stuck full of needles
Yesterday the dermatologist decided to escalate things.
After seeing me every week for about 6 weeks straight, she has now seen the weird cycling that my skin condition is going through, how everything will appear to get better for a week or two, then suddenly the dots will flare up again, turning into bright red mosquito-bite-like bumps, before fading back into brown lesions... and then starting all over. So, she decided to FUCKING INJECT STEROIDS INTO THE BUMPS. Well, into four of them on my left hip and thigh. There were three more on my butt cheeks and another one on my right thigh that i didn't notice how big they were until i got home and pulled pornographic poses in the mirror to see what the hell was going on. I am so sick of this shit.
I am still not convinced the doctor has a clue, but neither do i. Her feeling is that this is fallout from a scabies infestation that was eradicated several months ago. She thinks i'm still having some kind of allergic reaction to the critters, even though they are long dead and gone. Or maybe that i itched and scratched so hard, and they infected and mutilated me so thoroughly, that my 40something year old immune system is just utterly failing to recover within a reasonable period of time.
It doesn't explain the cyclic recurrence, but nothing else does either, so...
Anyway, on Sunday i decided to finally go see a hair dresser and the hell with it. I think the last time i saw one was a year ago in Panama, just before i went to Colombia. Since i got to Taiwan i'd been avoiding it primarily because of my skin condition. I know from experience that if a colorist goes a bit hardcore on the developer then it'll cause a few small breakouts around my hairline, and i didn't want to put my immune system through even more of a ringer than it is already going. But Sunday night i figured, hell, why even color anyway? I'm old. I spent a year sleeping in tents and seedy motels. I sling code for a living. I don't got nobody to impress. Why bother?
So i just got my hair cut.
It cost me 200元, which is about us$7. Less than most of my colleagues spend on lunch. That put a lot of things in perspective for me.
Actually, just talking to her put a lot of things in perspective for me.
It's the first time i have actually spoken Chinese for longer than about 30 minutes since i got to Taiwan. And lordy i was rusty. Just the usual foreign language mistakes, like mixing up time words (week/month/year), mixing up directions (up/down/left/right) and so on. I tried to explain that i lived in Guangdong for three years before coming here, but reflecting on it i think i actually said i lived in Guangdong in March, which might explain our mutual confusion here and there.
But it was a good talk. Just usual hairdresser smalltalk about family and job and housing. Why aren't i married? Is my parents still alive? How much am i paying for my apartment? How do i get to work in the morning? What am i going to do over Chinese New Year?
We talked about food and the kind of food i like to eat here. We talked about getting fat, and i said i think my biggest problem is booze, not food. She said 喝酒變胖 drink booze get fat. This is one of those things i miss about not speaking Chinese with anybody despite living in a country where Chinese is the first language. These silly little four-syllable phrases that always sound wise because they're only four syllables long. 好久不見 "long time no see" is one that made it to English, but there are thousands of them in Chinese, and people make up new ones on the spot for whatever the current topic of discussion is. It's fun when they pop into a conversation, it's like talking in rhyming couplets.
But linguistic entertainment aside, there was some practical value too. I said the reason i end up drinking is because i work too hard. I get home and i'm exhausted, and all i want to do is drink, so i don't have to think about work. She said to be exhausted is a choice, i just have to tell myself i'm not. It was around 11pm at this point - she cuts hair late into the night, and all day too. For under 200元 per hour. And that's the kicker, isn't it? I'm whining about how tired i am at the end of my day, but she is working more hours, on her feet, and what she takes in gross - before even paying for product or rent - is a fraction of my after tax income. Pretending like i drink because my work is so tough is bollocks. I need to get my head out of my fucking ass.
Even though i don't really talk to anybody in my middle class, white collar, English-speaking workplace either, i think not having these sorts of conversations with ordinary people has left me a bit out of touch. Things i half-forgot about Asia jumped out, like when she complimented me on my white skin, and talked about how beautiful it was to be so white, then seemed shocked when i said actually where i come from the beauty standards expect people to have a bit more of a tan.
Or her point of view on China... which was that it's the place people go to get rich, because it pays so much better than Taiwan. For the people i work with, that's an absurd point of view because if you speak English then there is a long list of countries that would be more lucrative and less soul-destroying than China. But for people who don't speak English, the calculus is entirely different. When i explained that even though the pay is perhaps slightly better, on balance China is worse than Taiwan because there is no freedom, she's like "what!?" Because even though most people in Taiwan identify as Taiwanese and not Chinese, there is a sizable cohort that also doesn't really have a negative association with China. They can watch Chinese dramas on TV and listen to Chinese popstars on the radio and if that's all you consume then China can come across as a pretty cool and fun and modern place. Certainly more exciting and dynamic than Taiwan. But that's missing a big part of the picture - the long shadow of the party looming over everything and everyone. I tried to explain it, but ironically because i no longer live in China and am not regularly speaking Chinese, i wasn't able to find the right words. No good couplet.
It made me think that perhaps after the new year i should try to find some kind of social activity where i can speak Chinese, since i hardly ever hear it and never speak it in my workplace. Maybe i just need to start watching variety shows, force myself to get something more into my brain than just my daily flash cards.
But, you know, i'm too tired for that.
At least i need to do my round the island holiday that i have kinda pushed back because of the upcoming Laos trip. I want to fucking talk to people in this country. I want to hear what they have to say, and not just the well-traveled Taipei elites who write blogs and articles in English.
Earlier Sunday i kicked off another trial run. I headed out at 10:30am and kept cycling till 4pm or thereabouts, something like 70km all up. I biked all the way to the border of Hsinchu County, then from the south-eastern corner of Taoyuan where i was to the Yangmei train station - over a big ass mountain. It was an epic ride, and a good chunk of it was through the rural corners of Taoyuan along rice paddies and fields of ong choy and oolong.
I got to cycle along the top of a bunch of dykes - one of the best routes to travel, because you get a nice view of water on one side plus plenty of sun - and along those tiny back roads where only mopeds and kei trucks go. I passed theme parks and resorts, an indigenous community, a brand new reservoir that wasn't on the map, factories and temples and fields.
It was such a joy to just cycle out to nowhere in particular on a reasonably sunny day. I love it so much, just being able to amble or zoom at my own rate, sneak into places where powered vehicles can't go, escape from the touristy logjams and just 1km away find a nook that's just as pretty with nobody there. And then smashing it over a mountain with mopeds and full-sized cars and trucks and buses barreling past at highway speeds, i love it all. And the very best part is being able to just drop the bike off at the railway station, grab my bag and go. Share bikes are truly the greatest invention.
I feel like i had more of a point to make with this entry, but despite leaving work "early" (6:30pm) and having another sober evening, i am wiped. Can i blame the steroid shots? I'll blame the steroid shots. Let me get back to this topic later.
After seeing me every week for about 6 weeks straight, she has now seen the weird cycling that my skin condition is going through, how everything will appear to get better for a week or two, then suddenly the dots will flare up again, turning into bright red mosquito-bite-like bumps, before fading back into brown lesions... and then starting all over. So, she decided to FUCKING INJECT STEROIDS INTO THE BUMPS. Well, into four of them on my left hip and thigh. There were three more on my butt cheeks and another one on my right thigh that i didn't notice how big they were until i got home and pulled pornographic poses in the mirror to see what the hell was going on. I am so sick of this shit.
I am still not convinced the doctor has a clue, but neither do i. Her feeling is that this is fallout from a scabies infestation that was eradicated several months ago. She thinks i'm still having some kind of allergic reaction to the critters, even though they are long dead and gone. Or maybe that i itched and scratched so hard, and they infected and mutilated me so thoroughly, that my 40something year old immune system is just utterly failing to recover within a reasonable period of time.
It doesn't explain the cyclic recurrence, but nothing else does either, so...
Anyway, on Sunday i decided to finally go see a hair dresser and the hell with it. I think the last time i saw one was a year ago in Panama, just before i went to Colombia. Since i got to Taiwan i'd been avoiding it primarily because of my skin condition. I know from experience that if a colorist goes a bit hardcore on the developer then it'll cause a few small breakouts around my hairline, and i didn't want to put my immune system through even more of a ringer than it is already going. But Sunday night i figured, hell, why even color anyway? I'm old. I spent a year sleeping in tents and seedy motels. I sling code for a living. I don't got nobody to impress. Why bother?
So i just got my hair cut.
It cost me 200元, which is about us$7. Less than most of my colleagues spend on lunch. That put a lot of things in perspective for me.
Actually, just talking to her put a lot of things in perspective for me.
It's the first time i have actually spoken Chinese for longer than about 30 minutes since i got to Taiwan. And lordy i was rusty. Just the usual foreign language mistakes, like mixing up time words (week/month/year), mixing up directions (up/down/left/right) and so on. I tried to explain that i lived in Guangdong for three years before coming here, but reflecting on it i think i actually said i lived in Guangdong in March, which might explain our mutual confusion here and there.
But it was a good talk. Just usual hairdresser smalltalk about family and job and housing. Why aren't i married? Is my parents still alive? How much am i paying for my apartment? How do i get to work in the morning? What am i going to do over Chinese New Year?
We talked about food and the kind of food i like to eat here. We talked about getting fat, and i said i think my biggest problem is booze, not food. She said 喝酒變胖 drink booze get fat. This is one of those things i miss about not speaking Chinese with anybody despite living in a country where Chinese is the first language. These silly little four-syllable phrases that always sound wise because they're only four syllables long. 好久不見 "long time no see" is one that made it to English, but there are thousands of them in Chinese, and people make up new ones on the spot for whatever the current topic of discussion is. It's fun when they pop into a conversation, it's like talking in rhyming couplets.
But linguistic entertainment aside, there was some practical value too. I said the reason i end up drinking is because i work too hard. I get home and i'm exhausted, and all i want to do is drink, so i don't have to think about work. She said to be exhausted is a choice, i just have to tell myself i'm not. It was around 11pm at this point - she cuts hair late into the night, and all day too. For under 200元 per hour. And that's the kicker, isn't it? I'm whining about how tired i am at the end of my day, but she is working more hours, on her feet, and what she takes in gross - before even paying for product or rent - is a fraction of my after tax income. Pretending like i drink because my work is so tough is bollocks. I need to get my head out of my fucking ass.
Even though i don't really talk to anybody in my middle class, white collar, English-speaking workplace either, i think not having these sorts of conversations with ordinary people has left me a bit out of touch. Things i half-forgot about Asia jumped out, like when she complimented me on my white skin, and talked about how beautiful it was to be so white, then seemed shocked when i said actually where i come from the beauty standards expect people to have a bit more of a tan.
Or her point of view on China... which was that it's the place people go to get rich, because it pays so much better than Taiwan. For the people i work with, that's an absurd point of view because if you speak English then there is a long list of countries that would be more lucrative and less soul-destroying than China. But for people who don't speak English, the calculus is entirely different. When i explained that even though the pay is perhaps slightly better, on balance China is worse than Taiwan because there is no freedom, she's like "what!?" Because even though most people in Taiwan identify as Taiwanese and not Chinese, there is a sizable cohort that also doesn't really have a negative association with China. They can watch Chinese dramas on TV and listen to Chinese popstars on the radio and if that's all you consume then China can come across as a pretty cool and fun and modern place. Certainly more exciting and dynamic than Taiwan. But that's missing a big part of the picture - the long shadow of the party looming over everything and everyone. I tried to explain it, but ironically because i no longer live in China and am not regularly speaking Chinese, i wasn't able to find the right words. No good couplet.
It made me think that perhaps after the new year i should try to find some kind of social activity where i can speak Chinese, since i hardly ever hear it and never speak it in my workplace. Maybe i just need to start watching variety shows, force myself to get something more into my brain than just my daily flash cards.
But, you know, i'm too tired for that.
At least i need to do my round the island holiday that i have kinda pushed back because of the upcoming Laos trip. I want to fucking talk to people in this country. I want to hear what they have to say, and not just the well-traveled Taipei elites who write blogs and articles in English.
Earlier Sunday i kicked off another trial run. I headed out at 10:30am and kept cycling till 4pm or thereabouts, something like 70km all up. I biked all the way to the border of Hsinchu County, then from the south-eastern corner of Taoyuan where i was to the Yangmei train station - over a big ass mountain. It was an epic ride, and a good chunk of it was through the rural corners of Taoyuan along rice paddies and fields of ong choy and oolong.
I got to cycle along the top of a bunch of dykes - one of the best routes to travel, because you get a nice view of water on one side plus plenty of sun - and along those tiny back roads where only mopeds and kei trucks go. I passed theme parks and resorts, an indigenous community, a brand new reservoir that wasn't on the map, factories and temples and fields.
It was such a joy to just cycle out to nowhere in particular on a reasonably sunny day. I love it so much, just being able to amble or zoom at my own rate, sneak into places where powered vehicles can't go, escape from the touristy logjams and just 1km away find a nook that's just as pretty with nobody there. And then smashing it over a mountain with mopeds and full-sized cars and trucks and buses barreling past at highway speeds, i love it all. And the very best part is being able to just drop the bike off at the railway station, grab my bag and go. Share bikes are truly the greatest invention.
I feel like i had more of a point to make with this entry, but despite leaving work "early" (6:30pm) and having another sober evening, i am wiped. Can i blame the steroid shots? I'll blame the steroid shots. Let me get back to this topic later.