The trip to the zoo

Once again I got dragged along for my kindergarten’s trip to the zoo. Now I have to ask, How the hell can you come here 2+ times a year for 5+ years and make the damndest effort possible to skip seeing animals as well as my Chinese co-teachers do?

Then why must all the kids be pushing, running around and eating junk food, like all the elementary school kids were doing? I’m hearding 14 3-4 year olds with my co-teachers, there are adults with the bigger kids, can you please tell them to watch out for the little kids?

Then the part that I loved the most that brightened my day:
We’re getting on the train, the seats have their own small railed loading area to wait in. I check our area number and then locate the seat. So we get on, with the usual shoving and pushing, when one of the kids sits in our area. I tell them to move, since we have 3 students and 2 teachers for our bench. Then the kids teacher moves to our bench. I kindly use a buhaoyisi and tell her to go to her bench. Which she does. After we reach the next point and are disembarking she starts scolding me in Chinese. Saying that there are no assigned seats and scuttles off, to my peals of laughter. She must of obviously been stewing about it and too dim to look around or listen to my explanation.

I now hate trips to the zoo and X-mas.

Thank you Taiwan,
Okami

I can understand how you feel. Chaperoning a school trip to the zoo does sound like hell. But, I was pleasantly surprised with the zoo. Getting there by MRT is exceptionally convenient. The animals’ cages weren’t as bad as I expected (I figured they’d all be chained to cement floored cells, not roaming landscaped enclosures). Some, such as giraffes, seem to have a fair amount of room. The Taiwan animal portion is interesting. The “train” is very handy. The admission fee is shockingly cheap. And there’s a McD just outside. What more could one ask for.

On the subject of bad kids in the Taipei zoo, though, I was standing watching elephants once when this kid 20 feet from me winded up and flung a plastic drink bottle as hard as he could into the enclosure, so it bounced off the elephant’s back. I was beside him in a second, letting him have it: “What the hell are you doing, you stupid fuck? You don’t throw things in the cages! Don’t you have a fucking brain? Bu hao. Bu hao. Bu hao,” followed by a :loco: motion.

His mother and younger brother were standing a few feet from him. They didn’t say anything to me or him (as far as I know), but they all three appeared to be fairly humiliated and contrite, before they slunk out of there. Although my wife generally doesn’t like me confronting idiots, I think she was pleased that time.

I hate those lame field trips where they rush the kids around as fast as their little legs can carry them, shouting at them to hurry up, keep up, etc. The only time they ever stop is for bullshit photo opportunities (for the wall at the school) and for an hour to cram as much junk food as possible into their faces. 16 trips to the bathroom whether they have to go or not, activities where they never give enough time or materials to do it properly, and then back on the bus.

I wouldn’t mind seeing the zoo myself. Haven’t done that one yet.

Back in the day when I lived in Taipei and taught Kindy I always loved the zoo. I taught Da Ban (Big Class) so their English was rockin’ so we could talk about all the animals (pre-teach before you go) and they were big enough to walk around all day.

I also had to pre-teach my boss (who was pretty cool) that they wouldn’t die from being out in the sun for too long as long as wel brought along water and took breaks often enough or went inside the Penguin or other indoor air-con areas.

I always looked forward to it but can see how it would be different with younger Kindy kids.

I found it perfect for their attention span. We would go to see one animal and chat about it. Their attention span only being a few minutes didn’t matter cause off we went to see something different.

I was filming there the other day and it was required for me to keep pronouncing the letter “p”, whilst standing next to the mock penguins. It was very funny to see the shocked faces of people passing by as they thought I was constantly repeating the word “fart” or “backside”. Of course I had to try and keep a straight face.

I took my little kids there (2-1/2 to 4 years old) when we did nocturnal animals. We did not do the whole zoo as it would have been overwhelming for the little guys so we focused on one kind of animal. It was a pleasant trip for us. We also had parent volunteers too so that helped a lot. The adult to child ratio was 1:3 at the most. But I did my fair share of “Ni bu keyi”, the only thing I could manage in Chinese, to the little (and big) bastards wandering around with their absentee teachers from the local schools. Like the upper elementary school students who pushed my little kids out of the way to get a closer look at the owls and almost knocked one down.

It’s funny how their chaperones don’t appear until the waiguoren says something to them, then it’s all about “If you do that again, the waiguoren will say something to you.” Grrrr…

I wasn’t outdoors we there were no open enclosures for the animals, but had I seen a kid throw something at the elephants (or any other creature for that matter), it would take serious restraint for me to not pick him up and throw him in to retrieve his garbage.