My Life as Adoga

The average annual rainfall in Taiwan varies by region, with Taipei famous for cold and wet winters while Kaohsiung enjoys cool and dry winters. Summers give the south more rainfall, while the north usually enjoys one month of afternoon thunderstorms. But for the entire island the precious system of dams relies upon typhoons to get filled for use all year. With climate change, however, we have been experiencing fewer such storms. This year we've had none at all. The dam in Tainan has become a grassy green playground. Fortunately for the north we have had over a month of almost daily downpour, so our dam is forced to release overflow. Always in terror of drought, I will not complain about the constant rain. I just wish my landlord would allow me to collect it in buckets and barrels on the roof, if only for keeping my garden going during the dry months that climate change threatens us with. We already were facing threats of water rationing before this current wet season began.  ...

With his usual insight my friend and poet Jaya posted these questions to his Facebook page. Synchronicity once again, as I read this after having concluded a discussion about Paris as a tourist destination--a discussion that took place in a train station coffee shop prior to boarding. I was arguing against a recent newspaper article that said Paris was a disappointing tourist venue. My experience was that if you are a romantic in the classical sense, then Paris is a city of awe in which past and present line, and the ghosts of history mingle with the living.  But Jaya's post hit my heart in another way, reminding me of my own status as a "permanent immigrant," the grandson of migrants who was to answer Destiny's call to continue their journey away from the heart of Europe.  Spiritually, and we are all migrant souls, destined to move on when these bodies fail us. I wonder if you also can feel in your blood that there is another part of the journey beyond this seemingly...

I am enjoying another East Coast Driving Holiday with Joe. Yesterday we drove from Hualien to Taitung between the mountain ranges. Today we will drive the Coastal road until reaching highway 30 that goes West through the mountains and meets up again with the valley highway back to Hualien. Tomorrow morning we have an early morning train back to Taipei. The scenery is beautiful, but the highway has been re-designed so that the emergency lanes are now motorcycle lanes, and stopping to take photos is discouraged. And though Joe promised not to gripe when I want to stop or explore someplace, he still managed to slip in a passive aggressive complaint: "I don't like to take too many photos, myself," or "The way back to the highway is if you turn right here." That's OK. If I was allowed to explore as much as I liked, we'd be heading West instead of South, and end up on the West Coast! But I do miss being in the mountains. This trip has forced me to accept...

With that ever-present goal of achieving productivity over the summer break, I spent some time this afternoon on the HSR to Kaohsiung composing an essay I want to send to the Taipei Times. Joe further encouraged me to organize a forum of important business leaders to speak about the relationship between reading fiction and success in business & life.  But where to begin. Joe says I should start with David's wife, whose boss is a major public advocate for the arts. This sounds very doable. How to begin?

One of the curses of university life here seems to be that you can never just focus on your teaching more research. There always has to be some sort of contest or competition  which requires tons of paperwork, or there's a report to be written and documentation to be gathered. Careers seem to be built upon publication, called "research." True success in this requires time, lots of time, for reading. But even basic responsibility of class preparation makes it difficult or impossible to find enough time to read as much as you need for a truly successful research endeavor. Those who succeed seem to do so on the backs of their teaching assistants. I wonder who suffers in this case. The teaching assistants who are forced into so much extra work, or the students who must do without an experienced and highly motivated professor?

Even after two decades I can't get used to the Hello Harrassment that still happens, albeit less frequently. J can't understand my anger, and probably never will. "They're just saying 'hello.'" No, they are not. A greeting is an extension of one's private self to at least momentarily encompass another. Delivered by a gang of hoodlum teens or construction workers on the roof of a far off building site, or even a truck driver passing at high speed, it is an assault of sorts. It is a hello thrown out for the entertainment of others, a hoot hoot aimed at a caged monkey with the added attraction of knowing this monkey understands. There is no desire to share the world, only the distracting pleasure of making a noise at a person who you do not view as an equal. It is a noise that says "outsider" and "freak," that reminds all listening that this passerby is not one of us.

While visiting Taipei's "Bird Street" this weekend I came across this very young Macaw, a bird badly in need of some affection. Such a beautiful creature, but I can neither afford to own a parrot nor would I want to have a pet that would outlive me by so many years.