The Rhythm of Taiwan

Life in Taiwan has become…so very cyclic.

This is surprising for several reasons. One is that I’m supposed to be traveling, aren’t I? (note the tag question please, teachers of ESL) If that is so, how can things become so routine? My new job, steady hours, yoga every morning,  a facial or massage or haircut here and there. Everything is very organized and very orderly. It almost feels like after two years of living here, things are…NORMAL. Back home seems like a dream. This is almost…SCARY.

How can this be? Waking up every morning with expectations, rituals that lay unchanged, the same places visited again and again. Is this my life? Is this reality? I’ve become perpetually complexed with the question of whether this IS really my life, and this is really normalcy. But it is. And of course, the second I recognize it, ponder it, and consider it, it’s gone. This CAN’T be real life. This CAN’T be all it is. There must be more. Why always so unsatisfied, even when the standards have been achieved?

In a regular life in Canada, I might be struggling. I might be a low-paid journalist or PR person, working the phones all day and writing meaningless crap to be published for whomever is interested. But that’s not for me. Writing is pleasure. Life is not writing. Life is living and teaching is a means to living. How many jobs can you have that you can take off two months or more every year? Dear ESL teachers, we’re living the good life. There are sacrifices but this is SWEET. You can’t tell me it’s not. I’ve finally learned to convince myself to “GET UP EARLY” and the “EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM” and to work hard. But really, it’s so easy to do my job well. I walk into class, so happy after yoga and good food and mesmorized by the palm trees and landscape on the way. I am happy to be there regardless of whether my students have been in class for 12 hours that day. And I’m a bubble of positivity and energeticness. Glowing, even. This is it. This is my meaning of life! Or is it?

What happens when things become so stupidly easy or unchallenging that you have to mess them up ON PURPOSE? What is is with always thinking and dreaming of the ‘next big thing’ or the next ocean to dive? The secret is that the rhythm exists everywhere and it doesn’t matter if you’re in Taiwan or Timbuktu. It will find you, eventually.

Antsy Antsy Novelty Wearing Thin!!!

I think Taiwan is starting to get to me. It’s been a year and a half and last weekend, during Easter I had a serious “I want to get out of here” moment. But to what? Bad economy, wasted savings, spend it all on travel, wander the planet forever? I obviously have a lot of security issues in my life. Blah Blah Blah. That’s all I got today. Need to find new inspiration. Fast.

Nude Spa, Taiwan

It’s amazing how many hits I get from people on my blog who are searching for “Nude Spas in Taiwan.” I guess writing about accidently ending up in one for work really got me a lot of traffic. This is somewhat worrisome and somewhat funny. Do people in the West understand that there is nothing sexual about the female-only nude spas here? Oh dear.

Three Things I learned in Taiwan this Week

1. There is a saying that seven gods come from one grain of rice. Since this is the case, you are supposed to eat all your grains of rice and never leave any grains on your plate. This is puzzling. Am I supposed to eat the god? And if I do, does this make me stronger? Or is it an evil god and that’s why I have to eat it? Or does eating it make me a better person? Hmmm.

2. The Chinese word for jello is the same as the word for move – “Dong” in the fourth tone. May I have some Dong please? May I have some ‘move’ please? Hmmm.

3. One of my private students informed me that Taiwanese girls will sometimes pretend they are sick on special holidays in order for their boyfriends to notice and take care of them. He knows this because he works in a hospital and on special holidays there is an influx of women taking up hospital beds with ‘unexplainable’ illnesses. As in, there is nothing actually wrong with them. He said often doctors sympathize with this and play along with the game. I wonder if this also happens in North America? Also there are higher rates of suicide on these days. I think Taiwan has a high suicide rate but it’s not often talked about.

Just a typical day

I can’t believe I get paid for this.

The past two weeks have been awesome. I’ve been working for the World Games in Kaohsiung, helping to evaluate local businesses and giving them a pass/fail, three, four or five star rating. So usually I wake up, and visit three or four places with a Taiwanese partner and then teach my regular classes at night. It’s usually quite a long day, about 9:30-7:00 but I often find myself thinking: I can’t believe I get paid for this. In many ways, if this was a permanent job, I would never want to leave. Unfortunately it’s only a job leading up to the World Games that will happen in Kaohsiung in July.

So my typical day, what is it like?

Today, I wake up at 9:00 and drive my scooter to the meeting place, an MRT station about five minutes from my house. It’s quite hot out and I have to somehow maneuver my scooter out of the front of my building because there is a massive cement mixer out front redoing our entire street and thus angering my sleeping boyfriend. I digress…

Location 1: Bakery

I drive to the meeting place where at first we stop at a bakery near Formosa Boulevard that is Taiwan-based and sells traditional cakes and sweets. Enter the bakery and taste many free samples as they are expecting me. Breakfast is served. Am brought oolong tea, and walk around the establishment evaluating signs and finding any English mistakes on the introduction, business cards or signs. Start oral test. Ask about ten questions, all relating to the food, and evaluate English skills of the employees. Spend about an hour filling out the relevant forms, drinking tea, and finally when we’re ready to leave, we are presented with several free goodies. Ten mung bean cakes, 12 muffins and a jar of jam. This is typical.

Three stars.

Location 2: The Woman’s Spa

I was extremely interested in the Woman’s Spa because a> it’s right around the corner from my house and b> I LOVE Taiwan spas/hair places/nail salons and massage parlours. However all of these things can greatly fluctuate in service standard and services provided. Was greeted at the door by about five people, two of whom spoke English. So far, so good. Began the oral test and examining signs, and ask for a tour of facilities to check English signs. There are two points here.

1> This is a woman’s spa, and what does that mean in Taiwan?

It means that upon entering the facilities me and the Taiwanese partner (there for translation and additional evaluation) we walk into a spa full of naked women walking around. Never seen anything like it in my life. On the surface, looks like a regular sauna/hot tub/massage situation, but on deeper glance and in actuality it is a full-on nude spa with no signs that say nakedness was mandatory. Have heard a lot about these places but have never actually visited one. It’s quite common here, but I pointed out to the owner that informing the English-speaking guest of nudity requirement would be strongly recommended to save a lot of embarrassment.

2> Services in Taiwan differ:

Signage states that a ‘back rub’ is NT$400 but I know better, from personal experience. I kindly ask the owner, “Is this massage just for your back?” “No, no, all over!” she says, enthusiastically. Ummm okay. How to inform? After asking for a full body massage one time at a spa, I got the ‘full body’ massage all right, breasts and all. Ooops. I informed the spa owner that the words ‘breast massage’ or ‘full body massage’ should be included to save more embarrassment.

Before leaving, we were served orange juice and then I was given ten free spa tickets. On condition I must go naked. Well, it is right around the corner from my house but something about it is still really weird to me. Maybe I’ll raffle them off with some charity…I left pondering how a country so conservative on the outside could be so open in other regards. How strange.

Four stars.

Location 3: The Dentist Office

Holy geez! Who walks into a dentist office with a grand piano right at the doorway that plays by itself? And the BEST. COFFEE. EVER.

Five stars.

After evaluations, I went to my regular classes and still can’t believe I get paid to do this. Lucky a little?

Girls gone mild

I’ve often pondered the question: What is it that makes so many people stay in Taiwan, while others stay only a moment here? Especially in regards to girls, my friend list here in Taiwan is obscenely short after living here for almost two years. It includes, my best friend here who is in Taipei and I see once a month if I’m lucky, and umm… end of list. The one other person on my list is flying back home tomorrow after only two short months. It just so happens that I had an instant connection with this person and we spent many nights in my apartment sans-boyfriends sitting around with wine, movies and pajamas. Not that I don’t have other girls that I go out with here, it’s just that these are always group or ‘couples going out’ situations with very little actual girl time. Sometimes it makes me quite depressed.

I remember one close girlfriend here (who left a couple months ago) saying “I’m friends with a lot of people here I’d never be friends with back home.” I’m starting to get what she was saying.

If any of my girlfriends said to me “hey I want to move to Taiwan tomorrow” I would say, “come and move right in with me and my boyfriend!” right away, with no thought involved. Does this mean I’m starved for friendship? Am I lonely here? Does this make me strange? Why aren’t there any girls here I can actually make friends with?

I ponder these questions daily as I ride my scooter down Bo-Ai Rd. toward work. Can I answer it? Well, in case you are a girl moving to Taiwan, I’m going to try. Why is it so hard to find girl friends here? And why do so many girls leave and so few stay?

The first aspect of the question has to do with stereotypes here. There are a lot of foreigners. Many, actually most, are guys. The girls who have been here a long time (more than a year, like me) are generally in couple situations with the potential for regular companionship and a comfortable lifestyle. And if you are single? A high percentage of single foreign guys tend to ‘lean toward’ dating Taiwanese girls. I won’t even go into trying to answer the question of why this is the case because then I’ll really piss someone off! So at the end of the day, if you are a single girl in her 20s, why on earth would you come here, when there is very little relationship potential? I’m not saying this is always the case, there are always exceptions. But by your mid 20s, you’re usually thinking about…gasp…the future. And your fertility and youth only lasts so long so why waste several years of that in Taiwan? With no Chinese language background (or willingness to learn) and no family or friends to lean on, and facing a tough workplace, many girls pack their bags and leave in frustration. There’s a larger expat group in many places including Korea and Japan where you can make a lot more money, so they think after a couple months, why stay? The girls who stay in Taiwan who are not in a couple situation I find generally fall into quite a few different groups. Sometimes they are very outgoing, independent, adventurous and willing to learn Chinese (thus, usually I like to try and make friends with them) or they are very introverted, work-focused and sometimes even close-minded. Others just don’t seem to be easy to make friends with. Maybe after being here several years they pick up on some of the Chinese cultural differences and begin to guard themselves and their personal life more.

Which brings me to the second part of answering this question. Of the girls who stay, why do they stay and why can’t I be friends with them? While if you think about the fact that maybe 75% of those girls have boyfriends here, a lot of the time they are with their boyfriends which leaves little girl time. I personally don’t always want to be with my boyfriend, but not everyone is like that. I find it hard to meet someone I can just sit around in my pajamas and feel comfortable with and just chill out. The other thing might have to do with lifestyle differences. I’m just not a huge party girl, and I don’t really always want to go out to the bar and drink every other day. I want to speak some Chinese, try new things in Taiwan and once in a while, even have an adventure. It’s extremely disappointing to arrive in Taiwan and find out how boring some people are and how unadventurous they are. Therefore, if I don’t really get that vibe from a person usually it ends up being an acquaintance situation. But never a close-friendship. Closed-mindedness and unwillingness to adjust really bothers me, because I just think, why would you be here in the first place? That is on one hand, incredibly judgmental of me, because everyone has their reason and everyone also deals with living here in a different way. Some thrive in opportunity, some coast through their time resolving not to be friends with people who will eventually leave and some simply stay at home and watch TV and some work long hours in jobs they hate with the end goal of paying student loans or buying a house (which if you plan on doing that in Taiwan, bank on about 3-4 years of work to save $20-30,000.)

“So, why don’t you just go out and make friends with some Taiwanese girls? They are super nice right?”

Good question.

A few days ago, a guy friend asked me why I didn’t have many Taiwanese girlfriends. I think in an earlier post I mentioned that the obscene level of cultural differences makes it difficult to cross beyond a certain point of communication. On the surface, it’s possible to have the appearance of a relationship but when that deeper level of communication and cultural sharing can never be achieved, it’s a roadblock. For example, it’s very easy to ask a Taiwanese woman for assistance with any part of daily life, or to show you around or tell you about something. It’s almost their civic duty. But when it comes to just ’shooting the breeze’ it just doesn’t happen. Jokes, sarcasm are lost in translation. I have many Taiwanese girl acquaintances, but no Taiwanese-raised close girl friends. I don’t want to turn girls off coming here, because frankly I think it’s awesome. But there is a harsh reality here that is hard to understand at first and you gotta be willing to stick it out at times. Or, maybe I am making too much of this and I just need to try harder.

Hot Yoga

I had to temporarily abandon my yoga class (insert broken heart here!). So, I branched out and went to a yoga studio my boyfriend visited last year for the World Games evaluations. Not only did the boss somehow convince him to do ‘hot’ yoga with me, she also gave us a nice discount. It actually works better with my schedule for now, since we practice earlier in the morning, but ideally I would like to combine this with my Hatha yoga class at least once a week (which for now, is on haitus for World Games evaluations in the next two weeks). I definitely see why yoga is so trendy. I feel great. I’ve been doing it at least once a week since August but ideally three times a week is good for me, since I can see my abs and breathe deeper despite the air that is not-so-good but ‘improving’ in Kaohsiung. I love being blatently honest.

Turnaround

My attitude toward Taiwan has completely and utterly changed. I’ve now watched many people come and go – some stay less than a month! They wonder why I stay but I can fully tell them now the reasons and what they are, whereas before I really couldn’t answer that question.

Firstly, I actually like my job. Half of my job right now is teaching students in classes I actually like because I started teaching them from scratch and I spend more than one day a week with them. I know exactly where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The other half of my job is in conjunction with my work (Genius in Kaohsiung) and the Kaohsiung government. I teach local businesses English classes (adults) and then I go to visit the businesses and evaluate them on their English skills for the World Games. As such, I can have the power to give them a rating of 3-5 stars, just like evaluating a hotel or whatnot. Not only that, the random photos mean that I will probably end up in more than one tourist guide in the future for the World Games or Kaohsiung! I don’t really mind. I have also kept one of my A+ private students and I like going to local businesses and talking with them, or also accepting jobs editing their menus. It’s a great opportunity, and definitely fits more the picture of what I would be doing here and what I could put on a resume for the future.

Aside from work (which is huge!) I am also hoping to accomplish a few other things while I’m here. One is to get my scuba certification (finally!) and the other is to travel the trans-Siberian railway before I leave.

Some people have asked me in the past, after travelling so much, what is the most beautiful sight or country I’ve ever seen. Before it was definitely a toss-up. Do I answer ‘Canada’ my home country? Do I mention the beauty of Spain, or the mountains and slow life of Slovenia? Now I would have to say in answer to this question:

The most beautiful image in my mind, that stands out above all others is this:

December 2008, on a plane, somewhere between sleep and awareness. Somewhere between awake and dreaming. Looking out a 10×10 inch window at the scene below. Watching an iceberg break away. Looking down at the brightness of the light over the Arctic and Siberia. Seeing nothing, absolutely nothing below except the bluest blue and the whitest white. That is the most beautiful image that stands out in my mind, and I hope that one day I can see it up close – as in less than 30,000 feet. It’s going to happen within the next two years, and hopefully it will happen with the person I love.

The New School

I have to say to everyone who’s been following, I love my new job! I get my own classroom! I get to keep my things in my room and also choose what songs I get to sing and bring to my boss what I think will be beneficial to my own students. It’s really incredible when you bring an idea to someone and they actually take it seriously, and you are part of real change! I’m not saying everything in Taiwan is perfect, because sometimes I really don’t get the Asian style of workplace (sacrifice work for personal life). But if I AM going to sacrifice work for personal life at all it might as well be in a way that I’m okay with (no weekends!) and in a way that I can actually influence, such as pace of the curriculum and choice of how long to spend on each section of the book etc etc.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m a born teacher. I thought journalism was the path for me, and I think that in a way it was (writing) but teaching is where I also feel confidence and happiness. I totally love baking banana bread for the class I have four days a week and decorating my own classroom. My boss (the owner of Genius) even came into my classroom the other day and took a picture of my blackboard because he really liked it, and I was so flattered and felt so appreciated. The way of working isn’t that much different but the amount of faith in the foreign teacher is much more and I love feeling like someone takes my opinion into consideration!

I have to say, Taiwan isn’t really easy. The workplace is aggressive, the expectations are high and the business model is entirely different than what we’re used to in North American society. The roundabout ways of asking for unpaid favours are still something worth considering when moving to Asia or Taiwan and I still think that the United States/Canadian way of doing things is way better, but that’s my ethnocentric attitude kicking in and I still think that Taiwan is entirely advanced for it’s era and Asia is progressing at a more rapid pace than we all realize. I feel that now I am not spending 2 hours a night on grading homework I’m a much more effective teacher and I can do those extra little things like bake for my class (totally my own doing!) or burn them a CD with North American music on it. I feel like I have extreme impact on these children, to the point where they are like my own. I really love it. Taiwan feels like more home than ever and I don’t regret coming here and spending two years here at all. In fact, it was a great choice.

To those considering coming to Taiwan, what I would say is you need to consider your real reasons for coming. Are you really interested in Taiwanese culture and language and knowledge? Are you willing to travel way beyond your comfort zone? Go to Taiwanese-style markets and find out where the real hotspots are? If the answer is yes, I would definitely recommend this country as an up-and-comer! I hope it continues to grow and progress through the World Games and grow to be what it should be. I think if I left and came back in 20 years I wouldn’t recognize this city at all.

Money

Today I learned:

Each culture is distinguishable in the way that they count money. In the West, money is counted as though gently separating the individual cards from a deck one bill at a time. In Taiwan, money is placed in the palm of a hand all together as though trying to hide it and each top edge of the bill is pulled upward toward the face revealing the next. Another way – used in Pakistan by the man who owns a burrito stand in the center of Kaohsiung City is to place the money sideways on the palm all together and count each bill pulling it away. How did the language of money counting take such subtle but different shapes in each part of the world?