Dour, 電通-controlled, family-centric Belgian Neocolonialism, enthusiastically jaded observations, support for state-owned neoliberalist media and occasional rants from the twisted mind of a privileged middle-class expatriate atheist projecting some leftist ideals with my ridicule of Tucker Carlson (from The Blogs Formerly Known As Sponge Bear and Kaminoge 物語)
*see disclaimer below
For the first nine years of my diplomatic career I was banned from working in Taiwan. Or in State Department parlance, I was "precluded" from serving at either the main American Institute in Taipei (AIT) 美國在台協會 complex, or at the branch in Kaohsiung 高雄. The official reason given to me was that it was due to my having had a bank account while living in Taiwan, but this was so patently ridiculous that it isn't even worth calling it "bullshit". What was I supposed to have done with the small amounts of money I was earning there, keep it all stuffed in a proverbial mattress? One of my employers actually forced me to open a savings account at a particular bank branch if I wished to be paid. No, there was another reason(s) as to why I was considered a risk, but chances are I'll never find out the truth.
The prelusion was lifted early last year, just as mysteriously as it was first applied. Unfortunately, it's probably come too late in my career and too close to my forced retirement to ever utilize my prior life experience (i.e. before becoming a diplomat) with an assignment in Taiwan. I'm left wondering why the ban was ever established in the first place. I can only speculate, and I'm probably way, way off the mark, but I have my theories as to why I've never been posted to Taiwan or Japan (another place I become quite familiar with in those halcyon pre-State Department years). And that it's because I did things My Way.
Allow me to elaborate. The State Department values overseas experience, but only within certain frameworks. For example, there are many in the Foreign Service who served as Peace Corps volunteers. The Peace Corps, of course, is a U.S. government agency which recruits volunteers, trains them, gives them housing while they serve overseas and, if necessary, provides medical care and emergency evacuations. In a sense, Peace Corps alums have already been vetted by the U.S. government when they join the State Department. The same to some extent also applies to those who studied at foreign universities as part of exchange programs with their American colleges - their institutions handled most of the preparatory work involved with relocating abroad. Even experience with non-American governmental organizations is valued, provided it's through a friendly nation, such as the JET Program 外国語青年招致事業. There are a lot of former Assistant English Teachers working in the Foreign Service - all of them once fresh-faced college graduates who had their visas sorted out before traveling to Japan, and who were given training, assigned housing and provided with many other means of support (including a competitive pay package) during their time in the country.
Now I'm far from anyone's idea of a rugged individualist - I hate camping, and have no idea how to start a fire without using matches or lighter fluid, nor how to catch a fish (let alone gut and cook one), to give just a few examples. Leave me to my own devices in a remote wilderness or in the middle of a desert, and I wouldn't last very long (sorry Bear Grylls). And one of the reasons I lasted so long living and working in Japan and Taiwan was due to the invaluable (and uncountable) advice and assistance I was given along the way, for which I'll forever be grateful. But at the same time, it wouldn't be too boastful of me to say I also did so much on my own. I moved overseas, found employment, located places to live, secured the necessary visa sponsorships, set up bank accounts and, once a certain level of language proficiency had been reached, saw doctors for various ailments all without the assistance and support of a sponsoring organization. One would think that kind of background and experience would count for a great deal in the State Department, but based on my career trajectory one would be very mistaken.
Too much of a wild card in some faceless bureaucrat's calculations when it comes to determining who goes where? I'd like to think so. Because otherwise there would exist the possibility that there is something in someone else's background that raised some eyebrows somewhere. Wherever the truth may lie, I can only comfort myself with the conceit that it's the State Department's loss that I've never been given the opportunity to serve in either 日本 or 台灣.
Despite almost a decade of being a diplomat, the feeling of being disconnected has never faded away. I've enjoyed the salary and the status, not to mention the opportunities for travel that come with the overseas assignments. I've lived in housing better than that of most citizens of the countries where I've served, and my daughter has been able to attend the sort of international schools I could never have afforded on an English teacher's wages. But at the same time, my pre-State existence seems to get in the way with being fully understood by some of my colleagues. When I mention that I used to work in Japan, it's always assumed I was in the JET Program, because aren't all English instructors (I wasn't)?. Or when asked what I did before entering the Foreign Service and answering that I used to teach English in Japan and Taiwan, the follow-up question has always revolved around which "international school" employed me (because what other kinds of schools are there overseas?).
In the meantime jobs at the AIT will continue to go to "China watchers" who will invariably view Taiwan through a Chinese prism, while only occasionally venturing out of Taipei 台北 to visit the likes of Taroko Gorge 太魯閣 or Alishan 阿里山, living not only in a "Taipei bubble", but being further confined in a Neihu 內湖 or Tianmu 天母 bubble-within-a bubble. Bitter? Not me.
Well, perhaps a little bit.
Now that that's out of my system (for the time being, anyway), here's a brief roundup of things going on since the last blog post. Several weeks into the Year of the Tiger 虎 many of our free-time activities seem to have an underlying Asian theme, such as the weekend afternoon we went out for lunch at Shu-E's favorite local Korean restaurant. With our Uber driver-in-training gaining more experience behind the wheel of a car, I can now indulge in some libations with which to wash down my meal:
Located in the same shopping center as Yechon is a Korean bakery my family likes to patronize. Amber was amused to discover that drinking from these くまモン bottles involves having to temporarily decapitate the かわいい mascot:
Our Korean-themed afternoon continued with the short drive from the bakery to Lil Thingamajigs, a gift shop selling cute Asian...um, thingamajigs:
According to my daughter these cuddly characters represent the individual members of the South Korean boy band juggernaut BTS. Amber claims to not be a fan, but she suspiciously knows a lot about the group, supposedly because many of her classmates are fans:
I'm not ashamed to admit that one of my favorite shows on Netflix is Aggretsuko アグレッシブ烈子, though I'm a bit slow when it comes to watching and haven't yet started on the fourth season of episodes. Hard to believe this comes from the same company responsible for Hello Kitty:
In case you haven't figured it out, Annandale is home to a large Korean community. Still, tucked in amongst the Korean businesses is a bubble tea shop which appears to be suffering an identity crisis of sorts. Tea-Do sells all the usual Taiwanese-derived drinks, but is also a purveyor of the Japanese snack standby onigiri おにぎり. In addition, the store's name is written in kanji as 茶道, which is the word for the tea ceremony, and can be translated as the Way of Tea. The characters can be read as "Sadō" or "Chadō", and thus (presumably) explains the "-do" part in Tea-Do. But why the tortuous, hybrid English-Japanese name? Why not go with "Teaism", or use the ローマ字? For that matter, why Tea-Do? Why not Cha-Way or Sa-Way?
My wife says I tend to overthink things:
One week into the Lunar New Year, and the celebrations were continuing at Eden Center:
Our daughter the flautist barely managing to contain her enthusiasm during a joint concert with the high school and middle school bands:
Another weekend, another Asian-centered activity. This time it was having lunch at Eerkin's Uyghur Cuisine in Fairfax, Virginia:
The food was excellent. Here I am dressed for the occasion munching on some Uyghur Lamb Kebabs:
We also ordered samsas, an eggplant salad and some chicken kebabs, but our main course was the Dapanchi Small - "chicken, potato, and spicy sauce served with homemade flat noodles". I joked that Shu-E should make it clear to the staff that she's from Taiwan and not China so that the chef wouldn't spit in our food. My wife doesn't appreciate my witty yet politically-insightful humor:
Afterward we took a stroll through Fairfax's compact Old Town area, passing by the 1800 Courthouse and the 1900 library:
Naturally, we finished up our Saturday outing at the H Mart Asian supermarket in Fairfax. My wife passed on the $31 "Taiwanfresh" Dragon Tiger Grouper:
Amber, however, didn't pass up an offer to have a mochi donut in the food court after shopping...:
…while I couldn't say no to the opportunity of sampling two Japanese craft beers I'd never seen before:
On the first day of the three-day Presidents' Day weekend we finally submitted to the endless series of commercials that had been running on local TV, and rode the metro to Foggy Bottom where, following lunch, we strolled over to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. En route we passed by the Watergate complex. Both my wife and daughter knew of the scandal, but Amber was less than impressed with the architecture, calling it "Soviet". The 1970's were a different time, my child:
Yes, we went to see Shen Yun 神韻, the performing arts company that's run by the Falun Gong religious group. I'm not going to comment on the beliefs and practices of 法轮大法, and won't delve into its persecution by the Chinese government. I do have a very interesting story related to Falun Dafa that occurred during my consular tour in Shanghai 上海, but due to ethical and professional reasons, I can't relate that tale on this forum. Buy me a beer sometime and I may tell you; otherwise you'll just have to wait until after I retire:
Standing in the Hall of States inside the Kennedy Center before the performance:
The first time I've worn a necktie since we returned to the U.S. from Ethiopia last July. The tie had been given to me by my staff as a farewell gift:
First, the negatives: Shen Yun describes its show as "China Before Communism", but it's a very romanticized vision, bereft of any references to authoritarian governments (at least of the non-Communist variety), grinding poverty, foot binding, warlords or any of the numerous other factors that made Chinese life in the centuries before 1949 miserable for the masses (not that things have been much better since, especially for those living on the fringes of the Chinese empire). There are also the mandatory references to "5000 years of history", even though confirmed historical events can be traced back "only" 3600 years or so (a still impressive figure!), with the rest getting fogged up in the mists of legend and myth. And because this is Falun Gong, there were certain underlying spiritual themes that could be grating at times, like the song lyrics equating "Atheism" and "evolution" with evil forces (though the singers delivering these gems had impressive sets of lungs). And the tickets were pretty expensive - almost a hundred dollars each for seats in the nose-bleed section.
But, there were also positives - namely, it was a very entertaining production (minus the political and religious segments). The dancers were very skilled, of course, and the costumes they wore were bright and colorful. My daughter the flutist took a particular interest in the music, performed by a live orchestra blending Chinese and Western instruments, while Shu-E seemed to enjoy the parts of the program related to familiar Chinese tales, like the Monkey King 孫悟空 and Lady Wang Zhaojun 王昭君. As for me, I was most impressed with the background/stage interaction - performers appeared to travel back and forth between the stage and the animated backdrop. Shen Yun is so proud of this they actually feature the U.S. Patent number in the program guide!
I would like to have shown you the system in action, but all photography and recording were prohibited during the performance. So here's the trailer instead:
So was it worth seeing? Not at the prices we paid, but it's been so long since I've been to a professional concert or a theatrical production I can't say if the ticket costs were in line with those of similar productions. As noted, there's a medium-to-heavy dose of politics and spiritualism that annoyed my wife, and which should be toned down if not completely eliminated. On the other hand, the presentation of a fantastic, mythical and romanticized 中国 of yore seemed to appeal to the non-Asian members of the audience (at least those in our section), so if the that's the kind of Middle Kingdom that comes to mind when you think of China, you would probably enjoy the show. I probably wouldn't see Shen Yun again, but I don't regret having seen what all the fuss is about (though I don't think I'll be reading The Epoch Times or watching the NTD channel much in preparation for going to Beijing):
Kennedy Center gift shop
Yesterday's Asia-related adventure started with lunch at Kimen Ramen & Izakaya in Annandale:
The more comfortable Amber gets behind the wheel, the more confident I am when it comes to ordering a Sapporo draft サッポロ生ビール to go with my meal:
Karaage から揚げ, which along with Taiwanese popcorn chicken, is Asia's greatest contribution to fried foods:
I had the Original Ramen, and appreciated the generous portions of チャーシュー (roasted pork fillet), even if my heart may think otherwise:
It was after only after we paid the bill and were getting to leave did I notice this poster. Located close to floor level and directly across from the door to the women's restroom, I wasn't able to photograph it very well. It reads 満州国へ！！, or "Let's go to Manchukuo!!", and was printed by the Ministry of Colonial Affairs 拓務省. The wording on the right explains where to apply, though I'm not able to see all the characters due to the angle of the shot.
This is a reproduction of a recruiting poster for the Japanese colony/puppet state of Manchukuo, established after the invasion of Manchuria in September 1931, which many historians consider to be the opening shots of the Second World War. I can only assume the owners of Kimen aren't aware of what this poster is really about:
Following our revisionist lunch, we did some shopping at K Market International (yet another Asian supermarket, with an inviting-looking food court that could be worth checking out), then went into The Block, an Asian-themed food hall popular with the young and the terminally hip. Despite it being a chilly 41°F/5°C outdoors (the only place we could find open seats), my daughter was determined to enjoy an ice cream for dessert:
Our last stop of the day before heading home was to get a couple of teas at Ben Gong's Tea 本宮的茶 ("Her Majesty's Tea), an experience that amused Amber to no end. It wasn't the multilingual writing on the sides of the cups that cracked her up (in Chinese - 東方好茶 "Oriental Good Tea" and 本宮出品 "Presented by the Palace"; in Japanese オリエンタルティー "Oriental Tea")…:
....it was what was written on the lids. She was inspired to look up the company's website to the section on "About Ben Gong's Tea", where it goes on to further explain things in terms of "auspicious meanings", "the traditional embroidery pattern of the royal court" and "China's traditional culture and artistic attainment". Already at 16 she's becoming aware of how to manipulate white folks and their stereotypical views of Asian cultures. It makes her father proud.
Presidents' Day - instead of celebrating the holiday by buying a new mattress at a low, low sale price that can't be beat, the daughter and I took a 90-minute, 3.6-mile (5.8 kilometers) walk along the Magruder Branch Trail in the Damascus Regional Park in Damascus, Maryland. I drove us out there, but Amber sat behind the wheel for the trip back home, including a stop at a Red Robin for lunch. Setting the GPS to avoid both highways (her preference) and tolls (mine) gave her around 75 additional minutes of practice time in the driver's seat:
We ended the afternoon at Mr. Wish, a Taichung 台中-based bubble tea chain with an outlet at Eden Center (of course):
And so ends this latest post, and with it, any chances of ever working in Japan and Taiwan. Actually, my real dream assignment would be an opportunity to be posted in Pyongyang, but that's a story fantasy for another time. Until the next rant...
Happy New Year! 新年快樂! Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year 春節, and thus the first day of the Year of the Tiger 虎年. Despite that coffee mug proclaiming 2022 as the Tiger's year (purchased at the same time as that book on Feng Shui 風水), the Chinese zodiac signs don't correspond with the standard Western calendar. What this means in practice is that if your birthday has already come and gone this year, you might still actually be an Ox 丑 and not a Tiger 寅. My daughter is an example of this. According to that aforementioned coffee mug, she should be a Dog 戌. However, going by the Lunar calendar (i.e. the one that actually matters in this case), Amber entered this world in the last days of the Year of the Rooster 酉, making her...fowl.
To spare you the math involved, this also means Amber is now a Sweet Sixteen. We celebrated the milestone by going to a local Japanese restaurant as our daughter had a yen (rimshot) for some udon noodles うどん:
Afterward we returned home for her matcha 抹茶 birthday cake and, of course, her presents:
As if turning sixteen wasn't momentous enough, Amber also recently received her learner's permit and has been learning how to drive under the watchful gazes of her mother and father. Unfortunately, due to a combination of Virginia's stringent requirements and our scheduled departure for China sometime this summer, it's unlikely she'll be able to move up to her first driver's license before we go to Beijing 北京. But at least she'll have some experience behind the wheel for when that time comes to take the driving test. She's already better at parking than her dad (which, admittedly, isn't saying a whole lot).
This first blog post of the new year serves as a compendium of photos from the final weeks of 牛年. Saturday, January 8 we visited this Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant in Fairfax for its pre-opening "trial run", an event my wife learned of through one of those mysterious underground Taiwanese networks in which she's enmeshed:
Shu-E had to order the stinky tofu 臭豆腐, but I couldn't really complain as I've been known to mix nattō 納豆 with my rice, much to my family's disgust:
Odiferous soy products aside, the food wasn't bad and despite a few kinks, it appeared the restaurant had a promising future. According to my wife, however, the owners have since had a falling out, and the Taiwanese side has yet to find a new location:
Saturday, January 15 the three of us visited Brookside Gardens, a 50-acre (20.2 hectares) public space in Wheaton, Maryland:
The last time I was in Japan was on New Year's Day (the Western one), 2018, so I was drawn to the Japanese Style Garden:
Signs giving Zen advice were all around:
The temperature that day was a brisk 23°F/-5°C, and the surfaces of all the bodies of water in the garden were frozen over. That only encouraged Amber to try to crack the ice, resulting in a sore foot by the end of our visit. Served her right:
Trying not to slip. I've been leery of treading on ice after a couple of bad falls in Lithuania:
Yet another reminder that we were supposed to have traveled to Japan in the summer of 2020 on what would've been a funtastic trip:
The ice in places was actually thick enough to support Amber's weight (with Mom there to provide assistance). Painfully aware of my own current heftiness, I declined giving it a try myself:
The greenhouse was a welcome respite from the chill:
Kimono 着物 on sale at the garden's gift shop:
The day's Japanese theme continued with lunch at Ren's Ramen in Silver Spring, where I had the "Sapporo-style" 味噌ラーメン. I'm still holding out hope that we can visit Tōkyō 東京 this summer on the way to China's capital, but the swath being created by the Omicron variant (and god knows what else is in the pipeline) will no doubt result in yet another leisure travel postponement:
Bob Ross ensures safe driving and pleasant odors while in our Honda Accord:
Wegman's in Tysons, Virginia. Think Whole Foods, but also selling unpretentious (read normal) foods and at generally lower prices, but still attracting those white suburbanites who buy books on Feng Shui and think we're 31 days into the Year of the Tiger. We passed on the $160 A5 Wagyū 和牛 beef, but did indulge in the relatively cheaper meatballs:
The way our apartment is angled we don't see too many sunsets. A rare view:
The shops at Eden Center prepare for the upcoming new year. It's because of the importance of the holiday in Korean and Vietnamese cultures that I don't use the term "Chinese New Year". That, and the opportunity to rile Chinese nationalists being too good to pass up:
Creepy sounding wind chimes in the cemetery on a cold winter morning:
Thursday, January 20 Amber had an unexpected day off from school due to an approaching snow storm. No snow day for her old man as I'm considered a teleworker, and thus my work isn't affected by the weather. As you can see from this photo, the snow snubbed our area, much to my daughter's delight:
Friday, January 21 another day without snow. According to my phone's weather app the temperature as I went out for my morning walk was 18°F/-6°C, but with a wind chill that made it feel like 3°F/-16°C. I could believe it:
Even the dog bowl is frozen over:
Sunday, January 23 was much warmer at 36°F/2°C, so to take advantage of the good weather I forced asked the girl to drive the two of us to Lake Needwood, a 75-acre reservoir that is part of Rock Creek Regional Park in Derwood, Maryland (Shu-E opted to stay in bed). The air may have been warmer, but the lake was still almost completely iced over:
It's difficult to see, but a lone goose waddles across the ice:
Just as she did at Brookside Gardens, my daughter continued her experiments in ice breaking:
Trudging down a muddy slope:
Not a woodpecker, but searching for something to eat:
Following lunch at a Lebanese café, we went next door to Kyoto Matcha Cafe for dessert:
The shop may be called Kyoto Matcha Dessert, but the kanji 漢字 reads "Matsugami Chaya" 松上茶屋 and "Matsugami no Cha" 松上の茶. According to a Japanese friend who looked it up online, the name is a made-up tea brand by a Chinese company. All those poor foodies thinking they were having an "authentic" Japanese tea break:
An Art Deco-ish looking condo complex in Rockville. The wife has mentioned the city (known in some quarters as Little Taipei) as a place where we could buy a house, but I've been balking as prices only continue to rise up to ridiculous heights in the D.C. metro area:
Friday, January 28 preparations for an early New Year's Eve 除夕 family dinner:
The reason for the earlier repast (Chúxī fell on January 31 this year) was due to our daughter's school weekend band trip to Disney World. Snow fell on the evening of the 28th and the early morning of the 29th...:
…but not in sufficient volume to prevent me from having to drop off Amber at her school at the ungodly hour of 0400:
With the girl safely off toward warmer climes, I went out for a long pre-dawn walk in the snow. The deliberately unflattering self-portrait reflects the fact it was 21°F/-6°C but felt like 10°F/-12°C. But it could've been a lot, lot worse, as this most recent storm saved its wrath for areas to the north, south and east of here:
Sunday, January 30, with the girl in Florida, the missus and I walked to Eden Center to see a New Year's lion dance 舞獅. We saw the performance taking place at the far end of the parking lot, but Shu-E assumed the dancers would eventually make their way to where we were standing, so we stayed put. They never did, so instead we ended up having lunch inside Vivi Bubble Tea. My wife noticed the signs on the window for businesses coming soon, but if our history is any guide, we'll be gone before that happens:
Eden Center is invariably a busy place on weekends, but even more so when special events are being held. It's times like these that I'm glad we live within walking distance, even when the temperatures remain below freezing:
My footprints in the snow, and the sad realization that this is how I actually walk. Shu-E said there's a word in Mandarin for this, wàibāzìjiǎo 外八字腳, meaning "splayed feet" (the opposite is nèibāzìjiǎo 內八字腳, meaning "pigeon toes"). She also helpfully pointed out the impressions I leave on the ground are "不好看". Marriage...:
Opposite sides of the same crypt. There are several graves of children in the nearby cemetery, but this one is particularly poignant as there is often a toy truck placed in front of it. And while I have no reason to doubt Ms. McClelland was a good person who deserved to live as long as she did, could someone please explain how God's plans for all of us entail allowing one person to live more than a century, while taking away a couple's child after less than a month on this planet?:
And on this first day of the new year, the wife and I returned to Eden Center around noon, where the festivities began with the raising of the American and South Vietnamese flags (the latter accompanied by what I presume to be the old RVN anthem):
A couple of years ago a friend who was learning Vietnamese in preparation for an assignment in Hanoi went to Eden Center hoping to find some people with whom he could practice speaking the language. Instead, he encountered a lot of hostility due to the fact he was being taught the northern dialect. Old grudges never die, nor do they fade away, at least in some cases:
A reporter from Voice of America is doing a story, while in the background a pair of attractive young women pose in their Lunar New Year finery:
A rare shot of Shu-E. Getting another crack at seeing a lion dance performance was the real reason we went to Eden Center again today (that, and the opportunity for me to buy a 奶茶 to go with my lunch):
Success, as this video taken by my wife proves. Except that the firecrackers were so loud they drowned out the music accompanying the dancers:
For this family, the Year of the Tiger will mean yet another overseas move in uncertain political and epidemiological climates. For me personally, my goals are to make progress learning Mandarin while avoiding any further hospital stays. For all of you, may you have a prosperous New Year! 恭喜發財!
(For further reporting on the festivities, check out this, this and this)
POSTSCRIPT: Amber returned home on Tuesday night from Orlando, and it sounds like she had a great time at Disney World. Here's a photo of her (in front in the red hoodie) with other members of the school band, taken last week before they departed for Florida. Note the mouse ears:
And these are the souvenirs she brought back for me from EPCOT (she bought some incense for her mother, including one that conjures up aromas of a Taoist temple):
Mickey Mouse started out being a much edgier rodent:
