Ten Things I Love About Taiwan (and Five I Don't) part 5

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:

9. Awesome Foreigners

Expatriates are a really cool group of people. Although there aren’t a lot of foreigners in Taipei, we all tend to find each other because we tend to hang out at the same places, work at the same jobs and have many friends in common. After all, it’s easy to make friends with someone who speaks your native language and who shares the joys and frustrations of trying to find their way through the maze that is Taiwanese culture. But in many cases, our status as “Wai-guo-ren,” or foreigners, is almost the only thing we have in common.  This actually leads to many interesting conversations, especially about the places we come from. For example, I have learned more about South Africa in the past year than in all the previous years of my life combined. In Taiwan, I’ve met people from Canada, England, Holland, France, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, New Zealand and probably a few other countries that are slipping my mind right now. I’m learning a lot about different cultures – and not just Taiwanese/Chinese culture.

Expatriates are also interesting because they tend to have a broader perspective and more travel experience than most other people. I haven’t visited many countries in Asia, so I’m always fascinated to hear stories about other people’s travels and to dream about all the places I’d like to visit. We live in such a big, colorful, fascinating, diverse world, and living in even one country outside your home can help you take in much more of it.

10. Awesome Locals

 Taiwanese people are incredibly friendly. I’m not just saying this because I’m used to cold, aloof New Englanders – everyone I mention this to agrees with me. I pretty regularly have people strike up conversations with me on busses or subways, at restaurants and in shops. In most cases, they speak to me in English, which could be caused by a desire to practice their English or an assumption that I don’t speak Chinese, but I prefer to think of it as their way of being hospitable. Once they find out where I’m from and how long I’ve been here, people are always eager to hear what I think of Taiwan (especially the food). They’ll ask if I miss home, give me tips about where to go and what to do, and in some cases offer to help me out in some way. Of course I’ve had a few bad experiences, but these were mostly cultural misunderstandings, and many of them arose from people being a bit too friendly.

The Taiwanese are very polite; they wait in line and apologize if they inconvenience you. I also feel very safe here. One time I dropped a small wallet that had a little cash and my transportation card in a metro station. I didn’t realize this for about ten minutes, but when I returned, someone had turned the wallet in to the information desk. My card and all my money were still there. Obviously, I don’t recommend leaving money lying around, but this experience does say something good about Taiwan as a whole. That’s why when the locals ask me what I like about Taiwan, I always respond “The food and the people.”

Things I Don’t

5. Not Being at Home

In spite of all the awesome people I meet in Taiwan, I can’t stop missing the awesome people I left behind. Once in a while, especially when I’m tired after a long day of work or other activities, I find myself thinking longingly of eating dinner with my family, playing games with my brother or staying up late playing cards, watching TV or having deep discussions with my college friends. I guess that’s an inevitable part of living away from home, and in a sense I’m glad of it. This lingering homesickness is proof that what I had back in America was good and valuable and that it is still a deep part of who I am. It would be very sad if I never looked back on the past, never missed my family, never wanted to return to where I came from. That’s the hardest part of living in Taiwan, and sometimes I think that if I could bring my loved ones here with me, I would be perfectly happy. But I’m realizing that leaving some things behind is an inevitable part of growing up, and that we need to keep and treasure the good things in our past while we move on into the intimidating but invigorating adventure that is our future.

Ten Things I Love About Taiwan (And Five I Don't) part 4

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:

7.  Adventures around every corner

                This one is kind of a general term, but I’ll try to explain what I mean. I’m a very adventurous person, so one of the things I love about being in another culture is the fact that things are so different. I already wrote about Taiwanese food, but even if it wasn’t so good, I’d still be trying just about everything. I’m proud of being willing to taste almost anything offered to me. I figure if it’s good, I’ve had a fun experience, and if it’s gross, I get a good story out of it.

                But more generally, I enjoy the strange things I see walking down the street. I like looking at the little carts that drive around selling snacks. I live near a fashion design school, so the students’ clothing is often quite interesting. The birds, trees and flowers are different from the ones at home, so to me they seem especially beautiful and exotic. There are some really beautiful old buildings around, too (but most of them are Buddhist temples, which makes me a little sad). Every time I take off for a place I haven’t seen before, I get a thrill because I know a new experience is just around the corner.

8. Night markets

                One type of adventure I am particularly fond of is walking through Taiwan’s night markets. They tend to be insanely crowded, so I like them best in small doses, but they are certainly an interesting cultural experience. I tend to think of them as a college student’s dream come true: very cheap food and clothing.

                Many night markets exist in streets with shops that are always open and at night wheel out racks into the street to compete with the stands that line the road only after dark. Vendors wheel carts in or lay down blankets in the middle of the street offering jewelry, shoes, skirts, hats, souvenirs and tee-shirts, sometimes with hilariously bad English (or “Chinglish”). Periodically, many of these booths pack up their wares and run into a dark alley where they hide for a few minutes. This is because they don’t have licenses and they have received word that the police are coming to do a raid. But within five or ten minutes, the illegal booths are back and continuing their business. Of course, there are some legal businesses that remain open constantly. The streets are usually packed with people as lights shine in many colors and pop music in Chinese, Korean or English blares from the stores’ speakers. (If you stand in just the right place, you may end up listening to two songs at once, which can be quite a weird experience.)

                I already wrote about Taiwanese food, but night market food definitely deserves a mention. You’ll see carts, stands and shops selling baked, boiled or fried buns stuffed with meat or vegetables; wraps with a variety of meat; vegetables and ground peanuts; oyster omelets held together with a sticky batter; shaved ice topped with fresh fruit, nuts, sweetened beans of various kinds or various flavors of jelly and tapioca balls; freshly cut fruit, including cherry tomatoes stuffed with dried figs; and drink stands selling tea mixed with milk or fruit juice as well as fruit smoothies made of freshly cut fruit put in a blender with milk and/or ice. This would be a mouth-watering combination of smells if it weren’t for the distinctive and ubiquitous scent of stinky tofu, a well-named type of fermented tofu served boiled or fried with pickled vegetables.  You can easily get dinner, a drink and a dessert at a night market for much less than $10, and it’s a great way to remind yourself of the fun side of living in a different culture.

Things I don’t

4. Guessing Games

                The other side of living in another country, though, is the sheer amount of things you don’t know. My reading ability in Chinese has improved a lot in the past year, but it doesn’t mean I can read every sign I see, so when I need to buy something specific, like baking ingredients, I often spend a significant amount of time wandering through the store before I give up and ask someone. Then they usually take me to a shelf I already looked at and point to something I missed the first time I went through. The other challenge is figuring out what brand to buy, since I’m not familiar with all of them and the ones I do know tend to be more expensive.  I usually go with the least expensive option, but sometimes, one brand will have two types of the product that cost the same amount. For example, today I bought some shampoo. I chose a brand that was on sale and that had two kinds: one with an orange label and one with a green label. I knew they were both shampoo, but I had no idea what the difference was. So I picked the orange label at random and decided to just see how it works.

                Language barriers aside, my other least favorite guessing game is trying to figure out the toilets. They have two kinds of toilets here: Western-style ones and squat toilets. The squat toilets are made of porcelain, and they do flush, but there’s nothing to sit on. I can use them, but I prefer not to. Many public places will have both kinds of toilets, and sometimes they are labeled, but often they are not. In that case, I just have to guess which one to go into. I have learned that stalls with doors that start well above the ground are always Western-style, for obvious reasons, but doors that almost touch the ground can go either way. When I went back to the States on vacation, I still remember the rush of excitement I got from walking into the airport restroom and realizing I didn’t have to guess what kind of toilet I’d go into!

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. 

The Aim of Freedom

I recently finished reading Defending the Free Market by Father Robert Sirico, a man whom I have greatly admired since two years ago, when I did an internship at the Acton Institute, a think tank he founded. Father Sirico’s penetrating insight on a wide variety of topics delivered in a clear, courageous yet friendly and often funny manner have made him one of my favorite speakers.  As the title suggests, his book deals mostly with economic issues. However, his final chapter provides an explanation of the theological basis for his ideas. One comment that I found particularly intriguing was as follows:

“[F]reedom, despite the natural human yearning for it, is not a goal or virtue in itself. We have freedom for something. … Ultimately, the aim of freedom must be the truth, and the Truth. What else would be worthy of filling the void?”

We live in a culture that exalts freedom as almost the greatest good that exists. This seems to be one of the only things liberals and conservatives agree on. Granted, they focus on different kinds of freedom – conservatives tend to emphasize religious and economic freedom, while liberals speak more about freedom from oppression in various forms. But both groups share a longing for liberty.

But what is the point of being free? One might reply: to be able to make choices and perform actions that seem best to us. But is that always a good thing? What if the choices that seem best to us lead us to hurt others? What if they lead us to hurt ourselves? Our free decisions are truly good only if they enable us to pursue a goal that is truly good. That goal, then is the aim of freedom.

Sirico posits that this ultimate goal is “the truth, and the Truth.” The truth is an understanding of the world as it really is. It is necessary if we are to make the best possible choices, choices that bring real benefits in the real world. And if we pursue truth, we will find the Truth in the person of Jesus Christ.

This is where much of American culture has gone wrong. We praise freedom, but we scoff at truth, calling it bigoted, irrelevant or impossible to find. We treasure freedom and fight to the death to protect it, but we toss its goal aside and trample it underfoot.

Freedom is a good and beautiful thing, and we must do all we can to defend it. But at the same time, we must encourage each other to find the truth, the only thing that enables us to make free choices that are truly good. Only when we seek the truth will our freedom become complete, because we will receive the full, satisfying life that all free creatures strive for.

Culture and Movies

 One of the interesting things about cultures is that they affect the things you notice in everyday life and in stories. For example, last week I watched the movie Soul Surfer with a group of people here in Taipei. The movie tells the story of Bethany Hamilton, a surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack.

As an American, I looked at the movie as Bethany’s story. I was inspired by her courage and determination to pursue her passion, surfing, in spite of the huge obstacle she faced. I was even more inspired when she realized that success as a surfer was only a small part of what life is about. She came to see loving people as more important than winning competitions and became a much more generous, caring person.

My local friends, though, had a different perspective. Certainly they approved of Bethany’s persistence. But they were equally impressed, if not more so, with her family. They pointed out how supportive Bethany’s parents and brothers were and how they encouraged her in her hard times. And once they said this, I realized that it was true.

Movies, books and spoken stories are a product of culture, but they are also a way of expressing truth. Often, there is more truth buried in the story than any one person will notice. This is why people have book clubs and why people like to watch movies in groups. But when the people gathered come from many cultures, the experience becomes even richer.