Patterns of Life

Patterns of life when living in the same place two years in a row:

Pumpkin spice lattes in the fall (I know, priorities... am I right?!)

Relearning to cook gluten-free -- I've only tried two pastry recipes so far but shoot, it's all about baby steps

Seasons stay the same: low humidity (no more boob sweat!), haunting grayness and bright leaves, rain, occasional snow, beautiful summers -- spring is the only season we haven't done twice, yet.

Time, space and energy to invest in friendships, new and old

Watching children we know and love grow older and older and become wiser

The sadness brought on with fall grayness, but quiet also to find good things: a small but good lesson we've learned about investing in yourself and God's truth, which is more beneficial than trying to fix others.

Christmas with family and finding new ways to celebrate every year

Finding a church that we feel is like home.  We are trying to reestablish patterns of regularity, maybe we should actually attend more than once a month!  (hey, we're only human)

Writing a new blog entry -- not exactly a pattern but a small victory: I believe it shows that I have found space and confidence to live in the daily life.

Working at the same job two years in a row!  I love my job and my students.  After 6 years of switching jobs every year, it is so odd to not be moving to another school, but so good.  It's also nice that my principal fully supports what I'm doing.

Chris and I growing and becoming more in tune with God and strengthening each other and us.

All this doesn't mean there haven't been hardships, but I am starting to hope that adjusting to new things is not as all consuming as it has been in all the changes of moving and cultural adaptations.  We don't have to try to be chameleons in places and cultures we don't understand.  There is space here to relearn the patterns, go deeper with each shift of life, and learn to love and trust more deeply and more fully.

Here's to 2015.  Have a blessed new year!  

 

Pictures

If we didn't work jobs that literally suck the life out of us, we would post more often.  Until that happens, here is the link that takes you to our Hong Kong pictures (page 1-3) and Thailand (3-?).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohheychina/

Yup, you've followed a link to go to another link.  Life is complicated.

Friends

Andrew and Amy Mott are in Taiwan with us!  Here is Andrew learning to eat with chopsticks.  Let's just say we had our lunch time entertainment :)  We were having shao long bin (sp?), dumplings filled with broth.  Yum!  

(Note: Grace writing, as you'll be able to tell by the number of !!! used ;)

Here we are in the 101, the world's second largest building.  We had amazing weather, so we could see far.  Even to our apartment!

View from 101

We unsuccessfully tried renting bikes, but we did make it to the jade and flower markets.  We also went to Chiang Ki Shek memorial hall, and got to see the guards lowering the flag.  Pretty cool.  For dinner, duck!

Day 2 -- Juifen

We took a bus to Juifen, a mining town up in the mountains.  It used to be an aborigine town, but is now crowded with tourists.  The food and the view were worth the trip.  Who can spot Grace?!

Ok, I've obviously not mastered the art of rotating pictures... Just a picture for you to see how crowded it was.  I would recommend going as early as possible.   

Day 3 -- Yehlin

 Here we are at Yehlin, a park of rock formations in the north of Taiwan.  It's amazing, you feel like you are in another world!  (sorry, rotation problems again)

 A good friend's wife of the Harts, Wu Li Ling, took us here by car.  I have to admit it was so nice to not have to mess with bus and masses of people!

An army of mushrooms

A crack in the shape of Taiwan.  Amy size :)

Strangling the life out of Amy.  As per usual ;)  Can you tell I'm happy to have her around?!

We then went to an amazing seafood lunch: crab, shrimp, oyster, clams, miso soup, fish, sashimi... all freshly caught and killed.  It was delicious!

The seafood just hangs out in the tank waiting to be someone's lunch.  

Squid boats.  They go out at night and light up their boats because squid are attracted to light.  Who knew? 

 Coolest sideways picture ever.

 Wu Li Ling, our friend and guide for the day brought us to this hike afterwards.  It was beautiful  We are looking at the Pacific Ocean.

 Andrew Mott: "You can't get me"

 Pretty!

 A school and a cementry behind it.  Apparently, people like to be buried on hills for their next life.  Who knew?

In the evening we went to a night market and experienced the variety of foods and shops there.  It's fun that we've been here long enough that we can point out foods that we like and others that are best passed over... squid balls, fried squid.  As you can tell, I haven't quite gotten over my squid phobia.  

This is our last post from Taiwan as we're headed to Thailand to meet up with the Motts again.  It's been a great 3 days here, we've had an excuse to be tourists again and see things we haven't before...  with friends!  And now off to laying in the sun.... :)  Ti zien (bye)!    

We survived

You might remember this from last year: sometimes the Chinese government would do this thing where they'd give us a holiday, but we had to work a Saturday to make up for it. Happens here to. We're now enjoying Saturday #2 in a four-day weekend, but that meant we had to work 11 out of the last 12 days. Not fun for us, not fun for the kids. And we had to work on Christmas.

But we made it. Merry Christmas to all. Christmas day was fairly quiet for us; we saved our big celebrations for this weekend. And Grace got me this awesome coffee siphon which I have to share.

Here's the setup, all ready to go.

Grind them beans.

Coffee goes in this funnel-shaped container on the right. There's a cloth filter in the bottom. Hot water goes in the beaker on the left.

Set the funnel in place and switch on the awesome little gas burner.

When the water starts to boil, gentle push the funnel down so that the rubber gasket creates a seal. This is the cool part: hot air expands and pushes the water up into the upper chamber. Stir to mix in the coffee and let stand for a minute.

When time's up, remove the heat. The air cools and contracts, creating a vacuum that pulls the water back down through the filter into the lower chamber.

Finished.

Pour.

Enjoy.

This is coffee geekery at its finest.

In other news, I took my students on a field trip to the library on Friday. Some of them told me that they'd never been to a library before! The Taipei Library Main Branch has a good-sized English-language collection, including reference books (OED, yes!). They also have a small "American Corner" with American travel books, books by American authors, a US road atlas, and two stations with laptops, Kindles, and an iPad. "Gift from the American People" say the stickers mounted next to each of these electronics. We went to McDonald's for lunch and then back to school. We watched "Crash Course" history videos on YouTube for the rest of the afternoon.

Yesterday was warm and sunny. Grace and I went to brunch at a nearby restaurant called Coda, then to the park. Came home, made coffee with the siphon for the first time, took it easy. In the afternoon, I rented a "YouBike" at a nearby subway station and met up with Grace on the riverside trail behind our place (it was a little tricky, but we found each other eventually). Grace was on her new silver bike (which we will post pictures of soon) and we pedaled our way along the river until we were almost out of the city. Came back as it was getting dark. Returned the bike and the cost was only $0.60. Had hotpot for dinner in the Gongguan neighborhood. Came home. Watched "Castle." Went to bed. Not a bad day.

Today it's cold and rainy. Relaxing at home right now. Will probably go out this afternoon. Church in the evening.

Happy New Year, everyone!

...and go Seahawks!

We're still here... here's proof

Wow, it's been a while since we've posted anything. We came over to this country telling people to check our blog, that we would be updating more often than we did in Beijing since we'd have more energy for stuff like that.

We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into when we said that. Apologies.

Part of it is that I (Chris) have been reluctant to log onto Blogger and post something because it felt as though I had little to say that wouldn't be negative, and I didn't want to post something that was pure <blah!>. You see, work is just really consuming and, at times (very often, in fact), nonsensical. It can make it hard to see the upsides of living in Taipei.

And living in Taipei really is a huge improvement over living in Beijing. Not always as interesting, but much less of a headache, less harmful to one's health, and more beneficial to eyes accustomed to green foliage and lungs used to moist air. We're making friends, slowly, but surely, I guess, including a few from the Northwest. We had this one couple over for dinner on Saturday and the guy, despite hailing from Portland, had never really had coffee, though he'd expressed an interest. So I invited him to have an after-dinner cup. I opened a brand new bag of Kenyan peaberry that I'd just bought from a local roaster (one of the blessings of Taiwan is that good coffee is much more readily available than in Beijing), ground it, and brewed it in our Bialetti stovetop espresso maker. I only gave him a quarter of the batch and wasn't worried, since I usually drink a whole batch myself without feeling much effect.

I was only halfway finished when I noticed my hand shaking. We found out the next day that our initiated friend was up until 2:00 a.m. that morning. Looking on the bright side, though, he informed us that their apartment got really clean.

I guess maybe it's time to name names, since this next story involves this same couple: Miles and Kristen. We randomly met them in our neighborhood our second week in Taipei. We were checking out at the grocery store with two piles of food to take back to our newly leased apartment and Kristen must have thought Grace had a friendly face because out of nowhere she asked her where the two of them could find an electric fan. We talked. They were from Portland. We were from Seattle. It was cool. Anyway, flash forward to this weekend, we went to Costco, the four of us. The two of them (Kristen and Miles) joked that they had made up their minds to come to Taipei when they found out that there was a Costco here. On a rainy Sunday, after two subways and a taxi, we could see the familiar giant beige box with red letters. Well, familiar, but not.

Kristen and Grace getting geared for amazingness.

First of all, perhaps due to concerns about space, many Asian stores have levels whereas American stores would be flat. Fred Meyer in Ballard - one massive floor with a really high roof. Auchan in Beijing, Carrefour in Taipei - just as massive, but stacked on three levels with a series of escalating ramps. Asian Costco was a combination: massive floors on two levels. You enter and the ramp takes you directly to the second level.

Ahh, familiarity, kind of.

Up, up, and away.

Ah snap! that's the food court down there, and they have hot dogs!

Aight, here we go. Kirkland brand, here we come.

Level two was all the non-food stuff. I didn't last too long up there because of Sunday afternoon sleepiness and the crowds, so I came down and got a soda for 20NT ($0.66). The food level was more interesting to me anyway. Samples, just like in the US. Except people stand in long lines for the best ones. There was no line for the whiskey sample, though. We quickly found the Tillamook sharp cheddar and the Kirkland organic corn tortilla chips.

Muffins and scones!

Rice, rice, baby.

Yeah, represent. In USD, that's roughly $12.

We got a couple other staples that were either a better deal or harder to come by at the local groceries stores, things like olive oil, salsa, peanut butter, feta (of course, more cheese). Our one bulk Asian item: a four-pack of wanton soup. And, at the end of it all...

Classic.

Living where we do, it's oddly comforting to have a tub of Jiffy peanut butter in the cupboard.

I should share at least one school story, and then wrap this up. Around Christmastime, my school has a big production for the parents that includes all of the students in the bilingual classes, K-8, and it's planned, produced, and put on by us teachers. For the longest time, our director kept telling us to hold off on planning anything because the administration still hadn't made up their mind on the theme, and she didn't want us to jump the gun. Two weeks ago, we still hadn't been given the go-ahead, and so we teachers expressed the concern that we were running out of time if we were to organize something coherent for this production. Still no word. That Friday, someone had gotten a verbal indication that the theme would be something Christmas-related, so we could move forward with planning something. The teachers held a meeting that same day and decided on a rendition of "The Grinch," with three actors from each class, and each class performing a Christmas song. OK, cool, totally different from what I'd been told we were doing before, but still, nice to have a real plan. The next week at our English staff meeting, our director asks us what our plan is (even though she already knew). One of the teachers summarizes it simply and succinctly, just as we had all agreed the Friday before.

"OK, well, let me just interrupt you a little bit."

(?!)

Our director proceeded to inform us that the theme that had been decided upon was Thanksgiving. (again, ?!) Secondly, each class needed to do its own song and play; no single big play with a few actors from every grade.

Back to square one, and this just a bit more than a month before the performance, with two weeks of testing in the middle. I almost, almost raised my hand and suggested that we hold off on preparing anything at all until just two weeks before the date, since things keep getting changed on us; then we just devote half of our weekly classes for those two weeks to focus on rehearsal and forgo less important things like math and science and reading.

There was lots of head-shaking in that meeting.

The next day, what did we find out? The plan that we had been told to throw out just the day before was, in fact, good to go. But still with the Thanksgiving theme.

We'll just tweak all the lyrics. Thankful bells, thankful bells, thankful all the way. We wish you a thankful Christmas, and a thankful New Year. Rudolf the thankful reindeer, had a very thankful nose.
Anyways, speaking of Thanksgiving, I believe this will be my third away from home. No four-day weekend for us, though this Saturday and Sunday we get to go on a short retreat outside of the city with our church. Should be a great opportunity to escape the city and get to know some more people.

Work is definitely an ongoing challenge, for multiple reasons, and it's hard not to get stuck in the mentality that "work is my life and it sucks!" The truth is, though work is really challenging, life here is good. We have good food, a good apartment, we're making good friends, we get to do fun things (when we have the time and energy left over). We've gone indoor rock climbing twice in the last two weeks, which is double the number of times I climbed in an entire year in Beijing.

We (Grace writing) will be thinking of you all this week.  Have very merry celebrations (no.. wait, wrong holiday).  Um... thankful celebrations?!  Basically, eat lots of turkey for us :)  We love feedback, leave a note if you've stopped by.  Peace out.  

A Few Insanities

Chris mentioned in the last blog post that he missed Beijing.  Let me just say, he stands alone in that.  Even though the starry-eyed newness of Taipei is wearing off, I don't look back.

Here are a few insights into life:

-I am becoming an expert cockroach killer.  Good thing Chris has such huge shoes, is all I have to say.  I haven't started killing them with my hands yet (one of my coworkers does), but I'm sure the time will come.

-We have made our 3rd trip to Ikea and finally feel like our house is where we want it to be!

-During my training, we were told that we had 6 sick days and 4 leave days.  Wrong.  I had to clearly ask: "so, we are given these days but we shouldn't really take them?"  That is correct.  They are given simply as a formality.

-I leave the school at 7 pm (!!) sometimes and people are still working.  There's this mentality that you have to stay later than your boss, so if your boss hasn't left, you don't leave.  Some of my fellow foreign coworkers are embarrassed to leave early, and so sneak out the back door.

-We got a phone for Chris after my many visits and arguments to get a phone for myself a few weeks ago.  Even this time they started putting up a fuss about the wrong dates on my Taiwan ID (ARC).  When they realized I already had a contract, they had a long and serious discussion between themselves.  "Ok," they finally told us, "we give you another phone on this contract, but you can't go tell everybody."  Can I just ask... who is Everybody?!?!
(it's on the internet now anyways... :)  

I'm sure there are many more oddities, but this is a good start.  Both Chris and I are making head-way with our students -- getting to know and understand them.  Grading periods are ending soon, which makes for extra stress...  It's 9:30 pm and Chris is just getting home.  

Until next time.

The grass is always greener, right?

Two weeks of teaching done. It has been insanity.

No computer until the third day of classes. Repeatedly being told, “Oh, you need to be doing this and this, oh, and that,” after we’ve already fail to do this, this and that because no one told us ahead of time that we needed to. Building multiple curriculums from the ground up while having to teach them; like building a car while in the process of driving it down the road. And so many more things.

It’s been a bit of a shock for us. I left Beijing thinking that teaching in Taiwan would only make school more organized and predictable, and have since discovered just the opposite. A fellow teacher who’s been at my school for a number of years asked me last night what I thought of teaching in Taipei. “It’s like Beijing, but on steroids. No, wait, like speed, like Beijing on speed.”

It seems to be more intense for the students too. In Beijing, students arrived at school around 7:30 am and worked until 8:30 pm; a long, long day, granted, but they still were given many breaks throughout the day, some as long as a full hour. At my school in Taipei, students also arrive around 7:30 am, but their day is very different. Ten classes a day, only a five-minute break in between classes with one 15-minute break in the morning. School ends at 6:00 pm, but then most students head off to what are known as “cram schools,” where they do even more studying. Only after that do they actually start working on homework. Some of my 7th grade students don’t get to bed until midnight. It’s a system that puts a lot of expectation and pressure on teachers and students alike.

In the midst of this, it’s easy to think back to Beijing with a little bit of longing. Longing for those shorter teaching days, for a familiar curriculum, for a less pressure-filled work environment. But I also need to be careful to remember how difficult life was in Beijing also. Despite the stress of work, I feel as though we’re already developing healthier lives here in Taipei. We’re surrounded by green trees, the air is fresh, we’re making friends, we have a place of our own to call home. And nostalgia for our old school quickly faded this week when we heard from a friend back in Beijing that the principal was just fired and my former supervisor is leaving China. It's a reminder that, though things are tough here, things are not necessarily better elsewhere.

To an extent, you make the best with what you have and where you are. I don’t regret our decision to move, though I miss my students and our friends in Beijing. This year is going to be really, really challenging for us professionally, but I know that we are capable of rising to the challenge and we’ll be better teachers in the end because of it.

It’s Saturday afternoon now. This feels like a hard-earned weekend and we are making good use of it. Went out to breakfast this morning and had eggs and sausage and waffles. Walked back home through a morning market and bought fresh fruit (giant yellow mango, pears, star fruit) and vegetables. Grace is napping. I’m drinking coffee and typing on the couch. It’s rainy today, and the coolest it’s been since we got here over a month ago (80F). Maybe later this afternoon we’ll jump on the scooter and vroom over to the flower market or one of the colorful Buddhist temples. Or maybe not. It’s nice to do nothing.