Blogs from Taiwan, Asia - page 114

I went into Hualien City on Sunday, to meet my colleague Anna for church and lunch. We went to the RC place, and they do indeed offer incentives for conversion. Most of the folk are from the Philippines, so a lot of the singing was in Tagalog. The sound of the music is very Polynesian in nature, and thus very much to my taste. Speaking of taste, there is a lunch laid on afterwards—traditional Filipino home-cooked. Anna and Allen (her trusty co-teacher) and I could not stay for lunch. He had a busy afternoon planned, and Anna and I met up with Paul Rowe, my new Australian sidekick from the orientation. We sat in a waterfront place in Hualien Harbour (my American readers will please note the correct spelling), and we had lunch while looking between ... read more

Political demonstrations are rare in Canada. Serious ones at that, I mean. Sure, you get the odd gathering of a few dozen 'activists' upset over something they usually know very little about - they just feel like bitching because they have nothing better to do with their time. Some moron is yelling into a megaphone, a few rocks are thrown, a squad car rolls up asking them to 'please stop it', and the end result is some raving lunatic on the six o'clock evening news whom you would like nothing more than to beat senseless with a phone book. That's not the case here in Taiwan, when on National Day over one million people marched through the streets to support the deposition of President Chen Shui-bian. A staggering 70% of the population favours the removal of ... read more

(So I'm back in Port Townsend, and probably have enough material to blog from here for the next few weeks! I had to take a break when crunch time hit, but hope to get everything caught up!) When we arrive back at the Dream Community, it has been turned into a surreal landscape. The architecture students are hard at work, and the place is littered by the remains of giant sea creature skeletons. The sodium lamps cast an eerie yellow light, and we feel like we are walking through an undersea graveyard. The jellyfish, manta ray, shark, squid, seahorse, lobster, and hermit crab continued to develop over the next several days. The deer lantern puppets continue to grow, despite us running critically short of reed, and many other pieces pass through various stages of development.... read more

Thursday I headed to join my friends for a fun intertaining bbq weekend up north in Miaoli. Jason, Holly, and I got in Thursday night and joined Mike in his lovely town! We ate some dinner, checked out a local bar, and hung out with another foreigner named Paul. Friday Rachel and Muoy joined us. We headed to Carrefour later that afternoon to buy some groceries for the BBQ. We didn't know it would be total made ciaos. My god-it was like a kid in a candy store after an annoucement "EVERYTHING MUST GO! ALL CANDY $.01" It was nuts. After Holly and I picked some pretty delicious marinated meat and fresh veggies, Jason getting squid on a stick and Mike searching for seasoning and our cart filled with a case of Taiwan beer, we ... read more

My concerns about not being able to get out of town have now been resolved—I bought a motorcycle this (Friday) night. Joe brought me information on how to get an ROC driver’s licence, and asked if I wanted to check out some machines. I said sure, so he said, “let’s go”. We went to the shop at the corner, just to get an idea of prices, and the lao-ban suggested we go to the “factory” in Hualien where there is a better selection. We piled into the company truck, and an affable employee drove us to the city. I enjoyed the free Chinese lesson during the drive.The company truck was one of those lovely little Chinese cab-over jobs that would sell like hotcakes back home if anyone imported them. There’s even touch-of-a-button 4WD, for construction sites ... read more