Christmas in Taiwan

Hey all here's a mish-mash of some of the things I sent out in Xmas emails. Enjoy.

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to you. I've been pre-occupied with applying to Grad Schools (which should be finished as soon as Lakevold hands his letters of reference to my parents) and planning my travels over the next 6 weeks (they're kicking us out of the residence for Chinese New Year's in January, so I'm taking the time to travel around Japan, China, and Hong Kong/Macau). On December 28th I leave for Osaka (class is supposed to go until the Jan 11th, but I'm leaving early because A) My friend in Japan has time off at that time and B) I don't care about the credit anyway). And this way I get to spend New Year's (at least Western New Year's) in Osaka, and what could by wrong about that, eh? As for Xmas, I still have no idea what, if anything, I'm going to do for it. One of the German guys was talking about watching all the Star Wars film in chronological order back to back, and some of the Czechs wanted to go for a beer. The hotel room thing was planned over a month ago with a Taiwanese friend from Taipei, and I found things planned even a day ago often fall through with this particular individual, so I doubt that will actually happen. On Christmas Day, I am going to a Beijing style opera, that thing that's known for screaming and colorful costumes but its required on my visa that I go to at least one, and then in the evening going to work the front desk. The residence is having a Secret Santa-type gift exchange where anyone could end up with your gift. I was originally considering wrapping a pack of condoms, mainly to see the look on the face of an innocent Taiwanese girl who normally would freak out if she even set foot in a guy’s room to borrow a paperclip, but figured this would be too much work on my part, would do no wonders for my already questionable reputation on campus. To make a short story, long, I ended up wrapping real maple syrup instead that I brought from Canada.
They do actually get into Xmas here, it turns out, but it's not the same as Xmas back home. Basically, take the rampant materialism of the Xmas season back home, add in the rampant everyday materialism of the Taiwanese people, and subtract any connection with religion whatsoever, and that’s what Xmas is like in Taiwan. For example, instead of having all stores closed on Xmas, they make all the stores open 24hours!! Yay, true Xmas spirit! They also have fireworks on Xmas, because in Chinese culture, a holiday isn’t a holiday until some gunpowder gets ignited. On Chinese New Year’s in January, they do close things (hence why I’m getting kicked out), but they don’t exchange gifts, but rather give their children red envelopes filled with money, which the kids get excited about like Western kids get excited about Xmas gifts. My Taiwanese roommate asked me why we don’t usually give people money as gifts in Western cultures, and I told them it was because in our culture giving money isn’t considered very creative and its like you just didn’t have time to get a real present. To which he responded, but “money IS creative, because you can give a lot of money, or a little money.” I should also mention that my roommate, like practically all Taiwanese, studies Business and Economics.
Speaking of Xmas. I read your Xmas story, or creative non-fiction piece, about Santa and the great Xmas lie. I’ve attached a copy to this email with some comments and small suggestions, here and there, but not too many as it looked it had already been through some editing. All in all, a good story. You had me laughing out loud at a few points, which caused my Taiwanese roommate to look at me strangely, which only made me laugh more. Reminded me of when I was first exposed to the truth. My parents had a friend of theirs dress up as Santa every year on Xmas Eve (as it turns out, he was also a bit of an alcoholic and like your uncle Victor, smelt suspiciously of booze. Why do they always pick the ppl who smell like booze to dress like Santa?)
Yeah Taiwan's not as warm as it used to be, but it's no Manitoba. People go around in heavy winter jackets, but the warmest thing I've worn is a windbreaker. People constantly ask me if I'm cold and I just say "I'm not cold. I'm Canadian." This is a culture where people will drive 4 hours to see snow, the odd time it speckles a mountain top. I literally had to explain what a snowflake was to a student I’m tutoring in English, because she didn’t realize “those star-shaped things are real? I thought they just were made up.” When I tell them how cold it gets in Brandon, they freak out. Basically that was the main question I got in my “Beautiful Hometown” presentation. For my Intercultural Communication class, which has a lot of fellow foreigners in it introducing their hometown’s like Cologne, Germany and Lyons, France, I made a no-doubt inspiring presentation about Brandon, Manitoba. Go Wheaties! Basically, it just denigrated into me trying to explain what a social was, and wishing I had brought along that movie we made last summer.
As far as classes go, I still don’t really know what’s going on most of the time, and have resorted to trying to teach myself from the textbook (though, as you can imagine, this does not do wonders for pronunciation and listening). My Conversation professor basically told me that at this point, Ryan Skardal’s Chinese was kicking my Chinese’s ass and that I needed to get more excited about it, or to use his words “more horny about it.” This was the second suspiciously sexual comment I’ve received from a person in a position of authority here in the last week. Just last Friday, I was meeting with the head of the International Department and her dialogue basically went like this “…so if you could arrange with your professors the time you will be taking your exams, I would like… wow, you really have nice eyebrows!” If you combine this with the incident a few weeks ago, when my morning Mandarin instructor unexpectedly popped out of her blouse during a “one-on-one” after class study session (in my defense, I was seriously only asking a question about Chinese), I’m beginning to think I’m having some sort of pheremonal effect on the Taiwanese over 40 crowd. As for the 18 – 30 crowd, no such luck as the closest thing I’ve got to a date is a girl just wanting to practice her English. That and the Taiwanese girls at the residence, judging by the role they cast for me in the International House Drama night, generally just think of me as a guy who gets drunk on the subway and hits on women, but then this what they usually think of all westerners. At the end of Reitaku night I got some flowers though.
Also, a funny story you might like. I've been tutoring a few students English, and this one Indonesian girl wanted me to try listening to some English songs so I brought my CDs one day. I played her some Barenaked Ladies, but she had trouble understanding most of their songs (except the Shopping one, as Taiwanese generally LOVE shopping) and why 5 men would go around calling themselves naked ladies is just one of those cultural mysteries that are quite hard to explain. Odder still was when we moved on to the Russian Futurists, who aren't Russian, aren't really Futurists (as if I really know what a "Futurist" is- someone believing in the future?), and well were only one guy (talk about messed up plural/singular). She seemed to like the song "It's not really cold when it snows," to which she asked "Isn't it cold when it snows?" and I'm like "yes, but you see its got this metaphorical thing... One I'm sure you'll appreciate if you are indeed back in Brandon, is that when it came to the part where he talks about two snowflakes matching, and I told her that no two are alike because they are actually shaped like stars, and she's like "that's real? I thought people just made that up." Of course I might ask her equally silly-sounding questions about orangutans or Javanese coffee. If you want to hear more about my experiences in Taiwan, you can check out my blog at http://www.mydogsmellslikecoconuts.blogspot.com/, but let me know how your experiences have been as well.