Final Taiwanese thoughts

1. Learn Mandarin. This language ain't no joke.
2. Come back and be able to speak it (reading can wait).

It is amazing how different something can be.

I have been to many large cities in various parts of the world. Nothing prepared me for Taichung. Nothing even came close.

The family was super sweet, cool, and intense.
The experience was like nothing I have ever had before.

The Mandarin they speak in Singapore is different than the Mandarin they speak in Taiwan. Subtly different but still different.

I think in Chinese culture, more things go unsaid than said. I am still working over a few of the exchanges I had with Kin Sun. She always speaks many many things at once.

There are ways to do everything. There are cultural cues in many things. Unraveling enough details to feel like you are understanding more than a very small amount could take a lifetime.

My first real taste of Chinese, and I am now 1000 times more curious than I was before.

Its like you put on a lens, or there is a data transformation system between you and a familiar, but complex set of images. You see vague shapes that move in familiar ways but nothing is concrete, and when you expect something there it is not. There is a city, and people, but they really are very different. I don't know how to describe how completely different things can be.

Amazingly, delightfully different. That is how different things can be.

Chris