International House of Taipei 台北國際學舍

If you're thinking of studying Chinese in Taipei for less than one year, you will quickly discover that most universities don't offer accommodation to students who are only staying for a few months. You could rent an apartment, but most leases are one year or six months, so you will loose deposit money. You can always just live out of a hotel or hostel, but if you're on a budget why not give International House of Taipei a go.

Located in scenic, Xindian International House of Taipei (Or IHouse) is catered for students who are studying in Taipei for the short term. It may be a little far from Taipei, but they provide a shuffle bus in the morning for 15NT, which will take you directly to most mandarin training schools. It took about 15min to get to NTNU. Unfortunately you have to find your own way home on the bus and subway. The shuttle bus also doesn't run past 9am, so you will have to catch a bus down the hill, then transfer to the subway if you want to go to Taipei. This can sometimes be a bit inconvenient.

I thought it was good for short term study because I payed rent by the month, and it gave me the opportunity to meet many other students. There usually aren't a lot of western students staying here. Most of the occupants seem to be either Japanese or Korean, but it does give you a good opportunity to practice your Chinese. A lot of the staff also speak English, so if you have an problems in life you can always consult them.

My room was 8600NT , then it was an additional 400 a month for Internet, and another 400 a month to hire a fridge. You can also hire a TV for 400, but they have a few common one's scattered all over the place. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, and it was cleaned every day. It fine except for summer when strange insects started floating in an dying all over the sinks. They also have singles and shared rooms, with and without bathrooms. If you want more details about the rooms it's best to email them at this address.  ih102@ms16.hinet.net

I was lucky to have a room facing Taipei, and the view was really amazing, especially at night. 

Here are some pictures of my room. I miss having a balcony.

The also had a  website, but I think it's closed now.

The website also claimed that they have a restaurant, but it doesn't anymore. All that is left is a big room which they use to store furniture. But they do have a lunchbox ordering service, where they will order lunch and dinner for you, and there is an instant noodle vending machine. The closest store is a small Wellcome supermarket up the road, but if you want to go out and eat you have to catch a bus down to Xindian or Qizhang.

The greatest thing about Qizhang is Carrefour, and the bus from IHouse will take you pretty close. It's pretty much an all stop shop for anything. If you ever have to buy anything it can be found at Carrefour.

The one problem I had with the place were the thin walls. I could hear people talking in their rooms when I was attempting to go to sleep. I was also stuck in a hall full of noisy Koreans, and I even began to dream in Korean even though I don't understand one word. Many of my friends also complained about the distance from Taipei. It's also on a small mountain, so it can be a bit tough if you haven't grown up around hills. I grew up in rural Australia so to me it wasn't that bad. It was very inconvenient getting home late at night though.The The bus up the hill become more infrequent past 10pm, and then it stops at 11pm. So after that you either have to walk or get a taxi.

I used to walk home up the hill in heels, at night, with strange wild dogs watching me. It's not something that I would advise to anyone. Especially when your a young western woman all on your own. I would have at least three cars or scooters stop every time and try and offer me a lift. In the end I gave up and started taking a taxi. It only cost about 90NT-ish from Xindian City office station.

Hao-lo Harssment

One thing that I've learned to hate through my three years in Asia is random people stopping me on the street to say "hello". I understand that this sounds a bit cold and all. I was OK with it, maybe the first 100 times. But after three years I now internally cringe every time I hear the familiar "Hao-lo," shouted out by some strange old person who I've never seen before. I have now coined the term Hao-lo harassment (When Chinese speakers attempt to say hello it can often sound like hao-lo).

China was by far the worst, where it was impossible to walk down the street without 20 Chinese people popping up out of nowhere to say hello. Being there for one month is probably the cause of my hello phobic. Japan was not as bad, considering how reserved they all are, and I'd probably place Taiwan somewhere in the middle

Now all I can think is no! leave me alone, just let me walk down the street in peace, everyone else can walk home in quietly, why can't I? Another problem I have is that I live in an area where there aren't many foreigners, which makes me more exciting. These days I mentally cope by ignoring them. I hope that if I don't respond they'll stop doing it.

Old people and Children are usually the worst when it comes to speaking English, and staring in general. I don't really have the heart to ignore children and teenagers, but I try my best to shun everyone else.
 I understand that it's an attempt to be friendly, but I can't help but think that the only reason they do it is because of the way I look. If I looked Chinese would they do it? It's not like I'm new to Taiwan either, I've been here six months already and I speak their language. I understand that it may look cold, but I'm a girl who lives by herself. I'm already the local neighbourhood foreigner, so it's not wise to attract any unnecessary attention.

Yesterday I was walking home when a car full of old men stopped at the traffic light and waved out "Hao-lo," I quickly glanced at the blankly before continuing on my way. Thinking I'm just going to erase that moment from my mind

Saying hello back also comes with it's own set of risks. It's usually leads to questions such as "Where are you from, where do you work, come eat food with me, why are you running away?"

Late one night I was walking home when a man sitting on a scooter said hello to me. I thought that he may have been someone that I work with, so I stopped to talk to him (recently I've had people I know said they saw me and said hello, but I didn't say anything back). But his following question was "What's your name?" to which my first thought was shit I don't know this guy. I then decided that maybe it was best to get out of there, but he began to follow me on his scooter, yelling things such as "Where are you from, do you want to eat dinner with me?" Sometimes they also yell "This is Taiwan, it's safe here!"

Right, if you say so.

On the subject of Taiwanese people trying to speak English, the other day I went into my local convenience store, and I thought the old man at the counter was speaking Taiwanese to me before I realised that he was trying to say sorry.

Of course I've talked about this with many of my foreign friends. Some are a lot nicer than me and at least smile back.

Stalking Taiwanese Celeberities

If you're a big fan of Taiwanese drama you may come to Taiwan in the hope of meeting one of your idols. And you're in luck, seeing them is easier than you think.

When I first arrived in Taipei some Japanese fans told me about this websites. You have to check it everyday, and it will list what celebrities will be doing what, and where they will be.

http://stars.udn.com/newstars/Schedule.do

Of course it's all in Chinese, but if you cut and paste it straight into google translate (http://translate.google.com) you can have it in English in an instant.

Also if you turn up at least an hour early and plant yourself next to the stage it's quite easy to get a good view (Except it it's Super Junior, I'm sorry but you're going to have to camp out to get a good view there). Avoid standing directly in front of the stage is there is a space for photographers, because they will definitely turn up five minutes before the show and block your view.

Here are some pictures from my celebrity stalking.

Rainne Yang

Show Luo

Super Junior

F.I.R

Halloween

I don't know what Halloween means to you. In some places it means dressing up in scary costumes and harassing your neighbours for candy, but in a Taiwan cram school it means one thing and one thing only.

More work.

This year for Halloween my kindergarten had it's own little Halloween party. For the entire week we had to teach Halloween related grammar, flashcards, and songs. And on the day of the party everyone was dressed up in their own little Halloween costumes. Each teacher also had to do their own little segment for Halloween, like a song, craft, or story book, and the children rotated between classrooms.

We also build a haunted house, complete with scary music, and grabbing the children.
Most of them cried. I'm sure that back home if children are to the point of tears they wouldn't be forced to go though with it. The Chinese teachers seemed very into it, and if the child refused they would forcefully drag them though.

 I felt a little guilty because most of the children in my class are quite good kids, I don't want to emotionally damage them, but the next day they all seemed fine. The problem child in my class was forced to go through it twice. He's also terrified of ghosts. There was a moment when I was scaring him from one side, and another teacher was grabbing at him from behind. He was trying to fight us off from both sides, and was waving his little arms and legs about. He even left a shoe in there.

We had to remove the house the next day, but I think it would have been good to leave there for a while. Every time a child misbehaved in class we could have thrown them in there and turned the lights off.  Apparently even the regular public school had its own event for Halloween. A kid from my cram school class came in dressed up as a ghost, and proceeded to try and scare all his classmates. I find it interesting because they seem more into Halloween here, than when I was back in Australia. Apparently the Taiwanese are quite into the decorations and theme related goods, but they don't actually do anything on Halloween.

There are also various Halloween parties going on in Taipei if you're a die hard Halloween fan. A friend was telling me about the biggest party which is apparently called "monster mash" which is held near Taipei 101 and you have to buy tickets. Brass Monkey also has a Halloween party which is free for women in you arrive dressed up. It's not too difficult to find something to do.

Corporal Punishment

Unlike most western countries corporal punishment is still legal in Taiwan. Or at least I think it is, because I see it everyday. In training I was told that there would be no hitting, ear pulling, or abusing the students, but on my first day of observation the English teacher was pinching the student's ear and dragging him up the front of the class, and the Chinese teacher's didn't even bat an eyelid.

Personally I still remember what it was like to be a kid so I can't bring myself to yell, or physically punish them (That's probably why they're all so crazy). My kindergarten homeroom teacher on the other hand does quite a lot of yelling, pushing, and the other day she was even hitting a kid.

 For my first week I watched in horror, thinking "OMG what are you doing to that small child!" but after once month my reaction changed to, "Well that is quite nasty, but it makes them behave well in class," which is really the important thing when you spend two hours a day in a classroom together. If a children is misbehaving I'll usually tell her about it, she'll make the child cry, and then they'll behave for the rest of the class. When she's out of the room I'll even use her as a threat to try and make the other children behave.

One of the children in my class was really testing me. I despise yelling at children so I make him stand up and put his hands in the air. I could feel my heart breaking, he looked so sad and miserable and I cracked and let him sit down after three minutes.

Another interesting scene I witnessed the other day was when my smallest student was taking too long to eat her cake for snack time. The Homeroom teacher then processed to start forcefully shoving it into her mouth, chanting eat! eat!. At the time I thought "Oh if this was Australia they would encourage the student not to eat cake, but here they are in Taiwan forcefully shoving it into the student's mouth."

I'm not sure what the conditions are in regular Taiwanese schools but I have a feeling that they are also quite strict. If you have 40 students in one class it takes a lot of effort to try and make them all behave. If you have that many students in one class you can't afford to let one or two get out of line.

Kindergarten Dreams

You probably know that you've been doing a job too much when you begin to dream about it. I occasionally think that I had certain conversations with my homeroom teacher before I realise that it was a dream.

In my kindergarten if you want any supplies for Art and Craft you need to order them through the branch. But given how stingy they are with just regular paper I severely doubt how much they will actually give me. My latest nightmare is where I come down stairs to collect my craft supplies. They're all neatly arranged according to the teachers, but once I get to my pile there's nothing there. I then ask one of the office staff who tells me "Sorry you don't get craft supplies."

To which my reactions is, "I knew it was a lie! I knew that they would never give me craft supplies."

For some reason they're all paper Nazi's at my school. They give you one pack of paper that is supposed to last the year, or in my case I inherited my sole pack of paper from the person who I replaced. Yesterday I was checking my paper supplies which are quite dismal even though I haven't even used them yet. I get the feeling that someone probably raided them after my processor left, or the Kindergarten homeroom teacher's been making off with them behind my back. It's so painful just trying to get paper from my branch that I've given in and just brought my own stack from Carrefour (It was only 69NT, I don't know what my branch's problem is). It may be money out of my own funds, but at least I can use paper to my heart's delight.

Apparently the student's pay quite high fees but the school is quite stingy when it comes to food and supplies. I was eating cake from snack time one day with the Homeroom teacher who said that it was "So-So," and that what they feed the students is all quite cheap. I guess that in private schools such as my own the priority is really to make money, and if they can save money in certain areas they'll go right ahead and do it.

Two Months

It's now been almost two months since I began my Taipei adventure, or hell ( I'm still trying to figure it out). So far things have been going 100x better than when I first started. The Taiwanese staff have finally begun to warm up to me. I think because cram schools have such a high turn over, they don't bother getting to know you until they know that you're going to stick around. Teaching has also become more manageable because it's basically the same thing every lesson.

One thing I'm not so happy about is the amount of unpaid work. I have a child who hates English school and doesn't do his homework, so I have to sit with him everyday after
class and help him. There are also the reports and tests that I have to mark. My kindergarten Chinese teacher will often tell me about the amount of work she has to do,
but I see her doing most of it during my English time.

I was told that I should quit and try to find a higher payed job, but I don't want to go through the settling in process again, and I don't believe the conditions at other school are really that much better. I would rather leave and teach in another country (If you
want money Korea is the place to go).

On the brighter side I finally received my health insurance after two months.(Two months!! WTF Taiwan, I could have been hit by a scooter by now.) Apparently seeing a doctor now becomes incredibly cheap. Taiwan has one of the best health care systems in the world.

I would also like to share some classroom management techniques that I've come up with in the last two months.

If taking stars away isn't working, I now write the individual student's names on the whiteboard and make them stay ten minutes after class. It's a really easy punishment on
my side because I have to be there anyway to mark their homework and tests. If they continue to misbehave I just keep adding some more minutes.  It's also great because it's punishing individual students instead of half the class.
The only problem is if you have two many students stay after class, then it becomes a
mini party.

I've also come up with countdown star. If the children are failing to get their stuff out, or are just playing around, I start the countdown from 5, and 0 = bye bye star. Sometimes I'll even do a zombie walk to the board. The only problem with this is if the child is an arse and doesn't care about stars.

If they start pulling funny noises, faces, or start chewing their clothes I now do an impression of them. E.g, "I'm Frank, I like to eat my clothes, yummy yummy yummy." I'm not sure whybut this makes them stop. It's also entertaining.

I think that it's important to try and have fun while you teach, not just for the children but for your own sake as well. Those children can really wear you down and drive you
insane.