Week ending November 25, 2003

Well, here I am in an Internet cafe in Thailand. Bangkok to be more specific. The connection is, well, craptastic. Hopefully this will get sent, so I'm not going to write an overly long email because there is a chance it just might not make it. I'm leaving the city for Qing Mai tomorrow. We're going by overnight train (goodie). I'll be taking the train back on Saturday night to fly back to Taipei on Sunday night, classes start again on Monday.

I really like Thailand, everything is cheap, and we finally had a big Thai dinner tonight. I've already seen like a million temples as well as the National Palace and a cabaret show (the transvestites here are SOOOOOOO much better than the ones at AsiaSF).

It's a little hard to get by when no one has cellphones that work. People who aren't tourguides really don't speak much English, I guess not surprisingly.

....

On Tuesday I went shopping at Ximen with a bunch of girls from Shi Da. D, who is leaving the same day as L, wanted to buy a bunch of presents to give her host family, boss, etc. and the rest of us just went along for the ride. I got a really cute over the shoulder bag with a golden dragon decorated in sequins. I was supposed to see a movie with L afterwards, But he ended up spending the evening drafting and sending an email on behalf of his tutoree who was given a very low grade on a presentation L has been helping him prepare the last month on some European artist. The teacher thought the presentation was too good, and therefore must not have been original work. I'm not sure if the issue has been resolved yet.

Yesterday was the last day of cooking class, so we finally made jiaozi (dumplings). Actually more specifically we made shuai jiao (boiled dumplings). We made about a million so there were plenty of extras. There were six students who weren't normally there, but I came a little late so I missed their back story. L came to join us after his class lunch, which was apparently made a little awkward by the teacher insisting the whole thing be done in Chinese, at which everyone in the class is at a beginning level. After lunch G, L and I went down to Caves Books and bought a lonely planet for Thailand, then came back to our apartment to watch Sunset Blvd, a movie I don't think I'd ever seen before, but which L really likes.

At 7:30 we all reconvened towards the end of the blue line for a going away party for L and D. A, the girlfriend of a Costa Rican from the last batch of scholarship students and a friend of A2's, offered to host the party. She had done language exchange with L a couple of times. Her little sister is apparently some type of pop star who was in a Spice Girls type band here, but is currently hosting a TV show. They had a nice spacious apartment, but the party was on the roof. The weather was great, not too hot not too cold, and it had stopped raining long enough before to be completely dry. A brought out a big lamp and stereo and we set up the BBQ and started grilling the tons of meat and vegetables we had bought at a nearby Wellcome. A bunch of the Costa Ricans were there, four of L's classmates (a Japanese guy who ran the grill all night and didn't talk much, two Korean girls, and the German girl who we went to the tea park with), G, D, some kid from So. Cal, some of A's friends, and then even O and A3 came up from Taizhong to pay their respects.

The grills were small things that sit almost directly on the ground. They are very popular here and they sell for about two dollars each. So it's easier to replace them than to clean them. As a result, the food was slow in coming out, but it really was delicious and no one seemed to mind eating dinner slowly sharing skewers between groups of friends who were standing around drinking Taiwan beer or dancing to the Latin music. When the horizon cleared some there was even a great view of Taipei 101.

We ended around 1 (out of respect for A's neighbors) and cleaned up the roof as best we could. Then half the remaining people decided to go home while the other half of us went out to Room 18, a club right in the midst of Warner Village, the movie theater/mall thing. The club was pretty cool, though I think so far Luxy has been the best Taipei club I've been to, but I guess this one is a little more established as a place for the Taiwanese movie stars, tv stars, and models to hang out. I hadn't really been expecting to be going dancing so I looked a little raggedy. But A used to be a regular there and had a friend who helped us get in quickly, but I still got stopped twice on the way in by people who looked less than happy about letting me pass.

I had a stripe of red wine on my shirt from hugging the bottle to me while trying to open it, and dirt on my knees from kneeling on the rooftop. I also had charcoal on my hands and arms from the grill. I was just overall underdressed in my denim skirt with sneakers and striped socks pulled all the way up, oh well.

We ran into a group of kids from Shi Da, although they'd been around for awhile so they left piecemeal not long after we got there. The music is really the same at all these places, there are maybe 20 songs you're guaranteed to hear if you stay 3 hours, with a couple optional older American songs (they're all American) thrown in to be slightly different.

Today we had our second to last lunch together as a big group at the good Korean place on Shi Da Lu. L and I got shaved ice afterwards because its been closed whenever the weather got cold or rainy, and I've been worried at some point it may actually close down for the winter, which would be the end of my world. Tonight I'm going to have dinner down by Zhongxiao Tunhua, should be fun, the semester is almost over meaning my time in Taiwan is half done.

....

This will be a long one, so try and stay with me.

On Thursday after school I went to the Museum of World Religions with L and G. It is located in Yonghe, across the river from the part of Taipei I live in, but just one MRT stop away. The museum is actually located on the sixth and seventh floor of one of the branches of SOGO. The museum was designed with the help of Religion professors from Harvard and the guy who designed the Holocaust museum in DC. It was a very interesting idea for a museum. The museum itself was set up to show the path of religion. You start out with a special elevator that is glowing white and akin to being born. You enter through a room with a wall of water where you are free to purify yourself as you see fit, then you walk down a long corridor that parallels a pilgrimage, with pictures of pilgrims along the wall. You end up in a gold plated huge sphere with a mosaic on the ground representing different aspects of all the major world religions, here you buy your ticket and decide whether or not to get the audio tour.

When you enter the museum itself there is a huge room with videos, relics, and information about the world's different religions. Each section has a small part about how its practiced in Taiwan (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Shikism, Mayan (I think they felt obligated to represent S. America), Taoism, Bhuddhism, Shintoism, Taiwanese aboriginal, Hinduism, and maybe I'm forgetting some others).

After you've walked around and looked at all the different sections you go into the middle where they have models of some of the great religious buildings of the world including a church in Russia, Chartres in France, some cool Indian building I forget the name of. There is also a Shinto temple, the Dome of the Rock, the church in Donghai which I talked about earlier when I described my last trip to Taizhong. I guess the only famous religious monument in Taiwan that wouldn't be upstaged by some temple in China. Then you go watch a movie, which was all in Chinese, but seemed to talk about Religion, in an Imax style sphere theater. The sixth floor was a path from birth, through coming of age, adulthood, marriage, middle age, old age, and death.

Each station had an interactive touch screen with some animated movies about how some religion dealt with that stage of life. There were a bunch of objects to represent that stage of life. Along the sides there was also a meditation room that outlined the different types of meditation for each religion with a space in the middle of the room suitable for meditation should you be so inclined, soothing music, and a video that was rotating through religious practitioners meditating. There was another room which had testimonials about people's religious awakenings or callings. It was a pretty interesting museum. The concept seems unique to me, and they put it into practice well, very interactive and not just static. I probably would have gotten even more out of it if I could actually speak or read Chinese, or if I'd gotten the English audio tour, but I enjoyed it thoroughly without either of those.

In the evening, after he'd finished his tutoring, L, G and I met up again to go to a sake house in our neighborhood. It was one of the places recommended to me by one of S's friends. It wasn't too crowded since it was a Thursday night. I had a sake martini, something I'd never seen offered before. It was actually probably the best martini I've ever had, very little edge, I don't know what was in it as far as how much gin and vodka, but it was delightful.

I think I've mentioned this before, but in case I hadn't, when I go to the pool at night there are, or were, often large groups of Shi Da students, the actual Taiwanese ones not the language center students, practicing dance/cheerleading routines. Ok, that's a little weird. These weren't small groups but groups of 30 plus, several groups, with just as many male as female students, practicing every time I went swimming, for probably at least two hours each time, if not more. I heard from one of the Costa Ricans that they were practicing for some competition between the departments, and on Friday they actually had this competition. It started at 10 (just as I get out of class), and I have it on good authority it ran until 6. L and I went over as soon as we got out, and it was insane. They really were just representing their departments. It was an inter-Shi Da cheerleading competition. We saw the Music department (the best group we saw), the Physics department, the Education dept, some type of Engineers, Science, Econ, etc. It just kept going and going. Each group was huge and well-rehearsed. Some used wacky props (my favorite groups were the ones that included fans in their routine, though some uses of banners were also good). Each department had roadies that helped set up the pom-poms or signs and cleaned up efficiently after they were done, often all wearing the same departmental shirt. Each department also had a flag bearer. Some departments cheering sections were together cheering en masse at the appropriate time.

Some groups had put lots of time into lifts. I saw stuff I'd never seen before, not even on ESPN 2. Some groups seemed to put more effort into the costumes Most were dressed as American-style cheerleaders, but there seemed to be no consistent color theme or mascot. I don't know where they got the outfits or why they chose them. Some were dressed as caveman, or had an Egyptian theme, or where dressed as Flamenco dancers.

This would never happen at an American school. I think American college students are too jaded for this kind of out and out display of school spirit. There was no irony or sarcasm to any of the performances. Everyone was really happy to be there and really excited to be representing their department. Even the guys where in make-up or had their hair done with no hint of embarrassment if it was appropriate for their groups theme. You could never get that many American guys to compete in a cheerleading competition either. It certainly raised my Shi Da spirit, but after two hours L and I decided to take off and get lunch at the vegetarian buffet.

Now for the exciting out of town part of the story.

On Friday I went down to Taizhong with L and D. L and I had been planning this for a little while, and we only recently found out D was also planning on going. We wanted to see Tairoko Gorge and Hualian, the two main Central/Eastern Taiwan attractions, since L is leaving next week. All three of us took the bus down to Taizhong from Taipei Main Station to spend the night in Taizhong with O and Arjan, two of the Europeans we met on the paragliding trip. Their set up in Taizhong is great. They are both working for a Japanese company that is assembling some light rail in Taiwan. They both have huge apartments, came fully furnished, in ritzy apartment buildings. They both had spare beds and big couches so we all fit comfortably. We were thinking about going out, but it was almost midnight when we got in, and we wanted to make an early start the next day since we'd have lots of driving ahead of us. I did see what was supposedly the largest KTV in the world though.

Apparently the KTV in Taizhong is rather special, and expensive, because if you go into the KTV alone you won't stay alone for long, wink, wink, if you catch my drift. So we just turned in relatively early and the next morning we were off from the west to the east of this small but mountainous island.

The main road to Tairoko was closed for some reason. O had the company car and although he and D were going to keep a different pace since they wanted to do it all in one weekend and L and I were going to go more leisurely he offered to drive us to our first stop, Lishan.

Because of the closure, we went a more southern route. As long as we were heading south we decided to stop at Sun Moon Lake. It was very pretty, although a little hazy. We wandered around there for awhile, listened to a Chinese man play Spanish guitar, and then headed for the hills. After the first bit of climb we stopped and had tea, and then set in for the earnest long haul. It took several hours to get to Lishan. It got very steep and the road was all hairpin turns, precariously carved onto the side of cliffs overlooking the gorge. O was a great driver (German). The view really was great, the mountains just looked different from any I'd seen before. The vegetation was different and the very shape of the mountains was different. There were maybe three distinct different kinds of mountains we passed over or around as well, with distinct kinds of vegetation making their coloring very different. We got into Lishan around 3 and D and O took off to try and beat sun down (5:30) to get to their own hotel. L and I signed in, dropped off our stuff, and then headed out to walk around Lishan while we had the light. Lishan is a very small mountain town. We easily walked through all of it, including the temple, and stopping to buy a pear (Lishan is famous for its pears, and there were occasional tour buses coming through with people getting off to buy them, the main street was lined with pear sellers). The area around Lishan is all pear orchards. Each pear tree had to be propped up, I guess because of the size of the pears, no joke, some of them were as big as my head, literally, no joke. And each pear was wrapped in a bag (to keep away pests? for some flavor reason? I don't know why). It looked very labor intensive, but there wasn't actually anyone out in the orchards doing anything that we saw. We had dinner at one of the few restaurants in town, it was ok, but actually a bit more expensive than its Taipei equivalent, without necessarily being better in any way. We tried san bei ji (three cup chicken, or basil chicken) a Taiwanese specialty I've heard about in my cooking class, it was pretty good, I assume you can get it state side if you look hard. After dinner we just went back to our hotel room since it was dark and we were on a mountain. We watched a couple movies on one of the English channels (Ever After and Panic Room) and then turned in.

The next morning we walked up Lishan (pear mountain) stopping only briefly at the Lishan Culture Museum (all in Chinese) where we learned that Lishan Culture involved rocks and animals, and very large headed aboriginals, and not much else. We continued up the mountain at least 6 km to Fushoushan Farm, a farm run by or for veterans, I didn't really get it. It was supposed to have a great view, but it didn't really. It was a long walk, and it was kind of drizzling, and both L and I were kind of sick, but it was still fun. The whole trip L and I were either having a genuinely good time, or we were sarcastically having fun at the expense of whatever was going wrong, our temperaments are very well matched for travel companions. At the farm we walked around, they did have some nice cabins for staying at, a beautiful flower garden, some greenhouses, and a bunch of fields of things that weren't pears (at least one field was cabbages). We had another kind of crappy, kind of expensive meal, but some ok coffee, and OJ grown in Sherman Oaks, CA (that's where T is from), and then headed back down the mountain. We had thought about going up to Tianchi, one of Chiang Kai Shek's mountain retreats, but without a car it didn't really seem worth more uphill climbing. We got back to Lishan a bit earlier than expected, bought another pear and an apple and waited for the bus to Tairoko and specifically Tianxiang where we would be staying at the Youth Activity Center.

The bus came at 3, which should have meant we would have had plenty of light for the beautiful trip through the gorge. And there was light, but there was also plenty of fog. We couldn't see anything. Occasionally you could see the edge of the cliff on the side of the road or the faint outline of a very close mountain, but that was it. Sigh, oh well, the real excitement was on the bus anyway.

There were only four of us on the bus, L and I, some girl from Lishan going back to her boarding school in Hualian (if I understood her Chinese conversation with the bus driver). There was also this crazy mountain woman (that's what I understood from questioning the middleschooler after the following happened). The crazy woman started periodically yelling stuff, at first L and I were just tuning it out, or thinking she was talking to the bus driver, but it started to get more emphatic, frequent, and obviously unintelligible. At one point the driver stopped the bus and threw her water bottle out the window, which I assume contained something other than water, and then we stopped again he made her get off the bus. They were on L's side, and apparently she just dropped her pants and took a piss right then and there. The bus driver tried to get her back on, but she wouldn't get back on, so eventually he took off her stuff and we just left her somewhere in Tairoko gorge on the side of the road. The rest of the drive was comparatively uneventful.

We got into Tiansiang a little after dark and walked to the activity center. Tiansiang was even smaller than Lishan, with nature as its main attractions, so we just had dinner at the activity center (again kind of crappy, a bit too expensive, and this time cold), and then rented the ping pong paddles from the front desk for a little youth activity. After five games we decided we'd earned our sitting around watching American movies (Liberty stands Still, not good at all) in the room. The room was Japanese style with the beds on the floor, a moving cherry blossom decorated screen, wooden floor, etc, actually a bit nicer than our Lishan room, although smaller. The activity center was actually a very nice space, a huge building divided up well, I would highly recommend it to anyone going through that part of central Taiwan.

In the morning (today) the fog had cleared. We could see the gorge and the mountains and it really was all beautiful. Green and lush with marble striped rocks that almost looked like they were moving as a result of the way they jutted up and flowed into each other. The river was moving strong, but not necessarily full looking, no snow melt in these parts, just rain water. We decided our only activity in Tairoko would be the Wenshan hot springs, as we had done plenty of hiking the previous day. It was still 3 km to get to the hot springs, walking along the side of the windy, steep road, but the hot springs were great. There were actually a fair number of people there given that it was a Monday morning. There were a couple westerners, but mainly Asian tourists. The hot springs were still out in nature, not pumped into a resort as many hot springs in Taiwan apparently are. We had to go down many stairs to get to the bottom of the gorge as well as crossing a suspension bridge.

The springs were divided into three pools. The smallest one was the source and the hottest (I could only put my leg in for a few seconds) and most mineral filled and cloudy. The second was still too hot for us to stay in for more than a half minute at a time. The last was comparable to our hot tub in Orinda in temperature. People were also hopping the small fence and going directly into the river which was relatively warm next to the hot springs and had comfortable flat rocks to sit on and small rocks that were easy to walk over. We spent the morning moving around to the different pools and checking everything out. It was really nice, and the overcast weather and slight misty rain made it an appropriate day for going to hot springs, even if it was still a little humid. But I can't imagine going there on any other kind of day being as enjoyable. It even cleared up both of our colds a little. We somehow managed to catch the bus on the way back which was a pleasant surprise, since neither of us had brought water, so we weren't looking forward to the walk back, even if it would be downhill this time.

We had been expecting to spend more time at the hot springs and hadn't counted on catching the bus back so we ended up being able to take an earlier bus than we'd expected to Hualian. The fog stayed away so that the drive was beautiful and we finally got to see what we'd missed the previous day. We were the only two on the bus for most of the way. Hualian is a beach town, and today was not exactly beach weather, as I'd already described.

So when we got into Hualian, the bus station was right next to the train station, we decided to get our train ticket and head back a day early. Our plan had been to spend the night in Hualian and explore the area. But fog was obscuring the view of the mountains, and making the beaches uninviting. So we decided to just get back to Taipei where we could finally get some good food, and do all the laundry that was stacking up. Plus our original plan had also involved staying at a resort owned by the brother of the mother of one of L's tutorees, and that had fallen through. So we'd also have had to pay for and find our own hotel that afternoon.

There was a train leaving immediately, but we bought our tickets for the one leaving in an hour and a half so we could at least see a little of Hualian. As we were outside checking out a map a friendly cab driver snagged us with some friendly banter about the beaches and parks. We drove to the nearer park and looked at the water, it really was a beautiful shade of bluish turquoise I haven't seen before. But after a couple minutes admiring the color we were done.

Hualian is famous for its colorful rocks, apparently. The cab driver told us he'd show us some of the rocks, which we thought sounded great. But he took us to a shop where a woman was selling jewelry made with this rocks when we thought we were going to some other beach or park. Oh well. That was my experience in Hualian. I'm sure its nicer in the summer, but given how humid it was today, I'm not actually sure I'd want to go back in the summer, having already seen the beautiful color of the Pacific there and not being much of a beach person. We easily caught our train back to Taipei. The train ride back was smooth and quiet and quick.

Back in Taipei, oh how I missed it, L and I had dinner at a dim sum place in the yongkong area near my house I'd been wanting to try for a while, called Gaoji (tall memories?). We had five different kind of dumplings, and a dish of green onions, wrapped in pork in a garlic sauce which I'd never seen before but thoroughly enjoyed. And we got some pearl tea afterwards. And now here I am typing a ridiculously long email when I should be studying for a test I didn't think I was going to be back in time to take tomorrow.

Week ending November 18, 2003

This morning I woke up still feeling a bit sick. It took me a half-hour to stop hitting my alarm clock and finally get up, and just as I had swung my legs over the side of my bed, I could swear the room started moving. I chalked it up to not feeling well and waited for the room to stop spinning, but really it felt more like the bed was actually shaking, nothing in my room was rattling, but when I looked at my blinds, it looked like they were swaying as well. Whatever happened passed and I got ready for class and headed out. I stopped myself before I asked G if she'd felt anything so I wouldn't look foolish if it was just my own weak knees and stuffed up head. But then in the break between classes one of the Russian girls asked if I'd felt the earthquake this morning. So I knew I wasn't just really, really sick, only kind of sick. I brought it up in my class and over half the people had felt it. Apparently there was another earthquake over the weekend, but I guess they don't merit media attention because I couldn't find anything online about either to tell you about their magnitude, duration, or epicenter location. If you hear about it there at all let me know.

Today was a pretty busy day. I had to pay tuition for next semester, so I got to stand in line for an hour. I met another American and a Japanese girl and chatted with them to pass the time, so it wasn't so bad, but it was still a more painful process than it could have been if they'd been a little more organized and dedicated more than one computer to the process. By the time I got out of the enrollment office it was time for cooking class. We made some thing whose name I really paid absolutely no attention to. Pork, rice noodles, lots of garlic, ginger and spring onions (of course), some hot sauce, rice wine, soy sauce and oil, all tossed into the wok (of course). It was really good (of course). G and I had invited L and Y to come eat with us, but they'd been intimidated by our stories of the teacher sniping at other visitors so they didn't end up coming to join us. But after class I went with L, Y, a Korean girl from their class, and my cooking class buddy J to a book store on Tunhua, actually a place E took me in the couple days she was here. I bought a GRE study book, pretty exciting.

Afterwards everyone else split up and I went with L back to his 'hood to hang out. We checked out the temple that his MRT stop gets its name from, Shantao Temple. Its not like the temples where you are pretty much invited to come in anytime and wander around taking pictures, burning incense, etc. This is more of a functional work place for monks. There were monks all over the place. We saw their big cafeteria area and some office space before going up to the main building where a couple hundred monks were actually kneeling listening to a guy talk. They all had on the same brown robes with the same shaved heads, kneeling with their robes covering their legs and feet on yellow pillows in perfectly even rows and columns. There were two huge gold statues of Buddha in the front of the room surrounded by flowers and very well lit. We were just kind of peeking in when L started coughing and we decided it would be best to leave. A very different kind of temple for sure. It was covered with red lanterns in front which L says they light up at night.

....

I'd heard that Mucha Tea Park was a good place to get traditional tea. There was two paragraphs about it in the lonely planet and I tried to look it up online. From the descriptions of a "tea park" with 60 + tea growers and tea shops grouped together I expected there to be one concentrated area of tea shops where you could wander through the tea terraced hillside from tea house to tea house sampling the different varieties.

Actually what they meant by 'tea park' was a mountain to the south of Taipei where they grow tea. We got off at the Mucha Zoo stop, the last stop on the brown line on the MRT. We got a cab and told him to take us the tea park.

We passed opposite one of the biggest temples in Northern Taiwan. It looked impressive and perhaps worth going back down to visit. The whole mountain was very lush, and it was raining lightly as we ascended. The first two teahouses we stopped at were on "xiu xi" (afternoon break) but the third one was open, it was one of the more expensive ones, but it ended up running each of us slightly over $6. We got the local tea, which would make sense, called tie cha (iron tea, I guess, literally).

The tea house wasn't too impressive from the outside, but the inside was great, you walked over stones in a fish pond to get through the restaurant's entryway, and then all the tea drinking areas were separated from each other by partitions of carved wood and drapes.

There was Japanese style seating as an option (on the floor, low tables) and regular tables with benches which is what we chose. We had a view of the surrounding mountains, and could indeed see some of the terraced mountainside where fruit and tea were being grown. We could also make out Taipei in the distance, though not clearly, as the rain had gotten a bit heavier and was accompanied by a thick mist.

The cab driver helped us order by translating the Mandarin into Taiwanese, with Y acting as interpreter between her second and third language, and G trying to make up the difference with what she could understand of the waitress's Mandarin as well. Eventually we got our tea and also a tealeaf Jello that was very tasty.

The cab driver insisted on teaching L the tea ceremony since he was the only guy present, which actually seemed gender counter-intuitive to me as far as tea ceremonies go, but I guess that's how they do it. He tried to teach us the Mandarin words for things as he went along and describe what he was doing, but I'll spare you what little I remember and just describe the actual actions.

First he dished out two spoons full of the tea from the container we'd bought (and still have plenty of here now) into the brown clay teapot. He heated the water in a metal teapot on a hot plate on the table. He poured some water into the tea and didn't let it steep very long as he was just using that tea to wash everything. We each got two cups: one tall skinny one, one normal Asian style teacup which I'm sure you can picture on your own. Everything was washed in tea: hot water and tea were being sloshed around liberally as this was going on but there were bowls and a drainage device set up to accommodate some of the spillage (but not all by any means). Then the actual serving of the tea was begun. It would be repeated as many times as we wanted more tea.

The water, once heated, was poured into the clay teapot and left for 40 seconds to one minute in the pot, which was also bathed in hot water and sitting in hot water. Then the tea would be poured into a ceramic teapot through a sieve. Then from the ceramic teapot into the tall teacups. Then the shorter stouter tea cup would be placed on top of the taller one and flipped over (don't forget to smell the aroma of the tea captured in the taller cup before you put it back down, but be careful its hot). Voila, a cup of Taiwanese tea.

The tealeaves were good for five or six rounds and then were discarded in what looked like a cross between an ashtray and a bowl with beautiful wooden tweezers. It wasn't at all what I imagined a tea park would be. Perhaps it would be nice to go back sometime with someone who has a car so we could do a little more exploring and visit multiple teahouses. But it was still an enjoyable experience, and the only real tea ceremony of which I have been a part.

Week ending November 11, 2003

This week in cooking class we made dumplings that were between pot stickers and spring rolls. They were huge and very good. We made the shells by mixing low and medium grade noodle flour and water, very easy, and then chopped up rice noodles, green vegetables, dry tofu, and dried bitty shrimp and mixed it up with soy sauce and sesame oil. The hardest part was balancing the right amount of stuffing with the size of the dumpling pancake thing and then pinching it together so it looked as good as the ones the teacher made in demonstration. There ended up just being way too many dumplings, even without rice or side dishes, since all the basic food groups were already covered in the dumplings themselves. Next week I think L is going to come to class to help us cook and eat.

....

The Costa Ricans just threw their second big party, at the same place as the first one, the Source. I went to the first party with L, not knowing anyone and had a good time, but this time was even more fun since now I know so many Shi Da students. The Source was actually the place where I met many of them for the first time, including the Costa Ricans. All the cool kids were there. All the kids I've ever talked to outside of class from my class were there, all the Costa Ricans of course, all my friends from between classes, everyone from Cal and Columbia, all the Russians, all the Germans, etc. Last time I spent the whole time dancing since I didn't really have that much to say to anyone, this time I split my time between the dance floor on the second floor and the quieter first and third floor. It made me nostalgic. I've only been here two months, but already the whole social dynamic has done a 180. The kids I originally thought were untouchably cool are now my friends. It was a fun night. See pictures.

I went to SOGO to buy a Go board. But there really wasn't that much selection so I ended up not buying a Go board, instead I got a CD case, a necklace, and two toys (a raptor with a missile launcher on its back and a gorilla with a machine gun on its shoulder, some assembly required, directions in Japanese). SOGO was crazy, I might not have gone if I'd known that it was going to be so packed. Apparently this week is a big sale, everything in the store is marked down 20%. It's still not really that different from western prices, but I guess it was cheaper. The place was a zoo. Everyone and their mother and their kid was there. Going up the escalators took forever, especially to get to the higher levels where they have the toys and stationery.

I went for a run at the Shi Da track after I got back, and that was also more crowded than I'd ever seen it, I guess when I normally pass by on my way to swimming its at night, but during a nice Saturday afternoon every spare space was filled with people jogging, playing soccer, practicing tennis against walls, playing basketball, learning to rollerblade, learning to play baseball, playing volleyball, practicing cheerleading routines, etc. And I'm not talking about a huge space. The weather here has gotten warmer again, if it ever really got that cold.

I went to Sushi Express with L and G for dinner and then we met up with G's language exchange partners to go buy Chinese music. We each got two or three CDs. I got ones by AYa, Yan Zi and David Tao. None of it is in a style I would have gotten in English, but I'm hoping through repeated listenings it'll grow on me more. There are a couple songs on each CD that I like, now its time for me to choose one or two for my next KTV appearance. G got an album by T-Rush a two-girl band and L got a CD by Jay Chao, a rapper. After we'd bought our music we came back to our apartment for a watching of the DVD's that came with half of the music we'd bought, apparently a fairly compulsory accessory these days for Asian music. The videos were weird, and half of the DVDs were more commentary than video, which probably would have only been mildly interesting had it been in English, and as it was all in Chinese, it was hard to watch. But all the same, we had a fun little Chinese music video party.

Oh, and the guy who lives in the big compound on my walk to school, who I think I've mentioned before, is the Prime Minister of Taiwan. How's that for a good neighborhood?

....

On Tuesday after calligraphy I was going to go get lunch with O but instead he and his friends wanted to go to KTV (karaoke) so I went with them. We went to a "Party World" right near Sogo (the biggest most popular department store here, Japanese owned). Party World was a lot more plush than Holiday. There were fancy chandeliers in the lobby and big comfy couches. The place looked like it must have been a converted hotel, though I suppose they all have that look with the private rooms with their own bathrooms and all. But this place was really nice. No all you can eat buffet this time, but we did get lunch for 39 NT which is slightly over a dollar. We stayed for two hours and also got some of the best nai cha (milk tea) I've had in Taipei and some pretty good dumplings. O, N and G all grew up with Chinese at home and listened to popular Chinese music even while growing up in Texas and Oregon. M is just at a high level so she's able to read well, and probably they get a fair amount of spill over music in Indonesia from China/Taiwan, but anyway, this time everyone was actually singing in Chinese. There were a couple of songs in English, but it was fun going with a group who could actually do KTV as it was meant to be done, and read the directions on the remote and talk to the waitstaff about special deals, like super cheap lunch. O finally burned me a copy of a CD of Chinese music (David Tao) so I'm going to try and get it together to be able to sing my own song in Chinese next time we go. N was especially awesome, she did a couple of Chinese raps that actually sounded really good. O even did one song in Taiwanese. On Wednesday night I went and saw the Matrix with G and L at Warner Village. It was pretty good. I liked it better than the second one. Mainly I just liked that I was in the hemisphere that got to see it first, so I felt extra cool going the first day. Today I had lunch with my teacher from Columbia who is now here. We ate at the new restaurant on campus. It was ok, but its foreign food and I was kind of hoping we'd go to another Chinese restaurant so I could learn about some more dishes. But I had some pasta which came with a salad which is rare here outside of foreign restaurants. Huang laoshi said she'd definitely write me a letter of recommendation for my next studying exploit, so that's cool.

Week ending November 4, 2003

....

Happy (belated) Halloween. We did celebrate it here. We were going to go to this club called Plush on the 12th floor of a mall/department store (apparently the type of location for many clubs), but instead we ended up going to "Party Room." Party Room and Plush are a couple doors down from each other, not on street level, but on the same floor, which I thought was very odd. Anyway, Party Room was a couple 100 NT cheaper so that's where I went with the twins from Brunei, a half dozen Costa Ricans, L and G. Maybe slightly less than half of the people were wearing costumes, no one from our group really was unless you count three of the Costa Ricans dressed all in black as actually being Charlie's Angels. The club was all right, but not as exciting or big as Luxy, and I feel like the music at all of these places is pretty much exactly the same. A DJ at a club in the states would be expected to be adding more to the music, while DJs here are basically just weaving together a bunch of popular American songs. And the costume that won the costume contest for the night was a tall white guy dressed as Marilyn Monroe. It was kind of half-assed Halloween and mainly just a Friday night, with a few skeletons up on the wall. We did see some little kids in face paint with their dad on a motor-scooter on the way to the club and they were excited to see so many waiguo ren together so we waved and said hi. Its amazing how you can make a kids eyes light up here just by giving 'em a nod.

On Thursday I went with L to the most famous restaurant in Taipei, it is actually in my neighborhood which is nice. Its specialty is dumplings. It's on the corner of Xinyi and Yung Kong, I forget the exact name but I think it started with Dian or something like that. Anyway we got some pork buns, some "xiao long" (little dragon) buns and some pork wrapped in sticky brown rest served in a grape leaf. It was very good. The buns were small, but perfectly made. Each one wrapped precisely and dimpled or tucked just like the other 9 it came with. I don't know if its the best in Taipei, but it might very well be. After lunch L and I walked over to the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial because I wanted to see if there was anything up to commemorate the Mme.'s passing. There wasn't anything obvious from the square. They were erecting a stage, but that was just for a starlight concert. There were lots of children running around but no big pile of flowers or huge picture. There's a couple of possible explanations for this. One is that the KMT is no longer in power, for the first time since its exile to Taiwan, and that really was the Chiang Kai-shek party. The second explanation was that Mme. Soong was never really about Taiwan, she was about the mainland, even now as I understand it, her body is being kept in New York (Westchester County) to be re-unified with her husband not in Taiwan, but on the Mainland post-reunification (?). It seems like as a result most of the memorial events and what not are more New York focused than Taipei focused. But L and I fed the fish at the fish pond and dedicated the act to her memory, mainly so I'd have something to write Gammie about...

Thursday night a bunch of us watched the second Matrix here in preparation for watching the third Matrix next week in theaters. We already have our tickets for 10 PM on Weds the 5th, the first available showing here.

This leads into the three new desserts I've had this last week that I really like. There is a type of chewy candy called Mochi which I have been getting at bakeries and 7-11's from time to time, I believe it is Japanese, it certainly sounds like it is. It is some type of chewy, gelatinous white/clear substance surrounding a chewy or paste center probably made of sesame paste, or red beans or green beans or something else entirely. Anyway, G sometimes buys a mochi-like product at the supermarket that comes froze. It has to be boiled before eating. While we had company over for the Matrix (we're the only ones with a good set-up with DVD player and TV and living room), she made the Mochi and made an accompanying soup. The soup recipe apparently comes from her grandmother. It involved dumping a whole bag of brown rock sugar into the boiling water and then adding slices of ginger. Man was it delicious. I'm totally going to make this when I get back to the states, and impress people with my mad Asian cooking skills. The second dessert is a lot less labor intensive. I picked up some Pumpkin flavored Pocky the other day on my way home from school and they were delicious. If they make it to the states I recommend trying them. I assume it was just a Halloween flavor, but maybe they'll stick around till Thanksgiving. And lastly, L introduced me to green tea, red-bean shakes at Dante's coffee shop that are just delicious. I think all three of these may actually be Japanese and not Taiwanese at all, but anyway, Yum.

And lastly, today I went with L to the Taipei gay pride parade. It was hard to find any information about it online, at least in English, so we didn't know its route or time, but we showed up at the 2/28 park after finding one article that mentioned that was its starting place. People were still not there in force so we went to have lunch, and then when we got back to the park around 2 people had gathered in one corner of the park. After being in or at least seeing the parades in New York and San Francisco this one was just "cute" or "adorable." I feel like if there were just a gay firemen parade in San Francisco it would put the parade I saw to shame. But this is still a relatively new concept in Taiwan, gay rights and visibility, so considering that I suppose it was a good turnout, maybe 1,000 people total, many of them westerners. Since it was the day after Halloween many people were still wearing their Halloween costumes, lots of witches, but some more colorful and creative ones as well. A lot of people had signs. A lot of people had masks covering their faces. There was a group of men in Speedos, a group carrying a huge rainbow flag, a couple transvestites, some "friends of gays", etc. It didn't feel like a sophisticated or practiced event, but it was fun. Some speeches were given, but we couldn't understand them, there was some media coverage. There weren't any politicians making the rounds, or any counter-protests, at least not in the park that we could see. I think this might have been their first year of having the party, but L seemed to think it was a couple of years old. At any rate some legislation de-criminalizing homosexuality is going through the government right now, so there was probably talk of that, even though we couldn't understand it.

By 2:30 they marched off and L and I were left with the rest of the afternoon to entertain ourselves. We went over to Taipei 101 to check it out and see if we could go up yet. We can't, Nov. 14th is the grand opening, at least of the Taipei 101 mall. We took the bus back to our respective homes and I did a little hanging out in the Yong Kong area, got some shaved ice and a green tea/red bean shake and came back to take a long nap.

Now I think I'm going to go swimming and then come back and start studying for my quiz on Monday and my test on Tuesday. Or maybe I'll just read more Tom Robbins so I can get to the Gogol novel Emily sent me from Santa Cruz, she's me new bestest friend as the first person, besides family, to send me something using my address in characters or anything period.

take care, Marlow

....

On Monday I went and saw Kill Bill with L. It was a really good movie and all, but I hadn't been prepared for how much of it was going to be in Japanese, which would have been fine, except that in Taiwan they release it with, duh, Chinese subtitles. From what little I could understand of the subtitles though it seemed like they were saying exactly what you would expect them to be saying from the context, "look at these great swords" "look at my face, do you remember me?", etc. L is just starting Chinese so he got even less from the subtitles than I did, but the violence was pretty easy to understand. We got tickets for The Matrix next Weds, 10 PM, we had to get them together because there is assigned seating at movie theaters here, weird, though not really I guess.

Today was O's birthday (O from my calligraphy class). Last night some of his friends decided to throw him a surprise birthday party and they invited me along. I went with the team that went to his apartment to kidnap him. One girl, a good friend of his from the old neighborhood back in Texas, made up a story about really needing to talk which fit the bill for a random arrival at 11:30 PM on a Tuesday. After she convinced him to go for a walk (and walk down the couple of flights of stairs under his own power), the other three of us waiting behind his door and in the alley jumped him, blindfolded him and bound his hands behind his back. We marched him to the main road and got a cab to a bar/lounged called N's where maybe over a dozen friends were already gathered with a cake and a couple presents. He seemed to really enjoy it, genuinely surprised and all. A little later a bunch of Asian models from his friend's agency showed up. Asian models never come to my birthday... but this year who knows? I really like the bar/lounged concept that they have here. I guess it caters to the lower tolerance of the average Asian patron to have several non-alcoholic options, and since there is less intoxication going around you can have nicer furniture and glasses, etc than at bars in the states, or at least the bars I frequented in NYC.

Tomorrow I graduate from book 1 to book 2 in my language class. I can't wait; the second book is smaller so it'll be less of a pain to carry around every day.

Today we made hong zhao ji (red cooked chicken) in cooking class. It was mighty tasty, but my favorite part of the meal was probably actually the preparation of the potatoes which were thinly diced, lightly fried in oil with some chili peppers and scallions and then salt, sugar and vinegar were added. Yum. There was also a delicious cold cucumber/"pickle" preparation. I finally got to meet the roommate, K, of my cooking team member/hang out during the break friend J, who came with S, a girl who graduated from Columbia a year or two before me, to share our lunch since not too many people came to cooking class today.

Return to current blog