The Painful Sideshow of Dr. Wells Dentistry Returns

      Two and a half years later, after posting the original entry in January 2014, two viewers read my blog piece from Taichung Journal about Dr. Chen from Dr. Well's Dental Office near Chung-Yo Department Store in Taichung and commented. I just couldn't resist the irony to reply to the new comments: 

1. Freddie GrayJuly 26, 2016 at 7:39 PM

   I think that you handled this the right way. Had you confronted or blamed the dentist, it could have made for a very uncomfortable situation in the chair when he makes the repair. By allowing the dentist to save face, you handled it like a professional and you will eventually get the result that you want.

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   Quinn KimbroughJuly 26, 2016 at 9:32 PM

   There is nothing worse than a toothache. I can't even imagine being in a foreign land dealing with the localdentists about a tooth problem and knowing more about the remedy than he does. I want to say "hang in there" but when it comes to toothaches I think it's more "grin and bear it" until you can find a dentist.

 Dear Freddie and Quinn:

     Just this very day, I returned to the same dental office and the same dentist. It was to deaden a tooth that he had placed a cap on in June. The first left lower molar tooth, which had been sensitive since early May, was still sensitive but, at the advice of the dentist then, and a second opinion, I agreed to live with the sensitivity, brush regularly with special toothpaste, and see what happened. 

     What happened was that a week ago, the sensitivity became worse. For three nights, it became excruciating after 9 pm; once the busy day left me time to feel the pain. When I lay down to sleep, not ten minutes later, I bolted up and found a sip of room temperature water leaving a pool around the tooth, seemed to make the throb stop, but ten minutes later, I was startled up again; this went on all night long until I finally fell asleep out of fatigue. 

     Dr. Chen not being in until Wednesday, I visited a third local dentist who refused to mess with another dentist's work, even if it was to relieve my pain, and instead gave me a prescription for pain killers and antibiotics with an admonition to return to the source.  

     It has been a divine comedy of saving face with this dentist from the start, as your timely and ironic comments provoked my memory. The toothache, from rotting teeth and receding gums, began in April this year. 

     When I had pain, initially, I was going to go to a local dentist instead of Dr. Chen at Dr. Wells Clinic to see the dentist who did my implant, but my wife erroneously tipped off the Wells office and I had to turn my change of dentist into a 'second opinion' so I could still get another implant, if needed without making Mr. Chen lose face; he is good at implants.
        On my return, he made a mold for a temporary cap that, unlike in Brooklyn, had to be outsourced, so I would have to wait. I declined and went to the States for my daughter's wedding with nothing on the tooth. All went well.

      When we returned to the dentist after the stateside trip, I went back to Dr. Chen who then made a mold; I had to wait two weeks for a temporary cap, anyway! I went home with nothing on the tooth again. 
      Two weeks later, he put on the temporary cap. Dr. Chen then said I should wait a month with the cap to see if the sensitivity was bearable before putting on a permanent cap, but I said that since so much time had already passed since the initial pain in April, I needed no further evidence that I could handle a cap and not need a root canal.  He agreed to put it on in three weeks. 

     Anyway, to make a too long story a little shorter, after three sleepless nights and one on pain killers, the pain was unabated. Dr. Chen took me in at my wife's insistence, drilled a hole in the porcelain cap he had recently put on, cut the rotting nerve that was causing all the pain, and set me up to get a root canal and new cap in two months time when my tooth is strong enough to bear the stress. 
     Before working on me, my wife politely asked him to give me enough Novocaine. He shot me up the back jaw which did nothing to numb the front molar. He came back and shot me up again, same place, and it again did nothing. I then asked my wife to ask him to shoot me up at the gum under the tooth, which he then did saying he was going to do that all along. Okay, save his face and lose my own. 
     By the way, isn't a dentist supposed to take an x-ray after the procedure to make sure the nerve is cut? 

https://www.blogger.com/(https://taichungjournal.blogspot.tw/2014/03/a-trip-to-dentist.html)

     We left at 11am, me on the bike and Leona and Amanda on the scooter and went to the Chung Yo Dept. Store area to see the dentist at Dr. Wells Clinic. Once again, before we went to Sitou, my cap fell out, then, because of the space it left between, the implant behind the cap got loose. After the dentist tightened the implant, he told Leona the reason the cap fell out was because the implant got loose but I think it was the other way around. ‘Saving face’ is very important. It is true however that my first trip to the dentist in Taiwan was because the implant came loose. Nothing was done to remedy the situation. Now, the dentist will ‘do research’ to find a longer stem for my obsolete short ten-year-old design implant that Dr. Benjamin installed five years ago.

     Leona defended the dentist again when I questioned why he has to do ‘research’ about getting a longer screw for my implant; he blames the ‘too short screw’ for the loose cap he made on the tooth in front of it. I suggested he write directly to the company that makes the screws instead of, what Leona said he’d do, ask around other dentists in Taiwan to see if they have it. She said he was saving us money by doing so

Chabad Rabbis in Taichung Park

7-26-16 

      I asked their names and they told me, but I soon forgot. The one who sent me four photos (two duplicates) on the internet from our meeting was the caller who signed he and his buddy as “The Young Rabbis.” They weren’t rabbis yet as they weren’t ordained or whatever you call it when you become an official rabbi.

     They were young men; 21 and 24. I guessed  the age of the one who never smiled was 27; “We look older because of our beards,” he said. The two rabbi wannabes were replacing Rabbi Shlomi, sent from Hong Kong a few years ago to be their franchise in Taiwan. He was on sabbatical in Israel with his wife and family for a month. They told me this on the phone when they called Sunday. When we got disconnected, I thought I heard the last from them, but the older one called back yesterday, said they were in Taichung, and wanted to meet; anywhere with me was fine. I suggested Taichung Park.

They were on time, in the twin gazebos on the lake that I had indicated; I called them Sukkots and they smiled for second. I led a stroll around my favorite Taichung meeting place pointing out a few historical sites which led to a bronze statue. I pointed out the huge lantern of the goat done for the year of it, 2015, and put there. He asked if it was new and I said, "No, it is a scapegoat from the past." He snickered in irony.

The only time the older man intentionally mentioned a preference, it was for avoiding the monument to Confucius; it had a seat and was shaded so I headed there. Instinctively, it looked too much like an idol which cannot be worshiped in Judaism, though I had no such thought in mind, though many do worship the Chinese rabbi. Instead, he chose an area nearby where retired men sat and chatted on benches around a tree. They looked at us strangely when we sat down.

My story was longer than theirs because I am older and more interesting, but I asked a few questions which the older one answered. No surprise; they were originally from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, their parents were orthodox (“No, not conservative,” the elder corrected me sternly) and were coming from Israel. I told them that I told my wife that they would probably ask me to put on tefillin and pray with them, as they do with Jewish commuters leaving the NYC subway stations, and that is exactly what he did.

"The tefillin are to serve as a reminder of God's intervention at the time of the Exodus from Egypt.^[9] Maimonides details of the sanctity of tefillin and writes that "as long as the tefillin are on the head and on the arm of a man, he is modest and God-fearing and will not be attracted by hilarity or idle talk; he will have no evil thoughts, but will devote all his thoughts to truth and righteousness."^[10] The Sefer ha-Chinuch(14th century) adds that the purpose of tefillin is to help subjugate a person's worldly desires and encourage spiritual development.^[11] Joseph Caro (16th century) explains that tefillin are placed on the arm adjacent to the heart and on the head above the brain to demonstrate that these two major organs are willing to perform the service of God." - Wikipedia 

I was asked when the last time was I did this and said two years earlier; it’s true - outside the Sheepshead Bay subway station. I told them who they were to me, that I didn't believe the messiah had come yet, and that I had seen their messiah, Schneerson the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in Crown Heights, but I didn’t mention it was on a TV screen, the same screen I had seen his heavily attended funeral procession through the streets of Brooklyn.

  A few of the nearby Taiwanese men were curious what was going on; they had never seen  rabbis before and not too many foreigners, either!  They  wanted photos of us together with them! It was nice of the rabbi wannabes to ‘check up’ on me as some retirees are lost in space; I am not one of them, knock on wood. 

 My issue with conservative capitalists on the “Jew list” in Taiwan, mostly busy exploiting working people outsourced in Asian sweatshops, intrigued them. I think the list-maker was their next appointed stop.

 Mentioned then was my connection with the 95-year-old Rabbi Einhorn, the other rabbi in Taiwan, but the honorable Conservative rabbi, who advised me in 1979 and whose Rosh Hashanah ceremony I had attended last year, hadn't been mentioned to them by Shlomi. 

 They were sent the link to the Taichung Journal blog piece “Judaism; My Faith,” about the presentation I had done at National Chi Nan University. I had sent it to Shlomi without getting any response. (https://taichungjournal.blogspot.tw/2016/05/judaism-my-faith-presentation-at.html) 

We strolled to their rental car parked on the street (“Why are the red lights so long here?”) and I was given a book called Daily Wisdom before they left. They didn’t have any of the food stuff I imagined they'd have (I asked for halvah)  when they said they had things for sale from Israel; only Shabbos candles and mezuzahs and such. I asked for Hanukkah candles but they referred me to Shlomi. The 1000 NT bill -$31 I’d brought for purchase was instead lost on the sidewalk when I went to get the key to unchain my bike.  

 Thanks to donations from the Chabad movement of Rabbi Schneerson, they could travel the world, just like the Mormon recruiters, but a lot more selective; only Jews, please.

The National Palace Museum Heads South

  July 23, 2016 

     I wasn’t paying attention when my wife said she made plans to visit the new Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum after we got back from Alishan. I was wondering why we took the HSR instead of the Taiwan Railroad to Chiayi as we had done in the past. She explained that the new museum was a ten minute shuttle ride away from the HSR but over a half hour ride from the main line which was closer to the Alishan road. After a day and a night in Alishan Park, we rode back to the Chiayi HSR station and took a shuttle bus to spend a pleasant afternoon in the museum. 

  The Southern Branch of the Palace Museum, built far from Taiwan’s cultural center in Taipei, is in the most out-of-the-way place you could imagine in central Taiwan. There are no restaurants or buildings between it and the HSR train station; only huge, empty boulevards, such as you've seen in 'ghost' cities popping up in China. Sugar cane plantations remain on the land not appropriated for the museum grounds. 

The Palace Museum website says the reason the Southern Branch was built in Taibo City, Chiayi County, was "to achieve cultural equity between the Northern and the Southern regions of Taiwan, and to drive the cultural, educational, social, and economic development in both regions.”

The entire construction budget of eight billion Taiwan dollars ($250 million) for the museum, which finally opened in January after an eight year delay, and then was delayed again because of bad construction causing rain water leakage, is not worth all the time and effort put into it. 123 acre of empty parkland, a man-made lake with a footbridge surrounds the fancy black museum drenched in scorching subtropical Taiwan sunlight, the planted trees barely larger than twigs at this point. It will take dozens of years for the trees to afford any shade on the long walk from the parking lot and bus stop to the main entrance of the building.

The Palace Museum’s “attempt to drive the development of cultural tourism in Central and Southern Taiwan” and “include unique cultural elements of Taiwan” is a little too far-fetched at this point and smacks of cultural chauvinism, especially considering how most of the people in Taiwan, south of Taipei, would prefer promotion of their own island history and culture, independent from cultural affinity with Mainland China. There is clandestine political socialization going on here, the only kind available to the Chinese ruling class now that there is no martial law to enforce it heavy-handedly.

 A survey by the Tourism Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation and Communication done in 2013 showed that 70% of visitors from China went to Taipei to see the 700,000 artifacts at Palace Museum brought by the KMT to Taiwan when they lost the civil war to the Peoples’ Republic of China in 1947. The National Palace Museum was opened in 1965 with Qing Palace artifacts (thus the name Palace Museum)  from the imperial family consolidated over thousands of years.

   I am guilty of breaking a rule at the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum: I took a photo of the promenade outside the galleries. Dozens of docents strolling through the beautiful new museum were told that, to keep it that way, they had to assist patrons looking for exhibits, or fumbling with the self-guided tour devices or prevent patrons from looking for trouble by holding a stick with a round white sign with a symbol reminding patrons not to smoke, talk, or take photos. In all fairness, I was not the intended target of the ‘no photo’ rule, even in the promenade. For sure, there are tour groups itching to take group photos in the museum. 

From Taipei, travel to the museum takes more than four hours by bus, train, or car, and ninety minutes by High Speed Rail (HSR) which has a station fifteen minutes away by shuttle bus. I wonder how many tourists, 70% of the Chinese or otherwise, would bother taking a lengthy ride down south. They could pair the tour with a trip to Alishan Mountain, also accessible from Chiayi, but that would take another three hours travel in the other direction up a winding, dizzy road. 

 However, there is a good reason to head south: the Southern Branch offers exhibits you cannot find anywhere else in the world. My favorite is the wonderful  occasion predestined: Unveiling the Kangxi Kangyur, original first-hand documents in the Manchu Archives, written and sealed 347 years ago, in 1669, thanks to the urging of Kangxi Emperor's grandmother, who had a deep appreciation of Tibetan Buddhism. 

It will not soon be creating an appeal that will rival that of the Louvre Museum or “encourage visitors to Taiwan to visit both museums” as predicted in their mission statement. Their “objective of making Taiwan a global cultural hotspot with a macro perspective” is a smokescreen for bringing Taiwanese closer to China; not a bad idea, anyway.

One of the first temporary exhibits in the Southern Branch of the Palace Museum is about Emperor Jiaqing who, although never visiting Taiwan, more than two centuries later, this emperor’s legend is exploited in the National Palace Museum collection Taiwanese folklore “offering audiences an opportunity to gain a new understanding and appreciation of the Jiaqing emperor through a dialogue between legend and fact, thereby opening a new chapter of awareness on the life and art-related activities of this long-neglected ruler in the Qing dynasty.” Obviously, the museum is either hedging its bets against tourists visiting this remote museum or hoping to attract more China fans from Taiwan’s independence-minded south.

     There is a hotel being built across the boulevard from the grounds, and a few condominiums going up in the distance, but for the time being, there is nothing else but sugar cane plantation and vacant lots in the fifteen minute shuttle bus ride from the High Speed Rail Chiayi station, itself in the middle of nowhere, far from downtown Chiayi and local civilization. 

     The people of Taiwan have a lot going for them in their island culture mix of aboriginal tribesmen, Dutch colonists, brought Hakka and Ming-Nan settlers, Japanese imperialism and American commercialism, an exodus of mainland refugees after the civil war, an influx of  Southeast Asians, Buddhist and  Muslim culture brought over with foreign brides and contracted laborers. But, first and foremost, the tie that bind Taiwan with its predominant Chinese ancestors, is the cultural influences. Chinese culture is welcoming to Taiwanese of all origins.  The Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum  spent dozens of years, hundreds of painstaking hours of research, and a quarter billion dollars to make a connection between Taiwan and Chinese Culture in Central Taiwan.  

Return to Alishan Mountain

  

 7-23-16     

     We returned to Alishan National Park after a two-year absence. The package to Alishan included hotel, admission, and a round-trip bus ride up to the park, but not a bus reservation itself! For a few minutes, it was unclear if we would be able to get on the bus at the HSR station as dozens of travelers with reservations piled on. As it turned out, we just made it in; in fact, in my opinion, we got the best front seats on the right. Incredible as it is, considering how reckless some people in Taiwan are, no one else wanted to sit in those “dangerous” seats! We fastened our seat belts and headed up to the 2,500 foot high scenic spot on the two hour ride from the HSR station. Our bus driver was excellent and obeyed the law. (Note: Never go to sites on weekends.)

An Alishan Rail Station in July 2014

The park now

      

     Alishan National Park was much more comfortable than it had been the last time we went up two years ago; July 2014. Back then, we had to contend with thousands of Chinese visitors in unruly tour groups that clogged the arteries of paths in the park and the village. Because of the Xi Jun-Ping policy change on tourism outside China (some say to punish Tsai Ying-Wen’s DPP for winning the presidential election in Taiwan, but the policy also affected Macao, Hong Kong, and the rest of the world) the flood of tourists from the mainland dried up last year.

Entrance to the Sunrise Viewing Trail

Exhibits along the Sunrise Viewing Trail of first 

Japanese Alishan scout (top) and discovery of 

migratory salamanders (below).

     

     There were more tourists there than on trips previous to the deluge of tourists from China two years ago, even on a week day, but we were able to find a peaceful path towards the famous sunrise view our first afternoon there, though when we reached the lookout point closest to the trail's end, the mountains off the cliff were shrouded in fog, a fog that engulfed us, too. We were pre-warned a short time earlier along the path by a Belgium couple who said the blue sky had clouded over while they were there.

Despite the breathing room we had, thanks to the absence of most Chinese tour groups, Alishan Village hotels are still as ratty as ever. The choice of food in limited restaurants and the poor complimentary breakfast from the hotel was just as bad. The hotel room, in a different hotel on the strip was small and just as moldy as the last room we had booked, though the mattress, just replaced, was softer. The other guests were just as noisy and inconsiderate, too. The staff was still indifferent to us and pandering to rude tourists’ chaos. We got an unwanted ‘wake-up' call at 3:30 am! The bathroom floor was wet from a toilet leak. I won’t name the hotel because, aside from the hard-to-book Alishan Hotel mansion, they’re all the same.

     The damage done by overcrowding that caused paths to be constructed to protect the environment is still there and more paths are being constructed. The nicest part of the park, with the tallest cypress trees, looked like a construction zone with corrugated fencing blocking access and ruining scenery. Still, many Chinese (and some Taiwanese) tourists trampled unprotected ground, stepped on precious thousand-year-old root systems, and pulled bark off the red cypress trees despite pleas from their tour guides not to. We saw one Chinese tour group laugh and snicker when the guide explained the significance of the monument  the Japanese had constructed to appease the tree gods that were injured by being cut down and shipped to Japan to construct temples; the laugh was for those who believe in the gods, and the snicker for the Japanese.

     I snuck out of the hotel room early in the morning (too early to see the sunrise at the lookout point) see if I could find any starts in the sky. The fog that had shrouded the grounds and brought a bit of rain was gone but the full moon and lights from the village made the sky too bright. I grabbed a hot dog from 7-11 and returned followed by a few of the village stray dogs. 

Big Snow Mountain Day Trip

      Slightly north of Taichung, a bit further east in the foothills past the Hou-Feng and Dong-Feng Bike Trails, in Dongshih, you pick up the road to Big Snow Mountain National Park. 

      On the way, the King Villa Bed and breakfast, which is actually a small hotel, is in Heping just across the Dongshih county line.This cozy hotel, at the 13 km bus stop, is less than an hour’s drive from Taichung, but it feels like it is hours away because of the elevating winding road to get there. The tiny valley in the foothills, in which this legal "homestay" is located, can only hold two or three other small hotels, one outdoor roadside Taiwanese restaurant, and a few small-truck roadside pear stands, pears being the major crop of the valley. We made a reservation at the restaurant as soon as we arrived as we were told that, if we didn’t, it might be closed in the evening if there weren’t enough patrons.

      Aside from the high-voltage pylons which draped overhead, the village has an  old-time Taiwan farmland feel with barking dogs, honking geese, and a crowing rooster. A group of middle-aged hikers in retirement took over an adjourning hotel, reserved three round tables for dinner, and sang karaoke into the night. In the valley below, we could see the pear trees surrounding a retiree’s western-style ranch house modified with a requisite ancestor alter room on top looking like a Nantucket widow’s watch. The Big Snow Mountain Road is the only road through, a narrow two-way along which there are two public mini-bus lines heading up the 3,000 meter climb from Feng-yuan to the park in the morning and returning in the afternoon.

      Big Snow Mountain (Dasyueshan 大雪山) doesn’t have sexy features like roaring waterfalls, hot springs, or abandoned factories that some travelers and hikers  often expect, but what it lacks in bells and buzzers it more than makes up for in sheer natural beauty, non- commercial, and convenient to reach. 

The bus from Taoyuan Train Station is inexpensive and comfortable enough. The bus with last stop at the park entrance, leaves at 8 am and arrives around 10 am. It returns to Fengyuan Station at 2 pm for a nice one-day trip. But if you can drive there, an alternate plan is to go up in the morning, check into the hotel on the way, reserve dinner across the road, and go straight to the park. The park closes at 4pm. Try to leave before it gets dark.

        See video of  the Big Snow Mountain Road here: 

             https://www.facebook.com/david.b.temple/videos/10209877207066288/

     It is important to note that there are no convenience stores either near the little hotels or at Big Snow Mountain. Prepare your own drinks and even your own meals, or have Taiwanese dinner (I recommend their sautéed noodles, and bitter melon with duck egg) and enjoy a Taiwanese evening on the outdoor patio looking at the stars above or the city lights past the valley below. King Villa includes a small cold breakfast.

     The drive up from the hotel is another ninety minutes through a beautiful, but dangerous, narrow winding road, with only concave mirrors at turns to see you through. Go slowly and take care. There are a few nice stops along the misty way. When you get through the long, one-lane Henglingshan Tunnel, you are almost there. Make sure the tunnel is empty before entering or someone will have to back up a long, narrow way.

 The admission to the park is not expensive (200 NT a car) and the parking is free. For hikers, there are six trails two or more hours long with beautiful views of Jade Mountain (Yushan) and even Sun Moon Lake on clear days. There is often mist, clouds, rain, and in the winter, yes, there can be snow on Big Snow Mountain. The temperature, even in summer, can get as low as 15 degrees Celsius, so bring a jacket and rain gear.

The birds and animals you can see in Big Snow Mountain Park are a delight to find, unless it's a Formosan black bear, of course! While I was there, I spotted a monkey (Macaca cyclopis), squirrels (Tamiops swinhoe formosanus), a chipmunk, four different kinds of birds, though not the treasured Syrmaticus Mikado, and I didn’t have to use binoculars. (Can you spot the monkey in the photos on the right?)

    My favorite path: Walk from the visitors center, up about fifteen minutes, to lovely little Sky Lake (Tianchih), watch the fog rising off the surface, and then walk a half hour down a long sloping paved road (an hour up, for sure) to a valley to see the beautiful 1,400 year old Formosan red cypress. It is 46 meters high and 13 meters in circumference. It is the eleventh tallest tree in Taiwan.

     Two important traveler tips: One – You should never go up on weekends or holidays; too crowded. Two – the only hotel on the camp ground requires group reservations a month in advance. 
     If you are in the Taichung area, you could make a great day-trip up to Big Snow Mountain, or even stay overnight to enjoy a cool, dry break from Taiwan’s sweltering heat. Enjoy the sweetest Asian pears and corn; even buy a box for your friends, for half the price at city markets, and help the local farmers who lost almost all their crop in last winter’s frost. Let’s hope the snow stays on top of Big Snow Mountain, where it belongs, and you are there to experience its natural beauty.