Fire prevention workshop

The last week has been what will most likely become a "standard life in Taiwan" week. I. e. no acting like a tourist or a foreign visitor.. Classes (at the university and Chinese), homework and readings, sports, few parties. There also was the club fair on Thursday and Friday - a chance for students to join one of the dozens (possibly hundreds) of NCCU clubs. They range from the conventional ones (tennis, choir, guitar club) all the way to the rather unusual ones (tea drinking, acupuncture, manga), as well as those where I even with my best effort couldn't understand what they do. I have planned to attend several club meetings next week and definitely join some of them (probably not Falun Gong - meeting starts every day at 4:55 a.m., or the traditional folk dances).

Several things were supposed to be happening here this weekend. First, the Fire Prevention Workshop in the dormitories on Saturday. Apparently, this is a really important thing, we literally can't live in the dorms without having the workshop information. Moreover, people who fail to attend get 8 - 10 penalty points (whoever accumulates over 10 points is kicked out of the dorms). The workshop was originally scheduled for 2 weeks ago, but was cancelled due to the typhoon. 

I wasn't too happy about this rescheduling, as I had planned to join a camping trip with the "Mountain climbing club", which was originally supposed to be an overnight trip, Saturday until Sunday. Therefore, I wouldn't be able to attend the fire workshop. However, I would have a chance to go to a fire station some place in Taipei on my own and make it up later (and not get kicked out of the dorms). 

What happened instead? Attentive readers of the blog may have guessed... surprise, surprise...

A Typhoon is coming!

At this time, the typhoon is still pretty far away from Taiwan, and is supposed to hit us on Sunday evening. At the moment, it is a Category 5 typhoon (that's the worst one), or a Super typhoon. It is supposed to get weaker before getting here. Just in case though, the camping trip got cut to Saturday only, hence no more camping. However, on Friday night it started raining and rained the whole night, so the trip was cancelled completely. Which is too bad, but at least I thought, I'd have time to do the fire workshop. It was announced to last all morning, for 3 hours - lot of knowledge to be learned for sure! 

What happened in reality: Each student picked up a little form, filled it out and was asked to attend 3 checkpoints and get a stamp at each (as a proof of completion). First one was the "smoky room". I guess we were supposed to learn how to act in room full of smoke. So we stood in a big line and when our turn came, walked into this "smoky room". It was built in the corridor, about 3 meters in length, just few plastic sheets representing the room, at there indeed was some smoke inside. It wasn't hot, didn't make us choke, the visibility was pretty good. We walked through the "room" and got the stamp. Task completed. How the hell was that supposed to help me do the right thing in case of a fire?? 

Second checkpoint, I don't even know what it was. As I came, the firemen were finishing an explanation of something in Chinese. Then I joined all the others to get the stamp.

Third checkpoint was a fire hose tutorial. Basically, each person got to hold the hose for about 30 seconds, spray a nearby tree with water. Task completed. It was possible to get the stamp without even doing the hosing thing. 

So in the end, the fire workshop took about 20 minutes, out of which 15 minutes was waiting / walking / filling out a form. I can't imagine how this could help anybody. And yet, many people had to stay in Taipei for the weekend because of this, and those who don't show up get kicked out of the dorms. Sometimes, this place can be pretty ridiculous.