Culture Class and Black Typhoon

Black Typhoon - August 12, 2009

Hello, again! The typhoon is all the way over now (for Taiwan anyway; Morakot might still be roaming around China and the other countries near it). Everyone in the dorm was alright, and there was only some very minor flooding in Olivia's and my room becase rain kept blowing through a screen door and began leaking down the hall. Other rooms had worse flooding/leaking. My friend Annie's room was leaking from the ceiling and another friend, Emily, told me her room was damp and still had water in it from the typhoon and that even if she used towels and opened the windows it wouldn't dry. In other parts of Taiwan there was a lot of flooding, mudslides, and roads washing out. A few villages and smaller towns were hit and people have died and gotten injured. Xue Lan's family (my host family) live in a Hakka village but I think they came through alright; she said she had talked to them, at least, but I heard from Xue Lan that some of the roads around them washed out. It was/is pretty bad...the workers and helpers started cleaning the place up pretty quick though, on Monday, and by this time they've gotten a lot of the branches that fell down off of the roads and ground, and the roof on the scooter and bike garage that fell over has been moved somewhere else.

My friends and I were going to class Monday after the typhoon and I stopped when I got to the hallway that led to the classroom because a few of my classmates in front of me were looking at something. I got closer and saw that it was a sharpei-looking puppy asleep in the hall. There was a box nearby that puppy and three puppies were sleeping in it. My friends told me that the mom was hanging around and would bark at anyone who got close to them. I thought that the puppies were born during the typhoon but I saw one closer later when he was awake and his eyes were open. I wanted to go see them really badly but since I saw the mom again I didn't want to go near them and make her upset or/and get bitten. I went for a walk but found the mom in some red star flower bushes and she barked at me so I left. A girl in another Chinese class, Casey, went to the box when she heard a puppy crying from it and picked him up and he started sucking on her finger. Since we thought the mom was gone, Casey asked Jackie Chang when she came by if she could help them get some milk for the puppy. He stayed in the English Department office for a few days and I went up there once to feed him milk from an eyedropper (not regular milk, I heard it was soy milk, and when another student named Emily and me fed him he kept drinking it). He didn't like the eyedropper so you'd have to stick your finger in his mouth and keep it there before you gave him milk with the eyedropper. He's a strong little guy, he starts sucking on your finger and doesn't let go.

Emily, one of my friends, fed him first then asked if I wanted to feed him so I did. He was really squirmy so you had to hold him or else he'd crawl all over the place. We both got a lot of milk on him so he had a moustache...or beard. After I fed him he fell asleep in my arms and took a little nap. He is so sweet.

A U.S. student named David named the puppy 'Black Typhoon' since we found him after the typhoon, but I think something like Blacky or Sun Bear is better. Sun Bear might sound kind of wierd, but there's a bear that is black and has a crescent of white fur on the chest (a Sun Bear). The puppy was colored almost the same way and so he reminded me of that kind of bear. Maybe his name could be Sun or Bear (if I was naming him). He did kind of look like a bear, the way his ears and face were. He is so sweet though and loves to crawl around. Someone in Pingtung (I'm not sure who) is going to come and take him home Thursday. Casey wanted to take him home even though there would be all the legal stuff and quarantine she'd have to do, but someone else might already be his new family. I am not that sure. I heard from my roommate's friends that travellers come to Taiwan and adopt dogs because there are so many strays.


Well, since the blog is getting long, I'll post a picture and some videos. The first picture is of the Tai Chi Master who came to see us on Tuesday for Culture Class and the video is of Wu Shu (a type of martial art) and a video of the Taichi Master going through some movements of the 'Push Hands' Tai Chi style, which I studied by taking a class from Melissa :) I like the Push Hands style, it is the one I've learned the most of so I am not that knowledgeable in Tai Chi but I like the style because I still remember some of the poses now because of the Culture Class and it is slow and it relaxes you. The Tai Chi Master asked a few students to punch him in the stomach, and they did, one student (Mike-who isn't the guy in this following picture--that is Clark) did really hard but the Tai Chi Master didn't even look like it hurt. His stomach was really hard because it had a lot of qi (chi, if you heard the Japanese, which is like...breath, or energy) in his stomach/abdomen. It was still hard to watch though and I didn't feel like punching my teacher :( Plus even if I could actually punch someone like I meant it (I doubt I could) I still don't think I'd do that much damage.


I'm out of practice for Tai Chi though. I was ok, but when everyone did the poses after the Tai Chi Master showed us, when I did it with them I lost my balance a few times. But I realized I still remembered some of the poses after I started doing them. If you practice enough at Tai Chi your body will remember the poses and you'll automatically do them--you don't have to think 'Ok, now it's this step', you just see the pose in your mind and then let your body go through the pose (did that make sense? That's kinda how it was for me when I took Taichi anyway). The video file is too big to be put here I think so I'll put it on Youtube and give people the link. Well I'm eating dinner now--Hokkaido Corn Soup from a restaurant called Sub Buddies that has some Italian stuff, and some vegetarian curry from a restaurant I have been to a few times but don't know the name of and I keep forgetting to get a name card from the place. But I will be going there again and I'll remember to get one (I hope haha). Just in case you go to Taiwan and want to get some vegetarian curry, which is really good by the way, say 'Su si gali' (Sue-suh-gah-lee). If you want takeout vegetarian curry say 'Wai dai su si gali'. (Why dye sue suh gah-lee). I might not have really spelled it right but some people here can't read Pinyin (English letters, Chinese word) so it probably doesn't matter. Bye for now! Have a good week and weekend!

Storm Post

August 7-9, 2009 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

Ok, I'm done with the food posts for now. I am not a pig, seriously ~-^
Well, the typhoon is going crazy. The wind is really strong and the small puddles from the rain that were in the hall are now...bigger puddles. There's a screen door right where the puddle is and rain is blowing in from outside. I want to go see how deep the puddle is but if it keeps raining I'll probably be able to find out sooner or later once it comes to our door. It's been raining nonstop since the typhoon started. Xue Lan told us the raining and typhoon would probably continue for a few more days, so I'm not sure of the status of class Monday, but the storm will probably have died down by then.

The President of TUSA got everyone in the dorm MacDonald’s food on Saturday and Jackie Chang (who writes to the students to make sure they’re doing OK and grades the culture journals we’ve been writing) ordered everyone in the dorm boxed meals for dinner. There were boxes of MacDonald’s stuff and bags of boxed lunches...they went to a lot of trouble because they got all the food during a typhoon and I really want to thank them somehow. I was kind of speechless when I saw that they’d gotten all the food for everyone. I bought food on Thursday to eat through the typhoon and didn’t know they’d get everyone meals. I’m grateful that they did, don’t get me wrong. I also hope that the people who delivered it were OK since the wind and rain were really bad.

I just went for a walk (Sunday 5:23) and saw that a lot of tree branches had fallen down, some trees were tipped over or their branches were cracked. One of the things that was damaged a lot was the roof over the scooter garage just outside of the dorms; the end of it fell forward and is touching the ground, blocking some of the scooters and bikes that were under it, and the next section bowed in the middle (a better way might be to say that it slumped forward after part of it fell and hit the ground) but the rest of the roof is still straight. It’s easier to show than explain but I don’t really feel like I should take pictures of the destruction.

It’s still a little windy and it was raining when I went back inside. A long time before I went outside for the first time since the typhoon started there were people walking around, riding bikes, scooters, and driving cars. I saw a couple people flying a kite like I’ve seen them doing in normal weather although...Taiwan usually has lots of typhoons...so I guess it’s still normal weather now.

Well dinner boxes were delivered for supper and I just finished mine. Instead of staying in my room I watched TV with some American and Taiwan students. I’m glad I hung out with them since I’ve been a recluse this weekend. Earlier a few people ate lunch in the student lounge and played Mah-jongg while watching Wall-E. I left partway through and took a rest but that was fun. People asked if I wanted to play Mah-jongg but I said no; I know the very basic rules and it's fun but I just wanted to watch. For any kind of game, I sometimes space out, and I felt like I'd be doing a lot of spacing out if I played. Watching was fun too.

The Mah-jongg set they were using was probably one of the sets people won in the Mah-jongg competition Thursday.

Well, it was a lot shorter than before, but I’m going to finish writing now. I finished my homework on Thursday and finished my slideshow for the Talent Show yesterday; I just need to make sure the timing is right and the captions stay on the right slides or else it won’t make sense. I uploaded the video on Youtube to show it to people and the caption order changed; if it stays on my computer and isn’t uploaded it probably (hopefully) won’t happen for the actual talent show. I hope I can get some footage of the Talent Show for you guys, as well as the skit my group’s doing if I won’t be on the stage for everything. Megan, Serge, and Annie (we were on the same home stay together) and I are in a group together and they have really good ideas. It’s fun how creative they are; I think we’ll have a good show because of them. They liked my slide show but I like their ideas a lot. Everything we did will make it neat a good performance.

Well, that’s it for now. Until next time.

Final Food Post

Well, I think this is the last food post until I take some more pictures of good/interesting stuff. I might make another food post because I think this one might be long like the others.


I was out with my roommate, Olivia, and a few of her friends and I noticed we were passing by a bakery. We went inside (yay!) and there was a lot of good looking stuff. The first thing that caught my eye was a cute (and delicious) looking cake.


It had strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate cake. There were chocolate sprinkles around the edge and it was soooo good. I got some other cream things and Olivia told me that the people who owned Domalie (the bakery) said that I should eat the bread before the next day or else the cream stuff in most of them would go bad, so I gave one of the pieces of bread to Stan, who comes sometimes with the menu at lunch. I think he was happy to get it. That's what it looked like; it was probably sweet bread (really good bread that's like dessert bread).


The last thing I got was a doughnut with chocolate frosting stuff and chocolate sprinkles on top. I had it for breakfast (nutritionists everywhere gasp hahaha) and it was really good. It's funny I've lost a little weight since I usually try and get some bread/chocolate item to eat for a snack.


This is another view for the patchwork cake. I got another one like it the second time I found a bakery but it looked like a neopolitan ice cream bar instead of a quilt, but still had strawberry-vanilla-chocolate cake.



I went with a girl from the U.S. named Tina, a Taiwan student named Betty, and two other friends of hers to a hot pot restaurant. It was really good, but I didn't finish everything; there was a lot. I got vegetables and fish with mine. You just pick whatever you want from the plate they give you and dump it in a little round pot in the bar surface that you're sitting at. It starts boiling so the stuff you have gets cooked. The slices of fish I had cooked really fast and they were good. You can put everything in at once or just a few things. It's fun because by the time you've put a lot of ingredients in the pot you have a soup that tastes really good, with flavors from whatever you put in.

I had a mushroom that I put in the pot; it puffed up like Remy's mushroom in Ratatouille (haha another Ratatouille reference, have you watched it yet?). I thought it was cute and I actually ate it. I used to not eat mushrooms that much. It was really good and so was everything else. I liked the little skinny white mushrooms too. There was even a piece of pumpkin with my ingredients and I didn't eat a lot of that but I ate my piece of sweet potato. I love sweet potato now. I had a sweet potato on the homestay at it was still in its jacket and the potato was really yellow. It was soooo good. I saw a sweet potato like that first in a movie called Ip Man, who is the guy who trained Bruce Lee in martial arts. Never knew that.

Anyway the actors were eating sweet potatoes in the movie Ip Man and I wondered what they were; now I know, and they're a new favorite vegetable. I hope I eat them more when I get home (I never ate them before). When I watch movies sometimes I think "Man if you're an actor they don't just pay you, they give you food! You get clothes too but if you get food in movies and have to eat it for a scene you'll almost certainly get to keep it!" LOL.

Well that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if there is anything you would like to hear about. I am open for questions and I like when people ask. I know there's a problem going on with the commenting system, so don't worry about that, though. If you have my email or know someone who knows me then just email me or ask them to ask me a question. Take care, everyone!