the foreigner

Something that makes all foreigners chuckle here, whether they’ve been here for a month or a decade, is the designation of foreigner and how freely it’s used. Tonight we went out for dinner and our receipt was labeled FOREIGNER (in Chinese) so that the server would know how to find us (even though we had a number at our table). My boss, even after something like seven years in the same apartment, still gets his cable bill address to FOREIGNER (again, in Chinese). Honestly, it’s an easy distinction here that most foreigners don’t mind – one aspect of living in a homogenous society. And, it almost goes without saying, something you would never, EVER see at home, both for practical and political reasons. Could you imagine writing on a receipt “BLACK GUY”?

grobal warning

GROBAL WARNING

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EARTH

There is little we can do sometimes

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Sometimes, you just have to sigh and laugh.

imitations

Can you do any impersonations? I have never been able to. At all. No famous people, and Chris laughs at all of my accents that aren’t English (that one I can do) and says they all sound like a bad Australian accent, except my German/Austrian, which sounds like Ah-nold. I’m kind of glad I haven’t been called in to do any voiceover work for characters in a cartoon or anything, I’m not sure I could do enough different voices. I guess I’ll cross that bridge later.
Anyway, this attack of vocal self-doubt was brought to you by this great video of the lyra bird on BBC wildlife. It’s pretty fantastic.

visions of paradise

I found this off of a link from Photojojo (great site for photo doodads and projects!). One subscriber submitted a photo to a National Geographic contest and won. Gorgeous images. They are some real visions of paradise here.

weird pillows

I haven’t seen any of these pillows here yet, but believe me, I’ll be keeping my eyes open. There’s crazy stuff like that here, you just have to look at it. We did happen across the Hello Kitty store the other day, though it didn’t have any of the Hello Kitty wine we found at the Stuff store on the corner a few months ago…

piao! piao! piao!

(that’s the sound kids here make for explosions)

Approximately two dozen strings of firecrackers went off within earshot of our building before nine a.m. this morning. I don’t know what today is a good day for (every day in the two weeks between New Year and Lantern Festival is a special day in one way or another), but it seems that noise in on that list. Some were like cannons, other just lines of small firecrackers that went on for a full minute or two. Oh, and it started around six.  6 o’clock! I felt sorry for the people who lived around the temple where we did our kung fu demo back in September (the group we were with did the same thing, firecrackers at six in the morning) – now I know how they felt.

Later: It was a good day for praying for good luck and enshrining statues of Buddha. So maybe that helped. Lots of praying. Now with more firecrackers! I think that enhances the prayer. I’ll try that next time I go to church…

eating dirt? good? not in my school…

Since all instinctive behaviors have an evolutionary advantage or they would not have been retained for millions of years, chances are that this one too has helped us survive as a species.

I remember playing in the dirt a lot as a kid and I know that I ate a good portion of it. Dirt cakes? You bet. I used to get sick basically once per year really badly and that was it. My brother had asthma and allergies and he’s basically outgrown both because of, I believe, the fact that my parents let us play around outside while still being careful with him.

Here in Taiwan, dirt is an even worse situation. Chinese medicine has its place, but a little girl’s grandmother came in the other day, in the middle of cold season and with half the school sniffling and sneezing, and stated that her daughter was not allowed to wash her hands because water would make her sick. Oy.

On our last day last week three of us took our kids to the park and let them play in the dirt and sticks and run around without telling them to not have so much fun (yes, I’ve been told to tell the kids that before). You know what? They had a great time and it probably did them a world of good.

I hope to do it again in the future so that these kids can build up a natural resistance, because they sure aren’t going to get it anywhere else. One of my kids takes five pills every day. You’d think he was 70, not five. Probably 2/3 of Chris’s class take some kind of medicine (preventative or active) every day. It’s almost frightening.

a slow process of catching up

There’s a lot to get myself straight with before I can just get into a rhythm here. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed in my first six months here. Not culturally, though I am dealing a lot more with the culture this time than last time (in a Taiwanese-run school dealing with very small children who are really too young for school and their parents is drastically different than an American-run school dealing with just school-aged kids), but just overrun. I’m working a lot, which is great for the pocketbook but terrible for my desire to do things other than work.

There are outlets – kung fu, friends, food, drama, Rock Band. Some of those things are consuming the artist, though. I’ve barely taken out my big camera in the past two months, instead using a little hand-held that is always with me (though this has proved helpful in other aspects). I’m not doing anything with my photos – after 12 hours out of the house, I just find myself wanting to read, maybe watch a TV show, rather than sort and apply and upload. I hope that Chinese New Year will help me overcome some of this by allowing me to catch up so that it doesn’t seem like such a daunting task.

my improving needs improvement

Hi there. You may remember me as the guy who used to write here. It’s been busy. Work is hectic – even though I work 34 hours a week, I’m out of the house for 50-some due to kung fu, travel times, and a long lunch break that I just spend chillin’ at the tea stand. It’s great for my reading time but terrible for blogging. In my defense, the food blog has been mildly updated (well, to the beginning of Taiwan, so really, just six months ago) and is primed for all of the treats we are enjoying here, and my photoblog is still up-to-date (or at least within a week of up-to-date) every day. I’ve got a break right now for Chinese New Year (the year of the Ox starts tomorrow), so I’m going to try and get a few things down while I’ve got the time, but it probably will continue to be the opposite of a plethora here. I’ll try, though! Until then, happy New Year!

5.6

We had an earthquake the other morning (funny, the only place I could find it reported was a world financial news page). Not super-powerful, but enough to send us swaying back and forth for over a minute. We went and squatted next to the desk, trying to take advantage of the so-called “triangle of life” toted by Doug Copp as the way to survive an earthquake. It sounded right, but I hadn’t looked it up – it’s not the best idea. While it does exist, it’s unpredictable and potentially just as dangerous as it is life-saving. Yikes. Good thing it was a gentle 5.6 – no injuries, no damage. Still doesn’t beat the 6.2 I experience my first week in Taiwan, nigh on five years ago.