Taiwan - Day 3 (Birthdays and Massages)

Random picture of Taipei, since I didn't take too many photos today

Sunday, January 1, 2012


The New Year began with another sleepless night.  The hotels were booked because of the holiday, so I was spending this one night at the family apartment, which means I was subject to baby William crying for hours in the middle of the night.   Because of the large crowd in the house and the lack of doors to my room, I was awoken pretty early when others started getting up.  We had some breakfast at home, and then Stephanie and I headed out to do some walking before lunch.  She showed me some of the malls in the area, which was near her old UBS office.

Starting the New Year sporting my Sunday best

Our short morning sightseeing tour was only two metro stops away from the restaurant where we would be celebrating her dad's 70th birthday party, so we headed over there at noon to meet the rest of the family.  And by rest of the family, I mean around 40 other Taipei-based relatives who were there for the festivities.  Aunts, uncles, cousins, third great-uncles twice removed.  Pretty much every combination was there.  While I enjoyed meeting the immediate family the past couple days since they genuinely wanted to get to know me, this felt a lot weirder since the rest didn't speak English (except for a random cousin who was asking me about the Knicks).  I was still forced to meet everyone, but I felt a lot more just like the strange looking American guy standing next to Stephanie that everyone wanted to gawk at.  A lot of nodding, smiling, and awkward chuckles.  I was told on multiple occasions to say the Mandarin word for "egg" from memory for entertainment purposes.

The immediate family at the birthday lunch

Her dad gave a speech thanking everyone.  The first large reaction from the crowd came when he said that he loved his wife.  Apparently love is not spoken aloud in the older generations here.  When everyone heard that, the crowd demanded that he kiss his wife, which apparently is even more taboo to do in public for the elders.  So much so that when he eventually tried to lay a kiss on her, she jumped back and looked ready to smack him for the embarrassment.  It was pretty entertaining.  Lunch itself was quite good.  I think this one rang in at 11 plates/different courses, highlighted by the "butt meal" dessert.  There was also a lot of whiskey to go around and groups of families had to keep making cheers to other various parts of the family, and with each combination a sip or small shot of whiskey was supposed to be taken.

After lunch, lots of the relatives went back to the apartment for karaoke.  I had been told from Day 1 that I was going to be forced to do karaoke in front of the entire family.  It seemed to be some right of passage that Emma was starting as tradition for all the sisters' significant others to do.  As if I didn't hate the idea of forced sober karaoke in front of strangers, there was only one page of English songs, and they were all from a billion years ago.  No artists were listed, and the song titles were poorly translated into English.  I tried putting two songs on, but neither was the one I thought it would be, so cancelled them.  I ended up not doing it, possibly bringing shame upon myself, or even the United States as a whole.

As the ancient Asian foot masseuses used to say:  No pain, no gain.

Part of the reason I got out of it was because Steph and I were late for our 4 pm massage reservation.  I had heard much of authentic Chinese massages so she wanted to take me for one.  I had been warned earlier in the day by Amanda that they were actually quite painful to those who have not had them before.  She wasn't joking.  After a foot bathing session, we were taken in for a 40 minute foot/leg massage.  The male masseuse was pretty rough, so much so that I thought my bones might break off at various parts of the experience, or at minimum I would definitely never walk again.  Most of the way through the massage he commented to Stephanie that I had a high threshold for pain.  I replied that the only reason I hadn't complained was because I wanted to look tough for my girlfriend.  That got a good laugh, but he said I should be more honest b/c otherwise I would be hurting pretty bad later on.  Oops.  When the foot massage was over we were slated for an hour long full body massage.  We decided to switch   masseuses so that she got the male and I had the female.  Her womanly touch was a little closer to what I could actually handle, so that ended up being a much better experience.

We hopped over to Mos Burger for fast-foodish Chinese rice burgers around 6 pm, which was not bad.  Then to help digest and keep the blood flowing, we walked back to the area near Tapei 101 and the malls, which was about 20 minutes or more away.  Then we returned to the apartment, where Mr. Chan was pouring more glasses of whiskey and Mrs. Chan was serving birthday cake.  After consuming a bit of each, I re-packed my bags.  I had to return to my new room in the hotel, the third different bed I would have slept in the four nights in Taipei so far.