At this moment, a student of my friend, Carolyn, is undergoing major surgery. He was not feeling well and an observant substitute found major swelling in his head. He is at this moment having brain surgery. Please put this little one and his family in your prayers!
No, I didn’t feel the Big One here in southern Taiwan. We’re on an island off the east coast of China, not part of the mainland. HOWEVER, last night about 2 a.m. southern Taiwan was rock’ and rollin’! I woke up just before a rather large tremor and it’s possible I was actually shaken awake by one before it. I checked the Internet this morning and found that the quake was centered near Taitung over on the east coast where my friends Ruthie and Irv live. This is what Ruthie had to say when I asked if they felt it:
Edi, we surely did. It was the strongest we’ve felt yet. There were also some smaller tremors before and after. (They say it was 5 in all). Irv is always wanting an earthquake, but even he got scared last night. I was getting ready to head out to the porch, to get away from possible falling masonry. However, the only damage we’ve seen this morning, is broken tiles.
I will not miss earthquakes when I leave here! From what I hear, though I may feel some when I return to Indiana!! (In fact, the first earthquake I ever felt was in Indy!) They feel so wrong. The earth is moving under your feet and you don’t know how bad it is going to be until it’s almost too late, unless it’s really bad and stuff is bouncing instead of shaking.
The blockbuster “Iron Man” opened in Taiwan this weekend and I was able to travel to Kaohsiung to see it. As with any movie theater I’ve been to in Taiwan, you’re able to select the seat of your choice when you purchase your ticket. You can also purchase a special package for popcorn and drinks. Tickets are sold separate from the concessions, sometimes even on different floors. Concessions always include popcorn and soda, and there can be a variety of other treats from popcorn to lattes to hotdogs. My friend Carolyn visits a theater in Putzih that has a MacDonalds inside the theater. You may not enter the theater more than 10 minutes prior to the show starting. If you are early, you will stand outside the ticket taker’s little kiosk and wait for him (and it’s always a ‘him’) to announce that the theater is open and you may enter. You will not be sold a ticket once the feature has begun!! If you’re late, you will have to wait for the next showing. I’m not sure what this accomplishes. Most certainly, it is not to avoid distractions because there is a steady stream of people walking about the theater to purchase snacks or visit the restroom during the entire movie. They just don’t sell you tickets if you are late! Watching an American movie here often leaves me laughing by myself at jokes no one else gets. It also makes me nostalgic for home, which is where I will be in 74 more days!!!
And there are so very many! All the cute little coffee shops with hot and cold coffees and teas. Especially the fruit teas!!
There is the bubble (or pearl tea) which I don’t like. The tapioca balls are little things you have to chew that add a lot of extra calories, but no real flavor. The streets are filled with tea shops and people are always walking around with cups of green, black, red, grapefruit, white gourd, jasmine. lemon or milk tea tea. Or maybe its watermelon, lemon or mango juice!
7-11 is full of fruit milks, soy milk, vegetable juices, yogurt drinks, apple soda, Pocari Sweat, teas, and cold coffees by the cup or can.
My current favorites are the fruit waters which I usually drink in peach or lemon; this delicous Japanese strawberry beverage which bears the caption “juice meets condensed milk” and I’m trying my best to get hooked on green tea for the health of it!
My third graders just left my classroom. They come to class as soon as they can to try to speak with me, to see what I am doing or to try and figure out what my papers may say. I could write pages and pages on each of these wonderful little packages and all the joy they bring to my classes, but today it was William. William always makes me smile. I realized today it is because when I see William, I am reminded of Kevin, my Personal Banker. They are years apart in age and you would look at them and say they look nothing alike. I look at them and see the same joyous glimmer in their eyes that tells me of their goodness and their eagerness to bring joy to others, whether it be through hard work or mischievous fun. They both carry themselves with such an air of respect that I can’t help but want to clear a path so that they can conquer the world! It is amazing how people may be worlds and cultures and years apart, but they can be so similar. I feel so much at home when I can get to know someone here and they remind me of a friend or relative in America, even if they don’t look alike!
Sometimes I think it’s kinda silly that you have to click on a website for these folks to give away food they must already have (because they’re not receiving a donation from the click!!) but …whatever… let’s get to clicking!
http://www.freepoverty.com/
http://www.worldofgood.com/sn/f - 5 cents a click!
http://www.freerice.com - Feed Rice!
http://www.freeflour.com - Feed Flour!
http://children.care2.com - Feed Children!
http://www.bhook.com/ - Feed People in India!
http://www.clickbokin.ekokoro.jp/50.html - Feed People!
http://www.feedsa.co.za - Feed People!
http://www.hungerfighters.com - Feed People!
http://www.hungrychildren.com - Feed Children!
http://www.clickbokin.ekokoro.jp/floq.html - Poor kids fed!
http://www.OneClickOneMeal.com
http://www.pajacyk.pl/ - Feed People!
http://www.porloschicos.com/PorLosChicos.NET/index_english.htm - Feed!
http://www.thehungersite.com - Feed People!
http://www.youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=2335 - Feed People!
http://www.okruszek.org.pl/ - Feed a Homeless person!
http://www.chintai.net/contribution/index.html - Donate to MSF!
http://www.kct-uk.org/click/ - Donate Cups of Tea!
http://www.worldhunger.org/contributefood.htm - Help Feed!
http://www.spendu.org/beta/index.php - More free Rice to give!
http://www.greinermaltz.com/ Feed homeless people!
My poor little tootsies have been tortured!
Sunday, Flame suggested we try acupressure massages for our feet. I’m for anything that involves massage, so I said OK. She did warn me that it would be painful, but I thought it would still be OK.
The massage began with a good, warm feet soaking and an arduous working of the neck muscles. I think my massage master felt all the tension I carry there and decided to squeeze it out in one setting. The massage strokes often consisted of the second or third knuckles of the fingers being used to trace new grooves into my muscles or to apply pressure to a specific spot. Flame had ‘cupping’ done to her neck. This traditional practice involved using small plastic cups about the size of containers in a fifty cent gumball machine and suctioning them to the neck so that they draw blood to an area, much like a plastic leech. She’s had it done before so it must work to relieve the high amount of pain she has in her neck. Flame is no fool and wouldn’t do this again if it didn’t work the first time!
Once the neck is has been sufficiently pulverized, it’s on to the feet and lower leg. I can only say it was not pleasant. It hurt. A LOT. Well, actually it hurt when I was unable to breath deeply and relax. Tensing the muscles does NOT help this process. We asked Suzy, our Taiwanese friend how she enjoyed the treatment. He response was quite interesting as she kept saying it was painful. Yes, it was painful when it was done, but was it still painful? No, but it is painful. Chinese culture does not distinguish between now, then and will be! I’m glad I’m only teaching present tense verbs!!
Afterwards, I was ready for a good night sleep and the next day, I was sore and bruised. Will I go back again? Would you???
Imagine if you will walking into a store. Image the store to be large, bright and clean. Image everyone bustling about as usual, but imagine if you can the whiff of something that just isn’t right. Imagine that stank smell that is from fruit or “fresh” produce that makes you want to open a window or scrub a refrigerator. The smell is that of something that is overripe, too sweet, dead or dying. It’s almost nauseous. The smell is durien fruit (lio lian) and it is in season! I smell it when I enter Carrfour or when I walk past certain vendors in the market. It is so bad that busses and stores sometimes ban its presence. I have tasted it and have not liked it, though many people do. It doesn’t taste quite as bad as it smells, but the taste wasn’t good to me. I do not at all think the flavor is worth putting up with the putrid smell.
The fruit will be in season until September.
It was quite a revelation when my friend, Flame, commented that we are functional illiterates. Here we are intelligent women, degreed educators who have raised children, maintain our own finances and who love to read. Yet, we are functionally illiterate in this society. Flame has been here longer than I and she can communicate basic needs and I believe she can read some characters. Neither of us can read, write or compute in this society above a 4th grade level.
I hate getting local train tickets because there are no numbers or English writing on them that I can read and I don’t know how to ask for tickets for the other trains. I usually remember to ask “Time?” and the ticket agent with write the time on the back for me. When I make a purchase at 7-11, I usually know the order of the questions and can tell them I want my food heated and that I don’t need a bag. After I request my ‘dom bing’ at the breakfast shop, I have no idea what the clerk is asking me and I just shrug. My students come into my classroom excited and eager to share some news, but I shrug and say “English, English!” They’ve heard me say one or two words (words mind you, not sentences!) in Mandarin and I think they think I’m catching on!
Because I don’t know they language, people watch out for me as if I’m a child. I certainly appreciate it, but I’m finding ways to cope, in many of the same ways people in any society do who cannot read or write. Yet, like them, I remain on the fringes of society unable to attain a full level of participation in the events that surround me. I have no idea what events occur in my school outside the classroom routine. I only know the names of three streets in this city and am unable to direct anyone to my home. I’ve had the phone I’ve been lent converted to English and I’ve stocked it with names and phone numbers of people all over this country. Every time I meet someone who is fairly fluent in English, they give me their name and number so that I can call them for help. Illiteracy allows no room for independence. Ah, the power of reading! of information! of language!
