Loose Ends 千頭萬緒

 (What day is it again?)

The last couple of weeks have not been conducive to good blog posting, unfortunately. First I got sick, then my Final Test (*ominous lightning*) happened, then I got sick again. I'm completely well now, though, and quite happy about it! So this post might be a bit all over the place, mostly because I simply haven't had any really big, photograph-worthy things happen in the last week.

So, here's something that happened a little while ago: Mafia Night!

The Korean brother covering his mouth was the Mafia, as it turns out. Jerk killed me!

Mafia is a pretty simple game: You hand out cards with secret character assignments. People are either the Mafia, a Doctor, a Policeman, or Civilians. There's one each of Doctor and Cop, two or three Mafia and everyone else is a Civilian. The Civilians have to figure out who the Mafia are just by talking to everyone, and if they can get enough people to vote they can eliminate someone. The Mafia are also trying to have the majority, but they know who each other are and can work together to eliminate threats. The Cop can know the truth about people, but has to make sure the Mafia don't know who he is (or else they'll kill him immediately), and the Doctor can save people's lives if he guesses they're about to die. It's usually a pretty fun game if everyone gets into it, but considering we had English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean being thrown around... the chaos made it even more fun :-)

Service has been good, as usual. Unfortunately I haven't gone out as much as I've wanted to lately- that final test was brutal, and it didn't help that I was sick when I needed to be studying for it! It worked like this: Our class went to the same classroom as usual, but instead of our normal teacher (Qiu Laoshi 丘光華老師) we had a proctor watching over us. The test had several parts: First, they read off series of sentences and we had to either figure out which was was correct, or which one had an error in it. Next, a reading comprehension; read a paragraph in characters and answer questions on it. Then a slightly different paragraph; this one was full of holes, and we had to write in the word we thought could go there (kind of like Mad Libs but more formal). Lastly, we were taken aside by the proctor, shown a picture and asked to tell a story about the picture. It was quite stressful- the final test is a full 25% of the semester's grade- but I think I did pretty well! I won't hear my score until Monday, but safe to say I didn't get 0, and I also probably didn't get 100.

Near Dongmen Night Market, but in the daytime

Of course, right after that I got sick again- perfect timing for the week-long vacation between semesters! My cold had gotten up into my sinuses and I had an infection. I needed antibiotics... happily, this is Taiwan and not America, so getting antibiotics was literally as easy as walking to the pharmacy down the street from my house and asking them for some. They made sure I didn't want painkillers, then gave me a week's worth of antibiotics for $12, no doctor necessary.

So, longtimers, do you remember in my very first post how I mentioned bringing cheese to Taiwan? Well, I did. I brought three kinds of very hard cheese in my luggage, and after holding on to them for two weeks with no refrigeration, finally put them in Tan Jiemei's refrigerator... where I forgot about them for about a month. When I finally remembered, I figured they were definitely too old, and Tan Jiemei probably threw them out anyway, so I forgot about them.

Well, last week she gave them back. Sure enough, they looked rotten, covered in white mold... but when sliced open, the mold was only about an eighth of an inch deep! Cheese is basically mold anyway, so...

Delicious! Fried eggs and cheese. I had no oil so fried them in cheap wine

Hooray cheese! (As it turns out, you actually can get cheese here, it's just really expensive and at specialty stores.)

One day, we were also invited to take a ferry north from Danshui to... the other half of Danshui, across the river.

Ferry! Note Mason's stylish hat.

This ferry ride was awesome- once we had gotten underway, they allowed us to stand on the deck and walk around to the front of the boat, so most of the way there Joseph, Nikolai and I posed heroically on the bow, riding out the waves. It was both cool and cold!

Giancarlo and his fiancee, Sara

Unfortunately, besides being very cold on the coast, most of the shops were closed because of Chinese New Year. The Chinese really only have one vacation a year, but man do they make sure it counts!

Also, People Of Sacramento: Do you know Mike Miller? Mikey, are you reading this? Because I swear, if I can find out who rides this motorcycle, I'm giving her your number.

I'm assuming it's a girl, but in hindsight I actually have no idea...

Another day out in service. Ryota and I were working with this little guy, Boyi. He is probably the friendliest ten year old I've ever met- I don't think a single person walked past us that he didn't try to talk to! He also totally stole most of our doors, which we were both okay with since his Chinese is better than ours.

Ten year olds speak better than I can... practice, practice.

Over the weekend, we also visited the Daan Jade Market, which is built underneath a freeway overpass near my school. They had a lot of really cool things in there- jades, paintings, porcelain, jewelry, calligraphy, tea accessories...

I didn't buy anything, but if I ever get a job here, I'm coming back!

This shot is on the way to a study's house for dinner, in Yonghe District. There is just no way a car could fit on this street.

I kind of like this, though- it makes the city lively and friendly!

This last Monday, though, we went to tour the Taiwan Branch. They've got 42 Bethelites living there now- up from 35 last year!

Hi guys!

Here in Taiwan, besides all the administrative work from the Taiwan area- Kingdom Hall purchasing and maintenance, conventions, etc- their primary work is Mandarin Chinese audio recordings. All the Mandarin audio you hear in our organization comes from Taiwan. Besides that, they have a (really small! One guy!) printery, where they print magazines in the various native Taiwanese languages, and they occasionally assist Hong Kong branch with small tasks too.

Picture of the first Kingdom Hall in Taiwan, 1958

It was cool visiting them. They're definitely more laid back than Wallkill was, but in fairness, they have about 1/85th as many people!

One last picture. Last night after some evening service, a bunch of us brothers went out to Xiaolongbao. Good food man! The Korean brother in this picture, Hanji, had somehow never eaten xiaolongbao before, so it was an important educational experience!

The brother on the right, Yang Jie, had already eaten all his dumplings...

But things should pick back up pretty soon. I've been making plans to go on an overnight trip out in the countryside in a few months, that should be great fun!

I do have one sad announcement to make: Mason has decided that he is, without a doubt, going home. His plane leaves on the 24th. He hopes to quickly save up enough money and finish his Associate's degree so that he can come back, hopefully within six months. I'm very sad to see him go, but I hope that his plans prove successful and he is indeed able to return in a timely manner.

My class starts again next Wednesday- I hope I passed! :-D