Civilization is Learned

Introduction

The time is July 19th 2026, 14.21. I'm currently on a plane CI915, departing from Taipei for Hong Kong. I have all the time in the world to write and finish my blog about the weekend in Taipei. But before that, I'm gonna have to write about my views on civilization, everything that I defined according to my beliefs about civilization and how one should behave. I will turn 24 in a month. I'm getting old, not young, and people start to put more expectations on you when you are old. Not something uncommon, but this is how people and society should be. Those who are old are indeed expected to show an example to those who aren't, and I agree with this view.

Civilization is Learned

As the title of this blog said, on one hand, I have this view that humans have the ability to imitate, and learn from patterns. Just like learning languages, people mostly pick up misbehavior from the integrity, morals, and habits of those around them. The worst thing about it is the implication that stereotypes are true, or were true, or a simple analogy, a decision tree with inaccurate prediction.

The process of human thinking is very simple. Before making a logical decision, there should be a time where people would stop, think, and choose the correct decision. Without this, people would just instinctively do what they always thought was true. The ability to stop, think, and do the correct decision is a manner that is able to change yourself as a human. I believe this is what people call introspection.

I was Uncivilized

When I was a kid, there were many things that I realized were so uncivilized. I remember I:

• Didn't cover my sneeze. — I cover coughing, eating, sneezing, and flossing whenever I can now!
• Would block others' walking path. — I learned from it.
• Peed in wrong places—washing basin, shower place, roadside. — I learned from it.
• Talked about one vtuber while talking to another. — I apologized, but didn't have the courage to see her response to my apology. I am so ashamed that I don't have the balls to even open her stream now. Still living rent free in my brain because she called me out in her membership stream lol.
• Left a Japanese seller confused because I escaped from his stall when I realized I couldn't pick up my food while my bus had already arrived. — FYI, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm back learning Japanese now! So I hope this good gesture of mine can make up for my wrongdoings. I will keep this in mind, and will try not to repeat it again in the future. If I had the chance, I would go back to the same place and apologize gracefully!
• Talked badly about someone behind their back on a small public livestream, and got confronted because the said person watched the stream — FYI, this has been settled.
• Talked badly about someone’s partner in front of him. — FYI, this has been settled.
• Harassed someone by making a punching gesture toward them. — FYI, this has been settled.
• Jokingly asked an artist for a free drawing (which made them uncomfortable). — FYI, this has been settled.

Not doing any manipulation or justifying my behavior:

• Someone revealed my online identity in front of others without my consent.
• Someone spread sexual rumors about me, claiming I took off their pants while they were asleep.
• I was sexually assaulted / groped by someone who touched and teased my private parts while traveling abroad.
• Someone blocked my path, cut me in the line, and called me racial slurs.
• Someone made cruel comments about my family.
• Someone harassed me by calling me an identity slur.

Again, harassment here has a very negative connotation, and I didn't get any legal or troubling consequences from it. Harassment only happens when the other side of the party doesn't agree or like what someone has done. So for example saying "I banged your mom" to an online friend jokingly— is not considered as harassment if both parties have consent. Nonetheless, it's a very rude comment, crude joke, and highly unacceptable in society's norms and social construct.

Also, getting harassed by someone doesn't mean they're getting punished as well. This doesn't imply anything! Society, however, has developed something called cancel culture, and government has been trying so hard to reduce the amount of harassment, either purposefully or without the knowledge of doing it.

Religion is important here, as they teach you on how to handle this, without having to experience the bitterness of getting shamed!

A Complex Society in The Era of AI

A very cringe title, not what you'd expect someone like me would write. But I did anyway.

Taiwan is what I think a civilized society should be like. I had a debate with my friend a while ago about my statement of this. The argument was that I shouldn't have said this because I myself am impolite and shouldn't be giving any morality judgment toward others. I stopped, thought, and concluded that this is a common human behavior to avoid hypocrisy.

Totally normal, but according to my belief, hypocrisy should normally not exist when someone has the ability to introspect, and a high sense of humility. That is why altruism matters, in my view. It removes the barrier between someone and their group, and also partially supports the saying "Treat others as you want to be treated". This saying was not meant to equalize everyone's value, but to deepen the sense of altruism, which is just a cooler, and less correct way of saying "Think about others when you are doing something".

To show sincerity, humans normally shall also not talk about how they are improving. Humans are so self-centered they like talking about themselves, and assume everything revolves around them. A very hard thing to do, but it can be learned and suppressed!

Showing off and being narcissistic is a behavior that is natural in me, even, I think I have NPD— I'm not sure about others, but trying to suppress this needs a lot of effort, and I respect myself for being able to do this.

Truth be told, I feel like I have 0 empathy towards others, and just pretend to have it. If my pretension is good enough, then it means I did my job to function well in society.

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That's about it for my rants. By no means do I have bad intention for writing this, I was just reflecting.

July 17th 2026: Sushi and Taipei

I got off work at 6 PM sharp, headed to a Japanese supermarket with one of my coworkers in Sha Tin, and enjoyed the sushi there. My flight was scheduled at 21.15. So it was quite chill. We finished eating at around 18.50, and I headed immediately to the Airport. I arrived there at around 19.40 ish, by local MTR, and transferred to the High Speed MTR at Tsing Yi station.

I was super impressed by the airplane, I took China Airlines, one of the Taiwan airlines. I thought it's an economy airline, apparently I was wrong, it's way better than Garuda Indonesia. It has a very good touch screen—the ones that you don't need your pointy nails to control it, and it was super responsive, even better than Cathay Pacific's one.

The legroom was extra spacey, and the flight attendant wasn't particularly strict about me having my bag on my lap when it's taking off! Props!

The food was super good too. It was this classic Taiwan Pork Rice where they are in tiny bits and you can still taste the savory fat. It was definitely one of the best airline foods that I've ever eaten in the sky.

I sat next to a Hong Kong girl and we chatted a good while. Initially I saw her doing her nails using the stickers. I told her it won't last very long. She told me she usually uses multiple layers of adhesive, combining liquid and sticker ones.

廉航 was the word that she mentioned, because of the stupid meme video that my teacher sent me, I knew what it means.

Arrived there, the airport is quite confusing. I googled about the card used. Apparently they don't support Apple Pay in buses yet. What a turn off.

I bought the ticket to the city with my credit card, and fortunately, my hotel is only about 600 meters from the bus stop. I walked around and noticed the convenience stores are still open. Very cool~! I got myself a drink and the card itself.

They have many kinds of cool cards. Animes, cartoon, any theme you could think of. I didn't top up though. Because apparently I messed up my debit card settings and forgot to enable the Outside Hong Kong Withdrawal Limit. Pon~! And to top up, I need to use cash, apparently.

After buying the card, I checked in and rested for the day.

July 18th 2026: 九份、十分

I woke up early today, didn't get the chance to poop but thankfully I didn't eat much vegetables so my shit is kept inside my stomach. I arrived at the Metro Station, East Exit, and we took a bus to the 野柳地質公園 (Yehliu Geopark). I sat next to a guy from UK, I remember his name was Billy—Lol, he might be reading this right now. Yippie! DW, I won't put your pics here. They can't find a Billy in this world without any picture to recognize.

A round trip from the entrance to the very end of the trail took me about 1 hour.

The view there was just OK.—I'm blaming my sense of appreciation because I've been around to many amazing places in the world now, already. Just like what the French TSA guy I met while I was in Kazakhstan, "The lake here was just OK. It's prettier in Europe"—While I was admiring the most beautiful lake that I've ever seen yet in my whole life.

From there, we continued to the Half Yellow coast—it was yellow because of the iron ion in it. Continuing, I arrived in Jiu Fen (九份). It's a place of winding stone alleys, with shops, snack stalls, and some restaurants. The name tracks back to the Qing Dynasty, when only nine families lived there and when merchants delivered things there, they needed to split everything into 9 portions. Thus, the name. It was said to be one of the places where Spirited Away was inspired from.

Foods that I tried:

• Fried Taro balls
• Assorted Meatballs
• Pork Dumpling Soup
• Sea snail
• Grass Cake
• Fried Shrimp

Holy... I tried so many things....!

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There, I got to know the little kid named Magnus from Hong Kong with his mom. He's 7 years old, but so smart and funny. He told me he loves pokemon cards and he collects them.

From there, we departed to the Shifen Waterfall.

There, I ate the enoki grilled pork, and a passion fruit lemon jelly drink—I didn't add any extra sugar, so the taste was really good and tangy. Billy and I walked a bit far until we found a second old bridge.

Look at this massive watermelon. From there, we departed to Shi Fen (十分), you guessed it this time it was 10 families living there. It's very similar to this train street in Vietnam, because the train track there is still active.

There I tried the peanut ice cream with Coriander~

People were flying their lanterns there, but I was just chilling and walking around looking for interesting food to chomp on. There I also met some other fellow wives whose husbands are working in the US army.

That was it. It was a very fun day trip, I met lots of friends, and came to the same conclusion about how to spend life. At night, I went to Ximending, walked around, nothing too exciting. I got some:

• Gua Bao
• Oyster Omelette
• Mini Dorayakis
• Pepper bun.

I also saw someone doing the punching machine and scored 999. That's crazy. Everyone around was giving applause. I got back after, and slept~!

From this first day, I got the impression that Taiwan people talk very fast, and they are very friendly hahaha.

July 19th 2026: Latey Latey

I woke up seeing the French - England world cup third place match score. It was 4-6! I didn't do much in the morning. I woke up at 10 AM, pooped, and tidied up everything until about 10.40. I checked out, and headed to a convenience store to grab soymilk for breakfast. After that, I waited until Toranoana is open at 11 AM. I bought some 18+ Adult Artprints. It was super cute and sexy.

My flight was going to be at 14.35, so I walked around some more in the Taipei Metro station. Initially I wanted to go to Lashinbang. But it was open at 12. Knowing that it would probably be a bit risky. I backed out and decided to just go to the airport at around 11.40. I arrived there quite early. Even though I've checked in online, I was just making sure that I won't be late for the boarding. Boarding pass printing and immigration were instant. I even used the E-gate and the automatic machine. So I didn't meet any officer until the baggage check. The airplane food was really good as well. They served glass noodles with chicken!

And that's it for the story for Taipei. I'll definitely visit again in the future.