Mandarin Study - English Teaching - Taichung Smog

12-27-12  Thurs. 

I took a bike ride up the banks of the Han River yesterday but after I had gone upstairs to the roof garden. And what did i do on the roof garden? I studied Mandarin; Lesson 1, Book 4 of Chinese For Today by Hu Yu-Shu, a book printed in China in 1987 and used at FDR High School years ago. Until I can get hooked up with a Mandarin class, this is how I will study and try to learn some new vocabulary, in addition to watching TV with Leona and asking a question occasionally. Up the Han, opposite the taoist temple, I read Why Look at Animals? by John Berger, a little "Great Ideas" Penguin Book I bought at Caves Taichung the week before I went back to Brooklyn to clean up the basement. I was so inspired by the the respect it advocates for animals that I listened to The Smiths "Meat is Murder" on the ride home and told Leona I wanted to have vegetarian food for lunch. I can't eat vegetarian food often but yesterday it was good. 

I am watching "Eyewitness News at Six" from WABC New York. There is a n'oreaster hitting the city. It is 32 degrees there, snowing and getting worse, especially upstate. It's a miserable mess and I'm glad I'm not there. Here in Taichung, it was like summer yesterday, sunny in the 80's. I swear I got a tan while sitting and reading on the dyke of the Han River. It will be about 80 degrees today, too. The problem here is the smog, not the weather. For every asshole on the chaotic roads, there is a half inch exhaust hole from their scooters and motorcycles. The smoke hangs in the air like fog. That's why I wear a mask over my mouth when I ride the bicycle to the bushiban. I wear it over my mouth, not over my nose and mouth, because the bridge of my nose is too high, leaving a gap, and fogging up my glasses when I exhale. I breath through my mouth when I ride, anyway. 

I want to find a Mandarin class to study at. There is a two-month thirty-hour program, Tuesday and Thursday evenings at Taichung University near the Chung Yo Department Store, about twenty minutes away from here by bicycle. The deadline to register is January 31. There are 2-5 students in a class. It costs about $10US (290NT) an hour. I could ride there after my class at American Eagle ends at 6pm. But my schedule is going to change by March when the Mandarin and American Eagle class new terms begin. I don't yet know what I can and am going to do. I don't know if American Eagle is going to offer me a spring schedule of classes, what days they will be on. It would be better to go back to Brooklyn in the summer, July and August, If I do that, at least I could be back for summer classes in Taichung. I