by Missionary Peter Leyrer
Dear Internet Friends:
Not long ago the Fifth grade class at St. Paul's Lutheran School in Wisconsin Rapids sent some questions. I thought you might like to see their questions and the answers I could provide. To you fifth graders: thanks for thinking of us. As you learn more about the work here in Taiwan I pray that you will grow in understanding of the way we do mission work, the way that God's word works in other parts of the world, and that God will grow in you an increased desire to share his good news with people in your corner of the world. There are many different ways that work is done and God uses people with a variety of gifts to accomplish his purpose.
If you like Chinese food, Taiwan is the place to come. They say Taiwan is home to the best Chinese food in the world and we believe it. If you don't like Chinese food, you can find French, Italian, Korean, American, Thai, Japanese and just about any other cuisine in the restaraunts here. Our first meal here was Domino's Pizza; they're very popular and make a pizza called "All American"--pepperoni. You can also order Domino's with squid on it. A family favorite is "jowza" or Chinese dumplings. We get them at either of two restaraunts in our neighborhood. We also like "bien dongs" or lunchboxes. Many restaraunts serve them in styrofoam containers with rice, meat and a variety of side dishes. The restaruant on the corner across the street from us makes them with your choice of beef, pork, chicken or fish plus scrambled egg, tofu and some kind of vegetable. They cost about as much as a McDonald's Happy Meal back home and we eat them often. Beef noodle soup, a traditional dish, is very good.
Another restaraunt near us makes a soup that we didn't know anything about until a Chinese speaking friend explained to us that it contains fried squid. We'll probably try that some time--squid is really pretty good (But I haven't been able to convince my children). We eat at the little restaraunts in our neighborhood more often than we did in the U.S. because groceries are expensive and the restaraunts are relatively cheap so there isn't as much difference between the cost of eating out and eating in as there is in America. At home we eat pretty "American," although many of our favorites are either not available here or are very expensive. Many tropical fruits grow in Taiwan, so we can usually get fresh bananas, papayas, mangoes, starfruit, and a few other fruits we had never heard of before. Right now pomelos are in season. They're a citrus fruit that tastes similar to grapefruit, but sweeter. We use chopsticks when we eat Chinese, sliverware when we eat American.
Pretty much the same pets that they have in the U.S.; dogs, cats, hamsters, birds, fish, etc. Taipei is a very crowded city, though, so the "country" type pets like horses wouldn't work out. Liana, our first grader, has birds and a hamster in her classroom. Her teacher loves animals.
As far as I know, the only dogs anybody eats here are hot dogs. Don't think anybody eats cats, either.
People dress in styles similar to America. Jeans, especially Levi's and Lee, are very popular. Anything American is very popular; you can see Mickey Mouse shirts and shirts from American sports teams or universities everywhere.
Our two oldest children attend an American style school where everything is taught in English. Our second grade son has a lot of classmates that speak Chinese and use that language at recess and after school (Chinese is not allowed in the classroom). Since Andy can't speak much Chinese yet, he hasn't been able to get to know some of his classmates real well. His classmates who speak English only come from the U.S. or Canada and he has gotten to know them. The Siirila's, the other WELS missionary family in Taipei, have children in seventh and ninth grades, and they have been very kind to our kids. The Stellick's, missionaries in Taichung, have a five year old daughter who plays with our children but we don't get to see them too often since their home is two or three hours away from ours. Olivia, our three year old, is in a Chinese preschool where the children and teachers all speak Chinese only. She's making friends there, but it will take some time before she's able to communicate with them as well as she can with us.
We have lots of McDonalds here; about 3,000,000 people live in Taipei. It's called McDonald's and the golden arches and Ronald McDonald look the same here as they do in America, although the restaurants are usually smaller than the McDonald's that I remember. We also have Ponderosa Steak House, T.G.I. Friday's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway and probably a lot of other American businesses that I haven't seen yet.
Mostly it's Chinese. English TV is available from Hong Kong and Australia. We had cable when we first moved in, but we had never ordered it. I think the previous tenants of our apartment had it and we got the last few weeks of their subscription. Then the cable service stopped and now we have no TV channels at all. Sometime soon I'll order cable again; for now the videotapes that we brought from America are enough; we don't watch a lot of TV. Among the cable services available here are HBO, Nickleodeon, Discovery Channel, CNN, ESPN, etc.
The people here love President Lee Teng-hui. Last March they re-elected him in the Republic's first democratic election. If you'd like to learn more about him and the fascinating politics of Taiwan, read about them Time and Newsweek articles from February and March, 1996.
We haven't been here for Christmas yet, but from what we hear it isn't a "big deal" since only about 5% of the 21,000,000 people in Taiwan are Christian. Christians tend to celebrate Christmas with other Christians, rather than with family the way you might in America, because chances are good that their families are not Christian. Because American things are popular here, I would guess that in December we'll see a few Christmas decorations, not because the people are Christian, but because they want to look American. We Americans take Christmas for granted, don't we? Don't do that, Internet friends. Christmas isn't an American tradition, but a time to praise God for sending his Son as the greatest gift the world has ever seen. Maybe this Christmas you'll be able to tell somebody about that; I hope that we will.
Yesterday, September 27, the kids had no school for Mid-Autumn festival. It's a traditional time for Chinese people to get together with family, enjoy the cooler temperatures of Fall and exchange gifts. The children and I went to the Taipei zoo with another family from their school. (It's a very nice zoo) In the evening we got together with the Siirila family. In October the children will have a whole week's vacation for "Double Ten;" October 10. This is the national holiday for Taiwan, sort of like Fourth of July in America. The biggest holiday of the year is Chinese New Year in January or February. There are probably other holidays that I don't know about yet.
Andy learns pretty much the same things that a second grader in your school would learn, except that every other day they have Chinese class. Same for Liana in first grade (These two take Chinese together).
We did buy some products before we left America because we were told that they are unavailable here or very expensive. Toilet paper is available here, but we brought some along, also disposable diapers for the baby and some food products that could make the long sea voyage with our household goods. Our great big jar of Skippy peanut butter is almost gone; a small jar here costs about US $4.00.
That's all for now, Internet friends. It's raining heavily here today and the kids' little league games have been cancelled. Tammy and I started language school last week, so we have now completed two weeks. Unfortunately, we attend at different hours so I don't get to carry her books to school. I'll write about language school in greater detail soon. Thank you all for your attention, interest and prayers. To new readers that we have added since last time, welcome. To all, remember that email is a two way medium; we cherish all correspondence as words from people who care.
In Jesus Name,
Pete Leyrer
pjleyrer@ms10.hinet.net