More pictures

A mural by the "playground," and come to think of it another representation of the Statue of Liberty.



















The view from where I live now, or one of the views.

Catfood

I'm starting to get the feeling that the further you walk in a certain direction the sketchier this place gets. Anyway, this is the "playground" I was talking about.


But then about a minute away is this garden. This isn't all of it, but I can't fit it all in one frame. I'm missing the tree and the third bird cage I think. But you get the idea.

I'm kind of like a yuppie but without the money

so parhaps against my better judgement (since I have to pay rent in two days) however I get paid on Thursday, so I think it'll be alright. I bought a digital camera today. I've been working most of the day, so I didn't get much time to play around with it. I'm still getting used to the pause before the camera actually takes the picture. So the first pictures I took were all blurry. The ones that are actually sort of okay aren't particularly cheerful or informative, those may have to wait until daylight. Although it's cool to be able to take pictures at night.

Women

There seems to be some sort of stigma attatched to women who aren't married. I'm not sure if there's the same stigma attatched to men or whether they just get more leeway. But there seems to be an accompanying feeling that these older women are jealous of younger women because they CAN get married and so they act badly towards younger women. This is frequently offered as an explanation of why people are rude, another woman will say to me, "You know she isn't married?" as if this explains everything. I'm not sure if this is just Jilong smalltownism or a general thing, but all in all it can be a little weird.

Things I think are cool

Today instead of walking to my house, I decided to explore a little bit more of the area in which I live. I don't remember if I mentioned before but I moved recently. To a different part of Jilong but typical Taiwan it's only about a 10-12 minute walk from where I used to live but it looks completely different. My building is directly across from a train line and I live about a 45 second walk from a commuter train station. Also typical Taiwan, due to the ever-present security cameras the building seems quite safe and it's not particularly sketchy. There's a stream that runs by my house, although by stream I mean something that seems to be similar to the branch of the LA River that used to run through my neighborhood in LA. By LA River, I mean a canal that for all intents and purposes acts as a sewer. However there are things living in it, I discovered. There's a school of fish that live in it and a water bird of some kind which hunts in it.

I haven't explored much around the area but taking the train back one day I did start to wonder what the area is like and so today rather than going right home I walked a little farther along my street and found not one but two awesome things. I'm going to try to take some pictures when I buy a camera having DESTROYED my old one and a precious roll of film in an act of unbelieveable stupidity. Anyway until then I'll try to describe them.

The first thing is a garden that someone has created set into the train platform. The train actually runs about a story above the street so there's this tall blue wall that makes up one side of my street. Anyway someone has set a tree, and millions of plants and birdcages into the wall. It's really beautiful and amazing. Hopefully it will still look cool tomorrow.

The other thing that I found was also sort of awesome but in a different sort of way. As I kept walking I saw this sort of tiled courtyard. Literally it's just a square of tiled concrete with walls. On these walls are giant panels of graffiti and swearwords, I think. Mostly in English. However the sign says, 龍門區兒童樂園 or Longmen District's Children's Playground or Happy Garden litterally. My feelings were, "Well, fuck, if this is a playground what else is there to do but cover the place with graffiti."

Food for Thought or City of Angels Part 2

A couple things I thought were interesting. How immigrants in Los Angeles are bypassing English and just speaking each other's languages. You can read it here. Yet another reason why angryasianman.com is awesome.

City of Angels

A recent exchange between myself and one of my coworkers who just got back from China.

A: And there was this little boy in a park just pissing away with no shame at all.
Me: Just like in Los Angeles.
A: But it was all in the open and there were millions of people around.
Me: Just like in Los Angeles.

There are times when I wonder whether being born in a large, densely populated city where you can't drink the water or breathe the air and where people are known for being assholes is one of the reasons why the environment which seems to bother so many other foreigners here doesn't seem to bother me much. In fact I can breathe much better here than I could in Los Angeles.

Although one thing that Katrina showed us I think was that parts of the US are really similar to a third world country and (surprise surprise) the color of their skin is mostly the same.

An observation

There are some days when you want to go out and experience life. And then there are days when you just want to sit at home and watch movie previews on the internet and eat crackers.

Mormons

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine about religion and Mormons came up. There are quite a few Mormons around for some reason. Mostly I think they're here on mission. Anyway, my friend asked me, "Are they gay?" I assured her that they were most certainly not gay. And she said, "Really, because it's always 2 men together. And the way that they dress makes them seem like they're gay." I'm now really tempted to find some Mormons and tell them that many Taiwanese people, because apparently it's not just my friend, think that they are gay. Primarily because of the way that they dress.

Things I have seen

Today, I must have seen 王力宏 on various things at least 8 times. He's much more prevalent in Taibei for some reason. I've also seen Jolin, 周傑倫，and Stephanie Sun at least 5 times. Celebrities are so omnipresent here that sometimes I have a hard time figuring which is their primary hat. Is Kelly Chen a model who acts and sings. Or a singer who models and acts? Also, I've been surprised at how many celebrities are from different places. Chinese people who are ABCs, or from Singapore or Malaysia and other places.

Also many music videos seem to be doubling as cell phone commercials or other things. In fact, many artists seem to have done music videos for video games. So the primary make-up of the video will be scenes with elves from Warcraft or Everquest but in between there will be scenes of JJ Lin or Jay Chou dancing, sometimes in a beanie and baggy jeans in a castle (Jay) or in some labyrinth in a cape (JJ). These to me are the weirdest, because these two parts have nothing to do with each other, but then again, there's no really logical way to insert Jay Chou or JJ Lin into Everquest.

Also, many little girls here seem to have their hair incredibly elaborately braided and decorated until they look like cartoon characters. It must take their moms years to do this.

This may be influenced by where I work but I think I've seen more pregnant women in the three months I've been here than I have in the time I lived in Portland. And they say the birthrate is going down here.

Finally, the weirdest thing I saw today was a couple taking wedding pictures on the stairs of a museum while not two feet away a homeless man was sleeping on the stairs.

Random Quiz

I posted earlier about Jay Chou's possible quest to conquer the West. I want to ask a question of all 5 people who read this regularly.

What do you think his first US/English language CD title would be if he were to make one?

我是吃素的

There are very few vegetarian restaurants in Jilong. This is a sample of a conversation I had with a Chinese teacher.

A: So you are a vegetarian.
Me: Mostly.
A: How do you eat here?
Me: I just don't ask a lot of questions.
A: But everything has meat in it.
Me: I just ask for no meat or just get noodles.
A: But they're all cooked with meat.
Me: I just don't ask a lot of questions.

Trashing Days

One thing that sucks about living alone is that you have to take out your own garbage. The garbage truck comes by and everyone runs out and takes their garbage and recycling out to the truck. The truck also plays Fur Elise piercingly loud so you can always know figure out when it's close by. However, in my neighborhood, it comes by around 2:30 and then again around 7. However, since I teach at 5 generally, I need to be at school around 3 or so to start to prepare so it means the trash doesn't get taken out much. To avoid ant/roach/what have you infestations I try to eat at home as little as possible. This is pretty easy since my "home" is a dorm room like room with a large bathroom and a free TV and cable. Also a very large bed and a refrigerator. So I can't really cook anything.

However, there are times when I feel like my life has reached a new low. Such as eating standing up under a railing while walking home so I could throw my garbage away on the road and not have to take it home.

It's a good example in some ways of how family oriented that Taiwan seems some times. Most people live with their extended family and if you ask most people in Jilong if they are from Jilong and their parents were born here they say "Yes." I daresay that would be less true in a bigger place like Taibei, but I would say it would be rare for a place of comparable size in America. It also means most people still live at home so finding affordable places to live for one person is more difficult. I suspect even my room with its large bed is meant for two people to live in. Although I suspect they would just kill each other in the end. And of course, I have no grandma at home to help me take out the trash.

And sometimes there's just nothing to say

A friend of mine told me about a conversation with a coworker. They were talking about Taiwanese culture and then all of a sudden the coworker says, "But what does this all have to do with Confucious."

Really, sometimes there's just nothing to say.

New "friends"

Wednesday is my favorite day, because the classes that I teach are really fun and I get off of work at 7 rather than 9. In what seems to be becoming a usual thing, Willy one of the kids I teach, (the one that said "Chotto mate!") comes during the 10 minute break and talks to me. I think he doesn't have a lot of friends in the class or something. His English is quite good, so I just asked him about his day and why he always seems about to sleep in class. Which is because he goes to school, comes to Kejian and then goes to another cram school I think. I also asked him who his friends were in the class and found out that Loud and Quiet Andy are ok in his opinion but that he doesn't like Tim.

Also, there's a dog that is chained up outside a building near where I am, and when I go by, I scratch its head. Now it knows me, and so it wags its tail. I'm not equating Willy with the dog in any way, but as much as I like Taiwan this place and particularly this workplace can be really lonely and it's nice to be able to be friendly with someone once in a while.

Commercials I would like to see

One in which 王力宏becomes fat and ugly after all the MacDonalds that he's eaten during his commercials.

Also, a follow up to the unspeakably annoying commercial in which this woman's teeth are so white that they shine after using 黑人or Black Person toothpaste, in which she's on a date and her teeth literally blind her date. Thereby showing that having freakishly white teeth will actually make your life miserable.

月餅

中秋節 just passed and I sort of feel like 月餅 are a little bit like fruitcakes. Because today everyone was just giving them away. Some kid who I don't even know had a big bag and was trying to give them to all the teachers. Maybe his mom told him he couldn't come home until the bag was empty.

This thing called an meme

I'm not sure what it is exactly but it was provided to me by Mr. D. And I thought, what better way to celebrate getting the Internet than by copying someone else's clever idea.

5 Books You Think Are Great
1. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link. It's a collection of short stories which sort of combine surrealism, fantasy, and Nancy Drew. It sounds really pretentious and it could be but it works.
2. Babel-17 by Samuel Delany. A science fiction novel from the 70s that's really about poetry and language. Also really sounds super pretentious but it works, although as my mom once commented, "Samuel Delany is too smart for his own good."
3. Love and Rockets, particularly the books by Jaime Hernandez. Love and Rockets is this comic book series that has been put out since the 80s by two brothers Jaime and Gilberto Hernandez. Jaime's half of the series is about Maggie and Hopey, two Latina (more or less) girls growing up in Southern California. The series has grown up with them and they're both in their 30s or maybe 40s now and are trying to figure out what the hell they're doing. However, they're almost perpetually in a state of limbo. I've found this increasingly appropriate since leaving school.
4. Same Difference and Other Stories by Derek Kirk Kim. Another comic book. The main story, Same Difference in particular is really good, about two friends and their roadtrip. Both characters are people that I wish I knew.
5. All short stories done by Sylvia Townsend Warner. She's sort of forgotten now, but she's an English writer, a generation behind Virginia Woolf. She wrote these fantastic sharp edged short stories. They aren't necessarily really showy but they all have a bite to them and the best ones are hilarious and yet quite true. Also, Lolly Willowes, her first novel is quite fantastic too.

5 Alleged Pieces of Wisdom that You Would Like to Share
1. In the end, no one else is living your life for you, so you should do what you want to do, not what other people tell you you should do or what you think they would tell you to do if you ask.
2. Stupider people than you have lived their lives and been fine. So you'll be fine.
3. People make their own reality and in the end, you make the reality you want or deserve.
4. If you write things on the internet, people, including and especially your friends will read them.
5. Telling someone who is unhappy that they should smile more never makes anyone smile, it just makes them want to punch you.

5 Places You Would Like to Revisit
1. Los Angeles where I was born although not raised. I'm not sure I would like it anymore but it would be fun to try.
2. Hawaii, my other motherland. I'd like to learn to speak pidgin and eat manapua
3. Paris and London sans American relations
4. San Francisco and not be a "tourist"
5. Portland just because I liked it so much.

5 Turnoffs in other people
1. People who "like" Asians in that way. I just think it's fucked up, enough said.
2. People who have clearly spent a long time thinking up a self-important motto for themselves such as "I'm a zagger. When other people zig, I zag." or "The sun never sets on cool."
3. Girls who say "I'm sorry I'm such a mess today," when it's quite clear they're really not talking to you.
4. People who say something begining with the phrase, "I'm not a racist but..." That kind of sentence NEVER ends well.
5. People who wax rhapsodic about the experiences they've had in third world countries and the mystical connection they had with the people.

5 Things that Were Probably Invented By the Devil
1. Active Listening, the way in which people are trained to pretend to listen like they care. Favorite MO for PR and HR departments all over the world.
2. Cockroaches
3. SPAM and telemarketers, essentially the same thing
4. Christmas card newsletters
5. Family reunions

I now have the Internet

for all five of you who read this or still do.
More later, I've got to go eat.

Things I think are interesting

In Bosnia, they plan to erect a statue of Bruce Lee as a symbol of unity. You can read about it here

Also, in this article, Jay Chou vows to become the Jet Li of music and break into Western music.

Looking at Jet Li's "cinematic career" in America I don't know if he should say that. With such gems as Romeo Must Die, Cradle 2 The Grave, The One, Kiss of the Dragon, and now Unleashed, I'm not sure if I would really call that success. As much as I like some of these movies (and I do) it's not like Jet Li's a very respected actor over here, the biggest hit he's had is when he went back to China (like everyone tells us to do, whether we have in fact been to China in the first place) and made Hero. In fact, that's what Ang Lee had to do too, funny that.

Anyway, I thought the article was interesting. Personally, I don't know if it's possible for an Asian star to break into the Western market. Although certainly several have tried, Coco Lee and Utada Hikaru come to mind. But somehow, they always seem to carry the aura of FOBness with them and it just doesn't work. Even more so, if they sing in English, then it becomes a "Look an Asian person is singing in English." Myself, I don't know if I'd even want Jay Chou to try to make it over here, I might end up feeling embarrassed for him the way I did for Jin. And Jin's Chinese American. It may even come down to marketing although my inside source in marketing may perhaps tell me differently. How would they possibly market the King of Pop in Asia who doesn't speak English?

I am willing to bet anyone 100 US dollars that if Jay Chou does make an album in America with an American label that the title will contain the word Dragon.