Dihua Street Holiday Market: Year of the Dragon

So I have a camera again. Brendan  dug out his old pro Canon EOS 350D, found the old memory card and charger for it, and has been letting me lug it around town to take lots of great pictures.

The upside is that unlike my old camera, which was good but not the best, this is a real pro machine. They say that it's not what camera you use, it's who's behind the camera (incidentally, they say the same thing about professional musical instruments), and there's a lot of truth to that. On the other hand, I'm still me. Same woman behind the camera, and yet, the photos I've been taking with this giant hulk of a machine are worlds better than what I got out of my dinky little camera. I mean, check out the depth of focus on that first shot. I couldn't do that with my old camera.

The downside is that this thing is heavy and conspicuous. No more quietly taken from-the-hip candids or quick shots. Everyone in a ten mile radius can see that THIS WHITE GIRL IS TAKING A PICTURE. This leads to more posed faces, although I appreciate that people make goofy faces instead of smiling moronically. It's definitely heavier than I'd like. I can't just throw it in my purse. Heck, it doesn't even fit in my messenger bag!

But, it is what it is and I do enjoy the privilege of using a good, solid camera for the time being. It's good enough that in the future, even after I get a tiny digital camera again, I'll probably take it out for fun.        

My first round with this camera was on Dihua Street. We went to the holiday market yesterday - I naively thought that being a weekday afternoon, the crowds wouldn't be so choking. I was wrong. I'm terrified of what it will be like on Saturday. We have the week off and precious little to do other than painting our apartment, so we bought some snacks to enjoy, which will help it feel like it's really Chinese New Year for us and we're celebrating in some small way.

Any foreigner stuck in Taipei on CNY with nothing to do would do well to visit the market before Monday - it'll infuse you with a bit of holiday spirit. Assuming you are OK with crowds, of course.

Everything is sold here, from snack food you can eat right away to canned and jarred goods to dried snacks - the dried vegetables, especially the garlic cloves, are a favorite of mine to ingredients to cook full meals to pre-cooked packed food to clothing to housewares to decorations.

I'm guessing a lot of this stuff gets purchased to either feed relatives descending on one's house while they wait for dinner or watch CNY television specials or is bought by the descending relatives themselves to add to the feast ("Hi Grandma! We brought egg tarts!").

This reminds me of my own family Christmases where we'd show up at Grandma's with cookies, a bowl of hummus, cheese and sausage or whatever else we felt we should contribute. I always made the hummus.

My first run up the street, with Brendan, the camera bag and my purse - and our purchases - in tow, wasn't that fruitful. After leaving Brendan at a coffeeshop - the one outside that's attached to Yongle fabric market - with our bags, I went back up with just my two hands, empty pockets and the camera and did much better.

 

One thing you can usually see a lot of at the market - as anywhere that's crowded in Taiwan - are people with their small dogs. I'm not sure how the dogs deal with the crowds, but they generally don't seem to mind. Once, I saw a cat at this market. Not a stray cat, mind you, but a couple who brought their giant fluffy orange-and-white cat with huge green eyes to the Dihua holiday market and carried him around like a dog. I can guess what the cat thought of this.

The vendors that sell everything from red envelopes to vacuum-packed squid to peanuts - we bought some of these fiery fried peanuts in seasoned chili powder  (YUM) often wear costumes. These run from the relatively tame qipao dresses that the peanut ladies are wearing to full-on costume insanity.

My personal favorite are the promoters who dress up like the thing that their stands are selling and loudly point you to where you can buy a non-anthropomorphic version of them. My least favorite are the ones who just stand there with a megaphone or bullhorn extolling the virtues of buying their dried squid over, say, A-chen's down the road.

In previous years, I'd thought of the crowds at Dihua Street to be a detriment, not a bonus. This year, as I was riding the human wave with just my camera, it finally hit me - no, this is what the holiday market is all about. It's no fun if it's not crowded. OK, it could be slightly less crowded, but I think a bit of a glut of people is what makes it so much fun. When I was in China, we went to a similar, but smaller, market in Sichuan (we traveled overland from Chengdu back to Guizhou and had a blast along the way). It had people but wasn't crowded. It wasn't nearly as much fun. That was nice, but Dihua Street is the real deal.

Even when crossing the street is an ordeal!

The dried goods are my personal favorite. Dried vegetables - which you can eat like potato chips as you lie to yourself pretending that they are healthy (they are not - they're dried, yes, and they're vegetables, but somewhere in the process they had unholy relations with a deep fryer and never looked back. Fortunately the deep-fryer/vegetable love child is a tasty little morsel). I bought a bunch of these and plan sit on my ever-fattening ass all week when I'm not painting, nom nom nomming on their delicious goodness. My favorites are the mushrooms, apples and garlic cloves.

I plan to write later - possibly later today, seeing as my class postponed and my Chinese New Year vacation began yesterday - about the times when I feel like I'm in a liminal space as an expat. Christmas is one of those times. Elections are another. Chinese New Year is a third. Major events that I can't participate in the way I would back home, or the way people do here. I can recognize them, watch them, be a part of them in a very borderline way but in the end they serve to highlight the ways in which I am not totally a part of any one society of people, and I think that might be true of most expats.

So, going to the holiday market helps me feel less liminal, less borderline, less nominal, less whatever-Latin-term-for-there-but-only-on-the-edges.

It helps that everyone there is in a festive mood. It lifts my spirits and makes me feel more welcome, more participative. One thing that is universal is festivity. You see cute things:

You get free samples:

Dihua Street's market is all about the samples - you could fill up on them just walking down the street. Everything that's not in a can, jar or bottle has a sample on offer, and even stuff that is packed up is often put out in little cups or with toothpicks, or brewed if it's a drink for you to try. No - really no - obligation to buy.

You get lost in the crowd:

You see some interesting things:

...and you can pick up a few new items to munch on or for your apartment. It's a great time to update or add to dishware and other housewares. Good selection and a lot of it is affordable Japanese-style ceramic or china which is fun and funky to use at home.

So, with that, I'll leave you with a few more photos. Something to enjoy if you didn't make it to the market this year, or you just don't want to go because it's too crowded.

Enjoy!

"Facts don't prove a damn thing!"

Just a small note on education.

I am one of those people who believes that, generally speaking, education back home cultivates better thinking and life skills than education in East Asia. Even if the overall knowledge base is less, that's amply made up for in the development of critical thinking skills, creativity and to some extent confidence. All skills that serve one better in the real world than testing, a lack of practice and rote memorization.

That said.

Someone I know recently brought up the teaching of science in conversation, and it got down to religious beliefs vs. science - specifically evolution.

To this person's horror, I said that yes, whether or not to teach evolution is still a debated topic in much of the USA, and many schools will teach it with a "caveat" that it's "just a theory" or "there are other points of view".  Folks whose religious convictions state that evolution is either not the answer - and the world was created in  6 days, 6,000 years ago - or it's more "intelligent design" than "evolution"* have more control over science education than many are comfortable with.

Silence.

Then, slowly, "if you tried to say that or teach it that way in a Taiwanese school, people would laugh at you. Teachers would laugh. Administrators would laugh. Nobody would take you seriously. Sure, evolution is a 'theory' but some theories have more proof behind them than others. Evolution has a lot of proof behind it.  'The world was created in six days' has basically no proof behind it. That's just science. You might get fired for teaching religion in a science class. Science is proof, experiment, observation and fact. It just would not happen in a Taiwanese school."

So, you know, there's that. At least here kids are learning  actual science.

But then, looking back at the USA, I recently got into a debate online with someone I went to high school with and her friend. It was an entirely different discussion - about illegal immigration, in fact - and the friend says "facts don't prove a damn thing!"

Um, yes, they do. That's the whole point of facts. And when it comes to science, at least  kids in Taiwan are getting better facts. If they want to take the burden of scientific evidence and say that there is an intelligent maker behind it, fine, but they're not taught that they can deny the facts just because they're inconvenient to their belief system.


*different debate, that. I don't believe in intelligent design but I do recognize that there are different ways of believing it. Some basically tear down science. Others  keep science intact but add the caveat that it was God's idea and is under his watch, but little else. I could go on forever about that, but I won't.

Reasonability

Another positive thing I'd like to say about the elections is how reasonable it all was. I don't just mean the subdued campaigns - nary a screaming siren political truck drove my by house and posters and flags were sedate and much fewer in number than in previous elections - but Taiwan as a whole.

Here is my dark secret: I have friends who are blue (shhh, don't tell anyone)*. I disagree quite strongly with them.  With most, we just don't talk about it. I have my strong beliefs, they have theirs, and I'll express mine but stop short of insisting that others must agree (even if I think they should, because of course I believe I'm right - I wouldn't have a belief if I didn't think it was the right one, but they could say the same).

With some - one especially - well, we do talk about it. We disagree strongly. Well, in some ways not so strongly: the main difference is that she's focused on what the election means for the economy and stock market, and while I agree that's important, my ideological beliefs about Taiwan as a nation and my feelings of under the surface rage at any political group that has not  apologized for mass murders it engaged in trump that (plus, I don't really think the KMT is all that great for the economy, but that's a different debate). As an Armenian whose ancestors survived a genocide that the Turkish government still has not apologized for, that's not something I can forgive or ignore in any group. You could say it's in my blood.

What matters, though, is not that we disagree. It's that we disagree, and we can talk about it - even heatedly, but never insultingly - and we can still be friends.

I can't do that back home. I'm actually not against "conservatives" in the classic small-government, fiscally conservative sense, although I'm not convinced of their economic arguments. The position itself does not offend me and I am happy to discuss it. Although I disagree with libertarian economic platforms, again the idea doesn't offend me.

What I can't condone is what a vote for the Republicans also stands for: a vote for homophobia, to some extent for racism (although that's an issue that is hidden deep inside Republican economic platforms and is too intangible to prove fundamentally without wading into a political correctness landmine), and for restriction of women's rights. A vote for basing American laws on "Christian"** morals that not every American shares. I certainly don't. I feel this way to such an extent that I really can't have a civil discussion about these issues with a non-moderate Republican. I can't respect someone who endorses homophobia or says "America is a Christian nation" when it isn't, or who uses perfectly good words such as "liberal", "socialist" and "feminist" as insults. I just can't. Those views are abhorrent to me. Even if a person votes Republican based on economic principles, they're still casting a vote for the party that holds all the disgusting views above.***

To the same extent, I can't condone what a vote for the KMT stands for ("it's OK to commit crimes against humanity and not apologize for them!"). The difference is that in Taiwan, I can talk about it. People can talk about it...mostly. I see more green-blue dialogue than Republican-Democrat. I see more green-blue friendships and relationships (I couldn't possibly date a Republican back home, but I know plenty of green-leaning Taiwanese who have blue-leaning partners). I see people mostly getting along. The flashpoints are the exceptions, and society as a whole can mostly deal with them.

And I can talk about this. As someone who is fairly deep green, to someone who is fairly deep blue. We know not to insult each other: I may dislike the KMT, but I don't dislike her. I may not respect Ma Ying-jiu, but I do respect her. It can't, and shouldn't, ever be personal (although the White Terror thing really hits a nerve with me due to aforementioned family history).

The difference, I believe, is the fact that the US has increasingly veered towards social issues in its civil discourse, even though polls show that people care about the economy and vote on that rather than social issues. I do vote based on social issues, but I do so as a reasonably successful and very lucky, privileged American who had most of the right breaks. I don't know if I'd feel the same way if I'd grown up at the ass end of the system. Deep down we Democrats and those Republicans hate each other because it's all about worldviews and morals - gay rights, women's rights, religion, what makes a real family, when does life begin and how is it that all men are created equal but don't have an equal shot at life?

There is some of that in KMT-DPP political discourse but it doesn't cut quite so deeply. A Taiwanese feminist activist could vote for either party and feel she did the right thing (although I personally feel that the DPP is a better bet for women). A proponent of gay rights could do the same. Religion doesn't even come into it, as I believe is right. The debates aren't about these issues. The one social issue that gets play is national identity, and even that seems to have reached a "let's agree to disagree" sort of detente.

A very intelligent friend of mine said that Taiwan is much better now: "four years ago you would hear something like 外省豬回中國 or 無知南部人****. It's better this time indeed." And I agree - it is better. Things are improving. The two sides ran a reasonably civilized campaign - as much as can be expected from politics - and the overall outcome was one of a mature society, not two angry sides growling at each other. I admire that.

These days, if you throw out either of the above insults you'll get shushed, not cheered on. You can state your views but few will encourage you to just hurl invective with no underlying message. Which is as it should be.

Of course, there are always outliers. There are always a few shouters rather than talkers, in any society. The difference is that in America they seem to have taken over our discourse, whereas in Taiwan they're being told to shoosh so people can get on with the business of electing a leader. They can say what they want, but few will them seriously. Even within the campaign - attacks against Tsai Ying-wen didn't seem to stick ("she's not really Hakka" got shouted down, so did "she's a lesbian!") and while people joke about Ma Ying-jiu, generally the underlying message is that he's weak and ineffective.

So I look at my home country and I see "elitist", "liberal", "lamestream media", "feminist", "socialist", "terrorist" all used as though they carry the same register. Since when is a "liberal" the same as a "terrorist"? Since a bunch of angry people decided it was. I hear personal insults, attacks, people who believe things like 'if you don't see it my way, then you're just an idiot'.  This is not shushed. This is not put in its proper place at the extreme ends. This is what makes it on TV or gets talked about online. And this is sad.

Back to Taiwan, and sure, people disagree strongly. Someone might think another person's opinion is wrong, but the insults don't come. It would be rare to actually believe that because someone disagrees with you, that they're an idiot. I disagree strongly with my dark blue friend, but she is certainly not an idiot.

I don't feel we Americans grant each other the same respect.

I admire that in Taiwan, people seem to be able to see the difference between a belief and a whole person.

I wish I saw more of that back home. Then again, I also wish the beliefs we were debating weren't ones that are tied so strongly to social values. I wish we could all agree that gay people are people too and deserve equal rights, or that women are, indeed, able to make decisions about their bodies, and get on with the business of debating the economy and foreign policy.

In this way, I could say that America has a lot to learn from Taiwan.



*I am joking, but you knew that

**As someone who is not Christian but was raised Protestant, I don't actually think that a lot of what these guys say is "Christian" really is at all. I don't think Jesus would have condoned banning gay marriage or contraception, or possibly even abortion, and definitely not tax breaks on the wealthy while the poor went without. But, that's what they say. A different debate, again.

***I know, I know, I should respect all views but I just can't do that when someone makes up a bunch of lies about the "sacred bond of marriage" to disguise homophobia or thinks he knows better than I do what I should do with my own body. NO.

**** translation: "Foreign-born (Chinese) pigs go back to China" and "Ignorant southerners".

My Admiration for Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文)

Even though I'm still bitterly disappointed in the election results, I do have a few positive things to say.

First, I can't say enough how much I appreciate the fact that Tsai Ying-wen was a viable female candidate, especially in Asia. Different countries in Asia have had female leaders before: Indira Gandhi, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Corazon Aquino, Benazir Bhutto...Golda Meir for those count Israel as Asia (and it technically is - east of the Bosphorus and all - but by that definition I'm part Asian. Haha. Hahaha. Ha. But really, both Armenia and Hatay are east of the Bosphorus, too. Does that really mean I have Asian ancestry? I don't feel it does). I could scour the complete Interwebz for the complete list but I think I've made my point.                    

Of that list, very few female Presidents/Prime Ministers made it to that position on their own accomplishments alone. Would Benazir Bhutto have become Prime Minister if her father hadn't been Zulfikar Bhutto? How about Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru? There's Cory Aquino - who rose higher than her assassinated husband but was lifted there in part by his martyrdom and Megawati, the daughter of Sukarno. Macapagal-Arroyo is the daughter of a former President of the Philippines. That leaves Meir, with debatable geography.

What this means is that Tsai Ying-wen is, more or less, the first female politician in Asia who had a viable shot at a nation's highest office and got their without any family connections, history or prior family name recognition.

And that is HUGE. I don't think many people realize how huge it really is. Even in the USA I can't come up with one woman who ever really had a shot at the presidency and had no husband or father-based name recognition that got her there (basically, Hillary Clinton is the only one who had the shot, and she had the Clinton Brand Name going. Palin and Bachmann never had a chance). In all of modern Asian history, she's the one who got there on her own merits, skill and accomplishments.      

I admire that very deeply, and it's one of the reasons why I not only supported the DPP in this election, but specifically supported her. 

I don't mean to imply that Gandhi, Bhutto, Macapagal-Arroyo, Sukarnoputri etc. were not also accomplished and strong women (although I  have never been a big fan of Indira Gandhi). Even coming from a family of great political pedigree, these were smart, accomplished women of mettle who contributed their own strength to their political careers. Tsai is special because she is a smart, accomplished woman of mettle who didn't have the benefit of that political pedigree. And we almost elected her anyway. On a continent (and in a world) rife with sexism. 

Step by step, I guess.  I do believe in my lifetime that we'll see an Asian female leader elected just because of what she's done and not because of who she's related or married to.

I also admire Taiwan for this: sure, she didn't win, but she had a real shot. She almost did win. The Taiwanese people, by and large, voted based on merits and personal preferences and the fact that Tsai is female didn't seem to factor into it much. The one time it became a national issue and she was accused of being a lesbian simply because she has never married (thanks, Shih Ming-de), the entire "issue" was shouted down by the vast majority of Taiwanese as "ridiculous", "who cares", "not our business", "that's not an issue". Compare that to the American Democratic primaries of 2008 when Hillary had sexist epithets slung at her left and right, with a media happy to join the morass. She got called a "bitch" for things she did that every male politician does - the difference being that the men get away with it. If she showed emotion she was just a "too soft" woman, if she had iron balls she "too masculine/threatening".

That didn't happen with Tsai. Although there is a lot of room to improve on women's equality in Taiwan, this really speaks volumes.

I admire that she could choose pink for a campaign color and not be mocked for it. I admire that her campaign posters often said "台灣第1女總統", rather than playing down her gender as I feared she might do - which many prominent female politicians engage in because they think they must. I admire that when her gender was brought up, it was in a positive light (see: Lee Teng-hui's endorsement).

I am sure there are still some misogynists out there who didn't vote for her simply because she is female, and some who have convinced themselves that they don't like her for other reasons, but their dislike of her is subconsciously rooted in sexism, but I am proud to say that my observation is that these people, in Taiwan, are in the great minority. I don't think I can say that about my own country, the "leader of the free world".  People may not have voted for Tsai because they didn't like / trust her or her party, but I do feel - as far as I've noticed - that very few didn't vote for her based solely on her gender (although I do wonder about that surprisingly low 55% pro-DPP cote count in Pingdong). It just didn't seem to be an issue. 

For that, I *heart* Taiwan. It makes me feel that this country truly is a good progressive model for Asia. There is still a long way to go - it has not quite yet achieved true gender egalitarianism - but it seems to be one step ahead of the rest of Asia when it comes to women's issues. You would not have seen this in Japan, Korea or China.  I'm not sure if a woman not from a famous political family could make this happen in India or SE Asia, either. Asia...listen up. Taiwan is where you need to be looking. You can learn a lot from this election just in terms of women's issues. 

And next time, we'll win. Not just the DPP, but we'll get a female president. Someday. It will happen. It has to. We're roughly half the population, after all.

Annual Party (尾牙) Culture in Taiwan

Here, be cheered up by nearly naked engineers dancing in diapers

Seriously, I got nothin'. I can't write anything except to say how disappointed I am in the election results, and what good'd that do?

So, I'm going to write about the 尾牙, or company year-end banquet that is held by most workplaces of some size in Taiwan. Smaller offices don't always hold them, especially tiny offices with just a few people in them working in Taiwan for a larger global company. Some of the larger companies, like Mediatek, hold them by business unit rather than for the whole company. Others, like Foxconn and Gamania, hold ginormous company-wide bashes (Foxconn even invites reporters; the others don't).

Not many foreigners get to attend these parties - large international companies that employ a few foreigners will certainly invite them, but otherwise there aren't many chances to attend. Some English schools have something similar (Kojen holds its annual banquet at the end of the summer, and my husband's company has one before Christmas), but they're not quite the same and resemble weddings or corporate events back home more than a  knock-down drag 'em out Taiwanese 尾牙(pronounced "wei ya" for all you non-Chinese speakers).

And I really mean knock down drag 'em out:

The lack of foreigners attending these parties could explain why they're not really talked about in expat circles, except to note that adult students take time off around this time of year to attend. And the expat versions are, in my opinion, not nearly as much fun.

There are different kinds of annual parties, of course. One company I work with has an extremely formal affair, which probably did not include engineers dancing in diapers.  Attendees are invited to wear ball gowns, but few actually do. Another has a 1,500 person mega affair in the NTU gymnasium, and this year featured an executive in drag and my student in a sequined top dancing to Lady Gaga (I was not invited; I saw the pictures). 

The one I was invited to last night was for a very local company - you can see the name displayed across the top of most of the photos I've included. They're based in Tucheng (土城) and the party was in Shulin (樹林) - yes, I rode the MRT to the end of the line and then took a cab from the station and back; I was that excited about attending one of these functions. This one, I  have been assured, was about as "local" as it gets, at a seafood restaurant in an old Japanese-era brick building, with backlit stage screen bearing the company's name, smoke machines (no joke!), lasers, confetti, sexy dancers, alcohol and insane talent shows and, of course, a lucky draw. It wasn't terribly formal - I wore a nice but not fancy outfit I might wear to work on any given day, adding only a light touch of makeup - and felt   as though I was dressed just about right.

Here are some sexy flight attendants for you

I believe I was invited at all simply because this company is extremely Taiwanese, locally based, not that large, started by one whip-smart, slightly kooky engineer who decided that he may as well open his own company, who is the CEO but very visible in the company offices. He is my former student (the General Manager is my current student). They have much more of a "come on, the more the merrier, we like you so come drink and eat with us" attitude than other companies I've worked with (although generally speaking I have liked every company I've worked with, even if they didn't invite me to their year-end banquets). My own organization was surprised at their hospitality: I decided that it was such an interesting chance to see a piece of local culture that I couldn't pass it up, even though it meant postponing another class.

The Taiwanese attendees will often tell you that the lucky draw is the most important part of the night, and the best part. Some will even say it's the main reason to attend. Companies do this differently, too. Some give out money and prizes. Some give out fewer, larger prizes (Foxconn famously has a prize in the millions of NT, paid out over several years. Other companies give out smaller prizes to more people. Some give every employee a red envelope with a few thousand in it, and have a few prizes on top of that). Bigger prizes have been things like cars or other luxury items. On the awesome but slightly less extravagant end, my friend's girlfriend won a purse from Tod's.

Many companies have a well-known rule that if an executive or high enough manager wins the prize, he or she has to donate it back to the company for someone else to win, and sometimes add more money on top of that (if it's a cash prize, they either give it back or double it). Some companies get a set amount from the company for the lucky draw prizes, and the higher-ups each put in another NT$20,000 or so to pad the prize-load. If an executive wins and does not do this, he or she is the object of much whispering and tittering in the cube farm the next day, and on Facebook.

I, however, think the best part of the night is the part you don't usually see at affairs full of foreigners (although Brendan's company holiday bash featured a watered-down version of one, which was, honestly, nothing like the one I saw on Friday), the talent show.
        

This is where all the shy, maybe kind of awkward, definitely not wild-n-crazy students you thought you had practice for weeks for the chance to prance around on a stage in Spongebob underpants.

Or do a sexy dance (these are all company employees).

Or do whatever this is.

Basically, they get up there and do things I just don't see foreigners generally acquiescing to, let alone coming up with the idea for.  They tried to get me to sing some random Christmas song from the '70s at Brendan's party, and I was conveniently in the bathroom fixing my lipstick when it was supposed to happen (there was no rehearsal, though. It was just sort of  thrust upon me). Nobody at the party full of foreigners seemed interested in  getting onstage.

And yet, these generally introverted, often (but not always) quiet guys who spend all day every weekday boxed up in a cubicle are willing to do...this:

And this:

And, uh, this:

And, you know, that's what I think makes a Taiwanese year-end banquet so much fun. I was quite literally stunned several times over by the increasing craziness of the talent show acts. Every time I found my mouth hanging open, that no group would do something nuttier or more self-effacing than what I'd just seen, I was proven wrong by, oh, I don't know, dorky engineers in clown wigs dancing with secretaries in black leather corsets.

I left at about 11pm, when the party at the actual venue was winding down. I probably could have finagled an invitation to KTV, but I was tired and needed to catch the MRT home (and wasn't sure who I trusted to drive me among those heading to KTV until 3am). So when the lights came up, I said my slightly drunken Chinese and Taiwanese goodbyes and caught a cab back to MRT Fu-da, stuffed and full of alcohol - but not that drunk, as I'd spaced it out between courses of food.

Although I did have a bit more than intended: my students are the CEO and General Manager, who are of course just the guys who came around with wine, beer and whiskey to "bottoms up" with every table, and they seemed to take great delight in coming by my seat more than once to see if I could handle it (I could). They were clearly much worse off than I was.

Not only did I pull off a decent night of socializing in Chinese, but I made some friends, too. These guys' costumes are probably offensive to somebody but who cares.

 One thing I really enjoyed was the challenge of socializing in Chinese in an entirely Taiwanese milieu for a night, with no chance to slip back into English. It was sink-or-swim social Chinese, and I am proud to say that I swam.  The chance to bring out my Chinese for a real-life event and have to use it all night - not a simulation, not "just for fun" with people who actually speak English, but all-out, all night, with people who don't speak English.

Just the sort of thing I encourage my students to do in English, which they seem to be terrified of (although less so when I am done with them).

It's a fun night - assuming you speak Chinese or the attendees have an overall good level of English, otherwise it could be quite confusing and not that much fun - and something I hope more foreigners get the chance to do. Certainly more fun, from what I've heard, than a typical Taiwanese wedding. Then again, that's hearsay: I've never been to one.

I do think the level of craziness has something to do with the fact that these guys work far more grueling hours than most Westerners, and get out far less often. We foreigners might go out at least once a week, and things like "beer on Friday with coworkers" would be a pretty normal thing to do. It's almost as though we have tiny wei-yas all year, and these guys save it all up for one crazy bash in which they shed all inhibition.

With my student, the General Manager...and his secretary, who won two lucky draw prizes.

Basically, I wish I could go to one of these every year!

So now, my goals for socializing and cultural experience in Taiwan,  beyond the festivals I'd like to hit this year, are:

- A wedding. It's been five years and I've never been to one. My friends just aren't into marriage.

- A street party or "ban dou" (辦桌), for a wedding or otherwise.

- Something featuring showgirls or dancers. Preferably on a truck that converts into a stage and is covered in LEDs (電花車), and as local as possible. I don't want high class professional showgirls, I want the ones who come in on a blue truck for the Pingdong Pineapple Factory annual bash. Or something.

- Something where I actually have to practice with a group and go on stage dressed as something ridiculous (no sexy dancing, though).

And with that, I leave you with a few more amusing photos from my ridiculous Friday night. I can only hope you all get the chance to go to one of these someday. They're a cultural experience not to be missed.

My two students, singing a Taiwanese folk song, completely off their heads

Obligatory group shot before the drunkenness commenced (the guys in suits are my students)

Spongebob, check. Not sure why he needs a Spiderman, but check. But...three Spidermen?

WOOOOOOOOOO!

These guys crack me up

And some more sexy flight attendants for you.

I went to a KMT rally, and it made me feel dirty inside

So I "attended", if you can call it that, a KMT rally tonight. I don't have pictures - my apologies, but I still don't have a working camera, even an iPod or phone camera. Mine traveled up to the great Canon In The Sky to meet its maker last week, and my good one was stolen in Turkey.

I didn't do it because I like the KMT - you all know how much I hope they lose the upcoming election and how strongly I dislike them in general - but because it was quite literally right outside my apartment. Two days before an election if you look outside and see people joining an ever bigger cheering crowd backed by blasting music, if you're interested in politics you follow them. So I did.  

Despite having no pictures I thought I'd recap here.

First, I couldn't help but giggle at the following things:

- Ma Ying-jiu, again trying and failing to speak Taiwanese. I may not be a speaker of Taiwanese but I've been exposed to it enough that know bad Taiwanese when I hear it.

- The giant bouncy castle - I don't know what else to call it -  with "馬到成功" across the top. I have to admit that was quite clever - it means "instant success", and it's President Ma, and the rally was where we live in our apartment complex and I'm not sure I could have resisted that one either. But a bouncy castle? For serious? You're the president of a nation with a population that rivals Australia and you gave a speech under a freakin' bouncy castle? Pull that  **** in the US and you might get elected hall monitor of your nursery school but that's about it.

- The sound kept cutting out. I hope it was the evil eye I was sending his way, mwahahahaha!

- Ma Ying-jiu being introduced and escorted offstage by the music from Star Wars. Wow. Just...wow. Dear President Ma: you didn't destroy the Death Star. You haven't even managed to get China off Taiwan's back. You are not a Jedi. The Taiwanese know that these are, in fact, the droids they are looking for. I sincerely hope the Force is not with you. You don't get to walk onstage to the music from Star Wars. 

- I kept giving him and his KMT cronies dirty looks and sending bad "lose lose lose" vibes their way. Just as I started doing that, the sound started cutting out. Maybe the Force is with me! Maybe I just changed history with the power of my mind!* :) 

- They did that rally call and response thing. It went something like this:

KMT Cronies: 馬英九

Crowd: 當選！**

Me, quietly:（下台）

KMT Cronies: 國民黨

Crowd: 加油!

Me, quietly: (幹你娘)

KMT Cronies: 馬總統

Crowd: 加油!

Me, quietly: (去死)

KMT Cronies: 馬到

Crowd: 成功!

Me, quietly: 口甲賽 (read that in Taiwanese)

KMT Cronies: 投給

Crowd: 二號

Me, quietly: (一號)

I couldn't really be loud about it, seeing as I live in the deepest of the deep blue parts of one of the deepest blue districts in Taipei.  Those old veterans might've killed me. I'm not even sure if I'm using hyperbole.

*I am joking, but if you didn't realize that, the problem's with you, not me.

** I think this is what they said but it wasn't clear - the Star Wars music hadn't ended yet