Less than a Month to Go......

As each day passes, John and I get a little sadder! We keep thinking about all the things we’re going to miss in this under-rated island country! Really, one semester simply isn't enough time! We really should have tried to stay the whole year! I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but EVERYONE is VERY pleasant and helpful! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to depend on the kindness of strangers. This experience has made me much more aware of how foreigners must feel in the U.S.! I think I’m usually helpful to people in the U.S. who ask me for directions, but now I will make a special effort to make foreigners in the U.S. feel more welcome! And again, I have to mention Wanfang Hospital! I would take this hospital home with me, if I could! We’ve been bringing Luke and Lauren there for follow-ups, and AGAIN, I have to emphasize how AWESOME the care is there! I realize that the U.S. boasts the best medical schools and doctors in the world, but seriously, MANY things are done SO MUCH BETTER here, at least at Wanfang Hospital. They simply expedite everything much more efficiently and the hospital is extremely convenient. The doctors are very nice and SUPER-SHARP, and so far, generally appear to be less arrogant than doctors in the U.S. (OF COURSE, my brother is NOT one of the arrogant ones!) And the COST is simply SO MUCH less expensive than the U.S. Even though Luke and Lauren don’t have insurance here, it’s still INFINITELY cheaper than the U.S. WITH insurance. I’m REALLY sold on the national health care system they have here. This country has proven to me that it IS POSSIBLE to provide high-quality, service-oriented care for EVERYONE at a REASONABLE cost. And, Wanfang Hospital has dentists, opthamologists, family doctors, and gynecologists. They even have a Chinese medicine department. You can pretty much get all your medical care there, which is what we did—when we took Luke for one of his follow-ups, we were able to schedule a dental appointment for him as well. That SAME DAY. Right after his ear-infection follow-up, Luke saw a female dentist who spoke excellent English, and she was GREAT with Luke. She went through all the dental instruments with him, pretended they were all special toys, had Luke play with them and feel what they would do on his arm—VERY kid-friendly. And she even got him in the dental chair told him it was like a special elevator. Luke did EXTREMELY well and best of all—he had no cavities! The 2 follow-up visits for Lauren and Luke, dental appointment for Luke, and medicine ALL together cost less than $30 USD!! If they had health insurance, I’m sure it would have cost less than $10 USD.

John is going to take advantage of Wanfang hospital while he can—he’s already scheduled an appointment with an opthamologist and plans to make an appointment with a dentist!

While we were at Wanfang Hospital for the follow-ups, a couple of women came up to us and asked if we minded being in a video promoting the hospital! They wanted to feature foreign visitors! In return, they would get Lauren and Luke’s appointments pushed up. So naturally we said yes! I wanted to take pictures of this event, but the video camera was on, and I didn’t want to screw up the video with camera flashes! Of course, they adored Lauren and Luke and kept commenting on how cute they were (another thing I will miss—people here are VERY demonstrative when they think your kids are cute—we’ve all been spoiled by this). The manner in which we were asked to participate in this video was actually quite funny. A pretty woman came up to me and began speaking to me in Chinese. I totally didn’t understand her and was unable to come up with anything to say back to her. You see, many times when I don’t understand someone at first, I kind of BS my way through the conversation! I’ll say something back in Chinese that I know has NOTHING TO DO with what they said, and then they’ll look at me funny, and reword what they just said. Many times I’ll understand them after they reword what they said. But THIS TIME, I was at a loss—I couldn’t come up with any such sentence! So the pretty woman asked me, “You can’t speak Chinese?” And I said, “Not very well!” And then she just ran out of the room! I was thinking, wow, I hope I didn’t offend her by not speaking Chinese well enough! But then she came back with someone who could speak English. During this video, an English-speaking doctor conversed with us, and they filmed Lauren getting her follow-up care from Dr. Huang! I wish we could get a copy of the video!

In Taiwan it’s quite common for people to wear surgical-type masks! As I mentioned before, Taiwanese are very fearful of the cold and GERMS, so many people wear masks, especially in the hospital. All the health care workers wear them. It’s also quite common for bus and motor scooter drivers to don them. So I had to get a picture of Lauren and Luke wearing masks—they wore them for their follow-up visits!

John teaches a music appreciation class at National Chengchi University (NCCU) and he wanted to do a live performance for the class. Since NCCU does not have a music major, they didn’t have a classroom with a piano, so he held that particular class at a local high school. This local high school is in a beautiful neighborhood surrounded by mountains, so it had great views. Anyway, Greg (the doctoral student who’s helping us, Shirly (John’s teaching assistant), and Teacher Linda came with us. John and I performed a few pieces together, and I did a couple of piano solos. Afterwards, Teacher Linda took all of us to a Western restaurant on the NCCU campus, and the food was actually quite good! I provided a picture of us and don’t forget to check out the video of John and me performing—really, it’s John’s show in this instance! Unfortunately the space ran out at the end! John was also asked to coach some student music groups at NCCU. Even though NCCU does not have a music major, the students have their own music performing clubs—they are completely student-run. EVERY department has its own choir—there are 32 choirs—and they were all preparing for a campus-wide singing competition. So John helped the Department of Education choir! He was greatly impressed with the students’ drive and their obvious commitment to their extra-curricular activities. One time on a Friday night, he encountered 6 trumpet students rehearsing ensemble music! Another time he heard a trombone player practicing Mahler Symphony #3 excerpts! All at a school with NO music major! And he’s found that the students at NCCU are VERY knowledgeable about classical music—they’ve initiated discussions on the composer, Lutoslawski with him, and one student even said to him, “Oh, when I was 13, my teacher thought I was crazy that I liked Schoenberg so much!” (Many undergraduate music majors in the U.S. have barely heard of Schoenberg and Lutoslawski, and the people who have heard of them, don’t usually appreciate them). John has also noticed that there is significant student camaraderie within the departments. For instance, the speech department and law school have baseball and soccer teams. The students at NCCU obviously take pride in their music and sports activities, and these activities play an important role in their social lives. This past week-end we were still being cautious with Lauren, but she was going very stir-crazy staying at home—she was dying to get out. Since she loves night markets and hot pot so much, we went back to Gongguan night market since this area has many hot pot restaurants! I had to provide some pics of that as well! Yes, we definitely frequent hot pot buffet restaurants! They’re SO convenient, and we can always find something the kids will eat! And of course, the kids just LOVE the dessert buffet—good for bribing the kids to eat well! Next up….John conducts and performs with the Taipei National University of the Arts band….….John and I are asked to review Fulbright applications (yes, this time I was also asked!)