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Five

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At NCKU of the things we talked about as a group was cultural differences that are not plainly obvious. One difference I have picked up on is facial cues and gestures are not interpreted the same way here. This has stood out to me particularly when walking in crowded areas. When someone is trying to walk past me on a narrow sidewalk, I try to point with my eyes or by moving my head to indicate which way I want to go, so we can pass by one another without bumping shoulders. It seems like we make I contact and I think I have made myself clear, but they always seem do the opposite of what I expected. I think somehow the meaning of these gestures is flipped a complete 180 degrees. I encountered the same issue as a pedestrian trying to signal that I will yield to a car. I waved and nodded my head for the car to pass by, but they misunderstood and stopped for me instead. It makes me wonder where the cultural boundaries of these gestures are. I mean how far from Taiwan would I need to travel
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Two

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On Wednesday we Visited Dot Design. A design studio that finds creative uses for materials that would otherwise go to waste. Their "re-ing" product line makes products from discarded playground toys, pineapple leaves, bamboo, milk cartons, and more. The discarded playground toys were melted down and molded into chairs. Their color kind of looked like rainbow confetti, because all of the plastics were mixed together. I think that they would have looked better and would be easier to sell if they were single colors, but the nature of the mixed recycling would make that very hard. I was particularly interested in the pineapple leaves because they are an immediate byproduct of the pineapple farming industry. I think that may be the issue of by-products can be addressed differently from discarded products. I think the pineapple leaf situation allows for a consistent and convenient flow of materials, and it doesn't face the same challenges as the confetti chairs, because the lea
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One

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 I am very impressed by how clean the subways and streets are. American public transit has very big issues with safety and cleanliness and it is kind of shocking to walk around a metropolitan area and not have to watch out for waste or needles.  There is a rule here that you cannot eat or drink on the train, even water bottles need to stay closed. This stood out to me, because even if it was a rule that we wanted to implement in the US, I don’t think people would follow it. In my opinion it seems like there is a cultural difference in the way that people respect their public spaces that cannot be legislated away.  You might expect a country with no litter on the streets to be a country where waste disposal is very convenient, but I have noticed that it is actually very difficult to find a trash can when you are out in Taiwan. America has public (municipal) trash cans everywhere, and it is easy to find them within businesses. I have had to fold up my trash and put it in my pocket many t
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