Yesterday was a big ghost money-burning day, as it’s the middle of Ghost Month, when the spirits are supposedly the most free to roam around in search of potato chips, fruit drinks and a comfortable sofa. Clouds of noxious smoke rose from the streets as the Taiwanese people once again sent out a big “Fuck You!” to their descendants in favor of appeasing the ghosts of their ancestors. It’s been said that the dead have it better than the living here, mostly in reference to the prime real estate given over to cemetaries on this crowded island. But it goes for this honored tradition of releasing toxic carginogens imprinted on whole forests of dead trees into the air by the boatload as well.

In a sign that it’s not just neurotic westerners noticing the harmful effects of this tradition, the government took a break from its normally idiotic campaign of trying to get people to have more babies, in an attempt to wean the automatrons off their dangerous habit by introducing online “ghost money burning” sites and getting people to do it at centralized locations rather than all over the place, but it’s not having much of an effect. Why? Because burning ghost money is easy to do, and it guarantees a full year of no personal responsibility. Imagine, a whole year of driving around without a care in the world, cutting corners on mountain roads with no helmet, eating whatever you like at the night market with intestinal impunity, and in general living a risk-free life (excepting the occasional seeing a foreigner on the street, Sunlight and other risks)! How can anyone compete with such a promise? In a country where personal convenience of having a scooter that belches out smoke outweighs any far-off futuristic dream of this mythical so-called “clean air” that one sees in other countries on HBO…well, nobody.

I realize that the lack of security resulting from indifferent and arbitrary government over the centuries makes it only natural that people turn instead to religion and the obseqious fawning/public indifference that is all that remains of the Confucian ideal for a sense of stability in their lives, but every time I pass the scene of mass ghost money burning, be it in front of someone’s house or a major department store run by a cooperation that spouts literature about all the good they’re doing for Taiwan, I wonder if the people there are including better air quality or freedom from pollution-related illnesses in their prayers. I’d ask, but for one thing, my brain would explode if I was right, and for another, it would do about as much good as complaining about it on a blog somewhere.

(The poster above was inspired by this)

There are currently three, count ’em THREE tropical storms out in the Pacific, two of which are probably going to make for interesting weather here over the next few days.

The last storm to hit us kept me awake all night because, unlike my last residence, the new place is high enough to get the wind whistling and banging things around and making quite a bit of noise.

Right now, however, we’re still in the afternoon-thundershower stage of summer. I know exactly when it will start raining each day: right when I have to go to work, no sooner, no later.

The brownies, despite my best efforts, didn’t work out. Well, not exactly my best efforts: I could have taken them out of the oven when I first smelled them burning, but for some reason I didn’t. At least the frosting makes the part I didn’t burn edible. I really should use my little oven to cook real food, like meat and vegetables and stuff. I have no idea where to start, and every time I look at recipe websites I am scared off by the complexity of the preparations. Why spend an hour cooking when Athula’s right across the bridge, waiting with delicious rhoti? But now that American beef is back on the market here, I might try and see how badly I can ruin a steak. My guess is: pretty badly, but probably not fire-department badly.

In any case, should these storms necessitate me staying indoors for a couple of days, I’m going to have to cook something, so I should stock up on charrable produce.

I went to The Living Room on Friday night after work to go to a going-away party for Carmen, who writes nice things about our band in The China Post and is now going to study real journalism at Columbia. I took my time, taking pictures as I walked up Guangfu, knowing nobody would be there at the appointed time. Sure enough, though I was over half an hour late, nobody was there except one foreigner who was talking very loudly at a succession of Taiwanese girls at a table in the corner.

I had a small amount of chicken noodles in a very large bowl, washed it down with CC and ginger, and waited. People started to trickle in, including the bands that were playing later. David showed up with some friends. Turns out he’d been early too and gone across the street for Thai food.

I started to feel very tired. I hadn’t slept well the night before. The a/c was blowing on me, I couldn’t seem to think straight, and I couldn’t be bothered to talk much with anyone, which seemed to be fine as most people were happy to ignore me. By the time the first band started up, I was ready to leave. David and I walked to the MRT, and I took one half-hearted picture on the way. Back home, I wasted time online before crashing.

Woke up at 7am the next morning, sunshine shining through the blinds on my face. I couldn’t sleep any longer but felt anything but refreshed, so I took a short hike in the hills behind my building, doing some Tai-chi at one point along the way and taking lots of leaf pictures. I was meeting a guy who contacted me about my book a while ago, named Dan; he’s ex-US military and teaching at NTU for the summer. As usual, I waited until the last minute to get ready, and, as I was shaving my head, I accidentally screwed up, producing a gash of bare skin on the back of my head. I’d just bought a new electric razor from a pet store (cheaper that way, Sandman told me), and I wasn’t used to it. Fixing it took some time, so I was late for my meeting with Dan at The Wistaria Teahouse on Xinsheng South Road.

Dan was still there waiting, thankfully, and I ordered a light meal of pork soup and tea. We talked about various military-related and Taiwan-related subjects. I called Prince Roy and he arrived 20 minutes later to join our conversation, as he’s ex-military as well. Dan’s learning basic Chinese and shared some of his ideas on language learning, as well as telling some interesting stories about the US military. He has no idea why I can’t get my book published in English.

We wrapped up around 3 or 4pm, and I declared that I was going shopping in Tianmu to search for cake frosting for some brownies I was planning to bake, courtesy of Robyn, who donated the mix. Prince Roy decided to come along, so we walked to the MRT and, half an hour later found ourselves at Mingde Station. As we approached Wellman’s Grocery, PR mentioned that I probably could have found what I was looking for at City Super or Jason’s Market. I’d forgotten about those, but in any case it was nice weather for a walk on the north side of town.

I ended up buying more than cake frosting, of course, and my backpack was loaded when we left the store. We walked up to Tianmu Road and walked along it, noting the many Shanghai restaurants and Japanese restaurants. Tianmu used to be a foreign enclave, but it’s not really that special any more, ever since the supermarkets and the Xinyi District took off downtown. It’s a lot easier to be a foreigner in Taipei these days than back when you had to either live in Tianmu or accept a certain level of Taiwanese intrusion into your expat package-life elsewhere.

We ended up walking a pretty good ways, and I was tired again by the time we got back to Mingde Station to take a train back downtown. My friend Mark’s birthday party was being held at The Italian Job, which PR has expressed interest in sampling, so we headed over there together.

Mark, Harry, Lorens, Joe, Marty, and some others were all there already when we walked in. I normally enjoy the gnocci, but for some reason I had no appetite that night. PR came into mortal danger of eating soup that wasn’t vegetarian, but realized his peril at the last minute. The waiter was very apologetic; he told us that up until just recently, all the soups of the day were vegetarian, and they just hadn’t bothered to change the menu.

After dinner we walked over to Da-an Park, walking and talking. I was exhausted, and my backpack weighed heavily on me, as did the dinner inside me. Finally we sat down on a bench to chat. PR had to take off. Only three or four of us were left, and we chatted until I felt I could tackle the hike back to the MRT station. By the time I reached home, I was running on empty, and slept until I was awoken by thunderstorms at 1pm the next day, Sunday, i.e. today. I’ve done nothing today except upload a bunch of photos to flickr. Later I might go crazy and cook something. Tomorrow, another week begins.

My friend Michael just opened up a fancy restaurant on Ren-ai Road near the corner of Jian-guo Road a few months ago. It’s called “Kodiko”. He’s been very busy working there at all hours. It’s a “healthy eating” place that uses low temperatures and other methods to reduce the wear and tear food apparently has on the body.

It’s also a really fancy, expensive place, so after Micheal invited me to lunch and I’d gotten a good look at it, I immediately thought of our fancy dinner scene. Originally I’d thought of doing it in a sideroom, but Dean preferred the space of the main dining room. This meant we’d have to wait until the place closed at 10pm and film all night. Dean expressed hope, as always, that we’d get it done quickly, but these things have a way of taking their time, no matter how many corners you cut.

I caught a ride with Sandman and Jojo over to the restaurant after a quick dinner at The Italian Job on Lishui Street. They were just closing, and some of the cast and crew had already arrived. Among them were Mark from Doubting to Shuo and Prince Roy, who had agreed to provide famous blogger cameos as guards (we always seem to need guards and henchmen). They were eager to sample the excitement and adventure of a real film shoot, despite my warnings of long, tiring, boring, repetitious chores all night and into the morning. Jojo and Chris also stayed. I think they just wanted to see Sandman get stabbed with a butter knife.

Setting up took a while, as we had to move all the tables to the side room and set up one long table in the middle of the main dining room. Darrell brought his camera for two-camera setups to save time, and Paul supplied lights (which we augmented with an egg crate) and microphone. I wanted a dark dining room, so we used mostly the lighting in the ceiling, with a few accents provided by our lights. Darrell also provided the computer readouts to be projected on the glass wall behind the table.

Soon, everyone was in costume, including the guards in their maroon and black, carrying plastic guns (Prince Roy was apparently dissatisfied with the sound of clicking the plastic clip into place), Dean in his tux, Maurice’s friend Bill in my Chinese jacket and inside-out aborigine hat, Sandy in his jacket and disposable shirt and bow tie (looking kind of like an evil Jimmy Olsen) and Rowan of course in monacle and tails.

So we got down to it. Filming went fairly steadily, though there were hiccups as Rowan was having trouble with his lines. Part of this was due to the long monologues I’d wanted to do in one shot without breaking it up, the alcohol, and, increasingly, the late hour. We gave him a break and set up to shoot Sandman getting stabbed while Rowan went over his lines, and then started up again. Unfortunately, Jojo and Chris were outside (smoking, no doubt;) when we did it, so they missed it. Bill did a great job; at the time it seemed a bit too over-the-top, but looking at the footage I realize he did it just right.

Dean got to do his James Bond casino shot, and our guards did an admirable job of restraining him, or at least seeming to, though Mark’s beret fell off in one shot. Rowan, when he got his lines down, was impressive in his dynamic range. The rehearsal had gone quite well and seemed to help him get a grasp of the scene, though some actors like to work “fresh”.

Everyone seemed to run out of energy at about 3am, even though we’d stocked up on canned coffee. I felt wide awake, as I was responsible for everyone being there, so I just kept going. The normal banter between takes fell off, and soon there was nothing but silence. The guards conked out on the sofas during setups, and Paul retired to the side room for a nap, while Darrell filmed and held the mic boom at the same time.

It was tough, but we got through it. By the time we were done, the sun was shining outside the heavy restaurant doors. We wrestled the tables back in place and let everyone go. I roused Michael from his position slumped over the desk in the office in back, and we all went to catch taxis to our respective homes. I got home around 7:30am, didn’t feel like going to bed just yet as the light was so nice (I rarely see the morning light), so I took a stroll around my neighborhood taking pictures before going to bed at about 9.

I don’t know what we’re doing next, I’m afraid. Sure, we could do a couple of pick-ups here and there, and we need to get another trailer out, but Dean has to take another trip to Canada, from late August to late September, and Bill is busy during just about the same time. I am still searching for an office/study as well as, of course, the zeppelin interior. We’re quite close to finishing this thing, but unfortunately we’ve saved the most difficult locations for last.

I missed a call from my friend Duncan around noon as workers were trying to repair a crack in a wall in my apartment. He left a message to call him back ASAP, so I did. It seems our mutual friend Peter Vlach has been reported missing from a boat in Japan. Duncan got the following email explaining the situation:

News from Japan recently is that Pete has gone missing. We are trying
to contact as many of Pete’s friends as possible to keep them abreast
of the situation, but also in hopes that they might have heard
something. Here is the message we received from Saba, Pete’s
sister-in-law:

We are trying to locate Peter. On July 24th, he boarded the passenger
boat Hiryu at 8pm local time, traveling from Naha, Okinawa, Japan to
Nagoya, Japan. He was last seen at 9pm, and was discovered missing at
9:30pm. It was dark, the waves were 3′ swells, and the boat was
approximately two miles from the shore of Ie Jima island.

At this point, Pete’s parents believe that Peter died while in the water.
We hope he may be staying with friends in Japan. Could you please send
us (or call us with) any contacts you might know of Peter’s friends
everywhere?

This is the same Peter who was teaching me how to play a scale on his clarinet a couple of weeks ago. Now, I don’t know Peter all that well, but from what I understand from Shirzi, who knows him much better than I do, this kind of thing is far from abnormal for Peter. It’s odd, however, that someone has actually reported him missing this time, thus the cause for concern. Shirzi’s travelling with his mother, in Bali I think.

So, in short, if anyone knows anything about Peter’s whereabouts, let me know. I believe he was supposed to have returned to Taiwan today.