Dogs, Taiwan style

It's been a while since i had a relaxing weekend. Finally, I managed to pull off one, where no more than one day was devoted to school work. On Sunday, Blanka (a Czech girl doing an internship at the Czech cultural office in Taipei) and i went to Danshui (淡水). Danshui is a town just north of Taipei, noted as one of the oldest European settlement in Taiwan (settled and fought over by the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and British, not necessarily in this order), nowadays a popular place for the residents of Taipei to hang out during the weekends, stroll alongside the river, eat, shop, and watch the local celebrity - Turkish ice-cream man.

While nowadays 淡水 is a modern place with 50-floor high apartment buildings, scenes like this can also be found:



However, this picture is in no way representative of what Taiwan really looks like.

One thing that struck me during this trip are the Taiwanese dogs. First of all to clarify, the Taiwanese people do not eat dogs, or at least it is not common. Dogs are said to be a sought-after delicacy in Korea, as well as some parts of mainland China - mainly the south. I did see dishes like 'Dog stew' (česky asi psí guláš) on the menu in restaurants in Guangdong and Guangxi.

Dogs in Taiwan appear to fall into one of two categories. First, the stray dogs, mongrels, who seemingly don't belong to anyone, and are all over the place. Some of them look fine, some have been severely affected by the life on the street. There is about 5-10 dogs like that on the university campus - hanging around, sometimes running in circles on the track, but most of the time found sleeping by the library, seeking wisdom perhaps. Also one particular dog always comes to my guitar class, every Thursday. Not sure why, as the playing really isn't very nice to listen to.

Then there is the other kind, the dog princes and princesses. I got used to people putting clothes on dogs even back home. Here, clothes seem to be a bare minimum, even for the large dogs who certainly don't seem to be suffering from the cold. However, the Taiwanese dogs get to wear shoes. All kinds - slippers, fluffy ones, but preferably pink. I wouldn't be surprised to find the Hello Kitty logo on them. Many dogs wear a hat. And can you tell what is the purpose of this item?



Yeah, this is a dog pram. Like a baby pram, except dogs are put inside. Sometimes can be seen on the MRT, maybe to make sure that noone steps on the dog?? (i've never been quick enough to take a picture myself, so this one i kindly borrowed from a fellow blogger.)

Panda Politics

I missed an important point with my "Christmas in Taiwan" post yesterday. December 24, 2008 is in fact a historical day for Taiwan. Two pandas, presented as a gift by China, were flown from Sichuan, China to Taiwan yesterday, and introduced to their new home in Taipei Zoo (which is about 5 minutes by bus from my university).

A lot has been written about the relations and development between mainland China and Taiwan, but really, the panda story says it all.

The giant panda seems to be the most important Chinese export commodity, political tool and leverage. Not bad for a cute, lazy, furry bear which eats bamboo half the day, and sleeps the other half. I believe the only way to obtain a panda is to get it as a gift from the Chinese government, and it seems to signify an ever-lasting friendship and bound.



I guess in the case of Taiwan, a panda gift is like a guarantee that China takes the heating up of the relationship seriously. Or, it could represent that Taiwan has accepted the 'one China' policy. The previous Taiwanese government rejected the pandas, because the gift would be presented as 'domestic transfer of the animals', implying that Taiwan is part of China. The current, more pro-China government, accepted it. But the politics doesn't stop there. The pandas are called Tuan Tuan, and Yuan Yuan. The word 'tuanyuan' means 'unity'. The opposition leaders already called for renaming them, or at least finding nicknames for the poor animals, as the original names "are suggestive of Beijing's efforts to suppress Taiwan's sovereignty."

"Among the names that have received the most support so far are "Chih-ming, Chun-chiao, " "one China, one Taiwan," and "Wang-yao, Wang-shih." which are old-fashioned common Taiwanese names for children born into unfortunate circumstances." (Taiwan News)

Fortunately, it seems that most Taiwanese people don't care about all the political fuss and are just excited that they can go see the bears in about a month, after the quarantine is over. Although it is likely that for the first few months, seeing a panda will mean waiting in a line for two hours, only to catch a short glimpse of them before being pushed away by other eager visitors. There will be a few sad children who won't get to see them: "I'm banning my relatives from going to see the pandas, because one shouldn't use wild animals as presents", said one opposition legislator.

One of my friends commented: Now that the pandas are here, just over the hill from our university, we are safe. Even if China decided to invade Taiwan, they will make sure not to throw bombs anywhere close to the pandas.

Merry Xmas

聖誕節快樂! Christmas Eve is here, and I'm noticing that I have been forced to culturally adapt to the Taiwanese way of life.

December 24th in the Czech Republic for me would look something like this:

Get up at 10 a.m. Have a breakfast and watch several classic fairy-tales on TV (Pyšná princezna, Šíleně smutná princezna, Tři oříšky pro Popelku) by 12. Then, go for a walk in a nearby forest and leave some apples and nuts to the wild animals (or alternatively, go skiing) with my family. Come back by 4 p.m. Help my mom finish the preparations for Xmas dinner. Eat fried carp, potato salad & home made cookies around 6 p.m. Open presents, have a good time, eat, drink for the rest of the evening.

December 24th in Taiwan:

Get up at 7:30 a.m. Eat breakfast, finish up some school work. Start class at 9 a.m., do a serious presentation. Watch other people do their presentations and discuss De-westernization in social sciences, while eating chocolate and other sweets (at least that) Finish class at 12:30 p.m. Have some noodles, which my classmates kindly brought to have a Xmas lunch together. Take a Chinese class, 2 - 4 p.m. Come home, prepare another big presentations due tomorrow. Eat a takeaway 韓式泡菜鍋 (Korean kimgee and noodles) for Xmas dinner (that's a first). Finish school assignments by 10 p.m., then sit in the cafeteria, drink beer and laugh about this with several other foreigners.



The only positive thing about this is that Chinese new year is coming up in a month, and that, together with the semester break, means 6 weeks completely off!

Other than being busy with school recently, I also joined a newly formed 'hiking clique' and went for a very entertaining hiking trip outside Taipei to 平溪 last weekend. Entertaining because of the landscape (see a few pictures below), and also because Taiwanese hikers get extremely excited when they run into a loud group of 8 foreigners in the middle of the woods.

This is what the landscape looks like. Reminds me of Český ráj a bit.



It is possible to go up most of these rocky needles. The trails are surprisingly comfortable and appear safe.



and they are great. These are not my feet, the picture is taken from a fellow blog.



On a side note, i find myself explaining the unique Czech holiday customs fairly often, and they inevitably draw shocked reactions. For example..

Buying the carp (Xmas fish) alive and having it live in the bathtub in the bathroom for a week.. So i guess people who only have one bathroom can't take a shower for a week, while the fish is there? Also, the children often create an emotional bond with the fish and protest loudly when the father brings out the 'hammer' and the big knife to kill the fish. Some compassionate individuals decide to let the fish live, give it freedom and release it back to the river, instead of eating it. It is a paradox that the fish usually die soon back in the river, because they can't handle the temperature shock and don't know how to find food (being brought up commercially just for the purpose of being eaten on xmas eve).

December 6th: Mikuláš (St. Nicholas day) - streets are swarmed with people dressed up as angels, devils and Mikulášové (something between a bishop and a Santa Claus), for the purpose of scaring the bad children, and giving sweets to the good ones. After a succesful mission this year, my friend Petra went to a pub, dressed up as an angel, and someone accidentally set her wings (and hair, t-shirt..) on fire. I wish i could see that. (Péťo, to si prostě nemůžu nechat pro sebe :)

Easter - after explaining the concept of pomlázka, koledování, Czech men usually get accused of domestic violence on women, being discriminating, brutal and all that. But we're really gentle.. seriously!

December in Taiwan is lovely.

My December schedule is simply lovely. This week, I held two smaller class presentations. For a breather, had a traditional Czechoslovakian "free beer" night on Wednesday (there must have been at least 20 CS-people there this time!), and an IMICS Christmas dinner on Thursday - with majority of first and second year students, staff and several professors. A picture I've stolen from Lily:



It seems that this dinner was the last enjoyable event for most of us for the next few weeks. The remainder of my December schedule:

Dec 13 & 14: A conference on the topic of de-westernization, which all of my classmates 'voluntarily' join.

Dec 23 - a presentation about a TV show / movie through cross-cultural perspective.
Dec 24 - a presentation of the book "Researching Communications"
Dec 25 - a presentation of my research plan

(Christmas? Hello anybody?)

Dec 31 - a presentation of yet another research project

Dec 31 evening - 7 - 10 p.m. If interested, there is an option of joining a lecture on the topic "Demographic Changes and Dynamic Welfare Information System: The Application of GIS in Policy Research"

(I still have to see about this one. Never been to a lecture on New Year's Eve before!)

In the meanwhile, I look forward to finally taking a break and traveling around Asia in January and February. The options at the moment are 1. Philippines 2. Thailand, Laos, Vietnam.

I also became a defender of the reputation of the Czech Republic in Taiwan. As a part of yet another class project, we interviewed a Taiwanese student, who spent 2 years working and studying in the Czech Republic. Some of his notable observations about the country were:

* Beer and wine are not considered alcohol. Therefore, it is perfectly normal to drink beer with breakfast, or to bring a bottle of beer to school class. Huh?

* People who are not heavy drinkers and chain smokers essentially have no chance to make friends with other Czechs.

* Going home from a pub at night, one has to frequently step over drunk, unconscious people sleeping on the pavement.

* In winter, it is quite OK to shower only once or twice a week.

* Czech students (living in dormitories) are lazy to walk to a toilet. So they all have a plastic bottle on their window, and pee inside.

* He heard that Prague was a really dangerous city, but learned that "other than the chance of getting robbed, the city is quite safe"

* When this guy came to Prague for the first time, he met a friendly Czech man, who offered to make my Taiwanese friend a movie star, and invited him to an audition. Only after he arrived there and was asked to remove his clothes by the "director", he ascertained that it is in fact a porn audition.

* And yet, he claims to have loved every single aspect of his life in the Czech Republic.

Now, most of these experiences come from Brno and Třebíč, which I don't know that well, but seriously, is this really an image that an unbiased foreigner gets of the country? I've only been away for 3 months, but still feel reasonably confident that I did not observe any of the above listed characteristics during my 20+ years of life there. Has it really changed so much?

Hong Kong

Last week, I finally went outside Taiwan for the first time during this trip. I spent 4 months in Hong Kong in 2006 doing my semester abroad exchange, and wanted to go back ever since. It is only an hour flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, with dozens of fairly cheap flights every day, so the trip can be done very easily.

When I arrived in Hong Kong for the first time in August 2006 from Europe, I thought of the city as incredibly exotic, felt that there are almost no foreigners, and that the level of English spoken by people is not very good. Well, when I arrived in November 2008 from Taipei, the city had a very Western feel, it seemed that there are foreigners everywhere and everybody was talking to me in English. Restaurants, convenience shops, random people on the subway. Strange.. Admittedly, I survived my time in HK back then easily with speaking English only, so I guess people spoke English even two years ago (with the exception of staff in the dormitories at the university). This time, it took me several days to get over the reflex to speak to everyone in Mandarin, which is the third language for most people, after Cantonese and English.

The fact that I had been to HK before allowed me to follow an itinerary slightly different from most tourists and visitors, and combine the very touristy bits with some uncommon ones, as well as the purely sentimental, which I shall introduce in a moment.

When approaching the HK airport from the East, one can be in for a great treat, if you sit on the right-hand side of the plane, as there is a chance of great birds-eye view of the whole city. Luckily, EVA air allows passengers to choose their seats, so i had the chance to do just that. Sandy was already waiting at the airport when I got there. Sandy is a former student of HKUST (or the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), whom I met during my stay there, and we became good friends, along with Jirka / George, the other Czech student in HK at that time. Sandy visited Prague about 3 times during her exchange stay in Europe and I had to promise to visit her in Hong Kong as soon as I get the chance. She was also my host during this trip. Here she is.



Not ordered chronologically, some of the things I got to do in the "Fragrant Harbor" were:
The touristy ones:

Victoria Peak at night.
Victoria Peak is a hill / mountain directly above the Hong Kong Central district, which offers excellent views over the city. There are not many places in the world that can match this place in terms of urban scenery. While the mountain is usually packed with people, windy, and there's not much to do other than enjoying the views, taking pictures, shopping or playing computer games (in our particular case), it is absolutely worth the trip, even after several visits. The Peak is also noted for having some of the most expensive residences in the world.



Tsim Sha Tsui at night.
Also for the views of the city, except looking over the Victoria Harbor at the Hong Kong island, enjoying views of the scenery.



Lan Kwai Fong at night.
LKF is a party area. About 2 blocks packed with dozens of bars, clubs, pubs. There are only about 3 major places for a night out in Hong Kong, and this one is the biggest of them.

(The pic is not from LKF, but it's a bar anyways. Gloria, Sandy and Mavis at a wannabe Turkish bar - has a Turkish flag, shisha menu and a belly dancer - a Chinese one)



Mong Kok
This must be a place with the highest population density in the world, where the Hongkongers go for fun, shopping, cinemas, karaoke and all that.

The less touristy activities:

Cheung Chau Island
There are probably hundreds of small and big islands belonging to Hong Kong. This is one of the more quiet ones (which is appreciated after several days in HK), kind of a fishing village, which apparently only has one car (a police car), nice beach, sea food restaurants, opportunity to buy a house, with a garden - which is a big thing there (A joke that describes Hong Kong quite well: In Hong Kong, the rich people buy a Mercedes. The even richer people buy a Rolls-Royce. The richest people buy a lawnmower.)





Tai Mo Shan
The highest peak in Hong Kong, with an altitude of 958 m (that's a lot, considering how close to the sea it is). To get up, one can follow a nice trail about half the way. After that, it's either paved road or tiny road through scrubs and rocks to the radar station at the top. There are some stray cows wandering around, almost no people, nice views (if only there wasn't so much smog) and for me, the highest peak of anything has always a special magic.



A minute later, after walking around all the signs saying "Danger - radiation", one of the stray cows came running from behind a building. Chasing it was a tiny dog, with frenzy in his eyes, hunting instinct just awoken.



Malls
Not my favorite thing to do, but every mall in Hong Kong seems to have a special Christmas decoration, and the local people love to take pictures with them. Clearly, I couldn't escape.



Others

HKUST
The university is located far away from the busy city center, in a steep hill right by the ocean, has its own beach, incredible views and going to school from the dormitory means spending 15 minutes in the elevator. To me, it remains the most beautiful university campus in the world. We came here to observe and join the annual fall activities of recently graduated students - putting on their caps and gowns and taking pictures "with every tree and every stone on campus", as Sandy put it. I also met Sindy, a former exchange student at VSE - University of Economics in Prague (at the beginning of each semester, for about 2 years straight, I met Hong Kong exchange students at the first ESN Nation2Nation party in Exit Chmelnice. The returning students even started telling the new ones: At the first party, a guy called Borek will approach you, asking if you're from HKUST :)

Dormitory



Stadium



Sindy and Sandy, recent graduates.



Sushi
Normally, there's probably nothing too unique about eating sushi in Hong Kong. This one was, as the bill we got after dinner was about 40 HK Dollars, when it should have been 400 HKD. We even pointed that out to the waitress, and she still kept it at the original (low) price.

Since I like the intercultural differences, here are several random differences between Hong Kong and Taiwan that I observed:

• Before each meal in a restaurant, the staff in Hong Kong brings tea, which the people use to wash their chopsticks, cup, bowl and so forth. The Taiwanese don't do that - on the other hand, they often carry their own chopsticks with them and use them to eat out.
• Minibuses in Hong Kong have big digital displays, which show the current speed of the vehicle for the passengers to see. There is a sound signal when the speed exceeds the maximum allowed speed. The drivers don't care and enjoy the scared looks on the passengers' faces. Not so in Taiwan. Also, the big buses in HK are double-deckers.
  
• The current financial crisis seems to have quite a severe impact in Hong Kong. There are cartoons on the MTR (subway), designed to explain government steps to fight it and to calm people down.
• Speaking of the subway. It is called MTR in Hong Kong. In Taipei, the same thing is called MRT. The best one is in Singapore though. SMRT. The word 'smrt' means 'death' in Czech. Imagine walking around the city and seeing signs like this, all day long:
  
  // DEATH --> //
  
  That's what a trip to Singapore feels like to a Czech.
  
• For some reason, there are almost no scooters in HK.
• 7-11 convenience shops. Some products are the same as in Taiwan, some are different. No eggs boiled in tea, for example. Excellent example of the Global-Local strategy for the international marketing enthusiasts.
  

Taiwan facts and observations, part III.

Winter has arrived in Taiwan last week. Temperatures dropped to 15 degrees Celsius and the winter coats, hats, scarves and gloves came out, and foreigners wearing only t-shirts got to stand out even more. Today, we are back to 27 degrees and winter is apparently over.

Over the last seven days, I bought flight tickets to Hong Kong; went to Wufenpu ie. a crazy night market selling nothing but clothes (and stinky tofu occasionally); went ice-skating again, this time successfully; went to a Czech yogurt party; spent a lot of time in the radio lab working on a project for my Cross-Culture Communication class. I also took a Chinese TOP test, just for fun and to see where I stand with my Chinese skills. The Chinese teacher felt that I could be able to handle the intermediate level test (level 3, out of 4, with 4 being the best), so I tried. Wrong. I didn't understand anything.

Also, I had a final exam in my Chinese class, and the classes are now finished. I really learned a lot there, but will be mostly on my own from now on, except for the language exchange and the tutoring. After the exam, our class had a dinner together, and our teacher (whom I originally assessed as 18 years old :) revealed a number of shocking surprises.

Here's a picture: From left to right: The teacher; Luisa from Italy; Ivy from Canada; Myself; My Linh from Denmark.



I will post a better picture later, if I get my hands on one.

Now, for my Taiwan facts and observations part III.

• the Taiwanese night club fashion is: For girls: Super short skirts or dresses, as revealing as possible, seeing a bikini as a top is not uncommon. (but the girls still behave like teenagers, more often than not).
  
• Guys in clubs mostly wear the badass hiphop wide baseball caps.
• Girls also often use fake eye-lashes.
• Every once in a while, I see a girl / woman with extremely long nails on her pinkies, while all the other nails are normal. This was explained to me as "well, we really like long nails, but they are mostly really impractical. However, not a problem on the pinky." Also, one friend told me that the nails bring her good luck.
• Many Taiwanese men go find their brides to countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, then bring them back to Taiwan and marry them. I don't know the exact reason for this - whether it's a lack of females in the Taiwanese population, or if the Taiwanese women do not want to marry the Taiwanese guys. However, people from the South-East Asian countries are somewhat looked down upon here.
• When people here get a cold, or a flu, they wear facial masks (on the street, in class), in order not to spread the disease. This seems quite practical. I guess this is at least partially caused by the serious SARS epidemic several years ago.
  
• Every evening, the garbage cars go around the city, playing Beethoven's Fur Elise. This is a signal for people to come out with their garbage and pass it on to the garbage men. I bet Beethoven never imagined his piece would become the garbage anthem in Taiwan.
• Every Hello! or Goodbye! here is accompanied by ferocious hands-waving.
• All the pastries in Taiwan are sweet and oily. Once, at the early stage of my stay, I was overjoyed to find something remotely similar in appearance to our bread. So I bought it, only to find out that there are raisins inside!! They also have a version with sweet red beans. Yuck.
• I have yet to see this with my own eyes, but apparently, it is quite common here to hire strippers to perform at funerals! I believe the idea is this: The more people attend a funeral, the better off the soul of the deceased will be. What's the most sure way of getting people to attend a funeral? Promise them a strip show. Twisted, but effective.
  

What's been up & IMICS intro

Friday has unofficially become my blog day, so to adhere to the tradition, here is another review of the events of the past week.

Last Saturday, we had an event called NCCU Olympics. It was basically a tournament in football, baseball and dodgeball. Unfortunately, there has been a strange pattern - almost every Saturday when I wake up in the morning, it is raining. It wasn't any different last week. So we only managed to play 1 1/2 football games. At that point, football was canceled to protect the football pitch and the participants were all so wet that nobody turned up for the other sports. NCCU Olympics was over, but the rain unfortunately wasn't. In fact, the weather has been really bad every day of this week. The temperature dropped to about 18 degrees, which in Taiwan means one thing.. "So cold!!!". So mid-November is the first time I wore a sweatshirt here. It's also been wet and rainy, and generally not too pleasant.

All my evening activities (judo and guitar) have been canceled this week. Judo because of some important judo exams, guitar because of mid-terms at the university. At least we went to have a dinner together with the judo people. In a Italian restaurant, no less. So I also took more than 2 months to go out for western food here (not counting ice cream in Mc Donalds). On Monday, our IMICS program decided to go ice-skating. Unfortunately, as we arrived at the ice arena, we learned that it was closed to public because of some speed skating event taking place there. So we ended up going bowling instead, which was also great fun.

Other than a few more meetings and dinners and a "4 beers for free Czechoslovakian night", the week has been fairly uneventful until today: I was walking to our project meeting, and a Taiwanese girl was walking in the other direction (I've never seen her before). Just as we passed each other, out of nowhere she said: "Mám ráda nakupování!" and kept walking. This is Czech for "I like shopping". I was too shocked to say anything and ask her, where did that come from? Was she talking to me? Did she even know that I was Czech? Or was she just practicing for a Czech class? Either way, I've encountered way more Czech language in Taiwan than I would ever have expected.

The Taiwanese people were fairly excited about the biggest event of the week - the detention of former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian - I believe he is currently in prison, being prosecuted for corruption and money-laundering, and recently went on a hunger strike.

I finally gathered enough pictures to be able to introduce my classmates (with one exception), ie. IMICS first-year students.

From left to right is:

Lenka - from Slovakia. The first person I met in Taiwan. My guardian angel for the first few weeks and a mischievous older sister ever since. We annoy others by chatting in Czech and Slovak during class breaks. Sometimes, she speaks Spanish to me and is surprised that I don't follow.

Maria Jose - a representative of the Taiwanese Chile community. Does not approve of scheduling project discussions on a Saturday evening (I got used to it pretty quickly)



Ryan - from Canada. The miraculous Matrix-like speed of his hand, the reflex to jump in the picture so quickly and the facial expression all come from his years of working as a professional juggler, circus performer and actor.

Lilian - from Taiwan, is undoubtedly the nicest and sweetest person from our group. Week in and week out, she has to explain that "the light bulb has not arrived yet", therefore we see all the presentations in purple color only.

Eddie - from Taiwan, a bowling champion, we are always classmates and almost always teammates, also an excellent companion to go drink beer with.



Not present at the bowling event were, from left to right:

Micky - from Taiwan. The first time we met, she introduced herself as "one of the Walt Disney characters". I guessed Cinderella. Just yesterday she promised to join me in the guitar class. Who knows, maybe we will start a band together one day!

Lucy - from Taiwan. Helps me survive boring classes with her incredible pencil-twirling skills - I could watch that for hours. Loves to draw pictures on the board during presentations.




now for our incredible "Night Market team"

Lily - from Mexico - the adoptive mom for Len and I, the happiest person I know, who speaks a charming mix of English, Spanish and Chinese. She wants to become Taiwanese, even though she hates Hello Kitty, pink color and tiny cutie-cutie dogs. Other options are Thailand and Praha.

Len - from Taiwan, inseparable from Lily. Always glamorous, works as an English teacher, is learning Spanish and German and when it comes to Chinese, he teaches me excellent phrases like 吃豆腐, 炒魷魚, 炒飯, 數饅頭.



Cecilia (or Lenka) - not our classmate, but a Taiwanese student from the Russian department, who is diligently studying Czech and plans on studying there in a few years. Also my language exchange partner (a real one, not what the Nov 9 post might suggest).



Kai - from Canada, hasn't joined any of our activities this week, so I don't have his picture. Last time I checked, he was still on a mission to move away from his girlfriend without upsetting her too much.
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A Squid - is not my classmate. I had it for dinner after the bowling, and it looked excellent and tasted even better. Highly recommended.