Week 7

And I even had the opportunity to experience the tropical typhoons of East Asia, which so often lurk around the island of Taiwan. This time, it was the Fung-Wong typhoon that forced all offices, businesses, restaurants, markets, and most directly affecting me, schools in Taiwan to close down for the day. The city of Taipei, in a matter of hours, turned from the never-sleeping ever-living metropole into a seemingly dead place.
The evening before the storm, I received several emails from teachers informing me of the advent of this natural catastrophe. I went to bed a the usual hour, waking up at the usual hour. However, the morning did not welcome me with the customary sunshine. Taipei was cold. I left my apartment and encountered nothing but a disoriented black dog. No businessmen following their daily trail to work, empty streets, no local shop about to open, was it nighttime? It was definitely dark. I walked for a while with the hope to find a place to get breakfast. The wind was rather strong and the rain overwhelming. I could hardly hold my umbrella. It was surreal, encountering these Chinese alleys as empty as ever. Luckily, I found a convenient store (apparently the only open business during the advent of a storm). I bought water, bread, Japanese candy and rice buns. I made my way back to the apartment, safely, and then stayed in there for the rest of the day. It was good to be in isolation for a while. Just me, a book, and music, something I rarely had the time for during those busy days.
Tomorrow class will start again. I will also start getting busy writing Chinese again, since my teacher selected me to write the script for a class performance, which is to be acted out some time this week. This should be exciting.

Week 6

I can't believe how quickly this Summer went by. I have reached the sixth week. Midterms are over, but the workload picks up. I now complete twice as much homework and memorize about thirty more characters a night. In my classes, we go through lessons at three times the usual speed. I am spending more and more time studying with my language exchange partner. Life has become more stressful, but certainly not less enjoyable. Quite the opposite, actually. Learning Chinese has become part of my daily routine. I knew that back at Yale, Chinese had already taken over my life. Now, I can confidently say that Chinese is my life. I feel the improvement and I am quite content. I remember the first day of classes, where I didn't understand a word my teacher was saying. Now, I can sit back and almost understand everything. I remember the first time I entered a convenient store, and felt embarrassment to even say "xie xie" ("thank you" in Chinese). Now, holding small talks with the local Family Mart cashier is a part of my social entertainment. I remember the first time I had to write an essay about Taiwanese parks. I had to constantly review my sentence structure and check if my characters were correctly drawn. Now, I approach the writing of an essay with nonchalance.
But apart from language skills, Taiwan has also given me a new sense of independence. I came to this island, not knowing anyone, not knowing anything about the culture, not knowing if I would find an apartment, not knowing what my daily diet would be. It certainly took its time, but I have finally assimilated into this once alien culture. I feel comfortable, now. I have many formed many relationships, I have learned to find an apartment, learned to take out the trash in Taiwan, learned the intricacies of Chinese food, and most importantly learned what it takes to be by oneself in a foreign Asian country.

Language Exchange

For all future Light fellows in Taiwan. Do not miss the opportunity to find a language exchange partner. It is such an valuable asset to your Chinese learning experience. Go on either http://www.tealit.com and click on language exchange, where you can find students offering their Chinese knowledge for your English in exchange, or look at the bulletin board in the ICLP building.

If you are lucky you will find someone with whom you can meet up almost every day of the week.

It is really helpful!

Week 5

I highly recommend a place in the mountains called Maokong. I went last Friday, once again with my teacher Weng Laoshi. We started our trip in Gongguan (Taiwan University) and took the brown-line subway all the way to Taipei Zoo, the last stop. From there you take the gondola up into the mountains until you reach Maokong. The view from up there is spectacular. You are 300 meters above ground and all you see is forest and Taipei 101 soaring into the sky, quite a surreal juxtaposition of nature and the modern times.
Up in Maokong you are no longer surrounded by cars, motorbikes and 7-11 chain stores. Clean air, few people, and family owned tea houses everywhere you go. What a good feeling. We took a walk and ultimately settled in one of the tea houses facing the mountain cliff. From there on the balcony you get the best landscape perspective. We ordered local green tea brewed in traditional ways. You get a large tea kettle with hot water, local tea leaves, tea cups and a small tea pot. The pottery is crafted buy local ceramists, maintaining an artform appropriate for its tea and its area. It was quite an aesthetic experience. The tea tasted excellent and the manner in which it was prepared was an art performance in itself.

Week 4

I went to Longshan Simiao Yeshu, a strange part of town. This supposed "tourist night market" was far away from glamorous and welcoming. Quite the opposite, actually. Snake restaurants, turtle snack bar, birds sold by the dozen, stinking tofu, and fried tiger tail, all make for the right ingredients for a shocking adventure.
Three days earlier in class, my language teacher Weng Laoshi suggested to take me there, claiming this night market would blend right in with our current chapter on night life in Taiwan. I liked her idea, and so we met at the metro station at 7:00 pm on Friday after class.
Our first sight was the local "Longshan" temple. Visiting this temple was an interesting experience, especially having seen many Heian period temples in Kyoto. This Taiwanese temple, rather than presenting itself with simple ornaments and colors, as would be the case in Japan, was flashy with its rainbow colored walls and overwhelming in its opulent architecture. The smell of incense was also overwhelming. I was surprised by the number of people seeking solace and good fortune. Everywhere I looked were people sitting, standing and taking bows in front of archetypal Buddhist statues. It was quite an original sight.
When we left the temple, I was all psyched for our next and final stop - the night market. It was an indoor market, consisting of one long, narrow hall leading from one main street to another on the other side of the building. The entire hall was occupied by restaurants and fish markets. Not of the usual kind, however. Every dish sold here was apparently the product of native Taiwanese culinary creativity. Creative it was for sure, tastiness remains a subjective matter. At the first restaurant was a man comfortably seated on a stool in front of the main entrance. In his left hand he was holding his favorite pet, a large yellow snake, and in his right hand he was holding a microphone, inviting hungry people to try the dish of the day, spicy python soup. Behind him, was a neatly stacked row of cages with all different kinds of snakes, corn snakes, gopher snakes, pythons and of course the infamous rattle snake. I couldn't believe people would actually want to spend a Saturday night eating rattle snake before going to their weekly performance of the Taipai Symphony Orchestra. Apparently, it happens.
Our next restaurant was just as, if not more, perverse. A woman was standing in front of the restaurant showing off her well fed and freshly butchered turtles. I wasn't sure if I was dealing with turtles at first, when I saw her holding one up, until I realized she had already removed the shell. It was quite shocking and I definitely did not want to eat there either.
A few steps further, there was an old man selling birds trapped in fishing nets. In my hope to liberate some of them, I asked him if he would sell me one net for 200 TN (about $7), but unfortunately my bargain did not lead to success. What a hopeless evening for all these innocent animals.
Nevertheless, since my teacher and I hadn't eaten dinner (and were not planning on eating at this night market), we went to a local chou (stinking) tofu place. This is old tofu drenched in a thick spicy soup. Every time you walk passed a chou tofu restaurant, you can just based on the distinctive, quite unpleasant smell, infer immediately what kind of restaurant you are dealing with. I had never tried it, and although the smell is not inviting, I did not want to make a final judgment before eating it. We stopped at a good restaurant and I ordered a full plate of chou tofu. To all foreigners out there who are not yet accustomed to the taste of chou tofu. Be cauteous! It tastes terrible!