I have learned some new words recently. Words like “Bobo”, which I had thought was the main character in a children’s book written by my friend Boogie. I’m pretty sure he even has a copyright to it, but apparently Vogue has appropriated this term to denote a certain class of people as an abbreviation for “Bohemian Bourgoise”. Or possibly “Bourgoise Bohemian”, I don’t know. Either way, the whole concept makes me feel distinctly queasy.

Another term I’ve seen recently is “Dinky”. This doesn’t, as the dictionary would have you believe, mean “small” or “tiny” any longer. No. Now it is an abbreviation for “Double Income No Kids”. So I am editing this report and I come across a sentence like “32% of dinky women preferred to eat out on weekends.” and then the whole office is staring at me as I roll around on the floor, laughing my head off, gasping “Dinky women! Bwahaaaaaaaaaaa…! Oh, I can’t stand it! Get outa here!”

Powerful stuff, that Spirit Ethyl Nitrate.

And now my portable CD player is on the fritz(I don’t even want to know where that reference came from. Who was Fritz and why is anything that doesn’t work supposed to be “on” him? Was his wife broken? What’s up with that?) I would normally rush out and buy a Rio Volt MP3/CD player, but Amazon won’t ship the damn thing out of the US, even though it is made in China, and they don’t seem to be in a rush to sell it here, even though they would be making a huge amount of money. I guess I’ll have to wait until the next time the US decides to kick my buddy Mindcrime out of the country and ask him to sneak one into Taiwan for me.

Just what the doctor ordered: the contents of the 200 ml bottole of “Kingdom” Mixture(or “Brown Mixture”) of Compound Glycyrrhiza that the supposedly modern Western-tradition doctor at the Taiwan Adventist Hospital prescribed for my cough:

Glycyrrhiza fluid extract
Antimony pot. tartrate
Spirit ethyl nitrite
Glycerin
Opium camphor tincture

Damn! Sounds like the mixture from Ye Olde Alchemist as a cure for hogwarts and demonic possession! I have to say, though, I have grown quite fond of the opium, and the pot ain’t bad, either. I don’t even mind that it leaks and has eaten through the bottom of my backpack.

Last night I actually opened up the file on my computer where I am keep the book I keep wanting to write, and I actually worked on it a bit! It may sound trivial to you, but I haven’t done that in years! It’s over 40,000 words long so far and it has just been sitting on my harddrive for literally years. But I have been slow in realizing what it means to me, I guess, and I must finish it relatively soon, no matter what. It’s just something that has to happen before anything else can, really, and I have long since run out of excuses. If I can check that off my list of things to do, I’ll feel a lot better about the Next Stage, whatever it is.

I’d write more right now, but I’ve literally got shitloads of work to do right now.

Luke likes my site! Now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But he’s been doing this longer than I have, so go look at his site, which is at captainfez.com

Warm, grey and humid, weather-wise…went to the doctor last night and got the traditional bag o’ pills so I can feel goofy for the next couple of days, which is fine with me, as long as it gets rid of this lingering cough and malaise. I decided not to cave in to the pressure and am going to make name cards with “TC Lin” on them. To whomever thinks I am keeping myself from stardom because nobody is going to like anything anyone Taiwanese does, sorry. I get enough crap in my daily life as it is, I’m not about to start serving it out myself. I have enough trouble dealing with my laundry; I don’t need this.

Got some complaints that my links were hard to read, so I lightened the colors, and I also reformatted the menus so that people who use 800×600 resolution can view them better. I swear, the things I do for you people. *puts hands on hips and shakes head* Now I just have to figure out why my computer isn’t getting along with my scanner all of the sudden and I can add more pictures and other stuff, including my Penghu story, which is over 3,400 words long, so long the newspapers wouldn’t print it(as far as I know), so it’s somewhat of an exclusive. Plus a new story or two for the News page. Yup, yer in for a treat, you are.

I HATE this pressure to totally surrender one’s principals in order to serve mass ignorance and pettiness.

What am I talking about? you ask.

My name is TC Lin. Ok, TC is a nickname of sorts, as my official name is Tao-ming Lin. I was going to make a namecard for myself so I wouldn’t have to use my company namecard all the time, as it lacks certain information(like my email address and this site’s URL). But a friend of mine told me I shouldn’t use “Lin”. He says I should use my ‘real’ name, the name I was born under, since I’m not “really” Chinese, and people should know that, because as everyone here knows Chinese people are the scum of the earth while foreigners should be worshipped as gods. Nobody will pay any attention to me unless I play the foreigner angle for all it’s worth.

He’s probably right, of course. That is, of course, the reason why I didn’t even get called in for an interview at the GIO, because I emailed my resume in and they thought I was just another Chinese person and didn’t want to bother with me. As it is, I feel like I need to wear a paper bag on my head just to order a meal at a restaurant to get something approaching ‘normal’ service. It really grates on me, especially when I am required to play the part for whatever reason. I can’t do it very well, and I feel like I need a shower afterwards.

Jesus…and I’ve been here for how many decades? I realize that, of course, there will never be a point, no matter what happens or how long I have lived here, that I will ever be treated as a normal person by most of the people here. I just hate having it rubbed in. I hate being required to participate in the idiotic delusion that foreigners are somehow inherently better than Taiwanese. Sometimes, more often as of late, I think about leaving Taiwan, even though this is my home. I know this place better than any other, but maybe it is time I considered giving someplace else a shot. I know that we take our emotional baggage everywhere with us and that I cannot run away from my problems, I would still like to see what life is like elsewhere for a while.

Ah, I’m probably making too much of this. Maybe Christoper Doyle wouldn’t be famous today if he had written “KF Du” on his namecard; I don’t know. All I know is, I’m not Christopher Doyle.

Another good weekend. The weather now is quite hot and summerlike, and it may just be here to stay this time. I went hiking with a friend in the hills near the Chingmei stop of the Hsintien MRT line. I had never been there before, but it seemed like quite a nice place. Relatively remote, in that there were the mountains and some semi-fresh air in the vicinity, but with a movie theater and some places to eat. I wonder what it would cost to live out there and what it would be like.

The hike was a good, easy one, but the weather was cloudy so the views of the city weren’t great. I snapped a few pictures of a gecko with a strange-looking head(undiscovered species or just your run-of-the-mill waste-induced mutation?) and we descended on the other side of the mountain through a posh, recently opened apartment complex. Most of the rooms looked empty, even though my friend pointed out that the ghost money burner on one of the balconies was already in place.

Yesterday I had planned to get up early and go to sword practice, but when I got there nobody from my class was there, so I went to the beach again, since it was so fun last time, but yesterday, while tempting us with sun in the morning, turned cloudy by the time we got there. We swam a bit and then went to the hot springs at Mazu Keng(see my article on this place in the writing section). There were lots of people there and even more mosquitoes. I had elected to take the MRT to Tamshui again, but my friend Harry took me back to Taipei on the back of his scooter. I hate riding on the back of scooters. After a while I can’t feel my behind, although it is probably good for my physique as it feels like I am in the middle of a perpetual sit-up the whole way.

The book I am reading now, Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar, is a happy travel book, one of my favorite kinds of book. A good author can make you look up from your reading and look at your own world with different eyes, and Theroux is just such a writer.

I was talking with the doorman downstairs, one of the old guys who is always there behind the desk just inside the door of my building, last night. I just wanted to know when the building was built and whether it had radioactive steel beams in it. He said it was built in 1978 but was put into use in 1980, which was before the radioactive buildings were build(81-82). So I guess it’s safe, in that respect, at least. Now if I can find out when our office building was constructed…

Anyway, I learned a lot more about our doorman last night. He said he had held that position for 13 years. He asked me to guess how old he was. I said about 58, deliberately underestimating to be polite. I would have honestly said he looks closer to 70. Turns out he is 86. He showed me a scar on his head. “The Japanese did that, back in the war in the 30’s.” Then he showed me a really nasty slash on his ankle. “The Chinese communists did that, in the civil war in the 40’s,” he said. He also said he was a spy, and that they operated behind enemy lines, wearing plainclothes and sustaining heavy casualties. He came to Taiwan in 1949 along with Chiang Kai-shek and studied under CKS’s main spy, Dai Li. He wrote out Dai Li’s name on a peice of paper with a brush ben in beautiful calligraphy. I commented on his writing, but he pshawed(how long has it been since anyone pshawed me?) and said it was just ordinary writing.

He said he had never married, but he did take pity on a 4-year-old street crippled orphan girl and adopted her. She is now 25 and has two sons of her own. He had pictures of her and her kids, two fat, healthy elementary-school age boys.

It blows my mind what this guy and others of his generation did for his country. Without them, things would be different today. The ROC might not even exist today if it weren’t for them. Compare these guys to today’s youth. I know I sound like an old codger even though I am only 32, but it seems to me that young people in Taiwan these days are vastly more self-centered now than even a few years ago. I suppose they are just a product of their environment. People say that the recent economic downturn in Taiwan is because the young people don’t want to actually do any work and just stay at home and filch off their parents. That, plus the self-fulfilling prophecy of “Oh, the economy’s bad, so let’s not spend any money on anything and make it worse,” reinforce my belief that it won’t be long before Taiwan will have no choice, for its own sake, to ‘reunify’ with the PRC. The only problem with this scenario, of course, is the PRC itself. It’s changing, improving dramatically, but will it be fast enough? In any case, Taiwan will need a buffer(the Taiwan Strait should do nicely) and this society, I fear, is in for some sort of revolution. It’s either that or become just another third-world nation.

One of my co-workers, my ‘mentor’ according to our company’s system for newcomers, is leaving today. It seems that he has recieved his draft notice and will have to do somewhere between 5 and 22 months’ military service in the army. He is about 25, about the same age as I was when I got my draft notice. The army seems a lot easier these days, though, from what I can tell, so boredom will likely be the hardest thing for him to deal with. If China does invade, by the time the army gets involved it will likely already be too late anyway…

Ack! Enough depressing political commentary! It’s Friday! Everyone go to the Tavern tonight!

Over the past couple of weeks, the guy in the office opposite my desk has been working on a drawing on his computer. Today I came in and found three posters on his office door. They all involve the FareasTone IF pre-paid mobile phone card mascot, which is an orange-haired girl who looks like the pseudo-singer Coco Lee with a headset. Usually she is clad in an orange miniskirt and blouse, but my co-worker has portrayed this cartoon figure in three disturbingly fetishist poses. The first is her, nude, except for the headset, fondling one of her naked breasts. The next is her lying naked on a bed, and the third, possibly the most disturbing of all, shows her being fondled by the Beast from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

I know, I sound like a prude, but in many other countries posting this kind of thing on one’s office door would be grounds for dismissal and a sexual harrassment lawsuit or two. I would retaliate by photoshopping together a nude portrait of Peoples Hernandez(or better yet, the guy who rides up on the kid’s bicycle as Peoples is being led away) from the recent Shaft movie and past it on the side of my cubicle, but that would be too distracting, and besides, something tells me that heterosexual fantasies are still much more socially acceptable than homosexually oriented ones.

Last night I saw “Ronin” for the first time. I wish I had seen it in the theater when it came out, but I think I was still in the army back then….not sure…anyway, excellent car chases. I am a sucker for a good car chase, and these were great. My only problem is that they used the same engine sounds for all the cars. I’m sorry, but a BMW 540i sounds different from an Audi A8. Lazy sound people.
I also think that someone other than Robert DeNiro(definitely NOT Tom Cruise) could have done a better job in the lead role. All the other actors were great, but there was something missing in DeNiro’s performance. All in all, though, this was the movie that Mission Impossible should have been.

I am going to print out some namecards with my name, my would-be professions and my website URL on them to hand out to people who say they would like to see my work some time. Any suggestions for colors, content? Should I use my legal Chinese name or my original English name? I want to start getting some imput from you guys, now. This means both of you!

It’s almost time to get off work. Shitload of work today, and I just wasn’t in the mood. The weather has returned to its original, sorry state of cool, cloudy, depressing….you know the drill. It feels like my cold has returned as well…dammit. I need more sleep.

Last night I went out to Fnac, the French store that sounds like someone trying unsuccessfully to sneeze, and looked around. The Sony digital video camera I want to buy is only NT$90,000 there now, which means it is probably even less on Chunghwa road. That’s still a large chunk of money, though.

Anyway, afterwards, I was so tired I didn’t feel like walking to Friday’s for a Chicken wrap like I usually do, so I went next door to the Hard Rock cafe. DAMN, it was bad. You walk down a wide stairway, down a long corridor, past a coat check and souvenier store, and then reach a little empty room. That’s it. That’s the restaurant. Nobody is around. The waiters are lazy and the food is bad. I asked for a root beer and got a sasparilla. My club sandwich cost NT$350. It sucked. The waiter misinterpreted my “Can I have the check, please?” for “Please feel free to ignore me for the next half hour.” Needless to say, I won’t be going back there, ever. It used to be a decent place before they moved to next to the Asiaworld hotel. I should have gone to Dan Ryans. It was just a western-food night, and I didn’t feel like Chinese food, which I have every day, usually. In any case, don’t bother with the Hard Rock Cafe in Taipei. If you want that sort of thing, you’d be better off going to the Planet Hollywood at the Warner Village Cinema complex near City Hall.

Ah, I need some more sleep, methinks…