The Japanese did what to us? And stories about Kung Fu and Creepy Dance Instructors

The Japanese did what to us? – And stories about Kung Fu and Creepy Dance Instructors

October 26, 2005

So yeah, last weekend there was a national fireworks display in Taipei, which I found somewhat strange considering the national birthday was like 2 weeks ago. With some Taiwanese friends from Taipei, I went to a riverside park, conveniently not flooded, and got surprisingly close to where the fireworks were actually being fired from. I say surprisingly, because the crowding of people getting into this park was worse than the coat check at closing time in a Montreal nightclub (long-story, maybe some other blog). Anyway, I learned a new Mandarin expression ren shan ren hei (People Mountain, People Sea) which is a nice colloquial way of saying it’s a big damn crowd. The fireworks were quite spectacular, they did things with explosive and gunpowder that I didn’t think were non-violently possible. Apparently, all of the different fireworks have different names, and likely characters, but I still don’t really understand the terms, and usually stick to “that’s a big one,” “that’s a small one,” and “that’s a screamer.” At any rate the show goes on non-stop for 30 minutes, and even the mid part of the program puts Canada Day to shame (even if we do manage to have our fireworks on the same day).

As you might have guessed, I had to ask about the whole two week gap thing, and it turns out that last Saturday was Independence day (their nation was born and became independent on 2 different days, which means Taiwan is kind of like a Philip K. Dick short story and it didn’t even know it.)

Here comes the part where I lose all faith in the Taiwanese education system. Bear with me, I am not going off topic, just give me a minute. The stereotype of Asian classrooms being military-style, collective, uniformed, experiments in the art of memorization is partly true (they do have the cram schools and entrance exams to high schools, so Taiwanese teens effectively spend their entire waking life in front of a chalkboard in a class with upwards of 500 or more pupils and a teacher who doesn’t leave much room for debate and failure). Quantity of instruction of education does not always equality. While the Asians do better in math then we do, thanks to their greater experience with exciting memorization drills, their scores in the humanities, especially poetry and presentation, are often quite low. And in one area I find most shocking, because China is one of the oldest cultures and most established cultures in the world, is history.

Now, I used to study history, I even have a degree in it, so I tend to feel strongly about it. That’s why I feel a little unimpressed when I ask a Taiwanese group of friends “Who exactly is Taiwan independent from?” and received the answer “Hold on,” followed by the standard committee discussion, and “I’m not sure, but I think Japan.” Yes, the Taiwanese care so deeply about being independent they are not even quite sure who they are independent from. The Dutch were here for centuries and the old Spanish colonial fort is still standing here in Danshui (and is a popular tourist attractions, so at least the tourists still remember), but even that I’m willing to let go off, because it was so long ago. But Japan held Taiwan right up until the end of the Second World War (Taiwan was part of that whole, y’know Axis Power thing that our grandfathers fought trying to save us from and whatnot, so that generations from now, people would kinda maybe remember it). There are still people living in Taiwan, for crying out loud, that remember being under Japanese rule. At the university, another Taiwanese student wanted to show off his great reportoir of knowledge about his country’s history, so he told about it, and he actually did know about the Japanese being here in something a little more sinister than Hello Kitty. “I don’t know if you know this,” he said, ready to impress the room with his mental encyclopedia, “But hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Taiwan used to be a part of Japan.” Yes, my Taiwanese friend, World War II was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Before I said Taiwanese students seemed a little immature, but that I didn’t want to judge prematurely. Today my intercultural communication professor (the one who speaks English) took me aside and said “Y’know, Taiwanese students are really immature,” so I took one look around the room: at the garbage on the floor including spilt milk and various other questionable liquids, the students socializing through lectures and showing up halfway through class, forgetting to read assignments, refusing to discuss anything more complex than clothes and food, bringing pink squishee toys that make little giggles when you squeeze to class -- I am trying to keep an open mind, really I am – I cannot help but say “Yes, lao shi (teacher) you just might be right.”

Ok that last paragraph was an English grammatical nightmare, and I apologize but I have no intention of fixing it as I instead want to go on to talk about what my attempts at exercise in the last week.

Since I’m in China (or at least arguably its cultural sphere), I decided it would be cool to try out Kung Fu. So I am, in the traditional Chinese classroom buildings that look like something out of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. While the Arts I studied for my Bachelor’s were by no means of the Martial variety, I tried my best not to pull hernia by stretching muscles I never knew existed. Kung Fu, traditional Chinese Kung Fu, is based on ancient principles of Daoism and Tai Chi, meaning its very healthy for you and very Eastern and whatnot. Kung Fu, though I’ve learned, is just the Chinese word for “method of ass-kicking” and anything that involves the “kicking of ass” can be classified as Kung Fu (This includes karate, American boxing, thumb wars, etc.). The Taiwanese are always not quite sure what to do with me when I show up to these things. First they try to find an instructor with half-decent English, which usually isn’t there but at least my Chinese is strong enough now that I can reach them on middleground… occasionally. Next they try to see what elaborate contortions a Western body can be made to do while an Eastern body makes it look easy (they do have one that’s surprising similar to the proper delivery stance for curling, so I’m proud to say I turned some heads with that one). All and in all it was actually, quite fun, though my favourite part was when one of the instructors used me as an example of how to avoid a punch. He had me throw a punch at him, which I did but stopped before it hit his face as I was kind of expecting him to block it or something. As it turns he had been trying to block it, but he said my arm “was too strong” (I hadn’t even noticed he was trying yet), so then we reversed roles and I tried it on him, and nearly brought him to the floor in one move before I grabbed him and said “Sorry, too hard, in my best apologectic voice” to which he replied in agony “No…It Okay… Good Job… Ow….” (hehe, Brute Strength beats years of disciplined Kung Fu practice once again!). Now, I’m sure if some of the senior instructors were really trying, they could easily put me in the hospital, and I don’t intend to ever give them cause, but still flipping that one instructor felt pretty damn good. All in all, I can’t help but wonder if developing Kung Fu was just China’s way of compensating for all the short jokes made about its people around the world. I also tried Kendo again, and this time they let me not only hold the “sword” but walk with it, and smack some things. So even if this whole Chinese language thing doesn’t work, perhaps after all this whole trip is done I will be able to kick ass… I mean I will have had a great deal of physical exercise.

Speaking of exercise of a physical nature, there this one Ballroom Dancing instructor who really is starting to creep me out. Now I have never taken a Ballroom Dancing class, nor shown any interest in doing so, yet I always come across this class, and its… uh I’ll say “eccentric” instructor in more places and at more times than I would care to mention. Granted, perhaps this a form active recruitment strategy on their part, but its not going to work, my footwork is bad enough in the Kendo/Kung Fu, I don’t need to do something that will cause me to have defend myself physically from people on the street.
Anyway, here’s why I feel the instructor is creepy, other than the following me around part. First off, the class is mainly female yet all the instructors, and he the instructor responsible for teaching the more feminine moves, and when he shakes a hip, he shakes a hip. Usually, when we encounter each other, he has some over-serious female protégé, whose stern expression hides the fact her self-esteem is literally in the hands of Captain Creepy and all he needs to do is snap (and swagger his hips, but he seems to have to do that to walk). He’s a great hip swagger, I’ll give him that, he can do the feminine moves with more grace than even the ladies who have the regulation skirts, and I think this is the creepiest part of all. Basically it’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” does “Fame” in Taiwan. I’ll let your imagination do the work.

MTV Taiwan, A Waterfall, A Train Ride, and a Shrimp Restaurant.

MTV Taiwan, A Waterfall, A Train Ride, and a Shrimp Restaurant.

It’s been a while since I did my last blog entry, so I fig’d I’d do another. Here is a brief glance at the highlights and not-so-high-lights of my past couple weeks.

First the highlights. I went to a waterfall in Eastern Taiwan, but I can’t remember the name of it, because I was guided there by my Taiwanese friend Adam from Taipei city who took me on a countless assortment of trains and transfers, the sheer number of which made me feel like I might accidentally end up in Mongolia (and considering Taiwan’s an island, that’s saying a lot). I’ve never really ridden the train before, in uber individualist Canada we don’t do trains—not for passengers anyway. We each take our individual cars, or at the very least scrounge for an individual Greyhound Bus which we complain about the whole time.

That said, in Taiwan, the train is the standard intercity method of transportation, and many of the stations have that old, romantically decrepit feel to them. They even have the same guy – I swear it’s the same guy at every station, they just cloned him specifically for this job – making sure everyone gets on the right train, and only the crazy Canadian ends up in Mongolia. Usually the trains aren’t too packed, but for one leg of the journey we found ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder in an aisle for an hour. When we finally got to the town, the railroad was literally the center of the town, even more so than in prairie towns back home with their provincial highways. Literally, the town was only like 100 metres wide, and wedged between two mountains with the railroad, and trains that don’t exactly slow down, acting as the main road. You literally have to walk down the track to get to the waterfall, dodging trains like you dodge scooters in the city, only this time you’re diving into the jungle and just hoping you don’t land on something venomous.

The waterfall itself was like a smaller dirtier version of Niagara Falls, but the town was quite interesting. It had a bunch of cultural boutiques, including a shop that made those memorial balloons they release at Chinese New Year’s, a Chinese Raffle (though not the Western “Chinese raffle”), and a kid who kept chasing me down the street yelling “Meiguo Ren, Meiguo Ren!! [American! American!]” I tried to explain to him the intricacies of the 49th parallel and the War of 1812, but the point was rather lost on him. He just got more of his friends and pretended to be cowboys, and soon they were all firing toy guns and calling me an American (they apparently don’t get many foreigners in this town, probably due to the practically unnavigable nature of the train system to non-Chinese readers). Little kids always act the strangest towards me here, at one chicken shack in Danshui, there’s this little kid who always pokes out and looks at me quickly before sneaking back behind the door only to sneak a peak at me later. It’s like they think I’m some form of alien life form, though I guess I do have an Alien Resident Certificate.

Another day, my friend Chanel took me to a shrimp restaurant (which my Dad would love), but I still haven’t had the heart to tell her I don’t like seafood. Everytime we go out, she wants to go for seafood so I told her I’m allergic to it hoping it won’t make her feel bad (I really don’t like it, I’m sorry, but I’m just not a seafood fan… and yes what did I expect to find on an island, I know). Anyway, so at this restaurant they serve only shrimp (no drinks, just shrimp), and you have to catch them yourself from a big pool everyone sits around like a communal ice shack. You fish for shrimp just like you would fish for a fish, with a rod and bait, and when you catch the shrimp you apply a fast-jerking motion which launches the suddenly quite irritated shrimp with snapping pincers (yes they have pincers) inevitably in my direction (even if you’re the one catching them they inevitably come in my direction). Then you… well, if you’re me, you let Chanel go to work. On the street, Chanel is a sophisticated business woman who doesn’t like the outdoors much but in an “Angle Shrimp Restaurant” she is a hard core shrimp-catching and wrangling machine. Once that shrimp is on dry land, she’s onto it like a typhoon, ripping off pincers and skewering the bugger for later consumption. She even (and I shit you not) reached into the water and caught one with her bare hand. When she’s not holding the rod, she perches on the shoreline like a feline predator ready to pounce at any opportunity. I swear, mommy shrimp probably tell their children nightmares about this girl to keep them away from the surface.

Now, as to wraps things up, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to talk about MTV Taiwan. Well the answer is now. As it turns out, Taiwan has its own version of MTV (Yay Taiwan!), which has its own perspective on popular music. The Taiwanese generally have this notion that anything Western is inherently cool (The cools used to think I was awesome when I first arrived until they got to know me, and my true un-coolness shone wondrously through!). Foreign music dominates the airwaves, while the Taiwanese try their own spinoffs which only the locals have the capacity to take seriously. One such example is MTV Taiwan’s Chit Chat! A program designed to teach English by explaining the lyrics of popular songs. Why study English in New Zealand when you can pass your TOEFL just by listening to J. Lo? Two Taiwanese hosts, a girl and a guy wearing all the latest western fashions from 1992, go into detailed re-enactments of hip hop phrases that will probably be out of vogue by next summer(whatever did they do for “foh shizzle mah nizzle”). For instance, for the epic phrase “I got yo back” well just read the script

Dawei[David]: Okay cool kids, just watch this example. Zhenni [Jenny], can you fall back for me?

Zhenni[falling back exaggeratedly like Buster Keaton): Whoa!!!!

Dawei [rushing behind her to catch her]: See, I’ve stopped her fall by putting my hands on her back. “I have yo[ur] back” means “I support you!”

Zhenni: Ah, thanks Dawei. You’re such a cool friend. Okay, time for POP QUIZ!
Does “I got yo[ur] back” mean:

A) I will get back to you
B) I support you [I think it might be this one]
C) I have legally purchased and now own the rights to the latter half of your body.

So there you have it. The Taiwanese thought the toy Thanksgiving turkey my parents sent me was strange! I suppose it does have those nice buggy eyes that are great for scaring unsuspecting Japanese girls (hehe).

That said, I’ll leave off today with a list of a 3 things I’ve learned in Taiwan
1) English and Chinese are not the same language.
2) English and Chinese are not even close to the same language.
3) Even a Buddhist Monk will budge in front you in line in a crowded subway.

September has ended, get out of Bed Green Day!

Well a month has passed since my arrival in Taiwan, and it’s been a busy one. I have still have to do things like get a cellphone number (I have the phone now). I’ve had a lot of once-in-a-lifetime experiences such as the prayer rituals at the Daoist/Buddhist temple and Confucius’s birthday ceremony (which actually quite somber, with not a single tail being pinned on a donkey or Legalist), and have survived 3 typhoons. I am, however, struggling somewhat with culture shock, yearning to break up the endless erray of rice and noodles with pork with some good old Decker French fries. I’m not saying the food here is bad, though don’t be surprised to find a cockroach running around your table if you have a table, but it is generally quite greasy, fatty, and/or overflowing with sugar – and one cannot only eat so much of it day after day without wanting a break. To be honest, my life hasn’t been that exciting here. Chinese makes Spanish look like Pig Latin in terms of the difficulty of learning the language. I spend most of my days trying to catch up on character memorization, and on weekends the residence curfew (and lockout) and long-commuting distances effectively mean I have to start heading home at about 9 or 10 pm at the latest even on Saturday or Friday night. Even my adventures off campus are often quite tame. I went to the beach with some Taiwanese last week, but I was the only one who brought my swimsuit. Swimming to the Taiwanese, generally means wading in over your ankles and seldom higher. They will literally just walk around in 1 to 2 feet deep water, the DANGER DEEP WATER flags only come up to my waist and I can basically walk out to them without even getting my shorts wet (of course, the Taiwanese won’t go near them less they get eaten by a jellyfish – their words not mine). Despite the fact that nobody goes deeper than their ankles, the beaches are still equipped with a full squadron of Team Taiwan Life Guards equipped with emergency speedoes, and the occasional full-body scuba wet suit with neon racing stripes. They will shout and whistle at you angrily and come and chase you down if you try to go past the flags. Seriously, I’m not kidding. Though apparently most Taiwanese can’t swim, despite living on an island, and many won’t touch the water because it’s “icky.”

So yeah, I’ve had a little trouble getting used to some aspects of the culture. At the residence, we are crammed 3 people to a small room despite the fact that there are vacant rooms still left vacant, which has lead to problems because my roommates and I have such different schedules and are constantly interrupting each other’s sleep. The Taiwanese are generally quite passive, preferring to live “harmoniously” though this often leads to exploitation. In terms of Labour, for example, the Taiwanese will denigrate Westerners as complainers for refusing to work overtime without pay, while on the other end my Taiwanese friend Chanel is called into work, overtime without pay, practically every weekend (and often for 2 days of the weekend) in addition to overtime and fulltime work during the week. Her employer: Hewlett-Packardt.

One day, I found myself at an intersection, that wasn’t busy but the light was still red and a large group of people were waiting. Eager to get home before being locked out, I walked across the empty street, prompting a random New Zealander who saw me to lambaste me for “setting a bad example for the Taiwanese” (apparently, a large crowd followed my leadership and marched in social revolution under my banner while I nursed a bubble tea in ignorance). “How do you expect the Taiwanese to ever behave properly, if they see a foreigner acting irresponsibly” the Kiwi asked me. I basically told him that I didn’t come to Taiwan expecting to teach the Taiwanese how to behave, and that what I did wasn’t such a big deal in Canada (in Quebec, it was often the only way across the street). A long debate than ensued, which was actually a nice refresher as I haven’t really had a person-to-person intellectual conversation in a long time, even with a guy who admits he’s “not very PC.” Communication barriers are huge at Tamkang University, where my Chinese is barely good enough to order a coke and the level of English, with the exception of the European exchange students, tends to be only slightly more stellar. The Taiwanese at the university more or less act like high school students (or in some cases like junior high school students) as most have never had a job, never done anything without “their bestest friends,” or done anything on their own or against their parent’s will (who provide them with their funding). When I tell them I came here alone, their jaws drop and they are speechless as to how anyone could be bold enough to attempt such a thing. I don’t mean to sound ethnocentric, but maturity generally stems from experience and the shy nature of the Taiwanese means they are often less experienced, and seem less mature than their foreign counterparts of the same age. You can really notice the differences between those who have studied overseas and those who haven’t, the differences are uncanny (I wonder what I’ll be like when I return to Canada, but somehow I think I’ll be the same old Ryan). In one class called Intercultural Communication (the only non-Mandarin class I’m taking), the professor wanted us to go and discuss intercultural issues as groups and so told us we could go outside the classroom to discuss things. It took about 10 minutes for me to convince the group that it was okay for us to do so, to ACTUALLY leave the classroom. We did actually have a little discussion, the subject was homosexuality and how different cultures accept it. I talked about how Canada just legalized same sex marriage and the controversy involved with that but the Taiwanese preferred to spread gossip and gigglying about 2-28 park (which is actually a memorial to those massacred by the Nationalist Chinese government in the late 1940s, but they never mentioned that so perhaps they didn’t know or didn’t feel it was important) being a hangout for gays and some Japanese talent agency which rumour has it forces its young male stars to have sex with the management. One guy said he thought they were legalizing same-sex marriage in Taiwan, but he wasn’t sure. I tried to explain to them that some Canadian cities, such as Montreal, have neighbourhoods known and proudly designated as gay villages, but I think they interpreted that as “Canada has little cities just for gay people, separate from the big ones.” Overall, it seemed somewhat superficial.
In general terms, they seem quite materialistic (when asked what they do for fun on a Friday night, both men and women generally respond with “GO SHOPPING!!!”), and overly romanticize Western culture and Westerners as strong, independent, punctual (they are very big believers in the punctuality of Westerners) are very concerned about appearances (since light skin is popular, girls will routinely carry umbrellas, more to block out the sun than the rain. As well, girls will wear very revealing short skirts but cover up pimples with potch marks, not unlike the ones sported by 18th century European aristocrats). Like Victorian England, social rules regarding sex and gender are somewhat strict and while they are generally obeyed on the surface, sexual advertising and literature suggest a culture exploding behind the scenes. From billboards where the models wear detachable skirts (ready to flap off with the next typhoon), to the phallic shaped skin coloured cartoon plush toys (whose “feet” look suspiciously like testes) that have in some of the arcade crane games. Y’know, the type of games where you throw in a coin, and get 30 seconds to operate crane with weak claws in the hopes of grabbing one of the plush toys inside. You try and try and try, but you can never get the crane to actually pick up anything, and even if does, it hits the wall of the hole and falls out, and it never really occurs to you that you have no real need for stuffed version of Doraemon . Anyways, they’re all over the place, mainly in the night markets (which also contain various food vendors who sell everything from stinky tofu, which really does stink, to snake blood and other delicacies) but then Taiwan is just one big night market.
The Taiwanese people are very bubbly, giggle a lot, and have been very generous with me, but often seem in denial of the darker aspects of their society. It seems like every famous bridge or precipice around Taipei is known as a “popular spot to suicide” (they use suicide as a verb). I always thought individualist societies were more prone to depression, but collectivism ain’t so great either if you don’t fit into the collective. It’s quite sad really, and makes me wonder how happy everyone is under their masks. Perhaps though, ignorance is bliss.