Dress Rehearsal

It's entirely possible that I'm teaching the cutest bunch of children in this hemisphere. Today we tried on their costumes for the graduation show, and I nearly peed myself. There were three kids running around with pig heads on, two cows, 5 ducks, a couple roosters, and a farmer. Oh my. Sadly, the farmers nearly broke their pitchforks, but they are fixable.

We practiced outside and the children knew their stuff pretty well. As good as it's gonna get for the show anyway. Turns out we won't be able to lead them on stage, so hopefully the tape on the stage will help them know where to go. If not, it'll be a madhouse...but I suppose that isn't much different than normal though.

Tommorow is the big day and then this madness will settle back into the normal insanity I've grown accustomed to...

Horse Farm

Each month we have a field trip in Kindergarten. This month we lucked out and our branch took us to a horse farm. I had training so I couldn't go with Cat class, but (luckily/unluckily) Lea is allergic to horses and couldn't go with the Zebra class, so I stepped in.

We sang songs and had a snack on our way to the horse farm. After we sprayed the kids down with bug spray, which they immediately sweated off, we headed over to look at the animals. The children, well-versed in way of dodging scooter traffic, navigating apartment buildings, and avoiding betel nut spit, didn't really know what to do with themselves. The roosters scared them, and little May clung to my arm for dear life. The rabbits intrigued them and they tried their best to pet them. I saw two animals I've never seen before: the guinea fowl, and Silkies (some special kind of chicken whose feathers can be used to make stuff) to which they seemed indifferent. Luckily, there was some bird feed and the act of feeding the chickens helped to calm them down.

Later we wandered over to the horses and tried to pet them a little. Sadly, the horses weren't very healthy. Some were blind in one eye, others had large leaky sores, so it was hard to spend any length of time there without feeling upset.

On our way back to the school, I asked some of the children what animals they saw. I asked Sunshine and Tiffany if they pet some horses and they said, "Yes." But when I asked Vic if he pet a horse, he said, "No." When I asked him what he did pet, he said, "A farmer." I don't remember seeing the farmer petting stall, but I think some sort of complaint should be lodged. I think the confusion came from the graduation performance wherein he plays a farmer. He was pretty tired after all, and the only time I spend any time with them is when we are practicing our performance. It was cute.

I hope next month's field trip can be as exciting as this one.

Time Warp

As graduation quickly approaches, I learn new things. Among them, we have four days to learn ourselves and teach to the Chinese teachers a "Teachers' Performance" routine that we will be performing at Saturday's graduation.

The song has been chosen, and today we put actions to the song "Time Warp" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Teacher Lea felt a little uncomfortable with pelvic thrusting in front of four year olds, but there's not much of that and there won't be any men in drag (much to my dismay) so there's not really anything to worry about.

I'm pretty excited about it. Now to get the Taiwanese women to dance with us...

Deep Thoughts...with a 7-yr-old

Ted is cool. I see him on Monday and Thursday nights when I teach a class of younger students. In fact, I taught him from his very first English lesson, and he is without a doubt one of my favorites and possibly the coolest 7 year old I know.

We always enjoy chatting as best we can during the breaks. He teaches me some Chinese (I frequently refer to him as "Wo de Jhongwen laoshi"...my Chinese teacher) and he gets extra English practice. After one particularly confusing, and a little disturbing convo, where he kept referring to my death, and possibly my life as a ghost, "Teacher, you die, you come to my house," I discovered that his parents run a funeral home, thus all the talk of death. His mother does the make-up for the dead people. In fact, I think he was offering me a discount...

Anyway, the last time we spoke at length, we discussed religons of the world. One of the children made a gesture similar to bai bai (praying to one's ancestors) and I said "Ami do fo" (the Buddhist blessing and welcome). This prompted Ted to ask "Teacher, you ami do fo? Or you...(at this point he made a cross with his arms and struggled to say) Amen?" I let him know I had no particular attachment to organized religion and he smiled. Interestingly enough, another student, a 14 year old girl jumped in the conversation to discuss her own religious beliefs. So there the three of us sat, discussing religion, a 7 year old, a 27 year old, and a 14 year old until it was time to return to class.

Good times.

Kindy Graduation Rehearsal

Graduation is a BIG deal. Apparently, careers are made or broken by the children's performances. Luckily, I've been paired with a teacher as clueless as myself in the process: Teacher Lea of the Zebra class. Our classes are both Xiaoban (Young Class) which means they are about three and four years old. This translates to standing and staring like deer in headlights. They are doing better and they can sing now, but they have some problems with moving to the front and then going back at the right time.

Today we practiced at the venue, a non-air-conditioned school auditorium, where we were expected to keep the children quiet for an hour until they could spend five minutes performing. It was lots of fun! It came off pretty well, but some of the children forgot what they were doing and focused on waving to their friends in the crowd.

One more week of practice and then we're going for the gold. May they remember their parts...

Illegal Worker

At last week's meeting we were informed that we'd be getting an unscheduled holiday. Why? Because that's the day the government officials will be here make sure there are no illegal workers...i.e. foreign kindy teachers. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm being illegally employed to work in a kindergarten.

Apparently, the Taiwanese government has laws about teaching kindergarten children foreign langauges. You can't do it. So that means, although they can be "exposed" to foreign cultures, (posters on the walls and the 'occasional foreign guest' to read a story), on the day of the officials' visit, we are to be nowhere in sight and the Chinese teachers can't even sing the alphabet.

The best part about all this is that the day of the visit is usually pre-arranged with the school, so the teachers who aren't supposed to be there have full knowledge of the expected visit (but a few of my friends have had their schools raided and found themselves hiding in closets and whatnot). Also, "international" kindergartens openly advertise the presence of foreign teachers in their schools. So basically, everyone knows we teach here, including the government, but there are these laws, see...so everyone pretends for the day that we aren't really here.

Amazing what face can do...

Tai Chi Traffic

Traffic cops are an interesting example of power and social pressure. They really have very little authority (you are in a car, or a motor vehicle of some sort and they are just standing in the middle of the road) and don't offer much punishment if you skip through that light after it's turned red, yet most people seem to obey. Even in Taiwan, where the red light appears to be more of a gentle suggestion to stop or an invitation to make a U-turn, the traffic cop holds sway.

The Taiwanese traffic cop technique of directing traffic is particularly beautiful. Not all traffic cops go the extra mile to make their hand-movements appealing, but my favorite traffic cop at the corner of Shan-Shi and Chung-de, never fails. Slowly he spreads his arms, cross-like with a whistle blow to stop that traffic. Then, after gently turning to the side, he slowly bends one arm to indicate that direction can go and turns again to repeat for the opposite direction. His movements are always smooth, controlled, and I somehow find it soothing to sit in morning traffic waiting through a light, inhaling the exhaust fumes in the "fresh" morning air, and watching the flow of traffic.