Fresh Experience in Guanziling

The town of 關子嶺 is mostly known as a mountain hot spring resort and, by-the-by to those who have been there, as a place to eat some of their local barrel-roasted chicken afterward, or perhaps to buy some of the local produce, such as the milk-sweet guava sold along the roadside with handmade signs proclaiming its freshness.  Last Sunday, the Tainan-based tea tasting festival 春日茶會 was held for the first time here at a centrally-located public park.  With tea and attendants, ten tables fully decorated with beautiful cloths framing the tea ware like the matted fabric in Japanese scrolls will a painting.  To the sides, ornate metal kettles could be heard to boil softly on white clay stands, and orchids, tree branches, or flowers expressively placed on the table offered balance and poetry to the sublime three-dimensional roundness of the pots and cups.  Wandering from table to table, one passed through the groves of 桂花 now just beginning to flower, sending their unmistakable scent into the air. 

 

The great pleasure of attending such events is not just being able to taste great teas that you probably wouldn't come across otherwise but also being exposed to radically different approaches to brewing and tasting tea.  Like any art, drinking tea can become a victim to its own traditions handed down as fast rules, when the truth of the matter is that drinking is always a creative journey.  Tea brewers, like guides, can pull you out of a uncreative rut and really open your eyes to a new way of appreciating tea. 

In earshot of a man who was playing the 琵琶 in a delicate and erudite manner, I sat down at a table attended by the smallest of women with the softest of voices, and for a while I sat down alone, for no one else had chosen this table when it was time to switch tables. Then a young man seemed to sit down and save another two chairs for his friends but his friends came only to say that they were saving a chair for him at their table, so he scampered away.  I began to feel a little stupid as the other tables commenced drinking, and I sat alone at this one.  At last, however, others sat down.  We were told that we would be drinking 大禹嶺 tea (from the highest and most acclaimed tea growing peak in Taiwan) and that we would be asked to please place our cups closely together in front of the pot because she had no 茶海 (actually her 茶海 is in the picture below but apparently by the time we came around she had stored it away) to decant the tea.  She would have to directly pour the tea from the pot into our cups at the same time. 

Her table was clearly intended for simplicity, at least so she told us, when asked by one drinker, what was her "theme."  A brown cloth covered the entire table, then a smaller lighter colored cloth above that to frame her tea set, which in this case were our eggshell white cups, an 茶盂 for disposing water, a small container to hold the tea (not pictured below), and a bronze plate that had had its sides folded up so it could hold the tea and be held for examination (also not pictured below).  The tea pot itself was strikingly a 陶壺, that is, pottery, not the traditional red or black clay that is best suited to oolong and puerh teas.  Cylindrical with a bulbous throat and a delicate lid lay neatly inset into the top, the pot was the strangest and most suggestively interesting feature of her table.  This sat on a large, elegant slab of pottery that like an ancient tablet with its corners slightly raised up, would prevent any liquid if it spilled from running onto the cloths on the table.  Also on the clay tray was a small, hand whittled tool (also not shown), one end sharp and the other end flattened, and to one side a dry, squiggled branch with small seeded pods that was there clearly for elegance. 

Whatever you might think about the description of this table, in relation to the other tables it was sparsely aesthetic; indeed, as she claimed, simple.  And this is the great difference in perspective between a tea drinker and outside eyes.  To the latter such preparation looks extravagant, in the worst case, pretentious.  But from the perspective of the one brewing the tea, they have tried very hard to achieve the exact opposite, and especially, to put the drinker in a pleasant, settled state of mind wherein they can directly appreciate he tea without distractions.  The art is supposed to put you in the present moment and experience.  Thus the setting of a flowering park.  Thus the man playing exotic melodies on his 琵琶.  But here comes another contradiction.  The tea drinkers who attend these events have spent considerable energy trying to understand the rules behind the art--from what it means to use a metal kettle to brew your tea (as opposed to a clay one) to the chemical processes happening in your mouth to experience such things as 回甘.  Or else they are tea fanatics in some form who will not so much be eased by the simplicity and artfulness of the ceramics and table settings, as be jealous of possessing them themselves.  Therefore such mental and unseen battles are fought at every tea table. 

After cleaning our cups with hot water, and then pouring the first wash of the tea leaves into the cups, she apologized because we would have to wait awhile for the first brew.  Usually, higher elevation teas like 大禹嶺 are prized for their freshness and fragrance, and for that reason, the received wisdom is to brew them many times in short periods to get an unfolding spectrum of tea flavor to arise and pass.  However, such elevation leaves are quite hardy as well.  That first brew was probably closer to five or six minutes (though I wasn't counting!) which at least to me is unheard of.  Pouring it directly into our cups, instead of decanting it, she instead made four passes over the cups, each time pouring just a little bit into each cup until all cups were evenly filled, though barely half-full.  Veritably, I have never drunk tea so strong, stronger than most coffee, with a force I would be at a loss to describe, not willing to settle for the word bitter.  It was the bitter of biting into a raw root, simultaneously powerfully plant fresh as well.  And when swallowing, the important part really, there was no bitterness on the tongue, as we usually associate with bitter flavors.  That first cup was a lesson in what is bitter and what is just strong flavor.  If the Turks started brewing high mountain tea perhaps this is the method they would prefer.  Then, cup emptied, the residual tea evaporated into one of the most floral fragrant tea scents that I had ever known.  That was the first brew and we continued for five more, which came and went quietly.

What I appreciated most about this woman brewing the tea was her deflective way of responding to our observations.  Why did she choose to brew the tea in a 陶壺, I asked?  When she deflected this pointed question by saying how she really just wanted to experiment with the tea at longer durations and found that this pot worked, someone else observed that pottery would brew at lower temperatures than the traditional "purple" clay pots, and she deflected this as well, saying "oh really?". This "oh really", sincere and appreciative, was used often.  When told that if her tea tool, most likely from the 七里香 bush, was "taken care of," it would darken and become fragrant, she used it.  When told that the 回甘 was finally much stronger in the third brew she used it.  It was as if to say, "maybe, maybe not," both affirming and uncommitted.  Which, over all, I thought was a good stance.

For more photos...

Roasting tea in Ruili

Although my house is a wreck (so many things in boxes intended for America, Baihe, or the trash) and all our schedules have been thrown by the holiday season, I have found some sanity in the carefulness of brewing tea. Now it is impossible, for the reasons I have just mentioned to do a full, deliberate tea brewing at home--what with a baby who can now with one swipe clear most of whats on the coffee table onto the floor--so it is no wonder that my most recent experience with tea took place away from home in the mountains of the Alishan region in a small tea farming town called Ruili, where I went to find a particular homestead after getting their name card at an event the weekend before. Luckily when I arrived not only was the family there but also they were in the midst of a day-long roasting and taste-testing of their oolong, which was to be entered into a national competition.

   

Many farms participate in national competitions, sending tea selections in quantities of 22 kilos. One of those kilos is a gift gratis to the organization that runs the testing, while another kilo is used for the actual taste testing. The remaining 20 kilos, if they make the cut, will receive a special grading and will be given a fixed price. A tea master will taste hundreds of teas every day, while at each pass the number of teas dwindle until there is just a handful left. The single top tea from an entry pool of over a thousand will received the highest honor and will be able to be sold at a premium price.

The tea rankings for Oolong look something like this:

特等將 - the top honor - only one tea selected

頭等將 - second highest grade - only the top 4% make this cut (only 30 teas)

頭等將二 - third highest grade - only about 50 teas make this cut
頭等將三 - ...

There are more grading levels but why worry about them (besides, I can't say this list is too accurate!). The teas in the top four percent can be sold for about 230 US dollars per kilo while the one entry that wins top slot is sold for multiple times that rate. Most tea roasters will say that there's a lot of luck involved, not only that you get a good crop of tea, but also that the judge specifically enjoys your tea. That said, everything about the brewing method contrives to make the process as precise as possible, trying as it were to counteract so much uncertainty.

Following is a video of Mr. Lin and his father as they compare two oolongs they are roasting side by side in different machines with their entry from last year, a tea that took the 頭等將 grade.  As you can tell every slight aspect of the tea soup's color, initial scent, and taste is important.  The brewing method is rigid: three grams of tea in 150ml of boiling water brewed for six minutes in a competition "cup" made of porcelain.  Six minutes after the tea has been poured, when the leaves have cooled off, they also smell the leaves as well.  Everything counts.  The most of what I noticed under discussion (half was in Taiwanese) concerned the tea soup's, it's clarity and color.  One looked greener and one looked more yellow they told me, but I could not for the life of me discern such slight differences.  When they asked me which one I liked the best, I chose (unwittingly) the tea they had submitted from the previous year! 

Around their rather large living room, that opened up onto a rather plain and concrete porch (surrounded though by flowers, and looking out over the gray and misty mountains) they had huge recognition placques from previous entries.  15 or 20 were hung showing that they had earned the 頭等將 status, and only one, placed prominently over the cheif brewing table, showed 特等將, which means one year at least they grew the golden egg! 

I asked them how this competition tea was different than what I ended up buying--their common oolong.  As far as I could tell, for the competition they sorted the tea to get the rolled leaves more uniform, and also plucked extraneous stems which apparently confuse the taste during roasting and then brewing, but I don't imagine that it's grown in a seperate field or under different conditions.  I was also surprised that there was no initial "wash" for the tea leaves during the taste-testing.  When you use a tea pot in the Chinese tradition of brewing, for those who don't know, one always washes the tea and dispenses with the water almost immediate.  People usually emphasis the fact that it washes dirt or impurities from the leaves or that it wakes up the tea leaves and heats the tea ware to make the initial brew more pure.
So I might be under a false assumption that you can apply the "tea-tasting method" to any tea, that is brew 3 grams in a competition "cup" made of porcelain with 150ml of boiling water, but I've had a lot of fun doing that with all of my teas--what a delight!  The usual method that I use, which requires you to brew the tea for breifer periods 6-7 times is like a fine dissection of the taste, a pagent of the teas flavor that evolves and is lived and is relished.  Using the 6 minute method, however, really gives you a full taste of the tea.  I've even used it for some tea packs of oolong someone gave me that I've otherwise been brewing red rose style in an open mug.  Much better to drink directly from the competition cup after brewing it--rather more like drinking espresso out of a demitase.  A quite different tea experience!

Statues, Mountains, Marriage

I once heard that the only way for something to count as truly having happened is if it has happened twice.  Today begs me to believe that that is true.

I took off work and instead went up to Taichung with Fiona and baby to visit the man who is generously offering a beautiful, 4 foot tall Amitabha statue from his collection for the shrine in the Buddhist center in Asheville, "Urban Dharma, NC."  I had been under the impression that the last time I had made the trip up we had discussed all of the possible details, and the only thing remained was to put it in a box and ship it.  When I arrived, however, the statue was in the same place, no more ready to be shipped than before.  We talked about the same details as before, and then decided that I should come up within a week's time to officially see it off.  So, perhaps things do need to happen twice for them to really happen.

Then Fiona, baby, and I followed the man up to his house in the mountains.  It wasn't high into the mountains, but mountains were all around it, as well as farms, steep roads, and groves and groves of persimmon trees which were in full production.  He had built a two floored concrete and steel structure, with lots of open spaces next to a stream.  Because of the steepness the area, and perhaps the way that the structure fit into the landscape, you could barely notice it after you walked by it.  He had landscaped the place with great boulders and streams and everywhere a place to sit in absolute silence.  We ate lunch and drank tea.

On our way home, Fiona and I decided to get married.  We had finally received the Affidavit that claimed that I was single and eligible to marry, and we had been bringing it around with us ever since.  So we stopped off in Baihe on our way home to fill out the necessary papers.  Baihe is a small place and correspondingly their Household Registration Office, and those employed there, are not familiar with processing marriages with foreigners.  At one point, three women were circled around a computer with paper all over the desk, and I heard someone say, "do I enter the name in all capital letters?"  Fiona's father even left early before it was finished (he had come to give Fiona some necessary papers that he had had).  I ended up playing with William who had been stuck in a baby seat in a car for most of the day.  It made me think of how restless he would be on a plane when we returned to America. 

When we finally left, I had to ask Fiona, "Wait--so are we married now or not?"  Well, we are married now, at least officially--that is, unless things have to happen twice before they can really be said to have happened at all.  Won't we be getting married again in June in Pennsylvania in a real ceremony?  So for now, I will continue to believe this little thing, whether it is true or not, that things don't really happen until the second time around. 

Because the processing took longer than expected, I ended up being late for my afternoon classes.  Oh well, now I just need to convince my boss that the first time doesn't count. 

Highest Noon

In the morning I forgot that it was the perfect day. I only remembered that it was, halting in my glum enthusiasm that went with me as I walked, when I saw an outside bulletin board, a portion of which was constructed upon a compass perfect east-west line, with a shadow tucked neatly under it. Later, excitedly looking out my second floor window, trying to ignore all of the babies in the baby class who had just bombarded through my door, I saw a small gate that had a cast a perfect east pointing shadow, made entirely of right angles. Today was June the 22nd, a perfect day, and it lasted for only a second.

I first discovered the real importance of today last weekend when I went with Fiona to Taipei to see her friends. I spent most of the time talking to her friend’s Swedish husband. We were talking about whether or not Taiwan was tropical, and he said that he had heard that the North was “not quite” and that the south was. “That makes sense,” I said, “because where I live, Chiayi, we sit directly on the Tropic of Cancer.” I must have then pondered this for some time because then I asked a stupid question, something I simply wanted confirmed really, basically the suspicion that the Tropic lines, in celestial terms, mark the extent of the earth’s tilt, back and forth. It is nice to know that even now, new cosmic discoveries are still possible. I said, “Is the true significance of the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn that they represent where the sun will be at its widest swing (the earth at its furthest tilt)?” He confirmed it. You always think of the equator as having that honor, seeing the sun straight up in the sky, but in truth that only happens twice in a year even there, which is the same for every other place in between the two Tropics. If you live on the line of a Tropic, however, as I do, it only happens one time a year, on the first day of Spring, the “longest day” of the year. When all shadows lie down like truth, forsaking the ambitions of distortion, and present things, their shadows, in the true manner of their forms.

And so, when my last student left at 11:30 thirty, I borrowed Fiona’s camera and made a haphazard investigation of the entire school grounds (technically, still on the clock). I went into the kitchen and ate Auntie’s cold noodles and tried to explain to some people, but either my message didn’t get across or else no one was really impressed.

I wasn’t sure when it was going to happen, when the sun would stand directly over head, but it built in intensity like it does waiting for the sun to rise, every second becoming unnoticeably yet undeniably brighter. This had a whole different quality however, rather like the eye of a storm, a second of clarity in an otherwise unnoticeable day. What I didn’t expect (another revelation) was that it did occur at exactly 12:00 o’clock, and although I’ve lived my whole life knowing that it was Noon, it has never lived up to its reputation. Noon actually is, bless those people in Greenwich, England, the highest arc of the sun.

I must have ran outside a little too quickly because my boss followed out shortly after. “Joe,” he said, “what’s wrong?” I quickly yet lucidly explained to him what was going on and pointing to some pretty impressive shadows, basically lines and circles of things that any other time of the day or year would have been obscure oblongs and rectangles. And he said, “Oh, we don’t really notice that.” “Actually,” I said. “It happens only once a year—today.” “I thought you saw something fall,” he said, “or that you saw a snake.” “No,” I said. “It’s the shadows. I live in Pennsylvania, so seeing shadows like this is really strange.” He reiterated that in Taiwan nobody really cared. I guess that made sense, because I bet for a week or so it looks pretty much like this around lunchtime. But on the other hand, I didn’t really understand it. It was odd. I tried to be cool about it, but after taking some pictures and explaining it again to one more teacher, who at my insistency told me that she would look it up on the internet. Not bad. But I went outside.

It was strange to see all the things turned into lines and circles, and curious to see how many things were built upon the cardinal directions. The handrails going up to the post office made one black line, like a snake lying below it. The post office boxes, red and green, on the other hand, cast square shadows that fit perfectly their square bolted stands. Even the shadows of trees were interesting to see—to see really what the tree looked like from above, and you could see it, painted on the ground from any angle. In fact, everything, for about ten minutes had an ethereal, lifted sense to it. Maybe I was just high on it, or maybe the sunrays, more intense on this crystal clear day than I probably have ever experienced them, had boiled my mind over. When I saw a shadow that was off or crooked, I knew with religious certainty, it was the building that was wrong, not the shadow.

My last trip was to the rooftop of my own building, eight stories high, and here, fifteen to twenty minutes past twelve, things began to loose their intensity. I looked off one side to see my shadow streak to the very bottom where my head sat on the pavement far below. Things were bending. It was passed.

Click here for photos.

Bugs

While I was biking home this lunch, I found myself thinking about bugs, probably because of an experience I had this morning when a cockroach flew at me and then disappeared. Perhaps his wings were moving faster than my brain (I had only gotten up because my bladder had pulled me out of bed and toward the bathroom) but it looked like he disappeared. So I was thinking, "What is worse than a cockroach?" And then I got to thinking that a cockroach isn't so bad. Most of the time it's trying to run away from you and to find a dark corner to grow bigger in.

So I began thinking what the worst possible bug would be. I'm still not done, but you can join me, too. So far I was thinking a tic-roach would be pretty bad. You know, you would be walking through tall grass, and all of sudden you notice that a roach is on your leg sucking your blood! Instead of shunning light, for example, the roach's one purpose in life would be to attach itself to your skin and suck your blood. Just think of waking up in the morning with a couple of those guys hooked to your ear.

But what a triple cross? For example a grasshopper tic-roach, something that would attack you in the broad daylight from across a parking lot. Something that made a loud crackling sound as it gleefully arced across the sky to bounce off your chest. However, so far my most sublime conception is that of a butterfly tic-roach, an example that might appear queer at first but upon investigation will show that an addition of a good part makes the whole thing much more worse. For instance, a butterfly has a chaotic pattern to it when it flies that would only heighten the horror of seeing one of these things in a lonely wooded grove headed right toward you. I also feel that the combination of horror and beauty (the wings I imagine to still be a butterfly's wings) would make the whole thing much more intolerable, like ice cream mixed with rum raisins.

In any case, it's for you to ponder, and to leave a comment if you think of something better. Just keep in mind the thought of dozing off under the cool shade of a tree on a summer day, waking up to the draft of gently pumping wings, a crowd of alighted flowers now sucking at your face.

One Week

First of all, it’s raining. It’s been hot all week, and even hotter in my room which is on the seventh floor and a guaranteed five degrees hotter there on any given day. Today my thermometer reads a welcoming Fahrenheit of 78—a refreshing reversal ushered in by the winds that carried the wet. Yesterday at the same time (after work) it was sitting patiently at 96, and remained that way until 11:30 when I got up and turned the air conditioner on. I’ve sort of been putting off that eventuality (in case you think me mad for waiting that long), but then it finally very simply just happened. I don’t even remember deciding to get out of bed. I do remember before that though, the fan on my legs full blast and changing sides several times only to feel the coolness on my newly exposed side of sweat evaporating. I also remember considering the irony to myself that the longer I lay in bed the more awake, and less tired, I became. I guess this reasoning that presented itself was so evident to me that it bypassed some more formal ring of consciousness and my body simply got up and admitted what a small part of my mind resisted: summer.

That night’s experience (on Thursday, for the record) got me into thinking about firsts. On the Sunday before (when it wasn’t quite so damned hot, but comfortable enough to sit outside a Starbucks in the evening), I had my first bona fide Chinese lesson from a student who currently studies at Chiayi University. The experience was quite encouraging, despite the feelings that other people have intimated to me: “What? You’re paying money just so you have someone to speak Chinese to?” This is another irony to consider, but it’s also the awful truth. My oral Chinese landscape is actually pretty bleak. Spending so much time with Fiona is the only reason I have made any progress at all in the area.

I forget when it started to get really hot this week, but, as it happens when heat comes, I get sores in my mouth (isn’t that lovely news!). I’m told that “hot” bodies (referring now to the perspective of Chinese medicine, and the physical temperaments of various bodies), which are mostly young people, have this same tendency. Luckily watermelon is a great “cool” food* that will soothe excessive heat, which explains, despite it being in season, why I tend to devour as much of it as I can at this time of the year. So on Wednesday, Fiona sent me willingly out onto the streets to buy some watermelon. “Don’t get a whole one,” she said. “Don’t get a half of one. Get a half, and a half again! What is that called? Tell him our fridge is too small.” Six and some blocks later, with a quarter watermelon in my arms, grotesquely too large to be a baby but nevertheless resembling one in the way I held it, I was back, knocking on the door. And by the way, Taiwanese watermelon is delicious. I wish I could eat some with Mark Twain just to get his opinion.**

There were some more firsts and ironies—but will anybody read them? That is a serious question that I have to ask myself now on a blog that is essentially idling, with no real purpose or direction. Not like Nathan Ballentine’s blog (see to the right) that is also his business. Or those blogs over there of professors who, with their interesting projects, seem to have a right in their blog. Soon I know this place will be like Chio’s or Ryan’s blog, in italics noting something like, "last undated 6 months ago."

*“The nature of watermelons is generally rather chilling and contains a great deal of moisture, yet they possess a certain purgative quality, which means that they are also diuretic and pass down through the bowels more easily than large gourds and melons. Their cleansing action you can discover for yourself; just rub them on dirty skin. Watermelons will remove the following: freckles, facial moles, or epidemic leprosy, if anyone should have these conditions.”
Galen (129-216 A.D.), Marcus Aurelius's personal physician

**"The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Spring?

This morning I woke to the sweet illusion of spring. A fragile white light upon my floor (after I slide our kitchen doors open). A grogginess that made me linger in bed, simply happy. These alone were enough to evoke in spirit and thought Coleridge, and his lines, "And winter slumbering in the open air, / Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring !" Or Mole who was in such an exasperation of white-washing and anticipation of spring that it required Mr. Grahame to make up several new words.

But I say illusion for a good reason. In Taiwan there is no significant Winter to make you think of Spring in such a way. In fact there is no capitalized "Spring" at all, only "spring," and that passes in less than a day. It quickly gives way to the un-joyful anticipation of heat and humidity. In those days (I live on the seventh floor) walking inside at five o'clock, my linoleum floor feels like hot sand under my bare feet. So...spring!

Yet illusion it was. After a week of dreadful wet cold weather and, because of it, tonsillitis (for the second time this year), waking up today, feeling better after my eleventy-hundredth hour of sleep this week, and the slightest of warmth in the air (my floor was still cold), then yes, today, I can celebrate spring, as I know all those folks in the states are.

The Daring Young Man, as promised

Last Sunday, I went to a local temple where they had this annual swinging competition to see who could swing the highest. It was this huge swing set made out of bamboo, probably about 40 to 45 feet high. In the center were these two very long bamboo rods, instead of rope, that led down to a skinny wooden bench. At about head height, standing on the wooden bench, there was a hook to fasten in a safety clip that itself was attached to a suit that the competitors put on before mounting the swing (by way of a ladder). Once on, the young boy or seasoned, red-mouthed champion squatted down upon the seat, holding high on the bamboo with their hands. Two men below, with another long shaft of bamboo (notched at one end), would catch the seat of the swing and then in two attempts swing the individual as high as they could. Then, of course, it’s up to the person on the swing.

I could tell by the first person I watched that it was quite difficult, that much effort could be exerted without having much result. Unlike a cord swing that you can twist in your hands to create swing, the bamboo poles were inflexible and could only be manipulated by the piston like motion of the person on the swing. Flexing up, basically pushing up from the lowest part of the swing, and then falling back down after the pitch. I could also tell, by the second person I saw, that much skill could be involved, because despite the difficulties of the bamboo, the man was able to go almost horizontal, at which point it seemed miraculous that it was happening at all, that the man had broken some fundamental law. At the highest pitch, as if to scorn the world, he kicked up his right leg high, and also leaning back so quickly that I thought he might loose his grasp, and the crowd cheered.

It seemed only a matter of time before an older man grabbed my arm and began motioning to the swing. At first a woman nearby scolded him to leave me alone, but soon I was on the stage anyway where there were judges and a woman announcer, and they were asking where I was from. I don’t know if you’ve ever been taken completely in charge by an older man who you doesn’t necessarily speak your language but who nevertheless knows what’s best for you. It’s one of the more sacred experiences of traveling abroad. I remember one time in Greece when I slipped and almost fell in a food market, an old man abruptly scolded me in Greek. A young butcher, with a cigarette in his mouth, informed me that he said, “if you’re going to fall, why walk around with your hands in your pocket?” Of course, I remember thinking at the time. Obvious.

Getting on the swing was by far one of the more exciting things, especially to look down and see a sea of unfamiliar faces looking up at me. But I let fly—or rather I was set fly by the two men below—and after a good go descended the set. A man came up to me later with a video camera asking questions in Chinese and an organizer who helped me into my suit translated, so I told them, the camera, that I was very happy, that it was very good to be on the swing, and that I was an English teacher in Chiayi, which seemed appropriate. They invited me back next year, and an older man, who performed a near horizontal feat himself (ending with the same victory, death-defying leg salute) told me that he would teach me how to swing, and began demonstrating right there for me the basic moves.

They gave me a large, double-layer stainless steel cooking pot for competing and after watching for a bit I wandered off because I felt awkward standing there with this huge box under my arm. I walked around and it reminded me of the carnival grounds at Stewartstown, but no Skeeball. Of course, here there were many more interesting snacks (are criss-cut fries even interesting?) There were also some local booths, and a used books tent that I looked through as well. Saw an enormous Chinese-English Dictionary, and also a Chinese calligraphy book that I looked through. For several pages, it detailed how to draw one smudge resembling the last digit of your pinky. For the relatively small and inconsequential mark, there were six brush movements. I thought, (sigh) “another day.” And then I thought, “but soon—but soon.”

Pai Pai: Week Four

This will be the last Pai Pai blog I think. At least, taking a photo of him and submitting each week will be kind of thin now because he's stopped growing. Or at least, he won't look very different at all.

Pai Pai is still growing though, especially in the way that he is accomodating himself to his maturing strength and to his still strange environment. It pleases me best when he runs along the bed or table (surprisingly fast) or else flies several circles about the apartment before landing on a high post or my head. It sort of reminds me of what a miniature batman would be like, leaping off buildings and then performing acrobatics upon whatever he lands. So far, no bad guys, but I'm watchful to see if he ever finds one of those lizards that hang around here...

My bird is also investigating the power of his beak by an everlasting series of uncontroled experiements testing his beak next to any other substance in this apartment, bedsheets, books, tea cups, and even my skin. I'm assuming the part about biting me is because of his deliquincy and that in a future time he will roam the parrot streets of hardluck without a penny or moral in his pocket. Upon my sister's advice, when he bites me, I immediately take him in my hand, bring him up to my face and sternly say, "NO." Then I put him in his cage for a fortnight with only water and stale bread. He's getting the idea; a very intuitive beast, actually.

For summary here are the four photos for the four Tuesdays that I've had him. If we consider him to be one week in the first picture, then the last picture is Pai Pai at one month, each photo in between being taken at exactly one week intervals.

"Oh, the Rising Sun"

By my foot is a dish with water and next to it a yellow towel, a bit worse for wear, with Pai Pai trying to snuggle deep into it. Water is scattered about the floor, the aftermath of trying to entice him (with splashes) to take a bath, an idea that was so strange and appalling to him that he took any lengths to avoid it. He even flew for the first time (image that—even today) eighteen inches up to his cage from my hand as I moved to place him there. I suppose he flew, that is he could not have jumped that distance, and he wasn’t thrown, so by inference, it must be ruled that he flew those eighteen inches. Although I have waited days for him to fly—watched him proudly as he reared his chest and beat his wings, making a current like a small helicopter, blowing tissues off tables and eliciting applause from the only other one in the room. “Good job, Pai Pai!” or “Li hai!” So all along my imagination was for something much more majestic, to see him running across the table launching off the edge like Wright at Kittyhawk. In any case, I think the day is over that I tease him as a “land lubberer,” which is rather mean of me I suppose, but in the end considering that it will be he that can fly, and not I, the joke is much more on me.

I was drinking tea at the table, which, if you can believe, I haven’t done in quite a bit, and so in a way, it was all new again. That’s something in the nature of the tea I think. You can have it a thousand times and then, again, one day, it’s all new again as if you’ve never before smelled it, as if the tea had never before waited as it was to be unfurled and draw its nectar out. And so, again I was seduced.

Samuel Johnson said, “Wonder is simply the effect of novelty upon ignorance;” luckily, I suppose ignorance is the chaotic entity of that equation. Today, I’m ignorant; novelty may be a well-worn coat, but I have never seen it before. So fortunately, today, again, Wonder.

Tea always panders creative energies. To every thought I had, it said, “yes,” as if clear sunshine fell upon the mind, and one could see again the mountains (one always knew were there) far in the distance, as well as those fallen long ago in the past. I enjoyed sitting upon that staircase of dominance like a child who, upon turning eight, hoists himself up upon that extra rung that puts his head over the top, now dizzy by the height but proud, anxious neither to ascend nor worried enough to turn around. At this moment, I enjoyed thinking about myself abstractly and where I might be in the futures. “I always wanted to sail,” I thought. Yes, the tea said. “I could translate Chinese poems.” Yes, again, the tea said. “I’ve always loved acting,” I thought. That’s right, said the tea.

I had put on George Harrison, his last CD before he passed away, and every once in a while I would catch a lyric or two, some that had always stayed with me and now rang with deeper meaning as though, as birth brothers, we had forged them together in a shared dark. To him I celebrate this day, I thought, pouring the hot water. He said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” A new brew of tea fell brilliantly hot into the pourer, the scent rising visible above the metal screen. It was an odd communion, I alive drinking tea, and him dead singing to me from my computer. He said, “Universe at play inside your DNA, you're a billion years old today—oh, the rising sun.” Then he sang to me “Pisces Fish.” I tipped the tumbler and the teacup upside down, the porcelain almost hot enough to burn my fingertips, as if warning me. He crooned to me, lovingly, mysteriously, “He was sending me a signal / that for so long I had ignored / but he held on to my umbilical cord / until the ghost of memory / trapped in my body mind / came out of hiding to become alive.” The tea touched my lips and then suddenly I disappeared.

Pai Pai, disturbed, woke from his easily bought slumber and poked his head from the yellow folds of fabric, gazed up at that large, strange creation—the chair—and saw… Well, I know not.

Going to Green Island

Concerning the first day of the New Year, 2009

Well, it was a new day of a new world as I sat proud in my seat, the world rushing by outside my train window, and nothing in the world to indicate that the calendar had made its magnificent change other than my ticket stub with six novel digits, newly stamped. I thought it absurd that people made resolutions on this day—more absurd that they chose to stay to the last clinging fragments of the last dying day. I had been in bed. Actually, I heard the rat-tat-tat-tat of fireworks that lasted for, oh, maybe two minutes, until the fuse (and whoever's interest) burnt through. Then again peace, leading, racing me to morning, where I awoke, stuffed some clothes into my bag, wiped down my table and counter tops, and entered outside into a deserted world.

The streets were mostly empty so early as the sun was still quietly low somewhere behind all that foggy sky. Even if the world had not opened up right then to greet me, I felt just fine, peddling down the road, the wind particularly bitter this morning as the winds had changed sometime the evening before. I think it’s just commonsense to do the proper thing, and just as someone that you’ve anticipated coming from far away—perhaps from across the sea—you make sure to greet them at the door, well dressed, and with a cup of tea. So we should greet the New Year. And instead of being jinxed by the last, dizzy from its departure—altogether missing the entrance of the next—why not anticipate the inevitable? So—early morning—flight on my bicycle down empty roads (the first and simplest kind of flight). No wonder it was two men with bicycles who discovered the path to the sky.

A ticket waited for me at the train station window. In that last, difficult and troubled year, already a half day ago, I had been told that there were no tickets left to go where I wanted, that I needed to have had reserved a seat a month in advance. But not so this year. This morning there were tickets for everyone. And then, eventually, on the train, the sky opened up and the sun showed herself already risen and dressed. I was very excited and it took me nearly an hour to close my eyes. I noted everything that passed—an orange grove, a patch of mustard field (the only two colors in that bleak landscape.) The warehouses and farm buildings looked like rusty electrical fixtures on a circuit board. I noted everything that passed then sat the journal down. I had seen to things—the sun was well greeted and well on its way (and well it should be, for it was to wake my neighbors, across the seas).

A picture from my train window taken later in the day, and on the other side of Taiwan, which seemed composed of nothing else but mountains, breaks of gravel plains made by streams, and a series of tunnels that became so often that they seemed more real than the landscapes outside. The train's vibrations, leaving the cocoon of the tunnel, radiated out into silence, like suddenly stumbling onto an impossible dream in the middle of a peaceful night.

Moon

"I have read of men who, when forced by their calling to live for long periods in utter solitude--save for a few black faces--have made it a rule to dress for dinner in order to maintain their self-respect and prevent a relapse into barbarism." Eskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands

Tonight is not moon festival but people are nevertheless celebrating, perhaps compelled by the mildness of the typhoon so far. On the TV, it appears that a giant white dollop of whip-cream is consuming the entire island of Taiwan, but here an apprehensive wind has been rattling windows, searching up and down the streets, calling forth its warning, but with no follow through, and so the people all day have been going about their business with one eye to the sky and the other into their concerns of Saturday. Even I was willing to take my chances to ride out to the single English bookstore in town and brave the possibility of imminent rainfall.

When darkness fell I ventured across the road with a bundle of clothes wrapped in my bath towel and slipped through the unlocked green gate of my school. It is eerie to be there at night with such a dubious purpose as washing my clothes, but, forced by the habits of single life, I am sometimes only ready at unusual hours for this chore. But tonight it was also partially beautiful. The entire day of wind and bursts of light rainfall had left the evening cool and calm; crickets sang and the street light shone half-heartedly through the playground trees, setting a stage that would be perfect for the chance and mysterious encounter to a heinous crime or horrible secret, such as when the boy in Treasure Island innocently enough falls asleep in the apple barrel to then overhear deathly dealings.

But I quickly left these settings for the city streets. While am not particular fond of the rain or the fact that it is usually only at night that I have time to wander, I do believe that the city is so much more clearly a city at these times, as if the wet and night were elementary to the city's constitution, commanded from the beginning when those that had the power chose the build of everything from the tiger to the lamb.

But tonight the air was thicker than usual, for in every house there stood a group of people with something like enjoyment set on their faces, and they spent their time looking out onto the streets with skewers of meat in their hands and congregating about a crude, footstool-sized metal grill. The smells and mood were those that I had been apart of the night before and so I did not stop or loiter, fearing too the generosity that these families would perhaps bestow upon me as they quite naturally seem to do, but I wished to press on, stopping only at a small park, which was entirely empty but for a group of boys that quietly but persistently attended to their sport of setting off fireworks some of which violently shot horizontally across the earth. This seemed to bother nobody who wandered by and so I let myself to it and listen to the sound of the great city that across its face fireworks were being set off so that in orchestration it sounded something like a expansive pot of popcorn that slowly attended to its task.

Though it seemed like everyone was finding shelter near their grill or setting fireworks off in a park, it was something pleasurable and confusing to see the cars still speeding about the roads, each according to its own mission that no holiday can ever quail. It reminded me of that odd vision of people out on Christmas day and the surfacing realization of people's continuous needs and restlessness, never quailed by the sacred rites we ask it to attend.

I found myself then at my favorite sushi restaurant where I slipped inside, noticing it was crowded and feared immediately being an annoyance to taking up an entire table while dining alone (something that really isn't done here). But I was greeted by the mistress of the place, one of two women who with graceful attention control the operations of the restaurant, by a simple and quiet, "Hello Joe." There were several unoccupied tables in the back where I was led, asked my preference, and then, once seated, was helped through the now familiar menu. I gave my order and waited.

I could have chosen this as my favorite restaurant simply by the quality and price of its food. But I also come here because it is simply inviting; and I'm very often surprised. The staff frequently brings me a small dish I haven't yet tried and in this way I've been introduced to some of my favorite dishes. The first, that I had again tonight, is a simple onion salad. In fact, the only vegetable in this salad is the onion, sliced thinly and a thousand times, the pieces arabesque in a lovely, translucent sculpture. On top are green onion pieces and sesame seeds. However, the bite of the salad is not from the onions, and, if it weren't for the small green onions, the onion flavor would hardly be present at all, the onion serving primarily as a fresh tasting, crisp and cool base for the sesame dressing, seasoned with fresh black pepper, a vinegar, and a combination of sweetness (honey?) and lemon. Sometimes, this dish in other restaurants is seasoned by flaky brown pieces of garnish, something resembling in fact dried bits of onion skin. I'm told that this is actually certain fish scales that are used as seasoning, but despite this their taste is earthy, and in any case, I prefer the salad without. Other dishes I had tonight also were favorites, including something they call zhu pai. Zhu, I know, is pork, but I do not know what "pai" is. What is issued forth though is a thin piece of meat that has a crust and has been fried. It is universally served with a dollop of ketchup and a dollop of sweet mayonaise which inveritably become mixed together. Sometimes the meat is cooked with garlic flavoring and sometimes not, but it is always served with a very simple and fresh garnish (tonight sprouts) that play a complete opposite to its rich and oily nature.

When I left, it was now rainning well enough and I only had my hat. Also because of the way my shower is set up (really a hose extension from the tub) and because the cieling is somewhat dropped in my bathroom, I must kneel to wash myself thus making my soaps more excessible as well as avoiding the difficulty of bumping my head against the cieling. As a consequence, my knees are sometimes fitful with anything but a slow and ease stride. Because of this I walked slowly, finding the moments when the rain lifted, and pausing each time it renewed its force. At each awning under which I waited, it was impossible to say whether or not I was giving the storm the chance of becoming stronger or was allowing it to blow itself through. And when at moments I was inspired with a mad dash, I could not decide if it was better to do so at a moment of clarity or at sudden heavy rain.

Eventually, I made it home, much more wet, with 12 litres of bottled water that I had purchased at a happy-mart during one escape from the rain. But as soon as I put these down, I dashed out one more time, found myself pulling folds of clothing from that still womb in which they lay, protecting them as I crouched by the warm machine's side against the unclean rain of the sky, and acting in all manners like a furtive figure darting through the shadows of life.

Eureka!: Laws of Displacement

I got my sister's e-mail today at school about a front page someone did about her out west adventure (link here: http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2008/09/01/news/news01.txt). It struck me chiefly by the vivid and glorious photograph of April and Honeychild in relief by the direct American sun. I teared up and looked to find some child or teacher to grab to show it to but none were convenient. But also, as I read through the contents of the article, I began reflecting upon something I remember April writing, whether it was in her blog or in a letter I forget, about the moment when Dana decided to leave the expedition. April likened this feeling to the blind and scary feeling she felt when in an airplane descending into Delhi several years earlier, feeling entirely alone and overwhelmed. Since reading that, I felt, reordered, and wrapped that particular sensation up, and maybe several times I have thought about it since then when I wasn't looking. But today I wanted to think about it some more. I was also provoked by reading various articles on the hurricane that was threatening New Orleans, and reflecting on the feeling those people felt then and now, getting on a bus, without knowing where one was going or if one would ever get back. Surely this sensation is not the point of travel or these types of things, but in fact a painful reoccurring theme of life which is to be avoided. No--the reasons must be many to remove oneself from others or so cryptic one is compelled without any sense at all (or otherwise dictated as in war or in hurricanes).

All of this threw good fodder on a fire that always has coals to me now, the abiding awareness of my separation. Since I've left, many startling things of lesser and greater sorts have happened to make me reconsider my stupidity or brashness for coming out leaving behind my commitments to people at home, which are made automatically through the order of living. With my eyes continually riveted back home by such incidents, it paints a potentially whimsically reality of my decision to live in Taiwan, and I borrow it from one of my favorite authors in his absolutely best book, Invisible Cities. He describes a particularly strange city, one where all the buildings have been built upon tall poles so that nothing ever touches the earth (people sleep in hammocks below their houses). The chief occupation of the residents, besides getting by in this precarious set-up, is a continuous and absorbing examination through telescopes of the earth below; muses the author: "fascinated by their own absence?" If fascinated is not particularly the right word, the oddity for me is equal to look back at a world, through the small hints I receive (nevertheless highly scrutinized) of photos and letters, web-address of front page stories, and all the pleasant and disturbing confetti that makes its way across the sea, and find that they all pertain the same irregular fact that I am not there. Now I may as well quote A. E. Housman,
“Is my team plowing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”
But I do not own to have these affectations so great to be much concerned with my absence. Obviously, my absence considers into my image of home now. But the angles and shades of this disposition are many; it also says that the image of myself in Taiwan is one without the healthy presence of my friends and family, and it is their absence which is so conspicuous and not mine. Have the poets written about this? Oh, they have endlessly moaned about their hearts lost in the highlands or wherever their native resort. They have also clamored to proclaim the essential sameness of all diverse nations and seasons. After clamoring about the world, William Saroyan once wrote how shocked he was to find music unchanged, stepping into a music store in some city in eastern Europe and catching a wisp of Mozart and, by God, there it was again. The realities seem many from this side. We do not know why the residents who lived up those long poles were doing what they were doing, looking at the ground, but maybe one day they find out.

A Hair Cut

To celebrate my seventh Saturday on the island and as a natural result of the rate at which hair grows, I decided to get my hair cut. I have been sick (am still sick) which involves an obnoxiously thick and sore head, uneven and inconsistent perceptual ability, and an intermittent but consistent dripping nose. Though I haven't pinpointed the cause of this sickness (I always find myself trying to pinpoint the cause of my sickness, as if every sickness is unnatural and therefore must have a specific cause), I think it has to do with the physiological/psychological response with being here, having finally established myself here in an apartment and job enough so the the initial adrenaline spent upon surviving here has fled, the stress that was always there is finally able to take its toll. This and a few lousy nights of sleep have angered my body and mind for disrupting the balance of a healthy life and making me now sleep fifteen hours a day and wander about like a zombie.

Originally, getting my hair cut was going to be one of those perfect days. I had picked the place specifically because it was right next door to my favorite milk tea shop, and so after a haircut I would march down to the park with a bubble tea mix in my hand and have a good old, relaxed way with it. (Bubble tea for those who don't know is a novelty drink that I haven't yet grown tired of. Mixed into a sweetened cup of milk tea, the "bubbles" are actually small balls between the size of pebbles and marbles made out of tapioca. Many people do not like bubble tea and it strikes me as very much like bubble gum, which I don't like. The tapioca is pleasantly indistinct in its taste. The real pleasure is afforded by their springy soft texture in the mouth and also the extra thick straw that is provided to suck them up with the tea. The first time I tried bubble tea I did not know that there were "bubbles" inside and somehow delighted by the absurdly thick straw took a big swig and the pressure induced by a ball in the pipe shot into my mouth like a bullet and sent me into fits of coughing. After that, I learned to befriend this relationship and have enjoyed the drink now and then ever since. However, an ever better mixture that is sold at such ubiquitous said tea shops is a sweet red tea with vanilla ice cream in it---oo-la-la, it's good.) But a planned day is just a good recipe for a bad day as it is for a good day, and, already a bit sick and definitely more than averagely woozy from all the sleep, I walked into the hair shop not really sure about anything--not really even sure if I needed a haircut or not. But I made some rather detached observations about the time I had been here and how long I had been without a hair cut and also recalling some comments my boss made about looking better with short hair, and so I was somewhat armed with certainty when I put my nose to the glass doors, somewhat bewildered and annoyed when I had to push closer and closer, standing there like an idiot, before they slid sideways by their automatic motion. No one was in that cool place except for the three ladies there sitting in the chairs, and they quickly got up and seemed to circle me and somehow I was in a chair and was being massaged and was being asked, "this is okay ma?" If I was somewhat armed with a certainty that I needed a hair cut, I was absolutely ill-prepared to speak any Chinese, which was really okay, I mean, what is there to say that you can't motion for with your hands? All I managed was to respond to one lady who, I finally gathered, was asking me if I knew how to speak Chinese. Again, no problem there, my look of complete bewilderment told her volumes more than I can yet articulate in her native tongue. It is indeed an experience to know all that can be done and more without a necessary understanding of anything.

As I sat there, being massaged, I couldn't help various thoughts and doubts flicker through my mind. I thought, where are the scissors? where are the gels? When I told Jeff that I was going to get a hair cut earlier that week and if he had any suggestions, he said only that basically every place was a modeling salon and that the only risk was that sometimes they were fronts for more lucrative employments that occurred in back rooms for more money and less clothing. But I let this pass because there was certainly no danger here. But I should say that there is something in the culture here of such services as salons that somewhat excuses me for thinking this, even in such an obviously innocent place as this. My exhibition through the salon was something of a series of being passed around by young, cooing women who were constantly touching my head, rubbing my shoulders, and saying the few endearments they knew in English: "so beautiful," as they ran their fingers through my hair. It's something akin to the beetlenut mamas, who wear small clothing and sit behind their desks wrapping the disgusting nut-chew mixtures, and for an extra few dollars they will allow costumers to touch their hands as they wrap the nut in spices and leaves. Are they prostitutes? Or is it innocent, suggestive pleasure? And where does the line fall?

I couldn't help comparing this to the last haircut I received in Malaysia. For five ringgit (that's less than two dollars) I had an Indian man cut my hair with nothing but hair-clippers and a comb, and it only took something like a minute and a half. It was a worthy haircut too, I might add, and these women where taking just milimeters with tentative snips, and using feathering scissors, too, and I knew the longer a haircut lasts the more money one is able to demand. First the massage, then the hair cut, then they took me to the back of the room and laid me down in a large leather chair and I couldn't help smiling as they laid my head back into a washing basin--a sensation that never fails to please. The original of such sensation is the one we learn from childhood where we are still able to stretch completely out in the tube and are able to dip our head back until the warm water encompasses our brow. Then after this I was taken again to another chair, with pink towels in a loose turban about my head, and again I was massaged and my hair was combed and blown dry, and all the time I was thinking how much it would be. My general philosophy succumbed to thinking 'whatever will come will come;' this line of thought was somewhat aided by the subduing nature massage has I think. But I was pleased when I finally left, a US ten dollars less the richer, but so much more happier and clean and healthy. A massage was probably exactly what I needed, anyway. As for my haircut, it really isn't so good. The Taiwan aesthetic considering hair cuts or anything else is an appreciation and striving toward softness. I recently had a photo taken for my work visa at a professional photo-taking place (persuaded to do so by my boss) and what arrived was a series of head shots so photoshop-ed that I found myself ridiculously new looking, with toy-soldier red cheeks, an utter and complete softness to my eyes and lips, and the entire photo glowing from the presence of the use of a soft lense. So, today my hair is so feathered it disappears seamlessly into the phenomena about it, as if charged by the electricity inherent in everything. But in several days my hair, as well as my sickness, is sure to subside and return anew to that balance and efficiency of life that continuously shapes the naked shingles of this world.

Thunder and Operatic Pottery

Written in my apartment as if began to rain, Sunday August 10th, transfered to school computer the next day
It began to thunder as I rode home, even though the sky to one side was only partially cloudy, but the thunder was so great and present I trembled to wait for the red light in what seemed like the middle of the intersection, and I found myself looking at the buildings taller than I was. But were they tall enough? Lightning flashed making me jump and again it thundered, and it was very impressive. It made my spine tingle with a divinizing energy that made me involuntarily afraid. I peddled home quickly on my bike newly worked on, much improved by the addition of air to my tires, oil to my chains, and alignment to my front tire. While waiting, I had the boy put a touch of oil to my bike lock that I had to jiggle and jerk to get loose and now I happily only turn the key and the thing swings magically open all by itself. Outside the elevator in the hall to my apartment, it thundered again, and it was like thunder in a movie theatre. I wonder if you know the story they tell of two rival theatre houses in England, each trying to out do the other with their fantastic stage effects. For a particular storm scene in one of its shows, one house would use these large sheets of metal that stage hands shook for the effect of thunder, and this was so well contrived and anticipated that one night the rival theatre company stole these sheets, thus depriving the night’s performance of its success and effectively creating the expression we are all now familiar with: “stealing one’s thunder.”

I discovered new excitement around the city today, which is good for my spirit, as I look toward the next week of school starting tomorrow morning. School isn’t a burden to me—I wouldn’t say that. Much of it is joyful work—but there are moments of great doubt and feelings of inadequacy which I think are probably very natural feelings in this situation, given the task and responsibility of not only teaching small students but also instilling in these students the love and happiness of learning. In such cases, it is very easy to be angry with one’s self for not being greater, quicker, more creative, and so on. And so, nights like tonight, where the shadow of tomorrow already looms or stands in the corner like a man with folded hands—it is quite something to know that there are other things to depend and rely on if school turn out completely successful. With this peace of mind, one is able to accept that tomorrow will come and with it new trouble. One turns their mind to it, and once the acceptance is clean—the sails are made bold, the map consulted—the work becomes something beyond one’s self and turns a better shade of thought.

I biked to the north end of the city to the Chiayi cultural center, which is basically a compound of some museums, music halls, parks with very absurd pieces of art scattered about, and so on. I wandered through some very impressive galleries (and others not so impressive). I was particularly taken with their collection of Kofi (Kopi?) pottery. I’m not very versed on Kofi pottery, but it uses a certain style of glazing that makes everything very bright and glassy—to western sensibilities perhaps too gaudy. But in the right context it is very rich, expressive medium, and more often than not, beautiful shapes are created with it, whether derived from mythology, nature, or traditional Chinese tales. The story scenes depicted with the Kofi style pottery were what startled me. The complexity, intricacy, and business of the scenes matched those same qualities of a Hogarth print, but the gaudiness, the three-dimensionality, and the frequency of mythological creatures and characters was evocative of Grecian friezes in the way they might of looked. Yet on top of this, they held the attention and fascination of the miniature and still-life, like puppetry or a doll’s house. Some scenes were inspired and based upon traditional tales of filiality, emphasizing the balance and harmony between various relationships (father to son, father to wife, son to mother, friend to friend, and so on, the only relationship of equanimity being the latter, and all others relying upon a dynamic of appropriate deference). I am endlessly intrigued by stories told visually in practically all forms in which this occurs (and they occur everywhere whether it is a comic book, eighteenth century English prints, and monastic and traditional murals of any tradition). The richness of narrative and perspective is fascinating to me. (To be honest, it’s sometimes why I think I enjoy the medium of cinema and theatre so well because of how entirely they have consumed this aspect of artifice. It begins with Charlie Chaplin and leads on the whole way out in acting and mise en scene to this day. Hitchcock is another truly great example of purely visual entertainment.)

However, these clay vignettes added to what is usually done in two dimensions such a new intrigue of three dimensionality that you could spent a good long time looking at them from every angle, not wishing to move them a centimeter, designed perfectly to fit the space. Like the Chinese painting, the empty space, the white paper that shines through as part of the painting, is the most defining aspect. Although several were large complex scenes of figures, there were several Kofi scenes that were very simple and yet very evocative. They reminded me of the Dutch painters, Vermeer in particular—a woman rising out of bed caught in the light. Some, slightly between the large scene and the portraits, were scenes that reminded me of the set and action of a Chinese, or western, opera, as if all that noise and confusion were hushed and framed and boxed into these brilliantly colored and imagined scenes. As I said, they also had the fascination a doll’s house has, and so I found myself as much taken with the relationships between the actors in the scene as I was with the growing, flowering plants in equal miniature or the well executed horse’s saddle, and so on.

Along a walk outside, they had various other amusements. Kids were making their own Kofi on a long table. Teenagers were practicing some dance moves to some electronic music. I walked down further to the long line of booths selling orchids and ferns and cactus. The orchids were orchids, and the cacti were cacti, but the ferns were not ferns. They were great, strange, terrible things; some were mounted aloft on square pieces of blackened earth, and they grew, as if on tree bark, and let flow down great antlers of green, or else they curled and toiled themselves outward and inward in odd, yet simple, shapes like pale, oddly colored ears. Some ferns were growing out of pots, some in full spread, others in long searching tendrils, their tongues, like those of butterflies, still tightly curled, pondering their nearing execution of perfection. And yet others hadn’t pushed forth their green stems at all, and what sat in the black soil was a hairy stump, something ugly and soft that would eventually sprout the great spindly fern when conditions were hopeful.

In the last stall I was pleased to smell something familiar. A woman was serving some oolong in a very neat stall with various shelves with tea sets (as well as random tea cups and pictures and pots). Her name was Carol and she spoke English very well, although she denied this when I told her. We talked about the pottery (she collected it and didn’t make it) and the different glazes, the Kofi pottery that I had just seen; but more we talked about the cups in her shop and tea. She was impressed that I liked “Chinese tea,” that all her other western friends didn’t like it. We finished drinking the Ali Shan and she brewed me some organic tea (I didn’t quite understand this, but the “organic” part of it had to do with some worm that ate some part of the leaf) from a place I think she said was Shi Tou, an hour north of Chiayi. She very innocently asked if I liked this tea better or Ali Shan better, but it was something like a test with a very obvious answer. I told her I liked the latter (Shi Tou) better, and it was true. It was better, and much more fragrant, and she smiled and we went on talking. She again—innocently—asked me if I liked tea or coffee. I said I liked them both quite well. Again, here she was in agreement with me and told me that every morning she had to have some black coffee. After every subsequent meal she always made tea—this kind of tea, in this fashion, not just a bottle of tea you buy at the store, she told me. She told me that a true delight on a very hot day was a liter bottle filled with cool water let sit in the fridge with a scoop of rolled oolong for about 8 hours, until the tea completely unraveled. After that—she had no English word to describe it—but it was obviously a very fine thing to drink. It was a very pleasant conversation, and all the while the wind would blow, or I would wander about her shop again, looking at the pieces, and then sit back down again. Another lady sat down to drink with us and we had something of a Chinese lesson; indeed, I have my best lessons over tea, it seems. And at some point, much later, I excused myself. Rain looked very imminent and, as I wheeled home, I found that at least thunder and lightening was imminent, and also that I had a flat tire. But this was happiness I tell you, and somehow or other, I am here again typing, with thoughts of school, thoughts of dinner, thoughts of an hour train ride north to Shi Tou when I next can fix it and so on

Coffee and Sympathy

Begun in a note book July 23rd, Wednesday, 8 something o’clock, at Good Afternoon Cafe

I’m in a very nice coffee house that I’m in for the first time. I wasn’t interested in going here until tonight when I realized how close it was to my apartment and how nice it would be to have a calm place to do some of my work and to shed my thoughts, something I’ve been unable to do lately in my all too familiar apartment so close to the school and not on the hot night streets or crowded dusky parks, but I needed the sensation distance and coolness. And then, when I arrived, I almost turned around again. I was met at the door with a waiter with a red bow tie and a menu and a head of hair that was so excessive it should not have been allowed in this country or any country, and I looked down the long line of various glass contraptions that occupied the bar, no doubt for some exotic way of boiling water, and I thought, I hate excessive coffee places. And I saw all the tables filled with families and couples and all this told me that it was not somewhere for a long traveler to simply come and rest, certainly not one who would make the point of nursing one’s coffee for several hours simply for the excuse of a place to sit and think. In that kind of situation, it is such a bother to have someone wait on you. You feel rushed, and then before you know it you’re back out on the streets with your thoughts again and no relief. But I couldn’t turn around now and so I acquiesced to get one coffee and leave. That I was a foreigner that apparently didn’t know how to order coffee in such a strange place, the manager was beckoned who could speak English, and immediately it came out that I was a teacher (for the second time tonight someone had asked me, “what job do you have?” and it occurs to me now that the only foreigners that I’ve seen have been at work and probably most white people that are here have a job, like me, teaching English. And for the second time that night the person knew about Imagine Children’s School, this latter instance being less surprising as the school is right down the road.

They worked it out that I just wanted a coffee (perhaps you couldn’t just order a coffee) and I requested it to be with ice, which is what I’m so used to ordering in second and third rate joints where they basically load the coffee up with sweet and condensed milk and it transforms into a real cooling treat. But, as soon as I saw him grinding the coffee right in front of me, I thought what nonsense that was. I decided that to ice the coffee (and thus diminish the taste and delicacy of freshness) would be a travesty and that no matter how hot I was, I would drink my coffee hot anyway. And so we had another exchange, first with the waiter, and then with the manager to make sure that indeed I did want hot coffee, and then we talked a little bit of how to say, hot and cold, in Chinese. I put my stuff at the bar so that they wouldn’t have to worry about finding a table for me, and so I sat down my shoulder bag and a 5800 ml jug of water that I had just bought for drinking purposes in my apartment. With shorts and socks and slippers I felt just a little bit silly and out of place, sitting on the high stool at the bar, especially when he began brewing the coffee in the beautiful glass instruments that employed sophisticated and balanced laws of heat and pressure to produce a truly fascinating show of coffee being infused with and then strained of coffee—all this with his excessive hair and bar suit I felt a little bit awkward and hung out to dry for everyone to see. The coffee was then placed in a truly delicate set of china with a mixing instrument of a sort of gold and silver that I have never seen before and when he sat it by me he also said, “and here is some cake.” Something in the way he said it made me not refuse it, as if one always got cake with coffee. Perhaps, the order of coffee (I saw on the menu it looked like all orders were around 150 NT—which is 5 dollars) always came with cake, but it also seems like they could have simply given me my coffee and taken off part of the price of the thing. Surely they did not think I expected cake? But, anyway, I was in mood for cake too, and so I accepted it.

Something that I still don’t understand are the ebbs and flows of the after work hours of Taiwan. Restaurants fill and empty very quickly, as if everyone were going to the same event, so eating in a crowded restaurant, you’ll look around to suddenly find you’re alone. And walking passed an empty restaurant on the way in to town, on the out of town, will be way packed. This penchant for fluctuation of moons and pulls invisible to me occurred while I was drinking that coffee, and before I had finished my cake and coffee (I was very nearly done, actually) and having not bothered to even pull out my lesson planning, I was suddenly ushered to a small comfortable table and chair where no body was sitting. In fact, nobody was sitting anywhere in the vicinity and half the place was now empty. And then everything suddenly seemed to get twice as good. By some secret—are they being nice to teachers? are they trying to win over a foreigner?—a waitress after sometime brought me another cake, this one a Taiwanese pudding, with milk and bean on it and she explained, in broken English, what it was and that it was very good and then she asked me more questions about how long I had been here, if I knew Chinese, and so on. And then after more time had passed and I thought (gosh, it better look like I’m working) they brought me another coffee, and when I had finished that, they brought me some water, and I sat in the chair for, oh, I don’t know how long. And I kept thinking how free that had all been. What would happen when I returned to the restaurant? When do I become a customer and not an object of interest and generosity? And I sat there and thought up ridiculous lesson plans for me six year olds, mostly involving various doodles of frowning stick figures about to be swallowed by monsters or sliced in two by pirates or another stick figure representing “the boy who cried wolf” (we had read the book the day before) who I put surrounded by savage forest beasts and I gave him a little voice shouting, “help, help, help, please help me!” And I wandered in that abstract sense wherein it is impossible to ascertain the truth whether my six year olds would help the boy with the game I had thought up or if these plans were nothing but wasted paper, broken wind, and one more progressive mistake.