N Snotklap teen die Kop

(Just a test read prior to publishing. Many, many photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/josambro/Fight#)


It's five in the afternoon at Hsinchu's Municipal Stadium. Inside, a crowd of about twelve hundred have gathered, their vibe rowdy, but polite: This is, after all, still Taiwan. Heavy Metal music blares over loudspeakers, and around the still-empty battle octagon, anticipation mingles with dry-ice fog. Outside of the stadium doors an ambulance sits waiting. “Just in case,” says an event organizer. Welcome to the world of MMA - Mixed Martial Arts.

The concept of MMA is simple: Fighters trained in different schools and styles compete. They are matched up roughly by height and weight, but this is generally where their similarities end. A typical MMA match might see a Kung Fu fighter going toe-to-toe with a wrestler, a judoka may be pitted against a boxer, or a jujitsu master might find himself facing a straight-up barroom brawler.

Grace versus brute force. Strikers fighting grapplers. Pit bulls against alligators.

The first round pits two roughly-evenly matched strikers against one another. It ends before I can get any meaningful notes.

The second round begins similarly, with both fighters trading blows and displaying beautiful striking form. However, it's clear that one of the fighters, a Taiwanese with blue gloves and buck teeth, is more interested in grappling than striking. In short order, he drags his opponent down gets him in a classic triangle hold with his legs. Pulling him tighter and tighter, the grappler looks like a python taking its time with its prey - and the conclusion is foregone by the one minute mark. Hold broken by the bell, the two men embrace like long lost brothers - a beautiful moment in man-to-man combat.

The crowd is getting more worked up as the third round opponents come out, the first match pitting a local fighter against a western import. Lin, a freestyle Kung fu fighter looks nervous early on but still draws first blood from his opponent, James, an American whose listed skills include Brazilian jujitsu and some sort of Muy Thai hybrid. But Lin is a striker, clearly unprepared for James' plan B, which entails pulling his opponent to the ground and quickly pummelling him into submission.

“These kung fu guys get wiped out,” Paulo, an NYC native working in Hsinchu says to me as James is declared the winner. “Kung fu is a soft art.”

I agree with him. The other guy didn't have the eye of the tiger.

It's in the next round that the meaning of “just in case” becomes clear. Victor is a Canadian specializing in Taikwondo and freestyle fighting, and his opponent is a shorter, thicker kick boxer with massive legs.

“Look at those legs,” Says Paulo. “The Canadian is going to go for the legs first.”

Paulo's words are frighteningly prescient, as Victor comes out after the bell and, using his longer reach, begins systematically chopping his opponent's legs as if they were wood. Both men are strikers, but deprived of his legs the Taiwanese kick boxer is powerless. Victor lunges with a devastating punch to the head, dropping his opponent like a dead tree. For a full three minutes the crowd buzzes with nervous excitement as the smaller fighter stays down, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling high above. It is an ugly end to a brutal match, and a collective sigh of relief is breathed when the smaller fighter stands. He leaves the ring beaten, and possibly concussive, but vertically - proving the maxim that any fight you can walk away from is a good one.

The event goes into intermission. A good excuse for the drinkers in the audience to sneak more beer (Verboten in the stadium, being city property) and for me to get a few photos of the event's beautiful and scantily-clad ring girls.

The fifth match – the first after the break - is a quick one. Wu and Cheng seem equally matched, being roughly the same size and practitioners in disciplines involving both striking and grappling. But again, it boils down to that elusive psychological aspect. The look on Wu's face tells the story. He seems nervous. His opponent, red-gloved Cheng, seems not merely confident but angry. Wu gets in a few strikes, but these are matched by Cheng who quickly takes him to the mat. Wu struggles, striking in so far as he is able, but as Cheng holds him firm from behind Wu's blows fail to land with any meaning. After less than thirty seconds of ground struggle, Wu strikes his final blow, not on Cheng but to the ground, the internationally accepted cry of “Uncle!” The sound of air filling Wu's lungs competes with the roar of the crowd.

The next match is between a French mixed martial artist / Judoka and a Taiwanese striker. It is a round completely devoid of foreplay as the Frenchman gets down to business quickly. Any dubiousness I feel about the applications of Judo in a mixed match ring are quickly dispelled. Within the first five seconds the Frenchman has his opponent in a choke hold, and the striker can get neither leverage to break the hold nor opportunity to punch his way out. Before a minute has passed, the striker is pinned, and the Frenchman declared the winner.

The seventh round is a painful mismatch. Sammy is a South African with the build, swagger and paunch of a barroom brawler. His fighting style, according to several ringside friends who know him, is simply "South African." His opponent, Wu, while of the same weight class, is close to a twelve centimeters shorter and in reach. To make matters even stranger, Wu comes out wearing a cheaply made cloth gladiator costume. “Is this some sort of a psyche out,” I wonder. “What sort of a fighter comes out against a monster dressed like a Chinese court jester?”

Remembering the words of Sun Tzu advising the strong to appear weak, I begin to entertain the idea that this might indeed be a psychological ploy. This is swiftly dispelled at the fourteen second mark. Sammy's first blow, a knee to the face (or, as they say in the back streets of Cape Town, "n Snotklap teen die kop") knocks Wu unconscious.

The South African giant is graceful in victory. “It seems we have a little extra time here,” he begins, before launching into a good-natured soliloquy that ends with an invitation for the audience to join him in a post-brawl barbeque.

It's during the last fight that the beauty, majesty, and brutality of MMA truly comes to life. Wu Dongxing is a Taiwanese brawler, a specialist in a kind of striking and kicking art known as Sanda. Weighing in at 105 kilos and 175 cm, Wu's build could charitably be described as portly. His opponent, American-born Pete, though ten kilos lighter, is also a head taller. A student of Brazilian Jujitsu at a respected Filippino Martial arts academy, Pete (who begins the match with humility, kneeling in prayer in the center of the ring) seems to outclass his heavy opponent.

This final match, and with it the event, seems poised to end quickly. Faster, more agile, and with more moves than Wu, Pete circles his opponent like a shark, every now and then lunging in for a blow. The fat man absorbs most of these, seemingly unconcorned with even rudiments like blocking. Whereas Pete is dancing, using footwork, Wu just stands there, rooted to one spot. Until, that is, the western fighter gets in close.

There is a heavy thud, like the sound made by a truck hitting a cow. Wu's sledgehammer of a foot connects with his opponent's midsection. As Pete grimaces in pain, wu stands still, his posture saying come closer, have another.

Pete, chastened, dances more carefully around Wu, carefully aiming blows of varying style and intensity to his heavy opponent's face, head, and body. Wu absorbs them all, not seeming to react to any in particular. But collectively, they are taking their toll, and the blows, along with the effort of moving his own weight around the ring, seem to portend the end is near.

Or is it? Wu is striking slowly now, with neither charm nor grace, landing only one blow in three. But each that lands seems to make Pete a little more careful, a little more reluctant to move in for the kill.

A punch is thrown, and caught, and soon the pair are on the ground. Wu is on his back, and at first glance it looks like the heavier fighter is being pinned. Only when I move closer do I see that Wu has Pete in a vicious chokehold, pulling the back of the taller fighter's head into his fat stomach, growling like a wounded bear.

The American is in agony, his neck twisted backwards. He must be running out of air. He lashes out at the only target available, the sides of the fat fighter's stomach. The clench is held for over a minute, the taller fighter trying desperately to break his opponent's grip, managing eventually to do so with his left arm.

Wu is still on the ground. Pete is winded. Both stand up and assess the damage slowly.

More ring work. Wu launches himself head first like a cannonball into Pete's midsection, smacking him back into the octagon gate. The ground shakes. Both men are breathing hard. The bell rings, and for the first time tonight a match goes into round two. Wu leans into the gate as his friends try to staunch the bleeding from a cut above his eye. Across the octagon, Pete may be wondering about the efficacy of his pre-match prayers.

The bell rings again, and the fighters come out for round two. Both are exhausted, bloody and battered. Both seem chastened, as if they'd underestimated their opponents. Wu is still breathing hard, and Pete dances around him, launching fist after fist into Wu's face with horrifying cracking sounds. Wu is bleeding from both nostrils now, and Pete is grimacing as well. His body language suggests that the cracking sound just heard was that of his own fist breaking on Wu's nose. Wu tries to launch a roundhouse kick but, exhausted and slow, fails to connect. Pete, knowing another kick might be his last, has no intention of getting that close. He continues dancing.

The end comes without drama. Wu, eyes nearly swollen shut, backs into one end of the Octagon while his opponent remains at a distance. The referee calls a quick pause to inspect Wu's badly damaged face; whether it's the fighter or the ref who makes the call is unclear, but the determination is made that Wu should not be allowed to continue. The crowd screams as Pete is declared the winner. Bleeding but unbowed, the portly Wu exits the octagon with his entourage.

Somewhere in my head, I hear the nasal, ghostly voice of legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell:

A brutal end to a brutal match in a brutal sport; Not since Santa spent Christmas delivering presents during the great reindeer strike of '57 has a fat man tried so valiantly to beat the odds. And for that, you just have to give him credit.



(Special Thanks to Tobie Openshaw for the phrase "n Snotklap teen die kop")

Michael Jackson Dead?

Why wasn't I informed?

OK, I know, I know. I'm behind the curve. But yesterday a friend and loyal reader told me my blog was getting too heavy. Yeah. Excuse me for being in the midst of a PERSONAL CRISIS pal. But for whatever reason, that reminded me of the fact that way back when I was doing weekly CD reviews for the Taiwan News, I reviewed MJ's last piece of "work". So I figure, hey, why not post the review? Might lighten things up in these heavy, heavy times.

Seriously; MJ was a tortured genius. He was a one man carnival sideshow. He created some of the most memorable music of the late seventies and early eighties, and everything he did after that sucked eggs. Rest in peace, Jacko.

Michael Jackson: Invincible

Sometimes too much education can be a detriment. For example, in describing just how truly mediocre Michael Jackson’s new album Invincible (which should have been called “Unlistenable”) my degree in creative writing didn’t allow me to come up with a more succinct description than my friend Catwalk, a clerk at Tower Records. Despite being neither a writer nor a native English speaker, Catwalk summed the album up thusly:

“Some performers can suck in a grand way. On “Invincible,” Michael Jackson just sounds expensively ordinary”

Not since my ex-girlfriend summed up Kevin Costner’s three hour bomb “The Postman” with the phrase “too long and sucky” have I felt so utterly inadequate in the face of Taiwanese linguistic precession.

My readers, knowing me to be a reviewer with certain musical leanings, might be tempted to believe that I did not actually listen to the album.

Were that only true. In fact, I listened to the whole thing.

That I did so with a corkscrew jammed up my urethra in the hopes that physical pain might lessen my mental torment constitutes no shirking of duty on my part.

I was especially glad for the distraction the corkscrew provided during “break of Dawn.” MJ’s sexual predilections (if we can call them that) are well known; thus, hearing him warble about “making love ‘till the break of dawn” over sampled tweety-bird noises produced imagery involving Jocko and Big Bird involved in an extremely unnatural act.

Another track requiring a good stiff corkscrew twistin' to endure was “The Lost Children.” It was like getting an enema with a bag filled with liquid saccharine.

I seem to have blocked all the other tracks out. I need to go have my stomach pumped now.

To sum up: While the rest of the world seems to be getting wise to Jacko’s lack of talent, some people in Taiwan still seem to be buying his music. Even the creator of the Michael Jackson Internet Fan Club seems to have woken up to MJ’s embarrassing mediocrity and taken the site down. If this review prevents one innocent Taiwanese from buying this album, my suffering shall not have been in vain.

Always in line for the long walk home....

Kowloon, one AM and the night is a wet neon blur. A tropical storm has been drifting around the Pearl River Delta for days, alternately pounding hell like hammers and dangling quietly like a thick soaking quilt. For reasons that may eventually unfold in some future print version, I am without shelter and wandering by choice, supping on a late meal of leathery Hainanese chicken at Tsui Wah, the only place serving trustworthy food at this late hour. My flight leaves in ten hours, leaving me plenty of time to wander up to the airport. Suppose I could walk it if I liked, and and still have time for a long nap on the terminal floor. My camera is broken, darling, otherwise I'd snap you a few surreptitious shots of the sari-clad women of the night who walk the streets at this hour. They're beautiful and tawdry, decked all in red and gold, slippers to head-scarves. But maybe it's for the best, the broken camera. Women like that don't take well to being photographed, not for free. They travel in pairs, usually shadowed by men with knives and lousy haircuts.

There's a bad pressure over the city, wet and heavy, the sort of vibe that brings out the worst in people, especially late at night when options dwindle. Best to creep small and low at times like these, keep camera in bags and umbrella ready.

The weekend's gone by fast; one sleepless night of angst and typing, another night of deep ten-hour sleep filled with cloying, claustrophobic dreams of being launched into space in a tiny tin can. They'd chosen me to cover some new satellite somewhere in the Van Allen Belt. The trip was going to take months, and they were trying to stick a catheter into my urethra; “It's the only way,” one of the scientists in charge was telling me. I kept getting up to pee, but the dream kept resetting itself. Guess I needed the sleep. Now tonight, destination undecided.

The days were productive. A long and literary lunch on Saturday with Vittachi. I didn't quite recognize him at first. “Who is this thin, brown man? He seems to recognize me.” I asked myself when he showed up wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He'd been doing a radio show, he said, and I realized I'd never seen him wearing anything but some incarnation of his trademark immaculately tailored Nehru collared suit. We talked about writing, travel, the future of capitalism for artists, and about life in general. I must have talked about you, too.

After we parted, I headed up to a country club on the hill for soup and tea with D., a friend of mine who used to be a professional dominatrix. The rain had stopped, but the air was so thick that climbing up the hill felt like walking on the bottom of a Venusian swamp. I got strange looks in the bathroom of this high-brow venue, wringing out my shirt over the sink then drying it with the hand dryer.

D. told me I was looking well, cute even, and from a woman of her experience I took it as high praise. It felt good to connect with someone who is, in this strange way, of my tribe. I've always felt an affinity for industry people. That and my impeccable work ethic - traits my father gave me.

Afterwards I went down to Flow, but was too tired to browse the stacks. I didn't even pick up any comic books. It'd be good to have some light reading, for when the battery runs out. Went back to Lantau, watched Revolutionary Road before passing out. It made me understand you a little better. I guess it helped me to see one of the bright sides of our divorce.

Today, hard rain and typhoon winds, and a long coffee shop meeting with AW, who alternately encouraged and discouraged me before reading two chapters of the novel in progress and telling me it could be good, sending me away with a few light assignments, encouragement to finish the damned novel already, and one piece of professional advice that we both knew I wasn't ready to follow. More rain, a meeting, cake, several old friends, one new one, and then night, wandering, and here.

So here I am again, laying low in Kowloon, trying to decide between a flophouse, love hotel alone, or a long, long walk. Tomorrow I'll be home, for however long home turns out to be.

Train Ride to Nevets' Shrine

I am on a train sitting in the station, underground beneath Taipei city. In a few moments it will start moving south to a town called Yangmei, a town I hadn't even known existed before last week when I agreed to take eight weeks of classes there, conversational English, for 1400 NT dollars an hour. A pretty figure for whoring mother tongue. The train is moving, lights in the tunnel shining waxily , reflections of the puke green upholstery out there in the dark. The driver is reading a long list of the places where this train will stop before reaching Kaohsiung, its southernmost point, four or so hours away. “Taoyuan, Jhongli, Yangmei, Zhubei, Hsinchu...”

I stop listening at Hsinchu. I used to live in Hsinchu, but that was another lifetime ago. I have been on this train many, many times, but remember very little about individual journeys.

We are still underground, and I am sleepy despite having drank many cups of strong coffee to counteract medication I began taking yesterday, anti anxiety pills compiled lovingly by an old Chinese GP who I'd been referred to by my counselor. Under the circumstances, I felt it would be OK for me to have a short term chemical crutch, and she agreed, and brought me to a general doctor able to oblige.

“Just divorced two days ago, your wife wanted the divorce but not you? And now you are living together still, and have anxiety. This is very natural. How are you eating? Very badly. Bowel movements? Sporadic and thin. Stress? That is natural. Sleeping? Poorly. Headaches? Sometimes.”

He takes my pulse, measures my weight and lung function, and pronounces me healthy under the circumstances. He enquirers about my cholesterol intake. After a while, he calls his nurse to prepare a take-away package of blessed short term medications, the chemical crutch I could - but don't feel like - doing without. Four days worth, each day divided into four colorful packages carefully doled, each package containing a half pill of this, and a half pill of that, something for the stomach and something for the head, something for nerves and something for anger. The last dose comes not in a package but colorful thimble. The nurse hands me a glass of water, and I swallow both down.

“Come back on Friday, Mr. Brown. You will be fine. Your Chinese name is Jia Xi. It means “family happiness” - it is a pity you are divorced, but you will find another wife soon! Also, you are very healthy.”

I walked to Carefour feeling better already, thinking “what should I cook my wife for dinner” as I have a hundred times before before remembering we're not married anymore. “Fuck it. She can eat out.” I buy myself some apples, cherries, a hard French baguette and a can of Manhattan clam chowder.

This train is a slow one, still moving underground. I can feel the outskirts of Taipei passing muddily above me, Yonghe, Zhonghe, maybe even Tucheng (Tucheng; that's where my wife and I did some farming, when we were...no, best not to go there, eh? No pills made'll keep those thoughts at bay, not this soon at least).

Sprouting horizontally, the iron worm is free at last, above the ground and outside of the city. There was a tropical storm passing through the Taiwan straits this weekend, teasing us with winds and rain that hardly came, leaving us with gray and muggy skies in this chunk of the west.

We are now at Shulin Station. Jumble box houses with barred windows and tattered awnings. Tall buildings like the one I live in, only far more disheveled. A long stretch of field, green and lush and windswept. Things are growing all right, things are growing. Also green are the plastic nets crawling up the sides of buildings being built, great big hair nets telling the world coming soon! Something the same, only more.

Sky now, to the left, and mountain to the right over which I know is the ocean, gray and clean with airplanes circling. This area has looked the same since 1994, the same ramshackle buildings and houses, gray blocks filled with life, patches of hungry jungle clamoring for inevitable lebensraum. Taiwan is alive with a vibrancy altered by people, a vibrancy that would not be diminished by lack of human industry. The jungle here builds faster than the people.

A bike trail is carving through a jungle patch next to my train tracks, next to a river. I guess we are somewhere north of Taoyuan now, and I guess I should be planning my class now. What was it I was looking for in chemicals? A temporary respite from ambition? Perhaps then I've gotten lucky, because I've just reached Inghe station and can't see any reason other than lethargy to not get off, and cancel my first class in favor of exploring this little town that I'd hitherto never known existed.

But ambition is like herpes. Once you have it, it will always come back. So you need to treat it as such, and never forget you have it even when you can't feel it.

So the train moves on, myself still on it (and feeling the powerful need to state here and now that I do not have herpes, not the genital kind anyway) passing through more chunks of Taiwan that I find lovely but your average tourist might no find all that interesting. What is the soul of Yingge? What do people here think, make or do? Will I find myself living in Yingge two months down the road, close to these ugly gas tanks, managing a brothel specializing in BDSM?

No, not likely, and anyway, we are somewhere else now, the outskirts of Taoyuan by my clock.

Taoyuan is a wonderful place to be if you are on an airplane that needs to land; their eponymously named airport has just the proper facilities for just such endeavors, and even a Burger king should you need immediate nutritional gratification upon landing. Professionally speaking I can say little more about the place, but could if I were paid to explore further. See my resume for hiring details.

Moving again. In an hour or so I will be standing in front of a group of adult students, trying to remember when to speak and when to listen. I suppose it isn't something one forgets. Chin up, It isn't like it isn't something I used to be an expert at. I might as well try to forget bike messengering. Out of Taouyaun now, the fields are wet and green, almost two green. There is a sadness about them, land used for rice for so long that that's all it can remember how to do. I don't want to wind up like that. I wasn't made to be a rice field.

Broad leafed jungle plants punctuated by shipping boxes; we must be near the place where they store unnedded steel in times of economic downturns. Soon I will be at Zhongli station, and then Yangmei. Maybe I should get a coffee then, some liquid ambition. “Teacher seems tired,” one student will say, and it will buzz from brain to brain like a mental mantra. I wouldn't mind so much, if I didn't need the money.

Somewhere to the right, just before Zhongli station, a beautiful shrine in a field.

That's my shrine for you Nevets; did you even read this far? That's my shrine for you, and no, I never said kaddish for you, not yet. But I will visit that shrine one day, and depending on how I feel, smoke a cigarette, or get someone else to smoke one for you. Perhaps we will meet there, in that field, by that shrine, postponing our mutual kaddishes.

The future is too hazy for me to see now. I can barely see past the end of this train ride.

My ticket is punched. The train is coming close to reaching exactly where it is meant to reach. I am to be deposited, to be picked up by a nervous driver who has called me three times in the last three minutes to ascertain that I am indeed capable of reaching a particular seven eleven unguided. Soon I will be drinking coffee, transforming speech into capital. Somehow.

The train is here, I think; therefore, I am too.

Guns, Hookers and Durian: Bangkok Chinatown

Even in Southeast Asia's most famous city of inequity the Middle Kingdom's pull on me is inescapable. I'd come to Bangkok for three days of meetings, luncheons and dinners with a group comprised of Asia-based travel writers, photographers, artists and various other nomads. The get-togethers were good, but by the second day I was burnt out on the tourist and skin trade vibe of Sukhimvit and Nana Plaza, where all the events I'd come for were taking place. So on the morning of the third day, with nothing scheduled but high tea at the fantastic Mandarin Oriental for late afternoon, I decided to escape the sleaze and tourism and head to Chinatown.

Strange irony indeed that the first thing I saw upon stepping out of the taxi in Chinatown was a brothel named after my adopted-by-marriage Lone Star State. Unable to resist being able to tell people about a the existence of a place in Bangkok called Texas Massage, I walked down the alley towards an unlit neon sign.

The heavily made-up duo lounging by the entrance confirmed what I already suspected. Inside the darkened parlor, the business at hand was clear as day; a lobby sitting area contained a few couches facing a ceiling-to-floor window that stretching from wall to wall. On the other side of this window a long and narrow room was set up with two tiers of felt-covered benches, long enough for twenty or so prostitutes to lounge away the hours until being called for duty.

Absent, however, were the prostitutes themselves. An older woman – the madame, I presumed - sat behind the front counter smoking a cigarette. She shrugged, and, pointing to the clock and the wall, held up two fingers. Heartened to learn that in this little corner of Bangkok at least the world's oldest profession sleeps in, I headed out to explore the rest of the neighborhood. The hookers by the door smiled and waved me over, but theirs wasn't the sort of exploration I was after. “Forget it,” I said to them as I passed. “It's Chinatown.”

One of the oldest areas of in Bangkok, Chinatown dates its history back to the late eighteenth century. Back in those days, the country was known to outsiders as Siam, and the neighborhood was home to thousands of Chinese merchant families. Many of the Chinese who now live in the area are descended from these merchants, or are part of a later historical Diaspora. Though some can speak some dialect of Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin, and even Chaozhou can all be heard,) most folks who live here consider themselves Thai.

After winding through a few alleys featuring small stalls selling cooked food, I found myself on Bangkok Chinatown's main artery. At night Yaowarat road is famous as a food street, but during the day shops selling gold (as well as other goods, wholesale and retail) are the main business of the long avenue. I stepped into a brightly lit apothecary that seemed Chinese inside and out. When I asked the young lady sorting through herbal remedies behind the counter if she had anything that might forestall the cold I was coming down with, she just looked at me quizzically. Fooled by the decor, I'd spoken Mandarin, which the young lady clearly didn't. She quickly called over a colleague, and after a brief conversation in our mutual second language, I was soon holding my nose and gulping down a warm glass of the foulest liquid I'd tasted in years.

One part of me invigorated and another embittered, I left the shop and went looking for something to wash the medicine's aftertaste from my mouth. Though most of the street's famous nighttime food stalls had yet to open, I found a wooden stand selling whole pineapple, durian, jackfruit and other delicious, unwieldy tropical fruits. The saleslady sold me some cut pineapple, which I chomped down greedily while making my way over to the enigmatically named thieves market. Offering wares ranging from clothing to bolts of cloth to bulk nuts and candy, the covered street market seemed to have earned it's sobriquet in more colorful times, and was neither larcenous nor particularly exciting.

I left the thieves market and headed north through the alleys until I came upon an odd avenue, one I'd previously not known existed. There, on the outskirts of Chinatown, I came across row after row of stores whose stock in trade was firearms. Impressive indeed were the dizzying array of handguns, rifles and automatic weaponry on display in the windows of the dozen-plus mom and pop gun shops lining the street. For a moment I thought I might be back in Texas, until I walked into one to take a picture and the owner told me with a smile "sorry, I only sell to Thais." With the idea that second amendment rights might have somehow traveled with me out of America forever quashed, I hailed a taxi.

As I rode from gritty Chinatown into the posh neighborhood surrounding the Mandarin Oriental, I found myself meditating on the idea that both the beginning and ending points of my tour might have been somehow appropriate to the story at hand. There are "Chinatowns" all over the world, ranging in tone and tenor from glorified theme parks with cartoonish Asian overtones to utilitarian neighborhoods, organically formed and clearly serving purposes other than tourism. Though there's plenty of culture around for those who know where to look, nobody would mistake this neighborhood for a Sino-flavored Disneyland. Offering sex on tap and guns for sale, Bangkok Chinatown clearly fits squarely in the utilitarian column.

Dancing Monkeys / Racism is not Cute

Was turned onto this letter via David On Formosa

Scroll down to the middle letter (Racism is not Cute) at http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/06/02/2003445105

Since doing that absolutely stupid TV show last week (full story forthcoming,) this has been a subject much on my mind, the way that the "otherness" of westerners in Taiwan is constantly pointed out.

The author of this letter writes about an experience at the Muzha Zoo ("Waigouren,say hello!"), an experience that I've had and still continue to have in Taiwan.

Anyway, I've got to stay upbeat, and keep my eyes on THE BIG PICTURE

(oh yes, friends, the big picture....*cackle*)

but it's an interesting letter, worth mentioning.

Anyway, yes. Since I'm already on about it, I've been having this disquieting suspicion lately in Taiwan that it doesn't much matter what I say to anyone anymore; indeed, my ability to speak alone is all that I'm ever judged on ("wa! ni de zhongwen hao bang") so it doesn't matter whether I'm expressing a preference for black coffee over coffee with milk or trying to share deeper insights. Most people, when encountering a dancing monkey, do not take the time to note whether the monkey is performing a tango, foxtrot, or even the venerable mud-shark.

"Look at the dancing monkey! Look at it!"

Taiwan people - not always, but often enough to make it an issue to me - see westerners who speak Chinese as some sort of "skilled monkeys." The fact that they can speak at all is so overwhelming that what they're actually saying comes in a distant second, if it's even paid attention to.

But is this the case everywhere? Inevitably, it comes down to comparing Taiwan and China (ok, you're a white guy who speaks Mandarin. Where else you gonna go? Singapore la?) 

In mainland China, a land where 1.6 billion people speak varying varieties of a more or less common language, I'm more or less a fluent speaker of Mandarin.  My tones are off here and there, my accent is funny, it's not a major barrier to communication.  Your average coffee vendor in Kunming, used to doing business with all sorts of minority people from all over Yunnan (many of whom speak Mandarin as a second language, and thickly accented at that) can instantly deduce that I'm asking them not to put sugar (糖(餹)[táng, second tone) In the cup of coffee I'm currently purchasing, and not, in fact, expressing bizarrely a preference to not have soup 汤(湯)

[tāng, first tone] mixed in my Joe.

 

In Taiwan, alas, people seem to lack these deductive skills. 

"The foreigner...he does not want....soup? in coffee? Does not compute...syntax error. ER-ROR! ER-ROR!"

Nervous pause. Smoke emitting from ears. Total collapse.

The upside of this is that if you study Chinese in Taiwan and really make an effort, your tones should be excellent.  The downside is that if you're a generalist - as I am - you're Chinese will inevitably go much further in the mainland then in Taiwan.

I spent a month travelling through Yunnan last year, where I felt fully competent in nearly all situations. As soon as I returned to Taiwan, I felt as if I'd been demoted three grades.

"Study harder," might be the logical solution, but at the age of 40, with ten different projects going on, I'm faced with the quandary of finite time. To be a bit hyperbolic (and why not?) I can spend two hours brushing up on my tones to order soup in a restaurant in Taiwan without being looked at cockeyed.  Or I can use that time to do something completely unrelated, go to Shenzhen, have a half hour conversation with my taxi driver from Sichuan (whose accent is different than mine to begin with), talk to six different hotel owners for whatever guidebook I'm working on, then give a presentation in passable Mandarin on a variety of subjects to a group of people from all over China. Afterwards we can all go out for coffee with sugar. Or maybe some soup. 

This is not to say that the same "dancing monkey" thing doesn't exist in China. But it seems to be dying out, whereas in Taiwan, much as I love this place and the people who call it home, it still seems to be in fashion.

OK, off on a rant. Thanks, David!

Time to get back to work. 

Hiking and River Tracing in Fushan

Went on an amazing hike Friday with Tammy and Phil,Laurie and Chris. Went up to Fushan, a mountain south of Wulai, which is itself on the northern end of the mountain range that forms the spine of Isle Formosa.  Readers who still somehow have the impression of Taiwan as being a gigantic metroplex / semiconducter factory, something like a cross between Donguan, China and Tokyo's Ginza, will be greatly illuminated by having a gander at Phillip's page of photos from the trip.   

After meeting at the Xindian station after dawn, we headed up to Wulai for a quick breakfast and then motored south on what once was a logging road built by the Japanese.  The area is a protected preserve, so we had to pass through a checkpoint and show identification. The road wound south through high mountains, waterfalls cascading from the peaks above into the gorge far below.  

After parking the van in a suitable spot, we headed up a stone staircase. The stairs led us to a rough path, the Fu Ba Trail, which runs through a patch of jungle filled with long stands of running bamboo, trees old and young, and patches of edible flowers with names straight out of Grateful Dead songs. At one point we climbed over an unfinished metal bridge, the vast majority of which lay in chunks on the northern bank awaiting construction. 

After hiking south for about an hour, we turned back and headed down a steep, unmarked path that led us to the river itself. It was hear that we stripped down to our swimsuits and strapped on our river-tracing boots (shown here)

Purchased the day before for under NT500 at a shop just east of Taipei main station, the river booties proved critical in navigating the chilly, fast moving river. Phillip, Chris and I traced about a kilometer up the river and floated back down. For me, this short run was just a test-trace, as I plan to come back and travel more of the river later this summer.



After about an hour, we'd had our lunch and were lounging on the rocks when a small group of Atayal warriors came floating down the river towards us brandishing homemade spear guns.

The Atayal are headhunters, and I know they wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than some gory trophy for the alter. I bravely swam out to them to offer my own head; luckily, these tribesmen were pacifists, or at least kindly disposed towards us. (The Taiwanese fishermen who'd been casting on the rocks directly south from us beat a hasty retreat shortly after the warrior's arrival. There has long been bad blood between Aboriginals and Han Chinese.) One of them demonstrated his spear-gun, an ingenious device.

The men had come to this beach to camp for the night, and brought chunks of raw mountain boar to stew alongside the Formosan mountain carp they'd been skewing in the river. As they settled in for the evening, we headed back towards the casa of P&T and a dinner of strong coffee and stronger cheeses.

Again, many, many fine photos of the day can be found here.

Taipei Night Shots

General Update, Best Trip etc.,

T minus three hours until my brother in law arrives from Texas, then it'll be ten days of tour guide duty with hopefully more regular posts.  Too much stuff going on, so consider this a general update.  

To Wit: 

Tobie, Carrie and I recorded a short film last week based (very loosely) on my old Off the Rails Column. Tobie is now hard at work editing the hour+ of footage into a seven or so minute short that we're hoping to have online soon. The operative plan is to make five of these films and parley our combined skills into an actual TV pilot. More on this as it develops.

Last month I accepted a quick gig for Things Asian, the writing of a trilogy of stories about different Chinatowns. With this theme in mind, I decided to expand it a bit by doing one story in first person, the second in second, and the third in third. The first two are done, and the third - being written entirely in the Singaporean patois known as "Singlish" is on the way.

The first is "Guns, Hookers and Durian: Bangkok Chinatown"
and the second is "Gray Noodle Gate: Incheon Chinatown". Have a click, and leave a comment. Not much feedback on the Things Asian Stories, not sure why.

Other stuff - going to be on the TV, so been practicing my wedding related Chinese.  This is something of a follow up to the events detailed in Shotgun Audition, hopefully will have some video to show for it. 

Still awaiting backers for Wujian's Wedding. Anybody from the Discovery Channel or National Geographic reading this blog? Drop me a line, I've got a proposition for you.

Finally, there's this, The Best Trip in the World. Anybody who's every wanted to get paid to take a trip around a beautiful island, here's your chance. Basically, the Taiwan government is going to pick from a pool of applicants fifty teams / couples and pay 'em to travel and blog about their exploits.  Check out the website and if you have any questions I might can field 'em (I'm hoping to get involved on some level).

OK, gotta clean the air filters, put away the salad, give the kitty more durian. 

Fun with Animal Testing!

What could be more wholesome than Animal Testing, I ask you?

Today, in the name of science (SCIENCE I say!) I attempted to answer a question that has plagued mankind since man first deceived himself into believing he had domesticated felines instead of the other way around.

Namely: Will a cat eat Durian?

The answer may shock you. Unless, of course, you are familiar with Durian, a stinking fruit that nearly nobody of the non-Asian persuasion (present company excluded) can even stand next to let alone eat. In that case, the answer - which I reveal in advance in the interest of minimizing stress (a major source of health problems among people aged dead and under) as No.

But without further adieu, let's watch the video, shall we?

No animals were harmed in the making of this film. However, one animal was, in the following sequence, perplexed, puzzled, mystified, confused, miffed, and finally driven under the couch for approximately one and a half minutes before forgetting the incident entirely.