Love and incomprehension

These are five things I love about my new life:

1. the creative confusion of the streets and the cities — how people relate to each other — everyone talks, even to strangers, in very nice and cheerful ways.
2. the Peking duck the nice man sells on our street. We have it every Friday with a bottle of wine.
3. the Taiwanese mountains — green, rugged, full of hiking trails and tucked-away temples.
4. the passion, seriousness and erudition of my new colleagues.
5. the crazy Chinese language. I get to make the rudest sounds and write the strangest squiggles.

These are five things I will never understand:

1. why people block up the windows in their apartments and turn on the brightest and most industrial looking florescent lights.
2. why no students drink beer.
3. why bureaucrats love paperwork so much and why they stamp every paper with hundreds of stamps.
4. why there are no sidewalks to save you from the ferocious motorcycle drivers.
5. why girls who sell betel nuts wear next to no clothes.