The flight brought all the people from Canada together. I met quite a few people. In particular, the person who sat beside me was Eddie. He’s a big guy who likes to play pick-up b'ball. What surprised me was that he wore earrings in BOTH ears. I don’t get it, but he was very polite. We ended up playing cards the last couple of hours with Jade and Marilyn (sorry, no last names), Catholic girls with whom we played "Bloody Knuckles". I also ran into Raymond, the pre-med dude who’s headed to Dalhousie (in Halifax, NS). In fact, he’s in the room next to me in Chien Tan.
Which leads to the next tidbit... My mother’s cousin picked us up from the airport. This "auntie" lives in Houston but is fortunately staying in Taipei to bring her parents back to the States. Her husband was kind enough to drive me to the camp before going to my great-uncle’s apartment. Anyway, I dropped off a couple of bags at Chien Tan and took off. I was pissed by the fact that I was sharing the room with 5 others guys.
We got to my great-uncle’s apartment
at 10:0pm. I slept in his painting room. The temp in there wasn'’t so bad,
so as long as there was a fan (approx. 30 Celsius).
The afternoon had me sleeping once again.
I crashed and burned. Ma talked to the elders. That night auntie once again
brought great take-out. I had the "bah-koot tung" and another soup with
pork and bamboo.
After lunch, my mom’s cousin, who is my great-uncle’s eldest son, took us to visit my grandfather’s grave. I’ never visited the place before, and only he and another one of my mom’s cousins knows its whereabouts. Pat and I got to take photos and video footage, respectively. It was one hell of a time getting there and back. Pat crashed and burned on the car ride back-- apparently he was not used to the time difference yet. That "cousin" and her daughter took me back to Chien Tan. Their VW had something wrong with the radiator-- had to intermittently switch the A/C on and off.
When I walked into my "room" for the next couple of weeks, the first roommate I met was Wil, a guy from the NYC-Long Island area. Then I met Henry, the Georgia guy. We talked to each other for about 10 minutes before these two immature girls came barging into our room. One of these girls was named Jackie, some loud mouth 18 year old from New York; the other made no real impression on me so I don’t remember her name.
Before I continue, let me tell you a little something that you’'llneed to know first. Wil works construction in New York, he’s outside quite a bit and he’s quite tanned. Keeping this in mind, here’s the story-- So after the girls introduce themselves Jackie points out to Wil, "...you’re dark like one of those damn Taiwanese!"
Excuse me, did I miss something here?! I don’t know about what is PC (politically correct) all the time but something tells me that what she said wasn'’t called for. Let’s say we were very glad to see the girls leave. (Aside: I’m so glad I never saw her again for the remainder of the trip.)
Keli'’i was the third roommate to be introduced; he is from Hawaii. I had a striking first impression of him: he didn'’t look very Chinese and he was much larger than the average Asian build. The smoking bit didn'’t help the situation any better. I hate smoke! (I just needed a little time to realize how great of a guy he was.)
After the third introduction, we were
shipped off to orientation, the first planned activity. The first assembly
consisted of reading the rules and regulations of the trip. It was an absolute
waste of time but I spared myself a couple of demerit points by attending.
Yes, that is correct, demerit points. Missing scheduled activities gets
you demerit points, speaking of which...
The last two roommates for me to meet
were Warren and Del. Warren was late for orientation so he got 1/3 demerit.
By the way, he’s from Dallas but there was no accent when he spoke-- I
guess those years at Cornell removed it. (By the way, Del didn'’t make
it until the next morning.)
(l to r)Jimmy, myself, and Dave posing
in front of the Grand Hotel.
That night, a group of us went bowling. To people who do not know me very well, let’s say that bowling is not one of my favourite activities. Bowling was made tolerable because Wil and I drank a couple of beers (Heineken, the good stuff) while bowling. I scored a 77 with a buzz, not bad with a lightweight 11 pound ball. (The heaviest one they had was 13 pounds, strange eh?) Bowling also introduced me to more people. Joyce, an EE major at Illinois, comes to mind.
We afterwards went to visit the Night Market which was only a short walking distance away. Lots of goods to buy, but nothing really that great. (Warren did manage to purchase mangoes and lychees.) It was me essentially talking to Joyce small-talking. We all made it back for bed check. The first night, we all stayed in and slept-- no sneaking out.