Poser

You know, it's been a while since I've pulled up my empty blog post and have not been able to think of anything I really wanted to write about. But, I guess part of that is that I use this blog primarily as a place to tell big news or talk about major (and usually positive) developments in my life.

But the truth is that not everything that happens in my life gets posted on this blog. Part of this is for the obvious reasons: no time, a desire for privacy for myself and for others in my life, a very acute understanding that this is arguably the most public forum in existence, and that here more than anywhere else my dad's credo that you shouldn't write anything you wouldn't want someone else reading is 100% applicable.

Another reason, though, is that I don't like admitting weakness.

And weakness, in this context, means anything even remotely resembling homesickness.

So what did I do today? I came home from school with a desperate need for food and familiarity. I grabbed my Amazon Kindle (Amazon: not just American, but Seattle-based!) and headed across the street to Brunch Cafe, which, with its soft music, free wifi, aloof view of traffic outside, and overall atmosphere of cool casualness, is the closest thing I can find here to a Seattle coffee shop. (There's also a Starbucks nearby, but having a familiar chain with unfamiliar aspects like no garbage cans is almost worse--plus it's a chain.) Once there, I enjoyed a dinner of a chicken sandwich (I miss sandwiches!) and almond hot chocolate (I miss almond-flavored drinks, and the need for hot beverages in November!) while I sat and read the New Yorker.

In essence, I took every conceivable stereotype of Seattlites and embodied them, for a little while, all by myself here in Kaohsiung. I neglected to wear my hipster glasses, but I may as well have gone all-out in plaid and skinny jeans.

After dinner, I swung by a local grocery store to pick up some coffee, some peanut butter, and some Ocean Spray cranberry juice. I then went to a fruit stand to purchase, not mangoes or pineapples or papayas, but oranges, and apples. And not just any apples: Washington apples.

I already posted, indirectly, about missing people back home. And I was warned, time and time again, that I would experience culture shock over here.

But here's the thing: this isn't culture shock. I'm not reacting against anything here, even those aspects (for example, the traffic rules) which seem entirely nonsensical from a Western perspective. I still love Kaohsiung, quirks included. Rather, I'm simply missing various aspects of my life in Seattle, from stupid little things like it being cold (who misses that??) to, of course, not having to struggle for each sentence in order to communicate with any but a handful of people.

So there it is: I'm a Kaohsiung inhabitant posing as a Seattlite, or a Seattlite posing as a Kaohsiung inhabitant. Who's to say which, really; this process will probably reverse itself in a year, when I'm back in the rainy coffee shop culture of Seattle. But in the meantime I'll revel in my little moments of weakness here in Kaohsiung. And maybe I'll even share them on occasion--because, positive or not, they are a major force in my life.