How to enjoy life

Kyle doing some reading puzzles in the bath.

Hannah draws herself and her brother walking in a magic park.

Riding a bike together at a friend's house.

Gift basket for Taiwan TV celebrity "Ding Ning", to celebrate birth of her little girl.

http://www.littlewonders.com.tw/

Link to the new-look site for my online business.

More of Kyle's Art

This is a self-indulgent post, sharing more of Kyle's art.

Yuan Hsiao Jie - Lantern Festival

Yesterday, we attended a celebration for "Yuan Hsiao Jie" (known as the Lantern Festival), which marks the 15th day of the Lunar New Year.  The area where our cottage is invited everyone to make little dumplings, sing kareoke, light fireworks, watch a show, drink and eat, and enter a prize draw.  We arrived on time at 4pm, which meant the kids and I got to help out with the dumplings, and Richard got to sing before the crowds arrived.

Here are the kids with our neighbor and her daughter (next to Kyle), rolling the dumplings.  You are supposed to put the balls into the basket in the front of the picture and roll them in tapioca flour, but as we had so many, that step was finally skipped.  As you can see, Kyle saw it as a chance to roll some interesting shapes.  I think he was making a robot in this picture.

During the festivities, I think we met half of Kyle's prospective schoolmates.  So far, his first grade class has enrolment of 6 kids including him.  The parents told me it's fantastic, as the teacher knows each of the kids very well.  The children we met yesterday from the school really looked out for each other.  Having only 90 kids in the school will at least mean everyone will know all about me within a day or so.  It gets old explaining to kids where I am from, day after day, when I pick up Kyle at his current school.

I have a great video of Hannah working to throw the unrolled balls to us for rolling, but I can't figure out how to load it...

On Saturday, I took Hannah to my friend's wedding.  Hannah insisted on taking her crown, and waited for the bridal march before putting it on:

Serious case of red-eye, there, and a mouthful of candy.  Quite the stylist, she is wearing her Pumpkin Patch floral skirt and a t-shirt that says "Swiss Pretty Miss" and boasts a dancing cow.  Guess the last owner was from Switzerland.

It was really good to attend this wedding, as I got to see friends from my SPIN days.  I hadn't caught up with them since I had Kyle and really miss them.  Now they starting their own families, we might be able to meet up more often in kid-friendly places, who knows?

Today, Kyle was in school and I took Hannah to Ren-Ai Park in Yung-Ho to see the lantern display, and tried to find the Museum of World Religions.  Of course with my sense of direction, I failed to find the museum, but we did manage to visit a couple of bookstores and have a chat with a teashop owner and a Filipino nanny working inYung-Ho.  With temperature up to the high '20's (celsius), it was a great day for just wandering around.

My baby's first jeans

Here is my "little baby", so grown up in her first jeans.

I hadn't realised she had grown so much!   Here she is in a pair of jeans I picked up from our playgroup rummage sale and a top a mom gave a friend when she left the country, along with a pair of day-market shoes.  Stylin'!  Kyle is in his All Black pants and skateboarding shirt.  Can you tell they dressed themselves?

It's Chinese New Year's Day.  Last night we had the New Year dinner with Richard's parents.  Most of friends get emotionally ready for the big dinner with family at this time of year.  Our dinner is actually quieter, as Lisa and family go down South for the week.  We have relative calm, which suits me, as I am not one to really get into tradition like Christmas of this NewYear thing.

Today, I took pictures of some of Kyle's art.  This is from last year, when he was four to four-and-a-half.  I hope he will get back into it someday as I really enjoy looking at his work.

Flowers.  You can see a smudge in the center.  Kyle bumped it by mistake, but decided it was fine like that.

Cat on the Roof:  They read a Chinese story in the class, then drew their own interpretation.

ER and Plastc Surgery

So, here I am, at Chung-Gung hospital in Ba-du, waiting for Richard to have his thumb saved. It's just the beginning of a two to three hour wait while he is in surgery. When Richard called from the basement this afternoon, "Katrina, we need to go to the hospital," I didn't think too much about it. He didn't sound like he was too much pain, there was very little blood and he walked up to the neighbor to ask him to move Richard's van for us so I could drive out. We left the lights on and a chicken in the oven. Six and half hours later, Richard is probably getting a steel pin in his left thumb or maybe having part of it amputated, the kids are at the grandparents', and the chicken is being eaten by the neighbors.


Richard says he cannot remember what happened exactly, just that the bandsaw was higher than he should have left it and he must have reached over it. I had suggested he wear protective metal gloves or put a cover over the saw, but up until now it had been fine. NZ Health and Safety officers would have palpatations if they saw the kind of safety gear used (or not) here in Taiwan. What can you do? At least the health care here is fast. We came to the ER and stayed here until Richard's breakfast had digested and they found a surgeon to operate. I am not sure if other countries could boast such efficiency. It's Sunday night and I am the only one waiting in the surgery waiting room.

There may not be many foreigners turning up in this branch of Chung-Gung. I say this because I have been "hello" 'd several times already, and just now had a man sit down beside me and look at me for a few minutes before stating, "bye bye" and leaving. The staff have been very nice so far. The great thing about hospitals in Taiwan is, you will always find someone who speaks English.

*In Taiwan, you need to have someone in the hospital to look after you, as there is nobody to look after the basic needs of patients (toilet, food, drink, nose-blowing...) If your family does not have someone available to stay fulltime, you will try to hire a 24-hour assistant to stay with the patient.

***This was written on Sunday night.  It's now Thursday.  Richard had cut through bone, nerve, vein, tendon.  The plastic surgeon put it back on, with a pin in the thumb that will come out in a month.  The damage is about 5cm in length, and when you think of the size of a thumb, that is quite a wound.  We have to watch for infection, and he starts rehab/physio on Friday.  Just a FYI, the whole thing including a night in hospital cost just over 4,000TWD (about 200NZD).  I get to show my sense of duty and love by showering him and helping dress the wound.

And the neighbors really enjoyed the chicken :)

Insomnia

Over my years in Taiwan, I have had periods of time where I just can't/won't sleep until the depths of the night.  I used to think this was particular to me, but have discovered that many expats in Taiwan suffer the same "problem".  I don't know if it's the environment, or if it's something about the kinds of people who come to Taiwan and stay here.  Because, over time I have found a large number of my friends are quite hyperactive or at least with overactive minds.  This trait may be what makes Taiwan attractive to us, or what allows (or compels us) to stay here.  On nights like this, I remember things like my dear friend Brian telling me how he thinks I would make a great smoker, and that it might temper my need to move and do things.  And times when I would roam the streets at three or four in the morning, just unable to settle and not ready for the calm of the apartment.  When I think of things like this, I kind of congratulate myself on the fact I have managed to live in a Taiwanese family for several years, with the boundaries imposed that really make it impossible to release much of the nervous tension that builds up from being in a pre-defined environment.  Very recently, I have had the urge to write again, and to create.  That feeling is like a ball inflating in my chest, being held down my the weight of something similar to water, yet thicker and darker.  I have the desire, but no project, and as yet no creature has shown its face as a subject.  Being stuck in this whirlpool of threatened unreleased energy brings a shadow to sleep and makes the bed rather unwelcoming.  As my rather insightful father once said, "Katrina, boredom seems to create a dangerous situation for you."

Educating the children

Richard and I have been considering where to put Kyle when he starts first grade in September.  We are lucky enough to have choices, and late last year we went to see the school down the road from our cottage.  To our surprise, their preschool won the best preschool in Taiwan award last year through the Ministry of Education, and their elementary school seems to be quite progressive, as well as having small numbers in each class, their own kitchen on school campus, and finishing at 3:20 instead of 4pm every day.  Even better, this school does not need you to have household registration* in the area, so anyone can attend the school.  So, Kyle and Hannah can try the school out and I can try out living at the cottage full-time.

*Taiwan has a household registration system, where citizens need to register themselves in an area. This affects where you go to school, what benefits you have, and what area you can vote in.  If you are a foreigner on an ARC, your children can attend any public school without this limitation, and some schools are not limited by the household registration due to low roll numbers.

Every Tuesday and Friday, I spend an hour with a group of moms whose kids are in Kyle's dance class.  All eight of them lament the amount of homework kids have, the long hours in school, and the pressure to perform put on their kids.  It is very interesting for me to join their discussions, as it really crushes all the assumptions we made as English teachers in the private language school system.  Having kids and putting them in school has thankfully opened up access to a whole other group of parents in Taiwan.  Reading foreign-contributed forums in Taiwan, I realise that as English teachers or just in our daily lives as expats, the limited contact we have with particular groups of people really encourage us to make unfair assumptions.  This two hours a week with the group of moms is both refreshing and educational.  If your kids are in classes, I really encourage you to get to know the parents that are waiting for their kids there.  It can really change your perspective.

A couple of weeks ago I witnessed the unfortunate death of a young motorcyclist in Muzha.  He had one of those silly little hats that they can use as helmets here, and he hit the ground face-first.  Stuck in traffic, we saw them covering him up before clearing the road.  I did some online searching about local safety concerns, and found some interesting statistics about road-deaths.  There are indeed local groups also trying to educate young people, but it really doesn't seem to be enough.  One of the concerning statistics was that 3 children every day sustain serious head injuries due to lack of appropriate seatbelts or carseats, and most of those are in the five-to-ten year old group.  It's extremely difficult to change people's views on the full seat-belt and/or booster seat benefits as opposed to the lap belt.  Even educated people who have been overseas maintain that a lap-belt is enough, even though there is so much evidence to show the spinal and brain damage caused to children when there is a crash or emergency-stop with a lap-belt in use.  Children cannot brace themselves at all and they invariably hit their head on their knees or fly out of the belt.  With all the high-way driving we do, it is really an issue for me.  If we have this knowledge, isn't it our responsibility to protect our children?

Anyway, now I am trying to compile some information about proper helmet use and seatbelt use, to be passed on to teenagers and parents.  If you know of any great information that could be used in print, please let me know!