I've been obsessed with Wang Leehom that the other CDs I bought in Taiwan haven't had much play time until today. Mayday/五月天 is a popular band and rightfully so, it's one of the few pop/rock bands I don't mind supporting. (My S.H.E. CD will forever be the one I with which I have a love-hate relationship, I can't believe I caved and bought it >_<). Anyway, here is one of my favorite songs of the Mayday album. (Considering how badly I was crushed by my first test, the name of the group is could also serve as a succinct description of the current state of affairs.) 希望你們會喜歡。
私奔到月球
其實妳 是個心狠又手辣 的小偷
我的心 我的呼吸和名字 都偷走
你才是 綁架我的兇手 機車後座的我
吹著風 逃離了平庸
這星球 天天有五十億人 在錯過
多幸運 有妳一起看星星 在爭寵
這一刻 不再問為什麼
不再去猜測人和人 心和心 有什麼不同
123 牽著手 456 抬起頭
789 我們私奔到月球
讓雙腳去騰空
讓我們去感受
那無憂的真空 那月色純真的感動
當妳說 太聰明往往還是 會寂寞
我笑著 傾聽孤單終結後 的靜默
看月亮 像夜空的瞳孔
靜靜凝視你我 和我們擾攘的星球
靠近妳 怎麼突然兩個人 都詞窮
讓心跳 像是野火燎原般 的洶湧
這一刻 讓命運也沉默
讓腳尖劃過天和天 地和地 緣分的宇宙
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Good-bye for now
It's so odd to know that I'll be back in the U.S. soon. I've already grown accustomed to life in Taipei and now the tables seem to have turned, with the U.S. playing the role of the foreign country. Granted, I'll fall back into my own rhythm when I return, but it's so hard not to think of life with the Taiwan paradigm that my mind has created over the months. I won't be able to wake up and grab breakfast from a street vendor on my way to class. I won't have Chinese classes anymore (!). I won't see the friends that I've grown to cherish. I'll especially miss my "children", a great bunch of ICLP'ers that I've taken under my wing because I think my maternal instincts have kicked in and I feel like mothering everyone. I've never had this feeling of not really wanting to return to my home country until this summer's trip. Already trying to plan my next trip back. Until then, I'll be doing my darnest to keep up the Mandarin I learned this summer.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
不知不覺得
時間過得太快, 不知不覺得得兩個月就過去了. So today is my penultimate day here. It's been a memorable summer, for sure. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to come study in Taipei. I'm not sure if my Mandarin has improved that much, though I suppose tomorrow's test will answer that question. I've been busy the past week so my studies have suffered and I always come out of my 單班課 feeling guilty for not preparing. It's fairly obvious (很明顯) to my teacher that I haven't prepared well. >_<
Tonight a mild typhoon is supposed to hit. If there's time, I'll report later on that. This isn't my first summer in Taiwan, but I think this is my first typhoon. Hopefully, it won't affect my departure flight. Not that I wouldn't mind staying longer, but school awaits. Sometimes I wonder if I should have planned to have an easy summer before med school starts, but then I reflect upon my experiences and realize that I wouldn't trade them for the world.
I had a dream last night in which I did speak some Mandarin, so perhaps I've finally met my goal? I told a friend that I would consider this summer's program a success if I have a dream in Mandarin. Granted, the whole thing wasn't in Chinese, but it was my first dream that something other than English was spoken! I also find that sometimes I'll be thinking in Mandarin as well. Tres exciting.
One aspect of Taiwanese culture that I find really fascinating is how the locals seem to place a lot of stock in horoscopes and fortune telling. At least, that is the impression I get from some of the stories I hear and from my own experiences. I've been asked what my sign is a couple times and have had people tell me what my future will be like or what sort of person I should marry based on my sign. A friend of mine has had palmistry done by local Taiwanese. Seems like the local girls want to make sure he has a good future ahead of him before they start chasing him. ^_~ Not only horoscopes are used, but blood type is also frequently used to discern one's personality. That is something we definitely don't have in Western culture (someone correct me if I'm wrong). My cousin has even gone to see the fortune teller a few times to see if it's a good time to change his job. He doesn't believe in it to the extend that he wouldn't go through with his plans (at least, I think that's what he told me), but he likes to go just to see what the fortune teller would say. Interestingly, it seems different fortune tellers have different strengths. The one he visits is known to be fairly accurate at telling one's career fortune but not at telling one's romantic future. I would think it would be an all or nothing deal, either you're completely accurate in all aspects of life or not, but it doesn't seem to be that way.
I also learned an interesting superstition: if a couple that isn't married visits a temple together, they will end up breaking up.
雖然這是我門的最後禮拜，我門還有很多功課。我需要準備明天的演講。
Tonight a mild typhoon is supposed to hit. If there's time, I'll report later on that. This isn't my first summer in Taiwan, but I think this is my first typhoon. Hopefully, it won't affect my departure flight. Not that I wouldn't mind staying longer, but school awaits. Sometimes I wonder if I should have planned to have an easy summer before med school starts, but then I reflect upon my experiences and realize that I wouldn't trade them for the world.
I had a dream last night in which I did speak some Mandarin, so perhaps I've finally met my goal? I told a friend that I would consider this summer's program a success if I have a dream in Mandarin. Granted, the whole thing wasn't in Chinese, but it was my first dream that something other than English was spoken! I also find that sometimes I'll be thinking in Mandarin as well. Tres exciting.
One aspect of Taiwanese culture that I find really fascinating is how the locals seem to place a lot of stock in horoscopes and fortune telling. At least, that is the impression I get from some of the stories I hear and from my own experiences. I've been asked what my sign is a couple times and have had people tell me what my future will be like or what sort of person I should marry based on my sign. A friend of mine has had palmistry done by local Taiwanese. Seems like the local girls want to make sure he has a good future ahead of him before they start chasing him. ^_~ Not only horoscopes are used, but blood type is also frequently used to discern one's personality. That is something we definitely don't have in Western culture (someone correct me if I'm wrong). My cousin has even gone to see the fortune teller a few times to see if it's a good time to change his job. He doesn't believe in it to the extend that he wouldn't go through with his plans (at least, I think that's what he told me), but he likes to go just to see what the fortune teller would say. Interestingly, it seems different fortune tellers have different strengths. The one he visits is known to be fairly accurate at telling one's career fortune but not at telling one's romantic future. I would think it would be an all or nothing deal, either you're completely accurate in all aspects of life or not, but it doesn't seem to be that way.
I also learned an interesting superstition: if a couple that isn't married visits a temple together, they will end up breaking up.
雖然這是我門的最後禮拜，我門還有很多功課。我需要準備明天的演講。
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Easy prey
I'm a sucker for catchy melodies and Taiwanese pop abounds with such songs. I normally don't like groups like S.H.E., but aaaaaaagh, they have this one song on their most recent album that I'm obsessed with and I don't know why. >_<
"謝謝你的溫柔"
謝謝你如此溫柔 捧著愛靜靜等候
我的雙手 其實同樣在顫抖
但我能給你什麼 我只是一個他遺忘的我
心被一掃而空
我會把你 種再我心中
也許某天 會終於再次長出一個夢
不知道不明瞭不想要 為什麼我的心
明明是想靠近 卻孤單到黎明
不知道不明瞭不想要 為什麼我的心
那愛情的綺麗 總是在孤單裡
再把我的最好的愛給你
謝謝你如此溫柔 點著笑容的燈火
只溫暖而不打擾我的寒冬
還沒決定往哪走 才所以不能答應你陪我
怕你會變成我
"謝謝你的溫柔"
謝謝你如此溫柔 捧著愛靜靜等候
我的雙手 其實同樣在顫抖
但我能給你什麼 我只是一個他遺忘的我
心被一掃而空
我會把你 種再我心中
也許某天 會終於再次長出一個夢
不知道不明瞭不想要 為什麼我的心
明明是想靠近 卻孤單到黎明
不知道不明瞭不想要 為什麼我的心
那愛情的綺麗 總是在孤單裡
再把我的最好的愛給你
謝謝你如此溫柔 點著笑容的燈火
只溫暖而不打擾我的寒冬
還沒決定往哪走 才所以不能答應你陪我
怕你會變成我
Major events, recap
Down to the penultimate week of ICLP and I have been 相當忙 (really busy). To show the progress we've made, some of the classes are doing speeches that all the teachers and some of the students attend. Today was my group's turn; we decided to do a debate on whether women should continue working or stay at home and take care of the kids after giving birth. 女性生小孩以後, 是否應該在家帶小孩還是繼續工作? I thought it would be a topic that my classmates would at least find a bit interesting and that wouldn't be too hard to cover, but the latter turned out to be untrue. The topic has too many aspects that can or should be taken into account and some of it was beyond the scope of my language abilities. Since the instructor made us write out everything we were going to say, it was an extremely scripted debate. I heard the students start laughing about a third of a way into it. I also started cracking up at how ridiculous we must have seem having a "debate", when really all we were doing was reading off what we wrote in preparation. If the instructor didn't say we had to use the vocabulary and grammar patterns that we've been learning, perhaps we could have had a less scripted debate. But at least it was entertaining.
Other highlights, went to K9, a karaoke place in the Living Mall (京華城) and enjoyed the melodious voices of my fellow ICLP'ers. I tried to sing but I can't for the life of me sing on key in front of people. In the car, in my room, no problem, but in front of people, I start going off-key. I'm just not meant to sing. But it was fun.
Forgot ID so couldn't get into Room 18, one of the popular clubs in Taipei. T_T But two friends of a classmate were kind enough to give me a ride to my cousin's place, aaaaaaall the way down in Da Ping Lin. I don't know if it's a correct observation, but the Taiwanese guys I've run into here are usually really nice and it seems they haven't let chivalry die. Good to know.
I've lost count of the number of people here who ask me if I'm Japanese. Still amusing. I went with the lovely Miss B. to get juice from the lady who always outside the entrance to TaiDa. She pointed at B. and said "Korean" and then pointed at me and said "Japanese". B. and I looked at each other and then looked at her and shook our heads no. Then I broke out the little Taiwanese that I know and said that we were actually Taiwanese. B. doesn't look Korean at all, I'm not sure where that came from. I get the Japanese comment so often now it doesn't surprise me. I still think it's odd, but I don't find it surprising.
Learned a new idiom (成語) today, 相見恨晚.
真可惜....
Other highlights, went to K9, a karaoke place in the Living Mall (京華城) and enjoyed the melodious voices of my fellow ICLP'ers. I tried to sing but I can't for the life of me sing on key in front of people. In the car, in my room, no problem, but in front of people, I start going off-key. I'm just not meant to sing. But it was fun.
Forgot ID so couldn't get into Room 18, one of the popular clubs in Taipei. T_T But two friends of a classmate were kind enough to give me a ride to my cousin's place, aaaaaaall the way down in Da Ping Lin. I don't know if it's a correct observation, but the Taiwanese guys I've run into here are usually really nice and it seems they haven't let chivalry die. Good to know.
I've lost count of the number of people here who ask me if I'm Japanese. Still amusing. I went with the lovely Miss B. to get juice from the lady who always outside the entrance to TaiDa. She pointed at B. and said "Korean" and then pointed at me and said "Japanese". B. and I looked at each other and then looked at her and shook our heads no. Then I broke out the little Taiwanese that I know and said that we were actually Taiwanese. B. doesn't look Korean at all, I'm not sure where that came from. I get the Japanese comment so often now it doesn't surprise me. I still think it's odd, but I don't find it surprising.
Learned a new idiom (成語) today, 相見恨晚.
真可惜....
Monday, July 16, 2007
身體不舒服
I think the fatigue of sleep-deprivation finally brought me down because I seem to have caught a bug. I thought my throat was feeling funny because of all the tea I drank during the tea tasting on our field trip to 文山 (Wen Shan) tea farm. On Sunday I awoke with a minor sore throat, so I then realized I was falling ill. I tried to fight it with orange juice and some medicinal soup yesterday. Today my sore throat has turned into a scratchy, dry throat and cough. I'm hoping it'll be over by the week's end. The good news is that my eye problems seem to be due to the polluted air in Taiwan and not something more serious like a side-effect from the corneal abrasion. Wearing contacts is still a bit painful at times for my left eye, but I hope the problem will be resolved magically when I return to the States. And if a certain someone is reading, this means I won't need an eye patch! Guess my dream of being a pirate will be deferred. =P
Twinnie sent me an interesting article from Slate about being a standardized patient and the experience of being examined by green med students. I really respect standardized patients for giving us the opportunity to learn how to conduct patient exams before having to work with real patients. Props to the reporter who volunteered to be a standardized patient. It seems that people who are standardized patients really enjoy what they do though, which is great. The SPs that I saw at EVMS were a great bunch and I look forward to working with them. I have to pay my highest respects to the SPs who are trained to undergo the gynecological exams or prostate exams. I don't think I would accept any amount of money to allow a nervous med student to conduct a gynecological exam on me, no matter how broke I am. When I'm a poor and destitute med student, I will take to the streets with my violin to pay my tuition.
As mentioned earlier, this Saturday I went on the school field trip to 文山 (Wen Shan) tea farm with a brief stop at 烏來 (Wu Lai) on the way back to 台大. The tea farm was fun though the heat definitely made it a bit unbearable at times. However, since I've been here over a month, the heat doesn't really bother me as much anymore as I've grown accustomed to being in a perpetual state of perspiration. Tea production is a fairly intensive process so after seeing how tea is produced from plant to final product, I understand now why some types of tea seem to be prohibitively expensive. The particular type of tea we learned about was 烏龍茶 (oolong tea). The type of 烏龍茶 that I'm used to drinking is dark brown and has a rather heavy, rich flavor but the kind produced at this farm has a most wonderful delicate fragrance, somewhat akin to jasmine or lily, and is light green in color and has a light flavor. It was really lovely to end the day in an air conditioned room and learn the proper way to serve and taste tea.
At 烏來 we just walked up and and down the old street and sampled various treats like mochi and deep fried pork/chicken from the street vendors. There was a high number of vendors selling mochi and 炒米粉 (chao mi fen), I'm not sure if it's a specialty of the region or not, though I'm guessing it is. Since Hualien is known for mochi, I didn't purchase any since I feared it would be inferior to Hualien's, however the samples I tasted were pretty good. I'm surprised I haven't ballooned due to all the food I've eaten but I think walking everywhere has helped me keep my weigh stable.
Today I had two speeches, one in the format of a debate which the teacher recorded. Her original intent was to upload the video to the web, but I persuaded her not to (er, I think I did), so hopefully no one outside my class will witness my dismal public speaking abilities. The fact I was ill didn't make the situation any better. I don't mind the speeches because it enables me to practice the grammar patterns and vocabulary we're learning. I just mind being recorded with the intent of showing the WWW my Mandarin skills, or lack thereof. In my other class, I talked about the perpetual foreigner syndrome that Asian-American's experience. It's hard to translate terms like "perpetual foreigner syndrome" or "quarter-life crisis" into Mandarin because I usually do a direct translation which does transmit the meaning of what I'm trying to say, but it makes no sense to native Chinese speakers (and probably to non-native Chinese speakers as well). Thankfully, I've had my cousin help with the phrasing sometimes.
Homework calls!
Twinnie sent me an interesting article from Slate about being a standardized patient and the experience of being examined by green med students. I really respect standardized patients for giving us the opportunity to learn how to conduct patient exams before having to work with real patients. Props to the reporter who volunteered to be a standardized patient. It seems that people who are standardized patients really enjoy what they do though, which is great. The SPs that I saw at EVMS were a great bunch and I look forward to working with them. I have to pay my highest respects to the SPs who are trained to undergo the gynecological exams or prostate exams. I don't think I would accept any amount of money to allow a nervous med student to conduct a gynecological exam on me, no matter how broke I am. When I'm a poor and destitute med student, I will take to the streets with my violin to pay my tuition.
As mentioned earlier, this Saturday I went on the school field trip to 文山 (Wen Shan) tea farm with a brief stop at 烏來 (Wu Lai) on the way back to 台大. The tea farm was fun though the heat definitely made it a bit unbearable at times. However, since I've been here over a month, the heat doesn't really bother me as much anymore as I've grown accustomed to being in a perpetual state of perspiration. Tea production is a fairly intensive process so after seeing how tea is produced from plant to final product, I understand now why some types of tea seem to be prohibitively expensive. The particular type of tea we learned about was 烏龍茶 (oolong tea). The type of 烏龍茶 that I'm used to drinking is dark brown and has a rather heavy, rich flavor but the kind produced at this farm has a most wonderful delicate fragrance, somewhat akin to jasmine or lily, and is light green in color and has a light flavor. It was really lovely to end the day in an air conditioned room and learn the proper way to serve and taste tea.
At 烏來 we just walked up and and down the old street and sampled various treats like mochi and deep fried pork/chicken from the street vendors. There was a high number of vendors selling mochi and 炒米粉 (chao mi fen), I'm not sure if it's a specialty of the region or not, though I'm guessing it is. Since Hualien is known for mochi, I didn't purchase any since I feared it would be inferior to Hualien's, however the samples I tasted were pretty good. I'm surprised I haven't ballooned due to all the food I've eaten but I think walking everywhere has helped me keep my weigh stable.
Today I had two speeches, one in the format of a debate which the teacher recorded. Her original intent was to upload the video to the web, but I persuaded her not to (er, I think I did), so hopefully no one outside my class will witness my dismal public speaking abilities. The fact I was ill didn't make the situation any better. I don't mind the speeches because it enables me to practice the grammar patterns and vocabulary we're learning. I just mind being recorded with the intent of showing the WWW my Mandarin skills, or lack thereof. In my other class, I talked about the perpetual foreigner syndrome that Asian-American's experience. It's hard to translate terms like "perpetual foreigner syndrome" or "quarter-life crisis" into Mandarin because I usually do a direct translation which does transmit the meaning of what I'm trying to say, but it makes no sense to native Chinese speakers (and probably to non-native Chinese speakers as well). Thankfully, I've had my cousin help with the phrasing sometimes.
Homework calls!
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