The Not So Great Flood

I have been studying Chinese as of late and getting more confident speaking. Chinese speakers complain about us having words that sound the same but mean different things. For example: Two, Too, To... Tutu
But now I have realized that the Chinese are just a bunch of cry babies as almost every single syllable in Mandarin has five different tones and meanings.
This has served up some rather funny and or embarrassing moments as of late. Take "Mi Mi" for example. It means "secret." So I told my grade six class that I knew Peter had a secret. They all started laughing. I didn't know why as I hadn't burned him yet. So I said it again. I constantly harass Peter as he is the class clown and dishes is out to everyone else. All I wanted them to do was ask me what the secret was but they wouldn't bite. So I told them in Chinese that Peter had a very big secret, which got them howling. Turns out, if you change the tone on "Mi Mi" -it means nipple.

Now that the first trimester has past, we have started telling people that Jenny is pregnant. I asked Jenny how to say, "My wife is pregnant," in Chinese. Jenny told me and it seemed easy enough. So the next day, one of my student's mothers walked into the school and I approached her to tell her the good news. "My wife is pregnant!" I said proudly in Chinese. She got this confused/horrified look on her face. So I thought maybe she didn't understand. So I said it again with a big grin. She then looked really uncomfortable and my Taiwanese coworker started pissing herself laughing. "Danny, you said the tone wrong! You just told her your wife had an affair." She then bailed me out with the mom who offered a sigh of relief and congratulations. She was probably wondering why I was so damn proud that my wife was cheating on me.

In other news, last week I was typing away on the computer when I suddenly heard a scream and loud crash from the kitchen. I ran in to find about a centimeter of water everywhere on the floor. Due to the white marble floors, Jenny did not see it walking in, slipped and fell really hard to the floor. She hit her arm so hard on the counter that it was all lacerated. I am amazed she didn’t break it, as it takes a pretty powerful hit on a smooth blunt object to cut your arm. We took her to the doctor the next morning and were relieved to see that everything seems fine with the baby. The pipes, which were installed by the evil house seller and not by the original building company are apparently poorly made which caused the drains in the bathroom floors and kitchen to overflow with water. Any time we turned on a shower, washing machine or sink, it would overflow more. While trying to bail out the kitchen, we realized that every time we threw the water in the sink, it would just come back
up through the floor faster. So we then had to start tossing buckets of water out of the window. This also meant that we couldn’t take a shower for two days. After teaching kids in 34 degree weather all day, one is in desperate need of a rinse. Long story short, we needed to call in plumbers 4 times over the last week to fix the problem as it kept happening over and over again. If they can’t fix it, we may have to tear up all of the marble floors in the house and have the pipes redone properly. Not something you want to hear with a baby coming.

With the kids out of school, my schedule has become crazy busy. I have started four more classes, which is great for the bank account but damn tiring. Once the school year starts again, most of them won’t have time for class, so I am just trying to bank as much money as possible during the summer.

My plan since finding out we were pregnant was to return for a couple of weeks this summer to meet Sullivan and see everyone but was shocked to see that the price of tickets had gone up almost a thousand dollars from last year. Jenny told me I should still go but after much debate, we decided it would be better to stay here this summer and make money. The thought of paying $2400 for the flight plus missing two weeks of work was a little scary. So instead Jenny suggested we wait until after the baby is old enough to fly and then head back to introduce him or her to everyone back home. (Not in peak season.) I think this is a much smarter option.

I do have 5 days off at the end of July though. Jenny has to work and I didn’t want to be stuck in Tainan doing nothing for a week. So I started looking into flights and found out I can head to Boracay for $350 round-trip! When I saw that price, I instantly bought the ticket as I have wanted to see the sugar-white like beaches of the Philippines for about 5 years. I never realized it was so cheap to go there or I would have done it way earlier. I thought I would be doing the trip by myself but found out my friend Peter also has a week off at that time and when I told him the price he jumped on board too. So the two of us are going to go be beach bums for six days in the jewel of Asia. Which will give me a much needed break from Taiwan.

<--- This is the beach I am heading for.

In other news, Jenny was very excited to go see Air Supply in concert. She loved them in the 80s. I was not interested in going to watch some old washed up rockers perform, so she took her sister with her. She left excitedly for the event but arrived home later quite demoralized. Apparently Air Supply’s voices and appearance have not aged well. I got a good laugh as she described them as looking like my dad or Jim but wearing tight leather pants. Note: Asian people think all us whiteys look the same.