Okay, some points I should have got round to writing a while back. My excuse is that net cafes, with their blaring Chinese pop and equally high-decibel online games, are not the best environment for serious concentration. Anyhoos...

1. Some Taiwanese folks are as friendly as your very favourite relative.

Case in point my student (i.e. married friend Cecilia). So sick was she of seeing me turning up each week with my distinctly feminine (and broken-strapped) Jordan's School bag, that last week she gave me a brand new (and rather funky) blue backpack.

Also, when I turn up for each 'lesson' (in which we simply gossip for an hour), she promptly feeds me 'til I'm fit to burst. Then, as is the Taiwanese way, she feeds me some more.

2. Students, well, nearly all kids who are young (i.e. not married), have absolutely NO LIFE, unless they manage to escape to University or run away from home (though I think the latter is unheard of).

By this I mean that they're at school in the morning and afternoon, followed often as not by some kind of cram school or extra tuition after that (be it English, Chinese, Japanese, Music, Maths, Over-Feeding Foreigners etc.). This just leaves Sunday for them to complete any unfinished homework, play computer games (which, quite frankly, is the strongest religion for the young here) and, as they constantly reitterate, sleep, sleep, sleep.

You can imagine the fun-packed stories by non-speaking Advanced Classes come out with then... ask them any question that you've tried to ensure they can't answer with 'Yes', 'No', or 'So-so', and they'll usually find a way to turn the answer into something sleep related (i.e. usually "sleep" - subtext: "bugger the sentence patterns we're supposed to use, i'm too tired for this. "Sleep", that's all you're getting, get used to it").

Even my Taiwanese colleagues are stuck without social lives. At our New Year's dinner, we went to a Japanese restaurant. One of the Chinese teachers, a lovely girl we'll call erm, Sam, here, is about 26 or 27. At 9pm her father rang her up demanding to know when she'd be back (we'd only arrived, an hour's drive from Huwei, at 8!).

I am feeling mighty glad to be a Westerner on this one, though if you've never had wider freedom, do you miss it? (sorry, that was alll a little Carrie Bradshaw-esque wasn't it?).

3. I turn into (even more of a) freak during Aural Tests.

Most of my classes get tested every 8 or 9 lessons or so. This process involves a class written test, some group listening exercises, and a 5-minute aural test 1-to-1 with yours truly, which I conduct while the written test is going on in the next room.

Sometimes these tests are great as I get to monitor students' progress and feel like I've achieved something, though sometimes it's quite the opposite feeling. Like when the supposedly intermediate-level student enters the room and I ask them 'How are you?' as they're taking their seat. When I hear the response 'My name is John', I know it's going to be a long day.

However, that's not the freaky part! The few seconds between one student leaving the class and the next entering, THAT's when the madness commences.

I'm afraid I don't seem capable of keeping it together enough to just sit their waiting, quiet and teacher-like. Instead I start manicly drumming inanimate objects and singing (by that I mean wailing) impromptu songs about my students' lack of progress - along the lines of "You're so dense it's unbelievable" or "kill me now, you don't know **** you!".

That or I'll choose to murder Craig McClaughlan and Check 1-2's single British hit 'Mona' - you know the one - "Tell you Mona what I'm gonna do... dum, dee-dum, dee-dum... DUM DUM ... HEEEEEYYYY Mona!! Ooooohhhh, Mona.").

Crazy I tell you. Still, I'm getting a bit of a tan out here. How for now.

.....[Matt you make me HOOT sometimes. =) ]