10 Things I will Miss about America while in Taiwan (and 10 Things that Help Make up for Them)

Read first:

1. It's 10 things, not people. So I'm not including family/friends on here because hopefully that's a given.

2. I'm numbering them for clarity, but it's not in descending or ascending order.

3. For each entry I'm listing a mitigating factor- something that at least partially makes up for the absence of the thing I'm going to miss.

I love Taiwan and enjoyed living there very much, but as my time of departure (seemingly) draws nearer, I am appreciating some things more knowing that I won't get to experience them for 3 years or so. Having lived in Taiwan before, I have a somewhat informed idea of what I can expect. I thought it might be interesting to list out the top 10 things I expect to miss about America. Maybe I'll come back in a year or two and see how accurate this was...

10 Things I Will Miss About America in Taiwan:

1. Driving

I know some people don't like driving and are happy to give it up for mass transit, but being able to hop into your own vehicle and cruise down the interstate with your own music and maybe even the sunroof open is pretty nice too. Yes, I do plan to get a vehicle in Taiwan at some point, but a) it will probably be a scooter, which is practical, cheaper to operate, and vastly easier to find parking spots for, and b) traffic in the metro area around Taipei is such that even in a car you don't exactly 'cruise' most of the time, it's more like vehicular tetris.

Mitigating factor: Trains! Trains are an inexpensive and enjoyable way to travel between cities in Taiwan, and great for reading or staring out the window in a reverie. (Unless you take the local train, then it's great for immersion in a different side of Taiwanese culture than visitors often see.)

(Ok I cheated a little with this picture, it's not usually -this- bad)

2. Spring and Autumn

The Tropic of Cancer runs right through Taiwan, so it's subtropical/tropical. There are certainly seasons in Taiwan, with the late spring plum rains, summer typhoons, long clammy winter in Taipei, etc. But it never gets cold enough to freeze during the winter, and thus spring is not quite as dramatic an event as it is in more northern latitudes. The same is true of autumn. Although the weather does change, much of what we think of in association with autumn is simply absent. No drifts of falling leaves, no explosion of color (there's a bit of it up in the mountains, but you have to go looking for it), no football, no Halloween, no Thanksgiving (no pumpkin spice lattes at the innumerable Starbucks, at least not last I heard), you get the idea.

Mitigating factor: No seasonal allergies! Though the wetter seasons do come with mildew allergies, and the drier ones with worse air pollution. Still, the gradual changes are easier to handle than the massive influx of pollen in Alabama, when the surface of any standing water turns yellow, etc. Also, summer in Taiwan has a unique sort of beauty (it's... very summery. The skies glow blue and there are ocean breezes and rice fields and really loud cicadas.. It's hard to explain.) which for me partially makes up for any perceived lack in other seasons.

3. Being able to wear dark colored shirts in the summer.

Scientific fact- White people have many more apocrine sweat glands (what produce arm pit sweat) than East Asian people, which means we both sweat a lot more, and smell worse when we do.
So wearing a black t-shirt, for example, in the bright Taiwanese sun for a well-hydrated Caucasian means some pretty rapid and impressive salt stains. (Antiperspirant is a bad idea; when it's 95F and 95% humidity outside, you need to sweat. I've been in Texas grilling over an open fire in nearly 110F weather and it didn't come close to a Taipei sidewalk on a summer day with no breeze)

Mitigating factor: This may force me to finally stop dressing like an engineering college student. Or at least to get more creative about it... no lack of affordable but good-looking clothes in Taiwan to replace my current, mostly-cotton (thus moisture retaining) wardrobe.

4. Being able to make Jokes

This one is more important than you might think. Imagine before trying to say anything potentially funny, trying to figure out if a) you can even make the joke in Chinese (most don't survive the transition between languages) b) it's something which translates culturally (many kinds of humor don't) c) it's based on a reference your listeners are familiar with (a high percentage of humor relies on shared context).

Mitigating factor: Motivation to improve my language skills.
And less punning overall, which is probably good for humanity and my reputation as a pundit.
(Heheh, get it? Don't punish me... Oops, ok that was the last one. Well, the punultimate one, anyway...)

5. Real Southern food and Mexican/Tex-Mex Food

Many other kinds of foreign food can be found in Taiwan, to varying degrees of authenticity/goodness, but there's a notable lack of Mexican food, both real and Tex-Mex, to the extent that a lot of expats comment on it. And Southern comfort food (ie, real cornbread, not the fluffy sweet stuff; mashed potatoes that aren't made from potato flakes; good biscuits; fried catfish; etc.) doesn't exist too much outside of the South anyway. So I'm used to not having it when I travel, but not having it for 3 years will stink.

Mitigating factor: Taiwanese food is amazing (there will be future blog posts on that subject), and healthier on average than American food. And it's motivation to learn how to cook whatever I miss anyway.

Can I drown my sadness over a lack of tacos in a bowl of beef noodle soup?
Yes, yes I can.

6. References

Like the Jokes, this one is big but not obvious. Basically, you can say things like "Run Forrest, Run," "Hasta la Vista, Baby," or "May the Force be with You," as expressions in daily conversation, and nearly all Americans will know what you mean (Popular quotes from Forrest Gump, The Terminator, and Star Wars, in case you live under a rock or are very young), but very, very few Taiwanese will immediately pick up on them, even if they've seen those films, due to the language barrier and other things. They have other cultural 'memes' which I will begin to recognize as well, in time.

And the issue goes deeper. As we get to know someone, from time to time references will come up, to movies, cartoons, books, etc. We are often pleasantly surprised to find someone of our acquaintance 'gets' a more obscure reference to something we are interested in or a fan of, and a closer friendship is often the result. ("Oh, you know that?" "Well yeah, I loved that book! You know about it too?") It's usually a joyful feeling to bump into these people and discover it about them. (I'll bet you're smiling now as you think about it.)

But this is not an available mechanism for finding "compatible" friends in Taiwan, because we've grown up with different media and experiences. I remember watching an evocative Taiwanese movie ("Those Years...") about high school friends and how their lives change through college. The movie communicates a nostalgic feeling so powerfully that even as a foreigner I felt it strongly, but for me it can ever only be vicarious; no matter how long I live in Taiwan, I can never have grown up there. That simple fact raises an invisible wall that forces one to be extra-intentional about friendships and with whom one pursues them, which is not a bad thing, but which takes away part of the naturalness of making those deep friendships which happen quickly and endure over the long term.

Mitigating factor: The rise of the internet and global youth culture. I am part of the first global internet generation, which often have more in common with each other across cultures than with their parent's generation inside the same culture. The internet both allows for shared references from the past and the continuity of ongoing ones, and I've already discovered that many things that went 'viral' on the English-language internet went viral in Taiwan as well. It's a small start, but there are more things which I'm slowly discovering I have in common with my Taiwanese counterparts. For example, both Taiwanese and Asian-aware Americans in my age range share an appreciation of Japanese pop culture and music of the 90's, in contrast to younger students who are comparatively more interested in Korean pop culture and music which took the world by storm in the 00's. (I'm curious to see which East Asian pop culture will have risen to the top by the end of this decade...possibly China will have developed their own youth pop culture to something internationally magnetic by that point, but it will have to happen fast)

7. Arguing about Politics

I already have to be careful about this as a missionary; the message of the gospel is infinitely more important. (Note: I make an exception for calling for an end to the barbaric travesty of abortion as it is currently practiced in the US, as I view that as a moral crisis that's become politicized. If that statement puts me on your bad side, I'd be happy to explain why I feel so strongly about the issue.) Yes, I have a position on most issues our nation faces, and rather strong opinions on how our leaders are doing along the lines of both competency and moral leadership. I even flatter myself that I have not swallowed either party line (or to be rather direct, ceased to swallow one of them) but see past the false dilemmas they present to the root issues (sin in general, but issues specific to America today as well) causing us unnecessary problems.

But that's not really important at all in the context of planting churches overseas, is it?

The issues people argue about in Taiwan are different than in America, but people there feel just as strongly about them. Wading into that fray which I can't ever understand on the intimate level that someone growing up in a country understands it (with connections to their family and identity and all the little associations and assumptions one makes based on someone's political views) would only damage my relationships with other people before they had a chance to get to know me on a personal level. If I get involved at all, it should be as a learner who wants to learn purely to understand the country and culture better. We'll see how successful I can be at walking that line. The first step is not trying to picture the two sides as analogous in any way to the two sides in America, as that already seems like an invalid comparison.

Mitigating factor: I'm a foreigner who loves Taiwan, and am generally suspicious of governments and politicians as being only self-serving. That combination works pretty well for most people in Taiwan. Also, when asked if I'm "green" or "blue" (the colors that go along with their political parties), I usually reply that, obviously, I am "white." (which both dodges the question in a humorous way and reminds the listener that I don't have a vote in elections, to put it one way)

8. Garbage Cans

There are no garbage cans to take to the street in Taiwanese cities, and normally no dumpsters. You sort your waste according to variety, and every evening at a certain time, garbage trucks drive to a spot nearby and stop, playing icecream-truck-style music so you'll know they're around (used to commonly be Fur Elise, but I don't hear it as often lately on my trips back). They accept different kinds of recycling on different days, and kitchen scrap/non-recyclables on any day, in their own specific kind of bag. (Different places are more or less picky about how carefully you have to sort your garbage, in the denser areas it's quite specific)

Recycle or Else!
(Or else some impoverished person will have to do it at the other end because you were too lazy)

Did you forget some lovely soup dumplings in the back of your refrigerator and now they have sprouted multicolored fur and wept toxic slime? You can't just hold them at arm's length and dump them in a thick, black, plastic bag, which can then if necessary be carried outside to a waiting trash can, to be dragged to the end of the street where garbage men will come do the dirty work and leave behind the empty cans. You must face the biological hazard, scrape the lovecraftian horror lurking within into a certain type of bag, then wash the container they were in and place that into either your recycling pile for that sort of material, or into another bag, and wait for a) the time of day you can take the kitchen garbage out to discard the biohazard into the waiting truck (if you live alone, better hope you're around to do it during that time, or else make some kind of arrangement with your neighbor) and b) the day of the week you can dispose of the container. Which means you've got to wash the stink out too.


Homes in Taiwan normally don't have central A/C, and as I discovered while living there, in tropical climes fruit flies don't mess around when it comes to multiplying in your kitchen scrap bag. (It would be exaggerating slightly to say that the bag was close to lifting off the ground when I got it closed, but not exaggerating to say the number of flies was in the 500-100 range. Thankfully I trapped about two-thirds of them in the bag and fruit flies have very short lifespans)

Mitigating factor: You learn quickly to not forget things in your refrigerator, to close up kitchen scrap bags, and generally be very intentional about handling waste, which is more hygienic anyway. Larger apartment buildings do have places to dump your bags of waste (So no emptying out of all floors of a high-rise to carry innumerable bags of garbage to a waiting fleet of garbage trucks), but in general the no garbage can thing is pretty necessary in cities with such a high population density. Taiwan simply doesn't have the room for a bunch of massive landfills, and with the pollution that's already there and what comes over from China, I'm ok with not adding any more vaporized garbage to the air than necessary.

9. Not Wondering about Water Quality

When traveling overseas people often worry whether food is clean/unspoiled or not, when a bigger issue is the water that was used to cook it. Taiwan is definitely not an example of undrinkable water like parts of Mexico (when you're warned not to let any water get in your mouth during a shower, you begin to wonder if you really need to immerse your body in that water to begin with), but in Taipei we're still advised to stick to filtered water for drinking and cooking. (brushing teeth and such is fine) Whether that's still necessary or an example of snapshot syndrome I am not certain, but it's certainly true in Taiwan that street food utensils and containers are often washed in some pretty scary water. (already used water... dirty water... street puddles...) However, I've enjoyed delicious street food on many occasions and only once or twice paid a price for it later... in other words it compares favorably to Taco Bell, and is infinitely more delicious.

Of course it's been suggested that some of the chemicals we add to our public water supply in America to make it 'safe' are harming us in the long run, and there's probably some truth to that too...

Mitigating factor: Taiwan's water is fine as long as you know the situation in the place you're in, and there are no lack of bottled water options, often ph-balanced too, which is nice. Also, not everyone realizes that in American restaurants (or probably restaurants anywhere), the ice machines often don't get cleaned, and the ice can be dangerously unsanitary. It's cold enough that you don't notice, but it can easily make you sick. Also, US fountain drink dispensers are often pretty nasty. Basically, there's no place in the world that what you drink can be totally taken for granted as safe, you just trade risk factors. Maybe I ought to have been wondering about the water quality in America too... but for now I'll stick with asking for no ice. (It's better for you anyway)

10. Blending In

I visited New York City for a few days a couple of months ago on my way back from TEAM training; didn't have much money to spend, but had a great time overall. One thing I enjoy doing when traveling is seeing if I can fit in enough to be mistaken for a local (or at least not recognized as a tourist), and due to the facts that a) my accent tends to neutralize based on where I am, and b) I have advanced training in picking up on unfamiliar social cues due to my homeschooling background, often I am successful. Taipei had trained me pretty well in navigating large cities, so subways were no problem. After being there a day or two I was repeatedly approached by (other) tourists asking for directions, and often was able to supply them.

In Taiwan, I will never be mistaken for a local, except perhaps (May God grant it) someday on the phone. As a Caucasian there is no question of fitting in, ever. I will always, with one glance, assumed to be a tourist who needs help with directions, or an expat there to teach English illegally while taking advantage of the good life and local girls, until I get caught and exported. That doesn't change no matter how long I live there, because it's not a question of dress or behavior but of general appearance. (Actually the fact that clothing styles in Taiwan are very similar to those in the US makes it worse, since I can't stand out a little less by at least adopting some kind of traditional apparel as missionaries in some countries can)

As an introvert, although I am friendly and don't mind the random kid tugging at his mom's sleeve and saying urgently "waiguoren, waiguoren!" ("foreigner, foreigner!") and having the occasional very random English conversation, it's nice to blend in with the crowd sometimes too, not even from so much an identity standpoint as that of social anonymity. You want to be socially disengaged in public sometimes, and when you look like everyone else, you can do that. Taiwan allows for it more than some places (Foreigners are not super common, but are around and passing through often enough that you have to go into the countryside to get a really surprised reaction. In Taipei I got the impression that sort of behavior was considered a little gauche and unsophisticated, though people were quick to offer help if I appeared uncertain about how to proceed in a given situation), but still you notice subtle things, like how the last unfilled seat on the bus is usually the one next to you, and plenty of people have looked at it then chosen to stand instead. Or not-so-subtle things, like when shopkeepers try to sell you clothes that would fit a bear... (I am a very normal-sized American... I have to go up a t-shirt size to accommodate my shoulders, but not 3 sizes!)

Mitigating factors:
All in all, Taiwan is not a bad place to be a foreigner. People are polite and welcoming to guests, even if they have their suspicions based on the unfortunate behavior of some other foreigners. And it's a given that when choosing to be a missionary to an Asian culture, standing out is going to go with the territory. The only way to sort-of blend in would be staying inside the expat/foreigner bubble, and that's not what I'm going to Taiwan to do.

A few of my Taiwanese friends have told me they hope for the day when the idea of what it is to be Taiwanese will not be restricted by default to ethnically Chinese (or Taiwanese indigenous tribal) people, that anyone who comes to live in Taiwan and participate in the culture could be considered Taiwanese too.
That day may be far off, but if sharing the Hope we have in Christ with the Taiwanese people I have come to love means a little uncomfortable standing out, then I can hardly complain about suffering a few small discomforts, having freely received grace from the One who endured the cross.