新竹站到了

Well time keeps on slippin’ while I stay right here. It’s been a month since updates, and why you ask? First of all, the daily grind is quite pedestrian. I get up, do nothing significant, go to work, come back and do more nothing, then sleep. Second the weekends can be quite fun, but then when there’s something to write about, I either don’t have the time, or have the time but want to spend it doing something that isn’t so laborious.

I’m going to cover a whole lot as quick as I can so stay with me. New Year’s has been discussed, then the next week was my birthday. I’m still the youngest at my branch, hooray! My actual birthday wasn’t on a weekend, so instead we waited until Saturday to go out. First people gathered at our apartment for just a few drinks, then off to local American restaurant #1, Squares. I had a quite nice burger there though I have since found better. After that, we went to a (pretty crappy) nightclub called Goethburg. It has really tacky décor and a subpar sound system, with a meh DJ. I didn’t really mind however; since clubs in general aren’t my thing I spent the vast majority of my time playing foosball outside the main bar area. I already won a couple games during training and I fancy myself pretty good, so I challenged my friends first and then some strangers. I won more than I lost but still came out with a disappointing record around ~.667 but I guess that’s what happens when you’re out of practice. After everyone else got tired of the club we called it a night.

This party pretty much just consisted of people in my extended network of work friends. We got a new roommate that Friday however and she joined us too. Hailing from New York, there are now 3 of us in the apartment, making rent much lower but also just adding another person to talk to, so really everyone is a winner in the arrangement. In an example of mind-numbing bureaucracy, she needed an original lease in order to apply for the Alien Resident Card, not a copy. Sounds normal, right? Well, her name isn’t anywhere on it. In fact there’s nothing to indicate she didn’t steal it or outright invent some fictional property, but the office needs a piece of paper and the gears of government must turn.

The weekend after amounted to nothing much. During the week I went to a meeting about teaching at an elementary school. This is a unique program to this elementary school, apparently because some rich sponsor went there decades ago and now wants to fund English classes for the whole school or something, complete with real live foreigners. It will add an extra 4 hours a week to my pay so that will be nice, and will also serve to get me up in the morning instead of being so lazy.

On the 22^nd/23^rd, my roommates went to Taipei to see LMFAO do a show at a high-end club called Luxy. Since I was not as enthralled with this group, I went to Taichung. Met up with Yvonne, went to a housewarming party, went to another club, and watched a bunch of movies. One of them was Deliverance which is a mightily messed up movie, but truly excellent in every way. I came back Sunday night and graded a bunch of homework.

A week after that, it was almost Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is the only extended vacation time I get. There are a couple random national holidays we get off, but CNY is 6 days, Feb 2-7. Before that though, was the weekend then a couple days. The work was easy; the weekend was a little more eventful. Yvonne came up, and on Saturday we two and my roommates went for hot pot with about a dozen friends. That went well, then the guys split up and we went to a bar while the girls went to a club. We talked, they danced, and both got back late. To make a long story short, Yvonne and I had something of a falling out. She left on Sunday, for good.

Having a two-day workweek was nice, getting paid early was nicer, and actual CNY was the nicest. At first it was weird; every non-chain shop was abandoned all day for several days. Tuesday was the last day of work, Wednesday was CNY eve which we spent in Hsinchu lighting off bottle rockets (I’m sort of a pro at lighting 4 at a time, arcing, and the simultaneous cross-direction light) on top of our building’s roof. Thursday we went to Taipei, dropped our stuff at the Happy Family Hostel, got food and then waited for a training friend to come up from Taichung. Did that hostel sound familiar? Before you go looking, yes it was the one I stayed at prior to training and yes, I remembered the way back perfectly without having to wander aimlessly for kilometers.

We retrieved our friend at the train station, dropped off his stuff, and made our way to the zoo. It was actually quite cool. We only got there at 2:30 or so but spent all 2.5 hours we could there until it closed and still didn’t see it all. The highlights were the huge nocturnal house which was the largest I’ve ever been in by far and of course the giant pandas. They are named Tuantuan and Yuanyuan which if put together i.e. tuanyuan or 團圓 as it would be written in characters, means “reunion.” It’s the same word used for what families do during Chinese New Year when they all gather together back at their parents’ home. Why name a pair of pandas after something so silly? Do you name your dogs Thanks and Giving?

The pandas, like every giant panda everywhere in the world, are actually on a loan from China. And seeing as how “reunification” is a top priority for the glorious people’s republic across the strait, the names were chosen with obvious intent. Still, the pandas draw huge crowds and at least when you’re at the zoo, nobody seems to mind what the cute and fuzzy bamboo-munchers are called. Random side note: one of the bathrooms at the zoo was covered in fecal matter. Paintings, photos, and diagrams of how they harvest poop and what it’s used for adorn the outside of this bathroom. I didn’t use it and see the inside, though now I’m wishing I had.

The zoo closing, we took the MRT back downtown. After changing we went to the Brass Monkey, the most popular foreigner bar in Taipei. It’s really nothing that special and the beer is overpriced, but they had Eric’s favorite, foosball. I played against the friends I was with and for the most part crushed them. Then I played the locals, who were another beast entirely. As I said I think I’m pretty good at the game. I always did well in Thanksgiving tournaments. I played against an Italian and a local, and the games were razor-thin. Both I had to come back from; one I won 10-9 after being down 3-6, the other I won 5-4 after being down 1-3. Yet despite those wins, I don’t honestly think I was the superior player. I got the lucky bounces and amazing saves I needed. Still, it was a rush just to play. Then I ran into Tom.

Tom is an ace. He’s could be a better hustler than Terrence Howard. He had every facet of the game refined to diamantine perfection. The through passes from defense, quick goalie moves, and best of all, the quick-strike offense were all a clinic. He knew how to place the ball absolutely perfectly, and most impressively, he was just so fast. I knew what was happening. By the time it was 1-3 (my determination not to get skunked paid off) I already knew the drill, but I was helpless against the next two goals. He placed the ball so immaculately I couldn’t help but stand amused. After such a shellacking I walked off head held high, albeit in defeat.

From the Brass Monkey we went to Room 18, yet another club. After paying for cover and a drink, I opened my red envelope to discover three casino chips. They had a blackjack table as part of their CNY festivities. I played pretty close to optimum play, or at least as close as I could for having three drinks in me, no recollection of the blackjack card, and a burning desire to win. I didn’t do anything super stupid like splitting tens, and tried to hold off when the dealer had a low up-card. It didn’t help, and I never got higher than 5 chips before busting out. I honestly didn’t ever care however, since I still have no clue what the chips were even good for. All I know is they didn’t exchange them for drinks, so how useful could they be?

Three hours burned away pretty quickly at Room 18. Before long we were outside and on the way to Family Mart. Why pay a 5-10x premium in a club when there’s a perfectly good convenience store nearby? Around 3:30AM someone had the idea we should get bagels. I wasn’t about to disagree so I got in the cab. We got out at a KTV parlor. In the middle of the trip, I overheard a phone conversation that they were closed. I don’t know why this then meant we had to go to a KTV place, but 6 of us did anyway, and we stayed until past 7:00 AM. Truly, this was not my idea. It was made even more difficult by the fact that there were 3 Taiwanese, 3 foreigners, and one of the foreigners simply didn’t sing; he took the mic, danced, but made no audible sound. Now I swear to you I like KTV when of a sufficient BAC, but even this was a bit much for me. Thankfully as my voice died and the night turned to morning more and more Chinese songs were added to the playlist. I wasn’t complaining.

We exited KTV and immediately noticed Taipei was saturated by the glow of natural vitamin D. Not having slept yet, this was quite odd. My roommate and I flagged a taxi (new roommate and friend had retired at various points already) and shuffled over to our hostel rooms. Three and a half hours later, there was a knock on the door saying we had to get out. We did, moseyed over to the train station across the street, and bought our tickets. My heart sank as the ticket lady informed us “沒有位子。” No seats. Well damn, normally I can take a standing ride with the best of them, but I was not feeling at the top of my game. No one was. We boarded the train with dread in our eyes. Thankfully, Taipei was the first stop for this train. We got on and commandeered some still-empty seats, dreading the time they would be claimed by their rightful owners.

Miraculously, it never happened. I don’t know how no one badgered us, but all four of us rode on in tranquility to Hsinchu. It might be because we were foreign. Or maybe the people who had our seats took other seats and were never evicted themselves – I certainly noticed people checking tickets and looking at us. Whatever it was, it was heavenly. Ninety minutes later the loudspeaker announced some of the most comforting words ever: “新竹站到了。” or “We have arrived at Hsinchu Station.” We left, ate, and slept.

This was not the end of CNY, indeed it was only the beginning. The rest was less frenetic though, and while we went to a club in Hsinchu for a psy-trance party another friend had been dying to go to, everyone was very chill and it wasn’t a comparatively late night.

That’s where I stand. Short week this week since we started on Tuesday, but otherwise back to normalcy. I’ll try to get back to weekly updates, or at least every two weeks since I know these long posts are a lot to digest. But really if you think it takes a long time to read, remember how much longer the creation process is. I know pretty pictures break up the monotony and I do have a few pictures to upload, but I can’t be bothered to do that at 2:30AM. I’ll get some of my scooter up too at some point.

PS The scooter tow story is unremarkable, I just got the borrowed scooter towed then had to get a coworker to help me find it and pay the fine. Nothing special there other than my advice to not park in the handicap spot in front of the train station. Not a good idea, even if it did work once before.

下次！

Pleasant Weekend and Wolves in ATM Clothing

Classes started a week ago, but my Classical Chinese class is pitifully easy. Each day we go over a short story, character by slow and painful character, for two hours and fifteen minutes of class time. I feel like I die a little bit inside every time in class, and the last half an hour is like pulling teeth. Okay maybe it’s not quite as bad as that, but it’s really slow, really easy, and I question the usefulness of the content. It’s required for the major however so I don’t really have an option to switch out of it anyway.

The easiness of the classes has at least permitted more free time. We are basically able to eat, drink, and be merry whenever. One easy thing to do here is take advantage of the not only the cheap beer, but also cheap bootleg DVDs.

Yes, 10 kuai DVDs. Sure, the default settings are set to Chinese, the packaging is questionable, they don’t play on some computers, and the menu titles are sometimes in Chinese, but it’s still sweet. For less than a buck and a half you have a movie that you would have paid 10x for in America. Also, movies that haven’t exactly been released yet on DVD such as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or occasionally even movies that aren’t even out in theaters yet (The Dark Knight last year). Combine these all-region/region-free discs with a cheap DVD player and it’s quite nice. I’ve already seen Night At The Museum, Yes Man, Wolverine, and half of He’s Just Not That Into You. (I fell asleep halfway through, brought on by a case of overwhelming boredom.)

The sketchy/cheap part of China has its downsides however. As I noted last post, I took out 1500 yuan and went happily on my way. What I neglected to mention was that I tried two ATMs before the third one let me have my money. These first two were both on campus, and neither worked last year, however I decided to give them a try and see if they were back up. Sort of. The first one told me it was broken and I moved to the second. It seemed to be working okay, but when I put in the amount I wanted it told me that there was no money left and gave me back my card and I took a receipt. Normally, I am so very good at keeping receipts and other paper-trail items. I keep gas receipts for a week or so. However after I got my money from the third ATM, I returned to my room and the receipt was chucked in the trash. After all, the result was the exact same as last year, so I figured no problem.

A couple days later when doing a routine check on my bank account, I noticed there were two withdrawals, on the same day. One of these was for $148 from an ATM on Weijin Lu, which happens to be the street our campus is on. I immediately commenced a search for the receipt but the trash had already been taken out (it is done daily) and I was feeling quite royally screwed. After cursing a few times, I asked my bank (UW Credit Union) to dispute it and explained what happened. They responded that after the machine is audited which is done every week or so, the money in the machine may not add up with the withdrawals. So basically the fate of my $148 is in the hands of some sketchy-ass local bank official who is probably taking large chunks out of the dumb 老外 (laowai, a slightly derogatory term for foreigner literally meaning “old outsider”) who decide to use their ATM. My bank explained that it could be up to 45 days for an answer since it’s an international thing, but I’ve basically already written it off as a loss. In my account right now I see I have been reimbursed (minus a $1.50 fee but whatever) though I’m not sure if that is the credit I have been extended by my bank, or if I won this small battle. I’ll see if it goes away and then talk to my bank. Lessons can be expensive.

On Saturday we took a ridiculously easy test and were out of class by 9:00AM. The supposed afternoon classes to compensate for missing earlier never materialized, thankfully. After a small talk by a 警察 (jingcha, police) on the dangers of not respecting local customs and which bars not to go to, we settled in, watched movies and ate, then promptly went to one of the clubs we were warned against.

This is not some stupid rebellious move that is seeking trouble. The truth is that the program does not particularly want to be liable for what happens when a dumb American gets belligerent drunk in a night club, makes a pass at some Chinese guy’s girlfriend and gets punched up something fierce. And if one were to avoid all human contact, you could also avoid the same fate. But where’s the fun in that?

So the girls took a few hours to beautify, and I changed into a never-fail classic in China: my Say No To Scurvy shirt.woot.com shirt. This shirt has everything. First, it is awesome, even in America. Second, it has English on it that 特别少 (very few) Chinese people will be able to understand, which makes me look awesome. Thirdly, that ridiculous looking cutesy orange with a smiley face is completely in line with the rest of this country’s unhealthy obsession with things like Doraemon and 喜洋洋. So it’s a born winner basically. At the club we bought a bottle of whiskey, and my night ended up playing a lot of the totally awesome game of Liar’s Dice which involves way too much thought given it is a drinking game. Though I guess that provides extra incentive not to suck.

Coming back to the club, I was once again feeling a craving. For a massage. So a friend and I went to the massage place at 2:00AM or something and got foot massages. They are open 24 hours, as I loudly noted several times. There is very little that feels better than getting a foot massage while starting to nod off and still a little bit intoxicated.

And being as how it was a one-day weekend, that is basically it. Class has resumed and is still easy. My tutor and I usually read those Pleasant Goat books together, because they are just a little bit above my level so are a pretty good way to learn, and there is not much for her to tutor me on really. I think some of us are planning some travel this weekend, but I’m not at all sure where. Our Beijing trip will be coming up the weekend after that, and I should have a veritable cornucopia of pictures from that.

下次

Pains, Trains, and Automobiles The First

The long weekend will be split into two posts so it is an easier read for you and doesn't take me several hours to write. The first post will more or less cover Thursday/Friday and the second will cover Saturday/Sunday.

Movies! I added a link to the right that has movies I took. Uploading to Youtube is a pain here so right now you will only get them in this way. I only have 20 or so (I am still in the process of uploading them) and they are all labeled so it shouldn't be too annoying to look through them and not have to worry about repeat viewings. Some are pretty cool, including a fight between two captured crabs and a backhoe putting tons of seaweed on a dump truck. This is the first frame of the seaweed movie. I will talk a little more about this in the next post.

Thursday was our midterm, and it went fairly decently. I scored a 90% on the written part, which together with my 95% on the oral made for a 90.5 grade. Decent. My current grade is something like 90.3% which will allow me to punch in an A if we get all the extra credit we are promised. (Up to 4% or so) One thing that seems a little more evident now is that given the detailed grade sheet they are keeping they don't seem very inclined to hand everyone A's. Enough of boring grades.

After the midterm, people cleared out of the dorm pretty quickly in an effort to make the most of our time available. I left at 4:00 and went to Shino's parents' apartment. We caught a bus where, unsurprisingly, I was stared at. It happens a lot when you are half a foot taller than everyone and your hair and skin are almost bright enough to have a Lumen count all their own. At Shino's parents' while she packed I watched CCTV 9 for a short while, which is China's dedicated English channel, and broadcasts news and also some Discovery Channel styled programs. I learned about an English reporter's efforts to document the Boxer Rebellion. Her dad returned from work, and we then went to dinner. One thing in China is that it is quite kosher to go to a restaurant and BYOB. We packed 4 beers, bottles of Coke, Sprite, and apple soda, and a bottle of baijiu (hard liquor; pronounce this bye-jeeoh) that was 56% alcohol. Shino poured a glass full of the baijiu for her dad, and by the end of dinner he downed it no problem, nver grimacing at a sip. At dinner I learned that her mom works in the military, and her dad either still does or used to. At their apartment I saw a little trophy of sorts that said "PLA SECOND ARTILLERY" with a little howitzer. Her family is also at least fairly rich. The apartment is in a fairly nice part of town, and they have a flatscreen TV, DVR, and lots of other expensive-looking things that probably break easily. They also have plenty of room, and are on the 11th floor of the building. There is also only 1 apartment per floor and 1 office suite. Anyhow, it was obvious that her family is connected somehow, which I thought at the time was pretty cool. After a dinner of a bunch of meats and vegetables thrown into a pot to cook in some sauce on a hot plate (pretty standard fare, even for America) we returned to the apartment and shortly thereafter departed to the train station.

Train stations here are some of the most filthy places imaginable. First of all, there were just hordes of people. Most all of them were sitting on the ground, everyone having staked out a little square. Those that did not sit on seats sat on newspaper so the AIDS and SARS infested floor would not osmosisize through to their flesh. You know when a native Chinese person or hundreds even decide that the floor is too dirty, it is most definitely dirty. Undeterred, I grabbed a seat on the concrete and played games of hangman with Shino. Not before this however, I got the usual stares and then some. It was rather uncomfortable here, just a general sense of unease. I knew I was being watched by 25% of the room at any given time, and I got the feeling that they were all judging me rather negatively. I don't really care what any of them individually thought, but when an entire room has a rather strong animosity toward you, it's not the most secure feeling. The train departed around midnight. There are 5 kinds of train travel classes, which are standing, hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. A hard seat is basically purgatory. You get a small and uncomfortably seat and are crammed in with the other plebians. A standing ticket is somewhat like the Malebolge. You stand, crouch, shuffle, fidget, lean. If you are brave you lie down in the middle of the aisle and go to sleep. We had hard sleepers, which is basically a pimped-out cot. Once again, I was about as long as the cot and it was only a few inches wider than me with my arms at my side lying down. A soft seat is like a nice or decent airplane or bus seat, and a soft sleeper you get a real bed, sometimes with your own mini TV and other entertainment amenities. This picture is from 5:30AM after waking up from 5 hours of fitful sleep. Probably not at my most attractive right here.

The time spent in transit was probably what made the weekend feel so long. After some calculating, I spent only a few hours less traveling between Tianjin and Penglai than actually in Penglai. About 36 hours vs. 32 on the road. After the train arrived in Qingdao at about 7:30 AM we waited for a bus to take us to Penglai. After sitting around for two hours, we finally got one. It turned out we missed one an hour or so earlier. (Wag of the finger to you Shino.) Now mother, this was not my fault. I would periodically ask Shino if she knew when one was coming, and how would we know when one did. She said they would shout it out, though they had not shouted the destination of any of the other buses leaving. At two hours of waiting, I asked her to go check again and there was a minibus ready, about to leave. We got on, and I refrained from giving her any grief.



This is the bus. We were more than halfway to the back. At some point the bus was filled up. The bus ride was 5 hours, and consisted of eating of lunch, and mostly sleeping. I snapped many annoyingly glare-filled shots of the countryside and small towns we passed through. We arrived in Penglai at 2 or 3 or so and I decided to partake of a nap upon arrival. I woke up for dinner. We were served with steamed mussels, some other cooked shellfish, and some other celery dish with what may have been scallops or chopped squid. I really don't know my seafood. It was good though, and there was a vinegar sauce that was tasty in small quantities. After dinner we went to the beach and collected shells. The beach was fairly decent. In the US it would qualify as nothing special, below average, but I was expecting a lot worse for China. The water was not any differently colored than our beaches, and there was no searing burning afterwards. After shell collecting we went for a quick dip which was very cold. Finally, I showed Shino what a sandcastle was and how to build one. I tried some night photography and got mixed results, which you can see in the Picasa Google albums to the right, in the album cleverly labeled Part 2.

One of my favorites:

We went to bed relatively early, after watching some Winnie the Pooh cartoons (in Chinese of course) because we knew that we would have to be up early the next day for what can generously be described as "Ye olde charter fishing toure" that was basically a ghetto rowboat trip out to some rocky shallows to look around for wildlife, and it was actually quite reminiscent of tidepool trips from California, although there was nothing as cool as anemones. Anyhow, next update you'll get that full story and much more interesting stuff than in this post. I'm done for today, and am already looking forward to getting yet another massage tonight. I had a foot massage last time, which was definitely nice, but the sensation just wasn't the same as a Chinese girl two-thirds my weight putting every pound of pressure available on an elbow shoved into your back.