One of my instructors here at Donghai has been telling us about our last day of school. Apparently after our final, they take us out to a hotel buffet that is apparently a big deal. Once, we stopped the class entirely so she could explain it to us. All of the instructors are fairly easygoing; with classes of three or four people, we sometimes have moments of personal conversation, which can be hard to come by in a place like Taiwan.

Three of my instructors are sisters, all with the last name Zhang. One is Da Zhang (big Zhang), Zhong Zhang (middle Zhang) and Xiao Zhang (little Zhang). They’re like characters from an Amy Tan novel: Da Zhang is older and boisterous, Zhong Zhang is quiet and apprehensive, and Xiao Zhang is younger and silly. They always walk together, and you can tell when they’re coming through the hallway because you can hear them laughing. We have a running joke with Da Zhang that involves stealing a student’s shoes and hiding them in her closet. This typically interrupts class for 10 minutes or so because the shoeless student has to rummage through all of Da Zhang’s stuff to find the shoe. Xiao Zhang just likes to hit people and then run away.

But despite the random distractions, my Mandarin speaking ability has improved tremendously. I can’t imagine receiving this same level of education back home. Now that I’ve studied here, learning a language in America seems inefficient. And while language isn’t my study area of choice, I have appreciated its immediate applicability in Taiwan. It’s always nice to recognize a recently learned character while riding the bus, or to properly pronounce a different fruit tea rather than ordering the same one every day.

As someone who plans to be in school for quite a while, I’ve found that the only way to maintain sanity is to truly delve into your subjects. If you can force yourself to be interested in a subject, then it’s a lot easier to learn. I’m not sure how this process works, but I’ve done it with a couple of subjects. Before coming to Taiwan, Chinese was the least of my cares, and my mediocre grades reflected that. But living in Taiwan has sparked new intrigue for me: I’m suddenly gratified by my long hours of studying. I’ve facebooked some new friends, tried new foods, and generally adapted to the culture. Zhong Zhang taught us an idiom that goes: “Du wanjuan shu, buru xing wanli lu,” or “the knowledge of 10,000 books cannot compare to the experience of traveling.”

We took a trip to a city called Kenting a couple weeks ago, located in southern Taiwan. Though Taiwan is small, the difference between northern and southern lifestyle and weather is surprisingly significant. Kenting is a combination of Southern California and Thailand. The weather is humid and hot, but along the coast there are sandy beaches and a warm ocean. Tiny surf shops dot the roads, and every restaurant serves some variation of Thai food.

We took some time out at one of the larger temples to look around and explore. Most temples in Taiwan are mixed religious establishments, catering to local beliefs but also representing the more popular deities. Their design is also are fairly generic: most feature a short courtyard before a central building holding various icons. Larger temples have a second building in the back, but beyond that there’s little difference. At this particular temple in Kenting there were many locals, including some older men sitting at a table stacked with books. I’d wanted to pick up some books before I left, and I saw that they had a bunch of comics that would probably be easier for me to translate than a full book. I picked one up: this particular comic was fairly gruesome with cartoon men being tortured and killed in various positions on the front cover.

“Diyu,” one of the men told me.

Oh. A picture of hell: I probably could have figured that out from the illustration. I asked him how much the comics cost.

“Do you understand Chinese?” he asked.

“A little bit.”

Then he picked up two books—one with heaven and one with hell—and handed them to me. “Here, give you: they are free,” he told me.

I’m not sure if the books were simply free (they are very well designed) or only free because I’m a foreigner. Regardless, this event describes much of my outlook concerning Taiwan: I feel at once included in their culture but treated differently.
After the old man handed me the books, he went back to talking to the other old man by his side. They spoke too quickly for me to understand, but after a few sentences he grabbed my arm.

“Typhoon is coming, you know?”

He looked up at the sky, filled with dark rain clouds.

“Will is rain soon?” I asked.

“Yes, you better get back with your friends, they are all leaving.” He signaled to the rest of my foreigner friends, who were getting their umbrellas ready and departing from the temple. I took out my umbrella and walked off to join them.

“Wait one moment: give you one more.” The old man stopped me and handed me a smaller book. It had some sort of religious figure on the front, and I couldn’t read many of the characters. “Give to your girlfriend, or keep it yourself.” He laughed as I thanked him, then he walked off.

As of today, I have about one week left. I don’t think I’ll do a whole lot before I leave. I have settled down from being a tourist to becoming a semi-citizen. There’s a typhoon coming this weekend, but I’m not particularly worried. I’ve been through this before; it’s old news to me now.

Read more from Taiwan.

Actually, it’s more than gender similarity that makes masculinity different here. For instance, colors do not have a masculine or feminine identity. The other day I saw a typical Asian jock sporting an Iverson jersey and mesh basketball shorts. He was also carrying a pink purse over his shoulder. It wasn’t his girlfriend’s; it was his own. Men wearing pink in the U.S. are still regarded as dubiously effeminate (or ignominiously preppy), but here it honestly has little association. Men here have as many tote bags as girls do, and they also spend as much time on their hair.

There are many other interesting contrasts, but I think masculinity here is most strongly defined by what is considered the center of typical Chinese culture: the family. If a guy can support and protect his family, then he is the masculine ideal.

I’ve come to this conclusion based on my experience with gay culture in Taiwan. For the Chinese, the gay identity is phenomenally different than the Western concept. In fact, it doesn’t really exist. When I say “identity,” I mean the whole lifestyle that encompasses someone who is openly gay. Similarly, it is the recognition of a difference in lifestyle that marks a gay identity; in Chinese culture, the gay male maintains a lifestyle cohesive with the rest of society.

The same vehement opposition to gay marriage is not present here—in fact, Taiwan nearly passed a bill allowing gay marriage recently. Rather, the aversion to a gay lifestyle and identity has to do with the central tenant of Chinese culture and masculinity: creating and supporting the family. Because this is such a strong cultural influence, the typical Chinese gay male is split between two different pressures. It is typical here for a gay male to marry a woman, have children, and then have sex with other men on the side.

As a Westerner, I feel that should change. But Chinese culture has always placed family and unity above individual desires, and this seems no different. The younger generation has become more aware of a gay identity, but you certainly don’t see anyone around here demanding gay rights. Taiwan seems to be a more gay-friendly East Asian country, but they’re a long way from establishing any sort of gay identity that is relatable to the Western conception.

Read more from Taiwan.

Now that my work week is over, I’ve stopped driving my night car and taken to relaxing. While doing so, I’ve thought about things I do in Taiwan that I would never do in the U.S. At the top of my list: I would never buy motorcycle or scooter in the States, but in Taiwan, I would totally go for it. I even looked them up on Craigslist the other day. It has become a serious temptation.

Many factors play into the Asian scooter phenomenon. Most people live in cities, so scooters are more practical than cars because of their size. They’re also extraordinarily cheap here. I could buy a fine scooter for about $250 USD. Putting those factors together, scooters are by far the easiest way to get around places like Taiwan. While I’m sweating and walking with my backpack, there are scooters everywhere weaving in and out of traffic, sidewalks, and pedestrians.

I also thought about what it would be like to have a scooter in the U.S., or, further, what if everyone in the U.S. had a scooter. To put it modestly, I believe that it would revitalize America’s urban centers. Consider how it works in Taiwan. First, just about everyone in the city drives a scooter. There are lots of cars too, but since scooters are so cheap you can have both—one for short distances and one for longer trips. In addition, scooters take up one-fourth the space of a car; imagine that suddenly all parking lots had three more spaces for every one already in place. They’re also electric, reducing general air pollution and making urban centers far more livable. Finally, they allow for less congestion and faster traffic movement because they’re easier to guide through tight spaces. There can be several in one lane at a time. In Taiwan, only the cars stop because the scooters have superior maneuverability.

Suburbia doesn’t really exist here; people who live in a major city actually live in the urban center. If you work in Taichung, you don’t need to commute every morning from outside city limits. When the typical stress of navigating an urban center is removed, urban dwelling becomes more appealing. No parking hassles or fees, no stop-and-go traffic. It seems so easy.

Why doesn’t the scooter phenomenon exist in the U.S.? First, I would say that large scooter populations flourish in smaller, developed countries, like Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. It might be that the American lifestyle simply doesn’t coexist well with scooters because we traditionally like our cars big and safe. Most of us also live in suburbs, with long commutes and highways.

But I don’t think that means scooters will never be an option. If more people preferred scooters, there would be less inclination for suburban sprawl, and cities would condense with an increasing demand for proximity.

Perhaps it’s the American concept of masculinity (a topic I’ll cover next week), or the American concept of safety, which are both fundamentally different than the East Asian ideals I’ve seen—although motorcycles are always an option in case any men feel a little awkward riding a scooter. In America where scooters are rare, they seem more conspicuous. I’ve gotten used to them in Taiwan, but I did give scooter-riders judgmental glares back in the States. Against the Hummers and Range Rovers, they’re a bit like toys. But in Taiwan, they’re so normal that I’ve actually started to think of them as cool. I mean, really cool. I also like the motorcycles here, the grungier, the better. I want the dirtiest smoke-speweing piece of junk in town, like a badass action movie anti-hero.

That sounds an awful lot like American machismo, doesn’t it? Then maybe this idea isn’t so ridiculous after all.

Read more from Taiwan.

When I first arrived to Taiwan, my friend from the former Yugoslavia made a comment about the buildings: “They look like communist ghettos.” Studying international relations, I find Taiwan’s own political history and current situation to be particularly interesting. I think the buildings reminded my friend of communism mainly because they’re standardized and boring; the walls are sealed with little ceramic pool tiles all the way to the top, ensuring that no creativity could accidentally seep through.

I can only assume that these buildings were all made during Taiwan’s period of one-party rule, when the Kuomintang (literally the national people’s party, KMT for short) controlled the island. This period lasted from 1945 until the 1990s when reform turned the island’s government into a democracy. Now, Taiwan is prospering relatively well, but it also suffers from unique complications. While it may be prosperous, Taiwan suffers from lack of international recognition, technically remaining merely a territory and without a seat in the United Nations.

Taiwan is also time and again considered to be the most likely cause of the next world war, far fetched as that may seem. Both of these complications stem from its inescapable neighbors. As a small island, Taiwan has long been an undersized isle in a sea of giants. China, Japan and the U.S. have all played major parts in its past.

From 1895 to 1945, Taiwan was a colony of Japan. That period of history is still seen in much of Taiwanese culture. Japanese is a fairly major language, though not as common as English. A lot of older people are able to speak Japanese, stemming from the time that the language was compulsory. Rumor has it that the last president of Taiwan, Lee Tung-Hui, could read better Japanese than he could Mandarin and often asked his speeches to be translated. I’ve also met many students who are interested in learning Japanese in order to live in Japan.

Many political scientists suggest that Japan’s colonization allowed Taiwan to rapidly progress. Of course, it was at the expense of various injustices propagated by Japanese rulers.

When Japan surrendered its empire in 1945, Taiwan was “returned” to China. I am careful to make this point, as Taiwan was only loosely connected to China before 1895. Always a point of contention regarding Taiwan’s reunification, it is also possible to argue that Taiwan was never a Chinese territory before it was ceded to Japan. In modern times, the People’s Republic of China likes to portray Taiwan as a rebel province that must be returned to the fold, while Taiwan, officially part of the Republic of China, would rather be independent.
During Japan’s surrender, China was embroiled in civil war. Mao Zedong’s communist army was busy driving out Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalists from the mainland. In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek and his army were defeated and fled to Taiwan. This monumental operation involved bringing 2 million refugees and thousands of government officials from the mainland to the small island. That’s like moving all of Washington D.C. to Puerto Rico. It wasn’t as much a retreat as it was an uncontested invasion.

To better envision the situation, remember that Taiwan had a provisional government, similar to that of an American state. Then Chiang Kai-shek arrived with national government officials and started running the country. Imagine Puerto Rico if President Bush kicked Anibal Acevedo Vila, the governor of Puerto Rico, out of office.

There was some absurdity to this whole event. Chiang Kai-shek brought along the National Assembly (Congress) from China, including all of its elected officials. The National Assembly existed in this state for many years, with each member representing a part of China that was no longer under their jurisdiction. When a member of the National Assembly died, the government replaced them with the runner-up from the elections in China years before. This system was eventually reformed, but further complications arose when Taiwan’s government was changed.

Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT imagined that Taiwan was only a resting stop before they reclaimed the mainland. Of course, this reclamation never took place.

Since 1949 until recently, Taiwan has been under the control of the KMT. During the 1990s, Taiwan was freed from single-party rule when President Chen Shui-bian, from the Democratic Progressive Party, was elected. Despite this, China has constantly threatened to invade Taiwan, especially if Taiwan declared its own independence.

So where is Taiwan now? It’s hard to say. In its current form, Taiwan is not recognized as a country although it retains most rights and abilities of a sovereign state. There are few differences I can recognize by living here. Surprisingly, life in Taiwan is rather normal despite the island’s strange status.

Some say that China’s economic power will allow it to reclaim Taiwan. I find that hard to believe. While China and Taiwan have a similar racial heritage, there are enormous differences in perspective. While not outwardly apparent, there is still communist paranoia. Before I left from the US, I was informed that I could not bring any communist propaganda into Taiwan. The news agencies here have started to speak Taiyu, a native language of Taiwan unintelligible to the typical Mandarin speaker. Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen are still the national heroes, their names gracing everything from coins to buildings.

With these differences in mind, I can’t imagine people in Taiwan accepting China’s rule. While the two countries share much in common, I doubt that any time soon there will be a (cooperative) reunification. This thought comforts me, and I hope that Taiwan is able to eventually gain its independence. As a traveler and a (brief) resident, I am worried that many of Taiwan’s unique features would be lost in China’s mad rush to standardize and homogenize. And especially after Taiwan’s long struggle for democracy, the loss of freedom would be tragic.

Read more from Taiwan.

The food of Taiwan is an interesting mix of Fujian, Chinese and Japanese, though the most common food is basically Chinese. Of course, it’s not like American-Chinese food. The only recognizable thing you could find in Taiwan would be Kung-pao, and even then, it’s pretty rare. Most Taiwanese food starts with a base of noodles, rice, or soup. Menus are separated in this fashion, with endless combinations of each.

When I’m hungry, I usually go up to Dongbie, which is a chaotic and crowded series of alleys with an infinite number of stores, stalls, and restaurants. My professor recommended a couple places, but I’ve enjoyed just trying things on my own. For lunch or dinner, I usually go to one of the many restaurants with tables and air conditioning. A lot of the menus tend to all be very similar, and are often vague. If you see an item that says fish and rice, for example, you don’t know what kind of fish you’re getting; it’s whatever they happen to have. Same thing goes for vegetables.

One time I ordered hot pot with a friend (it’s like a shared soup), and I knew at once we were in trouble. There was something very wrong with this hotpot, and though I couldn’t see it, I could smell it.

It’s called chou doufu (stinky tofu), and it’s my greatest enemy. I loathe its existence. I could smell it lurking at the bottom of my soup. I’m not sure why it’s stinky; apparently it has to do with the fermentation process of the tofu. But let me tell you: it stinks. It’s like eating the stench of gym socks. Wet, moldy socks that a sweaty kid has worn for many days. Since the horrifying hot pot incident, I’ve been a little paranoid about accidentally getting chou doufu. One day, my random decisions will land me in trouble when I accidentally select a menu item called “big fucking pile of chou doufu.”

Because of that nightmare scenario, I’ve found that the most important thing in learning Mandarin is being able to recognize characters on menus, but even then, you occasionally get surprises. I’ve tried quite a few things here, and I’ve gotten into the habit of having noodles (mian) at least once a day. The first few days I was here, I stuck to what I knew: I ate niurou mian tang (beef and noodle soup) constantly. But knowing that I could not rationally survive on two food categories alone, I’ve learned to embrace sponteneity and pick whatever item happens to pop out at me. So far, I’ve had pretty good luck and have been eating well.

Restaurants don’t serve water, but most have a barrel of sweet tea to drink. Taiwanese consume a lot of non-water products, more so than Americans. I rarely just see regular tea, and strangely enough their tea is often sweetened beyond what I like. They love to drink niunai cha (milk tea), or the always present zhengzhu nai cha (bubble tea). It’s all really cheap here—usually less than a dollar—so everyone usually has one in their hand.

But it’s not the cheap pricing of drinks and food that makes me feel like a fat kid. It all the non-meal food that’s around; stuff that’s hawked at you, taunting you to try it, like the guy with green onion pancakes or the Mister Donut store. Taiwanese are famous for their xiaochi (little eats), which is an encompassing term for all the little in-between foods sold on the street. Stalls are packed with these odd snacks. Most of it isn’t too healthy, but that doesn’t stop me.

However, there are some stands where you can either buy fresh fruit or have it mashed into a juice drink. The Taiwan summer season offers a lot of good fruit: lychees, guava, dragon fruit and carambola are particularly enjoyable. Taro (not a fruit) is something I had never tried until I got here. And their mango—Jesus—it’s something holy. I’ve never actually been fond of mango, but here it’s so smooth and creamy that it melts in your mouth. Needless to say, most of their exotic fruits are good. But like chou doufu, there’s always some terrible secret hidden in the corner of the fruit stand.

There’s a fruit here that—to put it gently—is fucking disgusting. It is, in my mind, the most vomit-inducing combination of texture, smell and flavor that has ever existed. It’s the most convincing argument that God does not exist because He would never make something so fucking terrible.

It’s called durian. Look at the ugly bitch. Let’s start with the smell. They don’t sell durian in crowded areas, because when opened the powerful smell is overwhelmingly rotten. It’s similar to a post-Super Bowl port-a-potty. There’s really no other way to imagine the smell. I wretch every time I catch a whiff of it.

Given the smell, I have no idea why I tried it. Maybe a brief moment of insanity, or perhaps I suffered a minor stroke which suddenly gave me the irrational notion to consume something that smells exactly like a toilet loaded with shit. To be truthful, the taste is unique. A lot of people describe it as custard-like, slightly nutty and slightly sour. The texture itself is something like smashed pumpkin and marshmallows combined, yellow and almost goopy.

That alone might be tolerable, but the real problem with the taste is the scent that accompanies it. The combination of the smell and taste was so alien to my palate that I almost threw up from one bite. I guess it was worth the experience… or maybe not. Why do I do these things to myself?

On the other end of the spectrum, let me tell you about a lady named He Mama and her creation niunai bing (milk ice), the most delicious dessert the world. He Mama has been making this wonderful treat at the same place for 30 years. Whenever I’ve dropped by her store, she’s always sitting on her plastic lawn chair watching television. I’m not sure how old she is, maybe 55 or so, but she’s nice and jolly, with big Jiang Zemin-like glasses and a sunny smile. The name of her creation doesn’t really describe itself well. First, it begins with a big pile of shredded ice—little thin flakes kind of like sno-cones in the U.S. Then she adds a little syrup and a bit of condensed milk on top. She tops it off with fruit—I always pick mango, sliced and placed on top like bananas on Cheerios. The flavor is really about the smooth mango and the cold ice, brought together by the sweet milk. It’s the best idea ever, especially during the summer.

He Mama, is a brilliant lady. She’s a cultural icon in Dongbie. Our professor led us to her store by asking the locals. One after the other, they pointed the way, leading us like some pilgrims trekking to the wise sensei at the top of the mountain to seek enlightenment and guidance.

Read more from Taiwan.

That’s alright, though. I’ve learned just as many phrases to describe the heat. First, there’s the everyday hen re (very hot). But there are also several layers of description that allow for more interesting usages: bu jiao re (relatively hot), feichang (extraordinarily hot), te bie (especially hot) or even re sile (so hot I’m dying). My Taiwanese roommates have taught me more effective and typical sayings, such as gan re (fuck it’s hot). They also taught me that in the Beijing area, the word for bus also means prostitute. Get it?

The weather is pervasive here and influences daily life. When a Chinese teacher asks me what I did the day before, I often say “because it was hot, I took a nap,” or “I did homework, but after that I slept because it was especially hot.”

Donghai University in Taichung

Because the heat outside is typically uncomfortable, most Taiwanese stay inside when possible, and, when forced, quickly travel to their next location. Unlike an American college, it would be strange here to see anyone lying on the lawn with a book. It’s just not comfortable. In the city, walking is also rare. During a typical weekday afternoon at the library, you’ll see most people sleeping with their heads down because the library has air conditioning and their dorms do not. Once in downtown Taipei I saw a golden retriever completely shaved, save for his head . He seemed happy.

In reality, Taichung is actually pretty mild, and the near-daily short downpours give a nice reprieve from the otherwise sweaty day. The heat is typically much worse in the northern and southern cities such as Taipei and Tainan.

By the way, there’s a reason many things in Taiwan begin with “Tai.” In Mandarin, the character tái is [1] and is a pictogram of a mouth ([2]) exhaling; it’s an old symbol for happiness, though it’s modern usage has changed. The character wan [3] (horribly confusing) is a pictograph of water curved and describes a bend in the stream. You can kind of see it…maybe.

A lot of characters are actually easy to remember and make a lot of sense. For example, if you take the woman character nu [4] and add a hand [5], you have nú [6]: It is a pictogram of a woman under a hand and means slave (oh, c’mon, it’s funny). If you add the heart character xin [7] below it, you have a new word depicting the heart of a slave. This new word nù [8], translates to fury or anger.

So in Taiwan, many of the cities begin with Tái and end in a direction or location. Taipei means north Tái, and Tainan is south Tái. The city where I am living, Taichung, means middle Tái.

Although Taichung’s weather is temperate, it’s nice to occasionally escape it. A week ago, some classmates and I took a trip to XiTou, a region in the central part of Taiwan. The central and eastern half of Taiwan is largely rural and mountainous, but provides an incredible landscape and nice contrast from the metropolitan west. XiTou is a rural region famed for its Oolong cha (tea), dotted with the occasional tourist resort.

We took a bus (I think) from Taichung, which was about an hour drive to XiTou. It’s likely a longer drive, but our bus driver insisted on passing every car, despite driving up a winding two-lane road.

I spent my hour reading The Mists of Avalon, a longwinded but popular novel about King Arthur and the women around him. When my Taiwanese roommates asked what the title meant, I tried describing it to the best of my ability: “Old English place where small rain falls. Lots of women.” They also asked me who Flannery O’Conner was, to which I responded: “South U.S. dead woman. Stories have lots of ugly people. They also die.” I think I’m getting better, but maybe I’ll just stick with the weather.

This is our guide Miss Chen. Her accent was very thick, and I had some trouble understanding her, since she spoke no English.

A local named Chen Xiaojie (Miss Chen) led us around XiTou. In case you’re wondering, people of Chinese descent only have around 30 or so different surnames. It’s also difficult to tell the gender from their names. Fortunately, most young Taiwanese also have English names. But, like their t-shirts and billboards, names are often garbled or lost in translation. I have already met many interesting people, including Jack, Lopp, Sea Lion and Wennifer. Miss Chen didn’t have an English name.

The area she took us around was breathtaking. Maybe even predictably breathtaking. (I mean predictable in the sense that I already knew it was going to be beautiful, and so I wasn’t too surprised. Either that I’m just an asshole.) But really, the area up there is definitely worth the travel. As the day passes, huge layers of mist slowly descend on the land. By sundown, it completely envelops the region.

The mists slowly descend as the day goes by, eventually enveloping the whole area.

The whole area is surrounded by vast, steep hills. The forests here appear much more impenetrable than anything I’ve seen, even in the Pacific Northwest. Our first stop, Miss Chen explained, was a place where they make charcoal bamboo. Inside, they have giant kilns where bamboo is burned at incredibly high temperatures for long periods of time. The end product is this weird black wood that resembles charcoal. According to Miss Chen and the other locals, this black bamboo has purifying and healing properties with numerous uses; to me, it seemed like a huge tourist trap. In the gift shop, they had combined their miracle bamboo with all manner of things, including charcoal-purified water, charcoaled underwear, a charcoal wood pillow, and peanuts encased in charcoal. What did it taste like?

Cancer.

After that stop, we went by a lake where Miss Chen tried to explain some legend about a horse and the nearby hills. I’m not sure. I was too distracted by a wedding at the edge of the lake. Apparently Chinese people go a bit overboard on wedding photos, often taking thousands of different pictures before selecting the perfect one. I felt bad for the bride, because she was fully decked out in her wedding gown and makeup. The groom had on wrinkly slacks and a half buttoned purple silk shirt.

This is the result of firing bamboo in kilns at incredibly high temperature. Apparently it has a lot of uses…

The best stop on our trip was Miss Chen’s own house. She and her husband were tea farmers themselves and proud to show us around their farm. They seemed to have a comfortable lifestyle; the area was mild and quiet, and they had a van and big screen TV, so they couldn’t be too poor. We drank a lot of their tea. Apparently some of it was quite expensive, but Chinese/Taiwanese hospitality would permit nothing less.

In fact, sometimes their hospitality can be excessive. On another stop during the trip, we were walking by a small store when a man inside came out and beckoned us inside. He not only broke into his stash of Taiwanese snacks for us to sample but also brought out his snakes for us to play with. Once, while eating at a restaurant in Taichung, I was looking around for a trashcan. A man sitting at a nearby table called me over and demanded the trash in my hand. I explained to him what it was and asked where I could put it, but he simply held out his hand. So, I gave it to him. He kept it on his table until he got up to leave, and then took it with him. I thanked him for helping me out, which kind of turned into a semi-conversation. His accent was difficult to understand, but I was able to make my way through most of it. He asked me where I was from, and what I was doing here.

“I am a student at Donghai University, studying Chinese. I came to this restaurant because I am hungry, but also because it is especially hot.”

For more photos, see Jordan’s XiTou flickr set.

Read more from Taiwan.

While in Taiwan, I willingly abdicate all my cultural entrapments as an American in order to fully participate in the culture of Taiwan. And that’s good enough for me.

I didn’t drink as soon as I got here. Rather, my classmates and I decided to go out on a Friday night for a friend’s birthday. Karaoke—called KTV here—seemed like a fitting celebration. KTV is an East Asian phenomena, and Taiwan is no exception. They’re easy to find, and are typically the favorite night spot for young and old alike. Just gather a band of friends and hop on your motuoche (scooter). You’re typically furnished with your own room, and both food and drinks are ready to order while you chang ge (sing) all night long. Just don’t go to a KTV that features xiaojie (young lady), or else you’ll have some sleazy girl join you and your friends.

To get to our KTV, we used the city’s bus system, which is fairly convenient. Taichung is roughly the size of Detroit, so its transportation system is extensive, and we had no problem getting to our destination. We also had a couple of native Taiwanese students leading us around, which simplified our trip.

I will say that walking around Taiwan with large groups of foreigners is a little embarrassing. On the bus we took up the back half, so when Taiwanese people got on the bus they gave a truly dumbfounded pause, as if they’d somehow transported to another world. Similarly, we walk in a long, clumsy line down the narrow streets with backpacks and hats in hand, holding up the scooters as they try to maneuver around us. And once we got to our location we took up the entire lobby, as if all Caucasians in the area conspired to meet at some insignificant KTV joint. Feeling awkward and having to wait in line, we decided to go somewhere else; many opted for a trendy nightclub just down the street, but the rest of us decided for a nice place to sit down and drink—our very first bar.

We landed at a place called The Frog. It was a combination restaurant and bar, but the main attraction was its weird attempt at a North American theme. Describing itself as Mexican-American, I think The Frog highlights what Taiwanese think of when they imagine an American bar. Outfitted with some characteristic cultural icons—foosball, HBO, the neon Heineken sign—there were pieces here and there that reminded me of home. But there are also many inescapable things that broke the illusion. Sitting outside, we couldn’t escape the incredible shidd (humidity), nor the huge, multicolored bugs that occasionally landed on our table. Even in the city, the sound of the chan (Cicadas) buzzing was unavoidable; in Donghai, where there are more trees, sometimes their drone is so loud that you have to shout to be heard. There were also dogs wandering the tables, which I feel is unusual.

Like the US, there are many dogs in Taiwan, though they are typically smaller and unusually well groomed. This is strange, because they are mostly stray dogs. In fact, I’ve never seen a dog on a leash. Sometimes they lay around, and other times they follow me from my room to class. Unlike the US, the dogs here appear to be a community feature, and, while ownerless, they appear to be well fed and healthy. It may sound sad to see stray dogs digging for scraps on a busy alley, but that’s just how it is here.

Back at The Frog, we considered ordering. Their food was pretty expensive, with most things ranging from $200 NT (about $6 US), which is outrageous considering most Taiwanese restaurants will serve a full meal for well under $100 NT. Still, we played along with their gimmicks and ordered food and drinks.

While waiting for our dinner, I noticed that their signature “frog” was just a soundbite. It croaked once precisely every 10 minutes, the sound emanating from a fake pond that some dogs were drinking out of.

Meanwhile the girls with us checked their watches constantly; they had a curfew and had to return soon to their fortress-like dormitory or else they’d be locked out for the night. Though I’m sure they appreciate the security, the amount of protection the female students are placed under is astonishing considering the overall low crime rate in Taiwan. By the look of their dorm, it could probably hold its own against anything short of Armageddon. Surrounding the entire women’s complex is a high wall, with multiple guarded entrances. The walls are essentially unscalable. Even if one managed to climb the wall, there are rings of barbed wire at the top, with long shards of glass laid underneath. Of course, men are never allowed in at any time, so I’ve never had the pleasure of peeking into this mini police state. But I have been told by a friend that each dorm room features a standard issue “beat-stick” for every room that fits snugly on a hanger on the back of their door.

Getting our food at The Frog was probably the most entertaining moment of the night. Most foreign foods are bent to Taiwanese culture (sticky rice buns instead of bread on hamburgers), so I was very curious to see what “Mexican” food really meant here. Like The Frog itself, when a concept is placed in the cultural funnel and transported from one location to another, only rarely does it emerge unchanged. Like the fake frog that croaks on a timer, some cultural phenomena remain because they are characteristic, but they can also be warped or missing entirely. What remains is a gimmicky, silly impression of a culture as it does not actually exist.

Like our nachos. They were Doritos.

At least they were “Nacho Cheesier.” I mean, c’mon, we’re striving for some authenticity. Although my plate consisted of nothing but a small cup of salsa and Doritos, this was what nachos meant in Taiwan. I’m sure even the chef found it silly when—with apron and chef hat on—he went to the pantry and opened a big bag of Doritos and dumped them on a plate.

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