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.”
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.
Sunday, April 27, 2003
written in about 1998.
VENGEANCE IS SWEET
A few weeks ago, I got Sinkang's bus into the city. As usual, I sat in the first seat and we chatted. Halfway to the city, some man about 70 got on, and asked how much the fare to the city is. Sinkang told him, but the man complained that it was too expensive, he is entitled to a senior citizen discount, and so on. Sinkang patiently explained that, yes, he knew that the man was entitled to a senior citizen discount, but that is really the price, as the sign posted right there says. The old man was a bit rude, a kind of dumb-aborigine-doesn't-know-the-price attitude.
As luck would have it, about seven stops from the end of the route, the old man and I were the only passengers left on the bus. The old man came up and asked, “Does this bus go to the Taipei train station? I want to take a train back to Tainan. so I want to go to the train station."
With a thick aborigine accent, Sinkang said, “Hey, I don't know either. I'm lost!”
“You're lost? Aren't you the driver?”
“Yes, but this is my first day on the job. You know, I've never driven one of these big things before, and it's a real honor to have you here, for my first day on the job. This thing is really hard to drive.” Sinkang kept turning almost all the way around in his seat to address the old man, speaking heavily accented Mandarin spiced with Tayal words. The passenger looked a bit queasy. “Yes, it's a great honor to have you on my bus the first time I try to drive one of these things. I'm not sure if I can control this, but we will see.”
Then Sinkang yelled out to me, “Yugan! My foot's cramping! I can't step on the pedals!”
“Then don't step on them.”
“That's a good idea, because I can't remember. Is the gas pedal the one on the right or the one on the left?”
“Try them both.”
“Yugan! We're doomed! I'm lost! I don't know where the train station is!”
“Don't worry, Sinkang, just follow that bus up there. He may be going there.”
I should explain that the route goes past the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, the National Taiwan University Hospital, and then, to approach the train station, rather than turning left across an artery, turns right, then left, then left again. Soon we reached the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, and Sinkang let out a whoop of joy. “There's the Memorial! I remember somebody told me it's near the train station.” The old man smiled wanly. “But don't you worry, sir, we'll circle around a couple of times. If we don't find the train station before long, I'll drive back to Wulai and try again.” Then a moment later: “Yugan! See that big thing up there? That must be the train station, right?”
“Wrong, Sinkang, that's the NTU Hospital.”
“That doesn't matter, it's big enough, maybe they have trains.”
“Okay, Sinkang, let's try this. Why don't you try making a right turn up at the next intersection?”
“All right, Yugan, if you say so. Umm, which side is the right one?”
“Chopsticks, not bowl.” We were closing in on the truck in front of us, so I said, “Hey, Sinkang, do you know where the brake is?”
“I don't want to use my brake, I want to hear what it sounds like to hit a truck.”
About this time we saw a bus coming the other direction with a big sign on it: TAIPEI TRAIN STATION. The old man excitedly pointed at that and said, “He's going to the train station! Ask him where it is.” With great authority, I told him, “That driver's lost too.” But then a few moments later, we approached the intersection where the route turns left, so I said, “No, Sinkang, I don't think this is the way to the station. Why don't you try a left turn?”
“Left?”
“Bowl. Up there, you see that traffic light? There.”
“If you say so.”
When we got to the next place to turn, I said, “Hey, Sinkang, this is not the way, this doesn't look right. Why don't you try another left?” We turned and saw the landmark, the skyscraper in front of the train station. Sinkang said, “There it is, that must be the train station up there!”
“Hard to say, Sinkang, there are a lot of big buildings in Taipei.” To make a long story short, by the time we got to the end of the route, which is not directly in front of the train station, the old man refused to get off the bus! He wanted us to make a few more circles to see if we couldn't find it! It wasn't until some new passengers got on and assured him that yes, the train station was nearby, that he finally got off the bus: then we saw him asking directions all the way up the street.
The moral of this story is, if you're going to look down on an aborigine, make sure you aren't the last passenger left on his bus, especially when he has an accomplice.
VENGEANCE IS SWEET
A few weeks ago, I got Sinkang's bus into the city. As usual, I sat in the first seat and we chatted. Halfway to the city, some man about 70 got on, and asked how much the fare to the city is. Sinkang told him, but the man complained that it was too expensive, he is entitled to a senior citizen discount, and so on. Sinkang patiently explained that, yes, he knew that the man was entitled to a senior citizen discount, but that is really the price, as the sign posted right there says. The old man was a bit rude, a kind of dumb-aborigine-doesn't-know-the-price attitude.
As luck would have it, about seven stops from the end of the route, the old man and I were the only passengers left on the bus. The old man came up and asked, “Does this bus go to the Taipei train station? I want to take a train back to Tainan. so I want to go to the train station."
With a thick aborigine accent, Sinkang said, “Hey, I don't know either. I'm lost!”
“You're lost? Aren't you the driver?”
“Yes, but this is my first day on the job. You know, I've never driven one of these big things before, and it's a real honor to have you here, for my first day on the job. This thing is really hard to drive.” Sinkang kept turning almost all the way around in his seat to address the old man, speaking heavily accented Mandarin spiced with Tayal words. The passenger looked a bit queasy. “Yes, it's a great honor to have you on my bus the first time I try to drive one of these things. I'm not sure if I can control this, but we will see.”
Then Sinkang yelled out to me, “Yugan! My foot's cramping! I can't step on the pedals!”
“Then don't step on them.”
“That's a good idea, because I can't remember. Is the gas pedal the one on the right or the one on the left?”
“Try them both.”
“Yugan! We're doomed! I'm lost! I don't know where the train station is!”
“Don't worry, Sinkang, just follow that bus up there. He may be going there.”
I should explain that the route goes past the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, the National Taiwan University Hospital, and then, to approach the train station, rather than turning left across an artery, turns right, then left, then left again. Soon we reached the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, and Sinkang let out a whoop of joy. “There's the Memorial! I remember somebody told me it's near the train station.” The old man smiled wanly. “But don't you worry, sir, we'll circle around a couple of times. If we don't find the train station before long, I'll drive back to Wulai and try again.” Then a moment later: “Yugan! See that big thing up there? That must be the train station, right?”
“Wrong, Sinkang, that's the NTU Hospital.”
“That doesn't matter, it's big enough, maybe they have trains.”
“Okay, Sinkang, let's try this. Why don't you try making a right turn up at the next intersection?”
“All right, Yugan, if you say so. Umm, which side is the right one?”
“Chopsticks, not bowl.” We were closing in on the truck in front of us, so I said, “Hey, Sinkang, do you know where the brake is?”
“I don't want to use my brake, I want to hear what it sounds like to hit a truck.”
About this time we saw a bus coming the other direction with a big sign on it: TAIPEI TRAIN STATION. The old man excitedly pointed at that and said, “He's going to the train station! Ask him where it is.” With great authority, I told him, “That driver's lost too.” But then a few moments later, we approached the intersection where the route turns left, so I said, “No, Sinkang, I don't think this is the way to the station. Why don't you try a left turn?”
“Left?”
“Bowl. Up there, you see that traffic light? There.”
“If you say so.”
When we got to the next place to turn, I said, “Hey, Sinkang, this is not the way, this doesn't look right. Why don't you try another left?” We turned and saw the landmark, the skyscraper in front of the train station. Sinkang said, “There it is, that must be the train station up there!”
“Hard to say, Sinkang, there are a lot of big buildings in Taipei.” To make a long story short, by the time we got to the end of the route, which is not directly in front of the train station, the old man refused to get off the bus! He wanted us to make a few more circles to see if we couldn't find it! It wasn't until some new passengers got on and assured him that yes, the train station was nearby, that he finally got off the bus: then we saw him asking directions all the way up the street.
The moral of this story is, if you're going to look down on an aborigine, make sure you aren't the last passenger left on his bus, especially when he has an accomplice.
Thursday, April 17, 2003
written in February 2002
Yes, Wulai's newly famous hot springs draw a lot of money, but little of it goes into local pockets, and what's more, we've lost the privacy on our bus line. Now come winter, we residents who get on at the second and third stop find ourselves standing in to the city, all the seats taken by pink-faced outsiders who have just emerged from the hot springs.
Of course, Wulai has attracted tourists for years: the waterfall, the Aborigine dances, just the sheer beauty of mountain and stream. We have often had outsiders on the buses. But not in these numbers!
Most of the bus drivers are from the Tribe. It doesn't happen often nowadays, but sometimes you'd get a bus with only Tayal, and they'd have a great time going in to the city full of Chinese.
One day I got on at the bridge, as usual. Dhuy waved me on with a smile, not even glancing at my ticket. There were only three other passengers on the bus, three raucous teenage girls sitting in back, shouting at Dhuy, spicing their heavily accented Mandarin with Tayal words and phrases. Taiwan is noted throughout Asia for beautiful women, and in Taiwan, Aborigines are noted for their striking appearance. Some of the young ladies in Wulai are real knockouts. These three are. When I got on, they hollered, “Yugan! Come tama cigay with us!” The windows rattled. All that mountain air, you know, that's why they're such famous singers. Taiwan is also noted throughout Asia for singers, and in Taiwan, Aborigines are, hands down, the best singers. Racing up and down these steep mountains, breathing all that fresh air, may be what does it.
More passengers got on, all Tayal. A girl who got on at Tampya was beautiful even though she was missing one of her front teeth. Her appearance brought a shriek from the back of the bus: “Lmuy! Mwah qani cisan with us!” Lmuy with the hole through her smile walked up the aisle grinding her hips, which won a gale of laughter.
Their excited conversation quieted as the bus brought us closer to the city. No more aborigines boarded the bus. The new passengers were Han, flat-land Chinese from the villages closer to the city. The girls’ Mandarin got better stop by stop as they left their accents in the mountains. No more Tayal words popped into their conversation, and by the time they got off, they were all prim and proper young ladies, walking demurely into the city, no grinding hips, no riotous shouting.
Another day, I was riding Eban's bus with a couple old ladies from the Tribe. Everybody was having a fine time, laughing and joshing back and forth. We reached Tampya, Taiwan's northernmost aborigine village, the last wholly Tayal village on our route. An old man got on to the cheers of the old ladies. “Just what we need! Sing for us! Sing for us!”
Through the uproar ― yes, three old Tayal ladies can make an uproar ― Eban explained to me that the old man is one of the Tribe's best singers, better even than Abus, but he is old now, and long past his prime.
The old man smiled from ear to ear (showing both of his teeth), took a deep breath, and started to sing a Japanese song, karaoke style. Immediately Eban shouted him down. “We don't want to hear that, sing us our own Tayal songs!”
The old man thought a bit, composed himself, and started singing in Tayal. I had never heard a voice like that. I never knew a human voice could be so rich, like velvet. We all clapped time, but his singing glowed so that not even the old ladies would join in his songs.
Gradually the bus made its way out of the mountains, but there were almost no passengers. Our singer was gradually falling silent. Eban explained that he had sung out his voice. Tobacco, liquor, and betel left him a mere echo of the singer he had once been.
“If that is so, Eban, in his prime he must have been divine.”
“Truly it is so, Yugan. You never heard anybody sing like him.”
The old man was silent for a while. As the bus reached Chuchih, he started another song. At the stop waited a passenger from the government old folks' home. Many of the old folks in retirement there were middle to upper level civil servants, and the gentleman who boarded the bus had the air of an strict, efficient administrator who was used to obeying rules, and being obeyed himself.
The song fell silent as this man got on the bus and paid his fare. When the doors closed and the bus left the stop with the new passenger still clinging to the rail, the Tayal singer took up his song again with new vigor. The administrator looked at him in surprise, with the expression of someone who is quickly reviewing the rules concerning singing on buses. In a flash, his puzzlement turned into a brilliant smile. He gave the singer a big thumbs up, took a seat, and started clapping in time.
Yes, Wulai's newly famous hot springs draw a lot of money, but little of it goes into local pockets, and what's more, we've lost the privacy on our bus line. Now come winter, we residents who get on at the second and third stop find ourselves standing in to the city, all the seats taken by pink-faced outsiders who have just emerged from the hot springs.
Of course, Wulai has attracted tourists for years: the waterfall, the Aborigine dances, just the sheer beauty of mountain and stream. We have often had outsiders on the buses. But not in these numbers!
Most of the bus drivers are from the Tribe. It doesn't happen often nowadays, but sometimes you'd get a bus with only Tayal, and they'd have a great time going in to the city full of Chinese.
One day I got on at the bridge, as usual. Dhuy waved me on with a smile, not even glancing at my ticket. There were only three other passengers on the bus, three raucous teenage girls sitting in back, shouting at Dhuy, spicing their heavily accented Mandarin with Tayal words and phrases. Taiwan is noted throughout Asia for beautiful women, and in Taiwan, Aborigines are noted for their striking appearance. Some of the young ladies in Wulai are real knockouts. These three are. When I got on, they hollered, “Yugan! Come tama cigay with us!” The windows rattled. All that mountain air, you know, that's why they're such famous singers. Taiwan is also noted throughout Asia for singers, and in Taiwan, Aborigines are, hands down, the best singers. Racing up and down these steep mountains, breathing all that fresh air, may be what does it.
More passengers got on, all Tayal. A girl who got on at Tampya was beautiful even though she was missing one of her front teeth. Her appearance brought a shriek from the back of the bus: “Lmuy! Mwah qani cisan with us!” Lmuy with the hole through her smile walked up the aisle grinding her hips, which won a gale of laughter.
Their excited conversation quieted as the bus brought us closer to the city. No more aborigines boarded the bus. The new passengers were Han, flat-land Chinese from the villages closer to the city. The girls’ Mandarin got better stop by stop as they left their accents in the mountains. No more Tayal words popped into their conversation, and by the time they got off, they were all prim and proper young ladies, walking demurely into the city, no grinding hips, no riotous shouting.
Another day, I was riding Eban's bus with a couple old ladies from the Tribe. Everybody was having a fine time, laughing and joshing back and forth. We reached Tampya, Taiwan's northernmost aborigine village, the last wholly Tayal village on our route. An old man got on to the cheers of the old ladies. “Just what we need! Sing for us! Sing for us!”
Through the uproar ― yes, three old Tayal ladies can make an uproar ― Eban explained to me that the old man is one of the Tribe's best singers, better even than Abus, but he is old now, and long past his prime.
The old man smiled from ear to ear (showing both of his teeth), took a deep breath, and started to sing a Japanese song, karaoke style. Immediately Eban shouted him down. “We don't want to hear that, sing us our own Tayal songs!”
The old man thought a bit, composed himself, and started singing in Tayal. I had never heard a voice like that. I never knew a human voice could be so rich, like velvet. We all clapped time, but his singing glowed so that not even the old ladies would join in his songs.
Gradually the bus made its way out of the mountains, but there were almost no passengers. Our singer was gradually falling silent. Eban explained that he had sung out his voice. Tobacco, liquor, and betel left him a mere echo of the singer he had once been.
“If that is so, Eban, in his prime he must have been divine.”
“Truly it is so, Yugan. You never heard anybody sing like him.”
The old man was silent for a while. As the bus reached Chuchih, he started another song. At the stop waited a passenger from the government old folks' home. Many of the old folks in retirement there were middle to upper level civil servants, and the gentleman who boarded the bus had the air of an strict, efficient administrator who was used to obeying rules, and being obeyed himself.
The song fell silent as this man got on the bus and paid his fare. When the doors closed and the bus left the stop with the new passenger still clinging to the rail, the Tayal singer took up his song again with new vigor. The administrator looked at him in surprise, with the expression of someone who is quickly reviewing the rules concerning singing on buses. In a flash, his puzzlement turned into a brilliant smile. He gave the singer a big thumbs up, took a seat, and started clapping in time.
Monday, April 14, 2003
written in 1995
LEAVES
By 1980, the Cultural Revolution was over, but the tension remained. The People's Liberation Army still shelled the Nationalists on Kinmen (the Quemoy of 1950s fame), and the Nationalists still shelled them back, but in turn, on alternate days, and with propaganda, not warheads. Every once in a while, a communist frogman would slip in to Kinmen and hack off the head of an unwary soldier or two, and there were communist infiltrators in the mountains of Taiwan, but in general, the situation was quiet.
This was before the days of massive Taiwan tourism and investment in mainland China. (I strongly doubt there are any more infiltrators lurking in the mountains today: any mainlander who can get to Taiwan rushes straight to a factory to earn some money. A month's work in Taiwan, even for cheap-o illegal immigrant labor, earns more than three years at standard wages in the PRC.) Travel in Communist China was considered treasonous. It was rumored that the Red Chinese obliged the Nationalists by turning over the names of any Taiwan passport holders who traveled to the mainland, and there were said to be agents watching the trains into the mainland from Hong Kong.
Old Cheng had come to Taiwan in 1949 with the army. After his discharge, hard work and careful investments left old Cheng comfortable, but then his wife died, and he felt the cold breath of old age blowing down his collar. Thirty years. He hadn't seen his old home in thirty years. It had been thirty years since Old Cheng had heard a whole town full of people speaking his own dialect, thirty years since he had tasted the special taste of fruit grown in his native soil. Old Cheng was overcome by homesickness, desperate homesickness.
“Falling leaves return to their roots,” Old Cheng told his sons. “I want to go home.”
His sons were horrified. “You can't do that!”
“I want to go home to die.”
“You're not going to die that soon, Pa. Take it easy, things'll loosen up in a few years. Then you can visit the old hometown.”
“I don't want to wait a few years, and it may be centuries, anyway. I want to go back to my old home to spend my last years. Falling leaves return to their roots.”
“Pa, what if they found out? They'd put you in jail when you came back,” the younger son said.
“I'm not coming back.”
“You've been in Taiwan too long, Pa,” the older son offered.
“Taiwan is not my home.”
“But you're soft now. You're used to luxuries you can't get in the mainland.”
“I don't care! I can handle any hardship, just so long as I'm home.”
Old Cheng was adamant. He wanted to spend his last years in his hometown, and nothing his sons said could shake his determination. A respectful son does not disagree too strongly with his father. Of course there was the matter that in those days you didn't just get a passport and shuffle off to Red China, so the sons handled the problem with inaction.
But Old Cheng got worse and worse. Every day the sons heard him repeat, “Falling leaves return to their roots.” They even began to worry about his sanity, because constant frustration is not good for old folks' minds.
In the end, Old Cheng won out. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, his sons got him a passport and a visa to Hong Kong.
“Pa, you know that if anything happens to you, we won't be able to get to you. We can barely even write letters to you.”
“What could happen to me at home? The clan will take care of me.”
The older son escorted him to Hong Kong, and put him on the train into the mainland. “Pa, we'll never see you again.”
“Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.” With a light and cheerful step, the father got on the train, going back to the old hometown, and the son morosely got on the plane back to Taiwan...
The phone call came a week later. “I'm in Hong Kong. Come bring me home.”
Delighted, the older son caught the next flight to Hong Kong. Old Cheng was strangely reluctant to discuss his trip to the old hometown, and his sons, ever respectful, were unwilling to press him. But that night, back home in Taipei, he made his first, last, and only comment: “There is not one single piece of toilet paper in the entire People's Republic of China. Bamboo leaves. BAMBOO LEAVES!”
LEAVES
By 1980, the Cultural Revolution was over, but the tension remained. The People's Liberation Army still shelled the Nationalists on Kinmen (the Quemoy of 1950s fame), and the Nationalists still shelled them back, but in turn, on alternate days, and with propaganda, not warheads. Every once in a while, a communist frogman would slip in to Kinmen and hack off the head of an unwary soldier or two, and there were communist infiltrators in the mountains of Taiwan, but in general, the situation was quiet.
This was before the days of massive Taiwan tourism and investment in mainland China. (I strongly doubt there are any more infiltrators lurking in the mountains today: any mainlander who can get to Taiwan rushes straight to a factory to earn some money. A month's work in Taiwan, even for cheap-o illegal immigrant labor, earns more than three years at standard wages in the PRC.) Travel in Communist China was considered treasonous. It was rumored that the Red Chinese obliged the Nationalists by turning over the names of any Taiwan passport holders who traveled to the mainland, and there were said to be agents watching the trains into the mainland from Hong Kong.
Old Cheng had come to Taiwan in 1949 with the army. After his discharge, hard work and careful investments left old Cheng comfortable, but then his wife died, and he felt the cold breath of old age blowing down his collar. Thirty years. He hadn't seen his old home in thirty years. It had been thirty years since Old Cheng had heard a whole town full of people speaking his own dialect, thirty years since he had tasted the special taste of fruit grown in his native soil. Old Cheng was overcome by homesickness, desperate homesickness.
“Falling leaves return to their roots,” Old Cheng told his sons. “I want to go home.”
His sons were horrified. “You can't do that!”
“I want to go home to die.”
“You're not going to die that soon, Pa. Take it easy, things'll loosen up in a few years. Then you can visit the old hometown.”
“I don't want to wait a few years, and it may be centuries, anyway. I want to go back to my old home to spend my last years. Falling leaves return to their roots.”
“Pa, what if they found out? They'd put you in jail when you came back,” the younger son said.
“I'm not coming back.”
“You've been in Taiwan too long, Pa,” the older son offered.
“Taiwan is not my home.”
“But you're soft now. You're used to luxuries you can't get in the mainland.”
“I don't care! I can handle any hardship, just so long as I'm home.”
Old Cheng was adamant. He wanted to spend his last years in his hometown, and nothing his sons said could shake his determination. A respectful son does not disagree too strongly with his father. Of course there was the matter that in those days you didn't just get a passport and shuffle off to Red China, so the sons handled the problem with inaction.
But Old Cheng got worse and worse. Every day the sons heard him repeat, “Falling leaves return to their roots.” They even began to worry about his sanity, because constant frustration is not good for old folks' minds.
In the end, Old Cheng won out. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, his sons got him a passport and a visa to Hong Kong.
“Pa, you know that if anything happens to you, we won't be able to get to you. We can barely even write letters to you.”
“What could happen to me at home? The clan will take care of me.”
The older son escorted him to Hong Kong, and put him on the train into the mainland. “Pa, we'll never see you again.”
“Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.” With a light and cheerful step, the father got on the train, going back to the old hometown, and the son morosely got on the plane back to Taiwan...
The phone call came a week later. “I'm in Hong Kong. Come bring me home.”
Delighted, the older son caught the next flight to Hong Kong. Old Cheng was strangely reluctant to discuss his trip to the old hometown, and his sons, ever respectful, were unwilling to press him. But that night, back home in Taipei, he made his first, last, and only comment: “There is not one single piece of toilet paper in the entire People's Republic of China. Bamboo leaves. BAMBOO LEAVES!”
Saturday, April 05, 2003
written in May, 1997, not long after I moved to Wulai
Ah-Ing, our faithful taxi driver, has helped so much. He drove for us for over five of our years of searching for land, and since he was originally a plumber and electrician, he has helped a great deal here. (When our contractor's original water & electric man wandered off in search of water buffaloes, Ah-Ing took over and finished a lot of the wiring and plumbing here.) When we were finally moving in, he told me he'd like to go up Big Bucket Mountain. I thought, 'Now surely this is something I can do for him,' so I made inquiries about where the trail head is, how much time to allow, and the best season to go. The season being right and the weather permitting, we went up on the 29th of April.
Ha! The good intentions left over from paving the road to hell have been used to gouge up the path up Big Bucket Mountain. When I got information about the path, I should have considered my source, and who made the path—aborigines, who will never go around an obstacle they can clamber over, and who always take the shortest distance between two points. Had I known what the path was like, I would not have taken him; he has no hiking experience to speak of (make that, he had no hiking experience. He sure does now.) It took us a good two and a half hours to reach the top, from an altitude of about 400 meters to 820 meters on a path about 4+ kilometers long. It is useless to say there were almost no level spots on the path; most of the path involved climbing rocks, with hands and feet, grabbing first the roots of trees, then maybe their branches. Virgin, uncut rainforest. I would rate this as perhaps the hardest path I have ever taken, and I have done some pretty rousing paths.
Ah-Ing is a real trooper. During the first part—the easy part—he thought he was going to faint; everything was spinning. Once he got acclimated, he gritted his teeth and pulled himself up. I kept a close eye on him, and gave him plenty of rests, but I have to say that being a vegetarian makes a big difference—greater stamina, endurance, and quicker recovery from fatigue (exhaustion). Ah-Ing is two years younger than I; I don't think a meat eating novice could have made it to the top, but he did, and I'm proud of him.
We were a bit disappointed by the haze that cut our view. About twenty minutes from the summit is a horrible landslide that starts right from the edge of the path (slid out two or three years ago in a typhoon.) The path remains, with nothing on the right side, so we had to go up rocks, a good sixty degrees there, with 40～50 meters exposure (vertical drop) on the right side of our feet. Ah-Ing did just fine. I took a rope for belay, but he didn't need it.
Finally, we reached the summit, where we were welcomed by distant thunder, once, twice. Uh-oh. I told Ah-Ing, "If that comes any closer, we are getting out of here immediately." We ate our noodles, and just as we finished, it began to rain. I judged it wouldn't last long, but the last thing I wanted was rain to make the path all slippery. I said, "It doesn't matter how wet we get, we are going to descend with extreme caution, one step at a time, and for Pete's sake, keep a distance so you don't knock me off too if you do fall.”
I think he was telling mantras with the same concentration as I, because when we got to a section that was easy enough to relax a bit, we were both amazed to find we had already down-climbed for an hour! I simply don't know how an hour could pass so quickly, but shall I tell you how enjoyable it is to climb down steep, slippery rocks beside a landslide when your poncho keeps getting in the way so you can't see your feet?
At one spot, I unintentionally kicked a poor, innocent snake that had been minding its own business. It sure got out of my way in a hurry. Sorry, snake. Unfortunately, the rain brought out the leeches. Fortunately, Ah-Ing's son had learned from the Scouts what to do with leeches: salt them, and they drop off. I was leading, and wearing sandals, so I got about six, but even Ah-Ing got two inside his new hiking boots. Yuck!
When we were about half an hour up the path, we said, "People a hundred years ago would think we are out of our minds to come traipsing up this mountain for no conceivable reason." An hour later, we said, "Maybe there is something wrong with us, to come traipsing up this mountain." Two hours after that, we said, "What is wrong with us? We could be sitting home comfortably drinking tea right now." No wonder we didn't meet anyone at all on the mountain, and the path doesn't seem very well traveled.
Just over five hours, up and down, and now that it's over, there is a definite satisfaction, a pleasure in having been up there. Measuring the slope on my study window sill, I would say it's a steady 45° climb. I have earned a new familiarity with the mountain my desk faces.
Looking at it now, I suspect it may be an ancient volcano cone. The day following our escapade was gorgeous. Started out sunny, poured in the afternoon, then had beautiful mists at dusk. Thunder off and on, near and far, for ten hours.
Ah-Ing, our faithful taxi driver, has helped so much. He drove for us for over five of our years of searching for land, and since he was originally a plumber and electrician, he has helped a great deal here. (When our contractor's original water & electric man wandered off in search of water buffaloes, Ah-Ing took over and finished a lot of the wiring and plumbing here.) When we were finally moving in, he told me he'd like to go up Big Bucket Mountain. I thought, 'Now surely this is something I can do for him,' so I made inquiries about where the trail head is, how much time to allow, and the best season to go. The season being right and the weather permitting, we went up on the 29th of April.
Ha! The good intentions left over from paving the road to hell have been used to gouge up the path up Big Bucket Mountain. When I got information about the path, I should have considered my source, and who made the path—aborigines, who will never go around an obstacle they can clamber over, and who always take the shortest distance between two points. Had I known what the path was like, I would not have taken him; he has no hiking experience to speak of (make that, he had no hiking experience. He sure does now.) It took us a good two and a half hours to reach the top, from an altitude of about 400 meters to 820 meters on a path about 4+ kilometers long. It is useless to say there were almost no level spots on the path; most of the path involved climbing rocks, with hands and feet, grabbing first the roots of trees, then maybe their branches. Virgin, uncut rainforest. I would rate this as perhaps the hardest path I have ever taken, and I have done some pretty rousing paths.
Ah-Ing is a real trooper. During the first part—the easy part—he thought he was going to faint; everything was spinning. Once he got acclimated, he gritted his teeth and pulled himself up. I kept a close eye on him, and gave him plenty of rests, but I have to say that being a vegetarian makes a big difference—greater stamina, endurance, and quicker recovery from fatigue (exhaustion). Ah-Ing is two years younger than I; I don't think a meat eating novice could have made it to the top, but he did, and I'm proud of him.
We were a bit disappointed by the haze that cut our view. About twenty minutes from the summit is a horrible landslide that starts right from the edge of the path (slid out two or three years ago in a typhoon.) The path remains, with nothing on the right side, so we had to go up rocks, a good sixty degrees there, with 40～50 meters exposure (vertical drop) on the right side of our feet. Ah-Ing did just fine. I took a rope for belay, but he didn't need it.
Finally, we reached the summit, where we were welcomed by distant thunder, once, twice. Uh-oh. I told Ah-Ing, "If that comes any closer, we are getting out of here immediately." We ate our noodles, and just as we finished, it began to rain. I judged it wouldn't last long, but the last thing I wanted was rain to make the path all slippery. I said, "It doesn't matter how wet we get, we are going to descend with extreme caution, one step at a time, and for Pete's sake, keep a distance so you don't knock me off too if you do fall.”
I think he was telling mantras with the same concentration as I, because when we got to a section that was easy enough to relax a bit, we were both amazed to find we had already down-climbed for an hour! I simply don't know how an hour could pass so quickly, but shall I tell you how enjoyable it is to climb down steep, slippery rocks beside a landslide when your poncho keeps getting in the way so you can't see your feet?
At one spot, I unintentionally kicked a poor, innocent snake that had been minding its own business. It sure got out of my way in a hurry. Sorry, snake. Unfortunately, the rain brought out the leeches. Fortunately, Ah-Ing's son had learned from the Scouts what to do with leeches: salt them, and they drop off. I was leading, and wearing sandals, so I got about six, but even Ah-Ing got two inside his new hiking boots. Yuck!
When we were about half an hour up the path, we said, "People a hundred years ago would think we are out of our minds to come traipsing up this mountain for no conceivable reason." An hour later, we said, "Maybe there is something wrong with us, to come traipsing up this mountain." Two hours after that, we said, "What is wrong with us? We could be sitting home comfortably drinking tea right now." No wonder we didn't meet anyone at all on the mountain, and the path doesn't seem very well traveled.
Just over five hours, up and down, and now that it's over, there is a definite satisfaction, a pleasure in having been up there. Measuring the slope on my study window sill, I would say it's a steady 45° climb. I have earned a new familiarity with the mountain my desk faces.
Looking at it now, I suspect it may be an ancient volcano cone. The day following our escapade was gorgeous. Started out sunny, poured in the afternoon, then had beautiful mists at dusk. Thunder off and on, near and far, for ten hours.
Thursday, April 03, 2003
written in 1996 (you still see the types described in the first paragraph. the supply must be holding out.)
CALIFORNIA IN THE 60s
Funny. Every few years on the streets of Taipei, you see someone who looks like he came straight from 1968 Haight-Ashbury: the long straggly hair, bell bottoms, love beads, acid belt, the whole get-up. (This type is invariably accompanied by a hard-eyed Chinese girlfriend with a no-nonsense permanent, business suit, and respectable heels.) More often you see young Americans roving Asia in search of Life and Truth and Adventure with modern plumbing.
It has happened that such youngsters ask where I was, what I did during the 60s. My answer, “LA,” often brings a strangely reverential look to their eyes.
“What was it like in LA during the 60s?” they ask in hushed tones of excitement.
Oh yes, oh yes, chilluns, I was there. Let me tell you about it.
What was it like? I guess the spirit of the decade caught up with me in about 1965, when I was in junior high. My big brother had a chopper. I didn't care much for the bike or the gang, but I loved the boots, so I got an old pair, nice soft black suede, from my brother and wore them to school.
Soon the principal called me in to his office, and gave me a friendly, paternal lecture about the dangers of communist plots. He ended up with the very friendly, very firm order to wear some normal shoes to school in the future, or else. Everybody laughed at me.
A few months later, Jim H, one of the in crowd, came to school in what I thought were really ugly, vulgar, shiny boots: pointy toes, and so tight fitting that they had to have zippers on them. Bet they were made out of plastic. I mean, if a chihuahua wore boots, those are the boots it would wear.
I waited for the principal to give Jim a lecture about the dangers of communist plots, but he never did. After all, Jim did not come from one of the three Slavic families in town, or one of the two Democratic families, either. His father was a rich Republican. By the end of the week, most of the other boys had pointy zippered chihuahua boots, and they laughed at me.
Around the end of 1967, Brian told me his sister and their friends were working for a new party called the Peace and Freedom Party. They needed volunteers to pass out leaflets at the Rose Parade to bring in voters. Would I help? Sure, Brian, let's go.
After dark on New Year's Eve, we went to the Party Headquarters. They gave us each a stack of leaflets and put us on a bus festooned with slogans (comment for the younger generation: in the 60s, it was very very hip to buy an old bus to use for private transportation, especially if you repainted it.)
As the bus crawled along in the heavy traffic on Colorado Boulevard, the parade route, I took a look at the leaflets. There was a very nice picture of a nasty policeman whacking an innocent black man over the head with a billy club, and a few choice words about police brutality and civil rights. The main focus of the leaflet was that if enough people joined the Party, they could get on the ballot in November and stop the war in Viet Nam.
Viet Nam? Wasn't that the place the communists were trying to take over? I was wary of talk about communist plots, but I didn't know enough about the issues to decide, or care, really. I was just there to help Brian pass out leaflets.
We got off the bus and started walking down the blue line passing out leaflets. Traffic was so heavy that we had to be careful not to get too far ahead of the bus. Very few people wanted our leaflets. We got a lot of flack from the crowd. People yelled at the bus.
After several blocks, I happened to look back and saw three tough guys following me. A hundred yards later I looked back, and there were seven of them. When they saw me look back the second time, they started after me. I grabbed Brian and scampered on to the bus. They yelled insults about anti-war commies.
Soon we pulled into the gas station by Pasadena City College. Just as we filled the tank, Brian and I looked back and saw a hundred people moving in on the bus. We yelped. The driver floored it. Seeing us pull out, the crowd started running after us, cursing and yelling.
After a mile or two of fancy maneuvering through the back streets, we returned to the parade route. The happy crowd turned hostile the moment they saw the anti-war slogans on the bus.
None of us felt like getting off and mingling with the masses. They clearly didn't want our leaflets, our slogans, or our party.
Suddenly, glass started flying as the windows on both sides of the bus were smashed. The bus was filled with curses and spit. We left the parade route directly.
A young lady on the other side of the aisle was particularly proud that someone had spit right in her face. Brian and I left our leaflets on the bus when we got off to go enjoy the parade.
Within two years, the anti-war movement was in full swing. It had become popular, the chic, daring thing to do. Let's go protest the war. Aren't we righteous?
On Moratorium Day, we had a very significant protest at Pasadena High. The school authorities even provided microphones and loudspeakers.
Joseph, who was very rebellious because he had long hair and a mustache and wouldn't let you call him Joe anymore, came to the mike and read us a very long poem from a book he cradled in his left arm. I think it by some politician like McGovern or McCarthy. I just remember that the refrain went “And tell me lies about Viet Nam.” Every time Joseph got to that part (he had it down by heart), he would scowl ferociously at the crowd. He cut quite a figure up there with his book, hair, mustache, jeans, and pointy zippered chihuahua boots.
I think I got a fair whiff of the 60s. I soooooeeeeed when I saw a police car (not too close), went to the light shows and love-ins, hassled the school authorities as much as I could without getting expelled, and sat on the ground with a circle of friends going Ohm Ohm Ohm and wondering what the hell we were doing that for. I was naive enough to be shocked, and hurt, when a student politician highly regarded for his liberal, even radical, views on civil rights and race relations told me privately that chiggers weren't good for anything but singing, dancing, and stealing watermelons. One of my best moments came when the school band marched through the halls to drum up pep for The Big Game. With strategically placed trashcans, I barricaded them in a dead end hallway. They marched in place, tooting away outside the German classroom until the Herr dashed out and attacked them with blackboard erasers. Too bad their uniforms were white anyway.
I gave my ears and heart to Judy Collins and Janis Joplin. I jeered at all the plastic people, but I was also uncomfortable with the flower children. First, I detested Bob Dylan because I always thought he was a phony. (The same goes for Joan Baez.) Second, I never used dope. I heard all the talk about opening doors in your mind, but I never met a doper who could say anything profound. (“Hey, man, like, did you see what that spider did? It wove a spider web, man, a spider web, can you grok that, man?”) Frank Zappa never doped, and if he had had any more doors open in his mind, he would have had to hang a 24 HRs sign on his forehead. Dope sounded like a pretentious, self-righteous substitute for booze.
Do people in the States still say “Love it or leave it”? I said, “Love it and leave it.” As soon as I graduated from high school, I went to Viet Nam to sell pizzas for my uncle's bakery. I learned enough Viet Namese to get along, and I quickly formed a strong affection for the country and its people. Delivering pizzas, I traveled all over the country, wherever there might be a base with soldiers who wanted pizzas. I was dumb, eager to learn, and unarmed, so our Viet Namese drivers took me places foreigners were hardly ever seen. I found out who was telling us lies about Viet Nam: American reporters.
By this time, all my high school friends were demonstrating against the war. I wrote, telling them what I saw. They laughed at me. “That's not what George McPolitican said, and he made a fact finding tour to Viet Nam. He spent a whole two weeks there, and he knows.”
I remember a picture I saw of that fact finding tour. He was on Tu Do Street, in the touristy part of town I stayed away from. (He never got out among the people of the country without an escort of armed guards and photographers, and the Viet Namese I knew hated him; he insulted their people and was insensitive to their culture.) I couldn't see clearly from the photo, because he was surrounded by VIPs and bodyguards, but I swear the pointy boots he was wearing had zippers on them.
丙子冬
CALIFORNIA IN THE 60s
Funny. Every few years on the streets of Taipei, you see someone who looks like he came straight from 1968 Haight-Ashbury: the long straggly hair, bell bottoms, love beads, acid belt, the whole get-up. (This type is invariably accompanied by a hard-eyed Chinese girlfriend with a no-nonsense permanent, business suit, and respectable heels.) More often you see young Americans roving Asia in search of Life and Truth and Adventure with modern plumbing.
It has happened that such youngsters ask where I was, what I did during the 60s. My answer, “LA,” often brings a strangely reverential look to their eyes.
“What was it like in LA during the 60s?” they ask in hushed tones of excitement.
Oh yes, oh yes, chilluns, I was there. Let me tell you about it.
What was it like? I guess the spirit of the decade caught up with me in about 1965, when I was in junior high. My big brother had a chopper. I didn't care much for the bike or the gang, but I loved the boots, so I got an old pair, nice soft black suede, from my brother and wore them to school.
Soon the principal called me in to his office, and gave me a friendly, paternal lecture about the dangers of communist plots. He ended up with the very friendly, very firm order to wear some normal shoes to school in the future, or else. Everybody laughed at me.
A few months later, Jim H, one of the in crowd, came to school in what I thought were really ugly, vulgar, shiny boots: pointy toes, and so tight fitting that they had to have zippers on them. Bet they were made out of plastic. I mean, if a chihuahua wore boots, those are the boots it would wear.
I waited for the principal to give Jim a lecture about the dangers of communist plots, but he never did. After all, Jim did not come from one of the three Slavic families in town, or one of the two Democratic families, either. His father was a rich Republican. By the end of the week, most of the other boys had pointy zippered chihuahua boots, and they laughed at me.
Around the end of 1967, Brian told me his sister and their friends were working for a new party called the Peace and Freedom Party. They needed volunteers to pass out leaflets at the Rose Parade to bring in voters. Would I help? Sure, Brian, let's go.
After dark on New Year's Eve, we went to the Party Headquarters. They gave us each a stack of leaflets and put us on a bus festooned with slogans (comment for the younger generation: in the 60s, it was very very hip to buy an old bus to use for private transportation, especially if you repainted it.)
As the bus crawled along in the heavy traffic on Colorado Boulevard, the parade route, I took a look at the leaflets. There was a very nice picture of a nasty policeman whacking an innocent black man over the head with a billy club, and a few choice words about police brutality and civil rights. The main focus of the leaflet was that if enough people joined the Party, they could get on the ballot in November and stop the war in Viet Nam.
Viet Nam? Wasn't that the place the communists were trying to take over? I was wary of talk about communist plots, but I didn't know enough about the issues to decide, or care, really. I was just there to help Brian pass out leaflets.
We got off the bus and started walking down the blue line passing out leaflets. Traffic was so heavy that we had to be careful not to get too far ahead of the bus. Very few people wanted our leaflets. We got a lot of flack from the crowd. People yelled at the bus.
After several blocks, I happened to look back and saw three tough guys following me. A hundred yards later I looked back, and there were seven of them. When they saw me look back the second time, they started after me. I grabbed Brian and scampered on to the bus. They yelled insults about anti-war commies.
Soon we pulled into the gas station by Pasadena City College. Just as we filled the tank, Brian and I looked back and saw a hundred people moving in on the bus. We yelped. The driver floored it. Seeing us pull out, the crowd started running after us, cursing and yelling.
After a mile or two of fancy maneuvering through the back streets, we returned to the parade route. The happy crowd turned hostile the moment they saw the anti-war slogans on the bus.
None of us felt like getting off and mingling with the masses. They clearly didn't want our leaflets, our slogans, or our party.
Suddenly, glass started flying as the windows on both sides of the bus were smashed. The bus was filled with curses and spit. We left the parade route directly.
A young lady on the other side of the aisle was particularly proud that someone had spit right in her face. Brian and I left our leaflets on the bus when we got off to go enjoy the parade.
Within two years, the anti-war movement was in full swing. It had become popular, the chic, daring thing to do. Let's go protest the war. Aren't we righteous?
On Moratorium Day, we had a very significant protest at Pasadena High. The school authorities even provided microphones and loudspeakers.
Joseph, who was very rebellious because he had long hair and a mustache and wouldn't let you call him Joe anymore, came to the mike and read us a very long poem from a book he cradled in his left arm. I think it by some politician like McGovern or McCarthy. I just remember that the refrain went “And tell me lies about Viet Nam.” Every time Joseph got to that part (he had it down by heart), he would scowl ferociously at the crowd. He cut quite a figure up there with his book, hair, mustache, jeans, and pointy zippered chihuahua boots.
I think I got a fair whiff of the 60s. I soooooeeeeed when I saw a police car (not too close), went to the light shows and love-ins, hassled the school authorities as much as I could without getting expelled, and sat on the ground with a circle of friends going Ohm Ohm Ohm and wondering what the hell we were doing that for. I was naive enough to be shocked, and hurt, when a student politician highly regarded for his liberal, even radical, views on civil rights and race relations told me privately that chiggers weren't good for anything but singing, dancing, and stealing watermelons. One of my best moments came when the school band marched through the halls to drum up pep for The Big Game. With strategically placed trashcans, I barricaded them in a dead end hallway. They marched in place, tooting away outside the German classroom until the Herr dashed out and attacked them with blackboard erasers. Too bad their uniforms were white anyway.
I gave my ears and heart to Judy Collins and Janis Joplin. I jeered at all the plastic people, but I was also uncomfortable with the flower children. First, I detested Bob Dylan because I always thought he was a phony. (The same goes for Joan Baez.) Second, I never used dope. I heard all the talk about opening doors in your mind, but I never met a doper who could say anything profound. (“Hey, man, like, did you see what that spider did? It wove a spider web, man, a spider web, can you grok that, man?”) Frank Zappa never doped, and if he had had any more doors open in his mind, he would have had to hang a 24 HRs sign on his forehead. Dope sounded like a pretentious, self-righteous substitute for booze.
Do people in the States still say “Love it or leave it”? I said, “Love it and leave it.” As soon as I graduated from high school, I went to Viet Nam to sell pizzas for my uncle's bakery. I learned enough Viet Namese to get along, and I quickly formed a strong affection for the country and its people. Delivering pizzas, I traveled all over the country, wherever there might be a base with soldiers who wanted pizzas. I was dumb, eager to learn, and unarmed, so our Viet Namese drivers took me places foreigners were hardly ever seen. I found out who was telling us lies about Viet Nam: American reporters.
By this time, all my high school friends were demonstrating against the war. I wrote, telling them what I saw. They laughed at me. “That's not what George McPolitican said, and he made a fact finding tour to Viet Nam. He spent a whole two weeks there, and he knows.”
I remember a picture I saw of that fact finding tour. He was on Tu Do Street, in the touristy part of town I stayed away from. (He never got out among the people of the country without an escort of armed guards and photographers, and the Viet Namese I knew hated him; he insulted their people and was insensitive to their culture.) I couldn't see clearly from the photo, because he was surrounded by VIPs and bodyguards, but I swear the pointy boots he was wearing had zippers on them.
丙子冬
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
I actually began this blog on November 6, 2003. However, I am using the Archives to post older pieces, symbolically dating the first entry on April Fools', 2003.
Many thanks to Tasaw for encouraging me to do this, and to Donna for pointing me in the right direction. Great gratitude to blogger.com for providing this blog.
This is mostly in English because I don't type Chinese very fast.
If you have any roses, donations, or bricks you wish to aim in my direction, talovich@mail.com
Thanks for coming.
Many thanks to Tasaw for encouraging me to do this, and to Donna for pointing me in the right direction. Great gratitude to blogger.com for providing this blog.
This is mostly in English because I don't type Chinese very fast.
If you have any roses, donations, or bricks you wish to aim in my direction, talovich@mail.com
Thanks for coming.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
