潮州 Chaozhou

My first weekend back after COVID, I went down to 潮州 Chaozhou in 屏東縣 Pingtung County to spend time with Fulbright ETA friends who were about to leave Taiwan for the summer.  Friday night, we ate an amazing feast of indigenous food at a local restaurant where my friends are regulars.  It is easy to be recognized by all small restaurant owners when you're the only white person in this very remote town, teaching English at the nearby middle school.  Saturday, we did a gorgeous river tracing hike to a waterfall, involving lots of rock scrambling and swimming in blue lagoons along the way.  That night, they hosted a going away party at their house.

COVID in Taiwan

On Saturday, some friends and I stand-up paddle boarded off the coast of Fulong to a tiny snorkeling spot called 金銀島, Treasure Island.  Towards the end of the day, I thought I had thoroughly worn myself out from swimming in the ocean, but actually I had COVID!

I don't know where it came from, but I randomly started feeling like I had a cold and then my home rapid test was positive.  My dorm manager immediately yeeted me out of my dorm room where I was sharing a bathroom with 80 other women.  They used disinfectant to power-wash the inside of my room and the entire floor, and moved my roommate into a hotel room where she'd be monitored for symptoms.  They put me in the basement of my dorm in THE GYM.  It was ironic because my major anxiety about this whole process was not being able to exercise, but at this point I was too achey and tired to take advantage fully.

After sleeping one night on the floor of the basement gym, and seeing a virtual doctor to get a confirmed diagnosis, I got a call the next day that a taxi driver had arrived to deliver me to my next destination.

Wearing a full hazmat suit, he spritzed my entire body (and the bottom of my shoes) with hand sanitizer before I could get into the taxi parked on the side of a busy road.  I had no idea where the taxi was headed until we pull up to this regal-looking hotel, called the Hamp Court Palace, or 寶璞大飯店.

I was ushered to a high-end, spacious hotel room with a bathtub and a balcony, paid for by NTU (they got bad press for having students quarantine in tents in dorm basements).

Shortly after I arrive, my randomly assigned roommate arrives--someone who got COVID on the same day and thus will be quarantined with me for the next eight.  She also brings her FROG, whose name is 呱呱 guāguā (the sound frogs make in Chinese).

Most Taiwanese students go home to quarantine, but Tainan, her hometown, is very far in the south.  It turns out she is a veterinary medicine major from my same school.

The first meal delivered to us is McDonalds

If I thought quarantine on my own was an interesting experience, then quarantine in a shared hotel room with a random Taiwanese person is a true psychological experiment.  It's an economical method to create more quarantine arrangements in a city that got slammed by COVID but still wants to control the spread.  In the end, I found it to be good for keeping one's spirits up and reminding us to fill it our thrice-daily symptoms and vitals chart.

My roommate turned out to be very sweet, and I'm very grateful for the constant extra Chinese practice, as well as the buddy for YouTube workouts.  She hasn't figured out what "bless you" means yet (there isn't a phrase or concept in Chinese, so I've been saying it in English).  She just looks at me a little confused every time I say it; I'm waiting for her to get the connection to her sneezing.  She has been wearing her mask because she thinks her nose gets cold and that what makes it so runny.  She asked the nurse if she was allowed to wash her hair here, because Taiwanese people think having a wet head makes you very vulnerable to sickness.  Some people won't was their hair while on their period, and no one EVER leaves the house without blow-drying their hair first.  While she has shampooed, conditioned, and blow-dried her hair every single evening, she has not changed her clothes at all, except to wear a special outfit to exercise in.  She recommended I eat yellow kiwis and drink coconut water and Coke to feel better, even though both of our symptoms resolved completely within 36 hours.

I have learned so much COVID-related vocabulary.  This whole bizarre process, involving many phone calls from the CDC, happened entirely in Chinese.  Based on friends' experiences who don't speak Chinese, it was definitely smoother for it.  Although being a foreign graduate student lowers the bar for every standard you have it life, it also makes hapless experiences all the more exciting.

端午節 Dragon Boat Festival

Friday was Dragon Boat Festival, celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar.  The origin story involves a poet who committed suicide in opposition of the Qin Dynasty around 300 BCE by drowning himself in the river.  The townspeople raced out in boats to try to retrieve his body but couldn't find it.  They dropped sticky rice wrapped in leaves into the water so the fishes would snack on the 粽子 zongzi instead of his body.

Watching dragon boat races at 大佳 with friends

Shop selling different flavors of zongzi

Zongzi are truly one of my favorite Asian snacks.  They are wrapped in fresh or dried banana leaves and usually have a mix of meat, chestnuts, and mushrooms inside sticky rice.  However, they also have vegetarian ones and sweet ones.  My favorite have red bean paste in the middle.  In China, my friends would unwrap them and then dip them directly into white sugar.  In Taiwan, where Japanese cuisine has greater influence, the sticky rice will sometimes be mixed with mochi.

They are bought in bundles tied together with twine,
my Taiwanese auntie kindly gave me some

On Saturday, I attended a memorial for the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.  The memorial is normally held in Hong Kong but has not been allowed in recent years because of tightening restrictions in China.  During the memorial, they unveiled a replica of the sculpture honoring those killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre.  The original statue in Hong Kong was taken down by the CCP in December of 2021.  Some of the Hong Kong student protestors whose classmates were murdered in demonstrations were in attendance at this vigil in Taipei.  It was especially poignant because, although activists have fled to Taiwan, many believe that the peace and democracy here will soon come to an end too.

My friend being interviewed by a Falun Gong news reporter

Documentary on this topic that's banned in China and Hong Kong
but has been extremely popular in Taiwan

On Sunday, I went surfing in Yilan with my Taiwanese friend and his high school friends.  It was 96 degrees and sunny.  We threw a football on the beach, ate yellow watermelon, drank Coronas, and played with their Samoyed.  I personally drank two huge taro milk smoothies.

The friends to whom I was introduced on this day trip represent a very niche slice of Taiwanese society.  They all were sent to the United States for at least one year of high school.  They are all proficient in English and Mandarin, and have very international friend circles.  They often have relatives who live in the United States.  In Taipei, they live in areas like Neihu, which also happens to be the location of the exclusive Taipei American School.  They drive nice cars, work for their families' companies, and have expensive pure bred dogs.

I am so grateful for any opportunity to be immersed in Chinese, but it is not always smooth sailing.  Living in a foreign language makes me better understand the experience of the exchange students who stayed with my family growing up.  It takes enormous effort to be able to tune in and keep up with a conversation between native speakers, especially when it's not directed at you.  It is hard to insert yourself or ask questions because you're not totally sure if you missed something that was said earlier.  The worst part is feeling like you lack personality and wit because your language level is not adequate.  I cannot overemphasize how different studying Chinese (ranked as Category V "languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers" by the Foreign Service Institute) is from studying a language like French or Spanish (both ranked as Category I).  The logic, culture, and pronunciation are based on radically different fundamentals that English.  Living in Taiwan has made me realize mastery is an ever extending asymptote.