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[miauw62]

Remember that girl who I mentioned here before, who I said I liked?

I encountered her today during the time period between the end of lunch and the next class. Neither one of us said anything, but I caught a glimpse of her drawing something on her iPad. (Our school issues one to every student)

I used to draw, and I know it's embarrassing to have people watch, but I snuck a peek anyway because I'm an asshole. From the looks of it, she was drawing animoos. Extremely high quality animoo.

I used to be obsessed with drawing dragons. I was self taught, and not half bad, if I do say so myself, but nowhere near this good. Before, I was just kinda like "Ooh look, a cute girl who seems quiet and reserved like me, how nifty" but this is the straw that will break the IronCamel's back. Have to say something. Must say something.

... Are these the hormones that Objective was talking about?

Yes. Yes they are. The little bastards.

I feel them too.

[IronTomato]

I seem to have not understood the meaning of this thread now that I've been not here for over a year now...
>.>

Happiness venting / brainbleach disposal plant.

[TolyK]

Might be coming here more often soon.
But I'm generally happy, so I dunno...

[RedKing]

That sounds spot-on for China (and by extension, Taiwan). There's a strong element of "there I fixed it" over there -- not that things are fixed, but that they have the appearance of being fixed.

I get the impression, though Taiwan is not quite like your descriptions of the PRC. Road chaos is a thing and I've nearly gotten clipped a lot, but there's an attempt, at least in theory, to follow the rules. People will break it if it seems more efficient, but otherwise it's not that kind of madness. The crosswalks are actually functional and usable, for example. Nobody wears seatbelts, though. Also, the red lights have countdown timers, which is a great idea.

It seems like practically nothing is illegal here. The drinking age being 18 instead of 21 would be the obvious thing, but there's also the fact that you can drink alcohol in the streets without issue. Alcohol isn't always exactly marked, either. Hard apple cider and soft apple cider are sold side-by-side, and the only indication that hard is hard is that it's marked as "original". A less obvious thing I noted is that 800 mg ibuprofen tablets are OTC here, and as I recall that dosage is prescription in the US. Haven't observed much else. Further, there isn't a lot of emphasis on saving stupid people from themselves, you have to keep your savvy for obviously bad ideas open in a way that the US doesn't really demand. When I first arrived, I was told by an American who was here long term that there was, quote "no cops and no crime". I was obviously skeptical of this at first, but so far its been turning out to be true, at least with crime relating to crimes that have victims. According to him, a lot of people are superstitious of stealing because of a story about a woman who died without marrying, resulting in her father leaving out valuables as bait and forcing the marriage of the thief to his dead daughter.

Food wise, I've found a few interesting things. Sugar being standard instead of corn syrup is a godsend. I'm drinking almost nothing but Coke because I can get sugar in all of it now. The exception is milk tea, which is so good I'm shocked it isn't a thing in America. It pleases my Southern taste buds perfectly. I've also had an egg and ham sandwich with peanut butter on it, yet another good idea.

I could get used to the society here. I know exactly two Mandarin phrases: Ni Hao and Xie Xie. This has been more than sufficient for all of my interactions with Taiwanese people, the gaps in understanding being filled by complicated body language. Pretty much everybody here is really friendly, at least to Americans. Chain workers still have that glazed-over dead-inside feeling about them, but hole-in-the-wall shops have gone out of their way to figure out what the strange giant white man wants from them. On that note, I'm taller than at least 95% of people here, probably more. We've only spent a day in Taipei, and foreigners don't often go elsewhere, so we get a lot of stares. Some of these people have definitely never seen white people in person before.

Patriotism doesn't show up often here, but when it's there it's pretty strong. The changing of the guard at the Martyr's Shrine has probably been the most powerful example. I've never seen an honor guard go through such complicated motions before. There are actually rust stains from the iron soles of the guard on the path they traverse because of how many times they've done it.

Also, for some reason, American and British flag patterns are really popular on clothing for younger people. At least I think they're younger. Everybody here looks fairly young unless they're old. Everybody between the elderly and college students looks the same age, the college students look like high schoolers, the high schoolers look like middle schoolers, and everybody between middle school and infancy looks the same age too.

Milk tea is the bomb. As is flavored milk. I got damn near addicted to Wahaha's Coffee Milk for breakfast. And yes, it is a little weird to feel like an alien giant (and be reacted to as one). Though one of my colleagues had it even worse -- she was 6'4" and a redhead. Random people would just walk over and get their picture taken with her, so that their friends would believe they had seen this laowai Amazon woman with fire hair. xD

[Helgoland]

It seems like practically nothing is illegal here. The drinking age being 18 instead of 21 would be the obvious thing, but there's also the fact that you can drink alcohol in the streets without issue. Alcohol isn't always exactly marked, either. Hard apple cider and soft apple cider are sold side-by-side, and the only indication that hard is hard is that it's marked as "original". A less obvious thing I noted is that 800 mg ibuprofen tablets are OTC here, and as I recall that dosage is prescription in the US. Haven't observed much else. Further, there isn't a lot of emphasis on saving stupid people from themselves, you have to keep your savvy for obviously bad ideas open in a way that the US doesn't really demand. When I first arrived, I was told by an American who was here long term that there was, quote "no cops and no crime". I was obviously skeptical of this at first, but so far its been turning out to be true, at least with crime relating to crimes that have victims.

I love living in Lawless Europe.
Also tea with lemon FTW - fuck putting milk in there. That's for tea that's either of low quality of has steeped for too long.

[Darvi]

Finally somebody who speaks sense. I mean, diluted milk? Yuck.

[Sirus]

Gimme black tea, with nothing in it. The MANLY way to drink tea for MANLY men.

* Sirus goes back to watching his cartoons

[majikero]

Clearly the answer is to brew the tea in milk.

[Helgoland]

Cocoa, man.

[Bauglir]

Why would you dilute the milk, Darvi? That's madness. Just brew the tea right in there.

NINJA!

[TamerVirus]

Dirty 老外 talking shit about bubble milk tea? I WILL FIGHT YOU

[Pnx]

You guys are confused.

It's not actually about the milk, "Milk Tea", "Pearl Milk Tea", or "Bubble Tea" refers to a beverage made from a mixture of milk, fruit, tea, and tapioca balls.

I've never tried it and I got that information from wikipedia, but there's a difference between it and just tea with milk in it.

[Trapezohedron]

Yep. They usually come with milk, some form of sweetener (lychee, etc.), tapioca balls, some fruit chunks with associated secondary flavoring, and green tea or whatever Asian tea brew is available.

[TD1]

I like tea with milk, no sugar. Because my chemistry teacher made tea with sugar, and I swear, when you were done there was still a mountain of sugar in the bottom.

*Shudder*

[Yoink]

Alright. Here we go on another day.

...

I had to drive twenty miles last night to make sure someone wasn't dead. FFS, my life was simple and easy until three weeks ago.

No time to dwell, I got vegetables to stock and women to woo. Off to work.

Just don't get the two confused in the heat of the moment, Hans.