Fairytales in the Rainforest (how I became cynical about conservation work)

In summer 2011 I spent 7 weeks living in the Amazon Rainforest, in Ecuador doing Ecological research on the biodiversity of the area, in particular the birds. This story was written about the days I went up to stay with the locals to record some of the stories, and the days that followed in which I became disillusioned with ecological research as a way of preserving the environment and preventing the oil companies destroying the area.

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Paul, a pale gringo, arrived at our research camp in the Amazon rainforest with his two interns, Ash and Tom. Two local Ecuadorians paddled his canoe. “Are you ready?” Paul asked. I scrambled down the mud-slick bank of the river, unable to see clearly as the daylight started to fade into a tropical sunset.

I had been living in the Amazon rainforest for 5 weeks, and I was ready to see faces that weren’t those of my thirteen other team members. We were a group of students from Glasgow University, come to Ecuador to do ecological research. Paul worked with the Payamino project, a Danish organisation trying to stop the oil companies in Ecuador from buying land from the locals. He lived in the nearby village of a dozen houses and a school. I wasn’t here for just ecological research, but had another mission of my own, for my own interest. I wasn’t a scientist, but a storyteller. Paul and I were going to stay with the president. One of our guides tugged the canoe’s motor to smoky life, and we whirred off upriver.

The sky was stained vivid purple and red when we reached the president’s hut. Nearly naked small children greeted us, beating the ash out of a partially-finished canoe. To make it hollow and smooth they had burned out the centre and were now beating out the ash with branches. They were covered head to toe in soot, only their eyes shining out. Ash and Tom started emptying water out of their wellingtons. Halfway upriver we became stuck, and had braved the anacondas to climb out and push.

I watched as before my eyes the colours faded from the horizon and it flattened out into a grey expanse. I walked up the trodden down path to our accommodation. The president’s hut was the most luxurious hut this side of the village, where he also had a small breeze-block house. It was so luxurious that it wasn’t just him living there, it was also his wife, his three children, his mother, his brother, his brother’s wife, and their four children.

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The hut was a wooden platform on stilts, about 11 feet wide and long, with a fire pit, two sleeping areas and a roof balanced on four more poles. Instead of walls, laundry hung around us proving some sort of barrier. The four of us: myself, Paul, Tom and Ash were pointed to a clear patch of floor to put our things on. “It might be a rough night,” Paul commented with a grin, handing me a thin blanket.

In the gloom, I helped the grandmother strain the yam juice for us to drink. I could just make out the children running and laughing between the yam plants that grew 9 feet high, poking just above the level of the platform. She chattered at me in the local language, Kichwan, and laughed to herself. Her face was a cheerful mass of lines and creases, like a ripe passion fruit. We used our fingers to get out the larger pieces of pulp and stringy fibre, but a good amount still remained in the drink. At least we weren’t making the alcoholic version, which would have involved chewing the yam flesh and spitting it back into the drink: the spit would then ferment into alcohol. Taste differed depending on the woman who made it.

Darkness came fast. A baby cried and was rocked by whoever sat closest, hidden by the sheet it was suspended in as a make-shift crib. A large fire crackled, and bits of burning wood floated around in the air, bright sparks and embers. Although I was enjoying the culture change, I was eager to start on what I came for. The rest of my team were scientists, but a literature student myself, I had somehow talked my way onto the expedition and was one of only two non-science majors. This was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to: I had left my team to record the stories of the indigenous tribe we were working with, one of 22 still existing in Ecuador. Paul, who spoke fluent Spanish, was with me to translate.

I was so focused on the prospect of stories that I ate without noticing the food. Two small children, a girl and a boy about 7 years old, discovered my weakness and ran around the fire pit, popping out and tickling me. The yam drink we had strained by hand earlier was passed around in a bowl, and I got a mouthful of stringy fiber.

“You need to drink it through your teeth, so that it filters it,” Paul told me, watching me as I tried to spit stringy yam out in a discrete way.

At last the dishes were cleared, but the president had disappeared. Two of the women noticed Ash’s French braided hair, and wanted their own. They hadn’t seen hair like this before. She and I sat and braided the hair of all the women and girls until, finally, the children were herded off to bed. The president reappeared and sat down, indicating to Paul that he was ready.

The fire had burned down, but outside the sky was bright with stars from the Milky Way. We were so far out from sources of light pollution that there were almost more stars than sky. Solemnly, his rough hands folded in his lap, the president recited several stories for me. They were weird and spectacular, featuring jaguars, parrots and bodily functions. Then the grandma said that she would also tell me two stories. She told them in Kichwan, translated to Spanish, translated to English. Her voice was high pitched and creaky simultaneously, like something from its own fairytale. It was past midnight when we went to bed.

I woke at the crack of dawn, the sunlight streaming through my eyelids. My body was anything but rested, as I’d slept under a thin blanket with nothing between me and the thin wooden planks. The rainforest, although tropical in the day, dropped in temperature at night – especially upriver – and I’d woken a few times shaking with cold. One of the younger children had screamed on and off all night, making sure that if I did fall asleep it wasn’t for long.

We dressed and left, heading back to the village where I would stay one more night before going back to my team. This time we were following the current, and the canoe took us back without any stops to push. Above us, the early morning sky was an almost clear blue, strands of pink lingering from dawn. Back in the village we pumped out some water and cooked a sort of soup to eat. I found out that Ash, a strong-minded girl from Edinburgh, was there because she was engaged to one of the locals.

“He wants to build a hut for us to live in, and he wants me to start having babies the moment we’re married. He wants six.”

I could tell from her expression that this wasn’t to her taste. Tom sat on the veranda in a Panama hat. He was playing a half-tune on a harmonica, which provided a curious backdrop of sound to our conversation. I felt happy, delirious with the heat, the stories, and the experience.

Paul walked up the steps onto the decking, and kicked a chair. He was accompanied by a Danish man, one of the managers of the Payamino Project. Neither of them smiled. Tom stopped playing the harmonica, and sat up. “What happened?” Ash asked. They had been at a meeting between the heads of the village and one of the oil companies currently buying up land.

“They sold a large amount of the land,” Paul replied. Ash gasped. “The oil companies just walked in, promised them a few things – a truck, a new school building, and some alcohol, and they rolled over and sold them the land. We didn’t even get a chance to speak. They have no concept of what their land is actually worth. The have no concept that if the oil companies destroy pollute the river, that’s their livelihood gone.”

The next day I returned to the research station feeling cynical and disillusioned. I continued doing the work I’d been doing before – identifying and tagging birds – but this time I wondered what the point was. A group from Glasgow University had come out to this station every year for the past thirteen years, but at the end of the day our research seemed to mean nothing. It was as though I had lived in a fairytale like the ones I was listening to, and the illusion had broken. That night, I rocked in my hammock at the research station trying to sleep. We were a half-hour canoe ride from the village, and the president’s village house, but it wasn’t far enough to block out the ‘thump thump thump’ of techno music, pumped over the treetops by his new TV.

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Vegan-ing out in Tokyo

By which I mean eating out. I needed at least two weeks to get round the vegan restaurants in Tokyo and I didn’t have that, so this is just a smattering. Ohhh the glory of vegan food in Tokyo. One note: the servings all over Japan are quite small, for this reason I haven’t given any of them particularly good ‘value’ ratings except ‘T’s’, which is significantly cheaper. Most came in around 1000jpy-1400jpy for a main, and 500-700jpy for a dessert.

Cori Vegan Foodstand

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cori2This is one of my favourite places that ate at in Tokyo, in fact so good that I decided to go there for my birthday. Luckily it was open then, but not the next time I went there. However, as you’ll find out later, going somewhere and finding out they’re closed has become a theme of my Japan trip. The spicy veggie plate was my favourite thing (but not spicy). You can also buy organic berry wine here, which is delicious and has large berries floating in it. It’s in a place called Commune 246 which is a really cool area to just hang out, and especially if you’re travelling or eating on your own it’s also a good place to meet people. You’re looking at 1000yen for a smallish plate of food, although smallish plate should be assumed for all the meals in Japan, they’re not big servers.

Do or don’t visit?: Do

Taste – 4/5

Value – 4/5

Atmosphere – 5/5

Happy Cow

Hanada Rosso

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I power-walked here and made it 5 minutes before last orders, and it was worth it. It’s on the pricier end but it makes up for it with flavour, and then some. This is one of the best burger patties I’ve had so far, it was rich, moist and tomato-y. It also wasn’t a fast food burger, which I keep encountering in Kyoto, much to my surprise. The cheesecake was good, but a little too baked for my liking. Pure’s cheesecake definitely has the edge, and it’s maybe only a 10 or 15 walk from Hanada Rosso. The interior was nice but there was nothing that made it special, and it was a little too cafeteria for me.

Do or don’t visit?: Do

Taste – burger 5/5, cake 3/5

Value – 3.5/5

Atmosphere – 4/5

Happy Cow

Pure Cafe

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This is attached to the Aveda store which, as you might guess, means that it’s expensive. It packs out around lunchtime and you might have to wait for a table, but it’s worth it. I had the special, which was a soy meat dish, and it was okay but not exceptional. It came as a set and the soup was pretty good, too, but oniony so if that’s not your thing it’s best to check before ordering. I heard their tempeh is excellent, and I’d have liked to try a few other things on the menu, too. The cheesecake is definitely where they shine: it was delicious, and has a texture very similar to what I remember real cheesecake being like.

Do or don’t visit?: Do

Taste – main 3/5, cake 5/5

Value – 4/5

Atmosphere – 4/5

Happy Cow

T’s Tantan

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I may get shot for this by the T’s Tantan groupies but… I was not a T’s Tantan fan. Maybe it’s after a year in Taiwan, but the noodle soup I ordered just didn’t have any wow factor for me. It’s in Tokyo station, though, which makes it very convenient until they randomly close and tell me I can’t come in (I was trying to give it a second chance, fate was against me). It’s good for a cheap, fast meal that’s pretty tasty, but it’s not something I’d go out of my way to eat. It’s a bit difficult to find: follow the signs for the Keiyo line and eventually you’ll see it on your right.

Do or don’t visit?: If you’re going through station, do

Taste – 3/5

Value – 5/5

Atmosphere – 3/5

Happy Cow

Hangout

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Hungry in Tokyo at 10pm? This is the place head to, last order is 11.30pm and they close at midnight. It’s a Japanese vegan version of a tapas bar, so you order several small plates. The staff were very friendly, and they also offer alcohol. I tried the gyoza, the vegetable rolls, and some fried soy meat things which were excellent. They were all good but quite simple, I especially felt the gyoza I’ve eaten before for less money. I’d order the rolls and the soy meat again, though. The place was cool, but would have felt cooler with more people: it was dead when I went. Maybe I’m just hard to please, or maybe I should have tried more, but for what it is I felt the price tag was a bit hefty. For a meal for two expect to pay around 5000jpy before you start adding drinks.

Do or don’t visit?: Do, but it wouldn’t be my first choice

Taste: 4/5

Value: 3/5

Atmosphere: 3.5/5

Happy Cow

Nagi Shokudo

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I have to admit I really like having to take my shoes off and getting to sit on a raised platform to eat, either cross-legged or with the spaces under the tables. It makes me far more inclined to hang around and get comfortable. This is one of the best places I ate. For the lunch/dinner set pick 3 things off the menu and they add rice and soup. Every small serving was delicious and full of flavour, I particularly liked the okra which was prepared in a way I hadn’t tasted before. I didn’t try their cake, which was a mistake as I now wish I had, as I’ve since been cake eating my way around Japan.

Do or don’t visit?: Do

Taste: 4/5

Value: 4/5

Atmosphere: 4/5

Happy Cow

From Earth Cafe OHANA

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Everything here is in Japanese, but you can get by as it’s all vegan. I tried the burger, and my couchsurfing host had a black bean fried thingy – I think it was the special. It was considerably better than the burger, there wasn’t even a comparison to be made. My burger was dry and bland, and I had to ask for ketchup, but the black bean thingy was full of flavour. I tried the cake afterwards which was good, and came with Matcha ice cream. It also came with these odd rice crispy things which periodically appear in Japanese food, and I remain confused about why they were there. The place is also a health food shop, and it’s exceptionally cute.

Do or don’t visit?: Do

Taste: 2/5 for the burger, 4.5/5 for the black bean thingy.

Value: 4/5

Atmosphere: 5/5

Happy Cow

Sky High

The cold-pressed juice and green smoothie trend has, no surprise, hit Tokyo and this is one of several juice bars. It’s all vegan, and also offers sandwiches for about 1000jpy. One of my couchsurfing hosts went here and sent me a message, after which I joined him. His message went something along the lines of ‘vegan eating is expensive! I just spent 1800jpy on a juice and a sandwich with some bits of carrots in it.’ The juice was delicious, between 800-1000jpy depending on which you choose (you can also get a large one, which is better value) but I think the sandwiches probably are overpriced and you’d be better off getting a juice then going elsewhere for food. Bear in mind that fruit and veg in Japan is extortionately expensive, so if the juices seem expensive, it would cost you much more to make your own. It’s tiny but friendly and within minutes we were talking to everyone else in the shop.

Do or don’t visit?: For a juice, do

Taste: 5/5

Value: 4/5

Atmosphere: 4/5

Happy Cow

VegFru

When T’s Tan Tan failed me, I set out on a marathon mission to find somewhere else open, fast. A marathon because I was carrying all my possessions on my back (I was heading to Hiroshima) and  they were heavy, and I was hungry. And it was very, very hot. I got lost on the way, and ended up wandering for twenty minutes more than was necessary. Finally I made it and sat down in a sweaty heap. I ordered the salad set, and was served a very pretty but quite small salad with some warm seedy bread and the standard green smoothie which goes with it. As usual, no English was spoken and the staff looked a little horrified at my large back and dishevelled appearance. It was a decent price and the dressing was delicious, but I wouldn’t say the trip was worth it when there are so many other amazing places to try.

Do or don’t visit?: don’t

Taste: 3/5

Value: 4/5

Atmosphere: 3/5

Happy Cow

BONUS

Coffee

If you’re a life starts with coffee person like me, you’ll be relieved to hear that there’s a small chain of coffee shops called Streamers Coffee in the Shibuya/Harajuku area. They do the best soy latte I’ve had so far in Asia, and it’s expensive but worth it. They also do something that seems to be unheard of in Kyoto for coffee shops: they open in the morning, when coffee is needed (8am on weekdays). The Shibuya shop has free wifi for tourists that says it has a 90 minute limit, but they don’t enforce it.

Places I tried to go:

Vespera’s falafel. They were consistently closed. I finally got my falafel fix in Kyoto, but sadly at a veg friendly place not a vegan one.

Happy Cow

Have you been to other places in Tokyo? Or were you blown away where I wasn’t? Let me know in the comments.

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How I saved $10,000USD teaching English in Taiwan

I saved $10,000USD in my year in Taiwan, but it wasn’t all easy. Here’s the real lowdown on what you can expect to save an earn by teaching English in Taiwan. Please note this is excluding flights to and from Taiwan.

The first thing you need to realise before you come to Taiwan is it’s not that cheap it is far more expensive than Thailand, Vietnam and the rest of S.E Asia.

Here’s a breakdown (100twd: 3USD: 2GBP)

Produce:

Rice and grains are very cheap, fresh produce is where you’re going to be in trouble. Shop at local markets and shop food that’s in season, or you’ll be paying for than in the West for vegetables. If it’s in season, it’s cheap, if not, you’re looking at Western prices. Fruit and veg are surprisingly expensive and will push your food budget up. 60twd for a head of broccoli?! 80twd for a large mango?!

Eating out:

A meal at a local place will set you back 50-150twd depending on the area of Taipei. However, there’s a good chance the cheaper you go the oilier and more unhealthy it will be.

To eat at a Western place, you’re looking at average 200-400twd for just a main course.

Alcohol:

A cocktail in most places or a nice beer/glass of wine will cost you around 300twd (9USD!) so not much difference to the west there. Taiwan beer, the cheapest beer, will sometimes be as little as 100twd on tap.

As with anywhere, if you want to save money limit your nights out and drinking or don’t drink at all. Which leads me to…

Nights out:

Cover of your standard places is usually 300twd with a drink token. Fancier clubs like Myst and Omni are 600-700twd with 2 tokens. Taxis cost about 200-300twd if you don’t live miles away.

Tea and coffee:

Are ludicrously expensive in Taiwan unless you buy them from the convenience stores or a hole in the wall place. If you want to go to a nice coffee shop, you’re looking at, wait for it, about 160-200TWD for a coffee or tea. To put that into perspective a Venti Starbucks latte in Taiwan is 140TWD. Coffee places in Taiwan are more expensive than Starbucks, and around the price of a mid-range meal.

Ludicrous. Pro tip: get a flask and make it at home, but if you’re a coffee shop dweller like me this will be a hit to your past times. A confession is I spent far too much at Starbucks in my year in Taiwan, I think on average I was buying 3 or 4 coffees there a week. It was the only place to chill at on my lunch break that did soy and wasn’t my school. Could I have saved more without them? Probably. Would I have been as sane? Probably not.

Rent and bills:

Here’s where you’ll save compared to other countries, although if you’ve researched Korea you’ll know that you’re given an apartment. If you live outside Taipei you’re going to save a lot more, but in Taipei you can get a bit of a run down place for 6000-8000twd, a nice place for 9000-11000, and a studio apartment for 11000-16000 if you want to live alone (very variable on size and location). Living in New Taipei will save you money, but if you live around the brown line/Guting/Taipower/Fuxing (basically the areas you want to live to be near things) you’re going to be paying the above amount. I was paying 11000twd for a good sized room in a flat with 3 people in an excellent location in the heart of downtown (Zhongxiao Fuxing) the flat was in excellent condition and had a kitchen. Halfway through I moved to the smaller room in the same flat and my rent changed to 9000twd. Score!

Bills come to between 1000twd and 2000twd a month. We had a maid split between us for 300twd each a week, and she did everything. It was wonderful and a huge bonus of having flatmates!

Transport:

Expensive, don’t be fooled! Well, it’s not Western Europe prices and if you just toddle round Taipei and stay on the slow trains you’re not going to spend too much. The high speed rail will set you back a lot more, as a one way from Taipei to Kaohsiung with a reserved ticket is 1,630TWD. The MRT in Taipei costs 16twd-54twd a trip, for most journeys you pay 20-24twd. I spent 1000TWD a month on transport.

Cell phone:

I got a prepaid sim and topped up in 7/11s every month. The great thing with this is that you can top up data and calls separately, so I would top up data every month for 300twd (2.2GB) and then calls and texts every 5 or 6 months for 600twd. This was great because it meant my phone was a very minor expense, and it’s definitely what I recommend. 2.2GB would last me 20 days to a month with streaming music, hotspotting, and pretty constant internet use.

Chinese lessons:

Are between 300 and 700twd an hour for private tutoring. I recommend learning enough to help you get by and not feel completely isolated from the city. Towards the end I was doing 1.5 hours 3x a week, which was the perfect amount for me but was costing me around 6000twd a month.

And what are you earning?

Okay, so all of this isn’t that expensive by Western European or North American standards, or at least most of this isn’t (I still haven’t got past the coffee prices, eeeeesh, and they make you order too!). But what you’re earning wouldn’t last you one week in a Western city. In one year, I earned roughly 18,000-20,000USD. There is simply no way I could have lived as well as I did in any Western city on that much, or saved as much as I did. Now lets look at the salary breakdown, the schools who you might get employed by, and how much you’ll need to work.

Hess

Hess is the biggest chain school in Taiwan, and they also have branches in China. They recruit you independently and put you in a huge month long training course where you’ll meet a lot of other excited newbies and can make some friends. You’ll also get your TEFL through them and be taught a lot of rousing songs. You won’t be paid as much as if you get employed with other schools (570twd an hour starting salary) but you’ll probably be able to rack up a lot, and I mean a LOT of hours.
As for experience, some people love it, some hate it. It’s so dependant on the schools. You get 10 days of leave a year, and I think you also get a contract completion bonus.

Pros: a lot of hours, you can make friends on the course and bond with other newbies.
Cons: possibly a hellish school, you can be sent anywhere in Taiwan, small wage, unpaid training for a month.

Shane

Shane schools also recruit independently and put you on a training course. I don’t know much about them but I know a few people who worked for them and got out fast after the first year.

Reach to Teach

Aren’t a school, they’re a recruiter. The schools they recruit for pay 600TWD an hour and up. I went through them and although I can’t say the school was the school was the best (split shifts and incredibly inefficient working hours, and some questionable working conditions) my experience was generally positive. I didn’t manage to get them to sort out my school underpaying me for 2 months (breaching the contract), but turns out I needed to make more of a fuss and go to Carrie, head of Reach to Teach who just sorted out the same situation for my replacement. Overall, I recommend using a recruiter if you want a decent (but probably not amazing) job sorted before you come to the country.

Other schools

Will pay a starting salary of 600-650twd. If you have experience you can get 700 or maybe even a little more if you’re lucky and can negotiate. The important thing to remember, though, is that the job market in Taiwan isn’t as good as it used to be. In the past 5 years or so, cost of living in the city has dramatically risen in the city but salaries for English teachers haven’t risen at all.

The majority of my friends were on around 20 hours a week which is around 50,000twd dollars a month before taxes, which are 18% for your first 6 months (most of which you get back, eventually). Living well but not extravagantly will set you back about 25,000 – 30,000twd a month. This is with a nice meal out once of twice a week, Chinese lessons, and the occasional night out. I was on 25.5 hours a week and it came to 55,000twd a month after taxes but I only earned that for about 9 months of my 13 in Taiwan. As you might expect, this was a problem and was not something I was warned about.

So how do you save?

Set yourself a goal every month from your salary. Mine was to save 25,000 every month (that I earned a full paycheck). Most months I hit this, some months I saved a little less, some a little more, but I could see my balance every month increasing by 25,000.

If you arrive before the 1st of July you’ll get your taxes back from this year. This is very important, if you arrive after you’ll be losing out on up to 50,000twd. You can then get your taxes express taxed if you leave 1 year later. You can only do this once every 5 years – otherwise you have to wait until summer the following year and then go back to Taiwan and collect a cheque.

Quite simply, the way to save is private students which will earn you anything from 700twd to 1500twd an hour. Try and negotiate being paid for 10 classes upfront by offering a discount – this will give you more reliability. Also try to make the classes 90 minutes minimum as you will usually have to go to them and you don’t want to be spending more time travelling than teaching. Again, offer discounts for 2 hour classes. It will pay off in the long run. Set a cancellation policy – I learned this after having a student who would cancel on me as I was on the way to a class, and another who would halve the time we were having together when I was already there. Make sure they pay you for your time. I consistently got frustrated by the lack of respect from my students that this was how I earned my living. Having said that, though, private tutoring was one of the most fun and rewarding things I did, as it allowed me to teach adults which is what I’m actually trained for.

I earned between 9,500 and 20,000twd extra every month from private students by listing myself on tutoring websites. I think one month I hit 30,000twd from privates, but I was exhausted and drained and it stopped being worth it. I tried to limit myself to two private classes a week, one on Saturdays and one in the evening after work. I could have done more, but leaving my apartment at 9am and getting home at 10.30pm after an entire day of teaching isn’t sustainable for more than one or two days a week, for me at least. If you can do that, great. And of course, the more hours you’re earning, the less you’re spending. Because I tutored at the weekend, the number of weekend trips I went on was limited.

Remember, 25-30 hours of teaching a week might not sound much to someone who’s used to a 9-5 40 hour work week, but you’re on your feet and talking constantly. You’re also expected to do unpaid preparation time and marking in pretty much every job, about 10 hours a week average if you have a 30 hour work week.

Final tips:

Keep a budget app. I loved Monefy, because the interface was extremely nice to use.

Meal plan I saved the most when I still had a kitchen (before my stove broke 6 months before I left) and I would do all my cooking on a Monday evening, then take it to school for lunch and a mid afternoon meal. My school had a microwave (which then also broke…) so I would heat things up there. Bulk buying and cooking and using a lot of dried beans bought cheaply saved me a lot of money, and I was eating well for around 100twd a day. Plus an extra 60twd or so for my breakfast smoothie and a light meal at the end of the day.

Do a mixture of day job and privates, or kindy and buxiban I know I’ve said this already, but this really is where you’ll make bank in a way that you simply won’t with just buxiban (afternoon cram school). If you can get an all day kindergarten job (usually 9-3/4) then find an evening cram school job or tutoring, that’s the best.

Avoid a Western lifestyle if you go out every weekend, if you drink, if you hang around in coffee shops, and if you hunt down the Western food you will burn through your earnings very, very fast. Eat noodles, rice, local market produce, and from local places and you’ll find it easy to put away money.

And most importantly, enjoy! I could have saved a lot more, but I’ve very happy with what I did save and I had fun, learned Chinese, took yoga classes, went out about once a month, and travelled around a little. I lived a single lifestyle where I was rarely home, and I at times spent more than I maybe should have. I struggled from time to time, but when I left Taiwan it was with a lot of positive feelings.

You can save a lot in Taiwan, or nothing at all. It’s completely up to you how hard you want to work and how hard you want to play. Just don’t think that it’s cheap just because it’s Asia. Good luck!

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How to be vegan in Taiwan

A common assumption is that being vegan or vegetarian in Taiwan is difficult. “Oh no, I couldn’t do it here, it’s too hard,” people say. It’s very easy to become intimidated and confused in the face of incomprehensible Chinese characters coming at you from every direction. Here’s a simple ‘How to’ guide to break it down for you and make it easy.

1. Learn to recognise the characters.

This is the most important thing. Once you can read, you’ll be able to start recognising the characters for vegetarian everywhere. The traditional restaurants all have the same sign outside, “素食”. Pretty soon when you walk along the streets, you’ll start finding this sign and being able to wander in and know that you can eat.

A lot of things are also labelled. If there’s a label, you’ll find it on the front, in one of the corners. It will be clearly in a circle of a different colour, by itself. This confused me for ages, and I’d be turning the packets over and over knowing what characters I was looking for but not knowing how they’d appear. Learn to pick out milk and egg in the ingredients list on the back.

Jesse from Taiwan Vegan’s guide to the characters is definitely the best out there, so it’s simplest to go and study it, rather than me trying to recreate it, to find it go here.

2. Learn how to ask.

Taiwanese understand the concept of vegetarian and vegan (fully vegetarian) to a level that is rare in Asia, so you can usually have peace of mind if you ask and are told it’s safe. The simplest thing to say is “zhe shì quan su ma? Bu yao dan, bu yao niu nai.” Which means “is this vegan? No eggs, no milk.” To hear it said properly and with the tones, go and watch my tutorial here.

3. Use technology.

Happy Cow is the one you might know already, but that will only lead you to the places that the western vegans frequent and you’ll miss out on literally hundreds of vegetarian places. The best way I found to do this is to download a Google pinyin keyboard and type in ‘su shì’ so that these characters pop up:”素食” Or, you can just copy and paste the characters from here. That magically, the map will suddenly be bursting with vegetarian places round every corner. My friend swears by yelp,  but I haven’t tried that one myself. Using a mixture of all three will, of course, give you the most options.

4. Set yourself up with a support network.

There are so, so, so many vegans in Taiwan, especially in Taipei. By the time I left I had a large group of core vegan friends and I knew many more vegetarians and vegans. The easiest way to meet people is to join the groups and post a status saying who you are and that you’re vegan, or interested in going vegan. The main group on Facebook that runs events is ‘It’s a Vegan Affair’. I don’t recommend the meetup group, it’s a little creepy but don’t tell them I said that. If you go to some of the main places such as Ooh Cha Cha, Mianto and Fresh, you’ll also meet more vegans once you start talking to people. The community in Taipei is warm and welcoming, don’t be afraid to reach out.

And, of course, contact me if you want to know anything else. Speaking as someone currently in Japan, being vegan in Taiwan is a dream come true. Happy eating!

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My job was illegal – and everyone’s doing it (read before teaching in Taiwan)

Here is the blog post I waited to post until I left, because it’s something that needs to be out there for people coming to teach in Taiwan. It’s something that I looked for more information about before I came here, but I couldn’t find any details beyond the blog post title. What I am about to reveal is the comedy of errors that this country has going. It’s a pantomime of many parts, try to keep up.

Legally, foreigners aren’t allowed to teach Kindergarten level kids, we’re only allowed to teach from grade 1 up. A quick scour of most of the blogs about Taiwan, though, including my own, will quickly reveal that his is most definitely not a law that’s adhered to.

To get your ARC (resident working visa) you have to have a sponsor. Legally, this requires a minimum of 14 hours a week of work at that school. You are not only registered to that school, but you are registered to a particular part of the building. This ensures, in theory, that one school doesn’t hoard foreign teachers for illegal teaching, using them for teaching classes that aren’t supposed to be learning English. When registered to part of that school, you are supposed to stay in that part of the school and not leave, wander into the Kindergarten, and then wander back. If you’re caught in the kindergarten while the government is visiting, questions will be asked.

No books in English may be in the kindergarten. No pencils may be in the kindergarten, because the kids that age shouldn’t be learning to write yet. No whiteboards are allowed in the classrooms, because you’re not supposed to teach children that age. They should just be playing. There are different zones, the play zone, the reading zone, etc.

Getting this? Have you spotted the problem yet?

This is Asia, the continent where the school systems make the rest of the world cringe in fear. I teach children from the age of 2… Actually, I know for a fact at least 5 of them weren’t 2 when I started. And I actually do teach. These kids are learning English, and they have to sit still for 40 minutes to have flashcards put in front of their noses so they can learn basic sentence patterns about fruit, the weather, feelings, etc. Kids from about the age of 4 are expected to be able to use scissors and to write their ABCs, their names, and very basic words. Who sends their children to this type of kindergarten? Rich people. Official people. Doctors, diplomats, business men and, you guessed it, government officials. The same people who made the rules saying that the kindergartens should be a place for playing.

Until I manage to work out how to insert one, please imagine a facepalm gif here.

The crazy thing (as if this wasn’t enough) is that all of this is, to a level, enforced. I’ve been around for several government raids where I’ve been hurried out of the classroom and sent to hide in the bushiban. One person I know at a different school, who hadn’t been teaching long, had to hide in the toilet. Unfortunately they then forgot he was there until four hours after the government had left. In my first few weeks of full time teaching, before I got my visa, I was in the illegal part of the school (yes, an entire part of the school shouldn’t even be there because it’s a fire hazard) when the government officials downstairs heard us stamping around and got through the door. We, myself, my kids, and two other classes with their teachers were all hurried into the tiny end classroom and the kids were told to be silent. A government official burst through the door with one of the head CTs shouting “you can’t do this” or similar in Chinese, and throwing herself in front of him as he took pictures on his iPhone. He didn’t seem to concerned about the fact that he’d just walked in on an Anne Frankesque scene of three white teachers and a lot of confused children huddled into a tiny space.

The reason he wasn’t concerned is becasue he wasn’t looking for foreign teachers that day, he was just looking for illegal parts of the building. Same as the people who come to look for foreign teachers aren’t concerned about illegal parts of the building or whiteboards and books in the kindergarten.

There’s only one time I’ve witnessed a full raid, but luckily we were given about a week’s notice so a ‘field trip’ was organised for me and my kids. And the illegal kindergarten teachers who don’t have early childhood degrees. And another class of kids. Because not only do we have illegal white teachers, illegal Taiwanese teachers, illegal books and whiteboards, we also have an illegal number of children and an illegal number of classrooms. So I watched for two days as Uncle stripped all signs of English from the kindergarten, and all signs of children from my classroom. Then on the day, we were shipped off to a different part of the city, ushered in, and left in a classroom for 3 hours with nothing to do. Then we were taken back to the school, and everything continue as normal.

It’s not all fun and hide-and-seek-games, either. At a different one of our branches, government officials dressed up as parents, came in, and took pictures of a girl teaching. She was deported. If you ask your recruiter before you come (because the illegal thing is mentioned on the internet, and you may have seen something about it) they’ll laugh and brush past it. If you ask your school, they’ll laugh and brush past it. But it is real, and it is scary, and it was very stressful to teach in that environment for a year where suddenly everyone would be shouting at you to run as music went off and people hid. Okay, it may not happen too often that people get deported, but all it needs is that one time and it could be you. The fact that the schools don’t seem to consider you may not be happy with this is, frankly, just disrespectful. A lot of teachers aren’t even aware that their job is illegal. To reiterate, go through this flow chart:

Are you teaching children younger than grade 1?
|                               |

yes                             no
|                               |

illegal                         legal

Simple as that.

I quite frankly don’t understand it. If it seems confusing and farcical, it’s because it is. But teachers have been deported, the government are getting sneaker, and it is a risk. Even if the manager of all the branches of your school does take all the local police out drinking.

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