Some things I forsee to potentially give me trouble while I’m in Taiwan

Buckle up friends, this is a long one

• Culture Shock
• Language Barrier
• Time Difference
• Homesickness
• My skin color
• My hair
• Living in a dorm
• Time management
• Making Friends

So, culture shock is always something to be mindful of when going to a new place. When going state to state or even from one western country to another western country, there’s going to be a lot of similarities despite the differences. However, I am going across the world. I am leaving an individualistic primarily English-speaking country to live in a collectivist primarily mandarin speaking country. The values that have built each of these societies are fundamentally different, so obviously the societies are going to be different too. A big difference is manners. I will never forget one experience I had in the bathroom of an airport coming home from China in 2012. This lady was walking right in front of me and we entered the restroom one before the other. She didn’t hold the door for me, but it was fine because I was right on her heels. When we washed our hands, rather than going behind me to the dryer, she walked between me and the sink right as I finished up. Finally, we left at around the same time, but I was further back than I was before. Once again, she didn’t hold the door, but this time the door slammed shut on my nose. Sometimes you hear about this kind of stuff, like “it’s rude in Asian cultures not to eat all of your food, but it’s polite to slurp.” I’ve heard that countless times. I’ve also had several Chinese teachers and my study abroad advisor remind me that it’s rude to tip in China and Taiwan. Their system is not the same as ours, so they don’t tip over there. Another fun thing that I learned in my Chinese class during our ordering food unit is that- you usually don’t ask for food or say please. In Chinese, you basically say, “bring me this,” and there’s really no more conversation unless there’s a problem with the order. Your server will most likely not even check up on you. If you’re eating and you need something, you have to call someone over and tell them to bring you what you need. Crazy right? Not really, because different countries have different customs and manners. While some people would love to believe it, America does not set the standard for everything in the world. (except for Simone Biles. She is EVERYTHING.) Whether it be manners or any one of the many forms that culture shock comes in, it’s going to be something to overcome during my trip.

“Language Barrier? But Brittany, don’t you speak Chinese, isn’t it your minor?” Well yes friends, I do, and it is. However, the amount of language that I retained that from middle school and high school surmounts to nothing and I’ve only taken four semesters of it in college. When I took the fluency test, I think I got like mid-intermediate level of fluency. Also, I haven’t learned a single new word since April, because that’s the last time I took a class. Therefore, I know enough to get around, but there’s definitely going to be a lot of “huh” moments. In addition to that, I’ve only been taught the simplified characters since I began learning Chinese. As it turns out, everyone in Taiwan uses the traditional writing system! Yay me! I have to relearn how to read/write half the characters I already know. I think this will be a challenge at first, but once I get the hang of it, I’ll probably be able to decipher the characters without staring at them for an unreasonable amount of time.

Uggggggggh. This jet lag is going to be something else. Not only am I flying for almost a whole day, but the time difference between Taipei and DC is 13 hours! Taipei is 13 hours ahead. This will prove difficult as there will be a short time frame for me to call my friends and family. Someone is always going to be asleep. My loved ones and I decided that a good calling range will be 7-11. I can’t really say am or pm because my am is the other person’s pm. So nobody call me at 3 because I will either be asleep or in class. I am not going to promise that I won’t forget at first though, so if I call you at 5, don’t be mad. (@ everyone)

Homesickness- I kind of alluded to this in my Saying Goodbye post. I left a lot behind at home. I’m going to miss it all. Hopefully nothing will be too triggering where tears silently stream down my face as I walk the streets of Taipei because something reminded me of my mother or my dog, but not guarantees! I plan to just keep myself busy and hopefully travel a lot so that I am reminded of why I did this in the first place. When I first arrived at Pitt as a freshman, my outlook was to try everything at least once so that I could say I did and not have any regrets. This is my outlook for Taiwan too. If I am too busy moping about America, I won’t have any time to enjoy Taiwan. Now that I think about it, I might put some reminder of Donald Trump in my dorm room so that I won’t miss America as much.

My skin color always seems to be an anomaly. Whether it be positive, or negative, I am always treated some type of way because of it. In America, black people, especially black women have to work twice as hard as anyone else to get the same thing. There’s a million other ways black women get treated differently but this isn’t a political blog so I’m not going to get into all of that. The fact of the matter is that I am treated differently in America. When I went to China in 2012, I was treated differently there too, but this different was different than America’s different. Instead of people crossing the street when they see me, or walking faster, people would cross the street in order to see me or stop walking so they could be next to me. I was in the Jilin province for most of my 2012 stay and these people had really never a seen a real black person before! They’d run up to me and take pictures (often times without permission) and touch my hair and genuinely be so excited to see me. It was a weird feeling. While I felt like an exhibit at some points in time, it was really exciting not to be put in a box and have people just look at you and just be excited. For me personally, it was more of a positive experience being able to just be me, rather than what America expected me to be. The scary thing is that I don’t know what’s going to happen in Taiwan. Taiwan is more western, tourist friendly, and modern compared to China. I don’t know what their expectations of or previous experiences with black women are. Either way I’m going to be true to myself and am mentally preparing for anything, but it’d be nice to just be a person while also keeping my identity as a strong black woman. It doesn’t happen too often where I can have both.

MY HAIR, GIRRRRRL, let me tell you. I have been thinking about this since I began thinking about studying abroad. For those who are versed in black hair lingo, I have 4b, super shrinkage, very malleable, very soft hair. For those who are not versed in black hair lingo- my hair is very curly, but I can do a lot with it if I have the right products. At most points throughout the year, you will see my hair in some protective style. Usually it’ll be box braids or Marley/Senegalese twists. For my birthday I decided to get my first sew-in (never again.) I’d also bought two wigs back in August to test the waters with manageability for those. If I’m not in any of these styles, my hair will usually be in two strand twists, a twist out (braid out if I was wearing a wig), or a simple puff. Since my shrinkage is so extreme, my wash and go-s always look cuckoo crazy. So those are all my regulars and I like to change my hair fairly often throughout the year. None of my styles last more than 1.5 months anyways so I had to figure out what the heck I was going to do with this head of hair for 19 weeks. For even more context, I don’t like the natural color of my hair- it’s too boring and I also just got tired of dealing with my hair last year, so I dyed it and cut a lot of it off last January. My hair also grows super-fast so a lot of it has grown out since then and I haven’t dyed it since. I had to decide whether to cut/dye it again and I decided no for both of those. I didn’t want to cut it again, because even though it was a lot easier to comb through and braid up, I couldn’t really wear it naturally without feeling very insecure. Now that may have just been because of how it was cut, but I’m not taking that chance again when I don’t know if anyone in Taiwan would be able to fix it, and it would take another year to grow back out. I didn’t want to dye it again because dying my hair made it dry to the point where it would not even hold the moisture that I tried to give it. It was straight fried. Again, this could be because of the person that dyed my hair, but I didn’t want to have to bring the bajillion products that it takes to keep colored natural hair healthy when I have limited space in my suitcases. So, my hair is at a good length to do things with, and I’m not dyeing it, so what am I going to do while I’m in Taiwan? I first decided that I was going to need wigs. If your hair is already braided down, and you get some cute synthetic ones, wigs are super easy to just throw on and walk out the door. I thought this would be perfect. Now, I’d still have to braid down my own hair, and while that is annoying and time-consuming, it is manageable, and I’ll be buff afterwards. I bought 4 from samsbeauty.com. Highly recommend! Just make sure to look at reviews and get them when there’s a wig and/or shipping sale. I got all 4 for $80. If you are a wig wearer you know how poppin’ that is. I also recommend wearing wig cap with your wigs. It helps preserve your braid down longer than if you weren’t wearing one. I bought 4 2-packs from Sally’s beauty supply for $4 to last me the trip. Now I could give a million wig tips but that is not what this post is for lol, so just head on over to YouTube, especially my girl Sarah’s page to up your wig game. Since my hair would be natural under the wig cap for the majority of the trip, I still needed to bring hair products. I brought what I usually use in a week for my regular styles. I brought all the products and the tools which basically took up half of one of my suitcases but you gotta do what you gotta do. If anyone is interested in my hair products, please let me know! It changes from person to person, but I can make a separate page to let you guys know what I use to keep my hair healthy. Hehehe I might make it anyways even if no one tells me they need it. The support would always be appreciated though. Lastly, I figured that my first few weeks were going to be a doozy and I wouldn’t want to be worried about my hair, so I just decided to get braids. They’re my fave and I missed my half-up half-down look. They’ll last me at least the first month that I’m here, so that’s nice because my hair won’t be anything to worry about until I’m all settled in.

By golly, living in a dorm is something I said I’d never do again because I hated it so much the first time. I am a person that really enjoys personal space and privacy, so much so that I might have run my freshman roommate out after the first semester. Jk, there was definitely fault on both sides for that one. Nevertheless, I am losing a lot of freedom here. I have to live in a building where I have to sign in guests. I have to share a tiny room and bathroom with another person, and I have to walk more than 50 feet to get food. I won’t be able to cook my own food. My room can’t be a mess because someone else lives there. I have to be cautious about getting dressed. I can’t play music, talk on the phone, or do homework at outrageous hours of the night. I don’t do those things anyway because I am an old lady and midnight is my bedtime, but it’s the principle. There’s a bunch of other things that I’m restricted in now because I am living in this dorm. However, I’d rather this than some murderous host family or weird Taiwanese landlord. (off-campus housing wasn’t an option, but again: principle.) Dorm life is going to be hard to get used to again, but like everything else, acceptance will come with time and I’m going to try to be positive and make the best of it. Maybe my roommate will be my new best friend, who knows?

Time management is an age-old problem when college is concerned. You’d think after 5 semester and being a mentor to other students I would have my life and time management skills together. I actually DID have time management skills together last semester as confirmed as the Dean’s list. HOWEVER, I had close to no social life (mostly because I ain’t feel like going nowhere or talking to nobody.) I’m going to have to adjust how I manage my time this semester because my priorities for the semester are different that usual. Since the program I’m doing is through CIEE and not through Pitt, my GPA from this semester is not going to transfer over. It’s just going to be my credits. That means that I can get C’s in all of my classes and it would look the exact same as straight A’s on my Pitt transcript. Now of course I’m going to aim to get C’s. Apparently, everything above an 80 at NCCU is an A so it would require actual effort to get anything lower than that. My priorities for the semester are more aimed at experience, living in the moment, and creating memories rather than getting good grades and impressing professors for recommendations. I’m not sure what I’m going to have to manage over the course of the semester, which is why I think I’m going to have a hard time doing it. This is definitely a take it as it comes kind of thing, so we’ll see what happens.

So, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I have social anxiety. When comes to initiating conversations with people I don’t know, I have a hard time. I’m not going explain the ins and outs of it all on this blog: that’s what google is for, but it’s a common thing in modern times. For this reason and the possibility that I’m not the friendliest human in the world, I have a hard time making friends. I’ve definitely been working through my anxiety and on my communication skills, but it’s no easy feat. CIEE makes it a little easier for us to make friends by providing us with cultural ambassadors who are basically instant friends. They are great with starting conversations and they genuinely want to know about our lives so it’s a big help. I’m primarily worried about making friends outside of the cultural ambassadors. I really want to get involved in at least one on-campus club. It’ll probably be a sport, but I’ve seriously been thinking about ballroom dance because I can really swing my hips and my facials are on point whenever I imagine myself dancing in my head. I am also making it a goal of mine to try and make at least one friend in all of my classes. I don’t know how this is going to go, but I know there’s a lot of opportunity, I just have to push out the bad thoughts and introduce myself.