RECENTLY ACQUIRED FACTS RE: CAUSES AND REMEDIES OF PHYSICAL CONDITIONS, PRACTICED AND SUGGESTED BY TAIWANESE GRANDMOTHERS, YOUNG PEOPLE, DOCTORS, AND GENERALLY, MOST TAIWANESE PEOPLE.

1. Pregnant women must not consume soy sauce or chocolate, or their baby will have dark skin. This is suggested to expecting Caucasian couples, and practiced by Taiwanese mothers-to-be, who value whiter skin because it holds a higher status in their family’s mind.

2. Drink copious amounts of white milk to offset the effects described in No. 1.

3. Eating bananas is bad for your bones.

4. Avoid eating ice cubes and drinking cold beverages when you’re sick, especially during the female time of the month. Cold drinks have also been diagnosed as the reason why a heavy smoker was having lung problems and teen girls with menstrual cramps have been observed snatching ice cubes with chopsticks to decontaminate their soda.

Do these points reflect your experiences/beliefs?

These countries, and many more not mentioned here, have mandatory military service. I asked my Taiwanese friend James, a computer engineer specializing in sound chips, about his two years in the army. What did he do? Shot guns, ran around, he said. Was he stationed in any other countries? No, he said, just Taiwan.

In Taiwan, males age 18-36 must serve 16 months either in active duty or a correlated public safety/community service position. Service usually begins at 19, but can be detterred by pursuing education, but not avoided. As the voluntarily-enlisted army increases, the months required by all males is expected to decrease.

The women bowed as I walked forward—two on each side of the shiny tiled aisle, bowing in a staggered pattern, like a collective audience wave at a baseball game.

They dressed similar but better than flight attendants, I noticed: navy blue hats perched slightly to the side; white collared, fitted, striped shirts; navy blue ties; a navy blue knee-length pencil skirt; and classic black stockings and shoes.

This Japanese department store, SOGO, must be closing, I realized—I couldn’t spot another customer. This must be their fair-well polite duty, I considered. Do these 6th floor baby department ladies hate me for staying till close to buy toys for a friend’s baby, I wondered?

I felt embarrassed because one, I had just been bowed to, and two, the bowing ladies’ positioning herded me to the “up” escalator that had been shut down. I hustled down the now-stairs to the 5th floor, rather than walk through the bow-ringer again to reach the moving “down” escalator. But this would be a distant memory soon, overshadowed by escalating awkwardness.

No salespeople in view at the fifth floor, so I decided to go around the corner to ride the “down” escalator for the rest of the journey to ground level—which is where I found all the salespeople.

Again they stood in two parallel lines as extensions of the entrance to the “down” escalator. Just as I entered the “welcome line”, the leader said “She-a She-a Knee” (Polite: “Thank you”), which was the cue for the rest of the employees to bow in unison while chanting another “thank you” together.

Ahhhh! No!!! This epitomized my worst nightmare. And, there was no getting out of it! I wanted to run back up the escalator and dive into clothes rack and hide till they left so I could exit in peace.

Sure enough, at the 4th floor, “goodbye-ers” uniformly bowed and chanted their appreciation again.

I rounded onto the 3rd floor-destined leg of the escalator. I saw them waiting for me again, so I started to rapidly descend rather than ride passively. This time I pre-empted their performance with my own “Thank you”, which they did not acknowledge and that did not sway their perfectly timed bows and chimes of gratitude.

The 2nd floor, I couldn’t believe this was only the 2nd floor. Time ran so slow and the feeling of trapped awkwardness thickened the air.

Nearly bolting, I zoomed through the last gratitude gauntlet and buzzed to the 1st floor street exit.

I needed to share this experience quickly to feel justified in my creeped-out feeling. Brendan met me for burgers at the Japanese chain MOS Burger (which stands for Mountain Ocean Sun, by the way) and he didn’t disappoint: his eyes widened with shock and empathy as I told my tale. Thanks, Brendan! And, thanks SOGO, for this eerie memory.

Find out your priorities, how you view life and love, and what type of people are in your life, with this quiz, another byproduct of teaching. (This is a great activity for older students and fun for adults, too!)

1. Arrange these animals from most (#1) to least (#5) preferred:
Cow/Tiger/Sheep/Horse/Monkey
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

2. Write one word to describe each of these—
Dog:
Cat:
Rat:
Coffee:
Ocean:

3. Who reminds you of each of these colors? Write a name of someone you know—
Yellow:
Orange:
Red:
White:
Green:

FIND THE MEANING OF YOUR ANSWERS BELOW!!
FIND THE MEANING OF YOUR ANSWERS BELOW!!
FIND THE MEANING OF YOUR ANSWERS BELOW!!
FIND THE MEANING OF YOUR ANSWERS BELOW!!
FIND THE MEANING OF YOUR ANSWERS BELOW!!

1. Where are your priorities?
Cow = career
Sheep = love
Monkey = money
Tiger = pride
Horse = family

2. What’s your view on personalities, life and love?
Dog = your own personality
Cat = your partner’s personality
Rat = your enemy’s personality
Coffee = how you view love
Ocean = how you view your own life

3. What type of people are in your life?
Yellow=someone who will never forget you
Orange =a true friend
Red = someone you love
White = your soul mate
Green = someone you will always remember

I incorporate these, and more, bits of trivia into games for junior high and senior high school students, and if they understand the English words, they can correctly answer the majority. How about you?

POST YOUR ANSWERS IN A COMMENT AND I WILL SCORE THEM! GOOD LUCK!!

1. What is the greatest number of times a piece of dry paper can be folded in half?
2. Most lipstick contains what part of a fish?
3. What is the longest word that doesn’t repeat a letter?
4. How many eyelids do camels have?
5. How long can a cockroach live after its head has been cut off?
6. What was Thomas Edison afraid of?
7. Do dolphins sleep with their eyes closed or open?
8. What’s the only bird that can see the color blue?
9. What mammal can’t jump?
10. What bird can swim but not fly?

*source: “Strange but True Facts”

A year ago, I scoured Lonely Planet Taiwan, Rough Guide Taiwan, Culture Clash: Taiwan, and the grand interweb, searching for ways my Western habits might be offensive to the Taiwanese.

But, I found living here a far better tutor.

I’ve noticed certain traditions and gestures remain meaningful, remain adhered to, and I thought they’d be useful to share.

So, if traveling to Taiwan, you can assuredly avoid culture clash induced awkward situations with these tips:

Don’t beckon someone to “come here” with your finger(s) curing upward and toward your face—it’s interpreted as a very crude gesture. Instead, flip it over: face your palm toward the ground, bend your fingers downward toward your legs.

Don’t leave your chopsticks standing straight up in your rice—this display appears at funerals and so, has a morbid connotation.

Use two hands to give and receive gifts, business cards, awards and, if you can, money, although in the haste of the western pace that is infiltrating, this is not always followed at stores.

Don’t give white flowers or a watch as a gift, they both symbolize death.

Be prepared that basically without exception, if a Taiwanese person invites you to an event or meal, they will insist on paying and most likely will get their way no matter how much you try to beat them to the check. In turn, it would be culturally sensitive of you to pick up the tab if you are the invitee, but on this rule the Taiwanese are flexible and understanding of the cultural differences.

In no particular order, bits of info I wish I’d known prior to teaching here, as they would have helped me connect with people faster, saved me from embarrassment and/or enriched my appreciation of Taiwan sooner.

1. Chien-Ming Wang: Taiwanese pitcher for the NY Yankees, and probably the sole reason the only baseball games sports channels feed here are Yankees games and reruns of past Yankees games. He recently signed with the Washington, D.C. Nationals, we’ll see how that changes the branding of Taiwan, because right now, you could throw confetti in the air and bet it will land on five people wearing Yankees merch. ( Wang is pronounced “Wong”, like rhymes with “song”, by the way.)

2. Lee Ang: is how the Taiwanese director of Brokeback Mountain is referred to here, because family names are listed first.

3. “Cow” & “Muffin”: Teaching farm animals and breakfast foods to little kids always rouses laughter because “cow” sounds like an incredibly vulgar word and “muffin” sounds like sounds like “horse sh*t”.

4. Lucy Liu: Charlie’s Angel is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants to America. She spoke only Mandarin till she was 5 years old.

5. Hot pot/Hot springs/Cold springs: These come up in answers to questions as you’re trying to get to know a Taiwanese person. Hot pot is a favorite cold day food—it’s a seasoned boiling stock served on fire in the middle of your table and you cook your own raw meat and veggies in the stock, then fish them out to eat over rice. Natural hot springs—public or fed into hotels—are the every-weekend standard in cold weather for Taiwanese, and in the hot summer months, visits to natural cold springs take their place.

6. 119: not 911, is the emergency number, just in case. And, my students always use it to describe a crazy event, like something you would need to “call 119” about.

7. Pop: Korean Pop, Japanese Pop & Taiwanese Pop—if you can Google or Youtube what’s hot in these music genres, or better yet have a current hit song as your ring tone, you will be feeling the pulse of Taiwanese youth.

8. Jason Wu: the fashion designer made his home country proud when he came to major fame for his gown Michelle Obama wore at the White House inaugural ball.

9. Jerry Yang: A co-founder of Yahoo, is Taiwanese, and perhaps one link to why Yahoo is a stronger presence here than Gmail and other Google products (except for the one mentioned in No. 10!)

10. Steve Chen: A Taiwanese co-founder of YouTube, place of children latching onto the latest phenomena and quoting it all day. Currently, the saga of the aptly named “Annoying Orange” has infiltrated our lives via our students. Witness it for yourself, this is their favorite one, bringing back the “Wazzzup”, as if it wasn’t drawn out for long enough in the States:

Living among Chinese-speaking Taiwanese for a year left me with these ten—and at least ten more—useful phrases, which I’m able to pronounce correctly and naturally after hearing them daily.

Click on the links to hear audio, but I think my extremely accurate academic phonetics in quotes should suffice!

1. THANK YOU—“She A she A”

2. I LOVE YOU—”Woah eye knee”

3. STREET—”Lou”

4. GOOD/OK—”How”, which you often hear repeated rapidly the way we say “Good, good, good”

5. YES—”Do aye”, same goes for this one—say it five times fast—you’ll sound fluent!

6. I DON’T UNDERSTAND—“Tieng Boo Dong”

7. I/ME—”Woah”

8. YOU—”Knee”

9. HELLO—“Knee how” in person, or, if you’re answering the phone, “Waaaaaaaay?”

10. WHERE—”Nah Lee?”

Photo by Beth Shea Palmer in Taoyuan, Taiwan

Andy is the charming boy deliberately commandeering this photo to draw attention, albeit negative, from his smart and sassy female classmates. To his right is Mandy, his arch-nemesis, perhaps only for the reason their names differ by one letter. To Mandy’s right is Fiona, who happened to arrive donning a pen-made mustache above her lip. I didn’t ask. In the back row, Selina, wearing red, flashes the double peace signs close to her face, the go-to pose all Taiwanese children seem to know from birth. Then moving to the left, it’s the rest of the adorable crew: Alice, Winnie and Ella.

I can tell you pretty confidently that Andy, Mandy, and Alice received their names from help of a kind school secretary or English-literate parent, chosen from a standard list handed out on their first day of English class. Fiona is named after Fiona from Shrek and Winnie after Winnie the Pooh and Ella after some cartoon or movie heroine—this I can just as confidently assure you.

Children—and adults who come into the two-name game later in life—obtain their English identity in one of four ways in Taiwan:

Least entertaining: The name is selected from the standard name list of all the good Irish Marys, Johns, Billys, Brandons and Kathys.

Always Cute: The name is plucked from a favorite fictional character; I’ve encountered an Aragorn, Engine (like the little one that could), and Fruit-bear (I can only guess he - yes HE - likes those gummy snacks?)

Room for weird: The name is a certain English word they have an affinity for. For example, I have multiple girls named Candy, Bunny, Kitty, Cherry—which is easy to see because, what’s a child’s favorite thing? Candy! After that? Cherries and bunnies and kitties!!! But as a Westerner, who has only encountered those names when reading about GOP rendezvous, its strange at first.

Random obscurity: A new English name is provided by the English teacher, as a result of having multiple children with the same name in one class. I have witnessed this amount to a christening of a Dragon, Money, Rain, Knight and King.