A long over due post.

It’s been a while since I posted so here is an update with a fair bit of news. Well not news exactly but stuff, anyway.

Had a nice 4 day weekend last week. September 28^th was Teachers Day. Believe it or not teacher’s day is a national holiday in Taiwan. We all got the day off school. J This year it also corresponded with Moon Festival. Moon Festival is kind of like the Chinese equivalent of Thanksgiving. Teacher day is Confucius’s birthday so it is the 28^th every year. Moon Festival (or Mid-Autumn festival) is on the Chinese Lunar calendar so it is different every year. This year they more or less corresponded so in a rare burst of administrative generosity the school gave us Monday and Tuesday off.

It was very nice. I can sure tell the difference between working in a cram school and a very rich private school. At the cram school I our Teachers day reward was not a holiday. The boss would order pizza. At the school I am at now it’s another story altogether. First we got the long weekend. Basically the only holiday we get except Chinese New Year so you know its important. Then there was the banquet and the gifts. On Wednesday when we got back from the long weekend the school gave every teacher in the school a hot plate. Not really useful so I gave it to a fiend of mine who doesn’t have a kitchen but nice all the same. Many of my classes also gave me little gifts, ranging from cards to a few gift certificates. The cards were cool.

Then on Thursday night we had a banquet at one of the big 5 star hotels. This was a banquet for all the teachers and a bunch of the rich parents. There were about 1000 people there. 200 or so teachers, 50ish staff and then assorted parents politicians and hangers on. (No family though so Jenn did not go L)

There was a little band that sat behind the stage and played traditional Chinese music the whole time. Fortunately they played fairly quietly cause traditional Chinese music can be kind of harsh to the western ear. There were a few mercifully short speeches then they started to hand out red envelopes. Red envelopes are the traditional Taiwanese gift for weddings, funerals, birthday, and well any occasion really. Eminently practical they are just an envelope stuffed with cash. The perfect gift. They gave them out to all the teachers with 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years of service. There was even one guy with 35 years. The whole time they were making speeches and giving out gifts the audience was talking away. I am always surprised by that. I found it kind of rude at first but I am slowly getting used to it.

After the main ceremony they started to bring the food. It was fairly normal Chinese food that just kept coming in about 15 courses for about an hour and a half. The whole time they were brining in the food there was a guy up on stage doing a draw. (I found out later he was one of the super rich parents) When we got there they gave all of us a ticket stub. ( all of the teachers and staff, not parents) It was not like any draw I have seen before though because I am pretty sure that everyone won something. That’s right, everyone.

They had a ton of different prizes. The top prizes were a laptop, a fridge, and a washing machine. There were toaster ovens and VCD players. There were about 20 mountain bikes. There were little radios and big stereos. The draw just kept going and going. At the very end everyone who did not get a good prize got to go up and they got the booby prize. I think it was an iron but I think there were only about 50 of those. About 150 of the prizes were pretty good. For example, at my table of 8 teachers we got 3 mountain bikes, 2 stereos, 2 VCD players, and a toaster oven. I end up with one of the stereos. It was a pretty nice evening.

Other than that there is not much going on. Jenn is off to China for a few weeks at the end of the month and I am just working away. School is getting easier now that the kids are getting used to me. We are all getting into the groove of things. I’ll try to do the next update sooner.