cultural sensitivity

It is weird. My roommates commented on how a lot of the white guys here are more popular with the ladies than they would be in the US. Because women here like foreigners, these guys are able to date way out of there league. It is very annoying to us for some reason. I guess it is irritating to see ugly guys doing so well.

What was funny was that I hadn't noticed. I hadn't noticed because I don't look at white people here. Like, we are not sure how to notice/not notice each other. There are few enough of us that we always feel a little awkward about how to handle seeing each other. Because we both know that we have noticed each other, but then it isn't as though you know the other person. Sometimes there is a small, quick smile, sometimes just a bit of confused eye contact and the lookaway. I have been trying to think of a good way to handle the situation. "Hey whitey, what's up?!?" and going in for the high-five hasn't done the trick. Also, no one knows my secret handshake. I don't know what else to do. We all need cards to exchange or something.
Down in Taichung I actually did have a few white people say "Hey, what's up?" or "Hi!" - but there are fewer foreigners down there so I think it was less weird.

One of my roommates bought a neat little device to help her translate words in her Chinese homework. You hold the scanner over the words and it scans them in and translates them for you. She was extremely excited about how helpful this device was going to be. Then she got it home and took it out of the box. Guesses as to what language the instructions were in? Hint: -Not English.-

At some of the Starbucks here they will ask your name when you order your drink so they can shout out to you when your drink is ready. A common practice. A friend of one of the other teachers has been here for a few years. He is a tall blond man who speaks Chinese quite well . He went into a Starbucks and ordered a drink. His whole transaction took place in Chinese. When filling out his drink ordeer on his cup, instead of asking his name, the Starbucks employee just wrote "foreigner" on his cup. He was pissed. When he complained, the employee was confused, and said, but you are, aren't you? He tried to explain that if she went to a Starbucks in the States, wouldn't she be offended if she ordered a drink and got it with the word "Chinese person" written on it? No, she didn't get it. So he wrote some letters. The manager didn't get it. Eventually he escalated to someone who did get it, and he got an apology and some free stuff and a job offer as a Sensitivity Trainer, which he declined.

I think it would be funny to get a cup that just had "foreigner" on it. I might keep it.

Along the same vein, my guidebook told me about this toothpaste here. There used to be a brand of toothpaste here named "Darkie" with a black man with really white teeth on the label. Hmm. Um. So, there were complaints. Now there is a brand of toothpaste named "Darlie" and it had a black sillouette of a man of ambiguous race smiling with really white teeth. Nice, eh?

One one my roommates' old roommates went traveling in South East Asia and came back to Taiwan a little sick. She went to her family doctor to make sure she was ok, and asked about the bird flu. Her doctor said that if she had it that would be great. It would be the first case in Taiwan. She would only have a 50% chance of dying, and he would be famous! Luckily he is not
famous yet.

I walked around the jade market near my house today. It was neat, but I don't know good jade from plastic. And if I do want anything, I will need to go back with someone who speaks Chinese. I walked around today: white, and with a backpack, camera out and in my hand. I had "suckah" written all over my forehead.

The Starbucks employees here have to wear name tags. Someone I know saw a Starbucks employee whose nametag said "Egg." I think that dan is egg in Mandarin, and he went the extra mile on the name tag.

A friend of mine came to my Chinese lesson with me this week. I am just learning a few words to get by, so that it looks like I am at least trying to communicate with people. (In 2 months, I am not going to get very far with Chinese. I am aiming for the ability to ask "where is the bathroom?" and "is this vegetarian?" or to say "turn left here. . . no, I said left. Left, damnit!" and "you want how much for that? seriously?") Anyway, my lessons had been focused on basic conversation and pronunciation, but this week my lesson devolved (quickly) into how to insult people in Chinese. So now I can tell the man on the street (or my friend) that he is an extremely ugly, fat, disgusting, stinky, dirty bad person. I still need to find out how to ask where the bathroom is though.

I also learned the Chinese word for diarrhea, because my teacher asked me how my weekend was.