The Arc of the Story

The graduate school where I taught in Taiwan hosted two-or-three annual lecture series to give inservice training to clergy and to bolster alumni connection to the alma mater. The speakers were scholars from elsewhere in Taiwan or from out of the country. Across the 14  years that I worked there I met many, and translated for several. They came from India, England, Canada, Scotland, the USA and the Taiwanese diaspora around the globe. Sometimes their topics weren’t directly applicable to the lives and work of clergy in Taiwan, and sometimes I learned nothing of immediate importance to me, but from time to time something stuck that came in handy later in life.

Once a guy came with an extra agenda. The school where he taught in the USA was in a fund-raising mode, and there was a rich donor in Taiwan whose wife had a connection to it. school. He (or his school’s development director) parlayed connections and calendars to get this guy to come speak to us, ostensibly about “Worship Arts”.   What he gave us was not what people expected, and maybe it wasn’t all that useful. But he fulfilled the commission, and while in town he connected with the donor, too.

What I learned from him was about the “arc of the story”, which he explained in terms of a baseball diamond.  That was new to me, and possibly also to the people gathered for the lectures, but I don’t think many of these preachers with their eyes on the quiddities of bible verses could lift their eyes to see even the story, much less its arc. I know that I couldn’t. 

But in retirement…, now I watch an hour of television each evening. Just an hour (unless the program is longer). As I write in 2020 my wife and I are watching Sanditon, a riff on Jane Austen. We finished the 6th of 8 episodes this evening, and I can see how things are going because of having, years ago, sat through a series of lectures in which its arc was presented. 

 

I wonder how much other mental fluff I’ve gathered over the years will turn out to be useful in such years as remain to me?

 

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

Nobody Needs Another Article by Me

Probably nobody needed any to begin with. 

In the 1990s, I was on the mailing list of an organization in Taiwan that started a quarterly journal. The organization’s leaders thought that since many members had studied at graduate schools or were pursuing part-time postgraduate education. They surmised that there were already a lot of articles sitting in members’ files or that there would be enough demand that writing be done, so an outlet was created.  For the first few years, the journal moved along, publishing things that had quite obviously been intended for professors alone to view. “Good writing” was optional. When a different editorial approach was tried things lightened up, but it became a collection of short pieces by nice young people who wanted to share their experiences. A third editorial team took over, and when scraping the bottom of the barrel, began printing stuff I had written. 

In 2000, I began a job at the Taiwan Church Press. The weekly paper already had enough writers. I served as a translator and foreign language editor. A later leadership change gave me the opportunity to become a columnist. But the job ended late in 2003 and I moved to a college. I began doctoral level study (but crashed out soon enough). I discovered that, though I could write at a Master’s degree level (which I couldn’t do decades earlier when I’d taken Master’s degrees), I am not cut out for scholarship. I eventually found a niche as a writer of lower level academic prose. When I came up with an idea I could knock out an article worthy of publication in a third-rate journal here or there. One was published in Malaysia, a couple in the Philippines, and one in Europe. Most went out through the semi-annual journal of the college where I worked, which meant they really went noplace.

Then I found www.academia.edu, a site that accepts anyone’s submissions of anything, hoping to lure people into purchasing upgrades, and sending invitations to upgrade almost weekly. I posted most of the articles I had already published and increased their number as I produced more. By selecting titles carefully, I could induce people to at least “view” an article before deciding it wasn’t for them. One such clever titling, which appears to be in the area of Health and Wealth Gospel, regularly attracts clusters of views from places like South Africa and Missouri. Those who click on the title, though, are disappointed, because it’s a critique of a late 20th century mainstream theologian’s methodology. About a year ago I made one list of articles that I’d posted and another of all the articles I could find on various memory disks. That uncovered 4 or 5 that I’d never offered to academia, so I posted them, too, resulting in another short-term ego boost. 

Recently I began thinking about developing some other materials from previous years into yet another article to post at academia. I went to two libraries, poked around in some archives and searched things out on the web. I discovered the source of certain authorial misattributions in a hymnal that’s popular across SouthEast Asia. All of the pieces are now present and in hand. But nobody needs another article by me. Maybe I’m the one who needs it, but not badly enough to write it. And, on reflection, I was probably the only one who needed the 25 or 30 articles I wrote in that previous life in Taiwan.

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

Driveby Estimate

During our final 10 years in Taiwan, we resided on the campus of Tainan Theological College, which when compared to density all around us felt like living in a park. Years of “let’s not spend money” or “we can put off fixing that for another year” came to an end when a new president took over in 2012. Year by year old stuff got torn down and new things were built.  One project knocked down a couple of walls near our house and created a new pathway for moving between some lanes. That pathway was “paved” with interlocking concrete blocks that left spaces for grass to grow between them. Taiwan being so fertile, it looked like a lawn within a year.   

Within a week of arriving in Michigan to retire, we bought an old house (built in 1925). Settled now, I’ve begun to look for improvements. The concrete driveway is old, cracked and uneven. Remembering that pathway in Tainan. I called a contractor and asked for an estimate. He measured first, then went back and computed. Without getting his company’s professional estimator to give a detailed plan and estimate, he called back with the news, “We can do it for just under $30,000. 

It turns out that cracked and uneven suits a 95 year old house to a T.

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

Biblical Fudge

Practicing social distancing, as we’re doing lately in America, is not all that different from how I lived far too much of my life in Taiwan. I was intensely involved with people at work, but my ‘off hours’ were spent at home with family. Outside work my main social activities didn’t go much further than attending church.

Taiwan is crowded. There were always people around when I went outside. But relationships weren’t deep. I have only myself to blame. The people, Taiwanese and foreign, with whom I could have formed closer relationships using English, were OK to a certain depth, but I didn’t attempt to get closer. In Taiwanese I could teach, preach and hold conversations, but again, I didn’t attempt depth. I had lots of acquaintances but not many friends. Part of taking up life in Holland, MI has been an initiative to “meet new people and do new things”. After 20 months I have to say, “so far, so good”.  

On March 11th, the day before we began to exercise “social distance”, I was at breakfast with 8 guys at Hope Church. Besides eating and shooting the bull, we typically read all or part of an article and discuss it. What we read that day was an attempt to reorient us away from misconceptions around the phrase, “take up your cross and follow me.” The article delved into verb tenses and meanings of words in original languages. Soon enough, one guy got frustrated. Then someone suggested comparing English translations to get yet another angle and was met with a sigh.  That’s when I suggested what we were doing was attempting biblical fudges, doing whatever we could short of challenging the words we found. Biblical Fudging is a technique with a long and ignominious history.  I’ve often resorted to it myself.

I offered a classic example of Biblical Fudge, “the camel through the eye of a needle” being about a narrow door in a city wall.  Man, did THAT meet with an objection by another guy who asserted that there was archaeological proof of a small door in the wall of Jerusalem. He’s a friend whom I don’t want to lose, so after breakfast I thanked him and asked if he would send me the articles about it because I’ve believed differently.  A week later, I’ve seen nothing (because if he attempts a simple search, he’ll find fudge.)

Maybe a season of social distancing will be good for us. 

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

 

The Flower Bed

The garbage truck comes up the street 4 times a week in Tainan. Though recyclables are only collected on two of those evenings, trash and kitchen waste go every time. But during the last 10 years of our residence (the first 25 were in Kaohsiung), we had a house with a little backyard, so I chose to bury the kitchen waste instead of putting it into the pot on the truck. Maybe I was lazy, but I prefer to see it as being “environmentally conscious.” 

That turned into a habit which transferred to our current dwelling place in Holland, MI. There was a framed box on a concrete pad next to the garage that appeared to have been a child’s sandbox for previous owners.  I threw some dirt into it, then began burying the vegetable trimmings, fruit peels and coffee grounds from our kitchen. During the first summer as squash seed sprouted and we actually had a harvest! But I didn’t like the box, or the idea of doing this on a concrete surface, so I tore down the walls and moved the compost to another location, mixing it with a couple small bales of straw on the way.

The pile grew. During the cold of winter, when it was frozen too hard to dig, I kept the kitchen waste in a couple large flower pots in the garage, where it, too, froze. When things got warmer, I went back to burying.

Walking around town, I’ve observed raised planting beds in community gardens and beside some homes. I still had the longest boards from that original box, so I recently nailed them together again on a bit of the lawn (not on the concrete) and began the laborious task of moving all that wet, heavy “dirt, garbage and straw mix” a few feet. It won’t be enough to fill the thing, but spring cleanup of the yard should provide enough other stuff to give a base.  

I’d thought of doing a little vegetable farming, but then recalled that this neighborhood is overrun with squirrels, and rabbits are not rarely seen. So, when the project is built and all the dirt has  been transferred, I’ll plant flowers. The ugliness of the box will be somewhat offset by the beauty of the blooms.

In Taiwan I did it differently. I cut the bottom out of some plastic barrels and set them into the ground. After depositing yet another pitcher of trimmings and grounds into them, I put the lid on and weighted it with a brick. After 10 years, that  little backyard was filled with low spots and soft soil, but it was rich dirt. 

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

The QR Code

We are sheltering in place. We do go out, because taking walks is good for mental health, and because there are so few people out on the street that it’s easy to maintain social distance from anyone we meet. But yesterday we did get in the car and drive 40 miles away so that I could have blood drawn for something entirely unrelated to a Coronavirus test.  The company running the lab has locations in many places, but none here in the City of Holland, MI. So I made an appointment at their location in Muskegon, where my wife’s parents were born, grew up, and where they are buried.

After the lab visit we made a brief stop at the cemetery. Char’s dad, though a clergyman from the time he was about 26 to when he died at 93, was not one to spend time in cemeteries or visiting graves. Of course, he would do committal services and comfort mourners, but as for going to the graves of deceased relatives, he just didn’t do it because, according to him, “they’re not there.”  We take this as guidance, so only have been to the cemetery in Muskegon incidental to other visits we’ve made there. We were by the grave for only a few minutes.

I noticed what looked like a sticker, slightly larger than a postage stamp, on one corner of the headstone. I thought I’d peel it off, but it was more than a sticker, and it bore a QR code. Char scanned it with her phone and was immediately sent to a web page inviting us to post stories about her parents, whose dates of birth and death are engraved on the stone. Apparently, if one does, then other people visiting the cemetery can scan that code and read the story. One imagines that they’ll also be treated to ads for various headstone related goods and services.

I thought it was more than a little tacky.

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

The Orange Jug

During our ten years in Taiwan we resided just around the corner from a mid-sized hospital. About midway between our front door and the hospital’s there was a 7-Eleven store. (That’s no surprize, because in Taiwan, about mid-way between ANYBODY’s front door and wherever they’re headed there’s a 7-Eleven or other brand of convenience store.) We became used to seeing patients from the hospital, wheeling along their IV drip poles with bottles hanging and tubes heading to their hands shopping for this and that in the store. Other nearby stores that were focused on medical equipment might have displays of crutches, wheelchairs or toilet chairs out front. We became accustomed to the casual sight of the equipment of healing.

Last week at our retirement home in Holland, MI, a package arrived at the door containing an orange jug. It came on an order from the University hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, where I’ve entered a process to screen me as a possible kidney donor. I’d filled out a questionnaire around the first of the month, and had a telephone interview with a staff member in the transplant center. She said that I’d been cleared so far, so ordered up the jug into which I was to place a 24 hour urine sample. 

When I read the instructions, I learned that I’d have to abstain from anything with caffeine in it for 24 hours before beginning to fill the jug, and for the entire 24 hours of sampling. That was the daunting part. The first day went well enough, but the second day was as if my head was stuffed with cotton, and at 3AM I awoke with a mild headache, glad that I had but a few more hours to go before completing the sample and downing some hot Java.

I ignored one instruction, which might mean that I’ll have to do the entire thing over. The jug was to have been kept in the refrigerator. Two things led me to eschew any such action. The first was that I had a hard enough time remembering the project when the bottle was kept atop a closed toilet seat. If I’d had to remember it in the fridge every time I felt a little tickle down below, I’d have had to start over many times, delaying the moment of the return of coffee.  The second was that the refrigerator is where we keep fresh food. If the lab tests come back “failed for failure to frigidaire”, I’ll have to do it all again, anyway. But at least I’ll have had coffee in between.

In all the medical equipment I saw out on the street in Taiwan, I can’t recall ever seeing anyone carrying an orange jug.  Had I done so, I wouldn’t’ve known what was afoot. Next time I’m in Tainan, I’ll view anyone with one sympathetically. 

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

Those Paper Wasters

We took up permanent residence in Taiwan in 1982, and didn’t get “computerized” until sometime in the 90s. That’s not because Taiwan wasn’t already “cyber-centric”, but because we were slow to adapt and adopt.  When we finally opted in to the system, I purchased one of those “for dummies” books to help me catch up. It’s 2020 as I type this missive, and I’m still pretty much a dummy.  

The book was pulped long ago. But I still remember the title of one chapter, “Printers, those Paper Wasters.”  Until I learned to print on the back of things considered surplus, I wasted a LOT of paper. (Truth be told, I still waste a lot of paper). Lately, though, printers have been more “wasters of time” than of paper in my life.

That’s OK at home. Since retiring my “need” (if there ever was a need) for printing has diminished, but it’s still convenient to just click on a box on a screen and have something shoot out of a machine across the room. But the system at home has been on the fritz lately. I’ve spent more of my time on it than it seems to be worth. But hey, being retired, my time is not worth a whole lot anyway.

Last week I worked at an election polling station. I was on the “all day” crew, from set-up to take-down.  Thankfully, I was not trained or certified in using the computer equipment we had there. I say that because the “take-down” part of the job included the computer guy having to print some reports to be sealed into the bag with the voted ballots. The “computer clerk” from the other precinct in the room printed hers first (there was only one printer, which we shared). That took only a few minutes. But something wasn’t connecting when the precinct where I had been working set up to print. I watched from across the room while our “guy” and others tried to figure it out. None of us could leave until those papers were printed out and sealed up. 

Except for the facts that my long-ago pulped book was hopelessly out of date, and that nobody should call anybody else a dummy, I sort of wish I’d’ve had something to hand him.  As it is, my machine at home presents me with enough such problems. 

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

Out of Towners and Dead Voters

In January, the first time I ever voted in an election in Taiwan, I noticed the joy with which people attended the polls. This past week I worked at the polls in Michigan to help the Democratic and Republican primary elections along. As a paid inspector, my job was to “make voting easy”. It was NOT to promote any particular party or candidate.  For several of the 15 hours I was on duty, I was at the “greeting” table where people entered the polling station, filled out an “application to vote”, and were sorted into the precincts (there were two voting in that room) where they would receive a ballot to mark and put into the box. 

Turnout was good. The polls were officially open for 13 hours. There was always at least one person voting. Sometimes there were lines at the “get your ballot” station where registrations were checked. All was smooth and friendly. I met some interesting people.

Michigan asks for people to present a photo identification card, and prefers a driving license. A young woman came in with an ID card from an out of town community college. According to the book, that’s acceptable, too, it’s just harder to process. However, she was not registered, which could be remedied by a trip to the city clerk’s office then a return to the poll. When I asked if she lived in the neighborhood, she said, “No,” then added that she lived “on the northside”, which isn’t even in the city.  She was just on her way somewhere, saw the “vote here” sign outside, and thought she might be able to just cast a ballot.  

All was done with smiles, and she promised to register in the township where she resides in time for the next election in a few months’ time. 

Another voter was pleased to have to fill out an “application to vote” card and to show his photo ID. He said that it would prevent “all of those fake voters” and “dead people” from casting ballots.  Hearing his statement, I politely asked if that had been a problem in Michigan

, to which he replied in the negative, but cited places like Georgia. With what I hope was a smile on my face, I directed him to the side of the room where he could get a ballot. 

Of all the places where I worked that day, I enjoyed the greeting table the most. 

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

The People You Meet by Chance

For a couple years I was a character on TV, “Uncle Taiwan”.  It was a cable show, at the conclusion of which I was given an unscripted minute to riff on a Taiwanese proverb or a Bible verse of someone else’s choosing. For anyone who’s really curious, some of those “minutes” are here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA1730D300E82323D&feature=plcp . After being on the screen for a while, I would sometimes be recognized at the immigration bureau or in a train station. Thankfully, after the cable station went off the air, these things passed. 

On March 10th I was an election inspector in the Michigan Presidential Primary. Through the 13 hours that the polls were open, I did three different jobs in rotation. Sometimes I greeted people at the door and helped them sort out at which of the two stations in the room they would vote. Other times I was at the station where they presented their ballots in “privacy sleeves” for me to tear off the stub attached to it with a perforation, and for a couple of hours I was at the place where, after registrations were checked, I actually gave them blank ballots (either for the Republican primary or for the Democratic one, whichever they had requested). It was at this station that I encountered a convicted felon who is registered to vote just around the block from where I live. According to a recent newspaper article, he’s awaiting sentencing.

Because people had to check a box on their “application to vote today” cards opting to vote in one or the other primary, there was some skittishness. Legitimately it’s none of the state’s business what party one chooses to support. The problem is that in this election, being run BY the state FOR the parties, a voter could only receive one ballot, and had to request it. The man from around the block hadn’t checked either box, so I couldn’t give him a ballot from either stack in front of me. Had this not led to a short conversation, I’d never have even looked at the name on the preference card, or recognized his picture from the newspaper. 

All went well. A ballot was issued and a vote was cast. I think that apart from that man himself and me, nobody else in the station even knows that he came through the lines. It makes me feel good about having retired to Michigan where, as in Taiwan, everyone is welcome. 

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