I overheard a conversation at school the other day. Two seventh grade girls were looking at a tree in the courtyard and arguing about what kind of tree it was. The conversation was actually in English. Even though they're supposed to always be speaking in English at school, the students rarely do if they can get away with speaking in Chinese instead. Of this pair of girls, however, one is from Russia and the other from Taiwan so their common language is English.

So back to the tree. There was something growing on it and one girl said it was a peach but the other one said, "It can't be a peach. They don't grow on trees." Hmm. I suggested that maybe it was a chestnut tree. And yes, peaches do indeed grow on trees. It's always good to grab those teachable moments.

I was biking around the park the other day. It's been rainy and chilly for the past few days and there were fallen leaves scattered around on the ground. There's a unique smell to damp leaves on a cold, wet day. There are certain smells like that one that instantly transports you to some specific time and place. One whiff of those leaves and I was back in the woods of New England on a rainy fall day.

I have often been reminded of certain places and times during my months here. The feel of the hot sun and the smell of flowers brings me instantly to hot summer days in the backyard in Weatogue. The sound of the waves at Cijin Island always reminds me of the Rhode Island shore. The backdrop of palm trees calls to mind our trips to Mexico and Tobago.

I wonder, when I'm back living in the States, when I'll have those visceral moments and I'll suddenly be back in Taiwan.

I overheard an interesting exchange the other day. I happened to be following a couple of girls down the hall and heard them chatting. When they saw me they switched from Chinese to English, as the expectation is that the students speak only English when they are at school. Ha! There is no real consequence for speaking Chinese in the hallway so the vast majority of conversations are in Chinese. These girls, however, attempted to follow the rules and continued on in English.

They were gossiping about their friends and, what was funny to me, every time they had negative things to say, they switched back to Chinese.

Girl 1: "Did you see what Meredith was wearing today? "
Girl 2: "I thought it was cute."
Girl 1: "Maybe, but [insert Chinese]."
Girl 2: "Justin probably thought so too."
Both girls giggle.
etc, etc.

I am very jealous of these kids' ability to switch between the two most commonly spoken languages so easily. I try tell my students that, even though it may be hard for them, what a gift to be able to speak both Mandarin Chinese and English. Many of these students also know Taiwanese and a smattering of Korean, Japanese, Spanish. My high school French, on the other hand, only helped me briefly in Vietnam to know when a restaurant may be serving French cuisine. Not what the foods are, of course, since that would all be in Vietnamese, but I recognized Chez Joseph on the sign outside.

I had hoped that I would be able to continue with Chinese lessons this year but I allowed too many obstacles to get in my way. Maybe I'll find a written Chinese class when I'm back in Connecticut and learn more about writing characters. Anyone want to join me?

I should be saying what a gorgeous spring its been. The sun has been shining, the temperatures have been in that wonderful 70 degree range that feels perfect, the flowers are blooming (okay, there are always flowers blooming here). What sucks all the joy out of this seemingly lovely weather? The pollution.

Pretty much every day since Chinese New Year break has been over, the pollution levels have been in the red zone - unhealthy for everyone. The reason the air was good during CNY is that the schools and most of the factories were closed down for the vacation week so there was less crap getting spewed into the air. I tried to get my students to care about this - get your government to care about your health! Get them to enact some change! You have a say in how your environment is taken care of! You'd think I was talking to a bunch of 13 year olds who only care about themselves. Oh right, I teach middle school. Sigh.

I am pretty proud of myself. I managed to throw Lee a surprise party and he didn't catch on until the guests started to arrive. I can still surprise him, even after 30+ years. Yeah me!

Lee has been saying that he would like to do a 7-11 pub crawl - go from one 7-11 to the next having a drink at each one, which can be pretty impressive considering there's a 7-11 every two blocks and they sell a wide array of alcohol. But in the next breath he'll say he really would prefer to do his drinking at home. So I figured I should throw him a party that combined 7-11, home and drinking.

The problem with throwing him a birthday party is that his birthday is in June, after everyone has disappeared for the summer. So instead I chose the day that was 7 months and 11 days after his real birthday (7-11, get it?) but that didn't work out. The next idea was to combine it with our tentative plans to celebrate the anniversary of my not getting killed in a bike accident. It made a great distraction from the surprise of it actually being his birthday party.

My friend Jen made decorations for the hall.

Guests were instructed to bring a food to share, purchased at 7-11 and, if they chose to bring a gift, they had to have bought it from 7-11 and spent less than 200NT (about $7). The food table was mostly covered with chips and microwavable chicken pieces. Mmmm.

 I gave one friend special permission to break the food rule so she could bake birthday brownies.

You'd be surprised by what can you get at the 7-11 for 200NT. First off, "Benign Girl," from the Sweet Delivery Girls Series by Jie Star.

But also this...

many varieties of beer including mango flavored, choco pies, ginseng, essence of chicken, essence of clam with ginseng, many varieties of coffee, squid flavored fish floss, briefs, t-shirts, a raincoat, face masks and a plastic canister you can get for free if you save up enough 7-11 stickers in a month. These are true friends who can present you with such a bounty.

Lee took himself to the ER Saturday morning to plead for better cough medicine than we had at home. It turns out he has pneumonia. After an IV dose of antibiotics, a handful of other medications and an appointment for a follow-up visit in a few days, he came home and started the long road to recovery.

He didn't really want me hanging around watching him rest (or at least that's what I heard him say), so I ditched him for the rest of the day and headed to Taoyuan with some friends to see the official Taiwan Lantern Festival. One city on the island is designated as the official site and this year it was a couple of train stops south of Taipei, about one and a half hours north of here on the high speed rail.

There was something like 60 acres of open space (a huge parking lot when it's not being used for the lantern festival) that was filled with fanciful paper and nylon lanterns. Think Christmas decorations that people have in their yards that you fill with air, like a bounce house. These are that shape and size but made of wire structures covered with colorful fabric - paper, or cloth - and lit from inside with lightbulbs. The shapes were everything from traditional Buddhas and Chinese zodiacs to Minions and superheroes. Not to mention the ubiquitous paper lanterns.

One of my favorites - the unexpected Picasso

There were Minions everywhere!

Jen and Linda, traveling companions extraordinaire.

We had an earthquake drill at school yesterday. Imagine, the school secretary comes on the pa system and calmly tells us that there is an earthquake. The students all crawl under their tables for the allotted 30 seconds, then file out of the front door and down the street to a big open field where they get yelled at by the superintendent because the high schoolers didn't take the whole drill thing seriously. Then all 800 or so of us file back up the street and into school where the teachers dutifully admonish the students for the need to take drills seriously.

We'll do the same thing again today, except it will be a fire drill, so no hiding under the tables. I guess practicing is a good thing but it's hard to get much teaching done, what with all this walking down the street and hanging around in the sunshine. Hopefully those pesky high schoolers will be more serious today.