10 Things I Miss about America: After a Year in Taiwan

I wrote, before leaving America, things I expected to miss about the place. I then checked again 6 months later, to see how accurate my original guesses were. Now, a year later, as I am getting more fully adjusted and settled in for the medium-term, I will take another look.

 

Original List (not in any particular order) of things I expected to miss:

1. Driving                                                     (6 months later: confirmed)
2. Spring and Autumn                                   (6 months later: partially confirmed)
3. Wardrobe flexibility due to summer heat    (6 months later: busted, it was fine)
4. Being able to make jokes people get         (6 months later: partially confirmed)
5. Real southern food and Tex-Mex               (6 months later: confirmed)
6. Pop culture/movie references                    (6 months later: confirmed)
7. Political discussions                                 (6 months later: busted, did anyway, heh)
8. No garbage cans                                      (6 months later: confirmed)
9. Not having to worry about water quality     (6 months later: busted, a very small issue)
10. Blending in                                            (6 months later: confirmed, of course)
11. Added in the 6 month post: Being able to flush toilet paper!

Updated List: Things I Miss After One Year

It turns out I did a pretty good job of guessing, overall. (I don't blame myself for the talking-about-politics one, too many interesting political things happen in Taiwan not to at least discuss them. And I discovered refusing to participate in that kind of discussion irritated some people more than simply expressing an opinion.)

A year later, a few of the original list deserve a second look:

2. Spring and Autumn (Yes I still miss them, but keep reading)

My impression of Taiwan last time I lived here was that there was winter, a rainy period in late Spring, then a typhoon-filled summer and a nice few weeks of Autumn (hard to call it Fall when very few leaves do) before it got cold again.

That's not far off, but what I think has happened this time around is that I've begun to accept that Taiwan, for geographical reasons, simply doesn't have 4 seasons. America might not either, really. If you watched the weather patterns closely for a few years, then set about to define your own local seasons, I bet you wouldn't come up with 4, and they wouldn't be all the same length. People who have lived in the same place for decades/have family roots there often know the ins and outs of the yearly weather patterns.

So I do still miss Spring and Autumn, especially early Spring and the warm days/frosty nights part of Autumn, but I think we should embrace the richness of our local climates which never line up with the astronomical seasons anyway. (Where is it not summer weather until June 21? Alaska?)

This was about as close to Autumn leaves as I got this year. They didn't really crunch...
I hear there's a bit of leaf change in the mountains though, something to check out next year

5. Southern food and Tex-Mex

I think I mentioned in the 6 month update that this was true but not a problem because of all the good local food. And Taiwanese food is -amazing- so that's not wrong. But I think it's seasonal too. Over the summer I was fine (I think if it came down to a contest, Taiwan would beat America for warm-weather food), but as the holidays have arrived, I've begun to miss some of the tastes of home. Fried catfish, BBQ baked potatoes, etc. I think maybe it's not so much the taste itself, as enjoying that taste with other people who also know the same food and are anticipating enjoying it just like you are. Then there are the little rituals of "ok, it's cold enough, we can start drinking hot cocoa and making neiman marcus brownies," that sort of thing.

Then the Tex-Mex is just a personal preference. We had some great Tex Mex restaurants in Alabama, and even better ones in Dallas, and from time to time, I am really in the mood for some good tacos de lengua, pollo loco, or steak quesadilla. I have yet to find a good Mexican restaurant in Taiwan. I went to the one that was supposedly the best, and it was very "meh." They had some of the basic dishes, but they were bland, mild, and lacked any piquancy. Maybe they were worried about people not being used to the stronger flavors and heat; I might go back and ask them if they can spice it up a little.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Go to your favorite Tex-Mex place (Or mine, for those of you who know what that is) and enjoy a meal there (pray for Taiwan when you bless the food, if you please), and take a picture, and send it to me or tag me in it. I won't be mad that I can't eat the food, I will enjoy the experience vicariously that way.

Like I said, Taiwanese food is amazing, so I cannot complain whatsoever. I think my revelation over the past  6 months has been the thing about sharing familiar food (family recipes, seasonal dishes) with people who know and anticipate them like you do. I expect that might change over the long-term in Taiwan as I also begin to recognize seasonal dishes here and look forward to them, and share them with friends.

For now, I am both loving Taiwanese food and also really want a good taco. I might go looking for some ground beef and spices later... (I think an international store might have corn tortillas...hmm...)


6. Pop Culture/Movie References

This is very slowly changing. Your Chinese has to be pretty amazing to really 'get' pop culture in Taiwan and know what's going on and what's popular. (Obviously, not everyone keeps up with that sort of thing in their own culture; I certainly didn't in America. But you catch things by osmosis, by articles you don't bother clicking on, that sort of thing. My Chinese is not good enough to do that yet)  So Facebook is my best source of that kind of information for now, but I've seen at least a couple movies here now and when I reference them, people can at least figure out what movies I'm talking about. (It's a start!) Watching a couple Taiwanese TV series has been interesting and helpful as well, though it's incredibly slow if I really want to try to pause it and figure out everything everyone is saying.


8. (+ 11.) No garbage cans, no flushing toilet paper

This is still occasionally frustrating, but I've noticed that as I get used to the lifestyle here, I start remedying the lack of trash cans in various ways. A lot of the trash I need to take out of my house is recyclable, so the old lady down the street gets it. I've gotten better about throwing things away outside the house when I get the chance, and not bringing trash home with me so I don't have to deal with it later. The no flushing toilet paper thing is still weird, though it's instinctive at this point. (I'm definitely going to need to hardcode that switch in my brain and switch it off next time I'm in the US, heh) The biggest result of it overall is that bathrooms are generally much less pleasant places than they are in the US. Though, ironically, it's partially a result of having adopted western toilets. You don't normally need as much paper after using a squatty. (They're all around more efficient... I'll leave it at that)



10. Blending In

"One of these things is not like the others..."
(The bags are me helping someone carry their stuff, I think it was houseplants, oddly enough)

I will never blend in here, barring some kind of historically unprecedented situation where tens of thousands of Westerners want to come live permanently in Taiwan and Taiwan lets them do so. So it's deceptive to even say I 'miss' this, because it's so obviously impossible. It does get tiring to be permanently treated as an outsider and according to different rules, though in Taiwan at least this is both polite and obvious. (Taiwanese people who don't know you are typically either shy or warm and effusive; there are far worse places to be an outsider)

I'm thankful for a few contexts where due to my previous experiences in Taiwan I've been around long enough to be an "old friend" or "familiar face." The attempt to eliminate discrimination in America may be a praiseworthy goal, but personally I don't think discrimination itself is wrong; it's simply recognizing difference. I am different here. I do stand out. To be treated differently is not anything to be offended about. To me the question is not whether we discriminate, which is natural/instinctive behavior, but whether we are loving or not towards those we treat differently because we perceive them to be different.

So now...

Would I add anything to this list? After a year, I could add maybe two or three things I miss:

A. Literacy

I often get polite compliments on my Chinese (that's not bragging, you will get those at any level of Chinese, and they taper off when you're really good), but I'm only conversational, and barely that after missing a lot of sleep. But even being conversationally fluent, which I should be able to achieve some time next year, is not the same as being fully literate. This is where being highly literate in English actually hurts me. I'm used to the written word being something I utterly take for granted, like shapes or colors, not something I have to stare at for a moment and actively think about before I get it. It's humbling in a good way, but I'm hoping there comes a day when I can be sort of aware of what's written around me without having to focus on each thing.

B. Not Feeling Guilty for Leisure Time

This is not so much a Taiwan thing as a missionary thing. Taiwanese work very hard, usually, and I find that work ethic inspiring. The hard part is working the weird hours of a missionary, when there's no clear "at the office/at home but on call/on vacation" distinctions. In my previous incipient career as a computer engineer, I would work 40+ hours a week, attend a couple Bible studies and Sunday morning and evening services at church, and (being single) no one criticized how I used the rest of my time. Saturdays were mine, and I enjoyed them. I don't really get criticism from anyone here (I'm staying quite busy with ministry as it is), but what I miss is that "off the clock" feeling. But I really wonder now, is that right? If I really am a believer, called to the Great Commission by Christ as the whole Church is, isn't it true that I'm always "on duty" for the gospel, and wrong for me to have thought before that my secular employment set the hours? I'm still thinking about this. Another aspect of it is that, as a missionary, you always wonder, if I spent a little more time working on that ministry, making more contacts at that school, etc., would I see more fruit? I did not wonder this as an engineer, as my company was pretty adamant about not paying me for more hours than they'd asked me to work. But as a missionary, my hours are the 24 that come with each day. What does "free time" even mean anymore?

A resulting problem is that I end up needing rest and recreation time and taking it anyway, but feeling vaguely guilty about it. Or, I don't "rest hard/play hard" when I have the chance, and so my working times start suffering, and I fall into the trap of time-wasting activities that aren't all that fun but don't make me feel guilty like "having fun" would. I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts on this; I have a feeling there are lots of books and articles addressing this exact phenomenon. (I know part of it is resulting from something I discussed in my look back at this past year, not having the friendship networks I thought I would.)

The problem is, though, that even resolving it for myself, it's nearly impossible to explain to my (much older) Taiwanese coworkers, who have expressed their appreciation for missionaries in the good old days who didn't play around but were serious about the work. (Not aiming that at me, as far as I could tell, just reminiscing)

And I can't really imagine The Apostle Paul deciding to sink a few weekend hours into a TV series he missed, or go visit a nearby town "just for fun,"... so I don't know. Maybe it's me that is immature, or confused by an immature culture (Americans all are to some extent, that's for sure), and I should simply apply myself more diligently. I would appreciate any reflective thoughts on the subject.