At 22 years old, fresh out of college and hungry for adventure, I moved to Taiwan to teach English and start a new life. I didn't know any Mandarin and most of my friends neither understand where nor why I was going. Nevertheless, I was determined to experience the nomadic life of an ex-pat.

In order to have the full ex-pat experience in Taiwan you must: 1. Live in a rooftop apartment (yes, it’s a shack on the roof and rarely luxurious); 2. Move at least once—the second apartment must be walking distance from the first; and 3. Have a landlord that speaks no English. I was lucky enough to have all three happen to me within my first eight months in Taipei.

I lived with a German guy and French girl in my second apartment—a mile down the road from my first. I paid $300 USD a month and had the master bedroom with my own bathroom. Similar to my first place, the bathroom had no tub or real division between the shower area and the sink. I put up my own shower curtain so that my toilet paper would stay dry and my bathroom floor didn’t become a flooding zone each morning.

The apartment was always cold and drafty during the winter months because there is no heat in Taiwanese apartments. Unfortunately, my bedroom had four drafty windows so I used a space heater from December to February—even though Taiwan is a semi-tropical island, it gets chilly in Taipei. I always perfectly positioned my floor heater so that it would directly hit my body to keep me warm while sleeping.

My room faced an alley with starved, screaming cats, and the back of a restaurant that always smelled like chicken broth and fish. The restaurant owners washed their dishes outside at 8 am every morning; it took weeks before I could sleep through the clatter and clinking. Our landlady lived on the second floor and took the trash out for us every week—we were spoiled.

One morning on my way to work, my landlady approached me outside our building and asked me a question: “Wo you wenti. Ni keyi bu keyi…?”

I couldn’t really understand everything she said and she was having difficulty understanding me as well since I kept reverting to English and Spanish every time I couldn’t think of the right word in Mandarin. I wasn’t really frustrated since miscommunication was an every day occurrence for me. I often found communicating in Mandarin a fun, challenging aspect of being an ex-pat.

After a lot of hand movements and body language, I thought I had figured it out. She wanted me to come to her apartment to renew our lease (my roomies and I were recently wondering when this was going to take place) and she was bringing someone to translate for us.  She and I finally agreed on a day and time in the evening for me to stop by her apartment.

On the night of our meeting, I walked down the two flights of stairs to my landlady’s door. I could hear a lot of loud talking and laughing inside. As soon as she swung the door open and saw me, she screamed in excitement and ran into her living room, which then filled with cheers. I didn’t want to be rude and walk in since I wasn’t properly invited inside but I was so confused—and freaked out! So I stood in the doorway wondering what to do.  A second later, she returned and nudged me inside.

I slowly shuffled in (I was told not to take my shoes off even though it’s customary) and entered the living room. As soon as what seemed like eight members of my landlord’s family saw me, they all greeted me, “Ni hao!” Mostly elderly men, they were all sitting on mahogany leather couches, smiling and waving at me. I had no idea what was going on. I took a quick survey of the apartment and I noticed her floors had nicer tiles than ours. The aroma of rice and dumplings came from the kitchen.

Suddenly, I was approached by what looked like a 15-year-old girl who was wearing glasses. She had a juvenile hairstyle with ribbons and was carrying paper with a pencil. The entire family yelled in Mandarin that she was my landlady’s niece. I couldn’t tell if the girl was excited or scared, she trembled a little as she looked at me. When I shook her hand she gave me a big smile. I looked at the landlady as if to say, ‘Are you ready to go upstairs?’ She nodded and walked towards the front door.

The whole family cheered as we left and walked up to my apartment on the 4th floor.  All I could think was, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ I didn’t see any paperwork in my landlady’s hands so what were we about to do?

My guests took their shoes off before entering the living room, against my pleas to keep them on. We hadn’t washed our living room and kitchen floor for weeks! Then my landlady glanced over at the kitchen sink and briskly walked over to it. She turned on the water and started washing the dirty dishes. I couldn’t believe it! As I motioned for the girl to sit down on the living room couch, I told my landlady politely in that she didn’t have to clean our dishes.

“Bu yong! Bu yong (don’t need)!  Xie Xie (thank you),” I said while motioning for her to move away from the dishes. It was a nice gesture but really, it was quite ridiculous!

She smiled embarrassingly and backed away from the pile of dirty dishes, then bowed her head and said, “Hao, hao (OK).” She smiled and waved goodbye to her niece before leaving.

Now that I knew this whole rendezvous had nothing to do with re-signing our contract, I was really eager to find out what this girl wanted from me. I sat down on the couch and she finally spoke in a fragile voice:  “Hi, my name is…Jennifer, and I am a college student working on project…about foreigners living in Taiwan.”

College student? This girl looked like she was barely in high school! Her demeanor, outfit and shyness all cried out, “I’m an awkward teen who will never be cool!” Then it all made sense—the family members, the cheering, Jennifer’s timidity—I was the first foreigner she had ever talked to. I felt honored. I had never received this muchpositive attention before just for being American. I wanted to make sure Jennifer had a good time with me.

 I turned to Jennifer and said eagerly, “Great! What do you want to ask me?”
Though some questions of her questions were grammatically incorrect, they were very cute:  “Do you very like Taiwan?”  “What do you very like doing on weekend days?”  “Do you like Taiwanese food? What is your best favorite kind?”

All my answers received a series of mouth-covered giggles and friendly nods from Jennifer, who was taping me on a small black recorder. After the 10th question, she offered a gift to show her appreciation—a pink bag with 3 different shades of pink tissue paper. I almost cringed from the “over-pink” but this girl was sweet so I held it back. Hiding inside the tissue paper were hazelnut chocolate balls.

As soon as I thanked her and sent her back downstairs, my landlady dashed up to my door to thank me a hundred times. She must have been eavesdropping in the stairwell, waiting for us to finish. She grabbed my hands and shook them vigorously. “Xie xie! Xie xie ni” she said, thanking me over and over again.

As I attempted to pull my hands out of her thankful death grip, I kept repeating, “Mei wenti…mei wenti (no problem)!” She finally said goodbye and walked back downstairs and I quickly shut the door.

I sat back down on the couch, reflecting while eating my chocolates. I had always wanted to know what it was like to be “the other,” living in a foreign land where people would stare and wonder where you came from. I had lived in Taipei for almost a year and my life was becoming more and more intense.