From Asia to Europe

That’s it, I’ve put my mind to it. It makes no practical sense whatsoever but the principle behind it is important. Finally I will start Chinese lessons after a year and a half of tiptoeing around this country, trying to mask my embarrassing grasp of the language and avoid all questions including: “How long have you lived here?”

It’s difficult to pinpoint why exactly I’ve waited so long to actually take an active interest in the Taiwanese culture. I suppose that it could be that my initial interactions with it left a repugnant taste in my mouth. I couldn’t rid myself of my first Taiwanese impressions: Hsinchu as a vile, barbaric, filthy, stinking, buzzing city filled with cheap, anxious, thoughtless, pushy, vacuous people. I thought that even the poorest people of the world could produce tastier dishes. I couldn’t make out a spot of dignity or integrity on the horizon. I made embarrassing denouncements against the culture and started to plan my escape.

I suppose one could say that I hardly arrived with the ‘state of mind’ that would see me enjoy my time here!

After various rises and falls and upon having the good luck to meet those who have come to accept where they are, I am only now slowly starting to see life through Taiwanese eyes. While I may not identify with the majority of Taiwanese people (similar to my experiences with Canadians and Americans), I can find common ground with the minority who hold themselves to the outside of the seemingly oppressive traditions and superstitions.

As for the cuisine: at least I tried.

I can find some sensibility in this culture that could be beneficially introduced into Western culture. Such and such as: curbing our aggression, maintaining the family unit, listening to elderly wisdom, remembering our savings, turning to natural, preventative medicines (though Chinese medicine isn’t practiced here as widely as I expected), waving rules that no longer serve us, becoming more aware of our waste, practicing modesty in the amount of food we eat, slowing our driving so that we don’t have monster accidents from excessive speed, and going out of our way to help those who don’t know.

So here I find myself, in the 11th hour, wanting to finally, formally learn the language – in anticipation that with the rise of the China, perhaps I might find myself in the position to introduce the benefits of each culture to each other. After two years of living here, this may be the useful niche I can carve for myself for the future.

Ambitiously, Laura.

Why is it that no sooner do I pledge to myself to undertake a project, do I get saturated with activity and lose sight of it? It’s almost as if activity is magnetic, pulling other activities in the area towards it. Or rather, is it that activity is in heat, and male activities within a sniff won’t allow it to get on with her day?

I’m getting back down to my magnetic, heated activity now.

The latest and greatest of new here could take me awhile to narrate in detail, so I’ll give it my best shot abridged. The 15th brought my friend Jeanine’s 30th birthday and a birthday/housewarming get together at my new apartment. While the cats are out (Elliott and Rebecca, on their 5 week vacation), there were roughly 20 cats arriving here for hamburgers, tandoori chicken, curried pork and vegetable skewers.

On paper, the party was organized: I sent out e-invitations, lined up the music, bought BBQ’s and built them ($6 Canadian each), bought the hard to find groceries, and friend Chef Dan was to arrive in the morning Saturday for a shop at the market and an afternoon of food preparation. Friday night was lovely and anticipating; Saturday, a full moon or equinox or some other astrological shift. To sum it up: it poured all day and night; my computer (with music) broke down; we found only a portion of what we needed at the market – which sent me scavenging across the city in search of overpriced ground beef; the far corners of Taipei produced no trace of hamburgers buns; I bought only enough coal for half a BBQ, nevermind two; the Taiwanese school crew arrived early, as Dan and Lisa were still preparing food; the BBQ smoked the apartment and the food; people ended up cooking their own food; I bought far too big birthday cakes for Jeanine and Lisa; friend Kady thought it was my birthday and came bearing gifts; and the cops arrived at midnight as there were noise complaints about my speakers that were set to ‘3’ and the casual conversation amongst smokers on the patio.

We took the party to a nearby ‘quaint’ little bar that had no one in it (typical of the night), doused our livers one last time and a group of us walked the half hour back to my place to ‘crash’.

I’m especially impressed with and concerned for my friend Michael, who after my complaints about my feet, traded me his Birkenstocks for my heels and walked the whole way back in them, as daintily as can be.

Moving on to last weekend, which was spent in the east coast city of Hualien with my school admin. We had a typically Chinese-organized schedule of things to do and see that was seamless and a little overwhelming. We went dolphin watching by boat, hiking in Taroko Gorge, out for food, out for food, out for food, to various national parks, relaxing for a short time, and off again. While I did appreciate the effort that was put into planning it, I’ve come to understand that we Westerners tend not to like our free time so ‘booked’ and would rather meander around and soak in the experience in digestible chunks.

This past Wednesday night brought the fright of my days here in Taiwan. I’d just finished tutoring Melvin and was arriving back at the apartment for the first time. I strutted across the apartment in the dark and flick on the light switch beside my room when I found myself face to face with a black, hairy spider the size of a tarantula. It shot across the wall at an intimidating pace and hid itself behind my fridge. In between my primal screams, I managed to find my wits about me and called my boss to determine a) if it was poisonous and b) what the hell I should do. While she’d never seen a spider this size in Taiwan before, she suggested spraying insecticide around the fridge to prevent it from coming out.

And then what? I didn’t care, I wanted it away, and sprayed copious amounts of poison around the fridge – which could have brought me down, not to mention the spider.

I left the kitchen for a short time to, without luck, call on my neighbours – and when I returned, I was nearly sick to see the spider pausing gracefully in the middle of a puddle of poison before continuing across the kitchen floor. I grabbed my shoe to arm myself. It seems as though the spider sensed me there infront of it as it lifted its legs up, in jumping spider fashion, before sprinting towards me. In reflex, I threw my shoe at it and stunned it into a defensive position. In a proceeding, out-of-body experience, I grabbed the garbage can and brought it down full force, sending spider organs in all directions – and screaming all the while.

(A question was brought up by a colleague and still lingers: was there an egg sac, and if so, where did it hide it?)

If it’s not my ‘wild parties’, then it’s my sadistically vocal pastimes that will prompt a unified eyebrow raise around the alley and cause mothers to guard their children’s eyes as I walk by.

I hope that the next entry will be much less eventful.

Barbarically, Laura.

While I should be hitting the sack at this hour after waking up at 6am to walk in ‘Youth Park’ (which is, ironically, the assembly area for local elderly for their daily Tai chi), I’ve just read my friend Lindie’s blog and feel inspired to chronicle something this week.

My last entry was likely hormonally-fuelled, and I surprised even myself in re-reading it. My Malaysian colleague and friend Joowin came by tonight for a Malay ‘cooking lesson’ and she pointed out how fortunate I am now to be financially independent and without kids – so I suppose if I’m going to snuff myself out for the sake of the next generation, I’d better do it now in the echo of my chest beating, and before that very generation makes its entry.

I’ll put it on my ‘to do’ list.

Saturday I’m planning a housewarming party – slash – birthday party for my friends Lisa and Jeanine, the latter who is turning 30 and I’d imagine who would rather not have me post that publicly. When she starts looking it, I’ll keep it to myself! Lisa is also drinking from the same fountain of youth, and keeping them both as friends here has me peering at my evermore pronounced forehead lines with a critical eye. The Taiwan experience has been uncompromising on the skin and lungs.

The theme of the party is to ‘wear or bear something distracting’ and so I’m eager to see if a) that line was noticed and b) how creativity unfolds. It came to me during a ‘moment of brilliance’ (in the shower) last week and I’m anticipating huge cultural gaps in interpretation between the western and eastern clans.

20 minutes ago the horny cats in the alley below were having a masochistic session – after a collective, distinctive ‘yowl’ followed by a smashing bottle, I’d imagine them now to be splayed out in prone position, sharing a cigarette.

In the next life I hope to return as a randy, old cat.

Daydreamedly, Laura.

Today during lunchhour, as my colleague Gary and I sat on the front lawn of the Management Building on the Taida University campus downtown, I prodded him for ‘anything interesting’ that he’d heard lately. He brought forth a topic that apparently is making its rounds on American talk shows – as per the suggestion of a University of Texas professor Dr. Eric Pianka, that ‘the world would be better off with 90% of its population dead’, or something of that nature.

That idea shouldn’t come as any surprise, given the widely-acknowledged scarcity of natural resources at this time. I’m certainly not against the idea that the Earth will eventually prove that enough is enough, and balance out our population in its own way. But if this ‘doomsday’ scenario were to happen tomorrow, I wondered to myself – who would go and who would stay?

I asked Gary this very question to which he replied, “I would want to be one of the ones who stayed.”

I would venture to say that if we polled the billions of people on Earth, we might find relatively opposite numbers of what is required for sustenance, therefore: 90% would insist on staying and 10% would sacrifice themselves.

I pondered that question myself and found that, surprisingly, I would be willing to go.

It’s not because it’s a game of numbers, and I might as well be 6 feet under if 90% of the people I know are dead. But I feel that, all things considered, I’ve had a good go at life (briefly): I’ve had a great childhood, I’ve known failure and success, love from hate, the rich and the poor, the honest and the false – truly, I’ve had the good fortune to ‘experience’ on many levels. I’ve known happiness and its flavour. I’ve known the passion and grittiness of life. On top of it all, I’ve been privy to more ‘opportunity’ than (I would guess) 90% of people on this earth. How can I not acknowledge that I’ve had ‘enough’?

With luck, time would bring wisdom that I haven’t met yet – but in place of this wisdom, I would rather see a minority of our population have a healthy ‘go’ at life. Even if they aren’t ‘my’ children, I feel obligated to make a safe place for the wee generations of the world. And for those who have yet to be born.

And so wedged in between my playful and light chronicles is a bit of a left hitter – and a reaffirmation to myself to enjoy and appreciate this limited time.

Insignificantly, Laura.

Which doesn’t help me to justify creating another entry – but like any other, today was totally uneventful.

Aside from 6 year old Emily playing the bongos on my buns as I was trying to have a serious conversation with my ‘boss’; aside from ramming my scooter into the back of an old man’s during lunch hour while talking to myself in a Swedish accent; and aside from 9 year old Melvin letting out the mother of all farts, without a flinch, during our after school private lesson, – today was as ordinary as they come.

At this moment, I’m playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at an intrusive volume with dreams of hearing a giant ‘shadddddap’, (just like you’d hear in little Italy or the real thing) from the alleyway below. I really miss confrontation and the entertainment that unfolds when ‘it really gets going’.

I also might miss out on meeting my neighbours if I keep it up. And chances are, I might really need them while Rebecca and Elliott are gone…

Instigatingly, Laura.

After several unsuccessful attempts to rope himself a mare, my dear flatmate Casanova ‘Paul’ has decided to end his stint at the farm. His weekend produced additionally fruitess efforts to find answers to questions, and Monday evening he announced out of the blue that he needed to find his ‘inner soul’ – which evidently resides somewhere near Auckland. (Actually, it sounds as though he’s had a tough go of things lately, coming off a divorce and its rebound relationship.) As quickly as he flooded in the door a week and a half ago, ‘Paul’ blew out of Taiwan last night (Tuesday) on a 14 hour flight home.

In return for a week of patient listening, I’m left with a box of Nestle Fitness cereal, a banana, some fruit juice, a can of Taiwan beer and an overall feeling of, “What the hell?”.

Today (Wednesday) is the official Tombsweeping Day where the locals do a bit of spring cleaning around their little ‘houses for the dead’ where they bury their families. Death is serious business here, as it is only the dead who have proper front lawns and clean balconies on properties with a view. (As with successful artists, it would seem, one is better off in the urn.)

Today I woke up after a handful of snoozes and spent the better part of the morning fighting off an army of kitchen ants and negotiating a small hill of laundry. As I was on my third load (of laundry) on the rooftop, I ran into my English neighbour Dominic who lives in the apartment there. Until today, Dominic and I had made it a habit of whisking past each other with the briefest of acknowledgements. (I must admit I was a bit curious to meet him as ‘Paul’ announced during one of his rants that Dominic hated Canadians.)

The introduction went better than expected, and we found ourselves drinking green tea in his apartment, eating lunch at an Indian restaurant, followed by coffee/drinks in a rather Bohemian, uni student centred cafe. While his dislike is focused on the group of partying, Peter Pan Canadians here who he can’t seem to avoid, Dominic holds a love for all things Italian; Sicily, espresso and designer clothes inclusive. (As for his ‘pret a porter’ collection: between Chinese classes and kindergarten teaching, his nearly-new clothes remain hung neatly in his wardrobe, where he can stroke and admire these ‘pets’ when they require attention.) I thought he was curious and great fun.

Seemingly, and encouragingly, I’m not part of the Never Never Land Canucks and so it looks like laundry may be quite an interesting event in the future.

I suppose there’s a few ‘odd’ eggs in every dozen.

Unusually, Laura.

Most three year olds I’ve met here are poo pooing, sniffling streams of wants and needs. They are straightforward thinkers and seem generally unaware of most things that are beyond their reach and out of their momentary focus. Disguise them in adorable packages and in response, our adult hearts bleed and our dialogues turn to syrupy mush.

I was fairly confident with the dynamics of this relationship until an exceptional toddler walked through the door of STEP school three weeks ago. While we tend to laugh at her behaviour in indirect Chinese fashion, but in my heart of hearts, I shit a sizeable brick everytime I see her.

‘Kelly’s’ mother is a ‘mail-order bride’ from mainland China while her father is Taiwanese. (This arrangement generally occurs within farming communities here.) Apparently she spent her first two years with her grandmother on the mainland in some sort of barbaric arrangement. Images of Tarzanish loinclothes and heads atop spears come to mind. As such, Kelly came to us as an unbroken horse, with the tenacity of a bull and the coniving mind of a weasel. She may be more intelligent than all of our STEP teachers and administration combined. Fortunately for us, we outtrump her in size 4 to 1 and carry a fully stocked first aid kit.

Her bag of (defensive) tricks comprises:

a) The perfected pinch if you take her hand.
b) A look straight into your eyes with a smile on her face as she kicks your shins.
c) The boot to the face/bloody nose if you pick her up and hold her out infront of you.
d) The slap on the face if you dip your head down within arm’s reach.
e) And her piece de resistance, at last resort, is her spectacular jaws-of-steel bite.

I have been privy to a, b, d and e during a power struggle at lunchtime when I attempted to keep her in her chair. And it gets better.

Her bag of (manipulative) tricks comprises:

a) Mocking other students.
b) Mocking other teachers.
c) Pointing at me with evil in her eyes and shouting ‘you, YOU’ in Chinese as to back me into a corner.
d) Glares and faces that are postively adult-like in complexity.
e) And her second piece de resistance, the dramatic ‘dead horse’ fall to the ground if a,b,c, and d don’t work to make you run in the opposite direction. (In response, the staff runs to her and she whips out the a-e defensive tactics.)

Kelly is so fierce that I’ve suggested to the staff that we hire an exorcist. (You should see the reaction to those words in a culture whose primary focus is death, dying, and the afterlife!)

I’ve taken to calling her, from a safe distance, the ‘Firestarter’.

The lesson learned here is loud and clear!

Celibately, Laura.

Isn’t this blog site working wonderfully to motivate (guilt) me into keeping a consistent chronicle of insignificant events on ‘this side’. (Open to interpretation.)

I suppose at this point I might actually send out the blog website to family and friends as to actually move in the direction of my goal here: to keep in touch.

The past weekend was as usual as weekends come: a book on Friday night, dinner on Saturday evening, a BBQ on Sunday evening, and a 2 hour, roundabout, bun-crunching scooter adventure to a remarkably rainy port city in between.

Saturday evening, my dear ‘Hsinchu crowd’ gathered in Taipei for their first ‘book club’ meeting. This group of old and new friends is the most darling bunch of honestly, broadly and wittily minded people. The other weekend I took a bus across to the Hsinchu apartment of my friends Lisa and Dan, for Dan’s masterpiece Indian dinner. It was only there and then that I met the group live and full circle – a party of Canucks with a smattering of South Africans ‘for culture'(!!) Some I’d known for a year while others, only a few months down to a few minutes.

It was after that dinner that their ‘book club’ was conceived; the goal, to trade books and opinions while leaving personal dedications and impressions written on the inside covers. It came as a novel and exciting idea in my experience; though I kept to the outside and didn’t boldy attempt to invite myself into its Hsinchu ‘branch’. (I considered for all of a half second that my mix of self-help, politically left-wing, cooking and herbal books weren’t any fit for anyone who is remotely ‘with it’.)

After the bookclub gathering (and later, in coming to realize I should have been audacious and butted in as they all bought brand new books to trade around), they wandered over to the local (and only) ‘Chili’s’ restaurant for a western fix. I joined them there and had a great old time chatting about nothing in particular and admiring the map of the scooter trek that Lisa and Dan are now continuing down the east coast. It was soon after that I suffered ‘torturous harrassment’ into fulfilling my commitment to drive over with them to neighbouring Keelung.

Sunday morning, after a breakfast of milk tea and the popular ‘danping’ (a sort of ‘tortilla’ topped with an egg and covered in ‘special brown sauce’, which always leads me to consider a more appropriate name of ‘dumping’) and a walk around the nearby botanical gardens, we set out on our way. Lisa on her own scooter with all their gear, and myself on the back of Dan’s scooter, after deciding that taking my 50cc, combined with the added round trip time, wasn’t the best of choices.

I’m losing my stamina just now; so now that I’ve so carefully set up the plot, I’ll race through the storyline. As best as I can remember, and in reverese order, the trip went as such: a return commuter train ride back to Taipei, some aimless and enjoyable wandering around Keelung, the purchase of several hair thingies at a market that make me look like an egg that’s sprouted ears, grit in my eyes and buns of steel as we approached Keelung, a traffic jam near the local ‘Death Services’ office just in time for Tombsweeping Day on Wednesday, a fascinating cemetary built into various hillsides in Shihjr swarming with armies of families sweeping the tombs, several wrong turns in finding highway 5, and the neverending story of a journey across Taipei in an attempt to leave it all behind.

Oh yes, and later than evening at my colleague Gary’s BBQ, I was the token fag bangle to a group of 5 lovely, half and completely tanked gay men who were, at one point, giving each other sensual massage in turn.

Just another weekend at the farm.

Windburntedly yours, Laura.

A blank white screen and plenty of thoughts swirling around the brain. Where to start? Why not outer space? It seems clear enough that now, within the past week, I’ve had a visitor from that very region. New Zealand’s fairly close to there, no?

I’m three weeks into my new apartment, ‘only’ number four in the past year and a half. I’ve gone from a cram school-owned dump to this relative heaven; a hardwood-floored, glass-shelved fortress of a place. Highlights include a whole 4 burners on the stove, a tatami matted guest room with its sliding glass door, and a bedroom the size of my entire previous apartment. The lowlight is most definitely the 5 storey walk up with bags of groceries in hand. (My gym membership expires in two weeks and I see no point in renewing it.)

Rebecca and Elliott, my new flatmates, have left on a 5 week trek across the States and Canada. In their place for the next month has arrived our fascinating Martian. ‘Paul’, as is his nom de plume via internet today, has spent the better part of the afternoon on the computer searching for a one-night stand. His half-hearted attempt last night ended empty-handedly and he returned at midnight looking dejected. Quite the surprise if you consider that he might be as bright and handsome as he announces (daily)! Perhaps I made a mistake in replying him with a straight ‘no’ when he asked me the other night if I might like to provide this service for him?!

Ah! He has a bite, a friend of a friend, and apparently she’s quite pretty (as he’s asked her flat out himself). With my own two friends scootering in from another city for the night, it looks as though we shall all be the judge of his ‘successes’ based on the jumping figurines on the glass shelf outside his room.

(Having just written that, we’ve just had an impressively coincidental earthquake! Perhaps this is a sign of times to come?

I look forward to further adventures as a fly on the wall of his one month stay. Earplugs look as though they’ll be the centre of my inner peace during the next little while.

Celibately, Laura.