At class on the morning of the 9th, Teacher Xu showed me an article he found in a magazine about me. It took me a moment to realize it was one done last year that had only just been published recently. Of course, it included the usual embarrassing photographs.

I was rusty after so long between practices. I practiced with a new guy who kept falling down, making me use less and less effort. I wasn’t pushing him down, however. He just kept losing his balance. I went through some sword form, and then practiced with the UPS guy. It’s hard to push him as he doesn’t seem connected and is able to effectively isolate parts of his body. Pushing with him usually comes down to a simple matter of who has the furthest reach, and it’s a tie as he’s the same height as I am.

The veranda where we practice was permeated that morning by the smell of an ointment one of the older students had bought for aching muscles. Little Qin took a look and sniffed, “You got that on the street? I wouldn’t trust it.”

And that was Saturday. I got another cold, incredibly, and didn’t go to class again until last Wednesday, the 26th. It was just after the election, but nobody was talking politics. I was very tired and out of shape, and I’m afraid I used a little too much force. But not as much as another new guy, whose opponents seemed to be flying this way and that, especially Mr. V, who tends to do that anyway. Teacher Xu told me that the young fellow was actually a competitive pushhands athlete, so his ideas were rather different than ours. He introduced me to him, said, “Why don’t you two have a go?” and left.

Well.

I did manage to avoid being tossed around like the others. I had to keep my wits about me, to be sure. I didn’t dare directly attack, but instead relied on pushing him off balance when he was applying force, which he was doing more or less constantly. For the most part it was a tie, but also a contest to see who could lose track of real pushhands the most, and I think we both did a good job in that respect. He tired me out, though, in the end. I’m not sure if either of us learned anything from the experience, but at least I got a good workout out of it.

I’ve been experimenting lately with restricting myself to just one lens on my 20D, the cheapest, lightest, most basic one I have, namely the 50mm 1.8 prime that you can pick up for next to nothing. The reason I’ve been doing this is not just for greater portability; after all, a larger zoom isn’t really that big a difference when you’re carrying it in a bag. What I really wanted to do was see what happens when I purposely limit myself to a single focal length. The last time I did such a thing was when I had my first camera, a fully manual Pentax K1000 with only the basic 50mm lens, back in the 80’s, and it seems to me as if I have been relying too much on varying focal lengths, especially wide-angle shots. Sure, my popularity on Flickr will probably drop, but hopefully I’ll learn something useful in the process.

Of course, with the cropped sensor on my 20D, the 50mm is actually an 80mm lens, but this is perfect for people photography, another area where I need more practice. Most of my photos feature dark empty streets with maybe a person or two in the frame as a kind of punctuation rather than the subject. It’s not that I don’t see people photo possibilities when I’m walking around; rather, I’m too slow and too self-conscious to actually capture them. It seems to me that as soon as someone catches me eye, they are somehow automatically alerted to my presence. I am seen as a threat, and they retreat in fear.

Part of this, of course, is probably due to my appearance, as I’ve been told that I can come across as a bit menacing to people who don’t know me (and even people who do know me). I think, however, that my attitude and reaction to the situation also has a lot to do with it. When I see a photo possibility, someone with an interesting face, for example, in a visually interesting environment, I have an internal reaction that translates into some external signs that the subject senses. They feel my attention and react to it. I need to find a way past this (or through it) if I am going to improve my people photography. For now, I have to work in crowded areas like political events and bus stations to get such shots. Wayne showed me some tricks for faster focusing, but the 50 1.8 is not a fast focuser; usually by the time I get a focus lock, be it on auto or manually, the would-be subject has already fled in terror. Wayne also recommended the Sigma 30mm 1.4, and if I were sure that I would be staying with the 20D I would definitely consider it, but I’m not going to buy any new glass until I find out just what’s going on with Canon’s lineup over the next few months.

Speaking of new cameras, Mike Johnson is wondering just why nobody’s making a “Decisive Moment Digital” camera, i.e. a simple, portable point-and-shoot camera with a large sensor and a fast prime lens. “a small, light, unobtrusive carry-around camera with great handling and world-class responsiveness, capable of being used in all manner of lighting conditions and yielding DSLR-quality results on the gallery wall,” he writes. “The 21st-century equivalent of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s stealthy street-shootin’ Leica.” I completely agree. I’d much rather have the kind of camera he’s talking about than the postage-stamp-sized sensors current p/s cameras have. I don’t need most of the bells and whistles like face detection or in-camera color processing and 14 gazillion megapixels that the manufacturers are feeding the masses.

I suspect the reason camera makers aren’t doing this is because they feel that “real” photographers already have huge DSLRs and wouldn’t go for them, while most people are happy to have a camera that captures the kids playing soccer and don’t care about image quality. I think, however, that “real” photographers would go for such a DMDC in droves, just to have it on them during the day when they don’t have their huge 1D or D3 or whatever weighing them down. Instead, ironically, they’ve been taking the point-and-shoot out of the running for such a demographic by actually worsening performance and image quality by cramming more and more “features” and megapixels onto smaller sensors with substandard glass, counting on in-camera processing to make them look semi-ok on the little LCD screen. As a result, photographers are combing through e-bay looking for p/s cameras from a few years ago, before these trends got so utterly ridiculous.

David sent me a link to an article that maybe explains why I like to go walking around, particularly with a camera. I don’t feel comfortable looking for pictures so much when I’m with a group of people, or in a social scene. I feel (even more) like some kind of misfit because I’d rather interrupt the conversation to take a shot than miss it. It sounds overly dramatic, but it’s like I’m seeing another dimension that most other people don’t, in a Sixth Sense creepy kind of way, except I don’t see dead people; I see pictures. Everywhere. And yes, they don’t even know they’re pictures.

When I first went digital, however, I thought I could shoot everything, but I was wrong; it has a real cost: time. I need to engage in more self-censoring, instead of just shooting everything that I see. Combing through so many mediocre shots just takes too long, and I already spend too much time each day staring at a screen. I know I can take a decent shot. Flickr and other sites are stuffed with millions of such shots. I need to see what else I can do.

Prince Roy wanted to watch me vote, for some reason. He was touring polling stations around town with his AIT pass, so he came down to Bitan and came to the station down here to talk with some of the officials while I cast my ballot in the presidential elections. As usual, nobody stared, pointed, commented or indicated in any way that they thought my participation was anything but completely normal.

Afterwards we had a nice lunch at Rosemary’s Kitchen, overlooking the construction chaos, and then retired to the Water Curtain Cave to watch TV news reporters give their Oscar-night commentary about various celebrities at the poll stations for a while before PR had to leave to catch some more hot vote-on-vote action. I, on the other hand, went downtown to while away the hours before the election results were announced at a badminton competition with my friend Xian-rui, who is also into badminton and quite a good player. The finals weren’t until the next day, but I’d never been to a badminton competition so it was interesting to see. Kind of made me wish I’d taken up the sport at an earlier age, though.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the election, however, and kept checking the Central Election Commission’s website for the latest count after the polls closed at 4pm. Ma Ying-jeou got an early lead, but I recalled that that didn’t necessarily mean anything (Lien Chan also had an early lead in 2004), so I decided to log off and wait instead of torturing myself by checking every few minutes.

Xian-rui had to go to the gym to work off some election-day jitters, so I sat outside the Starbucks amid the mosquitoes, looking at the huge screen on the new stadium. On the second floor, a crowd of people surrounded the TV set, watching the latest poll counts. The only last-minute tactic the DPP had left, it seemed, was to drape as many surfaces of the city as possible with banners claiming that Chinese workers bearing AK-47s would be flooding the island and putting everyone out of a job tomorrow morning, and Ma, who is actually an American, would then fly off to his Haight-Ashbury mansion, where he would sip tea with his pinkie in the air just so.

I hoped that such tactics wouldn’t work, as the negative campaign focusing entirely on niggling doubts and minor transgressions allegedly committed by the other candidates’ wife and family members 30 years ago just made Hsieh seem like a petty little man who had nothing to say about what kind of president he would be. I have to admit I was expecting a much better campaign from the DPP.

Apparently so were most other people. I checked the numbers again, and Ma was still ahead. Way ahead. A call to Prince Roy confirmed that it was indeed a landslide, and he was headed over to the Ma-Siew headquarters to case the scene there. I decided to join him. On the way, every TV screen facing the street was surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. When I saw fireworks being set off around the city, I knew that Ma had attained an unassailable lead.

Xiaonanmen Station, I believe, had never seen the amount of traffic it saw last night, as it was the nearest MRT station. I followed the crowds and the noise to the intersection of Zhonghua and Aiguo roads (note the symbolism of the names), where a huge throng surrounded the stage and spilled out across both roads. Fireworks were being set off, and it seemed that every person there had purchased at least one of those irritating air horns you see at baseball games here. I bought three ROC flags for NT$100 and stuck them in my backpack, and then, fingers in my ears to block the noise, accompanied PR into the fray.

It was madness. I half expected to see a huge statue of Chen Shui-bian, dressed in an Emporer Palpatine-like robe, being toppled. People were waving flags, setting off fireworks, shouting and even dancing. KMT officials were making speeches on stage, punctuated by huge applause and more air horns. I looked at the CEC site to find that Ma had officially won by a whopping 2.2 millon votes, or 17%. The crowd went nuts. Everyone was very friendly, even apologizing to each other when pushing through the dense crowd. “That’s a great flag!” a man called out to me, pointing to the flags sticking out of my backpack and giving me a thumbs-up sign.

“It’s my flag!” I called back at him.

After listening to some of the speeches, PR and I retreated, ears aching, back to the little South Gate. As it happened, this was apparently the pick-up/drop-off area for high-ranking officials. We saw chairman Wu Poh-hsiung, legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng and PFP chairman James Soong getting into their cars. I managed to shake hands with Wang and Soong, while PR snapped some nice shots. It was amazing how accessible these guys are, actually. I refrained from asking Wang if he regretted turning down the vice-presidential spot or inquiring whether Soong was feeling at all jealous. Didn’t seem quite appropriate.

Later, Wayne and Grace appeared, followed by Maoman and Vanessa, and eventually Mark and David. We chatted by the gate while policemen milled around us, unconcerned about the big bag o’ beer Maoman had brought along. At one point a woman who apparently didn’t have any teeth tapped on Vanessa’s shoulder, wanting to express her joy at Ma’s victory to a complete stranger. “Oh, it’s been such a hard eight years!” I’m pretty sure she said. The lack of teeth made it kind of hard to tell. Maoman and Vanessa both turned away from the woman and looked at me, and I wondered if I was expected to come up with some kind of way to get rid of the unwelcome guest. Fortunately, however, she took the hint and continued her search for another stranger to talk to.

We all realized, seemingly simultaneously, that we hadn’t eaten since lunch, so we took the subway to the Shi-da area, where we had some middle eastern food at a place called Baba Kababa. I had two pitas, which were good, but the pitas weren’t on the same level as Sababa. It was sort of like the Wonder Bread version of a pita. But the chicken/potato/eggplant filling was delicious. The table next to us was quite boisterous, but it had nothing to do with the election; they were celebrating someone’s birthday.

Outside, it had finally started to rain. The weather forecasters had predicted rain, and some people worried that it would affect the elections, but the day had been very nice up to that point. We retired, stuffed with pitas and other things, to the park along Shi-da Road. Daniel showed up and pried Mark with computer questions. The rain was coming down harder on the roof of the pavilion under which we stood. As the beers ran out, one-by-one, people left, until only PR, Mark, Daniel and I remained.

Now, of course, the hard work begins. I wonder if the first thing president-elect Ma thought when he woke up this morning wasn’t actually “It wasn’t a dream; I really won!” but rather, “Damn, now I have to actually do all the things I promised!” I guess we’ll find out. Interesting times, to be sure.

Ok, this incident was really confusing; why would KMT legislators do something so potentially damaging to their own campaign efforts? It just didn’t make sense, so I did a little digging. Apparently, the legislative committee was questioning the head of First Bank about what part of its building the DPP was renting, the rates and so one, and the guy said “The first three floors.” The committee knew that they were also using the 13th floor, and said so, but the bank’s general manager said it wasn’t so.

Now, a week before that, or two weeks ago, the DPP had similar concerns about Ma’s campaign office, which is rented from the city government, so a group of DPP city councilors went to Ma’s campaign HQ to investigate, and were allowed to, but they found nothing suspicious, and the issue was quickly forgotten.

So these four lawmakers said to the general manager and the Minister of Finance, which is the authority concerned for state bank properties, “Come with us and we’ll take a look.” When they got there, they took the elevator to the 13th floor, but were blocked from getting off. So they went down to the 3rd floor, where they were not only blocked from getting off the elevator, the staff cut the power and kept the elevator there for half an hour while the DPP called up a mob of people to come and gather downstairs.

After half an hour, they were allowed to go down to the first floor, where they found a large group of hostile people, and it seems one of the legislators called the police. The crowd attempted to beat the legislators and seriously damaged the police car that arrived on the scene when after they got inside.

Afterwards, the press had a field day with the story. The party whip resigned his position, and the Finance Minister stepped down as a result. Ma issued a formal apology and condemned the violence, but Hsieh took umbrage at Ma’s statement. “It wasn’t violence,” Hsieh said. “Can you say a girl slapping a man trying to rape her is committing an act of violence?”

For a while I wondered if this was our Bizarre Event, but it didn’t seem to be the case, as it was too small in scale and effect, and if the DPP had truly planned it, they wouldn’t have needed to keep the legislators at the campaign headquarters while they called people over. Also, Hsieh is continuing to attack Ma over an alleged green card. We only have three days left, so look for a slew of allegations flying back and forth, some of which are bound to be entertaining, at least. I’m guessing someone is going to “reveal” some scandal or document soon. Let’s just hope we don’t have any more violence.

So far, this election itself is almost a bizarre event. I still maintain that Hsieh could have run a much better campaign had he taken a page from Obama’s campaign and exercised his considerable charisma in convincing people of his own merits rather than continuously harping on Ma and his family. Ma has been remarkably restrained in returning the attacks, but then again he has been promising everything under the sun to everybody and his dog, promises that seem impossible to keep even under the best of circumstances. In my opinion, neither candidate has made it clear that they are up to the monumental task the next leader of Taiwan faces. This election is the closest I’ve come to being an undecided voter in many years. And we have three days left.

So fasten your seatbelts, boys and girls. Something tells me it’s going to be a bumpy night.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke is gone, just after his 90th birthday.

I love Clarke’s work, especially 2010. 2001: A Space Odyssey, came out the year I was born. His earlier work was his best, though, and I’d like to forget all the crap he co-wrote with that pretender Gentry Lee later on. But no amount of co-written sub-par SF can make a dent in the enormous impact this gay Sci-fi author has had on the world and our society. He embodies all the reasons we must explore space, and though he’s gone now, we still need, now more than ever, to get off our asses and do it. NASA has proved that it’s not going anywhere, but there’s still hope, as it seems that a few private companies may still have the guts and the agility needed for true space exploration.

RIP, Arthur. All these worlds are yours…

After Tai-chi practice on Saturday at CKS Hall, I called up Prince Roy to see what he was up to. As is his wont, he was planning to visit a couple of political rallies later, so after a particularly delicious lunch at the Yongkang Sababa, we walked back towards Hangzhou Road to see the DPP’s Women’s Day rally. On our way, however, we saw a bunch of people staring at a building. “What’s going on?” I asked some women peering out of a nearby shop.

“We don’t know,” they said. “We saw some people looking, so we’re looking, too.” Just then a motorcade pulled up to the building, and none other than Ma Ying-jeou stepped out and walked into the building. PR was hot on his heels, no doubt looking for another handshake picture to add to his collection. I followed the crowd down to the packed meeting room in the basement where Ma was speaking. Encouraging slogans were being shouted under a giant portrait of Sun Yat-sen. I spotted PR’s colorful hat near the middle of the room. Having gotten his picture, he was ready to leave.

We continued walking up the road to the Zhongxiao East Road intersection, where the Women’s Day rally was being held. Though most of the seats were empty, music was blasting out of huge speakers, and dancers were on the stage. Tables full of stuffed dolls and other figurines resembling Frank Hsieh and Su Tseng-chang had been set up nearby, as well as two rows of port-a-potties that were the exact shade of aquamarine the DPP has chosen as its campaign color.

PR and I walked up to the stage and watched the singing and dancing for a while as various groups from around Taiwan arrived and filled the seats. The crowd was mostly older women, and the line for the row of port-a-potties grew quite long. Yeh Chu-lan gave a speech, and I wondered if she felt at all disappointed that she didn’t get the VP candidate slot. In the crowd, old men who looked like they’d never seen a diploma held signs protesting the recognition of any such documents issued by Chinese universities.

I had to go back to Bitan by that point, though; the Muddy Basin Ramblers have a show next Friday at Bliss, so we needed a practice. The weather was nice enough that we could hold forth on the riverside, though only on our side of the river as the other side’s completely torn up. Getting home, putting my things away and gathering up my instruments seemed to take forever, and it was getting dark by the time I joined the other Ramblers down by the horseshoe. It was good to be jamming again, and David introduced some nice new tunes for us to chew on. Even at such an isolated spot we managed to draw small groups of people, some of whom took out their phones and called their friends: “Hey, you’ll never guess what I found by the riverside in Bitan! Foreigners! And they’re playing music! Yeah, I KNOW!”

“Could you speak up?” Thumper told the excited girl who was yapping on her phone two feet away. “I can’t quite hear everything you’re saying over the music.”

Later, we all went to Athula’s for our traditional post-jam rottis. Alas, he was again out of tuna. Oh, well; more fried rice at home, then. Still plowing through the endless gigabytes of Tokyo photos. Hopefully soon they’ll all be up, and the video done and posted too, and maybe then I’ll feel a little less behind with everything.

Whoo, it’s been a long time since I practiced. I was sick before the Chinese New Year break, and then I was in Japan for a couple of weeks, and then I was sick again. But tonight I finally went back. “We thought you’d disappeared,” Teacher Xu said when he arrived. Mr. You was also there, but just said hi before he had to leave to take care of his elderly mother, which is apparently why he hasn’t been practicing much lately.

Teacher Xu and I talked politics for a while, discussing the upcoming presidential election. He, like many pan-greens, was laboring under the illusion that US green cards have to be actively renounced with paperwork, and actually thought Ma Ying-jeou still has a valid green card, at least until I informed him about the true situation. But I’m not going to talk politics.

I started pushing with Mr. Hu, which was a good way to get back into practice because he’s generally pretty easy to practice with. I’m out of shape, though, I could tell as I got tired pretty quickly. I then started pushing with Mr. Guo, whose stance and attitude seemed peculiar to me. He was doing the whole “I’ll push you here with one hand and it’s obvious I could push you over if I wanted, but I’d like to see you get out of it” thing for some reason. I think while I was away he got the idea that he was really good at tuishou or something. But his technique still consisted of quick, sharp shoves with very little subtlety.

Next Teacher Xu told us some things. “Don’t push your opponent,” he said. “Sometimes one of your hands is pushing the other; other times you’re pushing the space behind your opponent.”

“So maybe I could visualize creating a vacuum behind my opponent?” I asked.

“Uh, maybe,” he said. I tried it a couple of time with Weeble, but didn’t get anywhere. Teacher Xu tells us a lot of things I have a hard time implementing; even if I intellectually understand the idea, often I can’t get it to sink in deep enough to work. I need to practice more, I suppose.

Next up Yang Qing-feng. I was doing alright with him; one time he did a grab on my wrist. “That’s like a police move,” I said, as he is a policeman.

“No,” he said. “This is a police move,” and before I knew it I was on my knees saying, “Ow ow ow ow” as he twisted my arm and wrist. He apologized afterwards.

After Teacher Xu left (his son’s gone to perform alternative service for a year), Qing-feng tried to get Mr. Guo and Weeble to tell him if his pushing was correct. I found this most bizarre, as Qing-feng’s not only been practicing far longer than they have, but he’s much better. But I suppose it’s a good attitude to keep learning from everyone, no matter their level. Mr. Guo really got into the teacher role a bit too much, however. Not that it makes any difference to me.

And thus my slow progress continues.

It’s that time again, the always-interesting month before the presidential elections in Taiwan, a time when all sorts of interesting and unlikely things tend to occur. Right now we’re in the DPP-is-behind-with-little-hope-of-winning phase. Shortly thereafter, it would seem we’ll all sit back and enjoy the protest-drama stage, followed by tea and cakes on the veranda.

What’s a little unusual this time around is just how far behind the DPP is, the seemingly counter-intuitive negative campaigning of the DPP, as well as the lack of ill-advised campaigning on the KMT’s part. All of these were surprises to me, as the DPP has shown itself to be much better at running campaigns in the past than it’s been showing these days, and the KMT has always run clumsy, ineffective campaigns in the past. However, this time it seems that Hsieh is spending all of his time digging through Ma’s past and coming up with allegations that his wife stole newspapers from a school library when she was a student or that his sister cheated on a test in college. He’s been warning against electing a KMT president as the KMT already dominates the legislature. I’ve heard many deep-blues criticize Ma for not attacking Hsieh. To me, however, one of the most encouraging things about Ma is the disdain the more radical elements of the KMT show for him.

And then there’s the whole green-card issue, which is really a non-issue. Even AIT has posted statements reminding people of what everyone already knows, i.e. that green cards do actually expire if you don’t use them, but Hsieh’s response to such statements basically amounts to LALALALAI’MNOTLISTENINGLALALA. The fact that Hsieh is continuing to harp on this issue despite poll after poll, even those by pro-independence organizations, indicating people just don’t care about it, is suspect.

I realize that that sounds a bit mean of me to say. The reason I’m suspicious, however, is because that’s just what happened when Hsieh was elected Kaohsiung Mayor. Just before the election an audiotape was released containing a rather indelicate conversation between a female reporter and Hsieh’s opponent, incumbent mayor Wu Den-yih, who was ahead in the polls at the time. By the time the tape was discovered to be fake, Hsieh was safely ensconced in the mayor’s office, and an underling took the fall. So such an action wouldn’t be without precedent.

The DPP’s 2/28 rally was lackluster and didn’t draw the huge crowds that could have turned the tide for the DPP. Everyone was expecting Hsieh to walk all over Ma in the first debate, but the opposite was the case, to many’s surprise, including my own. That couldn’t be a very confidence-inspiring performance for Hsieh, and there’s no telling if the DPP is harboring any desperate measures for a last-ditch push. All that’s left for the DPP, media-wise, is the events they are planning the week before the election to commemorate China’s anti-secession law of three years ago. It was hugely successful for them in 2005, but I’m wondering if people can be motivated to care that much about it today. It’s their last chance for publicity, though, so I’m expecting them to make as good a show of it as they possibly can.

Another interesting thing is what former President Lee Teng-hui said recently, namely, that if the DPP were not elected, it would put Taiwan back 20 years. On the surface, it sounds like he’s stumping for the DPP, even though he has also said Taiwan elected the wrong person (Chen) in 2000. But if you think about it, why did he choose 20 years, not 30 or 50, back during the martial law era? In reality, Lee himself was president 20 years ago, and things were looking up, politically, economically and socially. As I recall, it was a time of optimism, social order and steady economic development. In any case, Lee’s influence is on the wane, and I’m not sure his endorsement would make much of a difference either way.

In any case, there’s only a few weeks left. Whatever the DPP has planned for its “come-from-behind” strategy, it had better be good. Everyone’s waiting.