my "first birthday in Taiwan"

I keep forgetting to write about what I did on my birthday. It's already been a week! But at the moment I'm rushing around getting ready for JENNI'S ARRIVAL in TWO DAYS! It's crazy. She's crazy. I can't believe she's coming here! It's gonna be a wild and crazy week. It'll be like Thelma and Louise in Taiwan (except for all the bad stuff they did... and also, minus Brad Pitt unfortunately).

I'll sum up my birthday with one thing. This was a card I received from two of my Taiwanese friends. It's precious and hilarious at the same time. Best. Birthday. Card. Ever.

Dear Elly,

You are our special friend with golden hair. Although we are so different in culture and mother tongue, but we do so much in feelings about everything. Thanks destiny let us get together. It's a wonderful thing. Enjoy your first birthday in Taiwan. Happy Birthday!

Your Friend,
J. and T. 2008.11.15

Every time I read it I feel warm and fuzzy. Don't you?

Jenni--I will see you at TPE on Monday at noon! HOORAAAYYYY!

habla espanol?!

Today's random Taiwan moment: I got in a cab to come home tonight after work. The little cabbie was delighted to have a wei guo ren (foreigner) in his car, and he talked excitedly, asking me where I am from and am I a teacher and do I like Taiwan songs? Then he asked my name. I told him in Chinese and he almost bust a gut--"Ai-li," the Chinese pronunciation, means "Love Beauty," and in Taiwanese, the other language spoken here, it means "Love you!" I guess that's really funny, for a name. He told me that his English name is Elephant because he likes elephants. Then I laughed, because "Elephant" is not a name at all! Then he told me that he went to Africa and Espana. I asked him if he spoke Spanish and he did, a little! So I directed him to my stop in Spanish--so much easier!

I asked him how much I owed in Chinese, he answered me in English, and then we said Adios! and Huan An! (good night in Chinese), and then I said Bye-Bye and he said Ciao!

Whew! The language part of my brain is sufficiently scrambled tonight!

ever after, otherwise known as now

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She wasn't a princess, but her family was quite wealthy, in a way, so she was never lacking for anything. She had more love than a queen, and when you have a lot of love, you don't notice anything missing from life.

She didn't live in the woods with her widowed father and a step-mother. She lived on the prairie, surrounded by corn fields, with her father, her birth mother, two brothers, two sisters, and an assortment of animals who she considered her friends. She thought that dandelions, purple thistle-flowers, and tiger lilies were much more beautiful than roses. She played outside in the hot humid summer, and in the cold snowy winter. She danced. She loved her home but was also curious about the rest of the world.

When it was time for her to leave home, she was sad, but ready. There were many things she needed to do. She studied dance, and worked hard. She learned to take care of herself, to cook, pay rent, and find balance in life. Things that some princesses are never given a chance to do.

As she got older, she began to notice that her life was different than she had expected it to be. She had finished college, but for her, that didn't mean she knew what kind of job she wanted. Or where she wanted to live. Most of her friends were getting married. She saw that she did not want to sit back and wait for something to happen to her, and there was a big world to explore.

So she danced with African children on red dirt floors... watched sunsets and ate raw oysters on the beach in Mexico and snorkeled in Aruba and got lost in the Bahamas. She played with sled-dogs on a mountain top in Alaska... saw whales surfacing in the cold waters off the British Columbian coast. She saw a ballet in the Royal Opera House in London and zip-lined through a Costa-Rican rainforest. She swam in the Caribbean at midnight on a deserted beach. She saw the view from some of the tallest buildings in the world--the Sears Tower and Taipei 101. She sipped ginseng wine in Korea and mate with villagers in Paraguay and oolong tea on a temple-dotted mountain in Taiwan. She tried surfing in Hawaii and gambling in Vegas. She stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and went jogging in the Hollywood hills. She moved to another country, alone, where she didn't know anyone or speak the language. And she loved it.

She has seen and done many things. She's been many places. She has loved many people. And lost some people. She met some frogs that turned out to be just that--frogs... despite what she thought she saw. A frog is a frog and cannot be a Prince. And she is better off alone.

Now she is 27, just today. It will be a good year, she thinks. Sometimes she wonders if she's made the right choices. Or what things would have been like if... or could have been, if only... But really, she is content. More than content. She doesn't wear a ring on her left hand, and no one calls her "Mommy," things that at one time, she imagined would have happened by now. But what has happened, and what is, is so far beyond her wildest dreams; she has nothing but gratitude. She's not a princess, and doesn't believe in Prince Charmings, but this is her version of a fairy tale. Ever after doesn't begin when you get a new job, get married, or have a baby. It's not something you wait for. It's now, this moment, life. Her ever after began 27 years ago, the day she was born, and she's living it, sometimes happily; always joyfully.

Things that are Hao, Part 3

Halloween! I was a bamboo plant... I don't know how I get myself into these things, but once I start with an idea, I have to go all the way. I ended up winning "Best Costume," for which I got a cash prize of 500NT (about $15). I don't care as much about winning is that my students loved it and I had their full attention during class that week! (We had to dress up for all classes from Thursday-Saturday!) I also spent an arm and a, er, branch on candy. Sick! I'm totally the kind of person who would hand out toothbrushes if I didn't care what the kids thought of me.

Here's the masterpiece... notice the pieces of real bamboo...




Some rather sassy girls in my Thursday night class...


With my co-teacher, Michelle, who handmade her pumpkin dress...


With Kung Fu Panda showing some love...

Okay, maybe her costume was hotter than mine...


Little Jacky as Harry Potter, with his doting (and mysteriously old) parents in the background. They always sit in class and prompt Jacky with the answers. He's their only child.


Max...


Sammy--the naughtiest and cutest (He's the kid who can't say "nationality" and claims to be a mei guo ren--American!)


I love my co-teachers... Me and Amanda...


My friend Jin in her clothing shop. Yes, I went out in public like this... I took the bus home and figured it would be better to be in full costume than to have normal clothes and a green face and green hair, right?


My baby class... I was their first English teacher and they are so cute! Here's Eric and Yoyo.

Howard and Mavis... not lookin' so thrilled, but giving the peace sign all the same. Troopers.

Mavis, punkin, and Vicky... butterfly fairy?

Savanna and Jolin...



The Hello Kitty candy-keeper makes an appearance...

Jolin and her little sis...

With my co-teacher Jessica--I love her!


It was a fun weekend, but can't say I'd ever want to celebrate Halloween "Gloria-style" again!

Things that are Hao, Part 2

A ten minute walk from my house there are some rice paddies-- like a secret garden in the middle of a dirty, industrial suburb, I can run there in the morning and see bamboo trees, gardens, green, and little men working in the fields wearing saucer-shaped banana-leaf hats... like nothing has changed in the past 500 years. It might seem like nothing to you... but you have to realize that I never see green. So this place is a mini-paradise to me!

Things that are Hao ("Good"), Part 1

Things here have been really good lately--great, actually. I'm loving everything, and accepting the things I previously didn't love. My students are precious (see video from November 10th)--just today one of them brought me a bag of apples she picked, and another brought me a birthday gift, a purse. I like my schedule, or what I've done with it to make the most of my time. I can write my name in Chinese, which I'm very proud of. It's getting cooler--I'd complain about being freezing cold except I know that all of you Iowans will get mad at me, because it's in the 60's here. My best friend, Jenni, will be here in about 10 days and I get to take a week off to show her around my life here, and I can't wait.

Here are a few other simple things that have been good lately...


At Ikea (a 20 minute bus ride away) I found a big mural about Smaland, a part of Sweden where my ancestors are from...




I found a new and better place to take yoga classes in Taipei, a little hidden-away haven where they also have a lovely kitchen where they serve some delicious food and hold cooking seminars. The kitchen...

"Ahimsa" = non-violence = something in Chinese; I don't know the word...



One of the studios...

DEAR MARIA...

(and on a lighter note)

I got this text message from a Taiwanese friend today:

"do u like your new prisden? obama obama obama. no war. peace. save taiwan."

hehehe...

confessions of a somewhat politically apathetic (but not un-patriotic) ex-pat

I didn't vote.

(Go ahead, yell at me now)

I didn't intend NOT to... I looked into how to do it from the opposite side of the world, but it was sort of complicated and would have taken several weeks, so I was too late. Yes, I appreciate the right to vote and regret that I didn't this year. End of story.

I feel pretty distant from whatever's going on in the US right now. I can't really picture it--all I have to go on are some clips from the news and everyone's Facebook statuses. So in my head, Americans are all out in the streets, 52% of them cheering like they've just been rescued from a lifetime in Guantanamo, and 46% of them are wearing sackcloth and rubbing ashes on their heads and threatening to move to Mexico. (And the remaining 2% are maybe just hangin' out with Ralph Nader at some cabin in Connecticut?) Is that about right?

Anyway... in my classes, whenever one team wins a game, the whole class screams, "WINNERS, WINNERS, YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! LOSERS, LOSERS, (Insert a variety of different punishments, like making the losers stand up and "cha-cha-cha" or sing a song or act like a monkey or something), except if the winners are feeling particularly gracious they all finish the chant with "THAT'S OKAY!" After which the "losers" yell "THANK YOU! YOU ARE SO NICE!" and the winners reply "YOU ARE WELCOME!"

So... let's be good winners and losers. Enough of the complaining and mud-slinging. Be united, keep your chins up, and, as Gandhi said, "be the change you want to see in the world." Be careful not to place unrealistic expectations on one person. Your happiness doesn't depend on who sits in the elliptically-shaped office. I like this old story about a farmer who shows equanimity in the face of both fortune and misfortune. It illustrates that we can't be sure about tomorrow, and definitely not about the next four years. Who knows? We shall see.

One day in late summer, an old farmer was working in his field with his old sick horse. The farmer felt compassion for the horse and desired to lift its burden. So he left his horse loose to go the mountains and live out the rest of its life.

Soon after, neighbors from the nearby village visited, offering their condolences and said, "What a shame. Now your only horse is gone. How unfortunate you are!. You must be very sad. How will you live, work the land, and prosper?" The farmer replied: "Who knows? We shall see".

Two days later the old horse came back now rejuvenated after meandering in the mountainsides while eating the wild grasses. He came back with twelve new younger and healthy horses which followed the old horse into the corral.

Word got out in the village of the old farmer's good fortune and it wasn't long before people stopped by to congratulate the farmer on his good luck. "How fortunate you are!" they exclaimed. You must be very happy!" Again, the farmer softly said, "Who knows? We shall see."

At daybreak on the next morning, the farmer's only son set off to attempt to train the new wild horses, but the farmer's son was thrown to the ground and broke his leg. One by one villagers arrived during the day to bemoan the farmer's latest misfortune. "Oh, what a tragedy! Your son won't be able to help you farm with a broken leg. You'll have to do all the work yourself, How will you survive? You must be very sad". they said. Calmly going about his usual business the farmer answered, "Who knows? We shall see"

Several days later a war broke out. The Emperor's men arrived in the village demanding that young men come with them to be conscripted into the Emperor's army. As it happened the farmer's son was deemed unfit because of his broken leg. "What very good fortune you have!!" the villagers exclaimed as their own young sons were marched away. "You must be very happy." "Who knows? We shall see!", replied the old farmer as he headed off to work his field alone.

As time went on the broken leg healed but the son was left with a slight limp. Again the neighbors came to pay their condolences. "Oh what bad luck. Too bad for you"! But the old farmer simply replied; "Who knows? We shall see."

As it turned out the other young village boys had died in the war and the old farmer and his son were the only able bodied men capable of working the village lands. The old farmer became wealthy and was very generous to the villagers. They said: "Oh how fortunate we are, you must be very happy", to which the old farmer replied, "Who knows? We shall see!"

Election Day

Why are all the Canadians here way more into this election than I am? They've all been glued to CNN all day!

"can i have your phone number?" he asked, hopefully...

...I laughed out loud at this. The few times that I've been asked for my number here, I've just said I didn't have a phone, but unfortunately my phone was sitting on my lap, in plain view.

"I'm much too old for you!" I laughed. The group of boys that had shyly surrounded me tonight on the bus, politely inquiring in shaky English about my nationality, occupation, and whether or not I could play basketball, wilted at my refusal. I pretended not to notice the ones who were furtively sneaking pictures with their cell phones.

"How old are you?" I asked them.

They thought for a second, translating in their head. "Sixteen!" one finally exclaimed, triumphant at being faster than his pals with his English.

"I'm TWENTY-SEVEN, okay?" (or I will be in two weeks, but I am using it to my advantage in this situation)

"No! But you are so beautiful!" One said in disbelief. (As if 27 is far too old to be pretty!)

They asked me what my name was, and I replied in Chinese. They gasped, delighted that I attempted to speak Chinese to them. One of them told me his name was Michael Jordan. Then we were at their stop. They shook my hand and said "Nice-to-meet-you" and "Good-night," very formally, not at all dampened by the fact that I wouldn't give them my number.

When the bus rolled away, I could see them on the curb, laughing and waving their arms at me enthusiastically, yelling "BYE-BYE!"

Sometimes I don't like being stared at for being a foreigner.

But I have to admit, if I'm in the right mood, it's kind of fun to feel like a rock star...