Recalling times when I have been culturally challenged in Taiwan, there is a single very vivid memory which stands out among all the rest. I was hanging out with a friend late at night, just the two of us, and in the midst of our deep ruminations on life and personality and our respective futures, some oblique statement tipped me off to a potential religiosity in my friend. So I asked, “Do you believe in God?” I thought it a reasonable question, one which did not overstep any boundaries in terms of what I may or may not ask.

She suddenly looked very confused, and asked, “Well, which god?” Fortunately I was not so oblivious to her mindset that I thought she was referring to differing conceptions of the Judeo-Christian God. I realized—although I had already known this on some intellectual level, of course—that her religious heritage was such that there are a myriad of gods, and myriad expectations are attached to them. A person might believe in any number of gods, and eschew belief in others, thereby delineating a very individual, albeit substantially contextualized, set of rules for what constitutes acceptable behavior.

How insensitive it was of me to ask! Fortunately she was not at all offended. She reacted similarly yet oppositely to what I might expect from a peer in the U.S. An American college student in the Northeast, when met with a positive answer from “the God question,” might respond with polite disdain, with patronization, like an evolutionist discovering a Creationist. Standard “my god is bigger than your god” fare. I think the motivation for such a reaction, while utterly indefensible, is that the disdaining individual feels more educated. It is difficult to believe that one can subscribe to beliefs of Creationism, when evolutionism and its daughter theories have populated the academic world so completely. In a sense, this person is saying: “Oh, that. You still believe that?”

My friend’s reaction was not too distant from this. She smiled and laughed a bit when she realized where I was coming from with my question. She began to explain, humiliatingly for me, that the Chinese tradition holds many gods, unlike my Western tradition, which has been predominantly monotheistic for a good two millennia now. The disdain, the patting on the head, came from a vector I still believe I perceived in how she presented this knowledge to me: I am a Westerner, come to Taiwan to study—and I still believe in that monotheism stuff?

This incident, so planted in my mind for all my days, took root and spread outwards to touch memories of similar happenings. I was outside, talking to a friend, discussing the learning of languages and how much that brings, how much understanding of humans, both others and the self, it affords one. My memory of the conversation is hazy now, but I believe we were talking in English. My friend asked me whether I knew any websites where he could find free books in English to read. Of course I did! I would link him to Gutenberg.org, so named because of Gutenberg, the German, the man who invented—he built—“he, hundreds of years ago, in the past, he makes a big machine to make—produce—many books.” No, the machine did not write them. Oh, yes, OK, it did write them, but it did not author them. Nevermind. (I would make the same mistakes! But would he?)

I warned my friend that while the works on this website would indeed be free, and in English, they would be quite old. “Why?” Well, because—how on Earth to explain, using rudimentary vocabulary, copyright law and the golem that is the culture of ownership grasping its leash? I knew this was a test I had to pass if I ever wanted to be a teacher, so I tried my best. “And so, most books there, only before 1920 or so.” My friend was still very confused. “Tell me about the old books.” Egg on my face. English was never painted on cloth and hauled across deserts to foreign kingdoms. Its writers were never compelled, at behest of the emperor and under penalty of death, to write, just write, lest the world never know their perfect philosophies.

I know nothing of age nor progress. I am an American, a puling infant amid cultures and worlds thoroughly adolescent. What can I do for you, that you haven’t already tried? What can I say to you, that you haven’t already heard?

I want to rediscover each and every one of you and tell you why you are still great. Long ago, just this morning, America tried to become the archive, the library of Alexandria, for all cultures willing to come. Tell us. We are listening. We may be rapt within our own ignorance, but we are blessed with youth and vigor, too. All our hands are stained with blood; I was just trying to be like you. So invite me to the table tell me a tale. Let’s forget our differences, which never really existed anyway, and have a meal.

I realize now that I somehow failed to notice that Philadelphia was in Fahrenheit, while all the others showed Celsius, but the important thing is that Taipei and Munich are 17 °C and -17 °C, respectively. Isn’t that wild?

And for the record, I did not boot into OS X specifically to snap a screenshot of pretty weather widgets. I was actually there to fsck a troublesome HFS+ drive which for some reason refuses to respond to the fsck.hfsplus packages I currently have configured in Linux.

I’m not entirely adjusted to the time change yet—for example, I’m writing this at 9am on a Sunday morning, because I’d run out of interesting things to do online—but that’s in many ways a good thing, because now I act like a properly socialized human being.

There are very many things I miss about Taiwan. Three months for a stay is simply not long enough; I was very much spoiled by my ten months in Germany.

Look at me, obnoxiously talking about my travels as though they were Sunday morning routines.

I’m going to unwind for the next few days, maybe sort some photos, listen to some music, read some blogs. Be with family.

That’s what this time of year is for, after all.

This past weekend I spent in Tainan, a stunningly beautiful coastal city with warm, warm weather. I saw many temples, was cooked dinner by Buddhist monks, and declined an invitation to stay with them overnight so I could participate in the morning prayer. I did manage to stay for the evening prayer, though, which made for an unforgettable experience.

Today I had a written exam, for which I had to write solely in Chinese characters, by hand, with a freaking pen (typing Chinese characters is no long a problem, nor is reading, but writing? that’s another story), and that went quite well. Then this afternoon I had an oral presentation about all the traveling I’ve been doing. I’ve another, similar one on Friday.

I’m going to go out to dinner tonight and take it easy.

Till another time.

The strokes

According to the literature and instruction I’ve encountered, every movement of the brush on paper in calligraphy falls into one of eight categories of strokes:

1. Dian or 點: Also known as the “dot,” this is the most fundamental stroke, and is contained, at least to some degree, within all the others.
2. Heng or 横: Horizontal stroke, present in nearly every character. Ends with dian.
3. Shu or 竪: Basic vertical stroke, forms the core of very many characters. Is very often the first stroke in simple or very complex characters. Begins with dian.
4. Gou or 鉤: The “hook.” Essentially an ornamental application of dian to finish off a shu.
5. Ti or 提: A lifting motion, almost always used in tandem with a complementary stroke (such as the wan in the example below).
6. Wan or 彎: A gently curved stroke, beginning, as usual, with dian. Often found in the bottom part of a character or radical.
7. Pie or 撇: Short, simple stroke, similar to dian and often used to complement it (for example, in 立).
8. Na or 捺: A weighty press with the brush, dragging out into a blade-like tip. The most dramatic stroke. Can take up a great distance and therefore allows for great expression (for example, as the bottommost radical in 近).

Interestingly enough, there is a single Chinese character that shows every stroke in action: 永 or yong. It means “eternal.”

Picture hijacked from the Wikipedia article on the Eight Principles of Yong and retouched for readability

In my first calligraphy class, I spent a lot of time grokking the dot (點). I drew dot upon dot upon dot, strung them all up in a row, made pyramids out of them. I had to at the least feign an attempt at mastering the dot before moving onto more complicated characters—which I did eventually manage to do.

Stroke order

The next point of concern was learning how to arrange all the strokes into a coherent whole. As should be expected, there’s an elegantly simple set of rules governing how to form characters. From the reading I’ve done on the subject recently, it appears that these rules primarily founded on practicality, meaning that they intend to facilitate ease of writing while ensuring clear expression. For example, characters are drawn from top to bottom, with halving strokes (shu or 竪) last, as in the character 車, below.

Image taken unaltered from the Wikipedia article on stroke order

What I found most fascinating is that since Chinese was traditionally written top-to-bottom, right-left (whereas English is left-right, top-to-bottom), the stroke order seems geared toward that mentality. China has incorporated small adjustments to stroke order in their revision of the writing system in order to accommodate for the contemporary practice of writing horizontally rather than vertically. As ever, Wikipedia knows tons about this.

Taking it home with me

Of course, the techniques I was taught for calligraphy with a brush necessitate some translation for writing with a pen in my notebook. A pen hardly allows for the level of expression that a brush does, making the na (捺) stroke substantially less fun, but I’ve found that I compensate for this lack by paying closer attention to the acceleration of curves in my writing. It’s like a whole new cursive.

Most stunningly, it’s made me completely reevaluate the way I approach writing things by hand in English. I’ve decided to dedicate some time to refining my penmanship in English, just because I realized how absolutely awesome it could be if I took the time to develop it.

I’m very happy I’ve started down this road.

Rather early on in my stay here, I caught word of a calligraphy club at our university. I made sure I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity like that, and attended the first one I could. I learned a hell of a lot in just one session.

Since that experience I’ve gone on to read a lot about Chinese characters, from calligraphic technique, to character composition, to input systems on electronic devices.

In the coming days I plan to post a small series handling each of these categories.

Till then.

Typhoon rain, of course, is safe.

Everywhere around town there are stray dogs. Most look hale and happy, solidly fed on scraps from the nightmarket and trash from college students left around the fields around the dorm. But lately, given the weather, some have taken on a more dour mien. Today I stepped outside with some friends to enjoy some tea and watch the rain out front of our building. When I walked over to what I thought was my friend’s backpack on the ground, resting in the corner of the porch on the front of our building, I realized it was a dog curled up.

His coat was beautiful from the outdoor living: shiny, black, surely soft to the touch. A huge gob of mucus hung from his nose to the ground, spanning the height of one paw. He looked up but did not care to move. He shivered a little, and with eyes at first plaintive, then resigned, waited for me to push him out into the rain. Which of course no man on earth could do.

I don’t want to talk about how my midterm went, I want to help this dog.

American 1: “Well, what can we do for it?”
American 2 (me): “I don’t know, take it to the vet or something. But maybe that would be too expensive?”
American 1: “Maybe a grand [NT] or so? I think I’d rather pay than see a dead dog.”
American 2: “Yeah. We can do this. Can can totally do this. Where can we take him?”
Taiwanese friend: “There is no place.”
American 1: “Maybe like a hospital, not for people but for animals. Is there one of those?”
Taiwanese friend: “Yes, I know what you mean, I understand. But no.”
American 2: “There’s nothing like that here?”
Taiwanese friend: “There is, yes. But we shouldn’t bother them.”
American 2: “Shouldn’t bother whom, the dog or the dog doctors?”
Taiwanese friend: “The doctors. They cannot help him.”
American 1: “But it would be more comfortable for him, he would be warm and dry, and they would give him medicine. Right?”
Taiwanese friend: “Yes, they will do that. And then, when no one comes, they will kill him.”

And I know how right he is, I know he is only speaking the truth because he’s never been taught to lie, not even to foreigners. But why?

I would so happily give up a towel or a blanket of mine for this dog. He will be gone by tomorrow and the blanket can be thrown away, having done more in an hour than it ever would have in its lifetime.

But my friend looked at me, and urged me not to offer. He did not want to embarrass me by explaining that I would not be giving a blanket, I would be asking for one. I want, still want, to fool myself into thinking that I will see the dog tomorrow, and he will be OK. Medicine without love. Alms as subscription service to heaven.

American 1: “Do you think he would be happier—would it be better for him if we took him somewhere?”
American 2: “You’d have to ask him that.”

As is routine for our afternoon tea sessions, the three of us discussed English vocabulary. “Shelter” was a word my American friend and I went to great lengths to explain had a literary cast to it.

American 1: “Shelter is the most basic of all things. We don’t say, ‘I’m going home to my shelter now.’ Home is much more, your family is there, and perhaps food, too.”
American 2: “Shelter is like how, in a storm, you want a safe place, where there is no bad weather.”

Later, right before going back inside, we had a small recap session. My Taiwanese friend pointed at the dog and, to show comprehension, said:

“He has no shelter…?”

No, my friend. No, he does not.

And now we go inside.

First World Progress by mdumlao98 on Flickr

All day today I felt like a kid on the first day of school. Everything seemed new, I wanted to learn and do so much, and I was—funny that this has become to boilerplate to say—freaking hopeful.

As I’ve said before, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t be in the U.S. for this one. But walking around Jhongli today, I got thumbs up and wide grins from strangers. I ordered a lunch to go and the guy behind the counter pointed at the TV and said, “Obama!”

I concurred wholeheartedly.

My Taiwanese friends have been asking me what it feels like to have a black president. They don’t ask because they think it’s a big deal themselves, they ask because they’ve read that we Americans think it’s a big deal. Maybe it is, I don’t know. This election has never been about race to me. I think it’s fair to say that while it might be about race for many pro-Obama Americans, I think it’s more a racial matter for some anti-Obama Americans.

I’ll never forget how I lost my breath seeing the main page of the New York Times today:

Yes, I did select that picture to contrast the headline, because they had a nice little embedded applet for browsing pictures. So it’s not the New York Times’s message, but still, the juxtaposition of profound change and staunch, petulant conservatism really resonated with me. Maybe this will be a rocky start. Maybe it won’t be.

What I felt today reminded me of what I saw from the world immediately after 9/11. People looked at me on the street and wanted to share joy. “You’re America! Remember: we love you.” It was like they knew all along that we would do the right thing. They weren’t afraid at all.

There are many things America means to me. I don’t think lack of fear is necessarily one of them, but hope definitely is.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a beer with my friends.

Don’t hate me for making this another tiresome photoblog post.

The night we arrived in Hong Kong, we caught a late train home from the airport and spent a long time walking through the city, trying to find our hotel. There were many latenight street shot opportunities.

I think I took some of my best pictures while just moseying around the streets, far too late at night, in this ghost town. There is no life in Hong Kong, it seemed to me during my all-too-brief stay, at night. But maybe I traditionally look for the wrong signs of life.

And then there are the mandatory skyline shots. Can’t go to Hong Kong and not take pictures of all the tall buildings, right? I particularly like this one, because it’s taken from up on the mountain, and shows how snugly the dense city hugs the hillside. There isn’t much wasted space in Hong Kong, at least not on Central Island.

And then, a staple of any tourist in Hong Kong: we had to stick around the bay one evening to see the Symphony of Lights. It was underwhelming, to be nice. But then, I’ve been craving some caving paintings as of late.

It sounds odd, but I think what I got most out of this trip was that I finally learned how to use a camera. Beginning on the second day or so of the trip, I got the balls to put my camera on manual. I don’t think I would have gotten a lot of the shots I did had I not had the courage to try this out.

So, looking good into the future!

Many more pictures here and here.

Image source: Wikipedia

On a whim, I bought a plane ticket to Hong Kong. Alcohol may or may not have played a role in the decision.

Originally the plan was to use Hong Kong as a gateway to China, and travel onward to Guangzhou, Shanghai, Kaifeng, and the Shaolin temple in Zhengzhou, but from what it looks like, visas for American citizens are at this time in my life prohibitively expensive. Maybe next time!

So I’ll be going to Hong Kong with three friends from here, all Americans—our Taiwanese friends are not exactly doing backflips about our desire to go to China—one of whom lived in China for 3 years (in Kaifeng, actually).

We’ll make sure to hit up Macau, too, as Hong Kong might not be enough to entertain us for 5 days. Although I’m really looking forward to seeing the Tian Tan Buddha in all its monstrous glory.

Image source: Tian Tan Buddha by Oye-sensei

It will be a marvellous time.

For the coming weekend my university here has organized a trip to Taipei for all the international students. I should get to meet a fair number of people. I hear there are some Dutch and French people, as well as lots from various Southeast Asian countries, so it should be a pleasant time.

I’ve saved many Taipei activities for this trip, as at least some of it will be on the school’s tab. That said, here are a few things I was lucky enough to see on my last trip.

Upon arriving to the city, I was able to bear witness to a gorgeous sunset.

I love the motion of the bicyclist in this picture.

The plan was originally to make it to Taipei 101 in time to photograph the mountains in sunset, but it took a while to get to that part of town. By the time I did get to it, it was fully dark, so I just took pictures of the outside of the building, rather than paying to go all the way to the time.

There was a splendid foot court in the basement complex, though. I wasn’t as adventuresome as I usually am in terms of food, because I saw fried rice and noodles and went wild, and everything was about US$1 a plate. Hell, yeah!

Nighttime is a great time to wander around and snap pics of things and places I can’t identify, but are pretty.

Sorry I’ve been tossing together only photo posts with very little narrative or speculative content. Things are fun here and there is much beauty of all kinds. Still sorting through all of that.

]]> http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/02/a-small-taste-of-taipei/feed/ 4 http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/27/typhoon-season-aint-over-yet/ http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/27/typhoon-season-aint-over-yet/#comments Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:55:45 +0000 Conor http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/?p=617 Despite the assurances of the Taiwanese students I’ve spoken with here that no more storms would find us this year, there’s another typhoon coming. This one looks substantially scarier than the last one, Hagupit, which didn’t even bring rain to the northern part of the island. Meet Super Typhoon Jangmi. (All pictures from Wunderground.)

As you can see, it’s already a Category 5, although it’s supposed to be losing some strength along the way to Taiwan. We’re gonna get bulldozed by this thing.

CNN already reports:

The Central Weather Bureau urged residents in eastern and northern Taiwan on Saturday to beware of strong winds and heavy rains being whipped up by Typhoon Jangmi.

[...]

It says the typhoon is packing winds of 118 miles per hour (191 kilometers per hour) and moving northwest at 12 mph (20 kph).

Based on the stats in the Wunderground pic above, Jangmi has obviously gotten stronger since the CNN article was written. It can’t go above a Category 5, so in some sense that’s comforting.

I stepped on my umbrella the other day and snapped it in half. Great timing, eh? I’m thinking I should run out in the morning tomorrow and buy one, if there are any left in town. And stock up on soup and tea, as well—again, if there’re any left.

Sundays are great days to read.

There are mountains around town, mountains which I will be visiting tomorrow, actually.

Most of the city, at least the small section of it where I am, is small alleys. Finding new restaurants (and, I’ll be honest, photo opportunities) is a perpetual quest.

The streets are full of character, everywhere.

I think it’s clear that this place is beautiful, but I hope to make it clear that it’s really beautiful. Always.

That’s about all that should reasonably be stuffed into a single post, in my opinion. I plan on making many more, but that’s all for tonight, I think.

Sinlaku managed to cause quite a ruckus (please ignore the stats in the top left corner of the above image). Here in Chungli it was mostly rain and a bit of wind, nothing serious, but a lot of places on the eastern coast got bashed pretty hard. (Taiwan has a large mountain range on the east side which I can only assume slows down bad weather before it hits places like Chungli.) Since I’ve been in Taiwan, though, it’s been all sunshine and happiness.

Cue Typhoon Hagupit. Initially forecast to become a Category 3 or 4 over the water and follow a path similar to Sinlaku’s, it’s since been predicted that it won’t rise above a Category 2, and will in fact be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hits land. That land will be in China, by the way, as the storm is now thought to be heading well south of Taiwan.

While we will probably see some rain here, it doesn’t like look this storm is going to do much damage to anyone (yes, I’m rapping my knuckles on my desk right now). It’s interesting to me, though, that the above image shows Hagupit missing Taiwan by a considerable margin. Of course, that’s really just the position of the storm center, so the arms of the beast will definitely say hello as far north as Chungli and Taipei.

This morning was one of the sunniest, most pleasant ones I’ve seen here yet—and that’s saying a lot!—but the winds are picking up already. There are large cumulus clouds moving quickly across the sky, though the sun is still shining brightly. The clouds are clearly coming out of the northeast, which is a strange pattern. Or would be strange, if not for the circumstances.

I think I’ll stay in after dinner tonight.

In terms of translating the name of the city, I’m not entirely sure what it means, but I have an idea. I’ve consulted with an American here who knows much, much more Mandarin than I—he’s studied it for about two years and is conversationally quite proficient—and he wasn’t able to nail it down at first. The first character, 中, usually means “middle” (the word for “China” in Mandarin is 中國, which literally means “middle country”). The second character, 壢, doesn’t have an entry in any dictionary I’ve tried, but if you remove the leftmost radical from it, which is 土 or tǔ, the character becomes 歷, which means “to pass through” or “to undergo.”

土 or tǔ means “earth” and is present in the words for “cultivate,” “soil,” “land,” and “territory.” So all together, 中壢 seems to mean something like “middle passage through the land.” And honestly, if you take a look at the geography around here, it makes sense that the city would be named that.

Makes sense, no?

Anyway, I’ll throw up some more pics soon. I just wanted to offer a more formal introduction to the city first.

I got in about 10:30pm on Tuesday night. This means I’ve had three days’ worth of classes, and had my ass handed to me in every one of them. The instructors really are great, but I have a lot of studying to do to bring my Mandarin up to par.

Upon getting to the dormitory where I’ll be staying and meeting my roommates, I realized I wouldn’t be able to sleep. It took 23 hours to get from Philadelphia to Taipei, and I’d slept for most of it. Also, given the timezone difference (GMT +7 or EST +12), my body just wasn’t feeling it needed a nap.

So I decided to go for a walk around campus and the city. One of my roommates with whom I had a good vibe offered to tag along, and it seemed genuine, so I accepted. I reasoned that I would be able to wander much farther if I had a guide, and hopefully he could point out some places of interest which I could revisit later in the week.

The plan worked marvellously. Max and I walked and talked for an hour or two, I overstimulated myself, and even snapped some great pics.

There are many more great pictures to come. The upstream bandwidth I’m allotted here is abysmal, so I’ll have to start uploads before I go to bed, and make posts in the morning. I’ll try to do that soon.

On Sunday I’ll be going to Taipei by train.

More details to come.

Allegedly, there will be someone at the airport to pick me up when I get there.

I wish I knew how to say “God bless you” in Japanese. It would have come in handy quite a bit today.

Promptly after taking off, I spilled orange juice all over myself and then fell asleep, wet and sticky. I feel like an ambassador already.

Oh, and for the record, Taiwan’s timezone is GMT +8. That means EST +12, if that makes it easier.

Time to board.