The Fire Chicken and Asian Driving Stereotypes Confirmed: Merry Christmas!

You probably have been clicking your Reload button on the Caitlin Takes Taiwan webpage for weeks now, wondering when the darn title would change to something new. Well, international fans, the time has come: December in Taiwan.

The past month has been marked by two significant events: the holidays and my scooter accident.

What? You got in a scooter accident? That's horrible!

It's like C3PO being dismembered by a Wookie.

Yes...I would have to rank being thrown into the air after being blindsided by a car as being one of the scarier moments of my life, up there with waiting for college reply letters, watching the series finale of Gilmore Girls, and of course, my previous car accident in front of the Naval Base when I was 18.

The good news: helmets save lives, and heads (in that order.) Though I effectively did a mid-air ninja roll and landed smack dab on my back, my head was snug as Santa Claus' sash in my $25 Asia brand noggin defender.

The better news: the people who hit us knew it was their fault, stopped, took all of our details, paid all of our scooter damages, paid my hospital bill (I've temporarily joined legions of people with constant back pain, though I suspect that time will cure this quite well,), and we even "scored" an extra $300NT out of the deal (about $10 USD) which we used to drown our shock at the bar down the street. Wow, I'm old enough to drown things, hallelujah! I've heard over and over again: you are so lucky! We were lucky to drive our bike away from the scene (said the mechanics), lucky neither of us were seriously injured (said all of the ER staff), and lucky to not have to pay any bills (said everyone else) - because if the police get involved, there will be bills. 


So we were lucky. Though sometimes while trying to teach kindergarten with a bum back does not make me feel particularly lucky...but you know what makes me feel lucky?

Christmas!

It is now the 27th and while most of the Western world is still napping off food comas, I'm back at work. The Christmas vomit that has filled the school for the past month is gone and it hardly seems like it happened at all. My preschoolers brought down their house with a rousing dance to Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, my Home Room Teacher bought me an ultra-sexy cat purse, I had to play Santa Claus in a "party" for my older students, and virtually had every child in the school sit on my lap and tell me what they wanted for their happy day. That's Christmas in a nutshell. And what did I do most of the blessed day? Sat on Skype, that's what I did. Sat on Skype and ate the turkey that was my Christmas present! Sat on Skype and ate turkey and drank oodles of red wine and ate my very first fruit cake. Don't knock it until you try it; I'm heavy handed on the rum.

Skyping by the Christmas tree - note the festive handmade decorations.

***Note: My 9-10 year old students call turkey "Fire Chicken!" I thought this was terribly clever until I was informed that Chinese for turkey is "huo ji" which is literally "fire chicken." It's still pretty catchy.

Christmas is...uncomfortable in Taiwan. The 7-11 employees wear Christmas hats. All the apartment buildings put up trees. People rent out pontsettias. But there's no caroling or human excitement. Come on. Christmas is exciting. GET EXCITED, TAIWANESE!

Family, friends, high schoolers: this holiday season in the far reaches of Asia (and a part that isn't even autonomously recognised by the UN) I decided that next year, I 'd like to be a bit closer to home for Christmas. You might even see me. Until then, I'm holding my breath until the end of the semester (4 weeks!) and anticipating my trip to Thailand.

Love to you in the New Year? (And PS. Wednesday is my birthday :D)

Sometimes, Not Even Food Solves The Problem

The fact is, I am a Scrooge when it comes to money. I don't like buying things. I don't like buying things I don't need, and I don't like paying more than I absolutely need to for the things I do need.

I keep mental lists of all the places in town it's cheapest to buy things. It's cheapest to buy oatmeal at a mom & pop dry goods store. It's cheapest to buy fruit and vegetables at the big wherehouse market on ZhongZheng. It's cheapest to buy dish soap at the 10 NT shop two blocks from school, and it's cheapest to buy meat at the Welcome market any time after 5:00PM, when they mark it down.

I'm a sucker for a bargain, which is why, when something is not a bargain, my reaction is completely adverse. Enter, last night:

James and I went stomping around for the bus for the mountains, which we discovered is located...DUN DUN DUN...on the other side of the train tracks. We had never been to the other side of the tracks before. It was crazy. It was intimidating. It was Vietnamese and Thai?

Apparently, the other side of the tracks is where all of the Southeast Asian immigrants do their thang. (Or their Trang, or Tran, or Nguyen.) We were so excited because as in the Bay Area, immigrants = good food. After a day of romping in the mountains, we picked out a funky looking Thai place and sat down.

Big uh-oh when the menu was opened and the prices were double the prices at our favorite Thai place on the other side of the tracks. And at the place, the waitress is angelically nice, whereas at this one, the man was mildly stand-offish. I asked if we could leave, and we did. Hungry and stranded in Southeast Asia OZ, we doddled up and down the street, not particularly happy. We walked into a Vietnamese restaurant only because we were tired and ready to eat.

The menu was not only in Chinese but in Vietnamese...which is no help because I don't speak Chinese or Vietnamese. 


This is where the night gets funny, I promise. James found something with beef and rice he wanted to eat, so he ordered it. I was stumped and tried to ask the woman "What do you like to eat?" but somehow she had no idea and just pointed at random things on the menu. I nodded when she found something she said was noodles and vegetables and really good. We crossed our fingers.

Still pretty grumpy from the overpriced Thai menu and wandering around in the dark, that's when the Vietnamese karaoke started. Ear shattering, whiney, and incoherent, the six metrosexual Vietnamese guys sitting at the table across from us were loving it. We sat there in shock, unable to talk about how awful this all was.

The food came to the table. One dish was seafood and rice, and the other was celery and something like greyish ramen noodles. The best part: both dishes had been generously sprinkled with giant pieces of organ meat - hearts, livers, etc. Also greyish. Sweet Gods of Dining, WHY?!?

Have you constructed the visual yet? Grubby restaurant with a group of possibly flamboyant, possibly simply attracted to very outlandish hairstyles, males, screaming Vietnamese karaoke, while the miserable white people choke down their livers and celery.

You just have to laugh sometimes.

Stayin' Alive

But busy as a bee.

I would not like to complain about work, or my health, or my inability to be understood/understand a lot of things.

I am thankful for my two-foot $1.50 Christmas tree, Zippy, and fish to eat.

Looking forward to a lifetime of getting used to a full-time job and the delightful way it makes me too tired to think ;D

Until next time, stay classy.

What We Eat, Part II

It's been a few weeks since I've given any real consideration to writing. After all, the last thing I want to do after a nice long day of breaking English into tiny words, sentences, and grammar labels is write something original of my own. It would be much simpler [is] blogger came with a [est] of questions and answers, much like the classes I teach.
*as you can tell by my excellent grammar and spelling, I'm really digging writing at the moment. We can play a game and you can correct me.

Therefore, back to food we go! In a country of cheap deliciousness, there's nothing I like to gloat about more than what I eat, what I make, and how obscenely cheap it was. And it was cheap.

Let's discuss something I love to eat: the lunch box. A lot of people find the lunch box bland or boring. I say, if you eat a boring or bland lunch box, get over it and move on, because you're bound to find an amazing one within a block of the last joint. The lunch box is generally a flat-ish to-go box divided into one large section and 3 smaller containers, generally reserved for your veggies. (Or if you're really awesome, you'll use them to divide up your different meats, because often you can choose tofu, tiny fish, and eggs as your "vegetables."

You can find lunch boxes practically everywhere. They are the "fast food" of Taiwan, although truthfully, you can find McDonalds and KFC pretty frequently as well. And nearly every restaurant will sell one to you. Damn smart, I think, because it practically ensures you eat a balanced meal. (Unless, again, you think tofu and eggs are vegetables. Which they aren't. But they are delicious. Have I mentioned I haven't met a Taiwanese egg I haven't liked? It's true. It doesn't matter how it's cooked. Eggs here are magical.)
*However, James reminded me that yes, I did find an egg I didn't like. It was 1,000 years old. Sort of. It was a hard boiled egg buried in hay for like a month and then peeled and cooked inside some ridiculously disgusting black jelly. Almost gag reflexed that one right onto the market table.
**Whoops, just informed that the black jelly was actually the egg white, way too far gone. Check this out: whytheheckwouldyouruinaperfectlygoodeggbydoingthistoit?

One night in Danshui, we found ourselves starving. Needless to say, Caitlin was not the happiest bird on the street. Thank goodness two doors down from where we parked our scooter was a family restaurant. What you see is a fish...a whole fish...a possibly once happy fish...of which I ate...the whole thing (save the very middle spine) and other deliciousness - the strips of yellowish stuff you might not recognize is bamboo (I love bamboo here just like I love eggs). Price: 75 NT. Less than $2.50.

Hot pot coals about to be covered by duck filled pot of goodness.

Just as common as the lunch box is the hot pot. Huo guo, if you pardon my excellent Chinese. Wo xi huan wode huo guo hen la. Heck, I could sit here all day pretending to know Mandarin (What I just tried to say using my 50 word vocabulary was "I like my hot pot very spicy.), but then you'd never find out what food I'm talking about.

Duck heart: chewy. Duck liver: bomb.

Eating hot pot in Taiwan is like eating burgers at home. Or burritos, if you're from California. Or sandwiches. You go a restaurant, pay either a set price or all you can eat price, and cook your food in a pot of boiling, flavored water in the middle of your table. There are a billion variations, and most of them end with hot, spicy, oily water flying onto your shirt. Nevertheless, this is duck hot pot.

We went out to dinner with an obscenely large group and found "famous" duck hot pot. Long line. Like, 45 minutes, which is oodles here. Finally you sit down at tiny stools and a low to the ground table. Your pot has a whole duck in it. You buy the things you want to add: mushrooms, meatballs, cabbage, hearts, livers, pigs blood and rice (oh yes, we did) - and cook it. Slowly. And drink some beer. And eat some more. The broth was gingery oily goodness. If only I knew how they did it, I would make my own.

Look who's making yeast rise in Asia...

Speaking of which, even though it's still equally cheap to eat out then eat in, I'm still finding time to challenge myself with the oddness of ingredients available over here. One of my greatest acheivements has been Sunday pizza. I found a terrific pizza base recipe on one of my favorite food blogs, and have since taken to whipping up a simple batch in our fabulous toaster oven every week. Toppings? Tomato sauce, of course, but the first few weeks we had sardines and lime, instead of anchovies, because there weren't any. Since then, it's anchovies, olives, capers and cheese...and a good ol' margherita. Chomping on pizza in TaoYuan. Come visit and I'll make you some! (PS. Bring some pepperoni.)

But it doesn't stop there. Bi-weekly burritos have also hit the menu. Our head teacher found us some amazing, taqueria-style tortillas (not a corn one in sight yet, but my hopes are high), and I've managed to find pinto beans, guac fixings, etc., to make a meal of amazingness. You'll have to take my word for it. I'm pretty sure I'm crafting some of the most authentic things this side of the Pacific.

Bienvenidos de Taiwan!

Oh yeah, about that teaching thing. Pretty sure I'm going into the out-of-home restaurant biz as soon as my contract is up. Winky winky face.

Happy Hallo-whattheheckkindofholidayisthis?

Out of respect for my children, their parents, and ultimate human privacy, you will not be able to see pictures of my P1 children dressed as dinosaurs, Super Mario, a lion, Belle, a fairy, a creepy shiny costumed man, a penguin and a pumpkin.

Instead, I will describe to you how to throw your very own Taiwanese Halloween.

1: Ignore it. Most Taiwanese families do, anyway, and it's only propagated for two reasons: Taiwanese parents send their kids to English schools, and Taiwanese people love to buy shit. Any excuse to have a thing of some holiday related novelty is enough reason to have a family outing to Carrefour to pick out a costume.

2. If you can't ignore it, go over the top for no particular reason. As did the Taiwanese staff at our school, you too can spend hours making Halloween decorations out of paper, plastic, yarn and paint! My class made ghosts out of Kleenex, spiders out of handprints, and pumpkins out of paper shapes. Then, stick them everywhere. Hang black plastic over doorways, please, because everyone loves bags in the face.

3. Play as much Halloween music as you can, as long as it isn't scary. This leaves you with about three suitable songs, one of them being "Trick or Treat" - a song version of the chant set to the tune of "It's Raining, It's Pouring." If I never, ever have to hear that song again, I will be at peace. They played it on repeat for three hours this morning over the loudspeaker.

4. Go trick-or-treating, but only at school, and while at school, only go to one classroom, thus making the actual treating time more efficient. Less candy, less fun, but also less time wasted.

5. Waste lots of time having every single student in the multipurpose room - let's say - 100! - tell the other students what they are for Halloween. In Chinese. While the Trick-or-Treat song is playing so loudly you can't actually hear the 4 year olds tell everyone ta shi shei.

Okay, okay. I wrote that blast pre-afternoon nap. This portion of the blog is post-homemade bean and rice burrito dinner. I'm a bit more retrospective and little less critical now. A few more quick points:

Halloween is simply not a holiday. It is a photo opportunity. Parents hung around for hours today just to see their kid take 10 seconds to walk across the stage in their costume, most of which were store bought (and many of which were the same, bought at the same store.) Some of them were homemade brilliance. One little girl showed up in a vest and skirt entirely made of bubble wrap and paper flowers (guessing mama doesn't have a day job) and there were some very decadent pumpkins, or nan gua, as I heard announced so many times. The kids stick their fingers up in a peace sign (the Asian pose we all make fun of at home, oh yeah, so real!) - snapshot! - done. The kids don't do anything. 

But field trips are like this, too. Let's go to a museum. Let's take a billion photos at the museum. Back on the bus. Let's go to the supermarket. Take a billion photos with the fruit. Back on the bus. There's this odd "The photo is more important than the experience." thing going on. Why do you want a picture of something you didn't actually do?

Tomorrow is my "anniversary" of three months in Taiwan. Time flies when you're buying consumer goods, writing obscene amounts of report cards, and taking your umpteenth photo.

But I still love my scooter.

"Teacher, Are You Sick?" and other random tidbits

Why yes, Taiwanese people, the doctor's mask over my face and the tissues falling out of my pockets indicate that in fact, I am sick.

I tend to get pity stares like, Oh dear, the foreign teacher went and took a bath in viral germs, so I have to justify the origin of my illness. "It's P1." I say. "The babies don't know how to cover their mouths and cough in my face."

It's true. They are disgusting little germ monkeys. The poor things shouldn't be in school, they should be in isolation. A week ago, I developed this lovely flem-y hacking cough a-la-students and went to see a doctor: Bronchitis, he said.

Now, I don't know what they learn in Taiwanese medical school, and I don't mean to discredit anyone with a P.H.D., but they tend to think they everything is very bad and curable with several types of medication. I'm pretty sure I don't/didn't have bronchitis. I'm pretty sure, because I am a doctor, that I have the flu. Nevertheless, Dr. Best gave me several types of medication, and I am still sick.

Speaking of medication, I ran out of oral contraceptives this past week and thought it would be easy as pie to buy some more. Remember what your teachers tell you about ass-uming?

It just so happens that oral contraceptives are one of the few types of medications that are not covered by the national health plan. This means that I can get a walk-in appointment and medication for tonsilitis for 50NT ($1.50) but a box of birth control costs me a whopping $500NT (about $15) - non-negotiable. For a country that manufactures much of the world's pills, I find this utterly ridiculous. And expensive. I speculate that the Taiwanese government wants women to have more Taiwanese babies (birthrate is below replacement), and therefore they don't want to encourage women to be smart. I am smart, but I'm paying out the rear for it.

Speaking of rears, I had one of my P1 students (the 2-3 year olds) pee on my hand last week. Speaking of P1, not only do they cough in my face but I have to also wipe their streaming snot. My solution: the doctor's mask. Teaching with a doctor's mask makes me feel safe and smart simultaneously. Except that if the students can't see my mouth moving, sometimes they don't understand what I'm saying. At that point, I pull the mask to my chin. There's nothing sexier than a chin mask.

Have I mentioned the rain? There's a little something called Typhoon Megi swirling around over here, causing incredible amounts of damage in the Philippines and soon to be China. Taiwan is out of the main path of destruction but we are incurring a tremendous amount of annoying, wind-driven rain. This is the rain that flies sideways and gets your legs nice and wet.

Rain + scooter = abnormally wet.

The rain comes up and down and sideways. We had a fabulous 15 minute scooter ride home on Thursday involving a downpour and at least three 90 second red lights. What can you do at a red light on a scooter? Sit there and take it like a man, that's what you do. Even with a rain jacket, the water still manages to trickle down your sleeves and under the face shield of your helmet. My shoes ended up so full of water I nearly had to tip them out to drain them.

I love the rain. It's still warm enough to wear shorts.

PS. Made pizza from scratch on Sunday. It was amazing. Except that there was not an anchovy in the entire city of TaoYuan. Trust me, I looked. I went to two different stores at opposite ends of the city...with my hacking "bronchitis." In the end, we ate cheese, olive, sardine and lime pizza. It was amazing.

My Scooter, or; Things I Shouldn't Tell My Parents

It is illegal to park your scooter on the sidewalk in Taiwan.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. (Honk your car horn.)
When in Ireland, do as the Irish do. (Drink a pint.)
When in New York, do as the New Yorkers do. (Have a slice.)

When in Taiwan, do as the Taiwanese do, and buy a scooter.

And so we did.

Our little black bundle of 50cc Yamaha joy, I call her Zippy and she spouts black smoke out her butt hole. She cost $300 and is the best piece of transportation I have ever owned. Don't tell the Subaru, but scooter driving is way too much fun.

It's a lawless road. Technically, you can only drive on the far right hand side of the road, sometimes in specially marked lanes, sometimes where there aren't parked cars. You aren't supposed to turn left, and instead you must cross the intersection and put yourself in "The Box," where you wait to go the right direction.

Did I mention that the average Taiwan traffic light counts down about 90 seconds? 90 seconds of agonizing, Why didn't I just turn back there? time.

Therefore, and I blame this on the length of the traffic lights, people drive as it is necessary. It is necessary to pass on the left, because sometimes old ladies with parasols walk in the street at -2 mph. It is necessary to thread your scooter through 3 foot gaps between cars and buses, because otherwise, you wouldn't move anywhere. And sometimes you make a left turn, just because you can't stand "The Box" and then extra several minutes it will set you back, sucking in scooter fumes at the intersection.

It's fantastic. It's stimulating. It's dangerous, and we are aware. It's like getting to be in the scene in Star Wars where Leia and Luke are racing through the Endor forest on the floating speeders. Lean right, lean left, DUCK, squeeze your knees in so you don't bang them on the car next to you. It is a bit rough going over the bumps, but hey, if a lower back massage will only set you back about $20, no harm, no foul, right?

But Caitlin, where do you put your stuff  on a scooter? It's not like you have a trunk or anything!

Good question, my friend. The beauty of Zippy is she is equipped with a plastic hook that perfectly allows grocery bags to sit at your feet while you're driving. And thank goodness Taiwan is the safest place in the world besides a petting zoo pen of bunny rabbits and marshmallows. Need to leave your shopping on the scooter while you hop off to run errands? No problem! Need to leave your helmet because you don't feel like carrying it into the restaurant? Heck, why not display it on top of your rear view mirrors! The other day, James and I scootered our new bromiliad plant home and left it on the foot pad while we made a doctor's visit.

I swear you could leave your wallet on your scooter seat and find a fresh rose and a $100NT note folded inside of it on your return.

Anyway, the scooter is amazing. James and I "splurged" on the cheapest ride, lowest power, smallest seat, but in good condition. At $3 per tank of gas, it's the cheapest way to get around. So far, we've stretched her legs to the ocean (twice) and to the mountains (hot ass hot springs) and are never disappointed. As much as I love transportation, it seems like the best places are only accessible by Taiwan's favorite transport mode.

How's she handle?

Zippy doesn't purr, she buzzes.

Learning to drive in the empty parking lot. Unrealistic good practice, but I have since progressed to the big leagues.