At the orientation weekend in Hualien, Rotex made a movie about how dinner here is different from dinner everywhere else. I didn't believe them until a few weeks later.
At home, we all have a plate with food already on it and we're expected to eat it all, or we don't get dessert, if there is dessert that is. Here, the tables are round and they all have a huge Lazy Susan in the middle. Everyone gets an empty plate and a set of chopsticks and the food is placed on the Lazy Susan, so you can pick what you want and not pick what you don't want. In a way, I like this arrangement. But the food doesn't all come at once. One dish is brought out at a time and the next doesn't usuallycome until the first is almost gone. So if you don't like what the food is, you'll be waiting a while until something new comes. This is usually at restaurants and Rotary dinners.
One thing I've learned is that the first course if usually sashimi. I'm getting used to that. If I use soy sauce and wasabi, I don't really notice the rubbery texture as much. A girl from the States actually told me she thought I was really brave because I'm not afraid to try all the food that's offered to me! Wow, Mom would be proud. I'm such a good exchange student.
Anyway, I've yet to see a traditional Taiwanese meal served without a fish course. I posted a picture on facebook of my dinner on my third night here. It is actually an entire fish that looks like someone just pulled out of the ocean and stuck in the oven. The eyes are still there and everything! It still scares me when the fish comes to the table. And everyone just picks at it with their chopsticks! Another thing that bugs me is that at dinners like this, the chopsticks are always plastic. Plastic and metal chopsticks are really hard to use. I'm just getting used to wooden ones, but I think I'm almost ready to graduate to plastic. People know that I'm not from here, so when they see me struggling to pull a hunk of fish away from the rest of it, they ask if I want a fork. But I answer in Chinese that no, I would not like I fork. I can do this. I don't know if people are more surprised at the fact that I can actually use chopsticks or that I can speak Chinese. Or, working on my Chinese.
Foods that I never thought I'd try that I have tried:
-Duck
-Squid
-Squid jerky (I'm not even kidding, it's like beef jerky, but squid)
-Squid crackers (like shrimp crackers)
-Moon cake (the weird thing being that it has a boiled egg yoke in the middle)
-Sashimi
-Sushi
-Entire shrimps (with their faces still on, you have to break it behind the head and on top of the stomach, otherwise all it's guts come squirting out at you, I know this from experience)
-Wasabi
-Candied beef (also not kidding, apparently it's a delicacy here)
-Octopus
-Octopus puffs (they told me they were cookies. Wrong, wrong, wrong)
-Cupcakes... for breakfast. Also on the breakfast menu is cake, Moon cake, hamburgers and meat.
Another thing: (last one, I promise) you can't trust the break here. If it's thin, then yeah, knock yourself out, but if it's round, watch out. There's probably something in the middle which can range from meat to custard to this weird sweetish purple goo to mushrooms. The custard ones are good, and the meat ones if you're expecting meat. But the purple stuff looks kind of unappetizing, so if I bite into bread and find that in the middle, I tend to leave it alone.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
School
I haven’t mentioned nearly enough about my new school to give you a good picture of how it compares to school in Canada. So, I’ll describe a normal day at school for me.
I wake up at 6:00, get dressed, clean up and eat breakfast. I leave at 7:00 to catch the 311 bus to my school, Zhonghe Gao Zhong (The National Chung Ho Senior High School). Busses here are like a game is Bonanza. The 311 bus is like a Red Bean, there aren’t very many of them and when you’re looking for them, you keep getting Stink Beans or Green Beans, like the 262 and 241 busses. I’m supposed to take the 214 bus, but those are like Garden Beans, you very rarely see them.
Anyway, I arrive just before 8:00, which is when I’m supposed to. The security guards take my temperature and spray hand sanitizer on me, then I sign in, recording my name (莊茉莉 or Chuang Mo-Li, my host parents ave adpoted me and given me their last name) the date, my number (10544, the 105 is my class and the 44 is my seat number), the time and my current body temperature. I’m surprised it’s stayed normal so far, it’s way ridiculously hot here! Then I go to the Media Center where I check in with Ting, my ‘teacher’ and Jasper, my student advisor. Then they dismiss me to my class.
School starts at 7:30, but classes don’t actually start until 8:00, I don’t know what they do in that half hour, I guess I’ll never know. The classes also change every day, not like at St Pete’s where you have the same 4 classes every day. Plus, the teacher comes to us and we don’t have to move except for Art, PE and Music. The seats are assigned according to number. There are 44 students in my class, so I’m at the very back corner, but close to the AC, so that’s nice!
Classes last 50 minutes (which seems like a long time when you don't understand the language), then there’s a 10 minute break, which make no sense because back home, we have 5 minutes to run to our locker, unload and load books, then run to our next class. All there people do here is sit around and talk. Lunch break is at 12:00, then at 12:30, we get nap time until 1:00. Then 4 more classes and we get to go home at 5:00.
As for the classes themselves, they ALL have assigned seating according to our numbers. It took me a while to figure out why everyone was kicking me out of my seat. The classes that aren’t in our homeroom don’t have a seat with me, so I have to find a chair and sit away from the normal people for the entire class. PE was weird too. We did warm up, and I had no idea that we had to stay in numerical order for PE! So, I just kind of wandered around, doing the exercises until people were escorting me to my proper place. Also, numbers 1-25 are boys and 26-44 are girls. So whenever we do stuff like fitness testing, the boys are always done first and have more time to play than the girls. I don’t really think the gym teacher knows what she’s doing. She’s assigned one of the boys to record fitness scores and lead warm up. Then she tells us which sport we’re playing and we divide into groups and fool around until class is over.
Music class is also a disappointment. It’s a vocal class, which I would be okay with, except all the music is in Chinese! I would have preferred instrumental music, I’m just glad I joined the band!
Yesterday, I was allowed to eliminate 8 hours of class, which isn’t much. But I guess I’m already missing Monday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, 8 extra hours is reasonable, even if I don’t understand what’s being taught. Today, the Health teacher started talking to me in Chinese, and I told her, in Chinese, that my Chinese isn’t very good, but she kept talking to me and smiling as if I understood what she was saying. The rest of the class started laughing at the look on my face, I don’t think the teacher noticed.
It’s really funny, whenever I leave the class at the end of the day, people make sure I know which bus to take and which stop to get off at. I’ve been here for almost 4 weeks, I know how to get around! But it’s cool that they’re concerned.
I have a few more subjects to write about, so stayed tuned!
I wake up at 6:00, get dressed, clean up and eat breakfast. I leave at 7:00 to catch the 311 bus to my school, Zhonghe Gao Zhong (The National Chung Ho Senior High School). Busses here are like a game is Bonanza. The 311 bus is like a Red Bean, there aren’t very many of them and when you’re looking for them, you keep getting Stink Beans or Green Beans, like the 262 and 241 busses. I’m supposed to take the 214 bus, but those are like Garden Beans, you very rarely see them.
Anyway, I arrive just before 8:00, which is when I’m supposed to. The security guards take my temperature and spray hand sanitizer on me, then I sign in, recording my name (莊茉莉 or Chuang Mo-Li, my host parents ave adpoted me and given me their last name) the date, my number (10544, the 105 is my class and the 44 is my seat number), the time and my current body temperature. I’m surprised it’s stayed normal so far, it’s way ridiculously hot here! Then I go to the Media Center where I check in with Ting, my ‘teacher’ and Jasper, my student advisor. Then they dismiss me to my class.
School starts at 7:30, but classes don’t actually start until 8:00, I don’t know what they do in that half hour, I guess I’ll never know. The classes also change every day, not like at St Pete’s where you have the same 4 classes every day. Plus, the teacher comes to us and we don’t have to move except for Art, PE and Music. The seats are assigned according to number. There are 44 students in my class, so I’m at the very back corner, but close to the AC, so that’s nice!
Classes last 50 minutes (which seems like a long time when you don't understand the language), then there’s a 10 minute break, which make no sense because back home, we have 5 minutes to run to our locker, unload and load books, then run to our next class. All there people do here is sit around and talk. Lunch break is at 12:00, then at 12:30, we get nap time until 1:00. Then 4 more classes and we get to go home at 5:00.
As for the classes themselves, they ALL have assigned seating according to our numbers. It took me a while to figure out why everyone was kicking me out of my seat. The classes that aren’t in our homeroom don’t have a seat with me, so I have to find a chair and sit away from the normal people for the entire class. PE was weird too. We did warm up, and I had no idea that we had to stay in numerical order for PE! So, I just kind of wandered around, doing the exercises until people were escorting me to my proper place. Also, numbers 1-25 are boys and 26-44 are girls. So whenever we do stuff like fitness testing, the boys are always done first and have more time to play than the girls. I don’t really think the gym teacher knows what she’s doing. She’s assigned one of the boys to record fitness scores and lead warm up. Then she tells us which sport we’re playing and we divide into groups and fool around until class is over.
Music class is also a disappointment. It’s a vocal class, which I would be okay with, except all the music is in Chinese! I would have preferred instrumental music, I’m just glad I joined the band!
Yesterday, I was allowed to eliminate 8 hours of class, which isn’t much. But I guess I’m already missing Monday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, 8 extra hours is reasonable, even if I don’t understand what’s being taught. Today, the Health teacher started talking to me in Chinese, and I told her, in Chinese, that my Chinese isn’t very good, but she kept talking to me and smiling as if I understood what she was saying. The rest of the class started laughing at the look on my face, I don’t think the teacher noticed.
It’s really funny, whenever I leave the class at the end of the day, people make sure I know which bus to take and which stop to get off at. I’ve been here for almost 4 weeks, I know how to get around! But it’s cool that they’re concerned.
I have a few more subjects to write about, so stayed tuned!
Deaflympics
September 16, 2009
As very few of you know, the Deaflympics was hosted by Taipei this year. This is exactly like the Olympics, but for deaf people. I didn’t know about it until I got here and everyone was talking about it. I meant to go, btu I never had the time. Then last night, Ju (from Brazil) and I were at Taipei 101 with Reid (from the States) and Ju mentioned that the ending ceremony for the Deaflympics was in a couple hours. I wanted to go, but Reid didn’t. He wanted to check out a book store where, he told us, there were probably only 2 or 3 English books. So Ju and I went without him.
When we got there, the security guards wouldn’t let us in because we had no tickets. But they politely pointed out the scalpers, mentioning that it was illegal. But we bought the tickets anyway, 2 for NT$ 500, which is about $15 Canadian. We thought that was a pretty good deal and the security guards showed us which way to go. We had to pass through a metal detector, we didn’t set it off. Once we got inside, the volunteers handed us each a light-up tambourine and a box kind of like the ones 45 Timbits come in. We didn’t open them until we found our seats, there was fresh bread inside! Apparently, Taipei Culinary Institute not only catered the meal they served the athletes during the ceremony, but also made bread for everyone else who attended! I saved it for my breakfast this morning and shared the rest with my host family.
When we got there, there were drummers on the stage and people chanting with people doing the sign language for the Olympians. Then they introduced all the countries represented at the Deaflympics, Ju and I screamed really loudly when Brazil and Canada came by our section (we were about 3 rows from the ground where the athletes were!) and waved really hard when we remembered they couldn’t hear us. I wished I knew we were going before I left the apartment, I would have brought a flag with me! Then there was a lion dance and people dressed as cutlery came out and danced while volunteers served the athletes dinner. After that, dragons came out and danced, I took some videos, and people inside inflatable people came out and danced. Then there was more fireworks. Some of the Olympians came by our sections and threw things into the crowd. I almost caught a shirt a German guy threw at me, but the guy in front of me caught it first.
We left at 8:45 because Ju had to be home by 9:00, we ran to the MRT station. I got home at 9:30, to my host mom’s delight.
It almost makes up for the fact that I’m missing the real Olympics in Canada. Almost. But even if I was back home, I doubt I’d be going. Plus, how many of you can say you’ve been to the Deaflympics?
As very few of you know, the Deaflympics was hosted by Taipei this year. This is exactly like the Olympics, but for deaf people. I didn’t know about it until I got here and everyone was talking about it. I meant to go, btu I never had the time. Then last night, Ju (from Brazil) and I were at Taipei 101 with Reid (from the States) and Ju mentioned that the ending ceremony for the Deaflympics was in a couple hours. I wanted to go, but Reid didn’t. He wanted to check out a book store where, he told us, there were probably only 2 or 3 English books. So Ju and I went without him.
When we got there, the security guards wouldn’t let us in because we had no tickets. But they politely pointed out the scalpers, mentioning that it was illegal. But we bought the tickets anyway, 2 for NT$ 500, which is about $15 Canadian. We thought that was a pretty good deal and the security guards showed us which way to go. We had to pass through a metal detector, we didn’t set it off. Once we got inside, the volunteers handed us each a light-up tambourine and a box kind of like the ones 45 Timbits come in. We didn’t open them until we found our seats, there was fresh bread inside! Apparently, Taipei Culinary Institute not only catered the meal they served the athletes during the ceremony, but also made bread for everyone else who attended! I saved it for my breakfast this morning and shared the rest with my host family.
When we got there, there were drummers on the stage and people chanting with people doing the sign language for the Olympians. Then they introduced all the countries represented at the Deaflympics, Ju and I screamed really loudly when Brazil and Canada came by our section (we were about 3 rows from the ground where the athletes were!) and waved really hard when we remembered they couldn’t hear us. I wished I knew we were going before I left the apartment, I would have brought a flag with me! Then there was a lion dance and people dressed as cutlery came out and danced while volunteers served the athletes dinner. After that, dragons came out and danced, I took some videos, and people inside inflatable people came out and danced. Then there was more fireworks. Some of the Olympians came by our sections and threw things into the crowd. I almost caught a shirt a German guy threw at me, but the guy in front of me caught it first.
We left at 8:45 because Ju had to be home by 9:00, we ran to the MRT station. I got home at 9:30, to my host mom’s delight.
It almost makes up for the fact that I’m missing the real Olympics in Canada. Almost. But even if I was back home, I doubt I’d be going. Plus, how many of you can say you’ve been to the Deaflympics?
Monday, September 14, 2009
Past 2 weeks
So, school started three weeks ago, I can't believe I don't have time to update, but I'll try my best! Two weekends ago, my host parents took me to a hot spring. There were a bunch of different pools, each had a different temperature. The highest ones were really hot, my host parents spent a lot of time in those, I stuck my foot in and climbed right back out again. There were others that were more bath water temperature after Kara's turned the tap off. We met of with Peter's best friend and his family there, they had a daughter who was 6 and she called me Jiejie, which means big sister. She was so sweet! I had a lot of fun with her. But she wouldn't tell me her name. Though she was fascinated by my nose ring, as most people are. I took it out to show my classmates when they asked about it and they screamed. I love it! The other girl from Canada also has a nose ring, but it's actually a ring! People probably think all Canadian girls have nose rings.
But back to the hot springs, my host dad, Peter, went into the lowest and coldest one and came out after a couple minutes because it was too cold for him. I wanted to go in, but he thought it would be too cold for me too. I reminded him that I am Canadian and he let me go in. It was warmer than our pool! I spent probably 45 minutes in there and Brenda, my host mom, was worried I'd get sick! So she made me go into the steam huts, which are exactly what they sound like: huts full of steam.
School is very different. I have to be there by 8:00 every morning and before I go on campus, a security guard takes my temperature and I have to write it down on a sheet. We're also in the same class all day, until 5:00, the teachers come to us. Except Art and Music. I'm in grade 1 here, which is the same as grade 11 in Canada. But this is a senior high school, so it's only 'grade 1-2' so grade 11 and 12. There are 8 classes in a day. 4 in the morning, then lunch, then nap time (I kid you not) then 4 more classes and then we go home. For the first 2 weeks, I had to be there all the time except Monday and Thursday afternoons when I have Chinese class. Today I got to eliminate 8 more classes. Mostly Geography, History, Chinese and Math. We have different classes every day, so it gets confusing. I joined the school band! The Music class here is singing, so that's weird. A girl has an extra flute, so she's lending it to me for the year. The band kids are so cool! They passed around a list of songs to pick, and I couldn't believe some of the songs! Fate of the Gods, Tsunami, Les Miserables, the Titanic, In The Mood and Aladdin! It made me miss home, but make home not seem so far away at the same time. I hope they pick some of those songs. I put stars and circles around the songs I knew. They reherse Thursday and Fridays after school, but since I have Chinese class on Thursdays, I'll only go on Fridays. The director is also my Biology teacher. He was wearing a shirt that have a big 12 on it and it and had a Bible verse on the back, I can't remember what it was. But he asked if I was Christian and I said yeah, so it was good meeting him! I even recognize some of the stuff he draws on the board in Biology! But it's in Chinese.
Last weekend, I went back to Hualien with my Rotary club. They had a retreat sort of thing for all the rotarians and their families. I met the other exchange student they're sponsering, a girl named Renata (Or Re-Mi in Chinese, like the mouse from Ratatouille) from Hungary. She's really nice. We roomed together and I met her host siblings, 2 younger girls and a boy, they'll be my host family in a couple months, they seem nice, but they don't give her much freedom. But they bought her and I tiramisu and mo-chi, which was really good! I really like the mo-chi, but you can only get it in Hualien. One of the activities the Rotary club organized was a hike through the mountains on Sunday morning, but it was raining. I still wanted to go, so I went with a few other people. I was soaked through, but I didn't care. I don't think I felt completely dry again until later that afternoon. But it was fun! We went through a few caves, which were dry, and didn't see the bats until there was proper light again!
The other exchange students are cool, but I have so many languages running through my head, that I speak in a mixture of everything. I can talk to the German students a bit, so I hope I don't lose my German. I can also speak to the French students, so that's pretty good too, I was scared of losing my French.
My host dad took me to a sushi bar last week. It was like in Johnny English, where all the food is going around in circles and you have to grab something you like when you see it or you have to wait 10 minutes for it to come around again. It was fun!
We also went to Northern Taiwan and had sashimi, which is basically raw fish cut into slices and you have to dip it in wasabi to be able to swallow it without gagging. I've heard that wasabi was very spicy, and it was! My host family mixed it with soy sauce to make it tolerable!
Anyway, I have free time now and the bell's about to ring. I think I said everything. If I think of more, I'll write it down so I won't forget and post next time.
Oh! I got an email from Lisa today, she finally arrived in Peterborough! She said she saw Dad at a Rotary meeting, what on earth was Dad doing at a Rotary meeting?
But back to the hot springs, my host dad, Peter, went into the lowest and coldest one and came out after a couple minutes because it was too cold for him. I wanted to go in, but he thought it would be too cold for me too. I reminded him that I am Canadian and he let me go in. It was warmer than our pool! I spent probably 45 minutes in there and Brenda, my host mom, was worried I'd get sick! So she made me go into the steam huts, which are exactly what they sound like: huts full of steam.
School is very different. I have to be there by 8:00 every morning and before I go on campus, a security guard takes my temperature and I have to write it down on a sheet. We're also in the same class all day, until 5:00, the teachers come to us. Except Art and Music. I'm in grade 1 here, which is the same as grade 11 in Canada. But this is a senior high school, so it's only 'grade 1-2' so grade 11 and 12. There are 8 classes in a day. 4 in the morning, then lunch, then nap time (I kid you not) then 4 more classes and then we go home. For the first 2 weeks, I had to be there all the time except Monday and Thursday afternoons when I have Chinese class. Today I got to eliminate 8 more classes. Mostly Geography, History, Chinese and Math. We have different classes every day, so it gets confusing. I joined the school band! The Music class here is singing, so that's weird. A girl has an extra flute, so she's lending it to me for the year. The band kids are so cool! They passed around a list of songs to pick, and I couldn't believe some of the songs! Fate of the Gods, Tsunami, Les Miserables, the Titanic, In The Mood and Aladdin! It made me miss home, but make home not seem so far away at the same time. I hope they pick some of those songs. I put stars and circles around the songs I knew. They reherse Thursday and Fridays after school, but since I have Chinese class on Thursdays, I'll only go on Fridays. The director is also my Biology teacher. He was wearing a shirt that have a big 12 on it and it and had a Bible verse on the back, I can't remember what it was. But he asked if I was Christian and I said yeah, so it was good meeting him! I even recognize some of the stuff he draws on the board in Biology! But it's in Chinese.
Last weekend, I went back to Hualien with my Rotary club. They had a retreat sort of thing for all the rotarians and their families. I met the other exchange student they're sponsering, a girl named Renata (Or Re-Mi in Chinese, like the mouse from Ratatouille) from Hungary. She's really nice. We roomed together and I met her host siblings, 2 younger girls and a boy, they'll be my host family in a couple months, they seem nice, but they don't give her much freedom. But they bought her and I tiramisu and mo-chi, which was really good! I really like the mo-chi, but you can only get it in Hualien. One of the activities the Rotary club organized was a hike through the mountains on Sunday morning, but it was raining. I still wanted to go, so I went with a few other people. I was soaked through, but I didn't care. I don't think I felt completely dry again until later that afternoon. But it was fun! We went through a few caves, which were dry, and didn't see the bats until there was proper light again!
The other exchange students are cool, but I have so many languages running through my head, that I speak in a mixture of everything. I can talk to the German students a bit, so I hope I don't lose my German. I can also speak to the French students, so that's pretty good too, I was scared of losing my French.
My host dad took me to a sushi bar last week. It was like in Johnny English, where all the food is going around in circles and you have to grab something you like when you see it or you have to wait 10 minutes for it to come around again. It was fun!
We also went to Northern Taiwan and had sashimi, which is basically raw fish cut into slices and you have to dip it in wasabi to be able to swallow it without gagging. I've heard that wasabi was very spicy, and it was! My host family mixed it with soy sauce to make it tolerable!
Anyway, I have free time now and the bell's about to ring. I think I said everything. If I think of more, I'll write it down so I won't forget and post next time.
Oh! I got an email from Lisa today, she finally arrived in Peterborough! She said she saw Dad at a Rotary meeting, what on earth was Dad doing at a Rotary meeting?
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