Taiwan
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The Taiwan Diaries
Volume 8
(03.26.03)
Can you believe I've been here 7 months! I can't. I was driving my scooter the other day and realized that. Wow! Well many of you have emailed me with questions about SARS and the war so I thought I begin this diary addressing those concerns. Then on to lighter topics.
SARS
I'm sure most of you have heard by now about SARS. It's the crazy deadly pneumonia virus that is sweeping Asia and has now migrated to other parts of the world. It originated in the Guang Dong Province in China several months ago. It has created problems because it started to spread through Hong Kong and since Hong Kong is a big business/tourist destination it has spread to other parts of the world. Taiwan, however, has been lucky. We only had the first case reported last week. Just yesterday though, one case was reported in my city. Both were businessmen who had traveled to Hong Kong. The newspapers assure us that things are still safe here but if we get flu like symptoms to go straight to the doctor. Luckily I haven't been sick since before Christmas so this isn't any kind of problem for me and I'm not concerned. I am however drinking lots of fluids, eating lots of fruit and veggies and taking vitamins every day to keep healthy. So hopefully, this ends all those concerns.
The War
Many of you are also curious about how the war is affecting Taiwan. Well, here it goes. Taiwan is obviously in Asia and currently East Asia is very concerned with North Korea. They have admitted to having weapons of mass destruction. Newspapers are also reporting that if they don't already, they will have enough plutonium to make an atomic bomb in the next six months. They launched a ballistic missile over Japan a couple of weeks ago and have banned UN weapons people and have "unsigned" the weapons treaty. Since Taiwan is in the sea and within very close proximity of S. Korea and Japan, this is very alarming. The NK crisis have been dominating the front page of papers for weeks. The US war has been slowly creeping up from page 6 of the paper. So people here
are much more concerned about NK and are very curious about why the US is fighting in Iraq over supposed weapons when NK admits to having them. Today in my Junior High school the kids were very eager to hear my opinion about why I thought the US started this war. Did I think it was a good idea and would the US still help Taiwan if China decided to start bombing them now? That is another great fear here: that with everyone's attention on the Middle East that China will start shooting their missiles at Taiwan. Now
before all of you freak out (Mom), this is a concern of the general public and the government has assured the people they don't foresee any problems because basically China is North Korea's only "ally" and has to help them instead. Also, relations between China and Taiwan have been decent recently and have suggested no cause for alarm. So the war here now is on the front page of the paper with NK below the fold. In conclusion, I think people here are more confused than they are angry.
Now on to somewhat lighter topics...
Ravi Bin Laden
One of the foreign teachers at our school decided to pursue an opportunity to teach in Spain and left an open position. So our new teacher is from South Africa and a very nice guy name Ravi. Ravi is of Indian decent and has fairly dark skin but he dresses like
any normal 23 year old guy and is very Western in his thinking and beliefs. Anyway, as you know the kids all think white people look the same. Well, they also apparently think all Middle Eastern people look the same too. After class one day one of my boys comes up to me with a group of about 5 girls hiding behind him. He says "Shellie, Is Osama Bin Laden Ravi's dad?" I laughed and said "No, I'm pretty sure that Ravi's dad is not Osama Bin Laden." "Well," says Mike, with all the girls peering around him, "does he know Osama Bin Laden?" Again I said I was pretty sure he didn't know Osama Bin Laden. But Mike continues, "Osama Bin Laden is a terrible man. Is Ravi a terrible man?" I assured him that Ravi was a very nice man and that he should go say hello. So Mike and the hoard of girls walk over to him and everything was good. I mentioned this to one of the Chinese staff and she laughed and said that the secretary had been getting calls all week from parents. Apparently the kids were telling their parents that the new teacher knew Osama Bin Laden. The parents having seen Ravi, had to call just to make sure their children weren't being brainwashed. That's Taiwan being sensitive to skin color for you!
Nicole No More!
Well, I told you several months ago that some of my children think I look like Nicole Kidman. I know, get another good laugh out of that! One morning though, I woke up and decided I was tired of having long hair. It had gotten really long and was hot and got tangled all the time so I went to the salon and chopped it. Not to fear though, it looks cute. It's just above my shoulders with cute layers in the front. Well, my kids barely recognized me. They all told me I looked like a movie star now. I could be mistaken, but isn't Nicole Kidman a movie star? Anyway, I said, oh really and which movie star do I look like? They said, the beautiful girl from Lord of the Rings. Did I know her? She has long hair in the movie but she has short hair in the LUX shampoo commercial. I finally figured out they were talking about Liv Tyler. She does have a shampoo commercial here and her hair does actually look a little like mine and is a similar color. So I'm happy with being Liv Tyler now. It's slightly more realistic than Nicole Kidman.
Give me Drugs Please!
My tooth had been hurting me a few weeks ago. I thought maybe I had a crack in my filling or something. So I went to the dentist. He x-rayed my tooth and tapped at it with a pick thing. He decided that I was correct and did have a crack in my filling. He said he would have to drill it out and put in a new one. Okay old hat for me, it's happened before. I opened wide ready for that shot of Novocain when heard the sound of the drill. I asked if I got any drugs. He told me to raise my hand if I felt any pain. I thought okay, I raise my hand, he gives me a shot. Oh no! He didn't! I raised my hand and he took about a 30 second break and then started drilling again. Toward the end he said he was almost finished and wouldn't give me a break, even though I was whimpering in pain. He just kept drilling and drilling and drilling and drilling some more. Yeah, that was nice. I couldn't believe it, drilling with no Novocain. Good thing I didn't need a root canal. In retrospect, though, it wasn't so bad. I had about 10 minutes of pain and didn't have the puffy mouth for a couple of hours. Despite this, I will not, no matter how much pain I'm in, get a root canal in Taiwan.
So that is Volume 8. I hope all of you are doing well. Don't get into trouble at those war protests!