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Landed in Taiwan shortly after eleven p.m. on August 19, 2001. Connected flight from Tokyo, Japan was delayed on Mother Nature�s orders. Detailed analysis: typhoon. Fell asleep and missed take off � next thing I knew I was in Formosa.
So nervous, an obvious feeling of course. Stood shaky in the immigration line from both jet-lagged exhaustion and stress from the new unknown nation. What if they turned me back? Such a naive and paranoid notion. Quick and factual enough to notice that my 60 day visa was to be clocked off from the 19th. Thus, in less than a one hour�s stay in Taiwan, I would already be into day 2 of my entry allowance.
Weary and hopeful trudging to the luggage carousel. So far, half way around the world � did our luggage actually make it the whole way with us? Customs, red-line for me, as I was extra-careful to make note of my laptop and guitar. The officers were anything but interested as they simply waved me through.
What is the point of memorizing duo shao qian (gloss: more less money; translation: �How much?�), if you don�t know the numbers. No point in learning how to ask a question before you can understand the answer. Still, we had our xie xie (�thanks�)s in order. And to be honest, that did the trick for a good little while.
Piled (our stuff) into a cab, and then crept in ourselves amidst giant and mid-sized luggage cases, smaller carry-ons, and my acoustic guitar in awkward, bulky hard-shell case. We began the unfamiliar journey to an unfamiliar household in an unfamiliar land. We had photos of our place of residence, but that was all we had to go on. That and good faith in our cab driver. The owners of the house we were to stay in weren�t even back in Taiwan yet. We had a week in all this unfamiliarity without anyone to guide and familiarize us. In some sense, it was like a vacation. You don�t know where you are, it�s up to you to learn the area; except we weren�t in town for a two-week pleasure trip. This was a long-haul move.
Those first days were tiring, stressful, frustrating, and damn hot. Within two days I had heat rash. Sweat oozed and poured outing of oozing pores until they became clogged in a swollen red razor-burn nightmare. No cross draft (no one there to show us that the one wall opened right up to the breeze) and the fans were only more adequate than the broken air conditioner. Jet-lag had us up and fully alert by six a.m. and nodding off again by seven in the evening. All kinds of stores and restaurants lay before us on local walkabouts. All just out of reach by the invisible but ever-present language barrier. Immediately Hello Kitty became a ubiquitous social icon.
Stress came from job-hunting. It wasn�t hard, but when you�ve just moved to a new geographical locus, finding a job, though perhaps crucial, isn�t necessarily the first thing on your mind. Stress came from the idea, and the reality that here I was in a foreign land, and in less than two weeks I was going to be an English teacher at a school I didn�t even know existed yet. If there was one thing somewhat comforting it was a hefty stock of seafood at the grocery store. Those first few days we tended to dine solely on store-bought noodle dishes, soups, and fresh seafood. We dared not venture into any restaurants just yet until our �hosts� arrived and could show us around a bit. Who knew how far this language barrier thing could go? Surely it couldn�t be that difficult (it wasn�t) but the hesitation towards full-out cultural novelty is somewhat intimidating.
So into the busy streets I went to job interviews. I made the relevant calls, getting leads from the local newspapers. Sounds irresponsible, but that�s the way it�s done, and that�s how the money can be made (and that�s how a decent work environment can be found). Traveling across the world, jobless, seems economically careless and reckless. However, so the thing is, the horror stories come from those �responsible� souls who secured jobs (over the internet) before arrival in Taiwan.
One of them goes like this. Two girls arrive together from South Africa for some prestigious positions in a Taipei kindergarten. They look forward to living together and experiencing Taiwan together, and have an enjoyable time teaching English and having fun with the children. At the airport they meet the school administrator. One girl is shuttled off to the downtown core as planned. But only one. The other is placed aboard an outbound vehicle and carted off to some rural town outside of Keelung, an hour away from Taipei. The downside of franchise kindergartens! Language barrier and the difficulty of non-residents getting a phone line leave these two friends completely out-of-touch for over a month. Not a nice overture to the Formosan experience.
First days at work can reveal that the school is not so much a kindergarten as it is a factory or display case for foreign faces. Some Chinese schools appear to put more emphasis on finding foreign English teachers than actually designing an adequate English program for the kids to learn.
My first job interview was at a school of the factory motif. Men moved boxes around. There were lots of office supplies, but no books or toys. There were more adults than children. It didn�t appear like a school at all. I was not overly disappointed that, of the five or six interviews I attended, this was the only position I didn�t receive. The reason Alpha-Beta would not hire me: because of my heavy French accent.
The interview proceeded as any would. I was asked a series of questions and then this one popped up: do you speak any other languages? Given my modes of Western thinking, I figured that a skill in any area was a benefit. Learning another language shows that you are competent in your native tongue; competent enough to attempt to learn a new system of phonological and grammatical rules, no matter how similar to your native language. Mastering your own language and having a go at another shows you have an ability to learn, and thus could find greater ease in trying to learn the native tongue of the strange new world you find yourself in. Given this approach, I had no problem answering that yes, indeed, I did speak a bit of French. It was mandatory from grade three until ten � and I think I took it up until grade eleven (I sure had a leg up on everyone!). I was not fluent, but I was sure to get by easier in Paris than Taipei.
After I responded �yes� to that question, the interview took an abrupt turn, and quickly came to a dead end. The questions ended. The man, suddenly somewhat choked up started muttering though a series of uhhs.
�Well, your English is okay � but it�s sometimes hard to understand you because of your heavy French accent.�
And with that, it was as though I had been dismissed.
And I accepted this, as I was shocked. I could not believe what I�d just heard. This man had probably never heard a French accent in his life. Perhaps it was a fear that English was not my native tongue, and he took a chance and guessed (quite erroneously) I was not a native English speaker.
My other interviews went without a hitch. It was as simple as just showing up. In all but one, I walked in for the interview but met with a discussion of terms for my employment. As soon as I walked in the door, I was hired it appeared. In a couple of cases, I didn�t even have to show my University Degree.
The one exception was for Kid Castle, a franchise school. For this position, I was to do a dreaded demo, something I had only recently been told about. For these, you are literally put on the spot � the director sets you in front of a class of kids that have never seen you before and you are expected to teach right then and there. Very intimidating. It makes me ask this question: if everyone is to do a demo, does that mean the children are constantly confronted with awkward new faces. Is there a class that just acts as the �demo class� for potential teachers? It doesn�t seem fair to the kids really. At the same time though, is a school to simply hire someone on face value alone without actually seeing how they deal with children?
In many (most?) cases, yes. That is just how I was hired. I had not even decided on the school yet, but I was asked to come in on Monday just to help out even if I didn�t decide to stay on.
My first day was terrorizing. I wasn�t sure what to expect, and it took several weeks before I really started to feel comfortable with teaching and felt as though I had control over the class without the authoritative presence of a Chinese assistant teacher.
It was a long time ago now, over a year, and I really don�t want to think back to those first few days of work. Those first few days where all I could think was I made a big mistake and what was I thinking coming here? and the potent it�s only for ten months and then I can get out of here for good. Things got better with each week. It would only be a matter of a couple more months before I couldn�t see myself leaving Taiwan for a while.
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