A little lesson

One strange thing about Taiwan is that, as a foreigner, you have a status just slightly below that of a rockstar, and quite high above that of President (though that isn't terribly hard right now, as no one here appears to like President Chen). As I'm sure you can imagine, this begins to influence the way one thinks.

Just being foreign, for example, is enough to get even the prettiest girls interested in you. This is probably true most places; here, though, even having a lousy personality and no personal grooming ability isn't enough to scare them away. Seriously. (Those of you who have lousy personalities and no personal hygiene, please don't take that as an invitation. Not that anyone reading this fits that description. You're all lovely people, of course. I'm just typing this for posterity, in case anyone fitting that description should ever read this.)

Schoolchildren look up to you, too - simply because you are foreign. And adults are often glad to have foreigners show up in their shops or houses, and will offer you things free of charge.
And then there's the fact that I am so much bigger (and possibly stronger?) than a lot of the people here, and the fact that I will be attending NTU (their most presitigous university) ...so I usually am admired and complimented. Oh, and I guess saying some of your favorite things to do are "read and write" are hugely impressive to people here.

I realized several times that I needed some humbling, and, it turns out, "ask and you shall recieve" is more than a saying.

Last week, for example, I walked out of the World Passport Office, looking for food. This is a short digression, by the way, but it is going somewhere (and ending in Taiwan...heh). On my way, I saw the girl at the coffeeshop, Mimi, and decided to ask her what's good to eat. She couldn't decide what to tell me, so she passed the problem on to her boss. He doesn't speak English. Nonetheless, he decided he would personally walk me over to a shop with good food and order it for me. Keep in mind, this is during working hours. He was willing to just walk off and help someone he barely knew. Obviously I appreciated that.
Anyway, he was able to communicate to me that a couple things were good at this food stand, so I agreed to order them. One was a dish with lamb or goat, I'm not exactly sure, and the other was some sort of soup.
He then took me back to his coffeeshop (which is called Magic Coffee (I like the name)...oh, and he also owns the internet cafe next door, which is very large and prosperous - and he's a year older than me. Grr.), and offered me a seat. Then he brought me a free drink, which was as excellent as it was mystifying. It was icy-cold tea with some minty and citrus-y flavors.

So I was sitting there reflecting on how much like infants we all are here - we can't speak, or do anything for ourselves, and must rely totally on the kindness of strangers (who are admittedly very kind). I admit, my Chinese probably even sounds infantile. I ate some of my food, then decided I'd try my soup. Now, you need to know soup works differently here: it does not come in a soup bowl. Instead you are given soup in a plastic bag, and you then can pour it into the soup bowl you are also given, all at your convenience. It seems it would be more convenient just to have it in the bowl to start with, but, I am just a guest here.

Foreshadowing aside, I decided to introduce the soup into the bowl that it was so obviously destined to meet. I decided they wouldn't give me more soup than they would bowl, as that would be silly, and would be totally impossible, as the two were so obviously designed for each other.
I was wrong, of course. I was also a little hasty in pouring: I poured it all at once.

Fortunately, I managed to spare my shirt. Unfortunately, I did so at the expense of my shorts...and the legs they covered with their admirably thin fabric. That thin fabric is very nice for keeping me cool - usually. It actually doesn't keep me cool against boiling soup, however.
It burned.
So here I am, thinking what infants we are, and then I dump scalding soup all over myself. So there I sat, with my lunch spilled all over myself. (Unlike an infant, though, I didn't cry about it - I didn't even make a noise. I calmly, but with some haste, tried to get the remaining liquid on the table to spill away from me).

So, God, thank you for reminding me that you do listen. Thankfulness is a little hard to muster when you've been soup-burned. heh. But, I was quite painfully reminded that I'm only human, and a rather careless one at that. I did need it.

(oh, and as an aside, I decided I might as well stay and finish my soup. It, and the food, were both very good, and I felt as though the soup put up a fair fight, so I had some satisfaction from that.)

But, you know me. Well, probably everyone else who's ever lived, too. I need reminders.

This last weekend, I was invited to see a bit of Jia Yi (the city I'm in - though for whatever reason, they spell it Chiai, or Chia yi) by my assistant, Shakira (she named herself), and some of my students.
So Shakira took me by scooter to a college campus nearby, and showed me around. It's a beautiful campus, surrounded be trees and water, very large, and up on a hill looking down on the city. I wish I had pictures. Shakira did offer to let me use her camera, but I knew exactly what would happen if I did borrow it - I'd have to spend at least another hour there photographing everything. And it was really hot out. And it mostly would've been pictures of trees. I've noticed I have a thing for trees. I don't think other people exactly share my passion, so I decided in the interest of not boring my gracious guide, and in not being out in the hot sun, that I should avoid the camera.
Anyway - after that, we drove to her great-grandmothers' house for her 95th birthday. She likes lots of company, I'm told, so she enjoyed having me there. And I'm also told she has never seen a foreigner in person, so she enjoyed that, too. And her memory is very bad, so it was probably a constant pleasant surprise seeing me there. Heh. Ok, that's probably a little disrespectful.

This is about a half-hour drive from the college campus. The college campus is about 20 minutes from the school we met at. And I was walking around the campus for about 45 minutes.
As I mentioned, you start thinking of yourself as being invincible here. So, though it would at home, it never occured to me that I was getting an awful lot of sun.

I should mention again that I was riding a scooter. They do not have roofs.

I should mention also, people here admire lily-white skin, which I usually posses.
Usually. At the moment, though, I have horrible burns on my knees. And my neck. And my face got a little burned, too.
But the knees are the worst.

I think I must have provided some entertainment for Shakira's family - when I arrived at their great-grandmother's house, they asked me why some of my skin was red. I looked, and sure enough, it was. It was then I realized it might have been a good idea to use sunscreen.
So I spent a few hours applying ice and aloe, which did help, like trying to calm a raging fire by making it do yoga. I think my idiotic misery probably was a pretty entertaining gift for the great-grandmother, though I doubt anyone would ever tell me so. (Shakira was also burned, but only on her arms; it still looked fairly painful.)

To make things worse, I did bring aspirin with me. If you take it right after you get burned, your burns will not become as serious, and they'll heal faster. I think. I say it made things worse, though, because I brought it with me...to Tainan. It is still in my other bag, which is still in...Tainan. And people here seem not to believe in taking the stuff. And the place Shakira and her family live is quite a ways away from anything (well, from stores, anyway. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get more than 100 feet away from other people in this country).

So that was another humbling reminder of my humanity. heh. And quite painful.

The day didn't end there though, and neither did my misery (not to say my evening was unpleasant! It was enjoyable, except for the pain!). But, here this blog will end.


So, I am dedicating this particular entry to God: thank you. I know I've mostly done a fine job of hurting/humbling myself, but I can't help but feel you've influenced something, somewhere. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to kindly ask you to please stop burning me. I get it. Well, the more obvious parts. I'm sure there are deeper levels of meaning that could be found. I know, burning sinners and prideful people and all that. If it's not too much trouble, I'd prefer something differently painful next time - I know there will be a next time (but you better than me, naturally). Variety's the spice of life and all that. Of course, you have a sense of humor, too, so you'll probably humor me, which terrifies me. Ah, well. I suppose that keeps things interesting.