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Trash & Recycling in Taipei

// February 13th, 2011 // No Comments » // Taiwan

So far I have been astounded by Taiwan’s commitment to recycling. Nearly every place I go, there are usually 5 or more different containers for different waste items, including plastic, glass, aluminum cans, paper, and even organic items for compost. In the end, there is almost nothing left that goes into the “other” category. They just end up recycling everything.

While the effort is impressive, what I found more interesting (and slightly entertaining as well) is how waste is taken care of from home. In many countries, you simply take the trash outside and put it in a bin. It sits there for however long it takes for someone to come by and pick it up, but either way it doesn’t matter to you as a citizen – you just put it outside and forget about it.

Here, things are quite different. First, you divide up your waste into recyclable categories, so in your home you will often have 5 or 6 bags full of sundry waste. Then if there is something left that doesn’t fit into the categories, it goes in the actual “trash” category. But this can’t be just any trash bag – you must put non-recyclable waste into special blue bags (see right) that you can buy anywhere (and of course, you can find them at 7 Eleven). Now what do you do with all this trash? Well, you don’t put it outside in a bin. You sit at home and wait, and when you think you hear the ice cream man coming, then you grab all of it and run outside.

Strange, I know, but how it works is the trash people come at various times in the evening and play a little jingle. It’s the same jingle everywhere, and you would swear it was taken right off of an ice cream truck. The jolly little tune tells the neighborhood that it’s time to take the trash out, and FAST, because they only stick around for about 5 minutes before going to the next place.

The amazing part is to see how the community interacts during these evening trash sessions. When I hear the jingle, I grab the most recent bag of stuff and run outside to find a whole bunch of old Chinese people with bags full of stuff to throw out. They all smile and chat a bit as we wait to hand over our recyclables to the trash people. Everyone does their part, and as odd as it is, I’ve met a lot of my neighbors by taking out the trash! They all recognize me now and smile and say hi when I pass them in the street.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this system is that is has implanted a sense of community responsibility in everyone’s mind. I see very little liter in the city (especially compared to things like highway liter in America). And the strangest part is, there are VERY few public trash cans! It is kind of a psychological thing I think. If there are lots of trash cans, that invites you to throw away lots of things instead of recycle them because it’s just more convenient. This makes your opinion of trash in general a bit more lazy, so this invites littering. On the other hand, very few, small waste bins makes you really consider what you are about to throw away and think about whether its recyclable or not.

It makes sense to have such rigorous waste disposal procedures on an island, where land is a far more precious resource than in vast countries like China or the U.S. Regardless, I am still amazed at how far ahead Taiwan is in waste removal. It is a less convenient system, but a far more responsible system.

2010: The year of Nature, Serious Dancing, and Travel

// January 12th, 2011 // No Comments » // Dancing, Other, Travel

For many, 2010 was a year to forget, bringing nothing but a constant stream of disappointment and troubles.  While I had my fair share of the same, I figured I’d look back and note the good I encountered this year.  Apart from several significant events this year (including graduating from Virginia Tech), 2010 had 3 recurring themes: nature, serious dancing, and travel.

Nature

By far, I had the privilege of seeing more amazing landscapes in 2010 than any other year in my life.  I never planned things to be that way – it just sort of happened, probably mostly because I just travelled so much and kept finding myself in amazing places.  It started in the middle of the year right after graduation.  I took a road trip in June up to Montreal and on the way back visited Niagara Falls (the Canadian and American sides).  The falls have been on my list for a very long time, and I never thought this would be the year to see them.

I followed that trip with a whole summer working in Livingston, Montana, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been for an extended time.  Up in the north eastern Rockies, this is the view I saw from our townhouse everyday (right). Throughout the summer, my coworkers and I hiked many of the surrounding mountains and soaked up the landscape, including Livingston Peak, Sacajawea Peak, and Cottonwood Lake.  Here are some of the views we enjoyed:

Being only an hour north of Yellowstone National Park, I couldn’t leave Livingston without a visit, so I picked a weekend in August and visited both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.  I spent two days driving through both parks and can’t describe how amazed I was at the landscapes and wildlife I encountered.  The pictures don’t even come close to capturing how spectacular this region of America is.

At the end of my job in Montana, I began my current trip to Asia and flew to Shanghai.  After a week there, I spent three more weeks backpacking and visiting many places I’ve wanted to see in China, including Huangshan, Hangzhou, Guilin, and Yangshuo – 4 destinations packed with breathtaking natural surroundings.  Anyone in China will agree that each one of those places are what people dream of seeing, let alone visiting all 4 back-to-back in 3 weeks!  Yangshuo marked the end of my natural landscape adventures for 2010, but in just a few weeks I am planning to continue the trend by visiting the rest of Taiwan, including the national park in the middle of the country famed for its unbelievable landscapes!

Serious Dancing

I add “serious” here because 2010 was the first time I noticed that my dancing has now become a major part of my life.  Before then, dancing was something I just loved to do (albeit do A LOT!).  Several events in 2010 made me realize just how important swing dancing has become.  First, I attended my first ever all blues event called “Steel City Blues” in Pittsburgh, PN back in March.  Before then, blues had been a dance I knew rather little about, and mostly all I did know was from social dancing.  At STB, I took my first ever workshops with professional blues dancers, and a whole new world of dancing was opened.  I learned a tremendous amount that weekend, and I even competed and made it to the final round in the open Jack and Jill, my first time ever making it to any J&J final. 

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A month later, I went to my first ever DC Lindy Exchange and spent the weekend hanging out with 3 of my best dancer friends ever: Michael, Annabel, and Kara.  We all became friends at different times, but this was only the 2nd event we had all been at, and it was amazing to see how much we had bonded through dancing.  I realized that weekend that some of my best friends are dancers, and that had I never danced I would never know these amazing people.  

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The rest of the summer, I attended several events that kept up with the same theme: seeing some of my best friends over a weekend of endless happiness dancing.  I visited Philadelphia for Hot Mess in July and then Atlanta for the Southern Belle Swing Bash, where again I made it to the final round in the open Jack & Jill.  

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To finish the year off, I spent my first week in Shanghai dancing for 9 days straight at the first ever Swing Out Shanghai and then performing at the Shanghai World Expo with dancers from all over Asia.  It was an unforgettable week and an incredible start to my current trip in Asia.  I’ve already begun 2011 continuing the same theme having just attended the 3rd annual Hong Kong Swing Festival!

Travel

After reading the first two themes, it’s clear that I traveled a lot in 2010, and I mean a lot in addition to the normal amounts of traveling I do.  All in all, I visited over 10 states in America, 4 different countries, drove from VA to Montreal and back, flew from VA to Montana and back 5 times, flew from America to China, and traveled to 8 cities in Asia (and most of that travel was between June and December).  Between working in Montana for 4 months, traveling for dance events, and starting my current trip in Asia, I have probably covered over 50,000 miles in the last 6 months alone.  Besides the frequent flyer miles I’ve been racking up, I’ve learned a few things doing so much traveling.  One, I am an expert at packing now and am ready for just about any situation you can imagine on the road.  Two, my navigational skills have never been sharper – getting lost is not something that happens easily, and I will never be caught without at least one compass on me.  Three, I miss my friends and family.  While constantly seeing new places and making new friends is exciting and fun, I also realize how much I am missing out on back home.  There are so many people that are important in my life and I barely got to spend any time with them in 2010.  It is something I regret, but also the unfortunate reality of life on the road.  I learned this lesson clear in 2010, and I will keep it in mind as I look towards future decisions I will have to make about where I will be and what I will be doing next.  As a visual, here is a map of all the places in Asia I have travelled to in the past 2 years:

View Complete Travels Through Asia, 2008 - in a larger map

As I said, so far 2011 is starting off with many similar trends as I just got back from an awesome weekend dancing in Hong Kong.  I am learning and learning and still going and going, but it feels good to sit down and remember the good times from a very scattered and crazy 2010!  Here’s hoping 2011 will be full of just as many memories – it is the year of the rabbit after all (my year!!!)!

天使之歌 (Songs from the Angels)

// December 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Chinese, Taiwan

Last Monday night, December 13, I had the remarkable and completely unexpected privilege of performing with the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra in Taipei’s famous National Concert Hall (國家音樂廳). By far, it was one of the most amazing performances I’ve ever experienced. The NTNU symphony is a remarkably accomplished and talented group of undergraduate musicians, and had I known just how incredible they were before auditioning, I may not have even asked! Even in the very back, I still felt like I didn’t belong amongst such talented students! Their ability to react instantly to what the conductor asks and bring the music alive was just as impressive as their remarkable precision and tightness as an ensemble. This all goes without even mentioning the concert hall, which is by far the most beautiful and breathtaking performance hall I have ever played in to date. In addition, Maestro Lawrence Golan, conductor and tenured full professor at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, guest conducted the performance, yet another honor to work with such an accomplished and world-renowned conductor. I still cannot believe that within just one month of living in Taipei I have been lucky enough to experience such an unforgettable privilege!

The whole thing began just a few weeks after arriving in Taipei. I discovered the ensemble online and decided to ask the conductor, Maestro Apo Ching-Hsin Hsu, if I could come audition for the orchestra. I did not even have a violin, but Apo had one I could borrow. We met on November 25 and within just a few minutes of checking out the violin she agreed to let me play. It was a daunting task because we only had about 2 weeks to prepare for the concert, so she put me in the back of the 2nd violins and handed me some music.

Over the next two weeks, I joined the orchestra in rehearsals preparing for the concert. At the first rehearsal, Apo actually made me introduce myself in Chinese, so I got up and in rather broken Chinese told my story, that I was studying Chinese at NTU, have played the violin for a long time, etc.  At first, I kind of got the vibe from other students that they were wondering just what business I had in this orchestra, and given how talented the group is and how hard each student has had to work to get there, I could understand. But after a few rehearsals and a bit of chatting in between with some of the students, I found the group to be a fun and welcoming bunch just like every other person I have met in Taiwan.  In particular, I have found Apo to be the kind of conductor that I wish every musician could have the opportunity to work with, bringing a sense of humor and warmth to the group that sets an atmosphere for making amazing music. She embodies the spirit of the music in the room, making rehearsals as much a joy as they are work.

It has been a blast and such a unique experience as the only foreigner in the orchestra.  Rehearsals are all in Chinese, which while at first was a little intimidating has now become one of my favorite aspects.  I am now at a level where I can understand most things being said and speed really isn’t much of a problem.  The most interesting part of rehearsals that I discovered was just how little you need language when you have music.  If I paid attention, I almost could predict exactly what Apo was going to say because I could tell what she wanted from the orchestra. Music itself truly is a language, and while I’ve said it before, I gained a much deeper understanding of what that means through this experience.

About the Concert:

The title was “天使之歌 (Songs from the Angels),” and the lineup included:
Samuel Barber: Symphony No. 1, Op. 9
Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
Tsang-Houei Hsu: Nu-guan-zi, Op.14
Tsang-Houei Hsu: Duex Mouvements pour Orchestre a Cordes, Op. 24
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G major

The soloist for the 4th movement of Mahler and Hsu’s Nu-guan-zi was NTNU’s professor 陳允宜. The two pieces by Tsang-Houei Hsu are based on traditional Taiwanese themes and sound very “Asian” in that they use a lot of pentatonic scales and interesting percussion.  I found it quite interesting because it reminded me of how Dvorak took a lot of native themes from North America and put them into his New World Symphony.  Hsu’s music had many similar elements in that it was classically structured but filled with local melodies, only very different themes which were often more rhythmically based.  In general, the contrast of Mahler’s romantic symphony with Barber’s one-movement symphony and Hsu’s traditional Chinese themes was one of the most international concerts I’ve experienced and a suprisingly good match together.

2010 China Travels: Part III – Nanjing

// November 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // China, Chinese, Travel

I arrived in Nanjing on the night of October 28th and immediately met a young Chinese guy staying in the same dorm room who was so impressed with my Chinese that he invited me to dinner. It turned out he was meeting an old friend who he hadn’t seen in over 3 years, and although I felt I was imposing, he insisted that I join. We had hotpot, the first hotpot I’d had in over a year! Thousands of memories came flashing back over that pot, and I realized yet again how much I had missed China. The whole evening was a wonderful warm welcome to Nanjing and a great start for the city.

The next morning I visited the Johns Hopkins Nanjing Center at Nanjing University, where I am considering studying this fall. I began a tour of the school by sitting in on a couple lectures – one in English on business economics in the Enron case and the other in Chinese on modern US/China relations. Both were quite interesting, and I could tell from the Chinese one that this program was serious about language. Afterwards, I met with Liz Muller who showed me around the campus and answered questions. Walking down the hallway, we passed two American students carrying violins dressed in suits. It turned out they were heading to a dress rehearsal for a performance that night with the Nanjing University Symphony Orchestra, and they invited me to join! The show was all traditional chinese music, and it was mostly a celebration of the 20th anniversary of their music program. The 2-hour performance included mostly older men and women singing Chinese songs, and then the orchestra joined in for the last 45 minutes. Afterwards, we went up on stage and got a photo with the director (right) who reminded me of a Chinese Gene Wilder. On the metro ride back, I got a great glimpse of the study body at the Nanjing Center. All of them came from different parts oft he US and from all different backgrounds and majors, yet they were all here working hard at their Chinese while having a blast living in China. By the end of the night, I decided I would definitely be putting in an application for the Nanjing Center.

The next morning I started out by heading to the house of John Rabe, a German who saved thousands of Chinese during the Japanese invasion of Nanjing in WWII by establishing a safe zone. Unfortunately, the house was only open on weekdays, so I went on to the Ji Ming Temple, and active temple with a huge pagoda from where you can see the whole city. After passing through, I continued onto the old city wall and walked along it for a bit before going down the the lakeside park and exploring around there. I was definitely one of the most beautiful parts of Nanjing and it reminded me of NYC’s central park, this huge green space in the middle of a metropolis. Later on I visited the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (中山陵) on Purple Mountain. Known as the Father of China, Sun Yatsen (a.k.a. Zhong Shan) is kind of like a Ben Franklin figure in Chinese history, laying down the foundation for establishing a Republic after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Although the Communists fought and eventually beat him during the civil war in the 20s and 30s, the whole country still honors him as China’s first great modern leader. His tomb and memorial clearly shows it too – an epic temple with deep blue roof tiles at the top of hundreds of steps on a mountain. It was quite an honor to finally see the Zhongshan himself.

I finished the day by going all the way across town to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, established to commemorate the 300,000 lives that were brutally and mercilessly taken by the Japanese rape of Nanjing in WWII. The crimes committed were so atrocious and so unspeakable that even Nazi German soldiers who were posted in Nanjing and witnessed the events wrote in their journals about how disgusted they were with the inhumane acts of the Japanese! China is often spoken of as the forgotten front during WWII, and it is rarely mentioned in any western history books, even though the whole war essentially started there. As the sun began to fall, I took one last solemn look at the memorial and then headed back to the hostel.

To my surprise, I returned to a very different place than from where I had left. Through all the traveling, I had forgotten that the next day was Halloween, and the hostel was throwing a party to celebrate. All of the foreign students at Nanjing University showed up and partied until late into the night, not something I was too thrilled about considering the 5:00 am get up I had in the morning to catch my flight to Beijing!  In the end, I found the city to be charming, calm, extremely welcoming, and bursting out the seams with history. Spending a year there (if I got into the Nanjing Center) would definitely be something I would like to do.  In the morning I caught a flight to Beijing, where part IV of my trip begins.

Taipei First Impressions

// November 19th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Taiwan, Travel, Uncategorized

I have now been living in Taipei for exactly one week.  Of the few observations and experiences I have thus far encountered, a few have stood out and left a notable impression.

1.  Taiwan is “nice”

…or maybe I should say, “nicer” than mainland China.  When I lived in China, nearly everyone I knew who had been to Taiwan always used the same phrasing to describe it.  It was always, “oh you’ll love it – it’s much nicer there.”  I never knew what they meant, but after one week it is quite clear.  In general, things seem a bit cleaner here and better kept, but it’s not the physical setting that makes it nicer–it’s the whole culture of the city.  Here are a few examples:

• Cars don’t continuously honk their horns (in fact, they rarely use them at all, like in the States).
• People are more polite.  They don’t shove in a crowd, and they actually cue up for things!!!  Getting on the metro is such a pleasure compared to China.  Here, they follow the international convention of standing aside while people get off the train, and then in single file fashion getting on, even during rush hour (proof that it can be done, so the whole “there’s too many people” argument in mainland just got ousted).  If someone does bump me, they often will politely say sorry, and if I ask for directions they will gladly help and sometimes even walk me there if it’s nearby!
• People smoke politely.  Yes, there is a polite and impolite way to smoke.  Polite is to actually obey the no smoking signs everywhere, and even if there is no sign to perhaps step outside if you are in a crowd or public area.  In mainland, people smoke wherever they are whenever they feel like, regardless of any signs, restrictions, or other people (I’ve seen students light up in the classroom before!).  It’s really nice to not have all my clothes smell like cigarette smoke all the time for a change.
• People say thank you.  In mainland, it took a long time to adjust to not saying thank you, and in many ways I never got used to it.  Often times, especially in service-related circumstances (such as waiter-to-customer in a restaurant), you never say thank you.  You just take your food, and then try and look for something to complain about.  I always felt so bad for waiters or people in any service job in mainland China because they get treated so poorly.  In Taiwan, it’s like the States – you say thanks, and it’s nice.

2. Language Adjustments

There is of course the obvious problem:  mainland uses simplified characters, Taiwan used traditional.  I didn’t think it would be too big a problem, and so far it really hasn’t been, but I can tell once classes get going it is going to be difficult to read and write at a normal pace.  I’ve been preparing by studying a dictionary, and it has helped a lot so far, so that will come with time.

The harder thing I’ve run into thus far is all the different vocabulary.  I find it to be remarkably like the differences between the States and England/Australia.  We say “trash can,” and they say “rubbish bin,” and if you studied English in one place and went to the other, you would sound funny to the locals (but they would still know what you meant).  It’s just like that here (in fact, both places use entirely different words for “trash can” as well).  Other completely different words: “subway” (like metro vs. underground), “bicycle,” and “landlord.”  Many common day nouns are called different names, so I am having to adjust a lot of vocabulary to sound more normal.

3. Weather

It rains. Everyday. Always. And not like Florida rain where it comes and goes in and hour – it’s been raining for one entire week now.

4. Kings of the City:

Transportation King:  Scooter.

Gas-powered scooters are everywhere in the city!  I’ve never seen anything like it.  At red lights, they all scoot (no pun intended) past cars to get to the front, and when it turns green a symphony of buzzing is released into the air like a thousand weed-wackers harmoniously cutting grass.  At times there are hundreds waiting at the lights, and the streets are lined as far as the eye can see with parked scooters.

Convenience Store King: 7-Eleven

Go figure, 7-Eleven has conquered yet another territory in the name of “convenience,” but this time they truly stand by the word. Besides the fact that at any moment a 7-Eleven is probably within a half-kilometer radius, 7-Elevens here are literally your everything one-stop shop.  You buy your phone card there.  You get cash there.  You get food there.  You even pay your bills there!  You just hand them the bill with cash and they give you a receipt and boom!–bills paid.  I’m telling you, if someday I’m married and living here and my wife is pregnant, I know where I’m going when the baby is due.

I’m sure there is much more to the city, the people, and the culture here, but these observations and experiences will always remain my first impressions.  They’re quite different from those of mainland China (and much more positive), but perhaps that’s because I lived in mainland first.  I can’t help but wonder how people who’ve never been to mainland China experience Taiwan?