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Da Ge - Doug Stephen

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This is the story of our first year living and working in Hualien County, on the east coast of Taiwan ROC. I am a schoolteacher in the junior high in Guangfu Township, and Lao-puo (Suzanne) studies Chinese at Buddhist Tzu Chi University in Hualien (where we live). My blog is called "The Land Where it's Already Tomorrow". The blog for our second year is now under way at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Pagan-Dan/
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Joined on: August 25th 2007
Last Login: August 1st 2008

Blog Entries: 43
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by Da-Ge, order by Date newest first.

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It’s altogether too pleasant, in my beloved East Rift Valley, to remain angry and upset for too long. There is nothing like the patch of wildflowers at Ji An Station, or a bush of burgundy hibiscus blossoms at an unexpected train stop, or a proud-as-Lucifer ringnecked pheasant strutting about, or pagan dan pin for breakfast in Fong Lin, or 90 km/h on 11A as dawn breaks, to knock the spots off any bout of ill temper. Da bei Taiwan pi jo doesn’t do any harm either—and it’s not nearly as strong or fattening as Canadian beer. Besides, Lao-puo rang this morning [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=219466] | 2007-11-20 01:17:17


The wrath of all Gods fall on the misbegotten forgotten-the-eight-virtues turtle-egg of a neurosurgeon at Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital, and all his generations! Chinese swearing is quite a bit different in style from our own, and completely called for in this instance. Lao-puo was ready for her procedure yesterday afternoon; after the resident had assured her that she would be sedated. Then the Flemish Mare of a surgical assistant told her, in no uncertain frank terms, that the surgeon had made no such preparation. After a week or so of virtually-unrelenting pain, controlled only with [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=219136] | 2007-11-13 01:24:20


Lao-puo by the Pool
Lao-puo by the Pool
The water is only two feet deep, and the pool seems to be closed more than it's open but what the heck! A pool's a pool.
Does anyone besides me remember “The Jeffersons” (Archie Bunker Spin-Off)? Moving, even from the fourth floor of a walkup, can be fun—and not just because we have neither a piano nor a freezer. It was astonishing, nevertheless, how much rubbish we have accumulated in a short period of time. Our new landlady kindly let us borrow a truck. To my great delight, it was an old blue Toyota half-ton—even older and rustier than the one I was driving in Canada. The muffler rattled (at least it did until I booted the tailpipe), and the exhaust would gag a moose, but it [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 6 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=215139] | 2007-11-06 00:40:30

Our New Street
Buddhist Monks and Nuns...
The Kind Security Guard.

Relaxing in the Park...
Relaxing in the Park...
...and watching the riding lessons.
Some of the most interesting things happen around here, just by serendipity. Lao-puo is often tied up with her Chinese studies on Sundays and (not wanting to disturb her) I explore the neigbourhood. Can you imagine what would happen, in a Canadian park, if someone dragged an old lounge chair and just left it there for his own use? Well someone did, and I enjoyed my beer in comfort. While I was at it, I snapped a few pics of a lady teaching her little guy to ride a bicycle. The interest lay in the fact that she chose the riding-double [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 4 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=212131] | 2007-10-24 00:47:11

I Don
In a Few Short Years...
Waving to Paul...

View of the Mountains from the Rooftop
View of the Mountains from the Rooftop
The mountains are as beautiful as they are in Vancouver.
Anyone plotting to assassinate me (maybe one or two of my students for all I know) would have an easy time of it. I have become a real creature of habit. I’m up at 0500, out the door at 0520, in 7-11 to buy my orange juice and coffee at 0530, on the train at 0545, and rolling at 0600. I’m at the same breakfast place in Guangfu (at the same table) at 0705, and at school at 0730. My contract requires me to be on the school grounds all day, and I leave at 1630 for my 1711 train home. [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 21 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=211887] | 2007-10-17 03:04:35

Pardy Hardy?
Our Street Looks Quiet...
Market Garden, Across the Street

The Submarine
The Submarine
Our lodgings ares small--fine for one but too crowded for two, but it's no big deal because we aren't home that much anyway.
I remember a “Far Side” Cartoon, from some years ago, depicting a Neanderthal man holding an enormous club the size of a Douglas Fir log and saying to his friend, “Let’s hope we never have to use it.” The same concept applies to first aid, but Lao-puo and I had to use ours the other day. A fellow spilled off his motorbike near our digs, seconds before we arrived at the accident scene. His young son on the back was unhurt, but you didn’t have to be a sawbones or a paramedic to tell at a glance that the dad had [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 4 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=210215] | 2007-10-11 00:31:55

Someone
Tenant Parking
Up the Street...

Peter and Lao-puo
Peter and Lao-puo
Too bad the weather was so cold and wet for his visit.
A cold snap has rolled in from China, although it feels more like it’s from Mongolia or even Siberia. It’s hard to believe that a few short days ago we had the air conditioner on, and I was wearing sandals without socks and short sleeves even in the evenings. Recently, we’ve even had to turn on the portable radiator overnight. To make matters worse, we have had a few days of real West Coast Canadian rain—the kind that makes you feel as if you will never see the sun again. Smack in the middle of our cold and wet snap, we [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 4 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=210214] | 2007-10-11 00:28:31

Buddies from Home...
Jung Shan Lu
Hai An Lu

East China Sea
East China Sea
Okinawa and Japan dead ahead!
Lao-puo had a stack of pictures, from previous weeks, on her camera, so I thought I would like to include them as a photo essay. [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 11 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=206513] | 2007-10-09 05:29:43

Beautiful Taipei!
Plumeria Blossoms
Tea in the Making

National Academy for Education Research
National Academy for Education Research
NAER is in Sansia, Taipei County, and it's a great place to start a Taiwan experience.
February 27, 96 (as I start to write this) This week will be short and crazy. I must start the new semester with a two-day week, with the Peace Memorial Day national holiday breaking up the week on Wednesday. We (the Hualien County contingent of six foreign English teachers) will be using Wednesday morning to travel to Taipei for a conference, and I will not be home again until Sunday afternoon. Lao-puo is staying home, because it is really easy to get behind on her intensive Chinese course. The conference will be over at noon on Saturday, but I’m staying [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 6 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=206511] | 2007-10-08 05:42:41

Detail of Beautiful NAER Architecture
Our Gaggle in the Lecture Hall...
Beautiful Gardens

Getting Ready for Hualien by Scooterback
Getting Ready for Hualien by Scooterback
Paul and I did a video and still filming spin around Hualien on a quiet Sunday morning.
The Gods are Kind Therefore, this week I took pictures instead of wrote notes, and my weekly missive is a photographic essay as opposed to a verbose one. [View Full Entry]

Da Ge - Doug Stephen | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 21 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | [diary=206510] | 2007-10-07 10:11:00

Buckling Up a Brain Bucket
Paul Rowe
Passing a Bus or Anything on the Right...



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