Apartment hunting in Taipei (part 2)

By Friday afternoon I was basically freaking out. I had agreed to meet Ivy, a Taiwanese friend, at 8pm at Dingxi MRT (metro) station and go to a night market with her. I hadn't signed the contract yet, and my plan was to divert Mr. Zhang, my landlord, from signing the contract for two months, or basically until I could be assured that living at someone else's place was not a problem (and that if it was, I could back out).
The room itself was not a problem. Far from it. It had a view of a park (way better than that studio near Shida), a bathroom with a bathtub, a double bed which didn't take up most of the room, and it was near the national library, where I figured I could get some studying done.
The problem was I would have to live with the landlord. I would have to tip-toe if I came home late at night, I would have to clean up after myself in the kitchen, when he wasn't using the kitchen, of course. And how would I get back home at night, with this being so far from all the bars and clubs (it was a residential area)? And, I later found out that I wasn't just living with him, but his son, one year my senior.
I left the apartment at ten to eight, saying "ni hao" to the friendly concierge. I walked past a restaurant which emitted a seriously bad smell, and couldn't believe people were actually eating there. I walked to the super modern metro, er, MRT station and took the train one stop to meet Ivy.
Ivy is a Taiwanese girl who is about my age and works in sales. I had never actually met her before as we had met online, so I waited around the exit, unsure what she would look like in real life. She would undoubtedly recognize me, the tall waiguoren (foreigner) first.
It was Ivy who found me, and all smiles, led me to the local night market, a hodge-podge of sights (think small stalls selling unnameable chicken parts) and sounds (scooters honking to get past the people).
"I used to live near here, so I know this area very well," said Ivy. Wow, I thought. A local. I hit the jackpot. Immediately I wanted to ask her questions.
"So, did you go out a lot when you were living here?" I asked innocently.
"Yeah, I used to go out in Taipei city," she replied.
"How did you get back home after the MRT was closed?"
"Taxi of course. It costs about 200 NT." About the price of a large dinner.
After passing many stalls we turned into a small restaurant on the side of the street, one of those restaurants where you sit on a counter in front of a grill and the chef cooks in front of you.
After ordering some meat and seafood (and a beer for me), Ivy turned to me and asked how my stay in Taiwan was going so far.
"Well, to be honest I'm running into some problems with apartments. I found one but I'm living with the landlord."
"Living with the landlord? Wow. That's even worse than living with your parents!" she said laughing.
My worst fears, confirmed.
"Did you sign the contract yet?"
"No, I'm supposed to do that tonight. That's why I can't stay that late. I'm thinking of asking him if he can put it off for a while, but not sure if I can do that."
"Maybe you need to negotiate with him."
"Yeah, but he's gonna be with his son. It's like, two against one. It's gonna be difficult."
I know I'm a terrible negotiator. Though Mr. Zhang is a nice man, I could imagine him asking me to either sign the contract, or leave the next morning.
I ordered another beer and looked around. Not a single other person in the place was drinking beer. Some were taking small cups of iced tea from a tap, but that was it.
"Do people drink with their meals here?" I asked.
"Not really, unless it's a business dinner or something," Ivy replied. I was starting to realize that, though there are many similarities with Japan, Taiwan is very different in many ways. If this were Japan, practically every adult male would have beer or some other type of alcohol.
After more conversation, a lot of food, and beer, I realized it was time to go. The moment of truth had arrived. Ivy agreed to walk me to the station.
We walked away from the brightly-lit night market to the MRT. I felt some drops of water on my head.
"Is it raining?"
"No!" Ivy said, laughing. "That's just the drops from the air conditioners above!"
Apparently I had a lot to learn about this new country.
When we arrived at the station I prepared to say goodbye.
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?"
I looked at her and wondered if it was a sincere proposition.
"No, it's OK, his son will be there. We can talk in English."
"Yeah, but it's gonna be difficult. Two against one," she insisted.
"Okay, yeah, maybe your right."

The three of us sat at the kitchen table (in the end, the son didn't show up), the contract in the middle. The woman spoke for a few minutes in soft tones, and the old man nodded in agreement. He looked me in the eye and said something I didn't understand. I turned to Ivy.
"He says that normally he wouldn't do this, but since you are a foreigner and you don't know many people here, he has agreed to let you stay here for two months without a binding agreement," said Ivy.
I sighed in relief. And pulled out the presents I had bought before leaving France, a pair of shot glasses with Parisian scenes.
"I want to give these to you," I said, handing him the presents. In return, Mr. Zhang took out some fresh beers from the fridge and opened them. At least they sometimes drink here.
"Ganbei!" I said.
"Oh! You shouldn't say that, it means you have to drink the whole thing," said Ivy.

As I walked Ivy back to the MRT station, she said "that was easy, it's basically what I do in my job everyday." (Thank goodness for sales people.)
As we passed the stinky restaurant, I mentioned the smell.
"Oh! That's stinky tofu!" she said.
"Huh? You mean they cook it like that on purpose?"
"Yeah! It's a specialty here in Taiwan. You should try it sometime."

As I said, I have a lot to learn while here in Taiwan.

Apartment hunting in Taipei (part 1)

On Thursday, I moved into a room near YongAn Market Station, about three stops from where I will go to school (at Shida, or National Taiwan Normal University).
When I went apartment hunting with Oliver (it's the English name of a friend of a friend) last week, we visited many studios around the university, but to no avail. Since I am on a scholarship, I have a pretty tight budget, so when we looked online, we used the filter functions on the internet site www.591.com.tw.
The funny thing was, what looked great on paper was not exactly up to par when we saw it live (on a side note, I'm happy I didn't try to arrange something before coming to Taiwan).
Oliver, a soft-spoken young man with thick black-rimmed glasses and usually wearing a cap of some sort, would bring me to what seemed to be Taipei's hottest new cafes (with wifi de rigeur) and bring his laptop to do some internet searches.
"This one looks good," he'd say, pointing to the many traditional Chinese characters I was still struggling to learn.
"It has internet connection, cable TV, a laundry machine, a double bed, and gas and water is included," he said.
But upon visiting the room we realized that we ignored the fact that the room was about the size of a walk-in closet. The double bed took up three-quarters of the room, and it was fortunate that the television was flat-screen, because otherwise there would be no space between the bed and the wall. On top of that, the window had an amazing view of...another building at arm's length.
To make a long story short, I ended up taking a room in someone's (we'll call him Mr. Zhang) apartment. I really worried about this after moving in as it's the first time I've lived with someone in over 5 years (if you don't include the time I lived with my mom). I worried about it so much, in fact, that I started doubting my decision. Should I have moved into the tiny apartment, that would have been all to myself? Or should I have tried to find some flat mates?

Taiwanese-style coffee and breakfast

The heat of the sun is already making its presence felt on this sunny morning in Taipei. I'm eating at a restaurant around the corner from my hostel which specializes in breakfast (apparently there are many such restaurants here). I've gotten on pretty good terms with the cook, who takes orders while flipping eggs and pieces of bacon on the grill. She is a short middle-aged woman. I can't see most of her face because it's covered with a hygienic mask, but I imagine by the way her eyes squint that she is smiling when I talk to her. The lady has pretty much figured out how to talk to foreigners with the least amount of stress on either side. This is an example of our conversation (in Chinese, of course).
Me: I want to eat egg.
Her: Egg sandwich? You want bacon?
Me: Correct. (In Chinese you don't say 'yes'. You say correct.)
Her: You drink something?
Me: One cup of coffee.
Her: Hot? Iced?
Me: Iced.
Her: Small? Big?
Me: Big
Her: You eat here?
Me: Correct.
The drink woman brings me a coffee, which is sweet and has some kind of flavored cream. At first this annoyed me (I usually like my coffee black) but now I've grown to like it.

When eggs are broken, make an omelette

My experiences in the past few days have reminded me an important lesson when traveling: whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Sometimes life just throws you some curveballs, and there's nothing you can do but take it with a grain of salt.
For example, the morning of my flight there was a worker's strike at Charles de Gaulle airport leading to a delay of 30 minutes, as it were. I had a connecting flight in Vienna, and despite the kindly German lady sitting next to me who assured me that I would catch the connecting flight (to leave 45 minutes after the ours landed), I couln't help but worry about catching that flight.
Apparently I wasn't the only one; scores of other people had connecting flights too, so when we got to Vienna there were so many people running through the airport (with bags in tow) it kind of looked like an Olympic race (call it the 600-meter Airportathlon). I vowed to come out at the top and overtook one man who was going in my direction. We got to the gate, but alas, too late; the plane had already taken off. Even though I won, I still lost. It turns out we were both going to Taipei. The man and I went to the service counter, where we got tickets for our next flight nine hours later to...Bangkok (no connecting flights).
To make a long story short, my trip ended up taking 29 hours instead of 18, I arrived at my hostel at about 11pm on Tuesday night, and they forgot to send my luggage. I did walk around aimlessly in Vienna for about two hours and ordered some bratwurst ("ah, you meen brAATvoorst," the vendor had said).
Back to the luggage, I just got it back today. I had bought some underwear and socks in the meantime, but you can imagine how stinky (and sticky) my khakis and hawaiian shirt were getting. Oh what a joy to put on a clean t-shirt, some sandals, and shorts! Even though, after about 30 seconds I was sweaty again.
I confirm. It is hot and humid here. All my low-impact rules (try not to use too many plastic bottles, don't use air con) have gone out the window so that I can keep cool. And despite my ex-colleague's (Christine, are you reading this?) concern about old air-conditioner's filters which, according to her, are 'breeding grounds for bacteria,' I'm still using the AC in my room. In the daytime, it's 36 degrees celsius outside (96 degrees fahrenheit in the shade).
For now I'm living in a hostel which somewhat reminds me of the cheap hotel Tony Leung stays at in 2046 (except grimier, and without the hot actresses). I still have a bunch of stuff to do, like register for classes, get a resident card, find an apartment, and stuff... But for now I think I'll just go out and eat some jiaozi (dumplings) at the yeshi (night market). Mmmmm

This is it!

OK, I'm leaving in a few hours...it's Monday morning and I don't feel quite awake yet. In one day I'll be in Taipei!

Six days and counting...

Going to the Taipei Representation Office to get my visa, cancelling telephone, internet, and electricity, moving, saying goodbye to friends. The past few weeks have not been easy, and now I'm getting ready for the big jump -- actually going to Taiwan. In a way I don't really feel like this is really happening. It's such an abstract idea-- in one week I will be 6,000 miles (almost 10,000km) away. I guess I'll believe it when I'm on the plane.

Background

A number of people have sent emails asking me what I am going to do in Taiwan. The short answer is: to study Mandarin Chinese. But to really answer that question, I have to give some background.
Two years ago, when I came back from Japan, I enrolled into Inalco, the national university for Oriental languages and culture, to study Chinese. Why Chinese, and not Japanese, you say? And why Chinese in France?
Well, I already spoke conversational Japanese, so I figured why not learn another language. Plus, I reasoned that Japanese characters are based on Chinese ones, so I already had a head start in the language.
I know now that that idea is not entirely correct. While it is true that Japanese characters are based on Chinese ones, many have changed their meaning in the same way that modern English has adopted new meanings for French words that became part of the English language hundreds of years ago. One that comes to mind is sensible, in English meaning logical or reasonable. In French it means sensitive. In Japanese, the characters showing a hand and a paper mean letter (as in a letter that you send someone). In Chinese the same two characters mean toilet paper. So that's the answer to the first question.
My friend Quint, with whom I taught English in Japan, asked me why I was learning Chinese in France. It's a good question, and it should be noted that the person asking has a Master's degree in teaching English as a foreign language. He knows that the best way to learn a language is to be in the country where that language is spoken. Most people would agree. But there is a corollary to that statement which many people are unaware of. In addition to living in a foreign country, the person wishing to speak the foreign language also needs instruction. Otherwise he ends up learning a type of pidgin language which, while allowing him to get what he needs, prevents him from being able to go beyond a basic survival level.
In my time in Japan, the foreigners who spoke the best Japanese were people who had studied it in universities in their home countries before going to Japan. Many of them were not from English-speaking countries and some could not speak English, giving them further incentive to learn Japanese. And some of them were-- you guessed it-- foreign exchange students who were there thanks to government scholarships.
So there you have it. That's why I'm going to Taiwan.