Elephants and bumblebees

We had a gorgeous couple of days early last week: really blue sky, billowing white clouds, warm breezes and sunshine. It was perfect. The winds brought with them a change in the weather, though. Thursday's mugginess turned to leaden skies, and by midday the first thunderstorm of the season was upon us. Nora and I were returning from downtown and had a great view of the approaching storm from the elevated freeway. As we pulled into the school the first flash of lightning arced just beyond our campus walls (or so it seemed), so I hurried to prepare Nora for the thunder. I told her that we'd be hearing a big boom-boom-boom, but not to be scared; it was just like elephants walking around. Immediately the thunder rolled over us, and Nora buried her head in her hands: "I don't like elephants!" We made it home, getting drenched in the short walk from car to door. The storm lingered for several long, rumbling hours. Nora hid her face at every flash, but was as brave as she could be. We pulled the blinds and put on loud music to keep the scary stuff away.

The weekend brought cool days, lots of rain, and nothing but grey in every direction. It made Easter feel a whole lot like Easter in the Northwest, though, so it was rather homey (I even wore a sweater). Now and then, though, Nora would peek at the drizzling skies and say, "Elephants are scary," or, "I don't like bumblebees." This last part is a puzzle. Maybe it's how she's remembering the word thunder, or perhaps it's an association with lightning. Whatever it is, I'm afraid she'll be off bees and pachyderms for a while.

We also had a little excitement underfoot. Easter morning, about 6:40, Tim and I were shaken awake by another temblor, same location as before but not quite as strong (6.2). And again this morning, about 9:30, a weaker but nearer quake (4.8, in Chiayi) gave us a little jolt. I suppose it's good to release the built up pressure in a series of quakes like this, but it is a little unnerving. If the weather cooperates we plan to go camping in Taitung with some friends this week, so any more quakes will be right under our noses. I think, though, I'd rather be in a tent on the beach than just about anywhere else.

I didn't feel these last two quakes coming, by the way. I guess my career as a human earthquake prognosticator is dashed. Not a job I really wanted anyway. Too much pressure.

Photo update

Some time back I promised to post some pictures from the New Year's market; I finally got to it last night, so you can check them out here. I published them under the date they were taken (January), so if you go to the Formosa Fix page you have to scroll down a little to see them. (And remember, you can click on an image to see it full-screen.)

If you haven't stopped by in a while, come take a look!

Good Friday

Perhaps it's the influence of my German Lutheran roots, but Good Friday is becoming one of my favorite holy days. No Hallmark cards, no candy, no gifts – well, one immense gift (salvation), but no attempt to reduce that to a human level by wrapping up trifles in Good Friday paper bedecked with nails and thorns. It's a day that humbles me and restores my focus; it's a day I feel my insignificance and wonder at the love of our God.

I hope you all have a blessed and peaceful Easter.

River Town

I've been reading Father Brown for ages – that's what I get for starting the complete works, I guess. I haven't made much headway with Answering God, although I like it. But it needs to be read at a table with a Bible and journal and pen at hand, and I've been trying to read it in bed. I've picked up River Town again, a favorite of mine that I'd lent out and just got back. If you're looking for a peek into life in China, which bears some resemblance to life in Taiwan, I recommend it. Of course the political situation is not the same, but many of the other social traits are intact in the Chinese population here. It's a very funny book, covering two years in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer in an isolated Sichuan town – his reaction to the people, their reaction to him, his struggles with the language and culture. It's excellent; I'd love to see a sequel. The author, Peter Hessler, had an article in a recent New Yorker about life in Beijing, so I'm hoping another book is in the works. I'll have to look for it this summer.

Hungry?

Just wanted to plug my cooking page. I've got a few recipes to choose from now, so check it out!

Loud neighbors

I don't know what the event was, but something was going on next door today. I was startled out of my seat when a string of firecrackers was thrown on a burn barrel in front of the warehouse across the street. Cole very thoughtfully ran to Nora's room to see if the noise had awakened her, while I ran for my camera and headed out to the balcony. There wasn't much to see, though, but the preparations of a party. Tables were being set, basins of water and baskets of fruit were laid out; and amid the bustle one woman walked slowly around the tables with long sticks of incense in her right hand, rapping her left hand with them in a steady rhythm. Evil spirits were being warned away, the ones that hadn't heeded the round of fireworks.

We went downtown soon after, so I missed the rest of the evening's festivities. I don't know if there was a wedding, or if perhaps the farmers were having a banquet for their laborers. As we pulled out of our gate, which faces this building directly, a couple men leaning against their truck looked at us and smiled. I waved, and they waved back, but that's as far as it went. They didn't invite us to their party, and we didn't expect them to. I'm kind of sorry we went out, though. I would have had a great view of their festivities from up here.

I'm such a snoop.

Spring forward

It's 8:30 p.m. and 80º. Where did spring go? It's like we reset our season while you were resetting your clocks. Time to put my sweaters away (again).

Rock 'n roll

Not sure if it made much news where you are, but on Saturday a 6.4 quake in Taitung (about 60 miles from here) had our building shaking for a good long while. There was a little damage on the 6th floor: new cracks in the plaster, some broken pottery. But except for some kitchen drawers askew, we had nothing to show for it two floors down. It was pretty unnerving, though. All four of us were home, and once we realized that the quake was getting stronger we headed for doorframes. We now know that isn't the safest. Next time we'll lie down next to an inside wall or next to a couch or bed. Hmm. Next time.

The unsettling part for me is that, once again, I felt it coming. All of March I'd been thinking we were overdue, though if I gave it a little more thought, I felt like it was not quite time. On Saturday morning, as I sat at the computer, the thought came to me again, and I felt strongly enough about it that I considered blogging it. But then I shook off the idea and went about my day. The quake was at 6:00 that evening. Weird, huh? Next time I'll follow my impulse and we'll see how accurate I really am.

For you foodies out there...

Against my better judgment, I've started another blog, Wonton Woman, all about cooking in Taiwan. The recipes will be mostly western-style, chosen primarily because they can be made with locally available ingredients. No promises on how often I'll post, but I hope at least once or twice a week.

I've started with a recipe for microwave polenta. Suggestions are welcome. Please take a look!

Catching you up

It's been a busy week since I last wrote. I was sick Friday (it had been creeping up on me all that week) and slept all day Saturday. Sunday morning we walked over to the school for the Bilingual Community Church service; the quarter-mile walk was pushing it, though. I was really wiped out.

Monday was a day for staying home, not because I was sick, but because the air was thick with Mongolian dust. We were warned to stay inside if possible – according to the local EPA report, we were well into the red zone of unhealthy air. Cole and his classmates spent their recess times playing board games in the lunchroom. Tuesday was not much better; the winds were supposed to shift to the east and southeast, but stayed put and kept blowing the particulate our way. The dust cloud from China was an anomaly, but poor air quality is the norm, especially here in the industrial south: factories, truck traffic to and from the port, and of course fires – burning fields, burning garbage, burning ghost money. It all adds up.

Wednesday morning I had my Chinese lesson. I learned how to say maybe, probably not, and definitely (each of those requires a different suffix added to whatever the verb is in the initial question). Very useful, but if I don't practice it I'm going to forget it.

Thursday I helped chaperone Cole's class trip to the Leopard King Safari Zoo. We had a great day for it, not too hot and not too overrun with Chinese students (who travel in packs of fifty and a hundred). Still, it was a bit depressing – an old-style zoo with not a lot of room to roam, and a demeaning monkey show to boot (I wasn't sure who was less pleased with being on stage, the monkeys or the handlers). The kids had a good time, though, watching the pig races, petting a penguin, mimicking the whooping calls of the gibbons. We also got to walk among the mountain deer, the only extant deer species in Taiwan. I've eaten it, but had never met one before. They're about the size of a dog, which surprised me – I don't know if I would have found them as tasty, knowing how small they are.

Friday was business as usual, lunch with Tim at school and then an afternoon of catching up on my housework. I took Cole out later to buy some in-line skates, and he's been busy learning the finer points of not falling down ever since. Yesterday was a girls' morning out as a handful of us from staff housing headed downtown to check out some new stores: Muji (Japanese housewares and clothing, much of which is overpriced – but still fun to look at), and Jason's grocery, also overpriced, but where you can buy things you can't find anywhere else (prosciutto, artichoke hearts, and Quaker Oatmeal Squares). No chutney, though. I don't know why I can't find it here. I guess I'll have to make it myself.

So that's a week in the life of. Not terribly exotic, perhaps, but different enough; it grows on you.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This morning as Cole was getting dressed (green shorts, orange tee) he said his teacher, Mrs. Dunn, told the kids that they should wear green, but underwear didn't count. I said, "Well, sure, because nobody can see it." And Cole said, "They would if you didn't wear pants."

If you forget to wear some green, pinch yourself for me, will ya? (But if you forget to wear your pants, I don't want to know....)

Summer plans

I have our summer itinerary: the kids and I will be back in Washington from June 2 to July 10. (Looks like Tim will not be joining us after his studies in Beijing in June, but I'm sure he'll enjoy his downtime here at home.) We'll be on Whidbey for pretty much the whole time, except for one trip east of the Cascades. If you'd like to meet us on the island we'd love to see you!

Remembering Burma

This Sunday, March 12th, is the Global Day of Prayer for Burma. Ethnic cleansing, forced labor, landmines placed to terrorize the internal refugees – all of this is ongoing, yet these atrocities receive little attention from the west. So today I ask you to keep the persecuted Burmese in your thoughts and prayers. Please also pray for those who are working, often putting their own lives in danger, to keep the Burmese alive.

More information is available at www.prayforburma.org. Or click here to see a short film which documents the situation. It will only take about 12 minutes, time well spent on understanding the seriousness of the troubles there. Despite the oppression and genocide, hope survives – people are hanging on. Please help lift them in prayer.

Where my heart is

I had a grumpy couple of days. No single reason to pin it on, just a lingering bad mood. Tuesday started off well – I had a nice long chat with a friend in Virginia, a Taiwan buddy from our time here before. She and her husband have moved back to the states, started a family and settled into a new job and community. I miss them, so that's maybe what kicked off my blues. And listening to her talk about how they miss Taiwan reminds me that I will forever have two homes, and will always long for the one that I'm not living in. I wouldn't give up either one, but it's tough knowing you can never be really happy in one place. Maybe we're not supposed to be, though. Complacency sets you up for trouble; I no longer want to root my happiness in stasis.

I updated my books, finally, on the sidebar. I've already finished Traveling Mercies but wanted to post it anyway. It's Anne Lamott's unflinching look at her path to faith. Not G-rated, perhaps, but real life rarely is. I enjoy her honesty, but do wonder how she prepares her friends and family for some of the things she writes. "By the way, Mom, I'm going to be publishing all our family secrets next month. Just thought you should know."

Father Brown is a kick. I've found several passages that speak to my life here, which is one sign of a really good book. Chesterton was not thinking of Taiwan when he wrote his stories, but here I am decades later feeling like he's talking just to me, right where I am. And Eugene Peterson is still a bed-side staple; I have one more to go after Answering God. Hopefully that will get me through the spring, until I can get home and scour the bookstores this summer. Hmm. There's that word again: home. I can picture, quite clearly, whole towns, neighborhoods and streets, gardens and driveways, all thousands of miles away. I know the sounds of a city, the weak winter light, the first signs of spring. I dream of building a little house on our property in Coupeville someday. But right now this is home, and not just because this is where our house is. This is where our life is.

Living in the present is harder than it sounds.

Winter's chill redux

It's cold! Just when I'd put my sweaters away (set aside for when we return to a nippy Northwest summer), winter came back for an encore. Well, sixty-one degrees may not seem so cold to you, especially if you're under a blanket of snow somewhere right now, but when you don't have a heated home you really feel the chill. I can't complain – I'd rather have A/C than heat, and we do have some space heaters for times like this – but after a couple days in the 90s last week, we're all a bit suprised.

Much more interesting than the weather, though, is the fact that I got my hair washed last night. (No, really, it is.) For about US$4.00, I got a twenty-minute scalp massage that goes by the deceptively gentle-sounding name "shampoo," followed by a hot-water rinse and conditioning, and then finally a shoulder massage. (I was hoping for a longer massage – this was only about five minutes – but I'll take what I can get.) My hair is unbelievably clean today, and my follicles are still whimpering. During the whole two years we were back in the States I only got three haircuts – it's so disappointing after getting used to the treatment (and the price) here.

Last night's outing was with my friend Kristin, who is moving back to Colorado this year. As we sat side by side in our salon chairs, each enduring ten strong fingers vigorously raking through our hair, I said, "You're going to miss this, you know." She knew.

I wanted to write more today, but after an MSG-seasoned lunch all I want to do now is sleep. More later, perhaps.

Reading for understanding

I need to update my reading list on the right; my parents brought over some books I'd ordered and I've been dipping into them when I have the time. I'm still on a Eugene Peterson kick, just finishing his book on Jeremiah, Run with the Horses, where he writes:

Any part of our lives that is turned over to the crowd makes it and us worse. The larger the crowd, the smaller our lives.... On the other hand, every time that we retrieve a part of our life from the crowd and respond to God's call to us, we are that much more ourselves, more human. Every time we reject the habits of the crowd and practice the disciplines of faith, we become a little more alive.

This is how I felt about our two years of homeschooling, as well as our time here. I prefer living out of the mainstream, although not to an extreme – we're not to isolate ourselves from the world, only live differently in it. And you can't help but do so here.

A friend lent me G.K. Chesterton's Complete Father Brown, which I've just started. I used to read mysteries more often; in fact, Lord Peter Wimsey led me to Dorothy L. Sayers' other works on classical education and apologetics, which I love. (I have to admit, though, that I first discovered Wimsey on Mystery! rebroadcasts before I picked up the books. Thanks, Mobil.)

I bought my dad a copy of Taiwan: A Political History by Denny Roy, and he very kindly left it for us to read after they flew home. I have picked it up and read some random passages, but really ought to read it all the way through. I'm sure I'd understand the current events much better if I had a grasp on the historical ones.

My other reading is mostly along the lines of Where's Spot? and Peekaboo Bunny, which I enjoy for the company that my reading aloud brings me. Books are good companions, but even better when shared.

All there is to see

Hey, I just wanted to mention that in the post below I've hyper-linked some words to their related photos in Formosa Fix (my photo gallery). In the process of setting all that up I discovered that you can click on any photo to enlarge it -- you'll get much more detail that way. The whale shark is a bit more impressive viewed full-size.

Enjoy!

The grand tour

My parents left last Friday, after a two-week, too-short visit. We managed to see quite a bit of southern Taiwan while they were here, but I wish we'd had a bit more time together. That's my perspective, though, as one who knows all the places I'd wanted to take them and how many we didn't get to. I hope that in their opinion we did enough... but not too much. I know they were most eager to spend time with the grandkids; traveling was secondary. We were blessed with warm and mostly clear days while they were here. One of our first outings was to the 85-story Tuntex tower. On the right, here, is Nora taking her turn on the coin-op binoculars. She got a really good view of everyone on the observation deck – that's Kaohsiung harbor in the background – and everyone got a good look at her (and more than a few pictures).

After our trip up the tallest building in the city (in one of the fastest elevators in the world), we headed to Costco. This is more of a cultural experience than you might imagine: Chinese Costco is recognizably Costco, but the roasted chickens with their heads and feet intact, the nearly empty carts at the check-out line (for whatever gets bought has to get home, and many shoppers come on scooters), and gray-robed Buddhist nuns poring over their receipts all give you the sense that you're not in Kirkland anymore.

Shopping falls somewhere between sport and chore in Taiwan. My mom and I found a few treasures at Dollars and Walason's, but the outings took a lot of effort. Much more relaxing was our weekend in Kenting (pronounced "kun-ding"). The weather was warm and dry, traffic was light, and the drive was pleasant: we passed betel nut plantations, old women selling wax apples and yellow onions at roadside stands, men standing over barbecues of skewered squid. (On the way home we bought some fruit and a bag of onions, but skipped the squid – the eyes turn me off.)

One of the highlights of the trip was the National Aquarium. This is a world-class facility, with walk-through tanks of tropical fish and coral, a pool of beluga whales, and a giant wall of glass holding back schools of tuna, gliding skates, and a pack of menacing whale sharks. We spent a morning at the fortified lighthouse on the very southern point of the island, Oluan Pi ("o-lun be"). Vendors lined the park paths, selling shells, toys, and coral jewelry. We drank sweet cold coconut juice right out of the shell, and got the soft white meat scooped out for us when we were done. We ended our day at White Sand beach, where it was still warm enough for Cole to chase some waves. Kenting is close enough to be a day-trip; we should go more often.

The second week of my parents' visit went quickly: we shopped, visited Cheng Ching Lake, and went up into the hills to an aboriginal culture village. Mom and I helped Cole's class celebrate Valentine's Day, and my dad spoke to some students about drumming: the history, the discipline, and the joy of playing well. He is a born teacher. We were so happy to have them here. Kaohsiung is no paradise, but there's more here than just the city. I hope they enjoyed themselves, and I really hope they'll come again.

Taking a break

My parents arrived safely last Friday, whereupon we all got sick to varying degrees. Not the best start to a vacation, but with mom and dad sleeping off jet lag anyway maybe it's not so bad, timing-wise. It's great to have family here – it feels more like home now – and hopefully it helps them understand our life here a little better.

We're off to Kenting for the weekend, so I'll be incommunicado for another few days. I'll get some pix of the sun and sand for you next week. Till then....

Happy New Year (please pass me a tissue)

Well, it's official: the Year of the Dog has commenced. Cole and Nora both have a fever and cough, and my nose is driving me nuts, but hey, we're on vacation, the weather's been great – it could be worse.

We only had a smattering of fireworks in our village this year, but an unbelievable amount of traffic. The holiday follows a strict heirarchy of family visits – driving on New Year's eve to spend New Year's day with the husband's family, then driving, sometimes across the country, to spend the next couple days with the in-laws (the husband's in-laws, that is – the Chinese always lose a daughter, never gain a son). The flow of people has been uneven, with one side of the freeway crawling along while the other direction is wide open; when we've had to go out, we use surface streets and avoid the worst intersections. I don't think people here are big on shortcuts. Everyone seems to stay on the main roads, even when everyone, literally, is on the road. Most foreigners stay home over the holiday; it's not a good time to go sight-seeing.

Last Saturday we did venture out with our friends, the Pinkertons, to the New Year's market. (I took tons of photos, but have had difficulty loading them – check the photos link in a day or two.) The market is open all year as the dry market – dried mushrooms, beans, fish, tea, assorted grasses and grains, powdered who-knows-what – but I haven't gone before, so I don't know what distinguishes it as the New Year's market right now. There were stalls selling red banners, tassles, envelopes, and so on, and a man creating large calligraphy banners, but otherwise it seemed to be a pretty normal dry market. Just very, very crowded.

My parents will be here in two (two!) days, so I'm going to keep this short and get back to my to-do list. Our study is slowly being transformed into a guest room, thanks to Tim. The rest of the house needs a little attention, though, so off I go. My dirty windows beckon.