heroes in a halfshell

Sorry, been making a kung fu movie. The neat thing about knowing kung fu and having a friend who could totally be a stuntman, knows some fu himself, and loves video editing is this. However, it's not nearly as cool as realizing that you are only one species and a little mutagen away from realizing one of your childhood dreams.

The turtles never wore white socks with their outfits, though. Well, shells. Still.

wang wang is the name of the mascot

Well, it's a little late, but a big xinnian kwaile to everyone out there with the arrival of the Year of the Dog this past Sunday. Today (that is to say, Thursday) is the final day of the holiday (it lasts for five days), and it is obviously the biggest holiday in the Chinese calendar. There's lots of eating (SO MUCH FOOD), red envelopes filled with money for those who don't earn money working yet, fireworks throughout the day for the entire holiday (they started at 5 AM the morning of New Year's Day, after going all day the day before. Oy), more red, and a tonne of traditions for good luck and such. It's a really neat celebration that is immediately followed by the Lantern Festival, when, predictably but beautifully, lanterns are hung all around, with the culmination in a rather large celebration two weeks after New Year's Day. Sometime in there is a 'celebration' in a place called Yen Shui, where everyone dresses in a thousand layers and shoots fireworks at everyone else. I hope to attend this year, but merely as an observer. I've seen the damage that that event can do. But still, it's cool.

Oh, and yes, the official mascot for the New Year is a dog named Wang Wang.

So anyway, this year was really neat for me, as Chris and I were invited to a friend's family's house. They're Hakka, which is the largest aboriginal group on the island - the real native Taiwanese. So we went around to the temples, even got a chance to 'bai-bai', which is give prayers and burn incense, and were treated to truly tremendous amounts of Hakka food, some of which we helped make ourselves (we found that making dumplings is really close to making perogies!) Truly a terrific way to welcome in this supposedly very lucky year.

Anyhoo, hope that prosperity and happiness finds all of you in the coming year!

in a world where laughter was king

This was apparently on the DVD for Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian, but was referred to me by a friend, and it is hilarious. I plan on doing the rest of my life in a voice-over. Check out Voice-Over Guy Gets Fired.

neato photo

A Canadian won this year's World Press Photo with a very moving photo from Niger. The entire collection is here. I highly suggest taking a peek!

onwards and upwards

You know, I've been in Taiwan for over two years now. Yeah, surprises me too. I've seen a fair bit, I've done a fair bit, and I've eaten more than a fair bit. But that time has arrived for me, like it does for so many others: it's time to go.

I've actually been planning for a while, but I wanted to get my shit in the right place before I told you. In some ways it's been hard to leave. I can tell you that getting used to a foreign place sure is nice - knowing the nice restaurants, finally understanding some of the language and not feeling bewildered when someone speaks to you, getting to know your job, your environment, your friends. Part of me is sad, knowing what I'm leaving behind (the low living cost and relatively high wage doesn't hurt, either), but I knew this day was coming from the moment I stepped on the plane to come here, too. Right about the time I thought, too.

Asia has been a learning experience. I've done many things I never would have done at home - teach, act, play Kaiser a couple of times a week, learn kung fu and African dance and salsa dancing, be a minority and experience racism, travel as I've traveled, and so much more. I've met some absolutely wonderful people, people whom I will cross the globe just to visit in years to come (not that I didn't already know people like that back home, but these people will be across the globe from me years from now, almost guaranteed). My friends who have traveled have always talked about meeting people from all over and keeping them, and I see what they mean - I will know people who talk of being all over the world in their futures. I was talking with a friend who realized when he was standing in his girlfriend's house in South Africa that he had actually accomplished his 'list of things to do before he was 30' that he had created for fun after university without making the specific effort to do so. Imagine what one can do with effort.

The effort of this boy and his girlfriend will take us throughout SE Asia next. We've got a three month tour of SE Asia planned, with plenty of pictures and some commentary here as we go through it. Scott was both an inspiration and a reference for me - I had been planning it, but reading about his adventures and finding out what worked for him and what didn't (we've even picked up a couple of stops from reading about what he did) was invaluable. Thanks Scott! I, of course, am going to be snapping away - if I take a thousand pictures in a two week holiday, imagine how many I'll take in three months (don't worry, they won't all be posted online).

I really feel that my photography has grown in leaps and bounds since I came here and had the opportunity to do something different. I've also found a bit of a niche for it, the theme of my first (and only one here) show - taking a closer look. Many people who have seen my pictures have commented that I seem to look at things differently in my pictures than normal. I take it as a compliment, anyway.

Anyhoo, it won't end there. My dear, sweet family who has put up with my whinging and absence for almost two-and-a-half years (or it will be by the time I see them) will receive me and Chris with open arms (word on the street) for a triumphant Saskatchewan return in June, then I get to enjoy my birthday in America for the first time when we go and visit Chris' family. After some visiting with various friends and a wedding sure to top them all, we'll be off the continent again to the next stop - Argentina.

For what? Well, for now, study. Spanish. "Your Spanish sucks" is a phrase I want to learn early, so I can easily recognize it, as I'm sure I'll hear it often enough. Chris' is excellent. School is cheap, though. And then (hopefully) back to the old grindstone. Who knows as what. And, of course, more travel.

I will still try and post as regularly as possible here (ha!). That might even be more than before, as I will have nothing to distract me on those internet cafe computers (must. resist. surfing.) Anyhoo, Taiwan's been fun, and though I definately can't say I've seen it all, I've seen some of it, and definitely enjoyed it. It can only get better from here.

my god, it's all stars! er, wait, no. bottle rockets.

Yan Shuei. A small village between Tainan and Chiayi in southern Taiwan. Every year, thousands of people congregate in this small town, don protective clothing, and run up to walls of bottle rockets and other fireworks, jumping up and down in an insane tribute to the war god.

It's a good time.

Yes, yours truly attended this absolutely unique event this year. It's always on the last day of the Chinese New Year, which is also the first day of the Lantern Festival. A brief history may be found here (in broken HTML and Chinglish).For one day, this sleepy little town is over-run with people dressed in layers, helmets, and various other bits of clothing meant to protect them. Everyone chases these little mini-temples/caravans/sedan chairs for gods to various locations, where walls of rockets are pulled out. Everyone waits as the proper offerings to the war god are made (ghost money is burned), then the fuse is lit, and the fun begins.

The biggest wall we saw had 250,000 rockets on it, and there were others with 180,000, 100,000, and other, smaller amounts. The carnage usually lasted for about 10-15 seconds, but perception didn't always match reality. Acrid smoke leapt up into your mask, your back and feet began to get hot, crackling and popping filled your ears, and rockets started ricocheting off your...well, everything. Add a pressing crowd, and you can see why a lot of people view it as dangerous and/or stupid. There have been deaths. And injuries. Oh good heavens, the injuries.

Everyone who really goes hardcore comes home with bruises and welts. I had a nice collection on my back (through three layers and a plastic rain coat), a couple on my legs, and a burn on my arm (through two layers and a plastic rain coat). I also had one jump up into my helmet (which I apparently didn't secure enough) and explode right behind my ear. As of now, it's been ringing for four days. Don't worry - the doctor said it would be alright.

But, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Go take a look. Also, while you're at it, I took a video that gives a decent representation of the chaos of it all (note: 11MB .avi file). Notice how I run for cover when I realize that they distance isn't enough. I feel it really captures the mood.

nothing out of the ordinary

Today, I was playing cards with some friends in an outdoor cafe. A man drove up through the cafe on his scooter, stopped right beside us, asked, "American?", then drove off. We continued as if nothing had happened.

Taiwan is still different. Familiar, but different.

anagrammatic

A friend recently lent me a book of anagrams. This is as much for you as record for me, but I jotted down a few of my favourites. (rearrangements follow in [])

• Actions speak louder than words [Talk or airs can not show up deeds]
• alphabetically [I play all the ABC]
• As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined [See treatise's intent: "Begin with child"]
• A bottle of whiskey [It be thy flask o' woe]
• A decimal point [I'm a dot in place]
• The dramatic profession [And I act more for Thespis]
• Eleven + two [Twelve + one]
• Gold and silver [Grand old evils]
• The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby [Fine tale; find thou a novel by Charles Dickens]
• Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island [Two Canadian provinces - lands I dread!]
• Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases -[Here's fun, posers! This word-garage hands us lots.]
• Seclusion [Closes us in]
• Shakespeare, the immortal Bard of Avon [Oh, this remarkable man's a favored poet.]
• South America [So much area, it] --> Looking forward to this!
• Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ["Time's running past," we murmur.]

And a couple of nice palindromes, which, as you may know, are sentences that can be written the same backwards and forwards

• Did Hannah say as Hannah did?
• He lived as a devil, eh?
• Was it a rat I saw? -> No, miss, it was Simon.

  Huzzah to wordplay!

  Posted by ambiguo at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)

it begins

Well, we made it. Sixteen hours of travel brought us to Hoi An, a little town in the middle of Vietnam known for the My Son ruins and cheap custom-made clothing. I've already had two cups of delicious Vietnamese coffee (I plan on drinking a cup with every meal I eat for the rest of my time in Vietnam), a big bowl of chicken pho (noodles, with as much basil as I wanted to add), and said the word, "No," about 20,000 times.

Here we go!

hoi an

After a tiring 16-hour travel day, Hoi An was both a nice place to start and a bit much. Being known as one of THE places to go for clothing, it's flooded with foreigners of all sorts, making it loud, expensive, and built for tourists. Yes, I know, I was there for the same reason.

My Son was one of the highlights of the area. It's a collection of temples built by the Cham people who lived in Vietnam from around the 3rd century to the 12th century, before the Vietnamese overtook them. They had their own (beautiful!) script and language, but unfortunately, it's now a lost language. The ruins themselves are an architectural wonder, as the temples were put together, brick by brick, without any mortar. Today, no one has any idea how they did it, and can't even recreate it. Most of the ruins, however, were bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam War, although a famous French museum curator found out what was happening and wrote Nixon to stop bombing temples, and Nixon listened. The day we went to explore was a bit of a rainy day, but the mists just gave it an even more mystical quality. It was really an amazing sight.

One thing that bothered me was that there were a couple of statues of gods (or kings, I wasn't 100% sure, though one looked like Shiva) that were missing their heads (for whatever reason - shrapnel, previous rulers trying to desecrate earlier kings' stuff, who knows), so people would put their own heads in place and take a picture. Don't they think that's the least bit disrespectful? I suggested to Chris one of those fair picture-taking opportunities of the Crucifixion. Now you and your gal can be the giver and the mourner! Step right up! Hey buddy, your pals can be the two thieves! Wouldn't people object to that? (Chris says there would be a line-up.)

Mmmm, soapboxy.

socialist postal systems that rock

I mailed a package home today - got the clothes and gifts and all that fun stuff out of the way so we don't have to worry about it anymore, and I've gotta tell you: if you want to get your package out quickly and easily from a country, choose Vietnam. At least, send it from the Saigon International Post Office.

These people were awesome. When we walked in, they gave us the papers we needed, told us immediately how much it would cost and sold us a proper-sized box and some tape -cheap! A guy then wrapped the box in the tape (a real professional job, and they had a stool that made it a breeze, it went around in a circle like wheeeEEEEeeee). After that, THEY made sure all the paperwork was in order, and sent us on our way within half an hour. They had examples of all the paperwork on the desks that were provided for filling it out, and answered any and all questions. They even helped people coming in pack their packages properly, wrapping breakables and arranging things in the best manner, cutting boxes until they were the proper size, and all were extremely amicable.

Well, socialism's gotta be good for something. Canada Post, take note.