georgeous

"don't i know that blurry back from somewhere?" you ask yourself. "i do, i do... from a peaceful place, a frameable place, a... lions gate place." and you are absolutely right. you do know that blurry back-- from peaceful warrior, the film adaptation of the way of the peaceful warrior, released by lionsgate films. my friend george was the back model for the movie poster. and my friend george just passed through taiwan, on a fabulous cruise of east asia. george and i met as teachers in the french caribbean, so it was only fitting that we spend our day together in one of taiwan's most tropical, lush, jungly environs. this is wulai:













wulai is less than an hour from taipei. it is a beautiful landscape of tropical mountains, blue green waters, and sulphur carbonate hot springs. in just one overcast yet sparkling afternoon, george, karin and i took in an abundance of wulai pleasures. among them:










a petite yet provocative miniature train. we waved, we screamed, we faux-conducted, we befriended the actual conductors. there was also:












the street food. a whole roasted pig! a father-and-son candy-pulling team, so glossy, sleek, and long! fist-sized balls of mashed fish and squished taro, chopped and fried! and for our wulai nightcap, we had:

a private hot spring soak at the landis. overlooking the nanshih river's turquoise waters, and a small waterfall set into the mountainside just across the valley. our tub's waterfall mirrored its twin in wild and unpredictable torrents of toasty spring water. it was so good, it was worth missing my train... and the next one... and the next one.

bon voyage, boug mwen!





BONUS: the following clip has nothing to do with wulai, or george, or karin. it illustrates a rock-glowstick phenomenon that captivated me the night before wulai, throughout amei's entire 3.5 hour performance at kaohsiung arena. the glowsticks were there before amei, and they lasted well beyond the extended "on-ko." *amei is taiwan's #1 pop diva, equivalent to kylie minogue or madonna in pop appeal and fan frenzy quotient*

vision quest

my beautiful and adventurous mother is at an interesting point in her life. she is really probably most likely about to retire, she may possibly be ready to sell the family house, she has just reached the ripe and respectable age of 65 (what what senior dis-counts!), and her only daughter is midway through a roots quest of her own (in search of cantonese heritage by way of taiwan). mom janet, as she prefers to be called, was looking for answers to her life's big questions. so she came to taiwan for a 5 week vision quest.

vision #1: people are medicine for people. life's big questions don't seem so troubling when you have 3 generations of liangs ushering you into their chinese new year family portrait, and gaoshu elementary school's staff and student body cheering uproariously whenever you pass by.












vision #2: make new friends and keep the old. whether they were squatting and chatting inside a screened-in jujube farm, oiling their chests and doing hunky rukai stretches in between performances, or chilling out buddhist monk-style on an old red wagon-wheeled bench, mom found ways to reach the masses. she squatted right down, squeezed right in, and zenned right out. and the whole time, her heart was singing with love for new friends like shushu, gugu, & mr. soo, and old friends like mary harrison, liv, & riley.

vision #3: when in taiwan... that's right-- grab a fork (or chopstick, or oversized toothpick, or spoon) and dig in. pork stuffed glutinous rice dumplings on the left, pork filled potstickers on the right. when everyone around you is consuming delectable mass quantities of pork, seize the pig.












vision #4: make art everywhere, with everyone, all the time. it would not be a vision quest without a glorious cross-cultural art exchange. mom brought glue sticks, wish sticks, and a great big rainbow peace flag across the pacific so that she could bless gaoshu guoxiao with a message of peace and love, all the way from milwaukee, wisconsin. little alice paid mom the ultimate compliment when she said, "you look like all of our mothers."












vision #5: go with the flow. if you're surrounded by hakka and aboriginal taiwanese cultures, then learn/eat everything you can about them (from fatty pork to pork fat to seed-bead embroidery). if life gives you jujube trees, then pick with all your heart (and go for the faintly yellowish ones). and if an all-school assembly is convened on your behalf, then grab a pen, write a song in chinese, and own that mic with your nearest and dearest family members:

to the tune of "row, row, row your boat:"
gaoshu guoxiao, gaoshu guoxiao,
xie xie ni, xie xie ni, gaoshu guoxiao!
eileen: wo shi ke ai-lin, ingwen laoshi,
ting bu dong, kan bu dong, xie xie ni!
jp: wo xihuan hao chi, wo xihuan hao chi,
niu rou mian, niu rou mian, xie xie ni!
mom: i don't speak chinese, i don't speak chinese,
ni men hen hao, ni men hen hao, xie xie ni!

vision #6: don't sweat the small stuff. this large chunk of cement may just have fallen on jonathan's foot during a 6.4 earthquake, but he is really crying over the departure of his adoptive chinese-american grandmother. jonathan and all of taiwan's children will miss mom janet.

photos: jlc & et celebrate kaohsiung's lantern festival + meinong's hakka pride during chinese new year; the liang family celebrating chinese new year; gaoshu elementary school & the carrs; jujube picking; strapping "abs" (aboriginal dudes); taking a senior breather; liouhe night market's tasty delights; art therapy in the english room (that's a PEACE PRIDE flag by the way); jujube/hakka/ lantern-loving mom janet; jonathan's lamentation

lantern festival

the lantern festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the lunar calendar, the day when the new year's first full moon comes into view. the legend i know best says that a group of villagers angered the jade emperor so much that he threatened to burn their village. a clever villager (probably named "vicky") devised a plan to trick the jade emperor into thinking that the village had already been burned: he told everyone to hang lanterns, make bonfires, and light firecrackers all over town. the jade emperor was successfully misled, and people have carried on the fiery tradition ever since. edward chung told me such exciting stories about this day that i invited my mom over to the ilha formosa. she came (yeah!), and yesterday our lantern festival fantasies were fulfilled and exceeded.

we started our day at southern taiwan's foguangshan monastery. alongside co-teacher sarah and her munchkins, eva and dada, we admired sun-lit lantern decorations and bowed our heads before thousands and thousands of buddhas of all shapes and sizes. we saw two parades: one of monks and regular people chanting sutras and prostrating themselves in a slow march towards the main temple, and another of children wearing makeup, passing out candy, and dancing their hearts out despite the sweaty midafternoon heat.


after a few hours of devotion, it was time to fool the jade emperor and blow some things up. we said goodbye to sarah and joined mr. edward chung and his mother, mrs. chung, in pingtung city. the atmosphere there was somewhat different. the most notable difference: the thousands of buddhas had been replaced by hundreds of thick bamboo poles neatly wrapped in thousands of firecrackers. also, chanting and bowing had been replaced by yelling into microphones and dumping water on everything in sight.














men in white had a range of duties. from left to right:
lighter: burned giant joss sticks used to light bamboo poles
douser: dumped water on anything that might later catch fire
holder: stood in a circle holding bamboo poles as they exploded
once everybody was good and doused, the party started:















the explosions went on for at least 10 minutes. being a spectator was much more complicated than i expected: you had to find the right balance between plugging your ears, covering your mouth from choking smoke, taking pictures, jumping up and down in excitement, looking down to see if you were on fire from flying debris, rubbing your eyes, coughing, doing interviews for hakka TV, and making sure that your mother wasn't on fire. we survived, mom loved it, and nobody got hurt (in pingtung city, anyways). happy lantern festival everyone, and welcome to taiwan, mom!
photos: taiwan's tallest buddha; procession through foguangshan's main gate; dada contemplates 2 big buddhas; eva surrounded by 14,000 tiny buddhas; bamboo poles; lantern festival fellas; the scene in front of matsu temple; mom & eileen; the aftermath

khmer dreaming

taiwanese schools had a month off for chinese new year this year. i joined my friend steph in cambodia for half of that time. during those two weeks, a whole world opened up to me. i came back to taiwan with a shifted perspective, new eyes, and strange new pains in my belly...

steph is a fantastic person. she and i met way back in the midwest, when i lived in minneapolis. our bond was initially cemented over antibalas, and then put to the test and exalted when we walked 500 miles of the camino de santiago together. steph is a spanish interpreter in a pediatric hospital; needless to say she has a soft spot for los ninos. cambodia was a hotbed for sweet, savvy, and occasionally sassy youngsters. steph had a knack for drawing a crowd.













along the way, we experienced some very strange and wonderful modes of transportation. the aisles of my first long-distance bus (center) were crammed full of families, livestock, bulging bags of produce, and 3 motorcycles. armrests came in handy for the obstacle course of getting on and off. we also enjoyed the built-for-25, filled-with-70 river boat (left; not pictured) that finally ground to a halt on the banks of the sangkae river after a valiant 10 hour struggle. before it got stuck, it gave us an unbelievable view of floating villages where children boat to school and bodegas bob past. tuk-tuks (right) proved to be the most comfortable and reliable public transportation around. motorcycle drivers hook their bikes up to rickety carts and then drag passengers around town (or take naps in back).












the best, very most special part of cambodia was not the fresh peppercorns, or the lychee-flavored fanta, or tiny from kep, or the wild irrawaddy dolphins, or the jungly temples. mr. sinan and sarom's wild ride was by far Le Top. through a distant connection, we met these two gentlemen who took us on an extraordinary tour of cambodia's most remote, backroad, unbelievably difficult to reach temple ruins. thanks to them, we saw not only angkor wat, but also sambor prei kuk, preah khan, koh ker, preah vihear, and beng mealea. no ox-cart trail was too bumpy, overgrown, or sandy for them. 4 dusty days, 3 nights without electricity or running water, 2 jugs of palm wine & beer, and 1 crucial drinking mantra later, we emerged from the outback covered in red dust and saddle sores. "drink for drunk. drink not drunk, drink for what?" -- sinan from kompong thom












photos: the queen & king of motocross (steph & sinan); steph's kids at sambor prei kuk (l) and on the road to kampot (r); boat kids in prek toal floating village; bus to kratie from kompong cham; batman (who beat spidey, fyi); sinan & sarom at preah khan; a high-end road; sunset before ta seng homestay; apsara dances; bayon faces; blissful elephants