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I know that people these days are very apprehensive about registering for websites due to all the underhanded things most sites do with your information. For instance, here at my site, I take your email address and sell it to dozens upon dozens of mass marketing spam companies*. So for your convenience, I have finally discovered a way that readers can leave comments without registering. Hooray for me and all that crap. I am smart; S-M-R-T! Annnnnyway… in return, I ask for only one thing. LEAVE MORE COMMENTS! How the heck else am I supposed to know you’re reading this? Of course, there’s always the very likely possibility that you’re not reading this. If that’s the case, what the hell are you doing here?

* I’m just kidding. I’m not selling your information to dozens of companies. I’d say it’s closer to a handful than a dozen.

Paydirt

Captains log… Star date 392859228.3… I set forth on another expedition in search of the illustrious English map last night and my perseverance was rewarded. I was able to locate and secure an English visitor’s map inside the China Trust Hotel, conveniently located in downtown Hsinchu at the corner of Zhongzheng Lu and Zhongyang Lu. Many thanks for their cooperation. While I seemed to have been doing a fairly adequate job of navigating the city on my own, I trust the discovery of said map will prove to be a very valuable resource. The next task is figuring out the address system. Granted, I didn’t look too hard but I can’t recall seeing the address number anywhere on any of the buildings.

Still, I think I have got a good bearing on where some places are where I might find other Westerners. You have no idea how much I crave a conversation with someone who can actually understand more complicated English. That’s really what I’ve been looking for for the past two evenings. I’m sure once I start my job at the end of August that situation will remedy itself but I do feel a tad isolated here from time to time due to the language barrier.

In other news, I managed to bust open another of my toes while gallivanting around the city. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s the third time in the last two months. I really need to buy some new sandals.

Excursion

It all started with a what was supposed to be fifteen minute trip to look for an English map of the city and before long, it had turned into a three hour hike. Last night I walked down to Caves Books, one of the few places in the city I know how to get to. From what I understand, it’s the only all English bookstore in the city so I figured I would be able to get my hands on an English street map of Hsinchu. Guess again. They had a map of Hsinchu but it was Chinese only. Apparently my definition of “all English” differs greatly from theirs. Strike one. The clerk (who ironically enough, spoke very little English) was kind enough to tell me I should try the bookstores downtown and pointed in the general direction. I hadn’t planned on going that far but I figured what the heck. The best way to find out where you are is to get lost, I figure. So I finally took the advice of all those women I tried to date and got lost.

I didn’t get lost too badly though. At one point, I discovered I had walked around in the proverbial circle. That was kind of fun. It did me a heck of a lot of good though as I really got my bearings after that. So for the next couple of hours I wandered around downtown looking for another bookstore. After dodging in and out of what seemed to be a rather large Buddhist parade and nearly being run over by a handful of scooters, I finally found one. However, my luck turned out the same and no English maps were to be secured. Strike two. So the search for the fruits of my labor began anew. The search did not last long however. Maybe a grand total of fifty steps. That was rather fortunate but not overly so. Once again, a swing and a miss. Strike three! So I did what any red-blooded American would do and decided to give up and go home. It wasn’t a complete waste of an evening, however. I now have a better understanding for the lay of the land and it was a pretty darned good workout as well. I learned today that I could have stopped in to almost any of the business hotels I passed by last night and they probably would have given me the map I sought after, free of charge. Maybe I’ll try that tonight.

Supau!

Welcome to the food and drink entry in this weblog. Thus far, I have really been enjoying the food. I have grown to love rice which is a good thing because it’s eaten with almost every meal. A few times, we have been treated to American food, but I prefer to eat Chinese food these days. However, the American food isn’t typical of what you’d find in the States. For instance, we had pizza for dinner last night. There were six different kinds to choose from. The best was of course the Hawaiian style. It had a little something extra to go along with the pineapple and ham. The first was pizza sauce. Yes, you read that correctly… pizza sauce. Most pizza you can buy here on the island doesn’t have pizza sauce on it. Weird, I know. But it’s not a bad thing. It’s absence is hardly noticeable.

The second interesting thing on the Hawaiian style pizza was shrimp. I’m sure there some of those trendy pizza joints in the U.S. such as California Pizza Kitchen server their pies with that sort of stuff but I can honestly say I’ve never heard of such a thing. Of course, maybe I’m just a sheltered hick from the backwoods of South Dakota. At any rate, I found the shrimp to be a quite welcome addition.

Other flavors we had to choose from were something called “Surf and Turf” (you can probably guess what’s was on that one), teriyaki beef, peppered beef, and one kind that had corn on it. Needless to say, corn on pizza doesn’t really turn my crank so I neglected to sample that variety. Still, I found most of the different types of pizza to be quite enjoyable. However, I think I’d rather eat Chinese food.

That brings us to beverages. To quote a movie, “I mean they got the same stuff over there that they got here, but it’s just – it’s just there it’s a little different.” For instance, you can get basic soft drinks such as Coke and Sprite but you can’t get the more “exotic” flavors of soda. For instance, I’ve yet to see Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper. I’m not sure how Miles is getting by with out his beloved Mt. Dew. Who knows, maybe they have that in China. All I know is that you can’t find it here. Some of the more popular soda is from a company called Hey Song. Their cola tastes like Coke or Pepsi but it’s got a bit of a cinnamon after taste. It’s quite interesting.

Bottle iced tea is of course a rather large industry here as well. However, you won’t find the fruit flavored varieties that you might find in the US. Most of it is more traditional, such as green tea, black tea, etc. Other more interesting varieties include bubble tea, which is basically tea mixed with milk. The interesting part is what you’ll find in the bottom of the cup… little balls of tapioca. It feels a little weird the first time you suck a tapioca ball into your mouth but it’s really quite good. It’s one of my favorite drinks here.

However, it’s not anywhere close to my favorite beverage; Super Supau or what I affectionately refer to as “The nectar of the gods.”

  

  

Basically, it’s nothing more than lemon-lime Gatorade but for some reason, it tastes a heck of a lot better. I have no idea why. I’ve since stopped trying to discern the difference. All I know is that it’s by far my Taiwanese drink of choice. Good stuff.

Disposable Society

It has recently been brought to my attention that there are people actually throwing away computers with massive virus and spyware problems. What’s even more baffling is that a lot of so-called “computer experts” have joined the madness.

On a recent Sunday morning when Lew Tucker’s Dell desktop computer was overrun by spyware and adware – stealth software that delivers intrusive advertising messages and even gathers data from the user’s machine – he did not simply get rid of the offending programs. He threw out the whole computer.

Tucker, an Internet industry executive who holds a doctorate in computer science, decided that rather than take the time to remove the offending software, he would spend $400 on a new machine.

Come on. This guy should know better. Personally, I can think of a lot more things I’d rather drop $400 on, especially when I’ve got a perfectly decent computer sitting in front of me. Just goes to show how lazy American society has become. As for myself, I’ve never had any of these sorts of problems. Heck, I don’t even run a virus scanner and I’ve never contracted a virus. It’s all about common sense. Granted, I know I’m a tad more computer savvy than most people but I’m hear to tell you that keeping your computer clean is not that hard.

The first thing you need to do is learn how to reinstall Windows on your machine. It’s fairly straight forward and only takes a few hours. Sure beats burning a hole in your credit card and in the time it takes you to get in your car, drive to the local computer store, find the computer that best suits your needs, bring home the new machine, and unpack it and plug it in, you could have been done with a complete reinstall. I’m certainly not the smartest guy on the planet but it seems like a no brainer. The next thing you need is a little primer in internet common sense. Luckily for you, my good friend Ryne has compiled a comprehensive list for your perusal.

Happy surfing!

Failure

Google is so much fun to play around with sometimes. It’s really an amazing tool. For instance, if you do an image search on the word “failure”, here’s the first result you’re greeted with.

  

  

Reminds me of the demotivators you can find over at Despair.com. For my money, you just can’t beat a good helping of dry wit and sarcasm.

An Oddity

A few nights ago when I was still in Taipei, our little group of ex-pats were taken out for the Taiwanese version of ice cream. It wasn’t really ice cream at all. It was more shaved ice mixed with the fruit of your choice. I chose the mango and it was pretty darned tasty. However, I should have gone with the strawberry, since the small sample I had of that flavor was a lot better. One of the group members mentioned that it was a product that should be marketed in America and I tend to agree. If you ever get the chance to try it, I highly recommend it.

At any rate, the place was absolutely packed and we had a hard time finding a place for everyone to sit but after a little searching, everyone was able to take a seat. As we sat there enjoying our cold treat, I started looking around at all the other people there and something struck me as a little weird. As I scanned the room, I noticed that I was definitely a minority in the room. As a matter of fact, we were the only white people in the room. I’ve never really experienced that before coming to Taiwan. However, that is not the weird part. The part that struck me as most curious was the fact I have been completely comfortable with being in the racial minority. Not once have I felt out of place since I’ve arrived in this country. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my Taiwanese hosts have been gracious to the point of absurdity. It’s amazing how well I’ve been treated here. Everyone acts like I’m so much better than they are simply because I’m American when in fact, I’m not anywhere near as good as these people are. The people I’ve met here are some of the most talented, kind, and humble people I’ve ever come across. It has been a really refreshing experience. However, I think the biggest reason why I feel like I fit in here is because I’m in the exact place where God wants me to be. Even with all the chaos of adjusting to a new culture and society, there has been a very strong feeling of peace inside me. It’s something I haven’t felt for quite some time. I guess I was just in the wrong place.

Hsinchu

After spending two days in Taipei, I arrived in Hsinchu (pronounced sheen-joo), the city I’m going to be calling home for the next year, on Thursday morning. Upon our arrival, a pastor at the local church we have been assigned to picked us up at the bus stop and then whisked us away to our first cram school interview. Normally, I wouldn’t mind so much but I had had a somewhat long evening the night before.

First, my friend Sarah and I were out at a night market in Taipei fairly late the night before and I was going on three hours of sleep. I made the walk home from the place where she is staying at about 1:30am. It’s a pretty good hike and that took me nearly a half hour. That wouldn’t have been so bad but the humidity at that time of the day is still extemely high and by the time I reached my destination, I felt like I had dove into a swimming pool with all of my clothes on. Being too exhausted to take a shower, I just crashed and planned on taking one the following day in Hsinchu.

The original plan had been to get on the bus at 7am and arrive here at around 8:30am. If you don’t know anything about the concept of “Chinese time”, I’m about to give you a bit of a crash course. Here’s are the basic ground rules.

• Rule #1: Nothing ever happens on time. Ever. When someone tells you that something starts at a certain time, go ahead and take that time and add one to two hours to it.
• Rule #2: Refer to Rule #1

That being said, we didn’t actually get on the bus until around 8:45am. We did a good bit of wandering around the streets of Taipei with all of our luggage. Take into account that the humidity is outrageously high at that time of day as well, it wasn’t long before I was a sweaty mess yet again.

We got here around 10:15am and believe it or not, we were still expected to attend our interview. Fantastic. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly confident going in. I looked like the proverbial death warmed over and probably smelled worse. We got to the school about 15 minutes late so in Chinese time, we were actually about 45 minutes early. I’m sure the administrator we was very impressed. Despite all the drama, the interview went rather well. To tell the truth, it was more of a sales pitch than an interview. The pro-school propagana was in full effect. That’s how desperate these places are for teachers. After a short visit with a very nice Canadian woman named Gail and a short tour of the school, it was all over with. The whole thing took maybe 45 minutes. We had another short “interview” a few hours later at a different cram school. That one was even less of an interview in which we were pretty much offered a job right on the spot. Pretty amazing.

We’ve got more interviews in the next few days, all of which have been set up by the church staff here. They have been extremely gracious hosts thus far and their kindness has been greatly appreciated. All in all, I think I’m really going to like it here.

Waterfight

The English summer camp our team is involved with started on Monday. I’ve been helping out in a six and seven year old kids. For the past four days, we’ve been teaching the alphabet and phonetics. The kids are absolutely amazing. Everyone one of them is extremely smart and bright. I don’t know much about kids that age in the States, but I would find it hard to believe they could hold a candle to the kids in Taiwan. With minds like these, it’s really no wonder why Taiwan has grown so much in the last 50 years. Personally, I think television and video games have really ruined a lot of youngsters in the U.S.

Today, we had an abbreviated class so that we could have a water balloon fight. It was really a blast from the past as I haven’t done anything like that since I was a kid. I’ve really been missing out. Needless to say, we all had a great time. The American teachers were definitely the main targets, especially Sarah and I. I’m almost certain that someone painted a bull’s eye on the back of my t-shirt.