The Chinese Name for Yoga is Not "Yoga"

I just thought I'd share that.

I was picking up a friend after her yoga class tonight, trying to find Gongzheng Elementary School, where we'd agreed to meet. This made a bit of a strange place for meeting at 10:30 pm since the school is under construction and totally deserted at that hour, though on a busy main road. So when I asked a fellow mototrist at a red light where I could find Gongzheng Guoxiao (=Gongzheng Elementary School=Gongzheng Guomin Xiaoxue=Gongzheng public elementary school), and she told me to follow her, I found myself wanting to explain why I was going to this shell of a building in the dark. "I'm waiting for my friend," I said easily enough. "She's coming from a yoga class." The two women looked at me blankly. Yes, two. The motorist had a friend on the back of her scooter (scooters are family vehicles here; it almost feels selfish and wantonly wasteful to drive a scooter all on your own). Here, as you can see, things got a bit difficult. I reached into my memory, trying to remember what my students always said when I was teaching them the phrase "doing yoga." They often shout out the Mandarin equivalent for what I'm teaching. It's a way for them to confirm amongst themselves that they understood me (I do my best to ignore it, keeping up the idea that I don't speak any Chinese). It also clues slower students in to the lesson. The shouting usually comes from the cram school students, who find English easier than do their classmates, and are eager to show off their skills and demonstrate how easy it is for them. (This is great for them, but can make teaching the class a bit tricky since it's easy to mistakenly think the whole class understands something when you hear the answer shouted loudly by several students; in fact, most of the students may be in the dark while a few are ahead of the material.) So, trying to recall the words I had tried to tune out in class, I amended: She's in a douyou class, a youdou class...it's exercise. At this point, I may even have tried some elementary yoga while still straddling my scooter. I almost got off my scooter and stood on one foot with my arms raised above my head, like a tree. The two women turned to each other and consulted. "Yu2jia1" suggested one. Yeah, sure, I said "yujia...douya, whatever." It should be clear to you by now that any of the words I tried for yoga were complete gibberish. "Okay," said the women, still looking a bit mystified, "she should be back a bit over there." And they waved at a building next to the elementary school. I thanked them for their help and turned back to wait for my friend coming out of her youdouyajiayuga-whatever class.

On the way home, I stopped off at a 7-eleven to see if I still had money on my phone card. (You can pay your bills at Taiwanese 7-elevens.) Pulling out of the sidewalk-strip lot was a bit difficult, though, since there was a giant praying mantis in my way. He hopped a bit to the side when I approached, but not enough to make me feel comfortable. I did not want to be the cause of the demise of such a noble creature, and I certainly didn't want to hear any sickening crunches.

Safely past the mantis (actually, I performed a bit of a U-turn in order to evade him), I headed back to my apartment. On my way to meet my friend and on the way back, the street was partially blocked off by a police car, several orange traffic cones, and a pulled-over car. I wasn't sure if we were allowed to use the road, but followed other cars and scooters through, waved on by a cop with his orange dayglo traffic-directing stick. As I pulled into a nearby store (the same one mentioned in my Sinlaku post) for a bar of soap and some ice cream--well, I had to break a 1,000 NT bill, ok?--I asked a couple guys standing on the corner if there had been an accident. They take accidents seriously here, and you are strictly forbidden from moving any vehicles involved in a collision until the police arrive. This reminds me of Chinese laws reaching into antiquity that forbid moving suicide and homicide corpses, which I find pretty cool. Anyway, the guys shook their heads no. "Drinking," one muttered. "Ooh," I said, "drinking and driving?" They assented. "Ouch," I said in English, and they laughed. Then I went into the store for my hand soap and ice cream cone. (Difficult maneuver, that--choosing a cone not too near the bottom [which might not have been replaced in 6 months] and not too near the top where it might have melted from people opening the freezer/possible power outage during the typhoon. Luckily, the stuff I was going for was more like synthetic cream than ice cream proper and therefore likely impervious to spoiling.) One of the sidewalk guys came in to ring me up. And that is the story of the yoga, the mantis, and the drunk driver.