Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

The losers eat the porridge...

Today's Christmas in Taiwan, although I'm not sure what day it is for all of you... For Christmas this year, I went to class, yay! Our teacher said that it's only fair, as during Chinese New Year in the States, people still have to go to work. Ok, fine. Taiwan, in line with mainland China, seems to think that the 24th is the celebration, and the 25th there isn't really much happening... except sleeping off the parties on the 24th. Yesterday (the 24th) I went to church with my homestay family (and grandma and cousins and aunts and uncles)... none of them are Christian, but they print all the programs for a church close by, so we were invited to their potluck and following service. The food was tasty, but the cousins decided the service was boring, and we left early to come home and play silly games where the loser had to eat a spoonful of eight treasure porridge （八宝粥）mixed with mustard. Mmmm.... I didn't lose, so I'm not exactly sure how bad it tasted, but I didn't really want to find out.

Pictures with the cousins

Yesterday was also one of the Hong Kong cousin's (him and his younger sister are here studying, I think) birthdays, so we ate chocolate cake and blew out candles. Then the santa and party hats came out, the family gave grandma gifts, and we had a marathon picture-taking session. Poor grandma didn't really know what was going on, but it seemed important to everyone else that her santa hat was on straight and that she was looking at the camera. All of the different relative combinations also had family pictures taken... me and the cousins (there were nine of them last night... I'm not sure exactly how many there are total yet) also got our share of picture time, but ours were more creative.. We got the boys to be reindeer with red ribbon reins and their new gloves as antlers. :) To finish the evening, there were, of course, performances. Because most of the uncles and aunts are deaf, we got more creative performances than singing (although there was still singing - I sang in Chinese). One of the uncles juggled oranges, danced, and told some very long story about cutting down a tree that I didn't entirely understand... My homestay Mom danced, U.S. 50's style, and the cousins did stupid human tricks.

After the party, my homestay sister and I went upstairs to go to bed, but she got a phone call from a friend around midnight and headed out to another party. I opted to stay home, and I played santa and delivered presents to my homestay family while they were all still partying... :) This morning, my homestay sister told me that I didn't miss too much, she went to a bar with friends that was free for Christmas, but it was smoky, and most everyone was drunk.

On the 23rd I also went to a Christmas costume ballroom dance party. I was a cat. There was dancing, and it was a unique cultural experience of ballroom dancers social dancing. I think I'm starting to like their waltz, and the ballroom salsa and cha-cha are fun, but I still giggle at ballroom tango and can't quite fit the ballroom rumba with their music. In time, in time...

For my Christmas present this year, I would really like to take out my trash. In Taipei, there is a trash truck that comes by, playing music that sounds a lot like an American Ice Cream Truck. I get all excited for ice cream, and it just doesn't happen... Supposedly the trash truck comes by my street around 7, and again around 10, but never at exactly the same time every day. You have to use special trash bags, only sold behind the counters (the first time, I bought the trash bags on the shelf). And then, I've been told that I'm supposed to listen for the trash truck, and when I hear it, run out with my trash real quick and throw it on the truck. So far however, I've been unlucky, and I'm starting to wonder if I should just take my trash to school with me where there's a trash can I can put it in. I don't want to give up on the trash truck quite yet though, as everyone else in Taipei seems to be able to successfully dispose of their trash, so it seems like a challenge I need to overcome... And today, it's almost time, so wish me luck.

Studying and Dancing

Classmates: Abe, Cheng Zhong (who has a Vietnamese name I don't know), Me, Ian, Satoshi

I've finished two weeks of classes in my intensive Mandarin course, and it's been great! I'm learning a ton - there's a lot of homework, a small test everyday, and a big test every three days. My teacher is also not much older than I am (I think... maybe she just looks really young), and is really nice. There are only five of us in the class - 2 Japanese guys (one with a Taiwanese father, one with a mainland Chinese father), a Canadian guy, a Vietnamese guy, and me. We usually go to the cafeteria after class for dinner, which is great practice for our Mandarin, because that's the only common language between all of us. The other students look at us kind of funny because of our sub-standard Mandarin, but it's all good. One of the Japanese guys has also now acquired a ping-pong paddle, so we're going to start playing at the student gym next week.

My life also seems to have gotten exceedingly busy these last few weeks. I'm not technically allowed to work in Taiwan, but an English teaching school wants to hire me, so I've been working on changing my visa... a process which has included too many chest x-rays for my liking. I also have private students that I tutor, and have been learning a lot about English grammar to prepare for my lessons! I will also hopefully be performing a lindy hop dance piece on Valentine's Day with another local dancer, which will be awesome (assuming it actually happens)! With all of this "not working", I'm not losing money yet, but I think I may be going dancing too often to actually be making anything... Maybe when I start working at the real English school then that will begin to change...

I went to my first ballroom dance competition (to watch, not to dance) last weekend, and it was amazing! People here seem to be really really good at what they do, and these dancers were no exception. Evidently, one of the latin dance couple's there was the number 4 dance couple in the world (in some category), and they were amazing to watch. They were from mainland China, and there were also a few other guest couples from mainland China and Japan. The Taiwanese dancers were also fantastic, and my harmonica-playing dance friend seemed to know all of the winners.

I also went to my first milonga (tango dance) here last night, and there the dancers were, also, amazing. Unfortunately, dancing doesn't seem to be a good way to make friends with girls, but all the guys I danced with were really, really good. The Taiwanese guys had also learned tango all over the place - one in Paris, one in Italy (he kept trying to speak to me in Italian), and there was even a guy there from Buenos Aires who said my Spanish sounded Argentinian. :) There is a ton to learn here, and a lot of people who seem eager to teach me. At another of the latin dance clubs, one of the singers is from Paraguay, won some music competition in Buenos Aires, and now plays music in Taipei... very cool, and my Spanish certainly comes in handy!

My homestay sister and I also language exchange twice a week - on Tuesdays she teaches me Chinese, and on Thursdays I teach her English. So, to teach me Chinese, she's been taking me all over Taipei pointing at things and telling me what they are, and feeding me all the street foods that she thinks are the tastiest. Not a bad way to learn! It also gives me a lot of time on the back of her motor-bike, and I'm glad she has an extra helmet for me! In Taipei, there are a lot of night markets - concentrated street vendor areas with all sorts of good-smelling things to sell. I live right between two of the biggest universities in Taipei - Taiwan National University (TaiDa) and Taiwan National Normal University (ShiDa), both of which have a lot of food vendors and cheap shops around them. The ShiDa night market is also famous, and it's only a few blocks from my house.

Also, the new Taipei mayor is from the KMT party - who feel more closely related to China. Last Saturday (election day) I hung out with some friends, one of whom supports the KMT party. We got food at the night market near their house and then watched the election results on TV, with my KMT friend squealing whenever the numbers got too close for comfort. There's of course scandal at the election results, but I'm not sure if anything will come of it.

Off to do homework and learn the rumba.

mmm... Chinese tests...

Taipei!

I'm in Taipei! The Chinese characters here are definitely traditional, the people are amazingly friendly, and the glutinous rice and red bean paste is just as tasty as they were in Ningbo! I flew in Wednesday at 6am, got myself on a bus to the city, checked in at a hostel, registered for Mandarin classes at NTNU (National Taiwan Normal University), took a placement test, and then tried really hard to stay awake past 4pm. I think I've gotten over my jet-lag on the going-to-sleep side of things, but I still seem to wake up at 7... strange.

In my 3 days here, I've been hunting for rooms to live in (the hostel I'm in is fine, but living in a cheaper place with Taiwanese people in a less-polluted area, sounds much more appealing to me). The room-hunting experience has been an exciting course in practical Mandarin, Taipei geography, and Taipei public transportation (the bus system and the subway are both fantastic!). And as of a few minutes ago, I have a place to live, yay! I'm renting a ridiculously cheap room about a 10 min. walk from my school. I'll be living with a Taiwanese girl about my age who's studying to become a Chinese teacher, her parents (who run a lottery shop and are deaf... maybe I can learn Taiwanese sign language?), and another girl who's also studying Chinese. I also have a bunk-bed. hehe, so now if I make any friends, I can have slumber-parties (my new family even said it's okay!).

I've also found a fantastic website for foreigners in Taiwan (called tealit Teaching English and Living in Taiwan). I found postings for rooms to rent, and there are a gazillion posts by Taiwanese people who'd like to get together and language exchange with people who speak English (or Spanish or French or Italian or Japanese). I searched for people who liked dancing and sent emails, and I got to go to a vegetarian dinner last night with an artist girl my age! I also emailed a guy who teaches ballroom dance here, and I went dancing with him at a latin dance club last night. Whoa. Crazy Taipei ballroom dance. They shake and shimmy in very ballroom fashion to a Taiwanese guy singing songs in amazingly accent-less Spanish. And my new dancey friend even played a Viennese waltz for me on his harmonica after the dance. Not sure why he had a harmonica at a latin dance club, but, awesome.

So far everyone has been extremely nice to me. Even the people whose rooms I don't want to rent have invited me over to cook Chinese food, or chat and drink tea! The little old couple who have a small restaurant outside my hostel make me special tasty vegetarian things to eat and seem to get a kick out of talking to me... although their accents are a little hard to understand, but I get to listen to their Taiwanese! Overwhelmingly though, people here speak Mandarin! In Ningbo, I didn't understand much of what other people said to each other on the street, because it was usually in a dialect I didn't understand... but here I can eavesdrop on people's conversations and understand things! :)

I also haven't wasted any time in asking people what they think of the Japanese, and whether or not Taiwan is a part of China... :) In an interesting hypothesis presented by my new artist friend I ate dinner with last night: people are very divided on both those topics depending on when their ancestors came to Taiwan. *ahem* The people who came here about 400 years ago were colonized by the Japanese and integrated into Japanese culture somewhat. Consequently, many of them are grateful to the Japanese and don't feel a part of China. However, then there's the group of mainland Chinese who came here in the 1940's with Chiang Kai-Shek. Their ancestors fought the Japanese in the second Sino-American war, shortly before they came to Taiwan. Consequently, many of them have views on the Japanese more in-line with mainland Chinese views ( i.e. dislike to hate), and they consider themselves Chinese as well. No idea yet on what the aboriginal Taiwanese people might feel about all this. I have yet to test these theories on the unsuspecting people of Taiwan, but I have six months here, so we'll see what I learn.

In more exciting news - Taipei mayoral elections are next Saturday! And support for the current Taiwanese president is also evidently very low, so there have been a few anti-president protests wandering down the street, and there are lots of political fliers and people who yell things (not exactly sure what they're saying yet) at folks waiting on their motor-scooters at red lights.

Well, I'm off to move into my new place, make some friends, and get some much-needed sleep before my classes start tomorrow. Take care!