Today's big task for me was moving my (and the kids') household registration from Kaohsiung to Hsinchu. As of 11:30am today, Declan, Petra, and I are "Hsinchu people". Once Daniel's ARC status finally becomes a reality (oh please God), I will return to the government division to add him to our registered Hsinchu household.
I felt really empowered to successfully handle a matter so apparently steeped in bureaucracy. Fortunately, there were several personal blogs I found that detail some private, average citizens' own experiences with this matter. I even found a template for a letter of agreement in which Daniel can sign me as proxy so that he didn't need to take time off work (which apparently was really, really productive today).
Aside from a detour I had to make to the immigration office to correct a clerical error on Petra's residence card, everything was handled conveniently and fairly efficiently in one place--including part one of Petra's Republic of China passport application. The next step is getting to a travel agency near the university to complete the passport acquisition process, and also contacting the Ministry of Health so that Petra will also be covered by the national health insurance. I need to start catching her up on vaccinations that she must have in order to enroll two years from now into Declan's current school.
Also, the coveted Hsinchu citizen card is now accessible to me. With this card, which requires household registration in this city, I'll be able to take the kids to every city museum for free (instead of paying the usual ~NT$20 dollars--hey, that's more than one city bus ride/a load of laundry wash at our apartment). There had also been a couple of city library events in which people with household registration in this city get to receive goody bags (the last event included two free children's books and a free bag)--super excited about that too.
Yes, yes, we'll probably need to start paying more taxes due to Petra's health insurance. But this also means I'll get to vote during the general elections on 29 November without needing to trek south to Kaohsiung. The pros to our registration move are still sweeter.
And with the experience of tackling this initially daunting government-ese/task under my belt, I feel just a bit more closer to home and self-assured in my daily life here so that I didn't feel too bad about filling out another government document--this time for Declan's school regarding some upcoming nation-wide physical evaluations--and messing that up so badly that I needed a brand new copy to re-do everything. Small steps, small steps...
Monday, October 27, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
catching up with reporting about life
Wow, it's almost the end of October and I haven't blogged once since the start of last month. That's almost a full two-months-long absence. No faithful reader voiced any complaints though, but I'll like to keep this going for posterity's sake. Petra's napping right now, but a strange elephantine groaning just started outside our building, so whatever I write right now will have to be quick.
Lots of things have happened. Such as...
1. A friend from Israel came to visit for the last two weeks of September, acting essentially as a guinea pig for all future visitors since I was (am) still fairly unfamiliar with this area myself, plus I had (have) a family of foreigners who were (are) still coping from culture and various other sorts of shock. Emily was a pretty good sport and after having checked out the notable features of this particular city (Eighteen Peaks Mountain, the old East Gate, the City God Temple, Declan's kindergarten...), she arranged a week in Taipei with some family friends.
I eventually got better at this hosting thing and took her south to Kaohsiung, which is a city I'm far more familiar with and from there on, I learned that there are actually a lot of private citizen-bloggers who do a pretty good job of introducing more off-the-beaten-path sites worthy of visiting all around Taiwan. One of them was some mud volcanoes in the town of Yanchou, which is also famous for its guava. I was secretly impressed by myself for finding a way to get us there without a car. (We got there via a train ride to Nanzi station, then public bus #7 to Kaohsiung Normal University's Yanchou campus, then a 20-minute walk from the school's back gate to the mud volcano nature reserve and surrounding mountains.)
Emily also eventually visited Tainan before heading back to Israel with a stop in California. She saw killer bees, macaque monkeys, and packs of semi-feral dogs. I also introduced her to stinky tofu, octopus balls, and other Taiwanese "small eats". Hopefully, the good memories from this visit will only age like vintage wine, and she'll forget about the few times I snapped at her the way I snapped at everyone around me when the kids were running wild. I was mortified and then really glad that she brought up how much it bothered her. It was a huge wake-up call for me to examine how I deal with the stresses of raising the kids. No excuses for bad behavior.
2. Somewhere down the road, I decided I needed to start spending some serious quiet time every day with God, and to make that a priority. I pledged, for one week, to wake up earlier to read the Bible and pray, which also meant that I have had to stop going to bed at 2am or 3am. So now I go to bed around 11pm and wake around 6:40am, and I also started alternating between running or swimming for 30 minutes after the intentional time with God and before I must start the day of child-caring and home-running. It's been about two weeks now, and I really appreciate this routine. I'm really going to miss it when Daniel goes to Italy for two weeks next month and I won't be able to run or swim for that period of time since otherwise there won't be anyone watching the kids while I'm gone. Sigh.
3. I was finally able to visit prisoners at the Taipei Detention Center. For a few weeks now, I've heard about the work of the Taiwan Foreign Inmates Caring Association by a missionary that partners with them. At this point, I'm far more familiar with the prison system in the US than in my home country since I've actually worked for two semesters with lifers at men's maximum security prisons in the US. As for Taiwan, the still very great rigidity of the social classes meant that my family's circles rarely came into contact or hears about those who end up in prison and their conditions. The day of the visit, I almost begged off by using taking care of Petra and needing to pick up Declan as an excuse because I was nervous and unsure about what to expect. The fact that most of the workers who care for the foreign inmates long-term have expressed so much criticism and disgust at my government also made me uneasy. Daniel insisted that I go, however, and arrangements were made for Petra's nap time and Declan's pick up. What took place at prison deserves its own blog entry; suffice it to say I'm so glad I went and I long for another chance to go, and perhaps go consistently. There is no doubt in my mind that the people in prison, no matter what they've done, need compassion too.
I've been Facebook-free for over two months now, and I love not partaking of this social media anymore. There are lots of loonies on Google+ as well, but somehow I'm not as bothered since it's not all that popular with my circle of friends. I think I would still have been better friends with a lot of people I know if I hadn't been exposed to things and thoughts they've shared on Facebook, and that probably goes both ways. Which is really sad.
Life is such a changeling thing. From one angle, it all seems so important and significant; from another angle, it's all completely fleeting and interchangeable. Yet both perspectives are true. How strange.
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Lots of things have happened. Such as...
1. A friend from Israel came to visit for the last two weeks of September, acting essentially as a guinea pig for all future visitors since I was (am) still fairly unfamiliar with this area myself, plus I had (have) a family of foreigners who were (are) still coping from culture and various other sorts of shock. Emily was a pretty good sport and after having checked out the notable features of this particular city (Eighteen Peaks Mountain, the old East Gate, the City God Temple, Declan's kindergarten...), she arranged a week in Taipei with some family friends.
I eventually got better at this hosting thing and took her south to Kaohsiung, which is a city I'm far more familiar with and from there on, I learned that there are actually a lot of private citizen-bloggers who do a pretty good job of introducing more off-the-beaten-path sites worthy of visiting all around Taiwan. One of them was some mud volcanoes in the town of Yanchou, which is also famous for its guava. I was secretly impressed by myself for finding a way to get us there without a car. (We got there via a train ride to Nanzi station, then public bus #7 to Kaohsiung Normal University's Yanchou campus, then a 20-minute walk from the school's back gate to the mud volcano nature reserve and surrounding mountains.)
Emily also eventually visited Tainan before heading back to Israel with a stop in California. She saw killer bees, macaque monkeys, and packs of semi-feral dogs. I also introduced her to stinky tofu, octopus balls, and other Taiwanese "small eats". Hopefully, the good memories from this visit will only age like vintage wine, and she'll forget about the few times I snapped at her the way I snapped at everyone around me when the kids were running wild. I was mortified and then really glad that she brought up how much it bothered her. It was a huge wake-up call for me to examine how I deal with the stresses of raising the kids. No excuses for bad behavior.
2. Somewhere down the road, I decided I needed to start spending some serious quiet time every day with God, and to make that a priority. I pledged, for one week, to wake up earlier to read the Bible and pray, which also meant that I have had to stop going to bed at 2am or 3am. So now I go to bed around 11pm and wake around 6:40am, and I also started alternating between running or swimming for 30 minutes after the intentional time with God and before I must start the day of child-caring and home-running. It's been about two weeks now, and I really appreciate this routine. I'm really going to miss it when Daniel goes to Italy for two weeks next month and I won't be able to run or swim for that period of time since otherwise there won't be anyone watching the kids while I'm gone. Sigh.
3. I was finally able to visit prisoners at the Taipei Detention Center. For a few weeks now, I've heard about the work of the Taiwan Foreign Inmates Caring Association by a missionary that partners with them. At this point, I'm far more familiar with the prison system in the US than in my home country since I've actually worked for two semesters with lifers at men's maximum security prisons in the US. As for Taiwan, the still very great rigidity of the social classes meant that my family's circles rarely came into contact or hears about those who end up in prison and their conditions. The day of the visit, I almost begged off by using taking care of Petra and needing to pick up Declan as an excuse because I was nervous and unsure about what to expect. The fact that most of the workers who care for the foreign inmates long-term have expressed so much criticism and disgust at my government also made me uneasy. Daniel insisted that I go, however, and arrangements were made for Petra's nap time and Declan's pick up. What took place at prison deserves its own blog entry; suffice it to say I'm so glad I went and I long for another chance to go, and perhaps go consistently. There is no doubt in my mind that the people in prison, no matter what they've done, need compassion too.
I've been Facebook-free for over two months now, and I love not partaking of this social media anymore. There are lots of loonies on Google+ as well, but somehow I'm not as bothered since it's not all that popular with my circle of friends. I think I would still have been better friends with a lot of people I know if I hadn't been exposed to things and thoughts they've shared on Facebook, and that probably goes both ways. Which is really sad.
Life is such a changeling thing. From one angle, it all seems so important and significant; from another angle, it's all completely fleeting and interchangeable. Yet both perspectives are true. How strange.
My family, nuclear and otherwise
Saturday, September 6, 2014
well hello there
Meet the Lafree EA-601, my primary mode of transportation for trekking to and from Declan's school as of yesterday.
I am tres belle.
It has literally halved my commute time from forty minutes of sweaty stroller pushing to less than twenty minutes of power assisted pedaling. Declan is also much taken with it. Petra refused to get out of the child seat I'd installed on the back.
My initial plan had been to get a moped, like the Vespa I bought with my first (and some of my second) paycheck of my first post-college job. That companion now belongs to my aunt since seven years ago. But then I heard a sermon in which the speaker said that the world's top spending goes to (1) weapons, (2) drugs, and (3) petroleum. For some reason, that made me want to avoid petrol consumption as much as possible, so an electric moped became of interest. Besides, the electric route would mean I don't need to update my license and I get NT$3,000 subsidy from the Taiwan EPA.
Alas, I then found out that the electric moped I had my eyes on does not have a detachable battery. Or rather it does, but the battery is incredibly heavy to remove for charging portably. "Much too heavy, especially for a girl." The salesperson said. That got me rolling my eyes and saying offhandedly that I can handle it. Unfortunately, an attempt to pick it up indicated he's correct--but still not because I happen to be a girl. I wouldn't want to subject Daniel to being that battery carrier either.
Then, right as I was resigning myself to an uglier e-moped with a much lighter detachable battery, the salesperson reminded me that mopeds are prohibited within college campuses. Which just won't do since I live on campus.
So that is how I ended up with an electric bicycle. And all the benefits I'd already mentioned.
I'm going to call it Liel.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
first day of school!
Oy, I'm exhausted.
But I am perfectly happy to be this exhausted if everyday is like today with Declan. I had been a little anxious about Declan's first day at a new school environment in yet another foreign (to him) country. His teacher's multiply-expressed concern about whether he'll be comfortable in an all-Chinese class didn't assuage my own wondering on that count.
So I prayed before bedtime yesterday, and this morning before I pushed him in the stroller while back-carrying Petra the four kilometers to his kindergarten--that he would not be anxious, would listen to the teacher, would learn good things, make new friends, and all-in-all enjoy his new school. I also prayed for extra support for his teacher, who seem really nice and patient about my missing or inappropriate school gears for Declan that apparently all the local parents have prepared well in advance. I finally gathered everything tonight, so yay. (and whew!) Throughout the day, when I started worrying and imagining that he might be having a meltdown at school, I stopped to pray that he's having a good time. When I went to pick him up, he smiled a huge one and came to give me a hug. The principal had spotted me upon arrival and came up to tell me some details about Declan during lunch and snack times, and overall I already knew that his first day went fairly well before we reunited. I was so relieved! And then, amazingly, it was like Declan become responsible and reasonable over a matter of hours. I usually get into power struggles with him about what to do when and how about almost literally everything. This afternoon after pick-up, he ended up playing at the large outdoor sandbox at his kindergarten for an hour--and Petra joined in too--before we had to walk 20 minutes to ride a 15-minute free bus shuttle home. He listened well to all of my opinions and shared his own thoughts without the usual tyrannical edge in his petition. It. Was. Incredible.
He was patient with his sister, and talked gently with her by bending down to her level and asking questions to her quietly while looking at her kindly. He held her on the bus ride home and let her play with his hands even though he initially protested "My hands are not a toy, mei-mei. I am a people!" I could go on, but suffice it to say, he really acted like "a big guy" all the rest of the day. I took out the utensils and bowl he used for lunch to wash after we returned home, and discovered that they've already been washed--by Declan. His teacher taught the whole class to clean up after themselves and brush their teeth after lunch. She wasn't, however, able to persuade him to leave his toothbrush kit at school as everyone else did. I guess he remembered that I still needed to buy him another set for home use.
Instead of being my usual pessimistic self and waiting for the other shoe to drop about the return of Grouchy Declan, I just give praise to God for so many things. That we were able to register Declan for this kindergarten, that he enjoyed the first day, that he seems to be picking up good things about the Taiwanese culture (taking initiative to use chopsticks with a respectable degree of competence during dinner), that I genuinely enjoyed hanging out with him this whole day as opposed to the usual fear that I just don't have the energy/patience/love to take care of him properly. Kids being kids, I don't expect Declan to always be this perfect. In truth, he's a pretty cool kid even when he's being annoying. (Only when he's cruel to his sister do I usually blow my stacks.) I have to remember this, these things. Store them up like a squirrel towards nuts in case of the barren days.
So I prayed before bedtime yesterday, and this morning before I pushed him in the stroller while back-carrying Petra the four kilometers to his kindergarten--that he would not be anxious, would listen to the teacher, would learn good things, make new friends, and all-in-all enjoy his new school. I also prayed for extra support for his teacher, who seem really nice and patient about my missing or inappropriate school gears for Declan that apparently all the local parents have prepared well in advance. I finally gathered everything tonight, so yay. (and whew!) Throughout the day, when I started worrying and imagining that he might be having a meltdown at school, I stopped to pray that he's having a good time. When I went to pick him up, he smiled a huge one and came to give me a hug. The principal had spotted me upon arrival and came up to tell me some details about Declan during lunch and snack times, and overall I already knew that his first day went fairly well before we reunited. I was so relieved! And then, amazingly, it was like Declan become responsible and reasonable over a matter of hours. I usually get into power struggles with him about what to do when and how about almost literally everything. This afternoon after pick-up, he ended up playing at the large outdoor sandbox at his kindergarten for an hour--and Petra joined in too--before we had to walk 20 minutes to ride a 15-minute free bus shuttle home. He listened well to all of my opinions and shared his own thoughts without the usual tyrannical edge in his petition. It. Was. Incredible.
He was patient with his sister, and talked gently with her by bending down to her level and asking questions to her quietly while looking at her kindly. He held her on the bus ride home and let her play with his hands even though he initially protested "My hands are not a toy, mei-mei. I am a people!" I could go on, but suffice it to say, he really acted like "a big guy" all the rest of the day. I took out the utensils and bowl he used for lunch to wash after we returned home, and discovered that they've already been washed--by Declan. His teacher taught the whole class to clean up after themselves and brush their teeth after lunch. She wasn't, however, able to persuade him to leave his toothbrush kit at school as everyone else did. I guess he remembered that I still needed to buy him another set for home use.
Instead of being my usual pessimistic self and waiting for the other shoe to drop about the return of Grouchy Declan, I just give praise to God for so many things. That we were able to register Declan for this kindergarten, that he enjoyed the first day, that he seems to be picking up good things about the Taiwanese culture (taking initiative to use chopsticks with a respectable degree of competence during dinner), that I genuinely enjoyed hanging out with him this whole day as opposed to the usual fear that I just don't have the energy/patience/love to take care of him properly. Kids being kids, I don't expect Declan to always be this perfect. In truth, he's a pretty cool kid even when he's being annoying. (Only when he's cruel to his sister do I usually blow my stacks.) I have to remember this, these things. Store them up like a squirrel towards nuts in case of the barren days.
Friday, August 29, 2014
a (not at all) funny thing happened on the way home
I was about to write out my feelings here, but then a friend emailed me asking for updates (for which I hope she doesn't regret now) and I ended up word vomiting out what happened earlier today to her. I might as well post the pertinent information here, since it played a huge part in my doubt/uncertainty/distrust/confusion about Taiwan culture now per the personal anecdotal experiences I am compiling...
---email excerpt---
The timing of your email is pretty interesting in that it was a really hard day, emotionally, for me. Case in point, I'd been visiting (along with Daniel, Declan, and Petra) my parents in Kaohsiung for the past week and took the high-speed rail this morning back to Hsinchu. Daniel had to keep riding the rail north to Taipei for a conference, so I disembarked with the kids and two giant luggages (things my mom wanted me to take) to the taxi pickup place near the high speed rail station. As my turn at the taxi came, I rolled the luggages by the taxi trunk and was making sure Petra wasn't running towards the other idling cars as I wore Declan on my back. Usually, at this time, the taxi driver would be loading whatever luggages the passenger has into the trunk, but the taxi driver assigned to me stood by his open trunk and yelled at me as I was picking up Petra that it's not his job to put my luggages away for me, that they're so big and heavy and he doesn't get paid enough to do that much work, that this isn't his personal taxi company, etc etc...he just went on and on complaining about his job and the taxi company and how the system works, all in a really nasty tone as I proceeded to load my luggages while he stood there literally yelling next to me. I admit that I got pretty angry and muttered under my breath "I'm doing everything so you can stop complaining now" as I picked up the second luggage. Then, as he was still complaining, I moved to slam the trunk hood closed--to make a point about doing everything myself--and hit him on the head with the hood.
It was accidental (I promise!), but no doubt hurt a great deal. It wasn't until he pushed the trunk hood back up and then slammed it back down while screaming swear words at me that I realized what I'd done. I really did feel terrible and repeatedly apologized as I strained to see if the hit caused visible damage to his head, but he kept yelling more swear words until I got angry again at how he's now trying to get everyone to look at him and how poorly I've treated him. Since he wasn't responding to anything I was saying, I turned, popped open the trunk again, and this time dragged out all of my luggages and deposited them back onto the sidewalk. After he quieted down and glared at me for some time, he got into his taxi, drove a way off, got out, and gestured for the people waiting in line behind me to board his taxi. Then the entire row of taxis waiting after his drove past me. I silently watched each of them pass, one after another, as I held onto Petra with Declan on my back, wondering how I was going to get home by bus.
I felt really terrible, and prayed several times throughout the day afterwards for the taxi driver's head to be okay, that I didn't hurt him seriously. At the same time, I couldn't believe that all the other taxi drivers took his side. This, in addition to a currently ongoing standoff with several immigration officers about Petra's last name (Israeli birth certificate lists her with my maiden name but US recognizes her with Daniel's last name...In the eye of the Taiwanese government, I have two different daughters of different surnames but same first names born in the same city at the same time. Amazing! But also this means Petra is having a hard time acquiring her Taiwanese citizenship and therefore national health insurance) -- all made me feel like "returning" to Taiwan is a terrible mistake. That I don't belong here. But this has been my longed-for home for so long. If I don't belong here, where can I go? I actually missed Israeli bureaucracy and Israeli interactions. For some reason, getting yelled at in Israel never fazed me as much as all the things (several other incidents that I won't belabor your attention span with) that happened today did.
----end of email excerpt----
If this had been China or the US (except I wouldn't catch a taxi in the US, since that would be way too expensive), I would almost immediately chalk this up to a rotten culture/society. So rude, so insensitive, and so expected. But it's Taiwan, and my impression had always been that Taiwanese people = polite and service-oriented. Clearly, this reflects first my bigotry towards several other countries/cultures, and perhaps a bit of an entitlement attitude I have regarding myself in Taiwan. (Also, I might have been confusing Taiwan with Japan. Half-jk!) Maybe that's why this incident haunted me all day, because as awful as I felt he acted, I clearly shouldn't have lost my temper and brained him, even accidentally. Damn it, why can't it be more black and white, so I can work myself up into a self-righteous tizzy and then just benevolently forgive him? I suck, too.
---email excerpt---
The timing of your email is pretty interesting in that it was a really hard day, emotionally, for me. Case in point, I'd been visiting (along with Daniel, Declan, and Petra) my parents in Kaohsiung for the past week and took the high-speed rail this morning back to Hsinchu. Daniel had to keep riding the rail north to Taipei for a conference, so I disembarked with the kids and two giant luggages (things my mom wanted me to take) to the taxi pickup place near the high speed rail station. As my turn at the taxi came, I rolled the luggages by the taxi trunk and was making sure Petra wasn't running towards the other idling cars as I wore Declan on my back. Usually, at this time, the taxi driver would be loading whatever luggages the passenger has into the trunk, but the taxi driver assigned to me stood by his open trunk and yelled at me as I was picking up Petra that it's not his job to put my luggages away for me, that they're so big and heavy and he doesn't get paid enough to do that much work, that this isn't his personal taxi company, etc etc...he just went on and on complaining about his job and the taxi company and how the system works, all in a really nasty tone as I proceeded to load my luggages while he stood there literally yelling next to me. I admit that I got pretty angry and muttered under my breath "I'm doing everything so you can stop complaining now" as I picked up the second luggage. Then, as he was still complaining, I moved to slam the trunk hood closed--to make a point about doing everything myself--and hit him on the head with the hood.
It was accidental (I promise!), but no doubt hurt a great deal. It wasn't until he pushed the trunk hood back up and then slammed it back down while screaming swear words at me that I realized what I'd done. I really did feel terrible and repeatedly apologized as I strained to see if the hit caused visible damage to his head, but he kept yelling more swear words until I got angry again at how he's now trying to get everyone to look at him and how poorly I've treated him. Since he wasn't responding to anything I was saying, I turned, popped open the trunk again, and this time dragged out all of my luggages and deposited them back onto the sidewalk. After he quieted down and glared at me for some time, he got into his taxi, drove a way off, got out, and gestured for the people waiting in line behind me to board his taxi. Then the entire row of taxis waiting after his drove past me. I silently watched each of them pass, one after another, as I held onto Petra with Declan on my back, wondering how I was going to get home by bus.
I felt really terrible, and prayed several times throughout the day afterwards for the taxi driver's head to be okay, that I didn't hurt him seriously. At the same time, I couldn't believe that all the other taxi drivers took his side. This, in addition to a currently ongoing standoff with several immigration officers about Petra's last name (Israeli birth certificate lists her with my maiden name but US recognizes her with Daniel's last name...In the eye of the Taiwanese government, I have two different daughters of different surnames but same first names born in the same city at the same time. Amazing! But also this means Petra is having a hard time acquiring her Taiwanese citizenship and therefore national health insurance) -- all made me feel like "returning" to Taiwan is a terrible mistake. That I don't belong here. But this has been my longed-for home for so long. If I don't belong here, where can I go? I actually missed Israeli bureaucracy and Israeli interactions. For some reason, getting yelled at in Israel never fazed me as much as all the things (several other incidents that I won't belabor your attention span with) that happened today did.
----end of email excerpt----
If this had been China or the US (except I wouldn't catch a taxi in the US, since that would be way too expensive), I would almost immediately chalk this up to a rotten culture/society. So rude, so insensitive, and so expected. But it's Taiwan, and my impression had always been that Taiwanese people = polite and service-oriented. Clearly, this reflects first my bigotry towards several other countries/cultures, and perhaps a bit of an entitlement attitude I have regarding myself in Taiwan. (Also, I might have been confusing Taiwan with Japan. Half-jk!) Maybe that's why this incident haunted me all day, because as awful as I felt he acted, I clearly shouldn't have lost my temper and brained him, even accidentally. Damn it, why can't it be more black and white, so I can work myself up into a self-righteous tizzy and then just benevolently forgive him? I suck, too.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
on vacation, technically
So far the visit to Kaohsiung to see my parents have consisted mainly of:
Morning - get woken up by the kids, yell at the kids to settle down as they start destroying things, get dumplings for breakfast from vendors downstairs, dress the kids in swimsuits and head to the apartment complex's swimming pool
Afternoon - naps, sometimes by the kids too, then walk to a mall and let the kids play at the arcade because it's too hot outside; usually joined by my mom at this point
Night - dinner, see my dad during his brief break from work (although not at all tonight), fight with the kids about proper bedtime for one or two hours, then I stay up waaaay too late relishing alone time (such as not sleeping until 2:30am last night and wanting to kill myself this morning as the kids jumped around me)
Today followed the above template, with a slight, ever-so-exciting variation of dental check up for Declan and shopping for kindergarten supplies at Carrefour. Growing up, I've noticed with bemusement the huge "back to school" sale catalogues for the local shopping centers in Oregon. Since I did my own school supplies shopping in the US, and most of the time at garage sales, going to Carrefour to pick out lunch set, water bottle, etc school supplies for Declan today was my first ever participation of this autumn ritual. I felt like such a MOM, and it made me strangely giddy.
I also stopped by Eslite to see if they carried the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth in the original English. Astonishingly, they did not. This lack was not what astonished me--it was the fact that Eslite did however carry the Fifty Shades series in both English *and* Chinese. How is such a stupidly written* porn-in-words "literature" ubiquitously found in every country I've visited since the series' conception, while a beautifully-themed post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction series like the one by Roth is...not. Is this me being a literary snob? No, I think I just actually have standards.
*based upon 15 minutes of skimming through the first book in the series at the bookstore in Horev Center. The first clue was the email exchange format in huge chunks of the book (yuck!) and the last clue was how it feels like reading the diary of a drunk 12-year-old.
In the end, I bought the Chinese version of Four. (They didn't have it in the original English.) It's been on my ebook hold list at the Vancouver Public Library. Sadly, Joyce's generously shared library account recently expired and so kaput goes the hold list too. I figured reading Four in Chinese will help me improve my language even if it turns out to be a dud.
Five more days left in Kaohsiung before we ride the high-speed rail back to Hsinchu (and Daniel solo onwards to Taipei for a conference). I hope we don't get stuck in this particular routine.
Morning - get woken up by the kids, yell at the kids to settle down as they start destroying things, get dumplings for breakfast from vendors downstairs, dress the kids in swimsuits and head to the apartment complex's swimming pool
Afternoon - naps, sometimes by the kids too, then walk to a mall and let the kids play at the arcade because it's too hot outside; usually joined by my mom at this point
Night - dinner, see my dad during his brief break from work (although not at all tonight), fight with the kids about proper bedtime for one or two hours, then I stay up waaaay too late relishing alone time (such as not sleeping until 2:30am last night and wanting to kill myself this morning as the kids jumped around me)
Today followed the above template, with a slight, ever-so-exciting variation of dental check up for Declan and shopping for kindergarten supplies at Carrefour. Growing up, I've noticed with bemusement the huge "back to school" sale catalogues for the local shopping centers in Oregon. Since I did my own school supplies shopping in the US, and most of the time at garage sales, going to Carrefour to pick out lunch set, water bottle, etc school supplies for Declan today was my first ever participation of this autumn ritual. I felt like such a MOM, and it made me strangely giddy.
I also stopped by Eslite to see if they carried the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth in the original English. Astonishingly, they did not. This lack was not what astonished me--it was the fact that Eslite did however carry the Fifty Shades series in both English *and* Chinese. How is such a stupidly written* porn-in-words "literature" ubiquitously found in every country I've visited since the series' conception, while a beautifully-themed post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction series like the one by Roth is...not. Is this me being a literary snob? No, I think I just actually have standards.
*based upon 15 minutes of skimming through the first book in the series at the bookstore in Horev Center. The first clue was the email exchange format in huge chunks of the book (yuck!) and the last clue was how it feels like reading the diary of a drunk 12-year-old.
In the end, I bought the Chinese version of Four. (They didn't have it in the original English.) It's been on my ebook hold list at the Vancouver Public Library. Sadly, Joyce's generously shared library account recently expired and so kaput goes the hold list too. I figured reading Four in Chinese will help me improve my language even if it turns out to be a dud.
Five more days left in Kaohsiung before we ride the high-speed rail back to Hsinchu (and Daniel solo onwards to Taipei for a conference). I hope we don't get stuck in this particular routine.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
my son's first significant friendship / something tragic
A few days ago, I wrote a Facebook message to the mother of Declan's best friend from gan: "Declan was eager to show Kimi his new shirt today, then he told me after gan with some surprise, 'Kimi wasn't at gan today.' I don't think he's fully grasped the extent of their separation yet."
The previous day, to give her some time to pack and her husband more time at the office before their trip to Germany, my husband and I oversaw a playdate between Declan and their two older children: Kaya, who is six, and Kimi, who is three and in the same gan (daycare) as Declan. Declan and Kaya had a memorable time laying ambushes and swinging around sticks while pretending to be King David. As the playdate ended, Kaya called from the backseat of their dad's car as they drove past us: "Bye, Declan!" and Kimi yelled, "Love you, Declan!" "Love you too!" Declan yelled back.
Every time I went to pick Declan up from gan, he would be in the middle of something with Kimi. When I dressed him in the morning and prepped him to go out the door, Declan would want to hold one toy "to show Kimi."
It's starting to hit me, I think, that we're leaving. I've finally started setting down roots and found genuine community in this country with a strong clannish culture (which seems to be the case of this entire region, actually). And now, as I start to pack definitively, the roots are being ripped out bit by bit. I find myself morose, avoiding people's invitation to hang out because...what's the point? The real kicker is listening to Declan chatter on every now and then about how he's looking forward to Kimi coming back from the latter's family vacation. How they'll play together again when he returns. When my husband and I tried to prepare him for the transition, Declan said, "I will make friends at gan in Taiwan. Then I can play with Kimi in Taiwan, and Kimi in Haifa!" He tells me he likes his gan now, even though not everyone is his friend there.
I wish we can stay. I have no idea what living in Hsinchu is going to be like, or if I'll actually make friends there without the typical local regard of me as someone slightly (or a lot) freakish. At least here I'm not expected to fit in. Tired.
And I hope this operation officially ends by the time we leave.
The previous day, to give her some time to pack and her husband more time at the office before their trip to Germany, my husband and I oversaw a playdate between Declan and their two older children: Kaya, who is six, and Kimi, who is three and in the same gan (daycare) as Declan. Declan and Kaya had a memorable time laying ambushes and swinging around sticks while pretending to be King David. As the playdate ended, Kaya called from the backseat of their dad's car as they drove past us: "Bye, Declan!" and Kimi yelled, "Love you, Declan!" "Love you too!" Declan yelled back.
Every time I went to pick Declan up from gan, he would be in the middle of something with Kimi. When I dressed him in the morning and prepped him to go out the door, Declan would want to hold one toy "to show Kimi."
It's starting to hit me, I think, that we're leaving. I've finally started setting down roots and found genuine community in this country with a strong clannish culture (which seems to be the case of this entire region, actually). And now, as I start to pack definitively, the roots are being ripped out bit by bit. I find myself morose, avoiding people's invitation to hang out because...what's the point? The real kicker is listening to Declan chatter on every now and then about how he's looking forward to Kimi coming back from the latter's family vacation. How they'll play together again when he returns. When my husband and I tried to prepare him for the transition, Declan said, "I will make friends at gan in Taiwan. Then I can play with Kimi in Taiwan, and Kimi in Haifa!" He tells me he likes his gan now, even though not everyone is his friend there.
Declan with his best friend in Israel.
They have a fascination with action figures...
I wish we can stay. I have no idea what living in Hsinchu is going to be like, or if I'll actually make friends there without the typical local regard of me as someone slightly (or a lot) freakish. At least here I'm not expected to fit in. Tired.
And I hope this operation officially ends by the time we leave.
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