How to Bake Cookies When You're Surrounded by Taiwanese Teenagers

Step 1- The first step to making any cookies is to mix the ingredients. In most Taiwanese high school, the students will have to do this by hand. They will start, but get tired after approx. 8 seconds and ask if you would like to try. Once you, the foreigner and obvious reason why they even agreed to bake in the first place, start stirring, they will think this is cute and start taking pictures with their cell phones, then take turns posing around you and taking more pictures. The best way to endure this is to let them take one or two pictures then say, 'Hao le.' which means, okay, that's enough. You may have to say this a few times to get them to stop.



Step 2- Because the students know they are making cookies, they will bring a variety of different things to try to sneak in to the mix. This could include anything from chocolate cereal to almonds to fructose syrup (I wish I was kidding). The inportant thing in this case is to always keep your eye on the mixing bowl, which shouldn't be too hard because the Taiwanese people will be too busy taking pictures anyway.



Step 3- Pictures are a big part of Taiwanese culture. So don't be surprised if during the whole time you are baking, they have their cell phone pointed at themselves and are constantly checking their reflections in pocket mirrors. But you do have to be on the look-out for their combs, which they carry with them everywhere. About once ever half hour, every Taiwanese student, both male and female, get the urge to comb their hair out. When you see the comb appear, you must politely remind them to go outside and do it, otherwise they will get hair in the cookie dough. But they don't always listen. You will occasionally see tumbleweeds of hair rolling across the floor.



Step 4- When it is time to roll the cookies into balls, you can choose 1 from out of 2 tasks. You can either roll the dough into balls, or you can press them onto the cookie sheet. I'm sure you or I could do any of these tasks quickly and efficiently. So you really have to choose which task you want to assign the Taiwanese. If you decide to roll then they will spend about 5 minutes on each ball to arrange it into a cute shape. If you decide to press then they will spend five minutes on every ball to make sure they are all exactly the same size. It's up to you.

So if you ever feel the desire to bake cookies with Taiwanese people, you'd better set aside a rather large portion of your day as this could take a very long time.

Based on a true story.