Upon returning home from teaching the Ch’ing-shui class, Shu Mei was once again waiting with dinner ready. This time, she was actually outside when I drove up. She appeared excited to see me, which is a rarity with her. She is always so serious. She had prepared a wonderful steak and rice dinner. She apologized that there were no potatoes. (What is it with foreign people thinking we Americans can’t live without potatoes.) I told her that the rice was great, and it was. Actually, it was a mixture of rice, eggs, and vegetables. Frankly, the potatoes here are nothing to write home about. Most of them are no bigger than a cherry tomato, not the kind of spud you’d see in… say… Idaho.

After dinner, Shu Mei wanted to know if I wanted a massage. Thinking she had gone off the deep end, I told her that she better take it easy and not try to recover from her marathon of sick days so quickly. She informed me that she didn’t mean that she wanted to do the massaging, she wanted to know if I wanted to go somewhere with her and get one. Still, it was a great gesture and an offer I couldn’t refuse. We hopped in the van and headed toward Wu-ch’i.

On the way there, I told Shu Mei that I had noticed that the van was having some trouble. I told her that it was cutting in and out, like we had some bad gas in it, or the fuel pump wasn’t working correctly. I am not mechanically inclined, by any means, but my father is. He has told me, time and time again, when a problem is noticed it is best to take care of it immediately, before it becomes worse. I passed that bit of advice on to Shu Mei. She said that it is probably bad gas, that sometimes cars here get bad gas and do what I was describing. So, on we went to a place Shu Mei had seen once. It had a sign shaped like a foot, indicating reflexology to me, hanging outside. Obviously, the Chinese characters indicated what was inside to Shu Mei. We walked in.

What transpired over the next two hours was definitely not a massage. There was a man, in the bottom level of his home, made into a sort of homeopathy shop. He had some boxes of Herbalife products strategically located next to some “before” and “after” snapshots of people hanging on a wall. Also, he had three massage tables in the rear of the shop. He performed what Shu Mei said was the “Chi procedure” on me.

I understand that this is an ancient culture and has many wonderful and insightful things to teach the outside world, but I do not think that their version of massage is one of them. Now, a Thai massage… that is a different story! When I went to Thailand, I got the most wonderful massage I have ever had! It was sheer heaven. I have had massages in many countries of this world and nothing can compare to that one. The girl put her whole body into it. Ah, it was wonderful!

Back to the “torture session”. I call it that, because what the man did was basically stab his thumbs into my stomach repeatedly. After each thrust, he asked me, through Shu Mei the interpreter, if I felt heat. Shu Mei said that he was trying to bring the “Chi” up and down through my legs. I only felt like I had gas. I guess the “Chi” wanted to go somewhere else.

At first, I was stupid and told him the truth. I said I didn’t feel anything. Then, stab! Again, he thrusted his fingers into my stomach. After a few times of that, I told him that I did feel the heat. (Actually, my forehead was sweating from all the pain he was inflicting upon me.) I told Shu Mei that I would definitely feel pain the next day, as I knew he was causing some serious internal bruising. She said that I wouldn’t, that the procedure was ancient and will help me. I wondered how it would help me. I mean, aside from the occasional crick in my neck, I was feeling okay. I just wanted a relaxing massage, not a torture session.

Soon, I found myself telling him that the heat was quickly, very quickly, moving down and out through my feet. Halleluiah! I was cured! He seemed pleased with his efforts. Then, he proceeded to punish the delicate muscles and blood vessels in my neck, while he gave Shu Mei a sales talk about the benefits of Herbalife.

Upon leaving “the dungeon”, Shu Mei asked me if I wanted to sign up for 5 more sessions, that he had a package special. Holding my breath, I laughed. I didn’t want her to feel bad that she had gone to so much effort this evening to make me feel good. She is truly a special woman. I told her that I would think about it.

When I got home tonight, Shu Mei opened up the front door as I approached it and gave me a big hug and kiss. That was something she had never done before and it felt good. In addition, she had dinner ready for me, another first. It was a good one too, some sort of Chinese shrimp dish. What a great way to come home.

I thought that she might be feeling better, as she has been getting sick on a daily basis for quite some time. However, shortly after we ate, Shu Mei got sick. Seeing her like that really makes me appreciate what the woman that gave birth to me must have gone through. She must have been a courageous woman, knowing that she was going to give me up for adoption and still enduring all of the physical suffering. Although I appreciate my mother far more for the sacrifices that she made for me in the subsequent years, I am thankful for that woman who gave birth to me. Why, I owe her my life, of course.

I don’t want to get off on my pro-life tangent here. I’ll save that for a later date. I want to talk about the experiences I went through today.

Waking up, I could hear the rain pounding against the side of our house. It reminded me of when I lived in Brazil, during the monsoon season. Living in Phoenix, I experienced what they like to call a monsoon season, but it was nothing compared to what occurs in these tropical climates.

Also, this morning, there was plenty of thunder to go along with the rain. I have never heard thunder so load and long in duration. It was as if half the sky was in a great battle against the other half. Repeatedly it roared overhead. I wondered if it would ever stop. Then suddenly, both the rain and thunder stopped. For about ten minutes, all was quiet.

Then, the rain began again. This time, it was not accompanied by the thunder. The war must have moved to a different battleground. I love the rain. It comes at a good time, too. The news reported that parts of Taipei were undergoing water rationing last week and it would soon occur farther south, in the area where we live. Undoubtedly, today’s rain put a cork in those plans. I am so thankful that I do not have to undergo water rationing. Who knows what that would entail!?

Colin today…well, was Colin. No, actually he sat by me on our new sofa and paid attention, for the most part. Because he is an active boy, he did squirm about a bit, but he managed to learn a few things in the process. (“Process”, I like that word. Unfortunately, it is overused in the corporate world. It seems that everything is called a “process” at “the company”.)

Shu Mei wants to buy a car. She said that riding in the van is too uncomfortable for her. She feels that the van is partly responsible for her getting sick all of the time. I do not follow that analogy, because the van rides a lot smoother than a car. However, if that is how Shu Mei feels, then… well… that is how Shu Mei feels. So, she has sent a check to my mother from the US account, so my mother can wire it to the Taiwan account. After that process (there is that word again) is complete, we will begin looking for a car.

Shu Mei already has her preference in the type of car we will buy, a white Toyota Camry. White is her favorite color. Green is mine. Not just any green, but forest green. Our living room is done in a forest green motif. Our new sofa is, of course, forest green in color. As for white, we have very little in that color. So, I guess we will have to look for a white Toyota Camry. In addition, she wants a four-door, because “two doors are rude.” (What she meant by that is when we give people a ride and they have to sit in the back seat, she thinks it is rude to make them push the front seat forward so they can get back there. I think that they should just be glad we are giving them a ride.)

The school went relatively smooth. Shu Mei taught the morning hours and had a bit of a mishap. One of the children, “John”, cut the finger of another child, “Bill”, with a pair of scissors. It was a small cut, so nothing to write home about. However, Linda had to explain it to the parents. That could have been hairy, but I was told it went okay.

When I got there, all of the morning children were taking their midday nap, as usual. I began teaching the afternoon children, the older children. Today, I focused on helping them write some words. They learned words such as “strong” and “weak”. (I used myself as the example for “strong”, of course.) I also used them as a sort of testing grounds for an idea I had.

As a child, I loved playing with Lego’s. Recently, I bought some Lego’s for the school. Actually, they are Lego knockoffs, but work for our purposes. I used to love building cars out of the pieces and play demolition derby with my friends, who had built their own cars. We would get in opposite sides of a room and send our cars rolling toward each other to the center of the room, where they would smash together. Pieces of Lego’s would fly everywhere. It was very fun!

I decided to make this a game for the Ch’ing-shui students. Using the schoolchildren as guinea pigs, I tried it out. What I found out from them is that they are a lot smarter than I was, as a child. Instead of pushing their cars to the center of the room in reckless abandonment, they hesitated. You see, each of them knew that the first car to be pushed out into the center of the room was a sitting duck. None of them wanted to have their car be the first, the one that would be obliterated. (Isn’t there a law of physics that deals with this situation?)

So, I adapted and changed the rules of the game a bit. I made it so the first one past a line on the other side of the room was the “strong” one. Although that really does not have anything to do with “strong”, they enjoyed the game and learned the words. I felt that I could still use the Lego’s in Ch’ing-shui for the original game concept. If they demonstrated the same hesitation, I could always alter the rules again.

The children got riled up during the art period. Keeping with our dinosaur theme, I had them make miniature dinosaurs out of clay. (After they harden tomorrow, they will get to take them home.) Their high energy level passed over into the kitchen period. So, I had them all sit down and be quiet for a full minute. Usually, this works, but it didn’t today. So, I told them that if they were good, they could eat. If they were bad, they would not eat. This also works, in a pinch, but it didn’t today. Therefore, I picked out the one who was being the most boisterous, “Bill”, and took his plate away from him. I said, “Bill, you’re not eating”. He started crying.

Now, Bill is one of our quickest learners right now. In addition to that, he is such a sweet boy. He just happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. I had to follow through or they would eat me alive in the future. (I have found that out the hard way. With children, threats do not amount to a hill of beans.) I told “Bill” that if he wanted to cry, he should go to the bathroom. He kept crying. So, I pointed to the bathroom and said, “Go!” (I felt bad, but I had to be stern.) He walked sullenly to the bathroom.

I looked at the clock. In one minute, I was going to go get him and, after a brief talk with him, bring him back to the kitchen. However, a few moments after he left he began crying hard from the bathroom, yelling something in Chinese. I asked “Billy”, another child who is about the same age as “Bill”, around five years old, what “Bill” was saying. “He wants to go to the bathroom,” he said. I said, “He’s already in the bathroom.” “No,” he continued, pointing at his crotch, “He wants to go to the bathroom.” “Oh,” I said, realizing what he meant. I headed to the bathroom. Before I got there, Linda had already helped him “go to the bathroom”. He thought that he just had to stand there and could not do anything. Poor boy. He is such a sweet kid. I felt like such a mean teacher. However, I still believe that I had to do it. It certainly restored the peace during the kitchen period. Not a peep was heard in the room after that.

Ch’ing-shui was a wreck. I did manage to eek out some education during the first half of the class. Nevertheless, the Lego’s game was a flop. They got too into the making of the cars and forgot about learning the words and speaking English. Several times during the process (I spent too many years in corporate America), they spoke out to one another in Chinese. That is a big no-no and I had to take circles from them for doing it. (Each table has two students seated at it. They get circles on the whiteboard for good behavior and taken away for the opposite, according to their table number. At the end of class, the table with the most circles gets five tokens each.)

Overall, it was a productive day. The night was spent talking to Shu Mei about the baby, changing the bedding, and responding to email.

After my brief and rather depressing entry yesterday, I am glad to report that today was a pretty good day. I did wake up still feeling ill, but I have grown accustomed to that. I could count the days that I have been healthy, since moving here, on one hand.

Let me digress and explain that “one hand” thing. Normally, one from my generation would take that to mean 5 or less. However, the kids nowadays can use one hand to count up to 9. What is more amazing to me, and a practice of theirs I found out recently, was that they can count up to 99 with both hands. I used to joke about people counting with their fingers, that they couldn’t count past 10. Well, now they can, and do.

Before I get to the happenings from today, I must report that my website passed the 200 hits mark today. Although I figure that my mother is half of those hits, that is still pretty decent. I didn’t know anyone cared. You know, I have a “Citizen Kane” complex. (The movie must be seen to understand that last comment.)

Regarding today, I had another busy schedule. I woke up at the crack of dawn, in order to meet some workers that came to our house. They made and installed screens on most of our windows. Also, they made a big screen for our outside our bedroom. We have a patio outside of our bedroom. Shu Mei and I think that the cockroaches might have come from there. The screen now covers the entire opening, so that will stop any more roaches from coming in.

There is a belief here that a pregnant woman cannot be around construction where holes are being put in things. I don’t know where the belief comes from, but her mother holds strongly to it and Shu Mei respects her mother. So, she couldn’t be around the men installing the screens. She went to the school to teach the morning class. I stayed home. While the men installed the screens, I vacuumed out the window sills and installed some weather stripping around the back door sill. I’m becoming quite domesticated!

Also, I finished making an audio recording that I began a few weeks ago. The project was supposed to have been completed over a month ago, but procrastination and computer problems (I use the computer to record), led to this long delay. The audio recording is a companion to the Up and Away English program, Student Book Level 1. We are using that book with the students in the Ch’ing-shui class. One of them, Linda, needs extra help with pronunciation. Therefore, I have been making this companion audio recording. In its entirety, it is about 3 hours. I was transferring it from CDs to audio cassettes.

After the men left, I took a late morning shower. I thought I heard the doorbell ring, so I jumped out and put a towel around me. Going to the bedroom patio, I didn’t see anyone. It must have been a gecko lizard, as they make a chirping sound similar to our doorbell. Shu Mei says that our doorbell sounds like a bird chirping, but I have never heard a bird chirp quite like that. It does sound somewhat like a gecko.

Speaking of the gecko lizards, they are everywhere. When I went to get a drink of water, filtered water thanks to Nu Skin, a gecko was hanging from the water faucet. I don’t know who was more startled, him or me. He was just hanging there, like he was expecting the faucet to go on at any time. The ironic thing was that he ran away, as soon as I turned it on. Dumb gecko; I would have let him get a drink. I like geckos. They kill bugs.

Shu Mei, on the other hand, equally hates bugs AND geckos. I take that back, she hates cockroaches more than anything, then all other bugs and geckos. She says that the geckos make a mess, of their feces (“poo”), everywhere. I told her that dead bugs are contained in that stuff. I tell her that this is a good thing, but I can’t convince her of that. She simply does not like them.

Anyway, I went back and finished my shower and then greeted Colin at the door. I forgot to mention that we got our sofa in the midst of all this activity. Apparently, Colin didn’t know that it was a new sofa. From his actions, I gather that he thought it was a Disneyland ride and he had an endless supply of E tickets. (In my younger years, one would receive, for a price, a packet of tickets when s/he went to Disneyland. The tickets contained in the packet were labeled with letters, depending which kind of ride they were for. E tickets were good for any kind of ride. Therefore, they were the best.) Needless to say, “Colin, get off of the couch,” was the sentence of the hour.

I hope that Colin is retaining the things I am trying to teach him. It appears that he is progressing, but I am not certain at this point. One thing is for certain, he has a great deal of energy. Because of this, he loses interest very quickly. I am challenged to find ways of getting his interest in the subject matter, phonics, back. Regarding phonics, I am becoming more familiar with it with each passing day. I really believe that I could have spoken English a lot better at an early age, if I had been taught phonics. I think that what I was taught was called “whole word learning”.

After the tutor session with Colin, I went to the school and took over for Shu Mei. She went to her brother’s house to rest. There is a new dinosaur exhibit at the Ch’ing-shui Art Museum, so Linda and I took the children there. I will put some pictures on the website from there this week. The class, which consists of 10 children, had a very good time. I learned that I can still keep control over them, with a little help (a.k.a. “Linda”).

After the museum, I went to Ch’ing-shui with Shu Mei. She went upstairs to her parents and I taught the one-hour class. A few of the children had a difficult time understanding what a noun is, but the majority picked it up. The few that didn’t understand were laughed at. It wasn’t a mean spirited laugh, but more of an empathetic laugh. They, the ones that were having a tough time, just laughed along too. They are a really close class. Shu Mei gave me the idea of moving the children around periodically and using the ones that pick things up quicker to help the slower ones.

After the class, I told Linda’s (Linda the student, not my coworker) that I will bring the audio cassette tapes in for her tomorrow. She was happy about that. Also, I asked her to make certain Linda brings a writing book in tomorrow. I want her to practice writing, not just pronunciation.

After that, I joined Shu Mei upstairs. She said that she had just gotten sick and needed to eat something. Taking the opportunity, I told her I wanted to go get a haircut, while she ate. She said that she would join me, after she ate. So, off I went to get my hair cut.

The girl that cut my hair did a really good job. The barber shop, located about one block from Shu Mei’s parents’ house, is ran by an elderly man and his daughter. They, like many families here in Taiwan, live above their business. The daughter tried to speak to me, as she cut my hair. She speaks very little English, but managed to tell me about the two boys that ride bicycles and wear white shirts. She said that they were from America, but spoke Chinese. Immediately, I knew she was speaking of the Mormon missionaries. She said that she liked to talk with them.

Toward the end of my haircut, when the straight razor was being used (they don’t do that in the US anymore, after the AIDS scare came about), Shu Mei came in. I came to find out that Shu Mei was an old classmate of the girl who was cutting my hair. They spoke a bit, the girl telling Shu Mei that she remembered her a lot skinnier. For some reason, Shu Mei didn’t tell her that she was pregnant. AND, the comment by the girl wasn’t taken as being rude. What a different culture this is!

After the barber shop, Shu Mei and I drove about 30 minutes to the hospital, where her doctor works, for her monthly exam. We had hoped that he could tell us the sex of our child. However, the fetus was in a difficult position for him to do that, so we will have to wait until next month. In the interim, he suggested that Shu Mei get a blood test on the fetus to see if it has Down Syndrome. We already decided the test wouldn’t be needed, as it doesn’t matter to us. We will gratefully accept the baby, no matter what problems or conditions it has. This is truly a gift from God and we are so happy for it.