Many of my coworkers dislike her intensely. She's made several serious mistakes in her work, mistakes that have cost others a lot of time and energy, but she'll never, ever admit that she made a mistake. One time I came into the office to find her and the nurse shouting at each other, and after they'd finished shouting the office was nearly silent for the rest of the day.
There's another coworker who quit her job at my second school. According to another person at work she's a big deal on Instagram. She's been on TV, and is one of the cheerleaders for a baseball team. She often came to work in very revealing clothes, and on the rare occasions she talked with me I had trouble figuring out where to look. I have the feeling most Taiwanese men would find her very beautiful, but she does absolutely nothing for me.
She sent me a clip of her TV appearance on Line. In the clip she's wearing a very short white dress, and basking in the male host's attentions. Last Tuesday she told me she was going to Taipei to become a model. I wished her the best, and told her to save her money.
My landlord is a character. He lives in a house that he seems to have assembled on his own, full of odd bits of lumber and machine tools. This house is also crawling with cats and dogs, and every time I go up there I notice new cats and dogs that I haven't seen before. He tends a wax apple orchard just outside the village where we live, and within the orchard he keeps several other dogs and a cow.
He and his wife have no children. I often think it must be hard to live in a village like that and have no children. So much of what the people in that village do is centered around temple festivals, and on children and grandchildren "coming home." He and his wife are good people though, and they seem like clever farmers.
South of my village is another, Paiwan village where a British guy lives. His wife is a member of the tribe, and they have several children. Going to his house for a beer can be fun, but I don't think that kind of life is for me. There seems to be very little privacy in a Paiwan village. People walk in and out of each other's houses, and freely take things from each others' living rooms.
I like his village, but I'm always glad to come back to my own. There are some very compelling reasons that people don't share everything, and having neighbors that mind their own business can be a comfort.
I have a couple friends in Kaohsiung. One of them co-owns a well known restaurant downtown, and another used to be a teacher in one of my schools. I saw the guy who owns the restaurant not long ago. I haven't seen the friend who used to be a teacher in a while, but I get Line messages from her all the time.
I've learned that life in Kaohsiung can be hard. I used to think the way some people scraped by in Taitung was difficult, but Kaohsiung can be its own set of problems. Money, competition, transportation, crowds - life in a big city isn't easy.
There are other people I know around here, but I don't see them as much. There's the one other foreigner in Fangliao Township, a guy in Tunghai Village near the industrial area. There's the teacher in Kenting Elementary School who likes to say things at meetings. There's even the guy at the Fangliao Township Office, who talks my head off whenever we run into each other. They're all good people, and I'm glad to know each and every one.
So am I happy over here? Am I satisfied with the friendships I've made and the people I know? For the most part yes, though a weekend in central Pingtung is a far cry from a weekend in Taitung City. It's not that Taitung City is that fun, just that I'd lived there a long time and there was more stuff going on. Central Pingtung is a lot quieter, but sometimes I appreciate that quietude. Sometimes I feel like it's growing on me.
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