The Happy Hobo's Refuge in Taichung

12-13-15 

      I went to The Refuge for the first time yesterday. It is right up Dong-Shan Road to the right of the little traffic circle on Buzi Road, but I got lost anyway; ended up doing a loop up and down the Da-keng mountain slope and back to the 7-11 on the corner of Buzi Road. After I got straight, the place was remote but easy to find. Around sixty guests paid 300 NT each to get in to the "4th Hobo Happiness."

The Refuge is in what must have been a beautiful, western-style, two story cement tiled home on a cul-de-sac, with walled entrance and a large patio and private backyard. It is not beautiful anymore. If it were made of wood and not cement, it would be rotting apart. They may have gotten it cheaply after the 1999 earthquake affected the zone which it is in. The grounds are in shambles. Things are makeshift in the public area. 

Jack Conqueroo https://youtu.be/NjEHzR9fGc0
performs at the 4th Hobo Happiness

The reason for my visit was to attend a Facebook advertised “4^th Hobo Happiness,” with musical guest Jack Conqueroo, a Robert Johnson-styled electric blues guitarist, harp player, and singer from Canada. He was rather good, though his set was too short. The  act before him, of two drunken male guitarists singing Dylanesque songs, went on too long. Mojo and Sons, who came on after Conqueroo, was a country folk trio of banjo, guitar, kazoo, clarinet, and great harmonies. I didn’t catch the name of the pedestrian folk singer who came on after the bluegrass trio and talked too much about himself; I left mid-set.

Before I left, I made sure to thank Paul Davies in person for publishing my radical articles on the Refuge Facebook page. Most of the time, Paul was marching around doing things to make the mostly thirty-five-year-old guests happy. At first, I had mistaken Paul for a man named Mitch, a dried up slender oldster with a patch on his left ear sitting with a younger Asian woman. He told Paul I was looking for him early on and I left it at that. The only person I recognized there was the guitar accompanist of a local blues singer that holds open-mic at PJ's. I met and spoke with other nice people who had come from all over Taiwan to this event.

Mojo and Sons https://youtu.be/UORTH2Xtwuk
perform at 4th Hobo Happiness

The “Food by Rita’s Kitchen" was simple and no pizza did I see from Rocky’s Pizza from 4pm when I arrived until 7:30 pm when I left. Rita’s kitchen was vegetarian chili and burrito. Despite the "healthy" meatless cuisine, there was plenty of cigarette smoke and vape, beer and alcoholic drinks of which I had three whiskey-ginger ales for 100 NT each.  I thought perhaps someone would bring out the hamburgers and sausages when the bon fire was lit, but there was nary a marshmallow roasted over it. I left early, hungry. On the way out, the street was clogged with motorcycles and cars of party-goers. Mine was the only bicycle I saw parked outside.

      Paul Davies is an interesting person, friendly and vivacious. He calls his blog "The Militant Hippi." He is more the latter than the former. The only militarism I could find in his blog history was a stint in the voluntary U.S. army in the early 90's, though he fancies himself at risk to the KMT police that took his picture when he played music at a "Wild Strawberry Movement" rally. In his blog writings, he celebrates his twentieth "Taiwanniversary" and reviews how he ended up living in Taichung, Taiwan. He says he had a good job back in Boston but doesn't mention what he did, only that he considered becoming a police officer in Chinatown. He rants in articles against Gxd and religion and in favor of vegetarianism.

Guests enjoy the Tiki-bar atmosphere  at The Refuge 

     Paul Davies mentions getting his "degrees" at UMass but doesn't mention what his "degrees" were in. He is affiliated with Donghai University here in Taichung, originally as a student, and met a number of intellectual ex-pat friends there. For his Bruce Lee fetish and martial arts  interest (he opened a school once in Boston) and Mandarin study, it is clear that Paul Davies loves Chinese culture and Taiwan. 
     Paul Davies doesn't mention his family background growing up in Boston in the blog, which he says has gotten fifty thousand visits. He is no working class stiff and not a union man. The house that he has since 2008 in Da-keng, and the 30,000 ping space he rented at the old Dongshan Paradise theme park (that had been destroyed in the 1999 earthquake) must have been paid for by someone, perhaps by the volunteers and friends who come and go and float with him. "It's financially self-sufficient," Paul said in an interview in 2011.

Paul Davies (right) makes music in The Refuge sound studio 

      LUVstock was a three-day musical party, held at Dongshan Paradise yearly, until he left his lease in 2013 and moved it back to his property. Though his musical aspirations never left him, he managed to settle down enough to marry and even raise a child. There is certainly a lot of sharing what he has with others and a new age spirit glow; donations accepted. 
     Whatever one wants to think about Paul Davies, the “4^th Hobo Happiness,” "LUVstock," and other events he has organized are not about him, per se, but about getting Taiwan's English-speaking ex-pats together as a community and for fun. Music and art predominate in his home and a volunteer spirit permeates the grounds.