The maniac has made it to her Mandarin motherland! Though a mere seven days have passed since I traversed twelve hours of pretzel munching and complimentary films while flying across the Pacific Ocean, my fieldtrips and accidental adventures could create its own novel! But for the sake of today’s post, I will condense my Asia odyssey into daily segments of the highs (and occasional lows) of entering the Eastern world—starting with my first three days:
Day 1— “Poker Chip” Metro Tickets and Buying the Wrong Soap
Jet lag could not faze my delight when I could finally stretch my legs and touch Taiwan soil. As I stewed in excitement during the final hour of my flight, I had made the steadfast decision I would not speak a single syllable of English from the moment of arrival. So naturally, I learned very quickly how near impossible of a decision that was. The fact is, transitioning into a non-native language abroad takes a determination no one fully realizes until they’re stuck in it. You can envision confidently chatting with friendly locals dozens of times, but when suddenly caught between ignorance of a foreign airport’s layout and customs specific vocabulary, an involuntary shyness chokes your words.
I managed to hold the English in through the security screening and all the way to the airport’s metro station. An employee near the ticket machines, probably bemused by my insistence to squeeze out Chinese sentences rather than get an English point across in half the time, helped me insert the cash and prod the buttons needed to produce a plastic coin. The chip looked like it belonged in a Connect Four playset or a Vegas casino, but I was in no mood to question Taiwan’s ticket system. I clutched the purple disk with luggage in tow and eagerly watched the platform. I finally heard the metal echo of an incoming train, but as if to snuff out my relief, a woman brandishing a megaphone jumped in front of the group and began barking a Chinese announcement utterly distorted by her mouthpiece. After straining to listen for her repeated, garbled message to no avail, I meekly cried out, “我不懂! (I don’t understand!)” A boy about my age finally approached me and asked in English, “She’s saying this is the commuter train. Are you taking the commuter train or the express train?” Ugh, this was ridiculous! I was tired and could not take the chains of my slow tongue any longer! I responded with resignation, “I don’t even know, I just know my ticket is purple.”
Long story short, I figured out which train to get on and eventually reached my study abroad program’s apartment complex. I found that my roommates were largely acquainting with each other in English and didn’t feel as sheepish for breaking my Chinese goal in the first hour. Now, we got to struggle through language barriers as a team!
What made me laugh hardest my first night in Taipei was attempting with my roommates to find hand-soap at a nearby drug store. We wanted to secure a bottle for our suite that night, as the last thing any of us wanted was to get sick during our stay (which would bite me later in a cruel slash of situational irony). The issue was, of the two writing systems Chinese has, all four of us were accustomed to reading simplified characters—but Taiwan uses the traditional, more complex character system! [for more information regarding the difference between simplified and traditional characters, click here.] When we found a likely candidate topped with a pump, we assumed from the presence of the characters 洗 (to wash) and 手 (hand) on the label that we had found the right product. Little did we know, until we got back to our apartment and were able to check the label with an online dictionary, that we had just bought a “gentle on hands” quart of dish soap! Indeed, a first night abroad could not be complete without a language mishap!
Day 2—Skipping exams for the ER
Could it have been I used the wrong soap that night? Had I not let my pork stew long enough in the hotpot I purchased as a celebratory dinner? Or maybe it was breathing the same air of sardine-packed travelers in an airplane all day? Regardless of the reason, when I woke up the next morning, my body was in full revolt. A pain sharp enough to mask any sense of nausea seized the lower half of my stomach and persisted between frequent bouts of vomiting. My angelic roommates tried to give me stomach medicines from a nearby pharmacy, including an eerie tube of brown herbal balls used in Chinese medicine, but nothing could be held down in this spell of gastrointestinal mutiny. It quickly grew apparent that I needed immediate medical attention, but placement exams for our group’s study program were fast approaching! After several internet texts and unintentionally scaring my mother to the nth degree, a fellow classmate from a lower floor rushed to my aid, hailed a taxi, and dropped me off at the hospital—all at the risk of missing his placement exams. Friendship goals, my readers!
I was wheelchaired, a plastic trashcan cradled in my ghostly arms, to an emergency doctor. The staff largely did not speak English, but by some miracle, I was able to effectively describe my symptoms and respond to questions in Chinese with little issue. Nobody could make sense of my English health insurance card, but the cost of my examination, labwork, and prescriptions only came to the remarkable price of around 60 USD! All in all, though I was in an awful state the entire day, the experience allowed me to bond more immediately with my awesome classmates and adjust to the time zone difference (as illness requires lots of rest!).
Day 3—Visiting the President’s Office and Longshan Temple
Feeling considerably better, I arranged with my program’s teachers to make up exams after the school’s first fieldtrip: Taiwan’s Office of the President and the Longshan Temple! The following are highlight photos and short stories of my travels to these historic sites:
This brown, European-style building is essentially the Taiwan equivalent of the oval office in America. We had to go through a special line of security and show our passports to be let inside its museum on the first floor. The overarching theme of each of its exhibits was “Power to the People” and included citizen artwork among portraits of past presidents and vintage photographs. One of the quirkiest exhibits was a collection of water tanks repurposed as music speakers painted with urban graffiti. The color and detailing of this tank makes it one of my favorites:
My favorite part of the fieldtrip, by far, was visiting the neighboring Longshan Temple. The rain that began to drizzle when we arrived at the gate only added to the nostalgic charm of Longshan’s insanely ornate chambers. My camera could zoom in on its rooftops an infinite amount and still capture exquisite detail!
Covered in mythical creatures and bodhisattvas, this temple is particularly unique in its dual housing of Buddhist and Daoist shrines. Some attendees lit incense and bowed to golden statuettes. Others recited prayers on the temple steps or threw crescent shaped stones on the ground. As the afternoon sprinkle erupted into a dramatic downpour, I mustered the courage to ask locals what some of the rituals meant. A few responded to my awkward inquiries with annoyed silence, but one kindly old woman happily explained her temple zodiac pamphlet and the stone wedges patrons were tossing.
I learned from that delightful conversation that in Daoist tradition, each of the twelve Chinese zodiacs cycle between different levels of luck and misfortune on an annual basis. If your or a family member’s zodiac happens to be the bad zodiac of that year, one is supposed to come to the Daoist shrine to pray for divine protection.
The pillars of orange orbs you can see piled aside sculpted deities actually each have a person’s name inside. Disciples deemed to have an ill-fated year will pay the temple to place their name inside one of these lamps to reside near the Daoist Gods and symbolically have their mercy “light” their lives for the year. The old woman let me read her form of this year’s zodiac horoscopes: fortunately for me, my zodiac’s forecast is a prosperous one!
As for the peculiar rocks I saw locals repeatedly drop on the floor, each pair of curved stones are the classical Chinese equivalent of a magic 8 ball. Known in Chinese as 筊杯, individuals cast these stones with a yes or no question about a life-changing decision such as marriage and surmise the gods’ answer based on which side the stones land on. If a stone casting produces three consecutive combinations of one stone resting flat and the other rocking on its round edge, the answer is yes. If both stones land flat or roundly, the answer is no, with flat stones symbolizing godly anger and the swaying of round stones suggesting celestial laughter at the question. Among the splattering rain, clinking of stones, and chanting of prayers for peace, exploring the temple’s beauty was akin to an oriental lullaby. I loved every second of it!
I am so grateful for the kind natives who have thus far treated me as an admiring student rather than a pesky tourist, as well as the many classmates I have befriended and the challenges I have overcome. Stay tuned for the second half of week one’s shenanigans, hopefully coming in the next few days!
Yours Truly,
The Mandarin Maniac