four eyes are better than two

Maybe it's because i'm staying in an area with 3 major universitites within a few square miles of eachother. But it seems to me that about 80 percent of the people i see here wear eyeglasses. This is so amazingly cool to me. I mean, when i was growing up, people called me "four eyes" because i wore glasses. I finally stopped wearing glasses in college (not by choice, really...i just spilled corn soup on them and never could get it out of the frames. So i stopped wearing them. I'm still blind as a bat but i don't have the money to get a new pair.) Anyway, you can see people wearing all kinds of frames--geeky frames, cool frames, designer frames, bad-ass frames, granny frames. And there are eyeglasses shops everywhere. I'm so glad to be in a place where four eyes are cool. I'm thinking about getting a pair for myself.

Orion

3 stars in a line, 5 to make a box. A little triangle and some lines. It's the mighty hunter Orion, ever-raising his club and shield to ward off the red-eyed bull Taurus. Since i was 6 or 7 i've known that constellation. But what if you break the pattern down, back to the stars, just bright dots in the sky?And then put it back together again as a rocket or a scotsman throwing the caber?

There's something seriously wrong with the system, the industry i'm working in. How can i change this mess? When the product is defective and the salesmen are charlatains, it's time to stop being a shill and start climbing to a place where you can make a difference.

oooooohhhhh...we just had an earthquake here.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

One more thing I saw on Sunday...I went to the Taipei City mall, an underground shopping mall that seems to have been left behind by the more trendy shopping areas. It's still pretty crowded, though. Women seem to go there to shop for inexpensive shoes, clothes, jewelry and health foods. Young men go there in swarms to hang out at the tv game shops. There are a couple dozen of these shops, where young guys are buzzing like bees to challenge each other at the Wii or X-box games standing outside each shopfront. Another group can usually be seen sitting and playing PSP games on the floor, trading tips and whatnot. It's one way to beat the heat, I guess. I guess it's not so different from the malls in the US except that in the US, somebody would have kicked over the Wiis, stolen the x-boxes and started a brawl in the hallway. Anyway, the interesting thing was the Otaku maid shop. I'd heard about these places, especially in Japan, where guys go and get served food and whatever else by women dressed in french maid outfits. But I'd never actually seen one. From looking in the window, it looked pretty tame to me. Granted, the maid outfits looked pretty good, but most of the guys seemed to be gamers playing, like, Magic or some fantasy robot card game while they got tea and chit chat from the maids. Fair enough. Whatever floats your boat.

Refuge from the sun

Finally on Sunday I visited two temples in Taipei. One temple Chingshan temple (青山宮) was dedicated to a famous general from way, way back. An old lady working there explained a couple of the statues to me, showing me that one of the gods being venerated there was a policeman--she showed me that his statue had a little pair of wooden handcuffs. This was the coolest temple I've been in because it's 3 stories, with each floor dedicated to a different group of gods. It was very peaceful and filled with the smell of incense and old wood. The second temple I went to, Chingsui (清水) was pretty cool because the pillars outside were decorated with something I've never seen in a temple before--sea monsters! I'm not sure what they're for, but they look like sea dragons and a big squid or octopus. Check out the picture and you can see some big tentacles menacing some poor sailor. This temple is dedicated to a hero who later became a god.

lost art forms in a most unexpected place

After the hiking trip, I came back to Taipei and went to the entertainment district of Ximen　（西門） This is where everybody (especially the young and the cool) go to hang out. They have a lot of karaoke places, restaurants, and shops but the main goal seems to be window-shopping, people-watching, and eating snacks. I saw a few freaky looking kids, and a few dangerous looking dudes, but by and large everything was pretty wholesome. One really cool thing I saw there was the magic shakuhachi man. There was an old guy dressed in traditional Japanese monk clothes, playing a shakuhachi （尺八）flute to accompany Japanese funkified traditional music over a loudspeaker. The interesting thing was, he was wearing a basket over his head (looked like a bamboo wastebasket) If you haven't seen this before, you're missing out. Apparently, back in the old days in Japan, there were zen monks called Komuso （虚無僧）who wandered around playing the flute in order to meditate, make a few bucks to support themselves, or to perform a kind of spiritual cleansing of people who listened to them. They wore these baskets over their heads to symbolize that they had no personal identity. Later on, a number of these guys became spies for the shogun so when Japan restored the emperor not only were these komuso outlawed, but playing the shakuhachi was outlawed too. Well, that's what they say on wikipedia, anyway. So this guy was outside Ximen station playing the shakuhachi flute to keep this art form alive. I'm so glad I got to see him...I'd seen those dudes with the baskets on their heads in samurai movies before (Zatoichi took out a whole bunch of 'em!) and wondered what the deal was with the baskets...and now i know!

getting some fresh air

Wow, what an interesting weekend. I saw a little of everything!

I.

On saturday, I took a trip into the countryside south of Taipei to a place called Wulai (鳥来). It's up in the mountains--you have to take the bus through a winding road to get there. Once you do, it's a great break from the hustle and bustle of Taipei. The landscape is fascinating--I enjoy unspoilt nature, but I also enjoy seeing how people and nature are entertwined so little mountain villages are just my cuppa. Wulai is famous for three things: hot springs, which it has a lot of; aboriginal tribes; and a big-ass waterfall. I didn't see many of the tribesfolk, but their dress and crafts (which they sell to tourists) seem similar to the native people of the Americas. I didn't try any of the local specialties, because after hiking around in the woods under the withering sun for 5 hours doesn't really make me want to eat large slabs of grilled pork or greasy snausages. Maybe next time. Same for soaking in the hot waters (which are known for their healing powers, by the way) The hiking was great, though...nothing but the sound of the wind and the frogs. And the waterfall--now that was pretty freaking spectacular! The waterfall is something like...well, just look at the picture.

Slowly but surely

I was stumbling along in the dark when I almost stepped on it--the largest snail i've ever seen in my life. There, crawling slowly across the sidewalk at the university, was a huge snail about five inches long. He looked like a pickle spear, with a giant brown shell on his back, and his one-inch long horns were busy trying to find his way along. I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't believe our luck--I could so easily have crushed him. He was trying to make his way from the grass on one side of the sidewalk to the grass on the other side, and he was about halfway across the 8-foot wide concrete. So I decided somebody needed to be his crossing guard, lest somebody blunder along and squish him. Wow. It took him forever to cross that sidewalk. Several people passed by now and then, wondering why in the hell I was crouched down on the sidewalk, mesmerized by a stupid snail. But I was determined to shepherd him to the nice wet grass on the other side. Well, I obviously need a hobby.
Anyway, the point is, I was watching this little guy, cheering him on, and i wondered, "How does he know where he's going? I mean, does he know there's a nice green oasis on the other side of this desert, or does he just start moving and find out where he's going when he gets there?"

Well, i watched him for about 20 minutes. At one point, he came so close to the grass.....and then turned right and started going in the other direction. Damn! I guess you can have your plan for what's going to happen in life, but things are going to go their own way. Eventually he made his way into the grass and I let him be. So, as you're reading this, give a thought to the snail...inching its way through the night slowly but surely, with nothing but his home on his back.

2000 years of history

This weekend, I went to see the terracotta warriors of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang. This emperor ruled China from about 221 BC to 210 BC. After his death, 700000 craftsmen and conscripted laborers worked to create his tomb in Xian, sculpting 8000 life-sized terracotta soldiers who were expected to guard the tomb in the afterlife. Some of the newly discovered soldiers have come to the National History Museum here in Taipei to go on display. Some of them still have the original paint on them. Now, they are all plain terracotta colored. But originally, they were all painted bright colors and carried bronze spears and such. Some of them are on horseback, or riding in chariots. It's amazing to see that every single one of them is different, and the faces really seem lifelike.

These pictures are of some of the copies of the soldiers outside the museum. The museum was absolutely jam-packed with people, and after seeing the exhibit, they all had their picture taken with these copies. The cutest little toddlers could get their pictures taken standing next to miniature soldiers too. Maybe that will make them grow up big and strong. Anway, i think it would be kind of sacriligeous to take a picture or mess around with one of the real things, since they've come from a man's tomb. But with a copy it's okay i guess....

Getting there

My students are slowly starting to warm up to me. The first day, my teaching, well...kinda sucked. So my students were ready to beat me with a rubber hose and throw me into the Keelung River. But last Friday, in an informal poll, they admitted that they would rather attend my class than sleep. Considering that "sleeping" was listed as a favorite hobby by the majority of my students, I feel pretty good about that! Okay, okay...granted, about 80 percent of them said that they would rather eat Haagen Dazs ice cream than take my class. But, you know, it's a start.

歩歩中文

July 1

Ha, don't laugh! For a beginner learning a new language, even the smallest success can make you feel like a million bucks. Today I was actually able to order something I wanted in a restaurant here in Taipei. After several days of blundering around, unable to say the simplest thing or accomplish the simplest task without somebody to help me or speak English to me, I finally did something right. I went to the tapioca tea house on Roosevelt Road--just a little shop. After taking a few minutes to look at the menu, hiding outside, I found something i could read, pronounce, and actually wanted. I finally got up enough courage to go to the window and give it a try. Slowly but steadily the words came out of my mouth "我要梅子緑茶" (I'd like honey green tea) Did I actually say that? The clerk looked at me and said something like "...没有梅子緑茶..." (We don't have plum green tea right now"） Did he actually understand me? Cool! And I think i understood him! So I didn't panic...I looked at the menu and found something else: "蜂蜜緑茶" (honey green tea)　Wow! Memorizing the Tapioca House menu paid off. And for the next few minutes I enjoyed a tiny linguistic success and delicious iced tea. Of course it was back to square one after a few minutes, but I'll always remember my first success using Chinese.