March 11, 2011 an 8.9 earthquake followed by a Tsunami struck Japan. As of now people are scrambling about with the hype over the Nuclear Power Plant having collapsed. Fortunately, the radio activity has gone down considerably since the first day of impact when the concrete building gave in. The news reports that the pressure in the tanks should be under control under the next few days and they advise us not to expose our skin and what not. My friend's boyfriend wanted her to by iodine to protect herself in case there was an issue. We went to several health product stores and pharmacies but didn't find iodine tablets. So I am not sure where I would buy any in case the issue did arise.
As for the small island called Taiwan that most people don't know exist or confuse with Thailand if they aren't savvy with their geography the distance between us and Tokyo is close enough to be affected not only physically but also mentally. Many friends and family members of Taiwanese residents and exchange students live in Tokyo and the eastern half of Japan where the Tsunami hit. Most of us spent the past two or three days calling, texting, checking facebook posts to check that friends and family in Japan were not affected. One of my friends told me her house in Tokyo is very messy from the huge tremors and fortunately still standing. I heard from a friend that a friend of a friend's house got swept under from the Tsunami. So as you may guess, we in Taiwan wish to help our neighbor as much as we can.
http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=13&f_SUB_ID=104&f_ART_ID=306891
News reporters came to the Mandarin Training Center (MTC) at NTNU yesterday to report the activities going on for the fundraiser to donate for Japan. I was folding paper cranes 紙鶴 today during my free time going in and out of MTC and the volunteer coordinator called out to me in Chinese asking where I was from (to see what languages I could speak and if I wished to help out volunteering to sell these cranes in the night market I live next to this Friday. I emailed my Taiwanese students to tell them I would like to change dates to help out on Friday and they immediately asked me if they could come assist too. Everyone here is stepping in without hesitation. I read in the above article that over 11,000 NTD (370 USD) was raised in the first day.
On a side note, I was buying dinner tonight at the night market and after I ordered a girl waiting for her order standing off to the side of the food stand started talking to me saying, "你會說中文啊！” "You can speak Chinese!" We spoke for 10 minutes back and forth. She's my age and is taking her last credits at the same university for some design program (didn't know that word in Chinese). She works full time so she looked embarrassed for a second that she hadn't graduated yet. Every once in awhile she would interject saying "你說得很好啊！“ "You speak so well!" She admitted she always was shy talking to a random English speaker but saw that I could speak Chinese so I am the first American she has spoken with. And so our conversation ended with exchanging numbers and of course a picture! The Taiwanese girl way of making fast friends it seems. I've had two of these photos now, not including random people just asking for a quick photo before running away. She texted me in English right after sawing she was so happy to have met me. She had told me she could write it better than speak. It ended with a possibility of meeting to talk again.
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