oh yea

I just remembered that I promised to explain the “tai” thing. Well, I’m not sure what “tai” means. “pei”, “nan”, “dong”, and “chong”, however, are north, south, east, and center. Amie denied that there was a “si” (west), but it turns out that there is. I think that’s one of the more interesting things about Chinese. You can make a really uninspired name for your city, and yet, it sounds beautiful, and it fits. There’s a reason that Chinese always sounds really bad when literally translated, and why poetry takes a lot of work to communicate what’s being expressed through translation. In Chinese, there couldn’t be a more fitting saying than “Less is more.” I really believe that their thought processes can be fundamentally different than a native English speaker. Which, of course, would be why Amie acts the way she does sometimes. Maybe I can’t just call her weird anymore. I need a much more linguistic-y word.

Sometimes I’m really surprised by what our brains are capable of, and by what might be going on in the subconscious. It’s weird to think that it’s all chemicals in there. For example, I just finished watching a great deal of “House”, it’s very early in the morning, and for some reason I had the inspiration to make sure my cell phone bill was being paid. Guess what, it wasn’t, and guess what else, the payment was due today. What’s going on up there?

I would date the girl from Venus

Okay, okay. Now it’s been over a month since I returned from Taiwan, and yea, my memory is a little bit fuzzy. Allow me to sum up the rest of our island tour and the last couple days in Taiwan, and move on with my life.

We ended up spending brief spells in Tainan, Gaoxiong, Taidong, and Hualien. Tainan was really just a stop for lunch, and it was a really hot day. Amie and I wandered around for a while deciding where to eat, and finally settled on a little noodle place. This restaurant clearly was not accustomed to patrons over 5′ 6″, as most of the furniture appeared to come from an old kindergarten. I had to sit sideways at the table, as my knees sure as hell weren’t going to fit underneath. The food was not bad, and I seem to remember we ordered way too much. We walked around a bit more after that. Tainan was a lot more spread out, with few tall buildings, but the appearance was still distinctly Taiwan, and had a very run-down feeling to it. Most notably, as we were walking down the sidewalk an old man seized the chance to yell at Amie that I was a very cute guy. My Chinese had progressed enough at this point to understand, which only increased the embarassment, and no, we weren’t really sure what he felt compelled to comment at all.

Gaoxiong, on the other hand, was a very different experience. It is, I believe, the second most populous city in Taiwan, after Taipei (By the way, I’m getting to an explanation of why everything starts with “Tai,” if you’re wondering). Our stay was limited to a walk through the Mall of Taiwan, or whatever it was actually called, which was a 9 story mall much in the Western style, although with much more Japanese influence, as far as the merchandise is concerned. We didn’t have much time to spend, as Amie’s brother got a call from their uncle, who was expecting us for dinner in Pingdong, a short drive away, so we got back in the car and headed there.

No one had any idea how to get to the uncle’s house, so we had to stop somewhere, explain to them over the phone where we were, and wait for them to come pick us up (on scooter-back of course!). The waiting ended up being about half an hour, because, as I discovered later, they couldn’t find the keys anywhere. So, by the time we got to the house and thought about dinner, it was already time for most of the restaurants to close. We ate at a very good Japanese place, although I did cause a minor scandal asking for something without fish.

Amie’s aunt and uncle were very nice people, and they had a very nice house. They also had two sons, one in high school, and the other just that day returning from his army service and starting his new job. Taiwan has a mandatory term of service for males, starting after college. This causes many Taiwanese students studying in the US to go to grad school, pursue second degrees, whatever it takes to avoid being drafted.

I couldn’t help but notice the dichotomy of behavior of the older couple. While both appeared to be very nice, the uncle tried incessantly to make conversation with me, which necessitated translation. I appreciated the attention, although Taiwanese people, especially the older ones, tend to pick bizarre topics of concentration. Of course this is true of a lot of cultures, that what passes as smalltalk in one country might be grossly misinterpreted in another. The aunt, on the other hand, took the other route, trying to make me feel more comfortable by completely ignoring me, and stealing furtive glances when she thought I wasn’t looking. I find that overall most people react in either of these two ways when faced by a language barrier, and honestly I’m not sure which one I prefer. It certainly will cause me some pause the next time I’m around someone who is seriously foreign.

After our brief stay in Pingdong, we went further southwest (we were basically at the southern tip of the island at this point), to the Kending national park (alternate road sign spelling: Kenting), which was the beach resort area that most people think of when they think “Tropical Island.” Beautiful beaches, palm trees, water sports, and conservative Taiwanese babes wearing not-at-all skimpy swimsuits. Yea, that’s the life. Amie and I actually read at the Starbuck’s most of the time we were there.

The next stage of the trip was a lot more driving, this time up the east coast, which was admittedly very scenic. We drove all the way up to Hualien, passing briefly through Taidong, where we were staying at a ritzy hotel. Amie’s little uncle (our roommate back in Taipei) apparently had the connections for a discount at this hotel, so half price in Taiwan money meant very good service at very little cost. We rented bikes from the hotel and rode around at 11PM, which was a good time.

At this time we received the unfortunate news that Amie’s younger brother had been in an accident on his scooter up in the mountains and was hospitalized in Taichong, which happened to be our next stop on the trip anyway, so we hurried there. It still took about 6 hours driving on harrowing one lane roads through the at times quite foggy mountains.

Funny Anecdote #1: Amie’s brother had actually told their mother that he was traveling by car (and probably that there weren’t any girls there, either), so he was in a bit of a fix. Despite the severity of his injuries, he still tried to convince his siblings not to tell Mom that he was in the hospital. I’m really terrified of what that woman is capable of.

Funny Anecdote #2: Little bro also told us about the first hospital he visited, which was a very rural place, as he was injured up in the mountains. The doctor apparently said, “Nah, you’re fine.” Wanting a second opinion, he went to his university hospital in Taichong, where he was told that his ankle was shattered, needing surgery to implant a piece of metal to insure proper regrowth, and he would need to wear a cast for 6 months.

We went to the hospital to visit. The bro’s GF and I had a fantastically awkward staring match waiting in the hall while the family was together. Afterwards we said goodbye to Amie’s brother and his girlfriend, as Amie’s friend and former college roommate Tina was picking us up, so go stay with her for a couple days. The girl’s father is apparently some international sailing-on-a-yacht money businessman, so she had her own place to herself right in downtown Taichong, with a few extra rooms. We spent an enjoyable couple of days there, seeing as Tina both hates fish and loves to eat Western food. She and her boyfriend treated us to some fantastic restaurant. She also showed a marked aptitude for board games, to Amie’s and my delight.

I should also note that we visited a night market in Taichong, and I finally was coaxed into eating stinky tofu. It was nothing to write home about, but definitely tastes better than it smells. We also had these plum-flavored sweet potato fries, which were delicious.

Funny Anecdote #3: Tina is a very nice, giving, and straightforward girl. She’s pursuing a graduate degree at UChicago in Social Work. The best way I can explain her character is when the three of us were waiting for the elevator, and she suddenly looks at us with a very serious expression. “I’m going to be completely honest with you guys,” she explained ominously. “I just farted.”

After Taichong we took the special High Speed Train back to Taipei, which made amazing time. I think it was like an hour. I was extremely grateful to be back in Taipei after nearly a week on the road. For one thing, it was great to be out of the clutches of the family members and their scheduled meals. We passed the last few days packing and reading. I discovered an arcade with a DDR machine, and proceeded to teach a few people that some Americans can play that game, too.

The very last days we spent in Jhunan. At this point our minds were starting to get back to all the stuff we had to take care of back in the states. I knew it was time to go home, as I began to react strangely to the food. I would feel nautious after every meal, even if all I ate was white rice. I think this was a psychosomatic response to all the pressure to eat, all the cockroaches I saw in two months in Taipei, and Amie’s horrible stories about the state her Grandma keeps the kitchen in.

Back home, we spent a few very sad days in Ann Arbor before a trip to Ottawa, then to Boston, then back to Ottawa, then back to Ann Arbor. Then back to Boston, in a truck that got 10 miles to the gallon. Good times.

I’m not sure what I’m going to write on here now that my colorful narrative has come to an end. My real life is not nearly so action-packed, unless rationalizing lethargy is interesting. Philosophical rambling is out, too, as my high school history teacher always said my papers were “Hegelian”. We’ll see.

insufficient data upload

ok, now it’s officially been a long time since I posted here. I got a little caught up in all the preparations to leave Taiwan, not to mention spending the last few days in Jhunan, where the internet access is spotty at best. Amie’s parents still aren’t caught up with the rest of the world as far as checking email is concerned. After we got back (customs went surprisingly smoothly) we’ve been doing a lot of stuff in preparation for our move to Boston, to where we are headed on Wednesday. We already got a place, small and dirty, and still over $200 more per month than my rent in Ann Arbor, but it should work out. I plan to continue with the last few days of our time in Taiwan, the rest of the trip and my semi psychotic episode in Jhunan, but that will have to wait until after I get settled in Boston. Then the real fun begins, looking for a job.

In order to best prepare myself for the job hunt, I’ve been playing a star wars game on the side. My progress with the Jedi mind trick has been satisfactory.

“You don’t need to see my resume. This is the employee you are looking for.”

As long as my employer isn’t Jabba the Hutt or a Sith lord, I should be set. All I need now is one of those sweet Jedi cloaks.

the long-awaited return

I’m back! If truth be told, we actually got back yesterday, but I was much more inclined to unwind a bit and enjoy freedom from an itinerary than write what surely will be a long post.

As is common for such things, I will begin at the beginning. Amie and I were both sort of in the dark as to what our trip around the island was going to entail, though it was clear her brother had something in mind. Originally he wanted to spend a much longer time, visiting more tourist spots, but he became aware of our unwillingness to leave Taipei for too long, and our tendency to cling Scrooge-like to our crisp $1000 NT bills. My acquired instinct to avoid more time with her family than is necessary, because the Taiwanese mind revolves around food as surely as the earth does the sun, also contributed to some curtailment of the itinerary.

The trip started off in a peculiar way, as we left Taipei around 8:00 P.M., and took a train to Jhunan. A brief meeting with Amie’s parents accompanied a light repast of rice noodles with pumpkin and pork, which was pretty good. We then left at 1 A.M., intending to reach Ali Mountain to see the sunrise. Amie and I originally thought this was just a nice touch on the part of her older brother, who thought of something original and fun to do. After 2 hours on the highway and another 2 on snakelike roads up through the mountains, we got there around 3:45 A.M. That’s when we found out that this is actually another tourist draw, not just pulling to the side of the road and watching the sun come up. No, some people apparently found out that this is the best place to see the sun rise, so it became a monstrosity of overpriced food, a novelty sort of train running up to the Sunrise Viewing Location (TM), and one really obnoxious lady shouting quite loudly about the hats and scarves she was selling (It was about 50 degrees out, you should have seen how people wrapped themselves up for that), as well as paper glasses that allow you to look directly at the sun. I went in a T-shirt just to make a statement that, if you’re from Michigan, it was positively balmy outside.

Hordes of people heading towards the viewing location

There was this guy, apparently he was being paid to tell jokes and explain about sunrises through a bullhorn until the sun had officially risen. It is pretty tiring to sit through someone yelling into one of those things in a language you can’t understand.

After the highly anticipated event, we walked back through some forest paths and I managed to get a couple nice pictures:

“some trees with light coming through prettily”

Moss! I remembered that my mother wanted some Taiwanese moss pictures for her Moss Appreciation Society. There’s an even better one later.

That about covers the first day, or part of a day. There was a lot of driving on this trip, and mountain driving, or perhaps I should say Taiwanese-style mountain driving, which means a lot of stomach-wrenching turns which made me pretty carsick.

I think these things turn out better when I don’t write so much at once, so I’ll try to write a little bit more about the trip tomorrow, and I still have a lot more pictures.

ooleyow

Sorry I haven’t written much in a while. I just haven’t been doing much worth writing about. I’m leaving for a week and won’t be back until next Saturday, as we’re going to visit Amie’s uncle’s family in Pingdong, which is nearly all the way at the south of the island, and traveling around with Amie’s brother and his girlfriend for another 2 days besides. We also plan to visit Amie’s friend and former roommate in Taichong, just for a couple days. I’m going to bring my camera and hopefully will have some interesting things to write about when I get back. Just pray that no one forces me to eat any more disgusting stuff.

drinking yogurt

That’s what Amie’s drinking right now. Drinking yogurt. I’m not really sure how this differs from milk, but at the same time I don’t want to know. Some other beverages I’ve seen which I would classify as uncouth include something called “Pocari Sweat” and seaweed juice. Amie also told me they sell bird saliva, but I am admittedly interested in the manner of harvesting this. I still drink a fair share of soy milk, and bubble tea is good as always, but for the most part I’ve reverted to drinking water, and good old American carbonated beverages, of which your choices are Coke, Cherry Coke, or Pepsi. I figure I’ve made enough sacrifices with her parent’s choice of restaurants that I can indulge in a few home-style comforts. That said, I’ve eaten enough delicious local food that I was compelled to ask Amie “Why do your parents choose to eat such disgusting food when there’s stuff like this out there?”, to which she just shrugged.

I’ve been reading a lot, and slacking a lot on Chinese. I plan to rectify this, but I can’t remember the last time I read this much, so I enjoy it. We’ve also been renting a lot of German movies, what few you can get here (though the selection is a lot better at the local store than your average blockbuster), which is good practice for my German and Amie can watch it with the Chinese subtitles.

We also went and saw the movie “Get Smart,” whose Chinese title translates literally as something like “Agent Cannot.” I guess they never got the old show here. It was funny, but I was a little disappointed after finding out the funniest scene in the movie was one from the trailer.

It was a bad weekend to forget my camera, but last Sunday we visited the tourist “must-see” place, the National Palace Museum. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. There was a lot of great jadework, and some interesting pieces, but it was 3 floors of the same stuff. I invented a game for Amie and I to play called “Pot-Plate-Vase,” wherein the first person to spot all 3 of the titular items when walking into a new room scored a point. It was, unfortunately, much too easy. I was really turned off by how most of the Taiwanese people behaved, like children, obnoxious and pushing in front of you, with behavior generally unbecoming of a museum. I also thought the museum put little effort into creating an atmosphere that made you care about the artifacts you were viewing, to me it felt like I was browsing the table at Sotheby’s.

We also went to Yangmingshan National Park, and saw a really neat area where there were sulfur vents. You could walk right up to a couple of them, and man, are they hot. It’s really bizarre to walk along a path with pools of boiling water on either side of you. I really wonder what the natives thought when they discovered that place. A bad time to forget the camera, indeed, but a bizarre twist of events occurred when we visited the gift shop. The proprietor is Amie’s dad’s cousin. We were therefore treated to a disgusting dinner (Amie’s mom didn’t even like it!), and she was nice enough to give me a little book about the park, all in English, as a souvenir, which was really thoughtful.

Amie’s older brother is sitting the exam for medical school today and tomorrow. It’s a very important time for him, though mom seems a little bit more stressed out than the kids, as always, so I hope he does well. This exam sounds like some serious shit. Two days, 8:40 A.M. – 4:00 P.M. encompassing math, physics, chemistry, biology, English, and Chinese, with a 40 minute break between each subject test. He’s been studying for months, and I’m a bit nervous myself, seeing as I have been putting in a fair bit of time correcting English essays he wrote for me. With all Amie has told me about the education system here, however, I’m a little bit skeptical. There seems to be way too much emphasis on memorization and well, quantity than there is on learning. Students’ work ethics are impressive, but at the same time seem very unhealthy to me. I’m going to try to get a hold of some of a practice test to see what sort of physics, chemistry, and math we’re talking about here. Biology remains, to me, second only to psychology in impracticality, but given the nature of the exam I can see why they include it.

oh, pickles.

Amie went back to Jhunan on her own for one day, since her mom had made appointments for her to see the dentist AND the designer of their new home (such an appointment being, of course, both hoidy AND toidy), I guess to plan out the layout of her room somewhat. I decided to stay behind to spend a little time on my own in Taipei, and I also didn’t think my stomach would appreciate any more time with the ‘rents just yet.

There can’t be many more situations in life that express such overwhelming loneliness as walking around in Taipei and not being able to speak Chinese. Pushing through a crowd that you can’t understand is bad enough, but being a tall, rather gangly white guy makes things even worse, with all the attention you attract. I’m not saying people stop to gape, as foreigners abound in this city, but merely the contrast in size and appearance acts as a magnet, drawing all eyes to you. Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

On top of that, you can’t read most of the signs, so it’s easy to get lost. You just have to trust yourself, use your eyes in other ways, and watch out for cockroaches. I realized it would be rather difficult to get food. Places like Starbuck’s and McDonald’s pretend that their employees can speak English, but I’ve gathered plenty of evidence to the contrary. In fact, sometimes it seems like half the country claims to speak it, but they sure as hell can’t understand me, and I can only get about every 3rd word when they talk. I think it’s embarrassing to both parties involved when they can’t understand each other due to a language issue, and I would much rather prefer that they speak Chinese, and that I speak English. Forcing one of us either way is too painful. With this mindset, my choice of restaurant is very limited. If I can’t see the food, memorize the characters for it, and check it off on the list (The vast majority of restaurants give you a list where you write quantities, like most sushi places in the US), then I probably won’t eat there.

I don’t want to risk them not being able to understand me saying “beef noodles” and end up getting something I don’t want. In short, I’m really terrified of the image that I’m afraid we Americans have earned ourselves: Pushy, fat, loud, and expecting everyone to speak English. People here seem scared half to death if you speak English and they don’t understand, whereas back home I’ve seen Americans wearing smug expressions and proudly stating, “No, we don’t speak Spanish here.” This is a privilege that many young people probably don’t even realize they have. They’re never going to be pressured to learn another language, at least not in the foreseeable future (no, I don’t consider 4 years of high school Spanish “pressure”, they start on English in elementary school here).

So I stick to bakeries and grocery stores, when Amie’s not around. I can see it, grab it, pay for it. I can understand the numbers perfectly now, and I recognize the words for “straw” or “bag,” so going through the checkout is no big deal.

Before she left, Amie and I also managed to find our FLGS (friendly local game store). Having had days upon days beginning with “What do you want to do today? Uh, I dunno.” (or sometimes, “你要做什麼？我不知道.”) we have been playing a fair share of games. Getting a little bit bored of the ones we have, we went out and picked up a couple new ones, San Juan and Citadels. I should have mentioned before that we’re both closet board/card game junkies, but such is the nature of a closet junkie. I’m deciding whether or not to write some about the games, as all the Taipei stuff can be a little dry, but I’m fairly certain market value of the blog will plummet dramatically. Well, who am I kidding. Here’s a little more information, for those who are out of the loop:

http://www.boardgamegeeks.com/game/8217

http://www.boardgamegeeks.com/game/478

Kissing Goldfish Pajamas -> ??? -> Profit

With every passing week I start to feel more and more accustomed to the life here, more in tune with the personalities of typical Taiwanese, and less disgusted by the amount of cockroaches (There are a lot). Amie was rather traumatized in her childhood by a cockroach flying around the ceiling of her bedroom (she had the top bunk), and has been known to dance several meters away when there’s one around. I was slightly disgusted by them at first, but they’re just bugs. I was trying to describe the enormous ones I remember from the zoo near Chicago, which I think were from South America. Most of them here are about 1.5 in long, generally bigger than the ones you can find in the southern US, though the babies are smaller (aww, cute!). There are also German cockroaches (sure, blame the Germans), which are about the size of a firefly.

Amie’s family also seemed impressed by my ability to swat mosquitoes. Maybe they don’t realize how many we have in the US, especially living near a pond, but I will admit that being able to kill them with your hands and NOT getting any guts smeared on them is something of an art form (I like to imagine that the rush of sound from hands being slapped together frightens some of the more feeble mosquitoes to death, I’ll have to experiment with snapping my fingers).

Yea, there’s just a lot of life in Taipei, and little of it human. Some of the more tolerable forms (humans being evaluated on a case-by-case basis) are the lizards and the stray animals. There’s plenty of little gecko things running around, and one actually lives in our apartment. He makes a strange chirping noise from time to time. I like to think that he eats most of the nastier bugs so that I don’t have to worry about them, though I did see the little guy once, and honestly some of the beefier cockroaches could probably finish him off, detachable tail or not.

There are also a TON of stray cats and dogs just wandering around. I have witnessed enough kind souls that will feed them from time to time, even if they can’t afford to shelter them. I don’t think anything like Animal Control exists here, but I’m not really afraid of rabies when I see most of these dogs. A lot of people treat the animals very cruelly, so they’ve learned to stay away from people for the most part. The cats remember who feeds them and will come back (I witnessed 4 different cats visiting the back door of the same little restaurant at different times), but the dogs naturally lack this rudimentary instinct, preferring a more nomadic lifestyle, as far as I can tell. Most of the dogs look like mutts to me, and I was beginning to wonder if there were ever any stray shiatsus or schnauzers, and they were taken in, or else they couldn’t handle the street life. I do find the notion of a rough, tough street wiener dog rather disturbing.

We did a fair bit of sightseeing this past weekend, dragged around once again by Amie’s parents, and I’ll post some of the pictures a bit further below. I wanted to briefly mention one thing about Taiwanese people as I perceive quite a few of them, which is their tendency to quantify things, and also to quantify where I think many Americans would qualify.

I’ll try to explain this using the sightseeing as an example. There are lots of beautiful sights all around the island, and it’s probably only a 4 or 5 hour drive from top to bottom, so if there’s anything you want to see, you can easily plan a day trip around it, no matter where you live. Naturally, most of these ‘beautiful view hot spots’ are packed with middle-aged couples and families, most of whom have the same game plan: Walk up, admire, walk back, drive to the next one. OK, maybe you’re wondering how this is different than the fat Americans usually clogging up national parks. For whatever reason, and Amie quite agrees with me, I get the distinct impression that these people aren’t really appreciating the scenery, they’re just appreciating the fact that they’re appreciating the scenery, as if they’re going to count the time spent and write it down in a log, all the while thinking, “Isn’t this relaxing?”

I get the feeling people don’t appreciate an education, they just appreciate the starting salary of the job you’ll get, and the more expensive the tuition, the better. This, by the way, is a great way for a lot of private high schools on the west coast to rip off Asian parents who send their children to study in the US, paying college-level tuition and getting an education probably on par with the better public schools. Beauty is determined by the cost of your clothes and make-up, and food, well, I don’t think they’ve lost the ability to tell if food tastes good or not, but a popular restaurant definitely will taste better. An arcade in Taiwan consists almost exclusively of crane machines and those basketball shooting games, tons of them. People know what they like. I guess this all is the ‘Taiwanese dream,’ where everyone shares one ambition and strives toward this platonic ideal of a family, and all of this conflicts in my mind with the so-called ‘American dream,’ where people want to be wealthy, yes, but there’s more than that. You can choose what you want to do, make your own goals and fulfill them.

If I were to ask 10 Americans my age where they want to be when they’re 40, I don’t think many of the answers would be the same, but with 10 Taiwanese, well, I’m not sure. To me this is one of the fundamental differences between our two countries, and it explains to me why the US and our culture is often idolized here. They look at the US and see $$$. It’s not a model of democracy, or some sort of beacon of the free world (though, having lived there for 22 years, I don’t think it’s either of those things either). Everyone wants to learn English here, but they don’t approach learning a language like I think it should be. To most people, English means $$$, but I don’t think you can learn effectively if you consider a language as a tool, as a means to some other end. I see language in parts, words and grammar, which do nothing to express the fluidity and beauty of the whole. Being able to speak a language is definitely a marketable skill, but I can never regard it as such to myself.

That aside, here’s some of our pictures from the sightseeing, all from areas northeast and northwest of Taipei, on the coast.

This last one is a rock that’s shaped like a head, sort of like Nefertiti or something. I was clearly much too impatient to wait in the line to take a picture from a proper angle (quantify, quantify!), but I think the distinguishing features are evident. Apparently this is caused because there are two kinds of rock, the type which erodes more slowly being on the top. After visiting this place, we stopped for lunch at a truly disgusting restaurant, being ridiculously dirty and having food which I couldn’t quite stomach. I haven’t mentioned it up until now, but I know plenty of Americans who would frankly balk at the state of a lot of restaurants here, and this one was one of the worst.

This is actually part of an abandoned army base, now open for some light hiking and sightseeing.

These are called the Twin Candles or something. It was a 90+ degree day and really sunny, so my memory is a little hazy.

A neat little town on a mountain. In the background, you can see what looks like a bunch of tiny houses on the hill far away. This is actually a graveyard, filled with tons of little mausoleum type things, which is how all the graveyards look here.

This is the “old street” (literal translation), a famous part of this town, see the stairs leading up? This was, according to Amie’s mom, an inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki with some of the art in “Spirited Away,” which is an excellent film that I highly recommend. If you think it’s just another Anime movie, you’re wrong.

Anyways, this post is quite long, and it’s nearly 4:30 AM, so I’ll call it quits.

International Nazi Conspiracy

I have kept my suspicions to myself until now, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that Taiwan, and many other countries harboring these so-called “Buddhists,” are nothing more than covert Neo-Nazis whose presumable goal is to cover all the world in a second darkness, using the pretense of purported Zen meditation and spiritual attunement to nature to once more deceive the innocent and hard-working people of the free world. I base these suspicions on the cleverly altered swastikas displayed prominently on many Buddhist establishments. With little more than a mirror reflection and a 45-degree rotation, these vile propagandists thought their ploy clever enough to deceive even the keen eyes of a patriotic Freedom Fighter such as myself, but alas, such was their hubris that these attempts were to no avail. </sarcasm

(pictures forthcoming)

Satire aside, things seem to be progressing well in Taiwan. I have fulfilled every hypothetical new year’s resolution, in that I have not broken any laws, caused any international incidents of any kind, or indeed disturbed the peaceful inhabitants of this tropical island in any way, excepting perhaps any mental trauma caused by my conspicuous height disparity.

Moreover, I have incontrovertibly proven to myself that time travel is impossible, this being during my musing whether to pursue its viability in order to visit the 1984 premier of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” I would be quite interested to see the audience’s reaction, especially whether there was any feminist backlash over the blatantly misogynistic portrayal of the film’s female character, Willie. (Others might well have something to say about the token Chinese kid, Shorty). Turning over the logistics of such an undertaking in my mind raised some questions as to its feasibility, which in turn convinced me of its impossibility.

I say all this of course because Amie and I rented all 3 of the original Indiana Jones, having seen the new one earlier this week. I enjoyed it, and how could I not, as it contained all the essential pieces of the original trilogy.

A mini-adventure featuring lots of gunfire at the beginning of the movie. Check.

Travel represented by a red line moving slowly over a map. Check.

Professor Jones writing on a chalkboard. Check.

A long, drawn out chase scene involving one or all of: cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, airplanes (and now amphibious vehicles!). Check.

A horde of some kind of disgusting pest or reptile. Check.

A group of minions, all but one of which fail to kill or capture Indy, with the last one remaining a surprise. Check.

The one really muscular guy, who Indy can’t seem to knock out (being of course out of ammo at this point), and must die by some other means (airplane propeller, giant millstone, etc.). Check.

I could go on, but I think that’s enough. Oh, wait:

A group of loincloth-clad natives living for whatever reason in a long abandoned ruin, whose source of sustenance is left to the imagination. Check.

Conspicuous only by its absence was the sex scene.

Other than the movie, things have been pretty much the same: learning Chinese, walking more of Taipei, and eating more delicious food. We have admittedly, more out of homesickness than anything, eaten at a McDonald’s, KFC, and Sizzler. We also visited the Shilin night market, which I believe is the largest:

(crappy picture taken as an afterthought from the subway platform)

We ate at a famous fried chicken stand here, whose name translates as “very, very big.” It was a flat piece of fried chicken larger than my head, but it was one of the best I’ve ever had. Oh yeah, it cost $50 (about $1.60 US). We didn’t walk all of it, but the part we did had a very flea markety feel to it.

I also managed to get a better picture of the scooters:

It’s like this all over.

My Chinese vocabulary has nearly doubled in usefulness, as I am now able to say:

那兩輛車後面的孩子是我兒子. (That child behind the two cars is my son)

我媽媽昨天早上坐船從法國回來. (My mother arrived by boat from France yesterday morning)

美國的春天天氣不冷不熱，可是那裡有好多馬. (Spring weather in America is neither hot nor cold, but there are a lot of horses)

Zombies! Aliens!

I haven’t done too many touristy things lately to report on, so this might end up being a bit brief. We did visit a contemporary art museum, and we got free admission to boot, since Amie’s friend (whom we affectionately refer to as “pig”, since this is the translation of her last name and I couldn’t remember her Chinese name for the longest time) works there. Unfortunately, the most exciting part of this museum was that they had lockers where you are to put your bags and such, and each locker was labeled with a different artist or period, mine being Zeitgeist. Yea, the exhibits themselves weren’t very interesting.

The only one I liked was the work of a Taiwanese video artist. He apparently spent some time living in London and a few other places, and filmed some bizarre but funny bits about city life. One series of films, which I interpreted to be a sort of social commentary on the predictable routine of life in the city, features him doing a lot of unpredictable things. For instance, he went around looking for groups of pigeons in various parts of the city, such that the groups were milling about in a closely knit crowd eating something, and he would bowl them. That’s right, he’d roll a bowling ball towards them as if they were pins (keep in mind there are still lots of people walking around the city). He also would drive golf balls from tiny patches of grass, such as those found around trees in the city.

That said, most of the other stuff was “art for the sake of art” crap, and even worse was an exhibit with a bunch of videos of some dance troupe. I guess the museum was partnering with said troupe, so they had an exhibit about it.

Later we met up with Pig at a cafe and they spent some time catching up.

We also went to RaoHe again, and I finally won something from those crane machines, a domokun!

Most of my time, however, has been spent learning Chinese hard. It must be learned hard, because it is, like everyone always says, hard. But being such a language buff, it’s nothing I can’t handle. In the past 4 or 5 days I’ve polished off two thirds of the textbook I got, and still retaining pretty well. I’m expecting to reach critical mass where I need to slow down pretty soon, but it feels good to learn at my own pace, while still having the invaluable resource of a native speaker to help me when I need it. The writing system is really fun, but the only thing that’s really frustrating is pronunciation. I understand the tones now, I can even distinguish between them, but it is quite difficult to switch mid-word between say, the 4th and the 1st tone. The tones of some words may also change depending on the word after it. Moreover, your mind has to run blazing fast (while you’re still learning) to remember a word AND its tone, and attach it to your sentence at a speaking pace. And there’s still grammar to worry about. Nevertheless, my vocabulary has increased dramatically, now including such phrases as:

這枝筆多少錢？ (Jhe jhih bi duo shao chien?)

How much does this pen cost?

吃貓，不可以 (chi mao bu ke yi)

Eating cats is not O.K.

I say that I know how to say these things, but the tricky part is getting someone to understand them. My pronunciation is still pretty bad, but improving. There was an awkward moment when Amie went to the bathroom and I was trying to talk to pig, and that didn’t work out so well. This problem is greatly magnified when the ideas I am trying to express are rather unconventional, such as 你喜歡地牢嗎？（Do you like dungeons?) Pig’s answer was, as I found out later, “only if I’m not the one in it.”

I also got a calligraphy pen, sort of like a little paintbrush with a cap, which is quite fun to play around with writing the characters.