Overheard

Newly arrived in Taiwan in 1976, we received a week of orientation and training before being set loose in the community. One of our trainers was Liz Brown. She had been in Taiwan for 15 years by then. A graduate of Cambridge University, her capability far outstretched the demands that her various mission jobs required. Liz became a vital part of many things.She taught us both that we should not assume that anyone was particularly interested in us, and that sometimes we would be considered objects of fun. 

Liz understood and spoke both Mandarin and Taiwanese. She could understand if and when people around her had taken any notice.  She told a story about a ride on a city bus one winter. Liz’s hair was worn fairly short for a woman, a little bit long for a man in those times. She was bundled up on a coat so her shape wasn’t apparent. A couple of women, figuring that she didn’t understand, began speculating out loud whether she was male or female. Their suppositions continued, getting, in Liz’s description, fairly ribald. When the bus arrived at her stop, Liz went to the door, but before she stepped down she turned to the women and in clear Taiwanese, said, “Half and half.” 

I was moved to think of this story last week while at the public library. I go there sometimes to use a public computer for formatting software I don’t have at home. (I’m no longer employed by an organization that gives me access to Microsoft Outlook 365 as a benefit of employment, and I’m too cheap to take out a personal subscription.) The library here is the warm place in the winter and the cool place in the summer if you’re unemployed. It’s 3 blocks from the location where a free lunch is served daily. Some people spend their morning waiting for lunch, and their afternoon sleeping off lunch, surrounded by books. Apparently the staff and these patrons have worked out how to co-exist so that the library’s regular business goes on and everyone is happy. One of the homeless advocacy groups in the city has a social worker who holds office hours every Monday afternoon there.  

Anyway, back to the story. As I sat at the computer, typing, formatting, editing and whatever, I overheard a couple of the unemployed guys making plans, covering for each other (regarding the space they had claimed near the front windows) and making phone calls. Their language was “salty”, but the things about which they spoke were rather banal. Each of them seemed to be fine with where he was in life. Neither appeared to be phoning around to set up job interviews. 

I don’t consider myself to have eavesdropped, merely to have overheard. Maybe that’s what happened in Liz’s case on the bus, too. It’s just, Taiwan bus conversations are more interesting than American library ones. 

 

David Alexander now resides in Holland Michigan after 39 years in Taiwan.

Start Singing Tomorrow

Start singing tomorrow (Reign of Christ Sunday) and keep it up through January 6th with these re-released goodies: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/990203 

 

Pony Tail

As a teenager in the late 1960s I had typical struggles about haircuts with my WWII veteran father. Leaving his overbearing discipline, I fled to the US Army, which enforced even stricter controls on my hair for the next 30 months. I don’t doubt that my Dad got a smile about that.

I left the army soon after my 20th birthday, and eschewed the barber’s chair for the next 4 or 5 years. When I finished college and went to Taiwan, I had my hair cut about every 6 or 8 weeks. I wasn’t too shaggy, but certainly wasn’t “professional” in appearance. When I went back to graduate school in the US I did a similar “no barbers” thing. Pictures of me during the first year of grad school show wonderful hair, so wonderful that I didn’t notice my ever-receding hairline.  

 Eventually I settled down and began a routine of haircuts to keep me from looking too scruffy. After all, I was married, a father, and a missionary! Besides that, I was in Taiwan, where guys, at that time, generally wore their hair shorter. Knowing that I couldn’t exactly fit in, I at least didn’t want to be grossly different.

When I commuted to work from Kaohsiung to Tainan from 2000 to 2007 I would get haircuts at a little place near work during my lunch hour. After I moved to Tainan in 2008, lunch time became nap time. Haircuts moved to the NT$100 (US$3) places at hypermarkets when I went shopping on Saturday mornings. 

In preparation to speak at the 2018 graduation ceremony of Tainan Theological College I got a haircut early in June.  I next visited the barber, in America, on the last day of September. I was still going about being a professional, so didn’t want to look too disheveled. Until November 19th of 2019, though, I was the only one who cut anything on my head. I let things grow long, wanting to feel like it was 1978 again or something. Of course, I used a pair of barber scissors to trim around my ears, and a razor on the back of my neck, but it was too far out of control. So I got a referral and went to the barber. Taking a seat I said to the woman who was about to do some mojo with what I’d brought,  “Bless me, for I have sinned. The last time I sat in a chair like this was 14 months ago, and I am sore in need.” She was as kind and gentle as one would want a confessor to be. Now I look spiffy, and I retain a very white pony tail.

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

Lost and Found

For about 8 years I’ve carried a pedometer in my pocket. In Taiwan I was diligent about 10,000 steps a day. When pedometers broke, they’d soon be replaced. But I also carry a bandana, which was often used for wiping a sweaty brow. One day, apparently, my little pedometer emerged and fell to the ground when the bandana was extracted. No big deal. It’s easy to find online, so I only lost track for a few days. (Taiwan is SO convenient.) 

Then a month or two later I was signing for a registered letter in the college’s general affairs office and spied my lost blue pedometer on top of a filing cabinet. The guy in charge there said it had been turned in as a lost item. I showed him the same model but different color pedometer I was carrying, and my old blue one came back to me. Now I have two.

Last September a big church at a little country crossroads about 8 miles from Holland MI invited me to preach on December 1st. I accepted the invitation, after which I received some detailed instructions, including an assigned scripture text and sermon topic. I was mildly amused, but agreed. With 12 weeks of lead time, I felt on top of the world. I wrote an outline and began to fill in some parts of it. 

In October my laptop computer started to show signs of its age (a 2-year-old $200 computer) I backed up files here and there and felt secure. As November has begun to recede in the rear view mirror, though, I began looking for that sermon file to give it some more thought and work. I could find it noplace. On the morning of the 18th I gave up looking and started fresh.  That afternoon the church’s office sent a note asking for details they need to do their own planning. I gulped and promised to have something by the close of business on the 19, a day on which I spent large chunks of my free time in a rush to discover what might be most creatively spoken on the 1st. The good people at that church trust the guy who instructed me on what scripture to use and what direction to take. I don’t want to disappoint anyone. 

Finished writing, I went looking for the form onto which to send the information they requested. While digging around to find what they’d sent me on the 18th, which I’d already misfiled, I discovered a different file, dated October 16, with the church’s name on it. It was the half-written wholly lost thing I hadn’t been able to find for the past few days. I opened it with a feeling of annoyance at myself, but upon reading, realized that what I’d written on the 19th was far better than what I’d been planning in October.

My pedometer hadn’t improved by being lost in Taiwan, but the sermon lost in Michigan got a lot better. Maybe should lose things more often. I’ll start with a $20 bill.

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

 

Call Rewrite!

I recently posted an eBook to Barnes & Noble. But that’s not what this is about. After I hit “post” I got a message that things might take 72 hours. Knowing I couldn’t wait that long, I checked back 20 minutes later and looked at it. I found more than one sloppy edit on the very first page. Eager as I had been to post, I took too little time on the rewriting. 

I have a hard time rewriting my own stuff.

Other people’s stuff, now that’s a different thing. When I get done with a rewrite, whoever put the original words on the page comes out sounding like me. 

A few years ago I was on a sabbatical when a Taiwanese colleague asked me to edit something that he had to submit in English. Although he had done his PhD at a school in Chicago, his prose wasn’t up to publication standards.  I agreed to do it, then forgot. I was in New Jersey with a full day to spare when I got a note asking where the rewrite was, because his due date was rapidly approaching. I recall spending an entire morning in an otherwise charmless motel room pounding away at a keyboard, making his prose sound like mine. As to whether the result was up to publication standards or not, well, that’s another thing.

Lately I’ve undertaken another rewrite project in pursuit of personal spiritual development. Four months ago I attended the 50th reunion of my high school class. I sat with a woman I hadn’t known then. A mutual friend mentioned that she had published a volume of spiritual poetry, which I promised to order from Amazon. When it arrived, I added one of her poems per day to my habitual spiritual development routine. Though published in 2017, each bore a date, some stretching back to 1976. They demonstrate her fervent faith and passionate love for God,take freedom with language and demonstrate her poetic flair.

I’m not a poet. I write song lyrics, which must fit tunes. I don’t write tunes, though. Recently I began to rewrite her lines into and verses that rhyme and meters that fit tunes. On occasion the “theologian” in me corrects something here or there where her words have blurred a “fine distinction” that I’ve been trained to sniff out. 

Sadly, the rewritten stuff, which I’ve promised only to share with the author, comes out sounding like me. Nonetheless, I’ll keep on, through the end of the book. 

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

The Water Cannon

The pictures from Hong Kong are terrifying. Everything from police chasing down and beating people on the streets, in tube stations and shopping centers to random firing of tear gas grenades from moving vehicles into crowds. The pictures of this past weekend’s use of water cannons on university students dragged me 31 years back in time.

In 1988, after the post-WW2 martial law period of Taiwan’s history came to an end, numerous grievances were aired by all manner of civil groups. Farmers mounted a large demonstration demanding health insurance, a voice in the executive branch of government, tariffs on American agricultural imports and an end to corruption in local farmer’s association elections. Students joined in support, and the police responded with riot control procedures including the deployment of water cannon. It was a heady time to be involved with university students, to hear their stories and see the film on TV.  

Seventy five members of parliament from the nationalist party (KMT) Chiang Kai-shek (until 1975) and then his son, Chiang Ching-kuo until his death earlier that year, asked for a declaration of  national emergency. It wasn’t done, but just the hint of return to the bad old days of repression cooled things quickly. The Farmers Association called off a second demonstration, scheduled for June 16. The government began taking action on some of the farmers’ issues, and academic organizations began conducting investigations.

Taiwan made it through. The police, out in force, were not, themselves, rioting (as are those in Hong Kong in 2019). 

May Taiwan continue to show the way, for Hong Kong, for China, and for the world. 

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

 

Taiwan’s Numbers are Up Again

When I first went to Taiwan in 1976 it was the largest source of international students for American colleges and universities. Though it has long been eclipsed by China, India and even Canada, the numbers of Taiwan students in American institutions of higher education has risen in each of the past 4 years. 

As a young English teacher those many years ago, one of my tasks was to teach college students how to fill out an application to an American school.  Most things were fairly pro-forma, but when it came to the magic number represented by the high school or undergraduate division grade point average, we really got stuck. Grades in Taiwan’s schools are “points out of 100”. Grades in American ones are A,B,C,D and Fail.  My students were taken aback. If everyone who finished the semester with a 90 or better got an A, how could you tell which one was better than the others? They saw great unfairness. 

An activity I’ve taken up in retirement is playing in a bell choir. Though I only have 4 different bells to play, I still manage a lot of wrong notes. I think I’m slowly getting better, painfully slowly for people who have to listen to the group, especially for group members who are really good at what they do. Anyway, on November 17th the group played in church. We didn’t sound too bad! I estimate that if, from beginning to end of the piece, I had to ring a bell 120 times, I probably got it right 90 times. That’s a “C” in the American way of grading, or a 75 in Taiwan.  Maybe not good enough for prime time, but I aspire to better things.

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

Nothing to Brag About

But I won’t let that stop me.

Seven self-published collections of singable verse, with links to audio accompaniment, which I put together in the past month or so are available here: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/alexataiwan    They are all e-books. No paper, no ink will be wasted. Only time and pixels went into the projects.

If you’re not “churchy” you shouldn’t bother even clicking. In fact, even if you ARE “churchy” you might find it a waste of an otherwise perfectly good click.  BUT, the self-publishing platform suggested letting my social media network know about them, SO, now you know.

The project grew out of stuff brought into retirement when I departed Taiwan last year. There’s enough in there for three more collections, each about the same length. Once I hit the magic number of 10, though, I’ll have to start writing new stuff.

Other retired guys take up golf or Fox News (or maybe both). Maybe if you do the free 20% sample of one or more of the collections, you’ll wish that I had, too.

 

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

 

 

Things I Didn’t Used to Own

Thirty-nine years of life in Taiwan were so much simpler than what I experience now in retirement. National health insurance has to be one of the biggest differences. But there are others. 

A year before we left Taiwan relatives here had moved south, to a place where there’s rarely enough snow to make a difference. The gasoline-powered snow blower that they no longer needed became ours. We used it for one winter. It has a 2-cycle engine, so the smoke it blows smells like a motor scooter in Taiwan. I planned to get an electric one this year, but kept putting off the purchase. But snow took us by surprise this week and I had to uncover the old one and remember how to start it. Many pulls on the rope failed. That night I remembered the choke handle. Cranked it up the next day and did a little work out by the street, but I got a plug-in electric one soon afterward. Now I own two snow-blowers, and a hundred-foot-long extension cord. These are things that I didn’t used to own while in Taiwan.

Now I also have a lawn mower for those months when there’s no snow. In all my years in Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung I’d never used one, not even once! Like my new snowblower, it’s electric. I got it on Craigslist last year for $100. It’s the first lawn mower I’ve ever owned. (Like the mower, Craigslist is another thing I never used in Taiwan.)

I’ve got a little air compressor that plugs into the power outlet in the car. At home in Taiwan I went to the gas station, but here it’s $1.50 to pump up a low tire.  

The car itself sits in a garage, so I have a garage door opener, something ELSE that wasn’t part of Taiwan life. 

And the list could go on: homeowner’s insurance, storm windows, leaf rakes, rocking chairs.  

Like Bobby Bare singing Detroit City back in 1963, “I want to go home!”

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

Ebook Crazy

Late in 2012 it became necessary for my employment to spend 6 months away from home in Tainan, and to do so in America. The nature of American life requires the possession and use of an automobile. One of my wife’s elderly uncles had recently passed away, leaving his Buick as part of his estate. We arranged to purchase it.  

When we arrived we learned that transfer of the title required each of his heirs to “sign off”. That meant meeting with several cousins. I recall a conversation with Larry, who talked about cleaning out his father’s house. Apparently Uncle Jim had never thrown things away. It was 2012, but Larry and his siblings were dealing with stuff from the 1950s. I asked what Larry had learned. He replied, “Don’t to this to your own kids.” 

Retirement has been accompanied by clearing out some of our OWN stuff. A lot of files from courses I taught at Tainan Theological College and Aletheia University will have to go. Other things that I wrote either for the joy of it or as “scholarly” (take that with an entire SHAKER of salt) articles is finding other places. Of late, I’ve been creating ebooks and posting them for sale at $2 each. So far I’ve actually sold two, earning for myself a total of $3.04!

The books themselves are collections of song texts with links to tunes. I’ve enjoyed creating them, and if not a one ever sells, well, “I’ve enjoyed creating them.” One could say I’ve gone a little crazy, posting one in October and 5 more in the first two weeks of November. 

Where, you may (and I’m hoping you will) ask, can they be found?  I shan’t be shy. Go here:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/alexataiwan   and order up a hard-disk full.

 

 

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