Back on the Chain Gang

 

OK, so being back at work is not nearly as painful as all that – just a little literary license here!

Yes, I’m back in HK after a whirlwind visit to NJ and TO that offered a sound lesson: don’t decide to move out of your apartment when there’s less than a week left to your vacation. Take it from me, it’s not a great way to relax. If it hadn’t been for my wonderful cousin Sharron, I might not be alive to tell more tales. I had a completely unrealistic idea about the work it would take to pack up an apartment that contained bits and pieces of my entire life. Whew!

From Sunday to Wednesday at noon, it was pack, pack, pack, sort, sort, sort, toss, toss, toss. There might have been a bit of sleep involved, but not as much as needed! Yet, when the movers arrived Wednesday afternoon, everything was finished. Now, my belongings are happily sitting in a storage unit while I avoid paying double rent. I’m sad to wave goodbye to my turret, but this princess has other fish to fry.

Packing wasn’t the last of the chores, alas. There was also the final cleaning. Bummer. Next time, I’ll allow a bit more time or I’ll hire more help. Sharron gets the trophy for most assists in a season!

To top it all off, just as we were getting ready to load the remaining bits and pieces into my car, I found that I had left the parking garage with my lights on and hadn’t turned them off after parking at my apartment. Voila! A dead battery! With only 7 hours until flight time, it was a distraction I didn’t need. Once again, angels were in town. One of the women who works in my landlady’s dental office came to the rescue with her car. Thanks to my dad, I own – and know how to use – jumper cables, so we were soon off and driving again. Crazy!

 

One positive about the packing frenzy was that it tired me enough to allow me to get some  sleep on the 15-hour flight to Hong Kong. When I arrived at 5 a.m., I was tired, but not exhausted. I found a cab and managed to help the driver find my new apartment building in Sheung Wan, one of the oldest parts of the city. Even though check-in time wasn’t officially until 2 p.m., the staff let me in anyway. I was thrilled, because the bed was calling out to me.

 

My new place is a contrast to my first one in HK. It’s a highrise, as opposed to a walk-up, and I’m on the 10^th floor with a view of the harbour – seen between the buildings across the way. The neighbourhood has commercial spaces at street level, but not a mall to be seen, nor a horde of tourists: hooray! There’s a small park around the corner that looks perfect for reading, and even better, there’s a sports and recreation complex along the harbourfront, which is five minutes on foot. I should be able to use the gym facilities there at a much better rate than a private gym would charge.

I went back to work a day after arriving, and it was great to see my colleagues. There are so many good folks, it’s a pleasure. I even managed to stay awake! Of course, I had incentive: it turns out that I have the next day off, so the opportunity to sleep late beckoned.

                                                                                                                      

 

Baseball, á là Taiwan

Greetings, fellow baseball fans – and the rest of you, too!

 

I’m here in Tainan, a city of about a million on Taiwan’s west coast. I’ve just returned from a Chinese Professional Baseball League game between the Tainan Uni-President  Lions and the Lamigo Monkeys.

Yes, my devotion to baseball surfaces at the oddest times. When I realized that Taiwan had professional baseball, I just knew I had to go. I badgered my cousins until they agreed – although, since they’re devoted Yankees fans, it wasn’t as hard as it sounds.

I checked online to review the league schedule and, of course, it was in Chinese. Thank heavens for our guide, Richard, who both reads and speaks Chinese. We were able to find a game that fit in with our travels, more or less, and made our way to Tainan in time for tonight’s contest. 

Apparently, Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium was built in the 1931 by the Japanese, who occupied the island for 50 years and the Japanese influence on the game here seemed apparent. Japanese businesses emphasize teamwork and the group over the individual, so I imagine they began the tradition of cheering in unison. Fans of the teams sat on opposite sides of the stadium and each group cheered as one throughout the game, led by a man with a microphone. Drums pounded the beat, horns blared the melody and fans clapped their noisemakers in time to the chants. It made for a lively atmosphere, and by the end of the game, I had even picked up some of the words.

Crazily, some of the chants used North American elementary school tunes, such as The Bear Went Over the Mountain and Old MacDonald! We felt right at home.

Speaking of feeling right at home, I had flashbacks of my many nights at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The Orioles now have a pitcher named Wei-Yin Chen (in Chinese, it would be Chen Wei-Yin), who hails from none other than Tainan, Taiwan. Hero worship here is evident: there were numerous Orioles T-shirts and jerseys, and apparently, the TV stations in Taiwan show lots of Orioles games. Perhaps I should be working here instead of in Hong Kong!

In any case, we had a wonderful evening cheering for the home team, even though they eventually lost 12-6. We saw a grand slam, some great double plays and some good outfield catches. There was even a T-shirt toss and silly entertainment between innings, although there was no seventh inning stretch, alas! 

We also met a U.S. ex-pat who reminded us of an aging biker, his head covered by an American flag scarf and his mouth missing a few teeth. As a regular Monkey’s fan, he filled us in on league gossip and baseball customs here in Taiwan, in between high-fiving us when his team scored. That’s part of the fun of travel: You meet all kinds! 

At the end of the game, a lovely custom: the Lions lined up along the first base line and bowed to the fans. How nice to be appreciated in that way!

Tomorrow, it’s back to more traditional sightseeing, and Monday, it’s back to Hong Kong. But meanwhile, it’s wonderful to get a glimpse of another Asian culture.

Cheers,

Elaine

 

 

Taiwan time out 

It has been a week or two since I’ve written for my blog, and there’s no excuse, except to say that I was lazy and caught up in day-to-day life.

Meanwhile, chapter one of my excellent adventure is rapidly coming to a close. The good news is that there will be a chapter two! I wound up my first contract at the end of last week, but there were no sad goodbyes, just au revoirs. I will be signing another contract through December, so I’ll have more time to explore both Hong Kong and Asia. It has been such a nice experience that I’m delighted to be staying a bit longer. 

At present, I’m enjoying the fruits of my labor: a trip to Taiwan with my cousins from New York City. In June, we decided that we’d rendezvous once my contract was finished. It sounded like great fun, but it also seemed like a dream. Now, it’s real.

We met Sunday in Keelung, a port just outside Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, the Republic of China – NOT to be confused with the People’s Republic of China, the behemoth across the Strait of Taiwan. Taiwan is a democratic island nation with 23 million people -- the entire country’s population is  almost equal to that of China’s largest city, Chongqing.

I flew into Taipei and stayed overnight. At the hotel’s breakfast buffet the next morning, I was wearing my Martin Brodeur/Team Canada hockey T-shirt and whom do I encounter but a businessman from L.A. who plays rec hockey with retired players from the L.A. Kings?! Quite entertaining!

I met my cousins and we connected with our guide, who has turned out to be an Irishman from Northern Ireland who settled in Taiwan 21 years ago and speaks Chinese fluently. He packed us into his SUV and off we went.

Our first destination was Taroko Gorge National Park, home to an impressive gorge that cuts through its renowned marble walls. It is full of waterfalls and is also home to dozens of varieties of butterflies, including 14 types of swallowtails (the U.S. has one species, by comparison). Iridescent blues, stark black and white, surprising yellow: there were butterflies dancing all along our trails.

 

 

The park is full of suspension bridges – luckily, they are short and fairly sturdy. (I still have nightmares about the swinging Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver.) It also has a smattering of temples and pagodas, as well as caves carved into the rock. We enjoyed a walk through one that required us to put on plastic raincoats, the type they hand out in Niagara Falls for Maid of the Mist cruises on the Niagara River. We walked along and icy water rained from the rocks: a lovely counterpoint to a warm day. 

 

 

 

I also saw my first monkeys in the wild! They were small Taiwanese macaques, watching us curiously with big eyes  from the trees as they chewed on bark. I was thrilled.

We spent a couple of nights in a homestay, the equivalent of a B&B without fancy trimmings. Our host, Mr. Su, had a house in the country near the park, and we had breakfast on his porch each morning after the neighborhood rooster crowed to wake us. At night, the air resonated with the beat of cicadas and the clack-clack of local frogs.

Yesterday, in one of the rural towns in Hualien County on Taiwan’s east coast, we spotted dozens of baskets outside a temple and stopped to investigate. It turned out to be the beginning of the birthday celebration for the local Daoist temple’s god. What a thrill to see it firsthand!. The men from the temple brought out  the god’s statue and placed  it on a palanquin so it could be carried. Apparently, on a birthday, a god is taken to visit neighboring gods.

As we wandered, a sextet played traditional Chinese instruments, and congregation members prepared for the celebration’s opening parade. The women wore the traditional basket-like hats that come to a point on top, but they tied matching colored scarves around them for a festive air and extra protection from the hot sun. They prepared to carry two small baskets apiece, each tied to the ends of bamboo poles and filled with food offerings for the gods.

As they lined two sides of the walkway leading to the temple, a religious leader in traditional black shirt and pants did a divination ceremony to ensure the god found the day propitious for a celebration. With the assent, another man waved a long, flowering bamboo pole over the gathering for good fortune: bamboo, with its jointed stem, represents the stages of life, our guide tells me. 

A series of popping firecrackers and the parade was off, with the appointed men carrying the god on his platform, followed by the parade of women marching two by two with their baskets, all of the marchers accompanied by a huge drum beaten rhythmically and a gong sounding periodically  from a trailing truck. 

Tomorrow, there will be more festivities, a feast and some performances. We’re invited, but other adventures beckon.