5 August 2010 - The six month marker

So the journal, it would seem, has petered out and died. I don't know when I made the decision to stop keeping it, more important perhaps was the decision to stop feeling guilty about not keeping it. Either way, whilst I will still offer my busy schedule as justification it won't quite suffice for what must have been six weeks or more radio silence. I suspect it will now be reduced to 'anniversary entries' and special occasions and will fail to catalogue the continuous unfolding of my life here in Taiwan. Still, that will have to do for now. The desire to write this 'anniversary entry' came as I was riding the home run down Beitun road after a particularly exhausting day at Gram. I am approaching the six month milestone on my highway of expatriation and as I weaved between cars, buses, trucks and cyclists in an almost autopilot fashion I began thinking about what I have learnt in these six months, since stepping off the plane at Taoyuan airport on a distant night last February. The list which began forming in my head was of some surprise to me.

I've learnt to use chopsticks, my first and to date, proudest achievement. I've learnt how to ride a 125cc scooter in what some would claim is the craziest traffic in the world. I've learnt to teach English to children from the age of five through to surly high school teenagers, how to plan lessons, create resources, tell stories and at times even sing to my various audiences. I've learnt, with a questionable degree of success, how to file for residency and legally work as an alien in a foreign country. I've also learnt how to complete a 'visa run' when the previous lesson reached it's conclusion. More recently I have learned to make myself understood in some basic, every day Chinese, including, finally how to go about ordering a meal in Macdonalds and respond to the inevitable 'Do you want to make your fries large for an extra $5?' in a way that doesn't involve panicking and either shaking or nodding your head vigorously and hoping for the best. I've learnt how to write about thirty (and counting) Chinese characters and how to navigate a web browser or office package when all the menus are in unintelligible symbols and pictures (sadly I cannot yet perform the same feat with the menu in my local restaurant). I've learnt how to use an air conditioning unit and how to keep, and lose, a pet turtle.

The sum of these parts is survival in Taiwan and some degree of prosperity in my new, overseas lifestyle. These are the more tangible, achievements and believe it or not, I'm not trying to show off but instead in some way evaluate and quantify what the past six months have meant for my life. I also can't begin to pretend I've done these things on my own, at every stage I've had the advice of Xiao Yen, and expat chums such as Patric and Kitesurfer Joe, Taiwanese friends and colleagues, teachers and family. I doubt I would have landed that all-important job had it not been for my brother's advice on everything from dress to interview questions and 'demo lesson' plans. I would not have survived my first few weeks as an ESL teacher without his continuing advice and that of Patrick, Taiwan's greatest critic and a darn good teacher. I wouldn't have been able to eat or drink anything outside of convenience store fare without Xiao Yen, nor would I have been able to get anywhere without the loan of her bicycle in those early weeks and her later assistance with acquiring Goldie, my faithful steed. I would have gone insane through lack of contact with the western world if it hadn't been for Joe and my British pool friends.

Despite these people I have often felt alone here, indeed I have often been alone. Whilst I have learnt to live here and even, to some extent like it, I have slowly come to the realisation that I could not become a permanent expat. I haven't become infused with a idealistic view of life back home or British culture but I have reached an understanding that, as much as I love travelling, I want to live in England and not some far-flung Asian island, as convenient and luxurious as life can be here for a foreigner. In the last month one of my oldest friends died, and my first girlfriend got married. Both of these occasions presented times when I desperately wanted not to be on the other side of the world.

As different as my life is here it is still life as I suspect it will be anywhere, with the same problems and challenges, starting new routines and making new friends, changing circles, learning new skills, having new experiences and occasionally looking back at the road you have taken and trying to remember how you got to where you are standing. When I get whimsical, as I am tonight, I try to work out how, last August I was returning from a two week holiday in rural France after graduating from University, waiting to move into a new house in York and start a new job in a secondary school. A world where Taiwan was only a word imprinted on the bottom of certain household items and a place I couldn't pinpoint on a map. One year later I am an official resident of the Republic of China, a student of Feng Jia University and a teacher at an English language centre. I'm riding my scooter through the city or the mountains or the tiny tropical islands that lay off the coast, talking in stilted Chinese to teashop owners, or hurriedly shovelling Turkey rice into my mouth with chopsticks in a cantine on my way to another busy afternoon of English classes. Luckily, I don't have enough time to think too deeply about any of this or question too much. Like I said, I'm kind of busy at the moment.