Different people have different grounds and usually they have several. In fact, I believe the more grounds you have, the better equipped you are to deal with such unusual and dynamic situations for prolonged periods of time. As humans are notoriously a creature of habit, having daily routines is not necessarily unique to the transient population, it is just more necessitated. When I worked as a Wilderness Instructor, my boss insisted that we give the kids hot chocolate every morning, even in the middle of summer. His only logic behind this practice was “it’s for the ritual.” None of the instructors really knew what that meant, but we soon justified everything that we did day after day with the explanation “it’s for the ritual.”

In looking back at that experience, I can now see what my boss meant. Giving the kids hot chocolate everyday was their ground. These guys were 13-17 years old and for the most part had never left the city or never experienced life outside of their little rural community. When the courts ordered these guys to spend 3 weeks in the woods of northern Minnesota, their lives were completely turned upside down. Everything was new, everything was constantly changing and because we sat around a campfire and drank hot chocolate every morning, they had some semblance of consistency. They had a ground to help keep their sanity.

Over here, people have numerous grounds and for many, that ground is exercise. Now I like to exercise, but I don’t consider it my ground. I do it when I can and usually to make me feel better. I don’t do it to keep me sane. I made one friend over here that walks 4.2 miles on the treadmill every day. I asked why the 4.2 miles and he said that is how long the loop he walks everyday at home was. When people talk about their grounds, they never fully explain their logic.

For most people, food is their ritual. For me, it’s breakfast. While the hotel has an amazing international breakfast buffet that consists of eggs, bacon, fish, dumplings, salads, breads, and almost everything else you could imagine for breakfast, I tend to stick to what I always eat in the United States. Everyday, I have a bowl of cold cereal, yogurt, fresh fruit, grapefruit juice and coffee. And yes, coffee is by far my biggest ritual.

Anyway, the other day, I decided to venture out into the city (Tainan) by myself. When you venture out, you really need to take a taxi. It is possible to walk, but considering the heat, the maze of streets, the fact that every sign is in Mandarin, and there are no sidewalks, taxis are usually the most desired form of transportation to ensure you get to where you had originally intended.

Not really knowing where I wanted to go, other than out, I asked the door guys at the hotel to tell the taxi driver to take me to Tesco. Tesco is an English department store that really doesn’t have an equivalent in the US. I guess maybe a Super Walmart is close, but Tesco feels more like a mall than a Walmart. Anyway, when I got there, I just walked aimlessly through the aisles and various floors.

I’m not sure what it is, but walking around in a large Asian store is like walking around the moon. It’s not necessarily that the merchandise is different, or that the sales people act like martians, I think it is just the way everything is presented. The lights seem brighter, the stands that the merchandise sits on seems shinier, the packaging itself is different, and of course everything is in Mandarin. Whenever I enter a store, its like I go into a trance and just slowly walk around staring at things. At two different times, I found myself standing in front of a display, holding up an object like it was just dropped into my hands from 50 years in the future. The first product was a tube of toothpaste, the second was a package of stationery. I didn’t need either one, but I just felt compelled to hold it and stare at it.

I did however buy a few things; hair gel, a jar of Skippy peanut butter, a toothbrush, and a pair of headphones. I mention everything that I bought, because when I finished checking out and paying for my purchases, the girl asked if I wanted a bag to carry everything. I said sure. She then told me it would be an additional 200 Taiwan dollars (about $5.50). I politely refused and decided to carry everything I bought without a bag.

When I left the store, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to the hotel, so I decided to walk around. I knew this probably wasn’t the best idea since it was the middle-of-the-day-hot out, there weren’t any sidewalks around, and my hands were full with a tube of hair gel, a jar of peanut butter, a toothbrush (which I stuck in my back pocket), and a pair of headphones, but I did really want to extend my day.

Well, I managed to walk about four blocks, dodging scooters and bicyclists, and stopping at all the street vendor stands to stare at the exotic foods they were preparing and serving. While I’m sure I delivered quite a few incredulous stares and blank looks, I’m also sure I received just as many back. I can’t imagine there are too many Americans walking around the streets with a jar of peanut butter, a tube of hair gel, a toothbrush, and a pair of headphones everyday.

When I finally reached the corner of what appeared to be a rather large intersection, I found a Barista coffee shop. Barista is a large coffee store chain and is very similar to Starbucks. When I entered the store, I ordered a large iced coffee and sat down on a couch that had a view of the street through a large glass window. From my comfortable couch, I was able to watch the comings and goings of the people on the street as if they were a television show being broadcast in my living room.

As I was three quarters finished with my coffee and starting to think about calling it a day and heading back to the hotel, I noticed a little women walking down the sidewalk. At first I thought that she was a ways away, but then I realized it wasn’t the perspective of distance that made her look so small, she was actually really small. When she got in front of the window, she stopped and sat to rest on the bench outside. Apparently carrying four big bags of groceries tired her out.

While she sat and recovered, I was able to get a better look at her. The poor women who came walking down the sidewalk with four big bags of groceries couldn’t have been any younger than 80 years old and no more than four feet tall, even if it were possible to straighten her back. Her skin was dark and thickened, and wrinkled with numerous past hardships. As she sat on the bench and turned her head to gaze down the street, her face told the story of a hard life. And if her life was indeed hard, her face would have had to tell the story, because her clothes sure couldn’t. They couldn’t have been livelier. She wore brown leather shoes, red socks, green pants, a yellow shirt, an orange jacket, and a pink hat. She looked like a box of Crayola Crayons.

Just as I finished my coffee and was about to leave, a scooter pulled up from the direction that the old lady was looking. An old man, my guess is he was at least 85, gets off the scooter, lifts up the seat of the scooter and takes out a motorcycle helmet. The old lady walks over to the man and the scooter, takes the helmet, puts it on and then reaches in her orange jacket to pull out a pair of sunglasses, which she then puts on. Both the man and the women then grab the four bags of groceries, pile them on top of one another on the foot rests, then sit on the scooter, with the old women in the back with her arms wrapped around the old man, and then take off down the road.