rainy day post

Time for a Taiwan memory post... other topics require too much brain power at present. :)  

The rain...

There are several seasons in Taiwan: hot and humid, hotter, rainy, and typhoon season.  The rainy season was the closest we got to winter, in the low 50s, and it actually did feel cold because we didn't have heating.   Sometimes it would rain for weeks.  I would daily lean out our apartment balcony, parting the waters of drying laundry, and strain to see how misty the mountains were.  If I couldn't see them at all, it would rain all day.  

Nothing ever really dried during the rainy season.  We would pin up sheets and everything else until they were close to dry and then use them.  The humidity injected an unavoidable musty smell on fabrics that you didn't notice until you visited another country.  

We didn't go on as many walks to the university (our neighborhood park equivalent) during the rainy season, but would have fantastic make-believes with random dress-up clothes.  Looking back, I had no idea where we found them all, but we had furry vests (think John the Baptist camel hair...mostly used for Native American characters), lacy scarves, and a pink panther costume.  

And a decidedly Asian tepee made from bamboo poles and mosquito netting that my resourceful father constructed.  Armed with these tools and a little (well... a lot, actually) facepaint, my siblings and I would create tunnels and houses and rescue each other from lava.   

My sister and I would dance to the Nutcracker, and Mom would dance to Ron Kenoly.  We would, too... and I would drag my brother into it as well.  My brother would write a million stories and we'd all draw and paint enough to fill a museum.  Paint each other, too.  My poor mother.

There's something about rainy days and the arts.  Maybe it's the ambiguity.  There's space in the blank white/gray sky to imagine all sorts of worlds.  That sky always reminds me of Chinese watercolor paintings, when often over half of the canvass is left blank.  The white could be snow, sky, sea, a lake... 

I like it because it leaves room for all the messiness of life.  There are things that are clear, and if there weren't, we'd have no painting at all (e.g. absolutes).  But there must be room, must be tension, for those things that are not so tidily compartmentalized into boxes (e.g. would this doctrine fit into every culture and age?).   How much tension can we live with?  How much must we, especially in international missions?

Rainy days also make me sleepy.  It's like the sun got tired of its conspicuity and felt like shyly hiding away for a couple of days.  Makes me want to hide away, too, and read and bake muffins.  And play Chopin.  Mozart's a little too brash for rainy days, and Liszt would be too much period.  But Chopin... and Debussy...would be perfect.

Ok well i think this post has enough random ideas in it for present.  :)  may your rainy days have lots of good books, music, hot tea, and lovely company. 

typhoons

One of my favorite songs is "How He Loves" (John Mark MacMillian). It's incredible, simple, powerful and all about love--enough said. It begins: "He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy..."

Such vivid imagery. But I didn't really have a schema for it, having never experienced a hurricane. Until i realized---wait, wait--a hurricane is a typhoon.

They mean the same thing--a hurricane is a huge blustery storm in the west, and a typhoon is a huge blustery storm in the east. Of course they have to have totally different names; why would you simplify English?

Oh, and btw, why do people drive on different sides of the road? We've only had cars since the 20th century, after all. I actually saw a car with the steering wheel on the right side yesterday--it was so weird! Like Singapore. When we'd visit the US I would always embarrass myself and get into the wrong side... way before I had my driver's license.

ANYway-- there is a whole typhoon season in Taiwan.

The sky would get darkly moody, rain would turn to downpour and street signs would rip away and crash along the streets. Think "Wizard of Oz" cyclone without flying houses. One night as we were going to bed, a typhoon was brewing and my parents were worried about my bed being against a window.

I, being the level headed, non-emotional child I was, immediately pictured me huddling in a corner as a tree branch shattered the window and sucked out the bed into a black whirlwind. Which was very exciting; I was quite looking forward to it.

We ended up just moving my bed a foot away from the window so no dust or rubble would seep in. *sigh*

Once my Dad was late teaching at a church and had to walk back during a fierce typhoon--we prayed that a small tree wouldn't knock him out. He made it home safely, having huddled in an alley and made short dashes between secure shelters.

The weather was just dire enough to stir up excitement and cause somewhat sizable damage, much like many tiny earthquakes that happened regularly. Of course, there have been horrific typhoons with death tolls and fallen buildings... thankfully we didn't experience one like that.

We used to take post-typhoon walks to survey the damage, and especially around a university campus that was the only 'park' close by. We'd navigate around signs, broken glass, and huge fallen foliage.

Although Singapore was too sheltered geographically to endure typhoons, would have wonderfully violent thunderstorms almost daily. It was most dramatic on the beach, when the waves would kick up and palm trees doubled over like heartbroken lovers.

Now I have a picture. God's love like a typhoon wind, buckling trees under the weight of sheer glory.

It's real.

Tigers

I've always liked tigers. Partly because I am one (born in the year of the tiger, according to Chinese traditions. There's a 12 year cycle: my sister's a monkey, brother's a dragon (very auspicious), Mom's a dog and Dad's a snake. We're a very interesting family!

My mom even had a dream about a tiger right before I was born, and I've always felt connected to the beautiful tiger.

However, little girl tigers did not always get the respect we deserve. There's a strong cultural bias (less so now) against girl tigers where I grew up, because supposedly they are headstrong, independent and hard to marry off. We even have a picture of baby me next to an orphanage in Singapore specifically for girls abandoned in the year of the tiger.

However, the Chinese zodiac animals held more cultural sway in Taiwan. For instance, my mother had literally the last bed in the hospital when she delivered my brother the dragon--everyone wanted to have a baby boy in that year.

See the blurb below:

The Gate of Hope

(taken from hyacinthus's blog: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=227971)

At this small gate of the former Convent of Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), many babies were abandoned in baskets to be picked by the Sisters of the Convent. This was the origin of the Home for Abandoned Babies.

For over 100 years, the orphanage was home to children from poor or broken families as well as unwanted babies. The orphanage took in many Chinese baby girls born in the year of tiger - "tiger girls" - because of the strong superstitious belief then, that they would bring bad luck to their families.

In 1988, the Mother Superior noted that this practice was stopped as there was a marked change in this superstitious belief.

---

Last edited by hyacinthus; August 26th, 2005 at 05:34 PM.

Sad, no? Now the building that this door is connected to (Chijmes) is a national heritage site, a gorgeous chapel that hosts everything from musicals to revival services. It was a little out of the way of where we lived in Singapore (as if anything was ever THAT far away!), but I went there a handful of times.

I've had, and am having, to sift through what to take and leave from all the different cultures in which I've lived. I don't want to hold on to negative beliefs, but also want to recognize how they've affected me. Also, I strongly believe that God redeems cultures.

SO I like that the tiger has incredible strength, but has no desire to show off. She's very protective of those she loves, and nurtures her cubs. She's also a deadly dangerous hunter. Knows how to relax. Lazily graceful, powerfully beautiful.

Good traits. I'm ok being a tiger. Still not my favorite animal, but a very good one. :) Nice job, God. And aren't tiger cubs absolutely adorable? I can't wait to cuddle one in heaven. Yes, I do believe there'll be animals in heaven.

parades and make-believe

(this pic looks a little like the street of our apartment in Taiwan)

Wow, first blog of 2010. I've been busy and internet-less.

I've got to sleep soon, but quickly-- Taiwan memory that I had forgotten about.

I remember our Taipei apartment best, on the fifth floor with an unpredictable elevator (we would escort our guests down to the front door just in case it would get stuck). We had a tiny balcony with a few hardy plants that the monsoon season didn't drown. It overlooked a narrow street, and all was concrete and dark gray. But if you leaned out the balcony and look right, you could see lush mountains overrun with rainforest... on a clear day.

There my baby sister took her first steps, there my brother broke his leg, there we played elaborate make-believes and transformed our living room into houses and tepees and islands interspersed with lava. We had an amazing stash of make-believe clothes, from furry vests to bright scarves, and I would wrap Micala into a shawl and protect her from imminent lava-induced death, and Aaron would turn into a jaguar. And we would face-paint everyone and everything... my Mom woke up from a nap once to find black fingertips all over everything, and my friend and I marveling at our beautiful new black baby--none other than a COMPLETELY black Micala.

BUT what I wanted to write about was the view from the apartment looking down at the street. We'd see the garbage truck come along--hear it, actually. It was my childhood's version of the ice-cream man; the garbage truck had a cheerful, repetitive tune and would slowly thread its way through the streets, stopping as each tai tai (married woman) hurried out with her bags of garbage. It was a cool view--hundreds of multicolored bags, a strong metal lever flattening everything as need, and more being piled on as people would toss up their garbage to a man sitting on top of the tall heap.

And we'd see people walking...I would always try to see them without them seeing me, like a cat, because I loathed the extra attention caused by my ethnicity.

Every so often we'd hear distinctive bells jingling and loud opera music, and peered out to see a funeral procession passing by. Lots of bright yellow and orange flowers--chrysanthemums, I think--framing large pictures. This memory is blurred with another procession--what I was reminded of today--so I'm sure this isn't entirely accurate. Part of me wishes I had lived there when I was a bit older, so I could better articulate the many things that have affected me, but that I have forgotten.

Around ghost month (and maybe Chinese New Year or if something bad happened? maybe?), loud trucks with a massive dragon head and brightly uniformed men holding the body of the dragon, making it dance, would trail through the streets. The music was loud, and it sounded strident and scary to me, because I knew what they were doing. People had hired them to march down this particular street to appease a certain god. They were parading their gods down the street.

At theWall today we talked a little about how political Jesus' kingdom is--how it encompasses the political as well as everything else, and how so much of Paul's language had massive, dangerous political implications--'Jesus is Lord', 'gospel'--and that to the Roman world, the word 'evangelize'... its Greek equivalent... signified processions celebrating their gods/Caesar, parading them in the streets. (and this is my memory of the conversation... blame me if I am butchering the cultural context).

It still happens... in the West, there are lots of parades, and I guess you could say that they are parading their gods, such as Santa Claus. My Mom has a long and detailed vendetta against Santa Claus, mainly because everywhere in Taiwan people thought that he was the god Christians worshiped around Christmastime.

BUT that could be stretching it. I don't know. I do think that in the West it is incredibly easy to forget that we all are worshiping something.

We don't have the incense, the idol shelves, the food sacrificed to idols, the children prayed over and blessed by/dedicated to gods.

But we parade ourselves. And oh, so many other things.

ANYHOW here's the verse that we ended with this morning--it's awesome...and how amazing it is that it was culturally relevant in Paul's day and today:

But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and who makes known through us the fragrance that consists of the knowledge of him in every place. (2 Corinthians 2:14 NET)

sea glass

i try to be honest

try to be kind

and honestly leave

when i know that it's time

i know that it's time

~the weepies ("hideaway")

I don't think I do well with self-inflicted transitions. I could blame it on my childhood (what can't you blame on your childhood?), but I think it's hard for everyone to step out into a change that is not required.

Right now I'm wading into something new. The final details are slowly coming into reality like sea glass bobbing in on the last night tide.

I miss the ocean, can you tell?

One vacation in Heng Chun (south Taiwanese city) we were on one of our almost daily beach excursions, complete with swan floatie and sunscreen (I hope. Oh I hope). I fought past the surf and dog paddled, safe within my inner tube. After I had drifted and gotten tired I turned around and started kicking my way to the beach.

Halfway there the waves picked up and I, already recklessly holding the tube from the outside, slipped

down

into green saltiness.

I held my breath and opened my eyes, looking up at the sun wafting through increasingly darker shades of green-gray. Saw the black circle of my inner tube.

The next half second I was up, up--spluttering, eyes itching, clawing at the tube. Dad and some other people were nearby and helped me get back to the beach, where I recovered in the shade and rubbed my stinging eyes. I didn't go back in for a whole half hour.

Now~

I think I'm still rubbing the salt out of my eyes. Feeling rough sand, a million colors, reassuringly under my feet but still battling the suck of the waves--pulling the sand from under me even as I walk the last few feet to sun-baked sand.

I just hope that I'll take sufficient courage to start what I've already begun and turn away from what I have already left.

knives and policemen

Well it's been a while since I wrote a Taiwan story... my excuse is six, count 'em, six, part-time jobs.  I couldn't believe it when I added them all up! 

~Piano/voice teaching at my apartment

~same at a studio downtown (don't get as much $, but get a regular paycheck instead of juggling parent's schedules and cheques)

~Wisdom Tea House

~Substitute (music at Mann)

~Accompanist for D11 (again, Mann)

~Mary Kay.

AND  I just found out that I get to play/sing at the Wall, an IHOP branch that just started!!

(unpaid) :)

I really love this schedule.  Every day is different and sometimes it's a juggling act, but I love the variety and it just feels like a vacation after the M.A.T. (Mother of All Trials).  hehehe

OK Taiwan stories (thank you whoever reads this for persevering!)

It was a dark and stormy night.

We were just finishing up dinner which was normal, complete with random bites from our moody cat.  After being continually strangled by the little mei mei and enduring bloody complications from being neutered, she would nightly slink in between the dining room chairs and lash out at the most convenient ankle.

But the cat's a whole other blog.

Dad got a phone call from one of our missionary colleagues who worked with gang members and drug addicts, and was a single woman to boot.  She said that it was Xin Gao (made up name...hopefully I didn't swear) again; he had been threatening her, and she knew he carried a knife.  

Tonight he seemed dangerous, and could she come over so that we could decide if he could be reasoned with?

Of course.

We kids were almost done with the nightly shower lineup when our missionary friend and Xin Gao arrived; we went out to the living room to say hello, and I remember being surprised that he looked very normal.  My parents didn't tell us anything about violence or his knife, but I sensed tension and had overheard a bit of the phone conversation.  Which of course I didn't tell my littler siblings.

After the brief introduction, Mom herded us down our little hallway into our bedroom and shut the door.  After some time, voices rose slightly in volume, and our missionary friend was instructed to go into our parent's bedroom.  Part of the tense situation was that Xin Gao wanted to her to stay in the discussion, and possibly wanted to have a closer relationship than was appropriate (but this is speculation).

Almost immediately after she went into my parent's room, Xin Gao's voice climbed to a new intensity, and soon he was shouting, with Dad almost yelling back just in order to be heard.

I started sobbing.

I understood enough Chinese to be scared, and was listening more than my brother and sister, whom Mom was avidly trying to distract.  

Then Xin Gao started repeating, "I want to see [the missionary's name], I'm going to talk to her," and loud footsteps started down the short hallway.

Mom, serene and smiling, stood up and stood against our door.  (our room was adjacent to our parents room, where the other missionary was).  I had been crying with my head in her lap but then grew very quiet, wondering if she would be thrown into the wall: our door didn't lock.

After a few seconds and after crossing half of our short hallway, Dad managed to convince Xin Gao that he must come back to the living room and sit.

I don't remember anything right after that; I think I was just exhausted of being terrified. 

After we had been in bed, awake, for an hour, I went to the bathroom and saw Taiwanese policemen, their uniforms garishly out of place in our apartment, standing in our living room.  Several had already taken Xin Gao away.

I didn't grow up in a really dangerous place like some missionary kids who've had to flee from war zones or anything, so I've had to milk this story for all it's worth. :)

Time for teaching piano.

sulfur baths and dark mountains

Taiwan story of the week!

When my family lived in Taipei, Taiwan we would go up into the lush, tropical mountains for mini-vacations.  I can't remember the name of the place...guo lian, I think.  

Anyhow, we'd borrow the OMF van and drive a few hours outside the city until the air smelled green and all the trees were heavy with mist.  There was a resort that had warm, smelly sulfur water for all its running water, and had a man-made river of sulfur water curving through its grounds.

We always seemed to go on an outrageously rainy weekend, and so most of our time was spent in the pouring rain which was actually chilly up in the mountains.  The first time we arrived, my parents unloaded all of our stuff and wondered what they could do with three little kids cooped up in a room with just tatami mats and a sulfur bath.

But I really wanted to go play outside on the playground, and so after putting on raincoats, we all ventured out into the wet.  You haven't really lived until you've experienced a tropical rainstorm: 'torrential' just doesn't cut it.

Our raincoats were clad in vain, but I had a great time riding the flying fox and playing on all but the most slippery play equipment.  When our lips were decidedly blue, we all filed back and cooked beans and hot dogs (but I remember ramen noodles, I think.  at any rate, Dad had brought a bunsen burner) and waited our turn for the sulfur bath.

Now I've heard many times that sulfur smells like rotting eggs, but to me it just smells very strongly.  It has a smell so earthy that is repulsive only until you let yourself get used to it.  Anyhow, all the sulfur water was very warm, even the outside river through the resort. 

We would wear our swimsuits, put on sweatpants and a sweater, walk through the rain, and then quickly strip our warm clothes and jump into the steaming sulfur water.

We must have gone to the sulfur resort quite a few times, and only one time was it sunny.  That visit we made use of the trails for the first time, and discovered a beautiful hidden waterfall with rainbows in the spray.

But all those times with the rain made the mountains look like a classic Chinese watercolor picture.  My parents have a scroll with dark mountains and misty trees and the illusion of rain, and that captures something of the mountain vacations.

Taiwan thoughts--ghost month

Another Taiwan story-- seven minutes--GO:

Around this time of year, lots of people (Taoists to be official, I think) in Taiwan believe that it's Ghost month.  It's according to the Lunar Calendar, so the time changes each year.

People believe that the during this time, the gates of hades are opened and the ghosts of their ancestors are free to roam the earth and do whatever they please.  Pretty much everyone burns paper money, paper cars, paper everything in order to ensure that when the ghosts visit them, they won't harm them.  

Appeasement.

Fear.

The air is thick with smoke from thousands and millions of hallway fires, all burning paper in cylindrical metal wastebaskets.  Each window is eerily red from the light of idol shelves, and incense slowly wafts out into the night.

Night seems to last a little longer.

One of my Taiwanese friends in school had been a Christian for years, but during ghost month, she crawled into her parents bed because sleeping alone was too scary.  

When she told me this I remember being a bit surprised and then, later (years later?), angry.  How dare satan ravage the little children of an entire wonderful nation with fear of ghosts' vengeance.

How dare fear hold dominion for generations upon generations.

How dare it be that missionaries work and work and see so little profit in the harvest.

Ok 7 minutes is up.  

God be in Taiwan; be within her so that she will not fall; help her at break of day.  There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.  God be in Taiwan.

I've been trying to consistently pray for the nations using a EHC prayer map.  There's also a 10/40 prayer map for those nations in that geographical location, and it provides a persecution ranking, and percentages for those in corruption and poverty.  Lemme tell you, it's the best thing when I feel poor and scared about money.  How can it be that 70% poverty exists anywhere?  Unbelievable statistics.  

The world feels so vast sometimes.  But God You are still there...and you care so you can help me care too, and you are still joyful, so I can still leave the scars of the world with You, too.

Help us hunger and thirst after righteousness... for Your shalom to cover the earth.

Taiwan thoughts--7 minutes!

So a little while ago I said I would try to write something about Taiwan every week.... :)  Well, maybe at least every month.  I just don't want to forget.  Here's a little blurb, and to make it interesting (or at least not as time-consuming as other posts), I'm timing myself for five minutes and will try my very best to not stop typing AT ALL.  The computer version of free-writing.

read set GO:

When we were in our second term in Taiwan (5 years old to 9), we lived in Taipei in the same apartment.  This is particularly significant because it's the longest time I've ever spent in one house/apt.  Most of my memories are of Taipei because of this.

One night we had pizza (special!) and a missionary friend who ministered to people on the streets and recovering from drugs, alcoholism, etc. came over with a friend because they were in the neighborhood.  And actually, I think one of them had to use the bathroom, and there were none that were free and clean nearby.  It's not that Taiwan has bad sanitation, you just generally have to pay for public restrooms.

So I met Eddie, the friend she was with.  He was very kind and chatted with us as we kids got ready for bed.  The next time I heard of him was when he sent us beautiful bells at Christmas to decorate our tree.  I have no idea why he remembered us, but I loved the bells and thought even more of him.

The next time I saw him was in the hospital, and he was covered in purple welts.  He was in the final stages of HIV AIDS and died a few weeks later.  Eddie's whole face was actually blue and purple...I have no idea if that is common for AIDS or if it was just the light or my faulty little girl memory, but I remember looking at his face and trying not to stare as my Dad and he talked in Mandarin.  

Later I asked how he got AIDS, and Dad said that he had led a party lifestyle, and used to be a somewhat famous singer at nightclubs.  Or something like that.  Now it's been so long that I don't really remember his face, I just remember the color of the disease, the bruises, whatever they were.  And when I think of him, the most outstanding quality is a gentle kindness that I intuitively trusted.  and I've always been chary about trust.

We still hang the Eddie's bells.

ok, fine, that was seven minutes.  But yes!  I think I can actually do seven minutes a week.  

We'll see.

Taiwan stories

A few months ago I started writing a few memories of Taiwan, but with life and moving and all, I haven't had much discipline to be consistent.  So I'm trying an experiment: each week, I'll post a short story on this blog.  I've got a few typed up, so if I'm busy or don't want to write that week, I'll still have some material. 

I was reading "The Poisonwood Bible" (fabulous novel) earlier this summer and I think that inspired me to remember random things about growing up in Taiwan especially.  I was also reading a lot of Madeleine L'Engle, and she always makes me want to write.  SO hopefully this experiment works, because they might be fun to read and the more I write, the more I remember.  There's a lot.  And they won't come in order, I promise.

Impoverished Feet

Once there was a man with no shoes.  I noticed him abruptly one night as I navigated my body away from a pathetic stray’s aura of fleas to safety, squeezed between my mother’s arm and her side.  I nearly tripped on his feet, large and smeared with dirty grease, with no plastic sandals resting reassuring by.  I looked at his face for a quarter-second and again from the side as I pushed through the lively sidewalk, and then he vanished.

            He was slumped against a street post, eyes closed.  He had a few measly threads of hair, and his skin deeply bore the customary flogging of age, pollution and heat.  A wife beater hung down his ribs, and the bones in his limbs seemed to have consumed every ounce of muscle he presumably had possessed.  These observations I took in without thought, but was horrified by his lack of footwear.  It was to me the epitome of want.

            Shoes were not a source of fashion for me, but filthy streets made their necessity unquestioned.  Being in the world of heat and financial support, the variety of shoes narrowed for a girl.  I had one pair of each of the following: everyday sandals, sneakers, party-shoes, and sometimes galoshes.  The sandals were not often the plastic thongs that were the surpassing currency of footwear, for my flat-footed mother cared for her flat-footed progeny and was continually on the hunt for “more ankle support.”  However, the suede niceties of Western sandal wear fell far short in the tropics.  Even if they were put away during the rainy season and miraculously avoided every unexpected wet deluge, the wearer’s sweat alone would soon warp them into retirement.  Not to mention the orange stripes they tattooed on their owner.

            Mom had recently taken us to get new shoes because ours were both grown and worn out; perhaps this was the errand from which we were returning, for shoes were certainly on my mind.  In contrast, the old man’s fate was strikingly cruel, to be sleeping out in the open with bare feet and no hope for respite in the morning.

This tired grandpa has clung to my memories with a grip that would have far exceeded his physical strength.  A few years later I was ashamed that I did not immediately think of his other signs of destitution, namely his emaciation and homelessness—how silly to fixate on feet.  I am not sure why this brought me shame.  At any rate, he remains my foremost image of poverty.