Outta Here

Well, somehow a whole summer has managed to go buy…AAAAH! How’d that happen? I think that I was just finally getting used to things here, which must mean it’s time to leave! Otherwise life would be too easy, right? I must admit, however, that I’m looking forward to getting out of this hot, humid weather. Yesterday, for fun, I thought I’d try and experience what it would have been like to be in Florida last week during Hurricane Charley. Got soaked and had to change all of my clothes when I made it home. Actually, I was just caught down the hill when the Pacific Ocean decided it wasn’t happy in its current location and wanted to take over Taiwan. I don’t think I’ve every seen as much rain in my life!

I am also actually looking forward to, if not a little nervous about, starting my first real actual job too as English Professor at Yunnan University in Kunming. I leave tomorrow for Hong Kong to get my visa, then on Wednesday (assuming everything has gone according to plan), I will leave for Kunming.

I’ve been preparing a bit for my new job, and have managed to create a website that I hope that I will eventually be able to use over there. You can check it out at http://students.whitman.edu/~knezovjb/CIP/. It’s called the City Insights Project, and its designed to help introduce my Chinese students to American culture by looking at various jobs in the US. I’ll also e-mail you all my new contact information shortly. I already have my address, but maybe I’ll hold out on sending the information to everybody until I know my new phone and cell phone numbers….

These past weeks have actually been quite busy in and of themselves. Since I’m technically leaving a week before the semester here ends, I’ve had to spend most of this week with my nose in the books, learning an extra chapter that the rest of the class will be tackling next week, as well as taking the final and all that jazz. But now I’m done with class for a while, and that is, once again, a nice feeling. Of course, it’s back to it once I hit Kunming.

As for exciting events that have taken place since last I posted, several weekends ago, Nick, Kenta (a Japanese students who was the native Japanese speaker at Whitman the year I was in France who happened to be visiting Taiwan), and two of my Korean friends from here went to Hua Lian on Taiwan’s eastern coast to visit the beautiful Tailuge (Taroko) Gorge. It was really quite beautiful. It’s all marble, and the sheer number of boulders that the river has brought down with it over the years is impressive.

The first night that we got there we decided to go to some hot-springs that were about 2km up the road from where we were staying. Since we didn’t have a car or anything, we started out by walking, but eventually just hitchhiked up there. The hot springs were fun—the first I’ve been to since I was really young (I only every remember going to hot springs in Wyoming and South Dakota of all places). However, they were really hot, which meant that we often had to go down in the river to cool down. Well, at one point the to Korean girls and us three guys got separated: they were in the river and we were in the hot springs. We didn’t think much of it, but then, when we were ready to go, we started actually looking for the girls, but couldn’t find them. We called and called but got no response (keep in mind that it’s pitch black out. I actually haven’t seen as many stars in my life besides maybe in the Sahara or up in the Rockies). So then we borrowed somebody’s flashlight and looked more. Nothing. At this point we were starting to get worried that they had slipped down the river, so we took the light and started looking down the river a bit. Still nothing. Panic ensues. I mean, the place isn’t very large, where could they have gone?

So, we run up the path back out of the gorge to the road hoping we’d spot them. Nick took their clothes to “let them know that we’ve gone…” They were nowhere along the path, including the bathroom, which is where we thought they’d be. So, we start running the 2km down the hill to the little town where we’re staying. The creepiest part of that was running through a tunnel that was absolutely and completely pitch black. You couldn’t see a thing, and it made the sounds bounce around a bit. I think I would have been more creeped out if I wasn’t on such an adrenaline high, but it’s certainly an experience I’m not going to forget.

Anyway, we eventually find someone to take us the rest of the way down the hill to the police station. There we were confronted with one very nice policeman, and one who was rather apathetic towards the situation—he was rather large, sitting in a nice big leather chair, smoking, and watching a soap opera. Once we finally convinced them that there was a problem, and that Kenta, despite being Asian, had worse Chinese than us, they finally motivated enough to take us out to the car and drive us up to the springs. Right as we got there I looked out the window, and lo and behold, there were our two Koreans walking down the road in their swimsuits. The cops honked, and they freaked, thinking it was somebody…ummmm…soliciting them.

As it turns out, they were sitting behind a boulder that absolutely obscured our view of them in the river chatting the whole time. They thought that the people shining the flashlights all over the place were very kind to show them what the other side of the river looked like… Since Nick had stolen all their clothes and everything, they ended up taking other people’s shoes to walk up the path back up to the road, thinking it was a practical joke and trying to figure out ways to get us back. So, it turned out to be a lot of fuss for nothing. BUT, to be fair, we went back the next day, and since it was crowded wandered down the river a bit to have to peace and quiet. While we were down there wading around a woman started coming down the river and couldn’t stop. I ended up helping her out (thank goodness we were downstream!). So I guess our fears were actually justified.

The rest of the trip wasn’t quite as exciting, but it was fun. Learned a fun Japanese drinking song from Kenta… My alcohol tolerance (not to mention my waistline) has certainly decreased over these past few months. While we were in the gorge, it only took me 2.5 beers to get pretty well toasted.

And, to sign off from Taiwan, let me finish with a few last fun facts from Taiwan:

Christian- The religion it is assumed all white people are. Also, the Taiwanese seem to think that Christianity and Catholicism are the same thing…
English- The language it is assumed all white people speak, much to the chagrin of my Byelorussian friend.
2- The number of typhoons we’ve had this week in Taiwan.