Activity 活動

(Hot or cold...)

Hi guys!

This last week has been very nice. For most of the week, I've been very focused on school and the ministry- nothing too extraordinary, but very important. In school we've been focusing on passive-tense grammar, how to use it, when and how to interpret it ("Someone broke my window!" is active; "My window was broken!" is passive.) We also spent a great deal of time on fruit, of all things; so now I know how to say "Durian fruit" in Chinese. (榴蓮 Liu2lian2 "liyew-lieyan", if you're wondering.)

The ministry has, as usual, been great. We still usually place four or five sets of magazines in a two-hour block in the door to door work, and I may have started a bible study! As we were just finishing up one day, a man approached me and asked me if I was a minister (actually, he asked if I was a priest). I explained who we were and what we were doing, and gave him a set of magazines to read. He looked interested, so I showed him a few articles... to make the story shorter, I gave him a bible and invitation, and he said he'd definitely attend meeting on Friday! I'm keeping my eyes open :-)

The territory one sunny day

But we did have a few cool things happen. We all went up to Danshui again, which is always good fun. There is a Swiss sister named Corinne visiting Taiwan for two months who wanted to go see the sunset, so we got the group together and off we went! Unfortunately, my school didn't let out until 5, so I missed the sunset, but I got there as quickly as I could and we still had fun.

Not my picture- I was still on the train- Chihiro and the sunset

First, we went to the market and wandered around for a while, looking at knickknacks and eating food. We also picked up some custom bible covers for several friends who wanted them.

Brandy likes squid!

And that was okay.... the real fun was when we found a store that sold fireworks. We didn't go crazy or anything...

Mostly...

We just bought some sparklers. And thus began the climactic battle between good and evil on the docks of Danshui!

But who...

...is who?

We probably shouldn't be allowed near these things.

It was great! Sparklers are fun! And it's fun being kind of stupid with them!

Feel the power! 

Ahem, anyway...

The other cool thing that happened was we all went to the zoo! I mentioned earlier that one of our sisters, Irinka, will be leaving Taiwan soon to serve abroad, and one thing she wanted to do before she leaves is go see the baby panda in Taipei's Zoo. It's a big deal, because she just became old enough for the zookeepers to let people see her.

On the way to the zoo.

Unfortunately, we forgot to do the math. If pandas are cute, and babies are cute, then baby pandas reach a cuteness singularity that pulls every Taiwanese person within range into a giant squealing crowd. So although we still had a good time, we didn't get to see the baby panda.

This was the closest I got to a panda.

The Taipei zoo is huge! It's comparable to the San Diego zoo back in California, although with a definite bias towards Asian animals. We couldn't see the whole place today, but we did get to see their section just for "native Formosan animals". Here's some pictures:

Formosan Flamingos

White Jaguar

This guy was awesome. We couldn't find him in his enclosure at first. We looked for a couple minutes, and right as we were giving up we saw him watching us, camouflaged! As soon as he saw that we saw him he came out and started playing with some leaves.

Here we have a unique opportunity to observe the Formosan Foreigner.

And here is the Formosan Black Bear, also known as the Derp Bear.

"Well... hello there."

Monkeys! (Actually, Macaques. I have no idea what the difference is.)

The sister in the blue is Irinka, who will shortly be leaving us...

Did you know that when camels run, their humps wiggle? It's hilarious!

 We got kicked out of the zoo when it closed for the night- I guess zookeepers deserve to have lives too- so went back to Irinka's house to hang out for a while longer.

Buying dinner

And capping the night off well.

So, yeah! Nothing too earth-shattering, but a very good week nonetheless. Mason's sister Kayla will be arriving soon- actually, within a couple hours! Kayla is only planning on staying in Taiwan two weeks, to get a feel for the territory while she contemplates joining Chinese (we're going to make sure she does), and she's picked a good time to come- Chinese New Year is in just about a week and a half, which also means I get time off school! :-D

So, when is the last time you saw a panda?

22 二十二歲

 (A very eventful year!)

So, have you ever done that thing, where you imagine someone takes a picture of you right now (and, if necessary, explains it), and sent it backwards in time to past-you? How far back would you have to send it to make past-you actually believe it? Yesterday, as Mason and I were joined by our dear friends Adam and Drew, visiting from New York Bethel, at the foot of Taipei 101, I figured... about three months. If Adam and Drew weren't there, probably about... five months. Any further and there's just no way I would believe it.

Anyway. One of the first things I did this week was convince Harry to come up with me to Maokong, a mountain on the eastern edge of Taipei. I had heard for a while that it's a really nice place to visit, with teahouses, fresh mountain air, and a beautiful view of Taipei. Also, you can only reach it by gondola, which is awesome.

Inside the Hello Kitty-themed gondola, on the way back

I would have gotten more shots from inside the gondola, but... well, it's a gondola and won't stop moving and swaying around, so my pictures are terrible. But they weren't kidding when they said the view of Taipei was great. We arrived a little before sunset, and got to walk around and see a bit of the mountainside before going into a tea shop and hanging out for a while.

Taipei before...

...and after.

It wasn't heart-pumping action or anything, but it was very pleasant to hang out with Harry for a little while and kick back.

Service has still been great. I've got a few return visits now, enough that I actually need to start scheduling them. We've also been enjoying working with our American friends serving in another land- for hearing their stories, Taiwan is quite a contrast to what they're used to. They've also been very helpful to our friend Irinka, who is considering moving abroad soon.

The Art of Beer Contemplation, by Irinka

Speaking of Irinka, she also seems to be Mason's best hope of a job right now. She's gotten him into an English buxiban (cram school) as a substitute/tutor... or at least, she's gotten him into an audition to become one. He had his first trial yesterday and his second one on Friday, and we're both quite hopeful! If he can't find a job soon, he may have to go back home, which would be really depressing. 

Later, we were once again invited to Terry's family study. It was encouraging to be a part of it, although the material was slightly awkward... we were considering the Young People Ask book, specifically about money, and one of the biggest points was "am I ready to move out on my own?". Well... I sure hope so!! :-)

With Terry, buying brain food for the study

Terry is a cool guy. Recently, we were riding a bus together, and as we got off the bus driver shouted "Thanks Brother Miller!" It says a lot about him that everyone in this city knows who he is and what he does.

At the actual study. Despite Mason's protests, here he is again, playing guitar for the sisters...

And yesterday was a great day. Adam and Drew came to visit!! Well, actually they went to Myanmar for the international convention and just had a twelve-hour layover in Taipei, but that's good enough for my purposes! We're good friends from our time in Bethel together, and Adam in particular is one of my dearest friends in the world, so I was very happy to see them. I haven't seen them since I left Bethel about a year and a half ago.

Yep, still about the same.

This is the nicest smile I've ever seen on Drew! He must be really happy! :-)

So actually, the plan was that Mason would get them at the airport and take them to Taipei Main Station, where I would meet them and we would go do things for a while until we had to take them back. Their plane landed at 4:30 and my school doesn't get out until 5, so it just worked out better that way.

So after school, I called Mason up, expecting him to already have Adam and Drew and be on his way back. It turns out that he went to the wrong airport, and had no idea where the correct one was or how to get there from where he was. (We have two- Songshan is much more convenient and cheaper, but is smaller so only serves close countries like Japan, Taoyuan is the big one we both flew into.) So I got on the bullet train and arrived in Taoyuan at about 7, barely catching them before they gave up waiting and went back across customs to eat, and after many hugs and greetings took them to Taipei 101 to hang out and- finally- eat. 

It was great hearing about Myanmar. They announced this convention last year, and some brothers up in the hills actually took most of that time to travel to the convention. What they did was worked their fields back home, saved up enough money to buy another field about a day's walk closer to Yangon, bought it and worked it until they had enough saved up for another field a day's journey closer... and in that way leapfrogged their way to the capital city for the convention. Of course, once they arrived they had no way to afford a hotel or any kind of food, so the brothers allowed a tent city in a nearby parking lot for the Convention. Apparently, since the convention was announced last year the number of publishers has literally doubled, from 4700 to almost 9000!

Outside of Taipei 101

We showed them around the city for a while, eventually wound up back at our apartment, and talked for a couple hours until we had to regretfully get them into a cab and back to the airport. (Actually, I gave the cabby his money and directions up front, for all I know he could have turned a corner, dropped them off and kept the money... hopefully that didn't happen.)

This time last year, I had gotten back from Bethel and was looking forwards to learning Chinese in the field. This year, I'm still looking forwards to learning Chinese in the field, but the field is very different, and the horizon has changed.

So, please tell me, what's on your horizon, and what are your plans for the future?

Midterms 期中考

(Students everywhere- I feel your pain.)

Hi again everyone, 好久不見. Sorry about the long pause between the last update and this one- as you may have guessed from the title, I had my midterms since the last post! It was very interesting but also time-consuming, but I'll talk more about it in a little bit.

So recently I was contacted by Casey McCoy, one of my friends back in California. He told me that his brother Roger was going to be in Taiwan soon, and why don't I go meet them? So Roger and I exchanged emails, and we made arrangements to meet in Taizhong City this last Saturday. (If you're curious: taaI-JONG) This was cool for a number of reasons! First, I get to meet my friend's brother, and get some more insight as to how it's possible Casey is Casey; second, I'd never been outside Taipei before (I went to Danshui that one time, but I took Taipei's subway to get there, so it doesn't count); and third, I get to meet new friends in Taizhong! Roger and his wife Lauren are serving in the Boston Cambodian congregation, and were on their way home from a few weeks in Cambodia. There's a sister named Emily living in Taizhong- apparently Lauren and Emily grew up together, so they stopped over to see her on the way back.

Walking through Taizhong. Those are Roger's and Lauren's backs.

Taizhong is a very different city than Taipei. Taipei is quite old, parts of it dating from the Spanish settlement (and then Dutch capture and then Portuguese capture and then Dutch capture again) of Formosa, and you can definitely tell by the city layout that some streets were not built with cars in mind! Taizhong, on the other hand, is just about fifty years old, the modern city really only starting after the Nationalist Chinese fled to the island. So the streets are huge, and the city is sprawling. There's very few pedestrians compared to Taipei; The stores are bigger and spread out farther; there's no subway and the buses are few, so everyone has a car; downtown is, of course, built up, but most houses are shorter than four stories tall. Actually, I've heard that most people in Taizhong have a modular house, as compared to Taipei's apartments!

In may ways, it reminded me of an American city, which was nostalgic. But in many other ways, it made me realize that several things I thought I liked about Taiwan are really things I like about Taipei. Taizhong is much cheaper, though!

Anyway, Emily, Roger and Lauren picked me up at the high-speed rail station, and off we drove, singing English songs on the way to a coffee shop.

And now you get to see their faces! From the left: Roger, Lauren, Emily.

We sat inside and talked for about two hours. It was cool getting to know them- I didn't know anyone who had gone to Cambodia before, or really anything about Cambodian culture, so it was quite educational. Since Roger is an MTS graduate, he was able to give me a very nice overview of the Cambodian situation.

Also, their coffee was delicious. And timely!

Afterwards, we were hungry, so we went into the city to find someplace to eat. One of the brothers in Taipei, Giancarlo, used to live in Taizhong and recommended a pizza place for dinner. He said they made pizza exactly like back home in Italy, so naturally we went to try it out.

What he forgot to mention is that it was very expensive! The pizzas themselves weren't bad, about the equivalent of US$8 for a ten-inch, but the restaurant had a minimum-charge policy of NT$650 per person- that's $25! That's still not bad, I'll grant you, for an authentic Italian pizza, some wine, salad, a nice dinner, but we still weren't looking to spend that much money. So we left and drove to a Korean place, and ate delicious cheap kimchi noodles.

Taizhong's skyline from a park downtown

Gratuitous selfie!

We stayed up far too late that night, and I ended up getting back to Taipei at 9am the next morning. Totally worth it! They boarded their plane back to Boston at about 7 that morning, and Instagram tells me they landed safely. Also, if you're reading this- hi guys!

So, right, the midterm. The project was we had to pair up with another student and prepare a dialogue. Our dialogue would be scored on length, grammar, use of vocabulary, speed, tones, inflection, how pretty our handwriting is (we had to write it in characters and actually say it- without looking at notes!) and whether or not it was interesting.

This describes the results pretty well.

My partner was a Japanese classmate named Kyoko. At first I thought that meant it would be easy- the hardest part for me is writing the characters. I have to focus to write Chinese characters so they'll be understandable- unlike English, the smallest difference in how a character is formed or stroke order can change the meaning- and I figured having a Japanese person on my team would mean we'd have no problem with that. To my surprise, I had the better handwriting! She had been writing characters for so long she'd kind of fallen into a shorthand way of writing that our teacher found very difficult to read, whereas I, even though I write slowly, am actually pretty clear!

Which led to this. Note, we don't actually have silverware, so I'm eating my eggs with chopsticks.

I think we did pretty well! The teacher seemed happy anyway, and in that whole page of dialogue I only made one grammatical mistake. We definitely didn't sound fluent, but we're making progress!

Remember when I helped Giancarlo move that one time, and he used an electric winch to help us out? I had told him that it's an old American tradition- if your friends help you move, you buy them pizza and beer. (And the inverse- if your friends help you move and you don't buy them at least pizza, they probably won't help you ever again.) Well, he finally got around to inviting me for pizza. We went to a place in the south of the city near Xindian District where they sell Italian-style pizza, and I wasn't surprised to find it was really good. I was surprised to find that he'd invited the whole congregation, though!

So... is he buying for all of you?

I love our organization. Most of these friends can't speak English, or at least not well, and if I'm honest my Chinese is just barely functional. But we're still able to converse and enjoy the friendship that our worldwide brotherhood brings.

The ministry is still going well. We still place ten magazines every two hours or so in the door-to-door work, and like 25 per hour in the parks. I'm beginning to realize that my ingrained American habits are actually holding me back a bit in my ministry- I kind of figure most people aren't interested, or are busy, and if they take anything it's only to be polite. Actually, I'm a little scared if anyone shows interest, because it's happened so rarely I don't really know what to do! But here it's so commonplace to have conversations and find interest that I really need to figure out how to shift gears.

Taking a break in front of some art.

One last thing- while walking through the market one night, we stumbled across some old friends of Mason! They're currently serving elsewhere, but they're in Taiwan for a couple weeks to take a vacation. It was very encouraging to speak with them, and although I wish I could say more, somehow I've forgotten everything they said...

But look how happy she is, eating that burger!

But believe me when I say that they had only good news.

So how's the weather back home? I hear most of America is frozen solid right now, what about California? I actually heard that in one part of Minnesota, it was colder than on Mars!

See you next time!

Fireworks 煙火

(Greetings from The Future! Although, it's probably already 2014 for you by the time you read this...)

Welcome, friends, to 2014! I gotta say, it's been a cool year so far, and the last few days have been very fun! Although Taiwan doesn't celebrate Christmas, everyone does get a day off for New Years', so this was a great time to take a break from my schedule.

This post actually begins a few days before 2014, though. On the 28th of December, Saturday, we had our annual pioneers' meeting- not with the Circuit Overseer, this is just something Taipei South does at the end of each year to check up on everyone. I was really happy about this meeting, because I actually understood what was going on! I could follow the brothers' talks, and even be encouraged by what they said! What they said was pretty interesting, too- Br. Liang spoke to us about supporting foreign languages. This is not new information, but it did make me reflect a bit- Taiwan is not America. Back in the States, pretty much every language had its own congregation or group, even for very small needs (like Portuguese in Sacramento- hey guys!), which meant that although you wanted to learn whether they were interested in the Bible and perhaps invite them to a meeting, you didn't want to do too much with them and step on someone's toes. Here in Taipei, though, we have much fewer language groups. Chinese (obviously), English, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Tagalog... and that's it. If you find someone who speaks any other language, it's your job to figure out how best to talk to them. That should be interesting!

After the meeting, all 80 of us pioneers (yes, 80) were invited upstairs to the missionary home for tea, coffee, really weird pizza and conversation. (The pizza had corn on it! And shrimp, and spinach! I mean, it was pizza, so I ate it... but man!) During the course of conversation it came up that Mason could play guitar. Okay, so I totally volunteered him. Either way, it ended up with him playing Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam to all of us:

I tried to record it but the sound is terrible. He's pretty good though!

He was totally uncomfortable and it was awesome. I'm a good friend. Seriously though, he was pretty good and everyone enjoyed the song. Afterwards, all the new people were invited to stand in front of everyone and explain who we are, and answer any questions. My turn was a bit awkward because pretty much everyone already knew me, but whatever, I introduced myself again!

The next day, Sunday, we were invited to come to a Korean family's house after meeting for food and games. Sr. Yuan made amazing Korean food for us, including freshly made kimchi! It was also very nice getting to know them. They had actually been invited to serve in Kathmandu, Nepal, but Br. Yuan's mother is in very poor health. He wants to be able to rush back to Seoul if need be, and it's much easier to fly from Taipei to Seoul than Kathmandu to Seoul. Still, he did go there for a few weeks, and it was very interesting hearing about such a unique place!

What was also interesting is this game they brought with them from Korea. I honestly can't tell you what it's called... and I can't really tell you how to play, either. The important thing is my team won. Basically, you throw these sticks with Korean writing on one side onto a mat and which sticks are face up or down  determine how far you can move your piece around a board. If one stick falls off the mat, you skip a turn.

The true trick to winning is: Make sure you have a Korean on your team.

But although all these things were great fun (and, in some cases, remarkably delicious), the real fun started yesterday, in the closing hours of 2013. Br. Liang invited Harry, Mason and myself up to his house so we could see the fireworks marking the new year. Br. Liang lives on the top floor of a high-rise apartment building, and has roof access, so he had an excellent view of the show! There were about 20 people invited. We all arrived at about 10 pm; people brought food, drinks, it was a good time even before the fireworks.

There are about five more people in the kitchen behind me!

Then, at about 11:50, we ascended to his roof and took in the view.

Taipei City, with Taipei 101 in the distance.

Zoomed in on 101.

As the minutes passed, the city began getting excited. Taipei 101 turned on all its lights. Spotlights activated. Amazingly, the weather was beautifully clear- after a month of rain, the weather picked a good day to clear up! Then numbers appeared on the building- 10, 9, 8... The city roared as everyone stood on their rooftops shouting the numbers. Then, at midnight-

Fireworks!!!

More fireworks!!!!

It was a great show! Taipei 101 is the world's largest fireworks stand- they pack every flat plane on the building's exterior with fireworks- and they really use that. The show lasted for about ten minutes, and although Mason wasn't impressed, it was beautiful.

Afterwards, it looked like 101 was on fire!

Afterwards, 101 remained fully lit, scrolling "2014" on its upper section.

After the show, we walked back to our apartment and passed out at around 1:30 in the morning. But our rest was not to last, for we had been invited to Sanchong for bowling at 8:30 the next morning!

I say "bowling", but actually it has an arcade and pool as well. The two brothers against us are Nikolai and Ryota.

That day, we learned that Japanese people in general and Ryota in particular are amazing at everything that requires dexterity. He got four strikes in a row bowling and was able to bounce the cue ball off walls accurately to sink pool balls. Times like this, I wonder- how did they lose the war??

We left the bowling alley at 2, and I still had an entire afternoon with no school before me. So I asked around and invited everyone to come to Danshui with me! Danshui is at the northern edge of the city, as far north as you can take the metro to, and is actually older than Taipei, having been the main port of Dutch Formosa. It's kind of touristy now, but I don't mind. :-)

Danshui Market Street.

Nikolai agreed to come with me first, then we got three Japanese sisters on board, Tomomi, Aike, and Chihiro. After they agreed to come Mason decided to come with us too.

We're like giants!

Danshui is a really beautiful place. The sun was shining, there was a breeze coming off the South China Sea, you're surrounded by forested mountains, and the area is designed to give you really good views. This is why I don't mind touristy places- sometimes they just want your money, but sometimes the locals realize something is beautiful and want to showcase it. And they also want your money.

As we were walking along the pier, we saw a shop that took different colored wires and made art out of them. You could get earrings, bracelets, little robots- but the really cool thing was this:

我是擎天柱！

That's right, an Optimus Prime helmet. If it had fit me I would have bought it right there, but sadly even the sisters had to cram their heads into it for a picture (totally worth it guys, trust me).

And as we were walking around, we ran into three more sisters, Yunya, Yunmei, and Brandy! They had been out preaching all morning instead of spending their vacation bowling and had the same idea we did of going to Danshui. So, naturally, we celebrated our meeting with ice cream!

Green tea and mango swirl ice cream is amazing, by the way.

We just walked along the riverside for a while (Danshui is actually on the mouth of the Tamsui River, opening into the South China Sea), all nine of us, until we found a nice spot to wait and watch the sunset.

Mason is posing so he can have a picture of himself holding the sun, but I thought this angle was better.

All of the girls with us

The sunset. (Side note- that fisherman threw a fish at me!)

So yeah, it was a nice vacation. It's only one day long, so I've gotta get right back to it, but it's good to take a little time out.

Until next time!