Connection

On and off, I've had internet access for the past 15 or so years of my life. It was actually a very big component of my researching and preparing and traveling to Taiwan. Simply put, its vital to me, and, as I've learned over the past month, I actually begin to feel like less of who I am if I have to live without it.

In my first few weeks here, when I was staying in hostels and hotels, I never much had to go without it, which was great for getting in touch with people back home and keeping up with things during the little downtime I had. Mentally I've been preparing for this for a while, so I recognized I wouldn't have the same life and attachments as I did before, and I was well able to wean myself off of a lot of the less important aspects of the internet that I was a fan of before, in addition to really the less important aspects of life that I had to separate myself from.

That being said, there were a small number of things that I recognize I couldn't in good conscience separate myself from, the first of which is communication. I have to be able to get in contact with my family and friends, for obvious reasons. Yet, my first days in my new apartment were really an exercise in creativity. I'd left my final hotel without letting anyone know that I was moving in the next day and that I might have a bit of radio silence.

Once I moved in I tried on to pick up a stray wifi feed, but had no luck. One night, however, I picked up a tiny signal of a secured network, which sparked me to put my computer in any number of odd positions. I found that I got the best signals from about 5 different networks if I pressed my computer against my window facing the street. Still, they all were secured. I was blown away by one of them, though, when I tried to connect to it and a 'New Email' alert popped up from Thunderbird. I was finally able to receive email! Thinking about it for some time, I realized that Thunderbird gets email on a SMTP Protocol and while I'm getting logon screens every time I open my browser, maybe thats because I'm using HTTP Protocol? Well, I tested it out using the address of a FTP I like to use, and... Success! Whats more, I realized that if I access Gmail through a HTTPS Protocol, I can get access to other Google features like Reader, and instantly I'm back connected to my news. Same with Meebo, giving me access to IMs. I think the feed was from the Taichung City Council building, which is across the street, and to which I am totally grateful.

Still, it wasn't enough. In addition to communicating with home, the other absolutely vital thing that I refuse to release is my love of football. I had a Fantasy Football draft at about 9AM one morning that I couldn't just miss. So one night I set off computer in hand to stroll around downtown Taichung and find an open wifi network that I would be able to use. I figured Taichung Park would be a good starting place, as its huge and popular. It took me an hour of exploring and false hope, but I finally found one, near the dumpsters, behind the Taichung Symphony building. I was so starved for access at that point that I spent more than an hour there just blindly catching up on stuff. I was annoyed by bugs, though. Oh, and by people walking through the park who would walk by and stare at me, or the really friendly ones who would walk up to me just to peer over my shoulder at what I was looking at. I left but was happy to find a place that I could use.

The next night, I was restless so I decided to go out at 2AM to make sure the wifi was still working there. I figured that it being so late, there would be less people to bother me in the park. I also figured that, at hearing that I went to a public park alone at 2AM, people wouldn't look at me like I was crazy. I was wrong on both accounts. What actually happened was infinitely more annoying, because while there were fewer people, the ones that were there were a whole lot friendlier. The first man who approached me and started talking to me in Chinese eventually walked away after a couple minutes of my Big Dumb Foreigner Smile. The second man was far more persistent, however, to the point where I just got fed up with it and left. On my way home, I reflected on how there were far more people there than I expected, and how they were all men, and how I've never lived in a big real city with a big real park before.

They were trying to have sex with me.

The next morning was my draft and I went back to find an obstacle that I stupidly hadn't taken into account: old people. Dancing, and doing tai chi. Right in the middle of my wifi. I scurried all around the area trying to pick it up again, with zero luck.

I should mention that the first floor of my building is an internet gaming cafe. Yeah, just going there would make things infinitely simpler (and it did), but walking past that place every day and looking in the windows, I got glimpses of a culture wholly different from my own, one which would take a while to understand. People hunched over in cushy chairs bleary-eyed if not outright asleep while cups of fluorescent liquids sit beside them. Individual carrels with big-screen computers. Hourly prices in chunks of up to 13 at a time. I ended up rolling in and saying 2 hours in English and feeling my way through getting what I wanted for buying a $1 cup of water. I've been back for subsequent drafts and UF football games, to the point where I still just feel my way through it, this time with a little more Chinese (Wuge Xiaoshi. Lu cha. Xie xie.) I get such a kick out of being a wide-grinning, cheering honky for my football team among a sea of game-faced asian boys.

But now I'm here. After I got my residency, I applied for my internet, and had a lot of my worst moments during the three weeks waiting for it to actually get processed through, constantly calling and having expectation after expectation be shattered. Its all over now, and I finally feel connected to the sea of information that has brought me to this point and will propel me toward whatever future I build here.