Umbrellas and Other Oddities on My Mind

(The following is a collection of my thoughts and reflections originally published in the Spring of 2000, only a few months after my arrival in Taiwan. Some minor changes have been made.)

Umbrellas

In my continuing quest to help you understand just a few of the things that I experience on a daily basis, I'll try to describe a particularly odd phenomenon that I've witnessed. Umbrellas. Lots of umbrellas. In Canada, we are very narrow minded. We only use umbrellas on the occasion of rain. Not here. Nope. Umbrellas are a tool for all occasions. Rain -- of course. Wind -- why not -- a few simple pieces of plastic, metal and fabric should be able to protect you and your family from wind, shouldn't it? Of course. And why not the sun?? Sun bothering your eyes too much? Why bother with sunglasses or a hat when the old familiar umbrella (sunbrella?) is handy. And what if that blue sky turned into rain? You're already covered. Cloudy, windy day turns into sunny skies? One step ahead. These people are fantastic.

If that isn't enough, their timing gets me. If it is raining, and an umbrella toter is walking under the cover of a roof or awning, umbrellas are put away. If they need to cross a short alley of only a few feet ... umbrellas out. Yes. They'll stop, pull out the umbrella, open it ... scurry across the short alley ... pause ... shake off their tool ... close it, and then continue on. Funny. Annoying if you're in a hurry walking behind one of these tool abusers. That's a story in itself for another day. I can't forget to mention their makeshift umbrellas, the famous newspaper over the head, to protect yourself from the rain. I'm told the rain here is acidic, but I think that they're going a little too far sometimes. Different people -- I'm trying not to judge them, but I don't hesitate to laugh!

There seems to be an unwritten rule that umbrellas are not to be taken indoors. Most stores have a basket, or some sort of contraption outside for storing umbrellas. Theft doesn't really seem to be an issue here -- you're more likely to walk away forgetting your umbrella than you are to have it stolen. The former has already happened to me once or twice, the latter has not. Another, more mind-stimulating trend that I've seen is that some stores provide "umbrella condoms" for their customers. They have dispensers right at the doorway that allow you to put your umbrella inside of a specially sized plastic bag. I can only assume that these are designed to prevent a few drips of water from hitting the already wet floor -- once 'protected' you are able to carry your umbrella around the store at your leisure. I really don't get it. Furthermore, I really don't understand the continued reliance on plastic in this country, but I don't want to get into that again.

Vibe

Vibe is a word that I've heard used dozens of times here by travellers from all over the world. Some will use other words, but the concept is still the same. I don't know if it is something that just travellers are tuned into, or if all of us are at some level. What the term refers to is just the inner feeling that we each get from our surroundings. The feel of a new experience, or a new person you meet, or a room that you walk into -- these are often described with the word vibe. Sometimes you meet somebody who appears to be nice, but you get an unsettling feeling about them. More often than not, this feeling is enough to convince you that you might not want to invest a lot of time or energy into the person. Looking back to my early experience in Taiwan, I felt the 'vibe.' I went to Hualien looking for something ... but just never felt right there. I guess the 'vibes' were wrong. Whether you like the word or not is irrelevant -- I've made most of my decisions here based on the concept -- gut instinct, going with what feels right ... whatever. It seems strange to me that people who are usually so attached to the tangible often make decisions based on something as intangible and indescribable as a feeling.

Foreign-ness

An interesting topic of conversation has been bouncing around the hostel lately. We've been talking about the fact that we are in a place where our language is very foreign, and the local language very foreign to us. This is not a big revelation -- however, I hadn't really thought about it in this particular way. I spend a fair bit of time on the subway each day. But, as much noise as there is around me from conversations and announcements, most of it passes right by me. I could be among a huge crowd, and feel like I'm in my own world because I can't understand anything around me. It brings a strange and pleasurable feeling of solitude. Amazing to be in such a huge, noisy crowd and feel alone -- for me, this is a good thing. Privacy can be very hard to find in its traditional format -- I think that I'm discovering new forms of it here. I'm sure it will be strange to return to a place where I understand all of the sounds around me, and people understand the words that I say. I think that it will be a bit of a distraction when I return to an English speaking place.

I had read about it before I came here, but I am now realising how much of an "Us and Them" place this is. No matter what happens, or how much I could ever learn about the language or culture here, I will always be different. Very different. I could change the way I act and behave, but I cannot become Asian/Chinese/Taiwanese. I will always see the people here as being different than me, and I as being different from them. This isn't necessarily a good or a bad thing, but I've really noticed this lately. Partly through my own conversation and thoughts -- I always refer to the people here as "them." It is very different from home -- we have a very diverse cultural land -- not so much in a place like Athens, but the cities are quite diverse. People look different, but I think that Canadians, whether they be of Asian, European, or some other descent, are all Canadians. The American melting pot leads to an even more homogenous group than Canada's mosaic. Just something that I've been thinking about.