Taiwan is byebye. Soon it will feel as if my year of living there was just a dream, but I hope not anytime too soon. As Anthony and I have been traveling now full force, time for blogging has not been found. However, this morning we arrived in Germany, where we are now staying for the next 9 days with my grandparents, aside from a 2-day trip into the Netherlands later in the week.
I realize there are tons of things I could have should have written about while still in Taiwan, like the weird food, but that just makes me feel like such a touristy newb. "Uck there's pig's blood cake and chicken feet!" Local Taiwanese food is pretty different from the standard Chinese food you would think of, or at least I thought of before arriving. They are really in to all the intestines and using all parts of the animal to eat. In fact, they believe that when you are sick you should eat that same part of an animal to make yourself heal.
For example, my stomach hurts, I should go out and eat some animal stomach, whether it be pig or cow. Oh hey, my tongue is sore, I'll just go grab some tongue down the street. Dang arthritis is getting the best of me, no worries, just have some pig's knuckles to heal you right up.
This is not to say that the Taiwanese only eat random parts of animals for all meals every day. You can find all sorts of rice and meat dishes, noodles, soups, dumplings (my favey fave), sandwiches, you know. I know I've mentioned Lunch Boxes before, and those are a super great way to be able to try new things that you don't know what the hell they are, as well as choose something you know tastes good and you are able to swallow. Many Lunch Box places are buffet style so you can just point to things.
I may have told this story before, but one of my first times going to a non-buffet style Lunch Box place by myself, I had my Chinese all ready to say what I wanted. Well, what do ya know, the lady had no idea what I was trying to say, so after trying to repeat myself a few times, I gave up and just pointed to a picture behind the counter. Brahbrahbrah Chinese? Uhh.. yes, I nodded. I walked back to work with my food, and opened my box. It looked like an ok mix of meat and vegetables and rice. After I had a bite or two of the main meat, it was easy to decide that I did not fancy it. A few weeks later I went to this same place, but with one of my Taiwanse co-teachers. I told her what I wanted so she could order it for me, and I explained to her how last time I think I got something that was just like a huge piece of fat. "Oh yea," she told me, "one of the options is pork fat." So that explains that "mystery meat." Moving on.
Being surrounded by Chinese for the past year, it's pretty likely to pick up at least a small amount of the language. Some are able to learn new words and phrases easier than others. Some people study and take lessons, others use interesting ways to remember these words, and by others I mean Anthony.
Anthony would hear a new Chinese phrase and immediately repeat it in a manner that mimicked it, but was extremely English. Examples: (please note I will only try to type these phrases to my understanding of how to pronounce them so that you may read them!)
Chinese English Anthony's Chinese
She nian quwhy luh Happy New Year Shinny koala
Pee-ow-luh Pretty Pee on Londa
Eee tee en dee en A little E.T Indian
Wuh I neee I love you Wall eye knee
Some of them make a bit of sense, others are just silly sauce. That's all I can remember for now, his Chinese is quite limited, as is mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment