Ten Things I Love About Taiwan (and Five I Don't) part 3

I have now been living in Taipei for one year. For the most part, I love it here, but as with any place, there are a few things I don’t like so much. So I plan to post a series about the best and worst things for a foreigner living here.  Each day I’ll cover two things I love and one I don’t so I can keep things balanced. They are grouped based on themes, not based on how strongly I feel about them.

Things I like:

5.  7-11

                I hear the question marks popping into existence above my American readers’ heads. “What?” they say, “We have 7-11’s in the States, too. And they’re nothing special! Did Elizabeth put this in the wrong post?” Meanwhile, my readers in Taiwan are saying, “Yes, of course.”

                Yes, we have 7-11’s in the States. No, they are nothing like 7-11’s in Taiwan. In fact, if I owned a Taiwanese 7-11, I would be embarrassed by the pathetic excuses for convenience stores in America. I would probably go on a rant about how they are a disgrace to the noble name of 7-11, or something.

                But I’m not going to do that now. Instead, I’m going to talk about how wonderful Taiwanese 7-11’s are. They have walls covered with interesting drinks (fruit juice, tea, flavored milk, soymilk in different flavors, etc.) They have food including sandwiches, noodles, rice wraps, fruit and fresh salads, as well as chips and other junk food. You can also buy things including (but not limited to) soap, washcloths, umbrellas, cat food and disposable underwear. (Ok, that last one is a bit weird, but someone must use it, or they wouldn’t sell it.) My cell phone is on a plan where I add money to the sim card periodically, and both the card and the ways to add money come from 7-11. I’ve also booked train tickets and seen friends get tickets for concerts there. And if you don’t have a mailing address, you can ask FedEx to send your package to 7-11 so you can pick it up.  And based on my observations, at any point in Taipei, there is at least one 7-11 within two blocks of you. Actually, there will usually be one closer. In fact, There are now four within a 10-minute walk from my house. And one of my coworkers apparently defines a small town as one where you have to drive to 7-11, rather than having one within walking distance.

6.  Convenient Transportation

                Taipei has an amazing public transportation system. I have a subway stop just outside of my apartment that will send me to the center of town in about 20 minutes. The subways here are some of the cleanest in the world, or so I’ve heard. This is because they are very strict in enforcing rules against eating, drinking or even chewing gum on the bus. If you break these rules, people will take pictures of you with their cellphones and report you to authorities. The subways are very convenient and reliable, and they go to most of the popular destinations in the city. And they announce stops in four languages: Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka (another Chinese dialect) and English.

                Taipei also has an extensive bus system. The busses go all over, and it’s a flat rate of US$0.50, even for the 45-minute ride to my church. Some of the bus stops have neon signs that will display how long it will be until the next bus. It’s nice knowing how long you’ll have to wait. If it will be a long time, you can go to 7-11 and buy a drink!

Things I Don’t:

3. Comments about my appearance

                We Americans have a reputation for being blunt. We’re very straightforward about most things, like asking for help and making suggestions. In contrast, Asians tend to be much more indirect about those things, dropping hints which we Americans generally can’t pick up on. But there are a few areas in which this is reversed. Here, the charging rhino of American bluntness becomes a timid mouse in comparison to the Taiwanese approach. And one of these is comments on people’s appearance.

                In Taiwan, it appears that the rule of etiquette is “if you can see it, you can talk about it.” This means that people have no qualms on going up to you and pointing out that you’re overweight, or that you have a lot of pimples, or that your hair is going gray. In some cases, people have come up to me and said, “You should stay out of the sun, and don’t eat too much oily food.” It took me a minute to realize they referring to my pimples. (I have a lot of pimples here, which I think is caused by pollution.) When describing people’s appearance, people have often referred to mutual acquaintances as “the fat girl (or boy, but in my experience it’s mostly been girls).” Part of the reason for this is that the usual way Americans describe people isn’t available here. We usually talk about hair color and texture, but in Asia, saying “the girl with the straight, black hair” doesn’t get you very far. But even when I understand it, it still shocks me when I hear it.

Ten Things I Love About Taiwan (and Five I Don't) part 2

I have now been living in Taipei for one year. For the most part, I love it here, but as with any place, there are a few things I don’t like so much. So I plan to post a series about the best and worst things for a foreigner living here.  Each day I’ll cover two things I love and one I don’t so I can keep things balanced. They are grouped based on themes, not based on how strongly I feel about them.

Things I like:

3. Beautiful Scenery

                I’ve always loved mountains, and Taiwan has more than its fair share of them, especially for such a small island. Over Chinese New Year last year, I went to Chia’yi, County in central Taiwan. I’ll never forget standing on top of the high mountains surrounded by tea bushes while what looked like a sea of clouds stretched out under my feet. Then there’s Hualien, a city surrounded by mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. A few weeks ago, I went swimming on a beach there where the mountains spread right up to the edge of the sea. Almost anywhere you go in Taiwan is incredibly beautiful, especially once you get away from Taipei.

4. Easily available hiking trails

                About a fifteen-minute walk from my house, a small street, about the width of a driveway, winds up a hill and is hidden by the trees. If you walk up this street, you soon come to a hiking trail that runs along the mountain side. It’s a fairly steep trek up the mountain, but when you get to the top the path intersects a beautiful trail that runs in both directions. To the right, it takes you toward Miramar, a famous mall that is known for its large ferris wheel. The path to the left winds toward the Grand Hotel, a large, beautiful building with classical Chinese-style architecture. If you continue past the hotel, it turns and you can go down near Shilin Night Market (which I’ll discuss in a later post). No matter which way you turn, you can get amazing views of Taipei City, most of which are dominated by the distinctive shape of the Taipei 101 building. I tend to think of Taipei 101as the Eiffel Tower of Taipei. If you look in the right direction, you can see it from almost anywhere in the city, and in many people’s minds it is a symbol of Taipei.

                But even if I didn’t live so close to this trail, I could still get to a hiking trail from most parts of Taipei. This is because Taipei is in a valley surrounded by mountains. While living here, I’ve learned that going hiking is one of the best things I can do for my mental health, both because it is exercise and because it lets me be out in nature. The wide variety of tree, flowers and butterflies I always see on the trail remind me of how unique and wonderful my experience here is.

Things I don’t:

2. Acid rain

                As much as I like hiking, I don’t do it if it’s raining outside. Taiwanese people seem a bit paranoid about rain, and they claim it’s because the rain here contains acid that will make your hair fall out. I don’t know if that is true, but I try to keep my head dry as much as possible. Why take unnecessary risks?

                Actually, the acid rain thing is part of a larger problem of pollution. The pollution in Taipei is nowhere near as bad as in certain other Asian cities I’ve lived in. But that’s not saying much – the other city had days where I could barely see buildings 30 feet in front of me because there were so many gray particles floating in the air. As I said, Taipei isn’t that bad. But on its worst days, that view of Taipei 101 I was talking about gets mostly blocked by smog. Some of my foreign friends have gotten nasty respiratory infections, which we think were caused by the pollution.  For what it’s worth, I’ve gathered that the pollution isn’t from Taiwan itself; it floats over from mainland China. But no matter where it comes from, it’s a downside to living here.

Ten Things I Love About Taiwan (and Five I Don't) part 1

I have now been living in Taipei for one year. For the most part, I love it here, but as with any place, there are a few things I don’t like so much. So I plan to post a series about the best and worst things for a foreigner living here.  Each day I’ll cover two things I love and one I don’t so I can keep things balanced. They are grouped based on themes, not based on how strongly I feel about them.

Things I Like:

1. Delicious food

                One afternoon this week, I stopped at one of the many drink stands that line the street near my home to get a papaya smoothie.  My Caucasian face and heavily accented Chinese immediately revealed to the woman who was running the stand that I was a foreigner. She asked me how long I’d been in Taiwan, and whether I liked it. When I assured her that I really like it here, she immediately pointed out Taiwan’s greatest point of pride – “There are lots of good things to eat here!”

                The locals are always talking about how good the food is, and with good reason. It would take a long time to describe all the food, so I'll just mention some highlights. Some of my favorite dishes include: noodles with sesame sauce; flaky scallion pancakes that are often served wrapped around eggs or other fillings; dumplings of all kinds (They come boiled, fried or steamed, with a wide variety of meats and vegetables inside. Some will even have sweet fillings and become dessert. And still others are made with dough that has risen, so they look more like stuffed buns); dou gan (tofu with a denser texture that is often served as an appetizer with soy sauce; and danbing, a breakfast food consisting of thin pancakes that are fried and filled with egg and other toppings of your choice. There are also a lot of foods from different countries here. Within a 10-minute walk of my house there are Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Italian, American and Vietnamese restaurants. They don’t always get Western food exactly right (I’ve seen seafood kimchi spaghetti and pizza with corn, peas, mushrooms and pineapple), but you can always find something good to eat.

2. Tropical fruit

This could fall under the category of food, but it’s so amazing that it deserves its own point. I’m from New England, so I had never eaten a lot of the fruits we get here. Fresh mangoes are one of my favorites, as is something called a Buddha head fruit. Buddha head fruits are light green with lumps. When you break them open there is a creamy white pulp with large black seeds. You don’t eat the seeds or the skin, but the pulp is tasty. I’ve also come to love guavas, which are round and green on the outside and either white or magenta on the inside. They have a mild but very nice flavor. Another common fruit here is called wax apples. They’re red on the outside and white on the inside and shaped like rounded triangles. They have a texture similar to watermelon, but they’re a bit more sour.

Fruits we get at home are also better here. Bananas are really cheap and very good. But my favorite Taiwanese fruit is pineapple. They have the bright yellow pineapples we get in the U.S., but there is another kind that is paler yellow and amazingly sweet. Once I was eating it for breakfast and started feeling guilty about having desert so early in the morning!

Things I don't:

1. Getting hit by a pillow when I walk outside

                This was how a friend of mine described stepping outside in the summer, and it’s very accurate. During July and August, it stays at about 80 degrees F (40 degrees C), but it’s like that EVERY DAY with what must be almost 100% humidity. I usually need two showers each day in the summer, and when I get out of the shower, I usually don’t feel like I’ve completely dry off.