A Whole New World

It's been two weeks to the day since I arrived in Taiwan and I haven't blogged about it yet. So sorry! I've been really busy with a full social calendar =o) and practical settling in things such as buying a cell phone and finding an apartment t0 rent (both missions were successful, I'm happy to report!).

I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore as I waited for the plane in San Francisco and looked around to see that I was one of maybe 5 white people (and the only white woman) on the flight. After what felt like barely surviving the 3 plane flights halfway around the world (I didn't sleep as much as I'd hoped to on the 14 hour flight from San Francisco to Taipei), I stumbled into Taoyuan International Airport and tried to remember how to say baggage in Chinese but before I could a sign in English pointed me to the conveyor belt which would hopefully deliver my checked bags to me. That sign also contained the first Chinese characters I (proudly) read in Taiwan- "xing li," baggage. It took me 50 minutes to weave my way through the airport and wait in a long line at customs, where it was almost a problem that I didn't have a Taiwanese address. (I learned a few days later that the custom official raising his voice at me wasn't unusual- sometimes Taiwanese people sound a little harsher than Americans expect.)

I struggled to handle my two large rolling suitcases, duffel, backpack, and purse as I watched the Taiwanese effortlessly push all their luggage past me on little metal carts. I momentarily abandoned my biggest bags while I went in search of these handy-dandy carts, which I found in a logical spot that I had completely overlooked. Pushing my cart, I walked out into the waiting room that looked more like an indoor park complete with benches and potted palm trees. I flopped down on a bench and rested for a few minutes until I saw my friend Amanda, dressed in her usual pink and black, come bouncing towards me. It was amazing to see her after being apart for 8 months! She was an incredible help to me as I got ready to come to Taiwan and she has expertly guided me through what could have been the choppy waters of my first weeks in a foreign country. She helped me buy my first bus ticket into Taipei (the airport is actually an hour away) and she easily directed the taxi driver, in Mandarin, to her apartment. On that first bus ride to Taipei I noticed the lush dark green foliage of the hills and the old highrise apartment buildings, and I decided that Taiwan is sort of like a mix of Guatemala and Hawaii.

I experience everywhere I go in the context of where I've been and so far my Guatemala-meets-Hawaii theory has mostly held true, with the addition of a shiny efficiency and consumerism that I associate with Tokyo. I see Taiwan as a warm and rainy island with aspects of both a third-world and first-world country. Third-world-like is the fact that you can't flush toilet paper down the toilets and that while walking down a crowded street with terribly narrow sidewalks past homeless dogs nicknamed "Little Black" and "Handsome" you sometimes encounter startlingly unpleasant smells that make you wonder if that really is sewage pouring into the gutter behind the nearest deteriorating cement-and-tile apartment building.

However, the metro and bus system (connected by one easy-to-use card) are cleaner, safer, more reliable, and more convenient than any I've ever seen. Walking into a Taiwanese mall is like entering a marble-floored palace filled with Versace and Louis Vuitton boutiques. Everything you see is gorgeous and new. Even the underground food courts found in every mall remind me more of Disney World, with many specialty shops and fast food chains offering their own themed seating: Japanese MOS Burger has a sort of Splash Mountain-inspired country theme while a belgian waffle place has the feel of a little girl's playroom with pink tables and delicate china.

I'm currently sitting comfortably in a cream-colored leather chair on the third floor of a shop called "Ikari Coffee" in which I ordered a bagel and cream cheese for lunch. I sipped a hazelnut caffe latte and then a lychee yogurt smoothie while reading a book about the personal effects of globalization (The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home by Pico Iyer) and enjoying the coffeehouse's soundtrack of wordless, acoustic-guitar-and-piano versions of such songs as Sarah McLachlan's Angel, Fleetwood Mac's Landslide, and Sting's Fields of Gold.

So far my transition has been smooth thanks to God's blessings and Amanda's tireless help (she devoted her two-week-long New Year's break to helping me settle in). The food has, for the most part, lived up to expectations (it really is both cheap and delicious), though I can report that I have tried pig skin, pig intestines, and congealed pig blood and do not like any of them. As far as pig products go, my favorites are still ham and bacon. Some of my favorite foods here include kimchi (Korean spicy cabbage) dumplings (15 US cents each), long wavy noodles with thin beef strips in curry sauce ($2.50 US), and hot oolong tea with milk ($5 US). I am so glad my tastebuds have grown up since I survived on a self-imposed diet of baguettes and CocaCola in France when I was 14.

I didn't suffer from jet lag besides sleeping for about 10 hours each night. The first day I arrived, I crawled in bed at 2:30 pm for a "short nap." When Amanda woke me up an hour and a half later as I had asked her to, I (still half-asleep) asked, "Is it illegal if I sleep until tomorrow?" She laughed and said no, so I slept soundly until a bit before 7 am the next day. I think sleeping for 16 hours is a personal record!

My first two weeks here have been so full of new experiences that it's hard to choose what to write, but I'll end this entry with a brief account of my Chinese New Year celebration. Amanda (and I by gracious extension) was invited to spend Chinese New Year's Eve (Sunday Jan. 25) with a family who are friends of friends. Amanda and I took a bus to their neighborhood, arriving at around 6 pm, and were met by their 23 year-old daughter, Julie. Leaving our shoes at the door and changing into the slippers they had set out for us, we met the mother, Amy, who, along with some help from her aspiring-chef teenage son Jeep, had made over 10 different dishes for us (not including a big pot of sticky white rice): oysters with garlic sauce, shark fin soup, "Lions' Heads" ie meatballs, shrimp with their heads still on, drunken chicken, etc. One traditional New Year's food is fish, which the family doesn't finish because the word for fish in Mandarin, "yu," sounds like the word for abundance, and having left-over fish symbolizes one's hopes for abundance in the year to come. I occasionally fumbled my food because I wasn't terribly skillful with my chopsticks but was saved from any real disaster by the small bowl of rice that I held under my mouth. I am proud to say that I tried everything on the table while managing to save a little room for the traditional dessert of oranges (because they're the color of gold) and the modern dessert of expensive chocolates (presumably because they're delicious).

Our hosts consisted of the mother, daughter, and son already mentioned along with a father, Jim, and an uncle and his son. They were all very nice and welcoming and I loved my first experience conversing in Chinese with Taiwanese people. I especially enjoyed their shock when I told them I'd only arrived in Taiwan the day before. After dinner the father and uncle entertained us with magic tricks before we all put on our shoes and headed out to their apartment's courtyard where the women watched while the men set off fireworks- loud rockets that you can hear before you see and stationary sparklers that are almost as tall as I am. At the end of the evening, Amy gave us each a "hong bao," red envelope, filled with a lottery ticket that she said could make us rich women (unfortunately we weren't so lucky) and the uncle gave us a hong bao with money inside, a traditional New Year's gift given to children by adults. Amy was really nice and gave us a ride home as our festivities had lasted until almost midnight. It was a fun evening filled with laughter and learning about Chinese traditions.

Well, I'm trying to learn how to graciously stand out as a white-skinned, red-haired, tall "waiguoren," foreigner, in a sea of Taiwanese people, but Amanda's taught me that being stared at gives us license to stare back, and I love to people-watch, so it's all good. My spoken Chinese has a long way to go (and I'm largely illiterate) but I like speaking it and I now feel comfortable going out on my own. I'm enjoying Taiwan and I'm looking forward to telling you about night markets, the magic phrase "buhaoyisi!" (how embarrassing!) and the crazy way I found my apartment. Buh-bye (the Taiwanese version of adios) for now!