So, Here I am

Hello!
Sending out a hug to all of you for taking the time to come on this website....and also a big hug for all the e-mails you have sent me. Reading your e-mails, hearing about your days at home, how things are going in real "life", always add much to my day.

I know this entry is quite overdue....and I have certainly neglected some promises and statements I made while I was back in the states. So, therefore I want to make a more formal apology. And I also want to apologize because I am extremely tired right now, as I am every day of the week, and therefore writing extreme crap.

Tomorrow marks the one month anniversary of living in Taiwan. To celebrate, I've made my own "new year's" resolutions. And it will start with the upkeep of this website. As well as the upkeep of my Chinese and Japanese diary I have been telling myself to start. Oh, and the upkeep of my room here in Taiwan; it is a mess.

Oh yea, and my hair. Especially since the heavy air here has been drawing the beast more and more out of its cage...
So, one month has gone by.
4 weeks?
I still have to repeat to myself over and over that I've been here only one month because, in all honesty, it feels like I have lived here forever.
Forever. I still don't know how to feel about it.
So, what to say about Taiwan. I could go on, romanticizing about old temples, side shopping streets, sweet bubble tea, tall green foggy mountains, the huge skyscraper known as Taipei 101... but to be honest, all of that a person could read in a tourist book.

What I'm doing here in Taiwan is actually far less.....invigorating. But I am not the least bit disappointed. The purpose of this exchange isn't to be filled with that kind of excitement.

To be honest, day to day life here is pretty un-eventful. Everyday I get up; eat the same breakfast everyday (rice porridge with the odd fruit or vegetable of the day), go to school at 7:30, basically fall asleep through ½ of the classes, while the other half I drill Chinese characters over and over. 5:00 rolls around, time to head to Sophie's work. 6:30ish we leave her work and perhaps grab a bite to eat at the corner restaurant or just head straight home for dinner.

So, to give you a brief picture of Taiwan: it is very small. Most buildings, including stores and restaurants (even in Taipei, the largest city) are very very small. I am living in the "country" right now; but we are living on a small street with neighbors five feet away. We would call it more of a condominium. Our house has two floors, but I would guess their floor space is no bigger than the size of my living room and kitchen combined.

Every place is filled with motorcycles and scooters. On every street there are herds of humming motorcyclists. I think there must be more electric scooters here than there are cars. At the same time, these motorcyclists definitely got some attitude. Or maybe they just have a hell of a lot of guts that I don't...
An equation for you. What do you get when you have 23 million people, crammed on impeccably small roads, herds of motorcyclists, and drivers with a speeding problem?
You guessed it. The traffic situation is horrendous here. And what's worse; people will absolutely not stop for pedestrians. Also, dogs. Every day I see groups of 3-5 homeless dogs wandering the streets. Not only in the country side, but in the big cities. Just wandering the roads. Sometimes I wonder how long it will take before even I stop noticing that poor homeless dog on the side of the road lying next to the gutter...

One thing that is great here; there is a Seven Eleven on every block. I have heard that Taiwan has the largest amount of Seven Elevens per capita in the world. So, at all hours of the night, you can fill your craving for that tomato-honey juice, or sweet avocado and melon smoothie. Mmm, tasty....

Also Bubble milk tea, that is; tea with milk and added tapioca pearls. I have a confession to make; I am a Bubble milk tea ADDICT. I can't get enough of these damn drinks. All of the other exchange students pretty much agree.

Speaking of my fellow exchangers, my neighbor, the French exchange student, can't speak Chinese at all. Actually, none of the other exchange students even bothered to study Chinese at all over the summer. So, most of them now are not having such a breezy time here in good ol' lacking of English Taiwan-land. I'm somehow, surprisingly, blazing my own way through. To where this will lead me, I don't know.

Today at school, I witnessed a startling event. I was having lessons in the teacher's office, all the teachers at their desks quietly resting or writing, when all of a sudden I heard a splitting scream and loud crash. A teacher had stood up from her desk, throwing her books against the window, screaming at the top of her lungs. A few more notebooks and pencils thrown and then a screech before two other teachers went to restrain her. I wonder what made that teacher snap so suddenly...so violently?
It reminds me of the fact that Taiwanese in general are by far more open with their emotions than I had expected. I have seen Taiwanese people angry, upset, happy, excited, solemn. Sometimes I am surprised at how blunt some of their comments have been towards me.

I am glad. In a way, I feel their expressions between each other and me are more genuine than they are false. Far more genuine than what I perceived of day to day life in Japan. In general, I get the feeling Taiwanese have a more "what you see is what you get" approach. That sort of deal.

Perhaps their struggle to prove their own identity as a people, independent of others, seeps in to their daily life. Who knows?

So...now that I have written a novel about a snippet of life on this tiny island, I believe it's time to wrap up for now. For the future, I will limit my posts to shorter, but hopefully more frequent entries about trips that I am taking.
This Friday, we have a Rotary barbeque. And then my family and I will head out to see their family in the southern city of Kaoshiung for two days. Should be very interesting to watch old time Taiwanese culture in action!