Wednesday February 27th, 2013
The morning starts off with jolting myself awake in attempt
to avoid drifting back into sleep. Andrea has gotten too little of sleep
lately. Not good. Once I catch up on my work I’ll be golden again. ;)
Putting on my shoes, about to head out the door, I notice
that it’s darker than usual as if a rain cloud was hanging overhead. Because of
the balcony roof covering I can’t check the skies for one. I contemplated
whether or not to bring an umbrella with me and very nearly settled on no
because I was already carrying an extra bag apart from my school one, both
being heavy. The other bag held a change of formal clothing for my Rotary
meeting today. Just to be safe, I brought my good cane umbrella with me. Better
safe than sorry, am I right?
A canned convenient store coffee with X2 caffeine was
purchased on school campus. It was a lifesaver for an hour or so but soon the
magic wore off and I was failing both mentally and physically. Mmm, what fun
huh?
Chica seat buddy had even more English homework questions
today than yesterday, from helping her read a short story with correct
pronunciations to translating sentences in a correct order. I’m thrilled she’s
asking me so many! It gives me great pleasure helping her and I respect her bravery
to ask me. That is a rare characteristic in the average Taiwanese. Another
reason I’m to help is that some questions are just so darn hard even for me.
Seriously! I must have spent 5-10 minutes just on one sentence! First you have
to figure out what the sentence is talking about, then the subject, what
perspective is it, what words must be included in a certain tense and magically
flip flop the words around to something sensible in English. The grammar of
Chinese and English is very
different. For example, I learned how to say ‘She didn’t tell me’ today. In
Chinese a direct translation would be “have not at me told.” Now play around
grammar-wise with a sentence thrice as long as that and that’ll come close to
my classmate’s English homework.
I’m so super glad she got placed next to me for the seat
change sorted by drawing sticks. With her inquiring about her homework
frequently, I feel comfortable to take several seconds to ask some myself. Like
today I asked if a Chinese character I was learning looked right to her. She
replied yes expect for one weird stroke. If you look at my English handwriting,
I like to add swirls and curves to my letters for a sense of elegance. This
habit got transferred over to my Chinese characters as well. So instead of writing
a straight stroke, mine had a wave to it. She corrected this, something I
would’ve never known without her help.
Yet another reason her being chica seat buddy is fantastic
is that we’re bonding so easily. I’m learning Chinese and she, English. She asks
me American culture questions, I reply and inquire about Taiwan. Today she even
gave me a Snickers and Kinder Bueno candy bar. I feel that she is such a
blessing. I hope this friendship grows continuously even when parted by the
ocean. ^_^
So the mentioned Rotary Meeting! Dressed all nice and
formal, I walked to the usual room on the thirteenth floor. The door was shut.
Fleeing to the help of my counselor Uncle Kaiser on the phone, I found out that
it was changed to the second floor. Oh, BIG difference there. XD The meeting
was held in a room I’ve never seen before, a much larger one with many more
people than normal. A Rotarian I recognized led me over to a seat at one of the
long tables towards the back. Almost immediately an employee came and set down
a box in front of me. It was bian dan (Chinese lunchbox, like Japanese bento).
But not just any old bian dan. It was super fancy bian dan. The box was
beautiful, the contents stylishly arranged and the food being of various
varieties in smaller quantity. There was also a bowl of soup, a large cup of
tea (nearly the size of a beer mug without the handle) and a plate with three
small fruit on it (slice of wax apple, a chunk of honeydew and one tiny
strawberry). All was delicious and very enjoyable.
Uncle Kaiser (my district counselor) and Uncle Eric
(temporary host father/president of my club) both gave me red envelopes for
Chinese New Year. They are so kind and generous to do so! Uncle Kaiser also
gave me a lovely necklace. I asked my teacher later if it had any meaning. She
didn’t know what the wooden basket-like pendant meant but the necklace had a
type of knot that symbolized money as well as jade that has meaning along the
lines of virtue, beauty and purity. I really like it and appreciate its
thoughtfulness. ^_^
I felt kind of bad. After finishing the meal, I briefly
chatted with a Rotarian or two and left the room before the meeting officially
started. The reason being that I needed to get back to high school as soon as
possible. Today was the first day of Chinese class at Tatung. Not sure if I
already spoke of this or not but the other exchange students from a different
Rotary district don’t have University Chinese class during the second semester.
They covered the textbook all in one semester. My district instead has class
for two semesters and right now are only in lesson 9 out of 12 in the textbook.
They wanted to continue taking classes and decided to do so by hiring a teacher
to come to Tatung three hours a day, three days a week until the end of May.
Finding the idea appealing, I wanted to join in for both learning more Chinese
and relieving myself of excessive boredom at high school.
Heading back to Tatung high school, I thanked the sweet Lord
he gave me enough sense to bring an umbrella. It wasn’t raining, it was a
waterfall on the city! Holy Sha-moley it was pouring down so hard! That’s the
worst rain I’ve seen in Taiwan since I got here! Even with my good big
umbrella, I still got wet. And don’t even get me started on my tennis shoes! I
described their condition in Chinese as “I have a sea in my shoes.” Every nook
and cranny was soaked with water and that’s with
my efforts to avoid water buildups in the road. Without those efforts…ai
chi-hua-hua it would have been terrible!
So! High school Chinese class! The teacher was a pretty lady
with a friendly disposition and patient attitude. Today was basically used to
determine our level of Chinese so it wasn’t any hardcore learning. The contents
was pretty easy including things we’ve known for awhile (Ex. Measure words) but
I used that opportunity to ask more grammar based questions or inquire what a
word she said meant in English. I quite liked this teacher because she uses
Pinyin Romanization, speaks at a calm pace that is easier to comprehend and is just
pleasant overall. Also even though she speaks nearly all in Chinese, she finds
ways to magically explain things without the use of many English words.
Incredible!
Something I concluded during our class is that even though
the other exchange students (the different district) completed the first
textbook, their level of Chinese isn’t necessarily better. From my
observations, going at a slower pace like my district is doing gives an
opportunity to more thoroughly learn the material. So I can’t say if our level
of Chinese is the same or one greater than the other. We’ll just have to see.
;)
Back at the house, I speed-packed my duffel and laptop bag
in less than fifteen minutes for four days worth of travel. Yes, my host family
is traveling this weekend! To the south of Taiwan! I’m so excited! I thought
that I might not get the chance to see the famous southern part of this country
before my exchange ends since winter break is over. Tomorrow (Thursday) is a
memorial holiday. My host parents saw this as a possible vacation opening if
Friday could be taken off. They talked to both my school and their work
successfully gaining permission to do so! Yay! I meant to pack for it the night
before but tired Andrea at 2:00AM said “no way Jose. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Thinking
I would have an hour before we left by car, it turned out to only be a quarter
of an hour, hence a rushed flurry of flinging clothes in my bag. XD
Three in company, host father, host mother and I began our
drive south. Perhaps 2-3 hours later we took a break at a rest stop. Restroom
and purchasing sustenance was accomplished. Thanks to a visit at Hi-Life
convenient store, my dinner comprised of a long sushi roll (maybe three inches)
and orange juice plus an apple pie from host mother’s Burger King leftovers.
The roll had a very peculiar sauce coated on the inside. I wouldn’t say it was
spicy but it had a strong kick that I didn’t find all too enjoyable. The hot
pocket styled apple pie, though cold, was a fun tease. Twas tasty but almost
mocking how I don’t have the real deal. I’ll be back in America when the 4th
of July rolls around so I’ll get my hands on the good old classic American
apple pie then. ;)
When driving at night down the highway, I noticed some road
signs having a characteristic I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Some signs,
not all, had lights shining forming the letters or numbers for directions. It’s
almost as if you took a regular road sign and placed many small bulbs along the
writing. That’s super useful at nighttime when it’s dark! It doesn’t blind you
but it efficiently accomplishes its job of letting you know where to go. Very
cool!
Our more or less 4-5 hour drive landed us in a place called
Kaohsiung. Here lives my host mother’s brother (the one I met in Taizhong) and
his wife who allowed us to stay at their house while so far down south. In the
living quarters there was chit-chat amongst them and HQ stereo system playing
in the background. I very soon became tired and excused myself from the scene.
The room that was lent to me is a constant tease. Right smack dab next to the
bed is a full-fledged treadmill…it beckons me oh so sweetly. XD If I have
running dreams tonight I’ll know why. :P
I hope y’all have sweet dreams. Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment