From Asia to Europe

Pre-afternoon coffee time found itself a spectator to Yonghe’s finest fashions yesterday afternoon. With one ‘strut’ down the catwalk (crowded avenue), my rather ordinary day then took a swift leap into the extraordinary. A brief history shall set the scene:

On virtually every street, alley and nook in Taiwan, there can be found troops of elderly entrepreneurs who make a small wage collecting recyclables. Ancient, rickety, and rusted out pull or push carts serve as their collection trucks. As in good Chinese fashion, they tend to stock these glorified wheelbarrows well beyond a safe capacity, taunting both gravity and passing vehicles.

Now be it senility, their obstructing pointed (‘coolie’) hats or a combination of the two, they tend to regard traffic lights only as a ‘suggestion’. As such, major and minor arteries are prone to blockage as our dear urban gardeners pause their barrows mid-intersection to chase runaway bottles.

Already, they are a great show for foreign rubber-neckers.

During my brief coffee repose yesterday, and to my great delight, pushing the local Yungyuan Rd. cart was Yonghe’s answer to fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

Imagine if you will, a rather generously ‘voluptuous’, middle-aged Chinese (Taiwanese) woman, hair unkempt ‘au naturel’, skin thinly coated a la car exhaust, spine curved from years behind the cart. Now imagine this loosely elegant woman in loud conversation with herself, eyes scanning up and down the street like a hungry chicken, cart narrowly missing parked cars and children.

Finally, try to picture a garishly colourful Hello Kitty bedspread, like a neon safety uniform. Take a piece of rope, tuck it under the top end of the bedspread and now tie it tightly around the woman’s chest, cinching her massive ‘udders’ in two, Hello Kitties and other body parts falling around her much like a strapless wedding dress would. Situate her behind her cart.

10 out of 10?

This was the fantastic sideshow before me. As if this wasn’t enough, at one point her ‘wedding dress’ began to droop, sparking a priceless reaction: in a quick save, she paused mid-road, hunched over, yanking her robe towards the sky with several quick jerks, in a full chicken dance, underarms flapping like flags.

The kicker is that, as per the Yonghe grapevine, she is apparently quite well off from doing this since she was a young girl. She boasts not one, but two properties! (Structure and location underdetermined.) Additionally, she may be the token Taiwanese non-consumer as she acquires all her fashions – and furniture – for free.

I can’t wait for her to flaunt her – gasp – summer collection’s swimsuit, which I’m told is quite the sexy number.

Impressedly, Laura.

I just dread being sick in Taiwan.

It’s not because of the annoyances and inconveniences of being sick itself. Not the colds, the vomiting, or the runs that seem to sprint more than jog.

While it’s been taught to me (and generally agreed upon by many at home) that any of the above require thorough rest, fluids, and a supporting diet; the Taiwanese believe that a trip to the doctor will have you back on your feet in no time. That is, they believe that there is a pill to cure every symptom. There is no acknowledgement that the body just needs time to recover.

This morning I found myself in that unfortunate cold/flu state, having to make a phone call to the school, telling them that I had no place teaching today. (Nevermind the spread of illness, which isn’t considered.) It’s now 12:32pm and I’ve been ‘encouraged’ by two teachers at school to see a doctor. One of them just asserted that if I would like to have a ‘happy weekend’, then I should go see a doctor straight away!

I am certain that the journey to the doctor by scooter, chaotic and uncomfortable, would undo all of the recovering of this morning’s sleep-in. I can already predict his diagnosis (‘it’s a virus’!) and prescribe myself the necessary drugs, of which are stockpiled in my cabinet (a decongestant and painkiller for the aches!).

I feel sad that doctors here essentially act as catalysts to get you back to work again. Sickness seems not to be accepted as credible, and the Taiwanese will arrive at work in a half-dead state, as if to gain some sort of pride from it.

Why is it that work here takes precedence over all others? I can’t find the sensibility in it, yet I don’t want to dismiss this as nonsense. I just plainly do not understand them.

Or perhaps they just like to support their doctors. (I like Dr. Chao, I have his collector’s card. Who’s your favourite?)

Surely they must comprehend a little more than they let on about health? Have they come so far materially in the past 25 years that their education has not caught up to their standard of living?

I’ve tried to explain the differences in treating viruses and infections to them; and furthermore, to elaborate on the possible complications of suppressing symptoms. I hate to use such pompous language, but this is common knowledge across the seas!

That said, they seem to, on the whole, understand the necessity of spirituality – whereas many of us in the west can’t measure this quantitatively, so we tend to dismiss it.

The challenges of living in one and believing the other!

Sniffingly, Laura.

Generally, as I'm told, last week's Dragon Boat Festival marks the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the scorching summer. Yet true to the nature of the elusive Taiwanese, it's been pouring on and off everyday now ... [Continue reading this entry]