The Park

Ready, set, g—

I think we’re supposed to be moving. Yes, we’re moving. But where? Across a busy street where soft, long, golden leaves inaudibly crunch. Forward, out through a passageway beside brambles out to an open space where I can look out and see Taichung City down the hill of green grass. There’s just a moment to appreciate the sight. Gray, dignified gravestones are scattered down the slope. The sky is a mix of gray and sunlit blue. Time flies…

Onto the flat immaculate gray-stone sidewalk I go, then down a slope through a park where I hear birds chirping. That cross-country memory of that inhale-inhale-exhale breathing pattern somewhere between exhaustion and comfort resurfaces. The memories of birds chirping in the summer in the early morning in that time when the sun hasn’t yet risen. I can barely hear the cars, the machines rolling by on the street above. But on I go, and I say goodbye to that place forever and down alongside the cars and then across the street next to a frame of a yet-to-be-building in view of the harbor.

Up, down, up, down, some people stare at the sweaty Westerners as we run by, taking shortcuts through the leafy grass and finally back onto the sidewalk, through the brightly colored Chinese archway onto a paved road through tall grass, to the end of the journey, and before long, a feast.

…and Taiwan Beer!

Musings on Taiwanese Culture

The following is a collection of observations about Taiwan, in no particular premeditated order:

While people here are often trying to find ways to be extra polite and pay for other people (their meals, the taxi, and so forth), by and large, they also worship money. I mean this mostly figuratively, except in the case of Ghost Month, in which ghost money is burnt as part of the offerings to the dead ancestors. Before coming to Taiwan I didn’t know that any faiths believed in an afterlife that included a financial economy.

Rich people pay their workers small wages in many cases, and cheap foreign labor (largely Filipino) doesn’t help things. Essentially, material values reign in the place of spiritual values, though the Chinese traditions seem to remain glued to society, though often in ways that mock themselves, as illustrated by the burning bags of Doritos for the spirits of the dead.

This brings me to my next observation, which somehow took me more than 2 months to learn: that in Chinese culture the number corresponding to one’s age is +1 compared to the West. When an infant is born, he or she is officially considered one year old by the Taiwanese. I suspect this goes along with the traditional expectations with respect to family. The age of adulthood is around 25 here, and parents and grandparents continue to have a lot of influence throughout the adulthood of their kids and grandchildren. I see more grandparents with small children here than I did in the U.S. But one crucial difference that the Taiwanese have from the mainland Chinese in this regard, is that women are not expected to marry while they are young, and often not at all. Mainland Chinese women are considered ‘leftover’ if they’re still unmarried at age 27.

There’s very little “life is about the journey” mentality here, as far as I can tell. You get where you’re going, move on to the following task, and so on.

While the driving skill here is poor, public transportation in Taiwan is superior to everywhere I’ve experienced thus far. Buses and trains start and stop according to their schedule. People wait in orderly lines for subway doors to open, allow the passengers to disembark, and then walk on. If you step on the yellow line at the edge, there are employees who will immediately blow a whistle telling you to keep away from the edge. Taxis are clean, and taxi drivers are polite. The same is true for buses. I get the overall sense that when taking public transportation, people do their best to avoid taking up space and to remain in their designated area. This is kind of the opposite experience of walking down the street, where scooters obstruct the sidewalk and force you to walk close to passing traffic. In Taiwan, you can trust strangers (including strangers who do low or unskilled labor for low pay) to do their jobs effectively and treat their customers with a high amount of friendliness and helpfulness. Many people are disincentivized from actively pursuing higher-wage jobs because the rate of pay isn’t much higher. Homeless and impoverished people do exist, but there are very few and I don’t usually see them.

A foreigner who has lived in Taiwan for fifteen years told me that with Taiwanese women, you have to subtract five years from their actual age to determine a) how old they look, and b) their maturity level. Thus according to this equation, a twenty-seven year old Taiwanese girl looks and acts like a twenty-two year old, a twenty year old like a fifteen year old, etc. etc. A Taiwanese woman told me she thinks Western women appear younger than their actual age, and says this is because Asian women “aren’t so used to exercise,” so old Taiwanese women appear to age more dramatically. It’s true that more than once, I’ve underestimated girls’ ages here, but this is probably just a matter of adjusting to what people look like and getting more and more used to the sensory perceptions involved in daily life.

One of those sensory perceptions is smell, and at Alishan I bought some chopsticks that, for whatever reason, emanate a kind of smell I associate with being in nature in a log cabin. Equipped with said chopsticks I am finally able to eat rice and noodles in a civilized manner.

…the surface is just beginning to be scratched. The language barrier is significant, which is of course more than just a tool to communicate, but also a pathway into thousands of years of history and culture and alternative perspectives on all sorts of things. I thought I could just jump in and splash my way into fluency, but like the high tide at Kenting, it just ends up overwhelming you, shoving you down below the surface.

Kenting October 11

A few hours after departing the city of Taichung on the day after my trip to Alishan, my companions and I drove through the Southern city of Kaohsiung (pronounced ‘Gow-shung’) and arrived in Kenting (‘Ken-ding’) at the Happy Panda beach. We were, of course, greeted by a big smiling panda statue, + the usual Chinese squiggly lines. Tall palm trees were everywhere, and tents of all different colors sat all over the sandy area along the boarded pathway toward the water. It was still light out, but  the sun would soon make its way down. I saw a lot of foreigners between the Asian masses, and a boat with a tiger statue on it in memorial of Life of Pi, (which I recently learned was shot in none other than Taichung).

I thought I’d give the water a try. “Why are there so conspicuously few people in the water? and the ones that are are all concentrated in one spot?” I stepped into the water. It was the warmest and most comfortable ocean water I’ve ever been in. I continued to walk in, and the waves were quite high. One wave was all it took to send me beneath the surface into the rocks, my hands bleeding as I walked back up through the thick sand to the rendezvous. After that I looked up at a palm tree and decided to draw it.

The rest of this trip was rather ordinary and involved a lot of pointless side adventures (including watching and listening to a Korean punk rock band, going to a side-road bar at 3:00am where I didn’t drink anything, watching a go-kart race, walking alone and reflecting on the effect of Hinduism on modern world-religions while looking at an obelisk with swastikas on it, buying dumplings at 7/11, and going back to the water and lying down in the sand) with one exception; witnessing an actual real-life crime scene.

While outside a bar (where the Koreans had just finished their performance) I was talking to another American when I heard some kind of crashing sound, and I turned around and saw that a car had driven full-speed up onto a divider and into a pole, just as we heard the sound of the air releasing from the tires. A door slowly opened, a man exited, and then three foreign guys chased him as he fled (with, if I’m not mistaken, the remainder of the drugs, the same type of which enabled the crash). Some of the American and/or Canadian girls naturally decided to look through the contents of the deserted automobile before the police arrived. I was in one of those states of mind where you’re consciously afraid of the car suddenly exploding into a fiery inferno, but somehow knowing that this is highly unlikely, and not based on enough solid evidence to refrain from trying on the pair of stylish sunglasses your friend just handed you.

A brunch consisting primarily of omelettes occurred the following day. In Taichung. After driving back. In the early hours of the morning. All the way from Kenting…

I have an adult student who tells me that “[my] life here in Taiwan is very colorful.” The truth is, the colorful part happens not miles (sorry, I mean kilos) away, but on the other side of that very wall, where kindergarteners battle fiercely against their instincts to speak Chinese, shout, or ignore teacher in order to earn a coveted heart-shaped or Halloween-themed sticker.

 

Dajia

Upon arrival to this new place, I wandered down the road, following the smell of the sea and the feeling of wind that somehow reminded me of an Asia I had not yet experienced. Wind turbines, a few trees and the occasional architectural structure were in view over an enormous sea of tall green grass.

The meeting point was beside a temple with high gray steps next to some kind of traditional Chinese structure with painted-carvings and protruding Chinese dragons. An electronic sign above the bathroom displayed the temperature; 31 degrees, and the time; 2:02pm.

After a mere minute of running, it became clear that this run would need more balance than cardiovascular endurance. The wind grew with each passing minute. It threatened to throw us off the ledges into the grass and the water below.

At one point I led the group off the trail, not having taken care to see whether I had been following the actual markers. We had to turn around and find the way. It’s never clear where the trail is. You have to look for the markers, and sometimes they’re in the last place you expect…

I looked up and saw a sea of seagulls swimming in the air, and it’s the first time I remember seeing so many seagulls in Taiwan. There are few birds in this country.

We ran forward, and the group thinned as those who ran faster separated themselves from those who were slower. We ran atop another one of those ledges by which an old man was wading through the tall grass with his hands clasped behind his back, sagelike. I stopped several times to try and enjoy the view. The entire run was 8.5Km, and 5.5 in was the “beer check.” I’m not saying I don’t appreciate some cold Taiwan Beer (台灣啤酒) on a hot autumn day, but I still had 3Km to go, so I drank some water.

I then followed the runners ahead of me, which led me up onto a short hill with rocks decorating the exterior, with train tracks at the top. Then it was down, down, across a deserted paved road and toward the town. I ran with two Taiwanese guys, and this was when the wind decided it was finally time to choose its victim. I fell down to the right side of a ledge, attempting in vain to grab the edge of the ledge, leaving a nasty cut on my left wrist and soaking my socks with water. I climbed back up and continued running, barely managing not to fall in again despite the unrelenting wind.

Not long after we made our way through the town. A smiling old man shouting words (they sounding encouraging, whatever they were) as we neared the temple, and after 1 hour and seven minutes, I returned to the start where brownies, a peanut butter sandwich, fruit, and Taiwan Beer awaited this weary runner.

Alishan

Alishan (阿里山) or Mount Ali is a scenic area in central Taiwan. It is the home of enormous trees, some of which are thousands of years old. It is a major tourist destination, which was especially clear when I went with a friend on Friday. Friday was a national holiday in Taiwan, because it was 10/10, “double ten,” which commemorates the beginning of the revolution that ended the Qing Dynasty in 1911, ending the rule of the Manchus over the Han people, and dynastic rule altogether. Alishan is named after an aboriginal chieftain named Ali, who was known for his extraordinary hunting skills.

We took the train from Taichung to Chiayi (2 hours), and from there a taxi (another 2 hours) into the mountains to Alishan. I’d never seen mountains like this before, except in pictures. The structure of the mountains and the trees rooted to them were alien to me.

Lastly there was a 10 minute ride in a train that looks old-fashioned on the outside yet has the interior aesthetic of a claustrophobic subway. Then we were surrounded by tall trees in something like Tolkien’s Lothlórien. The serenity of the experience was dampened somewhat by all the loud tourists, but it didn’t matter much, since I was preoccupied with looking at the environment.

Monet’s Japanese Garden began teaching me to slow my mind down and appreciate eternity in a single moment. Yet two years later I find this at least as challenging as I did then. This place is different from the garden in that it is enormous, situated in the mountains, and maintained rather than constructed by human hands. The moving crowds are like people in an art museum; Stop. Photograph (“One, Two, Three, Smile!”). Brush past an obtrusive stranger. Get too close to a tree and pick at the bark despite the numerous signs demanding the abstention therefrom. Check watch. Hasten to extraction point. Like many others I paused at the sights I thought were enthralling and looked, just for a moment.

There was a section along the path that didn’t have so many people. This was a view out onto other nearby mountains with the gray-white mist circling and accumulating with the trees barely transparent enough to see. Moving forward, my ears were assaulted with a familiar, nightmarish sound. Even here in the refuge of the mountains, I heard the song of the garbage trucks…

(Click on the individual photos for a closer look)

英語 (English)

Even as the sun has long set on the British Empire, its language blankets the globe and colonizes new tribes daily. Like the Zerg swarm of the Starcraft games, it breeds, mutates, multiplies and attacks, bringing other tongues to heel. As linguistic dominion replaces the military conquests of the days of yore, I, a solider in the long battle for global monolingualism, will struggle and fight, never tire, never slacken, never lose courage, and never lose faith! Sure, we have no really cool guys suavely walking away from massive explosions while putting on sunglasses. And usually, the most dedicated to our cause don’t quite ‘get the girl’ at the end of the movie. But these are our martyrs, toiling away for the sake of more efficient global communication! It doesn’t matter who we are. What matters is our plan!

As I’ve alluded to, everyone in Taiwan has what they call an English name. As of this writing, I only really know about two people’s Chinese names, because I either never hear the Chinese name or I forget it because it sounds pretty much like all the other Chinese words I hear. Sometimes speaking the language of another nation is a mark of aristocracy, while other times it’s a mark of defeat. Groups like the Amish, the Oranians, the Roma (Gypsies), and the Jews have survived in foreign lands without becoming assimilated because they kept their specific culture alive. I think this is what culture must be; the mechanism by which a genetic population enables itself to withstand the passage of time amidst the Other. Having another language forced upon your people is a strong indicator of what that tribe’s future is going to be. So English is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, English lets you communicate your ideas with people all over the world, as well as appreciate many of the arts which would otherwise have been hidden. But at the same time, it means that many will be unable to stop the rising tide of alien ideas. If deceit has a language, in spite of all its artistic potential, that language is English.

What many people want from their English language education in the East is often like a lot of commercialized things; coffee without caffeine, candy without sugar, sex without sex and war without casualties. They want English without English. Maybe a metaphor for the future of the developed world? The adoption of the styles or accomplishments of the West, without its actual substance. Like a professor at a university describing with great knowledge, detail and enthusiasm the features of past civilizations, it may be that the people of the future study us and imitate us, and sometimes even claim to be us, after we are only a memory. What I find in Taiwan is that many of the little tidbits of Eastern wisdom that creep into Western discourse don’t actually represent the way of life of Asian society (as I’ve observed thus far), but the things the best of them fight so hard to achieve, like that boat colliding with that Great Wave of Kanagawa. 99% of Taiwanese are not martial arts gurus or mathematical prodigies, but many of their parents wish they were.

Equipped with a working knowledge of English, people can read Shakespeare. Or they can talk to foreigners; the uncivilized, barbaric Wei-Go-Ren who come to Taiwan and teach English or make bicycles. If you ask someone who’s spent a long time being exposed to Western ideas, they might say that what counts is freedom. As long as you have informed consent about a choice and then go for it, and it makes you happy, then this is the desirable outcome. But I think what counts is not merely what can happen, but what will happen. Not, what “can” kids do when they learn to speak the international language, but what will they do? Can their decisions be predicted within a small margin of error, and if so, what will those decisions be? The answer lies I think, in the fact that like America, Taiwan is in a stage between its traditionalist past and its dystopian Kali Yuga.  But who knows, maybe “worse is better.” It certainly is for me, because if it weren’t for the usefulness of English to businesses, it would be much harder for me to travel and achieve my material and didactic ends. So clearly I don’t lament the demand for English. Someday soon, kids in the West might be forced to study Mandarin to be able to compete with the superior Asian tiger economies, with many studying on their own to unlock the cosmic keys to the realm of tea-drinking, spa visiting, car-driving bourgeois-dom. But many in Taiwan hate English because they associate it with hours of schooling, which is another blessing and another curse. The linguistic divide between Chinese and English is obviously vast, and who wants to put hours into something you don’t need?

I guess that’s what we have teachers for. Modern heroes and Footsoldiers of the Word! Parents pay for their kids to get a decent after-school education. Yet the concepts embedded in those words are likely to contain bits of poison, of which the West is the present host. Taiwan at least doesn’t contain any more of such poison than America does, and within Chinese is locked wisdom of the past crying out to be experienced, and perhaps even applied. It won’t make me Taiwanese, no matter what. But by learning English, people in Taiwan can become American, English, Australian, Canadian, and more. And that is its extraordinary, terrible power.