Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Spending time with Sunnie and Vincent -- remote canals, salt mountains, Chinese characters and lanterns


Sunnie and Vincent recently took me out on a couple of different day trips.
The other week, we went to a place near Tainan and took a boat ride up a canal and back. Two of Sunnie's friends joined us (they were her two bridesmaids) for the day. During the boat ride, we supposedly saw lots of interesting plant and wild life - rare forms of fauna and crabs etc. Our guide gave very lengthy explanations about everything in Chinese. Honestly, I thought the best part was getting to wear the hats. Remember how excited I was about the hats in Taroko? I insisted we do our photo ops in the hats, and I am pretty sure Vincent and Sunnie found my enthusiasm amusing. After all, the hats here are not considered "cool" - they are what the farmers and peasants wear. Maybe it would be comparable in the US to getting excited about wearing overalls and then taking tons of photos in them - except wait, I've done that... :)














Above: (left) Vincent displaying one of the rare flowers to be found; (right) the amazing ecosystem of the canal
Below: (left) us bedecked in awesome hats; (right) us with a dragon boat












After getting lunch at this cute little seafood place, we visited the salt museum. The museum would have been more interesting if it had had plaques in English. Unfortunately, there was only Chinese, so I ended up milling around and just looking at pictures. Entertaining for maybe 15 minutes, but not for over an hour. As the place was fairly large, we spent a significant amount of time there. I tried my best to look around by myself and to appear engaged the whole time, as I always feel bad trailing people and thereby imposing on them to do constant running translations (again, something which is maybe fun for them for a few minutes, but not for a whole museum that large). It was interesting, though, seeing how they used to harvest salt. I never realized what an involved and heavily physical job it was. The museum had wax figure exhibits set up so that one could see in 3D what the process used to look like. Nowadays, it has all been modernized. There is a nearby giant salt mound which one can walk up, and the surrounding area has been turned into a mini theme park. Oddly enough, the salt mound was made with salt imported from Australia instead of local salt... The salt museum is also famous for its "salty" popsicles. I was skeptical in trying them at first, but it turns out, they are really good! Their "salty" flavor is actually just almonds. I was a little sad when Sunnie told me you cannot buy them in bulk anywhere...













During the Chinese New Year, I met up with Sunnie and Vincent again. This time we stayed in Kaohsiung, going down near the Love River to a warehouse art museum there. The current exhibit, the Delight of Chinese Characters Festival, uses Chinese characters to create image- and wordplay through artwork. I found it interesting because, while I know English can be used in playful ways, I had never thought of the potential in Chinese. With all of the verbal tones and characters themselves, there is unlimited potential for witty play in Chinese. The artists were very clever in creating artwork which integrated both the physical character and the encoded meaning. For example, the word for door - 門 mén: imagine blowing that character up into 3D and making it the size of a real door; the artist used half of the character set on a hinge to swing back and forth in contrast with the wall, so that no matter which way the door was set, you saw both the full character and could walk through the other opening.










Above: (left) the meaning of the characters is shown in the boxes where each thing (dragon, girl, pig) is shown underneath a roof, representing a house, just like the character! (right) this clock shows how the characters for the numbers are symmetrical - only half of the character is there, but you see the whole character from the side view because of the clock's reflective surface
Below: (left) we are sitting on a seat in the shape of the radical for 地, meaning ground; once two people sit on it like us, we form the character 坐, meaning to sit; (right) the shadows cast by the wood piles form a boy and a girl; above them, stylistically painted on the wall, are the characters for the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac












Leaving the museum, we got dinner and then moved farther down the Love River to the lantern displays and carnival festival. For Chinese New Year every year, each school in Kaohsiung is responsible for creating a lantern to be put on display. The lanterns are fairly large - about the size of a sofa or a bed - and made out of soft velvety material. They can be made in any shape desired - this year's most popular design being that of a tiger, as it is the year of the tiger. However, we also saw plenty of Sponge Bobs (all elementary schools) and even one Elvis. Some schools will spend the whole previous semester working on their lantern. Minghua chose a team of students to put theirs together over the winter break. They wanted me to know that the reason why theirs might not win the best prize was because they insisted that the students do all of the work, whereas other schools might cheat and let the teachers make theirs. I guess there are not very strict guidelines for the competition. At any rate, the lanterns were beautiful in the evening. There were hundreds of them, stretching for over half a mile along the river.




















While we were walking through the lanterns, we also saw special performances going on. The city had set up a stage in the middle of the river with a large crane stretching out over it. Acrobats did a number of impressive dances, dangling far above the river on a giant ring or being twirled up and down while holding nothing but ribbons. Very beautiful and very dangerous looking. Also, every hour or so, the city set off fireworks from the harbor. Fireworks are one of my favorite things about living in Asia - the Taiwanese set off fireworks for every major or minor event here, and I love fireworks.










Above: (left) Vincent and I waiting for the fireworks to start; (right) acrobat on the ring - hard to tell how high she is since you cannot see the water, but believe me, she is very high in the air

Monday, February 15, 2010

Taiwanese Soaps


I have found a new guilty pleasure in life: Taiwanese soap operas. They are incredible. Do not be misled, though, by the term "soap opera." They are more the equivalent of our mini-series, not nearly so shallow and meaningless as American soap operas.

My roommate Kristin (who is an ABC) introduced me to my first one last fall.
After not sleeping for a week until I finished "命中注定我愛你" (translated Fated to Love You), I decided that Taiwanese soaps were a vice I needed to do without. Well, alas, winter break arrived, Kristin ordered her favorite soap off Amazon, and I was a lost cause. Carol and I finished the 30 hours of "流星花園" (translated Meteor Garden) in two days. It is considered a classic here, having started off the careers of many current stars and breaking ground in the industry. Nine years later, it remains extremely popular here as well as in Korea and Japan.

After Meteor Garden, I started "下一站,幸福" (Autumn's Concerto or translated Next Stop, Happiness). I have actually been irregularly watching this one for the past two months with Kristin, but now have gone back and re-watched the whole thing from the beginning online with English subtitles (amazing how much more one can learn from English subtitles lol). The final episode comes out in two more weeks, and Kristin and I are in agony waiting for it. The series has become a sensation here, and it is so fun for me to watch interviews of the cast on the evening news or eavesdrop on conversations in Starbucks where girls are discussing how attractive the leads are (I really wanted to jump in and join them, but my Chinese is just not good enough for that – and besides, it would truly have been too embarrassing). It is a great way to bond with locals, since all I have to do is mention the Chinese name to my Taiwanese friends (adults or middle schoolers), and we start jumping up and down and getting really excited (yes - it is that good). Even the ETAs up in Yilan are watching it - we have g-chat sessions while watching it every Sunday night. I am currently trying to memorize the two main songs from the show - they are so beautiful! And I get so excited when I hear them playing in department stores and can sing along. :)

So that’s that for my guilty pleasures. But before you judge, you really should try looking them up. :)

Friday, February 12, 2010

Cambodia: riding elephants and dodging tuk-tuks


Cambodia was my favorite part of the trip. Before we went, there was slight fear and trepidation due to Lonely Planet quotes such as: Dangers and Annoyances: Armed robberies are fairly common, so we recommend you do not go out at night, and if you do, refrain from carrying bags or purses. Do not worry much, though, because statistically speaking, it should not happen to you. We took care to be back near our hostels each evening, and usually took a guide with us when we went out, so luckily, we escaped the statistic. Still, we faced plenty of other problems such as food poisoning, money flow issues and extortion, both from private enterprises and from the government. But all that aside, we had a great time. :)

Cambodia was my first real third-world country experience. It has the most corrupt government of any country I have seen firsthand (World Democracy Audit ranks it in the 20 top most corrupt states), evident in its flagrant extortion of foreigners, complete lack of infrastructure, neglect of historical and cultural sites, obvious misappropriation of funds etc. From the moment we landed in the airport and were charged a $20 entry visa to the moment when we faced another $25 exit fee just to leave the country, we found ridiculous taxes and charges attached to everything we tried to do. One might wonder where all of this government money is going? We did, and saw no evidence of it in our travels.


Cambodia is fairly impoverished, with more than a third of its population living below the poverty line and living on less than one dollar a day. Although we knew that we were supposed to be bargaining when shopping from markets, street vendors or street children, it was so hard for us when we realized that their starting asking price could be their day's wages as opposed to the price of a can of soda for us. Their own Cambodian riel currency is so devalued (and faces a near 20% annual inflation) that most people prefer to use US dollars. In fact, when withdrawing money from an ATM, you get back US dollars. However, they do not use US change, only bills. Often when paying for something in US dollars, we would get change back in both dollars and riel, where the riel was the small change (1000 riel = one US quarter). On a few occasions, I experimented with trying to use American coins. Even though I would point to the writing on the coins and repeat "America - America," the people would always just shake their heads and hand it back to me.

We landed in Phnom Penh late afternoon, but had hotel reservations in Siem Reap. The 190 mile road connecting the cities, one of the seven main roads in the country, is happily paved (the majority of roads in Cambodia are still gravel or, more likely, dirt). However, buses only make the trip a few times a day, and if we had waited for the next bus, we would not have left till midnight. Therefore, our only option was to hire a taxi. The trip took us 6 hours, which might sound like a long time until you realize that we were on a two-lane road after dark - a road which we shared with other cars, trucks, tuk-tuks, bicycles, pedestrians and lots of cattle. Topping speeds of 30m/h would probably result in taking out a cow or two, something frowned upon by the locals. Let's just say that the taxi ride to Siem Reap was very educational about life in Cambodia.

Our hostel in Siem Reap was very Western-backpacker friendly, with great food, bar area, movie nights, billiards tables, computer room and pool. The best part of the hostel, though, was Bob. Bob works the night shift, so he was the one who first checked us in and showed us our rooms. From that point on, he adopted us and went everywhere with us as our personal guide. We still do not know whether this is regular procedure or because we looked very lost and foreign or because he just thought we were cool people and wanted to hang out with us. Whatever the reason, Bob was very sweet and fast became our favorite person - we are now all facebook friends with him. :)



We spent our first day visiting the temples of Angkor. The Angkorian period began around 800 CE and lasted until the mid-1400s when Thailand invaded and sacked the capital. During the Khmer Empire, over 1000 temples were built in the area, the largest of which is Angkor Wat ("angkor" meaning city, and "wat" meaning temple). The entire land mass area of Angkor is huge and separated into different temple complexes, as each new Khmer king chose to build his own capital city and religious temples. The sites are each set off with giant city walls, and some even have moats. While the temples were originally built in the Hindu tradition, later kings rededicated them all into Mahayana Buddhism until settling into Theravada Buddhism. It is interesting to me how fluid Eastern religions are. We started off the day at Angkor Thom (c. 1180), the last capital of the Khmer Empire. The famous temple site here is Bayon, famous for its 200 ginormous "enigmatic" faces, which stare off into the jungle. I think it would have been so cool to have been a Portuguese or French explorer hundreds of years ago, and to suddenly come upon the faces, overrun by jungle vines and animals. We visited countless other temple sites that day, including Preah Khan and Ta Prohm (this is the temple where they filmed Tomb Raider).





















We ended our tour at Angkor Wat (c. 1150), perhaps the best preserved site. Originally built as a private mausoleum for King Suryavarman VII, after the king died, it fell into disuse and was replaced by Angkor Thom (built by King Jayavarman VII, whom we nicknamed Jafar, mostly because we could not pronounce his name, but also because we kept singing Aladdin - it all started with the elephants...). In fact, King Suryavarman died elsewhere, and for some reason, his body was never returned for burial. If I was the architect of Angkor Wat, I would have been quite put out. On the other hand, it does leave an incredible archeological site for the future generations to admire. Both the size and the level of detail in the stone carvings and decoration were inspiring. However, by this point in the day, it was so hot and we all felt completely drained. We spent a lot of time just sitting in the middle of the temple because no one had any energy to stand up and walk around. Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat, after which you walk through the city walls into a large field, dotted by smaller stone structures thought to be libraries. The other secular city buildings inside the walls have long disappeared, as only the temples (and I guess libraries?) were built out of stone. Most of this area has reverted back into jungle, though restorers have cleared the front end into a level plain. Crossing the grounds, you reach the outer buildings of the temple complex which lead you into the main courtyard. At the heart of the temple is the central shrine, which as in all of the other temples, rises up to the highest point. These towers usually have steep, narrow stairs you must climb, representing the difficulty of ascending to the gods. It is actually fairly amazing that they let tourists crawl all over these temples, as there would surely be huge liability risks in most other countries. Rather than having tourists sign liability waivers before climbing up the massive rock structures, they instead insist merely upon a certain dress code. I had to borrow a sarong to tie around my waist in order to go up, for my shorts were too indecent. This was the only Angkorian temple in which we saw live monks scurrying around, so perhaps it is still in use and this is why they were more strict (Bangkok's temples had similar dress codes - at one of them, I had to borrow a shirt to put around my shoulders because I was wearing a tank top; it is very difficult to dress conservatively when the temperatures are so hot). The climb was worth it, though, as we had beautiful views of the whole area.










(Above: Charles and I mimicking a scary statue; monks)


We ended the day by riding elephants. Well, sort of. It was rather expensive to go for a decently long ride, so we decided just to ride them for a few minutes for the kodak moment (I know - we have become so Asian). All the same, I can now say that I have ridden an elephant. :)


The next day, we decided to be more low-key and relax. In the morning, Fonda, Kim and I rented bicycles from our hostel and went out for a ride along the canal (Kim - Yilan ETA who joined us for Cambodia). After that, Kristin and Kaitlyn joined us for a Cambodian cooking class. I learned how to make Cambodian spring rolls and pad thai - not that I could recreate them, though. The three ladies leading the class did not speak the best English, nor did any of the ingredients have English labels. A lot of our cooking involved them handing us unknown spices and sauces to dump in at unknown quantities. Still, it was fun, and we got to eat everything we made which was the best part of all. :) Oh and I might have failed to mention this previously, but Southeast Asia makes the best mango smoothies.












In the afternoon, Bob took us on another outing, this time to the Chong Khneas Floating Village in the Tonle Sap Lake (one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia during the rainy season) to watch the sunset. We took a boat ride out into the lake, passing by trees which Bob told us are entirely submerged during the rainy season. The village was comprised of hundreds of house boats, each individually moored (for some reason, I had envisioned them all tied together in a giant raft...). The town even included a floating church and an elementary school. When I asked Bob what happens to the children after primary school, he said that they would have to move to a nearby city in order to continue their schooling. Most families are never be able to afford this, though. Cambodia actually has fairly high rates of enrollment in primary school. The thing is, so many children have to repeat grades that the average time to graduate is ten years, and many kids will drop-out before then.










One of the more bizarre parts of the floating village were the small children in buckets or the children with snakes. Some kids would be rowed around by their parents in small canoes. When their boat pulled up alongside ours, the child would hop ship and walk up to us, trying to sell us drinks. Other children were more independent, paddling themselves about in large tin buckets with one arm while bailing out water with the other. The strangest of all, though, were the children with snakes. Small children, maybe six years old, would have these giant snakes wrapped around their bodies. Why they thought having a snake around their necks would make us want to give them money is beyond me. If anything, it just terrified us. Bob said that the reason the snakes did not hurt the children is because the parents found the snakes when they were really tiny. That way, the snake grew up as a pet in the family, domesticated. Now I do not buy this. People in America have attempted domesticating snakes or tigers or other wild animals with disastrous results. I would never let a snake drape itself around my five-year-old child's body!










(Above: snake on children; Below: Kristin and Carol with Bob, and Me with Fonda)










We left the next morning on a bus back to Phnom Penh. The most entertaining part about the trip was that at every stop, we were greeted by street vendors trying to sell us baguettes and brie. I take it they normally cater towards a European tourist population.

The main things I had wanted to see in Phnom Penh were the Tuel Sleng Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. I would never say that this part of the trip was "fun" or "enjoyable," but it was powerful and one of my favorite things that we did. Despite having read about the genocide before, I did not remember most of the details, so it was an intense experience to relearn the history while standing in the places where it happened. Unlike the Holocaust where you understand it as ethnic cleansing and a systematic societal brainwashing of hatred, the Khmer Rouge created a chaotic society of terror overnight, mass-murdering thousands of its own people while thousands of others died of starvation and disease. In essence, they tried to create a more extreme version of China's Cultural Revolution, eliminating their entire intellectual class and emptying all major cities to force the people into an agrarian society. During Pol Pot's reign, 1.7 million people of the 8 million population died - or about 21 percent of the total population. Khmer Rouge took over a high school on a quiet residential street in Phnom Penh, turning it into the S-21 prison camp (now the Tuel Sleng Genocide Museum). The school was surrounded by barbed wire, and the classrooms converted into tiny cells. The prison was used to interrogate and torture an estimated 17,000 Cambodians. Today, one of the three buildings is filled with picture after picture of the murdered victims, including hundreds of pictures of young children.










The Choung Ek Killing Fields lay a few miles outside of Phnom Penh and have today been converted into a memorial for the victims of the mass graves. A commemorative stupa stands in the middle, holding the sculls of the victims. One of the grave sites contained the bodies of hundreds of women with their babies. The tree next to it is called the "Killing Tree," because it is where soldiers bashed babies before throwing their corpses into the grave.









(Pictures: stupa filled with human sculls; pits from the excavated mass graves)



The following is a poem by Sarith Pou, displayed in the S-21 prison.

The New Regime

No religious rituals.
No religious symbols.
No fortune teller.
No traditional healers.
No paying respect to elders.
No social status. No titles.

No education. No training.
No school. No learning.
No books. No library.
No science. No technology.
No pens. No paper.

No currency. No bartering.
No buying. No selling.
No begging. No giving.
No purses. No wallets.

No human rights. No liberty.
No courts. No judges.
No laws. No attorneys.

No communications.
No public transportation.
No private transportation.
No traveling. No mailing.
No inviting. No visiting.
No faxes. No telephones.

No social gatherings.
No chitchatting.
No jokes. No laughter.
No music. No dancing.

No romance. No flirting.
No fornication. No dating.
No wet dreaming.
No masturbating.
No naked sleepers.
No bathers.
No nakedness in showers.
No love songs. No love letters.
No affection.

No marrying. No divorcing.
No marital conflicts. No fighting.
No profanity. No cursing.

No shoes. No sandals.
No toothbrushes. No razors.
No combs. No mirrors.
No lotion. No make up.
No long hair. No braids.
No jewelry.
No soap. No detergent. No shampoo.
No knitting. No embroidering.
No colored clothes, except black.
No styles, except pajamas.
No wine. No palm sap hooch.
No lighters. No cigarettes.
No morning coffee. No afternoon tea.
No snacks. No desserts.
No breakfast [sometimes no dinner].

No mercy. No forgiveness.
No regret. No remorse.
No second chances. No excuses.
No complaints. No grievances.
No help. No favors.
No eyeglasses. No dental treatment.
No vaccines. No medicines.
No hospitals. No doctors.
No disabilities. No social diseases.
No tuberculosis. No leprosy.

No kites. No marbles. No rubber bands.
No cookies. No popsicles. No candy.
No playing. No toys.
No lullabies.
No rest. No vacations.
No holidays. No weekends.
No games. No sports.
No staying up late.
No newspapers.

No radio. No TV.
No drawing. No painting.
No pets. No pictures.
No electricity. No lamp oil.
No clocks. No watches.

No hope. No life.
A third of the people didn't survive.
The regime died.


The last day in Phnom Penh, we visited the Russian Market and walked around a few parks before attempting to go to the airport and leave the country. We nearly did not make it out, for as we had not previously realized there was an exit fee, many of us found ourselves illiquid. We came up with all sorts of schemes - such as pooling our money to buy a tuk-tuk and set up our own business - trying to figure out how to come up with the money. Luckily, we managed to get out without committing any felonies, but it was funny that we did not learn our lesson from Singapore. Looking back, Cambodia was about twice as expensive as all of us had thought, perhaps because we kept getting ripped off everywhere we went... It is just so draining to always have to bargain for everything you want, whether it's food, a tuk-tuk ride or buying souvenirs. I like people to be honest with me and to tell me the price up front. Sometimes, it is just not worth it to argue with people because spending the extra money spares yourself the headache. About half of our group was especially happy to return home, as they had become progressively ill from the food on the trip. Kristin and Kaitlyn spent the majority of Cambodia feeling terrible, and then Charles, Carol and John came down with something the final day. I guess I have a pretty strong stomach.









(Above: riding in a tuk-tuk; wearing our t-shirts which read (in both English and Cambodian) "NO! I do NOT want a tuk-tuk!")

We flew back to Bangkok to spend one more night there before flying back to Taipei and on to Kaohsiung, making it home for the Chinese New Year.