My birthday

It was my birthday last month which wasn't a very big deal. Usually everyone's busy entertaining family because my birthday happens to fall during the Obon holidays, which is when the souls of your dead ancestors cross over into this world to be with you. Most people spend the whole time at home, but Hanae and Yoko fulfilled their family obligations on the first day and had the whole rest of the vacation free.

The original plan was to go camping, but it was so rainy the whole time that we ended up staying at my place where we watched 12 hours of "So You Think You Can Dance." What a fantastic show. Thank you so much Speck for sending those tapes. We LOVED them. Not only were the dances great, we got totally into certain contestants and were crushed when Dimitri got cut. And I couldn't believe how professional they looked week after week from only practicing for 2-3 days. I wonder if they happen to have a compilation of the season's dances on a single DVD.

After being trapped indoors for a couple days we felt the need to do something outside. The only place we could think of that would be fun in rainy weather was the aquarium, which is usually $20 a person but half-price during the week of someone's birthday!

I hadn't been there since it opened and was a little disappointed to find some things gone. I was looking forward to seeing the Clione again and the dozen sea otters have somehow dwindled down to only one. Did they die? Those were actually my two favorite things about Umitamago. I found a picture of Clione in case you've never seen them before. They flap their wings back and forth, hovering vertically like sea angels.There were a few new things that were nice, like the mother and baby sloth in the birdhouse. And like the walrus that swam up to the glass and sucked himself while visitors gasped.I also liked the new snake-like fish that bobbed up and down from their holes in the sand. When something scared them they pulled back into their holes at lightening speed, then slowly peeped out again after a while. Hanae spent her time pounding on the glass to make them zoom into their holes, and I'm sure we would have been booted out of the place if anyone had seen her thumping her fist against the glass. She continued to do this for roughly ten minutes.

Then we went to see the poisonous frogs, and she did the same thing except the frog cases were made of a much weaker plastic. There was an enormous booming sound throughout the hall when her fist hit the case and the whole thing shuddered. I'm so relieved the case didn't shatter. She stopped pounding things after that.In the area with the pool of sea cucumbers and starfish, Hanae was the only one of us brave enough to reach in and pick one up. Apparently they're slippery and soft when you squeeze them.I never realized how beautiful pelicans were. At least I think these are pelicans.The clownfish are always a hit. Everyone stands around the tank calling them "Nemo" as if that's what they're really called. Retards.I love how the lights in the jellyfish tank change and make them glow.One thing I'm pretty sure you won't hear if you visit an aquarium back in the States is a bunch of people admiring the fish while shouting, "Oh! Delicious! I wanna eat that one!" It kind of grossed me out. I was having a nice enough time watching the beautiful fish glide through the water and skillfully avoid one another while swimming in such a small space, only to have my thoughts interrupted by someone behind me talking about which restaurants cook them up best. Cultural differences, I guess.

We stayed until closing time and went back to the big tank after everyone had left. It was nice having the whole place to ourselves and being able to enjoy the silence. It felt like we were underwater with the enormous manta rays and long-nosed sharks. And since we had the enormous room to ourselves, we pretended that we were on "So You Think You Can Dance" and leaped around, twirling in circles. There were even cushioned chairs that were great for jumping off of and using as dancing props.

I don't know what this creature is called. I'm pretty sure it's one of a kind.It was a really nice, relaxing 4-day birthday. We also drove over the mountain behind Beppu to Yufuin, but that's a story for another day.

Blackberries

Earlier I'd mentioned that the blackberry twig I planted last year bore fruit, but I never posted any photos. Don't they just look delicious? Every couple weeks I pick all the ripe ones and I've discovered a few things:

1) If you have to pull on the blackberry to pick it, it's gonna be sour. The ones that fall off when you touch them are really sweet.

2) Ants know which ones are sweet and usually get to them first, so you hardly ever get to eat the really sweet ones.

3) If you invite your friend named Yoko to come and visit, you will open the door to find her picking and eating all your blackberries.

Now you know about me and my blackberries. That is all.

Louis Vuitton wallet

Japan is totally materialistic. I was shocked when a friend told me his Louis Vuitton sandals cost $700 and his bag was a couple thousand bucks. How could anyone spend so much on an accessory? Simply ridiculous! Then I started looking around and noticed that pretty much everyone has brand name bags, watches, clothes, jewelry and shoes. Even high school students.

In my mind, quality is more important than the name. I used to hate labels. I even blacked out the white logo of my North Face jacket so it would be less visible and only bought stuff if there weren't any visible brand markings. I hated being associated with the image that came with a brand.

Somewhere along the line that changed. Maybe because brand name labels are so prevalent in Japan that having a Gucci belt or Ferragamo keychain isn't anything special. Everyone has something brand name. I guess if everyone has it then there isn't much of an image associated with the name (or is the image normalcy?). So when a friend gave me his Louis Vuitton and Gucci hand-me-downs, I started using them without a second thought. One of the things he gave me was his old Louis Vuitton wallet (photo from website).I loved it. It's hard to find men's wallets that hold coins. It was sturdy, a nice size, held a lot of cards and retained its shape well. But after a couple years he wanted it back because it was in a lot better shape than the wallet he was using, so we traded. I didn't like the "new" one as much because the part that holds coins is on the outside of the wallet, and I had to open and close the button several times if I'm using/receiving bills and coins at the same time. Even though the "new" one had cost more (from the Louis Vuitton black Vernis line), it was just less convenient than the first one.Then I found out that last month Louis Vuitton presented a new line called "Damier Graphite" that uses a black checkerboard pattern instead of the traditional brown one. So sleek! It looks so much better than the brown, and I instantly decided to get the Damier Graphite version of the wallet that I liked so much. Never having bought anything from the Louis Vuitton store before, I was surprised to see that the wallet came in a little drawer-type box and was carefully wrapped in its own pouch. The receipt even came in a little envelope with a formal printout of the transaction - my name along with what I bought, where I bought it, and the name of the woman who sold it to me. The saleswoman carried my bag for me and accompanied me to the door, then bowed very low as I walked out. What service!And how much did it cost? More than I paid for my car, which either says something about the cost of the wallet, or the price of my car. It has a nice texture, feels sturdy, is a perfect size, and I love it. So now that I've bought something from Louis Vuitton, does that make me materialistic? There was also a bag that I thought was pretty cool but the price is way more than I'm willing to pay ($1600). But who knows, perhaps I'm becoming more materialistic by the day and you'll see my new bag pictured here in the future, like this guy.On a sidenote, I started thinking about the most expensive things I've ever bought. Here's my ranking of most expensive things:

1) Bright Red Toyota Corolla with 10-carat gold lettering and wood interior (I loved that car and had to sell it when I came to Japan)

2) Dell Computer with scanner/printer

3) Plane tickets (Thailand, China, Cambodia, Taiwan, Hawaii, Spain, etc.)

4) Louis Vuitton Damier Graphite wallet

5) Mitsubishi Toppo (my current car). I love how the back has a door, I can fit my folding bike in it, the side mirrors are huge like bus mirrors, and it has a high ceiling with a compartment to store stuff.

Cute Snake

I just looked outside to see if the cat was by the window waiting to come in. I saw her tentatively creeping towards the corner of the garden so I went outside to see what she was curious about. It was a snake!

I pulled her back just in time. She had her nose forward, ready to sniff at it but the snake looked ready to strike. I carried her into the house and ran back outside with my camera but I couldn't find it in the dark. Too bad.

I don't think it was poisonous because mamushi are brown with triangular heads and this one was striped. It was pretty small, only about a foot long and as thin around as a finger. I wonder if there are other poisonous snakes in this area besides mamushi. I guess I should find out before digging in the leaves looking for it.

Oita Scandal

I haven't had free time to do anything since my workload increased, and haven't even turned on the TV since March 14 - there's an old TV Guide sitting in the living room and it's opened to that page, so that's probably the last day I watched TV. But I turned on the TV this week. Why? Because I wanted to watch the news to find out more about what everyone's been talking about: how Oita is on the national news every day for having a corrupt government/education system. My little section of Japanese countryside has become famous throughout all of Japan!

In Japan teachers are respected and their salaries are quite good, so it's natural for people to want to become teachers. Unfortunately, only a handful of people are allowed to pass the certification exams because of the few positions available, and the hundreds that don't pass continue taking the exam year after year hoping to one day pass. I've known so many people who knew what they were up against but kept trying anyway. It's especially difficult to become a high school teacher; a friend told me that only one person can be certified as a history teacher when a hundred people take the history certification test. The competition is compounded by the fact that there is an age limit to be certified as a teacher. I can't remember the exact age, but I think it was around 30, meaning that you have to be certified before then or give up (although you can still be a part-time teacher without passing the certification exam).

In the time that I've lived here, I've come to accept that having connections is more important than having qualifications. I've talked with so many people who have their jobs because their parents were friends with so-and-so or because a current employee recommended them for the job. Of course everyone goes through the application process, but the ones who have connections are chosen for the position. I've come to accept this as a normal part of Japanese culture. I could tell you dozens of examples... friends who knew they wouldn't get the job before going to the interview because someone at the company already recommended their friend, or companies that place ads for job openings with the implicit understanding that priority is given to those with connections to someone already working there. Many places don't even bother advertising, but simply ask the current employees if they know someone. Of course giving priority to people you know is natural and happens all over the world, but to a far greater extent here.

And I always thought that using these kinds of connections were simply a part of Japanese culture. But it seems that I may have been wrong. Is this only a part of Oita culture?

The scandal that has been plaguing Oita for these past couple weeks is in regard to teacher certification. A woman was arrested for giving out gift certificates in exchange for her children receiving priority in becoming certified as teachers. Then investigators discovered that the officials in charge of certifying new teachers routinely gave priority to friends and acquaintances, which I thought was a completely normal thing to do and something that everyone already knew about. Apparently this isn't normal throughout the rest of Japan, because several of Oita's BOE officials were arrested and the rest of Japan appears shocked by this "scandal". The BOE officials from other parts of Japan have been saying things like, "The situation in Oita is simply unbelievable" and "That would never happen here."

Really? Is it only Oita that's like that? Could my view of Japan be totally skewed?

Since the "scandal" has come to light, investigators have discovered that about half of the teachers in Oita were certified because they had connections or gave gifts to officials. I don't want to use the word "bribe" because giving gifts in return for favor is a part of Japanese culture, and it's hard to distinguish when the line is crossed into "bribery". Perhaps it's just Oita where gift-giving is so freely done, but I do know that gift-giving is practiced all over Japan.

If you want something, it's quite normal to use your connections and say "yoroshiku onegaishimasu". There really isn't an English equivalent but in this case it could be translated to mean something like, "I trust that you'll treat me well" or "Please give me priority". And when you tack on Japan's gift-giving culture, it becomes really difficult to know what is "bribery" and what is an interaction between friends.

The investigators have stated that they're going to revoke the teaching licenses of those who are found to have used connections or "bribes" to pass the certification exam, but this is proving to be a difficult task because test results in Oita were deleted (apparently other places save them for 10 years). There is also a movement to have the certification of teachers be done in a way that isn't connected to the current Board of Education and can't be influenced by government officials.

It just so happens that the teacher certification exams were held this weekend. I guess this year everyone is on equal ground and no one can use their connections. Good for those with ability, not so good for those who were expecting to pass.

Having only ever lived in Oita, I've begun to wonder if what I think of as "Japanese culture" is really only the culture of my small section of Japanese countryside.

Here's one article about the scandal but it's only the bare-bones facts about what's happening. The news clips and long-discussions on TV are much more interesting.

One other thing I find interesting: my recent conversations with teachers almost always include some anecdote or information that would let me know that they got their certification without anyone's help. Yesterday a woman told me that she got her certification during Japan's "bubble period"; a time when there were so many well-paying jobs that few people aspired to be teachers and it was easy to pass the certification exams, suggesting that there wasn't a need for her to use connections. Another person mentioned how poor her family was growing up, suggesting that it would have been impossible to bribe anyone. I've been hearing lots of these stories lately.

Students have also been gossipping like crazy about which teachers probably used connections to get their jobs... "so-and-so isn't a very good teacher so probably passed the exam because of connections". Considering that half of them got their jobs through connections, I know a lot of people who are in danger of losing their teaching licenses. When school starts again in September, I'm curious to see who suddenly isn't there.

St. Louis News

Before I came to Japan I lived in St. Louis, Missouri. I often think back on those times and wish I could relive them.

This week there was an article on a St. Louis news website that cracked me up. I'm not sure if the editor was ignorant or just plain mean, but here is the headline and photo beneath it:

Big chunk of history goes east
This deserves some kind of prize! If you feel like checking out the actual article it's about the baseball history archives being moved out of St. Louis to North Carolina. So if the article is about history archives, why does the photo focus on the woman in the background?

What a gem. I love news bloopers.

The hole has healed

At first the hole in her chest was so deep that I thought it went into her lungs or something. Ever see those videos of when they put cameras down people's stomachs to look for polyps and stuff? The walls of the stomach look kinda moist and pinkish? That's what it looked like in her chest hole. But then the hole got shallower and shallower until there wasn't a hole there at all, and was just a bald spot covered with a scab. Then the scab fell off and the fur is slowly growing back. It looks like this now:It doesn't hurt her when I touch it, and it's pretty cool because you can feel the heat emanating from her skin. She must be burning up in all that fur. No wonder she sleeps all the time. I would, too, if I had to wear a coat around in this summer heat.

Lately she likes sleeping belly-up, probably because it's so hot lately. I've been taking photos of her crazy sleeping positions... here it looks like she's stretching, but she was passed out.Not very lady-like at all.She especially likes sleeping with her head resting on a bump in the blanket or on some clothes, and one day I found her sleeping with her arms pushed into the folds of the blanket.Sometimes when I look out into the garden she's waiting there for me, and gets up when she notices me peeking out the window. Sometimes she's sitting there with a friend.

The cat has a hole in her chest!

Last week she was acting kind of weird but I couldn't figure out why. She wasn't coming to bed at night and I'd find her sleeping in places where she'd never slept before, like behind a pile of boxes or under the bed. She wouldn't let me pick her up and screamed at me if I tried.

A couple nights ago I came home to find pus on her chest fur. I figured she had a cold which is why she was so tired and acting weird, and her nose must have gotten runny or something. But then last night when I moved the fur away from the place she kept licking on her chest, there was a hole there!!!

Of course I grabbed the phone book right away and looked up a list of vets. A freaking hole in her chest! Not a good sign. I planned on taking her to the vet first thing in the morning, but was feeling panicky and got on-line to see what I could find.

It turns out "abscesses" are quite normal for cats. Really? With all the cats I used to have growing up, I've never seen a hole in any of them. Apparently if another cat scratches them and bacteria gets under the skin, their immune system blocks off that area and white blood cells rush in, creating a pus-filled ball that eventually bursts, leaving a gaping hole. It seems that once the pus leaves the body, the body can heal itself.

The different sites I found recommend taking your cat to the vet but once the pus ball has burst, you just have to wait until it heals. I felt much calmer after that, knowing that having a hole in her chest isn't life-threatening and that actually it's a sign that she's already on her way to recovery. So I didn't rush to the vet and went to work as usual.

When I came home she was back to her normal self; running all over the place and full of energy again. And the hole seemed shallower already. What a fast recovery. I'm so glad to see I was worried for nothing!

Polygamy

Yesterday the topic of Mormons and polygamy came up in a conversation. The two mormons living in Oita City are extremely visible because they always ride around the city wearing white dress shirts and don bicycle helmets (people here don't wear helmets so if you want to stick out, wear a helmet). Every couple years two new Mormons come to replace the old ones to fulfill their missionary duties, and they always wear the same style of helmets and ride around the city on their bicycles so people probably don't realize that they're actually two new guys.

It seems some people have negative impressions of Mormons, but I've never met a Mormon I didn't like. They've always been really nice and considerate, and being Mormon didn't affect anything one way or another. In university I used to live with a couple Mormons, and they were so down-to-earth and friendly.

Apparently over the last couple years CNN has had a bajillion articles about the arrest of a Mormon leader and the disbanding of everyone on the ranch, but I just heard about it recently. The article I came across the other day suggested that the children were much better off on the ranch than being split up and sent to foster homes. I don't know much about the situation, but I found a hilarious video with a catchy tune that keeps replaying itself in my head.

2 months!

Wow! When was my last post? Two months already! Time sure does fly!

For now here's a quick summary of what's been going on the last couple months. More details to come if I find the time... but given my track record we shouldn't get our hopes up!

My job at the high school changed a bit. The Japanese school year starts in April and when I came back from Taiwan I had a new schedule. I only used to teach students who were in the foreign language program, but this year they allowed students from other course programs to take my class as an elective. So instead of getting one new class to replace the graduating seniors, I got four. Also for some reason the different classes see me a different number of hours per week (one, two, or three hours) so I'm teaching them all at different speeds. It's been keeping me on my toes trying to remember who's learned what. Exams are at the end of this month and I'm already dreading having to write up so many different tests. Anyhow the lack of free time after I started this new schedule is the main reason for the hiatus in posting.

I'm still enjoying my evening job. I find so many things I want to turn into lessons. One of my new pasttimes is searching for weird pictures on the net and putting them on handouts... like putting photos of monsters on the lesson about pets or using photos of superbly fugly people for the lesson about using compliments to start conversations. With my busy schedule, this is how I relieve stress.

The cat is still as cute as ever. I never named her but a friend started calling her Chiro. I've been putting her out when I leave for work, and she comes running home when she hears my car pull into the driveway. It's the cutest thing, seeing her sprinting through the parking lot towards my car. During mating season in April and May I'm pretty sure all the tomcats in the neighborhood were having their way with her. She'd come home with the smell of other cats mixed into her fur. One time she'd messed around with a real stinky bugger, and I couldn't bear to have her near me because I couldn't take the smell. I had to give her a bath and she really didn't like that; she kept screaming the whole time like I was torturing her to death. Strangely she never got pregnant.

One of my best friends left Oita a couple weeks ago. We had similar schedules and were always tired from work, so sitting around doing nothing was always the best way to hang out. With other friends there's always something to do, or some kind of plan. I felt a sudden loneliness overcome me when I realized how I don't have anyone to just do nothing with anymore. I also realized that most of my free time was spent doing nothing at his place, so now that he's gone I'll have to muster up the energy to branch out and find new friends.

My apartment is cramped full of stuff. The friend who left Oita will be living in Britain for a year, and in the meantime needed a place to store all his stuff. I'm pretty impressed with how I rearranged my apartment to be able to keep most of his stuff out of my way, but I'm still wondering what to do with the washing machine, TV, and large stereo speakers in the middle of the kitchen. I foresee resigning myself to swerving around them for the next year.

I finally destroyed the thorn monsters. There were these really nasty thorn-covered bushes that sprouted up a couple years ago. Every square centimeter of every branch had dozens of thorns. The monsters even had thorns on their leaves. I let them be and the bushes just kept on growing until they were taller than me, and then their evil offspring started appearing all over the place. Something had to be done. I spent a couple days snipping them to bits and digging up their wide-spread roots. Whenever a baby one tries to take root I rip it out of the ground with a pair of pliers (even the darn babies are covered in thorns).

I bought 40 plants and made the backyard look nice. I'm most pleased with the herb garden because of how much better the pizza sauce tastes with fresh herbs, although the rosemary just isn't growing fast enough. I keep snipping off little bits and there's hardly any left. And today I just learned that having rosemary in the garden repels mosquitoes, giving me additional incentive to plant some more rosemary out back.

The blackberry bush I planted last year finally has berries! Up until April it looked like a twig sticking out of the dirt, then suddenly branches started appearing out of nowhere. Clusters of pink flowers blossomed, and now about 30 baby green blackberries are forming. I can't wait till they ripen!

Japan got dangerous. I haven't watched the news in forever, so my students tell me what's going on in the world. A man killed his neighbor, then cut her into tiny little bits, small enough to fit down the sink drain. At first I was simply appalled by the gruesome thought of slicing through bone and mashing up organs to stuff down the sink. Then I was impressed by the patience and determination this man must have had. Or perhaps it wasn't patience and determination he had, but just a little bit of crazy. In that case, not so impressive. And then a couple weeks later a man drives into a crowded Tokyo shopping area and runs over some people, then gets out and stabs people at random. Senseless violence. What is Japan coming to? Thank goodness guns are illegal here, otherwise it'd be as dangerous as America.

Wow, time really does fly by. It's way past my bedtime! That's all for now... nighty-night!

Taiwan Day 8 - Back to Japan

I tried to see as much as I could up until the last minute. I lost time trying to find a traditional paper museum (I never found it) because the map in the guidebook had the museum I was looking for in the wrong place. I know you're thinking that I shouldn't blame the guidebook for my poor sense of direction, but I know it was the book and not me! The address of the museum just couldn't have been on the block it was marked on.

Miniatures Museum of Taiwan
I was surprised and sort of disappointed to see that most of the miniature houses on display were done by Americans. I was in Taiwan, so I wanted to see things made by Taiwanese people. It was still worth visiting though.

There were dozens of perfect re-creations of old-style homes and fantasy lands. My favorites were the European aristocratic miniatures.
Much more than the miniature homes, I was impressed by the eggshells. How do you cut such fine symmetrical patterns without cracking the shell? Nice.There were lots of these fairy-themed eggs, too.
Final meal
Everything on the plate is vegetarian! Really good imitations of meat, don't you think? The chicken nuggets were compressed tofu. The sausage was colored dough. The sesame chicken was wheat gluten. The pork slices were a kind of pressed starch. They were like little works of vegetarian art. And this restaurant was inside Taipei Main Station, so I could eat and then hop on a bus to the airport.
To Those Carrying Chickens:

Airport
There was a Hello Kitty section of the airport that was all pink. Even the phones and clocks were a part of the Hello Kitty motif! I saw a young guy taking and retaking photos of this section until he got the perfect photo. He gave me a look like, "Yeah, so?" which I found amusing.And that ended my trip to Taiwan. The flight is only two hours and it's pretty cheap, so I'll probably go again sometime.

Taiwan Day 7 - Taipei

Nose-digging train lady
For some reason people in Taiwan thought it was acceptable to dig their noses in public. I don't say "pick" their noses because that's not what it was. They were really digging, with their finger way up in there and their hand swiveling around. And this wasn't the sort of sly, maybe-no-one-notices kind of nose-digging. I saw this in crowded markets with tons of people walking by, in the bus, on the street, in stores. Pretty much anywhere. What was really gross was that sometimes you see the moment when the finger comes out of their nose with a booger on it. They simply scrape it off their nail and let it fall wherever. Like totally make me barf.

The lady sitting next to me on the train was one of these nose-diggers. I tried to lean my body as far away from her as possible. I tried to distract myself and ignore what I could see from the corner of my eye. I tried not to think about where the resulting booger had landed. The train tickets had assigned seating and all the seats were full. There was no escaping from her.

I spent half the day on the train heading back north to Taipei. The nose-digger got off an hour before my Taipei stop.

Transsexual
The person who replaced her was a transsexual that wasn't fooling anyone. She looked like a man who'd thrown on a dress and was wearing high heels. I think she thought I was Japanese (actually for some reason I'm quite proud of myself for looking Japanese enough to fool people, quite a dumb reason to be proud). Instead of just starting a conversation with me in Japanese, she got on her cell phone and called someone who could speak Japanese and they had a short conversation. In all truth, I felt a bit uncomfortable which is why I didn't just go ahead and start talking to her.

The hostel
When I finally arrived in Taipei, I went back to the same cheap hostel that I stayed in before, and this time they had room in the main hostel. It was so much cleaner than the one in the other building, probably because the Taiwanese wife was in charge of this part. Her husband was in charge of the hostel I stayed last time, and I'm guessing he's not so into cleaning which is why it was so dirty and gross.

The toilet and shower were so clean, and indoors (not outside on the balcony). The rooms were small and cramped, but at least I know the sheets were clean because she gave me new ones when I arrived.

The atmosphere was much nicer, too. Adventurous young travellers roaming the globe who love meeting people and telling funny stories - that fit the image I have of hostels much better than last time.
Taipei's Longshan Temple
No one was allowed into the front gate and I had to walk through the side entrance. I wonder if this is because of the same belief as the temples in Japan, that the central walkway is where the god walks, and so we have to stay out of their way.Interestingly, this temple was multidenominational. The main god was in the central shrine, and there were 165 other gods in alcoves and smaller shrines all around the outer edge.Probably because of all the gods residing there, this temple had lots of places to place offerings.Really, I just couldn't stop being amazed by the carved pillars in temples.While I was wandering, women in robes lined up and entered the main shrine. The evening chanting was about to start!Hundreds of worshippers knelt or stood, and chanted for over an hour. It wasn't like the monotonous chanting that I'm used to hearing, it was melodic and more like a song. I stood in the crowd and absorbed the atmosphere. An old lady offered me her extra prayer book so I could do the chants as well, but I said that I couldn't understand Chinese. She gave me a look like, "Then what are you doing here?"I loved this temple. It was so noisy. There was the chanting, as well as people saying prayers and throwing fortune-telling blocks onto the stone floor (like the ladies in the photo). On the right in the foreground you can see wooden fortune sticks. People mixed them around and jumbled them up before pulling one out, adding to the noise and boisterous atmosphere. The temple wasn't somber and serene like Japanese temples, but a lively experience full of energy.
Shilin Night Market
The guidebook says if you only have one night to spend in Taipei, spend it here. I wholeheartedly agree. I was there until midnight and it was still jam-packed; you'd never know it was a Monday night. And it was full of locals there to have a good time, not tourists.It was totally fun being caught up in the flow of the crowd. I didn't expect to see so many carnival game booths mixed in with the food vendors and shops. I bought so many clothes and a few accessories (they were one-third the price of what I can find in Japan!).The food section had a lot of stinky stuff that I tried to avoid walking past. I did ended up getting this nice crunchy fried stuff wrapped in a sweet tortilla. It required some heavy pounding with a hammer!One section I really didn't like were the glass cages with puppies and kittens. They looked much too small to be away from their mothers, and some of them walked on still shaky legs. Is a spontaneous purchase at a night market really the best place to buy a pet?
Police Patrol
The alleys were lined on both sides with shops. In the center of the alleys, people had set up rolling carts or suitcases on stands or blankets piled with goods. This was illegal, which I found out when policemen occasionally rode their motorbikes through the alleys.

It was a domino effect. When someone down the road quickly grabbed their blanket up, or rolled their cart into the nearest shop, or snapped their suitcase shut and fled into a store... everyone up the road immediately did the same. They were anxiously keeping watch while bargaining with customers. You should have seen the speed with which they disappeared. They ran and shoved to get out of the way and hide. In less than ten seconds, the entire alley was vacant and everybody (including shoppers) waited for the policemen to pass. This happened roughly every thirty minutes.

Head Wound and the Amazingly Kind Girl
The most awful thing I saw happened on my last night near the Shilin Night Market. I saw a man (late 40s?) lying on the side of the road with blood oozing from his head. His face was badly scratched and there was blood sprayed across his shirt and stomach and the road around him. I think he'd been hit by a car and rolled a bit before landing face-up, spread-eagle and unconscious.

It had just happened when I turned the corner. I saw a fashionable young woman (early-20s?) with long, brown wavy hair in a white blouse and tall heels carrying an expensive looking leather bag run to where he lay and heard her shouting something, probably yelling for someone to call the police. Her boyfriend stood next to her not knowing what to do.

It was the first time I'd seen blood coming from a head wound. It wasn't like blood, but like bright-red gel.

A woman from a shop ran to the man with a box of tissues. Together they held tissues to his head wound and everyone in the area got on their phones. Taxis stopped to see if they could rush him to the hospital, but the man was totally unconscious. When people saw that everything possible was being done at the moment, they moved far away without gawking. It was unexpected and strange for me to see this. I think it was out of respect for the man, and so that the ambulance could go straight to him when they arrived without having to dodge onlookers.

The man started wiggling his head and attempted to get up. The girl tried to calm him while holding tissues to his head and her boyfriend tried to keep him from moving, but the man sat up. He staggered towards a taxi and she ran in front of it, blocking the door with her body and arms. She wanted him to wait for the ambulance. He was woozy and almost fell, so she held him close and leaned his head on her shoulder, covering her white shirt in blood.

She cared so much for this stranger. She stood there with him in her arms until the ambulance arrived and made sure he got on. I was worried for him, too, but wouldn't have gone through all the trouble that she went through up until the moment he left. It gave me another opportunity to see Taiwanese kindness in action. It made me want to imitate what I saw, and make kindness an instinct rather than an decision, like how I saw so many times in Taiwan.

Other small examples of kindness during my trip
In Changhua a university student saw me looking at train schedules and came over to see if he could help me. He didn't know I was a foreigner until I spoke English. When he realized I wasn't Taiwanese, instead of worrying about the communication barrier he continued to do what he could to figure out the schedules with me.

I saw a young woman in the train station find a wad of bills that someone had dropped. She looked around frantically, ran to a few people to see if it was theirs (surprisingly they all said no after checking their pockets) and then she turned it in to the man at the information counter. I believe in any other country, she or someone else would have claimed it as their own.

I'd dropped my wallet while getting a bus ticket, and no one stole it in all the time it took for me to notice it was on the ground.

On trains people always offered their seats to the elderly or people with young children. In comparison, on Japanese trains I often see people close their eyes and pretend to be sleeping, so they don't have to notice elderly people boarding the train. Sometimes women even put their bags on the seat so no one can sit next to them (of course they move it when someone asks, but that they do this in the first place bugs me to no end), and once I saw a woman hold her umbrella sideways in her lap so no one could sit on either side of her, then closed her eyes and tilted her head down when people got on the train. I never saw anything like this in Taiwan. People seemed to be looking around all the time, as if they were eager to give up their seats.

At the night market, people bought things from the man in the wheelchair even if they didn't need them. You could get tissues for free, but people were buying them from him.

In general, people tried to talk with me until they realized I wasn't Taiwanese and couldn't understand. It made me feel like everyone was so friendly there.

Taiwan Day 6 - Tainan and Nankunshen

Taiwanese Literature Library
Built during the Japanese Occupation of Taiwan. I had no idea that Japan owned Taiwan and then gave it to China after World War II. Just another one of those things I missed from not studying in history class, I guess.
Confucius Temple
There was a pretty nice park surrounding the temple that I didn't spend much time relaxing in because I wanted to give myself enough time to visit another city at the end of the day (getting lost in Lukang taught me a lesson).One aspect of Confucian Temples that I find interesting is that there are no decorations on the walls and very little color adorning the temple. The shrines don't have any idols or images, and the main area is so simple.Even though it was Tomb Sweep weekend, the inner courtyard was so peaceful and practically devoid of human life (you had to pay to go in).The outer courtyard, however, was a different story. There was some kind of event going on where you could get all kinds of stuff for free (we like free).This was some kind of bean flour that they ground with twigs and what looked to be dried seaweed. You mix it in water and pour the gritty mixture down your throat. Doesn't sound very delicious? It wasn't.You could also make tea the traditional way, by rolling the leaves around with your palms until your hands turn green, then drying the leaves in the sun. I did it only to be polite because the ladies let me take a photo and then wasn't too thrilled with my new green hands.On the other side of the temple away from all the hubbub some people were having a lesson in Confucianism. I wish I knew more Chinese. When I say "more", I mean "more than nothing".It was probably the nicest place to relax in the city. I wish I'd had more time to just wander around enjoying the fair and seeing some of the performances.I don't really know what kinds of performances were scheduled, but it appears one of them had monks. Or monk-like creatures.
Lunch and my new friend
I ate at the same vegetarian restaurant as the day before (the one with stuff that looked like meat) because I was curious to see what else they had. This time I got an imitation of sweet and sour pork!While I was sitting there eating by myself, I heard the owner lady saying the Japanese word for "grandmother". I thought to myself, "Wow, Chinese sounds so much like Japanese sometimes." I heard her saying the same word over and over again. "Grandmother. Grandmother. Grandmother." Then I looked up and saw that she was staring straight at me, and there was an old woman sitting next to her.

The owner lady thought I was Japanese. The old woman sitting next to her could speak Japanese. I suspect she called the old woman to come to the shop to keep me company, since I was eating by myself two days in a row. I didn't feel the need to explain that actually I was born in America and now live in Japan, and I just played along and pretended to be Japanese.

The old woman had grown up during the time when Taiwan was owned by Japan and compulsory education was taught in Japanese. I have no idea how old she was, but probably very old. She was super friendly and kept asking me the same questions and repeating the same stories. It was fun talking to her, mostly because she seemed so happy talking with someone in Japanese and had a huge smile on her face the whole time. Every once in a while she translated questions that the young couple sitting at another table had about me, like if I was travelling alone and how long I'd been in Taiwan. I stayed and talked with her for half an hour after finishing my meal, and then really had to continue on my way. Talking with my new friend was the best part of my day.

Elementary School
I wanted to know what this building was because it looked so new and modern. A peek into the windows revealed small wooden desks and tiny wooden chairs. The building was new, but the furniture looked ancient. What an unexpected contrast.The large park was bordered on two sides by classroom buildings, and on the third side was this gorgeous building. The doors were open so I peeked in... it was the school gym!A stream ran through the park where kids collected tadpoles. Wow. Is this the School for Super Rich Kids of Tainan?
The Town of Nankunshen
Learning from my experience of being lost in Lukang, this time I wrote the characters for a temple I wanted to go to on a piece of paper so I could show it to the bus driver and get off at the right stop when we got to the town of Nankunshen. The guidebook said it was a 40 minute ride, so naturally I started getting worried when I didn't see any road signs for the city I wanted to go to even after an hour on the bus. Had I missed the stop or gotten on the wrong bus? When I showed the bus driver the temple name, he shook his head. That's all. I continued to worry.

It turned out okay though. The bus ride actually took 80 minutes so the guidebook was wrong, and the bus driver let me know where to get off.The guidebook said this temple is known for the exuberant displays of ritual devotion by worshippers that flock to the temple on Sundays. It was Sunday, but no self-mutilation or people screaming or convulsing. Shoot, I was really hoping for some craziness.

The woman is carrying a pair of those crescent-shaped fortune-telling blocks that people pray with and throw onto the ground. The yellow incense made this temple all smokey and stinky, too.The stone carvings on the walls and pillars gave it a real Indiana Jones feel, and the black soot from years of incense smoke was a nice touch. Someone threw some "ghost money" into the incense pot just before I took the photo. Perfect!Again, fascinated by the craftsmanship of carvings in stone pillars.There was a newer part still under construction. Beautiful setting, and all wood instead of stone.I wasn't sure if I could explore this area because of the yellow tape blocking the way. Usually this means NO ENTRY but perhaps in Taiwan this means "COME IN!" so I went under the tape and walked around.The doorways were all different shapes, looking somewhat traditional yet modern at the same time.From up here you could see how big the whole other part of the temple was, and in the foreground some of the new part that they're still digging up.
Ladies with snails
There were ladies with food carts at the entrance to the temple. Every one of them sold the same thing: boiled snails and green moss. I was the only person walking out of the temple at that time and had all of their attentions. They thought that calling to me and holding out a ladle of snails and green slimey stuff would make me rush to buy some, and I'm sure it just boggled their minds why this tactic wasn't working on me. I took a photo, but it just turned out too dark because of the way the sun was setting. Sorry, no delicious snail treats photo.

Coolest shoe store ever
Back in Tainan the parades were still going strong. I went shopping at a nearby department store that had some super cool shops, like this totally awesome shoe store. It took up the entire 10th floor. Club music blaring, velvet sofas, leather armchairs, and dozens of aisles of shoes on lighted platforms and in glass cases. The lighted stands were suspended from the ceiling on wheeled rails, and they automatically rearranged themselves every few minutes. Simply unbelievable.
Girlfriend, anyone?
The hotel phone rang. It was the old man from the elevator the previous night. "I introduce you girlfriend?" Persistent little fella. No, I really don't need a girlfriend tonight either, thanks for asking.