11/6-11/12, lost wallet, first lesson, single payer

This week something happened that I can't see happening in the US. Florence lost her wallet out of her fanny pack. The zipper was open and it just fell out. In the wallet there was a bankcard and maybe $150 worth of Taiwanese money. The bankcard has a 8 digit pin so the account was safe but then there would be all that hassle of reporting a lost card, waiting for a new card, new pin number ...

Then Florence got a call from the bank saying someone had turned in the card and that we should come to the bank and pick it up. It seems someone had found the wallet and turned it into their local bank. Then when we picked up the found card, the bank called the finder and the finder came to the bank with the rest of the wallet. We tried to reward the finder but she wouldn't take any money. She actually thanked us for showing up because otherwise she would have to go to the police and go through the hassle of reporting the found wallet.

Wow, in the US the wallet would be in the trash can and the money long gone!

This week I had my first class as an English teacher. My student is a manager at HSBC and a friend of one of Florence's nieces. We meet for one hour a week and concentrate on English conversation. But on my way to our first class I couldn't find her office! The street numbering in Taiwan is different than that in the US. I have written about this before:

http://mikeintaipei.blogspot.tw/2012/05/convenience.html

In Taiwan, the streets are on a NS/EW grid like in the US but the road that marks the boundardy between N and S and E and W is not always the same. Also the numbering is divided into even on one side and odd on the other. But in Taiwan, the numbering includes a "section" and so the house number rarely goes above 500 before a new section is begun.

So on my first day of class, I had the correct house number but I forgot that there had to be a section number. When I realized that I didn't have the complete address, I called the student and eventually got the complete address(it was Dunhua South Road, #199, Section 2). So when I called the student, she asked me where I was, I was so far in the wrong direction that she didn't recognize the local landmarks. One of the landmarks I thought she might remember was this one.

This "sculpture" encloses the Walk/Don't Walk LED display. This whole episode made me feel like a "horses's ass." That phrase is one of my mother's favorite, I had to look it up on the web, and yep it's exactly what I thought it meant.

Last year when Florence and I were in Taiwan, I applied for the Alien Resident Certificate(ARC). being the spouse of a Taiwanese citizen, I got it. It was a lot like applying for a Green Card in the US. The hardest part was collecting all the police reports, marriage certificate, ... and having them officially translated into Chinese. Then after 3 months of continuous living in Taiwan with the ARC, I applyed for the National Healthcare Insurance card. With the help of Florence and her relatives, it all went smoothly.

(The Taiwanese Healthcare Insurance Plan is a "single payer" system. That's one Obama almost immediately gave up on in his negotiations with the Republicans. Basically every citizen(or legal resident) pays a flat monthly fee,  currently the equivalent of $24. The government pays all medical bills and has a vested interest in keeping its citizens healthy. And the government can use the strength of a monopoly to weed out "bad apples" and providers that overcharge.)


So this time when coming to Taiwan I came as a legal resident not as a tourist or on a Student Visa. 10 days into our trip to Taiwan my eyes really started to fail, they had been gradually deteriorating over the Summer, but now I was becoming blind. I went in on Friday to the MacKay Hospital and they said it was bad, there was a followup exam on Saturday and on Sunday I was in Surgery.