in Taiwan is totally nuts too. I went to the beach a few weekends ago. I went to the really nice one in a tiny town about 2 hours away, called Kenting. I was swimming one morning and I started to get really itchy. I got out of the water and my whole body was swollen in this big puffy red rash. It was awful. One of my friends went with me back to our hostel where I took a shower. This didn't really help. After talking to the front desk lady, it was determined I needed to go to the doctor. The closest one was in a town 20 min away. So we went and woke up our other friends. One of them had brought his motorcycle so he threw me on the back and took me the twenty minutes down the road to the next town's hospital. The doctor gave me a shot and told me I was having an allergic reaction to something that had bitten me. He gave me some pills to take for the next 3 days and sent me off on my way. Let me just tell you that I was totally fine and back on the beach less than an hour and a half later and it only cost me (including medicine) $9. Amazing huh! Going to the hospital at home takes the whole day and costs a fortune!
Christmas in 15min
Some of you know I have an extra job with my school. My school (Hess) writes English textbooks that they sell to elementary and junior high schools all over the island. The English teachers often need help teaching the textbook or teaching Western holidays. My job is to go in and conduct seminars on various subjects that are troublesome for teachers. I do a "Getting Started" program for new teachers to help them with games and activities. I do a "TPR" program which teachers them gestures for almost anything they want to say so they can use gestures to demonstrate an English term instead of defining it in Chinese. The latest one I have been asked to do is a progrom about Christmas. I have to teach them songs and chants. I also show them how to do activities like making snowflakes or Christmas trees and a way to relate it to English. I went in to do one of the seminars to about 65 teachers. I had everything all planned out. It was perfect. About 10 minutes before I was to begin, the contact at the school said "By the way, you are going to tell them what Christmas is, aren't you? Many of them don't know." I thought, this is not possible. They have to know something. She said no, that they only new the name Christmas and that it was an important Western holiday and that was all. Nothing else and could I please not spend more than 15 minutes explaining it because they didn't want the program to run over. The whole time I'm thinking, OH MY GOSH!!!! I have to explain Jesus, Santa, Christmas trees, stockings, angels, giving gifts...everything in 15 min! It would take me more than 15 min to even think of all the elements of Christmas, much less explain in simple English to people that had never heard of it before. Yikes! Well, somehow I did it. I breezed through the Jesus part of Christmas in about 6 minutes. I got most of it in, the wise men, the angels, the star, Mary and Joseph, the manger. I left out the shepherds though. Then came Santa. I took about 4 minutes to do him, his appearance, his reindeer, going down the chimney, writing him letters. I spent the last couple of minutes on Christmas trees, caroling, presents and other important misc. things.
All in all I'd say I did an okay job. I think they got it. They even asked good questions like "What do you do with the tree after Christmas?" and "If Santa is so fat how does he get down the chimney?" So Christmas can be explained to non native speakers in simple English in 15min. Since this seminar, I've had to do it at 2 more seminars and I'm getting good. I can even include the shepherds now!
Factoid
So here is my useful fact of the month about Taiwan. As most of you know, China is a communist country. It's residents are restricted in their travel and there are only 28 countries in the whole world they are "allowed" to visit. I don't know what they are but I do know that Taiwan is not one of them. This is ironic because China thinks that Taiwan is one of their provinces. Tawian disagrees and says they are their own country but even though Tawian is "a part" of China, Chinese people can't come here. If Taiwanese people want to go to China, they have to fly through Hong Kong or Japan. There are no direct flights.
Anyway, Volume 6 ought to be exciting. It will include pictures! I'll be scanning some in when I go home for Christmas. I know y'all can't wait.