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Published: October 14th 2007
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“It’s an ill wind… So the old saying goes, and typhoons are no exception. The typhoon seems to have swept away the wretched summer heat and humidity. It is now cool enough in the mornings and evenings to need a light jacket, and a cover over a sheet in the bed. There seemed to be very little damage around here, compared to the havoc on the mainland, but I think that’s because Taiwan has better infrastructure for flood and erosion control than China does.
It’s the people, more than anything else, who add so much colour and richness and warmth to our stay over here. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a cameraman wet his pants either, but it was pretty close last Sunday afternoon.
If I ran a major television network called Television Broadcast System, and some bright spark in marketing came up with the name “TVBS” I think I’d fire the guy. Anyway, a TVBS crew was in town for footage of the typhoon, and they were going into the train station just as I pulled up on the motorbike. I asked if anyone spoke English (which nobody did), in response to which they all paid
attention to what I was saying. I explained the English meaning of ‘BS’ in Chinese. They thought it was hilarious—maybe the unfortunate moniker, or a chance to make fun of the employer, or maybe just my lame Chinese. “Ne ge, ‘BS’ Ingwen shwa go pi”. It’s interesting (to me, anyway), that Chinese people call it ‘dogfart’ (go pi) instead of ‘bullshit’. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts when we respect each other’s opinions.
That raises a problem for me. It is better if I don’t speak Chinese to the kids (I can’t very much anyway), but when I hear that kind of language I step in and deal with it. I think it’s better to tip my hand and reveal understanding, than to let them get away with bad language. I blasted three girls the other day, when I heard one of them say “go pi” outside my classroom door. I laughed, because the “innocent” two immediately squealed on the guilty one.
We had last Wednesday (October 10) off, for National Day, and so we took a spin down the coast. It took about an hour and a bit to get to Shitiping, during which time Lao-puo
stoically endured such bons mots as “I know the pings in the town itself aren’t up to much, but they start getting better in about 10 more km”, and other examples of my mature and sophisticated humour. Despite the rain and cloud, the east coast is every bit as nice as California or Hawaii or anywhere else.
The two foundlings are doing well. Xiao Bai is getting spayed in a few days, and Toby will be getting his bilateral orchidectomy a few days later. It’s only CAD 30 to knacker a male over here, and fixing the female is only double that. The fee includes the overnight, observation, and related expenses.
Lao-puo is stressing about how hard her Chinese course is getting, but mercy! Is she ever getting good! The teacher must be doing something right.
The language department at Buddhist Tzu Chi University (BTCU) is having a field trip on October 28th, to Fonglin (just up the road about 15 minutes north of my school, and Guangfu. I expect we will go to the Pig Knuckle Nazi (the lady who has great pork hocks but mercilessly berates the customers), the charcoal ice cream place (a guy
makes all kinds of stuff from charcoal, including ice cream), and of course the sugar refinery at Guangfu. The old sugar refinery is rather similar to the sawmill that was closed in Chemainus those years ago. There was good money (union pay) and job security for decades at the sugar refinery, then the bottom fell out of the market. Unemployment skyrocketed in Guangfu, and the place has never really recovered.
I’m writing, up to this point, on my birthday Friday afternoon. I am missing all my friends and loved ones at home, but I am grateful for the opportunity to live in this fascinating and beautiful country.
Was that a birthday or was that a birthday! Lao-puo picked me up from school—I dislike taking the train on Friday afternoons because it’s so crowded. Secondly, I bring my computer home each weekend and I want to avoid carrying it on the motorbike from the station.
It was raining like fury, and getting dark, and the hours-long electrical storm was unbelievable. We went to “Why Die Thai’ (“wai dai” is Chinese for ‘takeout”), and picked up a bottle of wine from 7-11.
We were supposed to be hosting
Betty from Fongbin (as opposed to Fonglin) overnight on Saturday, but the roads washed out on Friday night and she was trapped. “Fongbin” means “Enchanted Coastline” and “Fonglin” means “Phoenix Woods”.
On Saturday afternoon, the rest of us gathered for a birthday cake. Our gaggle was:
1. Barbara, from Ohio, who lived in Spain for 25 years and wants to end her days in Hualien.
2. Elaine, from Toronto, who is younger than my daughter and makes fun of how old I am (I got even—Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man” came on in the restaurant, and I made her listen to it.
3. Frank, an ordained minister, who runs the local alcohol and drug rehab place with his wife Annie.
4. Annie, the only person is our gaggle who is from here.
5. Lao-puo, and (of course)
6. the Birthday Boy.
Taiwan is Taiwan, and Canada is Canada, and never the twain shall meet. We had our cake and drinks overlooking the turquoise ocean, with the mountains in the background, and the crashing surf. “Baby” Frank and Annie’s big horse of a golden retriever was crying outside. The restaurant lady let us bring her in, and
have our own cake from the bakery instead of having to buy their desserts. I can’t imagine any establishment in Canada that would let customers bring in a dog (Baby looks like a seeing eye dog so in a pinch I could have pretended to be blind) or their own food. Many places, if they don’t sell beer, will let you nip out to the 7-11 (never far away) and get your own.
The restaurant specializes in goat milk. Horsing around with the goats afterwards, pretending to butt them, I was bitten.
7. Danny, from Iowa originally but now from here, and his son Clark, came over to the house afterwards. We all got wai dai from the night market and had a bunch of beer.
Now it is a glorious sunny good-to-be-alive Sunday morning, and we are going to our little sidewalk café for “pagan dan” and coffee before setting off to run the pups at Taroko—if the trails are even open after the typhoon and the rainstorm.
Speaking of Frank and Annie and Agape House (“A Gah Pay” means “unconditional love”), I will grow my beard back to be Santa at the Christmas party
again this year—and, in the near future—Reverend Doug is going to preach the sermon at the Agape House Church. I think I might use Father Damian as my base. He was the Belgian priest who ministered to the leper colony in Molokai. Father Damian defied the bishop who wanted to transfer him away after a three-month stint, and he stayed on Molokai until he died of Hansen’s Disease himself. His entire message to the lepers was that you have not been forsaken by God or by other people.
There you have it. I make TV camera crews laugh, I get older in revelry and beer and cake and Thai delicacies, I Santa, I berate girls for swearing, I get bitten by a goat, and I preach. Life is not ordinary on beautiful Formosa.
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