Bangkok Experience in a Nut Shell

Bangkok is a weird place, hippies, loud techno music or Bob Marley, hippie clothes, way too many backpackers, getting dreads on the street, tattoo parlors, guys picking up girls, girls picking up guys, no bars without prostitutes, pad Thai noodles, rickshaw drivers popping their mouths about ping-pong shows, huge bowls of fruit and yoghurt, cute white guys, cute Thai guys, seedy back alleys, half-Chinese half-Thai food with raw eggs, new language, street people one block off the beaten path, Pakistani pick-up lines, book stores, spice, bride shops, huge bottles of beer, new love (potentially though scary and a little too soon), old friends, frustration, compromises, rolled cigarettes, millions of 7-11’s, minty sniffers, rain and slippery sidewalks, nice women, mean women, nightlife, lady boys, distraction, excitement, Buddhist wats, prostrations to a golden Buddha, jasmine, orchids, marigolds, and lotus, incense, trying to light a candle in the wind, a “father figure,” eating bugs, missing home, still healing, Voldemort, dance parties to 90’s pop music, zombies, eating brains, sensuality.

Travel to Thailand

Thailand Thailand Thailand. I am no longer in Taiwan, at all. I still have so much I want to write about Taiwan, but I feel like after just one week in Thailand I have completely forgotten Taiwan. I really loved Taiwan. It was a very livable place, good people, good food, good life. But in a way I am really happy to be away from Taiwan. I needed a change of scenery. I am happy to be out of my dungeon in Sinjuang. That room was driving me so crazy that I was starting to feel trapped. Life seemed inaccessible sitting at my desk in the dark corner next to my dark, sunless window open only to a loud mechanical noise and a musty mildew smell.

I went through a really hard time in Taiwan. I lost a lover, lost a friend, got really bored, got confused, cried, starved, spent too many hours lying awake in the sleepless dark. Thailand has given me a chance to move on. I don’t have to think about all my bad feelings anymore. The newness of the country has made me forget the oldness of my life.

After only one week in Thailand I am in love with the country. Each country always has a different feel, a different sensation of potential. Some places are calm, lonely, places where you just want to lock yourself in a room and study, some are romantic, some are boring, some are fun. Thailand is fun. Thai people are fun. I was really surprised when I came to Thailand. I was expecting it to be a little uncomfortable, to face the word “farang” countless times, to be ripped off, to be lonely, to hate all the hippie pot-smoking tourists with backpacks. I am finding it a lot better than expected. Thai people are just generally cool, almost in the sense of the American cool. I have already met tons of young Thai people who just hang out, play guitar on the street, artists, coolly dressed, cool hair, cool everything. It’s happening in Thailand.

Short Dick Man in Taiwan

Cramped in a minivan with the rest of the CRC students we are speeding dangerously down curvy mountains roads. The Taiwanese driver is blasting bouncy club DJ music. I am dancing out of boredom of the long trip. Suddenly, I recognize English words singing from the speakers. I am shocked. Is she really saying that? I tell the other students to listen, lest my ears deceive me.

“Teeny weeny shriveled little short d!ck man. Don’t want no short d!ck man,” wails the singer with a harsh Queens accent. We burst out laughing. The driver is joyfully grooving to the beats. I wonder does he know the words?

I have had similar experiences around the world where I encounter people listening to profane English songs. I wonder if they would like the song if they knew what the words mean. Do they play these songs in English speaking countries? This is just plain silliness. Do I dance to songs like this in other languages that I don’t understand? After the short dick man song ended another song in Chinese started. I was still dancing, but with caution. What were the lyrics? Are profane lyrics common in Chinese songs?

I have now had this ridiculous song stuck in my head for weeks. It is a really catchy tune. With a little research I found a clip of it on YouTube, which I have added to this post. I guess it was a big hit song in the 90's.

I don't think the youtube.com video is working so here is the url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX380vS_Mzs

How to Chew Beetle Nut

I am realizing that Taiwanese people love to share their culture. They love to give me all kinds of exotic things to try. I was sitting outside of my hotel in Alishan when a Taiwanese tourist stopped to take an interest in me. I was eating a “mountain tomato,” a red fruit with slimy frog egg seeds.

The man gestured that I was eating it completely wrong and showed me the correct way. He then began pulling them out of his pocket one after the other and distributing them to the CRC students. I don’t know how he could have been hording so many fruits in his pockets.

To eat the fruit, you roll it around in your palms, massaging the insides away from the skin. Then you bite off the top and suck it out like a baby suckling a breast. The man was laughing hilariously as we did this, probably because of this sexual connotation. He continued to dish out fruits at an alarming rate. After I ate about 4 I couldn’t handle it anymore. I refused a fruit and instead, he shoved a large thing directly into my mouth, mid-sentence, with his dirty fingers. Wow! I took it out to examine it before I consumed any old thing from dirty fingers.

(Red teeth from a mouth full of beetlenut...not my most stunning photographic moment.)

It looked like a green acorn wrapped in a fresh shiny leaf. He pointed to his red teeth, and I realized, this is a beetle nut. It is used like chewing tobacco, that you crunch up and let rest along the gum line. The man urged me to chew it, as his friends jokingly punched him for being such a bad influence on the mei guo ren.

I have always wanted to try beetle nut, but have also been a little afraid of it. It is highly addictive and stains the teeth bright red. All over Asia there are vermillion stained toothy smiles, like the owner of the smile is a vampire.

(Spit from chewing beetlenut...a little gross)

I chewed up the nut which exploded with bitter-sweet juices in my mouth. I was unsure of the proper chewing procedure, so I just chewed uncontrollably, slurping my spittle all over the place. My bus was about to leave, so I hurried up the hill, leaving my generous friend. As I passed the vendors, an uproar of laughter rolled along with me as fingers pointed to my crimson mouth.

(Chewed up piece of beetle nut after I was finished)

When I crested the hill, I could feel the effects of the beetle nut. My blood was coursing through my body like a machine gun. I had a surge of energy and my head felt dizzy. WOW! This definitely is a stimulant. After just five minutes of chewing, I could tell why it is so addictive. I chewed the nut for the duration of the bus ride and actually really relished it. I think I will have to stay away from beetle nut though, because I do not need red teeth or more addictions.

(My red tongue after chewing beetlenut)

AndrogynousTaiwanese Teens

I keep seeing Taiwanese young people and wondering if they are male or female. This is weird. Androgyny seems to be a big thing here. Boys are dressed like fashion models and wear lots of pink shirts. Some girls are wearing baggy boy’s clothing. Most Asian girls have small breasts so often I can barely see them poking out of their baggy boys shirts. I tend to distinguish gender through breasts, if there are no other signs. Lots of young people here have androgynous hairstyles, heavily gelled with hair care products.

I am wondering why so many girls dress like boys here. Someone told me there is a rising number of gays in Asia, or rather that it is more acceptable to be gay so they do not have to hide it. Are these boyishly dress girls lesbians? Or is it just a popular fashion style to dress like a boy?

Eating Pomelos in Taiwan

Breaking habitual patterns part II:

I bought a bunch of huge fruits which I don’t know the name of, but which I call “heads.” I think it might be a pomelo or something to that effect. They are about the same size as a head. They are kind of like an overgrown grapefruit, but with very thick skin and a very sweet taste.

In China I would always share these with someone. They are too big for one person to eat alone. We would walk to a little corner fruit stall at night, purchase a head from the fruit boy and happily carry the heavy head home anxious to dig into the sweetness. At home we would wash and peel the fruit. Then, placing it in a bowl, we would share slices while we watched movies or did school work. It was a special ritual.

Now I have all of these heads. They have been sitting on my refrigerator for the past week. I couldn’t bring myself to eat one all alone. They have too much meaning behind them for me.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Break the cycle. I think I am finally going to delve into my sweet fruit and enjoy eating it all by myself.

Photos of the Pomelos and a little inspiration.

(How to peel a pomelo.)

(Inside of a pomelo.)

(Enjoying the sweet fruit.)

Breaking Habitual Patterns

I am trying to break free from my habitual patterns. My Buddhism teacher says this is integral in becoming enlightened, the only way to work through karma and break the cycle of samsara. In class he discusses habitual patterns and with his Chinese accent it sounds like he is saying “happy jopettin.” (hahaha)

My dad says a warrior, too, must always break routine, and constantly fight to reinvent themselves and reinvent the way they do things. This creates balance. Move the left hand in circles and the right hand in a perpendicular pattern. Discipline the mind. Discipline the body. Do not be lazy and fall into habitual states of physical or mental.

I am trying to reinvent myself. I am use to waking up every morning and checking my e-mail. I am always expecting an e-mail. I am waiting but I know it will never come. Those e-mails won’t come anymore. And no one else really e-mails me too much anymore. This simply leads to disappointment every single morning.

I believe a person can put just as much energy into making themselves happy as they can to make themselves sad. I need to stop setting myself up for disappointment. I need to stop checking my e-mail obsessively, waiting for something that can, or will, never happen again. I need to break my old cycles.

Taiwanese Stinky Tofu Restaurants

The other night I had a food adventure. I like to try new things, just to know what they are like, just to have the experience. I have a friend here who is the same way. We were starving, so together we went searching through a Taiwanese night market for some grub, almost literally.

We stopped at a stall where a man with beetlenut reddened, crooked teeth was selling various Taiwanese snacks. He had a pile of tasty looking bright green soybeans. With salivary glands fully functioning, we ordered up a bag. Seemingly happy that foreigners were patronizing his booth, he wanted to share his oriental delights with us. He handed out samples of everything for us to try. It started with a rubbery brown ring. I took a bite. It was squid soaked in sweet soy sauce, and probably by far the most succulent squid I have ever eaten. He then handed us a white slice that almost looked like a piece of Swiss cheese. I crunched into the juicy treat. It was some sort of pickled vegetable flavored with a delicious gingery sauce. We paid his about $1 USD and he gave us a huge bag of soybeans. They were scrumptiously marinated in peppery vinaigrette, light, crisp, and fresh. We munched on our snack and continued our search.

We stopped in front of a stinky tofu restaurant. You can smell a stinky tofu place from a mile away, with its foul odor like the grimiest barroom men’s bathroom, or a port-o-potty that has been left to stew and fester in the hot summer sun for weeks. I think there is a common saying about stinky tofu that goes something like, “Smells like a bathroom, but tastes heavenly.”

Everyone in Taiwan that I meet asks if I have eaten stinky tofu, so I decided to be brave and finally try the malodorous stuff. We also ordered a bowl of soup to even out our meal, hoping that if the tofu was a bust that the soup would be a safety back-up. Boy, were we wrong.
The tofu arrived at the table, fried crispy blocks drenched soy sauce and accompanied by a sprig of pickled cabbage. It didn’t smell that bad. I diligently picked up a cube with my chopsticks and raised it into my quivering mouth. It wasn’t as horrible as I thought, but it wasn’t as magnificent as claimed either. I swallowed, waited. The after taste was vile. Like the smell of a toilet was caught in my nasal passage, rising up from the sewer pipes of the back of my throat, rotting and clogged in my stomach. I bravely and politely continued to eat, just to fulfill my ravenous hunger.

The soup came. There were thin noodles suspended in a brown gelatinous broth. This was topped by strange slices of some sort unspecified organ and globular clear gray balls floating like brains in a Petri dish. I hesitantly picked up a “brain” with my chops sticks and popped it down the chute. Its sliminess squished between my teeth bursting with a fishy, unexpected taste. Was this a brain? Who’s brain? The whole soup tasted like fish, pungent and revolting. I do not like to waste food so I kept eating, or rather trying to swallow without chewing my cud. I was glad my friend was there so I did not have to finish the dishes on my own. I snuck some of my portion of the brains into her bowl when she wasn’t looking to sooth my gag reflexes. A Taiwanese woman was chatting with us at our table. She commended us on our courage. “Most foreigners do not eat at places like this.” I smiled gracefully and nodded, but in the back of my mouth my taste buds screamed, “I can taste why!”

When I returned home I viciously scrubbed my mouth with my toothbrush and a massive quantity of toothpaste to rid myself of the flavors. Yet, I still feel like I have the vile tastes imbedded on my tongue, emanating from my innards.

Heart Problems

Is it possible for a heart to physically break? Everyone is always singing, writing, reciting about broken hearts. Is there such a thing? What would a heart have to be made out of for it to break? Medically speaking, a heart doesn’t exactly break. More or less people get heart disease, have heart attacks, clogged arteries, etc., But are their hearts breaking? Do they rip themselves apart? Do people get heart attacks from heart ache? If you love more, and lose more, are you more likely to develop heart disease? Hearts can’t be made of glass. They must be made of tougher stuff. Defiance, Ohio sings, “Hearts aren’t made of glass. They’re made of muscle, blood, and something else. They don’t so much as break, as bend and tear.”

My heart is affecting me. I think that sometimes I have a weak heart. Some people in my family have heart problems. Maybe I inherited that. I tend to set my heart out on a plate, and sacrifice it fully to those whom I love. So many times people have devoured my heart, like a ravenous wolf, ripping it to shreds with huge canine teeth, and licking the plate clean of my blood. I feel like I have lost my heart, and I have to grow a new one, starting from a teeny tiny seed, each time with thicker skin, more callous, but more tender and vulnerable on the inside.


I am having heart troubles right now, a deep pain in my chest. This morning, inspecting my body I found a red blemish on my skin above my heart’s abode. Is my heart bleeding through to the skin? Is my heart bruised? My emotional heart is all broken and messy, but is my physical heart also broken and messy from this affair?

My father grew an extra heart, a heart shaped lump bulging out of his skin on the right side of his chest. He says this is because he needs two hearts. He experiences so much love that he can fill up two. But also, I know his heart has been broken many times in life. Maybe he had to physically grow another heart because the first was too mangled.

Is my little red mark a scar from Cupid’s arrow, once deeply plunged into my heart, being brutally torn from my chest? How does the heart heal after a wound that severe?

Prostitution in Taiwan

I went for a midnight walk with a very cool friend. We needed to get out, and we needed some action. On our search we walked passed a “motel.” The sign was written out in bright pink fluorescent lighting which can be seen for miles around. We peeked in and noticed that it looked more like an auto-repair shop than a hotel. There were rows of garages closed tightly by steel doors.

A disheveled girl, barely clothed in a tight black dress hardly reaching the bottom of her butt cheeks, teetered out on bow-legs ending in silver high heels. She flashed me a sheepish grin.

(Love Motel Sign seen from my classroom window many blocks away.)

“Is this one of those ‘girly’ motels?” asked my friend.
“Let’s go in and ask for a room and see what they say,” I urged.

We stood outside for a few seconds debating this plan. A car drove out of a garage and another girl similarly dressed as the first, stumbled out of the lobby to collect money from the driver.

The car rolled forward a few more feet and stopped in front of me. It was filled with four Taiwanese men. They were all laughing and screaming along to blaring Chinese pop music. The driver noticed me and made the universal sign for sex, a pointer finger going through a hole made by the fingers of the other hand. He plunged his finger in and out and yelled, “Wicky wicky wicky!” The man floored the engine and hauled it down the street.

“I guess that answers that question,” I said. My friend and I ran away down the street holding hands and howling with laughter in the stale night air.
I didn’t know how to react to this encounter other than to laugh and think it was ridiculous. The world is just a succession of endless folly. I think many people might have been shocked or disgusted. All I could do was giggle. Prostitution is a huge part of Chinese culture. Who am I to judge?