Something I didn’t realize until today.. but normally, when people ask if its cool working in Taiwan, I say, “no, its not..” and I proceed to explain that one of the things that takes some while to get used to is that (1) I don’t know where anything is and (2) not having a car here greatly diminishes the amount of freedom/independence I enjoyed back home in California. Most people can’t grasp this idea, because they will never be faced with a similar situation. Some will sympathize, but most will just pass it off with a “oh.. that sucks”. So today, I get into the “shuttle” (a guy with an 11 passenger van picks us up from our apartments and takes us to work) and I start thinking about breakfast. We usually stop at a “street vendor” and pick up something for breakfast. Our “supervisor” will ask us if anybody wants breakfast, take our order, then call it in. So by the time we get to the breakfast place, he hops out, pays and grabs the bag, a transaction that takes all of 30 seconds, max. Anyhow, today, he didn’t ask. And at first, I was thinking, “shoot, I normally dont eat breakfast anyway, no big deal”. But then as we drove past the breakfast place on the way to work, I started thinking.. THIS is a prime example of my loss of freedom/independence. The “supervisor” doesn’t want breakfast, so he doesnt ask anyone else. He’s taken away our independence to decide whether or not we wanted breakfast. He simply decided for us without any reason or explanation.
Sure, I may be blowing a small thing out of proportion, but this same scenario is played out throughout the day.. I’d go into more detail, but then I’d have nothing to write about later..
