The moving people are roaming around the office today. Huge stacks of boxes are being prepared as we get ready for the big move. It's kind of cool. I am looking forward to the change of venue. Maybe it will be like changing jobs, without all of the hassle of finding another job. Perhaps they'll even realize that a lot of sensitive documents cross my desk and put me in a relatively isolated spot where I won't be so likely to inadverdantly leak secrets. One can hope.

Carl took Dean, Kay and I to one of his favorite teppenyaki places last night. We met up in the lavish lobby of the Grand Hyatt. Next door, the new Taipei Financial Center is making good progress. Already it towers over everything else in the area, even though it's still got a long way to go. At least 75 stories, or perhaps 110 if the builders get their way. Sparks from the welders were cascading from it as I parked and walked over to meet Dean.

I don't know why Carl arranged for us to meet at the Hyatt, because the restaurant he was taking us to is located in the Tonghua Night Market, several blocks away. I think Carl just has a habit of meeting people at the Hyatt. Maybe it makes him seem more glamourous or something.

The teppanyaki was good, and the chef was cute. I remarked on this to Carl, but he just looked at me over his glasses and said "You must be joking." After dinner we walked over to the Watershed and had some drinks before going our seperate ways. Again, I didn't have too much to say. Dean entertained us by talking about "ignatius rock" features in Australia.

Dave, who used used to work at the News and now works at a cushy job in Hong Kong, is in town, so we're going to get together after I get out of sword practice for dinner and drinks. The last time Dave and I went out, when I was last in Hong Kong, I got amazingly drunk and had a great time. I can't get too drunk this time, though, since I'm scheduled to have my eyes zapped tomorrow morning. I feel like going to a sauna.
etched by at 5:51 PM

I just have to say I love it when otherwise very feminine and demure Taiwanese women in our office shout out petulantly "Awwww SHIT!" in English when something goes wrong. These are women that cover their mouths to giggle in embarrassment when someone points out that their blouse doesn't quite match their skirt. Since English is the Fashionable Language, it seems they feel that there is nothing they can say in it that won't make them appear the Height of Sophistication as long as it's in some semblance of English.

When I curse, be it in English (I've been known to utter such choice phrases as "Holy Jesus Fucking Christ!" on occasions that called for it, such as when my computer catches fire, as it tends to do several times a day) or Taiwanese ("Gan li nia e cha jiba mao!" is a phrase that will get you laughed at and then promptly beaten to death with tire irons. Let's just say it has something to do with the insultee's mother), at least I know it makes me look like a complete, betelnut-chewing hick.

I don't chew betelnuts anymore, however. Bad for the gums, you know.
etched by at 5:54 PM

Last night after work I met up with Dean, Brian, Graham, Jaime and a girl whose name I've forgotten, over at My Other Place. Unfortunately, I wasn't really in the right mood for the situation and didn't contribute a hell of a lot to the conversation. I don't know why it is, perhaps reading too much Oriented, but lately I feel like I can't really communicate with most of the foreigners here in Taiwan. Although we speak the same language, it often feels like they must be living in some alternate dimension of reality. Don't get me wrong, these are my friends and I enjoy their company. It's just that lately I've been feeling a bit like I don't quite fit in.

For my first several years here I didn't actually have much at all to do with foreigners. In college in Taichung I took regular classes with the Chinese students in addition to Chinese language classes, but I didn't really hang out with any of the foreigners there. After college I moved to Taipei after living in Hsinchu for a while, and the whole time I worked at jobs that didn't have anything to do with foreigners or English. The only foreigners I knew were Boogie and Mindcrime, both of whom have been really cool people and good friends to me for a really long time (Boogie is still here, actually, although I don't see him very often these days).

The first time Mindcrime took me down to the "Combat Zone", I was shocked. Here, right in the middle of Taipei, was an area full of drunken foreign businessmen, older guys with suits covering ample paunches, flirting with Taiwanese bargirls in dozens of questionably named drinking establishments. It was (and still is) a relic of the US military presence from decades past, but I had lived in Taipei for years without ever having come across it.

It was really only after I started working for the newspaper, which was my first office/desk job as well as the first time I had really worked in a "foreign" environment, that I began making foreign friends in considerable numbers. At the time, when I began making a few inroads into the expatriate community here, people tended to be surprised that I had been here so long without them hearing about me or meeting me. It seemed that all the foreigners knew each other already, and to them it seemed that I had just popped out of the woodwork. To me it was a rather novel experience to have so many foreign friends.

But the world of expatriates in Taiwan is a small one, not just in size but in outlook, and it also seems segregated to an uncomfortable degree from the rest of Taiwan, the real Taiwan, the Taiwan that is, to me at least, really worth experiencing. Going back and forth between the two worlds is a difficult balancing act to carry out, and I guess I haven't been doing such a great job lately. A lot of that is the fact that I've been too busy working on my book to get the hell out of dodge for a while. My recent trip back to Miaoli was a bit of a slap in the face in that respect, a sharp reminder that there is more to Taiwan than Taipei.

This isn't, as some would suggest, about "going native" or some crap like that (If anything I feel like I've been "going foreign" over the past few years rather than the opposite). Rather, it's about being true to oneself and following one's natural instincts, getting to know oneself and being able to identify and manage the myriad parts of one's own personality. It's so easy to get lost, particularly when you're out there all by yourself. After all these years I'm still learning how to zuo ren, literally "to be a person." I guess it's a life-long process.

I was walking around the Shi-da area looking for sunglasses last night when I ran into Kirk, who was let go from his job at Oracle just a couple of days ago. Now he's looking for work during the day and going to college at night. We found a little hole-in-the-wall teahouse we'd never been to and chatted over steaming pots of fragrant leaves, accompanied by cinnamon pop-tarts. Kirk really likes to talk about his remaining cat. He originally had two, but one of the escaped when he took them to get fixed. The remaining cat is always doing all sorts of cute things, and it really makes me want to get a cat, but I'm afraid I'll have to wait until I move somewhere more suitable for raising cats, and who knows when that will happen.

At the teashop we talked about feeling lonely around Chinese New Years, and I admitted that even though I enjoy being single I still sometimes wish I could have someone to hook up with now and then. I haven't been out looking lately either. The Source is just more of the expatriate community, sort of like a little two-room Combat Zone, but Funky isn't half bad, and there are some newer places to go as well. Again, I've been too busy with my book to be able to rationalize spending my weekends in such a fashion. Hopefully I'll have more time after it's done and published, hopefully within a few months' time.

Several people have complimented my jacket, which is a bright yellow/red/black Tommy Hilfiger ski jacket with an ROC flag sewn on the back. The reason the flag is there is because I didn't like the original Tommy Hilfiger banner, and I was afraid it wouldn't wash, so I took it off. My friend Clar said I could sell the rubber flag on the black market or something, actually, but I just didn't like it on the back of my jacket. It looked really bad without the banner, though, so I took the ROC flag patch I had laying around and sewed it on. The colors go together quite nicely, but there's always the possibility I will come across a flag-hating cabbie who has no qualms about using his vehicle as a weapon. Then again, if the dude who drives around town with two flags, one PRC and one Soviet, stuck in his car as he blares the PRC national anthem can survive after all this time, my chances can't be that bad.

Steve is back in town, or he will be soon. He'll be in Tainan with his wife at first, but hopefully either he'll get up to Taipei or I will get down there at some point soon.
etched by at 3:23 PM

Last night, for lack of anything better to do, I let my curiosity get the better of me and finally went to check out the new Core Pacific Center on Civic Blvd. From its reputation and all of the news stories concerning frenzied mobs of deranged shoppers agog of the idea of a real mall in Taiwan, I knew it would be at least interesting. All the more so as it's located in the middle of a rather squalid section of town, sandwiched in between Ba-de Rd section 4 or so and the old Railway administration grounds.

In fact, it was quite impressive. Dean calls it the "Droid Control Ship" because that's what it really does look like, and the huge shape seems all the more incongruous situated next to the decrepit old two-story combination motorcycle repair shops/hovels. I parked my motorcycle in an alley off of Ba-de Rd. and walked in the northeast entrance, through a bit of hallway, and found myself confronted with the Giant Ball, which contains an entire department store and is over ten stories high, resting inside the even larger atrium at the center of the mall. From the ground floor I could see a huge wall of shops along the side of the atrium, and down three more stories to the food court underneath the Giant Ball, which made the entire structure appear to be suspended in mid-air.

Unlike the Breeze Mall, there's more at the Core (Hey! Nifty ad slogan!) than just women's stuff. They actually have a wide range of stores and restaurants. The decor is just tacky enough to let you know you're still in Taiwan, even though the scale is larger than anything else I've seen here. I didn't go into the movie theaters downstairs as there wasn't anything on at the time, but they look to be pretty high-quality.

Each level has a strange name, like "Grimm Street" for the children's level and one inexplicably named "Sharron Stone Street", whose Chinese name is "Chang Man-yu Street". An overwhelming number of the shops sell extremely expensive things that only insane rich people with little or no judgement would ever consider buying. This doesn't seem to bode well, but you never know. Taiwanese people in general have equated "Mall" with such concepts as "Western", "Fancy", "High-class" and "Better than anything Chinese culture could come up with" in general, so there's bound to be a good amount of fantasyland-type thinking going on. But that's just the kind of surreal atmosphere that pervades the portion of Taiwanese society that comes into contact with what it thinks is quintessential Western culture.

I went into one store to look at those sunglasses that are attached to a frame that fits over your head. They looked really cool, if a bit bizarre, but they also cost a whopping NT$9,000. The "normal" sunglasses were only a couple of thousand less, so I gave up any hope of maintaining the illusion that I actually needed them and left.

At the top of the giant ball is an Eslite Bookstore. The dome above is transparent, although I couldn't really see out at night. I bought a hat at an aboriginal stand and then took one of the glass elevators. On the way down a couple of extremely fashion-conscious girls complained to their skater-type boyfriends that the elevator's motion made them want to throw up. I imagine they thought this made them seem vulnerable and sexy, and their sickly-sweet dia-dia voices almost caused me to share their nausea.

To think I used to work across the street from the Core Center, which is open 24-hours. The times we copyeditors could have had carrousing drunkenly along Sharron Stone Street at 2 in the morning after a long day at the paper!

Whiny Woman has a cold and has become Whiny Sniffly Woman. We are moving to our new offices on the weekend of the 26th/27th. I tried to find out where my new seat will be, but apparently they haven't nailed down that particular detail just yet. I should go over there and sneak in to see if I can't snag myself a corner or window seat as far away as possible from any potentially whiny individuals.
etched by at 3:49 PM

I'm getting really sick of various women with webcams sending me ICQ messages. I replied to one today, asking her "Aren't you afraid that someone will work out where you live and then come to your house and gut you live on your own webcam?" But all I got in reply was several more messages from women with webcams. Really, ladies, you're just encouraging all of the psychopaths out there, so don't come complaining to me when hordes of raving lunatics break into your house and string you up for their own nefarious purposes.

Speaking of nefarious purposes, I went to the dentist this evening. My teeth needed cleaning, so I thought I would take advantage of the new dental clinic just opened up downstairs. It went pretty well, no cavities or anything major, but the assistant was inordinately clueless. The dentist kept having to tell her what to do. "No, I don't need suction right now. Gimme that thing over there," he would tell her. "No, that ray-gun thingy in the corner. Yeah." It was a bit frightening, and I was glad all he was doing was cleaning my teeth. If I have any real problems I don't think I'll be going back there. At least the assistant didn't have atrocious breath, like the last place I went to, down on Heping E. Road. Surely it's a bad sign when the dental assistant doesn't even brush her teeth.

Our server was down most of today, so I spent most of my time trying to stay awake. Typical hateful, "Why am I here" sort of Monday. I've been feeling rather desperate and lost lately. Maybe I need to go visit a temple. If not a Buddhist temple, a Daoist temple. Something in the mountains, with forests, running streams, ghost money, wafting incense, extravantly attired statues and old people doing the boa-boe thing on the concrete floor.
etched by at 11:33 PM

Yesterday I took a train down to Miaoli. My book is just about finished, or at least I can't think of anything else to do with it, really, so I decided to go back down to the old army base where I spent nearly two years several years ago, to see if there was anything I'd missed. It was a beautiful, if hazy day, and cool enough but not too cold.

I got to Miaoli, noted that they've panelled the boxy little train station down there, and took a bus through the largely unchanged town and up the mountain. It was the weekend, so not many people were about. Not that there are anyway. I walked into one of the military supply stores and talked to the owner, who actually remembered me. Everyone down there speaks with a Hakka accent. Lots of Hakka in Miaoli.

Then I walked out to the training fields, which were deserted and smouldering from what looked like a controlled brush fire. Packs of dogs barked at me as I walked through the old obstacle course and past the amoury. I chatted a bit with the guards at the gate. They're almost up to 1900T now. There are 24T a year. I was 1748T. The guards were suitably impressed with my seniority. They were the ones unlucky enough not to have leave over the weekend, or perhaps they wanted it that way. I know I always did. I'd rather have my leave on weekdays, when less people are crowding around everywhere, and there's less on base to do as well.

Still, it's been so long that anyone I would have known there has gone, been discharged or transferred. It felt like visiting a house where you once lived, kind of sad that all of the physical infrastructure is still there, but none of the atmosphere and people you remembered. There was nothing much else to do. I considered getting a cheap haircut but decided against it when I recalled the jobs they used to pull on me when I was stationed there. So I got on the bus and went back to Miaoli, where I had some lunch. While I was waiting for my meal, I ran into a guy who told me we met at a New Year's party last year, but I have no recollection of the event.

After lunch I walked through the town back to the train station. It's a long way. Miaoli only consists of two streets, but they're long streets. The town is a block wide and something like 30 blocks long, it seems. On the way I passed a sexy underwear shop and a traditional clothing shop, a roadside statuette vendor and a pool hall. My feet were aching by the time I got back to the train station, and I wasted my window seat on the way back by sleeping for most of the way, waking up just in time to see an ultralight flying by outside the train.

Last night I let Dean copy Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and he immediately began playing while I watched his copy of The Man with the Golden Gun. Not only is it one of the best Bond films, but Nick Nack is just too sexy for words.

This afternoon I had a delicious breakfast at Jake's. The reason it was delicious was that I was very hungry more than anything to do with the actual quality of the food, though. I think visiting my old base made me more appreciative of being a (relatively) free civilian in a way I haven't really felt since I got out of the service. I'll probably feel differently tomorrow, though, when I go back to the office.

So now I've dug out all the pictures from my army days and dumped them in a pile on my bed. I need to look through them and select some for the book, even though I really don't have a clue as to what kind of pictures people expect to see. The only time I got to take pictures was really during leisure activities, not really the most exciting stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few interesting ones together.
etched by at 6:30 PM

Life is strange beyond words

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