Walking

Some years ago, while we were still in Taiwan, we fell for the “walk 10,000 steps a day” myth. The American company through which we had some of our health insurance (we were already generously covered by Taiwan’s National Health Insurance scheme, but needed additional coverage for when we would sojourn in the USA) had introduced us to walking through a wellness program, and we eventually went its 7,000 steps a day “one better” by swallowing the myth. Recently an epidemiologist from Harvard debunked the myth. The magic number of 10,000 was based on a Japanese company’s introduction of pedometers into the market there in the 1960s. The product was called “the 10,000 step meter” because the character for 10,000 looked like a person out walking. 

But we fell for it. Each of us is “pedometer equipped” whenever we’re not in bed. Some days we reach ten thousand, and some days we don’t. Either way, we’re healthier than when we paid no attention at all. 

Last week we were in New Jersey and New York, where the weather was warmer than it’s been lately in Michigan. On Friday we each exceeded 20,000 steps, and on Saturday did almost that well. My own pedometer has been keeping track of my 10 highest days ever. When I bump a day into that category, the next day when I check I get a message in text, “Good Job”.  We’ve come to call it a “good boy”. I got one for Friday, and didn’t remember to look on Sunday (when Saturday’s message would’ve come through). Those two days of extensive walking more than made up for the two days we spent slumped in seats on the train. 

Whether in Taiwan or here, moving has been good for us. Myth or not, the 10,000 steps are serving us well.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

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

Restaurant Sounds

We were away for 5 days. Two of those were spent on trains, so don’t count them, but on two others we ate mainly in restaurants. The sounds of those establishments can vary considerably.

Breakfast at Christopher’s, at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick, NJ, was quiet. Even though there were two tables full of friends gathered for some sort of conference very near ours, we could calmly converse about things. At noon we had lunch at Baja Tacos in the center of Rutgers University. It was noisier and more casual, but we didn’t have any trouble hearing each other, nor did we hear more than a word or two of the conversations being held at other tables. Supper that evening, as if we needed it, was part of a reception we attended celebrating the 235th anniversary of the establishment of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, from which I graduated in 1980. There was pleasant conversation and pleasant music provided by a professor noodling away at the piano at one side of the seminary’s open hall. 

The morning we detrained in South Bend, Indiana on our way home we had breakfast at The Top Notch, between the station and the freeway. Long distance trains east of Chicago have replaced their sit-down dining cars with “box lunch” service for sleeper car passengers and nothing but the fast-food cafe car for everyone else. We elected to wait for something better, and cheaper, on the road. 

Lunch on Saturday, in Flushing, Queens, NY, was entirely different. We were hosted by Taiwanese friends. They took us to a Dim-sum place where everything was conducted in high volume Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese. It seems that a LOT of stuff was being conducted. Conversations, celebrations and business were going around, and around, and around, in every direction. 

Dim-sum is the Cantonese title for the kind of place, style of serving and, to some extent, the types of foods. In Mandarin and in Taiwanese it’s called a “tea drinking” place. But whatever you call it, and whatever you might consume, it comes with accompaniment… LOUD accompaniment. 

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

Trick or Treat

Though dressing up in costumes and having parties for Halloween has become popular in Taiwan in recent years, going door to door asking for treats while threatening tricks has not.

We just passed our second of these holidays since retiring to America. Last year the weather was pleasant. Sweaters were worn and we sat on the steps or stood on the sidewalk chatting with neighbors while ghouls, zombies, princesses and pirates made their rounds. Things were different tonight.

The weather was in the single digits (Celsius) and rain was falling. At times the precipitation turned solid and white, coming down in those big flakes that melt upon contact with one’s neck or bald pate. We sat inside our enclosed porch, jacketed and blanketed, thankful that, as happy as we are to share, the door didn’t need frequent opening. We saw about 35 kids, maybe a dozen parents, and at least one dog. But at least once we were reminded of life in Taiwan.

There’s a kid about 10 or 11 years old who lives 2 or 3 houses west of us. His costume was home-made, and very reminiscent of Taiwan.  He came as a claw machine. Of course I gave him candy, but I wondered if a 10 Taiwan dollar coin might not have been more appropriate. 

 

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

Fruit

A joy of life in West Michigan is the local fruit, which is found at the local farmers’ market from May to October. We followed it this year, through fresh strawberries and blueberries through peaches and onward to apples. Char was especially happy that there was watermelon steadily from beginning to end. But all things must pass. Strawberries were gone by early July, blueberries a month later, and peaches not long afterwards. A frost in March or April had killed off most of what would have been apricots.

Taiwan’s fresh fruit goes through similar seasons. Christmas is the time for strawberries, January for tangerines, and mangoes from late May through early September. Watermelon is available for most months of the year, but is better at some times than at others. Unlike the USA, where stuff can be trucked in from Mexico, Arizona, Florida or California most of the year, Taiwan’s fruit is local, and therefore sweeter.

This past weekend we were in New York City, with Taiwanese people. A walk down Main Street in Flushing, Queens, took us past fruit stands like those we knew back home in Tainan. The fruit was wonderful fruit. We had fresh papaya,   pineapple, dragon-fruit and pears that came from somewhere, but we don’t know where, and we don’t really care that much. We only wish that the local fruit purveyors in West Michigan would source and sell some of the same stuff during the dark days of winter around here. 

 

 

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

Immigrant Churches

For most of the years we spent in Taiwan, in addition to Taiwanese churches we were involved in one or another English language congregation. The one in Kaohsiung offered our children a Sunday School experience as they grew up, and offered us a community of people with whose culture we were more familiar.  The one in Tainan, where I was the leader for our final 18 months before retiring, gave me space to exercise whatever gifts in leadership and preaching as I have been given. In America, churches of sojourners and immigrants from other countries fill a similar role. We were with one of those over the weekend. It is a Taiwanese congregation on Long Island. The group just marked their 40th anniversary. Whether they make it to a 50th or further on as a TAIWANESE congregation is questionable.

My mother grew up in Minnesota, in a Dutch language enclave, but the church to which her parents belonged was “American Reformed Church”. Apparently the congregation was differentiating itself from the other Reformed church in town which was still worshipping in Dutch. It’s not an uncommon thing in some of those Midwestern communities to have a church with a name like “American” that goes back to the time when it was the congregation of the second or third generation after the founders had arrived in the land. The church where Char principally grew up, Rehoboth Reformed Church, in Lucas, MI, had used Dutch for worship until some time during the First World War. 

At lunch with a couple members of the Long Island Taiwanese Church on Saturday I learned that they face a similar problem. The founding members of the congregation left Taiwan in the 60s to and 80s. Their children were born in America and grew up here, but the families held onto a portion of their ethnic and linguistic identities through the church. Now those founding members are aged. A man my age, 68, told me that he’s the youngest guy there.  Over lunch we met a woman who had immigrated some time later, but even she is in her late 40s or early 50s. She said that she drove an hour to get to church, so only came a couple times a month. 

One way that many of these churches are surviving is to appeal to people from China, who don’t speak Taiwanese. Worship is conducted in Mandarin.  The immigrants from China are younger, their families more active, and the church eventually becomes Mandarin language on the way to becoming “American” (English language). It’s hard for the founding generation to watch this happen, because the identity moves away from being Taiwanese. 

All that said, we had a wonderful time. It felt like going home again. We now know that when we need a dose of Taiwan, we just have to get onto the train at midnight on Friday and head for New York City.  There’s a whole community there to receive us.

Image by nicothespider from Pixabay  

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

Then and Now

A lifetime ago, in high school and in early in college, I occasionally took part in choir festivals. I remember one or two standing on various stages at the Los Angeles Music Center. In that setting, especially in the massed choir made of all the singers from all of the competing colleges, I felt really important. 

 

During our final several years in Tainan City we attended similar events and sat in the audience. They were always fun. Once, at National Taiwan University, a choir of elderly Japanese who sang beautifully and invited us to sing along. It was fantastic.

Last week we were at TWO choir festivals, one in Western Michigan and another in New York City. The first was predictably all in English (maybe some Latin here and there) and included a couple of songs by the massed choir in addition to at least two by each performing group. The second one, in New York City, was in Taiwanese and the audience was included in the mass choir. On that, as is sometimes said, hangs a tale.

I’d been invited to preach in Taiwanese at a church on Long Island. Folded into the invitation was mention that on the day before there would be something involving Taiwanese Church choirs to which Char and I were both invited. It seemed that our attendance at the choir would be mainly to fill out the crowd.  I assumed that a choir from Taiwan coming to visit New York and singing for their supper at a couple of events. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

We scheduled train tickets to have us in New York in time, which meant being there on Friday night for a Saturday event. Then an unrelated event meant we went to Central New Jersey a day earlier. After the evening event on Friday we hustled ourselves over to Flushing, Queens where we spent the next two nights. Saturday afternoon we walked to the church where the choirs would sing. That’s when we discovered that the event was a festival with seven choirs and one violinist.  

We’d gone casually clad, Char in a sweater and I in a plaid flannel shirt, and discovered when looking at the program that we were expected to stand and deliver a few words. Char ad-libbed wonderfully, and wowed the audience with her Taiwanese. I mumbled a few sentences and attempted a joke or two, which probably didn’t go over well. We were presented with a certificate and a cash gift in recognition of our many years of service in Taiwan, a place from whence many of those in attendance had emigrated back before it turned GOOD there. 

I’m not sure what was better, the choir festivals in my teenage years of the ones I’ve attended in my 60s. I must say, though, that the crowd of Taiwanese in Queens sure has made the recent ones feel more homey.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay 

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

 

Forced Computer Holiday

 

A few years back I purchased my first laptop computer. I hadn’t previously seen a need. I got mine at Overstock.com.  You know it was an already-or-soon-to-go-out-of-date model. In fact, it was a Chromebook 720 (Which went out of date in June this year. Google no longer updates the software). For whatever reason, mine died in August of 2017. I replaced it as quickly as I could in Taiwan (which was a matter of minutes), but, since Chromebooks were never marketed there, got a Windows 10 machine. Regarding both of the models I purchased, someone introduced me to the term “Two-year computer”.  When my little Windows machine began having troubles at about the two-year mark, I began to be more assiduous in backup exercises. 

Last week on Monday it crashed. I took it to a guy at a local shop who deemed it salvageable. Since I planned to go out of town starting at midnight on Wednesday, I told him not to hurry, to take a week.  Today (the next Monday) I learned from him that it was beyond his ability to repair. So, I was in the market again.

I went back to Overstock and shopped around. Then I went to e-Bay, and found a Chromebook 740, which will still be “in date” for another year and a half, for only $45. I ordered it. But, it won’t arrive until NEXT Monday. Not on the road now, I have access to computing through the desktop (another e-Bay purchase from a year ago), so it’s mainly a matter of location for where I do stuff. 

The 8-day holiday from the laptop, though, was really pleasant. I read books, I napped, I looked at scenery through the window of the train I was riding, I relaxed. Yes, fewer blog posts got written, but that was OK.  

At the end of this week, my 6-week birthday present of a holiday from Twitter and Khan Academy will end. I know I’ll go back to Khan and respond to student questions and comments, but as for Twitter, I may just have been set free.  We’ll see… 

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

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

Cruise Control

We went on a road trip last week. 430 miles in each direction, and we did it in two days. The errand that precipitated it was wrapped around a visit with two dear friends, who had also come about 430 miles, but their travel involved a lot of mountain driving. Ours was flat (across Michigan and Ohio). We traded off every two hours. I hardly touched the gas pedal, manipulating speed with my thumb using the cruise control on the steering wheel.

When we were single volunteers in Taiwan in the 70s neither of us had a car. Arriving back in career status in 1982, we had no car for 9 years. But from the spring of 1991 until we left Taiwan in 2018, we always had three, in succession. Only the second one had a cruise control, and it was useless, not because it was broken (it functioned quite well), but because traffic moves so tightly even at highway speeds that you no sooner get it set up than you had to hit the brake and switch it off. 

I enjoy cruise control. A rental car we had in May had “adaptive cruise control”, which works even better.  What I’m hoping to see, and what can’t come soon enough, is a driverless car. Grand Rapids, only 40 miles away, has driverless shuttles on the streets downtown. I haven’t yet had reason to go there and ride one, but when I have ANY need to be near, I’m sure to give one a try. 

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

Reading What You Expect

When we left Taiwan after 39 years there in 2018, we retired to Holland, MI. At various times in our Taiwan careers we had sojourned in this city several times. Beyond that, Char’s mother and sister resided here. It was the right place to come.

Busy at teaching and church work during the decades we spent in Taiwan, we neglected forming close connections with neighbors or neighborhoods. But now that we’re here, we find ourselves craving connections. Without jobs, where does one meet people?

We’ve started with “non churchy” parts of being parts of a church. I go to a breakfast / men’s discussion group every week which is anything but holy.  I’ve also begun attending a “retired guys” group, learning from more experienced hands about the stage of life I’ve entered. I’m also in a bell choir. Char has responded to invitations to be part of a couple of “women’s circles”, which focus on a Bible study book. Last week we went to something that we could do together. 

The church’s “senior citizens group” is named for something no longer existing. It’s the “Brim Bunch”, named for a brand of decaf coffee that was popular from the 60s through the 80s. The group meets for dinner and a program every few months. Last week a couple of members shared about their decades-long connection to Vietnam. 

Because of some of the old guys in the breakfast group, I’d known about the Brim Bunch for years. Char hadn’t. She saw activity listed, and signed us up to attend, assuming that it was the Brim BRUNCH. Only in the last days before the gathering did she notice it was at 6PM, a strange time for brunch.

I’ve misread lots of things, translating them into what I wanted or expected rather than what was manifestly before me. This is especially common when what comes to me is originally in Chinese.

 

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

No Slackers Here

A lot of things happened at about the same time in Taiwan in the 1990s resulting in an overly optimistic expansion of Higher Education Institutes (colleges and universities) at that time. In more recent years, though, a demographic bulge passed, pent up demand was satisfied, and a dropping birth rate has led to the merging or closing of many universities. http://isa-universities-in-crisis.isa-sociology.org/?p=417

The reputations of some universities have been tarnished by poorly performing students and graduates. Anecdotal evidence seems to carry a message that faculty are encouraged by administrators to lower expectations for students who, once admitted to a program, seem to expect to receive a diploma merely for keeping their tuition payments current. Even a slacker can shake the dean’s hand at graduation.

Last week at a breakfast and discussion I attend every week the topic was something along the line of “punishment befitting the crime” when one of the guys, a proud grandfather, diverted things down the track of the good reputations of a couple of local colleges, one of which had been attended by his granddaughter. He mentioned that a superintendent of local schools half a continent away wanted to hire the young lady sight-unseen merely on the basis of her having graduated. Another grandfather chimed in that he had “vetted” the woman he was dating 60 years ago, a graduate of the same college, by asking the superintendent of schools in a district far away and heard that “any graduate of there is top rate.”  So two guys, one using a spouse and the other a descendant, carried us far from the topic of discussion. 

Seated next to me was the college’s Dean for Natural and Applied Sciences. In a quiet aside to him, I opined that “no slacker has ever graduated.”  He chuckled a bit, not at all hurt by the comment, and wise to the general student body. 

Slackers can be found in shrinking universities, like many in Taiwan, and in small elite colleges, like the one here in town. Sadly, in my profession, clergy, slackers are known to get by, too.

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