Tidbits from Taiwan
Thursday, October 13, 2005
KTV, MTV and a little bit of TV
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Hello again...
The two month marker for my stay in Taiwan is coming up in a couple days here. The longest I have been away from home was I think a month. As my brother pointed out, by the time this year comes to an end, I will have been gone away from my family longer than any other family member has. This is because, I think most of you know, I will not be returning home for any Holiday (including Christmas) until around...July? Mmmmm, the sensation of indepence is gushing through my veins.
I don't know how many people get to go to a KTV (is that the word in the US? It means Karaoke rooms) in the United States, but I finally got to go to one last week I think. Nothing less than a great time and a scratchy throat can come from a couple hours with 12 friends spent in a small dark room with a TV with a knack for getting people to embarass themselves. It got even more roudy as it turned out the employees (that were constantly coming in and out of our cell, due to the excessive Help Button requests) had barely enough English to utter a word of exasperated impatience. All the same, we had a great time yodeling songs to our throat's content, though they only really had corney songs like the Backstreet Boys and oldies (Hey Jude!) which made the potential for the situation all the more dangerous.
Check this out, okay, so I am doing my Calligraphy with my homeroom teacher right, and this guy walks in. My teacher points at him excitedly and brings him over. Turns out he is a specialized calligraphy teacher. The Grand Master Calligrapher guy writes a couple chinese words for me, showing me how its done. My teacher talks with the Master Calligrapher guy for a minute or two, and now, thanks to her, I will be having studio lessons with him an hour a week (maybe two if he can) for free. A side note; ONE chinese character written by this man is worth $2,000 NT (thats about $66.66 US for a couple seconds work). This guy is good.
Studying the SAT has taken up much of my precious time last week, as the test was the coming Saturday morning. It was a last minute decision to take it, but I think I did pretty well. I took it at the (now listen closely) Taipei AMERICAN School, right near my house. You would think this is the school where all the American/European business people's sons and daughters attend. In reality (as I came to ponder while noticing I was the very small minority in the room), the majority of the kids going there turned out to be Chinese, Taiwanese, or of Asian decent (and all with really great American sounding names like, Vincent Chen and John Lee). The difference between them and the other Chinese kids going to normal public schools is that the kids going to the American school have (in one way or another) American passports. Anyways, glad that that SAT is over for now. I am taking another one in November.
I still haven't gotten to go on my planned visit to the top of that mountain near Muzha. Hopefully I will go this Saturday and me, Zach and Gaston will get to relax, drink some tea for several hours while enjoying some cool weather and either listening to music or reading a nice book (Angels and Demons, Dan Brown). But who knows, that has been the plan for the last several weekends and I end up sleeping to late and getting lazy at the last minute. Also coming up next weekend is a Break-Dancing competition which I am looking forward to. I'll put a video up after we go. These guys are good (asian people always seem to be good at those G[K]ong-Fu kinds of things).
This past Sunday we checked out Danshui, (45 minutes from my house). It was better than we expected; a fantastic narrow alley spilling over with shops and people. Food and games were everywhere, and it was located right on the edge of a large lake (I think thats what it was). This was a great place to buy souvenir and chinese things like fat buddhas or a big roasted squid on a stick (really bland but extremely chewy). Also along the alley we happened upon a museum full of strange mutant animals and freaky Ripley's-Believe-It-or-Not type things. They had a yellow ~7 foot snake sitting out on a stand in the open (alive) which people came up and petted (though I think it was drugged as it barely moved). There was all sorts of startling things like ancient contraceptives (this happened to be next to a shop devoted entirely to this - strange place to have one) and many two headed animals on display.
Monday there was no school (10th October, like US's 4th July) and though we did not get to see any festival stuff, we all went to the Zoo. It was strange that the bulk of the exhibits were dead animals stuffed and on display and not so many live animals. Probably a lost in translation thing when they called it a Zoo. That night I went my first Taiwanese wedding. I am not even sure if it was a wedding or an after wedding celebration actually, but at one time the Bride was in the big European Bride dress and the couple kissed up in front after a minute of words. So...maybe, maybe not. The food was brought out in a great manner. The big chef in his classic 'leaning-tower-of-Pisa' Hat stood up front holding a huge platter of food and while traditional chinese music rang through the room. He stood there while his waiter people (with the food in their arms) did a kind of line dance amidst the tables, running in patterns, and finally gave us our food. You had to see it (alas, no camera).
Yesterday had a rather exhausting beginning. My alarm clock went off and I dreamed it was set to an earlier time than needed. SO I hit it and slept 30 more minutes at which time I actually did wake up and realize I was late. Frantically, I got ready and ran out of my house to the bus stop 5 minutes away, only to find I didn't have any money nor my bus card because I had forgotten my wallet (meaning I couldn't go anywhere). As I ran back to the house, I remembered that because I had forgotten my wallet I did not have the keys to the gate outside my house (I keep my keys in my wallet). I also found out that my cell phone was dead (I forgot to charge it the night before and I didn't have the number for the house elsewhere let alone another phone) and the caller system at the gate to the house just happened to be broken...a bit of a predicament if you ask me. As I thought about the state of affairs I was in...it began to rain the acid rain which is supposed to make you loose your hair. Guess who forgot their umbrella. So I couldn't go home, I couldn't go to school or anywhere, I had no money and I had no communication. HA! A strange thing happened 30 minutes later. A motorcyclist drove up and instead of continuing straight on the road he parked in front of the gate and unlocked the door. I hadn't a clue who he was but he let me in. I ran out of the house again 5 minutes later to find him still sitting there on his motorcycle inside the gate. Haven't seen him since, but thanks to him I got to school.
Lo, there do I bathe in the River of Lethe...
For all you poor souls who haven't discovered the magic of Podcasts and E-books...you should take a look, thats all I gotta say. I tell you, it is so much more wonderful in the morning to use my hour and a half of transportation to school to listen to a book or Presidential Weekly Update (just found out that existed) instead of staring at the mole hair of the person sitting directly across me, on the train. (Quick fact: Mole hair seems to be a very trendy style here even with some younger guys. In fact, as I was previously told by my Asian friend back in the US, it brings the person, you guessed it, luck)
'Nuf said 'bout Lucky Mole Hair...
I started getting food at this breakfast place along with other students before school each day. They have this great meal; a tortilla look-alike and milk tea. I used to eat it while walking to school from the store until one day, while eating and walking, I flipped the box accidently. I ignored it as I had to get to school on time and the street dogs could get it. I heard someone uttering sharp words behind me and drew my breath. The head military officer at school had been walking directly behind me, and was now scolding me in chinese, as I had just sloshed my saucy squishy egg and tortilla practically on his feet. It would have been a good breakfast.
Last night we headed out to an MTV (not the show) where we rented a large room with very comfy couches and a huge screen and choose a movie to watch. We saw one of my personal favorites, "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels", a British type action (with a spice of comedy). We then headed to a Pizza Hut. Yup.
In other news...I had another Rotary meeting, got a little sick again, bought a new belt, beat Gaston in Basketball, and found out the existence of a great new computer program. Conceeerning the program...there is a new computer program out (created at the University of California, Berkeley) that can actually discern what you type by LISTENING TO THE SOUND OF YOU TYPING ON THE KEYBOARD. No lie. Check out the research paper at http://keyboard-emanations.org/ This is a real thing.
Anyways, till next week. Sorry for the long lapse between the last post and now. I am going to blame it on the SAT to make me feel better.
The two month marker for my stay in Taiwan is coming up in a couple days here. The longest I have been away from home was I think a month. As my brother pointed out, by the time this year comes to an end, I will have been gone away from my family longer than any other family member has. This is because, I think most of you know, I will not be returning home for any Holiday (including Christmas) until around...July? Mmmmm, the sensation of indepence is gushing through my veins.
I don't know how many people get to go to a KTV (is that the word in the US? It means Karaoke rooms) in the United States, but I finally got to go to one last week I think. Nothing less than a great time and a scratchy throat can come from a couple hours with 12 friends spent in a small dark room with a TV with a knack for getting people to embarass themselves. It got even more roudy as it turned out the employees (that were constantly coming in and out of our cell, due to the excessive Help Button requests) had barely enough English to utter a word of exasperated impatience. All the same, we had a great time yodeling songs to our throat's content, though they only really had corney songs like the Backstreet Boys and oldies (Hey Jude!) which made the potential for the situation all the more dangerous.
Check this out, okay, so I am doing my Calligraphy with my homeroom teacher right, and this guy walks in. My teacher points at him excitedly and brings him over. Turns out he is a specialized calligraphy teacher. The Grand Master Calligrapher guy writes a couple chinese words for me, showing me how its done. My teacher talks with the Master Calligrapher guy for a minute or two, and now, thanks to her, I will be having studio lessons with him an hour a week (maybe two if he can) for free. A side note; ONE chinese character written by this man is worth $2,000 NT (thats about $66.66 US for a couple seconds work). This guy is good.
Studying the SAT has taken up much of my precious time last week, as the test was the coming Saturday morning. It was a last minute decision to take it, but I think I did pretty well. I took it at the (now listen closely) Taipei AMERICAN School, right near my house. You would think this is the school where all the American/European business people's sons and daughters attend. In reality (as I came to ponder while noticing I was the very small minority in the room), the majority of the kids going there turned out to be Chinese, Taiwanese, or of Asian decent (and all with really great American sounding names like, Vincent Chen and John Lee). The difference between them and the other Chinese kids going to normal public schools is that the kids going to the American school have (in one way or another) American passports. Anyways, glad that that SAT is over for now. I am taking another one in November.
I still haven't gotten to go on my planned visit to the top of that mountain near Muzha. Hopefully I will go this Saturday and me, Zach and Gaston will get to relax, drink some tea for several hours while enjoying some cool weather and either listening to music or reading a nice book (Angels and Demons, Dan Brown). But who knows, that has been the plan for the last several weekends and I end up sleeping to late and getting lazy at the last minute. Also coming up next weekend is a Break-Dancing competition which I am looking forward to. I'll put a video up after we go. These guys are good (asian people always seem to be good at those G[K]ong-Fu kinds of things).
This past Sunday we checked out Danshui, (45 minutes from my house). It was better than we expected; a fantastic narrow alley spilling over with shops and people. Food and games were everywhere, and it was located right on the edge of a large lake (I think thats what it was). This was a great place to buy souvenir and chinese things like fat buddhas or a big roasted squid on a stick (really bland but extremely chewy). Also along the alley we happened upon a museum full of strange mutant animals and freaky Ripley's-Believe-It-or-Not type things. They had a yellow ~7 foot snake sitting out on a stand in the open (alive) which people came up and petted (though I think it was drugged as it barely moved). There was all sorts of startling things like ancient contraceptives (this happened to be next to a shop devoted entirely to this - strange place to have one) and many two headed animals on display.
Monday there was no school (10th October, like US's 4th July) and though we did not get to see any festival stuff, we all went to the Zoo. It was strange that the bulk of the exhibits were dead animals stuffed and on display and not so many live animals. Probably a lost in translation thing when they called it a Zoo. That night I went my first Taiwanese wedding. I am not even sure if it was a wedding or an after wedding celebration actually, but at one time the Bride was in the big European Bride dress and the couple kissed up in front after a minute of words. So...maybe, maybe not. The food was brought out in a great manner. The big chef in his classic 'leaning-tower-of-Pisa' Hat stood up front holding a huge platter of food and while traditional chinese music rang through the room. He stood there while his waiter people (with the food in their arms) did a kind of line dance amidst the tables, running in patterns, and finally gave us our food. You had to see it (alas, no camera).
Yesterday had a rather exhausting beginning. My alarm clock went off and I dreamed it was set to an earlier time than needed. SO I hit it and slept 30 more minutes at which time I actually did wake up and realize I was late. Frantically, I got ready and ran out of my house to the bus stop 5 minutes away, only to find I didn't have any money nor my bus card because I had forgotten my wallet (meaning I couldn't go anywhere). As I ran back to the house, I remembered that because I had forgotten my wallet I did not have the keys to the gate outside my house (I keep my keys in my wallet). I also found out that my cell phone was dead (I forgot to charge it the night before and I didn't have the number for the house elsewhere let alone another phone) and the caller system at the gate to the house just happened to be broken...a bit of a predicament if you ask me. As I thought about the state of affairs I was in...it began to rain the acid rain which is supposed to make you loose your hair. Guess who forgot their umbrella. So I couldn't go home, I couldn't go to school or anywhere, I had no money and I had no communication. HA! A strange thing happened 30 minutes later. A motorcyclist drove up and instead of continuing straight on the road he parked in front of the gate and unlocked the door. I hadn't a clue who he was but he let me in. I ran out of the house again 5 minutes later to find him still sitting there on his motorcycle inside the gate. Haven't seen him since, but thanks to him I got to school.
Lo, there do I bathe in the River of Lethe...
For all you poor souls who haven't discovered the magic of Podcasts and E-books...you should take a look, thats all I gotta say. I tell you, it is so much more wonderful in the morning to use my hour and a half of transportation to school to listen to a book or Presidential Weekly Update (just found out that existed) instead of staring at the mole hair of the person sitting directly across me, on the train. (Quick fact: Mole hair seems to be a very trendy style here even with some younger guys. In fact, as I was previously told by my Asian friend back in the US, it brings the person, you guessed it, luck)
'Nuf said 'bout Lucky Mole Hair...
I started getting food at this breakfast place along with other students before school each day. They have this great meal; a tortilla look-alike and milk tea. I used to eat it while walking to school from the store until one day, while eating and walking, I flipped the box accidently. I ignored it as I had to get to school on time and the street dogs could get it. I heard someone uttering sharp words behind me and drew my breath. The head military officer at school had been walking directly behind me, and was now scolding me in chinese, as I had just sloshed my saucy squishy egg and tortilla practically on his feet. It would have been a good breakfast.
Last night we headed out to an MTV (not the show) where we rented a large room with very comfy couches and a huge screen and choose a movie to watch. We saw one of my personal favorites, "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels", a British type action (with a spice of comedy). We then headed to a Pizza Hut. Yup.
In other news...I had another Rotary meeting, got a little sick again, bought a new belt, beat Gaston in Basketball, and found out the existence of a great new computer program. Conceeerning the program...there is a new computer program out (created at the University of California, Berkeley) that can actually discern what you type by LISTENING TO THE SOUND OF YOU TYPING ON THE KEYBOARD. No lie. Check out the research paper at http://keyboard-emanations.org/ This is a real thing.
Anyways, till next week. Sorry for the long lapse between the last post and now. I am going to blame it on the SAT to make me feel better.
:: posted by MaT, 3:17 PM
1 Comments:
hey buddy thanks so much i was getting antsy like when mike hasn't had his afternoon nap but luckily you updated this blogger. caligraphy will be awesome and i remeber doing the singin in china good times! next time attempt a jump at the fence your my bro but hey whats "River of Lethe" and the cycler funny how life works huh? (speaking of which i crashed mine hard core today...TWICE - really bad news). great update and your english is back good again (mines horrible but its late and im on things) and so glad you're doing well. keep pushing yourself in the sports and take every opportunity and sleep well kiddo. love ya buddy
, at 5:20 PM
