Belated Happy R.O.K.-tober!

Julia had some meetings in Busan Korea and a few days prior to the start of them was Taiwan’s National Day (October 10), which meant that she had a few days off... so we decided to take advantage of the timing and spend some time in Seoul and Busan.  

Seoul is a pretty amazing city.  It’s huge and sprawling, with high hills and the Han River through town.  We lined up a tour of the DMZ - the Demilitarized Zone separating South Korea from North.  On the bus there, only a short distance out of downtown we got onto an expressway along the Han River, and there the barbed wire fence and guard towers began - the DPRK (North Korea)...(Isn’t it great how so many of the communist countries  went out of their way to add ‘Democratic’ into the name of the country?)... has sent numerous infiltrators into Seoul via the river, hence the fences and guards.  Seoul sits about 40 or 50 km from the DMZ.

The DMZ tour itself was pretty amazing and sobering.  We toured one of the 4 infiltration tunnels that the ROK has discovered (there are many more suspected to exist), and Camp Bonifas, named after one of the two US soldiers killed by DPRK soldiers in an axe attack back in the 70s.  The gate at the entrance to the camp says ‘In Front of Them All’ and that couldn’t be truer, given their proximity to the DMZ, and the numerous attacks and provocations the DPRK has made over the years since the end of the war... whoops, that’s wrong - technically the war has not ended, it’s just been suspended for nearly 60 years, but hostilities are obviously still just under the surface.  The tour took us to Panmunjon, located right, smack in the middle of the DMZ.  

Panmunjon - The US soldier in the foreground was our tour guide for this part of the tour. The building in the background is the DPRK... actually beyond the middle of the light blue building is the DPRK...all the other soldiers on this side of the blue building are ROK soldiers - the guys with white bands stand watch with fists clenched for 2 hour stints, note the number that are partially shielded by the buildings - not for dramatic effect, but due to the long chain of attacks and other provocations by the DPRK - I guess when you have nothing to lose, you've got nothing to lose.  He's very hard to see in the this photo but there is a DPRK soldier at the top of the stairs who spent much of the time we were there checking us out with binocs.

This is actually a photo of a photo on display in the visitor center, but I had to include it as it shows the DPRK guards in a rather telling orientation.  Note that both here and  in my photo above (taken from locations only a few meters apart) the ROK guards are positioned facing the enemy to the north.  However, the DPRK guards are positioned either entirely towards their own people, literally and metaphorically, with the guy at left, or at least halfway facing their own country and halfway facing the South.   Just like how many of the old Iron Curtain defenses were aimed pointing back at the citizenry they were alleged to be 'protecting'... same drill here I guess.

There are buildings located such that they straddle the border, used for meetings between ROK and DPRK, generally overseen by Swiss and Swedish military officials, all under the terms of the agreement from 1953.  We had a chance to enter one of the meeting rooms used - it has a meeting table oriented so that the middle of the table is across the border, so to stand or sit on one side puts you in the ROK, and the other in the DPRK, so of course we had to go to the DPRK side.  The DPRK had only one soldier stationed outside, he spent a bunch of time watching us through binoculars.

Kinda blurry, but here's Julia in the DPRK... table at bottom left of photo is meeting table that is oriented with middle at border, so she's a few feet into North Korea right there.  

After bopping around Seoul for a bit, we headed to Busan via Korea’s high speed rail line.  While they both list a top ‘cruising’ speed of 300Kmph (186mph), in Korea, they actually run at or near that speed for extended lengths of time - here in Taiwan, they seem only to get to about 285Kph or so and then for relatively short stretches.  

Busan is also a huge city, but the spot we were staying, right along the beach in Haeundae is a really cool little enclave in its midst.  

I’m looking forward to getting back to Korea to explore some more - I think a bicycle tour there may be in the cards for 2014?  We’ll see.

How can you be in two places at once....?

We’ve only been away from Portland for 9 months now, and the rate of change is evident - new buildings, new bridges etc.  I was reminded of the things I miss about Portland and Oregon - the people - friends and just random people on the street - they’re mostly comfortable and familiar, engaged and energetic. I miss the food, beer, wine, restaurants, grocery stores with righteous local kale and fruits and so forth. 

Away from the city during Cycle Oregon, out in the boonies, there was profound silence, stunning darkness and night skies that I don’t think are possible anywhere in Taiwan due to population density and general haze.  Fall is just starting - you can see it and feel it.  I don’t think there’s going to be much in the way of fall leaves in Taiwan  and the shift in the weather is likely to be a great deal more subtle - going from stupidly hot and humid to somewhat less hot and humid?  We’ll see and I’ll report back...

But while I was noticing all of the things I miss about Portland, I was also struck by the fact that I was far from home.  Taiwan is now, and for a while at least, fully home - we *live* there.  I was missing friends, missing the things that make it interesting, captivating and ever so occasionally frustrating - missing the noise and the lights and the scooter and road mayhem (seriously!).  I miss our apartment, and the view that we get from 22 stories up, I miss the food there (it’s different, but good), missing the jungle like vegetation, missing the challenges of navigating a foreign language and culture. 

I found myself chomping at the bit to get back to it and back to work on all of these new things - new work, new language, new culture, new home all the while feeling the pull of all that I miss and love about Portland and the larger Northwest. 

It will be interesting to see how and if this all changes over time - it’s all still so new for sure - 9 months isn’t that long.  Perhaps come my 2014 trip back for Cycle Oregon I’ll sing a different tune, we’ll see, and I’ll let you know how it feels a year later.

It is also interesting to consider the fact that I’m writing en route to Eastern Pennsylvania, where I lived from age 8 - 18.  Given that time of life, most people would identify that location as “home”.  Despite its good points, and the fact that family members are still there and close by, I don’t really feel like I’m going ‘home’ as such... It's certainly ‘home’ in the familial sense, but beyond that, not so much.   I guess me and that area just never really ‘clicked’.  I don’t type that with disdain or any kind of sneer - I don’t feel that I’m better than that place, nor do I harbor any ill feelings but I guess I feel that I don’t ‘fit’.

From a very early age it just wasn’t a place I saw myself staying - and in hindsight, my whole time there was a giant countdown calendar to when I could leave for points beyond, though I loved so much about where we lived - great woods to roam, good hills for sledding, a creek to play in during the summer - you name it, overall a great place to be a kid.

I feel fortunate to have lived a bunch of different places, and I’m grateful that I grew up in a family that moved around a bunch as  a result of my dad’s career.  I had it much easier than my brothers and sisters, I didn't move but once that I remembered, but I grew up in an environment open to new vistas and change.  As a result I have welcomed the opportunity to experience new places and make big changes.  And the time in Taiwan has been the biggest shift of them all thus far - and for that I’m also grateful.

Every breath you take, every move you make....

It’s been fascinating following the politics of Taiwan, there’s a bunch of interesting stuff going on at the moment.  Loads of controversy about a new trade pact with PRC that appears to me (and many Taiwanese) to be yet another sell out of Taiwan and its independence, and sovereignty  to the PRC.  There’s also a contentious effort to build another nuclear power plant, intra-party intrigue in the KMT, and the death of a soldier as a result of abuse by superiors.  

There have been numerous mass protests about these issues.  Ma Ying Jeo, the president is very unpopular and seems to be leading by decree, and the police have been pretty heavy handed at times dealing with protests.  Reading about this all I’m reminded regularly that this is still a *very* young democracy.  I was nearly finished with college when Martial law was finally ended, and they are clearly still dealing with vestiges of same.  Even more fascinating to me is that the KMT is the ruling party here... and the KMT was *the* (as in, only) political party during the whole of Martial law.  After all that happened during their reign (repression, massacres of dissenters etc) I’m astonished that they get any votes.  Why in the US, that’d be, oh, I don’t know,  like a bunch of neo-Confederates allying with remnants of the KKK to attempt to rule the US House of Representatives.....er, well, reality seems to have interrupted my attempt at metaphor, sadly.

When we first arrived here, I couldn’t help but notice how common surveillance cameras are at intersections.  These are not red light cameras as such, nor speed cameras (they have those too, but elsewhere).... no, these are run of the mill, collecting video of everything and everyone going by kind of cameras.  They’re on major streets, minor streets, in the cities, and in the middle of nowhere as well. 

A minor road, with camera....

And here's what it surveils?

After being here for a while, I hardly notice them anymore.  But reading about all of the NSA spying on American citizens and the lying, obfuscating and general attempts to minimize what is really going on, I couldn’t help start noticing them again.

I had a thought that I hadn’t seen anyone else share regarding US government spying and the larger changes in the US since 9/11.  So I wrote the following and posted it on Facebook:

Almost 12 years ago America’s authoritarian betters said that terrorists hated the US for its freedom.  So maybe it’s all been Aikido-like redirection since then?  I mean if you piss all over the Bill of Rights and destroy those freedoms then the terrorists have nothing to hate any longer and no reason to attack, right? 

Brilliant plan, except for the destruction of freedoms that were beautiful and noble in ideal if sadly not always fully and fairly applied to all.  It seems we’ve dropped the pretense to nobility and decided they just don’t apply to anyone anymore.  Hey look equality!  Whoo! USA! USA!

And for anyone thinking that the BS of the last 12 years has been necessary or helpful, I think Ben Franklin said it best: “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

There were some interesting comments, including a question from a guy that asked what things I saw as being affronts to our rights.  He stressed that he agreed with me, and though I believe he has a number of political views that differ significantly from mine, I didn’t get the sense he was just trolling me.  So I responded with the following in answer to his query:

Most all of the First Amendment (separation of church and state, freedom of speech - “we need to watch what we say” said Ari Fleischer,  how about ‘free speech zones’... I was under the mistaken impression that the entire country was a ‘free speech zone’, freedom of the press,  freedom to peaceably gather (which is largely true only if you don’t mind pepper spray and baton blows to the head), the Fourth Amendment (NSA, TSA), the Fifth Amendment (Jose Padilla, Guantanamo, due process violations and seizures in the ‘War on Drugs’, targeted, extra judicial killings of American citizens), the Sixth Amendment and the Eighth Amendment (people held indefinitely without charges, torture, months of solitary confinement for no justifiable reasons for Bradley Manning, Jose Padilla and others).  One might reasonably suggest elements of the Ninth Amendment especially if you are inclined to think that the founding fathers imagined a right to privacy (a reasonable inference given the content of the other Amendments and their writings, I would say).

I believe there is a case currently in process with real Third Amendment issues regarding the police demanding to occupy a private home to surveil a neighbor, so we’ll add that one in as a ‘maybe’ as I haven’t researched it to say for sure.

While not in the Bill of Rights, I’ll throw in another few key ideals pissed upon, like separation of powers, the idea that voting is a right not to be infringed upon for base political gain.  And lastly the increasing militarization and ‘us vs them’ policing practices of so many police forces across the nation.

So yeah,  it seems they’re really mere suggestions at this point, especially if ‘Terrorism/scary brown people/drugs/poor people/others we need to silence’ come in to play.  At this point it’s all kind of a ‘Quaint Notion’ if you will... bonus points if you know who used those words in  reference to what*.

Our modern technology affords us the chance to be very unprivate... like posting all of the above on Facebook, or writing a blog?!  In my case, very few people see it, but it’s available for anyone with an internet connection. I’m being pretty public and to a degree surveilling myself for all to see.  And yet the most crucial piece of all of this is that I’m choosing what to share, not having the NSA decide what I’m going to share (ie **everything**). 

Technology also affords the opportunity to gather, store, sort and access tremendous volumes of data.  Not that long ago you could walk around a place like Taiwan and see all of the surveillance cameras and think, with some justification, that they can’t actually be storing and monitoring all of this footage.  Now, storage is cheap, searching using facial recognition is possible and getting better all of the time.  When we consider other types of surveillance, searching databases of calls and emails is even easier and more focused.

As for the NSA, we’re living in an electronic fishbowl, where virtually everything you do electronically is likely being accessed and stored.  It’s really interesting to think back to how we viewed East Germany’s Stasi... it appears they had nothing on the NSA... and I don’t think that’s a particularly hyperbolic statement.   We keep hearing how the NSA has oversight (like a rubberstamp FISA court system or Congress) and trained professionals (at private contracting firms), and that they’re only looking for ‘Terrorists/bad guys’ (but it is curious, sad and painful, how the definition of Terrorist/bad guy seems to continually grow and expand. Besides the obvious loss of privacy from surveillance, here’s a fascinating article that details other pernicious effects such surveillance has:  http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2013/aug/26/nsa-gchq-psychology-government-mass-surveillance

Sadly the US government has done a lot of awful things both to Americans and others through the years.  Despite these things, it seemed to me, from my very fortunate, white, middle class upbringing, that there were at least efforts made to live up to the ideals the country was founded upon.  It is clear that they have not been applied equally or always consistently, but yet they remained and endured as an ideal (again, it seemed to me).  But viewed through the lens of the last 12 years, I can’t really say that anymore - we’ve lost something and we need to work hard to get it back - not just to the rather imperfect place it was before September of 2001 - we need to work to get the US to *really* live up to the ideals upon which it was founded - and make those beautiful words and ideas real and lasting.

Thematic Disunity

Learning Chinese is a big and actually fun challenge. It’s a tonal language, so that’s almost totally foreign vs English. While it adds that rather large hurdle right off the bat, on the plus side, it is devoid of verb conjugations and so far, grammar is pretty straightforward as well.  Word order in sentences generally tracks with English with only a few exceptions.   I’m able to function in an extremely (and I mean extremely) rudimentary fashion for some simple shop transactions, taxi rides etc.  We had a bit of a gap in our classes as we switched teachers. Our first teacher was ok as a teacher, just not so good as watch/alarm clock user.   The new teacher is far more punctual and a great teacher to boot. As a result of the switch in teachers, we started using an updated edition of the book we were using with teacher number 1.  The new book is a great change - easier to use, more clearly laid out and all around better.  Though we’ve barely scratched the surface and have so, so much more to learn, it feels like we’re on a good track. 

From language to bicycles and mountains....

I just did my first bike race in Taiwan - it was a hill climb.  In the US, most of those that I’ve seen or raced are basically uphill time trials.  That is, riders starting individually and racing against the clock essentially. Though you are on course with other riders, it’s usually spaced out to some degree.  Yesterday's race had a helpful abundance of people up the road ahead of me to chase. The race here was sort of a hybrid - mass start, race if you want, or simply participate for completion if you prefer.  The start is in age group waves to ease the crush of the 1800 people participating, but timed individually via a chip in the race number, so though one could start many minutes after others, you were timed based on when you crossed the start line (basically like most mass start running races these days - love that technology).  

It is a gargantuan climb - we started around 500M of elevation and 56Km later we finished at 3275M...I was pleased to finish 3rd in my age group as best I can see (I was registered in error in a different age category than I actually fall under), but in any case, I’m happy with how I rode regardless of where I finished.   Julia and I drove up this road back in April, and got some photos in the fog/haze, and they hardly do it justice, but here's the best of them, just to give you a taste for this mountain.  It's well above tree line and in the winter it can be snowed in up here - giving a marked contrast to the subtropical jungles below.

This photo was taken from about 3Km from the top, the road is on the diagonal cut visible on the far hill.  Finish line is in the saddle visible just about center of picture, just to the left of the clouds obscuring the peak.

Yesterday it was crystal clear as I was climbing, and the views were so good, I *almost* stopped to take some photos, but decided against it. Sadly it was all clouded over coming back down, so no dice for good photos then.  Speaking of stopping along the way on the climb, there were several riders I saw stopped by the side of the road taking a smoke break.  Maybe these guys were more participant than serious racer types - who knows, but in any case it’s a bit surreal to see a guy all kitted out, with an expensive race bike, stopped by the road taking a big drag on a cigarette....

And, for more thematic disunity, here’s a set of basically unrelated photos, to give a bit more of a glimpse of our world here...

This seems to be some kind of admonition against chopping your coworker's arm off, but I could be wrong about that.

I get the sense that the water drops on the left and right aren't confident swimmers.  Middle guy enjoys a dip more I think...

A pretty standard view on my rides around the area... these are actually small mountains compared to many nearby!

Down the block from our apartment.

This is a taken from a park near our apartment. The block where the park sits was supposed to be a convention center, they began construction excavation, and for some reason funding vanished, so they were left with a giant hole.  I've been told that they city held a design competition to decide what to do with said hole and this sunken park with a big pond was the result.  It's got nice walking paths and a teahouse/cafe.  The typhoon back in July raised the water level in the little lake by a considerable margin.

How we roll 'round here....

....ok, well, that's not actually true at all.  I don't roll like this, and I haven't seen a single person roll like this here.  Honest Mom, I'm much safer out dodging scooters than jumping off buildings on my bike - the building thing would end very badly for me.  We so don't roll like this here that they had to bring this guy all the way from Scotland.  His name is Danny MacAskill, and the things he makes look easy are so incredibly hard.

I share this with you since it was all shot here in Taichung, and  this video gives you a little flavor of the city.  A number of the locations for the video are new to me - after seeing this I want to hunt them down and check them out.  The neighborhood where Julia and I live makes a fleeting appearance, but it's not worth trying to hone in on it as it's really just a split second view of a nearby building.  But this does give you a glimpse of the road scene and some cool parks and other vistas around Taichung, all with a healthy dose of unbelievable bike skills.

Typhoon Soulik

Typhoon Soulik -

It’s Saturday July 13 around 11AM Taiwan time as I type this.  The typhoon force winds and  ‘extremely torrential’ (Central Weather Bureua’s wording) have subsided here in Taichung.  Now we’re down to run of the mill high winds and really torrential downpour.

Taiwan gets hammered by typhoons pretty regularly, so they’ve got preparations down to a bit of a science it appears.  I went for a bike ride yesterday and noticed all of the work underway.  Most obvious were construction sites with their literal battening down of the hatches.  Many skyscrapers under construction here have fabric wrapped across the scaffolding surrounding the building.  It was amazing to see an entire 20+ story building with all of the fabric furled and secured.   Same with the giant vinyl billboards all around town - all furled and secured.  It made sense to me yesterday pre storm, but after experiencing the wind howling, and the building shaking, and the windows bowing nearly all night long - it all makes that much more sense!

Here are some photos and video....

The coming storm

Around 9AM Saturday July 13, 2013

I think I've got this correct that this was the rainfall total at that time for the area around Taichung... 480mm is over 1.5 feet of rain... at 7:38AM Saturday.... I wouldn't be at all surprised if there has been another 6 inches that have fallen since then.

So after earthquakes and a typhoon, I guess all we’ve got left to deal with is a  plague of locusts, or a rain of frogs and perhaps  a possible sharknado?

Cycling in Taiwan, France and elsewhere....

As we ride around Taichung, more and more wonderful roads keep turning up.  Not that I feel like we’ve seen them all by any stretch, but just when I think I’ve got a handle on a particular area, I go on a ride with others to that same area, or go explore on my own and then get exposed to a whole new network of roads.  It’s big fun to see how things connect up and be continually surprised at new vistas.  The only tough part at the moment is the heat.  Haven’t seen any leeches though, so that’s nice. 

Both Julia and I have been doing a bunch of great riding. She rides to and from work several days a week, usually with some colleagues. I often join in for one or both ways of the ride, which is big fun.

As I type, we’re watching the Tour de France on TV.  This is always one of my favorite 3 week stretches of the year, and in past years when it is finished, I end up having some measure of withdrawal.  I think some of that used to spring from the fact that we didn’t have that much cycling on TV to watch.  Curiously, moving to Tai ewan has allowed us to see a great deal more pro cycling on TV.  There’s much to love about Eurosport Asia coverage - not only the Grand Tours, but the shorter stage races, Classics, and significant one day races, so it’s a wealth of amazing cycling telecasts.

We also have a place to go watch all this coverage with others similarly addicted - a great coffee shop called Caffe Terry.  It’s a coffee shop that is covered up in cycling memorabilia, tables made of bike wheels, shod with tires etc.  Terry’s a great guy, a strong rider/racer and  also a bike builder.  They make really good coffee and food, and have a wide selection of beers available too.  http://taiwanincycles.blogspot.tw/2010/11/caffe-terry.html

I’ve always been interested in transport issues and specifically how bicycles can be integrated into a transport network, so it’s been fascinating to notice Taiwan and Taichung’s efforts to support cycling.  Unfortunately the Taiwanese too often miss the mark in my opinion - the overall thrust of the local efforts can be summed up in this one photo... (it’s not Photoshopped, honest, come visit, I’ll take you there to see it).

We’ve only been here for 6 months now, so I cannot really comment too much, but if you’re interested, I’ll direct you to a great blog whose writer can speak far more eloquently than I on this topic, plus he’s got some other staggering photos 

http://taiwanincycles.blogspot.tw/2012/11/delusions-of-grandeur-mayor-jason-hu.html

There are some really nice rails to trails that have been built around Taichung, and  some nice signage designating cycling routes on existing roads, so it’s not all for naught, but there are far too many misses as well.   To me, cycling could be a viable addition to the larger transportation infrastructure here.  Much of the city itself is flat,  ideal for actually getting around by bike, but most all cycling infrastructure efforts seem to focus on recreational cycling, as with the aforementioned rails to trails and cycling route signage.  Hopefully this will all change with time.

The link above on Caffe Terry is also from the blog Taiwan in Cycles.

I owe Andrew, the blogger, a big debt of gratitude.  Right after we learned of the possibility of Julia getting a job over here I immediately started doing some research about what it would be like living (and riding here).  Taiwan in Cycles is such a great and wide ranging resource and it really helped me wrap my head around aspects of Taiwan and Taichung life such that I could imagine living here.   It certainly wasn’t the only point of information to our decision making process, but it sure helped!