Taiwaneers

A huge step was taken last night in my Chinese abilities. I got out Emily’s beginner texbook from last year and, with a little help from my beautiful bride, taught myself how to write 我 (pronounced “wo”) which means I/me. Until now I have focused solely on listening and speaking and basically only knew how to write my Chinese name, 鄭明哲. Reading & writing Chinese has always seemed daunting to me but last night was incredibly fun. I think I’ll incorporate it into my studies from now on.

One weird thing that I’ve noticed lately is that whenever I read, listen, or even think about Scripture my mind wanders and its hard for me to concentrate. A part of me thinks its because I have too many things on my mind and need to properly decelerate. Another part of me feels like its an attack on my relationship with God from a third party. I can’t really tell but the mere fact that I think it might be an attack is strange because I don’t normally think of these things as being very spiritual warfare-esqe when they happen to me. For those of you who feel inclined please pray that I can focus on the Holy Scriptures.

For the past year and a half I’ve had classes every day with the same group of 43 students. As you can imagine our friendships have been deepening. Another prayer request would be that God uses these relationships for my classmates and I to ’sharpen each other’ and ‘draw (each other) closer to Him.’

Today four of my classmates and I gave a culture presentation on the United States for one of our classes. Teachers love having us do these things even when the class has nothing to do with culture. I guess I can’t blame them though as many of them only teach one or two classes in the International College (IC). We’re used to being in a very diverse classroom every day but for them its still a novelty. Anyways I presented on the South. I used a very hammed-up southern accent and taught them how to say “ya’ll” and about grits, sweet tea, southern-style BBQ, and how the confederate flag is a symbol not only of racism but also of states’ rights. It was really fun and you’ve got to love fluff assignments.

Hey all, I finally got around to editing a bunch of photos, among them the ones from our Korea trip. New albums up! Enjoy!

Emily

As our regulars will have noticed we have a new feature up on the menu. Ladies & Genleman…drum roll please…I give you the Nonsense Shirts Store!!! Its official, we’ve launched our first internet-based business selling t-shirts that don’t make any sense.

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time now. I’ve always thought the nonsense shirts here in Asia, also known as engrish shirts, were hilarious and I own several myself. I’ve used them on various occasions as gifts to friends and family. Needless to say I think they are spectacular and most of the time people agree with me….except for my Asian friends here in Taiwan who just consider them plain old shirts with bits of English on them.

My very first nonsense shirt was one I bought back in 2001 on my first trip to Taiwan with IBLP’s Children Institute Team! It had one of those stick people going through an exit door (you know the sort of drawing style that is used on bathroom signs and exit signs) with text that said “Reality From Escape”.

Since discovering engrish shirts its always been my dream to spread the merriment and earn a little bank while I’m at it. And its finally reality. Within 48 hours of the store’s launch we’ve had one person try and buy one only to discover a gliche and another person actually make a purchase right after the gliche was fixed. Several other people have been saying to look for their order soon!

I’m like a kid with a new toy. I can’t focus. I just keep on checking my email, and facebook, and Nonsense Shirts Store, and everything else looking for something new to feast my eyes on and think how great it is that Emily and I are now entrepreneurs!!!! I’m seriously out-of-control. I just got done bouncing around our apartment telling Emily how great this is as she tried to calm me down so she could do her homework.

My mind is working feverishly trying to figure out new ways to bring shipping (a huge portion of the cost) down and new ways to get the word out and blah blah blah. I catch myself thinking of all the work I’m creating for myself going to the post office all the time and sending emails and dealing with paypal and then I think: “yeah! Isn’t it great I’m creating all this work for myself!!!” God is so good to me to give me this idea and then give me nice people who are generous enough to think the idea’s good enough to fork over some of their hard-earned money.

I’m so grateful to my dad for establishing in me an entrepreneurial spirit early in life. He helped me start my own business when I was really young setting me up with a snack honor-box at his place of work. He’d take me to Sam’s Club, get me stocked up on candy-bars and salty-snacks and get me down to the office on a regular basis to re-stock and count the dough. He even taught me about keeping records and monitoring shrinkage. Thanks dad for all your training and love!

There you have it! A few days ago there was no such thing as the Nonsense Shirts Store and now it not only exists, it has customers!!!

Even though I have a lot more video footage of Korea I have run into a snag. The program I have been using to edit the footage isn’t syncing my audio with my video. Before this wasn’t really a problem because my audio was music tracks laid over the original sound with only snipits of actual audio. Now I’ve got footage that includes audio…argh. I’ll just have to put in some time and do some research.

A few weeks ago our church had a sign-up for a whole bunch of different small-groups. We signed up for one that would meet every other Friday not far from where we live. Tonight Emily and I went to our small-group’s meeting and had a great time singing some worship songs and then reading and talking through a bit of James, chapter 1. It was nice to get to know people better. One of the attendees is even going to go hiking with us tomorrow!

The whole union leadership of my class is going better (refer to previous post). I’m encouraged by the headway I’ve been making with the IC administration and the good guanxi (chinese for relationship) being developed.

I’ve started thinking about an opportunity MCU offers. In your senior year of undergrad, if you are among the top 20% of your class, you are allowed to start taking masters courses which then means you only have one year after you finish your undergrad to finish a masters. I talked to the director of my department and she was very positive. Emily will have a year of courses left after I graduate so this might be perfect. The alternative for that year would be that I take Chinese language courses and work to build up our bank but the masters is very attractive. I need to do some more research and praying though. Its sort of weird that I basically got my resume to the point where I didn’t need a degree back home and now I may end up getting a graduate degree.

At church I’ve been given a weekly task. The sermons are recorded and uploaded to the church’s blog. I’ve been asked to edit the audio file and then upload it every week. I know, I know its not the hardest or most demanding job in the world but hey. If you want to hear a sample of my work go here http://www.archive.org/details/JesusSaidiWillComeAndHealHim.

I’m currently reading Chuck Swindoll’s “Improving Your Serve.” The other day a thought struck me. I was about to read in the book but then I remembered some laundry needed folding. This led me to think about the difficulty of reading a book on servanthood. How do I read the book without being distracted by constant thoughts of how I shouldn’t be reading but instead doing something servantish….perhaps an email to Mr. Swindoll is in order.

Well school has been back in session for a few weeks now. Its strange to realize that at the end of June I’ll have finished two years of my four year degree program. “Time, time, time, see whats become of it…” as Simon & Garfunkel said.

I’m excited for this semester. So far I like all my professors. I feel like I will be challenged by many of the classes without being overwhelmed….yes indeed, that mythical feeling exists.

My schedule:
Mondays: Global Industrial Analysis in the morning and Visual Basic Programming in the afternoon
Tuesdays: International Economics in the morning and Statistics in the afternoon
Wednesdays: A glorious morning of freedom followed by Academic Writing in the afternoon
Thursdays: Physical Education in the morning and Marketing Management in the afternoon
Fridays: Environmental Issues in the morning and International Trade Regulations in the afternoon

As you can see my classes are delving even deeper into my major, International Business & Management. I’m guessing this will be one of the busiest semesters I’ll have here. The classes are getting more demanding but the schedule hasn’t let up, as it will in 3rd and 4th year.

I’ve been elected Vice-Class Leader again and have become a defacto union leader of the MCU International students. I have a lot of respect for union leaders. Balancing the anger of the mob with actually getting things accomplished has been an interesting skill to try and learn. I’ll give you an example.

Last semester we had a class with a very poor teacher. Her English abilities were severely lacking and her classes consisted of really crappy powerpoints that were read to us by her. Her tests consisted of us regurgitating her powerpoints word for word onto a piece of paper from memory. Well none of us liked her. We had several discussions about her with our department’s director. We talked with upper classmen as well who said they couldn’t stand her either. Not that she’s mean or anything, she’s just a crappy teacher. Towards the end of the semester realizing that she was scheduled to teach several of our future classes we took more direct action. Everyone in the class, except one person, signed a petition asking MCU not to have her teach us again for the remainder of our time at Ming Chuan University. We submitted it to the Dean of MCU’s International College. I also emailed the university where this teacher said she got her Ph. D from asking if I could read her dissertation. They told me they had never heard of her before. I then emailed the teacher asking her for a copy of her dissertation or to tell me what name she published under so I could find it myself. She never emailed me back and then right before this new semester was about to begin the teacher emailed our entire class letting us know that she had been reassigned to teach graduate level classes so she wouldn’t be teaching us again this semester. Needless to say I was amazed and happy! I have no idea which of the class’ actions are responsible for this victory but we are sure its a victory! The key now is learning how to duplicate this victory. Most of the “union” work I do at MCU isn’t aimed at actually making my experience better. I’ve realistically set the goal that I want the problems and kinks worked out for the students who come after me. Now there is a new dilemma and I feel like the best thing would be to give a gift back to the administration by not making a big deal about it. Appeasing the wrath of mobs isn’t easy though so we’ll just have to wait and see.

In other news my Chinese is improving. I’m learning new words and remembering them. My neurons seem to be getting along better with Chinese and I’m starting to really enjoy practicing words with friends and classmates. Recent additions to my vocabulary include: Toilet, I think, Please speak slowly, Fat, Skinny, Mean person, Looks like. To reinforce them into my memory I’m constantly asking classmates if they want to go to the bathroom or asking them if they think so-and-so looks like an elephant. Its fun!

Unfortunately I have had my last, at least for the present, tutoring session with my exceptionally excellent student Joshua. I began tutoring him in English back when we lived in Taoyuan and we’ve been meeting once a week for the last 14 months not counting when I was home for summer break. Its a bummer to lose the income. He has become a good friend and we’ve said we’ll keep in touch.

Now I’m going to go work on editing some more of our Korean vacation video!