January 22-24/03 Mid-Year
Conference to Hualien
The
week and weekend before Hualien were incredibly slow. Don’t remember much except school, tutoring, and gym. Wednesday was JiauJu’s last day at
NTUMC, she’s going to a PhD program in Australia. So YuJung and I took her to the ShauLongBau place behind
CKS. YuJung says, “[I come here
quite often, about once a month.]”
I said, “[What? I come
almost once a week!]”
Wednesday
We
Fulbrighters all
met in Taipei Main Train Station early Wednesday morning for Hualien. When we arrived they took us on a bus
to a national park. Jonathan had
already been in Hualien for the week and was borrowing a scooter, he rode up to
our bus on it looking all bad-ass (or as bad-ass as Jonathan can look).
At the park,
he Niclas and I “missed” the “train ride,” which we heard was a little
two-minute ride straight into the forest, then backwards straight back
out. Jon got some big sugar canes
that we tried eating the aboriginal way, biting into it with your bare teeth
and ripping pieces off. I found
that kinda hard and instead bought ice cream. I then rode with him to the big lake where we rented a
whale-shaped paddleboat which was hilariously slow. We tried to play chicken, paddling madly toward a crowd of
boats full of locals, who just looked at us blankly so I sheepishly steered us
away.
We rode
back to the hotel which was fun, though I didn’t have a windshield on my helmet
so had to crouch behind him for wind protection and I think I ate a bug. We stopped at his favorite Moji ice
cream place where they made fresh Moji with all kinds of fillings—sesame,
peanut, taro, red bean, green bean, vanilla or chocolate ice cream. They also had purple Moji (colored by
taro).
After a big seafoody dinner that it seemed most people weren’t thrilled
with (i.e. it was the kind of stuff my parents would have loved and missed and
said were such delicacies), we congregated in a big meeting room for the only
“conferency” part of the whole trip, 10-minute “presentations” on how our
projects were doing at this point.
Except, since we were running late we were told we had to cut it to 5
minutes. Okayyy…we exchanged
amused looks. Just when ya think
they can’t get any more laid back about things…
It was being emceed by the spokeperson for AIT, a small woman who
politely listened to each person do their short schpiel and then said something
like, “That’s very interesting, and such an important topic for Taiwan. Thank you.” I was one of the last to go, and was pretty much expecting
her to say the same. But after I
concluded with a couple sentences about how my advisor and I hope this analysis
would help identify some ways the Taiwan National Health Insurance was
providing more efficient health care, she said “would have rather seen me
compare Taiwan to another country with national health insurance, like Canada”
and that “frankly, I think your premise is a bit shaky.”
There was the most awkward silence in the room for a moment. I was totally thrown and my mind went
blank. My eyebrows involuntarily
rose at her and all I could think was, “WTF??” But I struggled to keep a polite expression on my face and
nod while she went on, “But you’re the researcher, I’m sure you know what
you’re doing best.” I tried to
explain how it was just an exploratory, descriptive study, and for example, the
interesting finding about expenditures on heart disease and so forth, but if we
find in the end the cost savings aren’t due to efficiency in Taiwan, that was
fine, and this was just a first step, etc. Except I don’t think that all came out very coherently,
because my mind was still going, “WTF?
WTF?”
We ended and had tea and cakes during which lots of people came up and
gave me sympathies, “Um, I don’t know why she said that,” “It’s hard to explain
what you’re doing when only given 5 minutes,” etc, while I thought of a billion
other things I should’ve said in reply, the ol’ retrospective mental
self-slapping. And here we go
again with the “Why didn’t you do Canada?” How about, Why would I EVER want to group Taiwan together
with Canada?! Everyone knows there
ain’t nothing there but moose and ice hockey!
We all decided to go out drinking (and if I was hesitant about wanting
to go before, I was definitely gung-ho about it now) so we checked out happening
downtown Hualien, basically an intersection with a few bars identified by neon
“COORS” signs. The first one
we entered was a decent size, with a platform and band in front. We got a big table and they played a
few American oldies for us (actually don’t know if it was for us, but we liked
to think so). Inevitably someone
brought up my little fiasco from the meeting and there were more sympathies and
lots of AIT-woman-bashing.
Dominika went up to the bar and ended up staying there talking to the
bar girl until we left, still lingering as we hopped to the next bar. We wondered if she does linguistic
interviews to gather research data with every Taiwanese person she meets
everywhere she goes.
The next bar was smaller and smokier with a jukebox and one other table
of locals who stared at us. As in
the first bar, the waitress talked only to me (I was the only Chinese-looking
person in the group), and as in the first bar, I told her she could ask everyone
what their order was themselves.
We called a cab service to get two cars back. A normal yellow cab came along with a black sedan that we
were told was the 2nd cab.
Suspicious, we got in and it was a normal car, no meter or
anything. Apparently the cab guy
had just called his friend so they could make the extra money together. Sketchy! But oh well, we got back safely, and all got very little
sleep.
Thursday
Grabbed
breakfast at the last minute in the morning and we boarded the bus to visit the
Taroko trails. Though it was
cloudy, it was definitely just as beautiful as everyone says. I felt a little pointless taking photos
since I’d already seen Ginger’s amazingly gorgeous ones and knew I couldn’t
take any nearly as nice, so just took a few.
We
had an excellent tour guide/park ranger; her English was good and she knew
everything there was to know about the gorge, telling us how to differentiate between
the types of rock it’s made of, how after an earthquake the elevation of the gorge
changes by the tens of feet, about unfinished or extremely narrow trails along
the high cliffs, and parts that were destroyed in the 9/21/99 earthquake.
Jon told me there’s a big FaLunGong population in the area so the words
“[The FaLun Big Way is Good]” are everywhere—billboards, etc. In the middle of the gorge someone had
written it by arranging rocks on the surface of one huge smooth rock.
For lunch we went to a restaurant with the usual big round tables; I and
Jonathan put our bags on some chairs and went to the bathroom. When I came out, people’s seats had
been shifted because Dr. Wu wanted every table to have an equal number of
people who could speak Chinese, for some reason. So Jonathan was at another table and I was seated—of
course! Smack next to AIT woman.
For most of lunch I sat and shoveled food in silence as she spoke to the
person on her left. I kept
wondering if I should just turn and ask, “So I’m curious, what is your opinion
of the National Health Insurance, because based on your comments yesterday it
sounds like perhaps you’ve had a negative experience with it.” Finally she turned to me and asked me
about my family in Taiwan and we chatted about relatives and living here and
such. At a silent moment I grabbed
the chance and asked. As soon as
the words, “So I’m curious, what is your opinion on the National Health
Insurance,” came out, she immediately apologized profusely and said she should
have worded herself differently yesterday. I shrugged that it was ok and when I asked again, sure
enough she said, “It’s terrible!” and told me that her husband had needed a
serious operation and had almost died because of the negligent care he received
here. Then, she told me all. about
her family and her daughter and how she got here and all the countries she’d
lived in and jobs she’d had previously, so by dessert I knew all about her life. Though I still don’t think she knows a
thing about my project.
After lunch we were told we could hike up a small trail to the big
Buddha statue and tower at the hilltop across the bridge. I started across the rope bridge, where
we had to wait because the sign posted at the front said Maximum 15 people at a
time. Someone kept saying, “Wait,
wait for the first 15 people to cross!”
But I wondered, when the people start getting off the other end, there
aren’t 15 people on it anymore, so can’t we start getting on this end, and have
a constant flow of 15 people on the bridge at all times? But instead: “OK, they’re all off! Now we can walk!”
Wasn’t too exciting, just an unkempt little temple near the big Buddha
and a tower with lots of winding steps to the top. When I got to the third floor and looked out, there wasn’t
much of a view at all, so I figured going up a few more floors wouldn’t help
much, and got down.
At the gift shop I finally bought one of those beaded bracelets for
myself. I remember at Love Boat
everyone was buying those things, they were a trendy Love Boat thing to have,
that is until we got back home and realized, they looked kinda dumb. And they’re supposed to be for
Buddhists. But, this one is made
of tiger-eye so it’s kind of unique and pretty.
That night we had another big seafoody meal. We all started reminiscing about pizza from home and Brian
even asked Dr. Wu if we could get some.
Nancy went around the table asking each person if they thought the U.S.
was going to go to war with Iraq.
Most people including me said probably yes, though we hope not.
After the meal we gathered
in another room for dessert where we were surprised with M&M’s, Pringles,
Ritz crackers and Oreos—Dr. Wu thought our cry for pizza meant we missed
American food, so they’d gotten this junk food for us. I was most psyched about the M&Ms
and filled a drinking glass with them.
There was also a full selection of hard liquor.
Word got around that the junior scholars were going to chew some
binglang (betelnut--a really popular and disgusting habit popular in Taiwan
that stains the teeth and is supposed to give you a high). Apparently it was Shawna’s idea and
though I’d been adamant about never doing it, I decided if Shawna was willing,
I had to try it too. Seeing
people’s black, rotted teeth and gums though has been the biggest deterring
factor for me, and Jon had to explain to me patiently that doing it once
wouldn’t do that to my teeth.
He and I went down the street to buy a bag from a random vendor
(unfortunately we couldn’t find one of the scantily clad betelnut babes to buy
it from), it was dirt cheap. We
had to find a place where we could do lots of spitting so we gathered at a
grassy spot with rocks and trees beyond the parking lot. Haskell wouldn’t partake but was more
than willing to snap lots of photos of us. The experienced ones, Doug and Niclas, instructed us to chew
and just keep spitting whenever you needed to spit—“DON’T SWALLOW or it’ll make
you sick.” It was covered with a
ripe green leaf which made it rather big; it filled my whole mouth and when I
bit it was the most disgusting thing ever—what I imagine a weed or a bug or a
stick that you pick up off the ground, tastes like. I also discovered something about myself—I really don’t know
how to spit. I hacked and wheezed
and growled as much as I could, but could never get more than a pitiful little
dribble slowly ooze off my lip.
Sad.
I quit within a minute and needless to say didn’t feel a buzz at all,
but was desperate to get the aftertaste out of my mouth, and looking around I
saw the only thing available that would do the trick—I asked Dominika if I
could bum a cigarette. She was
surprised and said something like “Well, I’m glad to see the Fulbrighters
aren’t all a bunch of uptight goody goodies.” Wow, I didn’t know smoking was still considered a cool,
rebellious, morally aberrant thing to do, in your late 20s. Like, maybe some people don’t do it
because of health reasons?
Since we’d pretty much painted the whole town red last night, we decided
to swipe some leftover alcohol from the reception and hang out in someone’s
room. Dominika’s won out because
“you can smoke there, for those of us that smoke.” We quietly went back to the reception, said goodnights to
the senior scholars and casually tucked the Absolut and Bacardi under our
arms—after all, no one was going to miss it right? Niclas tsk tsk’ed at us.
We’d gotten a deck of cards and I taught them the face card game. You put all the cards in a pile in the
middle and each person takes turns drawing a card. If you draw a red spot card you drink; if you draw a black
you choose someone else to drink.
If you draw a Jack, you make a category (“Let’s just say, NBA players” I
said, and everyone immediately groaned and protested, “I don’t know the NBA”)
and each person has to say one example in that category until someone
can’t—they drink. If you draw a
Queen, you start off Questions—ask someone any question, they have to turn and
ask someone else any question, and so on—without laughing, pausing, answering,
or repeating, or else they drink.
If you draw a King, you make a Rule: for example “No can say the work Drink.” Whoever breaks the rule through the
rest of the game, they drink. If
you draw an Ace, everyone drinks.
This is a really fun game to play with a big group; I first learned it
at the EPH Ski Trip last year and it was hilarious. By the end we had the rules “You can’t say Drink”, “You
can’t say anyone’s name,” and “You must end every sentence by raising the
inflection of your voice.” So
people were saying, “Hey, you? You
must imbibe?” “Screw you? It’s that guy over there? He didn’t imbibe yet?”
Well, I quickly learned that in order to be funny, this game must be
played with people who don’t mind being silly. The atmosphere wasn’t quite right. Niclas was so tired he was leaning back and had me drawing
and reading his cards for him, someone said my “inflection of the voice rule
totally sucks” and cancelled it with his own rule right away, and both Haskell
and Shawna weren’t drinking. So
whenever they were supposed to drink, they had to tell a story instead. They were great stories too. I don’t think I’m supposed to repeat
them but I will say they were the most amusing part of the game.
One by one we left for bed.
I took a nice bubble bath in our bathtub. In my next apartment I MUST have a tub with that slanted
back, it’s SO key. The only thing
about bathing is I get bored quick.
So I SMS’ed Ginger (her reply “Woo, you taking a bath while talking to
me? Sexy!”) and Jon, who
apparently was the last to leave, stayed talking with Dominika into the wee
hours. Knowing what kind of
uber-intellectual plane the conversation was probably on, I was content to be
alone with my vacuous musings.
Wee, bubble bath fun.
Friday
We
had a free morning that I spent (surprise!) by sleeping in. I’d drawn the curtains closed tight on
purpose to keep out the evil light, and it worked a little too well—someone
called about 10 minutes before checkout to see if I was coming down. Lunch was a great, extensive buffet
where I stuffed myself silly.
After the past two days of chilly clouds and rain, today was perfect and
sunny, just in time for our departure.
Jonathan
said, “What am I supposed to do with all this leftover betelnut?”
“Hey,
it’s Ginger’s birthday party tonight…”
She
loved it.