Hey folks,
Where to begin? Well, my third and final teaching demo went pretty well, my observer (an experienced NST) gave me high marks. I thought that it could have gone much better and I obviously had a place or two to improve, but I hit all the right spots- I did what they taught me to do.
Others were not so lucky.
In the last training group, the one the week before mine, one person got let go before training ended. Three people got the axe from my group of 46; one of whom was my hotel roommate. I wasn't kidding when I said this training was super-intense. You either learned their methods or, like my roomy and two other unfortunates, got sent home. Numerous other people got pulled out of lecture and 'spoken to' about their performance(s). Words said varied from person to person and it was a tense day or two as I sat in the 5th floor lecture hall of the main Hess building watching my comrades get up one by one and spend five or ten minutes 'outside.' Fortunately, my turn never came.
Now the fun stuff. For our last day of training the trainers asked us to dress up a bit and look nicer than the usual casual dress. So I dug to the bottom of my sixty-pound suitcase and pulled out the only button down shirt I had. Raisins didn't have that many wrinkles.
The majority of the day was spent listening to a guy from the main office talk to us about 'Our Company Policy' and blah blah blah. Boring. But after that...oh man.
The president of the Hess organization lives on the top floor of the main office building in Taipei. He likes to stay connected to the business and I guess living on top of it is as good a way to do that as any. The function room area was the most luxurious place I have ever seen in person. Picture a squarish room about fifty feet across made completely out of mahogany. Leather chairs and couches sit lazily in small groups around glass topped coffee tables covered with snacks of both western and eastern cuisine. A fancy asian-like lattice work wall splits the room in two and from the entrance you can just see the grand piano and the dining room table that had to be 12 feet across. There was a bar on the left side next to the private dining area (two chef's live in the building to cook for el' presidente).
Free drinks, free food, and a magnificent view; I felt like one of many young-bull stock brokers who just conquered the Dow Jones and was being treated to a soiree courtesy of the Big-Man. To think just three weeks ago I was lifting wooden tables for a living...not too shabby.
And then, KTV.
For those of who not from this side of the world, KTV = Karaoke Television. Forget the lonely mic stand in the corner of any local bar attached to a tiny tv with some drunken sorority girl belting out Bon Jovi in between sips of her sex on the beach. This place was a completely different animal. The lobby was easily as nice as any five-star hotel, complete with marble floors, doric columns rising fifty feet to the ceiling, and a massive crystal chandelier. Half a dozen employees in white button downs, gray vests, and black pants patrolled the lobby smiling and once in awhile chattering into their personal radios (wired with mono-headphone).
There were about a dozen floors and each and every one had suites of varying sizes that were all dedicated solely to drinking and terrible amateur singing. I'd say there were probably six or so suites per-floor; you do the math.
We also had our own private server to bring us drinks and snacks while we butchered every song we could think of. Which leads delightfully into my next point.
Beer.
Now, back home, as you all know, things are pretty strict about booze. Liquor from the state run stores, no beer after 11, no open containers, etc. Not so in Taiwan.
After myself and around 30 or so of my fellow teachers (trainees no longer!) found our KTV room (9th floor) we obviously opted to drink. But, why pay NT $200 for a six pack of small cans of Taiwan Beer? Or three times that much for a bottle of Absolut? Because its convenient that its served to us right in the room?
Nay. We vowed not to succumb to such lazy thoughts. So we walked back out of Partworld, the KTV Joint, and went across the street to the Family Mart (think 7/11) and bought a bunch of beer and liquor. I was drinking one of my several Taiwan Beer tallboys as I walked back into Partyworld and back up to our room.
What a country.
Several hours of singing ensued thereafter, lots of Billy Idol, Michael Jackson, and just about everyone else. I'll have to get some pictures on Facebook so you can really appreciate the insanity of 30 drunken people venting two weeks of stress while belting out 'American Pie.'
It was an early morning to catch my bus to Taichung, where I currently sit writing this. Thankfully, my home in Taiwan is much different than the capital city. Don't get me wrong, there are still absurd amounts of billboards and flashing lights and you can't walk more than ten feet without passing a food vendor of some kind, but it's still very different.
I'll sum it up: Less crowded, less polluted, less expensive, less humid.
Good times.
I met my HNST, head native speaking teacher, and a few other Hess folks once I got into the city and we went to lunch. I had three other dudes from my training group with me and we dined in a lovely Japanese style restaurant with a coy pond and huge walls around the dining area made of those lengths of beads from the doorways of any hippy's apartment.
The rice they described to me sounded awesome: similar to risotto (a personal fav of mine) with chicken in a sweet and sour glaze. Ah, good. Tasty.
Too bad they forgot to mention the rice was spicy and hell and stuffed inside a goddamn squid. At least they sliced it into nice even pieces for me.
Tentacles are very, very chewy.
Next time:
My apartment: The story of an NST (not me), a Taiwanese gangster, and one big misunderstanding. How I will shower without a shower. And the nerve-wrackingness of actually coming to terms with the fact that I'm a teacher, of children.
Fun Facts:
-Stinky-tofu tastes just as bad as it smells.
-Sushi-express is both cheap and really delicious (NT $35 per plate).
-Many Taiwanese kids are in school for twelve hours a day.
-Hoegaarden is available at 7/11 but is almost $3 US per bottle.
-August is Ghost Month.
-Many Taiwanese apartments come furnished, but without kitchens.
-Bus drivers sometimes get lost when taking you to your branch city and deem it necessary to do u-turns in the middle of busy intersections, while hordes of confused natives on scooters stare at the mortified foreigners riding in the back of the bus.