Anyway, July 4th weekend, ended up going to TAC (Taiwanese American Conference, East Coast) for the first time since four years ago and the second time period.
Four years ago, I remember it being in pretty shitty dorms, but pretty organized, then again I was just out of high school.
This year was in Cornell.
Cornell is fucking beautiful, the dorms are amazing, the campus rapes JHU blindfolded.
However program wise...
Long story short, the director of the ABC (After and Beyond College) program dropped out last second, so the two poor counselor helpers had to run everything.
They tried, and I did meet a whole bunch of interesting people, but like I felt we lacked options.
The focus for the ABC program was networking/career, but some of those crazy people already had jobs for like three years (one guy had his own house), so some of them just went to the adult programs.
Which of course, are completely in Taiwanese (fluency: 0).
Anyway, so us ABC's mixed with the adults and the college program (who had a more interesting focus: activism), and it wasn't too bad.
Oh right, the food was good, Cornell's like that.
But the above choice quote was from the second parent/youth discussion on family matters.
That pretty much made the entire youth side of the room rumble like a storm.
Seriously, the parents are all like, we listen blah blah, then they go home and just don't.
It was sort of funny talking to all these 21+ year old graduates who still have problems with their parents.
Oh yeah, learned some things:
90% of asians are or will be lactose intolerant.
Taiwan is only 14% bums from China. (Nationalists)
I am holo Taiwanese.
I will get carded if I try to go into a bar.
30 minutes of running will completely exhaust me.
Popa/boba/bubble tea, popa is cantonese for big waves, aka big boobs.
Hence, how the tea got its name.
If there's one thing though, the conference did sort of reinforce some of my annoyance toward people who don't recognize Taiwan or just don't care. (NOOB THIS MEANS YOU)
I felt like there is a vindication for having an independant country (who the fuck are these 14% nationalists that ran the country militarily and now want to reunite with China), and I feel annoyed that these "foreigners" as you will, somehow view us as the same or a part of them.
Oh right I learned how to say that fish my dad likes in Taiwanese.
Score one for my language learning.
5 comments:
I find it odd that you get annoyed at how these "foreigners" view Taiwan, and how you also get annoyed at me not caring precisely because I don't live there. =p
Make up your mind?
BTW, I can count the number of things I care about on one hand. You really shouldn't care about what I care about, heh.
-n00b
I don't know, I still think race matters, finding your "roots" as it were is just an extension of that.
I'm sure you don't care about Vancouver either, but I still think where you live and where your ancestors lived influences what you are now and is worth examining in detail.
You can examine all you want, but just remember that whatever ideals you hold about Taiwan are of the future of others besides you. My grandparents are unificationists (blah blah) and they babble about Taiwan every single day, even though they don't even live there any more.
People who fly back to Taiwan to cast votes are the worst of the bunch. Shut up about other people's lives, eh?
If you really want to get into the "roots" thing, well...guess where Taiwanese people originated from? Yeah, China. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing.
-n00b
I think though the people who fly back are the type of people who come to the USA for opportunities for their kids, then move back home when their kids leave the nest.
Least that's the impression I get.
Also, by your definition, everyone's African.
The most recent Chinese immigrants are only 14% of the population, the people who came over with Chiang Kai-Shek.
The rest, i.e., the aborigines, hakkas, and holos, have been there for a good long while before Chinese even touched the island.
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