Three of the little student's I taught in Taiwan: Pearlie, Wish and Kin. Taiwanese children will often times adopt an English name that their friends and teachers call them at the English schools. Most of the students I taught did not even know the Chinese names of their friends.

Some English names my 4 and 5 year olds had:

Evonne
Angudy (You may be wondering why this is an English name - I am also wondering this.)
Agnes
Doris
Grace
Pearlie
Scott
Tiger
Della
Leo
Wish
Ben
Chelsea
Jenny
Austin
Kin
Danny
Alex
Wilson

As you can see, there is a mix of normal English names and old time names (with a few totally weird ones or misspelled ones, too).

Scooters in Taiwan

Taiwan, and many other Asian countries, are over run by scooters. At rush hour, it's typical to see 50-100 (maybe more) scooter crushing down the street. Taiwan has different rules of the road for scooters - they get to wait for red lights in front of all the cars in a special 'scooter box', they can't make left turns and some other interesting ones. Foreigners are supposed to hold a valid drivers license (either Taiwanese or international). I didn't. I never got pulled over, but if I had, it could have been a pretty serious offense. I rented my tiny 50cc scooter from an Australian guy and paid him a monthly fee. I don't think he rents scooters anymore, but it was much more convenient than having to buy one and sell it before leaving the country. I had to take it in once a month for a tune up. No big deal.

Driving in Taiwan made me a little anxious - weaving throughout lanes upon lanes of cars took some getting used to. It was unhealthy, too. As I mentioned above, scooters all park in a box in front of the cars while waiting at a red light. They are crushed together with very little space. Clouds of exhaust from the surrounding scooters made it impossible to breathe. Many people wore the face masks that became popular during the SARS outbreak in order to filter some of the pollutants in the air. I came back to the US wheezing - Singulair for 6 months cleared it up.

Teaching English Abroad? Almost everything you need to know... kind of.

If you're thinking of teaching English overseas, there are a zillion and one details to consider.(I'll discuss those details in posts to come!) My hope is that by reading this blog you gain information from my experience. Of course I'm no expert on every aspect of this monstrous topic, but I can at least offer some guidance. Questions? Please ask! I'll do my best.

Six months after graduating from college (November of 2004), I flew to Taiwan by myself. Oh, I tried to get friends to go with me, but it's funny how convincing people to drop their lives and jet across the world just isn't that easy! For the next year and a half, I taught English, sang with the Taipei Philharmonic Choir, traveled throughout Asia, and studied Mandarin.

I'm currently writing an 'almost-truthful' novel about my experiences abroad. If I ever finish it, you can read a more in depth personal account of what it's like.