Wednesday March 27th, 2013
You know the saying that you truly know a foreign language
when you dream in it? …Weeeeeeeell…XD I don’t remember my dreams very clearly
as of late but one thing I do recall, speaking Chinese. Not fluent Chinese mind
you but the same level and pace my current abilities allow me to. That counts
for something right? There have been times before I thought I had a Chinese
dream but couldn’t recollect much of anything. I think it’s awesome that I can
finally confirm I have had a dream in Chinese. Whoop whoop! Success! :)
Same as yesterday, my throat continues to be irritated. No
mucus, no cough, just irritated. By the time I arrived at high school, I was longing
for something warm and soothing to drink. Therefore I stopped by Hi-Life
convenient store and found the only drink that matched my requirements. From
combining the written English and Chinese character “茶”
I came to the conclusion that it was cumquat tea. It is a product that is
stored in a heating container intended to keep the drinks inside warm. Perfect,
a warm beverage with supposed healing properties.
I’ve actually drunk
this before when my voice totally and painfully went out and I recalled this
drink helped soothe my throat. However much my memory remembers its past comforting
ability, it didn’t compare with today at all. Goodness me oh my, it was
fantastic! Throughout the entire process of sipping it, my throat lost all soreness
while being accompanied with a nice taste of a hybrid between lemonade and tea.
Though the effects didn’t completely last long afterwards, I noticed a for sure
difference in the amount of irritation. I have now come to be indebted to and
liking this drink. Thanks cumquat tea! :D
As with every last
Wednesday of the month, I went to my club’s Rotary lunch meeting in the
afternoon. Very few members compared to the usual number were there today.
Inquiring as to why, Uncle Barry said that many were in Korea visiting a sister
Rotary club. So it left the meeting today small and compact.
The style of the
food was the rotating table type. Dishes would be brought out one by one,
slowly piling up the table with various Asian dishes. I had mentally warned
myself ahead of time to be veeeeeery careful with the intake of food. It is
super easy to find yourself overeating at Rotary events so one must be
diligently conscious at all times. My battle plan was to try everything but in
small quantities and to give priority to veggies over meat.
How did it turn
out? SPLENDIDLY! The most land animal meat I ate amounted to about a cubic inch
with the remaining meat being fish and having vegetables dominate in quantity
over all. More so I was able to decline rice without seemingly offending
anyone. Also no seconds were taken. Going even further, the waiters
mysteriously forgot to bring the final dessert of a sweet soup to our table,
having only some healthy fruit. Total score! I’m sorry but that is totally the
dear Lord watching over me. I thank him for blessing me with such a nice, light
meal with amples of tea to follow! Tea is my throat’s best friend right now. :P
The speaker to
today spoke over a medical subject, a break through in the Taiwanese medical
field. He showed a Chinese video over a Malaysian little girl named Mitsuki
having a kind of cancer in her blood. Something something treatment happened
and she was healed (don’t even think about expecting me to understand Chinese
medical terminology XD). What I found most surprisingly wasn’t the video, but
the Texan girl watching it. Despite battling sleep at school earlier this
morning and my unfortunate habit of tending to drift off during presentations,
not once was I in danger of passing out. Woah…what?! XD Perhaps there was a bit
of caffeine in the several cups of tea I swigged? Whatever it was, staying
fully alert was another small accomplishment of the day as well as a blessing.
Walking back to
high school, I felt extremely calm and peaceful. Just really content almost as
if in a daze. Wow, when did I last feel like this?! XD Along the way I saw many
stores setting up tables and little fire buckets in front of their
establishments. These are for a ritual in order to bring luck and prosperity to
their stores. They place food, drink and incense sticks on the table and burn
fake money in the fire. This is either to please the Chinese gods or to satisfy
ghosts so they won’t haunt the building. I’ve seen these many times before but
still can’t figure out when they need to take place. The shops that did it
today were mostly wedding related places. Is this a coincidence or not? Not
sure, oh well. :P
Back to high school
for an hour and twenty minutes of class before being released. When 4:00 rolled
around, I stopped by a nearby Tatung company store to purchase some objects
seen, debated and finally concluded to get. On the right we have a mini desk
fan and the left is a dual-purpose gizzy of being both a container and music
box with a Tatung cooker appearance. Now you might be wondering, why did I buy
these? Well their main purpose is to be souvenirs of both Tatung high
school/university as well as the company. In every Taiwanese household there is
at least one Tatung product anywhere from TVs to cookers to fans, hence making
these souvenirs of Taiwan in general as well. Plus they’re so darn cute! (I
didn’t unpack them because I want them to stay protected until back in Texas.) Redy
recommended the fan saying it worked great for cooling you down while working.
As for the other
do-dad, something that’s really neat is the music box cooker (Tatung’s cookers
are famous, one being in my current host family’s house) plays a happy tune of
what I’ve been told was the song used in old Tatung product commercials. They
don’t play anymore on television so I’m not familiar with it but I will be soon
enough! ;D If you take off the lid, as you would a normal cooker, you can place
things like small office supplies or candy inside. These both were just too
adorable, too memorable and too well priced to pass up. The “debate” part of
their purchase was the extra weight concerning the limit for airline luggage.
Yeah, I’m super conscious about it but in the end I knew I would regret not
getting these little treasures. Therefore I now possess them and happily
supported my school’s company in the process. Double score! ;D
This is what the
inside of this particular Tatung branch store looked like. You can see a few of
their many household appliances. FYI, “Tatung” is somewhat misleading. The
correct Romanization actually is “Datong.” It struck me today that I might have
not told y’all that so you might pronounce it the incorrect “Ta-tung” way. Just
a little fun fact. :P
Heading home an
overwhelming feeling swept over me, like what I experienced earlier but
amplified. Being enlarged I realized it wasn’t tranquility, it was exhaustion.
Too tired to let thoughts trouble me and way beyond the point of going through
with my original goal of exercising today. I was like balloon. One small prick
of a needle and I would burst into useless pieces. My theory is that it’s a
combination of having less sleep, no nap today, stress for a big Chinese test
tomorrow and coming down with what I believe is the beginning of a cold. The
throat irritation and the beginning of a runny nose don’t hold much promise and
it is cold season after all. Either way, as soon as I got home it was a much
needed snoozle time.
For dinner there
were two new dishes of interest that haven’t crossed my path before.
One was seafood
meat. Can you guess what kind of seafood? Something uncommon…my second greatest
fear…has waaaaaay too many teeth for comfort. That’s right, shark! This strange
meat tasted as if normal fish and chicken were weirdly combined. Not bad stuff.
Next was a peculiar
oval shaped fruit linked to a stem that uncomfortably reminded me of hairy
spider legs. To eat it one needs to peel off the skin, almost like a banana
except this fruit has one medium-sized seed inside and is much smaller. It was
sweet but only lightly so. Apparently this fruit grows in Taiwan only during
this season and therefore is somewhat pricey. Wish I knew the English name
though. XD
That’ll be all for
this day. Good night all. *falls gratefully into bed*
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