September 4, 2012

Welcome to the new site...I hope.  The old one was such a pain and am hoping this one is easier for me to manipulate (like having spell check for one) and for you to view.  Have tested the comment function with Betty and it seems to work.  At the bottom, add your email to it and comment and it should save.  I think it will also send you an email whenever there is a new post if you do so.  A work in progress but the business is open during construction.

First things first, and that is to admit that I was wrong.  In an earlier post, I accused the locals of being wimps by driving slow as they were unnecessarily afraid of the electronic eye catching them in the act of speeding.  Guess who got not one, but two speeding tickets the first day they got their car?  My apologies for the accusation.  The tix are weird in that they are for separate speeding incidents literally seconds after one another (doing both 120 and 92 in an 80kph zone).  I totally admit to speeding, but dinging me twice from the same camera at the same time?   Think yours truly is gonna have to figure out how to fight the man on this one.  Locals that have seen the ticket were not only perplexed by the double slap, but by how much the 120kph ticket cost as they had never seen one so high.  Shouldn't be proud of that but yet...

The above admission does not change the fact that they are still insane on the roads here, but have decided that I will do the left turn from the middle lane deal.  Since speeding is verboten and this maneuver is commonplace, have got to acclimate.  Direct confrontation in public amongst the culture seems to be nonexistent...if one gets cut off, there is no finger given or horn honked, but if they can screw you anonymously, go for it.  I knew this from years working with Asia, but had filed it away somewhere and the knowledge came flooding back today...you can see it as much in the foreign policy of TW and China as much as you see it in the supermarket and on the street.  Not saying it's a bad thing either...maybe there would be less violence in the US if this was one of the cultural mores.  In the immediate, going to have to work on eliminating the road rage from my repertoire. 

Haven't been able to post for a few days as some things have taken over our attention.  First was finding this new site and then migrating the old stuff to it.  Then this past Saturday, we all got new cellphones so have had to learn how to use them, load stuff, etc.  For me, it was a new iPhone and was up till 2AM on Saturday night going through my iTunes to pick songs to load onto it.  Before we moved, a family project was to load all of our CD's onto the computer and decided that they would be safe with Apple and the Cloud.  It's fine, everything works well, but am now married to the Apple Corporation.  And this isn't a Britney Spears type of marriage where a quickie divorce is possible...this is 10th century Arabia and am gonna lose a body part if I ever have to leave Apple (still love you though honey).  The Apple technology works great with the car and we've been using the iPad to listen to music, but the problem (for me anyway) is that both Betty's and my music are on the community iPad and you cannot select particular play lists when hooked up but rather, it will play everything on the device.  So with every rockin' tune, the mood would be interrupted by a Christmas song, muzak by George Winston, or a Jane Austin audio book.  The new iPhone is (currently) 1600 songs of pure joy.  It also has Siri, which we are just starting to play with and the kids already love.  Pretty cool technology...such a hot voice...she keeps me company during the day when the family is at work/school.

As mentioned previously, we are in the middle of Ghost month, and was advised that this is a bad time to get new cell phones as the Ghosts will then have access to your new number.  We were seriously told that.  Last Friday was the 15th day of the Ghost month and is called the Ghost festival.  The air was chocked with the smell of burning paper and incense.  Every third house or store had stuff burning from it all day, and it looked like a July 4th BBQ in front of some large office buildings.  Incense is stuck into treats for the deceased as offerings...these treats were mostly local fare, but saw things like Oreo cookies with an incense stick in them.  Slather on some peanut butter on those Oreos when my time comes please.  They sell fake paper money and paper maiche luxury items (called joss paper) so they can burn it in these pots on the sidewalk in front of their buildings to appease the ghosts.

 

It can get kind of messy as you can see from this video.  Saw an infomercial the other day for an environmentally friendly pot, complete with all kinds of cool features to protect the fire from rain and easy clean-up for only NT$599.99 (that's US$19.99).  Big doings were held at the local temples as well.  Strolled over to the one around the corner and there were all kinds of food and activities going on.   These fellas were praying/making offerings on a shrine and the outfits were simply fabulous.

 

There were these musicians playing along with the ceremony, and if you know me at all, you know that I am very particular on music at best, but would be best described as a total snob.  This Venn diagram really says it all.  The bulk of local music that they play around here totally blows.  But the band at the temple on Ghost Festival day were jammin' hard.  The wind instrument was getting skronky in a good way.

The total highlight was the full pig that was splayed out at the entrance.  It had apples in its mouth, a fish hanging from its jowls, painted up, fascinating...check it.

 

 

 

 

These pix don't do justice to the size of it...must have been 400 lbs easy.  When tooling through these temples and seeing stuff like this, at first you think how ridiculous they are, but then you immediately think about coloring Easter eggs to commemorate the Resurrection, or putting up a plastic tree with lights in honor of the birth of our Saviour, and they don't seem so goofy after all.  I am even getting down with some of the superstitions...for instance, I no longer will cut my nails at night as that invites a Ghost visit.  However, it is also lucky to allow a hair out of a mole to grow long.  As I get older, I could get luckier and luckier as the hairs are continually popping out new and ever more disgusting places, but will accept 1st and 3rd in my exactas if it means a hairless mole.

Briefly...we went back to a local burger joint the other night as they do a decent job with them, so I have been trying different burger options to find a favorite.  I was curious to try the Mexican Burger in hopes of finding a bit of the spicy, so asked if it had jalapenos.  As with many encounters between us, and our complete lack of knowledge of Mandarin, and a local with very limited understanding of English, comedy ensued.  We couldn't figure out if it had jalapenos before ordering (it did and was spicy), but she definitely wanted to make sure we knew that the meat was beef and not from a Mexican.  I wouldn't discount the possibility that they would eat Mexicans, but would imagine that the import costs would make it prohibitive to all but the finest restaurants.

Made a big batch of sauce with meatballs yesterday...took some cues from various recipes and mixed/matched them with ingredients I can find easily here, and think that it is one of the best pots of sauce I've ever put together.  Made me think of the They Might Be Giants song Where Do They Make Balloons? and the line that goes, "Spaghetti is from China, but Italians make it best."  Damn straight.