More from Taipei

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. -Mark Twain

So things have been incredibly busy here. There are a lot of things to talk about, dinners and adventures and random occurrences galore. Mrs. Kao happens to be old school friends with the CEO of a large electronics corporation, so I met him and went out for Thai food in the city. Not surprisingly, it was delicious. I really like family style dinners- lots of different dishes, and of course everyone wants me to try everything, and I am quite happy to oblige them. That comes with risks though, since I tried duck feet the other night. The soft-shelled crab was good though, and the curry. That dinner was interesting. Mrs. Kao and her old friends chatted the entire evening, all in Chinese. In fact, they spoke maybe two words of English the whole night, and though I wasn’t able to keep up with too much of their conversations, I was able to catch more than I would have the first couple of days here. So my listening is improving, if only a little so far.

Earlier that day I found myself in a bit of twilight zone moment. I walked out of my hostel/apartment only to find the streets completely empty and still. There were no people, all of the cars were parked, some abandoned in the middle of the street and others lined along the roads. I tried to walk to one of the main roads to see what was happening and I was whistled back by three police officers. So I wandered around in an incredibly busy city that appeared entirely abandoned. You know those movies where there is one person left on the planet and everyone else has mysteriously disappeared…yeah that was me. It turns out, every year, Taipei has a drill where they evacuate the vast majority of the population into a secure area to prepare for an attack from Mainland China. That’s not an experience I’m likely to forget any time soon.

The next day Celeste, Mrs. Kao, and I went to the National Palace Museum, which houses the greatest collection of Chinese history in the world. Apparently many of the exhibits were smuggled over from Mainland China right after the Communists took over. I think as a result the Taiwanese government is a little paranoid and they force mainlanders to visit only in specific tour groups going along specific routes under close supervision. There were a lot of tour groups, but I enjoyed the exhibits. I saw lots of jade and ivory and porcelain. After the museum we headed toward National Taiwan University and ate lunch around there. We went to a small sushi bar across from the campus. The sushi here is great; I got 12 pieces for about four and a half dollars. After that I met another of Mrs. Kao’s friends who is in publishing. He offered me any book off his shelf (he actually ended up giving me two) and they caught up while I perused his incredible collection. We left; I explored the campus on my own, found my way back to a train station, and went back to my place.

The train system is absolutely incredible. Supposedly it is the best system in Asia, and though I haven’t seen other systems elsewhere, I would not be surprised. I am able to get anywhere in the city quickly and with little difficulty because of the MRT. What is unfortunate about this large, busy city, is that it is/was impossible to find a new stick of deodorant ANYWHERE. I went into department stores, drug stores, convenience stores, I looked for hours, I even dedicated an entire afternoon of errands to hunting down deodorant, but to no avail. I looked everywhere for a Watson’s around me where Danielle said she found stuff in Beijing, but I had no luck around me.

I’ve spent a lot of my time doing my research for my meetings. Through a referral I have set up meetings with professors and even a member of the ministry of foreign affairs. So I did research, focused my questions, practiced, and prepared. In between my preparations though I had some nice distractions, especially last night. We went to another university to visit more of Mrs. Kao’s friends. They are all very nice, and all impressive. In fact every one of her friends that I have met is a US educated PhD and the couple I met last night were a dean of engineering and the vice president of a company. They were really humble and nice. I never would have guessed their occupations of levels of education from their demeanor, but that just goes to show that you can never tell who someone is until you get to know them. The husband laughed every other sentence and his laughter was infectious.

They took us out (yes the free meals are wonderful) for traditional Taiwanese cuisine at a small family owned restaurant. It was delicious, actually my favorite meal so far. It beat the delicious seafood, Thai food, and sushi; it was just very good. I couldn’t begin to name the dishes that I ate, only that there were rice noodles, a beef dish, vegetables, a fish dish, rice, soup, tea…like I said, family style dinners are fantastic. We also went out for dessert afterwards. I can’t remember the name in Chinese, but it was essentially a large mound of shaved ice in condensed milk with mangos on top. It was the most refreshing thing after a hot and humid day. I might try to make it back home if I can. It’s pretty simple, but so satisfying. As soon as we left to go back it started pouring (of course) so we made it to a covered bus stop while they went to get the car to drive us back to the train station. I didn’t mind the rain from our covering, but Celeste didn’t like sharing company with the mosquitoes and the largest spiders that I have ever seen in my life. I’ll have pictures up eventually, but they were about the size of a half dollar, and fat.

So far, I’m going over my experiences day by day, which while interesting is something that I had been hoping to avoid in my blogging. I didn’t want to trivialize anything that I did by writing a list of things that I did. But because everything is so new to me, it really is all experiential, whether its meeting new, humble and impressive people, or trying new foods, or finding my way around a city completely on my own with a pretty substantial language barrier. I have confidence in getting around the city on my own now but I am still a little nervous about trying to get to new places on my own, especially when it is for something important, like my meeting with the member of the ministry of foreign affairs (or MoFa as she called it).

I had an address and nothing more to go on and no contact with anyone who new Taipei, not Mrs. Kao who has had her own business, nor Celeste who has presumably been with her, or lounging on a couch watching television. I found the nearest train station, hopped a train until I got there and then grabbed a taxi relatively close to the address. Two things about that taxi ride. One, he was so happy to see that I was an American. He was confident that I would be a fare when he saw me, and it gave him an opportunity to play the country CD that he had in his car. I mean come on. He was whistling along to the songs as he was driving through Taipei, and nothing that I have experienced clashes more with Taipei than country music. The second thing that I saw, that made my day, was a Watsons a block and a half past the train station. I added that to my mental map and made my way to my meeting.

He dropped me near the place and I walked down a random street only to get to a large gate with a small entrance. All I could see was a tall building in the background, and a metal door with a small glass window. I peered in only to see a guard look back with immense confusion. He opened the door and I said the name of the person I was going to see and he motioned me inside. I walked into the building to see more guards and a large sign that essentially said the following:
2nd Floor: embassy of the Republic of El Salvador, 3rd Floor, Embassies of the Republic of Nicaragua and the Republic of Guatemala, 4th Floor, Embassies of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Saudi Arabian trade office, 5th floor,
Embassies of the Republic of Palau and St. Christopher and Nevis, 6tb floor, Embassy of Burkina Faso, 7th floor, Embassies of the Soloman Islands and the Republic of Paraguay, 8th floor, the Embassy of the Republic of Haiti, 9th floor, the Embassies of the Republic of Colombia and the Republic of Honduras, 10th floor, the Embassies of the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe and the Kingdom of Swaziland, 11th floor, the Embassies of Belize and the Republic of Nauru, and floors 12 through 15 belonged to the International Cooperation and Development Fund, where I would be meeting my contact.

That is quite a bit, but obviously it caught my attention. This was my first time in a government building in Taiwan, and all by myself and was surrounded by embassies. I thought that was pretty cool. I went up to the twelfth floor, a little nervous to meet with my contact only to find that it wasn’t as intimidating as I had thought it would be. She (the project manager of the Technical Cooperation Department) technically works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I had sent her a list of questions the night before and we sat in a small lounge area drinking good coffee from somewhere in South or Central America, I don’t know where because she didn’t know where. But it was pretty casual. She was in her late twenties or early thirties and had been working on several development projects in Central America and Africa. Since she is technically an employee, in fact member, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she asked that I not quote anything that we discussed in anything that I write and I will respect that in my blog even though the readership is quite limited. But she provoked some very interesting thoughts on the roles of non-profit organizations and the necessity of working, successful development models for certain small countries without international clout. We talked for about an hour and while I haven’t cemented my thesis topic, she gave me a lot of ideas of things to research further when I get back home.

The most important part of my day was to follow though. As I exited the cab back at the train station I marched on straight past the entrance, down a block and a half and bought a stick of deodorant for the same price of my fifteen-minute cab ride. But it was worth it, it was worth just about any price, as I realize it is a rarer commodity that I had suspected. That or I am hopeless at finding things here. But either way, I am safe. Deodorant may be a small, unimportant comfort, but it is not insignificant. I feel so much better right now.
So needless to say I will continue this busy pace that I have set for myself, though tonight has been fairly relaxing. Tomorrow night I will be visiting a professors apartment to listen to a discussion on Richard Little’s The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models, and then discuss my topic with him and several of his graduate and PhD students. On Monday I head out to Taitung to teach for two weeks, which should be as different as going from New York City to Appalachia. I’m excited though. I’ll fill you in on everything when I get the chance.