taiwan tiger 台灣的老虎

Chiayi Spa

I'm moving house tomorrow, and I don't have DSL in my new place yet.  Here's why.  I go to China Telecom to ask about changing.  As always, one of the "guards" or information men comes up to me and asks me what I need to do.  I tell him, he repeats it back to me, then directs me to stand in line at desk 4.  After waiting at desk 4 for 15 minutes, I get to the front of the line, where the lady behind the counter tells me to go upstairs instead and to take a number.  Argh.  So I go upstairs and draw number 5400.  And they are now serving...uh, 5370.  After waiting another 10 minutes, during which we progressed to 5372, I give up and decide to go to a branch closer to my impeding appointment across town.  I get to the smaller branch, which is usually faster for paying bills, and pull another number.  And wait another 15 minutes.  At this point, I am really stressing my time limit for waiting in line, as I have to go and teach a class in 20 minutes, so I leave.  Yes, maybe that first place would have panned out in the end, but my suspicion was that I would have reached the front of the line just as I had to drive across town.  I'd like to think that it's all a trade off--things are sometimes cheaper here because they hire fewer people to do the job in order to keep labor costs low.   But not at China Telecom.  It's like a small city in there, with at least a hundred people working, some of them seeming to do nothing but hold up doorways or keep their desks from floating into the air.  At any rate, waiting in line is a definite part of life here, and I don't yet know when to budget 2 hours for what seems like a simple task.

While I am away from guaranteed DSL, here's a photo album of a trip to a Spa hotel in Chiayi.  Although this hotel has some of the same feeling as Taiwan's "love hotels," this place is more of a spa, really.  Some things are somewhat the same, what with the private garage and piped in romantic music (though some channels were just corny) and multiple light settings available at the push of a button, including "comfortable" and "conversation" (or something like that) and "romantic" light settings available on the remote that controlled everything in the room.   

All in all, the spa was a wonderful break from an otherwise very hectic month. 

Enjoy!

What wears on me

So a cold front came in yesterday morning and cooled this whole place off nicely. I looked to see Seattle was below zero while I was still sweating at 84F, but then this cool wind. Of course, it was preceeded by a light rain that lasted most of the day. Fine with me, I like rain. But I am just figuring out the after effect of rain in my neighborhood. After a good soaking, the sewers overflow a bit and the stench of sewer water wafts up from between the houses. Somehow, my 5th floor apartment carries this reek unless I close the windows on one side of the apartment. I've decided that the stench of sewer slurry is depressing. I would hate to have grown up in this cramped little quarter that stinks of sewer and exhaust. And I would hate to have to listen to my neighbors scream all the time. I often hear the raspy shouts of some women on my block. I dont' know if she knows or cares how far her voice carries. Since I can't understand what she is saying, it isn't nearly as entertaining as it might be, and it just makes me feel disheartened for the little girl she is scolding. She has been yelling for about 10 minutes now. It's a tough neighborhood, but I am lucky--I can always move out.

The Blank (Stare) of Tawian

So I recently was given my scholarshp for October. Yes, I know it is the middle of November. At any rate, this necessitated a trip to the bank. And am thankful that this process only comes once a month, as--just like last time--despite the delightful air con in the Bank of Taiwan, I begin to sweat in nervousness whenever I must do business there. The first thing you do when you walk in is take a number. The banks are usually crowded here, depending on the time of day (lunch/naptime is best) and location (central Kaohsiung means at least a 15 minute wait). The system really is quite orderly if you speak Chinese. Though there are some signs that are printed both in Chinese and English, the deposit and withdrawal slip of course are only in Chinese. I am beginning to suspect that if you don't so well in your English courses as a student, you are steered toward a job in the finance industry. For some reason, people in banks, on average, can barely mutter a single word of English, which makes for a difficult transaction.

This is what happened last month. I went to information desk for a little help with the deposit form. Through sign language, we managed to both sufficiently understand what I wanted and where I wanted it. Next step: wait for your number. As I sat in my chair, a toddler began climbing on me while I pretended not to notice but hoped that her father would notice soon. He did, and smiles and apologies were exchanged vigorously. OK, here's my number. You have to watch, because they don't stop very long before moving on to the next number. They call my number and I spring from my seat and stride to the window. As I approach, I can see the blood drain from the cashier's face. She doesn't speak English, and she is praying that I speak flawless Chinese. As soon as I open my mouth, she knows she is stuck with the waiguoren who can't speak Chinese well. Whose name is this? Oh, that's my Chinese name. Blah blah blah. I don't understand. She gets up and asks someone else something and comes back. Blah blah blah. Huh? Point, use sign language, gain an understanding. I hand her my passbook which contains a register of the account and she does her bank like shuffling of papers and things, then writes in my passbook and hands it back to me. Then she looks down and is apparently busy with some other things--printing out my deposit receipt, I assume. Time goes by and she doesn't look up and I continue to stand there. Finally, she says something to me that I don't understand and I smile to acknowledge that I have no idea what she just said. She smiles as she looks uncomfortable, then asks a fellow cashier to come help. He, in something that barely qualifies as "broken" English, tells me that "we are done." Which means what? Oh, that you don't give receipts except in the passbook and that i have been standing here like a fool while the cashier put her nose in her paperwork and prayed that I would go away. Oops. Sheepish smile from me. Next time I will know. This time, in fact, despite the sweating, everything went smoothly and I knew when to leave the window and let someone else have a turn. Once I changed a few hundred US dollars at the change booth, where they painstakingly count, fold, inspect, fold, inspect, unfold, inspect, peer at through lights, inspect each bill you present. The line behind me was so long that people would come up to the front with me to peer through the window at what was taking this guy so long. Many apologies were uttered from under my sweat-soaked forehead. Yes, I know he is taking forever counting and recounting each bill, rejecting a few for a .5 cm tear, and that you are all waiting and curious, and yes, I wish he would hurry too. Does anyone have a bath towel to dab the nervous sweat from my forehead?

I often have moments I struggle to comprehend. What exactly happened here? Yesterday I saw what was apparently the after moments of an accident of some sort on a bridge. Two women were standing in an embrace in the middle of the road, surrounded by police and cars stopped in the middle of the bridge. Curiously, on the other side of the bridge, a shirtless man walked across, his pants halfway to his knees. No one seemed to notice either, except for me, who was trying to figure out if the two incidents were related.

I think there may be a man dying in my neighborhood. I hear these moans of pain every now and again rising up from the alley below.