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"My Girls" and I...
...in the Coast Range. We are 5 km (as the crow flies) from the Pacific Ocean, and 50 km from "The Great Divide". “My girls” (so I’m a chauvinist—sue me!) returned to Kuala Lumpur after an overnight trip to Ipoh. KL threatens to become our favourite city in Asia—closing fast on Taipei. They have been doing fabulous things--like having a gourmet Mothers Day Thai meal at the Petronas Towers, and cave-exploring in the Batu Caves. Lao-puo is really good at planning trips, and this time she found a really nice hostel (for only $CAD 10 per night each) just a block or two from the Istana Hotel (where we stayed). It’s also just a block from the Chinese hawker stalls, where we went for dinner more often than not.
They phoned me last night, and all is well. Except…Renée looked before opening the taxi door, but a car came out of nowhere and hit the door. Being a dad, my first question was “Was anyone hurt?” Nobody was, and the damage was less than a tenth of what it would have cost at home to replace a car mirror and fix a door. People drive fast in narrow spaces over here, and driving or walking requires a lot more concentration than at home. Even when you look, things still happen.
Renée’s blog
Amazing Grace
She worked so hard in the speech contest. Grace and Ashley and I gave up a lot of lunch hours to get ready. is an outrage! Here is her link.
http://www.reneestephen.com/
You might have to copy/paste, but it is well worth the effort. It was delightful for me to read how her perceptions of Asia differ from my own.
By now, they have already been in Cambodia for a few hours. A driver from a Christian orphanage is going to look after them—in consideration of a donation to the orphanage we support anyway. I’m playing with fire—given that Suzanne brings home unwanted puppies and kittens, I hope she won’t come back to Hualien with a couple of little tackers in tow!
At the risk of getting my ego crushed (again) I will ask Lao-puo to write a few chapters on this blog. She only did one chapter on Viet Nam—and her readership left me in the dust.
In the meantime, I keep doing my “Hualien-Guangfu-Hualien- Hualien-Guangfu-Hualien- Hualien-Guangfu-Hualien- Hualien-Guangfu-Hualien- Hualien-Guangfu-Hualien” weekly commute. On Fridays I take the car, because the train is so crowded. There is a small army of young fellows doing their alternative to military service at the local prison (as workers not as inmates), and a few dozen conscripts on weekend leave. My monthly pass does not entitle me to an assigned seat, and we crowd in like cigars in a box. Mercifully, I befriended Yvonne (the train attendant), and she lets me sit with her in the employee cubicle. “Yvonne” is the closest name to her Chinese name that I could think of.
I gladly give free English lessons for a nice cup of tea and a seat.
In fact, I even “announce” the stations for her, in flawless Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka. That is to say, Yvonne lets me push the button to start the recorded announcements.
Last week, I was trying to teach her the English to make the announcement quadrilingually. The direct translation to English would sound bizarre (dear passenger flower lotus fire car stop arrive have), so I taught her to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at Hualien Rail Station”. She muttered it to herself, over and over, like a nun saying the Rosary, the 5 km from Ji An to Hualien, then chickened out at the last. I guess it was the thought of how many hundred people would have heard her voice.
There is a temple celebration in Guangfu, complete with a “God Walk” and fireworks (not just firecrackers). There has been the loudest din all afternoon, but now I know why mid-terms were postponed from Friday and Monday until Tuesday and Wednesday.
I have been having a lot of fun coaching a grade 8 girl for a Speech-Giving Contest. Grace worked really hard, and was crushed when she didn’t win. Ashley translated the “Gospel According to St. Stephen” talk I gave Grace, about how she brought honour to her school and to her family and to herself (which was true), that I was proud of her (which was also true) and all the stuff you say. I was tempted to add that she should have had her male classmates “take care of” the boy who won, but humour doesn’t translate well and Grace was in no mood for it anyway.
I got the dogs out of Detention Barracks (Mei Lun Animal Hospital Kennels) on Friday night—given that Toby chewed the handle off my parking brake and ate the cover off one of the rear speakers he should stay there in solitary—and took them back Saturday afternoon. “Le chat parti les souris dansent”, so I had pizza and beer for supper on Friday night. On Saturday night I treated myself to a Chinese herbal foot soak and foot massage, before meeting my friend Danny at Walking Street. The rain held off, so we had a nice visit and chat.
I befriended a pair of young Mormon fellows last week, and I went to church with them on Sunday. There was an hour-long men’s study session first, then a Bible study for another hour, then service. "Elder" Wiebe (younger than Renée), kindly translated for me. Barring one unfortunate faux pas, the Bible study was interesting. The leader, a unilingual Chinese guy unfamiliar with western gestures, punctuated his comments with hand movements. He said, “Even if you are as small as my baby finger, you are important to God,” at which point he held up his little finger. Then he said, “No less so than if you were my big finger!”—at which point gave us his best Pierre Trudeau imitation! (For the benefit of my non-Canadian readers, the late Pierre Trudeau, while Canadian Prime Minister, took issue with some comments protesters were making. With a hand gesture, he suggested that their opinions were photosensitive and ought not to be exposed to sunlight).
The service was good, because Mandarin is a beautiful language for singing. A little girl, unaccustomed to foreigners, came and sat beside me, staring up, for the whole service. When the sermon came, I gave her one of the earphones from my wireless translator with which my host had provided me, and she was as happy as a clam.
It was bit strange to see a few dozen church matrons (at church without their husbands), jump onto their motorbikes afterwards and roar away in a gaggle. I smiled at the thought of our Guild ladies doing that back home.
All in all, I’m doing OK on my own. I usually go to bed fairly early anyway, because I have to get up so early for my train. I don't have to remember to put the toilet seat down, but I do anyway to stay in the habit. I don't need a closet--I just leave the washing on the line all week and take things down as I need them. It's a good visual clue for when it's time to "dhobey" again--as they say in Malaysia. I don't understand how a kitchen gets so messy when I don't cook. There are no ants in the place--a sure sign of slovenly housekeeping. On Saturday night I will have steak and corn soup and beer at weekly night market--it will be a free Chinese lesson because people will wonder where Lao-puo is. It's not that people are nosey; they are simply interested in us.
I'm into single-digit weeks before we must return to Canada--with all the bittersweet emotions thereby engendered.
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