The story so far …

 

So it has been a while since I blogged anything due mainly to not that much happening most of the time but I will sum up some stuff that has happened.

The main thing that has been happening is adjusting to Connor, we have had a real hard time sleeping in the beginning. He would wake up a lot through the night crying and to be honest we have been a bit clueless in the beginning, that coupled with our already unusual schedule of getting up at 3am to work for Eve’s parents then back to bed till around lunchtime hasn’t really helped him.

They should sample a baby crying and use it in alarm clocks as I am willing to wager that it for me at least is a sound that you cannot sleep through.

Things got better though, we got more confident, he is really healthy and happy. Everyone you meet when you have a baby is suddenly an authority on how you raise a baby and they are not shy about telling you there way, even if the way you are doing things is not wrong just different (more modern approach to their traditional ways). It is lucky I do not know the Chinese for “Fuck Off” as I fear I would use it too often. Now I am not being difficult, just because people are being nice, the fact is most of the information they give out is wrong or old and there exists new and easier ways to deal with things. People can make you doubt yourself with what they say, make you feel that you are doing things wrong, but I have learned to ignore them and do what feels right. For example, Connor loves to stand, I support him under his arms but not much and he puts the tension in his legs to stand. His wee face is full of joy as he does it. People told us oh don’t let him stand because when he grows up he will have problems with his legs. I checked this out at the Docs and I said I guess it is ok to let him do whatever he naturally wants to do right. He agreed.

Recently, we have been trapped at home, there is apparently a Chinese tradition that after delivering a baby you have to stay at home and not go out to recover and eat specific foods etc (I call it Mumbo Jumbo Bullshit, but here it is normal). So during this time my life has been sleeping, working, looking after baby, I can’t really remember seeing daylight much).

But after that month we started going out, this time was amazing for me as I finally got to see parts of Taichung. I ate sizzling steak that cost around £3 and the best day was when we travelled to the City Centre and spent the day away from home. Many people are shocked when they ask Connors age, partly due to his maturity and size and partly due to them thinking why we have him out when he is so young. The answer is simple we have no choice, nobody here actually offers us any help. He actually likes being outside though he seems really happy and he is never any trouble when out with us. Eve’s mum never seems too happy about us going out but once again it has nothing to do with her. I find my experience of  Asian parents to be that they like to control every aspect of their children’s life, even when they are mature adults in their own right. They will even use guilt as a means of control. I prefer the West way of creating confident, independent individuals.

Connor and I draw a lot of attention when we are out, me because I am the foreigner and him because he is a mixed baby, most people are nice about it but some people are rude, they will stare or forcefully pull the carry cot to look. The worst culprit is the old hag in 7-11, always like that and even tries to wake him up when he is asleep. One day I pushed her hand away and said NO he is sleeping, he is a baby after all and not a toy. We now avoid that woman at all opportunities, it is a shame though as there is a younger nicer girl who works there who likes Connor but unfortunately is usually on the same shift as the old woman.

I got my Alien Registration Card (ARC) and now can legally work. It was a strange affair the whole process. After all the medical procedures, we applied for it and where told that an immigration officer would come and visit us to make sure I actually lived at the address I stated. Apparently we weren’t on the list yet but the guy called as he was seeing someone else in the area so he called to say he would come. Then he called back to say he couldn’t get in touch with the other person so he wanted to cancel. Evelyn pleaded with him that we had waited a long time so far and couldn’t he just come tonight, which he eventually agreed to. Now he was unsure of where we lived but he knew the 7-11 so asked if I could stand outside 7-11 and that way he could easily find it, easy to spot a white guy I guess J. We met and I took him over to our place, he asked me if I liked Taiwan, which I said yes too and then he told me that he had a friend in Taipei from England called Brian. I said OK cool. Then when we went inside and the strangest thing happened: “He put his hand on my shoulder and rubbed it and said “You are so handsome.” I just looked at him and thought “I would do anything for an ARC but I won’t do that”. Actually when Eve came to the living room we discussed the ARC stuff and he said actually my application was a formality as normally the checks are for economic migrants.

Around 15 days later I received my ID card. I had to go to the immigration office and talk through some stuff with a woman. She gave me lots of booklets and information that was apparently helpful (unfortunately in Chinese, so that reduced the helpfulness a bit). She gave me four condoms and told me if I am going to have sex it is better to have sex with only one person (I resisted the urge to jokingly say “why have you compared sex with more than one person at a time). I found this sex ed chat rather funny with being 35 and sitting there with my wife and child.

Now I will tell you about a very lucrative human trafficking business that exists in Asia. If your family member is old or been in an accident and needs some care you can go through an agency and get an Asian from a poorer country such as Indonesia or Thailand etc. This employee will be paid for 24hrs to look after your family members needs at a price much less than hiring someone else in Taiwan (but to be honest most of those people would think that kind of work was beneath them). It is a good deal I guess for the poor person is able to make money to support their family back home but it is nothing more than legalized slavery. I will tell you why: Those caretakers must stay with the family member 24/7, they rarely get a break and are not often allowed to take time off. Actually it is actively discouraged by the agency etc. Man they can’t even go to the shops and get themselves something. They have no quality of life and virtually no human rights. It is something I have found to be quite disgusting. I believe that working in that environment everyone should have some time away from it for their own sanity sake.

So things at home got a bit strange. All of a sudden Eve’s mum spoke to her and said it would be better if I find a teaching job now and then we move out. Didn’t really see it coming and not quite sure what it is about. So now I felt more pressure and was a little confused. We talked about it and then we decided to go speak to her parents about things. I wanted to get across my point and talk things through. Basically, it didn’t go so well, Eve’s mum just watched TV and never paid any attention a display of utter disrespect from my point of view. She has been funny for a while though not even saying morning or hi or anything really. The main concern we had was covering the mortgage back home until I was able to find the right job etc. At the end Eve’s mum spoke and I later found out it was only to say that she thought Eve was really selfish and that if she wasn’t so selfish then they would have helped us out more but as a result they won’t. I find this to be childish, why purposely say things just to hurt? The truth of the matter is the only reason we decided to go to Taiwan was for her brother and based on things her mum said, doesn’t sound too selfish to me. Apparently when we go out it is just to have fun, despite the fact that every time we have left the house was for a particular reason.

A week or so later, we get a call and Eve’s mum says she wants to talk to us about something so she comes over. There is a lot of Chinese going on that I don’t understand. But her body language is very aggressive so I ask Eve. Eve tells me that she wants to help us rent the flat in the UK and she has friends who are lawyers etc. I am confused I ask in the UK? Nope they are in Taiwan but she says she can still help she needs information etc. I try to tell her that the law in the UK is different from here and it is nothing like as easy as here. She is annoyed at this and says something like do you think I can’t help. I just tell her again that the law is different, not only is it different in the UK it is different in Scotland from England etc. They tell us that now they won’t help us support the mortgage back home, so now the pressure is even bigger and I need to find a job pronto. I am a little annoyed as the only reason we came to Taiwan was based on what they said. I even asked them about specific living costs for in Taiwan so we could figure out where was the best place to have our family and they said don’t worry about those things and now they have changed the rules. Anyway, we will make a success of things despite them of that I am sure and then they will see the true resilience of us Scots. I don’t care about Eve or I but I care that they have risked Connors quality of life I desperately wanted him to have a better quality of life and not struggle as I did growing up in a poor family.

Basically nothing is that bad as I ended up getting three job offers really easily. One was only part-time though and the other was a kindergarden. Both of which would be illegal for me to work in as Taiwan changed the rules that Kindergarden should only be taught by Chinese and that English language exposure doesn’t start till Elementary level. It makes sense as studies show no beneficial improvement from exposure to English at Kindergarden but parents want to pay the money. Those two jobs were pretty much out straight from the bat.

I travelled to one though which is a new Buxiban (cram school, a kind of after school school, Taiwan is really Education pressured). I met the people at the school and they offered 50,000 a month which I talked them up saying that other jobs were around this mark etc. They wanted me to do a demo first to see if I was worth the money. I did it and they agreed to give me 60,000 to start and when more classes come put it up further. It is a daunting task to have these people depend on me to make their school a success but I am learning to meet challenges and smash through them, as is evident in the standing up in front of people and doing presentations etc. I am not sure if this is the best job I could have got but I need a job and it is a good one as basically I will be left to do everything myself which means faster learning. The overall plan is get a few years experience and then open my own school with Eve. I will also look into teaching adults by setting up a class once I am more settled and we find a flat. The job starts at the end of July and hopefully we will be away from this nightmare by August. I will never let Connor feel like this. We are completely excluded from the family and really feel we are being pushed away. They rarely have any interest in Connor which I find strange being their first grandchild. But it is fine as when we leave they will have minimum contact with him.

All that matters is that he will be healthy, strong and happy all off which he is now in abundance.

We went out to play basketball and ended up at this church sponsored after school club. I am not one for religion but like the reason for this place. It is set up for poor families and single parents who cannot afford to pay the fees of cram schools. I played basketball with some of the kids and it was fun. I find poor people a lot more honest and open compared to richer people. I told Eve to ask them if they would like me as a volunteer English teacher. They agreed they would love a professional teacher as all the teachers are volunteers. They will call me about when they can put it in the schedule.

Friday the Thirteenth!!!

So it is 3am on Friday the 13^th and I get up like any other day to go and help out in the breakfast store. Eve and I haven’t managed to sleep much, but that is not really anything new these days. We were at the Hospital on Wednesday and the doctor told us that if the baby hadn’t started to come by Friday we should go back in to the hospital and then discuss our options for getting the baby out.  

Eve doesn’t feel that good this morning and I tell her to just stay and rest, I have done the job now for two days (with the help of a bullet point list of duties) without her and haven’t had much problem so I am confident I can get the job done.

Off I go next door, and slip seamlessly into my routine. It is not difficult work but it takes time and it is more about becoming familiar with the process. I am learning really traditional recipes, I am told that it would be easy to pay some staff to start work earlier but in Taiwan if they know the secrets they can then go and set up their own stores and that is not good for business. Eve’s parents store is very popular due to the range of dishes on offer. I work away and at around 4.30ish then some staff start arriving. Eve comes down and helps a wee bit near the end. 

After work we go for a walk to the park with the Tank. Now this park is a strange park if ever I saw one. It is a hive of activity at 5am. I like to think of it similar to a prison yard. 

The stray dogs have the climbing frames (which I wanted to use as pull up bars). These dogs belong to no one and I don’t know if they did, but the cool thing is that they always seem to run around in at least twos so I like that they have companionship and they seem to share strong bonds between each other. The dogs look healthy though not malnourished or scabby or anything and one of the dogs would cost a fortune in the UK, he is a pure white German Shepherd. 

The middle is populated by a group of people who sit in a circle and read some Asian text, I have no idea what it is, for all I know they could be incanting the spirits.

There is a guy who does some loose form of chi gung at the back of the tank.

At the bottom of the park is a group of older women and men who practice some basic Tai Chi forms, the movements are loose and free and more about health than having any martial application but still it must work as they appear healthy. The rest of the park is dotted by runners and random chi cultivators. 

Eve and I we own the swinging benches, we like to sit and just swing a bit in the cool air after working and today is no different. I am drinking some strawberry milk and we are talking when three teenagers on scooters pull up. They see me and the biggest one starts shouting Hey, Hey Hello and then trying to goad me. They walk towards us and I shoot them a glance. Evelyn tells me to ignore them and be careful as she can’t help me in her condition. I laugh and say don’t worry if anything happens you just go home and I will be around 5 minutes after you. She tells me that these are the type of teenagers who will try and cause trouble (we call them widos or neds back home). I tell her again that if anything happens she just goes home and I will take care of the rest, I reassure her that two of them are what I would class as “one kick material” and not to worry, the bigger one is too slow and I would focus on him first as he holds the key to the confidence of the others. It is apparent to see as they wait for him to run his mouth each time. They probably think I am one of the white boy missionaries you see over here the “God Squad”.  Secretly I think it would be interesting for things to develop where they found out that I know a thing or two. They get closer and the big one still shoots his mouth, so I just stare right at him, looking right into him and through him without saying a word. This unsettles the smaller ones and the big one seems to not want to shout too much anymore as they wheel away to the benches and sit. We are basically ready to go back to have breakfast but I wait a while longer so they don’t get the idea we are leaving due to their intimidation.

We go back and grab some breakfast, today I am not feeling the Taiwanese food and I head home grab a box of Frosties and a carton of milk from 7-11. It draws strange looks from the Taiwanese people but hey I got to eat. I grab three cartons of noodles from the fridge and put them out front as they are running low. Many eyes fall on me as usual, but one guy waves his hand in front of my face and I look at him. He gives me the thumbs up and says “Ok” as he smiles. I reply “yeh, pleased to meet you” and return the thumbs up. I appreciate the gesture, it means more to me than the stares

Evelyn complains of a sore stomach, she thinks her contractions are starting but is not sure. Her mum is concerned and thinks we should go to the hospital. Her sister drives us. Normally, we would sleep after work so we currently are running on empty. 

At the hospital they do some checks and find out the cervix has opened more but they believe the baby will come soon, probably in the afternoon. So we are waiting in the delivery room. Evelyn is in pain and the pain is getting progressively worse. Many people and nurses come and do various check and say things in Chinese. I am confused I have no idea what is going on really and am very much out of it. Evelyn can’t translate all the time due to the contractions (which is understandable).

Nurses appear at many intervals and motion for me rather abruptly to leave. I don’t understand why, it seems they are checking the cervix again and in Taiwan men are not meant to see that or something. Well it is a strange feeling to be outside a curtain, while the woman you love is screaming in pain and all you hear is a hive of chatter in a foreign tongue. I am very nervous as I have no idea what is going on and poor Eve is hurting.

The doctor returns and tells me in limited English that the cervix is fully open and now we are just waiting on Connor dropping down and them seeing what I think he said is the feathering of the head (I guess it means they see his hair or something). I ask him how long does he think it will take before we go to the delivery theatre as I want to reassure Eve of the time frame, try my best to be useful and comfort her. He lets me know it will take around 30 minutes. That 30 minutes was her most painful so far. I keep telling her that although it is hurting now soon it will be over as we are entering the last stage before we go in to have the baby. 

Then we are taken to the theatre room, I am put in a rather fetching pink scrub overall and told where to stand. Evelyn is moved onto a new bed, that has stirrups and sky pole type handles. Remember I told you earlier that I had to leave because I could see her bits? I accepted that and thought I get it, and in the delivery room they will cover her with the tent like thing so we can’t see. We’ll now I can see everything, but to be honest it is nothing I haven’t seen before so I fail to see what all the fuss was about. 

Evelyn begins pushing and the bump moves around, it looks huge now to be honest and I am a wee bit scared for her. I forgot to mention she has done all this without any pain killers and going for the total natural birth. She is pushing and pushing with all her might and it is even more remarkable that she has no energy due to lack of sleep. I start saying things to her, try to encourage her and console her. I say things like you are doing great, I love you, push hard and soon you can hold our baby in your arms and it will be over etc. Again there exists the alien language, I have no idea what they are saying or if everything is all right or if I am even saying the right things at the right time etc. But I say them anyway, I reckon that to hear my voice and encouragement and for her to know I am there with her must be worth something to her. 

The nurse pushes the ultrasound onto her stomach and it shows some readings, I work out that the higher the reading the better and also through time notice that the higher number is appearing further down her stomach which indicates to me although the bump still looks the same that he is moving down.

Then the doctor suddenly appears, Eve is put in these surgical leggings (only way I can describe them) and then a flap of cloth is put over her mid region (seems a bit late to be covering up now, but I welcome it. I don’t really desire to see the business end of the birth, hearing it once describe as looking upon the hood of a VW Beetle). The Doctor makes a quick movement, Eve screams, a different scream from before and I look round to see a spray of blood and the Doctor holding a scalpel. I realise he has cut her and she is in pain and my first natural instinct is to punch the doctor in the face, an urge I resist, rationalising that he is doing his job and this must be a standard procedure. 

20 minutes had passed before the doctor arrived and now things are moving fast. Eve is pushing and the nurse is pushing the bump down. It again looks a bit barbaric, but I guess they are just helping the procedure along (child birth is not like you see on TV). I look at Eve and I am comforting her, then I look around and I see the beginnings of the head. I feel overjoyed and tell Eve she is doing well and that it will be over soon as I see the head. I turn around again and the doctor has instantly pulled Connor from Eve and is holding him upside down. For some strange reason at that moment in time I am reminded of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, the motion is very similar, especially as he holds Connor aloft almost presenting him with his assistant by his side. There is a slap sound that is immediately followed by a sharp cry and Connor’s previously cold looking blue body floods with life and colour. In that moment I am overwhelmed, I turn to say to Eve “You did it. That is Connor, our boy is here” and those words echo through my head over and over before they ever reach my mouth. When they finally reach my mouth, they escape and distort with emotion. I am so overcome with happiness, I may even say that is the happiest I have felt, and the emotion rushes through me and in the end spills out. I am not afraid to admit that it brought tears to my eyes, tears of absolute joy. I am in a state of disbelief, it is strange after seeing a bump all these times to finally see what Connor looks like.

The nurse is cleaning up Connor and I am invited to go and see him and take pictures etc while the doctor tends to Eve and her stitching. The first thing I notice about Connor is how long he is, the nurse tells me he is a big baby. I then see his hands and really long fingers and big feet. The nurse cleans him up and then they weigh him, he is 56cm long and weighs 3.66kg (8.08 pounds). 

I turn to Eve and show her a picture of Connor I took (as she hasn’t had the opportunity to see him yet). At that moment all she says is “Connor, you wee bloody bugger!” (a phrase I taught her earlier) and we both laugh and share a joke about with-holding his allowance for a few years as punishment for all the pain he caused her. Then with final clean up done, I thank the doctor and we return to the delivery room and await being moved to our room (in Taiwan, you will stay in the hospital for 3 days to recover and I can also stay).

We are lucky to be allowed to keep Connor with us for now. Eve has to wear disposable underwear due to the bleeding etc and the nurse tells her that it would be better if she had got the ones designed for pregnant women as they will be more comfortable (how much comfort can be drawn from paper underwear I can’t imagine but whatever). Her sister said she will bring some back with her when she returns tonight but we imagine that will be really late and it would be best to get them now. Obviously Evelyn can’t go herself so it is decided I should go to the pharmacy within the hospital. 

Armed with little to no comprehension of Chinese I enter the pharmacy and scour the shelves looking for what we need. I cannot see them when the sales assistant approaches me and says something I can only assume meant “Can I help you?” I try to explain that what I need, I have with me the other ones to show her that need different. She doesn’t really understand so I am miming a pregnant woman with big bump etc and saying these (pointing to what’s in my hands) and then bigger. She takes me to the area where they are and shows me etc, her English is poor but my Chinese is even worse. We are losing each other in translation and pausing frequently confused. I mime again, show her the ones for pregnant woman but say bigger. She says many things in Chinese and I say “Wao Timba Dhong” which is a phrase I recently learned and is really useful it means “I don’t understand”. She tries to explain something else and then lets out a frustrated yelp and says “Wait, wait here, ok?” I say “ok” and she disappears out the shop. After a short while she returns and has what I need, I guess now on reflection she was telling me there is another pharmacy near where they had them. Grateful I pay for them and go back to Eve, glad to get out of there.

You know how the image of British people talking in their native tongue to some foreigner who doesn’t understand so they just believe if they speak louder and louder, that somehow language comprehension will just happen and suddenly the foreigner will understand due to the improved volume? Well that my friends’ is not an image exclusively reserved for British people as I am often faced with this. Someone speaks Chinese, I look confused, they speak louder and louder – end result is still the same.

Back at Eve, a couple of the student nurses come in and check Eve’s blood pressure etc. As they leave they and Eve share a “sze sze niao” and leave, I repeat the thanks echoing what they said and am greeted by excited laughter akin to teenage girls. Apparently the way I speak Chinese is cute like a wee boy so I am told.

We are taken to our room on the third floor by the volunteer orderlies. The room is to be shared between two people but fortunately for us we are the only residents for now. They inform us that it is better for us to not have the baby with us just now and we should rest, we will be called when the baby is hungry to feed him. We are both knackered anyway so decide to try and get some shut eye. Eve has a bed and I have this seat that turns into a bed (kind of like the lamest Transformer that ever existed). Our attempts to sleep are futile as we are constantly interrupted, streams of nurses to check Eve’s blood pressure etc, the doctor, the nurses from the Maternity Ward, the woman who offers tea (that I later find out is made from what looks like bark and polo mints). So every time we start to drift off one of these people comes in or calls us, or we get a phone call or have to go feed Connor. 

We are called to feed Connor at around 6.30 and I push Eve there in a wheel chair. We go inside and there is a breast feeding area (which is just a part of the room shut off by a curtain that has chairs in it.) We are going to go in and the nurse tells Eve that I can’t go in I have to wait outside as there will be other mothers there etc. I am annoyed that there isn’t a more private place for us, as this is the first time I am able to see Connor since he was born. I sit outside sulking. Then someone comes out and hands her baby back then goes away. A moment later the curtain slides open and the nurse motions for me to enter. Confused I go in and Eve tells me that as there is no one else there I can sit there but I need to be quiet as the head nurse won’t be happy. Grateful I sit beside her. Connor is not feeding and ends up sleeping so I get the opportunity to hold him. Eve lets me know that if no one else comes we can just stay with him until 7.30 when the nursery opens the curtains for viewing. We hold him until 7.45 and then decide to go and look at the other babies through the window for purely comparison purposes. 

Connor is not yet returned to the nursery and we look at the other babies. There are many people there looking at them. There are only around 6 babies but Connor is the tallest and the biggest at least 4cm and 400g due mostly to him being part Scottish. Connor is wheeled out and put in place and there is a sudden interest in him as all the viewers turn their attentions to him. They say many things of which I don’t understand, but Eve informs me they say he will be tall like his dad and he also looks like me. I am proud but there is one thing that annoys me about having a baby with someone who is not from your race and that is that nobody ever refers to your baby as a baby he is now forever referred to as “mixed”. If I had a baby with a white girl then everyone would say “baby”.

We head back to the room and Eve’s mum brings us some food. You can get food in the hospital but you have to order it, it is not included in the price. Eve’s mum believes it is better that she cooks us food and rides scooter to bring it to us as you can never trust who cooked it etc (a sentiment I share). After she goes we watch some TV, there are a few movie channels that are in English. Then we go to sleep, only to be woken up at around 11 by Eve’s sister, brother and brother-in-law, who have brought us supplies that include some covers and a pillow for me (apparently these are only provided for the mother too).

Again we are called to the maternity nursery to feed Connor, this time I sit on the seats outside the breast feeding area and read a book. Another mother appears and sees me and says something in Chinese to her partner who enters. A nurse appears and says something and the man leaves. When Eve is finished we come out and see a few fathers sitting outside and Eve tells me that the nurse says that I cannot sit inside I have to sit outside the nursery. A fact that confuses me as there are clearly seats inside. The nurse says that seen as how I am so keen to see the baby (aren’t all fathers?) then she will arrange for him to come to our room at 8am. We set the alarm for 7.45 so we are ready for him and go to sleep. We return again during the night to feed him again then sleep. 

8am comes and goes and we ask them when he will come, they tell us he will come soon they are just changing his nappie. We wait and wait and he still doesn’t appear, Eve’s mum brings breakfast and we hope she can get to see him before she goes. We ask again when he is coming as it is now 9 and are told they have to check everything is ok with him before sending him. Again we wait and after asking for a third time we are told he is on his way. We know it doesn’t take so long to get to where we are so after a longer time than expected we ask again where he is and are told he is coming soon, then he is coming now. Personally it feels like they just tell you anything in this place to shut you up, to say he was coming after his nappie changing was a blatant lie. Eventually he comes and we are happy to see him, we are given a crash course in how to look after him, change him, wrap him etc and set the air con to 26 degrees (optimal temperature for babies apparently).

He spends most of the time sleeping, crying, needing changed and needing fed. He seems really hungry and we do our best to console him and fulfil his needs. 

We are then graced with a room-mate, I guess that they just delivered a baby that day. We have to rearrange and move all the furniture on our side so they can get the bed in to move her onto her own bed (a process that seems to me to be a bit badly thought out). As they remove the bed she was on the man clips our bed and sends it spinning (not a big deal normally but this time Connor is on the bed and I tell him to be careful).

It turns out that poor Eve despite her best efforts is not producing enough milk for him and he is hungry. We ask the nurse about it and she tells us he looks really hungry so we ask if we can give him some formula milk in the meantime to subdue his hunger and keep trying with breast feeding? She says yes that will work so when he is really hungry we will supplement his feed with formula. 

Now here comes the problem, Eve can’t go anywhere, the nurse doesn’t keep formula and I will have to go buy it. I ask Eve if she can get the nurse to write down in Chinese what we need and I can then just show it to the pharmacy assistant. She does and it makes me feel more confident about the task ahead. She tells me that if I get the formula I can just press the buzzer and she will let me in (normally you will converse for entry in Chinese).

I head off and seek out the pharmacy from earlier only to find it closed. I head outside and search the shops (of which there are not many) and find one that sells baby stuff and show them the note, they tell me they don’t have. I am a wee bit panicky as I want something for my son to eat. I find another one and push open the door and the woman looks at me and says something in Chinese. I push the note towards her and she motions for me to follow her. Thankfully she has some English skills and we have broken conversation as she informs me they don’t have the exact formula I need but they have one by the same company which is for newborn babies. She asks if it is ok? I am unsure so I ask her if I can buy it and take it to the nurse and if she says it is not ok can I bring it back and exchange it? She agrees so off I go and a wee while later we have a bottle for Connor and his hunger subsides for the moment.

Our neighbours have endless streams of visitors. You are not meant to have more than two at a time and for no longer than 30 mins at a time. Sometimes they have up to 8 at a time and can stay for hours on end. Not a big deal really but as we have a new born baby we were told that we were to limit our visitors etc to reduce the risk of infection to the baby. Simple maths really, less exposure to people less likely exposure to virus. Worse than that though is the fact that the guy from the couple next to us is constantly sneezing (which makes us think he has a cold) but he doesn’t wear a mask like most other Asians, even though he knows our baby is there. They ask the nurse if they can adjust the Air Con and she informs them that they cannot while baby is there. 

At around 10pm Connor is taken back to the nursery. We will be on hand to go there at any time through the night to feed him. 

That night we hardly sleep again due to the guy next door who seems to snore like a monster. His wife seems impervious to the noise but I am not and it grinds on me. I end up watching movies on TV. 

I eventually fall asleep and in the morning I am woke up to Eve saying “Eh it seems like someone is trying to get in the room” I jump up half asleep, a wee bit freaked out in strange surroundings and ready to punch the first attacker that comes through the door (which turns out to be Eve’s mum with breakfast). Quite scary hearing your wife say those words to you though lol. We talk with her mum and we decide it would be for the best if we don’t let Connor come to our room today. We really want to see him but we are afraid that he will get a cold from the guy next door and also the amount of visitors they have is too much of a risk, in one more day we will go home and can have him all we want. We agree to go to the nursery at viewing times so we can still see him and there is some comfort in this and a little bit of resentment held for the neighbours.

It seems that it was the right decision as the man coughs and splutters his way through the day and night. They don’t have their own baby in the room and the reason is due to them having too many visitors. Eve’s mum and dad visit and we go to see the Connor. Again there are many people and there is much interest in Connor. There is a little girl baby and she has a few problems being born premature she is called “xiao Ping guo” which translates as little apple. Her parents’ are cool. There is a woman there with a camera taking endless amounts of pictures of a little boy there. I guess it is her baby. I turn to talk to Eve and then turn around to see her camera pointed at Connor and she is taking pictures. It makes me feel a little bit strange and wonder why she is taking a picture of my baby. Turns out that she is a relative of the neighbours in our room. 

Later that night I need to get some water (like in England you cannot drink the water from the tap), the machine doesn’t work so I have to go upstairs to the fifth floor. When I return there are 6 people outside our room and then inside another 6, a tad excessive I feel and seems that consideration for Eve and I is far from their thoughts. That night their mother stays in our room until 10.30pm after being there since 5. 

Again we don’t sleep well as he is snoring his head off. It goes on and on and I can’t sleep. It begins to really annoy me and I try to wake him to get him to stop snoring but he doesn’t seem to hear well. I am getting more and more angry and am seriously contemplating reaching my hands behind the curtain and pulling him out by the legs and punching him in the face to see if it clears his sinuses. The reason that you stay in the hospital for 3 days is to fully rest (impossible under the circumstances). 

After our final feed of Connor, we eventually fall asleep in the early hours of the morning. It is quite early when a nurse comes into our room and asks Eve if we are leaving today. Then after that I drop my head back to fall asleep when the curtain slides back and I am presented with 3 student nurses. They are surprised to see a foreigner I guess and probably more surprised to see my half naked body which adds to their shyness and fleeting glances. The poor little things don’t know where to look. 

We make preparations to go home which takes a surprisingly long time. Even to get a birth certificate takes over 1 hour. We all just want to get out the hospital and back to the sanctity of home. 

Our first night home is eventful as we struggle a wee bit to adjust to a schedule for Connor, he seems to sleep and when he wakes up he is like a baby possessed in his search for food. We split his feeds between breast and formula to make sure he has enough to eat. We still have not found the sleep that we so desperately need.

On Tuesday we are to take him back to the hospital to learn how to bath him whilst taking care of the severed part of his umbilical cord. It will fall off in its own time but we need to take care to avoid infection. We agree to go to the hospital where they will instruct us in how to bath him properly in this case. Upon arriving we enter the room where the breast feeding area is and the nurse talks to Eve. I am told that they will bath him at the sink which is near the breast feeding area and I will have to wait outside. Confused I ask but I was meant to be shown how to do the bathing. The nurse explains that it is the area for breast feeding and some mothers may not like it. I protest that they will be behind a curtain and I shall be nowhere near them, I have no desire to see swollen breasts with babies attached to them I assure you. I have to go and pay a bill for the bathing and then I return and give Eve the receipt. Eve’s sister tells me that the woman in the pharmacy said that I should be able to see my son as she knows it has happened before if you ask. So she decides to ask and after a while they say no. I am annoyed to say the least, what a backward way of thinking to exclude one of  the parents, I explain that I shall also be partaking in the care of my son. 

Then a few of the student nurses from Friday walk past. They shoot me curious glances and then they come and speak to Eve’s sister. They tell her that I am the first foreigner they have seen in the hospital and they ask if I feel shy with girls looking at me. I say recently I have become used to everyone looking at me. They often look at me and if I look at them they turn away, curious creatures that they are. One of them has a phone out and I feel I am a few moments away from being asked to help catalogue their meeting of a foreigner with a picture, when Eve emerges. Eve tells me that the nurse said that after giving the logics of the mothers being separate from the bathing area that the reason I couldn’t join was that after we leave the hospital Connor no longer belongs to them (he never did actually) and as we have been outside then we could carry a virus and they must protect the other babies (now is it a little bit sexist to imply that Men are excluded for this reason and women aren’t, are there special viruses that only affect men and women are immune? I don’t think so, flawed logic if ever I heard it. In the end, I am presented with the age old it is like this because that is how it is. Wow how forward thinking of you, you have no reasoned arguments. The nurse agrees that the system in the UK is better but here that is just how things are and have been. Umm here is an idea, you can change things it happened back home, we moved towards more equality in parenthood.

We go home with me praying that I never get seriously ill in Taiwan and have to experience the hospitals here. Eve’s sisters’ godparents visit with a present for Connor and we take him to see them. We talk to them for a bit. Eve explains the experience today and they say the most archaic thing I have heard “Pregnancy and baby is a woman’s place, so forget about it” What? I am to just see that my wife is the care giver for my son and I just shrug and say that is how things are? A strange and unsettling experience, it makes me see how free and forward thinking the UK is, at least there is hope things can change, the jury is out on that here for now though.

Ni hao, wo Jiao ... / Hi, my name is ...

Well things here have been really busy, haven’t had a lot of time to post and nothing really that remarkable has happened to be honest.

I will start this post by dispelling a few myths about Asians.

1. They are not all small, actually in comparison to the UK so far I haven’t seen a huge difference in height and if a difference exists it is marginal at best.

2. Not all Asians are polite or care about the feelings of others. This was for me believed to be a fact, that the empathy and sensitivity of Asians was a given. However, like above there is not a huge difference from the UK. In fact I guess in Taiwan people would appear more rude to us due to their curiosity. They want to know everything about you and will then proceed to judge you based on the gathered information. This is the reason that Eve’s family thought it would be easier for me to not feel pressured to tell people and when people ask we decided it was easier to say my Father was dead, not technically a lie seen as how for me personally he ceased to exist since I was 16. Asians believe due to the colour of my skin then I must be rich.

3. Not all Asians know or practice Kung Fu, in actual fact per capita I think there are probably more people studying Martial Arts in the UK. However, there exists a high standard of Art in Taiwan. The reason for this you ask, well it comes down to one person. Our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, just kidding it was Chairman Mao – well they both like the colour red. Listen up kids this is the history bit: You see when he decided to get  a few friends together and play the game called “The people’s cultural revolution” well some of the kids didn’t want to play so they ran away and hid on a little place called “Formosa” (now known as Taiwan). I guess they thought that Mao was a bully, he wanted to play but everyone had to play by his rules. So the people who opposed it moved here. Now what Mr Mao did was he decided to outlaw Martial Arts and then he set about restructuring them. He felt that Kung Fu should be more about an almost operatic dance, where the idea was to entertain and perform, so you and your opponent should look good in a spectacular extravaganza for the viewers. This was called “Wushu”. Now for me, I have dabbled and studied a fair few Martial Arts originating from all corners of the World and personally I find Wushu to be a bit less of a martial art and more of a ritualistic form of dancing, think dancing with weapons in shiny silk suits and then at the end some people score you out of ten and if you win you get a nice shiny trophy. Nothing Martial about that right? Wushu changed Chinese Kung Fu but not completely, many masters kept their roots and went underground, others fled to Hong Kong (most notably Yip Man) and others ended up on the Island of Formosa. A lot of the martial arts here can trace its lineage back to Shaolin Monks (believed to be the origination of Kung Fu, well with the help of a monk from India but that’s another story).

So back to the breakfast store, I have been working there for a week now, mostly it has been fine. A lot to learn and obviously the language barrier doesn’t help. So it means that I spend a lot of time standing listening to Chinese and then Eve will translate, this can be quite frustrating. I have learned how to assist in making really traditional food that most of the people in other breakfast stores can’t even produce.  The major problem though is the lack of direction, everyday my role and responsibility has been changing so much so that I am a bit lost with how to do stuff, the way I learn is watch, do and then repeat then it stays in my brain. So we decided that from Monday I would get a proper chance to do the job outright. The work is not technically stimulating or challenging, it is more a kin to a robotic process but the thing that makes it difficult is that you are spread between so many different processes.  The bit I hate the most is when you mix the stuff for dumplings. You take some sauce stuff mix it with an egg and then you add four different meats that have been minced. To me they look like brains and to pass the time when I am doing the job I imagine I am working in a restaurant for Zombies and am preparing a delicacy of brains.

There is a difference in the measurement system in Taiwan. There exists the Taiwanese Kg which unlike the normal kg of the metric system is made up of 16 grams. The reason for this again originates back to China. The Taiwanese where so eager to distance themselves from China that they changed the normal measurement to the new system. Thus again highlighting their defiance of Mainland China. Now if you are sitting there believing this then you my friend are gullable, I made it up, I don’t have any idea why the system is different but I am sure it is not even close to the reason I gave. You are probably sitting there thinking ah well even if I was gullable then so what it is not like I would know, but I know at least you Dean would have believed it.

There are a couple of regular customers who I see every day almost and as I don’t know their names I have taken to naming them myself.

 The first is  ”Nice Guy Eddie” the first time he saw me he looked shocked and didn’t say anything. His shock was understandable though, he probably didn’t expect to see a white guy at 5am in a traditional Taiwanese breakfast store. The next day though he said “Hi”, a tradition he has kept up every day, he is humble and meek and for this reason I call him “Nice Guy Eddie”.

Second is “Chris Cross”. This guy always watches the same show on TV while eating breakfast, it is a strange show (in Chinese) but it is basically three guys and girls and they have to do tasks or face forfeits (that is what I have figured out so far anyway) sometimes it can be funny though. In Taiwan some people when on a scooter wear their jacket the opposite way round or back to front. This is not as crazy as it seems, it is to provide wind resistance while driving a wind breaker I guess. But as he keeps it on like this while eating, I call him Chris Cross you remember those guys back in the day who said they “where gonna make you jump”.

Lastly comes in the heavy hitter. An old guy who wears a lot of history on his face, I have no idea of knowing his actual age but he is old and looks like one tough guy. He shot me a few glances the first time he saw me and when I look at him I see a guy who has lived possibly longer than I will and probably has many a story he could tell. He also looks like someone you wouldn’t have messed with and for these reasons I have nicknamed him “Clint Eastwood”.

The only other thing I have given a name so far is “Steve” the house lizard I have seen a few times on the balcony of Eve’s parents place. I want to catch him and keep him as a pet but Eve is not so keen on that idea as she doesn’t like them. They are fast as hell though so catching him would be difficult. I just leave him to be free but bestow on him the name “Steve”.

The traffic in Taiwan is still a bit scary to say the least. We have taken a walk to the electronic store not far from home and you literally walk over a railway crossing beside the traffic, then you can cross when the lights say you can walk. Only problem is the traffic that is now allowed to go from where you just came some of them turn right which puts them right onto the crossing. They come quite fast too around a blind corner. It seems the concept of a filter system is alien to the people of Taiwan, maybe one day I can explain it to them. People often jump the lights too and I can see why accidents happen, I don’t know for certain but I would be willing to wager that the motor insurance industry is booming in Taiwan.

I think it will be a while before I am confident enough to throw myself into the experience of the Road. I think that Jack Kerouac’s book would have been a lot different if he had been born in Taiwan instead.

I was talking with Eve about one day having my own scooter or even a bike in the future. She said I will, I mentioned that maybe I could pick up a cheap second hand one. This is apparently a no-no in Taiwan. Superstitions exist, and they believe that if you buy a second hand bike or car that it could have been involved in motor accidents and they believe that said vehicle would then be almost cursed with bad luck. If you then owned that bike it would mean that the bad luck or spirits from the old owner would then become passed onto you.

Connor, my son, still hasn’t made an appearance, but we expect it could be anytime soon, probably this week. I can’t wait to see him and look down into him and see a part of me reflected back. I have been feeling a little strange lately, like I am losing my identity. Back home I was someone, I had things and people that defined me. Here I don’t have them and I am feeling more and more like my identity here is simply as the “Foreigner”.

People still stare all the time and it has begun to make me feel really self-conscious. I knew that coming here I would be different but I had no idea that those differences would be so magnified and echoed. I sometimes, wish I could have a day where I blended in or was invisible. I enjoy when we go on the scooter as I wear a full face helmet and then it is harder for people to spot that I am so different.

At home is difficult, I only really speak to Eve due to the language barrier. Her family really try and learn English and communication is strained or broken at best. It may be a few English words punctuated with a lot of Chinese. I miss being able to just have conversations, I miss the people and places of home.

The work here can be quite boring and as most of the time I have no idea what people are saying I have taken to listening to my ipod to pass the time. It makes the work faster, I get lost in the familiarity of the songs and I guess in a way I feel similar to how an immigrant worker would feel. The music is good but I feel in some way it aids my withdrawal, locking me inside, closing out the alien world around me.

Today I heard a familiar song being played at home and I sought out the source, eager to find the root and discuss and share with the listener the connection to the music. I was disappointed to discover that the music was originating from my room where I had left the music on shuffle.

A few things are frustrating me, particularly when I am working and then someone will spout of lots of Chinese, I have no idea if they are indicating I am doing something wrong or not, mostly it turns out to be unrelated. Also in Chinese it seems that something really simple becomes very complicated, for instance trying to weigh noodles they have to be 6.12 Taiwanese Kg. To me this is simple, say “ok, weigh these to 6.12” but in Chinese many minutes pass. I am often called to watch something that is so simple it doesn’t need to be watched, like sieving flour.

When my son is here things will be better, I will have an identity again I will be a father.

This blog was brought to you by the letter “W” and the number “12”

Thursday 5th May - In the land of Alien Registration the one-armed photobooth owner is King!

Last night I didn't sleep well. I found lots of video on my laptop and included was some TV, Prison break, Heroes and Spartacus. So Eve and I have started rewatching Prison Break from the beginning. I watched the first two series and then some of the third and got bored of it. The first series was awesome though. Anyway I slept around 12.30 but woke up through the night and had to use the bathroom. Then I drifted in and out of sleep, had to get up at 3. So I reckon I had 1 and a half hours of sleep.

Today I basically did the work that Lee Yuan does with him assisting me and showing me the steps. I remember most of it, the only real problem I had was with the dough. It was quite hard to mix it all and I have never done it before, plus we have a language barrier to work around. After mixing then it's all about rolling it out even, covering a quite big work area so they can use it to make some traditional food. Some of the customers who come in to eat say hi to me now.

After work and breakfast I am beat and want to sleep so no running today. We watch another Prison break and then go to sleep. I guess I have been asleep for like an hour when the phone goes. It is the hospital, my Medical examination has been completed and I can go and collect the paperwork for the Alien Registration Card. We decide to set the alarm for 1 and then go get the stuff and apply for the ARC. Again I drift in and out of sleep, I even wake up and tell Eve that I had a dream that my Medical was ready and she tells me it wasn't a dream. I don't sleep well and end up getting up at 12.

We have lunch, and find out we need new registration forms which back home would be a bummer, but here in Taiwan you just go pay a small fee and you get everything you need there and then as it is essentially a case of printing the stuff off etc. 10 dollars per government registration form of which there are three. Now to put that in perspective there are around 50 dollars to each GBP. Compare that to any government form you would need back home and you will see it is well cheaps blood! :)

Eve's Dad gives me 3,200 dollars (£62) for the administration charges for the ARC. We scoot off to the hospital and collect the papers. We open them and on the front of the forms is a stamp and a signature (that means I am medically sound and disease free (ah won't my mum be proud).

Next it is off to the Taiwanese Immigration Department. We fill out a form and then take a ticket (the delhi counter ticket system is in full effect in Taiwan and it works). I go to sit and my number pops up. At counter 3 an official goes through my paper work etc. He tells me that the passport size pictures are too small and we need Taiwanese ID size photos. Luckily, for us there is a photobooth in the store next door. The official says he will check all the paperwork etc so the last thing will just be us gooing to get the photos. A thoroughly nice guy.

At the booth, a guy comes to help, he sets everything up for us and then starts it off. Then he tells us where the pics will come. Once they arrive he takes them and cuts them with a guillotine. He is a nice friendly guy and it saves us having to go back to the registration office or a mall to get pics. The most remarkable thing though is as we say bye I notice he only has one arm. He has great skill for only having one arm as it took until the end for me to notice.

Back to the Immigration, they ask me have I been to taiwan before? No I reply. They tell me that someone will call and make an arrangement to visit where I am staying to make sure I am living there and then they will process the card and I will be in every legal sense an Alien with my own ID card that says so, I can't wait.

After we head back to Tanzi, and go to a store and get this sweet. It is essentially an iced fruit, and you add onto it ingredients like red beans, green beans, carrot etc. Sounds disgusting but it is awesome, really delicious and I can imagine in the height of summer it will be really refreshing. I didn't have my camera but I will go back and have another one and take a pic. It only cost 35 dollars. It is kind of a mixture between a slushpuppie or frozen yoghurt.

Back home and it's back to work. Tonights work is easy not that much to do really apart from set up all the ingredients for tomorrow. Then dinner time which is delicious again, I don't think I have ever ate so healthily, I thought I did back home but that's nothing compared to here. I feel healthy and strong, and getting your five a day here is easy, man you can have 5 a day by breakfast, so in Taiwan it's more like 50 a day. I am setting up the rice for tonights washing and there is more to do tonight as big order from customers, so instead of 3 huge pots there is 5 and two of them are black and white rice mixed instead off one. Tonight is going to be harder and take longer. Eve and I go to the electrical store and buy headphones for my ipod as I seem to have lost my old ones between Edinburgh and Tanzi. I will listen to music while doing the work to pass the time.

 

I will leave you with the above picture to illustrate the scooter infestation of Taiwan. This is a quiet street near home, so imagine this on every street you can see and also every road. Your ears are never far away from the dolcite whine of a scooter.

Monday 2nd May to Wednesday 4th:

Just another manic monday:

Worked in the breakfast store again this morning, it is hard work but satisfying. After working there we eat breakfast and as it is nice and cool Eve and I decide to go for a walk to this temple I saw the other day. Tanzi is cool in the morning, it is busy but the roads are relatively quiet in comparrison to night time, so it is easy for walking around (I forgot to mention previously the distinct lack of pavement area in Taiwan, everyone is fearless though). It is nice to walk around after work and just cool down, rather than going straight to bed. The morning is always peppered with the walking elderly. It is kind of cool to see them out being healthy, also in the park you can see them practicing exercises similar to Tai chi or Chi gong. Apparently, I am polite as I always say Ni hao and wave when I pass by them, this is normal for me back home, and they seem to appreciate the sentiment.

Below is a picture of the temple, it is really beautiful and ornate, the picture won't do it justice as it was difficult to photograph. There is a superstition or a belief I should say that to photograph directly across where the deity is would be bad so I refrain from shooting it straight on. I am 8,000 miles away from home and the last thing I need is to piss off a deity.

After the walk we head home to sleep, although this time we set the alarm for 1pm so we can go back to try and get a bike helmet.

After lunch we jump on the scooter and enter the world of Mad Max that is the main roads around here and go to the first Bike helmet shop. Guess what? It is closed. I am beginning to feel like I am not meant to get a helmet. We head to the other store which while it is more expensive at least it is open. We look around and a lot of the stuff is really professional, more racing spec than normal use. After looking around a bit an assistant comes to help us he indicates which helmets are around 2,000 dollars. I saw one I liked but it turnd out to be 3,000 and a bit too expensive even though it is £60 in our money. So I settle on the SQL one that will be pictured below. I liked the colours and the design the most out of the range on offer. The assistant then went about fitting it up with protective covering inside so that it would fit snuggly. He tells me that he will probably have to fit it with small size inside as my face is a different shape from asians but it fits and we buy it. Apparently Jheng shins helmet was a bit dangerous for me as if something happened it wouldn't hold much in the way of protection.

We then head back home and I help Lee Yuan in the kitchen making the black tea for tomorrow. He shows me the soya bean milk procedure but to be honest it is quite hard and a lot to take in so we decide I will learn everything but that until the end. People often visit Eve's parents to see the Foreigner, Taiwanese people are curious to say the least. I guess it will all die down soon enough and people will become tired of seeing the "White Prince of Tanzi District" lol

I was sorting through the laptop that I swapped my ps3 for back home and came across a cool surprise hidden away in the guest profile was 250GB of movies and 80GB of music. A Brucie Bonus!!!

Tuesday:

This morning I work again in the store, I am feeling quite positive that today I will repeat what I did yesterday, the way my brain works is this: See it, do it, repeat it, remember it. However, it appears that I am being shown new stuff all the time, it is becoming confusing jumping from one thing to the next and I need Eve to translate which is a wee bit frustrating. The work is not that difficult to do and it is interesting to learn the skills which are amazingly simple yet technical at the same time if that makes sense. This demotivates me a little, I feel a bit pressured as Eve will have Connor soon and she wont be able to help with the translation. At the end of the shift with Eves help I say in Mandarin the words "Anything more to do?" A few of the women that work there get a bit excited at the pronunciation and congratulate me on it.

In the evening, I go through the work again with Lee Yuan, this time I am doing more of it than just watching. Then at dinner time I go to see what is there to eat and I am shocked to see chicken with the feet in the pot. I see something a little different shaped poking out the sauce and the curiousity in me makes me take a look. I wish I hadn't as I move it up and to my dismay it is the head of the chicken. Appetite just went right on the bullet train out of here. Eve's parents as if I have eaten dinner and Eve explains to them the situation. They both laugh and tell Eve to buy me some fried chicken thing from near our home.

We decide to go and buy some stuff. I need a cooling stand for my laptop the heat here really pushes the internal fans to the limit and I am worried about thermal issues with the core so I go for a three fan booster to keep it cool. We go downstairs in the computer store and this guy just stares at me, I walk past him and he totally looks me up and down. I turn around and he is still staring at me, not in the nice curious way I have experienced before but there is a contempt in his eyes. He says something to his girlfriend and I feel a bit pissed off at him, so I turn and stare him down. Mostly, Taiwanese people are really friendly and cool but you get some who are idiots. I guess maybe he is a bit of a racist, but whatever the reason he is a bawbag. This is the first person I have met here that I have wanted to slap.

We leave and head to a cheap clothing store, to buy clothes that I can wear in the store instead of damaging my own. Taiwan is really beautiful at night time with all the neon exotic signs displaying Chinese. We buy some shorts and T-shirts and then go on to get some fried chicken.

We get the chicken and I turn round and notice that there is a truck there and guess what it is full off? Dead chickens. I am hungry now so I will eat it anyway. It is delicious.

Wednesday:

This morning in the breakfast store, my role has been changed again. I have to learn what Lee Yuan does as soon he will go to the army to do national service for a year. It is a lot to take in but I do my best. At the end I do a job I love doing, putting the ingredients on top of the rice pudding things and then bagging them up. I like this job because I slip into a kind of relaxing meditation while doing it.

We eat after work and as we will go for a scan again today we decide to pass on the walk. I eat fried noodles (similar to chow mein) and drink rice milk which I am starting to really like it is nice and hot. My Chinese is minimal at the moment but through learning some vocabulary about morning and breakfast I am able to piece together a sentence that says "I work in the breakfast store". I say it to her mum when she comes in and her face lights up, apparently my pronunciation was spot on. Her mum thinks I can pick up pronunciation really quickly. I know I said it well due to one of the employees who was in the fridge turning around with wide eyes indicating surprise. After that I hear excited chatter spread through the employees and I know it is about me. It is cool in Taiwan, they really appreciate when you can speak anything in their language.

The scan goes well. They reckon that Connor could come anytime next week now. The Doctor indicates that he has long legs. I have really loved this last week, I have been able to feel him kicking etc and it is a magical feeling. I also seem to be able to calm him down by just putting my hand there to comfort him. Due to the scan I don't need to help Lee Yuan tonight so we go to the department store to buy somethings for me and Eve. I have really resisted the urge to buy a typical dragon T-shirt but I did succumb to a cool Army Robot American Style T-shirt.

After dinner I am washing the rice for tomorrow, including the difficult mixing of white and black rice for rice balls when Eve calls me. I go through to meet her Auntie and Uncle and spend sometime with them. They came to see the Foreigner lol. Previously at dinner a neighbour turned up who came to see how handsome I really was. He is a guy who actually wanted to date Evelyn. In Taiwan it seems there are many beautiful girls but the guys are not the same standard, so you will often see a stunner of a girl with an uglier guy.

It is time for this minor celebrity in Taiwan to go chill for  a bit.