Guess what I've been working on?

stumbled upon a cosplay event today

if you get lost between the moon

... and Starbucks: SSSSHHHHH!!!
university student who no like study at library
(acloss a stleet)
also no like you talking and laughing
in public
(of all places)

i mean, really?!
no offense,
but really??

photos: Christmas in Taipei

Simon an Mathilda - my gracious hosts!

Simon cooked Christmas Dinner

Taiwanese drumming family playing West African beats!

@26th Anniversary of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum

puffy cheeks make tuba players squee-worthy

hip-hoppers bopping to Christmas beats

the oldest street in Taipei

with the silhouette artist who had me dancing

dancing a jig, for an old man humming an SA tune, in the oldest street in Taipei.

so that was halloween

looking back, this year's halloween most definitely deserves another post. it was, after all, the first time that i "did" halloween the way Americans do.

you see, halloween was not very popular in SA when i was growing up. quite the contrary, in fact. not that ghosts and witches weren't fun - we did have haunted carnival rides and even played "haunted house" at school events. just never on the 31st of october. i suppose some grown-ups in the bigger cities might have had a party, but i don't recall caring much about that as a youngster.

in fact, i only started enjoying halloween in my university years - and i had quite a few of those ;0)

remember, i only 'discovered' booze on my 19th birthday. (of course i knew about wine and liquor before - i just didn't like it.) but on my 19th birthday i discovered i DID like the bubbly! quite a bit. so much so that, much like any other student, most of my free time was spent finding a reason to party. life was all about having fun and getting drunk. add to that the opportunity to dress up and be as weird as you care to be... you get the idea.

any party was an excuse to drink copious amounts of whatever had some kick in it. strangely enough, most people were more fun in costume (out of character) - or, in my case, in drag! back then, we had more fancy dress parties than anything else!

when i switched from studying Town- and regional Planning to a degree in Interior Design - one of my closest friends had the fortune of celebrating her birthday on November 1st. Halloween party PLUS birthday after midnight... instant success!

so yeah, that's pretty much what halloween was all about for me and my friends: getting.wasted.

carving pumpkins was something americans did - who knew why or what for? messy for sure.
trick-or-treating? sounds like playing "tok-tokkie", without running away before someone opened the door - and what's the fun in that?

tok-tok·kie [ tòk tókee ] (plural tok-tok·kies) noun  South Africa Definition: 1. insects African beetle: an African beetle that makes a characteristic sound by tapping its abdomen on the ground to attract a mate. Family Tenebrionidae. 2. leisure children's game involving knocking on doors: a children's game or trick of knocking on somebody's door and then running away before it can be answered.

 ---------------------------------------------------------

fast forward to last week.
i'm working in an American school, with real Americans, in a culture that practically worships everything about the United States.

my kids want to carve pumpkins. the school actually set aside class time for this. these carved pumpkins go on display for the school's only "event": the Halloween party.

being the only outside event that our school has - it is THE moment to dazzle and beguile. suddenly, our costumes are seriously important. the show is for awing kids and parents alike - which is great PR for the school, which means new students, which means business.
then there's also the after-party...
yes, there's an after-party in town, where throngs of foreigners get together for the "best outfit" competition. not only are the prizes pretty cool - but there's a bit of prestige to it. and apparently our school always wins one of the three categories. (no pressure)

so... carving the pumpkin was nerve wrecking. although i'd read up on carving templates and techniques beforehand, i was seriously feeling the pressure when i walked through the front door that morning. my concerns about carving a decent pumpkin, however, were overshadowed by the fear of slipping and hurting a student. kids, as you well know, loose all sense of caution when curiosity takes over. i ended up barking "too close!" more often than plunging the knife into the (resistant) pumpkin. i was sweating bullets. (or balls, as my colleagues put it.)

thankfully the pumpkin emerged looking pretty decent, without any blood being spilt.

next up was the party itself - and i had no idea how i was going to pull off a "genuine" halloween costume (or perform a quick ditty on stage). all i had to do at my previous school was scare the living daylights out of everybody!

i ended up sticking to what i knew best - and went as a zombie. my theatrical flair ended up being a bit TOO scary - and i had to loose the bloodied mouth and throat. the white contact lenses, however, couldn't be made less scary. unless i took them out. which i didn't, seeing as how i'd painted my whole body. (there was no way i was going to stick a painted finger in my eye!)

during the night's activities, i managed to perspire myself into lighter and lighter shades of blue as i went along. so much so, that i had to turn to the art-supplies of my manager for some additional blue poster paint.

for the stage-show i merely hopped around the way chinese zombies are supposed to - which drew a great response from both the crowd and management.

then we headed for the after-party. i squeezed out too much paint for my last application, but decided to bite the bullet and use it all. worked like a charm! i visibly scared the sh!t out of people on the way to the bar - and at the bar itself. success!! i didn't enter the competition in the end - but my boss won best dressed male.
he went as marilyn monroe.

(mahat maghandi came second. obviously spelling ability was not a prerequisite.)

not so long in the tooth...

from inspiration:


came implementation:

which then went into translation:

not in kindergarten anymore...

my weekend: the Wang Yeh boat burning festival

those who follow me on twitter (or glance at my twitter update-feed to the right), know by now that i finally got to experience DongGang's famous boat burning festival. the triennial event is touted as being one of the biggest of it's kind - which i tend to believe quite easily. according to the Taiwan News, roughly 100,000 people flocked to my old town to participate in its 300 year old tradition.

The eight-day festival opened with a mysterious and complicated ritual on the beach of Jhenhai Park. Five Wang Yeh gods joined the one enshrined at the temple for a four-day procession around DongGang before they boarded their wooden ship on which they "sailed" around the fishing port's streets to expel evil spirits and plagues.

On the seventh day, the temple offered the gods a feast of 108 Chinese dishes accompanied by fine wine and liquor to thank them for warding off evil during the processions over the previous week.

The ritual culminated on Oct. 17 when the elaborately carved wooden boat was set on fire to symbolize the Wang Yehs setting off to heaven, taking with them the evil spirits and diseases they absorbed during the processions.

to give you an idea of what it was like, here are some random snaps (also collected from friends) and videos:

what i didn't expect - and was really interesting - was the deafening silence right after the boat was lit. according to tradition, no festive sounds were allowed, lest the Wang Yeh turn around to see what the commotion is about. so after days of fireworks, local opera, gongs, bells, bands and whatnot - there was nothing...

creepy, but cool at the same time.

loony season

update:

• still processing the disappearance of a friend.
• decided that the snake-dream was about my fear of letting my kids go.
• doctor decided to change my medication - feeling a bit like a lab-rat for not understanding the reasons.
• am still sane because I am loved.
• enjoyed the kindergarten's graduation ceremony.
• prepared emotionally for my last day at school on Monday.
• shocked by the news of one colleague assaulting another.

what? yes - you heard me:

the (by now not-so-)new teacher (whom I've expressed concern about before) drove to Ben's house - and assaulted him...

this is the guy who's inheriting my class on Monday!

no wonder I dream of snakes hunting my kids...

a walk in the park

there is nothing quite like a beautiful day in the park. having lived in a conservancy in SA (i.o.w. being surrounded by nature), i pretty much took parks for granted. here in Taiwan, though, parks are embraced for the jewels they are. everybody comes out to play with the kids and each other, fly their (many, gorgeous) kites, walk the dogs and just have a gorgeous time in nature. it really is a magical experience - one that i should indulge in more often.

i am fortunate enough to live right next to an amazing park - the one surrounding the Kaohsiung Museum of Modern Art :0) and today i too strolled through it's loveliness on my way to take in the Andy Warhol "Pope of Pop" exhibition.

it was fantastic! i thank my patient parents' indulgence of my forays into art studies at Pretoria University (where i perfected vacillating into an expensive 3-year play-date) for the background necessary to enjoy the comedy of Warhol's genius. seeing his works up close was brilliant! i think some of my fellow exhibition-goers might've been concerned about my sanity, though. not only do i look funny (super big & tall, fair fur covering my exposed flesh) - but i also frequently chuckled and giggled for no apparent reason. (is the Campbell's Soup box with Warhol's signature on funny? crazy foreigner...)

after wandering through the other exhibits, i decided to take a different route home. the main route *lol*

and boy was it fun! all the vendors and local artists peddling their wares, wonderful and weird locals cycling, skating, strolling around and taking many, many photographs. i regretted not taking my camera earlier (i was going into the museum, after all). Kaohsiung City government really did an excellent job with the grounds - and the little café-setup within strolling distance from everything has turned into an oasis of flavors and vibes.

i did snap this with my phone. it's in Engrish, but in that moment it didn't matter:

i wish Peter could've joined me - but i'm sure Tokyo is a blast!

a knight in shimmering armor

y'all know this week was not the easiest I've had in a bit. but thanks to scheduling requirements for my a/c installation, I got to take a day's leave from school on Friday :0)

and Peter did not let the opportunity to sweep me off my feet slip by! Friday afternoon he bundled me into his car and whisked me off past Cishan mountain, to track down the first peaches of the season. (and he says he isn't romantic!) en route, we checked out a place called 'Holy Mt Zion' - this is their gate:

from the looks of it, Mt Zion is what you'd call a faith based, self reliant, semi-autonomous community. (see how i didn't say sect? oops...) very impressive and very big - it really takes up a biggish hill. but a bit creepy, so no other photos to share.

yesterday, the girls from the buxiban came 'round to "warm" our apartment. Peter had made a reservation at our favorite Japanese BBQ for all of us - no dishes for me! *lol* to top it all off, he took me to see 'the reader' after everyone went home.

and today he's taking me to a mulberry farm to pick the first mulberries of the season!

every day, I thank God for Peter. is it dificult to see why?

update: on the drive home, we stopped and got some pineapples next to the road. back in Kaohsiung we stopped at a market for fresh chicken and an (as yet) unidentified vegetable. when we got home, Peter started dinner: Chicken and Pineapple soup!

mobile snapshots

clearing out the cobwebs in my head also means clearing out the cobwebs in daily life :0)

one of the areas that needed some desperate cleaning was my mobile phone's memory card. here are some of the better shots that were liberated from the old dear:

my first night in Taiwan saw me attending a celebration of some sorts. methinks it was a birthday, or something. this is a shot of the principal of my (then new) school and her family. thank Heavens Ben was there as well! Nobody else really spoke any English. 

i snapped this one for my Dad - who's a land surveyor back in SA. at home, he needs a big 4x4 to get to all the places he needs to work - here in Taiwan, a 50cc scooter seems more than adequate!

PoPo (pronounced Puwo-Puwo, not pawpaw) sleeping like a baby - literally!

a note from one of my students' communication books. it always tickles me when i see my name - but nobody tells me what it says... so yeah - any ideas?

for those of you who can read sheet music, this is the tune for "Hansie Slim", believe it or not! 

i love some of these signs' use of English!