Snuggle up...this week's post goes on for a while.
Finishing off our Vietnam trip, we did a two night trip to Halong Bay. A four hour drive out of Hanoi, it is a bay in the Gulf of Tonkin that is home to 1600 monolithic limestone islands. The typical way you visit Halong Bay is to take a junk off varying sizes. Ours slept 20 guests and had six crew.
Finishing off our Vietnam trip, we did a two night trip to Halong Bay. A four hour drive out of Hanoi, it is a bay in the Gulf of Tonkin that is home to 1600 monolithic limestone islands. The typical way you visit Halong Bay is to take a junk off varying sizes. Ours slept 20 guests and had six crew.
Our family were the only Americans. We had Dutch, Brits, Canadians and Aussies. One of the Dutch couples were teachers that worked for Royal Dutch Shell and their assignments were in places that had large petroleum industries, but little other international presence. I thought that was more interesting than they did, but it didn't feel that the Dutch get excited easily. Of course, the Aussies were the most fun
Gorgeous and peaceful. We kayaked and swam. The food was always well prepared and heavy on seafood. One morning we got dumped on by a tropical downpour, which canceled our activity but I thought was really cool.
On our last day, they took us to a fishing village. Much like those on Tonle Sap in Cambodia but they did have a more progressive outlook on dumping their garbage and have a government sponsored clean-up program. One of the other tour guides looked like a bad guy from a Jackie Chan movie.
We were not expecting how large it was. It used to be a family home until the government evicted them and sold the island to a tour company. The food was good, but the atmosphere was unparralled.
I have been meaning to get to the list of things that indicate you know you've been in Taiwan too long if... Am going to run through these using the free association technique.
1. You stop conjugating verbs.
2. You look both ways before crossing the sidewalk.
- I hope you do that anywhere you live
3. You turn left from the right lane.
- Can you believe these fuckers think this is OK? I just spent an hour at the community center where I volunteer ranting on this very topic. You know those people are always happy to see me.
4. 70 F feels cold.
- I wish. 70 in the winter time is very nice and still shorts weather in my book. Not much you can do when the humidity kicks in (which is now) and the temps rise. I am physically miserable all the time...sweat condenses in my fat rolls. Just gross in every way imaginable
5. You see three people on a motorcycle and figure there's room for two more.
- The locals call scooters 'motorcycles', but they are still scooters. I like to see people with their dogs on them personally. Whenever there are three or more people on a scooter, there are always children involved, and the parents will have helmets on and the kids rarely do. Disgusting.
6. "Squid" sounds better than "steak".
- This is true for me anywhere, but more so here. Never order the beef as it may be locally raised. With the heat, I don't think the cows can grow big and fat and the meat is always tough. Took Betty to the new burrito joint near our house...crappy (as is all the Mexican food here), but she had to experience it first hand. She was so excited to see steak as one of the options but could see her jaw drop as she watched them put the driest looking scraps of flesh in her burrito. My mistake was telling her post order to never order the beef in Taiwan. Got the silent treatment for the rest of the night (never mess with Betty when it comes to steak), but she should know better, no?
7. There are more things strapped to your motorcycle than you ever put in a car.
- Best place to see this is at the Costco...the other day, I see this dude with the huge, 48 roll package of toilet paper between his legs. It got loose from him in as he was going into a turn, exploded and basically tee-peed the entire intersection. So funny.
8. You drive on the shoulder to pass traffic.
- See # 3
9. The main reason you stop at a 7-11 is to buy tea eggs.
- Don't know what those are but think they are eggs hard boiled in soy sauce. I go to the 7E to pay the bills.
10. Firecrackers don't wake you up.
11. You can distinguish Taiwanese from Hakka.
12. Your family stops asking you when you'll be coming back.
- Hope that never happens
13. Taxi drivers are considered "good drivers."
- This topic was part of our hour long conversation today. My contention is that if "good drivers" equals "biggest assholes", then I totally agree.
14. Beer really isn't so expensive.
- As long as you are will to swill the local beer, imaginatively called Taiwan Beer, it is cheap. I like it, but am a Coors Light guy, so am not the best to judge on quality
15. You stop and look both ways before driving through a red light.
- Ha ha...this is considered humor to the Chinese.
16. "A", "an" and "the" aren't necessary parts of speech.
- Speaking of "A's", I was at school the other day and overheard a conversation between a Chinese tiger mom and her high school aged daughter. The daughter said she went to the school doctor and learned she had Hepatitus B. The mom grunted and said "Hepatitus B, I am so disappointed in you. You should have gotten Hepatitus A".
17. You wear out your horn before your brakes.
18. The police call you to get information about other foreigners.
- What? Like I'd rat on one of my own people? Other than helping you bury the body, I'd do anything for a friend.
19. You know which place has the best noodles and duck meat at 3:00 a.m.
- My hard core drinking days are obviously behind me as I have no idea.
20. You speak Chinese to your foreign friends too.
21. You own a karaoke machine.
22. You leave the plastic on all new purchases.
23. Forks feel strange.
24. The shortest distance between two points involves going through an alley.
- Totally true. Betty hates it when I do. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her grabbing the armrest or bracing for impact. So cute.
25. People don't see you for months, and when they do, they don't ask you where you've been.
26. Chinese remakes of Western songs sound better than the originals.
- Am speechless at this one.
27. You stare at other foreigners.
- I guess I look more closely at foreigners, but mainly cause I think I may know them. Plus, all the Chinese look alike.
28. Over half of your clothes were bought at night markets.
- Am pleased to say I do not own a stitch. Well maybe I shouldn't be as I would probably have bought a grammatically awkward t-shirt or two, but the XL's here are two sizes too small.
29. You become an expert on bug zappers: the best brands and where to get them.
- This one is very true. In fact, just bought this one for the hallway.
This has happened more than once...I wake up in the middle of the night and walk to the kitchen for a drink of water, and the zapper will buzz with its latest kill and will cause me to jump. It is satisfying to hear that buzz anytime of day. Carolyn asked me what are mosquitoes good for...only thing we could come up with is that they are a part of the food chain. Research confirms that as true.
30. The majority of foreigners who have been in Taiwan longer than you are buried here.
- If my body doesn't start acclimating to this humidity, I will be the one being buried. Actually, it is illegal to be buried in Taiwan due to lack of space and you are cremated. I was told that in the (not so) olden days, people would take their relatives and bury them in the hills surrounding Taipei. The problem was that during the rainy season, landslides would cause them to come sliding down the hill like some zombie luge event.
31. You know which turn signal should be on when reversing the wrong way down a one-way street.
- This is a trick...Taiwanese never use their blinkers
32. You get homesick for Chinese food while away from Taiwan.
- Just the opposite...am counting the days till I can get my lips around some orange chicken at the Panda Express. Kind of worried that I will never find anything local that make me yearn for the food here. We only spent a couple of days in Singapore, Seoul and Cambodia, and there are a few things from those trips that I dream about. The one exception is the Din Tai Fung, which they have in the States, but it is so much better here. So disappointed in myself for not getting in sync with the local cuisine. I ask people all the time what they like to eat Taiwanese style and the answer is always 'the street food'. Not sure what it is that turns me off on it, but maybe it is the uniforms of the cart operators?
33. Praying at a temple for a winning lottery number becomes a regular thing to do.
- Puh-leaze...
34. Other foreigners give you a funny look when you tell them how long you've been here.
- I am obviously one of the funny looking foreigners
35. You can't think of any good reason to leave.
- I can give you three...humidity, humidity, humidity. Have I mentioned it is hot here in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable 24 hours a day? At least once a day, I get a hot flash...don't know if it feels the same as it does for women that go through menopause, but if so, I feel for the ladies.
36. The Statute of Limitations has expired and you still don't go home.
37. You understand that smiling and nodding is Chinese body language for "Go away and leave me alone."
- People smile and nod at me a lot.
38. You've spent more time on the island since 1990 than any of the Taiwanese you know.
39. Locals are surprised to find out you can't vote in the upcoming election.
40. Your pets are bilingual.
- They are, but the kids aren't.
41. Pizza just doesn't taste right unless there's corn on it.
- The seafood pizza is the true travesty.
42. Your preferred parking spot is on a sidewalk (and you get upset when someone else parks there).
- I do this. Maybe that is hypocritical, but it seems safe enough and it is getting the car out of the way in narrow streets.
43. Most meaningful conversations take place in doorways or on slow-moving motorcycles.
44. Your job title has more than three words.
45. You think the service in restaurants isn't that bad.
- I don't think the service is bad, especially considering the servers aren't hustling for tips. One thing that no place does is to make a pass by after the meal has been served to see if you need something. It would make an enormous difference.
46. You're always the first on the elevator to hit the "door close" button.
- Elevator etiquette is a pet peeve of mine and there is definitely a unique protocol here. I don't have time to go into it in detail here but have made a note to detail it later.
47. You start cutting off the gravel trucks.
- Another one of those comments that tries to make light of their selfish and dangerous habits on the road. I find humor in everything, but not when it comes to justifying personal behavior that is rude at best.
48.You eat squid on a stick.
- Damn right I do, although it could use some better spices and/or sauces.
49.You no longer send home bizarre and humorous articles from the paper.
- With the internet, I don't think I would ever stop this practice. Just check out this link to an article about Chinese women wearing 'face-kini's' at the beach so they don't get tan. The quote that "a woman should always have fair skin. Otherwise people will think you are a peasant" always kills me. I learned in Middle School not to give a shit what "people" think of me, and am fascinated that there remains entire cultures that run on that concept.
50. When the fashions in the stores look really hip.
51.You spend more time driving on the lines instead of in between them.
- Sigh....
52.You read books from back to front.
53.You start to like Kaoliang brandy more than XO.
54.You think packs of dogs are cute.
- Absolutely true. I've said a lot about how much I love the stray dogs around here. You see far fewer these days after their round-up last summer due to some outbreak of canine disease.
55.You are back in your home country and you say "hsie hsie" instead of thank you.
56.You think that all babies have flat heads in the back.
- And all the women have flat asses.
57.You think that $3,000,000 NT for a golf club membership is a steal.
58.You drive like this all the time.
- See...this is a thing. I am not making it up.
59.You think that Taiwan is really trying to protect endangered species.
- I don't understand this one.
60.Your pinkie nail is over one inch long.
- If I ever allow this to happen, please feel free to hold me down and cut it off. You are also welcome to kick me in the nuts. I have done some research as to why they do this and there are two themes that emerge. The first is to make it easier to dig into one's orifices. That is comforting to know as you get your change handed back at the 7-11 by a dude with a long nail in a shade of brown that Crayola has never seen. And it seems a prerequisite to have one if you work at one of the street food carts (see #32). The other reason given for growing the long pinkie nail is to signify that you do no manual labor and that you are rich and intelligent. This was a custom of the Imperial court in the Emperor days to signify their higher culture, breeding and wealth and is carried on into today's world. Another one of those things in life where people go to a lot of effort to try and fool people into thinking they are something, but are always just fooling themselves. Sad really.
61.You catch yourself telling a taxi driver to hurry up.
- I find myself telling them to mellow out, but they don't understand. Note to self...learn how to say 'mellow out' in Mandarin.
62.You hum along to the tunes in the taxi.
- As with #26, hard to understand how people can listen to Chinese music. I am as big a music snob as anyone I know. I scored a 56 on this music snob quiz for example. Some types of music make me feel uncomfortable, but there are always a few things in any genre that I enjoy or at the very least, can appreciate for their virtuosity or emotions. I want to be wrong about this, but have yet to stumble across one from an Asian origin.
63.You think walking up Yangmingshan looks like fun.
64.When US $4.00 is just about right for a cup of coffee.
- My guy sells a nice latte for $1.50.
65.You can tell the difference between spring rain, plum rain, and the rainy season.
- I didn't know the difference and had to look up Plum Rain. It is the month of steady rain/high humidity that works its way from south to north in a steady stream late April/May in TW). We watch CNN for 10 minutes over breakfast, and the last minute is devoted to area weather, and you can watch as this horizontal line of moisture slowly works from the Philippines up to Japan/Korea over the course of three months. Pretty interesting.
66.The last time you visited your mother you presented her with your business card.
- I would be ashamed if I ever did that
67.You can tell, just by looking, which moon cake has the egg in it.
68.You feel nervous and giddy when you get around fresh air.
- I'm a product of LA in it's smoggiest path, so fresh air is a relative term. As stated above, I do miss the blue blue skies.
70. Everything you own is pirated.
- Not everything...except for a brief period when Napster first started, am not a believer in pirated music. We have been grabbing TV shows off of this site called Kick-Ass that I'm sure is not legal. The good news is that I am totally caught up on season 4 of Hawaii Five-O
71.You get used to the habit of not paying any tips while traveling.
- It is so great not to have to tip. Or calculate tax. The price you see is what you pay...
72. You can read and write romanized Chinese in three different systems.
- I wish
73.The red light is merely suggestive to you.
- Life is cheap in these parts appparently
74.You greet people by inspecting whatever they're carrying or telling them how fat they've gotten.
75.You can no longer tell the difference between a cracker and a cookie, or toast and bread.
76. You stop telling people about the giant cockroach you saw.
77. Metal scaffolding at construction sites seems much more dangerous than bamboo scaffolding.
78. It's been at least 18 months since you used the word "tacky" to describe anything.
79. Your parties have an agenda, but your meetings don't.
80. Getting in an accident, you tell the ambulance driver which hospital to take you to.
81. You stumble going up a flight of steps that are all the same height.
82. Rats are considered "wildlife."
83. You salt your fruit.
- Betty salts a lot, but have never seen her do this.
84. You don't much mind drinking beer with ice cubes in it.
85. "Long Life Cigarettes" is not an oxymoron.
86. You wear your coat backwards when riding a scooter.
87. You make elevators go faster by boarding first and taking over the controls.
- Will address this in my elevator etiquette posting
88. You're very concerned about not losing face.
- Face...here is what Wikipedia has to say about it. This concept is present in every culture, and probably in most every person to some degree, but it feels like it the Chinese take it to its logical end. Losing face can be a good thing. For example, if you smack your kids around in public and word gets around and people start avoiding you because of it, then losing face is a good thing. That is just how the cost of breaking basic social contracts are levied. The difference is that losing face to the Chinese can take on this component of pride and prestige that feeds prejudism. The quote from face-kini lady above about having a tan makes her look like a peasant is perfect example. That is not just a made up line for the newspaper but is a very real sentiment. It conveys that you are better than a peasant because of the color of your skin. Sound familiar? It is hard to imagine that person's friends who would actually think less of her because she had color on her skin. Betty is dark skinned and gets this all the time. The comment to her that she looks Filipina is code for 'you are just a lower class farm worker'. I know it used to drive her crazy but I hope she is realizing that it is the people that are judging her that are the ones with the hang-up. Oh well...I know I'll never see the day when this kind of attitude goes away and in the meantime, it is nice know that as a white male, I remain at the top of the food chain.
89. The words "Ice Cream" never enter your head when you hear the garbage truck.
- Funny...it took about a year, but the reflex to grab money to get ice cream when the trash truck makes its nightly pass has finally subsided. Here is a sample.
90. You don't feel comfortable using a urinal unless there's a woman mopping the floor behind you.
- Hey baby, check out this stream.
91. You say "Wei?" instead of "Hello?" when you pick up the phone.
- I don't, but am going to start doing this when we get back to the states in hopes of confusing the telemarketers.
No comments:
Post a Comment