Complaints!

I have been receiving complaints that my tone and attitude in this blog has been entirely too positive.  People either don't believe I'm being truthful about my time here, or they are just bored of reading how damn cheery I am.  It is for these people that I dedicate the first half of this post entirely to things I Hate about Taiwan.

1.  The Weather. (天氣)  I have alluded to this previously when I mentioned that time it was sunny, but let me address it outright:  The weather here sucks.  Call me spoiled, coming from a severely drought-ed Texas where it was sunny and beautiful for 360 days of 2011, but every day here (except that one) has been disgusting.  It rains at least once a day, sometimes just lightly enough to be quietly depressing, other times enough that my shoes, socks, feet, and bottom half of my pants are incurably cold for the whole day.  Right now we're on a long weekend but the thought of going out to do anything other than sit in my dorm is totally unappealing.

Look how gloomy!  Still a nice view, though.

Plus, it's cold!  I was keeping tabs on the Taipei weather before coming, and although I knew I saw a lot of rain, the temperature always seemed quite warm.  Well, it doesn't feel warm.  And the dorm doesn't have heating, and most of what we do involves a lot of being outside, so I am perpetually too cold and without a winter coat (because I smartly packed so light, remember?).  And there are all these things I want to do and places I want to go around Taipei or Taiwan, but the weather is just too cold and gross and depressing to do anything.

The rain of #1 brings me to...

2.  The Overuse of Umbrellas.  Because of the perpetual threat of rain, everyone carries an umbrella with them at all times.  Which is fine.  The only thing I have a problem with is that then, out of instinct, even when there is NO RAIN FALLING FROM THE SKY, these people will open their umbrellas and use them!  And then out of umbrella peer pressure, everyone else follows suit, and there is this completely ridiculous parade of people using umbrellas even though it isn't raining.  This annoys me enough if that was the end of it.  But it gets worse.  When we're walking in groups, these umbrellas become a safety hazard, and I am constantly getting poked in the face, eye, or head with other people's umbrellas.  To make matters worse, sometimes, when people see me walking umbrella-less, they will often try to (very nicely) share their umbrella with me.  I know this is coming from the goodness of their heart, but I have really come to hate sharing umbrellas with a deep fire.  Getting poked and prodded by the umbrella is unavoidable, and also the person will be walking too close and at the wrong pace and they won't let me get any personal space because then - god forbid - I might get rained on!  Sometimes they half-heartedly position themselves just so I am poised directly under the runoff from their umbrella.  I have now started carrying and using my umbrella strictly out of self defense.

3.  The Overuse of Creepy Seafood.  Again, I mentioned this briefly, but I am sick of eyeballs and nasty fish-like things staring up at me from my plate.  I don't want to be culturally insensitive.  But it's gross.

4.  The Relationship Between Cars and Pedestrians.  In America, cars have their places, and pedestrians have theirs.  Here, a car will squeeze past you on the street just the same way a fast walking person would on the sidewalk, but without muttering "excuse me".  Sometimes in the jam-packed streets at a night market, one naive car will try to get through and will just be slowly plowing a few feet at a time, hoping the poor innocent pedestrians in front of him will notice and get out of the way.  Every time I cross the street I lose years off my life, and I walk in constant fear of being hit by a scooter (who, like bicycles in the US ride either on the sidewalk or the street! Ahhh!) or bus.

5.  The Prices.  This label is a little misleading: the prices are, in general, much cheaper here than the US, so I'm not saying that I hate all the prices.  I am frustrated, though, by the confusion of switching currency.  It's confusing because not only do all the price tags look different (I'm not paying $300 for this crap! .. oh wait) but because the relative price of food to non-food items is very different from the United states.  So, if I translate everything into US dollars, the food seems very cheap but everything else is about equal.  Instead, I think of all non-food goods in terms of Taiwanese meals, and it seems COMPLETELY OUTRAGEOUS to pay the price of ten dinners for a book or a pair of shoes.  When in reality, many of my dinners cost just $2 or $3 in American money.  Anyway, it all throws me off, and I feel like I have no perception of much I have been spending or should be spending, or what is too expensive versus a good deal.  And I hate feeling out of control of my money!

Okay, so those are my main complaints.  And they are all real and serious.  But I am still having a great time!  And am very happy!  Now, here are some things I bought:

I wanted to get a kid's book to help me learn Chinese.  This one is way too hard and I am not exaggerating when I say I will never be able to read it, but the illustrations were really beautiful and amazing and so I got it as motivation to get really good!

Just look at this illustration!  Avoid looking at the 10,000 characters I don't know on the right hand side.

I also got this book - easier, and also very cute.  A story about three hedgehogs.

The cutest calendar ever!! It's all handwritten-style in Chinese and has pictures of Taiwanese kids being adorable.  A must-buy.

Saturday we had the CIEE annual scavenger hunt!!  It was unlike any scavenger hunt I've been on in the past because it wasn't timed, intense, or a competition at all.  It really felt more like a day trip than anything else.  It was nasty and cold and raining (surprise surprise), but other than that it was a lot of fun.  We went to an adorable bagle shop that also sold things, including the calendar above, and later we ate these really tasty and expensive (but covered by CIEE! yeeeah!) dumpling-like delicacies.  We also went to Taipei 101!  It's not the best place to shop for cheapskates like me, but here it is up close:

2nd tallest building in the world!

We all agreed that from up close, it really doesn't look all that tall.  From the dorm though, it is very clearly the only visible building that far away by a long shot.  We didn't get to go to the top (too cloudy anyway), but it is still a good-looking building and a Taipei landmark!

I also spent a large part of the day taking creepy pictures of cute Taiwanese kids:

I was trying to be subtle but these kids knew what was up

In other news, I have been watching this Taiwanese drama, Hana Kimi.  It is so much fun.  It's very over-the-top and silly, and it's the show that the song Zen Me Ban is from!  It also features the lead singers from hit girl band S.H.E. and hit boy band Fahrenheit.  It is really fun and it has both English and Chinese subtitles so I do think it helps my Chinese at least a little.

The whole Chinese-learning thing is still a constant adventure, and I am learning more and more characters every day.  It's a lot of fun and people have been very generous with compliments about my tones and pronunciation, both of which would be a lot more useful if I actually knew enough to form sentences.  It is coming along though, and for once I find myself INTRINSICALLY motivated to study and get better just for the sake of getting better.  So that's pretty cool.

Another thing I've been meaning to mention: the talking elevator that I take every morning from my dorm has this slight mistranslation in their English version, so every time you get in or out, it says, "The doors are wanting to open" or "The doors are wanting to close."  It is an amusing reminder of where I am every time I use it.  All the English-speaking Taiwanese students get a really big kick out of it too.

Lastly, this is my student ID!

That's right, Rice.  I'm a student of NCCU now!

And if you look under my picture, that's my name!  It's pronounced dai (4th tone) an (1st tone) ya (3rd tone) , and it's written like this:

戴安雅

Nice to meet you!