On Campus

I will share some photos with you to try to describe things over here, although I can never
really take enough photos to show everything, I will keep updating the blog so you can see
more over time.

Although Taiwan has many beautiful aspects, the cities are a sort of urban hellscape of traffic, pollution, crowding, and ugly buildings. Luckily I went back to the U.S. and got my Master's degree so I could teach at a University, which is much nicer. A bucolic haven actually.

This is the building I work in. It has a Chinese name, but luckily we can just refer to it as Building N.







A pleasant tree lined avenue on campus.






Here is a nice little garden with a koi pond and a statue of some dude.



The campus library. I have a library card, and they have a decent English section. Not much in the way of fiction, mostly classics, but still it's free. Some of my classes are there. They have classrooms that look like something from Star Trek with leather chairs and pull down TV's. I'll have to get a photo.




Campus recycling. Recycling is taken very seriously in Taiwan.
Campus volleyball court.

A girl walks by the volleyball court holding an umbrella for the sun. Taiwanese girls do this because of the old tradition that darker skin means you are a peasant, so they associate lighter skin with prosperity. Taiwanese women take many measures to keep their skin lighter, from umbrellas, to wearing jackets while riding on a scooter even though it is 100 degrees, and also skin whitening cream. (I will have to get more photos)


My office. It just got set up, so we need to put something on the walls. In another strange case of misunderstanding, I asked for a phone for my office. They had just installed 6 brand new computers, chairs, desks, printers, etc. so I figured a phone would be OK. Well they thought I was being difficult and that this was unnecessary. anyway, now we have sorted it out and it is a nice office. There are six places but only three teachers. The other two teachers are Americans (again I'll get more photos).




The view from the fifth floor. Because it is warm year round, many buildings in Taiwan are open air. So there are open air wlak ways around the building and a nice inner courtyard.


However, also becuase of the open-air effect, the building cannot be locked down so each
room has its own locked gate and barred windows. This is common in Taiwan.

Object d'art on campus.
A pleasant spot for a picnic on campus.




Our University is sponsored by Starbucks and 7-11. Apparently this means we are wll endowed.


A sign on the elevator in my building. Taiwan is stronlgly influenced by Confucianism, which tends to be heavily involved in your everyday affairs. This type of advice and heavy-handed paternalism is normal here. This kind of thing tends to piss Americans off (even if the advice is good as it is here) because we are used to being treated as adults. One time I was playing Black-Jack in Vegas and there was a Chinese lady at the table. She kept telling everybody when to bet and when to pass, and so on until everybody get sick of her and told her to shut up and mind her own business. By her Chinese way of thinking she was just being helpful and trying to help the other players win. By to Americans this type of advice is seen as interference and very annoying. If given a chance Chinese/Taiwanese people will try to give you advice about every aspect of your life. My girlfriend was taking out the trash and the neighbors were snooping and told her how she could better sort her recycling. So she said if you are so interested in my trash why don't you sort it yourself? That shut them up. Luckily for me, my University has taken a very hands off approach, very different than when I was here before and had an agent controlling my life.