easy rider taiwan

Forgive the "i am selling taiwan" style of this... it was actually written to "sell taiwan" go figure... 

In the summer of 2009, I succumbed to over a decade of procrastination, and made the terrible mistake of getting a nine-to-five job. Most sane people get fed up with their work, their alarm clocks, their monotonous lives and their routines, but I’ve made a religion of it. I’ve worked very hard to avoid working hard, and I wasn’t at all happy with my new situation. The stability left me feeling lifeless and unoriginal.

My restlessness and fear of responsibility finally caught up with me, and in mid-August, I asked my boss for a couple of weeks off. She agreed and I excitedly raced home to plan my journey. After fourteen cups of coffee, I’d reviewed all my Taiwan maps and guide books, and had a rough idea of my Taiwanese motorcycle trip. I watched Easy Rider and Into the Wild, and decided to combine the two- minus the uglier scenes of course.

On a sunny weekend morning, I loaded a tent, sleeping bag and small backpack onto my jalopy of a motor scooter and started my adventure. It took me about an hour to navigate my way out of the chaotic maze of Taipei city, but by lunchtime, the buildings had disappeared, the eight-lane boulevards had become sleepy mountain roads, and the rocky coastline rolled out in front of me. For the first time in months, I felt free… no schedule, no alarm clock, no expectations, no hurry. The thought of the unknown, the intoxication of freedom, the new found oxygen; within two hours, life was exciting again!

My first stop was the coastal town of Fulong. Known for its long, sandy beaches, phenomenal bicycle trails, and proximity to Turtle Island, Fulong and neighboring Daxi are both popular weekend trips for Taipe-ers. After finding a good campsite (Longmen Campgrounds), I started on my quest to become “raisin colored” and napped on the beach all day. The next day, I embarked on the Caoling Trail; this is one of Taiwan’s remaining historical roads. Originally created as a passageway from the North to the East of the island, it now offers superb hiking. The trail can be completed in a few hours and it offers a unique look at Taiwan’s history as well as incredible views of the coast. I went through valleys of reeds, past meadows and rice fields and even got to see grazing water buffalo. On this trail, absent of motor vehicles or crowds, I was able to imagine this island through the ages- to imagine a time before trains and flashing lights, when it was inhabited by simple fisherman and farmers.

After another day of lazing on the beach, I headed further south past Yilan. This section of the trip ended up being one of my favorites; the highway took me slightly inland, nestled between rice farms, lakes, mountains and more rice farms. Here, you get a feel for the “real Taiwan”- a region where life has stayed the same for generations. Everywhere I went, people saw my gear tied onto the scooter and couldn’t help but smile.

Everyone had the same questions:

You are a foreigner traveling alone? You have no itinerary? You’re gonna be on the road for how long? You don’t mind that you’re skin looks like that of a raisin? Everyone encouraged me, letting out a jia you (keep going!) as I passed by. They drew maps on napkins and offered tea or fruit, thrilled at the appreciation I had for their beautiful country.

The next few days took me through the bustling port town of Nan Fang Ao (famous for fresh seafood) and down the (in)famous Su Ao Highway. This treacherous section of highway is the gateway between northern and southern Taiwan, and a staple of any visit to the island. The highway climbs to 1,000 meters above sea level and takes you precariously close to the cliff’s edge. Zigzagging along the coast is a great adventure, offering some of the best views in all of Taiwan.

After feeding my adrenaline and taking a couple hundred photos, I made my way into Hua Lian, where I spent the next few days, enjoying the beaches, river tracing and cycling.

After three days of rest and large meals, I was ready to start the real adventure. Up to that point, my trip had been fun, but I’d been on a path traveled by many, a path traveled by tour groups and elderly people. Most of the sights I’d seen had been in Lonely Planet’s “not to be missed” section, meaning- they weren’t exciting enough.

Finally I’d be venturing into the central mountains, an area seldom visited and a true departure from modern day Taiwan. This meant: no 7-Eleven’s, no 24-hour gas stations, no people to draw maps for me. The plan was to ride through Taroko Gorge, and then follow the highway up into the mountains, heading north along the “spine” of Taiwan.

Taroko National Park has been the subject of a million travel articles and for good reason.

It is INCREDIBLE!

With its vibrant blue rivers, psychedelic rock formations and traditional pagodas, this marble canyon is truly a must-see.  I got there with time for some trekking and souvenir shopping before the town went to sleep. I found a small campsite (the park has several areas to camp for free) and set up for the night. As the last of the vendors and tourists disappeared, the park became eerily quiet. While the park’s population can swell to hundreds during the day, the nighttime population shrinks to a few dozen. Accompanied only by crickets and the rush of the Li Wu River, I’d finally made it into the wild. Miles and miles from any cities, the stars shone brighter than I’d ever seen before; I feel asleep gazing up at the Milky Way, feeling truly blessed to have made it this far.

The next morning, I woke up at 6:00, unable to hide from the glaring sun. After a quick breakfast I headed inland along highway 8. As I traveled higher and higher, the climate changed. The marble walls and tropical plants disappeared and I was greeted by big, fat pine trees! Three years in Taiwan and I’d ever known they even had pine trees here. I felt as if I’d made it to the top of the world, looking down on Taroko, looking down on the ocean, on the rice fields and busy cities. I reached the clouds, nearly drowned in the clouds, and then surpassed them… riding on a narrow bridge, surrounded by white on all sides. As I neared Li Shan (2000 meters above sea level), it got cold… then really cold and then… unbearably cold. In August, Taiwan is a sauna; often it’s 30 degrees Celsius with 90% humidity, so this weather came as a bit of a shock. I was not at all prepared.

I’d gradually been putting more and more layers on, until I was wearing everything I owned, including a raincoat and a garbage bag that I’d been filling with dirty laundry. I started to pray for a huge cup of coffee to jump into. Eventually I found myself in the little town of Lishan, and thanked God for the chance to get a hot bowl of soup and get out of the cold for a while. The tiny town intrigued me. What was life like up here? Did they ever get to wear shorts? Had they ever seen a foreigner before? After a quick lunch and as much hot tea as I could physically swallow,

I headed north-this time on Highway 7-for another couple of hours. My final destination for the day was Wuling Farm. This large camping and recreation area was really beautiful. With beautiful trees, waterfalls and rivers for fishing, I felt as if I’d arrived in an American summer camp. Wuling was hot and dry during the day; the air was crisp and “piney.” I camped there, though the area has ample accommodation, from simple hostels to lavish resorts.

After a couple days in Wuling, I headed north towards Taipei. The descent took me almost a full day, gradually leaving behind majestic forests and entering the thick, stagnant, summer air. After a night in Yilan I finally headed back home to Taipei. As I headed down my final mountain road and entered the city, I felt the heat of rush-hour traffic, smelled the exhaust of a million motor scooters, and heard the beeping buses and chattering masses.

Yes, it felt good to be home!

In the end, I couldn’t have asked for a better trip. Though most opt for trains and buses when traveling around Taiwan, I was happy with my decision to take a scooter. The freedom to explore any road and go (or stop) at any time gave this vacation a different flavor. Roads were well maintained (amazing, considering it was about two weeks after Typhoon Marakot); inexpensive (or free) campgrounds were easy to find; and I never drove too far without coming across a small town. Though I was traveling alone, I never felt at risk and I never felt lost. On the contrary, every corner brought new local friends, excited to offer advice or warm conversation.

Taiwan is smaller than most states in my country, but it really does offer a dozen climates, a hundred cultures and a thousand experiences. Visitors often excitedly speak of Taiwan’s busy bight markets and soothing hot springs. My advice to them is always the same: “Now you need to get a map (and a warm coat) and explore the rest! Go swim in the Pacific, hike through a marble canyon and sway with the palm trees. Breathe the thick fog of the pines and travel above the clouds, peering down at this intriguing little island.”

past journal entries...random traveling

2006/ Feb 5. I am lying on the floor of the Orlando airport, ready to kiss the sky with excitement.

2006/ Feb 13. It is a quarter till twelve. I woke up to Doña Rosa and that asshole fighting again. He was slamming her up against the corrugated metal wall and it echoed into my side of the barn. What the fuck am I doing here? I have a head full of cocaine and I’m still drunk from last night. This is the most awkward, insecure trip I’ve ever taken. And this is the most awkward, insecure place I’ve ever had to call a home. I don’t trust Doña Rosa or any of the crack heads she deals with. Fuck, I don’t even trust the walls or the ceiling of this place. Clearly, this is not what I’d planned on; the ants in my bed, the spiders in my room, too much sun, no income whatsoever, living in a fucking barn, no one at all to trust. Am I hitting rock bottom? Am I giving up? And wouldn’t it be so much easier to go home? To the air conditioning and the bed and the couch and the kitchen… and we always have so much cheese and yogurt; I have a car and… ohh that house. An American home is like a fortress. Isn’t it? A house without insects or snakes. A house with walls and a sealed roof. But… if I go home… will I have failed? What if I never live abroad again?

2006/ Feb 18. Today, as I ran from Nicaraguan thugs, holding nothing but a boogie board and swim fins, shoeless and penniless, it occurred to me, that this is the first time my carelessness has been a true nuisance. As I walked through a town I’d never wanted to see, to a bed in a barn, to a lonely night, fantasizing about a sixteen-year-old waitress, it occurred to me that I really should have planned better. On this trip, I missed good sights, I wasted days and slept through buses, all because I’m unorganized and lazy. In fact, this whole trip was wasted because I didn’t plan better. This trip cost me over 1500 dollars, not to mention another 3500 because of that fucking strip club, I had to beg my parents for a ticket home, and I am going home with a sunburn, an empty wallet, and an “I told you so.”

And the funny part, is that I am pretty happy with the way things turned out. In fact, I’m sure something similar will happen again. The blessing/ curse of a naïve, non-committing, emotionless, relaxed guy, is that I’ve been the cause of infinite stress and anger, but I’m not stressed or angry… ever!

I learned that my heart belongs to the ocean and that my heart belongs speaking Spanish, but those aren’t ALL my heart needs to survive. I learned that I really do enjoy warm showers and cement and that I fucking hate insects; that I could lay on the sand for hours, but there is such thing as too much sun. I am not as tough or gruff as I had thought, I hate rich spoiled gringos, but must be one once in a while. I choose cities and people over nature and plants, life would be better with parrots everywhere. I trust smart, rich people over poor, dumb people. I like just about any food involving meat and that I am both weaker and stronger than I’d thought. That life is infinite experience and experience is infinite happiness.

2006/ Feb 23. When I travel, I am constantly thanking God, for my experiences, for my ability to get through tough situations, for the beauty that I encounter and for the successful wrap-up and return to family and friends.

When we find ourselves appreciating God often, that must be our calling, our true passion. Matt= travel, ocean. Those who do not know God have not found happiness.

2006/ Jun 26. I am starting to feel more and more at home in airports. People of so many colors, all dancing around one another… holding our bags as if they contained oxygen, or love. Don’t we love to dig through our bags? What will I pull out next? Ipod? Book? Magazine? Sweatshirt? Should I call someone? Who will I call? I’ll act annoyed and impatient… but aren’t I happy? And won’t I be happy when our conversation is interrupted by a flight announcement? That’ll show ‘em… I shake, I move, I am strong and flexible… I am unfuckingstopable!

2006/ Jun 27. I am sitting in the back row (I hate the back row) of a metal Hot Tamale; we’re traveling at close to the speed of sound, and the flight attendant is passing out Cup-o-Noodles with disposable, wooden chopsticks. To my right is a Taiwanese student, returning from a semester abroad at ASU. She says, “oooh” and “ahh” as we talk, meaning she doesn’t understand me, or could car less what I was saying to her. She falls asleep once in a while, and accidentally leans on me or rubs against me. It feels nice, it feels soft and human. Am I a pervert? I imagine us under the thin airplane blanket, cuddling. She is not attractive and we are not alone, I’d keep it Christian, but surely this would help the flight go by faster. When the dinner comes, I notice that she’s pretty bad with a fork and knife… I guess that makes sense. Those people.

2006/ Jul 17. We went to a huge Taoist, (was it Taoist? Was it Buddhist? Are those the same?) I think it was Taoist, temple yesterday…it may as well have been Mecca… Hundreds of people, rushing in and out, many were tourists, but most seemed to be “real people” most seemed to know what they were doing there. I didn’t know what I was doing there. They have the most intricate, peculiar system of prayer… bowing with incense brought to the forehead… murmuring to their God(s)… a routine that puzzled me. During all of this, a Buddhist/ meditational chant was bellowing throughout the temple, laying a soundtrack on the whole experience.

I quickly sensed a familiar feeling; the same as my time at the Wailing Wall, the same when I sat through Forest Gump, surrounded by hundreds of sobbing women… The feeling of- this location is not special or significant to me, nor do I understand where this emotion is coming from but it is a special place to so many people, and that energy is tangible, that love and emotion is putting a buzz in the air. And that I can understand easily. I felt something so strong at that moment. This defiance of all logic. A huge, “Why am I here?” swept over me, smacked me, brought me to my knees.

Weeks ago, after she finished church, I asked Beth, “Was it fun?” And she looked at me like I was retarded… for asking such a question, “Is everything fun?” She snapped.

And in this temple, I saw it, the love, and the emotion, knocked on my ass… Is fun really my true goal? Is there a better answer? Where could it be? And on which nameless day will it appear? And looking back at this moment, I am convinced that there is no answer hiding under a rock or around a corner.

I perched myself on a small stoop and watched in awe… the people, the children, the eyes and beating hearts. People concentrating and praying, others laughing and jabbering in foreign tongues, families on guided tours and children screaming and running. I saw all of their souls rising up, combing with the thick, white incense smoke and resting above their heads… their souls were dancing. The lines between fist, second and third person seemed to burn up as well. The lines between each soul had dissolved! Could that be the truth… is our skin, (let’s not even start with color, though I could be really on to something with that) this arbitrary shell that separates us… could it be hindering the truth?

Then, as if on command, it started to rain. A light rain, the kind that feels so good, you must thank God for your skin… each receptor, accepting its new job, both excited and puzzled- “I didn’t expect to work today.” And right there, I had one of those moments… those rare… everything I thought I knew means shit… moments… the sheer magnitude of sensation and 100 percent infiltration of love and life and beauty- entering through every pore, every orifice and dendrite and so on… Is this really happening? What have I done to deserve this moment? What a blessing life is!

I stood in the rain and, this rain of ecstasy, and I looked at all these faces and wanted to cry. For all the passion and energy that could be going to waste… for all those who don’t get any of this… for all the love and human connection that is realized and all that isn’t… for the sheer magnitude of this world and all that it entails.

2007 Jan 27. Though I am not enough of a prick to ever say I hate a whole race o ethnicity, I am pretty sure that in the past I had hated Chinese people.

2007 Aug 14. I will remember Cambodia for women walking around in their pajamas, for prostitutes spilling out of their shacks at night, for lines and lines and crowded streets of tuk-tuks and moto’s, for naked children playing on the side of the road, playing in mud puddles and garbage heaps, for little kids on big bikes and old men on little bikes, for dirt and dust and black exhaust in the air, for the endless green fields and forests that never changed, but never ceased to amaze me, for a Russian sex tourist and my French friends. I’ll remember Cambodia because every local I met had a sad story for a waitress who made US 50 dollars per month and knew that she was blessed to have that, I’ll remember feeling completely helpless in Cambodia; it was here that I accepted poverty and starvation, suffering and hell are as tied to this planet as water and mountains. Inevitable truths. I’ll remember the strong feeling that activism and devotion to a cause may be the only way for me to ever live in peace with myself, while simultaneously feeling that I’ll never do anything substantial to help any of the world’s problems.

Unlike most tourist destinations, Cambodia doesn’t even have the recourses to hide its shortcomings. Poverty is not an issue affecting a few people, it is not an issue affecting half the people… it is the status quo… Cambodians are poor and hungry; that’s all there is too it. The rich (people with strong homes, clothes and a car) are 2 or 3 percent.

I’ll remember repeatedly asking myself, “Why doesn’t someone rob me? I’ve got 6 months worth of their salaries in my pockets, another year if you count my ipod or camera.”

I’ll remember Cambodia for the love that they gave each other. I’ll remember that I saw more locals than foreigners helping out the beggars.

2007/ Aug 22. I feel so blessed to have stumbled upon this country. I will never cease to be amazed, at how life can turn us, trick us, plans go to shit and expectations come crashing down, but just as easily, we can be blindsided by great things. I’ve been in Laos for ten days now and I can’t even count the number of times I’ve stopped to say, “I’m truly happy.”

I knew that traveling was interesting, eye-opening and life-changing, but it wasn’t until Laos, that I remembered it could also be FUN… I cannot thank God enough for my experience here. Every backpacker, sex tourist, package tourist I meet.. we all know… WE ARE THE LUCKIEST PEOLE IN THE WORLD!!!!

2007/ Aug 26. More and more, it seems to me that poverty and hardship will always plague the world, that they move around a little, but people always suffer. I suppose my new dream, is that we can-at least spare children from this pain. Six-year-old children shouldn’t have to work all day and shouldn’t have to go hungry or thirsty. And women should not be sold as sex slaves.

I’ll remember Kanae as my “Mini Haley.” I liked her… I felt comfortable with her. She made my time more enjoyable. Who knows if I’ll see her again…

2008/ Feb 6. I have pretty much given up on checking luggage. If at all possible, I carry everything on. I fear that they’ll lose/ break something, and then it occurs to me I trust these people with my life, but not with my dirty socks and underwear!

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Not An April Fool’s Joke:

Talk to anyone who has traveled to Asia (China and India especially) about their experience and toilets will definitely come up in the conversation. Before traveling it is almost always the biggest concern; “I heard there’s no toilet paper.” “Is it true that you have to poop in a hole in the ground?” Worries like this always come up and for whatever reason, people are usually terrified of such “unconventional” pooping environments.

Its odd that we’d be so preoccupied with going number two; there was even a book published called “How to poop in foreign countries.” In actuality, this activity takes thirty minutes (tops) out of a 24-hour day. It doesn’t involve any kind of consumption. Doing it wrong can’t make you physically ill. No matter how its done, the end result is the same and the process won’t kill you… so What’s the big deal?

I, too, was terrified before arriving in Taiwan. The toilet paper thing was no big deal… any experienced traveler knows that if a country is half-way interesting, you should probably bring your own TP around with you. But I wasn’t excited about pooping in a hole.

The myths are, in-fact, true; the majority of toilets here are ceramic troughs, over which one must squat to shit. At first, the sight of them is really awkward; it is continuously funny that this could still happen in the year 2007. Most visitors from the west will go to great lengths to avoid them. I wouldn’t leave the hotel (where we had a “western” toilet) until I had shit for the day. Friends tolmd me stories about trekking across town, checking out each bathroom or having to cross their school campus daily to use the one western toilet (usually for disabled people). People will purposefully eat at McDonalds or KFC over a Chinese restaurant, because western food usually equals a western toilet.

As for myself, I got up some courage after a few weeks in this country and tried it out There are pros and cons to this style of defecation. This is the natural way, and things do tend to move quicker and more pleasantly. The trough doesn’t have much water, so you get to look at what you produced and study it for a few minutes… while none will admit to this, we are all fascinated by our little creations.

On the other hand, its hard to poop in a hole and assure that nothing will hit your pants or t-shirt or shoes; this fear still plagues me, after nine months. Also, this position tends to give me cramps in my groin and I sometimes have to limp out of the bathroom. The position isn’t particularly relaxing and is not-at-all conducive to reading.

Overall however, just like eating a chicken’s asshole or a pigs intestines and ears, nothing is ever as bad as it sounds and pooping in a hole is not awful.

When western people meet in a squat-shitting country, it is usually one of the first topics to discuss and laugh about. I love to ask what people think about it all. Hippies like to jabber about natural living and better connections with our diets, but for the most part, people feel like I do:

“I prefer to strip down completely naked, just to avoid the possibility of shitting on my clothes. After I remove my clothes and drape them over the door, I don’t mind it much.” -Tal (Johannesburg, South Africa).

“I’ve been here 7 years, I’ve never used a squat toilet; I refuse.” –Michael (Ontario, Canada)

“It really gives new meaning to the expression -can’t tell your ass from a hole in the ground.” – Chris (California, USA)

“Not only are you squatting over a hole, but your sweating fucking bullets [it was a hot summer] with mosquitoes buzzing around your face. On top of it all, you have a tub of stinky toilet paper in your face [used TP goes in a trash bin in Taiwan] and there is nothing to do, but stare at your own duke.” - Phillip (Kentucky, USA)

Obviously, foreigners prefer western toilets. As for the Taiwanese, though squat toilets are the most common, fancy restaurants and malls, as well as homes in always have western toilets. So the obvious question is… “If everyone prefers western toilets, why don’t they replace all the toilets in the country?” Its not Ghana, if they can afford toilets, they can just as well afford good toilets.

There is more to it though. Often, if a public bathroom only has western toilets, you can see footprints on the toilet seat. This is evidence that people are actually squatting on perfectly comfortable, relaxing western toilets. I asked around and the people here think it’s disgusting to sit on a public seat, rubbing asses with hundreds of other people. This is the same culture that won’t wear their shoes in the house, because of outside contamination.

My usual method (like Tal) is to strip down naked and then let it all go. When cross contamination is no longer possible, shitting in a hole isn’t an awful experience and is kind of a fun adventure. The following is a story that I shouldn’t be sharing with anyone…

Today, I ate with some friends at a cool little Japanese place. I got the tempura and some other fancy fish sticks but toward the end of the meal, was struck with the sudden urge to go number two. To my dismay, there was a hole in the ground, but I knew I didn’t have time to get fully naked. Lately I’ve been practicing, and if I’m careful, I can go with my pants around my ankles.

So in a hurry, I got in position, double and triple checked my war path and let everything go. I was so concerned with checking myself, I forgot to check my location.

Long story short, I ended up shitting on the tile floor, behind the toilet. By the time I noticed where it was going, I couldn’t really stop and soon after, I was laughing too hard to do anything about it.

My shit wasn’t like water, but it wasn’t exactly scoop-able either, so in the end, I was left with a gross mess. I used about 2 pounds of toilet paper to push it into the trough, but I couldn’t work any miracles and it was still obvious that some foul play had occurred there.

I really enjoy the food at this place and there are quite a few really cute waitresses, but I don’t think I can eat there anymore.

slightly lame

This one is slightly lame... it was written for my Chinese School's newsletter. The topic was... How Would you Choose to introduce Taiwan to a Friend? So I had to do a lot of fluffing... read on if you like though.

Over the past two and a half years, I’ve crossed Taiwan several times. From the beaches of Kenting to the shiny sidewalks of Xinyi, from Taroko Gorge to Alishan, Taiwan is beautiful; there are wonderful sights, incredible temples and interesting foods. What has always struck me here though, was the people. I’ve been to dozens of countries on five continents but the Taiwanese are some of the most welcoming, kind-hearted people I’ve seen in my life. This is evident in the way the Taiwanese treat foreigners, but also in the way they treat one another. Her are just a couple of the many times when I’ve felt true warmth from the Taiwanese people.

My first such experience came about after I’d been in Taiwan a mere 2 days. I was exploring the streets of Tainan and was still jet-lagged, culture shocked and awestruck by everything I saw. I had left my dorm to trek the smoggy, dusty, maze of streets of one day and within 3 or 4 minutes I was completely and utterly lost. I curiously wandered around all-day and evening, hoping to eventually stumble across my dorm.

At about 11:00 PM, after hours and hours of walking, I started to get worried. The streets got darker as more businesses were closing and I was becoming more and more pessimistic about ever finding my way back. I had (smartly) circled my home on a map of the city, but no matter how long I gazed at this map, I was completely unable to find where I was, where I was going, or how to get there.

On a nameless corner, I stood on the sidewalk, turning my map right side up and upside down, looking like a total bonehead, when a young man approached me on a scooter. In broken English, he asked if I needed help. I showed him the pathetic little circle on my map and then asked how I could get there.

He explained the directions as clearly as he could, marking up the map with a blue ballpoint pen. He then, offered to take me on his scooter. I was a very cautious traveler and was sure that any stranger inviting me on his motorcycle wanted nothing more than to take me to a dark alley, kill me, cut my body into 100 pieces and scatter them into a river.

This invitation lessened my trust for him; I respectfully turned him down, and cautiously headed on my way, constantly looking over my shoulder to see that he wasn’t following me, plotting to kidnap me.

Over two years later, I have to say I am a little embarrassed to tell that story. As I get to know the Taiwanese better and as I see how they treat other people, I am 100 percent confident, that this man would have taken me home and perhaps offered to buy me a beer or a cup of tea on the way. He definitely would have asked me for my msn and invited me to hang out with him and his friends or family on a day in the future.

Another experience came about months later. A couple of my friends were visiting from Tokyo and I was to be their incompetent, boastful tour guide. We stayed in a nice hotel on Linsen North Road, and I spent each day trying to prove to them that I could navigate the city, speak Chinese and introduce them to Taiwanese culture. I was failing miserably at all of these things, but we still managed to have fun.

Walking down a small alley one morning, I peeked into a temple, complete with small wooden benches, several Buddhist statues and a large vase holding incense sticks. Oddly, the security guard was sleeping and there was a TV and a kitchen in the temple, but I suggested that we go in anyway.

“Are you sure he won’t mind? He’s sleeping,” my friends asked.

“Hey,” I commanded, “I live here… I understand this place… it will be fine.”

We walked in, took pictures, tried to seem profound and strolled around for about 3 minutes, when the guy suddenly woke up. He looked confused for a second, but then invited the three of us to sit down and drink oolong tea with him. We graciously accepted and were all thrilled that we could drink REAL Taiwanese tea with a REAL Taiwanese man. He couldn’t speak English, nor could I speak Chinese, but I pretended to understand and said “dui a” a lot.

When he paused, implying that he had asked a question, I would just respond by saying, “Mei guo” or “lao shih.”

After 10 or fifteen minutes, the man excused himself to make a phone call. He came back a few moments later handing me a cell phone. On the other end, was a young woman, speaking English.

She said hello and explained that I was sitting, drinking tea with her father. Then she paused for a minute…“My father says he is happy to drink tea with you, but is wondering what you’re doing in our house.”

At that point I realized, this wasn’t a temple at ALL! We were in the man’s house! I had seen an open door, a Buddhist statue and just assumed it was a public place of worship. In my country, a mistake like this could get someone arrested or even killed! But here, it only got me a cup of tea.

As I said before, I could point to dozens of situations where I was literally amazed by Taiwanese and their friendliness. For this reason, I know exactly how I’d introduce Taiwan to my friends from abroad. I’d tell them it is a small country with some of the biggest hearts in the world. I’d tell them that I trust the people here as a whole and am happy to call them my neighbors.

TAIPEI LIFE SEPT 21, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008; 1:57 AM


Genghis Khan has officially pissed herself into exile. The real Genghis Khan once had the second largest empire in world history (behind Britain); he controlled 22% of the world’s landmass. This Genghis is different though- no army, no horses, no unification of a continent and-a-half; she is trying to conquer with her pee! After twice on my bed, twice on the coffee table and about 30 times various couches, rugs and items of clothing, this little fur ball has peed herself across my whole house.

The cat had an owner, a Mongolian girl who got knocked up and fled the country, leaving her coat hangers, some instant noodles and a cat named Malaknatat or Ulaanbaatar or something in a language where-too many consonants are shoved together... Apparently, her name translates to “little egg” and (in all fairness) she is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I want her dead though. I have taken to calling her Genghis Khan, and cannot help but make jokes about how can she can’t even conquer a litter box, or how – I must be the Song Dynasty (or was it the Yuan?) because I’m gonna conquer her little kitty ass.

Recently, I came into my room to find a puddle of cat pee, seeping into my mattress, infecting the lesson plans and spelling tests that were laid out across my bed… I have to tell the kids… In America, we like to say, “My dog ate my homework,” but this time, it’s a little different – this reminds me of a student I had about a year ago named Ella; she was seven and talked only about her pets…

- Hi Ella, how are you today?
- My fish are in love and will get married soon.
- Great… how was your weekend?
- I have a rabbit.
- Cool, go sit down and get your reading book.
- His name is “Little White”

Conversations with her usually went like this. But one day she showed up to school crying. When I asked what was wrong, she held up her grammar homework; It actually had little bunny bite marks around the corners, and in chicken scratch, she had written a note around the bite marks: Sorry tecHer mybabbit eat the hoeworks paper. I almost cried, it was so goddamn cute.

But this Genghis Khan is wearing on my last nerve. My roommate (who is as much of a bonehead as I am) can only guess that she’s doing it for attention… but all she’s done is forced us both to give her the silent treatment.

I dated a girl like this once; she’d send text messages saying, fuck off, I never want to see you again! The next day, she come to me and ask… How come you never called me last night? And if I ever see her again, I’ll call her Genghis Khan too!

So, a few nights ago, she peed on my bed, again. I pushed her face into it and said BAD GENGHIS!!! I repeated this in Mandarin, thinking that she might be more comfortable in that language. She looked up at me, not in anger, not in embarrassment, but with a face that said- What is that disgusting wet spot and why on Earth would you put my face in it?

Naturally, the room smelled like pee, and naturally I used facial soap, body wash, toothpaste and laundry detergent to wash it out. After all of this, the room smelled like flowery, musky, minty urine. The next day, I took a bottle of bleach and poured half of it out onto the bed. Now, my nose was burning so bad, I couldn’t smell a thing!

I quickly got some towels to soak up the bleach. When these towels turned white, I hung them from a bamboo pole on the balcony. Little did I know, that there was a sink under the pole and in that sink was a small goldfish; a fish that was out there, because Little Egg was trying to eat it, when it was in the house. So, today when I got home, I found a towel had fallen into the sink, bleached the water and killed our fish! And now I’m convinced I’m going to hell, for killing a fish, and its all Mlatraskatat’s fault; she’ll surely go to kitty hell….right?

Besides that, life for me is eerily, wonderfully, fantastic!

I went to my second Capoeira (Brazilian dance fighting) class tonight, which is kind of like Yoga, except for- after all the stretching, the people hit bongos and weird single-stringed guitars and do somersaults, while pretending to kick each other in slow motion. The dancing and the music suggest that Peyote (or whatever hallucinogen the Incas were using) made it East into the sugar fields of Brazil. I found the 14-year old Chinese boy who kicked me in the chest and said to him, “Tonight, you can’t kick me in the chest.” He is fourteen and I used to teach fourteen year-olds, so I had no choice but to use my stern “teacher voice.” He looked at the ground.

When Chinese people are confronted or put into an awkward situation, they instinctively look at the ground, knowing that eventually the problem (that being ME) will disappear. I started studying this language so I could order food without onions, mushrooms and MSG (always in that order) and so I could tell girls that they were beautiful.

After learning those phrases, I moved on, and know I have come to the point, where I can share my dissatisfaction with people’ s behavior. This means more often than I’d like to admit, my Mandarin skills are used to make others look at the ground.

Chinese people have real troubles with waiting on line. By “troubles,” I mean… they don’t do it…ever. At least once a day, while buying noodles, rice, tea or ice cream, someone shoves me out of the way so they can order first. Locals speak louder and quicker than me, so most often, this pushing method works… I am put on the back burner, while some asshole (who got there after me) gets their tea, or afternoon treat BEFORE me.

When I was unable to speak the language, I’d playfully shove them back, and they (like the cat) would look at me with puzzled expressions, thinking, Why on Earth is this guy pushing me?

Now though, with my expert linguistic skills, I can say things like, “I arrive number one say noodles, you number two… understand?” or, “You touch me to move, but I talk ice cream, you have given me rude.” Somehow, my disgusting grammar gets across, and they look at the ground.

This occurrence is bound to happen buying food from street vendors or getting on the subway, but a few days ago, I was in a doctors office, with my arm in the table-mounted blood pressure machine when a man barged through the door, pushed me put of the way, bending my arm 180 degrees, to ask the doctor where the bathroom was.

It is so common, no one here really understands any other way of doing things… after the man left, I commented to the doctor that the guy was rude. The doctor looked at me for a moment, “No, he needed the bathroom.”

The other defense mechanism here is for people to just change the subject. I say, “You pushed me and shouted at the noodle seller, that is rude.”

The reply, “It is very hot today.”

Recently, I came to school and entered my classroom to find that all three of my Word Walls (poster-sized lists of the current vocabulary words) were peeled off the walls and sitting on the floor.

My boss came in and I asked if a wild animal had come into my room overnight. She didn’t get my joke, so I pointed to the grounded word walls and shrugged my shoulders.

She nonchalantly nodded her head, “The handwriting was messy, so I tore them off the wall.”

She expected me to reciprocate with a nod and that would be the end. “I think it was quite rude of you to pull the off the wall; you could have told me first.”

This obviously made her uncomfortable… we sat in silent for about 60 seconds. Finally, she replied… “I got a cat yesterday!”

I hope it pees on your bed!

But back to my Capoeira class. Today went the same as last time; my feet hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurts, the teacher shouted about asses and chaking, Arnold talked about powah stomping his feet as he said it. As the class was wrapping up, Cristian (the female teacher) said, “Now we must do da Samba!” A dozen nerdy, skinny white boys and a few equally nerdy Chinese people, one Austrian and the 14-year old kung-fu kicker all got in a circle and shook the asses like something out of Havana nights.

In the movie Fight Club, Tyler Durden has a line where he talks about the duality of each person that attended the meetings… cubicle losers by day, Gods by night… something to that effect.

After the bongos stopped, everyone changed back into their suits and ties, their shiny black shoes and dark-colored socks; they got on the subway and went home, where they’d spend the rest of their nights on facebook or EBay or cheerleader.com. They’d mix back into the normal world, mixing with strangers not knowing that these people could do handstands for 45 seconds or dance the Samba.

My feet still hurt though…

Besides a malicious cat, a dead fish and a bleach-stained bed, my new house is awesome… I live on the fifth floor and am spitting distance to an Olympic-sized swimming pool. After about 2/3rds of a lap, I am ready to pack up and go home… I think it takes me longer to cross the pool than it does to drive to work in the morning.

My home is adjacent to a riverside bike path that goes from downtown Taipei all the way to the ocean. Tuesday is my day off and I ride the path each week, with no shirt on! Yesterday I did it and I rode right into a swarm of grasshoppers or locusts or something.

I am getting to know the local eateries, which include a place called Jake’s Country Kitchen (they sell Burritos, blueberry pie and chicken fried steak), an Indian restaurant (the service is terrible, the food is delicious and laxatives are a part of each recipe… even the tea makes me shit) and a fantastic deli (the owner insists that I all her Jackie-O [because she is elegant] and insists that every sandwich I buy has mustard… each day I tell her that I hate mustard, and like a Jewish grandmother, she says, “But mustard is really delicious with pastrami”).

I live close to a Chinese school and started classes last week. I am in private classes with an incredibly sexy, 26-year-old teacher. Her skirts are short enough to be illegal in most countries on this continent and I don’t really hear a word she says to me.

My school is great. After the world wall incident, the boss is overly-nice to me, I get free lunch everyday and I have my own classroom. My kids are babies (kindergarten and first grade) and are having trouble accepting my highly academic, strictly regimented classroom routine.

All the kids are cute as buttons and I have trouble telling them what to do, because most of the time, when they screw up, it’s adorable. I have a girl named Sami who insists on hiding under her desk, at least 12 times per hour. When I hound her for 3 or 4 minutes, she pops her head up and says… “So funny.” Another girl is named Patty; she is a firecracker and finishes most assignments before I am through explaining them. So, as I am saying, “Please take out your green phonics book and open to page 7” – she interrupts to say:

“Teacher I done.”

I reply, “No Patty, you have to say I’m done.”

This happens 30 times per day, and each time, she shrugs and says, “Teacher I done.”

Another girl named Winnie was given a bootleg copy of Mamma Mia for her birthday, and replies to all of my comments with a simple, “Mamma Mia!!!” When we have silent time, or nap time, I catch her singing ABBA songs under her breath.

For boys, I have a guy named David who loves, loves, loves to hug people. He often jumps out of his chair, hugs me, breaks his pencil and then says, “Teacher can you this (he mimics a pencil being sharpened) for me?” I do it each time, and two minutes later, he breaks it and does the same thing. Just yesterday, I saw him put his eraser in his backpack, walk up to Patty, hug her and ask, “Can I borrow your eraser?”

As far as friends go, I currently have four of them.

One is my roommate. He is from Chicago and worked in finance before getting bored and moving to Taiwan. He hates it here, but when I asked him if he’d leave, his reply was, “Well I can’t leave yet, I bought a bed.” I asked him what he missed about home and he said, “I miss my bears.”

I’m such an idiot, I cocked my head and said… “You have pet bears!!?”

He laughed and said, “It cost like 40 bucks per month to download the games!”

I asked if he liked the girls here and he said, “I often think about putting one in ach pocket and just walking around town like that.” The funny thing is, this guy is so damn jolly and friendly, I just shrugged and smiled… it almost sounded like an OK thing to do coming from him.

My other friends are a brother and sister from South Africa. The sister likes fashion and talks about make-up a lot. She said she would rather be really good at make-up artist than have a face so pretty that make-up wasn’t necessary. Her brother works at a Pizza Hut, but he’s convinced that he’s a chef or a food extraordinaire.

He often invites me over to drink 2-dollar wine and eat American cheese, claiming that it’s a “European custom.” I don’t have the heart to tell him 7-11 wine bottles and individually wrapped slices of “cheese-product” are a white-trash “Fresno custom.”

My fourth friend is a coworker named Leslie. She is in charge of bringing whiteboard markers, textbooks and other garbage to my classroom. She also got a new cat and asked me to help her name it. I suggested Julius because he looked tough and assertive (its actually a kitten who hasn’t opened his eyes yet) and ever since, she thinks I am the cat’s meow (no pun intended). She is teaching me to read and write Chinese, which is akin to studying heart surgery defusing bombs.

I live in a super-rich area, where a lot of the people are foreign nationals or locals who have spent a lot of time abroad. Taiwanese law says that anyone with money or hoping to appear that way MUST drive a black BMW or Mercedes with tinted windows, so I see a lot of those.

Many of the women seem to breathe money, in a gross, “Beverly Hills” kind of way. They wear stupid hats and giant diamond pendants on their shirts and hire Indonesian slaves to carry their groceries or children.

Supposedly people are snobby here, but Taiwanese don’t seem to have a snobby gene anywhere in their bodies. People here can pretend to be uppity or fancy, but a generation ago, their country was a clump of dirt, littered with rice fields and the people haven’t yet gotten a chance to embrace these western feelings of self-entitlement; except when waiting online for tea or noodles of course. I suppose the only snob I’ve met is… myself.

English speakers are definitely more common here, and that means most of the foreigners (white people) can’t speak a lick of Chinese. This makes me somewhat of a superstar wherever I go… foreigners and locals alike, are constantly amazed at my ability to speak Mandarin.

So… this is the life that I’ve built up in about 3 weeks, though it seems like 6 months already.

Leaving the states and coming back to this island last month, I have to say I had my doubts. My heart was stretched across an ocean, not knowing where it belonged; I was in a big disgusting city without a friend in the world. I landed here in a ruthless, tropical rainstorm that didn’t stop for 6 days. My motorcycle was broken and I was sleeping in a hotel where the chambermaids insisted on barging in without knocking, to clean my shower or vacuum the floors at 9:00 in the morning.

I’d wake up startled, ask them to come back later and try my best to look angry. The woman would shrug and say, “Don’t worry, it’s not a problem,” as they continued to push a vacuum over my dirty underwear and candy bar wrappers.”

My hotel was between a huge night-market (like a county fair, without the rides) and a nursing home. I loved to walk between teased-haired-teenagers dressed like Martians, eating fried food on sticks and buying Snoopy toys and dozens of old people in wheelchairs, drinking Oolong tea and playing Mahjong. At night, I’d eat chewy steak and French fries, while mouse-sized cockroaches ate the crumbs and drops of sauce from between my toes.

As the apartment hunt started, things were looking more and more depressing. I got in touch with a bunch of local realtors and my cellphone had more Li’s, Chen’s and Chang’s than… no, I can’t make a Chinese phone book joke here.

I got quite fluent with apartment topics, and leared to say things like:

- I wish live in your house. (I’m calling about the apartment)
- Does it have a place where one cooks rice? (kitchen)
- Is there a glass hole to see things? (window)
- Which hour can I go your there and look look. (Can I come by to check it out?)

One place I looked at (during the long rainstorm) had a basketball-sized hole in the ceiling and was flooded with half an inch of water. Mr. Li assured me that he’d fix the hole before I moved in… Thanks Mr. Li. Another one had tunnels in the floorboards and cockroaches strolling in and out… when I referred to the holes, Mr. Chen said, “If you’re going to live in Taiwan, you have to get used to our ways.”

My favorite though, was Mr. Chang’s apartment. I met Mr. Chang in a Mos Burger (Japanese version of Mc Donald’s). He overheard me talking on the phone to another realtor and asked if he could sit. Mr. Chang must have been 200 years old; he was frail and sweet and nearly dead. When we talked, he liked to hold my hand.

He explained that he had an apartment for rent, and it could be mine for 400 dollars per month. He (still holding my hand) told me about the fans in it, the closet and even the paper towels that he’d leave there, no charge. At times, I’d laugh, but none of this conversation was a joke to him.

He invited me over to take a look, but said it was a little far. He showed me his rickety, tireless, World War II bicycle and offered to ride it, while I sat on the luggage rack. Unsure with his ability to chew, let alone ride me around on his bike, I offered to drive my motorcycle. I had meant that he could ride his bike and I’d follow, but the next thing I knew, he was on the back, holding on to my neck.

He directed me down the windy alleyways of Taipei, reminding me to watch out for cars and stray dogs, while pointing out all the conveniences of the neighborhood. “You can walk a dog in that park!” “That haircutter is very professional.” “In the winter, they sell apples here.”

We were putting along, Mr. Chang was rambling, when all of a sudden a speed bump came out of nowhere! The next thing I knew, my scooter is a little lighter, and MUCH quieter… I looked back to see Mr. Chang on his ass, in the middle of the road. He sat there, completely casually, as if he had planned to get off at that moment… “Sorry” he said, and jumped back on.

We got to the building and Mr. Chang pointed out the ample parking, the security guard (who had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette in his mouth) and the “functioning” elevator. He repeated this several times.. “It is functioning. Some elevators are broken, but not this one.”

We got to the house to find his wife snoring on the couch. Things work differently here, and realtors seem to camp out at these places when they’re not occupied. He jolted her awake and ordered her to make tea for us.

While she boiled the water, Mr. Chang showed me the bathroom, the kitchen, the handcrafted ceiling and ample closet space. The apartment was a complete dump, but he had tea brewing, I had almost killed him moments before, and he was holding my hand again, so I couldn’t really get up and walk out yet. Then, Mr. Chang got really serious, he gripped my hand tightly and put the TV on mute… “I should also tell you,” he said into my ear, “you’ll have cable, but (he put his finger over his mouth in a shhh) we don’t pay for it.”

Mr. Chang continued, “Cable costs about 14 dollars per month, but we have an illegal hook up.” He gripped my hand tightly, “So, when you move in, you can watch it, but keep the volume very low, so that no one hears it.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it; I looked at Mrs. Chang, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, while washing the tea pot, I looked at Mr. Chang’s dead-serious face, I thought of all the shit-holes I’d seen in the past week, I felt the tight grip of a cable-stealing, ancient Taiwanese man, and I laughed and laughed and laughed.

At that, tea was served and Mr. Chang spoke to his wife in Japanese (because of Pre World War II Japanese occupation, old people here often speak Japanese). He then grabbed my hand again and said, “So, 500 dollars per month… what do you say?”

I started to explain that the previous price was 400 dollars whet he wife interjected… in Chinese now. “The boy is very handsome, let’s give it to him for 400.”

Mr. Chang pretended to think for a minute, though I knew they’d planed this. “Ok,” he said, “Because my wife likes you, you can have it for 400 dollars if you sign the contract right now.”

I told him I’d come back the next day, and after hounding me for 20 minutes, Mr. Chang let me leave, under the condition that I called him as soon as I woke up to give my final answer. I deleted his number and never talked to him again.

Two days later, I found my current apartment, thanked God for throwing me a bone and haven’t looked back since. Things are looking up now; I am not homeless, I am not friendless, my heart (for the time being) is comfortable on this side of the Pacific and my motorcycle is running perfectly.

That’s all I got. Thanks for making it this far.. 12 pages…. Missing you and loving you and missing my Hooty.

-Matto

Taiwan Numba 3

This was number three, written in the early days (late November, 2006)… at the time, I was pretty alone, alienated, culture shocked and loving every minute of it… I was especially fed up with 3rd world city air, urban life and Chinese food.

I am doing well. I am still happy and usually feel good about being here. My Chinese is getting a little better and I am learning to write and read a little. This weekend, I borrowed a friend's motor scooter and took a trip up to the mountains. I found an abandoned amusement park; I had no choice but to get out and look around. It was creepy as hell, like a scene from a good ghost story.

Among the wreckage, was a rusty carousel, half of a giant roller coaster and a haunted house. The haunted hose was right out of a ghost movie... the entrance was a clown's mouth, there was a rotted, wooden beam blocking the doorway. I had no flashlight, I was being attacked my mosquitoes and I was scared shitless... but I couldn't help but go in and wander around.

The inside was pretty damn creepy, but without light, I gave up pretty quickly. Since I arrived in Taiwan, I've had an irrational fear of being attacked by a pack of street dogs; this is so far from the guy who used to cuddle them in th streets of Mexico.

Anyway, as I exited the ghost house, I heard the loudest, deathliest scream I have ever heard in my life... I was sure the 16-year old girl I heard was being killed. I jumped, and before I knew it, the victim was in front of my face.. this made me scream!

Finally, the two of us calmed down. The victim was a young Chinese girl, hiding behind her boyfriend... he looked at me blankly, she looked at me as if I were the assailant... the three of us just sat there staring for a minute or two.

I sink you are the ghostaa... she finally said.

I apologized and walked away.

I also found a great place to go hiking; the air was free of pollution and motor scooter exhaust, giving it a foreign, woodsy smell. The views from the top were great too! On the way home, I passed by a restaurant called "Plaza de España." I am sick and tired of fried rice and chow mien, and am now jumping at the chance to eat anything different. I decided to give it a shot. I talked to the cook, a Taiwanese guy who spoke no English, but spoke decent Spanish. It turns out…he studied to become a chef in Sevilla! The restaurant walls were covered with pictures from his trip across Spain. I couldn't help but look around the restaurant and ask myself, What the hell am I doing in Taiwan?... with all the incredible places on Earth, how could I spend a moment in a place I didn’t really like? The food was great, and I assured him that I would drive the 30 minutes again soon, just to eat there.

I am realizing that everything (American food, Hanes underwear, Guacamole, Pesto Pizza, etc.) is actually available in Taiwan. Through my quest across the city, I have found Kirkland Soymilk, corn tortillas, good pasta sauce, refried beans and Cinnamon Toast Crunch! All of the mentioned items are ridiculously over priced (3 or 4 times prices at home), and are all imported. A can of clam sauce goes for four dollars! A quarter pound of peeper jack goes for six! I really hate to pay prices like these, but this food really helps to cure homesickness.

My landlord is slowly, slowly furnishing my house… I came home one day to find a huge bookcase blocking my apartment door; weeks later, there was a toaster oven in the hallway… today, it was a TV! I don't have cable, but I do get 4 or 5 network channels- 100 % Chinese I should add. I make my choices between local news, Korean soap operas and game shows involving green slime and people being spanked.

The soap operas or dramas are sometimes set in modern-day, contemporary society. Obviously they are in Chinese, but they seem to be typical love stories, only they will have random kung-fu scenes in the middle; like a man will be walking down a crowded city street and see two people kissing, and accost the man. Then, out of nowhere, a slow motion, Matrix fighting scene will start. Others seem to be set in feudal Japan or Korea and feature bad actors with pony tails and extravagant costumes.

The game shows are usually pretty hard to figure out, but their odd sense of humor comes though anyway. On one show, a dozen young guys and girls all sit on the stage in high-school-style desks, wearing typical school uniforms. An old man and woman stand in front of the students and try to make them laugh. The man once dressed in a frog suit once and as a French maid another time. The man and woman usually sing awful Chinese ballads or just groan and make weird noises. The students try their best not to laugh, but this usually only lasts a few seconds.

While we (in the states) get prizes for winning these games, in Taiwan, the losers get punished. So… when the student laughs (usually a girl) she must bend over her desk and the teacher will spank her with a wooden mallet. They play a honk or bonk sound, similar to those you hear on Mexican game shows, and the girl's butt is covered with a colored box (on the screen) that must say ouch or bang in Chinese.

Another show is identical to fear factor. In a country where people commonly eat tofu marinated in rotten milk and seafood, fried goose blood, chicken hearts on a skewer and fish head soup, I can only imagine what they eat on fear factor. Each player has a little red bucket and puking is quite common.

I am learning that we take it for granted that the US is a country of immigrants; I know lately this is only a lefty, hippy thing that Mexican lovers tend to say, but it really is true. We take it for granted that cities in America (even Penasquitos) can hold white people, Latinos, Asians, Black people, etc. and none are typically out of place. Sure our society may be more friendly to certain races, but no foreigners are looked at as actual aliens. Taiwanese cities (even the big ones) don't seem to have any non-Asians. In Taiwan, immigrants come from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia mostly; I assume they are not treated too well.

As for white people, we really are treated like saints. But we are also treated like true outsiders; we are gawked at and alienated. I have learned the word for foreigner: wai-guo-ren (literally "outside person"), and at least 3 times a day, I hear this word in side conversations, around me. It isn't malicious on their part, but it is puzzling that I can be such a big deal to them. Proof of this is that people are really sweet here, always overly helpful and eager to practice their 6 words of English with me. I have traveled to other nations where white skin was seen as wealth, and the friendliness I encountered was obviously coming for a price to be negotiated later.

Here, helpful people and friendly strangers are just that. On a long bike ride one day, I came across a huge park, where families were barbequing and singing karaoke from TV's mounted in the back of pick-up trucks. Within moments of my arrival, a family had called me over to join them. They spoke no English (they barely even spoke Chinese) yet we tried our best to communicate. They gave me disgusting, oily sausage from their Bar-B-Q, they gave me shrimp and taught me to suck the brain out and they gave me squid jerky. They then brought on the rounds of hard liquor, which tasted like stale whiskey. We laughed at our inability to communicate; I politely forced down the liquor and food and was on my way as quickly as I had arrived.

My Chinese is not close to passable, its really not even good enough to be called embarrassing. Through my conversations with people who speak a little English, I have found a common pattern. Almost always, the questions go in order:

1) Where are you come from?
2) Can you say Chinese?
3) Are you student?
4) How long you come Taiwan?
5) Where are you live?
6) Why are you come Taiwan?

I’ve thought about printing a t-shirt witht the following:

-California
-No
-No
-Too long and Not long enough
-Your mom’s house
-I have no f---in idea.

Because of this- now predictable sequence, when spoken to in Chinese, I just respond in this order. Chinese is a very difficult language to pronounce, meaning that after 5 months here, I still can't correctly pronounce the word for beef, bathroom or my own city. When grunting and burping out this puzzling language, I usually repeat each word half a dozen times, changing my tone and emphasis until the people understand me. Most conversations (at the pool, with waiters and waitresses, while buying tea, etc) go something like this.

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Meigouren (America people)

Chinese Person: eh?

Matt: MEIgouren (AmErica people)

Chinese Person: eh?

Matt: MeigouREN (AmericA people)

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Wo shwo ee-dien-dien jongwen (I speak little Chinese)

(more eh?'s and me repeating myself)

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Wo engwen laoshir (I English teacher)

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: ooo (five)….. here I get really nervous because I can't say
the word month……. I just say the word five a lot.

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Dali (I usually have to repeat this one close to fifty times,
and even then I assume the person gives up on me and just says ohh.


The conversation goes on like this, and often seems to work out okay. Though at other times, I get very puzzled looks. I imagine it has happened that someone asked me the time, or whether I'd like coffee or tea with my dinner, and I replied English teacher.

Things are going and going here and mostly going well. I went to my first American-looking supermarket tonight, where I bought olive oil, garlic, Chili sauce, a can opener, a frying pan and some Chinese noodles. That’s it!

I saw a chicken being slaughtered yesterday........

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Near my home is a huge market, more like an open-air bazaar, I suppose. It’s an area the size of a football field, under a huge red and white tent. It’s overcrowded with tables and stalls; people selling fish (live and dead), noodles, dumplings, meat of all sorts, fruits and vegetables. In the typical Asian fashion, whole pigs sit next to slices of cake, next to live chickens, next to Sashimi stands… its a wonder the whole country hasn’t died. These markets are more common than supermarkets here, and I assume this is where most of the country buys their groceries.

For hundreds of years, while Europeans had salt to cure their meat and the Middle East had spices galore, East Asia never caught on to any of this. Without proper refrigeration and without any preservation, a careful, maybe paranoid culture developed. Still to this day, though refrigerators are as commonplace as motor scooters and temples, Chinese culture has an obsession with freshness.

Many Americans would claim the same marriage to fresh food, but here, the rule of thumb is, If I didn't see it alive, I don't know how long its been dead.

This means these huge open air markets are chock full of chickens in cages, shrimp sitting (or walking) on ice, pathetically blinking their eyes, fish flapping around in a few inches of water and pig legs, still complete with split hooves and furry legs.

I have been frequenting these markets for about 3 months now. I've noticed the small cages crammed with chickens; I've noticed the live sea creatures and I've definitely noticed the meat being sold. Subconsciously I obviously knew what was to come of these pets everywhere, but I had never realized the brutality of it all.

* * *

As I walked yesterday, I stopped to watch a woman wearing thick, rubber gloves. She pulled a live chicken out of its cage while it clucked and kicked. She slammed its neck on the bloody rim of a trashcan and sliced its head off with a cleaver. The head fell into the garbage, sitting on a pile of hundreds of others. The body, wings still flapping, legs still kicking, fell to the floor, resting atop dozens of dead chickens.

The whole process, from cage to headless, must have taken less than 10 seconds. The woman did it without hesitation, not as if he'd done it before, but as if he'd done it hundreds of times that day. She did it with the ease that I type my name MATT; 4 strokes... I could probably do that with the absence of all five senses… a reaction… there is no doubt I my mind that this woman could kill a chicken without her five senses… an act that would have taken me hours to prep for and months of therapy to get over.

She never noticed me; had no idea that someone was traumatized by her actions that day (no… I am NOT a vegetarian, yes… I know the hypocrisy involved here, no… I have never drilled for oil, picked a head of lettuce or built a home either), had no idea that I felt guilty about my eating habits for a couple of days, had no idea that his action would ever be deemed important enough for someone to write 1,560 words about it.

The punch-line here is not that I have gone vegetarian now, nor is it to say that the Chinese are savages. I am merely pointing the small differences in culture or people’s lives and how mind-boggling they can be.

Why are we so afraid of being reminded where our food actually comes from? Why are they so afraid of food that was frozen, shipped for 6 hours, delivered to a market and wrapped in plastic?

The list of small cultural idiosyncrasies could go on until my hands fell off. Why do we eat chicken breasts, but not their feet? Why do we eat fish, but not their eyes?

* * *

Most people here, from construction workers, to doctors, to bankers nap for about an hour each day; they just put their heads down on the desk, while construction workers and road workers lay down on the sidewalk. Why do we regard naps as childish and slightly embarrassing?

Culture seeps into every corner of one's existence, how one wakes up, how they walk, how they get to work, how they greet others each morning, how they get ready for bed, and everything in-between. It’s all dictated by their upbringing, by the community and the people that raised them.

Most of these details go unnoticed, even to the watchful eye of a foreigner. It is no wonder that immigrants tend to stick with their own people. The list of everyday occurrences here that make me slightly uncomfortable is long and constantly morphing. And on parallel, I can only begin to imagine all that I must do to make these people's teeth cringe.

The traveler takes these differences as exciting awakenings; a good traveler must think of himself as an anthropologist/ sociologist, using these changes in perspective to see himself and his culture. And to see that we do in fact have our own culture, that we are unique, (for good and for bad) this is a priceless gift, one that every human deserves.
I listen to University students across the US, complaining of our lack of culture and scoff… they’re not even worth the thirty seconds it would take to prove them wrong… When did we decide that it takes dragon puppets or candy skulls or bull fights to signify a true culture.

The working immigrant however, never asked for this enlightenment. For him, these cultural divides, these points that are lost in translation, are just another headache after a long day. I guess Tom Sawyer said it best: Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

I am still having fun asking myself if I am in fact an immigrant. Do immigrants need to have dark skin? Must they come from a poor country? Must they themselves come from poverty? I have met white people here, people from first world countries who came to Taiwan to escape poverty. Are they immigrants? And wages for people of my educational background are in fact better here, so is poverty all relative? If I am $ 30,000 in the hole, with no savings, but I am well fed and have a car… what is my economic status?

At home, foreigners are almost always treated as second-class citizens. They are often feared, sneered at, marginalized and trampled upon. Yet I have been embraced here, the locals toy with my lack of ability to communicate, wait for my pantomimes, let me draw pictures of chicken legs and rice and often offer me forks with my meals. They almost always wear a smile while I take their time to explain my distaste for onions.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out why… I am not in Zimbabwe; I am not in El Salvador; I am in a developed nation. The people here have money and spend money, meaning that I am not the only source of income to these countless people who baby me. I am just another customer, another person on the street, another bus passenger.

It isn't even my American passport that makes me loved here, but my white face and protruding nose (it is quite common for children to come up to me, touch my nose and run away, while women like to call it beautiful). This is still relatively uncharted territory for the Australian businessman, or European vacationer; there is a definite air of curiosity and mysticism regarding white people here.

So… is it just curiosity? If America didn't have large populations of virtually every ethnicity imaginable, would we also be so friendly to the outsiders? While the Chinese seem to be excited, are we jaded by all who are not like us?

And then again, I must ask… do reasons always exist? Perhaps the Chinese history, and these tales of fresh meat have nothing to do with the chickens kept in cages. And perhaps I am dealing with a different culture, one that enjoys my company, when mine doesn't particularly enjoy theirs. Maybe it’s all that easy…

I haven't found the person whom I should thank for this one, nor have I gotten down the proper pronunciation for the word thank you. I am trying my best though and have not gotten any sneers for my poor pronunciation.

*This was written almost two years ago, when I was still a freshman to Taiwan and I have to say I am no longer amazed by what I see... it is less and less often now that I look twice at anything I see here. I'm more and more used to it all and realize that this was written at a time when I was still a backpacker to this nation. Now I don't know what to say... I have overstayed my anthropologist phase and am now in my - I don't know what to call it- phase. But I can properly utter the words for thank you, onions, and quite a few others.