Poagao's Journal

Primary games

2007-04-20T11:53:00.000+08:00

Taiwan should ensure its international reputation with a show called "Who Wants to Be President?" I'm wondering if anyone does. Both parties seem to be tripping over their own feet, making colossal mistakes even though the race is still in the primary stage. Su Zheng-chang and Frank Hsieh have been at each other with such animosity that it will hard to believe they could ever share a ticket. Hsieh, in any case, has made it clear that he has chosen Yeh Chu-lan as his running mate, with the whole "Say Yes!" campaign slogan all picked out ("Hsieh-Yeh" sounds like a Taiwanese person trying to say "Say Yes"). Su has wasted no time in pointing out that he is "cleaner" than Hsieh, who has been involved in several corruption cases in Kaohsiung concerning the MRT and the city council elections. Hsieh says Su is a bad premier, and Su says he would be a better premier if the last premier (Hsieh) hadn't left such a mess behind him.

One of the interesting things about this mess is that Su is favored by the New Tide faction of the DPP, which has historically supported every winner the DPP has had (including Chen Shui-bian, who is from the Justice Alliance faction) while Hsieh belongs to the less influential Social Welfare faction. Su has all the resources of the premiership available, yet Hsieh, who doesn't have the experience Su has, remains more popular in the polls (Su threw a fit when the pan-green camp published polls suggesting Hsieh was more popular, and the party has passed a rule that candidates cannot publish polls in the future). Su also successfully dodged Losheng-related accusations that he did nothing to obstruct the plans to tear down the leprosarium when he was Taipei County magistrate by deciding as premiere that it should be saved. We'll see how that works out.

The main reason for Hsieh's popularity, which many say was exhibited in the Taipei mayoral election, is that he is simply more charismatic than Su. Another is that he panders more to the moderates and undecideds. He recently caught flack from deep greens when he suggested that he didn't have a problem with the constitution's China policy. I suspect he isn't actually that moderate, but he does recognize that he needs those votes to win an election. The reason I say this is because Hsieh's GIO minister appointment, Pasuya Yao, was a lot more aggressive about controlling the media than Su's man Zheng Wen-tsang, who is scheduled to leave his office soon after being caught suggesting that TTV should be sold to the pro-DPP Liberty Times Group.

The way the DPP primary works, however, is 30% party vote and 70% opinion polls. Hsieh is favored to win the opinion poll, while current party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun has an advantage in the party vote, though he is last in the popular polls (being bested by Lu has to hurt). Where does this leave Su? Something tells me that Chen Shui-bian, though he would prefer to see his man Yu take over his job, he knows that Yu is not as electable, and that Su is the next best choice. Chen and Hsieh have been rivals for a long time, and I can't see him supporting Hsieh if Su is still in the race. Chen's influence is waning, however, so there may not be much he can do at this point. In the spirit of the tradtional DPP male/female tickets, I'm guessing that Su would most likely choose vice-premier Tsai Ying-wen as his running mate. Everyone's waiting to see what happens in the primary. When that's settled, many things will be able to proceed, e.g. the budget will have to be settled before a potential new premier takes office, requiring a new budget review, and a new GIO minister, presumably hand-picked by the new premier, as is the usual custom. The new powergrid will affect things like the current power struggle about who gets to control the CEC and the NCC. The opposition is trying to gain the upper hand by pushing a bill to make membership of the CEC party-proportional, rather than being entirely picked by the ruling party. The fact that the NCC's makeup was chosen in such a fashion rankles the DPP to no end, resulting in a ruling that such a method was "unconstitutional."

Meanwhile, back at the equally disorganized opposition camp, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng was apparently not content to just wait for Ma Ying-jeou's corruption trial verdict, and came out a few days with a bizarre set of comments straight out of the DPP's campaign book. He said, all but pointing to himself as he did do, that a "majority" candidate should lead Taiwan rather than a "minority" candidate (guess who that's directed at). Imagine if Rudy Guliani said people shouldn't vote for Obama because he was a minority (or just wait; you might not have to imagine it). In any case, it was a poor choice of words. But Ma couldn't be graceful about it and hinted that Taiwan would be "lucky" to have a minority leader, when he should have quoted Chiang Ching-kuo and proclaimed himself Taiwanese. Which he later did. Though I have to admire the man's pure testicular fortitude in saying he'll run even if he's judged guilty of corruption, I wonder how much of it is balls and how much of it is cluelessness. Perhaps we'll find out. Similar investigations into the special funds of all four DPP hopefuls has just begun, but I can't believe that after seeing what happened to Ma they haven't made moves to ensure the same thing doesn't happen to them.

The KMT, fearing a guilty verdict, has moved its primary up to later this month, but the DPP is trying to push through a bill effectively barring Ma from running by making candidates found guilty in the first trial ineligible to run at all. Their only hope to pass such a bill lies with the disaffected members of the PFP, who want more autonomy in elections from the KMT.

Wang won't participate in the primary, because Ma is still much more popular than he is, corruption allegations and all. Are there any other KMT candidates worth mentioning? There's former Kaohsiung Mayor Wu Den-yi, who is a bit past his prime. Wu lost the position to Frank Hsieh after Hsieh accused him at the last hour of having inappropriate relations with a reporter (later proven false, but Hsieh was in power already. It's a common political tactic here). Health concerns rule Taichung Mayor Jason Hu out. Taoyuan County Magistrate Zhu Li-lun is a rising star, popular with younger voters and might have a chance for running mate status this time around. But it seems to me that the KMT is just waiting for the trial verdict, just as the DPP is waiting to see who wins its primary. Once we have real candidates to play with, it will be another game altogether.

Rumors of fireflies

2007-04-18T14:20:00.000+08:00

As I sat in the office yesterday I came across a report of fireflies massing in the forests of Bitan. As my usual Tuesday-night activities have been canceled, after work I went directly home, picked up my camera, and headed to the river-crossing to Wantan, hoping that the ferry was still running. Most of the riverside restaurants were closed, giving the area a spooky, haunted feeling. Most people were inside, no doubt in part because the air was filled with dust from a storm sweeping the island. It left a gritty taste in my mouth.

I saw the ferry moored on the other side of the river, but as I approached the makeshift dock a woman's voice called across the water, asking me whether or not I wanted to take the boat. I waved, and a tiny figure climbed into the boat and began paddling slowly over. A few fishermen braved the dust, sitting on the bank next to tied-up poles, watched by children and cats.

The Southeast Asian girl punting the ferry spoke with an accent, though she spoke both Mandarin and Minnan pretty well. She said she'd been here for five years and wondered why anyone would want to take pictures of fireflies.

As I walked into the wooded areas of Wantan, I was encouraged to see a few fireflies flickering about by the road, but as I progressed, they grew fewer and fewer. The spot Sandman had pointed out to me last year was devoid of the insects. I walked on, hoping to come across some small hillock or glen covered in their light, but I saw none.

The normally lonely, empty temple on the side of the hill was swathed in canvas and lit from within, as if it were full of revelers eating sumptuous meals. It reminded me of Miyazaki's Spirited Away, where an abandoned country town comes to life at night with various ghosts and spirits.

My presence in the small village further down the road alerted the local Barking Unit, and people left their soap operas, coming to their windows to see what all the fuss was about. I was reassured that the dogs did not actually bite, but they followed me suspiciously anyway, until I was out of their territory on the other side. Occasionally I would come across a frog waiting on the road. I tried to move the first one off, but he wasn't having of it, so I ignored the rest.

Still no sign of fireflies. I took some solace in the fact that, even if I did come across a field full of lightning bugs, I couldn't really photograph them properly without a tripod.

As I walked, the dogs of each little house would wake up, bark, and follow me for a bit. This got pretty old pretty fast, and I imagined that all of the fireflies were probably at a meeting somewhere, or at a bar drinking Japanese energy drinks. The dust was making my throat sore, and the last ferry was at 9pm, so I turned back, passing all of the indignant dogs again, and back to the ferry. I took some pictures of Bitan from the riverbank, as well as around the area of the Dimu Temple, where a few latecomers were praying and meditating among the candles, before going to the makeshift restaurant to seek the ferry operators.

The Southeast Asian girl was summoned to take me back across the river, along with an elderly couple. I tried to take some pictures from the boat, but it was moving too much for a clear shot. The elderly couple chatted with the girl in Minnan, praising her language skills, which is basically code for "We picked up on your accent."

On the other side, I walked down the deep, dark canyon of Xindian Street, noting the addition of a couple of elegant new apartment buildings along the way, as well as a new sushi bar I'll have to try out sometime. At the end I bought rotis for dinner and made my way home across the bridge, which still held the scent of hot wood after a day in the dust-weakened sun.

Later that night it stormed. Summer's here.

In the works

2007-04-16T15:15:00.000+08:00

I'm coming up on the 6th anniversary of this website, which began in early 2001 as a way to show people my photography without kidnapping them, tossing them in the back of a large van and hauling them up to my apartment, possibly with construction equipment, and subjecting them to a stack of dusty albums with overly cute Engrish titles like "Happy Primate Want to Elegant Cornucopia."

That was almost the site's title, actually.

Anyway, I added a blog just for the hell of it, and before I knew it I'd written several novels' worth of questionable prose in the thing. Then Flickr came along and eliminated any need for a Photos site of my own. Blogrolls and other sidebar elements surpassed the usefulness of the Links, Contact and About pages, and the Writing page was made obsolete simply by the pure volume of drivel I write here (and would be better used as a "favorite posts" option on the blog). The Films page became Renegade Province Productions when I got poagao.com. The only thing left is News From the Renegade Province, which I still have a soft spot for even though I haven't updated it in a while.

Then my blogs began to multiply in a manner not unlike that of the Baldwin family, introducing a plethora of substandard, half-formed accounts on various aspects of my life that I felt would attract a different audience. I added a Chinese-language blog. A film production blog. A Tai-chi/Tuishou blog. I even have another blog where I write whatever the hell I like regardless of propriety (yes, I do hold some of my thoughts back, most notably the darker and scarier ones, from seeing the light of day on this, my public online presence). The other blog is not private and is protected by the simple anonymity of being one of several brazillion blogs out there. If you find it, good on you, but keep in mind that I have plausible deniability.

Time went on, and Blogger began to show its age. Other, more intuitive blogging options became available. On today's popular resolutions, my icons, once disparaged as inordinately huge, seem tiny and lacking of any cohesive theme. I still like the black background and Liao Tianding running across the rooftops of this account, camera in hand, but I think the time has come for a major reworking of this site. I'm not the same monkey I was in 2001; I'm older, fatter and hairier. This site should reflect that somehow.

I've been encouraged by Mark and Prince Roy in this regard, both of whom would like to see me migrate to Wordpress. My host Doteasy, however, reminded me that they would have to transfer me to their US$7.95"Ultra" package to enable PHP/MySQL options that Wordpress requires. On another server. Which means re-uploading...everything.

Did I mention that my directories are a complete mess? Or that I actually don't have any directories? Yeah.

But it's that or continue on Blogger with limited options. In any case, I would like to do a re-design, not just of this account but of the entire site. And here's where you come in: let me know what you like about the site, as well as what you find completely useless and depressing. I'm thinking of a new splash page featuring the blogs and not much else, but I haven't really come up with a useful design, or indeed if I even want a splash page (actually, I probably do). But I have no clue as to what kind of accessibility people desire beyond this page. Do visitors here want to go read my other blogs? Look at thousands of my photos? Read fake news? I have no idea. Technorati indicates that you don't, but I feel I should link to them anyway.

Anyway, Recent Internet Trends indicate that I should keep my posts short and sweet. Too late for that, but I'll stop here anyway. Let me know what you think I should do with this place.

X-CUP!

2007-04-11T00:10:00.000+08:00

I was recently interviewed via email by a racy local art/design magazine called "X-CUP" (no, I don't know what the name means). For some reason, they were interested in my High Speed Rail photography. It seems to me that I am involved in far more interesting things than HSR pictures, but that was what they were interested in. The topic was part of a series of interviews with foreign artists in Taiwan. I pointed out to them that, technically, I wasn't actually a foreigner, but that didn't seem to bother them. I think they found it quaint.

In any case, I was happy that among 16 individuals they only found me worthy of the much-coveted black background. Also, I managed to work in the Muddy Basin Ramblers as well as a reference to "The Age of Crap." If you want to read the interview and my inane, random answers, you can download the .pdf of the interview here.

Actually, I'm glad I did the interview, because I am interested in getting to know more artists, even though I don't think train photos are exactly the apex of my artistic abilities (or maybe they are. Lord what a depressing thought). The weekend after next I'll be attending a film festival that will be showing Clay Soldiers. Hopefully other people will attend as well.

We had a four-day holiday last weekend, three and a half days I spent at home editing. It's good weather for it, in any case: more-or-less constant rain. On Saturday I went up to a teahouse in the mountains above New Garden City where my friend Ray lives, along with Sandman and his relatives who are visiting from Scotland. We had a nice meal, took a lot of macro photographs of wet plants, and watched in horror as Sandman's nephew took a nasty spill down the wet steps. Actually, I didn't see it, but I did listen in horror to the thud as he hit the ground. He was ok, though. One of the benefits of being 17.

Mark has recently stirred a hornet's nest by daring to express his preference for content quality over deliberately massaging a site's code to garner the most hits. I can see where he's coming from; obviously this site, which hasn't really updated its design since 2001 and doesn't have any of the traffic-gathering features that are de rigueur in these days of Google searches, is a testament to the low priority I place on getting millions of people to read my site. My trackbacks don't work, I don't know what pingbacks are, and I can't even figure out how to get post titles to appear.

Still, I can see the benefit in getting a larger audience for your content, as long as such actions don't supersede the content itself. For example, on flickr.com, submitting your photo to six million voting groups comes across as a bit desperate, but at least the content hasn't been adversely affected by the effort, unlike, say, deliberately taking photos of nothing but scantily clad young women for photo hits. Of course, I respect most those who produce good content in an elegant fashion without feeling the need to compromise it in the name of making it popular. This, of course, is why I've made exactly $9.18 from my experiment with Google's adsense over the past several years.

Ok, so the site needs a makeover. I'll meet up with Mark sometime and we'll see what we can do. I'm surprised the design has held up this long, actually.

Another Bitan Weekend

2007-04-03T11:19:00.000+08:00

Prince Roy, exiled from Spicy Girl's SOGO shopping odyssey, came down to Bitan on Sunday along with Mark to enjoy the summer-like weekend weather. We met up on the bridge, as usual, and walked along the relatively mouthbreather-free upper sidewalk to the ferry crossing. There we boarded the brand spanking-new ferryboat, larger, cleaner and made of fiberglass, replacing the creaky old wooden boat they had before. The sparkling new white-and-blue boat's metal railings even sported four bright orange life jackets (capacity was eight people), which, oddly enough, were made in the People's Republic of China, complete with instructions written in simplified characters.

Accompanying us on the new ferry were two of the punter's friends. They stayed on the boat, relaxing and chatting with the ferryman. One of them was sucking on a plum lollipop.

We disembarked on the other side and bought some drinks at a local watering hole set up in what looked like a container car, and proceeded to walk across the plain through the bamboo fields. A yellow dog followed us up to the border of its territory, where it spotted another dog, whined a bit and retreated. The air was fragrant with the scent of spring blossoms. It always amazed me that I can find such a rural atmosphere minutes away from my front door, yet downtown Taipei is 20 minutes away on the MRT.*

We walked to the Haihui Temple, where we looked out over the river at Zhitan and its strange Americanesque street layout. Mark wondered at the inscriptions on the balcony wall, which had "donated by" and the name of the donor written in red letters on each section. We puzzled over one character, which turned out to be simplified. I suppose the author didn't have a thin enough knife to carve the traditional character.

We walked on, PR and Mark talking about investments, and all three of us dissing various dissable bloggers, including ourselves. The road wound through cargo containers made up as homes, with little gardens and barking dogs, as well as an open-air karaoke session. I was surprised to see a brand-new house; I'd been told that construction was illegal there. No doubt someone has sufficient connections in the area.

The mosquitos were beginning to bite by the time we made it back to the ferry. The two friends were still in the boat, still sucking on lollipops and chatting merrily with the punter. He'd told me before that the two ferrymen usually divide the day into two shifts, but I'm not sure exactly when his shift began. This time more people crowded onto the boat, surpassing the stated carrying capacity, but nobody paid that any mind. We had life jackets, after all!

PR's ultimate goal that day was to have a meal at Rendezvous, so that was our next destination. We got a high table with a nice view of the river and spent the rest of the evening eating, drinking and chatting. I had the risotto this time rather than stuff myself with pizza, and it was delicious.

As the evening was getting on, PR and Mark decided it was time to go, so I said farewell to them at the foot of the bridge. After they left to catch the train back to town, I stood looking out across the river at the lighted buildings on the other side and watching the people coming and going across the bridge, trying to remember what it felt like when I was still living in the city. Eventually I walked back home, on the way taking a picture of one of the local strays lying in front of the gangster KTV palace, surrounded by the detritus of the street in such a way that it looked as if the sleeping dog was being watched over by an array of scooters, plants and traffic cones.

*For all of you considering moving down here, this does not mean that Bitan is a great place to live! It is in fact a nasty, crowded, smelly place with awful traffic, blaring karaoke, packs of stray dogs, a high crime rate, mouthbreathing tourists, noisy construction, scooter gangs and racing ricers, gangsters, random fireworks and no sidewalks. It is also mostly pan-blue, and few people speak English. There's no Wellcome, no Blockbuster or Asia1 or any DVD rental places at all, and it's a NT$300 cab ride from the city if you miss the last train. Plus we're chock full at the moment. No vacancies! Sorry!

Flickr vs. Zooomr

2007-03-07T00:08:00.000+08:00

Mark's been raving about Zooomr for a while now, and as the deadline approaches for Flickr users to merge their accounts with Yahoo! accounts, and having been through several instances where Yahoo! decided to randomly change my password without telling me, I thought I'd give Zooomr a try. I put up a few (75) photos and looked around the site for a few weeks. This is what I've found:

Zooomr's strengths seem to lie in a more geographically and socially oriented navigation. When you log in you are presented with your friend's photos, everyone's photos and photos taken nearby you. Geotagging a photo is easy and is done within Zooomr, while with Flickr you have to use an outside geotagger like Yuan.CC.maps (which is nearly as easy to use). Photos are also arranged by who's in them, resulting in a "popular" category in the top menu. If you want to look for photos and don't have a particular tag in mind, you are given the choice of most-recently uploaded pictures and...well, that's about it. Oh, you can also see who has uploaded the most photos, but I really don't see the point in that, or the "famous" category for that matter.

Zooomr also has trackbacks, though there is no list of them on the multiple photo pages. You have to go to each and every photo page to see them, and, at least in my experience, they are mostly spam. Supposedly this is the reason Flickr has been hesitant to implement them, and I can understand why. Mark told me that the trackbacks were implemented when someone suggested them to the guy who runs the show over there. He wrote a few lines of code in a few minutes and viola! -trackbacks. But they don't seem to work very well. Even when Mark linked to one of my pictures, people were obviously finding the photo through it, yet the trackback itself never showed up.

Zooomr's photo presentation is busier and (I think) uglier than Flickr's. While the Flickr design leaves white space around the photo and lets it be the most striking thing on the page, Zooomr crowds things around it and includes the distracting tri-colored banner at the top and grey sidebars.

Mark claims that Flickr adds filtering to photos, but all the examples he has raised involve resizing, which of course will change the parameters of any photo. I've looked very closely at photos on my hard drive as compared with original-sized photos on Flickr, and I can't say that I've seen any differences. Nothing noticeable anyway. Doesn't mean that there aren't any, but if I can't tell it's there, it might as well not be.

Perhaps it is because I am used to navigating the Flickr world, but even after several weeks of using Zooomr, I never really got into it. There aren't any groups that I can see, something I find it hard to do without for looking at a bunch of photos on one subject. It wasn't easy to explore Zooomr photos, nothing led me on from photo to photo the way Flickr's groups and user communities do. I suppose it could be that Zooomr has such a system, but due to the lack of a FAQ or help section I have no way of finding it.

Speaking of exploring, one huge advantage Flickr has over Zooomr (and other sites) is its Explore feature, using its "Interestingness" formula. I have found a great deal of exquisite photography using this feature, pictures and users and sets and groups that I never would have found otherwise (The Flickr blog is also great for this). And I'd like to think others have found my pictures using this feature as well. Searching for photos, you can view the search results ranked by "interestingness," "most recent" or "most relevant." With Zooomr, you can search for tags, and that's it.

Another thing, obviously, is the fact that a whole lot more people are on Flickr than are on Zooomr. On Flickr I get views, comments and favorites on a daily basis, but most people I've seen on Zooomr have "oops, this user hasn't faved any photos yet." Occasionally I'll get a couple of views, the odd comment. Yesterday I got linked to by Thomas Hawk, the guy who occasionally gets yelled at by building security guards. Which is something. But on the whole, it seems that the same factors that seem to be holding me back from getting more into the photography of other users on Zooomr are preventing other users from seeing my stuff as well.

All in all, while Zooomr is a valiant effort with interesting functionality, it seems that, while Zooomr puts the emphasis on physical place and who is in the picture, Flickr puts the emphasis on the photography itself, making it easier to go in and find good photos as well as good photographers from all over the world. The superior presentation, the groups, and just the sheer explorability of photography on Flickr win me over.

Let's just hope that Yahoo! can preserve and nurture Flickr in the future. After seeing the rape and pillaging of Geocities, eGroups and other previously useful services at their bloody little hands, I have my doubts. Thus my interest in other services, as well as the fact that Ernie's gone off to "find himself" or something and is no longer at Yahoo! to help me retrieve mysteriously changed passwords. Flickr is far, far better than Yahoo! photos. In fact, there's no real reason for Yahoo! to keep that part of its service any more. What remains to be seen is how they treat Flickr. A great many people have a huge amount at stake in this question.

While I will keep using Zooomr, I feel that right now, Flickr is still the best online photo service for my needs, and probably worth sticking to for a good while yet.

To the largish woman in black who made an attempt ...

2007-03-27T22:08:00.000+08:00

To the largish woman in black who made an attempt to force her way onto the subway a couple of days ago:

I feel I should inform you that in general society, letting people get off before you get on is generally preferred. That way, you see, there is more room for the people getting on. I know the image of potentially empty seats, rightfully yours of course, is rather tantalizing, but try to resist the urge for just a little while. The train isn't going to leave right away, so a few seconds more won't have a great impact on your busy schedule.

As to your ending up on your prodigious ass, I'm afraid that, despite your protests to the contrary, that brutal bitch we call physics was the main reason for your less-than-graceful downfall. That, and psychology, for when you assume that everyone will immediately get out of your way and allow you to barge onto the train before anyone can get off, you might neglect to consider that someone might not so readily acquiesce to your desires. Particularly if that someone is (a) larger than your not-inconsiderable personage, (b) listening to music on headphones and (c) doesn't happen to be facing you directly as you approach from the side to avoid that pesky line of people who were so naive as to think they could get on before you (I know: the nerve).

In short, that person in this case happened to be me. I am no stranger to such instances, and while the rather spectacular nature of your rebound did earn a backward glance on my part, I felt the performance just a bit too operatic for my tastes, and not quite worthy of a tasteful clapping as one would find on, say, a golf course after someone quotes Woody Allen.

I have no doubt, however, that others will be on the receiving end of your attempts to board other trains in the future. Perhaps they will be so lacking in mass and structure that you will feel confident in your ability to make them cower in the vastness of your presence, but should you fall victim to the slightest doubt, and happen to recall that ache in your backside from our chance encounter, you might do worse than to reconsider, and gracefully withdraw. No one will think the worse of you if you appear to be joining the common folk in their quaint fashions, no matter how mightily they confuse your no-doubt expansive worldview. I am sure that one glance at the name-brand markings on your various accouterments will assure them of your lofty status.

Prince Roy, Spicy Girl and their friends Kate and ...

2007-03-18T21:18:00.000+08:00

Prince Roy, Spicy Girl and their friends Kate and Paul came down to Bitan on Saturday, as the latter two had never been down here before. We rented a fish-shaped swanboat and paddled around the lake playing bumper-boats with the tourists and looking at the birds. It was pleasant. Everyone else was making AIT-related conversation and taking pictures of the scenery, while I rocked the boat and took shots of the paddle pedals.

Once ashore again, Daniel showed up with his brand-new, ridiculously large Nokia smartphone. We had a pizza dinner at Rendezvous. I tried SG's risotto and found it pretty good. I'll have to have that next time instead of trying to stuff myself with a whole pizza.

I had to leave early, though, to make the Bliss gig. Daniel drove me and my stuff over to the Xinyi Road establishment, where David was getting out of a cab just as I arrived. The bar was empty. David and I moved couches around upstairs to make room for the inevitable dancing. Slim showed up, sans tux this time, and Sandman called to see if his entourage had arrived yet.
We cajoled the owner, Barry, into letting us have free drinks, and I started in with some rye whiskey. People started showing up, and soon the place was packed. Eddie Tsai, who helped us with fight choreography and swordwork, was there, along with a music professor who played bass. There were many other familiar faces, including that of Chris, whose 30th birthday we were marking that night.

We got a bit of a slow start. Viola Lee was too slow, and my attempts to spice it up with trumpet riffs met with mixed results this time around. We've done it better, but we were just getting started. As the night progressed, things got hot. Really hot. Streamers fell from the ceiling. Whiskey was passed around. Tempos quickened. Dancing ensued. The crowd smoked. With little regard for any and all mistakes, we charged forward through the night. At one point I found myself completely lost; it took me a couple of measures to realize where the song was and myself relative to it. But it didn't phase me. Nothing phased any of us. Song followed song, but we kept on. David was a madman, and I played the tub until it split in two.

It was after 1am when we finally stopped. If we'd gone any longer we would have collapsed into a heap of dark chaotic matter. But it didn't matter. We'd created this great big thing that couldn't be undone; there were too many witnesses.

Afterwards, the band dissolved out into the crowd, everyone spinning on the vibe we'd been producing all night. For some reason, kissing-related troubles occurred on several fronts. I was sober enough to resist giving in to kissing a certain party, but only just. Instead, we ended up out on the curb, marveling at the show and sizing up cabs with a mind to the capacities of their trunks. Sandman wanted to hold out for a Wish, but we settled for a regular cab home instead.

My apartment is usually nice and quiet. Once or tw...

2007-03-18T21:06:00.000+08:00

My apartment is usually nice and quiet. Once or twice the people downstairs cranked up their 60-million-watt Karaoke system, apparently to attract aliens from far-flung planets, but after I had a word with them they stopped.

Recently, however, I've been hearing a piano. Playing the same melody over and over again, it sounds nearby. Yet when I went around to all my neighbors, nobody admitted to having a piano. Some people had heard it, but nobody knew who the culprit was. I crept along with my ear to the hallway walls, listening for some clue. Was the building haunted?

On a whim, I went up two floors, but no piano. Then I went down two floors from my place. Ah-ha! It turned out to be the apartment two floors below me, though the people in the apartment below me, the alien-hunters, claimed to have never heard the piano. I can only assume that they're actually deaf from all of the karaoke...either that or some strange construction fluke transmits sound around some apartments and into others.

It's a student, I'm guessing. The parent or husband (I'm guessing, as I never actually saw the piano player) said they would stop playing in the mornings and waking me up. The problem is that they play during reasonable hours, when I can't really raise any objections. But the constant sound of piano practice in my apartment is really, really distracting. I can't have cover-up music on all the time. The torturing soul plays all weekend, when I'm home trying to edit. The same tune, over and over. The next time someone tries to impress me with their piano-playing skills, I'll wonder how many of their neighbors went insane so that they could play "Imagine" whilst looking wistful for their friends.

The more time I accumulate navigating the online w...

2007-03-16T00:57:00.000+08:00

The more time I accumulate navigating the online world, the more I find bits of that mindset popping up in The Real World. I'll be reading a book and want to find a certain section and automatically think, "I'll just do a search" before realizing that there is no search. I'll see an unfamiliar Chinese character on a sign and some part of me will try to mouseover it to see what it means. I'll be looking at a building or a car and thinking it would look better in a different color or shape and mentally prepare to adjust the hue or morph it. The other day I noticed that one of my favorite posters, Thomas McKnight's "Riviera Coast" was covered with scratches due to multiple moves over the last few years, and I thought to myself, "No problem, I'll just use the clone tool and it'll be as good as new."

Thankfully this kind of thinking doesn't extend to wanting to jump off buildings because you can fly in video games or anything like that. It mainly concerns a desire to have the same level of access to information IRL that I do online. You get used to being able to look anything up instantly, having your entire world indexed, searchable and adjustable. Now, 3.5G mobile devices with Wi-fi and GPS are starting to provide more information to us when we're out and about, but not to the degree we're used to online, not yet. Virtual environments are still laughably oversimplified and clumsy, but at the rate hardware and software are improving it's really only a matter of time before they will resemble the actual world that we live in to such a degree that they'll seem just as vivid.

I don't believe, however, that such virtual worlds will draw people into them. I think that what people really want is to go the other way, and rather than taking themselves into some virtual word, instead bring all of the benefits of a virtual environment to everyday life via an interface for the world that we already inhabit, a personal browser that gives us accessibility to information about the real world to the degree that we are privy to online. Searchable literature. Objects, even buildings, that can change color. Or perhaps glasses that can scan and search what we see, or even change the world to look differently to each person (they could call the product "Rose"). If Twitter is anything to go by, I can imagine people doing nothing all day but looking out of other people's eyes. Of course, if everyone does that, there won't be anyone left actually doing anything for anyone else to watch.

I suppose that the downside to living in a society where we can make everything Just So would be that people might become so unaccustomed to seeing and dealing with things that they didn't like, that we would lose any shred of adaptability that we have left, leaving us completely vulnerable to the slightest unexpected change in our environment. Some argue that we've already reached that point with iPods and the Internet. As we retreat from "traditional reality," our ability to deal with it will naturally atrophy, but this has been going on since history began; who among us wouldn't have trouble adapting to life a hundred years ago? In any case, the trend of acquiring greater access to information isn't going to stop, so we're going to have to deal with it somehow. And, somehow, I think we will.

And of course, there's always the brain-plug thingy, just in case.

It's been a while since our last show, but the Mud...

2007-03-15T21:50:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since our last show, but the Muddy Basin Ramblers will be back on stage at Bliss Saturday night from around 10pm, in celebration not only of St. Patrick's Day (I assume someone in the band has Irish blood) but primarily to celebrate our friend Chris' entry into the real adult world, i.e. her 30th birthday. We've been concentrating on the album for so long it might be kind of strange to go back to stage stuff, but I'm sure we'll manage.

I've been making some small changes to this page. I added a little bit of code that creates little pop-up versions of the websites links lead to if you mouseover them. I found it when I last visited Tinmanic's page and liked the idea of more than just plain ALT text, so I included it on this page as well as my links page. If it drives you crazy and just gets in the way of your reading, let me know.

My archives are now available through a pulldown menu on the sidebar rather than taking you to a separate page. I've also reconfigured my Flickr page to show a few large photos on the front page rather than a lot of little ones. I think the little pictures don't show enough detail; the big ones just look better, but I'm biased of course. Zooomr is apparently implementing its next phase, but I'm not sure just yet what that involves. It will be interesting to see if they've addressed any of the issues I listed in my last post. As many of those are simply my personal preferences, probably not. But one can hope.

The only other things I want to do with this page are make the graphic at the top link back to the current page without a nasty-looking border and change the color of the comments so that they're visible on the individual post pages. Oh, and somehow figure out how to make the trackbacks work. If you have any ideas, let me know.

It's hard to believe that I've kept basically the same layout for nearly six years. That's, like, Lorne Greene's age in Web years. But it's held up pretty well so far, and I've grown partial to it. I remember one early review complaining about my humongous icons, but they seem just right at today's resolutions. In any case, I'd like to keep it a while longer.

Haven't felt like blogging in a while. Felt like c...

2007-03-06T10:02:00.000+08:00

Haven't felt like blogging in a while. Felt like crap through the Chinese New Year holiday, a situation not improved by the constant barrage of fireworks out my window. So that period, which I had planned to use to get most of the film editing done, was basically a washout.

Last weekend the Muddy Basin Ramblers got together after a long hiatus down by the riverside for a jam to get back into the swing of things. I, for one, needed it, as I've gotten out of practice. The cops would swing by occasionally, and eventually they told us, very politely, to stop playing. The fireworks, of course, went on unabated.

The next night, resigned to sleeplessness, I went down to the riverside to take some pictures, but it started raining, harder and harder until it was a real downpour, effectively silencing the fireworks. Hallelujah! Finally, a decent night's sleep.

Now, well into the week, the summer-like temperatures have ended, and we're back to a wintry 11 degrees and the usual greyness.

In other news, Chen Shui-bian seems to have passed the bedroom mirror one too many times and realized that he can now be the kind of president he has always wanted to be, i.e. the kind of president that he and his party spent a great deal of time and effort over the course of many years convincing moderate voters he wouldn't be so that they would vote for him. Now that he doesn't need the votes and a bit short in the legacy department at this late date, he's been keeping busy changing the names of the airport, the post office, stamps, companies that have "China" or "Chinese" in their names, and getting rid of the memory of Chiang Kai-shek, which apparently includes changing the CKS Memorial Hall to the "Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" (Democracy Memorial? Is Democracy dead? Ah, Democracy, we hardly knew ye.) and tearing down the lovely shady verandas and ornate gates we've enjoyed for nearly three decades. Why not just let the missiles do the job for free? Come on, get with the program.

To make sure the US is clear about any obligation it might have felt about to help defend Taiwan in case of a PRC attack, Chen has also thrown his twice-declared "Five Noes" campaign promises/inauguration speeches out the window and is gunning for formal independence with a speech made at a recent pro-independence FAPA meeting, which went so far as to tell the US to shove off and stop interfering with "Taiwan's internal affairs."

Ironically, Chen's unilateral and undemocratic actions of late, all seeming in the name of "Democracy," seem like they're softening Taiwan up for rule by the PRC. The party dictates who is publicly admired and who is not? Check. The party dictates the names of organizations and companies? Check. References to political enemies removed from public view? Check (the PRC agrees with the DPP about CKS, so that fits as well). Telling the US to stop meddling in "internal affairs"? Check. Try to move the capital to your political base and to disassociate yourself with your political opposition? Check. Fanning the flames of an old outrage/massacre/incident to whip up a sense of victimization and indignation at your perceived political enemies? Check. Today's DPP is feeling more and more like the KMT of old, and their tactics seem to have come out of Zhongnanhai itself.

Actually, you'd think that Beijing would want Taiwan to de-sinify itself. No more of that pesky "Free China" or "the other China" business. China would be completely and irrevocably communist and under Beijing's control. If it weren't for the threat of other regions wanting to split away as well as the economic ties and strategic considerations and public sentiment...well, ok, I suppose it would be expecting too much for them to take that view. But it does make one think about all of those people who do believe in the idea of "Free China" especially those who fought and sacrificed everything for it, how they must feel to see certain parties belittle their efforts and try to undo everything they ever believed in. Not that they were angels, but to fight a very nasty war against the Japanese and then the Communists, and then give up any hope of ever going home is surely worth something.

Someone on Forumosa mentioned that he feared that if Ma Ying-jeou won the presidency in 2008, it would be Taiwan's last free election. But I'm thinking at this point that we'll be lucky to get another free election if the greens win again. Indeed, if Chen doesn't make his traditional turnaround this time in the face of international opposition to his latest tactics, we'll be lucky to have even the 2008 election, for, in their strange way, Chen and the DPP are campaigning harder for unification now than the KMT ever did.

It would be hilarious if the possible ramifications of his recklessness weren't so potentially disastrous. But hey, if we can make Charles Hong of Akron, Ohio happy, who are we to fear any repercussions?

DV8, the musty, wood-covered site of many late nig...

2007-02-18T21:29:00.000+08:00

DV8, the musty, wood-covered site of many late nights after work at the newspaper as well as a scene in the movie, is closing its doors for good after Chinese New Year's, so David, Thumper and I met up there on Friday night to see it once more. A fair share of people were there, including Gavin, Bob from Carnegies and Matthew Lian. We did the traditional DV8 thing, that is we drank, hunted through the music collection, argued about politics and played some pool downstairs.

Our old co-worker Ronnie, who is now at the Taipei Times, wrote a story on the old place's imminent demise. It was good, but one part made me laugh:

Kenbo Liao remembers one such hazy moment in 1996, when China was launching missiles over Taiwan. Lots of people had left Taiwan, but he was here with a few regulars. "The missiles were probably shooting over our heads," he said. Around 2am they got together and pledged to defend Taiwan against China. "We were comrades," Liao said.

Ah, Kenbo. What a character. It's hard for me to get all weepy about his selfless act of heroism in drinking in a bar, however, as at the time my military unit in Hsinchu was on high alert, so with all the snap drills I didn't have the chance to express my patriotism in such an eloquent fashion.

David was roaring drunk by the time we hit the street in the wee hours of the morning. He had a flight the next day to Australia, the lucky sod. After we had walked about 50 feet from the door, I turned him around to face the bar, from which music was still emanating, and said, "There it is. You can see it, and you can hear it."

The next day was Chinese New Year's Eve, and I spent the evening at a friends house in Nangang eating good food and playing with their new Wii. They only sell the Japanese version here, so we spent a bit of time squinting at the squiggles on the screen, trying to guess what they meant. It was a lot of fun, though. The tennis was probably my favorite, though I didn't get to play the pingpong. The bowling was ok, as was the baseball. The boxing was just frustrating, as the punches seemed to bear no relation to one's hand motions.

I got back to Bitan, exhausted from the food and the Wii-related activities, at about 2am, and the fireworks were going strong. I longed for sleep, but the constant barrage outside my window made it impossible. I tried going downstairs to the common room, but it was just as loud there. Then I tried my bathtub, which was even worse as it cut off my circulation and made me dizzy. In the end I just laid on my bed waiting for it to die down, and took a nap the next morning.

When I went down to the lobby, I saw a newspaper article posted on the bulletin board, about the strict anti-fireworks measures being undertaken by the Bitan Police. Patrols every hour, on the hour! The residents are suffering! More news from bizarro-land, 'cause it ain't happening here.

Tonight looks to be more of the same, colorful explosions-wise. In fact, it will probably continue for several nights, and as I'm a bit short on money this month, I can't afford to go stay at the Love Hotel just up the road for a night or two. I wonder if I have any old all-night sauna coupons left...

Happy Valentine's Day. The pictured teddy bear wed...

2007-02-14T01:27:00.000+08:00

Happy Valentine's Day. The pictured teddy bear wedding package, available at 7-Elevens around the island, originally featured a groom bear and a bride bear, so I bought another and replaced the bride bear with the other groom bear because I WANT TO DESTROY EVERY MARRIAGE IN AMERICA! LOL!!!1111OnEOzZZ

Sorry, I came perilously close to revealing The Gay Agenda there, and that just wouldn't do. Seriously, I just thought it would be a cute thing to see. If I were a true activist I would organize an island-wide campaign to switch bride and groom bears surreptitiously in the stores themselves. As Taiwan isn't the bastion of Puritanism that red-state America is, it probably wouldn't cause much more than a few double-takes.

As for me, I'll be spending Valentine's Day alone again, or practicing Tai-chi as I usually do on Wednesdays. The whole spitting-on-swanboats thing is getting old anyway.

In other news, Ma Ying-jeou has been indicted after prosecutors discovered irregularities in the use of his special mayoral fund. While it's not surprising that this happened (Ma's been seen as the KMT's presidential candidate for so long his opponents were bound to dig up something sooner or later to use against him), the fact that Ma made such a stupid mistake seems extraordinarily careless. I can only guess that he thought that the reality that declaring half of the office's discretionary fund is SOP in Taiwan would somehow make him immune to prosecution. Either that or he truly didn't know, which in many ways is just as worrying.

I expected Ma to resign from the KMT chairmanship after the indictment announcement, but it appears that he is still intent on running for the presidency despite a party rule that those indicted are not allowed to be nominated by the party for office. Ma himself came up with this rule years ago, so he of all people should be aware of its existence. Balls o' steel, that man has. I was expecting Lien Chan to use this opportunity to regain the party chairmanship so that he could broker a Wang/Ma ticket, but it looks like this may not be the case. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Ma has been considered the KMT's best chance at winning in 2008, but Wang would also have a pretty good shot, I think. In any case, speculation at this point is useless. The DPP got "lucky" twice due to bizarre circumstances that caused them to win the last two times, so I wouldn't rule out some strange unforeseen incident doing the same thing this time around.

Meanwhile, Prince Roy wants to know my opinion on the DPP's recent campaign to get rid of any reference to the terms "China" or "Chinese" in Taiwan.

Sigh.

Ok. Many media reports call this campaign one of "rectification," which is of course a matter of opinion. This is actually just the latest in a thousand-year-old trend of dynastic thinking. One group gets in power and changes the money, the official designations, nomenclature, etc. on the claim that it is "rectifying" things. Then another group takes power and the pissing-on-trees starts all over again. Rinse, repeat. Imagine if each US administration issued different colored money with pictures of its heroes on it, and then changed all the official names of everything. Think of all the wasted time, effort and money that would result, time, money and effort that should be spent on improving concrete aspects of people's lives. Ironically, the DPP in this instance is acting like just the latest in a long line of Chinese-style dynasties. Say what you will about Chiang Kai-shek, but a thousand-NT bill from his time looked like a thousand NT. A US 20-dollar bill features one of history's most notorious mass-murderers, Andrew Jackson, but it looks like real money. We're left with a bunch of kids stymied by a vaguely drawn globe.

But let's say you're hell-bent on getting rid of references to a certain culture and history. Ok. At the very least, you should make an effort to replace it with something solid and fair, something people can take some kind of assurance from in lieu of what they had before. The reason Taiwanese people have identity issues these days isn't due to the influence of Chinese culture and history, which have been around ever since their ancestors brought it here with them from China starting centuries ago. No, the DPP, in its quest to remove these connections and associations that they feel threaten their political power base, simply hasn't done a very good job of replacing them with anything significant. People are being told that the language they speak, the words they use, the customs they grew up with and the beliefs they've been taught are all now wrong and foreign and keeping them down. Fair enough, but in their absence, what's left? Aborigines dancing for tourist dollars, a plethora of special reports on indigenous flora and fauna, and millions of people who have no clue who they are or what they believe in.

But back to the name-changing thing. Basically, it's already 2007. The DPP may not be able to come up with a way to not be voted out of power next year, so now's the time to do all the things on its to-do list. Chen wants his legacy, and the party doesn't particularly care about the housekeeping since it's the last night at the hotel.

Though it's been blogged about extensively, I just...

2007-02-11T00:23:00.000+08:00

Though it's been blogged about extensively, I just have to express my amazement at the city of Boston's reaction to its recent discovery of a few publicly placed LED boards with cartoon characters on them. Spurning chance after chance to realize what they were dealing with, their reaction to international derision over the matter seems to have made them simply more eager to "prove" that there was some kind of "threat" involved. Now apparently they've cooked up some numbers for "restitution" for their blunder and have forced the head of the Cartoon Network to resign.

What I find most significant is that this is the first time I've ever witnessed such a huge disconnect between what the mainstream media is reporting and what is blatantly obvious to everyone else. It's almost soviet. Even living here in Taiwan and being a bit older than the targeted demographic, I still know about the TV show the character is taken from. So, it seems, does everyone on the Internet. But despite the fact that both the show and the Internet have been around for years, the mainstream media in the US seems almost willfully ignorant. I suppose in the first couple of hours after the story broke such ignorance could have been explained, but even today, weeks afterward, they don't seem to have been able to understand just what happened. It's like the real world is a foreign land to which they cannot imagine. It really makes one wonder, if the major US media players can't even get this right, what's the point of their existence?

Seriously, this was just as perfect a test as you could ask for, and they failed spectacularly, right down to the scapegoating of everyone but those actually responsible for the hysteria. The media, the authorities concerned and city officials decided to ignore reality and spend all of their efforts trying to push their fantasy on the public. Before the Internet it might have been possible to do this successfully (and it no doubt has been). But after the laughter dies down and they're still putting up their claims as "truth," I think the general public will realize that it has a genuine cause for concern on its hands. Basically, this incident has shown us that we cannot trust them. Even in this kind of situation, they've proved themselves not only useless and only concerned about saving face, but untrustworthy and even dangerous. But it seems that those who are charged with fixing such problems have become the problems themselves.

"Excuse me," the little gentleman said, "Where are...

2007-02-08T12:02:00.000+08:00

"Excuse me," the little gentleman said, "Where are you from?"

Well, that's the question, isn't it? thought Dr. Daruwalla. It was always the question. For his whole adult life, it was the question he usually answered with the literal truth, which in his heart felt like a lie.

"I'm from India," the doctor would say, but he didn't feel it; it didn't ring true. "I'm from Toronto," he sometimes said, but with more mischief than authority. Or else he would be clever. "I'm from Toronto, via Bombay," he would say. If he really wanted to be cute, he would answer, "I'm from Toronto, via Vienna and Bombay." He could go on, elaborating the lie- namely, that he was from anywhere.

I just finished A Son of the Circus by John Irving. I spent the first half of the book wondering what it was about and whether I should continue reading it, but, as is typical in my experience with Irving, I was eventually rewarded for my patience, though later in the book than I would have liked (A Prayer for Owen Meany won me over immediately, but Hotel New Hampshire took a while. The Ciderhouse Rules never did anything for me).

Though it wasn't the best Irving I've read, I was able to identify with the main character of Dr. Daruwalla, who, though he can act the various parts, doesn't seem to truly belong in any one culture. Early on, he is told that, once one is an immigrant, one is always an immigrant. Much of the book focuses on this subject, which is portrayed in a melancholy yet matter-of-fact fashion.

As an immigrant myself, as well as someone who admittedly encounters a certain amount of discomfort while dealing with various cultural environments, I can somewhat relate to this fictional character's situation. In the book, Dr. Daruwalla knows deep down that there will always be people in Canada who, based on the color of his skin, will only see him as Indian, as well as many people in India who will point out that he is not truly an Indian either. All of this translates into a kind of helplessness in the book until, towards the end, the doctor is asked where he is from by a child on the street, and he comes up with a uniquely accurate answer to the query, that he is from the circus.

Granted, you'll have to read the book to know what that really means for Dr. Daruwalla, but it seems to me that there are more options in life than simply Nationality A or Citizen of B or of the C Ethnicity. And when I consider what my life would have been like if things had turned out differently, I wonder if I could have taken what a more standard path would have dealt me.

But that's neither here nor there. I could wonder endlessly about such things (and I often find myself doing just that), but in reality, while I sometimes dislike dealing with the various cultural baggage that comes with an inter-cultural identity, I often find, as with a large, noisy party, that I am more comfortable outside than in. Perhaps that is a common point among immigrants in general, that restlessness that flies in the face of the natural desire to belong. Some immigrants cling to one culture or another, either retreating into the comfortable familiarity of their childhood or making a show of unreservedly throwing themselves into their adopted culture while daring anyone to notice anything out of the ordinary, but I think that, to a degree, we all reserve a section of ourselves that transcends the absoluteness of any one culture, environment or identity. Just in case.

I am not American, not officially anyway; I have never lived there as an adult. I don't remember my birthplace at all. While my English remains a bit better than my Chinese, I don't know anything about contemporary US culture that can't be accessed through the Internet. Americans seem foreign to me. While my upbringing will always be a part of who I am, it is a static part and only changes in relation to the person I've become since.

I know Taiwan better than any other place in the world. It's my home, and though I love to travel and explore different parts of the world, I always want to come back here. I am a citizen with all the rights and obligations of a Taiwanese national. Yet a random stranger on the street, seeing my features and skin color, will automatically assume that I am a cultural novice and completely unfamiliar with this land and its people. I will be treated like a child or an idiot by some, fawned over as exotic by others. Only those who get to know me will ever know any different.

Such inconsistencies are simply part of my reality, an unfamiliar aspect to many people who (understandably) rely on assumptions to get through life. It may seem like this kind of existence makes a lot of unreasonable demands, and it does, but with culture and identity, as with physics, there is only so much me to go around. Perhaps that is why some immigrants tend to stay on the outside, in order to allow them at least the illusion of control over their identities, even as they fly apart at the seams.

Occasionally in Taiwan I encounter what I like to ...

2007-02-05T23:08:00.000+08:00

Occasionally in Taiwan I encounter what I like to call the Airplane! treatment. For those of you who haven't seen this brilliant 1980 movie, some of the jokes run thusly:

Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.

Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?

Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

The Taiwan version of this usually involves a conversation with someone who possesses the intellectual knowledge that I speak Chinese but also has some sort of cognitive dissonance that prevents them from successfully internalizing that fact. They're perfectly willing to speak with me in Chinese, but sometimes, out of the blue, they'll feel the need to explain some perfectly obvious thing, reminding me of the Airplane! jokes.

Some Person: I won a clothes dryer at the office party, so my wife had a baby girl.

Me: So you're saying the reason your wife had a girl instead of a boy was...

Some Person: It's a machine that dries clothes.

Ok, so that might not be the best example, but you get the point. In any case, I wonder if the people I'm talking to, when they see me break out in laughter, think that I'm just ecstatic that I've finally learned the Chinese word for "clothes dryer" or whatever everyday thing we happen to be talking about.

It doesn't happen that often; friends and people who know me well enough don't usually do this, as they know I'll ask them what something means if I don't understand it. But when it does happen, I keep waiting for them to add "...but that's not important right now."

Today was a bit frustrating. It started out ok. N...

2007-02-04T01:46:00.000+08:00

Today was a bit frustrating.

It started out ok. Nice and bright. Xian-rui and I played ping-pong downstairs, and I managed to keep the ball in play for literally seconds at a time, a big improvement over the last time we played.

After Xian-rui left I took a shower and headed over to a Thai restaurant on Jinan Road where the "Little Bear Village" was having its annual New Year's party. I didn't know anyone there. Well, I did, online, but I'd never met anyone there face-to-face before. I was seated at the geeky table, apparently, with a few exceptions. I knew one guy from chatting online before. I noticed that there wasn't a whole lot of animated discussion at the other tables. A round of weak alcohol seemed to help matters, as did the handing out of the exchanged gifts, along with a short introduction of each recipient.

I noticed a guy across the room who seemed familiar. And also very interesting. After the party broke up I went over and sat down at their table after seeing that one of the guys there had received the gift I brought. He turned out to be the cute guy's little brother. We chatted for a while, and I was feeling pretty good about until I realized that he was already spoken for. What really smarts is that we'd exchanged messages online years ago but never got together. It's too bad, really. He seems really nice.

So I left with my NT$200 red envelope and walked around the city's alleyways for a while. I looking for a place to piss when I ran into an old acquaintance from the News. He's still working there and was on his way to a bar that used to be Roxy 99.

It was still relatively early, and I decided to go to JB's to watch Clay Soldiers on TV. The waitress switched the little TV in the corner to CTS, which for some strange reason was just starting "Free Willy," as a drunk English woman put her ashtray on my table, sat down and decided to spray me with her repugnantly sweet perfume. As politely as I could, I refrained from punching her. I figured she probably had friends there and I didn't want to miss the show over a bar brawl.

The time CTS had told me came and went, however, and no Clay Soldiers. I switched around the channels a bit, and then gave up. CTS was still showing Free Willy, and every time I saw that damn whale I just wanted to see a harpoon pierce its gaping maw. Preferably with the kid attached.

Discouraged, I waded through the crowd of soccer-watchers and left in time to catch the last train home. When I got online someone told me that they had seen the show, but very faintly on channel 11. CTS is channel 12. I'll call tomorrow to see if they can explain what the hell was going on. Right now I need to take another shower and get this damn perfume off me.

UPDATE: DOH! It was on channel 11, one of CTS's other channels. Oh, well. At least we're being broadcast.

I met up with such community luminaries as Prince ...

2007-01-20T15:52:00.000+08:00

I met up with such community luminaries as Prince Roy, Mark and Battle Panda last night after work. I was the first one there, so while I waited I sat on a sidewalk planter outside the MRT exit gazing vacantly at a lobby I was sure I had entered for some nefarious purpose in 1991.

Mark had an inexplicable hankering for cheesy faux-Italian cuisine, so we headed to the alleys behind Zhongxiao where he knew of some likely candidates all lined up in a convenient row. We picked one and found they had no rice, left just noodles. The soup tasted canned; proof of this was on display along the wall, lined with various Chef Boy-ar-Dee products.

After dinner we headed over to Nanjing East Road to sample the new Dunkin' Donuts store, despite reports that they'd taken a lot of the sugar out of the recipes to "suit local tastes." After walking a couple of blocks from the station, the aroma of the shop brought back memories of my childhood.

There was a short line, but nothing anywhere near as egregious as the Mister Donut mobs of yore. The setup was a lot better than MD, too; you just picked up tongs and filled your tray with the donuts you wanted from the shelf, rather than being introduced to a brochure and led one by one to the counter to negotiate your purchase with the cashier.

We loaded up our trays and retired to a table at the back of the store to munch down on our goodies. All of the donuts were good, better than Mister Donut, though the frosting was a bit too waxy on some of the donuts. The regular glazed was exactly the same as the US version as far as I can recall. The chocolate-filled puffs, my childhood favorite, were not as sweet. In fact, the frosting and fillings were noticeably less sweet, though the donuts themselves seemed the same. They're probably even better earlier in the day when they're fresh.

I asked the cashier when the next store was opening up and where, but she just said "Soon" and "Couldn't say." In any case, it's bad timing for me, because while I could have enjoyed these all through my twenties, they're off the menu these days except for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries or just happening to be in the neighborhood. We'll see if Dunkin' Donuts, despite the questionable location of their flagship store, becomes as popular as Mister Donut. You'll know it when you see fashionable women on the MRT carrying their latest jewelry purchases in old Dunkin' Donuts bags.

I haven't been posting a lot lately because I'm sp...

2007-01-15T00:25:00.000+08:00

I haven't been posting a lot lately because I'm spending just about all of my free time editing. Expect this to continue for a while.

I did get out on Friday night to play at a benefit for Stevie Ray, a local musician friend who lost everything in a fire, including all of his belongings, his instruments and his dog. Various bands gathered at The Living Room and played to raise some money for Stevie and his wife to help them get back on their feet. In the cab on the way I called Prince Roy to see if he wanted to come down; he said he'd stop by.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers were on first. We set up quickly and got playing at about 10pm. My first show with the group was on that stage, in 2004. Hopefully this time around I didn't make quite as many mistakes.

Although we weren't fully Ramblered up as far as attire went, I decided in the glare of the stage lights to do the show wearing some old round sunglasses I had lying around. Afterwards, not only did I not get the usual "You seem so angry" comments, people actually said I looked serene on stage. Apparently the key to the phenomenon is my eyes. I must look into this.

After the show I was felt tired. You can see me zoning out in the above picture (courtesy of Kevin Smith). I packed up my stuff and headed back to the green room, but was waylaid by a couple of people wanting to know how I could make the washtub bass sound so much like a stand-up bass. I explained as best I could (mainly I just guess where the notes are) and walked back to the green room, where Stevie was tuning a borrowed guitar for the show. I plopped down on a mat and took a nap, as the show was going to go late and I wanted to be awake for any last-minute jamming.

A little later I got a message from Prince Roy; it turned out that he had been standing right in front of me after the show, and I didn't even notice him. Sorry about that, man.

The show did go late. All in all, seven bands performed. I watched from the doorway next to Parti, a Sri Lankan friend of mine who has a shaved head and goatee, and Conor. At one point, as Stevie Ray was in the middle of a quiet solo, a largish foreigner turned around suddenly and threw a beer bottle at the people at the table behind him, shouting at them to shut the hell up. Luckily, the bottle didn't hit anyone.

By the time it was over, nobody was much in the mood for a large-scale jam, and many of the key musicians had already left, so it just didn't happen. We wished Stevie the best of luck and went down to the street to hail cabs home.

I was ready for bed last night when I got a call f...

2006-12-31T15:15:00.000+08:00

I was ready for bed last night when I got a call from Chris, who was heading over to Ziga Zaga at the Hyatt to meet up with Michael and some other people. Although sleep called, I figured after staying home all day doing laundry and tidying up for the new year, I wouldn't mind getting out for a bit.

The crowd at the ritzy club consisted of the usual suspects: a mix of well-to-do white people, Taiwanese people dressed with questionable fashion sense intended to impart a sense of wealth and status more than taste, and a couple of black people. The band was from Europe and did a good job on most of the covers it played, though the sound system was pretty horrible.

We sat at a high table; Chris and her friend Alita would go dance periodically while Michael and I would stay and people-watch. A couple at a nearby table had embarked on a more-or-less constant lap dance, while an Asian girl stood staring at the stage and moving her hands in slow motion.

The restrooms were ambiguously labeled, as Chris found after walking into the men's room by mistake (or so she claims). The men's room door had a pear on it. I'm not sure what the women's room door had on it; an apricot I think. I couldn't be sure because any male person walking past the men's room would immediately be confronted with a gremlin dressed in a hotel uniform. The gremlin would then tell the male person "Pear! PEAR! NOT APRICOT!" as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The bar did have one of my favorite drinks, CC rye whiskey and ginger ale. Periodically Chris and Alita would overheat and go outside to cool down. I went with them one time at the end of the band's last set so that I could watch people leaving. One fat woman stared at me as I sat on the pavement ouside. She was wearing purple slippers and suede pants, and I thought Jesus, if anyone should be stared at it's her. But it was obviously not my crowd, so I just pointed and laughed as I usually do.

Speaking of pointing and laughing, I got a good laugh while shopping at SOGO for a new bathrobe. My old one, previously white, is now a dubious shade of yellow and needs replacing. Also, it doesn't cover me as well as it used to. My employers give out bonuses of SOGO gift certificates in lieu of actual money, and I wanted to use the NT$1,000 I'd accumulated in one swell foop.

I looked at one terrycloth robe and asked how much it was. "NT$2,800" I was told.

"Yeah, ok," I said, and kept walking. I then found one for NT$5,000 and chuckled at the clerk. I continued on to find one for NT$11,000. Then I found another that looked nice. Nothing special, just a terrycloth bathrobe. "How much is this?" I asked the saleslady.

"Oh, that one's on sale!" she said brightly. I waited a moment but that's all she said.

"And How Much Does It Cost?" I said, trying to enunciate clearly.

"NT$33,000."

"BWAAAAHAAAAA!" I shouted, causing the entire floor to turn and stare. I didn't say anything else, wiped my tears of hilarity on the bathrobe and departed.

New Year's festivities this year were held at Davi...

2007-01-03T18:34:00.000+08:00

New Year's festivities this year were held at David's place in Muzha. The theme was Hawaiian, and David, Robyn and Paige had decorated their two apartments in an appropriate style. Slim, Chris and I took a cab over, Slim hauling several pineapples as his gift. I had no contribution, so we stopped by KFC on the way over so I could pick up a bucket o' grease. Apparently picking up a bucket o' grease is a very popular new year's tradition, as there were approximately 300 other people wanting to do just that.

Grass skirts were handed out, but I felt there's no point in wearing one if you're compromising by wearing anything underneath it, so I settled for the obligatory lei. I actually don't own any Hawaiian clothing and had to wear my Australian Aborigine shirt instead. Sandman came adorned with a coconut bra and several ukuleles. I busied myself during part of the festivities taking artsy close-up shots of the ukes.

It was a very small party. The Taipei Kid showed up, and some people I didn't know. Sandman had brought curry and rottis from Athula, and there were many very tasty dishes on hand. Later on Robyn and Paige brought out a chocolate cake shaped like (and very nearly the size of) a volcano.

We gathered on the rooftop just before midnight, where we could just see the tip of Taipei 101. The fireworks that we could see were impressive, even at that distance, but a horrible smell made lingering there an unpopular option.

With so many ukuleles around, plus my pocket trumpet and a washtub bass, music was inevitable. We played old songs, new songs, improvised and read sheet music. I played softly lest the neighbors complain, but the fireworks going off all over the city made it less urgent a task than it normally would have been. It was well into the morning by the time we left, but fireworks were still going off over Bitan when I went to bed at 4am.

2007 feels like an oddly green, unexpected year to me, probably because I haven't really put much thought into what it's going to be like. 2006 ended on a low note for me; I hope for better this year. I'm going to have to make some changes, changes that I'll most likely hate, but they have to be made anyway. I need to get into better shape. I'd like to take a nice long vacation, preferably to Europe. I also would like to see Paradigm X in a theater by the end of the year, and pick up an English-language publisher for Counting Mantou. I guess I might as well ask for a pony and Malcolm Jamal-Warner's hand in marriage as well.

Politically, I expect the KMT to take a public-relations beating as the DPP bangs the 2/28 drums for the incident's 60th anniversary. If the pan-greens relent on the issue of cross-strait exchanges, thus spurring the economy, things could look pretty rosy for them come 2008. Both Su and Hsieh, either of which has a shot in the next election, are generally seen as more pragmatic on cross-strait relations than Chen.

Prince Roy had the gall to pick me to continue thi...

2006-12-31T14:47:00.000+08:00

Prince Roy had the gall to pick me to continue this "Five things you don't know about me" ridiculousness. I pointed out that I've already done a hundred of these things, but alas, his appetite for this kind of thing seems to be insatiable. Although I have plenty of potentially disturbing secrets left, I've been racking my brains to think of any that won't completely alienate one or both of my readers and/or cause them to notify relevant authorities. Here are the ones I came up with:

1. I lied in a rather baldfaced fashion to a certain ROC vice premier's face during an interview

2. My sexual fetishes make furries look like the old couple in American Gothic

3. I successfully masqueraded as a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute

4. I've posted a collection of nude photos of myself on the Internet

5. The fingernails on my left hand are soft, while the fingernails on my right hand are very hard.

I'm not going to tag anyone else on this meme; let it fade away on its own.

I'd planned to renew my long-since-expired motorcy...

2006-12-27T17:37:00.000+08:00

I'd planned to renew my long-since-expired motorcycle registration this afternoon before work, but when I got to the DMV I was told that, since I was changing the color of the bike, I'd need to get it inspected. My present registration says "black" as the bike's color, though it was black and red, the traditional RZR colors. So I'm going to have to wait until it's all fixed up before I can go get it re-registered.

Rather than take the MRT directly back to the office, I decided instead to walk up Ba-de Road, and after a couple of blocks I found myself looking up at the building on whose rooftop I once practiced Kung-fu on a daily basis. The old sign on the building's side was gone or covered up, but a faded green placard still adorned the top. I walked past the lobby, outside which I used to park my Honda during practice. The last time I exited that door I was gasping in pain and leaning on a classmate's shoulder.

In 1991-1992, I was up there all the time. Life then was good, if poor. I was working as a camera assistant at the Kuangchi Programming Service, making NT$15,000 a month, NT$4000 of which I used for the rent on a decent room on Minsheng East Road. At night when I got off work early enough I would ride my motorcycle to the Kung-fu center on Ba-de Road for practice. Our teacher was a short, stocky guy surnamed Chen, and I was learning the Chang-hong style, empty-handed and stick forms. The training was tough, but I was in good shape and making decent progress. In all respects, I was living the life I'd envisioned for myself.

Then, one night, I was in the middle of a series of flying kicks when I came down wrong and seriously injured my left knee. I couldn't walk for a while and lost my job. My landlady didn't appreciate me being home all the time and kicked me out. I had no job, no place to live and I couldn't walk well, much less continue training. I decided to leave Taiwan and take a position as a shoe inspector in China.

Living in the same city for a long time can play tricks with one's perception of time, making it seem like it's not really flowing as fast as it is. But as I stood looking up at that building, I suddenly felt the solid presence of the decade and a half between me and that life, that version of myself.

My life since has been interesting, no doubt, but I can't help wonder what would have happened if I hadn't injured myself that night. Due to the more violent nature of that particular martial art, an injury was probably going to happen sooner or later. I've been involved in movies on and off in the time since, and I've gotten back into martial arts, albeit softer, more internal forms these days. Perhaps I would have ended up the same, just without the detour to China. Or perhaps I would still be on top of that building. I could wonder forever and still not know.

After standing there for several minutes with these thoughts running through my head, I turned and walked on to Dunhua South Road, where, coincidentally, I lived after coming back from China, in a fire-damaged walk-up room with particle-board walls for NT$4500 a month. There was a bridge in front of the building then, running over the train tracks. I was just starting out at a small TV station called TVBS, which occupied a couple of floors in a small building near Jinshan Road.

Aside from the railway bridge being gone, the area hasn't changed all that much. I would have loved to have had access to the MRT back then, but I had to rely on the then-new-to-me Gendoyun to get around. The MRT has changed the city in countless ways, not the least of which is the way it reduces the city to disconnected points rather than the urban stream one takes in from the seat of a motorcycle. Much like living in the same spot and watching the flow of time as opposed to moving around and living life in a series of disconnects.

Astronauts were orbiting the moon as I was born on...

2006-12-26T16:34:00.000+08:00

Astronauts were orbiting the moon as I was born on a Christmas afternoon 38 years ago. The picture on the right was taken at that time. It makes me feel just a little younger knowing that men were already in space when I arrived here.

Prince Roy and Daniel came out to Bitan on Saturday afternoon, and after introducing PR to the wonders of Athula's rotis, we went over to Wantan for a stroll through the bamboo groves and the area's temples. I always enjoy taking the ferry across the river as well as the rural feel of the area. We were a bit surprised to find statues of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek on the altar of one big, lonely temple on the hillside above Wantan. Even stranger were new-looking plaques above the doors dedicated by Chen Shui-bian, Annette Lu and Su Zhen-chang.

That night I went out to Nangang. Bret and Alan's Christmas party was more sparsely populated this year due to a combination of aging participants and a big all-night gay party at the World Trade Center (Exhibition Hall 2). We sat and munched on Christmas ham as we chatted about what, exactly, is the definition of a bear. A prime example, in my opinion, was in attendance. He'd just broken up a half-year relationship and was on his way downtown to drown his sorrows at an underwear party.

I'd managed to refrain from overeating at Bret's and Alan's, but I was tempted once again on Sunday afternoon at the Water-curtain Cave, not inhabited by my friend Chris. Slim, David, Liqi, Michael showed up for a party in honor of my awkwardly-timed birthday, which was very nice of them. We ate Chris' wonderful curry tofu, pepper beef and rice, and again I managed to come through without too much abdominal stuffing. I like what she's done with the place; it seems cleaner and more open than when I was living there. I have more stuff, though.

Slim and Chris were on their way to another Christmas get-together at their friend's place along the Mucha MRT line, just next to Linguang Station. We taxied over to find a huge turkey, complete with bread stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy and a half-eaten gingerbread house awaiting us. Our gracious host let us take turns in his massage chair, and a Doraemon movie playing on the big projector screen had many of us (okay, just me) enthralled as we dug into our meals.

Mark's housewarming party at Dean's old place was at 8pm, though, so I had to leave early to get there late. I had to explain over the downstairs intercom how to open the door. When I walked in the door I noticed a guy sitting on the floor with a pained expression, right next to the remains of a chair. It seemed that Dean had forgotten to warn Mark that the wooden chairs were for decorative purposes only.

Although I knew a few of the people there, the apartment seemed strangely subdued and empty. There were frequent lulls in the sporadic conversation, and even music from the radio didn't help that much. Pizza was ordered and consumed, but I didn't touch it. Around midnight Prince Roy, David and I left to catch the last train home.

Christmas Day, thanks for the grinch-like DPP (well, he is green), is no longer a holiday, so I had to work on Monday. After a long afternoon of editing, I had arranged to meet Prince Roy and Spicygirl at Jingmei Station afterwards so that we could go to Darrell and Judy's place for our annual party (tree canceled due to the high possibility of cat-inflicted damage). My feet were hot as I was wearing thick socks in preparation for a shoeless evening, so I took them off and walked around on the station's concrete floor. When PR and SG showed up, I was sitting on the floor by the exit next to my shoes reading Irving's Son of the Circus.

The usual crowd showed up at Darrell and Judy's, and despite the lack of a tree a good time was had. We listened to 70's rock songs that brought back our collective youth while the resident pack of dogs begged for a Marlin Perkins narrative. Judy made her usual wonderful dinner, and this time I couldn't help but stuff my face with turkey, roast beef, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes, a really delicious kind of Waldorf salad, and many other treats. I swear, that woman can cook.

I was completely full when Judy brought out the birthday cake. My birthday cake, actually. It was lopsided, vaguely rectangular and covered with gobs of chocolate frosting ("two cans!" Judy exclaimed) and was a thing of beauty. I ate as much as I could. Actually, I ate more than I could, somehow. Judy stuffed the remainder into a tupperware box, which is now sitting in my fridge to be enjoyed over the course of the next week.

We all sat around chatting and digesting afterwards in the dim glow of the Christmas lights. One by one, the guests took their leave, until I was the only one left. It had been such a nice Christmas that I didn't really want it to end. But I had work the next day, so I reluctantly gathered up my things and trudged out to Beixin Road to hail a particularly fragrant taxi back to Bitan and home.