hi, bye

A very belated, non-blog-related update seems to be in order. I know it feels like I've abandoned ship here, but here's a last try at reviving it (besides the hours I spent prettifying it).

So here's a peek at the room:


Classy, I know. I love having a hardwood floor though. Makes sweeping up all the hair I shed from brushing that much easier.

And here's the cutest resident of our apartment, Charlie:


Who at the time of the picture could fit on my flip flop. She's outgrown it now and is getting a bit of a potbelly. But still completely adorable, and she definitely livens the place up with her antics.

So...not much else to say. I work, I play, I hang out with a certain guy a little more frequently than with my housemates. It's an exciting time, and I'm coming to really love this little "right-outside-Boston" city with its smorgasbord of ethnic treats. Not a 5 minutes' walk out of my apartment and there are Ethiopian, Malaysian, Taiwanese, Korean, Mexican, and Italian eateries to be found, among the more familiar fast food joints and classic American restaurants. And it's all so cheap! I'm really going to miss those $4 burritos when I go back to campus...

fo' sho'

The weekend, par excellence

Dear Diary,

It's been a busy busy week here, culminating in a wonderful packed weekend of events. I shall review each day and write of their merits, starting with Friday. Thus we begin.

.friday

I slept pretty late, till 11am, due having watched Daily Show clips till around 3 in the morning the night before, after chatting with Dawn and cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier (whose name I just copy/pasted directly because I was not about to attempt spelling his last name) till about 1am. But I am slipping into Thursday's events, so let me get back on track. Friday I worked a little bit more on animations for Lorie Loeb in their sweet new lab room with the dual screen mac station, which I must take some pictures of because it is so sweet. Then I went grocery shopping with my boss and another UGA for various events.

The best part of the day, though, started at 7pm after I took the minivan I reserved from the college's parking/car rental office, as I was chauffeuring people to a fraternity's formal that night. I basically circled between two dorm clusters for 2 hours looking for dressed up people to take to the formal at the DOC House. Then I picked up a friend and we spent my hour and a half off from driving at the formal, eating delicious appetizers and dancing. It was a really nice formal, and they even had a 200 pound ice sculpture of the head of the Sphinx.

Then I had to get back behind the wheel and drive people back to their respective dorms, but it was a pleasant experience because it was a dry formal and I did not have to deal with drunk students. Excellent!

.saturday

Phew. Saturday started at 9:30 with our first dorm breakfast, which is an event the UGAs do as a service to the residents, cooking breakfast for a couple hours, all-you-can-eat for $1. Quite fun, as I enjoy cooking. Afterwards we sat around in the lounge reminiscing on favorite book series, movies, and TV shows, and the others decided it would be necessary to watch Pleasantville very soon. But they agreed to wait for me, as I was heading out to a wood turner a friend had pointed out to me who lived a town over, to see what secrets of the woodworker he could impart to me.

THAT was awesome, hands down. With two friends in tow, we drove to his house/woodshop/gallery, took in the rustic scene, and were blown away by his woodworking masterpieces. Like the geodes and gems he used as metaphors to explain to us the beauty of wood burls, his place was a geode, with a roughly hewn exterior and a spectacular, beautiful interior. The guy's name is Dusty Coates, and here is a small sampling of just a tiny part of his work. Anyway, we were all extremely inspired to work in wood after hearing him talk, and he gave us some scrap pieces of wood to play with. I will definitely be revisiting this guy He's promised to show me his workshop and his lathe!

So, after we finished visiting with him, I dropped my friends back off on campus and went back to the lounge to watch Pleasantville. A great movie with great social commentary, in a hilarious way. And before we knew it, it was 5, and at 5:30 all the UGAs gathered in our boss's apartment for a quick dinner before we were off on our retreat! We had planned this two weeks ago, and it was finally happening! Our head honcho had rented a cabin up near the Dartmouth Skiway for us to stay a night and basically bond as a cluster team. So we all packed into three cars and headed north!

I have to say, the roads north of campus are the most awful roads I have ever had to drive on. It was not good for my car, unfortunately, and we think I might have done something to the muffler, as the car now has a constant loud "purr." We'll see when I take it to a mechanic tomorrow. Anyway, it was otherwise an okay drive, and we parked by the skiway, then walked a little bit back along the road to the trailhead. There was still a good 8-10 inches of snow since we were pretty far north, and the trail was packed down and slick from previous hikers. We went slowly up, skirting the really icy patches and not very successfully crossing streams without getting our feet wet. Thank god for wool socks!

Sunset through birch trees as we finally neared the cabin

In all, it took us roughly 30 minutes to get up the 0.7 miles of trail to the cabin. It was a gorgeous cabin, though, with a woodstove, mattresses in the attic, and lots of supplies and wood.



We were so eager to get a fire going in the awesome woodstove that we neglected some basic rules, like turning on the flue. Thus the fanning and open doors and window to get the smoke out. But after awhile the smoke dissipated and the fire settled down to a nice clean glow. Mmmm, I love making fires! We also lit and hung lanterns and had candles on the table.

Mittened feet on one UGA while her socks dried by the woodstove

After a night spent eating our many snacks and playing Catchphrase and Apples to Apples, and discussions of axe murderers and the ax downstairs being all too convenient, we finally crashed around midnight.

Well, I need to start getting some work done, so I will wrap up our adventure in the mountains, which ended in us slipping and sliding our way back down to the road, another time.

Welcome to the Road to Hell

At around 1:30 this afternoon, I finally finished packing everything and was getting ready to make the drive back up to campus. Upon opening the door to my car, which was parked outside on the driveway, in the sun, I found at least two dozen ladybugs huddled around the doorframe. Opening the other 3 doors revealed similar results. Had I never noticed this before? I know ladybugs begin to cluster and amass late into autumn, but I'd never seen them seek out the crevices of a car for shelter before.

I grabbed my camera and took a couple pictures of the ladybugs before they began to scatter, and then tried to get them off the car, trying not to think of squished ladybugs trapped between the door, or where else in the car they may have managed to hide in.

Finally, I hit the road around 2pm. And, apparently, it was the worst time for me to be out on the road. Within 15 miles of getting on the highway, I was in stop and go traffic, wondering what the hell was tying up the roads on a Sunday afternoon. That's when I noticed the crushed pieces of glass glittering on the pavement. Ahead was a pretty severely rear-ended accident, though everyone seemed alright. Once I passed the scene, I was surprised that the traffic didn't smooth out immediately. There couldn't be another incident ahead, could there?

Well, no. There were another seven car accidents ahead. One after another in what could not have been more than a 10 mile stretch of highway, I saw cars off the shoulder with crumpled hoods and cracked windows.

What is going on?

I have never seen so many car accidents at the same time. Yikes.

After passing the last wrecked car, my mind naturally wandered along to the morbid thoughts of being in a car accident myself. There are those who think best on the john. For me it is on the road. I often go through a long string of inner narrative, thinking through tasks I need to get done and how I will do them, or reflecting on events of the past week or month or year, or fantasizing about...other things. Yes, I can get deeply lost in thought while I am driving. This is not a good thing. Sometimes my imagination will take over so completely that it is like changing the input from my eyes to whatever is going on inside my brain.

Which basically means I don't see the road I'm driving on. Usually I can hold my thoughts back so this doesn't happen. But when you drive nonstop for 3 or 4 hours straight, it can be hard. And, knowing this, I could see how I could very easily get into a car accident. Not the best of thoughts while actually behind the wheel, I know.

Well, suffice to say I managed to get back to campus safely, and on the last of my gas no less. It's time to get back to work!

life update

Things have been busy these past few days, but in a quiet way. I am crashing at a friend's (and fellow blogger's) apartment for my last week here in Taipei, as my old contract ended on Friday. In the process of packing, I discovered that I couldn't find my (new!) watercolor sketchbook, nor my watch. The loss of the sketchbook is like a punch to the stomach, and I will have to ask around to see if I left it at one of my relatives' homes.

My ShiDa class also ended last Friday, and we watched Lee Ang's "Eat Drink, Man Woman" in celebration. That movie made me so hungry by the time class ended, food was all I could think about. So I stopped to get some takeout guotie and rushed home to eat it. My hands were shaking while I ate, which I found kind of an extreme response. I hadn't thought I would be that hungry.

I feel like I should have a lot of regrets now that the MTC summer is over-regrets about not getting more involved at the university and with its students, about not exploring the area more while I had lived nearby... But, honestly, I don't feel too badly. The recent typhoon and now oppressive heat have diminished my enthusiasm for taking longer walks outside. Call me a wimp, but this humidity is getting to be too much for me. Not to mention my heat rash is coming back.

Until a few weeks ago, I honestly could not wait to return to the states and, more specifically, my campus, unlike my other classmates who relish the Taiwanese lifestyle. And yet there is a part of me that wants to return once I graduate college and continue improving my Chinese. What a quandary. Now my relatives talk of my pursuing a Master's here and applying for dual nationality so I can work here as well.

For one who doesn't think too far ahead into the future of my own life, I am taking a lot into consideration. There is so much I want to do and see, but I also want to be successful, in ways that are meaningful to me, and I also want to find a companion for all of that. Maybe I already have.

Well, I am losing focus. When all else fails, I can still fall back on the wonderful addiction that is Desktop Tower Defense.

Ghost Month and followup

Yesterday my Chinese teacher notified us that it was the first day of "Ghost Month": the 7th month of the lunar calendar, when all the ghosts are released into the world for the entire month. It's the time of year when locals warn against going near water (ghosts might drag you in), changing housing (your new house might be inhabited by ghosts), and going on trips (er...they might follow you?).

There's consequently been even more burning of ghost money and incense on the sidewalk. Great for my lungs, I'm sure.

I've been surprisingly busy since last post, though little of it is because of class. Ah, the blessings of photographic memory on Chinese vocabulary. I have to wonder, though, what will happen if or when we have an end-of-term cumulative exam. Teacher has not made clear whether or not we will have one. The suspense!

I finally went to LUXY on their Wednesday's ladies night, along with every other ABC in Taipei, and some other ShiDa students. It was fun for what it was, and the bartender's fire show was definitely the highlight of the night.

Friday I had dinner with some cousins, then did the nightmarket thing with them, before we all returned to one of my aunts' houses for a late night game of mah-jong. Then we crashed there. My mom flew up the next morning at 6am, but I didn't see her at all that day. I left my aunt's house, went home, and changed for the Sunday Breeze's Saturday pool party. Although I was apprehensive about it, due to the fact that I was going alone and the weather was less than stellar, it turned out to be pretty fun. Went to Forumosa's monthly Happy Hour, this time at the Taiwan Beer Garden, afterwards, which was also a lot of fun.

Sunday was the requisite family gathering to celebrate the arrival of another family member-my mom-to Taipei. The whole lot of us (15) slept overnight at a hot springs hotel in Beitou (北投), though there were more than 20 of us eating together that night. Most of the uncles returned home due to work the next morning. What a strange phenomenon, that most of my aunts do not work, whereas my mother does.

And, finally, I have been to two expos in the past two weeks, the first last Monday to a Computer Expo at Taipei's World Trade Center, and one this Monday to a Comic Expo.

花蓮

Spent the weekend on the lovely eastern coast of Taiwan, namely, Hualien City. My cousin set it all up, and there were 10 of us altogether. For most of Saturday, though, I wasn't with them as I was the only one who wanted to tour Taroko Gorge. The others went white-water rafting. So I ended up taking this tour with a bunch of other students from 台大, also doing the MTC program there, as well as some Singaporeans and Malaysians. Ended up having a great time. Taroko is very beautiful, and I wished we could have explored some of the less "touristy" trails.

Anyway, also walked a bit around the streets of Hualien later that night, and early the next morning as well, where I found some graffiti (yay!). Sunday was spent packing, and then dolphin watching (which they advertised as whale watching, which while technically correct is still a misnomer, dammit).

Stinky tofu, and no I didn't try it

Fun with sparklers and my camera's ISO speed

Taroko Gorge tour:

Graffiti along one 自由街, 花蓮
Lunch

Fun with sparklers, part two

sunday bloody sunday

It is a boring Sunday eve here chez moi, and I've just finished my ShiDa homework and dusted off the ole sketchbook. I'm such a homebody it's not funny. It really isn't.

I was mildly disappointed that I didn't go to the Formoz Festival, despite it's ticket price and the fact that I know none of the artists on their web listing. I am so not in the culture loop. But we already knew that.

And later, I found out about the pool party that went on all this afternoon and by then it was too late to go. Damn it all! I am so antsy to fight this building inertia I feel like I'm going to explode. I've made this list of musts: places to see and things to do before I go home. And I plan to start doing those things starting tomorrow morning. Time to get rid of this funk I'm in!

And, with that, here are some search terms that have led unwitting visitors to this blog: "black classim (sic)," "big moth striped body proboscis," "leaf cocoon taiwan," "a guide to western etiquette," "pee standing -women pee standing," and my most recent and most favorite, "marriage minded ladyboys."

Sorry to disappoint, my dear visitors!

internal weather report

I have just realized something. Or, rather, something has just hit me, with such a staggering force that I feel a little like I've been punched. I have just realized that I miss sitting on grass, and rock, and tree branches, I miss the sounds of wind through thousands of leaves, trickling water, and hearing leaves and gravel crunch under my feet.

For three months now I've lived and explored this city of Taipei, trying to come to terms with the culture, its people, its traditions. But now, I simply miss what I cannot seem to find here, and that is a specific kind of weather, nature, atmosphere, that I can visualize more easily than express. I miss having seasons, especially, desperately, autumn. I miss experiencing a thunderstorm, hearing, feeling, and breathing it in, and being able to see its effects on the land, rather than simply a city that has been drained of color. I miss the prickling almost-annoyance of a thousand grass blades pressing into my prone body from below, with the sun beating down from above and fleeting clouds moving swiftly past.

I should have known; after all, I think I will always be a country bumpkin at heart, regardless of how my relatives praise my "city suaveness," and the fact that I am now comfortable using all forms of public transportation here. And I realize I am waxing terribly poetic about this, but I feel the effects of this as if it were some terrible reversal of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

...

I am also hungry, and past experience has taught me that my empty stomach makes me all shades of irritable.

non-erstwhile adventures

I'm still working on a composite Thailand post that will be completed sometime, but that is taking a backburner in favor of my latest wandering adventures into the guts of Taipei. Today, I bring you a look at the burgeoning* graffiti culture here:

Tunks Chek: a name I have come to recognize throughout the unguarded walls of Taipei. I first saw his signature along a building near, I think, the 師大一 bus stop. Saw him a couple more times in this little cache of graffiti I went to.

Wall of Graffiti

The famous kitten gets a place on a pillar

The MRT passing above the Wall of Graffiti

Sweet giraffe. There was also great design to both sides, but I couldn't get it all in without losing the detail.

I had been meaning to stop here for weeks now, because I used to see it every day as I took the MRT to ShiDa, when I still lived with my relatives. I took the opportunity today, as I was heading up to the Formosa Fun Coast, had time to spare before the allotted meeting time there with my cousins, and it was on the way there.

Not that I wasn't a little wary of poking my nose around the underbelly of the MRT and Expressway, stepping around broken glass and discarded items in my flip flops, digital camera in hand, and I did get some strange looks, but nothing bad happened.

*Ok, I honestly have no idea if the graffiti culture is burgeoning or in full bloom. I guess I assumed, with the rigidity of social customs and traditions here, that graffiti artists are only just starting to appear. Perhaps I am mistaken. I'd love to hear from anyone with more information though!

A grade giddiness

I'm back from Thailand, Land of Smiles.

Miss me?

Well, I am currently debating on whether or not to indulge by turning on the precious aircon as I catch up on emails and IMs, and go through my photos from the past 5 days. I will post more indepth on the trip once I've finished sorting those and uploaded them to picasa. But, suffice to say, it was your classic Chinese tour package (which, I guess, you can only understand if you are Chinese, and have been on said classic tour packages before). Highlights include an elephant ride, a beautiful beach-filled day, and ladyboys. Whoo!

Hot, hot, hot. Sometimes I wish air conditioning didn't exist. Is that weird?

Final note of nonsense: I just checked on my YesAsia preorder of Harry Potter, and felt my heart pitterpatter and surge as the order status changed before my refresh button from "Pre-order" to "Ready to be Shipped." Oh, joy of joys.

Too bad it's getting shipped to my aunt's house...

backpedalwhoa (+ racismboo)

So, after my last post, in which I whine and whinge about how unfair life is for poor me, I feel that I must balance out the perspective a bit, as I so often fail to do. Because, to be fair, many of my relatives are purely wonderful, kind-hearted people. Many of them realize that I am different, have grown up in a different culture, and make the effort to understand me. And that is something I truly appreciate, because, really, we are not really all that different, all of us.

I can also understand that they are a conservative clan, having grown up in the circumstances they did, and holding many traditional views about gender roles, respect, education, and filial piety. I am, I know, not as patient as I could be in accepting these cultural differences between me and my relatives.

As of now, all I can do is continue communicating with them, having these talks where we work to understand each other, as I have often had with my aunts regarding dating and race. They are often bemused, or perhaps amused, by my "equal opportunity dating" stance. And while I am not trying to excuse the often blatant racism that exists in Taiwan, I can understand that any homogeneous, conservative society is inevitably going to have difficulty accepting "outsiders" in their midst. I am hoping, through these conversations with my relatives, to help widen that acceptance margin.

And not only are the outsiders of Taiwan many (i.e. all non-East-Asians), but they are also ranked on a graded scale of acceptability. I would say Caucasians are probably at the top, most likely to be accepted (or at least pardoned) by locals here. And, here is no big surprise, dark-skinned and black people rank very low on this scale.

I walk to and from ShiDa every day and see the conglomeration of all these different races, coming for language exchange opportunities, and I love seeing that kind of diversity. But, then I wonder, once they leave the confines of the university and surrounding district, what must it be like to be so starkly different - physically, culturally, and even mentally?

Well, maybe Kevin is right and the current generation is not willing to blindly follow their predecessors into becoming drones of education, and I hope that also means they are more open-minded. I am not seeing that, but of course any change will take time. I am only going to be here for three months, after all.

In all of this, I cannot help but be reminded that, half a globe away back at campus, I have a friend, a black male, who is interested in Chinese and economics and politics, and has this crazy vision of rallying the Asian-Americans to fight for their rights and against racial discrimination in the United States.

Right, well, I think I've babbled on long enough. I have a trip to Thailand to prepare for, and so I will be offline for the next 5 days. What a refreshing change of pace.

Of cabbages and kings

I guess I never wrote about the Hohaiyan Festival; and, in truth, there isn't much to write about. I went on a crowded train with no sitting room to Fulong beach, and was greeted with a scenario very much similar to when I visited Danshui: lots of little tourist shops and game shops and food vendors, bright neon lights and way too many people.

The music itself was hit or miss. The band that was playing when I arrived around 6:30 wasn't bad. There was also a girl with a guitar who was pretty good as well, playing covers of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" and Coldplay's "Clocks," as well as some Chinese songs. I listened, took pictures, and, after a couple hours, went in search of food. I figured it would be better to leave early and avoid the congestion at the end of the festival. Only realized later that that meant missing Cui Jian, the "Bob Dylan/Bruce Springsteen" of China. Damn.

It probably would have been more fun to have gone to the festival with other people, but no one wanted to take the trip out with me. And, considering I am over the half-way point of my stay in Taiwan, I would like to get out more, even if that means going solo.

How clichéd. But it is true. I am not so much trying to connect to my "roots" as just seeking companionship and a sense of belonging in a place I do not really feel I understand. I'm not sure going to rock concerts alone does this, as I did not meet anyone new there, but what would my alternatives have been? Staying in my apartment? Or going out with my relatives to the next hot new restaurant to laud their food? Or tagging along with my cousins to Sogo or the Breeze Center?

The events of the past few days really brought out this misalignment of interests between me and my peers here. Last night, after a lone dinner at Alleycat's, I went to visit a nearby relative's house, where another cousin had also come to call. My uncle, upon seeing me, declared that he was going to take me out for drinks, and managed to drag my cousin along as well. Turns out he took us to Saints and Sinners, whose environment I thoroughly enjoyed, as my uncle kept pointing out: "See, you're from America! This is your kind of place."

In any case, there was a foosbol table and pool table, much to my delight, and after beating my uncle soundly at foosbol (sorry, Uncle, for the disrespect), we returned to our table and had drinks. I had a way-too-strong gin and tonic, and later ordered fries to help finish off my drink. We chatted inbetween sips and munches, and my cousin noted how I was now going to be busy now, with one uncle wanting to take me out to pubs, and another wanting to take me hiking up mountain trails, and how their respective families will be glad now that they won't have to deal with being pestered about doing these things.

And, yes, that's exactly what I enjoy doing. Going out to bars, maybe shooting some pool, at night, and exploring both the natural and urban trails of Taipei, by foot. I get remarks from my family about how "good at walking" I have become-that is a direct Chinese translation, with connotations that I am slightly too weird and independent for my relatives to understand.

"It's because she's American-born and raised," they say. And I guess it is. What self-respecting Taiwanese girl goes outside, without an umbrella and risking getting skin cancer or, worse, dark skin (cue Hermione Granger voice and Ron's incredulous 'She needs to sort out her priorities') and spends hours tramping around alone instead of buying cute clothes and looking for marriage prospects?

The worst of all of this, because I personally could care less what they think (and that's not necessarily a good thing in any case), is that everything I do reflects back on my mother. She warned me of this very clearly on the car-ride to the airport, told me not to make her look bad, or that she would be unable to go back and face her family.

So...what do I do?



Oh...and also, my moth appears to be a member of the Theretra latreillei species. Hurrah!

Of bugs galore

In searching for information on the Four Beast mountain (SiShou Shan-the alliteration mountain), I came across this fantastic site listing photos and IDs of insects at the SiShou park. Unfortunately it's all in Chinese, but just click on photo lists and select from the list menu on the left sidebar.

Grasshoppers
Walking sticks
Earwigs
Cockroaches
Mantids
Hemipterids
Homopterids (Leafhoppers, Aphids, Cicadas)
Hymenoptera (Bees, Wasps, Ants)
Beetles
Odonata (Dragonflies, Damselflies)
Lepidoptera (Butterflies, Moths)

The last section on butterflies is disappointingly small, and doesn't have the larval stages, but hey, can't win 'em all. No moths, either, so I can't ID my caterpillars. But it is still a great start, and the photos are big and clear.

I am geeking out bigtime here. You'll have to excuse me.

Today I went on a little field trip with my Shi-Da class-as well as about 8 other classes and 5 teachers-to Yingge (鶯歌). It was a cool experience in a town famous for its ceramics, porcelain, and pottery industry. Our first stop was to the Yingge Ceramics Museum.

The Heavenly Official Conferring Fortune

Some more modern sculpture:

I love these two pieces, oh so much:

The Ceramics Studio:

My, er, creation...

And my wonderful lunch afterwards! Mmm, I will never get tired of beef noodle soup.