教學相長

Since getting here I have been hearing a lot about 成語 (cheng yu) - these are like Chinese idioms/proverbs and are four characters long and bear great wisdom.  The one my roommate taught me yesterday is 教學相長 (jiao xue xiang zhang) which means, "when you teach someone, both student and teacher will benefit".  She said this after we had a long, delightful bonding session where we discussed all kinds of cultural differences between Taiwan and America, Taiwan and China, and America and England.  We talked about dating and relationship norms, and apparently here it is most common to say "I love you" before you start dating... and wayyyyy before the first kiss.  Also, she and I had a good long laugh when I told her about how every Chinese restaurant in America serves fortune cookies, something that she had only read about in a textbook.  Who gave them the idea that fortune cookies were a Chinese thing??  My roommate had never seen one and was very confused by the whole phenomenon... we both laughed a lot.

Cultural notes - Texas map, English accent, Jane Austen vs Austin, Texas, fortune cookies,  dress vs jumper

Earlier yesterday, April and I discussed different accents when speaking Chinese - she imitated a typical American accent (devoid of tones, as well as the "x" and "q" sounds, which just become "sh" and "ch"), and gave me the scoop on the accents of CIEE.  It's funny because everyone in Taiwan so openly mocks the Bejing accent - it adds a lot of "r" sounds at the end of words (like, yi dian in Taiwan becomes yi diar in Bejing).  But people don't just have trouble understanding - they all laugh at how stupid it sounds.  One time we asked a tourist to take a picture of us and he had a Bejing accent and everyone snickered and mimicked it all day.

I had a typical language barrier awkward moment the other day - I was grabbing dinner (without any of my trusty translators - risky!).  I had had this kind of food before and they always ask a bunch of questions at the end, like if you want it spicy, or want to add meat, etc etc.  So I was prepared to not know what they were saying.  I get to the end and the lady says to me, "qi shi".  If spoken with 3rd tone 4th tone, this means "cheese", so I figured she was asking if I wanted to add cheese, so I shook my head.  She stared at me blankly until I realized that when spoken 1st tone 2nd tone, this means "70" and she was telling me that it cost 70 dollars, and I rudely refused.  Oops.  A similar tone difference issue - remember when I wrote about the fruit lian wu?  Well, the fruit is 2nd tone 4th tone - but if you say 4th tone 4th tone, it turns out this means sexual fetishism.  ... Yeah.  my bad.

Another fun cultural exchange moment was the other day I was hanging out with my friend Jenny and she was telling me that in one of her classes they are learning all kind of literature that is commonly referenced in American/English-speaking culture - like mythology, the bible, and Shakespeare.  Somehow we ended up going through the entire prologue of Romeo and Juliet line by line with me helping translate... I tried to stress that Shakespeare is really, really hard for even Americans to understand, but last I heard, Jenny actually bought a copy of Romeo and Juliet!  加油, Jenny!

This week at language corner I was just filled with love and appreciation for my students.  They really are so great.  All of them are really sweet, great at English, and eager to learn.  Each week I have a new favorite student (but, of course, really no favorite) because whichever of them I speak with most, I am so impressed by!  And Vicky even brought me candy (as well as provided me with the group gossip, which was very juicy).  They really are wonderful and I am so glad I am doing this.

Now for the bad news: I have recently become the victim of an utter massacre by mosquitoes.  The whole time I've been here they have kind of been around and irritating once in a while, but I have never had a bite that lasted longer than a day until now... and now, I have  - not exaggerating - over fifty.  I have bites on my elbows (??) and legs but they are mostly all concentrated on my feet.  Honestly, if I were to eat a piece of human, feet would be about the last place I'd go, but never mind.  Anyway, I have been getting a lot of practice exercising self-discipline in not scratching, but I do wake up several times a night, unable to stop myself.  It's sad, and pathetic, and uncomfortable, and it looks utterly horrible.

They actually have gotten worse since this photo was taken yesterday

So, that has been the main challenge of my past few days.  The weather has been beautiful and perfect, but I guess it comes at a price!

Here are things I want to share:
This is the CIEE newsletter!  Each of us kiddos wrote an article for it, so if you're curious about the people I've been spending my time with, they're all represented here.  If you don't care about them at all but want to read more (yes! more!) of my self-indulgent writings, this is the place to go!

Also: two more Taiwanese songs!  This one I fell in love with when I first heard it at karaoke on the three-day trip.  It's actually in Taiwanese, not Chinese, so I still can't sing along or understand it at all, but it is a really adorable song.  Also, April started teaching me 童話 (tong hua - fairytale) which Gene describes as "like, the Taiwan national anthem".  It's easy to learn, slow enough to sing along with, and a really nice song. The music video is sad though - about a girl with leukemia, so get your tissues out now.

This coming week is going to be very busy and exciting for me.  Next Wednesday is a big memorial holiday here, where people all go to sweep the tombs of their ancestors.  It also marks the beginning of spring break (wed-sunday).  But, my other classes for the week got cancelled or moved, so I have the whole week off!  First on the agenda: this Sunday is a CIEE-organized trip to 大甲 (Dajia) where there is this big, famous temple.  For the past week or so a big annual pilgrimage revolving around Mazu has been going on that will end at this temple, on Sunday, so it will be very crowded and crazy and culturally important.  So that should be really neat.  Then, since I don't have class on Monday or Tuesday, April has graciously offered to let me (and another girl) stay at her family's house in 台中 (Taichung).  On Monday we are going to a number of scenic areas where peach blossoms are blooming, including a farm that has lots of sheep that we can play with, and April tells me "looks just like Europe".  And then on Tuesday we're probably going to do some sightseeing in Taichung.  I am excited!  And once I get back to Taipei on Tuesday night, I will be around for one day before leaving for Kenting on Thursday!  Kenting is on the south coast of Taiwan and it's full of beaches - there is also a big music festival there that we may or may not be going to, but in any case, it's a big spring break destination.  We're coming back from there on Saturday.  Should be a busy and exciting week!  I will definitely take lots of pictures but I think updates are unlikely until my return.

Three more random notes: One, there are lots of butterflies here.  I didn't notice for a long time, but I looked out my window earlier and saw no fewer than six at once!  It's nice.  Also.  Girls talk about their periods a lot here.  One thing I didn't realize is they say you're not supposed to drink or eat cold things when you're on your period, but so several times since getting here, girls (and not necessarily ones that I'm close to...) will seemingly randomly drop into conversation the fact that they are on their period.  It is always a surprise to me.  Also, expanding on the black man toothpaste, my friend Arvin revealed that actually one of the competing brands is called - creatively - white man toothpaste!  The two, side by side, pictured below.

Go figure.

For Ginnie's birthday this past week we went to a swanky bar at an expensive hotel.  It was very exciting for all of us because several scenes from the movie 愛, which we all saw together, were filmed at the hotel, and even at the bar itself.  Emily and I did a dramatic reenactment of one of the scenes when we thought no one was looking, so it was twice as embarrassing when our entire group walked up to us in the middle of it.  Here is a picture of some of us at the swanky bar:

Gene, Becca, Ginnie, Enni, me, and Jack

Okay, that's it for now.  I am sad to be missing beer bike - it will be starting at Rice in about 15 hours.  加油 Jones!!  Sweep!

Also, here's something pretty:

This part of campus is very near the building where I have class

Goodnight!

Lots has been done - lots to tell

Before I begin, I just wanted to comment on something funny.  Every time I login to this blogger website it shows up in all chinese, but a bar at the top of the screen offers to translate to English.  Now, this is helpful because it translates the characters that I don't understand on things like the "new post" button, that kind of stuff, but it also attempts to translate my English titles of my entries - into their English.  I didn't notice this for a long time because the "translations" are so often the same, but the first time I did notice it was the entry "Making New Friends!" which was translated to, "Making the New Friends!"  At first I though I stupidly added that in there, but soon figured out what the difference was.  Anyway, for the most part entry titles are the same with a conjunction or preposition stuck in here or there, except for one.  For some reason, Google Translate or whoever took my title "Grand Photo Update" and translated it to, "Grand stock photo, Creative Commons, the Update".  ????  Don't ask.  So now every time I login, I see that listed as one of my posts!

Okay.  So!  In the past week or so we have had a lot of really beautiful weather. (Some rain too, of course, but what can you do.)  So last last Friday, Emily, Becca, Wendy, and I went for a bike ride along the river near Gongguan.  It was beautiful, the weather was spectacular and it was about as pleasant as a day can get.  Plus, Alice had told Emily and me that renting a bike cost about $100NT, which I thought was a decent price.  We get there and it turns out that for the cheapest bike it's only $30NT for two hours - and, it's student day (or something) so we get a half off discount!  The whole lovely experience cost just $1US and we got an upgrade from the cheapest bikes.  I took about 100 photos, mostly while riding (so dangerous).  A few:

Here I am modeling that wind-swept hair that every girl wants

After our bike ride we went directly to Ximending, one of my favorite spots I've been to in Taipei.  We went there in the first week - it's not exactly a night market but there are stalls and lots of night life/shopping.  It's always really bustling and has big ads and movie screens like times square.  It's tons of fun.  They also have a really well-known food stand that sells these penis-shaped cake-covered hot dogs.  They are really silly and gross and I got one just because it seemed like someone needed to get one.  It tasted pretty good, but it was a little too gross and I kind of regretted my decision to get it in the first place.

Ximending

It's hard to tell in this photo, but to me one of the funniest parts of Ximending is the vendors.  They are there illegally and so throughout the night the police comes through every so often and everyone selling from a stand runs - really, runs - out of the area, wheeling their stand with them.  In fact, twice in the same night we tried to get something from this one guy and just as we were going to buy it he ran off!  In this photo you can see the fruit stand and (if you look closely) a few more in the background as they rush to safety.  I think the lady in front all the way to the left is holding out money as she was just about to buy something before the cart dashed off.

And you thought the corn dogs the the republican candidates ate were provocative!

... So that was Friday March 16.

On the 17th we went to Wulai on a CIEE-organized trip.  It was another beautiful day and we saw some stunning scenery, roamed the old street there, looking at interesting trinkets, local street food, and regional alcohol.  For lunch we had a few aboriginal treats from the area, including mushroom rice served within a section of bamboo, and some drink that had a character from my name in it.  We ordered it not knowing what it was, thinking, "how bad could it be? it's a drink!"  Surprisingly, it was pretty bad.  I think it was like a fermented yogurt-based drink, or something, but apparently sour milk fruit drinks are popular here... maybe it was one of those.  In any case, we didn't finish it.  Wulai had a pretty waterfall that we all stared at in wonder for a while, and then we headed down to the hot springs!  We opted to go in the free public ones instead of the spa-like private rooms - a questionable decision.  These three little boys were very taken with us foreigners (guessing we were from Korea or Japan), which began as friendly questions, but then became splashing, spitting, and grabbing.  They were just trying to be friendly but it made the whole experience less relaxing than I imagined.  Anyway, some photos from Wulai!

Rebecca and me on the train to the waterfall

Avalon and me in front of the waterfall

A much cuter pair in front of the waterfall!

After Wulai we went to the Xindian area where we did paddle boats!  It was a very nice way to wind down the day.  

On Monday, I went to Jingmei night market with Afore, Chris, Robert, Becca, and Ashley.  Afore had been telling me that one stand at Jingmei sold her favorite stinky tofu and we should go get some.  (Actually, side note - the Thursday before she and I went to a local place for stinky tofu and our weekly tutoring.  It was far less stinky than last time, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  But come to think of it, it was hardly stinky at all.)  Anyway.  We went to Jingmei night market and got lots of tasty food and had some nice strolling through the stalls.  The stinky tofu was stewed, not fried (like the last two I tried).  I shared a serving with Becca and I think we both agreed that it was pretty good.  This type was definitely stinkier than the one I'd had a few days before, but I think I am acquiring the taste for it.  I have been warned, though, that after eating stinky tofu twice your right hand starts to smell like it, and it only gets worse with the more you eat... which is a shame, because I do intend to continue my stinky tofu explorations!  Will post updates on the state of my hand-stench.

Last week was either uneventful, or else photos are the only way I remember anything happening.  I definitely continued going to class, studying Chinese, learning new characters, meeting new people, the usual.  I know I hung out a bit with some new Taiwanese friends and new exchange student friends, which was nice.  I spent some time relaxing by the river that goes through campus with Ashley and Una, went to Gongguan for some fancy and delicious 珍珠奶茶 (boba milk tea) and street food, ventured to Muzha market with Gene (and then again later with Afore, Becca, and Avalon for some 豆花).  Muzha market is an area near campus but on the other side of a bridge, so people don't go there very often.  Gene and I got lunch at a little local shop, and then he showed me the market there, which was totally unlike the old streets and night markets we've been going to this whole time.  It was so un-touristy - so much more dirty, grungy, and local.  There were tables with raw meat defrosting in the sun, their juices collecting in a bucket on the ground.  So against US health codes!  But it was an interesting new place and I stopped to get an assortment of Taiwanese candies from a sweet lady who was selling them.

Anyway, on Saturday Phuab and I had to go to the Taipei Fire safety museum, as new dorm residents.  It was actually kind of fun - definitely geared towards little kids, but we got to use fake fire extinguishers, experience a simulated earthquake, and try to find our way out of a smokey room.  

sooo azn

And on Sunday, Chris, Rebecca, and I spent the day at a temple on a mountain.  Christie and Naomi (the CIEE people in charge) volunteer with/hold prominent leadership positions in an organization of Buddhist women, and we were invited to attend this inauguration-type thing.  We went, and it was spectacular weather and a beautiful area and we got to explore the temple and take pictures.  The vegetarian lunch that all(some?) temples provide free of charge was delicious and extremely filling.  Immediately after stuffing ourselves with about 20 different outstanding vegetarian courses and dessert, we went and sat with some really friendly buddhists who jumped up to bring us peanuts, crackers, candies, truffles, peanut brittle, and tea.  Everyone there was incredibly nice and friendly, and it was a really nice, peaceful day.  The "ceremony" part felt a lot more like a board meeting, but whatever it was, it was all in Chinese and I spent the time picking out the occasional phrase I recognized.  Anyway, it was very nice.

Our post-lunch tea party (picture me sitting in the empty seat in front)

...And today the weather was perfect again - mid 70s, sunny, slight breeze.  I had a group meeting for my International finance class and then after a long lunch outside napped for most of the afternoon to fight the getting-sick feeling that has been creeping into the back of my throat and nose.  This whole staying-up-until-2-to-update-my-blog thing might be counterproductive.

A few notes about food:

One broad genre of dessert that is very common here that you virtually never see in the US is sweet soup.  For example, the 豆花 I mentioned earlier (dou hua - literally, bean flower - I don't know if it has an English name) is served hot or cold, and has a very soft pudding-like tofu in a sweet liquid (milky or clear -I've had both).  You can get all kinds of other things in it - boba, peanuts, different flavored jellies and blobs of stuff, red beans, green beans, taro balls, etc.  Becca and I had it for the first time on our scavenger hunt and have been seeking it out ever since.  When Afore took us, I got peanuts, boba, and something that seemed basically like oatmeal.

豆花

Another similar concept is bo bo cha cha.  This is the title dish of a restaurant very close to campus, and it may be one of my top 5 things I've eaten so far.  Again, served hot or cold, this soupy thing has chunks of sweet potato, coconut, unidentified clear cubes, and maybe some other stuff.  It has a prominent coconut flavor and I really can't understand why it isn't more popular in the states.  Apparently it is originally a Malaysian dessert?  In any case, it's the best.

Bo bo cha cha

Also, that drink that I mentioned:

Ingredients include: green tea, buckwheat, barley, brown rice, black bean, jujube, corn silk, and a few things I don't understand.  Crazy!  And delicious!

Also, for dinner the other night I got lu wei (I don't know the characters), which, if interesting for no other reason, is sold in a bag.  I see people on campus carrying around and eating from these bags all the time, but this was my first experience with one:

A couple more things: Lady Gaga is coming to Taipei in May, and everyone is going crazy.  Apparently her tickets sold out (or at least, the ones under $300 US sold out) in less than 12 hours.  Someone also told me that her tickets here are twice as expensive as they are in nearby Asian countries!  In any case, 太貴了!  I will listen to her on my iTunes in support.

Avalon told me about this brand of toothpaste (which I just recently purchased)

The characters literally mean "black people".  Supposedly, black people are known for their really white teeth and so this brand's whole marketing scheme is that your teeth get as white as a black person's?  Avalon said that they brought it to America under the name "darkie" but it soon changed to the more PC "darlie".  :/  Is it offensive when the whole thing is saying that black people have nice teeth?  Either way, it makes me uncomfortable. 

Also, I know there have been tons of photos of me so far, but this one is to call special attention to how long my hair is getting!  I have ringlets almost down to my eyes!

One year and... 7? days into the growing out process.  Oh, and speaking of ringlets, a lot of Taiwanese people have been asking me if I perm my hair.  My roommate even told me that she had assumed that I was making it curly and it wasn't naturally that way.  Look at that!  Growing cultural awareness on all sides.

This photo was taken at sunset, but might as well represent the sunrise that will come if I spend any more time on this update

Here is a nice picture from the roof of my dorm.  These few rain-free days must be treasured!  Apparently this whole week will be nice and "like summer" until saturday, which is then supposed to be "like winter".  D:  Alas!  All good things come to an end.

This is not an update

.... But an apology for lack of update, and just a teaser for what you have to look forward to:

- riverside bike ride!
- outing to ximending with provocative food
- CIEE-planned trip to Wulai and hotsprings
- more stinky tofu! and more exotic cuisines
- some sunny weather
- cute asian kids
- interesting Taiwanese desserts
- Muzha market musings
- the fire safety museum
- if all goes as planned, trip to monastery/buddhist ceremony tomorrow!

and there are lots of photos on the way!
... sorry about this.  But really it's good because I'm keep so darn busy that updating has become difficult.  And I didn't reallllly come halfway across the world to go on the internet, right?

Grand Photo Update

I'm trying to bridge the gap between my facebook and blog -- Here's my new album with photos from the trip! Many of them have already been posted here, but there are a lot of new, previously unseen additions!  Check it out! (Click here)

I don't have much to update on, but a few quick things:

There's a fruit stand very close to campus that some of us have been frequenting, and I recently bought a few fruits unknown to Americans - Taiwanese guava and lian wu.  

Taiwanese guava

Lian wu

(photos courtesy of the internet).  The green one, I gather, is called guava (not sure of the Chinese name), but is not much like the pink guava we are used to seeing.  It's dry and crunchy and has a mild perfume-y taste - I like it, but am not crazy about it.  The lian wu was recommended to me by my friend from school, Fran, who said this was her favorite fruit in the world.  It is really delicious!  It's very juicy - like, dripping from elbows juicy - and sweet but not too sweet.  The inside is really weird because instead of a pit that you need to cut out, it just has a weird transition of textures from juicy like a grape to styrofoamy to fluffy like a cotton ball!  Anyway, this stuff is good.  As the season progresses, more bizarre and foreign fruits will become available, so expect more of this.

Another foreign food that I keep meaning to discuss is my new favorite drink!  When I first heard of it I never would have expected those words to come from me... I don't know what it's called, but it's a sugar-free drink and the ingredients (listed in English) include water, barley, brown rice, wheat germ (maybe) and a whole bunch of other things you would never dream of putting in a drink.  And it tastes like them, too.  It actually tastes like drinking brown rice, but it's so light and refreshing and I have really come to love it.  Maybe I'll post a picture the next time I get it.

Today I went back to language corner at the high school and we discussed sports.  My group is extremely sweet, eager, and well-behaved.  Couldn't have asked for better!  Today's vocabulary was sports - Jeremy Lin was, of course, brought up.

Rain, rain, go away... 

Making New Friends!

Now that my entries have been spaced farther apart, it's harder to come up with titles for them.  Each week doesn't necessarily have one defining characteristic, you know?  At some point they might just all become  "This Week's Summary".

Anyway, this week didn't have any one epic story, just a number of little anecdotes and notes.

For one thing, my internet and phone are both fixed!  The phone thing was pretty weird - I hadn't received any text messages in about a week.  Then I noticed I had left my phone in the sun, and the screen was starting to change color, which kind of freaked me out.  So I took it, turned it off, took the battery out, rubbed it tenderly, and tried turning it on again.  The screen was still a little faded, but suddenly I had nine new text messages!  But I swear, I had tried turning it off and taking the battery out before.  Technology.  It's beyond me.  The internet situation was also a little mysterious, but mostly embarrassing.  My roommate called IT to come up and help, and the guy (very unsmiling) came in and told me it wasn't plugged in all the way.  He didn't speak English so I couldn't communicate to him that of course I had thought of that, and I had already tried unplugging and plugging back in, shaking and wiggling the cord, etc etc, to no avail, so he just thought I was completely incompetent, and, well, maybe he was right.

So I never really know what I'm eating here.  Even dishes when I think I know what to expect, like 牛肉湯麵 (beef noodle soup), will come with some unidentifiable vegetable.  So surprises are nothing new.  But sometimes I try to REALLY surprise myself, like by ordering something where I don't know any of the characters, or picking something off the shelf that I totally don't recognize.  At the beginning of last week I was in an adventurous mood, and looking for something refreshing.  I grabbed some fruit juicy-looking thing off the shelf that pictured a fruit I couldn't recognize.  "Perfect!" I thought.  I took one sip and almost spit it out from surprise.  The dominant flavor in this drink wasn't any fruit, it was smoke.  It tasted like someone scooped up the remains from a barbecue pit and swirled it in with some apple juice.  I used my iPhone translator (what a great app!  Doesn't even require internet!) and found that the first two characters on the container were 煙燻, which translates to smoke.  At least it tasted that way on purpose!  My roommate later translated the rest so that it basically means smoked plum.  I am still not sure whether I would say I liked it or not, but it was definitely unlike anything I've tasted before!

A couple of notes on classes:  For one thing, I only have class Tuesday-Thursday!  This means every week is a four-day weekend!  In a way, this is great, but it would be a lot greater if that were true for, oh, anyone else, so that I would have someone to go travel around with or something.  Instead, everyone is in class most of the time, and I just have a whole lot of down time.  It's still nice though, I guess.  Anyway, I have already mentioned the ethnic breakdown of my classes - mostly exchange students from everywhere around the world, and then one class of largely Taiwanese students.  Well, although they are all conducted in English, they each have a different language of dominance among the student conversations.  And one of them, the graduate class I'm in, feels a lot like going to French class!  I swear, it seems like half the students in that class speak French, and so before the lecture starts, I eavesdrop on all the French conversations around me, trying to get a refresher from high school.

But really, being here has made me realize how widespread English really is.  One night I looked around the dinner table and saw that I was one of two native English speakers, along with two native Mandarin speakers, one native Italian, and one native Cantonese, and everyone was communicating seamlessly - in English.  And we're in TAIWAN.  I also feel guilty as an American that we don't learn other languages the same way they do in other countries - we only start at the age of 12 or so, and I would say very few of us are fluent in any language other than English.  In one of my classes, I was sitting in between two guys.  One of them, from France, was fluent in English, French, Portugese, and Spanish.  The guy on my other side was Russian, but had perfect English, Chinese, and said he knew some Hebrew -- that's four different alphabets! And here I am, catching a few words here or there of French, trying desperately to get the very basics of Chinese, and only fluent in English.  How self-centered we Americans are!

Last Wednesday was the first meeting of language corner, which is very exciting.  This is a program where I, a native English speaker, go once a week to help out a group of 6 local high school students who are learning English.  Well, only three of them showed up, but they were great!  One of them lived in Australia for five years so his English has an Australian accent, which is adorable.  Another one of them emailed me and very sweetly offered advice about where to go or eat in Taiwan, if I need it.  They all speak better English than I feared and I don't think my lack of Chinese skills will be anywhere near as debilitating as I suspected.  Plus, I get compensated for doing this!  Not very much, but it's more than nothing, so I am very excited about the whole thing.

Another exciting development - I saw my first redhead!  Just after three weeks of being here, I finally spotted one.  Naturally, I approached him to make sure it was natural, and we bonded a little over it.  He's from England studying at a different university in Taipei for the semester.  He assured me that before I head home, I am bound to see at least one or two more of us.  I remain hopeful.

For my file on interesting/weird foods here: yesterday Alice took Emily and me to get this specialty drink, 綠蓋茶, which she described as green tea with cheese on top.  Emily and I were both horrified, picturing French-onion soup style melty, bubbly cheese on top of a glass of green tea.  But of course, we both ordered it anyway.  The cheese was definitely cheese - but not how we expected.  It was more like sour cream, and tasted like half-way whipped whipped cream, but salty and tangy.  I actually liked the drink a lot, but it was pretty unexpected on that first sip.  Photo evidence:

Emily licked off her mustache... :(

I know it looks like beer - It's not, trust me.

I "published" this entry and then realized that I not only left out a number of photos, but also never elaborated on the title!  One observation I have had since getting here about myself is that it appears going abroad has made me flip my internal switch into adventure mode.  This means I'm trying weird foods (which you may have noticed) that I wouldn't try in the states, and talking to more strangers, and taking more risks.  It's cool!  Adventure mode is fun!  But anyway, "friends" would be stretching my new relationships with most of the strangers I've talked to, but I have been trying to make an effort to expand my horizons beyond the scope of the CIEE students and ambassadors.  I have talked to a few people from classes, a few people out on the town, and some just around campus.  It's good!  Branching out is exciting!  The girl from my International Finance class who offered me her umbrella has made another appearance - she and I had lunch on Saturday and she helped me with Chinese for a while.  She is very sweet and very excited about becoming language partners!  Everyone is so friendly, meeting people has turned out to be a piece of cake.

Some XL photos:

Busy Campus!

Another night view from the dorm

View from my dorm! - Heyyyy Taipei 101!

Also, before coming here, my aunt and uncle assured me that the subways were so clean, "you can eat off the subway floor."  Here is supporting evidence:

Clean as a whistle!

It's usually much more crowded, though.

The weather has been mixed - a lot of rain, but we had some nice days too.  Chinese is still fun a lot of the time, but also feel pretty overwhelming.  Overall, things are still going well here in Taipei!  Oh, and also, I have arranged my spring break plans!  A few of us from the program (students and ambassadors) are heading to the southern coast of Taiwan to the beaches of Kenting, where there is a big multi-day music festival called Spring Scream.  I don't know what the plans exactly are, but it sounds like a lot of fun and I am very excited!

Some Updates and a few Downdates

Well during my last entry I was really wracking my brain to come up with complaints about Taiwan.  But since writing it, a few more important ones came to my attention.  So, welcome to, Complaints! pt II.

1.  Lack of Clothes Dryers.  Okay, so they do actually have clothes dryers in our dorms.  But when Afore was showing me around on the first day, and she showed me the washing machines, she acted like I was crazy when I asked about dryers.  "Well, you don't really need them..." she said, "since our washers have spin cycles."  I was shocked.  Our washers have spin cycles too.  But anyway, she showed me the dryers but I could see judgment in her eyes.  So, when it came time to do my laundry, I decided to do it the Taiwan way and hang-dry everything.  Of course it was raining (of course), so instead of hanging my things in the airy outdoor area, I brought them back to my dorm room, cleared out my closet, and put as much as I could on hangers, spacing them out for maximum airflow.  Two days later my pants and socks were just starting to get dry, and they were all stiff and inconvenient and some even started getting a musty smell.  I don't care how high maintenance Afore thinks I am, I will definitely be using the dryer in the future.

2.  Lack of Netflix.  I only discovered this a few days ago, but it was an unexpected, and frankly, tragic realization.  Netflix online streaming doesn't work outside the US!  And neither does Hulu!  What is wrong with this country!!!!! :(  :(  :(

3.  The Quality of my New Purse.  After being in the market for a new purse/bag for a while, I deliberated extensively and eventually settled on one that seemed perhaps to fill all my requirements.  It was soft and leathery and big enough for my nalgene (plus maybe a light sweater or something), but not too big, and I liked the look of it.  Well, within 24 hours of buying it (for about $10US - cheap, I know), it started to fall apart!  The leathery outside has been flaking off in all the corners, gradually revealing the cloth beneath it.  And so now it looks like an old, beat-up, falling-apart bag, and I've had it for less than a week.  But I'm sure not in the mood to buy another one to replace it!  Grrr.

In more exciting news, in the past four days, three of them have been sunny!  It sure feels like we earned this.  Thursday's weather was absolutely beautiful - sunny, warm, and clear.  Friday was pretty nice too, and today was just about ideal.  Even yesterday it only started sprinkling in the evening.  So that's good, and has provided opportunities to do things outside of my dorm room.

Thursday - Beautiful campus!  Taken from the cafeteria

Ashley and me enjoying Thursday's weather over lunch

One morning last week, Ashley and I went to get breakfast at a little restaurant near campus.  This was such a perfect moment of a language barrier at work.  Ashley, whose Chinese is way above mine, was ordering breakfast (dan bing - the really delicious thing we had with our first breakfast, like an omelet wrapped in dough and fried) for us.  I was indicating I wanted the same thing by holding up two fingers.  When it came time to pay, I was surprised to find that I was charged more than Ashley.  I suspected maybe this was a tax for non-Chinese speakers.  Once she handed us the bag, however, the true reason became clear.  We were given three orders - one for Ashley, and two for me.  She thought when I had two fingers up that I wanted two breakfasts!  Alas.  I ate one for breakfast and one for lunch (consecutively), and luckily, they were really good.

On Thursday I started doing calligraphy in my Chinese class with April.  What looks like such a calm and tranquil art turned out to be my most stressful lesson yet.  April reassured me that it just takes practice, but I am not sure I am really built to be a calligrapher.  Even writing the character 一, which I mistakenly thought to be just a line, turned out to be difficult and anxiety-inducing.

Much of Thursday was spent quietly enjoying the campus and the outdoors, and studying my new characters.  I then also started reading Mockingjay, the third book in the Hunger Games series.  It was all relaxing and peaceful up until...

Karaoke!  Thursday night (rates go up on weekends, of course) was my first true karaoke bar experience.  We left for Holiday KTV at 10:30 and had the room booked until 6 am.  "Of course," I said to myself, "no one is dreaming of staying anywhere near as late as 6!  Right?"  Well, I being the only one in attendance who had class the next day (damn these intensive Chinese program students who still haven't started classes!) figured I would be out of there by 2:30, at the latest.  Well, after hours of singing both Chinese and American songs (including classics by Smashmouth, the Backstreet Boys, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Blink 182, S.H.E., and so many more) and enjoying the all-you-can-eat buffet, we eventually started heading out around 3:45, but with the hassle of paying the right amount, discussing future plans, walking back to campus, and then schlepping up the mountain, I didn't get to bed until just after 5!  I never do that!  Two and a half hours later, I woke up and got ready to meet for my 8:30 field trip.  Ouch.

Becca and I are excellent singers

For the fieldtrip we (Ashley, Rebecca, April, and Xinhui) went to Gugong - the National Palace Museum.  It is a beautiful museum that contains hundreds of thousands important and ancient Chinese artifacts dating back to the Neolithic age that the Nationalist party stole and brought to Taiwan (or something like that).  And with just one can of coffee in me, it was still really really neat.  We had an English guided tour and the tour guide was amazing - clearly very knowledgeable and passionate about the contents of the museum.  We saw bronzeware, jade, calligraphy, paintings, and a whole lot of other stuff that I hardly remember.  According to our tour guide, we got to see both the most "important" (a bronze cauldron with hundreds of characters engraved on it, which makes it really good for studying the development of the language) and "popular" (the jade cabbage - I am not exactly sure why this was as popular as it is, but it was very nice) pieces in the museum.  To me, there were a few pieces that were especially interesting.  One was an ivory carving of not two - not three- but seventeen concentric spheres, all intricately carved from one piece of ivory!  It was incredible.  The tour guide tried to explain how it was made, but all I really got was that they are pointy on one end and carved from the outside in.  It was truly amazing.  Another favorite was these portable boxes that emperors would basically use to bring their favorite trinkets around - as in, Emperor toy boxes.  They had little compartments for their best little jade, ivory, or wooden carvings.  The boxes then could fold in various ways to either display the pieces two-dimensionally, three-dimensionally, or carry them compactly.  It was like nothing I had seen at any museums in the US.  Anyway, the museum was a lot of fun and we went to an adorable and beautiful park afterwards.

Ivory Spheres - photo courtesy of internet

Ashley, me, and Rebecca in front of museum

Straight from that area, Rebecca and I joined some more of the gang to go on the gondola up the mountain to Maokong.  The gondola ride was stunning - mountains and trees in every direction, as well as a great view of most of Taipei.  Maokong is known for its tea plantations and is full of very traditional-style tea shops.  We stopped in one and had an extremely pleasant open-air pot of tea with a great view and a whole traditional ritual surrounding the way the tea is served, including pouring water over the outside of the teapot, and dumping out the first two cups of tea that are only to prepare the cups.  It was beautiful, peaceful, and tasty.  The sun set as we sat there, so our gondola ride home was a dramatically different but still striking view of darkness and city lights.

Gondola!  This is one out of the 45 pictures I took during the 20 minute ride.

Crystal bottom for enhanced experience

Our view during tea

We then went directly to meet up with some more of the gang at Shilin night market.  This is one of the biggest ones in Taipei, and it was really amazing!  It stretched on and on in every direction with typical night market food (fried chicken, candied tomatoes (which I tried last week - did I mention?  Quite good!), oyster omelets, giant sausages on sticks, dumplings, steamed buns stuffed with meat, stinky tofu, fried milk, boba tea, oh, and so much more!) as well as carnival-type games with giant stuffed prizes, and stores, stalls, and carts selling bags, watches, socks, hair adornments, shoes, wallets, clothes, and really anything.  It was a remarkable place, and I exercised perhaps even more remarkable self-restraint by buying nothing except a reasonable dinner.

Amazing bags at Shilin Nigh Market

My trip to Shilin night market was strongly marked by a milestone event of the trip: my first bad mood!  Of course, after getting only two and a half hours of sleep and then having one of the busiest days of the trip, it's frankly impressive that I was not only still alive but not actively throwing a tantrum.  And it's kind of exciting, you know?  Two and a half weeks in is a pretty good run to go without a moment of crankiness.  Now it's like this place has become home enough to experience a full range of emotions.  And even in the heat of my grouchy mood, I could appreciate that this was only highlighting how good my moods have been since getting here.  So really it was all for the best.

We left Shilin Night Market just in time to get the last bus home at midnight.  All through the day people were commenting on how they couldn't believe I was still awake and kicking, but I actually felt pretty much fine.  In fact, when we got back on campus and the bottom-of-the-mountain crew went to their dorm, Gene and I (the top-of-the-mountainers) started to head back, only to hear a group of students having fun on the porch of the administration building.  We agreed to check it out, and it turned out to be about 10 students from the European Languages department who had just gotten out of basketball practice for their team.  They invited us to join them for a while, and they were all incredibly inviting and sweet and spoke amazingly good English.  They told us a scary story which honestly might give me nightmares, but still helped lift my mood.  We made small talk for 45 minutes or so before I confessed to Gene that I was in desperate need of sleep and we headed back up the mountain.  They promised to find us on facebook (the main way of communication in this town), but I haven't heard anything from them yet... perhaps we will just have to surprise them at their next basketball game!

Saturday I slept in (considerably) and spent a relaxed day around the dorm writing my long-overdue newsletter article for CIEE that we were supposed to turn in at the end of orientation.  It was a good day to recover from my overly exciting and expensive Friday.

One thing I don't think I have mentioned yet (but may have contributed to my low-key Saturday) is my current state of technological isolation.  Earlier last week my Taiwan phone unexpectedly stopped receiving text messages, our main method of communication.  Within 24 hours of that happening, the internet in my room stopped working (perhaps a problem with my ethernet cord?  My roommate's internet is fine, and my computer's wifi works in the wifi-able lobby of my dorm, which is, of course where I am in order to post this).  My dorm room has never had good cell phone reception and apparently people have attempted calling me and it hasn't gone through, so really, I am basically unreachable.  I did get a free iPhone app that allows free texting to the US when I have a wifi connection, but it has not yet shown any success in reaching Taiwanese cell phones... Alas.  I know many of these problems are fixable and I promise I really will get them checked out.  In the meantime, I may get a lesson in survival without people to order my food for me.

Today, Sunday, was another perfectly beautiful day!  And actually, it was almost a perfect day overall.  A group of us met for lunch and a trip to the Taipei zoo, which is pretty close to the school.  We often take the bus to the Taipei zoo stop because there is a subway entrance there, but this time we actually walked instead, and it was a lovely walk on a lovely day.  When we got there, we paid just $1 US to enter (student price! yeah!) and found it swarming with adorable Taiwanese children.  It actually seems like a pretty nice zoo, and we got to see the standard zoo animals (including an orangutan, which Rebecca joked, was "the first other natural redhead we've seen") plus some I had never heard of or seen before (including one animal that looked like a little midget deer but that Avalon claims is closely related to the whale), and two giant pandas that I am still convinced were stuffed animal replicas of the real thing.  It was a perfect day for the zoo and a very nice time.  I didn't take any pictures, so just google things like "giraffe" or "monkey" and pretend that I posted those here.

After the zoo we went for a hike!  The path went up from campus all the way to Maokong, and we took a side route for a while to get to a waterfall that we never reached because it was getting dark and the path in that area was totally dangerous and scary.  One wrong step and any of us could have been a goner.  It was an invigorating hike with lots of stairs, a temple along the way, tea plantations, mountains everywhere, trees with leaves like feathers, and so much good looking scenery that I tried to commit every step to memory.  And sometimes to the memory of my iPhone, as shown.

:O

After hours of steep hiking we ended up at a semi-upscale restaurant in the open air with a gorgeous mountainside view of Taipei and we each had a hard earned dinner of a personal pizza and a cocktail.  We lingered after dinner talking at the table and it was a great time to be outside, in that place, with those people.  We took the bus back down to campus and Ginny, Rebecca, and I finished the night with Mulan.  I then walked up the mountain accompanied by Cat Stevens and returned to my room.  Today was a great day.  And many more to come!

Goodnight!