culture shock and whining

I think I mentioned, a while back, about culture shock. A friend of Neil's (who's spent time in Taiwan) described it as encoutering something frustrating and just ridiculous but instead of attributing it to the differences in cultures and habits, the simplistic part of your brain will want to just scream at all the Chinese people for being so stupid.

So, I had a very clear picture of that shock last night.

At my school every three months the kids move to a different level of learning English. At that time, we write up a grade report with their homework and quiz averages, final oral and written tests, whether or not they passed (they always do, but not for ability) and a few long-hand comments from their teachers (both their Chinese and foriegn teachers, thankfully, in English).

So, as I'm finishing a class my AD (academic director, I think) brings me the stack of reports to give to my kids. I had to write out my comments and such and give 'em to her for review. She handed 'em back to me saying I needed to white out the couple of places I'd scratched out a word I decided against.

Now, it helps to know there's a huge fascination with white out here. Every kid has a bottle or a little tape dispenser in their bag. The things aren't like the big brushes I remember from when I was little, they're like using a pen, but it's still a blobby mess that doesn't quite match the paper, and of course it leaves a big blank spot on the paper.

So when I get these hand-written grade reports from my boss, reports I had to write in my scribbly, left-hander smeared way, and she points at a couple places where I'd scratched out a word and tells me for the third time I need to white it out 'cause, "it looks really unprofessional," I was about 30 second away from saying, "and white out is professional?"

It took me a couple hours but I finally got it. White out is professional, here. That's what I'd been missing. Yes, I should've been listening to her anyway, but it's hard to convince myself that white out is a huge improvement over just crossing out a word. Maybe some people would agree it's better, but I'm so used to important reports going by e-mail or being printed for the right spacing and font and so forth, that doing anything "important" by hand is just anathema. White out is just whiting out anathema.

So, that just sharped the point on at least understanding some of the other things we're struggling with. Like the cold.

I wrote a while back that it was finally getting cold. Well, it's still not cold, I guess. I don't think it's been below 50 F, but it's one thing to enjoy when you're moving around at work then walking home and it's 50-ish, versus when you get home and your apartment is 50.

There's no central heat here, no forced air, nothing. We've bought a space heater for our bedroom, but it doesn't really heat the room, it just creates a bubble of slightly warmer air. I looked into buying one of those big oil heaters, the stand up kind that looks like an old steam radiator. But it seems like a lot of cost (4,000 NT or more, at least $130) and effort (cab ride to get the heavy, bulky thing home) for one, maybe two winters, especially since we didn't even start having a problem with the cold 'til January.

But the cold is still a gripe. They're very ready for the heat and humidity here. There are A/C units and central air everywhere. We have three A/C units in our apartment, one for each room, but no heat. Which's a surprise 'cause everyone's wearing thick coats by November, just as Marie and I were getting comfortable and taking out vests.

I'm reminding myself that if we'd been in Armenia, we'd be struggling more. I read a journal a guy there wrote about not being able to write long, 'cause he needed to get back to the warmth of the wood stove. So we're not that cold, but we're not quite comfortable, either.

The other thing I'll throw in here is about riding the subway.

The subway is usually just fine: clean, efficient, on time; but sometimes you get a couple of instances in quick succession and it makes you wanna yell at people. Specifically, little, old people. They seem most prone to pushing you so they can get on a train, or just so they can get past. Though I did notice, if you follow one, it's like having a lead blocker. They also tend to be the one to stop on the side of the escalator where you're supposed to walk, so you're left with the frustration of having to stop with them, or push past them. One is a feeling of having your inertia killed, the other is a sense of having to knock over an old person for a few extra seconds. I usually wait, mom.

I don't know what all of this means. For months now I've been telling myself being jostled on the subway is just a product of having so many people in one place, or being funneled through one place, and that's in a crowded city. But it still feels different than D.C. or Madrid. I also know there's a difference in their personal space versus mine; I'm just not sure how to reconcile my personal space with being halted and shoved by old, tiny Chinese people.

But I'll end with an up side. After a day of being poked by culture shock over grade reports and pushed around the subway and you know your apartment is gonna be cold when you get home and there isn't a thing you can do about it, it's really neat that you can stop almost anywhere and get hot noodles.


















This bowl of noodles is a standard favorite. You can get it with a little pork, and the green is cilantro, and it's hot! Even by the time you walk home and up four flights. It's fast, too. It takes longer to get food from McDonald's than these little stands. And the best part, it's a whole 50 NT, $1.75 at most.

So there's definite ups and downs. I think, as my dad mentioned getting through the cold dark winter, we're struggling with the cool, overcast, but culturally variable winter.