Not quite sure yet...

I wanted to make a lot of posts before this one... but c'est la vie.

I've been in Taiwan now for about two and a half weeks. God is that it? Feeling like an eternity.

The flight was horrific. Absolutely horrific, and to be honest I'm not sure I've been able to move past the unsettled feeling that overwhelmed me at about hour twenty of the whole flight ordeal. The leg from San Francisco to Taipei was about fourteen hours on its own. So at about hour twelve of that flight I really really really really really wanted this whole adventure to be forgotten. You can't sit in a cramped space like that for so long and not second guess your ambition. You can't stare at a white wall-- a white wall that wasn't supposed to be there because you thought you had an exit seat that would provided sufficient leg room-- and not begin to doubt that what you are doing is probably a mistake.

I am an idiot.

I am.

Life here isn't that bad... and I have a job that apparently I couldn't lose if I tried. In the words of my South African friend Johan, "you could come in drunk and whip your dick out on a table and they still wouldn't fire you." I am an American, I am essentially at the top of the pole. Just having me around raises company reputation and profits.

But I am naive. I couldn't see this for what it is until I got here. I don't like what I do. I don't like what I am here. I thought this would be fun... but it isn't. I don't want to be a shiny American.

Ugh. What is required to explain this may be beyond me. But maybe it isn't so bad. Maybe my problem is that I just miss being home. I miss being where things make some kind of sense. That doesn't sound like me does it? Doesn't sound like the me I thought I was. This is not easy to deal with. I am essentially deaf and dumb here. I could go all day outside of work and no one would understand a single word I said, and nor would I understand anything they said. I have to mime to get food. I have to mime actions to find a pillow. Everything is difficult. I can't figure out how to get rid of my trash.

I feel like a wimp. A complete pussy. I know my frustration in this situation comes from my lack of desire to adapt. I am not embracing what life is over here... instead I am just comparing it to what I left behind. BUT, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, is it?

Is it just that I don't know Chinese?
Am I being xenophobic, ethnocentric?
Should I just relax?

I don't like what it means for me to grow comfortable living in Taiwan. It means, for me, that I let go of my life in the States. I have to just Live in Taiwan. I don't work well when torn between two worlds. It's one or the other. All day I have things in my head about being back home... things that I need to just forget about to survive here. I thought I would be ok with that. In fact, that is part of why I wanted to leave. I wanted to let go of everything, all of my baggage, the good and the bad. I wanted a chance to start new. Why?

This lingering question that is pounding in my head all fucking day long: why?

I arrived at my branch location at 11am thursday morning (5/29/08). I had to get up at 6am to make the train. There was a moment when I was in a cab in Taipei alone and heading to the train station to meet up with someone else heading to the same location as me-- our Chinese translator was in his cab. I arrived at the train station first. I walked in alone hauling my two giant suitcases, my book-laden backpack, and my over filled laptop bag. I stood in the train station alone amidst a sea of people, all of who's attention was on me. I just stood there. Stood there feeling entirely and completely fucked. Tired in every way possible and knowing that I was completely incapable of sorting out what I needed to do on my own. Luckily I saw my companion to Ilan and the Chinese lady... but there was that very real and open moment when my lack of desire to fight to make this work became very apparent.

I don't mind a battle in life. I don't mind trying to find a job, or trying to pay bills, or trying to stay happy when things aren't quite going my way. But it's different for me here. This just saps the life out of me. Saps the will to go on from me. Because EVERYTHING is a battle. Life is hard enough as it is, why did I go and do such a fool thing as exacerbate my entire living condition?

Immediately upon arriving in Ilan (this is where I am teaching, the northeastern coast of Taiwan) I had to start apartment hunting. Tired from everything I've gone through, I pile into a car that is built for humans half my size and ride around to places that are more than alien. Eventually, I settle on one and have to go to the realtor's office to sign a contract. I sit at a table and six people start screaming chinese around me. Everyone yells. They just yell. And then they laugh. It would be awesome to watch from an uninvolved standpoint, but when you are in the midst of it all, it is scary. A red ink pad comes out, my thumb is lunged into it. I put my thumb print on multiple pages. Things are screamed. More thumb prints. Smiles, screams, thumb prints. No one asks me anything; they just point and motion for me to stamp my thumb. No clue what is going on. I don't want to sign a year lease. I don't want to promise anything. But I want a place to sleep. I want a place to lie down... and I want it to be in a place where no one will trouble me. I know this will be the end result; so I go with it.

I get my place. They take me there. I unload my shit. I have no sheets. No blanket. No pillow.

Luckily I meet up with a fellow teacher who understands that I just want to sit and cry somewhere (which eventually I get to do). He takes me to a store and I spend more money than I care to on bed stuffs. We walk probably over four miles between stores trying to round everything up. I get it all, I return home, sit down, and let the wave of emotion overtake me in full.

I think I hate being here. I think I am ok with hating being here.

It doesn't stop. I don't stop. I can't stop criticising everything that is happening around me. Why am I doing this? I miss people. I miss you Trish. I miss friends and family... I miss them in a way that reminds me of how uninvolved I've been with people around me for the past few years. I left while I was all out of sorts. I left without ever giving being where I was a real chance.

Maybe that is it. That is what is haunting me. I ran away. I ran away and brought everything with me, and I don't want to let go. I did this on purpose. The whole point was to put myself somewhere, to put myself in a place where holding on wasn't an option. I thought that living on a different side of the world would force me to just let go and move on and grow as a person in a different place. Stupid. I didn't need to be here to do that.

THAT is naive. Holding on is ALWAYS an option.

It's a simple equation: (Taiwan) - (desire to adapt to living in Taiwan) = Living in Taiwan sucks

Fuck. Do you see this? I know the problem. I really do. I just need to accept living here. That's it. Then I begin to appreciate it. I begin to deal and to cope and to change. This is what I set myself up for. But, I don't want to.

Why?