Molly in Taiwan

            When I first heard we had the opportunity to travel to Taiwan, I thought this is an opportunity I cannot pass up! Then, Taiwan seemed intimidating and outlandish. Now Taiwan feels friendly and inspiring. I was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming, not only the students were, but also the surrounding community. It made me question how we treat our visitors. Having grown up in a resort town and then moving to Incline Village for college, it seems that sometimes we look down upon our visitors. We critique there driving abilities and skills on the slope. But shouldn’t we commend them for trying something new and leaving their comfort zones?  Is that not a healthy thing to do? It seems a bit hypocritical that we sit in our comfort zones and resent our visitors. Personally, that’s why I think traveling is so important and inspiring. So when the Taiwanese treated us with smiles of gratitude it made me feel content and more comfortable in the foreign surroundings. There was a time that I was riding on the back of a student’s scooter and we took a detour from the group. We went to a juice bar. Everyone in the small shop turned to look at me.  All the teenage girls, who made the juice, waved excitedly and offered compliments in their broken English. They said things like “we love you here” “I so Beautiful!” “you nice”.  I felt so bad I couldn’t meet them half way in their language.  Even all the shop owners were ready and willing to watch our awkward charades and guess eagerly at what we wanted.

The view from that scooter ride.

            I noticed that what is perceived beautiful differs between Taiwan and the United States. For example they have “face whitening cream”, and all women wear long sleeves and pants even though it is so hot out, just to avoid the sun darkening their skin.  While I make an effort to get tan because I like how I look when I am. I was very surprised how similar the fashion was! All of the students were very fashionable.

             Another thought I had while we were traveling was about ecosystems and a higher order. When I was working on the wood kiln I was constantly watching the wildlife. During my shift there was a fairly large spider with long bright yellow

Tree House in Tainan.

legs; he was making his way across a log, when out of nowhere a small fly bit it and the spider went completely limp. The fly dragged away, making a small trail in the dirt.   Then I then looked up at the all the tall green foliage and couldn’t help thinking it looks an awful lot like where Jurassic Park was filmed. Slowly sipping my water and wiping the sweat away from my brow, I then imagined a T-Rex snapping the giant Bamboo and it’s terrible jaws enclosing over my body. It would make a trail in the trees just like he fly did in the dirt.

A fuzzy creepy crawly.

            Probably one of the most memorable experiences I had was snorkeling in Kenting. At first I was a little bizarre to put on a wet suit and be pulled by a guide through the warm waters. But a few minutes into it I had forgotten about everything. I was finally back in my element. We were arranged in a web shape design as were pulled. We were each having our own separate thoughts and experiences but it felt like we were one cloud of people floating over the brightly colored fish we were their sky as the planes and their contrails were our’s . It was completely peaceful. Floating without direction in the water is when I feel most centered. So when we had the chance to go explore (with in the prescribed limits) I put my head down in the water and focused on my breathing and drifted off, taking mental images of the exotic fish. It has been a reoccurring question in my mind of how people interact with their surrounding, and how I interact with mine. I think a lot of how put off I am with urban society, I find myself wondering about completely natural places, or what it feels like to be completely alone. Especially in the city of Taipei ( it could have been because it was at the end of the trip) but I having a hard time being in a completely man made place, I was very anxious in the public transportation and the constant steady stream of people set me on edge. Although I did enjoy seeing the city life, and the hustle and bustle, but me in a city is like a fish in tree, it doesn’t work out so well. I was so releived when we took a day trip the mountians!

Not my Image just something I needed in the city

            I think a lot about how cities are set up and all the road signs that don’t makes sense or seem to contradict each other. The system cities use are confusing to me. If I were to layout my own city I would do it much differently, none of this grid nonsense. When I travel and I see how the transportation system works, it just seem like there has to be a better way of doing it. I can’t help but think the rapid transportation is unnatural. I seem to get sick most times I travel, and I have a theory that it is because humans are not meant to change environments as quickly as we do.  Our bodies are a combination of delicate systems; to change everything in your surroundings may throw a wrench in one. We used to just travel where we could walk and if journeying far away your body has time to adjust to the changes because it is traveling slowly through the differing environments.  Now that is very inconvenient and when I travel I do appreciate how little time it takes to go half way around the world. That is an amazing feat, but it just doesn’t always agree with my body.