Garbage collection. No joke. Seven o'clock every evening, at the end of the alley. And you want to know why it's my favorite part of the day? Because it's where the friendly spirit of my Taiwanese neighbors really comes out to play. The first day I went out, Li Ma Ma from across the hall said hi to me and asked how I was doing. The second day, the old woman who will take your recycling and trash if you need to go somewhere else, greeted me and started chattering away to me in Taiwanese. When I told her I didn't understand, she mimed out what she said, then told me in heavily accented Mandarin that a lot of people couldn't understand her. And then my neighbor from the third floor talked to me in English for awhile. Tonight, my neighbor across the alley chatted with me for a long time, asking if I was living alone, asking if I was lonely and if I could cook for myself. Her English was really good too, but she spoke to me in Mandarin, and was just amazingly friendly. She told me how I could walk under the bridge near our house to get to Tai Da and that I didn't need to take the bus, and that there was a really good Korean restaurant just on the other side of the bridge. She also asked how I found Taiwan compared to China, and I admitted that I'm liking Taiwan better, it's much friendlier and freer. She said she'd been to the mainland, and not really liked it.
It's also really interesting to see how many migrant workers there are in the neighborhood, mostly from southeast Asia and the Philippines. A lot of them take out the trash for the families they work for, and so I see all of them each night. It's a really fascinating insight into Taiwanese society.
So anyways. Garbage collection is the favorite part of my day. Talk about a pick-me-up at the end of the day. I love it. I really do.
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