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An Account of a Year Living in Taiwan ROC
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Tuesday, February 15, 94
Markets
There is no shortage of things to spend your money on, and no shortage of people willing to take it. I don’t know why, but for some reason we seem to have a lot more money over here. Nevertheless, we have cooked a dinner at home maybe three times in the last year, and we buy lunches every day. Chinese bread is not the best. Sometimes the loaves look really good on the outside, but they might be full of bean paste, taro, or nuts when you slice into the loaf. If we could read, we wouldn’t be surprised. Taro bread puts me off, because it is light purple in colour. Eggs are not refrigerated over here. Milk tastes different. It’s no good trying to get “a taste of home” because even something as mundane as a grilled cheese will be different from what we expect.
I took a picture of one of the many markets around Taipei. There are a lot of people in the picture, and a pregnant mother in the foreground. The crowds are incredible at first, and then one’s reaction is reduced to mere questioning where everyone came from. Every apartment in Taipei must be empty, I think. Taiwan supposedly has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, but there sure are a lot of pregnant women around. I should buy a cane—it’s the only way to trump the expectant mothers for the priority seats on the bus or the train.
Markets
There is no shortage of things to spend your money on, and no shortage of people willing to take it. I don’t know why, but for some reason we seem to have a lot more money over here. Nevertheless, we have cooked a dinner at home maybe three times in the last year, and we buy lunches every day. Chinese bread is not the best. Sometimes the loaves look really good on the outside, but they might be full of bean paste, taro, or nuts when you slice into the loaf. If we could read, we wouldn’t be surprised. Taro bread puts me off, because it is light purple in colour. Eggs are not refrigerated over here. Milk tastes different. It’s no good trying to get “a taste of home” because even something as mundane as a grilled cheese will be different from what we expect.
I took a picture of one of the many markets around Taipei. There are a lot of people in the picture, and a pregnant mother in the foreground. The crowds are incredible at first, and then one’s reaction is reduced to mere questioning where everyone came from. Every apartment in Taipei must be empty, I think. Taiwan supposedly has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, but there sure are a lot of pregnant women around. I should buy a cane—it’s the only way to trump the expectant mothers for the priority seats on the bus or the train.
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