JOURNEY TO THE EAST

The east of Asia that is (yeah, I know I'm blowing all your minds with this multi-centric perspective). I arrived in Seattle on the morning of Monday the 13th, eight minutes before I left Taipei, thanks to the magic of international date-line crossing time traveling.

I spent just over a week in my hometown and am overwhelmed with all of the things to tell, but I arrived in L.A. yesterday and am now busy trying to choke down my loathing for this city and keeping my father from putting bacon in my oatmeal (Oh how I wish I was kidding). So this will be a brief roundup with many excellent pictures. Enjoy.

So...... After going through immigration and convincing the dude at customs that I just really, really liked tea, my mother picked me up and we went out for lunch with my awesome little bro. I was happy to be reunited with them as well as with Skipper, the sweetest dog/polar bear hybrid in South Seattle.

Melissa picked me up from my mom's on Monday afternoon and we went straight to Montana and John's new pad, now known as Ninja HQ. I was rather the jet-lagged wastrel that evening, but Melissa was kind enough to make me a tasty stir-fry, which helped ease the continental transition. The next evening Montana and I ate sushi on her deck. I really don't deserve these good and kind people.

On Tuesday I got to hang out with my dear old friend Laura Etling, she of the powerful presence, sparkling conversation, and take-no-prisoners pipes. She also has rad red sunglasses which can start a party all by themselves.

After the next few days of pre-departure doctor's appointments and groggy socializing I was strangely excited to help Mark move on Thursday from House of Dudes to a cute new studio apartment. I had been promised a couch-moving and this I was denied, but I was easily placated by a home-cooked meal (thanks Jill!) and a visit to Mark's sister, the elusive and peripatetic Lieta. I had an appointment mid-afternoon for a haircut with Kitty Hawk, and she finished with a blow-dry that left me dramatically swishing my glossy mane for the rest of the day. After the haircut and the move, Mark and I met up with Montana and headed to the International District for an gallery opening. We couldn't decide if we were too cool for school,

or as excited as Japanese tourists,

to see pretentious art involving a woman in a harness bouncing up and down off of a large mound of dirt. I think we were a little of both.

I had some work to do on Friday but later in the day met up with John for a pilgrimage to Easy Street Records and then with Emmy for a couple of drinks at the relocated and much-improved Cha Cha. Mark had kindly arranged a returning/departing get-together for me that evening at the Rosebud and thus I held court for several hours as all sorts of pals stopped in for a drink or three. I must give special recognition to Brendan, who came out to join us even though he had had ankle surgery that morning. Many, many pictures were taken. Here are some of my favorites:

John and Montana work an Engrish t-shirt in the foreground while Paul and Mark talk Turkey in the background

Emmy and Kirk (they really do like each other, promise)

See! I told you so!

Jose Bold, Rock Star Extraordinaire

I keep telling Montana she has a real flair for the dramatic

I had a lovely time, but Mark seemed a little disappointed by the lack of under-aged ass

Thanks also to Joanna, Lieta, Mike, Evan, Laura and Mark H., for showing me such a good time.

Saturday was probably my favorite day of the trip. The weather was beautiful -- though actually the weather was perfect almost every day of the trip and I couldn't stop gazing at the clouds and the mountains and all the clean, clear air:

Anyhow, it was an ideal day for a trip out to Bainbridge Island to visit the August Moon Teahouse and deliver the Bao Zhong tea I brought from Taiwan. Montana developed a strange obsession with the box of tea on the ferry ride over and in order to distract her from chucking it overboard in a patriotic fervor I indulged her with participation in hijinks and photographs.

The August Moon wasn't open when I left town and I was so happy to see it finished. Had I more time during this trip I am sure I would have made a few more visits to sample more of the teas and snacks Alia has put together and to just relax or read. I dream that someday I will be able to sit on the patio of the teahouse overlooking Eagle Harbor and work on my dissertation.

Luckily it wasn't very busy when we came in and so I got to catch up with Alia and introduce her and Montana. We all tasted the tea I brought and then Miss di Limonada and I shared some Hao Ya and Thai Tulsi and nibbled on one sweet and one savory scone.

Alia's son Franklin took this picture of the two of us with Alia and her mother in the background.

The hours flew by as the cups and pots were emptied and we were giddily happy and plenty goofy on the ferry back to Seattle.

On Sunday I had brunch with my very pregnant and very lovely friend Stephanie, than spent the afternoon hanging out at my mom's and re-packing for the next 10-11 months. That evening was the second of the gatherings Mark planned for me, this one held at the swanky Sun Liquor. I was glad that a few people who couldn't make Friday were able to come out. I enjoyed Rachel's stories and drink advice and I was glad that the D.S. showed up so he could dominate, er, I mean enliven the event.

He's a sneaky one that Dave, but I must say he looked quite nice in the "Meep" mask I brought back from Taiwan.

Sunday was great, and really the whole damn weekend was grand. Monday was good too, but does anyone still care about Monday at this point? I'm tired and rather tired of myself too. So much for keeping things brief. I just got too much love for y'all.

I'll be back to more regular posts soon. Until then, here is a picture of two of my favorite Monday night dates, Melissa and Ben the bunny.

ONE LAST LOVELY WEEKEND

Most of the people I love are asleep right now but I am wide awake in my room in Taipei, packing, and plotting. I'm trying not to get down on myself for not making as much progress in Chinese this summer as I had hoped. It has been a very rewarding summer and there is no use in pouting over my failures, whether real or perceived. This last weekend was even more jam-packed than usual with good people, interesting places, and tasty things.

Things started out slowly on Friday when I finally met up with my China advisor (distinct from my Economic Anthropology advisor) who arrived in Taipei a few weeks ago to start her newest research project involving immigrants, citizenship and the politics of marriage. She came with her husband and their 8-month old daughter, who I spent a few pleasant hours babysitting on Friday afternoon. The child of two PhDs, she is obviously smart and curious, and is also a very happy baby with a habit of waking up in an incredibly good mood, all squeals and smiles. She also moves like a guerilla. Whenever she spies something interesting, she uses a combination of rolling and crawling and climbing to get to it. Georgia will know what I am talking about.

I had dinner later with her parents and though I was deathly intimated they did their best to make me feel like a peer. I left feeling wonderfully inspired by their intelligence, principles and commitment and generally hopeful about the future. Then I went home and drank beer and watched a pirated film on the web-o-tron.

Saturday saw the completion of more errands, including an afternoon visit to a tea proprietor near Nanshijiao. Alia had asked me to bring some Bao Jong back from Taiwan for her and sent me to do some tasting at Mr. Fu's shop. I sat on a narrow bench while Mr. Fu prepared several bowls of loose leaves with wide porcelain spoons for tasting. I was a bit torn between two of the teas. One had an extremely delicate nose with just a hint of lilac, as if it was coming off of a breeze, but the body was rather flat. Mr. Fu thought it was the better tea, but seemed to agree that the other, with a more robustly lilac nose and sweetly vegetal taste, would be more popular in the States. I'm a little nervous though, since I just bought a whole bunch of tea on Alia's behalf. If you go to August Moon in Winslow (and you should! go! go! go!), make sure to tell Alia how delicious the Bao Jong is. I like this whole glamorous anthropologist/international tea taster gig and I'd like to keep it up.


I met up with Carrie later that afternoon and we boarded a bus for Jiufen. I napped happily, perhaps because I was coming down from my caffeine buzz. I woke up to the sharp to and fro of mountain switchbacks and looked outside the window to see this:


Jiufen is a picturesque cliffside town with gorgeous ocean views. The village is built into the rocky hillside and looks a little like a Mediterranean town, only with temples.


Beautiful, scenic, and not too far from the city, it is of course ripe for colonization:


On the weekends, the medina-like maze of old market streets selling tourist kitsch and foods and sweets unique to the area is thick with day-trippers.


There were stone steps connecting the alleyways, and lots of cats milling around. I took advantage of the opportunity to shake my favorite Carly Jayne-made bustle skirt in the faces of all those we overtook (Carly: you need to get in on the Asian market - everyone adores your skirts here!). Carrie and I got a snack of chewy taro and green and red beans at a place near these steps. We ordered our food in the front, from a handful of teenage boys who kept trying to upstage each other with ever more boisterous voicings of "hello!" apparently meant to demonstrate not only their impressive English skills, but their correct identification of me as a native English speaker. Escaping the proud young men, we reached the restaurant's dining area through a long corridor and what was obviously the living quarters of a family or two. We walked right in front of some grandparents watching television before we made it to the back room, with a wall of windows and a pretty view:


Here is Carrie and some toothy chick in the restaurant.


Jiufen is also well known for its teahouses, and we went to one that had been recommended to Carrie, meeting her very friendly and charming mother and aunt there. You can see a woman in the window of the teahouse we went to here, beckoning to passers-by from above the alleyway.


Here is the courtyard of the same teahouse:

I say it very rarely, so know that I mean it when I see that the place and the evening were approaching the realm of the magical. It also had almost an amusement park feel because of all the kids and lights and sweet things to eat. While we were waiting for the bus home, I wandered around an arcade with about a dozen of these rip-off claw games, which are everywhere in Taipei.


I also watched some kids play this game, kind of like Dance, Dance, Revolution, only with drums.


Drum game from Le Kougre and Vimeo.

A good night's sleep later, and it was my last day in Taiwan. Everything was so bittersweet as I said my goodbyes to the grocery store, the night market, the smell of Osmanthus flowers as I turn the last corner on my way home, the smell of stinky tofu from the vendors on Shida road...

I also made some time for one last excursion -- to the Martyr's Shrine;


I had heard they had an impressive changing of the guards ceremony and felt I hadn't quite got my fill of shiny helmets. At the shrine, one set of guards stands watch over the inner sanctum, while another pair mans the front gate ("watch" might not be the right word for it since they must stand stock-still and stare straight ahead, facing each other). Here are the guards at the front gate, swarmed with bystanders just before the ceremony begins.


These guards get a lot more exercise than those stationed at the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial, starting out in the front, marching all the way to the inner shrine to relieve the guards there, and then back to relieve those at the front gate. As they march across the square, white-shirted minders clear the way, brush aside the children, and make sure every detail is perfect.


I took a series of little movies of the various stages if you would like to watch them.


Changing of the Guards, Martyrs Shrine (1) from Le Kougre and Vimeo.


Changing of the Guards, Martyrs Shrine (2) from Le Kougre and Vimeo.


Changing of the Guards, Martyrs Shrine (3) from Le Kougre and Vimeo.

Leaving the inner shrine:


I love the reflections off of the helmets:


Returning to the front gate:


After re-kindling my newfound appreciation of nationalistic performances, I met up with Fiona and Yi cheng for a low-key dinner at a nice cafe in my neighborhood with an impressive selection of Belgian beers.


It wasn't a particularly exciting last evening, but a quiet and happy one, enjoying the company of my friends and our always interesting conversations. I know I have been lucky to find such cool people here, and I will miss them very much.

And if I ever find myself missing Ethan, my hard-partying, band practice in the living room-having, stumbling home at about the time I left for school expat-roommate, I am lucky enough that he sometime borrowed my camera for his all-night excursions, and that I would discover images like this one in the morning when it was returned.


So goodbye Taipei. Goodbye Osmanthus flowers and stinky tofu. Goodbye friendly citizens of the R.O.C.

Watch out for those typhoons and earthquakes and crazy drivers, ok?

SYMMETRY

I'm down to my last few days in Taiwan and it is ending much as it began. The rains have been back this week in full force and there was even a mini 台风 (taifeng - which is actually the source of the English word 'typhoon') last night. Today was my last day of classes and I had my oral and written exams this week, mirroring the entrance exams I took when I arrived. It has been good for me to be under a little pressure as it has helped me study harder and concentrate better, but it has been a very busy couple of weeks and I haven't had the time to post pictures of recent doings and seeings. Almost two weeks ago, my friend Carrie took me to 三峽 (Sanxia) in Taipei County, where we crossed a bridge bordered by these charming stone dragons.

I like how they are guarding baby dragons on one side and soccer balls on the other. That's pretty much all that matters, right?

Our first stop in Sanxia was to the lovely Li Mei-Shu Memorial Gallery where we admired the realist works of one of modern Taiwan's most famous painters and got a tour of the place by his very sentimental and quite genial son. Next up was Sanxia Zushi temple.

There was some sort of festival/dance/performance going on, but inside, it was calm and cool, if a bit dark.

All of the stone pillars were carved with different scenes or designs. Here, you see the classic lecherous and corpulent old bureaucrat scenario. So cross-cultural.

Most of them were comparatively more aesthetically pleasing.

But the performance was the real highlight. There were a half dozen or so of these dancers, elaborately dressed, and absolutely fierce. They all wore face paint and boars teeth and snarled as they posed (you can see this best on the one at left). As they performed, confetti and spirit money fluttered to the ground (some is mid-air at right).

The performers, who Carrie told me often drifted into this line of work after teenage delinquency, even had a team of stage managers to keep everything in place.

But perhaps I should just let you watch. A large urn of incense obscures much of the performance in this first video and it's a little shaky, but I kept it for the cool spinning leap in the beginning.


Sanshih Temple 1 from Le Kougre and Vimeo.

I took the second video from a better angle, but it got cut off because the performers were getting dangerously close to us and we had to back off. It was a little frightening, I must admit, but in an entirely compelling way. I liked being close to the action.



Sanshih Temple 2 from Le Kougre and Vimeo.

Rains cut the show short and there was a rush to get everything under cover. Carrie and I meandered over to Sanxia Old Street and did some window shopping. I ate some matcha ice cream on a Taiwanese-style croissant cone. Yum.

The next day, I met up with Fiona and E-train in Danshui. I already posted the delightful picture of the no-graffiti sign on Yanming mountain, but I just got these pictures of Fiona and I enjoying some local cuisine, and hanging out at the Lovers Bridge on the harbor.

I'm going to miss my 台湾的朋友门!

ENGRISH (especially for Jessica)

I wasn't going to eat this, but then... there was nothing else to do....

Back in B'ton Jessie and I spent many a happy hour looking at the weird translations at engrish.com and in that spirit I have been doing some collecting over the last few months. Of course the best engrish is always fleeting (one favorite was the woman wearing a "girly chud" t-shirt) and for every time I am camera-ready there are a dozen more times when I am without (as with a shirt announcing "The Socks and Cocks Show"), but I hope this will give you a taste of all the absurdity that assaults the native English-speaker here.

No? but it looks so hungry! [from the bathroom at my school]

I'm not afraid of growing old, but this does make me a little apprehensive (the small print on the borders reads "It is your life of darkness") [from a bar near Taidian MRT]

What a disappointment! This article totally wasn't what I thought it would be [from Cosmopolitan Taiwan]

If you say so, but it sounds kind of painful [from Ximending]

I was going to argue, but then I realized the logic was impeccable (the small print reads "Hunger is the best sauce")

I like these so much better than those Emo Sour Cream and Onion ones [from Carrefour]

I realize there is some sort of urban-outfitters-type-irony going on here, but still...

This isn't really Engrish, but I find it quite amusing that the books in the foreground are Complete Dental Prosthodontics and Interior Plantscaping - just a little light reading for a Nescafe Afternoon [from Yuanshan station]

That sounds like me all right, and it looks like my Adventures in Engrish are only beginning... [from my new school in mainland China]

熊貓 (bear-cat) of the month

I always did think Gene was the cuddliest of the bunch
(thanks for the picture pops!)

FALL 2007 WEST COAST DOMINATION TOUR

SEE!!!
The Kougar, in x-treme high definition!
HEAR!!!
All the stories that were too hot to blog!
EXPERIENCE!!!
Fear! Elation! And the absence of sobriety!

Seattle: August 13th-20th
Los Angeles: August 21st-24th
San Francisco: August 24th - 31st

And then on to
BEIJING: September 1st - June-ish 2008

I don't have a U.S. mobile phone anymore, so it will be a little difficult to get in touch with everyone, but I can be contacted through e-mail or through my gracious hosts. Please let me know soon if you want to make plans so we can coordinate early. Everyone will be invited to whatever sort of farewell soirée I have in Seattle on the 18th or 19th (I still don't think it fair that I get to have the party and travel to exotic destinations, but you shan't hear me complaining).

Doesn't this look sad?


I agree. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN. I HAVE FAITH IN YOU.
Now open up your day planners and your hearts and see if you can't find a little room for a lonely predator. I think you can.