Part 1 here
A lot of people ask me whether I liked living in Japan or Taiwan better. I have to say, the circumstances and motivation for each were so different that I can't really compare.
I went to Japan for the chance to teach English in a foreign country and try my hand at living abroad. Before this, the longest I had ever been away from home on my own was a 6-week stint in England during a travel-study program in college. Prior to arriving in Japan, I knew no Japanese and very little about the area in which I was placed. I had gone to Japan once before with family, but it had been a long time ago and the place I went to was more rural and lesser-known, not close to the big city like Saitama was (and yes, despite what some Japanese and foreigners say, I believe that Saitama was not far from Tokyo).
I chose Taiwan because after leaving Japan, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go back to the States or stay abroad, and also because I developed a strong interest in learning Mandarin Chinese while living in Japan (I studied Japanese there too, but nowhere to the extent that I needed to if I wanted to become fluent). Lucky for me, the stars aligned and I got a scholarship to study Mandarin for six months in Taipei shortly after my contract in Japan ended. 6 months ended up being a year, but that's another story.
So I was a worker bee in one of the largest English-teaching corporations while in Japan, and a language student while in Taiwan. In Japan, I had money but very little free time. In Taiwan, I had very little money but plenty of free time, except during one quarter, when every day after class consisted of working on a talent show and studying for the unending tests we had every week. That was an intense quarter, but probably when my Chinese improved the most.
Some things Taiwan and Japan have in common:
1) It is very easy to get around. In Japan I took trains everywhere, from my little suburb to the city and from one major city to the next. I didn't utilize buses as much unless it was during long trips, such as from Tokyo to Hiroshima, and they weren't necessary for moving around Tokyo at all.
Taiwan's trains and buses were also very convenient. I took buses more regularly on an every day basis, because they were cheaper and often more direct than taking the MRT. Taipei is an easy city to explore even if you don't know where you're going, because they have a limited number of metro lines, and each line is very clearly marked in English. In Tokyo, it's easier to get lost because some of the signs (for older, not as frequently used train lines) are only in Japanese and there are so many different lines that even Japanese people get confused sometimes.
For example, if I wanted to get to Taipei Main Station, Taipei's downtown, there are maybe two ways I could get there from almost any point in the city. If I wanted to go to Tokyo Station, however, depending on what subway and train lines were available, there were a lot more than two ways to get there, many of which involved changing to another train on another platform for another line. I got lost in Japan way more frequently than I did in Taiwan, but that was fine. It was all part of the fun.
2) Both countries are among the safest places I've ever been to. I once read an article about the dangers and annoyances that female runners face in almost every city they run in: catcalls, leering, or even straight-up harassment. This doesn't include the obvious dangers of being kidnapped, physically assaulted, or raped. The article made me feel sad and angry, but I felt like adding something: Asian cities seem to be different. At least the two that I've run in have been different.
Both in Taiwan and Japan, I've gone running alone, late at night or early in the morning, many times without feeling the least bit worried about my safety. Japan is so safe that you can fall asleep on the train and wake up with all your possessions intact 4 hours later (true story, a friend once told me). I once left my wallet on the platform and was able to retrieve it from a station attendant an hour later, with everything still inside. When you're running, people barely look at you, much less say anything.
During one quarter of my time in Taiwan, my friends liked to throw small parties at their respective apartments on the weekends. I lived a little further than everyone else, and sometimes the parties would end very late (or very early), around 3 or 4 a.m. There would be no buses or trains running so unless I wanted to spend an hour walking back home, I had to take a taxi. Most of the time my friends and I would walk back to the university, where most of them lived, and then I would hail a taxi from the university back to my place (about a 10-minute ride and not very expensive).
Once the taxi driver asked me what I was doing alone so late outside. I told him (in Chinese, of course) that I was coming back from a friend's party. "Is it dangerous for a girl to be outside at this time?" I asked. He replied that no, it wasn't dangerous but it was still a little weird. He didn't see it happen often. "But Taiwan is so safe," I told him. "I often walk alone at night and nothing's ever happened to me." He agreed that Taiwan was very safe, probably one of the safest places in the world, but I should still be careful. "Of course, not as careful as in America," he later thoughtfully added.
One thing I learned very quickly while in Taiwan is that taxi drivers (and bus drivers, and sometimes random people you meet on the street) are generally very friendly and love to talk to strangers, especially in the south. This is very different from Japan, where the people servicing you always keep a polite distance, as though wanting you to forget their presence altogether.
Some things that Japan and Taiwan differ in:
1) Taiwanese university students are much more serious than Japanese university students. In Japan, getting into university is the hard part. Once you get in, however, college is more of a time to let loose and have fun than to actually buckle down and study. This is because after university, most Japanese students enter into lifelong contracts with big companies that require them to be at the beck and call of work 24/7. So college is their last chance to relax, go out with friends, and have a good time before bowing to the never-ending pressure from their jobs.
In Taiwan, however, and I'm not sure why, students seem to study just as hard as when they were in high school, when they were trying to get into the prestigious universities in the first place. I went to the library a lot while studying and it was always, always full - on the weekends, late at night (the basement section was open 24/7), and during school vacations. People would have these huge textbooks and laptops with them and pound away at what I assumed were solid solutions to global problems around the world, judging by the intense looks on their faces.
I once asked a Japanese friend of mine how NCCU compared to her university back home. "NCCU is much, much better," she told me without hesitation. "In Japan, a lot of people don't even attend class and they still get a good grade. The professors don't demand much and they don't ask a lot of questions like here. Here, there are often group discussions and I have a lot of papers every week."
When I asked a Taiwanese friend why universities were so intense, she responded, "I think Taiwan likes to copy America, and American universities are known for being intense."
2) I think as a culture, Taiwan is much less shy about interacting with foreigners - and with strangers in general. I met a lot of Taiwanese people, who after meeting for the first time, invited me to go to a club together or stay over at their house or just hang out. And they would actually follow up on these invitations days later, so I knew they weren't just trying to be polite. Japanese people, while also friendly, are much more reserved when it comes to spontaneous invitations.
In Taiwan, everyone will talk to you - old ladies waiting at the bus stop, taxi drivers, people living in the same apartment building, grocers, etc. They don't care who you are, they just want to talk. "Oh, you're foreign?" "How long will you be staying in Taiwan?" "You're too skinny, you should eat more. Here, have a peach."
For some reason, whenever I mentioned to a Taiwanese person that I've lived in Japan, they always wanted to try speaking Japanese with me, even though my Japanese started deteriorating rather rapidly the moment I left Japan. I guess a lot of them have studied it before, during the occupation, but I always found it funny (and a little exasperating) because I'd be wanting to practice my Chinese and they'd start busting out random Japanese phrases instead. (Oh yeah, and Taiwanese people LOVE Japanese culture, like love with all capital letters. Even more than the way most Asian countries love Korean pop culture.)
Whenever I went shopping in Japan, the only conversation people working would have with me would be "Welcome!" and "Do you need a bag?" If I started speaking English (or a mix of English and Japanese), they would almost always immediately direct me to someone else, after apologizing profusely for their bad English. Japanese service is amazingly efficient and hospitable, but also distant and removed. It's part of their "Customer is God" culture, which doesn't seem to exist as much in Taiwan, if at all. Japanese friends in Taiwan would often tell me how shocked and appalled they were by the service (or lack thereof) they got in Taiwan, where you would sometimes see salespeople in high-end stores checking their cell phones in front of customers or (god forbid!) eating on the job.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Dangerous Deeds with Good Friends
I love doing dangerous things with friends. For me, the danger keeps boredom at bay and makes me appreciate the little things more.
Just a few of the dangerous things I have done with friends in the past:
- Hiked Half Dome with stomach cramps
- Hiked Yosemite Upper Falls during a thunderstorm
- Hiked Yosemite Lower Falls through a mountain of snow
- Hiked 7 miles with only 2 bottles of water and a sprained ankle
- Hiked Mt. Fuji with stomach cramps
- Hiked Mt. Fuji a second time without a flashlight during nighttime
-Climbed onto the top of a building at 5 a.m. to watch the sunrise (one of my favorite moments from college)
I just realized that most of these things involved some form of strenuous physical activity done in the Great Outdoors. Stupid or brave? I say both!
Recently a good friend of mine from college invited me to bike the Golden Gate Bridge. I had recently acquired an old but sturdy mountain bike and decided it sounded just like the kind of grand adventure I often crave. We met at the Ferry Building in San Francisco on a Saturday afternoon and, after a lunch of overpriced burgers and tacos, started our journey to the iconic bridge.
Prior to this adventure I had been biking around my small, humble city a couple times a week, mainly because I lacked a car to get around. Like in most California suburbs, my biking was the exception rather than the norm. I could feel people's stares as I biked my way through town to grocery stores, libraries, parks, and the BART station. Let's get something straight: I am not your typical physically fit, spandex-clad, helmet-wearing biker. After a month of no regular exercise and many months of eating oily but satisfying Taiwanese food, I was not in the best shape for hours of non-stop biking. Oh and yeah, San Francisco has its fair share of hills, bless its heart. But I didn't care, because I love adventure.
I love my friend too because of how equally unprepared she was for this trip. She had purchased a trendy bike many months before but didn't seem the least bit accustomed to riding it. The seat was too tall for her and she had no helmet. Her thin, willowy legs also had no muscles whatsoever. Riding downhill on her bike made her nervous.
But I still love her because despite all this, she was still down for the adventure. You know those friends you have who you can call up on a whim and ask them to do practically anything, knowing that more likely than not she'll say yes? I'm lucky to have a couple of friends like this, and she is one of them.
Biking from the Ferry Building to the Bridge, and then to downtown Sausalito, is apparently the most popular bike route in SF, which I didn't know about until after the fact. It was great because I haven't been home in awhile, and doing this trail allowed me to get reacquainted with the city's beauty. It was like seeing everything for the first time again and I must say, I could feel myself falling back in love with this city by the bay. I was even more encouraged by the fact that there were so many other bikers on the road! It reminded me of being back in Taipei.
We kind of got lost on the way back but luckily bumped into a friendly policeman who helped us carry our bikes down through a dark alleyway that led back up to the bridge. He also rode his own bike with us in the same direction for awhile, which was rad. I never got his name, but so grateful for kind officers who go out of their way to help lost girls. Nothing reaffirms my faith in humankind like the random kindness of strangers.
By the time I had taken BART back to Union City (bike on board, of course), it was 9 p.m. and dark out. I decided to bike home anyway. I don't really like the route to and from my house to BART because of 1) the many stoplights along the way and 2) this one intersection that crosses through two freeway entrances. The lack of sidewalk or bike lane here makes it difficult to get across without a higher than usual possibility of getting hit by a car. Luckily I made it without any injuries.
Total number of miles biked: ~30 miles, which is more than I've done in awhile. I think the last time I biked this much was in southern Taiwan, when my friend and I biked from our hotel to the southernmost point of Taiwan. We got exhausted and sun-burnt, but it was so worth it.
I can't wait for my next biking adventure.
Just a few of the dangerous things I have done with friends in the past:
- Hiked Half Dome with stomach cramps
- Hiked Yosemite Upper Falls during a thunderstorm
- Hiked Yosemite Lower Falls through a mountain of snow
- Hiked 7 miles with only 2 bottles of water and a sprained ankle
- Hiked Mt. Fuji with stomach cramps
- Hiked Mt. Fuji a second time without a flashlight during nighttime
-Climbed onto the top of a building at 5 a.m. to watch the sunrise (one of my favorite moments from college)
I just realized that most of these things involved some form of strenuous physical activity done in the Great Outdoors. Stupid or brave? I say both!
Recently a good friend of mine from college invited me to bike the Golden Gate Bridge. I had recently acquired an old but sturdy mountain bike and decided it sounded just like the kind of grand adventure I often crave. We met at the Ferry Building in San Francisco on a Saturday afternoon and, after a lunch of overpriced burgers and tacos, started our journey to the iconic bridge.
Prior to this adventure I had been biking around my small, humble city a couple times a week, mainly because I lacked a car to get around. Like in most California suburbs, my biking was the exception rather than the norm. I could feel people's stares as I biked my way through town to grocery stores, libraries, parks, and the BART station. Let's get something straight: I am not your typical physically fit, spandex-clad, helmet-wearing biker. After a month of no regular exercise and many months of eating oily but satisfying Taiwanese food, I was not in the best shape for hours of non-stop biking. Oh and yeah, San Francisco has its fair share of hills, bless its heart. But I didn't care, because I love adventure.
I love my friend too because of how equally unprepared she was for this trip. She had purchased a trendy bike many months before but didn't seem the least bit accustomed to riding it. The seat was too tall for her and she had no helmet. Her thin, willowy legs also had no muscles whatsoever. Riding downhill on her bike made her nervous.
But I still love her because despite all this, she was still down for the adventure. You know those friends you have who you can call up on a whim and ask them to do practically anything, knowing that more likely than not she'll say yes? I'm lucky to have a couple of friends like this, and she is one of them.
Biking from the Ferry Building to the Bridge, and then to downtown Sausalito, is apparently the most popular bike route in SF, which I didn't know about until after the fact. It was great because I haven't been home in awhile, and doing this trail allowed me to get reacquainted with the city's beauty. It was like seeing everything for the first time again and I must say, I could feel myself falling back in love with this city by the bay. I was even more encouraged by the fact that there were so many other bikers on the road! It reminded me of being back in Taipei.
We kind of got lost on the way back but luckily bumped into a friendly policeman who helped us carry our bikes down through a dark alleyway that led back up to the bridge. He also rode his own bike with us in the same direction for awhile, which was rad. I never got his name, but so grateful for kind officers who go out of their way to help lost girls. Nothing reaffirms my faith in humankind like the random kindness of strangers.
By the time I had taken BART back to Union City (bike on board, of course), it was 9 p.m. and dark out. I decided to bike home anyway. I don't really like the route to and from my house to BART because of 1) the many stoplights along the way and 2) this one intersection that crosses through two freeway entrances. The lack of sidewalk or bike lane here makes it difficult to get across without a higher than usual possibility of getting hit by a car. Luckily I made it without any injuries.
Total number of miles biked: ~30 miles, which is more than I've done in awhile. I think the last time I biked this much was in southern Taiwan, when my friend and I biked from our hotel to the southernmost point of Taiwan. We got exhausted and sun-burnt, but it was so worth it.
I can't wait for my next biking adventure.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Studying Mandarin Chinese in Taipei: NTU, NTNU, or NCCU?
When I learned that I had gotten the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship, I had to decide which university-affiliated language center I wanted to study at. For those looking to study Chinese in Taipei, most choose one out of three: Taida 台大 (NTU), Shida 師大 (NTNU), or Zheng Da 政大 (NCCU). I picked the last one.
Since I've only studied at one language center in Taiwan and don't know much about the others, aside from what little I've read on internet forums, I can't really speak to which one's best. But I can speak for NCCU, where I studied for a full year. In terms of assessment I will look at four areas: Quality, Cost, Location, and other Bonus Areas.
Quality
Pros: NCCU is the smallest of the three, so class sizes are usually pretty small, ranging from 6 to 10 students a class. The least I ever had in a class was 6, the most 9, this being the norm. Needless to say, in a small class, you can get a lot of individual attention from the teacher and it's possible to ask as many questions as you want.
In addition, I hear that the office tries not to assign too many of the same nationality to one class, so unlike at Taida, where the majority of your classmates might be Japanese or Korean (these being the most common types of people to study Chinese in Taiwan, Taida being the biggest language center in Taipei), at NCCU your class will most likely have a good mix of both Easterners and Westerners. I think this is a good system because as weird as this might sound, different nationalities have different ways of learning.
Not to get all stereotypical, but in my experience, the more Westerners a class had, the louder and more rambunctious it was, which can be better for people who want to focus more on speaking (and, well, socializing). Also, Japanese students' native knowledge of Kanji, which is derived from Chinese characters, means that they usually do better on tests, especially on dictation tests, so in terms of trying for a scholarship awarded by the school (which mostly hinges on one's grades), this makes an Eastern-dominated class more competitive.
NCCU, from what I hear, focuses more on practical conversation as opposed to book learning. For those looking to improve speaking and listening - or just looking to get by in Taiwan in general - this is a definite plus. I don't know how true this is, considering that all the language centers used the exact same textbooks when I was there (this changed starting this year), but in my case, how much 'practical learning' I had varied teacher by teacher. The majority of my teachers were very good about telling us what words and phrases were used only in the textbook and what phrases were actually used in real life (sometimes there were big differences). Having native Taiwanese as language partners helped me more though.
There are also free courses offered every term at NCCU that cater to different student interests/needs, for example, TOCFL training, Business Chinese, Newspaper Chinese, or learning about different holidays in Taiwan. Every term also has some kind of field trip, planned and paid for by the language center, which is great for meeting new people and exploring Taiwan. Warning: They tend to fill up quickly.
Cons: Small class size can also can be a deterrent, as discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in his new book David and Goliath (which pales in comparison to his other books, IMHO). Too few students who all think the same way together in one class means less opportunity for disagreement and discussion, which is crucial to language learning (or life in general, really). If no one really speaks up in class, it becomes much more lecture-style, which sucks for output. Plus, it's boring; would you really want to listen to a teacher talk for 3 hours straight?
In a language center of this size, everyone seems to know everyone else. In theory this sounds great, but in practice it made for a lot of drama. Many students were in their early 20s or younger, so sometimes it felt like being back in high school, where gossip about who's dating who and who dislikes who takes precedence over stuff like learning. This made for some close-knit groups (and it's more likely than not that you will have the same classmates(s) for more than one term), which is great for how close you can get with some people but terrible in terms of how clique-like things can get.
Also, for me personally, there were too many written tests at the higher levels for my liking. For beginners I understand the necessity of building a solid foundation, but once you know the basics I don't think it's necessarily to quiz everyone on 30-40 characters (including definitions, strokes, and tones) a couple times a week. Yes, writing is important, but too much emphasis on one area means not spending enough time on another.
One class I was in had us taking an average of 3 or 4 quizzes a week. I objected to this mainly because I wanted to focus primarily on speaking, as opposed to learning how to write the characters, which can be done on one's own. I think this was mostly done for the benefit of the exchange students, whose grades actually mattered, but then again, this was still Asia, where "learning" by means of rote memorization is a huge thing, something I struggled with based on pure principle.
Cost: Originally NCCU was cheaper than the other two schools, but they raised their tuition starting Fall 2014 so I'm guessing each school's tuition is now about the same or nearly the same.
The school does offer 10 scholarships (20,000NTD each) every term for those who do well in classes. Not enough to cover even one term's tuition, but still better than nothing. Scholarships are awarded purely based on academic results and your previous teacher's recommendation.
Location
Pros: Located in the more rural part of Taipei, so rent and cost of living is generally cheaper than in downtown. Those living close to school can expect to pay about 5000-6000 NT per month for rent. Dorms are cheaper but very limited, especially for foreigners since Taiwanese students get priority. Expect to have an extremely difficult time finding housing if you don't arrive two or three weeks before the term starts (sometimes even then).
Generally quieter than living in the city, for obvious reasons. If you like cable cars and zoos, both are located about 10 minutes away from the school, within walking distance. If you prefer living in close proximity to bars and clubs, this is not the place for you.
Cons: Closest MRT station is Taipei Zoo, the last stop on the Brown Line and about 30 minutes from Taipei Main Station. Can be problematic if you like to party in the city and tend to miss the last train, which is around midnight, but taxis are fairly cheap even late at night, especially for groups.
Eating options are limited. Obviously all the standard tea shops and convenience stores still apply, but beyond that, don't expect anything extraordinary in terms of quality or variety. On the plus side, a typical meal will probably cost you around 60-100NT, which is cheap even for Taipei. There are also various cafes and restaurants located right next to campus. For entertainment, however, unless you like hiking or bike riding*, there's not much else. There are also no beaches nearby.
*There is a YouBike station (Taipei's awesome bike-sharing system) next to NCCU.
A lot of people complained about this one, especially during summertime when the temperatures reached astronomically high degrees: the language center is located atop a hill, or more like a small mountain. To get to class you need to take a 1-minute bus ride, which runs pretty frequently anytime other than in summer, or walk, which takes about 10 minutes, depending on fast you walk and how many people you bump into on the way to class. This was especially inconvenient when it rained (which was often) or when you had morning classes and were running late.
Bonuses
This school was a good fit for me aesthetically since I prefer a more rural-like environment to the city, so long as the city is still nearby. I loved the mountains and open areas. The campus itself is very beautiful -- not necessarily the buildings but the scenery surrounding them. It also didn't feel very crowded 90% of the time.
This is also a very international university in Taiwan. They have a lot of exchange students from Europe and other parts of Asia, like Japan, Korea, Thailand, etc. (not many Americans, though) so if you're looking to do some sort of language exchange, you're coming to the right place. They also have a good amount of student events like concerts, food fairs, and various club activities.
To Note
Not exaggerating when I say it rains like crazy in Taipei and it gets especially cold during wintertime, because no one in Taiwan really uses central heating systems. (TIP: Make sure you bring winter clothes unless you want to buy them there.)
In one year, there were maybe three major typhoons that closed down the school and prevented anyone from going outside. If you're not used to rain, don't want to deal with rain, or just plain can't stand rain, consider studying somewhere in the south (such as Kaohsiung or Taizhong) instead. Also, yes, like everywhere else in Taiwan, there is year-round humidity.
Since I've only studied at one language center in Taiwan and don't know much about the others, aside from what little I've read on internet forums, I can't really speak to which one's best. But I can speak for NCCU, where I studied for a full year. In terms of assessment I will look at four areas: Quality, Cost, Location, and other Bonus Areas.
Quality
Pros: NCCU is the smallest of the three, so class sizes are usually pretty small, ranging from 6 to 10 students a class. The least I ever had in a class was 6, the most 9, this being the norm. Needless to say, in a small class, you can get a lot of individual attention from the teacher and it's possible to ask as many questions as you want.
In addition, I hear that the office tries not to assign too many of the same nationality to one class, so unlike at Taida, where the majority of your classmates might be Japanese or Korean (these being the most common types of people to study Chinese in Taiwan, Taida being the biggest language center in Taipei), at NCCU your class will most likely have a good mix of both Easterners and Westerners. I think this is a good system because as weird as this might sound, different nationalities have different ways of learning.
Not to get all stereotypical, but in my experience, the more Westerners a class had, the louder and more rambunctious it was, which can be better for people who want to focus more on speaking (and, well, socializing). Also, Japanese students' native knowledge of Kanji, which is derived from Chinese characters, means that they usually do better on tests, especially on dictation tests, so in terms of trying for a scholarship awarded by the school (which mostly hinges on one's grades), this makes an Eastern-dominated class more competitive.
NCCU, from what I hear, focuses more on practical conversation as opposed to book learning. For those looking to improve speaking and listening - or just looking to get by in Taiwan in general - this is a definite plus. I don't know how true this is, considering that all the language centers used the exact same textbooks when I was there (this changed starting this year), but in my case, how much 'practical learning' I had varied teacher by teacher. The majority of my teachers were very good about telling us what words and phrases were used only in the textbook and what phrases were actually used in real life (sometimes there were big differences). Having native Taiwanese as language partners helped me more though.
There are also free courses offered every term at NCCU that cater to different student interests/needs, for example, TOCFL training, Business Chinese, Newspaper Chinese, or learning about different holidays in Taiwan. Every term also has some kind of field trip, planned and paid for by the language center, which is great for meeting new people and exploring Taiwan. Warning: They tend to fill up quickly.
Cons: Small class size can also can be a deterrent, as discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in his new book David and Goliath (which pales in comparison to his other books, IMHO). Too few students who all think the same way together in one class means less opportunity for disagreement and discussion, which is crucial to language learning (or life in general, really). If no one really speaks up in class, it becomes much more lecture-style, which sucks for output. Plus, it's boring; would you really want to listen to a teacher talk for 3 hours straight?
In a language center of this size, everyone seems to know everyone else. In theory this sounds great, but in practice it made for a lot of drama. Many students were in their early 20s or younger, so sometimes it felt like being back in high school, where gossip about who's dating who and who dislikes who takes precedence over stuff like learning. This made for some close-knit groups (and it's more likely than not that you will have the same classmates(s) for more than one term), which is great for how close you can get with some people but terrible in terms of how clique-like things can get.
Also, for me personally, there were too many written tests at the higher levels for my liking. For beginners I understand the necessity of building a solid foundation, but once you know the basics I don't think it's necessarily to quiz everyone on 30-40 characters (including definitions, strokes, and tones) a couple times a week. Yes, writing is important, but too much emphasis on one area means not spending enough time on another.
One class I was in had us taking an average of 3 or 4 quizzes a week. I objected to this mainly because I wanted to focus primarily on speaking, as opposed to learning how to write the characters, which can be done on one's own. I think this was mostly done for the benefit of the exchange students, whose grades actually mattered, but then again, this was still Asia, where "learning" by means of rote memorization is a huge thing, something I struggled with based on pure principle.
Cost: Originally NCCU was cheaper than the other two schools, but they raised their tuition starting Fall 2014 so I'm guessing each school's tuition is now about the same or nearly the same.
The school does offer 10 scholarships (20,000NTD each) every term for those who do well in classes. Not enough to cover even one term's tuition, but still better than nothing. Scholarships are awarded purely based on academic results and your previous teacher's recommendation.
Location
Pros: Located in the more rural part of Taipei, so rent and cost of living is generally cheaper than in downtown. Those living close to school can expect to pay about 5000-6000 NT per month for rent. Dorms are cheaper but very limited, especially for foreigners since Taiwanese students get priority. Expect to have an extremely difficult time finding housing if you don't arrive two or three weeks before the term starts (sometimes even then).
Generally quieter than living in the city, for obvious reasons. If you like cable cars and zoos, both are located about 10 minutes away from the school, within walking distance. If you prefer living in close proximity to bars and clubs, this is not the place for you.
Cons: Closest MRT station is Taipei Zoo, the last stop on the Brown Line and about 30 minutes from Taipei Main Station. Can be problematic if you like to party in the city and tend to miss the last train, which is around midnight, but taxis are fairly cheap even late at night, especially for groups.
Eating options are limited. Obviously all the standard tea shops and convenience stores still apply, but beyond that, don't expect anything extraordinary in terms of quality or variety. On the plus side, a typical meal will probably cost you around 60-100NT, which is cheap even for Taipei. There are also various cafes and restaurants located right next to campus. For entertainment, however, unless you like hiking or bike riding*, there's not much else. There are also no beaches nearby.
*There is a YouBike station (Taipei's awesome bike-sharing system) next to NCCU.
A lot of people complained about this one, especially during summertime when the temperatures reached astronomically high degrees: the language center is located atop a hill, or more like a small mountain. To get to class you need to take a 1-minute bus ride, which runs pretty frequently anytime other than in summer, or walk, which takes about 10 minutes, depending on fast you walk and how many people you bump into on the way to class. This was especially inconvenient when it rained (which was often) or when you had morning classes and were running late.
Bonuses
This school was a good fit for me aesthetically since I prefer a more rural-like environment to the city, so long as the city is still nearby. I loved the mountains and open areas. The campus itself is very beautiful -- not necessarily the buildings but the scenery surrounding them. It also didn't feel very crowded 90% of the time.
This is also a very international university in Taiwan. They have a lot of exchange students from Europe and other parts of Asia, like Japan, Korea, Thailand, etc. (not many Americans, though) so if you're looking to do some sort of language exchange, you're coming to the right place. They also have a good amount of student events like concerts, food fairs, and various club activities.
To Note
Not exaggerating when I say it rains like crazy in Taipei and it gets especially cold during wintertime, because no one in Taiwan really uses central heating systems. (TIP: Make sure you bring winter clothes unless you want to buy them there.)
In one year, there were maybe three major typhoons that closed down the school and prevented anyone from going outside. If you're not used to rain, don't want to deal with rain, or just plain can't stand rain, consider studying somewhere in the south (such as Kaohsiung or Taizhong) instead. Also, yes, like everywhere else in Taiwan, there is year-round humidity.
Why You Shouldn't Ride Elephants in Thailand
I've been putting off writing about this for months, mainly because I didn't want to relive the experience or even think about it, but a part of me kept nagging, saying, "If you care anything about elephants at all, or about nature, you should write about it."
So I thought about it and realized that I do care about elephants and nature and hopefully talking about my experience can make a difference, however small.
Back in June I visited Thailand for about a week, partially because I love the country and partially because I needed to do a visa run to stay in Taiwan. Since I had already been to Bangkok, I decided this time to head up north to Chiang-Mai, an area well-known for, along with great food, fabulous hiking, rafting, and numerous other outdoor activities. Since I consider myself an outdoors activity kind of gal, I was very much looking forward to the adventuring that was sure to take place.
While trying to book one of the many trekking tours available in Chiang-Mai, I found one that promised a full day of hiking, rafting, waterfall-watching, and...elephant-riding. Being the young, naive girl that I was, the itinerary presented to me seemed nothing short of awesome and I quickly put down my name and paid the deposit.
I have already forgotten the name of the tour company I used, but believe me when I say that there are dozens like it all over Chiang-Mai, probably attracting hundreds of tourists every year. Since I went on a weekday, there were only five people in my group, including me, all Westerners. Our tour guide was late that morning because there had been some mix-up with two of the guests, so he had the driver take us to a random paper-making farm for free in order to pass the time. There was nothing extraordinary about the paper-making farm other than the fact that besides the three of us, there seemed to be no one else there.
After waiting for about 20 minutes, 10 minutes longer than the guide had initially promised, the other two guests arrived and we were off. Our first stop was elephant-riding.
I had never ridden an elephant before. I don't think I have ever so much as expressed a desire to ride an elephant before, so I'm not sure why I had been looking forward to it, other than maybe sometime in the recent past I had clicked through some friend's pictures on Facebook and thought it looked like something I might do. You can't get any more outdoorsy than riding an elephant in a forest in Thailand, right? Once we got to the "elephant camp," which is what they called the place where the elephants were kept, however, I began to harbor some serious doubts about the whole thing.
First off, the actual camp itself was tiny. It was located on a field next to a river lined with some trees. There were about three or four men standing atop a wooden structure, on which guests would be loaded on and off the elephants. One bigger, older-looking elephant was tied to a post, his ears flapping back and forth as he tried to keep the flies away. He didn't look particularly happy to be there, but then again, having never been in close proximity to a real elephant before, I certainly wasn't an expert on elephant happiness. The other elephants were on their way back from an earlier expedition and would arrive shortly, we were told.
After three elephants had returned, the people at the camp told us to climb up the wooden structure so they could start loading us onto the elephants. Since there were five of us, and each elephant could hold up to two people, including one "driver," I would be on one by myself. The elephant I got on wasn't big or small. It looked neither happy nor unhappy to be there. There was a bench attached to its back, held up by two thick ropes, one looped around its torso and another that came up from under its tail. The driver sat on the elephant's head to steer. I remember it seemed like the drivers weren't really present; they didn't speak to us, smile at us, or acknowledge us in any way, which I found a little strange. After everyone was sitting on a bench, the elephants, prompted by the drivers, started moving forward.
The drivers had two ways of controlling the elephant. One was to nudge the elephant just behind its ear with their foot (all the drivers were wearing shoes). The other was to use a wooden instrument with a hook attached to prod the elephant. Neither method looked very comfortable for the elephant.
Once I was actually on top of the elephant, I started feeling strange. What was I doing sitting on an elephant anyway? In retrospect, riding an elephant didn't seem outdoorsy at all - if anything, it was the very opposite, being a rather passive and lazy thing to do. It was like riding in a car, except that the vehicle was a living, moving being. I wasn't doing anything but sit there, watching as the elephant first moved through the trees; then moved through thick, muddy water; above all moved primarily because there were two strangers sitting on its back and one of them poked at it with a very inhumane-looking stick.
If I were the elephant, I thought, I would be really pissed. But the worst part was, nobody there seemed pissed. Not the drivers, not the guests, not even the elephants. Everyone there was simply compliant, everyone including me. Some people laughed and pointed at things in the distance. Almost everyone was taking pictures. The drivers sat quietly and grunted out commands whenever they felt the elephants were moving too slowly or not obeying them. The whole process just seemed so natural, just another part of idyllic life in Southeast Asia. Except it shouldn't have been.
The ride felt long and short at the same time. It was supposed to last an hour, but no one complained, not me especially, when the elephants arrived back at the wooden structure 40 minutes later and were tied to it once more, as a new group of elephant riders started to mount themselves onto their backs. The drivers didn't get off. I wondered how many groups each elephant was required to carry in a single day. The older elephant that had been tied to a pole earlier was no longer there. I didn't ask where it went.
Later that night, when I was back in my hotel room, I googled elephant riding in Thailand and saw, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, reviews for the tour I had just come back from. Most of them were poor reviews, complaining that the tour guides hadn't seemed to know what they were doing; that the rafting had been shorter than promised; that smaller companies like this were much more likely to rip off inexperienced tourists, etc. Not many of them mentioned elephant riding.
One review, however, stood out. Like some of the others, it had given the tour one star out of five. Unlike the others, it was a highly charged, emotional piece of writing, less review than judgment. Besides lambasting elephant riding as a whole, this reviewer said that upon arriving at the camp and seeing the "traumatic state of the elephants," he and his family decided not to ride after all. They were not emotionally prepared to deal with the ramifications of seeing the elephants in such a sad and cruel environment. They wanted to leave the tour and go back to their hotel immediately, but the tour guide refused to take them. So during the entirety of the trip, which consisted of hiking, rafting, and finally, a visit to a traditional village (also a tourist scam, according to many reviews), all they could think about were the elephants suffering direct abuse at the hands of greedy tourist companies.
Because of tourists like myself.
To be honest, it hadn't even crossed my mind to research elephant riding before I signed up to do it. It just seemed like a fun, once-in-a-lifetime thing to do. I didn't know that tour companies like the one I had used thrived on people like me: curious, unassuming foreigners who view elephant riding as simply one way to pass time in a foreign country known for its exotic adventures, adventures that could perhaps garner a few dozen likes on a social networking site after they had been had.
I didn't know that in Southeast Asia, in order to make elephants safe for humans to ride, they have to be tamed in such a way that their bodies and spirits are visibly broken, for days at a time, practically from birth. I didn't know that baby elephants are often wrenched from their mothers and put into cages so small that they can't even turn around. I didn't know that such elephants are continually beaten and deprived of sleep or that eventually, their tormented cries give way to resignation as they come to accept their fates, the light going out of their eyes as though they're already dead, the flinch present in their bodies even before they're whipped.
I didn't know that elephants are smuggled into Thailand every year to support the growing tourism industry, where people like me pay a small amount of money to ride elephants who have been trained to withstand humans on their backs, at the expense of their own emotional and physical well-beings.
In essence, I didn't know much. And I'm guessing a lot of other people don't either.
If I had, I wouldn't have considered elephant riding at all. Instead, maybe I would have visited the Elephant Nature Park instead, also located in Chiang-Mai, which gives tourists a chance to interact with elephants without actually harming them.
I didn't make that choice, but maybe others can.
So I thought about it and realized that I do care about elephants and nature and hopefully talking about my experience can make a difference, however small.
Back in June I visited Thailand for about a week, partially because I love the country and partially because I needed to do a visa run to stay in Taiwan. Since I had already been to Bangkok, I decided this time to head up north to Chiang-Mai, an area well-known for, along with great food, fabulous hiking, rafting, and numerous other outdoor activities. Since I consider myself an outdoors activity kind of gal, I was very much looking forward to the adventuring that was sure to take place.
While trying to book one of the many trekking tours available in Chiang-Mai, I found one that promised a full day of hiking, rafting, waterfall-watching, and...elephant-riding. Being the young, naive girl that I was, the itinerary presented to me seemed nothing short of awesome and I quickly put down my name and paid the deposit.
I have already forgotten the name of the tour company I used, but believe me when I say that there are dozens like it all over Chiang-Mai, probably attracting hundreds of tourists every year. Since I went on a weekday, there were only five people in my group, including me, all Westerners. Our tour guide was late that morning because there had been some mix-up with two of the guests, so he had the driver take us to a random paper-making farm for free in order to pass the time. There was nothing extraordinary about the paper-making farm other than the fact that besides the three of us, there seemed to be no one else there.
After waiting for about 20 minutes, 10 minutes longer than the guide had initially promised, the other two guests arrived and we were off. Our first stop was elephant-riding.
I had never ridden an elephant before. I don't think I have ever so much as expressed a desire to ride an elephant before, so I'm not sure why I had been looking forward to it, other than maybe sometime in the recent past I had clicked through some friend's pictures on Facebook and thought it looked like something I might do. You can't get any more outdoorsy than riding an elephant in a forest in Thailand, right? Once we got to the "elephant camp," which is what they called the place where the elephants were kept, however, I began to harbor some serious doubts about the whole thing.
First off, the actual camp itself was tiny. It was located on a field next to a river lined with some trees. There were about three or four men standing atop a wooden structure, on which guests would be loaded on and off the elephants. One bigger, older-looking elephant was tied to a post, his ears flapping back and forth as he tried to keep the flies away. He didn't look particularly happy to be there, but then again, having never been in close proximity to a real elephant before, I certainly wasn't an expert on elephant happiness. The other elephants were on their way back from an earlier expedition and would arrive shortly, we were told.
After three elephants had returned, the people at the camp told us to climb up the wooden structure so they could start loading us onto the elephants. Since there were five of us, and each elephant could hold up to two people, including one "driver," I would be on one by myself. The elephant I got on wasn't big or small. It looked neither happy nor unhappy to be there. There was a bench attached to its back, held up by two thick ropes, one looped around its torso and another that came up from under its tail. The driver sat on the elephant's head to steer. I remember it seemed like the drivers weren't really present; they didn't speak to us, smile at us, or acknowledge us in any way, which I found a little strange. After everyone was sitting on a bench, the elephants, prompted by the drivers, started moving forward.
The drivers had two ways of controlling the elephant. One was to nudge the elephant just behind its ear with their foot (all the drivers were wearing shoes). The other was to use a wooden instrument with a hook attached to prod the elephant. Neither method looked very comfortable for the elephant.
Once I was actually on top of the elephant, I started feeling strange. What was I doing sitting on an elephant anyway? In retrospect, riding an elephant didn't seem outdoorsy at all - if anything, it was the very opposite, being a rather passive and lazy thing to do. It was like riding in a car, except that the vehicle was a living, moving being. I wasn't doing anything but sit there, watching as the elephant first moved through the trees; then moved through thick, muddy water; above all moved primarily because there were two strangers sitting on its back and one of them poked at it with a very inhumane-looking stick.
If I were the elephant, I thought, I would be really pissed. But the worst part was, nobody there seemed pissed. Not the drivers, not the guests, not even the elephants. Everyone there was simply compliant, everyone including me. Some people laughed and pointed at things in the distance. Almost everyone was taking pictures. The drivers sat quietly and grunted out commands whenever they felt the elephants were moving too slowly or not obeying them. The whole process just seemed so natural, just another part of idyllic life in Southeast Asia. Except it shouldn't have been.
The ride felt long and short at the same time. It was supposed to last an hour, but no one complained, not me especially, when the elephants arrived back at the wooden structure 40 minutes later and were tied to it once more, as a new group of elephant riders started to mount themselves onto their backs. The drivers didn't get off. I wondered how many groups each elephant was required to carry in a single day. The older elephant that had been tied to a pole earlier was no longer there. I didn't ask where it went.
Later that night, when I was back in my hotel room, I googled elephant riding in Thailand and saw, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, reviews for the tour I had just come back from. Most of them were poor reviews, complaining that the tour guides hadn't seemed to know what they were doing; that the rafting had been shorter than promised; that smaller companies like this were much more likely to rip off inexperienced tourists, etc. Not many of them mentioned elephant riding.
One review, however, stood out. Like some of the others, it had given the tour one star out of five. Unlike the others, it was a highly charged, emotional piece of writing, less review than judgment. Besides lambasting elephant riding as a whole, this reviewer said that upon arriving at the camp and seeing the "traumatic state of the elephants," he and his family decided not to ride after all. They were not emotionally prepared to deal with the ramifications of seeing the elephants in such a sad and cruel environment. They wanted to leave the tour and go back to their hotel immediately, but the tour guide refused to take them. So during the entirety of the trip, which consisted of hiking, rafting, and finally, a visit to a traditional village (also a tourist scam, according to many reviews), all they could think about were the elephants suffering direct abuse at the hands of greedy tourist companies.
Because of tourists like myself.
To be honest, it hadn't even crossed my mind to research elephant riding before I signed up to do it. It just seemed like a fun, once-in-a-lifetime thing to do. I didn't know that tour companies like the one I had used thrived on people like me: curious, unassuming foreigners who view elephant riding as simply one way to pass time in a foreign country known for its exotic adventures, adventures that could perhaps garner a few dozen likes on a social networking site after they had been had.
I didn't know that in Southeast Asia, in order to make elephants safe for humans to ride, they have to be tamed in such a way that their bodies and spirits are visibly broken, for days at a time, practically from birth. I didn't know that baby elephants are often wrenched from their mothers and put into cages so small that they can't even turn around. I didn't know that such elephants are continually beaten and deprived of sleep or that eventually, their tormented cries give way to resignation as they come to accept their fates, the light going out of their eyes as though they're already dead, the flinch present in their bodies even before they're whipped.
I didn't know that elephants are smuggled into Thailand every year to support the growing tourism industry, where people like me pay a small amount of money to ride elephants who have been trained to withstand humans on their backs, at the expense of their own emotional and physical well-beings.
In essence, I didn't know much. And I'm guessing a lot of other people don't either.
If I had, I wouldn't have considered elephant riding at all. Instead, maybe I would have visited the Elephant Nature Park instead, also located in Chiang-Mai, which gives tourists a chance to interact with elephants without actually harming them.
I didn't make that choice, but maybe others can.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Oh, You're American?
So, I'm back.
How very anti-climatic. But then again, the whole affair -- the packing, the good-bye dinners, the last-minute get-togethers - all felt very anti-climatic indeed, as if the circumstances weren't permanent but a mere ruffle in an on-going plan. Don't lose hope, there's always time to change your mind!
I feel the same way about coming home as I always do; a little glad, a little sad, but mostly very, very displaced. Part of it has to do with the jet-lag and part of it has to do with emotions that I have yet to sort out (it's hard to care about anything even remotely important when your brain is telling you: sleep! wake up! sleep! on repeat) I read that you need one day of recovery for each time zone you cross on the way back and going from Manila to SF meant crossing 9 time zones. So, 6 more days and I should be back to normal, right?
Maybe.
Just take it easy, everyone I know has said to me so far. Ease back into it. Relax. Take your time. No need to rush.
What's left unsaid: You're back home, where you're supposed to be. Get happy.
The important take-away point: Now is not the time to feel pressured to 'returning to my normal self,' whatever that means. Of course, I can no longer clearly recall what my 'normal self' feels like in America, having been my 'normal self' (or an entirely different self?) for three years in two very Asian, very un-American countries.
On the plus side, Taiwan is more similar to the U.S. than Japan ever was, especially culturally. I didn't commit very many cultural taboos in Taiwan, other than looking Asian while proclaiming to be from America. After awhile even I began to question myself: Am I really American? Or is that just what my passport says? For some reason some people found it really hard to wrap their heads around this phenomenon. You would think that Taiwan's obsession with the ubiquitous Taiwanese-American Jeremy Lin (see? there is such thing as nationality-hyphen-nationality) might have made it easier for Taiwanese people to grasp the whole concept of "Asian-American," but no matter who I talked to - young person, old person, friend, parental figure, stranger - everyone's initial reaction was nearly always the same.
"So you're Chinese-American?" (emphasis on the Chinese part)
"But you simply don't look American." (Because all Americans are white, tall, and eat hamburgers every day for breakfast)
"How interesting! How rare!"
And then: "Oh you're from California? No wonder. There are a lot of Asians there, right?" (Asian-Americans, I always wanted to correct, but usually didn't. And depends what part of California you're talking about.)
I'll have to admit, on days when I wasn't mildly exasperated from repeatedly explaining my oh so very unique situation -- yes, I'm American, no, neither of my parents are white -- I almost felt offended by the constant questioning, the intense curiosity, and the aha! look in people's eyes when I agreed, once more, that yes, I'm ABC. I didn't want to feel this way, and maybe I shouldn't have, but these kinds of comments had a way of gnawing at me, especially over time. I got plenty of them the two years I lived in Japan as well, so you'd think I'd be used to them by now. However, part of me just assumed this was because Japan has always been especially weird about the whole nationality vs ethnicity issue, weird as in being radically different from what our interpretation of it is in America. I thought Taiwan would be different. And it was, just not as different as I initially presumed -- or hoped.
And I don't want to sound dramatic or anything, but it does wear on the soul a bit when an individual you barely know (or even someone you do know, which sometimes makes it worse) proclaims to know more about your nationality than you do, as though they are so determined to put you in a neat little box, to make sense of your 'special' situation, that they don't care if the box doesn't fit or how you feel about it. So you make sense to them, because how you view yourself isn't important at all. Where I come from -- where is that again? -- pushing self-created identities onto others is a cultural taboo and can be insensitive, even ignorant, but most definitely politically incorrect.
Maybe only once in my life have I encountered someone who told me that I couldn't be American because I didn't 'look' American. (Because all Americans are white, tall, and eat hamburgers every day for breakfast.) Obviously this person was being a racist asshole, but at least she knew she was being a racist asshole when she made the comment. She was acutely aware of what effect her words would have on someone who came from an immigrant family, yet was born and raised on American soil (which, by American standards at least, makes you pretty darn American). Yet she said them anyway. So it was easy to dismiss her as an ignorant prick, because she was one. By that age I had accumulated enough wisdom and self-worth to know that the petty words of a bigoted asshole had no bearing on how I viewed myself or others like myself.
But in Taiwan, even though I was still, for the most part, an individual who knew better than to let others' ignorance bother me, didn't always mean that no offense was taken, precisely because the people making these blanket statements didn't know that their words could, and sometimes did, cause discomfort, annoyance, and yes, even pain.
A question that often plagued me was: Why does it bother you so much what they think? It wasn't as though my nationality was contingent on anyone's interpretation. Yet it continued to bother me when people said, "Are you really American?" As though daring me to prove it. (Show me your white father!) More than I would have liked to admit, it bothered me because it wasn't just about me and how they saw me, with my Asian face and body, but rather, how they saw all Americans in general. For them, the two things just didn't mix. From their points of view, if your parents are born in one country, and you are born in another, your parents' nationalities still reflect yours, because you share the same blood. Just because they happened to move somewhere else and give birth to you in that particular place didn't mean your blood changed. It didn't automatically make you part of that country. You are part of your parents, so where they're from, you're from.
Maybe a part of me has allowed myself to think like that as well, when I was very young and even occasionally as an adult.
I have thought long and hard about what constitutes my nationality long before other people deemed it appropriate to tell me so. As an Asian-American, it's kind of hard not to. In fact, this was a huge focal point of Pacific Ties, the news-magazine I worked at for more than two years in my university, identity-forming years.
What constitutes the Asian American identity? On the one hand, of course we're Americans. We speak f'ing English and eat burgers for breakfast, for god's sake. On the other hand we, along with our families, still celebrate Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year) and some of us can even speak the 'mother tongue.' The best of both worlds, right?
Sometimes this feels great. And sometimes it just feels confusing. To many Japanese and Taiwanese (and probably to a lot of other people, to be honest), it feels strange.
But for Americans, identity is what we give ourselves. We're bombarded with quotes like "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" and all those other warm fuzzies related to being yourself and being an individual and not giving a shit what other people think.
Except as humans, despite our very best efforts to maintain a mental fortitude worthy of everyone's envy, of course we give a shit. From time to time, of course we care what others think, and of course on some level it affects how we view ourselves.
As an American, and as an Asian, I am no exception.
How very anti-climatic. But then again, the whole affair -- the packing, the good-bye dinners, the last-minute get-togethers - all felt very anti-climatic indeed, as if the circumstances weren't permanent but a mere ruffle in an on-going plan. Don't lose hope, there's always time to change your mind!
I feel the same way about coming home as I always do; a little glad, a little sad, but mostly very, very displaced. Part of it has to do with the jet-lag and part of it has to do with emotions that I have yet to sort out (it's hard to care about anything even remotely important when your brain is telling you: sleep! wake up! sleep! on repeat) I read that you need one day of recovery for each time zone you cross on the way back and going from Manila to SF meant crossing 9 time zones. So, 6 more days and I should be back to normal, right?
Maybe.
Just take it easy, everyone I know has said to me so far. Ease back into it. Relax. Take your time. No need to rush.
What's left unsaid: You're back home, where you're supposed to be. Get happy.
The important take-away point: Now is not the time to feel pressured to 'returning to my normal self,' whatever that means. Of course, I can no longer clearly recall what my 'normal self' feels like in America, having been my 'normal self' (or an entirely different self?) for three years in two very Asian, very un-American countries.
On the plus side, Taiwan is more similar to the U.S. than Japan ever was, especially culturally. I didn't commit very many cultural taboos in Taiwan, other than looking Asian while proclaiming to be from America. After awhile even I began to question myself: Am I really American? Or is that just what my passport says? For some reason some people found it really hard to wrap their heads around this phenomenon. You would think that Taiwan's obsession with the ubiquitous Taiwanese-American Jeremy Lin (see? there is such thing as nationality-hyphen-nationality) might have made it easier for Taiwanese people to grasp the whole concept of "Asian-American," but no matter who I talked to - young person, old person, friend, parental figure, stranger - everyone's initial reaction was nearly always the same.
"So you're Chinese-American?" (emphasis on the Chinese part)
"But you simply don't look American." (Because all Americans are white, tall, and eat hamburgers every day for breakfast)
"How interesting! How rare!"
And then: "Oh you're from California? No wonder. There are a lot of Asians there, right?" (Asian-Americans, I always wanted to correct, but usually didn't. And depends what part of California you're talking about.)
I'll have to admit, on days when I wasn't mildly exasperated from repeatedly explaining my oh so very unique situation -- yes, I'm American, no, neither of my parents are white -- I almost felt offended by the constant questioning, the intense curiosity, and the aha! look in people's eyes when I agreed, once more, that yes, I'm ABC. I didn't want to feel this way, and maybe I shouldn't have, but these kinds of comments had a way of gnawing at me, especially over time. I got plenty of them the two years I lived in Japan as well, so you'd think I'd be used to them by now. However, part of me just assumed this was because Japan has always been especially weird about the whole nationality vs ethnicity issue, weird as in being radically different from what our interpretation of it is in America. I thought Taiwan would be different. And it was, just not as different as I initially presumed -- or hoped.
And I don't want to sound dramatic or anything, but it does wear on the soul a bit when an individual you barely know (or even someone you do know, which sometimes makes it worse) proclaims to know more about your nationality than you do, as though they are so determined to put you in a neat little box, to make sense of your 'special' situation, that they don't care if the box doesn't fit or how you feel about it. So you make sense to them, because how you view yourself isn't important at all. Where I come from -- where is that again? -- pushing self-created identities onto others is a cultural taboo and can be insensitive, even ignorant, but most definitely politically incorrect.
Maybe only once in my life have I encountered someone who told me that I couldn't be American because I didn't 'look' American. (Because all Americans are white, tall, and eat hamburgers every day for breakfast.) Obviously this person was being a racist asshole, but at least she knew she was being a racist asshole when she made the comment. She was acutely aware of what effect her words would have on someone who came from an immigrant family, yet was born and raised on American soil (which, by American standards at least, makes you pretty darn American). Yet she said them anyway. So it was easy to dismiss her as an ignorant prick, because she was one. By that age I had accumulated enough wisdom and self-worth to know that the petty words of a bigoted asshole had no bearing on how I viewed myself or others like myself.
But in Taiwan, even though I was still, for the most part, an individual who knew better than to let others' ignorance bother me, didn't always mean that no offense was taken, precisely because the people making these blanket statements didn't know that their words could, and sometimes did, cause discomfort, annoyance, and yes, even pain.
A question that often plagued me was: Why does it bother you so much what they think? It wasn't as though my nationality was contingent on anyone's interpretation. Yet it continued to bother me when people said, "Are you really American?" As though daring me to prove it. (Show me your white father!) More than I would have liked to admit, it bothered me because it wasn't just about me and how they saw me, with my Asian face and body, but rather, how they saw all Americans in general. For them, the two things just didn't mix. From their points of view, if your parents are born in one country, and you are born in another, your parents' nationalities still reflect yours, because you share the same blood. Just because they happened to move somewhere else and give birth to you in that particular place didn't mean your blood changed. It didn't automatically make you part of that country. You are part of your parents, so where they're from, you're from.
Maybe a part of me has allowed myself to think like that as well, when I was very young and even occasionally as an adult.
I have thought long and hard about what constitutes my nationality long before other people deemed it appropriate to tell me so. As an Asian-American, it's kind of hard not to. In fact, this was a huge focal point of Pacific Ties, the news-magazine I worked at for more than two years in my university, identity-forming years.
What constitutes the Asian American identity? On the one hand, of course we're Americans. We speak f'ing English and eat burgers for breakfast, for god's sake. On the other hand we, along with our families, still celebrate Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year) and some of us can even speak the 'mother tongue.' The best of both worlds, right?
Sometimes this feels great. And sometimes it just feels confusing. To many Japanese and Taiwanese (and probably to a lot of other people, to be honest), it feels strange.
But for Americans, identity is what we give ourselves. We're bombarded with quotes like "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" and all those other warm fuzzies related to being yourself and being an individual and not giving a shit what other people think.
Except as humans, despite our very best efforts to maintain a mental fortitude worthy of everyone's envy, of course we give a shit. From time to time, of course we care what others think, and of course on some level it affects how we view ourselves.
As an American, and as an Asian, I am no exception.
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