July 29, 2010 禮拜四

I actually went to culture class today! I was half expecting to sleep through my alarm, since after showering and everything I ended up going to sleep around 5, but the DPP representative was speaking today so I got up after all. I could barely keep my eyes open, but at least the speaker was interesting and engaging. I’ve realized more and more that the program organizers got really high-ranking speakers for us–this one was Joseph 釗燮 Wu, former chief representative of the ROC to the US and former Deputy Secretary General to President Chen Shui-bian (he even has his own Wikipedia page…). He definitely knew his stuff, and provided an interesting contrast to the KMT representative who’d spoken the past 2 days. I’m glad I went.

Afterward, I went to lunch with Jon H and D; I should have slept instead so that I’d have actually been awake for Chinese class. I actually fell asleep during one of our breaks, but when class started again, no one woke me up! I’ve put my head down before, but never fallen so deeply asleep that I didn’t wake up when Teacher started talking again. I know Teacher noticed, but I guess she was too nice to say anything, and D said he noticed too but figured I needed the sleep. Sigh. So embarrassing. I woke up 15 minutes later, at least, so it wasn’t that bad.

Pretty sunset! And other gondolas on the left.

After class, we went back to the dorms for awhile and then T, E, JC, Ma, Ka, Da, D and I went to 貓空 (Mao-kong)! It’s a tea plantation area near 政大, that apparently has over 100 teahouses. You can take cable cars (also known as “sky cars” or “gondolas”) to get to the top of the mountain. Those were really cool, although REALLY high up! The view was really nice, though, so eventually I decided to be amazed instead of scared. Ma and Ka decided to just go straight up, but the rest of us wanted to stop by Zhinan temple and check that out first. That was kind of interesting, I suppose. Then the 6 of us took a gondola the rest of the way up; they’re much less scary at night.

Ma and Ka told us they were in one of the first teahouses, which Da said was likely to be more expensive. Sure enough, when we got there and checked out the prices it was incredibly expensive–and there was no view. We walked further up the mountain, and eventually got to a teahouse that Teacher had told us about! We hadn’t been looking for it, so that was a surprise. I don’t think many tourists go there; to get to it we had to climb a bunch of stairs and a really long, somewhat sketchy-looking ramp. Once we got up, we found our own table and dragged chairs from other tables over to it. After sitting for awhile, a girl came over and asked (in English) if any of us spoke Chinese–she said that she was visiting from San Diego, and that her cousins (the owners of the teahouse) were afraid to talk to us. Once we assured her that most of us spoke at least a little, her cousin came over and took our orders. She was really nice, if really shy!

The night was definitely one of my favorites, I think. We drank oolong tea and got ice fruit drinks, and Danielle had brought Catchphrase! We played that for quite a long time. Somewhat strange–sitting in a teahouse drinking tea on top of a mountain in Taiwan…playing Catchphrase. But it was so much fun! Good memories, for sure.

After quite a while, we finally left and went to a bus stop to catch the bus. However, a woman passed by and asked what we were waiting for, and told us that the bus didn’t come for at least another 45 minutes. At first we considered calling a taxi, but since there was only a 20 min difference between that and the bus, we decided to just wait. And, of course, play Catchphrase. I love that game! Although according to T, I play in a very nerdy way–I’d have them guess a word or two, then said “okay, and then there’s a conjunction in the middle!” or “preposition and article between them!” That’s not even that nerdy, though–to achieve that I’d have to say “determiner” or “coordinator” instead (oh, Linguistics, how I miss you…).

So overall, it was a really good night. We played Catchphrase the whole way back, too. The people on the bus must have thought we were completely insane. It’s not exactly a quiet game, either.

Then I stayed up till 3 or 4 to write my paper, even though technically since I’m not getting credit I don’t have to do it. The maximum was 10 pages single spaced, but I only wrote 2 pages double spaced. Hopefully that’s enough. D’s was utterly ridiculous–I still can’t believe he actually turned it in. Actually, too ridiculous to post on here, I think. At least I wrote something, though, and it (kind of?) made sense. I definitely didn’t solve all (or possibly any) of the cross-strait problems, though.

July 28, 2010 禮拜三: Yo-yo

Culture class and Chinese class were both not that exciting today. After Chinese, I got all ready to take a nap…and then A skyped me suggesting we go to 誠品 (the massive bookstore) again, since we had so little time left. I can’t say no to 誠品, so I jumped out of bed and we left. I bought 2 more books! Yay! An absolutely adorable kids’ book called 我喜歡你, and Coraline (also in 中文). Those should be fun to read–I saw 我喜歡你 the first time I went, and really wanted to buy it, so I’m really glad I got to today. It doesn’t have Zhuyin, but that’s okay–it should be fun anyway. And Coraline will be a challenge, but hopefully not impossible. A bought a random novel, since she really wanted another book in Chinese but didn’t know which one to get. It looked interesting, at least.

Trying to figure out yo-yo...hmm.

Then we raced back to 政大 for my yo-yo class. I was a little late, but it turned out to be much better than last week’s class! I was more relaxed, maybe? I was also starving, since I hadn’t eaten dinner, but I was actually able to do all of the tricks on my own at least once this time. That was really exciting, since last week I had so much difficulty. The teacher was really nice this time, too–D and I talked to him afterward, and he had us give him our names so he could add us on Facebook! I kind of want to buy a yo-yo (or diabolo, as they’re actually called) in the US. Really fun to play with.

After 2 hours of yo-yo, everyone else went back up and D and I went to dinner since neither of us had eaten yet. We ended up going to the noodle place Teacher took us to for lunch yesterday, since it was so good. Yesterday I was starving and ate faster than D (a miracle) and more than E (another miracle), but tonight D finished a full 15 minutes before I was even halfway done. I couldn’t even finish all my noodles–tragedy! I must eat as much delicious food as possible here before I have to leave…

Anyway, then we wandered around for a bit. D wanted some 珍珠奶茶, so we went to a bubble tea place, and then went to an electronics store to look for headphones. WAY too expensive, though. So we just left and, being insane, decided to walk up the mountain to the dorms instead of taking the bus. Actually, I kind of like walking up the mountain when it’s at night and by choice; it’s not a bad walk and somewhat relaxing if you go slowly.

Anyway, we got back pretty late. A had told me that some people were planning on going clubbing, which had been another reason for walking very slowly up the mountain (I didn’t feel like going at all). When we got back, though, I found out they were actually going “lounging,” to a bar/lounge across from 101 called Marquee. I declined, but K and A pointed out that this was one of our last chances to hang out, just us girls, and talk, so I finally agreed even though I was fairly sure I’d just end up trying not to fall asleep at the lounge instead of actually carrying on a conversation.

It turned out that would have been something of a best-case scenario. Since smoking is allowed in bars, I was trying not to cough for most of the time we were there, and a little while after we arrived I found out they were planning to go to Spark (a club across from Marquee) even though A had assured me we were most likely almost definitely not going clubbing. Since I’d been so tired and hadn’t thought we were going anywhere except the bar, I was still wearing a top I’d bought from the 夜市, so I was completely not dressed to go clubbing AND I was wearing flip-flops (they don’t let anyone in who’s wearing flip-flops, even girls). The rest of them assured me I looked good enough to get in, as long as I stayed with the group so they didn’t get a good look at my feet.

When we crossed the street to go to Spark, I discovered that I’d left my passport in my other purse, so I had no ID and couldn’t get into the club. Even though I didn’t really want to go, that was worrying–I really didn’t want to take a taxi home by myself. However, I also REALLY had to go to the bathroom, so K and I ended up asking the bouncers in front of Spark if I could run in and use their bathroom. K had already called a taxi for me, and we were pretty sure they wouldn’t let me near the bathroom unless it was right next to the door. Instead, though, they just stamped my hand and waved me through, flip-flops and all. Crazy story, but–I realized after we got in how much I didn’t want to be there. It was really loud and really smoky, and there were way too many people to even dance comfortably. Also, I was so exhausted that dancing took a lot more effort than it usually does. K, Y and I ended up just sitting on a couch near a table, and eventually we just decided to leave. We took a taxi back, and since K was on the phone I ended up explaining everything to the taxi driver. He understood me, though, and we got back fine, so it turned out okay. We ended up getting back around 4, though. So tired. Not really a fun night, although yo-yo and 誠品 were good at least.

July 27, 2010 禮拜二

Ahh I’m sorry this is so late! Some of these I wrote on time but didn’t post because they were written so quickly, and the rest I wrote out on paper but didn’t have time to type up till today. Hope you enjoy anyway

Today I had culture class, then met up with our Chinese class to go eat lunch together before the multi-class field trip to the Lin Mansion (I think that’s what it’s called at least?). Ate noodles! Yum.

Then we went on the field trip. That was pretty fun, although I didn’t understand a lot of the history. It was at a mansion, and everything in the mansion was my size! A lot of tiny rooms and fun places to explore.

tiny room I found! I was the only one who could actually stand up in it, I think. Right after this Bk told me there was a spider on my back (lies!) and I evacuated as quickly as possible, though.

It did rain a lot, though–I was glad I bring my umbrella everywhere. After we left, some of us decided to go to Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) for dinner. It ended up just being me, Bk, Ky, D and A, which worked out perfectly–there were 5 of us, and each order of 小籠包 includes 10 of them, so we each got 2 per order. That was delicious of course–better than the one in Arcadia, although I’ve heard that even though 鼎泰豐 is the most famous, there are better 小籠包 places in Taiwan. It was kind of exciting that I’d been to the same restaurant in both California and Taiwan–I want to go back to the one in CA and order in Chinese! That would be fun.

After we ate, Bk and Ky left and A and I decided to go to 五分埔 to shop, so D just went back. I got jeans at 五分埔; the guy at the stall there was really helpful. I like the people here–they’re really direct about things. A was trying on a pair of jeans, and I was looking at another pair that looked like they fit well but were kind of a strange color. I’m so used to just buying whichever jeans that fit that I didn’t really care about the color, as long as they actually fit. The owner of the shop saw me holding them up to see if they fit, and came over and took them away and gave me another pair that he said were a better color for me and more suitable (I got a lot of practice listening to Chinese today…). They were all the same price, so it definitely wasn’t to get more money. He just thought those jeans were better. That was cool though–they actually fit really well, which was wonderful, and they’re really soft. And he was right–I like that color a lot better. And they were cheap! Yay. I need jeans, so that was good. I was planning to buy a dress at another place, and the lady asked me which color I wanted to get. I held up the 2 I was thinking about, and she looked at the dresses, looked me up and down, then grabbed one and put it in a bag, saying it looked better and that the other one was good looking but not suitable for my coloring at all.

One kind of random thing was that every single time a vendor actually talked to me (besides the usual 歡迎光臨/你好), they commented on me being skinny. Every single time. It happens a lot, but still. Crystal said Taiwanese people will comment on anything unusual they see about you, so I guess I experienced it a lot today. Actually, I almost forgot about this, but earlier when we were walking around looking for 鼎泰豐, we asked this couple which way it was, and after explaining all the directions very slowly in English (to A, who asked him in Chinese), he asked where we were from. A said mostly America, and he pointed to me and asked where I was from. I told him I was also a 美國人, and he was taken aback that I was white but spoke Chinese and then proceeded to ask me several times why I was so skinny and short, and then told me I needed to eat more hamburgers because I didn’t seem like an American at all. I just kind of stood there and nodded and laughed and turned progressively more red while he told me that I needed to eat more and get fatter, and said it was a good thing I was going to 鼎泰豐 because I’d eat a lot there  (while his wife and my friends around me laughed too…). When we finally said goodbye and thanked him and started walking away, there was a pause–then A said, “Wow, Taiwanese people really do love making fun of you, don’t they.”

Sigh. It would seem to be true. Now A and Ch call me 小小 sometimes, too…oh, dear.

July 26, 2010 禮拜一 : Late-night hike

Not too much happened for most of today–culture class was only mildly interesting, since I was so tired from last night. I got to see K at least! Hadn’t seen her in almost 3 days, which here feels like a really long time. And we’re leaving in less than a week, too–I can’t believe that, still. It feels like I’ll be here forever.

Anyway, after culture class I went to My with D and K. Got 牛肉湯麵 again, which was really good. I know it’s simple, but I’ll only be able to eat it for a limited time! Oh no! I got to use my Daiso chopsticks, though, which was fun. No more wooden ones for me.

In Chinese class, we watched Eat Drink Man Woman (飲食男女), which I’d seen before with Mommy and Daddy and Allison. It was a little more interesting this time because I actually understood a lot of what they were saying, a lot more than I had the first time I saw it. It’s still kind of a strange movie, though.

After class, a bunch of us tried to go to the 四川 place one last time–but of course, it was closed. It turned out a lot of places are closed on Mondays; I’m not entirely sure why. We ended up just going to a Thai food place on the corner. That was okay, but I was still kind of hungry even after we ate.

D,E, T, and J had gone for a hike to the temple on top of our mountain (I’m not sure what it’s called) earlier in the afternoon, before dinner. I was somewhat disappointed; I had wanted to go but fell asleep instead. When I told D that, he said he’d go with me at night if I still wanted to. We finished our Chinese, asked some other people (all of whom thought we were completely insane) and left at around 10:15. It’s something of a walk up a road to the trail, which is all just stone stairs. We were both really unsure at first, especially because right when we started up this guy walking by yelled out to us, “Careful! Snakes! Snakes!” We talked about the stupidity of going on the hike, and how it went against almost every rule I learned in Girl Scouts about hiking (we didn’t have a phone or first aid, although people knew where we were), and how if we were in a movie the audience would be saying “Don’t do it! Go back! Go back! Don’t be stupid!”, but we kept going anyway. It may have been a really stupid idea, but it ended up being really fun. We just kept talking to keep our minds off of anything scary, and were really, REALLY careful and kept our eyes on the ground. Eventually, we finally got to the temple–the view was AMAZING. It was absolutely crazy–I was blown away. We decided it was like looking at a geography map…but in real life, since everything was laid out before us like on a map and we could see mountains and rivers that aren’t visible from the lower areas. D said it’s better than the view from 101, since you can actually see 101 and you’re not just looking straight down at the tops of buildings–since it’s on a mountain, it’s kind of like a side/bird’s eye view, so you can see a LOT. We could see the ferris wheel we went on last week–it looked really tiny! And I thought you could see a lot of Taipei from that ferris wheel, too–that was nothing compared to this. So we just stood up there talking and looking at the view for awhile. Then, this pack of dogs that had been sleeping next to the temple started wandering around, so we got kind of freaked out. The dogs ended up settling down so that they were blocking the entrance to the stairs going back down–our only exit to get back home. So…we stayed and admired the view for a bit longer. It was really intense at one point–I opened my bag, and when I ripped the Velcro open every single dog heard it, froze, and looked straight at me. That was scary. It was like in a movie. When the dogs didn’t move and seemed pretty set to stay there the whole night, we finally decided to sneak past them. It ended up being fine; what seemed to be the alpha dog stared us down the whole time we were walking past, and the others looked at us, but none of them moved. There were a few other people in the temple at that point too, so at least we weren’t alone. Most dogs here seem fairly friendly, anyway–but it was rather frightening all the same. Walking down was a lot faster; the stairs were slippery because it had been raining while we were in the temple, so that was tricky–but we were careful and knew the way, so it was still really fun. We kept having “WAIT WHAT IS THAT OMGOSH IT’S A SNAKE AHHHH oh wait it’s just a snail/frog/moth/leaf…never mind” moments, which definitely kept the adrenaline going. Completely crazy. Maybe I am crazy, but I like doing stuff like that. Random, somewhat scary, interesting and spontaneous things that “normal” people think are insane. All the girls think I’m crazy for sure, but that’s okay. It was really fun; a really good night overall. Strangely enough, it made me really happy. I like adventures, although maybe ones with a little less excitement and uncertainty than this one had…

Okay. Since I got a ton of exercise from all the stairs, I’m really tired. Gonna sleep well tonight for sure. Goodnight, good people!

July 25, 2010

I got to meet up with JHong today! It was completely unexpected–I woke up around 12, and we started talking online and ended up deciding to go to the zoo. He didn’t know how to get there, though, and neither of us have cell phones, so I went to Gongguan to meet him. When my bus was halfway there, though, it started POURING rain. He and I had just had a conversation about him having no umbrella, so I was pretty worried the rest of the way there. When I finally arrived (the bus went slower because of the rain) he was nowhere to be found. After wandering around for about 30 minutes in the pouring rain, we finally found each other! Since it was still raining, we decided we probably couldn’t go to the zoo, so we went back to 政大 to get some lunch and figure out what to do. We actually ran into K and Al on the bus back! They were coming back from the Mayday concert they went to the day before. When JH and I got to 政大, I tried to take him to 45街 and My, but both were closed. We ended up just going to the cafeteria, where only 2 stores were open. We talked for a long time, and realized we probably didn’t have time to go to the zoo anymore, so we just wandered around looking at the campus for awhile–we ended up crossing the river on some random stepping stones, and wandering the bike paths on the other side of the river (政大 has a really nice campus; I’ll try to post pictures later, although the picture at the top of this blog is of part of the campus). Then we went to 誠品, because I found out he hadn’t been there yet! Since that’s the place I’ve been the most, I immediately volunteered it as an option. Unfortunately, we took the bus on the wrong side of the street and ended up all the way in 新店. That worked out, though, because we took the MRT from 新店 to Taipei Main Station (臺北車站) and then transferred to get to the Taipei City Hall stop. At first he had seemed a little surprised that one could spend 2+ hours there, but after we got there he completely understood. So we just walked around looking at books/music and talking more, then went back. I got back around 10, and luckily got the last bus back up. I was soooo sleepy. I still had a Chinese essay to do, but A wanted to come over and talk since there was nothing else to do–all the girls went somewhere else. I ended up going and getting ramen, because I hadn’t eaten any dinner, and on the way I saw the 阿姨 who works in the cafeteria. She told me to eat better dinners (made by her) and told me I should miss her when I go back to America. She’s pretty gruff, but she’s really funny and she seems to like me, for some strange reason.

Anyway, I’d been skyping with D, so A talked to him and described my various issues with trying to eat my ramen. Ended up not finishing my Chinese story till around 1:30, and got into bed at 2. I’m so exhausted…sleep now. Goodnight friends!

July 24, 2010: Jiufen

Today was the program field trip! I got up at the awful hour of 7:30, got Taiwanese breakfast food and soy milk (which I’m now kind of addicted to), left on a tour bus at 8:30, and went to a mountain near Jiufen (九份), then a Gold Museum, then finally to 九份 to shop and look around. There were really amazing views there, even though it ended up pouring rain. I like the rain anyway, so it was fine. K, A, and Al didn’t go (K and Al are only in the culture class, so they would have had to pay for it, and A has already been there and wanted to visit family), which was a little sad, but I had fun anyway I suppose.

The mountain was nice, I suppose–we just walked to a spot where you could look out on the Pacific Ocean, and sat there for awhile enjoying the view. D sang part of an opera song for us (baritones are crazy–I think his voice is at least 5 octaves lower than mine), and then everyone teased me about being Asian and Helen tried to convince me to sing 童話, but I didn’t want to–I don’t remember all the words that well besides the chorus and first verse, and my voice is too high for it anyway.

Amazing view.

Then we walked back, and went to the Gold Ecological Park. That was somewhat interesting–they have the biggest block of gold in the world there. Everyone wanted to take pictures of themselves touching it, but I didn’t much care. It was somewhat strange to look at something that people have died over and started wars over to get.

Also saw a rock concert in Jiufen =D

After that, we went to the 九份 street market area to walk around. I didn’t feel all that much like shopping, so I ended up just walking around with D and J and trying random foods/teas. It was fairly fun, I guess; it started sheeting rain about an hour after we got there, so people were generally ready to go even though the awnings provided a lot of protection from the rain. I liked it! J pointed out that it was probably acid rain, but that’s okay. Probably not any worse than the rain in LA, anyway.

Gold Ecological Park--as Riccardo said, it sounds like some sort of "Save the Gold!" museum.

After getting back, several people wanted to go to Pizza Hut in Gongguan, for some reason. I didn’t really want to go, but I didn’t feel like eating cafeteria food either, so I decided to go with them. I hadn’t realized how tired I was, though–on the bus there, I completely knocked out. Head back, mouth open, deep breathing, everything. They had to wake me up when we got there. Since I was so tired, I was really unhappy to realize that they didn’t actually know where Pizza Hut was–or indeed even if there was a Pizza Hut there. We wandered around for a while, until we finally found a KFC. That was ridiculously expensive, so I just got a chicken wing since I knew that’d fill me up. Didn’t really want to waste money on food that I can get in the US and don’t even like very much. I actually liked the fried chicken better here! C and I walked around for a while after dinner, since she wanted to buy shorts, and then we went back.Very long day. Fun though, and a good experience.

July 23, 2010

Yes, I went to culture class today–it was actually very interesting this time. The professor was very good, very engaging. He was from the University of Richmond, VA. A said he teaches more like an American professor because he has an outline and keeps on topic, while she said Taiwanese professors tend to talk about whatever they feel is relevant at the moment instead of planning things out beforehand. Also, this professor actually answered our questions and seemed to feel our opinions and studies were interesting, which was a really nice vibe to get from a professor. AND his wife was a Linguistics major! Apparently she talked a lot about “government and binding,” which sounds like she studied syntax, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ll have to ask him on Monday. A lot of the other students fell asleep since he talked a lot about the 20th century and the various wars and alliances involved there, but I was surprisingly interested–history usually does not interest me especially, but I found this fascinating. From what I’ve heard, though, many of the other international students didn’t learn a lot of the things he talked about, such as the details of the Cold War and the various nuclear capabilities of countries around the world and how that could play out in any sort of war. I’ve read a lot about those things just out of general interest, so I could follow the references he made and the conclusions he drew from these connections between countries and the resulting official (or unofficial) documentation. Pretty excited to hear more about it Monday, although I think we’re just watching a video. He was a really interesting lecturer.

Chinese class was fairly uneventful. During a break, I tried to talk to 老師 about some of the research Calvin is doing on Mandarin vowels/finals, because I’m trying to learn Zhuyin and the pronunciation for “qing” was something like “q i eng”, just like in the examples Calvin had me record. The example she ended up finally understanding (I had some trouble [okay, a lot of trouble] communicating even the basic idea–she thought I had a friend who wasn’t pronouncing Chinese right, and then she thought I was pronouncing it wrong, and then she was just confused) was when I finally explained that he was studying the difference between “yin” (因為的因) vs “ying” (英文的英) and how the sound of the “i” there was different even though it’s supposedly the same in pinyin–but the vowel difference is visible in Zhuyin, even though she told me that many people in Taiwan say them the same way. Most of my difficulty was that I hadn’t prepared at all to ask her about all this–I didn’t know how to say “vowel” or so many of the other words that would have helped explain what I was getting at. After we finally understood each other, though, she had each member of the class say “yin” and then “ying” repeatedly. That was really interesting, because when you’re a non-native speaker learning Pinyin, as far as you know there is no difference. I only found out about it from talking to Calvin. Some of the heritage speakers in our class had a slight difference between the vowels, although when she asked them if the 2 words’ vowels were different or not they said they sounded the same–even though they were saying them differently. Sooo interesting–but I’m pretty sure everyone else thought I was crazy and wasting our classtime.

Puddle. The bubble tea had to be sacrificed to prove just how deep it really was.

It thunderstormed during class, complete with showers galore. And we discovered yet another issue with our dorms: the drains weren’t working outside the doors, so we had to walk on a ledge and climb over a railing to get around the 4-inch-deep puddle blocking the (fortunately raised) area in front of the doors.

After class, I went to 忠孝復興 (an MRT station in the Daan District) with A to meet with K and Mi. We had been planning to leave with Mi, but there was a misunderstanding, so Mi left without us and by the time we got there they were already eating. Some of the boys were planning to go eat conveyor belt sushi, so I’d asked them to call us when they did just in case we couldn’t eat with K and Mi. They called and said they were coming, so we walked around and went to a Japanese dollar store (called Daiso) till they got there. Daiso had really random journals–one said in French “Even when I look in the mirror, I still have ears.” And then there were these:

I thought of Mommy when I saw this one!

Hello. This is a Penguin.

Then we FINALLY ate dinner–at 8pm. I was starving. Only ate 4 plates though, which is a lot for me–12 pieces of sushi total. I probably could have eaten more, because 6 of the pieces were on one plate and were really tiny, but oh well. Next time hopefully! It’s only about US$1 per plate, which compared to LA conveyor belt (or carousel, as A calls it) sushi is pretty cheap.

We had been planning to go to 士林夜市 (Shilin night market) to shop with K and Mi, but somehow that didn’t work out either. So instead we decided to go to KTV. That was really fun! It was with Bk, his girlfriend K, A, JC, D, E, T, and B. We got to sing a lot more Taiwanese and Mandarin songs than we did last time with the huge group, since no one in the group was in the very beginner class; we all spoke at least a little Chinese. That was exciting! It was also fairly difficult since the words often went by way too fast to read, but they were a lot of fun to try to keep up with. We sang a song from Meteor Garden! Hurray! And another one by F4, although I forget which one. We should have sung 不得不愛, but I forgot about it. The Joline songs were really good too. My favorite by far though was My Heart Will Go On, by Celine Dion–D and I sang it, which was REALLY fun because it was actually in my range and D can harmonize really well, and harmonizing makes me really happy for some reason. But the best part was that Bk started doing some sort of extremely dramatic, exaggerated interpretive dance while we were singing. I started laughing so hard I could barely breathe, much less sing. Oh, goodness. Good memories.

Okay, time for bed now. Things started out kind of weird because of the many miscommunications, but it turned out to be a really good night anyway. I’m glad.

July 22, 2010

Ahh! I’m sorry, I’m always so behind with this blog!

Let’s see, what happened today. Since I went to sleep so late I didn’t go to culture class this morning–我是一個不好的學生；I am a bad student. I think I needed the sleep, though–I haven’t really been getting very much, but I got to sleep almost till 12:30. I did go to chinese class, but everyone there was exhuasted, even the people who didn’t go out the night before, so it wasn’t too exciting. Directly after class, K, A, Mi, D, and I went to a ferris wheel on top of the Miramar mall. That was really cool! Some good memories: Mi yelling, “MOS BURGER!!!” while walking through the MRT station, and giving us all heart attacks because it was so unexpected. And then trying to cross the street and getting confused about where the crosswalk was (there was a diagonal one, but it was only for use during certain hours) and then realizing there wasn’t a walk sign anymore and running back across the street to where we started. Also, talking about crazy things people could get up to in the ferris wheel cars in the 20 min or so it took to go one revolution. And teasing D for saying “revolution” in the first place, and for wanting to correct the wrong physics information he mentioned to Mi even after 20 min had passed. Pretty funny–I completely understand the [nerdy] impulse.

The ferris wheel was HUGE. And on top of a building. I think I'm half glad we couldn't get a transparent car...

Then we went to Mos Burger for dinner, then went straight home. Although we didn’t leave that late,  it was a fairly long MRT ride back, so we got back to the dorms fairly late, and then I stayed up even later to do my part of the Chinese class presentation on American history. 老師 is having us present on our countries’ histories, and since there are 5 of us from the US (not counting E, who is being forced to do Hong Kong again) we’re doing the presentation together. However, since it’s supposed to be 10 slides total we’re each only doing two slides–that’s 10 slides for the last 400+ years. My topics are the Great Depression and World War II. One slide for each. Goodness. Pretty heavy topics to talk about in such a short time, and with such limited vocabulary.

Hm. Something somewhat strange happened today. Riding the subway to the ferris wheel, we were just sitting and talking and there was a Cantonese family sitting in the same car but in a different set of seats. There were a couple flashes from their camera, but I didn’t really think anything of it. Then, I looked over and realized one of their kids (probably around 11 years old) was taking pictures of me! And then I realized I was the only white one among our group of 5, and in the whole car. That was very odd. Others in our program have been approached for pictures, but usually W because he’s so tall, or L because he’s light-haired and incredibly tall (he’s German). I was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of some stranger’s kid taking pictures of me, especially when I looked over again and the whole family of 4 was all looking at me. It was very strange, especially since I’m used to being around people of all kinds and/or being the only white person among a bunch of other people and no one noticing or caring. Apparently some people do here, though. Others just assume since I’m here I speak Chinese, and treat me like everyone else. Either one is an experience, I guess.

I still am not comfortable with the idea of people taking my picture because I’m white, though. Even though I was told to expect it, it’s strange to actually experience it. Like, “Look, a 外國人 on the subway–I must document this to show my friends!” Very odd. Like I’m another exhibit to experience here.

July 21, 2010: 禮拜三

Today was not so good. I was completely exhausted. The culture class lecturer was better today–but I still fell asleep in class, even though I felt bad for doing it. That class is getting a little crazy–they dropped the bomb that we have to do a 10-page paper choosing an approach to global economic issues, and basically use that approach’s viewpoint to solve the problems between Taiwan and China. I’m not really an economics person, so that will be fairly difficult. I know many people aren’t planning to do it at all, since most of us aren’t getting credit for this at all. We’ll see, I guess.

View from my Chinese classroom--Taipei 101! Clouds here are amazing.

After Chinese class, I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out clubbing later. The girls were planning to go to Luxy, and the guys wanted to get on the list in case they decided to go too, even though they wanted a club with “free flow”–unlimited drinks. Since I knew someone who said she might be able to get the guys onto a list and get them in free too (it was Ladies’ Night, so girls got in free), I needed to know which guys were going where. However, there was disagreement about where we should go because of the whole drinks thing, so that took quite a while. “Most people” ate ramen for dinner, but I was starving. Everyone else apparently went somewhere else. Luckily, D skyped me asking if I wanted to get dinner since he wasn’t sure where everyone else was either, so we just went to a recommended Malaysian place on the street in front of the school. It was pretty good, if a little exciting–I got something that I knew came with rice, but otherwise had no idea what it was in the first place. It turned out to be anchovies and bok choy on rice. I’m not especially fond of anchovies, but they were fine anyway. Then we went to the Chinese yo-yo class! That was really fun. I had many difficulties, but the teacher (who looked around our age, actually) was really nice and helpful, and eventually I kind of got it. Hopefully next week will be good too! He can do absolutely amazing tricks, and taught us a few that look really cool too. I kind of want to buy one when I get back to the States! Very fun to play with, and fairly addicting.

After yo-yo class, we all went back to the dorms. I was exhausted and was planning to stay in even though almost everyone else was going clubbing. Unfortunately, I was informed that I would be forcefully dragged there in my sweats if I didn’t get out of bed, so I ended up going anyway. We went to Luxy first, while the guys went to Lava. There were 6 of us girls, so we flagged down a cab to take us there and were about to flag down another one when the driver told us to just all get in. That was a little too exciting for me–I ended up sitting on both Ka and J’s laps, trying to hold onto the backs of the front seats. Taxi drivers in Taiwan aren’t the most law-abiding when it comes to traffic as it is, so it was something of a harrowing ride. Fairly cheap, though. Finally, we got to Luxy. Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite empty–there were 2 dance floors, and one was completely empty while the other only had a few people on it. Luckily, it was free, so we just left. I had been hoping Luxy would be fun, because Lava (the other club, with unlimited drinks) is about US$10, and since I don’t really drink it’s not particularly worth it to go there. We went, though, and…it was not very fun. There were way too many people, so it was much too crowded to even dance comfortably. Sometimes I really don’t like being small; I would go flying whenever anyone tried to push past me, which was incredibly annoying and happened every 2 mintues. And they had the dancing contest again, so A and I just went off to the hallway and talked (ie, compared the decor of Luxy to that of Lava in great detail) while they were doing that. We ended up just leaving at 2:30, and getting a cab back. There were “killer bees” in the bathroom at the dorms, which was exciting and involved a lot of screaming. I just showered, brushed my teeth, and got straight into bed. SO sleepy. To be honest, I think I should have just stayed back at the dorms…but oh well. Glad to be sleeping, I guess.

July 20, 2010：禮拜二

Today was good! Culture class was kind of annoying, because it turned into a rant on how Taiwan is better than China and a bunch of other stuff on idealistic economic theory. I wouldn’t really mind some of what he said normally, but whenever anyone tried to ask a question or get him to clarify a point, he would brush them off or go on a tangent. Also, in my opinion he was way too optimistic about China’s view toward Taiwan in the present and in the future.

Anyway, I ate fried rice for lunch–yum. Somewhat ironically, it tasted just like it does in the US. After class, I went to the 101 area to see Inception. That was AMAZING. It blew my mind…I’m still kind of tripping out from thinking about it. I had some major difficulties today: I was really tired, and used the wrong end of my chopsticks in the food court. Then I tried to get a napkin, but forgot how to say napkin. The staff at Burger King went crazy trying to find someone who knew what “napkin” meant, but eventually we figured it out. After that, we went to the wholesale place (Wufenpu, I think–五分埔) and shopped. It was kind of a strange place, though–I prefer the night markets. Nothing there was really my style, and what was was much too expensive. I’m not planning to buy any more clothes till maybe the end of the trip (as E said, I am here to travel and play, not to shop), but it’s still fun to window shop.

After Wufenpu, we wandered around a whole bunch looking for the 611 bus back to 政大. We finally ended up just taking a taxi, because by the time we actually found the bus stop the buses weren’t running anymore.

I talked to the girl who works in the cafeteria–she said the 阿姨 (auntie) who works there keeps asking about me still, but she had already left before I got there. 姐姐 is funny–she’s really nice, and her English is very good! It’s really fun to meet people, especially people actually from Taiwan–they’re very interesting to talk to and compare perspectives with.

Taipei 101

tehe. Fuzzy caterpillar outside the dorms. I'm not sure whether to find it frightening or cute.