New School, New Blog

Hi friends!

I started a new blog to chronicle my new life. Check it out: dailychao.tumblr.com

So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish!

xoxo

If I could Turn Back Time...

I have an adventurous friend who always tries to get me to go along on his crazy schemes, like the backpacking trip through Tibet he planned in 06. I planned to go to North Korea with him this summer to see the Mass Games, a propagandic display of large-group, synchronized gymnastics, but had to alter my summer plans when I got into grad school.

And I missed out on this:

JW: vickyyyyy[9:09:23 AM]
JW: we're ALIVE[9:09:36 AM]
me: are you back from NK?[9:09:39 AM]
JW: yes[9:09:41 AM]
me: i'm so glad you're not dead![9:09:43 AM]
me: how was it?[9:09:43 AM]
JW: amazing[9:09:51 AM]
...
JW: so utterly strange and amazing[9:09:55 AM]
me: oh man, i'm so jealous[9:09:59 AM]
me: give me a highlight[9:10:06 AM]
...
JW: might be when we went to the kim-jong-il gift palace[9:11:14 AM]
JW: where they keep all the gifts given to the great leader in a ridiculous building of marble that reeks of fascism[9:11:35 AM]
JW: and madeline albright brought a basketball signed by michael jordan[9:11:52 AM]
JW: and we asked the guide what the significance of this ball was, to the korean people[9:12:16 AM]
JW: and our guide said "i think it is that this ball represents the world, and when our great leader plays with this ball, it is proving that he controls the world."

I've made a huge mistake.

Farewell, Kaohsiung, Farewell!

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!

I'm blogging from a free internet terminal at the Taoyuan International Airport, conveniently located next to the HELLO KITTY DEPARTURE GATE. For the next two weeks, I'll be in Kuala Lumpur for the Southeast Asian adventure of my dreams--beaching it in Malaysia and seeing Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Don't expect any updates until my return to Taiwan on July 14.

I'll be in DC from July 18-27, in Columbus from July 27-August 20ish. Then it's back to New England for graduate school!

Till then, if you're one of the 4 people who actually reads this, take care!

Consecutive numbers

I'm 23!

My sister gave me $50 to spend at www.donorschoose.org, a site where different teachers can ask for donations for any project they want, and donors choose what they want to finance.

I gave $25 to this project titled "No, Virginia, There Is No U.S.S.R" and am trying to decide where to spend the rest of my donation dollars. Audience suggestions are greatly appreciated, especially since I should be packing right now (while I know a few of you have quite a bit of desk time)--check out the site and tell me what strikes your fancy.

Thanks for your help! Hopefully I'll have a good selection from ya'll when I return from my travels through Southeast Asia.

Tallyho!

Hoolay hoolay!

ben: (Oh, I saw a WORLD GAMES ad the other day and thought of you)Ohhh, ok
me: omg, seriously?
ben: Yes. It was people doing gymnastics routines on big ugly buildings

The Discard Pile

Packing takes me an eternity longer than it should because I aspire to be utilitarian, organized, and free of overweight luggage charges, but at heart I'm just a big pack rat. There are several stages between my "Suitcase" pile and my "Discard" pile corresponding to the amount of affection I have fore each possession. Here are 2 items that won't make the cut but I hope to remember for a very long time:

1. Sexy Lacy Panties from 7-11

Found them nestled between the sunscreen and the condoms while I was looking for bobby pins...


I do have some friends getting married soon.... do you think these would make a good shower gift?


2. Official 2009 World Games Multi-purpose Headscarf

These were given to us by the Kaohsiung City Bureau of Education as a "token of [their] gratitiude for all our hard work"

You can wear it as a scarf!

Or a do-rag!

Or a hat!

So sexy!

So versatile!

The more I look at these, the more I think, "Surely ___ would love these panties and this headscarf!" I need more discipline...

4 days left in Kaohsiung...

Sneaking A Swim In Sun Moon Lake: Guestblogging at Travelogged.com

Hey folks,

I've been a busy lady as of late, and one of the things I've done while not updating dailychao.blogspot.com is guestblogging about my trip to Sun Moon Lake for www.travelogged.com. Here's a teaser:



Through the pedagogy of rote memorization, the magnificence of Sun Moon Lake has been ingrained in the consciousness of Chinese-speaking people. My local friends tell me that here in Taiwan, all schoolchildren memorize “Moonlight Reflecting on the Lake,” a poem written by Yunlin County Magistrate Chien Ming Shan in 1875. None of my friends can recall the words anymore, but the message remains. “Sun Moon Lake is a beautiful place,” they say, “you cannot miss it.”

Click here to read the whole thing!

Seek Glory and Glory You Shall Find

 

Kaohsiung Cab Driver: "They call it Glory Pier because this is where the soldiers would leave from when they went off to war."

Anthromorphic Charm

 

found at Taipei Main Station.

At a Bitter Co-Worker's Cubicle Near You!

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.
--Lane Kirkland

Tiananmen 20 Years Later

Thanks, CNN!

Real American

Daniel Robert Markus is 1/16 Native American--just 1 generation shy of affiliation. This will not stop him.

Exercises in Democracy

The schoolyear is coming to a close, which means the outgoing 6th grade class has developed a serious case of 6th grade-itis, and the 5th graders are preparing for their future reign over the school. One facet of this takeover is the school mayoral election, which takes place tomorrow.





Each of the three candidates has taped colorful signs peppered with clipart images of ice cream cones and basketballs around the school explaining their intended policies. They are mostly in Chinese, which means the signs look like this to me:

My policies:

1. Increase blah

2. Increase dfadsf

3. Increase the limit on library book borrowing to at least 5
books.

4. Increase uoiuoi

5. Ice cream at least once a month with lunch.

One of the candidates--my best English student--wrote the phrase "Yes, I Can!" at the top of her poster. I admire the effort, though I think the populist message of Obama's slogan was lost on her.





Ironically, the school's mayoral election happens to fall on June 4, 2009--the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It seems that, at least from the things I've read, the state has mostly erased the massacre from Chinese people's memory through either fear or ignorance. If you can get your hands on a copy of Jan Wong's Red China Blues, I'd highly recommend reading it--she was one of the first foreign students allowed to study in China after communism set in and later (after her commie days were over) covered the Tiananmen Massacre as a journalist for the Toronto Star.



There are also some good readings on the internet. I really liked this article from the Guardian and this one from The Nation.

Update: Weird censorship decisions are going down in China right now. Read James Fallows for more details.

And So It Goes

Last week I received an email notifying me that my childhood best friend's father passed away suddenly. He was a pastor (I'll call him Pastor L.) and whenever he took us anywhere, he would talk to us about the importance of faith and spirituality in that Protestant narrative style that makes even very young children carefully consider these topics of great weight. I'd be a better "show-er not tell-er", but Pastor L.'s daughter and I hadn't been in touch in years so I don't feel comfortable giving more details. The point is, even though I am no longer a religious person, he greatly influenced the way I think today. May he rest in peace.

I can't decide how I should feel about his death--on the one hand, Pastor L. was an important figure in my personal development. On the other hand, his death has no bearing on my day-to-day life. Perhaps this is one of those conflicts we grow to understand as we grow older. The absence of important people in our lives cannot stop life from continuing. It will go on, with or without you.

I have thought about this constantly since I moved to Taiwan. I have responsibilities and a life here, but it feels like it exists in isolation from my "real life" back in the states. In my head, everything will be right where I left it when I return in July, but in reality, I will not come home to the same place. A family friend got in a serious car accident and has been hospitalized for three weeks. The college friend who once told me "The only reason I would save the whales is so I can eat them" is now working for some green project in New Hampshire headed by Al Gore. One of my friends dissappeared from facebook (she's not the type to quit), and it was only after several failed searches that I realized she'd dropped her maiden name after getting married.



It's June 1, which means I only have a month left in this place. Everyone keeps talking about how they're ready to go home. Certainly I am ready to leave, but I'm also unsure about what going home really means in this case. It's been a year and a half since I've spent more than 3 days in Ohio, and I'm afraid that I may long for a familiarity that no longer exists.

Cultural Exchange We Will All Get Behind

And the caption reads:

The official dance troupe of the Dallas Cowboys (a US National Football League team) perform with local elderly at a downtown park in Shanghai in April. China's sports industry is getting more popular, more profitable, and more international.

(From The China Daily)

Fulbright, take note.

DIY BLING BLING PANDA

Taiwanese people use the phrase "DIY" (Do-it-yourself) as if it exists in normal conversational English. Then they look really pleased with themselves for using an English acronym. On the inside, I am breaking everything in sight but on the outside I am smiling and nodding.

Unemployment On This Side of the World

The BBC ran a feature on the odd jobs people are working in order to stay afloat during the recession (yes, it's happening here too). It's worth checking out. Here's a sampler:

I was feeling depressed about being jobless. Then my friend took me to
apply for one of the temporary jobs the government was providing for unemployed
people.
"We have to knock on people's doors and ask them to let us into
their homes to get rid of sources of standing water and catch mosquitoes. Our
city will host the 2009 World Games in July, and we need to eradicate mosquitoes
to avoid outbreaks of Dengue fever.

Nutrition for dummies

A balanced diet of fried.

(Consumed across the street from the Green Lake paddle-boating pond in Hualien County)

I got 99 problems but...

Quick update--my computer has a virus, so I've been avoiding any activities that require login information for a quite some time. I'm slowly growing less vigilant about protecting my personal information, so eventually you will start seeing a steady stream of backlogged posts. There have been so many adventures and not enough sleep.

I've been saying partially in jest, partially in seriousness that I wanted to be the fastest woman in Taiwan. That goal will probably never come true (I am not a fast girl), but I did run the "Sporty Healthy Taipei" 9k last week in which I took 26th place overall and 3rd place in my age division (Women 20-29). Most importantly, I won a trophy, which has never happened and probably will never happen again. The photo above is from the awards ceremony, where apparently I was the only one who was a) happy and b) hot enough to wear shorts and a tank top in 95 degree weather.

A preview of good things to come:
The Kaohsiung Fulbrighters have formed a team to race in the Dragon Boat Festival races at the end of the month. They say that in crew, everyone must be the same strength and having one person who rows harder than everyone else will throw off the boat. If the same principles apply to dragon boat racing, then we are in serious trouble because our teammates range from Dan, the 6-foot-2 former college basketball player, to me and everything in between. To get to the final round, we will probably have to row 500 meters in less than 3.5 minutes. The other day at practice, it took our boat 7 minutes to not quite make the full 500 meters. I can't wait.

Well Said

Excerpt from James Fallows' blog on The Atlantic Monthly Website:

"Torture from Afar"

For as annoyed as foreigners may get with America and Americans, there
have been two saving graces in the world's opinions of our country. One has been
its permeability. Anywhere you go, someone has an uncle or cousin in America.
The other, less openly stated, has been a belief that at some point there
are rules in America. Long periods may pass when the rules are ignored. Big boys
may bend the rules in their favor. Some offenses are never made right. And so
on. But in the end, the American system is supposed to recognize injustice and
respond -- including with public accountability for even the mightiest figures.
It has this in common with the British and some other systems -- which is what
Gandhi relied on in knowing he could "shame" the Brits. For all the increases in
liberty within China over the last generation, this is a striking difference
with the world's currently-rising power. No one expects China's current
leadership to conduct a "truth commission" about the Cultural Revolution or
Tiananmen. But people finally expect America to apply its own rules, even
against its own people. Fulfilling that expectation is not sufficient for
restoring America's image international standing. But it is
necessary.