I’m off to the Cook Islands! The toughest thing about packing for this trip is that 8 hours after I return home, I fly out to Western China, so I’ve had to pack 2 cases of luggage. I know, you hate me. Luckily, I have some a good friend who’s willing to meet me at the airport to swap out luggage.

I’ve uploaded this handy map that shows where the Cook Islands are. They’re a self-governing democracy in free association with New Zealand. Translation: They take NZ Dollars (1 USD = 1 NZD). I’ll be spending a week in Rarotonga, an island with the population of ~15,000 and a circumference of 20 miles(!) or 26 square miles. That’s 5 square miles smaller than the town I grew up in! From what I read on Lonely Planet, the Cook Islands seem to be an affordable man’s French Polynesia. One of my favorite lines from their write up, “Make the most of it while you can – paradise is a pretty tough place to find.”

Total flight time to the Cook Islands: 9 h 45 min from LA. (+1 for the flight from SF to LA).

Time to dust off my dive card, swimmies and sunnies – remote desert island, here I come!

Scene: Easy Shop near Shipai station on Thursday.
Background: Allison is Caucasian, Grace and I are Asian.

The following conversation unfolds, in Mandarin, with the sales lady while Allison is trying stuff on in the dressing room.

Saleslady: Where are you guys from?
Me: The U.S.
Saleslady: Were you born there?
Grace: Yes, we grew up there.
Saleslady: Oh, but you’re both Taiwanese, right?
Grace: Yes.
Me: Yes, well, my mom’s Taiwanese.
Saleslady: And your friend?
Me: She’s from California
Saleslady: Oh, so she’s a real American (真的美國人), right?
[Grace and I exchange knowing glances]
Me (not attempting to correct her that we’re real Americans too): Yes.

This is a pretty common experience for me while traveling abroad. No one sees me as a “real” American because I’m Asian. When I traveled to India, my friend’s family whom we were staying with, kept asking where I was “from”. People in Spain tried to tell me I wasn’t really American (then they tried to tell me how the electoral college system worked in the States), and an Immigrations Officer in Fez adamantly asked 4 or 5 times what my nationality was. In the last scene, it wasn’t until my friend Lisa insisted for the 5th time, in French, that I was American, that the officer let me go.

So there you have it, another encounter loaded with underlying, sometimes unconscious biases based on race and geography. Come to think of it this isn’t really limited to when I travel abroad. There are Asian American friends who are floored to find out how “Asian” I am when they learn that I cook a lot of native Chinese dishes and shop at 99 Ranch. Other American friends have asked me to put a percentage on how Chinese and how American I am – as if it’s a sliding scale with an underlying assumption that being more of one thing implies being less of the other.

Overall, it’s generally pretty amusing, occasionally annoying but always thought provoking. It reminds me how deeply rooted our assumptions of nationality and race can be. It reminds me to remain aware of my own.

Today’s language lesson…
Phrase: Real American
In Chinese: 真的美國人
Pronunciation: zhen de mei guo ren

During a day of convalescing in front of the TV, I discovered that a lot of commercials and shows in Taiwan speak in what I’ve coined ‘Chi-Wanese’ – a mix of Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese. They switch back and forth between dialects, which was initially discombobulating but now, I’ve accepted that I might not understand the whole sentence anyway (not that my Mandarin alone is good enough to understand a full sentence).

In case you’re unfamiliar with Chinese as a language, this is how it works. All spoken forms & dialects (Mandarin, Taiwanese, Cantonese, etc.) use the exact same character set. It’s all written the same, just pronounced very differently. That’s why if you watch TV in Chinese, there are still subtitles, in case you can’t understand the language they’re using.

How different are pronunciations between dialects? Pretty different, here’s an example:

English: I am full. (Translation: don’t push anymore food on me, please.)
Written Chinese: 吃飽
Mandarin: chi bao
Taiwanese: ja baa
Cantonese: sic bo

That’s your language lesson of the day!

Other tip of the day which we learned while out at lunch. If you order beef noodle soup, check your broth for a shard of a ceramic bowl. That’s what Grace found today at the bottom of her noodles. She didn’t have to pay for her meal and got a free dumpling out of it too. So it wasn’t a total loss.

Back to my Chiwanese shows…

One line summary: If you’re going to get sick while traveling abroad, Taiwan is the place to be.

The day started like most days except that it’d been about 36 hours since I started feeling intermittent abdominal pain. Sometimes it would happen while walking, other times while eating, and yet others if I slept on a certain side. I couldn’t quite tell if it was stress or food-induced. I had been eating a full meal every few hours since arrival. That’s the cost of spending Chinese New Year with a friend’s family in Taipei. Feasting with elder Chinese people is reminiscent of going out to eat with my friend Anil.

Anil: Lou, want some kebabs?
Me: I just ate!
Anil: What’s that got to do with anything?

Anyhow, back at the scene. “I feel totally find when I’m lying down, so I’m just going to not move for the rest of the week,” I said when asked if I wanted to go to the doctor’s. That didn’t sit well with Grace (my hostess) or with Allison (travel buddy). So off we went to Taipei Veterans General Hospital.

A short bus ride later, we walked into the ER (since it’s a holiday here, most doctor’s clinics were closed so we had to go to the ER). With my half-assed Mandarin and Grace’s fluid Taiwanese we explain to the doctors at registration that I’m having abdominal pains but I’m a foreigner, can I still be seen? The doctor replied, “Of course!” like it was somehow ridiculous to be denied coverage just because you’re not from here and don’t have National Health Insurance.

I sat a bit relieved when the doctor at reception spoke really good English. Turns out his cousin went to school at Berkeley. I fill out the requisite paperwork – really just half a sheet of paper asking for name, dob, address, emergency contact and national ID number.

As I’m filling that out, Grace is explaining to staff that I understand Mandarin, and she speaks only Taiwanese. Perplexed the nurse asks, “Then how do you two communicate?” “In English,” Grace replies. A big light bulb goes off and everyone laughs.

Soon enough I get my ID bracelet and I’m officially checked in at 12:46 p.m. I’m shuffled a few hundred feet down where a doctor sits with me. He asks me briefly about my symptoms and then asks if I prefer drugs or needles. Whatever helps me feel better, I have no preference. All of this conducted in Chinglish. So he enters in a prescription, tells me to go to the pharmacy have it filled, take the meds then wait 30 minutes to see how I feel.

I walk no more than 500 feet to the pharmacy and by the time I show up they have already filled my prescription, bagged it and are waiting for me. They might as well have said, “We’ve been expecting you, Jen.” Seriously, in less than 2 minutes my prescription is sent from the doctor’s desk to the pharmacy AND filled. There needs to be an HBS case study on efficiency done here and distributed to Walgreen’s.

By 1:08 p.m. (22 minutes) I have been seen and dispensed meds (buscopan and an analgesic) and am left to wait the requisite 30 minutes to see if the meds help. 1:38 rolls by and the meds aren’t helping. The pain is still there and my mind has scared up the idea that somehow I have dengue fever though I have no fever or rash. I stand at the nurse’s station and wait 2 minutes while she takes care of other patients before she asks me what’s up. Literally, the longest I had to wait for any kind of medical attention. When I explain that the meds haven’t helped, I’m back talking to the doctor I saw earlier.

He asks me a few more questions, pushes on my abdomen to locate the pain, then asks me at least 3 times if I’m pregnant, if I’m sure I’m not pregnant. How do you say ‘Only through Immaculate Conception’ in Chinese? Convinced, he prints out another prescription and then an order to draw up blood work.

I walk my 500 feet over to the blood work guys (right next to the pharmacy). And the guy looks at my form, tells me to pull up the seat behind me, and proceeds to draw blood right there and then. Talk about fast service! My McDonald’s hash browns take longer than this!

As I wait for blood results some creepy Taiwanese guy asks me if I’m “hua chiao” which I have no idea what that means. He proceeds to ask if my mom is Taiwanese. I say yes, about to launch into my explanation that my mom’s from Tainan and my dad’s from the mainland when it dawns on me, I don’t owe him an explanation! Nor do I want to be engaging him. So I leave it at yes, to which he says in Chinese, then you are hua chiao. Hua chiao sounds an awful lot like the characters for slippery and bridge in Chinese. Slippery bridge? That must be some kind of slang. (I find out later that it’s a term for Overseas Chinese).

A few minutes pass, and things start to get serious, they roll out a bed for me and I hop on while I get an IV drip and they dispense 2 medicines via IV (same as the pills I took before – guess they’re just going more direct this time). Despite all this, I’m having a good time and good laughs as Grace and Allison take photos and regale me with stories about the delicious food court at the hospital. No, I’m serious, the food is good. People who live near the hospital come here for lunch and dinner. I start to feel better.

The doctor reappears, giving me my discharge orders: no food for 24 hours, just lots of fluids (like Gatorade) and take the meds he’ll prescribe. I can leave once I’ve finished my IV bag but it’s dripping super slow, at this rate it’ll be the year of the rabbit before I’m done. He adjusts a dial so the drip goes a little faster. After he leaves, Allison tinkers with the bag and cranks up the dial so it’s at full drip. I’m flying through my IV bag now!

Waiting for the IV to finish took more time than the rest of the medical process. I’m won over even more by the idea of national healthcare. It’s been far more efficient and pleasant than most of my in state ER experiences. Hell, probably more so than most of my doctor’s appointments.

Total time for the visit was about 2-3 hours. Total cost: 2362 NT. That’s 73.55 USD for a trip to the ER, medical consult, 1 IV, 2 prescriptions for 2 different medicines and bloodwork. The skeevy guy was a bonus.

Only quirky thing about the visit is that all the dates are relative to 10/10/1911. 1911 is considered year zero in Taiwan. On 10/10/1911, Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionaries overthrew the Manchus. That date is Taiwan National Day (Independence Day). So if you’re born in 1976, your medical file will show that you were born in ’65 (76-11).

Oh, what’s the picture up top about? It’s one of the ice cream flavors served up at the food court in Taipei Vet Gen. Photo credit: Grace.

p.s. Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m okay. Don’t worry, I’m in good hands!

I’m on the 12:05 am Eva Air flight to Taipei. I’ve abandoned my middle seat between the 2 friends I’m traveling with to get an aisle seat back in the ghetto (seat 70D, the 2nd to last row in the plane). I delight that I have an entire middle row to myself when just before take off, a squatter steals the other aisle seat in my row. Dammit. I secretly send her angry vibes for devastating all dreams I had of sleeping stretched out on the plane. In reality, it’s not all that bad because I end up sleeping across 2 seats, allowing part of me to lie down.

Shortly after take off, I acquire the middle seat and zonk out despite dinner service buzzing about me. One of the many times I wake up, I find this sticker placed right next to my video monitor:

We feel reluctant to break your rest. Please contact our flight attendant for your repast. Thank you!

I’m oddly touched. While the translation could use a little help, the sentiment is sound. Which makes me wonder, why don’t American airlines do this? Is it a cultural difference or just shitty customer service on the U.S. end? Regardless of that answer, I slip back into slumber feeling taken care of by a simple sticker.

In the a.m. (or 10 hours later), I wake up to a nice warm meal of chicken congee with ginger and shitake mushrooms – which reminds me of my mom’s homecooking. Or my dad’s since he usually made the congee. Either way, it’s nice to be home.

I survey the waiting area shocked by how few non-Asians there are. I’m on a flight bound for Taipei. Somehow my 2 Caucasoid travel buddies aren’t as surprised. Seeing no more than 5 white people, I’ll know close to half of the ‘minorities’ on the plane.

Photos are up!

I’ve been back for a while but been running around so I haven’t had time to post. Quick wrap up coming soon.

Flight over to JFK and then MAD is pretty uneventful. I sleep maybe 3 times in 60-90 minute shifts. I wonder how I’m going to stay awake while waiting for the final leg of my flight since I have 4 hours to kill. While I’m awake during my flight to Madrid, I look enviously across the aisle to two women who have lucked out and have an entire row (2 seats) to themselves. The longer I can’t sleep, the more my envy turns into subtle anger and jealousy as I watch them lying down, asleep.

There’s a guy on the flight that has no legs. So he moves up and down the aisles mainly with his arms to get to and from the bathroom. When he first passes by me, I think he’s a kid since he’s at kid height. He’s pretty cute and he’s got nice arms to boot.

My envy at not being able to lie down to sleep dissipates. I am lucky as I realize, for the umpteenth time, as I am wont to do when I hit the road and travel. The experience (traveling) is like those HSBC ads you see on the walkway to the plane – you get to see life from different perspectives. I love that about travel and culture and even growing up in between – part American, part Chinese.

The customs agent is friendly or flirty, depending on your state of sleep deprivation. I like to think I’m pretty sleep deprived. He likes that I speak Spanish. In general, a few seem surprised that I can understand Spanish – maybe it’s that I look obviously American with my LL Bean bag and kicks or maybe it’s because I’m Asian.

This is the first time that I’ve gone through Madrid and actually had to go through customs. Guess times have changed. The three other times I’ve passed through here (beginning in 2003), I’ve never seen a customs person or had my passport stamped.

The airport’s gotten an upgrade since I’ve been here last (2005?). They now have Terminal 4 where I have to transfer to to catch my flight to Tenerife. After taking a quick shuttle – where Paul Young’s “Every time you go away” blasts over the speakers – I walk in and I feel like I’m in Singapore. Terminal 4 is super-modern and clean, has the same look and feel too. I navigate the intricacies of self-check-in, discover I can’t print my boarding pass. So after re-routing myself to two agents, in Spanish, I finally get to the right desk.

I head towards the bathroom before hitting the gates. I pass through a silver door with a round plexiglass window and I feel like I’m stepping into the future. Seriously. The bathrooms are super modern, metal/silver and frosted glass. Everything is immaculate or at least appears to be.

Off to the security gates. As I hop in the line, I notice a sign that says “Mobile boarding pass” with an icon of a mobile phone with a UPC type code on the phone’s screen. It makes me wonder, when is that technology coming to the U.S.?

Standing in line actually is a sweet experience in this sense: You get to watch all the families/friends stand faithfully by as their loved ones weave through the security check lines. They stand there waving energetically until their person disappears beyond the gates. There are clusters of people right at the entrance to queue, then another set that stand off to the side so they get a closer view of their loved ones as they pass through security, and still a select few that stand in line until the last possible moment (when the agent checks for boarding passes) and then they duck out. It reminds me of the last time I flew out of here, I got the same treatment from my friend who dropped me off – just stood there and watched as I vanished past security and into the gates.

After my bags screen through, the guy montiroing them asks me to pull my computer out of its sleeve. Then I open it and close it for him. I think he secretly wants to see my Mac Book Air. But I’m pretty sure that’s the sleep dep talking.

I’m excited to be back in Spain. I’m looking forward to the warmth and affection associated with the culture. Two kisses are the customary greeting here. If you’re super close (e.g., family), then you give/get one kiss. It’s all pretty simple and clear. No blurring of if you should hug, shake hands, kiss or just wave. I’m awkward with the social ambiguities in the States. Here, since it’s part of the culture, being affectionate just feels a lot less awkward.

Shockingly I’m still fairly awake given that it’s about 3 a.m. SF time as I type this. Oh well, time to amble around and see if I can find Shapes. Or maybe I’ll just close my eyes for a few seconds first.

View the album here:

Saturday we drove back home to San Francisco, but not before encountering this man on his pink bicycle in LA. The day’s drive was pretty uneventful. Was nice to wake up in sunny LA, close to 70 degrees. Did a bit of chatting and looking things up while on Interstate 5. We learned about the dust bowl, what’s in bun bo hue, Connecticut tobacco plantations, the difference between partly cloudy and partly sunny (the forecaster’s mood) and that Alaska is one of the states with the highest per capita homeless population. What would we have learned without our smartphones on the road?

It’s nice to be back home but I do miss the open road. More pictures to be posted in a separate post.

Miles on Day 6: 425

Total miles: 3,314