December Settles In...

The CWB (the official Taiwan weather office) describes our temperatures this week as ranging from "cold" to "cool"; i.e., 16C to 22C. While that doesn't sound cold to the average polar bear it is not at all comfortable, especially when the wind is blowing into the unheated buildings here in Taiwan. My students assure me that by the time we are all released for a winter vacation in late January it will be most miserable - I believe my students!

We have just finished an examination session and it was somewhat disappointing for the students. Because we're preparing them for the Taiwan language test and the TOEFL test our grades are similar to those the kids get on TOEFL; i.e., abysmally low. Still, they are making progress and this examination session has been something of a wake-up call for them.

I FOUND KIMCHI in the grocery store in a nearby town! Delicious and it isn't even very good kimchi... I miss Korea and the food and the people but it's the people I miss most. Everyone here has been very good to me but I know very few people. That's okay because it's still early days.

People ask me what I think about Taiwan and I have to say that I don't "think" anything. I'm learning, not making judgments. I spent 11 years in Korea and didn't make many if any judgments there... just never felt I'd been there long enough to really know. I'd rather spend my time learning than making judgments.

Motor scooters are ubiquitous here and accidents are frequent. I'm told that it's a point of honor among Taiwanese scooter riders to never look in their mirrors as they run red lights, take corners too fast and weave in and out of traffic. Last night, I saw a man being carried away on a stretcher from the remains of his scooter. He didn't look to be in very good condition.

Car drivers are not very predictable either (this is an observation, not a judgment). People have not been driving cars here for a hundred years as they have been in the west and the driving skills one sees demonstrated are not good. Korea has for many years held the unenviable rank of worst among O.E.C.D. countries - that's because Taiwan is not a member of that particular club. I'm very careful on the road and am quite glad that I have nearly 180 degree peripheral vision - I'm using every degree of it all the time!

Foreign teachers, like me, who come here usually acquire scooters because they're a dependable and inexpensive means of transportation. Among these foreign teachers there is a significant accident rate because they feel they have to test the limits and their limitations are usually greater than they think. So far, I'm still alive... I've had some interesting situations, though, when drivers have cut right across in front of me or made sudden turns that no one could anticipate. Fortunately, I don't feel obligated to prove that I'm an expert on two wheels and my speeds and road position are always quite conservative.

Thursday November 5, 2009. 5:34 p.m. A "tremblor" (small earthquake) rocked the room. I had a mug of tea on my desk and it sloshed right onto the desktop. Funny feeling when the room begins to move from side to side... lasted about 40 seconds - just long enough for me to wonder if I should leave the building and take a walk. That's the second one in two months. This is earthquake territory.

When I first thought about it, I thought it was about five seconds in duration but when I got to school, people told me that the official record was forty seconds - my, how time flies when you're having fun... and I wasn't. I really did wonder whether everything was coming to an end within the next few seconds. It had a magnitude of 5.7 or close to that. Major quakes are more than 7. I'm told that the last major quake was about 7.3 and killed 2000 or so people - the upside is that the building I live in survived that quake just fine.l