For Incompetence, Press 333

So my cell phone ran out of minutes (at least that’s what I THINK it’s trying to tell me when it starts talking to me in Chinese and ends my phone conversations). This is the first time I’ve encountered this problem over here, so I went to Family Mart--which is like 7-11--to buy more minutes. I walked up to the girl and took out my Sim card and said, “Minutes?” Then she walked me over to this little screen where she punched in that I wanted 300 minutes. Then she walked me back to the cash register and I paid for my minutes. A receipt printed out on which was written a loooong number, plus a bunch of other numbers and Chinese characters. She pointed to this number and said something to me. I thanked her and left. Outside the Family Mart, Mike and I tried to figure out how to punch in this number so I would get my minutes. Failure. After a while I went back inside and said, “Wo bu zhidao,” which is “I don’t know,” and pointed to the receipt and my phone. She recruited the help of the other girl working there and after doing some detective work, realized I just had to dial “333” and punch in the long number. “333” was written at the very end of the 9-inch long receipt, mind you, I would have NEVER figured out that that was the number I was supposed to dial. So I call, and the Chinese starts, and I can tell it’s giving me options (“If you want to do this, press one. If you want to do this, press two…”). All I can understand is “one,” “two,” and so forth, so I hang up and tell her, “Wo bu dong,” or “I don’t understand.” Then she calls, presses “1,” punches in the long number and the pound sign, listens, then gives me back my phone and says, “You can call.” I thanked her profusely and left.

It’s so weird having these experiences as an adult. I shouldn’t feel embarrassed, because it’s not my fault I don’t speak fluent Chinese, but on the other hand, I’m an illiterate adult who needs the Family Mart clerk to add minutes to her phone for her. It’s like being a child except no one thinks you’re cute for being ignorant. And your parents aren’t there to do everything for you--you have to count on strangers. I’m lucky she at least was helpful, sometimes your illiteracy and ignorance freak the heck out of people and they avoid you completely. I’ve had people basically FLEE from me and force a co-worker to deal with me. I don’t blame them, but I still feel awful when that happens. So I’m very grateful when people aren’t embarrassed by their lack of fluency in English and scared by my ignorance of Chinese and are willing to help me.

Our school has been celebrating Christmas for the past week or so. We have Christmas off, which is pretty sweet, but that’s also one of my busiest days of the week, so I’d kind-of like the money, plus I expect it to be a kind-of depressing day because I’m not at home. But anyway, our school has a (fake) Christmas tree out in the lobby, which is decorated and has presents and a backdrop of snowy, leafless trees. It’s quite tasteful, actually. The Adult Director has been dressing up as Santa Claus and visiting the children’s classes this week, delivering bags of candy to the students. He came to my A11 class on Friday--the kids laughed at a lot of his jokes and they knew all the answers to his questions (“Where do I live?” “What do I drive?” “Who drives my sleigh?” “What do I have in this bag?”) and they said the candy was much better than Halloween’s candy. The directors couldn’t find the beard for his costume, so they made him a beard out of tissues, so he keeps making the joke that his beard is very useful when he has a cold. Ho ho ho.

He visited my M class on Monday, and they were pretty quiet but they enjoyed his visit. They didn’t understand a lot of his questions, simply because they haven’t gotten that far yet, but they knew he brings candy and they said, “Thank you” and “Merry Christmas.” My M’s intrigue me, because I’ll be talking to them, having a conversation for a little while, but then we’ll reach a point where they simply don’t know what I’m saying, and they just stare at me. That’s kind of what it was like for Santa, I think. I got a couple more Christmas cards from my students, too! (The inside of the first card has a picture depicting a board race, in case you were wondering). I also had a student give me a cookie because it was her birthday. I told her it was HER birthday, so she should eat the cookie, but she insisted. So cute.



Then he visited my Y class later that day, which was pretty funny. They, of course, didn’t understand anything. But some of them knew the answer to, “Do you want candy?”
“Yes!”
Then Santa said, “What?”
“Yess!!!!!!!!!”
“No? Ok, byebye!”
“YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“OOhh, ok, here is some candy.”
He also started a rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” which was mostly me and Ellie singing, but one or two students knew some words, and the rest of them figured out, “Merry Christmas.” After Santa left, I asked all the students to put their candy on their desks (thank God we taught them “desk”) because in the three months I’ve been teaching, I’ve realized candy brings out the crazy/evil in children. And we had new phrases to learn today, so I really needed their attention. Mean teacher, I know.

I think it’s about time I talk about the buses here. Here in Taichung, there is no MRT (subway system) like there is in Taipei. So, unless you have your own transportation or enough money for a cab, ‘tis a bus you doth need. In Chicago, most of the buses go down one street and one street only--if you need to go down Damen, you take a bus that goes down Damen. If you need to go down Western, you take a bus going down Western. While a few here or there veer off and go down multiple roads, most don’t. But here, the buses go alllllllll over the place. This is both a good and bad thing.

On the one hand, I don’t have to stand around for a half an hour or more waiting for that ONE bus number to roll on by. Instead, there are three different bus numbers I can take to go to the Old School or to the grocery store from my part of town. And those are just the three that I know of, I’m fairly positive there are more. These buses go the same general direction, but don’t necessarily go in a straight line. In fact, sometimes it seems like the same numbered bus takes a different route every time I get on. But anyway, that’s the good thing about this crazy system. On the other hand, I can’t get on any old bus and hope I end up where I want to be. Just because I can catch the 77 bus at the same bus stop that I can catch the 88, doesn’t mean they both take me to the Old School. And if I’m on a new road I’ve never been on and just want to go farther down that road, I can’t just hop on the next bus I see, because it might not stay on that road for long.

I think part of the reason for this madness is there are three different bus systems running in Taichung (Renyou, UBus, and Taichung City). I’ve basically figured out the buses I’ve needed so far, but the confusing part is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS how to pay. I’d say three-quarters of the bus riders in Taichung have cards that they scan as they enter and exit the bus, deducting fees from their accounts. But I don’t have such a card, so every single time I take the bus, I pay cash. Sometimes I just throw some money in as I enter the bus. Sometimes I throw in some money when I get off. Sometimes when I pay as I enter, I’m given a long plastic card which I hand back to the driver as I exit the bus, kind of like a reminder to him that I’ve already paid, I guess. Sometimes I enter the bus and am given a scanned plastic card, which I then scan as I exit and it tells me how much money I owe. And, finally, the other day I was given a Minnie Mouse fan, inside of which was said plastic card, that was scanned and handed to me as I entered the bus. After my trip spent staring at the Minnie Mouse fan with confusion (why are Minnie’s feet SOOOO big?) coupled with the disgust (dude, why are Minnie’s poses so...creepy?), I scanned it, paid, and left the bus. Minnie Mouse was the last straw…how the hell are you supposed to pay when you take the bus?! It doesn’t vary by bus company…it varies by bus. It seems like it’s at the bus driver’s discretion (the bus drivers who have been wearing Santa hats the past couple weeks, mind you). I don’t get it...I can’t wait to get a scooter.


SPEEEEEAAAAAKING of scooters…we bought one!

We are picking it up in a few hours…Mike is going to drive it home and our friend who told us about this place and this scooter is giving me a ride on hers, so Mike doesn’t have to drive with me on it. He has about two minutes worth of experience on a scooter so we’re all a little nervous, but...how else do you get a scooter home? We’ll be practicing learning how to drive it in the next couple days, and I’ll give more details and pictures then. Wish us luck!