Culture Shock

OK it’s got me! My old friend culture shock slapped me. It suddenly rushes into my face: wow! Everyone’s Asian around me! And everyone speaks Chinese! I don’t understand a freaking word of what is written or said. And after last night what goes through my head is that Taiwan is the most sexist and most hypocritical country on Earth (which I know would not hold after some contemplation). And because I am frustrated, lots of other things annoy me, too. It’s not like I did not expect any of this but reality always has a different quality. Let me first update you one the latest events.

Wednesday started early at 8:30 with a walk with my student mentor, Elisa. We get along great, although she is very shy at times. She taught me tons of Chinese words and characters, which I all forgot immediately. Learning Chinese in four months? Forget it! I will be glad if I can order a coffee by then. I learned quite some interesting things about NTU: they have an experimental farm on the campus, whose products I can buy in stores. They have a gigantic gym, which loosely resembles New Orleans’ Superdome.

Copyright: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenhom/1411677979/

The campus feels like a little village compared to the surrounding craziness of Taipei: no scooters, only few cars and lots of greenery. It’s so big that there is a big danger of getting lost in the beginning.

Yeah… I didn’t take this picture but it shows the campus quite well. The building in front is the library that holds 3 million books! And in front of it is a great location to sit outside and read a book. Credits go to http://classic.marshall.usc.edu/undergradprogram/ international/iec/partners-national-taiwan-university.htm

In the afternoon I went to the exchange student orientation. Four (!) hours of speeches about rules and regulations basically. And at lunchtime I ate a big chunk of plastic wrap that I mistook for rice paper. My favorite speeches were from the wine tasting student association and the NTU student association whose leader brought his own interpreter.

In the break, it was time for socializing, although involuntarily I found myself mostly talking to Westerners and not to mainland Chinese people who are the most abundant group here. My room mate, Alex, followed his favorite past-time, getting girls’ phone numbers and set up a going-out plan for the night.

And out we went – but because of a communication problem we went with different groups to different clubs. Then it began to be insanely Taiwanese. I heard before that some clubs would charge guys a higher entry than girls but I was wrong – ALL clubs charge guys a higher entry than girls. Repulsed by the idea of a two-class society I got dragged along and went with two Europeans and one American into the club probably to follow the unwritten rule that exchange students have to engage in every activity there is. The Europeans were an Italian couple who lived in Berlin and moved to Taipei half a year ago. They did not find it strange at all that there were two different entries for guys and girls, instead he proclaimed that girls had to pay less because they were more beautiful than guys – I could not believe this was happening. They even looked at me strangely when I complained about this openly.

Let me dwell on this for another second. The idea of charging guys more than girls is absolutely contrary to the idea for equal pay for equal work. If you are allowed to charge different amounts based on gender, then this is basically a reduction of income for the gender who pays full price. So if there really was equal pay for equal work (which I know there is not yet), then you cannot charge guys more than girls because that would effectively lower their salary. That’s what I mean by hypocritical. It’s a weird logic of calculating that two wrongs make a right.

And the club… well there is something to a free bar and even nine euros for guys is not too expensive. It turned out that it was ‘foreigners’ night’ (another strange thing to attract girls it turned out) and accordingly, there were quite a few Western people. The hip hop music was accompanied with their music videos, which meant that I had a choice of watching quasi-naked girls on the floor or on TV, which was not entirely what I came for but it was indeed a unique cultural experience. I was not really fond of any of this because I had the impression that these girls were kind of ‘selling out’, meaning that they probably expected guys to be so desperate that they would hump anything as long as it exposed enough flesh. Embarrassingly this even was the case for some. If these girls are so desperately trying to get laid, I thought, maybe they should resort to a more refined strategy that would involve more than exposing their body – like talking to guys and taking the first step in approaching guys – but I doubt that this even happens in Europe on a regular basis.

Anyway – all of this was extremely interesting to watch and I have to say that it has been a long time that I have danced this much. Unfortunately, the girls were quite intrusive towards white guys and I frequently hid behind my folks to escape their hands… refined pick-up strategies is the key-word! Even the guys that I came with found that in the club there was an interesting role-reversal, which I am all for but it should be done a little more sensitivity. Somewhat tipsy we left the club around four and I slept like a baby.

What can I say – it was a cultural experience! And I can claim to know several cocktails more than before.