Moon Festival

This weekend was "Moon Festival" It's the second biggest holiday of the year after Chinese New Year. The main event seems to be gathering with family and friends to watch the moon rise and eating moon cakes. We got tired of these real fast; unfortunately everyone gives these as gifts. Unfortunately we ended up throwing away several dozen, but we had had our fill. We sat on the beach and watched the full moon rise over the Pacific; it was spectacular.
So we're trying to figure out the rules of etiquette. People seem very forgiving; we hope we haven't offended anyone to badly. We 've been told that the a rule of thumb is; first comes relationships (who you know), then courtesy, then the law. Clearly laws are not taken very seriously, although the bureaucracy is incredible. So driving is interesting. We bought a car from our landlord (nothing exciting, but the AC works, that was most important) and we've been maneuvering about the city without too much trouble, though often startled by the driving habits. Another foreigner we met told us about buying a car and the rear view mirror was missing. So he asked the seller about it and was told, "Don't worry about it, nobody uses those here anyway!" And it's true, the rule is; The person is front has the right of way. So other drivers will pull in front of you without even looking. They're not rude about it and the speed is reasonable (apparently it's very mild here compared to Taipei) and we haven't witnessed any accidents, it's just will take some time to adjust. I need to ask if it is legal to turn on a red light, but then it seems that many people think it is legal to go straight on a red light. Unlike Japan, there are not many bicycles on the streets here, but it's crowded with motor-scooters; and they have little regard for the direction or flow of traffic.
The school lunches are fabulous, but until now it wasn't that great for McKinley as she is a vegetarian and most of the meals have meat. We didn't want to make an issue about it because we're trying to help McKinley not stand out any more than she already does. Then we learned that the school cook is not only wonderfully friendly but she is a vegetarian herself. She cooks with meat because it is her job, but she also prepares a meatless alternative for herself and was very glad to share it with McKinley. It's amazing how things work out.
It's hard not to compare our experience with our time in Japan ten years ago. In terms of teaching English, it's easier here because the Chinese are much less concerned about making mistakes. It often seemed to me that the Japanese culture enforced the idea that one should do something perfectly or not at all. With that attitude, it's almost impossible to learn to speak a second language and this was reflected in their ability after six years of daily English study in school; most Japanese couldn't have a very basic conversation. Here there's much more English ability and the students are more able to interact. On the other hand, the Japanese were always so impressed and complimentary of our attempts to learn and speak their language. Here the response is different. We're enjoying trying to learn Chinese, but unfortunately, because of the tonal nature of Chinese in which every basic sound can have multiple meanings, it's been somewhat frustrating. I guess it's very funny to listen to us, since the slightest variation of tone will result in a completely different meaning. A word can have multiple meanings depending on if it is spoken with a rising tone, falling tone, high flat tone, or falling-rising tone.