Hengchun in the South of Taiwan

07.04.2010

Click here to see where Hengchun is located.

Jesse and I joined the National Taiwan University undergraduates at their field camp in the south of Taiwan yesterday. After lunch with his host professor, Sun-Lin, and a collaborating graduate student, Vincent, we boarded a coach style bus for a long 8 hour drive to the town of Hengchun. Jesse and Vincent discussed their research on the bus – sharing their methods and tools for analyzing ‘detrital zircons’ – I have no idea what that is. It is pretty cool that English is more or less the language of science worldwide – it means Jesse can come here and practice his discipline with the best scientists in the world and they share the same language – though that language is completely foreign to anyone who doesn’t study geoscience. They will collaborate on the project Jesse intends to complete here. We stopped at two different highway rest areas which are enormous and include at least 10 different places to eat in a food court type arrangement. We had a tasty dinner of noodle soup and onion pancakes with egg. We tried Tainan traditional food which is a glutinous rice dumpling with specially spiced meat inside. It is a bit sweet. The chewy and sticky glutinous rice texture used in many East Asian foods does not bother me when I am eating something sweet, but when it is a savory flavor it is a little more difficult for me to enjoy.

The ride was comfortable, but long. After dinner we switched from the coach bus where all the undergraduates were riding with us to a smaller passenger van for a reason that was not clear to us. The driver of the passenger van was a woman, which seemed remarkable to the professor with us as he commented, shaking his head to us, “The driver is a lady but it is ok.” He is a bit more old fashioned, in my brief observation, than Jesse’s host professor. He smokes in his office and on the bus. Although Sun Lin (Jesse’s host professor) does not use his title all the time, there are other ways respect for age and status are revealed in the student teacher interactions. Vincent, the graduate student, must do many things for the professors that would be a little unusual in the US – carrying various equipment to the bus, for example. Also, Professor Chan’s wife telephoned Vincent’s cell phone at dinner last night and asked for him. I do not know if this is because the Professor does not carry his own cell phone or if Vincent somehow serves as his professor’s “secretary” at times. At lunch, I noticed Vincent served rice to the table in order of deference – Professor first, then Jesse, then me, then himself.

At said lunch, I felt really stupid when I commented that many Taiwanese liked Jesse’s sunglasses, but Jesse had somehow found himself on the topic of Taiwan-China-US relations and politics and couldn’t seem to get away from it, and I felt I needed to change the subject quickly. Usually Jesse and I are decent enough at being respectful of age and status in our interactions in Asia – the cultural norm I have found myself in violation of more often is the American tendency to be direct and to perhaps act too close too quickly. Taiwanese act very hospitable, friendly and warm with us, and we receive their welcome. The American tendency then is to respond with warmth and friendliness, and for Americans that often means being more open with conversation. This has led me into circumstances where I think I may be too open – sharing a sort of information that is too friendly, too quickly. Nothing intimate or anything, but, for example, asking someone’s opinion of American culture or sharing a detail about myself or Jesse that in America is not at all embarrassing, but for Taiwanese feels embarrassing. There is a tendency in America to self-deprecate to help endear oneself to another and while a certain amount of this is proper in Chinese culture, use too much and the other person does not think you are funny, but actually feels uncomfortable because they feel embarrassed for you. To be indirect is a skill with which I need more practice.

So they (Jesse, the graduate student, and the undergraduates) are out doing fieldwork today – taking samples and wandering around looking at rocks. That did not sound too appealing to me. I am not sure what I will do as I know nothing about this town except that the beach is about 5km away. I need to eat something and I would love to have a cup of coffee although that is probably unlikely. I may simply work on the blog most of the day as I have not written very much at all for a variety of reasons. There may be an internet café in town that I could use – although it may be filled with smoke and a dozen young Chinese playing online games. Yea!