to the tune of nelly: it's getting cold in here...

I've never had to open classroom windows to let in warm air.

non-christmas

There isn't Christmas consumerism blasting out of every speaker here and assaulting every rod and cone, and that makes me happy. I hate how in the states everything starts right after October, and it's relentless. Reminds me of Israel, where I completely forgot it was Christmas until I saw G.'s kids drawing Christmas trees around noon. It was a relief. That being said, I keep forgetting to buy Christmas presents.

what are you?

I did this exercise with my kids yesterday, asking them to give three answers to the question, "Who are you?" Very few of them mentioned race, although that's usually my first or second answer. Chinese-American, I always say, emphasizing the American. Usually have to convince people that I grew up in the states; the Bulgarians never believed me. Now, strangely, I am still confronted by questions about my race. I'm getting "Korean?" more and more recently; am I turning Korean? I still haven't opened the monster thing of kimchi that I bought at the beginning of the year. Hm.

This racial questioning happened in the states a bit, and god knows I do it too, but people are more pc there, so they are less likely to hazard a guess. The Chinese do not have this compunction. They know that my accent is off, but they're not sure why, so it's very likely I'm from another country. It's so strange to move to a country where I finally look like everyone else, and still get my race questioned. Yabasayah?

The birthplace of bubble tea

Ordering bubble tea is a complex project. It's somewhere between ordering a latte at starbucks, and buying a house.

[Original transcript]

I walk up to the window. The women at the tea stand greet my approach by singing / yelling "huan(0) ing(2) guang(3) LAAAAAAAAANG!!" (WelCOOOOOOME!!) One leads the other two, so it's a rondo of welcome.

"Oh, uh, a honey lemon tea, please, hot."

"We don't do honey lemon hot. It's too blfdsufiofdfsse (unrecognized Chinese words)."

"Ah. Well, what kinds of hot tea do you have?"

"Here's the menu (pointing.) This is the column for hot teas, like black tea."

"Oh, which ones are popular?" Desperately trying not to reveal that I'm illiterate.

"Well, we have icovuaernae, and vjfidosfje."

"Ah, can I have the first one?" Success.

"Sure, how much sugar should we add? Here's the sugar chart. (Pointing at something with numbers and decimals.)"

"Oh, um, not a lot of sugar." Gah, not success.

"Well, that type of tea isn't very good with only a little sugar. It makes the flavor more tacky. Sticks to your teeth."

"Okay... then with normal sugar." Eyes dilating.

"Excellent choice!"

"Great." Turning to wait, relieved.

"And normal temperature? Or we could make it room temperature."

"YES, normal temperature. Oh wait, and can you add bubbles?"

"We're out of the big ones now; are the small bubbles okay?"

"Sure."

"Here's a mini sample of tea while you're waiting." (With about 50 grams of sugar in it.)

5 minutes later, amidst sugar vibrations.

"Here's your tea. The small straw will allow the small bubbles to be sucked up, but be careful that you don't choke to death on them."

"Okay, thanks." Turning to return to my double parked car.

They chase me away with, in rondo: "GUANG LAAAAAAAANG." "guang laaaang."

Hong Kong

New favorite city. S., I am so upset with you for not telling me I should move there before I decided to podunk it to Taichung. It's just foreign enough to feel like I'm in a foreign country, but incredibly easy to navigate. The transportation system is New York's, only cleaner and possibly more efficient, and everyone speaks a bit of English although the general language is Cantonese. SoHo feels like London, and its population breakdown is more European than Chinese. So, essentially, I love Hong Kong because it's easier and more familiar. I guess I'm getting soft in my old age.

Statue of my uncle on the walk of stars.

It was really nice to be back in a cosmopolitan city, too. I didn't realize how much I missed living somewhere where things are usually clean, and there are upscale restaurants and bars. And I know that I'm not supposed to like trendy, but I do like trendy. I miss being somewhere I can pop into an H and M and run out with something relatively fashionable and cheap. I kept on saying that I belonged there, but even more so than New York. New York is my favorite city, but Hong Kong is easier. New York will kick your ass. Hong Kong will pretend to kick it, but then take you home to a nice dinner anyway. My favorite parts were going for a drink at Felix, a super trendy and incredibly small bar in 28th floor restaurant in the Sheraton building, dinner at a cute tapas place in Soho, and getting my hair done plus a mani / pedi at a place S. recommended. At one point, I had five people attending to me in the salon, and I felt like I should be going to some awards show in a mostly glitter catsuit or something. I'm usually not someone who goes for the chic chic (am I?); I've been going to the same Vietnamese 10 dollar hair place in San Jose for years. But this, this was worth it.

And seriously, the best dim sum I've had in my life.

The tango was super cool, too. Well, not super super cool, but super cool. The community is approximately the same size as the Taiwan one, perhaps a little bigger, but they're more into nuevo there, which was a welcome switch. I love salon tango the most, but I've been doing the same steps for four months. I've been thinking more about embellishments, so it's fine, and I do love me some salon tango, but it's refreshing to be dancing a different style. Also, the men there are willing to take me out for a spin and some are higher level than those in Taiwan. I'm working my way into the advanced crowd here though (but am I, really?), so it's getting better, but the HK crowd gave me a shot immediately. I danced three nights in a row, which was like settling back into an familiar upscale sweater. I do love me some trendy sometimes.

Traveling by funicular to the bigget buddha in... somewhere.


Bar / Club scene is fabulous too. I guess I haven't tried to go somewhere nice for a while... there are definitely upscale clubs in Taipei, but I'm too lazy and alone there to try to find people to go with, and mostly I like clubs for dancing as opposed to ambience or crowd. We ended up in an area that should be called European row, since that was the population there. People were soooo cool and dressed well, and as for man-watching, it was like being in a gay bar... super well groomed and beautiful. But straight. :) We ended up in a kinda secret place called Drop that was a fabulous place to dance. I think the dj was good (although at that point, I wasn't necessarily in a state to tell), and the crowd was awesome, and it was a fun night, to say the least. :)

I didn't want to come here. I thought it was a waste of time. I kept trying and trying to convince myself that it wasn't, that it was good for me, that I was going to get to "discover my roots," (on the count of three: CLICHE), get to know my family, blardy blar blar. It was only for two years, after all. Two years pass quick, and then I can be on to bigger and better things, like dancing tango every night, duh. But all of that justification, and I still couldn't answer the question, "So do you like it here?" I just kind of waved my hand and said something along the lines of, it's not whether I enjoy being here or not, it's that I'm used to it and it feels normal, like anywhere you've lived. But no, of course I didn't like it here. Why would I?

I had just left Buenos Aires, which was coming home, with the milongas and the familiarity: same stores, same organization, the Spanish finally clicking. Left New York, my home for seven years, just three or four shy of being a "new yorker," just left trapeze and its beloved affiliates, just left my tango lessons and partners, just left all my friends and the food and popping out of a subway stop and knowing _exactly_ where I needed to go because I just cross the street toward the B and N, past the coffee shop, kitty corner from the store with the blue awning, _that_ direction. Knowing the landmarks. Knowing where the public restrooms are within five blocks. How could I leave that for Taiwan, of all places?

Some of my friends expressed surprise at my coming here. "You? Taiwan?" their eyebrows raised in disbelief. I was like, "What?! I can be Asian." And they were like, "well, you just didn't seem the type, that's all." And they're right. I'm not the type.

But now maybe I'm closer. I love living in a country where I look like everyone else. I don't have to worry about double takes (unless I'm wearing my purse strap across my torso, in which case it's just outright boob staring. Men here don't do it so much, so they're not as adept as hiding it.), don't have to worry about someone bothering me or targeting me because I'm yellow, like yelling konichiwa or nihao, or better yet, ching chong or cheeeeena at me. I feel... normal. For the first time, in any country. I know, i know, I've lived in China, but now, my Mandarin is better, and the culture is different, like they kind of have manners, which sincerely surprised me. (Just don't get behind the wheel of a car.)

And I like being just outside of society. E. once told me that that's what she liked about being an expat; you're a little outside, so you can do whatever you want without seeming too weird. You can do activities they would just blink at stateside, because you're not one of them, just the crazy American and besides, you can't even read Chinese. I like that. I have an excuse for feeling just enough outside that I am completely myself. I'm not sure if that's what E. meant, but that's what I mean.

beach tango

I know, I know, you keep asking for pictures / videos of me dancing, and I have nothing. Well, now I have SOMETHING. Actually, it's not much, so perhaps it's more like something. But I like the something that I unabashedly cribbed from my friend's facebook page, although he doesn't know it... yet. Anyway, with so much ado about nothing, here's a picture of me dancing tango with D. on the beach in Tainan.

It was a nice dance.

Vertical Tango

So, there's not much tango here. What tango there is exists in Taipei, which is an hour away by high speed rail, two hours by train, and three by bus, depending on how much money you're williing to spend and whether you have anything better to do with that time. I'm don't, and I'm cheap. Besides, I kind of like transportation. Regular trains are best, because you get the best view and there's a bathroom handy and you can just sit for two hours, daydream, decompress and listen to your ipod. Unless, of course, you buy a "standing if there aren't free seats" ticket and you end up standing for two hours with your nose in some dude's armpit. (Random anecdote: A friend of mine mentioned using deodorant as a teaching tool for the elasticity of economics, in that there are some products you would continue to buy even if the price increased a great deal. Deodorant doesn't work for that example here.)

Anyway, tango. Nope, not much. Funny how something that was part of my life daily for months, and the whole of my life daily for one month, suddenly drops off the radar. I mean, the concept still elicits beeps from my radar, but they are wistful, and now resigned beeps. There are milongas on Wednesday (can't get there and back and then teach the next day), and Saturday, and sometimes somehow there seems to be too much going on in podunk Taichung or in my head for me to make it up on Saturdays. And it's hard to get a dance. I fall into the category of unknown intermediate dancer, and more than half of the people there have been dancing for at least five years, so it's been tough. I always enjoy myself when I do go, but psych myself out in between bouts. And also... tango has always filled a perceived void. My friend B. (Yes, that's you, B.) said that everyone who dances tango has emotional problems, and I agree. But for me, that void is a) shrinking and / or b) filled by other things, so I am not so desperate for a dance any more. I love tango too much to know whether that's a good thing. In the end, I've been going up a couple times a month, and I am determined to whore myself out to Argentina again next summer.

And I've been dancing salsa. Just a couple times so far, but most recently I've signed up for an 8 week course. I am not particularly enamoured of salsa... it is fun, but it is not tango. But the class is easy contact with friendly locals, and I've wondered how to make friends with non-gringos. And it's definitely good for my ego. I've taken a couple salsa classes before, so have a vague idea of what I'm doing, and what with the dance background (I am a dancer?!) and my relative pliability compared to Taiwanese, am the class pet. I even got an unsolicitied discount for the course, because I am the wondrous American creature, and they like that. And right now, I need that ego boost.

To Illustrate...

Coming home...

So I turn on the radio in the car yesterday, on the way back from being lost again and driving around half understanding the signs that I'm seeing (well, this character looks like that part of this character, so let me try to remember the second character because I need to turn on the street with the second character as the second character out of three and the other word that also looks like hui. right.)(Now you see why I get lost), and the only English station in Taiwan has a dj who's speaking... CHINGLISH. I was like wow, that is really awesome. Like, comforting awesome. Like, I want to cuddle up with his words like a security blanket and wrap them all around me because it sounds like I've come home. The dj did half the band interview in English, throwing in phrases like, "I'm gonna run out and..." and "That's hella awesome." I'm sure he did it in order to up the "cool" quotient, since he was interviewing a silverchair-y band that probably didn't respond in a word of English. Granted, I still didn't understand 40 percent of what he was saying in Chinese, but I could pick up a few new words here and there based on the Chinglish context and... it was nice. Despite all of my language griping, I still have it pretty good here, considering most of the signs contain at least one word of English, including the phonetically anglicized street signs. I wish that everyone would speak Chinglish to me. If it ever gets cold here, I could wrap myself up in that with a cup of hot cocoa, and I would be good to go.

on driving

I feel like my status updates usually tell it all: Driving is more like the flow of water here than anything else. Lanes quickly appear and disappear, as do other cars and especially scooters. Pulling away from the stoplight the other day, I was suddenly overtaken by a flock of 15 or 20 scooters, and their movement was erratic but somehow collective, like birds flying. My friend P. was driving directly in front of me, and she said to herself, don't look at the scooters, don't look at the scooters. We made it to the mall without creating roadkill.

P. said it best when she said that todo es intuicion. If there is a space, then you fill the space. If there is a left turn lane, but you can create your own from the middle lane, then do it. People also do that to me as I'm heading out onto the street from a parking lot. A car will pull up alongside, and then quickly turn out in front, while my pansy-a** self is still waiting for a break in the traffic. People incessantly fill spaces around me.

Mostly it is the lane changes that are surprising. Instead of having a separate lane, the left lane _is_ the turn lane whenever there's an intersection. So if you drive on the left inevitably you get stuck behind a line of cars wanting to turn, whereas the right lane charges on. Of course, you could drive in the right lane, but it's slower, technically the scooter lane and it's hard to drive with a one pacing you a foot to the right. So people slip back and forth between lanes, changing so often that there's not much of a point in using the turn signal.

Lanes also turn suddenly... the paint for the lane all of a sudden makes 45 degree spurt, and unless you're paying close attention to the lines, all of a sudden you're drifting into another lane, just like everyone else. There are sudden lane merges, such as at an intersection where there are two lanes on one side and one on the other, effectively rendering the merge at the middle of the intersection. And you can't pay close attention to the lines, because you're too busy looking up at the signal lights, which are horizontal and go from red, yellow, green, yellow, red. That means that yellow could be either slow down or get ready to go, and if you're not watching steadily then you don't know which. Also, they turn off the signal lights later at night so they just flash yellow yellow yellow and you can meander (or charge, depending on how taiwanese you are) through the intersections. So who knows what yellow really means.*

But amidst all of this whining, I have to admit that I am turning into a Taiwanese driver... I think I might have been a little in the first place, as it's almost intuicion to turn when there are no cars, rather than waiting for an insignificant turn signal. And my lane changes have always been swishy. I got it from mah momma, whose lane changes are accompanied by a rush of g-force. It's kind of nice to know that my mother's idiosyncracies that have an origin. It's the whole country, not just her.

*But really, who knows what yellow really means?

Random quote, unabashedly stolen from the tango hong kong website

"Music reveals a personal past which, until then, each of us was unaware of, moving us to lament misfortunes we never suffered and wrongs we did not commit. For myself, I confess that I cannot hear ‘El marne’ or ‘Don Juan’ [two tangos] without remembering in detail an apocryphal past, simultaneously stoic and orgiastic, in which I have challenged and fought, in the end to fall silently in an obscure knife -fight. Perhaps this is the tango’s mission: to give Argentines the belief in a bravepast, in having met the demands of honour and bravery." — Jorge Luis Borges

on language

Living overseas, you're subjected to a variety of accents amongst English speakers. Obviously, I'm getting chink mostly here ("sank you velly much," and "me ruv you rong time")(just kidding)(about the first one), but there's the occasional other that throws me for a loop. We had a meeting today with someone from an outside educational institution (read: I'm afraid to name the organization for fear of getting sued, or worse, hurting this poor woman's feelings), who appeared to have an Australian accent. But there was something wrong with it. At first I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on. I must have looked as if I were concentrating intensely on the vocabulary lesson she was describing, when in fact I was figuring out that...

she was British with a speech impediment.

"Alwight then, ay suppose that you would wont to mix the wessons togethew so that they would have weeding and whiting at the same time, is that wite?"

yowzah.

In other language news, I am getting along alright in Chinese, although I am reminded again and again that I do not come from here. Everyone from the human resources staffperson to the drive-thru window attendant at McDonalds asks me slyly where I'm from. It's usually phrased like, "You're from the mainland, right?" But when I lived in Qing Dao (on the mainland), everyone was like, "You're from Taiwan, right?"

Sometimes once I explain that I'm an abc, they're like ooooh, that's exactly what you sound like. But no one is able to answer the question of what an abc sounds like. What words do I say differently? Is my accent completely off? Is the fact that I'm nodding as if I understand you while I have no idea what you're saying until you ask me a question and I just do the peremptory laugh thing instead of answering your question, is that what tipped you off? I know that there are words that I mispronounce, like I say kwai(4) zi(5) for cabinet instead of guai(4) zhi(5), (or the other way around?!) but I didn't know I sounded like a goddamn american-born chinese. At least I can go incognito until I open my mouth. But I did that in Argentina too.

I'm sure it's at least partly due to my muddling around in conversations because I can't figure out what's going on. When I first got here, I needed to get some tiger balm for my mosquito bites, which is wan(4) jin(2) you(2) in Chinese. So I went into the pharmacy, and I knew there was a "w" sound at the beginning of the word and there were at least a couple characters, so I asked for wei(4) jin(2). That means msg. So apparently, I went into a pharmacy and asked for monosodium glutamate. The pharmacist looked at me a bit oddly, and I explained that it was a balm for mosquito bites, and eventually I got what I wanted. Then he was like, "So where are you from?"

Similarly, the other day I was at a bubble tea stand. I have to admit the I love living in the city that invented bubble tea. Not great for the waistline, but WHO CARES? :) I was in line behind someone who ordered a honey bubble tea, so I did too. Only, I got the word order wrong, so instead of a honey bubble tea, I ordered a bee bubble tea.

Finally, and this is my crowning glory, Parent / Teacher night. (And it's nice to be able to say parent, or mother, as opposed to your parent or guardian because your mom's cracked out and disappeared 5 years ago and you live with your grandmother or an aunt or get shuffled around) a mother just came in and was chatting with me, and all friendly and establishing comraderie and stuff, and her parting words were like, no matter how good we (as in she and I, We Taiwanese ) get in English, we still won't be as good as the whites. And then she quickly said goodbye and walked out the door. As soon as she closed the door, I was like, "Wait... but...."

Welcome to the motherland.

Roadkill, Taiwan Style

I'm embarrassed. I was the barking coach yesterday. I didn't mean to, but I was all fired up about the game, and I didn't know how volleyball worked here (Three timeouts per team per game? Is that six timeouts? Isn't that a lot of timeouts? THAT WAS A LIFT. CALL IT REF, THAT WAS A LIFT. Timeout, timeout!!!) (sigh). Now I know why when you see coaches at professional games on tv, they're hunched over while sitting on the bench, as close to the court as they can get without getting off the bench. They're trying to make sure that the girls DON'T LET THE BALL DROP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOT AGAIN.

In better news though, the varsity team only got mildly smashed. I was so impressed. Even if they never blocked (never been taught, yikes), and rarely hit (although still well), it was not so bad at all. We were up against the "elite" school, with their well muscled volleyball legs, and when they started playing their warm-up music mix, I was terrified. Alright, I was terrified when I walked into their air-conditioned gym, since we don't have one. (Neither gym nor air conditioning in a gym.) I was terrified when I saw that their coach was efficiently running them through drills before the game. I was terrified when I saw that their setter could backset. I thought: fluck. This is going to be ugly.

But it wasn't so ugly at all. The girls played hard and scrabbled for their points, and when we walked out, they were like, we only lost by 12! Yay!

And they forgave my barking.

locusts

No, not my students. I saw the world's biggest grasshopper ever, today. It was dead on the ground, missing a leg, but regardless the body was a good three inches long and an inch wide. I mentioned it to one of my kids, and she told this fabulous story about a similar animal. She and her family were driving along the highway, and one alighted on the windshield. Her father, the driver, wanted a closer look so he opened the window, stuck his hand out and grabbed it, bringing it into the car. He had one hand on the steering wheel and another in a fist with the grasshopper in it, and tried to hand it to another family member to hold onto it until they got home. His wife shrieked and slapped at it, and it flew back toward him. Its head came off when she hit it, but the nerves were still going, so the head and the body were jumping around, separately. I guess it's kind of the Taiwanese version of running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

No, I didn't play for the Stanford volleyball team

I had to admit that to my students today. It's funny how the value system is different here... it's all about what school I went to. I've been outted and touted by (Taiwanese) staff members conversationally and at a parent association meeting, and a week into school I was already contacted by a mother of one of my drama students, who was like, it's great that there's a Stanford grad teaching drama. (Does Stanford have a good drama department? God knows I wasn't a big part of it.) I'm not even sure how well known the school is here; mom insists that Cal is better known. (CAL SUCKS.) But I mean, if it helps the school sell me, or me sell myself, well then. Then. SOLD to the highest bidder. Anyway, as soon as one kid found out here, it was _all over_ the senior class (since I'm their senior seminar teacher, ie. please god let them get into a college, any college, or it's on my head). And of course, they naturally assumed since I'm the volleyball coach, that I played for the Stanford volleyball team. You know, the one that Kerry Walsh played for. ha. Maybe I should've just said, yeah, I did. But at least I haven't yet told them that I only played frosh / soph in high school. hahahahahaha. joke's on me, kids.

In other news, coaching volleyball is going just fine, despite my recoiling when the activities director asked me to do it. ("Uh, I have to be very very honest with you, Jo., I'm really a mediocre volleyball player. Serious." "It's okay, I'll print out drills and stuff for you to do during the practices. Great, be on the courts on Monday.") At least I play better than the kids do. Bit dicey there for a moment. *sigh* I thought that the school just had JV and JV B team, but our first practice the activities director came to us, and said, "Good news, girls! We have enough for a Varsity and JV team this year!" A bunch of the girls, all seniors, came to me after practice and were like, "Uh, we're really not varsity level players." But only one senior is allowed on the court at a time during JV games. So even though ultimately I gave them the choice, I "persuaded" them that even if we get crushed, they will play better and badder. Which they will. And they will also get squished, if varsity here is anything at all like the states. I think we better go out for ice cream or something after the first game. Something like crack.

I have the compunction...

One of my kids used the word "compunction" in regular classroom conversation today. HOLY GUACAMOLE what does that word even mean?! Whole different ballgame folks, whoooole different ballgame.

Note to Self

"To me, it's a battle of wits. You can't pretend you don't have that baggage, so the best thing to do is just use it all. The older one gets, laughter becomes the only available option."
-- Steve Coogan, British comedian

"... to become a 'spectator of one's own life... is to escape the suffering of life.' "
-- Oscar Wilde (as quoted in the "New Yorker," Nov. 5, 2007

The Mosquito Bait Has Landed

"Travel pursues romance, and romance requires the unknown - an element in shorter supply now that technology is encompassing the world with ever-multiplying pings. The goal is not only to arrive at some numinous, far-off destination; it's to return to your usual place clothed in exciting unfamiliarity: you're the boy with lived with pirates, the girl brought back from the wilderness who has grown so accustomed to Indian life she has to be coaxed away. A key element here is the cool impression made on one's friends." -- Ian Frazier, "A Kielbasa Too Far"


So I'm here, safe and sound, ish. Only 15 mosquito bites so far. They get me, only and abundantly me, out of our group of 9 new teachers, if we're standing outside.

The airplane ride over was extremely Chinese. They showed this exercise video, for lack of a better term, at the beginning of the flight which had me gaping in disbelief. Hilarious. There were two people doing exercises that were meant to keep blood clots from forming in your legs, etc. The neck rolling dude had the most elastic neck I had ever seen (useful for...?), and smiled continually as if he were on the verge of orgasm. I wish I could get that much out of neck rolls. The woman was anorexic looking and really really pale (ie. pinnacle of Chinese standard of beauty), and had these long witchy fingers which she stretched out at you and she did her arm exercises.

My apartment is INCREDIBLE. If I knew that I could do this well as a high school teacher, I would've gone into teaching a long time ago. Or better yet, gotten the fluck out of the country a long time ago. It's bigger than my Bulgarian apartment, which was sizeable, but this one is only a year old and monstrous. Two bedrooms, good size bathroom, awesome white tile floors, AC in each room, dishdryer (wtf?!), full kitchen, my own goddamn full size fridge (unlike in Bulgaria, or in New York, for that matter), a stove that provides heat immediately (as opposed to 20 minutes, unlike Bulgaria), comes with some couches and bureaus. I have arrived.

The language stuff is much less of a problem than I thought. I figured it would be the same ego-crushing experience as I had when I lived on the mainland in QingDao, where they looked at me as if I was a FREAK when I explained in my perfect accent that I didn't understand what they were saying. Well, not a freak, but REALLY FREAKIN' DUMB. Here, they look surprised, a little wondrous, what is this fantastic creature? and then they explain what I asked them about. It's pretty cool. I thought the language would be an issue with buying stuff and other service issues as well, but nope. I can just talk around something until I get what I want. Awesome.

This all leads to a non-foreign feeling, which is fabulous, but also a bit disappointing. What is it with me and being disappointed with the familiarity in new countries? (new?) I love that I feel like a native here... I almost pass as one, and on the street, no one gives me a second glance. But at the same time, I guess I was hoping for that awkwardness and excitement of a new country. I like the uncertainty, and there doesn't seem to be much of that here. Of course, I haven't ventured alone out of my apartment yet, so we have yet to test any theories, but we shall see.

In the mall I got some double takes, I guess because I was wearing gap-y kind of stuff, and they were dressed like friggin' Japanese tourists. (sorry, k.) Crimped, orange hair, lots of makeup, dark knee high socks with sneakers and a little white skirt? Ah, and the hipsters are here, or at least their dark framed rectangular glasses have arrived in abundance. Juuuust can't get away from Williamsburg, can I?

Here's a link to the Frazier piece, in case you want to read the awesome short story from which the quote comes: (http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200608/staying-healthy-travel-rules-1.html)

8/11/08

So I met all the family this weekend. They were cool, I guess. I could understand mostly what they were saying when I spoke to them one-on-one, but all gathered around the dinner table I've got about 50% of what's going on. I can pretty much figure out the subject of conversation though. Maybe. They were really nice and someone would do comprehension checks with me every once in a while ("... do you understand what's going on? Well, we're talking about how if you shoot someone a sexy look, then...") It's hard to figure out where a mid-rank cousin fits in. I finally hung out with big aunt's kids, the older guy and girl (there's one more guy), and little aunt's kids. We went to tainan (southern city) on sunday and ate a LOT, like the cousins were going there just to eat, talk about _my kind of people_, and I got the traveler's illness. hahahahaha. sigh.

In other news, my grandpa's pretty old. They've told him like 500 times that I was coming to Taiwan for two years, and he was still surprised when I showed up. He was like, how long are you staying, and I was like, two years, and he was like really?! sigh. all the other aunts and uncles are like, how long is the contract for, and i'm like two years, and they're like, so you're going to extend it, right? they're like, can you continue at the school afterwards (as if that's an imminent possibility). and in my head i'm like, HELLZ NO FLUCK ALL YA'LL. I'M OUT.