In August, the air is thick. The humidity hangs on you like a quilt...

And so it came to pass that I survived my first three weeks in Taiwan, which included numerous home repairs, many hundreds of dollars spent furnishing the apartment, one terrible typhoon, and two earthquakes.  Yes, you read that right.  You heard about the typhoon already, but I hadn’t mentioned the two earthquakes.  For reasons unbeknownst to me, natural disasters follow me around the globe (though, granted, the earthquakes were mild).  Riots do, too.  Even in China, of all places.  Thus far there have been no riots to speak of, but I’ve got a whole year, so opportunities abound.

When I was in China, I used this space to describe my observations on Chinese culture.  I would very much like to continue doing this, but at this point, I don’t have too much to report.  The way to describe Taiwan that makes the most sense to me is to juxtapose what I see in Taiwan with what life was like in China.  As the year goes on, I’m sure I’ll have more interesting things to share, but for now, I’m going to have to stick to surface details.

Superficially, China and Taiwan resemble each other in many respects.  The basic architecture is the same.  Buildings are often crammed so close together it’s a wonder how they got there in the first place.  Temples are interspersed with apartment buildings, high rises, and the like.

However, for two countries that are so proximally close to one another and that even speak the same language, China and Taiwan differ wildly in several respects.  Smoking, for one.  Yes, people smoke in Taiwan, but not nearly as much as they do in China.  After I returned back to America from China, the smell of cigarette smoke would actually make me nostalgic for China.  I find this quite remarkable because, truly, there are few scents I find more vile than that of cigarette smoke.  However, not nearly as many people smoke in Taiwan as in China.  In China, it was miraculous if I could walk five feet out of my apartment without seeing someone smoking.

What’s more, the streets are actually clean.  Parents don’t let their kids take a dump on the sidewalk.  No one spits on the ground.  The air quality is vastly superior to China’s.  And there’s space.  There may not be a whole lot of it, but you don’t feel claustrophobic by default, a result of China’s entire populace converging on you at the same time.

One of the things that surprised me about Taiwan is how people dress.  I was very much expecting people to dress like they did in cosmopolitan China—dressed to the nines all the time.  However, as it turns out, people actually wear flip-flops.  And shorts.  And jeans.  And t-shirts.  This is fantastic, since I don’t have to feel like a slob every time I go outside.  I’m especially pleased that people wear flats all the time—in China, four-inch heels were considered perfect for daily wear, something I never found very practical.  Considering the fact that all the sidewalks are tiled and it rains all the time, I never understood how Chinese women survived walking about every day.

Perhaps the most positive difference between the two countries is that every time I get into a cab, I do not fear for my life.  In China, drivers are beyond insane.  They weave in and out of traffic, they cut in front of other cars with inches to spare, no one wears seat belts, and they honk their horns at least twice a second.  On the contrary, here, people actually stay in their lanes, they don’t constantly honk their horns, and they appear to obey traffic laws.  It’s really quite nice.  You couldn’t pay me to drive in China, but here, I wouldn’t be nearly as worried about it.

Anyway, while I’m not busy experiencing typhoons or earthquakes, being thoroughly oriented, or filling out the apartment, I’ve been getting in a little sightseeing.  Last night we went to Qijin Island, an island just off the coast (as in a five-minute ferry ride) of Kaohsiung.  The idea was to go watch the sunset, but we somehow arrived moments too late.  Instead, we wandered around the beach and ate seafood as fresh as you can get it.  The beach was beautiful, albeit covered in driftwood from the typhoon.  It was a black sand beach, at once dramatic and intriguing.  The shore was littered with shells and what appeared to be pieces of tile softened by the sea.

After the failed sunset, we enjoyed a feast of crab, shrimp, clams, and fish.  All in all a very interesting culinary experience—it came as no surprise that the shrimp still had heads, eyes, and feelers.  One of my fellow ETAs even ate a fish eye.  I didn’t quite have the gumption to remove the spinal column from the shrimp, so I kept my distance from them.  All in good time, I suppose.

I am including with this post two pictures: the first is a picture of the beach on Qijin Island and the second is a picture of our incredible coordinator, Fonda, with another ETA, Grace.

English Villages

Good news: the typhoon is over, the bathroom floor no longer floods when I shower, the door closes, and the showerhead stays attached to the wall where it belongs.  I haven’t even heard from the cockroaches in an entire week.

Well, I promised I would write about Kaohsiung’s educational system in regards to English, so here we go.  Apparently, somewhere in Korea, an educator had the brilliant idea of incorporating English speaking practice into realistic environments.  Following that stroke of insight, they built what henceforth became known as English Villages—supermarkets, clothing stores, subway stations, and so on—that served no real or practical purpose except to provide an area where children can run through dialogues and practice vocabulary that they would use in such a place.

Not long ago, Kaohsiung City began building English Villages and including them in the English language curriculum.  We toured three of the four English Villages in the city, and what we saw was amazing.  There were hotels with front reception desks, rooms with beds and bathrooms and closets.  We saw stores with items for sale on the shelves—food, clothing, newspapers, books.  There was an airplane cabin complete with seats, seatbelts, and so on.  We also saw a subway station, including those handles you’re supposed to hold on to while the train is moving.

The idea is that a native English speaker—that’s me and my fellow ETAs this year—conducts simple dialogues with elementary schoolers wandering through.  For example, in the hotel, the kid might say, “Excuse me.  Where do I check in?”  And a conversation about room numbers, amenities, and the like ensues.  After they are done in the hotel, the kids may complete some sort of activity to help them remember the vocabulary and expressions they used. 

I must say, this is an excellent idea.  Meandering through these English Villages, I found myself wishing that there were places like these when I was learning another language.  I would have loved to go to a French Village, or a Chinese Village, or even a Hebrew Village.  One of the big problems in second language education is the lack of places to actually practice speaking, and this would have been a fantastic place to do such a thing.  Unfortunately, there are a couple problems with instituting languages Villages in the US.  Americans tend not to place a high enough priority on foreign language education to be willing to commit the funds, first of all.  But even if taxpayers were willing to pay, what languages would be taught in the Villages?  I suppose multiple language groups could use the Villages at different times, but there are so many languages that no one group would benefit as much as they possibly could. 

Apart from visiting the English Villages, this week of orientation was not remarkable enough to be worth reporting.  I’m no longer jetlagged, which is most definitely a positive development.  I find myself experiencing highs and lows, which is to be expected.  Part of the time, I’m very happy to be in Taiwan, a place where I get to practice my language skills and not do any homework, for once in my life.  But I also spend a lot of time missing a lot of people who I won’t get to see for a very long time.  I wish I could bring them here to stay with me.  Then I would never get homesick.

Apartment Adventures

Where do I begin?  It’s hard to choose between the typhoon raging outside my window, the cockroaches infesting my bathroom, and the fascinating educational innovations to be found in this city. 

I suppose I’ll start with the most outrageous and work my way down to a relatively normal degree of outrageousness.  Thus we commence with the cockroaches.  I would like to first state that I am quite pleased with my apartment.  I have my own room, and while it’s not enormous, it’s enough space for me.  The rent is rather cheap, which appeals to my frugal nature.  We have a nice common area with a TV and a DVD player as well as ample amenities such as an iron, a microwave, and a miniscule toaster oven.

The bathroom, though, is in a rather heightened state of disrepair.  True, it still functions, and I’m only sharing it with one other person, so that in and of itself is not so bad.  However, the troubles begin when trying to close the bathroom door.  By which I mean it frequently chooses not to close.  The outside panel of the door has separated from the rest of the door, which means it sticks somewhat severely and has to be coerced into closing if you actually want to spend time in the bathroom when no one can see you.

If the troubles ended there, I wouldn’t complain much.  It’s not a challenging fix; our landlord will take care of it for us.  However, once you manage to satisfactorily shut the door, don’t think you’ll be treated to a hot shower.  Or even a cold shower.  In fact, your shower will inevitably be tepid on the cool side.  No matter how long the water runs or where you put the spigot on the temperature scale, the water only comes out at one temperature.

Now, if you don’t mind the tepid water, that’s fantastic.  But don’t think you’ll be able to shower like a normal person, either.  If you’ve ever seen European showerheads, you know that they attach to the wall of the shower, but you can easily remove them and fling them about at your will.  On the other hand, if you’d like to shower like an American, you still have the option of showering with the showerhead attached to the wall so that your hands are free.  In my bathroom in Taiwan, though, this is not the case.  Yes, we have a European-style showerhead.  Yes, it has a clip that attaches it to the wall.  No, the clip is not in one piece and no, the showerhead will not stay on the wall.  Which means we have to hold the showerhead ourselves every time we want to shower.

But the coup goes to the cockroaches that live in the air vent.  Whenever we turn the lights on in the bathroom, we are greeted by a cacophonous clattering of exoskeletons and legs from the ceiling and occasionally a dismembered cockroach leg or two falling down from the vent.  I’ve already sprayed the vent, which apparently was not enough of an impetus to make them go away.  I thought loud noises scared them off for a while, too, so whenever I heard them I would tell them to shove off.  Unfortunately, this has also failed to keep the bathroom cockroach-free.

I remain optimistic that the door, the lack of hot (or cold) water, and the showerhead will all be dealt with by our landlord in due time.  I also hope that “due time” is not actually “three months from now.”  However, I’m not sure what to do about the cockroaches.  I suppose we could attempt to find an exterminator, but I’m not sure the problem is relevant enough on this island nation to warrant an exterminator.  I wonder if this is a normal level of cockroach infestation for an apartment in a subtropical climate and if we should just get used to it or launch a full-scale cockroach genocidal offense.

On the scale of the slightly less absurd, I have been here less than a week and I am already experiencing my first Taiwanese typhoon.  I should revise that; I am experiencing my first typhoon ever.  Upon being hit by a typhoon, I realized I didn’t actually know what the technical definition of a typhoon was.  A wikipedia search later, I found out it was simply a hurricane in Asia, another name for a tropical cyclone.  Since my current location is in a port city on an island, this has resulted in high winds and quite a lot of rain.  Every once in a while, I hear the wind pick up and whistle through the wind tunnel created by the proximity of the buildings to one another and the narrowness of the alley that my apartment looks out on.

Being subtropical, Taiwan doesn’t really get snow, and so the poor, deprived Taiwanese children never get snow days.  However, a typhoon effectively shuts down the city, so instead of snow days, we get typhoon days.  What this means for me is that I am happily enjoying a day off (read: less than a week of orientation and I am already in dire need of a break).  Stores are closed.  No one is outside.  It’s just me in my apartment with Typhoon Morakot.  Fear not, though; apart from perhaps a few broken windows on my street (and not in my apartment), it’s just like a particularly virulent thunderstorm, though up to this point, thunderless.

So in conclusion, someday I'll have the time and evergy to deal with the cockroaches, the bathroom's disarray, and a full description of the amazing things this city does for English education.  For now, though, I think I'll just watch the storm.

My life is now complete.

I am pleased to announce that I have just seen the second-largest Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel in all of Asia.

And yes, you read that right.

(It's located on the roof of an enormous mall in Kaohsiung; the name of the mall is Dream Mall.)

My Address

Rebekah Farrar

3 F – 2, No. 11, 38 Lane, Lin Chuan Street, Lingya District, Kaohsiung City,

Taiwan (R.O.C.) Zip Code: 80264

80264高雄市苓雅區林泉街38巷11號3樓之2

Success!

Good news: I made it to Kaohsiung, my home for the next year.  The weather is hot and oppressively humid, which comes as no surprise, since the only thing I’ve heard from Taiwanese people since April is that Kaohsiung is exceptionally hot.

To inaugurate my year of blogging, I thought I might chronicle my truly stellar travel experience.  I left Columbus at 6:10 p.m. on July 31.  From there, I flew to Chicago, where I had a two-hour layover.  From Chicago, I flew to LA, where I had yet another two-hour layover.  From LA, I flew to Taipei, a marvelous 13 and a half-hour flight, where I had—you guessed it—a two-hour layover.  I finally flew from Taipei to Kaohsiung, where I made it through customs with relatively nonexistent hassle.  By 8:30 a.m. on August 2, I was in Kaohsiung.  (By the way, I would like to take just a minute and proclaim the greatness of Tylenol PM; never have I been able to sleep on planes, but thanks to the Tylenol, I was out for a solid seven hours.)

Now, four flights and 26 hours of traveling is not something that brightens anyone’s day.  However, my itinerary had me booked on three separate airlines, which meant that I had to go through security not once, not twice, but three times.  The first time, of course, was in Columbus.  I was assured my luggage was checked the whole way through, but I was only given the first two boarding passes.  Once I got to LA, I had to leave the airport completely.  I walked to an entirely separate building where I was issued my next boarding pass.  From there, I went through security once again.  After arriving in Taipei, after much confusion and several wrong turns, we found our next ticket counter, where we were issued boarding passes to Kaohsiung.

Despite the complications, we did make it to our final destination without any problems.  Before long we were all introduced to one another and random roommates were assigned.  Get this: my roommates are named Kelley, Kevin, and Carol.  But it gets better!  There are twelve Americans here on Fulbrights, eight of which are named Carl, Carol, Caroline, Kristin, Kevin, Kelley, Katherine, and Kaitlyn.  The others are Grace, John, Charles, and me.  It’s going to be a long year—hopefully we’ll create some nicknames pretty soon to prevent further confusion.

On a cultural note, on my first day in Taiwan, I already observed one drastic difference from China.  For our first night in this foreign land, we stayed in a hotel.  Right around the time we were all getting ready to go to bed for the evening—about 8:00 (recall the jetlag)—a very noisy procession manifested itself underneath our window.  As it turned out, yesterday was a religious holiday.  There were people in elaborate face make-up and costumes, Chinese dragons, drums, and the like.  What was so striking was that it was such an overt display of religious freedom—something I never saw even once in four months in China.  And after a mere twelve hours into a year spent in Taiwan, I have already encountered something that throws into sharp relief the difference between these two countries.  It looks like it’s going to be a very interesting year.

In an Airport in Chicago

My life is a constant leaving.  I left home for college; I left college to study in France and China; I returned home from China only to leave for school again; I graduated from college and returned home; now I find myself leaving once again, this time for Taiwan.  I have had to start over so many times I’ve nearly lost count.  I started over when I began college.  From there, I had to start over again when I went to France.  When I decided to leave Miami for a year, I had to start once again at OSU, where, as all the times before, I knew no one.  From there I went to China, where I started over yet again.  And when I returned to Miami, everyone I knew had graduated, so it was yet another new beginning.  The tragedy of my constant leaving is that it is only just before I leave that I find I am comfortable where I am.  I spent a lot of time unhappy in China, but it was also one of the most fascinating cultural experiences of my life.  When it came time to leave, I realized I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.  I also spent an inordinate amount of time unhappy at Miami, only to discover right before I graduated that, much to my surprise, I was actually happy.

And now?  Now.  I leave once again, for a year this time, longer than I’ve ever been away before.  I’m leaving my cat, who has grown accustomed to my constant comings and goings.  I’m leaving my house, the only place I’ve ever comfortably been able to refer to as “home.”  I’m leaving the good friendships and relationships I have spent the past year building and strengthening. I’m leaving my family, the only people who have known me and stuck with me my entire life.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t regret my decision to accept the Fulbright and move to the opposite side of the world for a year.  I know that the coming year holds untold wonders; countries and cities to visit, another culture to study, a language to learn, an interesting opportunity to teach.  But it’s hard to see that clearly when you are face-to-face with all the people that you love and you know that in a few minutes, after the inevitable parting, you won’t see them for a very long time.

So I head off now for the unknown.  I don’t know anyone where I’ll be going.  I’ve never visited Taiwan, although I lived in China, so I know at least in part what to expect.  I don’t have many details about what I’ll actually be doing this year.  I don’t know who I’ll be living with, or what my living accommodations will be like.  I don’t know if I packed appropriate clothing, or if I packed too much that I actually could have purchased in Taiwan.  I have a multitude of questions and a pithy few answers.

In conclusion, then, to those of you that I’m leaving behind: though I will be far away, heading off into the relative unknown, you are loved and missed and will not be forgotten.  I hope it goes both ways.