what we miss & what we gain

This started as a post on what we miss, and turned into...what we gain. These are the kids, Han-3 yrs, Lin-5 yrs, and Mei-Yun-4 yrs and if we can remember why we're here, all else is just periphery, right?

This week, Dada School got 2 more volunteers, a couple from Ireland. We figured 7 volunteers was overkill and wanted to clear out so the new couple could make friends with the kids more easily. Most of our outings thus far have been fairly locally, by train or through John and Ching’s transport and guidance.

We are in the north-Taoyuan County, light blue west of Taipei, and are headed to the beach in Kenting at the southern tip-light green. It was a classic travel day…too much time spent on trying to do the video chat with Han only to have it not work. We left later than we’d planned, took a train to a neighboring town, spent TOO long figuring out where the shuttle bus was to the High Speed Rail (HSR), and made it on finally.

HSR was super quick, considering we were going most of the length of the island. Once we got to Kaoshuing, we met a driver for the rest of the trip; that took about 5 broken English phone conversations (thank you for a phone to have the conversation on) to figure out where we were supposed to be. You forget all of the variables involved in finding locations and the attendant details that our lack of Chinese brings. And as a sidenote, even our fellow volunteer (who says he speaks Chinese at about a 6 year old level) pointed out that he knows very little of the written language, so he could potentially have nearly as much trouble as us.

Note: these are not complaints! But I thought it would be fun to highlight what we miss, now that we’ve been here 3 weeks and have gotten our feet plenty wet! Max is at the top of our list…especially for Sam and Tom. Each time the kids presented the power point on Alaska, Sam went on and on about Max. Even a relative stranger at church got to hear about the dog. Sam also misses cold weather—classic grass is greener, right? I miss ice cold water-that is not part of the culture. No drinks during meals either. I also miss showers that have a door, so that the entire floor of the bathroom doesn’t get wet. Yes, I am spoiled, I know.

And finally, since we have the proof…I was EMBARRASSINGLY happy at Costco last week. I had no idea Costco was in Taiwan, and loved just wandering around. But I know all of you women out there are with me on that one!

Emma misses “regular” bathroom stuff…like being able to put toilet paper down the toilet (which we can’t do in JhongLi)…and being in public places where there is no toilet paper and squat toilets, yes, I miss that too. She also misses your occasional meat based meal; needless to say, we can track down these things-it’s not that they don’t exist, just that they’re hard to find. So....bottom line is that we're all extra grateful for all that we have; it's good to get outside the proverbial comfort zone to see the good.

touring taoyuan county and adoption update

On the most recent holiday, Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day), school was out, so we had a chance for our own outing. Celebrants clean the tombs of their ancestors and give food offerings, and it also marks the beginning of spring. We went the easy route and took a shuttle bus that went to various sites in Taoyuan County, a county just southwest of Taipei.

We spent the majority of our time at two sites; the first was Daxi (pronounced Dah-shee). Daxi has an older (baroque) main street akin to some of the markets we’ve been to, populated with food vendors, woodworking shops and various and sundry tourist stops.

There is a lovely park situated high above the river bank with huge trees and performers who land spinning tops onto bottles or play a bamboo flute complete in native dress. Tom did a great video of this. (note, each top is actually spinning; when one slows down, he grabs it and starts over.) topspinner

For us Alaskans, shade is beginning to matter as the heat and humidity in Taiwan rise noticeably. We heard from a native here that the temperatures only rise after Tomb Sweeping Day. An old Baroque style bridge crosses the river, and the pace in Daxi is slow and calm. A few stops later, we disembarked at Chiang-Kai Shek (CKS) Mausoleum and grounds in Cihu. The first thing that jumps out is the over 100 statues of CKS in gray, deep red, army green and black.

They were moved to the site from schools and parks across Taiwan when the KMT (Kuomintang party, the party that left mainland China when the Communists took over) was voted out and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came into power. It appears that this is recent (last 10 years) and that Taiwanese feel that CKS reflects a dictatorship and that they are a democratic country now. There was a lake with numerous black swans, the changing of the guard at the mausoleum and a small museum type display. At the end of the day, we were wiped out...again-heat and humidity win again!

Adoption Update: We've tried for over a week to do a video chat with the youngest adoptive boy, Han han and had various technical challenges each time. We hope it finally works tomorrow. One side benefit was that a few days ago, I was able to instant chat with the social worker who oversees him for over an hour, so I got lots of information about him and his likes and dislikes etc. That is really the first solid in country information I've been able to get first hand! We also heard that the other social worker from Yunlin County, where the kids are originally from, located the birth mother, but she doesn't return their calls. This has been reported to the judge, so now we see if more efforts at contact are required or if things can progress. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers to this end; even though I knew the process would be bureacratic, it has still been really frustrating at times. (And I know our process has been fast relative to many I've heard and read about).