last visits

I got pretty thoroughly stomped on today. I’d decided to make one last visit to the National Palace Museum, because it’s a pretty amazing place – the collection is based on all the stuff the Chinese emperors had collected in the Forbidden Palace, brought over here in 1949. So there’s a thousand years’ worth of careful and tasteful collection of art made over several thousand years, though like any world-class museum they’ve been adding to their collection ever since.

I forgot a couple of things, though. One was that museums the world over are always full of school groups on weekdays. And the other was a relatively new thing: Chinese tourists can come here no, but they have to be with guided tour groups. So there were all these huge groups following their guides around and I was always having to duck them or get through the groups. The kids were never actually a problem; I saw them on the way in and the way out and that was about it. (My guess is that they have special activities at the museum, like we did at the Franklin Institute in my schooldays.) But the Chinese groups lived up to everything I’d been told about differences in behavior between China and Taiwan, and I was pushed and stepped on and walked into. Once again, I am glad my company decided to put our site in Taiwan, not in the other places that were considered. (Another possibility was Korea, and I’ve heard stories of a lot of xenophobic treatment of foreigners there, very different from the way we’ve been treated here.)

Tomorrow I’ll have lunch with a friend at Wendell’s a German bakery that’s sort of a landmark for expats here. I’ve never been there, so figured I should go at least once. Saturday Ted and I will go to the Jiangui Flower Market, where he’s never been, and to the handicrafts and jade markets next to it, then have dinner with some more friends. (We’re going to Trader Vic’s, because perversely this is my last chance for good American food for a while, but Eindhoven does have some decent Chinese food – at least, it tastes good to me, though my Taiwanese friends say it’s just not the same.)