PCM Taichung and Red Room Taipei Visit Cancelled by Hurricane Fung-Wang

9-11-14

      A few days ago I didn’t know there was a march planned for NYC at the UN against climate change. Damien alerted me to it in a taIWWan Facebook post. I got further information from Brooklyn for Peace and went to the website to look for an event on Sept. 21 in Taiwan. The closest one was in Japan. The site invited viewers to create an event and so I did: Meet at Taichung Park near the Holiday Inn at 10 am. March up Taichung Blvd. to City Hall where there would be a rally held on the court at noon. I shared it on Facebook and on every English-language Facebook page in Taiwan that I have joined. I am not holding my breath for anyone to join me but if there are at least ten people who respond, I just might go. Otherwise, it just looks good. I don’t know why the organizers of No-Nukes here didn’t pick up on this. IWW taIWWan is the official sponsor of the event here. Ha-ha!

    

9-12-14

      The People’s Climate March in NYC on Sept. 21^st I was alerted to by Damien is starting to take a life of its own in Taiwan. I flippantly signed up to create an event in Taichung and was contacted by Liangyi from 350.org, writing for PCM asking if I needed any support and sending me material about the March in Mandarin. I wrote back to him/her saying to send demonstrators there and materials to my address which I attached. I may go to Taipei and join the march there if there is one. I bcc’ed the activist  from Taipei and Miaoli about it.

          I changed the starting point of the route to Taichung City Hall on Sept. 21 on the "Peoples' Climate Mobilization" march, sponsorship by taIWWan, I call "Taiwan For Environmental Action And No Nukes!" I don't even know if I need a permit to march but no one has signed up to walk or help anyway and the march is a weekend away. 

       I sent the notice about the Taichung Environmental and Anti-Nuke March to all the Facebook pages I joined and got one response; a warning from someone about how a foreigner was deported for participating in a previous anti-nuke march. No one else has joined on the prepared page 350.org has prepared for those who want to initiate. All I have done is initiate. I think I will ride my bike to the park I mentioned in the announcement at 10 am this Sunday and look around for anyone else who's come for the event. I will take photos if anything's cooking. If Changyi or whomever is involved is spreading my announcement to Chinese speakers I don't know and he/she hasn't told me. I've only contacted English speakers besides the activist students I met in Miaoli and Taipei. Right now, the taIWWan "sponsorship" looks good on paper only. 

        No response from the 350 person from Taipei. I told him/her I had no responses to the even I posted in Taichung. I would have liked to hear that he/she knew people would be going but no response. It's like a mirage but I'll go to ride my bike there Sunday morning if one has shown up for the event. 

        Leona got HSR tickets for me to go to Taipei tomorrow. I have to catch the #1154 at 1:39 pm to arrive in Taipei at 2:30 pm. I will return to Taichung on #545 departing Taipei at 11:00 pm arriving in Taichung at 23:59 pm. The round-trip ticket is 1530NT - $51us. Going there, I would take a Taiwan Railroad local to the HSR at Xin Wu-Er but on the way home, I would have to take a 450nt - $15 taxi as the Taiwan Railroad will have stopped running by then. That sucks. I would be reimbursed if they had to cancel the train due to the typhoon but it would suck even further if I got stranded in Taipei! I will monitor the situation.

      There is a complication to my trip to Taipei Saturday and the Environment March planned for Taipei Sunday; they’re expecting a typhoon to skirt the eastern coast of Taiwan this weekend! My unattended Environmental march in Taichung won’t matter being cancelled but the one in Taipei probably will suck having, at best, to march in the rain and, at worst, be cancelled altogether if the typhoon gets too close and windy

9-20-14

      Typhoon Fung-Wang (Cantonese for “Phoenix”) slowed down over the Bashi Channel and picked up a lot of moisture after swamping the uppermost island, Luzon, in the Philippines. The typhoon moved slightly more to the west and will make landfall in Kenting at 11 pm tonight. Its eventual path up Taiwan is unknown, but what is known is there will be a devastating amount of rain in its wake.

 It remains to be seen if I was wise in cancelling my reservations on the HSR to Taipei today. Certainly, I would have gotten to Taipei two hours ago with no problem. Whether the Red Room open mike was cancelled I have no idea; I didn’t look, and no one contacted me to welcome me or tell me not to come.

9-20-14

      Pin Han Huang and Liangyi Chang contacted me today by e-mail from Taipei where they apparently still think there will be a march tomorrow in the typhoon. I had requested posters a few weeks ago, before the typhoon was coming. Today, Pin Han wrote: “I'm going to deliver the package through 7-11 service. They may have to check with the receiver by phone call as they get to your place.” Liangyi wrote: “How many participants so far? I hope you are doing well on the preparation! Pin from Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition (TWYCC) will help me to deliver the PCM-TW card (sic) to your place. May the Typhoon won't affect much.” 

 I’m not moving a muscle if it’s raining at all tomorrow at 10 am and Leona said it will probably be pouring. I will cancel the event (for those few who still might go) by 8 am if the rain comes, or maybe I shouldn’t bother.

      It’s 8:30. It just started raining.

      I took my bike ride early this morning because Leona had changed the tutoring of Jimmy to 10:30 because of my trip to Taipei, subsequently cancelled.

9-21-14

      There was no rain in Taichung until a few hours ago and now it’s just drizzle. 

      8 pm: As Category #1 Typhoon Fung-Wang (Cantonese for "Phoenix") edge touches the tip of Southern Taiwan. we are expecting 500-700 mm (20-30 inches) of rain before it is all over in less than a day. It could start raining here in a few hours. It is getting a little windy. Let's hope there are no mudslides in the mountains or damage. Here in Taichung, 500 mm of rain and 70 mph winds are expected. Don't worry about us. Stay tuned for further developments. 

It is 7 am now, nine hours since I last wrote. Curiously there has been no rain or wind in Taichung all night! They expect torrential rains and wind, but when? Meanwhile, there was a 5.3 earthquake we felt a few hours ago centered in Hua-lien on the east coast. We felt a tremor. All is well in the house and Taichung.

3pm: The rains and wind of this typhoon have spared Taichung and have taken a more eastern path up the length of Taiwan. The high mountain range between Taichung and the east coast is the main reason we avoided a deluge but we can have rain still; it has hardly started yet and it is now nineteen hours since I first wrote. The typhoon stopped moving for hours before changing course drenching Kaohsiung, Taitung, Hua-lien, and north to Keelung and Taipei.

I could have taken a bike ride this morning but I deferred to the typhoon. This whole weekend was deferred to a typhoon’s effects that never hit the places I planned to be before the weekend. The rest of Taiwan is being pelted with up to thirty inches of rain and high wind; not Taichung. Nothing is lost. I can go up to Taipei next month to read at Red Room. The Peoples’ Climate March in Taichung that I flippantly posted was all but twenty people strong from the Facebook pages I posted to; the 350.org people sent no reinforcements. The posters they were going to either give me at Red Room or mail me at 7-11 were never sent and wasted.

9-22-14

      It is finally raining in Taichung after a weekend of watching and waiting for the typhoon to decide where to go.The typhoons can hit or miss by the whim of the winds and mountain ranges they encounter. This one was so weird that it headed west across the Philippines and made an abrupt right turn directly towards Taiwan, and then, with the formidable mountain range up Taiwan's spine, decided to hug the right side of it and drench the east coast with 40-50 inches of rain through to Taipei; we on the west of the mountains (where 90% of people here live) are only now getting the after-rain the typhoon drags out of the ocean.