Christmas Day in TW

What a great few days we've had here! I have three sets of friends here...my co-workers, which includes Sam and Erin, my teacher friends from Canada...my South African friends, which includes my roommates and their extended circle of friends...and my church friend, Julie, who is American and has been in Taiwan for nine years! Over the last few days, beginning on Sunday morning and finishing late Tuesday night, I got to spend some quality time with each of these folks and enjoyed it so much! It made being away from family a little easier to bear and the necessity of working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and today Boxing Day (hey, I lived in the UK for three Christmas's) a little less of a bummer. I miss my family, but thankfully I will see them and my friends in SF in just 5 and a half weeks. Woo hoo!

I've included a video (sorry it's on it's side) and some party pics of our Christmas "Dinner" at school yesterday, which our boss put on for us in lieu of our weekly staff meeting. ("Dinner" was a turkey, a plate of french bread slices and two pizzas from Domino's. This, of course, was better than the funky combo of foods they would have put on if we had asked them to prepare their food in a traditional feast, so we didn't complain, we just ate pizza for Christmas Dinner.) She made my heart skip a beat when near the end of lunch she made a big "announcement". I thought she was going to say we could take the rest of the day off, but I guess I've been watching too many movies. She said, "I have a big announcement to make! I want to give you all a very special gift for Christmas, so I've decided that next year on Christmas Day the school will be closed!" We all cheered raucously, but were of course thinking, "Ugh! What about today? 365 days away? That's a special gift? I got your special gift over here. Where I come from we call this a knuckle sandwich!" And on and on my sad mind went with my thoughts on her announcement, but you get the gist.

My three classes passed without too much fanfare and I scooted after work at almost 10:00 over to Julie's house where she had spent the day preparing a real Christmas Dinner. Roasted lamb, scalloped potatoes, corn casserole, green beans, rolls, and homemade blueberry cheesecake. I had made a box of stove top stuffing so we also had that. It was awesome.

I came home around midnight, gave my folks a call to wish them a Merry Christmas. My dad had just come in from hunting (and killing) ducks and he was happy. Mom sounded really good, which was great for me to hear. I think she feels a little better in the mornings. Anyway, I went to sleep late, very tired but very happy.

It's Wednesday morning here, I have much to do to prepare for teaching in a few hours, so I'm off. Hope your Christmas was memorable, and if it wasn't, perhaps you can think of ways to make it so next year. As for me, I'm already looking forward to next year, when I won't have to work, 'cause my boss declared it yesterday! ;)

Merry Christmas from TW, until next time, Larissa



This video is not great, but it's a slice of life here for me, if you can stand to have your head tilted to watch it for less than a minute, and hear me trying desperately to coach all the Chinese staff to say Merry Christmas, when most of them thought I was taking a photo and just freeze framed their smiles. Alas, it is what it is!

This is the group of young women that work
for our school as Teacher's Assistants.
Left to right is Annie, Cara, Joyce, and Debby.
I work with Cara mainly.

Below is the motley crew of "foreign teachers" that teach at Kang Ning. There are a few missing, but back row is Ben from New Zealand, Erin from Canada, Hendri and Stephen both from South Africa; front row, Sam from Canada, me, and Candice from South Africa. I only teach with Erin but I go to staff meeting with all of the rest of these except for Stephen. (He looks like a happy fellow, eh?)

Here I am pictured between my boss,
Serena, and her brother, Alex, who works
for the school. (I think they were having
a dispute over our upcoming Reading
Competition and I made them take this
picture with me. Rather Kittlitz of me I
think, don't you?)

Finally, here is a classic kitchen shot
of all the ladies that happened to be
standing nearby when I wanted a picture
with only one or two of them. They love
the pics (note the poses on both of the
bookends.) The only new people in this
shot are the two ladies in glasses. I work
with Lizann, next to me and Sharon,
in the front looking very uncomfortable.

Another week and all is well in the ROC...

(which stands for Republic of China) of Taiwan. I've had a pretty good week, except for the melt down I "enjoyed" with my B5 class late on Thursday.

Here's the short version. Thursdays are my longest day, (which I believe I've mentioned before but apparently can't say enough), and by my last class I'm flagging on energy I can tell you. I teach a class of 7 boys, 13 and 14 years old, and they are tired too so we're not great to begin with in that state. Usually we manage o.k., without making a big deal about our mutual lack of interest, but Thursday night I found my edge. Not only did I find it, I fell off it and walked out of the classroom. After my co-worker explained to them that they cannot just keep talking when I've told them a dozen times to stop, we finished class with a decidedly more somber mood. I was moved to tears when the two boys responsible for my frustration approached me after class to apologize. They said, with such sincere expressions on their faces, "Sorry teacher. Sorry teacher. Never again. Never again." At that moment I really hated the language barrier, a feeling I have every day, but particularly in this situation. I could not say anything back to them except, "O.K., thank you." But, of course body language is universal to some extent and they saw that I was moved by their words. I wanted to give them a hug and tell them I'm sorry that I'm a crappy teacher at that time of the day, that my patience is gone by 8:45 at night no matter what I've done that day, but especially when I've been on my feet for three classes straight before theirs. I'm still trying to understand the Chinese psyche and probably will never get it, but it seems like the fun is squeezed out of these kids pretty early on, and I don't want to teach them without having fun. They have to work so hard in Chinese school and then they have an endless list of lessons and activities, including English, and I want this part of their lives to be something they enjoy and want to do. It's hard to know how to make that happen, but I was so proud of my co-worker, who has a reputation for being hard and making the kids scared of her, because she just told them that the teacher has feelings too, and they need to pay attention when the teacher is trying to help them learn. (Truthfully, I was so frustrated because they were stuck on the distinction between all the "wh" words - where, when, why, what, who - and they were not listening to try to understand it. Thus, they were answering questions in their grammar books with sentences like "Why do you live?" - technically o.k., but not correct really - and "Where are you wearing a sweater?" - also o.k., but not the best choice.) It was an exhausting evening and I came home very ready for the weekend, although I still had another day to teach.

Now, it's Saturday night and I've got to crash so I can jump up for worship in the morning. I hope you're enjoying the frenzy that Christmas often becomes and are finding some time to be with those you love. I miss mine, so I encourage you to make an extra effort to enjoy yours. One of my favorite people is having a birthday today, so I want to give a shout out to Lisa. Happy Birthday, Lisa! Hope you have a great visit with the family.

I will post again soon, but let me assure you my back looks a lot better now and my cough is also much better this week. I don't know if the two are related, and still have my doubts, but that's where I am on the health front. Thanks to all of you who sent in creative expressions of your concern for me.

Take care until next time. LC

Yet another Chinese cultural experience..

was enjoyed this weekend by me here in TW.

As you know if you've been reading my blog, I've had a cold again for the past ten days or so. This one developed into a bronchial thing with me sounding like I was going to bark up a lung at any minute, so many of my friends have expressed concern for me. Well, yesterday after church, my American friend, Julie, asked me to go for a massage with her. Having no idea what she was intending, but lovin' me some massage (being a massage therapist and all...), I agreed to meet her at the place at 5. When we arrived and she ordered the "scraping" for both her and me, I got a little curious. But she assured me, having lived here for 9 years and gotten this done many times, that it was great to get rid of a cold. She had a cold too, and I was fed up with being sick, so I agreed to it. I asked her what kind of scraping we were talking about, and she said, "It's like they're using the back of a comb to stimulate the blood in your back. It's a little uncomfortable but it really helps."

O.K., so off I go to the room, which by the way, I shared with Julie and her uncle (who's here on business from the states and was also getting a massage). In Asia you wear loose fitting clothes for your massage so there's no modesty issues. I gotta tell you, the three therapists chattering away in Chinese was not contributing to me going to my happy place, but I strangely grew used to it and sort of even drowned it out. Of course, I was coughing quite a bit at the beginning as my girl was really working my lungs from the back.

You've probably already seen the picture of my back, but let me assure you, it doesn't hurt, now! (When the gal was doing it, I was thinking, "What kind of comb does Julie use? A metal comb? A really mean comb? If this lady goes much deeper she's going to hit bone! Ouch! Stop, please stop!!") It doesn't hurt, but it looks really bad. I took the picture about 6 hours after she did it, and it was getting deeper purple by the minute I think. But, I woke up this morning and feel A LOT better! So, do I argue with this? I don't know, the jury's out. Weigh in and let me know what you think if you have any thoughts about these kinds of unconventional remedies.

I have to run, but hope to post again in the next few days. It's Monday morning and I have to get to work, just like the rest of the human race. (Speaking of human race... I saw "I Am Legend" at the theater here on Saturday night...ugh! Pretty creepy creatures I must say, but an interesting thought about what "could" cause humans to become almost extinct. Have you seen it? I don't necessarily recommend it, but Will Smith's "guns" are huge. In one scene they're almost as big as his head.)


Until next time, LC

Praising God tonight...

for safety on the scooter. I often talk about the craziness of driving here, and I've had some very close calls (that I know of and probably many others I wasn't even aware of), but tonight was the closest, I think. Erin was not as fortunate, but thankfully she's o.k. Her scooter doesn't look so good and she's got some bruises but at least she's got no broken bones.

Erin is my Canadian friend I work with and we were riding together tonight after work to try to see a late movie. We've never done this but decided to try it because I had an unexpected class cancellation from my adult 3 on 1 class. This means I got finished at 7:45, which is the same time Erin finishes on Wednesdays. We were riding on a very busy street and had just taken off from a red light (which always resembles a race amongst all the scooters) when a taxi van pulled a u-turn right in front of us and stopped without any warning or indicator. I was in front and just barely managed to swerve to miss him at the back, but Erin couldn't do it without hitting me, so she braced herself and went broad-side into his car. She's a tall girl and the impact made her come over the scooter to smack her helmet on his car, then she and the scooter fell over on the left side. I was past the car when I heard a very loud thud and a slight scream from a girl, which of course when I turned around I knew was Erin's voice. I got to her in seconds and she looked up at me and said, "I'm alright." The taxi guy was standing there by then too, and the first words out of my mouth were, "You shouldn't have done that." He actually spoke English and understood what I said and frustrated he said, "I do it all the time." To which I quickly said back, "It doesn't matter if you do it all the time, it was wrong and you shouldn't have done it. You cannot make a u-turn without any warning." Erin managed to hobble off the road, leaving her bike there in the middle of it, and someone phoned the police. They arrived and asked if we could speak Chinese, which of course we can't. We phoned our office and our friend Sharon came within a few minutes, but meanwhile a very kind gentleman and his wife (angels?) who both spoke great English stopped to help us. To make a long story short, we ended up in the hospital for about an hour and a half, Erin getting the ambulance escort, and me following behind on my scooter, going much slower and notably shaken by it all.

I have to give a shout out to Erin, who saved my hide tonight, and handled the quick decision to hang on and go straight into the taxi very responsibly. If you've ever been in a wreck, you know that you can make it worse or better depending on your reactions to the situation with which you're presented. Erin could have tried to swerve in either direction and really done a lot more damage to her body, or she could have slid out and ended up under his car, or any number of other very unpleasant things that could have happened but thankfully didn't. So she was cool under pressure and that is commendable! Way to go Erin!!

I also want to give a shout out to the Kang Ning gang, particularly Erchong, but also Chutung, for showing up when we needed them. First, Sharon, one of our Erchong co-workers, came and talked to the police for us...thanks, Sharon, you're awesome! Then, when we were at the hospital, Sam and Serena showed up (from Chutung, Erin's roommate and our boss, the founder and director of the school) followed closely by Alex, who also works at Chutung school. Then, Teacher Hendri (the stellar teacher from my Saturday evening experience, see previous post for details) arrived followed by Cara and Scarlet, our co-workers from Erchong. By this time, I had registered to see a doctor myself and get my cough/cold seen to, and Erin was pretty much finished. We both left, able to walk unassisted, with medicine in hand, and neither of us spent more than $20! (Even though Erin's right knee is swollen and her face hurts, no broken bones, thank the Lord!)

You know, I often feel that God is protecting me, and tonight I really feel so blessed that He would cause it all to be so much better than I thought it was going to be when I first heard that thud. I really pray that I'll forget that sound soon, but that I won't soon forget how good He is to me. Thanks so much for all your prayers when you think of me here amongst the crazy drivers. (Let's face it, taxi drivers are crazy everywhere!! Sorry, if you drive a taxi, on a number of levels.)

Now, I'm off to bed to try to sleep...if only the mosquito that's been feasting on my flesh the last few nights would somehow choke out from the cough medicine they gave me. (I think there's liquor in it!) I'm probably pushing it, eh?

Until next time, LC

Cultures colliding (parts one and two)

...is the theme of this past weekend for me here in Taiwan.

Part One
Saturday morning I relaxed at home for a few hours before heading out to meet my boss. Several of us followed her to her farm about 20 minutes from the Chudung school, where her 74 year old mother has planted a huge field of vegetables that are now ready for picking. Serena, my boss, is using many of these to feed the children at school everyday (this is customary since it's an all day school and serving hot nutritious meals is a selling point). Of course this is only provided in the school at Chudung and I teach in Erchong so I don't eat this food everyday...which is actually o.k. with me. Anyway, Serena is very health conscious and earth friendly so she's growing these veggies organically to feed the kids better food and to lower her food costs. So, we were invited to pick some veggies for our own personal use and off we went. What an experience. It was a beautiful day and we each picked a big bag of veggies, mostly unidentifiable, but still I'm sure healthy. The funny part of the afternoon was realizing that I was never going to know what these veggies were called, as each time I asked "What's this?" the reply was "Uh, uh, Chinese vegetable." To which I just nodded and thanked God once again for the internet. (Although honestly that didn't really help me either when I was deciding what to do with these huge peppery flavored green leaves, not really lettuce but not really mustard greens. Something else. Oh, yea, Chinese vegetable!)

Then, after picking my bag full, Saturday evening had been prearranged by the secretary at the school for a few of the teachers to go to an aboriginal restaurant with three of the students, who are siblings, and their parents. This is always a sacrifice since our down time is precious, but it is one of the reasons I believe I'm here, so I agreed to do it. We met at 5:30 at the school and followed the father to the restaurant. Their Vietnamese servant had arranged the table at the restaurant with these thimble sized drinking glasses and had filled up a pouring pot with this clear liquor. We each had one of these drinking glasses and thankfully one of the teachers who has been here for 13 years (he's from South Africa and married a Taiwanese woman) told us not to drink it too fast, or at all since he would keep filling the glass every time it was empty. I managed to pour mine into another cup after a while and never had to drink it, but smelling it seared a hole in my nostril. Whoa! Strong does not describe.

After making it through many courses of various animals with bones or eyeballs looking at me (not only was the usual fish eyes on the menu, but yes, we ate fried bee...my first time, not too bad, but honestly...bee?), we finished the meal around 8 and were invited back to his home for tea. This was something we couldn't get out of, so we all went, hoping and praying it wouldn't last too long. Well, by 9:30 he was brewing the third kind of tea and the best, of course, so we were pretty stuck. I drank more tea than I've ever had in my life and don't know that I've felt any benefit from it, but alas it was about building the relationship so it was not a complete loss of an evening. I learned a lot about Chinese culture and how this man feels that he must send his four children to English school because it is part of the expectation for the future in Taiwan and internationally. He sacrifices his own pleasures (except for the tea) to make it possible for the children to have English classes, and he's very proud that he can do it. They live in a big house that he built, that has traditional Chinese concrete floors.

It was a good evening, but just long and I was frustrated to come home after 10 with a bag of dirty veggies to wash and put up, plus the need to prepare for Sunday. I had to confess my bad attitude and ask for forgiveness. When I did I felt really honored that I had gotten to spend the evening with Alec and Susan and their four children, Victor, Vincent, Eva, and Wayne. You can pray for them too when you think about it. They have probably heard the gospel before because Alec mentioned having tea once a week with a guy who goes to my church here, so I can only assume that was for evangelical purposes. But, I don't really know much more. No doubt I will have another opportunity if I want it.

More later about my Sunday with the South Africans.

Part Two
Sunday afternoon was lazy for the most part, which was just what I needed after such a crazy Saturday. Our home now has three living in it, with Mari here recovering from her scooter accident, and we'll soon be moving to a four bedroom place where we'll welcome a fourth roommate. We were all four here on Sunday afternoon just relaxing and eating lunch and for some reason the topic of teaching me Afrikaans came up. If you don't know, Afrikaans is the language spoken most often by white South Africans (which all these folks are), and I believe it was brought by the Dutch settlers who "colonized" South Africa many hundred years ago. (Wow, if you're South African and you're reading my blog, forgive my pathetic explanation of your mother tongue!) So, it sort of sounds Dutch and German with a British lilt to it. Anyway, my roommate, Annaloe often tries to teach me a few words, and she gets very excited when I speak the odd Afrikaans word here and there, so she of course was really into this. Again, for some reason, only known to the highest level PhD's in Psychology (or maybe Psychiatry) we started talking about words that we really shouldn't be talking about, and I found out that when you want to say "I need to go #2" in Afrikaans, you say "I need to go poof" or something like that. Those kinds of conversations can only continue downhill (there's that saying again) and of course this one did, until we had all embarrassed ourselves and laughed til we were crying. This was a great feeling. You know you're amongst friends when you laugh until you cry. Round two of this started later in the day when another (South African) friend came over and we re-enacted the whole thing for him. It's the little things that keep us going, eh? Just had to share it with you. And with that I'm off...

Until next time, LC

Snow Cake...

not an Academy Award winner, but still incredibly endearing, I just finished watching this movie because it's due back at the shop by noon. (In Taiwan, the movie boxes are often covered with Chinese writing and we English speakers don't have a clue what we're renting. Such was the case for this film.) Sigourney Weaver (where has she been anyway?) turns in an amazing performance as an autistic adult living independently. It's heart-wrenching and thought-provoking and even profound, so if you're in that mood, check it out. It's got Alan Rickman as well, if you dig his broodiness and deeply-felt renderings.

I also finally saw La Vie En Rose La Mome, the true life story of the French singer, Edith Piaf, and it was an amazing film as well. I liked it because of the lead actresses performance. Wow! What a lesson in the contribution quirky people can make to the world, eh?

With the movie review in the bag, I move on to other thoughts...

Hmmm...don't really have any. Well, maybe just a few.

It's Thursday. I don't really like Thursdays. They are long and I am reminded of how much energy each class takes and how little I have to offer the ones that come later in the day. B5 gets me last at 7:35, and it's a class with the deck stacked against it...7 boys, and one girl, all 12-15 years old, most with poor reading ability and serious self confidence issues, which makes the 90 minutes tick past at a snails pace at times. However, we manage to get through. At my school, the Chinese teacher assistants call each of the students twice a semester to ask them questions in English and to assess their skills. In these conversations, they often ask if the student has any comments or requests for the teacher. To my utter surprise, B5's last telephone interviews reaped some very interesting and encouraging thoughts for me to ponder, so I now don't hate it as much. How's that for a positive outlook? Seriously, though, it's not unbearable. If it were, I wouldn't try to bear it. Life being short and all!

So, Mari's just come back from the hospital where she went this morning to get her remaining stitches out of her leg. She's now watching the last of Snow Cake, as we had both started it last night before bed. I just heard Sigourney Weaver use a made up word in a scrabble game and I remember I really liked it. Dazlious! See the movie and let me know if you like the word too. (And if you don't want to see the movie but you want to know the meaning of the word and how to introduce it to the English language, let me know and I will explain it to you. I'm an English teacher. ;) (Oh, and another word from the film..."eyebrowsing", when you're looking for new glasses. Hee hee!)


Gotta run for now. But, thanks for checking in. Until next time, LC

Four Days later...

...I'm finally getting back to my blog. And now, it's December, the first Monday in December, and I've got teaching to do today. I like my Monday schedule though, since I teach A8 (challenging but small group of 8-10 year olds) which I've blogged a lot about, followed by A7 (children mainly 8-12 years old a little more advanced, this class has the ever adorable Cosmo in it - his former teacher must have been a Seinfeld fan!), and my last class on Monday is B4, a group of 13-14 year olds, one of two "more advanced" classes that I teach, they're not too bad, most of the time. I finish early on Mondays, the only day of the week that this is true, so I tend to enjoy that a lot. On Monday, I get home around 8:30 rather than my usual 10:00. Oh the things you can do with an hour and a half.

So, this is just a brief check in. I've gotten another cold, which really stinks since it's only been one month ago that I had the last one. I'm going to strategize a little better to try to keep future colds at bay. Feel free to offer any advice about that. (I'm taking vitamins now and exercising, so don't know much of what else to do.) In spite of the cold, I had a really good weekend. I worked Saturday morning, and had a casual rest of Saturday. In the evening, I fixed some fried okra that I had bought fresh last weekend, and made some mac n cheese from the local foreign foods store (it's actually called Annie's Shells and White Cheddar...va va!) and it was some good eatin' I can tell ya. We got a third roommate on Saturday when Mari came "home" from the hospital. She's now staying with us while she convalesces after her scooter accident about 10 days ago. It's great to have her here. She's easy going and draws a fair number of folks in to visit her, so the house is full of activity, which I enjoy.

Sunday was a continuation of Saturday in some ways. I led worship at church, and in much the same way as one month ago, I managed to make it through the first set of worship before the sermon without cracking, but...just as I finished praying, and as the pastor was taking the pulpit, I had a coughing attack that caused me to have to go out of the service and retreat to the bathroom for a few minutes. And, similarly to a month ago, Deacon John (very nice guy), came to my aid. This time, he ran out to the pharmacy and bought some hot patches (like for sports injuries) and by the time I came out of the bathroom he was unwrapping it and heading for my throat. Funny me, finishing the last part of the service with a white patch on my throat, but you know you can't really deny someone their deeply held beliefs in a medical remedy. Not that I would question it, 'cause I was able to hold it together for the last two songs.

I relaxed at home in the afternoon, but had an unexpected visit from my co-worker, Sharon, who was at the big warehouse shop close to our house and called to see what I was doing. She was shopping there with her mother and dropped by afterwards. She was telling me that her mom was buying five big cans of cereal and she said, "you know the kind for old people, it's not for breakfast, but old people like it." I said, "Are you talking about oatmeal?" and she didn't know that word. Then, she came into my kitchen and pointed at the Quaker oatmeal on my shelf and said, "This one!" To which I smiled and said, "Yea, that's for old people alright!" At any rate, I was glad to see her. I think she's someone God has given me favor with, so I'm glad to get to spend a little time with her away from work.


Well, that's my weekend in a nutshell. I will do better in December to write more frequently. November was more like a once a week thing, so I am aiming higher for December.

Have a great week.

Until next time, LC