So far I’ve mostly been posting about major trips and events, but there’s been a lot of other things around Tainan that were also very fun.  I just didn’t think I could make a whole post out of it.  But there’s so many now that I think I could make a pretty long post!  Here’s all the highlights from the last few weeks.

Public service announcement: I’ve added snorkeling photos to the Kenting post.

O U T I N G S

NCKU News Center and Tainan City Hall

    

A guy named Michael messaged everyone in TUSA and explained his role within the news center on campus.  Obviously I messaged him back, and he was very eager to show me around and give me the “journalism tour” of Tainan.  So we went to the News Center, I met most of their staff, he showed me a secret room where they film news packages, and then he took me around city hall, where I got to meet a Taiwanese journalist and sit in the press room where really important people sit!  How cool is that?  He even took me to the room with gifts from sister cities.  Turns out Columbus, Ohio is a sister city to Tainan!  Small world!  Though I was disappointed to see that none of the gifts in the room were from the United States.  Later, the NCKU news center published an article on me since I ended up talking to the journalist at nearly every event.  It’s weird being the subject of an article and not the author!

Japanese Tea House

     

A bunch of us went to a Japanese tea house that was tucked away in an alley.  It looked really run down from the outside, like an old house.  But the inside was very nice.  We had to take off our shoes to go inside.  And then we sat on bamboo mats.  I figured I’d get tea, since we were at a tea house.  But the Taiwanese people all ordered ice cream.  I should have gotten ice cream.

Fried Instant Noodles

 

One Friday afternoon, Mary, Sonia, two of Sonia’s friends, and I all went to a cute restaurant that serves fried instant noodles.  They were delicious.  One of Sonia’s friends happens to be an English teacher, so we had a fun time reading his student’s essays.  One of his student’s essays was about how he eats chocolate whenever he’s depressed, and it was really funny.  He also happened to know that Glee was filmed in Ohio.  Once again, small world!

Dinner With the Tutors

       

A bunch of students went out to a traditional Chinese restaurant with their tutors.  There were a few scary dishes, like the tiny squid in the picture above, and pig’s blood cake, both of which ended up being used in dares at the end of dinner.  And now I can say I’ve tried goose!  We played a bunch of games after we ate that required some of the people at our table to pose sexily on a motorcycle, do the YMCA in the restaurant, and kiss one of the squids.  It was a fun time.

Japanese Hot Pots

With Tony, Tammy, Mark, and Mylan, you’re promised a good dinner, with good conversation.  And I wasn’t let down.  It also turns out that most of them don’t like shrimp, so I got everyone’s shrimp!  Since Mark knows the owner of the restaurant, our table was sent fish that we could slice into our hot pots.  It was a good dinner, with good friends.

Class Dinner

In celebration of the end of the semester, our whole class went to Green Olive.  It was a great time, and our teacher had some really great things to say about us.  And it was Chinese Valentine’s Day!  I love my class ❤

E L E C T I V E  C L A S S E S

Seal Engraving

 

Seals are very common in China and Taiwan.  Often people will have their name engraved on a seal, and stamp it on their artwork or their papers.  We were given a long block of soapstone to carve with a tool like an X-Acto knife.  But first we had to smooth the top with sandpaper.  Then off to carving!  The trick was to carve very deeply, so that the lines showed up clearer when the teacher stamped it in red ink and then onto the paper.  I carved my last name, gāo, 高.

Chinese Painting

Our teacher was out for two weeks due to a surgery, but we had a very good replacement.  He painted flowers in color, which was new to us.  But when our old teacher came back, we learned how to paint bridges and temples!  Here are the last four weeks of painting.  Professional on the left, mine on the right, not that you needed to be told…

Week 1 (this week I decided to copy a different one of his pieces, which I don’t have a picture of, unfortunately):

 

Week 2:

 

Week 3:

Week 4:

Cooking at a Five Star Hotel

  

We rode the elevator to the top floor of the Far Eastern Plaza Hotel.  There, a chef taught us how to prepare Longan Fruit Wrapped with Sliced Lotus Root.  Then we went to our own private work stations to make individual pedals for what was to be a larger flower.  The chef picked out the best ones to use, and Jocelyn and Eduardo put together the bigger plate.  Very cool.

 

Then we ended the session with a sampling of their menu.

There was a beautiful view from the tallest building in Tainan, the city I navigate every day.

 

L A N G U A G E  C L A S S E S

Test Grades

When I started this class, my first few test grades weren’t very good.  Or at least not up to my standard.  I kept making stupid mistakes: missing a character here or there, or missing a part of a character.  So when I started getting As, the reward was even greater.  The concept is stated perfectly in a poem by Emily Dickinson called “Success is Counted Sweetest,” basically conveying that success is more valuable to those who don’t know it.  I’ve definitely improved.

Mandatory Trip to McDonald’s

In rare fashion, I ate at a McDonald’s.  But only because I had to!  I am still firmly against the imperialistic McDonald’s establishment.  Our challenge was to order our meal entirely in Mandarin.  And who am I to turn down a challenge?  I did it.  But when I got to my table, I realized that my one measly ketchup packet would not be enough.  So I asked for more ketchup in Mandarin.  I think I panicked, because I asked for 10 packets.  I ended up eating 12 packets of ketchup (one was donated to me after one of the tutors saw my cause), earning me the nickname “ketchup” from Caitlin’s tutor.

Third Place in Competition

All levels of Mandarin classes at NCKU were entered in a language competition against other teams at their level.  The higher levels had to describe a character to the rest of their team in Mandarin without saying it.  The A1 (beginner) group, after hearing a word, had to pick out the correct pinyin (English spelling), the correct character, and then use the word in a Mandarin sentence in under 20 seconds.  Our class is super competitive and has been practicing for this for weeks.  We ended up coming in third place!  Pretty good given TUSA A2 (who was in our same competition, even though they’re a higher level) came in second, and a Japanese team came in first.  We won certificates and a pizza, and we were not disappointed.

F O O D

Salad and Honey Toast

On an evening with Sara, we were craving fresh vegetables, which they don’t seem to have many of in Taiwan.  And alas, the pond in the desert!  It wasn’t a mirage.  A crisp salad with a medley of all kinds of peppers and spinach and other treasures.  Paired with a drink that literally tasted like a liquidized mango: heaven.

Since we had salad, honey toast doesn’t count, right?  We went out for dessert at a restaurant that serves honey toast: a thick piece of warm bread, topped with strawberries, some sort of mousse, and chocolate ice cream.  To die for.

Curry Rice

Tammy and I went out for lunch at a restaurant called “Carton in House.”  All of their furniture was made of cardboard.  I ordered curry rice, a Japanese style dish.  The rice came out wrapped in egg.  Delicious.