Second day of class

Well the second day went better than the first, it turns out I am not the worst in the class(but I'm also not close to the top either). My year of home study is coming through for me. I can read better than some and my pronunciation is not the worst.
Teachers like it when you ask questions even if you should know the answer, they are very encouraging if you try it in Chinese. Today was fun.

Almost all the students are like me, they come into Taiwan on a tourist visa that is good for 2 months and then can be renewed 2 months at a time. Because some 'students' have come to Taiwan to illegally teach English, the Ministry of Education requires students to take 15 hours of instruction every week and use a certificate from the Chinese Language School to verify that they are a student in good standing. So attendance is what the Chinese Language School uses to issue the certificate of good standing for the visa renewal.

My 15 hours are as follows:

Regular class, 2 hours, 5 days a week...............................10 hours
Mandatory pronunciation class once a week.....................2 hours
Mandatory grammar class once a week.............................1 hour
Optionals classes(pick one).................................................2 hours
Chinese Painting, 2 hours per week
Chinese Calligraphy, 2 hours per week
Chinese Conversation, 2 hours per week
Chinese Listening and Speaking, 2 hours per week
Chinese Cuisine and Culture, 2 hours per week
Chinese Singing, 2 hours per week.
Taijituan, 2 hours per week
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Total 15 hours

We can sample these optional classes in the first week and they choose one in the second week. My mature decision is to pick the easiest possible optional class. That rules out Painting, Calligraphy and Taijituan because I already know I suck at those three. I went to Listening and Speaking class but it was hard. The Culture and Cuisine class is at a teacher's house and I can't get there fast enough after my regular class. Basic Conversation conflicts with the Grammar class, so my last best hope is that Chinese Singing is an easy class. I don't get to sample that class until Friday. Wish me luck.

I finally found a good Night Market in Tainan. I know there are more and better ones out there but it took me 4 tries to hit this one. I used googling the web to find possibilities, but with 'fly by night' operations like a night market, the information on the web is quickly stale. One possibility was replaced with a construction site, one was a bunch of cement stalls with few people and the third must have changed the days of the week it was open. But I now know the "Greater Tainan Live Night Market" meets on

Sunday night. It was great! Food on display with prices and all you have to do is point to what you want. I got there early while stalls were being assembled and the crowds were crushing, the parking lot full and everyone in a good mood. The food was probably not FDA and Weight Watcher's approved but it did taste good. I'm going back. More pictures to follow.






I got there early enough that the kids were still playing the carnival games. I didn't see the gold fish pond where the kids buy paper nets and tried to catch live goldfish. (The paper net usually breaks before you can lift the fish out of the pond.) This version has the kids lassoing rubber duckies for prizes.










I'm down to about 5 or 6 regular shops in my neighborhood for regular meals. Do you think I stand out as a customer? No sense trying to hide it, just go with the flow.

On the menu this was called "zhu pai ji bao" Zhu = pig, ji = chicken so I thought I knew what was coming but the ji bao actually mean a bag made with fried egg, i.e. an omelet. The omelet had rice in a tomato sauce. I remember my mother use to make such a hot dish but she called it "Spanish rice". I don't know why.