Tag: Taiwan
-

Teaching English in Taiwan
Students spooking a colleague on Halloween. Go home! The moment classes concluded and students spilled out into the hallway, the Taiwanese administrators hollered, “Go home! Min, go home! Benjamin, go home!” Yikes. I wondered what the students had done to piss off Anna, one of the administrators. She barked like a sergeant dressing down her
-

Students in Taiwan
Students dance to a grammar song. Before meeting my students, I attended training for two weeks. The owner employed specific methods to teach subjects such as vocabulary, grammar, phonics, reading and writing. He observed me teach in person. He filmed my classes for a month to make sure I executed his method properly. However, regardless
-

Living in Kaohsiung Taiwan
Love River, Zuoying, Kaohsiung, Taiwan I was originally hired to teach in Taiwan in 2020, during Covid-19. I had been living in Thailand at the time, living through the shut-down. In order to satisfy the Taiwanese Ministry of Education’s requirement to pass a medical exam at a government hospital only, I flew from Chiang Mai
-

Tenderloin of Taiwan
This photo of the bathroom omitted from this Airbnb’s property…I wonder why. Just as I reached the gate to the apartment building, I saw an old man with his penis out pissing on the bushes in front. I wasn’t in the Tenderloin in San Francisco but in a suburban neighborhood in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. It wasn’t
-

Taiwan: North to South
My first trip to Taiwan coincided with Tomb Sweeping holiday. Unfortunately, hotel vacancy plummeted while prices sky rocketed. That’s how I ended up in this capsule with shared toilet for $70/night in Taipei. The weather in April reminded me of that saying, “April showers bring May flowers.” I didn’t stick around long enough to know