Unscheduled Stop

For the last 11 years of our sojourn in Taiwan we lived a block from a hospital. Not the largest one in town, but big enough. But streets to its emergency room were not easily navigated, so we didn’t often hear sirens or see speeding ambulances. When we had emergency needs, we’d walk there. 

Cut to retirement in America. When we told some friends the location of the house we purchased, one reaction was “That’s only 5 blocks from the hospital.” We are located between between two streets that feed into the emergency room entrance. It’s the largest hospital in town,so we do hear sirens from time to time. Both then in Taiwan and now in Michigan, care doesn’t involve distance.

On August 13th a passenger on the Amtrak train from Los Angeles to Chicago, somewhere on a 127 mile stretch between Gallup and Albuquerque, NM, had a diabetic episode that required medical attention. Conductors were first called to the cafe car.  Patrons were asked to give them space. While that was going on, assistance was called for in a coach car. The tracks there generally parallel Interstate 40 (once known as Route 66). Towns and medical facilities exist, but getting a sick person off a train in the middle of nowhere is not easily accomplished. Eventually, at a place where the rails go under the interstate, the train stopped. Ambulances arrived, transfers were made, and the train rolled off onward even before EMTs were back on the road. 

The train had been making good time and was expected to arrive in Albuquerque 20 minutes early. With the pause, it was 25 minutes late. I’m guessing that because of the nature of the emergency, nobody minded the delay. 

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

 

The Great Pitfall

“The great and fatal pitfall in the art field and in life is dependence on the intellect rather than inspiration.”   Agnes Martin 1919-2004

Agnes Martin was an artist. She came out of the western plains of Canada, made her name in New York City, and then moved to New Mexico where she became something of a recluse but an ever-greater and ever-better artist. She was described as one who spent a great deal of time in silence and meditation before seeing in her mind the artwork she intended to create, and then going to the studio to execute her vision. She was also known for destroying about as many of her works as she eventually sent to her dealers, because after completion she rigorously evaluated whether or not they lived up to the vision. 

It’s not as a painter that we consider her here, but as a woman of deep wisdom about life and art. Her words about the great pitfall in the art field and in life can be applied to any field and life.  Think of some area of endeavor and insert it into the blank space in the sentence that follows: “The great and fatal pitfall in __________and in life is dependence on the intellect rather than inspiration.”  

A guy I met in high school, who went on to a career in mechanical engineering, spoke to me once about his field, which he said to me was not all straight lines and slide rules (we were young that long ago). He explained the “art” of engineering. I recall once in college a student going on about the 20th century’s advances in medicine as an example of the progress of science, until a physics professor interjected that medicine and healing belonged to the dark arts long before to the sciences, and, in his opinion, the “arts” part was still vital.  

I spent my last several years before retiring on the faculty of a theological college in Taiwan. One of the things we did there was listen to ministers-in-formation, during their final year of graduate education, deliver a sermon of their own creation. Yes, it was an artificial situation, and yes, the students knew they were being evaluated. But often enough, though they “passed” well enough to graduate, they failed. In Agnes Martin’s metaphor, they fell into the great pit. 

I still go to church and listen to sermons. I don’t get to evaluate them in public any more, but I’m with Agnes on this one. “The great and fatal pitfall in preaching and in life is dependence on the intellect rather than inspiration.”  

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

Hermanos

In less than a month I’ll mark my 68th birthday. A month later, my brother will mark his 67th. Like many boys who grew up so close in age, we’ve had times of greater and lesser companionship over the years. He has never resided more than 200 kilometers from where we were born. I wandered far afield. For most of our many years there has been either a continent or an ocean between the places that we called home. Now it’s only half-a-continent. 

We took different paths in life. I sometimes felt that he judged me negatively because of the one took, and I KNOW that I often judged him both harshly and unfairly for the path he chose. I hope that I’ve gotten over that. I’m pretty sure that he has. Anyway, we’re each too old to let much of it matter any more. 

Last week I visited him, just for lunch. He picked me up at a train station where I’d arrived. I mentioned how much better he looked than the last time I’d seen him, 3 years ago, and he agreed. He looked better, he said, but was actually worse. In the last year he’d had two strokes and radiation therapy for cancer. Though I recall his mention of “impending cancer treatment” when we last spoke on the phone (about a year ago), he had neither phoned nor written anything about the process or its results since. The strokes were news to me. 

By Podengo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16535266

For about ten years during my overseas life I sent him a letter every week. Yes, it was the same letter that I sent to other relatives, but it was a “reaching out”, and it went regularly. A friend I’d known in grad school told me about one of her undergraduate school classmates whose parents were missionaries in West Africa. This classmate eventually asked his parents to stop sending him “holy talk” letters, so I was careful not to do that to anybody. I wrote about our family, about each kid, and about life in Taiwan. As much religion as might find its way into a letter was the benediction, “Peace” at the end. Nonetheless, I got no response, neither then nor since my retirement in the USA. (I’ve taken up weekly writing again, but now it goes by email.) So it was a surprise to hear tender words about our being “hermanos” from him. 

Our mother left Minnesota for California before her 20th birthday. She was the first of the 9 children in her family to venture out of state. Eventually a sister and a brother followed to Los Angeles, and two other sisters “married out of state” (one to Missouri and another to Texas). But the brothers “back home” were always inviting visits, and welcoming them when they happened. Mom’s comment (not uttered to her brothers) was that the road went both ways. 

I’ll keep writing, and continue not expecting responses or news. As for being “hermanos” in much other than shared DNA, I’ll keep wondering. 

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

Choosing Where to Engage, and Where NOT To

After the government of the Republic of China (which didn’t exist until 1911) took over Taiwan in 1946 (the Chinese Imperial Government had ceded in perpetuity to the Japanese Imperial Government in 1895), Taiwan began to be a seriously divided society. The “Chinese” government, along with the military and civilians brought with it from China, enforced Mandarin language in education, media and governance. The country was ruled by a military dictator through means of martial law until 1988.  It’s members were “on the top” of the society, and the resident Taiwanese were regarded as second class. I learned Taiwanese, resulting in an identification with those “not on top.”

Time heals many wounds, and 50 years began to blend the descendants of the invaders with the descendants of the original residents. But in the late 1990s, some of those “descendants of the rulers from China” noticed that their place in society was eroding. Under the guise of something called “the New Party” they sought to regain their parents’ and grandparents’ supremacy. They accused those who had come to prominence of corruption worse than had been the norm from the 50s through the 80s, when those parents and grandparents had been in charge.

I had a friend whose ethnic roots put him in the dominant group. He was a good man, an exemplary father, a scholar and a Christian. It pained me to hear the slogans of the New Party occasionally coming out of his mouth. Before I responded, though, I reflected on what else I knew of him, that he was a good man, an exemplary father, a scholar and a Christian. I chose to conduct our ongoing relationship on the basis of those things. He remains a friend.

On a recent visit to California, I spent a couple of days and nights with friends from the early 70s. I hadn’t visited them for 15 or 20 years. They were friendly and gracious hosts, and we talked of old times and new. Like my friend in Taiwan, this couple were good people, exemplary parents ( & grandparents) and Christian (though neither was a scholar). Like my friend in Taiwan, I heard things come out of their mouths that made me cringe. Some were echoes of slogans used by America’s president, others merely un-thought-through ideas about which people should and shouldn’t be allowed to have children.

 They were not seeking to provoke, just letting me into their world, which is much different than my own. The choice was mine to make. I chose to see them as good people, exemplary parents (& grandparents) and Christians whose political opinions were not my own, but who were my hosts. I don’t doubt that they were as sensitive to any comments I made as I was to theirs. I hope that they enjoyed the visit as much as I did.  

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

Ineligible

At a couple points in our lives in Kaohsiung, Char was pregnant. In 1991, when our son was “on the way” we learned that the health department was offering all kinds of free prenatal care for residents of the city. I visited the office confused an intake worker there, because both Char and I were obviously not citizens (then), so we were judged by this low level staff member to be ineligible. I left my phone number and address for her, and was later informed that we were, indeed, eligible. So various services extended to citizens were offered to Char (and to our son-to-be). 

This incident, from 1991, came to mind through a chance acquaintance in an Amtrak dining car somewhere east of Dodge City, Kansas last week.  The dining car tables are for four, but if you’re only two, you sit with folks you didn’t know previously. We were across from a couple from Oklahoma. The gentleman was full of stories about his youth and military life (he had served in the Army in the early 80s). I mentioned that I’d been in the army, too, and had served in Vietnam in 1970. When he heard this, he advised that I apply for a 100% service-connected disability status through the  Veterans’ Administration. He said that just being on the ground in Vietnam made me eligible because it was presumed I’d been exposed to agent orange. The only way to get beyond that topic was to promise to look it up when we got to a place with Wi-fi (which most Amtrak trains west of Chicago don’t have). 

So, I looked it up. And, indeed, he was right. There are a dozen medical conditions for which anyone who served more than a few days in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975 can apply to the VA for treatment. As I read down the list, I found myself ineligible, because I have none of those. Rats! (or maybe, Whew!). 

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

Vinegar People

In Taiwan, it appeared to me that train conductors mainly checked passengers’ tickets. Sometimes they could be seen collecting fares from people who had boarded without paying first. They always mentioned that money could have been saved if someone got to the station in time to buy a ticket in advance.  I’m certain that I’ve over-simplified the complexity of their actual jobs. 

In 2016 I watched as a conductor on a train to Chicago put someone off at Hammond, Indiana, a station where that train didn’t regularly stop. Amtrak allows dogs (one of which was traveling with her), but not caged birds. She had slipped one aboard. After Benton Harbor, MI, the last scheduled stop before Chicago, she likely felt she’d put one over on the railroad. She didn’t bargain on the power of the conductor. Wow was she mad!

Last week, as the Southwest Chief rolled along somewhere in southeast Colorado, the loudspeaker crackled with an appeal for a conductor to come to the cafe car. A few minutes later, the conductor and the assistant conductor escorted a rather irate woman into the coach and directed her to take her seat a few rows ahead of us. We’d seen her the day before when the train started out of Chicago. She was among the passengers bound for California.  After a night on the train, she seemed no more disheveled than any of the rest of us. But something had gone wrong in the cafe car and she was being “disciplined.” 

Being a stranger to everyone else on board, she chose to loudly vent her anger over her phone. The conductor, standing in the aisle at her side as she complained, invoked a rule about being quiet in the coach. He directed her to take the conversation downstairs. This bugged her even more. After the conductors moved away, so did she. I’m not sure if she was put off somewhere in New Mexico or if she rode in a different coach to California, but  I didn’t see her any further. 

All of us have times of conflict with others. None of us knows what anyone else has suffered earlier in life or likely even earlier in the day. I know not what had happened in the cafe car, nor what happened after the altercation. I’m just glad that I’m neither a conductor, nor (to my knowledge) a vinegar person. 

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

What a Difference a Bed Makes

Long, long ago, when I first went to Taiwan in 1976, a train trip from Taipei to Kaohsiung could take up to 9 hours if there were many stops. There was also a late-night train in each direction that had sleeper cars.  I never rode one of those. A British friend mentioned that you could either sleep in your clothes or, behind the curtain, get all “nudie crudie”, an expression that stayed with me ever since. 

I never took a sleeper in Taiwan, but once rode one of those cars. They had been repurposed for use on the short line from Taipei to Tam-sui (back before that right of way was repurposed for Taipei’s subway). On that trip I noticed that the car had evenly spaced partitions in it and all the seating faced inward. It eventually became clear that the spaces were those of fold-down bunks. These memories floated up from my memory on a recent train trip from Los Angeles to Chicago.

I’d gone to California for my 50th high school reunion. My wife, Char, accompanied me as far as New Mexico, where she detrained to visit her brother. Though Amtrak coach seats on long distance trains are commodious and I can sleep pretty well in one, two nights running gets really tiresome. During breakfast on my second day the phone in my pocket rang, and Amtrak offered me a sleeper back to Chicago at a bargain rate. Apparently they’d had a cancellation, and for some unknown reason their computer threw my name up onto someone’s screen.  I grabbed it. 

After 4 days and 3 nights in California (with real beds upon which to sleep) I boarded the train back. I slept across one-and-a-half states, awakening somewhere near the New Mexico line fresh and well rested.  Char joined me in Albuquerque for the remainder of the trip, and like the gentleman I like to imagine myself to be, I yielded the bottom bunk to her for the second night and took the upper. It’s a few inches narrower and there’s no window up there (not that there’s anything to watch at night, but a little light makes it feel less like sleeping in a tube).

The sleeper car even had a shower, to which I availed myself the second day. If we’d bought those kinds of tickets to start with I’d have the, “at that price I want a bigger room and better food” line to trot out. But for what we paid, I have no complaints at all. 

Next month we’ll go to Denver and back, one night on the train in each direction. In October we’re headed to New York City, another night each way. We have coach reservations for both trips, but now the sleepers look awfully tempting.  I’m awaiting a last-minute phone call.   

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

Paint

A Taiwan memory surfaced today. In the 80s we acquired furniture in fits and starts. Some came from people who were leaving. They would sell or give things away. Initially, we got a stove from someone, a kitchen table from somebody else, and a single bed or two from I don’t remember where. As the years passed we added a set of solid maple dinette chairs that someone had brought with them from Tennessee. Once when a company that had brought a lot of staff from Texas lost the contract they were working on, we got an entire set of flatware and some decorative sheets. We did buy a lot of new stuff, but even then it was from the bargain furniture stores on Kaohsiung’s Chin-nien Road. Whatever we had got beaten up as we moved from apartment to apartment, or put it all into storage while periodically in North America.  

The last half of 1999 and the first half of 2000 we were away for 12 months. Rather than having a storage company take care of things, we rented an uninhabitable flat next door to ours and moved everything there ourselves. During the year away we managed to get a new lease on our old place. Moving back in was another DIY affair. Things got dinged and dented going through the doors. Cursory examination of  the kids’ bedroom furnishings revealed the extent to which my cheapskate tendencies had been destructive. But before replacing it, I got another idea. We could either buy new, or buy paint. Colors were kids’ choice, and I’d buy the brushes, too. If it all got ruined, then we hadn’t wasted much. To the cheapskate’s pleasure, they opted for the paint.

In 2007 we once again left for a long time, and were slated to relocate upon return. We dumped a LOT of worn out stuff, including that colorful bedroom furniture. The rest went into storage. Upon return it was moved to Tainan and unloaded, getting beaten up twice. What we needed new after that was purchased at IKEA. Other needs were met by either piecing together a table here and there, or buying stuff the wrong color and applying paint. That furniture lasted us until retirement in 2018, and, who knows, someone may still be using it. 

Memories aside, today in Michigan I hauled out a can of “one step stain and varnish” and attempted to match some “blonde” furniture to the “brunette” woodwork in the house. I think it came out a bit more auburn than I had intended, and certainly wasn’t “one step”.  We’re going away for a week during which it should dry enough for sanding and a second coat upon return. Whether it’ll ever get back into the house, or remain as “garage furniture” where it sits now, is another matter. 

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

The Absence of Steel

This week we watched as sidewalks, curbs, gutters and driveway aprons were installed on our street. We saw a lot of guys, heard a lot of Spanish, and endured the roar of many cement trucks. What we didn’t see was any rebar. What we didn’t hear was the clang of steel upon steel. What we didn’t endure was the smell of oxy-acetalyne torches. It’s not that we missed these things, just that their absence surprised us after decades of watching similar concrete structures being installed in Taiwan.

Michigan doesn’t get many earthquakes (and even THAT is an overstatement). Taiwan has few days without a tremor somewhere (and that’s NOT an overstatement). Maybe that’s why all of that steel goes into everything, even under surfaces that are only for walking on.

Not long after Dr. Ong Chongiau became president of Tainan Theological College in 2012 he had a chance to meet with another Dr. Ong, who was superintendent of the massive Tzu-Chi Buddhist Hospital. Both men were lifelong members of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. As he praised the work of Tzu-chi, the college president fished for similar compliments about Tainan, which pre-dates the hospital by a mere 120 years. What he heard was praise for persistence, but sorrow over the poor state of the campus.

That spurred a spate of landscaping and repair work. There were weeks when familiar sidewalks disappeared for replacement. Weeks during which the sound of the jackhammer was heard in the land, and the clang of steel and smell of cutting torches preceded the roar of the cement mixer. The palm-tree lined walkway from the gate to the college’s 117-year-old academic building, for instance, has more steel under it than an entire block of sidewalks, curbs and driveway aprons in Holland, MI. The same mild earthquake there that’ll damage nothing will result in rubble here.

I guess that engineers, like hearts, have their reasons, of which reason knows nothing.

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

A Year in this Life

It is August 1st as I write. One year to the day since we arrived in Holland, MI from our home in Taiwan.  When we’ve made these transitions in the past, they were temporary. A day was set for going back home. Not so this past year. We came here to stay. 

1. We brought our cat (who may not have liked the flight, but seemed to like the temporary place where we stayed for a couple months, and our permanent place for the 2 remaining months of his life).
2. We bought a house.
3. We joined a church.
4. We got season tickets to the local summer repertory theater company.

We’re doing many, if not all of the things that we’re supposed to do in transitions of this kind. 

Most of the time it feels OK. Lately though, with this anniversary, it feels sad. I think I need a little Taiwan in my life.  

1. Last month I flew to New York to be at a dinner given in honor of the visit of Taiwan’s president to the City. I got to be among Taiwanese people for a few hours and even got my picture taken with President Tsai (I was one of 30 people in the picture, so nothing too special there). 
2. We just accepted an invitation to preach a sermon and give a lecture at a Taiwanese church on Long Island at the end of October. They’ll even pay the trainfare! 
3. I just wrote an abstract for a paper that I haven’t yet written, but am hoping I’ll be accepted to present (with free airfare) at a university in Taipei in November. If they won’t give me a ticket, I won’t go, because 15 minutes on stage isn’t worth all the rest that the trip will involve, but I can hope.
4. We know we’re headed to Taiwan in January to vote in the presidential election there. 

Maybe these crumbs will have to do. Maybe it’s just the anniversary that has me feeling down. Hope will win at last. 

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