Made in Taiwan

Taiwanjason posts new songs around the web...

2010-01-18T12:35:00.003-04:00

I've posted some new songs, and I'm trying the widget and link things. We'll see how she goes.

Yeah, well it sticks over the edge a little bit. So what.

Disconnection

2009-10-04T11:35:00.001-03:00

So, whenever I go to a store, it's good to imagine what are the two most incongruous items you can buy at once. My new record: hinges and kidney beans.

Taiwan-Okinawa Visa Run

2009-10-04T09:50:00.009-03:00

For Taiwan-living expatriates in a sudden need to leave the country.

Note: This post is here to save it from Geocities impending death. It seemed to be useful to the occasional Taiwan expatriate, so I thought I would try to keep it. I have not lived in Taiwan since 2005. I made these notes about an Okinawa "visa run" in 2004 when I had to do it, and decided I didn't want to go to Hong Kong, whose Taiwan "consulate" had a bad reputation as being overcrowded, surly, and not very helpful. I actually did the Hong Kong run once, and decided never again. I have checked the address for the Okinawan Taiwan "consulate" and it's still correct as of 2009. I don't know if the fees or airfares have changed since I no longer live there. But once or twice a year, someone seems to find this site useful, so if you want to make a visa run that is much more pleasant than HK, I still recommend spending a day in Okinawa. I enjoyed it completely, despite my surprise at having to make the run at all.

The Taipei-Okinawa flight takes about 1.25 hours. China airlines offers two daily flights to and from Naha International Airport, morning and evening. The fare is about 8,800 NT dollars. It's only a little more expensive than the Hong Kong flight, although Japan itself is a bit more expensive overall.
Change your NT dollars to Yen before you leave Taiwan!!!
The Japanese don't seem to know what to do with the stuff.

There is a monorail linking the airport to the downtown. The airport monorail station is located at the domestic terminal. When you leave the international terminal building, you can see the much bigger domestic terminal to your right. Walk over there (there are sidewalks, it's less than 100m), and go in the terminal to the 2nd floor, and follow the signs.

The monorail station closest to the Taiwan visa office is called "Kencho-mae." The station is right next to a gigantic department store called Palette Kumoji Department store. The fare from the airport is maybe 230 or 260 yen. The station signs indicate the fare. It takes about 15 minutes. The machine takes yen coins or 1000 yen notes. You could also take a bus, but I can't help you there.

The Taiwanese visa office is called the:
Sino-Ryukyuan Cultural & Economic Association
6F, Alte Building, 3-15-9 Kumoji, Naha City, Okinawa
tel: (81-98) 862-7008 fax: (81-98) 861-6536
The list of all the (non-official) consulates is located on this government website.

When you leave the monorail station, walk along under the tracks along the canal in the same way you were headed. After about 3 blocks, to the right, you'll see a Family Mart up the street. Go up there, and turn left. The visa office is in a gray concrete-and-glass building on another corner about 2 blocks up. It's on the 6th floor. There's a small sign out front, with all the offices in the building listed on it. You'll see the name I mentioned above.

Here is the link to the Google Map of the area. I haven't tagged the office, but the Family Mart I mentioned is clearly marked here..It's in the block numbered "15" in the "Kumoji" district. In the satellite image, it's the layer-cake looking building.

The office is open M-F 9-12 and 1-3 if you're putting in an application.
And you can pick it up the following day M-F 9:30-12 and 1-5.

You can get same-day service if you're willing to pay double.

U.S. Citizens take note!!! Since the U.S. government began charging Taiwanese $100 US for a visa to enter the U.S., Taiwan has responded in kind. The visa fee is 12,200 yen for any kind of visa---single, multiple, whatever (and of course, double that for same-day service). Other countries' citizens will likely find it a little bit cheaper. Single-entry tourist visas are 3600 yen, I think. Americans, write your congressman! Other people, laugh smugly! I don't know if this is still true as of 2009.

About Okinawa, very, very briefly.

The capital of Okinawa is Naha City. Okinawa was heavily bombed by the U.S. in WWII. There are still thousands of American GIs stationed there, and the military owns about 20% of the island. It's heavily developed, with cities, beaches, and tourist resorts; over a million Japanese tourists go there every year.

The Tourist Information counter at the Naha airport was very helpful. They have excellent maps, and a list of all the hotels in the city, their prices, and addresses. The maps also showed the tourist attractions around the island, and the buses to take to get there. She also spoke English; she was the one who showed me where to go for the Taiwan visa office.

If you're uncertain about your surviving in Japanese skills, this person can also book a hotel room for you, so you can choose your price range and your location.

In Naha City, hotels range in price from about 4000 Yen to 20000 Yen a night. For a pretty close Yen/NT Dollar approximation, divide by 3. (4500 Yen = 1500 NT). The map also shows loads of things to do and see around the island. The beaches are nice, but FAR from town. I've heard that the pretty places are the offshore islands, which can be reached by ferry from Naha and elsewhere. (there are 2 ports in Naha, and others around the island--study your maps carefully). The buses are also reasonably easy to understand, if you're the sort of person who knows how to figure things out. Go to the bus terminal and look around.

I have to offer a brief plug for the Yagi Hotel, which was one block from the bus terminal, and which was cheap, clean included free breakfast, and the desk clerk was absolutely wonderful, even though she didn't speak any English

More Visa Matters...

The visa officer I met spoke English, Japanese, and Chinese, so you shouldn't have a problem. He seemed sympathetic to my plight, though in all fairness, I didn't tell him the exact truth. Take note, though, that you should bring along all your documentation and anything else that might even be remotely useful. Here are some things to consider:

1. Three (3) passport photos.
2. photocopy of your passport (front page, with personal info.)
3. plane ticket out of Taiwan to another country, and a photocopy of that ticket.
note: some travel agencies will issue you a one-way ticket for another country and then refund it when you return, minus a fee (500-600NT).
4. Anything else you can think of. For instance, the application asks for a reference in Taiwan. It can be another foreigner, but they must have an ARC card. Take a copy of that, too.
5. Know the name of your employer and their phone number. Maybe you shouldn't write that on the form, but if they are helping you out, or even if they're not helping you out, maybe you can spread the governmental misery around a little by mentioning their name.

It used to be that the Okinawan "visa" office did not issue your visa there in the office. They prepared a completed, approved form which you had to take back to Taiwan with you and get the actual visa passport sticker at the Bureau of Consular Affairs office (between the immigration queues at CKS airport.) According to a reader of this page in 2008, the Okinawan office will now issue you the visa sticker in their office, so you're ready to go once you stop back the next morning to pick up your documents. I cannot remember if they had to keep your passport overnight.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton

2007-11-02T19:17:00.000-03:00

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to offer this small tribute to one of the men whose history became my summer job, Thomas Chandler Haliburton. He was a complex man--a judge, a lawyer, a man who served in both the Nova Scotian provincial legislature as well as the British House of Commons, a wannabe aristocrat, a political writer, a historian, a drinker of fine port and a smoker of fine cigars, an amateur farmer, a racist, an elitist, and a lover of all kinds of stories.

His fame rests primarily on one character he went on to include in nearly half a dozen books: Sam Slick. A traveling Yankee who craftily sold clocks to rustic locals and mouthed off on every social and political issue of the day, Slick was a swaggering ladies man who said things that Haliburton couldn't admit to himself. In his day, he was as popular as Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, and he milked it for all it was worth.

Anyway, I worked in his house all summer. Some days we had dozens of visitors, some days we had only a few visitors, some days we had none at all. This is a song I wrote sitting in his grand dining room, and the images are taken from the internet and images I had access to while I worked there. If you're ever in Windor, Nova Scotia in the summer or early fall, stop in the Haliburton House Museum and I'll show you around.

Are we...poor?

2007-09-09T22:09:00.000-03:00

Long gone are the days when I can make the big money teaching English. I have lived in Canada for two years now, and I'm waiting on my third year to roll by, so I can apply for Canadian citizenship. I certainly didn't settle in the right place to become an overnight sensation, much less a millionaire. But we are homeowners, and that's more than I expected...I'm hoping that my story will be sufficiently interesting that I can turn it into a CBC radio special. Since the over-50 crowd would be the ones I'd be attracting on the CBC. Well, not really, but that's about the best I can hope for.

I think that the nation's pride would be bolstered by an American who couldn't cut it in his own country, so he left it, switched teams, and ended up not only gay, but Canadian. And I have to confess, since Tim isn't likely to read this post, that I'm only in it for the free health care. Plus, I love paying taxes.

I'm also just writing so my YouTube video gets pushed down the page a little. I didn't feel like staring at my ugly mug when I check this blog every month or so.

Taiwan - an introduction

2007-04-21T10:24:00.000-03:00

I created a video in Taiwan a while ago, and I'm hoping to try this embedded video thing.

We shall see (Or perhaps we won't)...

No Answers in Sight

2007-04-17T20:21:00.000-03:00

I don't believe this. I finally posted a video to YouTube, and it's a song that I wrote over 12 years ago. Not only that, but all the video footage is the same age. It's here. I bring you an original song, "Answers" as recored by me and my friends, posing as a band called Hydrogen. Damn, it was fun.

The great part, though, is that I've been wanting to make this music video since we shot the footage those many years ago. We shot a lot of footage with the intention of using it like this, we just didn't have the technical know-how to create it. So after lugging around the cassettes for years, I finally decided to give it a go. Thanks to Chris, J.R, Allan, Adam, Brooke, and everyone else who was present for those crazy times. Also a shout to the Heorot Pub in Muncie, Indiana, who let us play pretty much whenever we felt like it for about a year back then.

"Taiwanjason's" Shameless Self Promotion

2007-04-14T18:30:00.000-03:00

Hey kids!

I'm still here, posting for no good reason other than that to mention that I have decided to enter the American Idol Songwriting Competition. I couldn't resist, though I had a hard time figuring out which, if any, of my songs, would be worth it. The song I submitted is listed on my Taiwanjason website at the CBC. I'm not saying which one.

I like saying that. It almost sounds like I'm not anonymous. The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) hosts Canadian bands who have the time and the interest to upload their songs, apparently as many as you'd like. I like to think that this is one of the few times I'm getting to take advantage of my new status as an impending Canadian.

Anyway, check out the site. And put links to it on your own sites, too!

Canadian Content

2007-04-02T12:33:00.000-03:00

I'm entering the 21st century at last! If you click on the title above you will find a link to my songs on the CBC-3 Radio site. These are songs I've recorded at home, mostly while living in Taiwan. If I can improve the quality, I may also upload some old band recordings of my songs. Of course, nothing digital is ever easy... I'll just try and add some more stuff as I spend the hours in front of the computer required to do it.

Good thing I'm not an E-bay junkie, or I'd never get anything done.

Backyard Harem

2007-03-30T10:12:00.000-03:00

There is a male ring-necked pheasant who lives just next door to our yard. He comes into the back yard in the morning to peck at the seeds that have fallen from the bird feeder.

Did I mention he brings his 5 (!) females with him?

I wish it were hunting season. Although I probably couldn't do it, I think they look delicious. You could hunt those things with a hammer.

The Hantsport Report

2006-07-15T18:07:00.000-03:00

New this week:

--New path being constructed through the Hantsport Memorial Community Centre!
--Sidewalk chalk contest draws a dozen competitors!
--New paint on no-parking zones on Main Street!
--Hantsport Shamrocks hit foul balls into angry neighbours car!
--School Street swamp gets filled in with truckloads of dirt!
--High school punks smoke dope in woods!
--Gay couple with beagle mow lawn every week!
--Lone blogger doesn't update links!

What's new where you live?

Low-Level Excitement

2006-05-21T16:04:00.000-03:00

This is what passes for excitement around here.

This week, as Tim and I went out to walk the dog, the two police cars in town seemed to be doing laps, up and down our street and through the school parking lot. The neighbors in the area were out keeping an eye on the developments, and lots of the school kids were walking away from the area, cursing and complaining loudly. I thought maybe there was some kind of abduction (or the threat of one), because there was one in the news this week, elsewhere in the province.

When we got back to the house, there was still a bit of activity. There was an RCMP officer in the school parking lot, and a few kids still around. Our neighbor B was sitting on his front porch with his arms crossed watching. These days, I chat with the neighbors, having been deprived of this basic human right during my stay in Taiwan.

"What's going on B? You causing trouble?" I asked, just as a joking entrance to aid my nosiness.

But it turned out that the cops were there because of him. There were a bunch of high school punks hanging out on top of the baseball dugout, making a bunch of racket, and when he asked them to keep it down, one of them told him to fuck off. So he called the police.

The police gave the kid a good talking to, and were bringing him over to apologize when I went back inside. Shortly after that, the hubbub died down. I'm totally on my neighbor's side on this one, but I don't want to be antagonizing the local punks. We live right across the street from the school, but--thankfully--too far from the road to easily hit with eggs.

Nosy Neighbo(u)rs

2006-05-05T12:50:00.000-03:00

Everyone in town knows us, but we don't know anyone back. It's kind of frustrating, because people we meet know where we live before we know anything about them. The only thing I can gather about the neighbours comes from checking their garbage and recycling when they throw it out. On one side lives an old English lady that no one ever sees. I call her Mrs. Teacozy.

I don't know what she knows about us, but we're making up our own gossip about her. The thing about her that seems suspicious is that she doesn't seem to generate any garbage. Every 2 weeks, all she has out at the curb is 14 days worth of newspapers, 3 or 4 milk cartons, and some empty cans.

What can she be eating? I don't even see any cat food containers, despite the fact that the neighborhood strays seem to be hanging out at her house a lot. The only positive thing that can come of all of this is that the cats will hopefully keep the skunks away. I saw one in our yard yesterday. I'm sure the neighbors already knew.

Get Off My Land

2006-04-29T11:16:00.000-03:00

We live right across the street from a public school, grades 1-9. If it were only an elementary school, it wouldn't be a problem, because those kids are not big troublemakers. But by the time you're 14, you can be old enough to be a pain in the ass. And, unlike when I was at school, they're allowed to leave for lunch, and they all flock to the corner pizza place, leaving a trail of litter and cigarette butts that eventually blows into our yard. Actually, they're probably not cigarette butts, but roaches.

But to be fair, the kids were sent out this week to pick up some garbage around the town. I would have liked to tell them to come pick up their empty chip bags and styrofoam plates that blow into our drainage ditch, but I suppose that they did better work tidying up the town. I find it stunning that a little bit of trash on the ground gets people so incensed. There was a long editorial in the local monthly flyer about litter. If that's the worst of your concerns, you should probably go see what your kids are doing instead.

The dog's favorite walking route is up the street to the pizza joint, because he finds all kinds of pizza crusts and candy wrappers that make life interesting and tasty. In Taiwan, he was much more likely to find chicken or pork bones, so at least the pizza crusts don't have to be fished from his mouth once he gets them.

The kids mostly don't actually trespass on our property though. It's not a shortcut to get anywhere else. Except one kid who walks home right by the edge of our lot. You'd think a dog that used to see hundreds of people a day when he went for a walk would be more relaxed about it.

2006-04-24T09:46:00.000-03:00

Hello again.

I thought I'd post a quick note since it's been about 9 months since I've done so, and because for some reason I still open my blog on the computers at work so it gets some traffic.
I am writing this from my house in Canada, where Tim and I, along with our energetic dog have settled in after a few months floundering around waiting to see what would come next. We made it here without too much trouble, immigration paperwork notwithstanding. After living with his folks for a while, we tricked the bank into giving us a tiny mortgage so we could buy a house in a small town. It's nice to still be able to walk to the store and the post office; I didn't think that was still possible in North America.

It's hard to live back in the West. We both took a huge pay cut--for some reason, people here aren't willing to pay big bucks to have white people sing "Shake My Sillies Out" with their 4 year olds all day long. And you have to have 2 cars, complete with all the hassles that entails. The insurance on one car for 6 months is more than we paid to buy both of our scooters in Taiwan. And the winter has been hard for us. It gets pretty cold here, even though all the locals said we got off easy this year. But after living in Taichung, Taiwan, where it was warm enough to go camping on motorcycles in February, we're still building fires and running the furnace here and it's almost May 1.

But on the bright side, I am a permanent resident of a country that's actually glad to have me, instead of a temporary resident of a country (yes, Taiwan is a country--sorry, China) that merely tolerated my presence. And we finally get to own our own land, which we'd be even more excited about if the yard weren't such a bog.

In fact, it's the bright side of things that has kept me from posting to this blog, in part. I have so much less to complain about, and a lot fewer crazy stories. For a job now, I work in a call center as a tech support rep for a major Canadian internet provider. What could be less exciting than that?

But here I am, and life is good, despite the reverse culture shock. To give you some idea of the place I live now: when we go to the town office, they don't ask for any ID, because they know who we are. We're the gay couple who live in the old Gertie Patterson place. How's that for a change?

I may continue to post again, since I'm in front of a computer all day lately, but blogging from work is likely to cause nothing but pain. We'll see.

2005-07-28T13:24:00.000-03:00

Whatever and Ever, Amen.

I will leave Taiwan forever, hopefully, in about 1 day. Scooter, Tim, and I will leave this place together for a new life in Canada. I'm not going to get sentimental, but I have enjoyed this place, and I enjoyed the blog for a little while. Future visitors to this site might be interested to know that I lived here from January 2000 to July 2005, but I only bitched about a year of it. Everything is in place, and I am tremendously drunk, as is only fitting. Goodbye, and peace.

--Jason Tucker (yes, my real name, posted on the internet. )

2005-07-09T05:00:00.000-03:00

O, Canada

When I arrived in Korea in 1997, Asia was still a new adventure for me. And likewise, all the people who I knew there felt like they were part of the same adventure. It was the first time for almost everyone we met. People who’d been in Korea for more than a year were the “long-timers.”

One of the biggest differences between then and now is the advent of widespread Internet use. My fellow expatriates and I had almost no way to find information about anything, unless we asked our Korean bosses for help. Where can we get cheese? Where is a good place to have a drink? How does the bus system work? Where is a movie theater? How do I make a phone call? Where are the other foreigners? What does that woman shout in the hallway every morning? Though there we weren’t the first ones there, we still kind of felt that way. Foreigners actually smiled at each other or started conversations with strangers. We were stunned little puppies, wandering lost and alone through our adopted home—nothing like the bold, intrepid adventurers of times past. But compared with the vast amounts of information and communication now being moved about instantly, it really was a different century. All of my correspondence with the agents and entities that handled my journey to Korea was done through the telephone and the postal service.

Sometime in 1997, I heard about free “Hotmail.” I trekked across town to an “Internet Café” to set up an account. I’d had e-mail in university, and the only people who had e-mail were the ones who were still there, using their school-provided accounts. I wrote my mother a long letter and made a phone call or two, all for the purpose of convincing her that she should go hang around the campus and use the free computers to set up an account of her own. You know what the next few years brought, of course. Now I deal with almost everyone online—we’ve all learned to check our e-mail.

Now, after 5 years in Taiwan, I feel too old. Everyone I know here has been here at least 3 years. I feel like the city is being overrun with foreigners, racing around like demons on an endless parade of scooters, because they know almost no cop will ever stop them. Everyone can find their own little community right off the plane, because more than likely they’re staying with someone who’s already here, well established in their own cliques. The pay is good, the expenses are low, and so are the expectations. We all make more than enough to live here, and everyone has as much right to be here as I do. Well not really--I’m here legally earning taxable income, which is not necessarily the case for a large number of foreign nationals “studying Chinese” or “visiting” here.

But sadly for my own personal satisfaction, the thousands of other expatriates I now see around the city have considerably diluted my sense of specialness and adventure. Now that there are dozens or hundreds of websites advertising thousands of jobs doing exactly what I do, the only barrier to entry is the price of a plane ticket (unless you go to Korea or Japan, where they’ll likely even pay for that.) No complicated job search. No tedious waiting for a work visa. No waiting for a week for mail to come back from Busan, South Korea. Just get on a plane! Enter as a tourist, find a job, and take a “visa run” out of the country overnight every 2 months or so. Make fat cash! No taxes! Choose your own hours! Get almost everything you could get at home! That’s nothing like my first year in Korea, when we begged our coincidental neighbor, a lonely, gay Boeing executive, to let us go shopping on the U.S. military base for potato chips and cookies.
It has its downsides, but if you don’t have any particular plan, it’s very easy to stay as long as you like. Or at least until you get so old that your face doesn’t induce parents to sign their children up for your classes anymore. So, I’m ready to leave now. If it’s going to be this easy, I need something else to make me feel good about myself.

2005-05-24T01:45:00.001-03:00

Curtain Call

No one reads this anymore. Fine. I don't write anymore. Also fine. Here's why:

I have been granted a permanent residence visa as Tim's partner, so we will be leaving Taiwan in about 2 months. We are both very excited and relieved. The packing is underway, and we're already making inquiries about transporting the dog, and other awkward items. I will almost certainly not continue to maintain this blog in Canada. I thought about starting one called "Made in Canada," but that sitename on blogspot.com was already taken by some pregnant woman who posted once 2 years ago and then stopped. No matter. I will keep this one where it is, and if I ever start something new, this is where I'll let you know. Or, I'll start making comment posts on the 2 blogs I still read, this one and this one.

-------------------------------------

And now, one final Taiwan Moment.

Because people in Taiwan don't have much use for second-hand clothes, they often just get dumped. There are big metal boxes all over the city for clothing recycling. There is one such box in our garbage/recycling area at the apartment.

An additional box was added just around the corner several months ago. It seemed a little unnecessary since the other one was so close, but because it's under our window, I could see that some people were using it to dump off their old clothes.

Anyway, last Saturday night, at about 1 am, the dog went crazy barking. He's normally good-natured, and he doesn't bark at street noises. When I looked out the window, I saw two dirty men get out of a blue truck. They unlocked the box with a key, removed the clothes, and drove away.

Now, if this thing is legitimate, why did they empty it in the middle of the night?

But to me, the bigger issue is this: If they had a key, that means that they put this box here to "steal" recycled clothes. It's like putting your own "donation" trailer in the middle of a parking lot, and keeping everything for yourself.

Say what you will about scams, but this one just seems like a lot of work for not much payout. I'll be leaving them some clothes before I go.

---------------------------

This year, I will celebrate a milestone. I will turn 1 billion seconds old. It turns out that 1 billion seconds is 31 years and change. I will be celebrating mine on August 21, in Canada.

Thanks everyone for reading and commenting...If you're ever in Nova Scotia Canada after August, 2005, look me up...jbtucker42[at]yahoo.com. Peace out. Zai Jian!

2005-02-26T06:15:00.000-04:00

Update

Truth is, I've kind of lost interest in maintaining this blog. I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about. I'm hoping to leave Taiwan in the next few months, I don't read other ones that much any more either. I'm not going to destroy it though. It may prove instrumental in my novel (Hah!).

So in the interest of providing something anyway, I'm posting links to all the stupid pictures on my website--since I'm not tech savvy enough to put the pictures directly in my blog. Then everyone can stop checking in for a while.

* Here is a picture of me wearing a Taiwanese police officer vest and holding a rifle.
* Here is a picture of me dressed as a woman for a Halloween party.
* Here are some strange things in Taiwan.
* Here are some scenic things in Taiwan.
* Here are the rules for using a loaf of bread.
* Here is a supafine heater.
* Here is George W. Bush on a billboard for a pachinko parlor.
* Here is advice for going to Okinawa on a visa run from Taiwan.
* Here are Taiwan's alpine meadows.
* Here is an almost-counterfeit Winnie-the-Pooh doll.
* Here is a picture of my dog as a puppy.
* Here are vacation pictures of Boracay Island, Philippines

Everyone take care. I'll be back eventually.

2005-02-04T05:51:00.000-04:00

Today's Serving of Filth

I wanted to claim credit for this Taiwan Moment but I'll let it go to my partner, Tim, who actually witnessed it.

One thing that you really do see here is throngs of old people doing calisthenics or t'ai chi in the parks in the morning. I never used to see it, but now that we have a dog, one of us is out for the morning walk with Shithead*.

This morning, Tim walked by a group of old women and a few men doing their usual routine. They were listening to music, like they do every day. Today's selection was "Fuck the Pain Away" by the band Peaches. It's the one in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray is sitting in a strip club waiting for Scarlett Johannsen. It starts with the memorable first line "Suckin' on my titties like you wanted me..."

I really don't know what to add to that. I think it speaks for itself.

-----------------

* Dog's affectionate nickname at 7:05 a.m..

2005-01-24T20:25:00.000-04:00

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

I don't normally anxiously await vacations. But it seems like the Chinese New Year holiday has been approaching for several long and slow years.

Tim and I have friends coming during that holiday. It will be the worst time of the year for visiting Taiwan, because half of the families in the country will be driving to the homes of the other half during that week. It's the most thoughtless public holiday ever conceived. Banks, government offices, and public services will be halted most of a week while everyone takes a drive. Then when they get where they're going, all the shops are closed and trash is piling up in the streets.

But this is the one real holiday this year. There are no 3 day weekends, some of the holidays fall on Saturday or Sunday and so are lost, and no one complains. Except me. Dammit. Even Mainland China gets more holidays than we do. Even the U.S.. Even Japan.

And then my school has the nerve to suggest that I can't take 3 extra days off even though I have friends coming, and told my boss as much 5 months ago. Like of course I should come to work even though my friends traveled around the world for a visit. My missing three days of kindergarten would be a tragic loss for these young students.

The Taiwanese are an economic miracle, to be sure. But they have yet to learn the skill of valuing their employees. They don't recognize the difference between working and being at work. They didn't get more efficient, they just worked the same inefficient way for more and more hours.

My real problem is that I've been ready for a holiday since Christmas, so excuse my morning tirade. Now off to work.

2005-01-18T11:05:00.000-04:00

Photo of the Month

So, I'm feeling cold these days. It's not brutal, Midwestern cold, but tropical cold. It's still never colder than it gets in, say, Havana.

But still cold in the winter. So we bought a heater. It's great. How do we know? Take a look.

2005-01-13T08:56:00.000-04:00

And another thing...

Not long ago, I was complaining about the Taiwanese being not-very-civic minded. Since I've been in a foul mood today ("This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."*). So I thought I would add a few more.

1. While some Taiwan-based or Taiwan chapter-InternationalNGOs have donated to the tsunami vicitims efforts, there has been very little private donating. Several foreign teachers who tried to begin fund-raising efforts at their respective schools were met with what could almost be described as incredulity:
Foreign teacher: Let's raise some money for the tsunami vicitms.
Local teacher/administrator: Really? But won't the charities just keep it for themselves? What's UNICEF? Why are you asking the students to work for this money? [someone suggested a pledge-walk].
And then when the teachers organize it, the parents donate 25 cents.

2. People claim public property for themselves. I realize that space is a valuable commodity in this country, but I would estimate that about 50% of the sidewalks in this country are completely impassable. people claim them as private driveways, or storage for their food stalls, or work space, or parking lots, and even occasionally build permanent structures on them. People usually have to walk in the streets. I only bring this up today because I'm particularly irritated at the grand new sidewalks that were recently built along a major boulevard in the city. Within hours of their being completed, they were impassable. They were as wide as a lane of traffic, on either side of the road, and now they're just the urban equivalent of a trailer park. I don't walk to work, but it still burns me up. The businesses that front the sidewalks don't even have the courtesy to leave a path just in case some pedestrians happen to show up. The fucking police department parks their fleet of scooters completely across it. When I drive by, I imagine a massive fleet of tow trucks carrying all of the sidewalk obstacles away and pushing them down a ravine. Or driving a bulldozer down the sidewalk after giving a 2 minute warning. Or spray-painting "NO PARKING" in Chinese (I'd have to use a stencil) on everything in the way. Or a little explosive charge that would flip a car ass over teakettle out into the street (Actually, I was imagining something more like a superpowered hydraulic jack, but let's not get too technical here.)

Oooh, I think I need to stop now. There are compensations for living here. But for some reason, I get really worked up about sidewalks. I actually wrote a long rant about it ages ago that got published in my hometown newspaper. Of course, compared to Taichung, Muncie's sidewalks were like Paris. Little did I know...

* Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2005-01-02T11:35:00.000-04:00

Happy New Year

Isn't it great that these two holidays come so close together? The best part is, now that it's over, I'm not bitter about the lack of paid vacation. I took my personal vacation instead, not even realizing that I had any. The school gave me eight paid days off per year. I thought it was only 4, so I was keen to use my new found bonus. Chinese New Year is coming up, too. That's the real vacation. It will be interesting to see what happens when Tim's old friends come for a visit from Canada at that time.

I have been spending more time away from the computer lately. Watching the horrible but strangely compelling coverage of the incredible tsunami has kept me busy. I also took an afternoon road trip in to the mountains, and ended up seeing similar signs of destruction being repaired; the ongoing work due to massive infrastructure damage caused by this summer's typhoon flooding. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of disaster, but I do feel lucky to be clear of these kinds of life's dangers for another year. Welcome to 2005.

An odd and happy piece of news, I hope:

I believe, after reading the most recent correspondence with the appropriate government officials, that I will be granted permanent residency in Canada this year as Tim's common-law partner. This means that Tim and I will certainly have to move away from Taiwan, which does not break our hearts (though we love it here). Another whole adventure will soon begin, and now that it's moved from the realm of abstract paperwork to distinct possibility, I think I'm actually a little bit...excited...surprised...grateful...scared shitless...?

So. Today's discussion quesiton (More like this week's discussion question): What is a good line of work to get in to after 6 years of English teaching in Asia? Foodservice? Housekeeping? Telemarketing? Where to begin?

2004-12-27T20:52:00.000-04:00

Crushed

I told my students last Thursday that I was not coming in on December 24th because I was the real Santa Claus, so I would be too busy to come to work and teach English. Despite my earlier assertion that Mommy and Daddy are really Santa, and despite my ongoing routine where I tell a big lie on Thursday morning, they believed this new information. It helped my credibility when all the other teachers played along. I told my students to ask anyone they liked, and everyone would say the same thing--That I am Santa Claus.

So imagine my students' disappointment when Christmas came and they got nothing. One girl said to me, "You lie. You are not Santa because I did not get a present." That's harsh. True, but harsh.

To salvage the situation, I explained that no, I am not really Santa, but I believe in Santa. And if you believe, then he's real. But, for him to come on Christmas, your parents have to believe, too. I told them that I still get presents from Santa (I do...my Mom sends them), and that my Mom still believes. I also pointed out that they all got a Christmas present from the school when we had our Christmas performance last week. This all helped a little, but I could tell they were still smarting from that meanest of life's lessons--that grownups suck.

I don't think any of them were too crushed. But somehow I imagine a few of my students sitting up on Christmas Eve waiting for a big jolly fat guy to bust in their door and hand them a present before flying away in a reindeer sleigh. A fat guy that looked...just...like...Teacher...Jason!!

p.s. For any concerned, the giant tsunami this week did not affect Taiwan.

2004-12-23T23:50:00.000-04:00

It's (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Yes, It's Christmas Eve. I just went into the local Toys'R'Us, and discovered that there were only about 10 other shoppers.

Last night at one of Taichung's biggest department stores, I was able to walk up and down the escalators. Anyone who lives in a big city knows why this is surprising. Subway stations and other places with public escalators often have two lines: one for standing, and one for walking. But in department stores, the same courtesy is not offered. People stand two and three abreast, and no one walks. Even down. So if you want to go down 15 floors (this is a big store), you can wait for 10 minutes for the elevator (which stops on pretty much every floor both ways), or you can queue up with the herd slowly, mechanically, and irritatingly making their way down the escalators. But yesterday, I walked around like it was a Tuesday afternoon in July.

I haven't seen one Christmas special on TV. Even the movie networks have not shown any Christmas classics (Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th St.) , or even any of the rotten new Christmas movies (Jingle all the Way, that one where Michael Keaton plays a snowman).

I couldn't find Christmas wrapping paper in three different bookstores (which are, in Taiwan, the usual place to go for gift wrap and stationery supplies like ribbons, cards, bows, stickers, etc...)

(Man, I do love the parentheses...)

Today's weather: 24C and sunny.

I feel like I need to counteract this non-spirit of Christmas. Though honestly, why I'm still so hung up about it is a mystery. I guess I do need a piece of "home" sometimes. So...

I received some Christmas cards...very cool. They are on display, though not on a fireplace mantle. Bookshelves also do in a pinch.

We have a fake tree, a real poinsettia, and other festive decorations about the living room.

We are borrowing our friend's (imported) DVD of Christmas Story (the evil DVD-region-encoding being conspicuously ignored by manufacturers in Taiwan and China)

I've taken the day off, since there's no holiday other than the usual weekend. Don't get me started about that again.

I'm sorry if you're not religious, or of a different religious persuasion, but I'm glad it's here. I think I needed it. Merry Christmas. Honestly.

2004-12-15T11:27:00.000-04:00

Proverbial Ton of Bricks

For the longest time, you just go on thinking "Yeah, Christmas is coming, but I haven't done anything about it." Before you know it, you're writing cards and making trips to the stationery store for Scotch tape and more ornaments.

I read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to my kids this morning. It took a long time to set up...the punch line of the story is hard to explain:

Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas--perhaps--means a little bit more

These kids have no idea about the meaning of Christmas, and their grasp of English doesn't go deep enough to explain the commercialization of holidays by the popular culture.

Also, having grown up watching the cartoon every year, the book is a little bit less interesting for kids. It's basically black and white drawings with a little spot color (red.) We're going to watch the cartoon on Friday if Tim brings it home from his school, where he's been showing it to classes of Taiwanese elementary school kids.

So, I'm getting ready for the holiday, much to my own surprise. I actually got chills today describing to my kindergarteners the anticipation and excitement of my childhood Christmases. They talk about it, and learn about it from foreigners teaching them English, but this is not really a holiday for them. Chinese (Lunar) New Year is their big one, when they get envelopes filled with money from basically everyone older than them.

And yes, I'm serious about the Christmas cards. I wouldn't have made the offer if I thought I would get lots of responses. It's more like a club. Those who have e-mailed me, I'm hoping to go to the post office tomorrow with everything. But I think that the offer will have to end by, say, Christmas Eve.

2004-12-12T20:21:00.000-04:00

The Christmas Season Comes to My House

I've been too mean lately. So here's what I'm going to do to atone for the mean-spirited drivel I've shoveled at the 6 people who read this:

The only new Christmas tradition I've managaged to start for myself in Taiwan is the sending of Christmas cards. Though some of the cards have some strange English on them, mostly they're just pretty. And they're blank inside, saving everyone from the famous Hallmark Schlock.

If you want a Christmas card, e-mail me your address, and I'll send you one, anywhere in the world. I know some of you might be sensitive to giving that information to a stranger, so just give me enough for the mailman to find you. I'll write them on a piece of paper and immediately delete the e-mails. I do NOT need a credit card number to get you started.

I'm serious about this. I know how the digital age has changed us all, and maybe you're not even a Christian (I'm certainly not, though I look the type), but it's just a genuine offer, presented in the spirit of...something or other.

So there. That's my offer, and have a nice day.
jbtucker42[at]yahoo.com

2004-12-06T01:17:00.000-04:00

More Mean-Spirited Observations...

Asian culture generally, and Chinese culture specifically are noted for their lack of civic-mindedness. This is not a fault to my way of thinking, just something that strikes a lot of Westerners like me as meanness. They are, instead, concerned mostly with their family ties. They know where they stand in their work collective, their job, their family or their classroom, but they don't place themselves in the whole picture. This is one reason why so many Asians will ask you "Are you married?" and "How much money do you make?" as introductory questions. They have to know where they stand right away.

This is also why they are such inconsiderate drivers. Strangers don't figure into their moral thinking. Some people even drive with their headlights off at night. Partly to "save gas," but also because they can see just fine without them in a bright city. It doesn't occur to them that the purpose of headlights is so other people can see you.

It's also why it's so difficult to find a public trash can. Even city parks don't often have them. The logic being that then people from the neighborhood would just stuff all their house trash in the park cans. And they would. Once the trash is off their property, it's someone else's problem, even across the street in a park. People clean their cars and throw all the trash on the street. I've actually seen this.

Now I have to figure out how I'm irritating them...

2004-11-30T10:48:00.000-04:00

Today's Random Observation:

Many shopkeepers have an "open/closed" sign in their windows. Some are closed during the 2-hour afternoon siesta; others are open at that time but closed between lunch and dinner.

There are a wide variety of these small signs, but the majority of them say "To run business" on one side and "drink tea" on the other. So which is which?

2004-11-26T01:06:00.000-04:00

Election, part 7 1/2

It's election time again. Taiwan's legislative elections are December 11. The campaign season is blessedly short--only about 1 month. But, some candidates start putting up their billboards early. They've all got a big picture of the candidate, and a little circle somewhere on the ad. One month before the election, everyone draws lots to see what number they will be on the ballot. Then, magically, people go out and paint the candidate's number inside the little circles on every early billboard.

Two billboards I've seen have caught my eye.

One, #17, is a man posing, not with his wife, children, or a prominent politican, but his German Shepherd dog.

Another, #13, is a smiling woman. There's a bit of Chinese writing on the billboard, but only one English word: "Shiny." I don't know what to make of this, unless it's her English name.

2004-11-17T10:51:00.000-04:00

Do you talk to yourself?

Yeah, you do. Do you do it out loud? How loud? Would you stop if there were others nearby? What if they probably didn't speak your language? How about if they already think you're crazy anyway?

Oh, and as a bonus aside...for some reason, the--uh--special people-- always seem to know a bit of English and want to practice while they grab your dog and squeeze just a little too hard.

2004-11-11T01:25:00.000-04:00

The Rules

In Taiwan, there are lots of shops and vendors that I've not seen in other countries. But there are two I particularly like:

1. Breakfast shops. Admittedly, they serve terrible coffee, if they have it at all, but they are all over the country, and they do lots of good breakfast food. Some is local, like the steamed bread rolls (mmm...chewy and tasteless!), noodles, dumplings, and the like. There are dan-bing, which are sort of like breakfast burritos, filled with an egg and whatever else they have on the menu. And they have Western-style things filtered through the local culture: i.e. "Hamburgers" with an egg, fried pork, cucumbers, and sweet mayonnaise. All in all, they aren't bad, but the only drinks they offer are hot or cold milk tea or warm goat's milk. This lack of drinks leads me to the other shops I like:

2. Juice shops. These are more straightforward. They have about 30 different fruit flavors, blenders, coffee-machines, and sweeteners. For about 75 cents, you can get a freshly-mixed cup of any imaginable combination of these things as juices, ice drinks, and teas. The drink menu for most of these places is well over 100 items.

And now, the problem.

Breakfast shops are open only in the morning. Every single one in the country is closed and shuttered for the day by noon.

Juice shops are open only starting in the afternoon. Every single one in the country is closed until at least 10 am.

So, if you want a nice refreshing juice in the morning on your way to work, you're out of luck.

And if you want some tasty breakfast-type food in the evening, you're out of luck.

Why? Those are just the rules. Everyone does it that way, because everyone else does it that way.

2004-11-07T01:45:00.000-04:00

Election, part 6

Well, about 8 months ago, I started talking about Taiwan's presidential election. If you'll recall, the incumbent, Chen Shui-Bian, won re-election with a margin of about 20,000 votes out of about 13 million cast. The loser, Lien Chan, also ran against Chen and lost in 2000 (although that was a clearer victory because of a 3rd party split). Due to the closeness of the vote, and a mysterious--and still totally unsolved--shooting of the president and his running mate at an election rally on the eve of the election, Lien refused to concede. Lien, of the long-ruling-but-currently-bitter KMT, said that alleged voting irregularities and a sympathy vote for Chen in the wake of his shooting should cause the election results to be annulled.

Lien and the angry old men of his party have been chasing this case through the courts since then. They are helped by having a majority in their Legislature which has given them all kinds of sympathetic comittees, fact-finding investigations, and the like. The KMT have also basically prevented President Chen, of the Democratic People's Party (DPP), from getting anything done for the last four years. And the KMT good-ol'-boys network of county and city officials keep skimming the public's money off the top by the truckload, while the president goes around the country to ribbon-cuttings and twiddles his thumbs.

Despite all this, this week, the high court of Taiwan threw out his lawsuits. All of his allegations were totally unsubstantiated and a complete recount of all the votes still found in Chen's favor. At every turn, the KMT's Lien has simultaneously pursued every legal and legislative option available while slamming the legal processes as unfair and fradulent.

As President Chen, who is now 5 months into his second and final term, urged the opposition party to respect the results, Lien promised he would press on with his quest for the presidency.

So, the American eleciton has gone pretty well by comparison. Too bad about the winner, though.

2004-11-04T01:18:00.000-04:00

Oh well.

Well, it's all over. America apparently has the president it wants. And for better or worse, it's the government it deserves. I've completely missed the first Bush term by living overseas, and if this Canadian immigration thing goes through, I'll get to miss the second one as well, though if I still have my U.S. citizenship in 2008, the Jeb Bush/Hillary Clinton matchup will warrant another absentee-ballot application.

My 7-year-olds have been very interested in this election since our mock vote last week. They were asking me all day yesterday who was the winner. It was still not over when I left at 5 p.m. (late Tuesday night in the states), so their homework was to watch TV and tell me the winner today. They all knew the answer. At one point, the kids were shouting "Bush" and "Kerry" at each other, and I told them that people in America were probably doing the same thing at that moment.

Best of luck to America, and by extension, the world, these next 4 years.

2004-10-28T20:38:00.000-03:00

The Latest Poll

John Kerry can take heart. He is polling well among Taiwanese 7-year-olds. In a poll conducted this week, Kerry was preferred over Bush by a margin of 40% to 56%, with a margin of error of +/- 4%.

Polling was conducted in the classroom, with each student receiving one poker chip to cast into the appropriately labeled Cheez-ball can of their choice. Due to communication difficulties, more detailed follow-up questions were not asked. We stuck to the the simple: "Do you like this one, or this one?" I did not tell them which one to choose. Balloting was done in secret, behind the whiteboard.

From the results of this poll, we can infer that Kerry is doing pretty well, and that Bush has a lot of ground to make up here. If I were his advisor, I would recommend lollipops.

2004-10-26T20:44:00.000-03:00

Help! Police!

In Taiwan, the police are a just another bunch of overworked bureaucrats. Which is why the only time they'll stop you for traffic violations is if that's their assignment at the moment. They won't drive around looking for trouble like the average American police officer.

And they also have the added advantage of not being good-ol-boys. Sure, they have plenty of corruption, but because most cops don't carry guns (they do carry a non-lethal weapon of some sort), they're not the sort of people who became cops so they could push people around.

I know more than a few foreigners who got stopped for traffic violations, and then waved along when the motorcycle helmet came off and the officer did a quick mental calculation of the effort he'd have to expend to explain the whole thing in his middle-school English. An American cop who pulled over a non-English speaking foreigner would probably have the whole family lying face down in the ditch while the dogs searched the car and the translator was brought in from the next state.

The best part is, everyone knows it. If they see a cop, they keep going with their illegal traffic manuever because they know he's not interested. When he's off-duty, he does the same thing.

2004-10-21T02:58:00.000-03:00

This Blog Formally Endorses
John Kerry for President

Though I have been taking the occasional potshot at George W. Bush in these pages, I guess I haven't bothered to make the positive effort on behalf of his challenger in the upcoming election.
I must admit that I have been against W. since he took office, but for a long time it wasn't even that important to me. I have been living overseas for almost eight years with my partner Tim, the last four years exclusively here in Taiwan. Being gay made it pretty obvious that times would be bad back in the states, and I have to admit that the steady employment and national health care in Taiwan have made it hard for me to see the positive angle to going home anytime soon.

And I have to confess that on September 11, 2001, I was one of those people who in addition to all the feelings of bewilderment and sympathy, also felt like somehow it was America's own behavior in the world that led these terrorists to hatch such a vicious and surprising plan. I didn't feel any rage. I wasn't there, or even anywhere close. I just watched it all unfold from my apartment overseas.

Then, I watched from overseas as the Bush administration wrecked everything they touched. It has reached its most extreme in Iraq, but the hate and fear his posse have generated at home is more personally irritating. He has done nothing to make the world safer. He has ruined the American economy for another generation. And I find it distinctly creepy that he is a teetotaling born-again Christian who used to be a party animal. Those people are not the sort who should run the freewheeling shitstorm that is America.

I wholeheartedly believe that John Kerry would be the best choice for president. I'm not even going to hedge. If someone's got to do it, I would rather that it be someone with 30 years of Washington experience and who doesn't look to the Bible for political decisions. I'm not bothered with any of the allegations about his record. I'm still young enough to think taxes aren't necessarily bad, (and come on spinmeisters--don't you think people would notice if their taxes had gone up 96 times?) I think Kerry's right--we need to do something different in Iraq, and in America. Health care. Education. Civil Unions (I'd take that in a heartbeat. I don't want Tim to be my husband or my wife, so why fight for marriage?) . Balancing the Budget. Protecting workers (We've all got to get off the free-trade thing! Free-trade is good for making big money, but bad for everyone who makes the stuff that makes the money.) Kerry has some concrete plans for improving things. Of course, it won't work out that way, but we have to try.

I think if Bush wins, whatever revolution that starts in America in the next 20-50 years will look to the election of 2004 as its starting point. I think a Kerry presidency will be boring, to be sure, but maybe cool things down a little and delay the revolution until after my lifetime. That would be just fine with me.

Vote Kerry.

2004-10-18T02:03:00.000-03:00

Left, right?

I swear this must be true. Taiwanese people have no idea what vehicle turn signals are for. They only turn them on as they start turning or during their turn. It seems to me that this behavior kind of negates the whole point of them. Once you've already turned across my path, there isn't much need to signal it, is there?

The mitigating factor in all this is that everyone is so used to being cut off, they almost never honk their horns in anger. There is very little road rage here, despite the shit traffic.

2004-10-11T21:00:00.000-03:00

Lifestyle Choices

Sorry I've been on the inactive list. I have just had a few interesting days. An old friend came to visit me in Taiwan for the last few days. R. is a Taiwan English-teaching veteran. He worked here for three years, met a wonderful English girl here, and convinced her to stay for one more year in Taiwan, making some more money.

They went back to England almost three years ago. Then last week, I got a cryptic e-mail that my friend R. would be traveling here in the next day or two. When he finally arrived, he told Tim and I this basic story:

He went home and decided to get his teaching license, and his girlfriend decided to get a graduate degree. Then, after all his teacher-training, he realized that teaching at home was a miserable job. In addition to the endless lesson plans that needed to be prepared for each class, there were also hours of daily paperwork and very little money. So, since then he's been trying other things, being very unhappy. Finally, his girlfriend recently finished her degree, and got a job, but it was in another town, so she had to move out until she gets her driving license (unlike the USA, it's not a given that you'll get one at 16 or 17) and can drive herself to and from work. In all this time, he has been working to support them while slowly draining the savings he earned from his work over here. Because, let's face it: Even in America, if you're earning $50,000 a year, you'll never be able to save over $1000 a month, like you can here.

So, he's found another job that will start in a few weeks, and he needed a break from England. He told Tim and I that we are certainly not making a mistake by staying here as long as possible. He loved Taiwan when he was here...he only left for his girlfriend. He said that it's nearly impossible to get your head above water back in England, where the taxes are killer, the services your taxes pay for are getting worse and worse, and the convenience of a 24 hour country are just a distant dream.

Tim and I are hoping to go back to Canada next year and make a go of it, but his words were a warning, albeit an unintentional one. From where he's sitting, Taiwan is really just about the only logical option if his new job doesn't pan out. From where we're sitting, it's time to leave, assuming the immigration people take me. We both know we can't stay forever, but the fact is that here, we're well off. At home, we'll be poor, and if we can't sort something out, we'll also be miserable. Money is important, as everyone knows. One doesn't need a lot, but enough.

Now, we're conflicted with all these questions...about staying or going, about quality of life, about the uncertainty of relocating versus the certain paycheck and 2 income household we've been maintaining here for almost 5 years.

I guess today's discussion question is: are you making enough to live where you are? to be comfortable? The extra-credit question is: If R.'s new job doesn't pan out, would he be making the right decision to come back to Taiwan, leaving wonderful girlfriend and miserable English lifestyle for financial security and a better lifestyle? Keep in mind he's been trying his hardest to make a go of it for nearly 3 years. How long until you can fairly give up?

2004-10-05T20:53:00.000-03:00

Unfriendly Skies

In addition to the newspapers and online news I read, I also watch CNN. Of course, it's CNN International, which is the sort of thing that gets fed to hotel rooms around the world. It's much less frantic, and they have their own international cast. They run the occasional CNN USA show, but mostly it's different.

They spend hours and hours of the day talking about money. International finance. International business. International trade. International market shares. International currencies. On and on and on. They also have light shows like "Living Golf" and "Inside Sailing," for all those comfortable business travelers sitting in their rooms on a Monday evening.

But the thing that really pisses me off are the ads. It's clear after 5 minutes of watching that this network is not selling anything to you. Unless you happen to be an international business traveler.

There are ads for major financial services (HSBC, Deutsche Bank) and lots of ads for exotic tourist destinations (Maldives, Dubai, Malaysia), and other services for rich people (Diners Club card, Citibank Private Bank "For High Wealth Individuals')

And then there are the airlines.

Every single one of them is the best and most comfotable in the world. Singapore. Cathay Pacific. Air Emirates. Thai. Vietnam Air (?!). And others. The thing that really ticks me off, is that every ad shows how great their seats and service are. But the happy passengers are always sitting in first class, or at least business class. Of course they're happy.

If the airlines want to sell those seats, fine. I'm sure there are few other worldwide networks that have the same audience of rich business travelers (but Virgin Airlines is apparently marketing itself with some soft-core porn innuendo travel spots on a global hotel satellite network), but they should at least lift up the curtain at least once during the ad. Then the rest of us would see what we're really in for. Three hundred people, crawling over each other for 15 hours like ants in an anthill.

2004-09-29T21:00:00.000-03:00

Long Weekend

In Taiwan, unlike the United States, most holidays are on the same date every year, rather than moving it to a convenient Friday or Monday. The ones that are not on the same date every year are dictated by the lunar calendar. So, Lunar New Year may be January 21 one year, and February 13 the next year. And so on.

Unfortunately, most of the holidays this year have fallen on a Saturday or Sunday. And so we just don't get them. I've been pretty bitter about it this year, because there are only about 5 national holidays, and at least 3 of them have been on the weekend.

The Vatican is one of the two dozen or so countries that maintains full diplomatic ties with Taiwan. (For the record, the others are poor Central American and African countries.) A few months ago, a Vatican official was in Taiwan, and he suggested that they make Christmas a holiday. It used to be a holiday (Constitution Day fell on Dec. 25), but they cancelled it when the workweek was supposedly shortened from 48 to 44 hours. The Taiwanese official replied that another holiday was not necessary, since workers already get 2 days off every other week. In the mysteries of the Chinese language, every Saturday or Sunday is a "holiday," so we get over 100 "holidays" a year. And they think that's enough.

We did have a real "holiday" this week. But that excuse about the holidays is just shit. What it boils down to is that all the politicians are also a bunch of money-grubbing businessmen who would rather die than pay a few hours of overtime.

The Taiwanese think they're so hard-working. But it's really just that they're always at work. Of course they get a lot done.

2004-09-25T23:00:00.000-03:00

Today's Discussion Question:

Imagine that you drive a 2-wheeled vehicle to work every day. About 6 miles each way, in the open air, rain or shine.

Now, imagine that you have a pocketful of change. Quite a bit of it. It's not enough to buy a pizza or anything, but you could probably buy lunch at McDonalds. With the McFried Apple Pie.

And finally, imagine that as you're speeding to work on a long stretch of road where all the green lights are really working in your favor, you sense some of the change falling out of your pocket and clattering onto the pavement. How much money would you have to think you lost before you stopped and went back for it?

I realize that part of this hinges on the perceived value of your money. In America for instance, you're not likely to have anything more valuable than quarters, which are just barely useful these days. But some countries have higher-value coins. My pockets often fill up with 10NT coins which are worth about 35 cents US but have a much higher psychological value here. Ten New Taiwan Dollars could buy you, for instance, a fresh cup of ice tea, a plastic soap dish, a newspaper, a ball-point pen, or 5 local phone calls. But there are also 50NT coins, and you'd probably go back for even one of those. Wouldn't you?

Well? How much would you lose before you went back for it? Keep in mind it didn't just land where it fell out of your pocket. It hit the ground at 60KPH and bounced while you raced forward, watching it skitter away in your rear-view mirror.

For extra credit, factor in the possibilty that it's not daytime, but nighttime.

2004-09-22T20:43:00.000-03:00

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

update: Apparently it's not just me. Other people have had problems with Thursdays in Taiwan. Sir Elton didn't think much of the media hounding he received. It's the same gang of media thugs who follow criminals and victims alike into hospital rooms, police stations, and government buildings.

2004-09-16T02:30:00.000-03:00

True Story:

A common criminal act in Taiwan is to "kidnap" peoples' cars. They notify the person whose car has gone missing and make arrangements for ransom, whereupon the location of the car is revealed. Most of the time, these ransoms just get paid. I've also heard of this same thing happening to people's pets.

So anyway, a scooter repairman has his car stolen. As a profession, they don't make a lot of money, so it probably wasn't even a nice car. While he's at the police station, his cell phone rings. The "carnappers" are demanding 50,000 NT ransom (about 1800$ US). He doesn't have that kind of money, so there in the police station, he wheedles them down to 10,000 NT (about $400 US). They agree, and then--get this--they give him the bank account number in to which he needs to transfer the money. I should add that this is a very common payment method here, probably second to cash in terms of popularity. But there's no such thing as an anonymous account here. They ache for paperwork to amass on every last thing.

The police, being presented with
a) a man reporting a stolen car,
b) the bank account number of the theives,
c) the cell phone number of the thieves, and
d) officers who witnessed the car being ransomed over the phone
advise the man to pay the ransom and get his car back. So he does.

What happened here? Police corruption? Indifference? Incompetence? Miscommunication? Another angle to the story that we don't know about (maybe the victim was a complete asshole in the station and got told off by weary police)? Keep in mind that this is Taiwanese-on-Taiwanese confrontation here. No foreigners getting ignored by xenophobic locals. Just an average day.

Discuss.

2004-09-10T21:19:00.000-03:00

So, how 'bout this weather, huh?

Lots and lots of people in Taiwan think that Taichung has the best weather. They'll tell you this as a matter of simple fact. "You live in Taichung? Oh yes, the weather there is very good. The best in Taiwan." For a long time, I was a little confused about this. But today I understood.

You see, Taiwan is a tropical island. Actually, it's sub-tropical and tropical. The line runs right through Taiwan in the southern part. It's a tiny island with an enormous mountain range running up its spine. I mean really huge. Taiwan is only about 100 miles wide, but the mountains reach excesses of 10,000 feet. Those mountains and Taiwan's place in the Pacific makes for some bad weather. In some places.

I always thought Taichung seemed kind of hot, dirty, and too dry. In the miserable summer months, the temperature is always a few degrees higher here than Taipei. Also, Taichung is slightly inland, with mountains of various sizes on three sides--so lots of the pollution generated here (and there's more than enough) hangs in the air on bad days. The other major cities are all closer to the sea. And whereas we go long stretches without rain, northern parts of Taiwan see afternoon rain showers often throughout the year.

So I took issue with the "best weather" thing. But today on the news, I see that northern and southern Taiwan are still getting flooding from some rain that fell this week. Taipei is still cleaning up after Typhoon Aere last month totally covered parts of that city in water. The east coast, on the Pacific side of the mountains (which is stunningly beautiful compared to the megalopolis that stretches out on Taiwan's western plains), always gets absolutely shit on during typhoon season. And the mountainous regions are prone to massive landslides after heavy rains. And in the middle of all this, is Taichung (which means "Central Taiwan") just sits and smiles benignly on the misery that surrounds her this time of year.

Taichung doesn't have the best weather because it's the mildest and most pleasant. It's the best weather because the weather-related disasters that ruin other bits of the island on a regular basis simply never make it here.

And that's your weather for today. Now, back to Veronica in the studio.

2004-09-04T21:52:00.000-03:00

Yeah, so? Bite me.

Among the things I hate for the moment, Sunday morning at 9 am:

1. Can no longer seem to sleep in on weekend mornings.
2. Dog only bothers me while I sleep, not when I'm awake.
3. Have been up since 6:30. And it's frigging Sunday.

The hell of it is, it's much nicer to be up this early. The city is quiet--even peaceful. The tropical sun hasn't yet started mixing with the haze of particles and fumes that rise out of the city on any given day. Old ladies really are doing tai chi in the park. A lot of them. So in a lot of ways, the negatives could be outweighed if I were in the mood.

I'm trying to adjust to life as an adult. My back hurts sometimes. I want to be in bed at 10:30. But I still feel a stab of nostalgia for the deeply-slumbering mornings I used to manage well into college. Pretty soon, I'll be like my dad, up at 4 am--in bed by 9pm. God help me.

2004-09-02T06:55:00.000-03:00

Heavy Metal

Today was "Heavy Machinery in the Road" Day. I don't know if they have this where you live, but in a crowded, constantly under-construction place like Taiwan, it's pretty common.

I constantly share the road with forklifts, dump trucks loaded with rocks, 20-story cement-pump cranes, bulldozers, cement mixers, millions of smaller delivery vehicles, car-hauling trailers, and flatbed trailers with more of the above.

But oddly, the one thing I almost never see here are western-style pickup trucks. When people want a work truck here, they get what I've always called a "blue truck." They're the ones that look like this. That's what Taiwan is filled with. And, they really are nearly always blue. They're always sold that way new, and most people here wouldn't waste money on something like painting a vehicle.

If I ever make it back to N. America, I want one of these instead. They're the true workhorses of this place. And when they get beat to hell, they don't get fixed. What a deal.

2004-08-24T10:45:00.000-03:00

8 years old...

A typhoon is coming to Taiwan. It was making good time, but now it's stalled up by the northern tip. The counties up north have already cancelled work and classes for tomorrow. I'm sitting and watching TV, waiting to read those magic words: No school tomorrow for Taichung County. Of course, it's all in Chinese, which makes it a bit difficult, but for this, I'll persevere.

Outside it's windy and rainy. It reminds me of those days long ago watching the snow fall in the evening, and then sitting by the radio in the morning before school praying for the day off. Rain isn't as pretty as snow (and not much fun to play in), and when you get a foot of rain in 24 hours, it tends to cause a lot of hell, but I don't care. Wish me luck.

Newsflash: School cancelled! Hurray! Time to open another beer. I never imagined I would live in a place that doesn't have "snow days," but "typhoon days."

Oh, and as an added bonus, Tim and I will get to keep an eye on our dog, who just got fixed. The worst part of it all was that the Chinese-speaking vet only knew the word "castration." Ouch. He is wearing the cone on his head at the moment, poor guy. He's bumping in to all the furniture and his cone scrapes the ground when he tries to sniff things. But he may yet get the last laugh. The vet told us he only had one testicle. I think maybe he kept the other one inside in case of just such an emergency.

2004-08-19T08:16:00.000-03:00

Ick.

My dog had a wet dream last night. He needs a trip to the vet to sort that shit out. Sometimes I like cleaning the house, but no thank you.

2004-08-16T08:24:00.000-03:00

These Things'll Be the Death of Me

My school is in an old part of town. That doesn't really mean that the buildings are old, but that the streets were twisted and chaotic before they got finalized in ashphalt. So there are lots of blind corners, narrow alleys, and assorted household junk piled in or near the road.

My school is across the street from the facility where all the local cable-guys work. Not the office, but the lot where all the trucks park. The vehicles they drive look like minivans that have been squished from front to back, they're stuffed full of cables and tools, and they have a ladder on the roof.

These guys drive the vans like bats out of hell, and they keep the same hours as me. When I wind my way to work through the cities' alleys, there are a stream of them pouring out of the lot infesting the streets with big dangerous bumblebees. And they come back at lunchtime, about when I'm leaving work for home. Then, they're leaving again for the afternoon when I come back to work. I never imagined cable guys as the hurry-up sort.

So far, we've managed to miss each other on the blind corners. But if I had a dollar for every near miss, I could take a few days off with a clear conscience.

2004-08-12T02:03:00.000-03:00

Sshhh.. Don't tell.

Do you ever say something quietly to yourself when you're alone? Something you'd never admit to anyone else, or maybe just something you're not sure if you believe, so you just try saying it--today I did.

I tried out the sentence "I hate my job." It sounded pretty true. It doesn't look bad on paper, but I've just had a hard time lately being motivated enough to go. I do, but about 500m before I get there, I just have this feeling of dread.

Fuck it. I'm taking the afternoon off. No one will miss me.

2004-08-09T07:57:00.000-03:00

I am not your Brother

In Taiwan, children nearly always call all adults by some family name or other. Even complete strangers are "Auntie" or "Big Sister." Where I work, the kids call the cook "Mother Wang," and the manager (the only other male usually in the building) "Uncle."

Adults usually call each other the equivalent of "Mr." or "Miss," unless they are clearly of superior status (i.e. teachers, bosses, supervisors, etc..) and then they get referred to by their title. That's fine, I'm not complaining. I've worked hard to explain that instead of "Teacher Jason," my students can also call me "Mr. Tucker" if they're brave.

But at a little restaurant up the street from my house, it's a different story. It's a "lunchbox" shop, which means that they serve pre-packed boxes with rice and vegetables plus the one main item you order (chicken leg, pork steak, etc...). The woman there always calls me "shuai ge," which means, more or less, "handsome guy." She doesn't smile when she says it, it's just another word to her. I thought that was nice, but lately she's substituted it for "wai guo peng yo" which means "foreign friend." That's also fine, but I have to confess that I kind of liked the other one better.

Of course, there must be a downside for children to address strangers as kin, but don't get me started on the Asian lack of privacy. Like the McDonald's coloring contest where all the 5-year olds' pictures were on display in the shop front, along with their names, addresses, and phone numbers.

2004-08-03T08:45:00.000-03:00

Hound Dogs and Private Lives

We took the dog to the vet. Nothing serious, just a gouge from some street dog. Our beagle is just too trusting.

While we were waiting for the vet (Here, vet wait times are like the dentist at home. But when you walk into a dentist here, they can see you right away. Go figure) a parent of one of Tim's students walked in with her young son. They made some polite conversation for a while. She wasn't there to see the vet, she just saw Tim and walked in. It's a store-front vet, like all of them here--no cozy cottage in the country for vets here. After 30 minutes, we still hadn't seen the vet, and she was still standing around, having exhausted her English and her son. In addition to being an awkward moment for everyone, she insisted on exchanging numbers and trying to invite Tim over to their house some time.

I understand that people like her are completely sincere, but surely they must know at some level that teachers never want to meet parents and kids on their own time. Make an appointment, drop by the school, write a note, send a gift, leave a message after the beep, but please don't ask me to come to your house for tea on Saturday afternoon.

And for the animal lovers, the dog's fine. She sold us a cone to put on his head so he won't lick his wound. It's healing fine, the vet even said so, so there's no way we're putting that crazy-assed thing on our dog.

2004-07-29T08:57:00.000-03:00

If It's Broken, Don't Fix It.

My sole foreign co-worker has been "laid off" from my school. Due to foreign affairs meddling and the graduation of his kindergarteners, they told him that his services would not be required next year. That's fine, I guess, though being the only Western face at school may get kind of tiring. I rely on our cigarette breaks (we're the only 2 who smoke) to get me through the day.

So, he's found work at another school. I wish him the best, but I fear the worst. The school he's going to work for has, among everyone I know, a horrible reputation for lying and cheating it's staff. In fact, he was surprised that they even hired him. He figured they must be desperate. When he went there for orientation, there were at least a dozen other foreigners there for the same thing.

Of course, they had that many foreigners there last year, but every single one of them quit. Tired of being treated like children, cheated out of wages, being lied to even when the truth is harmless, and then being socked with fines and extra work when they complained, they all left, one by one.

I imagine that from the Chinese (Taiwanese) perspective, all those foreigners were insolent complainers, who needed a firm hand. What they really needed, in my opinion, is a union, but they're illegal in Taiwan. I'm sure next year will be the same, my former co-worker already having been lied to about several things before he's even started.

The school, staffed by Chinese managers who value face-saving above all other concerns, would never admit that they don't know what they're doing. So the cycle will continue. Foreigners will hate the place, and the school will acquire a new crop of them every year.

So be it.

2004-07-27T01:57:00.000-03:00

Got Milk?

When I was a kid, we always had a gallon of milk in the fridge. Once I was old enough to drive, it was frequently my duty to be the one to remember to pick it up from the store on the way home from somewhere. So, yeah, I like milk.

This is not a complaint about the local milk. Taiwan's milk is just fine. It's available in all the usual varieties (whole,2%,skim,chocolate,soy), as well as an additional host of more unusual choices (papaya, apple, banana, fruit, etc..)

But...

It's only available in 2 liter jugs. In principle, that's fine, because our Taiwan fridge is small (about 4ft tall), and there are only two of us. And, it's quite a bit more expensive. Two liters of milk runs about $2.75 US.

Recently they have started selling 3L bottles. They still fit in our fridge, and necessitate fewer trips to the store. And the best part is that it actually makes me happier. It's nice to drink from a big new jug of milk, because it's guilt-free. You won't have to go back to the store for a couple of days, and you can still have cereal or Oreo cookies or a fucking milkshake. When you only have 2 liters at a time, it seems like you're always almost out. And you always need to save a little bit for next morning's coffee.

Oh, and as a random aside, I can't sort out what's wrong with the photo posting, so I won't be doing it for a while. It's not that important.

2004-07-26T08:51:00.000-03:00

Ok. Skip the pictures.

Tim and I went out to eat tonight. On our fourth try, we finally found somplace to eat. First place was closed on Mondays; second one was a little too local; third one had no food, just drinks; last one was open and serving food, but it turned out to be crap. So now I'm fed, but barely.

Not important. Must get back to television.

2004-07-24T00:28:00.000-03:00

Today is Saturday. The day that the "senior" class graduates from my kindergarten. For some reason, kindergarten is up to 3 years long here, and some of the kids will have been here even longer if they started very young, like some do. Can you imagine being in school 51 weeks a year when you're only 2 years old?

Anyway, none of my kids are graduating, but I still have to put on a suit and go watch them walk down an aisle and kick each other in their chairs for three hours. Here's how I feel about that (my first attempted image post):

However, despite that sinking feeling, I did manage to update this page to reflect current links and maybe just a slight alteration or two for a new look. You know those websites can't stay static. Who wants everything to always be in the same place? Besides me, I mean.

2004-07-21T06:58:00.000-03:00

Hey everyone. I honestly didn't know that anyone was still checking this. That's the truth. I'm not being modest or self-deprecating (although pointing it out is, in itself, kind of snooty), but I really haven't even thought about it. I do kind of miss the habit of writing a little bit. I think that must be what blogging is about for a lot of people. Sure, there's the self-expression angle, but isn't it just nice to sit and write a few words that don't matter at all?

I know a lot of people have to write things for work. I actually have to write for my job. As in, lots of fairly neat printing that is unlike my own personal handwriting. I'm dealing with lots of people who have a tenuous grasp of English, and messy writing doesn't help anyone. I could type, but then there's lots of tedious cutting and pasting instead. Some of my printing has to be even neater, like making handwriting worksheets--does everyone remember this font? Now, I'm using the computer for more of it, but it still isn't writing.

So, here are my meaningless words for the day. No one at my school will read them, they're just for me and those of y'all stopping by. I had to get that "y'all" out of my system. It's been sitting inside me all week, surrounded by people who don't get that kind of crazy talk.

2004-07-19T20:15:00.000-03:00

If you know what's good for you, you've stopped reading this blog by now. I remember for one glorious day, my blog was the number one Google hit for "Made in Taiwan." Must have been a mistake.

I went back to the states, had a great time visiting family, and now I'm back in Taiwan. Tim and I just rented a car for a self-imposed three-day weekend and drove around with the car and a tent. Our favorite campsite, in the mountains by a river, was completely washed away by the rains from Typhoon Mindulle last week. I mean, totally washed away. The levee broke and the river just ripped through, taking every damn bit of the place. Now there's just rocks.

I'm back at the daily grind now, but it's Tuesday morning before work, and things seem quiet and calm. This Saturday, me and six Chinese teachers will be performing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at the kindergarten graduation ceremony. Ick. I'm playing the keyboard and singing, and they're playing xylophones. It's too horrible to even contemplate.

Have a good week.

2004-05-19T12:13:00.000-03:00

I haven't been posting lately, because I know there are no comments. Funny isn't it? How you have to know you have an audience to really perform. I ran out of perfomances after a year of complaining about Taiwan. I thought I'd never run dry. Not because Taiwan is that bad, but just because I bitch that much.

This post serves as warning to the two people who read it that it may be staying like this for a while. Everything's fine. The sky is clear, the dog's skin has cleared up, the immigration paperwork is moving forward. And because I'm not feeling negative, I have nothing to say about today's meeting where my boss talked about my escape route if the government inspectors come. It's just life here.

I hope you all have a good summer. Peace.

2004-05-06T20:20:00.000-03:00

sorry. my comments are down. that only affects 2 people, but so be it...

stupid free stuff...

2004-05-04T12:19:00.000-03:00

I know i've been here too long now. I have started making excuses to go to the one grocery store on the other side of town that sells imported Ruffles potato chips. You think it's desperate, but look at the following flavors that are (I swear) available from the locally-made Lay's Potato Chip affiliate:

Kyushu Seaweed
San Fransisco Baked Crab
Texas BBQ
Hawaii Red Pepper
Tahiti Yellow Lemon
Kyoto Green Tea

Unfortunately, believe me when I say they're all pretty bad. I just want salt flavor.

2004-04-29T10:34:00.000-03:00

Anyone out there going to be in Muncie, Indiana during the first 2 weeks of June? If so, stop by, and we'll have a drink. If you're going to be somewhere else in the world, lucky you.

2004-04-23T13:39:00.000-03:00

Here are your random Taiwan moments for Friday. Enjoy.

1. For a while, I was really addicted to the game SimCity4. One feature of this game is that land which you zone for commercial use takes a while to become valuable and develop big buildings. I've often thought that Taiwan looks like a SimCity board. But I've noticed just how perceptive the game designers were.

Here in Taichung, a newly-widened road has been created in the past year. And now that there's lots of traffic cutting through what was recently just rice paddies and a few small factories, now there are used-car lots being constructed on every available piece of land that touches the road. My SimCities followed exactly the same pattern, often with several lots right next to each other. I thought they were exaggerating, or making up for a lack of unique graphics. But that really seems to be exactly what happens. Just throw down some concrete and put up a tin shack and some neon, and you're all set. I figure about 20% of these cars are stolen.

2. Every scooter license plate is three letters and three numbers. But since the locals don'r really know English, I often see lots of interesting combinations of letters, which are always good for a giggle on the way to and from work. It takes me back to the days of writing my 3 initials in a high-score video game list: ASS, SEX, JRK, SUX, DIK, TIT, and more. There are also lots of interesting initials that ring bells in my head: FBI, CIA, SNL, GOP, DDR, JFK, FAQ, NRA, PTA, ORG, and so on...

Have a good weekend.

2004-04-21T02:02:00.000-03:00

For the next few days, I'll only be doing one thing, and it's not updating my blog.

I'll be watching The Simpsons.

They're never on TV here, and no DVDs were available until a friend had some sent over from Canada. Fortunately, our DVD player plays discs from any region (shhh...don't tell the U.S. government or Hollywood execs. I bought it off the shelf in a department store).

I know it's only season 3 (!), but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing. You'd be surprised at how much more you can complain when there's not only nothing on, but it's all in languages you don't understand.

I will not complain about Taiwan today.
I will not complain about Taiwan today.
I will not complain about Taiwan today.
I will not complain abo

2004-04-15T11:09:00.000-03:00

Random Observation for the Day

In America, and other Western countries, when you see a roadside sign with a blue square containing a fork, spoon, plate, and knife, you know that there is food up ahead.

In Taiwan, the sign is a bowl with chopsticks on one side and a spoon on the other.

2004-04-13T10:41:00.000-03:00

Most Chinese people don't have much facial hair. Unfortunately, often times the only hair they have on their faces aside from their eyebrows is a few extremely long hairs growing out of a mole. I've been told they don't cut it off, or have the mole removed, because it's supposed to be lucky. The old men (and women!) I've seen with these horrible things don't look very lucky.

Forgive me if I seem insensitive, but ick.

2004-04-12T08:52:00.000-03:00

Election, Part 3

Every weekend since the election, the KMT (losers) have held rallies in Taipei. Every one of them has ended in a near-riot. Last weekend, the police finally turned on the water cannons. The KMT are hoping to encourage civil unrest to claim that President Chen isn't doing his job. An editorial in the Taipei Times today suggested that the KMT even encouraged the military to launch a coup to remove Chen and install--guess who? They also suggested that some of the gangsters who were arrested at the rally last week with firebombs and other weapons were encouraged by the party to create the extra unrest. But for the most part, life goes on as normal around the island.

They want to have another rally/riot next week. And will they get a permit? Probably. The mayor of Taipei is also the head of the KMT. He's torn between his job as mayor and his job as chief of the losing party.

And in other post-election news, a team of experts from the U.S. was brought to Taiwan to investigate the pre-election shooting of President Chen and his VP in a motorcade. Their conclusions: That the president was definitely shot, that he didn't do it himself, and that the hole in the windshield was caused by the bullet that hit the VP in the knee. Those things seem pretty obvious to most everyone, but the conspiracy theories would suggest otherwise. And in a final insult, the KMT suggested that these experts, whom they themselves recommended, have been duped by the ruling DPP (Democratic Progressive Party).

I wouldn't write about this stuff if it weren't truly news of the weirdest kind.

2004-04-08T12:34:00.000-03:00

McDonald's Marketing Bastards
When I was a kid, there was a McDonald's commercial with a nervous girl getting ready for a piano recital. Her parents promised her that afterwards they'd go to McDonald's.

So anyway, she plays Fur Elise, makes a couple of mistakes, and then at the end plays the then-current McDonald's ditty on the piano. While she's playing the main piece, she makes up words. They went (something) like this:

"Oh boy I wish I was at McDonald's now, instead of here, playing this song
"I would have a big choc-o-late shake, and cheesburger, and also whoops and also fries
"And I would eat, my fries myself, and not give any, to my dumb brother"...

Cut to the present day. You can't put your trash out the night before in Taiwan (unless you live in a complex with a dumpster like many people), so when the electronic music rolls down the street, people stand outside and wait for the trash man to drive down the street.

Guess what fucking song the trucks play?

2004-04-05T09:07:00.000-03:00

Man, until I think of something interesting to say, consider me on hiatus.

2004-03-31T07:44:00.000-04:00

Fuck the (traffic) police

The traffic lights in the city are on a reasonably well-synchronized timer system. If all things are normal, I always know exactly which lights I will have to stop at. Even when traffic is heavy, my route has a certain flow.

Today traffic was bad, which is no big deal, because on a scooter, you can zip around most obstructions. But I still had to wait much longer today because of the traffic cop. Just one guy, plugged in to the light-control box at one major intersection, fucked everything up for miles. He was causing people to get stuck before and after all the lights around the one he was controlling, because they were still on the same timer they always are. So in turn, he was letting the light cycles run longer and longer to try and clear the backup.

I imagined a whole stage-full of Chinese acrobats falling all over each other because one of them was wearing a shock collar controlled by one guy in the audience.

Did I mention that it was pissing down rain during all this? That's really why I'm bitter.

2004-03-26T22:58:00.000-04:00

Election, part 2

So, Taiwan's political parties are still arguing over how to recount the votes. The loser, Lien Chan, has moved the goalposts about 5 times, changing his demands to try and get the most leverage he can. President Chen has agreed to a recount, but the opposition in true contrary form, doesn't want to do it his way. Chen's suggestion is that the election law be amended so it can be conducted legally. Lien's suggestion is to declare a state of emergency and order the recount that way. Another possibility is that the opposition-dominated legislature should pass a law that if a candidate gets hurt before the election, the elecions are cancelled. Retroactively, of course.

Again, I'm no politician, but I heard from a Chinese person that even though there are lots of protesters, the KMT is losing a lot of respect for their childishness. And Taiwanese people also think that the KMT is crying foul because of their long history of playing dirty tricks. The KMT thinks, of course Chen must have cheated, because that's what they would have done. They had their way for so long, that they don't know how to handle a legitimate defeat.

Finally, matters aren't helped by the fact that Lien speaks fluent English, as does his running mate. They were both born in Mainland China and have been in government for a long time. So they can call news conferences for the international media, more personally casting doubt on the election. Chen and his vp, the horribly-dressed and confrontational Annette Lu, are both native Taiwanese (or descend from the earlier wave of Chinese migration hundreds of years ago), do not speak English. This may seem trivial, but the international news media I've been reading on-line seem to be taking Lien's side because he's been more available. The Taipei Times, though, has been blasting the nasty old man at every turn. In the 2000 election, when Lien and his running mate ran on separate tickets, Lien came in dead last, with about 23 percent of the vote. Nobody wants him, but he sure can whip up a frenzy.

2004-03-23T11:32:00.000-04:00

I was watching a movie the other night, and I noticed something I hadn't before. It was the British movie, "Dirty Pretty Things," which was truly dark and creepy. But the thing that struck me was this:

At one point in the movie, an illicit business deal is going down: money for kidneys. Fair enough (ick). And I was cringing, waiting for someone to get killed. But no one did. The kidney and the money were exchanged, and then the movie continued. If it were an American movie, someone would have been killed.

With all the drugs, guns, illegal porn, (and kidneys?) bought and sold in the United States every year, there must be lots of perfectly successful business deals involving large briefcases filled with cash. But in Hollywood, every drug dealer shoots their connection, or vice-versa. Every arms dealer gets shot by a righteous cop. Shit, even Wall Street bankers shoot each other over their scams. If that happened all the time, the massive wheels of our underground economy would truly come to screeching halt. But it doesn't, does it?

If I were a businessman, I would demand that Hollywood start treating us more fairly. I mean, after all, there's money to be made.

2004-03-21T00:51:00.000-04:00

Sore loser

So Lien Chan has refused to concede defeat, telling the nation that the shooting raised too many questions about the legitamacy of the election. In other words, the conspiracy theorists within the KMT think President Chen had himself shot at to win the election.

To be fair, to lose by only 30,000 votes out of 13 million cast might tend to make one bitter. But at least, unlike the U.S., Chen actually won the popular vote. No electoral college here.

Somehow, though, I imagine that if Lien Chan had been shot the day before the election, he still would have lost. Everyone would be thinking, "Damn, that old man had it coming." But that's just me. So for now, I promise, no more talk about killing presidents, since I'm sure The Man is trawling the net looking for just such a phrase.

2004-03-19T11:18:00.000-04:00

Today at work, at about 4 pm, my co-worker asked me if I knew.

Knew what?

Chen Shui-bian. You know?

Yeah, I know. What about him?

She pantomimed to me that he'd been shot. I was dumbfounded. Taiwan is just not that kind of country. I've never been afraid while wandering around the streets drunk in the wee small hours of the morning with the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars in my wallet. Sure, everyone's had something stolen, but they don't pull a gun on you and do it while you're watching.

The TV news in Taiwan has, predictably, been showing an endless tape loop of the motorcade he was driving in, with a little red circle showing the hole in the window, and then another circle showing the part where the president puts his hands down over his abdomen and feels the blood. Media reports suggested that President Chen first thought he was hit with a stray firecracker. He was traveling in an open 4x4 with the VP at his side, while mile-long strings of firecrackers were going off next to the truck. That just goes to show how inconceivable something like this is here.

Of course, there are crazies in Taiwan, but most of them don't have guns. The Chinese conspiracists think that Chen had it done on purpose to win sympathy ahead of tomorrow's election. I'm sure the local conspiracists think that the slimy, wife-beating, tremendously wealthy, and personality-lacking candidate for the Nationalists (KMT) probably had something to do with it. I personally think it was just some loony who probably blames the president for his divorce.

Everytime CNN starts a sentence with "President Chen and Vice-President Annette Lu were shot..." I feel guilty, but I have to laugh. It's such a savage word, and hard to imagine in a country like this. What's even stranger is that they waited until the day before the election to do it. If I were going to shoot a president, I'd at least wait to make sure they were still going to be the president tomorrow.

If he wins a second term tomorrow, I'll be relieved. Politics don't affect me here, but the other guy looks like a Chinese mix of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, with a personality to match. I'm sure Lien Chan, the opposition, just wishes everyone would shut up about democracy and let the KMT get back to some serious martial law.

Stay tuned...

2004-03-18T00:14:00.000-04:00

My veins are filled with snot.

2004-03-17T00:59:00.000-04:00

Man, this must be Wednesday. I never could get the hang of Wednesdays. I've been sick for about two weeks, but there's no point in going to the doctor, because he only gives you three days worth of useless pills. I have no idea what I'm going to do in the classroom, and I can't be bothered to care. I'm tired of sitting in front of the computer and checking on blogs that are rapidly disappearing or updated once a month. Everyone, please feel sorry for me until at least Friday afternoon.

Thank you.

2004-03-14T10:46:00.000-04:00

Today's Lunar Prophecy (courtesy Taipei Times):

It's a good day for:
nothing.
It's a bad day for:
all auspicious activities.

Go back to bed. See you Monday.

2004-03-11T11:29:00.000-04:00

Today, I turned on the air conditioner for the first time this season. And there's lots more heat where that came from. But today wasn't too bad. In honor of this fact, here is my Chinglish tribute to the air conditioner:

Designed with coolly indoors.
Make happy life and feeling the best days.
When temperature over 28 degres,
touching button firm bring fine weather come.

2004-03-09T10:50:00.000-04:00

Made in Taiwan proudly presents
The Chinglish Special Recognition Award!

You know, when you're making a product, you should maybe ask your English-speaking friend to at least glance at it and see if he or she giggles. This is, I swear, word-for-word, copy from the inside of a pair of overalls:

MARC BROWN
gave new life best choice
supr teans copy right life style
i would like a jeans clothes.
is this dress washable? what
world best choice what
materials is this? will take
this one. for a wonderful.

It got me to thinking, could you come up with something this incomprehensible and strange if you tried? I'm going to work on it. I'll keep you posted.

2004-03-07T08:07:00.000-04:00

Once again, I'm trying to avoid politics, but reading op-ed pieces just make me so mad sometimes. Why are the anti-gay-marriage people blaming "activist judges?" for somehow subverting the people's will? Isn't it their job to interpret whatever Constitution they've sworn to uphold?

Man, don't these people have anything better to do? I'm not in the mood for a long diatribe, because it's all been said before, but how can two men or women signing a document granting certain legal rights be destroying someone else's relationship? While we're amending the Constitution, how about requiring women to wear headscarves? And making blacks 3/5 of a person again? And requiring that we all pray to Jesus Christ our Savior every day? And put a picture of our dear leader on every available wall space?

That's all for now. My bath is almost ready.

2004-03-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

Last night, I took the clothes to get washed. The best thing about Taiwan is that every laundry is a Chinese laundry. Four loads of laundry were only about 7 dollars. Washed, dried, and folded. No dry cleaning for me, I don't wear those kinds of clothes.

I brought the clothes home, dropped them on the floor still in the bags, and went off to use the computer and other random nonsense. The dog amazingly managed to leave them alone. Hours later, before I went to bed, I had the nagging sense that I hadn't done something. Dishes? No, I did them after dinner. Dog mess? No, that got cleaned up a while ago.

This morning at work, I realized that I hadn't put away the clothes. I've been thinking about it all day. It was almost the first thing I did when I got home from work. I feel much more relaxed now.

I'm not obsessive-compulsive. Yet. But everyone needs a hobby.

2004-03-03T20:08:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to pretend to be the first person who's ever brought a puppy home. But I do have to say that I am surprised by the daily re-positioning of every shoe that's not at least 3 feet off the floor.

2004-03-02T06:08:00.000-04:00

I remember posting something last year about watching the Oscars. This year, I managed to steer clear of the internet and TV news all day Monday until I could watch them, 12 hours later, on TV. I really liked "Lord of the Rings," but nobody likes a blowout.

Anyway, in a slightly ironic twist, "Lost in Translation," the movie concerning a Hollywood actor who goes to Asia to sell-out, was upstaged, in my opinion, by the frequent ads with Charlize Theron selling "Lux Spa Moist." If the Academy had seen her schlock performance in those commercials, she never would have won Best Actress.

2004-02-27T12:35:00.000-04:00

Man, that's cold

Due to bird flu and SARS fears, they're still taking everyone's temperature twice a day. I don't mind much, because they use the gun-style thermometer that they just point at your forehead.

The thing that does bother me though, is that every day when I come in, they can't get a reading for me. The damn thing just flashes "Lo." And when they do get it to work, my temperature is about 35 degrees (about 94 Fahrenheit). I know body temperature fluctuates, but that seems a bit low. I'd write it off to bad equipment if it weren't for the fact that everyone else seems to weigh in right at the normal temperature.

Am I really that cold-hearted?

2004-02-25T20:05:00.000-04:00

Me and my boyfriend aren't likely to have a baby. To which I (and all those fundamentalist Christians (who are starting to sound like the most intolerant Muslims, by the way)) say, of course, thank God (Allah?). We would like to have some kind of civil recognition of our committment. We've been together almost 7 years. Our desire to stay together is what has kept us overseas for so long. It's just easier.

I find it hard to imagine that we would write exclusion back in to our Constitution. It's just too difficult a process. And when you think about it, all those gay people have families and straight friends, and I'd like to think that most of them would not be so narrow minded. My mom stopped going to her church when some of her church friends started sending "our church must never offer same-sex recognition" e-mails. Of course, Mom's biased now.

I'm not going to preach here, because the truth is that no minds will be changed. At least not before the next election. What I really wanted to do was to say that instead of a baby, we got a dog.

2004-02-22T10:08:00.000-04:00

Private. Please Enter

Yesterday on the local news, they covered a story about an unusual local promotional event. To promote a certain kind of women's underwear, they invited participants to enter a large plexiglass box--in front of the crowd and TV cameras-- wearing this underwear. Then, blowers were turned on, and papers filled the air inside the box like a crazy popcorn popper. The papers that the women could collect in a certain amount of time were redeemed for cash afterward.

I suppose that's not too out of the ordinary for a promotion. But a friend who happened to be there told me that the curtained area behind the box where the women changed into this underwear was not closed very well, affording many a view of flesh that was maybe inappropriate.

And I wasn't surprised. In this country, restrooms have urinals in view of open doors. Cleaning women walk in to clean them while men are in there, and no one objects. Parents will pull down kids' pants in the middle of the city to use the bathroom on the sidewalk (or over a drain). TV commercials show little boys sitting on toilets. I guess it all makes sense together, but it's a little hard to take.

2004-02-19T08:46:00.000-04:00

A Taichung Story

I'm 30 years old.

When I was 5, I had a friend named Karl. We did everything together. We walked to kindergarten together. We flooded his sandbox together. We threw stuffed animals on his roof together. And then he moved away, and I never saw or heard from him again.

Flash forward 23 years. After 2 years of living in Taiwan, I enrolled in Chinese class. And guess whose name was on the class list? His name was fairly unique, and his middle name was what I remembered his dad calling him. It had to be him.

But he never showed up for class. After 3 months in the class, I realized one of the girls in class was his girlfriend. I told her to mention to him that someone knew him from his days back in Indiana. When she did mention it to him, he knew it could only have been me. Like me, he carried around the name of that long lost friend in the back of his head. He'd actually been living in Taiwan longer than me, and we never would have met if I hadn't seen his name. Or we could have even met and not realized it.

So we met for drinks. And it was totally bizarre and cool. We got along, and turned out to be about as alike now as we were then. And when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. I mean, what are the chances of running into your kindergarten friend living 10 minutes' walk away from you in the same town almost a half century later?

Better than average, as it turns out.

Have a good day.

2004-02-17T08:33:00.000-04:00

Today was National Park-Your-Car-in-the-Street Day.
Do they celebrate that where you live?

2004-02-16T09:16:00.000-04:00

I recently realized that there are few if any city pigeons in Taiwan. I thought all cities teemed with them. But there's a reason there aren't any. Pigeon racing is a huge gambling pasttime in Taiwan.

So maybe the once-wild pigeons were captured and bred. Or maybe the pollution got them. Or maybe, the wild ones joined up with flocks of racing pigeons and disappeared from the city streets and parks forever. Or possibly, they were all killed by scooters.

2004-02-13T20:36:00.000-04:00

Not made for TV

The TV-news networks here love possible jumpers. This week, there were several news crews on the roof of a 7-story building along with the police and a very distraught man. Usually, the police get him (it's always a man) confused, and then jump him. But this week, it didn't go like that.

They lunged for him, and he broke loose, and then he leaped right off the roof. Then they showed his body on the ground, pixellated for our safety. Pretty bad day for the police, but probably good for the TV networks.

So, it was bad TV, but not as bad as a few months ago, when a fire in an apartment block was extensively covered while it burned. The alley it was in was too small for fire trucks, everyone has bars on their windows, and the emergency descent ropes were screwed up, with the result that the cameras caught several people dropping to their deaths. It was no WTC, thank goodness, but it was much more close-up.

2004-02-10T07:29:00.000-04:00

I watched the Grammies last night. Of course, there was a 12 hour delay, so I already knew most of the winners. Starved for interesting TV as I am, it was good enough. And it wasn't even that interesting.

They were broadcast on Channel V, which is an Asian network in the Murdoch empire. Obviously they're also into the music business, too, because every commercial break had at least 2 commercials for the new Norah Jones album. Sometimes three. And I swear that I am not exaggerating when I say every commercial break. That one 20 second commercial is still haunting me. Must...make...it...stop...

I have been out of the popular music loop for years now, so Outkast was new to me. It seems like a fun gang of people. But what the fuck is up with the White Stripes? Are there really just two people, and is that really how they sound? I absolutely don't get it. If that's their gimmick, they need a new one.

The coolest person of the night had to be Samuel L. Jackson. I don't know if this made it past the censors, but he yelled something about "his superfuckingfriends," in one of his long introductions. I always appreciate cursing on live TV. Tits are ok, but not Janet Jackson's. That whole family is sooo finished.

2004-02-07T02:53:00.000-04:00

Be careful what you wish for

I wanted rain, so now I've got it. I never specified that warm rain would be much nicer. It's the coldest it's been in Taiwan in 12 years, or so I'm told. And the rain just adds to the fun. It's been raining at my travel times for the last week.

I know that people won't give me much sympathy when I say that the weather at night drops as low as 55 degrees (about 13 Celsius). I'm sure that if you had weather like that after a winter in New York, or Muncie, Indiana, or Seoul, South Korea, you'd be in your shorts, out washing the car.

But don't forget that Taiwanese homes are not heated or insulated. Everything is concrete and cold tiles. And I ride a scooter to my likewise unheated school. You begin to get a chill that won't go away. I know it's easy to run out of a heated house, into below freezing temperatures in a bathrobe and check your mail. Or walk from your car to McDonalds without putting on your coat.

I've often said I'd rather be too hot than too cold. Taiwan seems like the right answer most of the time, but when it's cold, there's just no fighting it.

So now, to be clear, I'm wishing for warm rain and temperatures to return to normal. Thank you.

2004-02-05T08:11:00.000-04:00

New in the neighborhood:

"Iron Cow Seafood Restaurant"

I will be the first one in line.

2004-02-03T07:27:00.000-04:00

I read somewhere that every person who writes for the public on a regular basis is allowed one entry where they just say, in a witty way of course, that nothing much is going on and that there's really nothing to write about. So here's mine.

2004-01-29T08:42:00.000-04:00

Have you ever made it all the way to work before you decide to call in sick?
After spending last night throwing up and sleeping poorly, I thought if I could just make it to work today, I'd be fine. But then the thought of dealing with all those kids all day long got to me. So I left work 20 minutes into my day, after getting up at 7:00, driving my scooter to work in the rain, and dreading the next 8 hours.
For what it's worth, I'm feeling much better now.

2004-01-19T20:03:00.000-04:00

Winter Cleaning

One of the traditions of the Chinese New Year in Asia is that you have to give everything a good cleaning before the day comes. You can't clean during the new year, because you will sweep all your wealth away during the next year. Being a somewhat fastidious sort, I'm all for the cleaning, but it seems like a country as dirty as Taiwan would make it a point to clean behind the furniture more than once a year.

The year of the Monkey starts tomorrow. God help us all.

2004-01-18T19:46:00.000-04:00

There's no feeling quite like the one where you go to work while your partner is still in bed sleeping because he's already on vacation.

It's not a nice feeling.

2004-01-14T19:59:00.000-04:00

In the Taiwan News, one of three local English papers, every day contains something interesting. On page 2, the sidebar has lots of useful information. In addition to the weather and the air quality index for the day, there is also:
1. The Lunar Prophecy. For instance, It's a good day for breaking ground, funerals, and beginning a journey. It's a bad day for installing stoves (?), taking a bath (!), and paying debts.
2. Yesterday's seismic activity, complete with a map of Taiwan showing the epicenter, the fault lines, and the magnitude.

There's not an earthquake every day, but the fact that they reserve a space for one in the daily paper suggests something that I would rather not think about. And how can it ever be a bad day for taking a bath?