Coming to a foreign place ensures a certain level of culture shock. While I embrace the hundreds of new sights and sounds I come across on a daily basis here in Taipei, I feel it my duty to share some of the more out-there cultural differences.
On the Weather
–As I’m writing this entry my housemates and I are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Morakot, as in Typhoon Morakot. I’ve always been curious how countries go about naming hurricanes or typhoons. Hurricane Andrew? Katrina? Why not Bob or Steve?
–For the record the summer months constitute as “Typhoon Season” here in Taiwan. Rainy days are plentiful and rather spontaneous. There will be days where I will walk to Chinese class under clear skies and scorching sun. By my third hour of classes menacing clouds and torrential downpour change what was once a pleasant morning into an unpleasant navigation home by way of awning hopping.
–Typhoon days are like snow days, only with the advance notice of a day-off from work, which allows for the planning and execution of various Typhoon Parties–gatherings where foreigners and Taiwanese alike summon the Tropical Storm gods through pints, tequila shots, karaoke renditions of the Beastie Boys and, as I experienced last night, hodge-podge libations with names like Baby Sleeps for Three Days, an unforgiving concoction calling upon nine different hard liquors and Ecto-Cooler-Green beverage dye. It resulted in the inevitable: me and a British bloak singing David Bowie’s “Heroes” to a bar full of unimpressed Taiwanese. 
–If you let go of an umbrella during rain and strong winds it will in fact fly far away leaving you satisfied with the success of your little experiment, but ultimately unpleasantly moist and bitter.
–Rain can hit at any moment, sometimes lasting for the remainder of the day, sometimes for ten minutes or so. This will be my first proper Typhoon experience and I’m hoping that unlike the fairly significant earthquake (a six on the Richter scale supposedly) that hit a month ago I will not sleep straight through its fury.
-When it rains, it really does pour.
–Text message received from my boss last night while at a “Typhoon Party” at a local bar: “Hi it’s me Vicky, don’t go outside, there is a typhoon coming, be careful!” ROUGH TRANSLATION: “By all means let your curiosity take you for a stroll down by the river.”
–Mudslides: The messy and truly tragic killer.
–Umbrellas are a lot more complex than you might think.
–Umbrellas may prevent cancer. The Taiwanese do not like the sun. I’ve been told that at the beaches the Taiwanese rarely take off their shirts (or long pants!) when swimming or sun bathing (or sun dodging, really) and umbrellas are utilized for blocking the poisonous rays throughout the day.
–U-U uh uh uh, an U-M-B-R-E-L-L-A, when repeated ten times, will teach Taiwanese students one of many sounds that comes from the twenty-first letter in the English alphabet.
On Racism
–While sometimes easy to pardon due to good old fashion ignorance, there is a level of harmless racism in parts of everyday life here in Taiwan. Be it a casual comment from a co-worker or a bigoted reference made in an English teaching textbook.
–Probably the most fascinating examples of this widely overlooked phenomenon here in this otherwise fairly accepting culture are two everyday consumer products: racist toothpaste and a line of stereotypical iced-coffee beverages.
–Darlie Toothpaste (which in some places is actually printed as Darkie Toothpaste) is Taiwan and Mainland China’s most trusted name in plaque fighting. The toothpaste tastes like your run of the mill paste or gel, with just a smidgen of racism hidden beneath its explosion of peppermint and fluoride. The company’s mascot could be mistaken for Al Jolson, circa The Jazz Singer. The minstrel caricature totes a top hat, bowtie and shit-eating grin.
–Mr. Coffee has a nice little hold on the sweetened-iced-coffee market with its line of mini-cans and bottles. Mr. Coffee himself (or Kafei xiansheng as I call him in Chinese) is a blatant stereotype of an Italian Mafioso gentleman. His perfectly tailored white suit, matching white fedora and oddly shaped upper facial structure are dead giveaways. There are actually only a few degrees of separation between this jovial Signor and the ill-fated Don Fannuci in The Godfather Part II. It should be noted that Mr. Coffee beverages are surprisingly tasty and their tiny snack size cans make them an inexpensive shot of caffeine while on the road. If you can look past the blatant cultural generalizations, sampling the various flavors offered is always a fun part of grocery shopping. SIDE NOTE: Mr. Coffee was involved in a bit of legal debacle back in 2008 after some of its products were tainted with melamine (the wonders of Wikipedia) during the Chinese milk scandal. Two Mr. Coffee executives were subsequently whacked, chopped and buried out in the sticks of Taipei County, which doesn’t help to shed the company’s troublesome stereotypical image.
On Sexism
–According to a rather sexist example sited in lesson three of The Step-Ahead Level Five workbook, “dumb blondes” are an actual demographic. (PHOTO OF THIS JAWDROPPING CASE OF UNFORTUNATE BRAINWASHING COMING SOON…)
On Karaoke: A Dissection of KTV
–KTV’s are literally giant hotel like buildings that house private rooms for groups of friends to get together and sing in front of a giant plasma TV. It’s Karaoke, but with style! I’ve been to the Party World KTV twice since coming to Taiwan and both experiences were memorable for the following reasons:
1) KTV’s music selection needs a reboot. Sure for Japanese or Taiwanese Pop, you have all your bases covered. When it comes to Western pop, the masterminds behind KTV’s song selection must be stuck in 1996. On both occasions I took part in the 1984 spooky anthem, “Ghostbusters,” I’ve contributed to a gripping rendition of Prince’s “Kiss” and “When Dove’s Cry” (sadly there wasn’t enough room for my tall ass to do the floor hump dance routine that made Prince squeal, “Baby, I’m a Star”), and lent my pipes TLC’s “Waterfalls,” with an added shout out to the departed, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes that fell flat with the heartless bastards in my company. We miss you girl!
2) Most Karaoke music videos in this part of the world are makeshift films that generally have nothing to do with the songs that they accompany. Generally the videos are shot in parts of Western and Eastern Europe, cheap locales like Ukraine or Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. While a modern hip-hop video will sport the predictable amount of bling, babes and shiny cars, and many feature state of art special effects, a Karaoke video for say, something like Michael Jackson’s “Black Or White” (which I sang days before he departed to his Neverland space ranch on to the moon, I mean, after all, like Elvis, the King of Pop is still alive, right?) will feature a beautiful blonde Moldovan frolicking in the hills or enjoying a the sunshine in a European plaza. A pity since the original “Black or White” video made history back in the day.
3) The makers of KTV songs seem to enjoy the editing (or shall we just say, destruction) of perfectly good songs. Whole verses will be cut out or in some cases altered all together.
4) I discovered that when it comes to KTV it’s best for me to accept my limited Eeyore pipes and aim for more comical song choices such as the aforementioned Ray Parker Jr. ballad, “Ghostbusters Theme,” or say Toto’s mighty anthem, “Rosanna,” which I just happened to video for your enjoyment!
5) Local pop song music videos seem to share a bizarre fascination for food and the forlorn. On one evening three videos were either set in restaurants (one, featured below, set the stage in a fast food restaurant) or involved female singers eating their worries away while singing.
6) While supposedly hush, hush, you can bring your own booze to KTV, thus avoiding the inflated price of their otherwise dirt cheap Taiwan Beer. The caveat when partying with the Taiwanese is you must drink your local brew over ice and with a dried plum dropped into the cup to give the stale beer some sweetness. The Taiwanese truly are the sugar-eating people.
7) When shared, a bottle of cheap Taiwanese whiskey will go fast.
8) The Taiwanese fail to understand the David Lynch reference to the now eerie song “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison.
9) The KTV experience is best described as Lynchian.
On Taiwanese Television
–I don’t get very many opportunities to watch the boob tube here in Taipei, mainly because I’m too busy. On the rare occasion that I do sit down with the housemates there are only a few English language channels to choose from. National Geographic, Discovery, Travel, CNN are all favorite channel surfing stops. As are the four movie channels offered, including an East Asian version of HBO and Cinemax and two random movie channels, Hollywood and one simple called C Movie.
–Open letter to whoever chooses the films screened on the aforementioned Hollywood and Movie channels; I want your job. These two channels broadcast the most random selection of C-Grade films, mainly residing in the horror, action, sci-fi and the “man merged with beast” genres. Case in point is the low-budget 2005 film, Hammerhead (AKA Sharkman), which my housemates and I enjoyed one evening with jaws wide open to the film’s shear stupidity. The plot is a bit complex, you know with the character development and all, but it goes something like this: overly acted mad scientist creates a half-man/half-shark mutant, which then escapes and goes around eating low-paid actors, including females willing to strip and get eaten by a CGI sharkman, possibly as a means to pay off art school loans. Sharkman eventually confronts his maker, has an emotional “Do I eat my master?” moment. Then Sharkman eats his master before biting it in a lame lab explosion. Most of the gory kills that you look for with anticipation when watching films of this caliber are edited out or the channel’s programming bastards deliberately air the commercial break right before said scientist eats it by way of fatal sharkman bite.
–Taiwan: Where bad movies go to die.
–One could spend an entire hour just soaking up Taiwanese commercials.
–You could also spend an hour just soaking up what the Hakka Channel, made for a large group of aboriginal Taiwanese.
–There is a game show here in Taiwan, which, as far as I can tell, consists of young female celebrities eating weird food in front of live giggling studio audience members and a flamboyant host. I’ve found that it’s more fun when you don’t know what the hell they are saying.
–The Japanese have apparently made a lot of Samurai films. Few come even remotely close to anything Kurosawa contributed to the world.
–The Malaysia tourism board’s commercial for traveling in Malaysia, which features the tagline, “Malaysia, Truly Asia” makes me want to travel to Malaysia.
–According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB.com) Hammerhead’s tagline is: When he began fusing human and shark DNA, his colleagues laughed at him. Now his creation is taking his revenge, and they aren’t laughing anymore.
Sign O' The Times 