Oh, Taipei.

Yesterday was the last day of the winter quarter. We finished up class by watching a movie, The Postmodern Life of my Aunt. It was funny at the beginning and got really depressing towards the end. Chow Yun-Fat was in it, really stole the show, and had an admirable mustache. This coming semester I won't have class with any of my current classmates, so that will be a little different. I'll miss them, but I didn't really hang out with them much at all outside of class so I might have a chance to meet some new people.

Yesterday evening I went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant with my friends Kyle and Albert. I had eel and squid, both of which were very good. While we were eating, Kyle gets a phone call from a guy he had met on the bus. Kyle was supposed to meet him for a "cooking class" that night, but forgot about it. As fate would have it, we were about a 10 minute walk away from where the cooking class was. So, after dinner, us three went to check it out.

We go into a small room and take a seat. The guy in front is speaking Chinese pretty quickly and I can pick up quite a bit of it. Every once in a while the audience all says, "you" (yeah) or "dui" (right) at the same time. I'm asked to come up to the front of the class. They have me say a few things (I get a lot of "wow, your Chinese is very good!"s) They have a series of pots on the table and they take one of them and put it on the ground vertically. Then they ask me to stand on it.

I think after I get done standing on it, I realize: They're trying to sell us this cookware set.

They cook all the food while going through a chart of how all other materials are inferior to their pot. We eat the food and then get assaulted with a barrage of business cards and requests for my MSN name so they can chat. They also invited me to karaoke on Sunday but I don't think I'll go out of fear they'll try to sell me something again.



The clams were really good.



Kyle is on the left, and the guy who invited Kyle (I think his English name is Greg?) on the right.

Afterwards we went to 45, a bar near my school. Kyle went home first (he lives nearby) and when he came he said that one of our kickboxing friends, Michael Toy, was coming later. Toy got attacked by a machete-wielding man in November (story here) and took the last semester off to go back to the US and recuperate. Despite getting three of his muscles damaged he should be back in prime shape in no time (which in this case is prime, the kid's a beast in the weightroom). It was really good seeing him.

I was planning on a quiet evening of cleaning, but I got invited to dinner in the fancy area of Taipei tonight, so I'm heading over to do that. Later!

A spot of good news!

I went to the Immigration office in Banqiao today and I extended my visa for 90 days. That means I have until May 30th before I turn into a pumpkin.

Oh, and so you know, May and I broke up. I'll spare you the gory details, but that means I'm single. Back on the prowl!

A fun week in Taiwan and the future

Hey folks. I had a pretty exciting week, filled with lots of Taiwanese/Chinese culture events! I even snapped a few pics!

First, on Wednesday night I went with some classmates of mine to the Lantern Festival at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. I talked about a sky lantern festival last week, but this is less of a "lantern" festival than it is a demonstration of floats. Except unlike in parades where the floats drive past you, you walk past the floats.



Diana, a friend of mine pretending to be Elvis next to Elvis-mouse. (You'll see many mouse reference since it's now the Year of the Rat.)





The next day in lieu of going to class our teacher took us to the Zhang Daqian Memorial House. Zhang Daqian was one of the most important modern Chinese artists (or so I'm told). We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, so I didn't. He has a pretty cool garden area though.







After the Memorial House I went to the Palace Museum with a few of my classmates since we were about a ten-minute walk away. After World War II, the Nationalists (Kuomintang, KMT) and the Communists had a civil war. When it was pretty clear the Nationalists had lost, Chaing Kai-shek (the leader of the KMT) and his buddies headed over to Taiwan. They brought along 600,000 important Chinese cultural artifacts. Thus, the Palace Museum (which is semi-modeled after the Forbidden City in China) was built to display them all. Unfortunately, they also had a no-camera rule so I didn't snap much of anything there.

Friday night I went to the Taiwan Beer Factory with my kickboxing friends. It was NT$550 (about $16-17) for a gallon jug of beer. That's pretty close to Wisconsin prices for beer! Everyone had a good time.



They had a live band. It was too loud for some of the time but it added a lot of fun to the atmosphere. They even played some songs in English!



This sausage was really good. And it wasn't like "I had a few beers so anything I eat is really delicious." Wait, that's exactly how it was.

I later danced on stage and some friends of mine sang. We had quite the merry time.

Anyways, down to brass tacks. I've decided on what the rest of my stay in Taiwan is going to look like. It's not completely my decision, though.

Most of it is a visa issue. I recently tried to apply for a Resident Visa (which is what all the foreigners who work here have), but at the office, the clerk helping me said that I had a few parts in my application that would probably lead to rejection of my ARC. However, she did tell me that since I left the country and returned in December (my Singapore/Malaysia trip) that I could renew my visa one more time. The only issue is that I have to renew it this week and I'll get another 90 days. That's just barely enough time to stay in Taiwan until the end of my next quarter of school.

So in short, I'll be leaving Taiwan in the end of May.

You may be thinking, "Hey Ted, didn't you want to find a job in Taiwan so you can stay there longer?" I did, but in the process of applying for a job I noticed two things:

1. I may have trouble applying for a Resident Visa (there's a requirement that a college graduate must have two year's work experience after graduation in his home country to apply, which I don't have). I don't think this is a real problem (since I know many English teachers who don't fulfill said requirement) but I was turned down for a job interview here for that very reason.


2. Taiwanese salaries are very low. Starting salaries are around NT$50,000/month, which comes out to around $20K/year. I know cost of living is lower here, but I would be able to bank more money if I work in the US or elsewhere.

So that's what's on the horizon for me. I love Taiwan and I'm having a lot of fun here, but I need to make some of my own money and get my career on a good path.

However, I still have three solid months of fun left to have in Taiwan. I guess I'll have to go all out!

I keep truckin' along

Since I've last updated, I've had a week of school, took a break for Chinese New Year, and had another week of school. Here's what happened in quick summary:

School both before break and after break has been going really well. I like my class and my teacher and I've been hanging out with a lot of people outside of class. I think my Chinese is currently at a level where I'm on the brink of being functionally literate and fluent in Chinese. If I kick up my efforts another notch (I'm planning on taking a more challenging course next semester), hopefully I will be at a good level by the time I'm done at Shida.

During break I didn't end up going anywhere. It was pretty boring, but it was also relaxing. Traveling over Chinese New Year's is comparatively expensive, so I also saved some money. I did do some cleaning around the apartment and fixing around with my computer, though, so it wasn't completely unproductive.

Some more fame: before New Year's I was interviewed by a woman from Taipei Times to get a look into foreign student life in Taipei. This past week they put out this article. My blurb is about 3/4 the way down. I hope this doesn't count against my 15 minutes of fame.

I've also all but given up my job search here in Taiwan. There are basically two reasons behind this: the first being that the salary is about 40-50% of what I'd make in the US and the second being that I might not be able to legally find a job here unless I work in the US for two years. (I'm not sure of the truth behind the latter, but I applied for a job and the lady who I was in contact with said so. I think she's misinformed.) So, unless a magnificent job offer falls into my lap, I'm set on heading back to the US in June.

I also have a few pictures of the Pingxi lantern festival. Yesterday I went with my Shida classmates to Pingxi (a town south of Taipei) where they set off thousands of sky lanterns after Chinese New Year. The lanterns basically act like miniature hot air balloons. On the outside of the lantern you write your wish and if your lantern flies high it will come true!





So that's what's happening with me. I'm not sure what I'm doing over the semester break the week after next. Earlier I was planning on going to Green Island with my friend but we decided to scratch that due to costs and the fact that the weather has been pretty crummy for the past month and it probably won't be much fun in bad weather. We haven't decided yet but we may go down to Kenting, where they have beaches. I'll keep you guys up to date!