Monday, March 05, 2007
TAIWAN OVERKILL
(This is what happens when you've used up your one hour on the net and the book you brought is boring so you are forced to write stuff)
I stepped out of the hostel and into the unknown. The rain got worse and worse, until it was raining downwards, sidewards, and upwards, and I feared that if I jumped with both feet into the air, I would be blown onto the road by the wind. Later I noticed that I was among the few people left walking out in the street; later I realised I had stumbled into nothing less than a Taiwanese typhoon.
And so began my sojourn on the Ilha Formosa.
I hadn’t anticipated such a feeling of bewilderment. I had declined the offer to stay at my ex-teacher’s place in Taipei out of shyness. My research on Taiwan, which included culture and travel guides, and even a perusal of local modern literature, had little prepared me for the realities of being lost, lost, lost. I refused to head straight for the shopping districts – later I regretted not allowing myself the comfort you gain from being somewhere that is that same wherever you go: Bright lights and air-con, off-putting prices, food halls. Instead I thought I would visit the Sun Yat Sen memorial hall, a trip which required a ride on the orgasmically efficient MRT. The changing of the guard was a long half-hour wait away, so I travelled on.
The truth is, I had no idea where to go, or what to do. I was on an uneasy high in the excruciating humidity of the polluted Taipei streets. My attempts at celebrating my long-awaited independence were sabotaged by my utter lack of preparation. Throughout my stay in Taiwan, all the 13-year-olds trapped in the bodies of sheltered 23-year-olds praised me for my braveness for coming overseas alone. “So young, and a girl! So brave!” (It was merely the tip of the ice-berg in my horrifying discoveries of the ice-age-like status of country women in Taiwan.)
Four days later, I headed down to Taichung, left my suitcase there, and began the journey to Kending. A fellow 19-year-old asked his English-speaking friend to ask me if he could be my boyfriend. Keep in mind, this was supposed to be the beginning of my new life, where I took risks, did whatever I wanted, with absolutely no-one, and no voice in my head, telling me No. And so, I had a boyfriend. Later people would ask, did you ever have a Chinese boyfriend? And I would tell them yes, in fact I did. That he seemed to see me as a prostitute did not occur to me until later when I learnt of the way Chinese men view Western women – loose and slutty. “All Western women are sluts”, said Aiden, a half-Chinese half-American who had no qualms with insulting the Australian and American girls sitting directly in front of him on the couch in his loungeroom. Indeed, when I asked a different Chinese/American boy out for a drink, feeling quite truly brave, his reply was that he only wanted to go out with Chinese girls. Hmmph – fair enough!
Things had begun to pick up before Kending, when I stopped in a village in the south called Maolin. Locals were waiting for me as I got off the bus, as if prearranged. Our Mandarin was at just about the same level, I found, as I hopped on the back of a lady’s scooter and chewed my first betel nut. The ‘mild narcotic high’ I had read about was indeed quite mild, but I was glad to have the chance to try it. They then organised a ride to Duona, a little aboriginal village about 15km away. There was a natural hot spring there and I was pumped. I was amused when a snooty Chinese lady from the north told me to go back to where I came from. After all, I was invading their cosy little holiday space, reserved only for those who hail from the one and only ‘Middle Kingdom’. Could I blame them? Most kids in Australia go through their racist-phases when they’re in Year 3, when a sprinkle of Chinese kids arrive who look different, and become isolated. We are still racist later on, but the difference is that we eventually decide that it’s much classier to sound P.C.
I was less lost, and having a great time.
After Kending, I returned to Taichung, where I met up with a man in his mid-forties who was a Sydney Uni classmate. We bonded extremely fast, which in hindsight does not surprise me. We saw all the latest movies, following coffee and cake, we went shopping, and we ate all the wonderful cheap and tasty food there was on offer in Dong Bie. But most of all, WE BITCHED. We bitched about being constantly ripped off. We bitched about the Chinese not saying what they meant. (Never underestimate how frustrating that can be… it can drive a girl insane, and it did). We bitched about the bitchy xiaojies. We bitched about my ‘Pretty Woman’ experiences in the local clothing stores. Yes, we bitched. And bonded. He was my unlikely best friend. Our friendship went ‘poof’ like a puff of smoke on return to Australia. He had moved on to China; I had stayed on in Taiwan. Back at Sydney Uni, we soon realised we just had nothing to bitch about anymore. ¶ 18:49
(This is what happens when you've used up your one hour on the net and the book you brought is boring so you are forced to write stuff)
I stepped out of the hostel and into the unknown. The rain got worse and worse, until it was raining downwards, sidewards, and upwards, and I feared that if I jumped with both feet into the air, I would be blown onto the road by the wind. Later I noticed that I was among the few people left walking out in the street; later I realised I had stumbled into nothing less than a Taiwanese typhoon.
And so began my sojourn on the Ilha Formosa.
I hadn’t anticipated such a feeling of bewilderment. I had declined the offer to stay at my ex-teacher’s place in Taipei out of shyness. My research on Taiwan, which included culture and travel guides, and even a perusal of local modern literature, had little prepared me for the realities of being lost, lost, lost. I refused to head straight for the shopping districts – later I regretted not allowing myself the comfort you gain from being somewhere that is that same wherever you go: Bright lights and air-con, off-putting prices, food halls. Instead I thought I would visit the Sun Yat Sen memorial hall, a trip which required a ride on the orgasmically efficient MRT. The changing of the guard was a long half-hour wait away, so I travelled on.
The truth is, I had no idea where to go, or what to do. I was on an uneasy high in the excruciating humidity of the polluted Taipei streets. My attempts at celebrating my long-awaited independence were sabotaged by my utter lack of preparation. Throughout my stay in Taiwan, all the 13-year-olds trapped in the bodies of sheltered 23-year-olds praised me for my braveness for coming overseas alone. “So young, and a girl! So brave!” (It was merely the tip of the ice-berg in my horrifying discoveries of the ice-age-like status of country women in Taiwan.)
Four days later, I headed down to Taichung, left my suitcase there, and began the journey to Kending. A fellow 19-year-old asked his English-speaking friend to ask me if he could be my boyfriend. Keep in mind, this was supposed to be the beginning of my new life, where I took risks, did whatever I wanted, with absolutely no-one, and no voice in my head, telling me No. And so, I had a boyfriend. Later people would ask, did you ever have a Chinese boyfriend? And I would tell them yes, in fact I did. That he seemed to see me as a prostitute did not occur to me until later when I learnt of the way Chinese men view Western women – loose and slutty. “All Western women are sluts”, said Aiden, a half-Chinese half-American who had no qualms with insulting the Australian and American girls sitting directly in front of him on the couch in his loungeroom. Indeed, when I asked a different Chinese/American boy out for a drink, feeling quite truly brave, his reply was that he only wanted to go out with Chinese girls. Hmmph – fair enough!
Things had begun to pick up before Kending, when I stopped in a village in the south called Maolin. Locals were waiting for me as I got off the bus, as if prearranged. Our Mandarin was at just about the same level, I found, as I hopped on the back of a lady’s scooter and chewed my first betel nut. The ‘mild narcotic high’ I had read about was indeed quite mild, but I was glad to have the chance to try it. They then organised a ride to Duona, a little aboriginal village about 15km away. There was a natural hot spring there and I was pumped. I was amused when a snooty Chinese lady from the north told me to go back to where I came from. After all, I was invading their cosy little holiday space, reserved only for those who hail from the one and only ‘Middle Kingdom’. Could I blame them? Most kids in Australia go through their racist-phases when they’re in Year 3, when a sprinkle of Chinese kids arrive who look different, and become isolated. We are still racist later on, but the difference is that we eventually decide that it’s much classier to sound P.C.
I was less lost, and having a great time.
After Kending, I returned to Taichung, where I met up with a man in his mid-forties who was a Sydney Uni classmate. We bonded extremely fast, which in hindsight does not surprise me. We saw all the latest movies, following coffee and cake, we went shopping, and we ate all the wonderful cheap and tasty food there was on offer in Dong Bie. But most of all, WE BITCHED. We bitched about being constantly ripped off. We bitched about the Chinese not saying what they meant. (Never underestimate how frustrating that can be… it can drive a girl insane, and it did). We bitched about the bitchy xiaojies. We bitched about my ‘Pretty Woman’ experiences in the local clothing stores. Yes, we bitched. And bonded. He was my unlikely best friend. Our friendship went ‘poof’ like a puff of smoke on return to Australia. He had moved on to China; I had stayed on in Taiwan. Back at Sydney Uni, we soon realised we just had nothing to bitch about anymore. ¶ 18:49
