All of the Small Things - One month!!

Here I am again! It's October 1st here, marking four weeks to the day that I left for Taiwan, and I'm still having an awesome time! Didn't do too many interesting things this week, after the weekend it was mostly spent running in and out of class, but I'll start with the weekend.

So Saturday morning I got up bright and early to go to Tapei, a little too bright and a little too early for me, but whatever. Got a ride to the meeting point from a friend of a friend which was a little slice of heaven, since it was a good 25 minute hike from my place. My little group of travelers split off from the main group almost immediately; whereas the other students headed off to see Taipei 101, my group did not pass go, or collect two hundred dollars, and we went directly to Danshui. Now I'll be completely honest, I had no idea what Danshui was or where or what would even be there. I pretty much just get on the bus and see where it takes me, and in this case, it too us to Danshui. It was one of the most useful ports in Taiwan long long ago when all manner of Europeans used it as a trading base. In fact, you can still go see the Spanish turned Dutch turned English fort way up on a hill, and although the hike is murder the view is spectacular! We wandered around Danshui for awhile eating all manner of questionable foods, including this famous egg thing that was described to me as an egg that is "boiled, then sun dried, then boiled, then sun dried, then boiled, then sun dried" over and over and over. This results in a normal chicken's egg turning the rough color and consistency of a bike tire... and maybe the flavor too. I gave the egg a fair shot, but I felt less like I was eating a snack and more like I was a dog gnawing on one of those Kong toys. Meal time was relatively safe otherwise though, and we spent a good chunk of the afternoon walking around the fort and surrounding college area. Of course, then I found that my traveling companions knew the location of Asian pop star Jay Chou's highschool, and we were right in the area. Bouncing around like a pack of giddy fangirls (which we all were), we probably spent two hours walking around the gorgeous high school campus making moony eyes and taking ridiculous pictures. All of our conversations started off with "Can you believe that Jay Chou _______ (ex. walked down this road, played basketball on this court, failed a test in this classroom)? We're just that cool. Finally, we headed back down towards the main foody areas of Danshui, where my Chinese friends spent a great deal of time trying to cajole me into eating squid balls and tofu cakes. Sneaky sneaky, but my self-preservation won out. Of course by then we were all pretty much exhausted, so when I saw a few members of our group that were planning to go back to Taichung instead of staying the night, I hopped boats. Probably not the proudest moment, but I had a lot of homework to do and I worried about not getting it all done in time. We went our separate ways, but I did have a consolation prize... before heading back to Taichung we got to go to the big night market in Taipei and eat shaved ice! Good stuff!!

Got back to Taichung super late, and thus most of my Sunday was spent lounging around watching Independence Day online and sporadically accomplishing school work. I was a bit jealous of all the people that had fun without me Sunday, but seeing the dragging faces Monday morning kept me in check. I knew I would be heading to Kenting the next weekend, so I figured it was important to do the right thing and be productive, at least for a day.

As for the rest of the week, the biggest highlight was starting Chinese classes, which for some inexplicable reason start at 9 in the morning. Some of you out there with kids and real jobs might say, "Nine? What a reasonable time to start studying a foreign language!" but for a girl like me, who's regularly online doing homework or something until one or two, it's pretty much hell on earth. I dragged myself to class on time pretty much every day, but staying active (and awake for that matter) was a lot harder to do. The way the classes are set up is that we are supposed to take 15 hours of Chinese a week, three hours a day, five days a week. Sadly, this scheduling did not work out for me. Most students at the CLC (Chinese Language Center) don't have to take other classes around the school like I do; in fact, many of the CLC students aren't even college students! The other three people in my class are all at least 10 years older than me - an American missionary with a wife and a baby, a married Korean woman with two kids ages 8 & 4, and a French/Englishman who's probably as old as my father. All have been living in Taiwan for several years, and all have taken classes through the CLC before. This means when we got into class, they were ready to go at chapter five, whereas I didn't have any of the vocabulary from chapters 1-4. For each hour of class, we are taught by a different teacher, and move about from room to room, and for this first week they mainly did a quick run-through review. It could have been worse I suppose, but my input was limited because I knew none of the vocabulary. If they had started talking about the Great Wall or the semantic elements of Chinese characters, I probably would have been set. Instead, they talked about useful things, which only solidified my belief that the book we last used in Chinese class was a fantastic waste of time and energy.

That aside, I nearly laughed when the third teacher suggested that I do all the homework for chapters 1-4 overnight so the teachers could see that I was up to speed. I gave my best "are you kidding me?" face, which apparently didn't translate too well, because she asked if I had finished it the next day. That time, I actually gave a rather well toned response of "umm, I have WAY too much homework already to be expected to do an ENTIRE SEMESTER'S worth of Chinese in a day." She smiled, nodded, and asked me to finish it soon. I smiled, nodded, and thought "no way in hell." Then of course, I got lectured for not being able to do all 15 hours of class a week. At Tunghai, the maximum amount of hours any student can take is 25, but unless they have a death wish, most students top around 18 or 20. With my ten hours of other classes (including one graduate level class), I decided that 10 hours of Chinese a week would be the maximum I could do without going completely insane and jumping out a window. My choice apparently wasn't as appreciated, as I was reminded again and again that I'd be missing out on content that my classmates were going through. I appreciate the fact that they're trying to help me, but I can barely keep on top of the work load as it is, and we haven't even gotten to midterm week. We'll see how this struggle turns out...

Other than that, nothing else new is really going on. Heading to Kenting for the weekend, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Asia. My friend Tiffany was worried for me, because apparently the weather is supposed to cool down to a low of 27 C, high of 31. For those of you who don't know how much that equates in Fahrenheit, it's a comfortable 80 degree low, possibly dipping into the 90s. Tragically cold.

That's all for now! Time to actually get some homework done for next week!

Holy Typhoon, an update!!

So my update weekly strategy fel by the wayside when I was bombard over the last week and a half with wicked amounts of class and social activities. I'm not kidding when I say that I've gone out more times in the last two weeks than my entire summer combined - two bbqs, brownie baking, dinner dates, lunch dates, homework is due today dates, and etc. All this together makes me pretty tired by the time I get home, and if you want to factor in the time taken to procrastinate homework, updating time is getting low. I'll try to bring everyone up to speed real quick (meeting friends for dinner soon!).

So since last week, I was having an epic crisis that kept me away from the computer (and the floor) for about twelve hours. When I was warned about big bugs, I was NOT warned about giant magically disappearing roaches that somehow find a way into my bathroom and then scurry back out again in less than three seconds. Cue complete panic mode... I still haven't found the creepy thing!!

Finally got my cellphone, which was more expensive than I was hoping, but it's awesome enough to be ok. I started out looking at used phones, but some of the the very basic pinyin-capable (beat up phones) were still like $90. I'm not even kidding you. In the country where everything was made, the cheapest you can get a decent used phone is like $90. In the end, I paid an extra $25 and got a brand new one that didn't look like it was going to fall apart at the slightest usage. Super cute too - I still can't understand why an adorable new phone is only like $20 more than a crappy used one, but oh well.

Chinese placement testing was Tuesday morning... Nora (the OIEP person) thought I'd be in advanced, but I was pretty sure I'd fall into Intermediate. My fantastic ability to follow obscure political references in Chinese still hasn't transferred itself over so well into basic conversational ability, and my speaking still really sucks. Plus I've forgotten how to write most of my characters... Fu would not be happy. It was less of a test and more of a five minute conversation with the teacher who also agreed that my grammar is great and my vocabulary sucks. They have me in class three hours a day, five days a week from 9-12, even though I told them I'm not able to take 15 hours. I figure I'll just not show up and leave early so my hours aren't overloaded. Speaking of hours, I forgot to go get my class paper signed... hopefully it's not too late to do that. Tragedy will strike if I can't take that international business class, since it's totally my favorite course ever (sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet).

Papers are due every week in my graduate class, which really stinks. The subject matter at least is interesting, and the grad group is really cool though, they've totally taken me in. It's super fun getting to hang with the older kids (but not the really old classmates - some are like my dad's age!). It was pretty cool in class though when I was able to say I've read most of the books/articles he was showing us and was able to comment on everything he was talking about. Of course, he's ask me in Chinese and I'd reply smartly in English, but I have no doubt that my Chinese could not hold up to graduate level intelligence. Classes are held differently here though, not so much talking out in class or even raising your hands. Instead, everyone waits to be called on. This only kills me a little inside, so I've taken to writing out all my snarky comments on my notebook in no particular order. My favorite one so far? "We all must broaden our minds to the possibilities... oh my god Palin is a NUTCASE".

Other than that, there was a typhoon that kept me up all night Saturday, and I was so tired I didn't even notice the 6.something earthquake that happened Sunday morning. School was canceled Monday from the typhoon, which was pretty cool, especially since we got Wednesday off for the Moon Festival. Tuesday night I went to my friend Tiffany's house for a moon festival bbq, which was really awesome. We ate, lit fireworks, played mahjong, and chatted in a variety of languages. Spent Wednesday going out to lunch with a friend, and then cleaned my entire place top to bottom with a wet rag to avoid starting the paper that was due Thursday. Thursday was spent with the grad kids all day, from group studying in the morning, to class, to going out for Mexican food in the evening. MEXICAN FOOD!! Never thought I'd miss it so much... it was a bit expensive by Taiwan standards but not too bad for American costs.

Then finally today there was a welcome party for the international students, which was pretty much just a "come sit around for two hours and eat free food" get together. Came home, instead of doing my reading I took a three hour nap, and then went out again to eat with some of the other international students and buddies. Delicious pasta, yuuuum! Tomorrow I have to get up bright and early... we're going to Taipei!! The international group as a whole is just going for one day, but some of my friends and I decided to split off and spend the whole weekend there. Youth hostel away!! It should be great, plus I get to avoid going up Taipei 101 for another week haha~

That's all for now!!

Orientation is Synonymous with Mass Chaos

Another post so soon, I know, but they'll probably slow down when life gets settled here. I'm going to try and talk about the last two days in less detail, so my this post isn't a novel like my last one.

So orientation was Sunday, and I had agreed to meet the French kids at the on-campus 7/11 at 9:45. Apparently, there's more than one campus 7/11, but I still managed to find them simply by noticing how tall they all are. It was then that I met the three German students, who are also only staying for one semester, and together the seven of us headed off to the site of our indoctrination. The first part of orientation was splitting into our respective groups - the German girl Britta and I were in group one, and since she knows no Chinese, I got to pretend to help figure out what was going on. We joined our group, who stood away from us like we emitted some sort of deadly virus, and waited to be ushered into a dark series of rooms with no air conditioning. It was about this time I started wondering why in a country like Taiwan, there were any buildings left at all without A/C - personally it seemed like it'd be a priority. At this point, it became massively chaotic; people running everywhere, yelling, confusion, so Britta and I just hung out in a corner and watched the mayhem unfold. Finally, they started with a little introduction, cleverly introducing all the OIEP (office of international exchange programs) workers in a part of the room nobody could really see them. Phase one behind their plot to ensure we have no idea where to go or who to talk to for help. They introduced all the group leaders, made sure we got a packet full of little forms and brochures, then we marched back out into the sun to take a picture. Then, we marched back inside, and split into two groups - the Chinese/Hong Kong students and the Japanese/European students. I milled about for a minute before deciding to pretend to be European for a day, which ended up being a good idea.

So we were put in another unbearably stuffy room where we were questioned on our Visa types and given an explanation on class selection in very confusing English. I was able to follow mostly because the Japanese translator was pretty good, but I could tell the Europeans were pretty checked out of the proceedings. We got through everything and were given a cute little boxed lunch of things I didn't venture to eat. I try to be adventurous when it comes to food most of the time, my exception being really weird looking western food. If there's one thing travel in Asia has taught me, it's that their concept of western food is very different from our own.

We were then shuffled into another room where we were asked about bank accounts, and whether we wanted to go to a farm next Saturday. I'm not kidding.

Then it was time to apply for a cell phone, and I happily signed my name and handed over $400NTD (about $12USD) for my SIM card, only to learn it would take about a week to get it. Phase two behind their plot to ensure we have no idea where to go or who to talk to for help. I knew it was a plot because they seemed to smile when they said to call if we had any questions. Very sneaky, OIEP.

At that point we were supposed to go off on the campus and city tours, but my group decided to go see a movie instead. Knowing nothing about where to go on campus, the Europeans elected an actual staff member of OIEP to take us on a mini-tour, which lasted about ten minutes and consisted of "Here is bank, post office, book store, Chinese language center, and bus stop, ok?". With the regular groups having disappeared at this point, the Europeans decided to go their separate ways and after a few minutes with the French, I decided to go back to my room and cool off before the city tour that afternoon.

At 4:15, we met for the city tour (well, I was ten minutes late because I got lost - that campus is ENORMOUS) and all piled onto a bus for the longest and most uncomfortable ride ever. It took at least an hour to get through traffic, only for us to arrive at this Western food restaurant. We had dinner, which also took forever, then waited around for another hour or so for someone to show up and tell us where to go next. It was then decided that we'd go back to campus. In total, we spent about five hours on dinner; I suppose the city tour was the bus ride? Anyways, at that time a bunch of students decided to go out shopping, but being the good jet-lagged student that I was, I retired to my room to try and pick out classes for the semester (knowing that classes started the next morning). I spent about four hours of my own time mashing my way through the system, and finally became so frustrated with trying to figure everything out on my own in a foreign language, that I decided to go to bed and find someone to help me Monday morning.

Of course, when Monday morning came, I didn't really want to ever get up or leave my suite. I think it was mostly from anxiety at that point, anxiety caused by not knowing my classes and not knowing who to ask for help. I knew that if I didn't get the right classes, I wouldn't be able to graduate on time and staying another year is NOT an option. After about six hours of lazing about my suite (only so much can be done in 350 sq feet after all), I finally left to see what could be done about the chaos. I wandered around campus, asking for directions to the OIEP office and was directed instead to the CLC (Chinese language center). Not what I was looking for, but close enough. After a few minutes arguing that I knew Chinese classes hadn't started yet, it got through that I was trying to take other classes as well; amazing. A really nice, pretty cute guy helped me out with finding a bunch of the classes and figuring out the system, and then enlisted the help of another student working in the CLC to call the different departments and ask about what teachers and classes would be best for me. Finally, the kind of help I was looking for! They took my map and labeled everything, found people I could talk to in each department, and the other student even walked me to my first class that afternoon. Because our time was cut short by that first class, the guy told me to come back the next day around 10 or 11 so he could finish helping me with everything.

So I headed over to my first class, Principles of International Business, a course actually taught by an American professor from Chicago. My good friend Tiffany was also in the class, which was a major awesome bonus to spend time with her. After class, I headed over to her place for a bit and we met with her friends for dinner. It was decided that I should only speak Chinese, which was a great decision if not for the fact that they were speaking amongst themselves with extremely casual language. By extremely casual, I mean that they randomly drop important words or stop mid sentence. Where I was doing great listening and speaking earlier that day in the CLC, I was completely lost during dinner and felt more a fool for it. I did manage to get some decent payback though, when I was showing them how to sound more American when speaking english and completely took off with all the slang and fast-talk I could muster. Not so much fun to receive, is it?

We split then, Tiffany and I heading to the supermarket while everyone headed back home, and after shopping around for a bit we called it a day.

I'm here!!

Just like that! After boarding in San Fran, I fell asleep almost immediately... so quickly that I never got one of the immigration papers you have to fill out. By the end of the flight, I was wondering why nobody had passed them out so when I started going through immigration the Taiwanese lady was like "YOU NEED FILL THIS FORM". Of course, I didn't have a pen, but a really nice American guy let me borrow it. I just woulda thought that being awake or not, they would have figured I wasn't, you know, a Taiwanese national and given me a form anyways to find when I wake - but I digress. Thankfully I was totally konked by the time I got on the place, because I was seriously asleep before we got in the air. Then for whatever reason the airplane crew decided that TWO IN THE MORNING WAS A GREAT TIME FOR DINNER and woke me up for that (but didn't wake me for the immigration form??). Food was disgusting and I was way too tired to eat it, and they took forty million hours coming back around to pick the trays up so I was nodding off trying to stay awake so my face didn't end up in my food.

So yes, sleep came after that, and I slept that uncomfortable airplane sleep where you wake up every thirty minutes because you're sooo uncomfortable. I slept until about halfway through the flight until my brain decided "Haha, it's 12 in the afternoon!" even though it wasn't. I tossed around for awhile, then read my Kindle for a bit, then watched a couple of movies. I got to watch Prince of Persia, Robin Hood, and a freaking Anthony Bourdaine: No Reservations marathon! Who else got to watch THAT on their flight, huh? I'm now a huge fan of Eva Air. Finally, they decided to disturb everyone again for breakfast, where the choice consisted of raw yet surprisingly rubbery scrambled eggs or chicken jook that looked like vomit. I chose the eggs.

Finally, we landed in Taiwan, and I bustled of the plane in search of adventure! The search for adventure turned into the search for my luggage though, when it took 45 minutes for mine to arrive. I was about to have a heart attack too, sure that they'd lost it between my connecting flights. After that, I literally walked through customs (nice old Taiwanese guy told me to have a nice day - didn't search me or even ask me any questions!). Finally, I walked through the doors and immediately spotted my international buddy, a girl named Alan. Seriously though, this girl is a saint - my flight got in at 5:20, which means she had to take a 3:00 am bus ride just to pick me up. Amazing? I think so.

So we loaded onto the bus, and both of us almost immediately feel asleep there too (except for the moment when our bus nearly ran into another bus, and all the passengers were flung forward in a single violent motion that made me wish we had seat belts). Finally we arrived in Taichung, and grabbed the single most terrifying taxi ride of either of our lives. In Chinese, she spent the entire drive telling the driver "There's a car right there!" and he'd reply "我知道，我知道” (I know, I know) which did little to comfort either of us. Finally, we arrived, paid for the SIX DOLLAR super long taxi ride (cheap!) and I found myself standing outside a cosmetics store. I was just as confused as you are, especially when Alan told me there were a few horses that lived nearby and let's go see them.

I'm in a completely bewildered state at this point, dragging all my world possessions down an alley in search for this mystical horse. This old lady accosted us and started speaking rapid fire to Alan, and I was depressed I couldn't understand either of them until I realized they were speaking Taiwanese. So we found the mythical horse stall only to discover that the horse "isn't taking visitors right now". At that, we reversed back down the alley and stopped in front of an apartment building. Alan called her friend Carine who lived there, and we stuck all my bags in Carine's room so I wouldn't have to drag them around in search for an apartment. Alan then decided it was time to get breakfast, so we went down to this little corner shop and got the most delicious noodles ever in a plastic bag, and returned to Carine's room. Buying the noodles as well as tea from Family Mart cost a dollar - seriously. So we trudged back to Carine's room, and I chatter with her as Alan passed out on her bed. After about two hours of this (and watching HBO), they decided it was time to look for apartments and off we went! First place we looked at was in Carine's building, same floor at the end of the hallway. It looked a lot smaller than what I had imagined, but the view was amazing. Rent was a at the higher end of my price range, but it was clean, safe, and again, terrific view. From there, we moved on to two empty rooms in Alan's building, but they were amazingly even smaller than the rooms in Carine's building, and the window view just looked at another window three feet away. The big plus for me there was that it had a mini-fridge, but the size and window just couldn't cut it. Finally, as we were heading back to Carine's building, this old lady accosted us looking for tenants, and we climbed after her up the most ghetto old building on the block. Four flights of stairs later (no elevator) we arrive at a series of rooms with stained mattresses, broken lights, and tons of dead roaches on the floor. As the lady rambled on and on about how much better old buildings were, Alan and Carine looked at me in a way that suggested "Find something wrong with it so we can leave". Muttering something about not having an elevator, we fled.

With all those in place, I decided that the room in Carine's building would actually do me pretty well, having everything I wanted but a mini fridge, and being relatively closer to the school. At that point, I split from Alan because she had to go to work and followed Carine to go shopping with some of the other new students. We met up with them at the dorms, and I was given immediate gratification for not wanting to stay in the dorms. Not only was there no AC, when I went to use the public bathroom, I was greeted with an asian toilet. For those of you that don't know, an asian toilet is basically a porcelain hole in the floor with foot grips to crouch with. Thanks to my previous experience, I didn't do anything buy sigh and roll my eyes. Anyways, we finally met with the rest of the shopping group, which consisted of five Chinese girls and one poor girl from Japan who spoke neither Chinese or English. Thanks to my amazing language skills though, we bonded pretty quickly and mutually not knowing what was going on when the Chinese girls started chatting rapid fire, and I played translator for the rest of the afternoon. Went and bought bedding, trash cans, towels, and things for less that $40, and then went to another store to get more basics for cheap. Got these cute puzzle mat pieces to put on my floor, an idea stolen from Carine's room. I might add at this point, that Carine had been giving me rides on her scooter all morning to and from the school, and we even managed to carry my mattress and a whole bunch of other stuff while driving the thing. Riding the scooter is the most ridiculously fun thing ever, and I totally wish I could buy one myself!

Finally, shopping over, we returned to Carine's suite and she called the landlord to tell him I wanted the room here. I handed over 31,500 NTD (about $990) for six months rent and finally had a few blissful hours to myself. First things first, I set about taking a shower - the most blissful activity one can do after spending ungodly amounts of time on a plane. Sadly for me, turning on the hot water was a bit beyond my comprehension, so an refreshingly ice cold shower had to do. After that, there was a bit of time to wander about putting things away and making a list of what else I had to buy to live for a year. Carine wandered over again, and turned on the invisible hot water switch, and spent 40 minutes helping me set up internet, leaving me forever grateful.

It right about this time that I suddenly became absolutely and irrevocably exhausted, but the day wasn't over yet. Carine had planned to meet the French students out for dinner, and I was invited to come along as well. Dinner was fine, and was a melody of languages - most of which I couldn't even pay attention to because I was about to fall asleep face first in my food. Chinese, French, and English all started sounding like the adults in Peanuts cartoons, but after dinner was over, we waited for a bit then headed over the the French kid's apartment. It was very nice, more like a low end hotel than my building, but they were paying four times as much for the privilege.

Finally, a long time after that, Carine, Alan (who reappeared after dinner), and I headed back, grabbing some kind of desert before returning to my building. I inhaled the desert, excused myself, and promptly dropped dead on my bed

So Tired of Waiting... Departing!

So here I'm sitting in San Francisco, waiting for my flight to leave. I'm totally exhausted, it took all my effort to stay awake on the flight here (because if I'd slept then, I wouldn't be sleeping on the next leg). The next leg being San Francisco to Taiwan. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate flying over the ocean? Makes me a nervous wreck - no pun intended. My only solace is dreaming about ending up on the Lost island and snagging myself someone cute that was killed off during the show. Because otherwise my choices would be between Benjamin and Hurley... :/

I've got all my stuff packed, my entire life in two suitcases and a carry on. I'm pretty proud actually, my suitcases combined weigh less than 70 pounds. The big one is really light because there's only clothes inside it, but I had to sit on it to get it shut with my pillow and everything inside. The customs agent will be in for a great surprise if they decide to open that sucker up - my pillow will spring to freedom like those novelty snakes in a can. Good luck getting it shut again.

Is there any irony in the fact they were playing Karate Kid on the flight over? The new one, where Will Smith's kid goes to China. I laughed.

Also, why is it every time I travel I end up at the very furthest gate possible? It's midnight, the terminal is almost empty and my gate here is literally the LAST GATE on the OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT from where I came in. It was quite a hike actually, and all these TSA people kept giving me funny looks as I trekked alone down the long path. Eventually I just started shouting "International terminal?" and pointing in what was (hopefully) the right directions, so the TSA people would nod or yell back.

Other funny thing, I realized this is the exact same gate I flew out of to go to Japan a couple summers ago with this high school study abroad group. I remember because we almost didn't make the flight after our plane in O'Hare crashed. Seriously.

I'm rambling at this point. Hopefully I'll arrive safely, and find a place to live and an internet connection, and I'll be updating with a more interesting post then.

Over and out!

Pack it in - six days til departure!!!

So here I am, knowing a week from today I'll be leaving on a jet plane. Pretty awesome stuff. So, as of today I've started handing out the url to this here blog, amassing followers if you will. Because of this and the great deal of questions that inevitably goes with the statement "I'm going to Taiwan for a year" I figured I'd use this entry to outline some questions I've been frequently asked.

Q: What are you doing in Taiwan?

A: Doing a direct exchange studying abroad. I'm taking classes from the university in my majors (international business and political science) as well as basic Chinese classes.

Q: Do you speak Taiwanese? Or Chinese?

A: The officially used language of Taiwan is Mandarin Chinese, although the local dialect of Taiwanese is also apparently used. I've studied Mandarin for two years, which is good to have a basis, but I'm pretty rusty - hence the name of the blog.

Q: Will you be living with a host family?

A: No, a host family wasn't an option for this school. Honestly, I wouldn't have stayed with a host family even if it was an option - I never get over that creepy 'I'm in someone else's house' feeling. I will be living alone in an off-campus suite (bedroom/bathroom combo with a desk). Apartments aren't really an option if I want something within walking distance to campus, and I'm not sure if I could live with two other people in a small space for a year (a.k.a. dorm). Should be ok.

Q: Do you know anybody there?

A: I actually do know a couple of Taiwanese students that go to the same school, which'll be really nice.

Q: What does the name of the blog mean?

A: Chinese is a tonal language, meaning that just a word itself holds little to no meaning. To give a word meaning, one must also use one of a variety of tones - thankfully for Mandarin Chinese there are only five tones (versus as much as eight or ten for other Chinese dialects). This can be difficult for Americans who aren't used to a tonal language. I myself am terrible at both using and remembering tones, causing a great deal of confusion to native Chinese speakers when I converse with them. This will probably cause me the greatest amount of hilarious problems while in Taiwan, thus the blog name "Pardon my Tones".

Q: Is Taiwan part of China?

A: Sorta, but not really. Here comes the history of Taiwan in a nutshell. Around 1600, the Dutch came to Taiwan, didn't really see mainland China paying too much attention to the island, and claimed it for the Netherlands. Lots of fighting happened, and then in 1887 the mainland Chinese government claimed ownership of Taiwan. About ten years later, the Japanese took over Taiwan as part of a settlement package for a war they won against China. America bowled over Japan, and in 1945 China (illegally) claimed Taiwan again. Finally in 1950, the shattered remains of the democratic Chinese government fled to Taiwan, threw a few flags up and reestablished the exiled government on the island. The US didn't know what to do, so we pretty much ignored it for awhile. Then, once we were throughly scared witless by the spread of communism, we officially accepted the exiled government, but we never recognized it (see the clever distinction?). Since then, Taiwan has sorta been hanging out in the Pacific as a sorta kinda not really independent country. Most Taiwanese citizens don't consider themselves a part of China, but most Chinese consider Taiwan a part of them. Let's see how this plays out, shall we?

I think that's about it. I'm sure I'll think of something later. To-do list is shorter!

Pack

Pick up Taiwanese money <---- already ordered!

Console mother

Over and out!