Gao Jian in Taipei

Final Thoughts from Isle Formosa.

2008-08-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is it, my final blog from Taiwan. First of all, I would just like to take the time to thank everyone who has been reading, and posting, and sharing this once in a lifetime opportunity with me. It has kept me going, and kept me writing. Just looking back on my previous blog posts, and my over 1000 pictures that I have taken while in Taiwan has made me realize just how much I have experienced. I was hoping to actually write my final Taiwan blog in Chinese and then translate into English, but after writing for 6 hours with still no end in sight I told myself 慢慢來 man4man4lai2 (don’t rush this, just take your time) and decided to just wrap things up in my mother tongue. I hope to take advantage of my six-hour layover in San Francisco and finish up the Chinese version there.

This chapter of my life has changed who I am in a huge way. Apart from learning, thinking, and dreaming in a different language, I have grown the most as a human being. I have altered my views, and expanded my opinions on the world. I have met travelers and friends from all parts of the globe and not only listened to the stories they have shared, but shared a few tales of my own. I have finally experienced living independently for the first time in my 23 years on this third rock from the sun, and think I have done all right. Sure, I didn’t ever actually cook a meal, and I may be a thinner than when I came to Taiwan, but I kept my clothes clean, my house in order, and got my self up and off to school everyday without a hitch. I learned how to manage a relatively small monthly budget, and make it last. All in all, I am claming success.

I have enjoyed everyday that I have spent here, and the past 10 months have been like a dream. I have learned so much, and I know that I won’t possible remember it all. But, I am sure that I will carry this momentum home with me and just keep trudging on; learning new knowledge, and reinforcing the old. Counting down my final hours here seems surreal. I know that tomorrow night I will be back in Milwaukee, but I couldn’t think of anything that was a “must do” during my last afternoon. I am, however, saying to hell with the summer heat and going out for a hot pot dinner tonight, one of my favorite meals here in Taiwan, but other than that my day has been spent just relaxing and taking in the rolling tides of noise generated by scooters, buses, and cars that fill the streets.

Although today has been rather uneventful, I cannot say the same about the past week here in Taiwan. It has been jam packed with new adventures. Monday wrapped up my final test of the quarter, and after that it was smooth sailing. I spent the rest of the week working on things that really interested me about Chinese, mainly poetry, idioms, and traditional stories. I really learned a ton in the past week about the history and culture of the Chinese language, something that really made my one on one class worth every cent. Wednesday night it was out for my final night at Roxy 99 with my fellow classmates and friends from Taiwan. We had a blast and I ended up getting home very late. Thursday was the big day, our GuZheng class had our end of the quarter performance, and my classmate Rou Wen and I performed a section of 梁祝 Liang2 Zhu4 a song based on the Classical tragic romance between two lovers Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. This story is often known as the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. The performance was a lot of fun, but I was incredibly nervous. Everyone did a great job and our teacher took some awesome video of the whole thing, but I haven’t had a chance to upload it to Youtube yet so guess you all with have to wait till I get home to check it out.

Friday was my final day of class but I wouldn’t call it a class at all, my teacher and me spent our two hours looking over a bit of my writing and then just having a chat about anything that came to mind, politics, travel, my future studies in Chinese so on and so fourth. It was a wonderful end to my three quarters here, there was no test, no TingXie, no nothing, just pure conversation, it was grand. On Saturday a very special friend of mine Vivi, a wonderful Taiwanese girl that I have been spending time with, decided to spend the day in Wulai, a small town about an hour south of Taipei. Wulai is known for Natural River hot springs and it’s over abundance of aboriginal Taiwanese culture. While we were there took a mini train to the waterfall in the area and avoid the rain by eating a wonderful aboriginal lunch, the highlight being rice wrapped with taro and cook in a bamboo stalk, it was mouth watering. Sunday we took a walk from my place over to the Jade/ Flower market near Daan Forest Park. It was nice to see, but nothing spectacular, but the hour walk to the market was certainly very enjoyable. That night it was off to Little Indonesia with the hostel gang for some wonderfully spicy Indonesia food, that place has become our recent Sunday tradition.

Monday was a lot of fun. Me and Vivi originally wanted to head over to Mao Kong Gondola for a nice hike in the mountains of Taipei, but during our MRT switch from the MRT Blue Line to the Brown Line I discovered that the Gondola is not in service on Mondays. Although I really wanted to check out the Gondola before I left, I wasn’t going to let it get me down. We headed over to Elephant Mountain for a nice hike in the blazing heat. The hike left me covered head to toe in sweat, but the view during the day was worth every drip. I realized just how small Taipei was, and just how many people live in this city. They couldn’t build out, so they just built up and it makes for a miraculous view. I felt like I was king of the world, although Taipei 101 still loomed above me standing tall and proud. Taipei 101 is a true marvel of human engineering. After descending from the Mountain it was over to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial hall, after studying some Chinese history I really took a great interest in this man. It took 10 tries to over though the last Chinese dynasty, but he never gave up. It was awesome to see the changing of the guard and to just walk around the Memorial Hall that was built in his honor.

After S.Y.S. Memorial it was back home to relax and start getting my items in order. My busy final week in Taipei had come to and end. Now it was time to get some last minute things packed and decided one and for all what clothing, books, and other assorted items I was and wasn’t going to take home with me. At this point only my laptop remains out side of my bags. And looking at the time I think it’s time to even pack this away. I have had a remarkable journey, an adventure that I will never forget. I am looking forward to coming home and sharing my experiences with you in the flesh. Well… until next time Taiwan,and there will be a next time, I bid you farewell.

Jacob Gill
高建

Install your language packs.

2008-08-15T22:41:00.001-07:00

Well everyone, the days are counting down till I am back in the States. The end of the quarter has been keeping me busy. I have been spending most of my time hitting the books, doing more Chinese reading, writing, and speaking. Don't really have much to report since the last blog. But I did want to share something with you guys. The story below is not of my own creation, but I did write it in Chinese. I present my version of Snow White to the blogger verse. You don't have to read Chinese to know how the story goes, but if you do read Chinese, I encourage thoughts and criticisms. Just remember in the end, Snow White and her Prince, lived happily ever after. I will see you all soon enough when my own fairy tale here in Taipei comes to an end. But keep an eye out for one more post before I get home. Just a final recap while still on the beautiful Island Formosa.

從前有一個國王和王后，他們生了一個女兒叫白雪，她小時候，母親就過世了。後來國王又結婚了。他的新婚妻子是一個邪惡的人，她很討厭白雪，希望白雪當她的僕人。幾年以後白雪長大了，她又高又瘦，皮膚白白的，眼睛大大的，非常美麗。有一天一位王子騎馬經過，看到白雪在工作，他馬上就愛上白雪了。

王后也很漂亮，頭髮黑黑的，眼睛也很美。她覺得自己是世界上最美的女人，於是每天對著魔鏡問：『魔鏡，魔鏡，世界上最美的女人是誰？』『是您，我的王后』魔鏡每次都這樣回答。但是說也奇怪，有一天魔鏡說：『最美的女人是白雪。』王后聽了以後，氣得要命，就叫了一個獵人把白雪帶到森林裡殺掉。不過那個獵人很同情白雪，於是對白雪說：『王后要殺你！我求你趕快逃到森林裡去吧。』

白雪就跑進森林裡去，跑了很久跑得累極了。這時候，她看到森林裡有一間小房子，裡面有七張小小的床，她心想：『我累得不得了，我就在這裡休息一下』她一閉上眼睛，就睡著了。她睡覺的時候，住在這裡的七個小矮人回家發現白雪在他們家裡。他們覺得該讓這個美女睡覺，不要打擾她。白雪起床以後告訴他們她的情況，七個小矮人聽了以後說：『你可以住在這裡，只要幫我們洗衣服，做飯就好了。』白雪聽了就說：『一言為定』。可是第二天那邪惡的王后又問魔鏡：『魔鏡，魔鏡，世界上最美的女人是誰？』，魔鏡還是回答『最美的女人是白雪』魔鏡的回答讓王后非常生氣，所以她決定化裝成一個老婆婆到小矮人的房子去給白雪一個又紅又大的毒蘋果吃。

有一天小矮人都要出去工作，出門以前對白雪說：『我們到山上去挖金子，你在這裡等我們回來，千萬別讓人進來。』不久以後，白雪聽到有人在敲門，她從窗戶偷看是誰，發現在外面站著一個老婆婆，雖然小矮人說別讓人進來，可是她心想：『這是一個看起來很誠實的老婆婆，再說她拿著一個又紅又大的蘋果看起來很好吃，請她進來吧』。白雪走過去把門打開來，原來站著一個有鷹勾鼻，駝背的老女人。老婆婆目不轉睛的盯著白雪說：『美女你好嗎，請吃吃看這個又紅又大的蘋果吧！』可是白雪吃了一口以後，就一直昏睡。

當天七個小矮人回家以後，發現白雪昏迷不醒。七個小矮人都覺得她已經死了，於是做了一個玻璃棺材把白雪放在裡面。轉眼過了一個月，有一天那個愛著白雪的王子騎馬走進森林，走近一看嚇了一大跳，躺在棺材裡的女孩就是他心愛的白雪。他心想：『不管她是不是死了，我都要親她。』所以王子抱起白雪親吻了她，結果白雪慢慢地張開了眼睛對王子說：『我在做夢嗎？原來是我的王子，謝謝你救了我，我愛你。』從此他們就過著幸福快樂的日子。結束

Fung-wong is here.

2008-07-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

It has been exactly a month since my last post on this blog, and the pace of school and everyday living in Taiwan hasn't slowed up one bit. I finally feel like I can really take some time and recount some recent events in Taiwan. Today I am like a giddy school boy because the Taiwan government has closed offices and schools due to Typhoon Fung-Wong. Everyone has been watching the Typhoon make it's way toward Taiwan for the past few days just waiting for it to hit, and hit it did. Hua Lien, and more southern regions of Taiwan are dealing with flooding up the waist and winds blowing at 160 KM/H. Here in Taipei it doesn't feel nearly as bad, but the rain is certainly coming down. Lucky for me my local breakfast shop doesn't seem to mind the weather, I still had a nice breakfast to start my day off right.

Well life here is going as usual. Lots of homework and lots of studying. In the beginning of July I started studying Gu Zheng, a Chinese musical 21 stringed instrument similar to the Zither, through Shida's culture classes. Every week I have one two hour lesson. Needless to say that is not enough time to really practice what we learn, but we are playing some simple songs and I have to say the Gu Zheng is a very beautiful instrument.
The Gu Zheng strings when naturally plucked make the sounds Do Ra Me So La, but the stings can be manipulated with your left hand to create a full scale.You play the instrument by sitting on the far right hand side of and using your right hands thumb, pointer finger, middle finger and ring finger to pluck the strings. Your left hand is used to bend the notes pitch. Even though there are only 5 main notes of varying pitch the instrument is very similar to a harp in the need for coordination and accuracy We will have a performance at the end of the quarter were we perform one or two songs we have been working on. I will be sure to have a friend video tape it for you all to see. Other than Gu Zheng Class and my normal one on one class I have just been busy trying new foods, and hanging out in new places.

I have been hanging out with a lot of friends on the weekends, seeing movies and walking around Ximen Ding, a kind of youth hangout shopping center, which is filled with all sorts of activities. Last weekend I went to my first MTV. It is basically a movie theater where you rent out a room and a few movies to hang out for the day. You get food, and drinks included in the cost of the room rental. A pretty cool idea, and a great way to spend a rainy day. It still astounds me at how much is going on in this city on any given day. Makes it fun to see something new every time you step outside. Last week Saturday I got to see a live break dance competition taking place on the streets. The kids, they must have still been in high school, weren't the greatest dancers, but there enthusiasm and attitude really got the the crowd into it. After checking out some break-dancing my friend and I headed over to an Arcade for some Air Hockey, and racing games. Other than hanging out in Ximen Ding I have also started walking home from school when ever I feel my feet can take it, and the weather isn't hot to the point of being dangerous. The walk takes me about 45 minutes, and although it isn't filled with anything too exciting, I still am seeing a part of the city I can't observe riding the MRT. That in itself is worth coming home covered head to toe in sweat. I am not sure what I will do with my last month here in Taipei, I think most of my routine will stay pretty normal, but there are still a few places I would like to check out before I leave. Well right now the Typhoon seems to really calmed down, it is just drizzling outside, looks like this is even better than a Wisconsin snow day. I can go outside and I don't even have to shovel!

The magic numbers 325, 35, and 5.

2008-06-28T01:20:00.000-07:00

The magic numbers 325, 35, and 5. These numbers might not mean anything to you, but those numbers explain to me where the last month of my life has been; buried in my chinese book. So allow me to break down those numbers for you guys.

325: The number of new vocabulary I have learned this month. Each new vocabulary word usually consists of 2 or 3 characters.
35: The number of new grammar structures introduced.
5: The number of chapters I have finished in the past 3 weeks.

These numbers seem a little bit crazy, but it is only when I sat down and started to add up the numbers that I realized the demanding regime of these past 3 weeks. My class is amazing, I can feel my Chinese improving every single day by leaps and bounds. I have started to study poetry, and am learning how to express my Western thoughts in an Eastern way; not a simple task. One of the wonderful things about my class is the having to opportunity to just talk with my teacher about anything that comes to mind. Most of the time we are working on class materials, but every now and again we just talk. The other day for example we started talking about the future and the possibility of Robot Rights, that lead to a discussion about the book and movie i-Robot and of course the three laws of robotics.

It amazes me that in less than two years of Chinese study, I am able to talk about these kinds of subjects, and I know that it wouldn't have been possible without the help of my great teachers here and back home in the states. While I love having crazy discussions in class about my interests, I really enjoy when my teacher talks about the more cultural aspects of the Chinese language. Every day I seem to learn something new and interesting about China's past, and how it has molded todays culture and language. This new class has really opened my eyes to one of my favorite tidbits of this beautiful language; idioms. Chinese is filled with idioms, they are often a four, six, or eight character saying that expresses a much larger idea. One I have learned recently is 情人眼裡出西施 (qíng rén yǎn lǐ chū xī shī). This is similar to the English saying Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but with a little history built in. The characters 情人(qíng rén) mean a person in love, 眼裡 (yǎn lǐ) means in your eyes, 出西施 (chū xī shī) means seeing Xi Shi one of the ancient beauties of Chinese History. Wiki says:

Xi Shi's beauty was said to be so extreme that while leaning over a balcony to look at the fish in the pond, the fish would be so dazzled that they forgot to swim and gradually sunk away from the surface, birds would forget to fly and fall from the sky, the moon would fade, and flowers would close their petals in shame in comparison to her. (Thus the idiom 沉魚落雁, 閉月羞花 (chén yú luò yàn, bì yuè xiū huā ) which is used to compliment someone's beauty.)

This type of information I consider priceless, and I don't think I would be able to take the time to learning something like this in a normal class with five, six, or seven other students. I would love to write some more about the poetry I am learning, but that will have to wait. Perhaps I can put on a little performance of a selection of classical poetry when I get home. The characters themselves don't do a poem justice. A poet must always remember 詩中有畫，畫中有詩 (shī zhōng yǒu huà, huà zhōng yǒu shī) A poet must speak a poem like he is painting a picture, a painter must paint a picture like he is telling a poem. I will be sure to share the rest of my adventures as much as I can before I make my way back home in two months time.

A wonderful end to a perfect vacation.

2008-06-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

The past few days, although not filled with parties and clubs, have still lived up to the very essence of being on vacation. Tuesday I finally managed to visit the 國立故宮博物院Gúolì Gùgōng Bówùyùan (National Palace Museum) and it was just as wonderful as everyone says. I realized while walking through countless rooms filled with Jade, Curio cases, scrolls and other timeless art pieces that Chinese history is wonderfully preserved. You can see the subtle changes in religious icons, and jade carving styles as you walk through the past toward the present. It was an amazing place, and half a day there was only enough time to 走馬看花 zou3ma3kan4hua1 (get a brief view of the sights). Sorry, you are not allowed to take pictures in the National Palace museum so a few pics from the outside will have to do.

On Wednesday I had the prefect "semi-date" with Ayaka, a Japanese girl who just arrive in Taipei who is also studying Chinese. I picked her up from orientation and we grabbed a bite to eat near school. Afterwards it was off to 中正紀念堂 zhong1zheng4ji4nian4tang2 (Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall) a very peaceful and beautiful memorial in the heart of the city. We enjoyed the lovely grounds and then headed up 85 stairs to visit the memorial of Chiang Kai-Shek. After reading about the history of China, I am not really sure where I stand when it comes to this man, but he did do some wonderful things for Taiwan, and this memorial is well deserved. From C.K.S. it was off to see the new Indiana Jones movie down at Taipei 101's Vieshow theater. Have to say, I was a little disappointed. Had I not been sitting next to a cute girl I might have asked for my money back. To make up for the lackluster movie we headed off to Shilin night market (biggest in Taipei) and had some Bubble Milk tea and a few drinks to end the night.

I got home around midnight and spent some time preparing for the start of my final quarter. I woke up on Thursday feeling good, and ready to get back into the student swing. I prepared the first half of the lesson in advance so the first day we opened the book running. I have already had two quizzes and am getting ready for my first test on Monday. Forty five new characters and 7 grammar patterns down in two days! Yikes, the speed is fast, but I actually like it, it forces me work even harder than before, and thats never a bad thing.

I started Friday by heading over to 大佳公園 da4jia1gong1yuan2 (Da Jia Park) to watch the start of the 2008 International Dragon boat races. Here is the history of the event straight from Wiki:

The use of dragon boats for racing and dragons are believed by modern scholars, sinologists and anthropologists to have originated in southern central China more than 2,500 years ago, along the banks of such iconic rivers as the Chang Jiang, also known as Yangtze (that is, during the same era when the games of ancient Greece were being established at Olympia). Dragon boat racing as the basis for annual water rituals and festival celebrations, and for the traditional veneration of the Asian dragon water deity, has been practiced continuously since this period. The celebration is an important part of ancient agricultural Chinese society, celebrating the summer harvest. They first used a "dragon boat" to save a local scholar from drowning in the river and went to save his life. They now honour this feat on (or around) the 5/5 every year (Lunar Calendar).

Shida had two teams competing in the event, a mens team and a mixed team. I am proud to say that I was one of the only Shida students there screaming 加油 jia1you2 (Add Oil or Go Team!) at the top of my lungs. Our teams took first place in the first and second rounds of the event, but ended up taking 3rd on Saturday. That just wasn't enough to keep us in the races, but everyone did a great job. After watching our team win the first round I headed off to school for 4 hours of Library time before class. I came into class ready and prepared and eager to end my adventures here with a strong finish. I am not sure what is in store for me in these final months, but I intend to make the most out of everyday.

Warning: An excess of fun!

2008-06-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 23rd 4:10 p.m:

The school bells chimed, and it was time to kick off a wonderful 12 day summer break. With my second quarter under raps I figured it was time to go out and hit the town, no matter how early, and that is just what I did. My classmate and I went over to a local pub and had a few drinks, chatting the night away and making plans for the real vacation, 3 days in Kending, the Southern most tip of Taiwan. After the plans were set, it was time to really start the evening so we headed over to Room 18, a club in Taipei's 101 district for a night on the town. The cover charge was steep, and the drinks were pricey, but the club was a ton of fun. Me and some friends danced the night away and I ended up getting home just in time for breakfast. Gotta love Taipei, the nights end late and the days start early.

If I thought I was going to get a lot of R&R before my big trip, then I was way, way off. Saturday night I was back out on the town. Me and some friends headed over to a great Japanese restaurant to have a little going away party for a good friend of mine, and fellow class mate Xiao Ling, who was heading back to Thailand. Being a vegetarian and heading to a Japanese restaurant is not something I would normally even dare to do, but I am not one to be picky and choosy, I was hoping they at least had a Salad that didn't have some kind of seafood mixed into it. And I was not disappointed. The restaurant ended up having a great Tofu Salad that was absolutely sensational. As if the tofu salad wasn't enough to hold me over then the appetizers and white rice, did the trick. The night, however, did not stop at dinner. Afterwards it was over to Hips, my friends favorite Night Club, for a little P-A-R-T-Y, the club may not be the best in town, but it does boast a fairly inexpensive entrance fee and the best perk of them all... 喝到飽 he2 dao4 bao3 ("drink till full"). The rest of the night was filled with great music with great friends. And don't worry, even if it is all you can drink, I was sober enough to enjoy a nice 5:30 a.m. sunrise to cap off the evening, and have a nice conversation with a cab driver who was working the graveyard shift.

Fortunately for me, I did take a break on Sunday and Monday. I did some reading, watched some Chinese TV shows and started to teach myself Bopomofoㄅㄆㄇㄈ, otherwise know as 注音符號 zhu4 yi1 fu2 hao4, one of the seemingly millions of pronunciation systems for Chinese characters. This system, unlike the Roman Pinyin system that is used in Mainland China and most of the rest of the world is a much more exact pronunciation system, consisting of 37 letters and 4 tone marks, it is a comprehensive system that can transcribe all the possible sounds in Mandarin. All one has to do is put the parts together and presto, you are speaking perfect chinese. Generally speaking Bopomofo is harder to learn for westerners because it uses its own type of character system, but that just means DRILL, DRILL, DRILL! I am sure that learning Bopomofo will be a bit of a struggle, but it should help me out in the long run, plus once I learn how to use it I can start typing in Chinese on my cellphone!

Tuesday was the big day, our three day trip to Kending. Our train left at 7 a.m. and arrived in GaoShong around 11:30. After that we took an hour and a half taxi ride and we were there. Kending is a coastal city that is surrounded by Taiwan's very first National Park. The scenery is amazing, the beaches are incredible, and the lifestyle... well lets just say it they run on beach time down there. I went down to Kending with six other friends, Masa and Naoki from Japan, Jason and Eric from the United States, Juan from Costa Rica, and Jean the one and only girl straight from Taipei. Masa, Naoki, Jason, Jean, and I all spent the full three days in Kending, and Juan and Eric met us in the evening on the second day. While Kending isn't large by any means it still would be rather impractical to walk everywhere, so we decide to rent scooters for our three day stay, at the outrageous price of 9.50 USD per person. We put ourselves up in a very nice hotel that boasted a nice view just across the street from the beach, and had a nice patio. Perfect for a late night snacks, chats, and of course a few 啤酒 pijiu's.

Our day time activities in Kending included hanging out on the beach, taking a nice scenic cruise to a beach 18KM away and doing a little surfing. I didn't try the surfing, the waves were not all that great on the last day, and I was already sunburned. The water in Kending was awesome, like that classic third cup of porridge, jjjjuuuussstttt right! By the time the sun had set we were all a little drained, but that didn't stop us from heading out for a few drinks and some nice meals. The first night we had a nice surf-and-turf style dinner, night two we stopped in at Amy's Cucina for some good Taiwanese style pizza. The food always hit the spot. After dinner we walked the strip like the rest of the folks and then headed back to the hotel for some R&R. The by far coolest thing about evenings in Kending are the stars. The sky was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of stars, a sight for sore eyes after spending 7 months in Taipei where on a good night you can only see a planet or two.

Thursday night my friends headed back to Taipei, but I decided to add another day to my vacation by stopping in Tainan. Tainan is Taiwan's old capitol city, and is full of tons of historical sites and plenty of rich culture. While I was there I got to enjoy the 安平古堡 An1ping2 gu3bao3 (Anping Fort), the old streets of Anping and the first Taiwanese Confucian temple 孔廟 kong3 miao4. While at the Confucian temple I met a very nice older Taiwanese man who took the time to help me really understand the history of the temple. How it was founded, what it's purpose was etc. etc. We ended up talking for over an hour before I was able to escape away to find some food and a coffee shop with AC. All that time in the sun had worn me out and I was ready to go home. I am glad that I made it to Tainan for a day, but I fear it wasn't enough.

I took the last train home on Friday, leaving at 8:30 p.m. and didn't get home till well past midnight. The train ride, as on the way down, was uncomfortably cold, my pants and long sleeve shirt were not enough to keep my comfortable. Some how I managed to get a little bit of sleep on the train, but when I got home I was pretty exhausted. I got a good nights rest and then spent the day recounting my trip to friends and just hanging out. Saturday night it was back on the horse again. My friends Masa and Naoki had a huge going away party at Hips and it was a blast. We ended up staying again till around 5 or 6 a.m. and then headed over to N.Y. Bagel for some rather good breakfast. I ended up calling it a "night" around 8:30 a.m. I went home thinking that my crazy vacation parties were over. Waking up on Sunday I found out that Naoki and Masa were heading out to dinner, so I decided to tag along for one last good bye meal. We went to Amigo, a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a huge meal, I don't think I have ever ate some much in my life. We had appetizers to split, individual appetizers, main dishes, salads, and desserts... my, oh my! After the restaurant we met up with a few more friends for one last night on the town together. We ended up heading over to a lounge bar called The Bed. The place had great house music, and we actually were hanging out on a giant bed, having a few drinks and reminiscing over the good times in Taipei. I have to say, one of the coolest things about living in Taiwan is my sense of international connectedness. Last night was all about enjoying the company of friends. Friends from different parts of the world, with different cultural backgrounds, and starting to understand the differences and embrace them. This week was crazy, it was the most fun I have had in a long time. I said goodbye, for now, to a few of my very good friends. At the same time, I made many more friends as well. Not sure what is in store for my last few days of vacation, but I don't think I will be seeing anymore sunrises for a while.

Saying goodbye for now to Naoki

Saying goodbye, for now, to Masa.
And making new friends, Ayaka, Jean, Juan, Jason and others.

Only in Taipei

2008-05-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday of this week I finished my second Chinese final exam. While the quarter is not quite out, only two more weeks to go, our final exam is over and done with and the stress level is somewhat less than before. Our test spanned over 7 chapters of chinese, we studied 10 total this quarter, and covered over 40 new grammar points, approximately 300 new characters and a wide range of topics, from history, politics and sports games to beauty contests and so on. I spent over a week working hard on reviewing all that material, and it paid off. I passed with flying colors.

After the test was over we really had to come up with a way to celebrate, and one of the Shida students certainly came through. Last night starting from Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall 中正紀念堂 and headed to Taipei 101 台北一零一，we embarked on a journey that can possible only be completed here in Taiwan, a 7-11 crawl.

Our mission, to walk from C.K.S. to 101 stopping at eleven or more 7-11's on the way and buying one alcoholic beverage on the way. There are 4.770 7-11 stores in Taiwan, they have a great selection of beverages, and drinking on the streets is legal, albeit frowned upon in Taipei. We had more than 30 people total in the group, and it was slow going, but a ton of fun. We only had the cops come once to a 7-11, I think the clerks were a little nervous when 30 plus people were standing out side sipping cold ones. The trip took a little over 3 hours to complete but we did make it to 101, although by that time the lights were out and there wasn't a single 7-11 in sight to have a celebratory drink. It is something that I don't think I will do again, but dang it was fun.

I still have two more weeks of school left but after that we get a break before my final quarter. I planning to take advantage of the days off and head down to Tainan 台南 by myself to have a bit of an adventure. Should be a lot of fun. I will be sure to write a few blogs about my trip. After the break I start my final quarter of school. Instead of having a 3 hour or 2 hour normal class I have selected a one of one class. Basically I will have 10 hours of individual lessons a week, I can select my own course material and set my own pace. It should really get me ready for 7th semester Chinese, which I am taking back at UWM in fall. I figure I should include a picture of my and my class mates in this blog as well. It's me and another American, two Japanese students, one student from Thailand, one from Indonesia, and one from the Philippines. This quarter has been a lot of fun, but I am looking forward to next quarter even more.

The adventures continue.

2008-04-19T04:10:00.001-07:00

As May quickly approaches, I am reminded that my time here is more than half over. While my parents were in Taiwan I told them there was a very good possibility of me extending my stay here. Since they have left I toiled for days over ways to come up with money to extend my stay, I looked into Visa extensions, scholarships for school, and even jobs to support the cost of living. However, after thinking things over again and again, I have decided that I will be coming home at the end of August as was had originally planed. My plane ticket is booked, and the date is set. But as I start to plan for my fall semester back at UWM, I also continue to discover new and wonderful things in this place.

Sitting at school waiting for class to start I looked out upon the city and realized that this place feels more and more like my home. The buildings, although concrete and stained with exhaust, add to this city's wonderful character. You can sense the amount of people, and the flow of life by gazing at the Taipei skyline. C.K.S. Memorial Hall and Big Pink (Taiwan's second tallest building) stick out at day and night.

Walking through Shida Night market you can always tell you've found good food if there is a long line of people waiting for it. One stand in the night market always seems to have the longest line, so I decided to give it a try. The stand sells something called Lu Wei, they give you a basket and a set of tongs and you get to select what kind of food you would like to eat, they have dofu, tons of fresh veggies, meat, noodles, and tons of other stuff. You put the things you want into the basket and then the cook plunges it into the black, boiling Lu Wei(滷味) broth, made from Chinese herbal medicine. After the food is done they add chili sauce, garlic, and some other goodies. If you eat at the restaurant behind the Lu Wei stand you get your meal on a nice big plate, but if you take it to go, or as we say in chinese dai zou(帶走), chinese for carry out, all your food goes into a nice plastic bag. My basket of Lu Wei consisted of noodles, dofu, mushrooms, asparagus, green beens and fresh lettuce. The meal was incredible, and well worth the half hour wait and 140NT I paid for it; like I said before, huge lines means the food is good.

The food at the Lu Wei stand was so good that I ate it again the next night as well. Thankfully I ordered while it was still pretty early so I didn't have to wait for a half hour the second time around. Last night Matt's friend from Germany arrived in Taipei for the weekend and we decided to show him around. We started the night at the 45 our pub of choice and had a few beers. After that it was over to Longshan temple which was had a very different feel at night. Very peaceful, yet alive with energy. After Longshan temple we went over to Snake Alley and got stuffed on street food. I had some tasty chao mian (fried noodles) and watched the boys eat some awesome cuts of sashimi for the sweet price of 150NT, there never going to get deals like that back home. After Longshan temple we headed out to a club and danced the night away. All in all it was a great way to start the weekend. Not sure what will be next on my adventures in Taipei, most likely some homework. We are studying political terms and our report for this test is a mock election for ban zhang(班長), class representative. While these types of reports require a good amount of effort, its a wonderful use of new vocabulary.

Parents: Week two in Taipei.

2008-04-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

Emily’s status: is HOME!!!!
Facebook confirms it. My family is home at last. Their two week journey in Island Formosa, the beautiful island, has come to a conclusion. I am sure they will have loads of stories to tell about their stay in Taiwan, so I will just pick up where my last blog left off.

Friday: We got up early had some breakfast and took a three hour train ride to Hualian where we had a hotel room waiting for us. We checked into the hotel and went out ready to explore the city for the rest of the day. As we were getting some info together at the Information center, I was approached by a taxi driver who spoke a little english. She offered to take us to Taroko Gorge for the rest of the day and give us a great tour for a very reasonable price. After a quick family meeting we decided to take the taxi tour to Taroko, and we were off. The awesome sight of Taroko Gorge is something that words have a hard time describing. Standing on the roads overlooking the ravine below you can feel the awesome power of this place in the pit of your stomach. Our trip to Taroko consisted of 5 stops total. Our first was the Eternal Spring Shrine, which was built to honor all the people who died building the the Taroko Pass. The Shrine, despite being under construction was an awesome sight, sitting all alone peacefully among waterfalls and marble laden walls it stood silent and beautiful.

After our stop at Eternal Spring Shrine we were off on a short walk called The Swallow Gratto Tunnel that lead up to the Commemoration of Chinheng, the engineer who designed the gorge pass. After an earthquake destroyed some of the roads Chinheng was killed in a rockfall when he came to inspect the damage. The walk was beautiful, but the constant signs warning us of falling rocks were a constant reminder of the people lost building the awesome pass. From there we were off to the Tunnel of Nine Turn's, another awesome display of nature and engineering working together to create a beautiful mountain pass. The walk was peaceful and breathtaking. We did a few more hiking trails and finished our stay in Taroko with a nice stair hike up to the Heaven Summit Pagoda. After our wonderful trip to Taroko Gorge we went to a Aboriginal dance in the cultural center of Hualian. Emily, the adventurous traveler, got up the nerve to even dance with the group on stage. I am sure that the cute boys wearing nothing more than a warriors mini skirt had nothing do to with her decision.

Saturday: After spending our Friday in Taroko Gorge we decided to take a hike on the Zuo Tsang Trail in Hualian. We discovered the hike in a local expat magazine, it boasted a wonderful view of Hualian and even a chance to see some Formosan rock macaque's in the distance. The magazine did not disappoint in any sense. The sights were amazing, looking like something out of Jurassic Park, so much different from the view in the gorge. After walking for about an hour, I finally got to stop saying that I was not leaving the area without seeing some monkeys. A rustle in the distance confirmed my hopes of finding them, no less that 8 macaque's were hanging out in the tree's and checking out the strange white humans who were out enjoying the day. It had to be one of the coolest things of the weekend. After checking out the monkey's for quite a while we continued our hike to the top. We made it up to a nice resting place about 1.2KM from the summit and we decided to end our trip short and head back down the mountain. After the hike we took a taxi ride back to Hualian where we found a nice little vegetarian restaurant and stuff our selves full of fried rice, noodles, and heaps of dumplings. While at the restaurant we experienced once again wonderful Taiwanese hospitality. Rather than taking another taxi back to our hotel the daughter of the restaurant we were eating at offered to give us a car ride back, and we gratefully accepted. We spent the rest of the day hanging out and playing some Password, a family favorite, where Dad and Emily got in the zone and practically swept the game leaving Mom and I in the dust.

Sunday: Our trip came to a quick end on Sunday, with our 9 A.M. train ride sending us on our different ways. I took a train ride back to Taipei, and my parents headed off to Tainan, where they spent two days exploring the old capitol city. I know they had a lot of fun there, but they will have to fill you in on all the details for that lag of the trip. Sunday back in Taipei for me meant hitting the books and getting ready for another week of school. I got a phone call that night telling me that my family had made it safe and found a hotel in Tainan.

Tuesday: Tuesday night my parents arrived back in Taipei and we met up after my class. We headed over to a great Vegetarian Buffet for our evening meal and stuffed our faces full of Tofu, noodles, dumplings, and anything else that caught our fancy. Over the two weeks that my family spent in Taipei we must have ate at no less that 5 vegetarian buffets, every time was a true delight. As we all professed more that once, "who needs meat when the favors are this good!" After our dinner we headed over to Shilin night market, the largest in all of Taipei, where I had ordered a very nice traditional Chinese dress shirt, and Emily had here eye on a purse that was going to be "the talk of the town when she got home." You can't spend a night in a night market without also tasting some of the great treats offered there. Mom and I couldn't resist ordering our favorite snack, a bag of fresh pineapple, and my Dad, having already tried fried squid and other treats had to order the stinky tofu.

Wednesday & Thursday: Wednesday night we went to a more traditional Beijing style restaurant. The dinner was wonderful and the flavors were very different from what we had been eating all week. After our dinner we went to Cafe Bastille, our local hangout where Dad and I enjoyed a few Belgium beers that boasted a more than modest 10.5% alcohol by volume label. Thursday morning we were up bright and early and we headed over to Xin Bei Tou for a trip to the natural hot springs. The water was super hot, but very enjoyable, we started out in the coolest of four pools offered at the public bath house. We never made it into the two hottest one's they were just to hot for our untrained skin. After the hot springs my parents headed off the Dan Shui and I once again rode the MRT solo back to Taipei for school. Thursday night John, my landlord, took my family and a long time friend of his Mark, also staying at the hostel, out for a great dinner filled with fresh chicken, fish, veggie's, pork and more. After dinner Dad and I spent some time up on the fifth floor balcony of Happy Family Hostel enjoying a few beers and some nice cuban cigars.

Friday: Friday morning came and went, we enjoyed a great breakfast at one of our hotspots and I was once again off to school for the afternoon. After school it was time to head over and up to the top of the 101 to enjoy the nighttime view of Taipei. The coolest part of the whole experience may actually have been the elevator... holy cow did it move fast! We covered 84 floors in 30 seconds and could even feel our ears pop on the way. Once we got to the top the view was breathtaking. Car's looked like ant's and buildings looked like little models in a diorama. Of course, I realized once we made it to the top that my camera's battery was officially dead so you will have to check out my parents photo's from the top.

Saturday: The last full day in Taipei for my family turned out to be quite and adventure. We headed over near Ximending a bustling hotspot in Taipei for our family's last vegetarian buffet. After enjoying another lovely meal we took a 45 minute bus ride up to Yangming Shan, Taipei counties national park. After reaching Yangming Shan we took another bus ride that was standing room only. We were jostled and knocked around for a little while till we had enough and decided to get off at the next stop. When we got out, we enjoyed the less than miraculous view, due to the humidity and the smog in the city and then we decided to trek back down the mountain on foot on the side of the road, watching out for buses, scooters and cars along the way. It was a little dangerous, but actually quite fun. Afterwards we caught a bus down the rest of the mountain and stopped at The Spot, the old American embassy in Taipei that has been turned into an Art House movie theater/ cafe. After enjoying some drinks we headed out for a wonderful Hot Pot dinner near my school. We ate a wonderful meal and then enjoyed a nice walk around the area before heading back to the hotel for the night.

Sunday: My family's trip was nearing a close, but not before having one last early morning breakfast before rushing off to the airport. After seeing my family off I headed back home only to receive a phone call a few hours later to tell me that their flight had be delayed 8 hours in Taipei and that they were also going to have to spend the night in San Francisco. I know the trip home wasn't pleasant, but knowing my family I am sure they made the best of it. I hear that Emily learned how to play Cribbage and they played into the early hours of the morning. Like the first lines of this blog stated my parents are home at last.

I would like to take the time to thank my family for making the trip out to Taiwan. It has been the first family vacation in a long time and it was more incredible than I ever would have imagined. It is a trip that I will remember for the rest of my life. My studies here would not have been possible without the encouragement of my family and friends.

My Parents are in Taipei!

2008-03-20T06:59:00.000-07:00

My parents have arrived in Taipei and it has made the past 5 days a truly wonderful experience. Their flight arrived at 9:30 and the bus ride took around 45 minutes from the airport to Taipei. Even though my family was excited to be in Taipei we spent the night just getting them to their hotel and getting them oriented with their surroundings but jet lag was taking its toll so we called it an early night.

Sunday: My parents and I got up early and we headed outside of Taipei city with intentions of taking a gondola up to Maokong for a tea ceremony. The line was just to long and none of us wanted to wait an hour to do something on their first day in Taipei so we ended up checking out the Taipei Zoo. It turned out to be a really nice place, the zoo was huge, we spent about 3 hours walking around taking in the animals, and the people and still didn't get to see everything that the zoo had to offer. After spending most of the afternoon in the zoo we headed back toward the heart of Taipei and had a great Korea Barbecue lunch. The food was full of plenty of foreign flavors, and their was so much of it that we all left the restaurant full as could be. On the way back to the MRT we took part, completely accidentally, in a DPP (1 of the two political parties running for president this coming weekend) political rally. Hundreds of people were walking the street shouting 加油第一個 jia you di yi ge (Go number one) One of the members of the march handed my Mom a flag and she started waving it. After she had a flag in her hand people were flocking over to us to give us high fives and we really got swept up in the moment. While it isn't the best thing to take part in foreign political rallies, it sure was a lot of fun. After supporting the DPP for a few minutes we shot over to Shida area, where I go to school, and hung out in the night market for a while and then found a nice place to have some refreshments and relax.

Monday: I went out with my parents for breakfast but then had to run off to school because I had to study for a test I had that day. They went to the National Palace museum and saw some of china's oldest preserved pottery, paintings, sculptures etc. After class I took my parents to one of the many vegetarian buffets near school so they could get a feel for the types of food that I eat on a regular basis. I do recall my Dad if not everyone saying "who needs meat when the food is this good," my thoughts exactly.

Tuesday: After seeing some impressive items at the National Palace Museum my parents wanted to check out some other museums that Taipei had to offer, so we spent the morning in the Taipei Miniatures Museum which boasted in the Lonely Planet of having a 40 bulb chandelier the size of a grain of rice. Something got lost in the translation because the Miniatures Museum while impressive was a bunch of Doll House like items, and one of the chandelier's individual bulbs was maybe the size of a grain of rice, but it did not live up to the hype. After the museum I had to run to class again, and then had a meeting after class with some junior members of congress (United States Congress), and staffers who were visiting Shida. It seems that the United States is taking more and more of an interest in the Chinese language. I got to express my ideas about learning Chinese in a foreign county and watch government officials learn some basic Chinese phrases. After the meeting my family and I went to the Shilin night market, the biggest and the best market in Taipei. We had a great hibachi dinner and then spent a few hours checking out the hundreds of shops in the area. My sister was in heaven buying a few pairs of shoes and a shirt on the cheap.

Wednesday: After spending the night at a night market and having our fill of shopping and eating tasty treats we decided to do something a little more traditional in Taipei so we headed over to the Confucius temple to take in the more reserved side of Taiwan. We arrived only to find the temple under construction, however as the saying goes in Taipei, where there is one temple there is many, so we walked across the street to the Bao An temple to find tranquility. After checking out the temple we made our way back to the MRT station, along the way my sister and I became Taiwanese for a few moments and took some overly cute pictures by a statue; much to the amusement of the locals. By Wednesday night my families feet needed a break so we headed to the Taipei 101, had a heaping pile of noodles for dinner and then caught the movie Cassandra's Dream.

Thursday: I meet up with my parents again bright and early for another wonderful traditional breakfast this morning, but had to call it quits after eating. We are taking the train down south to Hualien tomorrow and I wanted to make sure to get as much homework done as possible before I left. We are staying there for the weekend and going to spend Saturday at Taroko Gorge, a 19 km long canyon, which is supposed to be one of the coolest places to go in Taipei. I will be sure to tell you more about our travels. And of course my parents will fill you all in when they arrive back home. Finally I leave you with my favorite shot that I have taken in Taipei a pillar in Bao-An temple that just gave me the creeps.

Quarter Break re-cap.

2008-03-02T23:47:00.000-08:00

This past week was the wrap up of my first three month stint in Taipei. It was quite an experience, and much different from my freshman year in college. We had a total of 16 tests, around 90 quizzes and daily homework assignments. Our class covered more ground in 3 months that I ever would have expected and I can feel my Chinese growing stronger and stronger everyday. I spent my break relaxing, reading some wonderful literature and also making my way out of Taipei for some wonderful day trips that have added to my love and appreciation of this Country and its culture. While on break I got an opportunity to read Su Tong's Raise the Red Lanterns, three novellas about 1930's China. The book, although translated, had a very Chinese feel shedding light on a past filled with concubines, opium farms and repressed women, children and peasants of a more traditionally rural China. It is a book that, although is at times hard to stomach, I have to recommend.

After getting a feel for an older more repressed side of Chinese history I took a trip with some classmates to 九份 Jioufen/ Jiufen. This quiet town located in the North of Taiwan was once a booming gold mining town that during its hay-day was called Little Hong Kong. Today it's main attractions are the winding alleyways filled with shops for food, trinkets and teashops from all over Taipei. The view up north in the mountains was wonderful, despite the foggy weather that was constantly threatening rain. Jiufen was a very warm and inviting to us, and during our stay we enjoyed some more traditional style Taiwanese dishes along with a Traditional tea ceremony. The day was a lot of fun, and a great quick escape from the bustling city life.

After my day in Jiufen the next thing on my agenda for the break was to get my first haircut in a foreign country. Sure, this doesn't sound like that daunting of a task, but I have heard my share of horror stories from Westerners who came away from the barbers with a new "style" of haircut that they were not ready for. My haircut experience was not like that in the least, I did some word research before I started my quest and knew what I wanted, a short haircut that didn't make me look bald. I found a small barber shop near my house and got a normal haircut that was on par if not better than my haircuts I usually get in the States. I guess keeping my hair short and simple, was the best way to go.

With my haircut experience complete, I spent my night hanging out with some new blood at the Hostel and ended up getting into a wonderful discussion with a Literature teacher from the states, a teacher from Australia, and a student from Hong Kong. The topics for the evening ranged from movies, politics, books, and travel stories all the way to life extension; it was right up my alley and I came away feeling very young and naive in most topics of conversation, life experience clearly has no comparison. That night I also started reading Joseph Heller's Catch-22 a book that I have always heard so much about, and am already throughly enjoying.

I woke up the next morning to sunny skies and a warm breeze, a well needed change from the chilly raining weather that infested Taipei this past month. I decided to take the warm weather and make the best of it by escaping off to mountains again, but this time I went to 陽明山花季 Yangming Shan hua ji to see the Spring Flower Festival. The trip was nice, and the scenery was different from anything I have ever witnessed before. It was beautifully foreign and at times it was like I was looking into the past. The flowers were very nice to look at, and just walking around in the fresh air was a great way to end my 6 days without school.

Today I went down to campus to get my schedule for next quarter and found out that somehow I have not been placed in the intensive classes. I am irritated by the scheduling error because I know that I specified more than once my desire be continue with my intensive courses. As of right now the intensive courses are full and the only way that I can get into one is if another student drops out. I hope that this happens, if it doesn't that I will be taking a cultural course to try and make up for the loss of 5 hours of Chinese class studies per week. Either way things will be what they will be and I will make the best of it.

Note: I have posted a few pictures of my break here on the blog, but for the rest be sure to check out my flickr page.

Non-Lazy Sunday

2008-02-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

Last night was another wonderful adventure in Taipei that couldn’t go without at least a short blog post. My evening started out by meeting with Yu-Lin, the father of the two children I visit twice a week, at a bus stop near my house. The reason I met him by my place was because he insisted on seeing that I was able to easily find their residence from where I live rather than from school, the route that I usually take. I am once again stunned by the hospitality of the people in this country, because not only did he meet me at the bus station when he could have just given me directions, but he and his wife were also treating me to a nice Sunday dinner near their house for no other reason than to have a nice meal with me. The weather yesterday was a little chilly which seemed very appropriate for the evening because they took me to a wonderful Hot Pot venue. Hot Pot is quite simply a pot of soup broth on a broiler where you cook a mixture of vegetables meat tofu etc. at your own pace and temperature. When you order hotpot everyone gets a set of veggies and then chooses a side dish of their fancy. Last night I opted for the mushroom vegetarian dish, which turned out in fact to be an entire platter of various mushrooms of all shapes and sizes. The meal was delicious and we left the restaurant stuffed to brim but their hospitality was not yet through.

Much to my surprise, after dinner my hosts for the evening demanded that we take a 15 minute walk over to the Tong Hua night market so that I could have my first taste of bubble milk tea; a drink that Yu-Lin was very surprised to hear I had not yet tried in Taipei. On our way over to the night market we had an interesting discussion about the lack of Night Markets in the United States, and also reflected that in Taipei a midnight snack, eating being a national past time here, more often than not turns into a 4th meal of various street food goodies. Once we arrived at the night market I was able to have my first taste of bubble milk tea, which is aptly named due to the small bubbles of gooey goodness that float in the tea for your consumption. I don’t know if I will make this my regular drink here in Taipei, but I will certainly order one again.

Once I had my milk tea in hand we began to make our way back to their house, but my evening didn’t stop there. Since I was already in the heart of downtown Taipei and the weather was good I decided to call my classmate, Matt, and see if he cared to join me for the Taipei Lantern Display at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. He agreed and Ya-Wen(Yu-Lin’s wife) , Yu-Lin and myself continued to make our way back to their home when it dawned upon me that I didn’t have the faintest clue how to get to Sun Yat-sen from this still rather foreign area of town. Once again Ya-Wen and Yu-Lin showed their kindness toward me as they agreed to point me in the right direction. Pointing me in the right direction ended up actually being them walking me all the way to Sun Yat-sen Memorial, an extra 15 minutes from their house, where they finally left me to find the Sun Yat-sen Memorial MRT station for myself by jokingly saying “I think you are old enough to find it alone.” Quick note for the record: the entire walk that we made was one continuous road, but rather than telling me that so I could walk alone they made the whole journey insisting that they show me the way.

After successfully locating the MRT station, on my own, I met up with Matt and we made our way to the Lantern Display at Sun Yat-sen. The Lantern Display at Sun Yat-sen was a conglomerate of hand crafted and hand painted lanterns varying for the more traditional round lantern to the far more bizarre, a crab playing a stand up bass. The lanterns were made by a plethora of designers from junior high students all the way up to art designers that work in Taipei. Each had their own twist and flair, while there were a lot of truly unique designs, one would have to be blind to not notice that this is the year of the rat. I was ultimately drawn to the more traditional hand painted lanterns that hung around Sun Yat-sen memorial hall, but everything on display was fairly incredible. Amazing that such a simplistic design as a lantern could be expressed in so many different ways; although none of the more avant-garde lanterns stood a chance of lifting even an inch off the ground.

The event was nothing short of a great surprise and a truly wonderful treat. While it may not have drawn out the same raw emotions that I experienced last week in Pingxi, it it was something that I am glad I was able to catch in Taipei. Turns out that we were pretty lucky about making it their to see the lantern display yesterday, because it was the last night of the festival. All in all it turned out to be a great close to the Chinese Lunar New Year Festivities. How very apropos that the moon was hanging low in the sky hovering like a lantern, emitting a creamy, rich, rice paper yellow glow.

Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival.

2008-02-17T00:29:00.000-08:00

On Saturday February 16th, 2008 thousands of people gathered in 平溪鄉 (Pingxi Xiāng) for their annual sky lantern festival. Our school was kind enough to take approximately 500 students to Pingxi in order for us to witness the magic of the Lantern Festival; the symbolic end of the Chinese Lunar Festivals where people write their wishes upon Sky lanterns and release them to the heavens. Our group left Shida around 3 O'clock and took a one and a half hour bus ride to make it up to Pingxi before dark. The ride was a sight in itself due to the fact that police men blocked roads along the way to control the flow of traffic to Pingxi.

Once we arrived at Pingxi we were able to get a taste of Pingxi's dozens upon dozens of food stands. While walking the food stands it was obvious that this festival was a big deal to the people of Taiwan, the situation could only be described as 人山人海 ren shan ren hai (meaning literally people mountain, people ocean or more figuratively a vast multitude of people). The whole time we were walking around people were lighting Sky lanterns and releasing fireworks, creating a very amazing atmosphere despite the fact that you could only move with the flow of the crowds.

When dark arrived the main events began taking place. People gathered in the center of the Pingxi Junior High school activity center where the majority of the Sky Lanterns were released into the sky 300 at a time (rewatch the video now). The Sky Lanterns are made of rice paper and a bamboo frame with a small fuel cell in the bottom, which when lit fills the lantern with hot air causing it to rise up into the air for around 15 minutes until it runs our of fuel and falls back gracefully to the ground. Legend has it that the Sky Lanterns were originally used by immigrants from mainland China who lived in Pingxi. They would often have to flee into the mountains to avoid bandits and robbers who pillage their village. After the danger had passed people who remained behind would release lanterns into the sky to tell the people in the mountains it was safe to return home. Now the most common thing to wish for is prosperity, wealth and happiness.

Witnessing the release of 300 simultaneous lanterns was a truly remarkable experience that cannot be had anywhere else in the world. I didn't think that things could be much better until I found out that our school was going to be taking part in our own large release of lanterns in front of a few thousand people. We gathered up our group and headed to the activity center where we were giving our lanterns and a marker so we could write our own well wishes and send them up the the heavens above. My own personal lantern carried a few messages up to the sky: 祝全部人萬事如意 zhu quan bu ren wan shi ru yi (Hoping everyones 10,000 wishes come true) 祝每個人都找愛 zhu meige ren dou zhao ai (wishing everyone finds love), and of course because I am in Taiwan and a part of Taiwan's culture my final wish was 請給我錢 qing gei wo qian (Please give me money). The lantern behind me in the picture is the one large lantern that was sent up by our school. It was huge (around two stories tall) but still went up into the air without a hitch. As the lanterns were released into the air I could only think that this was by far the best cultural experiences that I have experience in Taiwan since my arrival. I hope that I am able to experience more of these moments before my stay here in Taipei comes to and end. The final picture seen below is my lantern lifting off into the air along with the others from our school during the tumult of cheers, oooowws and aaaahhhs.

My trip South.

2008-02-10T23:55:00.000-08:00

So Friday morning I packed my bags and headed South for my first official getaway from Taipei. My destination was a place called Douliu. My language partner invited me down to spend the weekend at her house with her family, and I was happy to be able to get away from the city and was really, really looking forward to a nice home cooked meal. To get down south I took the train. I had a window seat, which made the three hour trip a little more interesting. I got to see a bit more of Taiwan, it all honesty I saw a lot of run down buildings, and more rural environments. It was nothing like the poverty that I had witnessed in Indonesia, the stacks and stacks of 3 walled shacks, but it didn't seem to be nearly up to the standard of living that people are used to in Taipei. The train ride itself was rather interesting, so many people traveling south to visit families that they stood for the whole trip, because there was no more seats available on any of the trains.

When I arrived in Douliu I was actually a bit surprised to see just how big the city was. Sure it didn't come close to Taipei, but it does have a population of 100,000 people, which means that I had escaped the city life of Taipei, but not by much. This actually turned out to be a good thing as I learned a little later on in my trip, because had I been in a rural town almost nothing would have been open due to the Chinese New Year. I was picked up at the train station by Irene (my Language partner) and her mother, who I quickly learned spoke Mandarin Chinese with a very Taiwanese accent making her much harder to understand when she spoke. We got to their house and the two of them started working right away on a giant Vegetarian meal. Their house is 3 stories tall, and the top story of the house is home to a small temple, where people come to visit and worship. I was told that people usually come on Saturday but because of the Chinese New Year people were coming all the time time.

Shortly after we had arrived to their house 4 older men came to spend some time in the temple. After they had done their worship they sat with me in the living room where we all shared a giant feast accompanied by a fair amount of Chinese. For parts of the the conversation i was totally left out however because I don't understand any Taiwanese what-so-ever, but it down sound like a beautiful language. After our meal Irene and I went into town to walk the downtown area and have a look around. Most of the shops down South sell clothing an other items and since the prices seemed rather cheap I thought I would have a look around. It was in Douliu that I got my first glimpse of shirts that had actual Chinese on them. Of course this story didn't just sell shirts with Chinese on them, but also T-shirts filled with bad english. Shopping has never made me laugh so much.

After shopping it was back to the house, were we watched a movie and spent the rest of the night just hanging out. The next day we were planning on going to a amusement park in the area (weather permitting). Of course much to my luck, I awoke the next day to crappy cold rainy weather. It appears that even going South could not allow me to escape the wonderful weather. So we decided instead to head into town and hang out at one of the many coffee and tea houses that stay open 24/7. After the coffee shop we walked to a kind of indoor market place and found a restaurant that served hot pasta and Taiwanese style pizza. The food hit the spot, and while Taiwanese style pizza is not close to what I am used to from back home, it still was pretty darn tasty with a coke.

After dinner was over it was time to go and check out Douliu's night market. The night market was the most different experience from what I was used to in Taipei. The main reason that it was different was just the feel of the market, it was in a open field set more in the center of the town that just amidst the streets. You could walk the rows of foods, games, music, crafts etc, without feeling overly crowded by the people around you. The other thing was that being down South, and being a foreigner I was a bit of an oddity there. In Taipei, I think people are rather used to foreigners, but being down south, waiguoren (foreigners) are not something that people see everyday. I had kids and adults alike walking by me and pointing out the fact that I was either a foreigner of that I was very tall. I made a point of telling them in Chinese that I was not sure why I was so tall, which seemed to get a nice laugh from people. After the night market it was back home to hang out and watch some TV and relax before bed. Sunday morning we boarded another train and headed back to Taipei, again with tons of people standing the whole train ride home. The night market was a good way to end the trip South for me, and it has made me want to explore more of Taiwan. Taipei is a wonderful place but there is so much more culture on this small island that I just don't want to miss out on while I am here.

Chūn Tiān Dào Le

2008-02-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

The image above and the title of this blog suggest the sometimes playful nature of the Chinese language. Like true punsters they flip the character for spring spring(Chūn) upside down (see picture above) and announce: Chūn Tiān Dào Le! Dào is where the joke gets played out, dào can mean to turn over, but it also can mean to arrive. They have taken the obvious homonym and had some fun with it announcing that Spring(Chūn) has been turned over, thus Spring has arrived. This character is one of many that you will find posted around the businesses and houses of Taipei to bring in the new year.

The lunar New Year is actually pretty quiet around here, except the random fireworks that go off every now and again. The ones last night were actually really load and pretty great. The day before the actually New Year is very important. A huge clean-up gets underway days before the New Year, when Chinese houses are cleaned from top to bottom, to sweep away any traces of bad luck or misfortune. The Eve of New Years is perhaps the most important part of the whole event. It is when all the families that have gathered from all over return home for a huge dinner. After the dinner the children stay up past midnight to honor their elders, helping to give them a long and prosperous life. The other main new year celebration is the giving of Hongbao (red envelopes) that are filled with money. Many people get and receive red envelopes, I even got one from my teacher this year, but it had a good luck charm in it rather than money.

So that sums up what most of my Taiwanese friends have been up to, but if you are a foreigner in Taipei that you are reduced to eating a hug meal at one of the many American chains McDonalds, KFC etc. or checking out the good old 7-11's and scraping a meal together from the things they have to offer. It has been pretty dead here in Taipei, which has given me a change to get some homework done, and reading... because of the whole sick thing, i didn't do much of that early on in the week. Tomorrow I am heading down south for the weekend. I will be hanging out in Douliu where on of my Taiwanese friends lives. I am taking the train down and should get to see some great scenery on the way. Not really sure what to expect when I get there, but anything will be better than sitting in a quiet, rainy city.

Break Time

2008-02-04T03:16:00.000-08:00

The last 4 days of my life have been pretty tough. I was pretty sick and wasn't really mobile at all, minus the fact that I went to class and took a test and a not so easy quiz. I should have listened to my better judgement and not gone to class, but we just started a weeklong break for Chinese New Year and I didn't want to miss anything major. This week in Taipei has also been some of the nastiest weather that I have experienced here. It is cold and damp and always raining, sick or not I can feel it at my core. A friend of mine was kind enough to lend me a space heater and it has been working over time to keep my body shufu (comfortable). I found it fitting that this week in class we learned a new grammatical structure that is used to over exaggerated things, mostly negative, so I was able to say in class wo leng de lian chuan zhe yi bai jian yifu dou bu gou. In english it means I am so cold that even wearing 100 articles of clothing I am STILL cold. Let me tell you, I may have been sick during the test, but I didn't forget how to put that structure to use.

Last week I also started a new "project” of working with two small children, ages 4 and 2. I basically get to hang out with them for 2 hours each week and read them stories, play with them, or do anything else that I can come up with. They are so cute, and their English is actually surprisingly good for being so young. Guess it goes to show just how much faster young minds are able to pick things up. Other than that, Thursday February 7th 2008 is the Chinese Lunar New Year. I am not really sure what to expect around Taipei. One thing that I do expect is for Taipei to be almost dead. Most people spend the Lunar New Year with their Relatives, which usually means going home to parents or grandparents houses to have a nice meal and spend time with the family to honor the living and the dead. I will be doing a little more research on the topic and will be sure to keep you all up-to-date of the goings on. That's all for now, but expect more in the near future.

Its like Youtube, but better.

2008-01-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

When I say that I have found a site is better than Youtube I really mean that I have found a website that has truly changed who I am. I have been kept up at night by thought provoking questions, and endlessly fascinating technological potentials. The site I am referencing is called TED Talks a website that freely shares videos from past TED conferences. The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference brings together every year 50 of the worlds best thinkers, and doers and gives them the stage to talk about their lives and ideas for 18 minutes. In the past two months that I have been on this site I have heard about: the end of aging, the power of love, the interconnectedness of business in our world, the dangers of a Pandemic, and on, and on, and on. I have seen a man compute in his head a 5 digit number times itself, and even think out loud while doing so. I don't really know what else to say about this website but I hope that you all get a chance to check it out. In order to get your hooked on this wonderful website I recommend these talks to wet your whistle.

Arthur Benjamin: "Mathemagic"

David Gallo: Underwater Astonishment's

Wade Davis: Cultures on the far edge of the world

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do

There is so much more that you will be able to explore on this site, but I of course can't list everything. I will end this blog with a little news about Taipei. Things are going well but the weather has been pretty crummy rain, rain and more rain. School is keeping me busy. We just finished our first text book and our onto the second which I will be using for most of the rest of my stay here in Taipei. I have a nice break soon for the Chinese New Year and I will be going south for a few days during that time. I am sure that I will have much more "fun" things to report at that time. I just figured that I would get back into the blogging thing again even if I don't really have anything new to share.

Taipei Update 1/16/08

2008-01-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

As I write this update I find myself wishing that I could put more real content onto this seeming blank screen, but I digress, life in Taipei has become somewhat of a blur. I of course can comment on the propensity of Taiwanese people to show up at least, if not more, than 15 minutes late of every occasion (minus perhaps work). However, this type of thing along with other observances is the type of social and cultural commentary that I wish to examine and explore as much as possible before stepping forth and revealing my own, rather limited view of another place. Truth be told, I have found a groove in this wonderful city and I feel it has become for the time being, my home. I am sure everyone can relate to having their routine in life. Certain places they tend to eat at, certain things they tend to do... or rather the unvaried. Who would think that such a thing could happen in such a foreign place, but it is true! For me it all starts when I wake up in the morning and get ready to walk out the door 4 to 5 hours before class starts.

I normally start my day off with some kind of rice and egg breakfast meal and read a book or listen to my iPod. The portability that such an object as this offers has helped me stay somewhat up-to-date in the world. I offer many thanks to Podcasts, free downloadable internet talk shows of sorts, which have been keeping me abreast of the latest in the world of politics, movies, science, and overall geekdom, that I so enjoy. After my morning meal I am off to the Cafe called Artist coffee, where I hit the books and spend a good 4 hours preparing for my 3 hour Chinese class. This place has the most wonderful Shrilanken Milk Tea that is impossible to resist after the first sip. If I am feeling up for it I also will order a wonderful meal at the Cafe to the step price (for Taiwan bare in mind) of $5 USD.

My homework routine everyday includes some if not all of the following actions: Character Practice, everyday we are given approximately 15 new vocabulary words that we must write a minimum of 10 times in our Character work books. Flash-card Making, writing characters 10 times is just not enough and in order to actually remember the characters I am learning I also make flash-cards for every single one this allows me to study them at anytime (which most often means on the MRT where I must look very strange, or very diligent to Taiwanese patrons). Workbook, This homework coincides with whichever Chapter we happen to be on that day, it is due every two days and takes on average around 2 hours to complete. It could take less time but I have an average score of A+ on this portion of my school work and I wish to keep that consistent so I will keep working at my somewhat slow pace. Reading and Review, Every chapter has three portions of text within them, Dialogues, Narration's etc. and it helps me to study them outside of class. Our teacher does not really stress the importance of the Dialogues but I still like being able to read the Dialogues with some fluidity. Other than the dialogues we also have small exercises in the book to help with the new grammatical structures that are introduced in every chapter.

Once this daily routine is completed I spend a small amount of time walking around Shida yeshi (Shida Night Market) either to buy lunch, if I don't order the wonderfully tasty Penne Noodle dish, or just walk around and relax my mind. After lunch I am in class for three hours. The first two days of a chapter we have a ting xie(literally,listen, write), or dictation test consisting of new and old grammar and vocabulary in sentence form. From there we work on new grammar points and other various exercises that keep us busy for the three hours. During this time of course, no english is spoken. On the third day of a chapter we have our test, yes thats right, the third day of a chapter is also the last day of a chapter. The test is held in the last hour of class but always runs longer than just one hour, so on test days I usually spend closer to four hours in class than three.

After class it is off to fill my stomach again; sometimes I wish i didn't have to eat it would save me so much time and money. The area around school is host to tons upon tons of restaurants from a variety of different places. In the past week I have eaten Indian, Korean, Japanese, and "Italian" meals. Each wonderful in its own fashion. From there my night gets varied. Sometimes I spend time with my classmates hanging out and other times I am with my language partners speaking Chinese and getting coffee or tea (I often chose the latter these days). I am sad to admit that my brief encounter with HwaRangDo has come to an abrupt end. My teacher has found the need for a second job, which, much to my distaste has fallen on our weekly scheduled times. It was fun while it lasted. Perhaps I will find a new martial art to fill the four hour weekly void. However, the more I study Chinese the more I would like to spend time learning something more peaceful and tranquil... perhaps calligraphy or Tai Chi. Well that is all for now from this wonderful land. I will be sure to ponder some more ways to see the sights that Taiwan has to offer.

Chinese Wedding Party

2008-01-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

The Chinese calendar must have been in line on Sunday January 6th because it sure was a day filled with weddings. Two of my classmates, two of my friends from school, my teacher, and I all attended weddings this past sunday. The picture above is the character for xi3 (double happiness or in this case marital happiness) and that double happiness was surly represented on Sunday. My friend, who i met here in Taipei through another friend, Chantell and her now husband Alex held a wonderful Chinese style lunch party in honor of their wedding and I was grateful to be a part of it. While I cannot vouch for the goings on of a chinese wedding, I can tell you that the wedding party is much different from what I am used to in America.

The festivities started at around 12:30 when the bride and groom walked graciously to the head table filled with family members from both sides of the marriage. They said a few words thanking everyone for coming to the wedding and then everyone in the dinning hall was treated to a wonderful short video of how Chantell and Alex met. It was a short side show telling a bit about their lives together. A really wonderful treat and not something that I am certainly accustomed to. It was of course in Chinese, but I was able to get most of the story thanks to subtitles! After that video was over they played another short video put together by the bride and grooms friends and coworkers. Rather than having just a few people give a toast everyone got to hear about 20 people wish the new couple well. With the videos done it was time to get on the the main event, the giant and wonderful meal... of which I could not eat at all. I was thankful that my friends alerted the kitchen staff of my vegetarian needs because had nothing been said there would not have been a single dish, save dessert, that I could have even nibbled on. There was crab, fish, pork, lobster, chicken, more fish and more fish. The dishes just kept on coming, and somehow people were able to keep on eating. My meal was a little less glamourous, it consisted of tofu, noodles, vegetables, and some interesting soup. It main not have been super fancy on my end but it did taste delicious and in the end I was full as could be.

After the seemingly never ending meal the coolest part of the wedding began. The MC's of the wedding went around with a microphone and let people congratulate the bride and groom in other languages of the world. It was wonderful to see people from all over coming together to share in such a special day, and also that other languages and cultures were being appreciated. I was able to hear well wishes spoken in Hakka (spoken in Taiwan by very few people) Taiwanese, Tai, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and English. After the well wishes it was time for the bride and groom to make the rounds. In chinese wedding parties the bride, groom and both there mothers and fathers visit each table sharing in a more personal toast with their guests. It was a very nice touch to an already wonderful day. I really felt a nice connection with this kind of a wedding. There was no stress on alcohol or dancing the night away, it was just a ton of people gathering together to share a wonderful meal in celebration of two lovers tying the knot. I still wish I could speak more Chinese so that I could communicate better with the people around me but I did know how to say the most important things in Chinese:
Chantell today you look absolutely beautiful... and of course I congratulate you both on this joyous day.

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (2008)

2007-12-31T22:36:00.000-08:00

Well... 2007 is over, and 2008 has begun. New Years here was a little different from my typical Milwaukee welcoming of the changing times. There are about 2 million more people in Taipei and the Taipei 101 holds an incredible firework show. The fireworks were wonderful, and the rumor is that this is the last year the fireworks will be held at the 101. Aside from the fireworks the most incredible thing about Taipei during New Years is the number of people that gather. Normally during the 6 p.m. rush the MRT stations are jam packed with people to the point of slight discomfort but last night was insane. The lines for the MRT were taking up almost all of the main station (the central hub of MRT's) and trains were coming at a rate of about every minute. The guards at the MRT station who normally have the task of keeping people in line, had a new job last night. They because pushers and pullers. There job consisted of cramming as many people as they could into the MRT's to the point of not being able to move at all. If you had to get out before the main stop, Taipei City Hall, then the guards would have to help you pull through the crowds. It is not something that I would want to deal with on a normal basis, so I am glad I don't like in Tokyo. Other than the new years craziness at 101 there were just tons of people out everywhere. Personal fireworks were going off all night and food stands were staying open far later than usual. I was even able to get a snack around 3 a.m. from a place other than a 7-11.

Now that 2008 has started it is time again to reflect back on the year past and look forward onto things to come. While I could speak volumes on what I am thankful for and happy about in my life, I will refrain and instead focus on the things that I would like to change about myself. I am trying to become less reliant of "stuff." I want to work ever more on seeing the good in people rather than the bad. I want to keep a positive attitude whenever possible, and take the struggles and hardships of life with the knowledge that somewhere out there someone has got it worse. I want to help others, and try and do everything in my life to the best of my abilities. I know that failure can and does happen, but as long as we give it our all then at least we know that we tried.

I wish everyone in my life a Happy New Year from the bottom of my heart. I wish you all a brighter tomorrow. I remind us all to remember the things we have, and not dwell on the things we want. I hope we all use our ability to forgive, even if we do not forget. Let us share our love and joy with everyone around. Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year) to all.

Sorry Kids, Santa isn't Real.

2007-12-25T18:50:00.001-08:00

Last year as many of you know I started to give up on the idea of christmas altogether. I had grown sick and tired of the Christmas spirit and just didn't want to celebrate anymore. Now the word spirit in this instance represents qualities regarded as forming the definitive or typical elements in the character of a person, nation or group. I know that in the hearts and minds of most people, this spirit is the closeness to family, the need to do good, and the joy of sharing that we seem to feel around the holiday season. When Christmas is put this way it sounds pretty wonderful, but let us not forget the commercial juggernaut that chugs along behind this clouded vale. It is this monster the rides so many families into credit card debit, and reinforces the idea that love for someone else can be expressed in an item wrapped tight with a bow, or a Holiday card(let us not forget to be P.C. either) flush with cash. I couldn't stand reading anymore about Black Friday, and hearing Christmas music on the radio before Thanksgiving. But most importantly I hate, nay, loath Santa and the cultural phenomena he has created... I am done with Christmas, it stops here and now. Please let me explain.

Santa to me represents the worst of the worst of the holiday spirit. His helpers are in shopping mall centers and his likeness sits on Walmart shelves. Our praise for him each year grows larger and larger on suburban lawns, wasting more and more of our precious energy so that someone can ultimately clam once again "mine is bigger than yours." His visits our houses and seems to always leave the best of the best of our cookie stock gone with the wind, and has the nerve to call people ho ho ho's. The fat man runs his regime with and iron fist, he has elf slave labor that even third world countries don't agree with, and holds the gavel of judgment on who is naughty and nice, leaving the losers with a big old sock of coal. And the worst thing is... he isn't real.

When I was younger, Santa was the main man, the guy who gave me the coolest stuff (by the way thank you Mom and Dad) and the guy who somehow made me go to sleep early on Christmas eve, even though I was hoped up on sugar and hot coco. However once we grow up and realize that Santa isn't really, shouldn't we scratch our heads and ask why the ruse? What is the game here, and why are we playing. In my mind Santa is the apathy of many, and the daemon of even more. Not being a parent myself I cannot fully understand the logic behind telling kids that Santa is real, but I wonder if it helps justify the over spending and frenzy that many feel during Christmas time, its not me giving my kid everything he wants, its Santa.

Okay I know this is all a little bizarre and I have no idea how this blog is going to read but bear with me for one more thought and it should be made clear. I said that Santa represents the apathy of many and here is my justification. We have a man, a myth, a legend of a dude who lives at the North Pole and has flying reindeer. He is able to make all the toys, that we can buy, and in one night deliver them to all the children of the world without being seen. He doesn't have to spend money, cause he has his elves, so it is all out of the goodness of his heart; and of course he is only giving the gifts to the good boys and girls who deserve the presents. Isn't this wish of being able to effect everyone, well only kids in this instance, what makes Santa so appealing.

I would suggest that we all could, and can have a similar effect on all people, not just kids this time, but we choose not to for one reason or another. What if every present you ever got was not given to you, but instead spent on a child or family that was truly in need. The smallest amount of money these days can provide food and medicine for hundreds of people a larger amount of money can help someone start a company and create there own income. Your own time and energy can help educate and inform people of dangers of all types and also help to inspire people to change. What if people didn't go into debt on gifts for people they already love and instead they spent within their means to help people for the first time. would the gratification be less in some way? This does not only apply to gifts but also the other things, like the global energy crisis, why do we need to see others change before we ourselves do the right step. I am talking not only about individuals here but governments. Why not be the first to say we are going to do everything in our power to make the world a better place, let us put of differences aside and embrace the fact that we are all human, and there is only one place for us to live. We turn a blind eye to the ailments of the world because it is easier that way. Many think they don't need to change because it wont effect them. But we must look past ourselves to the future of our race. Let us not create and endorse an idea founded on denial and ignorance. There is no reaction with action, let us all make the first push.

With all my love to everyone, not just those close to me.
Jake

Trip to Yilan falls short

2007-12-23T18:02:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning 6:30 am I was awaken from my peaceful slumber by the buzz of my phone alarm. After showering and collecting a few things in my shubao (backpack) I popped down to a local breakfast shop for some Congdanbing (scallion and egg flat cake), a truly tasty treat. After enjoying my meal I headed to the MRT station to meet up with the others who were taking the trip to Yilan. Our trip to Yilan, which is located on Taiwan's North East coast about 2.5 hours from Taipei, was just a day trip with a 9:00 A.M. departure time and a 6:00 P.M. return.

The trip was put on by NTU (National Taiwan University) for the Japanese exchange group who was in Taipei for 7 days to take some Chinese language and culture classes. Most of them could not really speak chinese all that well so English was the mode of communication between the Riben ren (Japanese people) and the Zhongguo ren (chinese people); and of course me. It is really strange to think that two countries with so much culture and history both together and separate speak English when they want to communicate, that will always boggle my mind.

When we arrived in Yilan I was excited to experience a new part of Taiwan. I couldn't wait to see a more traditional side of this beautiful country. I was hoping that no-one could speak English, and that the town would be small and not crowded with mopeds and taxies. My thoughts could not have been more wrong. We arrived at the National Center for Traditional Arts, the area was filled with cars and tour buses. This was not a traditional arts center, this was a tourist trap. This area reminded of my two trips to mexico when on the way to our final destinations (one was the Mayan ruins, the other was snorkeling in the reefs) we made stops at a Jewelry Store/ Gift shop to, take a break and look around.

As we walked around in Yilan, I didn't really see anything that caught my fancy, the shops were over priced and the "traditional items" were frankly not practical in the smallest sense. When I think of my anthropology classes that I took, we spent the most time studying how the simplest tools could be used effectively, how fires were built, how animals were skinned, how houses were built, and how art was expressed. I didn't really feel like any of these things were covered at this center. Granted there were some arts, but without an explanation of how and why these were more "traditional" than the shop's same art down the road I had a hard time really falling in line mental on this trip.

We walked around for about 3 hours and saw just about every shop there was and then made our way back to the buses. Our next destination was Luodong Sport-Park, about a half hour away from Yilan. It was a pretty cool place and would have been great if we could have spent more than a half hour there in the rain. I think that next time I will take the trip planning into my own hands. I know that a lot of people really enjoyed themselves on this trip, but it just wasn't for me. Next time I want to get away from the west and a bigger city I should do so with much less people, and certainly not a 3 giant buses filled with travelers.

Flowering Man Way

2007-12-19T05:43:00.000-08:00

The days seem to be going faster and faster as I find my groove with the city. I can't believe its already Wednesday. This week has been class, class, and more class. Our teacher combined lessons 18 and 19 tests and moved the test to Friday, so we are taking on a huge grammar and vocabulary load. Other than working on my studies I have started HwaRangDo a Korean martial art. HwaRangDo is Korean for "The way of the Flowering Manhood." The name sounds a bit silly in english but when you delve into the meaning it becomes much more clear.

From Wikipedia: The common English translations are 'The Way of the Flowering Manhood' or 'The Way of the Flowering Knights.' The 'Man' idea in this title refers to an ideal man: one of honor, strength, responsibility, and virtue. The reason for the word 'Flower' is to state that just as a flower grows and then blooms, so should a man grow and then bloom into something beautiful. Also, just as a flower is beautiful just by being, so too should a man be honorable, loyal, strong, and virtuous by simply existing, without having to try to be any of these things. Obviously, since it is in the name of the Art, this idea is central to all aspects of Hwarangdo: one should be without needing to try to be. By this concept a practitioner is taught to be humble, strong, and honorable.

My teacher is very nice and is holding the lessons at CKS Memorial Hall twice a week for two hours; free of charge. Today the other two students were not able to make the lesson, so we had a one on one and I got the feel of the art form. We started with the white sash techniques, learning the 4 basic forms, and also the 6 defensive blocks. After that we went on the the long hand technique, all very cool stuff. After I do a bit more practicing I will post up a video so you can all take a look see.

Other that HwaRangDo and School I have just been doing my homework and hanging out. This weekend I will be going to Taibei de nanbu (Southern Taiwan). I am taking a 3 hour bus ride to some town where we are going to visit a museum and some of the more traditional markets and craft-makers. It should be a lot of fun and I will be sure to post more on that event after I return home. Sorry no pictures today, I will leave you all with a great bit of English that I found in the bathroom, sorry its the only picture I took in the past few days.

Keeping busy in Taipei

2007-12-14T02:41:00.000-08:00

This week has to have been, by far, the most busy since I arrived in Taipei. Monday I was busying hitting the books because I had my first test on Tuesday and I wanted to do well. I normally actually spend most of my time in the mornings studying before I go to class but I couldn't on Tuesday because I had a "business lunch" with Greg Wong, a friend of a family friend, who works at the American Institute in Taiwan as Commercial Section Chief. The AIT is located in the International Trade Building, which is located kiddy corner to the Taipei 101. The lunch was fabulous, fresh squeezed apple juice, mushroom soup, and the best salad bar I have ever seen or tasted. Greg was wonderful to meet, it was nice to hear a business mans perspective of Taiwan. I felt like we really had a lot of common interests and goals in life and we bonded quite well. While eating lunch I also got to meet and share some gossip (a Chinese past time) with Du Yen Hao, the Executive Advisor for the General Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan. After lunch I only had a brief moment to admire the Taipei 101, and snap a few pics before it was time to rush to school for my first big test.

I arrived to school with plenty of time to quick review my Chinese characters and grammar points, and I walked into class confident in my abilities. When I walked into class however, my classmates and I were told that our class was being disbanded because we didn't have enough students to keep our current class going. We were promptly moved to another class, only to find out that our new classmates had just taken the chapter 16 test the day before! Guess we lucked out, cause we didn't even have to take the test at all. My current class now has 8 students, and a much better teacher. I didn't mind the teacher I had before but my new teacher is fun, exciting and much more in depth about the finer points of the Chinese language; I must say, she reminds me a lot of my teachers back home.

After Chinese class I was off with some friends to grab a quick bite to eat before trying out a kickboxing class that everyone has been raving about it Taipei. We ate our meal and then hitched a bus over to Freedom Square (formerly know as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall). Kickboxing is put on every Tuesday and Thursday by a group in Taipei called Cheap Hippie Kickboxing, and runs from 8pm-10pm on both those nights. Being a Gill my feet of course took a beating, but that wasn't the only thing hurting by the end of the second hour. I believe Hippie Kickboxing is a euphemism for @$$kicking two hour workout that has nothing to do with kickboxing. We did a lot of running, stretching, pushups, sit-ups and other enduring testing exercises that really just try and bust you into shape rather than learning any self defense. I can't say that it is not an effective way to work out (I am still feeling the burn after 3 days) but it certainly isn't my cup of tea. The only redeeming factor, other than burning off the past 4 days meals was the amazing view of CKS Memorial Hall.

Wednesday after waking up sore in places I didn't think possible I was off to my Wednesday routine of school followed by dinner with one of my friends/language partners from Taiwan. We had agreed on Monday, since I didn't know how much kickboxing would take out of me, to grab a bite to eat and then go for a nice 30 minute hike on the outskirts of Taipei City. We ended up eating at a nice veggie buffet and then catching a bus that took us near Taipei 101 again where we walked toward the hills to begin our hike. Let me take a moment to clarify a "taiwan" style hike (if you are in the city). Basically you walk up a ton of stairs that just go up a giant hill until you get to the top. There were no paths that you could walk on, just more and more stairs that got steeper and steeper the higher you went. I am not going to lie, it was not the most pleasant experience after kickboxing, I really felt the burn in my calf muscles. However, once we made it to the top of the peak I totally forgot about the stairs or the burn and just took in the view. We were able to see all of Taipei city, and it was, despite being a little hazy, absolutely beautiful. We enjoying the view and the tranquility of our destination for about an two hours before descending back into the busy city life, where I had to worry again about homework, and my actual first Chinese exam.

Thursday came and went like a flash, I spent my morning buried in my books and had my first exam. After class I arrived home to find my friends from Thanksgiving had come back to Taipei for a few more days and were going out for some dinner and drinks at Jurassic Bar, a restaurant filled with dinosaurs, tacky music, and expensive food. The place turned out to be a totally blast, we got a 7000cc keg of beer, and chatted the night away; making new friends and having a great old time like us Americans/ Australians always seem to do.

I woke up this morning feeling just fine and dandy, did some homework and headed off to school. I have found my groove and like the fast pace life here in Taiwan. Everyday holds a new adventure for me, and when I start my days I always know that something new and exciting will happen before the end. Tonight as I write this I am planning on going out for some hot-pot with my friends, who leave tomorrow, for a final dinner sendoff. After that who knows... oh also, I did quite well on my first exam, so know one needs to to worry that I am having too much fun. Here are some final pics of my weeks adventures. The first pic is the view from my hike, and the second is Dana, my friend from America with our 7000cc's of beer!

Jake Gill goes Flickr, and goes to Danshui.

2007-12-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

It is almost like when Bob Dylan went electric... almost. While typing almost, I wear a grin on my face implying that I fully understand my gross overstatement. BUT, anyway I am on flickr now, an online photo website which allows me to post a slideshow (please see the upper left of my blog) of my pictures from Taipei. If you see a picture you like in the slideshow, or would like to view all the pictures on my flickr page you can just click the picture and check everything out. I will still be adding pictures into my blogs to highlight certain aspects of my adventures. Anyways just thought everyone would enjoy more than just the few pictures I have been putting up. Now on to my recent events.

As I said yesterday, I was planning on going out with some friends from Shida for Mike's going away party. Plans promptly changed when I received a phone call alerting me to the fact that everyone was starting the festivities around midnight. I just didn't have that kind of energy in me last night so I decided to pass on the events. Being a Saturday night however, I was not going to sit in my room so me and two friends decided to head to Danshui for the evening to walk around and grab a bite to eat.

Danshui is a smaller city to the north of taipei as was the center for shipping an commerce in Northern Taiwan in the 19th century. Today it is a popular place to go for seafood, shopping, and just walk around with tons of people. It is the farthest stop on the MRT red line, and is about 30 minutes travel, to the tune of 40 NT (about a $1.15 US). Danshui Old Street and waterfront is where all the action happens. Just walking around you can find tons of things to eat and buy. The most popular was squid, and sausages, along with various other types of seafood, making it a bit difficult to for me to find something to eat. After walking around for a while a terrible smell over-ran my senses and I knew just what it was... stinky tofu. The item has been aptly named, the aroma ommited by this dish can best be described as raw sewage. I knew the second that the smell hit my nose that I had to try it, you only live once, and it is not often that an American finds themselves in Taiwan with the ability to eat such a dish. Once I was able to get past the smell, which was much easier once I walked away from the stinky tofu stand, it actually tasted pretty good, it was a hint of chili, and fried been curd with a kind of moldy past (hence the stink). I am not sure if I would eat this stuff everyday, but I will certainly have it again before I leave.

After eating my stinky tofu me and my friends did some more walking around talking in all that Danshui had to offer. We stuffed our faces for a little over an hour and finished the night off with an ice cream cone that was about as tall as our heads. The ice cream didn't taste as good as the stuff at home, but it still hit the spot. It turned out to be a really nice night. The weather was perfect and the wharfs actually weren't all that busy. It would be nice to go back sometime soon to catch a sunset before grabbing food and walking around. I would add this place to the list of things to see if you are in Taipei for more than a day or two, just remember to come hungry.

And finally a few more pics from the night. The first is Chris and Denise (hostel pals) really enjoying their Agei (basically tofu stuffed with fish and broiled). And the second pic is just a nice shot of the busy wharfs.

Interesting happenings at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

2007-12-07T20:04:00.001-08:00

Thought I would share a bit of Taipeis politics for anyone who is interested in the goings on.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/12/08/2003391618

Other than that news not much else is new and exciting. I have fell into the groove of study and really enjoy my three hour classes. This weekend I am taking it pretty easy, and will be going to a going away party for Michael Toy, the student from Wisconsin who was stabbed, he has decided to leave Taiwan so we are going to see him off. I guess I will also take the time to answer a few of the comments questions that I have gotten in the past few weeks.

Still haven't heard about any stinky tofu. That Andrew guy on cable says it is the national food of Taiwan. Have you had any?

I have not tried the stinky tofu yet. It is on my list of things to do, but I need to find a good market where I can buy the item.

"Do you feel that this kind of experience is opening you up to further acceptance or do you find that it emphasizes your own shortcomings or a little of both?"

I feel that I am pretty accepting of many things in this world. I am more and more coming to terms with the idea of cultural differences that make this world what it is. I of course have my own shortcomings but I feel that spending this trip on my own is helping over come at least some of them.

Why don't people drink? Are they just smarter than we are??
I think there is just a certain stigma with drinking here. Most young people just have either never tried drinking at all, or don't really enjoy doing so. That being said, it is not like all the younger generation does not like to drink. I just think that much more people choose not to drink.

"How many numbers are in your cell phone, is the text in Chinese characters? "

My phone number here is 091.754.1430. It is possible to text in Chinese characters, in fact I get some all the time in Chinese but you have to learn a different writing system to be able to use it.

and of course, I can't write a blog without at least one picture.

Time to hit the books. Part 2

2007-12-04T05:53:00.000-08:00

So Sunday was my last day before I started class and I decided to do a bit more walking around in Taibei Shi (Taipei City). My friend and I ended up just walking around near the Taibei Che Zhan (Taiwan Main Station). We walked around just taking in more the city and saw a few cool buildings, some dutch colonial, and some with much more an asian flare. After walking around for a little over an hour we came across the old North Gate that was entrance to the city. Built it 1884, the North Gate alone retains the original appearances. It is a two-story closed blockhouse of solid construction with traditional Chinese wooden roof truss. It even has the old gates build into the blockhouse even though they do not close anymore.

After walking around and exploring the city for a little while it was time to head in a get a good nights rest for the start of term. My classes started Monday at 2:10pm-5:00pm and run five days a week at that time. When I arrived in my class, my first impression was just like the Christmas Story... OHHHHH F-U-D-G-E. For about the first hour of class I just felt lost. Our teacher does not speak any English to us at all, okay maybe 5 words were said in English over the entire 3 hours. My class had 8 people in it on the first day, and our first assignment together was to translate our class objective and guildlines into Chinese. If this seems like an easy task let me assure you otherwise. Item number 4 on Intensive Course Guidelines: Generally, one chapter will be covered every three days, but the teachers will do the necessary adjustments based on the absorption of students and the contents of that chapter. A test will be given upon completion of each chapter... now try speaking about that in another language, not fun. Once these items were done we were off to the races, asking questions of all of our classmates in a general review of lessons 1-15 in the textbook. That took us to the end of the first day.

Right at the end of our first day our teacher announced that we would have a quiz on Tuesday covering review vocabulary from lessons 11-15. When I got home i started to get a little freaked out. Over 80 characters worth of material, and a lot of it new to me because I used a different text book back home. So I spent about 5 hours working on homework Monday night and another 3 hours during the day. The result... I only knew about half the words that she spoke and I still felt lost. I started to get a little bit worried but I talked with my Professor and she told me to stick it out. At the end of our second 3 hour lesson we were giving the same task of reviewing lesson 11-15 for our quiz on Wednesday. I again hit the books for about 5 hours at night and 4 hours during the day. I didn't think things would stick since I was cramming so much in my brain, but it seemed to work. I got very very few errors on my second quiz and felt a lot more confident in todays class. Oh also today our class was reduced to only 4 people rather than the 8 we had in the beginning. A few thought it was to hard and a few thought it was to easy. So in theory I get 1 hour of one on one time with my professor every single day... not to bad, not to bad at all.

That is all for now, I am going to be hitting the books a lot while the semester is in full swing but I will be sure to keep you all informed of any new developments in Taipei.

Time to hit the books.

2007-11-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

After my trip to Longshan Temple I was going to spend the next day at Taipei 101. Ultimately though I decided against it because it just didn't seem like the proper follow up after going to the temple. Instead I decided to spend my Thursday exploring Daan park. What a wonderful place. It is right smack dab in the middle of everything and it is a rather large place. Filled with walking paths and beautiful trees, most of which I have never seen before in my life. I walked around for a nice long while and then spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the beautiful weather and reading more of the Dalia Lama's wisdom. It was wonderful to see so many people, young and old, getting their walking fix and just taking in the parks natural beauty.

After the park it was on to another birthday party, seems like everyone I know around here was born in November. We went for some India food and I had some wonderful Veggie Curry, what a treat. I didn't get to speak much english during the evening which was nice, everyone could speak at least a little english but they really wanted me to work at speak Chinese. Needless to say I did more "practice" on my listening skills than on my speaking, but it was still nice to use my second language rather than my first. After the Indian food it was off to the KTV. A KTV for those who don't know is a Karaoke bar where you get your own room and rent by the hour. Rather than being in front of a ton of strangers you only have to make a fool out of yourself with your friends. It was a great way to celebrate my friends birthday. We all had a blast.

On Friday I spent the morning at school for my Orientation and class registration. The orientation was pretty interesting. Found out that Shida has about 30,000 alumni all over the world and that over 68% of the current students are from South East Asia. Even though English speakers were in a minority the Orientation was put on in Chinese and English and the powerpoint they had in the back ground was all in English. In the end I didn't learn much that I didn't already know about the school, but I can tell that I am at a good University. The staff seems very helpful and willing to do what it takes to make sure our time spent at Shida is enjoyable. At the end of the Orientation (for us English speakers) they launched in to Japanese and told us that if we didn't speak Japanese we could leave. What a relief because I had no clue what was being said.

I was very happy that I am enrolled in the intensive chinese program at Shida. I will have chinese class for 3 hours a day Monday through Friday and I am starting in the first book on chapter 16, which is about right where I left off back in Milwaukee. I have already started to look at my books and I can tell that the ones back home are a little better, but there is nothing I can do about it. My class only has 8 people in it, so I will get a lot of talk time with both my teacher and the other students. Well, tonight I am going out with some people from the Hostel, it should as always be a good time.

Longshan Temple

2007-11-27T23:51:00.000-08:00

Amidst the flow of commerce found in downtown Taipei lies the serene beauty that is Longshan Temple. When you walk into the temple you forget about the cars, mopeds and people that fill the streets. You lose track of the watch, cell phone, car, or clothes that you really wish you owned and bask in the peaceful tranquility. The joss sticks (incense) overload your olfaction, and one cannot help but marvel in the timeless beauty that this place holds. You will not be alone in these feeling of peace and calm, the temple is filled with people there to honor their loved and lost. The ancestors long gone, and future generations that this world still hopes to raise and nurture. It was nice to see the incongruous problems of todays world left at the gate so to speak.

The temple was built in 1738 and the stones in its entrance were originally ballast on ships that ferried immigrants from Fujian province across the Taiwan Straits. The temple is multidenominational, like many in Taiwan. Its main deity is Guanyin but the temple enshrines 165 other deities. I find it fascinating that so many can gather and worship many gods under one roof in a place like this with out fear or retribution. Perhaps we in the west can take a page or two out of the book of these gods who so willingly allow all to visit their temple and practice their own type of prayer and honorary celebration.

After my temple experience I just enjoyed the various markets in the near area. I got a small snack and found a quite place to enjoy my book The Art of Happiness, talk about a prefect book to suit the day. I am again and again reminded that we must all be thankful for what we have in life. Let us not dwell on what we lust after. In the end pleasure gained from items or status do not make us truly happy. True happiness is born of mind and body, it is a connectedness with ourselves and others... both at home and abroad. We may be all from different places on the planet, but we are all of one human race, and that in itself makes us all family.

Raindrops keep falling on my head.

2007-11-27T04:08:00.000-08:00

The weather here the past two days has been pretty miserable. Rain, rain, and more rain is in the forecast. I am glad I packed an umbrella because not having one would be unthinkable. I made a trip back to the Post Office and picked up my ATM card, this second trip was a lot easier than my first, and also went to the immigration office and filled out my VISA paper work. I was hoping to spend this week seeing the temples, hot springs and other wonderful things that Taipei has to offer but I am putting them on hold till the weather clears. Today after getting back from the post office and changing shoes/socks, they were SOAKED, I made my way through the underground Mall located very near the Taibei Che Zhan (Taipei Main Station). It is a pretty incredible place. Shops upon shops upon shops for at least a mile. One side of the mall was just book stores, all in Chinese, with everything you could want. The other side was all clothes and accessories mostly geared toward women and business men. One interesting thing I saw while I was exploring the underground mall was the massive amount of high school kids that just hang out after school. They find mirrors and plop down cd players and work on there choreographed dance and break-dancing skills. The ones who don't want to participate either watch, cheering their peers on, or crowd around each other with Nintendo DS's and Laptops playing the latest video games. The most interesting thing about all of this is that no one seems to mind hundreds of kids just loitering in the malls. Of course they are not causing any trouble, so I guess why not.

I am still adjusting here. Trying to find my niche in this busy and bustling place. I actually am really looking forward to the start of term next week. My vocabulary is so limited, I feel like a 2 year old in the big city. I can at least say that I am not sitting at home and watching the TV; something I remember doing far to much of in Florida and other places when the weather turned bad. Not much else to write about right now, my experiences have been rather limited this week. I am sure that things will be much more exciting once the weather clears up.

Random Events/ Birthday party

2007-11-25T00:06:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was a lot of fun. I was walking around near my apartment and found a great place to eat some shui jiao (dumplings) and a good mian (noodle) shop. After stuffing my self to the brim I decided to explore the streets some more. As I was walking a heard some music playing and it sounded relatively close so I started to head towards the noise. It turns out that there was a Taiwan band festival going on all day. Entrance to the festival was free so I headed on in to take a listen. It was so much fun. We had a great view of the Taipei 101 (tallest building in the world) in the back groud and the music was bucuo (pretty good). I got there right as a Chinese punk band was finishing up there set and really liked their music. It was a change of pace from the normal chinese pop music on the radio, which consists of mostly love songs. At the end of their set the band members explained that they were poor musicians but they were having a great time playing music, the crowd seemed to take sympathy with them because tons of people starting throwing 10 yuan coins onto the stage. It was so darn funny to see the band dodging money while trying to play there last song. I was going to take some pictures of the event and the Taipei 101 when I realized that I had left my camera battery charging at home.

On my way back to my apartment I got a phone call from my friend inviting me to a birthday lunch on Sunday (today) and I decided to join. So today I took the MRT to meet all of them for lunch. First of all the food was absolutely wonderful. The restaurant was a mix of Chinese and Italian cuisine so there were a lot of rice/noodle dishes filled with chicken, shrimp, and other various meats and vegetables. It was interesting to be an outsider at this kind of nice meal because everyone was taking pictures, like every 10 seconds. My friend explained to me that when the go out for a nice meal they like to take pictures of every single dish they order, that way they can remember what they all had and share pictures with others of the whole experience. Not only were a lot of pictures taken people where playing video games at the meal??? I guess I just don't get it yet. I thought the picture taking was a little silly, but then I ended up getting carried away with it as well. It was interesting to see a more chinese style birthday party, normally my friends and I will eat somewhere and then have a few drinks together either at a bar or a house party. But here in Taiwan people that drink are in the minority. So they go and have a nice meal, and afterwards everyone just goes home.

My way home gave me my first taste of MRT madness. I had be warned that it is not wise to travel on the Mass Rail Transit system between the hours of 4-6 and I found out why. There were people everywhere. The tram cars were packed to the brim. I seriously could not even move an inch in the train. Even while being a bit uncomfortable during my tram ride I still marveled at the efficiency of such a system. The MRT must move thousands upon thousands of people per day in a fast efficient and cheap way. Why oh why doesn't Milwaukee have such a device.

Tomorrow I get to go back to the Post Office and get my ATM card, they don't have debit cards here. That should be a lot of fun, at least this time I know how to say ATM card, and I don't need to do something as daunting as opening the savings account. Thats all for now. Enjoy some pictures of the fine cuisine, and of course a picture of taking pictures of food.:

American makes the local news

2007-11-23T20:58:00.000-08:00

So yesterday we had a bit of a scare. I got a phone call from a friend studying here in Taiwan. He informed me that a fellow student from Milwaukee, Mike Toy, was stabbed in the arm and was being taking for the hospital for surgery. I didn't have much more information on the matter, other than that he would be alright, until today when I was out to lunch and saw something on the news. It turns out that some fung dian de ren (an insane person) just came at him with a knife. Talk about insane. Anyway, Mike, is safe and was in surgery for a while. I don't have many more details because I can't read Chinese but it was really weird to see news coverage about an American from Milwaukee getting hurt here.

It was strange watching the local news. I haven't gotten a chance to really plop in front of the tube much yet but as the news was going on I realized something about Chinese TV; it is almost impossible to watch. The TV channels find a way of putting so much information on the screen that, characters are everywhere. You wont just find them on the bottom of the screen like a CNN new scroll, but in the middle of the screen and all over the top. I makes me wonder if Asians are statistically better at multitasking. They have to deal with so much information all the time. Things are much more fast paced here. The cabs speed, the moped drivers are insane, people stand on the MRT without holding on the anything and manage to still play there PSP. Yet somehow everything seems to flow together. I guess it is because I am Weiguo (foreign) that it all seems so chaotic.

So I was just thinking as I was writing this that I kind of feel like Malcom Renoylds from Firefly here in Taiwan. For those of you who have no idea who Mal is then please stand up from the computer head to the local video store at rent Firefly. I speak my English with a dash of Chinese, and somehow it feels totally normal. Maybe someday we will all speak like that.

Oh, I also heard a great joke last night. What do you call someone who speaks three languages... Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages... bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language... American.

Thats all for now. Here a few pics that I took from my apartment. Busy, Busy.

Turkey Day in Taipei

2007-11-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

Well today is turkey day here in Taiwan. Its strange... back home today would have been filled with wine, family, friends and of course a huge turkey dinner. Here in Taiwan it is just another Thursday. It is strange to think that I will be missing almost every major holiday while I am in Taiwan. It is even more strange to be walking the streets of Taiwan and see store after store filled to the brim with christmas goodies. Clearly they don't follow the black friday rule here. So last night I was on my fill my stomach mission again and was looking for some good street food near home. I walked around to a few places asking if they had su shi (veggie dishes) with no luck and then I spotted a local joint that had the characters for tofu on there menu. Those characters were the only thing that i understood out of the tofu dish but I thought what the heck I am going to order it anyway, it was late and I was hungry so I took the plunge. I pointed at the dish and said I want that dofu dish, the shop owner said okay and I waited... and the picture you see to the right was what I got. I had no idea what it was (i mean the green thing, not the tofu) but I was going to eat it. The dish turned out to be very good, I had figured out that the green thing was a pickled egg of some kind. When I got home I looked up the characters in my dictionary and got a little nervous. The pidan dofu (1,000 year egg w/ tofu) was a dish that I was reading about. It is a duck egg that is stored underground for 6 months where it pickles. The yoke becomes a brown/green and the white swells up into a jelly. Now that doesn't sound to bad right? But, traditionally the egg is soaked in bull's urine before it is stored. I liked the dish, really liked it, so I don't think I am going to ponder whether or not I had the "traditional" styled dish or not.

So last night at the hostel I met a three girls who are traveling around the world right now (Madeline, Dana, and Dai) and we decided that we were going to spend turkey day at an American restaurant, not because we could get turkey there, but because it was going to be wonderfully hilarious. We ended up settling on T.G.I. Fridays because the girls had walked past there on Thanksgiving morning and said it looked like fun. We had a few drinks at the hostel during the mid afternoon and off we went. T.G.I. Friday's was to the point of being so bad its good. The wait staff all spoke english and wore winter hats (even though it is 70 degrees out) the music was all straight off of MTV and the food was over priced and Nan Chi (literally means difficult to eat, but implies that it taste really bad).

After our meal it was off to wondering the streets and buying a few beers at a 7-11. While we were walking we found a Karaoke Bar and went in the check the place out. The place was a diamond in the rough. For 300NT (per person) we got all the songs we could want to sing and 3 beers. The American song selection was all older tunes from the 50's and 60's. The people at the Karaoke Bar were wonderful and really made us feel at home. We danced, drank, and sang the night away stopping after every song and yelling GAN BEI (cheers) at the top of our lungs. I tell you the older Taiwanese generation really knows how to party. After that we stopped at McDonalds, which is open 24 hours here, and ate some french fries. All in all it was a wonderful Turkey Day. Today my new found friends are off to the south of Taiwan. Guess its time to meet some more expats.

A Place to Call Home

2007-11-21T00:29:00.000-08:00

As I said last post the hunt was on for a place to live. Not only because I need a place to get my ARC but also because I was getting kicked out of my hotel today (Wednesday the 21st). Fear not because I did some wandering around near Taipei Main Station (Taibei Che Zhan) and found a hostel that could accommodate me. The hostel is super awesome, I couldn't really ask for much more. My rent is $242 a month, which is super cheap compared to other places around my school; that includes everything i need washer, wifi, cable, and electric/water. Another added bonus to the whole hostel thing is that I get to meet people from all over the world on a daily basis. My room (or as we say in Chinese fang jian) is Japanese style and is just fun to be in. I have a place to put all my things and even a bed, okay of course I have a bed.

After figuring out my living situation is was time for another fun adventure. Going to the post office to open a savings account so I can receive my scholarship money. I knew where the Post Office was so that was not a problem but once I got there I ran into a real dilly of a pickle. To open a bank account at the Post Office you have to be able to read a ton of Chinese. I took one look at the application and wanted to cry. So I just sat there searching for a character that I could recognize, anything that could shed some light on what I was looking at... the result, I didn't understand anything. I tried in broken Chinese to make so sense of the matter, but I had no luck... what was I to do? Lucky for me a fellow student at Shi Da, a Graduate Student native to Taiwan but a student none-the-less, could see my problem and offered to lend me a hand. She did more than that, in the end she filled out all my paper work and opened my bank account while I stood next to her speaking about 10 words during the entire process. After I deposited my 100NT, a little less than 3 American Dollars, I decide to offer my savior a bite to eat, my treat. Of course she didn't know my ploy, I needed to find some good veggie dumplings. We walked a few blocks from the post office and found a dumpling shop that served veggie dumplings and I was in heaven. I ended up ordering a dozen dumplings along with some Veggie Suan La Tang (hot and sour soup). The meal was wonderful.

That pretty much sums up the last 24 hours of my life here in Taiwan. I just about got all the bureaucratic paperwork out of the way. I am looking forward to a crazy fun weekend where I don't have to walk around filling out forms that I don't understand.

Curse of the FEET!

2007-11-19T21:23:00.000-08:00

Well, it turns out that even in a foreign land where I call myself Gao Jian, I still am a Gill at heart. I know this cause my feet hurt like the dickens. Since I have to still walk everywhere I will just have to stick it out with the help of Tylenol extra strength. I spent yesterday afternoon at Shida market (right near school) getting some food and just hanging out. After wandering the market for a while I met a friend at 西門 (Ximen) which is a huge outdoor mall of sorts. It is hard to describe the sights but all i can say is just think of giant big screen tv's, movie posters, 10 story stores, and tons upon tons of people and you will get the picture. We ate hotpot (a bunch of items all boiled together) and it was wonderful.

When I got home I feel asleep fast than I thought possible. I got a good nights rest and woke up today ready for registration. So today, Tuesday November 20th, I went to school for my oral and written exam. I did very well on my oral exam but the written exam was super tough. After my exam I was off to take care of my bureaucratic paper work. That meant going to the foreign affairs office to apply for my ARC and finding out that I don't have everything I need; aka I don't have a place to call home. So now the hunt is on.

Day One

2007-11-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Well I slept about 4 hours last night. I am not sure if that is because of jet lag or because i slept the whole time on the plane, but i wasn't going to let lack of sleep get me down. My room, as you can see in the pictures, is rather small and limited to a desk and a bed. The shower is just a drain in the floor, despite is looking so out of place it was piping hot and that made me happy.

Once sunlight started to hit my room and the sound of a bustling city rung in my ears I decided it was time to wander. So, at 6:30 am with my dictionary, travel book and iPod in hand I went to explore the city. My goals were simple. Find a place to get something to drink, find a place to eat, and most importantly... not get lost. To add to it, I was going to use only Chinese. I put on the new Radiohead album and just started walking. Taking in that all taipei has to offer (minus the sounds i guess). You would be surprised how alive Taipei is at 6:30 am. A lot of breakfast shops start opening up for business and there are more mopeds on the road that I thought possible.

I found a 24 hour store that had some drinks and I bought some green tea to the tune of 20 yuan (about .90 cents). After that I walked the streets watching the city really come to life before my eyes. I found a small street vendor that had some spicy noodles for sale and ordered them with the best of my ability. I must have said something right because I got my order just as I had asked for it and began to slurp them down. It hit the spot! After that i wandered around a little bit and then made my way back to school.

Now I am going to try and find a bank and change my money, so that I can pay for tuition. After that I have no idea where the wind will blow me.

Safe and Sound

2007-11-18T07:21:00.000-08:00

Well I made it safe and sound. My flights were all on time and I landed in Taiwan at 7:35 p.m. The plane rides went really smooth and very fast (I slept through most of it). From the airport I took a 50 minute bus ride to Taipei City (taibei shi) but it was dark and raining so I didn't really get to see much. The bus took me right to the MRT (Mass Rail Transit). I took the MRT right to Guting stop, where my school is. I was able to find a room at my School for the first two nights. Rent was a little over 30 dollars for a night, which is expensive. However, I am at school so I can't get too lost in the next few days. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I have to find a bank, and work on finding a place to live. I wish I had more to report, but getting settled in was top priority. I will post more soon.

Gao Jian

Extramural Chinese Studies

2007-11-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

Note:
I do not claim to be any expert in any way, shape, or form when it comes to the Chinese language. I do however know of a few useful websites and tips that I can give to others if they wish to go beyond the classroom and learn Chinese on their own. Please feel free to share thoughts and recommendations about this list, and I will update in the future.

Tip 1: In order to learn anything new, you must be willing to put in the time. What that means is, make time every single day to focus on what you would like to learn or study; even if its just 15 minutes a day, it will be much better than spending an hour one day and then taking the next few days off from study. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Spending time in this manner allows the brain to understand and reinforce the knowledge that we take in. The more the brain sees the topic you are trying to learn, the more focus it will put on retaining this information.

Tip 2: If you are the type of person who really likes to get down and study your heart out, please do so with caution! Over studying can have a similar effect as not working on something at all; most of what you study will be lost very quickly. Work on something for an hour and then take a break. After you have had time to let the information sink in, go back and review. The more times in a day you see the same information the more your brain will try to understand and keep the information.

Okay, now that I have gone over two basic tips for learning anything lets get down to the nitty gritty. I will break down a couple of sites that you can visit to learn Chinese on your own. Each site will have its pros and cons. Find what works best for you by exploring them all.

Site One:
Chinesepod.com
website: www.chinesepod.com

ChinesePod is a great website for beginners and advanced Chinese students alike. It has a very nice interface both online and via iTunes that allows you to receive a new lesson in Chinese every single day of the week. Let me say that again incase it didn't sink in; you get a new lesson in Chinese EVERY SINGLE DAY. The website/ podcast is free for basic users and also offers a membership package that is reasonable in cost. The lesson's they offer are split into Newbie, Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, and Advanced.

Pros: First off, ChinesePod has about 700 lessons available online, and they are all free! The lessons often run about 15 minutes in length and are perfect for a daily commute to work or school. ChinesePod has many things going for it. They use modern slang that is found all over the mainland and do a fair job of explaining how words work together to form ideas and sentence patterns. The lessons are all spoken to you by native speakers, and that makes for good accent and pronunciation practice. The fact that they offer many different lesson levels also makes it great for all users. It gives you a chance to go back and cover the basics, and also gives much room to grow for more experienced Chinese students.

Cons: ChinesePod for the most part focused on spoken Chinese. The dialogues are viewable but you must be a member or ChinesePod (which means spending money) to actually get the characters and pinyin. The other downside is that not all lesson are geared for your learning level which means some days you will not really be able to do the lesson, but like I said before they have plenty of old lessons that you can always go over. The biggest con is that in order to really use ChinesePod to the fullest, you have got to pay money, but all in all this website rocks even for non paying members.

Site Two:
XueZhongWen.net
website: www.mdbg.net

Xuezhongwen.net is a great online dictionary that anyone can use. It is totally free and has thousands upon thousands of Chinese words at your fingertips. It is a must have for online Chinese learning.

Pros: It is a free dictionary, need I say more? Okay, I will anyways just becasue I want to outline a few of the nice features. When you get online to this website you have the option or searching for words in English, Chinese (both simplified and traditional) and also pinyin. So you can take a Chinese character and plug it into the website and understand the meaning within moments. After searching for a word the website allows you to see a few things
1) How the character is written (this is done by clicking on the magnifying glass near the character)
2) It will show you multiple meanings of the word if they are available, as well as slang terms the word may be used for.
3) By clicking on the pinyin of the word a javabox will appear and give you the pronunciation of the word, a very cool feature for new words and characters.

Cons: Sometimes you will search for a word and get tons of examples or translations of the word, which can be rather frustrating for a beginner. General rule of thumb in this instance is to choose the Chinese words that are near the top of the search results. The other con of this website is that it is online. If you don't have the Internet in front of you then you can't access it. My final complaint is that there translation program they have listed on the site is horrible. Use with caution and don't rely on the English translation of anything they give.

Site 3:
Rutgers Multimedia Chinese Teaching System
website: http://chinese.rutgers.edu/

This is the Rutgers Chinese teaching system that they use in school, and it is available online for all to see and use. If you want to learn Chinese in a way that is similar to being in a classroom then this is the site for you. They have four different levels starting with the most basic and going to the most advanced.

Pros: This is a full course in Chinese; it goes over grammar points, vocab, pinyin and characters. It has everything and is structured like a classroom lecture system. It rocks check it out!

Cons: It is structured like a classroom lecture. While this is a pro, it is also a con. If you need help understand a grammar point or anything else they are covering in the lesson you have nowhere to turn. I would recommend this site after you have done at least a little bit of Chinese study at another site.

Site 4:
YouTube

YouTube has everything, try searching for Chinese anything and it will come up. Great for testing your new Chinese that you have learned. Watch TV shows, Commercials, Lectures, and other Chinese students as they speak this wonderful language. YouTube makes learning Chinese fun because while it is entertaining it is also very helpful for solidifying your listening skills. Seriously everything is on YouTube, it makes learning fun!

As I have said before this is not by any means a comprehenssive list. But it does point out some websites that I an other use on a regular basis to solidify what we learn in the classroom.

Good Luck in Your Language Studies,
Gao Jian

Tall hopes for the Overseas committee.

2007-09-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

I am hoping to be doing some work for the Overseas Committee while in taiwan so I wrote alittle blog about my thoughts and expectations of the trip. Enjoy!

One year ago, if you had told me that I would be spending nine months in Taipei Taiwan, I would have most certainly replied; “sounds like it would be a lot of fun but you're nuts”. This year however, that crazy idea is becoming a reality. I have always been drawn to the idea of traveling the world, but after taking one year of Chinese at UWM I really wanted to set the gears into motion so that I could achieve that goal. During the coarse of the year I realized just how hard learning Chinese was. The first of many language difficulties is the tones, and not just one or two but four, each changing the meaning of the word you are using. The second difficulty is the characters; every word is now not a word but a picture, and on top of knowing what the character means one must learn how to write it! As I encountered these problems I realized how much it would help to truly immerse myself in the culture. And thankfully I now have been given that opportunity.

As the days count down to my November departure I find my anticipation growing by the second. I have already started to research my travel destination. Here are five quick and interesting facts that I have already learned:

1) Taiwan is not recognized by China as an actual country.
2) Taiwan is home to the tallest building in the world the, Taipei 101, which stands at 1,670 feet.
3) There is at least one festival during every month of the year, and two festivals for bringing in the New Year (which takes place in February).
4) The Island was given the name “Formosa” (beautiful) by the Portuguese in the 1700’s when they first saw it.
5) Taipei (where I will be staying) has an average of 25,129 persons living in each square mile. To put that into perspective that is 40 homes per football field.

The more I learn about this country, the more excited I get. I have already started looking into my living arrangements, local eateries, and of course, popular entertainments. And because I am going there to study Chinese, I can also say that I have not given up on my Chinese homework over the summer, I am spending an average of an hour a day working on keeping those characters and tones fresh in my mind.

Since I am so excited to go on this trip, I will tell you right now I have a lot of high expectations. I hope that my education will be up to the standard that I am receiving at UWM, one major concern is my ability to understand my teachers. I hope to come home with a much better grasp of Chinese in both my reading and speaking comprehensions. And for me the largest expectation is the culture shock that I am looking forward to receiving. I do not want to live in a mini America; I want change, and diversity. I don’t want to speak English all day and recognize every shop that I see. I am ready to greet with arms wide open: the busy streets, the market bargains, real authentic Chinese food, cram packed subways, and the wonders of being on my own halfway around the world.