90+ degress and equal humidity and no one here sweats. Yet, I’m constantly standing in a self-generating salt water puddle. Everyone around me is wearing denim jeans, suit coats and ties without a tell-tale bead of sweat anywhere. I’m stripped down to t-shits and shorts and I’m still wilting. (Can you imagine being pressed up against me on a crowded subway car?) And then I walk into a building and the blast of air conditioning sends my body temperature plunging to the point of shivering. (Definitely giving my immune system a run for it’s money.) So here’s what I do – yesterday’s shirt is my outdoor shirt and today’s shirt is my indoor shirt. Whenever I’m outside, I have on yesterday’s shirt. Once I’m inside, I head to the bathroom for a quick change-a-roo. (Ala Clark Kent) I remove the indoor shirt from my backpack and emerge wearing the dry shirt. I reverse this procedure on my way out – always keeping today’s shirt dry. At the end of the day, the indoor shirt becomes tomorrow’s outdoor shirt and a spanking clean shirt becomes my indoor shirt. I just don't want to think about the stink I’m carrying in that backpack.
They don’t know what to do with me at the school. (No surprises there) I have a second level vocabulary with first level conversation skills. (Lots to say but nothing to say it with) My unique combination of linguistic capabilities drags the second level class down to a snail’s pace, yet makes the first level class too rudimentary. The administrators are stumped. They told me to come back tomorrow.
After the past several days, I have to ask myself, “what is this trip about for me?” I think that I’ve gotten myself trapped somewhere between “what I want” and “I’ll get it on my own terms”. So far in my life, I’ve been pretty successful at getting what I want on my own terms. (If I didn’t get it, I rationalized that I didn’t really want it.) “My own terms” hasn’t worked so well this time around with learning conversational Chinese. Over the past year, I have attempted to develop an interactive, interpersonal skill by way of a self study project. Rather than being a vulnerable beginner in group classes or speaking lessons, I’ve chosen to safely sequester myself in my basement with Rosetta Stone. And now I’m paying for that choice. (And so is the school over here in Taiwan). Perhaps, the pinch of this trip is the realization that my own terms didn't get me what I want.
But I go to bed rekindled with hope. I’ve found a whole section of Taipei that seems to be peppered with American food type restaurants – omelettes, waffles, salad, pizza, burgers, pasta. I even ate at one – garlic bread, a coke and a greek salad. For the first time since I got here, there was a lilt in my step as I walked out of the restaurant (even though I know it’s kind of cheating.). And as I turned the corner to get to the subway stop that serves that section, I noticed the name of the road – Roosevelt Road, the only non-Chinese name on a Taipei map. Who would have foreseen the ripple effect of FDR on my life.
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