Taiwan - Day 1, Revision

7/31/2019 Taiwan - Day 1, Revision

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Taiwan. Day 1: Revision

Oh, you know that student who breeng yoo the kofee? saidVictoria matter-of-factly after lunch. Shee not here. She gone to

pray to her God.Is she coming back? I asked, wanting to respect a personsdesire to worship yet slightly anxious that a student would bemissing revision.No, shee no come bak today.She knows theres an exam tomorrow morning, right?Yes said Victoria, that why shee gone to pray.

For lunch I had fruit which prompted Victoria to ask, That all yoohav? It enough for you? She was slurping sticky-looking clearnoodles from a bowl which contained bits of black mushroom so itlooked like she was winding toad spawn onto her chopsticks. Mybowl of fruit cost just 100 Taiwanese dollars and weighed threepounds. I assured my host it would be plenty. I cant teach on afull stomach.


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One of the students brought myself, Victoria and Victoriasassistant (Kelly) a juice. These are much bigger than they look in

the photo and come with brightly coloured straws and tops. I lovethe way they just slam in a watermelon, kiwis or grapes into theblender and Bam! instant fruit juice. Im going to try every onewithin the next seven days and am tempted to save the bottles butthink I shall have to curb my recycling addition. When you startimporting waste from the East back into the West theres aproblem.

After a slow start in the morning the students began to warm upand threw themselves into practicing shoulder, hip and kneetests. I was relieved to discover they had retained much of theinformation from February and that their quiet demeanor was justtheir way of testing the turf, seeing what was going to be asked ofthem this time around. Once they knew things would be much thesame as when they studied with me for the first block of thecourse, the noise level in the room went up and there were burstsof laughter. Always a good sign.

Tonight I strolled out into the humid air and joined a slow

procession of Taiwanese on vacation and milling around thecentral strip. Not wanting to walk far in this heat, I sat in Mos


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Burger, the equivalent of MacDonalds except they play Mahlerinstead of Morrisey. It cool and empty here, bar frombusinessmen come to wind down and read the papers. I read theTaiwanese Times which I really liked. The writers enjoy using

plenty of emotive words in their stories (the angry villagersthrashed the man until he was beaten to death) which are a mixof the political and provocative. For example, on the restaurantreview page was an article entitled, How Much Is That Doggy InThe Window, highlighting the growing unease with the killing andeating of dogs in Hanoi. With many people now keeping dogs aspets in Vietnam, police are on alert for dog thieves who sell themeat to city traders who can go through as many as six dogs anight when they are busy. Apparently. There were photos ofskinless dead dogs, boiled, being casually chopped in half by slimwomen wielding meat cleavers. I took rather gleeful pleasure inreading about a man convicted of tax evasion, something theTaiwanese government takes very seriously, enforcing thoseconvicted to obey an anti-luxury restraint. Having one of theseslapped on you means you cannot travel by plane, train or taxiand cannot hire a car. You also cannot gift money to anyone,instructing them to spend your money in order to facilitate yourluxury lifestyle. So you may retain wealth but cannot enjoy it. Theprice for evasion. I kind of like it.

Also in the paper alongside an article about the Taiwanesetaekwondo team arriving in Heathrow, was one about a man whohad successfully petitioned the courts for a divorce of his wife onthe grounds of her unreasonable shopping behaviour. It was notthat she was spending a lot of his money, but what she wasspending it on: large quantities of toothpaste and wigs, none ofwhich was ever used. The courts judged that she was sufferingfrom a psychological disorder that could not have occurred

during the marriage. Admitting that his mother had a fondnessfor purchasing strange items I bulk, he agreed to support herfinancially and the court therefore granted the award for divorce.

I listened to Mozarts Piano concerto whilst eating a small bag ofdelicious chips and watching the brightly lit buses waiting at thelights. Drivers here have red stop lights but are ratheropportunistic so will chance running you down even when youhave right of way, so crossing the road is something of an

adrenalin rush. The animated green walk man speeds up as theseconds are counted down on the red digital clock so you know


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that as he gets faster and the numbers get lower, you need to getyour skates on so to speak. When youre into single digits andhes running so should you be.

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Taiwan - Day 1, Revision