December 21, 2012

It's 12/21/12 and like the rest of the planet, just sitting here Waiting For The End Of The World.  I tried to look up a betting line on the doomsday prediction but couldn't find one.  I am such a crappy gambler, but you only have to be right once to make winning a doomsday bet worthwhile, no?  Am always amazed at people having real fear of these things...the cleaning lady came over yesterday and asked me if I knew that the world was going to end tomorrow and then starts balling her eyes out.  She rallied and still did a nice job though.  My feeling is that if it is gonna end, what are you gonna do about it, but it is a good time to take a minute to take stock and ensure that you've done enough to get you into a nice condo in the next life and make sure you tell your loved ones how much you love them. 

Taiwan's religious make-up of Taiwan comes in at 33% Buddhist, 32% Taoist, with only about 5% being Christians, so there is not a lot in the way of decorating and celebrating around town.  About the only places where you see decorations are in the bigger stores and even those are muted.  What you get are a few small plastic Christmas trees (no pine trees in the tropics), and Christmas songs playing at the 7-11 (and not your Eartha Kitt or Burl Ives versions...ever hear Silent Night in Chinese?  Haunting.)  The scariest Christmas "decoration" I saw was from the ad campaign in the Takashimaya store across the street.

Here is a closer look at the guests around the dinner table.

Those are some bizarre characters and you don't even want to know what kind of kinky stuff the woman is into. 

Am not gonna complain about the lack of Christmas spirit though as it is nice not to be inundated with advertising and tortured by a month of the same old Christmas songs, but still get choked up when we come home to see these decorations in the apartment lobby.

We're off to Italy for two weeks tonight so will be taking a break from posting.  Talk to you when we get back and hope you all have a great holiday.

December 18, 2012

Feel pretty proud of myself this morning...had my first outing where I spoke and, more importantly, understood everything in Chinese.  Was your basic conversation with the dry cleaner, but still.  Will recount it here:

Me: Zao.
Dry Cleaner: San jian yifu?
Me: Dui. Li bai ji?
Dry cleaner: (counting on her hands) Li bai wu, yi dian.
Me: Xie xie.

Am not thinking that I'll ever be able to hold a meaningful conversation in Chinese, but not being totally lost felt good.  In class yesterday, we learned that the word for food is fan , which also happens to mean cooked rice.  The word for rice seeds is something else, for rice in the field is another word and so on.  There are 26 different words for rice in its various forms, kind of like how the Eskimos have 32 words for snow.  We also learned that the word for "work" is shi.  That sounded like the same sound as the word for the number 10, and I asked her if that was correct.  The teacher said that not only was it the same, but the sound shi has 70 different characters (and meanings) and  that there is a famous poem where the writer used only that sound  Read aloud, the poem sounds like shi shi shi...but when read it is quite beautiful.  How can a white boy from the valley ever hope to learn a language like that?  They are always so proud with the characters...like when the kids grandfather gave them their Chinese middle names, was told they were very beautiful and poetic.  Am starting to think that this poetry thing is just cultural pride and that they would tell me that saying that "one needs to take a dump" in Chinese would be considered poetry.  Sure, mine are certainly works of art, but is the act itself poetic in Chinese?   Hope to find out next semester.

Another conversation we had in class yesterday was about learning how to read and write the characters.  One of my classmates was telling us that she looked in on a class that taught people how to read/write, and that it was full of elderly Chinese people.  The teacher got a puzzled look on her face and thought that was odd, and I offered a guess that maybe that they didn't take the schooling as seriously as they do now when these old people were school age?  She said no way...as far back as she knew, if a kid missed school for more than a day, the teacher would call on the family to see why not.  If the child's absence stretched for three days, they would send the police around to make sure that the kid had a good reason, or to get him back in school if not.  As with anything I hear about the Chinese culture, I take it with a grain of salt and try to independently verify, but even if this is remotely true...damn.  I know that wouldn't fly in the States with people's individual liberties and the fear of big government involvement, but can't help thinking where the US would be if it had a semblance of that kind of devotion to learning.  On that note...Paul related a conversation he had with one of his baseball team mates who told him that "the Chinese superiority in school peeks in the 8th grade" and that it all goes downhill from there.  We'll see if that's true, but maybe the reason that this kid thought so was due to the fact that he happened to be in the 9th grade. 

We're heading off to Italy for vacation on Friday, but have been taking some photos and hope to post one more time this week with some images and impressions of Christmas in Asia.  If I don't get to it...Zhu ni sheng dan kuai le.

December 15, 2012

I have complained about the weather in Taipei a lot in this space, so it is fair that I give equal time to how awesome it is to have a 79 degree day on December 15th.  October and November were both really nice, and while December has seen its share of rainy (high 50's at night/low 60's during day), we are currently on a stretch of 4 days with 75 to 79 degree highs.  Good times.  I broke down and wore jeans a couple of days last week, but Paul is still on his run of wearing shorts to school every day.  I asked him if he is going to try to go all year long without long pants and he said that is the plan...Mom is probably not happy hearing that, but I totally respect the kid for it. 

Living in a dense city means that land is at a premium, so the parking is mostly underground.  Am typically at the Costco a couple of times a week and park in their underground lot, which was originally built as a bunker to protect the citizens from mainland Chinese bombs during the cold war.  In an area of high geological activity, being in such structurally sound enclosures is a bit comforting to one with a mild case of claustrophobia.  These heavily fortified cement structures are everywhere, the most rumored about being the one underneath the National Museum.  That museum houses the largest collection of Chinese artifacts in the world, with these being either "rescued" or "stolen" from the mainland in 1949.

Back to parking at the Costco...every time I go I notice that at least half the cars back into the spots, so their trunks are backed up against the cars in the adjacent rows, or against walls of the thickest concrete imaginable...I'm thinking similar in thickness to the bunkers the Iranians are storing their centrifuges in.  And every time, you see people struggling to open their SUV hatchbacks against the obstacles and/or doing the Taiwanese version of the chicken dance carrying their Costco sized diapers between their car and the one parked (closely) next to them to get them to the back of the vehicle.  And every time I wonder why don't they just pull in head first so they can access the trunk directly from their cart.  I am looking for some kind of outlet for me to get in front of the "people" to ask them why they do some of these things...I know there has to be a reason, and there is always a reason, but change takes time and maybe we can find a better way if we all work together.

Finally for today, am sitting here on a bright Saturday morning in our office where a window in front of the computer faces out, and Betty wakes up, comes in to open the shades and am immediately blinded and a headache is coming on.  We've had this 18 year (with the wind chill factor, it feels like 30) battle between her bright/quiet preferences, and my need for dark/loud things.  I appreciate her aversion to loud things and try to tune them down when she's around, but even the lowest of my "jungle music" can make her face scruntch. 

Quick side note: one of the few times I get to unleash the volume to 11 is when I am in the car alone, which is obviously a main reason why I like to drive so much.  You can't really blast it in an apartment complex and have never been a lover of headphones.  Growing up in LA, rolling the windows down and cranking it all the way up is an inalienable right.  But it is not de rigueur here...I have yet to hear music coming from another car.  And it isn't that the only music they have is the Erhu (sad Chinese two string violin) or Hello Kitty K-Pop, neither of which sound great amplified.  I know there are some loud rock music lovers around...have seen them in action...and there are loud shows all the time (check out some of those awesome band names), so you'd think that we'd run into them somewhere. Sometimes I'll look around at people on the street or in other cars when the tunes are blasting from mine and will they will give the power rock salute.   Additionally, they do not roll their car windows down.  The only ones I ever see down are on the most beat up of the Taiwanese blue work trucks where the dudes are chain smoking and probably have no AC.  I'm tooling downtown yesterday in idyllic 78 degree weather with the windows down and every other car has theirs up.  Adding to my list of "Why" questions as there has to be some reason...I fear it might be something similar to the use of umbrellas year round to protect from the harsh UV or acid rain, but suspect the real reason is to protect their anonymity for all the dickish driving maneuvers that they regularly pull.

But as for the light thing...I have green eyes.  I was in a lighting store a couple of years ago and was describing the differences to light that I have with Betty to the (rather attractive) lighting expert, and she sits me down, looks deep into my eyes and told me that she understood..  People with blue and (especially) green eyes are far more sensitive to light than those with brown eyes...it is a scientific fact.  I know the more prejudiced minded of you will think that the brown eyed people are just superior, but remember that if the color green were not so light absorbent, that photosynthesis would not possible and humans may not have evolved at all without it.   So this is my open letter to all of you brown eyed people out there to be sensitive to the sensitivities your genetically different brothers and sisters.

December 13, 2013

I saw my first ass crack in Taiwan last night.  It was at the local coffee joint where an employee was bending way over the pastry display counter drawing little X-mas symbols onto the glass case.  Seeing an ass crack was not something on my "things to do" radar and I only realized that I hadn't seen one to date as this one was staring me in the face.  Seeing them in the States is arguably a daily occurrence...whether they be unintentional or not.  Working downtown in Seattle provided lots of opportunities to run into them, from the homeless guys at the bus stop on 3rd Ave or the dumb ass kids wearing their pants down to their thighs (are they still doing that?), to any floor at Nordstrom with the low cut pant wearing hotties and their desire to show off their expensive thong underpants.  So seeing this ass crack made me wonder why I hadn't seen one here.  After many hours in deep thought, I am attributing it to a combination that the ladies here dress more modestly, and the fact that they just don't have protruding asses that cause the cracks to surface.  This is simply a theory at this point, but will be making an empirical study about the phenomenon going forward.

Another cultural trait that I've noticed recently is the ability for the Chinese to nap anywhere.  I have long marveled at Betty's ability to doze off almost instantly and anywhere, but always thought that she had a mild case of narcolepsy.  In the car ride home, she was telling me how at work, a lot of the employees will simply put their heads on their desks and nap their lunch hours away.  I see people sleeping while sitting in benches in the park all the time.  And yesterday, my Chinese teacher independently volunteered the information about how it is very common for all Chinese to take any opportunity to nap, and that most of them can do it anywhere.  She told us to take a pass through the Ikea some day and look at how many people are in their snoozing away.  I like a good nap as much as the next guy, and have trained my internal clock to be in and out of one in an hour flat, but my body still needs to be horizontal or at least in a heavily reclined posture, and there needs to be some bit of privacy and quiet to get it done, so I am very envious of this ability.  As part of my cultural studies, will have to see if this is a trait that is inherent or can be learned.

We are going to the local branch of Hooters this weekend to celebrate a friend of ours birthday.  He's a Seattle guy that's been here a few years and that's where he likes to go to celebrate.  He calls it Mosquito Bites.  As he invited us to join them, I couldn't help but to paraphrase Matthew McConahey , from his finest role ever in Dazed and Confused.  "I keep getting older, but the Hooters stay the same".   Will bring my camera and share next week.

December 11, 2012

Do you know your blood type?  I had no idea how important knowing them is to your personality.  I so love my Chinese class as the teacher is such a deep well of all things Chinese culture.  We were learning how to say the date today and we had to say our birthdays.    Turns out that Wales and I are both Virgo's, but then the teacher said to me that my blood type must be O and that Wales was an A.  In Asian "astrology", your blood type is as important in determining your personality as is your astrology sign.  I immediately came home and did a quick on-line search...here is a link  to a site that talks about the different blood type characteristics even details the food you should eat.  Wikipedia has this to say about it.   And here is one more article about it that is a bit more flattering to my blood type.  Wales didn't know hers, but I am (totally) type O.  I've always been a fan of the horoscopes...not necessarily one to change my plans because of them, but more to help in understanding why I act certain ways and why others have certain characteristics  Since marrying an Asian, have become familiar and incorporated some of their year based signs (I'm a snake) into the above equations.  But learning about this blood type thing today was like someone finally turning over all the letters or getting my first pair of glasses.  Kinda felt like Navin Johnson in The Jerk learning about his "special purpose".   Needless to say...I plan on learning a lot more about blood types.

I mentioned we had a friend in town this week and I asked him what he wanted to do on his free evening before heading back to Seattle.  Apparently, the word has spread around the world about Taipei's Shrimping District and that is what he wanted to do.  I've detailed the wondrous experience in a previous posting, but this article details it nicely, and here is one of many YouTube clips on what it looks like.  So far, this is probably the most fun thing to do that we've found here.  Take a peek at our friend Kevin...

Boozin', smokin' and a shrimpin'.  Those two fellas in the background were so nice to us...they saw we were struggling with some of the nuances of the sport, so they gave us some of their special bait, showed us the proper way to skewer and salt the shrimps, and later, came by to slam some beer shots in celebration of our conquests.  Their Taiwanese hospitality made me forget for a few glorious moments how pissed off I get with them out on the roads. 

And here is you know who working the grill.

Good times...this should be the cover photo of the Taipei Tour Guide.

December 10, 2012

Sitting here this morning listening to the Seahawks iniolate the Cardinals (51-0 in the 3rd quarter), and got me thinking about the softball tournament that we went to on Saturday.  All of the English speaking middle schools came together in Taichung (2.5 hrs south of Taipei) for an 8th grade softball tournament.  Paul's school is the biggest of these and they sent three teams while the rest of the schools "fielded" just one each.  They were obviously digging deep for players as there weren't many that looked like they had played much ball ever.  I'm not bragging on Paul being great, but he is a solid and knowledgeable player and many of the other boys on his team had similar skills.  They won the tournament with a total score in their 4 games of 106 - 7, and this was after all of the boys went to their "formal dance the night before and know that none of them went to bed before 1AM (with a 6AM departure time for the field).  It was quite ugly and we were rooting for the opposing teams for most of the day.  I can hear the Seahawk fans now cheering (and not sarcastically) a 1st down by the Cardinals.  Couple of snaps...

Carolyn was with us for the long (and rainy) day and kept a smile on her face the whole time (with a little help from the shaved ice stand).

December 5, 2012

It has been a while since I've posted...that's due to a combination of being busier these days, not carrying around my notebook as often and then forgetting gags that I would normally share, and mainly just settling into a daily routine where not much "new" happens.  I could write a daily breakdown of the driving challenges that happened that day, but know that would get boring to most. 

Speaking of challenges, I heard this thing about the word in Chinese for both challenge and opportunity is the same.  Meant to ask my teacher about that one today and forgot, but I am doubting that is true as it sounds like motivational speak to me.  Chinese class is getting harder for sure.  If it was just vocabulary memorization, it wouldn't be so bad, but the sentence structure is just so different that the combination of the two is intimidating and is making the need to study more (and post entries less).  We lost the Grandma for good and Wales has put up the white flag.  She said today that she is just going to keep coming in hopes of picking up a word or two.  We added two new students that came back from the level two class as they were struggling and wanted to re-learn the level one stuff.  One of them is from Russia and is the sister-in-law of one of our closer friends here...met her when we were both drunk at Octoberfest.  She seems nice and well prepared, and she was funny the night we got loaded, but she doesn't like Maya Pizza preferring the thicker crust at the Pizza Hut.  No one is perfect I guess.  The other lady is an American and haven't decided if I like her or not yet.  We were learning about the days off the week today and the teacher asked what day is the start of the week for the Chinese and gave us the hint that it is based on the Bible.  American lady said Sunday, but the teacher said that it is Monday (and on the 7th day he rested and all).  America said that she was wrong as she is Jewish and I volunteered that God was a Jew 

Have been trying to work on my Chinese with the doormen and so I was asking one of the guys his name.  Mr Chang was his name and I told him mine was John.  John is pretty common and he had no problem with that, but then he asked my daughter Carolyn what her name was.  When we named her, we did not give much thought to how the name would sound to the Chinese...the letter "L" is not an easy one for them to say and comes out more like an "R".  Always smile when my mother-in-law tries to say it, but when the doorman tried to say Carolyn in his deep voice, it sounded like Frankenstein as he was just getting off the table.  I am sensitive to others hacking up English as I know I am pulverizing Mandarin, so try not to laugh, but the way he said her name was damn hilarious.

We have a friend in town this week...Carolyn's best friend since forever's dad (Kevin) works for HTC, which is a Taiwanese company, and he is here this week on business.  We got to hang out with him last Sunday and was nice to share some of our experiences first hand with one of our Homies.  He was interested in seeing bike shops as he is an avid cyclist and Taiwan manufactures a lot of top end brands.  Before moving here, my mentality had always associated Made in Taiwan with cheap crap.  This sentiment comes from my youth when Taiwan was in their manufacturing infancy and you would only see that label on cheap t-shirts or other crappy merchandise.  But they have come a long way and now manufacture 1/3 of the worlds laptops and other high tech gear, and high performance clothing and bicycles.  A local friend of ours swears by the audio equipment made by this company called Usher.  Kevin has traveled a lot in his life and we were sharing some of our cultural observations.  One of mine has to do about how diet affects body oder and how I noticed that mine has changed since arrival...much more garlic-y.  We both agreed that people from India smell of curry and he was telling me of a trip he made there and asked an Indian fella what Westerners smell like.  The guy was so happy because no one had ever asked him before and he told Kevin that we smell of dairy.  Totally makes sense.

Another reason for my diary posting absence has been that I have been studying up for our trip to Italy...reading some history books and planning our daily schedule.  Today, just purchased tickets for the whole family to see Roma AS play InterMilan at Olympic Stadium the night we get in.  Totally pumped up for that.  Other exciting tours booked are of the Coliseum and Forum area and a X-mas Eve tour of the Vatican.  Can hardly wait to see the Sistine Chapel.  Only a couple weeks away!  Going to have to work on some new Italian jokes...did I tell this one already?  Why do Italian men wear gold chains?  So they know where to stop shaving.