Absolutely Not Your Monkey
I’m working on a new website design, and made this potential banner. It was either this or borrowing someone else’s image. I just put my sword on my black overcoat and took a picture.
For various reasons, I keep missing practice on Tuesdays at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Something keeps coming up every time. I’ll keep trying, but perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.
I got to the park early, the first one to arrive, and could go through the sword and empty-handed forms without suffering the scrutiny of my fellow students (although I’m pretty sure the dancing ladies were watching). Gradually, the other students began to show up, forming into pairs and starting to practice while I stood by. Though they seem more willing to practice with me now that I’m pushing back (or seeming to, anyway), there’s still some avoidance going on. And that’s fine. It’s not like it’s a tournament or something.
I did tuishou with the guy who is not from Hong Kong for a while. He made the usual comments about me loosening up when my left foot is forward. He attributed it his sage advice, but I have to give some credit to the fact that my right knee is relatively uninjured, stronger, and able to bear a lower stance than my left knee. Not-from-HK guy is still very tense, and we ended up doing more wrestling than actual tuishou once again. He loosened up in the end; perhaps it’s a mutual thing. Exchange of energy and all that.
I then practiced with Mr. You, who was wearing an orange checkered shirt to ensure that he wouldn’t be hit by any cabs that night. Mr. You was surprisingly tense for some reason, but it was a good session. I’m finding more and more “moments” going by, little glimpses of vulnerability, not only in my opponent but also in myself. Sometimes the moments stretch out, and I can tell that my opponent hasn’t realized it. I open my palms wide, hovering in position to show them, pause, and then make my move. What I get the most satisfaction from is the kind of move where I don’t really do anything, just a small change of position, and my opponent falls over by himself. The more force I have to use in tuishou, the less happy I am with it.
Teacher Xu showed us some moves, telling us not to strain our muscles to move, but instead relax them to move, like removing the weight from under a rock or removing a dam from a stream of water. “Concentrate on the bottom of your opponent’s stance, and bounce them like a ball,” he said. I can see the relaxing bit, but I’m having a hard time getting my spine to relax. Maybe I should try yoga.
Afterwards, the guy who is not from Hong Kong observed that Teacher Xu had only tensed his muscles before his actual push. “You can tell from looking at his back,” he said. That makes sense, I guess: Intent and release. When I get in a really good push, I’m not expending any energy towards the end. Most of what Teacher Xu does is still a mystery, though. I can only learn little bits over time.
The way Teacher Xu described the existence and lack of structure in tuishou reminded me of a jumping rope encased in a series of plastic tubes. When you separate the tubes, it’s a rope. When the tubes are fitted into each other, it’s a solid stick. Sort of like the wet-towel trick of the bad guy in the second “Once Upon A Time in China” film. That guy must have been a terror in PE class, huh?
Everyone was preparing to leave, but Yang Qing-feng had arrived late and was eager for more practice. I didn’t have anything particular to do, so I stayed behind to practice with him. Qing-feng’s style is very different from most of the other students. He’s very good at changing the direction of his force. Nonetheless, I found that my best chance of toppling him was by beating him at his own game. That is, if I could stay untoppled myself, an effort that really kept me on my toes due to his skill. Afterwards, he claimed that I’ve improved, and I suppose thinking back to previous bouts with him that I must have, but it still doesn’t really feel like it. I still think of things in terms of good days and bad days, and have a hard time seeing the length and breadth of my progress, or lack thereof. That’s probably for the best, actually.
The other day I was looking at the High Speed Rail schedule I have at the office, and I noticed that the HSR chose to print the label the southbound train schedule in green, and the northbound one in blue. I wonder, is this deliberate or just some kind of Freudian Slip? If the former, do we really need the HSR to contribute to the political polarization of Taiwan?
Perhaps the HSR seeks to reassure potential passengers that they will indeed be approach the pan-green/pan-blue bastion of their choice when traveling in a certain direction. A color bar installed in each car would gauge the political climate of the country the train is passing through for the passengers’ reference: “Ooh, look at how deep the green is here, this rice field must be a pocket of TSU supporters!” or “Look, honey, this village is PFP!”
They might even include soothing messages on the trains themselves, a la “Yes, valued passenger, you are truly on your way out of the dark tunnel of national political intrigue to the verdant, green, pro-independence homeland, land of the DPP, land of Chen Shui-bian and Frank Hsieh, and the thriving port-metropolis of Kaohsiung” or “Relax, honored guest, this train is bearing you away from the chaotic south towards the solid, reliable, ordered north, back to economic surety and practical values, home of the glorious capital and its convenient mass-transit system, orderly traffic and international style.” They could have “pan-green” cars with Minnan and Japanese announcements, that serve sweet-potato-based meals have extra storage space for, say, chickens, while “pan-blue” cars would have announcements in Mandarin and English, featuring iced taro desserts and waterproof floors for umbrellas to drain on.
Of course, both types of cars would have pictures of dancing aborigines.
UPDATE:
“This is Customer Service Center from Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC), as for your inquiry：
‘You have printed the schedule for southbound trains in green and the one for northbound trains in blue. Is this intended to reflect political demographics on the island of Taiwan? Or is it a mere coincidence?’
THSRC has replied as follows:
Dear Mr. Lin,
Thank you for taking the time to e-mail Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation.
A double-track line is installed on the entire route. Under normal operations, the trains should travel on the tracks on the left-hand side. Passengers seated on the left side of the southbound train are able to enjoy the mountain view, therefore the southbound timetable is represented in the color green. It is the ocean view on the left side for northbound trains; hence the northbound timetable is shown in the color blue.
Should you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact us at any time.
Sincerely,
Taiwan High Speed Rail
Customer Service Center”
Happy 6th blogiversary to me! It’s not hard to believe that it’s been six years since I started this thing, as so much has happened, but you’ve been reading the whole time and don’t need me to go into it now, right? Right?
In other news, the site may be down temporarily over the next couple of days. I’m upgrading my hosting and will have to re-upload everything.
Taiwan should ensure its international reputation with a show called “Who Wants to Be President?” I’m wondering if anyone does. Both parties seem to be tripping over their own feet, making colossal mistakes even though the race is still in the primary stage. Su Zheng-chang and Frank Hsieh have been at each other with such animosity that it will hard to believe they could ever share a ticket. Hsieh, in any case, has made it clear that he has chosen Yeh Chu-lan as his running mate, with the whole “Say Yes!” campaign slogan all picked out (“Hsieh-Yeh” sounds like a Taiwanese person trying to say “Say Yes”). Su has wasted no time in pointing out that he is “cleaner” than Hsieh, who has been involved in several corruption cases in Kaohsiung concerning the MRT and the city council elections. Hsieh says Su is a bad premier, and Su says he would be a better premier if the last premier (Hsieh) hadn’t left such a mess behind him.
One of the interesting things about this mess is that Su is favored by the New Tide faction of the DPP, which has historically supported every winner the DPP has had (including Chen Shui-bian, who is from the Justice Alliance faction) while Hsieh belongs to the less influential Social Welfare faction. Su has all the resources of the premiership available, yet Hsieh, who doesn’t have the experience Su has, remains more popular in the polls (Su threw a fit when the pan-green camp published polls suggesting Hsieh was more popular, and the party has passed a rule that candidates cannot publish polls in the future). Su also successfully dodged Losheng-related accusations that he did nothing to obstruct the plans to tear down the leprosarium when he was Taipei County magistrate by deciding as premiere that it should be saved. We’ll see how that works out.
The main reason for Hsieh’s popularity, which many say was exhibited in the Taipei mayoral election, is that he is simply more charismatic than Su. Another is that he panders more to the moderates and undecideds. He recently caught flack from deep greens when he suggested that he didn’t have a problem with the constitution’s China policy. I suspect he isn’t actually that moderate, but he does recognize that he needs those votes to win an election. The reason I say this is because Hsieh’s GIO minister appointment, Pasuya Yao, was a lot more aggressive about controlling the media than Su’s man Zheng Wen-tsang, who is scheduled to leave his office soon after being caught suggesting that TTV should be sold to the pro-DPP Liberty Times Group.
The way the DPP primary works, however, is 30% party vote and 70% opinion polls. Hsieh is favored to win the opinion poll, while current party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun has an advantage in the party vote, though he is last in the popular polls (being bested by Lu has to hurt). Where does this leave Su? Something tells me that Chen Shui-bian, though he would prefer to see his man Yu take over his job, he knows that Yu is not as electable, and that Su is the next best choice. Chen and Hsieh have been rivals for a long time, and I can’t see him supporting Hsieh if Su is still in the race. Chen’s influence is waning, however, so there may not be much he can do at this point. In the spirit of the tradtional DPP male/female tickets, I’m guessing that Su would most likely choose vice-premier Tsai Ying-wen as his running mate. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens in the primary. When that’s settled, many things will be able to proceed, e.g. the budget will have to be settled before a potential new premier takes office, requiring a new budget review, and a new GIO minister, presumably hand-picked by the new premier, as is the usual custom. The new powergrid will affect things like the current power struggle about who gets to control the CEC and the NCC. The opposition is trying to gain the upper hand by pushing a bill to make membership of the CEC party-proportional, rather than being entirely picked by the ruling party. The fact that the NCC’s makeup was chosen in such a fashion rankles the DPP to no end, resulting in a ruling that such a method was “unconstitutional.”
Meanwhile, back at the equally disorganized opposition camp, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng was apparently not content to just wait for Ma Ying-jeou’s corruption trial verdict, and came out a few days with a bizarre set of comments straight out of the DPP’s campaign book. He said, all but pointing to himself as he did do, that a “majority” candidate should lead Taiwan rather than a “minority” candidate (guess who that’s directed at). Imagine if Rudy Guliani said people shouldn’t vote for Obama because he was a minority (or just wait; you might not have to imagine it). In any case, it was a poor choice of words. But Ma couldn’t be graceful about it and hinted that Taiwan would be “lucky” to have a minority leader, when he should have quoted Chiang Ching-kuo and proclaimed himself Taiwanese. Which he later did. Though I have to admire the man’s pure testicular fortitude in saying he’ll run even if he’s judged guilty of corruption, I wonder how much of it is balls and how much of it is cluelessness. Perhaps we’ll find out. Similar investigations into the special funds of all four DPP hopefuls has just begun, but I can’t believe that after seeing what happened to Ma they haven’t made moves to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen to them.
The KMT, fearing a guilty verdict, has moved its primary up to later this month, but the DPP is trying to push through a bill effectively barring Ma from running by making candidates found guilty in the first trial ineligible to run at all. Their only hope to pass such a bill lies with the disaffected members of the PFP, who want more autonomy in elections from the KMT.
Wang won’t participate in the primary, because Ma is still much more popular than he is, corruption allegations and all. Are there any other KMT candidates worth mentioning? There’s former Kaohsiung Mayor Wu Den-yi, who is a bit past his prime. Wu lost the position to Frank Hsieh after Hsieh accused him at the last hour of having inappropriate relations with a reporter (later proven false, but Hsieh was in power already. It’s a common political tactic here). Health concerns rule Taichung Mayor Jason Hu out. Taoyuan County Magistrate Zhu Li-lun is a rising star, popular with younger voters and might have a chance for running mate status this time around. But it seems to me that the KMT is just waiting for the trial verdict, just as the DPP is waiting to see who wins its primary. Once we have real candidates to play with, it will be another game altogether.
Clay Soldiers is going to be shown at the Nanhai Movies festival this Sunday afternoon at about 3 or 4pm. I went over there a couple of days ago to give them the DVD and check out the place. By coincidence, it’s just across the street from the place where we filmed Josh’s Burmese prison scenes. The complex was apparently an old Japanese-era house with a huge yard, no doubt some official’s residence. The interior is full of various art projects, and the films will be shown on the second floor.
The organizers asked me if I would attend and possibly take questions, if there are any. I’m interested in getting to know the local art/film scene better, so I’m looking forward to this thing. I’m not, however, looking forward to speaking about the project, as I never really know what to say. Talking about film, or music, or any non-verbal medium, always feels somehow inappropriate. I find most online movie/film discussions range from the banal to the outrageously stupid, both inevitably boiling down to “This movie rocks if you don’t like it ur dum”-type drivel. I’d much rather just make films and let them speak for themselves.
That’s assuming that this crowd, if there is indeed some kind of crowd, will actually ask any questions, and if they do, they aren’t just the usual “WelcomehowdoyoulikeTaiwandoyouhaveTaiwangirlfriend” kind of thing.
Anyway, speaking of actually making films, the rough edit is coming along, albeit slowly. I’m hoping to have it done by the time Dean makes it back here so we can arrange ADR. Some scenes I’d expected to be difficult have been easier than I thought, while some I’d thought would be a piece of cake have turned out to be real jobs. Many times I’ve had to face the decision whether or not to include an emotionally strong take that contains a continuity error or some other problem. With mostly one-camera shooting, the actors are often doing different things, making different gestures, standing in different positions, etc., through dialogue and in action takes that make cutting a real challenge. This, of course, is one of the reasons (along with synch problems) why Rodriguez went around taking closeups of set details when he was shooting El Mariachi. I’ll do what I can with what I have, and if I can’t get away with that, I’ll go shoot some patch shots.
As I told Dean in an online chat, it feels kind of like I’m watching the movie for the first time, just very, very slowly. Seeing performances in the proper context is a thrill, and one of the main reasons I didn’t cut each scene after we shot it. It’s like a row of dominoes that have to fall just so, emotionally speaking, so I wanted to cut and view the film in one emotional line before I start tweaking.
The tweaking will have to wait for now, though, no matter how much I’d like to do it. I have to get the rough cut ready to pass on to Darrell for sound and Dean for special effects.
I haven’t really seen much of cast or crew recently, due to editing. Clay Soldiers has been broadcast on nationwide TV four times over the past few months, and yet IMDB can’t seem to get moving on my submission. Perhaps when they say “Nationwide broadcast” they really just mean “US broadcast”. Or perhaps with the advent of digital technology they’re just swamped with submissions and got behind. I have no idea.
But enough talk for now. Come along on Sunday afternoon if you like. The Nanhai Yilang site is located at #3, Lane 19, Chongqing South Road, Section 2. It’s just a couple of blocks from the CKS Hall MRT station.
I had some errands to run before class last night, so I was very late, but I wanted to practice as I’d missed last week due to a head cold. I got to the park at around 9:20pm, and found everyone already there, including Teacher Xu. I skipped running through any forms and went right into tui-shou with Mr. You. “I’m not warmed up,” I warned, but he said we would avoid using a lot of force “for now.”
“For now” lasted about 30 seconds. Soon we were grappling again, making it a challenge for me to maintain a proper level of emptiness between my “fake resistance” and the genuine limits of my flexibility. As usual, it was easy to catch Mr. You off guard if I moved quickly enough, but though he insists that it is proper tui-shou, it still feels like cheating. Sometimes I would alert him to his vulnerability by stopping and calling his attention to it. I wouldn’t normally be so presumptuous, but he seems more willing to discuss things like that than some of the other students.
Teacher Xu said that when the back-and-forth motion stops, it means that some vulnerability has been reached, that there is an opening somewhere to be taken advantage of. I try to use this idea to tempt my opponent into a trap I’ve laid, but it’s hard to keep things like that in my head during such a fluid operation. I supposed that, like most things, it’s best to keep it out of my head. My head is a dangerous place for such ideas. They’re ok as long as they’re just passing through.
I tried to use the “turtle’s shell” pushing technique I’ve mentioned before, but the turtle’s flippers kept getting in the way. It is useful; I just need to implement it better. Teacher Xu said to keep some aggression in your passivity, and vice-versa. I’m going to have to think more about that one.
I also noticed last night that Teacher Xu doesn’t like to stay in front of me when we’re talking about tui-shou. He always eventually sidles away to the side or around behind me, so that I have to keep turning around to keep him in my line of vision. Perhaps this is the result of many years of Tai-chi training, or maybe it’s something he does with his students to keep them on a certain level.
Yang Qing-feng and Mr. V were the last students to leave, grappling with each other long after everyone else had left. A stray dog huddled in the park gateway, watching us and causing various passersby into bush-related detours. After Qing-feng and Mr. V departed, I went through my sword and empty-handed forms several times, this time trying with my eyes closed to see how my balance was. It wasn’t that great. Another thing to work on.
