Here’s what I got up to in October.
Places I Went
Hangzhou, China
Taipei and Jiufen, Taiwan
Best on the Blog
Best on Instagram
Taipei 101– Taken from Elephant Mountain in Taipei
Books I Read
Sixty Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home by Mallachy Tallack – I liked this book for the most part. It was about a guy from Shetland who traveled to every country on the 60 degree parallel on a journey to discover where his home is. At times it was a bit too cheesy for me, but it made me more interested in going north. It was also interesting to think about home was for me personally, since I’ve moved around so much in the past few years.
《佛陀说 法句经》 by 蔡志忠 – This was a really interesting read. I found this book in a bookshop in Hangzhou, and was pleasantly surprised to find anything with English in it. It’s a bilingual graphic novel version of the Sayings of Buddha. I read the English only (occasionally looking at the Chinese for interesting vocabulary), because I just wanted an English book to read. I picked it up, because I’m trying to learn more about Buddhism and Taoism in China, and this was a great start. I was particularly interested in what kinds of beliefs and practices are part of Buddhism. I definitely got that out of this book, and I also picked up some terminology. I’m really excited to learn more.
Highlights
I moved (again)! At the beginning of the month, my friend Amy and I looked at some flats and started to figure out what the process would be for getting a private flat in Hangzhou. We realized it was going to be expensive to go through an agency and we didn’t even have Chinese flatmates (living with Chinese people was the whole reason we wanted to move). After a few days of freaking out about how much work this seemed like it was going to be, Amy by chance met a Chinese woman who was looking for a flat.Within a week, we had signed a lease! We spent a week industrial-level cleaning the flat and now we’re pretty much moved in.
Going to Taiwan was also a huge highlight. It was such a nice break from my life here. I got to miss a few days of class, which was a much-needed break. I also got a break from Chinese culture. Taiwan and China are very similar, but in Taipei, I found people were much more polite (e.g. people actually say thank you and sorry), friendly, quiet (no yelling or honking). Also, they don’t block websites like Google or Facebook in Taiwan, so it was nice not to use a VPN all the time.
Inspiration
I bought an issue of National Geographic in Chinese and I really enjoyed it. I bought the issue because it was about Himalayan handicrafts, and I may or may not be planning a trip to the Himalayas soon. It was also an interesting opportunity to try to read some Chinese about a topic I’m actually interested in. The photography was obviously amazing, which was really motivating. It also gave me the travel bug. It got me excited about planning my travels for the next year.
Challenges
I moved house! While that’s really exciting, it was a huge stress factor this month. We spent a week looking at flats, meeting our flatmate, etc. We had to dedicate another few evenings and a whole weekend to cleaning and moving into the flat. It’s a huge relief now, but it was definitely the biggest challenge of the whole month.
Also, I had a lot of ups and downs this month with learning Chinese. It’s no surprise that speaking Chinese is really hard. I know I’m learning, but it sometimes feel like I’m not making much progress. This is the nature of immersion language learning, and I know in a few months, I’ll realize how much progress I’m making.
Thanks for reading! – Cat
