Sun Chips Green Bag – Week 8

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Sun Chips Green Bag -Week 5

The holiday weekend kept me from posting this until now, but I took it on Friday, the same day of the week that I’ve generally done all the rest of the videos.  I am trying to be strict on this, as it is a very scientific experiment.

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Learning Faith -Part 3

This is part three in a 3 part series on how we educate the next generation in matters of faith.

Learning Faith -Part 2

This is part two in a 3 part series on how we educate the next generation in matters of faith. Read part one, and stay tuned for part three.

Learning Faith -Part 1

This is part one in a 3 part series on how we educate the next generation in matters of faith. Faith as Meme I am currently reading a book about memes.  Everyone I mention this to asks me the same immediate question.  “What in the heck is a meme?”   Then I begin the inordinately long [...]

Rated Argh!

I recently had a discussion with one of the older members of my youth group present where we discussed the movie Schindler’s List. I said that movie was one of the very few movies I’ve ever seen in which the sex scenes were valuable to the story-line, and that I felt weren’t a barrier to me watching. She seemed a bit shocked that I would say something like that. So did several others (everyone else was an adult), and I felt myself trying to back out of the rhetorical corner I had put myself in. I don’t feel that I did a good job of explanation. Maybe I’ll do better here… (click the title above to read the rest of this article)

Thoughts from Taiwan -part 6

Peichi’s Amma must have decided to put all of the events I mentioned in my last blog entry behind her, though, as she was very welcoming to me as we showed up for Chinese New Year.  She didn’t even keep much of a watchful eye over me, as I might have expected.  I cannot be sure that she hadn’t carefully noted the home’s entire inventory and each item’s place prior to my arrival.

Amma and I hit it off quite smoothly this time, with few rough patches.  The most difficult breach of protocol for me to handle is regarding the “house shoes” that each family uses in Taiwan.  Most people know that Asian households require one to take off his shoes on entry.  In Asia there is an added step.  Each family keeps an armada of house slippers on hand just inside the doorway that each guest is expected to use while inside.  You may not opt out of this deal.  Yes, the shoes might not even come close to fitting your American-sized feet.  Yes, one probably will accidentally slip off halfway up the stairs and leave you to hop back down to find it again.  But make no mistake, they must be used.

This part was not the problem for me.  The problem is that each household has a place where you are supposed to take off your outside shoes and put your house shoes on.  In Japan this is clearly marked by the presence of bamboo mats. In Taiwan, this place is marked by some sort of sixth-sensed hoo-bah, that I apparently do not posses.

I would enter the house from the screened in porch via the stairs, leaving my street shoes outside.  At some point after the doorway I would cross the invisible battle line of germ warfare where my “safe” shoes were supposed to come on.  I would usually miss this line somehow.  When the process was reversed and the house shoes made it past the line, sirens would go off in Amma’s head, and she would come after me, gently rebuking me in short vocal bugle blasts.  She was very gracious.  I don’t mean to imply anything less.

My most exciting story with the house shoes was when visiting a household outside of the family.  As I came in, I started to take off my outside shoes and was informed that this would not be necessary at this place.  I looked around for some sign of where the hoo-bah was.  It was invisible as usual.  I asked to use the bathroom and was told it was down the hall.  I gingerly advanced, pausing with each step in case this time would be different and I might actually sense the hoo-bah.  They laughed and told me that I would not need to remove my shoes there either.  I felt safe.

A few minutes later, I went to view the kitchen and again was told that it was safe.  I was very confused.  I had never made it this far without using house shoes before. I did not know how to act.  I shrugged and enjoyed my good fortune.

After viewing the kitchen, I was ushered to the seating area where there was a plate of fruit.  Every Asian household I am invited to has prepared fruit.  It is expected.  It is wonderful.  Americans need to start doing that.  I eagerly went to take a seat and eat some fruit.  Everyone lunged at me noisily. I had crossed the hoo-bah.  I didn’t know.  There was not even a pile of shoes.   Nothing.  I retreated and apologized profusely.  They still let me eat the fruit.

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Thoughts from Taiwan -part 5

In Tainan, I met Peichi’s grandmother for the second time.  “Amma” is “grandma” in Taiwanese, which is exclusively spoken in most of southern Taiwan.  It is far different than Mandarin Chinese, sounding a lot like Thai would if it weren’t nasal.  Short staccato sounds punctuate each word.  Peichi and her immediate family of origin speak both languages fluently.  I don’t.  I barely speak some Mandarin, but know only a couple of Taiwanese words.  I have very few occasions to speak it at all.  Amma speaks no English and very little Mandarin.  This means that we cannot communicate at all without someone interpreting.  I often say, “Two people can always communicate if they want to badly enough.”  Amma is a slightly different story.  In some ways it doesn’t seem that she recognizes that I am not developmentally disabled, but just speak a different language.  I’m not saying she isn’t bright.  She is Peichi’s stock.  She must be.  She is just from a world that is much smaller than mine in some ways, and the idea of what happens so far away must be unimaginable to her.

The occasion of our first meeting was at Peichi’s and my engagement party in Taipei.  She came in and sat down at our head table as part of the bride’s family.  She is an adorable old lady.  She is only slightly above four feet tall, if even that much, and she looks exactly like you would picture an Asian “amma” should look like.  Just looking at her makes me want to simultaneously bear-hug her and show her great, gentle reverence.

She plopped down right next to me, with her purse set behind her on the chair, the way some Asian ladies do, both to prevent someone from stealing it and so as to not forget it is there.  It seemed to me at the time, that was probably not quite the most appropriate for the situation, and thought I would endear myself to her by being helpful.  Big mistake.

I patted her on the shoulder, smiled, and reached for her purse to hang it from the trestle on the chair back.  Her eyes grew wide and she reached for it as well, holding it in a death grip.  We played a brief game of tug-of-war as I tried to calm her.  I lost.  The purse was returned to its location.

It was a busy evening, and I was never able to revisit the situation with her.  But somehow I am sure that she was convinced I was trying to steal her, Peichi’s Amma’s purse at my own engagement party.  She must have been thinking that all of the rumors about these Americans must be true.  We are all uncouth charlatans and thieves.

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Thoughts from Taiwan -part 4

When we arrived in Tainan somehow the news of my knee had spread south at a pace that left our stuck-in-traffic 50 km/hr clip.  I have always found that dealing with ailments abroad (or the prevention thereof) is a fascinating experience all on its own.  In Iceland, the family answer to bee stings was for me to eat ice cream.  In El Salvador, they suggested that after being in the rain I absolutely must wipe my whole body down with alcohol.  Every country has some sort of strange sounding advice.  The old wives are alive and well, and telling their tales.

You go through stages in dealing with their medical advice.  In stage one you wonder if they really believe the advice they are giving you, knowing no one in the modern world could possibly believe such hoodoo.  In stage two you try your best to ignore their helpful advances, slightly annoyed that they keep trying to help you despite you clearly not wanting to cover your head in chicken blood to end your malady.  Next stage has you accepting their help and doing what they want, mostly so that you’ll have peace and quiet.  Finally, wondering why their advice worked, you begin to realize that at home we have some hoodoo-like ideas of our own.

In most of Taiwan, their thoughts regarding medicine are quite modern and sensible, unless one is having a baby, and then I doubt there are enough stages for me to stop calling it hoodoo.  This time, I wasn’t assaulted with weird ideas, but I was covered constantly in patches and sprays, and pills shoved down my throat.  Saying “no” was not an option to any of this.  Not only would it not have been heard, but it would have been rude.  So, I became their test dummy.  I felt like a rabbit in a medical lab of some pharmaceutical company, a white one.

Their concoctions did help, and my knee started feeling a bit better after a few days.  I wasn’t sure whether it was the medicine, or time.  Either way, I really appreciated their care.  Taiwanese people don’t have the warmth of Italians or Greeks, who smoother you with affection rather quickly, but they do have a quiet consideration.  When they take you into their circle, they do little things, things that become huge in your mind.  My brother-in-law filling his car stereo with American music so I wouldn’t feel homesick or bored on the long trip, my mother-in-law always filling my cup or offering me something to nibble on, or the entire extended family trying to figure out anything they can do to ease my knee pain.  It makes me thankful for a wonderful family.  It makes me have such a deeper understanding of how little my corner of the world really is, and that my mind and heart are often much smaller than that corner.

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Thoughts from Taiwan -part 3

In Tokyo, I got lost at a major Shinto temple at closing time.  Peichi ended up at the exit we were supposed to be at, and I ended up on the opposite side.  It is easier to do than one might think, with surrounding tall trees, and darkness encroaching.  The guards would not let me go back in to find Peichi, and made me wait while they chattered into the walkie-talkie. They finally did give me directions to the other side of the park from outside streets.

By the time that I got the security guard to let me go, it was 20 minutes after closing.  He said that it was a 20 minute walk.  I was worried.  Both Peichi and I knew how to get back to the hostel where we were staying, so I wasn’t worried that one of us would be scared and lost.  But we did have many plans for the rest of the night that did not include 30 minute trips back to our room.  So, I ran.

My legs were already tired from walking all over Tokyo.  My knee had been recovering from some strange pain that I acquired weeks ago, and I was generally exhausted from the trip.  I ran anyway, not wanting to worry Peichi, or miss her.  I arrived out of breath, to a generally unhappy wife, but relieved that tragedy had been averted, or so I thought.

As I regained my composure and we began to walk down the stairs into the subway at Harajuku station, I felt a strange clicking in my knee, and a wonderful explosion of pain with every step.  Walking hurt, climbing stairs was excruciating, but I grinned and bared it.

The next day (the day of our afternoon flight to Taipei) my knee felt the same.  I was beginning to get worried, but I was determined not to let this cause too much disruption to our trip.  I did my best to keep it to myself, although of course Peichi knew.  All of this is important back-story to events in Tainan.

P.S. To alleviate anyone’s fears, while the clicking remains, and there is still some pain, I am confident that I will get over it in time.

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