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!