My Birthday in Taipei

Some people don't like to celebrate their birthday, but I have always been into it. You know, just another excuse to get everyone together and have fun. At lunch, we got together at a wonderful teahouse on Shida Rd. Here you can see several American acupuncturists living in Taipei. My friend Apple, who teaches Mandarin and English, is not an acupuncturist, but since she brought a cake, I let her come. Also, at right is the honorable Sean from Guam who speaks many languages and, as an extra bonus, is a great guy.


In the evening, I had another party at a lounge bar called Shaka. I love Shaka. Here, my friend Stefan joins Melody and Ping for the camera.








Emmy is a wise woman who always reminds me to be happy in this moment. Here we are practicing what she preaches.








Michael and Shu Fang joined us in the evening, showing us that marital bliss is possible.

Ju Ming Museum

My friend Apple invited me to get out of Taipei and check out the famous Ju Ming Museum. It is just about two hours north of Taipei. Ju Ming is one of the most prolific artists of Taiwan.

The museum consists of indoor exhibits as well as an outdoor park, featuring, among many works, his famous Tai Chi sculptures.

If you have a chance, it is worth the drive. Especially if you never get out of Taipei, go! Taiwan is a beautiful country and you begin to get that once you leave the big city.

My First Semester at Shida

My friend Rikke in California recommended that I study Mandarin at Shida, otherwise known as National Taiwan Normal University. Here are some photos I took at the end of my first quarter there.
One of the things I like best about living in Taipei is meeting people from all over the world. My friends in class are from Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the States. I remember during the first week of class, my two Korean classmates organized a lunch for us to "get to know each other." It went great, except we had no way to communicate. It was amazing to see how rapidly we progessed, and by the end of the quarter we could ask each other basic, important questions, like "You have a boyfriend?" and "No, how about you, do you have a girlfriend?"
Here is our teacher. Boy, was she tough. She would always humiliate the two Americans girls who always came late. One of the girls did not take kindly to this treatment, and would exhibit James Dean-like rebellion in class. While we were all supposed to speak Chinese in class, she would raise her hand and say something in English in her tired, grouchy voice. "Um, did we learn that?"

Despite the cultural quirks of my American friends, I actually really liked everyone and had a great experience learning Chinese. Here we are on the last day of school going out for a beer. If you want to see more photos, you can check them out here:

Chinese New Year

My housemate Sarah took me to the famous Di Hua Jie in Taipei to search for tasty New Year's treats. She drove me on her scooter there, which is the last time I'm getting on a scooter in Taiwan. Di Hua Jie was packed. Here are some photos.






























If you'd like to see more photos, click here.

The Daoists

When we last left Roni: 22nd Century Chinese-Like Taipei Boy, he promised he would cut down on his profanities, but received way too much encouragement from his bad, bad friends to keep it up. Even his friend Edward, who is a vegetarian acupuncturist who lives on an ashram and has received certification from the International Gandhian Society of British Columbia, even Edward, for Christ's sake, gave him positive reinforcement.

Okay, I know all of you would like to hear about my experience being initiated into a secret Daoist sect in a hidden temple in the northern section of Taipei. Sure, you’d like to hear about the incredible concert I went to with full traditional orchestration. You might even want to know about my visit to Longshan temple, the most famous of Taiwanese temples. But I know what is on your mind, you fiends. You want to know if I hooked up with that Canadian girl I told you about last time. Don’t deny it. Some of you have doctoral degrees. Do you want to hear about classical feng-shui and its role in the Ming dynasty court? Sure, but first, you want to hear about Diana.

Well, just to nip your fantasies (and mine) in the bud, I just wanted to let you all know that Diana-the-Canadian-acupuncturist-who-is-doing-the-same-goddamn-thing-as-me here in Taipei, just broke up with her boyfriend of twelve years. Over the Internet. Okay, for those of you who are interested, I have a video of me running in the opposite direction really, really fast. (By the way, thanks to the wise young African-American Woman of Power who helped me get some perspective, do the right thing, and stay honest and compassionate at the same time. Kind of like rubbing your tummy and tapping your head, kind of hard at first, but takes practice, I think.)

Now that we got that out of the way, I should tell you that before we parted ways, Diana did take me to visit the acupuncturist she is working for. I am happy to report that Chinese Medicine in Taiwan is the same Chinese Medicine that I got a degree in. What a relief! After watching almost two hours of treatments, Dr. Chen blasted the Buddhist mantra music to clear out the negative energies in his office, and invited us to drink some Pu-Erh tea with him downstairs. He began talking about the roots of Chinese Medicine. About Daoism. He told me that Diana and I were spot-on to come to Taiwan to delve deeper into Chinese Medicine, and that we would receive many riches here. A smile came to my face, reminiscent of that of Luke Skywalker when he began hanging out with Obi Wan Kenobi.

“What is the most important acupuncture point?” he asked me condescendingly. I named a few of the most important points I had learned in three years. “No,” he responded to each of them. “I will take you upstairs to the temple and reveal this to you. Soon, you will know,” Dr. Chen informed me. I had known that we were going to eat a vegetarian meal upstairs, but didn’t know any secret points were going to be revealed to me. “Cool,” I thought. “Damn, this is getting all mystical and shit.”

Dr. Chen brought us upstairs, where several tables were lined up, stacked with colorful vegetables and tasty soy and gluten products. There were about ten other people there, and in the front of the room stood a large Buddha figure. I mindfully ate my food, using kuaizi, or chopsticks, and, for the twenty-sixth time, received a compliment from one of my dinner companions on my advanced chopstick technique. I turned to Mr. Huang and said (doing my best imitation of Arthur Fonzarelli), “Ayyyyy, I’m from California!”

Our meal was over. The tables were removed and small cushioned stools were placed in front of the altar, which was loaded with offerings of fruits and snacks, as well as your standard incense and candles. Dr. Chen asked me to fill out a form. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “they are initiating me into their religion.” The doctor explained that they were going to write my name on a piece of paper and burn it on the altar so the angels would accept me into their secret sect. At this point, I seriously thought about backing out, but I thought, “What’s the worst that could happen?” If necessary, I would use the advanced aikido techniques I learned in San Francisco, and the chopsticks from dinner were easily accessible in case I needed to poke someone’s fucking eyes out. (Hey, I know it sounds paranoid, but this is how real martial artists like Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme think. I’m serious.)

The paper burned away and a group of nine men assembled and began chanting and bowing. Mr. Huang, my dinner companion, stood next to me throughout the ceremony and explained what was going on. About thirty minutes into the ceremony, he told me to take my place in the center and told me to bow several times. One of the guys in front recited several phrases in Chinese and asked me to repeat them.

You get the drift. After the ceremony, people congratulated me, and then, just when I was hoping it was over, Mr. Huang, who definitely spoke the best English of the old Chinese guys present, asked me to sit down for a lecture. It was during this lecture that three secret things were revealed to me, and I was not to tell anyone what I learned. Here’s what they were: 1) Secret Point, 2) Secret Handshake, and 3) Secret Mantra. (I’m not making this up, I swear!) By the time Mr. Huang finished explaining secret thing #1, it was getting really late, and I almost excused myself, figuring he could e-mail me the other two things. But I figured that he probably knew that e-mail isn’t really that private, and would be concerned that the information might fall into the hands of some pimply kid in Nebraska who might use it on farm animals or something like that.

And so I hung around for a little while longer. After the lecture, Dr. Chen handed me a laminated membership card and a book about the Dao. I wondered how you say, “I am outta here!” in Chinese and left. As I walked onto the street, past the hair salons, open late, and into the MRT station, a feeling of Buddhistic joy washed over me.

As many of you know, I have been very influenced by Daoism and Buddhism and have utmost respect for these traditions. Whatver Dr. Chen was doing, though, wasn’t resonating. I didn’t feel connected to what he and his buddies were doing, or what they were saying, or who they were. It sort of looked like a fundamentalist group that tries to convert as many people as possible to their strict, moralistic way of living life (I did actually skim through some pages of the book they gave me to see what they were about). Obi Wan’s words were ringing in my head throughout the ceremony, “Trust the Force, Luke, trust your feelings.”

There are many more stories to tell you, so I’ll send you more e-mails. I love you all very much and miss you a lot. By the way, Happy Chinese New Year, and keep in touch.

Roni
“22nd Century Chinese-Like Taipei Boy”

I'm Still in Taipei!

In last week's episode, Roni landed in Taipei and could be found taking pictures of pedestrian traffic lights and watermelons. Will he be able to brave the streets of Taipei, bustling with young hipsters, those wide-eyed kids relieved that their English cram school sessions are over, buying up pork and noodle products voraciously as they do each and every night in the food stalls surrounding the Taipei Main MRT station? (Goddamn, that was a long sentence!)

Find out this week, in "Roni--22nd Century Chinese-Like Taipei Boy!"

The title of this new series comes from a t-shirt I saw hanging in one of the night markets. It's got a cartoon cat on it, presumably from Japan, named "DORAEMON." Underneath it, the caption reads "22nd Century Cat-like Robot!" You go, English copy editors of Asia!

Wow, there is so much to recount. I will be short. All right, I will try to be short, but it might end up being longer than I thought, so if you are at work, you can either grab a cup of coffee and come back and read this (the break will, in the end, make you a lot more productive), or close this and get back to your boring fucking job.

Tonight, I was invited by some friends to see a movie in a large theatre complex near the Taipei 101 Building. It was "Phantom of the Opera," and I must say, as a sidenote here, that even though I liked the message, that compassion triumphs over evil in the end, that, for the record, I really don't like, and never have liked, cheesy musical theatre. Sorry.

The theatre looks exactly like theatres in the States, highlighting the fact that Taipei should actually be annexed by the United States and become a territory, or at least a district, like Washington, DC.

I use the subway a lot, and it looks just like BART, and people are all dressed like they dress in the Bay Area (except fewer tattoos and piercings). Lots of young people are on board, and they are all talking about the things young people talk about, emitting laughter, and playing with their cell phones. It's all just like the Bay Area, except it is slightly different in a few ways.

First, EVERYONE IS CHINESE. And second, THEY ARE ALL SPEAKING CHINESE. So, as you can imagine, these two slight differences kind of make me feel like I'm in the movie "Being John Malkovich" and instead of everyone saying "Malkovich, Malkovich" like they say in the movie, they are saying "dui ya!" and “zhen de ma!”

Okay, I found an apartment. I looked at several places. One was near the Taipei 101 building. The 101 building was just built last year. Supposedly, it is the tallest building in the world. It is wild. It's design is based on the natural design of bamboo. I will send you a photo of it, because you gotta see it to understand what I am talking about. Well, when the 101 building went up, a lot of people in the neighborhood moved away. Bad feng shui. In feng shui, a really tall building is like a sword, and you know what a sword will do to your luck.

Feng shui is sort of the reason why I decided not move into that place near 101. I didn't take it because it was right in the middle of the city, and I am not a city boy. Otherwise, I would have moved to New York to be with two of my favorite people in the world, Alona and Marina. The other apartment I saw was near Shi Da, the university where I will be studying. It's a good location for an apartment. Makes sense for me, right? Wrong! Student housing tends to be ugly. Brits, Aussies, Americans, and Europeans tend to live there for several months at a time, smoking cigarettes, drinking cheap beer and wine, and having lots of wild sex. Is this a place where I would like to visit? Yes. But to live there, I don't think so. The paint is peeling off the walls, it smells, and there is no natural light in the apartment. The fact that they had Nintendo there wasn't going to, like, make me change my mind, either.

I happened to have posted my profile on a local expat website, explaining that I am looking for housing in Taipei, preferably with a few Taiwanese roommates (this way I learn Mandarin faster). And so, Sara called me. She said she had a room for rent in an apartment in Shi Lin, which is in the northern part of town. I met Sara. She is sweet. I met her roommate, Apollo. (These kind of English names (like "Apollo") "happen" here in Taiwan—there are girls here named "Cherry.") Like the fabled Greek god, he is cool. They are both around my age and are interested in practicing their English. And so, I have housing.

There is a large park near here, and you can see the mountains to the north of Taipei. It is very green around here, which makes me extremely happy. I am right near Chiang Kai-Shek's house, and so sometimes I go over his place and have a cup of tea. He practices qigong and has shown me a few cool moves. Just kidding. Chiang Kai-Shek, the father of Taiwan, is actually dead, though still revered. I don't actually know if he did qigong, although he probably drank tea.

Sara and Apollo took me to the Shi Lin night market here on Saturday night. We don't have night markets in the States, but we should. It's just food stalls and small shops, but mostly food stalls, and the object of it all is to eat as much as you can as you stroll through the market. Everyone is very friendly to me, and although not many of the shop owners in Taiwan (at least the older generation) speak English, there is always a smile we can share.

As some of you know, Taipei has forced me to move into the 1990s and get a cell phone. So, I can also look hip on the MRT as I scroll through my phone's address book and figure out how to use the built-in calculator. As someone I met here (who is from LA) exclaimed, "Hey, I had that phone in like 1996." Well, dammit, I think 1996 was a great year for Nokia phones.

Before I moved into my apartment (where we have a DSL connection), I was checking my e-mail at the local video arcade (it's just a room full of PCs and pubescent Taiwanese boys). I sat down one day last week next to a cute caucasian women named Diana, who I later found out is Canadian.

"So, what are you doing here?" she asked. "I am learning Mandarin and would like to study with a Chinese doctor, as I just finished a graduate program in Chinese Medicine," I responded. "What are you doing here?" "I am studying Mandarin and studying with a Chinese doctor. I just graduated Chinese Medicine school last year, too," she says. And so, I made a new friend, Diana. She has been keeping to herself for several months here, and is glad to have a friend to talk to.

As I mentioned, there is a lot to talk about. By now, only two of you are reading, my most dedicated friends, and GOD BLESS YOU! Even to those people not reading this, who are tending to school, or work, or kids, I want to say, I LOVE YOU, and I MISS YOU.

Please say hi by e-mail. I'll keep you posted with more e-mails (I will use fewer profanities in future e-mails, I promise). And I will have more photos soon, too (it's been raining).

Love,
Roni
"22nd Century Chinese-Like Taipei Boy!"

I'm in Taipei!

I am so excited to be writing you all from Taipei! My flight arrived last night and I got a good night's sleep at my hotel.

It all started out well, as my good friend Ted helped me clear the last of my stuff out of my apartment. (Damn, I didn't know you could fit that much stuff in a 1969 BMW 2002! And by the way, Ted, if you didn't take that stuff to Goodwill and just put it into a dumpster at SFO, like I said, no problem!)

At the airport, I checked in and had plenty of time to relax before the flight. I called my voicemail to check it one last time. I noticed that the old Chinese woman next to me was trying to make a phone call on a phone that had an "out of order" sign on it. From the depths of my memory came some words, "Huai le, huai le!" (“it's broken!”). The woman smiled and moved to another phone. I felt like I was already in Taiwan (and grateful that the broken towel dispenser at clinic gave me an opportunity to learn some handy Mandarin!) and was off to a good start!

My Chinese neighbors on the plane were very nice and told me about Taiwan an helped me with some Mandarin. Since the flight was thirteen hours, I watched several movies and I would get up about every two hours and exercise in the back or about half an hour. For once, I wasn’t the only one doing qigong exercises in the back of the plane. Since most passengers are Chinese, there were already several older Chinese men who were doing the same thing. One of them, surely proud to see a young waiguoren doing qigong, smiled at me.

I saw an incredible movie on the plane about love and perseverance, and it touch me deeply. No it wasn't "Catwoman", but that was a fun mindless movie that I watched, too. It was called "Wicker Park" with Josh Hartnett. It reminded me that Love is something so primal and powerful. Like a river, true love cannot be stopped. Perhaps temporarily, but in the end, Nature prevails. This is not a first-date movie, nor a Hollywood feel-good romance. Go rent it.

I arrived in Taipei at about nine in the evening, and by the time I got through customs and to my hotel, it was about midnight. Fortunately, I had forced myself to not sleep on the flight because I knew that if I slept, I would spend the next four nights in Taipei completely wired (this from my Thailand experience this past summer).

This morning, I brought my camera with me as I walked through downtown Taipei and took some photos. This is a big shopping area, near the Taipei Train station and the Mitsukoshi Department Store Building.

In the next few days, I will be making contact with my contacts here, looking for roommates near the University, and looking for a job. School starts on March 1st, and I am thinking of taking some conversation classes before then. Dr. Choong also gave me directions on how to get to the snake market (snake soup, anyone?), but I may not make it there, um, today.

People are very nice here, especially those who know some English. Most people, however, don't speak much English (although I understand most people can read and write it better than they can speak it). This is all good for me (generally), as it means I will be forced to learn Mandarin more quickly, and that there will be work for me teaching English.

I am missing all of you. Thank you all for sending me off in a way that felt really fun and nurturing (we did hit almost all of the shi-shi restaurants in Berkeley, didn't we?).

Love,
Roni

P.S. If you'd like to see more photos of my first days in Taiwan, click here.