I’m in an almost vegetative state. 4 hours of teaching sometimes feels like 8, especially when you have back-to-back classes of little Treehouse demons. I’m watching the best Taiwan television programming has to offer, totally shit movies on HBO, Hollywood, Cinemax, etc. I turn to ESPN whenever there’s a break from my shit movie. It’s a replay of Yankees-Rays, Yankees-Red Sox, Yankees-does it really matter? It’s the same one that’s been showing all day. Though I most likely already know the outcome, I sometimes tune in just to hear the Chinese announcers. In between all the incoherent babble, they will invariably insert American baseball lingo in there, maybe for comedic effect for us foreigners. “Sabathia ting tang tong shi wo bu he pinglinwn chu K YOU VERY MUCH! Buzhi dao le”, or something to that nature. Sure, this isn’t exactly high quality stuff I’m watching here. But after being away from television for 8 months, unwinding in front of the tube after a long day is a pretty simple pleasure.
Suddenly I’m jolted awake. A familiar song begins to boom over the loudspeakers outside my apartment. At first I’m not sure what this noise is, and why it plays four times a day. I had heard it a lot in my previous 7 months in Taipei, but for the very first time I’ve forced to acknowledge; I’m forced to live by its restrictions; I’m a slave to it.
It’s the Taipei theme song for garbage trucks. Whenever you hear that song, you have approximately 5 minutes to haul your trash out to the street, where you will then heave it in to a moving yellow truck, like a quarterback pitching to his running back on an option play.
It took me about a month of living in Taiwan to establish the ironic connection between the classical music and trash collecting time. At my first apartment, we were fortunate enough to have a couple of kind gentleman take our trash out for us. Therefore I was pretty apathetic about finding out more about this strange, daily music. For me, it was just another weird part of Taipei.
Then one October evening I was teaching my E6 class, Step Ahead Level 10. As is the case with all Step Ahead classes, part of the curriculum is reading through a cartoon story book to learn new vocab, grammar, etc. Anywho, the name of this particular story was Who’s Taking Out the Trash? The story features a young American boy who visits his friend in Taiwan. One night, this boy is suddenly awoken by what he believes to be the familiar ice-cream truck jingle, only to be rudely disappointed when he discovers it’s the trash truck. I still remember the amused look on my students’ faces when I abruptly stopped reading and said “really???” I, too, had thought it was an ice cream truck. Damn.
But as I exit my building, arms loaded with an assortment of trash and beer bottles, it hits me. I’m living in the Real Taiwan now; a Taiwan where something as simple as taking out the trash is a community activity. The first stint of my Taiwan experience was pretty sugar-coated. I lived right by ShiDa University, an area home to many expats and Chinese with moderately strong English-speaking skills. The atmosphere was unmistakably international. There, speaking English, broken Chinese, or simply pointing at stuff sufficed for the most part. Here, it’s a whole new ball game.
I stand at the intersection of our tiny alley and tiny lane, pretending not to notice all the gawking and staring. Finally a man approaches me and asks me where I’m from in Chinese. Elated I actually understood his question, I respond confidently that I’m from America. Of course this elderly man then mistakenly assumes I can speak Chinese, and goes on about something or rather from America. I’m completely lost. Thankfully he ushers me over to his wife, who non-verbally shows me she would like to take my recycling. Her eyes bulge out in amazement at the sight of all the beer cans and bottles I hand over to her, aftermath from our house-warming party the week before. She really doesn’t need to say anything; her facial expression gives away her thoughts. This American is definitely an alcoholic. But at least he’s a generous, environmentally responsible alcoholic. She “xie xie”s the living crap out of me. As I turn to head back to my building, I see a young man burning Heavy Money for loved ones who have passed on. He rotates between tossing money into the fire and puffing on his cigarette, almost as if to suggest he’s in a hurry to reunite with them. Once again, this is a sight that would be completely foreign in the upper-scale, almost ritzy ShiDa area.
This night has been a reminder that living here will certainly be much more of a challenge. But it will also be much more of an experience. Much more real.
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| View from my balcony |
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| A small glimpse into the motor madness of Taiwan |
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| Man burning Heaven Money. Come on man, it's June. Isn't it hot enough already? |
