First few days in Taiwan

Well, after two nights in a very crappy hostel, I’m here at the luxurious-by-comparison Golden China Hotel in downtown Taipei. There are two of us per room, and my roomate is a lovely Australian girl who shares my love of nature documentaries. Yay! Yesterday was the first day of our teacher training. It was a long day – ten hours – and I was glad that I got here two days early to adjust to the time. Last night I was in bed by 11pm and up at 7am this morning – my first full night of sleep. It makes a huge difference!

 The first night after we got here, Mike and I were both getting strange reactions to things. Mike was bitten by a few mosquitoes and all of a sudden broke out in hives. Another girl on the program drank something and her lips got a rash… and someone else on the program had been puking for 24 hours. As for me, I now know the meaning of traveller’s diarrhea. People can’t drink tap water here, but I think the reason for my illness was that I drank another drink that possibly had tap water in it. It was hard to stay hydrated at first, but I’ve done myself a favour by going to the market and buying quite a few jugs of cold iced tea and big jugs of water. This is very cheap to do. I keep them in my hotel fridge.

There are funny experiences that go along with this need. Yesterday morning, we were going to the hospital to get our medical check which is necessary for our Alien Resident Card. I went to the market and bought what I thought was a small bottle of water for the bus ride to the hospital. Everything about this bottle said “hello…I am a bottle of water.” It was plastic just like the ones at home, had a red label with a bunch of Chinese characters on it and so I picked it up. The store person came over to me and he started yabbering away in Mandarin. Most store people and Taiwanese people will do this to you. No one speaks English and they expect you to know Mandarin. This is something I hadn’t quite expected. I just thought more people would know English…but NO ONE knows it. Anyway I didn’t know what he was saying so I just responded with the only Mandarin I really know… and kept saying “How how…how how” (good) and “Dobachi” (sorry). He gave me a strange look and I paid for my drink. It cost 30 NT – which is less than one dollar.

I got back to the training room and opened up the bottle. I was sitting at the table with a bunch of other foreigners at the time – there are Australians, Africans, British, Canadians and Americans mostly. I opened my water, took a sip and almost immediately spit it right back out into the bottle, almost choking. I knew the taste right away – sake! I realized it wasn’t water at all but alcohol! I showed people the bottle and we all agreed it was strange the alcohol should be in a plastic water bottle, but oh well…. I am in Taiwan!

Mike is still staying at the hostel and that makes me sad. He speaks better Mandarin than 99% of people on the Hess teaching program and I miss him. Because of the diploma situation he didn’t have all his documents in time to come. He comes to visit me every night for a few hours. I was happy and surprised yesterday that a program co-ordinator came up to me and announced that she had just been speaking to Mike and that I should go ahead and send his documents to her. So we are hoping and hoping, and crossing out fingers that he may be able to get a job with Hess. But we’ll see!

Last night I spoke to my program co-ordinator in Kaoshiung where I’m being placed. I’ll be meeting her today. To start, I’ll be teaching 20 hours a week at about $20/hour to work my way into the program. After the first month or so, I’ll probably be teaching kindergarten classes on top of that for another few hours at the same rate. My school branch is located right downtown in what is called the ‘cultural’ district. Apparently it is one of the nicest areas in Kaoshiung, and Mike and I will be able to get a very nice apartment there for about $500 (for both of us). Half the price of our Toronto apartment! Exciting!

 I’m pretty excited to go down south. It’s a lot warmer in Kaoshiung. Not that it’s not warm here, because it was 27 degrees one day! It varies though, and yesterday it was cloudy, about 20 degrees and raining on and off. Anyway it’s almost time to go to breakfast so I’m off. Will write more later.

~ by globalciti on November 19, 2007.