varying degrees of sweetness

This week we've been teaching Halloween vocabulary in all of our classes. We've tried to help the kids get as much of the Halloween experience as possible in a 40 minute class. In a few of the classes we carved pumpkins and in the less lucky classes we did other crafts or games, but one thing that's been common to every class is trick or treating. Every class got to go trick or treating to either the teacher's office or amongst themselves. I thought it was a pretty "American" experience for them, until I saw the candy they brought and I realized that they just don't get it. In the course of today's class I've seen some of the most unsweet and strange candy's ever. Salty Plum lolly pops; green tea, sarsaparilla and coke candies; other candies of strange colors and various stages of fluffiness, but the ultimate strange and disturbing candy of the day was MUSHROOM DRY RADISH MOCHI. When the students handed me one of the later I knew the game was up. These children don't understand the point of candy, so how can they understand Halloween? Needless to say I pocketed the candy for later experiments...I'm still debating on whether I should try it or not for the rather novel experience of eating mushroom flavored chewy "candy." What do you think?

So this was another lesson on the cultural difference between Americans and Taiwanese people. This one has concerned what I call the sweet/saltiness factor. Taiwanese people just don't like sweet very much. I don't know why. Just the other day we had Coldstone ice cream with three little kids and they complained about it being too cold and too sweet...Ice cream, too sweet? since when? I don't think I will ever understand these people.