Aloft, again

I was on planes 4 times in 2019. I flew to New Jersey and back on both trips. Each was to attend evening events that were too early to make arrival by train convenient. Thankfully, none of the trips was all that long.  In a few weeks, though, the trips will be longer… transPacific to and from Taiwan. 

Flying has been on my mind lately not because of hours I’ve been logging aloft, but because of our daughter, who lives in Colorado. In November she went from Denver to San Diego to Chicago and back to Denver. In December she has already been to Baltimore and back, to Paris and back, and will come to Michigan (and return) for Christmas. She’s not a pilot or flight attendant, but a professor of Chinese literature. 

Some years in my 40s and early 50s I did a lot of flying. I liked to pretend that it didn’t have much of an effect on me, but that was pretending. I’m acquainted with folks for whom going back and forth between Asia and North America is a regular thing. I don’t want their lives. 

If this next trip weren’t to Taiwan, I’d find a way around taking it. As it is, Taiwan will give me the strength to recover from the westbound flight, and enough to spare for the eastbound one back here two weeks later.  

At least, I hope so.

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

Stuff and Overstuff

Our many years of life in Taiwan came with periodic opportunities to downsize. About every 4 years we would leave for periods of 6 months to a year. If these involved “packing out” (as three of them did), we would also “weed out”. The biggest “downsize” occurred at the end of July of 2018, when we left Taiwan, taking with us no furniture and precious little in the category of housewares. Everything was pretty well beaten to death or used up by then, anyway. So, no big loss.

Setting up for life in America included acquisition of furnishings and things to use. We also inherited a great amount of furniture from Char’s parents’ downsizing in 2017. It was waiting for us in storage during the year between their move and ours. Char’s Dad died just before we left Taiwan. Her mother lived 14 more months with the things that they had taken with them from house to apartment. A lot of that stuff joined our assembled household last summer.  In recent days we’ve been decluttering. Today it was in the kitchen.

We discovered that some of the stuff we got from Char’s mom was better than what we had purchased at thrift stores, so things are “going back into the supply”. Other things just got moved from drawer to drawer, and a lot of dusting happened. 

We’re grateful to have a large basement, into which things “we’re not yet sure about” can go “for the time being”.  As I listen to friends my age and older, I hear a lot about “leaving it for your kids to sort out”. Since they have no emotional attachment to anything in this house, I doubt that much will interest them when that time comes around. 

Some of the stuff that seemed like a great idea in 2018 looks less so as we move into 2020. For now, I’m taking a “we’ll see” attitude. Maybe next cleanout season will see a further reduction. 

“window clutter one” by dorywithserifs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

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

Zooming in on the ‘Speak Your Mother Tongue’ Controversy

via Zooming in on the ‘Speak Your Mother Tongue’ Controversy

Rhyme Time

In the summer of 2001, while my spouse and offspring took a short trip out of Taiwan, I remained “on site” because the agency where I was employed, the Taiwan Church Publishing House, had it’s annual fund drive in July and it was an “all hands on deck” operation. As the dust settled toward the end of that month I took a few days to attend a workshop on church music being conducted at Tainan Theological College, next door. One result of the workshop was a song text (not a tune) appropriate for use in churches on Trinity Sunday, that I wrote in Taiwanese.

 

Not content to leave my “precious” poetry in a notebook somewhere, and eager (as ever) to see my name in print, I shared it with my editor at the press. She glanced at it, and then, in surprise, said, “it rhymes!”  I thought, “of course it does.” It turns out that rhyming is one of the besetting ills of such verse as I write. 

 

In a recent project, this one in English, I’m writing a considerable amount of verse which is intended for singing. Once again, I’m unable to write tunes, so I’ve found a great source at a site: www.smallchurchmusic.com   I start from a piece of prose, work the first line into some sort of meter, choose a tune, then make the next lines fit.  Whether I’ve created, distorted or destroyed something is an entirely separate matter.  

 

But projects can spill over. Repainting a bedroom can lead to new curtains and bedspread, An interest in brewing can develop into an excess of beer drinking. Scrapbooking a child’s first year can fill shelves with volumes. 

In my case it’s turned into “metrifying” prose by one of my favorite living writers. OK, the man is 95 years old, but that doesn’t matter. His stuff won’t come into the public domain until long after I, too, have shuffled off this mortal coil.  At least his stuff is artful. 

 

If I start versification of the names of Michigan’s counties, I’ll know that things have gone too far. 

 

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

Good, Friendly Customer Service

My first car in Taiwan, acquired after 8 years of living on foot or bicycle (with a few months on a motorscooter), was a late ‘80s Yue Loong Sunny 303, that I got  in the late spring of 1990. I drove it for about 4 years and then sold it on. During its years under my stewardship I often had to replace the front “corner lights” because I would invariably crack their housings when attempting to park in places that were too tight. Thankfully, just down the block in Kaohsiung there was a little hole-in-the-wall car parts place where the staff would sit me down for a talk whenever I came in for pieces. As we got to know each other over the 303 and the subsequent cars I owned while dwelling on that street, the conversations just got better and better. Part of the sadness of leaving Kaohsiung to move to Tainan was losing my parts store and car-talk-friends.

I thought of them today while on a wild goose chase for wheels upon which to mount winter tires for the 2008 Honda that I drive in Michigan. I went to a wrecking yard and found a similar car. The wheels were already off. I threw three of them into a wheelbarrow and went back for the fourth before noticing that it was damaged. At the checkout, the alert parts guy pointed out that one of MY three was damaged, so I bought two. He and another guy treated me like a king as they educated me in things I should’ve noticed. 

I went to another “auto parts recycler” and ordered up another pair. The clerk refused to take payment in advance. She said that it could be arranged when picking them up the next day. I returned to my car (which had a the wheels I’d just purchased in the trunk) and gave things some thought. I was buying old wheels to save the cost of demounting and remounting tires when the winter ones would be installed. The “old wheels” cost more than the demounting and remounting. Returning to the clerk, I asked her to cancel the order. Everything was done with smiles.

Good friendly treatment is something that we should all expect and get wherever we are customers. What I got today reminded me of Taiwan again. 

 

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

Ultra-Processed

Last year the Canadian organization, Heart & Stroke, posted an article about healthy eating, leading with the news that people in Canada get almost 50% of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods. These things have been changed from their original state by the addition of salt, sugar, fat, additives, preservatives and sometimes, artificial colors.*

The vicissitudes of life in Taiwan led to situations that occasionally had me present when each of 4 presidents of the nation addressed a group. Most of those times the group was of thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people. Twice, though, it was less than a hundred.  What was common to all of these presidents, from each of Taiwan’s major political blocs, is that the speeches given were ultra-processed. Hearers got little of the feeling for the person in the suit. Comparing them to much of the food consumed by Canadians, one could say that too many additives had been incorporated, and most of the flavor had been removed. Near to the dais a few times when President Chen spoke, I watched him turn the pages in a 3-ring binder prepared by his staff. He read ultra-processed words off the page with little of the fire or personality normally displayed when he was “off script.” America’s current national leaders seem not to have ever heard of scripts, but that’s not the subject of this missive. 

At an ecumenical concert and prayer event on the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day, I smiled and rejoiced through the brass performances by a group from St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church. I marveled at the harmony of a choir gathered from churches that a generation or two back anathematized each other. A wet blanket descended, though, when the appointed preacher began to speak. The man is a scholar with his heart in the right place, but what he delivered to us that day sounded as if it had been ultra-processed for a group of scholars considering his suitability for a professorate. His words were accurate, semi challenging, and flavorless. 

During my final 10 years of professional life at Tainan Theological College I was an evaluator of the preaching of soon-to-graduate seniors. In the last year I was further invited to listen to students do “try outs” which they would polish up before public delivery. I remember remarking to one woman that her sermon was like the earliest years of Taiwan’s Ching-kuo Hao fighter jets. These were known in English as the Indigenous Defense Fighter, IDF for short.  When the model was first rolled out for the press it taxied from one end of the runway to the other, then returned to the hangar. It didn’t take off. “IDF” came to stand for “I don’t fly.” Those problems were eventually solved and the IDF currently defends the homeland. But that woman’s sermon… it needed some work. 

Alas, so did the one I heard locally in November.  

* https://www.heartandstroke.ca/articles/what-is-ultra-processed-food  

 

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

Street Sweepers

Near the building where we resided with our kids for 20 of our years in Kaohsiung there was a dormitory for some of the people who swept the city’s streets and collected the garbage. I once visited a man there. We’d met through a mutual acquaintance.  His quarters had the feel of some barracks where I’d stayed as a young soldier: big rooms with bunk beds, mosquito netting, washing and toilet facilities at one end of the hall, etc.

Street sweeping is a somewhat lonely job in Taiwan. Large objects may be left to block a pedestrian’s way for weeks, but the sidewalks around those objects will  be fairly free of small things that might cause harm if stepped upon. Broken glass, for example, doesn’t usually remain for long. 

        I thought fondly of those street sweepers a few weeks ago in my current North American place of abode. It was a cold November afternoon, an early snow coated the ground.  I’d ventured out on foot to the local library. Passing an older single-family home used as an income property, I noticed car with a box trailer near its back door. Giving little thought to what might be going on at the time, I went on my way. 

Returning home a few hours later I noticed broken glass on the sidewalk. Looking up I noticed a second-floor window that had been broken out from the inside.  It didn’t take long to surmise that a mid-month move in the cole may have been due to eviction, and that those who had left had done so unhappily. Not only was one window shattered, others were wide open. There were possibilities going forward: if the furnace was left on, a lot of gas would be consumed trying to keep the place warm with openings in its side. If the furnace were turned off, the water pipes would soon freeze and burst. I wondered if I should call someone at City Hall. When I went back to check the house number, I met a man with an electric drill in his hand and a sour look on his face. He was the owner. He had the situation in hand. There was no need to call anyone about possible energy waste or damage to pipes.

I’ve passed by that place a few times since. Nobody is resident there at the moment. It appears to be sealed up, and from surveyors’ stakes and marks outside, it appears some new construction is planned. But some of the glass from that window is still on the front walk. Thoughts of Kaohsiung return. Gritty, crowded, sometimes foul of air (to be sure), but thanks to those sweepers, safe to walk. 

 

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

Christmas Card Purveyors

Far from North American family members, friends and “mission supporters” for so many years in Taiwan, we came each year to the 12th month of the year with many Christmas cards to send. Over the decades the number of cards we sent remained fairly steady while the number we received declined, but we kept up the habit of greeting friends and relatives, and about 40 local churches, annually. One year we were just too busy, so promised ourselves that we’d send “Chinese New Year” cards instead, only to discover that there was no such thing a month later. Departing Taiwan in the summer of 2018, we did our final “thank you for your support” cards to churches at the end of last year. Our list shrank. 

Christmas cards are big business in Taiwan Most of them are really “cute”.  We generally shopped at a bookstore in Kaohsiung run by an order of Roman Catholic sisters. The nuns’ cards fit our faith and values. Even after moving to Tainan in 2007 we’d return to Kaohsiung in November to get cards. But, our next-door neighbor in Tainan was the Taiwan Church Press Bookstore, so it seemed strange not to shop there. But that was hard. Some of the cards were slightly religious, with a bible verse in Chinese or something, but they were generally equally as cute as the ones available at stationery stores.

Near the end of 2017, knowing we would be leaving the next year, we took a final look next door. It was worth the trouble. We found just one of the world’s most perfect Christmas card.  It depicted Jesus standing on a rooftop next to a chimney wishing everyone a jolly “Ho, Ho, Ho!”

Now we’re too far to visit the Kaohsiung nuns, and thankfully we’re too far from Tainan to get the Church Press Book Store’s offerings, we shop at a local thrift store, that puts out a mixed bunch of what had been in their back room. This year they had boxes of what once were expensive cards on sale for 50 cents a box. 16 high quality cards in each.  Such a deal! We did not have to concern ourselves with avoiding cute, just ugly.

The cards went out earlier in the week, most of them with Kwanzaa stamps in the corner, an item not available from the Taiwan post office. 

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

Captain Caftan

I’m somewhat sympathetic with larger men in Taiwan. Several were among the students I taught over the years. Like them, I had trouble finding clothes that fit on the local market. I would use occasional trips to North America as buying runs in thrift stores and then wear clothes I basically hated for the next couple years until I could make another run. The shirts I wore were ugly and the pants rather worn out, but at least they fit. 

A recent humorous article in the New Yorker, about a guy trying on a Caftan and visiting different restaurants, banks and such places in Manhattan, came to mind when I donned a new shirt this morning.  The last time I purchased a new shirt (actually new, not at a thrift store) was a few years ago, and lately I’d found it to be a bit tight. A nearby store was having a sale on dress shirts so I got 3, and tried each of them on after getting home. They were all easy to put on, so we ran them through the wash and hung them in the closet. 

This morning I put one on. It felt rather large. I looked in the mirror and marveled at all of the fabric that was covering me. The cuffs are easy to fasten, as is the collar to button, but I think that’s because the thing is actually too big. Before heading off to church, I covered my new shirt with an old sweater.

I was part of the bell choir today, which involved wearing a robe and a beautiful purple scapular. But it turned out to be warm. The robe looked like a real caftan, the sweater was a bit bulky, and I had my oversize shirt and a T-shirt under those. Following the postlude, when I finally “dis-robed”, it was with a great sigh of relief. It was almost pleasant to go out in the cold.

What I ought to do is go to a quality haberdasher’s shop and be properly measured and fitted for a shirt, then buy that size, and that size only. At least it should fit. Or, conversely and perhaps more easily, I should put on several kilos and grow into what I’ve recently purchased. 

 

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

Couch

I’ve been fighting “the creeping crud” for a few days. I guess it’s a chest cold, but a lot of it seems to be in my head.  When I stand or sit, gravity is my friend. The crud creeps downward. But when I recline, as for a nap or to spend the night, things congeal in ways that lead to coughing, deep coughing.

Decongestants have helped, what my kids learned to call “orange medicine” in the daytime and “green medicine” at night. But a dose wears off after 4 hours. Last night I resorted to the couch, not as something to swallow, but as an alternative sleeping venue.  I’d drifted off at about 10:30 in bed, but awoke unable to breathe well soon after 2 AM. Standing got things moved around (gravity being my friend) and another dose of green stuff helped me breathe, but then the coughing started. By 3 I gave up, grabbed my pillow and an extra blanket and went down to the couch, where an hour later I managed to get to sleep again and stay that way until 7.

Sleeping on the couch was not uncommon for me in Taiwan, but the couch there, though a bit ratty after 20 years of use, was a bit longer and wider than what we currently enjoy. I’d been exiled to the “downstairs sleeping quarters” occasionally for reasons like deep snoring or redolent flatulence. But now in retirement, with a different couch upon which I’d not yet spent a night, I had a new experience. It’s more confining than the one in Taiwan, and December is colder here than in Tainan. The local version of the creeping crud is also harder to deal with. 

But, having slumbered on this one, though, I’m ready to try napping here eventually. But I’ll wait ‘til the weather gets warmer, and until the crud isn’t at me. 

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