買東西 (SHOPPING)

I'd say this pretty well expresses local sentiments (from a shop near campus)

Between about 9am and 7pm, I can't stand walking outside for more than 10-15 minutes, so I end up ducking into 7-11s (often 2 per block here - Asia is the capital of convenience stores) or shops or department stores and strolling around inside until I cool off and can continue my journey. Now I enjoy material culture as much as any burgeoning anthropologist, but exposure to so much weird and wonderful stuff cannot but result in the occasional purchase. Besides, there have been some things that I have, to some degree, needed, to buy, such as:

SUNBRELLA:
Very pale skin is the ideal here, but the sun shines most days, so the ladies carry umbrellas as parasols. Some umbrellas are double purpose, but to really keep out the UV rays you need one that has an opaque, silver interior. My rain umbrella wasn't doing the trick and I wasn't going to get another, but then I used a friends' and enjoyed the portable shade and cooling. Here, I don't feel nearly as pretentious as when I tried the same technique in Bellingham once.


The ability to carry an umbrella while riding a bike -- yet another reason Asia is the future.

SHIRTS:
Perhaps I flatter myself in thinking that I am relatively sensitive to cultural difference, but there are always unspoken codes, if not rules, that are difficult to discover until you break them. Women's clothing standards are often good examples, and even if you know they exist, they can still be surprising to come up against (as when I was in a friend's shop in India and rolled up the cuff of my shalwar pants to put an anklet on and the shopkeeper and his friend got all uncomfortable and looked at me like I had just taken off my pants).

Taiwanese ladies wear some of the shortest skirts I have ever seen, and no one bats an eye, but despite the heat, there aren't too many tank tops around, and when I, who am different from most Taiwanese women in certain, ahem, ways, wear one, I feel like a goddamn harlot. So I bought some sleeved shirts and a few short jackets, and now my exposed collarbones will offend no one.

[note to mb: I sent you a postcard promising a moratorium on further acquisitions of princess sleeves. Disregard it. I broke it the next day.]

ABSURD TRANSLATIONS AND USAGES OF ENGLISH:
Last night I almost bought a shirt that read ALGEBRA in big letters on the top and then had a huge strawberry applique and underneath, the words: 'is for lourt' (I think they meant to say 'lovers', as Harajuku lovers and things similar are very popular lately). I've also passed on buying a tea tin printed with instructions on care for Chihuahuas and a bookmark that read "GIVE watch over an innocent". And that's just the stuff I didn't buy. I mean, my god, how could I possibly resist?

my friend Susan gave me this bookbag:


Classlcs are bulft upon the Plllars of Alnerican sports barltage -- how can you argue with that?

SCHOOL SUPPLIES:
Often, these purchases overlap with the above category, as with my school notebook:


the text reads: All our products are designed and produced exclusively for sensuous people

SHOES:
No, I didn't need any of these, but something strange happens to you when you go somewhere where all of your usual references for price and value are all mixed up. I don't know better how to explain it than to say that when I first got here I kind of short circuited when converting taibi to dollars and realizing that a bag of muesli cost as much as a pair of shoes and that therefore I should buy the shoes and not the muesli. What can I say - it made sense at the time.

As per Vanessa's request, pictures of shoes:


PRESENTS FOR FOLKS BACK HOME:
Get ready, they're coming to get you.