Dialogues

I would have never imagined it. It was after 9pm, at the same time that my (for pedestrians) traffic light turns green, a scooter and a SUV stop almost in front of me. Before I can step down onto the road, the SUV driver gets out of his car, walks towards the scooter driver with a scowling face, says something to him and gives him a big shove. While I begin crossing the street, they start talking. I thought there could be a brawl right there, but no, nothing in the end. Who knows what could have happened before.

I had read that these things happened from time to time, but after seeing so many weird things in the street traffic, I was beginning to believe that they did not care at all. Well, looks like bad temper is universal.

Tickets

It took longer than I expected, because we are all so modern, but my bank seems to be always lagging behind, that I could not do it by myself through the web. So, back to analogic, through local channels, and that's it. I payed them today and I already have the receipt in my hand, because nowadays most are only electronic tickets.

The only thing left to do is to count down the days, if I had the free time to do it. I have a few very busy weeks ahead of me.

Questions

One of the advantages of being a foreigner, and looking the part, is that I save myself the bother of being stopped by people making some poll or getting signatures for any campaing in the streets, or to be offered too many shop flyers, or similar things. I would not escape in Europe or the US —as I did not, I was asked once if I wanted to register to vote in their elections—, but here they see me coming and I can tell in their faces how they are quickly making a probability estimate of my understanding any Chinese and, with good reason, they decide it is not worth it.

One day last week, as I was walking along the Gongguan zone, I went past an army of middle-aged women, dressed with white trousers and dark blue polos, that tried to stop anybody that was around. They were probably from some kind of cultural, or even political, association. They looked at me, with a slightly disappointed face, as if thinking: one that gets away. Well, I do not think I would stop for long even if I understood the language. Of course, you never know; I think I am more peaceful here.

Student activities

I have been seeing them in the little esplanade in front of my building at work since a few weeks ago. Groups of boys and girls, stretching and practicing different coreographies. O I could hear their cries and laughs from my office, but I was not sure what they were doing there. Maybe they were in some kind of body expression classes, or taking dancing lessons, because there was also music sometimes. Or maybe they were just rehearsing some play. The weather is generally good and they have enough space there to put a lot of people.

I finally realized what it was today, when I saw the large number of people at the bottom of the research building again and also, some hundred meters down the road, in front of the auditorium or gymnasium that is located half-way along the central street of campus. The shouts, choreographies, girls climbing on top of boys and jumping or making somersaults and expecting somebody else to catch them before they crash into the ground, pom-poms on the grass: they are practicing for some cheerleading show. Probably one of those competitions that are everywhere these days.

I am not at all surprised, because of the american influence on many things and because I already saw an example a few months ago in a student show in the Shida central campus. Even if some people won't like it, these are also multicultural activities, aren't they?.

Longshan temple

Yesterday,I finally made a short visit to the Longshan temple, one of the more popular and famous in Taipei. But I still had not seen it. So, why not go there on a Saturday evening, when I did not feel like doing anything else, even if it was already dark.

There was some festival going on in the square in front of the temple, and there were many stalls selling food along the streets. The temple was a little bit more quiet, but it was also fairly crowded, not by tourists, but by a lot of people, here and there, doing their offerings and praying. Many tables with food offerings and incense candles were in many places too. I cannot really express how, but even with all the people around, the place felt quite laid down and relaxed, almost familiar. Yes, there were many people praying and doing what they had to do, they had the right music and I would think it would be easy to go into a more spiritual state of mind, but at the same time you could see an old lady eating some noodles for dinner or people sitting on the sides of the main court, resting and driking water. It is a very different style.

When I went back out again, I took a walk around the nearby streets, where there are several night markets. There is a curious distribution of space. The street next to the temple is full of shops selling religious stuff: dresses, candles, Buddha figures, ghost money, whatever you like. To the South side, there is the clothes' market, that fills the streets with numerous racks of hanging clothes: trousers of all kinds, jackets, dresses, shirts, etc. I did not look for the famous Snake Alley, because I did not have the time, but when I was walking back towards the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial, I found a sector of animal shops, particularly birds. I saw all kinds of cages, which reminded me of a book of Chinese tales we had when we were kids, and many birds. Parrots, cuckatoos, peacocks and similar birds, with a leg tied with a small chain and standing there out of the cages. A big mix of colors, sounds and smells.

Since the temperature was so nice, I kept on walking all along the Botanic Gardens —which I must visit some other day— as far as the illuminated CKS memorial. A very nice walk.

Change of mind

A couple of weeks ago, I was again on my way from the Shida campus to Taipei, and I had just began the short and narrow part of Ting Choud Rd that goes along the field sports in campus. I had just walked by the small temple on the right-hand side of the road, when I looked at the facades of the buildings that line that side of the street, which are in fact the back side of the buildings that face Roosevelt Rd. It was a very beautiful day, with a sky almost completely blue, a dazzling Sun, but a nice temperature. And I thought that, even if they did not seem nice to me, they will be never be, those buildings have become part of a familiar cityscape, and I might even begin to feel a little bit of fondness for them.

Then I remembered the first impression that those same builidings, or some very similar ones, had on me the first day I arrived to Taipei, after that long trip, or when I started looking for an apartment under an almost constantly cloudy and/or rainy sky. In those moments when it can be said that your roots are exposed to the elements, when you still do not know where you will finally find a refuge —or as you might think in moments of doubt, if you ever find it—, when everything is new and different and there is no one around with whom to share some thoughts or someone who can give you some encouraging words, those buildings may seem, maybe only for a fleeting moment, like half- hideous and half-hateful symbols of everything you will never like. One is still probably comparing too much what is already known and what is in front of your eyes, which appears complicated and difficult to understand.

Change to some months later, completely settled, or as much as one can be, with a more or less reduced group of acquaintances, places that have become familiar and a whole new series of habits, and most of the negative undertones have vanished and all is simply another part of a land that is discovered little by little. It is a step more in the progressive change of impressions, as a result of daily experiences, the collection of memories, that shape the place where you are spending a substantial part of your life into another home to add to the list, maybe too short, you have been making as the years go by.

All of this is communicated to your mood. Everything feels very raw at the beginning. You discover new things every day, you are in the middle of many unknown situations, little details, small routines are transformed into very important almost vital matters. With time, all begins to blur, to soften. You find your place and become used to everything. It is then that, one somehow longs, maybe for years, for those primordial days when everything was new, when you were stepping on unknown ground and you felt as a brand new blackboard ready for lines to be written on it. But it is too difficult to stay in that state, unless you pack your bags again and move to the next place, which is something I do not plan on doing any time soon.

Faraway Eyes

Maybe it is just because of the cloudy sky, the nice temperature, and the soft but not too cold, not too warm breeze. Or maybe just because of an already forgotten dream from the previous night. There are some days, it is maybe the first one here, that make me think about the term Faraway eyes, as if my mind was wandering in a flight through far away skies over plains that extend as far as the horizon. Memories of similar moments, maybe in America, come back to me, and I feel wrapped up with a feeling of comfort and reunion. As if I was walking with somebody by my side all the time.

These are ideal days then to listen to some music of Steve Earle, or Marah, or from the record I cannot stop listening lately of Elliot Brood: a fair dose of melancholic songs, but very uplifting at the same time. Ah, a harmonica is a strict requirement.

Road crash

When I was going back home last night, I saw, at just one block from my apartment, the first example of a road accident that had happened a few minutes before. There was an ambulance on the other side of the street, its doors open, three or four policemen measuring the distances of the trajectories of the vehicles and, as I walked by, I could see a scooter driver sitting on the sidewalk and another one on a stretcher with the ambulance guys taking care of him, but he seemed to be moving. Everything looked like a crash between two scooters, but I could be wrong.

Before coming to Taiwan, I read in some guide that there were many road accidents here —I am not at all surprised—, but apart from all kind of bumps and dents on the frames of cars and scooters, and many almost-absurd evasive maneuvers in the general driving, I had not yet seen a scene like that. In the long run, you end up seeing everything.

Cakes

I just arrived home, it's almost half past eleven. Today is Wednesday and the meeting ends very late. And I even stayed for a while dicussing a couple of things with a student. But this is the second meeting in a row that I don' t feel too bad. First, I can play the game of trying to understand some word in Chinese (more and more, little by little). Two, since we moved the meeting to an office two doors down the hall from mine —because a student is going to mine, and another computer goes with her—, we have more space and it is easier to follow what is being discussed. And third, we had birthday cakes today. We were not celebrating Sun Yat-Sen's birthday (a father of the country), but the one of the head of the group. So we had a piece of cacke, some mochi too (it's a kind of rice cake, typically japanese, but very popular in Taiwan), and some beer.

We have also been entertained by the numerous talks about any subject. I got more details on last week's incidents and disturbances, and on the police work. It has reminded me a lot about the Olympic Games in Barcelona. Total paranoia.

Three Legs

It is not anything new, I know, but I have seen so many in both campuses, all made from bamboo sticks tied up together with some rope, that I thought why not put up some proof.


Some seem to be trying to stifle the tree that has grown too much, rather than supporting it.

Change in the Weather

After two days of almost non-stopping rain, the weather front that is crossing over us has brought lower temperatures. Today it was still cloudy, but it rained little, and we have been hovering around 20 degrees, almost 10 degrees less than last week. I cannot remember when was the last time I experienced such low temperatures. Maybe since last June, when I was in the Alishan mountains. I was missing a little bit having colder weather. Of course these last weeks were almost perfect in good weather and temperature. We are not so close to the tropics for nothing.

I do not think that it will last long, because the forecast is for better weather on Wednesday. As soon as the Sun turns up, the cold ends. But, looking at people on the streets today, it seemed as if it was much much colder. Some had many clothes on. I am at that point were short sleeves are still comfortable, but you'd better have some shirt to put on if it gets colder in the evening. Definetly, my stay in America changed my thermostat.

Visits from the other side

I guess that the visit to Taiwan this week of the chinese official of the department that deals with Taiwan affairs must have been somehow on the news all over Europe. From what I gathered from the news, there are a series of agreements on communications that will surely lead to better relationship and trade between the two countries. And maybe reduce the tensions.

I am not so sure about what people think, though. I guess there are all kinds of opinions. There were quite a few demonstrations against the visit and several clashes with the police. That probably was on TV. A little bit of that is part of the confrontation between the government party and the opposition, as everywhere else. But it is not all.

It is curious to talk with the people around me. I know several who are in favor of independence, others feel ok with the current situation, but nobody has clearly told me that they want the unification. Personally, I think that it is very difficult, probably impossible, that they ever do it, voluntarily. From what I have seen from both sides of the strait, I do not think that a majority of taiwanese want it, as some have already told me, and I understand them perfectly, for obvious reasons. I think it can be said that there are also substantial differences, economical and even cultural, between both countries.

What surprised me were the comments of some of the, generally very reserved, students, when they asked me about my point of view. Talking with them, they can see that the agreements will bring good things, but I noticed that they are worrying about what can happen in the long run. No wonder. As somebody said, you, meaning foreigners, can always go somewhere else.

Water and Tea

A rainy day; it has not stopped at all. In the evening, I met some friends in a tea house, japanese style, near Taida campus. A very quiet and relaxing place, a perfect refuge from the noise and rush of the outside world. In an evening like the one today, there was the added quality to the air that rainy days give to peaceful moments.

It is not my first experience in drinking tea in the traditional way, but that does not mean that it loses its charm. You can spend hours there that, with a little bit of luck, will lead to interesting conversations. We also had dinner there, much more than we planned, but it is so easy here to end up feeling so full.

There was a victim, though. My old umbrella was trashed by, I guess, a commando of pale people (from the looks, american or british); crushed under the tips of their own. What harm did it do to them?.

Heirs

I read in a local newspaper last week about the death in Taipei of the 77th lineal descent of Confucius, Kung Teh-Cheng. It can be highly doubtful that anybody has been able to control the truth about the descendants during a little bit less than 2500 years, but at least the average time per generation is not impossible. At the same time, this is probably one of the very few places in the world where the power structure has been stable enough to do it. Specially if we take into account how revered is the figure of Confucius.

One of the problems for the government now is to appoint the successor, because one of the main jobs is to act as Sacrifice Official to Confucius on the birthday of Confucius, September 28 —the celebration this year was postponed a week because of a typhoon. The deceased had been doing it since 1935, quite a while ago.

Little roofs

This is a country where it can rain a lot, and all of a sudden —as the day before yesterday, when I wondered why I took a shower that morning, because I could have saved it— and where AC units are everywhere, so it is not surprising to see that almost every exterior unit has its own little protection on top of it.


I am not really sure if it is worth it, but it sure creates nice symmetries.

Taxes

I think that just today, a day more or less, I have been in Taiwan 183 days. I am not really sure how to count the arriving and departing days, but it does not matter, I am not leaving tomorrow. What does that mean?. Not much right now, but I guess it could be said that I become some kind of tax resident. That implies that for next tax returns, the percentage applied to my salary won't be the present 20%, but something between 6 and 13%. I should get at least a 7% of the taxes taken from my salary. I won't be rich, but it will help me to have a healthier economy —not that I am having any trouble now, since I am not spending much, particularly because everything is here cheaper than in Europe. But that will happen next May, at the earliest. For the time beign, everything remains the same.

Daylight Savings Time

I think that the time changes across the world are over for now. If it was in Europe two weekends ago, it was in the US and Canada last weekend. There is no time change in Taiwan between winter and summer. That is something for countries located closer to the Poles. Nonetheless, I read somewhere that they tried it for several years long ago, before deciding not to do it again. I do not think they need it at all, assuming there is any use for it even in more northern or southern countries. And I am not against it. In fact, I like it mostly because of aesthetical reasons or because of habit, but it would not be a great loss.

So, right now, we have a 7 hour difference to the Central European Time, 8 hours to the UK, and 13 to the East Coast, but only 11 to Chile, because they changed the time in the opposite direction. These differences can be funny when you want to talk to somebody so far away. I think that it will be more difficult for me now for talking with Skype during the week: the window of opportunity is reduced.

In any case, I have a few applets in my laptop that help me to know what is the time in several parts of the world, because there are times that you'd better know if you don't want to miss a deadline. Chile's case, and also Australia's, is funny. Two weeks ago, Chile had the same time as the US East Coast; they were an hour ahead last week; and they are two ahead from now on. Difficult to remember.

Street View

It is apparently one of the biggest news right now. Google put on-line the street view pictures of Barcelona and Valencia. It is a funny thing seen from the distance. I spent quite a while last Tuesday or Wednesday taking a look at it. I had done the same thing months ago with the pictures of Columbus and it is an interesting exercise. It can be a way to prove to yourself that you still remember how things are there, and you also have the chance to see if there is anything new: that building that was not finished when you left, how that street has changed in two or three years, etc. I think that the pictures of Barcelona are from last spring, but I have seen some things I did not know (or remembered the latest changes before I left).

Then you have the stories about people you know. I looked at the balconies of my family to see what was there. Not much, lowered blinds and hanging clothes, but I think I can see the building caretaker at the front door of my building. And the other day, a friend sent us the coordinates of his position: helping the economy in the terrace of a bar.

In short, if one day you fancy it, or maybe you really need it, you can just move the little yellow man along the blue streets of Google Maps and take a stroll down memory lane.