Ups and downs…

It has become some sort of tradition that every Tuesday afternoon I have time to answer emails, catch up with friends on facebook and peruse online news. Because every Tuesday afternoon I am privileged to enjoy a class with the opaque name of Ecological Poetics. The readings are basically all from different strands green theory and most of them are fun and enlightening. Unfortunately the discussion of the texts is a less fruitful endeavor. My beloved professor might be a genius in his field (English literature) but I would not know because his three-hour monologue is one big mumble. And quite frequently he reminds me that I am apparently not in an English-taught class but one for ESL. That is when he starts discussing words such as platform, metaphor and red herring in Chinese with the rest of the students, leaving only me and Natalia whom he always calls Natasha dumbfounded. When I finally plucked up my courage to ask him to make his class a little more foreigner-friendly he preempted me, saying that he thought that he should speak more Chinese in class so Natasha and I would get used to the sound. At that point I gave up: Tuesday will stay my email-answer-day.

Recently I have been plagued by a Tinnitus, which increases my already existing insomnia. It could very well originate from the loud puppet show or from the film/art party at the old brewery. But it’s basically impossible to find the reasons. Hopefully it won’t stay all my life, that would really suck. For now I am just taking it easy, since my depressingly small room and school work really stressed me out. I am actually looking forward to a summer without too many obligations. Did I mention? I will spend next year in Berlin!

In the week of May 2nd I fell ill with a cold and spend quite a few hours in bed coughing and sneezing. In this week I realized that I would need to take my social life more seriously to feel more secure in this foreign culture. That means spending less time by myself in my room and more with friends from BOT or my Taiwanese friends. This is also what I did immediately, going out to dinners with friends and watching a great, but very disturbing Ingmar Bergman movie (‘Whispers and Cries’) with Anna (my Swedish friend with whom I have started a language exchange Swedish-German).

Most recently I have gotten a new roomy. Abhilash is from India and studies economics. We get along well, although I have to get used to sharing my tiny room with another person. What also happened lately was that my dorm is undergoing renovation. Without any prior warning we are no longer allowed to use the bathroom on our floor (2nd floor) and now have to use the one on the 6th floor, which means that for each time I go pee I have to take the elevator. IT’S A PAIN! But I am too tired to complain about it. I have already complained several times unsuccessfully. For those people who are wondering how I have been, this is what I mean (among others) when I say that there are ups and downs (these are the down parts I mean).

And all people who say that you would never get something stolen in Taiwan have a distorted image of the realities here. After I lost and never found a pencil case two weeks ago I got my cell phone stolen today. Both are basically worthless but the first contained a SIM card and the latter all of my phone numbers… Bad luck!

One of the most interesting things I heard about Taiwan’s history was the personal account of Lisan. She told me that only a few decades ago Taiwan was an extremely poor country. Her Dad did not even have enough money for sandals when he was a teenager. Then he made a small fortune with steel. And as previously noted: this is what parts of Taiwan still look like today. They look like the result of the attempt to get as many people as possible from slums into houses. But as I will show you in the next post, Taiwan is transforming rapidly!

Crazy parties and slave chocolate

When the weekend finally came (April 29th that is) I recovered largely and went with the gang of the BOT dorm to dinner and Karaoke. Let me say a few words about this gang. Once upon a time NTU mixed exchange students with local students across several dorms on campus. After too many complaints NTU decided to offer only places to exchange students in two dorms one for the well-endowed and the budget option (my dorm). Let me drop a few words about complaining in Taiwanese culture. According to our teacher a Taiwanese person would never, ever, ever complain directly in your face. Instead s/he would rather spread more and more rumors until it reaches the alleged wrong-doer, or in an extreme case s/he would complain to an authority such as the dorm supervisor (which happened in this case). Since Western people would generally choose the exact opposite strategy, conflict is quite likely to happen. Back to the gang: the majority of exchange students being distributed on only six floors in three buildings in the BOT dorm, they almost inevitably live in a bubble inhabited virtually only by exchange students. That’s the gang ;) I am saying this without prejudice because this is hardly preventable and for most students not even undesirable.

So I went to dinner with the gang. We had all you can eat Movenpick and Hagen-Dasz ice-cream. After desert I also had some traditional Taiwanese hot-pot, which was also worth every penny. Karaoke in Taiwan is radically different from European Karaoke since friends rent a little room in which they sing among themselves. It is also radically different from ‘Sing Star’ nights that I am familiar with because people are actually singing well, instead of mocking the song.

On Saturday, April 30th Lisan took me to an awesome film festival/ art party in a transformed brewery to arts-space (there are many of these places in Taipei. You must only know about them). There were several live-acts and apparently all artist expats of Taiwan convened at this place on that night. It was great to just dance all night long until sunrise. We also met Chung who is one of Niko’s couchsurfing friends. Lastly, I got to know a famous Taiwanese newcomer artist who wants to come to Germany to display his paintings. While I liked his works, I thought that they all looked very much alike. Sunday was lazy.

Crazy party...

The band with bike helmets. Lisan and me in the far back.

Monday night Iri and Bruno invited me for a dinner. I have to say I have never in my life had pasta this good. With little more than eggplant and tomatoes Bruno performed a true miracle. Deeply satisfied I went to sleep and had enough energy to go to language class the next morning (the first time in a week).

Realizing that I a) wanted to become less of a hypocrite in environmental matters and b) that I like adventures I decided that I wanted to take the sea/land route back to Europe. Taipei – Keelung – Xiamen (China) – Beijing – Moscow – Berlin. It looks so easy and you only need to take one ferry and change trains twice when you are in China. Spending 8 days on the train is also an experience worth making and a little price for the environment given that the trip pays you with exciting experiences. However, two weeks later I must admit that efforts for this trip already failed at first instance: without a Taiwanese resident visa you cannot apply for a Chinese visa. They didn’t let me have a resident visa. Taking the plane on June 25th.

Being somewhat of a political activist I stumbled across the following documentary.

Actually my sister recommended it to me. Unfortunately I could only find it in German but being appalled that apparently all of the chocolate available in supermarkets (except for specifically certified one) has been done at least partially with the help of child labor, I send two angry emails (in nice language of course) to Nestle and Albert Heijn. Only the latter responded with the following email, basically not denying that their chocolate is done with the help of child slaves (NO we are not talking about child LABOR, which would commonly denote paid labor but we are talking about SLAVERY, meaning no-wage labor):

“Dear Mr.,



Thank you for your email. Unfortunately we are unable to answer your question in English. Therefore you will find our answer in Dutch. 



Albert heijn is bezig haar gehele chocolade assortiment te verduurzamen. Momenteel zijn er nog niet voldoende duurzame cacaobonen beschikbaar. Wij volgen een schema waarbij tot 2015 alle chocolade duurzaam is. Euroshopper zal ook verduurzaamd worden, maar is dat op dit moment nog niet.



Sincerely, 


Marjan Schoon
Albert Heijn Klantenservice”

Sad story but enough information for me to not buy any chocolates (or other cocoa products) that are not certified until 2015.

A failed attempt for routine

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