Taipei Idol

For Facebookers who have seen this, tough nuggets.

My beloved Giraffe School; sometimes, I go to work and sometimes, I teach kids something American. For Halloween, it was how to properly set up a flaming bag of poo on a doorstep. For Thanksgiving, it was how to fit an amount of food the size of your head into your belly. And for Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I know what you're thinking -what about holiday spirit? Shouldn't they learn about thankfulness? Do they know about egg nog yet? No, no and major no. However, to prove to parents that a foreign teacher does have it's limited uses, I present to you an all-access behind the scenes for a limited time only once in a lifetime rare glimpse behind the rarely rare footage of rareness that is a practice rehearsal. I know, VIP. Many of you are saying - how am I getting this access, I don't even have a Twitter account? That is true, and you are behind the times, but fear not commoners, I'll release this regardless. WikiLeaks hasn't returned any of my emails, fools!

Million Dollar Question

"Congratulations" a stranger says, "here is $1,000,000."

A good day for you, indeed, but what do you do with it? People I know might say buy a fancy car, get plastic surgery, pay off loans, have a party with an endangered species buffet, quit my job or take my girlfriend out for an amazing dinner at the Olive Garden. All good ideas, a good mix of the selfish and the selfless. But what about the youth? What do kids, especially Taiwanese kids forced to attend English school taught by a doofus foreigner, want to do with free money? I got a preview of their innermost desires on Friday.

I was teaching the 10-year olds - a bright young group full of future lawmakers, ditch diggers, scientists and crash test dummies. To begin classes, I always have some kind of warm-up which can be in the form of a sentence, question, activity or nap. This afternoon was...

"What would you do if you had $1,000,000 dollars?"

Teacher Andrew: "I would buy a fast car."

Of course I wouldn't but whatever. Besides, I couldn't drive fast in this city even if I wanted too. The roads are as clogged as Dick Cheney's arteries and the ubiquitous scooter would block my path like a boss. At first I wrote "I would buy a case of Dom Perignon's Moet et Chadon, a pet anteater and a Faberge egg" but tragically I was unable to translate any of the items on my wishlist. So I went with the car, easy is good. Students began to answer (all of the answers 100% unchanged), initially with the moral correctness of a saint: "I would donate it, I would give it to my mom" and "I would give it back." Wait, what? To who? Take the money and run you fools! Do you realize how many Pokemon you can buy? Have you ever had candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner? You could buy Giraffe school, fire me, pay me to be your servant and make me do humiliating things all day - too late on that last part. I congratulated them on their earnest kindness towards others, BUT, what fun would that be? I changed the question to "What would you buy with..." Finally, some creativity. Here are the top answers, the names have been changed to protect the incompetent...

4. Melinda: "I would buy 10,000 tomatoes."

She doesn't look Italian but I've been wrong about these things before. What I loved about this answer was the specificity (say that three times fast). First, 10,000. I've been alive for 8,976 days which means a tomato a day, every day for my whole life. Second, tomatoes. I don't like any product in the world to have 10,000 of it. If you know me well, maybe Frank's RedHot but still, wow.

3. Patricia: "I would buy 100 mice and one snake."

Somebody start hugging this girl. I'm sure at first the snake would be pumped. But after looking at the varmints for a little while, I think it would just end up wondering where to put all of these furry entrees. Kind of like having 10,000 tomatoes. "...no, yeah I like mice. But. You know I eat one every couple weeks, right?"

2. Buddy: "I would buy your head."

Good hair day? More like mesmerizing hair day. What would he do with it? Bowling? Keep it in a jar? I didn't dig to find the answer, some things are not worth finding out. Better idea Buddy, just take a picture. Please? Is that sword real? Ok that's not funny. Put it down, seriously. No? Ok, minus two points. Yeah, I thought so.

1. Jack: "I would fight my cat."

Yes. Amazing. The students didn't think it was very funny, they all donated to Peta last year. I guess having loads of money allows you to follow your passions: Jimmy likes animal combat. Iconic match-ups like "Ali v Frazier," "De La Hoya v Mayweather," "Tyson v Holyfield" will be replaced by "Jack v Mittens" or "Jack v Snowball." He's a bit puny, my money is on the feline.

A foreign teacher told me that sometimes the kids have a hard time being creative. I disagree, they just need to be reassured that being creative is fun and appropriate in the right environment. During their normal school day, students are drilled on the finer points of grammar, spelling and the proper usage of the verbs. But when they come to my class, they are able to spice it up a little bit: instead of Mr Smith as a subject, let's use Lady Gaga. Rather than "run a race" we could "run to the moon." In any case, there is no such thing as having too much creativity, as long as you don't get stuck with 10,000 of anything.

Halloween Part I - Student Funtivities

Even if you don't live in the United States, I firmly believe that once a year kids are entitled to free candy from strangers without doing any kind of background check. The greatness of Halloween spans the globe and my beloved Giraffe School wisely decided to be a part of this glorious day.

For the month of October, my fellow teachers and I loaded our kids with vocabulary relating to the special day - words like 'Frankenstein, graveyard, ghost' etc. were a part of our everyday English. I had quite a bit of fun with them and we'd play charades to guess the word. For example, a student would walk stiff for 'mummy' or flap their arms for 'bat'. I ran into a bit of trouble when they started nibbling each other for 'vampire' and serious trouble when they started to eat each others' brains for 'zombie'. Very true to life, well done.

On the actual day, classes were cut short to prepare for our night activity, taking the hell-raisers around the town to trick or treat. Dressed like Michael Jackson circa 1982 'Thriller' video, my army of goblins staggered from business to business and singing the classic 'trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something blah blah..'. Being the neighborhood English school, the places we went to were preselected and were patiently awaiting our arrival. After the first couple of groups went through, they were patiently awaiting our immediate departure. I guess a few dozen kids screaming they were going to pull down your underwear unless you gave them candy is bad for business.

Most of the younger kids dressed up - many superheroes, princesses, vampires - but unfortunately some of the older students were approaching the 'too cool' stage of their late childhood. For them smearing some magic marker on their face (my recommendation, of course) qualified them as a bonafide werewolf or grab some toilet and drape it over your head, instant ghost.

I also realized why Halloween in New England is incredible. My young friends and I would walk house to house in a neighborhood with walkways to front doors. You could see who had lights on, enjoyed plenty of space to sprint around the neighborhood feverishly and hide easily from your parents who try to convince you that four pillowcases full of candy is enough. Here, most everybody lives in apartment buildings, the city doesn't stop and the candy here is...unquestionably... TERRIBLE! It's mostly hard candy with strange flavors. I swear I had an asparagus flavor, a pork rind flavor and something I imagine what Windex tastes like. Fools! Do you want kids to hate you? Let me tell you, I think you're doing a good job.

After returning to the elementary school across the street from Giraffe without losing a single kid, there was a treasure hunt outside around the track and playgrounds. We should have been more specific because after we said go, kids were trying to climb trees, shimmy up down spouts, dig holes and break into the buildings. You'd of thought we told them we hid gold bullion or diamonds the way they swarmed the schoolyard like an angry swarm of bees. After coaxing them back inside, the treasures were counted up and school points were given to the team of crafty hunters.

Everybody had a great time - nobody cried and I got a stomachache courtesy of a ear wax-flavored lollipop. Unfortunately, I didn't carve a pumpkin, smash any mailboxes, ring any doorbells and run away, toilet paper any houses or set bags of poo on fire in front of people's houses. All that happened later...

Kids - Experts At Misplacement

He is not one of my students, but this astute young fellow sums it up perfectly.

Kids are like electrons - you may you know what they are, what they do and where you can find them. But true to the comparison, controlling them is wikked hard. I've tried a few different things: rewards, punishments, pepper spray, embarrassment, apathy and water boarding. Some work, some don't and each new day is full of surprises.

A recent development - kids are the foremost experts at misplacing things. Anything, big or small, they will put it somewhere where it will remain forever. At Giraffe school, we use audio CDs to supplement written material in their work books. Here is a specific incident of superb misplacement - the student, I'm calling Mario, needed to borrow my copy of the CD to finish a page out of his book. Great, I say, one less person to watch over - here is a CD, here is a CD player, have a ball. Mario has good English, here is the gist of the conversation when he came back without my copy...

"Thanks for finishing, where is my CD?"
"Um, I don't know."
"You were just using it."
"It's over there."
"I don't see it, can you show me."
"I don't know."
"You were just using it! Is it in your bag? The CD player? Your hand? Your mouth?"
"No, I don't have it. I don't know."

Is this the son of Harry Houdini? Are you using some kind of Taiwanese magic the teachers haven't warned me about? Of course, I went bananas looking around the area for this lost piece of educational goodness. Before I started lifting the linoleum and crawling around in the air ducts, I gave up. Of course I didn't punish or get mad at Mario, I was too amazed at that. Either I'm working in an Asian Bermuda Triangle or children are truly on their game of getting rid of crap they don't need. Other freak occurrences include losing pencils that were in their hand, erasers that imploding after placing it on the desk for a split-second and everybody's favorite, the "my homework vanished into thin air" ploy. So much talent, squandered on something so petty. Maybe the guy who whacked Jimmy Hoffa said to his child, "here hold this bag for a second, Daddy's gotta grab the car."

But kids have carte blanche on these kind of situations. If I could have held on to that kind of immunity, I'd have more money, friends and health. Recently Brendan and I were discussing our Resident Visa paperwork and what we needed to get done. Lets compare...

B - "Hey man, what did you do with that visa application?"
A - "I don't know."
B - "You're an idiot, find it."

Harsh, maybe but I did find it. It was in my hand the whole time. Does that make me a kid, dumb, or a dumb kid? Wompwompwomp.