Hello All (ni hao da jia),

This has been one of the best days of my life.

Let me recap quickly -- I left the U.S. on Sunday morning and arrived Monday evening. I got lousy seat assignments, but when I went to change them, I got exit rows all the way. I lost my tickets at security scanning in Seattle, but they retrieved them promptly (after an unnecessarily chastising airport employee told me "Don't *lose* *this*."). After one of the smoothest, most bearable plane flights I have ever taken, I arrived ten minutes early and was picked up by Susan, who was accompanied with another English teacher who arrived 2 hours earlier. His name is Clive. I've already have enough experiences with this guy to warrant an entirely different email message. *smirk*

They put us in company housing in an affluent multi-story building for the publishing company that iis funding the school. When we arrived, it was dark, it was humid, and everything was dark and gray. By daytime, however, we could see green hillsides, and we could finally make out how beautiful the building was.

This is not the school, by the way.

We went apartment hunting the next day, and Clive jumped upon a one-room single, the first room he saw. I wasn't impressed, but he constantly praised the view from the building, which, while not altogether beautiful, was much better than the brick wall that the subsequent two apartments overlooked. In fact, the brick wall was only 1 foot away from the window.

After looking at two other apartments, I visited a third today and made my decision: I'll be living with a Chinese businessman named Victor, who is very well-mannered, and I immediately took a liking to him. In fact, he told Susan that he liked me the first time he set eyes on me! Susan later confided that this alarmed her a bit; she wondered if he was gay. But when she called him up to confirm that I would be living with him, he said he had stuff to do with his girlfriend tonight, as it is Valentine's Day over here. Victor can speak maintenance-level English, and it looks like we'll be able to learn from one another. The room has two windows, and it's very well-lit, which is not necessarily a good thing, because the sun is not welcome 8 out of 12 months around here!
Another reason why I picked the apartment was the neighborhood. It's in the heart of Shindian, which is right next to a large river, a quaint suspension bridge, and has a really neat series of shops and food vendors. I just felt really good when I had looked at one of the other apartments in the area. And on the weekends, I can rent a paddle boat and putter around the area!

The selection of teachers here is really amazing! Clive is 54, and Australian. Another guy arrived yesterday, who is Canadian. Everybody mistakes me for a Canadian, unless they think I'm a European instead. Clive tells me I don't hang my "r" sounds enough to sound American. There are two young gals from South Africa, and a collection of other teachers of various ages. I've only interacted with Clive and Gordon (the Canadian), and it's very interesting. Clive is sort of your typical Australian... a bit boorish, quite outspoken, not terribly sensitive, but as a result, he's fun to talk to, and he's very intelligent and well-traveled. He managed to ruffle a few feathers the very first hour that Gordon arrived by talking about the native Americans in Canada. Gordon taught in Canada on indian reservations for several years, and has been embittered by his experiences. So much so that he feels the natives are utterly worthless. He was so jaded, I worried a bit about his interactions with the kiddies. But I think this experience may change him...
That brings me to why this is one of the best days of my life.

!!

We visited the school today. After all the misinformation, all the waiting, all the suspense, we visited the school. You have to enter a closed community to get to it, and then you still have to go another 15 minutes or so to get to the school. It's way up in the hillsides (and when I say "hill," I must add that hills around here are very steep and very pointy).

... and to think, I almost signed on with Hess.

The school is *BEAUTIFUL*. They dumped *billions* of NT into it. They're still buidling it. It's brand new! There are no RJ-45 jacks, instead, everything is on a wireless LAN. Glenn showed us the Olympic-sized swimming pool. Then he showed us the kindergarten swimming pool. Susan showed us the conference hall. Then the ampitheater. Then the track field. Then the concert hall (not to be confused with the theater). Glenn showed us the Kindergarten wing, which is a separate building, shaped like a castle. There are huge courtyards, several computer labs, 40 English-teaching classrooms, each equipped with at least one computer. In short, more money was put into this complex than many small universities.

It is an expensive school in a hoity-toity neighborhood, so a lot of rich kids go there. That makes some of them snot-nosed, unfortunately. Glenn asked me if I was going to teach elementary or kindergarten, and I said elementary. He then started to extoll teaching kindergarten, saying how the kids love you, how you're paid to play with the kids, how he spent a good deal of class time growing facial hair and getting the kids to inspect it -- and this was a valid lesson. You teach kindergarten exclusively in English!

Something overcame me. I walked into the kindergarten classrooms, full of tiny bathrooms and tiny furniture. I looked at the bunny puppets. I looked at the boxes of candylike blocks, I looked at the bright crayons, the whiteboard, the festive decorations, and everything else... and I thought... this could be FUN! To get paid to play with kids?! I could sit down and play with the blocks.. I could get them to make their own Sorry game! I could teach them how to dance, I could kick a soccer ball around with them... everything is valid, because everything is in English.

I told Alyshia I wanted to teach in kindergarten, and she moved me, just like that. I'm glad I came early! Glenn was happy. Susan was not -- she wouldn't be in the same building, and she said she showed my picture to a lot of the girls working in the main building, and she said they were excited to meet somebody so handsome, and would be very disappointed that I would be in the kindergarten wing.

I think Clive is going to teach kindergarten as well. It should be interesting...

I will be co-teaching with a Chinese kindergarten teacher, which should disturb me a bit because I've never taught before, but Glenn said that these teachers were terrified of teaching exclusively in English and with an English teacher, as they only know a bit of English. In a way, I will be teaching the teacher along with the students!

But the teachers serve another purpose, one which Glenn told me right before I left -- it is illegal to teach kindergarten using the English language in Taiwan. !! At first I was trying to grapple with this. Wait... 12 kindergarten teachers, teaching English exclusively... a fact that has been *advertised* to the parents..! How do they get away with this?

Well, the Taiwan education bureau calls them up and tells them "surprise! we're going to inspect the premises tomorrow." No problem -- the English teachers just take a little siesta, and lo! There are Chinese teachers in the room! It's very strange -- there are tons of big schools around here that teach Kindergartens this way. Hess is the largest chain island-wide, and they do the same thing. I guess it's just one of those laws that is too outmoded to take seriously? Huh.
And finally, it has been a fantastic day because I was informed that my ICAL teaching certificate will be sent to my employers today, and will be there in 3 days' time. That's the last thing I need for my VISA.

Oh, it was also good because I found out that my Master's degree puts me into a different pay bracket! It's only $12,000 NT more a year ($360), but it will amplify should I stay on with the company. So I *am* putting my masters degree in Latin to good use!

It is also ridiculously easy to make friends and contacts. Many inhibitions are out the door because I'm a foreigner and I'm different and (in many eyes) exciting. I can walk up to any Chinese person and impress them eternally by my meager ability to speak Chinese. Today, while Clive was finalizing details with his landlord, I struck up a clumsy yet rewarding dialogue with one of the agents there... it was fun! And I feel I have a right to strike up a dialog with any expat I see; just yesterday I exchanged phone numbers with a gal I met when walking to the MRT yesterday (not that I'm really going to do much about it, I think). I've already gone to a night market with Kiki, a very friendly and clever teacher here... I am not wanting, nor will I want, for activities.
My pay is also quite good. I'm not going to buy a Mercedes and a chauffeur any time soon, but it's good for around here, and when Susan (the director's assistant) asked me how much I was making, I was suprised to discover that she is making only half of my salary. English teachers are well-compensated here.

And Glenn, an expat who has taught in Taiwan for 9 years, told us horror stories about the shifty things a lot of other cram schools and otherwise unscrupulous institutions inflict upon their teachers, and not only assured us that this school was different, but that he would make it his business that it would not happen. And as Gordon astutely noted, a school that has dumped billions of NT into its creation is not likely to quibble with the relatively small savings incurred by dicking their teachers.

Everybody is nice. Everything is beautiful. Pearl Tea is everywhere. And my Chinese has loosened up just after 3 days here. My salary is generous. The room I am renting is less than 1/13 of my monthly salary (Susan talked him down $1000 NT in monthly rent). My roommate is cool, responsible, and extremely nice. My location is cozy and convenient and surrounded by fun things. My co-workers are fun and laid-back. And, --AND...! I can wear SHORTS at work! I could almost cry, things are going so well. Do you realize that I could spend one class period in Kindergarten just talking about Kogepan (http://www.spellvexit.net/avocation/hk.shtml)? Can you believe it?
As soon as I get ADSL for my apartment (or find a jack at the school) I'll upload a ton of pictures I took of the facility to my website (www.spellvexit.net). I have already composed some information and need only to upload it. Be prepared to feast your eyes on the clever marketing behind the can of Asparagus Juice I found!

Even the weather, which I feared more than anything else, is tolerable. I thought I would wilt and be destroyed by the heat of the day, but... you just kind of get used to the stickiness you exude. I understand the Asian habit of showering at night, now.

I feel at home, I really do, just after 3 days. My trip in December helped to prime me, assuredly, but... Taiwan is just a very livable place. I remember questioning my motives as the time got closer -- what am I getting into? Today shored up any doubts that had remained. I have no regrets. I'm happy, happy.

Take care,

--Eric

P.S. If you got to the end of this, congratulations!
P.P.S. The school's address is http://cbs.knsh.com.tw/english/first.asp if you're curious.