Bye Bye November!

I haven’t posted in two weeks and I apologize to my loyal readers (Thanks mom, dad, Tracy and Des <3) I have a few random stories that hopefully you find interesting.

Lottery

In Taiwan, there is a receipt lottery.  Basically every receipt you get from a store has an eight digit number on it.  That number is your entry in a nationwide lottery.  Every two months, about 5 numbers are picked.  Chances are reallygreat, right?! (That was sarcasm) Well, if the last three numbers match the last three numbers on any of the numbers picked, then you win a small amount of 200 NTD.  The numbers for Sept and Oct. were just picked and 3 out of 80 of my receipts matched the last numbers! Woo hoo! I just won 600 NTD.  (Which in my head I already spent the weekend before on a 700 NTD Thanksgiving dinner.) The more numbers you match, the more money you can receive.

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YAY! This is me redeeming my tickets at the post office 🙂

I hope this doesn’t mean I’ve used up all my luck.  Like this is it.  No more luck for Tina in the future.

Birthday Surprise

Okay, before you get too excited, it’s not my birthday.  LOL

It was a Monday night and I went to Chinese class in Zhunan.  In case you don’t know, I am currently taking a Chinese night class.  The class is completely in Chinese and I learn the zhu yin, not the pin yin.  This class is also designed for foreign spouses.  No, I am not married. haha Anyways, in Taiwan there is a small population of mostly women from southeast Asia (Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc), who marry Taiwanese men.  They are all learning Chinese and they test to earn a certificate that I think expands their eligibility for jobs in Taiwan.  Despite my marital status, I was let into the class.

But I digress.  On Monday night, I was in class. The class goes from 6:40 to 9pm.  Around 8pm, I noticed my classmates pointing to their wrists asking what time?  I’m not sure.  But I thought it was a little strange.  Five minutes later, one of my classmates stands and asks the teacher if we can take a break.  The teacher was a little surprised and said okay.  I was surprised too, because we never take breaks during class.  No one usually asks for one.  You just go to the bathroom whenever you want.  But then, that same student pulled a cake box from behind his desk and said, “Happy Birthday!” to the teacher.  Then my classmates started pulling out milk teas and fruits.  Apparently, the only people who were surprised was the teacher and me.

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The cake was shaped like a sheep.

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Sorry, I didn’t get the memo that it was the teacher’s birthday and that we were suppose to bring something in. hahaha.  At first, I was like what is going on?  The teacher’s birthday wasn’t even that day because she and I talked about it.  But apparently, the students knew that the date on her birth certificate was indeed that very day.

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We sang to her in 3 different languages.

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^ My Chinese teacher.

Why is her real birth date not on her birth certificate? I don’t know. It’s some long story about how people registered birth back then.  The way they recorded it was weird or something. Nov. 30th just happened to fall on a Monday that year she was born.  I’m not clear on the story.

Anyways, so class ended 40 min early and I got free cake and beverage out of it.  It was a very nice gesture and it was nice to hang out with my classmates.

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