Travelling Abroad Is Over For Now...

Well, I have spent six month abroad in Japan and Taiwan and now I am going home.  It is not that easy, no matter who you talk to or what you hear.  You arent guaranteed a job though your chances of landing one are a bit greater if you are white.  It seems that in Japan and in Taiwan they want the classically white, European look.  Now before you say anything, I am not faulting them for that.  They want to hire who they want to hire.  Now for myself, I am half Taiwanese and the other half in mainly American Indian so you can see how hard it was for me to find a job.

I have several cases in point.  The first point in the sheer number of applicants, especially in Japan.  Now I mainly used a website called Gaijin Pot.  Every week day I look and applied to the handful of jobs that I could do.  I did this for twelve weeks, [does some math...] around 140 applications all told.  Now when you apply to Gaijin Pot, they send you an email back, stating that they have got you application and sent it in.  They also let you know how many other applicants that they got.  I think the highest one I got was 372 other applicants.  On average, the number of applicants was around 60 per job and that is all just the number when I applied.  Out of the 140 or so applications I only had one interview.  It was perfect, being near Shibuya.  I dressed up and even wore a coat and tie to the interview.  Now I looked around and saw that it was a conversation school and the other teacher they had... well they werent as nicely dressed as I.  But all of them were white.  I had the interview and the guy said he had a few other interviews to get through.  Long story short I didnt get the job.  Was I not "white" enough?  I dont know.  That is how tough it was in Japan.

In Taiwan it was just as bad.  One instance I got a job because I took over for Laura.  Now Laura is a sweet little thing from Poland.  She got a tutoring job for these really smart, and I mean smart seven year old kids.  But, her english wasnt as good as theirs.  Heck, I was teaching her english by this time.  She told the mother but the mother said, "oh, your english is just fine!  You are great!  I want to keep you."  When I took over the class for her, I did a mighty fine job.  I enjoyed working with the kids and they enjoyed me.  But you know, I didnt get a word of praise from their mother.  Laura, the perfect white, me, not so much...

I am not saying thtat I had a bad time of it.  If all they wanted to do is treat me as a tourist, then so be it.  I mean in Japan, I am sure I was not everyone else pick.  My gods they had upwards to 300+ applicants for a single job.  I still had fun though.  I got to see much of Tokyo.  I took the Shikansen to Shizuoka.  I met many relatives in Koahsiung.  I went to the Ghibli Museum, heck a lot of Ghibli exhibitions.  I went to Sun Moon Lake, where my parents honeymooned.   I went to Zuoying and marveled at how much things have changed in 25 years.  I was at Shibuya Crossing (smaller than you think) on Halloween.  And you know what?  I want to go back there and do it all again.

Do I Really Look Like This Guy?

The Great Muta is his name and he is a big time wrestler in Japan and people say I look like him.  Hehe, back in Tokyo I was mistaken for him quite often.  I thought it was kind of funny at first when the checkout lady at the local store I went to swore that I was him.  Then it just kind of happened, people mistaking me for Muta.  Now it has happened here, in Taiwan.  I was kind of strange at first when Edo mentioned it, that someone posted on facebook that I was a wrestler.  I was confused at first and found out about it when I went over to Annstudio.  He showed me the post.  It seems that the manager of the Queen of Tea, posted my picture and Muta's.

I cant escape it!  haha!  I have to meet Muta now, it is on my Bucket List.

I am not pissed off...

... anymore.

They cut my hours at the cram school I am subbing for.  The thing is I didnt even get to teach the Thursday class.  Now I waited an entire week before I wrote this because last Wednesday I was pissed off.  They said the higher ups werent sure if I could handle it.  Higher-ups?  They werent even in the classes to check on me.  The whole situation was quite strange and "M" wasnt too sure because she changed the story when I questioned her.  Sigh.  The only reason I could think of was because I didnt look white enough.

Yeah, thats right.  Not white enough.  It is something that I have noticed for the time I have been here.  I dont have the classical European features, so people people dont want me to teach.  Laura, the girl who lives at the share house with me got a job teaching, private lessons to group of really smart kids.  She didnt feel confident in teaching them, for her English isnt that good.  But the mother kept on saying that she was amazing with the kids and did everything in her power to keep Laura.  Now I am teaching Laura English, so I know how good her English is.  She wasnt good enough to teach them.

So I said I wasnt mad anymore.  I had to just get it off my chest.  I am not going to talk about it anymore.

No to more fun stuff.  Tuesday, I went to Qijin beach with Laura.  It is a black sand beach and was rather nice.  The sand was so fine however that it blew with the wind.  You could see the wind blowing, all you had to do was look for the mini sandstorm blowing in.

Laura's first coconut.

I want to walk the entire length of Qijin now.  I am thinking of next week.

Aunts, uncles, cousins, papercraft, New Years and new friends...

This is only a fraction of relatives that have I met on Saturday.  There were a couple more but they had to leave.  This was taken at my uncle's shop and he does some AMAZING papercraft.  I will just cut to the chase and put up some pictures of some stuff that he has worked on.  Keep in mind that most of what you see is done from one sheet of paper.  It is amazing.

C'thulhu commands you to release me!

It is fricken' amazing what he does.  He had a bunch of pictures that he has put together that show how he does it, from beginning to completion.  The yellow fish that is pictured above is from a single sheet of paper.  Except for the dorsal and ventral fins, it is one piece of paper.  And oh, did I forget to mention that the body can be moved.  This is only a small sample of what is available.  I have to get my uncle some more exposure.  Then we went out to eat and we found a little lamb restaurant nearby my uncle's and it was good.

New Year's Eve came and went.  At least I didnt injure myself by falling down the stairs.  Stino, Sebastan a guy form China (ack, forgot his name) and I stayed indoors and watched the FailArmy on YouTube.  Laura had a date and she was looking mighty fine.  Then went outside to sit with the gang at the art studio.  AnnStudio is a local artist.  Ann, or Anthony is a Hakka, Taiwanese gentleman who has opened up his shop.

Laura, my adopted daughter.  hehe

Now as it turns out, I met purely by accident I met another foreigner by the name of Mike.  Seems that he and his wife are doing what I am doing, travelling as much as I can.  It seems that we have become friends.  He had invited me to dinner at his place that he just have rented for the month.  It is a nice place with a full kitchen.  He has many pictures that he has taken around the world so get to know him.  Well worth it.

All and all it was a pretty good week.  Made some new friends.  Got to meet my family and I was kinda apprehensive about that.  It has been over twenty-five years since I have been here and I lost most of the Mandarin when I had my stroke.  They welcomed me with open arms and special thanks goes to Tristan and Joann.  Cousins of mine who were born after the last time I was here.  Gasp!  I feel old.  hehe.  Good week.

Taiwan, Santa, Subbing and falling down the stairs...

Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year! and all that jazz.

Well, it has been a few weeks now, hasnt it?  Well, it has been a so-so week now.  It is Christmas time now, December 25th, and yesterday I was hungry and went out to lunch.  I got to thinking however.  We, as in the five of us that share this house, have not done anything to celebrate this season.  Here we are a Polish woman, a Belgian, a Portuguese and two Americans, and we where doing nothing.  So I diverted my trip to look for some holiday cheer.  I went out and got some cards, picked up a cute little tree and some decorations.  Now the Belgian and the other American I am bunking with have had some crappy days the last week or so.  They loved getting the cards and the chocolate I have left for them.  The Polish woman loved the tree.  As I found out, the celebrate Christmas for two days in Poland.  She spent most of the day decorating our tree and went out to get more stuff.  Of course in the morning she "left" some treats for us herself.  I went out and gave out chocolate to the store owners, with a Merry Christmas.  The art studio across the street from us and the local tea house wanted to take a picture of me.  The tea house made me wear a silly hat.  Which reminds me... I havent gotten the picture from the studio yet!

See.  See how one act of kindness can make the whole world sing and be happy.

Well, the other American is going on vacation the tomorrow and he spoke to his superiors to let me sub.  Last night he told me that I got the job.  Yay me!

Last night I also met with an accident.  Fell down a flight of stairs, well half a flight of stairs at a Mexican restaurant we went too.  Banged up my leg pretty good and got the nastiest friction burns on my hand.  I tried to grab the wall and slid down with my fingers burning up.  If I didnt, I would have fallen harder on my leg.  As it turns out, just got some swelling and bruising.  I didnt feel like going to the couch-surfing meeting that night.  It was right next door at a bar, but I was kinda miserable after that.

All and all, have a Merry Christmas.  Keep those around you safe, but dont be afraid to be welcoming to the stranger.  You never know what kinda friend they could become.

First subbing job...

Oof.  You will have to forgive me, but I have been really sick the last couple of days.  Fever, chills, headache and ahem... the runs.  I am still sick today.  I thought I felt better this morning but didnt.  Still have a headache among other things.  Blah...

Still, I went and did a sub job yesterday and it was great!  I felt better, didnt have a headache and flet rather good.  The job didnt pay as much as I would have liked, but the four kids that were the students were great.  They were all really smart and I liked them a lot.  It may turn into a usual Wednesday gig.  Yay!

Now, here are some pictures I have taken around Kaoshiung.

Crocodile repellent?