I think this blog needs more pictures. Here is a couple from the temple at my favorite night market ShiLin 士林. The lanterns have been put out and lit up for the Lunar New Year.
I didn't leave Taipei for New Year's which turns out to have been a mistake. Everything shut down and to top it off it was cold and raining the entire week. Oh well, live and learn. 新年快樂!
A few days ago a friend called me up and asked for help. It wasn't anything that important or serious, but it would have involved me lying to a third party, so I politely told my friend that I was uncomfortable with the situation.
At the time I got this phone call I happened to be in a public space and so naturally the people I was with asked me about the phone call. The favor my friend had asked me for wasn't anything private so I told the people I was with. The people I happened to be with weren't in anyway connected to any research I am doing, they were just some friends at the hostel, but they of course all know that I am an anthropologist and that I am in Taiwan to do research.
After telling them the story of the phone call they asked me why I had refused to lie. I thought the answer to that was obvious, but apparently not, so I explained to them why I felt uncomfortable with the situation which included ethical concerns about my behavior while in the field. To my horror someone then replied, "Yeah, but isn't that what you anthropologists do? You lie to get into a group and then study the people?"
I immediately went into defense mode and corrected this person's misconception, but what they said stuck in my brain. What gave them this idea? As far as I know I am the only anthropologist this person has met (I don't know if they have read any anthropological texts) and I all but wear a sandwich board explaining who I am and what I am doing here. I am so transparent about my intentions that I even explain it to people whom I have no intentions of involving in my research just in case.
A couple of days after this conversation I went back and asked this person where they had gotten this idea again. They said they didn't know.
Now I wonder, when I tell people I am working on an anthropology PhD, what does that mean to them?
During a couple of my trips to one of the cyber cafes here in Taipei I have met locals who are near fluent in English. Now I understand that most (maybe all?) students here study English in school, but I am talking about meeting people who at first sound like they may actually be ABCs and not locals of Taipei. During my last trip to the cafe I finally broke down and asked one of these guys how he got so good at speaking English. His answer was short and sweet. WoW.
I have been considering off and on since arriving in Taiwan buying a Chinese version of WoW in an attempt to meet people and brush up on my language skills, but I never got around to it for several reasons. After a while I gave up on the idea and forgot about trying to use video games to work on my Chinese skills.
Three days ago though, the idea reemerged in full force while I was walking through the mall near my house. I walked into one of the video game stores and was perusing the DS titles available when a box cover with large Chinese characters caught my attention. It was the Sims online. I immediately decided that this would be the perfect game for me to learn Chinese with. It is a life simulator and so my idea is that the vocabulary I will be confronted with in the game should be words and phrases that I can put to use and practice in my daily life.
The game is downloading right now. I can't wait to try this out.
After 4 months of living in Taipei I have finally started to make some progress. My ability to speak Chinese, while still not perfect, is noticeably improving. I can now accomplish daily tasks without speaking any English, and some of my American friends have even started to ask me for help when they need a little translation.
Academically, the people I have met over the past few months have begun to feel more comfortable around me I think. A couple of them have introduced me to gamer friends of theirs and one even "came out" to me as a gamer. While gamer shame is still an obstacle for me in meeting new people, my recent progress has made me much more hopeful.
I have also had the pleasure of being invited out to play Left4Dead at an Internet Cafe a couple of times now. I had a lot of fun and I met some interesting people, but the experience also reminded of where I have been lacking recently. I am a games researcher, and yet over the past 4 months I have hardly played any games at all. It is not that I have stop enjoying video games; it is, I believe, due to the nature of adjusting to a new culture and language, and now that I have become much more comfortable in Taipei I anticipate many more trips to go kill zombies.
After somehow surviving the culture of perfection in Taiwanese academia this past term, I will be retreating to Thailand for a little R & R for December. My on the beach light reading list will include Coming of Age in Second Life and The Good Women of China. I just cannot bring myself to leave school completely behind. I will be on a beach most of the time however, so new posts will likely have to wait until January...unless I break down and bring my computer with me...I haven't decided yet.
So as you can see, no one plays video games in Taipei. No wait, only children play video games in Taipei...I think that is the story...yep, video games are only for kids.
This phenomenon is not indicative of Taiwan. There is a nice post about Gamer Shame/Pride from Terra Nova (a great game blog for anyone who is not familiar with it).
It has been a little over 3 months now since I first arrived in Taipei. As I look down lost in thought I notice that my bare feet are calloused.
May calves are covered in scars. The mosquitoes have been feasting, and though I know I should not scratch the bites, I find myself mindlessly doing so while watching tv or caught up in conversation. I have scratched the skin raw and round little patches now mark the spots between fresh bites. (Fresh bites which are only left alone at this moment because both of my hands are occupied on my keyboard.)
A little higher up, just below my knee, is a long reddish brown line a little over an inch long and maybe a quarter inch thick. This is how I learned to be careful while using a shower with exposed hot water pipes.
At the waist my clothes just do not fit the same. There is not a scale available for me to use, but the loose fit of the clothes I brought from home tells me all I need to know. I do not know how this one happened. I feel like my days here revolve around food.
Continuing upwards I used to have a long mane of brown hair. I have always preferred long hair, but the heat of August in Taipei had driven me to chop off my locks. I went from soft and flowing to something reminiscent of Aeon Flux.
