在家的某些感想

我每次回家，都迅速就覺得生活步調變化。我在臺灣時，要六點半起來，七點左右就出門到學校，六點才離開圖書館。如果我想跟朋友碰面，都得先安排，要不然我很忙的朋友不行。不過，我在家時，我的時間卻都有空，平常早上九點半起床，十點洗澡，十二點吃飯等等。

假使我在家時不想一直很無聊，要主動地出去找老朋友或休閒活動，並不會有人在我前門出現說“寶銳在不在，我可以約他出去嗎？”比方說，我今天中午打給我朋友的媽媽，問他願不願意跟我見面聊一下天。儘管她的年級比我大四十年，我們卻很有共同點，而且我很喜歡聽她講的故事和意見。她今天邀請兩個老朋友，他們是一隊七十多歲的夫妻，先生是一個退休的工程師，太太是一個快失去記性的人（她不告訴我她在哪一行工作過）。

我跟他麼講了一個小時的話，後來我們倒兩杯咖啡，準備兩盤起司糕，在他火爐旁邊坐下開始聊東聊西。不久之後，我們聊到我對臺灣生活和念國語的計畫。我一說我越在臺灣越想留在那裡，她就看起來覺得很錯愕，開始反問很多問題。當我說出理由，她都唱反調，問我到底能不能相信一個臺灣小姐真的愛我，或者卻只想藉著我拿到一個美國綠卡。她也提起另一個問題，就是我跟一個臺灣女朋友雖然前兩三年可能非常幸福，但是我們能否跨越隱藏的文化隔閡，只有天知道。最後，她問我想不想要永遠住在臺灣，因為大多數的臺灣人女孩並不願意遷到美國去，打發掉她們的家人。

我果然覺得她說得很有道理。所以，儘管我認為在臺灣交女朋友很可能治療我的一些孤獨感，這麼做也很可能引發更嚴重的併發症。我最好小心翼翼去找一下，對嗎？

一個新的任務

哎呀，今天又吸取了一個痛苦的教訓，就是我得睡覺。昨天晚上我幫一個朋友準備英文的面試，準備好之後就跟她聊很久。

其實太久。我回家之後休息兩三個小時，突然之間發現已經到了清晨三點。糟糕！如果隔天要上好幾個小時的課，然後跟語言交換見面，三個小時確實不夠。我的鬧鐘響起來是，我翻過來看牆上的錶：六點半。我就按下snooze，開開心心回睡覺。

早上九點才上第二堂課時，老師開我的玩笑說，“寶銳，你看起來很累，也沒有刮鬍子。而且我問你問題的時候你好像都想不起回答來，就像你的頭腦短路了。怎麼樣？”

美國生日快樂！！！

Happy Birthday America!!! I'm the only Yank in my class that remembered the Fourth though; the rest are slightly hippie-ish.  Ex-pats are an odd group; sorry about that.

I think it's been exactly one week since I was here last, and it's been a pretty busy time.  Let me fill you in.

First, and most awesomely, my apartment now only has three housemates.  The two college kids (for more information, see this post) moved out on July 1st, and its been nothing but piece and quiet since.  Fittingly, they did little to clean up after themselves, as their living space was unswept, and the wall stained with dirt from their feet.  We'll be repainting soon.  Punks.

Additionally, I had a pretty enjoyable Sunday, mostly because I met up with and British guy I know, and spoke nothing but English the whole day.  Lovely.  We decided to head north to Taipei's most famous museum, the National Palace Museum (故宮博物院), which houses the thousands and thousands of artifacts the Guomindang took from the Mainland when they retreated to Taiwan starting in 1948.  This fact apparently irritates the Chinese to no end, since Taiwan played little to no role in ancient China's cultural development, and there's not the slightest chance Taiwan will give up the museum's wares.

Once inside, there are three levels to the main building, and the first exhibit rooms feature picks, trowels, daggers, etc. dating back almost 8,000 years.  Museum officials are quite proud of this longevity, and they let their feelings be known publicly.  In the first room, there's a large sign proclaiming the glories of Chinese culture, the world's "longest, most vital, and most important."  Take that, Smithsonian.

The exhibition halls progress chronologically, and begin, as mentioned, with the pre-dynastic times, transition into the Zhou Era (周時代), the Spring and Autumn Period (This is when the classics of Daoism emerge), the Warring States Period (Confucius, Mencius, and Lao-tse), and finally into the 2,000-year Imperial Era.  It's pretty cool.

The museum‘s most famous piece is a piece called, roughly, "The White Cabbage Jade:"

The picture's not mine (note the watermark at bottom right), but you still get an idea of how cool this thing is.

After the museum and after some food, the Limey and I decided to hit up "Kung Fu Panda," or 功夫熊貓, at the main movie theater in Taipei's XiMenDing area, the city's rough equivalent of Times Square.  It's hilarious, and highly recommended to all and sundry.  Fat noodle-selling pandas trained by rodent kung fu master to defeat world's greatest tiger warrior makes for some seriously good viewing, trust me.  I'm not going to say anything more.

I'm about to wrap this up, but I'm feeling the itch to write about some of the still-visible remnants of the Guomindang's "One China" pretensions, as well as about some of the funny English one sees around town.  I'll be taking some pictures to help make my point.

Now we've got evidence

ALERT:  This is an all-cars notice on two (three?) John Does suspected of annoying the living crap of out Bryan.  Biographic data is as follows:

Suspect Names: We've never bothered to find out.

No. of Suspects: Two.

Sexual Orientation: Other dudes.

Current Location: In Bryan's living room, watching his TV.  Or in Bryan's dining room, sleeping.

Offenses: Being the most two annoying people this side of Bryan's other roommate in DC; signing and giggling until the wee hours of the morning; always being around; being 19 years old and making me fear that maybe, just maybe, I used to be that annoying.

Evidence: Thanks to some stellar sleuthing work, we've turned up photographic evidence of the crime scene.  Due to high risk of contamination from the enormous amount of useless junk piled up, all officers are advised to enter with restraint, and not until having received proper protective gear and vaccinations.  The evidence is in the form of two photos, which are to be treated as classified:

This just in!  Photos of the perps at the crime scene, taken at 7 p.m.:

Verdict: Suspects are to be considered guilty until proven innocent.  Use of force authorized.  Station OUT.

A long-delayed update

Apologies to my readers - all three of you - for my many, many day absence.  There's no excuse; were this a reputable news outlet, I'd most certainly have long since been fired for neglect of professional duties.  Thankfully, it's not.  I'm still the boss of me.

Also, before I jump into this, a note.  I just a massive plate of "chicken leg rice" at a restaurant down the street, and am about twenty minutes into a carbo-coma.  So, please have patience with any typos or incongruous sentences.

By now, I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this is aware I've started classes, and switched into the intensive class Friday before last.  I'm still struggling to get back on my feet after the initial full-body language blast of the first few days.  It's a no-holds-barred, all-Chinese-all-the-time, ego-bruising three hours of fun.  Last week, we turned in our topics for the semester project, which is a full-length report on a series of street interviews we are to do on a selected topic. Mine is a semi-awkward mix of the topic I originally chose, Sino-Taiwanese relations, and that suggested to me by my teacher, Taiwanese views of foreigners and foreign nations.  The latter seems like it might simply degenerate into a topical study of Taiwanese prejudice, and I'm not too interested.  So,  I'm hybridizing.  Our list of proposed questions is due to the teacher tomorrow.

Speaking of school, as I walk to and from everyday, I pass through an all-Chinese neighborhood on foot and, while most people ignore me or stare at me when I'm not looking, there's one fellow at an appliance store who's taken a (non-homosexual) shine to me.  It started with an innocent "Ni hao," and by this past Friday, had progressed to a point at which he feels comfortable talking to me about all sorts of inappropriate things.  That day, as I ambled past, he stopped me to talk, and shortly thereafter began asking, "you have girlfriend Taiwan?"

Nope, I don't.  Nor, since seems to be offering his matchmaking services, am I interested in anyone he might plan to send my way.  He was amazed that I was/am single, and expressed with certainty that getting a lovely lass at my side would take little more than a snap of the fingers. As he was saying this, he attempted to reinforce his argument by pointing out the hair on my chest, a sure sign of a "real man," he said, and a big draw for the ladyfolk here.

Then, strangely, he switched the conversation to the the topic of corn.  Yes, the delicious vegetable.  I couldn't figure out why, but after he began a long series of vulgar gesticulations and started grabbing his crotch in a most gruesome manner, I finally understood his meaning. He believed himself to be pointing out one of the physiological advantages of Western birth. 

Yikes.  At this point, I'm hideously weirded out, and more than a little wary of what might be coming next, so I forced a graceful dismount and walked away, beet-red in the face.  As a parting shot, the fellow tells me about his old college major, "zuo ai,"  or "love-making."  I might have to find a new route to school.

* * *

What else, what else...

Oh, the language.  Also known as "The Reason I'm Here."  I think I've been making some decent progress, especially recently, since I'm able to understand ever more of Taiwan TV broadcasts, and am become much more adept at eavesdropping on the conversations of passersby.  Why, just this afternoon, as I went for a sweltering, muggy, cramp-inducing run in a riverside park, a young kid scooted past me on his training wheels, turned and saw me, and started singing.  The song had only one word: "Laowai, laowai, laowai."  Or, when translated, "foreigner, foreigner, foreigner."  Classic.

Like I said, to boost my language abilities, I've been forcing myself to watch a lot of TV. Recently I found a pretty cool sitcom, very popular here on the island, called "mingzhongzhuding wo ai ni," or "I Was Predestined to Love You."  It's a standard story of the meek, beautiful girl rescued by the super-cool-but-confused Mr. Right, except that in the first episode, she got dizzy from cold medicine, and he from being poisoned, and they mistakenly ended up in the same room (they're on a cruise, but don't know each other) and and lost their respective virginities.  Each assumed that the other was their lover, and not, as it turned out, a total stranger.  Oops.  The second episode involves an unwanted pregnancy, so I'm stoked to see what happens next.

* * *

Ok, that should be enough to satisfy the critics.  I'm exhausted, and still have to get some more work done on my questions for school, as well as recommence the vocabulary and grammar review I started earlier.

Bryan, out.

I though I felt this last night...

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/351292/1/.html

Dinner failure

I just wanted to write this down. I live with two guys, both of whom are in the habit of sleeping past 11 a.m., even after going to bed at midnight. There's not a yet a real, grown-up trash can in the place, even though they housemates have been living continuously here for nearly two years. Readers may have also noticed that there is no furniture in the place.

None of this bugged me at all, not one bit, until tonight. At 10 p.m., I walked down to 7-11 (there is literally one every two blocks in this city - 3,700 in all of Taiwan) to pick up some instant noodles, figuring I'd heat up some water in the apartment microwave to make them when I got back. Well, oops. There's no microwave. There's a contraption above the sink where the microwave should be, but it serves no such purpose.  I, with both my BA and MA, am totally at a loss as to this thing's purpose.  I tried to heat water in it, but to no avail.

After casting about for some minutes, I finally broke down and used the hot water from the bathroom faucet.  BTW, I don't want any comments on this - if I get cholera, it'll be sufficient punishment.  The noodles were delicious.

I'd have taken pictures to document my frustration, but, as we all now know, my camera is throwing hissy fits.

I'm eating out from now on.

Breaking News...

...my camera seems to be broken.

I just got back from a half-day trip to a place called WuLai, which is a village southwest of Taipei that's famous for its hot springs.  It's tucked away several mies up a winding valley, with verdant mountains that shoot straight up several hundred feet from a clear, swift-flowing river.  

I took a lot pictures of the scenery and of the food but my camera chopped off the bottom of most of them.  I have no idea why.  So, while this was going to be another long, entertaining entry, I'm just going to post some of the pictures that haven't been mangled and then try and figure out what the ___ is going on.  I think maybe the moisture is the air is making it angry.

So, with no further ado...

WuLai is thee name of the village in the language of the original Atayal aborigines, whose ancestors came to the island either from southern China or Southeast Asia perhaps 7,000 years ago.  The town's name means "hot and poisonous" in their language.

I mentioned the mountains in the valley.  Here's the only, only shot I have left of the many I took of the cloud-wreathed peaks:

Finally, lunch.  Each little village and tourist stop has its own specialty food.  WuLai's is a cool little thing called zhu tong fan - "bamboo tube rice" - which is a mix of super-sticky rice, nuts, and what seemed like mushrooms.  It's steamed, and served in a foot-long tube of bamboo:

It looks a little bit odd at first, but it's delicious.  I had proof of its tastiness (a photo taken five minutes later than this one with an empty bamboo tube), but, convienently, 80% of the photo is gone.  Meh.

New apartment for the hairy foreigner

Breaking news - I've got a new apartment, and its awesome.  I moved out of the hostel this morning, much to my relief.  It was getting a bit tiresome having a dozen people around at all times, with too few fans to offset the massive body heat and a landlord unwilling to use the A/C.

I did, however, meet some pretty interesting people.  There was a French couple staying in the hostel that fitted to a T every silly stereotype about the French, ever.  They'd been traveling the world together for about 2 years, having already been to the U.S., the Caribbean, and Taiwan, and on their way to the mainland to work the Beijing Olympics.  After zat, zey do not know.  They both sallied about in varying stages of undress, and the guy seemingly had few compunctions about full nudity.  I made a few restrained guesses about the couple's socio-political views, which were delightfully confirmed during a conversation in which I was told they were traveling to "de-program" themselves of French "social conditioning," and integrate themselves more fully with the broad masses of humanity.  I neglected to asked if, in their regression, they were going to forsake their healthy bank accounts.  Ah, the spoiled children of capitalism

Although the nudo-anarcho-nihilo-vagabonds were my favs, I made a couple friends that I'll probably keep in touch with later on.  There's an Ed from England who's a cool guy, just arrived in Taiwan a month ago from the mainland to improve his Taichi.  Warren (notice that I don't have any last names...) is a Kiwi who's something of a peripatetic, and who now wants to settle down in Taiwan and teach for a little while - and perhaps follow up on a few love leads in Taipei.  There's no one else of real note, although one of my readers has already noted that I've already reached my natural friend quota, and am likely incapable of making any more.  Wiesz, którzy jesteś.

Back on task - my new apartment.  It's a goo bit further south of the hostel, and is right on the Danshui River that bisects Taipei from west to east.  This is great, because there's usually a strong breeze on the river that softens the press of heat and humidity here, and because the view is pretty good.

The Common Room:

My room (during unpacking):

The view, looking south, from west to east:

My room also has A/C, which is absolutely phenomenal.  A fan cools one off a little bit, but it doesn't stop perspiration, and it's no fun waking up in a sweat pool.  Another great thing about this place is that the neighborhood is more authentically Taiwanese - every block has row after row of small shops, there are spiderwebs of lanes and alleys (xiang and nong, respectively, in Chinese) connecting the major roads, and, most importantly, there is next to no English, anywhere.  This a pleasant change, since in the center of Taipei, almost every sign has the English translation beneath it, and a good many of the residents have passable English.  Here, this is not the case.

Readers may by now be wondering about the second half of this entry's title: "I get the new apartment bit, but why is he pointing out that he's hairy?  We already know that."  Well.  I had my first experience two days ago with the famous Chinese fascination with the Western body.

I was in the Taipei MRT Station (the metro), sitting between two elderly men, who, so far as I could tell, didn't know I was there.  We were all comfortable on our three-man bench when a young fourth arrived and sandwiched his way in unceremoniously.  Not restrained by the usual Taiwanese reticence around waiguoren, he immediately launched in a conversation with me, of which I understood little at first.  After a few rounds of "speak more slowly, please" I finally understood the words "shenmao hen duo," or "a lot of body hair." Ohhhhhh.  He was tickled to death that my arms were hairy, and explained (in Chinese, he didn't speak a word of English) to me the all-too-obvious point that Asians are different. Thankfully, the train showed up, and I made a point of walking two or three cars down, so that he got the hint.  Once inside I double over in laughter, and everyone was staring at me.

It's a curious thing, the way the Taiwanese relate to Westerners.  In many cases, they're thoroughly intimidated.  I did my first language exchange this past Monday, and one of my partners had never, ever talked to an American before, and couldn't even finish her sentences.  She was having problem remembering how to write Chinese characters, and kept getting up from the table.  There's a real difference in emotional confidence between the average American and Taiwanese I think.  We're bred to be robust individuals, and they are taught deference and piety, and seem to have a fantastical view of the West, and of the U.S. in particular.  They treat us like VIPs.

* * *

There's more coming later, including photo documentation of the hilariously bad English on signs in Taipei.

When it rains

On a map, Taiwan's latitude is roughly equivalent to place like Pakistan, Iranian Baluchistan, and northern Saudi Arabia.  It slightly closer to the equator than Miami.  On the island, all the vegetation is sub-tropical or tropical - endless palm trees line the road, many of the older buildings have mildewed exteriors, and, outside the city, the ground is covered with underbrush that reaches maybe ten feet off the ground.

Simply put, it's hot, and it's wet.  And I wasn't expecting it to be so.  Or at least not so much. Everyday here has ranged from 88 to 91 degrees Fahrenheit, with what feels certain to be 100% plus humidity.  One simply has to get used to be covered with a glossy sheen of sweat, and plan accordingly.  Among my first purchases here was to buy a travel-sized can of anti-perspirant, because after three hours or so, my morning Gillette would begin to stumble and fail.

What's more, every afternoon brings a thunderstorm, brought on by the condensation at cloud-level of the moisture cooked off the ground during the morning heat.  I was used to this in Mobile, but in Taiwan the showers are a bit more cataclysmic; yesterday, they morphed into an intermittent lightening and rain show that lasted until 11 p.m. and which left me completely drenched, twice.

So, caveat emptor - if any of my loyal readers feels compelled to brave the 20 hours of flight time to come visit their ex-pat buddy - they'd best be prepared to sweat.

What else have I been doing?  Well.  I've a two week interval between registration and the start of classes, so I'm endeavouring to keep myself as busy as possible.  On the business end, I've likely locked up an apartment with two Chinese speakers, one a guy named Eddie from Surabaya, Indonesia, and another from Taiwan whose name I don't yet know (I know, I know).  Here's hoping that works out.  Also, a point of complaint: in Taiwan, it's standard practice to put down two month's rent as a security deposity in addition to the regular first month's rent, which in my case amounts to $27,0000 NT, or New Taiwan Dollars.  It only comes out to about 700 bucks - eat your hearts out, District residents - but still.

I've done my fair share of touring as well.  Among the hot spots I've patronized:

The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.  This massive tribute to authoritarianism was unilaterally renamed the Democracy Memorial by then-president Chen Shui-bian in 2007, and is highly controversial in Taiwan.  So much so, and so complicatedly so, that I can't be bothered to write it out.  However, on my second stroll through the massive plaza on the memorial's west side, I was swarmed by my first group of adulating Taiwanese children (Chinese, maybe?  I couldn't say.). They ran over shouting "hello" and asking for pictures, and one of them almost burst when I responded, haltingly, in Chinese.  Another gave me a bear hug as he walked away.  I felt like a rock star.

The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.  He was the founder of the Guomindang, and the first president of the Republic of China after its founding in 1911 (The Taiwanese official calendar is only in year 97, not 2007, which gives you an idea of the man's importance).  I was in and out of here pretty quickly, though, both because of fatigue and because I was slightly unnerved by the 70 foot statue of Dr. Sun with a sign at his feet soliciting the Taiwanese to salute as they pass.  There are security guards to enforce the edict.

Taipei 101.  This thing is huge.  At more than 1600 feet, it's the tallest building in the world, although I'm told there's a structure going up in Dubai that may crack the 2,000 ft. barrier.  Inside the building, there's an express elevator that takes passengers from the 5th to the 89th floor in 37 seconds, and which is also the world's fastest - it has a spoiler in the elevator shaft.  From the observation deck, you can see all of Taipei, although my view was somewhat spoiled by a layer of cloud cover (pollution, cough cough).  Still though, it's very, very cool.

Maokong Gondola.  East of Taipei in the hills above town, there exists Taiwan's most famous tea-growing area, called Maokong ("cat holes").  For tourists, it's best accessible by a 15-minute gondola ride that traverses several hills and ridges on its way up to the top.  The view up and down the valleys is stunning, with small homes and farms built into the sides of the mountains, and narrow roads snaking their way from small village to small village.  The undergrowth,  as mentioned above, seems nearly impenetrable - settling the place must have been a tremendous ordeal.  Maokong proper has dozens of tea houses which serve their wares freshly-steeped, and each has a vista overlooking the suburbs on Taipei's outskirts.  Here's a taste of the view from the gondola, both of the scenery and of the little murmuring Taiwanese baby in our car:

Also, I just went and watched the new Indiana Jones flick, Chinese subtitles included.  If you're into farcical action movies, it's highly recommended.

Until next time...

In Taiwan

Man,  I made it.  I left my hotel in Houston at 4:45 a.m., and got to Taipei 28 solid hours later.  The flight wasn't terrible, although my butt fell asleep twice, and I had to stand for about an hour (out of the thirteen from San Francisco to Taipei).

I took a tour bus into downtown Taipei, which was about a 40 minute ride from the Taoyuan Airport, which is in the next county over.  Everyone getting on the bus did a double-take when they saw the meiguoren (American) in the front seat.

Things got fun, though, when I got got hostel where I'd booked a room for two weeks.  It's in the back of an alley just off the intersection of two fairly big streets in downtown, and there's a McDonald's about two hundred yards from the hostel - classic.  When I got inside (it's on the sixth floor, up a sketchy elevator), the lady at the front desk didn't have record of my reservation, which I made about two months ago.  Hmm.

I chatted with her for a while, and she said she had a slot in one of the single rooms the following night, and that I could stay there for 10 days.  I thought I'd already booked the room, but she wasn't having any of it.  So, I had to go back downstairs and try to find a place to stay for the night.  About a block away, there is a Sheraton Hotel, but when I tried to pay in cash, they told me the room fee was more the $300 for the night, yikes.  I kept going down the street, heading back toward the Taibei Main Train Station where I'd been dropped off.  

I saw a place called the Cosmos Hotel, but it was on the other side of the street, and there was no cross-walk.  While I was waiting for the elevator to go under the street, a Taiwanese woman asked my if I was from the U.S.  When I responded yes in Chinese, she began firing off questions at light speed - it seems to be a common trait here.  Here two daughters were gawking at me probably wondering both at the fact that I can speak Chinese and that I speak it so poorly.  I answered a few questions about where I was from, and slowly sauntered away, b/c I couldn't see any other way to make the break.

Finally, I booked a room for the night at the Cosmos Hotel, showered, and went to sleep.  Right now, I'm back in the Taipei Hostel, about to head out to register for classes.

(By the way, I got in trouble for taking that picture - the security guard visible in the bottom left corner though I was illicitly scoping him out.)

Last IWP Class

I've only got thirty minutes left in my last class at IWP.  Next week I take my finals and I go home.

That's all I've got to say.

The Clock is Ticking...

T-minus 56 days. Three tests, one paper, one packing session, and one 1200 mile drive are all that stand between me and a flight from Houston, Texas to Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport in Taipei, Taiwan. Yikes.

I've started this blog to document my travels and travails in Taipei, where I'll be staying for at least a year to study Mandarin Chinese. If hope is fulfilled and the will holds, I'll be updating it regularly with stories about by endless hours of studying, punctuated by brief and bewildering periods of fun.

As time progresses, these e-pages will be filled with commentary about the city and country that I'll be calling home for the next little while. Expect doses of politics, street life, school life, tourism, and the like - this won't be all about me.

And, for those who care (Mom), I'll even include the occasional photo.