Monday, May 18, 2015

"We might actually lose, let's finally do a few good things"

Just a quickie here as I'm pretty busy this week.

Anyone ever notice that when the KMT has the presidency or is reasonably confident of keeping it, that they basically sit around with their thumbs up their butts, not doing jack squat for the country for years - or when they do do something, it's for their own benefit and tends to hurt, rather than be good for, Taiwan? (ECFA, I'm looking at you).

I mean, every party does this to some extent - if you think you're going to lose, you rush to pass politically popular or at least progressive legislation in the hopes that that will turn the tide somewhat before you lose your chance to take credit for it. Before that point, it's far more likely you'll milk the system to your benefit rather than do much good. It just feels more pronounced with the KMT.

In the very late '90s, there was a rush to pass a lot of women's rights legislation - if my memory serves, laws regarding abortion, divorce (though those were only changed to a degree), gender discrimination etc. were passed by the Lee administration...

...just before the KMT lost to Chen Shui-bian.

And now, we have the Ministry of the Interior starting programs to help the children of the children of Southeast Asian immigrants learn their native tongues, and to cap the work week at 40 hours. Both politically popular, or at least progressive (though as I've said, the work week cap lacks teeth and has some problematic language vis-a-vis gender roles), changes that don't remind people how disastrous the KMT has been in dealing with economic stagnation and Taiwan's relationship with China. All things designed to make the KMT look good. I'm sure they'll be trotted out in some sort of bluesplaining speech about how the KMT is the only choice for Taiwan because they know how to rule, or something.

It's not that these things aren't good, just as the women's rights legislation of the late 1990s was good. Helping children of immigrants know and understand their culture is a positive thing and can help Taiwan become a bit less insular vis-a-vis the foreign labor it needs.

It's just...it feels so politically stage-managed to all happen just as we start hearing the first twinges of election season. And I know, it seems like I can't just let the KMT have a good thing, or do a good thing.

And you're right. I can't. If they'd been passing good legislation like this - even better if it had teeth - throughout their reign as Supreme Lords of Cross-Strait Relations (because to hell what the people of Taiwan think once you're elected, apparently), and really worked to do something about, or even showed that they cared about, domestic issues such as treatment of immigrant labor, the over-examining of students, wage stagnation, marriage equality and women's issues, I might be kinder in my assessment.

But I'm not willing to wait 8 years a pop for changes to be made (or 16 years in this case). Do it throughout your presidency, or your gestures are worthless, GTFO, buh-bye.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

"As mothers could leave work earlier to take care of their children"

Good news! The Legislative Yuan, apparently sick of being seen as a raving pack of fuckwits, has passed legislation that caps the work week at 40 hours, or no more than 84 hours (where'd those extra 4 hours come from?) for two weeks.

That's awesome, although I had thought that this was already policy in Taiwan, and the reason people worked such long hours was because basically every single company ignored the law (and many of them found ways to weasel out of paying overtime - my former employer did this to Taiwanese staff, making them clock in on time but not clock out, so there would be no time-stamp of overtime worked). Though perhaps I'm wrong about that? If I am, please weigh in.

And we do need this - assuming that companies will actually pay attention to it. They seem to have found ways to creep work into Saturdays, which were made a day off as a two-day weekend some time ago (along with the somewhat Faustian bargain that if an extra day off was declared to merge a national holiday with a weekend, that day would have to be made up the following Saturday. I feel people work so hard they shouldn't have to do that). People are overworked, sometimes to the point of death. Almost always to the point of it affecting the rest of their lives. I'm not even going to continue talking about that aspect, because it's so obvious and well-documented that I don't have to. This is what the free market hath wrought, and it sucks. It needs regulation. It's screaming for it.

Even though what is most likely to happen first is bosses saying "sure, you can go home at 6" and then just never promoting that person, ever, for daring to actually use the new law to his or her advantage. The real change won't come until workers, coming to this realization together (whether they're organized or not - I happen to be pro-union but it's not strictly necessary for this to take place), simply refuse to work at places where onerous or even unpaid overtime is expected.

Along those lines, why is this clunker buried at the bottom of the article:

These include an increase of the monthly limit for overtime from 46 to 54 hours, Liu said.

If you increase the overtime allowance, it hardly matters that you're capping the work week. Work hours will be the same. So this law, while a step in the right direction, is not really going to change much. (Thanks to my friend V. for picking that up - I'd missed the line completely, so far down is it buried). 

What stuck in my craw about this otherwise great new legislation was this:

“Flexibility is conducive to a more friendly working environment and the enhancement of female workers’ participation in the workforce, as mothers could leave work earlier to take care of their children,” said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏), who proposed to include the clause in the amendment.

Ugh!

I mean, I am happy that new laws like this, if followed* and enforced** will make lives easier for individuals and for families, and people who want to raise children will find it easier to do so.

But this calls back to all sorts of bullshit stereotypes that women are the nurturers, they're the ones who always care for the children, it's their job. Their husbands' reduced working time is less important, because raising children isn't their job, or something. Nope, we leave that to the ladies.

That? That's crap. Why bollocks on about women taking care of children rather than parents taking care of children or families having more time together? Why ruin perfectly good legislation that way? I know you're taking a stab at feminism, and that's cool, and you can have your own brand of feminism (no True Scotsman here) but comments like this hurt as much as they try to help. 


*fat chance
**hahahahahaha


Saturday, May 9, 2015

Dissecting Flowers: Rainy Day Musings

It's pouring today. This is a good thing in that we need rain thanks to the legislators tasked with keeping water management infrastructure up to date have done such a shitty job of it, but also a bad thing in that it's my only day off this week.

On the way to a cafe, I passed a familiar face - the woman on the corner who sells those fragrant flower blossoms wired onto little hooks that you hang around the house to give it a fresh, natural scent. I know her - she's a Taroko aborigine, a wife and mother, in her early 60s, a devout Christian (she gives me Christian literature sometimes that I don't read, not because it's in Chinese but because as an atheist it's just not my bag). A few health problems that you'd expect a 60-year-old woman who stands outside all day to have. Obviously she doesn't have a lot of money, if she did she wouldn't sell flowers on the sidewalk.

Today (or tomorrow?) is Mother's Day, by the way. It makes no difference to the story, except to highlight how crappy it must be to be 60, a mother on Mother's Day, when it's pouring out, selling flowers on the sidewalk.

So, I often buy flowers, but not always, as I am not always headed home when I pass her. Today I pass her and honestly, I didn't really want flowers. I already had some hanging up around the house that I bought from another guy who sells them on the sidewalk near one of my workplaces. I was heading to a cafe with a cat that is likely to try to eat the flowers (I'm pretty sure they're non-toxic but the owners don't really like it when he does that). I felt like as a consumer it's my right to decide if I want to buy something or not, I shouldn't be forced into it by a guilt trip, a sob story or a hard sell. My money, my choice (for my private money, obviously when it comes to taxes and contributing to the running of a society that's different).

But, I did get the hard sell: it's Mother's Day, it's raining, I want to go home, maybe buy some on your way back?

I don't have the heart to tell her that I already have flowers hanging up, and I don't know when I'm coming back.

I still don't really want the flowers.

Yet, reader, here I am in the cafe with a little plastic bag full of flowers on wire hooks.

On one hand, I'm not wrong about feeling I have the right to spend my money as I choose. On the other, what a privilege it is for me to not have to sell flowers on the street just to make ends meet. Even if it's raining. Even if I'm tired. Even if it's Mother's Day (if I were a mother - I don't think being a Cat Lady counts). Even if it's raining, I'm tired, and it's Mother's Day. What a privilege to have enough money to not have to, to have enough, even, to go to a pricey cafe and get a Bailey's latte and sandwich. What a privilege to have the discretionary income that I could drop NT$100 on some flowers I don't need and hadn't intended to buy and not have to worry about it. I haven't always had that luxury (see: Jenna ages 23-25, and briefly after first arriving in Taiwan). As a foreigner here I am relatively well-paid, though I lack a lot of the securities enjoyed by citizens despite their lower salaries - jobs with paid leave, bonuses, pension plans, access to credit in Taiwan. Does that status of being paid well above the average for a teacher - more like the average for someone of my age and experience in finance - confer a responsibility? If so, a responsibility to do what?

Put in a situation where I could say "no", keep my NT100 (about $3 US), meaning she'd have to stand in the rain that much longer until someone else bought them, leaving my right to only buy things I want intact, or spend the $3 for something I really don't want or need so she could go home that much earlier, I chose to spend the money. (I would have just given her the money and turned down the flowers, but that probably - and rightly - would have offended her. She wasn't a beggar).

This brings with it all sorts of tough questions of privilege and right - exercise my right not to buy an unnecessary item and feel like (and, honestly, be) kind of a jerk? Or be a nice person - a softie even - but give up my ability to resist a hard sell? What would you think of the sort of person who said no? The sort who said yesWould it have been better if she'd not given me the hard sell and I'd chosen, without any push, to buy the flowers? Then it would be me owning the fact that I didn't really want them.

What is to be done about the fact that there are people who need to make money to survive, or need money to accomplish certain worthy things (like feeding their children or going to school), and people with the money to make sure everyone is fed and can get a level of education that suits them, but that we can't force that money to be more equitably distributed? (While I'm in favor of using tax dollars to redistribute wealth - make sure everyone has access to the necessities of life, health care and an appropriate level of schooling - not even I would agree that it's okay to force people to spend their non-tax dollars in this way).

I thought about this especially as Stephen Colbert made headlines recently by funding every single teacher grant request in his home state. He chose to do this - nobody asked him, nobody told him he should, nobody gave him the hard sell. He got to own that decision. I do think it's a shame that our children's education is now in part funded not by communal tax dollars, which are inadequately allocated ([s]I guess we gotta feed the military industrial complex somehow because that's soooo important[/s]) but at the whims of the wealthy, but what he did was fundamentally good.

Would it still have been so good if he'd been pressured by teachers to do so, and relented?

I can only dream of having the kind of money that would allow me to do something like that. I like to think that I would. But even then, would it be the same if I'd been pressured into it?

People calling on a random rich person to fund something - however important - when that person would not have been inclined to fund it otherwise - has the whiff of "moocher" to it, and would probably be whipped to death by the media, especially in the USA (I can't say for Taiwan).  A flower seller calling on a random relatively-rich person to buy some flowers out of pure empathy, not so much. Then the person who does so feels like she had her agency taken away, but the person who doesn't comes away feeling like a bit of a selfish prat.

And how is it that the intertwining narratives of consumer discretion and relative (lack of) privilege turned a fairly simple exchange into something so complex?

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Outsiders

There's been some change
But we're still outsiders
If everybody's here
Then Hell knows we ride alone

Franz Ferdinand, "Outsiders"

Around the same time that I wrote my long diatribe on sexism in ELT in Taiwan (and generally, but my experiences are Taiwan-focused), there was a presentation going on at IATEFL about women in ELT, especially in the upper/academic echelons. And, a new special interest group, Teachers as Workers or TaWSIG, was submitted and rejected by IATEFL.

IATEFL gave a reason for the rejection that makes a lot of sense, but I still feel there is value in an organization aimed at promoting teachers as workers globally, even though such an organization could never really interfere in labor issues at any sort of local level (local, perhaps affiliated organizations would have to do that). But English teachers around the world share enough common issues - from low pay to a tolerance of untrained newcomers to management that knows nothing about ELT to a lack of CPD to outright workplace abuse - that a global organization would serve the useful purpose of awareness-raising and knowledge-sharing, so that local associations (unions, really) would have an easier time of forming.

Note: I am not a member of IATEFL. I will probably become one at some point, but for the moment I'm not.

These two points - teachers as workers and women in ELT - are more interrelated than you might think.

I want to now go wildly off topic with a tangent point. I'll bring it back, I promise. If any of you watch Mad Men (if you don't, you should), you'll be familiar with storylines in the show where men (Don and Roger mostly) who otherwise look out for their female coworkers (Joan and Peggy) fail to support them in crucial ways at crucial points. For example, when Joan was being harassed by a copywriter and Peggy went to Don with the problem, only to be told to fire him herself (a great response in 2015, but not in the mid-1960s where a woman firing a man was fraught with gender politics that have faded a great deal today), or at points when Peggy was ready to move ahead but needed a leg up from Don just because that's what the working world demanded at the time - and didn't get it, leading to her leaving the firm for awhile. The most notorious of these plot points is when Joan was pressured to sleep with an executive from Jaguar's dealership association. She doesn't want to do it. Neither Don nor Roger want her to do it. And yet, she sees her options: go through with it to secure the account, or don't and see no immediate fallout but watch her horizons dissolve at work through watching herself be blamed indirectly for losing a major client.

Peggy and Joan mostly look out for themselves, but they live in a world of deep institutional bias: the male characters often take this for granted and expect that looking out for oneself sometimes means you can do it all the time. This is true in a world with no, or little, institutional bias. But that's not the world we live in. So, Don goes to Joan and tells her she "doesn't have to do it" (except it's too late), and she smiles sadly and says "you're one of the good ones".

It's clear what she means: you mean well, but when it comes down to it, you aren't going to support me in not doing this in the way I need you to if I am going to have any future at this company. And she was right - she needed the strong support of a person in an influential position to even take the option to not sleep with the Jaguar exec, and she knew she wasn't going to get anything more than words.

That's how it works when you're on the bad end of systemic sexism. You can look out for yourself most of the time, but there are times when you need people at the top to get the conversation going so your interests can really be put out there.

Note to regular readers: I will be referencing this scene again in a future post. Keep an eye out.

Back to the point of this post, for now.

If I were to distill my last post on this topic to its core elements it would be:

1.) Female English teachers are stereotyped as teachers of children, and as such it may be easier to get those jobs (in many cases employers offering them outright insist on female teachers), but those jobs tend to be poorly-paid, or at least not as well paid as teaching adult English, creating a push toward lower salaries for female teachers. Beyond lower salaries, it's harder for people teaching ESL to children to access basic CPD (continuing professional development), let alone the more academic levels of ELT.

2.) The majority of CELTA course attendees may be women, but it's actually fairly rare to meet a female Director of Studies. A lot of books in the field were written by women, but the majority of big names do tend to be men.

3.) ELT as a profession may be more egalitarian than others (and I believe it is), but as an international profession, we teachers come in contact with a lot of non-Western cultures that have their own ideas about gender and the role of women. It is quite common to be treated as an equal through your training only to come up against a deeply sexist boss.

4.) When women do get jobs teaching adult English, we still face discrimination: learners often mistake the "guy in a suit" for the lead trainer on any Business English course. I have had to prove to students that I am, in fact, the lead teacher and that guy in a suit over there may well be a trainee! That aforementioned sexist boss may shunt us over to soft-skills classes (which pay less) because he thinks they're more "suitable" for women.

I mean, I went into freelance teaching because I was sick of the rampant sexism at my former employer, starting with the director but really just going all the way down the pike. I felt that, as a woman in Business English, the only way I was going to get paid what I was worth would be to go it alone. And lo, I was right.

(Note: outside of my private classes, I have no problems with my current part-time employers. But I've been burned and so for now, Hell knows I ride alone). 
This poses its own problems - as a freelancer, I have no access to CPD unless I make it happen myself. Nobody invites or sends me to conferences, nobody gives me access to important ELT journals so I can keep up on the latest research in the field.

All of these issues are related to teachers as workers - from systemic sexism to choosing freelancing to escape bad working conditions. Sexism in the workplace is a worker issue. Salary differentials due to being pushed down different career tracks is a worker issue. Overcoming learner bias is something of a pedagogical issue (I am not sure what it falls under - affective filter?), but also a worker issue as to a lot of us, our learners are also our clients. Being present in large numbers - majority numbers! - on courses like the CELTA but not nearly equal let alone a majority in plenary speaker or director of studies roles is a sign of institutional bias, and as such is a worker issue.

Gender in ELT may be just one aspect of being a teacher who is a worker, but an important one that merits debate.

And debate it people did. I do recommend listening to the IATEFL talk, and Scott Thornbury's blog has a very long comments section (many comments are by me, but not all!) on this and related topics.

But, I have to say, I still feel disappointed. Debating this at IATEFL is great, but let's be honest - IATEFL has limited reach. Most of the private language schools that perpetuate these problems in the industry don't even know what IATEFL is, let alone care what they say about workplace conditions. Hell, most don't even know or care what the CELTA is and that's the most basic TEFL qualification there is.

So, in a way, TaWSIG not going through IATEFL may actually be better for it in the long run. Working at a more grassroots level where it can have more of an impact for workers whose employers couldn't give a toss about IATEFL may well turn out to be an advantage.

I'm also disappointed because, if you read Thornbury's post, well, he basically says that while there's room for debate on women's issues, that non-native speaker teacher (NNEST) issues are more important. It's great that he's getting the word about TaWSIG out there. And I completely agree with the need to also focus on the inclusion of NNESTs.

But, I was disappointed with the horribly cliched way he pivoted the discussion away from women in ELT in order to talk about NNESTs. First mentioning that the incoming and outgoing presidents of IATEFL were women (which is a good point, but comes across as not much different than "why are we talking about racism when America has a Black president?"), and then saying that the discussion of women in ELT was "distracting" people from a more important issue. Which reeks - reeks - of the same thing being done every time women's issues come up for public debate. "Yes, yes, we can talk about that, but not now, this other thing is more important, just wait, we'll get to you."

1848: "Yes, we know you ladies lack suffrage, but what's really important is slavery, you'll get the vote someday." 1963: "Yes, we know you feel dissatisfied and shut out of the chance at meaningful careers or even to be taken seriously as anything other than a housewife or mother, but what's really important is civil rights." 1970s: "There's a lot of shit going on right now so will you women's libbers please shut your traps for awhile? We'll get to you." 2015: "We already have equality even though many people deny that a well-documented pay gap exists, we have bigger things to deal with, we can talk about this later...or never."

It's not that those other issues weren't important - they all inarguably were. But they all shunted women's issues to the backseat time and time again, to the point where we are still waiting for equal rights explicitly stated in the constitution, we are still waiting for a roadmap to equal pay, and we are still fighting to retain control of our bodies and health care rights.

I know this wasn't his intention, and that he wouldn't disagree that both issues merit a discussion, but that's not how it came across, and that's not, I am sure, how most readers will take it. They'll take it as yet another "sure, we could talk about that, but let's not. This other issue is more important."

Which, if anything, was a blow to the discussion for those of us who see women in ELT as a major issue: we might have been better off if he'd mentioned TaWSIG and not brought up women at all. At least then there wouldn't be an established figure in the ELT world telling everyone our conversation isn't as important, or is distracting people from real issues.

So...the whole thing left me with a big "gee, THANKS" feeling.

Which brings us back to Mad Men. In a world of institutional bias, disadvantaged groups need a leg up. Thornbury - arguably the most prominent name in ELT at the moment - had the opportunity to give women one. A discussion started by him might have had some impact, at least in awareness-raising or inspiring people to think a little more about their situations and the situation of women in the industry.

Instead he told everyone to move right along, nothing to see here.

Posts like this are made by...the good ones. And that's a damn shame.

It's not that a person of influence is obligated to start discussions about whatever people might want them to - certainly everyone has the right to their pet issues. But, it's disappointing when someone of influence actually makes things worse for your own pet issue.

I want to add here, though it will be discussed at greater length in another post, that I not only feel like an outsider in adult ELT. I also feel like one being in the private sector, a freelancer even, in an industry where access to higher echelons is through academia. IATEFL folks can talk about these things at length, but it doesn't really affect us on the private side. There needs to be a bridge, because otherwise it's academics talking about academia, with little real-world effect. I'd like that to change as well, and I'll explore it at length - at great length, because you know me - later on.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Safranbolu Turkish Restaurant, and Shared Culture

Safranbolu Turkish Restaurant
#60 Nanjing E. Road Sec 2
(corner of Nanjing and Jilin Roads)
Zhongshan District, Taipei Taiwan
02-2522-2939

Pictures on this will come later, as I only had my phone with me and haven't uploaded the photos yet.

Anyway, I was quite excited to hear about Safranbolu, which as far as I know is the only Turkish restaurant currently operating in Taipei. Middle Eastern food exists, but until now, I couldn't find Turkish. As someone of Armenian descent - Armenian from Turkey - this is like a godsend to me.

The atmosphere is quite good - well lit (perhaps a little too brightly lit for a romantic dinner, but not overly dim as a lot of restaurants are), with the sort of lanterns one might find in the Istanbul Grand Bazaar hanging from the ceiling, Turkish coffee sets and evil eye charms for sale and Turkish music piped in.

We got hummus, ezme (a finely chopped salad of tomato, bell pepper, parsley, lemon juice, walnuts and pomegranate molasses), ayran (a savory Turkish yoghurt drink), lahmacun and Iskender kebab (my favorite kebab), Turkish coffee and two desserts (a custard and a rice pudding).

The food came quickly which we appreciated, and the ezme was perfect - exactly like I used to eat in Turkey after long days on the CELTA course - I would put it on thick slices of Turkish bread spread with soft cheese and eat it with a bowl of olives and local wine (Ancyra Okuzgozu), occasionally with some kofte. The hummus was chunkier and grainier than I prefer - I think this might be a regional difference. My ancestors' homeland is in the deep south of Turkey, near Antakya (Antioch) and the Syrian border. Around there they make their hummus silky smooth, doused in olive oil, garnished with parsley, cumin and cayenne pepper and served with bread, tomato slices and pickled vegetables (usually turnips or beets). When we had hummus in Patara, a little further west, it was chunky with nearly whole chickpeas and didn't have the same seasonings. This hummus was more like what we had in Patara. It was fine - though I still haven't found anyone in Taipei who makes hummus the way I like it - although we were a bit annoyed that the bread took awhile to arrive and was not very substantial. The bread was, however, good. I hope that they can sort out this service snafu and remember that bread comes at the same time as the hummus, and should be adequate to eat all of the hummus on the plate.

The lahmacun was excellent - the bread was not as thin as you can get it in Turkey but they got the flavors just right. My only comment here is that in Turkey lahmacun usually comes with a lightly dressed side salad of onion, tomato, possibly lettuce, cilantro or cucumber and you wrap the salad in with the lahmacun, and no salad was provided. On the other hand, I feel I should not be quite so picky: there is nowhere else in all of Taiwan to get decent lahmacun.

Iskender kebab is from the city of Iskenderiya just north of Antakya - it's the closest "regional kebab" to Musa Dagh, where my ancestors are from. While my family has apparently had a long-running feud with the Iskenderians, an Armenian family most likely from Iskenderiya (I don't really subscribe to the "old family feud" school of thought though), Iskender kebab remains my favorite. It's thin slices of grilled meat over chopped flatbread, doused in tomato sauce and served with yoghurt and rice. This Iskender kebab was pretty good, though it doesn't hold a candle to the huge heap of perfectly cooked lamb I had at a Turkish restaurant in New York not to mention the delicious Iskender kebab I had in Sanliurfa or Antakya. But, it was pretty good...I guess I just wish lamb had been an option (they only had chicken or beef).

The ayran was served in Moscow mule mugs, which I liked, and tasted basically like ayran, so yay!

All in all though I would say they hit the mark on all the flavor combinations - the tastes were all just like we had in Turkey - the other issues are just small kinks to work out.

The desserts were quite good - both fairly Turkish and tasty. We had them with Turkish coffee, which came in lovely cups with Iznik tile designs on them (not real, of course) and a pistachio Turkish delight. They don't do different sugar levels though - you can't say you want your coffee sweet or not. But, the way it's made, it's basically perfect so I'm not complaining.

Prices were not cheap, but then for good foreign food in Taipei you will usually pay a premium. The lahmacun (which is a light meal) was about 260NT, the Iskender kebab topped out in the 400s and the appetizers were about 60-90NT each. For the two of us - coffee, appetizers, ayran, meals, dessert - we paid about NT1800.

Oh, no alcohol on the menu. That's one major downside.

Before I finish this, I'd like to add something on a personal note. As an Armenian whose ancestors lived in Turkey before the genocide (the 100th anniversary of which just passed), it's kind of weird for me to eat Turkish food, because that's OUR food. The food of my family. The food of my ancestors. It's integral to our culture as Armenians...but that food is Turkish. But, it's also Armenian. I want to claim it as my cultural heritage, but I do not want to claim Turkish as my heritage, as I am not Turkish, I am Armenian by ancestry. It comes across as - this is our food! So, you're Turkish? No, we're Armenian. But this is our food too. But it's Turkish food. It's also Armenian. Armenian from Turkey? Well, yes, but food in Armenia proper isn't that different. So if they lived in Turkey, weren't they technically also Turkish? Not under the Ottoman Empire they weren't - there were Turks and then there were millets, or ethnic minorities under Ottoman control.

But a lot of the words of Western Armenian (the Armenian variant spoken by Armenians in Turkey) are Turkish borrowings, the food is the same, the culture is essentially the same, the tea and the games are the same, but we're not exactly the same. So on one hand I'm claiming my own heritage, on the other, I feel like I'm claiming one that is not entirely mine. Or, by claiming it, people make assumptions about my heritage that are not true.

All this to say, I understand how a lot of Taiwanese feel, wanting to claim aspects of Chinese culture that are also Taiwanese, that the two groups share (with the added aspect that they are ethnically the same), but wanting to remain culturally distinct. Wanting to say, yes, this is our heritage, we have this too - but we are not "Chinese", or, in the ways that we are, that is not the same as being from China. We share cultural touchstones, but we are distinct, and having that claiming of cultural heritage confused by the world at large for identifying as "Chinese".
I mean, I can never fully "get it", but I get it well enough, I think.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Review: Balle Balle Indian Restaurant

Balle Balle Indian Restaurant

 photo 11088549_10206444172571969_1923096470961081230_n.jpg

Guangfu N. Road #12, Songshan District, Taipei
台北市松山區光復北路12號
02-2750-7265

I've also updated my "Indian Restaurants in Taipei" post to include Balle Balle, if anyone wants the most comprehensive list one can come up with (there's still one on Heping Road I need to try between Technology Building and Liuzhangli).

Soon after my return to Taipei, and also soon after my husband's birthday, my good friends June and Chelsea planned a welcome back/happy birthday dinner here, knowing I'm a huge fan of Indian food and that I've been wanting to try this place. They left a comment on the original restaurant list asking me to write about them, but the reason I did is that I'm always on board with trying a new Indian restaurant!

And Balle Balle delivers. They were able to accommodate our group of 13 (one person'd had to leave early by the time this picture was taken), even in their small space and the service was good to the point of being obsequious. We got mutter paneer - which my husband had expressed a like for but we never get because I don't care for peas - on the house for his birthday and they were very good about ordering flexibly and making recommendations without flooding us with food, although we did take home lots of leftovers!

The food was also delicious - the samosas were big & stuffed, the curries just right, and the food moderately hot because even though I like my Indian food local-spicy (I did used to live there after all!), some of my friends don't.

We got samosas for all, mutter paneer, tandoori chicken, butter chicken, saag aloo (potato-spinach curry), lamb rogan josh, butter chicken (my favorite!), and channa masala, with a baingan bharta (eggplant curry) substituted for lamb at the table with vegetarians. And yes, I could confidently say that I have eaten Indian food like this in India: it's not overly twisted to suit local tastes, and for those who really can't take the heat, the spice levels can be adjusted.

My only disappointment was that they didn't have Kingfisher - we had to get Taiwan Beer. Realistically the two beers are almost identical and Kingfisher is kind of crap, but it pairs very well with curry. Just don't drink it on its own.

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I won't say Balle Balle takes the place of my perennial favorite, Mayur Indian Kitchen -  I like them both for different reasons! Mayur focuses on regional cuisines and you can get a lot there that you can't get at other Indian restaurants: idli-dosa, various chaats and other specialties. Balle Balle focuses almost exclusively on Punjabi-style cuisine, and I love that. It's even evident in the names of the dishes: Patiala this, Haryani that, Amritsari that. "Balle Balle" itself is a phrase uttered while dancing or found in Punjabi music, especially bhangra, to denote a feeling of happiness. They obviously take pride in their Punjabi heritage.

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I love that I don't have to choose: want north Indian food with an emphasis on Punjab (where I have been, and yes, the food at Balle Balle captures those flavors)? Go to Balle Balle. Want idli-dosa or something more regional like a Gujarati yoghurt curry? Go to Mayur.



Sunday, April 12, 2015

Downeasters: A Trip through Rural Pingdong County

I'm baaaaack!

I haven't been in Taiwan long, but I've been taking advantage of the short time since my arrival. My husband, friend and I almost immediately departed for a four-day trip around southern Taiwan, focusing on the lowermost east coast stretching from Xuhai (旭海) to Kending, while avoiding Kending town because we're just not into that scene.

The purpose? To take a trip around  Gangzai (港仔), Xuhai (旭海), Manzhou (滿州), Jialeshui (佳樂水), Kending (墾丁), Mudan (牡丹) and Weeping Lake (哭泣湖) on the eastern end of Pingdong County, hike along the coast to a well-known shipwreck on one of the most isolated stretches of Taiwan's coast, the only part of the coast at least in this part of the country that lacks a coastal road. That means, to see this, you can't just drive a car to a lookout point. You have to hike along the foreshore, and let me tell you, beaches it ain't.

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I'm clearly re-adjusting to Taiwan. Until I bothered to read the Chinese I thought there was a dessert shop down by the beach and thought "yay!"

We also planned a short hike to Cacevakan (I do not know how to pronounce it), the site of the ruins of a 700-year-old Paiwan village, and a short, easy circle of the Xuhai grasslands. In between we drove around the Kending peninsula and stopped at various beaches and coastal areas - some stone, some pebble, some sand, and spent a night on Weeping Lake in the mountains between Pingdong and Taidong.

This is also a special trip for me because it marks the first time I have ever driven a car on the main island of Taiwan. I have driven on Matsu before, and very briefly (like helping to park) on Orchid Island, but Taiwan itself has always terrified me. I'm an inexperienced and nervous driver in the USA, so Taiwan's inattentive scooter drivers, betel nut stand lights that make it hard to suss out actual traffic lights and general sense of all sorts of random crap being thrown at you as you go down the road have turned me into a confirmed non-driver.

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Until now. You see, I've just spent the past 4 months in a small town in the Hudson Valley where you drive, or you starve. I carpooled with my sister to work and did most of the driving as I needed the practice. I took the car out on my own - a first for me. I drove more in four months than I had in 34 years, because I had to. I now feel confident enough behind the wheel that it would not be crazy to suggest me as a driver on a trip.

So, we rented a car in Pingdong as I refused to drive in Zuoying where the HSR spat us out. People say it's easy to get on the freeway from the station, but years ago we tried with my friend Emily behind the wheel, couldn't find it, and spent an hour circling Zuoying looking for a way out. NO THANK YOU. Pingdong is a smaller city, I felt that I could handle it especially if the rental office was on the outskirts (which it was), and if we then kept to highways that skirted towns and country roads. And I did! I really did! We returned the car without a scratch on it.

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Along the road to Gangzai




























I would like to say that I have changed my mind about driving in Taiwan and my insistence that public transit ought to be better, that I have decided to re-think my lack of desire to visit cities with inadequate public transit such as Taichung, that I am more amenable to driving in various parts of the country. But that would be a lie. I still think public transportation is better. I will still seek out buses and trains whenever possible. I still feel that public transit outside of Taipei and perhaps Kaohsiung is insufficient, and requires the attention of the government. I am still not a proponent of driving. I would still prefer not and still recommend that others try to avoid it.

Pingdong is an incredibly scenic county. Unfortunately, it's also one you can only fully enjoy if you drive or cycle. We took Route 1 (the main highway to Kending) to Route 9 (the turnoff for the mountains to Taidong, a right-hand turn to go left because driving sucks). Then we turned on County Route 199 (199縣道), stopped at a well-known Paiwan restaurant at Weeping Lake (哭泣湖 or "ku qi hu", transliterated from Paiwan "tzukudji" - it is not an incredibly tragic lake nor is it lined with weeping willows), and then turned onto Route 199-jia (199甲) to take us down to Gangzai via Xuhai. This route will take you over low mountains and, as you near Xuhai, will spit out gorgeous views of the blue ocean rippling between green bejungled hills before you start to descend.

Before you set off on this trip, I highly recommend making reservations at Vais Paiwan (凡伊斯山野菜館) - the address is 屏東縣牡丹鄉東源村51號 along County Route 199, phone #08-883-0463, open 10-5pm. They're famous for their vegetables - don't go overboard on the meat, just order lots and lots of super-fresh, well-prepared veggies. You can also get Paiwan snacks, mountain pig and more.
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View from 199甲
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Mountain pig at Vais Paiwan - it was good, but the vegetables were better











































Our next stop after Vais Paiwan was Xuhai's pebble beach, where flat, round pebbles make a downpour-like sound as the waves roll in.

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It's also a good place to watch the sunrise, but we were there in the late afternoon. A gorgeous coastal road connects Xuhai to Gangzai (港仔), which, true to its name, has a tiny little port, with lots of pretty places to stop and take photos along the way. In Gangzai, we arrived late enough that all we could really do was get dinner and turn in early. We stayed at Li Mama's  (#08-8810066)and found a fantastic dinner spot down by the water (walk back along the main road and turn right at the Earth God temple, continuing left along the short road closer to the coast - the entrance to the beach is to the right) - I especially recommend their dish of non-spicy green peppers, which are not the same as green bell peppers.

Oh, if staying in Gangzai and addicted to caffeine, I highly recommend bringing your own coffee setup - I brought those one-cup coffeebags and a bag of creamers. You won't get morning coffee anywhere else in town, although down the road an outdoor cafe setup in a field claims to have coffee, but does not appear to open early in the morning. 


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The next morning I, jetlagged as hell, woke up at 5am because the gods hate me. But, I had the chance to see the sunrise while Brendan and Joseph snoozed so I threw on flip-flops and, without brushing my hair, walked down to the beach in my pajamas. Folks in small towns in Taiwan tend not to care too much about your personal style. Of course the beach was full of the few other tourists staying in Gangzai, and they were silhouetted black against the lightening sky and water as I walked up. 



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Would you believe that this is a moonrise? It is - it's not a sunrise photo at all. 
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Gangzai has a sandy beach dotted with rocks and other detritus - a pleasure to walk down, but I would not recommend swimming. It is backed by several high sand dunes that a.) coat the entire town, daily, in a fresh film of fine grime and will cause you to feel grimy, too; and b.) can be traversed by renting a Jeep or ATV, a popular activity in town.

You can beachcomb for fun, drive around the dunes, or explore a half-buried pillbox.

I hadn't brought my phone, which is currently my only easily portable camera, so I have no photos. The world has enough photos of sunrises, I figured, I would just enjoy this. I could go into some long "off the grid, enjoying the sunrise"cliche, but really I just couldn't find my phone in the dark and couldn't be bothered.

Loving a good foot dip, I rolled up my PJ bottoms and let the surf wash over my toes a few times. Happy with this, I wasn't paying much attention when a larger wave rolled in, soaking me to the waist. I tried to splorp backwards to get to shallower water, but my flip-flops sunk into the roiling sand, I lifted up a foot and the surf immediately snatched my shoe away.

Okay, I thought. I'm here in PJs, with only the bare minimum of clothing, no technology and now just one shoe, watching the other one quite literally sail off into the sunrise. You win, Mother Nature! The power of the elements serves to illustrate the ephemeral nature of man! Waiter, another cliche please! Give me a TED talk!


Later, we packed up all manner of snacks and sun protection for our hike to the shipwreck. This hike was kind of a one-shot deal for us, first of all because we needed a permit (which we didn't have, but nobody was checking), and secondly because it's widely believed that this particular shipwreck is going to end up washed away by the upcoming typhoon season. The ephemeral nature of man and his works indeed!

We drove our little Vios down to Jiupeng village(九棚村) and following the incredibly scenic road along the coast down there to the very end, where it terminates in a concrete building and two small shrines. There is no food to buy - bring your own. The last general store is back in Jiupeng's "downtown", such as it is. Along this road you will find several inlets to the coast, one with a sandy beach. One lets out on a rocky outcropping you can clamor over, complete with maypole-or-prayer-flag area. From here, look to the right. In the far distance you will see an oblong shape down the coast. Look closer. That's the shipwreck.

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It looks so close! Soooo close! You could just walk there, right? 


Ha. Ha.

Keep driving, to the end of the line. As far as you can drive. 


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Go to the end of the line where you'll hit the coast, a few buildings and two shrines. 

At the far shrine you can turn onto the rocky coastline. There is no trail, and the "Nanren Road" that the map promises continues this way does not exist. You'll pass a sign saying no trespassing without a permit...but nobody will check. You cannot see the shipwreck from this starting point, it's obscured by another small cape. To see it again, you'll have to round that. To get to the actual wreck, you'll have to pick your way across 4km of rocky tumbles.

We did not make it to the wreck, but we do have some photos of it from the little cape. We all agreed that, given the time it took to reach the cape, that we would never make it over even rougher rocks to the wreck and back. It looks easy, but it is incredibly hard on your legs and feet - I kept struggling to keep my balance in the shifting stones, and I'm still sunburned from the complete lack of shade. If you want to keep going, I suggest buying some cheap working gloves from 7-11, the knitted kind, to make it easier to scramble over larger rocks. 


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It looks like such an easy thing, just picking your way through these smaller rocks - but it's really not. You're completely exposed, which you can deal with, but the rocks themselves radiate heat and they're small enough that they don't afford good balance. I had to keep my head down to keep from flopping all over the place, and even then I tripped and stumbled often.

It seems like you should be able to get to that first cape in maybe 30 minutes?

Yeah...it took something like 2 hours. It's only, at most, 1.5km away from the road's terminus and probably less than that.

In the end we didn't make it past the cape. From the cape, there is a view of the ship but it was agreed that the rocks beyond were simply too rough to attempt to go any further, considering the effort and time it had taken us to get this far. 


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Turning back and sitting exhausted for awhile at one of the shrines, we drank tons of water, ate cereal bars and dried mango slices, and inspected some local beachcomber's collection of finds.

You can also start this hike from Manzhou or Jialeshui, starting at Little Yehliu, where the walk may be easier but it's 8km, and you are more likely to be asked for a permit. We never did figure out how one even obtained a permit. I'd say it's impossible, but Taiwanese hiking groups do this hike. 


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We got lunch back in Gangzai at the restaurant on the main road next to Li Mama's (also good - don't miss the cuttlefish balls and fried oysters) and then continued back to Xuhai, where a much easier hike awaited us. A turn-off in Xuhai will take you up a winding but fairly well-maintained mountain road that spits you out at a high-altitude parking lot. Pay a small fee, park your car (you could hike up the road, but I do not recommend it), and a lovely, easy hike among scenic grasslands awaits. There are restrooms and food stalls here, too. Also, tour groups. 

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This hike is so easy that a child could do it, and many did. People brought their babies and small dogs and set up entire picnics. It was a nice counterpoint to our death march earlier in the day, with only a few uphill sections. You are rewarded with stunning coastal and mountain views. I recommend sun protection. Take your time and enjoy the view. 

The next day we took off from Gangzai and headed south. We stopped briefly in Manzhou for cold drinks and to see the Yu Family Home, a 120-year old courtyard house that is still occupied, sort of (the Yus live in New York, but return fairly regularly and were in town for tomb sweeping). It's a private home but if you pop by and someone's there, they'll most likely let you in to have a look around. Across the street is another home from the same era in a state of considerable disrepair.

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Manzhou is also a decent place to stock up at 7-11 and grab a bite to eat. You can probably get directions from folks hanging out at the banyan tree at the center of town (no joke), and if you stayed to poke around you could probably find some more interesting old houses and temples.

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We skipped Eluanbi (Brendan and I had been there years ago) because it seemed to be full of holidaymakers and instead focused on Kending sights to the east, including a much quieter and more pleasant beach than the one in Kending town, which is kind of gross and overdone.

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We stopped in Jialeshui (佳樂水) where we are fairly sure the restaurant where we ate lunch, which was directly across the street from the parking lot, passed off intestine as "fish belly", despite our skeptically asking if it was indeed what we'd ordered. In addition we learned that drinking 100 cups of coffee in a short time can kill you.


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Who knew? We also found that the banyan forest was closed on the weekend (so much for being a good tourist site). But, we went on to Little Yehliu, where you drive past the first parking lot (which is for a beach that looks a bit rough for swimming) and up to a further one. I suppose without a car you could walk it, but I wouldn't want to. Again, that's not a call for you to get a car, it's a call for the destinations down here to have better public transit.

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You pay a fairly large fee (290 for three people and one car) and hop on a shuttle bus that stops at all the least interesting rock formations. The shuttle eventually pulls up at the end of the road, which has much more interesting rocks that you can actually get out and climb over. Your shuttle will leave in 10 minutes but you can take any leaving shuttle and stay as long as you like. There's a guy there selling coconuts you can drink from and bottled drinks. This final stop is really what's worth coming for.

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After Jialeshui we drove back up Rt. 200 towards Gangzai, but turned at Changle (長樂), a small Paiwan town to get on Rt. 172 (a left-hand turn coming from Kending, a very weirdly angled right coming from Gangzai that you will probably miss, which bears a sign for Gaoshi/高士). Having trouble finding the turn, we stopped in Changle to ask directions. Someone had left a cover half-off a rain gutter near where we'd parked, so as I stepped out of the car, my entire left leg went right in the hole and I fell forward.

Joseph, who was also out of the car, and a local woman giving him directions ran up and helped get me out. I hadn't broken anything but still have a nasty scar several inches long below my knee. The woman probably tells everybody she meets about the foreign lady who fell in a rain gutter in Changle. As we were asking directions to a hike, you could generously term my scar a "hiking accident" - but we all know what really happened.

Route 172 twists further up into the mountains from Changle and eventually meets County Road 199, although that is not clear at all on Google Maps. It is both narrow and surprisingly well-maintained. It is very sparsely trafficked - we passed maybe 3 cars for most of the length of it. Driving along that for several kilometers, on the left you'll come to a clearing with several government signs (on the right if you come from Mudan and the dam).

This is Cacevakan, the trailhead to a short hike up the mountain that leads to the 700-year-old ruins of a Paiwan village.

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If you go up here, when you enter the ruins, remember to maintain a respectful silence, do not enter any of the houses (it's OK to walk on the path), do not litter, and although you can picnic at the rest spot just before reaching the ruins, I'm not sure I'd recommend it as I don't know how sacred the space is. The government has done some work to make this site accessible, but it's unclear how much that is supported by the local Paiwan, so it's better to err on the side of more respectful if you go.

As the signs will tell you, the inhabitants of this village buried their dead inside their houses - doing so was supposed to confer protection and bring in good luck - so stepping into any house ruins you see likely means stepping over graves - not something you want to be doing.


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A view from the hike up to Cacevakan

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The hike is about 500 meters there - 250 to a T in the trails, then head left and it's about another 300 to the ruins. You can head back via the same trail or a slightly shorter but much rougher one that brings you back to the T from the right (you can also go up this way). In many areas on the rougher trail you may have to butt-slide down as it gets steep and gravelly and the wooden steps are all but disintegrated.

If you keep quiet on the trail and come in early morning or late afternoon, you may catch a glimpse of macaques in the trees. There are beehives, so take care and don't wear anything too smelly.

It may seem deserted, but people do come up here, most likely local Paiwan. At the resting spot there were fresh betel nuts laid out to one side, and at the ruins there was a stone slab covered in coins, glass jars and candy.

And again, contemplating these ruins, I would be tempted to pontificate on the ephemeral nature of man and his works as they face off against the unstoppable elemental forces of nature, but again, I'm not a walking TED talk, so I won't.

We stayed briefly and then hiked back down - well, I hobbled, my leg was throbbing - and continued along Rt. 172 to where it meets County Route 199 near Mudan and its reservoir and dam. The views around here are nice, and the entrance to the town is decked with a large aboriginal-design archway.

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Heading further up the mountain from Mudan, you may want to stop for some views back down toward the town and dam.


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You'll also pass a strange-for-Taiwan town, clearly aboriginal and newly built, full of A-frames on tidy streets. We're not sure what the history is behind this settlement - whether it's for workers who man the dam and reservoir, a rehousing of locals who lost their homes in mudslides or some other housing program, or even what it's called (though Google Maps lists it as "Shimen Village" or 石門村). I'd be curious to know as one does not usually see European-style A-frames in small Taiwanese mountain towns.


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As we drove along we passed several trailheads for hiking. With more time and a leg that wasn't banged up by an aggressive rain gutter, I would have liked to have checked some of these out. Unfortunately, we had neither, but someone with time to spare might really enjoy exploring some of these trails. As it got dark we pulled into Dongyuan (東源), also known as 哭泣湖 or Weeping Lake, which we'd passed on our first drive in. Dongyuan/Weeping Lake has Vais Paiwan (the restaurant noted above), a "scenic area", the lake itself with an easy trail through the meadows and forests around it, and Gu Zi (Ku Qi?) Stone House, run by a local pastor and his wife (reservations: 08-8830463 or 0933381844). You can spend the night in the spacious, eccentrically-decorated room below, and have coffee overlooking the lake in the cafe above, which opens between 9 and 10am. We pulled up to the Stone House and waited for someone to show us the way - the house itself is down a short dirt trail from the road.

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If you want something to eat, you'll either have to walk, drive or cycle (if you're on a bike) the 1km into town, so if you don't feel like leaving once you've checked in, make sure you're set for food. There are no locks - "nobody here would steal anything" - so while you're probably fine you may want to keep valuables on you. Breakfast is at Lai Lai Noodle House, 1km away in town, and is free. I liked the noodles with a tea egg and mountain vegetables - Joseph wasn't so keen. Lai Lai is run by the pastor's wife's sister and is next to the large church. Many of the aboriginal towns around here boast fairly large churches as much of the community has been converted to Christianity. The room comes with a very large table, a large wooden platform that functions as a "bed" and holds three - better if you're family - a stone-wall bathroom, separate kitchen area with sink but no stove, hot water kettle and some toiletries. It's decorated with wood, stone and aboriginal fabrics. The slate-and-stone edifice is also dotted with old tools, broken jars and other eccentric bric-a-brac.

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Our plan for the next morning was to walk around the lake, have coffee upstairs, and then drive up to Dongyuan Scenic Area to see if it's a worthwhile detour. Unfortunately, we woke up to driving rain and, uh, didn't do anything except have breakfast and then coffee. That's also why I have no pictures of Stone House - the light was awful and didn't really capture what the place is like.

So, after returning in the rain from Lai Lai, we packed up and, when the cafe opened (we were the only customers), had locally-grown coffee and ginger flower tea overlooking the lake. More a pond than a lake, really, but the scenery was nice. If you are driving this way it is well worth a stop - and you wouldn't really notice it if you didn't know it was there - but isn't really a destination in its own right.


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After coffee we started the slow drive back down to Pingdong, our best-laid plans ruined by the downpour. We would eventually stop in Kaohsiung briefly to have a meal with our dear friend Sasha at Dan Dan Hamburgers (a very local southern Taiwanese hamburger joint that boasts fast food and thread noodles in combo meals).


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I would again wax rhapsodic about man's helplessness in the face of nature, but remember the even that got me on that whole line of thinking? My reliance on human technology laid bare at sunrise as I watched my flip-flop bob away in the surf?

Well, what I didn't mention was that after a few minutes some girls further down the beach came up to me, my dripping shoe in their possession. "I saw you lost your shoe before - is it this one?"

YES!

"It washed right back up on the beach down there."

Ha ha.

Man 1; Nature 0.


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An ancient tree grows on the grounds of the Qiaotou Sugar Refinery in suburban Kaohsiung while on one side a guy hangs out with his stuff, and on the other a couple takes wedding photos. Rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, man beats nature.