'Tis the season

Wow, Christmas is over and I hardly even knew it was here. In fact, for the first time in my life I think I feel a bit alleviated to have it be finished. If I could tell you one thing it would be that Buddhist's do not, in any way, do the Christmas thing like we do. I never really realized it but once you take out all the love and sentimentality of the wonderful holiday, it can feel hollow and stale like old bread. People think that Christmas in the States is becoming way too absorbed in the commercial aspects but I think they should see it here. These people practically think that we celebrate the holiday because it was the first time Frosty the Snowman came to be.

You know, when I was a kid, Christmas was a really special thing for me. It stayed that way until I left home and had to celebrate it away and even alone. Now that I am a working man life seems to be much shorter after the work is done. There is less time for play and even less energy for that play I earn. I feel like it was only yesterday that I had dreams of being a famous robber or even better, a real live garbage man and now the reality is debt and work. (But it ain't so bad)

However, I suppose after all that banter about how everyone seemed to forget about the meaning of Christmas I will go ahead and describe the grand Christmas show that our school put on this past weekend. We worked diligently for about six weeks on the show and it our immense work load finally culminated in a bizarrely successful night of children running around, sweating from stage lights, and curses thrown out by various adults in just as many various languages.

Some how my "charm" or "ability to get sucked into too many things" led to my being involved as an actor in my classes' skit and MC of both the two hour shows. Hooray, more work for me!!! So we worked way too hard and by the end my new arch nemesis (aka my Chinese teacher Brenda) was bitching at me like she was my accidental wife and mother to my ill-gotten bastard son. I mean Christ chick we teach first grade chill your ass!!! So she was way too stressed and therefore I decided to be not really troubled at all and thus even more of a poisonous thorn in the side of all these caffeine jacked nutcase Taiwanese teachers.

Somehow we made it through most of the night despite our differing opinions about how fun should be had and I thought that no major catastrophe would happen. I was wrong. To give you an example of how things were going, the two other classes in my show were naturally doing skits about Christmas where all the children got some time in the spotlight to say "I want a big and fast toy truck for Christmas Santy Claaauuus." Who wouldn't love that? It's simple and sweet and you know that you are getting the hell outta this shitass cramped and stinky theatre on the fifth floor of the library at a good hour. Then you have the last skit come on; mine of course. Now, I thought some sort of Charlie Brownesque play would be delightful for all those darling parents in the gum and stain invested seats in front of us. Sound good Brenda? Ohhhhh nooooo.

"Alright audience, weren't the last two performances great? Let's give them one more round of applause and then welcome my class with the 2008 Hess School Science Fair!" This was all I had to announce to make most of the fathers in the crowd (who even understood English) think, "Jesus, give me a gun right now and I'll do it. I'll end this misery." No Santa, no reindeer, certainly no Herby the little elf who just wants to be a dentist; just me and fourteen kids in white lab coats and big... black... afros (Taiwan's idea of an Albert Einstein impression.) Oh yeah, and a long boring skit about the wonders of science.

[I'll give you, oh faithful reader, a little background on the scumbagery of the this idea. You see our school is the most expensive English school on this entire island. They give the kids every opportunity in the hopes that it will help them evolve into Asia's next great generation and what it really does is begin a lifetime of unattainable expectations added to a giant early hear attack giving mountain of stress. My class in particular, is the cream of the white collar crop so they have to do every "fun" after school activity from piano, French and English tutor, dance, and every other thing possible. Most parents drop their kids off in Porsche's, Jaguars, and even a Ferrari and one parent came the night of the show with her best friend, the "Britney Spears" of the Taiwan music scene.

These fanatical parents insist that their kids have all these useless and expensive science textbooks and that I deliver insightful and scientific lectures for their 6 year old sons and daughters each week. (Remember these are kindergardners learning a second and often third language.) Needless to say, our school manager felt that by pumping up the science at the show would increase other parents interest in science for their kindergartners and thus sell more books. Ah the beauty of "educational ethics."]

Pardon,I'm getting way carried away because it was a rough day and I found out that I have to work tomorrow, that's right Saturday, at 8 am.

So the story continues. We go through the boring motions of our science fair with some of the old, "matter is anything that takes up space and has mass" from one six year old and "this is called a physical change" from the adorable 2.5 foot tall Nini. I think the only thing that held people's interest was all the giant bouncing afros on scattered throughout the stage.

Then comes the dreaded last scene. I had worked really hard to memorize all my stupid lines and those of the others so I could help them when the influx of cycloptic (yes I know it isn't a real word) parents was too much to handle. There was not a single person who didn't have some sort of camera to his face the entire show. So things were sailing along nicely and then I forget a line. Oops, one girl was missing and I had forgotten to say her part about the chemical change. I can already see Brenda growing livid with dissatisfaction. Then, boom! and pop! "What was that? Oh just a light bulb has popped. Oh and what would you know, a fire is emerging up in the rafters.....WAIT, HOLY SHIT A FIRE" I am thinking all this while the cameras snap away and the kids look at me wondering how I have forgotten my lines.

I freeze. I am now ruining the show throwing gestures to the side of the stage mouthing "THERE--IS--A--FIRE!" The flames are growing and a white smoke is beginning to collect and all Brenda can do is grow red-eyed with disgust waving at me to go on with the now completely unimportant skit. I ponder "what is more important, these bored parents hearing the definition of a liquid and solid or their children not making headlines for being burned to death as the acrylic afros melt to their small craniums?" I feel that my panic is justified and yet everyone else seems to believe that the show must go on. Rain or shine or growing inferno.

I struggle through some more lines and even receive a kick from the little girl standing next to me who can't see the fire and thus believes that her teacher and mentor is a brain dead idiot who still can't remember his part after 6 weeks of grueling and excruciating practice. The smoke is visible and yet still everyone seems more interested in finding out if the robot toy has more mass than the dolly. What can I do?

Finally the teachers decide, "well if it will make him happy we will do something about the growing fire in this crowded theatre filled with small innocent children." They get the fire down by fanning it and preforming some other much needed remedies and my stress level declines to only two future ulcers status and I stumble through the end of the show.

I am now visably drained of energy due to my flipout session combined with a sudden fatigue, and the big furry afro make me out to look like the ideal junky crack addict. I am physically shaking and yet what do I get for all my troubles? "Why did you forget your lines?" Brenda is actually fuming more than the previous fire.

"Why don't you shove it right up your ass you evil demon bitch!" I was doing a lot of angry thinking that night that filtered out as a calm and collective, "I apologize but weren't you aware of the fire?"

"We took care of the fire but you still messed up the show." Brenda retorts.

"Well I guess it is the end of the the fucking world that all these parents don't get to hear some useless science shit three days before Christmas." My far past irate screams once again get squeezed out as, "I am glad you took care of the fire and it just got me a little freaked out."

Brenda had nothing to say to this and walked off probably to go bite the heads off of chickens just to get her fill of death and hatred of all things unorganized and spontaneous.

Of course in the end I desperately needed to go get some fresh air and was stopped by many adoring parents with nothing but nice things to say about my teaching, my friendliness with the students, and their enjoyment of our "well-rehearsed" science fair. No one was displeased and no one died. It was a fair evening and it didn't stop until I was polishing off a bottle of Saki on my rooftop at 730 the next morning with Guillaume, the French man I met and went out with that night.

That there is an entirely different story in itself but I'm tired and I must depart to joylessly arise at 730 am for my early Saturday classes. Life ain't so bad but it sure isn't what I thought it would be when I wrote my second grade report about the wonders of being a garbage man in the future.

Tektonik

I must say my weekends in Taipei are interestingly spent. They are almost always filled with new, fun, exciting and a bit mind-boggling adventures. Quite the contrast from my weekends of the year past where I often didn't leave the comfort of my PJs for all three days. (I write this as I take a break from Sunday movie watching in my PJs right now.)

Let's just go ahead and start with Friday. The week was over and as it wasn't all that hard of a week I was feeling rather content and light hearted and in a merry mood. Ready for anything. I came home to my little mosquito invested casa to find Dunkle in a rather similar form of spirits and thus the inspiration for the night was born. "Let's go drink a bunch of scotch and then go to a Dutch DJ hosted rave," was our fantastic idea. "Why not....sounds like a good old time."

I have made a worthy effort to figure it out but for some reason there has been a big Chinese type festival going on all around us. Friday night started with Dunkle and I talking a leisurely walking around the neighborhood checking out the different festivities while once and a while taking a swig of Famous Grouse sctoch recently purchased at one of the fine 7-11 establishments. What amazed me then, and still does now as I listen to its music from outside the window, was the traditional Chinese musical theatre set up in the park next to our place. Dunkle and I took some time to enjoy the music of the Chinese violin and the dancing of the singing women (kimonos and make up and all.) It was pretty amazing and seeing that type of stuff really makes me appreciate the fact that I really do live in a place different from what I have ever known or will.

So after taking in some Taiwanese/Chinese culture and a bottle of the good stuff Dunkle and I were more than ready for a little high intensity drum and bass at one of the premier Taiwanese dance clubs. I think we were supposed to be meeting some people there but that pretty much fell apart when we just showed up (neon green T-shirts and all) with one idea: LETS DANCE LIKE IDIOTS IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE! And man did we do it. We were all over this club dancing with absolutely no regard for what we must have looked like. I'm talking doing the wave sort of stuff with the hands and even spinning on the floor. At one point I stopped myself and went "holy shit, I'm dancing like an insane person who is simultaneously ceasing in front of all these people." Upon that realization I looked over at Dunkle and saw that he was doing the same thing and not only that but the crowd had made a circle around us and was cheering for us. No joke, we had become the life of the party.

That is when I knew it had to be done......dance contest! I started picking people at random and saying "you! Me! right now on the dance floor!" I then commenced to make a fool out of myself just because it was a Friday night and I live on an island off the coast of China. The best part was that I wasn't turned down from one single challenge. You see club folk take their dancing seriously and don't like to see a poser wannabe like me putting shame to their art. It was all very.....awesome.

After all this dancing Dunkle and I decided, "now it's time to meet some girls and show them our new found confidence." We talked to several girls and danced with a few more and things were looking up for us both. That was when I came up with what I thought was the best line ever given at a club. I walked "smoothly" (stumblingly) up to some girl and simply said "here take this and call me sometime." I walked back to Dunkle all smiles and said "oh yeah dude, that was sweet."

Dunkle's only reply was "dude you just gave that girl your cell phone. Why did you do that."

"Don't worry bro, she'll call," was my fabulous retort.

I still don't know where my cell phone is and I am probably going to have to buy another one.

The rest of the night was a blur of similar encounters where Dunkle and I managed to be the most prolific morons found in a nightclub. The funniest part was Dunkle waking up the next morning with of framed picture of us at the club that neither of us remember receiving.

The next day woke up with three hours of drunk sleep with the intention of meeting a pal for a nice Saturday lunch. I went to the rendez-vu point only to realize that I no longer had a cell phone which meant I had no way to contact anyone and no idea what time it was. I waited for an hour with no sight of my friend. Rather than dining with my friend at one of his favorite Indian restaurants I went to eat by myself where I realized that I almost hate Subway more than I do McDonalds. The food made me sick all day and I had to sleep on a concrete wall in a park for an hour because I didn't have time to go back home before my private tutor.

Sometimes I surprise myself at my inability to grow up. Sorry ma and pa I know you guys are wondering when I will retire my childishness but it was unfortunately not this weekend. At least I can admire that fact that I am becoming one of the best teachers at our school. I am on the list with the A level teachers and all the kids like me. I guess weekday Putt and weekend Putt are two different sides of the same face.

Mack's Lounge in Taiwan

Man fuck McDonald's! I am sorry. I know I have been pretty good to abstain from cursing on this blogue but I can't help saying it as I sit in this chair feeling like an old miserable piece of crap. I think I would enjoy the feeling of eating pesticide more than McDonald's. Just in case you didn't know, I just ate some today and feel like some kind of farm animal took a giant shit down my throat and now the toxin is sitting there, cooking in the bowels of my insides just waiting to pass through more vital organs and thus pollute my body more.

That place sucks so bad and yet I eat it on average about once a week. What it is about that giant arch that seems so irresistable to the hungry wonderer. I mean back home people eat it because it is a quick and easy alternative to going to a real restaurant where you are treated like a person. The line at McDonalds makes you feel like you are in the same assebly line that the cow you are about to eat was in. I just can't stand the damn turd palace.

The experience of eating this garbage food is only made worse by the fact that I can't even communicate what the hell I want to eat. I mean you really feel like a piece of shit when you're too stupid to even order the manure food that you are about to regret eating. I go there because I consider it an alternative to going to some Taiwanese restaurant where I don't know what to order because it is all displayed in crazy character form. So instead I go into the dirt shack and hold out four fingers like some idiot who just fell down a flight of stairs and I yell "COKE." I couldn't even figure out how to get a Sprite today because they call it something different in Chinese. I am worthless.

Why do I put myself in these humiliating positions where I am made the brain dead pupil of Docter "works the cash register at Mcdonalds" who has to guess from my stupid looking facial expressions if I would like a small or a large fry. I don't want any of that crap....well... ok gimme a big mac.

Somehow when you eat at these shaddy belt popping establishments you always spill something on yourself too. That really pisses me off. Not only am I eating food that is one step away from being pig feed, but I just dumped some of this shit onto myself as if I was some clumsy horse sloppily eating out of a goddamn trough. What a terrible place.

They don't even have red box DVD rental or Dr. Pepper at the Mack's lounge here in Taiwan which means I really am going there just to eat there gutter slop food.

You know what's funny? Dunkle eats there probably like three times a week and I honestly think he likes it. Whenever I come home to that dank, cancer giving smell of old soggy hamburger buns in my house I know that Dunkle has just finished "fat boyin' it up," as we call this miserable experience. Why is it that we can't resist the urge to go get a food hangover from the shit shack? We can't fight the urge. It's like a disease that makes you want a disease.

Everytime I leave the restaurant I bow my head in embarrassment as if I was walking out of some low grade scum bag porno theatre. "Mothers hide your children! That fatass just crammed his face with a mud burger. You can tell because it's plastered all over his wrinkly dirty old shirt. What a regect!"

The Mack's by our house is the funniest because if you don't want to make the "high intensity" walk up the stairs to where the seating is, you can simply take the one table on the first foor. There is literally one single solitary table next to the order station where you can often amuse yourself by checking out the fat old doofus sticking fries up his nose because he can't get them in fast enough with his already full trash can mouth. That table is when reaching the lowest level isn't enough and you just have to admit that your life is that horrible and you are the reason for all the wars and disease exist in the world. They should call it the "Sweatpants Only" section.

So while a lot of food here is very good there still does exist that sickening tope tiled oil leaking ball of melanoma that is Mcdonalds. And yet many others here call it the American Embassy. I hope that one day I will be able to fully renounce that terrible place once and for all, but for now I will just have to accept that sometimes I am so desperate for a hambuger that go into the restaurant that makes me feel like Jabba the hut's alcoholic inbred half brother.

Maybe it isn't so bad.

In my time traveling the world I have found myself in a lot of rather uncomfortable situations. I am always the foreigner and even when I think I have accurately assimilated into whichever society I might be visiting at the moment, there still exists those strange and awkward moments that remind me of what a stranger I really am.

I think when I look at my two contrasting experiences in France and Taiwan they appear to be on opposite sides of each other. Both experiences have been plentiful and eye opening while very different from each other. When I was in France it was often the things that I did that seemed overtly bizarre and strange whereas in Taiwan it is all the actions of those around me that makes me realize how out of place I am.

When I was in France I was always trying to look the part and be cool. I never wanted to seem like a tourist who just wanted that 500th picture of the Eiffel tower. I would walk up and down the streets of Paris trying to act like I knew exactly where I was going and yet I didn't care if I ever got there. A lot of the French people have this type of attitude where they are always in a state of wondering with no real direction. They walk from cafe to cafe and enjoy people watching and reading the paper. I think a lot of times people consider that an example of the classic French laziness and perhaps that is true. I tried to accomplish this type of living and perhaps at times I did but I always felt like an outsider no matter how much black clothing I wore.

In contrast, Taiwan has made me realize that it is not my actions that make me feel foreign but rather how everyone else reacts here that seems so crazy to me. I mean they have rivers and oceans and trees just like we do back home and yet the things that happen within this landscape simply blows my mind. I feel like our culture has become so omnipresent that almost everyone knows a little bit about us in every part of the world. Everyone has heard of Justin Timberlake and most anyone can quote from one of their favorite American movies and yet what do we know about Taiwan, or many other places for that matter.

When I arrived in Taiwan I didn't know a thing about it. I mean nothing, nada, no nothing. Come to think of it I still don't really know a whole lot about the going ons of this place. I have seen many things and I have already had some interesting culture clashes and experiences that I feel have changed my impression of the place, but it is still such a mystery. I know little about this place even though every time I looked under one of my plastic toys and saw a Made in Taiwan sticker, I was seeing a part of it.

They speak Chinese hear, Mandarin to be specific. They speak another form of dialect called Taiwanese but it really all sounds like some crazy from of hip hop lyrics spoken too fast for me to even attempt to comprehend. There are also a lot of people from the Philippines here and I often here them speaking to each other in a quieter voice as they are the less respected minority group of people here. Their language sounds, to me, a little like Spanish which is sort of funny.

The food they eat here is really sort of strange but I enjoy it most of the time. They have the classic "I dare you" type of foods like old rotting chunks of tofu appropriately named "Stinky Tofu," but they don't compare to the wacky vomit inducing dishes of the mainland China. Apparently those people will eat every single thing that you could possibly think of......everything. The Taiwanese are really big about their food and culture and since they would all say "Fuck China!" with the drop of a hat, I imagine it will stay that way.

Certain things here are old seeming and traditional while others are fascinatingly new and stunning. I am now feel as if I am beginning to understand the simple aspects of their way of life and that has made me feel pretty good and almost as if I am at home. Taiwan is a place where everyone smiles at you and oftentimes people will say hello as your passing by. You can go into the same restaurants and stores and the people remember you and are happy to see you in again. I don't think I will ever convert 100% to this strange and new life but the majority of it is rather suiting at this juncture in my travelling career.