Most of my entries here are probably a little silly and light hearted, but eventually I'll have to confess how hard for me some things are.
Like today for an example: Service here is arranged a little differently than back home, as I have mentioned, we meet in the territory we are going to work that day. The meeting places are printed on a neat little schedule sheet then magnetically attached to the information board in the back of the hall. After each Thursday night meeting there is usually a small crowd there with notebooks and organizers manually copying relevant information to their own personal schedules. But I can't read or write Chinese very well, I'd be there all night. Instead I use my digital camera, James Bond / KGB style, to take digital pictures of the 8.5x11 inch schedule sheet. I usually do it in two shots, top half, and bottom half, giving myself an easy to read (if I could read Chinese) image to examine later.
This morning I woke up early so I could study the intricate little hieroglyphs on the schedule image. Sometimes it can take me an hour to decipher one location, or it'll take me an hour and a half to give up because service is already halfway over anyway. This morning was one of those mornings, I should have tried getting someone to try explaining where it was earlier on Thursday, but it had looked easy and I thought I had it, but I was wrong. All was not lost. I sucked up my pride and began looking for the afternoon service meeting place... after 45 minutes I realized that it was not something on my map or that Google maps would recognize. I was worried that one of my characters was wrong, sometimes they look different in different fonts, it had 17-19 strokes, I think, and it was the only one I could find. But my room-mate was home, thank goodness, so I asked him if he could help me. He did, he knew where it was, he clickity clacked on my keyboard and mousey clicked with my mouse for a few minutes using some Japanese looking map websites and pointed to a spot on the screen. Ahhh, easy, right near the main road near here, just 2 MRT stops away. It should take 10-15 minutes to get there. I gave myself 30.
It took me about 100 minutes, instead of being 15 minutes early I was an hour late, they were close to being done.
I had taken the MRT up the wrong line, twice. The MRT has very easy to use English signs and maps, but somehow I ended up in the exact same station, on the wrong line, twice. The second time when the doors opened and I saw the same station I had already just visited on accident I was so surprised that I burst out laughing. I had walked right back onto the exact same wrong train as soon as I had returned to the original station, and now I had to go back. I knew I'd be at least 30 minutes late now, I might not find them if they were all working some obscure little alley. My spontaneous laughter stopped almost sooner than it had started (I wonder if anyone noticed.) So for at least the fourth time since I had missed service that morning I prayed, I prayed that I could just find the group.
So after being on 5 trains (instead of 1), I stepped out of the correct MRT station and instantly recognized the same area I had been lost in a few weeks before. And I knew that I was going to have to be patient on my prayer being answered today, because I was in the middle of a very busy and dense part of Taipei that looked nothing like the map I had forgotten to bring, so I walked for a mere 4 blocks in the wrong direction, not knowing north from south, but that was a 50/50 gamble anyway, I was prepared to be wrong on that one.
I walked south through dense crowds of shoppers and street vendors, looking almost exactly like a Mormon with my back pack, short sleeved shirt, tie and short hair-cut. At least I wasn't on my bike, that had broken last night half way to the meeting, it's still there now. The place I was looking for wasn't really an address, which was why I couldn't find it on the map, it was the name of a university, "ShiDa" and it said "branch door", I think indicating to meet near the entrance. After awhile I ended up far beyond the crowds of shoppers on the deserted sidewalks running along the side of a huge university, not the university I was looking for, so after reaching the end of that long sidewalk I turned to cross back to the main street.
I had gone much further than it looked on the map, but I was pretty sure I had been going south, maybe it was on the other side of the main street a section over. I figured I had come this far I might as well keep looking, I only had an hour left before they were done, or 58 minutes. I had been walking for over a half hour. Even if I only had 1 minute left I had decided I was going to at least let the brothers know I had tried to find them, I was longing to see their faces by then.
On my way east I heard a noise and noticed a brother from my hall 200 feet away, across the street waving his arms. I of course smiled, but I braced myself for any more challenges, it was a very wide street to cross with a median in the middle. OK I'm kidding, I wasn't really worried about the cross walk, even as long as it was, when I got to the cross walk I saw about 30 of my dear brothers and sisters a little ways down the street standing around waiting for the next set of instructions from the same brother waving me down. Yes, after an hour and a half I had finally found the group, I had found my brothers and sisters, and at that moment they really did look like family. One that I had been missing all day.
They had been working the territory exactly on the edge of the street where I had decided to double back, they wouldn't have seen me if I had kept going or doubled back earlier.
I've grown far beyond being very embarrassed by these things, but I was still happy most of the brothers and sisters weren't paying attention to my late addition to the service group, but I got enough smiles to feel missed and welcomed. Of course there was Pu Dixiong right in front laughing and asking me why I hadn't answered my cell phone. I pulled it out and noticed that he had called me three times. But it didn't matter now, even though they were more than half-way done, with some help from above I had found them. Stand-around-and-wait time was over. The brother that waved me down starting directing different groups in different directions, putting me with Pu Dixiong again. Two of the cute young single sisters giggled at this often-seen pairing, behind their hands as Asian girls often giggle. But I was pleased that I had gotten giggles of course, naturally I love getting giggles. But Pu Dixiong told me that my fly was down, and apparently had been down as I had crossed the extra long cross walk, navigated the pressing crowds of shoppers and street merchants, gone north instead of south, and as I had transferred between 5 trains.

That's the end of that story but I can't stop there, after about 10 minutes of service we took a 15 minute break, sweet deal for me, and 30 of us crowded into a little shop to eat, Chinese people like to eat as often as possible. I did the smart thing and had what Pu Dixiong and 3 others at my table were having. Then I ate something I'd never had. I can only describe it as an apple pie mixed with a meat and potato dumpling, it was good. But Pu Dixiong, being a spice loving Korean, had to put a mini-spoon full of red oily pepper paste into his. But I was not to be out done by Pu Dixiong today, I put a slightly larger mini-spoon full of the same on my food. I think I he was impressed, the Korean couple on the other side of the table noticed too. It was hotter than I thought, but I'd had hotter many times before, the Korean brother across from me said in Chinese "very hot!", I agreed and I finished my food. But the thrill of my day was when I turned and looked at Pu Dixiong who had put slightly less red paste on his food, his eyes looked stressed and his upper lip was sweating. So I laughed for a long time, asked him if he was Korean and told him he was a small young girl. (edit 310) Permalink