I Met a Monk at Lunch

I met a monk at lunch. I was eating in the school cafeteria, and he sat down beside me and we started to talk. He was really interesting to talk to and I took this opportunity to ask him about what he can eat. When I first got here Jerry had told me a little about vegetarians here, but I was still unclear. Basically all Taiwanese vegetarians are vegetarians because of religion, and so their diet is, in some senses, more strict than mine. The main difference I know about is that they can't eat garlic. I was curious, so I asked this guy about it. He said that they try not to eat garlic, but that they aren't allowed to cook for themselves, so they really just eat what is served to them.

We talked for a while, and I found out how intense his schedule is. He lives at a temple farther south in Taiwan, so it takes him 2 hours each way to get to class every day. He's taking 22 credits too so he is almost constantly doing homework. I forget how long he said he slept everynight but it wasn't very much. And he hasn't been back to Thailand (his home) in three years. Certainly a pretty sparse life. He does have a cell phone though.

I went to Thai boxing in the evening. One of the other guys who goes works for the state department as a Foreign Service officer, and I got to talk to him tonight. I heard about the Foreign Service earlier in the summer, and one of the only things I knew about it was that it is incredibly competitive. Around 25,000 people apply and they only select 80-90 new officers each year. My momma asked me why it was so competitive and I had no idea, but I got to find out tonight. Martin has been with the foreign service for a little less than 20 years, and has spent about 15% of that time getting paid to study languages. He's studied Korean, Japanese, French, and now he's in Taiwan for 2 years getting paid to study Chinese. Then he'll go to Hong Kong for 3 years, then he can retire. Not a bad deal.

He also got to serve in Paris for 2 years, and he told me about the competition for a posting like that. There might be 100 other people who want to go Paris and have put their names on the list. So now, you are competing with only 100 people, and the reward is getting to live in Paris for 2 years. However, of those 100 people, only 10 might be calling and talking to people and actively getting after the position. So then, you are only competing with 10 people to live in Paris for 2 years. And you don't have to pay for your housing. Definetly pretty slick. The catch thing is that you'd have to move every 2 years. So it would be hard to make any lasting friendships, which is a pretty big drawback.


Martin and I talked about all this on the bus ride back from thai boxing. He lives at the other corner of the NTU campus, so I caught the bus back with him to see if it was more convieneint than the subway. I still don't know if it is more convinient, but it is a lot cheaper. I could cut my travel costs in half if I start to use the bus system all the time. When his stop came around, I thought I could cut down on my walking time (I left my bike at the metro stop, past my apartment in the other direction from where the bus was heading) so I waited a couple of stops. I got off when I saw something familiar, and managed to find my way onto campus where I could get my bearings. It was about 11:30 at night, and I was shocked at how many people there were still on campus. I saw women standing by themselves, not concerned at all for their safety, and people sitting around talking, or strolling casually around. There was even a big group of people next to the time telling bell, playing some sort of game. From the number of people out I would have guessed it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, but indeed it was a slightly rainy Thursday night.