I was ready for bed last night when I got a call from Chris, who was heading over to Ziga Zaga at the Hyatt to meet up with Michael and some other people. Although sleep called, I figured after staying home all day doing laundry and tidying up for the new year, I wouldn’t mind getting out for a bit.

The crowd at the ritzy club consisted of the usual suspects: a mix of well-to-do white people, Taiwanese people dressed with questionable fashion sense intended to impart a sense of wealth and status more than taste, and a couple of black people. The band was from Europe and did a good job on most of the covers it played, though the sound system was pretty horrible.

We sat at a high table; Chris and her friend Alita would go dance periodically while Michael and I would stay and people-watch. A couple at a nearby table had embarked on a more-or-less constant lap dance, while an Asian girl stood staring at the stage and moving her hands in slow motion.

The restrooms were ambiguously labeled, as Chris found after walking into the men’s room by mistake (or so she claims). The men’s room door had a pear on it. I’m not sure what the women’s room door had on it; an apricot I think. I couldn’t be sure because any male person walking past the men’s room would immediately be confronted with a gremlin dressed in a hotel uniform. The gremlin would then tell the male person “Pear! PEAR! NOT APRICOT!” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The bar did have one of my favorite drinks, CC rye whiskey and ginger ale. Periodically Chris and Alita would overheat and go outside to cool down. I went with them one time at the end of the band’s last set so that I could watch people leaving. One fat woman stared at me as I sat on the pavement ouside. She was wearing purple slippers and suede pants, and I thought Jesus, if anyone should be stared at it’s her. But it was obviously not my crowd, so I just pointed and laughed as I usually do.

Speaking of pointing and laughing, I got a good laugh while shopping at SOGO for a new bathrobe. My old one, previously white, is now a dubious shade of yellow and needs replacing. Also, it doesn’t cover me as well as it used to. My employers give out bonuses of SOGO gift certificates in lieu of actual money, and I wanted to use the NT$1,000 I’d accumulated in one swell foop.

I looked at one terrycloth robe and asked how much it was. “NT$2,800” I was told.

“Yeah, ok,” I said, and kept walking. I then found one for NT$5,000 and chuckled at the clerk. I continued on to find one for NT$11,000. Then I found another that looked nice. Nothing special, just a terrycloth bathrobe. “How much is this?” I asked the saleslady.

“Oh, that one’s on sale!” she said brightly. I waited a moment but that’s all she said.

“And How Much Does It Cost?” I said, trying to enunciate clearly.

“NT$33,000.”

“BWAAAAHAAAAA!” I shouted, causing the entire floor to turn and stare. I didn’t say anything else, wiped my tears of hilarity on the bathrobe and departed.

Prince Roy had the gall to pick me to continue this “Five things you don’t know about me” ridiculousness. I pointed out that I’ve already done a hundred of these things, but alas, his appetite for this kind of thing seems to be insatiable. Although I have plenty of potentially disturbing secrets left, I’ve been racking my brains to think of any that won’t completely alienate one or both of my readers and/or cause them to notify relevant authorities. Here are the ones I came up with:

1. I lied in a rather baldfaced fashion to a certain ROC vice premier’s face during an interview

2. My sexual fetishes make furries look like the old couple in American Gothic

3. I successfully masqueraded as a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute

4. I’ve posted a collection of nude photos of myself on the Internet

5. The fingernails on my left hand are soft, while the fingernails on my right hand are very hard.

I’m not going to tag anyone else on this meme; let it fade away on its own.

Prince Roy had the gall to pick me to continue this “Five things you don’t know about me” ridiculousness. I pointed out that I’ve already done a hundred of these things, but alas, his appetite for this kind of thing seems to be insatiable. Although I have plenty of potentially disturbing secrets left, I’ve been racking my brains to think of any that won’t completely alienate one or both of my readers and/or cause them to notify relevant authorities. Here are the ones I came up with:

1. I lied in a rather baldfaced fashion to a certain ROC vice premier’s face during an interview

2. My sexual fetishes make furries look like the old couple in American Gothic

3. I successfully masqueraded as a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute

4. I’ve posted a collection of nude photos of myself on the Internet

5. The fingernails on my left hand are soft, while the fingernails on my right hand are very hard.

I’m not going to tag anyone else on this meme; let it fade away on its own.

For once, the weather was actually nice on Wednesday night. I was the second to arrive, but as I went through my sword and empty-handed forms, many others arrived, mostly newcomers. Mr. V and Mr. You didn’t come, nor did the tall UPS guy who usually shows up.

When Teacher Xu arrived I told him about my friend Jane, who is interested in Tuishou, not in any competitive sense but as a physical and mental description of the exchange and mutual understanding of energy between two people. He was happy to hear that, because even though all the books teach that, most people still see it as a wrestling match.

I was the odd man out at first, as everyone had paired up while I was talking with Teacher Xu, but soon enough I was pushing with the guy who is not from Hong Kong. We would do tuishou for a while, and then he would lock up and just start shoving, at which point I would always just take a step back, and then start over. It seems to be the only way to make any progress.

Teacher Xu told us to convince our opponents to use all of their force by drawing them in with close contact, and only when they’ve spent their energy, to spring the trap. “You don’t have to push all the way back at that point,” he said. “Why let loose something you’ve spent all this time trying to get into the trap?”

Next I practiced with a fellow who had just started practicing, and for a while I just let him push me. I could push him over easily with one hand, and though he wanted me to instruct him, I didn’t know quite how to explain a lot of it, referring him instead to Teacher Xu or some of the more experienced students.

The guy from last time at whose hands I met ego-related failure heard me saying this, and wanted to practice with me. At first it was the same old story. He has a grip like tree roots, slowly and inexorably tightening with rising force. But at some point, I looked at him and saw his spine, and it was like a box was unlocked in my mind. I concentrated on his spine, as that’s really the only thing that matters. It wasn’t really him trying to push me, it was just this column of bones planted on two feet.

This helped enormously, though he still managed to push me over frequently, most often when I managed to lose my concentration. Still, I’m going to have to look into this idea more thoroughly in the future.

I’d planned to renew my long-since-expired motorcycle registration this afternoon before work, but when I got to the DMV I was told that, since I was changing the color of the bike, I’d need to get it inspected. My present registration says “black” as the bike’s color, though it was black and red, the traditional RZR colors. So I’m going to have to wait until it’s all fixed up before I can go get it re-registered.

Rather than take the MRT directly back to the office, I decided instead to walk up Ba-de Road, and after a couple of blocks I found myself looking up at the building on whose rooftop I once practiced Kung-fu on a daily basis. The old sign on the building’s side was gone or covered up, but a faded green placard still adorned the top. I walked past the lobby, outside which I used to park my Honda during practice. The last time I exited that door I was gasping in pain and leaning on a classmate’s shoulder.

In 1991-1992, I was up there all the time. Life then was good, if poor. I was working as a camera assistant at the Kuangchi Programming Service, making NT$15,000 a month, NT$4000 of which I used for the rent on a decent room on Minsheng East Road. At night when I got off work early enough I would ride my motorcycle to the Kung-fu center on Ba-de Road for practice. Our teacher was a short, stocky guy surnamed Chen, and I was learning the Chang-hong style, empty-handed and stick forms. The training was tough, but I was in good shape and making decent progress. In all respects, I was living the life I’d envisioned for myself.

Then, one night, I was in the middle of a series of flying kicks when I came down wrong and seriously injured my left knee. I couldn’t walk for a while and lost my job. My landlady didn’t appreciate me being home all the time and kicked me out. I had no job, no place to live and I couldn’t walk well, much less continue training. I decided to leave Taiwan and take a position as a shoe inspector in China.

Living in the same city for a long time can play tricks with one’s perception of time, making it seem like it’s not really flowing as fast as it is. But as I stood looking up at that building, I suddenly felt the solid presence of the decade and a half between me and that life, that version of myself.

My life since has been interesting, no doubt, but I can’t help wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t injured myself that night. Due to the more violent nature of that particular martial art, an injury was probably going to happen sooner or later. I’ve been involved in movies on and off in the time since, and I’ve gotten back into martial arts, albeit softer, more internal forms these days. Perhaps I would have ended up the same, just without the detour to China. Or perhaps I would still be on top of that building. I could wonder forever and still not know.

After standing there for several minutes with these thoughts running through my head, I turned and walked on to Dunhua South Road, where, coincidentally, I lived after coming back from China, in a fire-damaged walk-up room with particle-board walls for NT$4500 a month. There was a bridge in front of the building then, running over the train tracks. I was just starting out at a small TV station called TVBS, which occupied a couple of floors in a small building near Jinshan Road.

Aside from the railway bridge being gone, the area hasn’t changed all that much. I would have loved to have had access to the MRT back then, but I had to rely on the then-new-to-me Gendoyun to get around. The MRT has changed the city in countless ways, not the least of which is the way it reduces the city to disconnected points rather than the urban stream one takes in from the seat of a motorcycle. Much like living in the same spot and watching the flow of time as opposed to moving around and living life in a series of disconnects.

昨天晚上轉換了新版的 blogger 時,

Not having been around snow when I was growing up, one of the things I miss most about this time of year is the whole Christmas light thing in the US. There are lights everywhere here, of course, but they’re usually up all year and have nothing to do with Christmas.

But today I came across this, which has to be the most awesome display of Christmas-light firepower I’ve seen. Impressive (note: wmv link).

Hotpot was had last night at Prince Roy‘s place, whereupon a whole lot of politics was discussed. As usual there was a lot of code-switching, which I really should be getting better at but patently am not. At one point Lennet leaned over and asked me, “Can I expect a lot of this kind of conversation in the future?” I said yes, I was afraid he could. He was referring to the political nature of the talk, though, not the code-switching. I guess Lennet’s used to the lack of political debate in Shanghai. Or he just doesn’t like it. Still, some interesting theories were proposed, and we managed to avoid the whole cult-of-the-expert thing you see on discussion forums.

Afterwards, when I was ready to go home, I found that I was out of cash after giving up my last change to a friend for getting me some cereal products, so I went to an ATM to get some money. It was offline. I went to another. It was offline as well. In the end I had to get PR to call Spicygirl to come down with cash to lend me for the taxi ride home. This never happens. Usually, even if one bank is down, you can easily find another one within one block. At first we suspected, of course, a mainland sneak attack, but that would have involved paratroopers, and the skies were clear. So it was either a personal attack by a well-informed hacker or just an inconvenient coincidence.

In preparation for the switch over to the new version of Blogger, I saved all my accounts to Word files. This account alone is over 1,000 pages long in Word, or approximately 3/8 of an average Harry Potter volume. Thus, the forthcoming novelization will be a hefty tome indeed. I also switched the Chinese blog to a more generic, comments-friendly format. I’ll see if I can make the appearance more interesting later. I’m not sure how I feel about the tags/labels thing yet.

Bret and Alan are having their annual Christmas party tonight out in Nangang, and there are various shenanigans and goings-on through Monday night’s dinner at Darrell’s and Judy’s place. Unfortunately, the current administration isn’t feeling too festive about Constitution Day, so we have to work on Christmas.

Due to movie-related business and other things, I skipped tuishou class for a few weeks. Last night was the first time in a while for me. Of course it was raining. It’s been raining every single Wednesday night for a month or so now. Depressing, but that’s winter for you. At least everything is shiny.

Just after I arrived at the the war memorial shelter, under which we practice when it rains, one of the newer students showed up, followed by Mr. You. Before long about ten students had gathered, many of them newer ones. A good sign for Teacher Xu, I guess. I went through the sword form a couple of times on the treacherously slippery concrete floor of the memorial, followed by the empty-handed form, or at least what I’ve learned of it. Then it was time to push some hands.

I started out with the guy who is not from Hong Kong, not really pushing. I wasn’t really interested in pushing, being in a rather lackadaisical mood. I simply yielded and yielded, only pushing when a glaringly obvious opportunity offered itself. The guy was is not from Hong Kong pushed me over a few times via brute force, but I honestly didn’t care.

Next up was a new guy, a bit shorter than I and built like a grizzly bear. He approached tuishou like Sumo, crouching down and rushing at his opponent. He pushed me over a few times as well, at least before I realized that all I had to do was literally stoop to his level and employ the same tactics as I normally would. Though this entailed a lot of work, I met with success. Basically he was all low-center-of-gravity force and relatively easy to deal with.

Last I pushed with Mr. You. Both of us were determined not to give the other any openings, so we just went at it for a while with nobody pushing the other over, until the end of class. I was the last to leave, walking back to the subway in the rain. The session tired me more than usual, but it was good to get back into it.

After the frenzy to complete filming for the movie before Dean left, I found myself with no more shooting to do last weekend. I slept late, a particularly comfortable experience with the lower temperatures we’ve been having lately, and then went to Bikefarm to check on Gendoyun and then went to Page One at Taipei 101 to pick up some books and a Hopper 2007 calendar. There’s something very comforting about a big, nicely appointed bookstore. Especially in bad weather, it feels like a refuge, one that could never, ever be boring.

Dean’s flight back to Canada was on Sunday afternoon, so Saturday night I went over to his place and he, Rowan and I watched TV and ate pizza for one last time. “It’s the end of an era,” I told Rowan, and he knew exactly what I meant.

Sunday was bright but cold. I spent the afternoon sipping tea at the Wistaria teahouse with Prince Roy and Spicygirl, and then took the train up to Zhishan Station to listen to David and Conor play a couple of sets at the Post Home. They served a Christmas-like dinner that were supposed to be chicken, turkey and ham but was actually ham, turkey and more ham. It wasn’t bad. David and Conor are preparing to travel to Memphis to join in a blues competition. After the show I sat around and chatted a bit, but I wasn’t really in the mood for socializing.

So that was my weekend. I haven’t had much to post lately, and might have to resort to “Cartoon Characters I find Disturbingly Sexy” or something similar in the near future to fill this space. You’ve been warned.

I lugged the huge, mile-long extension cord we’d gotten for the tunnel scene last year along with the rest of my gear over to Dean’s on Wednesday night, whereupon he, Rowan and I headed over to Heidi’s rooftop to film the last scene. Not the last scene in the movie (we filmed that ages ago), but the last scene in principal photography. It was a flashback (I know: the horror!) and Dean had shaved his beard and arranged his hair in as much of an 80’s style as he could stomach.

It was drizzling when we arrived at the address, which I discovered was just one alley over from where I lived in 1991, in a small room that rented for NT$3500 a month. Heidi’s rooftop is much nicer, as well as six times as expensive. We waited for her dogs to get over the excitement of strangers in the house and went up to the roof to set up. The nighttime view of the city skyline was very nice, and I set up a couple of angles to take advantage of it. We got several takes of each, but the rain was getting everyone wet, and filming on a wet, barrier-free rooftop with electric cords and lights waving around in the wind wasn’t an experience I wanted to prolong. The shots looked great, though, and after the last one I called out, “Ok, I’ve been wanting to say this for years now.” Everyone looked at me. Dean was smiling; he seemed to know what I was going to say already.

“That’s a wrap,” I said. And it was. That’s all the scenes in the movie, now in the can, or at least on tapes and on my hard drives. No more wondering if the weather will hold, no more wondering how to get locations or enough people to fill the scene. Except for the occasional pick-up and sound-catching for ADR, it’s all indoor computer work. Then comes the distribution headaches, but I’m not going to worry about that just yet.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe it took this long, but it’s also hard to believe that we’ve finally made it to this point. As Dean says, we’ve got all the pieces of the puzzle; now we just have to put them together. Welcome to the wonderful world of post production.

I suppose this means the nature of this account will change. Editing, sound, and effects milestones are harder to document than shooting, but we’ll see what happens. As always.