English Poison.
Well, we made it to Sun Moon Lake ("Ruey Yuey Tan", say that 5 times fast, don't forget the tones "\/, \/, -"). We decided to take the 8:00AM train, NOT my favorite time, but at least I don't piss the day away sleeping on the train cause I'd just sleep in bed anyway. This was the first trip I have been on for, where I was not the one running the show. Sandra's (Theresa's friend) grandparents were visiting. They are old and a little slow (like grandparents should be), but really cool people. Sandra had the whole trip planned out. Next thing we know, there are 8 of us going form a 3 person trip. Sandra, her g'rents, Theresa, Arianna (new teacher form work), Kate (another new teahcer from work) and Kate's boyfriend. So, our boss was a little uneasy when he found out that half of his staff went on a trip to the middle of nowhere. We took a train to TaiJung city and then were to hop a bus to Sun Moon Lake. We arrived and found that the bus would not leave till 3:30PM (it was 11AM). This taxi driver was trying to hustle us for a fare but we wanted to check the busses first, nope, gone. So, he said he'd take us for $3000 ($120CAN) to the lake with 2 taxi's. Well, I'll take a taxi over a bus anyday. We decided it was the best way and we (I) talked him down to $2000 ($80).
This guy spoke pretty damn good English... unfortunately. Well, it all started with him and I speaking Chinese and English. Then him bashing the fact that I learned Chinese. I should learn Taiwanese (the local original language). Everyone in Taiwan speaks Chinese except the small mountain villages and the great grandparents, even most of these people speak Chinese. Most people over 40, speak Taiwanese also, the kids must take it in school. It's a dying language. But, this fabulous dying language isn't a communist evil language like Chinese. Taiwanese is patriotic and it doesn't support the EVIL China. Well, I prettymuch told him that I'm not going to learn a language that is only supported by a country that doesn't use it anymore anyway. Secondly, if I can speak English and Chinese, I can go ANYWHERE in the world and someone can help me... except for Northern Africa, but that's where French comes in, oh, and in Newfoundland, but scientists still can't figure out which language applies there. So, he didn't care how useless Taiwanese was. Next came him asking is I knew ANY Taiwanese. Nope, not really only like two words. He pretty much demanded to know which ones. "Tie Jien" and "Tai Lan" meaning "Unich" and "Kill you". My students taught me these, the Tai Lan came form me saying I went to Thailand, they said "You went to KILL ME!?!?!" as they screamed and ran around, actually kind of funny from 7 year olds. The Tai Jien cam from my upper students, the proper "See you later" in Chinese is "Zai Jien" but change the Z to a T and you have Taiwaese for Unich. Well, the cabbie grabbed his crotch a dozen times and kept saying that Tai jien meant none of these, just incase I didn't fully understand. Then it came to the EVIL Chinese communist dictator kings kept many Tai jiens to tend to thier women, I didn't bother pointing out that it was two of those communist kings that started Taiwan. Then he wanted to know how to say it in English (the grandparents were in the back). So, Sandra told him. Whatever, on the way home, I took the other taxi. It was a long 90 minute taxi ride but definately the way to go.
Sun Moon Lake was nice, the air was fresh, we wanted to find some scooters, but the shop was closed. We went on a boat tour and went to a small island and a fishing village. The next day, we wanted to go to the temple across the lake, well, we aimed to hail a cab (non existent) but we found the scooter shop to be open, so we rented scooters and went. It was great. They decided to go shower and stuff before going home, we returned two of the scooters and I kept the one with the most gas. I drove around the other side of the lake.
I stumbled upon a bunch of people in kayaks, they were doing a course or something because they were in a little protected area with little floaty walls and stuff. Wrong, they weren't the simple chickenshit afraid of the water locals. They were playing water polo, in kayaks!!! Iit was sooo cool. I mean these guys were damn good. They were smacking this volleyball around with their paddles and hands, they all had facemasked helmets on. But they would get wedged between two kayaks and they would drop their paddle and wiggle forwards so get a better shot. The "lifeguard" was the ref. One guy was ready to take a shot and another guy came alongside and gave him a light shove on the shoulder... well, facefirst and upside down into the drink he went, I just about killed myself laughing. It took him a second to roll himself back so his head was above the water cause he had ditched his paddle to take the shot. I was impressed.
Well, we taxied back to TaiJung and I went into the train station and checked for an earlier train rather than waiting the hour and a half. We switched our tickets. Ii feel bad because we went to the fast "no credit card fast line" and asked to change tickets. We got on a fast train earlier, I said sorry for his time, he simply said "No, thankyou very much, it in my honor to service you." WOW!!! Where can you find that in Canada?!?!?! We had just enough time to hit McDonalds for some takeout for the train.
Went to work today, yep. After work, I took my bike to get the battery changed, I've had to kick start it a couple times. They said it would take an hour and they had lent out all their bikes, so I went next door to get a haircut form my future wife. She is hot, beautiful and doesn't speak a word of English. I met her my first week here and really liked her, she's very nice. I see her every haircut, so my hair is usually well trimmed. She also works 66 hours a week for 18,000NT a MONTH ($720CAN). She asked me why I wanted to learn Chinese, I told her so that I could speak well enough to take her out for coffee. She thinks my Chinese is getting much better as well as my hair is getting thinner. Anyways, she's nice, she doesn't ask me what I want anymore and she lets me just sit there when I don't feel like talking.
I'm buying my old scooter back form Nick, it's been crashed a bunch of times and has a new 150 engine. So, I need to do some stuff on it, just new brakes and to fix the headlight alignment and put a heat shield on the muffler... maybe a new seat. It was a good bike before I sold it and now it is close. I want a scooter anyways and this one should have the power I desire. Moving stuff on a motorbike sucks, shopping with a scooter is great.
Off to make a cd for Theresa of our Sun moon pictures.
This guy spoke pretty damn good English... unfortunately. Well, it all started with him and I speaking Chinese and English. Then him bashing the fact that I learned Chinese. I should learn Taiwanese (the local original language). Everyone in Taiwan speaks Chinese except the small mountain villages and the great grandparents, even most of these people speak Chinese. Most people over 40, speak Taiwanese also, the kids must take it in school. It's a dying language. But, this fabulous dying language isn't a communist evil language like Chinese. Taiwanese is patriotic and it doesn't support the EVIL China. Well, I prettymuch told him that I'm not going to learn a language that is only supported by a country that doesn't use it anymore anyway. Secondly, if I can speak English and Chinese, I can go ANYWHERE in the world and someone can help me... except for Northern Africa, but that's where French comes in, oh, and in Newfoundland, but scientists still can't figure out which language applies there. So, he didn't care how useless Taiwanese was. Next came him asking is I knew ANY Taiwanese. Nope, not really only like two words. He pretty much demanded to know which ones. "Tie Jien" and "Tai Lan" meaning "Unich" and "Kill you". My students taught me these, the Tai Lan came form me saying I went to Thailand, they said "You went to KILL ME!?!?!" as they screamed and ran around, actually kind of funny from 7 year olds. The Tai Jien cam from my upper students, the proper "See you later" in Chinese is "Zai Jien" but change the Z to a T and you have Taiwaese for Unich. Well, the cabbie grabbed his crotch a dozen times and kept saying that Tai jien meant none of these, just incase I didn't fully understand. Then it came to the EVIL Chinese communist dictator kings kept many Tai jiens to tend to thier women, I didn't bother pointing out that it was two of those communist kings that started Taiwan. Then he wanted to know how to say it in English (the grandparents were in the back). So, Sandra told him. Whatever, on the way home, I took the other taxi. It was a long 90 minute taxi ride but definately the way to go.
Sun Moon Lake was nice, the air was fresh, we wanted to find some scooters, but the shop was closed. We went on a boat tour and went to a small island and a fishing village. The next day, we wanted to go to the temple across the lake, well, we aimed to hail a cab (non existent) but we found the scooter shop to be open, so we rented scooters and went. It was great. They decided to go shower and stuff before going home, we returned two of the scooters and I kept the one with the most gas. I drove around the other side of the lake.
I stumbled upon a bunch of people in kayaks, they were doing a course or something because they were in a little protected area with little floaty walls and stuff. Wrong, they weren't the simple chickenshit afraid of the water locals. They were playing water polo, in kayaks!!! Iit was sooo cool. I mean these guys were damn good. They were smacking this volleyball around with their paddles and hands, they all had facemasked helmets on. But they would get wedged between two kayaks and they would drop their paddle and wiggle forwards so get a better shot. The "lifeguard" was the ref. One guy was ready to take a shot and another guy came alongside and gave him a light shove on the shoulder... well, facefirst and upside down into the drink he went, I just about killed myself laughing. It took him a second to roll himself back so his head was above the water cause he had ditched his paddle to take the shot. I was impressed.
Well, we taxied back to TaiJung and I went into the train station and checked for an earlier train rather than waiting the hour and a half. We switched our tickets. Ii feel bad because we went to the fast "no credit card fast line" and asked to change tickets. We got on a fast train earlier, I said sorry for his time, he simply said "No, thankyou very much, it in my honor to service you." WOW!!! Where can you find that in Canada?!?!?! We had just enough time to hit McDonalds for some takeout for the train.
Went to work today, yep. After work, I took my bike to get the battery changed, I've had to kick start it a couple times. They said it would take an hour and they had lent out all their bikes, so I went next door to get a haircut form my future wife. She is hot, beautiful and doesn't speak a word of English. I met her my first week here and really liked her, she's very nice. I see her every haircut, so my hair is usually well trimmed. She also works 66 hours a week for 18,000NT a MONTH ($720CAN). She asked me why I wanted to learn Chinese, I told her so that I could speak well enough to take her out for coffee. She thinks my Chinese is getting much better as well as my hair is getting thinner. Anyways, she's nice, she doesn't ask me what I want anymore and she lets me just sit there when I don't feel like talking.
I'm buying my old scooter back form Nick, it's been crashed a bunch of times and has a new 150 engine. So, I need to do some stuff on it, just new brakes and to fix the headlight alignment and put a heat shield on the muffler... maybe a new seat. It was a good bike before I sold it and now it is close. I want a scooter anyways and this one should have the power I desire. Moving stuff on a motorbike sucks, shopping with a scooter is great.
Off to make a cd for Theresa of our Sun moon pictures.
posted by Colin at 10:52 PM
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