A Picture of Yours Truly..
For those of you who have been craving a picture of yours truly... here I am!!! There. Proof that I am still all in one piece and have not turned into a crazed maniac... oh, wait.
I am tearing into a favourite Taiwanese beer snack that Brian and I like to refer to simply as, "Fish Snack". It is strips of dried fish that taste like nothing much but are strangely addictive. Brian thinks eating them is kind of like chewing tobacco. As for me? I just have an oral fixation and always want to be chewing on something.
Sorry, this isn't so interesting. I'll have more intelligent things to say once I get over my cold/flu that has plagued me for the last two weeks. :(
Another Luckless Lotto Day...
(In the middle are the four lucky numbers. If the last 3 digits of one of the numbers match the number on your receipt, you get to collect NT$200. If you match more numbers, you get more money. Top prize is NT$200 000.)
Another month worth of receipts and the NT$200 prize (CAN$7) eludes us yet again, but shows us disturbingly that the bulk of our money seems to go to 7-11. Hmm...
A View From Above -- Elephant Mountain
It seems as though you could walk long enough in any direction in Taipei and eventually hit mountain. Indeed, there are hiking trails all along the outskirts of the city. Brian and I decided to escape from the smog one Sunday morning by climbing Shiang Shan (Elephant Mountain). The trails in Taipei are well-kept, well-marked and well-traversed. This one was just on the outskirts of downtown, and once we got to the 600m mark, we could see a breathtaking cityscape with Taipei 101, the city's tallest office building crowning the scene with a postcard perfect shot.
It was a steep but short climb up the 800m to the peak, where we reached a different world. Winding paths took us all along the mountain plateau, which was like a forest glade in the sky. Turquoise-winged butterflies were fun to stalk, and plant-grafting experiments on trees were interesting to speculate about.
There was also this - an adult playground - for exercise. People doing yoga, tai chi, and reflexology were a common sight (there was a square of ground paved with smooth oblong black rocks. People walked barefoot across this patch for a foot massage). There was also a run-down shack with hoola hoops and benches. All in all, a great concept and a perfect place to exercise where the air is fresh.
An interesting reuse of waste materials...
Actually, most of Taiwan's recycling practices are less unnerving than broken glass in a concrete wall as a barbed wire substitute.
In fact, I've generally been pretty impressed with environmentalism in Taiwan. Besides the terrible air quality due to scooter and bus exhaust (which actually the Taiwanese government has already taken measures to improve), there are some things that Taiwanese people do that North Americans could learn from.
For example, 7-11, which is by far the most prevalent (convenience or otherwise) store in Taiwan, charges you one NT dollar for a plastic bag. The monetary value is equivalent to 3 cents Canadian, but just the fact that they ask you, and that it costs anything at all, makes you stop and think about whether you really need one. Most other stores will either ask if you want one before giving it to you, or not give you one unless you ask. They will comfortably watch you struggle to stuff a cleaver, laundry line, cook pot, 3 cans of beer and sanitary napkins into your shoulder bag and be satisfied that this is what you want (if you wanted a bag, you would've asked!).
There is separated garbage and recycling in all the subway stations and public centres. In fact, stand-alone garbage cans are very hard to find - means you are less likely to ask for that plastic bag and extra napkin, lest you find yourself carrying them a long distance before finding respite!
The neighbourhood garbage man collects not only paper, plastic and cans, but also two types of compost - cooked kitchen waste for pig feed and uncooked for regular compost.
Mos Burger, a popular fast food outlet, has not only the regular recycling stations, but also bins where you can stack your used plastic cups for wash and reuse.
Food courts in shopping malls often have a dishware and cutlery sharing system so that dishes can be collected and washed collectively -- that means no disposable waste.
There is generally less paranoia about hygienic packaging or packaging having to be untouched to give to customers - e.g. unused sugar packets and creamers don't just get dumped in the garbage, but are put away and reused.
Generally less packaging when buying things - sometimes the seller wrapping your finger snack in a napkin or thin paper sleeve is enough (no need for a take-away container, two plastic bags and a gas mask just to hand you fishballs on a stick).
When there is packaging, it is more often paper than plastic.
No dryers! Because of the mild climate, people air-dry their clothes year round.
Better accessibility to item-repair. Because labour costs are so high in the West, it's often cheaper to throw old things away than to have them repaired. Low labour costs in Asia make for more cobblers, fix-it men and less waste. (People in general work longer hours for less money, not just labour workers, which is a system with its drawbacks too, though hard work without complaint seems to be a characteristic of the culture).
Xi Men Ding
(...a small example of the sign chaos I was talking about in my last post)
Xi Men Ding - a youth entertainment pedestrian neighbourhood. Here our friend Asm brought us to see some alternative youth culture down a punk fashion alleyway. This area is chockful of all kinds of youth fashion, street food, karaoke parlours, bubble tea and an entire block of mini movie theatres. This is a view from above on a weekday afternoon so doesn't give you a true idea of just how packed and popular this place is. On a weekend, this entire corner is a sea of bodies. Once we came here when there happened to be a free open air rock concert just up the street from this intersection. Another day, there was a line of high school kids raising money for a school trip by collecting receipts (the Taiwanese govt started a receipt lottery to encourage storeowners to file their taxes. Every time you buy something in Taiwan, you can use your receipt as a lottery ticket. You check your numbers once a month in the local newspaper. Charity boxes for donating receipts have become commonplace).
Pam's Picture a Day
I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning: This is our first night in Taipei, at what is still our (sentimental) favourite night market near Minquan W. Rd. MRT (subway stop). Brian (my boyfriend) is wearing a David Suzuki CBC shirt I bought him just before we left Canada (see the crazy 70's fro?).
I can still remember the first walk into the crazy neon chaos of signs with Chinese characters. Not unfamiliar to me (I remember the same thing from visiting Hong Kong as a kid), but still completely surreal.
This is the night market near the apartment we lived in for our first month - where we bought and loved such Chinese delicacies as BBQ'd whole squid on a stick (I still need to get a picture of us chomping into that), stinky tofu and pig's blood pudding. mmm-mm.
I've climbed back onto the face of the Earth, sorry for dropping off!
To all those I love and miss,
There is something about arriving in a new place that is always intimidating, no matter who you are. Whether it is intimidating and exciting, or intimidating and crippling, is the part that is up to the person involved. I can only suppose that most people in my situation will do as I have done here in Taipei, which is to vascillate schizophrenically between the two, taking everything in until you are completely overwhelmed and want only to hide in your apartment by yourself and read an English book.
So I'm sorry I haven't written, because I've thought about you all every day I've spent here, mentally blogging my experiences and wishing I had enough left in me at the end of each new and overwhelming day to transcribe those mental blogs into emails, postcards or phonecalls. But to draw from my nerdy FYP repertoire, I can only refer to the French Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre as my excuse, who told us that we cannot have our cake and eat it too -- a full existence forces us to choose between two options: "to live, or to tell".
This is my lame excuse for why it has taken me two and a half months to get settled enough to take a turn on the "telling" side of existence -- I had to first get over my insecurity about speaking Chinese brokenly to find the things I need, feel like learning to teach in a classroom for the first time is not a hugely overwhelming and all-consuming task, and of course, get familiar with where the heck you are supposed to go to find the things that were second nature to you back home, like Internet access, or simple things, like:
...a coin-operated laundromat, after your washer broke down because your landlady stores it on the back balcony, where rain has corrupted the CPU (as I look down at the skirt I am wearing that has had the same oil and soy sauce stain on it for 3 weeks),
...or your garbage pick up time - you have to meet the garbage man in person by lugging your trash across a busy intersection and wait patiently until you hear Beethoven's Fur Elise, which is broadcast from the truck as he turns the corner(...just like the ice cream man back home).
Then, when you finally find out what time he comes, it just so happens to conflict with your teaching hours 6 out of 7 days a week, so you have to find new and ingenius ways to compact the growing garbage stash in your freezer (to keep the ants away) because you've forgotten or been too tired to take it out 2 or 3 weeks in a row.
...or the common matter of finding directions you understand - I have often made the mistake here of thinking signs with arrows pointing left actually mean turn left (rather than go straight past 3 exits and THEN turn left)
...etc, etc.
Recently, I finally started getting serious about improving my Chinese, got a great first teaching review, and, using my improving Chinese, am learning slowly how to find my way through this curious city.
So now comes the fun part: telling you about all the goodies and secret corners, strange street people, foods and experiences I've had since coming to one of the world's biggest and most bustling metropolises.
Till soon - Yours,
Pam
For those of you who have been craving a picture of yours truly... here I am!!! There. Proof that I am still all in one piece and have not turned into a crazed maniac... oh, wait.
