Heading to Hong Kong

It's exactly one month until my alien residency card in Taiwan expires. What does this mean? It means I either have to leave the country or renew my contract with Kojen. I opted to leave. I've spent three memorable years here, one more than I had planned to originally. Living in Taipei has had its ups and downs. Let's see... What have I loved about Taiwan...
10. 7-11s everywhere - "It's so convenient here!"
9. People are generally quite friendly.
8. The MRT is awsome. Public transportation rocks.
7. Living expenses are quite low, able to save money.
6. I blend in. Yay!
5. Great Chinese food and the best tea in the world.
4. Hot springs.
3. The mountains are a half hour away.
2. The beach is an hour away.
1. Traveling in Asia and meeting people from around the world.

Things I hate here...
10. Every other store is a 7-11.
9. I hate scooters. They're loud and stinky and everywhere.
8. Traffic rules or shall I say lack there of.
7. Rude people on buses who don't get up to let you into the inside seat.
6. Rude people on buses who shove you out of the way to get to the front.
5. Crazy drivers who don't yield to pedestrians or bicyclists.
4. Cars who don't pull over when there's an ambulance behind them.
3. Prejudice against Asian Americans who don't speak Chinese fluently. I've encountered more prejudice here from Taiwanese and foreigners alike than I had ever experienced in America.
2. Women who carry umbrellas in the sun and look down on those with dark skin.
1. Air pollution. I feel like I've been smoking for twenty years. The pollution is suffocating in Taipei.
1. Lack of individuality and independance amonst people in a monoculture.
1. Girly Taiwanese women and the foreign men who prey on them.
1. Taiwanese men who want their women to be weak, subdued, and without a mind of their own.

There are more but I'll leave it at that.

Actually, many people who come here say they'll only stay here for a year but end up getting swallowed by the comforable life one can have in Taiwan and stay for 5 - 10 years without ever learning to speak Chinese (I also find this rather dispicable.) I promised myself that would never happen to me. I've decided to go on with my original plan to move to Hong Kong and learn Cantonese. Things have already been set into motion. I've given my notice of resignation to my academic director, made arrangements for a place to stay on a little island a half hour ferry ride from Hong Kong proper called Cheung Chau with a beach and no cars, inquired about a Hong Kong visa (it turns out that I don't need a visa. I can stay there for three months on my US passport), and found a replacement to take my room in Tianmu. Now all I need to do is find a job which is giving me a bit of anxiety and has been for the past couple of months. I've applied to several schools with no luck. My Asian appearance and last name seems to be my main hinderance. Employers in Hong Kong apparantly don't think a Chinese American can do as good a job teaching English as a white person can. I thought that perhaps a hundred years being colonized by the British my have taught them something but I guess I was wrong. What makes me feel a little better is telling myself that if it doesn't work out, I can always go home. It's not the end of the world. There are worse predicaments, are there not? Besides, I also promised myself that I would be back in the States by the time I was 30 and start settling down and building a stable life. Well, that's only 5 years away; time's running out!

I haven't posted on this site for quite sometime and probably won't post as often as I used to for several reasons. The main one being my psychotic old hag of a roommate Helen has cancelled my ADSL because she "doesn't want to be responsible for such a large amout of money," about 24USD a month. I've never hated a person as passionately as I do this creature. Thank God I will be rid of her. But that's story to be told another time. When I move to Hong Kong next month it will probably take some time to get the Internet set up and running. I don't think Uncle Ngai uses the Internet or even has a computer.

I'm sitting in an Internet cafe near the Shilin night market. The screen is displayed in Chinese only and there is no spell check so my post is probably littered with mistakes. My apologies.

The Japanese teachers give it a go. ISO 3200 

Mr. Hou, the evil one appears to be having a good time.  

Kojen teachers at their best at the annual Kojen Summer appreciation party. School six always has the best act. The one on the right is my boss.  

I'm back and better than ever

Now that the hectic summer schedule at Kojen is over, I'll have more time to write in my blog. But not today. More stories and photos to come, though. So stay tuned.

Love's lost but not forgotten

Ok, listen, this is my sappy spiel about love but if you don't want to hear what's been said a million times over, then don't read on.

Love hides in strange places. Sometimes when you've got it, you don't want it and when you haven't got it anymore, you want it more than anything. It's not cut and dry like the movies portray it to be - you love someone or you don't love someone. For me, at least, love happens in percentages. You love the person a lot of the time but there are times when I actually felt pure loathing toward this person. It was when the scales started tipping to the wrong side, I decided to question my purpose in the relationship. You can start to think that the person you share your life with doesn't really deserve to have the amount of affection you've been giving him and hence, begin to give less and less.

It can never be like that first month or in my case six months of a relationship. It's euphoric. Colors are more vivid. Your shoes fit better. Everything seems right.

If you spend years with the same person that person truly becomes part of you. This person shares the same memories with you and as time passes, eventually the number of memories including this person outnumbers the memories without this person. But then, what will happen when this person is ousted from your life by extreme forces? Who are you? Where is that part of you where that person once happily resided?

Panic takes over. Where am I? What do I do? Where is he, damnit? I want that piece back. What extremes can I go to find that missing part of me and how dare you take it away, whoever, whatever you are? Anger. Hatred. Clouded irrational thinking. Anguish. Heartache.

"What was the reason why I broke up with him again? I can't seem to remember. All I can remember are the good ones with him. I think I want him back but it's just too late. But is it? Maybe not. I'm going to try to get him back. But why do I want to do this? How will I do this? Wasn't I so unhappy when we were together? It doesn't matter because it's got to be better than the misery I'm feeling now. Anything to just make the pain go away." This is what I thought every minute of the day.

You need some kind of force to bring you back down to earth from this constant delirious brooding. For me, it was my friends. They reminded me why I broke up with him in the first place and it was like an extraordinary epiphany. I was instantly happy. The weight was lifted off of me and suddenly I was on cloud nine. This guy was not the right for me; they spelled it out in every way possible. I could do better. Yes, of course, I could. There are so many guys in this world and I know that I'm special. I'm different from most girls.

I now know that man who is going to truly love me and make me happy (not that I'm not perfectly content being by myself) is out there. I can't wait to meet him.

To Malcolm

Where do I start?

Hearing that you went out with someone else was as if some heinous beast had reached into my chest and tore out a piece of my heart. It's strange, that expression, "a broken heart" because the pain really felt like it stemmed from somewhere within my chest cavity. It's a real physical pain; it's not up there where you think and make logical decisions.

I know I was the one who did the breaking up. I put you through a lot of pain and anguish. I know. It's mostly my pride and selfishness that is causing my own misery. You have a right to see other women.

I ponder the reasons why you did it the way you did it. Some think you just wanted to make me jealous or piss me off and if that's true, you succeeded. You won. I cried. A lot. I spent many a night wide-eyed starring at the window. Let me out of this nightmare. Or that this was some last attempt at getting me back. Others think, you just needed a quick fuck. That actually doesn't bother me as much as disappoint me for I thought you were a different kind of man, the kind that doesn't think with that small piece of flesh hanging between his legs. Actually, what I think is that you simply needed to move on and there's nothing wrong with that. The reasons don't matter.

The days and nights have been hard. I shed a lot of tears that first night. The second I shed fewer. The third even fewer and now though I still do feel a strange pit in my chest, I think I'm okay. It gets easier as the days go by and to be honest my friends have really come through for me. They are there to comfort me, to tell me to be strong, to criticize you (which makes me feel a lot better), to eat, to laugh about our silly lives. They are great. It would be so much harder had I not had good friends to lean on.

I constantly replay all those amazing times we had together. There were so many. Everywhere I look I see something that reminds me of some experience we had. I search for some sign that you are trying to make contact with me. When the telephone rings, I hope it's you. When I turn over in my bed at night I see an imaginary outline of you body next to mine. Then it disappears. During the day, I wonder what you are up to. I wonder if you wonder what I'm up to. I do miss you much.

We were the best of friends throughout our relationship as well as after it ended. Our conversations even became more intimate afterwards too. I think perhaps the main reason why I am so upset is because I lost my best friend that night and that my best treated me with such contempt.

I was reading this book in Eslite the other day called Blink. The author talked about how some people make it in life, not only do they have wealth but they also have true happiness while others suffer bad fortune throughout their lives. He attributed it to the ability to make good decisions. Basically, there are those who have a sense about how to make the right decision most of the time leading to fulfilling successful lives. Anyway, I think I'm one of those people. Things always seem to work out for me. I know that I made the right decision to break up with you because you are certainly not the right mate for me. There are simply too many incompatible traits the main one being our differences in values. Therefore, I stand firm with the decision that we cannot be friends anymore. We both have to move on.

However, I do have some of your possessions like your tent and a good book of yours. I think you may want them back. You have the travel guide that I have to give to my coworker. I would somehow like to set up a time where we can exchange items. You can send me an e-mail or leave me a message.

Typhoon Haitang. Taiwan is somewhere underneath that big twisty cloud. Picture courtesy of Taiwan Weather Bureau. 

Eye of the Storm

Typhoon Haitang hit Taiwan yesterday with fury. The government has shut down all businesses on the island today, a somewhat expected day off. It's not as bad as the last one though. Last year we got one, the wind was so strong it whistled and the windows shook and rattled so much in the middle of the night that I feared they would cave in so I retreated to the bathroom where I sat for nearly an hour.

I just came back from a walk outside. There's something so dangerous yet eerily alluring about the ultra high speed winds of a typhoon. Armed with a full body 7-11 poncho, I walked around the block. I passed fallen branches, leaf covered cars on the side of the road, the occasional taxi, a few pedestrians struggling with their bent umbrellas. I only got scared when I saw roofing bricks strew across the sidewalk. I thought to myself, "Hey, it would probably hurt if I got clonked in the head by one of those." So I made my way back home but stopped in the small sheltered area by my bank and stayed there for a good twenty minutes watching Mother Nature release her anger.

The rain comes down sideways in long layers. The air is fresh, so fresh and moist. Breath it up. The trees lean over. Which ones are strong enough to survive. I look over to the small atrium where the fish and the turtles in the pond swim happily in circles completely oblivious to the chaos that is happening outside their little world. Before entering my building I take a few snapshots of the sun with my water proof camera. There's an open patch up there. It seems the clouds are twisting around it. I feel strangely like I'm being watched.

Hoan Kiem Lake in the old quarter of Hanoi. 

And how are the bathrooms in Vietnam?

I think it's funny how after my trip to Vietnam so many Taiwanese people asked me if the toilets in Vietnam were as bad as the ones in Mainland China as if Chinese bathrooms were the gauge to determine the level horrific sanitary conditions in the world. I've never been to the mainland so I really can't compare but I did come across some pretty interesting washrooms along the way.

En route to Hoi An from Mui Ne on a narrow mountain pass in the middle of the night, beeping, veering past trucks in our overcrowded tourist bus with children hanging out of their seats and people sleeping in the aisles, we pause at a rest stop along the way. Everybody's gotta go to the John but the foreboding question hovers in the back of women's minds, "Are the bathrooms clean?"
"YES! Yes they are!" The place was most likely built specifically for tourists since the restaurant looks fairly tidy for a diner in the middle of no where.

It was only until the next morning when we stopped again at a another pit stop did we encounter restrooms that repelled us. I open the door and it's an empty tiled room with a tiny spigot where I think water comes out and a small hole in the corner for a drain. That's it. No toilet, not even a squatter. I close the door. Hmm. I go to the next stall. It's the same thing. What do I do? I look at this other white tourist woman near me and she looks back at me with the same perplexed look. Hey, I gotta go so I enter the stall. I pee on my feet. Gross!! I guess that's what the faucet is for, to wash the pee off your feet. Oh, now everything makes sense.

On another occasion while in the countryside of Ninh Binh we get off a bus and of course I have to go to the bathroom. At the little shop where we rented our bicycles, I kindly ask the owner, a little elderly Vietnamese woman if I could use her toilet. She brings me to the back of the store, where her family lives, to a wooden shack with a corrugated steel roof the size of a small closet. I open the door. I see a bucket of overflowing coal in the corner. The floor is made of some wooded planks haphazardly spread across the ground. The strangest thing was that there was a wooden stake coming out of the ground up to my waist right smack in the middle of the little room. There was barely enough room to squat. What the hell am I suppose to do here? I pee on my feet again but this time there wasn't a convenient faucet to wash it off. I open the door and walk past a plastic container of water and quickly scoop some up and throw it on my feet. I was ready to roll.

All you have to do is look up. Ankor Wat, Cambodia. 

Scribbles in my Moleskin

The following are just some observations I wrote down in my Moleskin notebook (every traveler should have a Moleskin) while in Vietnam.

• Beware of what restaurants serve; they'll put extra food out on the table. Patrons will think it comes with the meal but when the bill comes they charge you a lot extra.
• Everyone in Hoi An leaves their doors open at night
• Don't bring books. Buy a copied one here. Lots of Lonely Planets for a couple of dollars but be careful because some pages may be missing.
• Many, many old ladies but not many old men
• Tourists always get charged for at least double the price of goods
• So many flies in Cambodian markets but not many in Vietnam
• Vietnam cyclos: 1 passenger in front, driver in back. Cambodian tuk tuks: 2 passengers in back driver in front
• Very few street lights in Ho Chi Minh City. Lots of traffic circles but people don't follow the rules and make right and left turns at them.
  
• Beeping without abandon
• No McDonalds or big fast food chains. No Starbucks but there is a large coffee chain called Trung Nguyen which Starbucks tried to buy
• Almost everyone has a lean or slender body type
• The currency is very inefficient. They don't use coins. They use both USD and Vietnamese Dong. There's almost always trouble getting change for 50,000 dong which is about 3 USD.
• There are lots of humanitarian non profit organizations/schools for underprivileged youth
• Lots of seedy businesses: never know who to trust. No copyright laws so if one company does well, others will copy the name. Example: 50 Sinh Cafes, which one was the original?
• Very few dairy products because refrigeration is not common. Ice is delivered to restaurants on motorcycles
• restaurants often buy food from other vendor to sell at their restaurants instead of cooking it themselves.
• Locals drop human waste into Halong Bay.
  

Trees are the enemy in the fight to preserve 900 year old temples at Ankor Wat. 

Bayon Temple, near Ankor Wat, Cambodia 

One of many one legged men, a result of land mines from the war. In front of Ivy Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia 

Artisans in training. Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

Happy cyclists. Taken from the seat of my tuk tuk. Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

Covered Japanese bridge. Hoi An, Vietnam.  

A boat ride along an irrigation canal. Ninh Binh Vietnam.