Monday, March 30, 2009
The feast has up and left
Erika's Moveable Feast has emigrated to a new URL--www.erikasmoveablefeast.wordpress.com. Be sure to update your bookmarks/feeds/subscriptions!
Monday, January 19, 2009
A bittersweet goodbye
Today was our last day in Kaohsiung, and as I write this I’m on the high-speed train that will take us back to Taipei and then back to our normal lives. While in some ways I’m more than ready to go back—as usually happens at the end of a trip, I’m ready to not have every meal be an event, every day not a new challenge or adventure, not having the element of suspense when I point to something on a menu and not knowing whether I just ordered noodles with stewed beef tendon or noodles with vegetables. I miss talking on the phone with my friends and family. I don’t like having my days and nights flipped from most of the other people in my world.
But for all that, this has been one of my favorite trips ever. Sometimes on group trips I don’t always bond with either the American-based group or the group that we’re visiting, but on this trip I truly enjoyed the company of both groups and made some wonderful new friends. Today after we presented our case studies of the factories we visited, we went to a Harvard-KMU Academic Exchange Symposium. Harvard and KMU have several joint programs through the medical school and the public health school, and so six people gave speeches about both the research they had done and the experiences they’d had. Two of those speeches stick in my mind in particular—the speech given by James, one of our Taiwanese student hosts at KMU, and one given by a medical student who had done two rotations at Mass General through Harvard Medical School. James, who usually keeps things pretty lighthearted, talked a lot about what he and his peers had learned from working with us. Although we all had a ton of fun—more fun in a two-week period than I’ve had in a very long time—I was surprised to hear how much they had gotten out of the visit in addition to the cultural exchange. James talked a lot about how our approaches to problem-solving and our work ethics served as examples to him and his classmates, and how they learned so much just from working on our reports together. He also talked about how they were so impressed with our adventurousness—particularly around food—and that it reminded them how much a person is able to push their personal limits.
Then the Taiwanese medical student who had lived in Boston doing a sub-internship in urology and pediatric nephrology through a Harvard-KMU exchange talked about her experience. Throughout it all she kept saying how grateful she was for everyone’s kindness and generosity and acceptance, and how much she had learned. At the end, she said something like, “Since participating in this program I have learned a new meaning of thank you. You have changed my life and my career.”
It was then that I really realized how this exchange was about a lot more than factories, karaoke, and giant feasts. Throughout our stay, the KMU students would tell everyone—including taxi drivers—that we were Harvard students who came to visit them. One of the deans spoke about the exchange programs, and one of his proudest points was that Harvard students receive 2.5 credits for taking a course at their school—the implication being that the quality of their academics was so high that Harvard would give its students credit for participating in their class. Among ourselves, we had discussed how for months the students had been preparing for “The Harvard Students” to come—probably picturing us as either no-fun extreme nerds or jackets-with-elbow-patches types—and how much we surprised them with the way that we actually wanted to hang out with them outside of structured programs, go to their favorite places, eat the foods that they liked, and learn from them in addition to them learning from us.
This trip has involved a lot of comfort-zone-pushing for me, as well. As in Tanzania and especially Madagascar, it’s a very good experience to look so visibly different than everyone else around you. Especially because Kaohsiung is really not a tourist destination, when I would go off on my own or with a few friends, I or we would often be the only white people around, and people definitely would look twice at me—there was no slipping into a shop to unobtrusively look around. Part of that was the language barrier, which I talked about earlier. It’s profoundly humbling to realize that although I’m a student at a world-renowned institution, I can still be completely unable to communicate something as simple as a taxi destination or what filling I want in my dumplings. I didn’t even know how to look up the right words in a dictionary. In France I could get around because I could read, talk, and relate things to Spanish, but I had no traction here.
But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t connect. Today after the programs, we had a gift exchange with the KMU students. We had gotten them each a few things both before and during the trip, which we gave them. They bought us each one or two personalized gifts—different things for everyone—that reflected something they had learned about our personalities or things we liked. For example, I loved Erin and Puffy’s three dogs, and kept joking that I wanted to take Yang-Yang home with me, so they bought me a stuffed dog that looks just like Yang-Yang (and they brought the real Yang-Yang to the train station to say goodbye). One of my Harvard classmates has an iPhone but no case, so they got her an iPhone case from a store that she liked in one of the markets. They did this for all eight of us. And then the gifts just kept coming—one student got each of us a customized stamp with our name in Chinese characters, another bought us each a kind of Chinese Magic 8 Ball, we got KMU mugs and bags and keychains and calendars. I’m astounded by their generosity, not just today but throughout our stay. One of the doctors who took the class with us saw that I had the same computer as him and that I was curious about his silicone keyboard protector, and the next time he saw me he gave me a box with a new keyboard protector in it. Another doctor came out to dinner with us one night, a huge and delicious meal—for about forty people—and paid for the whole thing without telling anyone. We only learned a few days ago that it was him. We all spent this afternoon taking pictures, reminiscing and saying goodbye—I can’t believe we’ve only known them for two weeks, it feels like forever.
So for now, it’s goodbye from Taiwan—I’ll probably pick at this blog throughout the spring, but be sure to tune in again for more travel adventures if and when I go to Paris this summer!
But for all that, this has been one of my favorite trips ever. Sometimes on group trips I don’t always bond with either the American-based group or the group that we’re visiting, but on this trip I truly enjoyed the company of both groups and made some wonderful new friends. Today after we presented our case studies of the factories we visited, we went to a Harvard-KMU Academic Exchange Symposium. Harvard and KMU have several joint programs through the medical school and the public health school, and so six people gave speeches about both the research they had done and the experiences they’d had. Two of those speeches stick in my mind in particular—the speech given by James, one of our Taiwanese student hosts at KMU, and one given by a medical student who had done two rotations at Mass General through Harvard Medical School. James, who usually keeps things pretty lighthearted, talked a lot about what he and his peers had learned from working with us. Although we all had a ton of fun—more fun in a two-week period than I’ve had in a very long time—I was surprised to hear how much they had gotten out of the visit in addition to the cultural exchange. James talked a lot about how our approaches to problem-solving and our work ethics served as examples to him and his classmates, and how they learned so much just from working on our reports together. He also talked about how they were so impressed with our adventurousness—particularly around food—and that it reminded them how much a person is able to push their personal limits.
Then the Taiwanese medical student who had lived in Boston doing a sub-internship in urology and pediatric nephrology through a Harvard-KMU exchange talked about her experience. Throughout it all she kept saying how grateful she was for everyone’s kindness and generosity and acceptance, and how much she had learned. At the end, she said something like, “Since participating in this program I have learned a new meaning of thank you. You have changed my life and my career.”
It was then that I really realized how this exchange was about a lot more than factories, karaoke, and giant feasts. Throughout our stay, the KMU students would tell everyone—including taxi drivers—that we were Harvard students who came to visit them. One of the deans spoke about the exchange programs, and one of his proudest points was that Harvard students receive 2.5 credits for taking a course at their school—the implication being that the quality of their academics was so high that Harvard would give its students credit for participating in their class. Among ourselves, we had discussed how for months the students had been preparing for “The Harvard Students” to come—probably picturing us as either no-fun extreme nerds or jackets-with-elbow-patches types—and how much we surprised them with the way that we actually wanted to hang out with them outside of structured programs, go to their favorite places, eat the foods that they liked, and learn from them in addition to them learning from us.
This trip has involved a lot of comfort-zone-pushing for me, as well. As in Tanzania and especially Madagascar, it’s a very good experience to look so visibly different than everyone else around you. Especially because Kaohsiung is really not a tourist destination, when I would go off on my own or with a few friends, I or we would often be the only white people around, and people definitely would look twice at me—there was no slipping into a shop to unobtrusively look around. Part of that was the language barrier, which I talked about earlier. It’s profoundly humbling to realize that although I’m a student at a world-renowned institution, I can still be completely unable to communicate something as simple as a taxi destination or what filling I want in my dumplings. I didn’t even know how to look up the right words in a dictionary. In France I could get around because I could read, talk, and relate things to Spanish, but I had no traction here.
But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t connect. Today after the programs, we had a gift exchange with the KMU students. We had gotten them each a few things both before and during the trip, which we gave them. They bought us each one or two personalized gifts—different things for everyone—that reflected something they had learned about our personalities or things we liked. For example, I loved Erin and Puffy’s three dogs, and kept joking that I wanted to take Yang-Yang home with me, so they bought me a stuffed dog that looks just like Yang-Yang (and they brought the real Yang-Yang to the train station to say goodbye). One of my Harvard classmates has an iPhone but no case, so they got her an iPhone case from a store that she liked in one of the markets. They did this for all eight of us. And then the gifts just kept coming—one student got each of us a customized stamp with our name in Chinese characters, another bought us each a kind of Chinese Magic 8 Ball, we got KMU mugs and bags and keychains and calendars. I’m astounded by their generosity, not just today but throughout our stay. One of the doctors who took the class with us saw that I had the same computer as him and that I was curious about his silicone keyboard protector, and the next time he saw me he gave me a box with a new keyboard protector in it. Another doctor came out to dinner with us one night, a huge and delicious meal—for about forty people—and paid for the whole thing without telling anyone. We only learned a few days ago that it was him. We all spent this afternoon taking pictures, reminiscing and saying goodbye—I can’t believe we’ve only known them for two weeks, it feels like forever.
So for now, it’s goodbye from Taiwan—I’ll probably pick at this blog throughout the spring, but be sure to tune in again for more travel adventures if and when I go to Paris this summer!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Good times in Taiwan
Our days have been so jam-packed that this is one of the first times that I've had to sit down and write about what I've been doing. We have been having a great time--the Taiwanese students are wonderful hosts and are making such a huge effort to ensure that we are having fun. Some of the highlights of the past week or so...- Asian-style karaoke, or "KTV": Rather than American- or European-style karaoke where you sing to the whole bar, in Taiwan and much of Asia, it's completely different. You go with a group of 10-15 friends and rent out a whole room. Included in the price--about $8-9 US per person--is an all-you-can-eat buffet and six hours of customized karaoke. Each room has its own karaoke machine, a big screen to display the lyrics, about five microphones, and a whole bunch of couches and chairs. Amazingly, we used the whole six hours, and had a great time singing songs in both English and Chinese. Here Erin, one of our Taiwanese hosts, is singing with one of her three dogs that she brought along.
- We visited China Power Company, which is located in Tainan, a city near Kaohsiung. Tainan was really cute--much older and more charming than Kaohsiung--and I got two free sausages by winning a game at the vendor's stand (although this was immediately following a huge lunch, so after taking this picture I passed them off to my classmates)
- Today we visited Pingtung Long Chuan Brewery, for which I'm writing a case study about occupational health and safety along with one other Harvard student and five Chinese students. This is a wall of beer at one of the loading docks.
- Just finding our way around the city has been fun--the Metro system here is only a year old, and it's beautiful. This is the Dome of Light, which is a giant stained glass half-sphere built into the roof of one of the stations.
As for the hard parts of this trip...they certainly exist. By far the hardest part is the language barrier. Never before have I fully understood how apt a term "language barrier" is...I am basically rendered mute, deaf, and illiterate in many, many conversations and interactions. The Taiwanese students speak English with varying proficiency (ranging from near-fluent to very minimal), and we've made great headway in communicating
but it's still difficult to have good conversations without someone translating. Chinese is completely impenetrable to me--even though I'm trying to learn, it's so difficult to speak that my attempts at words beyond "hello" and "thank you" are pretty much unintelligible, although people do appreciate us trying. Just getting around the city can be really difficult--for instance, when trying to buy food at a night market, all that's displayed is the raw ingredients, and without knowing how to read Chinese, we have no idea what the stand's dishes contain unless we stand there and watch what other people order--the pointing-and-motioning approach works in small restaurants, less so in crowded markets where the vendors are busy. Some--like this octopus on a stick--is pretty self-explanatory, but others are pretty much impossible without knowing the language. A few of our group members are native Chinese speakers so they can translate for us, but it's really difficult for me to have to depend on others for something as basic as how to order a bowl of noodles.The other difficult part is a product of one of the best parts--group travel. I'm doing things that I would never get a chance to do if I came here as a tourist, and my experiences are infinitely richer for being part of this group. But I haven't traveled in a group for about three years (since Madagascar), and since then I've become a pretty independent traveler. Even though we are only eight Harvard students and about 12 Taiwanese students, maneuvering is still difficult. The Taiwanese students are almost all younger than us--their age range is 18-25, and our age range is 23-29--and although we have a wide range of travel experiences in our group, we all appreciate some unstructured, unsupervised time. However, the KMU students are afraid that if we go off on our own we'll get completely lost--on the first day they gave us a card to wear around our neck, and told us to just
show it to a taxi driver if we get lost. A few days ago I learned that the translation from Chinese is "Please take me back to Kaohsiung Medical University." We've bargained for some free time, which has been much appreciated--I just need time to wander around by myself, get lost, and not be on a schedule. Yesterday we had the afternoon off, so I went bike riding with two friends from my group. We rented bikes and rode the whole length of the city, ending up at a huge lotus pond that is full of temples, dragons, and some nice fresh air (Kaohsiung is fairly polluted, since there's so much industry here). We rode about about 15 miles total (none of the KMU students could believe it...their primary mode of transportation is on a motor-scooter), and it was so nice to get some exercise and see the city in a different way.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Gone shrimping
The Taiwanese students have been working so hard to make this a fun, cultural experience for us, and it's been wonderful. Yesterday they had a Chinese New Year party for us, where we had dumplings (a traditional chinese new year food), learned Chinese calligraphy from the students, and got to spend a lot of time talking with the students.
Then last night they took us out for beef noodle soup, a Taiwanese specialty (the handmade udon noodles were fantastic but I've decided that, except for a really good steak, I don't like beef that much). At dinner I also ate a "thousand-year-old egg," which is a preserved egg that is blackish-blue and served with silken tofu and ginger. It was neither good nor bad--it just tasted like a mushy egg--but as you can see, it's not exactly the most appetizing-looking foodstuff in the world.
We then went to a "lounge bar" for a few hours for some drinks, and afterwards the students asked what we wanted to do. It was only about 11:00, so they reeled off a few options--pub, other bars, or shrimping. As soon as James said "shrimping" we all said "Yes, let's do that," even though none of us had any idea what it actually entailed. Turns out that's because it only exists in Taiwan. We got in cabs and pulled up to a building with metal siding that was about the size of a high school gym. "This is the shrimping court," said James. Shrimping court? We walked into the building, which had concrete floors and fluorescent lights and the only obese people I've seen so far in Taiwan. In the middle of the room was a gigantic pool with blackish water and a whole bunch of shrimp on the bottom (you couldn't see the shrimp on the surface), and people were sitting around the pool on plastic chairs and holding fishing rods, drinking beer and waiting for a nibble on their rod. After they had collected a bunch of shrimp, they would either spear the shrimp and grill them alive, or throw them into a pot and boil them.
We rented a few rods and started shrimping. It was surprisingly difficult! There was a real art to catching a shrimp, and a few of the locals who apparently spent a whole lot of time there gave us some good tips. As a group (about 15 American and Taiwanese students) we caught probably 25 or 30 shrimp over the course of the evening--we got there around 11:30pm, and I left at 1:30 but a group stayed until almost 3--the shrimping court closes around 8am. After almost an hour and a half, I caught my first shrimp, and we grilled and ate them. They weren't bad! And I think it's safe to say that this was one of the more unique experiences of the trip.Today (Saturday) they planned out a whole day of activities for us. We rented bikes, and almost our whole group--the men included--got pink Hello Kitty beach cruisers with a bell and a basket. We took our bikes onto a ferry that went to a small island off Taiwan, and we biked/hiked around the island, had an unbelievable seafood lunch (our table of 8 had about 10 dishes and the total came to $10 per person--and it was the most expensive restaurant in town), hung out on the beach, biked over to a teahouse to watch the sunset, and now we are heading out to check out the Kaohsiung nightlife. What a fun day!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
From vegetarian to duck tongues in six months
We've been eating a lot of street food, and it's been fun to try so many new things. If I were still vegetarian, I'd really be missing out--although given some of the stuff I've eaten, it's sort of amazing that six months ago I could count on one hand the number of times I'd eaten meat in the past 15 years. Yesterday on our way back from our site visit to China Shipbuilding Company, we saw a stand on the street that smelled amazing, and it turned out to be a street snack that we had all been wanting to try--soup dumplings, or small pieces of pork and spring onion in broth, with the broth encased inside a dumpling wrapper and served with finely sliced ginger root and hot sauce on top. They are small--about an inch and a half in diameter--and you have to be very careful when picking them up with chopsticks so that you don't pop them. They were unbelievably delicious. Then for dinner, the students who are hosting us at Kaohsiung Medical University (KMU) took us out to the biggest night market in Kaohsiung. There must have been close to 100 food stalls, as well as stands selling clothes and jewelry. Our usual routine is to each buy things and then share all of them, so you get to taste many different things. My list of things that I tried last night (my most adventurous night yet)....most of it was pretty good!- Braised duck tongues (still attached to the trachea)...it was rather, shall we say, springy
- Slices of chicken neck
- More stinky tofu (it was better this time but still not great--our unofficial Taiwanese social director kept buying us plates of it!) with kimchi
- Shaved ice (fresh-made snow mixed with syrupy fruits, rice balls, taro root, and sweet red beans
- A sweet medicinal soup that was thick and black, mixed with the same things as the shaved ice
- Pancakes filled with a sweet paste (in this picture)
- Candied strawberries on a stick
- Papaya pureed with milk (a popular drink here)
- Edamame tossed with salt, pepper, and garlic (delicious!)
- Little marinated tofu cubes
- Cherry tomatoes split and filled with a kind of brown sugar paste
- And I didn't try this, but a few other Harvard students did....congealed pig blood mixed with rice, in slices on a stick
Hi from Taiwan!
Hello from Taiwan!
After a 27-hour journey, I arrived in Taiwan on Monday evening. It's been a whirlwind of meetings, events, meals, and fun since we arrived (and the jet lag isn't too bad--although we are 13 hours ahead of the East coast! I think I'm finally more-or-less caught up).
We spent the last two days in Taipei, meeting with health officials in the Taiwanese government. We stayed at the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), where we were led by a Taiwanese researcher whose English name is--not kidding--Dr. Peter Pan. He set up meetings to introduce us to the director of IOSH, the director of Taiwan's Environmental Protection Agency, and other leaders in occupational safety and health. There's a big culture of gift-giving here--every time we meet someone, we give them a gift, take a picture of us with them and the gift, and then they give us gifts. It's really nice, and it's fun to be greeted with such enthusiasm wherever we go. We also went to the top of the world's tallest building, Taipei 101 (which I'm "holding" in this picture taken from the rooftop of the EPA). As you can see, the weather in Taipei was sort of gross--so humid that after walking around outside with some papers in my bag, the paper didn't even tear when you tried to rip it, it just fell apart.
And of course, the food has been amazing. It's so many new tastes and textures and smells that I'm not used to at all, so it takes some adjusting, but I have had some wonderful new dishes and found a few things that I can definitely do without. Dr. Pan took us out for a huge lunch on our first day (left photo), where the lazy susan in the center of a table for 10 was completely filled with different dishes. There's lots of seafood, which is wonderful, and also a lot of pork--not as much chicken or beef, although beef noodle soup is a Taiwanese specialty. The middle photo is stinky tofu, which is a Taiwanese street snack sold at the night markets. It smells like an open sewer, and as I learned, it kind of tastes like one too, but it's a traditional food so we all decided to try it. The right-hand picture is my friend Kevin's face when he took a bite. We also got bubble tea from the stand where it was invented (no joke), and it was AMAZING! It's slightly sweetened milk tea with tapioca balls it it, and while the bubble tea I've had in the US has been overly sweet with balls that get caught in the straws, this was just great. I couldn't finish it (on that day, we had our gigantic lunch at 12:30 pm and the students at Taipei's public health school gave us a "snack" of pizza and fried chicken at 2:30pm).
A few more pictures from Taipei--Taipei 101 lit up at night, the entrance to "Snake Alley" (one of Taipei's night markets), and the Longshan Temple, the biggest in Taipei (I think).
After a 27-hour journey, I arrived in Taiwan on Monday evening. It's been a whirlwind of meetings, events, meals, and fun since we arrived (and the jet lag isn't too bad--although we are 13 hours ahead of the East coast! I think I'm finally more-or-less caught up).
We spent the last two days in Taipei, meeting with health officials in the Taiwanese government. We stayed at the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), where we were led by a Taiwanese researcher whose English name is--not kidding--Dr. Peter Pan. He set up meetings to introduce us to the director of IOSH, the director of Taiwan's Environmental Protection Agency, and other leaders in occupational safety and health. There's a big culture of gift-giving here--every time we meet someone, we give them a gift, take a picture of us with them and the gift, and then they give us gifts. It's really nice, and it's fun to be greeted with such enthusiasm wherever we go. We also went to the top of the world's tallest building, Taipei 101 (which I'm "holding" in this picture taken from the rooftop of the EPA). As you can see, the weather in Taipei was sort of gross--so humid that after walking around outside with some papers in my bag, the paper didn't even tear when you tried to rip it, it just fell apart.
And of course, the food has been amazing. It's so many new tastes and textures and smells that I'm not used to at all, so it takes some adjusting, but I have had some wonderful new dishes and found a few things that I can definitely do without. Dr. Pan took us out for a huge lunch on our first day (left photo), where the lazy susan in the center of a table for 10 was completely filled with different dishes. There's lots of seafood, which is wonderful, and also a lot of pork--not as much chicken or beef, although beef noodle soup is a Taiwanese specialty. The middle photo is stinky tofu, which is a Taiwanese street snack sold at the night markets. It smells like an open sewer, and as I learned, it kind of tastes like one too, but it's a traditional food so we all decided to try it. The right-hand picture is my friend Kevin's face when he took a bite. We also got bubble tea from the stand where it was invented (no joke), and it was AMAZING! It's slightly sweetened milk tea with tapioca balls it it, and while the bubble tea I've had in the US has been overly sweet with balls that get caught in the straws, this was just great. I couldn't finish it (on that day, we had our gigantic lunch at 12:30 pm and the students at Taipei's public health school gave us a "snack" of pizza and fried chicken at 2:30pm).
A few more pictures from Taipei--Taipei 101 lit up at night, the entrance to "Snake Alley" (one of Taipei's night markets), and the Longshan Temple, the biggest in Taipei (I think).
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