Sloppy in Taiwan!: Taiwan

Well friends, I’m a little older and a little wiser since our last post. Wisdom comes with age but it has come in the form of knowing more of what there is to know that I do not yet know. Humility is a slow lesson to learn. And a hard one at that. Patience and acceptance is something I feel others have been quite a bit better at than I have. But I don’t hold it against myself. Live and learn, as they say.
So I’ll give you the long and short of it. The short of it is that I am currently in Beijing living out of a hotel with my girlfriend. Since it’s been so long since my last post, I will indulge you in some of the juicy details of events leading up to and before my departure.

Sometimes, it seems like my life is one big epic drama. Like I’m a sea-wrecked seafarer, fighting the crashing ocean waves, clutching onto driftwood for survival. Damned if the storm isn’t often of my own making, and the circumstances of my own creation.

Let’s review a timeline of my tenure in Taiwan. Picture a moody, self entitled, lazy and yet idealistic and even ambitious twenty something year old. The scene is our fair city of brotherly love. Peering from behind the caged windows in a Philadelphia elementary school in the east Spring Garden section of the city…daydreaming.

Daydreaming to avoid the helplessness of not knowing how to control my “classroom” (auditorium) of kindergarteners and inner city middle schoolers. Daydreaming to avoid the feeling that there is nothing that I can do to improve my situation. Daydreaming to avoid remembering how hard I’ve tried already to approach the situation with reason and how hard I’d been put in my place. Trying to avoid the fact maybe that I just wasn’t the right guy for the job. Avoiding feeling bad about the kids I’d screamed at in frustration at working at a school with no discipline and children who had no respect for teachers.

The writing was on the wall. My principal did not like me. She had her phasers set to kill and it was time to get the hell out of there on my own steam before someone else helped me out forcibly. So I started my application to teach in Korean schools as part of a program called “EPIK”. Started in March. Told my principal I was outtie. She couldn’t hide her elation. It was like she just found a 20 dollar bill laying on the street around breakfast time. It made her day.

So I’m on the phone with my “Reach to Teach” recruiters trying to get all the proper paperwork. Now Korea is the anal-ist country on the planet when it comes to paperwork. We’re talking FBI fingerprint checks, state criminal background checks, and degree copies all with apostile stamps. Reference letters with the original ink on the paper and typed to the exact specifications of the EPIK program guidelines. It wasn’t enough that it was a pain in the ass for me. It had to be a pain in the ass even for the people who were willing to help me.

So long story short, my FBI check gets held up in the mail and it takes too long to send all the paperwork. Around about the time I’m vacating my apartment and selling my car, they tell me that all the positions are closed. Pricks. Don’t trust recruiters…ever. They may say they know how to do things, but how much control do they really have? And when your life gets screwed because something goes haywire, it’s you that pays and there ain’t a damn thing they can do to help you. Just show up to your country on a tourist visa and get a job that way. Chances are the recruiters are just trying to unload the positions nobody wants anyway.
So Korea was a bust. I was without a job and I needed to start making bank. So they pressure sold me (I had forgotten about that part) on a position at “Hess” Buxiban in Taiwan (which I had confused for Hong Kong). The pressure sell consisted of something like “if you don’t sign by midnight, someone else is going to take the job blah, blah, blah, etc.

So if you’re reading this John and Carrie Kellenberger from “Reach to Teach”, I’m reaching for something in my pocket right now...take a guess at what it is. Don’t claim that it’s the applicant’s responsibility to find out everything there is to know about a job when they can’t possibly do that from abroad. I had a similar experience coming to China with a Taiwanese recruiter. But I’m wiser now and I caught it before they could bend me over upon arrival. I had words with the guy who basically lied by omission about the position.

So I fly on over to Taiwan, jet lagged like a son of a bitch. I get picked up, thrown to the hospital for a health check, and then thrown to the Buxiban (Boo-shee-ban). I’m teaching literally the next day. For those of you who know me, you probably can see that this is a powder keg of a situation for me. You can check the early blog entries for details. But just to give an example, I was so excited to be abroad and share my ideas and my boss was very receptive and so forth. So when I began to teach, I used a guitar that they had, after having bringing this up with my boss first and having had her like it. I used it for two or three days. Then I came in to teach the next day and there was no guitar. I asked what had been done with it, and she said she threw it out. Apparently that was her way of saying she didn’t want me to play guitar in class anymore. Lovely communication skills (a trademark of Asian management). I was already stressed…like a ticking time bomb, and that single act almost made me blow my lid.

So I was out of there in 3 weeks. However, you have to remember, the first few weeks of living in a new country are extremely stressful. You can’t find anything, you have no cell phone, you can’t talk to anybody, you don’t recognize any of the food, your stomach is getting used to the food, you’re getting used to the weather, and you’re getting used to how people behave and the culture (culture shock). And this was all made worse by my complete opposite time zone jet lag, which can take weeks to shake off. Now, having been in Beijing for just three days, I already feel more comfortable getting around. I’ve just been chilling in the hotel and taking my time to do things and anticipating myriad complications with simple tasks. You just have to leave massive amounts of time for you to get lost, walk several miles to get things, be surprised that places don’t have the services you assumed they did, and basically let kind strangers lead you around like a child…cause that’s what you are at the beginning. A big, helpless, child (unless you speak the language…that’s different).

So that was my introduction to living abroad. It’s like that song from Alladin “A Whole New World”. Except, instead of fire works and magic carpets, it’s more like that part from “Apocalypto” where the forest people are being lead through to the sacrificial altar. You know, all the white painted people coughing up blood, the nobility laughing and spitting fruit out while their slaves hold their carriages, massive crowds dancing in ceremonies with crazy jewelry on with nutty music in the background. I’m just lucky I landed in Taiwan and not India, or China for example. Hell, I even knew two guys who taught in Saudi Arabia. I don’t think I have to tell you this, but don’t do it!

So I taught for a year after that at an “English Wonderland” program which was essential a 3 day camp with 16 classes per week and a bunch of other activities and the like. Not really my bag and the commute sucked, but it paid well and I was happy to have a job. I was still in the mindset that if I couldn’t hold a job for more than a year, that it somehow meant that I was a bad or incapable person. I’m past that now. So I had to get out cause the contract ended in December and what school hires in December? I got a job teaching music at a private school. The best private school in Taiwan. The pay was great. But they just didn’t dig my style. What can I say? The kids liked me. The parents liked me. But the bosses didn’t. It’s funny, cause just this past month, I worked at a “winter camp” at a buxiban and I had one of my old students from that school. And I asked him how the new guy was. He said in a disappointed tone, “he’s Chinese(Taiwansese), I think you were better”. Hahahah. Old habits die hard I guess. They prefer the traditional approach and what’s more is that they can pay him about a grand less a month. Money! It makes the world go round!

There was limited drama at that school other than the fact that they didn’t want to resign me and also that I had a bit of a problem with a very chatty pair of coworkers (foreign) who would talk about inane shit in the office incessantly when I was trying to concentrate. So after that school, I took a job as a straight up classroom teacher at another one of the most famous private schools in Taiwan. I worked my ass off the first week…12-14 hours a day. But they decided to switch me after that to kindergarten. I didn’t realize it, but kindergarten also includes preschool here. So I walked in one day to a bunch of three year olds and I was like “fuck! They’re three years old!!!!” That was a rough adjustment. And that wasn’t the only problem. I had been told that it was the same amount of teaching hours. And after about a week I figured out that it was significantly more.

Now in my contract it said, after 18, I get overtime for each hour. So I asked for my overtime. And they just said “we don’t do that for kindergarten positions”. Now at this point, I had two options. Take it on the chin, or insist that they were legally obligated to pay. Which do you think I chose? That’s right, you got it! Raise hell and get my money! Now in Taiwan, they have a saying “Bu yao zuo ma fan.” It means “don’t look for trouble”. So needless to say, my hell raising wasn’t met with understanding.
I didn’t care. I was a boxer in the ring. This was fun for me. Damned if I’m going to let someone not pay me my due because they didn’t feel like it. Especially when I had it on paper that they promised to pay. Now a quick jaunt here about litigation in Asia. They don’t really litigate. They don’t really give a damn about your contract. Everything is done kind of under the table and “muo-chi” (working relationship) is viewed as way more important than a piece of legal paper with some words on it. That is the culture. In America, I think most people would understand if you held your employers to what was in the contract. Not here. And from what I’m told, contracts in China are worth even less. In fact, I’m told contracts in China are not only worth less, but they are worthless. Basically, you can use your contract for toilet paper here (in Beijing).

So I took a calculated risk, knowing that I was past the trial phase of the contract and that if they fired me (which they probably would), they would have to pay me severance and I could well sue them for wrongful termination. It was really funny. A bunch of my coworkers were like, “good for you! Get the hell out of this place! I can’t wait till my contract ends!” I even went so far as to create a feedback form to counter the information provided to my boss (used as evidence for incompetence) by teachers who watched me in their classrooms so I could use it as evidence in court for reinstatement.

I figured, I could work at a new job while I sue them and get paid back pay after I won on top of current salary. By the way, employees here love to rat each other out. It’s like a face thing from what I understand. Like “Look at me! Look at what I found for you!” So it may sound surprising that so many of my coworkers (Taiwanese) were informing on me, but that’s how they roll here (rats!). So they did fire me, as expected. Well actually, I goaded them into firing me without providing written notice so my case would be stronger in court. I know…there must be something wrong with this boy right? Pretty much, yes. I then filed for a mediation with the labor bureau immediately to be reinstated, putting my work visa cancellation on hold.

I’m not goanna lie, it was fun fighting my boss, especially since she was wrong and sloppy. I was three moves ahead of her at all times. I knew the intimidation tactics to come and I was ready for them because I had been through it with my English Wonderland employer. I was well informed of my legal rights. And I knew the string of lies and threats to come were just white noise and that I had the legal high ground.

Now as it so happens, I’ve heard that if you actually do go to court in Taiwan, you just have a series of interminable mediations until both parties crack and give a little or one just gives up. So it’s probably better that we didn’t go to court. After I found out that my girlfriend Judy got fantastic job in China, I resolved to move to Beijing with her, and so there was no need to pursue any further legal action. The school contacted me and asked to cancel the mediation in exchange for a recommendation letter. They balked on that offer after I cancelled, but I threatened to file again if they didn’t. So that’s right, I’ve got a nice little recommendation letter from my boss after she fired me and I tried to sue her J. As an old guy I met once said, “if you’re still all full of piss and vinegar, do your thing!(joing me when you get it out of your system)” I think I’m beginning to grow out of that stage now though J. I’m not going to seek conflict in the future. I’m just going to try to go with the flow and maintain my “muo chi” and my sanity. It’s not about who’s right or wrong in the end, it’s more about if I can just live in peace and if I can live with some unfair treatment (which there is always bound to be). So maybe there is something to that “bu yao zuo ma fan” after all.

By the way, I also purchased a scooter in Taiwan that is waiting for me when I get back! I used it for a few weeks in Taiwan before I left, when I still thought I would need to find a new job. Scooting in Taiwan is fun but dangerous. Scooters just weave in and out and between cars as they please. People don’t really signal which way they are going, and they tend to kind of ignore the lane lines. It’s more of just a mass of people moving towards where they are going. Scooters tend to hang on the right side and during heavy traffic, they will just ride on the shoulder and bypass the cars. They are actually supposed to do this as there are “scooter boxes” in the front of traffic lights that the scooters are supposed to make their way to during a red light. So it’s kind of cool, cause you can beat the traffic with these things and it beats taking the metro everywhere. When it rains it kind of sucks and it seems like people drive even more aggressively when it’s raining. Funny thing is, since I’ve been in China, they seem to be more cautious and laid back about driving here.

Now, we weren’t sure if Judy (my girlfriend) was going to get this job or not. It’s a big company called Xiao Mi that everyone in Beijing knows about. It boasts one of the founding members of Google as its VP…so it’s a big deal for her. So I figured, I can teach English anywhere, and I’m out of a job anyway, so I might as well just tag along. And of course I wanted to be where she was! Shout out to my boy Darren in Taipei for seeing Judy and I off properly and to my man Jesse who saw me off proper! (see pictures below). Eat at Palm Pasta!
Eat at Palm Pasta!
Oh and remember Richard Lee?…there he is with me and CuCu at his new shop Animal Cafe' - Brunch 美式早午餐特色餐館.
I put all my pictures on Facebook. But I haven't really been sharing them on the blog…so here's a few of kind of what I've been up to in Taiwan up till now…that I'm in China.

Park Near Jesse's house in XiZhe

The Apt. We left behind, goodbye cool red light, you will be missed.

Me in my flag football league in Taiwan, pre-ankle sprain.

Judy's Mom, who has taken very good care of me and Judy during our transition.

Next post is about China!

Some of my best friends in Taiwan. Jesse and his soon to be wife Kitty, Greg (a Brit from my latest job who likes to watch documentaries), Ben (from English Wonderland) and his girlfriend Amanda.