Aliens

As I think I mentioned before, Taipei is a very international city and it is not so strange to pass in the street some other weird guys like me: westerners. You can see that in the local people, because they do not waste much time in looking at you (very different from what I experienced in China), and even many little kids are so used to it that they do no seem to notice at all. The ones who do are very very funny, though. At the same time, it is not something that happens at every moment, which means that there is enough time lapse to realize it.

That is the most strange thing to me. Races are, basically, something that has to do with the outer looks, but we are so used to recognizing shapes, or colors, or people similar to the ones where we come from, that it is often amazing how easily I can spot, and how fast, a westerner amid the background of people on the streets. And they are typically the nordic/british type.

Then, something very funny happens (or sad, depending on your point of view), because reactions are usually one of these three ways:

• the guy who probably has been for a short time here and as soon as he discovers you, looks as if he was thinking, "one of my own". He cannot control his eyes, and probably smiles too much. Maybe that makes his day. Surprising.
  
  
• at the other end are the ones who see you and look away really fast, sometimes contorting their necks in a weird way. Or maybe they pretend they do not look at you, but you can tell they are watching.
  
  
• and, finally, the ones that look at you, for as long or as short a time as they do with anybody else, and keep on walking.
  

I think I am usually between a little bit in the second type and mostly on the third, all depending on the labels that I have for the people that seem to be of a particular way (there is a kind of tourist/expatriate that I'd rather not have anything to do with), but I do not have any problem returning the smile or nodding to somebody who is in the first type.

It is curious how sometimes I have caught myself thinking, "hey, another one of these people again", coming from the same kind of weird guy. We get used to almost everything.