Hey Taiwan, I want an Umbrella for the Typhoon

It’s funny to look out of my window in Taiwan and see that uneasy yellow upside down W. Funny that on a typhoon day in Asia, all I see is a sign for McDonalds. Funny that I am in Asia at all.
Today the government called a “Typhoon warning” which forced the schools and most businesses to be shut down for the day- AKA, a reason for me to stay home and eat and watch gluttonous amounts of The Office.
Well then,somehow I have ended up on the sixth floor of a fancy apartment building, listening to Wyclef, and observing the ruckus this Typhoon is causing. For this reason (the constant rain, not Wyclef), the country is green- a luscious green dare I say. But not like the luscious red lips you might automatically picture, but luscious like the jungle is in Tarzan, or like the Amazon, or like apple flavored Jolly Ranchers. But this is not entirely true because I live in the city and here in the city, McDonalds has stolen the greenery and added McLuscious to the menu (corny yet true), leaving this city balding. Tarzan would be very sad here.

But alas, let’s get back to my story. So here i am in Taiwan for about a year to teach English to little rotting-toothed witty Taiwanese kids. Let me tell you a few things about these kids who can be quite the little cheeky ones.
You know how when something is gross we say, “eewwwww”. Well here they don’t say ew, they say something like this, Hiiiyyuuuuu, with a really whiney voice.
Or sometimes when on a test, a six year old girl has to write, “He has a big duck”, but unintentionally writes, “he has a big dick”, you have to slap yourself and laugh and remember that this is an unusual life you have chosen and it should not be taken too seriously, especially if you have a big duck.

Sometimes when you go around to three year olds teaching them one key phrase, “May I go to the bathroom” and you repeat it over and over and go to each child saying, “may I go to the bathroom” and waiting for them to repeat and then kneeling in front of 3 and a half year old William, asking him to repeat “may I go to the bathroom”, and waiting in silence for him attempt his inquiry , when he looks at you with his sad thoughtful puppy eyes, discomfort from his diapers peeking through, and he replies in all seriousness, “yes.” Yes teacher, you may go to the bathroom, he is allowing me. Thanks little buddy.

And the most important lesson to survive in Taiwan with children is to learn that there is no such thing as Rock, Paper, Scissors here. Oh no, it is, prepare these items and choose wisely from: Paper, Scissors, and Stone. And this Confucian method is used to decide EVERYTHING- from who gets to roll the dice, to who hit whom in this acciden. You can also find pockets of little children standing in groups playing Paper, Scissor, Stone. And it is beyond me how you can play this probability game with a group- and yet, in Taiwan, they do.

In Taiwan, Things you never dreamed are possible. Things like meals for under $2, a gross misuse and waste of plastic bags, a family of six riding on a tiny scooter, girls dressed in clubbin skanky dresses with their hair done at a salon just to go Karaoke in a private room with their friends ( KTV as it is known here and is considered the hub for youngsters), and even things like shirts that break upon first wear yet apartments that outlast vicious tropical storms. This is Taiwan and oddly, it has somewhat become my Taiwan, my comforting little Asian fortress.

I have learned a lot about myself, a lot about Asian culture, yet sadly, very little of the Chinese language. My word, I have tried, but my Chinese gets me far enough to order food, say where I am going, that I am hot, and that "I want my iced American coffee to go- and that I don’t need a bag, but thank you very much". I sometimes wish I could speak Chinese so I could overhear conversations and get by easily but this grand communicating obstacle can be a source of patience, of learning, of using every other sense to act out and recreate my desire or need. I have become quite the actress.
Cue senses reenactment at the local 7-11:
Sound: “I would like an umbrella”.
Touch: Point and tap on counter.
Sight: Show a “hypothetical” girl who is caught in the rain holding a device in her hand to protect her from the torrents of water leaking from the sky.
Taste and Smell: These two sense are reserved for your imagination. Go wild.
So there it is. I went to buy an umbrella because the typhoon began yesterday while I was out buying mangos. They never can assume what I want- Taiwanese people can be kind of unimaginative when it comes to putting two and two together, sorry to say. It’s pouring, I’m wet with no obvious protection…”No, I don’t want cigarettes. Not an egg dipped in tea. Not a condom, but getting closer. Yes, Yes, umbrella! Bravo! Xie Xie.”
AAaaaand Time: 3 minutes and 24 seconds
For my next language exchange, I will try to memorize the word for umbrella, but it is highly unlikely I will get a chance to impose It into my mind deep enough to remember next time I need one. Plus, how many umbrellas can one girl have? Sheesh.

The not-so-silent Silent Retreat

The most recent of my escapades.

Kaohsiungliving.com has been my saving grace while I have been here. It is the online key to finding out everything that is happening in our big city and around Taiwan including but most definitely not limited to: moving sales, festivals, swap meets, job opportunities, and best of all the silent retreat that was opened to all the foreigners living around this area.
The reason for the retreat was for ex-pats, teachers, and students to have a “getaway weekend” at the most peaceful and beautiful location, Fo Guang Shan, one of the biggest Buddhist monasteries in the world.
It rests on top of a mountain separated by the business of Taiwan, much as I would picture Tibet to be.
Running on its own resources, the place exudes a healthy lifestyle and discipline.


What I did learn in this peaceful environment was refreshing; it was the importance of silence- to release, to think about the present, not the past and not the future. I have forgotten to breathe. To be alive.
We spent time writing, walking, eating in silence with all the monks (which was a crazy experience because all of your needs for more food of less food are done by placement of your bowls and plate), we listened to a prominent monk speak about some of his experiences, and we relaxed, taking the time to just breathe.

Now do not be fooled, I was not fully able to be serious and contemplative the whole time. I am a talker, and apparently so were the two other girls in my room and we stayed up much of our “supposedly silent” night giggling and being very un-monastic. But, to me, laughter is part of meditation too, and especially when I laugh really hard because I tend to get really silent and my face distorts a bit, and I look like I am going into silent convulsions. Now that is what I call silent meditation.

Spring Scream and karl

Southern Taiwan hosts one of the biggest music festivals EVER at this tiny beach town called Kenting. Normally, it is a pretty quiet beach town minus the one club that hogs all the attention by parading around their “stars”, a questionably buff man and an equally questionable woman who shoots fireworks out of her leather boobs.

So we drove about two hours south on our motorcycles with tents and sleeping bags safely secured atop them. I like to imagine that we looked much like a scene out of a really cool movie where these two girls ride around on their motorcycles, exploring the world and saving lives. Minus the exploring the world part...and saving lives.

For two days, we wandered around the festival, dancing, learning the greatness of Taiwanese Reggae, singing along in Chinese, and enjoying yet another strange and awesome Taiwanese festival.
I would say that the only thing I regret about that weekend was setting up our tent right next to a rooster. Baaaaad idea.

Then on our last morning before we headed back to life and work, we stopped by the beach and I met Karl. Everyone, I would like you to meet Karl.


He is from Sweden and it is 10:00 and he is just so Karl.
He sprawls out next to me and asks in his heavy accent,
“doz my chezt hair offend jou?”
“Not in the least.” I reply
“Great! So vat are you reading? Do jou read a lot? Good, good. (long pause) So, vill you marry me?”
“Yes of course.”
“Really? I have asked a lot of peoples and jou are ze first to say yes. Actually jou are ze only one I vould really vant to marry so it is quite perfect.”
I guess it really does happen when you least expect it...when you least expect HIM.

We planned our lives together and about an hour later after plans for 3 weddings and a place to live, he looked at me seriously and said,
“Now, I do have a very serious quvestion to ask jou. Please do not offend but it is very important that I know. Just prepare yourself for zis….Vat is your name?”
And we lived happily ever after.

Tutoring Catastrophe

Oh man, forget every embarrassing story you have heard because have I got a story for you. Well, how do I even begin? And pictures in this post will not be necessary.

Ah yes, it is Friday morning 10AM, the normal time when I drive my little motorcycle half an hour south to a small company for a two hour tutoring session with a group of Taiwanese businesspeople. It is a pretty legit session as I sit at the head of a conference table, leading discussions, writing important things on a whiteboard as they copy it down in their little notebooks, believing everything I say.

This particular day, the boss finds out I drive a motorcycle and is saying how cool and rare it is to see girls driving them (he speaks too soon). I usually have about five or six regular students but this day, for fate would not have it any other way, people keep trickling in and soon the room is full of businesspeople asking me how to make fight someone and make good threats. I walk up to the board and write, “I’ll kick your ass.” I explain that if you want to have a comeback to someone mocking you, you can say that or even, “kiss” instead of “kick”. So discussing and having everyone practice the phrase, we delve into a pretty deep discussion.

This day, Friday, I am wearing jeans rolled up to my calf, some pretty decently heeled shoes that my mom bought from me from Macy's, and a nice top- professional clothes for the professional that I am. Ahem. That is when I sit down and feel something odd on my right leg. A few days earlier I had gotten a burn on my leg from the muffler on my motorcycle and had bandaged it up pretty recklessly, so I figure it must be the bandage having come apart and stuck to the side of my calf. But when I reach down to touch my calf that is not what I find, not in the least bit.

What I feel is something quite soft, yes, soft and lacy, soft and lacy like underwear. Holding my breath, l look down and sure enough I see yesterday’s dirty underwear sticking halfway out of my rolled up jeans, dangling like some kid sticking its tongue out at me. Oh the fear and humiliation that accumulates in me this second, as I realize I have been walking up and down the conference room with my dirty underwear sticking out of my leg! I guess when I had showered the night before I had just thrown my jeans on my chair and then put them on again this morning, not realizing that the underwear was still inside, traveling down from the zipper to the right leg. Blast! No time to panic, NO TIME TO PANIC!

I keep the pace of the conversation, reach down and extract the foul embarrassment from my leg, and settle it on my lap as I causally reach for my small purse, open it and try to make room for my underwear and my pride. I manage to discreetly do that, though I am sure everyone has already seen everything, and I continue the rest of the two hour session a bit more nervous and twitchy.

Well if they didn’t get a good look at my shame then, they sure see it when, now, at the end of the session I open my purse to put in the money and resting on top of my wallet are those unabashed panties, singing songs of mockery.
I have no shame anymore because I have no pride, it disappeared the day businesspeople saw my dirty underwear displayed artistically on my pitiful bare leg.

Running is Dangerous...

I went on a run the other day to one of my favorite parks in Kaohsiung. It is pretty close to my house and has really cool and strange art including but not limited to: a tree house on the ground, a “pull my finger” statue, and other odd shapeless structures. So excited about exploring the cool park, I began my run back home and as I am running, alongside me wheeled an old barefooted man on a motorized cart going a little faster than my running speed.

He looked at me, passed me, and decided he didn’t get a good look the first time so began to turn his head to look again
However, due to instinct or synchronicity, his fingers followed the turn of his head and instead of just his head, he spun the whole wheelchair around at quite the backbreaking speed, sending him flying in the middle of the road, almost hitting a car. I stopped running, and started staring as he continued the spin and then stealthily pretended like he was making a left-hand turn at the intersection.


Of course I made sure he wasn’t hurt or frightened and that he was out of earshot, but I laughed so hard, seeing that “crap! be cool, be cool” look on his face as he squeaked onward.
A girl I met recently was talking about India and said that to experience it, you have to surrender yourself to the country. I think you have to surrender yourself to Taiwan, to the old man steering his cart into traffic trying to stare, to the strange occurrences that happen on a daily basis, and to life in general.

The Running of the Fireworks

Of all the strange things in Taiwan (which I have checked and confirmed is a lot), this festival must have been one of the craziest. Almost like a running of the bulls but Taiwanese style, a running of the fireworks.
We coated ourselves with armor: boots, jeans, gloves, jackets, scarves, face masks, helmets, glasses, towels, and anything else we could throw on, and took a train to the war zone.

Imagine thousands of Taiwanese people in airtight costumes- duck taped towels, actual shields, and Mickey Mouse helmets, huddled together on a warm Winter night, hopping up and down, getting directly shot at by fireworks.

No joke, the festival is celebrated by having the fireworks shot on the people. I am sure it has a great and historical story about a war god, but it has turned into a sort of self-punishment adrenaline rush. Either way, it was really fun, exciting, and so oddly Taiwanese.

Then we went home on a two-story bus with reclining bed seats, personal TVs, and built in massagers. Oh Taiwan.

Adventures in the land of Thai

I went and had many adventures but I don’t feel like writing about them because this way they can hold a special place in my memory…except for two. First, about an amazing three day Eco-trek through the mountains of Thailand, and second, about how I accidentally got fake hair. Intrigued?

(these are some of my traveling peeps from San Diego with whom i met up with)

So my most memorable time in Thailand started out in Chiang Mai, a small northern city in Thailand where we stayed at the most unique little hostel for the most amazing prices. For a private room for one night, I paid less than three dollar. Scandalous it was. So starting from Chiang Mei, my friend Melissa from San Diego and I embarked upon the most vivid tour I have ever been on.

Starting Here:

We began at the long neck village, which is somewhat of an enigma.

Wait, is enigma the right word? Well, I will tell you what it was like and you can help me out with the right word.

The history behind the villagers is that this small land holds refugees from Burma and Myanmar, however, without any rights as Thai citizens. They are essentially allowed to live freely and self-sufficiently as long as they do not leave their allotted plot of land, which is perhaps one side of a hill, nothing more. Their village is set up with about ten or so huts lined up along the main road leading to a church at the top. That is all. The tradition in this town is that once the girls hit a certain age, she is required to put on a copper ring around her neck, adding a ring each year, gradually stretching out their necks. The girls can normally get around 10 heavy rings wrapped around their necks, hence the name the Long Neck Village.

What tourists get to do is walk up the main dirt path, observing the villagers doing “daily activities” like weaving, chopping wood, and molding copper wires. The odd part is that it feels kind of like a show put on for outsiders, especially since they don’t speak Thai or English and you cannot talk to anyone, or ask them about their lives.

You just look, buy a scarf or two, smile, and take a picture. It must be strange to grow up doing your daily activity for people to come and observe and take pictures of you all the time- in your home, walking, doing work. I had so many mixed feelings, it feels even strange to describe. Enigma right?

Then came the elephants, which was scary and magical and quite hilarious. I sat on the baby elephant’s head and thank the good Lord I had bought elephant pants because their little heads are course and hairy and not fluffy like one might imagine.

So with no guide, and only the mama elephant to follow, I held on for dear life, hoping to not fall off. We trekked down hills, stopped by a river for a quick drink and splash around, went through a jungle where all the elephants stopped to scratch their butts on the same rock, and then we stopped for a quick lunch of bamboo, allowing the elephants to fight with the thick branches of the bamboo shoots.

It was quite the ride on these giant elephants whose saddles were secured down by a long hose wrapped around their tail. Odd, this country. Odd, this people. Just odd.

We started our real trek when we met our tour guide, this little man who looked like the weasely animal in Madagascar who sang “I like to move it move it.” Oh yeah, and he insisted we call him Johnny Walker.

So this little old man, Johnny, wearing sandals, army shorts, a tank, and a shirt wrapped around his head, led us through the vast and intricate jungles and mountains that Thailand conceals.

We began our trek going uphill for five hours, tough business, and then we finally reached this oasis of a little village resting on top of a hill, overlooking nothing but forest and sky.

Up there, I ran across some crazy little kids, running around sharing sandals, holding handmade sling shots, and caked with dirt and mud all over. With no adults watching over them, they had created their own hierarchy, with the boys playing certain roles as the pestering troublemakers and the girls as the collectors, and dreamers.

Sitting on a stump, letting the girls dress me up with petals of flowers and dirty water, I looked in their eyes and saw full concentration, full attention to their task, as if nothing else in the world mattered then putting “blush” on this stranger with a flower and sprinkles of water.

And again I thought, how strange it must be, to grow up with strange white people coming by all the time, playing with them, taking pictures, and then leaving the next morning, always leaving. It broke my heart that they allowed me into their little world, knowing that I would leave them so soon. But each encounter with a person, to me, is a something special, something that becomes a part of me, and I appreciate that I could be a part of their little circle for even that short of a time.

We sat outside our hut in a circle on the floor under the proud stars, and ate our dinner together, as a group, as a family. It was something else.

Then we built a bonfire in the hut, played spoons, chatted, and clapped for a group of the village kids who came to sing for us.

We went to sleep in our bamboo hut with pigs and chickens snorting and clucking around us. We woke up the next day, started hiking again and stopped this time at a waterfall where we automatically stripped down and jumped into the freezing water. Letting our muscles and minds relax in the cold water and under the hot sun, we realized that this trip, this experience, was something special, something different.

We stopped again at a two-hut village. One hut was for us to sleep in, another for the two women who lived there and our guide. We took turns taking cold showers in a little stand outside (which was not built very tightly and didn’t conceal much to the outside world). But it didn’t matter that the water was cold, that there was no privacy, no mirrors, no electricity, it really didn’t, for when we were immersed in such a pure atmosphere, certain things just ceased to matter.

At night we sat around our bonfire, silent for a while, in a trance from the fire, from the exhaustion, from the purity of the night and the stars in the sky. I talked to a boy from Korea for a long time, asking him about his travels, his country, what it is like to travel alone, to be Korean. I talked to the two Australian girls who were so funny and real and unconventional. I talked to Johnny Walker who in turn showed me a few magic tricks that I have already forgotten.

The next day was the last of our adventure. We woke up to hike again. Through the forest trees, rivers and rocks we hiked, stopped by a waterfall where only an older couple lived, widdling cups from bamboo, and watching over the falls. We continued to our “white water rafting” which seemed more like drifting down the calm river, but we didn’t mind, we sang and tried talking to our guide who had a lisp and talked like the brother in 50 First Dates.

When we got to the end of the “rapids”, we saw the long bamboo rafts we were to finish the tour with. “Sit two and two” he said, and just as I was beginning to relax and sit down as we drifted down, he looks at me and says,

“no, you, go to the front and stand up.”

Come again? But feeling ashamed for being singled out, I stood up at the front of the raft like he asked, trying really hard to balance on the swaying unevenly tied bamboo sticks. He came up to me, gave me a long pole and said,

“Ok, guide everyone down the river and I will meet you at the end.”

Come again? Doubting my bamboo rafting skills and unsure of what to do with a long stick and seven people on this oddly long raft, I miraculously steered everyone down the river, coming close to hitting a few rocks and going backwards a few times.

With my natural bambooing abilities (taking a bow), I brought everyone safely to shore, a bit sweaty, shaky, and full of adrenaline while everyone looked well relaxed and sleepy. Eating our last meal together of Pad Thai, we became seriously sad to part with our experience and with the people we had allowed into our personal world for those three days. Alas, we parted ways and said our goodbyes and now I can tell you my second story.

The one where I accidentally got fake hair:

It’s not really that big of a deal.

It could really happen to anyone, really. When you are in a foreign country, especially Asia, you can easily walk into a hair salon, ask to get cool dread-looking braids (which I had seen on this cool Korean girl named Annie on our hike), show them with hand motions what you want, sit down, watch Borat, and 3 hours later look in the mirror to find that you suddenly have hair down to your stomach and no braids.

See, no big deal. But the real problem was coming back and having to explain to people why I suddenly had really long hair, how it is perfectly natural to accidentally get fake hair. Go ahead and judge me, but next time you are in Asia and go to a salon for a haircut and walk out with extra long hair or a shaved head, I will look at you, smirk, and say, “Ha!”

I kind of like it now I do say, though I must confess that I do have one little, itty bitty problem: my hair naturally gets really curly when it is wet or humid out…and the fake hair gets very straight.

Taiwan is VERY humid.

But mullets are in these days so once again I say that it could happen to anyone.