to the edge and back

Well, happy New Year. I celebrated it in a small bar to a sickly countdown and a few fireworks. I've certainly had better (last year's was one of the best, dancing the night away to Captain Tractor), though the music was pretty good. Oh well, it's done and over.

My New Year's day, however, was something to remember, one of the best in recent times. Nothing special (well, for here. I wouldn't be doing this back home, let me tell you...) - just outdoor volleyball with friends (most of whom had never really played before) followed by a picnic lighted by the setting sun on the ocean's edge, surrounded by friends and laughter. Funny what sticks in your mind sometimes.

The aformentioned trip was amazing. I will freely admit that for me, it was a bit of a scary undertaking. I was heading off to a part of the country that no one I knew had really been to, so I didn't have any guidance to speak of. I don't speak much of the language, except numbers, thank you, hello, and a very poor "Do you speak English?" I was camping alone for the first time ever. Lots of things to go wrong. But, like I've found since I've come here, if you're prepared to go it alone, things will work out and good people will lend a hand. A friend came along and we spent a couple of days together (to our amusement, many Taiwanese thought we were married, one bus driver even asking "Baby? Baby?" and making a rocking motion when we got off the bus), a couple of Taiwanese families camping together took me under their wing after I became a solo traveler, offering advice, food, and rides, an Australian group driving me around for an afternoon and giving me rides that I didn't even know I needed at the time. The Taiwanese are a very generous people, both confirming stories and breaking down stereotypes that they only care about themselves and their families.

The gorge itself was stunning. Peaceful, too, if you got away from the tourists. A lot of people were there to enjoy the exact opposite of my ideal travel experience - they would visit a nice spot, snap their pictures, and get back on their bus or in their cars. There were very few explorers, especially on the trails that required a little more effort or were a little more remote. Their loss - I got to see monkeys. MONKEYS! Clean air and the constant white noise of rushing water spoiled me. The gorge is still fairly un-touristy, one can enjoy the wilderness without being besieged by commercial interests on all sides. Probably my favourite example of this was entering the Grand Formosa, the five-star hotel in the gorge, and seeing the fake poinsettia plants laid out for Christmas, and then being able to walk down the rode the Christian hostel where poorer travelers (like myself) might spend a night and see real poinsettias growing alongside the road, free for all to enjoy.

Pictures will be posted as soon as they are developed. They will be good. I promise. Further thoughts may or may not appear - isolation is good for the mind.

catching up

"Sorry you got stuck working on Christmas."

"That's okay, I'm Jewish," she said, and then added, "Sorry you got a kidney stone on Christmas."

"That's okay, I'm an atheist." I replied. "So maybe I had it coming."

Anything that makes me laugh, learn, and involves a full vial of Percocet (eventually) is something you should read too. So go ahead.

a little piece of heaven

I'd like to talk a bit about a haircut. A haircut, you ask? Has he gone quite mad? Can a haircut be that good? Well, my friend, that is like asking if this cigarette and that pile of pure, white, uncut Columbian nose candy are the same.

They start you in a chair. That much is similar. They start the whole process with a short neck and back massage, helping you realize how tense you are. The massages here, for your information, are deep - I don't know how these women do it, to tell you the truth. They'll go on for some time. My fingers would die.

After the back massage, they move on the shampoo. But this is no ordinary shampoo - it also includes a scalp massage, which typically lasts for 10-20 minutes. The shampoo is mint-infused, for that fresh-headed feeling of your scalp floating away. A note - I have never, ever had anyone lavish so much attention to my hair. Parents (as a kid), hairdressers, girlfriends - no one. I finished mine and sat and enjoyed my own private nirvana while waiting for the hairdresser to finish up with my roommate.

And the haircut! She took a full thirty minutes, on top of the shampoo time. And she instinctively knew what I wanted without me even telling her (a little punk rock. Well, at least something that I could make look a little punk rock, and will look even more punk rock with a little more length).

I think I've found heaven on earth for hair. For myself, at least. I'm already anticipating my next one. It's as addictive as that nose candy.

lookin' in the mirror don't do it for me

If I was left with only one song that I could listen to for the rest of my life, with no other music entering my ear canal, it would be the cover of Kiss Me Deadly by Reel Big Fish. That song is on two of my 'favourite' mixes that I made for myself before leaving, and I can't get enough of it. Seriously. I've listened to it probably two or three hundred times.

I'm interested: what's yours?

half full

I got this from 52 Best, a weekly mailing list that sends out fantastic stories each Friday. The direct link is here.

It's really easy to let things on life to get you down. I've seen it happen to many people, and it's always hard to watch a friend spiral down. It all depends on perception. When I became unemployed, I didn't see it as a horribly negative thing - I had time to sleep, time to work on projects, time to check out companies that I wanted to work for, and time to explore other career options. Like the king in this story, it eventually worked out for me, even though I had no clue where my future was heading when I started down that road.

*Very shortly after reading this, I went to one of my regulars and read a fantastic entry on happiness and misery. While she speaks of people balancing their lives and being disappointed, resolving herself to keep pursuing that ideal, whether it will fulfill her or not in the end, I say the bad isn't bad - it's just potential. Perception is everything.

*****

A king was out hunting. His hunting companion and gun bearer was a person whose attitude towards life is: "Whatever occurs, this is for the good."

During the hunting trip, the gun bearer erred in loading the king's rifle causing a misfire which blew off the king's thumb.

When the gun bearer exclaimed, "This is good," the king replied, "No, it's not!" and had the gun bearer put in jail.

Close to a year later the king was hunting in Africa. This time he was captured by cannibals. They were ready to prepare the king for dinner when they noticed

the missing thumb. Being superstitious, the cannibals would not eat someone who was less than whole, so they let the king go!

Immediately, the king went to the jail to free his gun bearer. "You were right," said the king, "this was for the good! I am so terribly sorry that I sent you to jail."

"No," replied the gun bearer, "being in jail was for the good, too."

"What do you mean? Look how you have suffered," said the king. "Yes," responded the gun bearer, "but if I weren't in jail, I would have been with you and would have been eaten."

(whew)

I just got an email from the Canadian Space Agency, with whom I applied many moons ago. Having been at the computer for many hours now doing one thing or another, my eyes are a bit tired and I read the title as Inventory of Engineers: impending destruction of your life. There was only one thought:

Canadarm Death Ray. Screw Star Wars.

And nobody expects the Canadarm Death Ray! Our chief weapon is surprise. And fear. Our two weapons are...

(It was file, not life.)

apples and oranges

I've noticed some things here. Attitudes. It's not culture shock, though it is cultural and it is shocking. Four things in particular have merited discussion with others here - consumerism, abuse, dating/relationships, and education. I'll do two here today and two at a later date.

As you may have seen from my pictures (plastic, neon, lighted signs everywhere), consumerism is fairly rampant here. I mean, North American culture is generally headed in a consume-consume-consume direction, but here it's a little different. People buy stuff just for the sake of having crap. There's tonnes of plastic toys in the streets at the markets (they make so much of it here), and though I've never been in a Taiwanese household yet, I'm told by those who have been that there is often tonnes of stuff - a lot of it with no use whatsoever. There is such a drive to buy for others. The commercials advocate spending and ownership and luxury. Scotch can be bought almost anywhere, people wear Dolce and Gabbone jackets all over the place, and clothing stores have floors and floors of expensive fashions. There's a commercial where some rich guy can't decide whether to drive his Lexus sedan or his Lexus SUV. (puke) Part of it is face - you have to look good to others, and the best way is to spend money like it's going out of style. The other part is that is what they think people from the West have and do all the time. Many believe that all the music in North America is reflected in MTV. Personally, I find it revolting at times. I thought commercials in Canada were bad at times, but here, they just prey on and reflect that desire to own and spend.

This leads into the other one I'll introduce to you: relationships. From what I've seen and been told, people typically stay at home until they marry. This is changing with a new mobile generation with, uh, looser morals and more modern ideas. However, there is still an emphasis on showing off for both. The men are highly encouraged to buy the women expensive things that they can show off (there's a commercial where a girl is trying on a ring and she can't get it off so the guy buys it for her. He gets lucky and has the confimation number match and gets his purchase for free, so she picks out something else and makes some comment about how much she likes it, and he makes motions to pay again. I don't know exactly, it's all in Chinese.) The biggest compliment to a man, and what they ultimately desire, is for another man to find his woman attractive.

For them, a guy and girl who hang out must be dating. And if they live together, it is almost without question that they're married. (Our apartment must confuse the hell out of them. What is it, a threesome? Cult marriage? Crazy foreigners?). As I mentioned before, when Shannon and I got off the bus in Tiensiung, the bus driver asked us if we had a baby - not even if we were married, but baby! And the pressure for relationships - I've been told by complete strangers that I should have a girlfriend (though one told me that any girl who wants to share my tent is a bad girl and would not make a good girlfriend.) I don't know yet if single older people are looked down on or not, but the pressure to find someone and get married is quite heavy here.

This is not exactly what I'd call the bright side, but compared to what I'll talk about next time, it's a sunny day in July, in my opinion.

nothing short of breath-taking

Did I mention that there was new pictures up at the gallery? Cause there is. And they're real purdy. Also some of my brother's, which I have to both grudgingly and enthusiastically admit are pretty damn beautiful. Eh, I can still drink Ouzo better than he can. Ha ha, take that, Chad!

email

From: xxxx@aol.com
To: ryan[@]ambiguo.org
Subject: Hey Ryan!!!

Sincerely,
Ryan

I don't think I've ever received so many exclamation marks in one email in my life. Spam included. Ah kids.

FWIW, FYI

1. The showers are open here. By open, I mean not only are there no shower curtains in the bathrooms, there's almost never a tub! I got one, which means (whoo!) baths, but that is actually fairly uncommon here. The floor has a drain, and you just get everything wet when you shower. Fact of life. I don't mind - I've stepped out of the shower more than once into a lake at home because I forgot some detail like pulling the shower curtain in, so it's nice that I'm expected to make a mess here!

2. Taiwanese men love their jockey underwear. I was looking yesterday, and it's very tough to find a decent selection of boxer briefs here. After mentioning that to my roommate, she told me that if I wanted to swim in a public pool, I would have to go out and get myself a Speedo. No exceptions. Them's the rules. Maybe I'll stick to the ocean for now. Although, Speedo...

3. I have a 24-hour fruit store by my place. I can pick up three little baggies of freshly cut fruit for approx. $2CDN. I stop by this place at least once a day. Sometimes twice. Fruit here is completely seasonal - i.e. if I want strawberries, I can have all the strawberries I want, but only when they're seasonal. Outside of the season, there are none. Not there are some, but they're expensive, but NONE. Fine by me. Nothing like eating fresh pineapple and guava for breakfast. There's fruit there that I don't even know (there's one that's pink and green on the outside, and white with black edible seeds on the inside. I'm told it's called Dragon Fruit), but have grown to enjoy. You just take it in stride: "Hrm, what's this now? Well, they're selling it, so it shouldn't kill me." (Welcome to my ideology about eating in Taiwan).

4. The guy on the EXIT sign anywhere here is always HAULING ASS. Is there something I should know here?

5. Chinese toilets are the pinnacle of quiet flushing. Folks, they are light years ahead of North America in the field of toilet noise suppression.

6. For my last trick, continuing with the bathroom humour, although it is possible for one to buy rolls of toilet paper, almost no one does. Instead, everyone buys flat toilet paper. It comes in packages that look like kleenex boxes, except thin plastic. And they're not just used as toilet paper - heavens, no. Everything you can use a tissue for, they're there - cleaning up messes, blowing noses, a temporary plate-like device for when you want to warm something a little gooey up in the microwave... Yup, anything.

I hope this has been informative.

our house/is a very very very fine house

Ah yes, living quarters. It took a request from my mom for me to finally get around to it, but here is a short tour of my part of the world. This tour is brought to you by Ocean's SnacKit. Ocean's - eat it.

Upon entering, directly to your left is our cavernous dining room. One solitary table sits in the middle of it, set for two and used by none.

To the left is our hallway-like kitchen and Nickie's room, with the laundry facilities at the end of the road. No oven and no microwave make any kind of cooking interesting, but we get by with the stove and the toaster* oven and a little creativity. A warning, however: don't put plastic plates in the toaster oven, no matter how much you've had to drink. Nickie wasn't here to waive her privacy rights, and I decided to interpret this situation in her favour.

Open-air laundry facilities. Or facility. I miss having a drier a fair amount. Not having one has driven me to what years of slightly creased clothes ("aw, those wrinkles'll fall out once I put it on") couldn't - iron. Regularly. Oh well, I can't complain, I could be doing it like this guy:

It's amazing what people will carry on their scooters. It really is.

Straight ahead is the bathroom, containing the aforementioned tubless shower (as you can see). Alicia's room is on the right, ditto on the privacy rights.

And now to violate my privacy rights. This is my room, the master one. People ask why I got the master - because it was the available room, duh. It's bigger than any room I've lived in before, I believe, and I love it. Decorated with various Canadiana, Christmas leftovers, and whatever crap I pick up in my travels.

Incidentally, my mattress is as hard as a slab of granite. I've never slept on a bed so hard. I don't mind, actually, but it's almost like sleeping on a carpeted floor, except I don't have to deal with animal hair.

I even have my own balcony, which would be great in the mornings if I smoked or drank coffee. Maybe I should take these up so that I can appreciate what I have. Um, on second thought, no.**

Having my own bathroom is a plus, having a tub in it is a bonus, and having it around the corner from the door is super-duper. I have not had both my room door and the bathroom door closed at the same time yet. Accidental flashings: zero. So far.

Whoo! Tub! You don't know how much you miss it till you don't have one, my friends.

Our living room, the social center of our apartment. As I've said before, my roommates are exactly what I'm looking for - all of us are quite sociable with each other, only going into our rooms to sleep or change. I just bought that braided tree in the back today for $1000NT (about $40CDN). Sweet as, as my brother would now say (crazy Australians. Sweet ass is much better).

The semi-comfortable couch, populated by my mess. The rightmost cushion was destroyed by a, well, big roommate who, well, liked to watch a lot of TV. A LOT. I can fix it (we have the tools! Oh, wait, we don't. We need a staple gun. Er, I need a staple gun), but haven't. Yeah, yeah, I will. Just don't sit there.

So that's my humble abode. If I know you, you're more than welcome to stop by (except between four and five - !).

*I originally typed this as taoster, which, after reading a random post on Friendster, got me thinking about Taoster: the online network where everyone is trying to become one with each other. Then I dismissed it, because online dating has the market cornered. ;)

**Though I did have my first latte out here a couple of weeks ago. I got so buzzed, it was crazy. I texted Alicia in the middle of her Chinese New Year's banquet and made her laugh out loud (it was her latte). I believe my exact words were 'I'm a dangerous weapon.'

off to the races

I wanted to write something deep or funny here, but I don't have the time, and you don't pay me enough. Penny pinchers.

I'm off to Kenting for the rest of the week for some R&R on the beach (yup, beach in the winter, two hours away from where I live), to study some Chinese (which is going OK, thank you very much), have some fun, and take MORE pictures. I'll be back next week. Until then, you can amuse yourself reading stuff here - I always do.

i love you, but...

I don't have time to write now. I know, I know, I hate those entries too, "blah blah blah, no time, I'm writing to say I can't write..." Tough. Kenting was good and bad:

• I saw some sea cliff, some coral and rock formations, and hiked a mountain and its waterfall


• I cam home with scrapes and bruises on all of my limbs


• I met some new people from all over the island, and made better friends of mere acquaintances


• I think I broke my digital camera


• I think I will be getting a new digital camera!


• I didn't make it onto the beach at a beach resort except at night, and my only time in the ocean was skinny-dipping at midnight


• I went skinny-dipping at midnight!


• I got to really open up my scooter and ride it on the highway, which was a blast


• I had to deal with high winds, rain, and no sun whatsoever


• It was still much nicer than when I arrived back in Kaohsiung

So as you can see, it balanced itself out. Overall, I'm happy with it, and can't wait to get back when it's actually nice. Didn't stop me from taking almost 250 shots again (gallery to follow, hopefully later this week). Here's a taste. With me included! You lucky people.

And the two priceless lines uttered by my new friend Brian*?

#1. Other person: Now, how does the story [of Chinese New Year] go? The monster's afraid of red, noise, and...
Brian: Big ass Chinese characters! Aaaah, run away, it's the alphabet, and it's HUGE!

#2. (said to me) You gotten yourself a Taiwanese girlfriend yet? No? Oh, they're loads of fun. The most disasterous experience you will ever have in your whole life. No, really. I've had two.

*Brian was very Irish, and both of these lines said in his accent just made them even funnier. The guy just had me rolling on the ground every time I saw him.