Being Black On The ROC - #1

Is not as easy as it seems....

This is just going to be a weekly section about what unique experiences I have in Taiwan as a Black woman. These posts specifically deal with my race/racism issues in Taiwan, because it exists and I have to deal with it every week (with a smile on my face)!

Defending My Nationality On The ROC

When meeting Taiwanese people for the first time, they almost always (90% - 99%) of the time believe that I am from Africa. This is understandable, because a lot of the Black populace in Taiwan are Africans. However, on one pleasant night out with my host mother, one Taiwanese male was not too pleased and even questioned my race/ nationality.

On that night, my host mom invited me to eat with her and her son at a snack shop in our neighborhood's night market. As soon as we entered and ordered our food a lackadaisical 阿公/ "A-Gong"/ a male in his 60's-80's approached our table and asked my mom what I was doing in Taiwan. 

This is what I call the "third-person" chat. For some reason, even if Taiwanese people know that you can speak/ understand Mandarin Chinese, some of them will still ask their Taiwanese friends questions about you in your presence. By in your presence, I mean right in front of your face (about two to three feet to be exact). In America, this would be considered ill-mannered and downright rude, but its acceptable in Taiwan. Why? Because they believe that the majority of foreigners here can't have a conversation pass "Hello, How are you?" On another note, this really isn't their fault, a large number of foreigners are like this, and years ago it was a lot worse. However, it's getting better now as more and more foreigners are learning how to speak Mandarin Chinese proficiently.

My host mother then responds, "You can ask her directly, her Chinese is quite good." I then respond, "I am currently studying Chinese at a university." He then turns back to my mom and asks where am I from to which I automatically respond, "I am from America."

As soon as "America," fell off the tip of my tongue, the A-Gong gave me a look of utter disgust. He then speaks to my host mom in Taiwanese dialect (thinking that I wouldn't understand Taiwanese, he was wrong) and says, "I thought America didn't have any Black people." Translation- He thought I told him a flat out lie to his face, and was making it his duty to inform my host mother that I may have potentially deceived her. 

After hearing this, my host mother deliberately turned away from him and was trying to quickly finish her meal. I joined her in this process, but was disturbed by the A-Gong that decided to continue to stand there and watch us eat. Needless to say, we quickly left, I paid the bill with a smile, and we never returned to that place again. 

Looking back, I should have stood up and shouted to him in Taiwanese that our President is indeed a Black man and that we indeed occupy a large population in the United States. 

But thats the wit of the staircase for ya!

^_^

My Home On The ROC

As Chinese New Year festivities are about to go underway, this would be the best time to introduce where I live and who I live with.

This is my host family. This child is my little brother Gan Jiapeng (甘家朋), the man to the left is my host father Peter Gan （老甘), and finally the woman in the middle is my host mom and best friend Cay Chang （老媽). I got to know them through the "Chinese way," ie I asked my Taiwanese teacher if he knew of any families that would be open to host, who asked his friends, who asked their friends, who asked their friends who asked my host family if it was okay or not.  

In most Taiwanese apartments, when you first walk through the front door you will enter into a small room that is used for storage of umbrellas, recyclables, etc. However the most important use of this area is for shoe storage. Taiwanese people are against wearing shoes in the household. They believe (and are right in their belief) that wearing shoes within the household will bring in dirt and germs from the outdoors. So they are adamant about taking their shoes off and putting on slippers before entering the household. 

After you take off your shoes and enter through the sliding glass door you walk into the living room. Their living room has three couches, a table, computer, fish tank, a television and a floor pad. During the wintertime, the floor becomes especially cold. This is mostly due to the fact that there is no heating in a average Taiwanese household (I am not kidding). To accommodate for the cold floors, every winter my family puts a giant foam pad on the floor. This foam pad is around one inch thick and provides warmth and comfort to everyone in the living room. 

My host mom is currently using her computer to surf the internet and might be watching Korean soap operas. 

While taking pictures, my little brother was drawing in a pretty "expensive" coloring book. After my host mom noticed that he was scribbling rather than drawing in it, she asked him what he was doing. Afterwords, my little brother honestly responds, "I am painting him blue, just like the picture above." (My brother sometimes is so freaking cute that you can't help but laugh >_<).

This is the kitchen in our home. This kitchen has absolutely no oven and the stove top is gas-fired. There is no automatic dishwasher as well. My host mom gave me the explanation that dishwashers are too expensive and wastes too much water. In a sense, she is completely right. Dishwashers are a product of convenience, not necessity. They also waste large amounts of water per wash. However, for people who live fast-paced lifestyles, dishwashers lifts a great burden from them. One complaint that I have is that their faucets lack hot water. So every time I wash dishes my fingers turn into icicle pops without the fruity taste!!

This is the balcony. The machine in the front is the destroyer of many outfits, IE the Taiwanese style washing machine. What's a Taiwanese-style washer machine? Well, its probably not only exclusive to Taiwan, but it's the type of washer machine that has a extremely high speed cycle to wring out your clothes. This causes many clothes to stretch to the point that they are unwearable. The reason why the spin cycle is so high is because most Taiwanese families do no use a dryer. After washing their clothes they hang them up on the clothesline and dry them that way. Most Taiwanese people believe that dryers are too expensive to buy and useless since you can use the much more cost friendly method of wind to dry one's clothes.

Finally, the moment everyone has been waiting for.... my room! My room has a bed, a dresser, a desk, a bookshelf and a storage shelf. It's pretty small, yet cozy. After living in Taiwan, I realized that a person really doesn't require that much space to feel comfortable in. On my desk as an amazing collection of Chinese material that I am currently studying at my University. These include my books to the left, dictionary to the right and behind my computer has a newspaper article that I still have to translate for class (>_<). My bookshelf contains books, CDs, my flute, school supplies, calligraphy kit (Yes, I am a nerd) and various jewelry. My storage shelf contains all of my "life" supplies. These "life" supplies are basically goods that you can not buy in Taiwan. The top shelf contains all of my medicine and vitamins that I brought from the States. The second shelf has all of my hair necessities for a black woman with natural hair. The next two shelves have my hair and fashion accessories (sunglasses, hairbands, belts, scarves, etc). Finally, the last shelf has all of my (important) electronic accessories.

When leaving the house, you will see my neighbor's door. My neighbor's are also a Taiwanese family that has three children (two girls, one boy). I usually call the Mother and Father "Uncle" and "Aunt." Their children usually come over to play with my mother's son and the father often uses that excuse to come over and gossip with my mom. I will talk about them more later, until then 再見！ Zai4Jian4 = Goodbye!

New Year, New Beginnings, New Blog.

Happy New Year Everyone!

My name is Stacy and I am currently living in Taipei, Taiwan studying Chinese language at a local university. One of my New Year's resolutions was to create a blog and write down numerous experiences and encounters that I have occurred in Taiwan for the remainder of my stay here.

This blog will be updated weekly and will deal with daily happenings and past events that have occurred in this rainy city (Taipei, Taiwan). In February, I will also start taking 36 hour trips to various parts of Taiwan and report about them. My hope for this blog is that it will not only be a collection of precious memories that I have experienced here, but also will give inspiration to others to study abroad! 

With that said, I am off to study! Good night y'all and keep warm! ^_^