Halloween in Chai-yi!

  Today the faculty and students of Lincoln American English School donned their grotesque, and for the most part improvised, garb and headed down to the bustling city centre of Chai-yi  -- not an easy task for about 200 students and 20 staff members.  I'm sure we looked a very strange bunch descending the steps of the bus to take the trek along the business core.  When we reached the roundabout, I actually observed traffic slow to a trickle as they all turned their heads to gape at our unusual posse.  Our first stop was a lingerie store (as was the eleventh).  Other stops included a sunglasess shop, two bakeries, many jewelry stores, and some clothing stores.  I wonder if any of the children noticed that the candy distribution was strikingly similar at each establishment (our boss bought the candy and dropped it off before our arrival...).

    The costumes were similar to those at home: Spiderman, Harry Potter, princesses, vampires, etc.  I, in my usual preference of non-conformity, decided to go as outer-space.  This was very easy.  I simply purchased two sheets of yellow construction paper, cut out an array of stars, planets, shooting stars, a moon and even a spiral galaxy.  I then dressed up in black shorts, black shirt and a black hat, all of which were conveniently available at my apartment.  At the stationary store where I had purchased the paper,  I had also procured a roll of scotch tape to affix these cut-outs to my costume.  As I felt an explanatory was in order,  I wrote out on a blank piece of paper: "Space: the Final Frontier" in block letters and taped it to my back.  This took me all of one and a half hours to throw together, the same duration of time I actually wore the costume.  To be honest, I was pretty proud of my innovation, and it did look pretty good.  Unfortunately, the stars kept falling and I was continuously stopping to pick them up and re-attach them.

    Quite surprisingly, my children, in fact all the children, were tremendously well behaved.  I was hoping that a few of them would venture into the busy street to be struck by cars, or a bus... not fatally of course... perhaps only an injury that would put them out of school for a few weeks (Just joking).  At the onset of this expedition, everything seemed to be in chaos; students were running about the school like the monsters they looked like, I had trouble keeping them in two lines holding hands ("what do you mean I have to hol hands with Kevin!"... a student you may remember from a previous newsletter) and nobody seemed to know what was going on.   I was not looking forward to the experience.  But all seemed to go very well and the time passed really fast.   I actually ended up enjoying taking my students trick-or-treating

    Needless to say, this was a brilliant publicity stunt on the behalf of Harris, the director of our school.  Not only did we foray down the busiest street of city, but we stopped at one of the busiest street corners to display a large school banner while Harris took countless photos... one or more of each class, separately.  It has actually become a well established routine to take to advantage of these free advertising opportunities... with the cooperation of staff of course.  When in Kenting, we must have stopped at four different busy places to do the same thing... with only the teachers.

  Other than that, not too much new.  Tomorrow is the real Halloween, so I will bring in some candy for my students, play a few games, but ultimately I must get back to teaching English.  I must admit, I am beginning to enjoy this class. I have learned to love each student in his or her own way: they are all very different and each has an individual personality which adds to the dynamism of the class.  I have also discovered some different techniques of controlling their behavior without punishing them outright, and these seem to be working for the time being.

     Be free and fructify!