Happy Moon Festival

Or in other words...

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

One of the advantages of living outside the United States is getting to celebrate Taiwanese holidays, as well as the American favorites. 

Over the past six years, I have grown to love Moon Festival. Like many Chinese holidays, it is based on the lunar calendar.  The moon supposedly appears larger this time of the year than at any other time. Many legends surround the origins of this celebration.

In China, the story is told of of Hou Yi shooting down nine of the existing ten suns eliminating the discomfort of the extreme heat.

In Taiwan, a popular story that parents tell their children is about the rabbit in the moon. 

As is most holidays around the world, food plays an integral part. In this case, moon cakes set the stage. Moon cakes are a round pastry filled with interesting ingredients. I say interesting, because American palates are somewhat different than those of the eastern hemisphere. 



Never judge a book by its cover rings true every time I am tempted to partake of this scrumptious looking cake. Red bean paste, green bean paste, and pork are all possible surprise fillings. The one I tried this year had an egg yolk inside. 

Another popular food item is the pomelo. This is a delicious citrus fruit that reminds me of a mild grapefruit. Eating the fruit is only part of the tradition! 

It's not every day that your students come back from their Chinese class wearing fruit on their heads. 

Traditionally, parents put the pomelo rinds on their children's heads so they could easily be seen by the lady in the moon and therefore, receive a blessing from her. Nowadays, it is just a fun tradition.

While I have eaten moon cakes and tried the pomelo hat thing, they are not the reasons I love Moon Festival. 

Years ago, a barbecue sauce company aired an ad suggesting the best way to admire the moon during Moon Festival was to barbecue. The idea sparked a new tradition!

Families take to the sidewalk in front of their homes, or to a local park and fire up their little hibachi grills. Under the bright moon, they cook, eat, and enjoy each other's company. The smell of charcoal and fragrent barbecue sauce filled the air last Sunday and Monday evenings.

We enjoyed this tradition from the comfort of our balcony!

Timbula (fish paste patties), tofu, and pig's blood cake adorned my plate. Hard to believe that I once was a very picky eater!

While shopping for our barbecue food, we bought what we thought was a vegetable nicknamed Lady's Legs. Usually, long and skinny, we picked up a smaller variety. Or so we thought.

After leaving these on the grill for several minutes, imagine my surprise when I expectantly peeled away the outer layers and found this instead.

Not baby corn. Not full grown corn. Teenage corn-on-the-cob! And yes, I ate the whole thing, even the cob! Grilled red peppers, mushrooms, and clams rounded out my meal.

Naturally, the moon was our honored guest.

The family time was enjoyable.

The food was delicious!

The view was fantastic!

I can't think of a  better way to spend a Sunday evening!

In Search of Pad Thai

Carl has been fascinated with Pad Thai ever since his Nationwide days. Near his office, in the Short North, was a market. An old, Asian man ran a small take out eatery specializing in Pad Thai. Carl didn't eat out often for lunch, but when he did, this was one of his favorite places to go.

For the last five years, we had a favorite Thai restaurant that served a delicious Pad Thai- chicken for Carl; seafood for me. We went often enough that the owner knew us and knew exactly what we wanted to order.  For several years, this blissful relationship thrived.

Until one day...

We walked in and the owner sadly told us that he could no longer obtain one of the ingredients that made his Pad Thai so delicious. He went on to explain he was moving his business to an area he thought would provide more customers- a popular night market located next to a large university. He was changing the menu to accommodate the younger crowd.

That was such a sad day for us! It was the equivalent of the dreaded "Dear John" letter ending yet another delicious relationship.

But, never fear! Abbi helped us find another place that serves delicious Pad Thai, but it was different than our prior favorite. That got us to thinking about all the other places that serve Pad Thai. How many different kinds could there be? Which was the best?

Thus, the quest to find the best Pad Thai in Taichung began.

Our first stop was at Grandma's Thai.

I liked this place for its atmosphere and decor. Sadly, while somewhat delicious, its Pad Thai didn't measure up to our first love.

             Friday evening found us out again on the hunt.

Carl did the research, found another Thai place, and expertly drove  us through Friday evening traffic. Basically, I am just along for the ride!

I usually just hang on and enjoy the ride, but for some reason I decided to take out my phone and record our drive. It was an ongoing game of scooter versus bus. Watch here to see who won!

After arriving at the restaurant, we were seated and handed an all Chinese menu.

With the help of our trusty Google translate, we soon realize that this is not the place we were seeking. The proprietress came to get our order, but did not understand our questions. So she went and got another employee who spoke a little bit more English, but still could not understand. Finally,  a third person, a young woman, was brought to our table.

"No, this is not a Thai restaurant. Traditional Chinese food is served here. The place you want is down the street. I will walk you there." 

Could you imagine one restaurant employee in America walking a customer to another restaurant?  Not here in Taiwan. There are so many restaurants and so many customers that everybody doesn't mind sharing!

The place we wanted was down one block and across the street. While crossing through the intersection my forward progress was stopped suddenly. From out of what seemed no where, a woman grabbed me. Tightly hugging me, she spoke excitedly to Carl and I in rapid Chinese. 

May I remind you, I don't speak Chinese. In addition, it was now after 7pm so it was quite dark on the poorly lit street. For the life of me, I couldn't make out the face of the friendly woman. I just stood there dumbfounded as she excitedly repeated her words over and over.

Fortunately, Carl who has better eyesight and Chinese realized this was the mother of one of Ben's classmates. It all began to make sense. Their church was located nearby and as she and her son were driving down the road, they saw us. He pulled over so she could come greet us. 

Meanwhile the lady from the Chinese restaurant waited. "Were we Morrison teachers," she asked. Upon our yes, she excitedly shared how her brother often goes to our Taipei campus. Ends up, we know some of the same people. 

These chance meetings wouldn't be quite as unusual if we lived in a smaller city or were in the district in which we live, but we were  20 minutes away from the school in a city of at least 3 million people. I began to wonder who else we were going to run into!

By this point, I was starving. The dinner hour had come and passed us by. 

The Thai place fortunately had both Chinese and English menus and to our delight listed on both was Pad Thai.

We also ordered a lemon chicken dish and a green papaya salad.

 Was the food delicious?

Yes! Strangely enough, the chicken was my favorite. Odd since I barely ever eat meat at a restaurant.

Was the Pad Thai the best in Taichung?

Sadly, no. 

Our quest will continue.

T.H.I.N.K.

It's that time of year again.

It all began as a tiny spark- a desire to give our students a head start on becoming positive digital citizens.

The resulting blaze...

T.H.I.N.K. Boot Camp

No, it's not an actual boot camp. Just an intentional effort to get our students thinking.

And thinking they did.

They thought about :

T- Trustworthy

H- Helpful 

I - Inspiring

N- Necessary

K- Kind

Good life lessons whether you are on the internet or not!

One parent shared with me how she helped her child understand how her actions were not acceptable using the letters of THINK. 

That in itself makes all the time and effort that went into making this week special worth it.

This year something new was added to our list of special activities.

An extremely effective drama involving a couple of bad guys...

an innocent victim...

and two heroes who show up just in time to save the day!

Needless to say, this scenario well received.

By both the younger students, as well as the older!

Just another example of how learning doesn't always require pencil and paper.

Flashback to Summer

It took a long time in coming,

and in  a blink of an eye, it was gone.

To what am I referring?

The ever elusive, high flying summer vacation, of course.

We have been back home for over a month and our summer at home is mostly just a memory, as well as a collection of random pictures stored on my phone. 

My summer was a plethora of new experiences mixed in with the nostalgic.

When you are absent from your home culture for years at a time, you begin to think of some of things that you long to taste.

Like fried mush...

and soft pretzels.

On this list, but not pictured was good old American fire roasted hot dogs, Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzards, and Ohio grown sweet corn. I was also hoping for a sweet. yet quite unhealthy Schullers donut, but that somehow never happened. Probably for the best!

Falling into the nostalgic category was driving by my childhood home, eating some of the best pizza ever (which also was on the above list)

MTTN

MTTN

 Meet The Teacher Night

You know, when the parents come to school and "meet" their child's teacher and explore the classroom which their child spends seven hours each day.

The event the teachers spend all afternoon cleaning and straightening, not to mention decorating their classroom so its an inviting engaging environment, and then run home to freshen up and don professional attire. Somewhere in there, they gulp down dinner before returning to their classroom to set out displays and finely tuned Google slides.

Yeah.... that was Friday night.

It was a long day.... 7 am to 9:30 pm. 

Such an obedient class, just waiting for their teacher to give directions!

But, what an opportunity to make connections and open discussions! After all, isn't this a partnership between the school, the parents, and myself? MTTN is the beginning of what  hopefully becomes a successful educationally challenging, yet growing experience for every student.

It was a great way to spend a Friday night!

I put the meet above in quotations because unlike most schools in America, I see my students' parents often. Yellow school busses do not exist in Taiwanese culture. Most of my students are brought to school by a parent.Since most of these parents are the nonworking spouse, they don't just drop off their child. They park and walk their child to the classroom. In the afternoon, the process is repeated. I might also add that of my 23 students, I have taught older siblings of ten of them. 

The students took their parents on a tour of the school, as well as the classroom, earning stamps for their passport along the way. It was satisfying for me to see their excitement as they shared their book cubbies filled with their Bible, notebooks, and work folders. They were also able to share their independent reading box filled with good-fit books (at least I hope they were good-fit books. It's a work in progress)!

Being the only second grade teacher also means that I have taught the majority of al the students in the 3rd grade all the way up to 8th. It was great to see parents of former students as they made their way to different sections of the school.

But, the best part of the night was the...

smiles!

What a bunch! I really do have the world's greatest job!