Family

My return to Taiwan has certainly helped me improve my Chinese but that wasn't the sole reason why I returned to Taiwan. When I wrote my scholarship application I mentioned how important it was for me to return to Taiwan to see my host families. The last time I was in Taiwan my host families did everything from taking me to the doctor's office to keeping me full (not an easy task). During the past two months I've been able to see all three of my host families and it's been great. During these few months I've seen my host father become president of the Rotary club, gone to the zoo with my host sister, visited the beach, watched my host sister's dance performance, and gone hiking with my host brother. Out of everything that Taipei and Taiwan has to offer my favorite moments have been spent with my host families. I'd rather eat a meal at their house than go to Din Tai Fung. 

I'm frequently asked why my surname is 林(lin) and I always get a laugh when I tell them it was my first host family's surname. I never thought I'd use the term "host cousin" but in fact I eat meals, go hiking, and hang out with my host cousins. My host uncle even picked me up from the airport. 

I owe so much to my host families. I hope they understand how much I appreciate all of the meals. I can't thank them enough. They continue to encourage and inspire me to learn Chinese. I know that my parents are also thankful for everything that my host families have done for me. I hope that one day they'll have the opportunity to meet. 

Rotary meeting with my host sisters and host father 

Host mother and a wonderful meal

Nothing beats home cooking

My host father and even found me a running partner

My host sister and I kayaking

Mango Ice with my host family

Hiking trip with my host brother and host cousin

Family dinner 

Whats for breakfast?

The only thing I enjoy more than breathing is eating breakfast. The breakfast shops in Taipei are bountiful and serve some delicious food. Coffee is served with sugar and an unhealthy dose of cream. It's delicious, although I prefer the fresh soy milk, which is particularly refreshing on hot summer days. Some of my favorite things to order are radish cake, eggs, and beef buns. But the best part of the meal might be the price. It would be strange if I spent over 3 USD on one breakfast.

Fried radish cake or 蘿蔔糕

Radish cake 蘿蔔糕

Beef bun or 包子

Soy milk 

Bun with sesame seeds and green onions 

Egg wrapped in green onion pancake 

Breakfast shop coffee

Zoo

Last weekend I visited the Taipei Zoo. Generally speaking zoos are not my cup of tea. I was pleasantly surprised by the Taipei Zoo. The zoo was organized by continent. I thought the layout was interesting, and it wasn't too spread out like some zoos. Thankfully the weather was fairly cool, so we didn't roast. After the zoo my host sister and I planned to ride the Maokong Gondola which overlooks the mountainous terrain near Taiwan. Unfortunately there was a lighting storm and the Gondola was shut down. This was an exciting time for the zoo because one of the pandas at the Taipei Zoo recently gave birth. I enjoyed seeing some animals and really had a blast learning animal's names in Chinese.

My lifelong dream is to become a panda 

Typhoon Day, 颱風

Typhoon Soulik is coming and I believe I've taken all the necessary precautions. I've made a trip to the supermarket to buy a few days worth of food and water. I've locked all my windows and I'm pretty sure there's a flashlight someplace in my room. At college when classes are cancelled drinking ensues although I'd like to personally recommend building a fort. Today at the supermarket when I was stocking up with tea and frozen dumplings I spotted a man with a basket filled with nothing but beer. Apparently people of all ages and in all places spend their time waiting out storms by consuming large amounts of alcohol.

The last time I was in Taiwan I only experience one typhoon and it didn't involve much besides some rain. Unfortunately the typhoon landed on a Saturday so I didn't even get a day off of school. Typhoon Soulik happened to start on Friday evening so I didn't need to go to class this afternoon. The weather this morning was quite pleasant. I even went a run in an attempt to prevent cabin fever later in the day. This morning I feared being cooped up all day in my apartment. I was saved by a phone call by my old host sister. She was kind enough to invite me to go to Din Tai Fung and meet the short-term exchange student staying at her house.  (http://returntotheroc.blogspot.tw/2013/07/din-tai-fung.html) After lunch we proceeded to walk to Sun Yet Sen Memorial Hall, 孫中山. After some mango-ice (http://returntotheroc.blogspot.tw/2013/07/mango-ice.html) at the famous Ice-Monster we traveled to a temple.

Xing Tian Temple (That's not a sorority squat) 

At the temple we all wished for safety, peace, and better test grades. I returned to my old host family's house for dinner and some tea. I was asked if my parents would be worrying about me. I'm pretty sure my parents are unaware of the typhoon, so I don't think my folks are worrying about me.

My feelings on typhoons are mixed. A day off is nice, but being cooped up inside really isn't my thing. All of the phone calls from old host parents old host cousin I received today were truly appreciated.  I've learned a few things from the typhoon including that there are plenty of people in Taipei who are concerned for my well being. I've received plenty of phone calls from old host parents and even a host cousin today. Also the simplified characters for typhoon, (台风) look nothing like the traditional characters (颱風).

Mango Ice

Today I visited the famous YongKang street (永康街). The street is filled with incredible restaurants. It's also the place of the original Din Tai Fung. There are plenty of other incredible restaurants on the street although the prices here are a bit higher than the rest of Taipei. The defining element of YongKang Street is the Mango Ice shops. Mango ice at it's simplest involves thinly shaved ice and diced mangoes. Variations include adding other fruits such as kiwis or strawberries, mango ice-cream, mango sorbet, pudding, or even red-beans. Although the idea of shaved ice sounds rather tasteless it is far from bland. The mango and mango juices flavor the finely shaved ice quite well, thus creating a delicious and refreshing treat. I've been told at one point there was a mango-ice restaurant on YongKang Street that was so famous other people opened restaurants nearby in order to draw the costumers that wanted to have a meal before their mango-ice dessert. Much to the dismay of the restaurant owners the couple who owned the famous mango-ice restaurant got divorced. My friend jokes that the government in Taipei hired the best marriage counselor to try and get the couple back together. Although they haven't been re-united there are still plenty of quality mango-ice shops along YongKang Street.

Mango-ice with mango, kiwi, and strawberries 

Yum 

Din Tai Fung

Last week I went to a world renowned restaurant called Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐). The restaurant was founded in Taiwan and has since opened shops around the world including one in Seattle and Los Angeles. They're world famous Xiao long bao or 小龍包. These Xiaolongbao are a type of dumpling that are usually associated with Shanghai. These dumplings are often filled with pork but the shrimp and winter-melon are particularly tasty in the summer. What makes the Xiaolongbao different from other dumplings is that there is soup in the filling. This makes them particularly tasty. The Xiaolongbao are served in the bamboo steamer that they were cooked in. The preferred eating method is to take the Xiaolongbao and place it in a spoon. While on the spoon the Xiaolongbao is opened to let the soup out. The next step is to add finely cut slices of ginger soaked in soy sauce and vineager to the spoon. They taste unbelievable, possibly one of my favorite dishes.  Ask any-one about the quality of Xiaolongbao at Din Tai Fung and there is a good chance they'll tell you they have the best. I went with my good friend Alex, who loves cooking so much he had to make his own dish at our table. I've visited Din Tai Fung before but this was my first trip to the original. It was all delicious and I'd recommend going if you ever have the chance.

Here is a link to they're website for those who are interested.
http://www.dintaifungusa.com/about_us.html

SEX

I've only been in Taiwan for one week and at least once every day someone has mentioned some sort of cultural clash between foreign males and Taiwanese girls. To boil the issue down it appears that some foreigners come to Taiwan and take advantage of their status. From what I've read and heard it's sexist, racist, and misogynistic.

The first example of blatant sexism occurred the first night I was in Taiwan. I stumbled across an article on Facebook where an American expat writes about all the shortcomings, failures, and problems of girls in Taiwan. He starts of his piece with a disclaimer. Despite his distaste for Taiwanese girls his Taiwanese girlfriend is great because she’s a “foxy freak”. The author goes on to write about how Taiwanese girls are shallow, greedy, unintelligent, spoiled, and think too highly of themselves. At the end of his article he goes onto suggest what should be done with Taiwanese girls. The link is below but be warned some of the content is extremely disturbing.

http://appnews.fanswong.com/show.php?id=363925&TORO

Within four days of my arrival there was news of a Turkish student in Taiwan who was being charged with attempted sexual assault. The police discovered 29 sex-tapes of the student and various women. It is suspected that the women video-taped had no knowledge of the filming. The student has not been proven guilty and claims to be innocent. Regardless the situation is extremely concerning.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/06/21/2003565321

There is a large difference between what we read in the news and what happens to people that we know first-hand. It may have been easier to dismiss these last two examples and forget about the issue but I know people who are personally affected. I have a Taiwanese friend who has never been out to a night-club. She fears that there is too much pressure to have sex with the foreigners that she would meet. Although she loves sharing culture and practicing her English with other foreigners the thought of going out to a night-club is intimidating. I never knew that going out to a club to dance with friends, could be so difficult for someone. I've always agreed with the Men Without Hats that “You can dance if you want to” but apparently it’s not that simple.

This post is more of an overview than a deep analysis. I plan on returning to the subject in more detail. I’d love to hear feedback on people’s thoughts or experiences. Please comment or send me an email at jpane@gwmail.gwu.edu

Return to the R.O.C.

It has been over two years since the end of my Rotary Exchange in Taipei, Taiwan. I often think of that year as the best year of my life and what a shame it was for me to peak at such a young age. At the beginning of my exchange I could barely speak any Chinese. I could say "thank you" and "I want coffee" with poor pronunciation. By the end of my exchange I could say "I want my coffee black and hot" with mediocre pronunciation. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of my exchange was that I didn't return to the States with the ability to discuss the housing market and tax reform in Chinese. My dream to become fluent during my exchange was far-fetched  I had never studied Chinese before my exchange and ten months was not nearly long enough to obtain that desired level of working fluency. Chinese sounded nothing like any other language I learned before. This made it nearly impossible to simply pick-up words. I didn't understand how the language worked. I had no knowledge of radicals, or stroke order for characters, or how the Chinese possibly use a keyboard to type. "How could they possibly fit all of the characters on a single keyboard?" It took me nearly 3 months to start to grasp how the language worked. Due to my host families’ hard work and my Chinese teachers I did learn some Mandarin. As time went on the rate that I was learning increased. By the end of my exchange I was not even close to being fluent but it was a start. Thanks to the impromptu speeches at Rotary meetings I'm now comfortable speaking Chinese. My preference to speaking and listening has been a curse while taking written placement tests and a blessing in class discussions. 

Upon my return to the States I continued to study Chinese at George Washington. After spending nearly a year in Taiwan I was confident that the elementary Chinese class would be well below me. My ballooned head deflated after I failed my first two quizzes. The problem was that I needed to write in Simplified Chinese instead of the Traditional Chinese that I learned while I was in Taiwan. It wasn't an easy task but I managed to get a good mark and pass onto the next level. Fortunately the following year I could continue my study of Traditional Chinese. Unfortunately over that summer all I did was install air-conditioners and apparently reading the Chinese labels off of the boxes wasn't enough to keep up my language skills. After returning to the classroom it was obvious who had spent time in China over the summer. My competitiveness kicked in and I worked hard to catch-up, because nothing gets my goat like someone being able to speak Chinese better than me. My Chinese book accompanied me everywhere including the ice-baths after cross country workouts. During this last year I realized that in order to really improve my Chinese I needed to return to Taiwan or go to China. I decided to do both. I applied and received a generous grant from the GW Sigur Center to study Chinese in Taiwan this summer.
I’m back, I've returned to the R.O.C.