Competitions

A few weeks ago, I began to see, around the Shida campus where I am, flags hanging on lampposts announcing a intercollegiate sport competition that would start yesterday and finish on May 6 —I also saw them later in the main Shida campus and in Taida. Weeks, or even months before, there had been works to renew and improve the athletic track and the nearby sport facilities, or to repair the sidewalks and roads of campus.

I could see the last details being taken care of this week and, from Thursday, rehearsals of an orchestra, of the people that will have to guide visitors, cordoning off the parking places, etc. In fact, it was even scary to see the groups of boys, dressed in dark suits, and girls, in purple dresses, marching up and down, forming small groups, rehearsing whatever thing they probably had to do.

Oh, I must not forget the official mascot of the competition.

A turtle with a watermelon as its body. I was told that they chose it because it plays with a similar pronunciation in Taiwanese of the words for turtle and watermelon, and in a month they will celebrate the Watermelon Day, a day were watermelons are given as as a token of friendship or love. A reason as good as any.

Hockey

I was free last Saturday, so I went again to the Taipei Arena. Well, not the main hall, but to one on the side, to see a game of the semifinals of the CIHL (Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League). Yes, ice hockey, in Taiwan. There is an amateur league since 2004, with 9 teams currently, 4 from Taipei and 5 from the rest of the island, and they are playing the play-off games at the Taipei Arena these last few weekends. The game I attended to was the second one of the Hsinchu Raptors vs Taichung Lions series.

Surprising, isn't it?, well, not so much if you think that Chien Chou, the student that was in my office when I arrived here a year ago, and who helped me so much, also played ice hockey. The thing is that there are around 30000 Canadians (or so I was told) in Taiwan, and you probably know that ice hockey is something like a religion in Canada. Most of the players in these teams are probably Canadians, but they are beginning to have many Taiwanese players too.

Through the years, I have watched ice hockey games on TV, when I could, because it is not so easy, and I know the rules more or less, but this was the first time I could see it live. The level was not the same as in the NHL or in an international competition, of course, but I liked it quite a lot. I always found that it is a beautiful sport, when the players race at full speed towards the opposing goal with the puck at the tip of their stick or when they start connecting passes. Despite the cold, naturally, it was very nice.

The funniest part was the audience. Many kids that did not stop shouting and singing songs. Many were probably students of one of the Raptors players, who was received as a real star when the game was over.

That's popularity and the rest does not mean a thing.

Back to normal

Today was the first Monday after the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday week. And you could really tell: all the shops were open; there were many people burning ghost money or making food offerings in front of office buildings or shops at miday; or, more spectacularly, they lighted long firecracker strips just before opening businesses —a way of welcoming the new year and to scare away the evil spirits—; or the traffic was back to the usual levels of craziness.

Campus is still almost completely quiet, though. There are more people around, of course, but classes will begin three weeks from now. Time to enjoy the peace this represents, before all the students invade all the stairs and elevators.

As for me, I took a bus very early in the morning to go to a pub were we knew they were showing the SuperBowl. I watched it in Barcelona two years in a row, waiting until very late at night, but here is the complete opposite. The world turned upside-down. By the way, another very exciting end of the game.

(Hey Ho) Let's Go

It is a different New Year, but I thought that I could as well use the Chinese New Year to make some change. So, after about nine months and because I was already itching to do it, I put on my shorts this morning, the new sport shoes that I finally brought from Barcelona, and, there we go!, to run for a while, early in a holiday morning.


My early run had two additional goals, that is to explore a route along the river and to test how I was. On the first thing, the path is fairly good, I should have taken my camera. About the second, very good also. I am a little rusted, of course, after so much time without jogging, but I felt much better than I expected. The pace could not be too fast, naturally, but I ran for a little bit over 40 minutes and I was not tired at all. Quite the opposite, and since I felt so good, the itch to do it again is already inside of me. Today was a very cloudy day and slightly cold, but with a very good temperature to run. Besides, the streets were almost empty. I can still feel the exhilaration that filled me at the time.

Now, I only need to make some space for it in my schedule and go jogging more often. It would not do to wait for such a long time again.

Finals

During these days when the World Series were played in the US, the finals of the baseball league in Taiwan, known as the Taiwan Series, are also underway between the Lions and the Elephants. It reminds me of the Cheers episode in which they bet on the american football results. So, they follow more or less the timing of the american season.


It looks like there is always a baseball game being showed on television, but I do not know the teams, and there are only five or six. One of the teams playing in the finals is from Taipei and, a couple of evenings ago around 6:30 or 7pm, while we were having dinner in a restaurant near campus, there was a group of young people that had finished eating and were watching the game amid shouts, clapping and shows of happiness. It was not too exaggerated, but they are very noisy when they want to be.

If anybody cares, the series is tied 2-2 right now.