The Road Taken

My daughter Amber ponders (with her eyes closed) which road to take - the Houfong Bicycle Trail 后豐自行車綠廊 going to the left or the Dongfong Bicycle Trail 東豐自行車綠廊 branching off to the right. The promise of riding in a tunnel made the decision an easy one for her - in the direction of Houli it was to be.

Stopping en route to admire some scenery

The Railway Valley Winery. The signs read "Since 2003", but this building is a more recent attraction along the bicycle trail. Inside, it's possible to sample the fruit of the vine, but even though I liked the film Sideways, and have enjoyed the finest vintages available in Ptuj, Slovenia, I declined. Varieties on offer such as "Longan Mead" didn't sound very thirst-quenching, and the bottles featuring personalized wedding pictures on the labels, while admittedly a nifty gift idea, hardly appealed to that inner snob...I mean sommelier. And though it may be difficult to believe, given my carefully-honed persona of being a modern day Renaissance Man, I actually prefer beer over wine. There's a reason why I named my little girl "Amber".

The rear garden of the Railway Valley Winery. You could almost be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere in Europe...until you looked at some of the neighboring buildings.

Amber crossed that bridge when she came to it.

After riding partway through the tunnel (part of a disused section of train track that now functions as the bike path), Amber decided to turn around and head back in the direction of whence she came, on an ultimately fruitless quest for an ice cream cone. On the way back, we passed this Japanese-style home. Modern-type Japanese houses are very popular in Taiwan - considering how ugly most contemporary Taiwanese dwellings are, it isn't difficult to understand why.

Amber navigates the many twists and turns of life

The bucolic rural fishing hole

Despite the fruitless search for ice cream, and the less-than-ideal climatic conditions, Amber had a good time this afternoon riding on the trail. It was a nice way to close out 2011.

Trying to keep my dinner down

Scanning the headlines on the Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ website this morning, my eyes were drawn to one of the commentary headings in the "Opinion-Editorial" section - North Korea's Khrushchev (link). Curious as to how such a comparison could be made, I clicked on the link to the article and found that it was written by none other than Gregory Clark, former Australian diplomat and longtime contributor to the newspaper. If you're not familiar with the man or his writings, do a Google search of "Gregory Clark Japan Times". If you have any sense of moral decency, you may find the results to be more than a little disturbing. Clark is an unapologetic apologist (pun intended) for authoritarianism and social discrimination. This is a man who has penned numerous articles attempting to defend or excuse the actions of the Chinese leadership, while never forgetting to pat himself on the back for having played a role in opening up of Australian-Chinese relations in the late 1960's/early 1970's. He has long earned the scorn of many in Japan's resident foreigner community over his attempts at justifying or whitewashing the often blatant forms of discrimination faced by many non-Japanese in the country. Don't confuse Clark for being on the same side with the Japanese right wing, however - when it comes to Japan's relationships with its neighbors, especially China, Gregory always manages to find a way to lay all the blame for the various regional disputes entirely on his host country (Clark has lived in Japan for a number of years, working as a journalist and university president). He no doubt fancies himself as a sort of provocateur, but his ideas generally come across as offensive to anyone who believes there should be a place for morality in international relations, while his articles are filled with half-truths and, in some case, outright fabrications.

This morning's exercise in revisionism concerns Kim Jong-il and North Korea. The opening paragraphs set the tone for the obnoxiousness that follows:

"The commentaries after Kim's death tell us repeatedly that the deceased North Korean leader was reclusive, erratic, enigmatic and dangerous. Yet almost all the few outsiders who actually met the man came away impressed by his intelligence, moderation, rationality and openness."

You don't rule a nation with an iron fist for seventeen years without possessing a high degree of intelligence. Kim had to have been an extremely shrewd individual to have been able to have remained in power despite presiding over the economic decline of his country and, especially, the devastating food shortages that led to a famine that may have killed up to 3.5 million people by some estimates. Clark would no doubt dispute such figures as being an example of unreasonable and unwarranted Western hostility to Kim's regime, but nowhere in his article will you find any mention of all of the hardships endured by the North Korean citizenry under the benevolent guidance of their "Dear Leader". Clark also makes no reference to the personality cult built up around Kim Jong-il, which is understandable as doing so would seem to undercut any evidence of the man's so-called "rationality". Clark doesn't dwell, either, on the ironic juxtaposition of Kim's "openness" while at the helm of the world's most secretive country.

Clark next goes on to place the blame for the failure of the 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and North Korea (Wikipedia article link) squarely on

"...U.S. congressional conservatives and Pentagon hawks (who) moved to deny those agreements. They said the North Korean regime could not be trusted and was, in any case, about to collapse. But Pyongyang did not collapse, and Kim has since used various carrot-and-stick tactics — everything from cultural invitations to rocket and nuclear testing — while trying to bring the U.S. back to its 1994 promises..."

It is true the Agreement failed in large part due to Congressional opposition and insufficient funding, but Clark fails to mention to us here that it was the North Koreans' admission in 1998 that they had maintained a secret uranium enrichment program that led to the Agreement's demise. And only in Clark's world can "cultural invitations" be considered on an equal level with "rocket and nuclear testing" when it comes to international negotiations.

Japan, of course, fares no better than the U.S. when it comes to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK):

"Sublimating its justified anger over North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and '80s, Tōkyō 東京 was able in 2002 to gain a remarkable apology from Kim and the conditional return of five abductees, in exchange for Tōkyō promises to normalize relations and pay long overdue reparations. But fearing this would lead to detente with the hated communist regime, the Japanese right-wing, led by (Shinzō) Abe 安倍晋三, swept into action. It demanded, and got, a Tōkyō withdrawal of its promise to accept Pyongyang's conditions for the return of the five former abductees. It then began to use dodgy DNA data to prove that Pyongyang was lying when it denied holding on to other alleged abductees. This then allowed it to argue that Pyongyang's alleged lies justified reneging on the 2002 normalization promises.

Images of other abductees languishing in a North Korean hell — the beautiful but almost certainly deceased, Megumi Yokota 横田めぐみ, especially — were used to gain wide public support for severe sanctions which, we were told, would force Pyongyang to back down. In fact all it has done, predictably, is force Pyongyang to clam up. Relations with North Korea are now totally frozen, which means even less chance of any further abductee return — if such a chance ever existed."

For those of you unfamiliar with what Clark is referring to, you can read the Wikipedia entry on the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens. In the late 1970's/early 1980's, up to as many as 70-80 Japanese (though only 17 are officially recognized by the Japanese government) were kidnapped by North Korean agents, and taken from Japan to North Korea, where they were used to train the regime's agents in Japanese language and culture (the woman who blew up Korean Air Flight 858 while posing as a Japanese tourist was taught by one of the abductees). After years of denial, in a 2002 summit meeting with then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi 小泉純一郎, Kim Jong-il surprisingly admitted to 13 such abductions having occurred, and revealed that five of the unfortunate victims were still alive. The five were eventually allowed to "visit" Japan, but only on the condition that they return to the "workers' paradise". Once back home, however, they all decided, not unsurprisingly, to stay in the land of their birth, and Pyongyang responded by criticizing the Japanese government over its "broken promises".

Though he uses the term "justified anger" in this article, Clark has in the past tried to excuse the kidnappings by claiming that they were in revenge for the use of forced Korean labor by Japan during its colonization of the Korean peninsula. And while trying to appear sympathetic, it is utterly repulsive that he finds nothing wrong with first forcibly abducting the five Japanese nationals, and then demanding that they be returned to North Korea as the price for letting them see their loved ones in Japan again after the long enforced separation. In Clark's world, it is the Japanese political right which is almost solely to blame.

After casting doubt on the North's attacks on the South last year, Clark moves on to why the DPRK has pursued the development of nuclear weapons:

"With his hopes of closer relations with Tōkyō and Washington dashed, Kim seems to have had no choice but to resume rocket and nuclear testing, and to turn increasingly to China, which North Korea had previously distrusted. His son and successor Kim Jong Un will almost certainly have to follow the same path while giving even more power to North Korea's hawkish military."

Again, Japan and the United States are to blame, for the North Korean regime had no other choice but to pursue the nuclear option. And it is interesting that Clark fails to make mention of the fact that it was the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it the generous aid the USSR had provided to Pyongyang, that forced North Korea to become more dependent on China.

The Khrushchev comparison mentioned in the article's headline comes in the next-to-last paragraph:

"History will show the late Kim to have been North Korea's Khrushchev. The former Soviet leader also sought detente with the West only to have his hopes dashed by U-2 flights and other U.S. hawk activities, which in turn strengthened the hand of the Soviet hawks. Khrushchev was ousted and that cruel, wasteful and meaningless exercise called the Cold War had to continue for another two decades. Presumably the same will happen over North Korea, with the regime there able to use foreign threats as an excuse for continued domestic repression."

History, apparently, shows a different face to Gregory Clark. Nikita Khrushchev came to power in 1953 following the death of longtime despot Josef Stalin. Though he was one of the dictator's closest advisers, and a supporter of the bloody purges of the 1930's that turned the Soviet Union into a nightmarish police state, Khrushchev made his mark on history by repudiating the worst excesses of Stalin's reign of terror. Though certainly no democrat, he was responsible for lessening the repression within the USSR through what is now known as the Khrushchev Thaw. Nevertheless, the "Gulag Archipelago" remained in existence,  and despite his pursuit of detente with the West, it was Khrushchev who ratcheted up Cold War tensions by approving the construction of the Berlin Wall and the stationing of nuclear arms in Cuba, the latter leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Nor should it be forgotten that in the same year he made his secret speech denouncing Stalin (1956), Khrushchev sent in the Red Army to brutally crush the Hungarian Revolution.

Kim Jong-il also succeeded a brutal dictator, succeeding his father, Kim Il-sung, upon the latter's death in 1994. Unlike Khrushchev, however, there was no attempt to launch a North Korean version of "De-Stalinization". Rather, Kim Jong-il played the Confucian role of dutiful son, elevating his deceased father to the status of "Eternal President of the Republic". Under the rule of the junior Kim, North Korea remained one of the world's most repressive societies, with an extensive gulag system of its own which imprisons thousands of its subjects in internment and reeducation camps (Human Rights in North Korea). The population, of course, has suffered in other ways as well, namely as a result of the food and famine crises (hunger is still a serious concern in the DPRK) and the crippling power shortages. Despite the breakdown in the functions of the centrally-planned economic system, Kim Jong-il made few attempts at reform, clinging to the elder Kim's policy of self-reliance, known as juche (link). And as for detente, it can be argued that the younger Kim played a far more dangerous game of concessions, threats and brinkmanship than his father ever did, at least in the last few years of Kim Il-sung's life. Khrushchev was overthrown by more conservative elements in the Soviet leadership, who feared his reforms had gone too far. What followed Khrushchev's ouster was the stagnation of the Brezhnev years, and the eventual downfall of the USSR. In North Korea's case, however, the stagnation set in long before the senior Kim left the scene, and greatly worsened during the rule of Kim Jong-il. History is going to remember Kim Jong-il, but not as the bright, rational Khrushchev-like figure Gregory Clark imagines him to have been.

Not that this will matter to Clark, though, who concludes his commentary in such a way as to leave a bad taste in the mouth (and by blowing his own horn in the process):

"The one hope is that the shift to China will have a moderating influence. China, too, once had to suffer the same hawk on hawk confrontation as the former Soviet Union, until rescued by China's Gorbachev — the moderate and intelligent premier Zhou Enlai relying on the 1971 so-called ping-pong diplomacy ( in which I was able to participate). For what it's worth, the "En" in Zhou's name is the same ideograph as the "Un" in the name of Jong Il's son. It means benevolent and kind."

It took 27 years of stagnation and decline following the forced retirement of Khrushchev before the peoples of the Soviet Union finally able to break free from a failed economic, political and social experiment that resulted in the needless deaths of millions of people (and with the exception of the Baltic states, the struggle is arguably still continuing in the former republics of the USSR). Can the people of the socialist paradise that is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea afford to wait that long?

Klicking my heels

There was hardly a cloud in the sky this afternoon, and virtually no chance of rain, yet it was pouring out of one section of embankment along the Dongfeng Bicycle Trail 東豐自行車緑廊 (as can be seen in the above video clip). For some odd reason, I decided to walk this trail once again (I've done so on several occasions, which you can read about here, here and here). This time, I gave myself a two-hour window in order to see how far I could get in 120 minutes of continuous walking from the start of the trail in Fengyuan 豐原. The answer? Almost to the other end, in Dongshi 東勢, where the walls weep water. In fact, when the alarm on my cell phone went off, signaling that the two hours were up, I was roughly at the 10.5 kilometer (6.5 miles) mark, not far from the finish line, 12 kilometers' (7.5 miles) distance from the starting point. So why didn't I go all the way? Two hours in one direction was all that I had this afternoon if I wanted to get back in time to pick up my daughter from her kindergarten before 5 o'clock.

I didn't take very many pictures today, mainly because I'd taken plenty on my previous walks (see above links for photos), and the scenery hasn't changed any since my last visit. The Dongfeng Bicycle Trail can get ridiculously busy on weekends, when the route is clogged by cyclists who ride bikes the same way they drive cars - i.e., with little regard to anyone around them - but on a sunny weekday afternoon it makes for a very pleasurable outing. After four hours, eighteen minutes and approximately twenty-one kilometers (thirteen miles) of walking, my feet are killing me right now, but I have no regrets. The next time I'm out there, I'll aim to go all the way.

The owners of this house have built an ersatz wooden addition onto the rooftop of their typical Taiwanese concrete box, complete with faux chimney.

Posing with the not-so-mighty Dajia River 大甲溪 in the background

聖誕快樂!

In case you haven't already figured it out from the date of this post, the Chinese characters in the title above translate as "Merry Christmas" (Shèng​dàn​kuài​lè​). Here is my daughter showing off the goodies she received this morning:

This was the first "girly" Xmas for Amber in terms of the gifts she was given - her first Barbie doll ("Computer Engineer Barbie"); a Hello Kitty ハローキティ kitchen set, courtesy of Old St. Nick (last year he brought her a Hello Kitty bicycle); and a Pretty Fashion Shop featuring a doll named Mimi. The sharper-eyed among you, however, might notice a dinosaur and a toy train ("Salty" from Thomas & Friends, as a matter of fact) - proof that my little girl hasn't gone completely over to the pink side just yet.

This day has been a relatively quiet one for the family. After the ritual of opening the presents in the morning and talking with my parents over the phone, we had lunch in a Chinese-style teahouse, took a walk in the afternoon along one of the bicycle trails here in Fengyuan 豐原 and ended the day with a visit to my in-laws' home. Though white Christmases are pretty much out of the question in this country, it was good that the holiday (well, not in Taiwan) fell on a Sunday this year.

Here's hoping that you and your family also had a nice Christmas, wherever you are in this world.

Merry Christmas, メリークリスマス, 聖誕快樂 and Happy Holidays to you all!

Making the big time?

Amber shows off her Christmas drawing. As I write this, she has gone to bed, waiting for Santa to bring her some gifts. Momo, one of our two cats, shows typical feline indifference. 

There is one Taiwanese baseball player currently plying his trade in Japan who knows what he would like to get from Father Christmas this year - a nice, fat Major League Baseball contract. Jason Coskrey, a staff writer for the Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ, makes the call:

"With the majority of the baseball world caught up in the hoopla surrounding (Yū) Darvish's ダルビッシュ有 posting, and the record $51.7 million (¥4.04 billion/NT1.6 billion) fee the Texas Rangers doled out for his rights, there hasn't been too much attention paid to Hisashi Iwakuma 岩隈久志 and Chen Wei-yin 陳偉殷 this winter.

Both probably expected to be in MLB last season, but had to stay in Japan a little longer. Now the duo, who also both dealt with injuries in 2011, are ready to make the jump for real this time...

  

Chen is a bit of a mystery.

The Taiwanese lefty has been among the best pitchers in the Central League セントラル・リーグ since 2009, when he posted the lowest ERA (1.54) in the CL since 1968.

At 26 years old, he's still slightly unpolished, with his future potential a major selling point for some MLB observers.

'His ceiling looks lower than most thought just a few seasons ago, yet I'm hearing that 12 teams are interested,' said the MLB scout. 'His control is excellent, but his command is not. Strikes at the letters over the fat part of the plate are going to travel much farther in the big leagues.'

Chen is 36-30, with one save, a 2.59 ERA and 1.09 WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) in five seasons with the Chūnichi Dragons 中日ドラゴンズ.

He's been helped to an extent by playing home games at pitcher-friendly Nagoya Dome ナゴヤドーム where, since 2008, he's 18-7 with a 1.97 ERA in 51 games versus 18-23, 2.84 in 64 outings everywhere else.

Chen made his first start of 2011 on May 6, after struggling with a left adductor injury in the spring. His performance suffered early in the season, but he regained most of his velocity and some command of his slider as the year progressed.

'Usually a team doesn't have to pay what Chen and his agent may be asking for to find out if a 26-year-old can improve his command and stay healthy,' the scout said.

'The fact that he already bridged the gap between Taiwan and Japan very well works in his favor; he is diligent and driven. He could be a great guy to have in the pen.'"

Only six players from Taiwan have ever appeared in a game at the Major League level, and the results have been mixed. Chen Chin-feng  陳金鋒 was the first, making his debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2002. A once-highly regarded prospect, he never realized his full potential and returned to Taiwan for the 2006 season, where he's now currently an outfielder for the Lamigo Monkeys (Lamigo桃猿).

Tsao Chin-hui 曹錦輝 had some success pitching for the Colorado Rockies, but a series of arm injuries limited his playing time. He eventually came back to Taiwan, only to get involved in one of Taiwanese baseball's never-ending string of gambling scandals, and was booted from the game as a result.

As a Los Angeles Dodger, Kuo Hong-chih 郭泓志 became the first Taiwanese to appear in an All-Star Game, pitching in the 2010 contest. However, he suffered from an anxiety disorder during the 2011 season which saw him spending time on the disabled list, and he's currently a free agent.

Infielder Hu Chin-lung 胡金龍 showed some promise when he was named the MVP of the 2007 All-Star Futures Game while a member of the Dodgers organization. However, his career has sinced stalled, having appeared in only 118 big league games over five seasons, including 22 in 2011 with the New York Mets, his current organization.

Reliever Ni Fu-te was the first player to make the move from Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL 中華職業棒球大聯盟) to the majors, making his debut with the Detroit Tigers in 2009. He spent the most recent season on the Tigers' AAA-affiliate Toledo Mud Hens.

Then there's Wang Chien-ming 王建民, the most successful by far of all the Taiwanese who have played in MLB. Wang, of course, was a 19-game winner with the hated New York Yankees in both 2006 and 2007, and became the pride of Taiwan in the process. After being sidelined by injuries for a couple of years, Wang pitched himself back into the picture in 2011 with the Washington Nationals, finishing with a 4-3 record and 4.04 ERA. He should be part of the Nats' starting rotation in 2012.

MLB career stats for all the above Taiwanese players can be checked out at baseball-reference.com.

Here's hoping that Chen Wei-yin will be able to make the jump from Japan to North America...as long as it isn't with the Yankees.

When the chips are down

Christmas is almost upon us, but you would have a hard time knowing so here in Fengyuan 豐原. Sure, there are a few stores with some Xmas decorations up, and the occasional Yuletide jingle can be heard from a loudspeaker, but for the most part the scenery downtown is as usual. Now don't get me wrong - I don't expect this non-Western, non-Christian society to fully accept what is, after all, an alien holiday, and I'm not feeling any disappointment or sadness about this situation. Rather, I just know that somewhere out there in the blogosphere, there is a Westerner who has posted something about the bright decorations he/she can see in Taipei 台北, noting that the Taiwanese have embraced Christmas with a passion (I recall one overly enthusiastic blogger a few years ago who remarked that the people here were even more excited about the holiday than the folks back in his/her home country. This person was writing from Taipei, of course). I had planned after work to walk into downtown Fengyuan and take a photo of how it was mostly business as usual in these parts, but due to the effects of the full-blown cold I've come down with, in the end I just sneaked a quick picture of this food vendor's sign before getting on my scooter and going home. Hiding among the characters for yibao 刈包 and rùn​bǐng 潤餅 (photo) is the Japanese word わさび, wasabi.

Tis the season for goodwill to all men, or at least it seems so for Japan's Elpida Memory エルピーダメモリ , according to this Kyōdō News 共同通信社 article from today's Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ:

"Chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc. is thinking of forming a capital and business alliance with Taiwanese semiconductor maker Nanya Technology Corp., sources close to the matter said Thursday.

Elpida aims to take advantage of the tie-up to improve its business performance, which has deteriorated from the strong yen and falling prices for its mainstay dynamic random access memory chips, the sources said.

But it remains uncertain whether such an alliance will form because Elpida has sued Nanya in Taiwan and the United States for infringing on its DRAM patents.

Under the plan, Elpida will consider licensing Nanya to manufacture Elpida products, while focusing on cutting-edge products at its plant in Hiroshima Prefecture 広島県, the sources said."

Chips are big business in Taiwan, and Elpida is a major player here. It might seem kind of odd to be simultaneously suing and wooing a bitter rival/potential partner, but losing ¥56.76 billion ($726.6 million/NT22 billion) over a six-month period earlier this year might have something to do with this move. In any event, it appears that Nanya isn't very interested at this stage, at least according to the Taipei Times:

"Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s biggest PC DRAM chipmaker, (Thursday) denied any knowledge of a plan to engage in technology and capital tie-up talks with Japan’s biggest memory chipmaker, Elpida Memory Inc, as has been reported in the media.

The Taoyuan 桃園-based chipmaker’s comments came after the Nikkei Business Daily 日本経済新聞 reported yesterday that Elpida Memory was set to start talks next month with Nanya to form an alliance. Creating a holding company was one of approaches being studied, the Nikkei said.

The speculation came after most local DRAM chipmakers drifted into deep losses because of weak chip prices, which have plunged over 55 percent since May this year..."

Apparently there isn't much peace on earth when it comes to Japanese/Taiwanese chipmaking operations. Let the chips fall where they may!

Sticks and stones may brake my bones, but bricks are really heavy

The onset of a cold combined with my usual gastrointestinal troubles have left me with some unexpected free time this morning. Seeing as I'm not in the best of moods right now, it seems like a good time as any to rant and rave, so here goes...

A rather disturbing letter was published in yesterday's edition of the Taipei Times newspaper. You can read it here, but to summarize things, a non-Taiwanese man was out for a walk one recent evening with his Taiwanese wife and bicultural children. Seeing a local man on a scooter with two kids, he stopped to upbraid the gentleman for the latter's failure to see to it that the children were wearing helmets. As anyone who has been here for a while can tell you, kids riding on scooters without any kind of protective headwear is a sadly all-too-common sight in Taiwan. The Taiwanese man didn't take kindly to a foreigner telling him off, and proceeded to call a couple of his friends, who soon showed up at the scene. One of his mates was armed with a brick, which he proceeded to use on the back of our hapless 外國人's head. Fortunately, no serious injury occurred , but an ugly incident will no doubt result in some unpleasant memories of life in Taiwan.

It's probably only a matter of time before the blogosphere is lit up with comments from local foreign residents pointing out that the letter writer was "arrogant" and somehow "had it coming". There is some truth to this, as I wonder as well why he felt he the need to remark to the Taiwanese man on what the latter should or should not have been doing. I wouldn't have said anything, and not because I would be afraid of getting a brick to the head. Basically, it's none of my business. Taiwanese adults are not naive innocents who have little clue as to the dangers of riding a scooter without a helmet (many adults do, in fact, wear helmets while their kids go without!). They know the perils, but have chosen to ignore them, and take the risk of a serious injury (or worse) happening to their offspring. It isn't my place to tell them otherwise, but if something nasty should occur, they won't be getting much sympathy or understanding from me (I'll feel sorry for the children, of course, but nothing for their parents). I don't allow my daughter to ride on scooters, except for short trips in the neighborhood with her mother, and then only if she's wearing her bicycle helmet. Had I been in the letter-writer's shoes, I would've just kept on walking without saying a word, and just hoped that nothing terrible would happen to the kids.

What will bother me about the inevitable remarks from my fellow non-Taiwanese residents will be the feeling that the foreigner in question will have somehow "deserved" what happened. For no matter how arrogant someone might be, or appear to come off as, there is no excusing a violent physical assault as the one described in the letter to the Taipei Times. Unfortunately, there are too many 外國人 here living in a different world than the one I'm familiar with. These souls inhabit an alternate Taiwanese universe where all the locals are warm, friendly and fuzzy, and every experience is worth treasuring and sharing with others via the various forms of social media available online. The fact that unpleasantness does occur even on the Beautiful Island is a threat to the Orientalist lifestyle they have worked so hard to establish, and any outbreaks of xenophobia, racism or just plain, good old fashioned thuggery has to be quickly contained and isolated. This is usually done by blaming the victim ("the obnoxious white guy"), and finding excuses...er, I mean reasons for why the local person acted the way they did. After all, one of the keys to being a contented foreign resident in Taiwan is the opportunity to explain the Local to the Outside (i.e. Western) World, though only within the narrow parameters that the happy foreigner has set up. 

Now, I'll be the first to say that I have met a lot of great people here in Taiwan. But by the same token, I've also encountered a lot of boorish louts (and their equally repulsive offspring). I've had a number of unpleasant encounters over the years, many of which I admit were my fault, or which I certainly could've handled in a much better manner than I did. However, there have also been many cases where the only thing I did wrong was to have been born outside of Taiwan. Luckily, I've never encountered anything as serious as the experience of the letter-writer. I like to think this is due to the fact that I keep to myself most of the time, limiting my interaction with the natives to only those times when communication is required. I'm also taller than most people here, which no doubt intimidates some would-be troublemakers, especially when they are by themselves. And some of these folks probably can sense that I'm a tightly-wound individual who doesn't react well to stress, and therefore decide I'm not worth the trouble of fucking with. Certainly, if anyone came at me with a brick, an altogether different story would have appeared in the Taipei Times, and not in the Letters to the Editor section. 

In any event, I don't harbor any fantasies about what a wonderful place Taiwan is, and how swell the people here are. Like anywhere else in the world, there are good and bad, and all kinds in between, and you have to deal with all of them (and they with you). The Old Tea types might revel in how wonderful their lives are here, but I'm all too aware of the undercurrent of violence that runs through Taiwanese society. As the letter-writer learned the hard way, when some Taiwanese are made to feel "humiliated" or "wronged" by someone else (a feeling made even worse if the other person is a foreigner), they will resort to violent means to restore their honor. Such folks are hardly the norm here, but at the same time they are far from rare anomalies, either. And as the letter makes it very clear, status in this society isn't earned by standing up for yourself, it comes from being able to get others to do it for you. The father of the helmet-less children didn't attack his criticizer himself; instead, he got a couple of buddies to do it for him. And it's not just hapless outsiders that are on the receiving end of this. In today's China Post, there's a story about a group of (admittedly drunken) civilians who attacked and injured 9 military personnel on Kinmen Island 金門. The reason? Apparently someone named Chang 張 had a dispute with an officer at a military base, and

"...instigated his friends to come to the base's front entrance which ultimately ended in assault..."

The moral of the story is...well, I don't know, actually. I'm sick, and just rattling off whatever pops into my head right now. I guess the point is to enjoy your stay in Taiwan, but be aware that it isn't all brightness and sunshine out there. Keep a low profile, and more importantly, keep your cool and mind your own business. If trouble does arise, do your best to extricate yourself and your family from the situation. 

And, most important of all, watch your back.

Merry critters

For some reason, there were lots of big, green grasshoppers to be seen along Trail 6 in the Dakeng 大坑 area this afternoon. Perhaps the cooler temperatures are making them lethargic, because it was very easy to get up close to them. It must be a good time of year to be a bird. It definitely is a good time of year to hit the trails, as the afternoons are warm, the air is dry and the skies are sunny and relatively clear:

The Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ has an interesting article in its Tuesday edition on the experiences of an American who was at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant 福島第一原子力発電所 on March 11 when the earthquake and tsunami struck 東北地方太平洋沖地震 (3/11 memories haunt American at No. 1 plant). There's a local connection as the man is based in Taiwan, and is married to a Taiwanese woman. 

Taiwan hikes, like Taiwan girls, are easy

In 1993, Japan's Tōkyō Broadcasting System 東京放送ホールディングス aired a "documentary" on the "Yellow Cab" イエローキャブ  phenomenon , with footage purporting to show Japanese girls in Hawaii doing drugs and sleeping with local Lotharios, as well as young women cruising bars in Roppongi 六本木 and Yokosuka 横須賀 on the prowl for American men. The camera followed one older woman going into a love hotel ラブホテル with her foreign pickup for the night, and there was even a scene that alleged to show an African-American man looking and acting like a pimp. It wasn't long after the program was shown on TBS, however, that it emerged that many of the events depicted on the show were staged. The so-called "pimp", for example, turned out to be a local gaijin 外人 actor who was under the impression that he was doing a scene for a TV drama. What was meant to be an exposé of the scandalous behavior of Japanese women turned out to be a scandal involving deceptive and misleading "investigative journalism."

I was reminded of the TBS affair this morning when I followed a link on Facebook that led me to this report on the sexual availability of Taiwanese women to Western men. You don't have to understand Chinese to be able to follow what the program is talking about. 15 seconds into the clip it becomes clear the report is going to focus on "easy" Taiwanese girls:

As one of the comments on Facebook put it, "It's bullshit news from a bullshit news source". Unfortunately, it's the kind of story that goes over well in this country, playing up to the stereotypes of the oversexed foreign male preying on the virtuous local female, and corrupting her pure Confucian morals in the process. It's no wonder that the average Taiwanese is, to put it bluntly, a dumbass when it comes to perceptions of the outside world and the people that inhabit it. Of course, mention is rarely made of the countless numbers of brothels masquerading as KTV's and "barbershops" dotted all over this island, where sex is readily available at reasonable prices.

OK, perhaps I'm being a little too harsh. After all, I come from the country that considers the likes of Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain as serious presidential candidates, and where far too many people have their views of the world shaped by Fox News. So, on a gloriously warm late fall afternoon such as the one today, it's better to stop thinking about stereotypes and instead focus on the great outdoors, which is what I and my daughter did this Sunday.

If you're looking for an easy walk in central Taiwan, you can't go wrong with the Tianti Hiking Trail 天梯健康步道 in Dongshi 東勢, a 2.6 kilometer (1.6 miles) mountain path of wooden stairs and stone lanes that winds it way through orchards of bananas and persimmons. Though Amber complained at times of feeling tired, she managed to complete the walk without any discernible loss of energy. The bamboo walking stick no doubt helped:

There were some good views to be had of Dongshi below:

There was also some nice scenery on the other side of the mountain:

In addition to the fruit orchards, groves of betel trees dotted the mountainside:

Amber crossed that bridge when she came to it:

The trail begins and ends at the Tiangong Temple 天公廟:

There was nothing wrong with the camera when I took this photo. The small room to the right of the main hall of the temple was filled with incense smoke.

For directions on how to get to the trail, read this Compass Magazine article. Here's a video showing the walk that Amber and I did today.

All's Quiet on the Eastern Front

As you may (or, more likely, may have not) noticed, things have been a little quiet in Kaminoge's small corner of cyberspace. Partly that's because not a whole lot has been happening lately - mostly the usual stuff, such as work, broken up with the occasional hike and time spent with my daughter. We've also been devoting our efforts to getting ready for Christmas, as in setting up the (artificial) Xmas tree, and buying and wrapping presents. But mainly it's because, instead of publishing new posts, I've been concentrating on the old ones. For you see (and you should, because you're reading this on Blogger), I've thrown in the towel on Sponge Bear. It's been a good run, and not to toot my own horn (but I will anyway), I did win a couple of awards ("You like me, you really like me!"), but the hassles of dealing with LiveJournal have become too much to bear. If it isn't the constant string of technical problems, it's the deluge of spam, much of it in Cyrillic, that floods my humble little blog on an almost daily basis. 

So instead of focusing on what's new, I've been devoting much of my computer time to bringing this blog up to snuff. After a great deal of effort, and with thanks to Michael Turton and, especially, my old friend and coworker from my Tōkyō days (懐かしい) S.T., I was finally able to import my old blog postings from Sponge Bear to A Curmudgeon Abroad. I wasn't able to carry the comments and videos over, unfortunately, but the entries are intact, along with most of the photographs. Now I'm going through all of them, one by one, cleaning up the text and deleting things that are no longer relevant (or have gone missing over time). It's slow going, but my goal is to do one months' worth each evening, and I'm now up to September 2007. It's an exercise that's both fascinating and depressing - on the one hand, it's been fun going over the old photos, and watching Amber growing up in those posts. But at the same time, it's hitting home how much of a rut I've been stuck in for the past several years, and of how I always seem to be whingeing about the same old things. Do I really sound like a broken record? (Don't answer that, and you young 'uns out there please don't ask me what a record is.)

At the risk of exemplifying what's written above, here's a sign I came across this evening in Taichung 台中:

The owner of this massage establishment (I hesitate to say "parlor", because this place seemed aboveboard) has gone for the trilingual approach, with the sign presenting the menu in three languages - Mandarin (not visible, but off to the left), English and Japanese. What's more than a little odd is the choice of hiragana 平仮名 for rendering the Japanese words. Why write ぜんしん when 全身 would be understood by any potential Japanese customers? Why use まっさーじ when a.) it should be written in katakana 片仮名 (i.e. マッサージ); and b.) you've neglected to include the part about feet (足 aka あし)? Then there's the use of えん, as in "yen" or ¥. Is the owner hinting that, while I need to pay NT700 (about $23) for a body massage, a Japanese visitor only has to fork over ¥700 ($9 or NT270)? A clear case of discrimination...unless the writer of the sign didn't know that 元 is pronounced as gen げん in Japanese. And, finally, just what the hell is a "Gua-sha" or かっさ? Now I wish I had included the Mandarin when I was framing the photograph.

Kaminoge - still as anally retentive as ever over things no one else would ever care about.

Signs

On Tianjin Road 天津路 in Taichung 台中, a street lined on both sides with clothing wholesalers:

 Dharma 

 Just say の

One block over is Beiping Road 北平路. The first place I lived after moving to Taiwan was in an apartment building located on a side street of this road:

Curr?

 Continuing the Dharma theme

Moving Pictures

Taiwan, Ilha Formosa, "The Beautiful Island" - a strong case can be made for here being the undiscovered gem of Northeast Asia. Most travelers to this region overlook Taiwan on their way to China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. However, it looks like things are starting to look up for the "renegade province" - Lonely Planet, for one, has listed Taiwan as one of the top ten countries for travel in 2012. 

Nevertheless, there is one thing that Taiwan can't change - the fact that it's an island, and not necessarily a large one at that. What this means is that there are a finite number of things to see and do, and places to visit, before ennui sets in. Before you start pitying the jaded foreign resident, however, spare a thought for the locals, who went through all the major possibilities long ago (in many cases, more than once), and have truly "been there and done that". What this means is that when something genuinely new appears on the leisure front, everyone, plus their grandmother and the family dog, has to go and see it. And seeing as most folks are working 5 days a week plus a couple of Saturdays per month, this leaves just one day - Sunday - to get out and do something different. Which is a long-winded way of saying that we were part of the crowd this afternoon at the "River of Wisdom: Moving of the Riverside Scene at Chingming Festival" (yes, that is the official English title; link) exhibition 智慧的長河: 會動的清明上河圖, located in what looked like a warehouse near the Taichung High Speed Rail Station 高鐵台中站 in Wuri 烏日.

Like everyone else, we decided it would be best to get there in the morning, you know, in order to "beat the crowds". Which meant that we ended up waiting for about 90 minutes in a long line that snaked its way from the parking lot to the other side of the building housing the exhibition. Fortunately for me (though not for many of the locals) it was sunny and warm today, and I came prepared to kill some time:

Eventually we made it inside (for a Taiwanese queue, things were relatively well-organized). At this point you may be asking yourself "What is the River of Wisdom?". A fair question, but one to which I'm still not sure of the answer. From what I could work out, several hand-painted scrolls, the original dating from the Song Dynasty 宋朝 in China, and a couple of updated versions from the Ming 明朝 and Qing Dynasties 清朝, illustrating daily scenes from Chinese life from long ago, have been brought together in one place. The scrolls were very interesting to see, if you could make out the images through the mass of humanity trying to get a close-up view. Large projections on the walls overhead helped somewhat, but it's times like these that I'm truly thankful for being 6'3" (189.5cm). Here is the official English explanation:

Now that you fully comprehend what was going on, here are a few images I was able to capture:

As fascinating as the images on the scrolls, they were not the main reason why everyone came today. The crowd-puller was in another room: a long diorama that reproduced the scenes from the scroll with moving images of people and animals that strove to bring to life just what things were like in the China of yore. Fortunately, there are good-quality clips to be found on YouTube:

Eventually we made our way out of the exhibition room, and filled our famished stomachs on thoroughly unhealthy but extremely satisfying fried food stand grub. "The River of Wisdom" was fascinating to see, but was it worth the time and crowds? Unless you're a true Sinophile, I'd have to say no. Although the crowd was pretty well-behaved by Taiwanese standards, it was still hard to appreciate the spectacle, not to mention all the small details, over the loud din, while trying not to bump into, or get bumped by, other visitors. The light show created by all the digital cameras and cell phones was also a distraction, though I have to admit I was as guilty as everyone else in this regard. Perhaps if "The River of Wisdom" were a permanent fixture, and not a temporary exhibition, there would the space to walk slowly along the long diorama and really take in what all the figures on the screen are doing. But here in the cultural wasteland of central Taiwan, you have to take advantage of the few opportunities that come your way, even if it means having to plunge headfirst into a sea of humanity.

Having gained wisdom, we strolled over to the HSR Station, where Amber was excited to see a couple of trains pull out, as well as to have the chance to run around on the lawn outside:

My wife, being a true Taiwanese, then suggested we go back to Fengyuan 豐原 in order to do some shopping at the Taipingyang Department Store 太平洋百貨公司 there - apparently, her daily horde quota hadn't been satisfied at "The River of Wisdom" exhibition. After making a few purchases, she suggested having dinner in Miaodong 廟東夜市, a "food street" that is Fengyuan's only claim to fame in Taiwan:

Which just goes to show that in Taiwan, you can never have enough elbows to rub while you're out and about. And as if to prove the point, on the way home, we passed by, you guessed it, another throng of people, this time listening to a campaign speech by a candidate for the Legislative Yuän 立法院, whose image on a video screen I was able to grab as we drove by:

The candidate, Jacky Chen 陳清龍, is running as an independent, but he has received the backing of the People First Party 親民黨. This explains why I was able to get a glimpse of the leader of the PFP (and candidate for president in the Jan. 14 elections), James Soong 宋楚瑜, standing on the stage as our car passed by.

Portrait of a Saturday done in Amber

So it's a Saturday, there's no school today and you're five soon-to-be-six years old. How do you spend the day? Well, if you're my daughter Amber, you start by watching a Wiggles DVD over breakfast, then play some of the games on the Nick Jr. website while your dad does some housework. Soon there's a long-distance telephone call from the USA - it's your Nanny and Grandad, calling to say "hello". You're looking forward to seeing them in Washington next month! Following your conversation with your grandparents, you play a few more games, whereupon it's then time for lunch with your parents. After Mom goes back to work, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get down to some work yourself, for Christmas is coming soon! Now that Thanksgiving has passed (even though it isn't observed here in Taiwan, you were still able to eat a turkey dinner on that day at a place your father refers to as an "expat cafe" in Taichung), the work of setting up the tree must now be tackled, but you're up for it. You quickly unpack the plastic tree from its box in the storage room, and after Dad sets it up, you set to work hanging up the decorations:

It isn't long before you're finished, but it soon become apparent the artificial tree is looking a tad barren. So off you go with your dad to the local Carrefour hypermarket, but not before making a detour to a nearby park first. A girl needs her exercise after all, and if you want to have those training wheels removed someday, you'll need more practice on how to ride a bicycle, which you do this afternoon, making a circuit of the park. Despite the colder temperatures, the day was sunny, so you brought along one of your teddy bear friends for the ride on your Hello Kitty ハローキティ bike:

Having stretched your legs, it's off in the car to Carrefour. You and Dad spend a lot of time there, for in addition to more ornaments, there are several other things that need to be bought, such as bananas, cereal and milk, all of which you keep track of by putting a check next to the items on the shopping list you and your father made up beforehand. You also take a look at the toys - with Christmas looming over the horizon, it's time to let Santa know what you would like him to bring you on the night of the 24th/25th:

After everything has been paid for, you push the shopping cart back to the where the car is parked, but not before playing a quick game of Whac-A-Mole first. Back outside, it's now dark, and you reach home just minutes before Mom gets back from work. Without further ado, you take the new ornaments out of their packages, and commence hanging them up in the tree:

Mission accomplished, and a job well done! The day is concluded with dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, where you help yourself to Mom's hot pot 火鍋 and Dad's steak dinners. Back at home, you have time to watch some Pink Panther clips on YouTube before you take a bath, and then it's off to bed, warm and cozy under your Ampamman アンパンマン comforter, surrounded by all your stuffed animals.

Life is wonderful when you're five-going-on-six years old. Sweet dreams 波ちゃん.