We received a job offer from a school in Taichung, for two full time teaching positions which is really ideal for us. The school is a cram school, so its hours are a little different starting around midday and finishing around 9pm. We headed down there late on Wednesday, had an interview at 8pm, and started work the next afternoon! As we have no formal teaching qualifications, the head of the school was a little hesitant to hire us, her hesitation being matched by our hesitation to sign a 12 month contract.
The school was really in a pinch as one of the teachers (also a South African) was going away for 10 days and they desperately required western skin to cover in his place. We were it, and were thrown into the deep end teaching classes neither of us felt comfortable with. Cliff taught a high school class (as the actual high school) of 40 girls, all around 16 years old. The class started to get a bit bored so Cliff played some 20 questions with them. Letting one of the girls’ think of a person, the rest of the class began asking the questions, it went something like this:
Is it female? No
Is he handsome? Yes
Is he white? Yes
Is he Cliff? Yes
My first class was the highest level of class the school offers, known as high intermediate, the level of which was far higher than I felt comfortable teaching! One question in this class was to differentiate between words: was founded, founded, was founding and found. I also had a conversation class in which for 1.5 hours it is your task to provide stimulation conversation, on a topic taken from the newspaper. I actually found the conversation classes easier, than the more formal classes. But trying to get the kids to participate is really challenging, and trying to figure out what level they are at is really difficult. I am developing a new respect for teachers...
The contract the school was demanding we sign, asked us to compromise on a few things that are quite important to us - working Saturdays and minimal leave being two of the major ones. So although the job seemed perfect at first, we both realised that neither of us were happy at the school and decided that it was not going to be the host of OUR Taiwan experience. A hard decision as it would immediately solve a bunch of question marks we are curious about!
So we worked on Friday as we both had quite a load of classes, and told the school head we were not going to take the job. You couldn’t say she was happy about it, but she didn’t get hysterical either and treated us well enough for the day. We did feel a LITTLE less lost and confused, but that place is like a little beehive of craziness! Come 4pm it starts going nuts, with all the students coming in and out with their little masks covering their faces. Those masks also can make teaching frustrating as you cannot see if the student is laughing, smiling, confused, understanding and often makes it hard to hear quieter kids.
Amongst all the scrambling to get this job (because we really wanted it) we had to get some more id photographs taken, so we went to the first photo place we saw and got COMPLETEY ripped off! We paid 800 NT$ (about R260) to have the photos taken, and we suspect it might be because we pointed to a certain id photo on the desk. The photographers beautiful assistant spent about 10 mins on each photo cleaning up our faces on Photoshop! It felt strange watching someone “remove” all our facial flaws in front of our eyes.
We have been staying a super cheap hotel in Taichung, right by the train station, which is called the Fuh Chen Internet Hotel. We stayed at this same hotel last week, and were desperate to use the internet, so we wandered around town aimlessly for about 2 hours unable to find an internet cafe, getting VERY frustrated. So we headed back to the annoyingly named hotel to see if they could help us, and the receptionist told us, “Up road, on right, big beauty”. Needless to say we found no internet using her description. Eventually we found a swanky place with big couch leather seats, which demands you buy a drink every time you use the internet.
Well anyway, yesterday while I went into work early, Cliff decided to interrogate the receptionist further as to how a hotel can have the name Internet in it, and yet provide no internet! We are laughing about it now, but I didn’t want to believe Cliff at first. There is FREE internet on the 5th and 6th floors of the hotel if you have your own computer and they assumed we didn’t have one. Right there, in the hotel it was there for us the whole time!
We have been learning to ride a scooter, on the busy streets of Hsinchu, thanks to Robyns unfailing generosity and helpfulness! She has really helped so much we feel we owe her BIG time. Cliff and I both get a kick out of zipping around the busy roads so I foresee many a rock/paper/scissors match to decide who sits in front!The picture in the blog on a scooter is Anna-lou and I on the NIGHTRIDER! At the same time we are learning how to use the busses, as the place a bus drops people off is not necessarily the same place that it picks people up.
Travelling with us at the moment is Lucy and Leonards' first baby, he is a headstrong little guy by the name of Lionel. He has a headful of hair on him already.
We went to some of Robyns friends who stay in Jubei - a short way out of Hsinchu - to have some ice coffee and fun on the Wii. With us is Hannah, an American teaching at a Grade School in Hsinchu, and Johan another South African who has been teaching in Taiwan for a while.
Until next time!
One of our favourite meals - "Curry Fun"
Pond full of turtles in the temple.
Lional reaching for the sky.
Big birdies off to market.
The NIGHTRIDER hits the streets!
Guitar hero.
Traffic lights have countdown timers to change in cycle.
The asian teachers at the school in Taichung all thought we were related
- and could not tell us apart.
Big Boy Budda, with an extractor fan in his ear.
Is he hot, is he cliff?
ReplyDeleteNice stories boys, and I'm glad you took Lionel out your bag for a while - he gets cranky! Love ZaBra