Shu Mei and I recently went through a period of emotional turmoil. It wasn’t due to our relationship problems, which still have yet to be resolved, but from the decision we had to make of whether to move to America this year or next. I won’t bore you with the pros and cons of the two options, but just state that we decided on staying in Taiwan for another year.

In this “extra” year, I have some very important goals I want to obtain. First, I want to learn to speak Chinese to the point where I can hold my own in basic conversations. Second, I want to lose 55 pounds, which would put me at my ideal weight. Third, I want to come to a conclusion on what it is that I will do, once we return to America.

That third goal looks the most daunting to me, which in no way means that the first two will be a piece of cake. It’s just that there are numerous paths I could pursue. As I have stated before, I love being a teacher. If I were to die today, I would love “Teacher” to be engraved on my headstone. I can’t think of a more meaningful job for me. I am in daily service to others, working to help them become self-motivated to the point where they desire to learn things that will help further their advancement in life. What other job can claim such a worthwhile objective?

The dichotomy is that, while the job of a teacher is of paramount importance in furthering the progression of the human race, the monetary rewards are meager. I have always wanted to make a lot of money in my life. This desire is more for my family than myself. I would love for my wife and children to experience some of the things I did, growing up in a middleclass family. As of yet, I haven’t been able to give them anything beyond the bare essentials. If I were to continue being a teacher, I would undoubtedly never make enough money to buy them things.

I understand that happiness doesn’t come from money, but there were certainly a lot of happy times I shared with my parents and siblings that involved things that cost money. To date, my wife and I have had to make due with what we have, and try to find other ways to make life more enjoyable for our children. We take our sons to the park, to go kite flying, or to the ocean, to go wading, or to a local amusement park that isn’t too pricey. Doing things like that keeps us living within our means and helps Billy and Tyley experience the joy of doing things as a family. Still, it is difficult to have come from such a privileged youth, as I did, and not be able to provide the same things to your children.

So, do I opt for a path that could lead to making more money, throwing myself back into the corporate world that stressed me out to no end? Or, do I continue working at the job that has given me the greatest satisfaction I could have ever imagined? If I go for the latter course, I would have to return to college and pursue a teaching degree, something I’ve been without as a teacher here in Taiwan for over seven years. It hasn’t been an issue here, as my experience has gotten me to where I wanted to be. However, teaching jobs in the U.S. are more about what’s on paper than what is in your head. I don’t know how many credits they would accept from my years in college before, toward the teaching degree, but I imagine it wouldn’t be many. Just off the top of my head, I’m guessing I’d have about two years of schooling to go in order to get the degree.
So, I have a lot of thinking to do about what my future direction should be. I’ve been praying about this every night, along with asking for the motivation to follow-through with my goals. With Our Heavenly Father’s help, I hope to steer the course of my family’s future in the right direction. Without His help, I’m lost. Personally, I am way in over my head with this whole life thing. I wonder if in the pre-mortal life I really knew what I was getting myself into.

I can’t understand why people still read this weblog. I mean, it is so full of doom-and-gloom that I don’t believe it would be interesting to anyone. However, there are some diehard readers that have sent me email, letting me know that they’re still reading my entries here. It isn’t my goal, but this entry should be the final nail in the coffin and serve to lose all of them. I appreciate all the words of encouragement that I’ve received, and I think that through reading my weblog entries, some people have come to understand me better than some of family members and closest friends.  However, a lot of things have been brewing up inside of me for a while, and I am set to make the mother of all negative weblog entries now.  Obviously, nobody has the desire to read about a lot of depressing notions. Besides, I am certain that this will turn out to be an extremely lengthy entry and will undoubtedly bore the pants off of anyone attempting to read it.

As I stated, I’ve had a lot of inner angst lately. I use the word “lately” liberally here, for this pervasive sadness has accompanied me for several years. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I was happy for very long. Certainly, there were moments, like when my sons were born, but no long drawn-out periods of great bliss. For the most part, each day has been worse than the day preceding it. I have a lot to be thankful for certainly.  I just tend to lood at the cup as being half empty rather than half full.

Last summer’s happening is a perfect example of this. That is when I found myself without a job. I had been working as a high school teacher for five years at Chih-yung High School in Dajia. The high school is a mere 15-minute drive from my home in Cingshuei. Although the high school is at the lowest-possible academic level (i.e., anyone can enter, irregardless of their high school entrance test scores), I tolerated it, choosing to focus on improving my techno-skills in presenting multimedia lessons to the students with the latest gadgetry. I was fortunate to have a fairly modern listening lab as my classroom, complete with headsets, monitors, and testing consoles for all the students. I strived to use the latest electronic presentation means I could get my hands on to incorporate in my teaching.  As time went on, I learned a lot about the various media I was using and felt at ease using it in my classroom.  I felt very positive about the things I was doing.  It came as a big surprise at the end of last school year, when I was notified that my contract would not be renewed for the next school year.  The shock of that news stressed me out immensely.

Friends and family members tried to convince me that it was a good thing.  I can’t tell you how many times people told me the “one door closes, another door opens” line. However, I couldn’t get past the unfairness of the whole thing. In my mind, I had been a very good teacher there. The school administration had never had a problem with me. On the contrary, I was given high-praise various times during my time there. No reason was provided to me as to why I wasn’t welcome there for a sixth year of teaching. It was just told to me that the Principal (and part-owner of the school) ordered it to be that way. At the time, there was one other foreign teacher there. He did not return the next school year, either. However, it was by choice that he didn’t return, opting instead to return to his homeland of New Zealand. In the next school year, only one foreign teacher worked there. I don’t know how the school felt about him, but suspect he was probably treated equally as bad, too.

The things I had to deal with at Chih-yung were troubling. Much of it led to my belief that there is racism in Taiwan. I could find no other answer to the questions that arose as to why that school mistreated me like that. From the beginning, the administration there treated us as inferior employees, choosing to not involve us in every teacher meeting and social event. We were not monitored in the least. I could have been teaching Portuguese, instead of English, for all they knew. I never once had a review. Despite that, I endeavored to be the best English teacher I could be. I tried everything to reach those under-achieving students that attended Chih-yung. My actions ran the gamut from severe punishments to over-the-top praise in order to get results from the students there. It was all to no avail, though. They had already been burned out to the point of not caring far before I began teaching them. Sadly, the system made them only worse. The best teacher in the world couldn’t have ignited a fire under them.

I asked the school administration how I was doing several times. Despite the fact that they really had no idea, they told me I was doing a great job. There was never much communication beyond that. Our classrooms were as far away from the administration’s office as they could be, at the top of a 6-story building in the corner of the campus. We learned about special happenings from the students. Often times, we learned that our classes had been canceled only when students didn’t show up. Rarely was there ever any advance notice of events. We were given a schedule at the beginning of the semester, but changes were common and updates were not. Still, whenever the school needed a teaching demonstration or a picture for their recruiting paraphernalia, they came to us. During my last year at Chih-yung, I gave a teaching demonstration which was attended by all the English department teachers, save one. The head teacher didn’t attend. Neither did anyone else from management. I was later told that it went very well. It was at that time when I began wondering about my future with the school. Why were they praising me from hearsay, instead of actually experiencing my demonstration for themselves? Little did I know that my concerns were not without warrant.

I guess that Chih-yung High School’s administration was tolerating me just like I was tolerating them. Their tolerance was a bit less than mine, though, as
those who readily gave me praise, before it was decided that my contract would not be renewed, gave me the cold shoulder, after. I don’t know what had been going on behind closed doors, only what I saw – an abrupt change in how I was treated. Those who I thought were supportive of me there treated me as their worst enemy, once the decision came down that I was no longer welcome. Needless to say, it wasn’t a pleasant farewell. I still harbor bitter feelings for how I was treated there.

My wife, Shu Mei, was not supportive during that point. The truth is that she has never been supportive when I really needed it. (I hesitated to use the word “never” but couldn’t think of one instance where sought-after support was received from Shu Mei.) This is a very cold, harsh fact, because I feel confident that I have given her the support she wants during times of turmoil. For example, I encouraged her to have faith in our marriage repeatedly during our first year of marriage. I needed to. Otherwise, we would have been divorced. It was during that first year that Shu Mei asked for a divorce six different times, because I voiced disagreement with her. Four of those six times weren’t even what could be classified arguments, just disagreements. To Shu Mei, a simple disagreement by me was cause for divorce. With Shu Mei, it is either her way or the highway.

Shu Mei possesses an over-abundance of stubbornness and selfishness. As long as I agree with her, everything is fine. The second I utter a word contrary to what she is saying, things get very messy. Typically, Shu Mei will get very upset and shut down. She has gone four or five days without saying a thing to me. When I try to break her silent treatment, with encouraging words, she goes into a very hating tirade, verbally assaulting me with a barrage of put-downs, followed by a demand for a divorce. With Shu Mei, there is no gray area, only black or white. The last time we had a disagreement, she told me that I am an ugly man and she hated everything about me. This kind of mistreatment has been going on for seven years. All the while, I have hoped that she could see that all is not so terrible, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to continue doing that.

Much of the difficulty I continue to face with Shu Mei stems from our background differences. A lot of our background comes from culture, but the brunt of it comes from how we were raised. Shu Mei seems to be continuing in the same manner as her parents did, while I am venturing away from some of the things mine did. Shu Mei was raised in a bizarre family, from my perspective. Her father is the quintessential man’s man. He has the demeanor of a prideful king, choosing to socialize with those on his same economic level and no one else. According to Shu Mei, he only spoke to his wife and two sons, ignoring his two daughters altogether. That condition remains to this day. If my wife calls his house and he answers the phone, he simply hands the phone to his wife and doesn’t speak to Shu Mei. When we attend social functions at his house, it is the same. He literally disavows the existence of his two daughters. Shu Mei says that he shows his acceptance and love for them in other ways. He has given them material things in their life. Shu Mei claims that she has had no problem with that situation. At first, I didn’t believe she could feel that way, but now I’m inclined to think she’s being honest. In fact, she has assimilated that atmosphere into our family, with her taking the role and temperament of her father.