I wouldn’t say it’s a “tradition” in Taiwan. Sometimes it happens at funerals and even weddings (more commonly in the south of Taiwan). In those cases, the point is to give the spirit of the deceased - usually this is done for a man who’s died - a final ‘good time’ before his ghost is whisked away into the ether.

But…

Point taken.

I get around this by not having any valuables.

If they’re already begging from strangers, isn’t that a little like closing the barn door after the horses have left?

The thing about CCQs in class, once you get the hang of them, is that you are really meant to employ them when you can be reasonably sure the learners don’t understand. Look for facial expressions. If they look confused or blank, ask a CCQ to draw it out of them. The whole “the instructions/idea/language point was…

The kid tells you he wants money to buy baby formula (or milk powder) for his mom to give to his/her new baby sibling. The money never goes to baby formula, it usually goes to a gang lord. Even if you buy them the formula directly, they will sell it or trade it back to the store for cash (the store knowing that the…

I totally fell for the baby formula trick in Nepal in 2000. But I was 20 and really didn’t know. Now I do.

Ideally I would pack school supplies (notebooks, pencils, sharpeners, folders, small game prizes, erasers, chalk, but not slate as that’s hard to transport) and find a school in need during my journey, and donate to it. But, I never can seem to do it. It feels weird to be Whitey walking around like “hey so, any…

I tried that, but I couldn’t manage to carry around enough dollar store stuff every day and have a bag that wasn’t unwieldy or awkward to get into to pull out a small gift. So I stopped. I tried candy for awhile, but a lot of those kids don’t have access to basic oral hygiene, so candy is definitely NOT the way to go.

…

I don’t know why this is my favorite CAH play, because it’s not particularly crass, dirty or terrible, but my sister once played “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for...”

This is truly terrible of me and I hope my mom in heaven will forgive me for it. I mean I’m an atheist and I don’t really believe in heaven but I like to sometimes feel as though my mom is there. I think she would call for mercy when I reach the pearly gates someday, seeing as she has burned the same person.

Heard this one before. urban myth.

“Hey you’re pretty cool now which is great because I’m a lame-o. You have actual friends and a life and you travel and love your job and your husband is a cutie and YOU SPEAK CHINESE and also two cats! Go me, I guess. It DOES get better*.”

*except that phase wasn’t a thing yet in 1996.

Yup.

I have a huge scab that took forever to stop weeping just below my knee, from my leg falling in the uncovered hole leading to a rain gutter (I’m shocked I didn’t break it). Now that it’s finally scabbed over, it’s got a number of black, white and blue fibers sticking out of it. Black and denim blue being from my…

I wish I were a stress puker. I’m a stress farter. That seems like it would be better, not worse, but when you fart just as you’re most stressed (on stage, in an interview), it sure feels worse.

I know it sounds like I’m making fun of you, but I’m not. I’m not joking at all - I am a stress farter. The anonymity of the…

“I am basically incapable of not picking someone that will eventually bail” - I felt that way too, until I realized, like 99.9% of all relationships fail. Maybe you date between 20 and 200 guys, and of those, let’s say, 200, *1* may go the distance, meaning that 99.5% of your relationships have already failed. Of that…

There are some habits you can’t get used to. You can’t fully know what another person thinks or sees when the house is a mess until you’ve lived with them. Even if you’ve spent a lot of time at their place - they probably clean up for your visit more than they would if you lived together! Even if you talk about it - a…

Why would weed have to be curtailed to extinction? I smoke more weed than my husband.

Dunno...for me it felt necessary. I learned a lot about my core assumptions being wrong, and not only how to argue my deeply-held values but also to be conscious of them and be able to articulate them - something I couldn’t do when I started dating and may have never learned to do had I not been faced with those…

One thing I’ve learned: being incapable of compromise doesn’t actually seem to affect being single or not. I’ve got a problem with compromise: I only started dipping my toe into it in the past few years. I’m not very good at it. I try, but...well, I try.

And I’m married - surprisingly happily so, seeing as I can be a…