Random quote, unabashedly stolen from the tango hong kong website

"Music reveals a personal past which, until then, each of us was unaware of, moving us to lament misfortunes we never suffered and wrongs we did not commit. For myself, I confess that I cannot hear ‘El marne’ or ‘Don Juan’ [two tangos] without remembering in detail an apocryphal past, simultaneously stoic and orgiastic, in which I have challenged and fought, in the end to fall silently in an obscure knife -fight. Perhaps this is the tango’s mission: to give Argentines the belief in a bravepast, in having met the demands of honour and bravery." — Jorge Luis Borges

on language

Living overseas, you're subjected to a variety of accents amongst English speakers. Obviously, I'm getting chink mostly here ("sank you velly much," and "me ruv you rong time")(just kidding)(about the first one), but there's the occasional other that throws me for a loop. We had a meeting today with someone from an outside educational institution (read: I'm afraid to name the organization for fear of getting sued, or worse, hurting this poor woman's feelings), who appeared to have an Australian accent. But there was something wrong with it. At first I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on. I must have looked as if I were concentrating intensely on the vocabulary lesson she was describing, when in fact I was figuring out that...

she was British with a speech impediment.

"Alwight then, ay suppose that you would wont to mix the wessons togethew so that they would have weeding and whiting at the same time, is that wite?"

yowzah.

In other language news, I am getting along alright in Chinese, although I am reminded again and again that I do not come from here. Everyone from the human resources staffperson to the drive-thru window attendant at McDonalds asks me slyly where I'm from. It's usually phrased like, "You're from the mainland, right?" But when I lived in Qing Dao (on the mainland), everyone was like, "You're from Taiwan, right?"

Sometimes once I explain that I'm an abc, they're like ooooh, that's exactly what you sound like. But no one is able to answer the question of what an abc sounds like. What words do I say differently? Is my accent completely off? Is the fact that I'm nodding as if I understand you while I have no idea what you're saying until you ask me a question and I just do the peremptory laugh thing instead of answering your question, is that what tipped you off? I know that there are words that I mispronounce, like I say kwai(4) zi(5) for cabinet instead of guai(4) zhi(5), (or the other way around?!) but I didn't know I sounded like a goddamn american-born chinese. At least I can go incognito until I open my mouth. But I did that in Argentina too.

I'm sure it's at least partly due to my muddling around in conversations because I can't figure out what's going on. When I first got here, I needed to get some tiger balm for my mosquito bites, which is wan(4) jin(2) you(2) in Chinese. So I went into the pharmacy, and I knew there was a "w" sound at the beginning of the word and there were at least a couple characters, so I asked for wei(4) jin(2). That means msg. So apparently, I went into a pharmacy and asked for monosodium glutamate. The pharmacist looked at me a bit oddly, and I explained that it was a balm for mosquito bites, and eventually I got what I wanted. Then he was like, "So where are you from?"

Similarly, the other day I was at a bubble tea stand. I have to admit the I love living in the city that invented bubble tea. Not great for the waistline, but WHO CARES? :) I was in line behind someone who ordered a honey bubble tea, so I did too. Only, I got the word order wrong, so instead of a honey bubble tea, I ordered a bee bubble tea.

Finally, and this is my crowning glory, Parent / Teacher night. (And it's nice to be able to say parent, or mother, as opposed to your parent or guardian because your mom's cracked out and disappeared 5 years ago and you live with your grandmother or an aunt or get shuffled around) a mother just came in and was chatting with me, and all friendly and establishing comraderie and stuff, and her parting words were like, no matter how good we (as in she and I, We Taiwanese ) get in English, we still won't be as good as the whites. And then she quickly said goodbye and walked out the door. As soon as she closed the door, I was like, "Wait... but...."

Welcome to the motherland.

Roadkill, Taiwan Style

I'm embarrassed. I was the barking coach yesterday. I didn't mean to, but I was all fired up about the game, and I didn't know how volleyball worked here (Three timeouts per team per game? Is that six timeouts? Isn't that a lot of timeouts? THAT WAS A LIFT. CALL IT REF, THAT WAS A LIFT. Timeout, timeout!!!) (sigh). Now I know why when you see coaches at professional games on tv, they're hunched over while sitting on the bench, as close to the court as they can get without getting off the bench. They're trying to make sure that the girls DON'T LET THE BALL DROP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOT AGAIN.

In better news though, the varsity team only got mildly smashed. I was so impressed. Even if they never blocked (never been taught, yikes), and rarely hit (although still well), it was not so bad at all. We were up against the "elite" school, with their well muscled volleyball legs, and when they started playing their warm-up music mix, I was terrified. Alright, I was terrified when I walked into their air-conditioned gym, since we don't have one. (Neither gym nor air conditioning in a gym.) I was terrified when I saw that their coach was efficiently running them through drills before the game. I was terrified when I saw that their setter could backset. I thought: fluck. This is going to be ugly.

But it wasn't so ugly at all. The girls played hard and scrabbled for their points, and when we walked out, they were like, we only lost by 12! Yay!

And they forgave my barking.

locusts

No, not my students. I saw the world's biggest grasshopper ever, today. It was dead on the ground, missing a leg, but regardless the body was a good three inches long and an inch wide. I mentioned it to one of my kids, and she told this fabulous story about a similar animal. She and her family were driving along the highway, and one alighted on the windshield. Her father, the driver, wanted a closer look so he opened the window, stuck his hand out and grabbed it, bringing it into the car. He had one hand on the steering wheel and another in a fist with the grasshopper in it, and tried to hand it to another family member to hold onto it until they got home. His wife shrieked and slapped at it, and it flew back toward him. Its head came off when she hit it, but the nerves were still going, so the head and the body were jumping around, separately. I guess it's kind of the Taiwanese version of running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

No, I didn't play for the Stanford volleyball team

I had to admit that to my students today. It's funny how the value system is different here... it's all about what school I went to. I've been outted and touted by (Taiwanese) staff members conversationally and at a parent association meeting, and a week into school I was already contacted by a mother of one of my drama students, who was like, it's great that there's a Stanford grad teaching drama. (Does Stanford have a good drama department? God knows I wasn't a big part of it.) I'm not even sure how well known the school is here; mom insists that Cal is better known. (CAL SUCKS.) But I mean, if it helps the school sell me, or me sell myself, well then. Then. SOLD to the highest bidder. Anyway, as soon as one kid found out here, it was _all over_ the senior class (since I'm their senior seminar teacher, ie. please god let them get into a college, any college, or it's on my head). And of course, they naturally assumed since I'm the volleyball coach, that I played for the Stanford volleyball team. You know, the one that Kerry Walsh played for. ha. Maybe I should've just said, yeah, I did. But at least I haven't yet told them that I only played frosh / soph in high school. hahahahahaha. joke's on me, kids.

In other news, coaching volleyball is going just fine, despite my recoiling when the activities director asked me to do it. ("Uh, I have to be very very honest with you, Jo., I'm really a mediocre volleyball player. Serious." "It's okay, I'll print out drills and stuff for you to do during the practices. Great, be on the courts on Monday.") At least I play better than the kids do. Bit dicey there for a moment. *sigh* I thought that the school just had JV and JV B team, but our first practice the activities director came to us, and said, "Good news, girls! We have enough for a Varsity and JV team this year!" A bunch of the girls, all seniors, came to me after practice and were like, "Uh, we're really not varsity level players." But only one senior is allowed on the court at a time during JV games. So even though ultimately I gave them the choice, I "persuaded" them that even if we get crushed, they will play better and badder. Which they will. And they will also get squished, if varsity here is anything at all like the states. I think we better go out for ice cream or something after the first game. Something like crack.

I have the compunction...

One of my kids used the word "compunction" in regular classroom conversation today. HOLY GUACAMOLE what does that word even mean?! Whole different ballgame folks, whoooole different ballgame.

Note to Self

"To me, it's a battle of wits. You can't pretend you don't have that baggage, so the best thing to do is just use it all. The older one gets, laughter becomes the only available option."
-- Steve Coogan, British comedian

"... to become a 'spectator of one's own life... is to escape the suffering of life.' "
-- Oscar Wilde (as quoted in the "New Yorker," Nov. 5, 2007