Don’t Go Funk with my 氣

Somebody’s been funkin’ with my qi.

Twelve days and counting ’til the end of my Taiwan saga and I’m looking at it two ways: Either someone up there wants me to leave now or he/she doesn’t want me to leave at all.

Evidence? It’s been a rather series of unfortunate events for me around here lately.

1. Lost my phone
2. Lost my credit card…again (that one hurt)
3. Got stuck on public transportation one day for much longer than I had intended
4. Stomach problems every other day…I’m scared to eat food now because of it, but I’m always hungry. Mostly annoying because it has been putting a cramp in my last-minute-to-do plans which include eating every last weird Taiwanese dish I can. I’ve also had to cancel a few outings with friends and other travel plans.
5. Searching in vain every half hour on craigslist.org for school-year housing in DC, but no renters seem to want to respond to my inquiries.

Ay caramba. Obviously, life isn’t so bad right now. Just taking it slow, like summer should be, studying a bit more of Chinese and trying to enjoy the final days here. For example, I watched a couple of Taiwanese films during the past two days: “The Wedding Banquet” (“喜宴”) and “Eat Drink Man Woman” (“食物男女”), both directed by Ang Lee back in the early ’90s. Would highly recommend both.

In the meantime, I will keep trying to get my life force back on track.

And, I thought I would share, I have also determine the two quintessential necessities for keeping cool in Taipei heat:

1. Cold noodles 涼麵
There’s the homemade kind and the super-handy 7-11/generic convenient store brand. Either, IMO, is extremely tasty! One bowl makes a great breakfast, lunch, dinner or midnight snack.

and

2. Watermelon juice 西瓜汁
I swear I must drink at least two 12-16oz. cups of these per day. Always ordered with no extra sugar (nasty), just straight-up pulverized watermelon for me. One cup will cost between $20-40NT. Extremely refreshing–and not to mention healthy–on a hot day!

3. …Well, honestly, AC doesn’t really hurt either.

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, or Mid-night snack. For me, this one was breakfast enjoyed at Linguang's brand-spanking-newly-refurbished Family Mart. It's a pretty sexy-looking establishment at the moment and best of all, it has at least seven different varieties of cold noodles!

Things to do on a Rainy Day in Taipei

When the weather looks like this for more than 24 hours straight…

You should start to get creative.

1. Write a blog post or create a blog. Write about how the weather more often than not sucks in Taiwan.
2. Watch Taiwanese talk shows on TV. There is one on nearly every channel any time of day. Compare. Yep…they’re all the same.
3. Watch the Disney Channel in Chinese for as long as you can until you get annoyed by their high-pitched squeaky voices. Then turn to channel 63 and watch some bad old movies from mainland China, but at least the subtitles are in both Chinese and English.
4. Go to the local wet market and have a truly wet experience. Buy six mangoes for $100NT to brighten up your morning.
5. Buy the strangest thing you can find at the wet market. Bring it home and try to cook something with it.
6. Do your laundry.
7. Research career opportunities and figure out your life after you graduate/stop teaching English.
8. Enjoy a few cookies and chocolates sent from home. Then  when you remember you will be wearing a skimpy bathing suit in a week in a place with much better weather, do a bunch of ab workouts.
9. Review your Chinese textbook and commit a new useful sentence to memory.
10. Write postcards to your friends and family back home.
11. Send e-mails to old professors and employers you haven’t but should’ve kept in touch with all year.
12. Complete a few tutorials online about web page design or other computer skills. Lynda.com is a great resource.
13. Read a book.
14. Ride the MRT to the end of each line. Strike up a conversation with a local. Don’t let them try to speak English.
15. Go to that coffeeshop or restaurant you’ve been meaning to try, but have never gotten around to. Enjoy a meal/coffee *very* slowly.
16. Do something liberating like running around outside naked and say you’re trying to save money and are taking a shower. Expect a lot of photographs. Better yet…maybe do that somewhere where no Taiwanese person can see you unless you want to be the next dinner conversation for some random Taiwanese family.
17. Spring cleaning time! Throw out all those old school materials, ticket stubs, and 7-11 receipts you don’t need anymore.
18. Create your own aboriginal Taiwanese rain dance.
19. Go shopping in Taipei’s underground malls. Make sure to get completely lost at least once.
20. Enjoy some wine and cheese (purchased from a foreign market) with a few good friends.

More ideas always welcome! Hit up the comments!

Everything that Taipei Currently is Not

Sun and Snow.

This is how I have spent my past three and a half weeks in the U.S. –>

80°F and sunny.

Deerfield Beach, Florida

3+ feet of snow.

Georgetown, Washington, DC

Today I am staying warm and dry during the second wave of Snowmageddon. For some reason, watching the Travel Channel and taking over the kitchen to make multitudes of baked goods seems more appealing than attempting to brave the weather outside to me.

UPDATE! This is what I made:

Goodies to bring back to Taipei

Have I mentioned that I LOVE my oven?? Carb overload!

…My parents, on the other hand, are regressing in years…

Mom having fun

Dad's favorite pass-time once the snow comes out

Am I getting old?

Time and Travel

Time is an interesting construct. It can seem to drag for eternity (and what is eternity?) or it can zoom by before you have a chance to realize that it happened at all. Long time or short time. Is six months a long time? I swear, I was drinking hot chocolate in Grovers Mill Coffee House on a rainy Sunday morning with some of my best friends just yesterday. But since then I’ve taught hundreds of students English in a small school,

climbed the Great Wall,

spent weeks sweating through my shirts, ate real kimchi in Seoul,

completed an entire semester’s worth of schoolwork, snorkeled in the Pacific Ocean,

sang karaoke, learned a new city.

And is it really a week into January already? Then how come every minute seems to stretch on and on…will it ever be Tuesday? Six months now.

In anthropology, we can talk about monochronic and polychronic peoples (shout out to Edward T. Hall!). As Americans–those without too much extra-cultural influence, anyway–we are severely monochronic. We do one thing at a time, are regulated by schedules and to-do lists, value promptness, and are accustomed to short term relationships. Time is a linear, one-way street. Polychronic people, on the other hand, do many things at once, are highly distractible and subject to interruptions, change plans often and easily, and build lifetime relationships. Time moves round and round, a circle or a squiggly path.

Of course, nobody fits perfectly into either of those formulations. However, by moving between cultures, this is something I’ve had to–and many travelers have had to– reconcile time and time again. And maybe it is because my monochronic tendencies are doing a dance with some polychronic fledglings, passing instances in life are all becoming very acute to me.

So, in the spirit of polychrony I am not going to make a “to do” list of new year resolutions. But, at the same time, it can’t hurt to set some new goals and refresh some old ones. My primary goal for the remainder of the year is to really improve my Chinese language abilities. It has been a lot more difficult than I anticipated and, with some greater self-discipline, I think I can really stand to better myself in this way. Second, I am going to strive to be a better friend–not only to those I have here in Taipei, but also to my closest ones I have back home (and this includes family as well). As I travel, I realize how significant relationships truly are. No matter how far I go–and honestly, I don’t think I can go much farther than this–I rely tremendously upon the relationships I have to keep me sane and to keep me motivated and to provide me with reason to do what I am doing.

And, finally, my last goal is perhaps something more pertinent to you, dear reader. As I said before, time is a funny thing. It’s gone before you know it; replaced only by a memory that is subject to fade. I will strive to record these instances more consistently and as they happen on this blog. If it helps, I will try to think of myself as a travel writer like my idols in National Geographic or those really helpful dudes who write for Lonely Planet.

For the next few days I will be putting this blog on rewind and will be posting multiple entries about various experiences I have had during the past month. This includes points of destination, Taipei travel guides (ie: tourist traps, restaurants, etc.), events, cultural oddities and so forth. All this before I am spit-wadded back to the good ‘ole US of A next week (no worries, Taipei is back on the agenda beginning February 15th). Oh, and how’s this for a time warp? I leave Tokyo, Japan at 3pm and arrive in NYC at 2pm the same day. Yes, folks, time travel is possible.

And with that, I have to run to lunch! Time’s a’wasting!

Hair Cut

I now know what I would do with a million dollars:

Have my hair washed by an Asian stylist every day for the rest of my life.

SERIOUSLY! A hair washing in Asia doesn’t just mean a hair washing. It includes, a 30 minute butt/lower back massage on one of these nifty chairs:

As well as a thorough scalp massage, warm wash cloths, a marathon of ultra-deep-cleansing hair products, and complimentary tea and coffee.

For all expats in Taipei–and non-expats for that matter–I give two thumbs way way up to Eddie Tham at Mix&Match Salon (across from the Sogo Mall in Zhongxiao Fuxing). You can check out his website here. I had heard one too many horror stories about haircuts-gone-horribly-wrong in Taipei before, so I was extremely hesitant to let anyone even touch my hair here. But I had also heard many good things about Eddie and I was in desperate need of at least a trim (sorry to say it had been half a year since I last went to the barber), so I went on whim since my roommate was going anyway and I am infinitely thankful for it. Eddie is a great guy with many years experience; he told me he has been cutting hair since the age of fourteen and spent a decade in Britain studying with Vidal Sassoon. Besides that, he is also fluent in Mandarin, Malay and English (with a nice British accent). So, thanks Eddie!

Who knew a haircut would ever make me so happy? I will post a picture of the finished product soon.

Also, tomorrow I will take a short trip to Sun Moon Lake. Expect a post about that, too, in the near future!

I am the Egg

I am the egg. As the somewhat negatively connoted phrase goes, “white on the outside, yellow on the inside.”

Sometimes, you have to embrace your alter ego; ie: the yellow part you might often be fascinated by, but can never fully understand. (I promise–I’ll try not to speak in metaphors forever). To do so, however, requires some effort. In my case, it means one year abroad halfway around the globe–being completely immersed in a new culture and being completely removed from my own culture. I will be studying abroad at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei, Taiwan.

My plan is to take graduate-level classes in the School of International Affairs and study Mandarin at the Mandarin Language Center off campus. I also hope to become involved in many clubs and organizations at the school.

This past summer I spent a little over two months in a small city called Jiangyin in mainland China (about two hours outside of Shanghai).

There, I taught English to nearly 500 eager Chinese students, ages 11-50+ while taking short adventures to other major cities in China. Honestly, I miss my students dearly already–more than I thought I would. I am lucky to receive regular emails from many of them who update me on their daily lives and hopes for the future. After China I took a short trip to Seoul, South Korea to visit one of my best friends from AU, Ji-Won.

She showed me around the most cosmopolitan city I’ve ever been to–shopping, shopping, high-tech transportation, shopping, clean environment and blue skies, shopping…and did I mention the ridiculous amount of shopping? Certainly, it was a great contrast to China in many ways…perhaps, though, I will list those another day.

All said, by the end of the year, I hope to crack my white shell and explore Asian culture. So, I have some goals in mind:

1. Achieve at least intermediate level Mandarin

2. Make many Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Indian, etc. etc. etc. friends and contacts

3. Study East Asian history and current politics

4. Be able to order off of a Chinese menu and bargain with Chinese vendors by myself

5. Learn how to cook Chinese food for real

6. Do some research with the Center of International Communication–specifically, I would like to study global imaging and how countries use marketing and images to influence the rest of the world.

*Actually, funny story about that last one–today in Taoyuan International Airport I was approached by a government employee. She was interviewing foreigners arriving in Taiwan about their perceptions of Taiwan and how (if at all) the internet helped them plan their visits, etc. The government is looking to improve its website’s useability and “product” content to aid tourism as well as their global image.

7. Bike around the entire island of Taiwan and visit many places and people

8. Drink more bubble tea than what’s good for me

Perhaps that last one isn’t too relevant…