Ten days…

Ten Days

Ten tiny days until…

Until I stretch my migratory wings and migrate home for vacation, dancing in my seat the entire way

Until my heart swells at the sight of Lake Michigan gleaming like a blue sapphire as the plane makes its final approach

Until I breathe my first breath of Wisconsin winter air, filling my senses with the indescribably but immediately recognizable smell of crisp, cold winter air

Until I spend hours at the piano bench, relishing in the feeling of music pouring out from ebony and ivory

Until I mix butter and sugar together, sift in a little flour, and revel in the feeling of making deliciousness from my bare hands

Until I see role models and lifelong friends, filling my brain and my soul with heartfelt conversation and advice

Until I see my faux-uncles and aunties and reveling in the feeling that only the Posse can bring

Until I feel the winter wind whipping my cheeks as I run down Lake Shore Drive

Until I walk the streets of the Third Ward, drinking in the homey but modern, uniquely Midwestern charm that is Milwaukee

Until I get my fill of Mexican food, cupcakes, salad, and all foods so difficult to find in Taiwan

Until I have New Year’s Eve dinner with my whole family, relishing in the fact that it will be the first time we’ve been together in almost two years

Until long conversations with my brother and trying to remind myself that he is no boy anymore, he is a young man

Until long walks with my father, discussing every topic under the sun

Until shopping trips and baking with my mother, cherishing the conversation more than the results

Until I fill every fiber of my being with the down to earth, peaceful, friendly atmosphere that is my home, but eagerly anticipate the return to tropical breezes, bright flowers, incense, and scooters.

Get ready, Wisconsin…I’m coming home

A Year in Review…

Hello, everyone and Happy Holidays!!! I can’t believe that this year has flown by so fast, it seems like yesterday that we were ushering in 2011 and now, 2012 is quickly approaching, bringing with it a whole new year of opportunities, new experiences, and memories waiting to be made.

Looking back on 2011, it was one of the most eventful years of my life. It was a year of much happiness, personal growth, difficult decisions, and unforgettable experiences that will leave 2011 as one of the most influential, but one of the happiest years of my life.

In 2011, I…

-Learned to love the adrenaline high of an early morning run

-Made life-changing decisions

-Laughed until I cried more times than I can count

-Cried until I laughed

-Experienced homesickness more intense than anything I could have imagined

-Stepped in to ballet slippers for the first time in 10 years

-Took the path less traveled

-Danced the night away

-Traveled to new countries

-Made new friends

-Felt like an island

-Checked things off my bucket list

-Cried in the middle of an airport

-Experienced the wonders of sunrise on a mountaintop and whitewater rafting in summer

-Turned dreams in to reality

-Reconnected with old friends

-Wanted something so desperately that it hurt

-Found joy in complete solitude

-Played the teacher and the student

-Had multiple epiphanies

-Reaffirmed my passions

-Discovered hidden treasures in the alleyways of Taipei

-Learned to let go

-Felt loved

-Took control of my destiny

-Went against convention

-Took down my protective walls

-Found a window when doors were shut

-Questioned myself

-Trusted my instinct

-Dreamed about the possibilities

In short, I lived more, felt more, and experienced more this year than any other year…and I hope to keep on living in 2012

On coloring outside of the lines…

Hello, all and Happy December! There’s a chilly wind that is sweeping through Hsinchu, the heavy blankets have been brought out, and only a few weeks stand between me and a much needed visit home.

In my Chinese class today, we debated the pros and cons of being 新潮 (xin1chao2) versus being 保守(bao3shou3.) The terms lose a lot in translation but the former generally means trendy, avant-garde, or more risk-taking while the latter means conservative or more conforming. While everyone in my class believed that they were more conservative, I hesitated in classifying myself as one or another and instead, replied that I was truly in the middle, half risk-taking and half conservative. I tend to dress and act more conservatively, but my thought process is always half risk and half rational thinking.

When our teacher posed the question, “Is it better to being 新潮 or 保守 in thought process,” I was struck that so many of my classmates answered with the latter. A classmate replied that being conservative in thinking provides a basis upon which one can judge what is right and wrong, and that people who are risk-taking are unstable, but immediately I disagreed. I think the reason this debate so resonated with me and caused such an instant reaction was because it touched upon the last two years of my life and my thought process throughout my time here. I immediately thought upon if I had not been a risk-taker and stayed back in the States, where I would have stayed in my warm cocoon of friends and family, but languished in my sense of the familiar. If I had stayed, I would have been happy for a short period of time, but I would have become miserable and disenchanted with my life in the States. Instead of the paved, familiar route I took the unpaved one and it led me on the most wonderful journey that I am still continuing to this day. If I had been conservative I would have never connected with my cultural heritage in the deepest, soul-tingling way. I would have never experienced New Year’s Eve at Taipei 101 or sunrise on Alishan. I would have never experienced the throat-clenching gripping throes of homesickness cured by the friendly smiles and kind words of my Taiwanese friends and dear roommate. I would never experienced the soaring elation at seeing snow through an airplane window for the first time in seven months but eagerly anticipate the return to palm trees and tropical flowers. Most of all, I would have never fallen in love with a country and a culture that has become an integral part of my being and taught me to grow, mature, and expand my viewpoints in ways I never thought possible.

So yes, I am a bit of a risk-taker in terms of thought process and if that makes me unstable, then so be it. I challenge you to be a risk-taker; color outside the lines, heck…draw your own picture! I promise you, the end result will be all the better. Your turn, are you more of a risk-taker or more conservative? Hope you are all well and happy holidays!

Of fire chickens, dirt squash, and south melons…

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I know it’s only Wednesday night for most of you, but it’s already Thanksgiving day for me here in Taiwan, so bear with me. In the back of my mind, I know that had I chosen to start law school this fall, I would have been at home baking with my seesters, helping my mom prepare Thanksgiving dinner, hanging out with the Posse, watching football with my dad, decorating the house with my brother, and celebrating in the truest of Wisconsin/Taiwanese fashion…but that’s not the case. The best part is, I thought I would be miserable and homesick like last year, but I am filled with a sense of peace about staying here, thankfulness and, most of all, hope for the holidays and the year ahead. While I am thankful for the cliche family, friends, and health…below is my own list of things I am thankful for:

1) Yonghe Soymilk: Thank you, Yonghe Soymilk for teaching this stubbornly dairy-loving Midwesterner to appreciate the unique flavor of soymilk. I’m also thankful for you for giving me an excuse to eschew oatmeal and fruit for carbopoloozas of shao bing and onion pancakes for breakfast.

2) My friendly neighbors: From the elderly folks who practice tai chi by the lake to the man who does marathon training while listening to opera arias (fyi you are a BADASS), I have the most interesting neighbors and people watching is always fun

3) The current weather in Taiwan: While my co-workers have already started complaining of the cold in Hsinchu, the weather in Taiwan right now is my exact idea of heaven. Mid-60s, breezy, and blue skies…throw in some changing leaves and I would be a happy camper, but you can’t have everything.

4) The slew of new stores opening in Taipei: From Zara to Uniqlo, a plethora of new stores are descending upon Taipei, making this wannabe fashionista very happy (but her wallet very sad)

5) Friends and family coming to Taiwan: With my mom and three of my favorite ladies in Taiwan right now, three good friends coming in December, and one possibly coming in January, I am immensely thankful for these little glimpses of home.

6) Pumpkin and sweet potato everything: Pumpkin spice lattes aside, Taiwan has thrown down when it comes to pumpkin and sweet potato products. As these are two of my absolute favorite fall vegetables, I’ve had no problem with sampling everything I can get my hands on (sweet potato bread? YES!!!!)

Lastly, but most importantly, I am thankful that I believed in myself enough to go off the beaten path and challenge myself to stay here for another year. If I hadn’t stayed, I wouldn’t have learned how to run for miles without stopping (coming from the girl who used to HATE exercise, this is huge) and grow to love that “runner’s high” that comes at the end of every run. I wouldn’t have traveled to Hong Kong and Macau with 18 people had the experience of a lifetime. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to take on sales cases by myself or translate whole articles from Chinese to English. I wouldn’t have started ballet again. I wouldn’t have started catching myself thinking in Chinese and having to translate it in to English (I take this as a good thing). I wouldn’t have been able to take my mother and three of the most important women in my life around Taipei and shown them my adopted homeland with pride. Most importantly, I wouldn’t have grown in ways that I never thought I could have during my time here.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, big hugs to my fellow ex-pats who may be a little homesick (totally okay!), kisses to my friends and family at home, and best wishes for a happy and joyful holiday season

Nostalgic November…

Hello, my dears and a Happy November to all! It’s the month of Yu/Liou birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas music, holiday movie marathons, and festive treats as the last of the autumn leaves flutter away and gently falling snow begins to dust the ground like powdered sugar on cookies. As I sit here in a short skirt in mid-70 degree weather, I can’t help but feel a little jealous of those of you who are enjoying snow, sweaters, and scarves…but the grass is greener on the other side. November and December have always been happy months for me, but they also bring back memories, memories of a time decades ago when things were not so happy.

It always began with a twisting in my stomach and an impending feeling of something about to happen. I would try to forget about it and go on about my day but without fail, it would get worse, gradually taking over my whole mind until it spilled over, literally and figuratively. I spent my Octobers and Novembers waiting for the twisting to happen, dreading the moment when I knew, once again, I would be whisked away to the hospital for yet another 5 days in the hospital filled with IVs, CAT scans, MRIs, GI tests, and everything in between. Another 5 days of school missed, a solo in a dance recital given away, another family trip ruined by a mysterious condition. It went on for nearly seven years until my doctors finally recognized the symptoms and suddenly, my condition had a name: cyclic vomiting syndrome. With this name came medicines and methods for slowing the symptoms. After 4 more years and my appendix making a break for freedom by bursting like a little balloon, the episodes vanished in to thin air just as mysteriously as they came.

Every autumn is a special one for me but this year is particularly special. It marks the first time that I’ve been CVS symptom-free for more than half of my life. Autumns will never be the same for me, I think I will always feel a sense of impending nervousness during this time of the year and a little part of me will always worry about CVS rearing its ugly head once more. On the other hand, CVS taught me to treasure each day that I am healthy, to never back down from a fight or take no for an answer, and to never take anything, or anyone, for granted.

With each passing year that I have been symptom-free, I appreciate autumn and winter more and more. With each brightly colored leaf, each snowflake, each crisp breath of fall air, and each sweet apple, I remember how far I’ve come since those scary days at Children’s Hospital and it makes me all the more appreciative for what I have and all the more excited for what is to come. November is the time for thankfulness and I am truly thankful for all that I have been blessed with throughout my lifetime, even if that blessing was disguised as a medical condition.

Hoping you are all happy, healthy, and wise, wherever you are

Balancing act…

Everything in life is a bit of a balancing act, whether it’s eating a balanced diet, balancing work/school with one’s social life, time with a significant other and time with one’s friends, and a myriad of other situations. That balancing act is magnified about 10 times when one moves to another country. There are days when you feel 100% certain that you made the right choice in moving and that you are perfectly and completely happy in your current country, but there are other days where all that is stopping you from booking tickets back home is that voice of reason in your head that says, “Stop being silly, you are made of tougher stuff than this. Remember, the only way out is through.” For me, this balancing act is tested annually during the fall and winter seasons. This past weekend when I went up to Taipei, the supermarkets were stocked with fat orange pumpkins and Halloween candy graced the shelves. Seeing the beginnings of Halloween season caused the dreaded worm of homesickness to begin wiggling its way in to my heart as I reminisced upon brisk fall days complete with red and gold leaves, apple cider and pumpkin products, football, and the smell of campfires. With my mother and three of my favorite women coming to Taiwan in less than a month, I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but seeing them will be a bit of a double-edged sword in the fact that with their arrivals, the reality of what I passed up to stay here in Taiwan will be staring me in the face. It is a time that I am both desperately yearning for and slightly afraid of.

I’ve never been a good decision maker, mainly because I tend to obsess over what may happen as a result, I tend to argue both sides of any case, and I also tend to look back on things and wonder what could have been. I know in my heart that when I move back to the States, I will look back upon my time in Taiwan with only the fondest of memories but at the moment, it’s quite the struggle to remind myself of that fact. In my ballet class, we’ve been working on pirouettes and chaine turns and a key technique to proper execution of these is not losing your center. So, please bear with me while I find my own center and pirouette off in to the next stage of my time here in Taiwan And a Happy early Halloween to all!

Lei Ho, Hong Kong! Ola Macau!

Hello, everyone! I’m writing this in a semi-haze of exhaustion and with sore feet, but with a full head and heart of memories from my trip this past weekend.

Back in July, Sylvia and I had the ludicrous idea of going to Hong Kong for a weekend. With airline tickets so cheap from Taiwan, we figured it’d be the perfect destination for a weekend getaway. What we didn’t know was that our original group of eight travelers to Hong Kong would soon swell to a group of 18 traveling to both Hong Kong and Macau, most of whom had never flown on an airplane before, never mind traveling out of the country. The next two months were filled with late nights of scheduling, researching, amusing incidents with store owners in broken English, and planning, but we were excited to go.

Saturday morning, our merry band of 18 travelers converged at the High-speed Railroad station and took the train to Taoyuan, where we boarded the shuttle bus to the airport. Supplanted with magazines and duty-free items, we left Taiwan for Hong Kong in a flurry of excitement and anticipation. A short flight later, we landed in Hong Kong and set off for our hotel in Tim Sha Tsui. After checking in with the gorgeous Aussie working the front desk, we freshened up a bit and set out for dim sum in Harbour City. At Sweet Dynasty (糖朝) we had a raucous, fun meal of har gow, wonton noodles, turnip cakes, chicken feet, and delicious mango tapioca pudding. After dinner, we strolled up the street towards Victoria Harbour to catch the Symphony of Lights. One by one, like a girl putting on jewelry for a night out, the Hong Kong skyscrapers began to shimmer and sparkle with thousands of lights and lasers, lighting up the night sky in a kaleidoscope of colors . After walking around the Avenue of Stars and taking pictures of famous movie stars’ hand prints, we took the MTR back to our hotel and dolled ourselves up for a night out on the town in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s infamous clubbing district. It was a perfect night of great music and dancing ourselves silly with our co-workers, who were having just as much fun.

The next morning, we headed to the Hong Kong-China Ferry Terminal for the second half of our trip. After a traditional Hong Kong breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread, milk tea, and fascinatingly addictive macaroni soup, we boarded the ferry towards Macau. An hour later, we disembarked at the Taipa Ferry Terminal and took a short shuttle to our hotel, the Venetian Macau. Traveling the road leading to the Venetian was like a competition in grandeur and pure excess, each casino seemed more lavish than the next. After checking in and walking through the labyrinth of casinos and shopping areas, we finally made it to our gigantic rooms and put down our bags before a snack of egg tarts in the food court. If there was any one treat I was looking forward to the most on our trip it was egg tarts, and they did not disappoint. Warm, flaky, and sweet, they were perfect specimens of one of my favorite treats. Afterwards, we walked towards the village of Taipa, a former costal area for the Portuguese elite. Now, all that remains are five sprawling houses painted mint green. Looking out from the houses, what must have been a stunning view of the harbor is now an expanse of casinos and hotels. To be honest, looking at it made me feel a little sad that such an important part of Macau’s history was destroyed to make space for casinos, but I also recognize that the casinos bring much needed revenue to Macau. After walking around the Taipa house museums and Our Lady of Carmo, we followed the winding roads towards Rua da Cunha, Macau’s food street and the location of our restaurant for the night. At Restaurante Dumbo we had a dinner of curry shrimp, galinha  portuguesa, bacalhau fritters, and watermelon juice. Full of food, we headed across the street to Choi Heong Yuen for almond cookies and walked back to the Venetian. The evening consisted of watching the Cirque du Soleil show, ZAiA and trying our hands at the casinos. Fortunately, Lady Luck was on my side and I ended up just breaking even at the tables.

The next morning, we took the hotel shuttle to Macau peninsula to tour some of the most famous sights. Senado Square, with its swirling cobblestoned streets and pastel painted building, could be mistaken for somewhere in Europe and there were times when I forgot I was in Asia and not in Lisbon or Rome. After exploring the square and walking the sweeping staircase to the Ruins of St. Paul, we headed toward the port for a lunch of the Macau specialty, pork chop buns. Sadly, they were a bit of a disappointment (and by a bit I mean they were terrible), but at least the milk tea was good. After lunch, we took the shuttle back to the hotel, collected our bags, and went to the harbor to take our ferry back to Hong Kong International Airport. After copious amounts of shopping, sandwiches, and a particularly vicious UNO tournament, we flew back to Taiwan where it seemed like everything went wrong. People were held up at the temperature checkpoint, group members went missing, buses were missed, and it culminated in a last minute sprint to catch the very last HSR to Hsinchu but thankfully, we made it in the nick of time.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend of food, shopping, sight seeing, and memories with my 17 fellow travelers. I left Macau with a few blisters and definitely some grey hairs from stress, but with a memory card and a heart full of memories of my wonderful weekend.

同事們, 謝謝大家的配合跟耐心. 希望這三天還好玩!很期待下一次一起出去玩!

The Abundance of Autumn…

Hello, my dears! I can’t believe it’s already the end of September and October is quickly approaching. The days are getting shorter, the ever-present blanket of humidity is ever so slowly drifting away, there is a brisk chill in the mornings when I go for my daily run around the lake, and the 3-day weekend trip to Hong Kong/Macau that my roommate and I have planned is rapidly approaching. I can hardly wait…

In Chinese, one of the pairs of characters one can use to describe abundance is 豐富 (feng1fu4). The way my Chinese teacher in Taipei taught me to remember the first rather finicky character was to think of a bowl of wheat on an altar as an offering to the spirits. Now, whenever I see this character, I think of cereal (weird, I know) and I think of one of my favorite seasons, fall. While my memories of Wisconsin autumns are filled with football season, apple picking, pumpkin flavored products (pumpkin spice lattes, I miss you), and sweaters, my Taiwan autumns are filled with pomelos, fat mooncakes, ghost month, and finally bearable temperatures.

As my second year in Taiwan rolled around, I made a conscious decision to make my autumn in Taiwan even more 豐富than before and look for activities outside of the realm of the Science Park. I recently re-started taking Chinese classes at Chiao Tung University  and for a girl that spent most of her Chinese school days not paying attention and chattering away with her two best friends, I’m actually really enjoying getting back in to school-mode and meeting people outside of the Science Park. Also, after a more than 10 year absence, ballet has made its way back in to my life and I have started taking classes at a dance studio near Taipei Main Station. As hard as it may be to believe, considering that I tripped over my own two feet on a morning run and now have a pretty spectacular bruise, dance was a very important part of my younger years. Whether it was ballet, Ms. Figg’s after-school dance classes, or Chinese dance at summer camp, dance played a major role in my grade school and middle school years, but I never found time to keep up with the habit once high school started. When I trekked to Ximending two weeks ago to buy my first pair of ballet slippers in more than a decade, I was more than a little nervous. However, once I put on those slippers, stepped on to the marley floor and placed my hands on the barre, the nerves melted away and a tingling sense of happiness found its way in to my heart. Every plie, releve, and pirouette felt like home in my muscles and I left class happier than I’ve been in a very long time. Now, if only I could find a piano studio to solve my pent up musical stress…

I hope everyone’s fall is as 豐富as mine and that you are all well and happy, wherever you are in the world. Stay tuned for more (including my upcoming trip to the lands of dim sum, shopping, egg tarts, gambling, and almond cookies)!

A Taiwanniversary…

Two years ago, I made the life-changing decision to move to Taiwan under the pretenses of studying Mandarin and possibly teaching a little English on the side but wasn’t until the plane took off from LAX, the Los Angeles skyline quickly falling away in to a patchwork of browns and reds, that I truly realized the enormity of my decision. I landed in Taiwan feeling more alone that ever before and quickly realized that my Sunday Chinese school classes, dark hair, and almond eyes weren’t going to get me too far in terms of assimilating in Taipei. I looked like most of the people I saw and they were speaking in a language that was as much a part of me as English, but I still felt a world away from my life in Midwestern America.

It’s been an unforgettable two years of ups, downs, happiness, sadness, personal growth, and memories since that red-eye flight to Taiwan. Throughout my time here, I’ve learned more than I could have ever dreamed of and fallen in love with a country and a culture that has welcomed me with (mostly) open arms. Here are some of the people/places/things that I have come to love about my adopted homeland:

1) Mornings: Normally, Taiwan is a country that is filled with the sounds of cars and scooters filling the roads with their discordant honks and screeches. In the mornings, Taiwan quietly hums with the sound of shop gates creaking open, the thwack of fruit knives slicing open fat melons and the melodious voices of old grandmothers haggling with vendors at open air markets for fruits and vegetables. It’s a sound that I have fallen in love with and know that I will miss when I leave.

2) Exploring the 巷子or alleyways: Growing up in the Midwest, alleyways were places where crimes happened and were generally unsafe places to hang around. In Taiwan, especially in Taipei, a whole other world exists if you just take a turn off of the main roads and explore the alleyways (preferably with a map on your first time, they can get confusing!) The alleys of Taipei are filled with amazing arts and craft stores as well as some of the best restaurants in the city. Just follow the crowds and your nose, you’ll be bound to end up somewhere delicious.

3) Traditional Taiwanese breakfasts: A good traditional Taiwanese breakfast will banish any thoughts of healthy breakfasts from your head. Oniony scallion pancakes stuffed with eggs, yeasty mantou, flaky shao bing stuffed with youtiao, and  fat soup dumplings bursting with juice, all washed down with the ubiquitous milky doujiang. A far cry from Americanized soymilk, doujiang can be served sweet and warm (the only way I can semi-tolerate it) or my father’s favorite way, salty and soup-like with chili oil, dried shrimp, fried crullers, nose-wrinkling vinegar, and soy sauce. Sorry, oatmeal, but Taiwanese breakfasts kick your sweet little ka cheng (Taiwanese for booty) seven ways to Sunday.

4) The smell of incense: With temples seemingly at every corner and people regularly paying respect to their ancestors, or baibai-ing, the smell of sandalwood often permeates the air. I used to find the smell rather nauseating but now, it is a comforting reminder of a force bigger than myself and to sometimes just let things happen they way they are meant to happen.

5) My grandmother: My nainai is a tiny sparrow of a lady but with a will of iron. She’s 82 and still as active and vibrant as ever, even after a hip replacement. I can only hope that at her age, I will be as feisty as she is.

6) My co-workers: For the most part, my co-workers have been absolutely wonderful to me. They have welcomed me with open arms and taught me countless lessons about Taiwanese work culture, life, and everything in between. I wouldn’t have had nearly as enjoyable of an experience here without them.

So thank you, Taiwan, for two wonderful years (and counting!) You’ve welcomed this ABC/ABT/Double-stuf twinkie with open arms, opened her eyes and heart to her heritage and, most importantly, opened her heart to the possibilities that lay ahead.

Summer in Taiwan

Summer in Taiwan is the ever present heavy blanket of humidity, like a down blanket in winter.

It’s the feeling of the sun beating down on your shoulders, aggressive and unrelenting.

It’s the fragrant, heady smell of incense wafting from temples, welcoming spirits from centuries past.

It’s the cacophony of scooters and car horns, melding harmoniously like the tuning of an orchestra.

It’s the shockingly cold but refreshingly sweet taste of shaved ice, like a mini air-conditioner for one

It’s the  tropical flowers blooming in the July sun, their delicate heads bobbing sleepily in the breeze.

It’s the happiness you feel from seeing 80 year olds practicing the art of tai-chi in the early morning sun and hoping you’ll be as spry as them some day.

It’s the sight of fat dragonfruits piled high at the fruit stands, their neon pink and green skins gleaming with morning dew.

It’s quiet mornings jogging along the lake and saying “早安!” to neighbors.

It’s memorable nights spent with friends and co-workers, filled with laughter and smiles.

It’s lazy Sundays spent with a good book, an iced green tea, and the breeze blowing through your hair.

It’s the warm feeling that whispers in your ear, “You made the right choice in staying,” and agreeing with your whole heart.

Summers in Taiwan are, in a word, magical. I am truly, truly happy here and, wherever you are, I hope you are as well Happy Summer, everyone!