On Thursday Afternoon, after a routine break between two of my classes where I ate lunch and talked to Joelle from my apartment, I went outside to get my scooter and ride on back to school. Only my scooter was not there. Unsure whether my scooter was stolen or towed away, I went to the security guard in my building to see if he knew what happened. He, of course, does not speak English. But, as luck should have it, a tenant of the building walked by who spoke some broken English and we were able to figure it out. Unknown to me, the security guard called the police. The problem is that I am technically driving my scooter illegally. Technically, everything I do here is illegal. All of a sudden, I was turned from victim to suspect!
All at once I have a police officer asking me for my motorcycle license and my working permit. First, I don’t have a motorcycle license. Second, I don’t yet have my working permit. I am starting to get nervous. I had earlier tried to call the principle at my school to inform her of my situation and ask for her help, but she was in a meeting. I tried to inform the police that it was not my scooter and that they would have to contact the owner – that is the person who I rented it from. They didn’t seem to understand and then a police cruiser pulled up and they asked me to get in so I could go to the police station with them. Just a little word of travel advice, don’t get into a police car when you don’t know why they want you to get in and dont understand what they are saying. SO, heeding my own advice I didn’t. Then, the principle from my school called me back and was able to talk to the police for me. She told them what I was telling them and the police left.
I went back up to my house, still a little worried about the entire situation. Then, I got a knock on the door of my apartment a few hours later. It was two armed police officers. They asked me again if MY scooter was stolen. I told them that it was not my scooter, but rather, the lady who I rented it from. They asked for her number and called her in front of me. I am not sure what exactly they came for? Was it just for the number, or for me? Whatever the reason, they talked to her on the phone and then left. About 3 hours later, my heart began to slow down again. This probably would not have been a big deal, maybe a fine. But, worst case scenario – I am held in jail and then deported. Not fun. That night, the lady who I rented the scooter from brought me slightly older and slightly crappier scooter. All was fine. However, my feeling of security and being at ease had eroded. I feel a little different now being here and am looking more forward to being home.
After this experience, only one question still looms….who in their right mind would steal my crappy scooter?????
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
A Day in Tainan
The weekend after my adventure in Kenting, Gabe and I decided to take a trip to Tainan. Tainan is the former capital of Taiwan and is considered the cultural capital. Tainan, I was told by two of my adult students, is too far away to drive. According to the locals here, everywhere in Taiwan is too far away. In actuality, Tainan is 40 kms away from where I live in Kaohsiung.
On board our 50 cc scooters, Gabe and I made the journey in about an hour. We stopped first at a Buddhist temple. It was massive, old and really cool. We then went to about 3 more temples – all were very well manicured. Some had really interesting statues and some really incredible gardens, but after a while, they all started looking the same. So, we went to the Museum of Taiwanese Literature. It would have been really interesting, I am sure, had we been able to understand any of the exhibits. However, we got to look at some old books and that was pretty cool! I did, however, find that Taiwan, like Canada, is a relatively young culture. It is trying to invent itself after a colonial power. So there is a very conscious effort from the Taiwanese to create a sort of new national identity that fuses their Chinese heritage, Japanese colonization, a post colonial quasi dictatorial rule, and the more recent bout with democracy and creates a distinct Taiwanese identity.
After discovering all this, I became hungry. Gabe and I decided to find a bite to eat. Unfortunately, we could not find anything. So we wondered up to a street vendor. This is the type of restaurant where they have a “kitchen” on the side walk and set up two tables and a few plastic chairs and call themselves a legitimate restaurant! I went and asked for chicken, they said no. I then asked for a couple more things and they continued to say no. Then, they told me what I was going to eat – fish and rice. I sat down, and out comes a small bowl of rice with little chunks of what I thought were fish. I started to eat, but they felt really, really tender. Something did not seem right about this fish, but I decided to take a few more bites to see if it was one of those acquired tastes you hear so much about. Just as I had decided that this taste was most likely one that I was unlikely to acquire anytime soon, my fish came out in another bowl. So what was this strange substance in my rice if wasn’t my fish? I discovered that it was little chunks of fat. Yes, strait fat – yummy. They actually love fat here in Taiwan, I still don’t love it!
My fish, was an actual fish that had been gutted and boiled then served to me. What I received was a fish with fins, gills and bones in a bowl of hot water...another acquired taste I presume, but one that I have yet to personally acquire.
After our meal, Gabe and I went to the 7-11 and bought ourselves a snickers bar. The snickers bar has been my saving grace. Whenever I am starving and in serious need of food but cannot find anything to eat due to the language barrier, I can always grab a snickers bar at any of the many 7-11s to sustain me.
We drove home that night. Tainan was a great place with some great temples and some not so great food (according to me)!
On board our 50 cc scooters, Gabe and I made the journey in about an hour. We stopped first at a Buddhist temple. It was massive, old and really cool. We then went to about 3 more temples – all were very well manicured. Some had really interesting statues and some really incredible gardens, but after a while, they all started looking the same. So, we went to the Museum of Taiwanese Literature. It would have been really interesting, I am sure, had we been able to understand any of the exhibits. However, we got to look at some old books and that was pretty cool! I did, however, find that Taiwan, like Canada, is a relatively young culture. It is trying to invent itself after a colonial power. So there is a very conscious effort from the Taiwanese to create a sort of new national identity that fuses their Chinese heritage, Japanese colonization, a post colonial quasi dictatorial rule, and the more recent bout with democracy and creates a distinct Taiwanese identity.
After discovering all this, I became hungry. Gabe and I decided to find a bite to eat. Unfortunately, we could not find anything. So we wondered up to a street vendor. This is the type of restaurant where they have a “kitchen” on the side walk and set up two tables and a few plastic chairs and call themselves a legitimate restaurant! I went and asked for chicken, they said no. I then asked for a couple more things and they continued to say no. Then, they told me what I was going to eat – fish and rice. I sat down, and out comes a small bowl of rice with little chunks of what I thought were fish. I started to eat, but they felt really, really tender. Something did not seem right about this fish, but I decided to take a few more bites to see if it was one of those acquired tastes you hear so much about. Just as I had decided that this taste was most likely one that I was unlikely to acquire anytime soon, my fish came out in another bowl. So what was this strange substance in my rice if wasn’t my fish? I discovered that it was little chunks of fat. Yes, strait fat – yummy. They actually love fat here in Taiwan, I still don’t love it!
My fish, was an actual fish that had been gutted and boiled then served to me. What I received was a fish with fins, gills and bones in a bowl of hot water...another acquired taste I presume, but one that I have yet to personally acquire.
After our meal, Gabe and I went to the 7-11 and bought ourselves a snickers bar. The snickers bar has been my saving grace. Whenever I am starving and in serious need of food but cannot find anything to eat due to the language barrier, I can always grab a snickers bar at any of the many 7-11s to sustain me.
We drove home that night. Tainan was a great place with some great temples and some not so great food (according to me)!
Monday, November 19, 2007
A Trip To Paradise
A few weekends ago ( I know I have been bad at keeping this thing up to date!) I went to Kenting. Kenting is on the southern point of Taiwan and is the major tourist attraction here. It possesses a wonderful beach, many resorts and a strip that has restaurants, night clubs, arcades (this is Asia after all) and many random shops on the street. The weird thing is that when you hear tourist, you almost automatically think white people. When you are in Mexico and hear of a tourist spot, it usually means that it is the spot where the gringos hang out, and it is the same for many other places. However, in this tourist Mecca of Taiwan, Gabe and I were the only white people there.
Kenting is about 100km away from the city I am living in. 100km is nothing by Canadian standards, but for the Taiwanese, 100km is a formidable distance. When you consider the entire island is only 500km long, this short journey for a north American is seemingly endless one for the Taiwanese. Nonetheless, I decided to make the journey.
When I decided to go to Kenting I was originally going to go alone, however, another English teacher from Wisconson decided to join me. His name is Gabe. He had lived in Japan for two years with his Girlfriend – they went together. Then when they returned to rural Wisconson, he just couldn’t stand it – so he decided to come here. His girlfriend didn’t….so we were both in Taiwan alone and both had girlfriends back home. It turns out we had much more in common and have since become good friends.
We decided to take our scooters to Kenting. We both had 50cc scooters, as I have mentioned in a previous blog, but decided to drive there anyway. Many people told us this was a very bad idea. Both the locals and the foreigners here told us that a) your scooters will probably blow up or b) if they don’t blow up, it will take you forever to get there. Gabe and I, being the crazy adventurers that we are, opted to take our scooters anyway. We reseaned that within the city our scooters could comfortably reach 50km/hr. Given that it was a 100km journey – we could make it there in 2 hours driving time. Factor in periodic stops so that our scooters would not blow up, and we figure about 3 hours drive would get us to our destination. I thought to myself, I could, in the same amount of time get to paradise as it would take me to drive to Calgary…..it was a no brainer.
Well, as usually calculations aren’t always accurate. It took us closer to 4.4 hours to get there, however, we got totally lost leaving the city. Our drive home would prove our time calculations correct.
The drive there was exciting, despite that fact that my rear end was starting to get sore! As we left the core of Kaohsiung, we began to see the industrial sector. Just like a science fiction movie, there was an entirely different city connected to ours. Instead of delapitaded buildings mixed with new ones, it had old, run down manufacturing plants fused with the new and the modern plant. “Made in Taiwan,” this is where it all came from. We also saw some agriculture, which is basically really small little plots of land spread throughout factories and buildings. It was a very fin drive!
Once we arrived we checked into the Catholic Youth Hostel. It was very cheap - $350 NT, which is about $11 Canadian. The room is nice, but I would later find an ant infestation that haunted me in the night. By haunted me, I mean they would all climb on my bed and try to strike up a friendship. I subsequently killed them, but they just kept coming back for more – perhaps they didn’t get the memo – “huge white guy does not want to cuddle.”
After we got settled in we went to the beach. You will have to see pictures. Nice white sand, hammocks and bamboo umbrellas. It was really paradise. We stayed on the beach for the better part of the day.
After the beach we went for lunch. There was a restaurant offering a meal and free internet access for $90 NT. We couldn’t refuse. The meal was basically microwavable fish sticks and rice, but it was a good internet connection!
After dinner we walked around, checked out the street stalls then proceeded to 7-11 to buy a beverage. We then took those beverages to the beach and had a romantic moon lit beach date where both Gabe and I evoked our feelings of how much better this moment would be if we were with our girlfriends and not with each other. Neither of took offense to the others feelings!
I went to bed, had my run in with the ants. Then we woke up early and headed to the southern most tip of Taiwan. It was a beautiful. I officially stood on a the pointy ocean rock that was as far as I could go in Taiwan without going swimming and having the waves violently push me into said pointy rock!
After that we drove through the mountains. We went to a look out point where you could see both sides of the island – both the Taiwan straight and the Pacific Ocean. I kept on pointing towards the pacific and saying “this way to Canada” – Gabe told me to stop as apparently is wasn’t as funny as I thought.
We went back to the beach and I slept on a hammock on the beach – the sun kissed my face while the ocean breezed gently rocked me about in my hammock. It was heaven.
We drove home and made it a much faster trip – although we did get lost coming back into the city. Overall, it was awesome and one of the highlights of my trip to date!
Kenting is about 100km away from the city I am living in. 100km is nothing by Canadian standards, but for the Taiwanese, 100km is a formidable distance. When you consider the entire island is only 500km long, this short journey for a north American is seemingly endless one for the Taiwanese. Nonetheless, I decided to make the journey.
When I decided to go to Kenting I was originally going to go alone, however, another English teacher from Wisconson decided to join me. His name is Gabe. He had lived in Japan for two years with his Girlfriend – they went together. Then when they returned to rural Wisconson, he just couldn’t stand it – so he decided to come here. His girlfriend didn’t….so we were both in Taiwan alone and both had girlfriends back home. It turns out we had much more in common and have since become good friends.
We decided to take our scooters to Kenting. We both had 50cc scooters, as I have mentioned in a previous blog, but decided to drive there anyway. Many people told us this was a very bad idea. Both the locals and the foreigners here told us that a) your scooters will probably blow up or b) if they don’t blow up, it will take you forever to get there. Gabe and I, being the crazy adventurers that we are, opted to take our scooters anyway. We reseaned that within the city our scooters could comfortably reach 50km/hr. Given that it was a 100km journey – we could make it there in 2 hours driving time. Factor in periodic stops so that our scooters would not blow up, and we figure about 3 hours drive would get us to our destination. I thought to myself, I could, in the same amount of time get to paradise as it would take me to drive to Calgary…..it was a no brainer.
Well, as usually calculations aren’t always accurate. It took us closer to 4.4 hours to get there, however, we got totally lost leaving the city. Our drive home would prove our time calculations correct.
The drive there was exciting, despite that fact that my rear end was starting to get sore! As we left the core of Kaohsiung, we began to see the industrial sector. Just like a science fiction movie, there was an entirely different city connected to ours. Instead of delapitaded buildings mixed with new ones, it had old, run down manufacturing plants fused with the new and the modern plant. “Made in Taiwan,” this is where it all came from. We also saw some agriculture, which is basically really small little plots of land spread throughout factories and buildings. It was a very fin drive!
Once we arrived we checked into the Catholic Youth Hostel. It was very cheap - $350 NT, which is about $11 Canadian. The room is nice, but I would later find an ant infestation that haunted me in the night. By haunted me, I mean they would all climb on my bed and try to strike up a friendship. I subsequently killed them, but they just kept coming back for more – perhaps they didn’t get the memo – “huge white guy does not want to cuddle.”
After we got settled in we went to the beach. You will have to see pictures. Nice white sand, hammocks and bamboo umbrellas. It was really paradise. We stayed on the beach for the better part of the day.
After the beach we went for lunch. There was a restaurant offering a meal and free internet access for $90 NT. We couldn’t refuse. The meal was basically microwavable fish sticks and rice, but it was a good internet connection!
After dinner we walked around, checked out the street stalls then proceeded to 7-11 to buy a beverage. We then took those beverages to the beach and had a romantic moon lit beach date where both Gabe and I evoked our feelings of how much better this moment would be if we were with our girlfriends and not with each other. Neither of took offense to the others feelings!
I went to bed, had my run in with the ants. Then we woke up early and headed to the southern most tip of Taiwan. It was a beautiful. I officially stood on a the pointy ocean rock that was as far as I could go in Taiwan without going swimming and having the waves violently push me into said pointy rock!
After that we drove through the mountains. We went to a look out point where you could see both sides of the island – both the Taiwan straight and the Pacific Ocean. I kept on pointing towards the pacific and saying “this way to Canada” – Gabe told me to stop as apparently is wasn’t as funny as I thought.
We went back to the beach and I slept on a hammock on the beach – the sun kissed my face while the ocean breezed gently rocked me about in my hammock. It was heaven.
We drove home and made it a much faster trip – although we did get lost coming back into the city. Overall, it was awesome and one of the highlights of my trip to date!
Sunday, November 4, 2007
The Taiwan Series
Since before I arrived in Taiwan, I wanted to go to a baseball game. Being the big baseball fan that I am, and seeing that baseball is one of Taiwans favorite sports, it just made sense. Reading the news paper I discovered that the Taiwan Series was underway which, as I found out, is basically the Taiwan World Series. It was game six that afternoon, so I grabbed my baseball hat and headed to the ball diamond. Well, that isnt as easy as one would think, so I had to stop about 12 times to ask for directions. This is always an interesting experience considering no one here speaks English....so there are lots of animated hand gestures, pointing and very slow talk with the locals - which when you think about it is the most ridiculous thing ever - but for what ever reason, I guess universally we think that if someone does not understand you when you are talking at a normal pace, they will magically understand you when you are talking slowly!!!
Anyway, I get to the ball diamond, the first inning has just begun and I hear a loud roar from the crowd - I start to get really excited! I find out, after about 15 minutes of confusion and then finally finding a Canadian guy who has lived in Taiwan for 3 years, that you line up in one line to buy tickets if you are cheering for the home team, or the other line if you are cheering for the away team. Having no die hard loyalty either way, I decide to go in the away teams line up because it was much shorter!
I entered the corridor and immediately realised that actually finding my seat was going to be a process....and it was! I went to one person and they pointed me in the basic direction, then to another and they would get me a little closer, then to another and so on. From the time I entered the door to the time I found my seat was roughly 45 minutes of being lost - mind you I stopped to get a little pop corn too! I was now at the ball diamond for 1 hour and 15 minutes and had just entered my seat...welcome to a foreign a country where you dont speak their language and they dont speak yours I thought to myself!
I sat down in what was the bottom of the third inning - not too bad! The fans were loud! But, as is Asian culture, incredibly considerate and very structured. The stadium was divided perfectly in half, with each teams fans sitting on their respective sides. Each team had cheer leaders, which included actual cheerleaders - who actually sang while they did their little dances in between innings ( they love the Karaoke here - they love it ALOT!!), they had full bands with drums and trumpets and they had chant leaders. The truly amazing part of it was that each sides fans took turns doing their chants. There was no contest in who could chant louder then the other, they waited their turn and chanted their little hearts out. When one team was batting then their fans, and only their fans, would chant. When the other team was up, then their fans would chant. And chant they did. They must have had a dozen different chants and every single fan would yell in PERFECT unison....Perfect. They each had a different beat and each person tapped their noise makers together with flawless precision. It was truly something to behold. I didnt think it could go on for the entire game, but it did - and seemed to get louder! I had a head ache by the end, but it was soooo worth it and one amazing experience!
Oh yah, the game was really good too!!!!!
Anyway, I get to the ball diamond, the first inning has just begun and I hear a loud roar from the crowd - I start to get really excited! I find out, after about 15 minutes of confusion and then finally finding a Canadian guy who has lived in Taiwan for 3 years, that you line up in one line to buy tickets if you are cheering for the home team, or the other line if you are cheering for the away team. Having no die hard loyalty either way, I decide to go in the away teams line up because it was much shorter!
I entered the corridor and immediately realised that actually finding my seat was going to be a process....and it was! I went to one person and they pointed me in the basic direction, then to another and they would get me a little closer, then to another and so on. From the time I entered the door to the time I found my seat was roughly 45 minutes of being lost - mind you I stopped to get a little pop corn too! I was now at the ball diamond for 1 hour and 15 minutes and had just entered my seat...welcome to a foreign a country where you dont speak their language and they dont speak yours I thought to myself!
I sat down in what was the bottom of the third inning - not too bad! The fans were loud! But, as is Asian culture, incredibly considerate and very structured. The stadium was divided perfectly in half, with each teams fans sitting on their respective sides. Each team had cheer leaders, which included actual cheerleaders - who actually sang while they did their little dances in between innings ( they love the Karaoke here - they love it ALOT!!), they had full bands with drums and trumpets and they had chant leaders. The truly amazing part of it was that each sides fans took turns doing their chants. There was no contest in who could chant louder then the other, they waited their turn and chanted their little hearts out. When one team was batting then their fans, and only their fans, would chant. When the other team was up, then their fans would chant. And chant they did. They must have had a dozen different chants and every single fan would yell in PERFECT unison....Perfect. They each had a different beat and each person tapped their noise makers together with flawless precision. It was truly something to behold. I didnt think it could go on for the entire game, but it did - and seemed to get louder! I had a head ache by the end, but it was soooo worth it and one amazing experience!
Oh yah, the game was really good too!!!!!
Driving a Scooter in Taiwan
One of the most exciting parts of this experience in Taiwan has been driving a scooter all around Taiwan. Most of the time it is wild, occasionally a little scary and sometimes ends up being just too insane to handle. The only rule with scooters here is that, as the cliche goes, there are no rules. For example, to turn left, you dont just turn left on a scooter, you have to drive to the other side of the intersection, and join the traffic flowing in the correct direction you want to go. So you end up having to wait at two lights instead of just one. For many Taiwanese this just isnt acceptable! So, they cross over to the wrong side of the road, wait at the red light and then start driving into on coming traffic to stop the need to wait at two lights. If you dont understand and are a little confused, dont worry, I am too - and I have been here driving for a while!
There is also no such thing as a red light here. When the yellow light flashes, that does not mean slow down, it means that if you are within a block of the light punch it full throttle, close your eyes and go. One time I was waiting my turn to go, being the good polite Canadian that I am, my light turned green and I waited for about 10 seconds for the rest of the scooters to finish running the red light so I could go. You would think that at this point horns would be honking, hands with certain fingers displayed would be waving with vigor, and the odd profane death threat would be shouted out....but that is just not the case. First of all, culturally, there is no room for showing emotion - especially not anger. It is seen as weekness. Second, nobody gets mad, because everyone knows that in the next 2 minutes, they will be doing the exact same thing!
My scooter is a rental. It is called the Jog 5o Basic. First, it is from the scooter company Jog - which is the lowest end of scooters in Taiwan. In fact it may be like comparing a brand new BMW to a 1985 Russian car. Secondly, it is the basic model - which means that it is the lowest end Jog out there. In addition, that little "50" in there means it is a 50 cc motor - the smallest motor out there. What I am trying to say is that as far a scooters go, mine is on the low end of the totem poll! The fact that I am probably the tallest guy in Kaohsiung (I am not even joking about that) is funny enough for all these taiwanese add to this that I am driving the smallest scooter available and the end result is that I get lots of funny looks!
I found a video on youtube that shows it pretty well, although this video is not in rush hour, so add about three times the scooters and that is what it is like for me driving home! All the streets you see are streets that I have been on, in fact been on often! the link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUJF0omwviQ - enjoy. You can also YouTube "Scooters in Taiwan" or "Scooters in Kaohsiung" and see more fun!
So, the scooter is one of the best parts but also the most scary! It has brought me closer to God as I am in constant conversation with him while driving my scooter!!!!!! :)
There is also no such thing as a red light here. When the yellow light flashes, that does not mean slow down, it means that if you are within a block of the light punch it full throttle, close your eyes and go. One time I was waiting my turn to go, being the good polite Canadian that I am, my light turned green and I waited for about 10 seconds for the rest of the scooters to finish running the red light so I could go. You would think that at this point horns would be honking, hands with certain fingers displayed would be waving with vigor, and the odd profane death threat would be shouted out....but that is just not the case. First of all, culturally, there is no room for showing emotion - especially not anger. It is seen as weekness. Second, nobody gets mad, because everyone knows that in the next 2 minutes, they will be doing the exact same thing!
My scooter is a rental. It is called the Jog 5o Basic. First, it is from the scooter company Jog - which is the lowest end of scooters in Taiwan. In fact it may be like comparing a brand new BMW to a 1985 Russian car. Secondly, it is the basic model - which means that it is the lowest end Jog out there. In addition, that little "50" in there means it is a 50 cc motor - the smallest motor out there. What I am trying to say is that as far a scooters go, mine is on the low end of the totem poll! The fact that I am probably the tallest guy in Kaohsiung (I am not even joking about that) is funny enough for all these taiwanese add to this that I am driving the smallest scooter available and the end result is that I get lots of funny looks!
I found a video on youtube that shows it pretty well, although this video is not in rush hour, so add about three times the scooters and that is what it is like for me driving home! All the streets you see are streets that I have been on, in fact been on often! the link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUJF0omwviQ - enjoy. You can also YouTube "Scooters in Taiwan" or "Scooters in Kaohsiung" and see more fun!
So, the scooter is one of the best parts but also the most scary! It has brought me closer to God as I am in constant conversation with him while driving my scooter!!!!!! :)
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