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Published: November 16th 2007
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East Coast Beauty
North of Fongbin on Hwy 11, looking south towards Jici Beach. It’s first light on the train to work, and the valley is awakening from the darkness. The ever-cheerful attendant (whose husband also works for Taiwan Rail Authority at Guangfu Station), has just handed me a piping hot steamed pork bun for breakfast. This was out of the blue—you can get a box meal but they are for sale not free. Some months ago, the same attendant asked me where I was getting off, and offered to wake me up when we got to Guangfu! Pretty good going, since she can’t speak English at all and I understand one word in ten of her Chinese. I gave the attendant the English name “Yvonne” because the sound is fairly similar to her Chinese name.
Sometimes (morning and evening) I’m the only passenger awake on a crowded train.
The box meal is rice, a tea egg, a slice of pork, a ham sausage, cabbage, and Chinese pickles—for less than two bucks. Darn good, too.
Travel plans are getting finalized. Lao-puo and Betty and I will go to Hong Kong for (western) New Year. During the Lunar Year (only three weeks this year instead of four) Suzanne and I will fly to
Lao-puo and Betty
Who knows what devilment they'll get into in Hong Kong? My cousin Bob and I will just have to get into some devilment of our own. Singapore for a few days, then Kuala Lumpur and a few days in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia, then to northern Thailand before returning home.
As an early graduation gift (Renée won’t finish her degree for another year) our daughter is flying over here in late April or May. Woo hoo! I have to work, but I will be able to at least tootle around Taiwan with them on the weekends. Lao-puo and Renée will decide where to go in addition to Taiwan, because travel is so inexpensive over here. Likely they will want to go to Hong Kong, and make up their minds where to go in addition to that.
I don’t know what “my girls” have cooking, but one day I would love to take the train from HCMC up to Hanoi. I don’t know when that might ever happen. We need to go home at the end of my contract, I think.
What a shock that is going to be! I asked an insurance clerk (last summer back home) how much it would be to insure a little motorbike in Canada, and she quoted a price that is TEN TIMES the price in Taiwan.
I took this Picture in 2003...
...having no idea at the time that we would one day live in Hualien! TEN TIMES!!! It doesn’t much matter anyway—I’m not allowed to bring my scooter home because it doesn’t meet Transport Canada standards. Never mind the fact it has a front disc brake, or that it just had an air-care inspection a few weeks back—the important thing is that they cost three times as much in Canada and we must “protect” the Canadian businesses that import stuff. I think it’s called “free enterprise”—with the deck stacked.
At least I’ll be able to get a good buck for Esmerelda—two shops have already said that they will give me close to what I paid. Other than clean oil and a speedometer cable and a couple of worn-out tires, the bike has been really trouble-free despite some quite hard service.
We just paid our car insurance for another year, and the premium was a whopping $110 Canadian dollars. By the way, that includes emergency roadside assistance. We spent the horrendous sum of $70 on our weekly groceries at Carrefour, but that included a bottle of wine and a new pair of sandals for me.
The hot water gave out in the middle of my shower yesterday. With a curse and a housecoat,
Easy-to-Read Chinese Washroom Symbol
"Shark-viewing best done from a squatting position." I went outside on the balcony to see what was what. Instead of the kind of hot water tanks we have at home, ours is a little boiler affair that heats the water on-demand only. We have two big propane tanks—one for the water heater and the other for the cooker, and the water one was empty. “My gaunchies” (mei guan chi) - it doesn’t matter—I just switched the tanks around. Lao-puo got on the phone to the gas guy and he was there in fifteen minutes with a full tank. The propane delivery guy uses a scooter that can carry three big tanks on it. They were in a cradle but not even tied down, and the guy was just wearing flip-flops on his feet. (WCB?)
You wouldn’t believe how much noise a bunch of junior high kids can make! I was walking in the corridor the other day with one of my colleagues at lunch hour, when she expressed disbelief at the din. From each classroom in turn we heard shouts, crashes and bangs, squeals, giggles, belches, cackles, armpit farts (I hope), everybody talking at once, and (as if there wasn’t enough noise already) even a radio
Sunrise over the Ocean
I'm usually gone by the time the sun comes up. going—you name it. My colleague said, “Animals! They are animals!” The students can be a royal pain sometimes, but really bad behaviour is quite rare. The worst I’ve ever had to do is bust up a fight once (a week or so back), and both pugilists immediately obeyed my command to stop. Blessed are the peacemakers, I suppose, but I was more worried about the concrete floor than the Bible at that particular moment.
Speaking of blessings, I don’t fire on all cylinders when people speak Chinese to me, but I think I understand that Lao-puo is having a bit of influence in our community. Chinese people seem to have an inability to mind what we would consider to be their own business. Many of our elderly neighbours take it upon themselves to find out all about us, but they do so in a way that is not in the least offensive. They are not nosey, just interested in us. Whenever we walk the two dogs the old girls exercising in the park always comment on the dogs and smile at us. Last night a young couple talked to me for a few minutes when I was out with
Be it Ever so Humble...
...there's no place like home. the pups. Listening intently, I picked out “tai-tai” (wife) “tzu fu” (bless), “ai” (love), “lu go” (street dog), and “hen hao” (very good) in addition to endearments beyond my linguistic ability as Toby tried to lick them both to death.
I should try to sell Xiao Bai when we get her home next year. Maybe I could flub her off as a purebred “Formosan Lugo Hound” or some such, and clip some unsuspecting dupe for a grand or so. Maybe not—not much karma in that. Not the kind I want, anyway.
Suzanne has already rescued two cats and found homes for them, and our two dogs. Xiao Bai is the picture of health now, and she is gentle, kind, loyal, quiet, playful, and protective. I guess my pronoun reference is OK, but in fact Lao-puo is all of those things too.
Somebody called me from the Ministry of Health the other day, looking for Lao-puo. She had attended a meeting for foreign nationals a few months back, at which suggestions were requested to make the National Health system less daunting for foreigners. It is quite daunting at first, believe you me! Lao-puo being Lao-puo was very practical and direct, and suggested bilingual signs at all clinics outside the hospitals. You can walk by a little place on the street that has a National Health logo, but never know if it’s a dentist or a herbalist or an acupuncture place or just what (National Health covers all of that). English is the language most commonly understood by foreigners here—most of whom are Filipino and Thai. She has been invited to a dental clinic in Ji An for a grand unveiling of the bilingual plaque (the plaque in front of the place—not the kind on patients’ teeth). She has to write a speech—it will be on national TV, and they will give her an interpreter. No worries—I’ll work on her to at least do the introduction in Chinese.
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