One Last Fling

As you can see by the three pictures, my last fling included being surrounded by women, on an island no less, and some occasional guys thrown in for good measure. Last Tuesday and Wednesday I dazzled my students with my final lecture summing up the whole semester in 45 minutes or less and then handed out my open book, open note (but not open classmate) take home exam, due one week from then. I gave them a case study with some guiding questions to answer, told them the answer could only be 10 pages long, double spaced, 2.54 centimeter margins, and 12 point font. Given that they would be writing the exam in their second or third language, I allowed them to have an editor, not from my class, check their answer for correct grammar before emailing it to me by the deadline. I didn't tell them that the editor was as much for my benefit as theirs; I wanted to focus on their ideas, not their English skills.

Any way, I now had the rest of the week free while my students slaved away writing my exam. So I decided to take a 4 1/2 hour ferry ride from Kaohsiung Harbor to the Taiwanese owned Penghu archipelago half way to Hong Kong. Sun, sand, and beach. What more can one want for the last free weekend before I return to Maine? There are over 90 islands in Penghu, less than a quarter inhabited. I stayed at a bed and breakfast on the biggest island in Magong City (population about 53,000 with one McDonald's so it wasn't without amenities).

The trip started off well on Thursday. I got through the non-English speaking ferry staff gauntlet without much difficulty and even found my seat number, the only thing I understood on my ticket. I finished a book on Jewish history edited by a colleague of mine at Touro, something I have been wanting to read for months. Then the first glitch. I get off the ferry around 2:00 in the afternoon (the only Caucasian passenger out of around 200) and looked for the person from the bed and breakfast who was going to meet me. Nowhere to be found! What to do? Found an English teacher from the island waiting for another passenger who graciously called the b&b on her cell (mine failed a couple of days ago) and escorted me to an air conditioned waiting room where my hostess, Elle, and her friend Justin (also in the left picture) who runs a private school that specializes in teaching English, found me some 20 minutes later.

Fortune shined upon me. What a delightful person (the oldest women in the above pictures with her three teenage girls and some of their friends--yeah, I couldn't believe Elle was old enough to have a 17 year old daughter {Jennifer} either). Elle took me in like a member of the family. We stopped for a box lunch, took a quick tour of the city and then settled in to my room. After her girls came home we all went to a local beach where I swam and then headed home for a barbecue dinner.

Having pumped me on the tour about what foods I liked, her husband, Ku Pon, and middle daughter, Vivian, cooked up a storm in the alley way in front of her three story, attached house.She invited Justin as well so he could translate for us all. What a feast. We must of ate for three hours, finishing off a meal of all kinds of seafood (what I told her I liked and what the island is famous for) topped off by roasting marshmallows for dessert. (Ivy, the youngest daughter at 14 was the best roaster, but I did teach them my San Diego beach party roasting technique.) You really get to know people over dinner and I knew I was in good hands.

I slept like a log on my very comfortable mattress bed on the floor. Fortunately, the room had air conditioning as it was hot, but not as muggy as Kaohsiung. Friday's breakfast was an egg sandwich purchased locally and then I borrowed one of their bikes to go exploring while Elle picked up three other male guests from Taiwan. Glitch #2. I could not adjust the seat so the only way I could comfortably ride the bike was standing up. Then it started to rain. And then a lot of air decided to leave the back tire. Needless to say, my bike riding was much shorter than my bike walking.

After lunch that I purchased at the handy 7-11 that I easily discovered because you can see a lot of detail walking a bike, I returned to home base where Elle's van awaited us for the afternoon adventures. I met the three male guests and the female escort they had hired for their stay (don't ask for details) and we were off exploring. Swimming at a lovely sandy beach was one highlight, as was the modern windmills for generating electricity (Taiwan is ahead of us in harnessing wind power). The trip was

topped off by watching a lovely sunset from the western most cliffs of the island. Elle (her husband who does construction projects for the government was working late that night for a private client), Justin, his sister, Jackie, who helps run the English speaking school, and I had a late dinner at a local restaurant that specialized in traditional Japanese and Taiwanese seafood.

On Saturday, I took a local ferry with Justin (who had not been) to two other islands of the archipelago, Cimei and Tongpan. I wanted to go to Chimei because that is where our office manager, Janet, was from (Tongpan was thrown in as an extra). The scenery was spectacular as seen by the pictures. And I got to eat abalone (see picture) which is being aqua farmed on Cimei and can no longer being purchased at restaurants in San Diego because of over harvesting.

We returned to Magong by 2:00 so I could take the ferry back to correcting final exams at 3:00. A great last fling.

Betty and I thank you all for reading our blogs. This is the last one about our adventures in Taiwan. We enjoyed writing them and enjoyed more your kind words about what we wrote.

Progress on Two Fronts

Three neat things happened to me on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week. On Wednesday, one of my female students who is studying hotel management and tourism asked me if I could help her get an interview for a job at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. I have hooked her up with a friend who knows someone in the Marriott chain who is now reviewing her resume, after heavy editing for correct English. I really felt good about that.

And on Thursday afternoon, while I was preparing my final two lectures for next week, three of my students plus a friend knocked on my villa door and said the surf is up. Some storms had come in from China and kicked up some four foot waves on the NSYSU beach. I had been trying to get some of my students to try body surfing and this time they came seeking me out. Needless to say, off we went and we had a ball. The same thing happened the next afternoon with three different students, this time with six foot waves, the biggest I have seen here. I was the only one to catch the big ones (three) before I became scared that without fins they were too big for me and I might be tossed into the rocks nearby. They even let me ride behind them on their motor scooter to get to the beach which I have been wanting to do, but I forgot to take any pictures!

Conclusion? It took almost four months to get my students to ask me for help and I saw them every week. It takes awhile to establish trust and a lot of that came from informal interactions (hiking, tennis, wine and cheese party, plays, etc.). Living on campus made all these things much easier. I worry how I will achieve a similar outcome when students are finally admitted to our doctoral program at Touro and I teach part of my courses virtually. I am not sure I can substitute cyber educational experiences for the benefits that come from face to face interaction. We'll soon see. 16 more days, but who is counting.

PS. Update on the war. The other side got more reinforcements. Two more lizards showed up after I euthanized one of them. I did knock the tail off of one and chased the other out the hole in the window, so no sign of either for three days. However, I have noticed an increase in moths and spiders since I have upset the ecostructure of my villa. Fortunately, one of my students who has been following our blog gave me reinforcements as well--roach traps. After initially killing a 1/2 dozen, I have not seen any of them for three days as well.

From Dragon Boat Racing to Mountain Climbing

Besides all the usual stuff like teaching, tennis, cooking, cleaning, etc., four pretty cool things happened this past week. At least a third of my students entered the Kaohsiung City Dragon Boat Races and won in their class. They had been training for six weeks. I watched their race on the Love River each of the three nights. They raced three other dragon boats, provided by the City, each manned by a 20 member male crew plus 2 female drummers to keep the beat, plus an experienced helmsman provided by the festival organizers. I claimed full credit for their victory as I taught them all about successful teamwork in my classes!

The second cool thing that happened was that a typhoon hit the Taiwan Strait this week (and not our campus or our island) and that meant that the surf was up at the campus beach: 1/2 meter crests with shoulders and the beginning of a curl. I was in heaven. As the only one riding waves, I drew an audience on shore and even a couple of locals came out for some lessons. What fun, but the next day the surf sucked again!

Thirdly, on Sunday morning three of my students and I climbed the mountain behind the dormitory. It was much harder than expected as we had to use ropes to go up and down sections

over the coral rock. My students were very kind to me and made sure I didn't lag too far back. After our 8:00 a.m. climb, we all came back to my villa for a hearty Maine breakfast of orange juice, sausages, and blueberry (unfortunately not Maine's) pancakes topped by melting butter and maple syrup (again, unfortunately not Maine's). Great time and even wore shirt from Boothbay saying "Old Men Rule".

Lastly, I was asked to speak at the local church English service at 4:00 p.m. yesterday. Little did they know what they were getting into. Unlike our contextual Bible Study methods used at the Congregational Church, they study the Bible thematically focusing on new testament verses that relate to the theme for the day. I like the thematic approach less because you can pull out verses that you like to support whatever point the author is trying to make. Anyway, I tried to take their theme of "The Living of a Serving One: A Life Hidden with Christ in God" and suggested that three verses from the Old Testament the author didn't cite might additionally help understand the theme. I pointed to Deuteronomy 6:5 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might" and Leviticus 19:18 "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" as two ways to be a serving one (and of course Jesus' answer to what is the greatest commandment). And I pointed to Micah 6:8 "And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" as helpful to understanding a hidden life. They thought my comments were interesting!

PS An update on my war. One more dead cockroach found this week and a little more poison

down the drains. Stopped another ant invasion. No more lizard poop as I knocked out the source with my trusty broom. And my enemies brought in reinforcements (see picture of the two inch help just for Michelle's pleasure).