Thanks a lot... no really.
The monkeys responsible for me being in Taiwan -- my language exchange partners in Halifax who convinced me that Taipei would be way cooler than anywhere in China. Back in town from Halifax on Christmas holidays to cause more trouble. No really, thanks guys, for getting me here. :)
Merry Christmas from Wulai!
(A cosy hilltop Christian chapel built with Chinese architecture and finishings in Wulai Township.)
For Christmas Day we got a holiday from our buxiban (private tutoring school) so we decided to make a break for it and get out of the city. We took the MRT (subway) to the South terminal stop of the red line -- Xindian Station (the opposite point to where we were yesterday in Beitou) and took a scenic half hour bus ride to Wulai - a beautiful and quaint little town nestled in the mountains that caters to the hot spring crowd (all vacations in Taiwan have to do with hot springs, as we have quickly learned). The drive up reminded me of driving along the Nova Scotia coast (minus the mountains) with little cafes and art stops along the way. (Except that you could never reach all that Nova Scotia's coast has to offer by public transport! That was my biggest frustration as a non-driver living in Halifax).
Finally we arrived:
Ahh... peace. Today I finally felt like I was travelling. Being in Taipei is awesomely fun, but not that much more foreign than any big city can be, after all, big cities offer the Modern, the International, the Worldly, and therefore are all somewhat the same in appearance.
But not this place. We'd finally reached countryside. The beautiful majestic mountains with tree-sized bonsai trees (you know what I mean) and palm trees cascading down the cliff faces. Sticky rice sold in bamboo shells and finally, SPACE. Room to stretch out and breathe and escape from the crowded city.
(The bottom of the cliff face, near the river. Don't they look a little like furry Dr. Seuss trees?)We ambled through the busy touristy main stretch where every manner of souvenir was thrust at us (mainly factory-copied versions of aboriginal weavecloths of the Atayal tribe of Taiwan). We did manage to buy some tasty rice wine for NT$150 (CAN$5).
We took a cable car up high into the mountains over a grand cascading waterfall and arrived at an amusement park the size and character of one you would see at a county fair. It was deserted since it was a Monday. Brian played archery and we rode a cheesy but super-fun ghost ride on a caboose for kids through a tunnel where ghoulish figures cackled and sprung out at us (how classic!)
We took a path further up the mountain along some hiking trails and left all civilization behind. At the top of the mountain was more fun - the "Mountain Training Field" where we climbed rope walls, navigated rope bridges and slid along pulleys in steel chairs (like those made for toddler swings) across a river! What wonderful magical fun! All this in a lush mountaintop forest where we could hear a waterfall trickle down the rocks and only the sound of birds chirping in the trees. At the end of the obstacle course were rope hammocks strung up between some trees. What little mountain elves left us this little magical adventure? We wondered.
When we finally rocked ourselves out of our hammocks and made our way back down to the cable car station and down into the town, we had a wonderful non-traditional Christmas feast. We ate Atayal specialties -- green papaya and chicken broth soup, bamboo sticky rice, basil pork, steamed ferns and a fragrant fungus mix, washed down with more tasty rice wine. "This is the life!" We sang to each other as we rubbed our satisfied bellies.
To cap off the evening we headed down the road to rent a hot tub room - a small closet with a deep tiled bath where you can mix piping hot 53 degree spring water with cool 23 degree water to achieve your optimum temperature for lounging. In our private room we polished off the rice wine and let our muscles and skin be soothed back to health after our trek and "training".
By the time we caught the public bus home (that comes every 20 minutes from the city I might add!) we were ready to doze off to sleep. All before our families had even woken up to open presents on Christmas morning.
Sad not to be home, but the best Christmas I ever spent away I think!
Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!
OK, so you have to click on the picture to see the extent of my Santa girth (isn't much at all), but I wanted to get the Buddhist temple in the background. This is in XinBeitou, just outside Taipei city to the North. We climbed a windy mountain road to get to this hilltop sanctuary. What peace. Made me think about becoming a monk.
But then I thought about the pig we saw on our way up the mountain:
Mmm... and I thought twice. And look! There's the belly I'm missing on the cook! He'd make a good Santa. Instead he is cooking the prize pig for a Christmas feast in front of Lotus Spa Hotspring Hotel (we made reservations yesterday for our anniversary next week at this same hotel -- hot spring water piped right into a jacuzzi jet tub in your hotel room! Can't wait!)
damn those winter bugs.... :)
I didn't think it would happen to me this year, but it did.
I've been hit by the Christmas bug. I guess you can't help it when you get a visit from Santa and little 8 year olds give you cute cards and presents they wrote and wrapped themselves. Here's a sample:
I'll need to work on that spelling with him, but his heart's in the right place.
A personally wrapped mini-noodle snack from 7-11. Probably cost the equivalent of 30 cents Canadian, but all the more touching because I know the kid bought it himself rather than it being a gift from his Mom.
On Wednesday I got them to write letters to Santa. Here is a small sampling:
(From Tiger,
Dear Santa,
I have been a good boy this year.
I know all the vocabulary words.
For Christmas, please bring me many toy cars.)
(Dear Santa,
I have been a good girl this yeer(sic).
I drew a nice picture for the Teacher(sic).
For christmas(sic), please bring me a teddy bear.
From, Britney)
On Thursday, we practiced singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for Santa's visit the next day:
Today, Santa came to visit our class. (Santa was of course one of the jollier teachers on staff in costume):
Santa asked English questions and gave out presents and the students sang their song for him. And yes, it was very cute.
Tomorrow, we will have our staff party and I will find out who my Secret Santa is. This is the fantastic present he left me today (it must be a "he" with this sense of humour... either that or he really knows what teaching is like!):
Democracy In ACTION
Okay, okay, after some commentary on legally-sanctioned politics, I had to add some pictures of rabble-rousing. I really wanted to get the Reds in action doing their thumbs-down "Ah-Bian Xia Tai!" (Depose Ah-Bian!), but they kept being too quick for the camera.
The Reds (depicted) are made up of supporters of the Pan-Blue Coalition (as opposed to the current President's Pan-Green Coalition). Pan-Blue leans from hard-line reunification with China -- Kuomintang (KMT), to a softer support of the status quo -- People First Party and the New Party(who are a smaller contingent that is more radical about attaining independence).
President Chen Shui-Bian's Democratic Progressive Party is only the second Taiwanese government ever to be elected directly by the people of Taiwan. Because of the infant status of Taiwan's direct democracy, the recent Red protests have unparalelled significance for this little island.
Chen Shui-Bian's government has been plagued by money-related scandal (much like the recent sponsorship scandal in Canada) and infuriated the people. The current political situation is nicely summarized by Wikipedia:
In 2006, due to the Pacific Sogo Department Store scandal, the pro-KMT Pan-Blue Coalition moved to impeach the President but failed to obtain the requisite number of votes in the legislature[9]. This failure led to current "Down Ah-Bian" campaign, which seeks to pressure the president to resign from office. The campaign began on September 1, 2006 and is still ongoing. Campaign organizers claim that the first day of the strike attracted 300,000 people in Taipei, while the police estimated the number to be closer to 90,000[citation needed]. The "Down Ah-Bian" event is being led by activist and politician Shih Ming-te (施明德) as a peaceful sit-in around the capital, besieging the presidential residence. While the protests have been largely peaceful, there have been isolated incidences of violence associated with the campaign, including fist fights between Pan-Blue and Pan-Green (pro-DPP) legislatures. The "Up Ah-Bian" event was organized to counteract the "Down Ah-Bian" campaign. On October 13, 2006, the Pan-Blue Coalition attempt again to pass a recall motion against Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, which also failed to garner sufficient votes in the legislature.[10]On November 3, 2006, prosecutors in Taiwan stated that they have enough evidence to indict Chen's wife on corruption charges in connection with her handling of a secret diplomatic fund. According to the prosecutors, while Chen would not be indicted while in office, there is a possibility that he would be indicted after he leaves office.
Devoted Reds have been a common sight downtown in front of Taipei's Main Train Station (on Brian's route to work), chanting their mantra: "Ah-Bian Xia Tai!" (Step Down Ah-Bian!) Ah-Bian is Chen Shui-Bian's nickname. After the initial launch of the protests in September, such special occasions as Taiwan's Double Ten Day (Taiwan's Constitutional Birthday on October 10) have brought out renewed support, with Reds traveling in from all parts of the island to flood the subway system and close off major downtown intersections. The Taiwanese people's political fervour can be explained as such: the effectiveness of this campaign is a first test as to how genuine their direct democracy, still in its toddler years, really is. If they fail, uncorrupted democracy in Taiwan sees its symbolic death too.
Though the movement has not been successful so far in deposing the President, in a foreigner's eyes it
has at least established free speech and peaceful protest as a proven civil right - police, though on patrol at protest sights, were unarmed observers, relaxed and unconfrontational. To me, that in itself is quite significant for a breakaway province of China, especially considering the weapons used by the Canadian government in similar peaceful protests back home.
On a side note, here is also an intriguing commentary on the political significance of colour in Taiwan today:
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=335105&lang=eng_news&cate_img=83.jpg&cate_rss=news_Politics_TAIWANI leave you with a Red icon, one of our first sights upon landing in Taiwan:
democracy in action...
No, this post isn't about anything quite as stirring as the last time I used this phrase when reporting on the FTAA protests in Quebec city in 1999(?), but one shouldn't lose sight of the fact that democracy has, despite all our jaded protests to the contrary, become a part of our everyday life.
(The picture, BTW, is of election signs for the upcoming Taipei municipal elections.)
I have been following the recently concluded Liberal Leadership Convention on cbc.ca and thought I'd put in my two cents.
First, a small observation on the expat perspective in Taiwan: after mentioning the convention in passing to a Canadian colleague, I realized how little relevance any of it has on someone who has been out of the country for even a mere 2 or 3 years. For all those who still consider Canadian politics dull, it has been anything but in this recent time. The aforementioned colleague's last contact with Canadian politics, though only 2.5 years ago, was with a strong Liberal majority government headed by Chretien. Think about that one. In just 2.5 years, he has missed the sponsorship scandal, Stephen Harper becoming leader of the Progressive Conservatives, a short and dismal term of Liberal government headed by Paul Martin, and now has no sense of what it means to have Harper as our first Tory PM in 13 years, or of the significance of the just concluded leadership race for the Liberals.
With the Liberal Party divided along Chretien and Martin lines, and Martin's sweaty and disappointing succession to prime ministership and handling of the sponsorship scandal, it took only consistency and a clean record for Harper to oust Martin from his seat at the top in February 2006.
Since then, the Liberals have been rebuilding their party from the ground up, and after a 10 month interim with no leader, Liberals finally came together to get a fresh start this past weekend.
I have to admit: I started out charmed by the Globe and Mail special on Michael Ignatieff in August that only played up the buzz about Ignatieff having "that Trudeau thing". I was entranced by his media moniker, "The Philosopher King", and visions of Plato's Sun and Cave danced in my head.
After Martin's sad showing, I wanted a leader with a spine and a personality more than I cared about his track record. But as I started to follow the leadership race, I realized that Iggy's wondrous myth of Er may just be a myth. Philosopher King? He is no better qualified for the title than his rivals - Bob Rae was Iggy's roomie at U of T and won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University where he studied under Isaiah Berlin. Stephane Dion (the now elected Liberal leader) has a doctorate in sociology from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and taught political science at the Universite de Moncton and the University of Montreal, and has been accused of being too bookish to be party leader.
As the ballots went through, Iggy's arrogance began to wear on me, climaxing at this repugnantly empty and cocksure election speech:
http://www.cbc.ca/clips/rm-hi/ignatieff-speech061201.rmStill, when I woke up on Sunday morning and saw Stephane Dion in the CBC headlines as winner, I was knocked off my feet. I hadn't even considered him! Then I went back and listened to this biting, principled and well-rounded speech:
http://www.cbc.ca/clips/rm-hi/dion-speech061201.rmIt seemed the unfailingly polite bookworm had some teeth after all. Some genuinely clever attacks on Harper, and a speech that expounded on his track record for the environment and hit the nail on the head concerning what this century's market economy will turn upon - sustainability. His three pillars of fiscal prosperity, social justice, and environmental stewardship rang true for me. Even with the tail-end of his speech cut off by music, his speech was strong and cohesive (unlike Bob Rae's strangely rambly and self-doubting stroll off the teleprompter.)
I forecast good news for the newly formed liberal party. I think Dion's underdog personality will win him a few more unexpected edges in the coming political game. He's got the hidden spunk of the bookworm I was in high school - the kid who sat quietly until the marks counted for oral presentations in English class, and then reveled in the limelight delivering punchy jabs at the administration. Bottom line? I like him. He's the Canadian version of our Americanized Ignatieff - Ballsy served with a side of please and thank you.
He makes me excited again. Yup, excited about Canadian politics. On a sidenote, I can't wait to see Martha Hall Findlay prove herself in Cabinet (likely, since she backed Dion after dropping out) and build the track record she needs to make it to the forefront of Canadian politics. Finally an attractive woman with brains and a mind for politics... oh, and who can string together a cohesive sentence (sorry Belinda, your public speaking needs some work).
It's a small, small world.
Something I would never have expected to happen has happened since I moved to the other side of the Earth -- my world got smaller. It got smaller, and because it's smaller, it feels a little less lonely than it was a year ago before I left. The people I love just don't seem that far away anymore. Somehow, the world has become my backyard. This may seem completely paradoxical, but look here:
In 2 hours I will be on Skype, having a conference call with my Dad and Stepmum in Ottawa, Canada, and my sister in India (for those of you who are wondering, the sound quality is perfect, and Skype to Skype, it's even clearer than a long distance call on a regular phone.) I just had dinner with my uncle and aunt visiting from Dallas, Texas last night (my aunt's mother lives in Taipei), and my grandfather, who lives in Nanjing, China, flies down here every couple months to drink whiskey and play mahjong with his childhood friends who now live here. My best friend is in London, England, halfway between here and home(Canada) anyway, and I was just chatting to a friend in Moncton on Gmail Chat whose husband is visiting from the Gambia, and whose brother will be joining his Taiwanese girlfriend in Taipei in January and wants to hook up with us too. Yesterday Brian said goodbye to a friend he just made here, a co-worker, who was born four blocks from Brian's family home in Riverview, New Brunswick, and is now returning to Canada. I chatted to him about living in Ottawa and knowing guitar teachers in common. Okay, and if that's not convincing enough, here's the kicker. When I sent out my mass notice about this blog, I sent it to all the friends I had listed in my Address Book. Along with a lot of heartwarming messages from people back home, I also got an email that blew me right out of my socks -- a friend I had lost touch with in Halifax and probably haven't spoken to in a year, wrote me saying something to the effect of, "It's good to hear from you and guess where I'm writing from? Hualian" - three hours drive from us right here in Taiwan. He is there with another HFX North Ender and they are bringing a bit of North End culture to the indie rock scene in Southern Taiwan - Burlesque, HFX-style, will be at Kenting's annual Spring Scream in the year 2007.
World, I salute you. This is the first time since leaving university that you are finally starting to seem a friendlier place.
Tonight's Dinner
This food stall is called, "Kao Rou" (BBQ Meat) - BBQ is our favourite so far. She is cooking our dinner in the picture. From left to right: tofu squares, green beans, whole squid, pork rolls with green onion, mushrooms, and pig's blood pudding (a little different from the Nova Scotian version - this one is made into squares with a rice base).
Me chewin' on some BBQ tofu.
Brian chewin' on some BBQ squid tentacles. If you think that's brave, check this out: http://deependdining.blogspot.com/2005/07/rude-food-live-octopus-tentacles.html
The monkeys responsible for me being in Taiwan -- my language exchange partners in Halifax who convinced me that Taipei would be way cooler than anywhere in China. Back in town from Halifax on Christmas holidays to cause more trouble. No really, thanks guys, for getting me here. :)
(A cosy hilltop Christian chapel built with Chinese architecture and finishings in Wulai Township.)
Ahh... peace. Today I finally felt like I was travelling. Being in Taipei is awesomely fun, but not that much more foreign than any big city can be, after all, big cities offer the Modern, the International, the Worldly, and therefore are all somewhat the same in appearance.
(The bottom of the cliff face, near the river. Don't they look a little like furry Dr. Seuss trees?)
We took a cable car up high into the mountains over a grand cascading waterfall and arrived at an amusement park the size and character of one you would see at a county fair. It was deserted since it was a Monday. Brian played archery and we rode a cheesy but super-fun ghost ride on a caboose for kids through a tunnel where ghoulish figures cackled and sprung out at us (how classic!)
We took a path further up the mountain along some hiking trails and left all civilization behind. At the top of the mountain was more fun - the "Mountain Training Field" where we climbed rope walls, navigated rope bridges and slid along pulleys in steel chairs (like those made for toddler swings) across a river! What wonderful magical fun! All this in a lush mountaintop forest where we could hear a waterfall trickle down the rocks and only the sound of birds chirping in the trees. At the end of the obstacle course were rope hammocks strung up between some trees. What little mountain elves left us this little magical adventure? We wondered.
When we finally rocked ourselves out of our hammocks and made our way back down to the cable car station and down into the town, we had a wonderful non-traditional Christmas feast. We ate Atayal specialties -- green papaya and chicken broth soup, bamboo sticky rice, basil pork, steamed ferns and a fragrant fungus mix, washed down with more tasty rice wine. "This is the life!" We sang to each other as we rubbed our satisfied bellies.
OK, so you have to click on the picture to see the extent of my Santa girth (isn't much at all), but I wanted to get the Buddhist temple in the background. This is in XinBeitou, just outside Taipei city to the North. We climbed a windy mountain road to get to this hilltop sanctuary. What peace. Made me think about becoming a monk.
Mmm... and I thought twice. And look! There's the belly I'm missing on the cook! He'd make a good Santa. Instead he is cooking the prize pig for a Christmas feast in front of Lotus Spa Hotspring Hotel (we made reservations yesterday for our anniversary next week at this same hotel -- hot spring water piped right into a jacuzzi jet tub in your hotel room! Can't wait!)
(From Tiger,
(Dear Santa,
Okay, okay, after some commentary on legally-sanctioned politics, I had to add some pictures of rabble-rousing. I really wanted to get the Reds in action doing their thumbs-down "Ah-Bian Xia Tai!" (Depose Ah-Bian!), but they kept being too quick for the camera.
Me chewin' on some BBQ tofu.
Brian chewin' on some BBQ squid tentacles. If you think that's brave, check this out: http://deependdining.blogspot.com/2005/07/rude-food-live-octopus-tentacles.html
