Our Everyday Life

We've been away from the US long enough now that we don't seem notice how different our plain old, everyday lives are from what they used to be. My aunt reminded me of that the other day when she asked me what we eat here. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the BIG difference is, since its all so darn different. I could start with our living quarters. As a family, we regard our "home" quite the opposite from the way we used to. While we want to be comfortable in our living space, we won't go to great lengths to improve it or decorate it. I'm sure it will fill up with a collection of treasures from places we've been, but for now it's a little bare. There is no lawn to mow, weeds to pick, rooms to paint or basement to finish. At best we'll change a light bulb here and there, but that's it for home improvements. In the spirit of maintenance free living, I hired a cleaning lady. I figured if Matt doesn't have to mow the lawn then I don't have to clean the bathroom! It's a nice little benefit of living here. While the maintenance is low, we do spend more time doing dishes by hand. The only time in my life when I didn't have a dishwasher was when I lived in Philly by myself. I didn't accumulate many dishes since I really wasn't cooking a whole lot. Now we actually spend a couple hours each day cleaning, drying and putting dishes away. It's a huge pain! We've just gotten to the point where we may ask our landlord to ask the owner of this condo if he/she will consider installing one. Heck, if they're the same price as in the US, we'll buy it for them! The other that seems to take a lot of our time is the trash. Hard to say whether actually taking out the trash is the time sucker or all the complaining we do about who should be taking out the trash. Hmmmm...perhaps a combination of both. Trash is a big thing in Taiwan. Taiwan used to be a very dirty place. Over the last 10 years or so there has been a huge initiative on reducing waste and cleaning up the city. Every household or building handles their trash differently. Here's what happens at our house. We separate kitchen food waste into a compost container, separate recyclable plastics, metals, cardboard and paper and then anything that is left over goes into a regular trash bag. For us, this is mostly diapers. Trash is collected every night except Wednesday and Sunday. It behooves us to get our trash out every night so that it doesn't smell up the entire building (those diapers can be lethal), but this rarely happens. From here, our building hires people to open up all the sorted bags and sort the trash even further. God bless the poor soul that opens up some of our trash! I don't really know what they are taking out of it, but they're doing something. Hate to put it this way, but rather them than us. We have a hard enough time getting the trash out of our apartment. Imagine if we had to sort it more???

Let's move onto shopping. To successfully food shop here you need to come to terms with a few things. One is to detach yourself from the currency. If you are in the habit of drinking milk each day and you want to continue to do that, then you need to purchase milk regardless of the cost. Second, you need to realize that your label reading days are over. Even if you can read the label, there is often a large sticker with the nutrition and ingredients on it stuck on top of the English version. Third, at some point you will just have to be thankful to find sour cream or chicken stock even though it is not fat free or low salt. And finally, in the US you can purchase cards, gifts, food, personal items and go to the pharmacy all in one stop. Not here. Especially not expats in Taiwan. The local food store closest to me is called Wellcome. They have most of the staples that we need and if you really dig around the store you can find some fun imports. Right now they have a huge line of Gerber products that they never had before. The produce is okay, but it is usually on the verge of over-ripeness and it is pre-packaged so you can't pick and choose the best produce. The best place to go for produce is a local wet market. For meat, ice cream, oj and cheese you need to go to Costco (wayyyyy across town). For canned imports, McCormick spices, cake mixes, mayo, salad dressing, baking needs, and other kitchen staples you can go to Jason's Market and pay a ton of money or visit some local mom and pop shops where you must spend some time checking out the expiration dates on the different products. For example, they may have a whole bunch of Campbell's soup, but the Campbell soup delivery guy is not stopping by regularly to rotate the cans or remove the outdated products. Since the products are imported and all in English, I assume that the store workers can't really read the information on them anyway. I once bought Oscar Meyer bacon that expired in 2006. It was frozen so we ate it anyway and are still alive to talk about it...For lunch meat I go to a little French deli or to another small mom and pop shop called G&G's that happens to have all sorts of things...frozen pie crusts, frozen spinach, cheeses, all sorts of deli meats, actual ice cream, Triscuts-you name it! All sorts of tastes from home! I went to that store for the 1st time with another IBM expat that had never been there before. The two of us were almost excited to tears. Bread is another story...there are fewer preservatives used here so it is sold in small quantities. Often it is not sliced like sandwhich bread because I don't think the locals make many sandwhiches. It's sold in a bakery usually separate from the market even if they happen to be in the same building...there's that lack of convenience thing again! Overall, milk continues to be the hardest thing for me to buy. The brands seem to be constantly changing and the labels are not in English. This week I accidently bought a yogurt drink instead of milk. YUCK!! I usually cannot tell the whole milk from the skim unless it's this one particular brand that I've memorized the cap colors for the different types. I must spend 50% of my shopping time in the milk area just trying to figure it all out.

Wellcome has a few personal items like soap and shampoo, but for shaving cream, 1st aid supplies, razors, band aids, etc. you need to visit either a pharmacy or another type of shop that is like a pharmacy, but minus the drug distribution.

Ugh. Then there are greeting cards and gifts. This is still a mystery to me. I just don't have a clue. Every time I need a gift for someone I totally panic.

On the up side, I have found a little bakery supply shop a few feet from our apartment that sells bakery equipment (extremely helpful since I forgot a lot of mine in the US), flour in large quantities as well as odd spices and things. The shop owner is getting to know Caitlin and I pretty well! I also found a little art supply shop and a dry cleaner on our road too. I can now maneuver around the post office pretty well , found a flower shop that sells plants and a flower stand that sells cut flowers and I found a lady that sells pearls in a market. I found a couple great wine shops and and English speaking book store. If all else fails, I have the American Club and the Community Services Center to fall back on for suggestions.

Our last little link to the US is the slingbox. It's set up at Matt's parent's house. We pay them to add an additional DVR box to their existing cable and we can control the DVR from this slingbox that is connected to it. On our end, it operates through our computer. We are now able to hook up our computer to our TV here so we can even sit on the couch and watch it!! Something we haven't done in a while. It's so nice to see the news in English, favorite shows and even commercials! There is little Christianity here so there are few reminders that the holidays are approaching. I saw a commercial the other day and got a little sad...I suddenly realized that we won't be decking the halls this year. No Christmas trees or lights, no Manger. I really don't have a place to put it and I knew that so I didn't bring it (I'm going to have to find a paper one or something). I started thinking about all those years we moved half the furniture in our house just to accommodate a Christmas tree and then that got me thinking about this beautiful house we have that has plenty of room for a tree and we're not going to put one in it! Perhaps I should lay off the slingbox till this holiday craze passes.

Figuring out new stores, places to go and people to meet keeps me floating through this experience. It's like being on a wacky, very long and sometimes bizarre vacation. For anyone on their way here, pack good walking shoes and a sense of humor. They both will take you a long way!

So there's a glimpse of our regular lives. I really miss home, but I also really like living here. For me, not having conveniences available has somehow helped to put things into perspective. Can't purchase a card, then make one. Color a bag for wrapping paper. Make a cake for a friend's birthday. Two liters of milk too heavy to carry home? Take an empty baby stroller. It's hysterical how people look at you funny! Can't speak the language, do sign language! Pointing and signing work sooo well. I care a lot less about some of the things I used to and I find myself not as frustrated with those pain-in-the-ass moments in life because I'm growing used to working around things instead of just ploughing through them. As with most things in life, its all here, I just have to reach...