I Want My Rose-Colored Glasses Back, Part 1

What a difference a week makes!

This past week has had more drama than I can remember.  On Saturday a blizzard hit Southern Connecticut and parts of upstate New York with a vengeful force, knocking down trees, causing extensive damage to power lines, leaving my entire campus without power.  Power went out Saturday night: by Sunday morning we had only begun to guess the extensiveness of the damage.  Trees were downed everywhere; I had to fight my way around a couple of straggling branches on my way to the library, but it was in vain because it was closed.  Everything was closed.  The entire town was without power.  I called my parents and they came and got me and took me back to New York for a couple of days.  Those who stayed behind either stayed in their dorms and their houses or huddled together in the library for warmth.  By Tuesday power in central campus was restored, but the seniors and many juniors live in separate houses that rely on the town's power source still had no electricity or heat.  My poor housemates were sleeping in the same room to stave off the cold.  They could see their breath inside the house.  In spite of the fact that the seniors were freezing their butts off , my university's administration announced that classes would be resumed on Wednesday, and that homecoming weekend would be happening as scheduled.  This was not a popular decision, but what could we do? We're dependent college students.  Occupy [my college's name] would not have been an effective strategy.

And then, Wednesday morning, on my way back to campus, I was in a car accident.  Thankfully no one is hurt, but the front of the car is damaged pretty badly.  I got back to campus in time for my afternoon class, and that night, after 94 hours without heat or electricity, power came back on for everyone else.  Power is coming back on slowly for more remote parts of campus, and the rest of the surrounding town should have power by Sunday if not before.

This entire week my brain has been going WTF.  At everything.  This blog post was supposed to be about reverse culture shock in a more indirect way: I'd be going through my daily life and noticing subtle changes I hadn't before.  Upon noticing how my powers of observations have changed, I would reflect, very poetically, about how before I left for Taiwan I was naive to the Great Injustices of the World and now I am growing and becoming a Person, yay for me.


Now I'm just like OMG We have heat and light and electricity!  Hooray!  Back to my mountains of homework!


Sorry for the lack of insight this time around--it's just been one of those weeks.


See you all soon!


Marjorie






 

What do you do when it's 100 degrees outside?

Stay in an air conditioned room and write ficiton.  DUH.

Enjoy!

            Taipei, Taiwan: Three years ago

Marjorie’s eyelids popped open to the sound of a blunt object pounding against the front door in a staccato rhythm: boom-boom-boom. Before she could move, Tomasz, the man who a moment ago was warming his hands against the small of her back, shoved his legs into a pair of pants and waddled to the door.

            “Coming!” he shouted in Mandarin.  A woman was shouting in the hallway.  Marjorie recognized who it was (Mrs. Liu from downstairs) and what language it was (Taiwanese), but understood almost none of what was said.  She was grateful that Tomasz was handling whoever it was at the door.  She and Tomasz had an agreement that he would take care of any calls or visitors before nine in the morning.  Marjorie pulled the covers over her head in a vain attempt to muffle the noise.

            In spite of the cloth barrier, Marjorie could hear the exchange between Tomasz and the unwanted parties with perfect clarity.  The men at the door were some kind of officials, though their Mandarin was slurred with a thick regional accent.  Their deep, chesty voices demanded to speak with Tomasz.  They uttered the syllables of his Chinese name—De Tang Mu--with the same peppered tempo to knock on the door.  Tomasz, ever the skilled diplomat, replied in hushed tones like a mother attempting to soothe a distraught child.  Only a trained ear could catch the underscore of repressed irritation.

The men demanded to see Tomasz’s passport.  Apparently they did not believe Tomasz was who he said he was.

In a moment, Tomasz was at the bedroom door again.  Marjorie noticed that in his haste Tomasz had put his T-shirt on backwards, and his coppery hair looked like the spines of an agitated porcupine.  She smiled and opened her mouth to greet him and to make fun of the men at the door with their strange accents, but Tomasz held up his hand like a crossing guard and shook his head as if to say, “Not now.”  He hovered for a moment over the dresser, and then picked up his American passport.  He led Marjorie by the elbow into the bathroom.  Marjorie swallowed her laughter when she saw that Tomasz’s eyes, the color of storm clouds, did not contain a trace of amusement.

            “I’m serious,” he whispered.  “Not a sound.”  He tugged the shower curtain so that it completely concealed her, and left.

            Like most Taiwanese apartments, Marjorie and Tomasz’s bathroom contained no bathtub.  Only a shower curtain and a drain were in the northern corner, placed inconveniently next to a sink and toilet.  The floor tiles felt clammy against the soles of Marjorie’s feet.  The voices at the door were louder, and a knot of worry twisted inside Marjorie’s stomach.  Things weren’t going well.  Tomasz wasn’t going to amble back into their bedroom and bury his hands in Marjorie’s hair, wrapping his fingers around her curls the way she liked.

            She heard the telltale sound of cartilage breaking and Tomasz howled.  She burst from the bathroom and ran through the bedroom, but it was too late.  Marjorie only caught a glimpse of the door slamming behind whoever it was wrestling Tomasz down the stairs, shouting at him in their ludicrous, broken Mandarin.  Mrs. Liu’s shrill yelling added to the din.  Above it all, Tomasz had resorted to his mother tongue of Polish to curse them, their mothers, and their country, in one long, unbroken stream.

            Marjorie pressed her forehead against the door.  Her throat closed tight and hot tears burned beneath her eyelids.   She saw a constellation of blood droplets on the floor and a few smears on the doorknob where Tomasz had struggled.  His cries were growing fainter.  Tomasz and his captors were probably just reaching the street.

            The apartment had no windows with a street view, so Marjorie bolted downstairs, right past the slack-jawed Mrs. Liu, her hair permed into a stiff helmet of silvery wires.  Outside the city air was hot and heavy with moisture, like a panting dog ‘s breath.  A military Jeep was rumbling down the narrow alley and into oncoming traffic.  It made a right turn at the end of the road and ducked out of sight.

             

Wrapping Up (Taiwanese Tuesday)

I'm leaving in eleven days. First to Hong Kong, then back home for a week, then up to my home college for my summer job.

It doesn't feel real.  Not at all.  The butterflies in my stomach are scant fluttering their wings.

Summer has most definitely arrived: Taiwan's humid stickiness has returned and the temperatures are soaring again, but I'm much more used to it this time around.  I didn't think that that was possible--getting used to 90-degree, 65 percent humidity weather--but I suppose you can get used to a lot.

I've learned so much on this journey, but I think the most important lesson has been learning to love my messy and incomplete self.  I have a much clearer picture on what I want to accomplish my last year in college and in graduate school, and that was worth all of the discomfort and pain.

Time to finish my research paper, do my job training...and keep writing.

Taiwanese Tuesday: A Weekend in Wulai

On Saturday I went with my host mother to Wu Lai, a place in the mountains that had a hot spring resort.  I got to sleep, eat, and use the hot spring for free, a pretty nice deal.  My host mother was every bit as embarrassing and hovering and caring as a mother can be.  She stuffed me full of food, introduced me to all of her friends, and took me to see some beautiful scenery in Wu Lai.  I was amazed at how natural the landscape was just half an hour from Taipei.

The hot spring portion of my weekend was quite an experience.  I had been to a hot spring hotel before that was very discreet: an attendant filled a tub of water in a bathroom, and there was an anteroom where you could change before and after soaking.  This hot spring had none of that.  I stripped down and went into a public area butt naked with a whole bunch of Taiwanese ladies I didn't know with my host mother and all of her friends.

You might be thinking the hot spring was unsanitary.  Nope!  The place was spotless; it was a real spa, not a public pool, so they could afford to pay staff to clean.  Clients showered before and after soaking.  I soaked for a while in hot water, dried off in a sauna, and let a giant nozzle pummel lukewarm water on my back.  My host mother and I rubbed wet salt on each others' backs and went inside what looked like a reverse sauna.  It had transparent walls but was full of hot fog.  I sat and let the salt melt on my skin, then my host mother doused me off with a cold shower nozzle.  I shrieked because I wasn't prepared for the cold.  The ladies chuckled at my reaction.

The spa had no windows, allowing steam to flow freely from under the roof.  Except for the reverse sauna, I wore my glasses the whole time.

There was an outdoor portion of the spa that had two pools: one very hot and one ice cold.  How hot was the hot pool?  SCALDING.

"Good Lord!" I cried in Mandarin as I lowered myself into it.  "It's too hot. I can't take it!"

"Don't force yourself," one of my host mother's friends said.  "Sit on the edge until you get used to it."

I did as she advised, then followed my host mother back and forth between the hot and cold pools.  My toes crackled as though a current of electricity was flowing through me.

"You're very brave," the ladies murmured as I went back and forth between pools.

I took a break from the extremely hot and cold water after a while and went to look at the river tumbling over the rocks and the steam billowing out of the spa.  A few robed ladies rested on deck chairs next to me.  The river was an opaque emerald color.  Lush green mountains shrouded in mist towered over me.  I tried to make the moment last as long as possible.

After we soaked we had dinner.  My host mother is a part of the Taiwan branch of the Girl Scouts, and last weekend was their retreat in the mountains.  They had a full program that evening, including dancing, karaoke, and an auction.  Like a good sport, I sang a karaoke song with my host mother.  Warning: if you ever go to Asia, be prepared: karaoke is a staple of social life here.  I don't care how much you hate it (and I do--almost as much as Hello Kitty).  Make everyone happy and sing at least one song.

The next day my host mother and I got up early and walked around the tourist area of Wulai full of shops selling aboriginal-themed souvenirs.  It was raining pretty heavily, so it wasn't as fun as it could have been, but I got to see the waterfall up close.  That was pretty cool.

All in all, it was a eye-opening (and exhausting) weekend.  I learned to be less self-conscious about my body.  Athough my body certainly isn't perfect (legs aren't shaved, carrying more weight that I would like, etc, etc.) no one's else's body was perfect either.  99.9% of all of people there jiggled at least a little.

Who's ready for pictures?  ME!  I AM!

No, I don't have any pictures from inside the spa.  Obviously.

So the deal is that Taiwan has a lot of mountains.  Like this one.

Me and my host mother.  She was intense but awesome.

I don't know what kind of fish this is, but I've had it a lot in Taiwanese restaurants and it's good.

Flamenco dancers!  The woman on the far left had a 'tude, which made her performance HILARIOUS.

Cool-ass waterfall!  The wires are for cable cars that go all the way up the mountain.
I got to get closer to it on Sunday.

Whee!  Sadly, I did not get to ride the cable car.

A street in the tourist section in Wulai.

See you Thursday!

Marjorie

Guest Post! New Year! Other Stuff!

Today I'm guest posting on Misha Gericke's blog on my recent admission to the Hall of Writing and My Feelings Thereof.  Misha is lovely and this Friday is the first in a series of guest blog posts.   You should totally check it out.

Happy Bunny Year!  Last night I lit fireworks in the park next to campus with a couple of classmates from my program.  In the U. S. lighting fireworks is totally illegal, so I felt like a rebel without a cause, except in Taiwan fireworks are legal and the cause is that it's New Year's and everyone else in Taipei is setting off fireworks.

Next week I shall be in the sunny south of the island, staying in a Buddhist temple eating vegetarian things and hopefully taking advantage of the lack of internet to write my little butt off.  (After I check Facebook one last time.  Seriously, this is it!  I swear!)


ALSO: THE SUN IS OUT.  I AM SO CONFUSED EXCITED I AM GOING TO STAY INSIDE WITH THE SHADES DRAWN.  (Surely there must be some mistake.  The sun doesn't shine in Taipei.)

Thank you

"The reason why you are depressed," my mother said, "is because you are not grateful for the things you have in your life."

It was winter of 2008, my freshman year of college.  I was on academic probation and weeks away from taking medical leave.  The way I saw it, I'd been holding in negative emotions for six years due to crappy stuff that had happened to me, and those feelings had finally reached the surface and were ripping me apart.  The way my mother saw it, I was an ungrateful brat who wasn't taking care of herself and didn't want to go to class.  I preferred my version of things.

After taking incompletes for all of my classes, I left college in February 2008 for two semesters of medical leave.  I'd like to say that I spent that entire year getting my act together and everyone else was magically fixed when I returned to college in January of 2009.  That's partially true.  I spent that year in therapy and worked a couple of jobs.  One was as a canvasser for a grassroots political campaign, and the other was at a women's clothing store.  I met a lot of interesting people at both of those jobs, and I learned what it meant to have a real (read: crappy, minimum wage) job.

My grandmother was living with us at the time while she received treatment for cancer.  She passed away in February of 2009, a few weeks after I returned to school.

Sophomore year was substantially better.  I moved to off-campus housing, made some really great friends, and began taking writing (and my studies in general) more seriously.  Still, that year was tinged with two heartbreaks--one small, one massive.  I longed for a new environment, a chance to start over.  I filled out an application for a year-long study abroad program in Taiwan...and the rest as they say, is history.

The last week has been a major perspective shift for me.  I tend to get down on myself easily, and with the frustrations of living in a different culture and the weather (we haven't had any sun in about a month in Taipei) has made being happy a struggle.

The final straw came on Friday, when I spent six hours running around trying to process my visa.  I wanted to give up.  But then I remembered my life.  My mom, my friends here and back home, and my new blog followers.  And I've been reading Tahereh Mafi's blog, The Rejectionist, Single Dad Laughing, and my lovely new followers' blogs.  These people (and you all) have inspired and challenged me and forced me to dig deep about myself, this blog, and my life.  And I've realized something:

My writing is not for me.  This blog is not for me.  It's for you.  It's for the visitors and followers who haven't arrived yet.

I've spent this week coming up with a list of things that I really, truly, am grateful for.

There's the obvious ones, like my family, my friends, and my health.

But there are also things like: The Jim Henson Company, The Walt Disney Company, and Pixar Studios.  Kermit the Frog and "The Great Mouse Detective" helped make my childhood magical.
Eggs.  Eggs are delicious.
The internet.  It has allowed me to start this blog, read your lovely blogs, and talk with my mom on Skype.
Oh.  My. God.  BOOKS.  So good.
Music.
The understanding that every day is a chance to get it right.

I am grateful for these things, and all of you.

Have an amazing week, everyone!

Happy Early Anniversary To Me...

Wow, this week is going by fast.  It was totally Sunday a few hours ago...right guys?

Anyway, I've seen from a few Facebook updates that there has been some unusual weather in New York.  And like the true New Yorkers y'all are, you are all complaining about it with the appropriate amount of hyperbole.  One of my Facebook friends compared this week's weather to the film "The Day After Tomorrow" (oh, God, did I just say film?).  But like the true New Yorker I am was pretend to be, I can do better than that.  Maybe not in terms of comparisons to doomsday films, but definitely in terms of weather.

It's been raining nonstop since Sunday night.  It is now Wednesday night Taiwan time.  I am sitting in wet jeans after just getting back from dinner as I write this.  I was actually having a conversation with my hallmates who think the rain started around Friday or Saturday.  For the sake of making a dramatic point, I'm inclined to agree with them, but I remembered I had brunch with Lee* on Sunday afternoon and the weather was fine.  So I'm sticking to my original point. Since Sunday night. Consistent rain.  Days and nights.  Kind of like the scenario that allowed that Noah person from the Bible to build that big ark.  Except here in Taipei everyone just uses their umbrellas and deals with it.  During my calligraphy class today I watched the rain fall for a few minutes through an open door, and was mesmerized by the unhurried way the droplets drizzled over the trees and plants.  The scene felt prolonged, even eternal, and I realized then that the rain would finish when it was done, and not a moment sooner.  No one accepts any kind of weather back in New York, and even the rain runs fifteen minutes late.

The last time it rained like this, I complained about it about every twenty minutes.  About how my clothes were wet.  About how I was wandering aimlessly in the middle of nowhere (I was in a fake aboriginal village in Taichung at the time).  But strangely, this time I'm having a hard time finding anything to gripe about.  My clothes are wet?  There's a dryer right down the hall.  And I did more than my fair share of wandering aimlessly on Monday, but it was one of the best times I had with anyone ever.  I got lost on the Metro with my new British friend Sam (not to be confused with my British friend Scott) and we laughed hysterically about it for hours.  It turns out Sam has a worse sense of direction than I do, but I was up for an adventure.  We took four hours to have coffee, go to an electronics store, and have dinner because we kept getting on the wrong train.  When we finally got on the right train, Sam and I were hypothesizing how funny it would be if we were going in the wrong direction.  Considering how long it had taken us to drink coffee and run one errand, this scenario was becoming more and more plausible as we rode the MRT.  Our laughter attracted the interest of an impeccably dressed elderly man.  At first, he had no idea why we were laughing, so when Sam and I looked up and checked our reflection in the window of two foreigners struggling to keep our laughter under some kind of control, we were surprised to see an old man laughing with us.

"What is funny?" he asked, in English.
"My friend gets lost easily," I replied in Chinese.  "I also get lost easily, and we have no idea where we're going."
The man nodded.  "You speak good Chinese," he said.
I smiled and complimented his English, then turned back to Sam, who was checking his iPhone, which has a map of the Taipei MRT.  "If we're going the wrong way, I'm going to cry," Sam said.  A moment later, his body was convulsing with uncontrollable laughter.  He laughed so hard tears sprang into his eyes, and I leaned against him, overwhelmed by our exponential ineptitude to arrive at any of our intended destinations.  We were unable to look at each other with a neutral expression for the rest of the afternoon evening.

Weirdly, the rain has brought some kind of consistency into my life.  I go to class, take my meals and tea with Sam, Scott and Lee, and manage my life through the computer (email, organizing bill and tuition payments, blogging).  I'll be glad to get back to my outdoor activities of running and hiking when the rain stops, but I won't not miss it when it's gone.

You guys, I was totally this cynical New Yorker two months ago (This Sunday makes two months of expatitude).  Now I'm forgetting about Halloween (!) and saying semi-poetic things about rain (!!).  SOMEONE PLEASE SHAKE ME.  I AM NOT MYSELF.



*Not her real name, but she has requested I use discretion when I refer to her in my blog, as she is in Taipei with a Distinguished American Program.

Rain, Rain, Rain

First of all, I'd like to congratulate Andrea and Taharqa Patterson on the birth of their twin daughters this morning.  You guys are awesome.  My trip to Taiwan has officially been one-upped.  You can go abroad anytime, but you only procreate, on average, 2.6 times (if you're American).  I'm a little bit overwhelmed by the fact that when I get back, they'll almost be a year old.

So, my first week in Taiwan has been hot and humid, but for the last three days it has rained almost constantly because of a typhoon passing by on the southwest coast of the island.  It wouldn't be so bad if it were not for the fact that for the last two days we've been on a field trip in the center of Taiwan, so it's been a pain.  Yesterday we toured a stunningly beautiful Buddhist monastery--it would be more accurate to call it a palace.  One of the most memorable parts was on the ninth floor where there was a large marble white Buddha in a white hall made out of white ceramic tiles.  The ceramic tiles had a highly reflective surface, causing the statue to appear as if it were floating on a white pool of water.  There were two other Buddhas in the flanking halls, but I forget what they represented.  There were a lot of Buddhas:  there was a hall of ten thousand Buddhas on copper plates, there was a gold-plated "magnificent" Buddha flanked by two white marble "healing" Buddhas on the fifth floor, and lots of bodhisattvas and dharmas.  I'm glad I got a good introduction to Buddhism at Wesleyan, so I wasn't totally lost when the nun was explaining the tenents and history of Buddhism.  Even so, there were a lot of Buddhas and gods to keep track of.  I don't know how some people do it.  I have a hard enough time maintaining a relationship with One.

After the temple we toured a brand-new multi-lingual school connected with the monastery, and then went to a "paper church"--which turned out to disappoint everyone.  We all thought we were going to a church made of paper.  Instead, we found ourselves at a random glass-plated building in the middle of nowhere.  Maybe the paper was inside the glass walls?  Lame.

Today, we went to...how do I even phrase this?  An aborignial-themed amusement park.  It was a bit like  Disneyland: you take cable cars over the mountain to get there, there are fast food restaurants all over the place, and almost all the employees are wearing aboriginal-style costumes.  I didn't really have a good time.  I didn't want to go on the roller coasters (speed+height=do not want) and it was raining the whole day, so I walked around with a couple of the students from the program and cultural ambassadors.  I wore an absurd yellow poncho that made me look like a giant soggy duck, and I still got wet.  I went to a aboriginal culture show, but I didn't understand any of the Mandarin spoken, and I don't know any of the   aboriginal history, so to me it just looked like a bunch of people dancing in brightly-colored costumes.  There were some model houses with some fake people inside to show what life was like.  At that point, I didn't really care.  I just went inside them to get out of the rain.

Later on, we went to a carnival warehouse with some small roller coasters and other little rides.  I'm pretty sure it had absolutely nothing to do with Taiwanese culture, but going on the rides was fun after a long, bothersome, wet day.

I've been here for a week and a half now, and I'm realizing one thing is for certain:  I'm not in China.  When I told family and friends I was going to Taiwan, many of them replied, "Oh!  You're going to China!  How wonderful!"  Even then I knew that there was some differences,  after coming here, I can say for certain that Taiwan is NOT China.  First of all, it is CLEAN.  Even though there are squat toilets, almost all of the public bathrooms are clean and are supplied with toilet paper, sinks with running water, and soap.  The people are much friendlier and polite.  No one has stared at me, called out to me, or solicited me.  There is much greater freedom of expression and religious practice, and an atmosphere much more conducive to discussion.  And did I mention it rains a lot here?

Tomorrow we're going to look at some more stuff (train station?  Earthquake site?  Pagoda?) and then we're going back to Taipei.  I can't wait.  I don't like being in a place without a subway for more than a couple of days.  Pictures to come, promise.

OMG PLZ PLZ PLZ STOP RAINING.  KTHNXBAI.

Marjorie