耶誕快樂 Merry Christmas from Taiwan

Christmas is not celebrated in Taiwan so it was a very strange holiday for me, and the first I'd spent away from my family.  Multiple family members getting COVID cancelling holiday traditions dispelled all my FOMO though.  Here, there is no time off from work or school, so I had class on Christmas Eve (Friday).  Later in the evening, I attended a Christmas party hosted by my department, which is all international.  It was the most festive I'd felt all season, with a Christmas buffet, gingerbread house-making, and a white elephant gift exchange.  

At midnight, my friend and I went to Catholic mass in Chinese.  There had been an English mass earlier in the evening, so the entire congregation at midnight mass was Asian.  All of the prayers and lyrics were projected onto the wall behind the priest so I could follow along reading the characters.  We sang all the same Christmas songs but in Chinese.  I could read characters fast enough to sing most of the words, except for Joy to the World which turned out to be too complicated in Mandarin.  I was very happy to be able to understand the entire homily.  During the sign of peace, in a very Japanese fashion, we bowed at the people next to us and said "平安！" peace!

Note how Taiwanese people wear hats indoors

Saturday morning I went for run in the 65 degree sprinkling rain typical of Taiwan winter (my Taiwanese friends were aghast anyone would be outside in such cold), had a Christmas Day breakfast of sushi, and then spent the day at an American friend's party.  I managed to find a casserole dish and all the ingredients (including baked-and-ready-to-eat white sweet potatoes from a convenience store) to make a sweet potato casserole in a toaster oven.  It was lovely to eat homemade food, exchange a couple presents with friends, and play mahjong on my new set.  My claim to fame is how many Taiwanese people I've taught to play this traditional Taiwanese game with which I'm obsessed.

Teaching a Taiwanese friend to ice skate while it's 80 degrees outside

A worker carries a sign reminding crowds to wear a mask

Earlier in the week, a friend and I went to New Taipei City (it is fairly large and surrounds Taipei on all sides) to check out Banqiao's Christmasland, of which Taiwanese people are quite proud.  There were many lights, but it was overall very small.

Greeting and photo from university

礁溪老爺酒店 Hotel Royal Chiao Hsi

This Tuesday through Wednesday, some very generous family friends took me to a hot springs resort in Jiaoxi, about an hour from Taipei.  It is such a sought after escape from the city that it’s nearly impossible to book on the weekends.

First, we waited in a line around the block for the most delicious 蔥油餅 from a street vendor.  Scallion pancakes are a staple snack across Taiwan and China but are famous in Yilan thanks to the locally grown three-foot long scallions.

z

The resort was incredibly luxurious, and the staff all knew the family with whom I was traveling.  I stayed in my own hotel suite that was about three times the size of my dorm room (minus a roommate, plus a private bathtub).  The best part was the hot springs pools.  I got to swim laps in an infinity pool fed by water from the natural springs.  Then there were a variety of hot pools at precise temperatures in which to soak or 泡湯.  Some of them were scented for aromatherapy stress relief, like vanilla and blueberry.  One of them had fish that would nibble the dead skin on your feet.  They even had individual pottery baths where you could control your own temperature.  Hot ginger tea was provided poolside.

 

We ate dinner as a family all in the matching pajamas provided by the resort. I had to wear the larger size, so while all the Taiwanese women were wearing the red yukata, vest, and matching slippers, the Taiwanese men and I were walking around in the green set.  It was an incredible high-end organic meal (vegetarian for me) that started with sipping vinegar made from local kumquats to “open the stomach” or whet the appetite.

Dessert was eaten from right to left in order of increasing sweetness.  What I was hoping was chocolate soup was actually sweet bean soup with red beans and peanuts—the only nuts or beans of the entire meal.

The next morning, the matriarch of the family and I ate breakfast together before anyone else woke up (her in her red pajamas, me in my green pajamas).  It was the largest breakfast buffet I can ever remember exploring, featuring Western and Asian breakfast options.  I liked the almond milk, which is common in Yilan, and reminded Mrs. Tsai of her childhood.

After a couple of classes attended virtually from the super king bed, I went for another swim and then joined the family at the lounge where they ordered endless amounts of snacks, hot cocoa, teas, pastries, cookies, and cake.

Mrs. Tsai and I went to the all women’s sauna together, which is in the style of Japanese nude baths (not-pictured).  We chatted, naked, on large rock features under dappled shade in an extremely hot outdoor hot springs pool.  I loved hearing her speak in Chinese about various topics from cross-cultural dating to using Traditional Chinese Medicine to deal with infertility in in the 1980s.  Her family is spread between the United States and Taipei, the Taipei contingent being present at the resort: her husband, her son, his German wife, and their 5-month old baby.  As a family, they speak exclusively Chinglish, because everyone is fluent in both English and Chinese.  There were no other non-Asian foreigners in the entire resort.

After emerging from the naked sauna (Mrs. Tsai assured me the sweating was a healthy activity), we covered ourselves in rose-scented toiletries, drank rose mint tea, and lounged in a full-body massage chair—it even massaged the fingertips!  The very non-American experience reminded me of being with my own grandma at the traditional baths in Istanbul.

We drove back to Taipei through the mountains.

Trip to Tainan with Taiwanese Friends

You think you understand Taiwanese culture pretty well and then you meet some Taiwanese people in a phone store and they take you to Tainan and you realize you understand nothing.

A short while after I first arrived in Taipei, I became friends with an employee at the phone store when she helped me over-deliberate service plans and then gave me presents and bought me bubble tea while I waited for my paperwork to go through (...classic Taiwan hospitality).  She was going on a trip with another employee and another friend to Tainan, in the south of Taiwan, and they invited me to join.  The three of them were Taiwan born and raised, had extremely thick Taiwanese accents, and spoke zero English, so it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up on.

高雄旗津島, Cijin Island in Kaohsiung

We took the train together to Taichung, where it is always ten times sunnier than in Taipei.  I, of course, read my Kindle on the train; it blew my friend's mind because she'd never seen an e-reader before, even though other technological gadgets abound here.  Seeing someone read English words quickly also blew her mind, because the language is so foreign to her.  Many Taiwanese people cannot even read pinyin, which is the system for writing out the pronunciation of Chinese characters using the Roman alphabet, eg xièxie for 謝謝, meaning thank you.  Instead, they use zhuyin, which uses some very basic characters to represent the various phonemes of Mandarin.  Not only is pinyin used to teach Westerners Chinese, but it is also how I type Chinese characters on my computer, so it was weird to see a Taiwanese person unable to type characters on my phone where I had a pinyin keyboard.

台中動畫胡同

Animation Alleyway, Taichung

After we reached Taichung, in a glorious example of Taiwanese conveniency plus obsession with phone apps, my friend rented a car IN FIVE MINUTES through an app on her iPhone.  Later in the night when we were ready to return it, she just left the keys in the car, took a photo of the bumpers, and left it parked on a random street where we had driven to meet another friend.

We went to an enormous night market, and they kept buying me snack after snack.  My favorite was the chocolate crepe style cake (巧克力煎餅), but they were most excited about me trying coagulated duck blood (毛血旺).  We also played carnival games, like archery and BB shooting; like all Taiwanese people I've encountered, they were fascinated and terrified by the fact that Americans can own guns, as they are strictly controlled here, such that only rare police officers have them.  I thought the night was over when we left the night market at midnight, but then we drove to a nearby city to pick up another friend and celebrate her birthday.  She was turning 29, but because 9 is considered an inauspicious number (I thought 4 was the death number, but apparently when it comes to birthdays, especially for someone who has recently had a bad year, 9 is the unlucky number), we bought her a cake that said 30 on it.  We passed around the knife to cut the cake in order of whose birthday was next.

We eventually made it to a motel that was nothing like any motel which I'd ever patroned in the US.  We parked the car in a private garage and then walked upstairs to a floor that was all ours.  It was one continuous area with gauzy curtains, disco lights, two TVs, two big beds, a jacuzzi in the middle of the room, and two glass-walled showers.  I was desperately ready for bed, since I had been up that morning for daily Chinese class at 8 am, but my friends were absolutely floored that I was considering going to bed without showering.  They were truly so concerned that some Americans showered in the mornings and INSISTED I shower that night.  They also thought it was strange that I wanted to sleep in the dark, as they slept that night with the TV and lights on.  I also noticed they slept with something stuck to the soles of their feet.  I learned it is traditional Chinese medicine and meant to pull fluids out of the body to reduce edema.

台南大東夜市, Ta-Tung Night Market in Tainan

My friends were still going strong talking and celebrating at 3 am when I finally gave up and fell asleep in a bed surrounded by a diaphanous canopy.  They work from noon to 9 pm everyday, so their sleep schedules are shifted significantly from mine.  This is pretty typical for Taiwan.  I imagine the stifling hot daytimes of the tropical island in the summer might contribute to the strong culture of nightlife, from businesses staying open late to night markets to the volleyball courts under the stadium lights being packed at 9 pm when I'm walking home through the NTU campus.

The next day, after stopping at a fast food restaurant my friends were very excited about, we biked along the beach in Qijin District in Kaohsiung.  It was gorgeous weather, although instead of biking or swimming in the ocean, they made us stop and take photos for hours.  I found it interesting that even at the end of the trip saying goodbye to each other, they never hugged.  None of my Taiwanese friends have ever hugged me, but they do hold my hand sometimes...I just go along with it.

Being sleep-deprived in a foreign city with people I'd only recently met made me feel a little homesick for the first time since arriving in Taiwan.  However, it was a worthwhile trip that opened my eyes to all the cultural differences I still don't understand but no longer surprise me.  

P.S. The only thing that still shocks me is public burping.  Even a professor who's hooked up to a microphone giving a lecture will still let one loose between slides.

Fish, Polly, Agness

The Asian Dorm: A Photo Essay

 

No guests allowed after 10 pm

Entering my hallway after taking the elevator to the 9th floor

Hot water dispenser, otherwise no kitchen

Bathroom shared with the floor

Squat toilets

Toilet paper runs out by Wednesday

No mattress provided; beds are wooden platform on top of dresser

No wifi in the dorms

Prepaid card for air conditioning

I'm very happy in my dorm with a big window.  I have started decorating with plants and a tank full of living fish that a Taiwanese friend spontaneously gifted me.  My roommate, another masters student in global health, has just arrived from America, making the space feel much smaller, but she is very nice.

A Quarantine Diary

For two weeks, I didn't leave my hotel room.  I didn't wear shoes or put in my contacts.  I had three (vegetarian) meals a day delivered to my door, all chosen by the hotel staff.  For two weeks, I didn't eat any processed sugar.  My phone was tracked by the Taiwanese CDC, and they texted me everyday.  I reported by body temperature everyday at 9 am and 9 pm.  My device usage time, as tracked by my computer and phone, went from ~2 hours per day (during the weeks of summer vacation before leaving the US) to ~11.25 hours per day. Here are the highlights of my days:

Day 1: arrived late via quarantine taxi

Day 2: finished my book
Day 3: started virtual classes

Day 4: wrote the most quickly produced grant proposal of my life

Day 5: took a 4 hour nap upside down on my bed in the afternoon with the shades fully open

Day 6: got a NYT crossword subscription and did an entire week of crosswords, managed not to nap for the first day yet

Day 7: received a care package, experienced my first earthquake!

Day 8: finished the final season of Sex Education on Netflix, exploded my two very carefully packed suitcases of 50.5 pounds each to find my nail clippers

Day 9: figured out a method to use my water heater to reheat food

Day 10: fully overcame jet lag because I had to start leaving the curtains open so the morning light would help me get out of bed and stop snoozing my alarm before 8 am class

Day 11: developed blisters on the bottom of my feet from a YouTube dance workout, figured out through trial and error what every single button did on the fancy Toto Washlet (toilet+bidet) remote

Day 12: got to interact with a nurse to have my PCR test done

Day 13: flossed twice

Day 14: completed my IRB human subjects research recertification

Day 15: released into the world!

View from my new shower

By released into the world, I mean I began another period of slightly less strict quarantine, a week called the Self-Health Management Period.  I am in a different hotel, in a very nice corner suite on the 11th floor. The CDC still tracks me and messages me, but I am allowed to leave my new hotel room so long as I don't take off my mask, go within 6 feet of another person, get on public transport, or go to campus or any large gatherings.  After this period, I will finally move into my dorm on NTU's campus.

Care package from my high school Chinese
teacher's sister, whom I've never even met

Where I got my first meal out of quarantine,
sweet and sour noodle soup with bok choy
(酸辣面汤、青菜)

I have become extremely social in recent years so I thought quarantine would be much harder mentally than it turned out to be.  My favorite pre-quarantine activities included being outside, going to the gym, and interacting with others, but through this process I’ve been reminded that I have quite strong introverted habits as well.  It was a little bittersweet when I finally left my cave of productivity to begin building a new life in a new city.

I am not a person who gets overstimulated easily, but total isolation to downtown Taipei was a lot.  Suddenly I was outside in an extremely dense foreign city surrounded by bright signs Chinese characters and 500 mopeds trying to cross the stoplight.

A Self-Health Management Period Diary

Day 1: overwhelmed

Day 2: ecstatic

Day 3: sunburnt with sore feet