It’s been a while, I know. I come bearing no quirky cultural encounters but with a life update, so please indulge me.
It’s been hard to update because sometime within the past month and a half, I’ve carved out a little life here in Taipei. It’s not quite exchange but maybe only because Utrecht and Taipei are so different. The main difference is I feel like I will be leaving a life behind when I leave here next month. While most of my friends are still foreigners (some who will stay, some will go and some already gone), unlike in Utrecht, I have local ones. Life in Taipei will continue here without me but in Utrecht, within a week of leaving for backpacking, the city as I knew it was gone.
Taipei has turned me into a creature of habit. Tuesdays you will find me at Underworld, a dive bar that is a one minute walk from my house. The DJ plays Morrissey while I order two-for-one beer from either Susan or Xiao Bo. Somehow I’m a little surprised if I don’t know at least half the people in this tiny bar. I’ve never been a regular anywhere–not Markham, Toronto or Utrecht. It’s not quite Cheers but it might be the closest I’ll ever get.
Being in this position makes leaving all the more difficult. I haven’t mentioned it on here yet but I have accepted a job offer to go be an English language assistant in France this fall. In April the French Ministry of Education that runs a program that hires native English speakers told me I was accepted and I would be teaching in high school in the Alsace region. A few days ago a letter arrived at my parents’ house telling me I would teaching in a town called Sélestat. Wikipedia places the town’s population at 20,000 and 50 km away from Strasbourg.
I have always been jointly intrigued and terrified by small-town life–both because I’ve never experienced it before. The closest I have come is probably here in the Shida neighbourhood of Taipei. Sometimes in Toronto I feel like I need to ignore a lot in order to get by in the city, especially when I’m commuting. I don’t really make an effort to talk to people or get to know them. When I’m somewhere like London, I feel like I’d have to get used to ignoring even more things and people if I wanted to live there. I know it’s both inevitable and a method of protection to be exercise less trust in the urban environment. Been to the sociology of the city course, gotten the credit on my transcript. But I guess I still can’t speak from first hand experience about the other side.
Today an old lady was talking to my friend while we took the train to Fulong beach. She told her the reason she had been staring at me the entire trip was because I look like her granddaughter who is presently backpacking across America. I barely said two sentences to her but she bought lunch for myself and my two friends. She had been telling us about this really famous pork rice takeout box exclusive to Fulong and when she saw a vendor on the train platform, she insisted. It’s things like these that remind me about how nice people ca be and make me wish I was a better person. I don’t know whether to chalk this moment up to Taiwanese people, Taipei the super-friendly big city (exception?), Fulong the small town, old people or just one really nice woman.
I could easily commute from Strasbourg to Sélestat or live in the town itself. I have my reservations about both. At this point in my travels, I have realized that, in the end, big cities all over the world are the same. Small town life is probably the most exotic experience I could have. Just by working there I know it will become part of my life but I’m wondering if I should take the plunge. As crazy as it sounds, I’m staring one of my biggest fears in the face and I don’t know if I have it in me to make it my life for seven months.
Finally, I’d like you to know that I have a new camera. I’m excited to learn how to take photos on it (Yes, there’s a learning curve to it!) and to document whatever new places I end up. Also if I’ve been remiss about updating this blog, it’s because I just started up blogging at Maclean’s OnCampus about my travels and neither-here-nor-there life. As for what goes here and what goes there in terms of the blog, I don’t have it exactly figured yet. But when do I ever?
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