Grass Eating (啃老族)

Shawn Chuang’s name was Shawn Chuang, but everyone called him Steve Chuang. He lived with his mother in a large flat above a bowling alley in the Shih Lin district of Taipei. The flat was large and the sofa in the flat was large and Shawn Chuang spent a lot of time on the sofa.

Though Shawn had been out of university for two years, he still hadn’t found gainful employment.

Shawn’s mother nagged him daily to find a job, any job. It wasn’t that Shawn hadn’t tried. In the two years since graduating, he had applied at three different companies for jobs. But finding work was basically impossible.

It hadn’t always been like this. As a kid Shawn had shown great signs of intelligence. Sooner than other kids, he yawned, he ate, he daydreamed. He could turn on devices with his fingers.

And Shawn was braver than other kids. He launched a rocket under his bed. He fired a cannonball at his navel. He swallowed gum--at a time when other kids still believed their mothers who said gum must be spat out. He combed a stray dog’s fur with his own comb. He put a cockroach in his shirt in math class. And left it there.

The girls admired Shawn for this bravery, showing their admiration by saying “Gross!”

In all these ways Shawn showed great promise as a child. It looked as if he would have a brilliant future. But now what?

Shawn lay on the large sofa in the large flat and considered his prospects. His major had been chemical engineering, but what could one do with that?

Just the day before Shawn had seen a TV show about Taipei young people who had learned to turn their hobbies into small businesses. The lesson of the show was “Do what you love, and you will be successful!” The host suggested the first thing for a young person to do was make a list of things they loved doing, then consider which one might be turned to profit.

Shawn took a piece of scrap paper from the coffee table and started to write his list. After fifteen minutes he had a handful of items to consider. He went through the list one by one.

Item 1: “Getting up after 11.”

It would be great, Shawn thought, but I don’t see a way to make money from getting up after 11:00 a.m. Too bad.

He crossed out item 1 on his list.

Item 2: “Putting feet up on the coffee table.”

It was true Shawn loved doing this, and he could get away with it when his mother was out, but he couldn’t see any way to make money from it. Could he maybe charge old people to help them put their feet up on their coffee tables?

He didn’t cross out number 2, but kept it open for further thought.

Item 3: “Scratch back on door frame.”

After graduating from university, Shawn discovered a great way to scratch his back on the door frame between his bedroom and the hallway. Could he maybe teach other people to scratch their backs this way? He could go to houses and say: “Hey, I know a secret way to scratch your back that is awesome, and if you pay me 250NT I will teach you.”

At first Shawn liked the idea. But then: Not everybody has itchy backs, he thought. And what if their door frames aren’t good for scratching?

He scratched out item 3.

Item 4: “Computer games.”

He crossed out item 4. If you want to make money from games, you have to be a game designer, and he didn’t know how to use the software.

Without even thinking about items 5 and 6, Shawn tossed his list on the floor.

If I could only make money somehow without leaving the house, that would be the best, he thought. Or if I could make money by staying in the neighborhood. I have to think of something I can do right near here.

Shawn considered it a great rule of life not to leave the house if he could avoid it and not to use any kind of transportation to go to other parts of the city. It had already been three months since he’d left the city block where his mother’s flat was.

Hm. There was that one time Mom bent that fork and I used my teeth to bend it back. Maybe I could open a small silverware repair shop and do pretty well for myself. Shawn’s Silverware Rebend. Maybe I could start to put some money aside.

Or how about hide and seek? Everyone likes hide and seek. If people gave me their things before they went to work I could hide the stuff in the neighborhood during the day and when they came home they could try to find it. I could charge 50NT for every fifteen minutes of seeking, which would be fun for the people after a boring day at the office and would besides encourage them to move faster, getting some exercise, because they'd know the longer it took to find their stuff the more expensive the game would be. I bet I could turn a pretty penny with the city’s first Hide and Seek company.

Or I could help the police with crime investigation by working with hair evidence. Whenever there's a bunch of hair on the ground or the stairs I can always tell which hairs come from which persons. Just by holding them up in the light. The police could call me in to help solve crimes.

Shawn imagined a scene in a crime documentary where the police detective is carefully examining the surface of a sofa. “Get Shawn here,” the detective says gravely to his assistant.

Shawn was imagining more scenes from the same documentary when his mother entered the living room.

“Hey, I told you to bring in the laundry!” she snapped. “Get off that sofa already! It’s almost 2:00 p.m.”

“I’m thinking about possible jobs,” Shawn said.

And he explained to his mother his idea for the Hide and Seek company, and after he was done explaining it the strangest thing happened: his mother removed the slipper from her left foot and came over to the sofa and started beating Shawn's head with it.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Shawn protested as the dusty slipper whacked repeatedly against his head and other parts of his body.

“If you don’t get off your ass and find a job this summer, I’m going to throw away your iPad!” his mother yelled. “I’ve already thought about doing it. I’ve had it in my hand and was this far from junking it. I swear I’ll do it next time too if you don’t get out and find a goddamn job!”

Shawn felt a wave of nervousness wash over him. Throw away his iPad? Things were getting serious.

After his mother had stormed back into the kitchen, Shawn reached down and picked his list up off the floor. He wrote down a number 7 for item 7. He set himself to thinking.

by Eric, Ryan, Claire (范姜詠欣) and Anthony (黃聖翔) at ZEI

Natural Pedagogy 自然教學方法

Unshaven, still drowsy, I lock the door to my 5th floor Taipei flat. I check my watch as I wait for the elevator, realizing I'll likely be late for class. When the elevator door finally opens, after an annoyingly slow descent from a floor high above, I come face to face with some upper-story neighbors, a mother and her young son. The boy is four or five and carries a huge slice of watermelon covered in clear plastic wrap. I notice the yellow of the melon perfectly matches the yellow of the bicycle stenciled on his teeshirt. The mother, as usual, has way overdone her makeup, and is carrying an oversized Louis Vuitton bag. The boy smiles at me, but the woman keeps her gaze on the floor.

Then, as the doors close, she suddenly whacks her son sharply on the head and snaps in Mandarin: "Stop touching the melon! You'll ruin it and no one will want to eat it! It's like butterfly wings. If you touch them you ruin them!"

I watch the boy's reaction in the mirror as the elevator begins to descend.

"Do people eat butterfly wings?" he asks her after a few seconds.

She makes a scoffing noise and says just a single word: "Stupid." She clutches her bag closer.

As we near the ground floor, I catch the boy's eye in the mirror. He's clearly upset to be hit and insulted in front of the tall foreigner. As the elevator slows to a stop, I smile at him and say: "We eat them in my country."

And just before the doors open, he looks up at his mother and defiantly says: "He eats them!"

As I step out of the elevator, I catch the mother scowling at me. But the boy is happy. I know in his mind he's already picturing foreigners munching on yellow butterfly wings.

That I'll be late for my class matters little now. I step out into the rain, hoist my flimsy umbrella, and head to the subway. I'm glad I caught them on the elevator. One must always try one's best to get to children when they're young.

自然教學方法

昏昏欲睡了，還沒刮鬍子，我把我五層樓房子的大門鎖好，等電梯來。我看手錶，了解我第一堂課會遲到。電梯從很高的樓層下降得很慢。門終於打開我遇到上面某層樓的鄰居，一個媽媽和她小兒子，大概五歳。兒子帶著一大片西瓜，上面有保鮮紙。我覺得黃色的西瓜搭配他T恤上面的黃色腳踏車。照樣，他媽媽的化妝太濃，她帶著一個大大的LV包。

電梯門關了，媽媽突然打兒子的頭，說：「別一直摸！你會弄壞，不會有人想吃！像蝴蝶翅膀，你摸就會弄壞！」

我在鏡子裡可以看到孩子的臉。電梯開始下降。

「有人會吃蝴蝶翅膀嗎？」兒子過幾秒問他媽媽。

她發出嗤音，只說一個子：「笨。」她把她的包包拉近一點。

我從鏡子裡看到男孩在看我。我明白他在高高的外國人面前這樣被打又被受辱感到羞愧。當電梯快要停在一樓時，我微笑對他說：「在我的國家我們會吃。」

然後，電梯開門跟前，他抬頭對他媽媽强嘴說：「他會吃！」

我走出電梯時，一眼看看媽媽做鬼臉。不過兒子開心。我知道他在心裡已經可以看到吃黃色蝴蝶翅膀的外國人。

我會遲到第一堂課沒關係。大部分我的學生也會遲到。我打開雨傘，往捷運站走。儘可能啟發小孩是必要的。

[四十多歲小孩寫的文字。 謝謝我學生畢莘幫我改我的錯誤，但她應該太有禮貌， 應該還有怪怪的地方。]

畢莘

In the Dean's Office

"Did they bite you or beat you?" the dean was saying to the slender woman seated before him.

The woman, head down, frazzled, was rubbing her temples. She mumbled something inaudible.

"I didn't hear that," the dean said. "What was it: bite or beat? Bite, you know, has a long vowel, a long i, because of the silent e at the end."

The woman raised her head.

"I know it has a long vowel," she said curtly. "I have a PhD. from Berkeley!"

"Yes, yes. . . . So what was it: bite or beat?"

"Both."

"What do you mean both?"

"I mean both," the woman said. "They bit me and they beat me."

The dean's eyebrows went up. He really seemed almost shocked.

"No," he announced decisively. "They either bite you or beat you, but they never do both."

"Well, they did both," said the young academic, holding up her forearm to show him the two gauze bandages, then pulling aside her collar to show a dark bruise arcing round the base of her neck.

"You want to see my belly?" she asked, making as if to stand up.

"No, no, that won't be necessary," the dean waved dismissively. "Was there . . . Were there any offers to tattoo you?"

"One kid said he wanted to leave something tribal on my thigh," the woman said. "That's how he said it: 'I wanna leave something tribal. Right on your inner thigh.' Then he made a clicking noise."

"That's tattoo talk," the dean said.

"No kidding," the academic said.

The dean sat thinking a moment.

"And they bit you and beat you?" he said finally. "All the students? All of them did both?"

"Yes, they all bit me and they all beat me, all nine, repeatedly. It was the whole last thirty minutes of class!"

"Amazing," the dean said. "Really amazing."

The woman said nothing, went back to rubbing her temples. A moment passed.

"I think you've got a serious future here," the dean said in conclusion, closing the folder on his desk. "Really. This is unprecedented. In my experience at least."

"Great," the woman said, in a tone that was impossible to read.

"I mean, if they're biting and beating you already, after only a week! Well, let me tell you. With a strong start like that I wouldn't be surprised if we were already paying you something by the end of semester. Just symbolic of course, but something."

"Great," the woman said flatly. "Even symbolic is helpful. Great."

Japanese News 日本新聞

JAPANESE NEWS

Was in the living room watching the news today before lunch. A Japanese news channel with Chinese subtitles. There was an in-depth report about a panda that didn't want to be a panda, so it dressed up as a badger and applied to zoo authorities to live in the zoo as a badger. The zoo accepted the application, but soon the zoo's real badgers started complaining to the zoo keepers because the panda was too lazy to dig burrows like they did. So the zoo keepers decided that maybe the panda could dress up as an otter and float in the water with the sea otters. The next segment of the report showed the panda in an otter costume floating next to a talkative sea otter. The sea otter was just starting to teach the disguised panda how to crack clams when my wife came in and said: "Come to the kitchen already! You said you'd help cut the vegetables! And no more BS about how you have to watch the news. This isn't even a news channel. It's cartoons!"

My wife: always splitting hairs like that.

日本新聞

今天午餐前，我在客廳看新聞。是日本新聞台，有中文字幕。他們專題報導一隻熊貓不想當熊貓，所以申請裝扮成獾，去動物園工作。要當動物園的其中一隻獾。他們願意僱用牠。不過過了一會兒，動物園真正的獾開始對飼養員抱怨新來的獾太懶惰，不願像牠們一樣挖地洞。所以飼養員決定把熊貓裝扮成海獺，把牠跟海獺放一起。新聞報導下一段可以看到裝扮成海獺的熊貓漂在一隻海獺的旁邊。當海獺剛剛開始教熊貓怎麼㪣開蛤蜊，我太太進來說：＂唉！快來廚房！你不是說你會幫我切菜？別跟我說你要看新聞！這不是新聞台，這是卡通台。＂

她總是鑽牛角尖。