Apartment, Trash, and Trains

John and I do not start teaching until the middle of September, but Lauren has already started school and so far she likes it! Luke has started his day care, and I will write more about that later…stay tuned…

The pictures are of our apartment—the inside of it and the front of our building. The one of the street is nearby our place, so you can get an idea of our living environment. As you can see, it’s QUITE DIFFERENT from Clemson!

Our major order of business when we arrived to our apartment was SHOPPING. We needed linens, pots and pans, dishes, trash cans, toilet paper, hand soap, FOOD, etc.! Greg, a Ph.D student from the education department at National Chengchi University (NCCU), was assigned to help us! Greg is Filipino, but he reminds me of my brothers in that he can speak Mandarin like a Chinese native and English like an American. He showed us how to take the bus, and Luke had the time of his life—he had a mini-tantrum when we had to get off! Greg took us to the mother of all stores in Taipei, a place called Carrefour. This store is like a super Wal-Mart on CRACK. It had EVERYTHING, including a food court from hell! The escalators are flat so you can take your shopping carts with you! It was INSANE, I’m telling you! But, in contrast to Wal-Mart, the food selection was of high quality, and the meat and fish looked unbelievably good.

After this completely over-stimulating adventure (the annoyingly loud music at Carrefour was driving John and me crazy—it kept playing this melody over and over again, and it sounded like poorly-written Mozart, and it was super-crowded), an administrative assistant at National Chengchi University, Linda, and her family took us out to a Thai restaurant. It was such a relief to have someone else order all the food, and the meal was awesome! Linda’s son, K.C., mostly spoke with us since he had the best English. He will graduate from high school in 2009 and his plans are to attend a university in the United States. K.C. told us he attends school from 8-5 and stays at the school studying until 9 pm, and this is a typical day for him. However, he seems to have also found time for other things--he’s travelled with friends to Europe, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the U.S. He just finished taking his major exams—I guess they’re the equivalent of our SATs, but these exams in Taiwan seem to be more of a dire type of situation. I’ve been hearing that in Taiwan, from middle school onward, students face tremendous pressure on these standardized tests—they pretty much determine their future FOREVER, and this is difficult for the parents as well. Julie Hu, the American woman married to the Taiwanese drama professor, raised 3 children in Taiwan, and she told me she could only handle the Taiwanese high school pressure once. Her oldest child, a daughter, went through the entire Taiwanese system and did very well, but it just about killed Julie. Her sons ended up going to high school in the U.S. and stayed with relatives—she couldn’t go through all that again!

Now I MUST write about the trash! In Taiwan, you cannot leave trash outside for pick-up or you will be fined. There is a set time for pick-up every night except Sundays and Wednesdays, and you have to listen for this obnoxiously loud music—that’s the signal that the trash truck is coming. This music reminds me of the ice cream truck. As soon as you hear it, you have to run outside with your trash and dump it into the truck. The trash people encourage you to recycle and to separate food from your trash—they actually have a special place for food, and they feed it to animals. There is usually someone from the neighborhood that grabs everyone’s recyclables for himself/herself so he/she can sell it! This trash pick-up turns out to be a community event! Everyone is outside at the same time, and I noticed people were socializing! Also, you get to see everyone in your neighborhood!

I also want to add, now that we're on the subject of trash and recycling, Taiwan is very pro-recycling. I noticed people here hate waste and try to make the most out of everything that's thrown away--note that they try to feed leftover food to animals. People are heavily encouraged to bring their own bags to shop, and if you need a bag from the store, you're charged a small amount for it. I've been trying to change my habits about this and now I'm bringing a tote bag everywhere so I don't have to ask for a bag!

The MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) here is AWESOME!! It’s REALLY clean, convenient, and it goes both underground and above ground. John and I are living in Muzha, which is a suburb of Taipei. I guess you could compare it to living in Brooklyn and commuting to Manhattan. We’ve already used the bus and taken the MRT a few times, and I hope to be getting the hang of this soon!

Next up…my visit to the place where I will work, Lauren and Luke’s schools…..