We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: Inspiration or desperation.
After spending a few days in Taipei, I took a train south to Hualien, where the famous Taroko National Park is located. Since there is no public transportation inside the park, I ended up hiring a car with 5 other young travelers from my hostel and visited the park together – All 5 of them are from mainland China and are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese; although I spent my first 17 years in Hong Kong and I am natively fluent in Cantonese Chinese, I am not fluent in Mandarin Chinese. I have no problem reading or writing Chinese, but my pronunciation of Mandarin is pretty horrible. Despite traveling with some very nice people who always included me in their conversations, due to the accent and how fast they spoke I was only able to understand roughly 30% of that they said – A fairly miserable percentage compared to my previous engagements of Mandarin conversations. To be honest, I was a little embarrassed.
I wanted to challenge myself and to improve my Mandarin Chinese. Specifically, I desperately needed to be able to pronounce correctly some of the most commonly-used phrases that I use everyday. I realized that this could not be done by just talking to people, as during normal conversations people generally don’t correct you even if you say it wrong. So I came up with a game plan: My goal was to be able to correctly pronounce 100 phrases in Mandarin (those that I previously mispronounced) before I leave Taiwan in 3 days – Instead of traveling to Kenting in Southern Taiwan for diving, I decided to head back north to Taipei and focus on spending the next 3 days practicing those 100 phrases.
Today is Day 3 of the challenge and the progress has been satisfactory. Although I am by no means a fluent Mandarin speaker, I am now 100 phrases better than before and that is really all I care about at this point.
View of Taipei 101 from Elephant Hill 象山.
@Taipei台北
Motorbike scene.
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Motorbike scene.
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Releasing sky lanterns.
@Shifen十分
Releasing sky lanterns.
@Shifen十分
Renting a motorbike to visit Shifen Waterfall. 10 minutes of motorbike cruising instead of a 1-hour walk in the hot and humid weather.
@Shifen十分
Renting a motorbike to visit Shifen Waterfall. 10 minutes of motorbike cruising instead of a 1-hour walk in the hot and humid weather.
@Shifen十分
Jiufen Old Street.
@Jiufen九份
Jiufen Old Street.
@Jiufen九份
Lungshan Temple 龍山寺.
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View from an abandoned mining plant 天空之城十三層遺址.
@Jiufen九份
National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall 中正紀念堂.
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Chiang led China to fight the Japanese during the War of Resistance between 1937-1945, got China back from Japan, and became a wartime hero. But due to the enormous military expenses incurred during the 8-year war, Chiang’s Nationalist party had major disagreements with the Communist Party, and that eventually led to a civil war. Chiang’s Nationalist Party lost and he was forced out of mainland China onto the island of Taiwan. Chiang would never return to the mainland since then – Similar to some other wartime heroes, Chiang is regarded as a controversial figure.
@Taipei台北
National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall 中正紀念堂.
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Chiang led China to fight the Japanese during the War of Resistance between 1937-1945, got China back from Japan, and became a wartime hero. But due to the enormous military expenses incurred during the 8-year war, Chiang’s Nationalist party had major disagreements with the Communist Party, and that eventually led to a civil war. Chiang’s Nationalist Party lost and he was forced out of mainland China onto the island of Taiwan. Chiang would never return to the mainland since then – Similar to some other wartime heroes, Chiang is regarded as a controversial figure.
@Taipei台北
Jiufen Old Street.
@Jiufen九份
Sungshan Tsu Huei Temple 松山慈惠堂.
@Taipei台北
Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園.
@Hualien花蓮
There are many night markets in Taipei. One of the most famous ones is the Raohe Street Night Market 饒河夜市, where one can find a lot of interesting dishes.
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Toilet Restaurant 便所主題餐廳.
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Stinky tofu 臭豆腐.
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Spicy duck blood 麻辣鴨血.
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Rice in bamboo rice 竹筒飯.
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Pork chops in Chinese medicine soup 藥燉排骨.
@Taipei台北
