Out in the Cold on New Year's Eve

The biggest party of the year, and I can't go because of this doffer in the toga. I mean, I think I would just have a very difficult time explaining to the hosts of this New Year's party that I'm traveling through time to cover the events in my life and I'm bringing a renowned philosopher with me. I guess I hadn't thought about that when I was in Athens.

Tonight, the team (including myself and my Handsome Accomplice) is celebrating at the home of Matt and DeeDee Wasmund, volunteer coordinators and a congenial couple of undisclosed age, and having a fantastic time of it, I might add. Earlier today, Quondam-Anne and the Handsome Accomplice picked out a nice sweater to go with the lovely Thai silk scarf he brought as one of many Christmas gifts, and she's wearing it now. Socrates and I are at the movie theater watching "Narnia". He can't get enough of this popcorn, but I don't think he understands the parallel between Jesus and Aslan. Wait, that's right, he doesn't know about Jesus yet. This could get interesting.

Anyway, here's a link to photos of the actual event that we're missing right now. At this point in time, the Handsome Accomplice has been here a few days, reading storybooks to the kindergartners, celebrating a late Christmas, riding on the back of Quondam-Anne's scooter (which is another thing: Quondam-Anne has exclusive use of the scooter. These taxi fares are getting to be a little much, but we still haven't figured out how to get the time machine to travel through space only. I think there must have been a loose fuse. And Mr. Crates' method of asking me questions about it just doesn't get us anywhere) and in general having a wonderful time. Soon though, he'll have to head back to Thailand. I don't think I'm gonna stick around for the bus station scene again. Enjoy the photos.

Tuesday Night Stakeout

Cutting to the chase, Socrates and I find ourselves at the front gate of Concordia Middle School on a Tuesday night, watching me from an unseen vantage point. It is night, and Quondam-Anne is waiting for someone and checking her watch. Now, no one has to be a great thinker to figure out who she's (I'm) waiting for. After the hubbub of Christmas, my Handsome Accomplice is due to arrive here for a week-long visit any minute. I'm never comfortable waiting for something, and even now I can spy myself looking at my watch anxiously. It's cold and Quondam-Anne is not wearing the proper jacket. I had told myself I'd wait until 10:45 and then go in for a jacket...yep, looks like I'm standing up right now.

But wait! Right when Quondam-Anne turns around, a taxicab pulls up to the curb. My handsome accomplice can be seen negotiating with the driver before alighting and taking luggage from the trunk. He sees neither Time-Travel-Anne nor Quondam-Anne, who is smiling now, for she has a controller in her pocket that opens and closes the huge gate after hours. As the taxicab pulls away and the Handsome Accomplice prepares to scale the gate, it opens slowly before him. Quondam-Anne takes ten steps toward the Handsome Accomplice before he sees her.

Socrates and I turn to each other for high-fives.

And, scene.

Christmas Day

Dear Readers,

Whew! It seems my journey to this point in time, though it be time travel, has taken longer than expected. I don't expect you to understand the intricacies of time travel, but suffice it to say we got a little hung up when we had to repair the flux capacitor with an umbrella and some bubblegum from 1963...don't ask.

I say "we" because I made a stop in ancient Greece to pick up Socrates, yes, the actual Greek philosopher (you know I love to reenact movies and Bill and Ted is one of my favorites). I took him around with me while I traveled through time and wrote. You wouldn't believe what a great companion Mr. Crates can be.

We observed Quondam-Anne emerge from her room this morning at about 6:30, blanket in arms, and make her way to the Christmas tree in the common area of the Practice Hotel, where a single package wrapped in gold paper waited beneath. She's now opened the package, put the contents on, and curled up in the blanket next to the twinkling tree.

Later today we'll join the Christmas Spectacular at Salvation Lutheran Church, where all of the following can be observed:

• Church Filled To Capacity, Blocking all Fire Exits
• Singing Ladies Guild
• Obligatory Children's Nativity Pageant
• Count 'Em, Not One, But Two Baptisms
• Church Parking Lot Filled to Capacity With Tables, Chairs, Banquet Attendees
• Fellowship

(A footnote about baptism here: it's most common for females to be baptized because there's less pressure on women to keep up the duties of honoring departed family members. Today we baptized two young women who have been waiting for a long time. Apparently the baptism class takes a long time and baptisms can only happen at certain times. To this observer, it seems like a lot of bureaucracy for an island with 4% Christianity, but I've only been here four months, what do I know.)

For a more comprehensive examination of Christmas Day photos, click here for a link to a Flickr Photoset.

Merry Christmas everyone! I recall having spent the rest of this day sitting around the Practice Hotel. People are getting suspicious about the man in the toga, so I'm gonna get out of here. Next stop: next Tuesday

Christmas Eve

The Flaming Lips, if you ever read my blog, I'd like you to know that I'm pretty sure this song you wrote, Christmas at the Zoo, is about Jesus.

Their wasn’t any snow on Christmas Eve and I knew what I should do:
I thought I’d free the animals all locked up at the zoo
I opened up the fence where the peacocks were, the lamas were unleashed
The snakes and seals could all get out, but they refused to leave....

All of the animals agreed they’re not happy at the zoo
But they preferred to save themselves, they seemed to think
They could...

The elephants, orangutans, all the birds and kangaroos all said
Thanks but no thanks man, but to be concerned is good...

It started to snow on christmas eve in the middle of the night
Walkin through the state park zoo and everything is white...

Christmas Tree Contest

This link will send you to a flickr slideshow of the event

The Christmas C.E.L.A.bration! -or- Hey you, yeah you--in blue

CELA stands for Concordia English Language Academy. There are three branches, and I teach at the biggest one, located in Min Hsiung. (the Hs makes and "sh" sound, of sorts.) When it came time to name our Christmas program, culminating the efforts of all three branches, one of my own thoughtless amalgamations was proposed and accepted: C.E.L.Abration. Unfortunately, it wasn't until later that I realized it was spelled celEbration. I think it confused every single one of our students. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I really want to be a good English teacher.

So anyway, this is mostly a picture post showing a month and a half's worth of said efforts as they came to fruition yesterday in a big outdoor amphitheater that looks like this when it's empty

Until we filled it with our little stars

We had 'em sing themed songs from parts of the Christmas story while a living nativity assembled. The idea was that they were all stars in the sky singing to baby Jesus, but I think the emphasis got lost in the shuffle. We must have decided that angle was more trouble than it was worth.

What's that on the left? Oh, a manger.

Anna Meyer and I played guiter for the gig.

I believe that for many of these kids, the program was nothing short of a profession of faith. Parents all showed up and clapped for their kids. I don't think they realized the ramifications of this faith taking root in their children: it means that when they die, there will be no one to honor and provide for them in the afterlife. Well, I don't think most of the kids understand this either. What we see right now is pure childlike faith. If only they could hang on to it. Anyhow, it was great to hang out with the kids outside of the classroom. They love so readily.





It went much better than we had thought it would. Even the parents, who we expected to talk all through it, paid pretty good attention. The kids smiled and sang happily (except of course my sixth graders). While tuning, Anna's high E string broke (or at least I believe so because I saw it go really slack) but continued to function throughout the duration of the show. (There's a rational explanation for this, I realize, but I'm not willing to listen to it. It was a Bona Fide Christmas Miracle.)

And of course all our hard-working crew were all very very happy when it was over and done with.


Photo credits for those I couldn't possibly have taken to team member Anna Horkey.

Not For Preaching the Gospel

Along the lines of advice I've issued previously about living in foreign countries, I offer this advice today: Don't mess with the police. And always have your papers in order.

My Get Out Of Jail Free Card? Being an illiterate foreigner. On my scooter, I hadn't been stopped for anything. I just decided to pull over when they told the red-light runners to do so, because they had made eye contact with me. See above advice for explanation. After they let everybody else go (they had told me previously that I would have to go back to the Police Station with them), they took a look at my ARC and discovered I had been in Taiwan only three and a half months. They looked at each other and turned back to me: "Go home." Yesss.

So now you know.

Miscellaneous Update

Anyone feeling sorry for us about the showers can stop doing so. The problem has been fixed and we have warm showers again.

Thanks for your prayers for the dean. Health appears to be stable for the time being.

Turns out my scooter's gas gauge is the biggest pessimist ever. After about twenty kilometers it insists that we're running on fumes. So far this has tricked me into putting 70 cents' worth of gas into it. Twice.

Almost got hauled into the police station two nights ago.

What else? Um...Last night I watched a Kung Fu movie.

That's about all I can think of.

Cold Snap

Sitting here in a blanket, space heater whirring on the floor, I recall an exchange in the girls' shower room from Sunday:

Person 1: Wow it's December already. Wasn't it just September?
Person 2: Yeah. Maybe it feels that way because the weather hasn't changed much since then.

It's Wednesday and it's now 57 degrees out. The trick to Taiwanese winter, as near as I can tell, is that it descends rapidly. The fact that our showers only have pressure and hot water for a few minutes every hour didn't seem quite so miserable before the screens-only windows in our shower room allowed the fifty-degree temperatures outside to finish our skin with goosebumps. We find ourselves in a sudden shiver, because Taiwanese engineering doesn't understand a building as a place of refuge to the same degree as, say, a Minnesotan would. There are no heaters indoors, aside from those you plug in and perch next to your feet. As I've mentioned, there aren't even panes of glass in the windows in our bathroom, a room where we're one-hundred percent guaranteed to be naked. Even in the office and the classrooms, the doors are left open as though it's summertime in Paris. Meanwhile everyone says how cold it is. My new duty for winter: shutting doors.

Anymore, I can't tell if I'm really cold or not. All the Taiwanese appear to be chilled right to the bone unless they pile on the layers. This must be done if you're out riding your scooter, but somehow I just can't justify breaking out the winter wardrobe en force with temperatures in the fifties. I've lived in Colorado before. This isn't cold. Right?

But a snug spirit of industry seems to set in with the cold. Though I believe I'm feeling the first pangs of culture shock, opportunities and gifts deepen. I've felt most at home here than ever this Monday, with Chinese lessons at YiWen's house. It was cold out and I had almost lost my way there on my scooter. I had tried to tail the cab with my teammates inside but the maniac lost me at the third stoplight. When I finally arrived (purely by grace) warm food awaited: hot soy milk, ginger-pumpkin-chicken rice, dumplings and onion bread. Yule, YiWen's husband, made tea as usual. I've tasted other tea here but nothing can beat Yule's.

Monday night the spirit of fear hovering over this island nation became a tiny bit more clear to me. YiWen recounted to us about a neighbor in the throes of manic depression and his Buddhist wife struggling to keep it together. YiWen had just spent a long time with her on the phone when we arrived. She also spoke of her concern for one of her students (she teaches music at a girl's high school) who won't talk to anyone, participate in any lessons, or even look at anyone. This brought us to the problem of suicide, reportedly claiming five Taiwanese lives every day. Many are students to whom the limited commodity of success is no possibility, despite (well, and because of) the pressures of family and society. Education reform has drawn a distinct line between success and failure. Those who fall between the cracks have nothing to look forward to in a culture where accumulating assets is practically the meaning of life. Cultural differences aside, people live in fear. People have no hope. Most of the time they manage to appear as though they can ignore this but it always gnaws at their hearts.

The team is knit together more and more every day. Just this morning when I got up, Sam offered me some of the French toast he had made. I thought I would die of happiness. This must be what Bonhoeffer calls the roses and lilies of living in Christian community. All the WordMish missionaries spread across Taiwan (there's eighteen) got together for missionary worship on Sunday. This is a rare treat to worship in English. Last night we gathered for Bible Study, as we do every Tuesday night, and studied portions of scripture concerning Christ's coming, both first and second. We realized that just like the Jews longing for the Messiah, we are still waiting for something, but the Lord shows us that waiting passively isn't the ticket this time. Surrounded by this could of witnesses and steeped in God's Word, a more authentic understanding of Advent has grasped us. No green and red, no shopping mall "holiday" music. Just anticipation for a beautful promise.

That's the news, I guess. I still have some more stories. Don't lemme get away without sharing them.

An Item Up for Prayer

The dean of CELA, (Concordia English Language Academy) is in the hospital today for some testing of some potentially serious nature. I don't know many more details than this. Please work this into your prayers for the day. Thank you.

Our Baby's All Grows Up

Well, not quite. I'm still an infant in this whole missions game. This fact became quite blatant upon meeting those who had devoted their whole lives to missions at ABLASIA!. I have a lot to learn. But!

This past week marked an entirely new stage of development in the young lives of our new foreign teacher in Taiwan. After jumping through a ridiculous amount of hoops and enduring arbitrary amounts of time, our faithful coordinator Matt scored us our Alien Resident Cards the day before Thanksgiving.


Our first three months have been a sort of purgatory compared to this.

The Alien Resident Card (henceforth referred to as ARC) opens up a whole new spectrum of possibilities for foreigners living in Taiwan. Tuesday, we opened bank accounts. Now I can transfer dough from here to an account in the states and all sorts of whatnot. I'll save the details for an email to my parents, where they belong. But needless say, I'm breathing a sigh of relief not having to hoard wads, and I mean wads, of cash in an undisclosed location possibly in my residence (just in case someone who reads this also builds a time machine to go back in time to steal all my Monopoly Dollars). Now I keep all my funds in a little buiding called "ATM" just off campus.


This building was my first stop today before heading out to the used scooter shop; the proprieter of which considers Matt and any friend of Matt as a good customer. Yesterday, mulling over scooter selection, the majority of which looked something like praying mantises with plastic armor, I was pleased to find a quaint little Yamaha that looked like its designer had some idea about style. (Dad, you can check the approximate specs here, though mine's a little older and has a 90cc engine.) Now, if you think like me, "scooter" and "style" are synonomous, and accordion music should play in your head every time you ride one. So this praying mantis business was right out. I gave the helpful-but-hopelessly-unilingual-scooter-lady NT$3000 (approx USD100) to hold it and said I'd back the next day to pick it up.

Today, I did just that.


Guess what I did for the rest of today? If your answer involves accordions, you are correct.

At least five of the nine new foreign teachers will have a scooter by tomorrow. We're pretty excited. We did some victory laps around the campus when we got home. Some controversy remains as to whether the scooter will really change anybody's life. We'll still have the same places to go and just as many things to do, right? My mind is divided. It's true, we'll still have the same jobs to do and the same busy schedule, but at least a trip to the grocery store doesn't involve a commitment of at least two hours, or an errand to the city is actually possible within a half hour. And there's the accordion music. But maybe, like any other supposed time-saving technological advancement, it will just give us more things to do with our time. Will this scooter obligate me?

I'm hoping not. In fact, let's keep the main thing the main thing here. I bought my computer with the intent to use it to the glory of God. Have I always kept that in mind? No. But now's a good time to remember. If I want to hold to using what he's given me to glorify him, then the scooter is no exception. You might think I'm silly, but I'm going to ask for your prayers for this scooter and its use as a part of ministry. Which also reminds me: you're reading the blog of a missionary, and as such I have some stories to tell.

I Feel Lonely

During November I made friends with a little jumping spider named Roy who would frequently visit me on my vanity, wall, or windowsill. I thought we were friends. Since coming back from Hong Kong, I haven't seen any sign of him.

This morning while arranging my locks, I saw what looked like Roy atop a picture frame. Upon closer examination, I found his coloring all wrong. Roy is black and yellow, and this impostor was all kinds of brown.

"Who are you?" I yelled. "And where's Roy?!"

Secretly, I'm afraid that I swallowed him in my sleep.

Thanksgiving--Ablasia!--Brightness

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that doesn't end up with a lot of afterglow. It fades next to the plastic red sheen of the Christmas shopping season. It's December and Thanksgiving was last month, but I'm still thinking about it.

First of all it's striking that I think I've experienced hunger about one time total since our gathering at coordinators Matt and DeeDee's house. If they ever invite you, it's best to go with the understanding that 1) you're going to like whatever you put in your mouth, 2) you're going to put a lot of stuff in your mouth 3) and the majority of that stuff will come at dessert. Seriously, I think there were something like 18 different dishes and six of them were Nachtisch. They generously invited Team Taiwan and friends. Afterwards we collected twelve bushels.




We got all the celebratory stuff out of the way early (including stuffing hundreds of kids' faces with "foreign food"):


so that on Thanksgiving day proper we could shove off to Hong Kong. For dinner that day, I ate sushi. While riding a bus. It was probably the most thankful Thanksgiving I've ever lived, especially when we arrived in Hong Kong for collective participation in a missions conference and individual participation in a mystifyingly magnificent romance.


LCMS World Mish held a summit for all those involed in ministry all over Asia. They called it Asia Ablaze! (or Ablaze! Asia, we were never clear) but let's be honest, folks: your tongue just longs to say ABLASIA! I did my darndest to spread the terminology. I did a fair job among my field of influence. Unfortunately, within the lacquered networks of LCMS World Mish and other important Lutheran types, my realm of influence doesn't go too far. My handsome accomplice and I finally decided our best shot at spreading the coinage far and wide was to utter it as many times as possible within earshot of Lutheran Hour personality Reverend Ken Klaus. We're still waiting for the results on this.

Hong Kong International School hosted most of the goings on. This wonder of architecture crowned the tropical hills that protected harbors nestled in Hong Kong island, but was obviously chosen for its ideal group-photo circumstances.




Be sure and check the dead center of the above photo for the only one who knew she was in the photo, and also, incidentally, the cause of udder chaos in Macau.

The conference was tremendously edifying. Participants numbered almost 300, representing 16 nations. Upon arriving I immediately sensed togetherness. I reunited with people I had trained with, an admired college professor, A few Concordia PDX alum and a chance pen-pal from junior high. I met inhabitants fresh from places I can only imagine: Papua New Guinea, India, Korea, Indonesia, ad infinitum. We listened to and told one another our stories. We gave and received our name cards. Our understanding of the breath and width and depth and height swelled. Possibilities took on vivid color. Vague descriptions abounded.

When we finally rolled back into Concordia Middle School past midnight on Sunday, however, still sogged in bus-sleep, we noticed a queer emptiness. Upon looking up one of the mighty tree trunks, we found it led only to bare sky. The light of the next day revealed nineteen topless trees, cut to avoid loss of limb after exposure to pest during typhoon season. They didn't want branches falling on anybody. I guess it's safer, but none of us can help discomfort at the ominous brightness.



Those are the headlines, recently. Those only cover the physical world, though.

INfection

I guess it's time for some more members of Team Taiwan to get sick again. I was thinking of this while I was teaching today...

So we're learning "In" and "Out" in the kindergarten class this week. The kids love the lesson because I make a bunch of them get inside a cardboard box. I also have a big board that says "In" and "Out" on it. I make the kids come up and touch the appropriate word. Lemme lay out the scene:

Me: Is Jay in or out of the box? Who can help?
Entire class: I CAN HELP!
Me: Sandy, come help. In our out? Touch the word.
Sandy: Sneezes into hand, slaps word "in" using sneezed-into hand
Me: Well, this lesson is over. Everyone clap for Sandy! Yay!

Things I Meant to Write About, Part 4: YiWen and Brother

Allow me to more formally introduce my friend YiWen, my Chinese teacher, tour guide, mother hen and opportunity organizer. And if my faith would let me say it, oracle. I met her at church but I think she just came the one Sunday in order to meet and greet the new foreign teachers. She's a member, but might be better described as a silent partner, for reasons I won't go into just now. Or proabably ever.

Since then, she's been responsible for kicking many of our butts into more mainstream Taiwanese experience. (Living on the campus without a scooter can become something of a fishbowl.) Previously, she has taken me to visit her elder brother on weekends because she aches for him to know the Jesus loves him and believes that he will listen to me. Every Monday night she prepares dinner in her home for some of my teammates and me. Afterward she and her husband teach us Chinese.

Last Saturday she called me up while I was still tangled in sheets, her predictable m.o. (though it was kind of hard to avoid on this particular Satuday because I slept quite late), to ask if I wanted to go to an art exhibit. She said the gallery was somewhere near her folks' house, where her elder brother would most likely be. Convenient. We organized a time. I went back to rolling around on my mattress in attempt to avoid the reality of sunlight.

Soon enough I found myself at the gallery with her, asking where she'd heard about the exhibition. "My mom told me about it. She knows I like to go out and do things". Inside, a large panel outlining the lives of the artists greeted us when we entered. She pointed them out and matched up each artist with their work. As she lingered, I surveyed the room but we met up by the work of the only artist in the exhibition I really appreciated. Each had an inscription beneath, adding proverb to the didactic mindscapes. Sometimes she translated one for me. As we left, commenting on this artist's work, she looked to see when the artists were present at the exhibition, suggesting that I could meet him. I didn't know what I'd do meeting such a man, so I did little more than smile acquiescently, hoping she wouldn't put too much effort into the endeavour.

We got into the car and headed off in the direction of her parents' house. The conversation dwelled on the life of the artist. "All of those in the exhibition live in this county. Many are very poor, even though well known." I nodded, and she continued by speaking my own thoughts. "But they're rich by what they have inside."

"Have you heard of any of those artists we saw today?"

"A few I know very well." I had had no idea. In actuality I had all but given up hope on the presence of art in Taiwan. These are people who take every other weekend off because it's a requirement. "Too bad we missed them at the exhibition. It's all right, there will be another opportunity." A lot of time when I'm with YiWen, I just keep my mouth shut because I'm not sure what's happening. Instead I looked out the window, wondering how such an artless environment could have produced such vibrant and imaginative artists. I really don't understand Taiwan yet and I would be well-served to reserve judgment, just like I keep my mouth shut around YiWen, but I guess that's why I have a blog. Blogs and reserving judgment seem mutually exclusive.

Pretty soon we pulled up at her parents' house in the country, as expected, but I had to re-confirm my bearings when YiWen sighed, perhaps, I thought, transitioning to audible internal monologue, "So maybe we won't meet the artist today." I looked around. She looked at me and deadpans: "The artist is my younger brother. Let's move." This is what she says when she means "Let's go." She has no idea how colloquial it sounds. I even think she was surprised to see me double over in laughter at her ruse. I guess we both have to get used to one another.

Things I Meant to Write About Part 3

So one of my adventures here has been in teaching Bible to the sixth graders, which is a beautiful thing because they've reached an age in which questions are starting to occupy a greater portion of their minds. Plus their English ability also presents a harvest of teachable moments. I think. Anyhow, this allows me to posit some questions that younger, unquestioning learners would never trouble over.

On top of that, their bible lessons thus far have often and unfortunately taken the shape of an old testament story or something about Jesus' miracles, or simply an endeavor to instill a biblical moral teaching without first laying the essential ground work that the gospel is essential to our hearts. I don't know when it became okay to teach kids--or anybody--straight morals, leaving out the detail that they are incalculably loved by an all-powerful God, hence the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus--and call it bible study.

But that's not what this post is about.

This post is about bible lessons in my class. The casual theme of our bible lessons is "Who is Jesus?" I think I made this up at the end of our first bible lesson together, a few seconds before telling them as much. We talk about, you guessed it, who he is, and what he does. They have little books of blank paper where they draw pictures of who Jesus is. So far we've learned--and drawn--that Jesus is a friend, Jesus forgives, and Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Judging from the industry invested in these books, this is one of their favorite activities. In fact Bible is one of their favorite times of the week in general. Which is why it surprised me when I found blatant evidence of cheating on two students' bible work a few weeks ago.

It's not hard to spot counterfeit work in the ESL classroom. It's either the exact same inane mistake on two or more students' work or a struggling grammarian has suddenly blossomed into a flawless liguistic acrobat. Today we deal with the former.

This all arose of a Bible lesson that provided some interesting feedback from the students. After we learned that Jesus came that we might have life, and have it to the full, I asked, "What did Jesus mean by a full life: goods, family, happiness, etc.?...or is there more to a ful life?" Surprisingly, many of the students ended up writing that there was more to life. One even included the idea of suffering as a part of a full life. And then, at the bottom of the stack, two papers:

I think love, forgive, and the time.

I don't know what this means. I could stretch my assumptions of these kids' existential understandings, and I will say, yes, perhaps the original author had ahold of an idea of merit. Regardless: zero points for delivery. I can just imagine these two scrambling at the opening of class (you have to imagine the Chinese yourself):

Taiwanese kid #1: You got Bible done?
Taiwanese kid #2: Yeah
#1: Lemme see the answer to number four
#2: Uh, just write "I think love, forgive, and the time."
#1: You sure?
#2: Man, it's solid. Plus it's Bible. Who cares?

The weird thing is, I know which of the two wrote it and which plagiarized. The impostor was the better student. Needless to say, neither of them knew how to explain "love, forgive and the time". Zero points for Bible.

Things I Meant to Write about Part 2: The Recreation Habits of the Host Culture

This is the type of stuff I see every day

Several weekends ago, some of the national teachers (read: Taiwanese) and the CELA teachers celebrated Ten-Ten holiday (Tenth of October) by camping at Sun Moon Lake, ambling through the made-for-tourists paradise of the Bamboo Culture Park, and joining the rest of Taiwan's 23 million citizens on the island's limited thoroughfares.

First stop: bamboo culture park. The most thematic theme park I've ever been to. No rides. Tons of varieties of bamboo. The man in the picture gave us a complete tour including every piece of information you'd ever want to know about bamboo.

Unfortunately it was all in Chinese and translations were spotty at best.


After singing about bamboo, dancing with bamboo, drinking water purified through bamboo, sitting in houses of bamboo on bamboo furniture, eating bamboo, internally repeating the word "bamboo" until no longer able to distinguish meaning from syllables, pledging unfailing devotion to bamboo, making a kitschy bamboo craft, and peacefully reflecting upon the meaning of bamboo, the whole company loaded back into vehicles and braved the mighty hairpin turns leading us to one of Taiwan three wonders (or so I've been told): Sun Moon Lake.

The camping here is said to be outstanding. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it certainly had very little to do with broken down boats, about a dozen stray-and-barking dogs, a Catholic Priest from Minnesota as proprieter and owner of said stray-and-barking dogs, tents of complete strangers' pitched almost on top of mine, and a surprise fireworks display from the opposite shore. Amidst these revelations, I grew suddenly aware of the fact that I was pretty grumpy, understandibly due to traipsing around in close quarters with the same set of folks for nigh on twenty-four hours now. When I went on a walk I found tadpoles! Hundreds of them! Squirming right there in the water by the handfuls! In fact, it was a little strange to pick them up. They felt like a bunch of squirming little beans.
Even though there was no campfire that night, we busted out the guitar and sang some songs. This activity quickly attracted the attention of every child in the campsite. They came to stand and watch. It was clear from the expressions on their faces that they didn't know what they had come for; only that in their purest of curiosity the music had drawn them and they had not denied its pull. We grown-up Americans, not satisfied with this, taught them all the kiddie songs and motions their little heads could hold and sent them back to their families' tents reciting incomprehensible jumbles of consonants paired with catchy tunes.

The next morning, still, none of our hosts bat an eye at the uneven balance between activity and leisure, so we broke camp and packed all equipment up the tropical jungle path in one big sweat and settled back into the cars for a sleep until our final stop at the paper factory. Our centripitally-pitched sleep was interrupted, however, about an hour and a half in, by a screech. Both cars pulled onto a narrow shoulder. Everyone's frantic search through every piece of luggage slowly reached through the haze of sleep: one of our company had lost his wallet.

The initial search brought us no closer to credit cards or identification so the two vehicles made for a safer roadside harbor. Noticing a house sitting at the end of the driveway, I wondered aloud whether they might let me use their bathroom. No sooner had the words escaped my lips than I found myself being led by the wrist to the front door of a stranger's house in a foreign land and presented to its inhabitants. Who can deny the feebly grinning redhead with the full bladder on the doorstep? And so while my little wish was granted, the Lord granted a bigger wish at the bottom of a bag, credit cards, identification and cash all intact, and we climbed back into the cars again

We arrived at the paper factory about a half an hour before it was set to close which, meant no lingering by the Mulberry Papyrus tree for that photo-op. According to sources, we were about to witness the highest quality of paper production on the island. I think that's kind of a big thing in a culture with a historical claim to the invention of paper.

It comes from the bark of the finest groves of trees, (don't ask me which species anymore, I only know Mulberry Papyrus) which is cut, boiled, and then blended. We saw and even got to touch a big vat of this blend after the water had drained out of it. It looked like a big white pulpcake. Mom, next birthday, keep it in mind: Pulpcake! Mmmmmm!

Mixed with water again, a man pours exactly the right amount over his big, flat bamboo sieve (and you thought bamboo was good for nothing) and let the water drain out. If the man touches the wet paper, it will be ruined. So he carefully attaches a sticky piece of string to the paper, lifts the flexible sieve and deposits the wet sheet on his growing stack of hundreds of wet sheets of paper.

From here, the stack is pressed and heated for awhile, maybe a couple days but don't take my word for it. If you make paper based on this recipe, I'm not resposible for what kind of muck you turn out with. I can, however, give you a solid set of instructions for pulpcake.

Finally, a lady takes one sheet from the stack at a time and puts it on her hot steel counter to brush it out with a little water. As soon as all the water cooks away, the paper is done and ready to be packaged and sent to all the foremost calligraphers in the nation and probably all over the occidental world.

So if this weren't enough, if we hadn't had enough of one another yet, we load back into the vehicles to join just about everyone in Taiwan--again--on the roads in search of an obscure little food stand we just had to visit. Of course by this time I had completely lost my bearings (okay let's be real. I didn't know where the heck we were the entire time) but my efforts to find out whether this joint was out of the way or not were onconclusive, mostly because, conveniently, no one answered me. It was about 2 and a half hours and several wrong turns before we finally decided, or discovered, that our little destination was closed (and why not? Everything is closed in Sunday night so why should this be an exception) and we'd have to opt for a little hot pot which just happened to be serving. After consuming a meal mostly in silence, we finally reloaded the cars for the last time and on the other side of stop-and-go-sleep ended up at the Practice Hotel.

All in all a satisfying, if enraging and exhausting, weekend. New entry in my internal dictionary of things that, even when translated, have different meanings in Chinese and English: vacation.

Things I Meant to Write About, Part 1

If you've ever had a fruit tree in your yard you know what it's like, come harvest time, when the fruit ripens, falls off of the tree and rots before anyone has a chance to get around to eating it. Just so with so many experiences in Taiwan. By the time I get around to writing it down, the fruit isn't quite as tasty as fresh-plucked.

First up, (and I think I should clarify from the get-go that I don't consider this topic like a piece of rotten fruit,) a little recap to put closure on that last post of so so long ago. Ryan and I have become more and more aware of people praying for us, sometimes people neither of us even know. This completely knocks me off my chair every time I think about it. Definitely a first as far as my own romantic endeavours are concerned. All the time I used to spend thinking "God wants me to" keep my head clear of that worthless mushy stuff so that I could focus on him, only to find out that:

1. The Lord uses our meaningful relationships as a profound method of teaching us about himself, and
   
2. He even provides support--via the prayers of the church--for said relationship to grow strong!

So if it were not apparent, the time we had together was delightful. Travel eventful enough to be called adventurous but not dangerous, and safe. Everyone, thank you for your love and prayers. I wish we could all hang out some time.

Special Day!

Yesterday I got two packages: one was my order from Amazon (they even deliver here!) and the other was a care package from home (thank you, Mom and Dad! I love you). But today is a special day.

Today, someone very special to me makes a journey from Thailand to Taiwan for a visit. You may have guessed it: this someone, if you'll excuse the sentiment, is my sweetheart, Ryan. He teaches English in Thailand, and if you want to know more about him than this fetching photo, you can read his blog. For now, though, here's a fetching photo.

Trouble Commenting?

I've been receiving word that some are not able to post comments. Please try and if you experience similar trouble, email me (see the link to the right). I'm trying to troubleshoot and the more info I have, the better. I think I might just have to ask the folks at Blogger for some help (they host the site).

Next time: weekend adventures, from Sun Moon Lake, to the Paper Factory, to the Air Force Base Officer's Club! Stay tuned.