My Ten Stages
Before the Fogarty Fellows departed for our assignments, we met with Bill Clabby, one of the heads of the Education Abroad Program at UCSD. We talked about "Rhinesmith's 10 Stages of Adjustment" to a new culture. The visual depiction basically resembles a sine wave, with an equal number of peaks and valleys. While I think this is supposed to reflect the entire trip, I must have gone through multiple repeats of the cycles yesterday.
The first one is termed 'initial anxiety,' which is followed by 'initial elation.' Then we have 'initial culture shock,' 'superificial adjustment,' and 'depression-frustration,' and ultimately 'acceptance of host culture.' On the return side, we have 'return anxiety,' 'return elation,' 'reentry,' and 'reintegration,' which are really not applicable quite yet.
I was scared before coming here, but I guess more anxious about making sure all the flights went as planned and I arrived in Taipei in one piece. I never bothered to think about what would happen once I actually got here, which is somewhat stupid I suppose, but it seemed like the biggest hurdle would just be getting here, not life here. Well, whoever says you can survive on only English here is a total and complete idiot. I have yet to see one other white person, and in the area I am if anyone else knows English it's mainly just, "Hello. How are you?" I'm certainly not going to be on of those American pig tourists complaining that no one speaks my language, but I'm also quite aware that life doesn't feel like making things the slightest bit easy on me. Now I've become used to not knowing what's going on.
Friday I met up with Chen and Ping (Dr. Yu's two grad students), who said that my Chinese is better than their English. Grrrreeeat. We went to the lab and I met a bunch of other lab folks, including Miss Wu (Dr. Yu's secretary) and Dr. Yu himself. Following that, I went with three other people to the Bank of Taiwan to withdraw a bunch of cash, seeing as all I had was $5 American with me (not such a good idea). One girl in the lab, Cristin, is from Canada and speaks English as well as Mandarin, so she served as my translator. After the bank we went to a giant supermarket (I guess an equivalent of a Taiwanese Wal-Mart?) and I bought some essentials.
Upon returning to campus, I learned that Dr. Yu and his wife wanted to invite me to dinner along with a bunch of other grad students. I was happy to go, although I was so extremely jetlagged and felt completely dead. All I had really wanted to do was sleep, sleep, sleep. I met Alice Yu, who spoke English extremely well because she had lived in the States for 30 years and was the chief of pediatric oncology at UCSD! Dr. Yu also spoke fluently, although he was much quieter than his wife so I had to be much more attentive to get everything he was saying. We drove through downtown Taipei and ended up at our restaurant and I was completely full after what they called "course one." It was like the typical Chinese family restaurant, with everyone seated at a round table with a lazy susy in the middle. Everyone spoke in Mandarin and I had no idea what was going on, and on top of that the super slippery chopsticks were no help. I swear it ook me 15 minutes to eat something that with a fork would take me 30 seconds. Dr. Yu occasionally translated things for me and still spoke English to me which was nice, but I wish I could actually know what was going on on my own. Oh well.
Saturday was definitely a rest day for me. I woke up late and then met up with Dr. Li (Kenny), one of Alice and John's co-researchers who had driven us to dinner. We went and bought me a cell phone card that gave me a new number, which I am using with an old cell phone he let me borrow. We then went to lunch in downtown Taipei at the equivalent of a food court in the mall. 'Twas interesting. Before meeting up with Kenny, I also took a walk around the campus, the first time since I had been here and in daylight. It is actually bigger than I originally thought, although nowhere near as huge as UCSD.
After that, I came back to my room at about 2:30 and stayed here the rest of the day. I watched a couple ER episodes and planned on doing laundry and wandering around town to grab dinner, but at about 6:30 I fell asleep with my computer on my lap. I woke up at 9:30, confused, and immediately fell back to sleep to wake up at 11:45. I figured I would postpone my plans for the day and try again Sunday.
I don't really know what I'm doing today. I didn't have any plans to meet up with anyone, so I guess I'm kind of on my own. However, I don't have a bus card, so I can't really go anywhere other than by foot. And I still don't have gym accesss. Laundry is definitely on the list, but other than that, I don't know. Seeing as I can't get around yet, I might spend the day reading about Taiwan in my room.
The first one is termed 'initial anxiety,' which is followed by 'initial elation.' Then we have 'initial culture shock,' 'superificial adjustment,' and 'depression-frustration,' and ultimately 'acceptance of host culture.' On the return side, we have 'return anxiety,' 'return elation,' 'reentry,' and 'reintegration,' which are really not applicable quite yet.
I was scared before coming here, but I guess more anxious about making sure all the flights went as planned and I arrived in Taipei in one piece. I never bothered to think about what would happen once I actually got here, which is somewhat stupid I suppose, but it seemed like the biggest hurdle would just be getting here, not life here. Well, whoever says you can survive on only English here is a total and complete idiot. I have yet to see one other white person, and in the area I am if anyone else knows English it's mainly just, "Hello. How are you?" I'm certainly not going to be on of those American pig tourists complaining that no one speaks my language, but I'm also quite aware that life doesn't feel like making things the slightest bit easy on me. Now I've become used to not knowing what's going on.
Friday I met up with Chen and Ping (Dr. Yu's two grad students), who said that my Chinese is better than their English. Grrrreeeat. We went to the lab and I met a bunch of other lab folks, including Miss Wu (Dr. Yu's secretary) and Dr. Yu himself. Following that, I went with three other people to the Bank of Taiwan to withdraw a bunch of cash, seeing as all I had was $5 American with me (not such a good idea). One girl in the lab, Cristin, is from Canada and speaks English as well as Mandarin, so she served as my translator. After the bank we went to a giant supermarket (I guess an equivalent of a Taiwanese Wal-Mart?) and I bought some essentials.
Upon returning to campus, I learned that Dr. Yu and his wife wanted to invite me to dinner along with a bunch of other grad students. I was happy to go, although I was so extremely jetlagged and felt completely dead. All I had really wanted to do was sleep, sleep, sleep. I met Alice Yu, who spoke English extremely well because she had lived in the States for 30 years and was the chief of pediatric oncology at UCSD! Dr. Yu also spoke fluently, although he was much quieter than his wife so I had to be much more attentive to get everything he was saying. We drove through downtown Taipei and ended up at our restaurant and I was completely full after what they called "course one." It was like the typical Chinese family restaurant, with everyone seated at a round table with a lazy susy in the middle. Everyone spoke in Mandarin and I had no idea what was going on, and on top of that the super slippery chopsticks were no help. I swear it ook me 15 minutes to eat something that with a fork would take me 30 seconds. Dr. Yu occasionally translated things for me and still spoke English to me which was nice, but I wish I could actually know what was going on on my own. Oh well.
Saturday was definitely a rest day for me. I woke up late and then met up with Dr. Li (Kenny), one of Alice and John's co-researchers who had driven us to dinner. We went and bought me a cell phone card that gave me a new number, which I am using with an old cell phone he let me borrow. We then went to lunch in downtown Taipei at the equivalent of a food court in the mall. 'Twas interesting. Before meeting up with Kenny, I also took a walk around the campus, the first time since I had been here and in daylight. It is actually bigger than I originally thought, although nowhere near as huge as UCSD.
After that, I came back to my room at about 2:30 and stayed here the rest of the day. I watched a couple ER episodes and planned on doing laundry and wandering around town to grab dinner, but at about 6:30 I fell asleep with my computer on my lap. I woke up at 9:30, confused, and immediately fell back to sleep to wake up at 11:45. I figured I would postpone my plans for the day and try again Sunday.
I don't really know what I'm doing today. I didn't have any plans to meet up with anyone, so I guess I'm kind of on my own. However, I don't have a bus card, so I can't really go anywhere other than by foot. And I still don't have gym accesss. Laundry is definitely on the list, but other than that, I don't know. Seeing as I can't get around yet, I might spend the day reading about Taiwan in my room.
posted by Shannon @ 6:10 AM
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