With-the-Wind-Ear guarding Beigang

Matsu’s Guardian Demons in Beigang

Thousand-mile Eye and With-the-Wind-Ear are the demon sidekicks of sea goddess Matsu, who has many adherents in Taiwan. Apparently the both fell in love with her, and she told them that she would marry which ever one defeated her in battle. She prevailed over both of them, and the three became friends. These two guard the bridge in Beigang and light up at night. Chaotian Temple in Beigang is one of the oldest Matsu Temples in Taiwan.

Giving quizzes, assigning presentations, and the chill-out bottle

I’m new to ESL primary school teaching, so I have insights or “ahah!” moments that might seem super obvious.  I’m going to share them anyway in case they help someone.

My job is to specialize in spoken English.  I’m the one with the lovely, near-standard newsreader American accent (hint of Chicago in there, not super noticeable).  Because thinking is difficult, I took this super literally and until recently did virtually no writing in class.

But that has changed; firstly because I personally cannot remember a damned thing in language acquisition unless I can see the word written down and spelled.  I’m a visual learner and a student of Chinese, which is my 3rd foreign language.  I can repeat a sound in the moment and be told what it is, but I won’t remember it until I write it a few times.  I personally use self-created flashcards, which I’m starting to do with my students.

Quizzes– I gave my first diagnostic quiz this week and boy, was it informative.  It would seem that I have about 4 kids in a given class who know the answers, and the rest kind of mumble vocalese along with, giving the impression of knowing.  I decided to teach the names of the days of the week to my 3rd and 4th graders.  I asked my co-teacher if she thought the 6th and 5th graders would know them; she was confident they would.  Not so– 4 kids out of 11 knew them.  You wouldn’t be able to tell from listening to the class, but you can totally tell who knows what when you read the words you want to find out the kids know in Chinese and see if they can write down the English.  Quizzes are great because they aren’t for a grade, but they’re a much more precise way of discovering who knows what and what needs to be reviewed.

Assigning oral presentations (duh) is an idea that came to me in a fit of petty vengefulness.  I have a few particularly arrogant 6th grade classes, which blows my mind, because these kids are like 4′ 8″ tall and I’m pretty sure I could kick their asses literally and figuratively in any number of pursuits.  But abusing one’s students is frowned on both in the U.S. and Taiwan (fair enough).  So I had the very mature mental narrative of “You get up day after day and talk to a room full of bored kids and see how you like it.” and it hit me that I can force them to do exactly that.  My theory is that by putting them under pressure to speak passable English in front of  their peers, they’ll gain some empathy and humility.  I may even develop simple lesson assignments so they can take turns teaching each other.  Reports to follow.

My last teacherly discovery this week is the chill-out bottle.  It a mixture of clear glue, water and glitter poured into a clear plastic bottle with the lid glued on tight; It’s supposed to be like a snow globe that takes 5 minutes to clear.  Allegedly, it works well with ADD and ADHD kids as a way for them to focus on something and return to class with a clean slate.   I have a few of those, so I may be making some this weekend.

Again, I will follow up with a report on how these techniques have worked as I implement them.  So far, formative vocab quizzes are a big success.

* Update 3 months later: I didn’t do the chill out bottle, so I still have loads of glitter and glue (maybe I’ll make them for my place).  I did make chill out trays:

Cushion, tray, crayons– isolate the unruly and pacify them with coloring.

One of my classrooms

This is what one of my classrooms looks like. I want to include everyday pictures to give those interested a look at normal life teaching in Taiwan.

Adventures in Taiwanese Psychiatry

I’ve had issues with depression since I was a small child.  The first clear memory I have that was undubitably depression was when I was 7.  I can remember suffering a lot of anxiety from at least the age of 8 onward.  This is very much a chemical thing, although situation does impact its severity.  But there is no time when my life is so good that I won’t have issues with one of these.  I take a cocktail of medications that do a really decent job at treating these problems (therapy and studying Buddhism have helped too, but that’s not what this post is about).  I take lexapro or celexa as the main medication.  The great add-on is a neurontin/vistaril cocktail that seem to work in symbiosis to both calm me down and mildly elevate my mood.  These two are great because they mean I don’t really need benzos (xanax, klonapin, etc.) very often.

I brought a hefty supply of my meds from the U.S., but it’s been ten weeks now and I’m running out.  So I made my first trip to the psychiatrist in Taiwan.  Here is what happened.

Floor 4, the floor of death, is missing at the hospital.

I went Chiayi Christian Hospital in Chiayi (they have a really handy on-line appointment system, which is not uncommon and is something I’d love to see more of in the U.S.).  The hospital is big and beautiful and every bit up to the standard of any American facility I’ve seen.  They have socialized health care in Taiwan, so the trip to the psychiatrist and a week’s worth of xanax and ambien cost about $12 U.S.  Nobody really spoke English except the doctor, but everyone was super helpful and nice in helping me find my way and get checked in.  I was able to go in the evening, so I didn’t have to take time off of work to go.  That was great.

Here’s where things go less well.  I brought my bottles with me to show the doctor what I had been prescribed in the U.S.  But the hospital didn’t have Celexa/Lexapro, Gabapentin (Neurontin), or Vistaril.  These drugs do exist and are available in Taiwan– I looked them up online and found the names they’re sold under here and the names of the companies that produce them.  But for some reason, the hospital just didn’t have them.  I could not get them.  I have to go to a different hospital next week and try to get my meds there.

In the States, your doctor writes you a prescription and you go to any pharmacy and they either have it in stock or can order it except under unusual circumstances like a drug shortage.  But I deduce that this is not the case in Taiwan.  Even more frustrating, the very nice doctor couldn’t tell me which hospitals have which drugs.  She knew Chang Gung Hospital in Puzi has the Celexa/Lexapro, but the other two are still a mystery.  So I have to just visit all the area hospitals until I find places that have the ones I need?  This is a monster hassle because I don’t have a car or a scooter, and not all of the hospitals have evening hours.

Additionally, I only got a week’s worth of xanax and ambien, and I am going to need to get a month’s supply or just plan on going to the hospital every week.  The closest hospital only has afternoon hours 4 days a week, and taking an afternoon off a week is not a feasible option.

As it stands, I have an appointment with another psychiatrist in a week, so I’ll take another shot at getting my medical needs met.  I will continue posting about this, since depression/anxiety are common mood disorders, and psychiatry is not as prominent here in Taiwan as it is in the U.S.

Beauty mistake and discovery– using conditioner as shampoo

Skin is squared away, but hair… the shallow saga continues.  I put a lot of random Taiwanese smoothing product on my hair after a spate of extreme dryness.  Big mistake– greaseball city.  So here’s a fun discovery.  I didn’t want to wash my hair from scratch because I’m really lazy and I do want some moisture/silicone in there to keep it smooth.  So I tried something I’ve read online– I “washed” it with conditioner.  It worked pretty well; it cut the greasiness down, but there aren’t the same detergents in conditioner, so it didn’t wash out all of the moisture or silicone.  If you overdo the smoothing/moisturizing products, give washing your hair with conditioner a try.

Bubble Tea

I never had it before, so this was my maiden voyage. I had plenty of opportunities to drink it when I lived in Berkeley, but I just never got around to it.

I like it; it’s not dong gua cha (but really, what on this earth is aside from dong gua cha?), but it’s sweet and yummy and the little chewy balls are not unappetizing.

Bored to death and sad and lonely

The flip side of expat life for some of us, are the boring parts in between the outstanding parts.  In so many ways, life in Taiwan is such a huge step up for me than life in the U.S. had become.  But on the other hand, I had a dog and a cat and a fantastic sexual partner in the States.

As an introvert, it takes a while for me to reach the end of my introvert rope and get bored, but Monday and Tuesday seem to be the prime time for this to happen.  I don’t want to do any solitary pursuits; I want to play.  I want a sympatico English speaker.

I had this fantastic period of serenity and feeling of completeness all by myself for the first two months.  Now I’m itching for a dude.  It’s not that I need to have sex; I want the fun of a romantic relationship with a guy I dig.  When you want to get with someone, they are initially fascinating.  So I find being single boring (but I find being in a bad relationship worse)  I wish it weren’t so; I’d rather be cooler than that.  But I’m 35 and I’ve been married and in a long term relationship, so I know what I’m missing, and it’s a pain in the ass.

Back in high school and for most of college, I never had boyfriends and it bothered me, although I had lots of time to spend with my friends and that was a blast.  After my divorce, Cleveland was not a happening place to find guys.  For some reason, there were tons of dudes in Indianapolis to go out with, and several to have flings/short-term relationships with.  For the first time ever, I was a hot chick and lots of dudes wanted to squire me about.  Now I’m back on bench– only older women and children find me piaoliang.  I liked being a hot commodity; it was fun.  One take away from this, dear reader, is that context is a big factor on whether you’re a backstage betty or a wallflower.  I have not changed in looks or demeanor and my stock has risen and plummeted and the only difference seems to be where I live.

So boredom— I guess the best thing is is to make a feature of it.  Hang out with it, Buddhist style.  Make art for it.  What does boredom look like?  What does boredom feel like?  For me, it’s very stomach based; a little like nausea and asphyxiation.  But I’m not really going to die.  I just don’t happen to feel like doing any of the things that normally entertain me.

Being bored is boring.  I’m boring myself describing being bored.  If anyone read down to here, I’m sorry.

5th Grade English

I’m the white lady standing in the back.

The Kaosiang Duck

This thing is everywhere. An artist created a rubber ducky for the Taiwan Strait that was harbored in the Kaosiang Harbor. It’s a clever idea, IMO, until you see the damned duck in every store all the time. The duck was dressed in a cape because this picture was taken with some friends around Halloween time. I saw a duck today with a Santa hat. The duck itself (depending on whom you ask), exploded, deflated, or suffered air pump failure after the last earthquake off the coast of Hualian. It’s one of those ideas that isn’t a bad one, but brevity is the soul of wit, and there ain’t nothing brief about the Taiwanese appreciation for the duck, so I’m ambivalent about it at best.