My Corner for Education

It is Father's Day tomorrow. Here is a song that I personally love very much. On this special day, I would like to dedicate the song to my father (and in-laws) who is in Heaven looking down on us. I didn't tell my dad often enough that I loved him very much before he passed away. I guess the traditional culture we were brought up didn’t encourage us to openly disclose our love towards each other in the family.

My father and I didn't quite see eye to eye after my mother almost died from a surgical operation. I also resented him for many of his failed business attempts that affected our life for so many years. It was unbearable for me to see my mother worry about him over the years. He was the one who made me rethink about the definition and the purpose of a traditional marriage.

My father, however, was the drive that made me the way I am. I learned to be independent from the very young age. He was the one who encouraged me to be a leader and to love life passionately. He was the one who brought laughter and fun to my family. We all got his good sense of humour. If my mother was the one who instilled in me the virtues of self-discipline and diligent work ethics, my father would be the one who inspired me to be adventurous and ambitious.

The truth is, as much as I loathed my father’s faults, I love him dearly. He was a charming man and a loyal friend to many of his acquaintances. He was the listener that I shared my glory and sorrow with when I was growing up. I have the image of my father. I am my father!

For years, I have carried this guilt that I did not stay in Taiwan long enough to care for him and I did not stay with him by his death bed. I couldn’t forgive myself that I didn’t get to the hospital in time to say farewell. Every year on this day, it is like my therapy session. This song is merely my redemption for my guilt. For my father in Heaven, I love you and I miss you.

A few years ago, one of my coworkers told me once about how her daughter was dismissed from her employer on a cold winter day. We were shocked to discover that she was let go in the most degrading manner that an employer could do to their employees. With no prior notice, she was sent home in a whim after “the chat”. She was not allowed to go back to her desk to pack up her personal stuff. Apparently, the office desk is considered as the company’s property. The employee has no claim to retrieve their belongings unless with permission from the employer. Her computer password was locked immediately.

 

Nowadays, the method has sadly become a common practice for some big companies. One of our acquaintances, Keith, was recently let go from his job. His case was way worse than the one I heard before. (The characters’ names were changed to protect all the people I know.)

 

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Keith worked for a big company as an engineer for more than 20 years. He was a foreman in charge of a large production line. His job paid well but now the whole industry has been under a lot of pressure during the economy downturn. For the last two years, his company has been going through a lot of restructuring. Many of his co-workers were either stressed out with a nervous breakdown or simply retired early whenever they could. 

 

One Monday morning, Keith came to work early as usual. The plant started at 6:30 and by 9:00, the whole place was hopping. He was running around to “put our fire” as usual and to make sure the production line would move smoothly. Around ten o’clock, he got a phone call from the plant manager. The conversation went on for a while. In fact, most of the time, Keith just listened silently. By the time the phone call almost ended, a security guard already stepped closely behind him along with a nurse from the medical unit.

 

By the Taiwanese standard, I am living in a small city. However, I have noticed a lot of city folks here still have a so-called small town mentality. I actually don’t have to go too far to find people like that. The idea of writing this article came from a heated discussion I had with my Tai Chi instructor about international travel today.

 

I go to a Tai Chi club every Monday and Saturday. There are very few Chinese members in the club. In fact, I almost can count the number of Chinese members with one hand. Many of my fellow members thought that I had pretty solid kung fu skills when I first joined the Tai Chi club. (Thanks to my high school Ph Ed. Teacher and all those Kung Fu TV’s and movies I watched!) However, sometimes I wonder if they think every Chinese must be good at Chinese kung fu.

 

Most of my instructors are volunteers. So, most of them are members who took lessons from some other volunteers who took lessons from other people who happened to take lesson from the Chinese Master long time ago. (Hehehe… It is a mouthful, isn’t it?) These instructors might not have even met the Master in person ever. 

 

One senior member in my club just came back from Mexico after five months of extended stay in Mexico. We were joking about how lucky this member was to return to Canada before the swine flu hit Mexico. We have a lot of retired seniors who stay in the south during the cold winter season and come back to Canada when the spring arrives. We call them “the Canadian snow birds” because the retirees “migrate” to the south in the winter. Anyway, my young (he's my age) instructor immediately commented that he would never want to travel outside Canada. Some people chimed in right away to say that how backwards some other countries are.

 

I should have kept my mouth shut as usual when I heard his comment, but I jumped in to encourage my instructor that he should travel. I told him that I used to travel quite extensively. Travelling often offers me a totally different perspective about life, people, cultures and the world. I truly believe that travelling can help people become more open minded and respect the cultural differences. Travelling definitely has contributed to my appreciation for different cultures.

 

Looking for English Classes? Here is one.

This is one of many true stories that happened in a little school here.

 

One lunch recess, the music teacher came to the office to report her cell phone missing from her desk. Since this was the first incident of cell phone theft at the school and it was taken from a teacher’s desk, we had a serious and lengthy discussion about how to solve this problem. Teachers didn’t usually lock their classroom door, but all the doors were usually closed with the lights out at recess. For the personal belongings, we just simply locked in the desk or the cupboard. There wasn’t any sighting of visitors that day. So, we concluded that the thief could be one of the students who just had the music classes before lunch. For four classes of students who had passed by the music room that day, how on earth were we going to catch the thief without searching all the students? The body search, of course, is a big NO-NO at school.

 

All of a sudden, one teacher suggested that maybe the music teacher should dial her cell phone number and call her cell. The cell phone was locked, which meant it wouldn’t be turned off just yet without her personal password, but it would still be able to receive phone calls. What a brilliant idea! Anyway, we waited till all the classes have come inside after recess. Then, the music teacher dialed the number. Bingo! The eleven-year-old kid who stole the cell phone still had the phone in his pocket. The phone kept ringing and ringing. The teacher followed the rings and caught him right there.

 

We had a good laugh afterwards. You might think that this would be the end of the story. Well, not yet!

 

The principal later called home to his parent to report this incident. The mother finally came to pick up the child in the afternoon. She yelled at the principal that it was not his child’s fault to take the cell phone. He was just borrowing it. It was the teacher’s fault because she left her phone on her desk to “tempt” the child. What?

 

The following is an article I published at English.Tw.

 

 

Many friends have published their thoughts on why they wanted to learn English. Well, I can not type in Chinese because I don’t have any software to input Chinese characters. I am not familiar with the keypad phonetic input either. (I am a computer dummy, you see.) So, I am just going to post my thoughts in English.

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My grandparents grew up under Japanese rule, so they were quite fluent in Japanese. Every time when they had serious matters to discuss but did not want us to know, they would speak to each other in Japanese. Growing up with my grandparents in Chiayi, I realized a very important benefit of speaking a foreign language; a language is a tool to communicate, including secret messages. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get to learn much in Japanese, but only our code names in Japanese. Heheheh…)

 

When we were living in Si Men Ding, Taipei, my tall handsome neighbour, three years of my senior, was a product of interracial marriage. However, his mother later remarried and moved to the USA with the new husband. He was left to be raised by his grandparents as their son. This guy had blond hair and blue eyes but could not speak a word of English. When his grandfather died, I was the one who dialed up 411 international operators to try to locate his mother’s new phone number and delivered the sad news to her family. I realized, English is a tool that I can use to help people, and get messages across to people who are foreign to our culture outside Taiwan. (Heck, I didn’t get a date with the guy but I told myself then, I might be able to make some money speaking English one day.)

 

 I started blogging a couple of years ago to keep friends and family posted about my life in general. Honestly, the truth was that I was too lazy to write to everybody and repeat the same thing too many times. If they want to find out trivial things that happen to me daily, now they can go online to check my update on the blog. Later on, my blog became a place where I publish anything and everything (well, not exactly everything) about my thoughts. My friends and family don’t often leave comments on my blog. Instead, they email me. Meanwhile, I started to get messages from total strangers and gradually get acquainted with many of those readers who frequent my blog. Suddenly, my blog became a new social circle that I did not expect to establish in a million years. Anyway, for friends new and old, thank you for your frequent visit.

 

I didn’t expect to attract this many readers to begin with. Every time, when a website reorganized or bought out by another company, I moved camp. The one I have at Wretch is the longest one I’ve ever had. I set up a second blog at Pixnet because Wretch was not reliable at one time before it was bought out by Yahoo. The site was down quite frequently which frustrated me tremendously. With my limited time to spare, I didn’t have the patience to wait around. So, before Wretch’s transaction was finalized, I set up my blog at Pixnet as a backup. Well, little did I know, this blog attracts more people than I could have imagined. I used to be a very private person who took a big step to publish my thoughts on line. Now, the management at Wretch seems to be quite stable, and I wonder if it is still necessary for me to keep two blogs going at the same time. But, which one should I shut down, Wretch or Pixnet? What do you think?

 

 

 

Note: I discovered a new website when I was trying to look up one of my many blog sites. For those readers who are interested in learning English in a social circle or need assistance in this subject matter, check out 台灣英語網 2.0 beta at http://www.english.tw/network.html, which is an interesting site for people who plan to improve their language skills.

 

JD, a good friend of mine, quit teaching last year. It was a complete surprise to all of us. She volunteered for years at a school and went through a lot of trouble just to get into Faculty of Education to get her degree. It was a big career change for her in her late 30s, switching from hotel management to education. It took her a while to finally get a job with the school board after graduation. She is extremely passionate about education. So, I couldn’t understand why on earth she would suddenly decide to leave her teaching post.

 

Later, we finally got the whole story from her. I am not ready to disclose her side of the story just yet, but I can only say that she was distressed and totally depressed when she quit. She was a victim of institutional politics and fell under the pressure of bureaucratic hypocrisy. At one of our dinner dates, I suggested that she should just go ahead to open her own school. It has been my dream to run my own school for years. Unfortunately, I am already in the education field and it is hard for me to jump from one mud puddle to another.

 

Since JD’s sudden departure from her school, she has been working for an education centre as a literacy tutor. Two weeks ago, I sent her an email to ask her how she has been doing lately. Surprisingly, she replied to me in her email saying that she just bought a residential property and she is ready to turn it into a little kindergarten school. Boy, she has guts! In her late 40s, she took out a new mortgage as well as her life saving, she is ready to make another career move and turn her passion into a reality. Her school is currently under full renovation and is planned to open door in the coming September.

 

I admire her! When one door closes, another one opens. She was disgusted and fed up with the system and decided to take on a new mission to fulfill her dream. She wants to create an environmentally sound and welcoming institution for children with sensitive health issues. It may be a difficult time to start a new venture, but she is determined to take on the challenge and give it a shot.

 

JD, three cheers to you. I wish you all the best! BTW, if you need a night custodian, you know who to call, I will volunteer!

I have not written anything for my blogs for a while because I have been really busy at school. Plus, by the time I get home from work, I am completely exhausted. I just want to relax and recuperate. The economy is not great and, like everybody else, I am very much clouded with concerns that my life saving investment has gone south. All in all, I have not been too excited about doing any writing. I totally needed some days off. This week is my March Break and it is great to be able to sleep in, read books and temporarily purge all the heavy loads off my mind.

 

I just came back from my Monday Tai Chi Club. I used to think that Tai Chi is only for seniors who can not move swiftly or who require very low impact exercise. Boy, I was dead wrong! I quite enjoy the way that all muscles get to stretch out entirely through each slow but solid move. I usually incorporate the breathing exercise I learned from Yoga to my Tai Chi workout. It is quite amazing that I am often drenched by the end of each session. At this point of time, I think I have reached the plateau for this class. It is time to move on to a higher level of Tai Chi. Maybe, I should start looking into the philosophical essence of this Kung Fu. Any philosophical study may help a little bit at this point.