How living in Taiwan is dissimilar to a Peace Corps Experience
Everything works. Many things work differently, but efficiently. Such as elevators and building security, or recycling and trash. They don't have dumpsters, so there is a time each day when you take it down to the trash truck that comes to your apartment complex. Recycling does not seem to have caught on to quite the same degree.There is a shop on every corner, and many are open 24 hours.
All signage is in English. OK, not 100%, but probably 90-95%. It is amazing. Even the little labels on the shelves at the grocery store for each product.
TV channels that come right with your apartments Internet cable are in English as well. Movies are subtitled into Chinese.
Ironically, it seems that less than 10% actually speak English. Even in a major museum in downtown Taipei, we were hard pressed to find someone that could give us simple directions. Anyone that does speak a bit of English, has an English name. It is a bit strange to meet Chinese Raymond's, Bruce's, Sarah's, and Sofia's.
[tangent: unbeknownst to me, Taiwan was a Japanese colony for a little while, so after Mandarin and Taiwanese, the next most spoken language is Japanese. In addition, Mandarin was largely unknown here before the 50's, when the mainland democrats relocated here, and yet today, very few speak Taiwanese]
The electrical plugs are the same.
people do where face masks quite a bit. They also used some sort of digital thermometer to check my temperature through my forehead upon entering the art museum I went to yesterday. However, no one seemed to concerned at the public baths.
Which brings me to what I find similar here. Mostly, that whenever introduced to a new culture, it doesn't take me long to get used to how they do things differently, but it takes me awhile to come to terms with how they break their own rules. For example, there are plenty of face masks, but yet there is a popular seed that people chew here, and spitting the juice all over the sidewalk is perfectly acceptable. Or people take their shoes off to walk into their home, and yet many eat at restaurants where the kitchen is on the street, and utensils are often kept in buckets on the floor where dogs roam by.
PS. Toilet paper goes in the trash can here too! Even to a greater degree than in Ukraine.
Labels: asia
posted by jjs @ 6:31 AM
2 Comments:
could have done without the last comment, but otherwise, interesting post!
ha! certain places in china are like that as well. it's weird, but one gets used to it.
and the spitting thing is just awful. i always hated all the hawking up and spitting in china. which was a LOT since it seemed that 90% of the population smoked.
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