Now you know it won't make a sound, burn down this town

I haven't updated in a few days, which in the life of a blog is, like, forever, man, okay? Yaah. 

1.I spent the weekend on Green Island (a bit of an extended weekend, but not by much). Had some rain, but got to enjoy some snorkeling (absolutely amazing), got to flex my very tiny Chinese muscle (mostly I flexed my phrase book muscle) and got plenty of reading and relaxing in. It was absolutely beautiful, and was one of the top five places I've gotten to experience here. Don't worry, towards the end there will be plenty of High Fidelity-esque top five lists...Going snorkeling there was perfect, the people were wonderfully friendly and renting and driving my own scooter was fantastic. I hadn't realized that I missed self-transportation so much (plus, come on. the scooter is neat!).

2. I'm excited about this week for a few reasons: Lots of presentations (well, three, which is a lot for me!), some more coffee/chat time with Dr. Liu which I always look forward to and a visit to Danshui (just north of Taipei city) at the end of the week. I've heard wonderful things about Danshui, and the undergrads who were here with the class got to take a day trip there, so I'm excited to experience it for myself!

3. I'm going to see The Hangover tonight at a theatre here in Taoyuan. I saw a movie while I was in Taipei (Angels and Demons, based on the book by that great bard of modern literature, Dan Brown), and I'm actually excited to see what everyone has said is a hilarious movie. 

A note on phrase books (or, at least, my phrase book): The phrase book I have is a bit like one of those survival knives boys I knew in college had. You know, they're knives but they have a compass, fishing line, toothpick, scissors, maybe some rope and oh..what's that? Yes, a nail file. For the survivalist who needs smart, rounded nails. My point is this: My phrase book has tons of sections filled with great stuff. How to tell someone congratulations on their recent wedding, how to ask for a dentist. But I really only use it for transportation and food. It even has a section for Mistakes...pssh. As if I'd ever need a thing like that.

Burn Down This Town by Roseanne Cash from the album Black Cadillac

You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops

Not a great day here in Taiwan, so I'll keep it brief.

1) Presentations tomorrow on American Music and the Ame

rican Education System. Had fun putting both together, so I hope tomorrow will go well. I'm still editing the American Music one, and will be for parts of the night. It's tough to present even close to a sampling of American Music in an hour and 1/2.

2) As with lots of "bummer" days, I ended up listening to more Tom Waits. Lower your eyebrows, I didn't say it made sense I just said I do it. Tom Waits is amazing. Yes, he probably drank battery acid before recording some of his songs. I can't help but love him. 

From his performance in Atlanta last year. I can hear the thump-thump of your heart already.

Go here for a few more pictures from that same performance, and then download (legally, illegally, whatever) Filipino Box Spring Hog and try to guess what the lyrics are. Joke's on you, they don't really matter.

"Hold On" by Tom Waits from Mule Variations

Take that frown and break it

It's been a pretty action packed two days. I was at the Taipei campus both days, and have been doing lots of talking with the Education professors at the campus. Dr. Liu, a psychology professor, was nice enough to spend several hours talking with me about education, Taiwan, religion and life in general. Dr. Yang and I spoke about American education (she's a recent Penn State grad and a lover of Penn State football if ever I've met one). Today I spent with education students visiting Taiwan civil courts and the Presidential Residence. Rundown:

1) Dr. Liu was so insightful about religious life in Taiwan and in general. The highlight was when she related her observation that so often, we hide parts of ourself in order to practice our religion with the people who we are with. She was so wonderful to talk with, and we'll have coffee again sometime next week.

2) Dr. Yang and I talked a good bit about student-teacher interaction in Taiwanese education and how she sees that as different from the typical American interactions. From her point of view, there's much more distance between a Taiwanese professor and student, but I haven't observed that so far. Maybe the Education department is much smaller though.

3) I rode on and then drove a scooter Monday night. I only drove in the hills, away from traffic so I can't speak to driving on the crazy streets but riding the scooter in the traffic was a hilarious and amazing experience. Driving the scooter was addictive, so I'm pretty sure I'll be trying it again.

4) Today I talked with several of my Taiwanese student friends (Maya, Eileen, and Eric mostly). Eric is still shy about his English, but I learned quickly today that there is one thing Eric is perfectly fluent in: American Baseball. Luckily, so am I. We had a great conversation over lunch about his favorite team (ATL Braves) and mine (STL Cardinals). Some playful ragging and general ranting about the NY Yankees. According to Eric, the Yankees are "selling the soul of baseball." Get it, Eric.

5) I may have inadvertently introduced "get it" into Maya, Eileen and Eric's English lexicon today. I feel alright about this, especially since they seemed to think it was funny. By the end of the day, Maya wanted a bubble tea and Eileen told her "Get it!" 

6) I get to sleep in tomorrow, after a few days of waking up at 7:00 am. Life's good!

I'm going to try to start saying what song the blog titles are from, because I've gotten a few emails asking. "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You" by Tom Waits

If looks could kill it would have been us instead of him

So, updates from the weekend are a little late, but here they are! As a sidenote, in reference to my title today, I had a good friend in high school who sent Yoko Ono a lengthy and expletive-laden email regarding Yoko's "hellacious Banshee scream" on the track of The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" and how it ruined this "would be classic of pacifism-motivated music." Sixteen-year olds are neat, right?

1. I went to Ming Chuan's Taoyuan campus graduation on Saturday and there was a surprise guest. The President of Taiwan! He spoke briefly, shook some hands and then left. As he was leaving, people (including myself!) were standing maybe 20 feet from him. The reaction of the grads and families to him entering the graduation was pretty polarized, they were either wildly excited or clearly unhappy with him. But, it was definately a once in a lifetime experience!

2) That same night there was a huge fireworks display for the grads. Really amazing.

3) Sunday I ventured into Taipei, met a guy named Mark from Columbia, SC (very small world!). He was hilarious, loves Art Bar. We got pizza and beer and he told me about some neat hole-in-the-wall places to explore around South Carolina. I also shopped a lot on Sunday, and bought more books. It seems like I'll leave here with an entire unread library, which I feel pretty good about.

4) Ginger and I are doing dinner tonight, maybe at a Thai place or Japanese. She's got such a great perspective on experiencing education in Taiwan, and I'm excited to hear more about her in-class experiences as well as general cultural thoughts.

5) Most common question: Do you like Obama? People here love Barak Obama so much, and they love talking about him and asking questions about him. Get it, Obama!

This would only be an experiment in things that could have been...

Let's just cut right down to the heart of the matter here. I don't speak Chinese, but I'm living and working in a country where people do, predominately. Everyone I have contact with also speaks very good English, but their first language and the one they most often use is Chinese. But, I don't speak Chinese.

Keep this in mind, always. It's important. And somedays, it's downright hilarious.

1) I sat through a total of four hours of meetings. Two meetings, two hours each. One was about the Educational Resouraces in Taipei, the other about accreditation for Ming Chuan. Both sound really interesting, right? I'm sure they were. They were completely in Chinese. See above. However, every once in awhile they'd ask me a question or make a comment to me in Chinese. I just shrugged and actually said ni hao once. Ni hao means hello.

 But, nevertheless, I did learn somethings! It's amazing how much you can pick up just by facial expressions, gestures and the group's reactions. It's not rude to answer your cell in a meeting here. Also, they were very funny and fun loving during both meetings, teasing one another and telling jokes during their presentations. Even during situations like this, I find that I actually am enjoying myself in the moment. Partly because, come on, that's some Seinfeld-quality hilarity. But also because I'm still having an amazing experience and in exactly a month I won't be here anymore. So, I'm soaking up the odd, interesting, fun, hilarious and awkward all the same!

2) I met another American student here named Ginger. She and I were going to get dinner tonight, but I'm still pretty exhausted so we'll go for dinner tomorrow night instead. I can't wait to talk to her more, she seemed so laid back and funny. She's been in Taiwan for a year now, and promised to show me some neat jewelry shops around Taoyuan.

3) Dear Prudence, by The Beatles from the White Album is the perfect song to walk to work in the morning to. I know I sound like a cheeseball, but go on, try it. You'll be in an amazing mood all morning. Well, you're gonna obviously need some Mr. Brown too. This smile ain't natural ya'll, it's all stimulants and dead musicians!

So now it's time quote time. Oh yes, I'm one of those, on occasion at least. I started reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable recently, and a quote from the very first few pages stuck to some part of my mind.

 "We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. We take what we know a little too seriously." 

Those seem like pretty wise words for a grad student like me to read and hold onto!

What's your persona about this Americana?

Thanks for the Mom-toned emails about me being sick in Taiwan (and Mom, thanks for not being so mom-toned!).  I especially appreciated one message which encouraged me to discover a means to "kick the crap out of that Taiwan funk." Ya'll are neat!

1) Did the kick-off American Culture presentation where I introduced a variety of culture topics. I exposed them to red beans and rice (gimme dat!), the fair, Outkast and college football just to name a few. The rest of my presentations will be more specific so this was just the start.

2) I met a student who will be studying at South Carolina in the fall. I taught her the Gamecocks football chant and promised to take her around Columbia once she got there.

3) A band on campus is rocking out in the middle of the track right now, and since our windows are open I can hear it all. It's a little like Chinese Nirvana Ska...get it, Taiwan.

4) I sat in on a graduate level education class about research methods today, taught in English. The class was taught by Eva, a professor we met while in Taipei for our Maymester class. She remembered me and invited me back next week to present to the class. The students and I talked for awhile about the differences in our programs, and their thesis topics.

5) Kenting trip is offically set to start on June 19th, we'll stay for the weekend. Kenting is in the south of Taiwan, and is supposed to be beautiful beaches and national park areas. Can't wait!

Beware of the ruffian who ain't got nothing, he ain't got nothing to lose

A mini-complaint:

Blue Mountain, a band I dig, is playing Memphis this weekend, Columbia next Friday and Jackson for Jubilee Jam. I missed them completely the last time they were in Mississippi, but maybe I'll catch them the next time around! The parallelism is too much to not take note of though. Well, parallelism or just...being into a band that mostly tours the Southeast. Someone, go see them in one of those three places! Or, be a fanboy (or girl) and see them in all three.