Special offers

Some of the newcomers are, or at least seemed to be, very fond of another Taiwanese habit, which is to collect the little stickers that you get when you buy more than a certain amount of stuff in some of the convenience stores. If you manage to get the little booklet where to attach them and you fill it inside the predetermined time, you may win any stupid thing they might offer, or some other product if they run out of it. I think the prize is not worth the effort required to get it done.

But, if you feel like it, there is another way, collecting the stickers you get if you buy some coffe in a 7-Eleven shop. If you get six, you get a free coffe (it reminds me of my time in Columbus).

Of course, I suspect that if you want something more elaborated than just plain coffee, maybe you need to collect twice that number. It does not matter, we must spend money.

Cups

I guess I have said it more than once: eating out in Taiwan is awfully cheap for people used to the prices in Europe. One must take into account the difference in wages, but in any case for about 2 euros you can have a nice dinner, and if it costs 5 or 6 it will be considered expensive by some. If we get to 10 euros, you can imagine. Of course, food in western style places, like pubs, is more expensive.

What is a little bit shocking, in comparison, is that some things are proportionately much more expensive, like imported beer or coffee, which I guess it has not been a product widely consumed in a place where people love tea. More or less, for the price of coffee, you can have dinner. Prices in places like Starbucks are more or less the same as in Europe or the US, but you can also find more affordable prices in some convenience stores.

I am not complaining, though, because there are many small cafès, european style, more or less expensive, but with a very nice ambience, particularly since smoking is not allowed anymore, relaxed and quiet —if the crowds of people with laptops are not too large— where I can stop and rest and see the flow of life, far from the usual rush of life in Taipei.


And during these days, when I am thinking how to revive this blog, and I cannot stop listening to Chris Isaak songs, where could I find a better place to pass the time?.

New TV

When some people have asked me why I do not look for a new apartment and then I will be able to know different parts of Taipei, a very strong argument against it has been, apart that the one I have now is close to work and well connected, that the landlady is very (too much?) nice to me. From giving me special food in special dates or bringing a pot of Oolong tea, to, like today, making somebody bring a new television set they were given, because it is too large for their place.

And it is truly big. I do not see too much tv, but at least this one will not have the sudden changes in volumen that the other one had.

Hot

Month of July in Taipei. As you can imagine, it is very warm. We have been over 36ºC today, according to the temperatures on some websites, very humid and with a burning Sun, even if there were some diffuse clouds overhead. The funny image, that I have not been able to save because I did not have my camera with me, was five or six scooters waiting for the traffic light to turn not just at the line, as they usually do, but 10 or 15 meters behind it, under the shadow of a footbridge, all very close to each other to better avoid the Sun. Special people!.

As for me, maybe recklessly, I went out jogging along the river this evening for while. I felt rather well again, better than last Saturday, but it looked as if I sweated my soul out. I was literally dripping, so much that I left a trail on the tiles at home .

Maybe tonight, when I get home, I will take a third shower. Summer.

Plants

We have new lifeforms in my office since yesterday. It is one of those things that it could be said are a consequence of the so-called feminine touch: three plants to improve the decoration and to cheer up the place.




Yesterday afternoon, we made a short visit to the plant and flower market that is placed midway between my apartment and work. The choice was quite fast, even with all the variety of interior or exterior plants, and many flowers; some very beautiful. It was funny to see some plants or flowers that are almost an institution in my family. Well, I am not sure if some were exactly the same, but they sure looked like it.

Rescheduling

Maybe it is because I am living alone; maybe I am not able to follow a strict discipline; maybe I have been doing this for years. For whatever reason, I am breaking again today the normal (recommended?) sleep rhythm. I have observations with the SMT again tonight, until 3am more or less. So, tomorrow will begin for me around midday. Fortunately, the start of the observations has been as smooth as possible today and I guess I will be able to do most of what I wanted to do.

These sudden changes in my schedule are not too problematic to me, and I usually can sleep fairly well the following night. I think that my body is used to it, except for the feeling of disorder that chases me whenever I wake up late on a working day, but it is also true that since I landed in Taiwan, my usual daily life is very different from the one I led in Barcelona, to a point that I wonder how was that. It seems very ironic to me to compare the life of a nightclub musician and that of some astronomers. A bad life.

Lease renewal

These days, it is always one year ago for something. So, I renewed the lease of my apartment yesterday. Some people have asked me why I was not looking for another apartment, that it could be a way of exploring Taipei. It is true, but despite my apartment's shortcomings, it is good enough, with ample space for possible visitors, and close to work. And the landlady is very kind, too. As an example, she gave me a pot of oolong tea, typical from Taiwan, yesterday. Additionally, I feel too lazy to start the search for a place all over again. So, I will stay here for another year, unless there are any surprises. And if I am still staying in Taiwan after that, I will decide then what to do about it.

In any case, I still miss my apartment in Columbus, so I do not care too much anymore.

Shopping

It is difficult to believe, I have been one year in Taipei and I did not go shopping for clothes until yesterday. Yes, I have bought foods, things for my apartment, some gifts, books and similar things too before, but I never did that thing of going to one shop, and then another to see if I found anything to wear. Yesterday, a night walk around the Gongguan night market, even if I was there more for my nice company than for me, but I saw some interesting things. I must go back soon. For once, I did not just walk by all the little shops in those streets. A new dimension.

Little bottles

This is a very usual image in the streets of Taiwan

two, three, four little plastic bottles filled with water and hanging from the bottom of a more or less large shop awning, trying to keep it in a vertical position. Not all the shops have them in this way — because some have a metallic structure attached to the wall to do just that—, but you can find enough of them to appreciate the popular solutions very quickly. Sometimes, depending on how strong is the wind or on how fast you walk, you'd better pay attention to avoid hitting your head against them.

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.

Surrender

I do not particularly hate them, but as it happened during my stay in the US, I enjoy not carrying a cellphone, especially if I do not have too many people to call. But after much insistence and taking into account that I cannot use the language/s of the place, I finally could not resist the temptation (or opted for the more reasonable side of the problem) and I sold my soul to technology again.

Last Friday, with the help of a student, I did the deed. I got a new cellphone, then. At least, I will be able to use it in Europe.

Shops

One of the first things that you must learn here is where is the nearest convenience store. Shops that apparently never close —I saw many open even for Chinese New Year— where you can go to buy anything to eat, or to drink, or reading material (if you can read it), or for other small personal needs, at any time.

There are different shop chains, the best known is surely 7-Eleven

part of a Taiwanese economical empire. But there are other, like Family Mart

or OK Mart

etc. You can trust that there will be at least one, open, anywhere you go.

Paths

Have you ever wondered why do you follow a certain route on your way from home to work, or anywhere else? —particularly if you walk, because it is not so easy to try when using other means of transportation.

That is a question I have asked myself again since I am in Taipei and I walk from my apartment to my office in the Shida campus in the mornig (or to the ASIAA). What a silly thing, isn't it?, but I think I have changed my preferential route three times in these few months. Why?. A mix of looking for the shortest distance; finding one with less traffic and, consequently, safer and not so noisy; or just because I needed some change. It reminds me of my high-school days; how the initial route, maybe slightly more efficient, changed for more pleasant ones. It is not so easy to explain if you do not experience it.

Something similar happens here. During the first few months, I alternated between a shorter route, but with cars and scooters whizzing by at an inch from me, and another that followed Roosevelt Rd, very noisy. Until I found a narrow street that cuts across the middle, even shorter and very quiet. We will see how long it lasts, because one needs some variety in life.

Neighbours

My kitchen window faces the same alley where the entrance to my building is. In the balcony there, I have the washing machine and some space where I can hang clothes to dry. The alley is fairly narrow and you can often hear how the neighbours of different buildings go along with their lives, because it resembles more an inner court. So, some days I can hear how somebody sings in a karaoke or, once in a while, a baby crying inconsolably . A while ago, though, I could hear the same baby, probably, laughing, in that amazing way that babies do using their whole body. Happiness.

Questions

One of the advantages of being a foreigner, and looking the part, is that I save myself the bother of being stopped by people making some poll or getting signatures for any campaing in the streets, or to be offered too many shop flyers, or similar things. I would not escape in Europe or the US —as I did not, I was asked once if I wanted to register to vote in their elections—, but here they see me coming and I can tell in their faces how they are quickly making a probability estimate of my understanding any Chinese and, with good reason, they decide it is not worth it.

One day last week, as I was walking along the Gongguan zone, I went past an army of middle-aged women, dressed with white trousers and dark blue polos, that tried to stop anybody that was around. They were probably from some kind of cultural, or even political, association. They looked at me, with a slightly disappointed face, as if thinking: one that gets away. Well, I do not think I would stop for long even if I understood the language. Of course, you never know; I think I am more peaceful here.

Student activities

I have been seeing them in the little esplanade in front of my building at work since a few weeks ago. Groups of boys and girls, stretching and practicing different coreographies. O I could hear their cries and laughs from my office, but I was not sure what they were doing there. Maybe they were in some kind of body expression classes, or taking dancing lessons, because there was also music sometimes. Or maybe they were just rehearsing some play. The weather is generally good and they have enough space there to put a lot of people.

I finally realized what it was today, when I saw the large number of people at the bottom of the research building again and also, some hundred meters down the road, in front of the auditorium or gymnasium that is located half-way along the central street of campus. The shouts, choreographies, girls climbing on top of boys and jumping or making somersaults and expecting somebody else to catch them before they crash into the ground, pom-poms on the grass: they are practicing for some cheerleading show. Probably one of those competitions that are everywhere these days.

I am not at all surprised, because of the american influence on many things and because I already saw an example a few months ago in a student show in the Shida central campus. Even if some people won't like it, these are also multicultural activities, aren't they?.

News

One thing I have not yet managed to do is to follow more or less regularly the local news. It is true that language is a barrier, but there are at least two newspapers in English (plus their respective websites). In fact, I tend to follow the news on the net, and I have not changed much my routine.

That can be a good thing, since from websites, podcasts and similar things, I can be in touch with what happens at home or somewhere else in the world (that's what you get from following the BBC site), but I can also miss what is happening a few meters from home. Obviously, I know where to go to look for information about typhoon alerts, in the odd chance that nobody would tell me anything. About the rest, well I don't get too many news.

But I do not worry. I think it is just a matter of time. At the beginning of staying in a place so far away and so different, you do not understand much about the political or social situation, and most of people's names or place names are mostly meaningless. After a few months in the country, you begin to distinguish among sources, where things are happening, how people think about it. That is what happened for me in Columbus. So, I guess that sooner or later I will submerge deeper and deeper into what is going on in this island and around. Another step in the process.

Simple things

I have seen some students make. Well, it might be something as old as the world, but if I had ever seen that before, it was a long long time ago.

I am talking about the solution they find to take away the drink from some place where there might be small cardboard boxes to put the food in, but not any cups. They put the liquid inside a plastic bag —as the ones we used to roll our sandwiches in when going to school—, a straw too, tie a noose around the straw and you are ready to go. The handles are very convenient to carry the bag too. Of course, I am afraid it is not good for the environment, which is always the problem with these things.