The Night Before Christmas

Christmas is a funny thing here in Taiwan - I confess that I don't understand it.

There are Christmas trees everywhere and Santa Claus is a visitor in many shop windows. Yet, December 25 is not even a single day holiday as it is in Korea... it's work-as-usual for everyone. My school has been generous enough to give us foreign teachers the day off on December 25, viewing it as an important day in our particular culture... very considerate, indeed. Unfortunately, our students will all be in class as usual tomorrow and our Taiwanese colleagues will have extra classes to cover in our absence. I felt badly when I learned this from my students.

December 24 was the day on which the foreign language department held a talent show in which the students performed. There were singers and dancers and all had a wonderful time. I had initially been skeptical of this and hadn't seen any educational point to this but I was wrong. The students prepared diligently for this show and presented well... they gained confidence and emerged stronger from the experience. I was delighted to be proven wrong in my assessment of the project. There was a lot of value in it.

I was one of the three judges so I had no opportunity to video record the proceedings. Fortunately, one of the Taiwanese teachers was doing this with a wonderful JVC Everio HD camera and she has promised me the raw data from her recording so I expect to be able to take some excerpts and post them next week when I get back to school. My Taiwanese colleagues are very friendly and cooperative people and thoroughly professional teachers... I was used to working with people like this in Korea and I'm delighted to find that Taiwan teachers are just the same.

My Christmas Day plans are strange... The senior French teacher, his girl friend and I are going to a local restaurant which calls itself COFFEE SHOW. The lady who operates it serves western style food and appreciates it greatly if one reserves and orders in advance because she prepares the meal from the very beginning. If one just drops in, as we often do, it means a long wait. The food is excellent and the price is very reasonable... friendly service (even if I don't understand what is being said!).

Today I took my motor scooter to the Yamaha dealer down the street. My old scooter (more than ten years old and I'm at least the third owner) had suffered from starting problems. He solved that so quickly he didn't even charge me anything. So today I asked him to repair the speedometer which has not worked during the time I've had it. That was about an $8 repair! I'm sure it would have cost me about $50 in Canada or the US. That brings my total investment in this scooter up to about $160 (US) - and this is what takes me to school and back each day, takes me shopping in nearby towns and to Taichung City when I choose to go there... and all at very low cost. I can't ever remember a $160 purchase being so productive. It ain't pretty but it sure is proving reliable.

It's Christmas Eve and I have a mosquito in my apartment that is annoying me greatly. I can't ever remember a mosquito on Christmas Eve.