I think spring is officially here and that I can finally put my heater away. The weather has been in the 70s this past week. Apart from a couple torrential downpours, it’s been fairly nice and sunny. I’ve been sick with yet another cold this week, but it’s not too bad. I have been working out a lot. I’m continuing with yoga, of course, but the weather has allowed some good runs by the river in the past couple of weeks. My city is just across the bridge from downtown and there’s a good running path on my side of the river. Well, I call it a running path, but I think I’m the only person I’ve ever seen actually running on it. There are some walkers, and just a few people passing through on their scooters. Of course they look me up and down, bewildered by why a girl is running there. Exercise? It’s a foreign concept for many here. I actually made it back to the night market I used to go to all the time in the fall. I hadn’t been there in months! I think I’ve just been too lazy to 1. walk there after work and 2. deal with the crowds of people strolling through (those that know me well know that I do not stroll.) Anyway, hopefully now that the weather’s nicer I will get there more often.
Language exchange is going well. In these past two weeks I have mastered colors in Chinese. I really have a lot of admiration for people who really learn the language. It’s so hard! For example, my city is Young Ho. You’d think that would be fairly easy to pronounce, but NO! It seems that every time I get in a taxi I have to say it about 10 times for the driver to understand where I’m talking about. In my best Chinese pronunciation I say “Young Ho” (pronounced in Chinese it’s more like “Young Herr”.) And they’re like “Huh?” and I say it again and again and finally they’re like “Oh! Young Ho!”…like exactly they way I’ve been saying it for the past 2 minutes. Ah! Anyway, I doing language exchange and helping my partner out with her English. And I feel that I am getting some Chinese out of it, as well.
I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading the whole time I’ve been here, but realized I never mention it on the blog. I just finished A Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. (My Dad actually sent it to me from home.) It was written by a Chinese girl (from mainland) who studies in England for a year. She writes about all of her experiences and especially about her relationship with an English guy she meets there. At the beginning of the book she writes in very broken English. But by the end it’s pretty good. It was interesting for me to get some more insight into what it’s really like to learn English. She talks a lot about the language and why it was so difficult for her and about the things that just don’t make sense to someone learning it as a second language. Now I am reading “Eat, Pray, Love.” Mom and I bought it in Hong Kong. A 30-something writer from New York gets divorced and decides to take a trip to Italy, Indonesia and India for a year (spending 4 months in each place). She has a specific thing she wants to get out of each place (“the art of pleasure” in Italy, “the art of devotion” in India, and “the art of balancing the two” in Indonesia.) I’m about 100 pages into the book and it’s a really good read so far.
In other news, Taiwan elected a new president yesterday. Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist Party won. It was expected to be a very close race, but in the end he won about 60 percent of the vote. He supports better relations with mainland China. For example, he would like to establish direct flights between mainland and Taiwan. (As it stands now, there are no direct flights between Taiwan and mainland.)
Yesterday I went to the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine just north of the city. (Thankfully, was nearly empty due to it being election day.) The complex, which honors those who have fought for Taiwan in war, is full of buildings and greenery. We were there in time for the changing of the guard which was also cool to see. I’ve added pictures to my “Out and About in Taipei-The Second Half” album on my photo site.
Well, that’s it for now. I’m off to Japan in about 10 days, so my next post will probably be about that. Happy Easter to all at home!
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I suggest that you learn some Chinese. As China increasingly is seen as a growing business power, interest in learning the Chinese language had rocketed, and dominance of Chinese over English will be a long time coming. More and more people begin to learn Chinese, because here is clear career potential for the future. Chinese language education market will be prosperous. http://www.learnchinese.bj.cn/
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