What Goes Around Comes Around

For most of my first six months in Taiwan, which began in July of 1976, I was powerfully lonely. I was the only foreign person living in a church-run off campus dormitory with about 35 students of National Cheng Kung University in Tainan. Among my coping mechanisms was an almost word for word reading of the 12-page English newspaper to which the dormitory management had subscribed on my behalf. That newspaper, published by a member of the Nationalist Party’s Central Committee, reflected the ethos of the single party that controlled Taiwan under martial law. When meetings of the central committee or its military commission were held, these were reported in detail, including, “Plans for retaking China under the Three Principles of the People are well under way,” and “Military Strategy is Nearly Complete.”

I hadn’t thought about those articles for years. Then, in the news from May 30th, I saw basically the same thing from another single-party-run nation. 

“Chinese general says an attack on Taiwan necessary last resort”

If you’re interested, you can read more about it here. 

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/05/30/2003737294

David Alexander remembers better days in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Awaiting a Gathering of Birds

In a couple of the places where we lived across our many years in Taiwan, bedroom walls didn’t extend to the ceiling. This probably helped ventilation, but it didn’t afford much privacy. At our first such place I filled the gap with boards, installing them with a hand drill and screws. 

In 1983 I helped some newly arrived friends do the same thing in a house they rented in Kang Shan. While drilling I developed a blister in the palm of my left hand. It looked like one of the stigmata, so I joked that things like this appeared annually on me during holy week. I was moved to think of that last week in Michigan.  

We planted lots of new stuff in what will eventually become a rain garden next to our street. My job involved using a broken-off D-handle from a shovel to poke holes in the soil. I’d neglected to don gloves, so after about 50 holes I had blisters on both hands. 

Now the blisters have burst and dried out, leaving me with what appears to be marks on my palms.  I feel like St. Francis of Assisi, just not so holy. I’m waiting for birds to gather.

David Alexander feigns holiness in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Whom We’ve Come to Resemble

More than 29 years after the ending of the war in the Pacific, Ailun Palalin, an aboriginal man from Taiwan who had served in the Japanese Imperial Army, surrendered to the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai, where he had been left behind.  Palalin was the last confirmed holdout. Though rumors of others (as rumors of Americans missing in action in Vietnam) persisted for many years afterward, none have been found since. Cut off from communication or other human contact, Palalin may well have begun to look “shaggy”, as have other historical recluses.

In recent weeks, a group of guys with whom I usually breakfast on Wednesday mornings have been doing a “Zoom” thing. Most of us are on the far side of 60 (with a couple youths in their 50s and one college student, who is son and grandson to a couple of us). The lack of professional barbering is visible on some faces. Our tonsorial styles have taken a hit.  I had imagined that shaving each day, a habit I finally hit on sometime in my 40s, kept me looking pretty normal when I tied my hair back. A look in the mirror, though, has made it obvious that I’m in need of a trim.

I may want to look like the California hippie who lives within me, but I fear I’m beginning to resemble Ted Kozynski.

David Alexander grows shaggier by the day in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Aide-mémoire

The term Aide-mémoire has come into English from French carrying its meaning  “memory aid.” The recent marking of Memorial Day in the United States is another. It was originally intended to remind people of those who died in military service for the nation. As years and wars passed the holiday has morphed into an occasion on which to remember any who died. When I was 7, my sister who was 4, died in an auto accident. She had not yet served her country, but on Memorial Day we would visit her grave and leave flowers.

Patriotic organizations in America often make it a point, on or around Memorial Day, to decorate the graves of people who have served the nation. It matters not whether these have died while in service or long afterward, or whether their passing bears any relation to their having served. Flags are placed on the graves. My wife and I recently visited a cemetery and found a flag by her father’s headstone. We hadn’t put it there. His military service came to an end in 1945 without his having left the United States. His death came 63 years later. But, some group honored him.  Good for them.

When the dead being remembered have no relation to national service, flowers are often left. Flowers are associated with many things: romance, love, temptation, sex. Our son and his wife recently sent a beautiful bouquet for Mothers’ Day. It came with a card, a set of instructions, and a little foil sachet containing something called flower food.  The powder in the packet, when added to the water in the vase, was effective at preventing the cut flowers from wilting too quickly.  Weeks after the flowers arrived, we were still enjoying them. 

The little foil sachet also sparked memories of earlier times in our married life. Memories for which I’m particularly thankful.

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay 

David Alexander remembers younger days at his Holland, MI retirement home  after 39 years in Taiwan.

“Liking” Each Other

“Liking” Each Other

When I became a fan of James Taylor in the early 1970s, I was probably behind the curve. I’ve owned 4-track, 8-track and cassette tapes of his recordings. It’s likely that I played some of those to death even before their technologies bit the dust. A line from Taylpr’s 1975 Mexico recently floated up out of my memory. In describing the laid-back life of one “stuck” south of the border, he sang, “she gets a long letter, sends back a postcard…”

I took an online course from the University of California in April. Lessons included discussion forums based on meaningful questions or open ended writing prompts. I rarely wrote more than a short paragraph in response, sometimes only a sentence. But that made me verbose. Many  responses were akin to:  “OK”; “Agreed”; “Very interesting.” or “No opinion.” 

During our final years in Taiwan we befriended a single woman from North America who was teaching private English classes. She was lonely and isolated. She reached out in a crisis situation, and eventually became a weekly dinner companion. She maintained connection with former classmates and workmates through Facebook. But canceled her account when she realized how dependent she had become on people immediately either liking or responding to her posts.  

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

I find myself doing the same thing. getting like her. This blog of mine has an analytics feature that I check daily. I note how many people have looked and what countries they call home. Each day somewhere between 5 and 12 people connect, but apart from one guy my age who lives in south Texas and another guy in Kaohsiung, very few people bother to even “like”. 

My overweening need to be liked is coming through here. Maybe that, or the social isolation of this “shelter at home” time. Maybe this is karma; after all, in the past I’ve read a lot of stuff I liked without letting the authors know of my response. 

I feel like I’ve sent out a long letter, and gotten back less than a postcard. 

David Alexander now sends out cards and letters from Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Setting up a Backdrop

During my first year in Taiwan, which began mid-1976, I spent lots of time writing letters to almost anyone whose address was in my little book.  One was a college student whose father had been a chaplain at Ft. McClellan, Alabama, where I spent my final year in the Army.  I got to know her through the chapel choir.  In a response letter, she enclosed a studio photo of her family taken in front of an impressive bookshelf. I showed it to Allen Hsu, my roommate, who remarked on the father’s scholarship. That might be the first time I ever noticed a backdrop.

I got my Master of Arts degree in 1980. Up until we got locked down for the current plague, I’d planned to be in New Jersey for this year’s graduation ceremony as a member of an honored alumni class. Alas, the ceremony was moved online, and the alumni events scheduled for the prior evening were cancelled. The director of alumni services laid on a Zoom meeting for us.  Had I attended in person I’d have donned my robe and hood (which I wore in Taiwan for such occasions). That’s too much for sitting in front of a webcam 800, so instead, I worked on a backdrop.  I couldn’t find my Taiwan Independence flag, so I settled for a map.

I also made sure to wear pants.

David Alexander now resides, and wears pants, in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Diminished Capacity

When Tainan Theological College held a groundbreaking ceremony before construction of a new library building a few years ago, the site was prettified by arranging about eight potted trees around it. They were spindly, standing 6 feet tall in small pots. After the ceremony the the ceremony venue became the project staging yard, and heavy equipment began to dig the foundation and two-level basement. The potted trees were moved to a place near the fence, where they were neglected. 

I walked along that fence between home and office, noticing the trees withering away. I requested them and was given both permission and possession. When I scavenged them up, the first thing I did was a generous watering. Planting would come a few days later.

Late on a Saturday morning I put 4 in the backyard of my little residence and four more along the notional line between my yard and the college guest house next door.  All those in the backyard died, partly because of the lack of sunlight there but mainly because of my ignorance regarding the ways of trees. The ones out front thrived, though getting them there almost killed me.  The earth in the place where I chose to plant them was rock hard. The tools I had for excavating were inadequate, and the sunshine at the time of day I chose for the project was much too strong. 

On a late-May day at my retirement home in Michigan, I set out to pull some long grass. It had grown alongside fence where the lawnmower doesn’t reach. The weather was pleasant and the sky overcast. I wasn’t working in direct sun, but it didn’t take long before I felt like I was planting trees in Taiwan again. 

As much as I might like to quote Psalm 18 about being able, by the power of God,  to leap over a wall, I’m beginning to understand that those were the words of a younger person.

David Alexander now walks around walls and through gates in Michigan after 39 years in Taiwan.

Staying On Message

Little storefront churches are not uncommon in Taiwan’s cities. Often the first thing they get, before they even have members, is a flashy sign. But as is common with little churches in many places, they also close quite often, victims of underfunding, over-optimism, and sometimes (sadly) the spite that was behind splitting a family or a few friends off of an established church to “do something our way.”  In more than one location the signs of “XYZ Church” remain on a building right next to “this space for rent” ones. Staying on message means telling people what you are. It also means taking down the sign when you aren’t that. 

We recently drove about 50 kilometers to the Michigan rust-belt town where my wife’s parents are buried. We put flowers onto the graves. The weather was beautiful. Trees in the cemetery, in a formerly prosperous part of the city, were in full leaf. This being a time stay-at-home social distancing, we saw very few people. This is also a time of “no public toilets open”, so we drove directly home.

On the two-lane street that leads to the graveyard, we passed through what once was a working-class neighborhood. Now it’s rather run down. Most houses presented a buttoned down appearance with shades drawn and no activity in the yards. Many also bore window signs warning  people to keep their distance. One house had a white yard sign which, in large red letters, declared “JESUS LIVES HERE”.  I thought to knock on the door and “have a little talk” with him, but when I drew abreast of it, I noticed the  “Private Property, No Trespassing” signs. I didn’t even slow down. 

David Alexander now resides in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Why We’re the Regional Hotspot

Television and internet news lately carry many pictures like this.

Photo by Camilo Jimenez on Unsplash

News from Taiwan (where we used to live) is good. Things are under control. But here in our retirement home in Ottawa County, Michigan, we’re in a regional hotspot. Part of the reason may be that too many local residents get their guidance for prevention from daily briefings on the lawn of America’s presidential mansion. But part of it might also be what falls from the trees around here.

We’ve been seeing these things all over the place. If one of them gets into a lung, you’ll be hurtin’ for certain.  Good reason to wear a mask while on a walk.

 

David Alexander treads carefully in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Eid Mubarak

Photo by Gradikaa Aggi on Unsplash

Enjoy the fellowship, the food, and the life it all gives.

David Alexander now resides in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan