New Year's Resolutions

I'm going back to uni.

1. Turn up when the drama society has auditions instead of writing it in my diary and fully intending to go but deciding to go and get hot chips instead!

2. Spend more money on clothes, and stop talking myself out of buying something because of how ridiculous it is to pay $100 for something that was probably made in a sweatshop in Abbakaddaba anyway!

3. Enjoy writing essays and not freaking out and taking the stance that according to the laws of post-modernism the essay can not be written anway!

4. Get some funky marks and go yeah, I got some funky marks, yeah baby

5. Accept the fact that the world is not prepared to handle my honest and straightforward ways and that in order to survive I'm going to have to be just like the rest of them! Oh no!

6. Find a man and fall more in love than I ever did with anyone else!

7. Find a million language exchange partners (yesssss, it's time to exact my revenge) so I don't forget more than say, 85.6% of my Chinese

8. Go and make lots of money teaching English privately and never make anyone coffee for ten bucks an hour again!

9. Run for union board but do a joke-campaign with radical left-wing policies such as
-no private school kids allowed to run the union or be involved with it in any way
-no private school kids allowed to study law
-no private school kids allowed to step on the lawns
-losers with poor social skills but good hearts UNITE! You are everywhere!
-launch the "One Hundred Prestige Cars" campaign with view of purging the private school kids and sending them into the poorest comprehensive co-ed schools like Henry Kendall so that they can "Learn from the disadvantageds!"



I had a dream my best friend from primary school and I robbed a bank together and even though we were ultra smart for some reason we were really careless and got caught. Her mum locked her in the basement and I ran into her house and got her out and then I woke up.

I've been shopping heaps lately and the sales here are great. People said shopping in Taiwan was great but I can only agree today now that practically everything is fifty percent off.

Ken was great today, he said things to me in English on his own iniative and I felt like he had learnt something. Usually he kind of just grunts and (really) bangs his head against the table when he's not reciting the dialogues and I always have the feeling that these expensive lessons are in vain. They've got to have helped in some way! Today he started doing the snot thing again where I had to sit there for five minutes waiting for him to finish blowing his nose. So after he started talking again I started breathing in very loudly through one nostril and making gross noises with my nose too and then he got the message.


  ¶ 02:09 0 Comments

  When I first came to Taiwan I emailed a chick called "Mel" about some Lo Xiang theatre group that had a little ad in the classifieds of a magazine. She said it wasn't going on anymore, then I said can we start it again, and then no response. She ended up being Nell not Mel and we just had our final performance! Last night's was pretty awful, there was a missed step followed by a disastrous chain reaction during the first song, and I felt like shit. Tonight's was heaps better. I added a new move into my solo (unfortunately no more spontaneous applauses, damn!). I laid down on my side, picked my nose, then flicked it. I didn't really pick my nose but I pretended to. I couldn't think of anything to do so I just did what came naturally ;-) A friend said the best parts were the seizures we all had. I think we all added seizures to our solos just because they're fucking fun to do. Petunia and Emily and their mums were there, I heard their voices while we were in the dressing room and started to panic. Petunia's mum said they may be a little young for it but the verdict was laoshi hen bang! We are going back on Wednesday to clean up (I'm glad because if it was really all over I would suffer from rehearsal withdrawals.) But when I left tonightYu-Ren and I finally got to acknowledge the conclusion of the bumpy ride together which began back in July (i think). Everything had worked out. During that time I had successfully resisted the temptation of pulling out and he had resisted pulling the plug even though at times it was definitely on a few people's minds. This was new for him too and we shared the view that when the door opens you have to step right in while it's still open and that's what we did even though we weren't sure how worth it it would be to go inside. All that matters is that we did it!

Yesterday was Christmas. Christine got me a beautiful pair of red gloves (for Beijing of course) and I got her a new handbag. She made me sit on the floor with her under the tree and open presents together which was nice. Then I got harrassed by Claire at midday telling me I was late and I'm like dude it's christmas, let me be hungover and chill under the christmas tree but no off I went.
  ¶ 02:04 0 Comments

  I Popped the Airbag

I accidentally on purpose told Petunia about the performances and now she and her mum, plus Emily my other private student and her mum (they are all friends) are coming on Sunday to see it. Holy shite! I warned them that it would be slightly strange and weird but they're still keen to come. I'm sure they'll never look at Teacher Liz the same way again. Dude, they are 12 and 11.

I met up with the nice girl from the central coast today. She's totally into understanding the language and culture here and we had a good old chat about how crazy it drives you trying to be indirect. Sigh, I wish I could have met more people like her a year ago! Lily was good for that kind of thing though. Speaking about indirectness, I have popped the airbags at kindy and now everything is sweet. I have nearly perfected how to say "I'm sorry you lost face and I didn't know what to do and I want to make up" using colloquial Indirect. I told the students, "I had a cold last week, but this week I'm getting better." After that, the rain cleared, the sun came out, a rainbow appeared, and now the teacher and I are buddies again. We discussed how we were as tall as each other and how much I really do like everyone there, how much my plane ticket cost, and was pumped that when I said that we have different ways of communicating, she understood. Breathe out. I remember trying to talk about that with one of my roommates but I was being too direct (about being indirect), and the Airbag exploded in my face again.

Cable TV is having some kind of Aussie film festival and I've been couching it with movies I never knew existed. I like watching TV. It makes me feel like I'm saving money and increasing my movie knowledge all at the same time.
  ¶ 23:32 0 Comments

  In other news our second performance went well but we still all have different senses of timing. I scored spontaneous appluase in the middle of my solo, for spinning around for a minute or so, that was madness.

I have contenders for my scooter, I'm pumped.
Last night at the Mojo cafe the movie was about how Jamaica is being screwed over by the IMF. Then I saw my friend Jennifer who brought me some beef noodles and told me about how her boyfriend comes home late from his private English lessons with female students and gives free lessons on the weekends, and is basically never home. I don't know what to say in that situation apart from 'get rid of him', there's just no other advice I can give. If you have advice for her please leave a comment.

Jalapeno and Violet: A Tragic Story of Love and Homosexuality, and the Girls that Miss Out

Once upon a time there was a boy named Jalapeno. Jalapeno was a sweet and attractive boy who had a friend called Violet. Violet and Jalapeno fell in love, or so it seemed. Jalapeno was confused about his sexuality, and for three years, Violet waited patiently, optimistic that Jalapeno would sort himself out. Finally, he denied ever being in love with her, and said he was Gay. Violet was finally ready to let him go, however certain she was that he would eventually come running back once again and do a bit of the ol' rekindling that had happened so many times before. But next time, she would be ready! Was he ever really in love with her? She believed more than anything else in the world that he was - in fact, it was one of the few things in the world in which she, a cynic about everything, held blind, unwaivering faith. It was her reality, a pet belief, which over time evolved from an experience into a memory. This time, he put his foot down, and denied it all out. Violet gazed at her stunning reflection in the mirror and resolved that whether he had or hadn't been, he indeed had a lifetime of confusion awaiting him.

But it was something he would have to face... alone.



  ¶ 18:35 0 Comments

  It's the 20th. As of Jan 15th, no more:
-turning up to work unprepared and ashamed
-Helmet hair
-Bargaining
-Staring
-Kindergarten
-Dirt
-Tall Girl
-hard mattress
-Pollution

But on the other hand, no more:
-cheap great food everywhere
-easy money
-theatre
-scooter
-travel mindset
-learning Chinese

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I think the tall handsome Californian is getting the kindy job. All the ladies were going nuts today, flicking their hair as they breezed past to have a geezer. Don't mention it!

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I had Teacher Wu for the last time today, she said she wants her daughter to have achieved "as much as I have" by age 20 and we had a discussion about the pros and cons of leaving the nest ASAP and leaving when you get married. I said it was all good to leave the country alone without your parents but it gets hard when you meet "bad people" who want to rip you off or take advantage of you, and you try to deal with that shit while the dreams that made you get up and go in the first place never included any bad elements, and you have to think up your own ways of protecting yourself, when you never thought you would have to, and you realise you do. So if you stayed at home with your parents and never had to do anything major on your own you would never have to face that realisation. I guess it just depends on who you are - if you want to be in control of your life then there's a certain price to pay. I've gotta say, it's worth it, but dealing with setbacks and mistakes on your own can be so goddam hard.

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  ¶ 20:28 0 Comments

  Oh my god we did it. We had to get there at one to get ready and have a dress rehearsal. Then suddenly it was 7:25 and I started to freak out big time. The four of us were huddled up in the make-shift dressing room going over steps and stuff and Yu-Ren kept coming and telling us how many people were outside waiting. 30, 40! Holy shit! I was expecting about 10. (It's a pretty small theatre...) Then I'm like Oh I can't believe I'm doing this. Then I messaged my sister and requested that she give me some moral support seeing as though I was freaking out and she rang and was like "what?". Then people started coming in, and I started hyperventilating, and then we had to get ready to go on, and there was absolutely no way of turning back then. We went alright. I forgot my lines and said one of them twice but give me a break. In the "crying" scene where we had to make people want to cry too, two people said they felt like crying, what a success! :-) God I was freaking out. It was over in a flash though. Someone thought my hysterical woman solo was about losing your virginity, I thought that was quite funny. I'm glad I was able to reach out to my audience haha. Tall Girl told me before the show that I was doing a good job with the lines and stuff and I really appreciated it. The make-up girl was talented, she made Fan-Li look like a blow-up doll and I tried to tell her but she didn't really get it. Our costumes were grungy/punky and I'm so glad I brought along my boob-tube coz my dress was torn under the arm and my boob (weren't allowed to wear bras ahem anyway) was hanging out for everyone to see during the dress-rehearsal and I did not want to let this hinder my spectacular performance during the real deal so I'm really impressed with how prepared I was. Another one tomorrow but I so know I'm not going to be half as nervous as I was tonight. Then two more next weekend, then there's only one weekend left for me in Taiwan! Oh Taichung2001 is doing an article on it, so hopefully I'll get to take a copy or two home for lamination and framing. It helps that Betty is the chief translator.

Hmm in other news, a lady from where else but the Central Coast who is studying Chinese here called about taking over two of my one-on-ones. Dude, where was the last time I met someone from Gosford in Taiwan?

PS Not doing artical anymore, there goes my vision of a laminted and framed version hanging on every wall of my house
  ¶ 04:29 0 Comments

  http://random.zongrila.com/swirl.php oh hao bang oh!
http://www.twilight3d.com/humour/temp/ ohohohohooh

Our first performance is tomorrow. Nothing else to report. Except at kindy today I boot-camped it all the way and punished the an-qinners for leaving their seats and stuff like that. And I made everyone put their hands on their heads until they went quiet and I made one kid go and get in trouble with the teacher. And I made them recite the words to the hokey pokey all the way through before I played the CD. Ha ha ha. It was great. No more mister nice English teacher. Three weeks left at kindy! It's going to be snowing in Beijing.
  ¶ 20:22 0 Comments

  Attention Mum, Karina, Yassy, Mel, and Aunty D, I need all your addresses ASAP coz Christmas is coming etc and I'm sure I have them lying around somewhere but I don't know where so please email them to me ASAP. Thanks. Also if there's anyone reading this who wants a xmas card please email me your address. :-)


  ¶ 19:18 0 Comments

  On Thursday night Christine and I went to a spa for twelve hours. Dude, I had never been in a spa before. It's like a giant communal bathroom that you hang around in for a long time. I went in the hot pool then the cold one, then got the most painful "massage" in the world, then got cold and went into one of the little sleeping cubby holes to get warm again and awoke a few hours later with a fever. I was all sick and gross so I skipped my Wu Fong shift which was great. On Saturday Cathy and Antonia and I went to the art museum in Taipei and went to Ikea for a look and then had a big dinner at an Italian restaurant and it was all great. Then Antonia drove us all the way back to Taichung. The chef came and sat with us too, it was a total face-factory.
Most of Sunday was rehearsal. Everything is sweet and harmonious now and the performance has been fine-tuned a little but no-one can agree on whether you start stomping on 8 or 1. Cathy and I were asked what it's actually about and she said as far as I know I still hadn't learnt my lines so I wrote them on my hand.

The best website in the world is even better now, you can go to a small one that has 8 people.
  ¶ 02:13 0 Comments

  I think I have got a new guy for kindy. He's tall and handsome with big brown eyes, and he's a HE, so the girls are going to love him, and love me for finding him. That's the plan.

Yeah that's it. Oh I have to link to the Best Website in the World again. This time everyone had arranged the letters into a wavy line that flowed across the page. Wow.

Saturday's fancy dinner has turned into a walk around Taipei with Cathy's friend who wants to get to know a foreigner. The original plan was to do the whole banquet thing, now, Cathy is taking me to XinZhu where we'll meet her and then Cathy's gonna do something else while the two of us go Zou-Yi-Zou-ing together in the afternoon, before having dinner. Where's my Chinese banquet?! ;-) I've gotta say though, when Cathy and I went to her place a few weeks ago to use her kitchen to make cheesecake, and it suddenly turned into a massive feast, and they made it so that I couldn't be polite, I was pretty moved. So yeah it's alright. But dude why couldn't she just say "hang out with my friend in Taipei for a while". It's mostly sweet but this Saturday was previously going to be our flat's karaoke Christmas party which I am going to turn up at three for. Ah well anyway I'll build a bridge and get over it> I'm just debilitatingly popular, is all!
  ¶ 00:15 0 Comments

  Public notice- scooter for sale, jockey 125cc, 1992, 6000km.

I'm getting better at hoola-hooping. I've also started getting up at midday. The thing is, every morning we get woken up by the contruction of three buildings, not one, not two, but three buildings, across the road, and it drives you nuts even before your day has started. So anyway, my theory is, if I'm in the deeper stages of sleep when it begins at like 6 in the morning, I can't be bothered by it. Justified. The combination of getting up ultra-late and not buying groceries anymore makes you only eat one meal a day. This diet was going great but I've had all you can eat twice this week.

Anyway at the kindy I think I may have found a replacement guy and I've got the whole communication thing down pat and my favourite teacher told me not to be so polite which after being there for three months is a nice bit of headway made. One of the teachers once lost her temper at the kids, and told me to adjust the book so everyone could see it, but she became ultra-embarrassed at appearing rude and tried to express to me that she was sorry. I didn't really care that she lost her temper, I'm not feeling inclined to judge a group of people who are probably trained in early education, so I just continued on my way without saying "it's ok I don't care." But then she got upset that I didn't forgive her, and then I finally said "ok dude I don't care" but I said it too 'loudly' and it just sounded strange. I just wish we could all be close as pie and speak to each other directly. Then again I was chatting to Petunia about indirectness and she said people are indirect when they don't like you, and I'm like Oh oh, this is NOT a good sign! (ahem, clearing of throat) Going to kindy everyday for me is a matter of walking in and trying to entertain the kids and walking out again but I guess after a while you can't help noticing the relationships you have with the teachers there. When I took that first job at a crappy buxiban and I had a TA who was totally anti-productive in every way, I decided that I would concentrate on conducting the class independently and never rely on the Chinese teachers because it was a safer bet. I've gotta say though, the teachers here are all great and sweet and I like em all. I've gotta say, it's coz their boss is so great too. Anway yawn.



  ¶ 19:20 0 Comments

  This is the best website in the world

http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/

courtesy of Chewin' in the Chung

It's amazing. Like, people start separating them into different coloured piles but it never stays, even though it's obvious that's what people are doing so you'd think that a miracle would happen and everyone would go with the flow. I think a bunch of people should all go on at the same time with a master plan to separate the letters into different colours and see if you can do the whole thing before it all gets scattered again! I nearly got my name, and people even started helping out too!
  ¶ 19:08 0 Comments

  Ask Jane

Dear Jane,
Help! My friend is a hypocrite, and I don't know how to tell him! He's always going on about how racist this country is but without even noticing he has turned all racist himself! He is helping his boss find a replacement for when he leaves so he left an ad on the internet. He got a long email from a guy who said he was Indian, but he couldn't imagine introducing his boss to this guy because he knew that to please his boss, he should get someone that looks perfectly Caucasian. The English in the email wasn't too good either. But anyway, he deleted the email straight away. Then he got an email from a Canadian guy, and replied. So, he rejected the Indian guy, but responded to the white guy!
Confused

Dear Confused,
Your friend has been here long enough to realise that human resources is a market-driven business, which is especially apparent in countries where white people are seen as the next best thing since sliced bread. It's not your friend that's racist, it's the market. A picture of a white face is worth more than a thousand kuai, and I'm assuming that all parent-teacher interviews and tours of the school were conducted only during the times your friend was at work, because the presence of his face there doubled the school's value. It's not about teaching, it's about what you look like. Your friend was not asked to find a replacement teacher, he was asked to find a replacement White Face. It's what the customers want. So yes, in a way, your friend is as racist as the locals, but he surrendered his principles the moment he entered the country.
Jane

  ¶ 19:50 0 Comments

  Translation-tastic

This is the English blurb for our performance, printed in my favourite magazine (actually).

Drama: Happy Waves, Sad Woman (so that's what it's called!)
Broken are the lead, the music, the noise, the heartbeats and the emotions. From start till the end of this moldy affair, this never changing scene, is more serious than death, this tortured muse at Nell's home. And come see the dumb foreigner speak Chinese.

I added the last bit, but yes, the rest of it was word for word. Righty-oh! I'm not sure where the moldy part comes in, I don't know if it's refering to the theatre in which we're performing, or Yu-ren is about to spring something new on us yet again.



In other news, the movie festival is over, and I'm frickin devastated. The program made a few misprints when it came to whether the movies had English subtitles or not. The World, set in Beijing, was not supposed to have English subtitles (but I went in anyway feeling brave and daring) and it ended up having them. The Motorcycle Diaries, from Argentina, was supposed to have them, but didn't, and a million foreigners sat through the whole thing thinking what the fuck. Anyway for such an apparently high-profile movie festival it was pretty crappy (but typical of this place nonetheless) to make such basic, ticket-sales influencing mistakes. With the Beijing movie, I couldn't help considering the possibility that the predujice against all things Mainland easily had something to do with the mistake. It was probably just my imagination taking the usual roads of cynicism of course, but I raised it with Cathy: "Why did they say there were no English subtitles when there were?"

She answered in one word, free from hesitation or consideration:

"Gu-yi de." (intentional).

Like, before I get into another spill about Chinese culture and the way foreigners are perceived as being to naive or gullible (say, honest?), I'm going to change the subject. Like, dude, if you're going to have a movie festival, have a frickin movie festival.

We rehearse four times a week now. I'm losing weight too, it's mad. I've got my lines half learnt. Hai bu cuo. I'm trying to concentrate on pretending I'm a good dancer. It's tough. Next weekend I'm going to Taipei for a big dinner, yessssssss. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm lots and lots of Chinese food........



  ¶ 04:57 0 Comments

  Chocolate really works. After the three Toblerones for breakfast I got three pimples, so it's true about chocolate giving you pimples. I scoffed some more down up before rehearsal and it was the best I've ever had. I was Hypo with a capital H. Miss Why Aren't You Chinese wasn't there; she missed out. We had a mad spontaneous jam and the dialogue section has been changed so that it's all exagerated so it's heaps easier now and we get to be mental.

This is a good link about high-context and low-context cultures:
http://www.culture-at-work.com/highlow.html

Situations that are high-context require more subtle forms of communcation like hints and tact. Seeing as though I totally lacked tact and subtlety even in Australia and preferred brutal honesty over everything else, this has probably been the steepest and most testing learning curve I've had here in Taiwan - stuff Mandarin, it is second to this language of subtlety which needs to be mastered first.

PS Can't spell subtle-ty
  ¶ 02:54 0 Comments