Failure to plan is planning to fail

I suppose we demonstrated a moderate lack of foresight when we created a blog called "Andersons In Taiwan". Yes, it's true the blog was created with the intention of sharing our experiences while we were actually in Taiwan. But, what if we actually liked blogging? What if we wished to continue with it after we returned to the U.S.? Alas, we didn't think of this and so our title is stuck in the URI. The only thing we could think of was to start a new, more appropriately named blog and post a link here:

http://andersonawesome.wordpress.com/

While we may not look like exciting people, I will warn you that we do actually do some pretty cool stuff. We'll do our best to keep you interested and informed.

We hope you enjoyed reading about our trip half as much as we enjoyed experiencing it. If you ever get the opportunity to do mission work or travel abroad for an extended period of time or better yet to do both simultaneously, we highly recommend that you go for it. It is the experience of a lifetime.

Change is the same

We've been home for over a month now and I feel strangely unstrange.

During the weeks leading up to our return to the U.S. my mind was constantly occupied with a mix of emotions: anxiety (will I be able to find a job?), anticipation (I can't wait to see my family!), hunger (Oh for the moment that I bite into a deluxe chicken enchilada at Chuy's!) and sadness (I will really miss this place that is so far from home, yet strangely feels like home now).

One thing I despise about my nomadic tendencies is saying goodbye. I turn and walk away from so many situations that will never be repeated. They will never happen again. I don't do this because I dislike were I'm at - I almost always find myself with awesome people and enjoying my circumstances. It just becomes the next step in my journey. Maybe it's God calling me. Maybe I'm eternally restless. I don't really know, but whatever it is, it keeps happening. And perhaps this repetition is making me numb.

For the past month, I have rarely though about what we just did. I've hardly felt sad about leaving the amazing experience of living on the other side of the world. Why is that? Everything I had heard and assumed about returning home told me that it would be a really intense experience. "Reverse culture shock", some people call it, "you have to re-acclimate to your own culture." It sounds rough, but I have experienced none of the symptoms. I got off the plane, said hi to my family and returned to life as normal. How can that even be possible? How can my world not be rocked? How can it feel just like it did when we left?

I really hope the cause of this is the fact that we are still in a transition stage. I am looking for work, preparing to move into an apartment, trying to be an auto mechanic, considering a career change, and doing a multitude of other things all simultaneously. This probably has me distracted enough to prevent me from reflecting on what just happened. I'm hoping that once life settles down again, I'll really have time to sit down and process the amazing experience we just had.

Home

As of Monday, Phil and I will have been home for 1 month. We are still in awe of things found in the US that we could not find in Taiwan. (Think sweet desserts that don't include red beans) We also have eaten hot pot once, found bubble tea (Boba if you are in California) and already visited a few Asian markets so that we think we are still in Taiwan at times. There are things that I miss, such as cheap hot pot, the teas, the fruit stands and the daily confusion found in the inability to speak Chinese. There also have been some changes as well:

• I have a job. I am teaching freshman course at a high school in the area. These include Algebra 1 and Algebra 2.
• Phil and I went to Texas where we ate Chuy's 3 times and El Gallo 2 times. hmmmm
• We are trying to decide where to live. There are a few things we need to figure out first.
• Phil's car works and we are working on getting mine on the road. (The tree hitting it wasn't as bad as we thought)

Phil and I had a blast in Taiwan and are glad that we took the opportunity to do this. We also saw God in so many ways. Here are some of the ways we saw Him:

• A man was possessed by a demon and we heard the demons come out of him. The people who were there said that the only thing that got the demons out were the words, "In Jesus' name."
• We saw God in the Chinese Language. If you want more information on this, look at the following videos. God of the Ancient Chinese
• I had to teach Biology this past year and I saw Him in all of the things I taught. While the Biology book taught Evolution, it did not disqualify Creationism. Instead it said there is no way to prove God exists without having Him in the original equation. (You can also argue the opposite as well) I get Evolution and I can see how it is the only explanation there is if you do not believe in God. Because I believe in God, I see how this world came about without the holes created by evolution. See these videos for more info.
• In the people we came in contact with on a daily basis.
• In our students.
  

I am glad that we had this opportunity. Before we left, we passed out Steps to Christ in Chinese to several people who we came in contact with on a daily basis. (Tea lady in Yuchih, Fruit stand people, the lady who cut Phil's hair) If you could pray that these seeds grow, that would be amazing.

I also want to thank everyone for their prayers and support this past year. All I can say is Thanks.

The Anderson Vehicle Tradition

The Anderson household in the U.S. has long been notorious for the large number of cars that always seem to be parked there. We have been known to collectively have up to 9 cars residing in the driveway, on the street and even on the lawn. I know what you're thinking... no we're not hicks. At least we don't think so.

I personally have a long history of crappy cars. I have driven some amazing machines in my day, and have had more mechanical failures than I can count. (A few "fond" memories that immediately come to mind include: a blown coolant hose in the middle of Canada on a 16 hour trek to college, a radiator as a (much desired) birthday gift from my Mother and Father in law, and attempting to repair a brake line for three days in a Walgreens parking lot. The list goes on...)

We've decided that it's only appropriate to continue these trends here in Taiwan...

We have a red Honda Civic, leased to us by a friend named Donald. It has been our (semi) trusty steed since last September. We've put many kilometers on it during our travels around Taiwan. We have grown to love and cherish her. Unfortunately, several weeks ago, we noticed that when we turned the key, she wasn't roaring to life in the usual fashion, but instead, struggling to start. The problem increased over the course of a week or two until one morning, she wouldn't start at all, but only make that dreaded clicking sound that tells you, "Crap! My battery is dead!" A friend gave us a jump and were able to drive it around for a few more days until the problem repeated itself. Feeling somewhat stranded we wondered what to do. God saw our dilemma and provided a solution: A couple of our friends were returning to the U.S. and were willing to lend us their car.

For a week or so, we were feeling fashionable in our newly acquired Honda Civic hatchback with the flashy grey paint job (also owned by Donald). Sure it lacked a few amenities, such as a functioning defroster/defogger, but hey, it drove. We were once again happy and free. Until... the passenger side window somehow came off its track and got stuck half way down. Now if we were in the middle of the desert this would be no problem, but this is the rainy season in a sub-tropical climate. It rains constantly. So I, considering myself to be a pretty handy guy, took it upon myself to try to fix it. I asked Heather to push the "roll the window up" button while I pulled upwards on the glass. It was jammed in there tightly, so I increased the upward pressure until, CRACK! The glass shattered into a million pieces in my hands. (Don't worry, it was safety glass - I did not sustain any life threatening injuries.) Nooooo ! 2 cars down.

God blessed Donald with both a large collection of cars and a large dose of generosity. He was graciously willing to lend us a third car - a green Honda Accord. (Apparently he has a thing for Hondas.) So we are once again driving in style. As I was looking at our yard today, the sight of so many cars reminded me of a used car lot, which reminded me of home.



Ahh, home sweet home. We'll be arriving in one week!

Voting, Pictures and a Science Fair Project

My sister in law recently entered the National Geographic "World in Focus" Photo Contest. It is a great picture and I was wondering if the few people who read our site would be willing to vote for her picture. (Trust me it is worth it) To vote for the picture, go to her picture site. You will have to give an email address and they will then send you a link. You click on the link and you can then finally "actually" vote for the picture. Again, it is a great picture!


Speaking of pictures, here are some random fun pictures around Taiwan.

The next picture is what happens when you want to order something from a restaurant. Usually you look at the menu and you can't decided what wonderful thing to order and this menu is no exception. (On this menu, you can see such amazing selections, such as "Powder Bowel", "Flower Twig", "Shark Smoke", "Very hot green vegetables", "Burn meat" and many items that are absolutely fabulous. We ordered the "very hot green vegetables" and bean curd to get this picture. You may have to double click on the menu to see these items.)


Near Taipei 101, this guy was selling lemon tea by Nestea. I didn't get a picture of him face on, but that would have been wonderful.


I kind of wish it was from the Salt Lick, but it is the closest thing to Texan barbecue sauce I will ever get in Taiwan. (I didn't buy it though.)

Oh, Taiwan.

A closeup.

My students have been working on a science fair project this past semester and, needless to say, I am glad that we are done with it. (excitement does not even come close) This coming Thursday and Friday (next week), they will actually be showing their parents, other teachers and staff their fabulous projects. I will try to post pictures of the projects in the future. Right now, I have to write my last "lecture" for my science class. I think it is ok to say YES!

2 weeks and 1 hour and 40 minutes from now, we will be on a plane. and only 6 more days of school. (not that I am counting or anything)

Things I wish I had blogged about

Phil and I are looking at the next few weeks and realize that the year is really coming to an end. We are ready to go home but there are some things that we will always remember, but I won't post about that for now. I will just post on some blogs that we wish we had blogged about but never got around to it.

National Concert Hall
My student is a talented violinist and won a competition to play at the National Concert Hall located at the Chang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall with other musicians. Unfortunately, her concert was on Wednesday at 7:30. Because of this, we could not go. Several other staff were going but we could not go because we would have school at 8:00 the next morning. (Taipei is around 3-4 hours from where we are currently at and the concert would have gotten out at 9:30 getting us home around 2:00. I don't do well without sleep) Tuesday evening, I realized that we could possibly take all of our students and go and see her perform. (And Jeremy said yes) So we put together a field trip (last minute) and went. Because we took all of the students, we did not have class until later in the day (Yeah) and I got to see my student perform in the National Concert Hall! If you click here, you can see some pictures of what this place looks like.

Reading Chinese
Phil and I have gotten pretty good at speaking Chinese (Only if you want to order something from the drink stand or why we are where we are. We have those down.) and can recognize a few words in Chinese. This is a good skill and is very helpful, for well, communicating with people we interact with every day. One thing you notice as you drive around, though, is that all of the signs have the "English" version of the Chinese written on them. Even though they have the English and it is helpful, you also notice the multiple ways to spell the same word. For example:

中: Means middle, center

Ways to pronounce it in Taiwan (What you see on the signs in Taiwan):
jhong, jong, jeung, jung, jhung, jheung, chong, cong, ceung, cung, chung, cheung, zhong, zong, zeung, zung, zhung, zheung

We have pretty much seen all of those. Many times a city will have the same road spelled 3 or 4 different ways within a few blocks of each other. (If you don't know the previous fact, it can get REALLY confusing.)

The reason why there are so many versions of the same word is that in China they use the Pinyin, but in Taiwan, they use pinyin along with 2 or 3 other differences. If you want to know about the romanization of Chinese in Taiwan, go here.

Ants

Last year, during a typhoon, the ants decided to join us in the house that we were living in. This meant that the entire colony lived in our living room and dining room to avoid the rain. (In other words, they covered the entire floor) We spent a lot of time sweeping and putting them outside. We couldn't spray anything because part of the time, they were actually covering the floor in the kitchen. (We kept the counters, etc really clean, so they weren't there for the food) Besides this, our experience with the ants has been limited. (We think they liked the outdoors and then it just got too cold.)

It begin with seeing a few ants on the floors in our house. One time they were carrying a corn flake that had fallen on the floor. I didn't care that they were there because, well, it looked like they were cleaning our floors. (Free cleaning service?) We also have a trash bin solely for food products. It was weird because even though we had this bucket ALL year, the ants didn't attack it until 2 months ago. They have been doing this by climbing on the walls to the garbage bucket. Again, I didn't care because they were helping with the garbage. (Don't have to take it out)

Recently, though, they have been going through our shower to get into the wall. Phil was able to stop them once with glue. They probably ate through the glue (and took it back to their nests) and have been entering our house ever since. They also have been crawling over everything. They are on our curtains, our dressers, our counters, our shoes, our bibles etc. (Don't get worried, this isn't like that scene from the recent Indiana Jones movie. There may only be one on these objects, but it is still there.)

Phil and I have commonly referred to them as our pets. Reasons: (1) They eat our food (2) They have made our home theirs (3) They don't ask for a lot of attention and are focused

It is only 22 more days! (including weekends) 14 more school days! (Not that I am counting)

Lift Off!

For the past few months, we have been hearing about a rocket that Roger, an English teacher at the college, has been putting together. As opposed to getting a kit from a toy department, Roger decided to create his own rocket, from scratch. His idea is to heat a pipe with an aerosol can in it. The heat would come from a fire at the base of the long pipe. The aerosol can would ignite, causing an explosion, which would launch a rocket which was attached to the top of the pipe. Phil and I went, partly because we wanted to see his creation, but also partly to be prepared if we had to take Roger to the hospital. Needless to say, the pictures say it all. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend.

The rocket was named after Roger's daughter's Chinese name.

This reminds us of Jay Gould's work.

Preparing the site for "launch".

Roger, helping the process out.

Take off.

Another launch. (There were three in total)

What was left over...

From Roger_Stahl-Inventor

From Roger_Stahl-Inventor

Free with purchase

Our friends Cory and Holly discovered this little gem. Buy one can of deadly roach and ant killer...
Get a toothbrush free!

A wonderful and useful combination. Just think of all the time you could save brushing your teeth and spraying for pests simultaneously. Ingenious.

Mowing the lawn in Taiwan

A few weeks ago, I watched outside my classroom as the landscapers were mowing the lawn. (I know, we must be pretty bored because we are watching people mow the lawn.) There was another reason why I was watching the lawn being mowed the other day. I sort of got a video.

I Will Beat You At Charades

Chinese is really hard. We have been working on it (intermittently) since we got here last August. I would estimate that we probably have the vocabulary of 3 year olds at this point.

We do have a few specialized areas where we are slightly more advanced... Ask Heather how to order any of a multitude of Taiwanese teas and she will accurately hook you up. Ask me what a particular item is on a Chinese menu and I'll be happy to tell you. (although, if the dish does not contain one of the 6 characters I recognize, my response will be fabricated, and you will most likely not get what you wanted.)

At the beginning of our stay here, trying to communicate was not only utterly fruitless, but also semi-terrifying. Picture this hypothetical scenario:

You realize that your hair is getting a bit shaggy (read: way overdue) and you ask for a hair salon recommendation from a friend. You get it, and head to the place. You park the car, take a deep breath and rehearse the phrase you think will request a haircut. As you get close to the shop, your heart begins to beat a bit faster. You become preoccupied with concern that you will say something utterly stupid and/or completely unintelligible and be laughed at. Again. You walk through the door and are greeted by the stylist. At this point your stage fright takes over and you completely forget the sentence you just rehearsed 400 times in your head. Thinking fast, you resort to the only language you know she'll understand - International Charades. You lift your hand up next to your head and flash the peace sign. Chop those fingers together - just like scissors. Make some sort of question mark sounding grunt. The stylist understands, smiles and waves you over to a chair. Success! Have a seat and await your fate. (If you can think of a good charade maneuver for "take a little off the top." please post a comment...)

OK, truth be told, this situation is not at all hypothetical. It happened to me. Actually it's happened a bunch of times. OK, more like every day. (Not the haircut specifically, but this sort of interaction.) Sometimes it's easy. (Really, what else would the hair stylist think a shaggy haired guy want - A perm? Well maybe, but that's another topic for another post...) Sometimes it's impossible. (What maneuvers could I possibly conjure up to ask for fuel injector cleaner?)

Charades, while effective, can occasionally make you look even dumber than a few mangled syllables of attempted Chinese. I recall traveling to the airport on my trip to Hong Kong. I stepped up to the counter to pay for my shuttle bus ride and the clerk asked me something. Thinking he wanted to know where I was going and having no clue how to say "airport", I motioned with my hand the path of a plane taking off (complete with sound effects). He then repeated his question which had originally been in English. "How many people?" "Uhhhh... sorry. One person." Yep, I definitely felt like an idiot.

So having had all this practice, I would consider myself a true professional when it comes to International Charades. We are returning to the U.S. in just over a month... I challenge you to a game of making people guess phrases by acting them out. Be prepared to loose. You won't even know what hit you.

Banquet

In my opinion, I believe that the banquet my school put on 2 weeks ago was way better than any other banquet I have ever attended. They actually had great entertainment which is a must (Our students presented!) and they also had great food! (Before I show you the pictures, many times in Taiwan, you see a mixture of styles in places considered fancy or posh. It makes for some amazing pictures.) Here are some pictures from our banquet:

The entrance to the place. What you don't see is that the road in front of this can only fit 1 1/2 cars on it. The bus couldn't make it all the way.

The place was called the castle or something like that. Here are pictures of the prince and princess. Amazing!

The theme was masquerade and the sisters ended up making a lot of masques for everyone to wear, including our trusty leader.

Moriah and Joseph. She ended up making her dress. It looked amazing.

Some decorations on the landing up to the second floor. As I said, they mix styles here.

Where we ate looked similar to this.

Outside heading to the talent show!

Megan.

Daphne works in our office and is amazing. My students actually loaned me the dress and the mask, meaning I didn't have to spend much money for the clothes. Very nice of them.

I would have put a great picture of both of us up, but this was one of the better ones...

Phil made his own mask.

Phil and me at the end. We had a great time, but are exhausted. And we have school tomorrow morning.

Video

When my parents were here, we went to Taroko Gorge, which has many cliffs and suspension bridges that are quite scary. We had to cross one and here is an amazing video from that experience. If you listen very closely at about 4 or 5 seconds in you can hear my mom screaming. Pretty amazing.

From VideosSpringBreak

Parents and Taiwan

My parents were able to visit me and here is proof that they actually came!

Outside the National Palace Museum. My mom got really good elbowing her way around to see things. She's pretty much Taiwanese.

Taking down the flag at the Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Pretty neat shot.

This is either the national theater or the concert hall. One of our students will be playing there this coming Wednesday. We would go if Taipei wasn't 3 hours away and we didn't have classes early the next morning.

At the temple for a dog.

Looking out from Yeliu Geopark.

My mom and I at Yeliu. I feel like Wolverine or whoever that guy is.

I finally got a picture of this. My battery died the first time we came when I went to get a shot.

Another look at Yeliu.

Phil and I had not actually visited a Hot Springs until my parents came. Here is the picture of the bath in our room. It turns out that there actually is a cold for this bath, but we did not figure that out until the next morning. We filled the bath all the way and then realized that we were going to give ourselves third degree burns if we got into the water. We decided to wait about 1/2 hour. When that didn't work, we began adding cold water from the shower nearby. That took another 1/2 hour. By the time we actually got into the water, it was nice. We still felt like it was sitting in a bath at home with rusty nails.

I have a great video for this suspension bridge. As soon as I figure out how to post it, it will be up. Oh, this is at Taroko Gorge.

The parents.

We decided to drive over Hehuanshan to get to our school, which stands for Snow Mountain. The drive was incredible, but we will never do it again. We made my mom carsick by driving this road. Oh and the last hour was terrifying. You can see the road we just drove on in the distance:

This is what the last 1 hour looked like, except you can't see the massive drop off to the right and left:

A better view of the road. We don't want to find out if the guard rail will hold us. In fact, we had to back up at one point because in most parts the road is only 1 lane and a large truck was coming the other way. Oh and like driving in Taiwan, they do pass you if they can.

The temple at Sun Moon Lake. We live 5 minutes from here.

We were really sad when my parents left, but were excited when we could make:

And tonite, we get chili!