Here's a pleasant way to end the week: Head to the closest bar, have a drink and some garlic fries, then walk over to the night market for a fruit smoothie and some unusual egg and seafood omelet-y things. I even got to try out some of my Chinese. At the smoothie booth I asked for two drinks with just a little sugar and a little ice, please. At the omelet booth I understood when the seller said that we owed $80NT.

I'm picking up more of what my students are saying in Chinese. They're supposed to speak in English at school but telling them to not speak in Chinese is like telling them to not breath. Anyway, they assume I don't know any Chinese, which isn't too far from the truth, so imagine Ian's surprise when I told him to stop talking about the toilet.

My first and second graders are especially impressed when I can say "that one" (nage) and count to five (yi, er, san, si wu). My grade 3-4 class, which has five students, is harder to impress because only two of them are native Chinese speakers. The others are from Korea, Ukraine and Mexico (although that boy's family is from Taiwan). It's my only international class. In the rest of my classes all of the students are from Taiwan with the exception of one student from Japan and three cousins from the Taiwanese-Mexican family.