Culture Shock

I would call what I experienced as Distance Shock, but it may have been some Culture Shock as well. I would describe it as the most terrible form of claustrophobia. Not necessarily being home sick, but knowing that if I was, there isn't a single thing (within the realm of reason) that I could do about it. Once, my mom called me, and her phone card cut her off in mid sentence, and I just felt naked. It was late here, so I couldn't go out and try to find a calling card, and even if I did I wouldn't have a land line to use it with (I'm pretty sure I can't use one with my cell phone), my cell phone can't make international calls, and I couldn't get access to a computer to email because it was so late. There was no real way I could get back in touch with her.

The fact that there are Asians everywhere, and everyone speaks Chinese could have had something to do with my periods of sadness, but I'm certainly used to it now. It still amazes me how many people are out during class changes, and especially how many people are riding bikes. There were a lot of people between classes at U of I, but usually only for the few classes in the morning, and not nearly as many people ride bikes. Here there will be as many people out at 7:00 at night as there are at 9:00 in the morning, and most are on bikes. It did occur to me that part of the reason people don't ride bikes as much in Moscow, is because pretty much all of the Univeristy is on some level of a big hill. The edges of campus are flat, but to get to most of the buildings on campus, you have to go to some level of a hill, and people just might not be willing to do that. Here the whole campus is flat, so you never have to exert yourself biking.

Anyways, any sadness I felt was never too prevalent, and it usually just hit me when I woke up, and first remembered where I was. However, I'm pretty sure I'm passed it now because I woke up this morning stoked. I was excited because I thought that I had woken up just before my alarm went off, because the sun was up, and I was well rested. Now I think I woke up because my alarm was going off, but I was happy about it at the time. After I got up, I put some rice on to boil. I eat rice at almost every meal. For breakfast I usually have rice, with tofu, cinnamon, honey, and milk stirred in. Sometimes I even add bananas. Its actually really delicious, and tofu and rice are not only cheaper than dirt, but they also make a complete protein, so it's pretty good all around. I usually eat out for lunch, but for dinner I usually have tofu log and rice sandwiches, or eggs and rice, or sometimes rice and peanut powder sandwhiches (its almost like a good old PB&J, but not quite). I hope I don't become allergic to it.

After I finished breakfast, I took off for the subway, and headed to the main train station in town. I was going to Taichung today to meet the Director of Graduate Environmental Studies at National Taichung University. When I got to the train station, I tried to use one of the automated machines to buy my train ticket, but after I selected Taichung as my destination, it asked me for a further destination, and gave me another long list of Chinese town names, which really confused me, because I only wanted to go to Taichung. So I abandoned the machine and got in line to buy a ticket from a real person. I told him I wanted to go to Taichung, and he asked if a train leaving in 5 minutes was OK. I said that it was, so he printed the ticket, and told me to hurry. I got a little nervous and hurried upstairs to find my platform, then jumped on the first train that I saw. Once I was on the train, I looked at my ticket, and found out that I was on the right train, but on the wrong car. I was trapped in the middle of the aisle, by people trying to get into their seats, so I waited, then jumped right off again, and went to find the right car. Everyone else was on the train already, which made me a little more nervous, but I made it on OK, and the train took off right after I sat down. It was satisfying to have successfully caught the train, and it reminded me a lot of England, because I took trains all the time there.

When I got to Taichung Dr. Wu (the professor I was going to meet), came and picked me up at the train station. It was good to finally meet him, because we'd been in email contact for a couple of months already, and person to person is just less awkward than email. He took me to his office at the University and we sat and talked for a while. After we had exhausted the topics of mutual interest, he gave one of his friends at the Natural Science Museum a call and we headed over there. After he parked, we went into a side door, into an office where we got little visitor badges that insured VIP treatment during the rest of our visit. His friend came and got us and took us into a back door, through an unfinished area, and out in the bug exhibit, then into the main hallway. Dr. Wu and his friend then had a quick conversation in Chinese, and we headed over to the IMAX. His friend went over to the reserved ticket counter, and got us two tickets for free, and then we headed to the front of the line, and straight into the theater. I asked Dr. Wu what the movie was about, but he said he hadn't really been paying attention, something about Africa. We ended up getting to see two, the first on a probe sent to Jupiter, and the second on Dinosaurs in both Africa and Patagonia. It was all in Chinese, but I understood a little bit of it, and even when I didn't understand it was still cool to see IMAX. I'd forgotten how intense they are. You can get nauseous if you're not carefull.

After it was over, we looked around the museum a tiny bit, then headed back to Dr. Wu's office. On the way, I told him that my goal for my Chinese is to be able to function in a professional work environment, and that I thought you could spend an awful lot of time in the classroom, and still not be able to do that. Therefore, I would like to start volunteering, and was there anyway he could help me find a good place to volunteer? He asked whether I would prefer to work in an academic environment, or a practical one. I said practical, so when he got back he called the PRESIDENT OF THE TAIWANESE WILDERNESS SOCIETY (an organization with over 10,000 members). He told him that he had the student of a friend, who was here studying Chinese, and who wanted to do some volunteering. So the president said he would give it to Mr. Xie, and I should call him on Monday.

Networking, I think, is the best invention ever. Sam Ham (who is technically a professor in my department at U of I, but whom I've never met), recommended me to another professor whom I'd never met (Dr. Wu), who in turn recommended me to the President of the largest NGO in Taiwan, and it looks very promising that I will start volunteering there.

Taiwanese grad students seem to have it more difficult that American grad students. When Dr. Wu and I were first talking, a girl came in and dropped of some sweet snacks, and offered to bring us some coffee or tea. I really truley thought she was a secretary of some kind, but after she left, Dr. Wu said that she was just one of his grad students. While we were visiting the museum, they had gone out and bought meals for us, and they were waiting on the table when we returned. While we were eating lunch the same grad student came back in and asked if we needed anything else. They were really nice, and Dr. Wu seems to have a pretty good set up going on.

After we finished lunch in the afternoon he had a meeting to go to, so he asked me if I wanted to be taken back to the regular rail station, or if I would prefer the bus, or high speed rail. I said whichever was more convenient for him, so he took me to the high speed rail station. The place looked more like an airport than a train station. It had a huge lobby, with 35 or 40 foot ceilings, and massive steel girders making great sweeping curves and arches. The ticket counters, and the turnstiles were all dwarfed by the size of the building. I can't imagine how high the electric bill is to keep a place like that at a comfortable temperature. The high speed train was a lot smoother than the regular speed, and took about half as long, although it was twice as expensive.

I went out with Luke in the evening. We both only wanted to go out for a little while, but we ended up staying until the bar closed. I hope people don't think I'm shallow, but I feel pretty confident that most people like looking at good looking members of the opposite sex. Anyway, there was a band, and the lead singer was really good looking (and she could sing), so Luke and I just sat, and drank beer, and looked and listened, and talked in the intervals between songs. This was also my first experience with Taiwanese "Beer Girls". I learned from Luke that there is a whole industry of women who's job it is to promote one brand of beer at a bar on a given night. Tonite the beer was Blue Girl. Not only was the girl cute, but if you bought three you got a free pair of dice, and a Blue Girl cup, so you could play craps. The beer wasn't good enough for me to buy three (and I didn't really want to start playing craps any time soon), but I liked the beer girl anyway. I'm pretty sure she only had the job because she was cute (and I think she knew that), but she had the sort of attitude, "I may only have the job becasue men like to look at me, but damned if I can't try to do a good job anyway." So I bought one beer, but I really prefer dark beer, so that was enough for me.