Goodbye... For Now

Coming to Taiwan, I had many expectations, hopes and dreams.  I expected to that the people would be a lot nicer in Taiwan.  I hoped that I would meet many awesome people that would encourage me to come back.  I dreamed that I could discover something about myself that I just could not do in the United States.  These are just a few of the things I expected, hoped and dreamed for; and they all came true. 

    My time here in for the past three weeks has been nothing short of amazing!  The environment, the smells from the night market food carts, the atmosphere the people give off and so much more, exceeded my expectations.  I was absolutely shocked by how cheap everything is here relative to the United States.  The MRT was probably the biggest shock to me.  Compared to Los Angeles, it is literally a godsend.  LA recently just constructed their first public trains and they are beyond sub- par to the MRT in scope and efficiency.  The food here is absolutely fantastic.  Most places seemingly cater towards one type of dish, such as ramen or Taiwanese fried chicken.  They perfect their craft and create lovely dishes that taste awesome and are cheap to buy.  Way to often you will walk into a restaurant in the United States and just be swarmed with options simply because the establishment wants to cater to everyone.  I appreciate that places here simply want to master one type of dish and that the customers come to the restaurant knowing full well what to expect.  I love all the people that I have met here in my short time.  Thank God for Facebook because now we can easily keep in touch.  I truly hope that when I come back again they will still be here to show me around, especially without the hindrances of an official study abroad program. 

            I will miss this country and all that it has to offer.  There is such a unique culture blend of East and West here that I personally feel no other country can provide.  My time here has opened my eyes to the greater world around me.  I feel older now, more mature and more prepared to tackle the world outside of the confines of the United States.  The perceptions of myself from the point of view of my new Taiwanese friends has encouraged me to be more outgoing and more willing to try new exciting things.  For example, I ate a lot of things at the night markets we visited that I generally would try my best to avoid.  However, since I was in Taiwan, I was more willing to give new things a try and have absolutely no regrets about them.  I have grown in my short time here, and I truly hope that my next visit to this lovely country will continue to make me a stronger and better person. 

Martial Arts and Chilling with the Natives

Well this weekend was pretty interesting.  As a group, we visited the cities of Yilan and Hualien.  At Yilan, we stayed on a farm that was "so nature."  This place was subsidized by the government to establish an area where students had an obligation to learn about the environment.  We did these DIY projects which I personally felt were geared more towards someone who may be about 17 years younger then I am right now.  While the sky lanterns were kind of cool, it didn't help the fact that all the other people making the lanterns were these families with extremely young children.  I felt they were somewhat a waste of time, and would have preferred to just go out in the area and explore on our own. However, the one redeeming factor in all of this was the martial arts demonstration.

I was first told by the New Zealander on the farm, Jerry, about this demonstration that evening.  I was really excited since this would be the first instance of seeing martial arts since I have been in Taiwan.  The martial arts demonstration was more traditional compared to what I do, which is more contemporary.  I volunteered to go up to kick a bag and managed to send the bag flying with an extremely fast jumping kick.  I am actually kind of sad that no one got a picture of it, because they said I kicked way too fast.  After the whole demonstration, Dr Liu insisted that I perform a short demonstration as well.  I obliged since why not? I have done this for 11 years, have taught my martial art for some years now and can basically perform it on a whim.  I introduced myself all in Chinese, which really seemed to make a lot of people in the crowd very happy, probably because they did not expect it.  I performed an improvised 長拳和南拳 routine and everyone was apparently really into it.  I was really in the zone when I was performing and paid very little attention to my surroundings save for making sure I didn't hit anything in my general vicinity.  According to everyone afterwards, the other martial arts students were gawking at me and their master was yelling along with my form.  What I was most impressed was that the Master was very into me performing.  Traditionally, I know many martial arts masters do not approve of foreigners learning the Chinese martial arts, especially crashing a performance their school is conducting.  I thought that whole experience was very cool and have no regrets performing their.

In Hualien, the biggest stop on our itinerary was going to see an aboriginal performance.  I had very mixed feelings about it.  On one hand, I wanted to learn more about the indigenous culture of the island.  On the other hand, I felt the performance was not a very accurate representation.  Similar to Native Americans in the United States, their culture has become commercialized in an attempt to simply make money.  I am not sure if I learned anything that was honestly the truth.  Although it was fun to participate in the show twice and I did get to practice my Chinese with the performers.

I am very sick and tired of the sheer large amount of seafood that I have engorged myself on since I have been to Taiwan.  If there is anything I miss about the United States is the diversity of food that I can experience.  I will get an extremely large steak when I get back and douse myself in greasy goodness like a good American.

I am entering my last week in Taiwan.  There is so much I still want to do but I don't know if I can.  My biggest concern is that I will never be able to experience the Taiwanese night life.  I really want to go to a bar/ club, mingle with the locals more and have more downtime to explore.  I find it completely ridiculous that our dorm locks its doors at 11:30pm.  I am 21, a grown man and am fully capable of taking care of myself and others if need be.  I have learned over the years that binge drinking is a terrible idea and I really just want to go out late at night to compare it to my experiences in the United States.  Are young people here just as belligerent and irresponsible like in the United States, or are they more responsible and reserved?  There are so many things I want to know about people my age here that is being stifled.  There is a large chunk of Taiwan that I am unable to experience due to the rigid schedule and due the fact that the place we are staying at keeps a tight leash on us as if we are pre-teens with daddy issues.  If anything, this may force me to come back on my own time so I can experience the part of Taiwan that is systematically being denied to me.

That being said, in the coming days I will try to experience all I can so that I can get as much out of this trip as possible.  These three weeks were just a small taste of all that I can experience if I were to come back in the future.  And knowing me, I will most definitely come back.

My Fellow Foreigners in a Foreign Country

Taiwan is a huge hub for international travel, study and vacationing.  Taipei's status as a huge cosmopolitan center has allowed me to interact with people from other countries.  Even just within our our dorm building there are people from Australia, Brazil, Mainland China and other places I have never even been too.  Interacting with my fellow foreigners has been a very interesting experience.

I have noticed a lot of Mainland Chinese people here, which makes sense since the two countries are so close to each other.  My prior experience interacting with people from the mainland has allowed me to distinguish between them and the natives of Taiwan.  They can be pretty quirky at times, but I am used to that.  I have noticed that they many mainlanders that we run into as a group take pictures of us like we are a tourist attraction.  I am somewhat flattered and don't really mind but that is just my personal opinion.  Many mainlanders have also come up to me to ask directly where I am from.  I always answer their questions immediately in Chinese and they seem to brighten up immediately when I do and become more friendly.  If anything, they seem to really appreciate that an American has taken the time and dedication to learning their native language.  When I tell them I do 武術 (Wushu) as well, that is basically the icing on the cake.  It is pretty interesting to interact with them and I do plan to travel to China at some point in the near future while I am still young.

The people in my class are all diverse and friendly.  I feel very lucky to have such awesome classmates that are so open and engaging.  Some of them I have already friended on Facebook even.  They are all from other Asian countries such as: South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam.  In fact, the Indonesian student is the first Indonesian person I have ever met.  I really hope to stay in touch with these people in the future because they are all so interesting and fun.

This weekend we are traveling to the East side of Taiwan.  The area is known for having aboriginal tribes in the area.  My knowledge of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan only stems from the Japanese era of occupation.  I am very interested in learning more about them, because as a history major, I always want to learn more.

Foreign Gods

This weekend, I prayed to other gods.  As a general whole I am not a very religious person anymore.  Being a history major, I know too much about the historical contexts of many of the world’s major religions.  Growing up die- hard Jewish, I know way too much about my families chosen religion and have thus become disillusioned with it when questions I had were simply answered with weird stares and the usual, “it just is.”  There is a certain truth to the idea that ignorance is bliss.  That being said, I have not had first experience with the major religions stemming from East Asia.  I was extremely interested in learning more about Daoism and Buddhism. 

            Daoism is an actual Chinese religion that I did not know much about.  The only thing I knew beforehand was that it has constantly competed with Confucianism throughout Chinese history.  All the gods in the religion are actually Chinese in nature, unlike Buddhism.  I saw similarities between the two.  Both use incense in their rituals.  However, unlike Jewish prayer services that take up to an hour on average to complete, Daoist prayers can simply take a few seconds.  In addition, as far as I can tell you can pray at your own convenience.  In Judaism, you must pray at certain times of the day and the week.  There is a certain convenience in the swiftness of the prayer services.  I was elated to learn more about Daoism since I did not know as much about it unlike Buddhism. 

            Buddhism has always intrigued me.  In my mind, it skirts the boundary of being a full-fledged religion and occupies the space between religion and philosophy.  It differs from many religions in that the path to fulfillment in the context of Buddhism does not require another human being to officiate your life.  In Catholicism, a priest must officiate the services and confessions in order to benefit the self.  In Judaism, you local rabbi dictates what is right, what is wrong and how you life should be led in the context of a certain view of Judaism.  Buddhism preaches self- enlightenment, something that has always intrigued me.  I have always been off put by the idea that your local religious leader makes the law that you must adhere to lest the greater community shun you.  I know there are different sects of Buddhism but you do not necessarily need to be apart of them to be considered a Buddhist. 

            The coming week will be spent ever improving my Chinese.  My fellow classmates and I have made a great impression in our class and we may start hanging out with our fellow classmates from other countries.  Our only language link is Chinese, so this experience should be very interesting. 

新年快樂！！！

Since I have been in this lovely country, I have done my best to get myself into strange situations in order to see things from a different point- of- view.  That being said, I decided to sit in and watch my roommate, Josh, get a haircut in Taipei.

The whole process took about one and a half hours, which says a lot already.  These hair salon people took great care and pride in their job.  They meticulously made sure everything was absolutely perfect to the tee.  In a sense, they demonstrated great 功夫（Gong fu).  There is a misconception that 功夫 only means Chinese martial arts.  In fact, the term encompasses an acquired mastery in any skill or talent.  I feel some would argue that maybe they just care about having a great appearance, but that in a sense is the same thing as caring.  They wanted their customers to have a good time and enjoy their service.  I have taken my sister for her $60 haircuts and what I have seen there does not compare to the salons here.  This also applied to our tour guide at the Chiang- Kai Shek memorial.  I have not heard "my honor" and "my pleasure" used in a sentence in the United States for far too long.  It was refreshing and brought a smile to my face.

I have noticed that a volunteer work is pretty big in this country.  Growing up in Los Angeles, my family was actively apart of the Jewish community there.  Being both Chinese and Jewish, I have noticed many similarities between the two cultures.   Of the utmost importance to both of these cultures is the family unit.  Within the Jewish community, the family extends further and encompasses the whole Jewish community.  Growing up, I was active and still am, in volunteering my time to organizations that needed help.  I have noticed that many young people in Taiwan are also encouraged to volunteer.  I find this fascinating that both cultures I relate push forth the idea to give back to the larger community they are apart of.

We are all going to the southern part of Taiwan this coming weekend.  I don't know much about that area of Taiwan save for its history and am very excited to see how it compares to the culture and people in the north.  Are people in the south more traditionally Chinese?  Or are they perhaps more influenced by something else altogether?  I can only imagine at this point.  My hope is that the south is very different in its culture.  I have this idea that Taiwan is a very diverse land with all kinds of inhabitants and I believe I will not be disappointed.