Monday, Aug. 30, 2004 - 1:00 a.m.

I was made fun of on our Tainan YahoO! bulletin board for having three pics of this hanger on my "for sale" website. But I loved these hangers. They were smooth, dark wood. There is somehthing about smooth wood that is soul stroking to me. Especially here where shitty plastic and thin tin seem to be the most common materials for friggin everything. And the fact that NO ONE seemed to understand why these brought such joy to my life was VERY disheartening. I guess its a good sign that they went fast once they were in the free bin. I guess.

On a lighter note, I found this link when I was re-reading some of the first four month entries of ME IN TAIWAN (not available online). Its an instructional cartoon on how to use a squat toilet. No one I asked knew which way was the proper way to face when using these damn things, so this cartoon was much needed. And funny as hell. Enough said, check it out:

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~AD8Y-HYS/movie.htm

We had an open house at my school this weekend. It was so sad. There are so many cram schools opening up that competition is fierce. Lately there were even 2-3 new ones just in our neighborhood. Crazy. For all the cram schools in this country, I am still amazed that no one stops to question their effectiveness. The nature of the beast called cram schools are to shove as much info (in this case English lang. info) into their tiny heads in a small amount of time.

The cram school madness has been going on here for what...10-15 years, and is the general population better off English speaking wise? From my experience the answer seems to be HELL NO. But maybe all the students who benfitted from this extra schooling are studying or working overseas. All at the same time. lol. I dont know. I know I work at a cram school, but I seriously question the method and the madness. Yet its a VERY lucrative business, so more and more open all the time.

Anyway, we had three kids show up. The other Open Houses we had at least 15-20 kids. We do a mini-lesson and then while the bosses talk to the parents some of the teachers play games with the kids. Do you know how hard it is for 4 teachers to play games with 3 kids. We were laughing so hard about the sad hilarity of it all that I think we had way more fun than the kids.

As much as I question the validity of cram schools, I think ours is run like a well oiled machine. And my bosses and local teaching staff really spend a TON of time and attention on the kids. I dont know where they get the patience or energy for it. I dont have it. And it makes me sad to see such a well intentioned business not get the attention it deserves. Yikes!