No culture shock for an American student abroad in Taiwan

Posted 7/13/18

An ice cream shop in Tamsui Laojie. (Photo by Amelia Dogan) by Amelia Dogan I had reservations about traveling to Taiwan. Being abroad is not just about learning about a new culture, but also …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

No culture shock for an American student abroad in Taiwan

Posted

An ice cream shop in Tamsui Laojie. (Photo by Amelia Dogan)

by Amelia Dogan

I had reservations about traveling to Taiwan. Being abroad is not just about learning about a new culture, but also understanding my own American culture as well. And what of American influence and politics?. There are obvious things I expected: questions about China’s role in the world, being raised half Chinese, or American politics. I thought Taiwan would be culture shock. Instead, I flourished.

I have the opportunity to study Mandarin in Taiwan due to the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y). NSLI-Y is a government program meant to give high schoolers around the U.S. opportunities to study languages critical for national security. They offer summer and year-long programs, most of which include staying with a host family. I’m studying Mandarin this summer in Taipei, Taiwan.

My first impression of downtown Taiwan, after visiting the “psuedo-embassy,” the American Institute in Taiwan was shock. Walking along Yongkang St, it reminded me how movie East Asia is often portrayed: with little sidewalks and lots of traffic. The traffic zips right past me because of the lack of proper sidewalks in most smaller Taipei streets.

Yongkang is also dotted with open-air restaurants that spill onto the streets, scattered with air-conditioned tea stores. Many restaurants in Taiwan have little differentiation between the outside and inside because the heat makes it too expensive to air condition. The cooking usually happens towards the front, so the heat escapes outside onto the street.

Along Yongkang Street, there were restaurants with dubious signs claiming to serve one something from CNN’s best dishes list. I tried famous scallion pancakes or congyoubing, fried pancakes with scallions mixed in with the dough, from Tian Jin Onion Pancake. I also bought mango shaved ice, not too dissimilar from the Philadelphia variety, to share with friends in a nearby park. The only difference with water ice is that mango shaved ice is different in that it is topped with fresh, local mangoes and pudding.

Fruit in Taiwan is its own special topic due to Taiwan’s tropical climate. This means that all sorts of fruits here aren’t in the U.S., and the tropical fruits I can buy in the U.S. tend to be very expensive. Having tried a great number of tropical fruits before, I was the designated tropical fruit cutter on July 4th. For Independence Day, all the students part of NSLI-Y and some host families gathered for a Taiwanese style BBQ.

One tropical fruit love of mine is dragon fruit. I have gotten to eat dragon fruit several times for breakfast. There are two varieties of dragon fruit based on the inner color, red and white. The red tends to be sweeter and stronger, but the white one is more common in my experience in the U.S. Mangoes here also tend to be larger and sweeter than the ones imported from Mexico into the U.S.

A more uncommon fruit in the US is lychee -- a small fruit with a thick skin, but an incredibly sweet fleshy white interior. Lychee is known for causing shanghuo if you eat too much, as my teacher and host mother both warned me, a Chinese medicine term for stomach issues.

Another attraction, I visited was the Tamsui Laojie, literally translating to Old Road. Tamsui is a district just outside in New Taipei City that is a little more residential and home to two universities. The area has been fought over for centuries by different European powers; Fort Santo Domingo, a part of the Tamsui Historical Museum, was a great place to learn of the different colonial histories in the area.

The Tamsui Historical Museum is also unlike other traditional museums in that it is a collection of various European buildings. There was also a portion dedicated to George McKay, a Canadian preacher who evangelized in Tamsui, started schools, and built a hospital.

Nowadays, Laojie is much more known for being a tourist attraction with all sorts of stores and food oddities. The food includes different types of ice cream like Turkish ice cream, and ridiculously high ice cream cones. The food often comes with samples like pineapple cake or dried fruit. I tried new dried fruits like kumquat and olive, which are surprisingly sweet. The sunset view from Laojie is beautiful in pictures, especially taking the ferry between Bali and Laojie on the Tamsui River; the ferry itself also costs less than $1 USD.

Being by myself in Taiwan for about two weeks has definitely been a new experience. It’s been one in which I’ve embraced new things, from exotic foods like duck tongue and pork feet to public restrooms lined with “squat” toilets,” which are exactly what they sound like – holes in the ground/

Taiwan has been an exciting new experience, one in which I’m learning about a new culture and about being independent and by myself abroad.

Amelia Dogan is a rising senior at William Penn Charter School. She lives in Center City.

opinion