Man fuck McDonald's! I am sorry. I know I have been pretty good to abstain from cursing on this blogue but I can't help saying it as I sit in this chair feeling like an old miserable piece of crap. I think I would enjoy the feeling of eating pesticide more than McDonald's. Just in case you didn't know, I just ate some today and feel like some kind of farm animal took a giant shit down my throat and now the toxin is sitting there, cooking in the bowels of my insides just waiting to pass through more vital organs and thus pollute my body more.
That place sucks so bad and yet I eat it on average about once a week. What it is about that giant arch that seems so irresistable to the hungry wonderer. I mean back home people eat it because it is a quick and easy alternative to going to a real restaurant where you are treated like a person. The line at McDonalds makes you feel like you are in the same assebly line that the cow you are about to eat was in. I just can't stand the damn turd palace.
The experience of eating this garbage food is only made worse by the fact that I can't even communicate what the hell I want to eat. I mean you really feel like a piece of shit when you're too stupid to even order the manure food that you are about to regret eating. I go there because I consider it an alternative to going to some Taiwanese restaurant where I don't know what to order because it is all displayed in crazy character form. So instead I go into the dirt shack and hold out four fingers like some idiot who just fell down a flight of stairs and I yell "COKE." I couldn't even figure out how to get a Sprite today because they call it something different in Chinese. I am worthless.
Why do I put myself in these humiliating positions where I am made the brain dead pupil of Docter "works the cash register at Mcdonalds" who has to guess from my stupid looking facial expressions if I would like a small or a large fry. I don't want any of that crap....well... ok gimme a big mac.
Somehow when you eat at these shaddy belt popping establishments you always spill something on yourself too. That really pisses me off. Not only am I eating food that is one step away from being pig feed, but I just dumped some of this shit onto myself as if I was some clumsy horse sloppily eating out of a goddamn trough. What a terrible place.
They don't even have red box DVD rental or Dr. Pepper at the Mack's lounge here in Taiwan which means I really am going there just to eat there gutter slop food.
You know what's funny? Dunkle eats there probably like three times a week and I honestly think he likes it. Whenever I come home to that dank, cancer giving smell of old soggy hamburger buns in my house I know that Dunkle has just finished "fat boyin' it up," as we call this miserable experience. Why is it that we can't resist the urge to go get a food hangover from the shit shack? We can't fight the urge. It's like a disease that makes you want a disease.
Everytime I leave the restaurant I bow my head in embarrassment as if I was walking out of some low grade scum bag porno theatre. "Mothers hide your children! That fatass just crammed his face with a mud burger. You can tell because it's plastered all over his wrinkly dirty old shirt. What a regect!"
The Mack's by our house is the funniest because if you don't want to make the "high intensity" walk up the stairs to where the seating is, you can simply take the one table on the first foor. There is literally one single solitary table next to the order station where you can often amuse yourself by checking out the fat old doofus sticking fries up his nose because he can't get them in fast enough with his already full trash can mouth. That table is when reaching the lowest level isn't enough and you just have to admit that your life is that horrible and you are the reason for all the wars and disease exist in the world. They should call it the "Sweatpants Only" section.
So while a lot of food here is very good there still does exist that sickening tope tiled oil leaking ball of melanoma that is Mcdonalds. And yet many others here call it the American Embassy. I hope that one day I will be able to fully renounce that terrible place once and for all, but for now I will just have to accept that sometimes I am so desperate for a hambuger that go into the restaurant that makes me feel like Jabba the hut's alcoholic inbred half brother.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Maybe it isn't so bad.
In my time traveling the world I have found myself in a lot of rather uncomfortable situations. I am always the foreigner and even when I think I have accurately assimilated into whichever society I might be visiting at the moment, there still exists those strange and awkward moments that remind me of what a stranger I really am.
I think when I look at my two contrasting experiences in France and Taiwan they appear to be on opposite sides of each other. Both experiences have been plentiful and eye opening while very different from each other. When I was in France it was often the things that I did that seemed overtly bizarre and strange whereas in Taiwan it is all the actions of those around me that makes me realize how out of place I am.
When I was in France I was always trying to look the part and be cool. I never wanted to seem like a tourist who just wanted that 500th picture of the Eiffel tower. I would walk up and down the streets of Paris trying to act like I knew exactly where I was going and yet I didn't care if I ever got there. A lot of the French people have this type of attitude where they are always in a state of wondering with no real direction. They walk from cafe to cafe and enjoy people watching and reading the paper. I think a lot of times people consider that an example of the classic French laziness and perhaps that is true. I tried to accomplish this type of living and perhaps at times I did but I always felt like an outsider no matter how much black clothing I wore.
In contrast, Taiwan has made me realize that it is not my actions that make me feel foreign but rather how everyone else reacts here that seems so crazy to me. I mean they have rivers and oceans and trees just like we do back home and yet the things that happen within this landscape simply blows my mind. I feel like our culture has become so omnipresent that almost everyone knows a little bit about us in every part of the world. Everyone has heard of Justin Timberlake and most anyone can quote from one of their favorite American movies and yet what do we know about Taiwan, or many other places for that matter.
When I arrived in Taiwan I didn't know a thing about it. I mean nothing, nada, no nothing. Come to think of it I still don't really know a whole lot about the going ons of this place. I have seen many things and I have already had some interesting culture clashes and experiences that I feel have changed my impression of the place, but it is still such a mystery. I know little about this place even though every time I looked under one of my plastic toys and saw a Made in Taiwan sticker, I was seeing a part of it.
They speak Chinese hear, Mandarin to be specific. They speak another form of dialect called Taiwanese but it really all sounds like some crazy from of hip hop lyrics spoken too fast for me to even attempt to comprehend. There are also a lot of people from the Philippines here and I often here them speaking to each other in a quieter voice as they are the less respected minority group of people here. Their language sounds, to me, a little like Spanish which is sort of funny.
The food they eat here is really sort of strange but I enjoy it most of the time. They have the classic "I dare you" type of foods like old rotting chunks of tofu appropriately named "Stinky Tofu," but they don't compare to the wacky vomit inducing dishes of the mainland China. Apparently those people will eat every single thing that you could possibly think of......everything. The Taiwanese are really big about their food and culture and since they would all say "Fuck China!" with the drop of a hat, I imagine it will stay that way.
Certain things here are old seeming and traditional while others are fascinatingly new and stunning. I am now feel as if I am beginning to understand the simple aspects of their way of life and that has made me feel pretty good and almost as if I am at home. Taiwan is a place where everyone smiles at you and oftentimes people will say hello as your passing by. You can go into the same restaurants and stores and the people remember you and are happy to see you in again. I don't think I will ever convert 100% to this strange and new life but the majority of it is rather suiting at this juncture in my travelling career.
I think when I look at my two contrasting experiences in France and Taiwan they appear to be on opposite sides of each other. Both experiences have been plentiful and eye opening while very different from each other. When I was in France it was often the things that I did that seemed overtly bizarre and strange whereas in Taiwan it is all the actions of those around me that makes me realize how out of place I am.
When I was in France I was always trying to look the part and be cool. I never wanted to seem like a tourist who just wanted that 500th picture of the Eiffel tower. I would walk up and down the streets of Paris trying to act like I knew exactly where I was going and yet I didn't care if I ever got there. A lot of the French people have this type of attitude where they are always in a state of wondering with no real direction. They walk from cafe to cafe and enjoy people watching and reading the paper. I think a lot of times people consider that an example of the classic French laziness and perhaps that is true. I tried to accomplish this type of living and perhaps at times I did but I always felt like an outsider no matter how much black clothing I wore.
In contrast, Taiwan has made me realize that it is not my actions that make me feel foreign but rather how everyone else reacts here that seems so crazy to me. I mean they have rivers and oceans and trees just like we do back home and yet the things that happen within this landscape simply blows my mind. I feel like our culture has become so omnipresent that almost everyone knows a little bit about us in every part of the world. Everyone has heard of Justin Timberlake and most anyone can quote from one of their favorite American movies and yet what do we know about Taiwan, or many other places for that matter.
When I arrived in Taiwan I didn't know a thing about it. I mean nothing, nada, no nothing. Come to think of it I still don't really know a whole lot about the going ons of this place. I have seen many things and I have already had some interesting culture clashes and experiences that I feel have changed my impression of the place, but it is still such a mystery. I know little about this place even though every time I looked under one of my plastic toys and saw a Made in Taiwan sticker, I was seeing a part of it.
They speak Chinese hear, Mandarin to be specific. They speak another form of dialect called Taiwanese but it really all sounds like some crazy from of hip hop lyrics spoken too fast for me to even attempt to comprehend. There are also a lot of people from the Philippines here and I often here them speaking to each other in a quieter voice as they are the less respected minority group of people here. Their language sounds, to me, a little like Spanish which is sort of funny.
The food they eat here is really sort of strange but I enjoy it most of the time. They have the classic "I dare you" type of foods like old rotting chunks of tofu appropriately named "Stinky Tofu," but they don't compare to the wacky vomit inducing dishes of the mainland China. Apparently those people will eat every single thing that you could possibly think of......everything. The Taiwanese are really big about their food and culture and since they would all say "Fuck China!" with the drop of a hat, I imagine it will stay that way.
Certain things here are old seeming and traditional while others are fascinatingly new and stunning. I am now feel as if I am beginning to understand the simple aspects of their way of life and that has made me feel pretty good and almost as if I am at home. Taiwan is a place where everyone smiles at you and oftentimes people will say hello as your passing by. You can go into the same restaurants and stores and the people remember you and are happy to see you in again. I don't think I will ever convert 100% to this strange and new life but the majority of it is rather suiting at this juncture in my travelling career.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Plenty of Fish in the sea.
Sorry to have left you in disappointment but I have to say that I felt obligated to remove my post from last week due to complaints of its offensiveness. While I will try to be a bit more sympathetic in certain regards, please do not worry, my blogues will not turn into mindless boring blurbs that have no "color" or appeal. I shall not disappoint.
So for today's little bit of Taiwanese Enlightenment I would like to discuss a recent night I had where I encountered my first rendez-vu with a real live Taiwanese girl.
The story starts like all great love stories, in a crowded, rap playing, smoke-infused night club at about 330 in the morning. I was perusing around the "club" seeking to indulge my sweet tooth in a bit of the old booty dancing. I tried dancing with some girls here and there in the rap music room but none felt like they might offer the sort of emotional depth that I look for in a girl I meet at some random club in the middle of the night. So I decided I would make my way over to the techno room where dancing there is merely of form jumping around and doing whatever the hell you want to do. It was there that by chance I met a delightful young lady by the name of Katrina.
We didn't really do much talking in between our circling and hip thrusting on the dance floor but we did meet eyes once and I while and I knew that I had found a real spark plug of sorts. We spent the rest of the night together bouncing from her table to mine and enjoyed ourselves as any self respecting clubbers might do by drinking long pours from various liquor bottles randomly distributed throughout both tables. In all this Katrina was quick enough to put her phone number on my phone which saved me the rest of the night when I forgot her name every five minutes. To make things short we spent the night having fun and I woke up on my buddies couch not quite sure as to where I was. (He found himself on the bathroom floor.) Quite classy in all.
After that night I thought that we would never see each other again and I was quite saddened at having to accept that I might never see my dance partner again. That thought only lasted about 5 minutes between when I woke up at 130 in the afternoon and her first call rang on my phone. I let the phone ring simply because I did not quite feel awake enough to enjoy a good ole chat with my new princess. I talked to my friend about the night and had some laughs at other happenings that had taken place throughout all the while watching the calls and text messages mount up and up.
After a good breakfast I left my friend's house and decided to respond to the 4 calls and 3 text messages I had received from Katrina. I found her to be quite well and excited at having met me the previous night. She certainly made that clear by her desire to talk this day. We talked a little about not much and the whole time I was finding it a bit hard to bridge our different language abilities. "Oh well, I'll give it a chance" I thought, "we could have a good time." So we made plans to go on a lovely date the next Wednesday.
Wednesday was a long wait, especially for Katrina who called me every couple of hours those next two days and even sent me a late night text message saying "I miss you so much." This started making me think, "why don't I miss her too? Did we not have a 'connection' at the alcohol fueled binge party? Do I really know anything about this girl? Do I even know what she looks like? " Nonetheless, Wednesday did indeed arrive as it often does and our date was planned.
I was going to go right after work so I had to dress a bit nicer than I normally do for work. I didn't know what to say as to my night's plans because I really didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't even know where we were meeting. I don't think I really knew anything.
I called Katrina after work and had another in our fantastic attempts in conversation that would have been made so much easier if I could just speak some Chinese.
"Hi, how are you?" I said
"Hi, why you always say how are you before me?" she asked
"Uhhhh... well I want to know how you are."
"Yes, but you want me to ask?"
"You can ask."
"But you always ask first. I cannot ask" she didn't seem upset.
"I am sorry, you want to ask now?"
"No"
I thought at this point it would be a good time to shift the conversation to a new topic that might be a bit more successful.
"So are you ready to hang out tonight?" Aren't I sly.
"Hang? What you do? I don't understand. You come to my office?" I didn't remember conversations like these during our club night. Although I wasn't sure if we had really talked about much that night.
"Yeah, I will come to your office." I said
"You come here?" she asked excitedly.
"Ok, but can you tell the taxi man how to get to your office?" I rarely ride a taxi on my own and if I do I usually just say one street I sort of know and then say stop when he drives me somewhere I recognize. I do a lot of walking this way.
After she consented to help me out I found a cab and immediately handed the phone to the cab driver who proceeded to talk about where to go and maybe asked why all these stupid Americans come around their country not knowing shit about anything and still picking up girls. Or maybe they talked about something else, I don't really know.
I got there and had just enough money to pay the cabby with the change in my pocket. I was a little scared because I didn't know where I was and had forgotten to pick up any money before going on this date. I was already imagining the apron I would wear as I washed dishes to pay for our meal.
Luckily the man dropped me off and I paid him. Once the cab drove off I realized, I am in a different part of town now but I still don't know where I am, what I am supposed to do, or who I am looking for, oh and I am out of money. Some planning eh?
Luckily, I got back in contact with Katrina and eventually she figured out I was on a street corner actually quite cold because I was planning on spending my hard saved jacket money (fresh out the ATM) on tonight's dinner.
She came out the doors and man was I shocked. A vague image of her floated back into my head but she still seemed a lot different than the Taiwan's Next Top Model that I thought I might have met in my sloppy slurry condition. She was indeed a bit older and a less attractive. However, nothing terrible just a little different. I quickly realized that I was perhaps not the Brad Pitt she had imagined either, so I put on a smile and got ready for a nice evening.
Katrina and I talked while walking to an "American" restaurant she thought I would like and I felt like the conversation was flowing a lot better than it had on the phone. Sure the sentences were choppy and void of many grammar complexities but the heart was there and it was strong.
We stopped in front of the doors of an English pub and she said, "here we are." Ok maybe not quite an American spot but maybe they just think all white people look the same and are the same. I think maybe other cultures are guilty of that one too.
We went in and sat down and looked at menus and I ordered a beer because I thought I might want one once things got going and then the conversation began...
"So, what do you think?" Wow, as if English wasn't hard enough for this girl I have to start the chat with that crappy ass question.
"What you say?" Ok totally my fault let's try that again.
"So am I a disappointment to you?" What the hell am I doing? Did I fall down the stairs right before entering this bar?
"Disappoint me. Oh you not tall and ehhhhhhhhh you are not handsome. But you are cute." Ok so I deserved that one. Maybe not so soon into the date but ok, you start conversations like this one and things like that are bound happen.
"Well sorry, I guess we had a wilder night than we might have thought." I said.
"What you say?" Ok, give up on that one.
"Do you like movies?" I was really trying this time.
"Yes, I like all movies, but not many movies......eh.....sorry what you mean?" she asked with a smile.
"No you are right. I like a lot of movies too." Hey look at that we were agreeing on something. Maybe this date would work out.
We continued a simple talk like this and I must say that I got over the fact that she was going to be completely honest about how she felt with the situation and maybe she understood that I was not going to be very honest about how I thought things were going. It was pretty much like every other date I have ever been on.
And I think that is when I realized "hey, she does look older than the 28 that she told you and is a bit disappointed that you are only 26 (oops), and maybe she isn't the prettiest bird out there, and maybe she did make you change meals right when they were put on the table because she liked your obviously better dish more, and maybe she smoked several menthols after eating about about three bites of her meal that cost me my jacket money, and maybe she did have to go at nine because she still lives with her parents and has to be home early, and maybe I did at one point think about asking her what her favorite color was because the conversation had dwindled down to a tiny belt holding our giant waist of mistranslation together; but maybe she isn't so bad?"So maybe I will hang out with this girl, or I suppose I should say woman seeing as how she has a car and a career and all, again.
Or maybe I won't. Later that night I went to a Taiwanese bar with Dunkle where, using my post date confidence, I got three numbers from some girls who were in fact young and quite beautiful. Maybe I just gotta keep on playing that ball game until I find a good one. Plenty o' fish in Taiwan.
So for today's little bit of Taiwanese Enlightenment I would like to discuss a recent night I had where I encountered my first rendez-vu with a real live Taiwanese girl.
The story starts like all great love stories, in a crowded, rap playing, smoke-infused night club at about 330 in the morning. I was perusing around the "club" seeking to indulge my sweet tooth in a bit of the old booty dancing. I tried dancing with some girls here and there in the rap music room but none felt like they might offer the sort of emotional depth that I look for in a girl I meet at some random club in the middle of the night. So I decided I would make my way over to the techno room where dancing there is merely of form jumping around and doing whatever the hell you want to do. It was there that by chance I met a delightful young lady by the name of Katrina.
We didn't really do much talking in between our circling and hip thrusting on the dance floor but we did meet eyes once and I while and I knew that I had found a real spark plug of sorts. We spent the rest of the night together bouncing from her table to mine and enjoyed ourselves as any self respecting clubbers might do by drinking long pours from various liquor bottles randomly distributed throughout both tables. In all this Katrina was quick enough to put her phone number on my phone which saved me the rest of the night when I forgot her name every five minutes. To make things short we spent the night having fun and I woke up on my buddies couch not quite sure as to where I was. (He found himself on the bathroom floor.) Quite classy in all.
After that night I thought that we would never see each other again and I was quite saddened at having to accept that I might never see my dance partner again. That thought only lasted about 5 minutes between when I woke up at 130 in the afternoon and her first call rang on my phone. I let the phone ring simply because I did not quite feel awake enough to enjoy a good ole chat with my new princess. I talked to my friend about the night and had some laughs at other happenings that had taken place throughout all the while watching the calls and text messages mount up and up.
After a good breakfast I left my friend's house and decided to respond to the 4 calls and 3 text messages I had received from Katrina. I found her to be quite well and excited at having met me the previous night. She certainly made that clear by her desire to talk this day. We talked a little about not much and the whole time I was finding it a bit hard to bridge our different language abilities. "Oh well, I'll give it a chance" I thought, "we could have a good time." So we made plans to go on a lovely date the next Wednesday.
Wednesday was a long wait, especially for Katrina who called me every couple of hours those next two days and even sent me a late night text message saying "I miss you so much." This started making me think, "why don't I miss her too? Did we not have a 'connection' at the alcohol fueled binge party? Do I really know anything about this girl? Do I even know what she looks like? " Nonetheless, Wednesday did indeed arrive as it often does and our date was planned.
I was going to go right after work so I had to dress a bit nicer than I normally do for work. I didn't know what to say as to my night's plans because I really didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't even know where we were meeting. I don't think I really knew anything.
I called Katrina after work and had another in our fantastic attempts in conversation that would have been made so much easier if I could just speak some Chinese.
"Hi, how are you?" I said
"Hi, why you always say how are you before me?" she asked
"Uhhhh... well I want to know how you are."
"Yes, but you want me to ask?"
"You can ask."
"But you always ask first. I cannot ask" she didn't seem upset.
"I am sorry, you want to ask now?"
"No"
I thought at this point it would be a good time to shift the conversation to a new topic that might be a bit more successful.
"So are you ready to hang out tonight?" Aren't I sly.
"Hang? What you do? I don't understand. You come to my office?" I didn't remember conversations like these during our club night. Although I wasn't sure if we had really talked about much that night.
"Yeah, I will come to your office." I said
"You come here?" she asked excitedly.
"Ok, but can you tell the taxi man how to get to your office?" I rarely ride a taxi on my own and if I do I usually just say one street I sort of know and then say stop when he drives me somewhere I recognize. I do a lot of walking this way.
After she consented to help me out I found a cab and immediately handed the phone to the cab driver who proceeded to talk about where to go and maybe asked why all these stupid Americans come around their country not knowing shit about anything and still picking up girls. Or maybe they talked about something else, I don't really know.
I got there and had just enough money to pay the cabby with the change in my pocket. I was a little scared because I didn't know where I was and had forgotten to pick up any money before going on this date. I was already imagining the apron I would wear as I washed dishes to pay for our meal.
Luckily the man dropped me off and I paid him. Once the cab drove off I realized, I am in a different part of town now but I still don't know where I am, what I am supposed to do, or who I am looking for, oh and I am out of money. Some planning eh?
Luckily, I got back in contact with Katrina and eventually she figured out I was on a street corner actually quite cold because I was planning on spending my hard saved jacket money (fresh out the ATM) on tonight's dinner.
She came out the doors and man was I shocked. A vague image of her floated back into my head but she still seemed a lot different than the Taiwan's Next Top Model that I thought I might have met in my sloppy slurry condition. She was indeed a bit older and a less attractive. However, nothing terrible just a little different. I quickly realized that I was perhaps not the Brad Pitt she had imagined either, so I put on a smile and got ready for a nice evening.
Katrina and I talked while walking to an "American" restaurant she thought I would like and I felt like the conversation was flowing a lot better than it had on the phone. Sure the sentences were choppy and void of many grammar complexities but the heart was there and it was strong.
We stopped in front of the doors of an English pub and she said, "here we are." Ok maybe not quite an American spot but maybe they just think all white people look the same and are the same. I think maybe other cultures are guilty of that one too.
We went in and sat down and looked at menus and I ordered a beer because I thought I might want one once things got going and then the conversation began...
"So, what do you think?" Wow, as if English wasn't hard enough for this girl I have to start the chat with that crappy ass question.
"What you say?" Ok totally my fault let's try that again.
"So am I a disappointment to you?" What the hell am I doing? Did I fall down the stairs right before entering this bar?
"Disappoint me. Oh you not tall and ehhhhhhhhh you are not handsome. But you are cute." Ok so I deserved that one. Maybe not so soon into the date but ok, you start conversations like this one and things like that are bound happen.
"Well sorry, I guess we had a wilder night than we might have thought." I said.
"What you say?" Ok, give up on that one.
"Do you like movies?" I was really trying this time.
"Yes, I like all movies, but not many movies......eh.....sorry what you mean?" she asked with a smile.
"No you are right. I like a lot of movies too." Hey look at that we were agreeing on something. Maybe this date would work out.
We continued a simple talk like this and I must say that I got over the fact that she was going to be completely honest about how she felt with the situation and maybe she understood that I was not going to be very honest about how I thought things were going. It was pretty much like every other date I have ever been on.
And I think that is when I realized "hey, she does look older than the 28 that she told you and is a bit disappointed that you are only 26 (oops), and maybe she isn't the prettiest bird out there, and maybe she did make you change meals right when they were put on the table because she liked your obviously better dish more, and maybe she smoked several menthols after eating about about three bites of her meal that cost me my jacket money, and maybe she did have to go at nine because she still lives with her parents and has to be home early, and maybe I did at one point think about asking her what her favorite color was because the conversation had dwindled down to a tiny belt holding our giant waist of mistranslation together; but maybe she isn't so bad?"So maybe I will hang out with this girl, or I suppose I should say woman seeing as how she has a car and a career and all, again.
Or maybe I won't. Later that night I went to a Taiwanese bar with Dunkle where, using my post date confidence, I got three numbers from some girls who were in fact young and quite beautiful. Maybe I just gotta keep on playing that ball game until I find a good one. Plenty o' fish in Taiwan.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Another one coming soon to a theater near you.
That is all I can say right now because I stayed up too late watching Lord of the Rings. Sorry. Don't worry, I still care about you all a great deal and I won't let you down. I already have a new collection of wild and interesting stories to impart upon you. I am also getting paid tomorrow which means this weekend you can be assured that I will have something good to report. Keep your eyes open.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sickness in Asia
Hey there, I don't know what I gotta say but I need to stay committed to my little blogueing effort and so I must write a little something something here. Let's see, things have been ok. Life has been a series of minor ups and downs but nothing outrageously exciting. I guess that is how normal life becomes wherever you live.
Probably the most amazing thing that I have witnessed since I have been here has been the wild effects of the Chinese medicine. I was battling with some serious ear ache problems and it was really messing with my professional judgement. I mean when your ears really hurt it doesn't really screw with any part of your body except the two small holes that go straight through to your brain. It was like the sickness made everything I heard or witnessed turn into some sort of irritating babble. Imagine having to go to class with a bunch of crazy loud ass Chinese lookin' kids with the feeling that your brain is going to explode. It was like that except that it was real and it was real sucky. I tried to be an ok guy but I was one cranky son of a bitch.
But hey I got off the subject of the medicine. I had another fantastic "what the hell am I doing" experience when I went to a "Medical clinic" (or so I thought) to talk to a doctor and/or get doped up on some feel good pills. I first gave it a shot and walked in to a sterile bright white room covered in shelves piled with different bottles of mysterious pills. I went up to the lady who was already looking at me like "please don't talk to me and ruin my whole day. I am just about to get off." I asked her as physically as I could, hands all in the air and whatnot, "can you help me? My ears are so hurt and I want to see a doctor. I don't know what to do." Normally I have to yell at Taiwanese people because somehow I think that screaming a foreign language into someones ear can make them understand this unknown language better. However, you add the fact that at this point my ears are so backed up with sickness that I can barely hear anything, and I am practically screaming at this poor woman.
She brings out someone else who makes me feel a little better because at least she has snappy glasses and a white lab coat. I go through the same awkward and loud description of my misery and she simply replies, "you no want heeya. We heeya makeah Chinee medcin. You wan go to oddah doctah." She continues with this to the best of her abilities. I mean I can't complain because all I could do was prepare about fifty cheh chehs (thank yous) upon my departure. She then wrote a bunch of hieroglyphics onto a piece of paper indicating some place. Who knows.
I continued to wonder around almost deaf at this point with no luck. At one point I thought I might have arrived into something right but it turned out to be some sort of third rate dentist on the forth four of a dilapidated building. I can honestly say that I just peeked in and saw a guy writhing in a chair with some sort of dentist over his face. It was scary and lets just say that I have added a third brushing to my daily schedule just to avoid any encounter like that in the future. I think that guy might have been involved in the inspiration for the hostel movie.
In the end I gave up for the night and spent the night pissed off on my couch feeling crappy and deaf.
The next day I tried to call off work because I felt even worse and what do you think my boss says? "How about you come to your first class (which is the worst and the loudest) and then I will take you to the doctor." Ok, sort of unfair trade but I guess I really did need some sort of interpreter.
Basically my boss, who is hot and young and I want her to get a divorce and run away with me, took me to another craptown clinic with coughing and wastebasket vomiting gallor. In Asia things like that are no problem to preform in public. You often hear loud burps and farts all over while on the busses here. Wonderful. I waited about 30 minutes before I was finally taken into a room that really did look like a torture chamber just with more lighting. My boss had left at this point because I kept saying how stupid I felt and how I really needed to grow up and figure shit out for myself. The doctor was hopefully a qualified doctor but in no way an English prof. He did a little "inspection" of my ear holes and then made his diagnosis; "Well, I see some information in there."
"Excuse me?" I replied.
"Yeah, I can rearry see some information there," he insisted.
"Well what kind of information?" I was really wondering what sort of information this man had found. Had someone placed some microfilm in my ear in the night only to be discovered by this mask wearing doctor of misinterpretation?
"Yeah, redness and information," he says.
"Oooohhhhhhh," I say, keeping off the upcoming laughter, "you see some inflamation do you?"
"Yeah, inframation," he said so wonderfully coherently.
Half of the appointment was us going through difficult and funny conversations like that one. In the end he sent me the wrong way towards a pharmacy.
I found the place and was given a wild "cocktail" of pills that the Asians are known to prescribe. All sorts of stuff and even some eye drops that I was instructed to drop in my ear.
In the end, the funniest part was that after only 30 minutes of dropping my crazy concoction of pills I needed to take a quick pee. I peed and almost fell over in shock at the sight of what had just been polluted out of my body. My pee was school bus yellow. No that doesn't even do it justice. Have you ever had that orange Gatorade? Well I was pissing that out and it scared the hell out of me. I couldn't believe it. I thought if I were to cut myself my blood would be a solid bright green goo as if I truly was turning into some sort of monster. It was crazy and I made sure that over the next four days, while taking this bizarre medicine, everyone I knew here had either seen the magical pee or at least heard about it. I was truly fantastic and I hope that it will never part from my memory.
Probably the most amazing thing that I have witnessed since I have been here has been the wild effects of the Chinese medicine. I was battling with some serious ear ache problems and it was really messing with my professional judgement. I mean when your ears really hurt it doesn't really screw with any part of your body except the two small holes that go straight through to your brain. It was like the sickness made everything I heard or witnessed turn into some sort of irritating babble. Imagine having to go to class with a bunch of crazy loud ass Chinese lookin' kids with the feeling that your brain is going to explode. It was like that except that it was real and it was real sucky. I tried to be an ok guy but I was one cranky son of a bitch.
But hey I got off the subject of the medicine. I had another fantastic "what the hell am I doing" experience when I went to a "Medical clinic" (or so I thought) to talk to a doctor and/or get doped up on some feel good pills. I first gave it a shot and walked in to a sterile bright white room covered in shelves piled with different bottles of mysterious pills. I went up to the lady who was already looking at me like "please don't talk to me and ruin my whole day. I am just about to get off." I asked her as physically as I could, hands all in the air and whatnot, "can you help me? My ears are so hurt and I want to see a doctor. I don't know what to do." Normally I have to yell at Taiwanese people because somehow I think that screaming a foreign language into someones ear can make them understand this unknown language better. However, you add the fact that at this point my ears are so backed up with sickness that I can barely hear anything, and I am practically screaming at this poor woman.
She brings out someone else who makes me feel a little better because at least she has snappy glasses and a white lab coat. I go through the same awkward and loud description of my misery and she simply replies, "you no want heeya. We heeya makeah Chinee medcin. You wan go to oddah doctah." She continues with this to the best of her abilities. I mean I can't complain because all I could do was prepare about fifty cheh chehs (thank yous) upon my departure. She then wrote a bunch of hieroglyphics onto a piece of paper indicating some place. Who knows.
I continued to wonder around almost deaf at this point with no luck. At one point I thought I might have arrived into something right but it turned out to be some sort of third rate dentist on the forth four of a dilapidated building. I can honestly say that I just peeked in and saw a guy writhing in a chair with some sort of dentist over his face. It was scary and lets just say that I have added a third brushing to my daily schedule just to avoid any encounter like that in the future. I think that guy might have been involved in the inspiration for the hostel movie.
In the end I gave up for the night and spent the night pissed off on my couch feeling crappy and deaf.
The next day I tried to call off work because I felt even worse and what do you think my boss says? "How about you come to your first class (which is the worst and the loudest) and then I will take you to the doctor." Ok, sort of unfair trade but I guess I really did need some sort of interpreter.
Basically my boss, who is hot and young and I want her to get a divorce and run away with me, took me to another craptown clinic with coughing and wastebasket vomiting gallor. In Asia things like that are no problem to preform in public. You often hear loud burps and farts all over while on the busses here. Wonderful. I waited about 30 minutes before I was finally taken into a room that really did look like a torture chamber just with more lighting. My boss had left at this point because I kept saying how stupid I felt and how I really needed to grow up and figure shit out for myself. The doctor was hopefully a qualified doctor but in no way an English prof. He did a little "inspection" of my ear holes and then made his diagnosis; "Well, I see some information in there."
"Excuse me?" I replied.
"Yeah, I can rearry see some information there," he insisted.
"Well what kind of information?" I was really wondering what sort of information this man had found. Had someone placed some microfilm in my ear in the night only to be discovered by this mask wearing doctor of misinterpretation?
"Yeah, redness and information," he says.
"Oooohhhhhhh," I say, keeping off the upcoming laughter, "you see some inflamation do you?"
"Yeah, inframation," he said so wonderfully coherently.
Half of the appointment was us going through difficult and funny conversations like that one. In the end he sent me the wrong way towards a pharmacy.
I found the place and was given a wild "cocktail" of pills that the Asians are known to prescribe. All sorts of stuff and even some eye drops that I was instructed to drop in my ear.
In the end, the funniest part was that after only 30 minutes of dropping my crazy concoction of pills I needed to take a quick pee. I peed and almost fell over in shock at the sight of what had just been polluted out of my body. My pee was school bus yellow. No that doesn't even do it justice. Have you ever had that orange Gatorade? Well I was pissing that out and it scared the hell out of me. I couldn't believe it. I thought if I were to cut myself my blood would be a solid bright green goo as if I truly was turning into some sort of monster. It was crazy and I made sure that over the next four days, while taking this bizarre medicine, everyone I knew here had either seen the magical pee or at least heard about it. I was truly fantastic and I hope that it will never part from my memory.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Road trippin' with my favorite allies.
It is pretty hard to try to remember and recount happy moments when you feel as shitty as I do right now but I am going to try. (I have gone back to feeling like a six year old again with not one but two ear infections. It doesn't feel good at all but I supposed I would be really dizzy if was only sick in one ear.) I think it is going to be a really long time before I can actually be sick and have any idea as to what I am supposed to do with myself. Most of my sick moments have been eased by my mother patting me on the head while serving me any type of feel good material I have would have need for. Now I am in China land and it makes going to the doctor about as appealing as drowning while getting kicked in the nuts by a steal toed boot. I went into the doctor's office today and was roughly told that it was a Chinese medicine place. Maybe they could give me some sort of tea and a cockroach to crawl around my brain eating up the illness. Who knows?
DAY ONE
Now I don't want to end up depressing you fellow readers so I will give you the details of my first weekend spent outside of Taipei. I and several of my comrades assembled a hodge podge of scooters and took ourselves a road trip into the mountains. We had wanted to go somewhere for the "vacation," and when all the buses to the beach were sold out we picked the music festival in the waterfall littered forest option. We were not disappointed in the end.
After an invigorating and beautiful 2 hour cruise up into the heart of the island we arrived at a makeshift campsite where we would spend the next three days doing all the fun, wild, and horrible things one does at a music festival. (Rest assured though, it was a drug free weekend. Not for everyone else, but yes for us.) We set up our tents under the designated "camp site" and deplorably awaited the time when we would decide to retire to our homes resting under a concrete foundation. We all decided that this weekend would just have to be about something else besides sleep.
Some of the features included in this "festival" as they would like to call it were a 18, no-name, but often talented, band lineup, 24 hour bar, three swimming pools, two hot springs, lots of girls, and all for the low low price of 20 dollars for the whole weekend. (camping included.) Not too bad if you think about it. Hell even you don't!
The first night was like any first night of a three day binge: way too much alcohol, dancing and making an ass out of one's self in front of all sorts (good and bad) of girls. In general we call it overexertion. It would sort of be like running a marathon the day before you do the iron man except there is no honor in what we did. We told jokes and stories, pushed people we didn't know into pools, and watched others on hallucinogens run around climbing trees and trying to tell you which star was their favorite. Oh by the way, you know which group was the easy majority at this hippy festival in the mountains?........that's right, the wi go ren as they call us, or as we are more commonly know: dirtbag white folk.
DAY TWO
Going to bed at 330 am in a tent laying on a concrete foundation turned out to be just a terrible idea on our part. This was because only 2.5 hours later while taking a quick one tenth awake pee break I ran into a group of crazed out South African Asian bitches screaming at me while laughing at the same time. These girls were claiming that I had both thrown up on them and into the pool in some sort of drunken rage. Now I know for a fact that this was not me because I was sleeping at the time and I also was still clear headed enough to know what I had or hadn't done. That and the fact that these girls were acting like they had eaten horse tranquilizer hamburgers before talking to me so I wasn't sure their judgement could be trusted.
Luckily the daemon women left me and what do you know? I couldn't return to my slumber. I don't know if it was the general discomfort of the rock hard tent or the fact that I was frighteningly shivering under my Kleenex blanket, of which was my only sleeping material at the time and now still, but I just couldn't go back to dream land. So I ran barefoot on the gravel filled ground as pathetically as I could to the hot springs where I spent the next 1.5 hours watching the crap end of the party people crashing over each other and the dudes in the collared shirts still trying to muster up the courage to simply say to their girls, "so you wanna check out my tent?"
My saving grace was in those hot springs where I met the only other person awake for the morning. It was a friendly 30 something woman and her 7 year old daughter. I split my time talking to her about her life in New Zealand and throwing her daughter into the air much to the wee one's delight. The best moment was when a Taiwanese woman who had joined the fun said, "why don't you get your daddy to play with us?" in reference to yours truly. Ever so politely I shouted, "oh oh ah ah ah no she isn't mine!" (oops) The best part was the Asian woman not wondering how two white people would make a half black child like the one in question. I guess she wasn't paying attention.
After my "bath" I went and tried to rouse my compatriots once again (only 7:30 now) to the same "what the hell are you doing awake?" and a nice middle finger for a finish. I thought instead, since the sun had risen, I would take a nice scooter ride to get some well deserved coffee. Only about 800 metres into my ride I saw a girl walking on the side of the road, and what do you think I did? I pulled right over and said nothing more than, "hop on and lets have some coffee baby." I even added baby just so I could tell it in the story later. Cheese dick to the rescue!!!
I thought maybe I recognized her from the party and when she screamed from behind my hog, "you're Andrew right?" I knew I probably had met her. Me and my meeting too many people at parties. So we took a nice ride down the mountain, stood by the water falls, talked about our families and music and got some coffee and lunch. I must say, it all made for a nice morning and I was delighted to have risen at such an early hour.
The rest of the day I tried to cling to some sort of deep rooted energy no one thought I had. I continued to jest and have fun with everyone as I always do. Sure, I was a little loopy but no more than anyone else who had slept little or none that night. After a while we thought we would take a break from the party world and scoot on down into town and visit our French friend Guillame.
Andrew and Graeme (the South Africans), Dunkle, David and Jennifer (the cool work couple), Francheska (the girl who made fun of me all weekend for some reason), Leslie (the new girl from the campground), and myself strapped on our helmets and peaced up out for the day.
We ate and we walked around, took pictures (which I will eventually post), and I quickly became the foot dragging complainer I can sometimes be after nights like the previous one. The highlight of the day was when Guillame and his friend took us down to the locals only hot springs. Man let me tell you, walking in there I could not have felt more out of place. Half naked Asians taking hot showers and laying in boiling pools of water, and they all couldn't stop looking at us, the wi go rens. But this feeling only stayed for a brief moment until I took a shower while using old laundry detergent bottles to pour scalding water all over myself. I think the most fun we had was when all of us poured twelve bottles of lava water onto one person. You could have cooked a lobster in this stuff and off course we are throwing it around and laughing like a bunch of idiots. I probably laughed the most when I helped an old man by pouring water on him while another Asian guy poured water on me. Maybe we are descended from monkeys. It was great and once again we realized that getting all the attention here really is pretty great.
After that we ate at a place where they serve you whole cooked chickens and then you wear gardening gloves to aid in ripping the shit out of the recently diseased bird. Graeme, my new partner in crime, saw how quickly we were fading after dinner and made an affirmative decision. There was no way we could try to soberly sleep on the concrete tents again, so we would simply have to go out wild again techno dancing in the rain with any girl and all girls. We also got squirt guns that turned out to be rather effective ice breakers.
So that was the weekend and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact I enjoyed reliving it so much that I actually feel a lot better. I mean my ears still feel like someone took a shit in them while jabbing a hot poker in my brain, but no worries. That was the first really good weekend I have had since Thailand and it reminds me that maybe a person can adapt to any place.
DAY ONE
Now I don't want to end up depressing you fellow readers so I will give you the details of my first weekend spent outside of Taipei. I and several of my comrades assembled a hodge podge of scooters and took ourselves a road trip into the mountains. We had wanted to go somewhere for the "vacation," and when all the buses to the beach were sold out we picked the music festival in the waterfall littered forest option. We were not disappointed in the end.
After an invigorating and beautiful 2 hour cruise up into the heart of the island we arrived at a makeshift campsite where we would spend the next three days doing all the fun, wild, and horrible things one does at a music festival. (Rest assured though, it was a drug free weekend. Not for everyone else, but yes for us.) We set up our tents under the designated "camp site" and deplorably awaited the time when we would decide to retire to our homes resting under a concrete foundation. We all decided that this weekend would just have to be about something else besides sleep.
Some of the features included in this "festival" as they would like to call it were a 18, no-name, but often talented, band lineup, 24 hour bar, three swimming pools, two hot springs, lots of girls, and all for the low low price of 20 dollars for the whole weekend. (camping included.) Not too bad if you think about it. Hell even you don't!
The first night was like any first night of a three day binge: way too much alcohol, dancing and making an ass out of one's self in front of all sorts (good and bad) of girls. In general we call it overexertion. It would sort of be like running a marathon the day before you do the iron man except there is no honor in what we did. We told jokes and stories, pushed people we didn't know into pools, and watched others on hallucinogens run around climbing trees and trying to tell you which star was their favorite. Oh by the way, you know which group was the easy majority at this hippy festival in the mountains?........that's right, the wi go ren as they call us, or as we are more commonly know: dirtbag white folk.
DAY TWO
Going to bed at 330 am in a tent laying on a concrete foundation turned out to be just a terrible idea on our part. This was because only 2.5 hours later while taking a quick one tenth awake pee break I ran into a group of crazed out South African Asian bitches screaming at me while laughing at the same time. These girls were claiming that I had both thrown up on them and into the pool in some sort of drunken rage. Now I know for a fact that this was not me because I was sleeping at the time and I also was still clear headed enough to know what I had or hadn't done. That and the fact that these girls were acting like they had eaten horse tranquilizer hamburgers before talking to me so I wasn't sure their judgement could be trusted.
Luckily the daemon women left me and what do you know? I couldn't return to my slumber. I don't know if it was the general discomfort of the rock hard tent or the fact that I was frighteningly shivering under my Kleenex blanket, of which was my only sleeping material at the time and now still, but I just couldn't go back to dream land. So I ran barefoot on the gravel filled ground as pathetically as I could to the hot springs where I spent the next 1.5 hours watching the crap end of the party people crashing over each other and the dudes in the collared shirts still trying to muster up the courage to simply say to their girls, "so you wanna check out my tent?"
My saving grace was in those hot springs where I met the only other person awake for the morning. It was a friendly 30 something woman and her 7 year old daughter. I split my time talking to her about her life in New Zealand and throwing her daughter into the air much to the wee one's delight. The best moment was when a Taiwanese woman who had joined the fun said, "why don't you get your daddy to play with us?" in reference to yours truly. Ever so politely I shouted, "oh oh ah ah ah no she isn't mine!" (oops) The best part was the Asian woman not wondering how two white people would make a half black child like the one in question. I guess she wasn't paying attention.
After my "bath" I went and tried to rouse my compatriots once again (only 7:30 now) to the same "what the hell are you doing awake?" and a nice middle finger for a finish. I thought instead, since the sun had risen, I would take a nice scooter ride to get some well deserved coffee. Only about 800 metres into my ride I saw a girl walking on the side of the road, and what do you think I did? I pulled right over and said nothing more than, "hop on and lets have some coffee baby." I even added baby just so I could tell it in the story later. Cheese dick to the rescue!!!
I thought maybe I recognized her from the party and when she screamed from behind my hog, "you're Andrew right?" I knew I probably had met her. Me and my meeting too many people at parties. So we took a nice ride down the mountain, stood by the water falls, talked about our families and music and got some coffee and lunch. I must say, it all made for a nice morning and I was delighted to have risen at such an early hour.
The rest of the day I tried to cling to some sort of deep rooted energy no one thought I had. I continued to jest and have fun with everyone as I always do. Sure, I was a little loopy but no more than anyone else who had slept little or none that night. After a while we thought we would take a break from the party world and scoot on down into town and visit our French friend Guillame.
Andrew and Graeme (the South Africans), Dunkle, David and Jennifer (the cool work couple), Francheska (the girl who made fun of me all weekend for some reason), Leslie (the new girl from the campground), and myself strapped on our helmets and peaced up out for the day.
We ate and we walked around, took pictures (which I will eventually post), and I quickly became the foot dragging complainer I can sometimes be after nights like the previous one. The highlight of the day was when Guillame and his friend took us down to the locals only hot springs. Man let me tell you, walking in there I could not have felt more out of place. Half naked Asians taking hot showers and laying in boiling pools of water, and they all couldn't stop looking at us, the wi go rens. But this feeling only stayed for a brief moment until I took a shower while using old laundry detergent bottles to pour scalding water all over myself. I think the most fun we had was when all of us poured twelve bottles of lava water onto one person. You could have cooked a lobster in this stuff and off course we are throwing it around and laughing like a bunch of idiots. I probably laughed the most when I helped an old man by pouring water on him while another Asian guy poured water on me. Maybe we are descended from monkeys. It was great and once again we realized that getting all the attention here really is pretty great.
After that we ate at a place where they serve you whole cooked chickens and then you wear gardening gloves to aid in ripping the shit out of the recently diseased bird. Graeme, my new partner in crime, saw how quickly we were fading after dinner and made an affirmative decision. There was no way we could try to soberly sleep on the concrete tents again, so we would simply have to go out wild again techno dancing in the rain with any girl and all girls. We also got squirt guns that turned out to be rather effective ice breakers.
So that was the weekend and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact I enjoyed reliving it so much that I actually feel a lot better. I mean my ears still feel like someone took a shit in them while jabbing a hot poker in my brain, but no worries. That was the first really good weekend I have had since Thailand and it reminds me that maybe a person can adapt to any place.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Is Hungry a country or a state of mind?
To answer that question I would say that for me Hungry is a state of misery that I find my myself meandering through almost every day. I am now in my second year living below the poverty level and I think it is starting to mess with me. Or at least it is starting to mess with my stomach.
While in France I was forced to survive off of not much money at all. When you consider that Paris is one of the most expensive cities in the world, I was most certainly on the poverty line. I once saw one of those exclusive "le Dateline" shows in France that did an expose on people who were poor in Paris. I kept thinking, how do these people live like this? How can they survive? I then soon found out that most of the "victims" made almost twice as much money as I did. Now that seems odd.
There are many ways to dealing with one's poverty and almost all of them rely on you feeling bad in some way. You may feel unhealthy, you may feel guilty, or you may feel rotten for all sorts of reasons.
Food is something we all need. If you try to say otherwise you are a complete idiot because like water and air, it is just something you gotta get once and while. When you are trying to salvage your money it seems like anything but your food should be what you skip out on. Every day I find myself between the option of the shit behind an alley food or some legitimate good stuff. I always go with the first option because it always seems like a good idea at the time to save a little green. So I have found myself day after day eating this retched food that really does make me feel sick at times. I find that if I keep it cheap maybe I will be able to use that leftover money for something else that I need. I have really gone with this philosophy for around a year now.
The option that I don't recommend is simply to stop eating all together. The nice part about this is that if you just don't eat, you don't have to pay for food at all. At first I wanted to try my own version of "fasting" simply because I new that others had done it and survived and had actually felt changed in some way from it. I can honestly say that giving up food for so long a time did make me appreciate my meal once it was finally steaming in front of me. The smells were more potent and I could feel the tasty morsels filling the empty voids in my body. It was really rejuvenating.
But I mean that was a long time ago when I would waltz through the lively streets of Paris wondering how much longer I could go denying myself the carnal pleasures of food. (In the end I almost always chose doner kebab too, so it really wasn't that much of a step up.) Those days were good because as I stumbled from cafe to cafe I could imagine myself as one of the hunger crazed artists who's barren stomach released sparks into his brain which thus aided his creative genius. But that was how I felt. I acutally looked like some stinky bum wondering around aimlessly with nothing else to do. I guess I sort of was that description.
The difference is that now I am here in Taiwan and I am much much poorer. I had come to this wonderful island believing that I would make my big payday and I would be able to begin my ascent/descent into real life adulthood. What has actually happened is that my whiskers grow quicker, my clothing has become less diverse, and my hunger more profound. The other day I set a new record; a 30 hour hunger strike. It is miserable but I have begun to acquire quite the endurance for hunger because I hardly eat. I don't know why I choose to save money on something I love so much and need so badly but every time it happens the same way.
I said that when you give food a break it seems all the more delicious later, but here it isn't always true. You can either eat some really great food and some food that makes you want to throw up just writing about it. Of course I wouldn't be able to throw much up because I haven't eaten in about 18 hours.
I try to keep myself on a regular cycle of eating and I take advantage of free food whenever it comes by but that just simply doesn't do in this hunger lifestyle I have begun to acclimate to. I will often hope that I get to my school early enough to steal some of the cafeteria food and I almost always miss the deadline. This means that for the rest of school I have to maintain a positive and patient attitude while my stomach begins to absorb my muscles because the fat is already gone. That is the edible fat. My boss has on several occasions informed me that I need to do some work on my "tummy." The Asians here are such a kind and honest people.
There are two types of hungry people in the world. There are those types of people who do not have food and they do not know when their next meal may arrive. They go about their day to day activities just the same as anyone else but they do it without any food based energy inside them. The same people who would give a bit a food to someone else before consuming it themselves. These are the people that you and I should admire because while they have no choice in what they eat, they still survive.
There are also people like me. Now I will tell you, I really am poor and even when I do start to make any real money that money will have to go back to other people who have had to hear me say over and over "just help me a little bit and I will get it back to you." I have to borrow money in order to still look poor which gives no satisfaction to those who loan the money. People like me are hungry because they don't know what the hell they are doing and they make impulsive decisions that put them in the position of having to deny themselves sustenance in the first place. These are the people that you probably won't be sympathetic to but you can at least laugh at their slightly less miserable predicament.
So is Hungry a country or a state of mind? Well I travelled to hungry by myself and I was so poor then that I had to sleep in a bus station with a bunch of hobos who smelled like rotten pumpkins and I can tell you for sure that I had some hungry times then as well.
While in France I was forced to survive off of not much money at all. When you consider that Paris is one of the most expensive cities in the world, I was most certainly on the poverty line. I once saw one of those exclusive "le Dateline" shows in France that did an expose on people who were poor in Paris. I kept thinking, how do these people live like this? How can they survive? I then soon found out that most of the "victims" made almost twice as much money as I did. Now that seems odd.
There are many ways to dealing with one's poverty and almost all of them rely on you feeling bad in some way. You may feel unhealthy, you may feel guilty, or you may feel rotten for all sorts of reasons.
Food is something we all need. If you try to say otherwise you are a complete idiot because like water and air, it is just something you gotta get once and while. When you are trying to salvage your money it seems like anything but your food should be what you skip out on. Every day I find myself between the option of the shit behind an alley food or some legitimate good stuff. I always go with the first option because it always seems like a good idea at the time to save a little green. So I have found myself day after day eating this retched food that really does make me feel sick at times. I find that if I keep it cheap maybe I will be able to use that leftover money for something else that I need. I have really gone with this philosophy for around a year now.
The option that I don't recommend is simply to stop eating all together. The nice part about this is that if you just don't eat, you don't have to pay for food at all. At first I wanted to try my own version of "fasting" simply because I new that others had done it and survived and had actually felt changed in some way from it. I can honestly say that giving up food for so long a time did make me appreciate my meal once it was finally steaming in front of me. The smells were more potent and I could feel the tasty morsels filling the empty voids in my body. It was really rejuvenating.
But I mean that was a long time ago when I would waltz through the lively streets of Paris wondering how much longer I could go denying myself the carnal pleasures of food. (In the end I almost always chose doner kebab too, so it really wasn't that much of a step up.) Those days were good because as I stumbled from cafe to cafe I could imagine myself as one of the hunger crazed artists who's barren stomach released sparks into his brain which thus aided his creative genius. But that was how I felt. I acutally looked like some stinky bum wondering around aimlessly with nothing else to do. I guess I sort of was that description.
The difference is that now I am here in Taiwan and I am much much poorer. I had come to this wonderful island believing that I would make my big payday and I would be able to begin my ascent/descent into real life adulthood. What has actually happened is that my whiskers grow quicker, my clothing has become less diverse, and my hunger more profound. The other day I set a new record; a 30 hour hunger strike. It is miserable but I have begun to acquire quite the endurance for hunger because I hardly eat. I don't know why I choose to save money on something I love so much and need so badly but every time it happens the same way.
I said that when you give food a break it seems all the more delicious later, but here it isn't always true. You can either eat some really great food and some food that makes you want to throw up just writing about it. Of course I wouldn't be able to throw much up because I haven't eaten in about 18 hours.
I try to keep myself on a regular cycle of eating and I take advantage of free food whenever it comes by but that just simply doesn't do in this hunger lifestyle I have begun to acclimate to. I will often hope that I get to my school early enough to steal some of the cafeteria food and I almost always miss the deadline. This means that for the rest of school I have to maintain a positive and patient attitude while my stomach begins to absorb my muscles because the fat is already gone. That is the edible fat. My boss has on several occasions informed me that I need to do some work on my "tummy." The Asians here are such a kind and honest people.
There are two types of hungry people in the world. There are those types of people who do not have food and they do not know when their next meal may arrive. They go about their day to day activities just the same as anyone else but they do it without any food based energy inside them. The same people who would give a bit a food to someone else before consuming it themselves. These are the people that you and I should admire because while they have no choice in what they eat, they still survive.
There are also people like me. Now I will tell you, I really am poor and even when I do start to make any real money that money will have to go back to other people who have had to hear me say over and over "just help me a little bit and I will get it back to you." I have to borrow money in order to still look poor which gives no satisfaction to those who loan the money. People like me are hungry because they don't know what the hell they are doing and they make impulsive decisions that put them in the position of having to deny themselves sustenance in the first place. These are the people that you probably won't be sympathetic to but you can at least laugh at their slightly less miserable predicament.
So is Hungry a country or a state of mind? Well I travelled to hungry by myself and I was so poor then that I had to sleep in a bus station with a bunch of hobos who smelled like rotten pumpkins and I can tell you for sure that I had some hungry times then as well.
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