Just a quick update on our situation. We both asked for a day off work on Friday so that we could travel to Taipei and go to the Korean embassy to apply for a police clearance for Andrea. That was okay but the rest of our time in Taipei was a bit of an anticlimax. We decided to return to Tainan earlier than we had planned to, on Saturday morning. It's funny then, that deciding we just wanted to go home precipitated being in Taipei longer than we wanted. We got a coffee and some fruit and a newspaper and took it all to a nice park not far from the central train station. It was a nice day to sit in the park with a newspaper and have time to talk. Talk took over and we argued about the merits of computer-based entertainment versus more traditional forms of leisure activity (among other things) for quite a while. Meanwhile a girl wearing a long-sleeved, button-up, collared shirt but no pants shaped herself into various poses around the small lake/pond, a small army of male photographers giving her all their attention. We guessed that it was a lingerie shoot although we still aren't quite sure. [I said no pants; I didn't say no underwear]
The day was late enough to warrant lunch and we both happened to have a lunch warrant so we chose what looked like a promising Korean restaurant across the road from the park and enjoyed a feast of really good Korean food.
About two-thirds of the way through the bus ride home from Taipei we both started to feel a little unsettled somewhere in the deep recesses inside us. This feeling developed into nausea and vomiting. For Andrea the vomiting began on the bus (in the bathroom). For me it began two minutes after we walked into our apartment and about 10 seconds after drinking a cup of water. The next day was spent recovering. Andrea's still sore although I think I have almost been restored to glory barring a preference for eating smaller portions than I would have a few days ago.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
This house was my home
My mum ("mother" didn't sound right) sold her house recently. When I say that she sold "her" house I mean that it had become hers when my parents agreed to go their separate ways (dad had his own place). And when I say that she sold her house "recently" I measure time by the number of years that we lived there. I was born in Collie and lived in this house from as far back as I can remember until I moved to Perth just before I was 18. I grew up from here and I kept coming back, of course. This place was always as at home as I could be. In Perth, over the winding, wending way through twelve years of my life, I lived at about twelve different, consecutive addresses. But a part of me always lived on in Collie, through my parents who were both there, through the remnants of a childhood's worth of consumerism, and through me, even though I was elsewhere. I wonder if any other place I could live in will ever be as homely as this place was; I don't mean to say that it was possessed of great lineage or architecture, or that I had a wonderful childhood there, or that it glows with some sort of mysterious, emotional inner-glow. I mean that, due to the reality that I lived there for the first 18 years of my life, this place will always be where I have come from.
This entry is dedicated to the house. The photos are in no way a specially selected set that somehow best present the house or frame my memories of it. They just happened to be all that I have access to right now in Taiwan. But they're good enough to show you around.
Welcome to my old house.
I took this photo one foggy winter morning. I love this photo. The harsh, all-revealing Australian sun is absent, allowing for a bit of obscurity and uncertainty. Perhaps this is what my memory of the house is like.
Off the street and down into the front driveway: this is where my friend Alex and I set off on our trip around the South-West of Western Australia.
Up the driveway and in through the front door: you can see directly through to the lounge-room and the tropical sunset wallpaper that covers the far wall.
Here's that wallpaper again in the lounge-room and here's Andrea posing for a tropical-island getaway to destinations sublime.
The backyard, looking towards the house. There's the lemon tree that had grown in our backyard for as long as I can remember. I suffered many thorns in my feet over the years, but it was a worthwhile trade-off for all the lemons and lemon-juice we enjoyed.
Another shot in the backyard, looking up at the house from a different angle. The lemon tree is now in the far left of the shot and not obscuring the house. That room up top had big windows which looked out over the Collie River Valley, giving me a view of my home town going about its business, day in, day out. I think that moving into that room after it was built had an important impact on my psychology: the town of Collie which had once seemed limitless and always seemed big suddenly looked very small and its extent was visible. A whole microcosm of Australia was revealed at once, a whole community enacted itself without caring that I knew. My world seemed smaller and the real world seemed closer.
Taken from the same spot, looking in roughly the other direction (the lemon tree is now in the far-right of shot). You can see that large green shed in which my dad (again, "father" just doesn't feel right) spent so much time and creativity fixing things, building things, and breaking things. How many plots and schemes were concocted in there? I loved to walk in there and marvel at the possibilities offered by all the tools and materials scattered along shelves and walls, hiding in boxes and cabinets, or simply laying about on the floor. I wish I had spent more time learning how to make more of it useful.
From outside the big green shed, looking up the garden path towards the house. There on the left is our vegetable garden which supplied us with a wealth of vegetables all the years we lived here. Beautiful blue sky. Bag of manure.
Down by one of the two sets of gates that opened up onto the back-laneway. Once upon a time these laneways were used by the nightmen whose job it was to collect the human sewage. These days they are good for lugging useful things to the rear of the house, things like scrap metal and firewood. This is where Andrea and I started off on our 5000km road-trip into Western Australia and where we finished that same trip weeks later.
Of course a house itself is not a home. But this house and this street, these streets, this town, will forever, I believe, be home to me, for better or worse. For better or worse, I suppose I wouldn't be me if this wasn't my home.
This entry is dedicated to the house. The photos are in no way a specially selected set that somehow best present the house or frame my memories of it. They just happened to be all that I have access to right now in Taiwan. But they're good enough to show you around.
Welcome to my old house.
I took this photo one foggy winter morning. I love this photo. The harsh, all-revealing Australian sun is absent, allowing for a bit of obscurity and uncertainty. Perhaps this is what my memory of the house is like.
Off the street and down into the front driveway: this is where my friend Alex and I set off on our trip around the South-West of Western Australia.
Up the driveway and in through the front door: you can see directly through to the lounge-room and the tropical sunset wallpaper that covers the far wall.
Here's that wallpaper again in the lounge-room and here's Andrea posing for a tropical-island getaway to destinations sublime.
The backyard, looking towards the house. There's the lemon tree that had grown in our backyard for as long as I can remember. I suffered many thorns in my feet over the years, but it was a worthwhile trade-off for all the lemons and lemon-juice we enjoyed.
Another shot in the backyard, looking up at the house from a different angle. The lemon tree is now in the far left of the shot and not obscuring the house. That room up top had big windows which looked out over the Collie River Valley, giving me a view of my home town going about its business, day in, day out. I think that moving into that room after it was built had an important impact on my psychology: the town of Collie which had once seemed limitless and always seemed big suddenly looked very small and its extent was visible. A whole microcosm of Australia was revealed at once, a whole community enacted itself without caring that I knew. My world seemed smaller and the real world seemed closer.
Taken from the same spot, looking in roughly the other direction (the lemon tree is now in the far-right of shot). You can see that large green shed in which my dad (again, "father" just doesn't feel right) spent so much time and creativity fixing things, building things, and breaking things. How many plots and schemes were concocted in there? I loved to walk in there and marvel at the possibilities offered by all the tools and materials scattered along shelves and walls, hiding in boxes and cabinets, or simply laying about on the floor. I wish I had spent more time learning how to make more of it useful.
From outside the big green shed, looking up the garden path towards the house. There on the left is our vegetable garden which supplied us with a wealth of vegetables all the years we lived here. Beautiful blue sky. Bag of manure.
Down by one of the two sets of gates that opened up onto the back-laneway. Once upon a time these laneways were used by the nightmen whose job it was to collect the human sewage. These days they are good for lugging useful things to the rear of the house, things like scrap metal and firewood. This is where Andrea and I started off on our 5000km road-trip into Western Australia and where we finished that same trip weeks later.Of course a house itself is not a home. But this house and this street, these streets, this town, will forever, I believe, be home to me, for better or worse. For better or worse, I suppose I wouldn't be me if this wasn't my home.
Monday, March 9, 2009
More fancy words
Nifty, nice, noggin, philanderer, sesquipedalian, behooves, clandestine, multifarious, sanguine, botulism, triumvirate, splash-tacular, hoopla, bedevils, Zygmunt, Cassowary, Chaldean, epicurean, jalopy, convincing, tarmigant, specious, caress, heiress, superlative, chicken, Maximus, pontificate, spacious, wanton destruction, wontons, wonton destruction, magnanimosity, boisterous, prodigious, foes fire flood, hobbits, genesis, seeming contradiction, marvellous showmanship, Abigail, Nostromo, careless caress, supine, superfine, challenge, dogmatic, skullduggery, cactoblastis, fundament, intransigent, gratuity, indefatigable, generational change, marketable assets, quiescence, senescence, senesce, pastoralism, drover, myxomatosis, heliobacter pylori, What is a Huggles?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Alias the Jester: An encore performance by yours truly
By popular demand (I'm not a big star so one person's request meets my criteria for being demanded by the populace) here is a wonderful video of me singing the theme song from an animated children's series that aired on Australian television back in the 80s. This movie was made in the corrugated iron shed on top of Mister's house in the small aboriginal village somewhere near the north-east coast of Taiwan in Hualien county back in 2008. You might consider yourselves privileged to have access to the work of such a prodigious performer (I refer here to myself). Without further ado, I give you my rendition of the theme song from "Alias the Jester"...
I have just confirmed something that I suspected for a long time: Alias the Jester was produced by the same company that gave us Danger Mouse. I knew it!
Alias the Jester was an animated series created by Cosgrove Hall Films, airing in 13 episodes on ITV starting on November 13th 1985. The show also aired during the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) after school timeslot and is considered one of the Classic ABC shows.
Synopsis
Alias the Jester background briefing
(sourced from Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alias_the_Jester)
(sourced from Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alias_the_Jester)
I have just confirmed something that I suspected for a long time: Alias the Jester was produced by the same company that gave us Danger Mouse. I knew it!
Alias the Jester was an animated series created by Cosgrove Hall Films, airing in 13 episodes on ITV starting on November 13th 1985. The show also aired during the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) after school timeslot and is considered one of the Classic ABC shows.
Synopsis
The show followed the adventures of a time traveller by the name of Alias and his dog-like companion Boswell. After their malfunctioning ship got stuck in the Earth's magnetic pole, they crash-landed in a Middle Age kingdom called Houghton Bottoms, ruled by the diminutive King Arthur and his Queen Edith. Taking up a secret identity of sorts as Alias the Jester, he gains employment at the court and befriends the bumbling court wizard Meredith. When the situation called for it, Alias could instantly change back into his red uniform, which enabled him to fly, and presumably a degree of super strength, which he could use to face the various villains of the show. Each episode would inevitably end with Arthur firing Alias and Meredith.
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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Fancy words
Comestible, authentic, superstitious, callous, warranted, bipedal, extrovert, Schwartz, comedienne, aubergine, rapscallion, undertones, tremendous, litigious, highly dangerous, cantankerous, devil-may-care, hoopla, bionic, supine, withered, sere, haughty, curmudgeon, salivate, Crimea, Domesday, Wichita, Salubrious, hunkered down, infidelity, cosmopolitan, indefatigable, sciency, pish posh, Gandhi, whatchamacallit, Witherspoon, take my fancy, dubious, debilitating, terminal, aspiring musician, Humperdink, collateral, namesake, keepsake, forbearance, tolerance, terminal velocity, graduate, incarcerate, plebeian, Scottsdale, armature, kinetic, wizened, Hyperion, eccentricity, aversion, interpretation, argumentative, suggestive, whiplash, sidearms, Mercator, Gerhardus, sphincter, triumphalism, gratitudinal, arranged marriage, pompous, mercurial, sutures, authenticated.
Monday, March 2, 2009
China, Macau, and Hong Kong Pt4
After spending a while in the Museum of Coastal Defence, we walked down to sea level and breathed our fill of the salt-laden air at the small dock we found there.
We just really liked these pictures, especially the one below; there's something very Hong Kong about it.
A more traditional-style fisherman's boat putt-putts by on its way home, wending a way through the assemblage of larger, more modern boats and ships in Hong Kong Harbour.
Besides the walking tour that took us through various market areas, we also took ourselves on a temple walking tour. I've never been quite sure about the protocols for temple behaviour but it is okay to just wander in and look around as long as you're nice about it. This collection of incense sticks was scenting the air outside one of the smaller temples on the tour.
Of course Hong Kong is famous for shopping and we indulged a bit. But we aren't the marathon shoppers that others are and we have to take frequent breaks when it all gets to be a bit too much for us. Here we are having a coffee in the huge central courtyard of a shopping mall that was close to the hotel we were staying in. This particular coffee was awful.
So, final thoughts on Hong Kong? We liked it a lot and we would go back. In fact, this was my second trip: I was here back in 2003. I think I was in better company this time and enjoyed it more. Hong Kong certainly is an interesting place and it is big enough to stay interesting for longer than other potential tourism destinations. We'll be back.
We just really liked these pictures, especially the one below; there's something very Hong Kong about it.
A more traditional-style fisherman's boat putt-putts by on its way home, wending a way through the assemblage of larger, more modern boats and ships in Hong Kong Harbour.
Besides the walking tour that took us through various market areas, we also took ourselves on a temple walking tour. I've never been quite sure about the protocols for temple behaviour but it is okay to just wander in and look around as long as you're nice about it. This collection of incense sticks was scenting the air outside one of the smaller temples on the tour. 
Of course Hong Kong is famous for shopping and we indulged a bit. But we aren't the marathon shoppers that others are and we have to take frequent breaks when it all gets to be a bit too much for us. Here we are having a coffee in the huge central courtyard of a shopping mall that was close to the hotel we were staying in. This particular coffee was awful.
So, final thoughts on Hong Kong? We liked it a lot and we would go back. In fact, this was my second trip: I was here back in 2003. I think I was in better company this time and enjoyed it more. Hong Kong certainly is an interesting place and it is big enough to stay interesting for longer than other potential tourism destinations. We'll be back.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
China, Macau, and Hong Kong Pt3
We had originally planned to stay three nights in Macau but we were ready to go after two. Next stop: Hong Kong. While Macau felt like China with a Portugese past, Hong Kong felt more international, still Chinese but actively multicultural.
We met up with Andrea's friends, Ben and Kathryn, who stopped in Hong Kong on their way to Guangzhou where they will be teaching English. Interestingly, the school they were going to be working at teaches the Canadian curiculum. It was great to be able to hang out with someone else for a while but our mini-muster was a short stampede before they had to head back to Hong Kong airport to catch their onward flight.
Hong Kong is pretty hilly and it made me wonder how many people are injured each year in failing to negotiate steep streets. This alleyway continued up the hill behind us and stretched down the hill in front of us becoming lost in a blurry indistinctness.
We went on one of the walks suggested in the free walking tours brochure we picked up from the tourist centre. This one took us to several areas where concentrations of businesses selling the same thing created small districts specialising in particular goods. We passed through the flower district, the bird district, and the fish district. The fish in these fish shops were already bagged up and hung outside the shops on display, creating quite a cool effect. I suppose that their water gets changed every now and then so that they don't die of asphyxiation.
These photos are similar but significantly different. Both of these photos show the view across the Tathong Channel from the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence at Shau Kei Wan. It was a great museum and a beautiful day to be outdoors. The photo above just shows the busy harbour area. The photo below describes the contrast between the traditional fishing village and the more recent development just around the corner. I couldn't help but wonder what the locals in the fishing village thought of their high-rise neighbours.
We met up with Andrea's friends, Ben and Kathryn, who stopped in Hong Kong on their way to Guangzhou where they will be teaching English. Interestingly, the school they were going to be working at teaches the Canadian curiculum. It was great to be able to hang out with someone else for a while but our mini-muster was a short stampede before they had to head back to Hong Kong airport to catch their onward flight.
Hong Kong is pretty hilly and it made me wonder how many people are injured each year in failing to negotiate steep streets. This alleyway continued up the hill behind us and stretched down the hill in front of us becoming lost in a blurry indistinctness.
We went on one of the walks suggested in the free walking tours brochure we picked up from the tourist centre. This one took us to several areas where concentrations of businesses selling the same thing created small districts specialising in particular goods. We passed through the flower district, the bird district, and the fish district. The fish in these fish shops were already bagged up and hung outside the shops on display, creating quite a cool effect. I suppose that their water gets changed every now and then so that they don't die of asphyxiation.
These photos are similar but significantly different. Both of these photos show the view across the Tathong Channel from the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence at Shau Kei Wan. It was a great museum and a beautiful day to be outdoors. The photo above just shows the busy harbour area. The photo below describes the contrast between the traditional fishing village and the more recent development just around the corner. I couldn't help but wonder what the locals in the fishing village thought of their high-rise neighbours.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
China, Macau, and Hong Kong Pt2
We had booked our accommodation in Macao weeks earlier at a place called Auguster's that seemed to be getting good reviews on various websites. We booked three nights over the internet and when we showed up we paid for the three nights in advance. However, our first night turned out to be our last. The owner was keen to rent every available square metre of floorspace if he could find people to fill them. Andrea and I both had to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. We almost kicked a sleeping body in the head on our way out. This Auguster's place was just an ordinary apartment in an ordinary apartment building. The three rooms all had bunk beds in them. There were three bunk beds in our room plus four in each of the other two rooms. There were also three people sleeping on folding beds in the common area/office area outside the three bedrooms. That's a total of seventeen people. There was one shower and one toilet with one basin in one bathroom for all to share. When we awoke in the morning we had to queue to use the bathroom, along with two extra people who had just arrived, and we all waited around in the dark while the three other bodies in the common area kept sleeping. It was pretty awful and I didn't sleep well in the cold bedroom with only a single thin blanket for warmth. The next day we started looking around for a new place to stay. On the Thorn Tree forum of the Lonely Planet website we found out about a place not far away called San Va. It turned out to be a peculiar place, an older style guesthouse with partitioning walls that didn't reach the ceiling. However, it was very friendly and we got our own room with access to multiple bathrooms for slightly less than we were paying at Auguster's.
Here I am on the street outside the San Va guesthouse. The street is famous for having been used as a location in the Indiana Jones movie "The Temple of Doom". Cool. In the movie the street is used as a location in Shanghai.
Here is Andrea by the fountain in Largo Senado, the main square of Macau. The fountain has been dressed up for Chinese New Year.
And here's me trying to work out how to use somebody else's camera. You often get asked to take somebody else's photo and I have no qualms about making the same request of others. Note that I am still wearing my gloves because it is still very cold. I don't know what that large decoration behind me is about but the bright decorations in the square do make the place seem a little warmer.
There are many casinos in Macau and where there are casinos there are ridiculous follies like this. Inside a walled Arabian compound where you could buy popcorn from what looked like a very short minaret, a Blackhawk (correct me if I'm wrong) helicopter had crashed and two statues of alert American soldiers guarded the site while two guys dressed as American soldiers alternated between sitting and standing around trying not to look like boredom was getting the better of them and failing miserably. Other ridiculous follies in the vicinity include a Romanesque shopping centre and amphitheatre, a mini-Potala Palace (the real Potala Palace is where the Tibetan Dalai Lama is supposed to live), a volcano that erupts every evening, and restaurants and shops themed on towns from around the world. It's very international in the worst way.
This is a famous Macau landmark, the facade of the old cathedral built in honour of St Paul the apostle. The image of this facade appears on a lot of souvenirs of Macau. Apparently the cathedral was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in 1835. Now it's a piece of world heritage listed with UNESCO. To be honest the facade of St Paul's was less interesting than the baked egg tarts that are sold at several shops on the road leading up to it; they're delicious.
More Chinese New Year hijinx. A man readies himself for his part in a performance by the dragon.
Here I am on the street outside the San Va guesthouse. The street is famous for having been used as a location in the Indiana Jones movie "The Temple of Doom". Cool. In the movie the street is used as a location in Shanghai.
Here is Andrea by the fountain in Largo Senado, the main square of Macau. The fountain has been dressed up for Chinese New Year.
And here's me trying to work out how to use somebody else's camera. You often get asked to take somebody else's photo and I have no qualms about making the same request of others. Note that I am still wearing my gloves because it is still very cold. I don't know what that large decoration behind me is about but the bright decorations in the square do make the place seem a little warmer.
There are many casinos in Macau and where there are casinos there are ridiculous follies like this. Inside a walled Arabian compound where you could buy popcorn from what looked like a very short minaret, a Blackhawk (correct me if I'm wrong) helicopter had crashed and two statues of alert American soldiers guarded the site while two guys dressed as American soldiers alternated between sitting and standing around trying not to look like boredom was getting the better of them and failing miserably. Other ridiculous follies in the vicinity include a Romanesque shopping centre and amphitheatre, a mini-Potala Palace (the real Potala Palace is where the Tibetan Dalai Lama is supposed to live), a volcano that erupts every evening, and restaurants and shops themed on towns from around the world. It's very international in the worst way.
This is a famous Macau landmark, the facade of the old cathedral built in honour of St Paul the apostle. The image of this facade appears on a lot of souvenirs of Macau. Apparently the cathedral was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in 1835. Now it's a piece of world heritage listed with UNESCO. To be honest the facade of St Paul's was less interesting than the baked egg tarts that are sold at several shops on the road leading up to it; they're delicious.
More Chinese New Year hijinx. A man readies himself for his part in a performance by the dragon.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
China, Macau, and Hong Kong Pt1
I may be back at work now but not so long ago I was a free man, traveling the world, seeing all the sights that the good life has to offer and tasting all the good things that culinary minds can devise. We were able to get away for a while during the Chinese New Year holiday period. We both had two weeks vacation from work but Andrea's school vacation started a week before mine, the implication of this being that we only had one week in which we could be traveling together. As it was, Andrea left as soon as her vacation started and spent a week in Guangzhou before I finished work and flew there myself to meet up with her.
I like this map because it shows the relative sizes and positions of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong. Taiwan may be tiny compared to China but it still makes Macau and Hong Kong look like those angels that dance on the heads of pins. I found this map at http://www.china-waterworks.com/china-map.jpg
As you can see in the map, Taiwan is not far from where we traveled, in Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou. It's only about 600km from Kaohsiung airport (the major international airport nearest to Tainan) to Hong Kong and the flight only took about 50 minutes. However, that was long enough to warrant an in-flight meal, to my great delight. Despite myself, I love aeroplane meals. They symbolise so many things, not the least being the human ability to adapt to new surroundings. There's something special about those trays of food, drink, utensils (all plastic now) and napkins that magically start appearing about 25 minutes into the flight.
From Khaosiung Airport I flew to Hong Kong to catch a connecting flight to Guangzhou where I met up with Andrea. On the bus ride from the airport to Guangzhou city she told me about the places she had been and the people she had met. Here she is exploring one of the local mountains with a girl from Taiwan who she had befriended.
I had been in China for a couple of months back in 2003. I was pleasantly surprised by Guangzhou. It wasn't nearly as polluted or the city as stark and barren as I had been expecting. However, it does have a different feel about it compared to Taiwan. There's something about China that contrasts with the warmer, cozier, friendlier feeling I get about Taiwan. I was only in China for one night; the next morning we boarded a bus for Macau.
China now includes two Special Administrative Regions (SARs), namely, Hong Kong and Macau. Not so long ago the British still controlled Hong Kong and the Portugese controlled Macau. Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese government in 1997 while Macau was handed back in 1999. I don't know exactly how these former colonies are specially administered but I do know that they enjoy more liberty than China proper. On the dock of one of the harbours in Hong Kong, I saw protest banners promoting the wholesome character of the Falun Gong movement, banned by the Chinese government. These banners would not remain up for long if they were erected on the mainland.
I was going to use this photo to depict our reunification in Guangzhou but as usual we were pretty lazy with the camera and I think we only pulled it out the day after we arrived in Macau. Here we are posing for ourselves in some strange place just across the road from the main plaza. There were Chinese New Year decorations everywhere and an awful lot of people were coming and going from the place.
Same place, one less poser. By the way, it was really cold in Macau. Our extremities always seemed to be cold and we did our best to cover them up. Here I am wearing my gloves, scarf, and beanie/tuque.
According to Wikipedia, the gaming, tourism, and hospitality industry contributes more than 50% of Macau's GDP and about 70% of the government of Macau's revenue. On a walk around the island we saw plenty of impressive (gaudy?) looking buildings, not the least of which was the Grand Lisboa.
Interestingly, in the 5 working days leading up to the start of my vacation in China I saw three separate articles on the BBC's Asian Business Report (or it could have been the Asian News in general) concerning the deleterious effect the global financial crunch was having on development in Macau; building projects put on hold, thousands of laborers laid off, huge falls in gambling revenue, etc. We didn't feel the effects of this ourselves when we were there but I guess we didn't have an experience of a booming Macau to compare it with. I have no idea what Andrea is trying to communicate with her hands ini this photo; I never learned ASL. Neither did she.
I like this map because it shows the relative sizes and positions of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong. Taiwan may be tiny compared to China but it still makes Macau and Hong Kong look like those angels that dance on the heads of pins. I found this map at http://www.china-waterworks.com/china-map.jpgAs you can see in the map, Taiwan is not far from where we traveled, in Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou. It's only about 600km from Kaohsiung airport (the major international airport nearest to Tainan) to Hong Kong and the flight only took about 50 minutes. However, that was long enough to warrant an in-flight meal, to my great delight. Despite myself, I love aeroplane meals. They symbolise so many things, not the least being the human ability to adapt to new surroundings. There's something special about those trays of food, drink, utensils (all plastic now) and napkins that magically start appearing about 25 minutes into the flight.
From Khaosiung Airport I flew to Hong Kong to catch a connecting flight to Guangzhou where I met up with Andrea. On the bus ride from the airport to Guangzhou city she told me about the places she had been and the people she had met. Here she is exploring one of the local mountains with a girl from Taiwan who she had befriended.
I had been in China for a couple of months back in 2003. I was pleasantly surprised by Guangzhou. It wasn't nearly as polluted or the city as stark and barren as I had been expecting. However, it does have a different feel about it compared to Taiwan. There's something about China that contrasts with the warmer, cozier, friendlier feeling I get about Taiwan. I was only in China for one night; the next morning we boarded a bus for Macau.China now includes two Special Administrative Regions (SARs), namely, Hong Kong and Macau. Not so long ago the British still controlled Hong Kong and the Portugese controlled Macau. Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese government in 1997 while Macau was handed back in 1999. I don't know exactly how these former colonies are specially administered but I do know that they enjoy more liberty than China proper. On the dock of one of the harbours in Hong Kong, I saw protest banners promoting the wholesome character of the Falun Gong movement, banned by the Chinese government. These banners would not remain up for long if they were erected on the mainland.
I was going to use this photo to depict our reunification in Guangzhou but as usual we were pretty lazy with the camera and I think we only pulled it out the day after we arrived in Macau. Here we are posing for ourselves in some strange place just across the road from the main plaza. There were Chinese New Year decorations everywhere and an awful lot of people were coming and going from the place.
Same place, one less poser. By the way, it was really cold in Macau. Our extremities always seemed to be cold and we did our best to cover them up. Here I am wearing my gloves, scarf, and beanie/tuque.
According to Wikipedia, the gaming, tourism, and hospitality industry contributes more than 50% of Macau's GDP and about 70% of the government of Macau's revenue. On a walk around the island we saw plenty of impressive (gaudy?) looking buildings, not the least of which was the Grand Lisboa.
Interestingly, in the 5 working days leading up to the start of my vacation in China I saw three separate articles on the BBC's Asian Business Report (or it could have been the Asian News in general) concerning the deleterious effect the global financial crunch was having on development in Macau; building projects put on hold, thousands of laborers laid off, huge falls in gambling revenue, etc. We didn't feel the effects of this ourselves when we were there but I guess we didn't have an experience of a booming Macau to compare it with. I have no idea what Andrea is trying to communicate with her hands ini this photo; I never learned ASL. Neither did she.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
My precocious pupil
Here is a Utube video showing Sunny, one of my students from last year, reading The Wizard of Oz. She is only five years old. Andrea has started saying that if we have children she wants them to have a bilingual education. I think I agree with her. Here is a link to the video:
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