First Daze in Taiwan

As the sun set on a chilly, closing night of 2003, I boarded a plane at Dorval airport in Montreal. The next time I saw the sun was on the morning of January 2nd, 2004 just as the wheels of my China Airlines 747 touched down in Taipei, Taiwan. I still have no idea what happened to New Year's day? But this was quite appropriate as it marked the first of many confusion-laden experiences in this strange island called Taiwan. Not a day went by, where I wasn't confused, befuddled or just plain dumbstruck by what I saw, smelled, touched, heard or felt. If there was ever a fish out of water - it was me, in Taiwan, in 2004.

The first thing I noticed when I walked out of the airport were the palm trees. They struck me quite profoundly as I muttered to myself that I'm no longer in Kansas. I, then noticed the brightness of the sun and how the colours of the background seem to wash together. It was like looking through some yellow tinted sunglasses with the trees, grass and pavement all sharing this particular yellowish tinge. This is much different than walking through Stanley Park in Vancouver after the rain, where the greens and browns are dark, sharp and contrasting.

The school arranged a ride for me to the hotel and as I was sitting in the back seat watching the scenery, I was amazed by every single thing thing I saw. From other cars & scooters, to the birds & mountainous landscape, to the strange symbols on all the signs - you name it and my eyes were wide open to every detail surrounding me. It was visual overload. And the realization that a truely unique adventure was just beginning, and I couldn't help but feel like a little kid going to his first circus. It was a wonderful ride.

As we started to enter the core of Taipei, the traffic started to get busier, noisier and very unpredictable. I think it was at that moment where I became intrigued with the city. The energy of Taipei just hits you full blast in the face and what a wonderful feeling it is. I felt so alive, so alert, so exhilarated. I kept thinking this feels so much like the first time I saw New York City- where everything is in a constant motion in varying degrees of speed and pace. God, I just love cities.

Checking into the hotel was no problem except for the fact that I had so much damn luggage with me. I actually brought way too much as this was another indication that I really did not know what I was doing!! I mean, did I really need to bring all of my English teaching books, my suit and a shortwave radio? I never used any of these things during the entire year!! I know, I know - better safe than sorry...

My hotel room was a bit on the small side but had a window. I swung open the curtains only to find a brick wall. It was a very nice brick wall. And I don't mean that this is a window looking outside facing the wall of the next building - no - I mean a brick wall with curtains in front of it. In my sleep deprived state - I laughed out loud and chalked this up as another amusing and charming quirk of Taiwan. And with this, I entered the first stage of culture shock, according to my "Me and Culture Shock" handbook... "The first stage of culture shock is the incubation stage; the new arrival may feel euphoric and be pleased by all of the new things encountered. This time is called the "honeymoon" stage, as everything encountered is new and exciting."

So here I was, feeling giddy on my honeymoon, away from home just me and my new love - Taipei.

I turned on the TV and travelled further into my bewildered state. If you think the traffic is chaotic, just try watching some of the local TV in Taiwan. It too is fast, funny and furious. One of the first commercials I saw was for a breast enlargement product. And it works too, as they showed an rather melancholy Chinese woman with smallish breasts standing slouched over slightly. Then, they showed a very happy, large breasted woman standing perfectly upright. A phone number flashed across the screen in bright neon orange, then in bright green, and back to bright orange again. I have to admit, it was one of the finest breast enlargement commercials I have ever seen.

Next, I saw the beginning of a softer, more polished commercial and as I begun to see what the product was, it was suddenly interrupted by this loud trashy ad for something. The volume of my TV was, all of a sudden, much louder as the female announcer was yelling at the top of her lungs about something. I actually looked around a second to see if someone had snuck in my room to changed the channel and volume. This thing ended with the announcer barking out a phone number - "er au er ohh - ahh eeh ahh ahh...... er au er ohh - ahh eeh ahh ahh". I later found out that these commercials are illegal and are snuck in by the local TV station to make a quick buck. They usually go over top of commercial feeds from Hong Kong or Japan. As I discovered throughout the year, there are many illegal 'activities' and corruption that is part and parcel of life in Taiwan that go completely unchecked or people are paid to look the other way. It's really quite a shock once you begin to realize how much it's part of the culture and makeup of Taiwan.

Now I don't speak a word of Mandarin but one thing I did notice straight away is the speed of the language. It is spoken much faster than English, in a typical conversation. One note of clarification in case you're wondering - they speak Mandarin in Taiwan, Cantonese in Hong Kong and I understand both are quite prevalent in mainland China.

So I was far too excited to sleep on that first day, so I headed outside to explore my new world. I started walking west along Nanking East Road. As I walked along the street, I noticed that I was suddenly on another street called NanJing Rd. I later found out that the same street changes names many times as you walk along it. So Nanking East Rd becomes NanJing E Rd then becomes Nanching E Rd. There are probably a few other names it evolves into, as well. It is very confusing as I lost count how many times I got lost in Taipei throughout the year. (There's this pizza place called 'Alleycats', which is suppose to have the best pizza in Taipei. It took me FOUR attempts to find it. Each time I failed - I would be muttering angrily as I stomped along the hot, summer streets of Taipei just furious at the changing street signs.)

Walking along Nanking/NanJing/Nanching/whatever, I noticed that there were a ton of buses whizzing past me as I later found out that this street is one of the major throughways in the downtown core. That's also when I first encountered the phenomena I call scooter-roaches. They are scooters which are driven by the locals and a few brave foriegners. You can't miss them, they are everywhere and remind me of cockroaches as they scatter and drive over everything - sidewalks, wrong side of the street and through every red light. It's funny, throughout the year I found that most Taiwanese people to be very friendly, warm and gentle but when many get on a scooter - something happens to them. They become agressive, hurried and just plain dumb. I lost count the number of accidents I witnessed while wating for busses throughout the year. In nearly every case, it was the scooter doing something quite dumb and paying the price for it.

I was surprised to see many North American staples on Nanking E Rd - Starbucks, 7-11 and McDonalds. I was getting hungry so I decided to head into McDonalds to see what a Big Mac tastes like in Taiwan. I ordered and gave the cashier a 1000 New Taiwanese dollar bill. I was nervous because I just handed over money that says 1000 dollars on it and for what? A McDonald's meal!?!?!? I looked at her to see if she would laugh at me, or even worse, call over to her coworkers to laugh at the big foreign dufas who just handed over 1000 bucks for a bloody Big Mac. I was relieved when she handed over my change and said thank you with a smile. I looked at the reciept and saw it cost 250 dollars. 'This better be one great Big Mac', I chuckled to myself...

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I'll write more as time permits...

Cheers!
Martin.