Nearly accepted

One thing that has been a big change in my life since coming here, besides the new cultural and linguistic immersion, is the increased precedence of my role as uncle. This is due, naturally, to the greater degree of proximity to my two neices and two nephews (ranging from 7 to 2 years old). As they are very cute and energetic and I'm proud to be related to them, I'll warn you now that they are likely to be a consistent theme through the course of these pages. I've been thinking of introducing them and the family as I go along, and since I have a recent story to tell about the youngest, I might as well start with her.

Being the youngest, everyone calls her MeiMei [妹妹] (sounds like 'may-may') which means 'little sister', though her real nickname is 'TangTang' (tahng-tahng) as she was born on the same day a typhoon hit the island. That typhoon was code-named 'HaiTang' [海棠], thus, 'TangTang' [棠棠]. Her real name is something else, which I can't even remember at the moment. I'll refer to her most often as MeiMei, for your information.

If you can't tell, she's quite adorable. Though like many kids her age (2), she suffers a strong case of separation anxiety when her mother has to be away, even for a minute or two. Ergo, she has constructed a tight circle of trusted confidants around her, among which (as I've observed) only her mother and grandmother and father and grandfather are members, as well as her 4-yr old brother (whom she generally idolizes). There is, further, a strict hierarchy even in this short list of select few. For instance, if her mother has to run errands to which MeiMei may not attend, only her grandmother may suitably fill the central role of comforter and pacifier. A long bout of fury and wailing is required, of course, before the accompanying feelings of loss and abandonment are fully appeased and the necessary shift of alignments may occur. Also, only the above few may pick her up, or do anything that would otherwise attend to her personal needs. Even then, it is only conducted either at her capricious whim or unarguable necessity. Her entertainment, however, is an important exception. This may be accomplished by anyone who attempts to suit her fancy, and she graciously bestows her utterly charming smile on all who succeed (which, thankfully, is pretty often).

I, having been present only a short period of her life, am obviously not among her closest trustees, though I have been working to gain a small amount of her affections through my attempts at entertainment. At dinner one night, I came surprisingly close to success. We were nearly finished eating, and I could see that MeiMei, sitting by her mother at the opposite side of the table, was getting bored. In apparent attempts to appease herself, she kept raising her hand and bringing it down quickly on top of the tray of her high chair. I devised a game where every time Meimei lifted her arm, I would corrsepondingly raise my head. She quickly caught on that the lifting of my head seemed to be under her control, like a puppet on a string. She found this highly amusing, naturally. She even succeeded in tricking me a couple of times by only pretending to lower her hand, but in fact raising it quickly instead, thus causing me to lower my head in contradiction to her completed action. This game was so successful that, to my profound astonishment, she asked her mother to move her high chair next to my seat at the table. Wow, I thought, I'm among the elite! -- even YT or Karrie would have difficulty making such a claim.

Dutifully, Caro got up and moved MeiMei in her highchair to accompany me. My elation, however, was short-lived, crushed as it was by MeiMei's immediate and vociferous wailing in objection to her mother's move back toward the other side of the table. MeiMei was quickly returned in her high chair to her original location, and it was obvious that I was no trusted confidant.

Despite the harsh rejection, I realize now that the role of entertainer is perhaps the best and most suitable anyway. Lots of rewarding smiles, but none of the dirty diapers. Cheers to Uncle-hood!
BB

NOTE: For the purposes of full disclosure, these photos were actually taken last year, when MeiMei was 1yr old, by someone other than myself. I think YT, or one of her sisters, took the photos. So, they don't reflect MeiMei's current age or, unfortunately, my own skills in photography. They do, however, reflect MeiMei herself, and she's still just as adorable.

Watching Flowers Bloom

Chalk up a new thing on my list of experiences I never thought I would have. Okay, don't expect a rush of adrenaline (it wasn't all that exciting), but last night the whole family (YT's sisters Caro & Karrie and their respective husbands and children) came over for a special event. It wasn't just for the sake of coming over (as they often do). This time, the event was the blooming of a special flower that supposedly opens only once a year. It's called 'tan hua' [曇花], and it only opens at night. Dad was really excited the whole evening. The bloom hangs down from the plant like a meat hook, and looks sort of like a wadded-up ball of socks. Then, it opens gradually into a huge white flower with spindles floating off of the sides. It fully bloomed around 930pm, at which point we went outside to accompany Dad on the deck to admire the flowers.

Then guess what we had in our soup at dinner tonight? Yep, tan hua, at least the ones that had bloomed already. Later in the evening tonight, Dad saw that more flowers had bloomed, which was surprising since they had already come out in the spring. Dad said it was because YT was back and they were celebrating : ) Other family came this evening (YT's aunt & uncle, Aunt Meinu, and a cousin and her child) and the process was repeated. More sitting around and chatting, and eating lots of fruit.

At any rate, in the US, I've never had the chance to sit around with family watching flowers that only bloom once a year, and then have it for dinner the next night. It seemed like a special thing. We'll see if the flowers are in the soup tomorrow night.
BB

Real Life Begins

So, Mom and Dad have left now, so it's just me and YT and the in-laws. I'm really glad that Mom and Dad were able to be here to get to know YT's family, background, and culture much better. Mom did say that she felt she 'understood' where YT comes from now and why she is the way she is (sort of). It's really nice to have good parents. It was also fun to get the 'newcomers' tour beyond the areas I've already been, and my new family were wonderful hosts. All in all it was a very good time.

I felt it was also really helpful for me to have more of a smooth introduction into long-term stay here. Though I've been in Taiwan several times before, it's always good to get a 'fresh' perspective, and M&D asked questions I would not have, and were interested in things I just sort of took for granted. It was also very good to be able to use English at such a level. They did very well interacting with the family despite the language differences, and talked even when they weren't sure whether the others would understand or not. Of course there were people to translate when necessary, but I was impressed with how much they took things into their own hands when they could. I know enough Chinese to feel self-conscious about saying things wrong, which sometimes keeps me from speaking at all (I know, I know, this is a common L2 learning impediment to overcome), so they provided a good model of communication.

Now 'real life' here has begun, and will get into full swing next month with classes and interviews. I have orientation at my school next friday, then classes start on the 3rd. I love studying Chinese (formally) when I have the chance, so I'm really looking forward to it. I've never had this extent of immersion in my Chinese learning experience, so I'm hoping improvement will proceed quickly. As I mentioned, it's frustrating not being able to speak as fluently as I'd like. This can be especially problematic when kids are involved, and I'm in a position where I have to set boundaries. But, more on this later. I hope things are going well, and peace to ya'll.
BB

First day in Taipei

We finally arrived in Taipei around 430am local time, a little earlier than expected, even. I realized that a short 24 hours ago we were on the plane to San Francisco. Despite the earliness, my brother-in-law (Dang Liang) and sister-in-law (Karrie) were there to pick us up. YT's neice (WenWen) came along, too, and was so excited the night before that she couldn't sleep very well. I must say, it feels great to have family here...

Note: This post has been mostly deleted for editorial purposes. I got behind in detailing each aspect of the touristy things we did in the first couple of weeks, and it would be too tedious to try to make up the lost time. I also think it's not really the focus of these pages. I did do sort of a photo blog with the pics I posted, which covers most of what had been in this post, plus a whole lot more. Feel free to check it out when/if you have time.
BB

The joys of travel

Hey, hey, glad to see you're back. Day one of the first leg of this journey, and so far we've just become more intimately acquainted with the airports of Detroit (DTW) and San Francisco (SFO). As we were feet from boarding the plane in Detroit, we heard a technician saying something about a "hydraulics leak". To make a long story short, we were supposed to have but a 5 hour flight to San Francisco followed by a 4 hour layover, then a 12 hour flight to Taipei. Now, thanks to the 4 hour delay in Detroit to fix the plane, we are now also enjoying an extra 7 hour layover in SFO since we (just barely) missed our connecting flight to Taipei. Our new flight now leaves at 130am, SFO time, which by my watch is about 430am Pittsburgh time. The joys of airline travel, they are never ending.

Our First Post

Hi, welcome to our first post! Please watch this space for the great adventures and harrowing tales of navigating cross-cultural marriage, PhD dissertations and fieldwork, and cat ownership.
We hope you enjoy this distilled representation of our lives as they unfold, and please feel free to comment or otherwise drop us a line. We may not be home, but if you leave your name and number we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you very much!
With love,
BB&YT

台灣~~我們來囉!

過去這兩個星期
我們在在一連串的final work,打包,飯局,處理雜事和補請相關事宜
以及和新室友May和家裡借住的新生Karen的陪伴下