I am hygienically dumbfounded!  You’re probably a bit confused by my proclamation, so here’s the background.

When we were preparing to come to Taiwan just over a year ago, I stockpiled basic hygiene products:  toothpaste, deodorant, soap, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, razors, etc.  I also loaded up on makeup, fingernail polish, hairspray and all that girly stuff.  I thought I had enough to last until the birth of my great-grandchildren, but apparently I was wrong.  I’m trying to think of a way to put this a little delicately, but here’s the smelly truth–last week I ran out of deodorant.

So using my best logic, I concluded: I live in a country with lots of people.  People wear deodorant.  So therefore, there must be deodorant for sale in this country full of people.  Apparently I was wrong.

I decided that I would go immediately to the source of all things purchasable–Costco.  No deodorant at Costco.  Then I checked the personal products section of my local grocery store.  No deodorant at the grocery store.  Then I checked a large chain called Watsons that carries all things body related.  And Success!  They had exactly six sticks of deodorant in their large store.  Relieved, I purchased one and happily applied it the next morning.  By the end of the day, I was pretty sure that what I had purchased and applied was actually placebo deodorant.  It had the same effect as applying air to one’s armpits.

So now my only option is to wear my husbands man-deodorant.  And in great pain I ask myself, Has it really come to this?  Have I really been reduced to wearing man-deodorant?  

This is something that women just don’t do!  We have our deodorant and men have their’s and never the twain shall meet.  This is a boundary that civilized women should never have to cross.  Yet here I am, admittedly wearing man-deodorant.  The shame of it!

So yes, I am hygienically dumbfounded.  Why can I not find deodorant in this country?  Is it possible that certain races of people have more bodily glands than others?  Do Anglo Saxons have glands that other races do not?  Are we the only people who need deodorant?  Am I the only person on the planet that did not know this?

And yes, I will be putting in a rather large order to Amazon.com today.

Today marks the one year anniversary of our arrival in Taiwan.  I have learned a lot over the past year.  Here are my Top 10:

10.  There are people who can, and do stand on the toilet seat when using the bathroom.  Apparently it’s a more hygienic approach than the traditional sitting method of toilet usage.

9.  It is possible to process pork to the point that it resembles dog fur.  Roll it up in some rice and sesame seeds and you’ve got yourself a meal.

8.  What Americans put in their carts at Costco is a source of endless fascination.  And it is socially acceptable to walk up to said Costco cart and move things around to get a better look at its contents.

7.  The smells that can permeate from a church kitchen on any given Sunday are endless and sordid.  And if a person lifts the lid from one of the myriad of simmering pots on one of the stoves in said kitchen, that person will most likely find some kind of animal/bird feet stewing away. (Some advice given by one with experience: it’s better not to lift the lids.  Just walk away.)

6.  There is actually a tie at number six:  There are at least a hundred varieties of spiders that are as big as my hand.  And, mold can and will grow on everything.

5.  That black stuff in hot and sour soup–coagulated duck blood.

4.  When an Asian middle school teacher assigns a half hour of math homework, that translates to at least three hours of math to the average American kid, including one hour with a tutor at $50 an hour.  AND, math is the most important skill a person can acquire and anyone who is not good at math will not get into an Ivy League university and will therefore end up spending the rest of his or her life walking dogs, working as a parking lot attendant or rolling dumplings at Din Tai Fung.

3.  My kids are stronger than I ever imagined.

2.  I love my husband more than ever.

1.  The Chinese people of Taiwan are an amazing, kind, generous, smart, gentle, funny, gracious and very blessed people. (And they are very good at math.)

 

I have much to be grateful for on this Thanksgiving day.  First off, I’m grateful for my mother’s turkey roasting pan that she let me take overseas and that I get to use to cook my first ever Thanksgiving turkey.  When I packed it a year ago, I had no idea how precious it would be to me.  To pull it out today makes me miss and appreciate my mom.

I’m grateful for the internet.  It allows me to stay in contact with my loved-ones back home and stay current on events of my home state.  And these past few weeks, I am particularly grateful for YouTube and the many videos I’ve watched on how to cook Thanksgiving food.  (My guests for this evening’s dinner are also inadvertently grateful for YouTube.)

I’m grateful for Costco and Wellmans (the little American importing store) which have provided the bulk of our food today.  I’m grateful that they carry ingredients for Thanksgiving so that the American expat community can enjoy our little American holiday today.

I’m grateful, more than ever, to be an American citizens.  I have had it reinforced to me this past year what a privilege it is to be an American.  I love my country.  But I’m also grateful for my current adopted country of Taiwan.  It’s such a lovely, peaceful nation.  The Chinese people of Taiwan are a kind and gracious people.  I’m falling in love with their customs and language.  I’m so glad that I get to spend a small part of my life here.

I’m grateful for my kids.  They are strong and they are survivors.  They have grown exponentially this past year and I am awed by their courage.

I’m grateful for a wonderful husband, whom I love dearly.  I’m grateful for his hard work that allows me to stay home.  I’m grateful for the love that he shows me.  He treats me better than I deserve.  I’m grateful that our’s is an eternal family.

I am grateful for the virtue of hope.  It has sustained me.

I’m grateful for my religion.  I’m grateful to have a temple nearby.  I’m grateful for the Holy Ghost in my life the gives me guidance and sends peace to my heart.  I’m grateful for the atonement of my Savior that makes it possible for me to repent and do better.  I’m grateful for a loving Father in Heaven.

I’m very blessed.

I am fully aware that I spend more time than is necessary admitting my foibles and shortcomings on this blog.  But I’m about to do more.  So if you’re tired of my rantings and want to read about a domestic goddess, stop reading my blog now and check out my friend Melissa’s blog.  She’s more Martha than Martha.

So if you’re sticking with me and my pathetic ways, here we go.

I’m scared to death of Thanksgiving.  This is somewhat ironic given the fact that my birthday hits Thanksgiving every few years.  You would think that I would have embraced it as part of my personal identity.  But no, in reality, I haven’t.  Truth is, I might be considered a professional Thanksgiving moocher.

I have been really good at mooching Thanksgiving out of people.  My favorite person to mooch Thanksgiving from is my sister-in-law Kris.  She does THE BEST Thanksgiving!  She makes everything from scratch; no cans, no packages, nothing from the frozen food aisle.  Everything is fresh and everything is perfect.

Lest you think that I have never hosted Thanksgiving at my house–I have.  Exactly three times.  But here’s the hitch:  each time I have had Thanksgiving at my house, I have made my mom or mother-in-law come the night before and make the turkey, gravy and stuffing.  I have depended on store-bought frozen dough and I have bought the pies from Costco.

And here’s the ugly truth:  I have never cooked a turkey on my own, the only gravy I have ever made my family has come from a bottle (not a can–I do have standards), the only stuffing I have ever made has come from a box which included the words “stove” and ‘top”, and I have never made a single pie crust from scratch.  I’ve heard women refer to themselves as lard, shortening or butter pie crust bakers.  Women who talk this way have failed to realize that there is a fourth category of pie crust makers–frozen.  That would be me.  And the only pie I’ve ever made with even a frozen pie crust is banana cream.  (All you have to do is make banana pudding from a box, cut up bananas and top with Cool Whip.  I don’t even make real whipped cream.)

I’m pretty sure that I’m the only Relief Society president in the world who can’t make gravy.  You would think that my bishop would have checked this out before calling me.  I’ll probably be released this Sunday–now that the word is out (which really wouldn’t be the worst thing).

So now that I live far from family who have to invite us to Thanksgiving out of familial duty, I’m fully on my own.  And this country doesn’t have any of the boxed, bottled or frozen stuff that I have so relied upon all my life.  It’s time to pay the piper and do my first Thanksgiving from scratch.

I decided that I had better do a couple of practice runs before the big day–especially since I stupidly invited real people to our home for the big day; not just my husband and kids–who are fully aware of all of my deficiencies but have compassionately tried to protect me from humiliation by not revealing my little secret.  Those who I have invited include a couple of missionaries who are going to be expecting a real homemade Thanksgiving just like their moms make.  (Oh the pressure!)  So today I made practice rolls.  They weren’t too bad–kind of ugly, but they tasted ok, for a first attempt.

So, this marks the end of an era.   I’ve had a good run.  Forty-three years of Thanksgiving mooching is pretty good.  It might even be a record.  Someone call Guinness.

Since this was our first Halloween in Taiwan, we weren’t sure what to expect.  The Chinese don’t really celebrate the holiday.  So our expectations of this day were pretty low.

We did try to prepare as best we could.  We ordered candy and costumes from the U.S.  We put up a few decorations around the house.  The kids had the day off of school.  I assumed that the school chose to make this a teacher prep day just to avoid the holiday completely.  Kids in the lower school had Halloween parties on Friday, but they were pretty low-key compared to what we were use to in the U.S.  The upper and middle schools had Thursday and Friday off last week for parent/teacher conferences so there was no Halloween celebrations for them at all.

Sadly, we didn’t buy a single pumpkin in preparation for the holiday.  Pumpkins are very expensive here.  But as luck would have it, Elizabeth’s class carved pumpkins at their class party on Friday and Elizabeth’s name was drawn to take home her group’s jack o’lantern.  So we were happy to have at least one jack o’lantern on our front porch.  Unfortunately, when we got it home and set it out on the front porch, it was immediately invaded by ants.  Then by the next day it had turned to mush.  By the third day it was growing so much mold that the ants had moved out, obviously too high-brow for that level of rot.  By today, the pumpkin was pretty much just a puddle, and a smelly puddle at that.

Our neighborhood is sometimes called Little America.  It is made up of twenty homes, all U.S. State Department families.  We have the greatest concentration of Americans in Taipei, so it is known as the place to go trick-or-treating.  We were told to get a lot of candy.  So we were prepared with close to 1000 pieces of candy.  The trick-or-treaters starting arriving at around 6:00, and the neighborhood had a steady stream of people for the next two hours straight.

Many of the expats from around the city brought their families, but there were a lot more Chinese than westerners.  The Chinese parents were hysterical!  They took pictures of everything: pictures of our freaky decorations, pictures of their kids at our door, pictures of us putting candy in their kids’ bags, pictures of our American kids in their costumes, pictures of the strange American lady (me) in her strange witch get-up. (What they didn’t know was that the crotch in my black and orange striped tights, which I’m thinking were made for someone closer to 5’0″ than my 5’8″, were closer to my knees than my you-know-what, forcing me to take rather short steps all night.  It was my little secret.  But I’m guessing that if they had known about it they would have wanted to take a picture of that too.  On second thought, maybe not.)

The local Chinese people were obviously loving this odd American holiday.  They seemed to be doing their best to embrace the traditions, but also in awe of the strangeness of it.  The looks on their faces were like they were taking part in a complete American freakshow.

At one point, some students came by and asked to film an interview of me for an assignment for their English class.  I answered all their questions about Halloween in America and how much I love living in Taiwan.  I didn’t mention my little tights problem, but if I had, it probably would have made for a much more interesting interview.

But here was my favorite moment of the night.  Toward the end of the evening, some Chinese kids and moms rang the doorbell.  Elizabeth answered the door and gave them all some candy.  As she turned around, I noticed that the bowl was empty.  Afraid that she hadn’t given candy to all of the nearly 15 moms and kids on the porch, I grabbed a jumbo bag of assorted Twizzler candy and dumped it into the bowl.  Then I went back to the door, where all of the moms and kids were still standing.  When the moms saw the bowl now full of American candy, they went insane.  They were screaming and grabbing handfuls of the Twizzlers.  It was a complete feeding frenzy!  And it wasn’t the kids, it was the moms!  I stood there laughing hysterically as they nearly emptied the giant bowl of candy.  With each handful they took, they would put it up to the faces and smell it like it was the most exotic and delicious thing they had ever encountered.  Jason came to the door when he heard the squealing and he too stood there laughing.  They left our porch smiling and waving and thanking us for our American candy.  It was priceless!

By the end of the evening, our house was filled with our kids’ friends, our neighbors and other expat friends who live all across the city.  Our house became a fun crashing pad for pooped-out trick-or-treaters and their even more pooped-out parents.  We ate pizza and candy and laughed about the fun mixture of American Halloween traditions and the Chinese twist that inevitably occurs in this great place.  We live such a fun life!