cool

This morning i got to look out my balcony as a parade turned around down below. VERY loud firecrackers, then the usual big drum and many gongs. Then tiger dancers, then 20 guys with 4 foot long horns that sounded low and strange. Then 3 paolanquins with incense burning in front and Gods inside. Some Gods are having a birthday. Everyone clasps their hands together (usually with incense in their hands) and bows as the Gods are carried by. Now it's gone and I can just hear the old Chinese songs played on the loudspeaker in my neighborhood. It has become hot, so the doors are closed and occasionally the AC is on. It is a beautiful sunny day. And I am hardly sick at all! I'm thinking of taking a trip to the beach sometime soon.

On the other hand, R. broke his ankle and isn't getting around very well. He will have surgery on tuesday, but until then he is trapped in the house, mostly on the couch in front of the tv. I don't envy him - being in pain and bored is really awful. His uncle in Taipei has checked up on him and brought him food a couple of times, which is nice.

always sick

i have been sick for the past two weeks. went to the doctor (i have insurance!) and it turns out i have bronchitis. i have been taking medicine for 4+ days now, but it really hasn't done much other than make me feel tired and extra spacey. i have slept a lot, drank fluids to the point of complete saturation, and fallen behind in my chinese class. fun! my hope is that it will clear up soon, but who knows. i have many classes wrapping up, which means final exams to grade and grade reports to write. lots of work, and not much fun if i'm ill. oi. outside richard's window right now the drony trumpet is playing, alongside all types of gongs, intercut with a duet of a cappella sad singing in taiwanese. i believe it is part of a funeral. nice, and certainly strange, but it has been going on all day. it is also quite humid and warm, pretty much what you would expect in a tropical country. i will be happy to feel healthy again.

last night

i went out to karaoke with r. it was ok, but there were very few songs i recognized and for some reason the machine wasn't actually able to play them. i sang "california girls" and "california dreaming." i don't know brittany spears' songs or any taiwanese pop songs.

actually...

i didn't sleep on grave sweeping day. i took an extremely twisty busride to a mountain town called jiu fen. The ride there almost made me throw up, but once i got there it was great. it was a beautiful day, and a holiday, so the place was packed. there was a main walk way, with vendors selling tea, mochi, and various other snacks and gew gaws. too crowded for me, but i enjoyed the tea and mochi samples, and i ate bbq'd cho dofu and trumpet mushrooms which were very delicious. i went down a side road and through a passageway that was about 5feet tall to a beautiful teashop filled with antiques, a koi pond, and strange chinese cats. It had an amazing view from which i could see the fog roll in off the ocean and get trapped in the valleys between myself and the water. my photos don't really do it justice, but if i was able to post photos i would (email me if you want one sent to your inbox). i sat there drinking tea and studying chinese until the sun got too low and made me leave. then i wandered around for a while until it started getting cool and dark. i was desperate for a taxi, but figuring out how to get one was beyond my chinese skills. the bus ride home was dreadful - i almost passed out. luckily, this girl offered me her seat and i spent the trip with my head between my legs trying not to throw up. oi. i was nauseous for the next few days, and only now has my head stopped spinning. i would like to go back, but i have to figure out a different way.

grave sleeping day

nothing new. just busy with class and work. the weather seems to be improving. i'm tired all the time. finished atomised, which i had read before under the title the elementary particles. not bad. french. a new canadian at work rants against the french quite frequently. he drinks a lot and looks like the family guy. i ignore him. my computer is no better and i'm not sure where to look for solutions. i am accessing the net through a network with r's computer, and he doesn't want to switch to linux. plus, command lines and text make me nervous. this tuesday is grave sweeping day - it is a national holiday during which people sweep their ancestors tombs. I will be sleeping.

sorry

unfortunately, my computer has had all kinds of crazy problems lately, so blogs have been very difficult to post. i'm not able to access this site, or hotmail, or random other sites. i have no idea why. i'm currently writing on r's computer. things that have happened since last post - i tried absinthe in taipei with a friend who has since left for korea, i saw a lantern festival (at the end of chinese new year) and ate asst. interesting and delicious foods, i became sick, jacques left, i picked up several new classes, and asst other crap. by request, i will try to get a photo of r. and i up on the site soon, if i'm able to figure out the problem. the weather is getting warmer, which is nice. next post shouldn't take so long to get up, bimshallah.

nonstop

the rain never stops. it's getting to be oppressive. a dog has been howling since i got home from work last night. i need sleep.

vacation

so i got this entire week off. i did most of the things i had planned, but it rained every day and in general it was a pretty boring week. my job didn't pay us before the break and didn't give us a bonus (traditional on chinese new year) so i have no money to do anything particularly involved. although it is nice in southern taiwan, everyone goes there now so things are very expensive and booked up regardless. i'm pretty much trapped. i've watched several movies and cleaned the house. i've organized some work stuff. i've read a book. i've even studied a little chinese. i've cooked a little, but for some reason taiwan doesn't have any lemons, an essential ingredient in what i want to cook and a staple food in most countries i've been to. very strange. anyway, back to work on monday. i would have preferred 3 days off now and 2 days off in the summer, but that is not to be.

chinese new years

it was chinese new year on wednesday. on thursday night i went over to my language exchange partner's house (her name is Karen) and had a very nice meal, drank some monstrous liquor, and played cards until after midnight. it was nice to see what taiwanese people do to celebrate. several of the meals had symbolic meanings - fish (very fresh, prepared with ginger and green onions, very tender) represents wealth, boy choy (with garlic, i like it very much) represents long life, and i believe that the pigs feet stew (cooked for 3 days - very tender! and better than it sounds) represented god knows what. another dish, a vegetable and pork stew, could be literally translated as "buddhist monk jumps over the monestary wall because it smells so good," so named because the vegetarian chinese buddhist monks couldn't eat the meat dish. we also had chicken with the head still on, which represented the health of the home, important for karen's two recently married brothers. karen told me that if the head of the chicken points at you (and it inevitably pointed at everyone being as it was on a big lazy susan) it means that you will be fired from your job in the next year. nice to know i have something to look forward to. we drank plum wine that karen's aunt made -very nice- and i had what i believe was sorghum liquor - very strong and a little bit foul. we watched some crappy taiwanese variety shows (think donnie and marie) and some crappy harry potter movie while we played cards (seven star) until it passed midnight. anyway, it was all very interesting and i appreciated the invitation.

haircut

i took my language exchange partner and got a haircut recently. it was very nice - long shoulder, neck, and scalp massage along with shampoo and a cut for around $10 us. my barber was kind of pushy - she wanted to give me a cesar, and she insisted it would make me look younger. having a dumb and dumber haircut may make me look younger, but i don't want to look like a young mentally retarded boy.

these are my new slippers (we don't wear shoes indoors.) i paid about $1.50 US - rip off or bargain? 

rainy again today.

sun

it has actually stopped raining and been sunny for the past couple of days. on sunday, when the sun first appeared, i recoiled like a vampire. but it really was a welcome change. unfortunately, when the rain starts other problems start. for one thing, the rain knocks down the pollution. now that it stopped, i remember how all these scooters can change the atmosphere. also, my office is an amazing breeding ground for mosquitoes. i have lived in the swamps of florida and the mosquito infested suburbs of connecticut, i went to summer camp in the woods of new england and was a tourist in the hills of north thailand. no place i have ever been even comes close to my office building in terms of mosquito infestation. it's unbelievable. it reminds me of that off commercial from the '70's. i wave my hand from my pocket to my face and literally hit 3 mosquitoes on the way. i yi yi.

rain

it has been raining every day since before xmas. you would think someone who lived in seattle for 6 years would be unfazable, but i haven't seen the sun this year. it's remarkable and it never ends. richard claims one day was just overcast, and he may be right, but even so. wow.

by the way, i ate a remarkable meal today for under $3 us. 4 guo tieh (fried dumplings), and 6 shuei jiao (steamed dumplings - 4 shrimp and 2 spicy korean flavored), with a nice bowl of hot and sour soup and some soy milk. and it was all great. i would have been thrilled to get this for $12 at a fancy pan asian place in the us. it makes me happy to start to find the restaurants that i really like.

my chinese classroom. beautiful, isn't it? i enjoy my frankenstein-esque haircut. 

more with ugly santa. note the brown and yellow graphic on my tshirt between the lapels of my suit (it's a picture of bruce lee). 

very cute little girl. i am a very ugly santa. 

my boss sitting on my lap 

xmas and new years

my xmas and new years were fairly uneventful. i got an actual weekend (saturday and sunday off) for 2 weeks which was very nice, but i will make up for it next week when i substitute for a coworker off visiting his wife's family in Wisconsin (poor bastard). i will be working a lot, and substituting is particularly taxing. i need to take care of myself and not get myself sick. anyway, i will be happy when the week is over.

last night

nice long weekend right now. sadly, no cable. it has been very cold (40's and humid) the last few days, so people have been using space heaters. late last night one of my neighbors started shouting and the next thing we knew there were people running with fire extinguishers and then the fire truck showed up. all of the homes seem to be concrete here, so i'm not sure what burned, but the truck was loud and stinky. hope no one got hurt. i stayed up and wrote chinese characters until things quieted down a bit. anyway, no cable today.