my daily adventures began super early this morning as ally and i headed off to the jhubei city morning market. i was under the (mistaken) impression that this would be like the night market, only during the day. the weather was gorgeous today: it felt like north carolina in the beginning of september. so sunny, warm but not hot...perfect day for a morning market! there were live fish everywhere, live shrimp jumping all over the place, many delicious (and not so delicious) foods to sample, pig intestines and hearts strung up on every rafter, and many other things that you can only find in a taiwanese morning market. i have to admit, seeing live fish flopping around and eating chicken feet at 9 am aren't as unsettling as they used to be. i don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
anyway, as par for the course when i head through a group of taiwanese, everyone was staring at me and randomly saying that i had very white skin and "ni hen piao lian": "you are very beautiful." i felt soooo incredibly foreign there, in my hoodie and jeans, with my green eyes, white skin and brown hair. i felt almost obsence looking. i feel like this often: it is very strange to look so different than everyone around you, and to often be the only white person in sight. it is harder than it seems to live in a society where everyone looks a certain way and you don't, to catch sight of yourself in a mirror and be startled, thinking "oh, i forgot i'm not asian!" everything from my eye color, to my shoes, to the way i carry my purse is so different than everyone around me. no matter how much i try to blend in i can't, and no matter how much i wish people would stop staring at me and just comment on my foreignness or something, they won't. at first it was unsettling, then it was flattering, but now it is...it makes me feel bad, i don't know. i am so...different.
today, we had two earthquakes. granted they were small, but i was still freaking out. my students didn't even bat an eyelash! i almost screamed during the first one, but i didn't want to look a fool so i didn't. i tried to sit calmly. when the second one came though, i let out a tiny yelp :)
i can't believe i left the states four months ago.
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