Yesterday

To start at the end: I didn't update last night because I was engaged in a harrying game of Kill Doctor Lucky until about 3:00 AM. Kill Doctor Lucky is a board game that is in some ways the anti-Clue: the players must all maneuver themselves and Doctor Lucky into rooms in which they won't be seen while they slaughter the latter with implements such as the Broomstick and - in this case, the winning weapon - the Tight Hat. Other players try to stop the murder by keeping Doctor Lucky in their line of sight or by using Failure Cards - but only in an attempt to save the kill for themselves.

Yesterday was really about two things: ICLP testing and language partners.

ICLP placement testing was like a karate chop to the kidneys. I thought the oral part went well, though they were definitely tailoring their questions to my level to some extent, but the written test was absolutely humiliating. I realize that it's meant to place people into multiple levels, which range from mine (beginner/intermediate) to several levels higher. That being said, I've never left 3/4 of the answers blank on a test before. I think I could have done slightly better on the reading comprehension had I studied (there were a handful of characters that I know we learned but whose meaning I forgot), but I don't know that it would have made a significant difference.

My language partners were great, though! Raphael set me up for an apartment search for apartments on a Mandarin web site (gotta use some crazy new vocab. excellent.), and took me to eat Guabao, these hot pockets of dough stuffed with meat, some sort of vegetable, and sugar/cinnamon/all things delicious. Then I met Jerry for the first time; he's 24(?) and a grad student in industrial engineering in Taipei, and he speaks significantly faster and with a stronger accent than Raphael. Which I suppose could be good for me in the long run, but right now it's a bit frustrating.

Oh! And... drum roll please... my phone FINALLY WORKS! (I know because I got a spam text message today.) The woman at the near cell phone store has been really good-natured and patient with me, but also fairly inept: I had to come back the first time because she copied my visa instead of my passport, and the second because she finally found the company policy that says I have to be 20. So by the time I returned for the third time, I had my new friend Ma Ye with me, who is over 20 and was able to buy back the very same SIM card for me with his ID.

A bunch of us then went to the bar - Beavis (a guy who works at the hostel), Ma Ye (Beavis's friend; also, see above), Maxim (a 30-year-old freelance journalist from Montreal), Melanie (a German who's lived in Taiwan about a year, also 30). It was rather smoky but I had a great time; I think bars are much more my scene than clubs. I talked with Maxim a lot. He told me that he doesn't see any shortage of work for freelancers in the future, and that his earnings every month are actually pretty steady, and he has more freedom to cover what he wants than a salaried reporter might get. There are also drawbacks to freelancing, though: he can't cover anything higher up in the food chain than local politics (you tend to need credentials from a good paper, the right connections, and a home base in the capital, he says), and sadly he also can't do much serious investigative journalism, because it takes a long time and if it doesn't pan out then you're not earning anything at all for those weeks you've spent on it. Some more of Beavis's friends came by and we had a great time, just talking in Chinglish and all.

And that, 朋友們, was my day.

Uneventful, but Relaxing

Today was just... beach. Glorious, glorious Fulong Beach. Very chill; the wind made it the perfect temperature; not much designated swimming space, but I just wanted to chill and float a while anyway. I went with Morgan, a girl at the hostel who goes to JMU (in Virginia) and is just staying a few days on her way back from geography "classes/research" in the Philippines. Didn't use a lot of Chinese today, but when I did I was largely successful - and of course I felt great because I was translating for someone! Besides relaxing, we also got to see some pretty big sand sculptures (some with hilarious English translations), and a Daoist (?) temple with the most intricate/numerous ceramics and carvings I've ever seen. I can't even fathom the number of person-hours it must have taken to make/decorate the place. Oh, and for lunch we tried the (apparently famous) Fulong "lunchboxes" (biandan?), which basically consist of a small box-like container of rice topped with a piece each of some different types of meat, tofu, and/or an egg. Quite good, but not worthy of being called "famous," I don't think.

Right now I'm heading out to that club I mentioned, just to see how it is (and because a bunch of hostel folk walked over a few minutes ago). I doubt I'll stay long - that relaxing was apparently very taxing on my body, because I can barely keep my eyes open and it's only 9:30!

~Ethan

P.S. David Demres, a fellow ICLP-er (but, I believe, a sophomore and in L5?) took my recommendation and decided to come stay at the hostel. Still haven't seen him yet - maybe he went to Roxy's with the gang? - but he's around.

P.P.S. Still no camera.

I'm getting an awesome tan and we're watching bad Japanese shows on TV. Maybe I should stay in Taipei for a few months.

Today, too, was full of wandering; I don't expect that to change until a few days before classes start. (Exceptions: placement test day, orientation day... and maybe beach tomorrow with some hostel folks?!) At some point I'm no longer going to have six hours a day free for walking, but until then, I'm loving the meandering. Today I went to the Youth Hub and got ye olde "Travel Buddy" (really just a cell phone), then went to this camera street on a search that was clearly fruitless.

After that, I met my new language exchange partner(!); his name is Raphael, and he's awesome. (Everyone here who's learning English or interacting regularly with English speakers likes to have an English name. His real name: Zhang Jun Suang - I had to look that up, though.) He's an 18-year-old recent high school grad who's studying for the national university entrance exams. We'll be meeting about three times a week for two hours each time - one English, one Chinese. At his suggestion, we're also taking a trip on Sunday, though I have no idea where we're going. He's quite nice, reasonably patient, and very enthusiastic, and I discovered the joys of both beef noodles (牛肉麵／niurou mian; the "mein" of lo mein/etc is a corruption of mian) and some useful menu vocab during the Chinese portion of our meeting today. Tomorrow I'll be meeting with the nurse who wants to talk about the international news... I guess that means I need to get back on top of all those podcasts I stopped listening to two days ago.

After that I headed back to the hostel, took a long walk around to check out an apartment, walked up through part of a huge, beautiful park with a great view of that part of city (撫[?]州山公元) and a few sets of wooden stairs that made my quads remember the White Mountains. The fact that it's just a minute's walk away is a huge plus for the apartment I visited, and I'm definitely going back to the park for a full exploration before classes start. I also got my first good view of Taipei 101, which I really need to visit before I leave if I can fit it into the budget: a trip to the outer deck of the top of the tallest building in the world is something I probably shouldn't pass up while I'm in the neighborhood.

Foods today: another "traditional" (still not sure about this) egg sandwich- type of thing for breakfast, followed by fried bread sticks from a street vendor; beef noodles (mentioned above. absolutely delicious.); and a fiesta of one of my favorite fruits: a pineapple smoothie and a large bag of sliced pineapple, each for the equivalent of about $1.50.

A word about apartments. I could take the one I looked at today: it's nice-looking, a 25-minute walk from TaiDa, and has everything I need - i.e., a bed, a table/desk, high-speed wireless, and air conditioning - but I'm holding out for something cheaper and a little closer to Taipei. If that turns out to be an unrealistic hope, I may be in trouble. But I'm lured on by the excellent 4000NT/mo that someone else at the hostel just found (short-term, too!), which is just slightly over half the price I'd be paying at the place I looked at. With Raphael's help, hopefully I'll find something good...

A longer word about the language. I'm getting better at understanding people, but some aspects of the accent still surprise me and the speed/lack of vocabulary is still a huge problem. About an hour ago I had my most satisfying conversation in Mandarin: a phone inquiry (always harder; no body language to rely on!) about a sign for rental space, which turned out to be intended for a business. Besides that, though, I've been relying on a lot of English, just because it's available. A lot of larger stores have signs in English as well, and the eye (or my eye, at least) is naturally drawn there and away from characters; some folks speak English, like the people at the government youth travelers office, and (somewhat) that prospective landlord; and I've been leaning heavily on the folks at the hostel when I reach an impasse myself - like when I came across those characters that I had this vague intuition might have something to do with apartments for rent (they did!), or when I couldn't understand a landlord on the phone. While I'm a big fan with the speed at which we've learned Chinese at Yale, my inability to read characters in particular is confirming this growing feeling I've had during second semester: we really should learn the radicals and a set of common phonetics in a systematic way. (Also, fun fact: by the end of the first year, they're learning 35 characters a day at Middlebury.) I don't want it to be much more back-breaking than it already is, but is it possible that Yale's program - of which, again, I'm a big fan - could be more efficient? Anyway, that aside, I'm trying to speak as much Chinese as I can, but I just can't bring myself to avoid English help when I feel like it's in my interest - e.g., finding an apartment, or even a translation for a word that I might otherwise not pick up. But is it ultimately against my interest because I'm not truly immersing myself in the language? Feel very free to comment with your thoughts; I'm pretty torn about this, and while I can't always control the situation, I could definitely try harder at the whole solely-Chinese thing.

Now it's time for some Haagen-Dazs (if they're still open), and then shower & bed!

Day Two: wandering

First of all, I really wish I had a camera! Besides the fact that a picture of an alley market really would be worth a thousand words here, I've also come across some situations today that would have made fantastic photos. Tomorrow, though, I hope I'll find one: between Laslo (I'm changing the spelling each time because I really don't know) and one of the hostel workers, a Taibei native, I now have the approximate location of an entire "camera street" marked down on my map.

The day in brief: Woke up at 9; not jet lagged!; hearty and East-meets-West breakfast (turns out "cheese" and "bacon" sound very similar in Chinese); went back to TaiDa to fill out some forms for the program I'll be in (ICLP); set up a time for placement testing (Wednesday morning, 9:40-12:00. oi.); wandered; hit ShiDa night market again and found an excellent, cheap, sophisticated/trendy-looking restaurant and two great "everything stores"; got invited to a weekly hostel outing to Roxy's a club frequented by expats.

Wandering, in full:

When I finished at TaiDa, I decided I wanted to go to the Youth Hub, where they issue free "travel buddies" - which (at least, as best I can understand it...) a

re phones with 30 free minutes and some... information about Taiwan? I remembered when I was about halfway there that some government offices are closed on Mondays, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway - mostly because I often like to have a destination and feel that my walking is purposeful, even though the walking itself is the real purpose.

On the way, I passed through DaAn Senlin Gongyuan （大安森林公园) - Great Peace Forest Park. (DaAn is the name of the district of Taipei in which TaiDa is located.) It was beautiful: rubber trees, clusters of bamboo, hills, an "ecological lake" with turtles sunning themselves in rows along the pipes, a large statue (Buddhist, I think), and a handful of short, peculiar paths embedded with hundreds of rounded stones, each about 3x1.5" and 1-6" apart (depending on the path). One walks along them 

with bare feet, and the result supposedly helps the body in some way: the paths are accompanied by detailed charts showing how each part of the foot corresponds to a gland, muscle, etc. I'm not sure whether the experience is more or less painful when the path is walked by someone who knows what they're doing, but let's just say that I gave up after about a dozen steps.

I then wound my way through several alleys, lanes, and main roads; discovered that the Youth Hub was indeed closed; saw the Shandao Buddhist temple (size was impressive, but nothing fascinating), walked down some more alleys, found a sweet fruit stand (out-of-the-way and cheap; a bunch of lizhi, a pineapple, or some large kiwis for $1.50 or less), tried lizhi (lychee) for the first time, and bumped into Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, a pretty prominent cultural/aesthetic landmark. Funny story: the hall is screened by trees, and I SWEAR the "You

 are Here" sign was in the wrong place on the (English) map, so I couldn't find it at first. So after some fruitless searching, I accidentally came upon the gate on my way down the road - and burst out laughing, because  I had basically been right next to it and the thing's HUGE. It's basically like an Eastern version of the Lincoln Memorial, except perhaps slightly bigger and with a kind of cool changing of the guard (sweet rifle moves). The grounds are gorgeous, with sculpted trees and hand-trimmed flowers (I saw a group of older women wearing traditional hats snipping away), a long shaded walkway around the perimeter, and a lake with turtles and some gorgeous fish. Intrigued by a large vending machine shaped like a fish but not really knowing what I was doing, I paid 10NT and bought - you probably guessed it, but I didn't - fish food, which afforded much more than 10NT's worth of fun. There's this ongoing controversy about the place, though: a lot of the statue taken down and the hall renamed after someone who wasn't a brutal dictator. Chiang is still sitting there on his throne with his kind of creepy, self-satisfied smile, though, getting saluted by five guards every hour.

On the way back, I discovered some well-priced brunch and a street vendor who sold simple but amazingly priced lunch: 30NT - less than a dollar - for two round, dense hunks of bread with a handful of raisins and grains baked in. Then back home to the hostel, where on the advice of a Taiwanese worker I tried another phone store about two blocks away to see if they would give me a SIM card despite the fact that I'm not 20 yet. They did - and I completed the entire transaction myself! (In the interest of full disclosure, I was given a sheet of paper with rates listed in English, but that was the easy part anyway.) I still need an unlock code from T-mobile to use the foreign SIM card in my phone; obtaining it and sending it to me could take "up to 3 days," they say (can you say "ridiculous"?). I'm going to visit the Youth Hub again to try to get one of those "travel buddies" first thing tomorrow, because I really need to call to get in touch with people about visiting apartments, hostels, etc.

Good news: I'm meeting Language Exchange Partner #1 tomorrow at a nearby train station at 12:30! I hypothetically have three: another is a guy in his 20s who wants to meet a couple times a week, and the third is a nurse, also in her 20s, who wants to meet once a week and discuss international affairs when we speak in English. #1, "Raphael," is a senior in high school who wants to meet 3-4 times a week for the next month, and more afterwards; his English is also at a lower level than that of the other two, and in his web site listing he said he'd like to take his LEP (language exchange partner) hiking, city sight-seeing, etc, which sounds fantastic.

I fear I'll be blogging every day. It can't be helped; I'm too excited! Photos will make it shorter, though, I promise.

~Ethan

第一天

The first day:

It isn't over yet, but I figure I'll want to crash as soon as I come back from the night market later tonight, so here are the Cliff's Notes:

•  Bus ride to Taipei; brief cab ride to TaiDa (National Taiwan University). I discover that the accent of common folk is even more different - and hard to understand - than I expected. Far too many consonants just sound like "S"s, and when people are speaking quickly, especially the less educated, forget it. This is definitely going to take some adjustment.
  
•  ICLP is closed. Because it's Sunday, Ethan. Way to go. I speak in Chinese with an assistant professor anyway, and am not too thrilled with my performance.
  
•  Wandering: I walk around with all my stuff for about four hours, looking to check out four hostels but only finding one open. Not impressed, but it'll do, until...
•  I find the perfect hostel: After finding a restaurant in my price range (about $2.5) and asking the person at the next table to choose something good for me, a fellow waiguoren (foreigner), Loslo, stops by and comments on the hostel map on the table next to me. Turns out he's a really nice guy, and one of the workers at a hostel I had been unable to check out. After talking to him some more and seeing the hostel (8 Elephants) for myself, I'd recommend it to anyone: great price ($16/night for a bunkbed in a dorm room, $7 for a spot on the couch), all the facilities I could possibly need (though the washing machine is coin-operated), close enough to TaiDa by metro or long walk, fantastic atmosphere, fantastic people. I've tentatively booked an alternating room/couch combo for a week here while I look for an apartment, and I'm sure I won't regret it. I'm glad I'm limiting myself to a week, though: however great the people are here, it's still a community of foreigners, and as such we all speak English to each other. Still, when we're both around I'm going to try to speak Chinese (and some French!) with one of the girls who works here - Yizhi, a super-nice university student with a definite gift for languages.
•  More wandering: I accidently find a full-fledged, two-alleyway market. And one family was speaking Spanish! Definitely going back when I have a better idea of how much things should cost here.
  
•  Throughout: Near death. Roads range in width from several lanes to aptly-named "alleys," and if a vehicle fits, someone will drive it through. Traffic direction is either not indicated or ignored; a "walk" signal on a crosswalk doesn't mean that traffic won't make turns across it (both directions); and if you stop or move to one side suddenly you're liable to be mown down by a bike or scooter.
  
•  Masks: worn by about 1 in 10 Asians on the plane, and by all airport officials at Taoyuan. Also popular (1 in 15 or 1 in 20, I'd say) in Taipei - but Laslo, who's lived here for about 2.5 years now, says that a good portion of these people wore masks before for air quality reasons. That fits with my observation that masks are much more prevalent among scooter riders.
  
•  In other news: The legendary kindness of the Taiwanese manifests itself. A taxi cab driver tells me just to pay him NT100 for an NT105 ride (one doesn't tip here, either). A man sees that I'm looking at a map and tries to give me directions using a mix of English and Chinese. A girl on a scooter sees me doing more map-reading and actually takes my map, looks for the place, asks some locals, and leads me right to the door.
  
•  Still needed: 1. A hat! I'll know tomorrow whether/how much I'm sunburned 2. A camera! Parts of Taiwan can look like, say, New York, but nothing less than photos will do the back alleys justice. 3. A SIM card for my phone! The latter is proving ridiculously elusive: at one store I needed my passport AND a Taiwan ID, and at another I showed two American IDs and was then denied because I'm not yet 20. Loslo said he'd get me one; hopefully that happens soon, because a phone is proving to be the key to meeting up with language exchange partners and looking at apartments.
  

I also need to blog less. I'll try to get on that. Big day, though.

~Ethan

At Taoyuan International Airport. Let's call it Taipei.

7:45 local time on Sunday morning:

All of the airport officials speak English! I think I need to go pound the pavement a bit and struggle to make myself understood in order to feel like this is the real thing. Though, that being said, I had a little practice at that when my new friend - a middle-aged woman from Taipei, who gave me her phone number and told me to call and visit when I got a SIM card - humored me and spoke with me in Chinese for a while. Despite my limited Chinese so far, I'm already getting used to the constant use of four key phrases: "I didn't catch that," "I don't understand," "Can you please repeat that?" and "a little slower, please."

Bad news: I barely slept on the plane. Maybe those seats are supposed to work for Taiwanese (i.e., short) people, but leaning back or sideways in any form - pillow or no pillow - was incredibly uncomfortable for me. So I'm pretty tired. But not really jet lagged per se, I don't think.

Good news: All other aspects of the flight were great. Used a little Chinese, made a friend (see above), got three meals. Note: Airline food is MUCH improved since last I flew - either that, or China Airlines rocks U.S. carriers. Probably some of both. But really... red wine (international waters, Kelly McLaughlin! International waters!) and a passable imitation of cheesecake?! Make some tall-person seats and I'll fly with you some more, my friends!

Also, I've gotten responses to about half of the 20 or so inquiries I sent out on Friday regarding Tealit ads for language exchange partners and rooms for rent. Now I'm off to wade through them all, update my podcasts, take the bus to ICLP (note to fellow ICLPers: NOT the taxi; from what I read the latter is literally 10x more expensive), get interrogated in Chinese, and stomp the streets to check in on four prospective hostels. (ICLP note #2: I'm not doing the whole YMCA thing unless the hostels disappoint me immensely; some hostels here have excellent reviews, and YMCA is 3x as expensive.)

Also, I need to buy a camera or the Light Fellowship will disown me. And that could be troublesome.

Zai hui,

~Ethan

And I'm Off!

True to my character, as I write this I've almost-but-not-quite finished packing; I should get ready, eat dinner, and leave within the hour if I want to arrive at the airport at a reasonable time.

I spent last night and today trolling Tealit, a web site for English teachers and other foreigners in Taiwan. I sent off over a dozen e-mail inquiries about apartment room listings, and asked a half-dozen people if they were still looking for language exchange partners. I printed out maps and picked four hostels that are near each other, near TaiDa (National Taiwan University, at which I'll be studying), and highly rated on hostelworld.com. I also dealt with some paperwork, made copies of important documents, and downloaded some more podcasts for the plane ride. (One of them is a Chinese as a Second Language podcast that involves renting a room - could be useful!)

Right now it's time for me to send out a mass e-mail about this blog for those who are interested. Then it's onto more packing, dinner, buying a pocket Chinese-English/vice-versa dictionary (should've done that long ago), and a flight to Anchorage... and then Taibei on Sunday morning! (Where did Saturday go? It'll be eaten up by a combination of air time and that strange phenomenon known as the International Date Line.)

I'm thrilled. Weather.com tells me it'll even be a mostly sunny day, with no chance of thunderstorms - a rarity in northern Taiwan at this time of year, it seems. Next time I post, I'll be there... wish me luck.

~Ethan