I am trying to branch out to more than just my classroom and students. I still haven’t really found a service site so far. I potentially might be able to make the Taiwan Catholic Fund Work and I really hope I can, but right not it’s not looking that great. What I have been able to improve is my relationship with my host family. Not all ETAs in Taiwan get a host family. Taitung county is different in that the government facilitates the matching of us to help us gain a deeper understanding of Taiwanese culture. Unlike past years where all the ETAs had their own family, this year most of us shared a family which in my opinion is better as some families lacked confidence in their English.
Every other Wednesday we have a workshop in Taitung City to improve our teaching skills. Since I was already in the city last week for the workshop, I decided to make a night of it and see if my host family was available. Lo and behold my host family’s mother was available for dinner!
After a slight mess up where I got my days mixed up and asked them if they were available the wrong day (*oops), we had a plan. We met up at the Ginger Duck at 6pm with Christina and her friend from the County Government, Erin, where she also works. I share my host family with two other ETAs, Sunny and Kevin, so you could say we are now step siblings. We had a lot of fun together. I found out that our host family didn’t know they were going to be a host family till a couple days before and and no idea what it would entail. Erin, who is in charge of organizing our host families as a member of the county government, told us that some families who originally signed up as host families suddenly quit last second. She was laughing as she told us there were last minute trips to Hualien 花蓮, a neighboring county, that couldn’t be changed and others that didn’t even give a good excuse. It left the county government scrambling to find suitable replacements before we were set to meet them for the first time. Christina was asked to participate by Erin as a favor as a friend.
Christina apologized that she hadn’t given us a gift last time we had met saying she didn’t really know what she was doing. She gave us small running towels and a tote bag. For one, I didn’t expect a gift at all, I just wanted to get to know her and I am happy that she wanted to get together with us. When we hadn’t heard from her, I assumed that she didn’t want to see us because most of my other friends had already gone to visit their own host families. I am glad I made the first step because she didn’t know our schedule and had been nervous to ask us herself to get together.
Christina was very nervous and embarrassed of her own English skills which is one reason she brought her friend Erin with her who has strong English-speaking skills. I had a blast. We talked in Chinglish, a mix of Chinese for the most part and English when I didn’t know how to say something, for two hours. Christina and Erin took the liberty of getting and ordering the food which was the first talking point of the night. We ate almost every part of the duck that you can. I had the heart, intestines, the blood (in cubes), the blood with rice (in cubes), and the actual regular meat. We even ate chicken balls which have the consistency of a hard-boiled egg which I already dislike. I found that I actually like the regular duck meat a lot, the other stuff I can live without. I was able to eat most of it without making a face, washing it down with my water, but I couldn’t bring myself more than one nibble on the blood cube. The texture was just wrong in that it was like a jello with more form. I was able to pass the rest of that off to Kevin who enjoyed it because in Taiwanese culture you need to try as much as you can to not waste any food.
Another piece of culture is that no matter how much you know someone when you are out to dinner other people will put things on your plate to try. Christina always had the ladle in the hot pot, putting more things in my bowl before I even asked. I like the idea of this gesture that you are encouraging others to try new things that you enjoy, but I ate ten times more than I usually do of some food I didn’t entirely like because it found its way into my bowl. After all that Christina even mentioned she personally only likes the cabbage and the regular duck meat, not the extra stuff like the heart. She only got that for us to try.
This sit down was very relaxing. I got to see pictures of her son and husband we have yet to meet. We also got the opportunity to name her son who didn’t have an English name yet. She had a “Duggar” thing going like the TLC show, in which her family’s English names all started with C. Her husband was Chris, she’s Christina, her daughter is Crystal, and then she had a son. Carson, Connor, Carlos, and Chad were thrown out trying to come up with options to even discuss. We settled on Caleb, not too commo and not too hard to say. I were given a chance to learn about their families, what they liked to do, and we even got into a little bit of politics. Politics is a very touchy subject here what with Taiwan’s upcoming election of its own, the riots in Hong Kong, and our own government problems back in the US. I really only get to talk politics with my fellow ETAs. This was my first chance at understanding how some Taiwanese feel about the issues. Christina for one didn’t seem as phased by the upcoming election, being more focused on the fact that her salary wouldn’t change regardless of who was in power. Erin was a little more emboldened supporting Hong Kong’s effort. She advised both Kevin and Sunny not to go to Hong Kong in case they could be seen as joining the rebellion whereas she thought I could go as a tourist because it is obvious, I am not from Hong Kong. As much as I’d love to visit, I think my parents would kill me after reading all the articles about the metro being vandalized and the tear-gas being used by police.
It was a long night of conversation only ending when I noticed I needed to get to the train station before the last train left at 9:15pm. Although Kevin was going to give me a ride originally, Christina offered to take me in her car. In the car with Christina I realized how good my Chinese has gotten since being here. I was with her for almost an hour, having missed the first train I was going to take. We talked about her family and what I enjoyed most about Taiwan. I even got to surprise her daughter Crystal as we had time to pick her up from Cram school, a after school -school that you can learn more math and English. With the extra time before the train they took me to a little restaurant serving 豆花, jellied tofu. I am not usually a fan of tofu because of the texture, but this dessert makes it good. It’s a cube of tofu with the 珍珠 (the bubbles/balls in milk tea), and peanuts in a sugar liquid. I had a hard time finishing it having been completely full from the duck, but had so much fun talking Disney movies with Crystal in Chinese.
My first taste of 豆花 captured by Christina
Christina and Crystal decided took it upon themselves to stay till my train got in, a little nervous with how late it was that I was going alone. Christina went so far as to ask if I wanted her to drive me the hour back home personally which was too much to ask. It is beyond safe at the train station and nothing like big cities in the US at all. At no point did I feel nervous, but I enjoyed singing frozen songs off youtube while we waited. When they finally said good night Crystal gave me a running hug.
I am looking forward to the next time I get to see them and maybe I will finally meet Caleb.
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