The weather was nice today, so I opened up all the windows and aired out my temporary abode a bit. It’s quite nice up here when the weather holds up, very peaceful with a fresh breeze more or less constantly blowing through. I spent yesterday down in the city because I missed the last bus up the mountain after sword practice on Wednesday. Met up with Dean and Random Gavin at DV8 last night, which brought back some memories. Dean tells me that Shizi is back in town, but I’m not sure how long he’ll be here. The buses are fewer and further between, but at least they’re free during the New Year holiday. I saw an older foreigner wearing a captain’s hat and jacket for the second time on the bus.

Today marks the start of Chinese New Year’s Proper, by the way, and a lot of places will be closed for the next few days. That’s ok though; I’ve got enough spaghetti sauce to last me a good while yet.

It’s fucking cold up here in the mountains. While the apartment I’m watching is nice enough, it’s a bit hard to appreciate it by lounging around wearing ten layers of clothing and listening to the wind howl. I’ve been sleeping a lot, taking hot showers and cooking basic food for myself. There’s no cable and it’s a long, NT$50 bus ride into the city. I have some cats, DVDs and a pretty view outside windows closed tight against the cold to entertain myself. I drag a standup heater with me wherever I sit. I suppose I should look on it as an educational experience.

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My posting might be a bit sporadic for a while. I’m apartment-watching for a friend of mine, and my employer has told me that I won’t be working from now until March, which means, of course, that I won’t be getting paid either for that period of time. That’s the best-case scenario, too, because it involves me continuing my employment there, which is is by no means certain. I haven’t been feeling too well lately either, so I’m going to take this as a little vacation to rest up and recuperate, hopefully. Happy Goat Year.

From the Media Department:

A couple of interesting pieces of media have come to my attention in recent days. The first is a British Sci-fi Comedy series called Red Dwarf. Dean got the first six episodes on DVD and lent them to me. It’s quite good, and I understand it gets a lot better with the appearance of a new character, Kryton, later in the series. I look forward to that, but for now I am quite content to lust after Lister, one of the main characters. Damn, but he’s a sexy one!

The second bit o’ media is a Japanese animated film by the people who brought you Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. It’s called Pom Poko and features raccoon characters (“Tanuki”) who are not only cute, but have balls to boot. And when I say they have balls, I mean, these animated animals have actual visible testicles, at least the male ones. Not only this, but they’re magic testicles that can inflate into all sorts of shapes and sizes. A must-have for any collection, I would think.

I’ve also added two links to the sidebar, called Sight of the Moment and Sound of the Moment. The Sight is just whatever video clip happens to be up and the moment, currently the Beef Noodle Street one, and the Sound bit is a random mp3 song from my collection, probably mostly Chinese and Taiwanese songs, as those don’t seem to be as readily available in most of the world as English songs are. The song I have up now is none other than Wu Bai’s Hong Diong E Xio Ho (¥î¦Ê–­·¤¤ªº¤p«B), one of my favorites. It’s a traditional song, and the lyrics are quite sad, involving a man who is reminiscing about a past, lost love. I love the atmosphere it conjures up. My apologies for having such large, unmanagable files. I’ve decided that if I am to get serious about manipulating media in a digital environment, I really need a Mac. It’s not just reading Lileks praising his Mac or watching Mindcrime gloating over being able to perform such stunts on his new Powerbook that’s convinced me of this; rather, it’s the long years of frustration working with PCs that’s really done it. Honestly, I just want something that works and doesn’t give me “A General Error Has Occurred Somewhere in Bolivia and Your Project Has Disappeared” messages all the time. So I’ve decided to stop upgrading my PC (except for a new graphics card because I promised Kirk he could have my old one for helping me with my book) and just save up for a Mac, be it a Powerbook or a desktop G4 (probably a G5 by the time I can afford one). I hear you just plug them in and they work! How is that possible?

Sword practice was good last night in spite of the rain. I’m getting into the difficult middle part of the 55-step form, which is all twisty and complicated. I do really enjoy it, though. Of course, getting into this form means that I’ve pretty much forgotten the other two forms I’ve studied, but I think I could recall them if I saw them again. I told my teacher I’d have to delay my payment until after Chinese New Year, but he seemed fine with it and didn’t send me packing. I also discovered that the group has its own website, but I should warn you that the cheese-factor is quite high (MIDI!!!), and it’s all in Chinese, of course.

In other news, tonight is yet another Wei-ya, this time for another group our department belongs to. I am willing to endure another one of these because I really could use a hong-bao (¬õ¥]), and there’s always a slim chance of happening across one or two at these things. Hopefully I’ll come away with at least some amusing photographs to show for it.

Now this is depressing. This article in today’s China Post, “Over 10,000 protest plastic bag ban“, actually contains the following sentence: “TSU legislative caucus convener Liao Ben-yan (¹ù¥»·Ï) accused the EPA of trying to destroy the plastics industry in the name of the environment.”

The EPA should have issued an official reply of “Well, DUH!”

From the Taipei Times article on the subject: “Liao, one of several opposition legislators who joined the march, said the new policy was conceived too quickly and does not look to the long-term.”

So according to this guy, plastics are the future! Maybe the EPA could say, “OK, well, everyone just take their discarded plastic articles over to the Liao place and dump them there. He seems to like them well enough.”

Again from the Times: “Protesters said that the image of plastic materials had been blackened because the EPA did not provide the public with correct scientific information. To increase environmental awareness of the production of plastic materials, protesters distributed three truckloads of plastic dinning utensils to the public in front of the Presidential Office.”

Ok. “Here, have a dozen sporks! Now, don’t you feel environmentally aware?”

These people must be living in some other dimension, in a Taiwan that is pristine, full of clean lakes and rivers, fresh air and spotless beaches. Perhaps they’ve lived with discarded plastic bags clogging the sewer-like waterways and old plastic plates strewn across the landscape that they just can’t imagine what life would be like without them. Or maybe they’re just selfish bastards with no sense of the inherent irony in claiming that a plastics ban is shortsighted. Whatever their problem is, I wish they’d just seek psychiatric help instead of clogging the streets in protests that are simply another kind of pollution, albeit a far more frightening kind.

I’d add a link on the subject to the DPP Propaganda Pamphlet, aka “the Taiwan News”, but as usual they’re too busy kissing Lee Teng-hui’s ass to do any actual reporting, preferring instead to run shit articles like “Clueless French Person Thinks Cross-strait Conflict Could be Interesting as Long as He is in France”. I especially love the shit-eating grin he’s wearing in the picture. Yeah, just keep munching on your glasses, Froggy, as long as you think it makes you look like you know all about Taiwan after your “short trip to the island” to “enlighten the natives.”

You see, this is why I take so long to come up with articles for my News from the Renegade Province section. It’s becoming more and more difficult to make up things as ludicrous and downright silly as the “real” news these days.

Turning to other news, and by “news” here I mean “stuff that actually happened”, Kirk came over last night to show me his latest set of tattoos, including the American Express logo with wings on his back, some kind of Thai/Egyptian(?) dancing figure and something like an Aztec figure on his arms. He also helped me take a look at the edited Chinese-language version of my book. As I predicted, he finished going over it in a couple of hours, and that included stopping every so often to discuss various points.

His conclusions are basically the same as mine. He doesn’t have a particular problem with the length, but he did note that the story didn’t make any sense because so much of it had been cut out, none of the remaining references meant anything. I am meeting with the publisher tonight to discuss how we can improve the situation.

I realize that I’ve neglected to tell you about the Wei-ya party down in Hsinchu on Thursday. I can’t believe it slipped my mind, because it was one of the absolute lamest things I’ve seen in a long long time. We piled into a VW van and endured rush-hour traffic on the highway down. I was trapped next to a couple of co-workers who were still in that “I find you very interesting because we haven’t had sex yet” phase of their relationship, but I tried to ignore the inane drivel they were talking about and get some sleep.

The next thing I knew we were in Zhubei, north of Hsinchu, at the restaurant. Hardly anyone had arrived for our department’s thing, but the room next door was full of revelers at another company’s Wei-ya. You had to make your way through that party to get to the bathroom, and when I was doing so one of the partygoeres, obviously drunk, stood up and greeted me like an old friend. At least, I hope it was just the alcohol. God forbid actually was an old friend and I just didn’t recognize him. That would happen to me, of course.

Back at our Wei-ya, the head of our department gave some boring speeches and the two co-workers who were acting as host and hostess exchanged nervous banter on stage. Dinner was served in stages. The food wasn’t too bad and served as an important distraction to all the “entertainment” going on, i.e. a guy who couldn’t play violin, another guy who couldn’t play the piano, several people who couldn’t sing, and competitions to see who could make the biggest fool of themselves on stage. They were giving out prizes for singing, and I was almost desperate enough to attempted Wu Bai’s Hong Diong E Xio Ho”, but 1) the Karaoke machine didn’t have it, and 2) the prizes were only NT$200. My pride is certainly worth more than NT$200 (at the moment I believe it’s hovering around NT$500).

None too soon, it was all over. I hadn’t won anything in the raffle, of course. By a strange coincidence, all of the rich bigwigs sitting at the center table won all of the large prizes. Imagine that! At least I got a free meal out of it.

Sandy’s wife Jojo had informed me when I was down there on Saturday that there was an exhibit on Taiwan in the 17th century, with all kinds of maps and things, at the National Palace Museum, so yesterday afternoon I took the MRT up to the Chihshan Station and walked through the neighborhoods along the Shuangxi River, which is lined with a nice series of parks and woods punctuated by piles of burning garbage. Along the way I wandered into Zhide Park and beyond it to find a row of old two-story houses along a babbling creek. Birds wheeled around in the sky along the ridges of the encircling valley walls, and a chorus of insects accompanied the sound of the running water. It was most pleasant.

When I finally arrived at the museum, however, I was told that the exhibit doesn’t start until the 24th. The woman gave me a refund for my ticket and I walked back outside amongst the milling tourists, wondering what to do next. A group of Falun Gong practicioners had set up an exhibit to show to mainland Chinese, so I walked over to take a look. Among the various articles showing Chinese police gassing old people, there was a picture of a group of very blonde children in Falun poses. “See, even white-skinned people follow Falun Gong,” an enthusiastic man in a black suit standing next to me said.

“So?” I asked him.

“Well, it shows how great Falun Dafa is!” he said.

“Because a handful of white people do it?” I replied. “Doesn’t the fact that millions of Chinese people do it matter?”

“Oh, yes, of course. We are all the same, yes!” he said. We talked a bit more about it. The reason they had set up at the National Palace Museum, he told me, was that mainland Chinese tourists often visit there, and they wanted to make an impression on them. I wished him luck and made my way back towards the MRT line, taking a detour to walk around inside the Dongwu University, aka “Soochow University”, campus before returning to the river. Along the banks people walked their dogs, practiced martial arts, played badmitton and basketball, and fished. As I passed a pet shop with kittens in the window I overheard two young women talking as they fawned over the sleeping piles of fur.

“Yeah, they’re so cut, but don’t they get bigger?” one said.

“Don’t be silly, of course not!” the other replied. God, I hope they were being sarcastic.

I recently finished Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, in which he not only explores Australian Aboriginal Dreaming customs, but also explores the roots of nomadism in general. I found it facinating because, on a personal basis, it helps explain why I often feel the need to go to new places and walk around exploring them all the time. Apparently, according to Chatwin’s research, this was simply the way things were for millions of years, and we have not only grown accustomed to it, but we have also accumulated an actual need for it. Now, obviously, this applies more to certain individuals than others, and I wonder how much of this need can be addressed via non-ambulatory modes of transportation such as cars and airplanes, but it is an interesting way to see travel in general, something deeper and more basic than all of the superficial excuses we normally come up with for our migratory impulses. The book also made me want to go out and buy a Moleskine notebook, but fortunately they’re not being made anymore, and I couldn’t afford one anyway at this point.

In fact, my financial situation, I fear, is going to result in some changes around here. Exactly what kind of changes I can’t say yet as I am still waiting for confimation that I will indeed remain employed at my present position for another year’s time, but it’s likely that I will have to move yet again, as I simply cannot afford to live where I do and eat. Sandy suggested moving out of the city, as he has, and I am inclined to agree, though I would want to be close to an MRT stop. My recent string of bad real estate choices makes me wonder if I can actually find a place I won’t hate, but I don’t really have a choice; I will just have to be extraordinarily picky this time I guess. Shouldn’t be too hard, as I tend to be that way anyway. Probably explains why I’m still single.

I spent my time at the office yesterday morning itching to get out into the warm, sunny weather, but when I stepped out onto the sidewalk at noon, I was at a loss as to exactly where to go to enjoy it best. I bought a sandwich and considered the problem as I ate it while sitting under a brilliant red Tallow tree in Da-an Park. Eventually I decided I would try and find out just how high I could get without the use of drugs or wings, just using my motorcycle.

I took Zhongshan North Road up through Shilin, zig zagging up the side of Yangmingshan. Gendouyun was running especially fine considering I hadn’t started it up in weeks, with little to no smoke coming from the tailpipe. I rode up through the national park almost to the cleft in the mountain past the sulfer springs and took a left on the side road to Danshui. The roads were still wet and the temperature dropped. I took a right after asking directions at a solitary shop no doubt mostly used by the soldiers at the radar base on one of the peaks, and made my way up to the top of Datun Mountain. There was some sort of radar base on the top of this peak as well, but it seemed to be inhabited solely by a pack of unkempt dogs who barked at my arrival.

At first the scene was peace itself, with only the wind and an occasional insect chirping. The entire northern part of Taiwan is visible, all the way from Yehliu and Turtle Island in the east to the coast beyond Bali in the west, not to mention the entire Taipei basin as well. Taipei 101 is obviously the tallest thing in the city, and it’s not even close to being finished yet. The downside of the spot being so easily accessible is of course that anyone could make their way there, and all too soon a rich couple in a brand-new BMW drove up, Kenny G blasting out their open windows. They didn’t even turn the motor off, much less their radio, preferring instead to just sit there looking at the view from their car.

Not long after that we were joined by a guy on a huge silver Kawasaki racing bike. He appeared to have only bought it recently. Decked up as he was in full racing gear, all rubber and thickly padded, he seemed to be having trouble keeping both feet on the ground at the same time. The Kenny G folks and I watched as Racerboy spent a full 15 minutes simply turning his bike around on the road. He then spent another quarter of an hour unzipping himself from his gear, then five minutes looking at the view, and finally another 15 minutes getting back into the suit before zooming off rather jerkily, barely missing the BMW.

I stayed until after four o’clock before beginning my descent, choosing to continue on to Danshui rather than going back the way I came. On the way down I stopped at a lovely little copse/bird sanctuary, the brilliant blue sky reflected in the water, beneath which schools of fish could be seen swimming around. A very pleasant spot. The fact that it was Friday helped things a great deal, as I didn’t have to deal with weekend crowds. I continued down the other side of the mountain on Route 101. As the sun got lower in the sky it began to shine in underneath the thick foliage hanging over the pavement. The road itself was very nice, twisting and turning gently, fairly smooth and fun to ride, especially in light traffic.

I made it to the Danshui pier just in time to see the sun set over the Taiwan Strait. They’ve finally completed the bridge across the harbor, though it’s not open to the public yet. I walked around the piers a bit, looking at the ever-larger yachts moored there and dodging groups of giggling students watching the lights come on all over the high-rise apartment buildings lining the river on both sides. I rode into town and enjoyed dinner at a rooftop restaurant after almost electrocuting myself on the neon signage at the edge of the balcony.

On the way home I managed to restrain myself from opening Gendouyun up on the miles-long stretch of straight roadway on Dadu Road, just keeping pace with the cars at around 100 kph. I’ll probably get a picture of myself speeding in a few days anyway, if the police can make out my license plate number. It’s been a while since I washed my bike, so it could be a bit hard to make out. *whistles* I had entertained thoughts of going out to Fresh or someplace that night, but a look at my bank account statement after withdrawing some cash changed my mind.

This afternoon I took a trip, this time via the MRT, out to Xindian, where I exchanged some books and other treats with Sandman and Jo-jo at the Sandcastle in Bitan. The Cat Formerally Known as Smoke looks more like some alien species after having his fur shaved off everywhere except his feet, head and the tip of his tail. Most bizarre. After sampling some of Sandman’s excellent pasta, another visitor arrived, a Dutchman into old maps and photos of Taiwan. Later on Sandy introduced me to the Roti of Athula, a cheerful, heavyset Sri Lankan man who runs a stand on the near side of the susension bridge. As Athula served some other customers who were waiting for their Roti, Sandy and I cast jealous aspersions at a foreigner who stode up and jumped into a new MGF convertible alongside a Taiwanese girl before driving off.

I tried two kinds of Roti, beef and chicken, taking my meal down to the waterside to eat whilst watching the swan boats mill around on the river with their little lights blinking. I liked the chicken better, though it tasted somewhat like liver to me for some reason. Now I’m home again, and feeling rather worn out. It’s just as well I don’t have any money to go out and do anything with.

UPDATE: Some Mirror Project pictures I took during my trip up the mountain are now up.

The Tai-chi sword form I’m studying now is the first one I’ve come across to involve the concept of “Yuan Kong Wei” (­ìªÅ¦ì), which basically means that when you’re doing a move, the focus of that move stays fixed while your body and the sword move around it. Sometimes it’s the tip of the sword that doesn’t move, sometimes it’s a point along the blade, the handle, or even one’s arms and/or legs that stay in the same position, even if you’re moving along a line of action. It took a couple of classes to get used to this idea, but it really serves as a nice way to coordinate one’s motions by interconnecting every part of one’s body into each and every action. A sword thrust may originate in one’s feet, knees, or, most often, one’s waist, but practically never in one’s arms. This concept works in Tui-shou as well, I found after a few sessions grappling with Plasticman. That said, however, even though I’ve come closer to intellectualizing the concept behind moving Qi around, I still find that I am the most effective when I am completely not thinking about it, and stuff just seems to happen. Then I’m surprised and start thinking about it too much, and my performance suffers. I suppose that is just the learning curve, however. Mr. Xu is a very good teacher, I think, and I’m happy to have found him.

Dean and Mindcrime and I met up at The Shannon last night along with a fellow named Mark who is interested in making films. He possessed all kinds of cool toys such as a Canon XL1s and a tricked-out Powerbook, but though we spent hours trying to nail down a single definite idea to film, we left with nothing but a few vague ideas. While Mindcrime is into writing and scripts, and Dean is into coordinating things, Mark is a self-described “visual person”, and so there seemed to be a bit of difference in our respective approaches to such things. I personally abide by the “too many cooks” theory when it comes to an original idea for a film. There’s got to be one person with the original vision, and the crew should adhere to that vision. This is why we rotated directorial and crew positions at film school in New York, which seemed to work pretty well (for our group, anyway). I don’t mean to rain on the parade, though. It could be that they’ll come up with a brilliant idea and pull it off. It could happen.

In the meantime, I finished proofreading the Chinese version of the damn book in two evenings. Taking into account how much slower I read Chinese than most Taiwanese, this probably means that the average person here could probably get through it in an hour or two (Kirk got through the unedited version, which was three times as long as the edited version, in one evening). This is providing they knew what was going on, as so much was cut that many references in the latter parts of the work don’t make sense any more. I fear that a lot more work is going to have to be done on this, which means that the publishing date will most likely be pushed back even further. Oh, well. My publisher insists that Taiwanese don’t buy any books over 50,000 characters or anything over 250 pages, but a trip to the bookstore confirmed that not only are there many books out there over that length, a good portion of books by my publisher are themselves already over that length, a few are twice that size. I can only conclude that they feel the subject matter isn’t serious enough or engaging enough to warrant such a length. I will do what I can, of course, to edit it so that it makes sense, but I fear that no matter what, a lot of story will be missing. Hopefully I can insert a few bits here and there that help the reader make sense of the thing, though.

I had lunch with Li Jian-wei, an old co-worker of mine, today. We used to work at TVBS together, and he is still in the TV business at another studio. He also still lives with his parents in Shilin; his family owns two G4s(!). We talked a lot about cameras, my new camera, watched some films, looked at some of his recent photography, which is quite good. I think the reason we got along at TVBS is that both of us were known to annoy under certain circumstances. Some things never change.

Tomorrow is our department’s “Wei-ya” (§À¤ú) party, a Chinese New Year-thing all companies hold just before the holiday. They’ve arranged for a bus to pick us up at 4pm and take us down to Hsinchu, where the restaurant and most of our offices are; I’ll probably be back late that evening. Hopefully there will be prizes at this gig. I could use a hongbao or two.

Oh, and I fixed the link to this week’s video clip, so have at it.

This is a rather unusual office I find myself in these days. It’s only temporary, or so they say, whilst my contract is being sorted out. They keep it cold enough to keep meat fresh in here, and the lack of decorating doesn’t do anything to help. There are two other people in the room, both women. One types furiously away at her computer, while the other does nothing but read online Chinese romance novels on websites that play Jacky Cheung midi files over and over again. All the othe cubicles, less than ten, are vacant. Such is government work these days.

Y tu mam?también was engaging, if poorly projected at The Source Sunday night. I could see where it was going, of course, though it took its time to get there. It left me feeling depressed. To compensate I went out with some friends for hot pot afterwards at the McDonald’s of Hotpot, Ke-li-ya, on Roosevelt Rd. I love hot pot in any form that’s not spicy, however, and it’s even better on a cold night.

Sean Scanlon was at the viewing, and he was discussing what projects he wanted to include at this year’s Urban Nomad festival. He was debating whether a certain piece was good enough to show. I had to ask, “Sean, were you even at last year’s festival? Of course it’s good enough.” I mean, come on.

It’s noon and I’m off work now. Looks like a lunch-in-the-park day outside.

Er-hu music has been broadcast into my room all day today, ranging from old traditional tunes to Pan Yue-yun’s Greatest Hits, thanks to today’s Annoying Community Program. I really hope my landlord decides to get me new windows, of course, but I doubt even that will keep all the noise out. Like a determined burglar, the activities usually held downstairs will find a way to let everyone within a half-mile radius “enjoy” their volume, thick glass or no. I suspect the Buddhist monks downstairs, and while I’m not sure I could take a monk one-on-one, I’m pretty sure I’d lose if they ganged up on me, as religious groups are wont to do.

I ruined my breakfast yesterday. I wanted to make pancakes, but I’m so inept I ended up burning them on the outside and undercooking them on the inside. The batter was too thin as well, so I ended up with just one large, burnt pancake that oozed batter from the inside. My resulting culinary disappointment coincided with a strange urge to go walk around by the river, so I took the subway over to the train station and walked over to the park that lies in between the floodwalls and the Danshui River. A few men were practicing their golf skills by launching small white orbs as far as they could across the river and judging their distance by the splashes they created. I would have protested at this pollution if I didn’t know that the acidic quality of the water probably dissolves the balls before they hit bottom.

The park was muddy and depressing after recent rains, and walking along the river was strangely unsatisfying. Perhaps what I need is a river that doesn’t look and smell like the runoff from a massive toxic waste-producing factory. I walked back towards the train station, stopping along the way at Beef Noodle Street, where I took this week’s video clip to show you not only Beef Noodle Street, the home of truly delicious (especially on a cold night) beef noodles, but also to demonstrate the crazy speed at which scooters fly through this bottleneck, despite the row of restaurants. Beef Noodle Street is in the middle of a pocket of old buildings from the Japanese era or even before, one of many such little pockets throughout Taipei, especially the western part of the city, along the river. HBO was on the TV, and the noodle vendor was celebrating his shop’s anniversary by handing out men’s dress socks to customers. I accepted the gift and quietly put them back in the box before I left. Taiwanese dress socks tend to be a bit thin for my tastes.

On my way back I took a couple of shots to put up on my photography page, which has been duly updated as well. Though the river was disappointing, the walk over there and back was worth the trip. I need to get out more.

Tonight someone’s showing a movie at the new Source, so I’ll probably go have a look. The Source is one of those places that seems to have poor patronage no matter how nicely it’s decorated inside. Perhaps that location has bad Fengshui or something, being located so close to CKS Hall. A shame, really, as it’s so much better than the old place.