I don't know why, but I do love it when I come across a pairing of two that seems to suit in some way or another. Maybe it's a subconscious human instinct, to join two things to make a single one complete. In any case, I've been noticing plenty of pairings lately, and thought I'd go ahead and share them with you.
Kids' Names:
The best part here is that I have a pair of pairings, or actually a trio of pairings, taken from both of my schools. I notice paired names most often when kids sitting next to each other have appropriate names, or their names are next to each other on the roll call.
Take, for instance, two of my 5th graders at Hanmin who sit in the same row: Amos and Andy.
And then there's the two 6th grade girls at Qingshan whose names directly follow each other: Penny and Candy.
The best one, though, is a tidbit Maggie passed along to me today on the walk to one of our classrooms. She said that one of the teachers at the school has twins, a boy and a girl. Their family name is Li, and the twins are named Li Ke and Li Le. (李可 and 李樂.) Yes, Chinese speakers, that's right--the kids' names are made of the halves of the word 可樂--cola. According to Maggie, people ask the dad how his drink is, and things of that nature, all the time. And I have to say, he deserves it!
Smaller Pairings:
My most pervasive frustration with traffic here comes out when I am most fully taking advantage of traffic here. It's a perverse pairing. Essentially, when I'm running late and I hit traffic, I get quite annoyed at the cars, scooters, pedestrians, bicyclists and pushcarts--yes, pushcarts--in my way. Stupid Taiwanese traffic, I say, why is this person pushing a cart by hand down the middle of the street? This would never happen in America...
I then rev my engine and find the best way around the problem, weaving and making marginally legal turns as necessary. That is, I drive in such a way that, if I were in America, would get me in massive trouble. It's a catch-22: the very order I'm longing for is the order I am more than happy to thrown to the wayside to get me to my destination quicker.
Another pairing: The Hunger Games and Sour Patch Kids. I like to eat sour candy when I go to the movies. Taiwan has a serious shortage of sour candy. However, Kaitlin brought me some like the gem she is, and so today I got to relive one of my favorite essential pairings from America: candy and a great movie. Nothing not to love!
So those are my pairings from the day. What are yours?
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Driving in the rain
Let me just preface this by saying that I love the rain. My roommates here think I'm crazy; for her college experience, Rachel chose sunny Florida. But not me. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and I voluntarily went to college in the city known worldwide for two things: coffee and rain. One of my favorite things in the world is the sound of the rain tickling the window or massaging the roof. So just bear that in mind when I say...
I hate the rain in Taiwan.
Okay, so maybe that's a little harsh. I still love the sounds of the rain, its fresh scent, the damp, clean-washed look of the bricks in my apartment courtyard after it's rained. And perhaps, if those were the only, or even the primary, ways in which I encountered rain here, I'd still love the rain. After all, as friends can attest, it's always raining in Taipei, and I'm always smiling out from under my umbrella.
But, instead, I typically encounter the rain here in what is perhaps the worst way possible apart from being strapped to a waterboard under a drainpipe during a typhoon: driving a scooter.
Now, most of you do not drive a scooter. Most of you, as Google Analytics and my own keen understanding of where most of my friends live tell me, live in the Pacific Northwest, and many of you drive cars. Which means you drive in the rain, and often.
"Come on, Bekah," you say. "It's just rain! You've been driving in it since you were 15, what's the big deal?"
To you, I say this: think back to the last time you were driving in the rain--probably yesterday--and picture this. You're on the freeway, your windshield wipers straining to keep up with the currents streaming down your windshield, which, despite the best efforts of your defrosting unit, is completely fogged over. You clutch the steering wheel and hunch forward to try and see. Ever wary of inevitable hydroplaning, you slow down, and a semi passes you, sending barrels of brown water airborne and painting the side of your car in filth. A van creeps up beside you, attempting to pass at a rate 1mph faster than the speed you're going, and finally settles just in front of you, creating an eternal fountain of brown sludge which coats your windshield and renders your windshield wipers completely useless.
Now picture that you're on a scooter. Your helmet is your windshield, and there are no windshield wipers or defrosting unit; the semis and vans are still semis and vans, but you have no windows or doors or roof and now their spray is heading directly for you, and you alone. Hydroplaning may not be much of a problem, but now you have two wheels, not a stable four, and every surface, including your tires, the road, and, especially, every parking garage's floor, is like ice, so good luck going around corners or down slopes or, as is the case with the parking garage, both at once.
Welcome to my morning commute when it rains. It's me, my helmet, and my 7-11 poncho against the whole wet world, and if I make it to school without my pants soaked to the knee in mud, I count it a good day. So, yes, I hate the rain in Taiwan. You would too. But perhaps it's a necessary prelude, giving me a reason to curse this Taiwanese "winter" and pray again for the harsh and unrelenting sun.
I hate the rain in Taiwan.
Okay, so maybe that's a little harsh. I still love the sounds of the rain, its fresh scent, the damp, clean-washed look of the bricks in my apartment courtyard after it's rained. And perhaps, if those were the only, or even the primary, ways in which I encountered rain here, I'd still love the rain. After all, as friends can attest, it's always raining in Taipei, and I'm always smiling out from under my umbrella.
But, instead, I typically encounter the rain here in what is perhaps the worst way possible apart from being strapped to a waterboard under a drainpipe during a typhoon: driving a scooter.
Now, most of you do not drive a scooter. Most of you, as Google Analytics and my own keen understanding of where most of my friends live tell me, live in the Pacific Northwest, and many of you drive cars. Which means you drive in the rain, and often.
"Come on, Bekah," you say. "It's just rain! You've been driving in it since you were 15, what's the big deal?"
To you, I say this: think back to the last time you were driving in the rain--probably yesterday--and picture this. You're on the freeway, your windshield wipers straining to keep up with the currents streaming down your windshield, which, despite the best efforts of your defrosting unit, is completely fogged over. You clutch the steering wheel and hunch forward to try and see. Ever wary of inevitable hydroplaning, you slow down, and a semi passes you, sending barrels of brown water airborne and painting the side of your car in filth. A van creeps up beside you, attempting to pass at a rate 1mph faster than the speed you're going, and finally settles just in front of you, creating an eternal fountain of brown sludge which coats your windshield and renders your windshield wipers completely useless.
Now picture that you're on a scooter. Your helmet is your windshield, and there are no windshield wipers or defrosting unit; the semis and vans are still semis and vans, but you have no windows or doors or roof and now their spray is heading directly for you, and you alone. Hydroplaning may not be much of a problem, but now you have two wheels, not a stable four, and every surface, including your tires, the road, and, especially, every parking garage's floor, is like ice, so good luck going around corners or down slopes or, as is the case with the parking garage, both at once.
Welcome to my morning commute when it rains. It's me, my helmet, and my 7-11 poncho against the whole wet world, and if I make it to school without my pants soaked to the knee in mud, I count it a good day. So, yes, I hate the rain in Taiwan. You would too. But perhaps it's a necessary prelude, giving me a reason to curse this Taiwanese "winter" and pray again for the harsh and unrelenting sun.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
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.
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.
The Inevitable
The big events of today were always likely to happen, though they were never thing I hoped would.
Please note: this does not apply to my school day, which was great as always.
Let's begin with my last night's sleep--an odd topic, I know, but wait for it to make sense. Sometime early this morning (who knows how early), I had a dream that I had finally heard back on the Marshall scholarship (the mysterious application I've referenced on here before), and that I had gotten it. But, it being a dream and all, and dreams being utterly screwy and nonsensical, the Marshall somehow involved me going to India, rather than Britain. Odd, and the excitement of the dream was enough to wake me up and keep me from falling back asleep for a while, or from forgetting those details.
Then I went to school. And taught. And ate. And chatted. And left. And found a great new tea place on the way home. And got home. And sat down to open my email.
And, lo and behold, in my inbox, the long-awaited results from the British Consulate!--but not of the positive variety. Nope, my suspicions of late notification held, and I learned that I will not have to scramble to find and purchase a plane ticket and hotel room before the interviews next week. This part I had begun to regard as inevitable towards the end of last week.
In most respects, the email was identical to the one I received last year, but it differed in three respects: the date (later than last year by about a week), and it was actually addressed to me individually, rather than sent in un-concealed mass format (which, together with the previous difference, made me wonder if perhaps I made it further in the consideration process this year, though I doubt it). The third difference was the name of the British Consulate General, since they recently appointed a new one: and her name is Indian in origin. A glance at the time stamp showed that it was sent at 1:28am Taiwanese time, meaning that it is entirely possible and/or likely that I got a rejection letter from the kind British Consulate of Indian extraction at the same time that I dreamed I was going to India for the Marshall scholarship.
Proof that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I may have to ponder this coincidence for a while.
The other point of inevitability came after Chinese class tonight.
See, in Taiwan, they say that if you ride a scooter, it's not "if" you get in a scooter accident, it's "when." Well, tonight was my when.
Heading home from class, I was turning left from Zihciang to Mincyuan, waiting patiently in my little scooters-turn-left-here box until the light turned green. I was actually thinking about driving in Taiwan; how much I've learned about it since I got here, etc. Ah, irony. The light turned, and I went--without looking around first to see if people were actually stopping.
And, as it turned out, they weren't. I made it no more than a few feet outside of my box before I heard a horn coming at me from outside my peripheral vision; I hit the brakes and came to a quick stop, but not before a scooter entirely failed to avoid me and hit my front tire, continuing unphased as my wheel turned sharply and made my scooter, suddenly stationary and without a solid base, fall over. I jumped free, accidentally revving the engine as I did so, in time to watch a small truck and several more scooters passing in front of me through the now very red, very stale light.
Ah, Taiwan.
I got back on my scooter and pulled over in the next block to check damages: essentially, none. An almost invisible scuff mark on my tire cover where it got hit; an odd twist in my left foot. Later, I noticed a new bruise on my arm. All in all, I got away scot-free, which is a good thing considering that the other scooter didn't so much as slow down.
So there it is, I have now had my unavoidable Taiwanese traffic accident and it was painless; I should be good for the rest of the year now, right? Knock on wood, I guess, but at least it's no longer inevitable.
Please note: this does not apply to my school day, which was great as always.
Let's begin with my last night's sleep--an odd topic, I know, but wait for it to make sense. Sometime early this morning (who knows how early), I had a dream that I had finally heard back on the Marshall scholarship (the mysterious application I've referenced on here before), and that I had gotten it. But, it being a dream and all, and dreams being utterly screwy and nonsensical, the Marshall somehow involved me going to India, rather than Britain. Odd, and the excitement of the dream was enough to wake me up and keep me from falling back asleep for a while, or from forgetting those details.
Then I went to school. And taught. And ate. And chatted. And left. And found a great new tea place on the way home. And got home. And sat down to open my email.
And, lo and behold, in my inbox, the long-awaited results from the British Consulate!--but not of the positive variety. Nope, my suspicions of late notification held, and I learned that I will not have to scramble to find and purchase a plane ticket and hotel room before the interviews next week. This part I had begun to regard as inevitable towards the end of last week.
In most respects, the email was identical to the one I received last year, but it differed in three respects: the date (later than last year by about a week), and it was actually addressed to me individually, rather than sent in un-concealed mass format (which, together with the previous difference, made me wonder if perhaps I made it further in the consideration process this year, though I doubt it). The third difference was the name of the British Consulate General, since they recently appointed a new one: and her name is Indian in origin. A glance at the time stamp showed that it was sent at 1:28am Taiwanese time, meaning that it is entirely possible and/or likely that I got a rejection letter from the kind British Consulate of Indian extraction at the same time that I dreamed I was going to India for the Marshall scholarship.
Proof that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I may have to ponder this coincidence for a while.
The other point of inevitability came after Chinese class tonight.
See, in Taiwan, they say that if you ride a scooter, it's not "if" you get in a scooter accident, it's "when." Well, tonight was my when.
Heading home from class, I was turning left from Zihciang to Mincyuan, waiting patiently in my little scooters-turn-left-here box until the light turned green. I was actually thinking about driving in Taiwan; how much I've learned about it since I got here, etc. Ah, irony. The light turned, and I went--without looking around first to see if people were actually stopping.
And, as it turned out, they weren't. I made it no more than a few feet outside of my box before I heard a horn coming at me from outside my peripheral vision; I hit the brakes and came to a quick stop, but not before a scooter entirely failed to avoid me and hit my front tire, continuing unphased as my wheel turned sharply and made my scooter, suddenly stationary and without a solid base, fall over. I jumped free, accidentally revving the engine as I did so, in time to watch a small truck and several more scooters passing in front of me through the now very red, very stale light.
Ah, Taiwan.
I got back on my scooter and pulled over in the next block to check damages: essentially, none. An almost invisible scuff mark on my tire cover where it got hit; an odd twist in my left foot. Later, I noticed a new bruise on my arm. All in all, I got away scot-free, which is a good thing considering that the other scooter didn't so much as slow down.
So there it is, I have now had my unavoidable Taiwanese traffic accident and it was painless; I should be good for the rest of the year now, right? Knock on wood, I guess, but at least it's no longer inevitable.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Traffic (part 1)
I suppose now, at long last, I will write about scootering. The impetus is simple: this morning, I arrived at school approximately 3 minutes before the start of my first class. When I left my apartment, I was estimating I would arrive approximately 15 minutes early. Oh, the added joys of needing to stop for gas and meeting rush hour traffic at 7:30am.
I wish I had photos or a video to illustrate. However, when you're caught in the middle of a throng of several hundred scooters all trying to squeeze into a sudden half-lane where seconds ago there were three full lanes (I'm looking at you, intersection of Zhong Shan and Kaisyuan), you're not really thinking about whipping out your camera.
It's been a few months now since I started scootering here in Taiwan, and I feel that I've established a sort of equilibrium with the vehicle and the traffic: I no longer have to think about what I'm doing in order to get where I need to go, and I now know what I can and cannot do in traffic. Here's a hint: these lists rarely coincide with the local laws.
And that is because, in truth, there is only one law in Taiwanese scootering: watch the people in front of you and make sure you don't run into anyone/thing. (I used to say the one law was don't kill anyone, but the two kind of merge together when you think about it.) I've mentioned this to a lot of people already at this point, but scootering here became a lot easier for me once I realized that it follows the exact same rules as downhill skiing: whoever is behind has full responsibility to watch out for whoever is in front. Of course, just to be safe, though, it's always best to steer a straight course and avoid sudden moves.
Which would be a lot simpler if it weren't for the way the roads here are constructed. Most of the major roads have designated scooter lanes set off from the main road by a concrete median (the smaller roads have something more akin to a bike lane/extra wide shoulder, and scooters are allowed into the outermost lanes in any case). However, the scooter lanes serve a dual purpose as the sole access point to any and all businesses along the street, streetside parking, and many alleyways, which means that cars are continuously pulling into and out of the flow of scooter traffic, going approximately a third of the average speed and apt to behave irregularly, doing things like stopping suddenly to back into a spot, or turn without signaling just as scooters are trying to go around their hulking slowness. And then there's the ever-present concern that parked cars might open a door at just the wrong moment.
And that's not even to mention intersections, where cars turning across (or with) traffic are a frequent occurrence, leading to a regular game of chicken, as they may or may not remember that there is a scooter lane, and that, size notwithstanding, scooter drivers also have a right to be on the road.
Which brings me to another basic tenant of Taiwanese driving: here, green lights mean nothing and red lights mean less. Here's a hint: there's some causality in that statement. No matter the light color, the solitary rule of driving applies: look in front of you (and to each side) before proceeding. Chances are, there's another vehicle barreling through that red light of 15 seconds, or maybe the coast is clear and you're fine to go on, no matter that the light is red. These are the rules of the road.
And oh, what a road it is, full of manholes and sewer covers which would be nothing to a car but which are, to scooters, jolting affairs which intimately acquaint knees with handlebars. I understand the reasons for consistently putting these obstructions in the scooter lane (closer to the side of the road, easier to access, easier to divert traffic in the event of work), but still, it's hard not to wonder why as I catapult over another metal lid and look over to the smooth, smooth pavement of the car lanes.
That's it for now--this is something of an endless font of content, so I'm sure I'll be returning to it soon, maybe to comment on helmet usage, or the classic question, "how many people can fit on a scooter?" Drivers here seem never to find a conclusive answer on that one...
I wish I had photos or a video to illustrate. However, when you're caught in the middle of a throng of several hundred scooters all trying to squeeze into a sudden half-lane where seconds ago there were three full lanes (I'm looking at you, intersection of Zhong Shan and Kaisyuan), you're not really thinking about whipping out your camera.
It's been a few months now since I started scootering here in Taiwan, and I feel that I've established a sort of equilibrium with the vehicle and the traffic: I no longer have to think about what I'm doing in order to get where I need to go, and I now know what I can and cannot do in traffic. Here's a hint: these lists rarely coincide with the local laws.
And that is because, in truth, there is only one law in Taiwanese scootering: watch the people in front of you and make sure you don't run into anyone/thing. (I used to say the one law was don't kill anyone, but the two kind of merge together when you think about it.) I've mentioned this to a lot of people already at this point, but scootering here became a lot easier for me once I realized that it follows the exact same rules as downhill skiing: whoever is behind has full responsibility to watch out for whoever is in front. Of course, just to be safe, though, it's always best to steer a straight course and avoid sudden moves.
Which would be a lot simpler if it weren't for the way the roads here are constructed. Most of the major roads have designated scooter lanes set off from the main road by a concrete median (the smaller roads have something more akin to a bike lane/extra wide shoulder, and scooters are allowed into the outermost lanes in any case). However, the scooter lanes serve a dual purpose as the sole access point to any and all businesses along the street, streetside parking, and many alleyways, which means that cars are continuously pulling into and out of the flow of scooter traffic, going approximately a third of the average speed and apt to behave irregularly, doing things like stopping suddenly to back into a spot, or turn without signaling just as scooters are trying to go around their hulking slowness. And then there's the ever-present concern that parked cars might open a door at just the wrong moment.
And that's not even to mention intersections, where cars turning across (or with) traffic are a frequent occurrence, leading to a regular game of chicken, as they may or may not remember that there is a scooter lane, and that, size notwithstanding, scooter drivers also have a right to be on the road.
Which brings me to another basic tenant of Taiwanese driving: here, green lights mean nothing and red lights mean less. Here's a hint: there's some causality in that statement. No matter the light color, the solitary rule of driving applies: look in front of you (and to each side) before proceeding. Chances are, there's another vehicle barreling through that red light of 15 seconds, or maybe the coast is clear and you're fine to go on, no matter that the light is red. These are the rules of the road.
And oh, what a road it is, full of manholes and sewer covers which would be nothing to a car but which are, to scooters, jolting affairs which intimately acquaint knees with handlebars. I understand the reasons for consistently putting these obstructions in the scooter lane (closer to the side of the road, easier to access, easier to divert traffic in the event of work), but still, it's hard not to wonder why as I catapult over another metal lid and look over to the smooth, smooth pavement of the car lanes.
That's it for now--this is something of an endless font of content, so I'm sure I'll be returning to it soon, maybe to comment on helmet usage, or the classic question, "how many people can fit on a scooter?" Drivers here seem never to find a conclusive answer on that one...
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