Tuesday's Taiwan-ism {Taiwanese Trash Trucks}

So I've decided that besides my normal posts, I'm going to {TRY} (try being the key word!) to post each Tuesday about something I've learned, found interesting, or just downright strange about living in Taiwan. Now of course I'm a teacher so I had to have a cutesy alliteration to go with it...so Tuesday's Taiwan-ism is born!

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Today's Taiwan-ism was something I was warned about before moving here, but it still makes me giggle almost daily. Each day around 4:00pm I hear a beautiful sound coming down the street that would make every American run outside waving their money and ordering ice cream from the traveling ice cream truck!

To every American's dismay though...this truck does not have ice cream...in fact it doesn't contain anything edible...the music truck coming down the street is sadly the daily trash truck that comes to collect your garbage. So while we line the sides of the street like it's a 4th of July parade, the trash truck rolls through, collects our garbage, and continues playing their cute little melody!

Please Stop Ruining My Meal!

So although I'm loving Taiwan, I do have one general complaint....people have a wonderful knack for ruining the meal that I am eating while talking to them. Let me give you today's example!

I was at school and the lunch was served in the teachers' office like it is each day. I dutifully brought my bowl and chopsticks up and placed in my bowl rice (seriously EVERY MEAL!) bean sprouts, and cooked turnips. One of the other teachers then motioned to the last dish and said "chicken" {apparently they realize that I have 0 idea as to any of the foods that I am eating  here!}. I spot the chicken in the pot but decide against it as I'm not a "sort my meat out from the veins and bones type of girl", but notice that there were some other squarish pieces that looked like chunked up chicken breast! I grab one of those and head to my desk.

I begin eating my meal and cut apart my "chicken" to see what exactly it was (side note: "cutting" here is more of a me ripping things apart with my 2 chopsticks since that's all we have haha). The "chicken" was black and not exactly the consistency that I had expected, but I {naively} thought it was tofu (another very common part of every meal) and took a bite of this mystery substance. Though the looks were quite odd the taste of the food was actually quite good and I chalked this mystery food up as something I like!

Enter Teacher #2: About half through my lunch another teacher comes over and we begin talking while finishing off our meals. During our conversation she sees me take a bite of my "chicken" and asks me if I enjoy it, I respond yes. {another side note...I wish my story ended here!} This is when she excitedly tells me that this is a great treat in Taiwan to have pigs blood cake! EXCUSE ME WHAT?!?!? "hmm" she says..."maybe it's ducks blood? No, I think it's pigs blood."

Fast-forward to me trying to choke down the remainder of my lunch! Apparently this "Taiwanese Treat" is sticky rice mixed with pigs blood and formed into a cake like shape and fed to locals and unsuspecting foreigners. Now I can't lie...it was good...but, I could have done without knowing what I was eating!

Ghost Festival

Let me start this post off by saying that this year is going to be a year of many new experiences and lots of new learning will take place {some learning  by the kids and tons by yours truly!}.

So Friday here in Taiwan was the 15th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar (I realize everywhere else the date was August 28, 2015, but here in Taiwan it was July 15, 104....yeah I'm not completely sure I understand this yet!) The 7th month in many Asian cultures is ghost month and on the 15th day the doors to both Heaven and Hell are opened and the ghosts are allowed to roam free with the living. (Side note! I am by no means an expert with ANY of this, this is just what I have gathered by talking to people at school and in my community). Because the ghosts are running free, their culture believes that they must feed, make offerings to, and entertain the ghosts...enter the Ghost Festival.

On this day ALL the families, business, and stores make offerings to the wondering ghosts by placing these offerings (usually food items) outside of their homes and then putting a piece of incense into each food offering signaling to the ghosts that it is for them. Food that  I saw being offered included Doritos, Oreos, beer, Mountain Dew, tea, homemade rolls, dog food....literally whatever they have, they offer! Likewise, many of the families also set up small burn barrels where they burn fake paper money as a way of giving money to the wondering ghosts.

Needless to say, I did lots of walking around town and exploring Friday night and graciously talked to many of the locals who were eager to tell me about their traditions. I took some pictures, but because I tried to do it cautiously, some didn't turn out the best, but it was still so fun to see what everyone was doing!

This family had tons of offerings...including several packs of beer!

A small offering table before the incense was placed in it. 

Their ghosts must love ramen noodles and bread!

The offering table outside of the home I am living in...and our little stray dog friend that lives at my house!

A Chinese theater show that was being presented to the ghosts outside of one of the local temples. 

The full pig that was being offered to the ghosts outside of the temple. 

The temple where 100 or more people gathered to give their ghost offerings together at the foot of the temple steps.

If you want to read more about this Ghost Month, this link as well as this one.

Back to School Shopping...

...Taiwanese style!



Pen ✔️
Pencil ✔️
Soup Bowl ✔️
Rice Bowl ✔️
Chopsticks ✔️

Looks like this teacher is all ready for class to start on Monday!

Weekend in Taipei

I'll start out with a fair warning, this post is WAY picture heavy! After a week in our respective new  homes a few of us girls that met up at orientation decided that we had earned ourselves a fun girls weekend, and what better place to do that but while exploring Taipei! After a jumble of buses, express trains, and the high speed rail  (the dang place is only 50 miles from me I swear!) we settled into our swanky little hostel and began exploring!

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- DAY 1 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 

 First things first on the relaxing agenda...dinner and drinks! Though I don't have pictures of dinner (we ate too fast!) it was absolutely delicious! 

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- DAY 2 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---