Kids Castle



Anyone can be a freelancer in Taiwan. I miss this. I find myself becoming jealous of people that work for themselves and stumble upon ridiculously cool jobs that have them working from coffee shops and going to Portland to "help my buddy get his business off the ground".

In Taiwan if you wanted a little extra money, you just picked up a few kindergarten sub jobs. You could drop off your resume one day and be in charge of a class of 3-year-olds the next day. A couple of times I judged speeches for this shady mega-school called Kid Castle. This involved riding my motor scooter about 25 minutes across town and listening to kids repeat a memorized speech (or freeze up completely unable to say one word in English). I was paid 1000NT/hr to do this. That is about $31 right now. I just got an email today asking if I would like to judge another speech contest. At that rate, 27 hours of judging speeches could pay for my roundtrip ticket.

I don't know why I haven't told them I am no longer living in Taiwan. I like the idea that someone thinks I am still scooting around drinking bai xiang lu cha (wei tang, chu bing), shopping at Mitsukoshi. Sometimes I have a hard time cutting that last stubborn tie.

Liza  – (December 4, 2009 at 7:11 PM)  

wait, what business??? do I need to be supporting this friends business??

danielle  – (December 4, 2009 at 9:39 PM)  

Why cut ties? Doesn't have to be the end until you say it's the end. And hey, you could find yourself back there someday, right? Or say, in Korea, which would be all kinds of awesome.

Kevin  – (December 5, 2009 at 9:31 AM)  

I don't know what the business is. I'm sure it's something shady. And Danielle, Korea looks cold. One of my favorite things about Taiwan was the tropical weather. Can you guarantee that I, too will find a wonderful Korean husband?

phil –   – (December 9, 2009 at 11:27 PM)  

bai xiang lu cha ---bubble tea?

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