I just can't help overhearing some things sometimes. While dining at a restaurant, i overheard a tall canadian man, who was very western, slowly say in a strong canadian accent: "One thing i've noticed, about taiwan, is that, the people here are, extremely friendly and, very kind." I was on my way back from getting more rice from the rice pot, which was quite close to the canadian man, and when i heard that, i almost cracked. Luckily i didn't, i covered my mouth. On another occasion, i overheard a mini-boss boss talking to her employees. I was sitting about 3 metres away from them.
An employee said: "aiya! shang ci bei na xie da lu ren zhua dao, hai zhen bu hao yi si." (aiya, last time i was caught by those mainland chinese, i lose all my face.)
The mini-boss asked: "catch you what?"
The employee said: "ta men kan dao wo ba ke ren chi guo de fan, fang hui fan guo." (they saw me putting the half-eaten rice back into the rice pot.")
The mini-boss said: "aiya, what a waste to throw it away, next time just be careful don't let the customer see."
I took special care not to stop eating as i heard that; i didn't want to turn such a comical conversation into an awkward situation, though something in my stomach did jump. Actually the funnier thing was that they didn't even see me sitting three metres right in front of them. Sometimes, it's best not to know. You don't know who's touched that door knob in the shopping centre toilet. You don't know when the last time that portable cooking stand in that night market was washed. And you don't know all the places, from the butcher to the restaurant, where that piece of meat, served in your hotpot has been. You don't know, because it doesn't matter, and they (the toilet cleaner, the stand owner and the mini-boss) know it.
On the taiwan tour, the girls were good, but the guys were better. Here is my top four:
Paul, 18 from New Zealand
This guy has intriguing and wacky thought patterns. I love his face when he smiles and he always gives that smile when he talks to you.Xiang Ye, 16 from Singapore
Another person who likes to speak his mind.Xiang Ye: "wo xiang xia xia ta." (i want to scare him.)
I: "shei?" (who?)
Xiang Ye: "guo lu ren ah." (by-passers ah.)
I: "wei shen me?" (why?)
Xiang Ye: "wo xiang kan kan ta men bei xia dao de biao qing." (i want to see their reaction when they get scared.)
River, 30 from Taiwan
A sincere person who loves to make friends. I have a collection of this young man smiling. Luke, 21 from New Zealand
He's not smiling in the photo, yet it is enough to make us all laugh.*Bonus: Sandra, 25 from Mauritius
She just likes to act like a boy, that's all. She has a unique skill of chi-gong, which is a form of chinese martial art. Thus, she can perform 'force push', but she doesn't like to show off. Also, she uses chi-gong to force alcohol out of her system so she is always up for a drinking game, no matter the variation.You won't know what i'm talking about so i choose to talk less. One thing i've learnt on this tour is that you have to know yourself before you can know other people. For me, an example of this is knowing the boys before i know the girls, because if i don't even know how guys work, i will have problems with the girls. From this, i have also learnt to keep a distance from people who always mix with people of the opposite gender.
I love being by myself. And here in taiwan, i have plenty of time by myself. I love the freedom and the slowness, and i can do things without embarrassing the person next to me. Now i'm working on being less self-conscious so i can do more things on which i can look back on and say: "i would've regretted if i had not done that." The most time i spend by myself is shopping and browsing streets. Here are my experiences:
There is a group of robotic people you can find around taiwan. Firstly, there is the train traffic director:
He reminds me of AFL umpires. As soon as a goal is scored, they have to perform that double-handed action. Here, the train trafficker also has to perform that double-handed action, and repetitively when the train on the next platform comes, and i find it a humorous job.In every elevator in every department store, stands an elevator operator. At every stop, she would ask 'what floor' and give a greeting in a robot language, press the appropriate buttons and give a magical hand gesture as the elevator door closes. At every stop! If you ask them a question, they are now allowed to answer it unless it is in a heavily monotonous tone. It makes me wonder sometimes, what exactly are they thinking when they are doing their job. Are they really that serious? Or will something slightly funnier than average blow their cover. Or is it that when she swap shifts, she'll complain how stiff her cheeks are from all that smiling and how that funny situation almost had her cracking up. Luckily she covered her mouth. Another sight i saw was a little more unusual:
I was quite amused by this one. Before the doors closed, the girls had to make sure that they say: "xie xie guang ling" (thanks for coming) and 90-degree-bow profusely to the customers inside. I think on this occasion, the customers on the way up caught an extra girl by-passing, so instead of being awkward, she chose to fit in. The bowing reminds me of chinese movies where a high official purchases large amounts of supplies from a rich business man. The business man would bow many times to the official, and of course not without the shifty smile as well as the "xie xie"s mixed in with some fake giggling.Taiwanese shopkeepers really know how to intimidate a customer. I'm not sure if they do this on purpose or that it's just not my style to be intimidated in the following ways:
1. I would enter quietly into a clothing store to look at some clothes. The shop lady would come over from the counter and say: "huan ying guang ling" (welcome), to which i would respond softly: "oh, huan ying guang ling." I don't mean to say welcome to her but it's just my australian habit to return a greeting with the same greeting. She would ask me what i want to buy? And i would tell her that i am just browsing. She would give me a full recommendation of the things on the racks, tell me about the hottest discounts and then stop to fold her arms to stare at me like this:
In the illustration, she knew that it was rude to stare, so she stared at a spot a few degrees to the left of my eyes. That was enough to make me feel uneasy - i think it would make anyone feel uneasy. I think she was just trying to provide really good service, and with the prices cut by 70-80% (2 and 3 mean 20% or 30% of normal price), she was probably expecting me to buy. I just pretended to look around, and then slipped out the door like jon chew would slip out from a boring conversation.2. On one occasion, i was intrigued by a display window of electronic items. I walked into the shop through a chimed door to see three widish country men gambling on tiny stools. One man who seemed a little rough, heard the chimes, pushed his hands on his knees to rise, approached me with a gangster walk and yelled out: "yao shen me?" (what do you want?) Before he had a chance to get close to me, I literally twisted 180 degrees to latch my hands onto the heavy chime door and escaped. There's no need to hassle over such an incident, especially when the stock inside the shop were all old and dusty.
3. Sometimes when there are no customers inside the store, the shopkeeper would come outside to pull customers in. This is especially true of restaurants in less populated places. Here's what i came across at a fully-packed night market in taichung:
In such a full-house night market, i'm not too sure how to explain this picture. All i know is that there is nobody in the shop and that the owner is practising some chi-gong, probably to help with stress management, and less obviously, helping to scare the customers away. And look how fast her hands are moving!4. On another occasion, i entered a soft toy/stationery store. I looked around and saw that there was a second level. As i proceeded up the stairs, a girl was sweeping the stairs and as soon as she saw me, she dropped her broomstick and raced as fast as she could to the second floor. I proceeded up the flight of stairs to begin browsing the second floor, until i saw out of the corner of my eyes a girl, standing fast like a soldier behind the counter, staring once again at a spot a few degrees to the left of my eyes. I quickly avoided her gaze and kept on walking as I felt a pattern of heat waves escape from my body. I didn't want to make the girl feel bad, so i thoroughly browsed the entire second floor, because afterall, she came upstairs just for me. But it really spoils the atmosphere of freedom.
5. Other intimidating factors include, secretly following you around i.e. hiding behind a shelf showing a quarter of a face, 'force buy' and loud and unashamed yelling, which i do find interesting.
I've been to a lot of parks, gardens and some mountains in taiwan and all i can say is that the species of plants and animals beats whatever i was expecting before i came. I have become a flower lover ("hua chi") in recent years, not because i know any of their names or anything about them, but because they look nice as my desktop wallpaper or on my desk. The flowers here are so pretty that even their leaves and stems look nice. Here's a selection:
Speaking of flowers, i went to a flower market which mainly sells flowers, but also has little food stalls, games, paintings etc. One stand at the flower market which stood out to me was the 'show and sell'. The way this stand works is that the owner shows a product on the spot e.g. a knife set, a handyman's tool set, a walking stick etc. and he sees if anyone wants to buy whatever he shows. Here he is:
In the illustration, he is pulling up his pants and sighing to his wife because no one is willing to buy the product he is wearing on his head. For any product this man sells, he will always start at a very high price, perhaps NT$1000. Then when he sees that nobody wants to buy it for such a high price, he whacks the brown and black stick onto the chopping board and lowers the price by $100. On this occasion, he was getting angry and was preparing himself to whack the price down to $200 from $300 because no one is buying his stuff. The interesting part is here: the audience knows of his strange behaviour, that he will keep on bringing the price down until people start buying, so everybody waits on their seats folding their arms with serious faces like so:
Look at the face the dad in the light blue is putting on, it is incredible.For any item, as the stall owner finally gets fed up, he'll ask another round for $200. If nobody wants it, he would pretend to pick up the items to put it away, obviously awaiting an: "ey ey ey wait, i want!" But the audience in the picture have been sitting there for over two hours; no one was going to fall for that trick. Seeing that nobody responds to his false retreat, the stand owner suddenly stops, walks back to the sales table to put the goods back, sighs a deep long sigh, and gives the black and brown stick a good whack: "aiya, $100." There would be a silence, and then suddenly come laughs all round from the audience as buyers swiftly take out $100 notes from their pockets.
Look at how sweetly the people are smiling - even from the side, you can still see the broadness of the smile. A brand new knife set for AU$4 is pretty much a joke. The stand owner is most likely a comedian hired by the flower market to attract people to stay inside the market for a longer period of time, hence the usage of the word 'audience' instead of crowd.While lining up for a ticket for the Mount Ali train, which is one of the three existing mountain train lines in the world, i was approached by an old grandma. She started speaking to the people in the waiting line in taiwanese, which i do not understand, but i tried to understand. The other people in the line were all looking at the ceiling pretending to not notice her presence, so i tried to copy them. It didn't work however, the old grandma somehow knew that i was listening to her so she switched to mandarin. She asked me if i was going to visit Mount Ali by train. I said that i was. Then she pulled me to the side and said softly, "yao bu yao wo bang ni ding lu guan." (do you want me to book hotel?) The old grandma was short, had a crooked back, and was quite old. I didn't know how to respond to her question, but having been conned many times big or small, i decided to give her a wave of my hand. But the thing is, con artists won't let you go so easily. They'll firstly lure you in, hold you for as long as possible and make it as hard as possible for you to get out. That is what she did. I saw an unprofessional name tag around her neck but nevertheless if it wasn't for her shortish and sly outwards appearance, i would have believed her straight away. In other words, if it had been a younger lady, with her hair properly done up, wearing professional attire, speaking with a proper accent, i would have believed her straight away and had my money scammed. Too bad that whatever field people work in, there's a day when they'll become old. The hotel she offered was a cheap $1000 a night and she wanted a $500 deposit on the spot. She also told me that i could get once-a-day train tickets from her even if the tickets from the booth were sold out. I gave her the $500 and she assured me that she would be back in an hours time to give me the tickets. Then she disappeared. In an hours time, i came back and I didn't see any old grandma. The train was leaving in half an hour so i went to the booth to ask to buy a ticket. It was sold out. I began to panick: old lady come out now and give me my train ticket!
A few days later, while having dinner at a dumpling restaurant with myself, something struck me in an instant to tell the old grandma about Jesus. A smirk began to appear on my face, and i was filled with extraordinary confidence that i normally would not dare have. I knew that the old grandma lurks around near the train station somewhere so she wouldn't be too hard to track down. The next day i went to find her.
Sam: "hi ah po, ni hao." (hello old grandma, how are you?"
OG: "ey ey, ni zai zhe bian gan ma?" (ey ey, what are you doing here?)
Sam: "ni xin ye su ma?" (do you believe in Jesus?)
OG: "xin shen me? wo shen me dou bu xin la, dou bux in." (what? no i don't believe in anything. i dont' believe in anything.)
Sam: "ni xin ye su, jiu de yong sheng, shang tian tang, bu xin ye su, jiu xia di yu. xin ye su hen hao le." (believe in Jesus you get eternal and go to heaven, don't believe in Jesus you go to hell. believe in Jesus very good leh.) proceeds to hand her a card wrapped in wrapping paper.
Sam: "zhe ge gei ni." (this is for you.)
OG: "oh xie xie ni oh, zhe shi shen me? wo men ye gang ren shi." (oh thank you oh, what is this? we barely know each other."
Sam: "wo gen ni shuo zhe ge dui wo mei you hao chu, wo xiang gao su ni zhi yin wei ni neng huo de geng you yi yi, er qie de dao yong sheng." (i tell you this today not so that i can get anything from you, i just want to tell you because i want you to live with more meaning and receive eternal life."
The old grandma looked down at the ground and then looked up with her head slightly tilted, her eyes starry, and said: "even my relatives don't give me a present for my birthday..."...
That was what i imagined in my head. Like many people, i like to rehearse a situation in my mind before doing it. Sometimes i guess it right and sometimes it doesn't happen the way i expect it to. The day i went to the train station, surely enough, the old grandma was there. I said hi to her, and she began telling me about the cheapest buses around etc. I tried to start the envisaged conversation but my mouth was frozen, except when i say 'uh' at each bus recommendation she gave me. I have never tried to tell a girl face to face that i like her, but i'm sure i would have been able to pull that off easier than talking to this old grandma. Then the old grandma said 'bye' and i said 'bye' and we walked away. And i didn't stop walking, because i had already takent he first step.
I have learnt from this experience that sometimes i have to take up courage to do some things which are important and fun. And also, doing something with someone who you'll never see again is a must do. Because when you look back, you'll know that your present environment would remain the same, but that you would have changed somebody's life. Next time i'll be better.
The old grandma turned out to be a friendly lady who, had not only not conned me, but has saved me quite a lot of money. The hotel she booked also would have been the one i would have picked by myself, except it would have been much more expensive. She asked me to tell everyone about her, so that when my friends and relatives come to visit, they'll all go to her to buy tickets. Here she is:
I asked her to smile but she just couldn't bring it on. I'm not showing you the photo so that you'll know who to find next time you go to taiwan, but i'm showing you just to let you know that when she comes to find you, you can let your guard down even when she seems like she's trying to scam your money.
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