Near and Far 進和遠

 (Although, everything's kind of far...)

So, first thing's first! I received a long-awaited letter this week: My TOCFL certification!

Shiny!

This stupid thing has taken a lot of work, six months of class, arguments with the Ministry of Education, the proverbial blood, sweat and tears, and it finally came in. You know what the really ironic thing is? It doesn't even really help me in Taiwan, since everyone who would hire me can tell I can speak Chinese because I'm talking to them in Chinese! But it makes the scholarship people happy, and if I ever move back to America it'll help me out a lot. Also, it's kinda cool!

So this week we had an opportunity to go way out into the sticks, one of the poor districts of Taipei City called Wanlong. When the Nationalist Chinese first fled to Taiwan in the 50s, they suddenly had this huge glut of refugees who had nowhere to live, so they built a ton of really cheap concrete houses sprawling out into the countryside just to give them a roof until they could build proper architecture. They didn't have individual running water; each cluster had a shared well. They also didn't have electricity at first, although they got wired up pretty quickly by the residents.

Pretty typical neighborhood out there.

A lot of the houses are abandoned now, since they actually followed through with that "temporary until we build better houses" promise, but some families decided to continue living there, so we had some nice conversations!

Also, the ties came off. Aw yeah.

We foreigners typically have a really hard time communicating with older Chinese people. As you probably know, Chinese is a tonal language, and the pitch of each word is just as important as the sounds for determining what it means: it's the difference between "mother 媽 ma1", "horse 馬 ma3" and "scold 罵 ma4" for instance. So, when people begin getting older, their hearing starts to go... and for most of us 外國人, our tones aren't the best. Personally, I can speak very well when I have a prepared comment or something, but when speaking conversationally I find it very easy to slur a word or pronounce the wrong tone. Happily, most of our friends understand just fine, but when you combine that with someone who already can't hear very well, it's not pretty.

There was a house down this dirt path, but a tree had fallen in the way and we couldn't keep going.

And then of course, most of them have accents themselves, sometimes quite thick. Still, they all read the same characters, so although the actual amount of communication happening up in Wanlong wasn't the greatest, we still managed to accomplish something!

I was also able to accompany one of the local friends, Truman Yang, on a bible study. Mr. Wang works at a "Prussian Deli", which means they serve hot dogs and pigs feet, in an underground market in the Zhongzheng District. He's usually always at work, but around 3pm he has a lull in customers, so Truman arranges to go by the deli at that time and study a bit with him. He's just completed the Good News from God brochure, and is starting the Bible Teach book next month.

Only slightly awkward when a customer comes and wonders why there are two men in suits at the deli!

Our regular service, closer to home, continued as well. I think I mentioned that a couple weeks ago, I got a new roommate? His name is Jerry Tsai (Or in Chinese 蔡勁民), he's been studying with Terry for the last year or so and will actually be baptized next month! He just graduated from college, so he can't continue to live in the dorms anymore, and we had a room open- it worked out!

Jerry's in the middle, next to Ashley from England

Actually, the next year for him will be pretty tough. In Taiwan, there's mandatory military service for every male once they turn 18, but if you go to college it's deferred until you graduate. Jerry will be drafted soon, and since he's getting baptized he obviously won't join the Army, so he'll have to first defend his case, then go do the alternative service- usually some form of community work, like cleaner or bus driver. The important bit is it's not paid at all (other than food), but still requires a 40+ hour work week, so he'll have to live pretty leanly for a while! He's got savings though, and the Taiwanese congregations support their young ones doing this work, so he'll be fine.

Later that same day- Brandy has photo radar, I swear

Finally, this weekend was fun. The meeting was very upbuilding, and was a very interesting topic, all about economic immigrants separating from their families to try to send money back. It made me think about my own situation a little; but I decided in the end that first, my motivation to move wasn't money but spiritual goals, and second, I may have left my parents in another country, but I don't have a wife and certainly no children, so it's not the same. As far as the Scriptures are concerned, my household is just me; so I take my household with me everywhere I go!

After the meeting, we went to a nearby Thai restaurant for delicious coconut milk curry.

Yunmei brought delicious stinky cheesecake!

After lunch, I worked with Sun Yunkai doing some return visits for a few hours, and oddly enough encountered an unusual number of Muslim people, which led us to have a conversation about their religion. Yunkai didn't know a whole lot about it, so I was happy to be able to help him out.

Jerry had his first set of baptism questions (hooray!), so to celebrate we went out to dinner, and while out the sky broke. Lightning, thunder, rivers of water in the streets. We were planning on going to play soccer with everyone after, but that was off! So we went and watched movies at Brandy's house instead.

We watched a comedy set in Ming China- funny, but extremely Chinese

So that's it! I start my new job at the kindergarten pretty soon, we have our Regional Assembly after that, and then I'm going to Okinawa! So it should be a good time. :-)

Service 傳道

(Literally translated, "hand over the road"!)

Looking over my pictures from each week- or, more often now, about ten days- I realize that this week I have been more studious than I thought. Although I suppose it's true that I have been trying to get a little work done on my schoolwork each day, I didn't realize I have no pictures of anything else except service this whole week.

So... let's talk about service!

Service (or "The Min" as my British friends say) is very different here in Taiwan than back in California, or even in New York. I had imagined that going out in service with the Oak Park Mandarin back in Sacramento was preparing me for the work here in Taiwan... not so much.

First, back home we drive everywhere. I think we had two territories in the entire city where we could walk from door to door. Here in Taiwan, more than half of or brothers and sisters don't even own a car, and anyway Taipei is so built up there's really no reason to drive, even from the Hall to the territory. (Actually, that's different in and of itself, but I'll get to that later.) Many brothers and sisters ride their bike around the city, and although I personally don't own a bike I also often use the city's YouBikes to get around. But all that means that... back home, you know how some friends like to take breaks at Starbucks or wherever after like an hour out in the ministry, and although it's nice you feel kind of lazy? Not so here, especially in the summer. It's hot, and we walk everywhere, and when you go out into territories with older buildings most of them don't have elevators, so you're walking up and down flights of stairs all the time. So, after an hour or so of walking door to door, we often go sit down in a park for fifteen minutes or so and let ourselves cool down.

This isn't at a park, but there was a really nice breeze here.

Sometimes, before you even get to the territory you've sweated through your shirt. That's another big difference: we only have one field service meeting a week, on Saturday morning at the hall. Every other day, we meet in the territory at a prearranged location, form pairs, split the territory up and off we go. It saves on travel time, but it's easy to get lost sometimes!

Of course, all of that also applies to doing return visits. Because I don't have a car here, unless I'm working with someone who has a motorcycle, I ride a bike between calls, which means I can usually do... two or three an hour.

Joel and I did calls together one day!

Second, the method of actually preaching. I think it isn't news to anyone that the vast majority of American people live in suburbs, with the exceptions being people in city centers who live in high-rise apartments. So, most of our witnessing really is door-to-door: we walk up to the door and knock on it, or use a doorbell, and most of the time if we talk to anyone it's a face to face conversation.

In Taipei, not really. Very few people live in single-family houses here. There are a couple really poor, slum areas on the outskirts of town where they do; there are also a couple of crazy rich mansion areas of town. The vast majority of the rest of us live in apartments- the cheaper, older ones are called 公寓 (gong yu), the newer, more expensive ones are 大樓 (da lou). 

Gong yu are very rarely taller than six stories, they never have elevators, and mostly were built before the 70's. The nicest ones have rooftop gardens, but many landlords illegally build additional apartments on top of the garden- they're not insulated, they have no water pressure and their electricity often comes from an extension cord, but they're cheap! (Also, when typhoons come they're really not safe- several people die each year from that.) Many gong yu started off as whole-family dwellings, with grandpa and grandma buying the building and inviting their whole extended family to live in Taipei with them for the work opportunities, and have since been subdivided into individual apartments. I personally live in a gong yu.

Da lou have a lot more differences than gong yu. One thing they all have in common is an elevator: if a building is built in Taipei, and it's taller than five stories, it has to have an elevator. (Old buildings got grandfathered in.) Besides that, they can run the gamut from very tight spaces and cheap materials (but low rent), to luxury apartments with wraparound windows and private terraces.

A shot of two sisters in an ordinary Taipei territory.

Unfortunately, that means most of our door to door activity is in fact intercom to intercom. Now, it's not impossible to have a decent conversation through an intercom... if it actually works, and if they speak up, and if there's no traffic behind you making it so you can't hear. But it is much harder, especially when you're still learning Chinese (it's hard enough understanding people normally, let alone when you have an old intercom muffling their voice and adding static)!

Third, the people's background. Obviously regular Americans and Taiwanese will be very different, but even in the Chinese field the culture is different. Back home, we usually had two kinds of people: one was Cantonese-speaking, had been in the States for a while, and usually was either Christian or standard American apathetic. I couldn't really talk to these people, since I'm learning Mandarin, not Cantonese, but I did sometimes go with a brother or sister who could speak the language. The other was a young Mainland Chinese student (or recent graduate), very well educated, often with a Master's or a Doctorate, almost always atheist.

In Taiwan, most people are Buddhist. Not the Buddhists we see in the West, either, the kind of people who treat it like a philosophy or lifestyle choice (along with rock climbing, eating vegan and living out of their van). The average Taiwanese person is a 'serious' Buddhist, whether or not they themselves are all that diligent about it. They have evil spirits they ward off, they have the Buddha of vengeance as well as of prosperity, and they make monthly offerings to their deceased ancestors.

This man is burning "Hell Money" for his deceased loved ones- their afterlife still requires money to buy food

Here's a link to a short video I took inside a Buddhist temple.

Really though, people are the same everywhere. Some people are too busy to talk to us, some people don't care enough to make time, some are simply too entrenched to consider other viewpoints. But some are open to hear the Bible's wisdom. Despite being Buddhist, traditional Chinese culture preserves parts of Confucian and Taoist traditions, and among those is a respect for books of wisdom of all sorts. So if we can prove to them that the Bible has practical wisdom for all sorts of people, many will discuss it with us.

The group taking a quick break later that day.

Fourth, the emotional disposition of most Chinese people. When studying with a typical American, they start off taking in knowledge but not doing anything with it, then gradually, over time, as the truth begins to reach their heart, they change their life- they quit smoking, come to meetings, marry their girlfriend, etc. Chinese people are not the same: they are either hot or cold, with no warming up period. A typical Chinese Bible Student will begin studying the Bible, and at first make no changes because they don't really believe it is the truth; but as soon as they decide it is the truth, within weeks their life has completely changed and in fact they tend to be too strict, throwing away TVs, computers, disconnecting the Internet, even pulling kids out of school to avoid bad association! And then, over time, they gradually become more balanced in their viewpoint.

This is also expressed in their frequent protests. Here we have citizens striking at the Zhongshan District Government Building, and riot police blocking the entrance. Sorry for the bad quality, I didn't want to get closer!

Fifth- and this isn't the territory, really, so much as it is the congregation- we do stuff together all the time. Like, back home I though Sacramento Chinese was awesome for that because we'd have a game night or something at least twice a month. Here, after almost every meeting and group service arrangement we go out to eat. Every week we have a soccer game planned (although sometimes we get rained out). We usually have one big group outing a month, like two weeks ago to Fulong beach. It's really nice to spend so much time with my brothers and sisters when we aren't so focused on our work!

舉個例子來說: Dinner one night after service!

It's especially nice for the newly-arrived friends, or those that don't have a great grasp of Chinese, because it introduces them to new foods and restaurants they may not have had a chance to try before.

For instance, this is the first time Joe has had both a fork and a knife to eat with since arriving in Taiwan. He's about bursting with joy!

All of those differences- and this isn't an exhaustive list, there are still more- combine to make this a very different territory than anything I had experienced before. That isn't to say it's bad- actually, I really like it! Sure, intercoms are annoying, you can only wear a shirt once, maybe twice in between washes, and you need to memorize a new set of go-to scriptures. But it's a lovely territory in every sense of the word, and definitely worth the effort. 

This was just taken this morning. Notice Joel's stylish, unchanging pink shirt.

And so long as there are sheeplike ones who have yet to hear the good news the Bible has to offer all humans- and there are, many of them- we will keep trying to reach them.

Summertime 夏天

(Sweet summer rains...)

Okay, so maybe summer hasn't officially started yet, but we're certainly feeling it in Taipei! Every day hovers right around 85 degrees... not bad, but it's close to 100% humidity and rains every afternoon! This definitely isn't California's summer.

However, it also means these guys show up!

I know the others, but can an Asian swallow carry a coconut?

These swallows are everywhere. It's considered good luck to have a nest of swallows outside your home or workplace, so whenever they choose to build a nest the people who own the building let them be, and sometimes give them food. They eat mosquitoes anyway, so whether or not they're good luck, they're nice to have around! 

Okay, so: test news! I took the TOCFL test last Friday. It was a little anticlimactic, honestly- I had been preparing for this test for like two months at least, and the test only took two hours! It was held inside the National Taiwan Normal University's language center at 9am, and it was really hard. Much harder than the practice tests! Near the end, I was starting to run out of time, too, so the last four or five questions were just random guesses- at least I had a 25% chance of being right! My final score is: Level 4/5 Speaking and Listening, Level 3/5 Reading and Writing. Level 3 is the minimum needed to open all doors here in Taiwan as far as scholarships and jobs go, although more is better obviously- so I passed! Yes! Some of the other foreigners in the room invited me out for drinks after, but not only are they worldly, it was like 11am... so I passed.

The days after the test have been quite different than the last month or so, and yet with the same theme. I still study Chinese, although not as much; I still tutor English, although now I have two more students and am actively searching for more; and I still go out in service, although my schedule is looser so I can go on more calls. I think a lot of the difference I feel has to do with not being in the scholarship program anymore. For six months, all I had to do is study and I was set, unless I really went crazy spending money. But now that's not true; I've gotta figure out some way to actually earn a living. A real living this time, not just earning some gas money while my parents support me. Although there's a bit of pressure, I have plenty of time, so I'm not too worried. The atmosphere has definitely changed, though.

Speaking of looser schedules, it's nice to be a bit more free in my availability. For example, I got a text on Saturday afternoon asking if I wanted to go to the beach Monday. So I did!

It turns out there was a large group of people all going to a beach called Fulong 福隆, along the east coast of Taiwan, Sunday night. They planned to camp out overnight, then hang out all Monday and be back by the evening. I don't have a tent or anything that would really let me camp, and I didn't have the money to rent a cabin for the night, so I just rode the early train on Monday to hang out with everyone.

I wasn't alone, either; our party consisted of me, Tomomi, Sanmu, Joel and Joseph!

The train was packed. There weren't any seats available when we got on, so we all just stood in the part of the train linking two cars together. The worst part was the lack of A/C there!

However, our English friends were more observant than the rest of us, and their eagle eyes spotted two open seats about halfway through.

Two open, apparently really comfortable seats.

The ride only took like an hour though, so we didn't have long to envy them.

Soon, we arrived! Fulong is a little tiny town that reminds me a little of Wulai- touristy, but only locally knows, so not huge. Obviously they're very different from each other in fact- Fulong is on the coast for one thing, and besides, it's an actual Chinese town, not an Aboriginal settlement. But take a look at the view:

Reminds me of a saying: 各有各的美. Every place has its own beauty.

Not only was the weather perfect, it turns out that they were actually having a sand art contest the day we arrived!

To the right of the beach, there was an area set aside for the Zodiac to be represented in sand:

Every animal with its symbol.

And to the left, various other sculptures, including a space shuttle, ancient scrolls with embossed writing, and a temple that looked like Angkor Wat in Cambodia!

I would have gone in to get better pictures, but I was afraid of losing my group in the crowds.

In a way, it was unfortunate that we picked that day to come. The sand sculptures meant there were a ton of people who came to look at them, so the beach was very crowded. Tomomi seemed to know where she was going, though, so we all followed her as she blazed a way through the thickets of people to our group.

And sure enough, before long we found them chilling under some tents!

Hey guys!

They had only just gotten to the beach themselves, so we had good timing! Unfortunately, although everyone who came with us on the train had brought swimming clothes, none of us had actually worn them on the train- we were planning on changing when we got to the beach. And there was absolutely no place to change- not even a bathroom stall. So we did the thing where you wrap yourself in a towel and awkwardly change pants with one hand while you cover yourself with the other- both effective and hilarious to watch!

The water was warm and the waves were large. There were buoys set up about fifty feet offshore that you weren't supposed to go past- normally people can ignore things like that (although at their own peril obviously), but Taiwan' east coast is... interesting. The continental shelf drops off incredibly suddenly very close to the shore- probably not fifty feet offshore, but in some places less than half a mile away. That means that the undertow can suddenly, dramatically make itself known, and unless you're an awesome swimmer it's best to stay close to shore. (Incidentally, that same shelf dropping off so suddenly protects Taiwan from most tsunamis coming its way.)

I took this picture at great peril to my camera- appreciate it!

We played games and generally goofed off in the water for a couple hours, then went back onto the beach for lunch.

Lunch makes Boyi really, really happy.

Closer shot of the opposite shore, the buoy, and a temple

I also caught Joel and Ginger... toe wrestling?

They swear it's not what it looks like. Riiiight...

Unfortunately, not only did I have to arrive late to the party, I had to leave early too. I had agreed to teach two more kids English, and that Monday was our first class. If it was any other class I may have gotten away with rescheduling or just cancelling, but not the first time... so I regretfully took off early and headed back into Taipei.

Gratuitous selfie! I should have that hairstyle more often...

I mentioned earlier that I was able to go out in service more often since being out of school. Our congregation has formal service plans Monday night, Weds morning and night, Thurs morning and night, Saturday morning and afternoon and Sunday afternoon. When I was in school, I usually joined up Weds and Thurs mornings, all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon. If my homework wasn't killer I could join on Weds and Thurs night as well, but I often had to skip those so I could get my work done.

It's like a whole world has opened up. Not only do I not have to skip the evenings anymore, but I have almost every afternoon free, which is when people go on all their return visits and studies. I can also join the occasional group for cart witnessing!

Cart witnessing with Joel, and I suddenly saw a great potential picture.

One day, I was by Br. Yang Chuming to go on some of his calls. I had time, so I agreed. I really shouldn't be surprised by this- I've certainly been living in Taiwan long enough to know how popular they are- and yet, I was mildly surprised when he showed up on his scooter and threw me a helmet! He was a good driver, and unlike Tan jiemei he's around the same height as me, so there was no threat of him making turns that would take my knees off (they'd take his off too!). So we both survived!

Only slightly freaked out!

Last week, all of us involved in the bookroom did an inventory of all our foreign language stuff, and found a lot of really random stuff. Like, forty Require brochures in Thai random. But it was worth it, because I have this picture of Nikolai:

He looks like he's in a staring contest.

What if we make cardboard cutouts and just post them around Taipei... the response would be huge! (It might be negative, but huge nonetheless!)

One more thing: My original Chinese teacher from America happened to be in Taipei this week. She's originally Taiwanese herself, from the south of the island. She's been visiting family for a few weeks and is already back in the States, but the night before she flew out of Taoyuan airport she decided to stay in Taipei, which let us have dinner together! 

Suzie Toy everyone!

We used to have an hour-long lesson on Skype once a week. She makes her own material, and she considers teaching Chinese part of her ministry- she only teaches Witnesses who seem like they'll progress quickly, and she does it for free, with one exception: she has to be invited to your first Chinese public talk. (She totally is, by the way. December 6th if you're wondering. :-) ) We ate delicious Japanese-style ramen- not the kind you microwave, the good handmade kind- and caught up on things. She tested me and found my Chinese to be pretty good, and she corrected some mistakes in my #3 talk I gave last week. Really, it was really nice hanging out with Suzie!

So I don't know what's going to happen next week. I'm looking for more work- I only have three students right now, which isn't pulling in enough money for me to live. Happily, I had some money saved up. I'm also almost done with my degree, so I'm focusing more on writing my thesis. Hopefully I'll get it knocked out in the next couple weeks and get it behind me! I was also notified this week that I'll be attending Pioneer School for the second time in August here in Taipei- in Chinese! So I have that to look forward to. Whatever happens, I'll let you know...