The Roving Reporter

Getting all Pollyanna...

Posted by: Amy Reiter

Sunday, March 25, 2007 10:19 AM

Though I can always find something frustrating or difficult in this different culture, with this busy schedule, I thought I'd try to focus on all the good things that are going on, because when I pause and think about it, there are very many. Here's my top five for today:

1) I put my feet in the ocean! I don't know which ocean they were in, but the water was warm and clear and the rocks under my feet smooth and multicolored. We only stopped for 10 minutes, but I pulled off my shoes and pulled up the pantlegs on my jeans and walked right in (and got my jeans soaked anyway, but it was completely worth it).

2) I met this Rotarian whose nickname was Water, and though she spoke no English and I speak only a tiny bit of Chinese, we bonded over charades and pictionary methods of communication. It was neat to feel that people don't need to share a language to enjoy each other's company.

3) I talked with two reporters today, both correspondents in Kenting (a small seaside city we're staying in tonight) for larger newspapers, and they were as excited to talk to me as I was to them. It was fun, and I'm supposed to get coffee with one of them tomorrow to talk journalism some more. (I also was on the receiving end of journalism, when our group was photographed for a local paper -- it felt so weird being being interviewed rather than doing the interviewing -- then little girls asked me to sign my autograph for them -- doubly weird!)

4) I didn't eat any meat by accident today (that I know of) and I did eat some really good tofu.

5) Yesterday I met a man from Pingtung who was so excited that I once interviewed Deron Williams and Dee Brown that he spent the next several hours talking about every NBA player he'd seen on TV and their games and playing styles and everything -- he knew considerably more than I did, but it was so fun bridging the cultural barrier through our mutual love of basketball.

Words of the day (phonetically written):
sue suh = vegetarian
doufu = tofu

The pictures below are 1) me at Cheng Ching Lake, with a view of the Grand Hotel that we stayed in behind me and 2)our Rotary team leader Shanae Hinkle, sitting in a garden of Buddhas at a temple in southern Taiwan.

I hope everyone had a good weekend, with lots of good things to share.

Amy

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