Taiwan
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The Taiwan Diaries
Volume 2
(09.25.02)
Wow, I've been in Taiwan for exactly a month. I thought this would be a good time to send out volume 2. So here is the next installment of my adventures. This one is a little longer than the first. Hope you enjoy...
A Star is Born
So, you know how, stereotypically, we think that all Asian people look alike? Well, apparently they think that all Westerners look alike. I was in the middle of teaching a class of 14-16 year olds and one of the boys raised his hand and asked if Nicole Kidman was my sister. I said no that I was not in any way related to Nicole Kidman. I asked why he wondered that. A girl raised her hand and said, "because you look exactly like her" and all the kids nodded their heads! HA! There is NO WAY I look like Nicole Kidman. I thought that was absolutely hilarious but now whenever my class wants to get my attention they call out, Nee-cole, Nee-cole.
All Eyes Here
So everyone stares at me and they don't do it nonchalantly like you would at a cute guy or girl and then look away when they see you are looking. No, they blatantly stare and when you turn and look at them, they continue to stare. The first time I noticed it I was in a restaurant. I thought I had food on my face or my shirt was unbuttoned or something. No, I was just a westerner and they were just staring at me just because I was different. Now I notice it happening all the time. I'll be sitting at a stoplight on my scooter and look around and see that every single person is staring at me. I'm not kidding either. We're talking sometimes about 20 people. 40 eyes beating down on me, just because I'm western...or maybe it's because I look exactly like Nicole Kidman!
Would You Like Corn with That?
Okay, everything here has corn on it. I'm not kidding. You order a chicken and rice casserole, it has corn. You order a crepe filled with cucumbers, lettuce and bacon and it has corn. They serve corn in the buffets. They serve corn with tofu and corn with beef noodles. Corn with burritos, corn on sandwiches and corn on pizza. I'm not kidding! You order a pepperoni pizza and what you really get is pepperoni and corn. Apparently, getting a pizza without corn is like getting a pizza without tomato sauce. It's not an option. You get corn whether you like it or not.
Moon Festival
So I just had my first Chinese holiday. It's called Moon Festival and it was on Saturday. Basically the story behind it is that some girl somehow becomes a fairy and flies away to live on the moon to escape her boyfriend. Dont' you wish that really worked! So anyway, everyone goes outside and barbecues and looks at the moon (if it's not too smoggy). They also have these things called moon cakes that they give people which are totally disgusting and no one likes. I decided that they are basically the equivalent to Christmas fruitcake. No one likes it but you always end up with tons of it. That's moon cake. Essentially they are like moon pies from back home (as if those aren't already gross) and instead of cream in the middle they have raisin, fig, vegetable, soy stuff, or tofu. I know, you want to gag just reading it don't you! I had to eat them in front of my kids to be polite. My kids gave me boxes and boxes of of them. I think I have about 7 or 8 dozen of these nasty things. So for Moon Festival my school flew me to Taipei for free. I got to see a bunch of my friends. Saturday afternoon we were on a bus going somewhere and we saw a Moon Fest parade, so we hopped of the bus, befriended the people and they let us be in their parade. So there are all these Chinese people in traditional dress with the dragons and the music with 6 Westerners in their midst waving at all the people. It was great. Later that day we went to the jade market and joined a Tai Chi class in a park in the
rain. I spent the evening on the roof of some friends' 15-story apartment building watching all the neighbors set off fireworks. It was incredible. So my moon festival was definitely worth suffering through the nasty moon cakes.
On a Sad Note
I had a scooter accident. It was inevitable though. Everyone here has had one, so now that I've had mine I feel much better. I was turning right and some genius thought it would be a good idea to pass me on the right and instead he hit my back tire and sent me sprawling into the pavement. I scraped my right arm from my wrist to my elbow and got a big bruise on mythigh where my right leg was pinned under the scooter. I'm fine though. There were about 20 people who rushed to the scene to help me and I drove home 15 minutes later. I think scrubbing my wound out with rubbing alcohol was far more painful than the actual event.(Keri, it was 10 times worse than the pain when they scrubbed the glass from Mexico out of my hand)
My Digits!
In case any of you want to call me, my phone number here in Taiwan is 886-7-722-8554. The best time to call is in the evening for you, about 8 or 9pm. It will be the morning for me as we are 13 hours ahead. We don't have an answering machine so it might just ring and ring and ring.
Also, if you want to send me something like a letter, Christmas cards or taco seasoning, then my address is: NO. 83-5 10F-4 WuMaio Rd. Kaohsiung City Taiwan, ROC
However if you want to send me a package like jars of salsa or barbecue sauce you can try to send it to the address above but it might take quite a while. So your best bet would be to contact my mom, terri.killen@thestoryoftexas.com and ask her to give you my address in Chinese characters so it won't take a month for me to receive the mail.
So that's Vol. 2. I know y'all can't wait for Vol. 3 but you will have to wait a little while. One more thing. Do NOT email me anything about UT football or the TV show "Friends". We are having them taped and shipped to us so please don't spoil it for me before I get to see it!
Talk to you soon!