Chicken and a Bike

Well I had quite the busy weekend. On Saturday I went hiking in Da Keng and Sunday I went to Zhang hua where I went on something I might call a nature walk. At the beginning there was a stage set up for entertainment with vendors. We walked the trails and went to different places to get stamps on our map to enter the drawing. The prizes varied. From bikes to clocks to calculators to soap etc... But I spent most of the day under a tent. People watching. The thing I love to do most. Not in a creepy way. I love watching children running and as soon as I catch their eyes they come to a halt and stare. Never breaking eye contact. In Taiwan people here are very friendly and very accommodating. I was walking down the trail and two women said Hello. Where you come from? I replied America. Their faces immediately changed. They then started talking to my friend Molly. I knew exactly what was going on. They were thinking she definitely has swine flu. I just kept smiling and said don't worry I have been here for a while. They smiled and went on their way. While I was sitting under the tent I just kept thinking I have got to try harder with Chinese. I am getting pretty good at zoning out. The funny thing is I only spoke to Molly and the occasional small child consisting of hello, nice to meet you. The thing is about Taiwanese is they love to feed you. I just sat there didn't move a whole lot. Some people would just kept give me food and they would say "eat" "good". I ate rice dumplings, about five hard boiled eggs, some other type of dumplings and I'm sure there was more food in there somewhere. While I am totally spacing out Molly yells to me get up we need to answer the question. I am about to fall a sleep and she said raise your hand. I was then chosen to go up on stage and answer the question. Of coarse my Asian posy knew I would be chosen. He then spoke English and said well she answer in Chinese? My natural instinct would have been to say ting boo dong (meaning I can hear you but I don't understand). So it was a good thing that Molly told me what to say in English. I grabbed the mic and said "the tree is shaped like the letter n". All the Asians were just eating this up. I was kind of shaky because It was a pretty big crowd. I was then handed a Styrofoam box. The small little Asian man handed it to me with both hands. So I did the same nodding while saying shae shae and he said "Photo". The professional photographer came up and took as Asians refer to as "I take your photo". As soon as I got back to my seat I thought to myself what am I going to do with a whole just slaughtered chicken? So I gave it to Molly's family and she said my mom will cook and you can eat. I said oh no thank you. I will pass. Molly also made the comment that next years advertisement will have me right in the middle. The thing that I regret the most is that I didn't even get a picture of this happening. I mean I could of at least taken the dead chicken out of the box and held it up for a picture. Apparently I wasn't thinking of the perfect blogging picture. Oh and did I also mention that I won a bike! My friend Colin said "Oh you got bike and chicken you so lucky" I said yes or it is god saying you need to eat some chicken and exercise more.