Let's start at the beginning.
Coming home from my first day in Hsin Jhuang visiting Shane School, I had been beaten to death so thoroughly by the humidity, heat, and newness of a foreign country that I had just enough energy to brush my teeth, wash my face, take out my contacts, and put on my pyjamas before falling into bed. I put my iPod on "Near Silence," a calming playlist full of new age mood music, and after about half a song I was out cold. It was 9:30pm.
I woke up at 2am. I have no idea why. I felt awake...ish, but knew there was no sane reason not to go back to sleep, so I did. And I woke up at 5am, which made me wonder if there wasn't some lingering jet lag after all, because I'd been fairly sure I'd had it in me to sleep a full 9 or 10 hours, easy. In any case, I wasn't set to wake up 'til 7:30am, so I went back to sleep.
When I woke up at 6am, still feeling tired but unable to go to sleep, I decided that I may as well stay awake. I had a headache named "Oh my god what is all this new stuff everywhere I don't even," but I ignored it, took a shower, put on a skirt and nice shoes and a nice shirt, and went to the school.
It is hot and humid in Taiwan. A hot and humid day in Columbus is a dry, cool day here. These people blast their hotel rooms, apartments, and stores with air conditioning, and for good reason. Step outside and it's like walking through 90 degree fog. You sweat like it's your job. By the time I walked to the school (at 8am, not even nearly the peak of the day), my neck, back, and throat were soaked. I also realized that there might be merits to never wearing underwear in Taiwan, because the ONLY thing it's good for in this kind of heat is giving you the wedgie of our life.
I stopped by a fruit stand on the way to Shane English School and bought a fuji apple to go with my earlier breakfast of good-old-fashioned-American-granola-bar. When I got to Shane I was an hour early, so I went into the Family Mart across the street and bought a sandwhich that I THINK had chicken in it. I also got some almonds and cachews and a little bag of bread-thingies, which were in the shapes of stars and had smiles on them. I ate the nuts and saved the bread for later. (Turned out to be a good call.) I then went to Shane and shadowed Amelia's class, which had four 8 to 11-year-old girls in it and was lots of fun to watch. Different from Dennis's class of insane little kids, but fun.
I really like these kids at Shane, they're smart and hard working and enthusiastic about learning when you get them interested. I really really really hope the training next week helps me so I can make my classes fun and interesting for the kids in them. My biggest fear isn't that I'll look stupid, but that I won't be able to get my kids' attention or interest and they won't learn.
After the class, Vy and I went apartment-viewing. This involved a lot of walking, and it is how I discovered that I am not remotely equipped to deal with this weather. I also discovered that even the soft leather straps of one's most comfortable shoes can cause blisters if one spends five days walking in them. Vy and I saw one apartment, which was okay, and then I pleaded foot pain and we went to my hotel room so I could change into different clothes. (All of which were soaked, it was kind of disgusting. I need to find a drycleaner around here fast.) I ended up wearing a long skirt, tank top, and my running shoes, which made for something of a fashion-disaster ensemble, but by that point I was so over-heated, sweaty, and in such foot pain that I didn't care. Besides, I get looked at for being foreign; doesn't make much of a difference if I'm dressed oddly, too.
Hsin Jhuang's streets are LITTERED with food stands. Vy bought drinks for us on our apartment trek, passion fruit and mango bubble tea, which was a bit odd, though mostly because there were bits of mango seeds in it along with the "bubbles" (which are balls of rice jelly, I belive?) and bits of mango. It was quite delicious and desperately needed on a such a hot day.
Vy called the landlord of the second apartment, and he didn't call back, so we went to the third apartment, which is just down the street from Shane. It was about the size of a big walk-in closet, but it had lovely white tile floors, an enormous window that let in tons of light, good furniture, and wi-fi and water included in the NT$6500/month bill. I'll share the washing machine with about two other apartments and all our clothes will be hung outside on the same big grate on the balcony (most clothes are air-dried in Taiwan; why waste electricity on dryers when the heat'll take care of it?). The apartment complex has a little courtyard out front at the entrance and a big black iron gate separating it from the sidewalk and street. For a first apartment, and for an apartment in a foreign country, I absolutely love it. I'll take pictures and put them up next week when I'm moving in.
After Vy and I returned to Shane, Vy left and Joy, the school owner, drove me to the hotel. Joy is a bit abrupt and set in her ways, but she's also kind and thoughtful, and she cares about her students.
Later I'll be meeting Amelia at Shane to go to Taipei for drinks and to meet other expats. It's amazing how much you miss the sight of other non-Chinese (white, black, indian, latin american, doesn't matter) when you're in a homogenous society. I don't think about it until I see a group of non-Chinese walking down the street or sitting in a restaurant. I don't know them, but I instantly want to go up and start chatting. I think it's some kind of longing for language and cultural similarity.
I do love Taiwan, though. It's still strange and confusing and scary, but when I just stop and look at everything and think about how this is MY city now, I'm so happy. I'm glad I am. I was afraid I'd hate it, that I'd long for home as soon as I got there and that I'd always be comparing it to Japan, because Japan is where I'd set my sights on first and I'd dreamed of going there for so long. Taiwan is entirely different, but still lovely in its own way. It's like someone built one foundation that has been added to and built on ever since without any major remodeling to make it all match. The only things that are uniform are the street signs and yellow and white traffic lines painted on the street. There are about fifty kinds of sidwalk; some tiled, some mosaic, some stone, some cement, some non-existant, some rising up and others going down, some with stairs and some with haphazard cement ramps, some under alcoves and separated from the street, others nearly part of it. There are scooters and bikes parked up and down almost every single sidewalk, often two rows deep, just one after the other like a packed parking lot on Christmas Eve. There are also vendors selling just about everything: clothes, electronics, books, movies, toys, even manga and magazines. There's a shop somewhere with an entire glass wall decked with nothing but shelves of teapots, and I need to find where that is and go back.
I think I may need a nap, so I'm going to go do that and maybe get online so I can let my family and friends know I'm not dead. :)
LATER
Yep, napped. I had a good time tonight hanging out with Amelia, Dennis's sister Susan (name changed), and the other male teacher from Shane, Justin (name changed) at a place called The Tap. There were a lot of other non-Chinese there, and the food was very American. I had a Greek salad that tasted like a Greek salad, and then Amelia and I split an order of chicken strips. The Tap had a very sports-bar-meets-brewery feel to it, and when I was talking to Susan and hearing music in English and seeing pictures of American singers on the wall, I felt like I was back in the States, which (as Susan said) is a valuable feeling.
One thing I also realized from hanging out with other English speakers is that, when you're certain no one can understand you, you're pretty fearless about how loud you speak and what you discuss in public, particularly on a bus. We talked about what it felt like being different in a homogenous society, and Susan and Amelia shared some of the times when they'd been told by Taiwanese to change themselves ("You need to lose 10 kilos" or (to Amelia, who's naturally blonde) "You should stop bleaching your hair because it's bad for your scalp.") based on Taiwaneses expectations of appearance. Apparently there's another girl, Natalie (name changed), from the UK, who is a redhead and has lots of freckles, who was once told by an elderly woman that she needed to take better care of her skin because she was getting blemishes. The elderly woman was apparently appalled when Natalie told her she wouldn't change herself if she could, because she was born that way and in her home country it made her special. Susan, Amelia and I talked about why we thought these kinds of occurances happened, and how we as Americans deal with similar incidences in societies like the US where we encounter different kinds of people all the time. Even if we see someone who has lots of freckles or an unusual hair or skin color, or one arm or no legs or is blind, we consider it something that is physical and unique, something that a person can't change, or wouldn't change if they're happy with it.
However, if everyone you see looks like you, and you have few or no experiences dealing with or reacting to people who are very different from yourself and everyone you know, you base your ideas about them on your expectations of one type of person. It's possible that the woman who told Amelia to stop bleaching her hair had little or no experience with blondes, and the elderly woman who told Natalie to take better care of her skin couldn't imagine why someone would be happy with freckles, when pale, blemish-free skin is the standard for beauty in Taiwan.
Anyway, I move into my new hotel tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep because it is 1:30am and I almost fell asleep on the bus coming back. (Btw I have a bus/train card now, yay!)
I am doubly glad to be getting out of this place, since I was told that most hotels in Taiwan are for couples who want to have sex. Adults don't move out of their parents' homes until they're married, so those who want to have sex with their girl/boyfriends prior to that will come to hotels, and that's what many of them are here for.
*shudders* I feel dirty. >_<
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