Last night, for lack of anything better to do, I let my curiosity get the better of me and finally went to check out the new Core Pacific Center on Civic Blvd. From its reputation and all of the news stories concerning frenzied mobs of deranged shoppers agog of the idea of a real mall in Taiwan, I knew it would be at least interesting. All the more so as it’s located in the middle of a rather squalid section of town, sandwiched in between Ba-de Rd section 4 or so and the old Railway administration grounds.

In fact, it was quite impressive. Dean calls it the “Droid Control Ship” because that’s what it really does look like, and the huge shape seems all the more incongruous situated next to the decrepit old two-story combination motorcycle repair shops/hovels. I parked my motorcycle in an alley off of Ba-de Rd. and walked in the northeast entrance, through a bit of hallway, and found myself confronted with the Giant Ball, which contains an entire department store and is over ten stories high, resting inside the even larger atrium at the center of the mall. From the ground floor I could see a huge wall of shops along the side of the atrium, and down three more stories to the food court underneath the Giant Ball, which made the entire structure appear to be suspended in mid-air.

Unlike the Breeze Mall, there’s more at the Core (Hey! Nifty ad slogan!) than just women’s stuff. They actually have a wide range of stores and restaurants. The decor is just tacky enough to let you know you’re still in Taiwan, even though the scale is larger than anything else I’ve seen here. I didn’t go into the movie theaters downstairs as there wasn’t anything on at the time, but they look to be pretty high-quality.

Each level has a strange name, like “Grimm Street” for the children’s level and one inexplicably named “Sharron Stone Street”, whose Chinese name is “Chang Man-yu Street”. An overwhelming number of the shops sell extremely expensive things that only insane rich people with little or no judgement would ever consider buying. This doesn’t seem to bode well, but you never know. Taiwanese people in general have equated “Mall” with such concepts as “Western”, “Fancy”, “High-class” and “Better than anything Chinese culture could come up with” in general, so there’s bound to be a good amount of fantasyland-type thinking going on. But that’s just the kind of surreal atmosphere that pervades the portion of Taiwanese society that comes into contact with what it thinks is quintessential Western culture.

I went into one store to look at those sunglasses that are attached to a frame that fits over your head. They looked really cool, if a bit bizarre, but they also cost a whopping NT$9,000. The “normal” sunglasses were only a couple of thousand less, so I gave up any hope of maintaining the illusion that I actually needed them and left.

At the top of the giant ball is an Eslite Bookstore. The dome above is transparent, although I couldn’t really see out at night. I bought a hat at an aboriginal stand and then took one of the glass elevators. On the way down a couple of extremely fashion-conscious girls complained to their skater-type boyfriends that the elevator’s motion made them want to throw up. I imagine they thought this made them seem vulnerable and sexy, and their sickly-sweet dia-dia voices almost caused me to share their nausea.

To think I used to work across the street from the Core Center, which is open 24-hours. The times we copyeditors could have had carrousing drunkenly along Sharron Stone Street at 2 in the morning after a long day at the paper!

Whiny Woman has a cold and has become Whiny Sniffly Woman. We are moving to our new offices on the weekend of the 26th/27th. I tried to find out where my new seat will be, but apparently they haven’t nailed down that particular detail just yet. I should go over there and sneak in to see if I can’t snag myself a corner or window seat as far away as possible from any potentially whiny individuals.

I’m getting really sick of various women with webcams sending me ICQ messages. I replied to one today, asking her “Aren’t you afraid that someone will work out where you live and then come to your house and gut you live on your own webcam?” But all I got in reply was several more messages from women with webcams. Really, ladies, you’re just encouraging all of the psychopaths out there, so don’t come complaining to me when hordes of raving lunatics break into your house and string you up for their own nefarious purposes.

Speaking of nefarious purposes, I went to the dentist this evening. My teeth needed cleaning, so I thought I would take advantage of the new dental clinic just opened up downstairs. It went pretty well, no cavities or anything major, but the assistant was inordinately clueless. The dentist kept having to tell her what to do. “No, I don’t need suction right now. Gimme that thing over there,” he would tell her. “No, that ray-gun thingy in the corner. Yeah.” It was a bit frightening, and I was glad all he was doing was cleaning my teeth. If I have any real problems I don’t think I’ll be going back there. At least the assistant didn’t have atrocious breath, like the last place I went to, down on Heping E. Road. Surely it’s a bad sign when the dental assistant doesn’t even brush her teeth.

Our server was down most of today, so I spent most of my time trying to stay awake. Typical hateful, “Why am I here” sort of Monday. I’ve been feeling rather desperate and lost lately. Maybe I need to go visit a temple. If not a Buddhist temple, a Daoist temple. Something in the mountains, with forests, running streams, ghost money, wafting incense, extravantly attired statues and old people doing the boa-boe thing on the concrete floor.

Yesterday I took a train down to Miaoli. My book is just about finished, or at least I can’t think of anything else to do with it, really, so I decided to go back down to the old army base where I spent nearly two years several years ago, to see if there was anything I’d missed. It was a beautiful, if hazy day, and cool enough but not too cold.

I got to Miaoli, noted that they’ve panelled the boxy little train station down there, and took a bus through the largely unchanged town and up the mountain. It was the weekend, so not many people were about. Not that there are anyway. I walked into one of the military supply stores and talked to the owner, who actually remembered me. Everyone down there speaks with a Hakka accent. Lots of Hakka in Miaoli.

Then I walked out to the training fields, which were deserted and smouldering from what looked like a controlled brush fire. Packs of dogs barked at me as I walked through the old obstacle course and past the amoury. I chatted a bit with the guards at the gate. They’re almost up to 1900T now. There are 24T a year. I was 1748T. The guards were suitably impressed with my seniority. They were the ones unlucky enough not to have leave over the weekend, or perhaps they wanted it that way. I know I always did. I’d rather have my leave on weekdays, when less people are crowding around everywhere, and there’s less on base to do as well.

Still, it’s been so long that anyone I would have known there has gone, been discharged or transferred. It felt like visiting a house where you once lived, kind of sad that all of the physical infrastructure is still there, but none of the atmosphere and people you remembered. There was nothing much else to do. I considered getting a cheap haircut but decided against it when I recalled the jobs they used to pull on me when I was stationed there. So I got on the bus and went back to Miaoli, where I had some lunch. While I was waiting for my meal, I ran into a guy who told me we met at a New Year’s party last year, but I have no recollection of the event.

After lunch I walked through the town back to the train station. It’s a long way. Miaoli only consists of two streets, but they’re long streets. The town is a block wide and something like 30 blocks long, it seems. On the way I passed a sexy underwear shop and a traditional clothing shop, a roadside statuette vendor and a pool hall. My feet were aching by the time I got back to the train station, and I wasted my window seat on the way back by sleeping for most of the way, waking up just in time to see an ultralight flying by outside the train.

Last night I let Dean copy Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and he immediately began playing while I watched his copy of The Man with the Golden Gun. Not only is it one of the best Bond films, but Nick Nack is just too sexy for words.

This afternoon I had a delicious breakfast at Jake’s. The reason it was delicious was that I was very hungry more than anything to do with the actual quality of the food, though. I think visiting my old base made me more appreciative of being a (relatively) free civilian in a way I haven’t really felt since I got out of the service. I’ll probably feel differently tomorrow, though, when I go back to the office.

So now I’ve dug out all the pictures from my army days and dumped them in a pile on my bed. I need to look through them and select some for the book, even though I really don’t have a clue as to what kind of pictures people expect to see. The only time I got to take pictures was really during leisure activities, not really the most exciting stuff. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a few interesting ones together.

Last night I had a strange dream. I was floating in the ocean next to the wrecked, barely floating half of an old steamship. I had the impression for some reason that it was the Titanic, except that for some reason, half of it had stayed afloat after breaking in two. But the water was warm and the ship much too small. Most of us survivors were in the water, trying to push it along, when we came under attack by an airplane, an old WWII-style one. Our leader climbed up on the ship and painted a sillouette of the plane breaking in two on the rusted metal plating, apparently in the hope that the pilot would see it, freak out and crash. It worked.

As this was happening, however, we came across the coast of the Philippines, which was odd since I had thought that we were in the North Atlantic, and the guy steering the ship didn’t notice. We were shouting up to him to steer towards the lush green coast when the dream ended. I don’t usually remember my dreams, but then again I don’t think I usually have such bizarre ones.

Today began rather well. The weather is nice, and I was feeling good, completely recovered from my cold, so I rode my motorcycle in to work today, but after lunch I started to feel shitty again, so I might just skip sword practice tonight. They haven’t been teaching anything new lately anyway, and I really should start looking for another class.

I’ve also been digging through the W&L Alumni website, looking for alums involved in publishing, of which there are quite a few. Since the Journalism School is pretty well-known, a lot of them are quite high up, mostly presidents, CEOs, chairmen, senior editors, etc., at large publishing companies including Random House, St. Martin’s Press, Simon & Shuster, the Columbia and Princeton University Presses and Time-Warner-Fortune Magazine. The million-dollar question is: will any of them give me the time of day? And if so, what time will they give me?

Well, I’m back. Sort of. I’m back in the office, took the last of my medicine this morning, and I don’t feel too bad just yet. Reality is slowly tearing back the cobwebs of the cold medicine-induced stupor I’ve been wandering around in for the past week. I took the precaution of not riding my motorcycle in case I suddenly fall asleep. I think I must have caught something similar if not in fact identical to Luke’s Throat of Death.

It’s still cold out, but at least it’s nice and sunny. I feel like I’ve been away for a long time, which is a good thing. The bad thing is, in spite of the fact that we had four days off, various people still felt compelled to demonstrate their loyalty to the company by working during their vacations, so when I dragged myself in this morning my inbox was filled with work. These are the same people who refuse to take days off when they’re sick, wanting instead to impress the bigwigs with their “loyalty”, thereby stretching out a cold that would have gotten better in a day or two to two weeks of coughing and hacking all over the office so that everyone else is infected as well. When I say “You should take a day or two off to get better,” I’m not being nice. I’m being selfish. I want you to stop being a walking source of potential infection in my vicinity.

I think my book is pretty much done. I say that because I really don’t know what else to do to it besides publish it. It’s not a great literary masterpiece, nor is it a terribly scholarly work, but it’s there. I contacted a couple of people I know who might know something about getting things published, but otherwise, aside from combing the millions of publishing sites on the Internet for something useful, I don’t know what else to do. Hopefully I can get in touch with the alumni office of my university and see whether there’s anyone out there willing to help me out with this. Your suggestions are welcome as well, of course.

I’ve just discovered that I can search for stuff in my archives much more quickly using Google than by trying to guess when some particular thing happened. I’m pretty sure I’m the only Poagao on the Internet (so far, anyway), so really, if you want to know whether I’ve mentioned or discussed something on here, all you have to do is a google search for “Poagao” and whatever it is you’re looking for. Neat-o stuff, kids. I do wish that the people looking for unclothed representations of a certain American-born Chinese “singer” whose name sounds like a breakfast cereal would stop bothering to look for them here, though. Geez, I hate being subtle.

We’re supposed to be moving over to our new building, the one right next to the movie theater complex in the heart of the Fabulous Hsinyi District, on the weekend of the 19th/20th. Nobody has mentioned anything about it yet, which makes me suspicious. No doubt the company is too cheap to hire a moving company and wants us to do it all ourselves. “The economy is bad!” some manager will try to cite as his reasoning, right before I shove a dolly up his ass. Happy New Year!

And why is it that strange, random women from all over the world keep adding me to their ICQ lists? I was just added to the list of a 19-year-old Brazilian girl named “Silvana”. Is Poagao All The Rage in Brazil? Am I The Cat’s Pajamas in Croatia? Are girls in small villages in the Urals hanging on my every word, dying to know what stupid things Whiny Woman will utter today? (today’s quote, as she was on the phone looking for pre-schools for her kid: “Are the students actually in a class together?”)

I fear I have no choice but to arrive at the inescapable conclusion that I’m a chick magnet, which would be great if I weren’t also a ‘mo.

Ok, so maybe I’m not completely over this cold yet.

3000 Links to Kottke

I wish I could tell you all of the wonderful and exciting things I’ve been up to over this new year holiday, but I can’t. All I’ve done is sleep and drink and eat in an effort to fight off this damn cold. The doctor on Tai-shun St. gave me little packets of pills that are keeping me nicely loopy, but I am going a little stir crazy after being holed in my room for so long. I know, there are worse places to be holed up in, but sometimes it seems that I have seen all of the Internet that I really want to, and am thus reduced to doing link searches on google to see who has the most links to their weblog (here’s a hint: Kottke, with well over 3,000), and then wondering why. If I have, say, 30 people reading my site a day, that’s sort of like 30 people knocking at my door or hollering “Sup!” from outside. And those are 30 people who, previous to my starting this thing, didn’t know a thing about me. So it’s all cool. I’d like to think that each of my readers gets that much more enjoyment from reading this.

I postponed my eye-zapping another week so I don’t have to worry about that (yet). One good thing about this is that I’ve had a bit of time to work on my book, which I think is almost ready for publication. I just need to find a literary agent. Let me know if you know anyone.

Dean and Graham tried to get me to come over to the 70’s Airport Love Palace to bring in the new year, but I figured they could handle it without me, so I just stayed up until midnight, watched the fireworks over city hall from my window to 30s Chinese music, and went to bed. It was as nice a new year’s eve as I could have hoped for, although a bit lonely. I shouldn’t be spreading this cold around, though, so it was just as well.