My friend Teddy, aka the Carnivorous Teddy Bear, told me that my old base outside of Miaoli, where I did most of my military service, has been abandoned for some time. Because of filming and other obligations, I couldn’t get away from Taipei to check this out, but this Sunday was free and I really felt like getting on a train to somewhere, so I went to Taipei Train Station and hopped on the first train to Miaoli that had a window seat available. I have to do this periodically in lieu of a real vacation, which I haven’t had in several years, or else I’ll go crazy. And there’s something about train travel that particularly appeals to me, just floating down the tracks watching the gleams of sunlit water in the rice fields keeping pace with the train, no thought of traffic, scheduled stops. Of course the best train trips are with a band on your way to a gig somewhere new and exciting.

The weather was hot, sunny and muggy at the same time when I arrived in Miaoli. The bus stop where we used to get tickets was moved across the street. They’ve covered the old ugly station with white tiles so it just looks new and ugly. The rest of the city looks basically the same, except the bus station downtown is gone; looks like it was literally wiped off the map, and the buses now circle a tiny little stand that looks more suitable for some kid should be selling lemonade.

The winding mountain road that used to bisect the base has been widened. Trees used to grow over the road, but now it’s a four-lane highway, and new walls have been built around the base areas. From what I could see as the bus drove past, Teddy was right; the buildings were all abandoned, and the main gates were shut tight. I got off just past the base and started walking down the road that winds behind it. It smelled just like I remembered.

I went to see if the side gate was accessible. It wasn’t. A pile of old ammunition boxes was even thrust against the inside, I saw when I climbed on a rock to see inside. Grass had grown up all over the former parking lot inside, and not a soul was in sight.

I kept walking to the rear of the base and passed the little side base where we kept the ammunition stores. It was abandoned as well, wild grass growing over what had been a neat little park-like area where we’d spent a lot of time and sweat keeping the munitions in order.

Although the side gate was closed, I remembered a way onto base that we had used to surrepticiously get on and off base without going through the main gates. I walked around back through the old village, stopping to chat with some of the old guys who sat around in the shade of a giant tree. They said the Miaoli County Government is in charge of the base, and they’re considering building a medical center there.

I fought my way through the dense undergrowth to the rear wall, went up and over a low spot I remembered, scaring some cats as I pushed through the briars and around the barbed wire…let’s see, where was it? Oh, yeah: a little slot I could just scrape through. If you didn’t know about it it would be nearly impossible to find. Odd that I was trying to get in to a place I’d often wanted to get out of so badly back then.

I found myself tiptoeing as I walked along the road that ran along the back of the base by the garages where we used to keep jeeps and hummers. I mentally went through explanations should anyone find me there. Stacks of gigantic tree trunks lay in some of the assembly areas, and the grass had grown waist-high. Except for the bees buzzing, it was quiet. I spotted some strange, new-looking posts with black glass areas that looked like sensors placed at intersections. Motion sensors? Alarms? Were they perimeter-based or did they send a beam across the road, high enough that stray dogs wouldn’t trip it off? I guessed it was a beam arrangement and was careful to stay out. No alarms sounded. Even if they did, I wouldn’t hear them in any case. With all the gates closed up, anybody coming to investigate would have to be on foot.

I waded through the grass to the old Karaoke bar, which was just built when I was there. When I was about to get out, I was put in charge of the place, tending the fish, cleaning it out, and other easy tasks usually given to soldiers about to be discharged. The bar was still there, with a couple of chairs. I walked across the tile floor, thinking how many times I’d mopped it. The fish were gone, of course, as were all the electronics.

Our barracks were cleaned out as well. I took a photo of the place this one was taken before, though the angle is a little different. Makes it seem an age or more ago. Grass covered the areas in between the buildings, and more huge logs were stacked on the paradeground. The roads had become paths through the encroaching grass. I wandered around a bit, taking pictures, recalling various things that happened here and there. Too many, really.

I walked up the paradeground to the main gate. If anyone were watching the place, they’d be there. Sure enough, as I rounded the big sign and statue of an elderly Chiang Kai-shek with hat in hand, I saw a guy sitting in the building across from the old guard barracks. I modified my path so that it looked like I had just slipped through the gate before he saw me. A half dozen dogs came out with him.

“What do you want?” he said, and I explained that I’d served on the base many years before and heard the place was being torn down, so I’d come for a last look. He got a kick out of that, and the dogs, seeing this, became a lot less menacing.

“I even met the general after that; I kind of stand out, so he remembered me,” I told him at one point. He nodded, and then looked at me.

“Yeah, hey,” he said. “You know, I think you’ve got some foreigner blood in you.” I looked for sarcasm in his voice and didn’t find any.

“That’s very observant of you; no wonder they chose you to guard the base,” I said, trying to sound sincere. In fact, he said, it wasn’t a bad gig. 12 hours a day, a decent monthly salary and he could do whatever he pleased. They didn’t have any water and had to bring their own, however, which pissed him off. He got a real kick out of my description of the base as it had been. He’d heard it was once very nice, but he didn’t know what had been what and was facinated to find out where everything had been. He must have really been bored out of his skull.

We chatted for a while, with him saying he’d buy and read my book, since just about everything in it happened right there. The afternoon was getting on, so I said goodbye and went to the other side of the road, where the other guard was letting a woman out the gate. He wouldn’t let me in, no matter what I said, though. He was adamant. I wondered if he had some kind of scheme going on on base.

I said ok, seeya, and walked around to the side, where there was another breach in the wall just near where the old side gate had been before they’d widened the road. The gap was partially filled with a painting I remembered hanging on the wall of the activity center that was hardly ever used except for promotion ceremonies, etc. I was promoted to corporal in there.

I climbed over the painting and ducked behind the old PX to avoid the guard’s line of sight, but I’d only gone a few paces when I surprised a dog, a dog with an expression that made it very clear it would be all bite regardless of bark on my ass if I didn’t get out of there. Neither was appealing, so retreated. It was my only way in, so I didn’t get to see that part of the base. Too bad. Still, I got an idea from the other areas what it would be like: big empty rooms where things I remembered happened, totally unlike the base I knew when I was there, eerie and cold and totally devoid of life in a way I’d imagined once when the power went out during Typhoon Herb. Now it was deserted for real, and once again I had to remind myself that it was the people in the buildings that made them what they were, more than the buildings themselves. The base will probably be torn down before I get to see it again in any case. At least I have plenty of photos.

Back outside the base, most of the businesses that had catered to the large population of soldiers had closed their doors. Only one or two remained, dusty patches and belt buckles shining dully in the late afternoon sun. I caught a bus back to town and walked to the train station, but because it was the end of the weekend, the trains were packed with people just finishing up visiting their homes and returning to the city where they work.

On my way over the suspension bridge, I saw a gaggle of photographers surrounding a young girl sitting on the bridge’s planks with her leg at a strange angle. At first I thought she might have fallen, but the dozen-odd young men were just taking pictures of her foot, or possibly something she’d just stepped in. I took out my camera and took a shot of them taking pictures, earning some looks of disdain as I did so. Honestly, it was hard to keep from laughing out loud.

Work tomorrow; back to my Taipei life. It was good to get out for a bit, though.

Every Monday evening I play badminton with two pug-nosed women in the musty, mosquito-filled gym along the banks of the Xindian River. The red velvet curtains have never been raised and keep the muggy heat in quite efficiently in the summer, less so in the winter.

I really enjoy playing the game; it’s like tennis but with less running about, and the birdie is very satisfying to smack with the racket. I’d like to think good reflexes are a part of it, but I haven’t gotten to that level just yet. I like the quick back-and-forth and lack of time to think about one’s move before one is called upon to perform it.

And yet, there are these two pug-nosed women. I think one of them cloned the other. The older PNW tends to narrate each and every thing that’s happening on the court, no matter if she’s playing or not. It’s like she has some secret radio audience hanging on her every word. The younger PNW follows her around like a puppy. A really annoying puppy.

There’s also a doctor who comes every time. He works at a clinic in Dapinglin, and everyone calls him “Doctor”. When he walks in at the beginning of practice everyone shouts “The doctor’s here!”, a la Norm on “Cheers”. The doctor is a very good player and can suss out his opponent’s weak spot almost immediately and take advantage of it; apparently he plays several times a week, and he seems pretty smug about it.

Most of the players are better than I am, actually, with the exception of the pug-nosed women and friends people bring in to try to get them hooked on the game. They tolerate me and try to teach me how to play, except I am a hopeless student when it comes to trying to absorb anything told to me when I’m actually playing. Still, it’s exercise and a lot of fun, a nice, fast-paced activity to balance out the slower, more forceful tui-shou and sword practice I do on Wednesdays.

Now if I could just make swimming and bicycle riding more of a regular thing, I could actually claim that I actually exercise, maybe even eat a donut or two.

pig crossing
Originally uploaded by Poagao.

I’d just finished scouting for shooting locations at Da-an Park when I stopped in a convenience store for a drink, and a guy came in to tell the clerk, “Hey, do you know there’s a pig running around in front of your store?”

I paid for my drink and walked out, curious to see what he was talking about. All I saw was a guy sitting on a scooter. That’s a bit rude; he’s not that fat, I thought. Then I saw the actual pig.

It was running around the intersection of Xinsheng South Road and the alley next to the store, a little brown and white pig, very young. As I took out my camera and shot a picture of it, a taxi swerved into the alley, just missing the pig, who trotted away down the block and into the arms of a young man who was apparently its owner.

We’re back in the cycle of daily afternoon thundershowers, which makes me wonder if the shoot this Saturday afternoon is going to work out. It cools things down a bit, though, so as long as I’m inside I don’t mind them at all.

There’s a tropical storm sweeping through the Philippines at the moment. Normally, this wouldn’t mean much to us up here in Taipei, but for some reason, this particular storm has seen fit to send quite a bit of wind and rain our way. Like, even more wind and rain than during the last two typhoons.

Especially wind. As you can see above, umbrellas are pretty much useless, except for entertainment purposes if you get off on watching them disintegrate before your very eyes in the first gust of wind that hits it. Several trees downstairs, trees that have withstood years of typhoons, have been blown down, and walking across the suspension bridge sometimes feels like riding a bucking bronco. I can even feel the building rocking in the wind, but that may also be my imagination. I hope. The wound of the wind buffeting my windows, along with the pounding rain, is a little unnerving.

Alas, today wasn’t a typhoon day, as officially there is no typhoon, and the storm is technically still way down south. After work I met up with such personalities as Dean, David, Robyn, Lloyd, Jaques, Olwen, and Fish at the Canadian Society meeting at the Taipei Sports bar, despite the fact that most of us are not entirely Canadian. Lloyd expressed some doubts over my actual identity as an official Muddy Basin Rambler, so in case anyone out there is still in doubt:

*I hereby state that I am an official member of the Muddy Basin Ramblers(c). Paid my dues, got my card an’ hat an’ everything. What, you think just anyone can wear a cool hat?

David and Lloyd claimed nobody had ever been able to take a decent picture of them together, so I took a shot. They may have been right about that.

We were supposed to be shooting tomorrow morning, but right now it’s still blowing and pouring outside, so we may just end up rehearsing over at the Sandcastle. We’ll see what the outside world looks like tomorow morning when I get up. Hopefully a few things will still be standing.

After two typhoons over the past few weeks, I’m wondering if Mother Nature read this article and said to herself, “Oh, yeah?”

The last one, “Matsa”, didn’t actually come ashore, but its effects got us a typhoon day on Friday. In fact the strong wind was already full of gusting, horizontal rain by the time I got back home on Thursday night. To my dismay, the entire block was dark. I live on the 12th floor, and the thought of all those stairs hauling my shopping wasn’t a pleasant one. I wondered briefly if I should just go to the Sandcastle, which apparently still had power, and wait it out. Perhaps, if I was particularly lucky, Jojo would have baked a pie.

I was in the lobby of my building, thinking these thoughts, when the power came on again. A gaggle of people who had been waiting there immediately rushed into the elevator. Of course, about a second after the doors had closed, the power went out again, as power that has been recently restored is wont to do. Immediately, the sound of wailing and pounding on the elevator doors filled the lobby from inside the shaft. Sighing, I put my rain poncho back on and trudged back down to the guard station. “There’s a bunch of people stuck in the elevator in building 2,” I said. The guard looked at me and shook his head.

“I told them to stay out of the elevator. Idiots. They’re just going to have to wait,” he said. I nodded, went back and climbed the stairs to my room, thinking I would light some candles and work on storyboards. By the time I got there, the power was back. Air conditioning has seldom felt to welcome.

There was no work on Friday, so I did laundry next door, listened to the gusting wind, felt the window glass vibrating in rhythm, and watched the water rise in Bitan. That afternoon I wrapped myself up in a 7-Eleven poncho and went out with my camera to take some pictures of the flooded riverside and the gates downstream. As you can see in the picture above, the water reached the mouths of the dragons under the bridge, which are really decorated drain pipes for the freeway bridge. Usually they’re quite a ways above the river.

A pole attached to a guide rope leading down into the water was jumping wildly from the force of the torrent. Downstream, a group of young men ventured into the water to catch fish. Apparently floods are prime extreme fishing opportunities.

The whole thing was over by Saturday, and the heat and humidity returned, along with afternoon thundershowers on Sunday. I’m not going to put away my candles, though, no matter what I read in the papers.

When the weather gets hot, people in the Bitan area like to go sit on the suspension bridge in the cooling breeze. They bring little plastic chairs, bags of food, and sometimes little radios with them. Entire families can be seen sitting with their backs to the railing, chatting up the neighbors a few feet down.

The other day I was crossing the bridge carrying the baritone I picked up in Tainan, just back from the repair shop. The guy did a pretty good job fixing the dents in the bell, but not so much on the dents elsewhere…I suppose they were more difficult to get to. I also had no luck in finding a new mouthpiece, as it seems to require a special size they don’t carry here.

An old guy and a woman I took to be either his wife or caretaker saw the ratty baritone case and almost did a little jig of happiness. “What is that? A horn?” he asked excitedly.

“It’s a baritone,” I said.

“What’s that? Is it like a trumpet? I play trumpet, you know,” he said, gleefully humming a little jazz riff. So I opened it up and showed him. I played a few bars of nonsense and we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. I handed the instrument to the old guy, and he played a few notes.

The crowd dispersed. I guess they weren’t interested in an old Taiwanese guy playing a baritone so much. It turned out that he played trumpet for decades before hurting his back while lifting a heavy stack of sheet music. It was clear that his wife/caretaker didn’t like his involvement in music one bit, and he felt deprived of it. You would think he’d been locked away from his music for years from the way he acted.

We chatted and I got his name and number so I could invite him to the next Muddy Basin Ramblers performance, whenever that is. He said he knew the head of an instrument museum in Taichung that is full of music wonders to great to describe, and invited me down to take a look some time.

The wife/caretaker frowned on all of this activity by her husband/charge, and she gently for forcefully steered the old guy back over the bridge, saying he needed to rest.

Tomorrow night at around 7pm I’m going over to the WWRN studios to re-record an interview with them. They had me over there last week but there was a problem with the equipment, and I have to do it again. John, the fellow who interviewed me, is also interested in having the Ramblers over for a performance/interview, which I think sounds like a grand idea. I’ve been itching to get back into music. I even bought a cheap Audio Technica microphone recently to try out with Garageband on my Powerbook. As a quick and dirty test, I recorded a short bit from the song “Saint James Infirmary” in four tracks: washtub bass, ukulele, muted trumpet and voice. The levels were really low, but Darrell massaged the mp3 a little and got rid of some of the noise. This is the result. Now that I know it works (basically), I might put a little more effort into the performance part of it.

Azuma, his wife Jane, Maurice and his girl Claire, Sandy, Jojo and I got together after a rehearsal yesterday afternoon to go to Rosemary’s Kitchen, the blue-shuttered/white stucco restaurant at the foot of the suspension bridge, for dinner. I was a bit worried that Maurice, who is a restaurant expert, wouldn’t find the place up to snuff, even though it’s quite good for the area. As it turned out, however, the food was excellent, and the only problems we had were with untrained waitstaff who didn’t quite know what they were doing. We got a spot out on the balcony overlooking the bridge, the swanboat beneath and the milling crowds of weekend tourists above. As seems to happen whenever going out to eat with Maurice, the wine, white in this case, just seemed to keep coming, and our whole party got drunker and drunker.

It was after midnight by the time we left. I have the impression that I was quite talkative, but I’m not sure I want to know exactly what I said. As far as I can recall, everyone had a great time, and I’ll just assume that’s the case until I hear differently.

There had been a couple of other foreigners on the balcony, one an older man who kept staring at me or us (I couldn’t tell from the distance), and a younger guy accompanied by a Taiwanese girl. He wore an army T-shirt, and I resisted the urge to go over and ask him whether he bought it or was issued it. At least until this evening when I ran into the guy at Athula’s and asked him anyway. Yeah, I suck. At least if I’d been all petty at the restaurant I would have had the excuse of being drunk off my ass at least.

On the bright side, I did manage to keep from taking any artsy pictures of the silverware, which is something I suppose. Ever since I got the wicked 10-22mm lens for my 20D, I haven’t really used my 17-85mm USM IS lens that much, and I’m thinking of selling it in order to add a prime or two to my collection, or perhaps a long lens so I can take pictures of people without getting in their face and embarrassing everyone involved.