Everyday Habits and Cultural Insights that Changed My Perspective Abroad
Written by Kaelie PIscitello
Lesson 1: Sort Your Waste!
Taipei has strict rules in place regarding how people dispose of their recycling, garbage, and food waste, which I have become accustomed to over the last eleven months. The city collects every type of recycled material on a different day, and the sanitation workers will throw the items back at people when they place items in the incorrect location.
Every day, Fur Elise blares, signaling the garbage truck has arrived at its specified time. The entire neighborhood comes out all at once to throw away their trash together. Throwing out the trash becomes a community activity and one of the few times I see all my neighbors together during the week.
Lesson 2: Speak More Softly
People have always told me to stop screaming in restaurants when I thought I used a normal volume. I’m just loud, and I thought I could not help it. However, since coming to Taiwan, I have started using a quieter voice.
In staff meetings, people rarely raise their voices above a whisper and use a microphone to project sound. Meanwhile, I noticed when I said two words, and it often sounded louder than the whole group combined.
I have learned the subtle art of not needing to make myself louder for people to hear me, a valuable life lesson I hope to carry with me.
Lesson 3: Look Up When You Walk
My biggest pet peeve in Taipei has been people walking into me because they are so engrossed in their phones that they don’t notice their surroundings. Too many times, I sidestep someone and the person still walks into me because they will not look up from their phones.
I sometimes walked around on my phone in the beginning, too, but I soon noticed that this led to less awareness of my surroundings. In the streets of Taipei, with hundreds of scooters zooming around, I needed to stay alert.
Lesson 4: Cockroaches are NOT an Emergency
On the first day of arrival in Taiwan, the Fulbright coordinators made sure to remind the Fulbright grantees that seeing cockroaches in our apartment is NOT an emergency. I remember thinking, “How big could these guys be?” Well, it turns out they’re huge.
Truly, cockroaches are terrifying creatures. They have hairy, black bodies and many legs, and they fly when they see a person trying to hit them with a broom. The first time my roommates found one in our bathroom was a huge deal. We screamed the whole time.
That said, I’m slightly less scared of them now. I don’t jump a mile when I see them on the street anymore. They belong there. While I will never consider a cockroach my best friend, I have learned to tolerate them (kind of).
Lesson 5: Spending Time Alone is OK
Living abroad means spending time alone before finding your people, and even then, it’s a process that continues. I have become more confident this year, venturing off and finding activities to do by myself when no one else has time to join.
I had spent many a day at home writing or going off to sit and enjoy time in a park alone when all of my friends had busy schedules. Sometimes, doing stuff alone has helped me find friends as well.
For example, I once went to dinner alone and sat down at a table for beef noodle soup. A group of girls from the Philippines saw me there and invited me to join them. As a result, I made some great friends.
Lesson 6: Tea is ALWAYS a Good Idea
At the beginning of the year, I drank buckets of boba, and then in the middle, I forgot about it. I had a resurgence at the end of the first semester when I remembered, “Oh wait, I can drink high-quality tea here every day,” and I started ordering it hot during the cooler winter months.
I will miss having access to tea every day next year as it has truly become an addiction.
Lesson 7: Michelin-Quality Food Doesn’t Need High Prices
Taiwan has so many delicious Bib Gourmand (Michelin Recommended) restaurants, and I’ve tried ticking them off my bucket list as the year has gone on. I will not have time to go to all of them by the end, but they have some of the most delicious food!
I will miss having Yi Jia Zi, one of the more famous Bib Gourmand spots, up the street from my apartment next year. The Bib Gourmand spots have become a cool and tasty experience, having such high-quality food at reasonable prices in my backyard every day.
Lesson 8: Embrace Your Childhood Interests
Before I arrived, I knew Asia had a fondness for cute culture, but I didn’t realize how many grown adults participated in it. Everyone has their favorite character present on all of their belongings.
Asia has many cute items featuring fun characters on them, and I couldn’t help but embrace them. I rediscovered my love for Charlie Brown and the Peanuts (though people here mainly know Snoopy) and have bought a cute pink cat teaching bag I will continue to use when I teach elsewhere. If something looks cute, age doesn’t matter.
