A Whole Lot of Thanks

Well, my favorite holiday just passed last weekend and the countdown to Christmas has begun in earnest. I have to hear at least fifteen times a day Jayden's Santa wish list. "I want a Spiderman suit. With a mask. And gloves. Does Spiderman have ears Mommy? Where are they? And a remote-control helicopter. And a bicycle." A strange list but it never varies. It's always the same three items.

We kicked off Thanksgiving on the Sunday before the actual day by baking about 100 mini pumpkin pies for the boys to take to school. In my effort to make them appreciate their American heritage, I try to force it on their classmates, as well. If their classmates say, "Wow! Pumpkin Pies! That's so cool! I wish I could celebrate Thanksgiving." that has much more impact than anything I can do or say to try to convince them it's not such a bad thing to be an American. "Forget about Iraq, boys, we get to eat pumpkin pie!"

Then, on Wednesday night the Language Center held a Thanksgiving activity which I hosted in which we made hot, spiced apple cider (juice) and yes, more mini pumpkin pies. I found a great little 5- minute video on the History Channel website which gave a really fantastic overview of the holiday. I showed it to the students (there were about 70 who showed up) while the pies were baking and I was able to successfully watch it without weeping (barely). I almost lost it when they showed the part with the multiple generations sitting around the table passing platters laden with goodies but I blocked the tears with the thought, "Yes, but look at those fools - they're freezing their asses off! Ha! Look at the sweaters on them. Me? I'm here in shorts and a T-shirt!" Yes, you are free to remind me of this post when I'm whining about melting into a wee puddle of sweat come next May. Or April.

On Friday, Josh's school had a Thanksgiving activity which Jason, Jay, and I attended. Someone got a turkey, the teacher I presume, and it was all cooked and sliced and stuffed into a basket - complete with it's roasted turkey gobbler head poking out of the top of the pile of meat. It was a potluck affair and I brought, yes, more pumpkin pies. Other than the turkey, there wasn't much Thanksgiving-y about the fare the other potluckers brought. Pizza Hut Pizza, roasted sausages, fried dumplings, steamed cabbage...No mashed potatoes or gravy or anything like that. It was fun to see Josh at school and see some of the other parents, though. Josh swore he didn't want us to come but he didn't seem too displeased to see us when we arrived.

Our own Turkey Day had to wait until Saturday, of course. Jason had reserved a free-range chicken from the market on Friday and when he picked it up and brought it back Saturday morning freshly (and I mean freshly) dead I realized that in my explicit chicken ordering instructions I had overlooked at least one or two key things. For example, when I asked that the feet be removed I should have specified "at the knee joint" and not somewhere around the poor thing's shins. And, when I said,"remove the head" I should have included "and neck" along with it. It even had the "pre-eggs" still in its abdomen which gave an interesting "scrambled egg" quality to the stuffing. Interesting to note though, just how much stuffing you can cram into the ass of a teeny free-range chicken with the right tools and a whole lot of determination.

In order to supplement our teeny chicken, Jason went out on a mission to get a Beijing roast duck from the most famous restaurant in Taichung. He queued for over an hour to get that duck. So, by the time he returned, the chicken and everything else had been placed in a warming pattern and the boys were chewing on their own limbs in anticipation of the big meal.

I resisted the almost overwheming urge to scold when Jason finally arrived home (in the spirit of the day) and we sat down to enjoy our feast. We put up the Christmas tree on Sunday and gradually decorated it over the next few days as time permitted.

The holidays never really feel like the holidays here but we are blessed with good friends and family in Taiwan and that's what really counts, right?

Glory Days

Well, if you're not up for a whole entire blog posting about how flipping excellent I am, you'd better skip this one and instead go back and read one of my previous misery-filled posts about dung beetles or vomitus camping trips. No, this post is entirely devoted to my awe-inspiring performance as a Language Teacher Extraordinaire and Chinese Language Marvel. Intrigued? Read on.

First, there's the book. No, not the "My Life in Taiwan" book, although perhaps that's not such a bad idea....No, the book to which I refer is the brother/sister collaborative effort that spawned, "Vocabulary Lists - A Workbook of readings, dialogs, and activities". A real page-turner, I assure you. Jeff did the original artwork and his pictures by far the best part of the book. All of my students go on and on about the pictures. A typical exchange:

Student: Teacher, you brother. Pictures. Very good.
Me: Yes, he's very talented, isn't he? But how about the stories, pretty good, huh?
Student: But I am very like this picture. Very good.
Me: Uh-huh, yeah, they're okay but those complete-the-sentence exercises, now, they're really something, wouldn't you agree?
Student: How he can drawing so good?
Me: I don't know. I guess he took some classes or something. But what about the word form activities?
Student: I think that maybe he can putting pictures on T-shirts, cups, hats and maybe he can selling them on internet.
Me: [sigh]

So, luckily my brother has saved me from complete mediocrity. If you want your own copy and you are not within easy travelling distance of the Feng Chia University branch of the Cave's Bookstore, you can obtain a copy by giving my dad $5.00US to cover the cost of the book and shipping and handling and I'll ship you out your very own purple-covered copy. If you use a sharp exacto-knife, you should be able to carefully remove Jeff's pictures and they will be suitable for framing. What's left of the book you can use for kindling this winter. I'm pretty sure that's what my students are going to do with their copies as soon as they finish the final exam this semester.

Volume two is coming out in February. It's really like vanity press. It's not like the publisher saw the book and begged for publishing rights. When I told him that there were 1,000 level-one Freshman English students each of whom could most likely be coerced into buying a copy, his only question was, "How soon can you send me your first draft?"

I also had the very interesting experience of being a speaker during FCU's week-long "Success in English" activity. My topic was, "Make time for English - How to make English part of your every-day life." Almost 100 people packed into the EZ Cafe to hear my talk. Nothing revolutionary or earth-shattering but hopefully a bit inspiring. During the Q & A I actually got 6 Q's and I was able to give 6 decent A's, I think.

Actually, I wasn't originally asked to speak at the activity but my ever-concerned and dedicated husband took care of that for me. "You know," he says to the director, "Heather would love to speak at this event. She's good at that kind of thing, you know." So sure enough, next morning I get waved into the director's office for an offer I can't refuse. When I get home I tell Jason, "Hey, guess what? Kris asked me to speak at the Success in English activity." Totally nonplussed. "Yeah. I know. I told him you wanted to." Since he did all the negotiations for the book, as well, I think he should start demanding a flat percentage rate just right off the top of my earnings as my agent. Always looking out for me, he is.

Finally, I joined the 34th annual Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Day Foreigner Chinese Speech Contest on Sunday. Now, honestly, I'd rather hoped that I would show up, there'd be 20 - 30 just-off-the-boat foreigners in the line-up, I'd deliver an amazing speech, and breeze back to Jason's parents' by lunchtime and have a great time regaling everyone with the awe-inspiring tale of my sweep to victory.
Yes, that's me up there!

What actually happened: When Jason and I arrived at 8:30am to check-in for the contest, there was a queue of every assortment of foreigner you can imagine snaking almost out the door of the building. I looked again at my registration confirmation letter. Holy shit. Could the numbers "112" after my name actually mean that there were over 100 people registered for the contest? In fact, I was not even the last one. There were 118 people registered for the contest. People who'd grown up in Taiwan and just happened to have a foregin passport. People who'd majored in Chinese in their native country. People who were students in Chinese Literature programs in regular Taiwanese universities. Shit.

I reach my hand into the lucky bag and pull out number 102. Quick mental math. 118 people times 5 min. per person.......hmmmm.......the contest should be concluded sometime early Monday morning. Jason and I watched up to number 25 then went out to take a break. Just as we got outside the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, Jason's mom showed up with the boys in tow. They ran around in the big gardens outside the hall and then we went over to near Taipei 101 for lunch. Too nervous to eat, I nursed a cup kiwi yogurt juice. Mmmmmmm.

1:30pm and the contest resumes after the lunch break at number 62. Halfway there. The afternoon drags on. Some people give amazing speeches in flawless Chinese. Many hack their way through five minutes of "My experience learning Chinese" or "Food in the nightmarket" or "My understanding of Chinese Culture". As far as I could tell, out of all those people, only one other person had chosen the same topic as I had - "My Taiwanese Boyfriend." By 3:50, we were up to number 99 and I'm just psyching myself up when they call a break.

The poor judges are absolutely frazzled. Having been a judge for numerous English speech contests, I could really sympathize. They'd been listening to six hours of lao wai mangling Chinese already. My turn finally came at 4:15pm. Desperately fighting the simultaneous urges to pee myself and throw up, I took the stage. I have to humbly state here that, were the results based on audience votes, I would have gotten first place. My amusing/touching account of my courtship, engagement, marriage, and subsequent baby manufacturing seemed to strike a chord with the folks. As Dad said when I told him about the event, "Hey, it could be like 'Dancing with the Stars' where they have the audience vote and the judges' vote." (Who else thinks dad's watching just a wee bit too much TV in his retirement?)

Around about 6:30, the judges staggered back in to make their closing remarks and begin to announce the winners. Since there were so many contestants (it turns out that this was the first time in 34 years that they'd really actually advertised the contest - first time I'd heard about it - and that's why there was such a spectacular number of participants.) they'd decided at the last minute to add 15 extra prizes. So, they made their way through the special prizes and then the five 5th place prizes and then there were only the top 4 places left. Since several of the judges had mentioned my speech in their closing remarks, I figured I had a pretty good chance of being in the top 4 - and just barely - yours truly came in at number four. Four thousand NT dollars (I jokingly told Jason that now I can tell people my going rate for a speech is 1,000NT per minute!) and a groovy plaque now in a place of honor in the living room.

A Russian woman with an incredibly in-depth knowledge of Confucius and Lao-tze came in first place. After her speech, Jason said, "Jeez, I have no idea what she was talking about. I think we learned about that in school or something but.... man, was she hot." The powerful combination of tall-slender-Russian-beauty-who-knows-all-the-hell-about-Chinese was apparantly not lost on the judges, either.

I had wanted to give the speech as a way to let Jason know how much he means to me. When I concluded my speech with the line, "Finding my Taiwanese Boyfriend has been the most fortunate thing in my life." I really and truly meant it. Somehow we're still together and he's my best friend, my colleague, my partner, and now, my agent! He's now going around telling everyone, "So, now you see why I don't argue with her. I can't win. Even in Chinese. If I entered that contest? I couldn't beat her." Most certainly the most fortunate thing in my life.

If you happen to be in possesion of the ability to read Chinese, you can check out this article and read all about my stunning performance. Well, okay, it's actually not really about me...but my name is mentioned. See if you can find it!

Ghosts, Goblins, and Ghouls

Well, my second-favorite holiday has just passed and I figured I had to share some photos and highlights. The great thing about Halloween is that there are no over-inflated expectations to be crushed and you get to eat tons and tons of candy. Oh yeah, and you get to dress up like an idiot. On purpose.
The Language Center held its annual Halloween Party which this year was organized by our new colleague, Matthew. One of the more amusing things that night was that Jay, dressed as you see as Mr. Incredible -pictured below -(yes, that is a pair of my black stockings fashioned into a mask)

spent much of the evening locked in deadly combat with my friend and colleague Michael's son, Lucas who was dressed as Superman.

The party went well and I'd have to say the highlight for the boys was the "Boxes of Doom" as Matthew termed them. When Jason got wind of the plan to have "Exin Xiang" ("Disgusting Boxes" in Chinese) he pounced on the idea with a fervor that I rarely see from him. Not having the tradition of Halloween as a child, he was not constrained by the usual limits that hinder the rest of us. One of the foreign students in the EZ Cafe offered up the usual suggestions, "How about, you know, cold spaghetti for worms and um, peeled grapes for eyeballs?" Jason just shakes his head, are you kidding? This is yet another excuse to head to the pet store.

He bought two bags of "disgusting things". One bag, mealworms. The other, maggots. I tried to explain that this was over-the-top, out-of-bounds, too much but he would have none of it. Just try to imagine the shrieks and screams of the students as the worms curled around their fingers at the bottom of the box. Although, Matthew did introduce the boxes by pulling a dead rooster head out of one of them so I guess they should have known that he was pretty serious about the disgusting factor.

Of course, then there were my children pulling the worms out of the boxes and playing with them. And of course, guess where the worms ended up at the end of the night. That's right. On my diningroom table. The next morning the fish in the ponds in our courtyard got an extra-special treat.

Josh was a creepy vampire as you can see here. He was also the champion bobber for apples. It did very interesting things to his makeup. On Halloween, I actually got to go to Josh's class and read Halloween stories. He acted absolutely overwhelmed with embarassment the entire time - nevermind that I was dressed as a witch - complete with pointy hat, jack o' lantern earrings and necklace, and black fingernails - but you never know with him. Perhaps he was secretly pleased?

We'd spent most of Sunday morning making no fewer than 80 treat bags for the big day. Josh's classmates seemed to get a kick out of them anyway. I figured Rudy's classmates would be almost too big for treat bags but they still seemed to enjoy them.

My Spanish students got candies out of me as did anyone else who ran into me that day. I carried my jack o' lantern full of treats with me everywhere and anyone who could muster a "Trick or Treat" would get a candy.

Okay, okay, enough blah, blah, blah. What you really want to know is, "Heather, what were you for Halloween?" And the answer is: I was an elementary school student. I wore Rudy's school uniform - complete with a Hello Kitty backpack and a pair of glasses. What is scarier than having a son who is big enough that you can easily wear his clothes? Here I am (second from the left - the painfully white one who looks like a little boy) with three of the lovely women who work in the Language Center Office.

Happy Halloween!!