December 3rd, 2020

 Hey there,

I left you last time talking about the protests against the importation of U.S. pork into Taiwan.  Those protests didn't just stop on the streets and last week saw a full scale food fight in the Taiwanese parliament.  The party protesting the importation brought trays of pig innards into the chamber and started chucking them at the opposition.  And then the fisticuffs ensued.  If you don't want to click on my link, just type in Taiwan pig guts into YouTube and you'll get all kinds of hits.

The ease and comfort all of the participants have in handling raw pig organs is beautiful and sexy.  I'd give anything to see Mitch get a face full of pig guts.  I remember TV clips from the 80's that had Taiwanese politicians fighting in the parliament, but thought they had evolved.  In the search for the pig guts fight, see that it is still happens with decent frequency.  Here is another recent one where they had a water balloon/chair throwing fight from 2017.

Also following up from last week, the government has announced they are going to start cracking down on tailgaters. This is long overdue...I detailed these monsters in my driving recap a month or so ago.  The Transportation minister, 

"pointed out that malicious tailgating threatens the safety of others and that he witnesses such behavior on a regular basis. He said it is a sign of poor driving culture and that complete reform is necessary."

Have to give this place credit for recognizing their shortcomings and taking this stuff on.  Maybe they have been reading my 9 year long diatribe?

And to continue the thread about Taiwan feeling neglected and alone in the world, two stories came out this week that demonstrate that.  Today, there are rumors out of Japanese media sources saying that 45 may visit Taiwan before leaving office.  The author says that 45 wants to complete all "unfinished promises" before January 20th.  I doubt it, mainly cause he isn't gonna get off his ass for anything other than golf and complaining, and the list of unfinished promises out of that guy would take a lifetime.  The realization is that the people here would welcome Satan himself if he recognized Taiwan as an independent nation, but as Beelzebub is not available, they will happily welcome one of his minions.  

The locals also got pissed at Bloomberg News for ranking Taiwan 3rd in its handling of the Covid-19 response behind New Zealand and Japan.  Can't really blame them for that as the evidence laid out in that article clearly shows TW kicked all the ass.  The only thing they really get dinged for is future access to the vaccine, but that isn't even a thing yet.  

OK...one more fun article to share.  The headline: Video shows Taiwanese man tied to pole dance jeep for birthday.  Take it away Taiwan News...

Instead of the standard pole dance performance for a wedding or funeral, a young man appears to have been "kidnapped" to take part in an elaborate birthday parade. At 9 p.m. on Saturday evening (Nov. 21), a male user of the Facebook group Baoyuan Commune (爆廢1公社) posted a video with the caption "My poor friend is having his birthday and he was tied to a pole dance jeep. He's just now finally passed Tainan's Dawan Road."

In the video, a scantily clad woman in a halter top, skintight shorts, white stalkings, and white high-heel shoes can be seen standing on the roof of a jeep while grasping a pole in one hand and a microphone in another. She can then be heard saying, "I'd like to first apologize to all our friends at the scene if we're disturbing you, I'm sorry! But you only celebrate your 23rd birthday once! Let's join together and help him have a birthday he'll never forget!"

She then called on bystanders to join in, exclaiming, "Can you all shout happy birthday with me? One, two, three ... Happy Birthday ... Yeah!" Next in the frame appears a man standing motionlessly as he is tied tightly with what appears to be several layers of plastic wrap to a dance pole on the trailing jeep, followed by at least two more jeeps with pole dancers at the ready.

"Instead of the standard pole dance performance for a wedding or funeral."?  I didn't get a stripper jeep at my wedding, and will obviously miss out on one at my funeral.  And I checked...there is nothing auspicious about the 23rd birthday that requires being saran wrapped to a jeep with strippers.  

Last week was Thanksgiving.  Our first Thanksgiving in Taiwan, we had the full meal at our apartment with a load of family and friends, but have always left the country for the long weekend in subsequent years.  Since that wasn't an option in 2020, we arranged to rent out a house with another family for a few days.

In August, Betty and I road tripped down the east coast.  We spent a night at a hot spring place in Su'ao, a couple nights at a BnB near Hualien, and then a few nights at another BnB in a town called Dulan just north of Taitung.  THe SU'ao and Hualien portions of that trip were nice, but we were both blown away by Dulan.  6.5 hours drive from Taipei, it is a beach town out of the past.  Where Taiwan sits geologically, the beaches are weird.  On the west coast, where all the people live, it faces China across the Taiwan Straight and have never heard of a single person that has recommended, let alone been to a beach there.  The east coast faces the Pacific and is along the edge of a fault, so the mountains shoot straight up near the coast, and the water drops of sharply and is at one end of the Marianas Trench.  It is also new geologically, so most of that sides coast is rocky and the currents are treacherous for swimming.  Add the fact that the Taiwanese are neither lovers of sun nor surf, and you do not get a ton of beach destinations that you would think would be abundant on a tropical island.  I forget how we stumbled onto it, but Dulan (and a couple of other little stops nearby) are the only real surf beaches here.  The small contingent of Taiwanese surfer dudes and their hippie counterparts have settled here, so the town looks like every other town here, but it is littered with cool little eateries and shops.  It is a throwback to a time in the States before the BEach Boys made catching a wave trendy, and it feels like we discovered an unknown gem before anyone else.  I haven't been everywhere here, but this is my favorite little spot by a long margin.

We also lucked into a really nice BnB in August...the place sits on a hill that has great views of the water and the mountains behind in perfect feng shui proportions.

They have two double and two quad rooms, and we asked the lady in August if we could use the kitchen for Thanksgiving.  She said if we rented out the whole place, we were free to do as we pleased, so asked another family we know with kids and booked the place for three nights.

The other family have two daughters in the upper school and also a niece that is 20-something, and they all hail from Texas.  To respect their privacy, I will refer to them as Tex ____.

We bought a cooked bird and some other fixins, cooked a bunch of side dishes and loaded up the rig.  Me and Tex Dad husband drove while the rest of the gang of 10 took the train.  We traveled on Thursday and planned to do Thanksgiving on Friday, so on Thursday night, we made reservations at their local French place.  Betty and I tried to go there in August, but it was fully booked.  We made reservations in advance for 10 for this evening.  We aren't giant French food aficionados, but the name of this place made us want to go.  Dulan Crap.  

The food was good, and we like this family quite a bit so the night was lively.  We had to ask the lady what was up with the name...like does crap mean something in French other than crap?  The place is run by the lady and her 'stubborn' French husband.  She was hard to understand so some of us thought she said 'sunburned' husband as a way of telling us he was black.  He wasn't.  We asked about the name and she said that everybody asks her that.  No shit lady, you named your restaurant Crap.  Anyhoo, she says on their first night in town, the owner of another restaurant they were eating at told the husband that he had a face that should be eating at the 7-11.  That was as far as she got into the story.  I have to assume that his response was that Dulan is crap, but 'having a face that should be eating at 7-11' is a classic put down. We saw the husband later and the description was spot on.  

Here we are...

 Friday was our Thanksgiving day.  The BnB cooks breakfast and it was great in August and the same this go around.  The caretakers use a bunch of veggies from the garden and provide probably the healthiest meal I've eaten all year.

Our plan was to hit the beach in the late morning, take a nap and then put out the spread, and we pulled it off with aplomb.  The beach in August was really nice, filled with kids taking surfing lessons, but so effin' hot that I literally got blisters on my feet from the sand.  This time, it was a delightful 82 degrees, the beach was empty except for us and the water was the perfect temperature.  Not cold enough even to make the boy parts shrivel up.  We took the football down and tossed it in the waves.

As part of our family, we brought along Carolyn's best/oldest school friend and Betty's nephew who took a semester off from university in the States to study Chinese in Taiwan.  He is staying with his grandparents, which I think is Betty's uncle but could be wrong cause family relationships are very confusing.  That is him on a rock with Babydoll.

Tex Dad is a gadget guy and he brought his drone to the beach.  I have never seen one in operation up close and now want one.  It was pretty windy on this day and I thought there was no way it was gonna fly, but the damn thing did it effortlessly.  He hooks his phone to it like you would a stand in the car, and he can fly it while watching the video from the camera on the phone.  And far...he flew it until we couldn't even see it, but he could eyeball its location on the phone.  The kids were out of sight over some rocks on a hike and he flew it so we could spy on them, getting so close that he ultimately crashed it into one of them (and broke a little skin).  While I want one, know it'd be a waste of time as I am not a gadget guy and don't have the patience to learn how to do it right before crashing it to bits.

Nap time was perfect, and then we put our T-giving feast together.

Hard to see, but in the background we hooked the NFL up to their TV and watched the entertaining Dallas v Washington game.  Cobbled together a meal with all the required items, including a decent version of the Imbrogulio family mac-n-cheese.  B-doll's friend has never lived in the States and this was her first exposure to a Thanksgiving throwdown...always like to be part of a person's introduction to something new.

We had pecan, Oreo cheesecake and a pumpkin pie for dessert.  We originally had two pumpkin pies.  Betty used her pull at Costco to reserve them in advance and when we went to pick them up, the store had long been sold out and we got some looks from others wondering where we got them.  One lady even asked us and I tried to convince Betty into us selling her one of our because we obviously had more than enough dessert with one, and to be fair, the Costco pumpkin pie is not the best.  That last statement might get me in trouble, but it is undeniably true.  Me and Tex Mom picked up the bird the next morning and it was our job to load the coolers with all the food for the drive down.  I'm trying to fit one of the oversized pumpkin pies into our regular cooler, and the thing slips out of the tray and is destroyed.  I know I'm in the doghouse cause I've been railing for the last 48 hours that we only needed one and that they are shit anyway, and then this happens.  I try to blame Tex Wife for the mishap but alas...

The BnB has some birds and they are allowed to roam free if the guests are cool with it.  I'm indifferent to birds...when we were dating, Betty had one that she used to let fly around the apartment.  Hated that effin' thing as it used to shit all over the place, but put up with it cause of love.  It disappeared one day and it's my recollection that Betty left a door open.  When I brought it up, I wasn't accused of killing the bird, so that must be what happened.  I will admit to manslaughter of the pumpkin pie though.  Tex Dad was uncomfortably comfortable with them.

The kids went and hung out and us big types played games...some Uno and something called Mexican Train dominoes (of course the Texans would bring a borderline anti-Mexican game to the table.  Loads of fun and a ton of laughs.  

We planned a lazy Saturday with the only activity being a 30 minute drive to the iconic sight in this part of the country, the Sanxiantai Bridge.  It does look kinda cool and leads to an island where you are supposed to be able to climb around.  I say supposed to as we didn't actually cross it as the weather was windy rainy and it was closed.  This was the third time I've been to this site three times and have never crossed it as the first time was during a typhoon, and when Betty and I went in August, it was a million degrees and the parking lot was jammed.  I got into a Mexican standoff with another car waiting for a spot and we ultimately said 'screw it' and drove off.  We are planning to go down again for X-mas and look forward to missing out on the bridge again.  

It does look sorta fun, but that this is the highlight of a trip to this area lets you know how remote the place is.

5 minutes from the BnB is another of the 'iconic' sights in Taitung County...Water Running Upward.  That government tourist site describes it as a 'geographical miracle', but it is really an irrigation ditch that an optical illusion makes it look like it goes uphill.  Tex Dad tried to improv some BS about it being on the Tropic of Cancer or something, but our know-it-all high schoolers shut him down with some classic eye rolls.  Absolutely ridiculous and a must see.

We popped into Dulan proper to peruse the weekend market that is held at the Old Sugar Factory, which is a cool old building.  My favorite Dulan hippie runs a stand there with his wife/daughter named The Coconut Woman.  She makes crafts out of coconut leaves and he sells his home brew hot sauce.  Dulan is littered with burnouts that have life all figured out and are not shy in telling you so.  This guy lived in Mexico for years and his English accent is spot on East LA Chicano.  His hot sauce is pretty good too.  

And we then lunched at the other place we wanted to go in August that was too crowded...Dulan Fish and Chips.  Not bad for fish and chips and the place is exactly what you would picture a family run beach town stand would look like.  Totally chill, cool tunes, cheap Coronas, animals and small children meandering in and out...loved every bit of it.  

Oh yeah...shaved ice is big in this country but is not my thing.  Our table got the red bean on the recommendation of the proprietors, and the ice was fine, but they did a little number on the top of it.  Not sure exactly what they made it with, but it tasted exactly like a good creme brulee.  None of the shaved ice connoisseurs had ever seen or tasted anything like it.

Can you tell I am enamored of this little spot of the globe.  It feels like we discovered it and hesitate to talk it up in fear of it being ruined.

That's about it...we had leftovers along with some tasty brisket that Tex lovingly smoked for dinner and that was that.  The Texans trained it home and we drove.  We took the long way as we wanted to have lunch at a spot in Hualien that we visited in August called Salt Lick.  All Western menu, but the draw for us was some deep dish pizza.  Not as good as the best Chicago has to offer, but certainly better than some of what I've had there.  A treat that can only be found in this country here. 

Talking to B-doll this week and she mentioned that the friend she brought told her that her parents, who are decidedly locals, asked her "how white was the weekend".  First of all, very.  Second, I am simply floored by their racism and would never say such a thing personally.  OK, that is exactly something I would say and I love that family for it.