Swing Dance at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

Swing dance pictures from a few weekends ago. My Rockabilly dance partner, 外星人 (alien), brought some of his friends along, so we taught them some basic east coast swing at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall!

East Coast Swing

外星人 and his friends

You remember the scene from Grease...?

Mid-Term Projects and National Treasures

Satoshi's birthday party: Satoshi's friend, Vicky, Ian, Me, Satoshi, Fu, Joice

Another few weeks has brought more birthdays, conversations, and outings with friends. Satoshi's birthday came and went with another dinner and visit to KTV, during which I had a cold, so my singing voice was um, awesome. We've been good children and sharing... sharing a particularly fun cough around the chinese language center. Satoshi got hit after me (sorry Satoshi), but his cough only seems to be getting worse... he even wore a mask to class today, which I'm grateful for, even if I'm still not used to seeing people wear them. Here, there are lots of fashionable masks- leopard print and leather and pink polka dots. My home-stay sister, Vicky, says that people wear them when it's cold, or to avoid the pollution when they're driving with the other gazillion motor bikes in the road. I haven't bought one yet, but it certainly seems like a good idea. I'm thinking purple is a good color...

Last week marked the middle of my first semester here! To celebrate (or something like that) we had a class mid-term project. We all had to find a cafe close to ShiDa (Taiwan National Normal University - where I go to school), then write directions to it from school. Then last Friday, the teacher gave us our classmate's directions, and let us go for 2 hours. Our task: follow the directions to find the cafe, then find 3 Taiwanese people who'd gone abroad, and ask them a series of questions. All in Mandarin, of course. We'd written out our questions as a previous homework assignment, so the Mandarin was all corrected and understandable to Taiwanese people. I asked people where they'd traveled abroad, why they went, what they'd thought of the country before they'd gone, what they thought of it now, what they missed about Taiwan while they were gone, and such things. I found a person who went to the US when she was little, and before she went had thought that all the American kids would think she was from outer space because she was different... luckily the American kids she met were nice to her and she's not afraid of Americans anymore. I also met another woman who went to the US last year, expecting to find lots of fat people... but she went to LA and San Francisco, and she said she didn't see any. I think that's pretty funny. I told her she should go to the south, or the mid-west... then her chances would be higher. I also had to write a mini-research paper about the experience, which left me with a pretty good feeling of accomplishment... it's only a page and a half, but still, I wrote stuff in Chinese, yay!

On weekends, my classmates usually go to a pub, trying to find suitably attractive Taiwanese girls to hit on. I usually go dancing... this last Friday Satoshi decided he needed to take a break from the beer and came with me to Tango. Vicky came too, because she's been curious about what "tango" is and what it looks like. I was glad they came together, because then no one was left alone while I went to dance. It was my tango friend's (he calls himself Fish) birthday, so he brought a tiramisu cake for everyone (mmmmm...) and taught Satoshi and Vicky both a little tango. We also tried to get Fish and Vicky to teach Satoshi how to hit on girls in Chinese... but neither of them said they knew how to hit on girls... I guess I have to make some more pub-going Taiwanese friends... Fish did show me a street downtown where there are a lot of hot girls though, so now my classmates want me to show them where it is so they can, uh, practice their Chinese.

Fish teaching Satoshi how to tango

Saturday, my classmates and some friends and I went to the National Palace Museum - where all the stuff from the Forbidden Palace in Beijing is... that Chiang Kai-Shek brought with him when he left China, fleeing to Taiwan, waiting to re-take control of all China. I figure that when Taiwan re-conquers mainland China, then maybe they'll share the treasures from Beijing with them again. :) I also think that ancient Chinese people must have really liked to eat... two of the most treasured pieces in the National Palace Museum are a jade piece of cabbage, and a realistic looking stone piece of meat (a little too fatty-looking for my tastes, however). To commemorate, we all went out to dinner after the museum and had tasty cabbage (and there was meat too, I just didn't eat it). mmm... much softer than the treasures, cheaper, and probably tastier... but not nearly as valuable I suppose.

Tonight I also tried to make dumplings at home for the first time in Taiwan... but my family here says the stove is too dangerous to use, so I tried to make them with hot water and the microwave... with marginal success... I think the vegetarian buffets may be a better deal, if perhaps, less creative and exciting... I still have half the package left though, so perhaps I'll try again tomorrow and see if I can perfect my technique...

I've been practicing for my up-coming lindy hop performance fairly often, which has reminded me that I have become weaker since I graduated from school... We're doing a bunch of aerials, and I keep waking up all sore (in that good way)... slowly but surely though, we're putting in some quality rehearsal time in the subway station, and I think it'll be very different from what's seen around Taipei... no one here really knows what swing is, and aerials are cool and unusual - so put them together and we have an exciting new jumping foreigners dance, yay! I'm curious to see what people will think of it...

Rockabilly

So, sometimes I dance lindy hop with a guy who says he's from outer space (but his Japanese is really good...). We dance outside at Chiang-Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, or in the underground mall between the ShuangLian and ZhongShan MRT stations. And he also dances Rockabilly. You think I'm kidding? :)

Special Days and Hot Springs

Me and Vicky at KTV for my birthday

In all the days that have passed since I last wrote, the world and I both became a year older. For my birthday, I went to a vegetarian restaurant with my classmates and friends, and then we headed over to KTV (karaoke!) like all good Asian kids do, to sing the night away. For the occasion, my Mom also sent me a "birthday in a box" (thanks Mom!) - with cupcakes, cookies, a new scarf she made, smoked salmon and napkins and plates, all direct from Alaska. The eatable goodies came in handy at KTV, especially the smoked salmon, which is famous even in Taiwan! With all of our different nationalities at KTV, we sang a few Chinese songs, and a lot of English and Japanese ones. One of my classmate's, Satoshi, has a birthday this Saturday, so maybe by then we'll have learned enough Mandarin to understand more of the Chinese songs... maybe...

New Year's here was a huge deal. I have never been that physically close to so many people before. First I went with a friend to DanShui, north-west of Taipei city, on the ocean. We took a boat along the coast, which was really nice and peaceful. Then we came back to Taipei proper to watch the fireworks at 101 - the tallest building in the world. We went to Sun-Yat-Sen Memorial Hall (from which you can see Taipei 101) around 10:30 and it was already packed. Everything in site of 101 was full of people, so we camped out behind a pole until 11 or so. Then it was up and squishing in for prime viewing positions. By the time midnight hit, I felt like my breathing was rather hampered by all the folks around me - but that it didn't really matter, because if I passed out, the pressure of everyone else would keep me standing.

When the golden hour finally struck, the building itself shot off fireworks. I'd never seen a building equipped to display fireworks before... Each floor could shoot off different fireworks, and the exploding colors would run up and down the building... definitely interesting... but perhaps not worth the population density. We show lasted about 3 min. and then folks were out of there, trying as hard as they could to get home...

The stream of people heading to roadside parking spaces was amazing. We filled the side-walks and the roads, and people jumped over cars and road barriers to wade their way to their chosen mode of transportation. Once that destination had been reached, everyone boarded their motor bikes and cars, or tried to get on the MRT... but mostly everyone just waited. Not that anyone turned off their engines or stopped trying really hard to move... it was an exercise in standing pollution generation. There were some token policemen in the intersections politely asking one lane or the other to please comply with the traffic signals, but people would ignore them and try to drive around. Not that they could get very far, as without obeying traffic signals, everything was just one big mess of people trying to go every different way all at the same time. It made me wish that I had purchased one of the handy, and stylish, face masks that people here wear to protect themselves from the cold and the pollution. I did eventually make it home however... it only took me four hours... :)

Last weekend, I escaped the madness of the city for the quieter, colder, sulphur aroma of the hot springs. My friend invited me to come along with her work-mates, and said I could invite my classmates if I wanted. So I did, making us an even 4 girls and 4 boys (my classmates are all guys) for the trip. We headed out on the MRT, then transferred to a bus for a curving, ride through the foggy mountains. When we reached the top of some mountain or another, we got off, with only Abe (one of my Japanese classmates) looking paler for all the twists and turns. Then we walked down the mountain (down a different road then we came, thank goodness) for about 15 min. to get to the hot springs... ahhh... and then warm water...

Boys and girls get divided for the hot springs here, as there are no clothes allowed. Seems strange in an otherwise rather conservative culture, but I hear that during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, they built lots of hot springs in Japanese style (hence the nudity). In the girls area, we also got special mud to rub all over ourselves, and then wash off again. Yay! I'm not so sure if all my illnesses are now healed, but it was a relaxing way to spend a few hours - talking and giggling in Chinese with friends in the warm, warm, water... Ian (my Canadian classmate) says that one of the pool's on the guy's side was so hot that he burned himself. Oops. I'm glad we didn't have that option on our side of the springs.

When we got out of the springs, dressed, and were about ready to head out, someone promptly told us that we needed to high-tail it to the bus stop as the last bus was about to arrive. So, we all ran (well, it started as running...) back uphill in the rain as a bonding experience.