I'm Still in Taipei!

In last week's episode, Roni landed in Taipei and could be found taking pictures of pedestrian traffic lights and watermelons. Will he be able to brave the streets of Taipei, bustling with young hipsters, those wide-eyed kids relieved that their English cram school sessions are over, buying up pork and noodle products voraciously as they do each and every night in the food stalls surrounding the Taipei Main MRT station? (Goddamn, that was a long sentence!)

Find out this week, in "Roni--22nd Century Chinese-Like Taipei Boy!"

The title of this new series comes from a t-shirt I saw hanging in one of the night markets. It's got a cartoon cat on it, presumably from Japan, named "DORAEMON." Underneath it, the caption reads "22nd Century Cat-like Robot!" You go, English copy editors of Asia!

Wow, there is so much to recount. I will be short. All right, I will try to be short, but it might end up being longer than I thought, so if you are at work, you can either grab a cup of coffee and come back and read this (the break will, in the end, make you a lot more productive), or close this and get back to your boring fucking job.

Tonight, I was invited by some friends to see a movie in a large theatre complex near the Taipei 101 Building. It was "Phantom of the Opera," and I must say, as a sidenote here, that even though I liked the message, that compassion triumphs over evil in the end, that, for the record, I really don't like, and never have liked, cheesy musical theatre. Sorry.

The theatre looks exactly like theatres in the States, highlighting the fact that Taipei should actually be annexed by the United States and become a territory, or at least a district, like Washington, DC.

I use the subway a lot, and it looks just like BART, and people are all dressed like they dress in the Bay Area (except fewer tattoos and piercings). Lots of young people are on board, and they are all talking about the things young people talk about, emitting laughter, and playing with their cell phones. It's all just like the Bay Area, except it is slightly different in a few ways.

First, EVERYONE IS CHINESE. And second, THEY ARE ALL SPEAKING CHINESE. So, as you can imagine, these two slight differences kind of make me feel like I'm in the movie "Being John Malkovich" and instead of everyone saying "Malkovich, Malkovich" like they say in the movie, they are saying "dui ya!" and “zhen de ma!”

Okay, I found an apartment. I looked at several places. One was near the Taipei 101 building. The 101 building was just built last year. Supposedly, it is the tallest building in the world. It is wild. It's design is based on the natural design of bamboo. I will send you a photo of it, because you gotta see it to understand what I am talking about. Well, when the 101 building went up, a lot of people in the neighborhood moved away. Bad feng shui. In feng shui, a really tall building is like a sword, and you know what a sword will do to your luck.

Feng shui is sort of the reason why I decided not move into that place near 101. I didn't take it because it was right in the middle of the city, and I am not a city boy. Otherwise, I would have moved to New York to be with two of my favorite people in the world, Alona and Marina. The other apartment I saw was near Shi Da, the university where I will be studying. It's a good location for an apartment. Makes sense for me, right? Wrong! Student housing tends to be ugly. Brits, Aussies, Americans, and Europeans tend to live there for several months at a time, smoking cigarettes, drinking cheap beer and wine, and having lots of wild sex. Is this a place where I would like to visit? Yes. But to live there, I don't think so. The paint is peeling off the walls, it smells, and there is no natural light in the apartment. The fact that they had Nintendo there wasn't going to, like, make me change my mind, either.

I happened to have posted my profile on a local expat website, explaining that I am looking for housing in Taipei, preferably with a few Taiwanese roommates (this way I learn Mandarin faster). And so, Sara called me. She said she had a room for rent in an apartment in Shi Lin, which is in the northern part of town. I met Sara. She is sweet. I met her roommate, Apollo. (These kind of English names (like "Apollo") "happen" here in Taiwan—there are girls here named "Cherry.") Like the fabled Greek god, he is cool. They are both around my age and are interested in practicing their English. And so, I have housing.

There is a large park near here, and you can see the mountains to the north of Taipei. It is very green around here, which makes me extremely happy. I am right near Chiang Kai-Shek's house, and so sometimes I go over his place and have a cup of tea. He practices qigong and has shown me a few cool moves. Just kidding. Chiang Kai-Shek, the father of Taiwan, is actually dead, though still revered. I don't actually know if he did qigong, although he probably drank tea.

Sara and Apollo took me to the Shi Lin night market here on Saturday night. We don't have night markets in the States, but we should. It's just food stalls and small shops, but mostly food stalls, and the object of it all is to eat as much as you can as you stroll through the market. Everyone is very friendly to me, and although not many of the shop owners in Taiwan (at least the older generation) speak English, there is always a smile we can share.

As some of you know, Taipei has forced me to move into the 1990s and get a cell phone. So, I can also look hip on the MRT as I scroll through my phone's address book and figure out how to use the built-in calculator. As someone I met here (who is from LA) exclaimed, "Hey, I had that phone in like 1996." Well, dammit, I think 1996 was a great year for Nokia phones.

Before I moved into my apartment (where we have a DSL connection), I was checking my e-mail at the local video arcade (it's just a room full of PCs and pubescent Taiwanese boys). I sat down one day last week next to a cute caucasian women named Diana, who I later found out is Canadian.

"So, what are you doing here?" she asked. "I am learning Mandarin and would like to study with a Chinese doctor, as I just finished a graduate program in Chinese Medicine," I responded. "What are you doing here?" "I am studying Mandarin and studying with a Chinese doctor. I just graduated Chinese Medicine school last year, too," she says. And so, I made a new friend, Diana. She has been keeping to herself for several months here, and is glad to have a friend to talk to.

As I mentioned, there is a lot to talk about. By now, only two of you are reading, my most dedicated friends, and GOD BLESS YOU! Even to those people not reading this, who are tending to school, or work, or kids, I want to say, I LOVE YOU, and I MISS YOU.

Please say hi by e-mail. I'll keep you posted with more e-mails (I will use fewer profanities in future e-mails, I promise). And I will have more photos soon, too (it's been raining).

Love,
Roni
"22nd Century Chinese-Like Taipei Boy!"