Weekend in Taichung

Last weekend I went to Taichung, the third largest city in Taiwan. Taichung lies about halfway between Kaohsiung and Taipei between the west coast and the central mountains. I didn’t go to Taichung for much sightseeing – for me this was more of a getaway. I have spent most of my time here hanging out with other people – going on trips and through town with my foreign friends and spending much of my time at home with my Taiwanese roommates present.

I got a room in a cheap business/student hotel across the street from the train station. It was surprisingly clean and comfortable, considering I paid less than $20 U.S. a night for a room. I spent Sunday night relaxing, reading, and watching terrible American movies on cable TV. It was fantastic! I also spent some time in the Internet cafés near the hotel. They are much cheaper than Japanese net cafés. One cost about $0.65 an hour and the nicer one was only $0.35 an hour! Compare that with the $4.00 an hour price in Japan! The only problem is that the Japanese net cafés give you your own private cubicle with comfortable seating and a free soft drink bar. Here there is no such thing as privacy – all the computers are lined out on one long table. They also do not require people to use headphones here. This is really annoying when you are there to read the news and send some e-mails. Just try to concentrate with the blaring of gunfire, wizard spells, and alien heads cracking open in your ears

Monday was Taiwan’s national day. Since Taiwan isn’t really an independent state, you can’t really say this is Taiwan’s Independence Day, but you get the picture. School was canceled and most office workers had the day off. I didn’t have any big holiday plans, so I just decided to see one of Taichung’s famous temples and bus it back to Kaohsiung. I went to the Baujiu Temple, home of the biggest and fattest laughing Buddha statue in all of Taiwan. It’s almost 30 meters tall (about 90 feet), and it has been painted a bright yellow color. It was, just as Lonely Planet said, quite photogenic. I took a few pictures around the temple grounds and decided to head back. It was too hot to be walking all over the city.

I went back to the hotel to pick up the suitcase they were watching for me. Before I got on the bus, I decided to chat with the old woman who sat in the hotel lobby almost every time I passed by. She was 86 and still spoke Japanese very well. It was nice to be able to talk to a Taiwanese person without an interpreter and without having difficulty in finding words to express yourself. She was really nice and made sure the hotel gave me a bottle of water to drink on the bus ride home.

Sorry for the dull post, but it was a dull, but relaxing weekend. I actually enjoyed the time alone and felt a bit recharged upon my return to Kaohsiung. I had a good week here, though, so I will write a post on that now…

Shopping (II)

On Thursday, I went to get a haircut. I haven't had a haircut since I've been here. I was getting a little shaggy and needed to cool my head off a little since it's still really hot here.

Ken took me to his friend's cousin's salon. She studied the ancient art of hair-cutting in Japan for about seven years, so I felt this was probably a safe bet. I never had a bad hair cut in Japan and the Japanese are well known for their fastidiousness. My only worry is that she would cut my hair with “Japanese style”. Japanese girls often have very nice haircuts, but the guys are fond of sporting EXTREMELY effeminate hairstyles these days – not something I was keen on trying out.

What I thought would be a normal haircut of about 20 minutes stretched into an hour and a half long ordeal. We started with an assistant washing my hair. She was the most thorough hair-washer I have ever seen. She was forcefully massaging my scalp as she cleaned my hair. At times I thought I was going to walk out of there bald.

The haircut portion of my time there was pretty normal, but extremely slow. I think she did a pretty good job, but I don't think there was any kind of special treatment that warranted an hour of sitting in a barber's chair. We finished at 4:30, which really stressed me out because I hadn't had much to eat that day. I had breakfast, but I had planned to eat lunch after Chinese class finished at 2:00. No such time…

I grabbed something at the 7-11 and we zipped back to school. I had to meet with one of my professor's at 5:00 p.m., so I didn't have time to stop at T.G..I.Friday's like I had planned. We had learned how to say “hamburger” in Chinese this week, which really sparked some major beef and cheese cravings in me. Don't get me wrong, I like Chinese food and I am trying to eat as much of the local stuff while I’m here as I can, but sometimes you just really need to get a taste of home.

I managed to satisfy that craving on Friday. I went to Friday's on Friday with Steve, Jumpei, and Yuji. Afterwards we went to Isetan to pick up the present I had planned on buying. Ken met us there to help translate for me, but his English vocabulary wasn't quite up to par for some of our discussions. After a while I asked Jumpei to help because he has been here a long time and speaks excellent Chinese. When the store clerks heard Jumpei translate from Chinese into Japanese for me, they were a little taken aback. It turned out that one of them had studied in Japan for a little more than a year, so she was able to answer most of my questions directly in Japanese.

I'm not sure if it was because they were impressed with my Japanese or if I just managed to charm their socks off, but they poured us some good oolong tea, insisted on chatting with us for a few minutes, and gave me a nice discount. I have had several instances where Taiwanese people have complemented me on my Japanese, but I feel bad because I can't understand anything they say without a translator (except for the few who speak Japanese). It's alright, though, because I intend to keep studying this language until I can at least manage a simple conversation.

That's all I feel like posting for now. I'm staying here this weekend, so I will get caught up on postings in the next couple of days. See ya!

Shopping (I)

Here’s my belated account of last week’s adventures. Sorry to keep you waiting.

On Tuesday, Ken (my Taiwanese exchange buddy) took me shopping. I have been at a loss as to what I should buy for my friends and family back home as presents. I had this problem in Japan as well, but I had a feeling that Taiwan might be different. Unfortunately, it seems that no matter where in the world you go these days, it is hard to find that unique “special something” since globalization has led to a world where the same cheesy, cheaply-made consumer goods are sold everywhere. Unique locally made or traditional products still exist, but they are hard to find. Many of the items that are sold for this purpose are really manufactured in large production lines for tourists, making the task at hand even more difficult.

Ken, like many other Taiwanese I have asked, didn’t seem to know of any good little “mom and pop” type shops to go to. There is a “bamboo street” here in town with many old cooking tools and hats made out of bamboo, but I could never honestly picture anyone I know in the U.S. wearing a traditional Chinese bamboo farmer’s hat. They would be light enough to ship, but it sounds pretty fragile, so I decided against going there.

So where did we go to look for traditional handmade Taiwanese goods? The department stores of course! We visited about five large department stores here in Kaohsiung. Most of them (Hanshin, Isetan, and Mitsukoshi) are Japanese companies that have been very successful in Taiwan.

Surprisingly, some of them did have a pretty good selection of handmade traditional crafts. Unfortunately, most of this stuff was stone or glass carvings. Some of it was beautiful, but expensive, heavy, and fragile. These would be nice gifts if you had the money and really trusted your shipping company, but since I don’t fulfill either of these requirements, I decided against it. Isetan, in particular, had a really nice display of glass work by a Japanese artist. Some of his pieces were priced at around $10,000 U.S., so it was way out of my league. Still, it was nice to look…

The security guards and other store employees were watching us like a hawk, but I don’t blame them. Not only was this stuff really expensive and fragile, but a crazy guy had gone into another department store a few nights ago and smashed over $200,000 U.S. worth of art with a hammer. I doubt we looked quite that crazy, but I'm sure they were just as nervous with a couple of young guys laughing and talking who might accidentally bump into an expensive vase. But I digress…

I didn’t buy anything that night, but I found what I wanted to get. I can’t divulge what it was or who it was for right now, but I think it was a pretty good gift. By the time we finished looking at all the stores, it was almost 11:00 p.m. We stopped by the night market for some dessert and headed home. I didn’t get to start on my Chinese homework until about midnight, so I was up writing characters until about 2:00 a.m. This is probably because I took so many short breaks, but come on! Your hand can get a little cramped after all that writing!

On Wednesday, Ken took me to his roommate’s parents’ house. The first floor of their house is the family business – a tea shop. I had a great time once I finally got there, but it took us an hour and a half to find it. Ken got lost because he misunderstood one syllable in the name of the street we had to turn on. This has reinforced my impression of Chinese as an impossible language, but I will keep studying anyway.

Now riding around on a scooter hasn’t scared me as much as I thought it would, but after more than an hour on the back of a scooter, your butt gets really sore. Every time we stopped to ask directions, I had to get off and stretch or jump up and down to shake some blood into my rear. I didn’t really get too upset, but it was a little annoying because I had to miss meeting with my group for my Taiwan Government and Politics class to work on a presentation.

When we finally got there, Ken’s roommate’s family were really nice. Ken and his roommate translated for me as the roommate’s father poured some nice oolong tea for us. We had a mini-Taiwanese tea ceremony, which is nice because it is much less formal than the Japanese tea ceremony. Basically, we sat in chairs and chatted about tea as his dad kept our cups full of hot oolong. We tried the bestseller there (what I wound up buying), which was really good, but he also poured us a few cups of the $100 U.S. for a half-pound type tea, which was a real treat. It was definitely some of the best tea I’ve ever had, but I don’t think there is any way I would ever spend that much money on dried tea. Both teas are grown high in the central Taiwanese mountains and are burned before packaging. Since they are burned, you pour out the first batch – that hot water is just to clean the tea leaves. You can make up to seven batches of tea with one large pinch and it’s the best on the third or fourth batch. They add no sugar to this tea, but after you drink a few glasses, you can taste a sweet trail going down your throat. They told me this is how you know if you have good tea or not.

After chatting and sipping tea for an hour or so, I paid and took my leave. They invited me to come back some time to have dinner with them, an invitation I doubt I will pass up.

This post is already longer than I thought it would be. I have a lot of work to do today, so I think I will stop here and pick up tomorrow. In my next post I will wrap up last week and in the one after that I can get to my weekend trip to Taichung. It wasn’t too eventful, but it was a nice, relaxing trip away from school. I have already posted pictures to flickr from Taichung, though, so if you want to check them out, be my guest.
Until then…

Kenting Baby! (Day 1)

Ha, ha, ha! Bow before my powerful Chinese magic!

This weekend I went to Kenting with eleven other people. Kenting is a resort area at the southern tip of Taiwan. Our group consisted of Ken (my exchange buddy), his girlfriend, his friend Tomi (a Taiwanese guy born in Canada who has lived in Taiwan for the past ten years), Bao, Sophie, Marjorie, Stephanie (all from France), Steve (the only other American exchange student here), Jumpei (from Japan), Neils (from Holland), Adi (from Israel), and me. It was a great trip and I will try to fill in most of the details without rambling too much, but no promises.

We left on Friday afternoon. We decided to save a little money by renting cars as we heard there was almost no public transportation within Kenting. They gave us a student discount, so it was cheaper for us to rent two cars than to take the bus and rent scooters in Kenting. I got to drive the large car all weekend! It was my first experience driving in a foreign country, and it was a blast! I have to admit I was a bit nervous at first, but I quickly got the hang of it. A word of warning to all those who plan on driving in Taiwan: watch out for busses, trucks, and scooters! The scooters seem to come out of nowhere and their drivers have no fear. Trucks drivers, and especially bus drivers, are really aggressive. They drive fast and will cut you off in a second. It’s best to give them plenty of room. Aside from these concerns, however, it’s not too bad. The roads are fairly wide and the speed limits are pretty low (at least compared to the U.S.). There seems to be a lot of road construction going on all over the country, though, so keep your eyes open.

We took a wrong turn at some point, so it took us about three hours to get there. We went straight to our hotel. It was an interesting little place called the “Cactus Café”, which Lonely Planet had recommended as one of the best places to stay at a reasonable price. The first floor held a bar/café with a small outdoor deck. They played a good mix of blues, classic rock, and reggae. The bartender was a Canadian ex-pat who could have easily been an extra in a Cheech and Chong movie. The owner was a laid-back Taiwanese surfer with tattoos and a solid command of English. They also gave us a discount because we were taking two rooms for two nights. The Cactus Café is in an excellent location – just a three minute walk to the main street and a 10 minute walk to the nearest beach. The rooms were really clean and the place definitely had some character. We had a girls’ room and a guys’ room, but Ken stayed in the girls’ room with his girlfriend. Our room had two bunk-beds with queen-sized mattresses, so two of us got our own beds and the other four had to share. I managed to get my own mattress for the whole weekend, which only sweetened the whole stay. Unfortunately, if you are planning on going to Kenting, this place will be closed after October 20, so go soon if you can!

We arrived just in time to check in, change, and go to the nearest beach for a quick swim before the lifeguards told us to come in because it was getting dark. After a shower and another change of clothes, we went to Smokey Joe’s for dinner. This western restaurant easily could be mistaken for a cheesy American chain (and maybe it is), but most of us were ready and willing to pay a little extra for a taste of home. Chinese food is good, but you can get tired of it pretty quickly. My fajitas were excellent and more than even I could eat (after a ton of appetizers, I must admit).

We walked around the main street night market after dinner. It was okay, but not as good as the main night market here in Kaohsiung. Our night market has more food stalls, while Kenting’s consists mostly of cheesy tourist souvenirs that are sold at beach resorts all over the world. I tried to find gifts here, but it was slim pickings.

After this, we hit up the Chuhuo natural fires. This is a place where natural gas seeps out of the ground and ignites when it mixes with the oxygen in the atmosphere. It’s not a breathtaking natural wonder, but it’s still pretty neat. Some of the locals and tourists like to cook potatoes and popcorn in the fire, which we didn’t really have the patience to try. We took a lot of pictures and said “ooo… ah…” a few times, set off some fireworks we bought nearby, and headed back. We thought about going out after this, but we wanted to enjoy the day on Saturday, so we called it a night pretty early.

Kenting Baby! (Day 2)

Ah... It doesn't get much better than this. Relaxing in a spring-fed waterfall pool up in the mountains on a hot day...

The next day (Saturday, October 1) we were out of the hotel before 11:00, a miraculous feat when you are trying to get 12 people to leave by 10:30. We went to a pretty nice beach about 10 minutes down the road and spent the next three hours there. It was really nice to get to a beach where we were allowed to swim out farther than waste-deep water for once. The lifeguards at the beach near our school always wave us in before we get out too far, which I suppose isn’t a bad idea, considering most lifeguards in Taiwan don’t know CPR.

We thought about renting jet skis for an hour or so while we were there, but the fee (about $45 U.S.) was a little too steep for us. Neils and I found a much cheaper thrill – jumping off a big rock into the ocean.

The giant rock near this beach apparently rolled down into the ocean from the nearby mountains long ago. One of the ledges on this rock is easy to climb and sits about 10 meters (about 30 feet) above a deep spot in the ocean. It has recently been a very popular spot to take a jump, which I really wanted to try. Some of the other guys didn’t want to try it because they thought it looked very low from far away. Neils and I, however, decided to check it out and discovered it was much higher from up close. We had to rent scuba boots because the sharp coral rock is not something you can negotiate in sandals, but it was definitely worth the $1.70 (U.S.) rental fee. We asked Marjorie to take some pictures, but she used her camera, so I haven’t loaded those on flickr yet. She took some video of me jumping, so if I can find a way to load this on blogger, I will let you know.

There were a few kids playing on the rocks on the way to the jumping rock (I think it’s called sailboat rock) who were very outgoing. One of the little girls and a couple of the boys kept saying “hello!” and asking for our names in English. It’s amazing how intent the adults here seem to be on getting their kids to learn English. They were only about seven years old, but could handle self-introductions in English pretty well. As cute as they were, however, it got a little annoying when they kept saying “bye bye” over and over for about 20 minutes.

After we had enough of playing in the salt water, we drove back to the hotel where we met up with five of our group who had returned earlier. We went to a cheap mom-and-pop Chinese place down the street for a late lunch of dumplings and fried rice. We needed a fast meal because we had planned to spend the afternoon hiking out in the national park.

We decided to take the scenic route to the Cikong Waterfalls – a nice secluded spot in the forest where a spring-fed river on a mountain forms seven waterfall pools as it cascades down toward the ocean. We made it there by about 4:00 in the afternoon, so we didn’t have much time to hike all the way to the top. We didn’t have flashlights and the trail here is not very developed, so it would be a nightmare to try to climb down at night. The “trail” is really more of a suggested place to walk – there is no beaten down path to walk on. You have to cross the river about three times, walk over slippery rocks and logs, and dodge any falling rocks one of your partners might accidentally kick down on the ascent. There are ropes tied to trees and strong roots protruding from the ground, but you have to be careful not to rely on them too much. You never know if one is old and frayed to the point of breaking or how solidly the tree or root it is tied to is stuck in the ground. Sometimes the rope is tied to a tree fairly far up hill, which means there is a lot of slack on it when you grab it. I would imagine if one relied too much on one of these ropes they could slip and the rope wouldn’t catch until they had already fallen pretty far. Fortunately, my years of trekking through the Missouri Outback prepared me for the climb in this terrain, so I was fine.

The first of the waterfalls was really beautiful. It’s not a very high waterfall, but it pours over the ledge in several locations. Some of our group didn’t really have good shoes, so they decided to wait for us there. The path up from the first fall was very steep and slippery. Unfortunately, my Pumas don’t have the best traction in the world, so I had to rely on the rope a lot here. When we made it past the top of the first fall, we found the first pool at the base of the second fall. It was pretty small, but looked deep enough to swim in. Since we only had about an hour before we had to head back, we had to decide whether to swim here or to try our luck farther up. With seven people, this pool looked like a tight fit, so we climbed on.

The next pool was beautiful! We decided to spend the rest of our sunlight time here. It was a steep climb down, but there were ropes, roots, and small rock ledges to use on the climb down. The water was cold, but clean and clear. It was probably about nine feet deep and really felt refreshing after being in warm saltwater all day. The current wasn’t too strong and you could get directly under the waterfall if you swam hard. The water has carved this pool so that the ledge where it falls to the next pool is like a wall that you can rest on. We had fun climbing up about five feet and doing cannonballs into the pool when we got cold. The rest of the time we just enjoyed the scenery. It was one of the prettiest spots I have ever seen. We all agreed if we made it back to Kenting, we would have to come back here and spend a whole day hiking to the top and working our way down, having a swim in each pool along the way.

At the end of the trail on the way back there is a little shack where some old Taiwanese men were hanging out. They had a few dogs tied up in the yard and a karaoke machine in the hut. It was an interesting sight because these guys were singing JAPANESE songs! They gave a big smile when I started talking to them in Japanese and told us to come again. I wish we had had more time to stay and chat, but by this point everybody was ready for a shower and dinner.

We drove back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We tried to make reservations at “Din-din”, a famous Thai restaurant down the street, but it was booked until 11:00. We managed to get reservations at another Thai restaurant on the main street, which was really good. Ordering with a big group of people over here is fun because we each ordered one or two dishes and everybody just shared everything. The shrimp, chicken, pork, frog, beef, and veggies were all scrumptious! I have decided that no cuisine in the world tops Thailand’s, but that it just my opinion.

We went to a nightclub later that night to hang out for a bit. All of us were pretty lethargic when we first got there, but we all got out on the dance floor when the DJ put on some decent (i.e. non-top 40) dance tunes. Two effeminate Taiwanese guys kept getting into the dance circle and trying to pull in Adi and Steve, but they weren’t having any of it. It was a very amusing sight.

I was pretty tired, so I left at about 1:00. Most of the others stayed for another couple of hours, but I had been swimming, jumping, climbing, and driving all day, so I wasn’t up for it. We were supposed to have a typhoon move through the area late that night and into the morning on Sunday, so I was a bit worried we wouldn’t be able to drive home, but it went north. Apparently it was really strong and did some damage in Taiwan, but we hardly had any rain or wind in Kenting at all. Those who stayed in Kaohsiung said it rained pretty hard, but we only saw a few drops the whole drive home. Lucky us!

All in all it was a great weekend. I am back at school now and trying to get back into a studious mindset. Chinese classes are driving me crazy because this language seems next to impossible to pronounce if you are not Chinese. We have started using characters in class, however, which makes things a little easier for me. Now if I just wasn’t tone-deaf…

I am thinking of going to Taichung or Taipei for a day or two this weekend. If anything interesting happens between now and then, I will be sure to fill you in.

Zai jian!

Lost in translation in Taiwan

Once again it is time for a long-winded and overdue update. I hope you have the patience to read through it…

We just had a very strong, albeit brief, thunderstorm. I stayed dry in the computer lab, but it really poured for about 30 minutes. It really reminded me of the summer storms we have in Missouri, so it was nice to have a bit of home right here in Taiwan.

Last Thursday my “Cross-Straits Relations and Asia-Pacific Security” class officially began. The room was packed with international students, many more than they were apparently expecting. We gave brief introductions, and though this is a pretty diverse group, about half of the students are French students majoring in management. Many of them seem to be taking the class because it sounds interesting, but I don’t think they will be returning this week. We still have another week before we have to finalize our schedules for the semester, so a lot of these students still have time to choose another class. I think many of them had a hard time understanding the professor because it was a large classroom and he has a bit of an accent. I feel very lucky to be a native English speaker with a lot of experience dealing with accented English, because I understood pretty much everything we talked about.

Our professor, Dr. Lin, is the Vice President of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, a think tank based in Taipei. He got his Ph.D. in the U.S. and seems to be really well-connected. I got to talk with him one-on-one outside of class later that day. He filled me in on some interesting aspects of Taiwan’s foreign policy decision-making process, something I found quite interesting. I am thinking of writing my research paper in his class about Taiwan-Japan relations. Dr. Lin offered to help me set up interviews with current and former Taiwanese government officials to interview as part of my research. This is another great opportunity to build my network of contacts that really got off to a good start this summer in Japan.

On Friday I had to get up early to ride the bus to a “resort” out by Cheng-ching Lake on the outskirts of Kaohsiung. We had a two-day event sponsored by the Political Science Department to welcome new graduate students. We spent most of our time in an over-air conditioned room (yes, too cold even for me) playing children’s games. It was pretty bizarre, and being the only foreigner there, I didn’t have much of a grasp of what was going on most of the time. Some of the students translated for me every once in a while, but I kind of lost interest during many of the games. The most frustrating times were the ones when everyone laughed. Of course I wanted to know what was so funny, but the punch line was always lost on me. Humor is probably the most difficult thing to translate, and the Chinese (like the Japanese) seem to use a lot of puns and other word-play type jokes that cannot be accurately translated. It doesn’t matter how funny a joke is, if someone has to explain it to you, you will not think it is very funny.

On the upside, we had a barbeque on Friday night and I got to play paintball on Saturday. I also met some really cool students, including a few police officers who are apparently taking classes here. Two of them are Taiwanese SWAT team officers who work as mounted police on the weekends. They were really friendly and one of them gave me his card, telling me if I ever had any trouble in Taiwan I should call him and he will help me out. Now I am not planning on doing anything that would get me in trouble with the law while I am here, but you never know when the Taiwanese might get the idea in their head that I look like a terrorist. Hey, it happened in Japan, why not here?

The barbecue was really good. We had all kinds of pork, chicken, beef, and fish on the grill. I ate a little too much (big surprise, right?), but slept like a log. We stayed in a big room with about 20 mats to sleep on. It was really nice, and I was going to get a picture of the room in the morning, but I was rushed out the door to breakfast, so in my haste I forgot. I managed to find the one English station on the TV (CNN) and watched reports on Hurricane Rita as it approached the Texas/Louisiana coast. Thank God it wound up losing strength so quickly; it really seemed ominous on the approach.

Paintball was fun, but I think I was a little too gung-ho. We only had 30 bullets and I ran out about halfway through the second game. I didn’t get shot, but since I was hiding behind and oil drum and peeping out to shoot at about 10 different people, I am not sure if I got anyone or not. I think I got at least one guy, but it was kind of hard to tell.

It was nice to get back home and shower and sit in the AC for a while. We had pretty mild weather on Friday, but Saturday was as hot as any day we have had so far. I went to the beach for a little while in the afternoon, but we couldn’t swim, so I went home shortly afterwards. We went out for pizza on Saturday night, which was really good. It’s been so long since I had a good pizza, and I was starting to get a little tired of Chinese food all the time. Some of the food here is amazing, but some of it is not very good at all. Trying something new is always a crap shoot, and after a few days of having some really good and some not-so-good dinners, I was ready for a safe bet. It’s hard to go wrong with a really good pizza…

In other news, about 10 of us (8 international students and 2 Taiwanese) are taking a road trip to Kenting National Park this weekend. It should be a blast!!! Check out their website with this link and see for yourself. We are going to rent a couple of cars and drive there because there is no public transportation once you enter the park and it is supposed to be pretty large. There are beaches, waterfalls, mountains, hot and cold springs, and many other features that we are all dying to see. Hopefully the weather will agree with our travel plans. I will be sure to load plenty of pictures on flickr!

I also got a package from Maiko today. She got me a 240-page guide to the Simpsons. What can I say? Does this girl know me or what? Thanks babe!

My mom has also managed to swing us three free nights at a four and a half/five star hotel in Rome on her hotel points! Wow!!! I can’t use enough exclamation points for this one!!! Thanks mom!!!

That’s all for now. Since I’ll be gone this weekend, it’s just going to be study, study, study until Friday. Well, mostly studying…

School sort of starts...

Well, once again, I have waited too long to update, so I have to now bring you up to speed on the last several days of my life here in Kaohsiung.

Classes sort of started last week. I say “sort of” because my Thursday class (Cross-Straits Relations and Asia-Pacific Security) was canceled. The professor wasn’t there, but we received the syllabus and an article to read for this week. My Friday class (Taiwan Government and Politics) was held, but we only met for about half an hour. It should be an interesting class because we don’t have one instructor. We will have a different lecturer every week, including Missouri State’s very own Dr. Dennis Hickey (one of my “bosses” when I am a graduate assistant). Unfortunately, Dr. Hickey is scheduled to lecture the week I will be in Italy. Maybe I will get lucky and he will have to come a week later…

That’s about all the school news I have. Now that I have my syllabi I have an idea of what my study schedule will be like this semester. I will have a paper, a couple presentations, and a couple of finals, but I don’t think it will be too rough. That is a good thing, because I plan on traveling Taiwan as much as I can over the next three months, I will also be taking Chinese classes, and I have to study for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in December. I have also signed up for Tai Chi classes with a bunch of the other international students. I am really excited to be doing some kind of martial art while I am here, even if it is a slow-moving one. We got a group discount at a local martial arts academy, so it should be fun. We start on Tuesday.

Before I begin telling you about the weekend, I have one gripe about our schedule here at the university. We don’t start our Chinese lessons until next week. That means we are here for three to four weeks before we learn any Chinese. I have picked up bits and pieces here, but from what I gather, you really need an instructor to help you with the pronunciation and tones in Chinese. Fortunately there are enough bilinguals around to help us out when we venture into the city…

Anyway, it was another good weekend. On Thursday we went to the beach during the day to do some swimming. For all those who care, yes, I did wear sun block (SPF 30). The beach here isn’t great, but being from the Midwest, I have no room to complain. I mean come on, we have a beach ON CAMPUS! Not bad…

The lifeguard told us in plain English that we weren’t allowed to go out very far. He made sure to blow his whistle any time we wandered out beyond waste-deep water and bring us in a bit. It’s still typhoon season, and though we haven’t had any bad weather recently, there are debris floating about in the water. Tree branches (some deserve to be called trunks) and other small and medium-sized debris were scattered all over the shore line and occasionally brushed us as we waded and kung-fu kicked our way around. I don’t think the water in this ocean is all that clean, either, being as one of the world’s busiest harbors is not far away. Health concerns aside, however, the water was warm and it felt really good to swim for the first time in a while.

On Friday, I was back on the beach, but this time to eat. They had a barbeque for students at the Chinese Language Center. These international students do not take regular classes at the university – they are just here to study Chinese. About half of the students were Japanese, so I enjoyed the ego-massage I received from all of the praises for how good my Japanese is. Unfortunately, I let this go to my head and didn’t pay attention to the rapid pace at which the food was disappearing. I managed to get enough to tide me over until I could stop by the convenience store, however, so it was still fun. I loaded some pictures on flickr of one of the Japanese students doing some crazy fire-dance, that was really cool.

On Saturday, we went out for Thai food. This was probably the best Thai food I have ever had. I wish I had pictures of everything we ate, but we ordered about 10 dishes to be split among eight people and it didn’t all come at the same time. Needless to say, most plates were empty too fast for me to snap a picture. Afterwards we went to an outdoor café, aptly named “The Outdoor Café”. They had a live band and a lot of tables under palm trees. It had a great atmosphere, and the mosquitoes weren’t biting too hard. We all had fruit smoothies, which were about the best we had ever had. They come topped with a scoop of ice cream the same flavor as your smoothy (I had raspberry). Excellent. We then had a good night of watching Family Guy on someone’s laptop in my room.

Sunday was the Moon Festival, which this year apparently coincides with some mid-Autumn festival. Most of the Taiwanese on campus left to visit their families for the weekend, so we decided to go down to the Love River and watch the fireworks. Again, we enjoyed smoothies and live music at an outdoor café (I really like this routine!) and watched the fireworks over the river. There’s really not much to say about this… The fireworks were nice, but nothing compares to the fireworks show I enjoyed in Yokosuka this summer (especially with VIP seats right next to the water!) and this doesn’t seem like a major public festival. I guess this was more of a family holiday…

Well, that’s it for now. This week I have to start studying. I hate to admit it, but I haven’t read a book in a while now, so I have to start getting used to the study part of being in school. I will try to get around to posting again before I go to the lake this weekend. Until then!