I just returned to Taipei yesterday from a five-day trip to visit a college friend, Cira, at her teaching post in Fukuoka, Japan. Three other friends who are also teaching in various parts of Japan came down for the weekend since it was a three-day weekend for them, and it was really nice to spend time with them and hear about their experiences living and working abroad. It was also really cool to hear them speaking Japanese and to see them so comfortable in their surroundings.
There are about a million and one things I could write about when it comes to my impressions of Japan, from the social etiquette to the transportation system to Western influences. I found the whole experience a bit disorienting, to be honest, because the Japanese writing system uses Chinese characters. So I was constantly looking at signs and recognizing characters or phrases, but not understanding any of it because the order or usage was different.
Something that was refreshing about the whole trip was the fact that the area Cira lives in is much quieter and less populated than Taipei. Here, the traffic noise and crowds are almost omnipresent, even at 2, 3, 4 in the morning. You don't hear birds or other wildlife, and often you can't even see the sun for all the high-rise apartment buildings and stores. Cira's area was much less urban, with a lot more open space, and a lot less noise. It's strange to realize how accustomed I've gotten to the city noise here, considering I grew up in an area more like Cira's.
I guess the thing I noticed most, however, was the politeness. My time here and in mainland China has kind of conditioned me to be "rude" in the sense of not saying "please" or "thank you" very often, using whatever hand is most convenient to hand over money or objects, pushing around people to get on/off the subways/buses, and not really expecting courtesy, at least as we know it in the States. In Japan, politeness was like law. People were perpetually saying "sumimasen" (sorry/excuse me) every time they brushed up against you or bumped you on the trains, I saw people bow when cars stopped for them at crosswalks, and every transaction, even in convenience stores, was punctuated by polite phrases (see, that one semester of Japanese in college did pay off!). I was completely thrown off by it all. My Chinese teachers have always told me that the reason the Chinese don't say "excuse me" or "sorry" is because there are so many people in places like Beijing and Taipei that if they said "sorry" every time they bumped into someone, they'd be saying sorry all day. But places like Tokyo and Osaka are pretty crowded too, so I guess there has to be something more culturally rooted as well.
Overall, it was really refreshing to get away from Taipei for awhile and see some familiar faces. I feel recharged and renergized, ready for the next term, and I've also got some plans in the works for some more traveling at the next term break. Lauren and I are planning to move out at the end of December, which is causing some stress, but for the moment, I am about as happy as I've been since I first arrived here.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Twenty-three in Taiwan
Well, I spent my 21st birthday in mainland China, and now I've spent my 23rd in Taiwan. It could have come at a better time, to be honest, as things have been pretty stressful here lately, with landlord problems and school work and real work.
But it turned out to be a really good birthday. In the morning, Michael and Alex came in and brought me a couple little cakes from the bakery on campus. One was fruit, the other was tiramisu. One of my Japanese classmates also gave me a box of Japanese chocolate snacks. Then my teacher took me out to dinner at a Korean hotpot/barbecue place that Michael recommended. Three of my classmates, including Michael, joined us, and it was really nice to kick back, relax and have some really good food.
Tonight a bunch of us are going out to a night club near Taipei 101, and it's sort of a birthday/end of the semester celebration. The thing that really strikes me about the group going out is just how international it is. There's a couple of us Americans, but the rest of our classmates are Japanese, Korean, German, Australian. We communicate almost exclusively in Chinese, and in some ways, I think we're closer than the kids in Lauren's program, who are mostly Americans. I don't know if we just got lucky with the group of students this term, or if it's the international-ness of the group that makes it so, but we also have had no drama, no infighting or cattiness that I would have expected. Everyone gets along really well and is really friendly, really open and ready and willing to chat.
I also talked to a guy in my program today who's English and who, while he's not into football himself, has a couple of friends who are big Liverpool fans and who are probably going to go down to The Tavern tomorrow to watch the game. I told him I might go down there as well, and this guy immediately asked for my number so he could get me in touch with his friends. I don't know if it'll all go through, and I've actually got to work tomorrow until rather late, but since the game isn't on StarSports, I might wander down to The Tavern anyways, just to see what it's like and whether it's a possibility for future games. If not, it's not that important of a game, just Bolton. I'd be much more concerned if it was Liverpool v. Man U or something like that.
Once things are solved with our landlord I'll try to condense the whole mess into a blog entry, but for now I'm just focusing on getting things worked out.
But it turned out to be a really good birthday. In the morning, Michael and Alex came in and brought me a couple little cakes from the bakery on campus. One was fruit, the other was tiramisu. One of my Japanese classmates also gave me a box of Japanese chocolate snacks. Then my teacher took me out to dinner at a Korean hotpot/barbecue place that Michael recommended. Three of my classmates, including Michael, joined us, and it was really nice to kick back, relax and have some really good food.
Tonight a bunch of us are going out to a night club near Taipei 101, and it's sort of a birthday/end of the semester celebration. The thing that really strikes me about the group going out is just how international it is. There's a couple of us Americans, but the rest of our classmates are Japanese, Korean, German, Australian. We communicate almost exclusively in Chinese, and in some ways, I think we're closer than the kids in Lauren's program, who are mostly Americans. I don't know if we just got lucky with the group of students this term, or if it's the international-ness of the group that makes it so, but we also have had no drama, no infighting or cattiness that I would have expected. Everyone gets along really well and is really friendly, really open and ready and willing to chat.
I also talked to a guy in my program today who's English and who, while he's not into football himself, has a couple of friends who are big Liverpool fans and who are probably going to go down to The Tavern tomorrow to watch the game. I told him I might go down there as well, and this guy immediately asked for my number so he could get me in touch with his friends. I don't know if it'll all go through, and I've actually got to work tomorrow until rather late, but since the game isn't on StarSports, I might wander down to The Tavern anyways, just to see what it's like and whether it's a possibility for future games. If not, it's not that important of a game, just Bolton. I'd be much more concerned if it was Liverpool v. Man U or something like that.
Once things are solved with our landlord I'll try to condense the whole mess into a blog entry, but for now I'm just focusing on getting things worked out.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The beginning of month three
Well we made history. Obama won the election handily, and it's the first time in a long while that I've felt this proud to be an American. My mom was mentioning to me in an e-mail that, even now, she keeps having sort of spontaneous moments of joy about the election and the future of the country, and I have to say that that's been happening to me too. I didn't get to watch Obama's speech live because I was in class, but I watched it later on YouTube, and I'll be perfectly honest, I got quite emotional listening to what he had to say and also seeing the reactions of the (mostly young) people in the crowd. I think I was moved both by how inspirational Obama's speech was and also by how involved and how deeply other people felt about this election.
I have a cold, which is absolutely no fun at all, and to make matters worse, it's taking its sweet time actually developing into a full blown cold, so I'm sort of coughing and headachey, but it's not a particularly productive cough, and I just feel tired and lethargic and completely averse to doing anything except sitting at home and resting.
As some of you may know, Lauren and I have run into some problems with our landlord. In a nutshell, he basically moved back into the apartment, and while he said it was temporary, it seems for all intents and purposes that he's planning to stay for a long time, and we're getting a bit irritated with the whole situation. The fact of the matter is, we probably could have said something about it earlier, but we both felt like we were walking on really uneven ground, not being in our own culture or our own language, and I guess we didn't want to make waves when we didn't really know if there was anything to make waves about. However, we've since gotten the opinions of several Taiwanese (teachers, friends, etc) and are now in the process of trying to discuss the problems with the landlord and work it out. I can tell you I'm not looking forward to the conversation at all, and I'll probably need a really strong drink afterward, but I also know I'll feel much better after I've said what I needed to say and it's all out on the table.
I find myself wishing for cold weather these days. It has yet to get really cold here, and I don't know that it will ever get as cold as I would like it. Winter here is pretty pathetic, to be honest, at least compared to Minnesota. I think it's probably pretty comparable to L.A., rain and all. I have to say, I rather miss the snow and all, it never really seems like Christmas without the snow and ice and the twinkling lights.
In terms of current events, Taiwan recently received an official delegation from China, and it sent the country into a state of minor uproar. People protested in Zhongzheng District, the seat of the national government, and a couple nights ago there were clashes between protesters and riot police. The issue of cross-strait relations has, of course, always been an issue since the Communists took control of the mainland and the Nationalists fled here. We were told, though, that a lot of the protesters were actually from the south of the country and weren't Taipei residents at all. The implication was that Taipei is a lot less radical and a lot more diplomatic about the whole issue than people in the south. I got the sense that it was also a subtle commentary on socioeconomic and ethnic divides, as the southern parts of Taiwan are generally more rural and home to more of the indigenous culture than Taipei.
The end of the term is coming up super fast, and I can hardly believe that I've been here three months already. It feels like yesterday I was arriving here and just trying to figure out the subway system.
I have a cold, which is absolutely no fun at all, and to make matters worse, it's taking its sweet time actually developing into a full blown cold, so I'm sort of coughing and headachey, but it's not a particularly productive cough, and I just feel tired and lethargic and completely averse to doing anything except sitting at home and resting.
As some of you may know, Lauren and I have run into some problems with our landlord. In a nutshell, he basically moved back into the apartment, and while he said it was temporary, it seems for all intents and purposes that he's planning to stay for a long time, and we're getting a bit irritated with the whole situation. The fact of the matter is, we probably could have said something about it earlier, but we both felt like we were walking on really uneven ground, not being in our own culture or our own language, and I guess we didn't want to make waves when we didn't really know if there was anything to make waves about. However, we've since gotten the opinions of several Taiwanese (teachers, friends, etc) and are now in the process of trying to discuss the problems with the landlord and work it out. I can tell you I'm not looking forward to the conversation at all, and I'll probably need a really strong drink afterward, but I also know I'll feel much better after I've said what I needed to say and it's all out on the table.
I find myself wishing for cold weather these days. It has yet to get really cold here, and I don't know that it will ever get as cold as I would like it. Winter here is pretty pathetic, to be honest, at least compared to Minnesota. I think it's probably pretty comparable to L.A., rain and all. I have to say, I rather miss the snow and all, it never really seems like Christmas without the snow and ice and the twinkling lights.
In terms of current events, Taiwan recently received an official delegation from China, and it sent the country into a state of minor uproar. People protested in Zhongzheng District, the seat of the national government, and a couple nights ago there were clashes between protesters and riot police. The issue of cross-strait relations has, of course, always been an issue since the Communists took control of the mainland and the Nationalists fled here. We were told, though, that a lot of the protesters were actually from the south of the country and weren't Taipei residents at all. The implication was that Taipei is a lot less radical and a lot more diplomatic about the whole issue than people in the south. I got the sense that it was also a subtle commentary on socioeconomic and ethnic divides, as the southern parts of Taiwan are generally more rural and home to more of the indigenous culture than Taipei.
The end of the term is coming up super fast, and I can hardly believe that I've been here three months already. It feels like yesterday I was arriving here and just trying to figure out the subway system.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election Time
"Rosa sat so Martin could walk.
Martin walked so Obama could run.
Obama is running, so we can fly."
-Unknown
The mirror is being held up to us as a nation, and it's time for the American public to decide whether we can really, truly take a step forward, or whether we are still too scared to move beyond the status quo.
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