DAY 15: Living in the farm

I spent my Sunday in Irene's house (my colleague). There I met her husband Ricky, and her 4 years old kid, Xiao Ling. Ricky used to work as a supervisor in a multinational company, and deal a lot with Filipinos. That's why he can speak a not-too-bad English. Now, he's not working in management level anymore. He is a... farmer. I heard my friends joke about becoming a farmer if being engineer is too difficult. Well, it's not a joke anymore, some people actually chose to be farmer than doing something too hectic or demanding. 

Ricky has 8 orange farms, some strawberry and vegetable farms, and hundreds of ducks, chickens, and gooses and he likes to brag about how he's never used the pesticide on his farm. Moreover, what unique about his business is that he does not sell the products of the farms in the market, but he let the visitors pick the fruits and the vegetables right from the farms themselves. Here's the website http://037951547.emmm.tw/

On the left is the orange farm where we can pick those sweet oranges and eat them right away. (of course pay later) 

On the right is me with er.. cabbage. I don't know why at that time I chose to take picture with the cabbage.

I also spent much time with Irene's cute little kid, Xiao Ling. Irene told me that she liked to kiss people, so I guessed she was a nice kid. There was one time when she was playing on me as if I was her big toy, she made a funny shape with her mouth. I thought she was gonna kiss me, but the strange thing was instead of making O shape, she made E-I-E-I shapes with her mouth and suddenly "Kraugg!" She bit me on my wrist! Luckily it did not hurt, it was just like bitten by small puppy, hehe. 

There you go, me and the little brat who bit me.  

Anw, playing at Irene's house was fun, moreover, Ricky is good at cooking, especially his pork, nyummy..

These foods were cooked by Ricky himself. When I asked how he could make such a tasty pork, he replied "It's secret.", and laughed so hard as if he just made a super funny joke. 

DAY 14: Mission Impossible which is possible

Okay, today, I really had a good time with the kids. The topic of the English class today was parts of the body. We began the lesson with a review of the previous week lesson. I learned that the word "sheep" should not be taught to the kids because they have the tendency to pronounce the other word. We then drew pictures and sang a song about parts of the body.

The picture was a cowboy and the drawing technique was taken from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ZjRmq9BNU . It really is a good video to teach kid how to draw. Okay, this is the cowboy that I drew on the white board. 

Sorry, the picture is not clear enough due to the reflection on the board.  

These are the pictures that were drawn by the kids:

This is the best picture, drawn by Jasen, and he won a set of colored pencils.  Now, I have bad and good news. Bad news, that is the only picture that seems similar to my drawing. Good news, the rest were too creative that they made something else on their own. 

A witch

A ghost

A goat

A cup

A power ranger

A sissy cowboy

A goofy guy

A Martian

Well this one is good enough

Of course, I did not give any sarcastic comments to the kids. All I said was "Hen hau!". But, there was a time when I couldn't stand it and I just burst into laugh, especially when I saw the cowboy with earrings. It was just hilarious. I hoped the kid took it as compliment. 

We also sang "Head, shoulder, knees, and toes". They loved it and fortunately it was easy enough for the kids to learn. This song requires a movement and it's really a workout. I could feel the after-jump-squat sensation on my thighs after we sang this song. Hopefully it was not a sign of age. 

DAY 13: RANDOM

Okay, there's no specific topic for today's post. I wanna share some of the pictures that I've taken before..

First, these pictures were taken when I and Xiao Hei helped Ta Ge (big brother) in delivering foods to the tables at his restaurant. 

The first picture was taken at about 11.30 am. It was quite and peaceful. The restaurant is indeed a lovely one and on the wall near the entrance door, we can see the autographs of many Taiwanese actresses who have visited. I always wonder why Ta Ge did not ask me to write my autograph there... j/k.

30 minutes later, 4 buses dropped by and... 

No wonder Ta Ge asked for reinforcement, it was really hectic! Everybody had to move super fast. I wished I could just use my mouse to click the food and drag it to the table just like in the Dinner Dash. 30 minutes later...

Yes, they were quite fast in eating their foods (pork, etc.) although they are in their 50's or 60's maybe. The next day, Ta Ge gave us some money, yea.. Ta Ge! If you ever need any help, just let us know, we will be happy to help! We don't expect any bonus, but if you insists, what can we do? hehe..

The following picture is my homestay..

I lied. First, this kind of house is no longer exist (well, that's what i know). It's how the Taiwanese house look like in the past. Second, it is only a miniature model which is displayed during the last Jiangmajue. Jiangmajue is an annual festival which celebrate... ginger. I know it sounds out, but it's really all about ginger. In the last festival, they even had a dog statue covered with gingers which is 4 meters high. I'll tell about it later once I know more about this festival.

Next, it's the pig statue that I see every morning when I walk to the office.

It always brighten up my day because it's fat, yet looks so happy. Moreover, every part of its body will be chopped off and cooked. If human could be like the portrayed pig, happy for how they are created and what they are meant to be, maybe the world can be a better place... Enough with the crab. 

DAY 12: It's nice to be foreigner;p

Just the other day, one couple visited our home-stay to have some good dinner and stay for a night. 

We (I, Ali, Pi Kong, and Nancy) had just finished our dinner and Nancy was teaching me how to say "smart" when the 2 guests came and joined our conversation.  

Nancy: Cong ming (but it really sounded like Tong ming)

Marsel: Tong ming 

Nancy: Bu shi, Cong ming.. (making funny shape with her mouth)

Marsel: Tong ming (this time, few spits came out)

---Nancy really has a high standard! She didn't care the fact that I am a newbie. So the conversation above was repeated for several times until one of the guests who had been listening joined our talk.--

Guest 1: Don't put your tongue in between your teeth. Put it behind your lower front teeth. Also, use a nasal sound like ng... bla bla..

(I was surprised by her English and how she explained the pronunciation)

Marsel: Errr... Are you a teacher?

Guest 1: No, but I took pronunciation class and I'm a linguist.

No wonder she could explain it in great details. We had a good little chat with the guests that night. They were nice guys, and I hope that they enjoyed their stay here. Before they went back to their room, they asked to take picture with me ^^. Yeah, I felt like a "bule"(westerner). Here's the picture:

From left to right: Pi Kong, Nancy, Guest 2, THATS ME!, Guest 2, and Ali.

Btw, I still dunno how to say "Cong ming"!!!!

DAY 11: Nino the good friend

Today, I'll continue to write about my Taiwanese friend, his name is Nino, a very good friend of mine. We do many things together, such as:

1. Walking to the office in the morning.

2. Practicing Chinese when there are only two of us.

3. Relaxing and eating cookies in midnight.

How he looks like? Is he good-looking? Here's the picture.

Okay, it's a Labrador, a good-looking and smart one. See the board hung around his neck?

It means: "Come to Yin Dong Sien Ci (Tina's restaurant), please follow me." If only he knew that he played such a great role in marketing, he could have demanded for more bones. But really, whoever fall for this walking banner will find out that the restaurant is really a good place to eat. Not only the foods are nice, but also they look attractive because the chef really put some effort in "designing" the foods. The English name of the restaurant is Mile High. The name was given by mysterious American adventurer who came by to taste a strawberry. Ok, enough. 

Now, Nino belongs to Tina, and he always stays at homestay every night, that's how we got close to each other. He knows my smell and I know his. Just kidding, dogs smelled the same. He is trained to shake hand (both left and right), sit, lay down, guiding people to the restaurant and the coolest is to catch and bite running people. So, don't run and shout anywhere near him. Hope, I can record the video of Nino biting someone-maybe A Yuen. 

One thing that I like the most from Nino is his eyes. I dunno why the eyes look like tame puppy here, but actually they look very proud and fierce. He's like saying "Give me food or be my food." Pardon me if I showed some symptoms of autism. Maybe I ate porks too much.

DAY 10: Getting Hands Dirty

That morning, just like every morning, I spent about 15 minutes to walk all the way up from my home-stay to the office. Some part of the slope is gentle, another is steep, almost like hiking.

But that very morning, I met an old man on the way and he called me. Trying to be polite, I crossed the street and came over to his side. He started talking just like... just like an old Chinese man who starts a conversation (^^"). So, I couldn't understand a single word, and finally I said a magic words, "Wo ting bu tong." (I don't understand). Having said that, I expected him to understand and maybe talk slower or use easy words. To my surprise, he took a red envelope, and started writing English- or what he thought as English. 

This is English, at that moment I wondered whether eating too much pork could have any effect on my ability to read. If there is anybody who can read this, please tell me all right?  

For the next 5 minutes which felt very long, I had to accompany him talking and writing until we finally arrived in the office. He did not seem to care whether I understand or not, haha. In the office, Xiao Hei told me that the old man was actually sick. 

In the afternoon, Tina and family requested for my assistance. There was a chef who came over to teach them culinary art. So I did everything that I can to help by washing dishes, cleaning tables, and packaging cookies. Well, it was a hard work and tiring, especially the washing part, cos there are a lott of dishes. But the rewarding part? I got the chance to eat the foods prepared by that chef which were awesome! Also I learned quite a lot of new words (which I will forget the next day) because there were nobody who can speak English. 

Apau Jie seemed to enjoy the fact that I was doing these works. I dunno how many times she said "Enjoy your job," with that joyful face as if I was entertaining her. When we were having lunch and enjoying the nice foods, Apau Jie came over and said to me"Yohan, go to the kitchen and wash some bowls." Luckily she was just kidding, fyuhh, what a great joke.

I also helped them to package 30 boxes of cookies. Well that's kinda easy job since I (as an engineer) am trained to do things efficiently and effectively, muahaha. Applying Taguchi method, I completed the task pretty fast. Sorry for talking crab. Anw, the smell of the cookies were really good, especially that buttery smell. But once I tried it, hehe, it's ginger flavored, lol. Well, this is Jiangmayuen! I'm not a big fan of ginger but (for the sake of being a good blogger), the cookie tastes.. not bad! And really, it's te bie (special).

Before I got back on that evening, Tina lent me a (drum roll)... bicycle! Yeah! that means I can arrive early in the office! No, sorry, I repeat, I can wake up later without being late! 

DAY 9: Taiwan Ren

I don't have much thing to share today because I'm preparing for the next English teaching. We have a good plan for the next class, hope the kids will like it. So I'll talk about something else. I've shared earlier that I like Taiwanese people. They are kind, friendly, polite, and helpful. Well, at least those are the kind of people that I've met so far. So I want to dedicate some of my posts to introduce some of the people who are quite close to me here. 

First is Tina, my homestay's lady, or landlord, or owner, whatever you call it. She is in charge of the house I'm staying in. She speaks Chinese, Japanese and almost no English, which makes it so difficult for us to communicate. She's like "ano.. ano..." whenever she tries to find a word and I'm like "na ge.. na ge...". She armed herself with the electronic translator which was proven to be not much of use simply because there is no English words library in the translator, lol. 

Fortunately, we both are patient, hehe, we enjoy trying the convey our messages by any means (pictures, diagrams, google translator, gestures), and we laugh that out. Here's the picture:

There'll be more coming posts on Taiwan people, so stay tuned:) 

DAY 8: Strawberry Museum II

This morning Xiao Hei sent me to the church in which, as before, I prayed in language I don't know. Anyway I needed to thank God for his guidance throughout this journey.
After that she brought me to the Shei-Pa National Park Head Quarters. It's not the real national park but it is like a museum with the exhibition hall, souvenir shop, and theater. They displays the flora and fauna in miniature model and they show the video of the local culture as well. Some of the interesting fact that I found are the local people in the Shei Pa Natioanl Park speaks with native language and accent which is really similar to Indonesian language. If we go up to the peak of the park (which is a mountain), we can find a snow. And there also live one of the rarest bear in the world, moon bear. Here's the picture we took in front of the park's HQ. I feels that I looks dummy here;p. 



From there, we went to strawberry museum again. But this time, I was the one who rode the motorcycle. It was kinda odd at first, because I used to driving on the left hand side both in Indonesia and Malaysia. Here, we drive on the right hand side.
In the museum, we met Xiao Hei's old pals, had a little chat and took picture. I haven't got the picture yet, I'll post it up later.

This time, there were many people in the museum and I had the chance to try out some local delicacies which are strawberry flavored. Here are some pics:

Strawberry ice cream and juice, it was nice to eat this ice cream especially in the sunny day like that afternoon. As you can see, it consists of shredded ice at the bottom, strawberry ice cream with the fruit, chocolate rice and milk. Well, although this one is nice, it's quite common to be honest..  At least more common than this one... 

This is strawberry... pork sausage. Taste nice just like the unhealthy pork, but we can feel the slight strawberry flavor in the first few chews. Weird but nice.

As you can guess, strawberry pork meat ball! It's like eating meat ball and strawberry candy together. It's really a unique mix and kinda popular here. Luckily the soup doesn't have strawberry flavor.

Strawberry egg!

Strawberry roll cake! The lady was kind enough to allow me to roll the cake myself using that machine. 

There are also strawberry noddle, wine, bread, drink, jam, etc. There are just to many kinds of strawberry foods here. OK, enough for now!

DAY 7: Mission Impossible

Today I (who can't speak Chinese) had to teach English to some kids who can only speak "yes/no". Well maybe more than that, but they are just too shy to speak English. Luckily, zhe ge lao shi (me^^) is super patient, hehe. Also, I had Xiao Hei as my assistant which help me a lot with conveying the messages to the kids. She, just like many other girls, has a natural ability to get along with children. That's really the skill that I need to learn.

Teaching kids are tough job, and it's more difficult than teaching junior or senior high school students. Kids keep on losing their interest and there's just no way we can be so serious with the study. Here is the video that really help me with teaching English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_barTKxikvA .

The teaching went quite well, thanks to some idea from the video. The responded well to movements and gestures. They were excited to move their body, play games, draw pictures, and answer quizzes. But, to my surprise, they got bored with learning an English song. I guess, one of the reasons is because, they can't read English, and it's just too hard for them to remember all the lines that they've just heard. Even they couldn't sing simple song like Old MacDonald.

But there are things that I like about these kids: first, none of them are naughty. I don't know how to deal with naughty kids and thank God, they were not there. Second, they are cute! They have shy looks on their faces which make you want to pinch them.

The kids were really good with the names of animals. They quickly raised their hands to give answer when we gave them pictures of animals. Their pronunciation? don't ask..

This is what happened when we showed them the picture of frog.
Marsel: What is this?
Kid: f**k.
Marsel: Sorry? (got my ear closer to the kid)
Kid: f**k.
Marsel: Frog,.. Okay?? Yi, er, san!
Kid: f**k.
Marsel:....

Anyway, it was fun and a little tiring. Apau Jie asked me to teach English every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening to a few kid and to a class every weekend. I'm gonna be doing this a lot and I really hope that I can improve my Chinese along the way. Here's the picture.



On the night we ate steamboat together with Apau Jie's family.. Well, it's kinda similar to the steamboat we usually ate in Malaysia. The difference is, we eat little vegetables while they eat with a lottt of vegetables.

DAY 6: Chinese Caligraphy

This afternoon, I was called by A Yuen to do some stuffs. Oya, before I move on, I'd like to share a little bit about this guy. I met this guy in my first day and it was not a really impressive meeting. It was kinda scary in fact. Here's the little conversation that we had that time.

Xiao Hei: Yohan, this is A Yuen.
Marsel: Hi! Ni hao..!
A Yuen: Nice to meet you. Wo #$&@*$&^@!
Marsel: (waiting for translation from Xiao Hei)
Xiao Hei: He asked whether you like a boy or not.
Marsel: Whattttt??

It was not the first time people think that I'm a gay or have potential to be a gay. But, it was really the first time being asked "that kind of thing" by people whom I've just met! Grr...
... After a few minutes passed in awkward silence...

A Yuen: You are handsome.

.......

I wish I could be flattered by that compliment.

Anyway, later I found out that he is actually a nice boy with a good sense of humor and he always try his best to speak English with me.
He offered me moaci this afternoon and taught me a Chinese calligraphy.

Some of the things that this shifu said to me were:
-"use your gan jue(feeling)"
-"writing is like drawing"
-"we can know people from his writing".
-"u need to relax"
-"keep the brush perpendicular"
-"#$%&&(($%", "^%$^&%", "^%$%"-->message not delivered

I passed my first lesson by writing, "3, people, and mountain", yay!.

Didn't look that hard, did it? Cos it really wasn't that hard(yea,i only wrote very simple characters,hehe). What difficult is expressing yourself through the writing, just like any other art..

DAy 5: Night Market

We went to night market today, and wew, I really want to go there again, there were just to many foods that we couldn't touch... Well, anw, the purpose of going to the market was not to eat but to buy more clothes. It's getting colder here and they said it can reach 2 degree Celsius! That's why they suggested me to buy thicker jacket and more clothes. Apau Jie (boss) was very nice and surprisingly bought me a new jeans. Xie2 boss!

I was too focused on finding clothes that I forgot to take any picture. I'll get one later. Not much story this time, but I found one good drink in the night market. It's a mix between green tea and yogurt, and the taste was great, maybe I'll try to make it myself one day..hehe.

DAY 4: Painting time!

This day was really about going back to kindergarten and play with paints. The workers here were making letter boxes for the houses. Yes, they made the letter boxes themselves and they really used their creativity. I was asked to draw a cute picture on one of the board. I was reluctant at first because I've never touched paint and brush since my junior high school. Nevertheless, I took up the challenge and it turned up to be really fun because it reminded me to my primary school time:). Here is my "masterpiece",hehe.

Looks like kindergarten pic? Then my skill still hasn't improved,lol.
Surprisingly, I was asked again to draw the letter box again, but unlike before, I'm free to draw anything I want. Thanks to Xiao Hei! She gave the idea of drawing Tung Tree Flower or You Tong Hua, a local flower. On the hill, there are many Tung tree, and when the summer comes(no idea why summer), the flower will blossom and fall to the ground like a snow. To bad I can't experience that amazing event. Here's the picture of my painting:



I hope when I come here again someday I'll still see that letter box in front of one of the houses.^^

Oya, also I had the chance to try making ginger food. Jiangmayuen, which means Ginger farm is all about ginger, so they have all kinds of ginger foods. That day, Xiaou Hei asked me to go to the kitchen and try cutting the ginger. Well, this job seems easy but actually it's not something that you can do well in the first shot. Moreover, the smell of ginger is really everywhere, making you lose concentration. (well not that extreme actually).

Outcome?


Don't be surprised that when I meet you later, I'll smell like ginger.

DAY 3: Teaching children English song?

On Tuesday, Apau Jie (boss) asked me to prepare an English Songs and some games for English learning on weekend. Hmm...  If you have any advice on what kind of activities will be fun, please leave a comment:). 

DAY 2 To Jiangmayuen!

I was picked up on Monday morning by Xiao Hei (small black), the manager of the Jiangmayuan Tourism. She is a very kind and friendly girl and she is very important to me because... she is my walking dictionary!:p. 

So, Miaoli is famous for 2 things: strawberry and ginger. There is even a strawberry museum here. What you can find here: strawberry juice, jam, wine, noddle(!?), cookies, syrup, vinegar, and everything related to strawberry which I don't know the name.  

We went to eat Xiao Hei's favorite Hakka noddle and the thing called shui jing jiao. It's an authentic local foods, the jing jiao is almost like pork dumpling actually. I almost droll while I'm writing this!

In Jiangmayuen, I was introduced to the boss, a funny woman who can speak English pretty well. She introduced me to er ge, da ge, er jie, and many of her relatives and friends. Remembering them all really pushed my brain to the limit! There are several shops and office here and people are somehow related to each other and seems to know everybody that well.

Xiao Hei brought me to get familiar with the place and enjoy the beautiful scenery. It's actually a small hill and on top of the hill there is this watchtower. The watchtower is also a place to pray. In each floor, there is a Buddha statue with Kwan Im on the top floor. From the top floor we can see why the this towm is called Da Hu (big lake). From the top floor of watchtower, in the morning, we can see a thick fog covering the area, making it looks like a big lake of fog.