Meriting the Madness of Love

“Soulja boy is coming!” – local intern Sylvia, about ten minutes ago, said in a hushed giggly whisper in our office.

 

Two months of cultural exchange, and on our part imposing the most obnoxious aspects of American culture on Taiwan’s most innocent, have led up to that quote. I’m sure quiet-as-a-mouse Sylvia had never heard of the Soulja Boy before she came face to face with USC’s global fellows. But before the end of the day we’ll have her, along with my boss Sean, cranking it in the Washington State Trade Office.

 

It’s going to be a hilarious last day.

 

Since this is my summation post (with a possibility of more to come), the summation word of my two months in Taiwan is epic. That’s the word the group agreed upon, and I like it. The epicness of this experience has made itself clear in the wonderful, enlightening, and oftentimes crazily random adventures and interactions we’ve had.

 

This past week I’ve been consumed with a little bit of desperation. I figure I probably won’t be coming back to Taiwan anytime soon, so I better make the most of it while I’m here.  Thus visits to some of my favorite places – the hole in the wall restaurant near our hotel with the best beef meal I’ve had here (or anywhere), Ice Monster with its indescribably delicious mango shaved ice, and the Shilin Night Market with its aisles and aisles of amazing food choices– were naturally obligatory.

 

Saturday I spent most of the day resting and watching movies, because everyone needs a day in sometimes. It was nice to relax. And that night I was able to do one of my favorite things, even in scorching hot and humid weather on an island in the Pacific: ice skate. Taipei has an open-year-round rink where people go to skate with friends, take dates, and play ice hockey. Yes, ice hockey. Hockey seems as out of place here as bobsledding does in Jamaica. It worked in Cool Runnings, right?

 

The next day was jam-packed with touring the north coast of Taiwan like the obnoxious foreigners we are. The amazing bosses of the Pennsylvania and Washington trade offices rented a bus and carted us to Danshui, Jo-Fun (which is definitely not how you actually spell it), and Keelung. The towns were all very charming, and we were able to take in some great views of the coast.

 

We did more eating that day than actual sightseeing, which of course I’m not complaining about! I had my favorite bowl of noodles to date in one restaurant (covered in peanut oil) and gorged on fried local specialties at the various street markets we visited. Not being constantly presented with delicious and cheap food on the street is going to be one major drawback of returning to the good ol’ USA.

 

My hair had been getting unattractively long, and I decided Monday it would be a fun adventure to get it cut in a country where I speak three words of the language. I was definitely a little nervous because I didn’t want to return home looking like a pixie. But luckily one person in the salon spoke enough English to communicate that I didn’t want all my hair to be chopped off. I’m very pleased with the result.

 

A great thing about getting your hair cut in Taipei is that it comes with many “extras.” For the price of a hair cut and a shampoo, I got an amazing head rub and neck massage + delicious milk tea. Definitely a good decision, and an amazingly inexpensive one.

 

On Tuesday we got to check a big one off our “list of things you must do in Taiwan.” We ladies have been working next to the tallest building in the world for two months, and finally we went to see what the fuss is all about. After work, and after a big storm threatened our plans, we took a high speed elevator to the 89^th floor of Taipei 101. Forty-five seconds later we stepped onto the indoor observation deck and took in scenes of Taipei at night.

 

I’m glad we did it at the end, rather than the beginning, of the trip. I was able to point out places we’ve gone in the last two months and reflect on the great ride it has been.

 

We’ve had three farewell events so far, one being last Friday night for another U.S. intern Chris who became a great friend, one Wednesday night with the USC Taipei office, and one Thursday night with our friends from NTU. I never like goodbyes, and it has been hard to let go of the wonderful people who have enriched our two month tenure in Taiwan.  

 

More so than tangible experiences I can check off a list or read about in the Lonely Planet, the interactions I’ve had with Taiwanese people – friends and random strangers – have been the experiences I’ll most cherish. I had a great conversation yesterday with a man on the MRT who commented on the cake box I was holding. And for several weeks, I often bumped into a middle-aged Taiwanese man named Blue on my morning bus ride to work who tried to teach me life lessons. He was very eager one day to share with me his experience watching the movie Closer and his personal revelations about love that resulted from it. “To merit the madness of love, one must abound insanity,” Blue told me.

 

Admittedly I wouldn’t be so keen on taking love advice from a stranger on the bus in the U.S., but that’s part of what makes Taiwan so great and what has made my time here so fulfilling. I feel honored to have been in the company of people who exude simple innocence and warmth. It’s been a humbling experience to have been constantly surrounded by people who always put others before themselves.

 

I’m leaving Sunday to head back to exotic Baton Rouge, Louisiana and I’ve been feeling a mix of emotions for the past week. While it will be hard to say goodbye to Taiwan and the many wonderful people I’ve met, I’m content with my experience and am excited to share it with my friends and family.

 

Taiwan’s tourism slogan is “Taiwan: Touch Your Heart,” and while it is painfully cheesy to say so, Taiwan has touched my heart. To mimic Jerry from Heavyweights, this has been the best damn summer of my life!

Apple Bottom Jeans, A Reprisal

It’s raining, it’s pouring. There’s a typhoon skirting past Taiwan and we’ve been experiencing its effects since yesterday. I really hope it lets up for our last weekend.

 

Umbrellas are a fashion statement here. Taiwanese women carry umbrellas in every color and pattern. Thank goodness I brought a hot pink one.  When it rains almost every day I guess it makes life a little more fun to avoid boring black

 

Last weekend began with a night out at a club called Primo, a pretty swank place with terrible music and a large American attendance. We ran into some students from Berkeley outside and of course whipped out the SoCal Spellout and our victory signs to assert USC’s superiority. The Trojan Spirit (and competitiveness) is something that lives on all over the world.

 

That night brought a painful encounter with a stiletto heel for me, and an even more painful encounter with my boss. Yep, there he was, a 35-year-old American professional in a room full of Asian teens and twenty-somethings. He was easy to spot, standing out like a sore thumb with his iridescent skin on the side of the dance floor. We felt his eyes on us dancing interns and decided the least awkward move to make would be to go up and talk to him. I can only describe what ensued as mortifyingly hilarious.

 

Saturday offered me the chance to get some much-needed rest, and I ventured out alone in the early afternoon on a souvenir hunt. Now that my time is winding down in Taiwan, I’m feeling the pressure to get people back home mementos from my trip. Luckily I was able to make some progress at a market near our hotel. Haggling is one of my favorite sports in the U.S., and I’m still able to do it here, despite the fact that I don’t speak the language. Woo hoo for good deals on old-looking Taiwanese stuff!

 

That evening a group of us took a highly-anticipated ride on the Maokong Gondola. Questionable weather foiled earlier plans, but Saturday evening was perfect. We sailed into the sky on the gondola just as the sun was setting over Taipei. It carried us into tea country, and we had a relaxing tea service at a delightful place with a great view of the surrounding mountains. An obligatory Asian experience, I think.

 

Sunday brought a very early wake up for three of us. Getting up at 5 a.m. wasn’t fun, but our experiences that day more than made up for the sleep deprivation we brought upon ourselves. The Lonely Planet has a beautiful picture of Sun Moon Lake in its photo pages, and I wanted to see it. After a four and a half hour bus ride we arrived next to the lake, Taiwan’s top tourist destination. It’s stunningly beautiful, especially from the top of a temple and a pagoda.

 

Waking up Monday morning was quite a hard thing indeed, but I knew I had a great week ahead of me.  I was 19 when I arrived in Taiwan, and now I’m 20. That’s right, this week included MY BIRTHDAY! We celebrated July 15 in typical Taipei Fellows fashion at a karaoke place with some of my favorite songs. I had a great time and am excited to enter my twenties. Shout out to everyone who helped me to have such a wonderful day!

 

The party continued Wednesday night featuring Flo Rida (who is “unsurprisingly” from Florida, can you guess why?) aka rapper of “Apple Bottom Jeans.” Why Flo Rida was performing at a relatively small venue in Taipei when he has the “number one song in the world” is beyond me. But we rolled into the club around 11 (yes, on a work night) and waited two hours for the dude to come on and perform that one song.

 

Worth it! Although I was practically sick with exhaustion the next day and covered with scuff marks from overly excited Taiwanese people, being able to get on stage and dance while Flo Rida  performed “Apple Bottom Jeans” made up for it. Those of you who read my blog religiously may remember that song was the first I heard upon my arrival in Taipei, so the night was really coming full circle for me. Covered in sweat and the champagne with which Flo Rida’s side kick had doused the audience, I left the club exhilarated and just a little bit nostalgic.

 

Thursday brought rest, and today, Friday, will bring a night out on the town with those I”ve shared this wonderful experience with for the past seven weeks. It’s gone by quickly and has been full of adventures I won’t soon forget. But I’ll leave the sappiness for next time. One more week to go!

Insert Creative Title Here

I've spent the last twenty minutes trying to think of a cutesy title for this post, but I've got nothing. Sorry to disappoint you, folks.

 

Friday. The day I’ve waited for all week. It’s finally here, and I refuse to do research on pet supplements, damnit!

 

I shouldn’t complain so much about work, I really shouldn’t. But scanning business cards for one and a half weeks can make a girl crazy. I curse the person who decided business cards merit their own scanner, and also the person who decided pets need to take vitamin supplements. My little weenie dog manages just fine on her diet of pet (and sometimes human) food.

 

Despite enduring the boredom that spans the hours of 9-6, I’m still sane and thoroughly enjoying my experience here. As day melts into night, and as Friday day becomes Friday evening, I leave work at work and explore all the wonderful things Taiwan has to offer.

 

Last weekend was especially nice because it was especially long. As I mentioned before, we got the 4^th of July off. Itching to get down to where we could see the ocean again, we took an overnight bus Thursday night.

 

When I heard overnight bus, I imagined an environment that would be conducive to sleeping. Lights out, no stops, right? Wrong. This bus was the overnight bus from hell. As we zoomed between Taipei and Kaohsiung, stopping frequently at random street corners, the bus driver would turn on harsh overhead lights and scream in muffled Chinese over the intercom.

 

Being a light sleeper anyway, I clocked 0.0 hours of sleep and arrived in Kaohsiung frazzled and not refreshed in the least.  Luckily I can appreciate the hilarity of situations as they happen.

 

The bus from hell became the van from hell as we made our way from Kaohsiung to Kenting. This hell included a mandatory 5 a.m. viewing of a performance on a DVD the van driver blindly plucked off the shelf at some store. Damian, who the New York Times dubbed the “Virtuoso of the Pan Flute,” filled our van with music as the sun rose over the South Pacific. 

 

The van driver probably thought Damian was his ace in the hole for entertaining foreign clientele, and he was right. Watching a sleazy Romanian man fervently playing some sort of flute while already in a state of delirium is exactly how I would like to spend the hours between five and seven in the morning. I was laughing hysterically for pretty much the entire van ride.

 

We arrived in Kenting before anything but the beach – and luckily McDonald’s – was open, and I napped on the sand as the day heated up Taiwan-style. We rented scooters from the same place as before (no I.D. required there) and zoomed off to one of the prettiest beaches I’ve ever seen. The water was blue and clear, the sand was pseudo-white, and the sun was high and bright. We swam for a bit and rested under a large beach umbrella.

 

After driving along the coast and getting some tasty fried rice at a restaurant for lunch, we checked into our abode for the weekend. While the promised private surfing beach was not so private and not so picturesque, Winson’s Surf House was perfect for a group of college kids looking to have fun and relax at the same time. Our balcony looked out onto the blue waters of the Pacific and at night provided an amazing place to stargaze.

 

On Friday night we Americans were hungry for American food. What’s the 4^th of July without a hamburger, right? So we went to a place called Smoky Joe’s and I had a pretty good bacon cheeseburger. I’m still not really craving American food yet, but it provided a nice break from rice and noodles at every meal.

 

Saturday was a lazy day. We woke late and had a long breakfast at the snack bar at Winson’s. It was long because the service was excruciatingly slow, even though there were about six people staffing the bar and the food was as simple as it gets. But my coconut paste toast and milk tea were well worth the wait. Mmmmmm.

 

The rest of Saturday consisted of a nice drive on a scenic road that curved around a rocky shoreline, some lazing on the beach, and napping. A walk over a hilariously lame suspension bridge and two weenies on a stick ended the day right. I feel any experience would be improved by a Taiwanese weenie on a stick.

 

Sunday was another lazy day, but we had to make it back to Kaohsiung to catch the 6:00 bus so there were things to get done. We checked out of Winson’s and had a little more time in Kenting before we returned the scooters and hopped into another van. The sounds of Damian were absent from this one, which was a good thing since we had to cram nine bodies into an eight-person car after three full days of sweating from every pore in our bodies. I think more Damian would have set us over the edge.

 

The bus back to Taipei felt longer than the bus to Kaohsiung because it actually was longer. We hit some traffic and arrived back in Taipei at midnight completely exhausted. Unable to sleep on the bus, I entertained myself by watching a Taiwanese game show on the bus TV. The contestants were given several stressful tasks, including popping huge balloons between their legs (very difficult for Asian women with stick-thin thighs), sliding a cracker from their foreheads to their mouths without using their hands, and blowing a ping pong ball out of a huge vat of flower. Taiwanese entertainment at its best.  

 

On Tuesday we went to a Taiwanese baseball game, which featured the best team in the top league here and was still only attended by about 1000 fans. But even though the stadium was empty, the fans of the T-Rexes and the Elephants were hardcore. They performed cheers and chants when their own team was up to bat, waved balloons, and beat shakers together. My favorite part of the night was when the fans of one team popped their large, pink, hot-dog-shaped balloons simultaneously, causing them to shrink and wave away into the night sky.

 

Other nights this week included a trip to a lovely park with a view of smoggy Taipei by night and two games at a bowling alley. I bowled better than I ever have in my life, and I’d like to take the opportunity here to thank Taiwan for that.

 

NEWS FLASH: We just experienced an earthquake! The World Trade Center started swaying back and forth and of course I had no idea what was going on. I’m still a little shaken up. My first real earthquake (that I was awake for)!

 

Come on, weekend!

Everything's Smaller in Asia

It’s Thursday afternoon. Usually that would mean I would have one more loooonnnnggg work day to go before the weekend, but not this week! We get the 4^th of July off, even here, and we’re going to celebrate right.

 

Tonight at midnight we’ll board an overnight bus for Kaohsiung and then it’s back to Kenting. We have a beach house for two nights. It’s probably a beach shack because everything’s smaller in Asia but we’re going to have an amazing time no matter how tiny our place is, how exhausted we are, or how long it takes to get there.

 

But more about that next week. It’s time to reflect on days past.

 

Last weekend started with the USC office’s monthly Happy Hour. It was held at a bar near Taipei 101, and we rolled in around 7:00 to mix and mingle. I met alums, new students, and those with no legitimate connection to USC, including a random American guy wearing a shirt with license plates all over it. But even despite the interlopers the Trojan Spirit was palpable. There’s something pretty neat about traveling halfway across the world and going to a gathering where the USC flag hangs proudly.

 

After Happy Hour our group hit up a local club called Babe 18 for a fun night. We were like rock stars again, practically the only non-Taiwanese people there, so in typical Global Fellows fashion drew a lot of attention to ourselves. That night brought my dancing on stage in Taipei tally to three.

 

Saturday allowed a little bit of sleeping in, as we didn’t have to be at the SCendoff until 1:00. For those not affiliated with USC, a SCendoff is a gathering where incoming USC students can get a little more information about how to prepare for their transition to USC and meet other incoming students from their area.

 

SCendoffs are held across the U.S. (not in Louisiana, though, it’s apparently too hick or something to merit one) and also in many international locations. The one in Taipei drew a crowd of about 110. Taiwan is something like the number five exporter of students to U.S. places of higher education and USC has a large international student population especially in its graduate schools.

 

As we Fellows instinctively put up two fingers in the USC victory sign and started fighting on while on stage in front of all the students, I was reminded that their experience with the Trojan Family had not really begun yet. Some people followed our lead and enthusiastically put up the victory sign, some did so more shyly, and some didn’t do it at all.  But that’ll change soon.

 

I can’t imagine what it’s like to move to an entirely new country for college: I was a nervous wreck just moving to another state! I really admire the students from Taipei who are going to make such a big journey in August and wish them all the best.

 

Following the conclusion of the SCendoff we joined some alums plus Pei and Jeanie from the USC office and had a gluttonous dinner at a delicious restaurant. It was one of those places where the food just seems to keep coming and coming, and where you start to feel your stomach expand to pregnancy status. We were hungry, and it was good.

 

A pleasant stroll on the streets of Taipei back to our hotel ended the activities of the night. I love that it never gets chilly here. Yes, it is sometimes uncomfortably hot during the day but the nights are mild and warm. It has been wonderful not to have to worry about bringing a sweater wherever I go. Just an umbrella.

 

On Sunday I got some much-needed rest, waking up around noon refreshed and with no thought of needing more sleep. I hopped on the MRT and went alone to the National Palace Museum, which has in its collection more Chinese artifacts than any other place in the world – including China.

 

I’ve never been a museum person, but as the National Palace museum is a must-see in every guidebook I felt obliged to check it out. The exterior is vast and stunning with huge, white, temple-like buildings carved into a hill.  My camera was out of battery power, otherwise I would have taken pictures.

 

The inside of the museum was standard. I always feel guilty when I go to museums that guide books or culture/art aficionados rave about because I just don’t get it. I stop and look at things that catch my eye, but there’s no way I would ever read every information card or spend more than a few seconds at a porcelain bowl. So I powered through the museum in about an hour and peaced out in the pouring rain.

 

After returning to the hotel and drying off – thunderstorms in Taipei are powerful – I joined some other members of our group for a visit to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. Chiang Kai-Shek led the nationalist party exodus to Taiwan in 1949 and is a controversial figure, since he ruled as a dictator. But his hall is definitely nice to look at. We were there at night with barely any other tourists wandering the plaza.

The ground and the grandiose buildings were glistening in the gentle rain, and all the buildings were illuminated.

 

After making our way up the stairs on one of the buildings to get a nice view of the lovely plaza and taking obligatory pictures, we jumped back on the MRT and made a return to the Shilin Night Market.

 

It was sensory overload round two as we traipsed throughout the various food stalls, munching on favorites and new items. I’ve developed an affection for hot dogs here, as I’ve mentioned before, and I had a delicious one with a rice bun and some dumplings. That plus mango milk juice made me feel as though I were going to explode, so I had to turn off the eating for the rest of the night. My sister recently suggested I rename my blog “fatass” and I guess I don’t really have any room to argue with that.

 

This week’s weeknights were pretty chill; they mostly involved eating dinner around the hotel and relaxing. I tried Tuesday night to buy a swim suit for the umpteenth time in the past couple weeks but had no luck. I stupidly only brought one, and I guess it will just have to do. Being an American girl shopping for a bathing suit in Taiwan is just not a pleasant experience. The styles are blah and the sizes are tiny. Saleswomen push you into a miniscule dressing room (note: a curtain hanging from the ceiling that I could see over while standing flat-footed) and recommend styles to try-on. I would just crinkle my nose, shake my head, and walk out feeling defeated.

 

Last night we had a pre-party for Cyndy’s 21^st birthday at Alleycat’s, recommended by the Lonely Planet as having the best pizza in Taipei and the only place to get hard cider on tap. The pizza was so-so (I like my crust thicker) but the cider was really good. It was somewhat like beer, but sweeter.

 

The party continues in Kenting this weekend! Wahoo it’s almost the weekend!