Taiwan Interlude
Well, I am nearly 3 weeks into my month long Taiwan culture immersification. I had one hell of a night last night and decided to post about it here also.
A day full of lazy lounging and watching TV without english...it is ok...majoring in math has made me comfortable not understanding what in the hell is going on.
At 6, an uncle picked Tristan and me up and brought us to a friend's 50th birthday party. There were many dishes served that included the standard fare of Taiwan. Sashimi, lobster, hot/sour shrimp soup, some slimy sea creature, broiled whole fish...Tristan at an eyeball, and plenty of alcohol and beer.
Taiwan has it's self-named beer: Taiwan Beer! It is really pretty good. They also had some 48% alcohol (96proof) which did not burn at all. People were wandering all around this little restaurant and drinking toasts with eachother. It is rude to decline a toast so I got SMASHED. I had 6 shots of the licquor, 2 normal beers, and the coup de grace...chugged 2 0.6L Taiwan Beers. It is something of an honor to do this with someone with the older generation. I did one with the a friend of the family that helped us through the airport (special service...no waiting in line). Right afterward...the cue came up for the song I was to sing on the KTV (karaoke TV) machine. Yesterday by the Beatles. Crazy White Guy!!! It was so crazy. The b-day guy's sons coordinated things so didn't drink and the wives go pretty much just to drive the drunk-ass husbands home. I think that after the 2 chuggers without puking, I have gained "face" with his uncle.
To Drunken Taiwan Karaoke- Kick Ass
Beatles - Yesterday Lyrics
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly, I'm not half to man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go I don't know she woldn't say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
This was my first wife's and my song. Kind of ironic looking back on it. When we first met, it was her favorite song and she made me memorize it so that we could sing it together as we drove on our adventures that summer before senior year of highschool in her little blue Plymouth Horizon
http://www.edmunds.com/pictures/VEHICLE/1990/Plymouth/4875/008918-T.jpg
She had made a tape of some of her favorite songs, many were new to me. I still have it and it is fairly awesome...missing a tape player in my car. It had If I Were a Rich Man, Yesterday, Penny Lane, Me and Bobbie McGhee (Joplin), Soldier Boy, some Joan Baez? French song, and many others. It is one of 2 things I have left from her. Wife 2 made me throw away all pictures and everything else. I didn't budge on a quilt that her mom made when she was a baby. It is a magical blanket... very soft and trippy fabrics are used...chiffon I think. The only repetition is in the 4 or 5 box patterns. I have been looking for similar material to make myself another. She called a few months after our divorce and wanted it back, but i just couldn't part with it. It became a piece of me and the perfect token of our relationship. She has been diagnosed as bipolar and is not the same as before...there was something in her eyes that was new and scary when I went to CA to meet up with her. I knew that something was dreadfully different and that my angel was not in that body anymore. So I am not still in love with 'her' per-se but there is a tall pedestal that her memory rests upon and even for me to date a person usually requires some sort of comparison. All people and relationships are different, but happiness is universal. If a relationship does not make you feel more free, then what is the point. Someone that can make you forget all your adult problems and wraps you in their eyes and makes you just want to cuddle and watch Wallace & Gromit with tea and animal crackers or color some HUGE paged coloring book.
Taiwan is fun and I have a greater appreciation for some of the US amenities and customs, but I will always yearn for some of Taiwan to be in the US. I think that most of the things I want violate US health codes though hehe such as street vendors with their food all out in the open and pearl milk tea stands.
For the full Taiwan trip chronicles...see taiwanblinky
Blinky
A day full of lazy lounging and watching TV without english...it is ok...majoring in math has made me comfortable not understanding what in the hell is going on.
At 6, an uncle picked Tristan and me up and brought us to a friend's 50th birthday party. There were many dishes served that included the standard fare of Taiwan. Sashimi, lobster, hot/sour shrimp soup, some slimy sea creature, broiled whole fish...Tristan at an eyeball, and plenty of alcohol and beer.
Taiwan has it's self-named beer: Taiwan Beer! It is really pretty good. They also had some 48% alcohol (96proof) which did not burn at all. People were wandering all around this little restaurant and drinking toasts with eachother. It is rude to decline a toast so I got SMASHED. I had 6 shots of the licquor, 2 normal beers, and the coup de grace...chugged 2 0.6L Taiwan Beers. It is something of an honor to do this with someone with the older generation. I did one with the a friend of the family that helped us through the airport (special service...no waiting in line). Right afterward...the cue came up for the song I was to sing on the KTV (karaoke TV) machine. Yesterday by the Beatles. Crazy White Guy!!! It was so crazy. The b-day guy's sons coordinated things so didn't drink and the wives go pretty much just to drive the drunk-ass husbands home. I think that after the 2 chuggers without puking, I have gained "face" with his uncle.
To Drunken Taiwan Karaoke- Kick Ass
Beatles - Yesterday Lyrics
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly, I'm not half to man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go I don't know she woldn't say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
This was my first wife's and my song. Kind of ironic looking back on it. When we first met, it was her favorite song and she made me memorize it so that we could sing it together as we drove on our adventures that summer before senior year of highschool in her little blue Plymouth Horizon
http://www.edmunds.com/pictures/VEHICLE/1990/Plymouth/4875/008918-T.jpg
She had made a tape of some of her favorite songs, many were new to me. I still have it and it is fairly awesome...missing a tape player in my car. It had If I Were a Rich Man, Yesterday, Penny Lane, Me and Bobbie McGhee (Joplin), Soldier Boy, some Joan Baez? French song, and many others. It is one of 2 things I have left from her. Wife 2 made me throw away all pictures and everything else. I didn't budge on a quilt that her mom made when she was a baby. It is a magical blanket... very soft and trippy fabrics are used...chiffon I think. The only repetition is in the 4 or 5 box patterns. I have been looking for similar material to make myself another. She called a few months after our divorce and wanted it back, but i just couldn't part with it. It became a piece of me and the perfect token of our relationship. She has been diagnosed as bipolar and is not the same as before...there was something in her eyes that was new and scary when I went to CA to meet up with her. I knew that something was dreadfully different and that my angel was not in that body anymore. So I am not still in love with 'her' per-se but there is a tall pedestal that her memory rests upon and even for me to date a person usually requires some sort of comparison. All people and relationships are different, but happiness is universal. If a relationship does not make you feel more free, then what is the point. Someone that can make you forget all your adult problems and wraps you in their eyes and makes you just want to cuddle and watch Wallace & Gromit with tea and animal crackers or color some HUGE paged coloring book.
Taiwan is fun and I have a greater appreciation for some of the US amenities and customs, but I will always yearn for some of Taiwan to be in the US. I think that most of the things I want violate US health codes though hehe such as street vendors with their food all out in the open and pearl milk tea stands.
For the full Taiwan trip chronicles...see taiwanblinky
Blinky