May 3: Dirty laundry

We have learned a great deal about cultural differences on this trip. Laundry is no exception. At home in the U.S., I can work on laundry at my leisure. I never wait for the machine (unless of course I did not finish the last load), I can throw a load in and then work on other tasks, and it never takes that long to finish.

Faced with the pressure of packing and moving to a new destination, I decided I better do some laundry. I headed to B1 -- THE BASEMENT! I was greeted by a large number of other laundromat want-to-be workers or just plain weary travelers looking for clean clothes. The jockeying of position for the first available machine is challenging at a U.S. laundromat -- which I have not visited in a very long time. Now add the language barrier and it starts to get really interesting.

I met some really nice people in the 3 hours it took to finish 2 small loads of laundry. I helped a number with laundry 101 - so thanks Mom for being such a good teacher! One group was from the Philippines was visiting Taiwan for 21 days on an Economic tour. One brave young college student asked if I "knew how to do laundry" so it was nice to have something in common even if language was not one of the skills we shared. One young college student, who reminded me of my niece Jennie Lou, was brave enough to carry on a conversation as her friends stood behind her listening intently. It seems like everyone is shy about speaking a second language. Doing laundry with several large groups of guests and limited space was interesting and entertaining all at the same time - I would not get that in my U.S. B1 laundry room!

Cultural differences. Today it seemed like there were more similarities than differences in all of the places we visited.

For more about the Chientan Overseas Youth Activity Center visit their website at:
http://chientan.cyh.org.tw/eng/index.php