Saturday, June 28, 2008
24 Hour Bookstore
Here is a piece of advice for anyone traveling to Taipei in the future. This past weekend, a friend dropped me off at a place called "The Eslite Tunhua" bookstore at 1:00 in the morning, which is located at 245 Tunhua S. Rd., Sec. 1, Taipei (台北市敦化南路一段245號). The bookstore is open 24 hours a day and has a collection of Chinese as well as English works, including books that I definitely did not expect to find there. You will also be surprised by the well selected classical music in the background, and most importantly, the large number of people sitting on the floor reading books at any hour of the day. It almost feels as if you are entering a popular mainstream clothing store during the afternoon on a Saturday of shopping, except this store only sells books and was just as popular at 1:00 in the morning.
Week 3
I knew that finding people practicing Taiji at 1:00 in the morning is a difficult task. My friend and I went anyway.
We had spent the entire Saturday in a place called Ximen. Wu Laoshi, a teacher from the ICLP program, had taken us there to dinner. This is the "Japanese" part of Taipei. The streets are pedestrian friendly, clean and lid up by advertising. Everywhere, Japanese restaurants, Karaoke bars, and 7/11 convenient stores with colorfully dressed Asians buying Pocari Sweat drinks.
After a long meal and conversation in Chinese, Wu Laoshi went home, leaving my friend and I alone in this rather queer part of town. Since we had nothing better to do, we hit a cinema close by. By the time we finished, it was almost 12:00, the last possible time to catch our train home. We frantically ran to the next subway station and luckily, made it. In the subway we realized that Chang Kai'shek Memorial Hall was one of the stops, which according to our teacher, has an interesting Chinese park. This park was only a couple of stops away from the apartment, so we decided to stop there to visit the park and possibly interview some people, in the hope to find adequate answers for our homework for Monday.
We came out of the subway station, and encountered a grand plaza with large buildings with typical Asian roofs, two on the left, and one tower in the middle. This place reminded me of the imperial palace in Kyoto, but definitely with its own touch of Chinese culture. Astounded by the ambience, we aimlessly walked through the area in the hope to find a park. Finally, we reached it, and surprisingly at this hour, there were people to, unfortunately, no one practicing Taiji. We asked five different people if we could find a place to do Taiji, but everyone with responded with the same confusion: “no, only at 5:00 in the morning.” We were contemplating on whether to stay in the park and wait for the sunrise and join the Taiwanese in their daily Taiji, but it was getting too late, so we took a cab home.
We had spent the entire Saturday in a place called Ximen. Wu Laoshi, a teacher from the ICLP program, had taken us there to dinner. This is the "Japanese" part of Taipei. The streets are pedestrian friendly, clean and lid up by advertising. Everywhere, Japanese restaurants, Karaoke bars, and 7/11 convenient stores with colorfully dressed Asians buying Pocari Sweat drinks.
After a long meal and conversation in Chinese, Wu Laoshi went home, leaving my friend and I alone in this rather queer part of town. Since we had nothing better to do, we hit a cinema close by. By the time we finished, it was almost 12:00, the last possible time to catch our train home. We frantically ran to the next subway station and luckily, made it. In the subway we realized that Chang Kai'shek Memorial Hall was one of the stops, which according to our teacher, has an interesting Chinese park. This park was only a couple of stops away from the apartment, so we decided to stop there to visit the park and possibly interview some people, in the hope to find adequate answers for our homework for Monday.
We came out of the subway station, and encountered a grand plaza with large buildings with typical Asian roofs, two on the left, and one tower in the middle. This place reminded me of the imperial palace in Kyoto, but definitely with its own touch of Chinese culture. Astounded by the ambience, we aimlessly walked through the area in the hope to find a park. Finally, we reached it, and surprisingly at this hour, there were people to, unfortunately, no one practicing Taiji. We asked five different people if we could find a place to do Taiji, but everyone with responded with the same confusion: “no, only at 5:00 in the morning.” We were contemplating on whether to stay in the park and wait for the sunrise and join the Taiwanese in their daily Taiji, but it was getting too late, so we took a cab home.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Week 2
I have finally settled into my permanent apartment. It was last Sunday evening when I carried my heavy suitcase through half of Taipei. I took the subway from Taipei Power Station, which is where I was living for the first week, to the busy Yongan Market. Yongan is a lively area with many shops, restaurants and lights. My apartment faces the the main attraction, Zhonghe Road, but the noise, fortunately, does not reach as far as the top floor. I have a peaceful and considerably large apartment. It was recently renovated and feels quite comfortable. The only problem is my Chinese communication with the landlord, who shows up every now and then to check up on me. She does not speak one word of English and my Chinese is still not advanced enough to seal an affordable monthly deal for a student apartment. Thus, for our first meeting she had organized an interpreter to translate what I said to her, thank god. In English, I was able to settle business and persuade her that I could move in on Sunday, the day before my classes.
I arrived at 11:00 pm. The apartment was empty. White walls, minimalist decoration and no sign of life. I went outside and bought three plants, fruits, and some speakers, so that I could finally listen to my favorite Bruckner Symphony, the 7th. When I came back it was already quite late and I was ready to go to bed, anxious about my first day of classes. I read a little, took a shower, prepared my bed, which was still a blank mattress at the time, and fell asleep.
My first day of classes went well. My daily schedule begins at 10:10 a.m. which makes my life much easier than some other students who have to show up as early as 8:00 a.m. I have three classes of intensive Chinese every day. Surprisingly, none of my classes is larger than three people (including myself). In fact, I have two classes with only three people, and one individual class where it is only me and the teacher. I think it really promotes fast learning and understanding. As far as I am concerned, I already feel improvement. For homework, I have to memorize about thirty words a night (which is about fifty characters, although some of them I have already learned). I also need to do grammar work, which is ok because so far most has been pretty much review from what I have learned at Yale. What's really good though are the teachers. My individual teacher, for instance, seems really experienced at what she is doing. She just has a great way of asking me questions so that I would have to use my new words and put them into practice. So, essentially the individual class is mostly for improving my speaking skills. One class is on Taiwanese culture and the other is solely on grammar and vocabulary. In the Taiwanese culture class, we only speak and debate in a group, and then in the other it is mostly our teacher who speaks and explains grammatical more theoretical aspects of the Chinese language.
One aspect about ICLP that is difficult getting used to is that everything is absolutely in Chinese and the teachers speak very fast, assuming that you already understand them. It is literally a total language immersion! They want us to get into the mindset of only using Chinese and hearing it in its natural setting, all the time. The funny thing is though, when we got our sheet for this week's homework, I couldn't read anything and thought we had almost no homework... Until of course the next day I realized we had to write a report and prepare an oral report. It's really intense, as we have to read a long text and answer questions about it orally. We also have to write essays in Chinese (basic Chinese in my case, but i am improving). Overall it's an exciting experience so far.
I am happy to have completed one week of class. I will have to study very much this weekend, but I plan on doing something outside of class, as in going to the museum or night market at some point over the next few days. Actually one of our homework for this weekend is to go to a local park and interview four people about their experience there. This should be an interesting activity as well.
I arrived at 11:00 pm. The apartment was empty. White walls, minimalist decoration and no sign of life. I went outside and bought three plants, fruits, and some speakers, so that I could finally listen to my favorite Bruckner Symphony, the 7th. When I came back it was already quite late and I was ready to go to bed, anxious about my first day of classes. I read a little, took a shower, prepared my bed, which was still a blank mattress at the time, and fell asleep.
My first day of classes went well. My daily schedule begins at 10:10 a.m. which makes my life much easier than some other students who have to show up as early as 8:00 a.m. I have three classes of intensive Chinese every day. Surprisingly, none of my classes is larger than three people (including myself). In fact, I have two classes with only three people, and one individual class where it is only me and the teacher. I think it really promotes fast learning and understanding. As far as I am concerned, I already feel improvement. For homework, I have to memorize about thirty words a night (which is about fifty characters, although some of them I have already learned). I also need to do grammar work, which is ok because so far most has been pretty much review from what I have learned at Yale. What's really good though are the teachers. My individual teacher, for instance, seems really experienced at what she is doing. She just has a great way of asking me questions so that I would have to use my new words and put them into practice. So, essentially the individual class is mostly for improving my speaking skills. One class is on Taiwanese culture and the other is solely on grammar and vocabulary. In the Taiwanese culture class, we only speak and debate in a group, and then in the other it is mostly our teacher who speaks and explains grammatical more theoretical aspects of the Chinese language.
One aspect about ICLP that is difficult getting used to is that everything is absolutely in Chinese and the teachers speak very fast, assuming that you already understand them. It is literally a total language immersion! They want us to get into the mindset of only using Chinese and hearing it in its natural setting, all the time. The funny thing is though, when we got our sheet for this week's homework, I couldn't read anything and thought we had almost no homework... Until of course the next day I realized we had to write a report and prepare an oral report. It's really intense, as we have to read a long text and answer questions about it orally. We also have to write essays in Chinese (basic Chinese in my case, but i am improving). Overall it's an exciting experience so far.
I am happy to have completed one week of class. I will have to study very much this weekend, but I plan on doing something outside of class, as in going to the museum or night market at some point over the next few days. Actually one of our homework for this weekend is to go to a local park and interview four people about their experience there. This should be an interesting activity as well.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Week 1
Taipei has already been quite an adventure. Exactly one week has passed since my arrival on that rather humid day. I had been double-jet-lagged, tired, hungry, anxious, but exited to finally enter Taiwan. I had spent a week in Kyoto, arrived in JFK to spend one night before flying home to Düsseldorf, then after a week home, I finally arrived here in Taipei. At the airport, I felt welcomed, not interrogated. by the customs official. Surprised by how nonchalant he asked me for my purpose of stay, I handed him my passport. He glimpsed at it for a few seconds and without asking me for fingerprints or any personal information, which I expected him to ask me, he simply handed it back and welcomed me to Taiwan in his rather Chinese accent. I was ready and comfortable to enter the island. I picked up my luggage, I ran to the first spot for a taxi and frantically handed the driver a piece of paper with the address of the university written in both English and Chinese characters. He seemed to know where I needed to go and drove me to the place. It was an unexpectedly long drive. After an hour, I arrived at the building for international students. I paid the driver and entered the building. It was noon and I arrived at the right time to register my arrival as a student. Joanna, the secretary at the office, asked me sign a couple of forms and took a copy of my passport. Then, to my surprise, she handed me a schedule of the exam I was supposed to take the next day. In the midst of my state of anxiety and extreme fatigue, I was shocked to have to take an exam the next day, but without hesitance I marked the best possible time to take the exam. After marking the time, she handed me an envelope with a key. This was the key to my provisional apartment, which my landlord had left for me to pick up. I was to stay there for ten days before moving on to something long term. With the key, I left the international student office and looked for a taxi, once again. This time in less of a haste, I found one and asked the driver to take me to the location of my apartment. It was a short drive and the driver tried to converse with me in both English and Chinese. After ten minutes he dropped me at the door of the apartment. At this point, the only thing I needed and wanted was sleep, long sleep until I would wake up the next day. I entered the apartment. It was a small room, about half the size of the room I had at Yale. I took a shower, turned on the air conditioning, and fell asleep, instantly. I slept for fifteen hours when I woke up at five in the morning. I felt energized, ready to explore my area. First, I unpacked my suitcase, sent out emails informing my friends and family of my arrival, and finally took another shower. Then at seven in the morning I went out to get breakfast. I had Taiwanese fruit, which consists of guave and unusual pears, some noodles and green tea. Then I went back to the international students office and met a friend of mine from Yale. The day passed quickly. In the evening we went to the Shida night market, located closely to my apartment. The rest of the week also passed quickly as I would spent my time trying to find an apartment and getting to know some of the classmates I will be in close contact with over the course of the next two months. Today, I finally found a suitable apartment which I am excited to move in this Saturday. Tomorrow is orientation and then classes will begin next week. I am really excited for everything to start.
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