Half Time break, and statistics

It's been a little more than 50 days since I first got sick on April 1st. Although I'm feeling alot better than when I was at my worst, I still dont feel like Im 100 percent healthy. This feeling successfully persuaded me to cancel my two week, free airfare vacation to Israel in favour of returning back home to beautiful, hot, exotic...Toronto. I am home, settled, and hot on the trail of doctors who will hopefully be able to tell me exactly whats going on and treat me accordingly in a timely manner. Time is a key factor here seeing as technically this is a "vacation" and I'm expected to be back at work June 4th. Ive explained to work that I will not return to work unless I feel confident that I am 100 percent healthy. Being the kind, compassionate, caring company that they are, they havent taken to kindly to this idea. Instead they have threatened me with fines if i am unable to return to Taiwan and possible blacklisting if I am unable to sign some tax sheet. The fine thing is most likely an empty threat in attempt to intimidate me to coming back. As for the taxes thing, Ive taken measures to get my name on a stamp (which is as legal as a signature) in case i cant return for a while. That way my roommate (if he feels like being a good guy) can pick up the form for me, stamp my name, and hopefully prevent any major problems from occuring. As usual, I am very disapointed and displeased with my company this time for their lack of compassion and concern towards my circumstances. I am obviously in no hurry to get back to Taiwan, and will stay in Toronto as long as I need to until healthy. I hope they can actually understand that my health is a priority if it gets to that point. Aside from the terrible company I work for, my six months in Taiwan were a great experience and genuinely enjoyed until I had the misfortune of getting ill. I got to see some crazy things and experience first hand a very different way of living on the other side of the world. I rode a scooter around a tropical island, made some lifelong friends, learned alot about myself, and may have found a profession(teaching) which I enjoy and am pretty good at although I am still not 100 percent sure it's what I want to do forever. I would like to return to Taiwan when I get healthy as I was just finding my niche and there are things still left unaccomplished like saving alot of money for school and traveling around Asia. This unexpected trip home has come exactly 6 months to the day of me leaving for my scheduled year long adventure. Here are some half time statistics for my adventure so far.



HALF TIME STATISTICS

Days in Taiwan- 182

Chinese Name- Fay Dan Ray

Kms Driven on Scooter: about 2300

Scooter accidents/wipeouts: 2

Most people seen on a scooter at once- 4

Other countries visited: 0 aside from airports

Biggest musical attraction in 6 monts: Muse

Best single moment: Standing up on a surfboard

Best 7 sylable line in a Heiku- Set up demo do me now

Best Food Eaten in Taiwan- Defineately the dumplings.

Wierdest Food Eaten: Congealed pig's blood or cow intestines, you decide.

Mysterious stomach infections- 1

Trips to the Hospital: 9 (including initial health check) Although the national avg. is supposedly 13 so i guess im still a little behind the curve.

Best Chinese Saying: Ma-Ma Hu-Hu which means horse horse tiger tiger which means so so. This was my frequent answer to the question of how I was feeling for the last 1.5 months.

Interesting Fact: Women use umbrellas to protect themselves from not only the rain but also the sun

Amount of girls I lived with/worked with who got pregnant: 2

Amount of girls I impregnated: 0

I guess thats about it. I will continue to post on this blogg for my friends in Taiwan (ni-how!) to let you know how I am doing, my thoughts on being thrown back into Western culture, and when I intend to return to forumosa.

Cable TV

As many of you may be aware, I have been sick the last 3 weeks or so with some mysterious stomach infection. Today was actually my first day off the medicine and overall it went pretty good. I have felt a little bit of pain now and then today but for the most part I felt pretty decent.

Having an infected stomach sucks. I couldnt eat much so no going out to eat. I certainly couldnt drink, and I didnt have the energy to jam with Andrew, learn chinese, nor work out or play any sports. So pretty much, this stomach problem has kept me from doing about 85 percent of the things that I would normally do with my free time.

As a result of being a beached whale, I have had the opportnity to watch alot of television, something I havent really taken full advantage of since we got cable about 2 months ago. I have discovered that we get some pretty decent channels in English. We get CNN, Animal planet, about 5 movie channels, maybe four sports channels and even MTV.

The movies arent bad as in the past 3 weeks I have seen some great movies such as Casino, Donnie Brasco, Con Air, Jarhead, The Adams Family, Spiderman, Friday Night Lights, Coach Carter, Collateral Damage, Junior (Arnold Schwartzenager gets pregnant = halarious) Mission Impossible 2, as well as my favorite obscure dose of nostalgia Sunset Park. And I assure you I have seen alot more movies this month than I presently cant remember and list.

The sports channels arent bad either. There is always a healthy dose of NBA basketball and MLB baseball. I even got to see two Blue Jay games and a Raptor game which was quite the treat. No hockey on TV though, most likely becuase there are no Asian players in the NHL unlike the NBA and MLB. If all else fails there is always 9 ball on tv which is exciting for about 5 minutes. Additionally commercials here are quite the laugh. They are extremely overacted and cheesy. When i get my camera back from being fixed (tommorow) I might post some videos of them somewhere for your enjoyment.
There you have it. Just goes to show how dominant of a language it is that we speak. Despite the numerous languages spoken around the world, English is accessable here in Taiwan, on the other side of the world. Not Russian, not German, but English.

Going for my blood test tommorow to see how effective the antibiotics were. Hopefully I get some good news and will be able to give the TV a rest for a while. Ill obviosuly keep you posted.

In Limbo

So I returned to the hospital on Tuesday, not sure what to hope for in terms of whether they found anything in my blood or not. I went to work the day before. It was hard to get through but I managed.

It was actually really interesting how my coworkers delt with me. Last I checked this illness has caused me to lose about 3-4 KG which is about 6-8 pounds. My face obviosuly looks thinner. Most of my coworkers politly asked me how I was feeling but generally everyone was very respectfull of my privacy, not needing to know all the details of exactly what was wrong. Also no one was oversympathetic making a gigantic deal out of things. At the end of my shift my Manager approached me and asked if it was OK if my boss came with me to the hospital the next day. I felt like they were more concerned about themselves in terms of whether i would be able to work or not as opposed to wanting to help me. These are the kinds of people my bosses are. When I was calling in sick they were always asking me "why" and reminding me i only had 7 sick days as opposed to telling me to feel better or anything. Real nice people. I cant wait to quit. Anyway, after thinking about it I realized it could do no harm. If anything, having a Chinese speaker with me at the hospital would me mutually benefitial, so I agreed.

The next day i went back to the hospital and waited for the big news. Turns out they didnt isolate any bacteria from my blood. So basically they dont know why I had an infection and why there was so much unusual inflamation in my stomach. They gave me 5 more days of antibiotics and told me to come back in a week to do another blood test to see if the antibiotics worked.

So now i am kind of in limbo or purgatory. I am taking my antibiotics and I feel decent enough. I can work, I can run errands, but i still dont feel like going out and having fun. I am probably not going to go on the white water rafting trip I was going to do this weekend. All i can really do is wait these 5 days and then see what happens. Either i get better, or the pain will return. If i get better that'll be great. If not then it poses some very serious questions about what I will do next. Keep your fingers crossed....

Stomach pain

Greetings from the hospital! As you may have guessed this stomach pain has not subsided. After i finished my third round of pills the pain came back. I went to see the doctor who gave me more pills. Additionally Polina's dad who is a doctor was in town visiting. He paid me a special visit and was very thourough. His prognosis was that if the hospital origingally didnt find anything in the blood or urine that it should clear itself out. If no success in 3-4 days go back to the hospital. As you may have been able to guess, it didnt go away and the pills are no longer as effective as they once were.

One would think that going to a hospital that was operational in Chinese would be a nightmare. To be honest its really not that bad. The doctors and even nurses speak English fairly well, and the receptionests/other people who work here are very friendly in helping me find my way around to the various places i have to go for testing.

To top it off i had an ultrasound of my kidneys, a blood test, an x ray, and a urine test done with results given to me within an hour. I didnt even have time to figure out the Sudoku puzzle i brought with me.

The prognoses in the kidney was good. No problems there. But the blood test showed a high white cell count which means there is probably some infection going on somewhere. I am currently waiting for a gastrologist to check me out. He starts in 10 minutes and I am number 22 in line. Hopefully he can figure out whats wrong with me so I can get back to work and get on with my life. At least ill have more than enough time to figure out this sudoku puzzle. Hopefully an update with a good bill of health is on the way soon

Madame Cleo is full of shit...right?

First off a continuation to the last post. The very day after I talked about how you get so much attention here, I had no less than three people approach me trying to be my friend. One of these relationships may actually be quite useful, as the man runs a restaurant and has sworn to feed me for free so long as I speak english with him while I eat. Not a bad deal at all. Last weekend we watched baseball on TV and i took the opportunity to teach him the names of the bases. Its a friendship I might get used to. He has also asked if I want to be his friend and go see a baseball game with him in Taiwan. We'll see about that one.

Anyway one of my favorite people here Tammy has a roommate. One friday night we were hanging out and drinking some wine when I discovered that her roommate is into terrot cards. Smelling the bullshit and an opportunity to ammuse myself I asked her if she would kindly read my fortunes. I had her look at the time I would be spending in Taiwan month by month.
Nothing too intense, this is my FUTURE im messing around with.

Overall the cards looked good, but for the month of April she warned me of "great anxiety and worries that were out of my control" I didnt think twice about any of it, but April sure made a fool of me. It was a Saturday. I had to work at 10 O clock until noon. Usually I need a good 25 minutes to get to work by scooter. I WOKE UP (not left my house but woke up) 20 minutes before I had to be there. I simply accepted the fact that I would be late, and stuffed everything i could into my pockets including two pieces of bread to eat at red lights. I managed to get to work one minute early and was all excited to write a short post about it. I even had a name. It would be called "The miracle on concrete." Unfortuneately, my good spririts were extinguished when i realized I had lost my Ipod. It wasnt in my house nor at my work. The conclusion that I have reached is that it must have fallen out of the pockets of the new pants I had purchased earlier that week while I was eating my breakfast (the two pieces of bread) at a red light.

Before i had a chance to get upset about my Ipod my stomach started to hurt. I cursed my new friend, the beef noodle man, whose restaurant I had eaten at for free earlier that day in exchange for english conversation. The pain worsened and worsened throughout the night. It got so bad that i couldnt sleep and went to the hospital the next day fearing an appendicitus. I got blood tests urine tests and x rays done within 30 minutes. After waiting maybe another hour and a half tops, the doctors came to see me. Thankfully i did not have an appendicitus. They did however say that the x-rays showed a heavy inflamation of the intestines. The supposed culprit? Gas. They gave me some pills and I went home although I didnt feel much better. I had no appetite and anything I tried to eat would be thrown up 2 hours later. I was so uncomfortable, that I couldnt sit still nor lie down. The only place that was somewhat ok was lying down in the shower. I think I took 5 showers that night.

On a side note, the hospitals here are extremely quick and efficient. I was being x rayed and having blood taken within a half hour of arrival, and was in the hospital no longer than 2 and a half total hours.

As I took the pills my stomach got better but when they ran out the pain came back. I went to see a doctor. His medical exam consisted of him pressing down on different parts of my stomach. He finally found one that made me yell out in pain. His prognoses: "It seems to be some kind of stomach infection." No tests or anything. He claimed that stomach infections are complicated and poorly understood. He gave me some pills including an antibacterial one and they seemed to be working. Unfortuneately I felt bad enough to cancel the surfing plans I had for the special 4 day weekend of tomb sweeping. I took the time off, laid low, and now actually feel better enough to eat. I just finished the medicine so hopefully this wierd stomach ailment will not return.

Things have gotten slightly better since then as the sopranos is back, I may have a new private student, and I am substitute teaching at many differet schools in the morning and afternoon to make extra tax-free money, and hopefully land a job at a better school. I also am getting better at teaching and have tamed my biggest asshole class of 13 year olds. They are actually becoming my favorites as they take every chance to chirp at each other. For example the studnets may be given four pictures and told to write a story about them. To my amusement the smartest kids make fun of each other and the content usually involves other kids being poor. smelling like garbage, their houses burning down, and love triangles between the kids in the class. They are great.

Well thankfully the anxieties and worries of April seem to be over (knock on wood). I cant wait untill May, the month in which the cards have promised me LUST!

Naked Dude in the Sauna

Fun economic fact for the day: Many things are cheap in Taiwan. Food is no exception. However Western foods cost about the same as they would back home. Thus in Taiwan, ketchup is about $3 Can whereas a pack of cigarettes would only cost you a loonie (one dollar for the americans out there). There you have it. Ketchup is officially more expensive than cigarettes. Welcome to the other side of the world.

On to todays post. One particular incident this week has inspired me to write about being exotic in a very homogenuis society. When something is different it often gets special treatment which can be nice but also unwelcoming

So at one point in our lives we've probably all felt like a minority. In high school I used to wonder how the six or seven black kids felt being constantly surrounded by a sea of white faces. Sticking out like a sour thumb is something I get to experience here on the daily. While Canada and America are made up of people of all different skin colours, races, and religions, Taiwan is 99.99% made up of Taiwanese people. I can not stress this enough. Everyone Is Taiwanese! Rarely is there any variation in hair, skin, or eye colour among the people. In the beginning it was really wierd for me. To look everywhere and see nothing but Taiwanese people everywhere. This casued my dear friend Avi to burst out laughing while at a bar during the first ten days or so we were here. I dont blame him at all. A totaly appropiate reaction to an absurd change in situations. What's wierd is how I have addapted. I dont even notice that everyone is taiwanese anymore. I can see their facial features and tell them apart. More importantly, I dont even think about the fact that the person i am talking to or teaching is taiwanese. I dont feel as ostrasized as I did in the beginning. I feel fairly comfortable. I hope this is something I can take home with me and preserve the rest of my life.

When it comes to how others perceive me that is a different story. Coming from such a homogenius society, its rare that they see something that looks so different. When i asked some of my older kids if they have every seen a black person their response was "yes teecha one time on TV". In addition to this, my hairy arms are a huge source of wonderment for my kids. I can see the temptation in their eyes to touch my arms when i am casually sitting in the back trying to mark their homework. So you get the point. I stick out. Because of this I am often privy to alot of special attention.

Sometimes the attention can be harmless. Like when your walking down the street and you have people shouting "HELLO!" at you. Sometimes the attention can be flattering when girls go out of their ways to approach you when your riding on a bus, or when you go into a bakery and all the girls giggle at the one who is brave enough to try to speak English with you. Sometimes the attention is welcome. This weekend I went to play pickup basketball at the local university. Being the only foreigner there, everyone was extremely friendly, made sure my shit didnt get stolen, made sure i didnt die of dehydration (there are few water fountains here as the tap water is undrinkable), and were very interested in where i was coming from and what i was doing here.

Unfortuneately there are instances, where the attention is inappropiate and unwanted. This last Monday, I was bone tired from having subbed kindy (kindergarten) at a different school (which was much better than mine) for the morning. With some time to kill in the afternoon, I headed for the gym for some R & R in the hot tub just to relax. Soon i was approached by a Taiwanese guy my age who was overly friendly and just wanted to talk. He wouldnt leave me alone, and eventually started to talk about how beautiful he thought my body was. After informing him that I was married, I excused myself and went into the sauna to try to get some time to myself to take a nap. After waiting five minutes, the guy followed me and continued to talk about how much he loved my body and what excersices i have done to get it that way. I indulged him for a little while until he asked me if he can touch my chest. "No you cant." I left the sauna 2 minutes later and went to take a shower, the only place i was guarenteed refuge from this guy who wouldnt give me my space.

So there you have it, being a foreigner in Taiwan is kinda like being a celebrerty or really attractive girl. People are constantly approaching you interested in who you are and what your deal is. I think most of us would agree that attention can be quite nice, but theres defineately a fine line that seperates it from being welcome and obnoxious. Its a fine line thats well worth understanding.

Paper Scissors Stone!

One of the most important differences In Taiwan that I have somehow neglected to tell my readership about is the way people play rock paper scissors. Just about everything is decided from playing this game including; who gets to do things first, who has to do things they would dislike to do, and who gets to be the home team in baseball. Ok im lying about the baseball part but its still a very popular game probably more so than back home. People of all ages can play for hours upon hours and seemingly not get bored.

Lets start with the basics. Being Chinese, everything is backwards. Even the number for the police/ambulence is 119 (this im not joking about). It may not surprise you then, that the first of the three said objects of the game is paper. Back home as many of you probably know, we would normally say the rock first. Already an interesting cultural comparison. Back home we value ROCK. It represents sheer stregnth and for that reason many of us have trouble beleiving rock can beaten by anything, yet alone paper. The Chinese apparently see the virue in paper, and have adopted it as their own and possibly favorite of the three as indicated by its order, well ahead of scissors and rock. Scissors procedes paper and is fairly similar in its action as back home. Scissors then is not followed not by rock...but by stone. Somehow stone just sounds so much more composed and less brash than rock. Its like comparing Ryu to Ken in streetfighter.

When you put it together it sounds something like Paper, Scissors, Stone! Except in English this usually sounds more like: Pay-pah, Scee-sus, STONE! Everyone gets really excited as they discover who the victor is and kids will usually inact the result of the match quite enthusiasticly. The results are still the same, As paper covers stone, scissors cut paper, and stone crushes scissors.

One noteable difference is that there is no "Shoot!" I fucken hate shoot. Whoever invented it is probably the biggest cheater in the history of the world. I mean who EVER learned to play the game with shoot? Whoever started this ridiculousness, was probably some asshole who was pissed off that his rock, which he relied on way too much, kept getting beaten by paper, and thus made up the excuse that both parties werent supposed to act until shoot and that rock wasnt his real move. Yeah right. The game as we know it in north america is no longer quite the same as no one knows whether they are supposed to play with a shoot or not. This has probably caused countless miscommunications, tainted results, and has managed to give even more strength to an already overrated rock. The shoot is useless and im glad it doesnt exist over here.

I know your probably all thinkging that this sounds wierd and Chinese. At first I would have agreed with you, but now I have to admit that I kinda like it. I uesd to say "paper scissors stone" only in class to avoid the confusion amongst kids as to what this rock thing is and why it comes before everything else while secretly laughing to myself over their ignorance. Now I see my own ignorance, and choose to say paper scissors stone, out of respect for the culture I am living in and also out of respect for what is probably a better "shootless" version of the game. I know that I will probably get made fun of by everyone except for maybe Shaggy when I get home, when unconciously I say paper scissors stone, but its ok I can accept that. It takes time to realize that things arent always done exactly the same all over the world. Sometimes they may surprise you by being a little bit better.