Tamsui Fishermen’s Wharf

I left school a bit early to go to a dinner with my host family. At the Fishermen’s Wharf hotel. The dinner was with my 爸爸的 (Baba’s) coworkers and other people with connections to his real estate firm. They had a meeting before the dinner that 媽媽 (Mama) and I did not have to, or want to, be at so we went to look around Tamsui. Tamsui is as far north as the Taipei Metro goes and I very beautiful. I tried a sugar can me drink that was tasty at first but much too sweet to finish as we enjoyed the sights. When it was time to have dinner we joined 爸爸 back at the hotel. The food they served was quite delicious and I made my host parents look good just by smiling and being foreign. After dinner we went outside to watch the sunset over the water. Unfortunately, it was a bit cloudy but still incredibly beautiful. I have some photos I can share with you but I don’t think they quite do it justice.
Thanks for reading,
Autumn 丁晚秋

Grandfather’s house

As the lunar new year approaches, we start to make preparations. My host parents bought 紅包, (red envelopes) we will make decorations in Chinese class, and we have started to clean. I went with my parents to my grandfathers house to sweep and dust. His house is very traditional. It has three sides and it’s made of orange, clay brick. There’s a shrine in the center room with beautiful wood tables and chairs that are decorated with jade. We didn’t stay there very long though, and after we were finished cleaning we went to see a nearby fish market. The fish market was huge! Inside whole fish and cooked fish were sold. Outside, there was many little fishing boats parked at the harbor and people fishing off of the dock. It was quite a windy day and a family was flying brightly colored kites over the water. There bright red tales contrasted  brilliantly against they gray sky. I had never seen anything like it. Every time we would pass a stall offering samples my host parents would make sure that I got to try whatever it was. For dinner, they gave me soup, my host mom saying “小魚” as she points at my bowl. When I realized that what I thought might be the “small fish” were, in fact, mushrooms I looked closer at what I had assumed were short noodles. These presumed noodles had eyes! Although the look of the tiny fish was less then appetizing, the soup was tasty. This fish market ended up being quite the experience and my new parents were happy to see how willing I am to try new food.
Thanks for reading,
Autumn 丁晚秋

Indigo dying

Indigo dying is a very traditional art form in Taiwan. The plants are grown and processed here in Taiwan. Some people can dye amazing patterns and even pictures onto the cloth with enough practice. My district, 三峽, is particularly known for indigo dying. Our teacher that is in charge of us exchangers, Lisa,  arranged for us to get to try. It was really cool. It was just like doing tye dye with rubber bands and folding. We would submerge our cloth for a count of a hundred then let it dry. When the dye was wet it was a green color, as it dried it became more and more blue. After we had dunked it three times we rinsed it off, undid the rubber bands, and you have a nice blue and white pice of cloth!
Thanks for reading,
Autumn 丁晚秋

Moving host families

I was already packed when I woke up on Sunday morning. It felt so strange to be packing again. Part of me felt like exchange was starting again and part of me felt like “this means I go home soon.” Now if you have been reading my blog you’ll know that there our five of us that go to 北大高中 (Beida High school) there’s me, Heloisa, David, Elena, and William. Four of us (Elena not being one) are in this rotation so that by the end of the year we will have had four families. It’s actually pretty great because we could prep each other a bit and now we can relate to things our families do. So my new family has two sons, Leo who is in France and Jim who went to the US last year. Jim has really good English because if this but he stays on his high school campus so I’ll only see him on weekends. My new host parents are really nice. My host mom is really easy to talk to in Chinese because she speaks slowly and uses basic vocabulary. This has made me realize that my Chinese is better than I thought it was. My new family took me to a classical concert and then we went out for steak for dinner. My first impression is a good one and I can see why changing families is a good thing.

外阿姨

So todayI went to my host mom’s great nice’s birthday. My real mom does this thing, when we where little, every holiday she would the three of us a Pez Dispenser. Every holiday. It was a really fun thing and I decided to share it with my new little cousin. The one that I gave her was just a black cat. The box said “hello kitty friends” but it was just a black cat. She ended up loving it！She was a little sleepy but I got to hold her! Her parents are very nice and spoke slowly with me so I could understand. The best part of this little get together (even better than the cake:) was that she calls me 外阿姨! It means more or less "foreign auntie” and how she said it was SO cute! I love little kids and I miss being able to hold them whenever I want! It was a good time.
Thanks for reading,
Autumn 丁晚秋

Why am I here exactly?

So I haven’t been completely honest with you all, as my readers. Exchange isn’t just going out every weekend and experiencing a different culture . It’s REALLY hard. There’ll be days when I’m pissed off or sad for what feels like no reason. Because my classmates have cram school all the time I feel like a really sucky exchange student because I only hang out with other exchange students. I have Taiwanese friends of course, some really good ones, but I only see them at school. Affer New Years I had this feeling of pointlessness that I couldn’t shake. I didn’t really realize it until other people started talking about the same feeling. That’s when I acknowledged it. The only subject we really learn in school is Chinese. Because of that we all feel like our Chinese should be a lot better than it is. We are tired of our health being shit and not being able to do anything about it. Sure, now we’ve forged tight friendships with people all of the world but those are people we will never see again. For me the fact that I was asking myself what I am doing here is really scary. Feeling like you don’t have much purpose is a really shitty way to feel. I know that I have a long ways to go and still a lot of time to learn. I know that I shouldn’t compare myself to people who are in countries that have fucking alphabets and there are a lot of reasons to be thankful for where I am. Sometimes it’s just hard to see those reasons. Hopefully it’ll get better and I think it will. Just got to stick out this rough patch.
Thanks for reading,
Autumn 丁晚秋

New Years

New Years Eve I was planning on seeing a movie with some of my girls but that didn’t work out so me, Selin, Chloe, and Josephine ended up just hanging out in a park in Xiemen. It was a really cool park, it was coverd  in quite impressive graffiti. We were just enjoying each other’s company and appreciating Taiwan 7-11. As we were sitting there a couple asked to take pictures with us. The photo quality was really good and they sent them to us so I’ll share them with you. Now if you’re going to Taiwan for exchange prepare to have a good time on New Years. Find out where people are going to be and get there. I have a friend who paid for the high speed rail back to Taipei because he was on a family trip New Years Eve. The point is it’ll be fun. The fireworks didn’t last long but they were amazing. All of our host parents extended our curfew to 3:00 so we didn’t have to worry about getting home. Now I’ve mentioned how amazing the Taipei public transportation is in the past but I just have to take a minute to tip my hat to the city of Taipei. First of all they made all the MRTs ( Taipei Metro) run longer so people could get home. They let people into the stations in waves so that no one would be trampled. If a train was full and still in central Taipei it wouldn’t stop. It was amazingly organized. 7-elevens near 一零一 (Taipei 101) took out there front windows and opened cash registers out side. Fast food restaurants  took out tables and put down cardboard so that people could just sit on the floor. Taipei set up portable police and med stations. The police officers were handing out water, noise makers, and hand warmers. Big screens were set up in crowded areas so more people could watch the concert. Taipei is one city that knows why they’re doing. The US could learn a thing or two.
Thanks for reading,
Autumn 丁晚秋