Danish-taiwanese-week

Sorry for the gap in my updates, but I have been really busy recently (in a positive way). Especially, the past week has been packed with experiences, that I normally experience in Danish surroundings… but not this time!

First of all I went to see the new Harry Potter movie (!!!) together with a Taiwanese classmate. She had been so kind to book tickets to a version where the actors spoke English and not Chinese (Try to imagine professor McGonagall speaking Chinese!), but the subtitles where though still in Chinese, and the audience acted in a very Asian way ass well. I guess humour is different all over the world!

Saturday my family took me to a city named Keelung about 1 and a half hours drive from Taipei. The city has a very big harbour (and I’m pretty sure my father has been there), but we didn’t spend time at the sea. Instead we went to an old Japanese-style mine town that now was one big tourist attraction. My oldest sister and I got to go into the actual former used mine, which was interesting but a bit claustrophobic!

    When we returned home in the evening I had to cook some Danish food for an event I was going to on Sunday. My choice had fallen on frikadeller as my family does not have an oven (almost no one in Taiwan has). It had taken some effort to find all the ingredients, but I turned out that the ingredients weren’t the only problem I would get. Cause I asked my family where to find something to whip the forcemeat with, they told me, that they always used chopsticks! So now I can earnestly tell that I’ve been cooking frikadeller with help from chopsticks!

Me and my oldest host sister in the mine!

As I’ve told, the Danish food was cooked because of an event on last Sunday. It was a Culture Fair set up by Rotary to give the upcoming Taiwanese exchange students an impression of the different countries. Each country (represented by inbound exchange students) got one table where they had to “exhibit” their country, and then the Taiwanese students and their parents walked around listening, looking, tasting and asking questions.

    To represent Denmark I had made two posters: one with a map of Denmark and some facts about size, inhabitants, weather and welfare- and school system, and another poster with explanations and examples of the Danish language. Further more I had brought some LEGO for the visitors to play with (who could finish their figure in the shortest time), and on my computer I showed some promotion videos about Denmark. But the favourite attraction among my guests was definitely frikadellerne!

In addition to the many events then I’ve been busy dancing as we are training hardcore for our performance in December. And just to put even more dance into my life, one of my classmates took me to se the famous Taiwanese Cloud Gate Dance group (a modern ballet group) performing “Water Stains on the Wall”. They were indescribably skilful as they were dancing on a tilted stage! And still all the difficult steps looked so easy when they did them! And what made it even more beautiful was the use of modern classic music and constantly changing black shadows on the white stage. It made me think of a Chinese painting.

So this week has been pretty busy, and very special as it has contained some very familiar things but in new surroundings. Also we will enter December in a few days, but as they do not celebrate Christmas here it is not going to be anything special. A journalist from Horsens Folkeblad contacted me for an interview about, how my Christmas is going to be here, and I promise to post the article, when it is brought!

Julia :)

Fun, fun, fun

First of all: Thank you very much for all the greetings I get from everyone. I am having a great time here and just hoping you are having a “hyggelig” time in Denmark as well! I would like to send a greeting back to all of you, but I am simply too busy. I do though really appreciate that you send me messages: “Det varmer mit hjerte”!

So… Here are some funny updates from the past week J

• Monday I got another certificate saying ”Certificate of Outstanding Performance”, given to me by my language school.
• The other morning I saw a man bicycling with a dog standing on his shoulder! (Even bicycling without a dog on your shoulder is pretty difficult and scarring in Taiwan’s traffic)
• The word “rich” in Chinese is literarily “have much money”.
• Wednesday evening I ended up singing with a street musician in front of a very excited Taiwanese audience! The street musician wanted me to come back and perform with him but… I guess I’m too busy J
• My head is to find overall in my school on posters advertising for my schools music club.
• I get to do a performance with my dance team in December J
• My next host family has two houses – one of them brand new with four floors and an elevator (!!!). I am though going to miss my present family when I move, as I love them so much!
• I have to learn a little Japanese, as I am going to Japan for a week in January!
• My classmates (whom I love more and more) gave me the nick name iau iau, which means shake it shake it :p
• Bird eggs with small fish are super delicious!
• This evening my family and I though ate pizza and drank juice, which is the most western-style meal I’ve had since I came here!

Yes.. It is my head :D

I LOVE Taiwan!

Julia J

Fall

Even though Taiwan is much closer to Equator than Denmark is, it still gets cold here. Last Saturday it was more than 30 degrees C and the sun was burning, but this Thursday the temperature got down to 17,5 degrees C, and people wear thick jackets, boots and scarves.

The sudden change in weather is partly caused by the typhoons passing Taiwan now and then bringing a lot of rain and colder weather, and the sudden change in clothing is caused by the very humid weather here.

    Because of the high humidity it feels super hot and sauna-like when the temperature is high, and kind of sticky cold and damp (what we would call “klamt” in danish) when the temperature is low. The cold feeling is increased by the fact that no buildings here have heating systems and a stove is an unknown thing. So are you first freezing it can be hard to become warm again.

    So I’d better try to find time to buy myself a jacket and some sweaters, cause from now on we will probably have fewer of the hot days :)

Well I don’t have the time today, because soon I will take the MRT wearing a spider costume, as Rotary throws a Halloween party for the Exchange Students. They don’t celebrate Halloween in Taiwan (well some shops try to make a stunt out of it just as I Denmark), but here are a lot of Exchange Students from USA and Canada, so I guess that is the reason why, we are going to have a party. Well, I look forward :)

Julia

Ps. The leaves here are still green though        

10 things about Taiwan

Now I’ve been in Taiwan for 2 months and 4 days – it is unbelievable how time flies! I decided that it is time to tell you some truth about Taiwan, so here are 10 facts about Taiwan and Taiwanese people:

1.     I knew that Asian people studied a lot before I came here, but I had absolutely no idea HOW much they actually study! There are a few kids at my school with flecks of grey hair. Especially in Senior High, they study incredibly much – school is their lives.

2.     Asian people don’t sleep especially much. Especially the young people are so busy studying, that they have to cut down on their sleeping hours.

3.     On the other hand we sleep in school. Every school has a sleeping lesson, and mine is from 12:30-1:00. If the students still feel sleepy they might just pass out on their table during class.

4.     In Taiwan you eat with chopsticks (if anyone should be in doubt about that)

5.     You eat rice all the time! You have rice for dinner almost every night (which is made in a special “rice-boiler-machine”) combined with a lot of small dishes wherefrom you pick and eat. You also have rice for lunch as well (often leftovers from the day before that you heat in a steam box in your class room). Even when you finally think, that you are not eating rice, you might still be eating it. Like that you can have rice-milk as a breakfast drink, or you can eat rice-noodles for lunch or dinner.

6.     You eat fish “with everything”. The fish is just fried on the pan with skin, bones and eyes and then served as it is. So you definitely eat the skin, and if you are hard-core you might also eat the eyes.

7.     You eat shrimps with the shell if they are served with some kind of sauce.

8.     People might have a “real” bed but it is often made of wood. Not just the frame, but the madras as well (mine is not – thank god).

9.     “Uo yau shuo ying uen” actually means something. With the correct use of tones it says: “I want to speak English”.

10. Young people do the “peace-pose” every time they see a camera! It is unbelievable how fast their hands can rise and their index and middle finger split.

Yeah everything above is true – it is not good, it is not bad, it is just different!

Underneath are some pictures from another fantastic weekend, where a taiwanese freind to me on an "all-day-trip" around Taipei!

A concerthall built to commemorate Chang Kai-Shek

Students practising a traditional instrument with only one string

A dessert consisting of ice, beans, a root crop and some jelly balls. Sounds weird? It is good!

Julia :)