[quote=“bushibanned”][quote=“Battery9”][quote=“bushibanned”][quote=“Battery9”]so
I’m leaving Taiwan in July next year, and this gives me plenty of time to say good-bye to it (not that I’m closing doors of course…the good thing is that Taiwan isn’t going anywhere!)
I look at all my friends photos of Canada. It looks AMAZINGLY beautiful…but wow I love Taiwan’s foreignness. Is that even a word? Like, you can take a black and white photo of an alley or a trashcan and it looks like something out of National Geographic.
Aren’t other places too blah? I’m really looking forward to going to Canada and experiencing something that I have never experienced before…huge fields and amazing scenery…SNOW. But in SA I had streetkids and gutters and beggars to photograph, here the oddness of it all.
ugh…is anyone getting what I’m saying?[/quote]
Canada is the 3 B’s: Blah, benign, and boring. it’s good for about a month as a tourist but I find day to day life here lifeless and far less stimulating and interesting than in taiwan. if i could do it again, I wouldn’t have left taiwan. Canada gets credit for beauty, for sure… if you skip the three middle provinces unless you are itching for their 3 seasons: mosquitos, constuction, and snow. Oh… I suppose it’s nice boxed life…[/quote]
How about friendship wise? Haven’t you made more friends or enjoy being able to talk to people that are similiar? I think thats what gets me here…I can go for days without talking to people…and there are so many people in my life that I wouldn’t really hang out with back home. There just isnt much choice…you should think of current Taiwan…nobody is here anymore!:)[/quote]
Similar? i couldn’t be more different! there is no way to fill the 6 1/2 year gap. I don’t know what people are on about half the time…for the first few months I would get a glazed look in my eyes and simply walk away, tuning them out. everything they do is local and I’ve been overseas. can be tough to find common ground… it makes you realize how many people have spent their lives hibernating in their own corner of the world or province or state… and when they do make it out, it’s to a neighboring province or state. this isn’t bad i guess… but unless you’ve been doing the same thing as they have for the same amount of time, there isn’t much to talk about. good people? sure. have made lots of friends but none like the ones I had in taiwan… who were more diverse, more interesting, more cultured, more driven. life here is on permanent repeat. nothing much changes from day to day… If the world were a supermarket, canada would be that plain loaf of white bread on the middle shelf.[/quote]
Great post! Yep, life on permanent repeat–white bread. I’m in the States, but it’s very hard to make friends here because no one can relate to me and I can’t relate to anyone. I DO NOT fit in. People’s prejudices drive me insane, but they really are completely clueless most of the time. The don’t think–they don’t have to. They have FOX news to feed them all they need to know. Americans have become so soul-less and disconnected. I live in the town where I grew up, but go days without speaking to anyone else sometimes. In fact, the only friends I have left here are the ones I practically grew up with. Everyone else is gone, too. I was away for 10 years. Things really can change so much in that time. Maybe someday I’ll be back in Taiwan after 10 years here and feel the same, but I really hope not!
I used to go days without talking to anyone in Taiwan, too, sometimes, but mostly when my marriage got bad an I was living alone with my son, not working. I was depressed. Other than that, it was always a lot easier to have someone to talk to. Someone to be REAL friends with–that was very tough, but someone to hang out with was much easier. Over there, I was a foreigner, so I was interesting to someone all the time. I was supposed to be different, so, in a strange way, I fit–kinda. Here, I’m different and don’t fit, and that’s all there is to it. I can’t tell you how much I’d give to meet someone who I could relate to.
