eileen laoshi's rules

people love rules. "getting in trouble" instills fear, thrills, and contemplation at any age. rules need to be simple and few. at best, they apply not only to the specific situation at hand, but also to the broader circumstances of life at large. before the school year began, i gave some serious thought to my future students, their rights and responsibilities, and the tone i wanted to establish in gaoshu english 101. i wanted students to know what i expected, i needed to be able to point (literally) to my expectations, and i wanted to be able to illustrate all of these things in a simple & comprehensible way. here are my rules for life and foreign language class.

rule #1

a pretty straightforward rule-- the golden rule, the ethic of reciprocity, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself. one day, as english class wound down, 3-4 rough & tumble boys stood up silently and simultaneously pounded clenched fists into open palms. they stood there staring at me, their fists in the air. my mind started to race, and i wondered if we were about to rumble. i looked over at my co-teacher and whispered, "why do they want to fight me?" she laughed and said that they were performing a martial arts salute of respect for their instructor. RESPECT.

rule #2

"if a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as michelangelo painted, or beethoven composed music, or shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well." --martin luther king, jr.

rule #3

know your responsibilities, and be prepared to carry them out no matter the circumstances. if your school has an assembly and there's no auditorium-- bring a chair. if the school bathroom needs to be cleaned and it's your day to clean it-- grab a hose and take off your shoes.

halloween: a 3-part series

halloween in taiwan, while not unheard of, is not automatic. kids might celebrate at their after-school cram school, or learn some holiday-specific vocabulary at regular school. adults might wonder how ghosts can be cause for celebration, when taiwanese "ghost day" is a time to steer clear of the ghosts who are released from hell for a breath of fresh air. halloween in taiwan is an english teacher's fantasy holiday: it comes with built-in incentives of fantasy, mock terror, and free candy. so mr. chung and i went for it-- a 3-part, 3-week-long halloween series.

part one: we warmed up our audience with an introduction to traditional pre-halloween activities. a small green gourd subbed for the big orange pumpkin, and we all discovered together just how difficult bobbing for apples really is. alan caught on immediately-- stems are key.

part two: my original play, "the dark & spooky forest," debuts. the set is a mr. chung original, and therefore completely fabulous. it features the return of the ever-popular smoke machine, courtesy of the gaoshu fire department. the sound effects include chainsaws, evil laughter, and cawing crows. the narrator is a fear-inducing pumpkinhead. the actors are terrified and perform their lines in single file line formation or hiding in the cloud of billowing smoke. the audience is confused and yet tolerant. the list of suggestions for improvement is long, and the kindhearted taiwanese teachers are not joking when they say, "just do it again!" brilliant idea. somehow, no one bats an eye.

part three: "the dark and spooky forest" returns, bigger badder and ten times better. the set now features hand-illustrated orange flags. the smoke wafts rather than billows. pumpkinhead is in color. the actors are fearless, they make use of their space, and best of all, they emote. their fear is palpable. they leap, they lunge, and they run screaming into the audience. no one even notices that it is a rerun.

part three and a half: thunderous applause for "the dark and spooky forest" has barely died down when gaoshu's great ghastly costume contest kicks off. grades 1-6 participate, and the criteria are fairly simple: be creative and use recycled or re-purposed materials. there will be 1 winner per grade, 1 grand prize, and a façade of audience participation. there are some truly mind-boggling costumes: hand-knotted wigs made from twine, elaborate collage capes, pipe cleaner internal organs, innumerable metamorphosed trash bags, and my very super top favorite, the newspaper-wrapped mummy boy. and with all of this creativity, the audience always cheers loudest for the kid in the mask. overruled. happy halloween!









photos: meinong jack-o-lantern & mr chung original mask; dark & spooky set; mummy boy; alan bobs with ease; 6th grader's 6th minute bobbing; scenes from the dark & spooky forest ("children did not like to go to the dark and spooky forest"/ "ahh! a mummy!"/ "just then, they saw a witch"/ "it's so scary!"); nature fairies; 2nd grade contestants; grand prize nominees (winners on L and R-- a tie)

boat burning festival

a few weeks ago, mr. chung informed me that a beautiful boat was being built in the coastal city of donggang. would i like to accompany him to see the boat be burned to ashes? of course, i replied. in the end, mr. chung couldn't make it, but the boat (which had taken 2 years to build) did indeed burn to ashes as part of donggang's triennial king boat ceremony.









never having been to donggang before, i can't describe its streets on a typical friday night. on this particular friday night, all streets leading into town, to the donglong temple, and to the donggang seashore were strung with red and yellow lanterns. the square surrounding donglong temple (which organizes the ceremony) was packed with people, paper money, and fireworks. it seemed like every time mitsy and i stopped to gawk at some incredibly ornate, old-fashioned sedan carrier (or incredibly flashy, neon-lit modern carriage), someone would light off a fierce round of fireworks directly beside us. massive piles of paper money were being sold at the temple and arranged in a gigantic wall of pink bags at the seashore.

one of the stories goes that long, long ago, a man named wen wangyeh saved the life of a tang dynasty emperor. wangyeh perished at sea not long after, and became a god who has protected mariners ever since. the king's boat is built to honor king wangyeh, and its return is celebrated with rituals and processions for 8 days. on the 8th day, the boat is burned to send wangyeh off to the heavenly court and to drive away disease and evil spirits. the men of the village dress as bantou (public officials) and jiaoban (sedan carriers), positions that are passed down from father to son.











at 2 am on the dot, the final leg of the ceremony began. more gongs, more fireworks, and the enormous boat was rolled beneath the donglong golden arches. the mile-long procession led to the seashore, where a mountain of paper money and fireworks was being arranged before wangyeh's boat. for 3 hours, the ceremony continued: moving the mountain of money, calling local gods aboard, painstakingly erecting each mast with oversized chopsticks, and rigging the sails.








and finally, sometime around daybreak, setting off a final and tremendous display of fireworks directly into the mountain of ghost money. as the sun rose, the ghost money became an inferno and gradually began to consume wangyeh's ship. heat- and wind- powered tornadoes ripped through the pile, and wangyeh sailed away for another 3 years...

taiwanese fire drill

i was informed that friday morning's schedule would be interrupted due to a fire drill. back in brooklyn, that would mean a 10-minute (tops) timed evacuation of the building. here in gaoshu, i was told that it might be finished by 3rd or 4th period-- a good 2-3 hours into the day. taiwanese fire drills, it turns out, are very serious business. the fire department comes to school with a fire truck, ropes, hoses, dummies, and a smoke machine. and the firefighters drill the kids on the following essential fire safety skills:

the tightrope
2 ropes are tied to trees, one for feet and one for hands. firefighters stand guard as children make their way from tree A to tree B.






fire hose control
a fire hose is turned on full blast and handed to a small child. the child controls the spray.






cpr
child rescue workers tilt a dummy's head back, pinch its nostrils shut, and breathe into its mouth. all while counting beats in chinese.




the smoke room
a big classroom is filled with smoke and the lights are turned off. firefighters man the doorways and send the children in. children must find the way out.

mike long day! (*updated)

today is mike's birthday. he ought to be celebrated good and proper on this very special day-- and so, i am dedicating this blog to him and a couple of his *many good qualities*!

happy birthday, mike long!

one of mike's good qualities is his extreme kindness. not only does he make every human being feel important and valuable, but he also shows consideration for the most unusual members of the animal kingdom. in the years that i have known him, he has demonstrated this kindness on beaches festering with 400 million-year old horseshoe crabs (more closely related to spiders than to crabs), under bridges spewing colonies of 1.5 million mexican free-tailed bats (the ones pictured here are members of the largest urban bat colony in north america!), and in zoos containing tanks full of suspiciously dead-looking suriname toads (not actually dead).








another of mike's good qualities is his appreciation for public safety. he makes every effort to practice land and water safety on his own, and he also encourages others' efforts to enforce good safety practices.












mike is a wonderful human being, and i hope he knows what a difference he's made in my life. i'd like to wish him a very happy birthday, and give thanks to the family that brought him into this world and raised him to be such a multi-talented, excellent human being. in honor of mike & his magnificence, here are some very special tributes to this kind, safe, and half-chinese human being. mike, have a wonderful day!

*sheng ri kuai le*
from gaoshu

photos: mike in the catskills; horseshoe crabs on nyc's plumb beach; bats fresh from under austin's congress avenue bridge; suriname toad in central park; danger zones in northern CA; what happened to your face girl; gaoshu serenades mike

moon watching

the moon festival, or the mid-autumn festival, is a celebration of the year's fullest and roundest moon. there are many chinese folktales that explain chang'e's rise to the moon, but my favorite so far goes something like this: chang'e was a beautiful woman married to an archer named houyi. at that time, the earth had 10 suns, which caused people great suffering. houyi did what any great archer would do-- he shot down 9 of the suns, and as a reward from the gods, received special medicine granting immortality. one of his archer apprentices was jealous and tried to steal the medicine. chang'e would not have that, so she ate it herself-- and immediately, her earthly body began to float away. not wanting to be separated from houyi, she stopped at the nearest celestial body, the moon. and that is where she has stayed ever since, with a medicine-making lunar jade rabbit for company. tragic and romantic... and a great reason to look at the full moon while eating mooncakes.

as a NASA side note, in 2007, china's first lunar probe was named for chang-e. also, our moon lady was mentioned in a conversation between houston & apollo 11 just before the first moon landing in 1969:

HOUSTON: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill for immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is only standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree.

CREW: Okay, we'll keep a close eye for the bunny girl.

in taiwan, the moon festival celebration resembles american 4th of july festivities. family reunions, barbecue, and fireworks! my moon festival weekend started friday morning, with an all-school english lesson (every friday at 8 a.m.). all-star student vicky and i presented a short skit to the school, teaching key moon festival words like "mooncake" (little cakes with tasty fillings, especially the more modern ones), "pomelo" (another traditional festival food), "barbecue," and best of all, "firecracker." for me, the highlight of the skit came when the dean of students unexpectedly LIT the firecracker and passed it off to me in front of the entire student body!! i had a minor fit of extreme joy mixed with sheer terror, and then realized that it was a relatively safe sparkler.

the taiwanese "kao rou"/barbecue tradition is fantastic and only slightly different from u.s.a.-style bbq. first, you need an old tire rim filled with hunks of charcoal. then you need fire, and something to stoke the fire-- in our case, an electric fan, followed by a hair dryer, followed by a blowtorch ("why are you laughing, eileen?"). you can put food on a wire rack (left), but a big stone slate cooks better (right). then comes the food-- and what a range. thin-sliced pork and beef, marinated chicken, mushrooms, peppers, squid, fresh oysters, taiwanese pancakes, sausages, all brushed with phenomenal korean bbq sauce. eaten with squares of white bread, heated on the grill and brushed with more of that sauce. as a great epicurean once said, "aw yeah, dude."

of course, no moon festival celebration would be complete without firecrackers. they'd been exploding around town all week, but on friday, things really started to heat up. explosions were everywhere, and mr. chung was gung-ho about finding their point of origin after school on friday. we rode his scooter around town until we found a small road carpeted in red firecracker debris and the firecracker truck (left). on the night of the moon festival, saturday, my taiwanese brother jun arrived at the barbecue with an armload of pyrotechnics. tuo, my taiwanese sister yen's boyfriend, had his own special way of paying tribute to moon goddess chang'e (right).

*happy moon festival, everyone!*

photos: chang'e & houyi; moon festival skit-- backdrop is an edward chung original; gaoshu barbecue; firecrackers for chang'e & the earth god (saturday was coincidentally his birthday! happy birthday, earth god*)