I'm cheating. this continues the story of November 6, Bus Talk
"Yes, Grandma, but at the end of September, the bus company is going to remove these readers from the buses, so you won't be able to use your ticket any more.”
“I don't believe you. You Aborigines are always telling jokes.”
“That's fine, but Grandma, let me tell you, you shouldn't put coins in the box, you should use up your ticket while you can, because after September, I won't have this reader on my bus.”
“But it says right here that this card is good until November.”
“Okay, fine, Grandma, when we get into Taipei, you take a bus number 644, and you go to Mayor Ma's office, and ask him for one of these readers. You can take it home and slide your card through the slot for as long as you please, but after September 31, you aren't going to see these readers on any of the buses, so you'll have to use a computerized card.”
“You mean I won't be able to use my magnetized card on the bus in October?”
“That's right, Grandma.”
“But it says right here that it's good until November.”
An old man from the middle of the bus joined in. “Won't do you any good. If you can't finish off your card, you may as well give it to your neighbor to use.”
“My neighbor? No, they never remember to shut the first floor door, I don't want to give them my card.”
“You may as well give it to somebody, because it won't do you any good.”
“But it says right here that it's good until November.”
Another old lady leaped into the fray. “Yes, the magnetized tickets are being phased out. I think you ought to go protest!”
Hua looked at me and we both rolled our eyes.
“Where do you think I should go protest?”
“Well, Taipei City Government, of course.”
“No, try the Bureau of Transportation.”
“No, I think it should be the Taipei City Government.”
“No, no, you're all wrong, because Wulai is in Taipei County, not Taipei City, so it's the Bureau of Transportation you want, not the City Government.”
“But the bus runs into Taipei City.”
“The bus company is Hsintien Bus Company, right? And Hsintien is Taipei County, not Taipei City, so it's the Bureau of Transportation you want.”
“Well, I certainly am going to do something about it. Why, just last month, I was on a bus with my sister, and I had her ticket and she had my ticket…” Hua had long lost interest in the conversation. We reached Turtle Mountain, where two little sixth grade girls got on the bus, asking, “Hua, when are we going to play basketball again?”
“so she gave the driver my magnetized ticket, but he said it was all used up.”
“I don't have a day off this week, so it'll have to be next week.”
“He said, ‘You can't use that ticket, it's all used up.’”
“Can your daughter come play with us again?”
“My sister said, ‘It can't be all used up, it's my sister's ticket.’”
“Sure, I think so, it's summer vacation, so she doesn't have much to do.”
“He said, ‘I don't care whose ticket it is, it's all used up, so you can't use it, you have to use a new ticket, or put cash in the box.’”
“Where do you think we can play?”
“So I said, ‘That's my ticket, my sister's ticket is right here.’”
“Well, silly, where do you live?”
“The driver said, ‘I don't care whose ticket you use, just so the bus company gets two fares.’”
“Turtle Mountain, you know that.”
“My sister said, ‘So if you don't care whose ticket I use, I'll use my sister's ticket.’”
“And there are no basketball courts in Turtle Mountain?”
“Then the driver got very impatient and said, ‘I told you, you can't use that ticket, and actually, according to government laws and bus company regulations, since it's all used up, I can confiscate it!’”
“We have a perfectly good basketball court. ”
“So I said, ‘There's no need for you to confiscate it, because the government gave me this ticket. You know we old folks get free bus tickets.’”
“Okay, so I'll drive my daughter down and she can play basketball with you in Turtle Mountain.”
“Right, we get twenty free rides a month.”
“What's the old lady bickering about?”
“So I said, ‘It says right here that this ticket is good until November, so you can't confiscate it!’ So he didn't. But you're right, I really do think I should go protest.”
“Don't call her an old lady, call her Grandma, show some respect for your elders.”
“Bureau of Transportation, no doubt about it.”
“How can I show respect, when you've got an intellectual age of a nine year old?”
“No, you have to talk to Mayor Ma about it.”
“Yeah, Hua, when we talk to you, we have to use simple words so you can understand.”
“Mayor Ma may run for President, so he will want to help people so you vote for him in the election.”
“It's not my intellectual age, it's showing respect for Grandma here, who is our elder.”
“How many times do I have to explain, this is the Hsintien Bus Company, and Hsintien is in Taipei County.”
“Okay, but why don't we go play basketball in Wulai?”
“Yes, but the line runs in to Taipei City, doesn't it? Taipei City Government.”
“Who would drive you there?”
“Otherwise, just give your card to your neighbor.”
“We could take a bus.”
“No, I think I can use it all up by November.”
“Whatever. You phone my daughter and make arrangements with her.” By this time, the bus had reached the edge of the city. Hua pulled over his microphone, and with great relief in his voice, announced, “We have reached the Hsintien subway terminal. All who wish to take the subway may transfer here.”
I got off the bus in back of Grandma. As she got off, she showed Hua her card: “See, it says right here that this is good until November.”
“Yes, Grandma, anything you say,” Hua said. Then he looked at me and we both rolled our eyes heavenward. But I never did get to ask about the haunting.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
I have been teaching mama (uncle) Takyu the letters so he can write Tayal, his native language. When the letters come in order, he is doing okay, but he still has trouble when they are all mixed up. To solve this, I ask him how to spell words, or write words and ask him what they say. We were sitting in the living room working on this at the big table when his son, daughter-in-law, and a couple guests tromped through and stopped to view his progress, learning, like everything else, being a communal effort. I wrote down yutas (grandfather, respected elder) and asked him to read it. He traced the letters with his fingers, frowned, made a few attempts. I started coaching him: “yuh, ooo, duh, ah, ssss.” He squirmed in concentration. Everybody's breath was held. Maybe my dogs, waiting outside the door, felt the tension, because Tlahuy started whining. I turned my head towards the door and said, admonishingly, under my breath, “Tlahuy!” Mama Takyu's face lit up. He pointed at the word, and called out in a victorious shout: TLAHUY!
Monday, October 27, 2003
Sunday, October 26, 2003
My home is not by the road. There are about a hundred steps leading up a ravine from the Chief's lane to my place. It is pretty much jungle around there.
This morning Tasaw's parents came, to visit, to talk to Tasaw on my web camera, to have some tea, to bring great big bags of kibbles for the dogs. They phoned and said they were here, so I went down to meet them. The first thing they said was, You have four dogs now? There was a tiny little puppy by the mailbox which I have affixed by the foot of the steps. It was sheltered under the rain cover of my mailbox. Clever dog. It's been raining for days.
Recently a wild dog gave birth to some puppies in the jungle above that, so I figured this puppy must be hers. That explains why I heard her barking so much last night and this morning. This little puppy must have crawled away. Adventurous little fellow.
When Tasaw's parents left, I took a handful of kibbles and a towel. The puppy is too little to eat the kibbles. I think it's only about six weeks old. Eyes open, strong enough to get into mischief, not strong enough to get back to Mama. The litter seems to be in the grass under the camphor tree outside the ravine, so I suspect the puppy was exploring, slipped down over the edge, and couldn't get back up.
I wrapped it up in the towel (several reasons: it was cold, wet, and dirty; I didn't want to get my smell on it, in case the mother wouldn't accept it; I didn't want to get its smell on me, in case Tlahuy, Bengax, and Yumin wouldn't accept me!), and took it back to its mother. Of course she ran away when we came, but I put the pup there under the camphor tree and called my dogs home with me.
I think they are reunited by now. The mother has stopped barking. You don't want such a spunky little chap to die.
PS (November): several days later, the dog was taken by somebody who wanted him for a pet.
This morning Tasaw's parents came, to visit, to talk to Tasaw on my web camera, to have some tea, to bring great big bags of kibbles for the dogs. They phoned and said they were here, so I went down to meet them. The first thing they said was, You have four dogs now? There was a tiny little puppy by the mailbox which I have affixed by the foot of the steps. It was sheltered under the rain cover of my mailbox. Clever dog. It's been raining for days.
Recently a wild dog gave birth to some puppies in the jungle above that, so I figured this puppy must be hers. That explains why I heard her barking so much last night and this morning. This little puppy must have crawled away. Adventurous little fellow.
When Tasaw's parents left, I took a handful of kibbles and a towel. The puppy is too little to eat the kibbles. I think it's only about six weeks old. Eyes open, strong enough to get into mischief, not strong enough to get back to Mama. The litter seems to be in the grass under the camphor tree outside the ravine, so I suspect the puppy was exploring, slipped down over the edge, and couldn't get back up.
I wrapped it up in the towel (several reasons: it was cold, wet, and dirty; I didn't want to get my smell on it, in case the mother wouldn't accept it; I didn't want to get its smell on me, in case Tlahuy, Bengax, and Yumin wouldn't accept me!), and took it back to its mother. Of course she ran away when we came, but I put the pup there under the camphor tree and called my dogs home with me.
I think they are reunited by now. The mother has stopped barking. You don't want such a spunky little chap to die.
PS (November): several days later, the dog was taken by somebody who wanted him for a pet.
Monday, October 20, 2003
I took the subway, as usual, to the last stop, and walked to my bus stop at about 11 PM. There I found Agogo, a Tayal taxi driver, vaguely bargaining with some guy from the city who wanted to go some place half way to Wulai. I told Agogo, if you need a passenger, I'll go. (in Taiwan it is common for a taxi driver making a long drive to offer lower prices for four passengers, so they will wander around bus stops asking, “Calling for passengers: anybody want to go to XYX?” and offering their price. Or, “I have 3 for XYX, I need one more and we'll leave immediately.”) Agogo thought a bit and told the man, “Okay, I'll take you for one hundred NT since Yugan will go along.” He asked around, but there were only about three other people waiting for buses, and no takers, so we got into the taxi and left.
The guy was talkative. He kept going on and on about how he was going to a bar to sing karaoke, his friends were there already, waiting for him, and that he liked to get out of the city, and that going into the mountains was refreshing, blah blah blah. With slight condescension, he told us that “Wulai is a nice place, too.”
I told him, “If you come to Wulai, don't bring your karaoke. Leave your city pollution in the city.”
"Especially late at night,” Agogo chimed in.
“You get these people with a couple drinks in them, they start singing karaoke, it sounds like forsaken ghosts howling,” I told the guy. “You want to come to the mountains, enjoy the mountains. You can sing in the city.”
“Especially late at night,” Agogo chorused.
“You mean you don't have karaoke in Wulai?” the passenger asked, a bit sadly.
“It's not permitted in the Tribe. Somebody opened one, and we closed it down. Say, Yugan, did you see where they paved that patch of road in front of the church?”
“Yes, they didn't do much.”
“Because they came to do it in the middle of the night! Can you imagine that?”
“In the middle of the night? What for? This is not a busy city street with cars on it during the daytime.”
“They were making a lot of noise, glung glung glung, the heavy trucks and machinery. I went out and asked them, ‘What do you think you are doing?’
“They said, 'We are paving the road.’
“’In the middle of the night?’
“’It's the only time we have.’
“’You have to stop it. Wulai children are not like city children, they need quiet at night, or else they can't sleep. You have to stop right now.’ I told them that, Yugan, but they ignored me. They kept working, with their big trucks and heavy machinery, glung glung glung.
“About fifteen minutes later, I came out and told them, ‘You are disturbing the children. Our children cannot sleep with all that noise. You have to stop right now.’ But they still ignored me.
“So I went back and got my shotgun. I didn't put pellets in, I just put in some gravel. I went back and told them, ‘You have to stop now.’ Then I shot my shotgun into the air. Bang! Then the workmen all ran away and called the police.”
“Called the police?” I asked. “What good will that do? They're all Tayal.”
“Right. Ivi came in his police car and said, ‘Agogo, why did you shoot at the workmen?’ I said, ‘Which workmen did I shoot? I didn't shoot anybody. They were making too much noise, and the children couldn't sleep. Tomorrow they will fall asleep in class, so I told them to stop.’'Agogo, you don't have any kids.' 'I don't have kids myself, but there are a lot of little children in the Tribe. We have to think about them.'"
That explains why only a short patch of road got paved. It also shut up the guy in the back seat. Maybe he was wondering if he would get out of the taxi alive. We delivered him safe and sound to his karaoke bar. I hope that maybe he turned the volume on his karaoke down.
The guy was talkative. He kept going on and on about how he was going to a bar to sing karaoke, his friends were there already, waiting for him, and that he liked to get out of the city, and that going into the mountains was refreshing, blah blah blah. With slight condescension, he told us that “Wulai is a nice place, too.”
I told him, “If you come to Wulai, don't bring your karaoke. Leave your city pollution in the city.”
"Especially late at night,” Agogo chimed in.
“You get these people with a couple drinks in them, they start singing karaoke, it sounds like forsaken ghosts howling,” I told the guy. “You want to come to the mountains, enjoy the mountains. You can sing in the city.”
“Especially late at night,” Agogo chorused.
“You mean you don't have karaoke in Wulai?” the passenger asked, a bit sadly.
“It's not permitted in the Tribe. Somebody opened one, and we closed it down. Say, Yugan, did you see where they paved that patch of road in front of the church?”
“Yes, they didn't do much.”
“Because they came to do it in the middle of the night! Can you imagine that?”
“In the middle of the night? What for? This is not a busy city street with cars on it during the daytime.”
“They were making a lot of noise, glung glung glung, the heavy trucks and machinery. I went out and asked them, ‘What do you think you are doing?’
“They said, 'We are paving the road.’
“’In the middle of the night?’
“’It's the only time we have.’
“’You have to stop it. Wulai children are not like city children, they need quiet at night, or else they can't sleep. You have to stop right now.’ I told them that, Yugan, but they ignored me. They kept working, with their big trucks and heavy machinery, glung glung glung.
“About fifteen minutes later, I came out and told them, ‘You are disturbing the children. Our children cannot sleep with all that noise. You have to stop right now.’ But they still ignored me.
“So I went back and got my shotgun. I didn't put pellets in, I just put in some gravel. I went back and told them, ‘You have to stop now.’ Then I shot my shotgun into the air. Bang! Then the workmen all ran away and called the police.”
“Called the police?” I asked. “What good will that do? They're all Tayal.”
“Right. Ivi came in his police car and said, ‘Agogo, why did you shoot at the workmen?’ I said, ‘Which workmen did I shoot? I didn't shoot anybody. They were making too much noise, and the children couldn't sleep. Tomorrow they will fall asleep in class, so I told them to stop.’'Agogo, you don't have any kids.' 'I don't have kids myself, but there are a lot of little children in the Tribe. We have to think about them.'"
That explains why only a short patch of road got paved. It also shut up the guy in the back seat. Maybe he was wondering if he would get out of the taxi alive. We delivered him safe and sound to his karaoke bar. I hope that maybe he turned the volume on his karaoke down.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Sunday, October 12, 2003
On and on about my dogs.
Tlahuy is extremely loyal. He is also extremely powerful, but he is shy. A puppy can pick on him, but when he has had enough, the toughest dogs in Wulai, hunting dogs that attack wild boar, turn tail and run away from him.
Bengax is, I suspect, not really a dog. Too intelligent by half. She loves to prance just outside a fence or another dog's chain reach and bark at them: nya nya nya!
Sometimes when we pass somebody's house, and their dogs come out to see what's going on, Tlahuy will stand his ground and sniff and strut with them. Then suddenly you will see swift Bengax, who you also realize has been mysteriously absent, like a streak of lightning, racing off with the dogs' bone or some tidbit from their dinner. Tlahuy will then break and run, too. Ha ha ha, bye bye suckers!
Little Yumin is very much the alpha male. He knows he is little, so when the big dogs bark and chase some shadow around the house, Yumin stays behind and observes. But when we're out, he will race straight towards the biggest dogs and nonplus them. He is fearless. I was chopping down a tree that was damaged in that typhoon. When it fell, the top landed a foot from where Yumin was lying, but he just watched it fall with utter calm.
Then in the evening if I go outdoors to sit, he is sleepy, so he crawls into my lap, nuzzles his head in under my arm, and totally relaxes, hind legs dangling in midair.
Tlahuy is extremely loyal. He is also extremely powerful, but he is shy. A puppy can pick on him, but when he has had enough, the toughest dogs in Wulai, hunting dogs that attack wild boar, turn tail and run away from him.
Bengax is, I suspect, not really a dog. Too intelligent by half. She loves to prance just outside a fence or another dog's chain reach and bark at them: nya nya nya!
Sometimes when we pass somebody's house, and their dogs come out to see what's going on, Tlahuy will stand his ground and sniff and strut with them. Then suddenly you will see swift Bengax, who you also realize has been mysteriously absent, like a streak of lightning, racing off with the dogs' bone or some tidbit from their dinner. Tlahuy will then break and run, too. Ha ha ha, bye bye suckers!
Little Yumin is very much the alpha male. He knows he is little, so when the big dogs bark and chase some shadow around the house, Yumin stays behind and observes. But when we're out, he will race straight towards the biggest dogs and nonplus them. He is fearless. I was chopping down a tree that was damaged in that typhoon. When it fell, the top landed a foot from where Yumin was lying, but he just watched it fall with utter calm.
Then in the evening if I go outdoors to sit, he is sleepy, so he crawls into my lap, nuzzles his head in under my arm, and totally relaxes, hind legs dangling in midair.
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Friday, October 03, 2003
Something interesting. One of the elders in the Tribe, Takyu, about 65, several times said that he wished he knew how to write Tayal, so I have taken him up on that. Last week I taught him to first five letters ~~ a, b, c, e, g ~~ and Monday the next five ~~ h, i, k, l, m. He is delighted, working hard to get these down. He can write Chinese, but has never learned the western alphabet. Sometimes he will make a note in Chinese, and put down his pencil in wonderment: “I have written almost nothing in the last forty years.” His wife is also learning the alphabet, but quicker. With great pride, he tells me “She went to high school, so she is educated.”
Tonight we will do n, ng, o, p, and q. Now he is asking if maybe I could teach some of the other tribal elders. I told him, nothing would please me more. How often do you get a chance like this?
FYI: Tayal/泰雅語, or Atayal, is one of the oldest languages extant. It dates back at least six thousand years, compared to about a thousand for Russian or Spanish, 1500 for English, say 4000 for Chinese.
FYI: the first five letters are pronounced ah, then sort of a mixture of B + M + V, dj, eh, and a very guttural G. an example of Tayal writing: Lpgan ke’na Tayal (a Tayal Reader).
Technically, Yugan should be spelled Yukal, but I don't want to sound like some sort of diet soda.
Tonight we will do n, ng, o, p, and q. Now he is asking if maybe I could teach some of the other tribal elders. I told him, nothing would please me more. How often do you get a chance like this?
FYI: Tayal/泰雅語, or Atayal, is one of the oldest languages extant. It dates back at least six thousand years, compared to about a thousand for Russian or Spanish, 1500 for English, say 4000 for Chinese.
FYI: the first five letters are pronounced ah, then sort of a mixture of B + M + V, dj, eh, and a very guttural G. an example of Tayal writing: Lpgan ke’na Tayal (a Tayal Reader).
Technically, Yugan should be spelled Yukal, but I don't want to sound like some sort of diet soda.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
A reasonable proposal
The United States has a problem. What is to be done with all those suspected terrorists we are holding down in Cuba beyond the reach of legal process? They can never be released now, because if they didn't hate the US before, we have forced them to.
The reasonable solution is to put them to death. You may ask what crime they have been found guilty of. That's simple. If they aren't actual terrorists, we assume they are Muslims, and they were in a country suspected of harboring terrorists. There is a legal precedent. This is the same crime for which the United States bombed Iraqis in our latest display of overkill. People who inhabited the same country as Saddam were punished by legal sanctions which wrecked their economy and their middle class. Then we bombed their city. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it? We can whup the Iraqi Army any day of the week. Never mind that some of the people who got killed in Iraq may have been Christians or Kurds ― close enough. They were present at the scene of the crime, weren't they?
Okay, so that's settled. Now, you talk about executions, you're talking about Dubya's home state, The Lone Star Republic. Since this is going to be done, let it be in style. Putting someone to death requires legal witnesses, but a lot of people get all stressed out by that, and we don't want any unpleasantness for red-blooded Americans.
The solution is simple: have these slimy terrorists put to death at selected university fraternity houses, on Friday nights. If we're spending a billion dollars a week in Iraq to breed enemies, surely the budget can be prodded a bit to provide the legal witnesses ― doing their duty for god and country ― with a few kegs of beer. With a deal like that, the Chief Executive himself might show up, delivered by a fighter jet, so he can show off his codpiece again. But if he shows up, you couldn't lay in pretzels.
Performing executions thusly serves two purposes, each as important as the other. You tighten up security, and drum up some votes: make sure all those frat boys are registered for next fall.
If you really want a show to drive up the ratings and send the voters into a frenzy, bring in California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Terminator to perform the executions. He could ask each terrorist, “Have you immigrated to this country legally? Can you show me a valid visa?” As each one answered No, he could snap their necks with his mighty, masculine arms.
All of this will make tremendous sense to all patriotic Americans. If you don't agree, there must be something wrong with your patriotism, and if you're not careful, you might find yourself as the Guest of Honor at a frat house party some night, if you catch my drift. So let's do it!
The United States has a problem. What is to be done with all those suspected terrorists we are holding down in Cuba beyond the reach of legal process? They can never be released now, because if they didn't hate the US before, we have forced them to.
The reasonable solution is to put them to death. You may ask what crime they have been found guilty of. That's simple. If they aren't actual terrorists, we assume they are Muslims, and they were in a country suspected of harboring terrorists. There is a legal precedent. This is the same crime for which the United States bombed Iraqis in our latest display of overkill. People who inhabited the same country as Saddam were punished by legal sanctions which wrecked their economy and their middle class. Then we bombed their city. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it? We can whup the Iraqi Army any day of the week. Never mind that some of the people who got killed in Iraq may have been Christians or Kurds ― close enough. They were present at the scene of the crime, weren't they?
Okay, so that's settled. Now, you talk about executions, you're talking about Dubya's home state, The Lone Star Republic. Since this is going to be done, let it be in style. Putting someone to death requires legal witnesses, but a lot of people get all stressed out by that, and we don't want any unpleasantness for red-blooded Americans.
The solution is simple: have these slimy terrorists put to death at selected university fraternity houses, on Friday nights. If we're spending a billion dollars a week in Iraq to breed enemies, surely the budget can be prodded a bit to provide the legal witnesses ― doing their duty for god and country ― with a few kegs of beer. With a deal like that, the Chief Executive himself might show up, delivered by a fighter jet, so he can show off his codpiece again. But if he shows up, you couldn't lay in pretzels.
Performing executions thusly serves two purposes, each as important as the other. You tighten up security, and drum up some votes: make sure all those frat boys are registered for next fall.
If you really want a show to drive up the ratings and send the voters into a frenzy, bring in California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Terminator to perform the executions. He could ask each terrorist, “Have you immigrated to this country legally? Can you show me a valid visa?” As each one answered No, he could snap their necks with his mighty, masculine arms.
All of this will make tremendous sense to all patriotic Americans. If you don't agree, there must be something wrong with your patriotism, and if you're not careful, you might find yourself as the Guest of Honor at a frat house party some night, if you catch my drift. So let's do it!
Monday, September 29, 2003
If you pass under a fruit tree next time you are in Wulai, keep your head up. You never know what ― or who ― may fall on you.
Bsuy, the Chief's wife, who is approaching 70, was about twenty feet up a fruit tree recently, plucking fruit. She reached too far for a fruit, lost her balance, slipped, and plummeted to the ground. Fortunately, she only bumped her head and her collarbone. She spent a week in the hospital recuperating; they probably had to tie her to the bed in order to make her rest. She is fine now, cheerful and hearty.
But next time your grandmother climbs a tree, do make sure she's got a safety net.
Bsuy, the Chief's wife, who is approaching 70, was about twenty feet up a fruit tree recently, plucking fruit. She reached too far for a fruit, lost her balance, slipped, and plummeted to the ground. Fortunately, she only bumped her head and her collarbone. She spent a week in the hospital recuperating; they probably had to tie her to the bed in order to make her rest. She is fine now, cheerful and hearty.
But next time your grandmother climbs a tree, do make sure she's got a safety net.
Sunday, September 21, 2003
My good friend Qalux has a dog from the same litter as Tlahuy and Bengax. Aborigines do not share naming customs with flat-land Chinese, so he simply turned his own name around and named her Luqa. His wife, Naluwan, from the Lukai tribe, renamed the dog Heiniu, Mandarin for Black Girl. Like Tlahuy, she takes after her father: black all over, with the Dalmatian spots showing only on her tummy. I am not sure if Naluwan renamed her because didn't want to get the dog confused with her husband, or she thought Luqa sounded too much like Lukai.
Whether you call her Luqa or Heiniu, she has never been spayed, and has been busy producing litter after litter of puppies, which people in the Tribe snap up quickly. Good hunting stock.
For some reason, though, one of the dogs has a stubby little tail. Nobody in the Tribe would dock a dog's tail. It was just born that way. Because of this short little tail, he is called Bru ~~ trill that R, please ~~ meaning Short.
And you know what song comes to mind every time I see him?
You and me and a dog named Bru~~~
Whether you call her Luqa or Heiniu, she has never been spayed, and has been busy producing litter after litter of puppies, which people in the Tribe snap up quickly. Good hunting stock.
For some reason, though, one of the dogs has a stubby little tail. Nobody in the Tribe would dock a dog's tail. It was just born that way. Because of this short little tail, he is called Bru ~~ trill that R, please ~~ meaning Short.
And you know what song comes to mind every time I see him?
You and me and a dog named Bru~~~
Saturday, September 20, 2003
Friday, September 12, 2003
Gun control in Taiwan is strict. Besides police and military, the only people who are allowed to own guns are the Aborigines. They are proud of this privilege, and continue their hunting traditions. Most of the hunting guns are a length of pipe attached to a hand-carved stock. They give the game a sporting chance, because you can never be sure which end of the gun the shot is coming out of. In our village, there are two one-eyed men. They both lost their right eyes while aiming home-made guns that exploded.
At least I think the guns are legal. At any rate, the government probably feels taking them away would cause more trouble than allowing the birds and flying squirrels to take a chance. (No self-respecting Tayal would shoot a boar. They stab those with knives.)
The underworld has a certain amount of firepower, although probably not as much as a typical American high school. Most of what they have is homemade. From time to time, there are swordfights when gangsters feel the need to have it out.
Having lived in Taiwan for so long, after I moved to Wulai I was shocked the first time I came across our county councilman, our mayor, and the Presbyterian minister cleaning their shotguns in preparation for an outing. You just don't see guns in Taiwan.
Usually. Yesterday on my way down to catch the bus to work. I came across a party of tribesmen sitting behind a wall by the road, preparing to go hunting. In addition to 3 or 4 shotguns, they had two newly purchased pellet guns, the kind that use pressurized gas to shoot pellets. They look just like assault rifles, only a bit smaller.
“Come on, you guys,” I yelled, “Iraq is over that way.”
“Speak Tayal, not Mandarin,” Bayes immediately admonished me. The men in the tribe are very persistent about my speaking Tayal. On the one hand, they are proud that this 'Brown-haired Long-nose' (Tayal for foreigner) knows their language. When they have guests from outside and see me walking by, they always throw me a couple easy ones they know I can handle: “Yugan, where are you going?” “I'm going to the city to teach.” On the other hand, these are the people on whom the burden of tribal defense traditionally fell, so they like to make sure who is on which side.
Yekliy pointed to the high-power pylon down the slope. “Bunqet hit the strut on the pylon with the pellet gun. Do you think you can do that?” I have always been a good shot, whether with bow and arrow, slingshot, or whatever. I can't throw to save my life. A ball I toss to first base is as apt to hit the pitcher as the third baseman. But give me something to shoot, and I'm okay.
”Well, let me try. Give me one of those.” So they pumped up one of the pellet guns and we all trooped across the street. I aimed carefully, and hit the strut on my first shot. Knowing the feel, I hit it twice more in quick succession, and casually handed the gun back. “Is that enough?” They were highly satisfied. Yekliy started shooting Vogi's papayas, and I went down to catch the bus.
But what was so funny about the whole thing was, when we stepped out into the road, there just happened to be three or four cars full of sightseers up from Taipei approaching. When they saw a cluster of men bristling with rifles suddenly appear from behind a house, they almost drove off the road! Not the sort of sight they expected to see!
At least I think the guns are legal. At any rate, the government probably feels taking them away would cause more trouble than allowing the birds and flying squirrels to take a chance. (No self-respecting Tayal would shoot a boar. They stab those with knives.)
The underworld has a certain amount of firepower, although probably not as much as a typical American high school. Most of what they have is homemade. From time to time, there are swordfights when gangsters feel the need to have it out.
Having lived in Taiwan for so long, after I moved to Wulai I was shocked the first time I came across our county councilman, our mayor, and the Presbyterian minister cleaning their shotguns in preparation for an outing. You just don't see guns in Taiwan.
Usually. Yesterday on my way down to catch the bus to work. I came across a party of tribesmen sitting behind a wall by the road, preparing to go hunting. In addition to 3 or 4 shotguns, they had two newly purchased pellet guns, the kind that use pressurized gas to shoot pellets. They look just like assault rifles, only a bit smaller.
“Come on, you guys,” I yelled, “Iraq is over that way.”
“Speak Tayal, not Mandarin,” Bayes immediately admonished me. The men in the tribe are very persistent about my speaking Tayal. On the one hand, they are proud that this 'Brown-haired Long-nose' (Tayal for foreigner) knows their language. When they have guests from outside and see me walking by, they always throw me a couple easy ones they know I can handle: “Yugan, where are you going?” “I'm going to the city to teach.” On the other hand, these are the people on whom the burden of tribal defense traditionally fell, so they like to make sure who is on which side.
Yekliy pointed to the high-power pylon down the slope. “Bunqet hit the strut on the pylon with the pellet gun. Do you think you can do that?” I have always been a good shot, whether with bow and arrow, slingshot, or whatever. I can't throw to save my life. A ball I toss to first base is as apt to hit the pitcher as the third baseman. But give me something to shoot, and I'm okay.
”Well, let me try. Give me one of those.” So they pumped up one of the pellet guns and we all trooped across the street. I aimed carefully, and hit the strut on my first shot. Knowing the feel, I hit it twice more in quick succession, and casually handed the gun back. “Is that enough?” They were highly satisfied. Yekliy started shooting Vogi's papayas, and I went down to catch the bus.
But what was so funny about the whole thing was, when we stepped out into the road, there just happened to be three or four cars full of sightseers up from Taipei approaching. When they saw a cluster of men bristling with rifles suddenly appear from behind a house, they almost drove off the road! Not the sort of sight they expected to see!
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
East and West
for Ellen
written in September, 2000
My father never wholeheartedly approved of my living abroad. He always wished I would return to the States, get a tie and a briefcase, and settle down into a 9 to 5 job. In the 15 years I lived in Taipei before he died, he visited Taiwan only once.
To commemorate the voyage, we had a tailor make him a suit, a luxury he could (or would) never afford in the US. He meticulously selected some nice dark blue material. We took it to the tailor. The tailor glanced at Dad a few times, thought a bit, looked at his watch, and said, “Come back next Tuesday.”
Dad burst when we left the shop. “He didn't even measure me!”
“Don't worry, Dad, he's got it down.”
“But will he remember? He didn't write anything down.”
“I don't think he knows how to write. Don't worry, Dad.”
But worry Dad did. He was on pins and needles, fretting about that beautiful piece of cloth, the length and the cut, the shoulders and the crotch.
By next Tuesday, Dad was like a kid on Christmas morning. I warned him that these old-style businesses often had old-style notions about time, and not to be too upset if the suit wasn't ready.
But it was ready. Dad dove into the tiny shop's minuscule fitting room and thrashed about for several minutes. He came out beaming, a face as radiant as Christ's emerging from the tomb. The suit fit like skin.
Never an ebullient man, he thanked the tailor effusively. I told the tailor, “He's been a nervous wreck for days. You didn't take any measurements, and that vexed him.”
The tailor pondered that. He addressed his pin cushion: “In the West, you rely on science and measurements. You have all sorts of instruments to gauge and to measure. I don't know how to use those things; my teacher was illiterate, too. Instead, in China we rely on experience and skill. That's the difference between the East and the West.”
for Ellen
written in September, 2000
My father never wholeheartedly approved of my living abroad. He always wished I would return to the States, get a tie and a briefcase, and settle down into a 9 to 5 job. In the 15 years I lived in Taipei before he died, he visited Taiwan only once.
To commemorate the voyage, we had a tailor make him a suit, a luxury he could (or would) never afford in the US. He meticulously selected some nice dark blue material. We took it to the tailor. The tailor glanced at Dad a few times, thought a bit, looked at his watch, and said, “Come back next Tuesday.”
Dad burst when we left the shop. “He didn't even measure me!”
“Don't worry, Dad, he's got it down.”
“But will he remember? He didn't write anything down.”
“I don't think he knows how to write. Don't worry, Dad.”
But worry Dad did. He was on pins and needles, fretting about that beautiful piece of cloth, the length and the cut, the shoulders and the crotch.
By next Tuesday, Dad was like a kid on Christmas morning. I warned him that these old-style businesses often had old-style notions about time, and not to be too upset if the suit wasn't ready.
But it was ready. Dad dove into the tiny shop's minuscule fitting room and thrashed about for several minutes. He came out beaming, a face as radiant as Christ's emerging from the tomb. The suit fit like skin.
Never an ebullient man, he thanked the tailor effusively. I told the tailor, “He's been a nervous wreck for days. You didn't take any measurements, and that vexed him.”
The tailor pondered that. He addressed his pin cushion: “In the West, you rely on science and measurements. You have all sorts of instruments to gauge and to measure. I don't know how to use those things; my teacher was illiterate, too. Instead, in China we rely on experience and skill. That's the difference between the East and the West.”
Saturday, August 30, 2003
I sat in a restaurant, staring out the window, waiting for my order. At the next table, two young men flipped restlessly through movie star magazines.
In days of old, the written word conveyed vital information. Now reading is often a mind-
numbing escape to free yourself from the burdens of thought and introspection.
Very little of the information in today's print has any bearing on one's own life or decisions. Okay, so you read the paper and see that an Venezuelan politician has been murdered. What behavior of yours could have the slightest influence on this case? A singing star has shown up with a new boyfriend. What relevance does this have to your life? Many of these people are not fit to enter my home; why should I read about their private lives?
We fill our minds with stultifying mounds of useless information. How irrelevant our thoughts become to our own lives! Then who are we living for?
Consider an illiterate tracker of centuries past. At every step he took, he would be vitally aware of his surroundings, and every inch of his surroundings might contain life-and-death information. He had to be intimately aware of his surroundings, and concerned himself very little with events far away.
Today, for your own sake, you had better disregard most of the information in your surroundings. Too often this is noisy pollution, karaoke, ads, or news about politicians (as a diehard democrat ~~ the principle, not the party, I firmly believe that the people should surrender as little power as possible to the government, and none to career politicians.)
Choose carefully, then, what you absorb into your psyche.
In days of old, the written word conveyed vital information. Now reading is often a mind-
numbing escape to free yourself from the burdens of thought and introspection.
Very little of the information in today's print has any bearing on one's own life or decisions. Okay, so you read the paper and see that an Venezuelan politician has been murdered. What behavior of yours could have the slightest influence on this case? A singing star has shown up with a new boyfriend. What relevance does this have to your life? Many of these people are not fit to enter my home; why should I read about their private lives?
We fill our minds with stultifying mounds of useless information. How irrelevant our thoughts become to our own lives! Then who are we living for?
Consider an illiterate tracker of centuries past. At every step he took, he would be vitally aware of his surroundings, and every inch of his surroundings might contain life-and-death information. He had to be intimately aware of his surroundings, and concerned himself very little with events far away.
Today, for your own sake, you had better disregard most of the information in your surroundings. Too often this is noisy pollution, karaoke, ads, or news about politicians (as a diehard democrat ~~ the principle, not the party, I firmly believe that the people should surrender as little power as possible to the government, and none to career politicians.)
Choose carefully, then, what you absorb into your psyche.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Friday, August 22, 2003
written in August, 1998
Another great day for swimming. When I want to soak, I go upstream from the waterfall. When I want diving and a vigorous swim, I go downstream to the small hydroelectric plant across from the village. This is Punko, the local swim hole. The stream is about 20 meters across here. The current in the center is swift and dangerous, taking several lives every year. On the village bank are hot spring ponds. The far bank is mountainside, with the hydroelectric plant and a huge conduit for excess water. The best rocks for diving into the stream are here, so there is usually a group of kids arrayed at various heights on the rocks, chatting, diving, or swinging on the rope. A trees grows out of the mountainside above these rocks with a conveniently located branch hanging out over a deep part of the stream. A rope hangs from this branch, and people have great fun swinging back and forth.
At irregular intervals, the power plant releases a great plume of water, at which the littler children, weaker swimmers, immediately leap into the water like so many startled frogs, and swim for the village bank with all their might. Aborigine kids are brave, but they're not dumb. The water may flow like that for an hour or more, trapping the kids on the rocks. Even at the best of times, swimming across the current is difficult.
When I dive, I fight to keep close to the mountainside and try to clamber out at another good diving platform not far from the rope. The bottom is studded with rocks that the current will smash you into, so care is required. Sometimes the current drags me away before I can get a grip on the rocks, so it's down I go to the next set of rocks.
Of course, I go swimming only during fair weather. In a typhoon, the water level goes up 3 or 4 meters as the stream fills its bed from side to side, roaring down in a deafening rush. Naturally, there was nothing like that today. The sky was blue, the clouds were white, the sun was strong, the water was cool, and I was submerged. I had dug out my old diving mask and taken it along for a clearer look at the bottom and the fish. The kids took turns with it. We chatted as we swam around. Somebody mentioned the rope. I said, "Whoever put that rope up must really be good at climbing trees."
"Oh, sure, Huiming put it up," said one of the boys, mentioning the junior high school student who happened to be using the mask just at that moment. "He's our best tree climber. That's because his father's a good hunter, and Huiming goes into the mountains with him all the time.”
"I guess so, because that's not an easy climb.”
"When he had tied the rope, he jumped off the branch into the stream.”
"He jumped?" I asked, looking at the branch, estimating the height to be about that of a four story building.
"Yeah, it was so much fun he went right back up and jumped again, too.” Just then Huiming came up for air (finally) and one of the other kids took the mask. I asked Huiming, "Was it really you who put up that rope?”
"Sure."
"They say you jumped down."
"That was fun!”
"I didn't think the water there was deep enough for a jump from so high up.”
"Oh, it isn't, so I waited until there was a typhoon, so there would be plenty of water for me to jump into.” With that, he headed off to the diving rocks. I was so astonished I didn't even ask him how he got across the stream in the first place.
I happened to run into Huiming on a bus a few days after that, so I checked the details of the story to make sure I hadn't gotten confused. Then I asked, “But how on earth did you ever make it across the stream during a typhoon?” He scowled, remembering carefully. Then his face brightened up and he said, “I swam hard.”
Now doesn't that answer everything?
Another great day for swimming. When I want to soak, I go upstream from the waterfall. When I want diving and a vigorous swim, I go downstream to the small hydroelectric plant across from the village. This is Punko, the local swim hole. The stream is about 20 meters across here. The current in the center is swift and dangerous, taking several lives every year. On the village bank are hot spring ponds. The far bank is mountainside, with the hydroelectric plant and a huge conduit for excess water. The best rocks for diving into the stream are here, so there is usually a group of kids arrayed at various heights on the rocks, chatting, diving, or swinging on the rope. A trees grows out of the mountainside above these rocks with a conveniently located branch hanging out over a deep part of the stream. A rope hangs from this branch, and people have great fun swinging back and forth.
At irregular intervals, the power plant releases a great plume of water, at which the littler children, weaker swimmers, immediately leap into the water like so many startled frogs, and swim for the village bank with all their might. Aborigine kids are brave, but they're not dumb. The water may flow like that for an hour or more, trapping the kids on the rocks. Even at the best of times, swimming across the current is difficult.
When I dive, I fight to keep close to the mountainside and try to clamber out at another good diving platform not far from the rope. The bottom is studded with rocks that the current will smash you into, so care is required. Sometimes the current drags me away before I can get a grip on the rocks, so it's down I go to the next set of rocks.
Of course, I go swimming only during fair weather. In a typhoon, the water level goes up 3 or 4 meters as the stream fills its bed from side to side, roaring down in a deafening rush. Naturally, there was nothing like that today. The sky was blue, the clouds were white, the sun was strong, the water was cool, and I was submerged. I had dug out my old diving mask and taken it along for a clearer look at the bottom and the fish. The kids took turns with it. We chatted as we swam around. Somebody mentioned the rope. I said, "Whoever put that rope up must really be good at climbing trees."
"Oh, sure, Huiming put it up," said one of the boys, mentioning the junior high school student who happened to be using the mask just at that moment. "He's our best tree climber. That's because his father's a good hunter, and Huiming goes into the mountains with him all the time.”
"I guess so, because that's not an easy climb.”
"When he had tied the rope, he jumped off the branch into the stream.”
"He jumped?" I asked, looking at the branch, estimating the height to be about that of a four story building.
"Yeah, it was so much fun he went right back up and jumped again, too.” Just then Huiming came up for air (finally) and one of the other kids took the mask. I asked Huiming, "Was it really you who put up that rope?”
"Sure."
"They say you jumped down."
"That was fun!”
"I didn't think the water there was deep enough for a jump from so high up.”
"Oh, it isn't, so I waited until there was a typhoon, so there would be plenty of water for me to jump into.” With that, he headed off to the diving rocks. I was so astonished I didn't even ask him how he got across the stream in the first place.
I happened to run into Huiming on a bus a few days after that, so I checked the details of the story to make sure I hadn't gotten confused. Then I asked, “But how on earth did you ever make it across the stream during a typhoon?” He scowled, remembering carefully. Then his face brightened up and he said, “I swam hard.”
Now doesn't that answer everything?
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Monday, August 18, 2003
from the summer of 1997
SAM
With difficulty, I am recovering from a harrowing experience.
Huicheng has a hut in the mountains north of Taipei. Sometimes Tantric Buddhists (that's the Tibetan school) borrow his place for ceremonies. A rinpoche (three syllables) is a holy man, a lama (one l; Tantric monk, usually Tibetan) who chooses to be reincarnated at a certain place and time, and remembers his past life. Any candidate to be a rinpoche is thoroughly tested about his past life, usually at age 3 or 4, and then rigorously educated if authentic.
A few weeks ago, Huicheng told us that a rinpoche, the secretary to the Teacher of the King of Bhutan, was holding ceremonies at the hut, so we rushed up. (The Teacher himself is indisposed to attend, being between lives at the moment.)
The rinpoche was there with three lamas. All four were Tibetans, two from Bhutan, one from Tibet, and one from Nepal. We had a pleasant chat, bouncing between English, Chinese, and Tibetan. Anything that works.
As they were leaving, the lama from Bhutan asked my name. “Tai Loc,” I said, “and yours?” His answer flattened me: “Sam.”
Oh my shoes and socks! Can you imagine that?! A Tibetan lama from Bhutan named Sam! I almost asked, “And the rinpoche's name is Michael?”
In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain describes how disappointed he was to discover that the elegant gentleman he engaged as a guide to Paris was named not Armand de la Chartreuse, but A. Billfinger. I commiserate.
I was only slightly mollified to find out that it's actually short for Samtsoung.
Sam indeed!
SAM
With difficulty, I am recovering from a harrowing experience.
Huicheng has a hut in the mountains north of Taipei. Sometimes Tantric Buddhists (that's the Tibetan school) borrow his place for ceremonies. A rinpoche (three syllables) is a holy man, a lama (one l; Tantric monk, usually Tibetan) who chooses to be reincarnated at a certain place and time, and remembers his past life. Any candidate to be a rinpoche is thoroughly tested about his past life, usually at age 3 or 4, and then rigorously educated if authentic.
A few weeks ago, Huicheng told us that a rinpoche, the secretary to the Teacher of the King of Bhutan, was holding ceremonies at the hut, so we rushed up. (The Teacher himself is indisposed to attend, being between lives at the moment.)
The rinpoche was there with three lamas. All four were Tibetans, two from Bhutan, one from Tibet, and one from Nepal. We had a pleasant chat, bouncing between English, Chinese, and Tibetan. Anything that works.
As they were leaving, the lama from Bhutan asked my name. “Tai Loc,” I said, “and yours?” His answer flattened me: “Sam.”
Oh my shoes and socks! Can you imagine that?! A Tibetan lama from Bhutan named Sam! I almost asked, “And the rinpoche's name is Michael?”
In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain describes how disappointed he was to discover that the elegant gentleman he engaged as a guide to Paris was named not Armand de la Chartreuse, but A. Billfinger. I commiserate.
I was only slightly mollified to find out that it's actually short for Samtsoung.
Sam indeed!
Sunday, August 17, 2003
I wrote this in August, 1999. Now I have a place to post it. Thank you, Blogger.com!
Laura
You know who I really feel sorry for? Laura. Which Laura? Laura of the stock car race. Don't you remember that old song from about 1960? Laura and her boyfriend were in love, so to get money for the wedding ring, her boyfriend rode in a stock car race, crash and burn, and as they dragged him out of the burning wreck they heard him say, Tell Laura I love her, tell Laura not to cry, my love for her, will never die. That Laura.
So there goes the guy, off to the Great Stock Car Race in the Sky, he's all set. But what about Laura? She has to keep living, day after day, month after month. It's been forty years now. She's about sixty. What kind of life has she had?
Of course there's the possibility that her attitude was, “Tough luck, loser,” and she was off on some other fellow's arm before the car had cooled off enough to tow away. But I don't think so. Not Laura. The idea just crossed my mind that she may have emigrated to Russia, there to love again. I recall that several years after the stock car race, we were inundated with Laura's Theme.
There's Laura, bravely not crying, with the love that never dies. Along come the 60s, let it all hang out. Did Laura cry then? Maybe she figured she had mourned long enough, and by the 70s decided it was her right as a free, liberated woman to look after Number One. I bet she's still in therapy.
Maybe Laura is a grandmother by now, with faded memories that come back during the long autumn evenings, a bit dimmer every year, but carrying the bittersweet images of what might have been.
Or maybe Laura stayed with him. Every evening, back to an empty home, night after night, until it seems the years will never pass. But they do pass, and although her heart aches, Laura becomes stronger and stronger. She doesn't know that, she just feels the pain, and doesn't know what a beautiful person she has become, an awe-inspiring beauty that only those close to her feel. Her cold house has become warm, with a love that will never die.
Laura
You know who I really feel sorry for? Laura. Which Laura? Laura of the stock car race. Don't you remember that old song from about 1960? Laura and her boyfriend were in love, so to get money for the wedding ring, her boyfriend rode in a stock car race, crash and burn, and as they dragged him out of the burning wreck they heard him say, Tell Laura I love her, tell Laura not to cry, my love for her, will never die. That Laura.
So there goes the guy, off to the Great Stock Car Race in the Sky, he's all set. But what about Laura? She has to keep living, day after day, month after month. It's been forty years now. She's about sixty. What kind of life has she had?
Of course there's the possibility that her attitude was, “Tough luck, loser,” and she was off on some other fellow's arm before the car had cooled off enough to tow away. But I don't think so. Not Laura. The idea just crossed my mind that she may have emigrated to Russia, there to love again. I recall that several years after the stock car race, we were inundated with Laura's Theme.
There's Laura, bravely not crying, with the love that never dies. Along come the 60s, let it all hang out. Did Laura cry then? Maybe she figured she had mourned long enough, and by the 70s decided it was her right as a free, liberated woman to look after Number One. I bet she's still in therapy.
Maybe Laura is a grandmother by now, with faded memories that come back during the long autumn evenings, a bit dimmer every year, but carrying the bittersweet images of what might have been.
Or maybe Laura stayed with him. Every evening, back to an empty home, night after night, until it seems the years will never pass. But they do pass, and although her heart aches, Laura becomes stronger and stronger. She doesn't know that, she just feels the pain, and doesn't know what a beautiful person she has become, an awe-inspiring beauty that only those close to her feel. Her cold house has become warm, with a love that will never die.
Saturday, August 16, 2003
Even if you ever heard of it, you probably don't remember Cowboy Alley. Cowboy was what people in Saigon called the desperate young robbers on motorcycles, and the little street where they congregated most frequently was called Cowboy Alley. The whole area was so dangerous that the US military authorities declared it all Off Limits. Perhaps my uncle set up his bakery operation there to take advantage of cheap rent. Be that as it may, I lived a few steps from the dreaded Cowboy Alley. Most Westerners who had to pass rode in taxis and jeeps, but never exposed themselves to the vulnerability of walking.
Somewhere in the area lived an anomalous American. Call him Paul. Paul and I were probably the only two Western males in Saigon who did not carry guns. In the super-macho world of Saigon at war, Paul stood out because, with his sandals, blue jeans, long hair, and beard, he looked like a hippie (regardless of the Viet Namese use of ‘hippie’ to denote a thug). I have no idea how he ended up in Saigon, or how he swung a visa; there was, after all, a war going on, so visas were extremely hard to come by.
Paul was about 24, some seven years older than me. Like me, he loved Saigon. Also like me, he dreamed of learning how to write Chinese. I picked up some Viet Namese while I was there, and deferred learning Chinese until I came to Taiwan, but Paul got a book and started learning right there. He showed me his notebook, in which he meticulously practiced writing the characters he was learning, along with their Cantonese pronunciation.
I have not idea how Paul supported himself, but one day, a rumor floated about that he was getting involved in a drug deal to improve his finances. I thought that was a rotten way to make money, but kept my opinions to myself.
I never saw Paul again. The word was that they found his body with 7x7=49 bullet holes, a very clear warning for all busybodies not to impinge on Chinese drug profits.
I can still see Paul, slim, with his light brown hair, short beard, and soft brown eyes, strolling calmly down Cowboy Alley. An idea haunts me -- I may be the only person on earth to remember him, certainly the only person to remember the Paul in Saigon learning how to write Chinese. But for the life of me, even with my good memory, I cannot remember his name. I said, “Call him Paul,” but I am pretty sure that was not his name.
Sometimes when I see a group of teenagers, I would like to tell them about Paul, to pass the memory on a few decades after my death, but I'm afraid what I left would be an impression of some nut rambling on about some incomprehensible tale. Dear reader, I am entrusting this story to you. Please make a little space in your memory for Paul, because I cannot bear for him to fade into oblivion forgotten by all humanity.
壬午八XV 0230
Somewhere in the area lived an anomalous American. Call him Paul. Paul and I were probably the only two Western males in Saigon who did not carry guns. In the super-macho world of Saigon at war, Paul stood out because, with his sandals, blue jeans, long hair, and beard, he looked like a hippie (regardless of the Viet Namese use of ‘hippie’ to denote a thug). I have no idea how he ended up in Saigon, or how he swung a visa; there was, after all, a war going on, so visas were extremely hard to come by.
Paul was about 24, some seven years older than me. Like me, he loved Saigon. Also like me, he dreamed of learning how to write Chinese. I picked up some Viet Namese while I was there, and deferred learning Chinese until I came to Taiwan, but Paul got a book and started learning right there. He showed me his notebook, in which he meticulously practiced writing the characters he was learning, along with their Cantonese pronunciation.
I have not idea how Paul supported himself, but one day, a rumor floated about that he was getting involved in a drug deal to improve his finances. I thought that was a rotten way to make money, but kept my opinions to myself.
I never saw Paul again. The word was that they found his body with 7x7=49 bullet holes, a very clear warning for all busybodies not to impinge on Chinese drug profits.
I can still see Paul, slim, with his light brown hair, short beard, and soft brown eyes, strolling calmly down Cowboy Alley. An idea haunts me -- I may be the only person on earth to remember him, certainly the only person to remember the Paul in Saigon learning how to write Chinese. But for the life of me, even with my good memory, I cannot remember his name. I said, “Call him Paul,” but I am pretty sure that was not his name.
Sometimes when I see a group of teenagers, I would like to tell them about Paul, to pass the memory on a few decades after my death, but I'm afraid what I left would be an impression of some nut rambling on about some incomprehensible tale. Dear reader, I am entrusting this story to you. Please make a little space in your memory for Paul, because I cannot bear for him to fade into oblivion forgotten by all humanity.
壬午八XV 0230
Monday, August 11, 2003
Tallis Scholars
written in August, 2000
For various reasons, I went for a good twenty years without music. I sang and chanted in Buddhist dharma meetings, music that is quintessentially Chinese: just keep the rhythm, and sing in any key you see fit. At times it can sound like monkeys and squirrels squabbling over a tangerine orchard, but when everything meshes, the music is sublime. Towards the end of the period I went to a few superb concerts by talented students, but at home no music was played. My ex-wife had an incredible voice, as resonant as a fine cello, a capello. She sang only Buddhist melodies.
When I got a computer that could handle CD-ROM, Fengchin gave me my first CD, Allegri's Miserere sung by the Tallis Scholars. I have never cared for choir music, but this opened my eyes. If the universe sings, it must sound very much like the Tallis Scholars singing Miserere.
When Allegri composed the Miserere, the Pope declared the Sistine Chapel the only earthly site worthy of such ethereal beauty; taking the score out of the Vatican would be punished by excommunication. At the age of 14, Mozart heard the piece, and wrote the score out from memory.
To understand how technically difficult the work is, you have to hear it sung by someone other than the Tallis Scholars. They perform the piece as easily as an angel floats among the stars; looks easy, but you try it. Other groups sound like the cow trying to jump over the moon.
Strange: sometimes when you don't think of something, it just never enters your mind. Several weeks ago, talking with Wen, I realized that I watched them build the National Concert Hall, ten minutes' walk from my old place, and when it was opened, I never set foot inside. Those were my busy years, anyway.
But now I live in the mountains, half a county away from the Concert Hall. It might be time to venture in.
In the city for class several days later, as I rushed to the subway entrance two words on a poster caught my eye:
Tallis Scholars. Coming to Taipei! My god. Two tickets, center of the third row.
I told Ms Yang not to give me any classes on the 31st.
"What's up?"
"I'm going to a concert.”
"You? A concert? Since when have you gotten cultured?”
On July 31, the appointed day, I headed down the mountain. I was picked up by Abus, being driven by a Han taxi driver.
"Abus! Where's your taxi? What are you doing sitting on the right side?”
"Don't you know that Chen borrowed it? He drove it head on into some other car, and totaled it. I don't have the money to pay for repairs, and he is dodging me. I am on my way to Newstore to talk to the garage.”
"Can you give me a ride to the subway?”
"Sure.”
On the way down, I benefited from their refined conversation. "Chen may think he can trick me, just because he's Han Chinese and I'm an aborigine. I'll show him what's what. If he doesn't pay up by the third, like he said he would, I'm going to get some brothers from the tribe and beat him into gravy. Then he'll know that human life is a sea of bitterness.”
"Yeah, but how'll he pay if he's in the hospital?”
"That's his problem.”
"It'd be better to take his taxi. Then if he doesn't pay by the third, you can still drive that to make some money.”
"Three kids, wife, mother, relatives. I'd better do something!” (note: on the third, I saw Abus riding happily along in his newly fixed taxi. I guess Chen did not need to be reminded about the bitterness of human life.)
I met Zoephie, the art historian, for an excellent dinner at Huiliu, one of Taipei's better vegetarian restaurants. We strolled through the grounds of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial to the Concert Hall, filed in, and took our seats.
Soon the lights dimmed and the stage started filling up with a group dressed in formal black uniforms. Funny, the Tallis Scholars are supposed to be from England, and these people coming in didn't look very English. The program informed us that we would be warmed up by the National Experimental Chorus singing Taiwanese folk songs. Folk songs dressed up for a full chorus is something I dislike: putting makeup, heels, and an evening gown on a country lass. However, I have never liked choral music anyway, and in Taiwan today, this sort of thing is very, very politically correct, so we must forbear. The Chorus really threw themselves into their singing, and they sang very well.
They took their bow and left the stage. The long-awaited Tallis Scholars came in, seven, eight, nine, ten, only ten of them, not including the conductor, Mr Peter Phillips. Unlike the Experimental Chorus, the Scholars were not uniformed. The men wore evening dress, and the five women wore black clothes of their own choosing. They are so good they don't need uniforms, and they are so good they hold their scores, instead of relying on memory. When you are as good as the Tallis Scholars, you do not have to show your competence through side effects.
In about three seconds after they started, the Experimental Chorus was long out of mind, and we all drifted into the Renaissance harmonies of Palestrina's Surge illuminare. Seeing the singers on stage, I realized the obvious. I had spent hours and hours listening to their music on CDs. The sound is so rich and so complete that until you actually see them, you would never think that this is the singing of less than a dozen people. But then it seems obvious.
Imagine glorious palaces built of song. Solid, dependable foundations built on bedrock, to last forever. Intricate design intrigues but never confuses. Lofty spires reach to heaven. This is the singing of the Tallis Scholars.
We had a complaint about the program, which did not give us our performers' names (maybe they travel with backup Scholars, and do not necessarily perform with precisely the same line-up at each concert.) But it seems we came to know them very quickly, from the bass over on the right, total concentration visible on his face, to the lithe lady (lots of blondes on stage) with the astonishing voice probing the stratosphere. One movement began with a male Gloria in excelsis deo that was sung so simply and so eloquently that the one line could stand by itself.
A singer with her hair covering her forehead sang with the imperturbable calm of a pond of deep water. Her right wrist was decorated with the Buddhist rosary that is so common in Taiwan. During intermission, I heard several people commenting affectionately on that rosary.
We loved the Scholars, and tried our best to let them know it. The audience insisted on applauding between movements, which we all know is not done. But how often do we get to applaud performances of the caliber of the Tallis Scholars? I clapped as loud and as long as anybody else. Let the conductor wait. Frankly, I did not observe that the singers were offended. We noted them smiling and laughing among themselves between numbers.
For me, the high point of the evening was Miserere, which, dream come true, I got to hear sung live by the Tallis Scholars. Let Zoephie's comment suffice: “That was so good I have no words to describe it.”
The final piece on the program was Byrd's Tribue Domine, a work of great elegance. When they finished, the house erupted. We clapped until our palms were sore, trying to express our gratitude for the beauty the Scholars had brought into our lives this evening. Chinese people are not particularly expressive. Public displays of emotion are not frowned upon, because frowning would be displaying emotion. (I went to see George of the Jungle because the preview was so hysterically funny that the crowd gathered around the outdoor screen was actually smiling.)
Finally, the Scholars came back on stage and sang an encore, took several more bows, and were called back for a second encore. Just as they took their places, somebody from the peanut gallery shouted something (could have been "encore") that startled smiles from the singers. Then it was their turn: the audience chuckled when we realized they were singing a Chinese folk song, in Mandarin! Well done, very well done, especially when you consider it was probably sight-reading.
But it was getting late, and the singers were probably getting tired, if not from singing then from bowing so many times, so with considerable reluctance we let them go. The audience was uplifted. Smiles were on all faces.
* * * * *
Subway to the end of the line, pick up the bus, to the second stop from the end, Wulai Bridge. I crossed the deserted bridge in silence and headed up the mountain, my ears ringing. Halfway up, the outer silence was broken. A motorcycle pulled up out of the darkness of the mountain road.
"Silan," I climbed onto the pillion, "It's almost midnight. What are you doing out so late?”
"I'm going off to Agiq to hunt flying squirrels.”
"Aren't you heading in the wrong direction? Where's your gun?”
"I came back to borrow Bayes's crossbow. Are you coming back from teaching?”
"No, I've been to a concert.”
written in August, 2000
For various reasons, I went for a good twenty years without music. I sang and chanted in Buddhist dharma meetings, music that is quintessentially Chinese: just keep the rhythm, and sing in any key you see fit. At times it can sound like monkeys and squirrels squabbling over a tangerine orchard, but when everything meshes, the music is sublime. Towards the end of the period I went to a few superb concerts by talented students, but at home no music was played. My ex-wife had an incredible voice, as resonant as a fine cello, a capello. She sang only Buddhist melodies.
When I got a computer that could handle CD-ROM, Fengchin gave me my first CD, Allegri's Miserere sung by the Tallis Scholars. I have never cared for choir music, but this opened my eyes. If the universe sings, it must sound very much like the Tallis Scholars singing Miserere.
When Allegri composed the Miserere, the Pope declared the Sistine Chapel the only earthly site worthy of such ethereal beauty; taking the score out of the Vatican would be punished by excommunication. At the age of 14, Mozart heard the piece, and wrote the score out from memory.
To understand how technically difficult the work is, you have to hear it sung by someone other than the Tallis Scholars. They perform the piece as easily as an angel floats among the stars; looks easy, but you try it. Other groups sound like the cow trying to jump over the moon.
Strange: sometimes when you don't think of something, it just never enters your mind. Several weeks ago, talking with Wen, I realized that I watched them build the National Concert Hall, ten minutes' walk from my old place, and when it was opened, I never set foot inside. Those were my busy years, anyway.
But now I live in the mountains, half a county away from the Concert Hall. It might be time to venture in.
In the city for class several days later, as I rushed to the subway entrance two words on a poster caught my eye:
Tallis Scholars. Coming to Taipei! My god. Two tickets, center of the third row.
I told Ms Yang not to give me any classes on the 31st.
"What's up?"
"I'm going to a concert.”
"You? A concert? Since when have you gotten cultured?”
On July 31, the appointed day, I headed down the mountain. I was picked up by Abus, being driven by a Han taxi driver.
"Abus! Where's your taxi? What are you doing sitting on the right side?”
"Don't you know that Chen borrowed it? He drove it head on into some other car, and totaled it. I don't have the money to pay for repairs, and he is dodging me. I am on my way to Newstore to talk to the garage.”
"Can you give me a ride to the subway?”
"Sure.”
On the way down, I benefited from their refined conversation. "Chen may think he can trick me, just because he's Han Chinese and I'm an aborigine. I'll show him what's what. If he doesn't pay up by the third, like he said he would, I'm going to get some brothers from the tribe and beat him into gravy. Then he'll know that human life is a sea of bitterness.”
"Yeah, but how'll he pay if he's in the hospital?”
"That's his problem.”
"It'd be better to take his taxi. Then if he doesn't pay by the third, you can still drive that to make some money.”
"Three kids, wife, mother, relatives. I'd better do something!” (note: on the third, I saw Abus riding happily along in his newly fixed taxi. I guess Chen did not need to be reminded about the bitterness of human life.)
I met Zoephie, the art historian, for an excellent dinner at Huiliu, one of Taipei's better vegetarian restaurants. We strolled through the grounds of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial to the Concert Hall, filed in, and took our seats.
Soon the lights dimmed and the stage started filling up with a group dressed in formal black uniforms. Funny, the Tallis Scholars are supposed to be from England, and these people coming in didn't look very English. The program informed us that we would be warmed up by the National Experimental Chorus singing Taiwanese folk songs. Folk songs dressed up for a full chorus is something I dislike: putting makeup, heels, and an evening gown on a country lass. However, I have never liked choral music anyway, and in Taiwan today, this sort of thing is very, very politically correct, so we must forbear. The Chorus really threw themselves into their singing, and they sang very well.
They took their bow and left the stage. The long-awaited Tallis Scholars came in, seven, eight, nine, ten, only ten of them, not including the conductor, Mr Peter Phillips. Unlike the Experimental Chorus, the Scholars were not uniformed. The men wore evening dress, and the five women wore black clothes of their own choosing. They are so good they don't need uniforms, and they are so good they hold their scores, instead of relying on memory. When you are as good as the Tallis Scholars, you do not have to show your competence through side effects.
In about three seconds after they started, the Experimental Chorus was long out of mind, and we all drifted into the Renaissance harmonies of Palestrina's Surge illuminare. Seeing the singers on stage, I realized the obvious. I had spent hours and hours listening to their music on CDs. The sound is so rich and so complete that until you actually see them, you would never think that this is the singing of less than a dozen people. But then it seems obvious.
Imagine glorious palaces built of song. Solid, dependable foundations built on bedrock, to last forever. Intricate design intrigues but never confuses. Lofty spires reach to heaven. This is the singing of the Tallis Scholars.
We had a complaint about the program, which did not give us our performers' names (maybe they travel with backup Scholars, and do not necessarily perform with precisely the same line-up at each concert.) But it seems we came to know them very quickly, from the bass over on the right, total concentration visible on his face, to the lithe lady (lots of blondes on stage) with the astonishing voice probing the stratosphere. One movement began with a male Gloria in excelsis deo that was sung so simply and so eloquently that the one line could stand by itself.
A singer with her hair covering her forehead sang with the imperturbable calm of a pond of deep water. Her right wrist was decorated with the Buddhist rosary that is so common in Taiwan. During intermission, I heard several people commenting affectionately on that rosary.
We loved the Scholars, and tried our best to let them know it. The audience insisted on applauding between movements, which we all know is not done. But how often do we get to applaud performances of the caliber of the Tallis Scholars? I clapped as loud and as long as anybody else. Let the conductor wait. Frankly, I did not observe that the singers were offended. We noted them smiling and laughing among themselves between numbers.
For me, the high point of the evening was Miserere, which, dream come true, I got to hear sung live by the Tallis Scholars. Let Zoephie's comment suffice: “That was so good I have no words to describe it.”
The final piece on the program was Byrd's Tribue Domine, a work of great elegance. When they finished, the house erupted. We clapped until our palms were sore, trying to express our gratitude for the beauty the Scholars had brought into our lives this evening. Chinese people are not particularly expressive. Public displays of emotion are not frowned upon, because frowning would be displaying emotion. (I went to see George of the Jungle because the preview was so hysterically funny that the crowd gathered around the outdoor screen was actually smiling.)
Finally, the Scholars came back on stage and sang an encore, took several more bows, and were called back for a second encore. Just as they took their places, somebody from the peanut gallery shouted something (could have been "encore") that startled smiles from the singers. Then it was their turn: the audience chuckled when we realized they were singing a Chinese folk song, in Mandarin! Well done, very well done, especially when you consider it was probably sight-reading.
But it was getting late, and the singers were probably getting tired, if not from singing then from bowing so many times, so with considerable reluctance we let them go. The audience was uplifted. Smiles were on all faces.
* * * * *
Subway to the end of the line, pick up the bus, to the second stop from the end, Wulai Bridge. I crossed the deserted bridge in silence and headed up the mountain, my ears ringing. Halfway up, the outer silence was broken. A motorcycle pulled up out of the darkness of the mountain road.
"Silan," I climbed onto the pillion, "It's almost midnight. What are you doing out so late?”
"I'm going off to Agiq to hunt flying squirrels.”
"Aren't you heading in the wrong direction? Where's your gun?”
"I came back to borrow Bayes's crossbow. Are you coming back from teaching?”
"No, I've been to a concert.”
Thursday, August 07, 2003
I wrote this about ten years ago.
SURRENDER
So what if the US Post Office wants to put out a stamp commemorating the first atom bomb? Let them. They put out an Elvis stamp, didn't they? And a Nixon stamp. Who writes letters in this day and age, anyway? As an American, I have on several occasions been thanked for the atom bomb by old Chinese soldiers (none of whom thanked me for either Elvis or Nixon — especially not for Nixon), as if I personally flew the Enola Gay. Not me. Sure, my parents both served in the Army, that's how they met, serving the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon during World War II. But that was long before I was born. Me, I live in Taiwan and teach English for a living, so help me god.
That's how I met Dr Huang.
Dr Huang received his medical training during the Japanese Occupation of Taiwan, back when National Taiwan University was Taihokku Imperial University. Taihokku is the Japanese pronunciation of Taipei, and Imperial meant Hirohito. Huang was one of the few Chinese to gain entrance to the high schools the Japanese instituted here for Japanese dependents, and one of an infinitesimally smaller number of locals to win admission to medical school. About 2% of the total student body at TIU were Chinese. Huang was being schooled while Japanese armies were overrunning Asia, expelling the French colonialists, the Dutch colonialists, the English colonialists. All well and good by him, but they were also overrunning mainland China. Huang and the handful of other indigenous students were keenly aware of the gap that separated insular Japanese from insular Chinese, even those hiding under Japanese names.
Alumni, faculty, and other interested persons occasionally returned from the front and gave impromptu situation reports. “We have been instituting rigorous hygiene and disease control in Manchuria, northeastern China. What we do is this.
“When we track an outbreak of disease to a certain village, the Imperial Army moves in the middle of the night. The village is surrounded. As the unsuspecting villagers sleep, sappers enter the contaminated village, poison the wells, and withdraw. On rising at dawn, the villagers go to the well for water. The raising of the first bucket of water is the signal for our machine guns to open fire, killing all the villagers, who are now rushing back and forth. When all movement has stopped, the troops go from house to house exterminating any survivors. Then the village is set on fire. When everything has burned to the ground, the army returns to base, to await further opportunities to promote the peace and welfare of all Asia.” The speaker beamed proudly. The students clapped their approval, smiling and laughing in pride at the might and efficiency of the Land of the Rising Sun.
Huang and the other Taiwanese tried to look pleased through their anguish. He had been trained throughout his schooling that the Japanese were the most superior race. Was this where their superiority led?
An upperclassman returned and spoke in glowing terms about the wonderful opportunities the Chinese Theater gave for improving your surgical technique. If there is some sort of surgery you aren't confident about, why, you take some soldiers and grab a Chinaman off the street — any one will do, there are millions of them — tie him to the operating table, and practice to your heart's content. You don't even have to bother with anesthesia. Just have the soldiers dump the body any old place when you're finished.
More and more graduates were going to the China Theater. Then they were being yanked out of the classroom before they even graduated. And they weren't returning.
Because of his origins, Huang was not awarded the glorious chance to serve on the China Front. He stayed in Taipei, but his career almost ended when he strayed too close to the airport when the US Air Force visited.
The Japanese were working furiously to build an atom bomb to drop on the United States, but they lost the race: in the words of an old soldier from the mainland, “Our friends the Americans dropped the atom bomb on them, and that solved that.”
(Actually, it was not so simple. The second bomb was dropped three days after
the first, because the Japanese were not yet inclined to stop fighting. Then there was another whole week before Hirohito called off the game. I know several Taiwanese who were in Japan in 1945. They all say that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki blunted the Japanese fighting spirit considerably, but even then, many put aside their preparations to fight to the death only at Hirohito's broadcast. In other words, think how many American and Japanese lives were saved by preventing a land war in Japan. And remember that in Asia, nobody outside of Japan thinks the bombs were unnecessary or excessive.)
Huang continued his practice. Before the end, when the war effort was clearly doomed, the Japanese here printed and distributed enormous amounts of paper money in an attempt to wreck the economy of the island they had occupied and exploited for fifty years. Huang managed to survive superinflation, but it was tough. He would buy twelve ampoules of medicine for, say, one hundred yen. In a few days, by the time he had used them up, one hundred yen would not buy even one ampoule.
He was almost killed during the February 28th Incident, a clash between local and mainland Chinese. He was living in Hsichih, on the road from Keelung port to Taipei. Locals had blockaded the road with tables, chairs, and whatever came to hand. An army column from Keelung stopped before the barricade, and their officer started to negotiate with the villagers. Local thugs demanded he turn his gun over to them, but he refused, as it was government property. They beat him savagely, but his sense of duty did not permit him to turn his gun over to or against civilians. As the young officer lay in a pool of blood, Dr Huang wanted to save the man. The thugs told him that if he gave him first aid, they would kill him (Dr Huang), so he had to keep away and watch the young man die. Decades later, he still mourned that fine young man.
The 50s and 60s were hard years. To keep himself busy and to earn more money, the doctor opened an automotive parts factory, selling mainly to Japanese manufacturers. To spend money and to entertain himself, the doctor took up English lessons and imported cars.
I taught Doctor Huang for a couple of years when he was in his late sixties, banging away on all carburetors. Once we were talking about the War. I mentioned that my mother had drafted maps for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (didn't everybody's mother have eyes-only security clearance in World War II?). I told him that her office had actually drafted the Japanese surrender documents, once Hirohito and the warlords finally got the hint. As soon as the ink was dry, the documents, in both English and Japanese, were put in a briefcase and handcuffed to an officer who was flown across the Pacific with them. But before he even got to the airport, the draftsmen were back at work on a duplicate set, just in case the first set got shot down. They didn't, and were signed in Tokyo Bay.
In recognition for her good work, my mother was given a set of photostats of the originals, which she had given to me. Would the doctor like to see them?
He would.
Reverently, he unrolled the English and Japanese documents. He showed me the correct way to read official Japanese proclamations: held with both hands, slightly above eye level, to insure a respectful attitude that would not deposit any spit on the Emperor's sacred word.
The doctor deferentially chanted out the Japanese text. He sat quietly for some minutes, contemplating.
Several months later, the Japanese car manufacturers sent four high placed managers to Huang's plant. He asked me if I would like to have dinner with them, followed by tea at my place. I accepted, and we had a very pleasant evening. They were in their forties and fifties, pleasing, proper, and well-mannered as only Japanese can be.
During the fourth pot of tea, Dr Huang announced, “My teacher has some very interesting Japanese language documents of a certain historical value. Would you gentlemen be interested in examining them?”
“Of course, it would be a great honor.” They bowed slightly in their seats.
“You know which documents I mean?” Dr Huang asked me in Chinese. “Of course,” I responded, and brought out my mother's photostats. I handed them to the senior manager, rolled up. He unrolled the first sheet. His eyes widened when he saw the Imperial Seal of the Heavenly Emperor. He automatically lifted the page above eye level and read:
HIROHITO, By the Grace of Heaven, Emperor of Japan, seated on the
Throne occupied by the same Dynasty changeless through ages
eternal...
He worked his way through all of them. When he finished, a long silence followed.
“Most interesting,” said the second oldest manager.
“Of definite historical interest,” said the third, carefully.
“How did these interesting documents enter the teacher's possession?” asked the youngest.
“His mother was working in the Pentagon when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were reduced to flat earth.” The doctor explained the pedigree of my documents. His face was impassive, but his eyes were shining merrily.
Funny, our guests seemed a bit subdued after that.
At our next class, Dr Huang came in, sat down, looked at me, and burst out laughing. He laughed until he cried. He begged me, pleaded with me, “Please, please, can you make me a set of photocopies of the surrender documents?”
“Sure, no trouble, how many sets do you want?”
“One will do.”
After that, Dr Huang seemed to become especially solicitous about the entertainment of Japanese businessmen sent out from the home office. No representative was too lowly to be taken to dinner with the Doctor, followed by a visit to the Doctor's house. Then... “A set of copies of some most interesting Japanese documents of a certain historical value has come into my possession. Would my honored guest be interested in examining them?”
Who said the war ended in 1945?
SURRENDER
So what if the US Post Office wants to put out a stamp commemorating the first atom bomb? Let them. They put out an Elvis stamp, didn't they? And a Nixon stamp. Who writes letters in this day and age, anyway? As an American, I have on several occasions been thanked for the atom bomb by old Chinese soldiers (none of whom thanked me for either Elvis or Nixon — especially not for Nixon), as if I personally flew the Enola Gay. Not me. Sure, my parents both served in the Army, that's how they met, serving the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon during World War II. But that was long before I was born. Me, I live in Taiwan and teach English for a living, so help me god.
That's how I met Dr Huang.
Dr Huang received his medical training during the Japanese Occupation of Taiwan, back when National Taiwan University was Taihokku Imperial University. Taihokku is the Japanese pronunciation of Taipei, and Imperial meant Hirohito. Huang was one of the few Chinese to gain entrance to the high schools the Japanese instituted here for Japanese dependents, and one of an infinitesimally smaller number of locals to win admission to medical school. About 2% of the total student body at TIU were Chinese. Huang was being schooled while Japanese armies were overrunning Asia, expelling the French colonialists, the Dutch colonialists, the English colonialists. All well and good by him, but they were also overrunning mainland China. Huang and the handful of other indigenous students were keenly aware of the gap that separated insular Japanese from insular Chinese, even those hiding under Japanese names.
Alumni, faculty, and other interested persons occasionally returned from the front and gave impromptu situation reports. “We have been instituting rigorous hygiene and disease control in Manchuria, northeastern China. What we do is this.
“When we track an outbreak of disease to a certain village, the Imperial Army moves in the middle of the night. The village is surrounded. As the unsuspecting villagers sleep, sappers enter the contaminated village, poison the wells, and withdraw. On rising at dawn, the villagers go to the well for water. The raising of the first bucket of water is the signal for our machine guns to open fire, killing all the villagers, who are now rushing back and forth. When all movement has stopped, the troops go from house to house exterminating any survivors. Then the village is set on fire. When everything has burned to the ground, the army returns to base, to await further opportunities to promote the peace and welfare of all Asia.” The speaker beamed proudly. The students clapped their approval, smiling and laughing in pride at the might and efficiency of the Land of the Rising Sun.
Huang and the other Taiwanese tried to look pleased through their anguish. He had been trained throughout his schooling that the Japanese were the most superior race. Was this where their superiority led?
An upperclassman returned and spoke in glowing terms about the wonderful opportunities the Chinese Theater gave for improving your surgical technique. If there is some sort of surgery you aren't confident about, why, you take some soldiers and grab a Chinaman off the street — any one will do, there are millions of them — tie him to the operating table, and practice to your heart's content. You don't even have to bother with anesthesia. Just have the soldiers dump the body any old place when you're finished.
More and more graduates were going to the China Theater. Then they were being yanked out of the classroom before they even graduated. And they weren't returning.
Because of his origins, Huang was not awarded the glorious chance to serve on the China Front. He stayed in Taipei, but his career almost ended when he strayed too close to the airport when the US Air Force visited.
The Japanese were working furiously to build an atom bomb to drop on the United States, but they lost the race: in the words of an old soldier from the mainland, “Our friends the Americans dropped the atom bomb on them, and that solved that.”
(Actually, it was not so simple. The second bomb was dropped three days after
the first, because the Japanese were not yet inclined to stop fighting. Then there was another whole week before Hirohito called off the game. I know several Taiwanese who were in Japan in 1945. They all say that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki blunted the Japanese fighting spirit considerably, but even then, many put aside their preparations to fight to the death only at Hirohito's broadcast. In other words, think how many American and Japanese lives were saved by preventing a land war in Japan. And remember that in Asia, nobody outside of Japan thinks the bombs were unnecessary or excessive.)
Huang continued his practice. Before the end, when the war effort was clearly doomed, the Japanese here printed and distributed enormous amounts of paper money in an attempt to wreck the economy of the island they had occupied and exploited for fifty years. Huang managed to survive superinflation, but it was tough. He would buy twelve ampoules of medicine for, say, one hundred yen. In a few days, by the time he had used them up, one hundred yen would not buy even one ampoule.
He was almost killed during the February 28th Incident, a clash between local and mainland Chinese. He was living in Hsichih, on the road from Keelung port to Taipei. Locals had blockaded the road with tables, chairs, and whatever came to hand. An army column from Keelung stopped before the barricade, and their officer started to negotiate with the villagers. Local thugs demanded he turn his gun over to them, but he refused, as it was government property. They beat him savagely, but his sense of duty did not permit him to turn his gun over to or against civilians. As the young officer lay in a pool of blood, Dr Huang wanted to save the man. The thugs told him that if he gave him first aid, they would kill him (Dr Huang), so he had to keep away and watch the young man die. Decades later, he still mourned that fine young man.
The 50s and 60s were hard years. To keep himself busy and to earn more money, the doctor opened an automotive parts factory, selling mainly to Japanese manufacturers. To spend money and to entertain himself, the doctor took up English lessons and imported cars.
I taught Doctor Huang for a couple of years when he was in his late sixties, banging away on all carburetors. Once we were talking about the War. I mentioned that my mother had drafted maps for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (didn't everybody's mother have eyes-only security clearance in World War II?). I told him that her office had actually drafted the Japanese surrender documents, once Hirohito and the warlords finally got the hint. As soon as the ink was dry, the documents, in both English and Japanese, were put in a briefcase and handcuffed to an officer who was flown across the Pacific with them. But before he even got to the airport, the draftsmen were back at work on a duplicate set, just in case the first set got shot down. They didn't, and were signed in Tokyo Bay.
In recognition for her good work, my mother was given a set of photostats of the originals, which she had given to me. Would the doctor like to see them?
He would.
Reverently, he unrolled the English and Japanese documents. He showed me the correct way to read official Japanese proclamations: held with both hands, slightly above eye level, to insure a respectful attitude that would not deposit any spit on the Emperor's sacred word.
The doctor deferentially chanted out the Japanese text. He sat quietly for some minutes, contemplating.
Several months later, the Japanese car manufacturers sent four high placed managers to Huang's plant. He asked me if I would like to have dinner with them, followed by tea at my place. I accepted, and we had a very pleasant evening. They were in their forties and fifties, pleasing, proper, and well-mannered as only Japanese can be.
During the fourth pot of tea, Dr Huang announced, “My teacher has some very interesting Japanese language documents of a certain historical value. Would you gentlemen be interested in examining them?”
“Of course, it would be a great honor.” They bowed slightly in their seats.
“You know which documents I mean?” Dr Huang asked me in Chinese. “Of course,” I responded, and brought out my mother's photostats. I handed them to the senior manager, rolled up. He unrolled the first sheet. His eyes widened when he saw the Imperial Seal of the Heavenly Emperor. He automatically lifted the page above eye level and read:
HIROHITO, By the Grace of Heaven, Emperor of Japan, seated on the
Throne occupied by the same Dynasty changeless through ages
eternal...
He worked his way through all of them. When he finished, a long silence followed.
“Most interesting,” said the second oldest manager.
“Of definite historical interest,” said the third, carefully.
“How did these interesting documents enter the teacher's possession?” asked the youngest.
“His mother was working in the Pentagon when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were reduced to flat earth.” The doctor explained the pedigree of my documents. His face was impassive, but his eyes were shining merrily.
Funny, our guests seemed a bit subdued after that.
At our next class, Dr Huang came in, sat down, looked at me, and burst out laughing. He laughed until he cried. He begged me, pleaded with me, “Please, please, can you make me a set of photocopies of the surrender documents?”
“Sure, no trouble, how many sets do you want?”
“One will do.”
After that, Dr Huang seemed to become especially solicitous about the entertainment of Japanese businessmen sent out from the home office. No representative was too lowly to be taken to dinner with the Doctor, followed by a visit to the Doctor's house. Then... “A set of copies of some most interesting Japanese documents of a certain historical value has come into my possession. Would my honored guest be interested in examining them?”
Who said the war ended in 1945?
Friday, August 01, 2003
Here is a story Rasheed told me many years ago. He is a Maldivian. The Maldive Islands are in the Indian Ocean, on the other side of India from Sri Lanka.
The Soviets were trying to swing a deal with the Maldives to set up a naval base there for more fun in the Indian Ocean. Soviet Navy ships would make port calls, but he said the best were the submarines. It seems the armed forces were uniformed according to the weather in Moscow, especially the submariners who may not have seen the surface for weeks. So in January, Rasheed said, you would see the Soviet sailors on shore leave, out among the populace to drum up some friendship for the USSR, dressed in their black Moscow-winter-greatcoats, heavy wool to the ankles, staggering and collapsing under the Maldives' tropical sun; they dropped like flies.
No wonder they lost the cold war.
well, don't you see it? They lost the cold war because it was so hot.
The Soviets were trying to swing a deal with the Maldives to set up a naval base there for more fun in the Indian Ocean. Soviet Navy ships would make port calls, but he said the best were the submarines. It seems the armed forces were uniformed according to the weather in Moscow, especially the submariners who may not have seen the surface for weeks. So in January, Rasheed said, you would see the Soviet sailors on shore leave, out among the populace to drum up some friendship for the USSR, dressed in their black Moscow-winter-greatcoats, heavy wool to the ankles, staggering and collapsing under the Maldives' tropical sun; they dropped like flies.
No wonder they lost the cold war.
well, don't you see it? They lost the cold war because it was so hot.
Sunday, July 06, 2003
written in early 2000
THE WAKE
It's strange. Accidental death in Wulai never comes singly. The people of the tribe die in sets, usually of three.
Half a month go, Wei was down in the hot springs drinking, which was stupid. Then he decided to jump into the stream to swim, which was even stupider. They found his body a hundred paces downstream.
Eban's brother-in-law was the next. His liver suddenly gave out on him.
Then on Sunday, Dhuy's wife was riding her motorcycle back from the waterfall, holding an umbrella in the twilight rain. Maybe some careless driver sideswiped her without ever knowing about it. Maybe she dodged something and lost her balance. Nobody knows what happened, but she was found where she had crashed her motorcycle, in the bushes outside Wei's place. She was 33, and left three kids.
The Tayal word for ‘wake’ is srahaw, meaning comfort. The tribe place great importance on wakes. We gather together to comfort the dead on their voyage away from us, across the rainbow where they will live with the ancestors and other spirits; we gather together to say goodbye to them, and remember them; we gather together to comfort each other.
When I finished teaching on Tuesday night, I caught the last bus home from Taipei, as usual. On the way home, I was debating whether or not to go to the wake. I had been talking with Ping and lost track of the time, so I didn't have time for dinner, and I was pretty hungry. I asked Hatoq, the bus driver, when the funeral would be.
“I don't know either, but I think you ought to go tonight. What if the funeral is tomorrow?”
“Yeah, that wouldn't do. But she's a Paiwan. Have her relatives come yet?”
“True. But I still think it would be better to go tonight.”
I got off the bus at the bridge and started walking home. About half way up the mountain, I heard a car coming. Yagi, another bus driver, had parked his bus and was coming home. He honked. I got in his car.
“Are you going to the wake?”
“I'm not sure. I have to start my bus at 7 tomorrow morning, and it's almost midnight now.”
“Let's go together. That way we won't have to stay the whole night. I'm beat.”
We drove up into the Tribe. There were about thirty people there under the tree outside Dhuy's house, men on one side, women on the other. I hadn't prepared a white envelope, and they didn't have a spare, so I wrapped my offering in a piece of white tissue paper and wrote my Tayal name on it: Yugan Dali. Yagi and I went in to pay our respects to the coffin. I recited a mantra, Yagi prayed in a loud voice. Dhuy and Takyu, his father, thanked us for coming, and invited us to sit outside. Dhuy slouched wordlessly as Payes and I tried to cheer him up.
Dhuy wandered off. My Tayal is not very good yet, so I use mostly Mandarin, but the aborigines are happy I'm trying to learn their language, and they're very patient with me.
After about thirty minutes, someone came out and said, “We'll be serving noodles in a few minutes, since everyone must be hungry.” I thought this would be a good time for me to slip off, when a lady came out of the kitchen with a special bowl of noodles for me: “This one's for Yugan, it's vegetarian.”
Dhuy's mother made sure. “You didn't put any meat in it?”
Thanking them silently for their thoughtfulness, I started working on the noodles. When Yagi had finished his second bowl, he called me. “Yugan! It's time for us to leave.”
I went to Dhuy and told him we were leaving. Then I walked over to where Takyu was sitting with a circle of friends. His eyes were still red. “Mama (Uncle),” I said, “Yagi and I have to leave now.”
He stood up and clasped my hand. Turning to the circle, he said, “One time at the Chief's house, Qalux told Yugan, 'Mama's name is Takyu.’ A few days later, Yugan came to me and said, ‘Mama, Mama, sayux balay (I'm very sorry), I've forgotten your name.’ I told him, ‘Takyu.’ Yugan said, ‘That's right, I kept thinking it was Takuy (trip and fall), but I knew that couldn't be right.’” The circle burst out laughing. I said, “Mama Takyu, laxi takuy!” They loved that: laxi takuy means “Don't fall down.” It's something they say mockingly to someone going off into the mountains. As if a Tayal would fall down in the mountains!
Mama Takyu still had a firm grip on my hand. “Yugan! I'm going to give you a test. You have to tell us the Tayal names of all the places from Wulai to Hsinhsien before you may leave. You have to use the aborigine names. No Chinese names.”
“Starting from Tbaqsiso?”
“That's right.”
“From Tbaqsiso, the next place upstream is Punko.”
“What's after Punko?” Everybody listened expectantly.
“Tagi.”
They all clamored, “You left out Seruyen!”
“Seruyen? Where's that?”
Takyu looked abashed. “I forgot to teach you that one. That's the curve in the stream, where Pira lives. My fault!”
“Okay, Seruyen, and then Tagi.”
“What's after Tagi?”
“Sakenten.”
“What's after Sakenten?”
“Bhlin.”
“What's after Bhlin?”
“Hongu Qalux, and then you're in Rahaw.” Rahaw is the aborigine name for Hsinhsien, and by then they were all smiling broadly, and Takyu sent us off victoriously.
THE WAKE
It's strange. Accidental death in Wulai never comes singly. The people of the tribe die in sets, usually of three.
Half a month go, Wei was down in the hot springs drinking, which was stupid. Then he decided to jump into the stream to swim, which was even stupider. They found his body a hundred paces downstream.
Eban's brother-in-law was the next. His liver suddenly gave out on him.
Then on Sunday, Dhuy's wife was riding her motorcycle back from the waterfall, holding an umbrella in the twilight rain. Maybe some careless driver sideswiped her without ever knowing about it. Maybe she dodged something and lost her balance. Nobody knows what happened, but she was found where she had crashed her motorcycle, in the bushes outside Wei's place. She was 33, and left three kids.
The Tayal word for ‘wake’ is srahaw, meaning comfort. The tribe place great importance on wakes. We gather together to comfort the dead on their voyage away from us, across the rainbow where they will live with the ancestors and other spirits; we gather together to say goodbye to them, and remember them; we gather together to comfort each other.
When I finished teaching on Tuesday night, I caught the last bus home from Taipei, as usual. On the way home, I was debating whether or not to go to the wake. I had been talking with Ping and lost track of the time, so I didn't have time for dinner, and I was pretty hungry. I asked Hatoq, the bus driver, when the funeral would be.
“I don't know either, but I think you ought to go tonight. What if the funeral is tomorrow?”
“Yeah, that wouldn't do. But she's a Paiwan. Have her relatives come yet?”
“True. But I still think it would be better to go tonight.”
I got off the bus at the bridge and started walking home. About half way up the mountain, I heard a car coming. Yagi, another bus driver, had parked his bus and was coming home. He honked. I got in his car.
“Are you going to the wake?”
“I'm not sure. I have to start my bus at 7 tomorrow morning, and it's almost midnight now.”
“Let's go together. That way we won't have to stay the whole night. I'm beat.”
We drove up into the Tribe. There were about thirty people there under the tree outside Dhuy's house, men on one side, women on the other. I hadn't prepared a white envelope, and they didn't have a spare, so I wrapped my offering in a piece of white tissue paper and wrote my Tayal name on it: Yugan Dali. Yagi and I went in to pay our respects to the coffin. I recited a mantra, Yagi prayed in a loud voice. Dhuy and Takyu, his father, thanked us for coming, and invited us to sit outside. Dhuy slouched wordlessly as Payes and I tried to cheer him up.
Dhuy wandered off. My Tayal is not very good yet, so I use mostly Mandarin, but the aborigines are happy I'm trying to learn their language, and they're very patient with me.
After about thirty minutes, someone came out and said, “We'll be serving noodles in a few minutes, since everyone must be hungry.” I thought this would be a good time for me to slip off, when a lady came out of the kitchen with a special bowl of noodles for me: “This one's for Yugan, it's vegetarian.”
Dhuy's mother made sure. “You didn't put any meat in it?”
Thanking them silently for their thoughtfulness, I started working on the noodles. When Yagi had finished his second bowl, he called me. “Yugan! It's time for us to leave.”
I went to Dhuy and told him we were leaving. Then I walked over to where Takyu was sitting with a circle of friends. His eyes were still red. “Mama (Uncle),” I said, “Yagi and I have to leave now.”
He stood up and clasped my hand. Turning to the circle, he said, “One time at the Chief's house, Qalux told Yugan, 'Mama's name is Takyu.’ A few days later, Yugan came to me and said, ‘Mama, Mama, sayux balay (I'm very sorry), I've forgotten your name.’ I told him, ‘Takyu.’ Yugan said, ‘That's right, I kept thinking it was Takuy (trip and fall), but I knew that couldn't be right.’” The circle burst out laughing. I said, “Mama Takyu, laxi takuy!” They loved that: laxi takuy means “Don't fall down.” It's something they say mockingly to someone going off into the mountains. As if a Tayal would fall down in the mountains!
Mama Takyu still had a firm grip on my hand. “Yugan! I'm going to give you a test. You have to tell us the Tayal names of all the places from Wulai to Hsinhsien before you may leave. You have to use the aborigine names. No Chinese names.”
“Starting from Tbaqsiso?”
“That's right.”
“From Tbaqsiso, the next place upstream is Punko.”
“What's after Punko?” Everybody listened expectantly.
“Tagi.”
They all clamored, “You left out Seruyen!”
“Seruyen? Where's that?”
Takyu looked abashed. “I forgot to teach you that one. That's the curve in the stream, where Pira lives. My fault!”
“Okay, Seruyen, and then Tagi.”
“What's after Tagi?”
“Sakenten.”
“What's after Sakenten?”
“Bhlin.”
“What's after Bhlin?”
“Hongu Qalux, and then you're in Rahaw.” Rahaw is the aborigine name for Hsinhsien, and by then they were all smiling broadly, and Takyu sent us off victoriously.
Saturday, July 05, 2003
written in 2001
We Remember Okaw
Okaw, a fine man in his thirties, finally succumbed after a three year battle with nasal cancer. He knew the end was coming, and faced it with courage and stability.
The tribe gathered at his house to mourn his passing. A wake is a time to comfort those who have left us, to tell old tales, to settle old accounts, to build new ties.
I got there late at night, near midnight. Qalux, Hiya, Evan, Tokan, Masa, all the friends he had grown up with were there. After I had told a mantra over the coffin, I took up a seat under the tree by the fire.
“Do you remember that time last year when those flatland hoodlums were giving Basang a hard time?
“Okaw, Qesa, and some other Tayal came out to be peacemakers, but the hoods shouted louder and louder. Finally, one of them reached into the car for a knife and started slashing. Qesa tried to keep him off Basang, and got part of his ear cut off. That made him mad.
“He went into his house and a few moments later came out with his shotgun. All the flatland hoods jumped into their car as quick as a squirrel running up a tree, and vroom! they left Wulai in a big hurry!”
Everybody laughed at the memory. “Then Qesa said, ‘What are they afraid of? I haven't even loaded the thing yet!’” Louder laughter. The Tayal remember that their grandparents were headhunters who terrorized the Japanese Imperial Army during the Japanese Occupation. Now, under Taiwan's stringent gun control, only police, army, and aborigine hunters are permitted to have firearms. Aborigines are proud of this right, and proud hunters.
Koras took a sip from his drink and glared at Halus. “And what is this I hear about a lawsuit?”
Halus explained that he felt Tasiy had infringed on his property when he built his new house.
Koras took another sip and looked into the fire. “You think this has to be dealt with in court? Are we not all Tayal? Why do you bring the Chinese into our dealings? What respect do they have for our gaga (tribal traditions)?”
Masa said, “Leave your lawyers alone. We will settle this.”
Halus said that would be best. Tahuy turned on Hiya with a sneer. “So Hiya who I grew up with is not a Tayal anymore, is that right? You are a Minnan now, are you?”
Hiya blanched. “Why do you say that?” The Minnan refer to those flatland, or Han, Chinese who call themselves “Taiwanese.” Aborigines find this insulting, considering themselves to be the true Taiwanese. Among Aborigines, being called a Minnan person is a serious insult.
“Because I have ears. People talk about what you said the other day. ‘Those Tayal,’ that is what you said. ‘Those Tayal.’ Not ‘we Tayal,’ but ‘those’ Tayal. So now you are Hiya the Minnan.”
Hiya's forehead was shiny with sweat. “If I said such a thing, that was my mistake. I am very sorry for that. Of course I know it's ‘we Tayal.’ Here, let me toast all of you as an apology.” He lifted his glass with both hands and bowed as he drank. We all returned his toast. Apology accepted, air cleared.
Guang staggered in out of the darkness, more than half drunk. He is respected because he is the Chief's grandson, but generally regarded as a ne'er-do-well. “Guang, you're getting drafted in a few weeks, isn't that so?”
“That is so.”
“I bet they'll be happy up in Beijing. ‘Look at these soldiers! We can finally take Taiwan back!’” Guang joined in the laughter, and threw himself on a cot to sleep.
Qalux grasped me by the shoulder. “Yugan! Let me introduce to you Tokan, my great friend, a fine man, who I grew up with, a brother to me, isn't that right, Tokan?”
“Balay (true). We have always been great friends, like brothers.”
“Yugan doesn't drink, so he will toast you with tea, and I will toast you with beer.”
“Well, I am not quite so sure I want to be toasted by someone like you.”
“You are too high and mighty to be toasted by the likes of me?”
“I am certainly not so high and mighty, but I am also not as low as you.”
Qalux growled into his drink, “I never thought I would hear Tokan speaking to me like he wants to fight.”
Tokan growled into his drink, “I never thought I would hear anyone say that Qalux betrayed a friend.”
“Qalux betray a friend?” He lifted his head and glared at Tokan. The circle was tense and silent. I was getting ready to turn over the table. Tokan continued to examine his beer. “Last month I heard Patu say you chased him out of your house.”
Qalux relaxed. “Patu? You are telling me you don't know what a nuisance Patu is when he has been drinking? What am I to do, with my newborn Qosun asleep, and Patu comes late at night, busuq balay (very drunk), to sing and to dance?”
Tokan pondered that wordlessly. He still did not lift his head. Qalux poured salt into his beer. “Come, my dear friend Tokan, join me in a drink.”
“I'm still not sure if I want to drink with the likes of you.”
“Well then, I will drink by myself.” Qalux poured off his drink, and I got ready to turn over the table again. “If you do not choose to accept my toast because of some drunken words of Patu Gwagun (the Drunkard), I will drink it by myself, and you can go die.”
In quiet, measured tones, Halus said, “Patu Gwagun can be a nuisance, especially when you've got kids to consider.”
Koras took a long sip and told his glass, “Patu lost his job because of drinking. What are you to do, with kids in the house?”
Tokan loosened up. “Balay.” He looked at Qalux. “You had the kids to consider. You just can't have Patu singing and dancing all night long when Qosun's brother and sister have to go to school in the morning.”
Koras nodded and poured new drinks for both the men. “Qalux, have a drink,” Tokan said, lifting his glass.
Masa turned to me. “Yugan, those are beautiful dogs you have. What kind are they?”
“Mostly Dalmatian, you know, like the ‘101 Loyal Dogs’?”
“Are they purebred? Tlahuy doesn't look much like one,” Hiya asked.
“No, they are seven parts Dalmatian, and one part Aborigine Mountain Dog.”
“No wonder they are so smart and lively,” Tokan beamed. Aborigines love dogs and are expert breeders.
“They run beautifully.”
“You should see them swim in the stream,” I said proudly. “They can swim across the current at Punko, where most Han can't cross, not even adults.”
“They must be wonderful hunting dogs,” Behuy said. “They are light and fast, and very powerful. Do you take them hunting often?”
Evan said, “Yugan is a vegetarian. Vegetarians don't hunt.”
“Well, that's too bad. Yugan, it's too bad you don't hunt.”
Mama (Uncle) Losin joined in. “Yugan, it is too bad you don't hunt. You would be a great hunter. You move through the mountains so silently and so quickly, you could bag more boars than anyone. It is too bad you don't hunt.”
“Yes, Yugan moves across the mountains so quickly I cannot keep up,” joined in Halus.
“You would be a great hunter. It is too bad you are a vegetarian,” Tokan said. The circle nodded, and brooded over this odd twist of fate.
It was close to two by then, so after a toast all around, I shouldered my pack and headed up the road for home. It was only later that I realized what a great compliment I had been paid.
We Remember Okaw
Okaw, a fine man in his thirties, finally succumbed after a three year battle with nasal cancer. He knew the end was coming, and faced it with courage and stability.
The tribe gathered at his house to mourn his passing. A wake is a time to comfort those who have left us, to tell old tales, to settle old accounts, to build new ties.
I got there late at night, near midnight. Qalux, Hiya, Evan, Tokan, Masa, all the friends he had grown up with were there. After I had told a mantra over the coffin, I took up a seat under the tree by the fire.
“Do you remember that time last year when those flatland hoodlums were giving Basang a hard time?
“Okaw, Qesa, and some other Tayal came out to be peacemakers, but the hoods shouted louder and louder. Finally, one of them reached into the car for a knife and started slashing. Qesa tried to keep him off Basang, and got part of his ear cut off. That made him mad.
“He went into his house and a few moments later came out with his shotgun. All the flatland hoods jumped into their car as quick as a squirrel running up a tree, and vroom! they left Wulai in a big hurry!”
Everybody laughed at the memory. “Then Qesa said, ‘What are they afraid of? I haven't even loaded the thing yet!’” Louder laughter. The Tayal remember that their grandparents were headhunters who terrorized the Japanese Imperial Army during the Japanese Occupation. Now, under Taiwan's stringent gun control, only police, army, and aborigine hunters are permitted to have firearms. Aborigines are proud of this right, and proud hunters.
Koras took a sip from his drink and glared at Halus. “And what is this I hear about a lawsuit?”
Halus explained that he felt Tasiy had infringed on his property when he built his new house.
Koras took another sip and looked into the fire. “You think this has to be dealt with in court? Are we not all Tayal? Why do you bring the Chinese into our dealings? What respect do they have for our gaga (tribal traditions)?”
Masa said, “Leave your lawyers alone. We will settle this.”
Halus said that would be best. Tahuy turned on Hiya with a sneer. “So Hiya who I grew up with is not a Tayal anymore, is that right? You are a Minnan now, are you?”
Hiya blanched. “Why do you say that?” The Minnan refer to those flatland, or Han, Chinese who call themselves “Taiwanese.” Aborigines find this insulting, considering themselves to be the true Taiwanese. Among Aborigines, being called a Minnan person is a serious insult.
“Because I have ears. People talk about what you said the other day. ‘Those Tayal,’ that is what you said. ‘Those Tayal.’ Not ‘we Tayal,’ but ‘those’ Tayal. So now you are Hiya the Minnan.”
Hiya's forehead was shiny with sweat. “If I said such a thing, that was my mistake. I am very sorry for that. Of course I know it's ‘we Tayal.’ Here, let me toast all of you as an apology.” He lifted his glass with both hands and bowed as he drank. We all returned his toast. Apology accepted, air cleared.
Guang staggered in out of the darkness, more than half drunk. He is respected because he is the Chief's grandson, but generally regarded as a ne'er-do-well. “Guang, you're getting drafted in a few weeks, isn't that so?”
“That is so.”
“I bet they'll be happy up in Beijing. ‘Look at these soldiers! We can finally take Taiwan back!’” Guang joined in the laughter, and threw himself on a cot to sleep.
Qalux grasped me by the shoulder. “Yugan! Let me introduce to you Tokan, my great friend, a fine man, who I grew up with, a brother to me, isn't that right, Tokan?”
“Balay (true). We have always been great friends, like brothers.”
“Yugan doesn't drink, so he will toast you with tea, and I will toast you with beer.”
“Well, I am not quite so sure I want to be toasted by someone like you.”
“You are too high and mighty to be toasted by the likes of me?”
“I am certainly not so high and mighty, but I am also not as low as you.”
Qalux growled into his drink, “I never thought I would hear Tokan speaking to me like he wants to fight.”
Tokan growled into his drink, “I never thought I would hear anyone say that Qalux betrayed a friend.”
“Qalux betray a friend?” He lifted his head and glared at Tokan. The circle was tense and silent. I was getting ready to turn over the table. Tokan continued to examine his beer. “Last month I heard Patu say you chased him out of your house.”
Qalux relaxed. “Patu? You are telling me you don't know what a nuisance Patu is when he has been drinking? What am I to do, with my newborn Qosun asleep, and Patu comes late at night, busuq balay (very drunk), to sing and to dance?”
Tokan pondered that wordlessly. He still did not lift his head. Qalux poured salt into his beer. “Come, my dear friend Tokan, join me in a drink.”
“I'm still not sure if I want to drink with the likes of you.”
“Well then, I will drink by myself.” Qalux poured off his drink, and I got ready to turn over the table again. “If you do not choose to accept my toast because of some drunken words of Patu Gwagun (the Drunkard), I will drink it by myself, and you can go die.”
In quiet, measured tones, Halus said, “Patu Gwagun can be a nuisance, especially when you've got kids to consider.”
Koras took a long sip and told his glass, “Patu lost his job because of drinking. What are you to do, with kids in the house?”
Tokan loosened up. “Balay.” He looked at Qalux. “You had the kids to consider. You just can't have Patu singing and dancing all night long when Qosun's brother and sister have to go to school in the morning.”
Koras nodded and poured new drinks for both the men. “Qalux, have a drink,” Tokan said, lifting his glass.
Masa turned to me. “Yugan, those are beautiful dogs you have. What kind are they?”
“Mostly Dalmatian, you know, like the ‘101 Loyal Dogs’?”
“Are they purebred? Tlahuy doesn't look much like one,” Hiya asked.
“No, they are seven parts Dalmatian, and one part Aborigine Mountain Dog.”
“No wonder they are so smart and lively,” Tokan beamed. Aborigines love dogs and are expert breeders.
“They run beautifully.”
“You should see them swim in the stream,” I said proudly. “They can swim across the current at Punko, where most Han can't cross, not even adults.”
“They must be wonderful hunting dogs,” Behuy said. “They are light and fast, and very powerful. Do you take them hunting often?”
Evan said, “Yugan is a vegetarian. Vegetarians don't hunt.”
“Well, that's too bad. Yugan, it's too bad you don't hunt.”
Mama (Uncle) Losin joined in. “Yugan, it is too bad you don't hunt. You would be a great hunter. You move through the mountains so silently and so quickly, you could bag more boars than anyone. It is too bad you don't hunt.”
“Yes, Yugan moves across the mountains so quickly I cannot keep up,” joined in Halus.
“You would be a great hunter. It is too bad you are a vegetarian,” Tokan said. The circle nodded, and brooded over this odd twist of fate.
It was close to two by then, so after a toast all around, I shouldered my pack and headed up the road for home. It was only later that I realized what a great compliment I had been paid.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
You wonder what the commotion's about?
written in 1999
Here is a story told me one night as I stopped on my way home to say hello to a group of men gathered in a circle chatting around a small fire. As the speaker told me the story, he kept gnawing on the skull of a small deer, a protected species that someone had managed to poach.
“One day when I was about 6 or 7 —that would have been in the early 60s —I saw a man who looked like nobody I had ever seen before. His eyes weren't black or brown, they were blue, and you could see circles in them. His hair wasn't black, either, it was yellow. I had never seen anybody like that before. I ran home and told my father, 'Father, you told me that gold is very valuable. I have seen a man with gold on his head. Come quickly and cut off his head, and we can be rich and you won't have to work so hard.' My father got his laraw (head-hunting knife) and ran with me to where this person was. When he saw him, my father said, 'That's not gold, that's his hair. That's the color of his hair. That kind of person is called Ah-mwi-ri-kan.' That was the first foreigner I ever saw.”
written in 1999
Here is a story told me one night as I stopped on my way home to say hello to a group of men gathered in a circle chatting around a small fire. As the speaker told me the story, he kept gnawing on the skull of a small deer, a protected species that someone had managed to poach.
“One day when I was about 6 or 7 —that would have been in the early 60s —I saw a man who looked like nobody I had ever seen before. His eyes weren't black or brown, they were blue, and you could see circles in them. His hair wasn't black, either, it was yellow. I had never seen anybody like that before. I ran home and told my father, 'Father, you told me that gold is very valuable. I have seen a man with gold on his head. Come quickly and cut off his head, and we can be rich and you won't have to work so hard.' My father got his laraw (head-hunting knife) and ran with me to where this person was. When he saw him, my father said, 'That's not gold, that's his hair. That's the color of his hair. That kind of person is called Ah-mwi-ri-kan.' That was the first foreigner I ever saw.”
Thursday, June 12, 2003
written in 1999
Abus made me a slingshot for stray dog control; his brother's geese got eaten by strays. Slingshots are fun, and people are ambitious, so when I saw one on the Web that advertised a range of 225 yards, I ordered it. I had it sent to Merica, where I picked it up. When I got off the bus in Wulai, I pulled it out of my pack, found a rock, and shot it way out over the stream. Then I realized there was a car behind me: police. Police: "What are you shooting into the stream for?”
"Just trying out my new slingshot.”
"Those are illegal. Get in the car." Slam. "I could confiscate that."
"So take it. I'll tell your mother-in-law if you do."
"Taway, taway (easy, easy), Yugan. But come on, let me try… hey, this thing has a good pull on it."
"Hey, Ivi, don't try to steer with your elbows!” We were veering off the road. (I should mention that the policeman told me to get in the patrol car so he could give me a ride home.)
The next day I went out after the dogs. I ran into Sakay and Zing, who is one of the tribe's best hunters: kind of sneered at a grown man carrying a slingshot. (The aborigines are proud that they are allowed to own guns, to carry on their hunting traditions. These are all handmade shotguns, as dangerous to the hunter as to the hunted. The only other legal guns are in the hands of the police and the military. This is why it is safe to wander around the city at night.) Just then I saw the worst dog, and shot at it. It took off up the road, so I timed it to the curve, and pulled off a long shot, probably close to 200 yards. An expression flitted across Zing's face, like he'd just seen a hoppy-toad leap over a four story building. He very casually asked, “What kind of stones are you shooting?”
Abus made me a slingshot for stray dog control; his brother's geese got eaten by strays. Slingshots are fun, and people are ambitious, so when I saw one on the Web that advertised a range of 225 yards, I ordered it. I had it sent to Merica, where I picked it up. When I got off the bus in Wulai, I pulled it out of my pack, found a rock, and shot it way out over the stream. Then I realized there was a car behind me: police. Police: "What are you shooting into the stream for?”
"Just trying out my new slingshot.”
"Those are illegal. Get in the car." Slam. "I could confiscate that."
"So take it. I'll tell your mother-in-law if you do."
"Taway, taway (easy, easy), Yugan. But come on, let me try… hey, this thing has a good pull on it."
"Hey, Ivi, don't try to steer with your elbows!” We were veering off the road. (I should mention that the policeman told me to get in the patrol car so he could give me a ride home.)
The next day I went out after the dogs. I ran into Sakay and Zing, who is one of the tribe's best hunters: kind of sneered at a grown man carrying a slingshot. (The aborigines are proud that they are allowed to own guns, to carry on their hunting traditions. These are all handmade shotguns, as dangerous to the hunter as to the hunted. The only other legal guns are in the hands of the police and the military. This is why it is safe to wander around the city at night.) Just then I saw the worst dog, and shot at it. It took off up the road, so I timed it to the curve, and pulled off a long shot, probably close to 200 yards. An expression flitted across Zing's face, like he'd just seen a hoppy-toad leap over a four story building. He very casually asked, “What kind of stones are you shooting?”
Monday, June 09, 2003
written about ten years ago
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Yu Hao-Wei wanted to improve his English. The first step was to choose an English name, as the pronunciation and subtleties of Chinese names don't translate. His given name Hao-Wei (roughly, 'heroic grandeur') suggested the English name Howard, and for days he practiced reciting his name in much the same way a gunfighter practices his draw.
The next step was to get some friends together, find a native foreigner to teach English, and then start a class.
First, he enlisted his girlfriend Miss Mi, which means 'uncooked rice,' and then a friend from work named Hsi, 'mat,' and to round things out, Hsi brought his cousin Hu, which originally meant 'goiter,' but has generally been used as the name for the Turkic tribes of western China. (Hsi's maternal great-grandfather had eight sons. In addition to half a dozen daughters, he had five sons by his first wife, and three more by a second after the first wife died, probably from exhaustion. Hsi's grandfather was the fourth son of the first wife. The second son of the second wife was given to childless neighbors, the Shus, to carry out rituals on their ancestors' behalf, and had so many children that he gave a daughter, Ah-Wat, to a friend named Tu who had only sons, and that was Hu's mother. This is rather simple, as Chinese cousins go.)
Howard had an uncle, his father's second cousin, whose grade school classmate had just rented out an apartment to an American, Joe Waterman (God only knows what that might mean!). On being asked, Joe expressed his willingness to teach English, and the grade school classmate arranged class times and tuition to everybody's satisfaction, class to be held, as customary, in Joe's living room. Joe had just come to Taiwan, and had no knowledge of Chinese language or customs, and less of teaching. He was about to learn.
Howard, Miss Mi, Hsi, and Hu had, in the distant past, studied English in school, but time had mercifully erased from mind the vagaries of a language that permits itself to say 1 book, 2 books, 1 table, 2 tables, but 1 hippopotamus 2 hippopotami. Plurals and tenses and verb conjugations! What possible use could these do anybody? Hasn't Chinese gotten along just fine without them, these past five thousand years and more? But now, inspired by Howard, they decided to take English by frontal assault, and thereby advance their careers, though none ever considered what earthly good the language might do in the paper towel company where they worked. And so, with little more of their studies left than Hello and Goodbye and The Grin Grin Grass of Home, they gathered promptly at 7:15 to begin their seven o'clock class.
* * *
Joe stopped pacing back and forth when he heard the doorbell ring. He recited, “Ask their names, and engage them in conversation,” put down his Guide to Teaching English, and opened the door, to find three men and a lady hopping back and forth, struggling to take off their shoes—Chinese never enter a home shod. One of the men straightened up and smiled.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi, how are you?” Joe asked, remembering to smile sincerely, as the guide recommended.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir, what? How are you?” persisted Joe.
“Yes, sir, my name.”
“What's your name?”
“Howard Yu.”
“Fine, thanks.”
Howard beamed. He had chosen a fine name. So fine that this foreigner even
thanked him for choosing it.
“But your name?” Joe queried.
“Howard Yu.”
“Fine, thanks. How are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Uhh, yes, that's good. My name is Joe, Joe Waterman.”
“Jio?” Hsi was startled. “His name is Urine?” he asked in Chinese.
“No, idiot, Jio means Urine only in Taiwanese. Joe is an English name. All Big-Noses are named Joe, or Ronald, or Englebert,” Howard reproved.
“But he said something about water.”
“Shut up!” Then in English. “Hello, Joe Teacher.”
“Hello. Are these the other students?”
Hu struck an extravagant pose and rasped out, “Yo, dude!” He airily explained to his startled compatriots, “That's how they do it in the movies.”
“Yes, umm, hi, what's your name?” Joe asked, when he had recovered his wits.
“She is my cousin,” Hsi volunteered: Chinese has only one pronoun for both He and She, leading to endless confusion when beginners venture into English.
“Who?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?” Joe asked.
“I am Hsi,” said Hsi.
“You?”
“I am Yu,” put in Howard.
“What? Is he a she?” Joe asked, pointing to Hu.
“He is Hu, not Hsi,” Howard explained.
“Who is not she? Oh, my lord. Well,” Joe turned to Miss Mi, “What is your
name?”
“I am Mi.”
“Well, yes, I am me, too.”
“Really?” Miss Mi peered at Joe carefully. “Maybe you be cousin?”
“Cousin?”
“Yes,” Hu said, “Cousin, like Hsi and me, we cousin.”
“You two?”
“No, but my ma is,” said Hu, somewhat surprised.
“What?”
“Yes, yes, how you know? My ma is Tu Ah-Wat.”
“Yes, she name Tu,” Hu clarified.
“Who?” Joe pointed to the young lady. “Her name? She has two names?”
“No, she is Mi, I Hu, my pa Hu, but my ma Tu, Tu Ah-Wat.”
“What? Who?”
“No, not Hu, my ma name Tu, his name Ah-Wat.”
“How should I know what his name is?” Joe replied.
“Yes, yes, my ma, he name Wat, Ah-Wat. I so surprised you know!”
Howard was pleased that Joe was getting to know his students. And it seemed that he even knew old Hu Mama! Chinese simply love to dig up old family connections. He decided to make everything crystal clear for Joe Teacher.
“I am Yu. He is Hsi and she is Mi and he is Hu.”
“What do you mean, Who?”
Hsi pitched in. “Hu's grandfather really Shu.”
“Somebody's grandfather's shoe?” Joe asked.
“Yes, he Shu, but he give daughter to Tu.”
“He got his daughter a tutu? She studied ballet?” To clarify, Joe stood up and spun on his tiptoes. His students tactfully examined the tablecloth.
Without looking Joe in the eye, Mi said, “Tu marry Hu.”
“To marry who? What do you mean, Who?”
Hu, after careful consideration of the question, pretended to wrap a turban around his head and ride a camel (first carefully describing the humps with graceful waves of his hand in the air), to signify that Hu means “Turkish tribesman.”
“What is that?” cried Joe.
Yu quickly drew a rough oblong, representing the Chinese mainland, with a dot near the southeastern corner, representing Taiwan, which he jabbed with his pen, and said, “We here.” He pointed to his makeshift map and said, “China,” and then to the left side of his oblong, and said, “Hu here.”
Joe, a native of a country in which almost half of the high school students cannot find the United States on a map, was totally mystified. “On the table?”
“No, no, China.”
Joe was still perplexed. He tried another angle. “You mean china like porcelain China?”
Howard was overjoyed. “Yes, yes, here we have Po-ssu-ren (Men of Persia), is Porcelain? Man here Porcelain, but now is say I-lang-ren (Men of Iran), no say Porcelain. They Hu, too.”
“Who?”
“Yes!” Vaguely remembering something about plurals, he tentatively augmented, “Hus here.”
“I'm here,” ventured Joe.
“I thought you said this guy was an American,” Hsi complained in Chinese. “Why did you get us an Iranian?”
Howard protested, “Uncle's classmate said he was American.” He turned to Joe. “Are you come from American?”
“Yes,” he answered cautiously, not even aware that he had been discussing geography.
“You no Po-ssu-ren?”
“Well, yes, I know a little about porcelain, but I've never really studied much about it. I guess my mother would be more familiar with it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said his mother's family comes from Iran.”
Mi took up the dialogue. “Your ma is Porcelain, so you… you half-half, you like Mai-ke Jie-Ke-Sen, no?”
“Well, yes, I do like Michael Jackson.”
His students were pleased with this latest information. “So he's half American!” said Hu.
“Maybe we can get a 50% discount on the tuition, then,” said Hsi.
In a sudden burst of inspiration, Howard dragged up a phrase from the depths of his memory, and placed it before Joe with all the delicacy of one handling a priceless heirloom:
“Are you a native American?” meaning, as is obvious from the term, one who was born and raised in the United States.
However, in his naïveté, Howard had not anticipated the obfuscation by which a new, liberated generation hides plain meanings behind euphemisms. Joe replied, “Funny thing you ask. I'm not a real Native American myself, but my great grandmother was a Pottawatomi.
Hsi grumbled, “I told you he's not a real American.”
Hu took a more cautious approach. “You crate grim mother is a pot of what?”
“Pottawatomi.”
“Pot of what to me?”
“Right, a Pottawatomi, from Michigan.”
Miss Mi said in Chinese, “This is discouraging. I simply don't know what this man is talking about.”
“Neither do I,” admitted the crestfallen Howard.
The tone of the Mandarin prompted Joe Teacher to realize that all was not good cheer and lightheartedness among his protéges. He realized that the name of the Pottawatomi tribe, prominently though it figured in his family tree, might not be found in junior high school English texts worldwide. He clarified, “My great grandmother was a Native American.”
Hu immediately asked, “You grit cram mutter native American?”
“Yes, sure, that's what I said.” Joe decided that he really did have some natural teaching ability after all.
“You no native American?”
“No. Yes. No! I'm a native of America, but I'm not a Native American, I'm just American—" Joe realized what the problem was. But how to remedy it? Joe braced himself. For the sake of education, certain sacrifices are sometimes necessary. That's what the guide said. Joe took a breath: “My great grandmother was an, an, an Indian!” he blurted out the distasteful word.
“Oh, I know!” Hsi and Howard blurted out simultaneously.
“Yes, yes,” Miss Mi cried, with renewed hope.
“So it is,” said Hu, “You clay grammar ma is a Hindoo!”
“No, no, no,” protested Joe, “not a Hindu Indian, an American Indian!” To illustrate his point, he plucked an imaginary bow and shot an invisible arrow.
“Oh yes, yes, the In-di-an-ren!” the four students chorused.
“A red man,” Miss Mi added gleefully.
Hsi, Hu, and Howard sobered immediately. “Red?” asked Hu.
“We don't call them that anymore,” Joe said righteously.
“There have commies in U-Night Skates?” Hsi asked.
“No, idiot, red skin, red barbarian! Fool!” Miss Mi spat out in Chinese.
Howard smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I understand, I is yellow, you gray clam ma red, is not?”
“Well, yes, but at the current time we no longer utilize such ethnocentric terminology. You might say that you are Asian-Pacific, and my great grandmother was Native American, but of course, we are all equal members of the human species, irregardless of ethnic background, education, religious preference, hair color or lack of hair, gender orientation, height, physical attributes, blood group, right- or left-handedness, or criminal record, implying of course no disrespect whatsoever for other primates or indeed any of the wonderful species that coinhabit with us this great Spaceship Earth,” said Joe, bestowing a smile on his student—something his teaching guide called emission of a positive reinforcer. He had practiced to make it sincere.
His students reeled. Howard calmed down first. “You American?”
“Well, of course, that depends on how you define the term American. Our country is, after all, a great melting pot. Generation after generation of immigrants have come to our shores, seeking freedom and a new life, with liberty and justice for all, regardless of race, religion, previous work experience, or gender orientation. They have come from all countries, but predominantly from Europe, I'm afraid. Take me, for instance. In addition to my smattering of Native American blood, I have a rich multicultural background, with ancestors from Ireland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and France.” Candor is the mark of a good teacher. That's what the book said. Don't be afraid to bare your soul to your students. They recognize and appreciate sincerity.
“My heaven! I didn't understand a word of that!” Miss Mi wailed.
Hsi just shook his head sadly. Hu looked to Howard.
Howard hesitated. “I didn't quite understand it all, either, but I think he said he finally got a big pot to melt things in from two gentlemen in America. It was free, for sure, but when he got a new wife, he had to run a race for his church to find a job. A lot of gentlemen came from all of the countries of the Orient, but there was this dumb European that scared Joe Teacher. I think that European was trying to kidnap him. Then there was something the matter with his blood, so to get rich, he went back to his native land, Ireland, to buy something sweet, but he found he couldn't buy anything, because he had only ten German marks and some francs.”
Hsi looked at Joe quizzically. “Is this guy all right?” He broke into English again. “You, you, you…” What was the English adjective for Ai-er-lan?
Encouraged by his success, Joe became frisky. “Yes, me, me, me!”
“Here!” Miss Mi responded at once, holding up her hand.
“Hear what?” Joe queried.
“Here Mi.”
“Well, go ahead, then.”
“I think he wants us to go,” Hu said. In deference to their teacher's wishes, all four students stood up instantly.
“I know!” Hsi cried, suddenly remembering a word that seemed to fit right in with disparity/disparate, precipitation/precipitate, and other useful noun-adjective combinations his junior high school English teacher had taught along with bigness/big, tallness/tall, smallness/small, and closeness/close. This must be the right adjective for Ireland, so he asked, “You Irate, no?”
“Good heavens, no, not at all, why should I be? Really, you don't have to leave so suddenly.”
Hu was putting on his shoes already. “Who said these Big-Noses aren't civilized? At least he had the courtesy to ask us to stay longer.”
The four students stood respectfully around the door and beamed at their teacher. “Good night, Sir! Joe Teacher, Goodbye! Bye bye!”
Joe, still somewhat taken aback by their lightning withdrawal, remembered to smile sincerely and say, “Uh-huh, umm, goodbye?” He watched in a daze as they entered the elevator, Hsi hopping along tying the other shoe.
Downstairs, Howard installed Miss Mi on the back seat of his motorcycle. “See you all tomorrow at work!” They putted off into the night.
Before getting on their motorcycles, Hu and Hsi engaged in the ritual of forcing cigarets on each other, and singeing each others’ noses with overly enthusiastically proffered lighters.
“So actually Joe Teacher was born in Ireland,” Hsi said.
“Even though he tried to deny it.”
“And his mother's Iranian. An Indian Iranian Irishman. What a strange combination,” mused Hsi.
“I wonder how old he was when he went to the States.”
“Maybe we can ask him the next time.”
“Good, let's do that. I just hope he gives us more time. He cut us forty minutes short tonight.”
“That's okay, we can make it up some other time. But what on earth did he say his great grandmother was a pot of?”
“I didn't get that, either. Western people are all so exotic and mysterious. Also, if he's Irish, why didn't he have any Irish money when he went back?” asked Hu.
“He probably exchanged it all into Deutschemarks to hedge against inflation.”
“I wonder if those were French francs, or Swiss francs?”
“Swiss, definitely Swiss. What would anybody want with French francs?” Hsi threw his cigaret butt into the gutter, and listened to it sizzle when it hit the water. “Give my regards to Aunt and Uncle. Bye bye.” and they rode off in different directions, leaving the alley silent.
Upstairs, straightening the chairs, Joe was horrified to realize that he had neglected one of his first duties as a teacher: “I forgot to get their names!”
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Yu Hao-Wei wanted to improve his English. The first step was to choose an English name, as the pronunciation and subtleties of Chinese names don't translate. His given name Hao-Wei (roughly, 'heroic grandeur') suggested the English name Howard, and for days he practiced reciting his name in much the same way a gunfighter practices his draw.
The next step was to get some friends together, find a native foreigner to teach English, and then start a class.
First, he enlisted his girlfriend Miss Mi, which means 'uncooked rice,' and then a friend from work named Hsi, 'mat,' and to round things out, Hsi brought his cousin Hu, which originally meant 'goiter,' but has generally been used as the name for the Turkic tribes of western China. (Hsi's maternal great-grandfather had eight sons. In addition to half a dozen daughters, he had five sons by his first wife, and three more by a second after the first wife died, probably from exhaustion. Hsi's grandfather was the fourth son of the first wife. The second son of the second wife was given to childless neighbors, the Shus, to carry out rituals on their ancestors' behalf, and had so many children that he gave a daughter, Ah-Wat, to a friend named Tu who had only sons, and that was Hu's mother. This is rather simple, as Chinese cousins go.)
Howard had an uncle, his father's second cousin, whose grade school classmate had just rented out an apartment to an American, Joe Waterman (God only knows what that might mean!). On being asked, Joe expressed his willingness to teach English, and the grade school classmate arranged class times and tuition to everybody's satisfaction, class to be held, as customary, in Joe's living room. Joe had just come to Taiwan, and had no knowledge of Chinese language or customs, and less of teaching. He was about to learn.
Howard, Miss Mi, Hsi, and Hu had, in the distant past, studied English in school, but time had mercifully erased from mind the vagaries of a language that permits itself to say 1 book, 2 books, 1 table, 2 tables, but 1 hippopotamus 2 hippopotami. Plurals and tenses and verb conjugations! What possible use could these do anybody? Hasn't Chinese gotten along just fine without them, these past five thousand years and more? But now, inspired by Howard, they decided to take English by frontal assault, and thereby advance their careers, though none ever considered what earthly good the language might do in the paper towel company where they worked. And so, with little more of their studies left than Hello and Goodbye and The Grin Grin Grass of Home, they gathered promptly at 7:15 to begin their seven o'clock class.
* * *
Joe stopped pacing back and forth when he heard the doorbell ring. He recited, “Ask their names, and engage them in conversation,” put down his Guide to Teaching English, and opened the door, to find three men and a lady hopping back and forth, struggling to take off their shoes—Chinese never enter a home shod. One of the men straightened up and smiled.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi, how are you?” Joe asked, remembering to smile sincerely, as the guide recommended.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir, what? How are you?” persisted Joe.
“Yes, sir, my name.”
“What's your name?”
“Howard Yu.”
“Fine, thanks.”
Howard beamed. He had chosen a fine name. So fine that this foreigner even
thanked him for choosing it.
“But your name?” Joe queried.
“Howard Yu.”
“Fine, thanks. How are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Uhh, yes, that's good. My name is Joe, Joe Waterman.”
“Jio?” Hsi was startled. “His name is Urine?” he asked in Chinese.
“No, idiot, Jio means Urine only in Taiwanese. Joe is an English name. All Big-Noses are named Joe, or Ronald, or Englebert,” Howard reproved.
“But he said something about water.”
“Shut up!” Then in English. “Hello, Joe Teacher.”
“Hello. Are these the other students?”
Hu struck an extravagant pose and rasped out, “Yo, dude!” He airily explained to his startled compatriots, “That's how they do it in the movies.”
“Yes, umm, hi, what's your name?” Joe asked, when he had recovered his wits.
“She is my cousin,” Hsi volunteered: Chinese has only one pronoun for both He and She, leading to endless confusion when beginners venture into English.
“Who?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?” Joe asked.
“I am Hsi,” said Hsi.
“You?”
“I am Yu,” put in Howard.
“What? Is he a she?” Joe asked, pointing to Hu.
“He is Hu, not Hsi,” Howard explained.
“Who is not she? Oh, my lord. Well,” Joe turned to Miss Mi, “What is your
name?”
“I am Mi.”
“Well, yes, I am me, too.”
“Really?” Miss Mi peered at Joe carefully. “Maybe you be cousin?”
“Cousin?”
“Yes,” Hu said, “Cousin, like Hsi and me, we cousin.”
“You two?”
“No, but my ma is,” said Hu, somewhat surprised.
“What?”
“Yes, yes, how you know? My ma is Tu Ah-Wat.”
“Yes, she name Tu,” Hu clarified.
“Who?” Joe pointed to the young lady. “Her name? She has two names?”
“No, she is Mi, I Hu, my pa Hu, but my ma Tu, Tu Ah-Wat.”
“What? Who?”
“No, not Hu, my ma name Tu, his name Ah-Wat.”
“How should I know what his name is?” Joe replied.
“Yes, yes, my ma, he name Wat, Ah-Wat. I so surprised you know!”
Howard was pleased that Joe was getting to know his students. And it seemed that he even knew old Hu Mama! Chinese simply love to dig up old family connections. He decided to make everything crystal clear for Joe Teacher.
“I am Yu. He is Hsi and she is Mi and he is Hu.”
“What do you mean, Who?”
Hsi pitched in. “Hu's grandfather really Shu.”
“Somebody's grandfather's shoe?” Joe asked.
“Yes, he Shu, but he give daughter to Tu.”
“He got his daughter a tutu? She studied ballet?” To clarify, Joe stood up and spun on his tiptoes. His students tactfully examined the tablecloth.
Without looking Joe in the eye, Mi said, “Tu marry Hu.”
“To marry who? What do you mean, Who?”
Hu, after careful consideration of the question, pretended to wrap a turban around his head and ride a camel (first carefully describing the humps with graceful waves of his hand in the air), to signify that Hu means “Turkish tribesman.”
“What is that?” cried Joe.
Yu quickly drew a rough oblong, representing the Chinese mainland, with a dot near the southeastern corner, representing Taiwan, which he jabbed with his pen, and said, “We here.” He pointed to his makeshift map and said, “China,” and then to the left side of his oblong, and said, “Hu here.”
Joe, a native of a country in which almost half of the high school students cannot find the United States on a map, was totally mystified. “On the table?”
“No, no, China.”
Joe was still perplexed. He tried another angle. “You mean china like porcelain China?”
Howard was overjoyed. “Yes, yes, here we have Po-ssu-ren (Men of Persia), is Porcelain? Man here Porcelain, but now is say I-lang-ren (Men of Iran), no say Porcelain. They Hu, too.”
“Who?”
“Yes!” Vaguely remembering something about plurals, he tentatively augmented, “Hus here.”
“I'm here,” ventured Joe.
“I thought you said this guy was an American,” Hsi complained in Chinese. “Why did you get us an Iranian?”
Howard protested, “Uncle's classmate said he was American.” He turned to Joe. “Are you come from American?”
“Yes,” he answered cautiously, not even aware that he had been discussing geography.
“You no Po-ssu-ren?”
“Well, yes, I know a little about porcelain, but I've never really studied much about it. I guess my mother would be more familiar with it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said his mother's family comes from Iran.”
Mi took up the dialogue. “Your ma is Porcelain, so you… you half-half, you like Mai-ke Jie-Ke-Sen, no?”
“Well, yes, I do like Michael Jackson.”
His students were pleased with this latest information. “So he's half American!” said Hu.
“Maybe we can get a 50% discount on the tuition, then,” said Hsi.
In a sudden burst of inspiration, Howard dragged up a phrase from the depths of his memory, and placed it before Joe with all the delicacy of one handling a priceless heirloom:
“Are you a native American?” meaning, as is obvious from the term, one who was born and raised in the United States.
However, in his naïveté, Howard had not anticipated the obfuscation by which a new, liberated generation hides plain meanings behind euphemisms. Joe replied, “Funny thing you ask. I'm not a real Native American myself, but my great grandmother was a Pottawatomi.
Hsi grumbled, “I told you he's not a real American.”
Hu took a more cautious approach. “You crate grim mother is a pot of what?”
“Pottawatomi.”
“Pot of what to me?”
“Right, a Pottawatomi, from Michigan.”
Miss Mi said in Chinese, “This is discouraging. I simply don't know what this man is talking about.”
“Neither do I,” admitted the crestfallen Howard.
The tone of the Mandarin prompted Joe Teacher to realize that all was not good cheer and lightheartedness among his protéges. He realized that the name of the Pottawatomi tribe, prominently though it figured in his family tree, might not be found in junior high school English texts worldwide. He clarified, “My great grandmother was a Native American.”
Hu immediately asked, “You grit cram mutter native American?”
“Yes, sure, that's what I said.” Joe decided that he really did have some natural teaching ability after all.
“You no native American?”
“No. Yes. No! I'm a native of America, but I'm not a Native American, I'm just American—" Joe realized what the problem was. But how to remedy it? Joe braced himself. For the sake of education, certain sacrifices are sometimes necessary. That's what the guide said. Joe took a breath: “My great grandmother was an, an, an Indian!” he blurted out the distasteful word.
“Oh, I know!” Hsi and Howard blurted out simultaneously.
“Yes, yes,” Miss Mi cried, with renewed hope.
“So it is,” said Hu, “You clay grammar ma is a Hindoo!”
“No, no, no,” protested Joe, “not a Hindu Indian, an American Indian!” To illustrate his point, he plucked an imaginary bow and shot an invisible arrow.
“Oh yes, yes, the In-di-an-ren!” the four students chorused.
“A red man,” Miss Mi added gleefully.
Hsi, Hu, and Howard sobered immediately. “Red?” asked Hu.
“We don't call them that anymore,” Joe said righteously.
“There have commies in U-Night Skates?” Hsi asked.
“No, idiot, red skin, red barbarian! Fool!” Miss Mi spat out in Chinese.
Howard smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I understand, I is yellow, you gray clam ma red, is not?”
“Well, yes, but at the current time we no longer utilize such ethnocentric terminology. You might say that you are Asian-Pacific, and my great grandmother was Native American, but of course, we are all equal members of the human species, irregardless of ethnic background, education, religious preference, hair color or lack of hair, gender orientation, height, physical attributes, blood group, right- or left-handedness, or criminal record, implying of course no disrespect whatsoever for other primates or indeed any of the wonderful species that coinhabit with us this great Spaceship Earth,” said Joe, bestowing a smile on his student—something his teaching guide called emission of a positive reinforcer. He had practiced to make it sincere.
His students reeled. Howard calmed down first. “You American?”
“Well, of course, that depends on how you define the term American. Our country is, after all, a great melting pot. Generation after generation of immigrants have come to our shores, seeking freedom and a new life, with liberty and justice for all, regardless of race, religion, previous work experience, or gender orientation. They have come from all countries, but predominantly from Europe, I'm afraid. Take me, for instance. In addition to my smattering of Native American blood, I have a rich multicultural background, with ancestors from Ireland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and France.” Candor is the mark of a good teacher. That's what the book said. Don't be afraid to bare your soul to your students. They recognize and appreciate sincerity.
“My heaven! I didn't understand a word of that!” Miss Mi wailed.
Hsi just shook his head sadly. Hu looked to Howard.
Howard hesitated. “I didn't quite understand it all, either, but I think he said he finally got a big pot to melt things in from two gentlemen in America. It was free, for sure, but when he got a new wife, he had to run a race for his church to find a job. A lot of gentlemen came from all of the countries of the Orient, but there was this dumb European that scared Joe Teacher. I think that European was trying to kidnap him. Then there was something the matter with his blood, so to get rich, he went back to his native land, Ireland, to buy something sweet, but he found he couldn't buy anything, because he had only ten German marks and some francs.”
Hsi looked at Joe quizzically. “Is this guy all right?” He broke into English again. “You, you, you…” What was the English adjective for Ai-er-lan?
Encouraged by his success, Joe became frisky. “Yes, me, me, me!”
“Here!” Miss Mi responded at once, holding up her hand.
“Hear what?” Joe queried.
“Here Mi.”
“Well, go ahead, then.”
“I think he wants us to go,” Hu said. In deference to their teacher's wishes, all four students stood up instantly.
“I know!” Hsi cried, suddenly remembering a word that seemed to fit right in with disparity/disparate, precipitation/precipitate, and other useful noun-adjective combinations his junior high school English teacher had taught along with bigness/big, tallness/tall, smallness/small, and closeness/close. This must be the right adjective for Ireland, so he asked, “You Irate, no?”
“Good heavens, no, not at all, why should I be? Really, you don't have to leave so suddenly.”
Hu was putting on his shoes already. “Who said these Big-Noses aren't civilized? At least he had the courtesy to ask us to stay longer.”
The four students stood respectfully around the door and beamed at their teacher. “Good night, Sir! Joe Teacher, Goodbye! Bye bye!”
Joe, still somewhat taken aback by their lightning withdrawal, remembered to smile sincerely and say, “Uh-huh, umm, goodbye?” He watched in a daze as they entered the elevator, Hsi hopping along tying the other shoe.
Downstairs, Howard installed Miss Mi on the back seat of his motorcycle. “See you all tomorrow at work!” They putted off into the night.
Before getting on their motorcycles, Hu and Hsi engaged in the ritual of forcing cigarets on each other, and singeing each others’ noses with overly enthusiastically proffered lighters.
“So actually Joe Teacher was born in Ireland,” Hsi said.
“Even though he tried to deny it.”
“And his mother's Iranian. An Indian Iranian Irishman. What a strange combination,” mused Hsi.
“I wonder how old he was when he went to the States.”
“Maybe we can ask him the next time.”
“Good, let's do that. I just hope he gives us more time. He cut us forty minutes short tonight.”
“That's okay, we can make it up some other time. But what on earth did he say his great grandmother was a pot of?”
“I didn't get that, either. Western people are all so exotic and mysterious. Also, if he's Irish, why didn't he have any Irish money when he went back?” asked Hu.
“He probably exchanged it all into Deutschemarks to hedge against inflation.”
“I wonder if those were French francs, or Swiss francs?”
“Swiss, definitely Swiss. What would anybody want with French francs?” Hsi threw his cigaret butt into the gutter, and listened to it sizzle when it hit the water. “Give my regards to Aunt and Uncle. Bye bye.” and they rode off in different directions, leaving the alley silent.
Upstairs, straightening the chairs, Joe was horrified to realize that he had neglected one of his first duties as a teacher: “I forgot to get their names!”
Monday, May 26, 2003
I have received quite a few queries about my health and SARS.
I spend most of my time in the mountains, rarely meeting people at close distances. I wear a face mask on the subway, but I am not on it during rush hours anyway. There may not be rush hours anymore, anyway. People stay off the subway and shun public places whenever possible. Fine with me. The other night I had my choice of seats when I got on at my stop on the way home.
My students have enough trouble understanding English anyway, I do not have to make life even more difficult for them by wearing a mask in class. (“bood ebnig, tudntth, tonight mumble snarl mutter grunt snurf snurf”)(I mean, that's what they usually think I am saying, even without a mask to shutter my pronunciation.)
When I teach, I am on a podium a few steps away from the first row, so I am probably out of range. Merica now requires that students wear face masks in class, as face masks have been proved to be the best immediate defense against SARS. I wonder what my students look like. Not many of them, though. Attendance is way down anyway, as a lot of students decide to sit this one out.
I remember to wash my hands; I don't smoke; I get plenty of exercise; I am not too worried about catching SARS. Statistically, I believe, my chances of getting crushed by a falling vending machine are higher than death by SARS. And we all know that the real killer is not SARS but CARS.
As mentioned, face masks are the best immediate defense against SARS. Also, wash your hands frequently. Last week on the subway, about 90% of the passengers were wearing face masks. This week they are mandatory. Riding the subway without one is punishable by a fine.
Face masks are not for everyone. Vice President Lu Hsiulien has announced that people who wear face masks must do so because they have evil mouths (沒有口德). President Chen Shiubian refuses to wear one, perhaps so we will not be denied the pleasure of seeing his pretty face; this is a man who last year issued a photo album 寫真集 of artistic photographs of himself: President Narcissus. Due to his example, many high ranking officials will not wear face masks, either. The public health people are frantic by this negative example, at a time when it is vital for everyone to cooperate. They point out that one of President Chen's bodyguards has already come down with SARS, so the President ought to be a good example, and put on a face mask. President Chen has replied that he is in no danger of infection, because his bodyguards use a different door to his office than he does.
To protect us, President Chen has written a letter to the Washington Post, blaming the spread of SARS in Taiwan on WHO, saying they will not share information with us. WHO has responded that all of the information is available on their website. To be sure, several days before the President's letter, I happened to visit that website. Maybe they don't have a good Internet connection in the President's office.
All is not lost. The authorities have purchased tons of protective clothing for health workers. The problem is, the suits dissolve on contact with water, and have ripped long before that anyway. The Minister in charge of that explained that they must have bought the wrong stuff, because they told their secretaries to phone somebody and buy things. Secretary, I mean like the one who answers your phone, not like the Cabinet post. Thus highly do our leaders value our health.
President Chen has announced that if you eat a certain kind of fish, you will not catch SARS. (I am not sure of the English name of the fish. In Chinese, it's a blacktail 黑尾魚.) Vice President Lu has proclaimed that if you go places where there are fireflies, you won't catch SARS.
Better fireflies than face masks and evil mouths, I suppose.
These are not the only cures being broadcast. Last week, one of Tasaw's mother's relatives phoned with incredible news. It seems that the relative has a neighbor who said the electrician downstairs has a third cousin whose sister-in-law has a son who never spoke a word since he was born four years ago. Suddenly, last week, at age four, the boy opened his mouth and said, “If you eat green beans before 12 tonight, you will be immune to SARS.” Then he shut his mouth and no matter how much his parents coaxed him, he would not say another word.
Tasaw's mother rushed out to buy green beans, and found that the whole market was full of people buying green beans. Her suspicions were aroused, but better safe than sorry, and green bean soup is always welcome anyway. Yum yum.
The next day at Merica, I asked if anybody had heard about green beans. Everybody started laughing and said, “Oh, the boy who never said a word.”
A few days later, the rumor was traced to its source: a Chinese businessman in Cambodia who sells ~~ you'll never guess ~~ green beans!
In the meantime, this is a great chance to go to department stores. The clerks are so lonely, service is great. You can't see them smile, because they all have face masks on, but you can tell they are delighted to see someone come in. Of course, you can't just walk in. Almost all public access buildings have barricaded all their doors but one. The sole entrance is guarded by someone holding a gun ~~ one of those temperature guns, they point it at your forehead to take your temperature. Many places offer disinfectant so you can wash your hands.
Merica is scared to death that some student will carry SARS and get us shut down. Not just Merica. All businesses are scared.
I visited Great Asia cepartment store, near Merica, by the train station; about 5 customers on each floor. Pretty much the same next door at Hsinkuang-Mitsukoshi. Hey, what a treat! I bought a book at Eslite and didn't have to stand in line. I walked down the sidewalk on Hsinyang 信陽 Street! Usually that is so crowded with people that it is simpler to walk in the street, but now you can walk down the sidewalk in a straight line at 6:30 on a weekday. That is memorable!
I suspect the only people doing good business are video rentals and the like. Conferences, exhibits, and meetings of all sorts have been canceled. Hotels and restaurants are screaming. (at least they still have the life to scream, unlike travel agencies.) When I went for dinner last night at the regular place, a little ten table diner, there were more waitresses than customers; 4 to 2. As many cooks as customers, now that I think of it.
We are coping. I don't have class today. Lucky me, because it's raining, so I can enjoy the rain instead of walking to the bus through it. I just had a pot of my best tea and watched the rain come down, thinking of all the delicious bamboo shoots it will push up.
Now there's a sure cure for SARS: tea and bamboo shoots. Try some today! Every day!
I spend most of my time in the mountains, rarely meeting people at close distances. I wear a face mask on the subway, but I am not on it during rush hours anyway. There may not be rush hours anymore, anyway. People stay off the subway and shun public places whenever possible. Fine with me. The other night I had my choice of seats when I got on at my stop on the way home.
My students have enough trouble understanding English anyway, I do not have to make life even more difficult for them by wearing a mask in class. (“bood ebnig, tudntth, tonight mumble snarl mutter grunt snurf snurf”)(I mean, that's what they usually think I am saying, even without a mask to shutter my pronunciation.)
When I teach, I am on a podium a few steps away from the first row, so I am probably out of range. Merica now requires that students wear face masks in class, as face masks have been proved to be the best immediate defense against SARS. I wonder what my students look like. Not many of them, though. Attendance is way down anyway, as a lot of students decide to sit this one out.
I remember to wash my hands; I don't smoke; I get plenty of exercise; I am not too worried about catching SARS. Statistically, I believe, my chances of getting crushed by a falling vending machine are higher than death by SARS. And we all know that the real killer is not SARS but CARS.
As mentioned, face masks are the best immediate defense against SARS. Also, wash your hands frequently. Last week on the subway, about 90% of the passengers were wearing face masks. This week they are mandatory. Riding the subway without one is punishable by a fine.
Face masks are not for everyone. Vice President Lu Hsiulien has announced that people who wear face masks must do so because they have evil mouths (沒有口德). President Chen Shiubian refuses to wear one, perhaps so we will not be denied the pleasure of seeing his pretty face; this is a man who last year issued a photo album 寫真集 of artistic photographs of himself: President Narcissus. Due to his example, many high ranking officials will not wear face masks, either. The public health people are frantic by this negative example, at a time when it is vital for everyone to cooperate. They point out that one of President Chen's bodyguards has already come down with SARS, so the President ought to be a good example, and put on a face mask. President Chen has replied that he is in no danger of infection, because his bodyguards use a different door to his office than he does.
To protect us, President Chen has written a letter to the Washington Post, blaming the spread of SARS in Taiwan on WHO, saying they will not share information with us. WHO has responded that all of the information is available on their website. To be sure, several days before the President's letter, I happened to visit that website. Maybe they don't have a good Internet connection in the President's office.
All is not lost. The authorities have purchased tons of protective clothing for health workers. The problem is, the suits dissolve on contact with water, and have ripped long before that anyway. The Minister in charge of that explained that they must have bought the wrong stuff, because they told their secretaries to phone somebody and buy things. Secretary, I mean like the one who answers your phone, not like the Cabinet post. Thus highly do our leaders value our health.
President Chen has announced that if you eat a certain kind of fish, you will not catch SARS. (I am not sure of the English name of the fish. In Chinese, it's a blacktail 黑尾魚.) Vice President Lu has proclaimed that if you go places where there are fireflies, you won't catch SARS.
Better fireflies than face masks and evil mouths, I suppose.
These are not the only cures being broadcast. Last week, one of Tasaw's mother's relatives phoned with incredible news. It seems that the relative has a neighbor who said the electrician downstairs has a third cousin whose sister-in-law has a son who never spoke a word since he was born four years ago. Suddenly, last week, at age four, the boy opened his mouth and said, “If you eat green beans before 12 tonight, you will be immune to SARS.” Then he shut his mouth and no matter how much his parents coaxed him, he would not say another word.
Tasaw's mother rushed out to buy green beans, and found that the whole market was full of people buying green beans. Her suspicions were aroused, but better safe than sorry, and green bean soup is always welcome anyway. Yum yum.
The next day at Merica, I asked if anybody had heard about green beans. Everybody started laughing and said, “Oh, the boy who never said a word.”
A few days later, the rumor was traced to its source: a Chinese businessman in Cambodia who sells ~~ you'll never guess ~~ green beans!
In the meantime, this is a great chance to go to department stores. The clerks are so lonely, service is great. You can't see them smile, because they all have face masks on, but you can tell they are delighted to see someone come in. Of course, you can't just walk in. Almost all public access buildings have barricaded all their doors but one. The sole entrance is guarded by someone holding a gun ~~ one of those temperature guns, they point it at your forehead to take your temperature. Many places offer disinfectant so you can wash your hands.
Merica is scared to death that some student will carry SARS and get us shut down. Not just Merica. All businesses are scared.
I visited Great Asia cepartment store, near Merica, by the train station; about 5 customers on each floor. Pretty much the same next door at Hsinkuang-Mitsukoshi. Hey, what a treat! I bought a book at Eslite and didn't have to stand in line. I walked down the sidewalk on Hsinyang 信陽 Street! Usually that is so crowded with people that it is simpler to walk in the street, but now you can walk down the sidewalk in a straight line at 6:30 on a weekday. That is memorable!
I suspect the only people doing good business are video rentals and the like. Conferences, exhibits, and meetings of all sorts have been canceled. Hotels and restaurants are screaming. (at least they still have the life to scream, unlike travel agencies.) When I went for dinner last night at the regular place, a little ten table diner, there were more waitresses than customers; 4 to 2. As many cooks as customers, now that I think of it.
We are coping. I don't have class today. Lucky me, because it's raining, so I can enjoy the rain instead of walking to the bus through it. I just had a pot of my best tea and watched the rain come down, thinking of all the delicious bamboo shoots it will push up.
Now there's a sure cure for SARS: tea and bamboo shoots. Try some today! Every day!
Thursday, May 15, 2003
I wrote this during when the American armed forces attacked Afghanistan.
An Open Letter to the Afghan People:
Let's be rational
I hear there are some problems with the rations we are dropping you people along with the bombs. What, you got a problem with these things that come floating out of the sky with the death? Just read the label, you can see our good intentions. It says so right there, in God's language: Humanitarian Daily Ration. If English is not enough for you, it's got it in French and Spanish, too. What more can you ask for?
Surely you don't expect us to write in Arabic or some other weird language that doesn't use the decent 26 letters. You should be able to read English. Who would want to speak Afghan? Nobody in the US State Department does, so why should Johnny Pathan running around the Kipling Hills speak it? I hope you don't think we're going to spend good tax money on some geek just because he can jabber native. Get real. That tax money can be spent on better purposes, like the oil wells we're going to put in the Arctic Preserve.
It's not hard. Anybody can speak English. Even our President can, kind of. You think he doesn't know about minorities? He was elected by one!
I don't know what's wrong with you people, here we are donating tons of potentially valuable metal for the Afghans to sell for scrap, and all you do is gripe, gripe, gripe.
You really ought to be grateful. Sure, seven million of you are starving, so the 37,000 rations we drop are ~~~ har de har har ~~ a drop in the bucket, but use your noodles! Add some water and thin the stuff out, it'll go a long way. It'll tide you over until we kick out those Taliban creeps and set up some McDonald's for you.
An Open Letter to the Afghan People:
Let's be rational
I hear there are some problems with the rations we are dropping you people along with the bombs. What, you got a problem with these things that come floating out of the sky with the death? Just read the label, you can see our good intentions. It says so right there, in God's language: Humanitarian Daily Ration. If English is not enough for you, it's got it in French and Spanish, too. What more can you ask for?
Surely you don't expect us to write in Arabic or some other weird language that doesn't use the decent 26 letters. You should be able to read English. Who would want to speak Afghan? Nobody in the US State Department does, so why should Johnny Pathan running around the Kipling Hills speak it? I hope you don't think we're going to spend good tax money on some geek just because he can jabber native. Get real. That tax money can be spent on better purposes, like the oil wells we're going to put in the Arctic Preserve.
It's not hard. Anybody can speak English. Even our President can, kind of. You think he doesn't know about minorities? He was elected by one!
I don't know what's wrong with you people, here we are donating tons of potentially valuable metal for the Afghans to sell for scrap, and all you do is gripe, gripe, gripe.
You really ought to be grateful. Sure, seven million of you are starving, so the 37,000 rations we drop are ~~~ har de har har ~~ a drop in the bucket, but use your noodles! Add some water and thin the stuff out, it'll go a long way. It'll tide you over until we kick out those Taliban creeps and set up some McDonald's for you.
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
English is hopelessly weird. Right, i before e except after c, so the e comes before i in weird. When we talk about us, that means at least you and me, maybe a whole bunch of people. I means just me, just the one. Right?
So you tell me. Cactus means just the one, and when you talk about a whole bunch, you say cacti.
So you tell me. Cactus means just the one, and when you talk about a whole bunch, you say cacti.
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