Mandarin Study - English Teaching - Taichung Smog

12-27-12  Thurs. 

I took a bike ride up the banks of the Han River yesterday but after I had gone upstairs to the roof garden. And what did i do on the roof garden? I studied Mandarin; Lesson 1, Book 4 of Chinese For Today by Hu Yu-Shu, a book printed in China in 1987 and used at FDR High School years ago. Until I can get hooked up with a Mandarin class, this is how I will study and try to learn some new vocabulary, in addition to watching TV with Leona and asking a question occasionally. Up the Han, opposite the taoist temple, I read Why Look at Animals? by John Berger, a little "Great Ideas" Penguin Book I bought at Caves Taichung the week before I went back to Brooklyn to clean up the basement. I was so inspired by the the respect it advocates for animals that I listened to The Smiths "Meat is Murder" on the ride home and told Leona I wanted to have vegetarian food for lunch. I can't eat vegetarian food often but yesterday it was good. 

I am watching "Eyewitness News at Six" from WABC New York. There is a n'oreaster hitting the city. It is 32 degrees there, snowing and getting worse, especially upstate. It's a miserable mess and I'm glad I'm not there. Here in Taichung, it was like summer yesterday, sunny in the 80's. I swear I got a tan while sitting and reading on the dyke of the Han River. It will be about 80 degrees today, too. The problem here is the smog, not the weather. For every asshole on the chaotic roads, there is a half inch exhaust hole from their scooters and motorcycles. The smoke hangs in the air like fog. That's why I wear a mask over my mouth when I ride the bicycle to the bushiban. I wear it over my mouth, not over my nose and mouth, because the bridge of my nose is too high, leaving a gap, and fogging up my glasses when I exhale. I breath through my mouth when I ride, anyway. 

I want to find a Mandarin class to study at. There is a two-month thirty-hour program, Tuesday and Thursday evenings at Taichung University near the Chung Yo Department Store, about twenty minutes away from here by bicycle. The deadline to register is January 31. There are 2-5 students in a class. It costs about $10US (290NT) an hour. I could ride there after my class at American Eagle ends at 6pm. But my schedule is going to change by March when the Mandarin and American Eagle class new terms begin. I don't yet know what I can and am going to do. I don't know if American Eagle is going to offer me a spring schedule of classes, what days they will be on. It would be better to go back to Brooklyn in the summer, July and August, If I do that, at least I could be back for summer classes in Taichung. I

'Little Italy' - Taichung

The weather changed after we got home from Chung-Yo. Before we went shopping there at Jason's we had lunch at a place called "Little Italy" on an authenticity scale, I'd give it a '7.' The pizza cheese was too creamy, the plum tomatoes too sweet, the crust too airy. The 'minestrone' soup had those tough dried black Chinese mushrooms in it and a layer of cheap oil sitting on top. The 'Italian Bread' was airy, too. The garlic butter was artificial and airy, too. Leona's black seafood squid noodles was good; she liked it, especially the fresh seafood in it. She didn't like the oil they mixed the pesto with. The decor was not bad but the artificial brick curved seller ceiling was too new-looking and the lighting was too dark. The funny thing is that they kept all the two-liter Marsala bottles they emptied on their chicken Marsala, filled them with colored water and used them for decorations. I counted 52 such bottles, none of which had wine or were for sale. Ironically, I brought 1/3 of a thermos full of leftover Marsala from Brooklyn when I returned from the flood. Lunch was about $40us. 

H'ordurves For New Years' Eve

We got back from Jason's in Chung-Yo Department Store's basement buying h'ordurves for New Years Eve . We went there to get some fixings for our New Years' Eve private party. We got two types of crackers, Ritz (made in Indonesia!) and Partners (from Kent, Washington) "All Natural Olive Oil & Herb Crackers." To put on those crackers we got a soft blue brie from France (235 for 100 grams.; 120g for 282NT [$9.72]) a French blue cheese (brand "Bress…?) the same price but 130g. of it for 306NT ($10.55,) an Italian gorgonzola at160NT a gram; 128g. for 205NT ($8.62,) and an English Stilton at 270 a gram; 110 grams for 297NT ($10.24.) We also got "Norsk SjomatAs" brand Norwegian Smoked Salmon slices in a vacuum-sealed package, 100grams for 310NT ($10.68.) Finally, we bought a tube of "Delikat" brand Creama De Caviar (mild) 175 grams for 230NT ($7.93.) We gave up on getting the goose liver pate because it was way too expensive and it contained truffles which I don't like. I will make chopped duck liver, the pre-cooked snack we got at the night market Thursday, with Taiwanese mayonnaise. The toppings cost a total of $57.74us.

Clean Air in Taichung

12-1-12

The air is so clean this morning in Taichung. The way the clouds are formed, to the west of Taichung on the hills of Shalu and Dadu, the houses are shining pretty in the morning sun. I've been looking on the maps and on-line to find a cheap hot spring to bathe in in the mountains nearby in Beitun. There's a place call Xiafei but I can't find its exact location. There is a phone number which I'll ask Leona to call when she gets up to see if it is what I want. I don't want to go to a hotel resort, just jump in an open spring. It probably doesn't exist. The springs in Beitun were drilled wells from satellite photos after the Sept. 1999 earthquake. I'll probably end up riding to my favorite spots in Feng-Yuan on the banks of the Han River. 

Foggy Cool Taichung

12-5-12

It is a foggy rainy cool morning in Taichung The cars and scooters are whizzing by on Tai-Yuan Road, thirteen floors down, but hardly a horn can be heard. If this was New York, anywhere, there'd be hundreds of assholes honking their horns arrogantly at each other, long angry honking of horns, not short spurts of "avoid danger" honks. The irony is, more drivers break traffic rules here than in New York; it's like there are no rules here. Cars and scooters go through red lights regularly, park wherever they please, etc. but there is mutual distraction on the road. On a corner such as the one downstairs, there would be a number of accidents if it were in New York City. I have seen only one accident downstairs since I moved here two months ago!

First Trip To Chung Ho Clearance

12-11-12

Leona brought me  to Eslite bookstore in Chung-Yo Department Store where they were having a blowout book/music sale; 70% off original price including many English books and western music. I spent 1,300NT ($42us) for nine CD's, two of them double CD's. The first CD I'm uploading into iTunes is Uriah Heep's "Transmissions" which has some "CD enhanced video tracks" as well. I don't think I'l be able to watch them on the MacBook Pro. It is for Windows. I'm listening to it now. It's live. No video though. I also got a two CD set called "Global Underground: Dave Seaman 012 Buenos Aires." It is described on the box as, "Gelatinous glitterball grooves with metallic melodies locked with motorway basslines." We'll see. Though I can upload it into iTunes, it won't be on the iPod until I sync it. I got three Leo Kottke re-issues; "Ice Water," "My Feet Are Smiling," and "Greenhouse." Roy Brown's "Blues Deluxe" should be a great early 50's blues compilation. Status Quo, "Rare Broadcasts," has a live CD and a DVD and I think it's from the 80's. A CD called "Love That Louie: The Louie Louie File" is a 2002 compilation with all different versions of said song including the original version from 1957 by Richard Berry & The Pharoahs. Finally, I got a Spooky Tooth CD called "The Mirror," one of their last albums. 

From Shanghai to Taichung

12-12-12 Wed. 

Ariel is really coming to visit us in Taichung! He sent the itinirary last evening just before I went to bed. He'll be here a short while though. To me, it's a template of future trips. Once he works out the kinks, it should be 'normal' for him to come visit say twice or three times a year as long as he's living in Shanghai. He'll be leaving Shanghai at 2:15pm, arriving in the airport in Taipei around 3:30 because it takes 67 minutes. By the time he gets out of customs, it will be 4pm. After he buys a bus ticket to Taichung, it will take 2 hours to get to the train station stop. The whole ordeal will take Ariel around 7 hours, door to door. He can work on cutting it down to 4 hours at the shortest in the future. How? Well, he can't avoid having to be at the airport in Shanghai two hours before the flight; I believe they consider it an international flight besides the Chinese Taiwan posturing. He can save time by avoiding rush hour on Friday afternoon. Also, he can save time by taking HSR instead of a bus (one hour as opposed to two) and the difference in price, though double, can be offset by taking the Taiwan railroad (75 cents) to the Tai-Yuan station near our apartment and walking a few blocks, as opposed to taking a taxi from the HSR train station here ($8us.) At any rate, it is a lot shorter and cheaper than visiting us in Brooklyn or having to come to Taiwan through Hong Kong.

Second Trip to Chung Yo Clearance

12-13-12

I went back to Eslite Bookstore's 75% off X'mas clearance sale. I spent $100 us on the following CD's and books: There were two more Leo Kottke CD's, his first, "Mudlark" and "Guitar Music," and I got them both. "Mudlark has a great version of "Eight Miles High" and "Bourree."  Speaking of They Byrds, I couldn't pass up Roger McGuinn's "Thunderbyrd" with their version of the Petty Byrds sound-alike "American Girl." Speaking of folk rock, I finally got Loggins & Messina's "Sittin' In" after all there years. On the blues side, they had a compilation called "The Beat Goes On…Atlantic's dance through the 50s, 60s, and 70s" and '60's versions of Mississippi John Hurt called "Satisfying Blues." On the rock side, I couldn't resist Love "Live," of a'78 concert at the Whisky A Go-Go. I also picked up my second Status Quo CD "The Essential, Vol. One." On the quirky side, I got Napoleon XIV "The Second Coming" he-he ha-ha ho-ho and Melanie's "Beautiful People; Greatest Hits" remastered by Robert Fripp of all people! There are no more CD's I am interested in buying in Taiwan; I've gotten them all! 

On the book side, I got some interesting titles that were too inexpensive to pass up. It would have been sad leaving them there with 99.44% of the natives unablle to read them, and who knows if I will one day, but I couldn't pass them up:  America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound by Andre Millard, Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom by Adrienne L. McLean, Triumph And Tragedy in Mudville by Steven Jay Gould, Man's Fate, a translation of the classic Andre Malraux novel about China, The Yosemite by John Muir himself, and The Essential Kahlil Gibran. Keep me away from that bookstore!!!! I wonder which I will read first if I read any at all! Anyway, they were fun buying and writing an e-mail to Jimmy about.

Ride Up Han River with My Son

12-16-12

I'm glad Ariel (my son) agreed to ride a bike with me up the banks of the Han River. Leona called her brother who got his son to lend us his bicycle, then Leona rode me on her scooter to her nephew's bushiban on Dong-Shan Road to pick it up and I rode it home. Ariel and I rode as far as Feng-Yuan on the bike path, ending at a 7-11 where we bought non-alcoholic drinks and rested. We the rode back towards home but not before I we made a detour to buy the turkey breast slices that would be the entree of dinner. I took him on a wild ride along the service road of the elevated railroad line they're putting up in search of a railroad crossing on the street grade. It was a rough road for ten minutes but we finally found a walkway underpass and got to Bei-Tun Road. I had the business card of the turkey restaurant but their location was too new and the address and phone number weren't printed on it! I guessed it was up the road in the direction we'd been before making a detour south looking for a railroad crossing. After asking a shopkeeper for directions ("Seven traffic lights that way.") we found it. My unusual order of three portions of white meat slices (180NT= $6us) was filled  (no rice, no sauce) and we rode off looking for a way back to the banks of the Han River,  back across a railroad crossing, within sight of it through the back streets of Tan-zih and foliage, but couldn't find a way through to the river dyke. We ended up riding down Bei-Tun Road to Dong-Shan Road and going through the railroad underpass back to The Beverly. Our total excursion was three hours. We had a wonderful time, just like the old days of father and son. Ariel was happy, too, but exhausted. He took a shower and waited for dinner. 

Third Trip to Chung Yo Clearance

12-17-12

This is what I bought on my third trip to the book/CD/record clearance (75% off) from Eslite in Chung Yo: I bought three more CD's; P.F. Sloan "Child of our Times: The Trousdale Demo Sessions 1965-1967," a CD which I had passed up on the first two trips to the Chung Yo clearance, for some reason. It has original demos of "You Baby," "Is It Any Wonder," and "Can I Get To Know You Better," all covered by the Turtles, and the demo for "Secret Agent Man" and other songs he wrote for many '60's pop stars (he wrote "Eve of Destruction" but it's not on this CD) that I love like The Grass Roots (who he started with Barri, a producer who took songwriting credit with him) Peter, Paul & Mary, The Vogues, and others. I haven't listened to the CD, yet. I also got "Buddy Holly" by The Hollies, their famous cover album of that great songwriter. I also got Big Bill Broonzy's "Good Boy," a compilation from Italy of his recordings from the forties and fifties, I think. As for books, I found three more that I might get around to reading: Terrorism For Humanity; Inquiries in Political Philosophy, by Ted Honderich, Opium, State, and Society; China's Narco-Economy and the Guomindang, 1924-1937 by Edward R. Slack, Jr., and last but not least, F. Scott Fitzgerald first novel, This Side of Paradise. All titles were a total $35us! 

Tan-Zih Sugarcane Rail Trail

12-20-12  Thurs. 

I am at the end (it looks like the end) of the Tan-Zih Sugarcane bike trail near the three KMT tanks. The weather is beautiful. I had to take off my Brooklyn hoodie it was so hot. I love this spot under a tree on a recycled plastic bench on a right-of-way; no cars or scooters going by. There are a couple of workers who unloaded a mini-tractor and are working on an uncompleted part of the bike path about one hundred feet in front of me. Occasionally a propeller plane flies into Taichung Airport which is just to the northeast. A few abandoned narrow-gage railroad tracks run behind the three old tanks ten feet away to my left. It will probably take me an hour to ride home, mostly with a right-of-way except when I pass through Beitun Road in Tan-Zih across the railroad crossing and back to the banks of the Han River and south to the intersection of Tai-Yuan Road where we live. 

Beitun Hot Springs

The air is so clean this morning in Taichung. The way the clouds are formed, to the west of Taichung on the hills of Shalu and Dadu, the houses are shining pretty in the morning sun. I've been looking on the maps and on-line to find a cheap hot spring to bathe in in the mountains nearby in Beitun. There's a place call Xiafei but I can't find its exact location. There is a phone number which I'll ask Leona to call when she gets up to see if it is what I want. I don't want to go to a hotel resort, just jump in an open spring. It probably doesn't exist. The springs in Beitun were drilled wells from satellite photos after the Sept. 1999 earthquake. I'll probably end up riding to my favorite spots in Feng-Yuan on the banks of the Han River. 

"Taste" Steak Restaurant

The restaurant, "Taste," for 550NT ($18us) offered us set menu choices of an appetizer, soup, salad, entree, drink and dessert. The American beef we each ordered was delicious though not a very large portion; 8oz. The worst part was the toasted white bread they masqueraded as garlic bread and bread sticks. The creme brule had a little too much emulsifier   but the coffee was good. Leona had a nice romaine salad with the crust of that same white bread masquerading as croutons. I had a dish of upside-down cup potato salad with one little shrimp on top. The shallow plate of mushroom in cream sauce they brought tasted like undiluted Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. The service was too fast and we asked the waiter to slow down; the waitress asked for our order the moment we sat down; Leona asked for five minutes to decide. But they paid attention to our request and held up the beef until we finished the appetizer.  The waiter seemed to denigrate my order of wine marinated beef saying it didn't taste like beef, if beef was what we wanted to taste, and the medium rare we wanted would make it chewy. I decided to change my order. For the price, the food was great and we would go there again. Leona filled out a review and gave it in. I had to tell Leona to explain that our waiters had paid attention to our request to slow down as she had not written so; they could have gotten fired or reprimanded instead of praised.The manager had sent her an e-mail when we got home thanking her for her comment and saying they would improve service.

Prejudiced Global Village Bushban

 The prejudiced Global Village bushiban across the street from the restaurant. Leona said she would contact the labor department to ask if it was legal to ask someone their religion on a job application. I told her I wasn't in Taiwan to change their stupid discriminatory laws and business practices. It doesn't matter why they didn't give me an interview or hire me. It's their loss as I would have brought them many students' tuition. But I hope Leona sues them and they go bankrupt. She won't sue them. They won't go bankrupt.

Foreign Spouse Sensitivity

Last evening, Leona rode with me to Feng-Yuan for the foreign spouses orientation meeting. It was a required of us when I applied for my permanent resident card and originally the time I was to be presented with it, that was before my emergency visit to Brooklyn made it necessary to pick up the card early and unnecessary to go to this foreign spouses meeting.

It was a long ride on Leona's scooter in a drizzle and we arrived early, one of the first couples there. We sat in a waiting area and were handed two bian-dangs (lunch boxes) which came with baggies filled with hot soup. The other new couples married to a foreign spouse starred arriving. Most foreign spouses were Asian, particularly from China, but there were two Caucasian foreign husbands besides me there. In all, about a dozen couples were called into a room after finishing eating our bian-dangs.

In time, an immigration officer came in and welcomed us, then introduced a friendly Taiwanese woman in her fifties who would conduct the spousal relationship sensitivity group meeting. She spoke Mandarin only and I was not quite sure what she was saying, unlike the other spouses who knew Mandarin from living in China before they emigrated to Taiwan. There were spouses from Inner Mongolia, Xin-Jiang, Szechuan, and other areas of China along with a few Vietnamese brides, one of which was married to this brutish Taiwanese farmer with whom she was raising a cute five-year-old from another of his marriages.

The counselor starred playing ice-breaking games with us designed to show how couples must be sensitive to each others' feelings. Leona wasn't very prompt translating and I became a bit disorientated trying to catch on. The counselor played a finger game that we had to copy to show how difficult it is to coordinate yourself with two fingers up, down, and sideways. Next, we had to stand, look at our spouse, and follow her instructions facing and turning our backs on each other. We each introduced ourselves, in Mandarin.

The one brutish man called his Vietnamese bride of a few months stupid and unable to learn anything. It was quite shocking for the group and totally embarrassing for this pitiful Vietnamese bride who sheltered his adorable daughter. The counselor told him in Taiwanese that surly there must be something about her that is good that made him marry her in the first place. He would have none of it. He got up and went outside.

Next, she handed us sheets of paper and markers. She asked each couple to draw their dream homes. Leona held the paper on her lap and I drew a condominium near the mountains and a stream. She drew two cats on the roof. I drew three children together on the right with a telephone receiver and radio tower between us, and one more child on the left side of the page in similar position. The counselor pointed out that it was good that we worked on the dream home picture together and that neither of the spouses took over. Next, she played 'musical newspaper' pages with us. Like musical chairs, we had to stand up with our spouses and walk around the room to children's' music until the music stopped and we both had to have a foot on one large newspaper page. The couple without a newspaper to stand on were eliminated. Then, the newspaper was folded, once, then twice, then three times until it was the size of a loose-leaf page. Leona and I lasted that long, she standing on my foot and balancing until I fell over and created to the floor! We were eliminated. The last couple, an American who met his wife in China, won, with his foot on the six inch square and his wife piggy-backed. They won a key chain. Finally, we were given little greeting cards and pens and asked to write love messages to each other. Then, our photos were taken with a Poloroid Instant camera and were bid farewell. The brutish Taiwanese man with his mortified young bride and daughter got on to a scooter and drove away. We all felt so badly for her and the child.

Afterwards, Leona rode us to Temple Street in Feng-Yuan where we had delicious wonton soup, oh-ah-me-swa noodle soup, slimy oyster pancake, iced pineapple drink, and deep-fried 'water-buffalo' chestnuts. Yum! We sat in the basement of the department store there to eat and relax before we got back on the scooter for the long ride home. 

Turtles in The Han River

On my bike ride back from up the Han River yesterday morning, I noticed a dark round object on one of the boulders in the stream. I thought it was a large turtle and took a picture of it with my cell phone. When it jumped off the boulder into the water, I knew it was a turtle. Just a few minutes later downstream, I noticed another dark smaller round object on a boulder. I took a photo of another turtle! When I got home I told Leona. She said there are no native turtles in the Han River; it must have gotten there by some buddhist to get good luck. When I woke up last night at 2am, I Googled "Turtles in Taiwan" and found that there are four native species of water turtle, according to some study some professor did. There were acknowledgements of Buddhist turtles, too, so Leona is probably right, though the study did find a few samples of turtle in the "Fun-Yuan" (sic) River. I was in Feng-Yuan when I saw the turtles. Leona's comment gave me the last verse in a poem I wrote along the bank of the Han yesterday.