Dump Trucks

Taiwanese people tend to be very well educated. There are various subtle reminders of this, like the language that is used in advertisements, street signs, and other things designed to be read by common people. Essentially, Taiwanese ads and road signs have some really obscure words on them. Imagine if street signs in America said "Maximum Velocity" instead of "Speed Limit," or ads promised to improve your ocular ability and rejuvenate your epidermis. In China, the vocabulary set was much more limited, presumably because the government and media outlets assumed the peasants wouldn't be able to read otherwise.

Another reminder is the sheer number of people who can speak English. My uncle, who just visited, assured me that it still seems like there aren't enough English speakers to comfortably get around the city, but I feel like I'm in an English speaking country. In China, English was very much a status symbol, and the only time I was ever served by someone who could speak English was when I was paying $30 bucks a meal. Here, I've been in cabs where the driver spoke better English than Abdikarim in San Diego. (Abdikarim being, in this case, a stereotypical Somali name I found at http://www.babynamesworld.com/category-somali-names.html)

Finally, The garbage trucks play classical music. When I first heard the 2 bit Mozart being played, I thought there was an upscale ice cream truck selling gelatos to the children of people with too much disposable income. I was kind of disappointed when it was just a malnourished-looking guy asking me if I had any trash or recyclables. In Taiwan, people have to take their own trash to the garbage truck, which means that being a garbage man means riding on the back of the truck and making sure people don't miss, and that hearing Mozart being played on a xylaphone means it is either 2 in the afternoon or 10 at night and I better get my ass downstairs or I'm going to be chasing a garbage truck down the alley.