Although I’ve written this as one piece I will divide it into several parts to make it more easily legible.
After my trip to Hong Kong I had one primary objective: get settled in a routine and face my everyday challenges which I had been distracted from to that point. To make a long story short: it wasn’t easy.
I returned from Hong Kong to a dirty room and a pile of work. From Monday, 11 April to Saturday, 16 April I spent my days studying despite marvelous weather. In the morning I would go to Chinese class and in the afternoon I would study for Chinese or philosophy in the library. On Friday I went to a keg party at one of the dorms in the underground parking garage, which was as American as it could get, including red beer cups, peer pong, lots of drunk people, show-offs, etc. It must be because I didn’t drink that I was glad to leave when we got kicked out at 11.
Something that really dragged me down those days was a pain in my right foot which I had since the huge hike in Hong Kong.
On Saturday, I met couchsurfer who wants to learn German, Lisan. Primarily she walked me around the Sanshong district in New Taipei City (former Taipei county: Taipei’s extension which bloats Taipei’s metro area to over 8 million people). It rained as hell so we hunched from restaurant to café hiding under an umbrella. We got along really well, both of us being adherents to the Burning Man ideals. She lived in San Francisco for the past three years, studying English. It was great to finally find someone who is equally interested in independent films, arts and neat cozy cafes,
The whole of next week a Finnish couchsurfer from Australia came to stay with me. Niko was a great guest and even though my tiny room became even tinier we got along really well. He is an extremely lively yet thoughtful person. We had several good conversations on topics including (but by far not limited to) the symbolism of health in the forming of culturally dependent beauty ideals.
Niko and I on our fighter jet.
We went around town and I got to see new sides of Taipei that I have not had seen before. One of the highlights was an abandoned building on my philosophy campus which has seemingly been embraced by artists for horror parties and the like. It was a weird atmosphere and it was obvious that the building had been abandoned for about two decades already giving it a distinctive ambience of decay and neglect. It seemed like from a post-apocalyptic novel where nature is slowly regaining control over human-made spaces: Ferns were growing in rooms and the wind blew newspapers and plastic furniture covers through the room creating an obscure scene. Many things look like they have been left in a hurry when the building was abandoned. But see for yourself.
The BOT dorms
We also went to a flea market in Yonghe District – according to one of my professors the most densely populated neighborhood on the planet. The flea market itself was not particularly exciting but we shared a bike, which was lots of fun and it was amazing to see how the space below a bridge had been turned into a communal space where people do sports, dance and play music. We also watched a fabulous movie, which I would like to share with you. It plays in Taipei and has a really fine sense of humor.
When Niko went down south to visit his friend, my life felt admittedly a bit duller. He brought lots of positive energy into my tiny room. What also happened at this point was that I realized that I would have to turn in a paper on the German philosopher Kant only a few days later and my days became overcharged with work and my nights sleepless.
I took a short break to go with Ron (from HK) who lives in my dorm to a traditional Taiwanese/Chinese puppet show. Both the puppets and the performance were incredible although neither I nor Ron understood very much because the performers spoke Taiwanese. Only two generations ago (Lisan’s grandparents) did not speak anything but Taiwanese, which is close to Chinese but still an entirely different language. And until a few decades ago the rural population was hardly able to communicate with urban people. Today virtually all people can speak Chinese and it is also the first language for most people. One annoying feature of the performance was the unbearable noise-level of the performing background music. On the effects of this later.
Me and Ron (to the left of me) with puppets
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