Do you ever wish life were easier? When I was little, I definitely did. Why did it need to be so complicated? It all seemed like farce to me. I thought as I advanced in life, maybe complexities would either become simpler or maybe I would be able to deal with them better.
I used to hate politics. You know? It’s complex and winds around and around until you’re sick in the head as well as the stomach. If you were to ask seventh-grader me what I think of politics, I’d tell you that they’re useless and stupid. I’d say something like, “You suck up to someone and you kiss of another.”
In some ways, I wasn’t wrong. In many more aspects, I never realized that in my banter against politics, I was speaking more to my views on social convention and my desire (probably more common than not) to be different. I wanted to stand out from the crowd in some way, I suppose. Minus the killing, I felt like l’etranger, but in my introverted world, I suppose I could not see past myself and the society that invisibly bound me.
Many of us are still like that. I personally found that my being self-centered led me to droop my head more often than not, and that in the quest to become your own, you just commute from one norm to another.
But this post is about my anthropology slash sociology class, Traditional Chinese Society. It begins with a lively discussion, climaxes at a professor’s realization, and ends with a request.
In Chinese society (traditional, modern, or whenever you want to place it), there’s always been the very conscious concept of face. There is a whole array to describe the concept and another set of words to describe the various processes and actions required to (properly) attain face.
The specifics of the discussion centered on those specific processes. One anthropologist made the discovery that in her anthropological case study in rural China, she discovered that there were some five steps in creating good face with others. With the ultimate objective of creating good face being benefit, frankly, she applied this to how someone of a lower status would get favors out of someone of higher status by following a pretty set process. It would involve the presentation of gifts and invitation to dinner. The only way that it would work out would be through mutual benefit, otherwise there would be no reason to take action.
The professor began to tell his story about his happenings in Chengdu. Originally from Canada, he moved to Chengdu (in China) to teach. There, he encountered the socialist system of human capital organization that had started being dismantled. The people were happy to be switching to an economic system wherein they could buy goods with money. This is because before, they found themselves dealing with their relationships with others. To get rice from one party, you’d have to trade for something else. In this sense, you had to constantly maintain complex relationships with a large number of individuals. My professor said that some people had trouble sleeping because maintaining good face with others was just so stressful.
He had the audience at attention I think. It’s funny how we’re always told about how Chinese people strive to maintain face, so far to the point where they might seem cold to those they don’t know. I think that because we’re told that, and because they tell themselves that as well, face is a topic that interests us because it is one of the most visible.
People were throwing questions at the professor left and right. He answered all of them logically and most of them definitively. The thing that I noticed, though, was that I could have answered all of the scenarios and situations that were being presented. What’s more was that understood all of the concepts being discussed so perfectly to the point where I could see them in action in everyday life—not just here in Hong Kong but also back home in California.
I guess I’m no real stranger to this world being discussed though. Last year at UCSD, I did take those two sociocultural linguistic anthropology classes that largely talked about the concept face, saving face, and creating face using language and linguistics as mediums for doing so.
I guess for me, this class of thirteen students was being a little too enthusiastic. Something smelled funny, so I decided to just throw out a statement to the professor to see how he and the class would treat it:
“So we keep talking about face in this really foreign way, like none of us do it, like it’s an exotic concept that none of us have seen before. But the thing is that I see this stuff happening every day.”
And I really had. To add on to that statement, I gave the class an account of how face still exists and always will exist. It had to deal with social convention and how I became mad because he failed to play his part and didn’t even try to mitigate the presence of the clear fact that he did what he did to put himself alone at an advantage. With social convention playing into (the creation and maintenance of) face, roughly termed guanxi in Chinese, my story had true relevance to the topic and possibly also showed how when we exoticize concepts, we lose track of their true importance and how close to home they actually exist.
My story began in Taiwan. One of the friends who I was traveling happened to start a chain of events that would lead to his production of bad guanxi and my current dislike of him.
We landed at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport and needed to get usable money out before leaving. In the airport, there were but two ATMs for us to use. I personally use my American HSBC account for financial matters overseas. Though the checking account has a small monthly charge, I get free use to all HSBC and Hang Seng Bank ATMs as well as favorable exchange rates (unlike those banks that adjust the rate to make a profit margin).
This friend happens to have a similar setup. He has a Hong Kong HSBC account (which does charge for ATMs outside of Hong Kong) as well as Bank of America. Since Bank of America has a sizeable stake in China Construction Bank (though they don’t fully own it as he implies), withdrawals at China Construction Bank ATMs are free.
Neither of the two ATMs at the airport belonged to any of the banks listed above. I sucked it up and pulled out money anyways. You know, when you need money, you’ll take it as you get it (and I would later find out that for the $100 USD that I withdrew in Taiwan dollars, I was only charged a total of $5 or $6 USD, so it was pennies on the dollar). My other friend pulled out money as well.
However, the first friend decided that he couldn’t eat the ATM fees, and borrowed several thousand Taiwan dollars from the second friend. His intentions were to find an HSBC and repay that money sooner rather than later.
It’s fine, right? We need to borrow money off of each other from time to time. It’s always done in good faith—physical contracts never cross our minds. It is assumed that everyone involved will be equitable. Since person A borrowed money off of person B, it is assumed that that money will be paid back in a timely manner, and since B did A a favor, it would also behoove A to pay that favor back to B in some way.
It was lost on my friend who borrowed money. As the days began passing and HSBC was nowhere to be found, my friend was still borrowing money on a whim and without thought to whom he was borrowing money from. He still thought that we an HSBC popped up somewhere, he would withdraw the appropriate amount of Taiwan dollars and pay it back. By now though, we only had a few days left, and what good would it be to get Taiwan dollars right before leaving Taiwan?
What was worse was that he refused to pay it back in something useful, like Hong Kong dollars. So because of this, we forced him to use the ATM, because he was either going to pay up in TWD now, or HKD later. Reluctantly, he went to the closest ATM.
After that, though, he found that he used up his TWD and began borrowing again. Not wanting to subject himself to those ATM fees again, he agreed to pay the end sum back in HKD after much prodding and poking.
When we got back to Hong Kong though, we found him negotiating the exchange rate for TWD to HKD, trying to pay as little as possible though he basically got a free service from my other friend and could be so courteous as to at least agree to a favorable rate.
And on a different issue, when the plane landed, we went to baggage claim to pick up his bag. Since he checked a bag in and I didn’t, he let me put my liquids in his bag so I would be able to bring them back with there being the limitations on such for carry-on luggage. I was glad that he let me, and I wanted to express my gratitude by taking his bag back for him, as we were taking different modes of transportation back to the dorms, mine being the faster.
Upon my offer, he became offended. His tone suggested that it was completely inappropriate for me to take his luggage back for him. Undoubtedly, he was paranoid about stuff getting stolen, but instead of politely declining my offer, he lashed out at me.
He wanted to know why I offered to take his suitcase back for him, and I explained that it was the appropriate thing to do and a nice gesture after he carried my stuff in it. He misunderstood this reciprocating of favors, and told me that I could take my stuff out now if I wanted. Since he didn’t understand my point in offering, I told him to forget it. This infuriated him, and he threw a fit.
Fine. His lack of ability to maintain face, by at least declining my offer politely, made me dislike him. Though initially this offense was subconscious, the fact that I’ve now consciously analyzed it hasn’t changed my opinions of him.
And the professor agreed that we were exoticizing such a fundamentally human concept, and a universal one at that. He said that sometimes it’s fun to approach a subject matter like that and see it from the outside. And I agreed, but then came the roll of hands that showed a new (mis)understanding and perhaps grounds to set the facts straight before heading out to outer space to look down on our blue planet.
People were most all surprised now that face wasn’t exclusively a Chinese concept, in short. They were surprised that they engage in these practices as well. The professor explained that the reason these concepts are so easy for westerners to understand was because these are universal concepts.
The lecture ended, and as the professor left the hall, one student asked for an extension on his project because he treated face as an exclusively Chinese concept.
The complexities have come as they’ve come. As I advance as a person though, my challenges increase at the same rate. Although I like to challenge myself (that in itself being a big part of the increase), I really don’t mind the complexities any more.
Now that I’m older, I find solace in intricacies; I delve into complexities and enjoy undoing what I’m given. If I remember correctly, you often get more out of the journey than the actual destination.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Showing posts with label Taipei. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taipei. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
我咳香港大學嘅學生。
Right after presenting my self-introduction speech to the class, I jetted of to Taipei. That day was made thoroughly busy with the addition of a term-paper project proposal and a Phonetics midterm examination.
But back to the topic of this post, my Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1 class, I have a few more assessments to deal with. Besides the self-introduction speech, there is a group presentation in which we perform a dialogue on any topic we’d like, as well as two reading assessments in which we record ourselves reading a passage and email it to the professor, and a midterm and a final examination.
Like I said, I think I did relatively well on my self-introduction. I believe I hit almost all the tones and got all of the consonants and vowels close to perfect. Especially in comparison to my classmates (who I believe tried dearly), I have reason to believe that I got something in the range of an A on my presentation.
The midterm, which we took the class before the self-introduction presentations I did better than expected on. Using the Jyutping system of Romanization for Cantonese, we have to write either tone marks or tone numbers alongside each individual syllable. While I am confident that I can say words so that they are understood, by direct knowledge of what tone it is wavers with my mood, I suppose.
I got most of the tones right through direct memorization, but when I couldn’t remember, I’d try to remember how I’ve heard the professor say it in my head, and then try to assign a tone number to it. This worked about half the time. Lucky for me though, the professor only marked off like half or a quarter of a percent for each wrong tone. So since I got the actual sounds right on almost everything, I ended up with 91% correct on the midterm.
The class session before the midterm, the first reading assignment was due. I did it in my room while my roommate was away to Macau. I read it over about four times and then proceeded to ask my Cantonese-speaking friend to critique my pronunciation. I probably would’ve asked my mother to critique it as well had it not been for the inconvenience of time zones.
Handing it back, the teacher printed out the dialogue for each of us, circling parts of individual words that we had trouble with. On my sheet, she only marked two tones that I executed poorly, both of which fourth tone (low falling). I ended up with a letter grade A on that assignment.
Half the assignments are done with half to go. My second Cantonese reading assignment is due in her email inbox next Monday and the group presentation script is due the Monday after that with my final examination taking place the Thursday right after that.
So, off to rehearsing for the second reading assignment!
Oh, and by the way, the title is colloquial written Cantonese for the title of my previous Cantonese class post.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
But back to the topic of this post, my Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1 class, I have a few more assessments to deal with. Besides the self-introduction speech, there is a group presentation in which we perform a dialogue on any topic we’d like, as well as two reading assessments in which we record ourselves reading a passage and email it to the professor, and a midterm and a final examination.
Like I said, I think I did relatively well on my self-introduction. I believe I hit almost all the tones and got all of the consonants and vowels close to perfect. Especially in comparison to my classmates (who I believe tried dearly), I have reason to believe that I got something in the range of an A on my presentation.
The midterm, which we took the class before the self-introduction presentations I did better than expected on. Using the Jyutping system of Romanization for Cantonese, we have to write either tone marks or tone numbers alongside each individual syllable. While I am confident that I can say words so that they are understood, by direct knowledge of what tone it is wavers with my mood, I suppose.
I got most of the tones right through direct memorization, but when I couldn’t remember, I’d try to remember how I’ve heard the professor say it in my head, and then try to assign a tone number to it. This worked about half the time. Lucky for me though, the professor only marked off like half or a quarter of a percent for each wrong tone. So since I got the actual sounds right on almost everything, I ended up with 91% correct on the midterm.
The class session before the midterm, the first reading assignment was due. I did it in my room while my roommate was away to Macau. I read it over about four times and then proceeded to ask my Cantonese-speaking friend to critique my pronunciation. I probably would’ve asked my mother to critique it as well had it not been for the inconvenience of time zones.
Handing it back, the teacher printed out the dialogue for each of us, circling parts of individual words that we had trouble with. On my sheet, she only marked two tones that I executed poorly, both of which fourth tone (low falling). I ended up with a letter grade A on that assignment.
Half the assignments are done with half to go. My second Cantonese reading assignment is due in her email inbox next Monday and the group presentation script is due the Monday after that with my final examination taking place the Thursday right after that.
So, off to rehearsing for the second reading assignment!
Oh, and by the way, the title is colloquial written Cantonese for the title of my previous Cantonese class post.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Taipei: Monuments and Memorials
Friday, we saw stuff on the north side of Taipei; Saturday was for the south side.
We started out walking to the MRT station again and worked our way over to the Presidential Palace. The nearest station was at Red House West Gate (which has a much different name in Chinese than in English). The building itself was not eventful. The shell housed a restaurant and a small exhibit on the building’s history accompanied by a bookstore.
From there we walked to the Presidential Office, which took a leisurely ten minutes by foot. We approached the backside of the building and noticed all the guards around the building were armed with automatics (they looked like AK-47s). On the front side, we took pictures. The layout was quite western I now realized because a large road goes right to the front of the building and Ts off in an intersection. In comparison, the Forbidden City in Beijing is surrounded by water and is flanked with lakes on its west side. At its front gate sits Tiananmen Square, and not a major road.
From there we went to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Though by this time it was absolutely pouring, approaching the memorial from the front and seeing the iconic blue-roofed building at the back was breathtaking; it was one of the few monuments that amazed me by its sheer size and imposition. Dodging the rain, we went to the National Theater and Concert Hall, which was halfway to the memorial itself.
At the base of the memorial, we ascended the steps and saw Chiang Kai-shek’s statue. Before seeing it, I’d imagined it would be something like Abraham Lincoln’s memorial in Washington, D.C.—and for the most part, it really was. There was some writing on the walls (headed by “Ethics,” “Democracy,” and “Science”) and the white sun in the “rotunda” area.
On the ground floor of the memorial with its entrance on either side, was a museum including little about Chiang Kai-shek. Instead, there was a ceramics exhibit and a contemporary calligraphy exhibit (in which you signed the visitor log with a brush—though I had a bit of training on the matter, my (Chinese) name turned out pretty bad). Exiting, there was a post office from which I sent off a postcard back to the United States.
From there, we took the MRT to another cluster of sites. We got out looking at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial. It was a yellow-roofed building that impressed much less than Chang Kai-shek’s. That day, there was an exhibition, probably interactive, for children, and as such there were tons of families with young children crowding the halls.
After taking photos in front of it, we walked a few city blocks to Taipei 101. Along the way, there was a fair-type setup in front of Taipei City Hall that we got snacks at. The setup also contained plenty of advertisers as well as a stage being used by advertisers to showcase their products.
On a side note, I’d like to expose the partial lack of common sense of my traveling buddies for this trip. Taipei 101 stands at one hundred one stories tall. From our hotel, Taipei 101 stood at the southeast, whereas our window looked to the southwest. At night, they insisted they could see Taipei 101 out the window. The logic behind this was that the building was pink at night and that Taipei 101 was the only skyscraper in Taipei. My reasoning for it not being Taipei 101 was that it was noticeably shorter than one hundred one stories and bore little resemblance to Taipei 101 (namely they both are smaller at the very top than at the bottom and they are both skyscrapers). In addition, the direction was totally wrong. That building turned out to be Shin Kong Life Tower, and ever after we referred to it as “Fake Taipei 101.”
Walking towards skyscrapers I guess is like walking towards a mountain—it just gets more imposing. At 1,474 feet from ground to roof (and its namesake one hundred one floors), it stood until just recently as the tallest building in the world. The bottom several floors are mall space, with the rest being standard skyscraper office space. Trying to find the elevator to the observation deck, we got lost going through the mall (designed in a more western style with a modern and confusing layout).
Finally we found the express elevator to the top on the fifth floor. The twin elevators, costing $2.4 million USD each, propel passengers up to the observation deck in around thirty seconds and descend back down in a little bit more time. In the elevator, the lights dimmed to a futuristic LED light experience conducted to distract the crowd from the fact that they were squished into the tight space like sardines.
At the top, the view was amazing. The elevator ticket came with an audio guide (I asked in Chinese for mine in English) explaining was being seen, which was basically most of Taipei. Going through the path set up, we saw the damper, which is basically a big ball in the center of the building used to stabilize the building during storms and such. There was an upper viewing floor and a lower viewing floor.
Also on the lower viewing floor was a coral art exhibition followed by coral art vending shops, which we quickly slipped by. At ground level, there was a free shuttle bus (which happened to literally be one bus) to the neared MRT station. Light turned to dark waiting and we ended that day in the hotel, ready to go back home in the evening the next day.
Early the next morning, we went to the central station (appropriately named Taipei Station) to buy High-Speed Rail tickets as part of the journey to get to the airport. After doing that, we ventured over to the Miramar Entertainment Complex and decided to ride on the Ferris wheel, since the area turned out be no more than cheapish shopping. The views from it were okay, though definitely not as good as those from Taipei 101. After having our final lunch in Taipei, we headed back to the central station to catch our train to Taoyuan.
I’d been on trains and high-speed rail before, but my fellow travelers had not. One expected to be pushed against the back of his seat by the shear physics of traveling at high speeds (a fact, which, if true, would render airplanes illogical). The entire high-speed rail line cost a bundle to build for such a moderately populated island, but from what I’ve read the venture has been a success. It took 20 minutes to make the journey to Taoyuan (where Taipei’s international airport is) and two hours to get all the way to the last station three hundred thirty-five kilometers away at Kaohsiung.
From the train station we took a short bus ride to the airport in which we arrived. As airports go, it was as dingy as Los Angeles International Airport, and super empty, which made it creepy to walk around while waiting for our flight. The time to leave though came eventually. Before going through exit immigration, we removed the staples in our passports ourselves so that the immigration officers wouldn’t tear pages or what have you.
In case you weren’t clued in, this post ends my trip in Taipei. Two weeks later (from which I just got back from yesterday) was Guilin. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
We started out walking to the MRT station again and worked our way over to the Presidential Palace. The nearest station was at Red House West Gate (which has a much different name in Chinese than in English). The building itself was not eventful. The shell housed a restaurant and a small exhibit on the building’s history accompanied by a bookstore.
From there we walked to the Presidential Office, which took a leisurely ten minutes by foot. We approached the backside of the building and noticed all the guards around the building were armed with automatics (they looked like AK-47s). On the front side, we took pictures. The layout was quite western I now realized because a large road goes right to the front of the building and Ts off in an intersection. In comparison, the Forbidden City in Beijing is surrounded by water and is flanked with lakes on its west side. At its front gate sits Tiananmen Square, and not a major road.
From there we went to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Though by this time it was absolutely pouring, approaching the memorial from the front and seeing the iconic blue-roofed building at the back was breathtaking; it was one of the few monuments that amazed me by its sheer size and imposition. Dodging the rain, we went to the National Theater and Concert Hall, which was halfway to the memorial itself.
At the base of the memorial, we ascended the steps and saw Chiang Kai-shek’s statue. Before seeing it, I’d imagined it would be something like Abraham Lincoln’s memorial in Washington, D.C.—and for the most part, it really was. There was some writing on the walls (headed by “Ethics,” “Democracy,” and “Science”) and the white sun in the “rotunda” area.
On the ground floor of the memorial with its entrance on either side, was a museum including little about Chiang Kai-shek. Instead, there was a ceramics exhibit and a contemporary calligraphy exhibit (in which you signed the visitor log with a brush—though I had a bit of training on the matter, my (Chinese) name turned out pretty bad). Exiting, there was a post office from which I sent off a postcard back to the United States.
From there, we took the MRT to another cluster of sites. We got out looking at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial. It was a yellow-roofed building that impressed much less than Chang Kai-shek’s. That day, there was an exhibition, probably interactive, for children, and as such there were tons of families with young children crowding the halls.
After taking photos in front of it, we walked a few city blocks to Taipei 101. Along the way, there was a fair-type setup in front of Taipei City Hall that we got snacks at. The setup also contained plenty of advertisers as well as a stage being used by advertisers to showcase their products.
On a side note, I’d like to expose the partial lack of common sense of my traveling buddies for this trip. Taipei 101 stands at one hundred one stories tall. From our hotel, Taipei 101 stood at the southeast, whereas our window looked to the southwest. At night, they insisted they could see Taipei 101 out the window. The logic behind this was that the building was pink at night and that Taipei 101 was the only skyscraper in Taipei. My reasoning for it not being Taipei 101 was that it was noticeably shorter than one hundred one stories and bore little resemblance to Taipei 101 (namely they both are smaller at the very top than at the bottom and they are both skyscrapers). In addition, the direction was totally wrong. That building turned out to be Shin Kong Life Tower, and ever after we referred to it as “Fake Taipei 101.”
Walking towards skyscrapers I guess is like walking towards a mountain—it just gets more imposing. At 1,474 feet from ground to roof (and its namesake one hundred one floors), it stood until just recently as the tallest building in the world. The bottom several floors are mall space, with the rest being standard skyscraper office space. Trying to find the elevator to the observation deck, we got lost going through the mall (designed in a more western style with a modern and confusing layout).
Finally we found the express elevator to the top on the fifth floor. The twin elevators, costing $2.4 million USD each, propel passengers up to the observation deck in around thirty seconds and descend back down in a little bit more time. In the elevator, the lights dimmed to a futuristic LED light experience conducted to distract the crowd from the fact that they were squished into the tight space like sardines.
At the top, the view was amazing. The elevator ticket came with an audio guide (I asked in Chinese for mine in English) explaining was being seen, which was basically most of Taipei. Going through the path set up, we saw the damper, which is basically a big ball in the center of the building used to stabilize the building during storms and such. There was an upper viewing floor and a lower viewing floor.
Also on the lower viewing floor was a coral art exhibition followed by coral art vending shops, which we quickly slipped by. At ground level, there was a free shuttle bus (which happened to literally be one bus) to the neared MRT station. Light turned to dark waiting and we ended that day in the hotel, ready to go back home in the evening the next day.
Early the next morning, we went to the central station (appropriately named Taipei Station) to buy High-Speed Rail tickets as part of the journey to get to the airport. After doing that, we ventured over to the Miramar Entertainment Complex and decided to ride on the Ferris wheel, since the area turned out be no more than cheapish shopping. The views from it were okay, though definitely not as good as those from Taipei 101. After having our final lunch in Taipei, we headed back to the central station to catch our train to Taoyuan.
I’d been on trains and high-speed rail before, but my fellow travelers had not. One expected to be pushed against the back of his seat by the shear physics of traveling at high speeds (a fact, which, if true, would render airplanes illogical). The entire high-speed rail line cost a bundle to build for such a moderately populated island, but from what I’ve read the venture has been a success. It took 20 minutes to make the journey to Taoyuan (where Taipei’s international airport is) and two hours to get all the way to the last station three hundred thirty-five kilometers away at Kaohsiung.
From the train station we took a short bus ride to the airport in which we arrived. As airports go, it was as dingy as Los Angeles International Airport, and super empty, which made it creepy to walk around while waiting for our flight. The time to leave though came eventually. Before going through exit immigration, we removed the staples in our passports ourselves so that the immigration officers wouldn’t tear pages or what have you.
In case you weren’t clued in, this post ends my trip in Taipei. Two weeks later (from which I just got back from yesterday) was Guilin. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, November 9, 2009
One-Oh-One, Part 3
Taipei Metro/MRT
Miramar Ferris Wheel
Taiwan High-Speed Rail
Taipei Taoyuan International Airport
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Miramar Ferris Wheel
Taiwan High-Speed Rail
Taipei Taoyuan International Airport
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
One-Oh-One, Part 2
Red Gate West House
Presidential Office Building
West Gate and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park
Sun Yat-sen Memorial and Taipei 101
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Taipei: Communists and Nationalists
We started our first full day in Taipei at 8:30, leaving at 10:00 after eating hotel breakfast. First on the list was the National Palace Museum. The hotel that we were staying at was about a ten-minute walk from the closest metro station, and that little walk there forms the basis for much of my perception of Taipei away from touristy areas. First off, the streets were almost as wide as they were in Beijing. The way the upper stories of buildings hung over the street was like Macau. And on a side note, the electricity plugs are American in shape.
Taipei seemed a peaceful town. While relatively crowded, the drivers were tamer than those in Hong Kong and honked a whole lot less than in Beijing. People were friendly and the whole area seemed safe. Restaurants of all types dominated the selection of storefronts. It was apparent that Taipei was a lot more westernized; at the superficial level, a lot more people had their hair dyed to brown or purple and presented themselves in what they likely thought was high fashion.
The subway system, deemed Taipei Metro or the MRT (as opposed to the MTR in Hong Kong), was relatively clean and very efficient. It was more apparent that it is common courtesy to stand on the right of escalators and walk up the left. Out of the station in Shilin, more food stands dominated the scene, charging very reasonable prices for good food.
The bus from the metro station to the National Palace took just around ten or fifteen minutes and was surprising in its setup. Whereas in Hong Kong, you pay when you get on, the rate being charged based on where you get on the bus, in Shenzhen the bus fare was calculated on where you were to get off, as you’d tell the ticket seller on the bus where you planned to alight and get charged the appropriate fare. In Taipei, the fare was based on destination as well, though this was done by people entering the bus through the door towards the back and exiting out of the front, where payment is made right before leaving.
As we approached the National Palace Museum, the frequency of ROC flags increased along the median of the road. On arrival at the National Palace Museum, the motivators of its creators were highly apparent. Whereas the building used Chinese motifs to evoke a national and cultural past, it was clear that it was more modern in some of the stone used, because after all the building was completed in the 1960s. In particular, the building evoked the Forbidden City in Beijing, from where many of the artifacts were taken by Chiang Kai-shek were removed.
Entering the museum, the joint ticket with the National Aboriginal Museum caught my eye. It was just a couple hundred meters from museum gate to museum gate, so I figured why not. Going though the place, it was apparent how much was removed and how much stuff there was in the Forbidden City. Many of the buildings in the complexes stand just that now—buildings devoid of treasures. To this effect, the exhibition rooms in the National Palace Museum often have a map of the Forbidden City with a note on where the objects in that particular area were removed from.
The content was amazing. Some parts of the museum didn’t have cream of the crop works, but overall, it was good to see a museum so full of authentic Chinese artifacts collected over the dynasties.
From there we wandered on over to the National Aboriginal Museum, which completely lacked people (if that says anything at all about how people feel about the Taiwan aborigines). We got through the four floors of the complex in a relatively short time, but the disinterest exhibited by my friends prevented my stay from being longer.
From there, we decided to walk back to Shilin metro station, stopping along Chiang Kai-shek Residence along the way. It took longer than expected to reach that first stop. We passed by the national university en route, which was accompanied by a green river. Oh, I forgot to mention that it was raining that entire day and most of the next.
Arriving at CKS Park (as I remember it being abbreviated in English) was worth a gander, though only worth it because it was free. There were a couple gardens in park that stood out. One contained a face carved out of a relatively large shrubbery surrounded by a colorful assortment of flowers. The other was indoors and obviously aimed at kids with its large anthropomorphic insects and fauna. Neither was entirely impressive. Also there was Chiang Kai-shek’s Taipei residence, which was under renovation (and likely remains so as I write this) but still good to see from the outside.
By this time it was only 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon, and we were planning on going to the Shilin Night Market, so we did a bit more sightseeing before then, which was said on Wikitravel to begin around 4:00 or 5:00.
To this effect, we headed down to the neighboring Confucius Temple and Bao’an Temple. Confucius Temple was more of a park whereas Bao’an Temple was a functioning place of worship. Both were notable in their relative newness. Roof bricks glazed blue and green remained blue and green whereas in places with more history such as the Forbidden City, the darkish yellow roof bricks were fading and in some places weeds were glowing out of the tops.
We then took a taxi to the Grand Hotel, whose history I haven’t fully explored. It’s basically an interesting building because its twenty or so floors have traditional-looking façades, though no authentic building of such a style had been that tall. It was interesting as such, though its overall appearance looked more busy and overly done than authentic. Like I said, I have no idea what the people involved had in mind during its overall planning and construction.
From there we took a leisurely walk to Martyrs’ Shrine, which is, in essence, a memorial to all those fighting in the name of the Republic of China. Along the walk, the ROC flags increased as we became closer. Like gravitating towards groups of tour buses, it became clear that in Taiwan, many of the sites to see were accompanied by copious quantities of national flags along the street median.
Martyrs’ Shrine was indeed impressive, largely because of its sheer size. It took a very notable period of time to walk from the front gate and entrance to the actual content of the memorial (a complex of a handful of buildings) on the other side. There was the first time we witnessed the military decorum of ROC officers. First off, when doing honor guard stuffs, they dress as such, looking stern and straightforward, never blinking, never moving. On more than one occasion, other employees came around to adjust their clothes and spiff up their uniforms.
At one point, the soldiers in the memorial came ceremoniously marching down the center of the plaza to the entrance gate. We watched as they marched down in step, the guards at the gate spinning their rifles and exiting with them. Check the pictures out. It was impressive (and scary at the same time.)
Last for that day was the Shilin Night Market. Taking a taxi there, the driver was adamant about the market. Granted, we were going to the one that was likely the most touristy; however, the driver kept going on about it stretching on for four city blocks (though it seemed bigger than that) and how you can buy anything there.
Actually there, there were mostly souvenir-selling places and street food vendors. Taiwan is supposedly famous for its snacks, and one of the best things that I had in Taipei was actually this breaded, deep-fried octopus cut into pieces and accompanied with something of a topping (seaweed in my case). After our first full day, satisfying as it were, in Taipei, we went back to the hotel to prepare for an equally productive day the next day.
In my case, preparation was working on a research paper of 2,000 words and accompanying presentation that I’ll talk more about later.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Taipei seemed a peaceful town. While relatively crowded, the drivers were tamer than those in Hong Kong and honked a whole lot less than in Beijing. People were friendly and the whole area seemed safe. Restaurants of all types dominated the selection of storefronts. It was apparent that Taipei was a lot more westernized; at the superficial level, a lot more people had their hair dyed to brown or purple and presented themselves in what they likely thought was high fashion.
The subway system, deemed Taipei Metro or the MRT (as opposed to the MTR in Hong Kong), was relatively clean and very efficient. It was more apparent that it is common courtesy to stand on the right of escalators and walk up the left. Out of the station in Shilin, more food stands dominated the scene, charging very reasonable prices for good food.
The bus from the metro station to the National Palace took just around ten or fifteen minutes and was surprising in its setup. Whereas in Hong Kong, you pay when you get on, the rate being charged based on where you get on the bus, in Shenzhen the bus fare was calculated on where you were to get off, as you’d tell the ticket seller on the bus where you planned to alight and get charged the appropriate fare. In Taipei, the fare was based on destination as well, though this was done by people entering the bus through the door towards the back and exiting out of the front, where payment is made right before leaving.
As we approached the National Palace Museum, the frequency of ROC flags increased along the median of the road. On arrival at the National Palace Museum, the motivators of its creators were highly apparent. Whereas the building used Chinese motifs to evoke a national and cultural past, it was clear that it was more modern in some of the stone used, because after all the building was completed in the 1960s. In particular, the building evoked the Forbidden City in Beijing, from where many of the artifacts were taken by Chiang Kai-shek were removed.
Entering the museum, the joint ticket with the National Aboriginal Museum caught my eye. It was just a couple hundred meters from museum gate to museum gate, so I figured why not. Going though the place, it was apparent how much was removed and how much stuff there was in the Forbidden City. Many of the buildings in the complexes stand just that now—buildings devoid of treasures. To this effect, the exhibition rooms in the National Palace Museum often have a map of the Forbidden City with a note on where the objects in that particular area were removed from.
The content was amazing. Some parts of the museum didn’t have cream of the crop works, but overall, it was good to see a museum so full of authentic Chinese artifacts collected over the dynasties.
From there we wandered on over to the National Aboriginal Museum, which completely lacked people (if that says anything at all about how people feel about the Taiwan aborigines). We got through the four floors of the complex in a relatively short time, but the disinterest exhibited by my friends prevented my stay from being longer.
From there, we decided to walk back to Shilin metro station, stopping along Chiang Kai-shek Residence along the way. It took longer than expected to reach that first stop. We passed by the national university en route, which was accompanied by a green river. Oh, I forgot to mention that it was raining that entire day and most of the next.
Arriving at CKS Park (as I remember it being abbreviated in English) was worth a gander, though only worth it because it was free. There were a couple gardens in park that stood out. One contained a face carved out of a relatively large shrubbery surrounded by a colorful assortment of flowers. The other was indoors and obviously aimed at kids with its large anthropomorphic insects and fauna. Neither was entirely impressive. Also there was Chiang Kai-shek’s Taipei residence, which was under renovation (and likely remains so as I write this) but still good to see from the outside.
By this time it was only 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon, and we were planning on going to the Shilin Night Market, so we did a bit more sightseeing before then, which was said on Wikitravel to begin around 4:00 or 5:00.
To this effect, we headed down to the neighboring Confucius Temple and Bao’an Temple. Confucius Temple was more of a park whereas Bao’an Temple was a functioning place of worship. Both were notable in their relative newness. Roof bricks glazed blue and green remained blue and green whereas in places with more history such as the Forbidden City, the darkish yellow roof bricks were fading and in some places weeds were glowing out of the tops.
We then took a taxi to the Grand Hotel, whose history I haven’t fully explored. It’s basically an interesting building because its twenty or so floors have traditional-looking façades, though no authentic building of such a style had been that tall. It was interesting as such, though its overall appearance looked more busy and overly done than authentic. Like I said, I have no idea what the people involved had in mind during its overall planning and construction.
From there we took a leisurely walk to Martyrs’ Shrine, which is, in essence, a memorial to all those fighting in the name of the Republic of China. Along the walk, the ROC flags increased as we became closer. Like gravitating towards groups of tour buses, it became clear that in Taiwan, many of the sites to see were accompanied by copious quantities of national flags along the street median.
Martyrs’ Shrine was indeed impressive, largely because of its sheer size. It took a very notable period of time to walk from the front gate and entrance to the actual content of the memorial (a complex of a handful of buildings) on the other side. There was the first time we witnessed the military decorum of ROC officers. First off, when doing honor guard stuffs, they dress as such, looking stern and straightforward, never blinking, never moving. On more than one occasion, other employees came around to adjust their clothes and spiff up their uniforms.
At one point, the soldiers in the memorial came ceremoniously marching down the center of the plaza to the entrance gate. We watched as they marched down in step, the guards at the gate spinning their rifles and exiting with them. Check the pictures out. It was impressive (and scary at the same time.)
Last for that day was the Shilin Night Market. Taking a taxi there, the driver was adamant about the market. Granted, we were going to the one that was likely the most touristy; however, the driver kept going on about it stretching on for four city blocks (though it seemed bigger than that) and how you can buy anything there.
Actually there, there were mostly souvenir-selling places and street food vendors. Taiwan is supposedly famous for its snacks, and one of the best things that I had in Taipei was actually this breaded, deep-fried octopus cut into pieces and accompanied with something of a topping (seaweed in my case). After our first full day, satisfying as it were, in Taipei, we went back to the hotel to prepare for an equally productive day the next day.
In my case, preparation was working on a research paper of 2,000 words and accompanying presentation that I’ll talk more about later.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
One-Oh-One, Part 1
National Palace Museum
National Aboriginal Museum
CKS Residence Park
Confucius Temple and Bao'an Temple
The Grand Hotel
Martyrs' Shrine
Shilin Night Market
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
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