It's been about a month since I left Taiwan- most of that time has been in Arizona but there was a week long stopover in Tokyo too.
Since then business school has (obviously) absorbed a lot of my free time. That being said I've spared a good amount of thought for thinking about Taiwan and me, the future of this blog, and whether or not I want to go back to Taiwan or the Chinese world in general*- and of course I have yet to come up with any definitive ideas.
There are a few things that I miss dearly- the food, some people, speaking Chinese every day, my scooter, but what I miss most was the ease of travel and the number of places to go. In Taiwan amazing scenery and hikes were only a couple hours away and the public transportation system was great.
Here in Glendale we are in the middle of a desert valley where the strip malls outnumber the clouds. The most interesting place in the city might actually be the Thunderbird Campus. There's not a lot to do within walking or biking distance. It's difficult to not feel stranded in my own temporary home. At least there's a pool.
I did underestimate the number of things I'd become frustrated with in Taiwan. After a week back in the United States I realized that I'd developed a very thick shell in how I dealt with some parts of my daily life. It isn't always pleasant being obviously different in a culture which discourages differences. Many of my friends in Taiwan (local or otherwise) focus on the all the benefits that western looking people receive in East Asia- and there are many benefits, but there were days when I would have traded those benefits for anonymity, for everyone to treat me like I wasn't special. I suppose I could've just moved to Taipei.
That's what I've got here. Anonymity; the state of being in which I could walk into any store or restaurant and have nobody make a fuss over me or argue about who should try to talk to the foreigner. Having spent so much of my life entertaining people (theoretically) I'm surprised at how much I was lusting after just being a face in the crowd.
I'm still unraveling everything I think about the last few years but the experience of being a very visible minority in a somewhat homogeneous population was invaluable and I think we'd be a better country if everyone could have that experience. You don't gain a lot of insights on how to treat "the other" when you've always been in the majority.
As for the blog- I'm not in the ROC anymore so it's raison d'être seems kind of spent. It's still my home on the web though and I'll try to keep updating my six to ten faithful readers about politics in East Asia and anything else that I truly think is blog worthy.
*I'm predicting that I'll have to return to somewhere in the Sinosphere within five years despite being down on it at the moment.
