My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

I saw this on a street-side stand in Macau. I do not condone this t-shirt, and it’s actually quite offensive, but I thought it was so bizarre that if I didn’t post it here, no one would believe that it really exists.

Yeah, you saw it right: that’s a McHitler t-shirt. Why oh why would anyone want to wear this?

This past weekend we saw a play that is very popular in Taiwan, called “The Village” 寶島一村. The play is about the military dependents’ villages 眷村 that sprung up in Taiwan after 1949, when the government fled to Taiwan. In some senses permanent refugee camps, in other senses government housing, the villages were an interesting mix of people from all over China. The play painted a portrait of life in the villages over 50 years, from 1950 to the present day.

There is a nice writeup in this article, if you want to know more about the story:

http://english.cri.cn/8706/2010/03/02/179s553539.htm

And here is a news report on the play (in Chinese):

The play was especially interesting to us personally because Stacy grew up in one such village. She saw some scenes that struck a familiar chord. For Ian, Evan and me, it was a little harder to understand some of the dialog, especially the dialects that the actors used as they played characters who came from other provinces of China.

The story was very engaging and interesting to me. These villages represent an important experience in Taiwan’s history, and is part of the history of the family that I married into. My father-in-law was uprooted from his home town and separated from his family for decades. This experience permanently changed his life in a way that I can’t imagine. The play that we saw gave us a new perspective on Chinese history, and on my wife’s history as well.

My niece LeiLei 耒耒 got her first shoulder ride from me. She thought it was the funniest thing that happened to her all day.

Saw this store sign in Macao 澳門. Would you shop at this store?

Meaningless, but cute. This video was shot on a train between Fulong 福隆 and Yilan 宜蘭 on March 6, 2010.

Yesterday I asked Evan how his Chinese is progressing. He said that every day he finds one character that he doesn’t know, then asks an upperclassman 學長 at his school what it means. He said that upperclassmen in Taiwan are nicer to younger students than they are in the US.

Upperclassmen in Taiwan have a sense of responsibility to younger students, whereas in the US, it’s open season on underclassmen. Evan feels that the upperclassmen in his school want to help the underclassmen.

That’s one of the reasons that I like Taiwan – Taiwanese are the nicest people that I know.

We have been experiencing some strange weather in Taiwan lately. The first episode was last Friday afternoon. It was a beautiful spring day, temperatures in the mid 70s. I had the door to my office open to the outside, as usual. Suddenly, the floor in my office became slippery and wet. The air was heavy with moisture. It was like standing in the middle of a cloud or heavy fog, and yet there was no cloudiness in the air. I closed the door and turned the A/C unit on to dehumidifier mode, and the problem went away. When I went home, Stacy was complaining about the same phenomenon. It was more serious in our apartment, because the floors are ceramic tile, which are colder than the air. The cool floors were condensing all the moisture in the air, and water was almost pooling on the floor! We turned on the dehumidifier, and the apartment dried up right away.

An hour later, about 6:00, the humidity dropped to normal levels.

I have never experienced a sudden increase in relative humidity like that before. It was like someone turned on a huge humidifier over the whole city.

This week, the weather has been very warm: highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s. But… the weather person on the TV news told us not to put our winter clothes away. The long-range forecast for next week calls for highs and lows in the 50s. These sudden changes in the weather are very strange.

Jin Gua Shi 金瓜石 was a mining town in northern Taiwan. It was the site of a POW camp operated by the Japanese during WWII when Taiwan was a Japanese colony. It features stunningly beautiful mountains and waterfalls.

This waterfall is chosen for the background for many wedding photos in Taiwan. It looks like something from Middle Earth.

The mines officially closed in 1987, after operating for almost a century. Mining was dangerous.

There really is gold in them thar hills. This brick of gold from the local mines weights 220 kg.

But I think that the natural beauty above ground is more valuable than the gold underground. Don’t ask how many steps up it took to get there. And that wasn’t even the top of this particular mountain. That’s the Pacific Ocean off in the distance.

Evan: You know what the Chinese say: Work really hard.

Stacy: I can’t believe how crazy the driving is in Taiwan.

Ian: But I haven’t seen nearly as many car accidents here.

Evan: Maybe they do it discretely.