The 2nd Day

My second day in Taiwan was busy with excitement. It was the first day of my Chinese class and I was excited to meet my classmates and converse with my peers in Chinese. The class only had about 10 students who were all from different parts of the world. My classmates included students from Japan, Mexico, Korea, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries. Some of the students were also a lot older than normal college students. There were two girls from Thailand who were both in their 30’s and another student who was married. During the break I talked to two students, one from Japan and another from Mexico. It was difficult to converse with them in Chinese because of the different accents they had when they spoke the language. I found out that people in the class were all here for different reasons. Some people, like the one from Mexico, was here to learn Chinese because of work and others were here because they felt Chinese was a very useful language in terms of looking more desirable when applying for jobs.

The class itself was a bit too easy for my level of Chinese because I had already learned all the grammar and most of the vocabulary that was in the textbook. However, my teacher (黄老师 Ms. Huang) spoke incredibly fast! I felt like she was speaking even faster than a normal conversational speed and it made understanding her quite difficult. I think her speaking speed will be very beneficial for my listening skills and help me to understand Chinese better.

After Chinese class, I went to a culture class where I learned how to write Chinese calligraphy. Doing calligraphy was incredibly difficult. I knew Chinese calligraphy was difficult, however I didn’t expect it to be as hard at it was. Holding the brush the proper way and making sure it always stayed straight when I wrote while also keeping my posture upright was much more physically tiring than I had expected. I also did not realize the amount of control that was needed to do calligraphy and how slow people wrote the characters. After practicing writing 永, we chose a phrase to write out on paper. I chose to write 大吉大利, which is supposed to bring good fortune and good luck.

Learning Chinese calligraphy was a really great experience and made me realize how much thought was put into creating the language. I learned that each stroke in a character has a meaning and that the way you draw each stroke is important. This is very different from America where writing the words themselves don’t have any kind of real meaning. I feel like the way the characters were developed adds another dimension to the language and the culture because each character by itself can tell a story through its strokes.

Later in the day we celebrated New Year’s Eve by eating 火锅 (hotpot) and going to 台北101 (Taipei 101) to watch the countdown and fireworks. I had never eaten 火锅before and really enjoyed experiencing eating a popular Taiwanese meal. The meal was a combination of many different cultural influences in Taiwan. 火锅is traditionally a Chinese meal and having it in Taiwan shows how some Chinese culture has been incorporated in the Taiwanese culture. The food we cooked in the 火锅was also very different. There were some Japanese vegetables like the mushrooms they used and a type of radish they use a lot in ramen. It was very interesting to see that Japan’s occupation of Taiwan and the influences they had on their culture were not just reflected in Taiwan’s architecture and cityscape but also in food that is traditionally from another culture. It makes it feel as though Taiwanese culture is a mixture of many different cultures, similar to how American culture mixes many different cultures. I find this openness in Taiwan to be a really great part of the culture. The way they have embraced various aspects of other culture has made them unique and different from China. I can see the difference when I walk down the streets and also taste in their food. There is something very Taiwanese about food that is traditionally Chinese and that uniqueness makes their culture fun and exciting to learn about.

When we went to 台北101 to watch the countdown and the fireworks, I was surprised by the amount of people that were there. I felt like I saw a different side of Taiwanese culture there. Normally, I felt like Taiwanese people were very polite and did very orderly things like wait in line at the subway. However, at 台北101, people were pushing and I heard some arguments break out between people. I was also incredibly surprised about the amount of people that were there. After the countdown I saw that the subway was crammed with the people. There were masses of people just waiting outside the subway to get in and the workers were only letting people in in waves. This orderly conduct was very different from what I saw in Beijing. In Beijing, no one controlled how many people got on the subway. As a long as you could push yourself in through the door, it was fine. However, in Taiwan, they controlled the number of people and made sure the subway trains weren't too crowded despite there being so many people waiting to get on. Perhaps this has to do with some part of Taiwanese culture that prefers to create more orderly conduct or maybe it simply has to do with the fact that Beijing has many more people.

I was also very surprised by the lack of trash. Even when we were walking along the streets after the countdown, and I saw people eating and drinking, there was barely any trash on the ground. This was very surprising because Taiwan barely has any trashcans and yet people still did not litter. This is very different from America, where at events like New Year’s Eve celebrations and the Super Bowl, the city must spend millions of dollars on a cleanup crew because there is so much trash everywhere. I think Taiwanese people may be more concerned about the environment and care more about public spaces than Americans because they take it upon themselves to keep it clean, rather than relying on the government.

Although the day was very long and busy, I felt like I got to see many different sides of Taiwanese culture. I hope the rest of my trip can be this exciting and I am looking forward to my next culture class where I will be painting fans, as well as the weekend excursion to Tainan and Kaohsiung.