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poetrywhore posted:I live in Pingtung and never heard of the thing. But we have a spare bedroom if you want to come down and check it out you can have a place to stay. I spent a weekend in Pingtung visiting a friend's uncle when I was studying in Taipei one summer. They got us drunk and took us out and had us try the area's supposed specialty - tomato chunks that you dip into a sort of sweet sauce. Do you know what I'm talking about and is there a name for it?
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Mar 12, 2014 20:26
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poetrywhore posted:I live in Pingtung and never heard of the thing. But we have a spare bedroom if you want to come down and check it out you can have a place to stay. Thanks for the offer! Still overseas, but I'll have to pull the trigger eventually.
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Mar 12, 2014 20:34
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Heads up call for Poker - 9PM Friday First deal at 9PM, please arrive a bit earlier if you wanna eat, introductions etc. Cash game, 1000NT$ buy in, repeat as necessary. Last deal will be late (we'll discuss it around 2-3am) so we can divvy up, settle the beer bill, and have a little time to shoot the breeze. The usual guff: Zhongshan N Rd. Section 2, Alley 115 No. 15 中山北路二段115巷15號 Name of the place is 川娃子 If you Google Maps the address it will show the proper place, more or less. There's a big red and white sign with 川娃子 on it out front. If you're going north on Zhongshan Rd, take a right at the tiny alley in front of Mr. Onion and it's just a bit down that alley. Prepare to buy-in for at least 1000NT. Beer and food are available for non-exorbitant prices. My number is 0970229902 if you get lost/need me to LINE you a location. If you're coming, want to come late, please reply in here tomorrow or simply LINE me so I can add you to the group chat. Next 1K game will be 18th April.
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Mar 13, 2014 04:12
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1000NT is just too steep for me these days otherwise I'd be down.
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Mar 13, 2014 05:02
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I'll throw down again. I'm probably free at that time.
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Mar 13, 2014 05:54
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Cool see you tomorrow.
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Mar 13, 2014 14:12
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khysanth posted:I spent a weekend in Pingtung visiting a friend's uncle when I was studying in Taipei one summer. They got us drunk and took us out and had us try the area's supposed specialty - tomato chunks that you dip into a sort of sweet sauce. Do you know what I'm talking about and is there a name for it? Like this or the darker brown sauce?
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Mar 13, 2014 14:40
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The darker one but I'm curious to know more about that one as well!
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Mar 14, 2014 02:46
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url posted:Have a friend buy it for you?  I'm thick.
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Mar 14, 2014 06:54
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So I've decided to make the big leap and travel to another country. I still have a term of school left, but I graduate in July and there's nothing holding me back after that. I went ahead and applied to HESS, but I have to say the pay and working conditions don't seem that great (Split shift, 18k a year, 6 day work week). I'm leaning towards Korea right now, where the pay and benefits seem to be better. That said, you can learn Chinese in Taiwan, which is a language in higher demand than Korean and it may benefit my career further down the road. This is a big life change for me, so I'd like to be informed before diving it. Can I expect a semi-comfortable life in Taiwan if I'm working for HESS? Will I have time to do things other than work? Time to learn Chinese? Are there better companies I could apply to? Any help in making this major life decision is appreciated
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Mar 15, 2014 03:41
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Chomskyan posted:So I've decided to make the big leap and travel to another country. I still have a term of school left, but I graduate in July and there's nothing holding me back after that. I went ahead and applied to HESS, but I have to say the pay and working conditions don't seem that great (Split shift, 18k a year, 6 day work week). I'm leaning towards Korea right now, where the pay and benefits seem to be better. You should go to China. Specifically Xinjiang. That's a good place for a man on his way to the top.
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Mar 15, 2014 04:07
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Barto posted:You should go to China. The problem is I'm just not interested in China at all. It's politics, history, or culture. None of it interests me. I just can't get into China. The countries in East Asia that interest me are Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (in that order). Japan feels out of reach, even applying for the jobs over there would require spending lots of money in airfare to travel to distant cities like Toronto in order to be interviewed. Korea feels within reach, and seems to have decent pay and benefits. But again, Taiwan would give me the opportunity to learn Chinese, and may not be such a bad compromise from Korea. I guess I just want some assurance with regards to HESS. I get a lot of red flags reading their website, and I get the feeling that if I'm employed by them I won't have a good time in Taiwan, which is really what this is all about. I'm throwing away a lot of potential income already by choosing to teach english instead of finding a job in the US. If I'm going to do that, I need to know I'm going to get the experience I want. Maybe there are other companies in Taiwan this thread could recommend?
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Mar 15, 2014 04:42
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Hess is hit or miss, it's impossible for anyone to give you anything more definite than that. A lot of us here have had experience at Hess (myself included), but it varies a lot branch by branch, and like most things in life, it depends on how well you cope and what you make of it. Personally, I had an alright time at Hess, no big drama, it was simple work, but I had a good schedule and pretty good branches. It's one of the best things to do if you really need a "sure thing" before you come over here, but by no means is Hess the only game in town, especially if you're willing to risk coming over here and trying to just find employment once in country. It's more of a gamble, but it will increase your odds of success by a huge amount, since the majority of schools here prefer to hire someone in person rather than someone abroad whom they've maybe had a Skype call or two with. I don't think other chains, even the "bigger" ones have such a well-developed hiring system for getting recruits from abroad like Hess. If you're in a new country, with a new job, and especially at Hess (which is notorious for working people a bit harder than the average school), you really have to consider whether or not you honestly think you'll find time to learn Chinese, if that's really something that's going to swing your decision.
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Mar 15, 2014 06:29
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Chomskyan posted:That said, you can learn Chinese in Taiwan, which is a language in higher demand than Korean and it may benefit my career further down the road. This is a big life change for me, so I'd like to be informed before diving it. Can I expect a semi-comfortable life in Taiwan if I'm working for HESS? Will I have time to do things other than work? Time to learn Chinese? Are there better companies I could apply to? I hope you understand what's wrong with the above. Make Hess your backup, safety job. It is the chain school and recruits most of its teachers from abroad because people living here realize what a lovely gig it is.
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Mar 15, 2014 06:38
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Not to be pro-prc MK but if you're looking for professional development working in China and having contacts in China will go further than Taiwan. I keep trying to find jobs there but Taipei just has a lot less than SH, BJ, SZ or even smaller cities like Chengdu. European and N. American companies all are focused on China atm, and even Taiwanese companies have more (attainable) well-paying positions in the mainland than in Taiwan. But Taiwan is p cool. You can eat stinky tofu and chicken steaks all day.
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Mar 15, 2014 06:52
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POCKET CHOMP posted:I don't think other chains, even the "bigger" ones have such a well-developed hiring system for getting recruits from abroad like Hess.
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Mar 15, 2014 06:58
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I worked for by all accounts one of the worst Hess branches in the country and had a pretty miserable time there (partly due to personal reasons that had nothing to do with Hess) but it was never enough to make me regret moving to Taiwan. Just bitch about your boss to your coworkers and roll with it. Split shifts suck, but there's no guarantee you'll actually get one (I never did) the pay is among the lowest in Taiwan, but it's more than enough to live comfortably, especially if you choose your housing carefully. I've said it before but the thing that I hated the most was teaching kindergarten, and that's just because I didn't realize how much I was gonna hate doing crafts and acting like Barney until I started doing it. So strongly consider whether you wanna do that before you sign a kindy contract. Eta: it varies by branch and Chinese school, but the majority of Hess classes end before 630 and if you don't do kindy you're guaranteed to not have to work until 200, so when I was doing kindy I had plenty of time to squeeze in evening Chinese classes, and when I quit kindy I had time to do morning classes. YMMV. quadrophrenic fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 08:49
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HESS can be an incredible hit or miss situation. The actual teaching portion is like how I describe it to my friends back home: it's like you're a substitute teacher who sees the same class every week. You don't come up with any lessons but do all the homework. I've been teaching at the same branch for over two years now, and I can say with all honesty that I like going to work there everyday. I would like to keep working there for longer. I adore my coworkers and kids. They've also got me doing two other classes for them inside a junior high school and those are pretty good too, for the most part. I also get sent out on alot of all day-excursions where you teach huge groups in public schools, and those were easy money (all outside HESS contracted stuff pays more and get gas per diems that will fill up your scooter for the week. ) That being said, I have also been pretty screwed by them big time on one occasion : forced to drive an hour out of town to teach an adult class of engineers with no plan of any kind given to me (with the reason given that they were supposed to buy a book with the course but they didn't want to, so come up with your own poo poo. ) When that happened, my regular school branch always had my back and tried to help me whenever she could. When I have been farmed out to sub at other branches, my experiences were... Not as good. One branch in particular, which has a reputation about being lovely, was hell everytime I went there. Others ranged from fine to this sucks. My roommate, who also works for HESS, has had a really lovely time with upper area management who continually try to screw him, and he's finally had enough and plans to quit once I get back from vacation (because he is subbing all my classes for a month because they literally don't have anywhere for him to work right now. He agrees with me that my school is great and his other schools treated him much worse.) I would go into more detail If you want but let's just say that he really hates HESS now. If you're in the need to save alot of money in the first year, you probably won't (with the expensive places they find you when you get there, and startup costs, Im pretty sure I lost money overall even with my parents help. ) if you move into a real place after, even on a HESS paycheck you should be saving a fifth at least. About the split shifts thing, they make you send a contract when you get there about how many hours you must average a week and if you are doing Kindy. For the most part, if you sign a no-kindy contract, you won't do it unless your branch is a sleazy gently caress. However, you may get Jump classes during regular hours, which is alot like a kindy class but only two hours. I've only subbed jump, and if you're problem is with little kids climbing all over you and not the time issue, you will hate that.
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Mar 15, 2014 10:03
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Jump isn't great, but it's only twice a week. The worst part about kindy is the ceaseless everydayness of it all.
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Mar 15, 2014 10:35
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Chomskyan posted:The problem is I'm just not interested in China at all. It's politics, history, or culture. None of it interests me. I just can't get into China. What is it that you like about Taiwan specifically? I am the biggest pro-independence person ever but it is undeniable that a huge chunk of Taiwan's politics, history, and culture are tied up in "China" (in the broadest possible sense of the term). Are you sure you will like Taiwan? quadrophrenic posted:I've said it before but the thing that I hated the most was teaching kindergarten, and that's just because I didn't realize how much I was gonna hate doing crafts and acting like Barney until I started doing it. So strongly consider whether you wanna do that before you sign a kindy contract. It always depresses me how people talking about ESL jobs never talk about things like whether or not they'll like what they're doing all day, just things like "will I have enough money to go boozing/traveling" and "will I be made to work weekends". Not that those things aren't important, but they're not the only things... I know a young woman here who legitimately enjoys teaching kindergarteners and her existence brightens my life every time she talks excitedly about how cute the kids are or how little Eason learned to pronounce the word Apple or whatever. hitension fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 11:20
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hitension posted:What is it that you like about Taiwan specifically? I am the biggest pro-independence person ever but it is undeniable that a huge chunk of Taiwan's politics, history, and culture are tied up in "China" (in the broadest possible sense of the term). Are you sure you will like Taiwan? Honestly I'm not sure I'll like Taiwan. My interest in Taiwan is just an extension of my interest in Japan and Korea. I just find the "economic miracle" fascinating and am interested in modern cities like Tapei, where the majority of buildings didn't exist prior to the last half-century. I'm really much more interested in Korea, but I feel like learning Chinese would be a more worthwhile endeavor than learning Korean. I'm also interested in living in a city with a good nightlife/club scene, which I know I could find in the three Asian Tiger countries. That said, maybe I should reconsider China. My main aversion is that I don't know much about China. Admittedly, I've also come to assume that life in China would be more restricted, but I don't have any real reason for believing that. It's just my (biased) perception of China's government I guess.
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Mar 15, 2014 11:51
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hitension posted:
I just genuinely didn't know how stressful it would be until I actually started to do it. All I ever heard was kindergarten is a piece of cake, and to be fair for maybe 90% of teachers it is, but I'm emphatically one of the 10%. FWIW I do get that passionate about actually teaching English, which is part of the reason I dislike kindergarten, because there's very little actual overt teaching of English. I now work at a foreign run buxiban which is pretty serious about actual teaching, and I'm super stoked about it. Remember, unless you're really committed to only being in Taiwan for a year, you can always spend a year doing chain cram bullshit and then move in to something better. Regardless of how lovely some chains might be, any classroom experience is good classroom experience.
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Mar 15, 2014 11:57
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Chomskyan posted:I'm really much more interested in Korea, but I feel like learning Chinese would be a more worthwhile endeavor than learning Korean. Although I guess on the other hand going to Korea would also involve working in Korea and being (I presume) of basically any race that isn't Korean in Korea.
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Mar 15, 2014 12:19
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This is the Taiwan thread and Xinjiang is part of Taiwan! It says so right in the constitution. I highly recommend you go there. Mongolia is also nice- and also part of Taiwan.
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Mar 15, 2014 14:32
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TetsuoTW posted:Although I guess on the other hand going to Korea would also involve working in Korea and being (I presume) of basically any race that isn't Korean in Korea. Let me tell you just how much fun that is.
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Mar 15, 2014 15:08
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quadrophrenic posted:I just genuinely didn't know how stressful it would be until I actually started to do it... TetsuoTW posted:Honestly dude, if Korea is what you're interested in, do it. Learning a language is hard work, and if you're not actually interested in anything produced in the language you're learning, it's going to be even harder and significantly less fun. THIS. Nobody ever learned a language that they weren't interested in simply because it was "useful" (except people who literally needed it to survive in a place, and even then, not very well. Think of Chinatowns in the States with people who've lived there for 50 years but only speak minimal survival English). Korean is also still considered a pretty useful language at least for government work and if you do decide to come back to the Sinosphere later on, you will have a lot of root words in common. Chomskyan posted:Honestly I'm not sure I'll like Taiwan. My interest in Taiwan is just an extension of my interest in Japan and Korea. I just find the "economic miracle" fascinating and am interested in modern cities like Tapei, where the majority of buildings didn't exist prior to the last half-century. I'm really much more interested in Korea, but I feel like learning Chinese would be a more worthwhile endeavor than learning Korean. I'm also interested in living in a city with a good nightlife/club scene, which I know I could find in the three Asian Tiger countries. Taipei will be REALLY disappointing if you like Seoul and Tokyo. Taipei : Seoul/Tokyo :: Toronto : New York/London. As for the nightlife/club scene, I think any major city in Asia will have what you want, although I am inclined to feel that clubbing(or at least drinking to excess) is more a part of the local "culture" in Korea and Japan than in Taiwan. Drinking's not that popular here. There are clubs everywhere though, even in dinky 2nd tier Chinese cities. Life in China IS more restricted, but it depends on what you wanna do. For people who aren't very conscious of politics and have a VPN I don't think they will feel much difference. I had a friend who went to Taiwan during the last election and the democracy made like NO impression on her at all, all she did was complain that Taipei only had one skyscraper whereas Shanghai has like 50 or whatever  different strokes
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Mar 15, 2014 15:18
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Taipei does not really have a very good club/night life scene at all. There are a handful of decent bars and a handful of decent clubs, but get used to seeing the same dozen faces at them every single time you go out.
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Mar 15, 2014 15:42
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Having lived in both, I feel Shanghai is very a more cosmopolitan city than Taipei. In a lot of ways my current tier2 city feels more diverse as it has a large Tibetan population, a few multinationals and no one speaks putonghua.
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Mar 15, 2014 16:37
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I think you'll find it's called guoyu, and the proper characters for it are 國語.
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Mar 15, 2014 17:46
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Atlas Hugged posted:I think you'll find it's called guoyu, and the proper characters for it are 國語. 1911 never forget :roc: I want to make a crying Blue China emoticon. hitension posted:For people who aren't very conscious of politics and have a VPN I don't think they will feel much difference. That's a bit disingenuous. People in the PRC can definitely be very conscientious of the political situation because life can be so messed up. The expression of dissatisfaction is definitely a lot more subdued than Taiwan. For all the intelligence your friend possesses, she presents herself as a bumbling idiot. caberham fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 17:52
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I thought I hated kids when I got a job at a conversation school similar to Hess (Nova in Japan.) Our students ranged from 0 to 90... I realized my dislike for little kids was just inexperience. Now I've been teaching kindergarten for 7 years. Lessons are fun but my favorite stuff is the non-teaching stuff.
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Mar 16, 2014 00:11
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hitension posted:THIS. Nobody ever learned a language that they weren't interested in simply because it was "useful" (except people who literally needed it to survive in a place, and even then, not very well. Think of Chinatowns in the States with people who've lived there for 50 years but only speak minimal survival English). Korean is also still considered a pretty useful language at least for government work and if you do decide to come back to the Sinosphere later on, you will have a lot of root words in common. Fair enough. I'll just keep my options open for now and think about it in the mean time. I went ahead and applied for a work exchange program in Zhenshen (http://www.chinaprogram.org) which honestly looks a lot more promising for what I want than the HESS program. I appreciate everyone's advice so far, by the way.
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Mar 16, 2014 04:03
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hitension posted:I had a friend who went to Taiwan during the last election and the democracy made like NO impression on her at all, all she did was complain that Taipei only had one skyscraper whereas Shanghai has like 50 or whatever sub supau fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 04:23
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Atlas Hugged posted:Taipei does not really have a very good club/night life scene at all. There are a handful of decent bars and a handful of decent clubs, but get used to seeing the same dozen faces at them every single time you go out. "...our scientists have observed via telescope." -Someone who lives in buttfuck nowhere.
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Mar 16, 2014 04:31
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Spanish Matlock posted:"...our scientists have observed via telescope." One night partying in Seoul and you'll agree with me completely.
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Mar 16, 2014 05:59
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Anybody have any experience getting an international endorsement on a Taiwanese driving license and using it in America? I'm going back a several weeks long visit and that seems like it will be the only way I can legally drive myself anywhere.
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Mar 16, 2014 10:07
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Oz_Bonus posted:Anybody have any experience getting an international endorsement on a Taiwanese driving license and using it in America? I'm going back a several weeks long visit and that seems like it will be the only way I can legally drive myself anywhere. Go to the DMV and pay like 200NT or something and you get an international drivers license which works worldwide. It is valid as long as your Taiwanese license is valid.
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Mar 16, 2014 10:21
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I've done that with a JP license, and renewed my CA license while I had the rental car. In Japan it's issued directly by the police. You might be asked to pay a premium rate or get fancy insurance. I always get the fancy insurance because if poo poo goes down, I wanna bounce out and not deal with lawsuits and poo poo.
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Mar 16, 2014 14:22
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NTU students and some professors(apparently?) have occupied and encircled the Legislative Yuan. A few green legislators are hunger striking and a KMT member's seat in the Yuan had a shitload of Mainland business cards. Anyone else following this? They've got a live broadcast(e: gone) going right outside. I was curious what exactly was going on and have wound up listening for an hour to so. About 20 minutes ago, the police at the scene were letting them take sleeping bags and water/bread inside, but they just said in the early AM the cops are going to arrest all the students inside and charge them. e: stream dropped very suddenly, and people have said riot police are already preparing to enter sentimental snail fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Mar 18, 2014 |
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Mar 18, 2014 16:17
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They're too late, the KMT used microphone ninjitsu and passed the cross-strait pact. Get ready for Chinese hairdressers to parachute into Taipei like the opening of Red Dawn.
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Mar 18, 2014 16:58
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