Being away from home can make one homesick and gain or lose weight very easily. Being in 3 different countries in the past year I have seen many different cuisines around the world. This can sometimes be a challenge for imported players who are not open to trying local food.

While playing in Latin countries such as the Dominican and Mexico its easy to find something to a players liking. There are always tacos, quesadillas, or something with chicken or beef and rice on a menu in town. The best part is the menus have pictures and the menus are in both Spanish and English or have words that foreigners can relate to. Here in Taiwan it is extremely tough on foreigners. Having very little knowledge of the language and trying to read the Chinese characters is impossible.

Taiwan has so much to offer when it comes to local foods. The bad part the city we live in, Jhongli, is not a tourist town by any means and barely any English is spoken. It becomes very difficult for the import players to venture out alone to the supermarkets, restaurants, or night markets and find something to eat that they know what it is. Most if not all the restaurants menus are in Chinese and all of the staff speak only speak the native language. The locals also speak both Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese. The food is completely different from the Chinese food most Americans order in on Sunday nights.

Many players will just stick to what they know when it comes to being in a foreign country which could be McDonalds and Pizza Hut for anywhere from 3-6 months. Even those places have a different regional menu. McDonalds carries shrimp burgers and Pizza Hut has squid pizzas. I have tried to venture around the night markets to try the tasty treats this country has to offer. Probably the best and freshest foods comes from the street vendors in Taiwan. They are all over every street throughout the country and work into the late hours of the night. You can smell the food from blocks away. They can stir anything up from dumplings, to stinky tofu, to soups, rice, meats on a stick, and many more items. I usually will go to a night market and find the stand with the most people in line and buy something from that vendor.  Some people might not have the stomachs for some of the “odd” stuff. This includes pig knuckles, chicken feet, pig intestines, duck blood, 100 year old egg etc. As long as a teammate or our translator lets me know what the food is I’ll try it out to an extent.

The other thing I have noticed in Taiwan is that they do not like to waste any part of the animal when cooking. To many people in the US this can be weird, but you have to understand the cultural differences. You will not always get a perfectly trimmed steak or piece of pork. There usually is fat on it. In night markets they will dice up chickens in the back and satay or fry pieces with bones that you have to pick around while eating. Also when eating in restaurants its not polite to leave much food on your plate. Locals do not like you wasting anything. I believe they feel it is a sign of disrespect and that you didn’t like the food.

The team feeds us after batting practice and after the games. Prior to the game we can get anything from Subway, Pizza Hut, dumplings, chinese tacos, egg ham and cheese sandwiches, noodles, or soups. After the games its usually a lunch box or fried rice with squid, or fried pork and noodles. But the one thing that we always get is green and black tea. Everyone loves it! I’m not a fan of the tea but that’s just a personal preference.

While in Taichung this past week Steve Hammond and I ventured around looking for a bite to eat after the game. We came across a place called “Nest” it was a BBQ bar. Inside was a long bar with individual grills in front of each patron. They also had about 10 fish tanks with fish, shrimp, oysters, crabs and other sea creatures floating around. We saw the English name of the restaurant so we figured there would be some english on the menu or spoken inside. That was not the case at all. Steve has been here in Taiwan for a year and a half now and has learned some pretty good Chinese, so luckily he was able to help order and figure out what we were going to eat. We ordered a ton of seafood and meats and it was some of the best food I have had out here so far. Everything was extremely fresh and cooked to perfection.

I am going to start taking more pictures of the food given to us for our games and will post them shortly.

Questions from Twitter

– I was very excited about all the trades that went down this past week in the MLB. Seeing Casper and Furbush get a fresh start with a different organization was very exciting. I wished them the best and talked to Casper actually the other day. Some of my other friends were traded and hopefully they will make it up soon enough. I know that teams can trade between teams over here, but I only believe it happens during the off season. We also have an import signing deadline which is August 31. This means no more imports can be signed after that time.

– There is no in between innings stunts or acts. Like I have said in another blog, there is no exchange of lineup cards, no manager meeting, no national anthem. Just a 5th inning field maintenance break and back to playing. I don’t even know if there is a PA announcer, because the fans and the drums overtake all the sound and Ive never heard an announcer say who’s up to bat or pitching.

– The fans are really passionate. They travel from all over the island to come to different games to root us on. Most if not all have some kind of team apparel and all have the rally sticks or noise makers. They love to take pictures and cheer non stop to the organized chants the MC has.

– The only closing ceremonies we have is to bow to the fans and the other team after the completion of the game, win or lose. The team will run out to the foul line together and one player will lead us.

– When receiving a gift from someone you are supposed to accept it with two hands.

– Don’t leave chopsticks sticking into your food when you are done. It is a sign of the dead and bad luck.

– We finally stayed at a hotel this past weekend in Taichung. It was the Splendor Inn which is a 5 star hotel.

– I have yet to see a player or coach ejected for arguing balls and strikes or a play on the field.

– Lamigo was lucky enough to have a very famous local pitcher come assist and coach with our team the last month. He threw 21 innings in one game before.

– I received the Adidas Jeremy Scott Panda shoes in the US. Sorry to my Taiwanese fans, I don’t have them here to wear.

– Its real exciting for the team and the fans to have Lin back. He is our three hole hitter and plays 3rd base. His bat has already made an impact in our teams improvement. Now we are just waiting for the last piece of the puzzle which is Chin-Feng Chen, once he is completely healthy we are going to be a scary team to face.

– To my knowledge, Taiwanese people get their “English” name from their grammar school teachers.

– I am scheduled to throw tomorrow (Thursday night 630pm) against the Lions at home.

– You can try to watch the games here online. These two links usually stream the games live. That would be at Thursday 630am EST in the US. Or you can catch random games from around the CPBL.

http://zh-tw.justin.tv/whatghost_tv

http://zh-tw.justin.tv/hbk710802

Thanks for reading and translating the blog. I hope you all enjoyed it! Enjoy the rest of your summer and please feel free to contact me via twitter or leave comments here. I love all of your feedback. Thanks for the support and go Lamigo!