Katie in Commercial attire
Demure...I was in a commercial! And a high-class commercial too... For diamonds... of all things consumerist and potentially harmful to the world... it was an experience. I got put into a nice dress and they gave me lots of make-up and a very large hair-do. Then I sat around all night (until morning) talking to an interesting multi-national crowd of folks at a table (think, elegant dinner party). Then, when the famous star lady walked down the stairs, we all had to turn and look at her. oooh... I haven't seen it on tv yet, but I'd like to, as I'm not sure how anything I did relates to selling diamonds. Let you know if I ever see it, but my not-watching-tv habit might leave me never knowing what the commercial is really like.
I'm getting more active with the Amnesty International group in town. For the teaching-human-rights-through-theater project that will happen at the end of this year, the AI folks are cooperating with a local theater group. So, we planned to go to one of their meetings and introduce ourselves and our topic, using theater. Everything was pre-discussed and agreed to by the theater group leader... To introduce the situation of foreign workers in Taiwan, we created an interactive drama, that may or may not have been a good idea... we arrived 15 min. late and asked the theater folks to help us move some benches up from downstairs, getting gradually more indignant about their inability to do what we wanted, compounded by the fact that we used more and more English, putting a confusing language barrier between us as well. Before we'd gotten very far into our interactive play, one of the theater folks started getting really angry and wanted to leave the rehearsal, so we called it quits early and sat in a circle to introduce ourselves and discuss the feelings that had been brought up in the exercise. After a very interesting discussion about race and attitude and language and interpretation, we talked about human rights in Taiwan and abroad, and ended the meeting with small groups each creating a scene to reflect our evening's experience. I think it may take us some time to regain the trust of the woman who we unfortunately pissed off, but that most of the group understood and appreciated what we were trying to do, and the director thinks that we allowed her group to finally step into the emotionally risky theater that they've talked about... Live and learn.
Yesterday's Amnesty meeting was about Women's Rights in Taiwan, where we talked about foreign brides and domestic violence... Seems that there are lots of brides coming in from Vietnam, Mainland China, the Phillipines, etc... looking for a wealthier life-style, but usually not finding it, and sometimes ending up as sex workers. In addition, an increasing number of Taiwanese men on extended business trips to Mainland China find another wife and create a new family there - but not necessarily continuing the relationship or financial support when they return back to Taiwan and their family here. Taiwan has also passed a unique, but not necessarily enforced law - if in a marriage one person works while the other stays home, the working one is required to pay a salary to the one who takes care of the home. Interesting...
In another societal division, I recently became aware of a "young folks these days" attitude... not unusual if my grandparent's say it, but much more so when the 28 year-olds here freely use the term. It seems that there are at least two factors involved in this behavior (or at least that I've noticed so far): Taiwan's culture is changing, and changing fast. 15 year olds nowadays are truly doing many different things that 15 year olds were ten years ago. More on that in a bit. Taiwanese people are also very age-segregated. School is the primary function of people under 25, and in school classmates are your own age. If anyone in school is of a different gra jde, they're referred to as brother or sister... which sounds good, except that in Chinese there's "older brother" "younger brother" "older sister" and "younger sister." So, the people who graduated the same year as Fu are her classmates, but the girl who was a year younger in school is Fu's "younger school sister," creating a linguistic division between your classmates (same) and those who are older or younger (different).
And the behavior of those "kids these days"... The stereotypes are mostly negative - have more sex, are more preoccupied with consumerism, less polite. And at least the first and last have combined to make a dangerous habit...I have heard from several people now that a fair number of junior high/high school/college girls go to XiMenDing (where all the cool, hip, kids hang out to buy cheap clothes, people watch, be watched, etc.) and trade sex for clothes, money, or fashionable items. It seems the buyers are older men, who Fu says are some of the ones who came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949 - so, old. Also, I've heard from quite a few sources that this practice is from Japan. Hmm... the more I hear about Japanese culture the more complex I find it, and the more different it seems from my own... I decided to ask Satoshi if he knew anything about this and he concurred - evidently in Japan in about the last 10 years it's become increasingly common for young girls to leave home, sleep (or provide other sexual services) with older, rich, men, and get paid in brand-name items. I imagine this is compounded by an idea held in Japan that once women are mothers, it's no longer polite to sleep with them, so fathers look to other sources to satisfy their sexual desires.
In addition - I went to the HIV/AIDS association I mentioned last email, and the leader, Sister Teresa, sent a bunch of emails which have snow-balled. I met a HIV/AIDS researcher last week who gave me a research paper he hasn't quite finished editing, about college freshmen' attitudes towards HIV/AIDS. It seems kids are knowledgeable, but that knowledge doesn't translate in practice - the average age of first sexual experience is relatively late (17), but Fish tells me that Taiwan has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Asia. Oops. However, the professor, and his student's, research conclusion is a need for HIV/AIDS education. Here's where I may fit in. The professor says that if I'm willing, he'll support me to write a grant to design and implement an HIV/AIDS prevention program in colleges here. I'm excited! Now I just have to write a grant and see what the Taiwanese Ministry of Education thinks...
And in dancing - swing may be coming to Taipei! Tonight was the second night of a hopefully weekly swing dance! Complete with live band, mini-lesson, and no cover charge, at least a handful of Taiwanese people now know what swing dance is, and even seem interesting in learning it! The newbies keep asking me where I teach swing, but uh, I don't teach swing here... Oh, the opportunities. I feel like I'm just starting to feel out where I might fit in, while I'm preparing to head back stateside in a couple weeks. Monday a bunch of friends and I went out to dinner to celebrate Vicky's coming birthday, and my imminent departure. After we had stuffed ourselves with dumplings and soup and tofu and everything else tasty, all of my classmates said a toast for me.. I don't know if anyone has ever toasted me before, especially not with cups of green tea... It reminded me that there are a lot of connections I've made here, that I hope will continue and develop, even when I'm back to mountains and clean air in June.
