It is wild here. Seriously from bathroom etiquette to language barriers...from crazy foods...to hectic traffic patterns...from subway rules to mosquitos, I have pretty much submerged myself in culture shock 101. Its insane how many things we judge when we just don't understand them. As much as I did want to LOVE Taipei when I got here...my original thoughts were "oh shit". It is dreary and polluted. The drivers and scooter people are a collective beast that will prey on you and turn you into a puddle of blood and guts if you are not careful (or even if you are reasonably careful). If you ask for coffee with milk they make you a latte and if you say no milk, they give it to you black and the only thing they will give you is fake creamer (even if you point to the milk carton right behind them). This is bad cause I hate black coffee and I hate artificial creamer, and I don't mind lattes but when your bowels are locked up like fort knox from travel nerves and what not and you consider all the rice and dumplings and doughy baked goods you may be consuming in the near future, you want to avoid boiled milk at all costs. Luckily I don't mind the heat but a mild/safe/glossy alternative to the hot streets and sidewalks are the air conditioned department stores. Things there are fairly pricey and fairly generic and cute, if you have the money to buy them that is. They all look quite similar and are impressive but also seem really lame and anti-adventure/ anti-risk. They seem to scream "consume! Consume!" in an even less bad ass and , to me, more irking, way than shopping malls do in the U.S.! I was told to expect heat waves like I've never experienced heat waves before, but it was unseasonably cool upon arrival and all I could sense was the passive yet chilled nods from people as I passed them. Some were friendly, but when I tried to ask them a question in English, they would freeze up and panic and then apologetically run to find a bilingual employee to help me out. I felt bad that they felt bad. After all, it is their country, their language, their culture, and if anyone should feel bad it should be me. It really started to annoy me at how hard it was to communicate. It is cute at first, but it gets old really quickly.
So all this stuff sounds negative and awful and 1000 plus dollars spent for this trip...it sounds like it was all just a big old waste BUT its really quite the opposite. I have so many good exciting things to share and tell, and I promise I will find the time to get the most poignant of these things down in writing. One thing about traveling that makes it all worth it, is that it is really an exercise in remembering how fundamentally good human beings are. Whether the things they do, say, or believe seem dangerous, or ridiculous or dirty or amazing or mind-blowing or intelligent or risky...no matter how far their style of living-constellation is from your own, there is some fundamental essence there that each person has and it can be sensed and appreciated and even celebrated. That alone, makes the plane ticket well worth it. I don't know... it is like, we talk about having tolerance in the US. We talk about being accepting and having open minds, but I think that we should start discussing how closed our minds really are. Mine is. I don't think its a bad thing as long as we can talk about the "why". Why do we find patterns? What is lifestyle? Why do certain things make us cringe? Why are our life-patterns the way they are? Its like sometimes I just assume that everything is common ground, that all things, people, places, etc. are made equal, that the things that are my impetus to wake up every morning are not too damned far off from that of others. And if it is, I feel like that's a gap worth trying to conceptualize or rationalize or legitimize, but I am starting to learn that this is a step that takes a lot of energy and is useless in the long run. Curiosity for its own sake is crucial in keeping our world view fluid. Curiosity for the sake of trying to figure something out and legitimize it and find a common denominator is absolutely useless.
Okay...that is my philosophical rant for the trip. Its hard not to go all semi-anti-Nietzsche-esque when I look out the window in my room and see the tops of mediocre city buildings with foggy but breathtaking mountains in the background. But for far-less lofty and pretentious purposes, here is a running list of foods I have eaten so far here that I have never had before. Cheers to tangible and edible experiences (often on wooden skewers)!
LIKE A LOT: sticky rice/pig's blood cake on a stick with spicy sauce and peanut powder, fried turnip cakes, lamb dumpling, this weird tentacle thing dipped in ginger sauce, anything from the bakeries here, grilled pork wrapped scallions on a stick, wax apples with salt and some kind of sugar powder, lychee, Taiwanese mangoes, bubble tea (real deal), Taiwan beer, this really amazing cranberry yogurt at 7-11, and some good vegetables that I can't describe but I got a whole plate of em at this buffet for 65NT ($2 american). so yes...good damned food, so I can't complain.
