Entourage

I’ve talked at length in previous posts about myself—ranging from my experiences, to lessons learned, to dissecting the multiple personas I own. But here I’m going to take the spotlight off myself and shine it on those individuals who surround me on a daily basis. Some are fellow foreigners, some are locals, but all are part of the reason Taipei has become my home over the past 7 months. Their faces have become as regular and familiar as those I used to see around SLO or even back home in good ole Willow Glen. To make things easier, this post I’ll focus solely on my laowai (foreigner) companions. I will focus on the locals next time.

I wouldn’t be able to start this post without first introducing my roommate, Ari, the man who’s been my partner in crime since LanguageCorps and the inception of this great adventure back in August. Ari, go figure by the name, is Jewish. And while he is also a big fan of Entourage, he has certainly grown a little tired of people drawing comparisons between himself and the rather infamous Ari Gold character. Ari and I have shared many experiences together, beginning with enduring the noise and ghetto-ness of “Rick’s House” in Cambodia and continuing until now with our shared befuddlement and confusion during Chinese class. Most importantly, however, Ari has proved to be a very outgoing guy who rarely turns down the opportunity to go out for drinks or play the wingman. Over the past 7 months we’ve become pretty close buddies. Admittedly this is due at least in some part to the fact that we share the thinnest of walls between our rooms, one which allows for absolutely no privacy. In fact, I bet Ari can hear me as I’m typing this right now. Farts, whispers, and everything in between are clearly broadcast between our two rooms. When I want to ask him a question, I usually walk over and knock on the door just to make things normal. But of course there’s other times when I’m too lazy, and so a conversation between the walls ensues.

"Dammit Lawrence..can't you just pretend like we can't hear each other through the walls?"

 Then of course there are my co-workers.  First there’s Lisa, the co-worker I’ve sat next to every day since I started working for Hess. As the two most recent hires (until just a few weeks ago), Lisa and I haven’t had the privilege of sitting with the veteran teachers and having real desks. Instead we’ve been somewhat banished over to the administration area, constantly finding ourselves in a desperate struggle with the admin ladies for space and peace. Lisa and her boyfriend Jack (who coincidentally works with Ari) are both from England, and from them I’ve picked up on a number of different expressions and adages. Things are no longer ‘cool’, they are ‘brilliant’; when something frustrates me, I find myself referring to it as ‘bloody’. When I’d like to borrow or bum something, I ask if I can ‘knick’ it; and finally, my personal favorite, I’ve come to start referring to cigarettes as ‘fags’.

Mark and Eddie round out the group of fellow NSTs at my branch. Mark’s the same age as me, from Baltimore, and the guy who always answered my ridiculous questions about his hometown after I watched far too many episodes of The Wire. Eddie the Aussie is a few years older than the rest of us, having now lived in Taiwan for over 3 years. Both Mark and Eddie are part of my basketball crew—a formidable alliance of white boys if I can say so myself. They’re both also remarkably good at Mandarin, so having them around is normally pretty helpful.

Dennis is a fellow co-worker of Ari and Jack and the reason I was first introduced to the epic hash runs I’ve described before. When it comes to the China Hash House runs in Taipei, Dennis is kind of a big deal. Through him, I’ve been able to go on a number of hashes thus far—brutally beating my body, meeting great people, and of course eating and drinking like a madman after the completion of the race. Dennis is also a fairly accomplished writer, and honestly at times his blog (http://dennissweeney.wordpress.com/) has discouraged me from continuing with my own—making my posts look rather amateurish, like perhaps they were written by the same people who write our reading books for Level 1 Treehouse.

Jack, Ari, Dennis and I getting our drink on. No big deal.

Lisa, Mark, and I cruising on a boat on the Danshui River.

Eddie the Aussie, Dennis, and I on New Years Eve playing with fireworks...one of which would later try and assassinate me.

Of course there are others as well. But this is definitely the main crew. If you’re eager to hear about my local acquaintances, tune in next time.

What Should I Do?

Ever since Nike released this commercial, where Lebron vainly attempted to justify his nationally-televised backstabbing of the Cleveland faithful, this one line has become the punch-line to many jokes. A number of parties have created responses to the ad. Michael Jordan released his own rendition, which accuses Lebron of making excuses. Disgruntled Cavaliers fans went a similar route. And naturally South Park also got in on the action. It’s been so parodied at this point that whatever purpose Lebron may have originally had for making the commercial has been long lost. Instead of portraying the conflicted emotions and self-reflection of basketball’s greatest superstar, it’s simply become an infamous rhetorical question as well as the subject of much ridicule and criticism, devoid of any deeper meaning.

I’ve now been in Taiwan for just about 6 months. I’m almost exactly halfway through my contract. Perhaps it’s still early enough that I don’t have to make a decision for what’s to come next quite yet, but that time-frame is quickly closing. Although I do feel extremely settled, content, and comfortable with Taiwan life, it certainly doesn’t feel like I’ve already been here 6 months. By my estimation, these next 6 months will fly by even faster than the first 6 have, and then I’ll be forced to ask myself that all important “what’s next?” question once more.

So seriously, what should I do?

I have to admit that the original plan for Taiwan was to be one-and-done, like an NCAA basketball superstar putting in his time before moving on to the pros. 

 However the certainty in this decision has been a bit shaken recently. Now that I’ve become rather assimilated to Taiwan life, and I’ve more or less become comfortable with the mass crowds and uncanny weather, this place has started to feel far too much like home to me. 

I’ve developed a good group of friends here. I love where I live, smack dab in the middle of a pretty happening ShiDa area. Through teaching and reachtoteach socials, I’ve developed a good group of friends who I can go out with during my free time. I’ve picked up that second job conducting interviews for reachtoteach. And on top of that, I now spend my Saturday afternoons coaching a youth baseball team, which may perhaps be the highlight of my week (you can take me away from SLO Parks and Rec, but you can’t take the youth coach out of me). 

As for teaching, there are good days and there are bad days. But I’ve been finding recently that the good always seems to outweigh the bad. Even if I’m bummed about having to go into work that day and feeling absolutely exhausted as I prep for class, the minute I walk into the classroom and receive that warm “hello Teacher Andrew/T.A./Teacher Angel!” greeting, it’s like I catch my second wind. 

Of course at the same time, I do miss aspects of home living—family, friends, BEAU. And even if I decide to continue teaching for another 6 months-1 yr., part of me is thinking that I should go somewhere else and explore as much of Asia as I can while I’m still young (Thailand is currently on the mind).

Needless to say, I’m very torn. But, unlike Lebron, I don’t intend this to be rhetorical. I could really use some feedback.

What should I do?

An Epic Reunion

No matter how difficult I had tried to avoid it, I had somehow managed to find myself in the dreaded comfort zone. Now don’t get me wrong. Just because I’ve been comfortable does not mean I haven’t been busy. In fact the opposite is true. Between teaching, RTT interviews, coaching baseball and participating in hashes and bashes, there hasn’t exactly been that free time for exploration that I had initially upon arriving here. But as a result of this, I felt my spirit of adventure weakening. The experience of traveling to Taiwan had been transformed from the greatest thrill escapade of my life into a far more routine way of living. Long story short, I felt something needed to snap me out of it--To wake up and smell the orchids. The combination of my friend’s one-week visit, my birthday, and the longest break from teaching I will have until my contract expires in October seemed to be provide such an excuse.

The first stop on this journey was the National Palace Museum. As the top tourist destination in Taiwan and one of the most famous museums in the world, I was more than a little ashamed to admit that I hadn’t actually been there yet. It had been on the list on sites-to-see for some time, yet somehow or another I had always managed to find an excuse to put off visiting for a little longer. Anyways, the National Palace Museum is essentially a vault possessing some of the oldest and most treasured artifacts of Chinese history, ranging from thousand-year old jade and porcelain teapots to ancient weaponry. Of course one would think given my academic background and interests that I would be like a child walking into a candy shop and just simply be blown away. Well, that wasn’t exactly the case. Indeed it was pretty surreal seeing such ancient artifacts, but overall I feel it failed to live up to expectations. I think this primarily stems for the fact that just about everything there is art history, a concentration which has never particularly been my cup of tea (even if that cup of tea has survived since the Han Dynasty). Of course the experience wasn’t wholly disappointing. The structure of the museum itself was pretty impressive, which was surrounded by a number of beautiful gardens. And perhaps the most interesting aspect to the museum was the history of the journey those artifacts had gone through to arrive at the National Palace Museum; how they had been moved throughout China to avoid being captured by Japanese Imperial forces; how they had been sent to Taiwan and stored underground to ensure their safety during a particularly destructive period during the Chinese Civil War; and how up until even recently the PRC has insisted that they had been stolen and rightfully deserved to be in China (maybe a silver lining for Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT as they were forced to flee from China and settle across the Strait).

Natl Palace Museum

The highlight of the following day was a trip to the Maokong Gondola, which, on such a wonderfully clear day, offered splendid views of the mountains surrounding Taipei and gave a true image of just how absolutely massive the city is. Although I figured the cabin we rode in was built to endure the worst of Taiwanese natural disasters, such as earthquakes and typhoons, I was still a bit nervous as we soared more than 200 feet above the mountainous terrain (those who suffer from acrophobia, beware).

View from the Gondola..we really lucked out with the weather

And of course Taipei 101..probably the 101st picture I've taken of this freaking building

Both of these excursions simply served as precursors—like the opening act before the headlining band at a concert—for the main event which took place last weekend at Kenting. Kenting, located at the bottom tip of the island and famous for its hot weather and beautiful beaches, was enough in itself to get me pumped for our visit. Add to that the fact that a huge music festival was taking place there, and thousands of Taiwanese and foreigners would be around, and I was straight giddy. On Saturday, due to bad planning on my part, we nearly missed our HSR train down to Kaohsiung. Luckily a woman was nice enough to give us our tickets in time, and we literally made it on to the train no more than 2 minutes before it took off. Talk about cutting it close. Anywho, we arrived in Kaohsiung around 3:30, bumped into our friends Jack and Lisa, and then together we took a bus to Kenting. Although the bus company advertised that we would arrive in under 2 hours, the trip took 3 because of the traffic insanity as we approached the beach. Once we were finally off the bus, we were forced to trek several kilometers past stand-still traffic in hopes of finding “where the party at”. We finally set foot on the sand around 9 p.m., and immediately I was amazed at what I saw. Literally thousands of people littering the shores, sitting in circles around candles and drinking good old Taiwan Beer. Never did more than a few seconds pass before yet another firework would explode into the night sky, once again demonstrating the Taiwanese appreciation for them (some went off far too close for comfort, including the one that burned off some of my arm hair). We sat around in our group for no more than 10 minutes before we were approached by a large group foreigners, who actually turned out to be Hess teachers from the Taijung area (it seems I just can’t get enough of that place…). We quickly befriended them, toasted (“gambe!”) and lo and behold, before we knew it was 4 a.m. Of course you wouldn’t have known that considering the beach was still packed and the music was still blaring. But either way, we decided to call it a night a.k.a. unroll our sleeping bags and basically make camp right where we had been previously partying. To be honest it was a pretty comfortable night of sleep before the sun rudely and prematurely woke us up by cooking us at 8 a.m. We then forced ourselves to find shelter under some shade, napped a bit more, and went for a refreshing swim in the Pacific, which was pleasantly much warmer than it would be back home in Santa Cruz.

gambe!

yeah..there were a lot of people

 The rest of the day was basically spent recovering until we thankfully ran into our friends from the night before, whom we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to contact since my phone had gone MIA the night before. We found the outdoor Reggae Bar located just on the strip off the beach, ordered some unmistakably American Coors Light (which, sad to say, I had actually started to miss?) and periodically ventured off to find some delicious snacks from food vendors, which were in plentiful supply. After that another night ensued of partying on the beach with friends and staying awake until far past my bedtime. This time we had been lucky enough to hear that a school just down the road from the beach was offering a place to keep our bags for the night. So we did that, and just ended up sleeping on the sports field of the elementary school, once more sleeping relatively well until the sun did its’ thing. 

By Monday morning, we were so exhausted that we just decided to take the bus back to Kaohsiung and take it easy for a night before coming back to Taipei. Once again, the bus took far longer than expected due to the traffic. When we finally arrived in Kaohsiung, we took much needed showers to rid ourselves of the overwhelming amounts of sand and salt we had accumulated over the previous couple days, and then explored the Kaohsiung Night Market, which was surprisingly massive and very busy. We found a sweet Korean hot spot restaurant, grazed on some Night Market ice cream, and then watched Blade 3 on HBO (truly cinema at its’ very worst—but talk about all-time simple pleasures, just being able to flip through television channels again). In the end, we made it back to Taipei by 11 a.m. on Tuesday—exhausted, but definitely content and feeling like the adventure battery had been recharged.