The Education Journey (Part 2) - Finding a Tutor

Once we had determined that Genevieve would go to a local school, our next steps involved how to best prepare her for a true immersion experience.  Our biggest worry was finding her a tutor, or possibly multiple tutors.  Her background with simplified characters meant our first priority was getting a handle on traditional characters.  A quick conversation with our realtor in Taipei had enlightened us to bo-po-mo-fo, which is the system that children use to learn the strokes that make up a character.  Similar to how we have 26 letters and sounds in our alphabet and we call it learning the A-B-Cs, children in Taiwan learn 30+ strokes with sounds starting with bo-po-mo-fo.  Frankly, it’s more fun to say bo-po-mo-fo than ABCs, just try saying it out loud.  J

Learning traditional characters

In Portland, a google search revealed a school in SE Portland where they taught traditional characters.  We signed up for tutor sessions twice a week where G started to tackle bo-po-mo-fo and where her teacher assured both of us that she was very bright and it would be fairly easy for her to pick things up once she was in Taiwan.  It gave us both confidence in what we were doing.

Decisions don’t prevent doubts (the eternal struggle of parenting!)

However, at the same time the tutor is encouraging us, a Taiwanese co-worker of mine was telling me that she thought local school would be very hard for my daughter, because they are very strict, have very large classes, and students do a lot of listening.  She was adamant that American students would have a hard time in this system because American kids are used to interactive classrooms and asking lots of questions. (Alternatively, she also thought TAS was a school for spoiled wealthy children and would ruin Genevieve's character, so she didn’t like either of my alternatives!) 

Her comments made me uneasy because G has a very hard time sitting still and listening to a teacher for long periods of time.  I didn't think she was a big question-asker, so that would be OK, but sitting still and focusing would be hard.

When I questioned my co-worker about the social scene in local schools, she cringed even more and said it really depended on my daughter and the other kids in the class and the teacher.  She said it could be good, the other kids would likely be very curious about her and want to talk to her just because she looks so different from them, but it could also be very bad and they could decide to make fun of her accent and bully her a lot.  UGH.  Not comforting, but then she saved the entire doubt-generating conversation by giving me the BEST idea. 

Gift giving

She said we should find some small gift that represented Oregon and take enough for every student in G’s new class.  I knew instantly that this would be a good ice-breaker and would honor the gift-giving tradition that is so strong in Taiwan.  Brilliant!  G and I put our heads together thinking of possible gifts.  It became apparent we were at cross-purposes; her goal was to give something really cool, my goal was not to break the bank, knowing she would have 25-30 kids in her class! 

After a thorough look around the Made in Oregon store, we settled on Portland postcards and saltwater taffy.  Why saltwater taffy?  Because we thought chocolate would melt during the trip, but saltwater taffy is still made in Oregon and could survive in tact.  (More later about how this postcard plan brought Genevieve to the very edge of an emotional cliff days before school started…)

It’s a small world

Once we arrived in Taiwan, one of my top priorities, after feeding my children and finding my way around my new city, was to find G a tutor who could help with homework and learning traditional characters.  In a truly small world twist, my mom in Klamath Falls, Oregon is the one who helped me find a tutor in Tianmu, Taiwan.  J  

Side note:  I have to give a shout out to my mom here. She is one of those people who knows someone WHEREVER she/we go in the world, despite the fact that she lives in a small town in southern Oregon.  We call it her super-power and tease her about it all the time, but it really paid off for us here in Taiwan, so we’re done teasing you Mom.  J

My mom has a Taiwanese colleague, Hui-Yun, at OIT (Oregon Institute of Technology) in Klamath Falls who was in Taipei for the summer with her family and my mom e-introduced us.  Once we were on the ground in Taipei, I emailed her and we set up a coffee date at Starbucks.  In the email exchange she asked what she could help me with in her native city.  We were settling in pretty well, so I told her the only thing I was really worried about was finding a tutor for G.  The next day when we met for coffee, she had the name of a potential tutor.  I was truly shocked, I couldn’t believe it, such fast work! 

Spirit of generosity

It was one of many, many kindnesses we have experienced from local Taiwanese people.  I’m sad to admit that at first I was a little suspicious of this help that was consistently offered.  Did they want something in return?  Were they telling me the truth?  And then I wondered “Why do I question this generosity?”  Is it because I’m scared to offer help to strangers in the US because you never know if people will think you’re interfering and get mad at you?  Possibly.  I’m not sure. 

But I know that here in Taiwan, local Taiwanese people genuinely want to help and truly go out of their way to make sure you’re OK.  From the stranger in Carrefour who helped us decipher which milk was low-fat vs. whole fat, to the mom who gave me Chinese books she thought Genevieve might like, to Joe’s coworker who explained how addresses work in Taipei, to the guy at 7-11 who told us where to get an Easy card in the MRT station, the generosity comes from the heart.

I have experienced such kindness from strangers here in Taipei that I often feel desperate to try to explain to these helpful people how much their assistance has helped me, but there are no adequate words!  I can only say xie xie, xie xie ni (thank you) over and over again.  But I am resolved to pay it forward here in Taiwan, and when I am at home in the U.S.  When I see someone struggling with a situation where I can help, I will offer my assistance, knowing that it may make all the difference to their day, week, month.  It’s worth the risk.

Finding our tutor

Anyway, I met my mom’s friend Hui-Yun for coffee.  I had Genevieve and Mimi in tow, she had her niece, nephew, and son in tow.  Her niece, born and raised in Taiwan but now a junior at University of Oregon, took the kids off for snacks and a chat in Chinese.  (Incidentally, can you imagine the culture shock of growing up in Taiwan and then moving to Klamath Falls, OR to live with your aunt for high school before attending U of O???)  

Hui-Yun said, “Let’s call Vivien, the woman I found to tutor Genevieve, and talk to her about how she can help you.”  I replied, "Yes, please!"  And privately I thought “Thank God, I’m not sure how much English she speaks or even how to start this conversation, or what the going rate for tutoring is!” 

It turned out Vivien was a friend of a friend, but Hui-Yun knew she was a young woman who is a teacher and is bi-lingual and could tutor on the weekends.  It was a good start, but I knew we also needed help with homework every day after school, but perhaps Vivien knew someone.  So we tried to call Vivien, but she wasn’t answering, so Hui-Yun called Vivien’s mother (how she had this number I don’t know!)  In the course of talking to the mother, Hui-Yun discovers that she is a former teacher and runs an after-school program for primary school kids.  And she says she could help Genevieve after school, and she is free right now and could meet us and show us her school and talk to us about tutoring.  Wow, OK.  We’ve gone from coffee to meeting a potential tutor in 15 minutes!

So we pile into two taxis to meet this woman.  We meet up, get into her car and she tells us that her name is Mei-Ling, but Genevieve can call her Auntie Mei.  Already it’s evident how sweet and friendly and happy to meet us she is.  She starts driving to her school, I stare out the window trying hard to memorize where we’re going, knowing I might have to get Genevieve here again by myself. 

Mei-Ling and Hui-Yun sit in front of the mini-van talking a mile a minute and I sit in the back with my two girls marveling about two things:  First, Hui-Yun’s kids have jumped into a taxi, then another car, without one word of complaint that they are spending an afternoon schlepping around trying to help some foreigner find a tutor.  And second, like so many other situations, I am at the mercy of the kindness of other people and I have to just be patient and see how this situation works out.  Oh, and third, I desperately wish to know what is being said in the front seat and wondering why I didn’t work harder on my Chinese in China and ever since.

Cram school?

We get to Mei-Ling’s school and Hui-Yun tells me that Mei-Ling actually owns the school, and that it’s a math cram school.  I’m taken aback, I have no need for a math cram school!  But Hui-Yun tells me that Mei-Ling isn’t doing any math tutoring right now, she has other teachers for that and Genevieve can come here after school and she will help her with all her homework.  Hmm, OK?  I’m not sure what to think about this, but it is only a 10 minute walk from G’s school and Mei-Ling seems very kind.  It also might be better for G to be in a place with other kids, rather than 1:1 tutoring at home.  Perhaps this will be a good situation, I’m trying to assess.

Then we get back in the car and Mei-Ling proceeds to drive us all around Tianmu (our neighborhood) and point out all the good restaurants, the good markets, her house, her church, and a public swimming pool.  Also, she tells Hui-Yun that she will charge me 10,000NT per month for Genevieve to come to her school 3 x week for 2 hours each time.  I quickly calculate and realize that she will be charging me about $15USD per hour for tutoring.  This is significantly less than I anticipated, I budgeted for $20-25USD per hour, so yippee! 

When I try to confirm that I got the number right, Mei-Ling says she will take whatever I can pay, she just wants to make sure Genevieve gets the help she needs in school.  I am surprised and wondering what’s behind this offer, but after more conversation with Hui-Yun, it's clear that Mei-Ling is very kind and genuinely wants to help us.  We agree on the monthly fee.  But this is all moving very fast, shouldn’t I be interviewing other tutors?  Then again, where am I going to find other tutors?

Should we do this?

Quietly in the backseat, I talk to Genevieve about if she feels comfortable with Mei-Ling, if she will be OK going to her school.  G is unsure and tentative in her answers, she tells me she likes Mei-Ling OK, but she talks too fast.  J  To which I reply, “At least you mostly understand what Mei-Ling says, even if she slowed down I would still be clueless!”  We decide together that we will give Mei-Ling and her cram school a try, but if it doesn’t work out, we can always find someone else.  G seems happy with this, gives a small smile and a decisive nod, and then tells Mei-Ling she talks too fast.  Mei-Ling laughs and tells her that she will speak more slowly.

I am slightly dazed by the fact that in the span of 24 hours I’ve gone from not knowing how to find a tutor to having found a situation that seems quite good.  I’m nervous about the fact that Mei-Ling only speaks a tiny bit of English, but that’s my problem, not hers or Genevieve’s.  The more time Genevieve spends speaking Chinese, including during homework, the faster she will adapt.  So, wow, at the end of the first week in town we found a tutor to help G with her homework.  

And during all this running around, Vivien calls back and says she can work with Genevieve during the three weeks until school starts, and then on the weekends after that. 

And we’re on our way

My mental list of getting G ready for school is getting checked off:  Homework tutor, check.  Traditional character tutor, check.  Now onto things like registering for school, finding out where to buy her PE uniform, figuring out how I’m going to communicate with her teacher and the administration…three weeks to go until school starts.

G's Journey to a Local School

Many of you have heard me lamenting the complex situation of Genevieve’s education in Taiwan, but others have asked how we got where we are today.  People have been sweet to assume it’s not because we are $^&* crazy.  Brace yourselves, it’s been a long journey to get here, and therefore it’s a long blog post!

When we lived in Shanghai from 2007-2009, Genevieve was 2-4 years old and she attended a local Chinese preschool.  We didn't send her to school to become a bilingual child, I just needed her to spend some time with other people during the day so we didn’t harm each other! J  (Yes,  it's true, I was not cut out to be a full-time stay at home mom.)  But she loved the school and took the language differences in stride, and after the first year she was speaking to our ayi (helper) in Chinese.  When we moved home to Portland, we were determined that ALL our children would learn to speak a different language, but it was especially important for G to continue her Chinese because she had a headstart.  

Why do we want all our kids to speak another language?  We saw again and again when we lived in Shanghai the amazing doors that additional languages opened…not just with those who spoke English and Chinese, but with those who spoke French, Spanish, German, etc. Multi-lingual people had access to so many more people and experiences than we were privy to.  Returning to Portland from Shanghai, I had a vague recollection of a PEO sister of mine whose children were learning to speak Chinese so I emailed her.  Lots of contacts and information later, we enrolled Genevieve in NWCA (Northwest Chinese Academy).  At NWCA, she had all her instruction, every day, in Chinese.  The only exception  was English class.  

OK, fast forward 4 years to 2013.  At the age of 8, G has been speaking Chinese for 6 years now.  When the opportunity to move to Taiwan came up, Joe and I were ecstatic about the chance for G to continue her Chinese, knowing that she would advance her language and have a cultural experience to boot.  We gleefully told ourselves that she would go to a local Taiwanese school and conquer the world.  :)

It was not until we spoke with a friend who had been an expat in Taiwan that our balloon deflated.  She pointed out that Taiwan still uses traditional characters, unlike mainland China which has converted to using simplified characters.  Um, OK?  G has been learning to read and write simplified characters for the last 6 years and at first, we didn’t grasp the enormity of traditional vs. simplified characters, but a few conversations later it became clear:  G would be able to speak and understand the spoken language, but reading and writing would be very different at the least, and extremely challenging at the most.  Some simplified characters are literally simplifications of traditional characters by way of removing some strokes, but most are not, they are actually different characters for the same word.

 

Simplified vs. traditional characters is a huge debate, the likes of which I don’t even pretend to fully understand but if you're interested in an overview you could read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters on wikipedia.

In our limited discussions with people from both countries we found that Taiwanese people will tell you that simplified characters have taken the heart and culture out of the language.  Mainland Chinese people will tell you that simplified characters have made the language more accessible to everyone and increased literacy.  It’s not a debate we wanted to enter, we just wanted to figure out if G would be able to go to a local school!

While learning about traditional vs. simplified, the internal monologue (read whining) in my head went something like this: “Why on earth can’t they all read and write the same way?  Our life would be so much simpler if they did.”  Because, you know, it’s all about my family, nothing to do with hundreds of years of ideology around the language.  

The research about what to do for G’s education in Taiwan began in earnest before we ever took our look-see trip to Taipei.  We started by asking what the differences truly are between traditional and simplified, but of course the answers actually meant nothing to us because we don't speak, read or write either language!  We had nothing to compare it to, no frame of reference. So we were reliant on teachers, other expats, and Taiwanese co-workers to tell us how hard this would be for G.  Half the people we talked to said she would be fine, she’d figure it out in a couple months and be on her way.  The other half of the people grimaced and said it was going to be very difficult and maybe not something we wanted to do to an 8 year old.   No definitive direction from that line of inquiry.

So when we arrived in Taipei for our look-see trip in April, we not only looked for an apartment, we also visited all the school possibilities for the kids.  Here’s what it came down to:

Taipei American School (TAS) – One of 3 international schools in the area where we live (there is also a European school and a Japanese school).  If G attended here she would be with her older sister, she would be getting a top-notch private school education, but she would only get 35 minutes of Mandarin instruction per day. We would also be able to speak freely to her teachers without a language barrier, which is a big consideration for us because G has focus issues and requires specific help in the classroom.  We could hire a tutor for her Chinese, but she wouldn’t be able to maintain it at a level that would allow her to return to NWCA when we repatriate.

The bottom line @ TAS:  She would make no more progress on speaking Mandarin, but she would be in a great school with an easy social situation and we could speak freely to her teachers. 

*Plus for the first time ever 2/3 of my children would be in the same school and I would look like less of a crazy person!  Not that how I’m perceived is a real priority, but I’m always looking for ways to look a little less loony.

ShiDong Elementary School – This is the local elementary school and has a small percentage of foreign students enrolled. It is one of only two public schools in Taipei with a CSL (Chinese as a Second Language) program.  If she attended here she would speak Chinese all day (school is 8:00-4:00!) and so her Chinese would progress by leaps and bounds.  But she would need a tutor every day to help her with homework and learning the traditional characters.  She would also need an English tutor because we don’t want her 2 years behind in grammar, writing, sentence composition, etc when we return to the States.  And we would not be able to communicate easily with her teacher, it would require assistance from a friend/tutor/bilingual person. Conversations with Taiwanese co-workers and friends split evenly on how her social situation would be:  half said the Taiwanese kids would be interested in her because she’s a foreigner and would want to be friends, the other half said she would be bullied and ostracized as a foreigner and would likely not have any friends.  (I even read a blog that detailed this experience for one ex-pat family in Taiwan.)

The bottom line @ ShiDong:  It would be the most work for G (and for us), and we were unsure of the social situation.  The payoff?  She would continue speaking the Chinese that she loves, and she could come out of the situation knowing simplified AND traditional characters and have more versatility than we ever imagined.  She could also return to NWCA for fifth grade.  She might also learn to cope with her focus issues in new and creative ways.

As you can tell, our visits to schools in Taipei did nothing to clarify which school we should put G into.  We made lists of pros and cons, we talked endlessly about the “right” thing to do for her, we tried to separate our dreams of language acquisition for our kids from the needs of our child, and we talked to absolutely everybody we could think of who might have some advice or insight on this.  By the way, a big thank you to all of you who were subjected to our agonizing over this situation… you listened attentively and made lovely sympathetic noises.  I know most of you were thinking “just hurry up and make a decision already so you can shut up about this,” and we truly appreciate that you didn’t say that out loud.  J

For weeks and weeks we didn’t know what we were going to do, but we did choose an apartment that was in the ShiDong school district so that option stayed open to us.  And then we came to our senses and decided to include G in the conversation. 

In some ways 8 years old is very young, and in some ways it’s more than old enough to be included in decisions about how you spend your days.  We sat down with her and laid out all our thoughts about both schools in the most unbiased way we could.  It was a hard conversation because the child has the attention span of a gnat, but we got through it. 

Her first reaction was that she would like to be in school with her sister at TAS because she could help her with making friends with all the Mandarin speakers.  She has such a sweet heart.  (We had told her that the instruction at TAS was all in English, but most of the kids were speaking Mandarin in the hallway when we were there, so she wanted to help Livi adjust to that.) 

But her second reaction was more thoughtful.  She said that the most important thing to her is that she be able to return to NWCA and all her friends at NWCA when we move back.  She gave a little decisive nod and said she wanted to go to the local school if that meant she could keep up with her Chinese.  We re-explained all the extra tutors that would be required, pointed out that her days would essentially be from 8:00-6:00, and that she would have to work very hard just to keep up.  She asked to think about it a little, and the next morning she told us, “I want to keep speaking Chinese, and I want to go back to my friends at NWCA, so I think I better go to ShiDong.”

And there you have it, a decision was made.  We wanted to stand up and cheer for her bravery and courage, but we knew if we made too big of a deal about how amazing and challenging this would be, she might be intimidated and back out of her decision.  We were in AWE of what she was willing to do, and we loved that she had found her own motivation apart from ours…her friends.  So we smiled and said we thought she’d made a good choice and I set about finding a tutor in Portland to introduce her to traditional characters over the summer. 

And honestly, I totally panicked.  My mind was a constant whirl of doubts and worries. What if she could hack it academically, but the kids were mean to her?  What if she couldn’t figure out traditional characters and learned nothing?  What if her teacher was pissed he/she got stuck with a foreign student?  What if they wouldn’t let her sit at the front of the classroom where she needs to be?  What if she was miserable at school but she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us?  What if we were putting too much responsibility on her sweet little head and shoulders? What if she would be totally and completely scarred and screwed up by this experience for the rest of her life???  Well, on that last one, as it turns out, we did that to her anyway by nicknaming her Gigi and then moving her to a country where that word is slang for penis, but that’s another story.

At the end of the day, all these worries were mine and Joe’s, not Genevieve’s.  And rightfully so; we are parents and it’s our job to look at this from every angle and consider as much as we can the consequences for the situations we put our kids in.  But Oh. My. God. it added stress to moving to a new country.

So we moved to Taipei knowing that Genevieve would attend ShiDong Elementary School.  And we knew it would be as scary for us as it was for her, yet we did our grown-up best not to let her know that we were completely FREAKED OUT for her.  :)

A few observations after 3 weeks

Pre-typhoon rain is nothing to laugh at!  It rains buckets, it rains so hard it's deafening under an umbrella, puddles form instantly, gutters overflow, small creeks run down the side of the street.  Then it stops and is so humid it's like walking through water!  And then it starts all over again, while you wonder if you remembered to pack everybody's rain boots in the sea shipment....

By the way, the score is typhoon rains=1, 3 umbrellas=0.  Must find better quality umbrellas!

Cars slow down to a crawl in the rain here, just the same as Portland, although somehow it seems more valid here since you can't actually see out the windshield when it's raining!  Took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to Costco this morning, normally it's a 20-25 minute drive.

Glorious Costco - I can buy things here that I can get nowhere else in Taipei, like Fage greek yogurt, granola bars, goldfish crackers, Special K cereal, and so on.  And it turns out they have rotisserie chicken - hurray!  It also turns out that said rotisserie chicken still has the head on it - boo!  (Yes, I discovered this when I got it home, and had to whack off the head...)

I love it when the restaurant name tells you exactly what to expect.  My favorite so far..."Eat Burger."

Signs in English - the translations are often not quite right, and sometimes flat-out wrong.  Do you think the Chinese signs in America are just as bad?  Do Chinese people go through American airports giggling at the signs?

The garbage & recycling truck comes down our lane at 7:15 every night.  People know it's arrived because it plays "Fur Elise" out of a loudspeaker system.  I will never think of that classical song the same way again.

Geckos in Taiwan are not green like in Hawaii, they are a light tan almost translucent color.  I'll have you all know, I only let out a small squeak while I did crazy jazz hands when I discovered that gecko on my laundry pile last night.

Locals are just as jumpy about cockroaches as I am.  Watched a lady yesterday do a fast dance on the sidewalk to avoid a cockroach.  I feel better about shrieking and jumping when I see them.  (side note: G has decided the best joke ever is to point and yell "cockroach" at me whenever we're walking at night.  It's effective, I'll give her that.)

The cable guy comes on time here.  In America, they give us a window of 4 freakin' hours in which the cable guy might show up.  Here, they say they will be there after 10am and he arrives promptly at 10.  What a concept.

Movie theaters have reserved seats.  When you buy your tickets ahead of time, you can select your seats.  When you buy at the ticket counter at the theatre, you still get a reserved seat.  And people actually sit in their reserved seats!

People in Taiwan are so polite.  Standing in line is actually a thing here, unlike in China where no one ever heard of a line.  Today a gentleman stood aside and let me in the elevator first and another let me go in front of him in line because I had one item and he had a cart full.  Never ever happened in China.

We are going through an inordinate amount of toilet paper!  We've been here 3 weeks and I tried to buy our second package of toilet paper at Costco today (they were out, coincidence?).  I used to buy a big Costco package of TP about every 2 months in Oregon!

More people than I expected speak English, and if they hear you struggling they often step in and help. I'm always equally grateful and embarrassed.  I moan about how hard Chinese is to learn, but clearly all these people have learned both Chinese and English (the other hardest language to learn).  What is wrong with me???

I signed up for Survival Chinese language classes starting in September.  I'm sure I'll learn lots of really useful things, but what I really want to know is how I say my address in Chinese.  In English, it's No.8, Alley 45, Lane 405, Zhongshan Bei Lu, Section 6, Shilin District.  What are the Chinese words for number, alley, lane, and section?  And once I know those, what order do I say this all in?  Start with the big boulevard first and go backwards until I get to the building number?  Or start smallest with the building number and build up to large road we live near.  It's a mystery to me.

Garbage disposals don't exist here.  Instead they have these genius little colander things that sit down in the drain and they catch all the bits and you can empty it out.  I thought it was genius until the first time I cleaned it out.  Gross.

Mimi has decided on a standard answer any time she gets in trouble or is asked to stop whining/crying/complaining:  "But Mama, I miss my friends and my school in Portland."  Which was really sweet the first 10 times, and I was sympathetic.  But today she used it after she whacked G in the head with her umbrella and I told her to knock it off.  I think perhaps my sympathy has departed...

I had the use of a car today (hallelujah!) and I was reminded that #1 doing errands in pre-typhoon rain is stupid, #2 I will never accomplish in one day here what I accomplished in the US.  There are just too many variables with transportation, language, stores, faulty directions, wrong addresses, etc.  It's time to let my type A/OCD craziness relax...

On that note, I'm off to bed so I can try to accomplish just one thing tomorrow instead of five.  Of course, before I got to bed I have to do one more check of the weather website to see if there is any more info about tomorrow's typhoon.  Can't learn to relax all in one day.  :)

Problem Solving a.k.a. Life Before Smartphones

Things are moving very fast here in Taipei, much faster than when we moved to Shanghai.  In Shanghai, we literally knew only one other couple for the 3 weeks until school started.  The girls were little and still had naps every day and getting a meal on the table was just about the only thing I could accomplish in a day for a very long time.  We didn't start exploring for quite a few weeks.

In Taipei, however, we were introduced to a whole bunch of fun and welcoming people the first weekend.  I mentioned in another blog that it was fantastic to talk to other adults and soak up some knowledge about living here.  But equally important was the chance for the kids to meet new friends.  And then we were generously invited to playdates at a variety of pools this week.  It's been such a blessing because it's been 95-100 every day and just walking two blocks in this heat and humidity takes it out of us.  A pool with new friends is just the thing for revival!

One of the challenges of contacting people and confirming playdates and locations and pick-up times etc is my phone.  I have a borrowed phone, and I'm incredibly grateful for that because without it I would have nothing.  But the phone is not a smart phone and it doesn't have data.  So it's strictly calling or texting...and texting is the old-fashioned way, withOUT predictive text. Almost as much as I miss the ability to text efficiently, I miss having a map program!  Or even having a paper map of the Tienmu area where we live.  There are google maps, but we have no printer as of yet, so I can't print one out.  And you can't buy a map of the area.  It makes getting around a little complicated, you basically have to walk til you find what you're looking for, not an easy task in this heat with little ones in tow.

Yesterday we were invited to a swim playdate at Zane and Cara's house.  Zane works at Intel and they are also from Portland, and we had a chance to meet Cara and their kids before moving to Taiwan.  Ironically, they also have a 4 year old named Mimi!  Our Mimi has been truly looking forward to the day when the "other" Mimi arrives in Taipei.  So yesterday we were headed to their house after G's tennis lesson.  Actually, back up, here's how the day started out:

8:30 New Parent Orientation at TAS (Taipei American School) - not supposed to take kids, but what are we going to do with them?  We pack up Livi for basketball camp, pack a backpack of stuff for the little ones to read and play quietly during orientation.

9:00 Send Olivia off to bball camp from middle of orientation meeting

9:30 Orientation done - stand in line for campus ID photo, have picture with bad frizzy hair taken, put money on Olivia's lunch card.  Joe heads to bus stop to jump on bus to work.

9:45 Walk to bakery to get more wheat bread because we're almost out...wheat bread is fresh out of oven and too hot to slice, please come back later

10:00 Home - G gathering stuff for tennis lesson, Mimi on toilet complaining of Taiwan tummy, me sitting in front of my computer looking at google maps trying to memorize the roads to get to Cara's house.  Then looking at bus routes that get us close to their house.  Think I have a plan to get us 75% of the way there on the bus before we have to walk, but the bus we need only comes by every hour.  More yelling from Mimi on the toilet, G dancing through the family room without any tennis gear...me making a sketch of the google map

10:30 Realize that if we're going to execute our bus & walk plan to playdate, need to have lunch in the 15 minutes between end of tennis lesson and catching bus.  Frantic making of peanut butter and jelly sandwich (just one, since we're out of bread) and throwing fruit and snacks into bag with swimsuits.

10:45 Out the door to tennis lessons.  As we are walking to tennis lessons in sweltering heat, realize that the walk to playdate (which looked uphill on google maps) may be bad idea.  Maybe we'll take a taxi after bus.  I have address:  No. 45, Lane 25, Dong Shan Road.  My problem is I don't know the Chinese words for "house number" and "Lane."  I can't just give the taxi driver a bunch of Chinese numbers with English words interspersed, how do I figure out how to say the whole address in Chinese?

Side note:  Why don't I have a smartphone?  Why can't I just show a taxi driver the address in Chinese on my smartphone?  Oh yes, because you cannot buy a phone plan with data until you have your ARC (Alien Resident Card).  And you cannot apply for ARC until you're in the country and then it takes 2-3 weeks from the time you apply.  Thus, why I have a borrowed phone in the meantime.

11:00 Drop G at tennis lessons, text Joe and ask him to ask colleagues at work how to say "house number" and "lane" in Chinese....15 minutes later get the answer in phonics.  Good enough, I can work with that.

11:30 G finishes tennis lessons (indoor courts with no A/C).  We sit on steps inside school in cool A/C trying to let her cool down before walking outside.  Eat our picnic lunch.

11:45 Let's go girls, we've got to catch the bus!  Walk briskly to bus stop, sweat dripping from all possible places on our bodies.  Find bus stop no problem, feeling good!  Turns out bus doesn't come for another 23 minutes, sorry for the hurry girls.  :(  Other buses coming by frequently, but I don't know exactly where they go, and the maps at the bus stop are all in Mandarin characters, no help to me.

12:15 Jump on bus.  Air Conditioning.  BLISS.  Maybe we'll just ride around on the bus all afternoon.  But alas, our stop comes...and then goes.  Bus driver doesn't stop at regular stop even though I pushed button, goes all the way down the hill and then stops.  We get off and walk back up the hill as I'm looking around for the right street.  I double back at one point trying to get a look at a street sign and Mimi starts to whine that we'll miss the playdate with other Mimi because we're lost.  "We're not lost, I'm just getting my bearings."  Then G chimes in with, "I wish Daddy were here, then we wouldn't be lost." I'm seeing red at that comment because I think I'm a pretty damn good problem solver in a foreign country, but instead of yelling, I politely say through clenched teeth, "Daddy's no better at finding his way than I am, he just has a phone with a map on it to help him out."

We find the right road at the top of the hill.  Looking at an uphill walk in 98 degree heat on a narrow road with no sidewalk and two exhausted kids.  Taxi comes by, I decide to go for it and flag the taxi.  Get in taxi, tell him address.  He shakes his head "no" and points to a detour sign at the bottom of the road.  I'm trying to tell him to take the detour, but that's no help because I'm doing it in English.

He says something else and G says "he says he can't go that way Mom" and I'm muttering to myself, "what's the words for 'other way'?" when G just starts talking to the taxi driver.  Again he tells us he can't go that way, then G tells him another car (a Mercedes, no less) just went around the detour sign.  Taxi driver follows Mercedes, YEAH!!!  Big hugs for G!!!  Speeding up hill, I keep repeating what house number we're looking for and taxi driver just keeps driving until we get to a dead end, then looks at me. He's not even helping look for the address!  I tell him go back down slowly while we look for house number.  Least helpful taxi driver I've encountered yet.

I find #45 gate, but it's next to empty lot with broken down cars and tractor, could this be their house?  We get out of taxi and I'm trying to figure out in my head how to say to some unsuspecting Taiwanese person who opens the door "Hi, I'm looking for my American friends who live at No. 45 on Lane 25?"  Luckily, it was the right house and we found Cara and Zane and Alex and Mimi.

Lovely couple hours in their pool, and even lovelier ride back to TAS in their car with their driver.

3:45 Pick up Olivia from last day of basketball camp, where she got a medal for "most improved" camper during the week.

4:00 Walk back to bakery for wheat bread.  Kids talk me into chocolate chip cookies...am wilted by heat and have no more brain power left, no ability to say no.

4:30 Make it home again.  Plop down on couch under air conditioner.  Can't move.  Joe texts that dinner plans are cancelled. Crap, need to make dinner.

5:30 Joe walks in, I'm still sitting on couch reading Facebook, CNN, email.  Children are running around like lunatics.  We're going to get complaints from neighbors below us.
Joe patiently listens to my day and even nods sympathetically in all the right places, except about the part where G wished he was with us so we wouldn't be lost.  There he gave a chuckle!  Joe graciously gives in to my whining about cooking and we head out to dinner.

God bless the Italians and the way their food is available in almost every country around the world.  A glass of wine and a brick-oven pizza revive my outlook on life in general.  Lovely stroll back to the apartment after dinner, feeling mellow and happy to have our family together and on a new adventure.  Shops are open and it's fun to look in and see what's what, we're all enjoying ourselves on a Friday night.

Stop into a bookstore next to G's new school to get her some notebooks for when her tutor comes on Monday (more on how we found her later).  Kids picking out pens and notebooks and having fun, then G mentions how at her old school they gave them all the supplies and her new school will be different.  I nod absently, and then freeze.  Oh My God.  There is going to be a school supply list, and it's going to be in Mandarin, and I'm not going to know what to get or where to get it.  Holy crap.

Mellow mood disappears, shooting panicked look at Joe.  Thank goodness I am married to the perfect partner for me.  He tells me it's a problem for another day and we'll figure it out then.  He's right, indeed we will.  And I'm sure it will be it's own adventure...

What's in a name? Everything when you're 8 years old.

This morning, I had a heartbreaking conversation with Gigi.  She was in tears at breakfast for a variety of reasons, but the main one was that she misses her name.  She misses being Gigi.  Why, you ask?  Because she has to go by Genevieve or her Chinese name Ling Ling while in Taiwan.

When we were in China, someone told us that gigi is the slang word for penis in Mandarin.  But no one ever had any reaction to her name or made an issue out of it, so I figured it wasn't a very commonly used word.  Or it was kind of like the name Dick in the US, some people under the age of 12 may snicker, but it's not a big deal.

But apparently that's not going to be the case in Taiwan.  When we spent Sunday afternoon with some other ex-pat families some of the moms kindly informed me that the word "gigi" is what boys call their penises.  I thought we would just see how things played out, see if it was a big deal or not and see how Gigi reacted to it.  I didn't have to wait long.  On Tuesday we went at a pool as guests of a friend and kids (also American) at the pool informed Gigi that her name means penis in Taiwan.  She came to me immediately and said she didn't want to be called Gigi anymore.  I asked her what she wanted to do and she asked to be Genevieve or Ling Ling.

For the last two days we've been calling her Genevieve (except Amelia, who can't remember to call her Genevieve, and when she does, she adorably calls her Gevenieve.)  After 8 years of calling her Gigi, it's a bit of a mind-bender for us to call her Genevieve all the time.  This morning, through her tears, Gigi tells me she misses being Gigi, and she feels like she's always in trouble when I'm calling her Genevieve.  I'm so sad, and she's so sad, and there's really nothing we can do.  :(

This, my friends, is one of the dangers of giving your children nicknames...but who thinks of the possible consequences of a name in a foreign country when you are naming your sweet baby girl?  We certainly did not.

Our First Weekend

Hooray!  We've made it through our first weekend and can report that it was great.  Well, it was mostly great...there was that episode where we found out we're fat.  Even when you know it's coming, it's still shocking to have people comment so blatantly on your physical attributes.  But I digress.

Saturday morning was leisurely, got a few things done around the house.  Since we have only rental furniture (couch, coffee table, dining table, chairs, and 4 beds) and our clothes and some kid toys, there is not really a lot to be done.  We basically tidied up piles of stuff.

We decided to tackle public transportation in the afternoon, but first visited the local gym.  World Gym is about a 10 minute walk from our apartment, and since we spent the last 3 months stuffing our faces with as much mexican food as possible and eating whatever else we pleased, we actually need the gym now. We went in, kids in tow of course, which got us a lot of looks.  We asked for a tour and pricing information.  "Eden" was our tour guide and there was absolutely no telling if we were speaking with a he or she.  You would think the name would indicate female, but names are tricky things between cultures.  Sometimes people don't understand the significance of a name, or the fact that it's typically a male or female name.  For example, I know I am totally clueless about Chinese names: if you gave me a list of Chinese names and asked me which ones were typically male or female, I would have absolutely no context and no idea.  I would purely be guessing.

Regardless, we followed "her" around the cardio and weight rooms.  Then she took us to the Personal Training desk where the one English (kind of) speaking person asked us to take off shoes and step onto a machine.  As happens so often, we have no ability to ask what or why and understand the answer, so we just go along.  It turned out to be a diagnostic scale of sorts.  We each got a print out with our weight, bone density, hip & waist ratio, BMI, etc.  Then, in barely functioning English, a trainer took us through the analysis.  About the 5th time he mentioned the word "overweight" and "out of normal range" he also mentioned that maybe we eat too much friend chicken.  The kids all cracked up at this, especially since we never eat fried chicken.  Aiyo!  We voluntarily came into this gym???  But yes, we joined the gym, because hey, it's air conditioned!

Next we planned to hop on bus 285, the bus Joe will take to work.  But first we had to get mass transit cards, which we did at 7-11.  By the way, there is a 7-11 or a Family Mart on practically every block in Taipei.  It's amazing how many convenience stores exist here.  And you do everything at 7-11: pay bills, send packages, buy transit cards, buy tickets to concerts/movies/shows, buy alcohol, local snacks, and anything else you can think of.  7-11s are definitely not this useful in the US.  Although, sadly, no slurpee machine in the 7-11s in Taipei.

The bus ride to work was about 40 minutes (not in rush hour traffic), it's clean and efficient.  Once at the office building, we figured we might as well learn all the mass transit on the same day, so we found the closest MRT station (subway) and headed across town to Taipei 101.  A truly impressive building among all shorter buildings, although I have no idea why there are no more tall buildings in the Taipei skyline, perhaps there's a rule?  101 was the tallest building in the world in 2004.  We treated the kids, and ourselves, to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, then hopped back on the MRT.  Rode it all the way back to Tianmu (our neighborhood), then a 20 minute walk home and we had made a complete trip.  Kids were troopers the whole time and now know how to navigate bus and subway!

Sunday started a little rocky with the 4:30am call from our bank's fraud protection unit calling to confirm that Taiwan purchases were legitimate.  Seriously?  There is a note on our account that says we moved to Taiwan July 27th and activity on our cards in Taiwan will be common!  Apparently, that's irrelevant.  But things improved with an 8am Skype call with friends in Portland.  Technology is such a godsend when you're living abroad, especially for kids who are afraid their friends will forget them while they are gone.  So good to see the people you're talking to!

We were invited to Joe's co-workers apartment for snacks and swimming in the afternoon.  Turns out they live a 3 minute walk from us and they invited over a number of other friends.  So great to meet a few people, and for me to pick the brains of all the other moms.  So many questions!  My head is swimming with new information, but most importantly, they told me where I could find deli meat!  I have been to 4 different grocery stores so far and have not seen deli meat.  Starting tomorrow Olivia goes to basketball camp and I was in a bit of a panic about what to pack in her lunch.  I'm not feeling creative enough to send her anything other than a sandwich, which is why I walked to the store at 9:00 tonight and paid $23 (!!!) for half-pound of ham and half-pound of turkey.  OMG.  I'm going to have to figure out a different lunch, sandwiches at that price are clearly not in our budget.  (In case you thrifty folks are wondering, Olivia's school is a peanut-free zone, so no economical PJB sandwiches.)  But any and all other lunch suggestions are welcome.  :)

Anyway, the kids got to swim and play with other kids, Joe and I talked to other adults, and we have lots of new information about the place we live.  We are feeling very satisfied with our weekend and ready to tackle the next week.  Olivia is going to basketball camp every day, Gigi is taking tennis lessons each day, and Mimi has an "interview" to get into her Montessori school.  Wish us luck!

First Week in Taipei

Well, we've made it through the first week in Taipei!  The general consensus from everyone in the family is: IT'S HOT!  These Pacific Northwest bodies are not accustomed to heat and humidity of this level.  It's so hot all the time that lukewarm water comes out of the tap...no cold water this time of year.

Here are some snatches of our week:

Monday - Left the hotel, moved into our apartment.  I was pleasantly surprised to realize I liked the apartment better than I remembered.  (Except, of course, for the weird hot dog water smell in Gigi's room).  We had the use of a van and driver for the day, so went to the bank to change money and pay landlord, rental furniture, water guy, internet/cable, telephone, etc.,
Then we hit all the big stores where we were likely to buy things that we couldn't get home in a taxi.  We don't have a car here in Taipei, so after this week, everything is on foot or by taxi. Big shopping at Costco, which is remarkably like home, except crazy crowded.  Imagine Costco on Saturday, then add 30-40% more people.  Had Costco hot dogs for lunch the first day!  Apparently, we haven't actually left America.
Also went to B&Q (Home Depot equivalent), then Hola (home furnishings store).  Piled it all into the car, then Joe headed to our friend Jack's house for two suitcases full of stuff he brought over in June.  No one was up for cooking, so we walked to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Din Tai Fung.  Twenty minute walk in the heat, tired jet-lagged girls, and the wait is 35 minutes.  Can't do it, so we hop in a taxi and go to Chili's (yes, the American chain).  But Gigi is feeling sick and we spend 20 minutes in the bathroom where she feels like she's going to throw up.  Get the food to go, hop in a taxi back home, sit down for dinner at 8:30.  Perhaps we should have waited the 35 minutes at 7:00.  Oops.  Mimi falls asleep at the table after one bite of pizza.

Tuesday - Joe heads to work/Ecosystem Symposium, we stick around the apartment to pay the bottled water guy but he never comes.  No idea what happened there.  We venture upstairs and meet the neighbors that live directly above us, an American family with two sons, ages 5 and 1.  The older son attends Ms. Lam's Montessori School where Mimi will be attending and the mom says it's a great school.  Good to hear, and perhaps there is a possible walk-pool here!

Girls and I take a walk to all three of their schools.  It's HOT and muggy, everybody's got curly hair.  Gigi sees a dumpling restaurant and asks if we can eat lunch there.  Olivia declares she couldn't eat something hot "no matter what!"  Then amends to, "well, if they have the air conditioner on super high and we can sit there for a really long time, then maybe."  We opt for a lunch at air conditioned Subway instead.  The girls beg me to take them to the exercise park.  I'm dumbfounded.  Weren't they just complaining about the heat?  Yes, but we go anyway.  It's a tiny park with exercise equipment for adults.  For some reason they love this place and use the equipment for 20 minutes and get even sweatier and dirtier!

Joe makes it home by 6:00 and we have our first meal together in our new house.  It's less than spectacular.  I had the makings for spaghetti from Costco plus a stash of whole wheat pasta from home (but had to borrow a can opener from the neighbor).  Nothing else to go with the meal as we hadn't been to typical grocery yet.  No vegetables, no salad, nothing.  So everybody had a big plate of spaghetti and then dropped into bed exhausted.

The kids are in bed by 8 every night, and we're about 30 minutes behind them.  Despite the fact that we've done this before, it is mentally exhausting to be in a new place, to keep track of where we are at all times so we don't end up lost, to translate everything in your head before you try to speak....

Wednesday and Thursday - Use of a van again from a co-worker of Joe's, so we run errands until we're all ready to drop.  Our favorite moment is when we're in Carrefour (French supermarket chain, similar to Fred Meyer in that they carry a little of everything).  We're getting groceries and looking at the cheese selection (small & expensive!)  A caucasian women turns to us and says, "Hi, are you new?"  We reply "yes" and make our first new friends in Taipei.  In a nutshell, this is what we love about being ex-pats:  the friendliness, the openness, the willingness to reach out and introduce yourself, the offer of assistance and knowledge if we need anything.  Right now we're the recipients of ex-pat kindness, but we know that next year when we're "veterans" of Taipei, we'll be the ones reaching out and extending that kindness.

Friday - Joe is in China for work (and he's only gone for 36 hours!) and we stay home and wait for IKEA to deliver Olivia's new desk, the water guy to pick up the money, the telephone company to come turn on our service, and the air shipment to arrive.  Turns out the water guy came on Monday, but was intimidated when he figured out we only spoke English, so he left.  Fair enough, I'm intimidated every time I try to speak Mandarin.
Air shipment arrives to much fanfare from the children, only to discover that 90% of it is our kitchen, plus a few books, shoes and bedspreads.  They are disappointed, but for me, Oh Happy Day!  Cheese grater!  Can opener! Measuring Cups! Bowls! Salad spinner!  Although, in putting my kitchen away, I realize for the first time that I have only three drawers in the entire space.  Odd, that. 

It's been a bizarre week for me, so many things feel familiar because of our time in Shanghai, and yet this is an entirely new place and I'm starting over with very little knowledge.  Some random thoughts:

Smells - you never know how much comfort smells bring to you and make you feel at home until all the smells around you are just "wrong."  I'm certain visitors coming to America feel the same way...there is just something about the way home smells and everything else is strange.  And big cities have really gross street smells, there's just no getting around it.  We're teaching the kids to breath through their mouths...life lesson there.

Cities are dirty - we walk around a lot and every night we have to wash everybody's feet before we get into bed.  Our feet are filthy.  Having said that, Taiwan is much cleaner than Shanghai was, we are not afraid to wear flip-flops here, we never wore them in Shanghai.  On a positive note, we haven't seen a single person peeing in the street, yet.

Public transportation - It's easy, it's fast, it's affordable.  Why can we not do this in the US????  I love public transportation.  And it's organized and very civil in Taipei!  No shoving to get on or off, people wait politely for passengers to get off before getting on themselves. We are not in Shanghai anymore Toto.

We saw our first (and only?) Taiwanese transvestite while at a shopping complex.  Never saw that in China.

Kids in the city - Last time we lived in an urban environment, one kid was in a stroller and the other one very obedient.  Now we have three who walk everywhere with us, and two who pay no attention to anything going on around them.  It's nerve-racking!

Language - I suck at it.  I forgot how much I suck at Mandarin.  I try at every opportunity, but at one point I asked Gigi for some help on a phrase and she said, "well, I'm trying not to make you feel bad by correcting you all the time, but you really don't say anything right."  Thank you my darling.  Now, if you could just tell me the correct phrase, I'll continue on my sucky way.

Big Feet - I needed some indoor flip-flops, can't walk on wood and tile all day on bare feet.  Had to buy mens flip flops to get something that fit.  Joe suggested that I might be able to find something more girly at the "Big Ladies Foot Shop" which is near our house.

Old phones - We can't get a phone and contract until we have our ARC (Alien Resident Card).  So the relocation consultant kindly let me borrow her old phone...it's not a smartphone.  It is soooo incredibly painful to try texting on an old phone after you've owned a smartphone for years.  How did we send those long texts on those old phones???

Water - You can't drink what comes out of the faucet.  And sometimes it smells funny (read that as horrible odor emerges) when you turn the tap on.  And sometimes when you fill a white bathtub, the water is a funny color.  People in Portland, revel in the beauty of your clean tap water.

Taping drains - Kitchens and bathrooms all have drains so that when you clean the floors the water just goes right down the drain.  And everyone also tapes those same drains shut for two reasons:  odor and cockroaches.  Can everybody just say a big "EWWW" with me and have a good shudder?  I taped my drains shut the first day we were here!  I was warned about the cockroaches and I'm not taking any chances.  On our walk home tonight we saw our first cockroach, and of course like the crazy idiot I am I squealed and jumped out of its way on the sidewalk, which made all the rest of the girls freak out.  Mimi kept twitching and freaking out every time her balloon tied to her wrist brushed up against her.  At bedtime Olivia wanted me to check her bed for cockroaches.  Sigh.  Must try to be better example for kids.

OCD - Being OCD on an ex-pat assignment in Asia is really not allowed.  :)  But it takes a while for me to let it go, and right now, the fact that every single thing in my brand new kitchen is bright shiny white, EXCEPT the cream colored fridge, is driving me crazy.

So, that's the first week.  And I must say, I'm quite proud of myself for staying up until 11:00 to actually write it.  I've been in bed by 9:00 every night this week.  Jet-lag must be waning, real-life must be settling in.  I expect to write shorter, more frequent blogs after this.  So if you're eyes crossed from reading so long, sorry about that!  Will try for short and pithy in the future!

Cheers,
Steph