Egg tarts and Dragon Boats

Seriously, Lisa, who would have thought someone would pay me to dispense advice to the next generation of Taiwanese schoodlchildren? Although that which makes me famous on the Net is the least of my daily duties. Drama, singing, and speech contests are curious beasts. I believe they do them because it helps the kiddies practice spoken English in fun ways. Imagine Granite Hills High School having an annual Spanish play contest for each grade year including all Spanish classes on campus. Now, imagine the quality that might be produced in an American high school Spanish class project that accounts for 15% of your grade and you have about 1 month's notice for. That is what an English drama contest is like. But perhaps Americans are a little more skittish about flaunting mediocrity. If these kids knew what the average foreigner would think of these plays, they would rather die than let them out of the private classroom. And the reason I "get" to judge said contests is because I work for the English magazines they learn from, and because I am a foreign face. If I'm there it makes it seem more legitimate, as if to confirm they haven't actually been learning Swahili. It also shows them that our company is willing to bend over and wipe their asses to keep their business. In politer terms it might be something like a courtesy call from a sales department. Oh look, they do use our product to learn English. (poorly) Well, everything looks in order here, I'll be on my way.

I just want to announce that anyone who wants to buy me an egg tart, whether from a bakery, 7-11, or especially KFC, will receive a plaque in the snack room at Julie Inc. Today I had this amazing craving for egg tarts that led me not only to buy some from KFC but then to buy the egg flavored pudding from Family Mart: The new Uni-President Sweet Corner stuff that tastes like creme brulee filling, or really yummy creamy flan. I'm telling you, they sell this is 7-11!! It's phenomenal. I also love the much cheaper 10 NT ghetto egg flavored pudding that is colored yellow with a brown bottom. basically egg flavored jello. i know it sounds weird, and it tastes like custard, not egg per se...whatever. All I can say is that I had to exercise a lot more today to burn those calories off and I don't regret it at all.

It's memorial day weekend in the U.S. and this Wednesday we in Taiwan will be having our own festival It's called Dragon Boat Festival and we all get Wednesday off, except for the bus drivers and 7-11 workers, per usual. It commemorates some famous poet who drowned himself and the villagers who tried to save him but didn't, and when they didn't they threw down this special food to keep the fish from eating him. So they make these very dense rice triangles packed with weird shit like meat and egg yolk and indecipherable sweet nuttish things and they steam them and sell them EVERYWHERE. And you can tell how good I think they are. So, much like fruitcake, I intend on passing the ones I received to other people and pretending I got them for them because I care about them. Anyway, in the river behind my house they also have these Dragon Boat races and teams from many nations and Taiwanese institutions come and race--the teams can have up to 20 members and involve a drummer to keep the beat and a small person to hang off the front to grab a flag--the pros are the Thai racers. It's the one place in my whole world where you can see hundreds of truly buff and bronzed Asian men.

When we went to the orphanage we realized that the bottom floor is now populated with some of our favorite boys. I decided to nickname it The Handsome Boy Modeling Club because of the affinity I have for the band of the same name. Our boys are way cuter, though. The sweetpea with the cleft palette and the one without an ear are in there along with supercutie YH and the grandfather of the orphanage, WH, who is like a year and a half old. We got to meet two Dutch dudes who were escorting some of the babies to their parents. It was adorable.