I've noticed, in my self-monitoring, that I've written a lot about food, and lately, girls. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot forget about, or ignore those two things. Last night was not a special night by any means, but there was a moment where I was literally bending over laughing at myself.
It took me a little longer to get to the service group than it should have, it's been closer to my apartment recently, but last-night I had to take the MRT to get there. It didn't take me but 5 extra minutes to find some of the group, even though I was late. It's kind of interesting to start late, you don't know who is out, people keep showing up, so you're not sure if maybe they were later than you, or maybe they were just working some unseen building around a corner. So the group was fairly sizable last night, when I eventually got to see all of them.
Much like we in the car driving West spend lots of time in our cars driving between territories and return visits, we here in Taipei spend lots of in-between time hanging out in the middle of the street, sitting on scooters, passing the time as we wait for the rest of the group to finish it's circle around the block. Fortunately there's a brother in charge that let's us know when it's time to move to the next block, otherwise we'd probably be there for some time chatting.
During these times I usually get to practice my Chinese conversational skills, and often raise my eyebrows in confusion until one fast talking sister or another notices that I haven't understood a word she's said and laughs at me or the look on my face. It's usually much easier to talk to the other foreigners, as we're called, because usually their vocabulary is much simpler that the natives, and it's a good way to practice formulating Chinese sentences. I don't remember the details, but last night I think I was asked more than the usual amount of questions, about my family, my history, my age, my baptism date, my hair, what I ate that day, etc etc.
But the part that I remember most clearly is the fanning. I've mentioned before that I sweat easily, it could be worse I imagine, but in this heat I am a semi-liquid creature. Two of the new Korean sisters, who had been drilling me for information, noticed that I was glistening in the moonlight and, without asking, started fanning me with their little hand fans.
Once I realized what they were doing, I asked them, "why are you doing that?" "You look very hot, your face is very sweaty." They told me. It was at this point that I bent over laughing, even though they only fanned me for about a minute, it was a slightly surreal experience being fanned by exotic women. Of course they also laughed at me, and tried telling me that it wasn't free.