Taiwan Numba 3

This was number three, written in the early days (late November, 2006)… at the time, I was pretty alone, alienated, culture shocked and loving every minute of it… I was especially fed up with 3rd world city air, urban life and Chinese food.

I am doing well. I am still happy and usually feel good about being here. My Chinese is getting a little better and I am learning to write and read a little. This weekend, I borrowed a friend's motor scooter and took a trip up to the mountains. I found an abandoned amusement park; I had no choice but to get out and look around. It was creepy as hell, like a scene from a good ghost story.

Among the wreckage, was a rusty carousel, half of a giant roller coaster and a haunted house. The haunted hose was right out of a ghost movie... the entrance was a clown's mouth, there was a rotted, wooden beam blocking the doorway. I had no flashlight, I was being attacked my mosquitoes and I was scared shitless... but I couldn't help but go in and wander around.

The inside was pretty damn creepy, but without light, I gave up pretty quickly. Since I arrived in Taiwan, I've had an irrational fear of being attacked by a pack of street dogs; this is so far from the guy who used to cuddle them in th streets of Mexico.

Anyway, as I exited the ghost house, I heard the loudest, deathliest scream I have ever heard in my life... I was sure the 16-year old girl I heard was being killed. I jumped, and before I knew it, the victim was in front of my face.. this made me scream!

Finally, the two of us calmed down. The victim was a young Chinese girl, hiding behind her boyfriend... he looked at me blankly, she looked at me as if I were the assailant... the three of us just sat there staring for a minute or two.

I sink you are the ghostaa... she finally said.

I apologized and walked away.

I also found a great place to go hiking; the air was free of pollution and motor scooter exhaust, giving it a foreign, woodsy smell. The views from the top were great too! On the way home, I passed by a restaurant called "Plaza de España." I am sick and tired of fried rice and chow mien, and am now jumping at the chance to eat anything different. I decided to give it a shot. I talked to the cook, a Taiwanese guy who spoke no English, but spoke decent Spanish. It turns out…he studied to become a chef in Sevilla! The restaurant walls were covered with pictures from his trip across Spain. I couldn't help but look around the restaurant and ask myself, What the hell am I doing in Taiwan?... with all the incredible places on Earth, how could I spend a moment in a place I didn’t really like? The food was great, and I assured him that I would drive the 30 minutes again soon, just to eat there.

I am realizing that everything (American food, Hanes underwear, Guacamole, Pesto Pizza, etc.) is actually available in Taiwan. Through my quest across the city, I have found Kirkland Soymilk, corn tortillas, good pasta sauce, refried beans and Cinnamon Toast Crunch! All of the mentioned items are ridiculously over priced (3 or 4 times prices at home), and are all imported. A can of clam sauce goes for four dollars! A quarter pound of peeper jack goes for six! I really hate to pay prices like these, but this food really helps to cure homesickness.

My landlord is slowly, slowly furnishing my house… I came home one day to find a huge bookcase blocking my apartment door; weeks later, there was a toaster oven in the hallway… today, it was a TV! I don't have cable, but I do get 4 or 5 network channels- 100 % Chinese I should add. I make my choices between local news, Korean soap operas and game shows involving green slime and people being spanked.

The soap operas or dramas are sometimes set in modern-day, contemporary society. Obviously they are in Chinese, but they seem to be typical love stories, only they will have random kung-fu scenes in the middle; like a man will be walking down a crowded city street and see two people kissing, and accost the man. Then, out of nowhere, a slow motion, Matrix fighting scene will start. Others seem to be set in feudal Japan or Korea and feature bad actors with pony tails and extravagant costumes.

The game shows are usually pretty hard to figure out, but their odd sense of humor comes though anyway. On one show, a dozen young guys and girls all sit on the stage in high-school-style desks, wearing typical school uniforms. An old man and woman stand in front of the students and try to make them laugh. The man once dressed in a frog suit once and as a French maid another time. The man and woman usually sing awful Chinese ballads or just groan and make weird noises. The students try their best not to laugh, but this usually only lasts a few seconds.

While we (in the states) get prizes for winning these games, in Taiwan, the losers get punished. So… when the student laughs (usually a girl) she must bend over her desk and the teacher will spank her with a wooden mallet. They play a honk or bonk sound, similar to those you hear on Mexican game shows, and the girl's butt is covered with a colored box (on the screen) that must say ouch or bang in Chinese.

Another show is identical to fear factor. In a country where people commonly eat tofu marinated in rotten milk and seafood, fried goose blood, chicken hearts on a skewer and fish head soup, I can only imagine what they eat on fear factor. Each player has a little red bucket and puking is quite common.

I am learning that we take it for granted that the US is a country of immigrants; I know lately this is only a lefty, hippy thing that Mexican lovers tend to say, but it really is true. We take it for granted that cities in America (even Penasquitos) can hold white people, Latinos, Asians, Black people, etc. and none are typically out of place. Sure our society may be more friendly to certain races, but no foreigners are looked at as actual aliens. Taiwanese cities (even the big ones) don't seem to have any non-Asians. In Taiwan, immigrants come from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia mostly; I assume they are not treated too well.

As for white people, we really are treated like saints. But we are also treated like true outsiders; we are gawked at and alienated. I have learned the word for foreigner: wai-guo-ren (literally "outside person"), and at least 3 times a day, I hear this word in side conversations, around me. It isn't malicious on their part, but it is puzzling that I can be such a big deal to them. Proof of this is that people are really sweet here, always overly helpful and eager to practice their 6 words of English with me. I have traveled to other nations where white skin was seen as wealth, and the friendliness I encountered was obviously coming for a price to be negotiated later.

Here, helpful people and friendly strangers are just that. On a long bike ride one day, I came across a huge park, where families were barbequing and singing karaoke from TV's mounted in the back of pick-up trucks. Within moments of my arrival, a family had called me over to join them. They spoke no English (they barely even spoke Chinese) yet we tried our best to communicate. They gave me disgusting, oily sausage from their Bar-B-Q, they gave me shrimp and taught me to suck the brain out and they gave me squid jerky. They then brought on the rounds of hard liquor, which tasted like stale whiskey. We laughed at our inability to communicate; I politely forced down the liquor and food and was on my way as quickly as I had arrived.

My Chinese is not close to passable, its really not even good enough to be called embarrassing. Through my conversations with people who speak a little English, I have found a common pattern. Almost always, the questions go in order:

1) Where are you come from?
2) Can you say Chinese?
3) Are you student?
4) How long you come Taiwan?
5) Where are you live?
6) Why are you come Taiwan?

I’ve thought about printing a t-shirt witht the following:

-California
-No
-No
-Too long and Not long enough
-Your mom’s house
-I have no f---in idea.

Because of this- now predictable sequence, when spoken to in Chinese, I just respond in this order. Chinese is a very difficult language to pronounce, meaning that after 5 months here, I still can't correctly pronounce the word for beef, bathroom or my own city. When grunting and burping out this puzzling language, I usually repeat each word half a dozen times, changing my tone and emphasis until the people understand me. Most conversations (at the pool, with waiters and waitresses, while buying tea, etc) go something like this.

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Meigouren (America people)

Chinese Person: eh?

Matt: MEIgouren (AmErica people)

Chinese Person: eh?

Matt: MeigouREN (AmericA people)

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Wo shwo ee-dien-dien jongwen (I speak little Chinese)

(more eh?'s and me repeating myself)

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Wo engwen laoshir (I English teacher)

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: ooo (five)….. here I get really nervous because I can't say
the word month……. I just say the word five a lot.

Chinese Person: blah blah blah blah

Matt: Dali (I usually have to repeat this one close to fifty times,
and even then I assume the person gives up on me and just says ohh.


The conversation goes on like this, and often seems to work out okay. Though at other times, I get very puzzled looks. I imagine it has happened that someone asked me the time, or whether I'd like coffee or tea with my dinner, and I replied English teacher.

Things are going and going here and mostly going well. I went to my first American-looking supermarket tonight, where I bought olive oil, garlic, Chili sauce, a can opener, a frying pan and some Chinese noodles. That’s it!

I saw a chicken being slaughtered yesterday........

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Near my home is a huge market, more like an open-air bazaar, I suppose. It’s an area the size of a football field, under a huge red and white tent. It’s overcrowded with tables and stalls; people selling fish (live and dead), noodles, dumplings, meat of all sorts, fruits and vegetables. In the typical Asian fashion, whole pigs sit next to slices of cake, next to live chickens, next to Sashimi stands… its a wonder the whole country hasn’t died. These markets are more common than supermarkets here, and I assume this is where most of the country buys their groceries.

For hundreds of years, while Europeans had salt to cure their meat and the Middle East had spices galore, East Asia never caught on to any of this. Without proper refrigeration and without any preservation, a careful, maybe paranoid culture developed. Still to this day, though refrigerators are as commonplace as motor scooters and temples, Chinese culture has an obsession with freshness.

Many Americans would claim the same marriage to fresh food, but here, the rule of thumb is, If I didn't see it alive, I don't know how long its been dead.

This means these huge open air markets are chock full of chickens in cages, shrimp sitting (or walking) on ice, pathetically blinking their eyes, fish flapping around in a few inches of water and pig legs, still complete with split hooves and furry legs.

I have been frequenting these markets for about 3 months now. I've noticed the small cages crammed with chickens; I've noticed the live sea creatures and I've definitely noticed the meat being sold. Subconsciously I obviously knew what was to come of these pets everywhere, but I had never realized the brutality of it all.

* * *

As I walked yesterday, I stopped to watch a woman wearing thick, rubber gloves. She pulled a live chicken out of its cage while it clucked and kicked. She slammed its neck on the bloody rim of a trashcan and sliced its head off with a cleaver. The head fell into the garbage, sitting on a pile of hundreds of others. The body, wings still flapping, legs still kicking, fell to the floor, resting atop dozens of dead chickens.

The whole process, from cage to headless, must have taken less than 10 seconds. The woman did it without hesitation, not as if he'd done it before, but as if he'd done it hundreds of times that day. She did it with the ease that I type my name MATT; 4 strokes... I could probably do that with the absence of all five senses… a reaction… there is no doubt I my mind that this woman could kill a chicken without her five senses… an act that would have taken me hours to prep for and months of therapy to get over.

She never noticed me; had no idea that someone was traumatized by her actions that day (no… I am NOT a vegetarian, yes… I know the hypocrisy involved here, no… I have never drilled for oil, picked a head of lettuce or built a home either), had no idea that I felt guilty about my eating habits for a couple of days, had no idea that his action would ever be deemed important enough for someone to write 1,560 words about it.

The punch-line here is not that I have gone vegetarian now, nor is it to say that the Chinese are savages. I am merely pointing the small differences in culture or people’s lives and how mind-boggling they can be.

Why are we so afraid of being reminded where our food actually comes from? Why are they so afraid of food that was frozen, shipped for 6 hours, delivered to a market and wrapped in plastic?

The list of small cultural idiosyncrasies could go on until my hands fell off. Why do we eat chicken breasts, but not their feet? Why do we eat fish, but not their eyes?

* * *

Most people here, from construction workers, to doctors, to bankers nap for about an hour each day; they just put their heads down on the desk, while construction workers and road workers lay down on the sidewalk. Why do we regard naps as childish and slightly embarrassing?

Culture seeps into every corner of one's existence, how one wakes up, how they walk, how they get to work, how they greet others each morning, how they get ready for bed, and everything in-between. It’s all dictated by their upbringing, by the community and the people that raised them.

Most of these details go unnoticed, even to the watchful eye of a foreigner. It is no wonder that immigrants tend to stick with their own people. The list of everyday occurrences here that make me slightly uncomfortable is long and constantly morphing. And on parallel, I can only begin to imagine all that I must do to make these people's teeth cringe.

The traveler takes these differences as exciting awakenings; a good traveler must think of himself as an anthropologist/ sociologist, using these changes in perspective to see himself and his culture. And to see that we do in fact have our own culture, that we are unique, (for good and for bad) this is a priceless gift, one that every human deserves.
I listen to University students across the US, complaining of our lack of culture and scoff… they’re not even worth the thirty seconds it would take to prove them wrong… When did we decide that it takes dragon puppets or candy skulls or bull fights to signify a true culture.

The working immigrant however, never asked for this enlightenment. For him, these cultural divides, these points that are lost in translation, are just another headache after a long day. I guess Tom Sawyer said it best: Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

I am still having fun asking myself if I am in fact an immigrant. Do immigrants need to have dark skin? Must they come from a poor country? Must they themselves come from poverty? I have met white people here, people from first world countries who came to Taiwan to escape poverty. Are they immigrants? And wages for people of my educational background are in fact better here, so is poverty all relative? If I am $ 30,000 in the hole, with no savings, but I am well fed and have a car… what is my economic status?

At home, foreigners are almost always treated as second-class citizens. They are often feared, sneered at, marginalized and trampled upon. Yet I have been embraced here, the locals toy with my lack of ability to communicate, wait for my pantomimes, let me draw pictures of chicken legs and rice and often offer me forks with my meals. They almost always wear a smile while I take their time to explain my distaste for onions.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out why… I am not in Zimbabwe; I am not in El Salvador; I am in a developed nation. The people here have money and spend money, meaning that I am not the only source of income to these countless people who baby me. I am just another customer, another person on the street, another bus passenger.

It isn't even my American passport that makes me loved here, but my white face and protruding nose (it is quite common for children to come up to me, touch my nose and run away, while women like to call it beautiful). This is still relatively uncharted territory for the Australian businessman, or European vacationer; there is a definite air of curiosity and mysticism regarding white people here.

So… is it just curiosity? If America didn't have large populations of virtually every ethnicity imaginable, would we also be so friendly to the outsiders? While the Chinese seem to be excited, are we jaded by all who are not like us?

And then again, I must ask… do reasons always exist? Perhaps the Chinese history, and these tales of fresh meat have nothing to do with the chickens kept in cages. And perhaps I am dealing with a different culture, one that enjoys my company, when mine doesn't particularly enjoy theirs. Maybe it’s all that easy…

I haven't found the person whom I should thank for this one, nor have I gotten down the proper pronunciation for the word thank you. I am trying my best though and have not gotten any sneers for my poor pronunciation.

*This was written almost two years ago, when I was still a freshman to Taiwan and I have to say I am no longer amazed by what I see... it is less and less often now that I look twice at anything I see here. I'm more and more used to it all and realize that this was written at a time when I was still a backpacker to this nation. Now I don't know what to say... I have overstayed my anthropologist phase and am now in my - I don't know what to call it- phase. But I can properly utter the words for thank you, onions, and quite a few others.

turks and turkey and living so far away

Tuesday, May 15, 2007


Last Sunday, my roommate came home with an authentic, turkey and avocado sandwich. She offered me a bite and I was immediately reminded of my old life; a life where a sandwich like this was as common and beef noodles or fried rice is in Taiwan. I then realized that it had been about a year since I had had a decent sandwich. Since Sunday, I've had been craving my own.

I now sit at one of the two or three decent deli's/ markets in all of Taichung (a city of over a million) savoring my own overpriced, undersized turkey sandwich. I've come to call this deli the "2000 NT (60 USD) Store" because I've never been able to go in without spending about 2,000 dollars on various goodies.

As I stroll around the deli and stare at their array of comfort food (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Kirkland soy milk, corn tortillas, Swiss cheese, the list could go on), I feel oddly depressed. During my first few months in Taiwan, these rare "Western Splurges" – meals at Friday's or even KFC- brought me an unimaginable amount of elation. I'd run in jumping up and down requesting half the items on the menu, smiling from ear to ear.

But these days, I seem to find it all depressing. I paw at my sandwich, but all knowing that I could have had it cheaper and better at home. I sip on my Corona but know that it will never replace a New Castle or a Sierra Nevada. I watch CNN in English, but know that I can't flip to American Idol or Sopranos (and I hated TV at home).

These crutches that foreigners use are supposed to bring us back home; they should bring us back to our respective comfort zones. But they tend to remind me of a home that I loved, a home that is ohh so far away, a home that doesn't exactly feel like home anymore. Looking at American cans and American jars and American candy with a simultaneous feeling of familiarity and surprise –

"Ohh I forgot about Swiss Miss", I have to ask myself…."When did it come to this?"

Paradoxical and contradictory… I know. Reminders of home have become reminders of homesickness for a place that we long to be but dread going back to. These small escapes from Taiwan aren't really helping us escape, but making us feel a little more trapped on a small island, where you can't drink the tap water or sufficiently speak the language.

Paradoxical, yet every foreigner everywhere reading this knows what I'm talking about.

Political and Economic theory talks a lot about "pushes" and "pulls", in regard to immigration. Countries like Mexico, India and Morocco "push" people while The US, the UK and Spain, respectively "pull" people in.

The dynamics of this are quite different when you have a majority of affluent people (the average foreigner in Taiwan) leaving affluent nations to come here. There are ex-pats here who came to escape drugs, poverty, unemployment or basements in their parents' house. But I'd say the majority, like myself, came to escape boredom, they came because they were curious.

The wanderer's heart has a collection of memories and experiences where the average person has empty holes. People that have been through these experiences will forever have a special bond that others won't understand. But the wanderer's heart also has rips and tears that will never heal.

God knows none of us will ever go home and see a 7-11, a garbage truck or a motor scooter quite the same. And all of us will have a new tear brewing, no matter where we end up on the map. Maybe we'll stay here, but we'll all miss something. Maybe we'll go home, but we'll all miss something.

As I finish my Snapple and take the last few bites of my sandwich, I can't help but think of the countless foreigners in Beijing, in Tokyo and Buenos Aires, also trying to find a piece of their own heart in an overpriced, less than perfect meal form home. I can't help but think of the Chinese people across the world settling for overpriced, less than perfect beef noodles. I can't help but think of the Mexicans finding tears as they go to sleep in Oklahoma or the Turk in Germany, shedding a tear in an imperfect mosque.

Millions of people across the world feel political, economic or just-plain desirous pushes and pulls to get them moving, but a very small percentage act on these forces. It's hard all over the world, and God knows that most have it harder than us. But that doesn't discount the fact that we have torn hearts.

No one deserves a medal for this, but it is something worth recognizing…

crossing over with Max

In August 2007, I went to Cambodia for a few weeks, This is my worst:

Cambodia is a different planet from Thailand. There are no sidewalks, only mud. There are no roads, only mud. There is no food, only pots of rotting vegetables and meat swimming in E-coli. There are no homes, only shacks.... I mean shacks! Most would be unfit for a lawnmower or a pit bull in the states. There is an abundance of 12 or 13 year old kids driving motorcycles. Men everywhere approached me to "have a girl"..... I don't see how anyone could maintain an erection in a country like this.

I walked around the small border town... it was one of the few times in my traveling career when I thought

"my parents worst nightmares have come true."

Everyone here is evil and wants to eat me alive. I am vulnerable and they all know it.... I have no way to communicate and they can all team up against me. I have more money in my pocket than these people have seen in their lives... The people just smiled and waved at me though........

I went back to my hotel bar and met 2 French girls and a Russian guy named Max.... we ended up spending about a week traveling together.... it felt like a cartoon where the animals are looking for gold and they all end up on a mission to find it together.

Together, we departed together (the 4 of us) for a small town in the south-eastern tip on Cambodia. It was raining and raining and raining all day long....thick, heavy, wet rain. The bus ride was probably the distance from LA to San Diego, but it took us over 6 hours. Sometimes the road was paved, other times it was gravel, most of the time it was red mud. We got stuck several times, we pulled Camry's and vans out of the mud and we kept saying

"wow........ not like America, ha ha ha." The Russian drank Vodka all day.

Cambodia has no bridges, so every time there was a river, we had to drive the van onto a boat and cross the river on the boat. The boat was actually 4 canoes tied together with twine. Each crossing took 45 minutes, we would stop and take pictures of mud and children with no clothes on.

We ate rice and ecoli and took more pictures of poverty and bushes. The countryside had nothing but shacks.... by the end of the trip I was saying to myself..."Those rich bastards have a blue shack, all the other shacks are made of brown straw." The nicest shacks were made of plywood or even corrugated metal. The slums were just straw or leaves. It felt odd, it was impossible to see this and not feel sad or depressed or helpless or something...... I couldn't imagine for the life of me what their lives were actually like...... or what I looked like to them.....using a camera worth more than their year's salary, so I could take pictures of their children, who were swimming in mud puddles.

The scenery was really breathtaking...... endless forests and fields of bright, bright green, dark red soil, mountains creeping up into the clouds, rivers crisscrossing everywhere and rice fields, rice fields, rice fields.

We arrived in a desolate beach town called Sihanukville, which was supposedly known for its white sand and clear water.....but it rained lions and tigers for the 5 days I was there. I spilt a hotel with Max the Russian, the Russian who sang in the shower.

The Russian was traveling with a tiny knapsack....... all he had was an extra shirt, a bottle of Vodka, a toothbrush and a snorkel...... I was quite curious how this guy ended up in Cambodia with nothing but a knapsakc, but the language barrier was preventing me from finding out. His English was terrible; we tried to talk (imagine Russian accent).

Matt: How did you end up in Cambodia with nothing but Vodka and a snorkel.

Max: In Thailand I go to Pattaya... beautiful snorkel but girl is more expensive.

Matt: "Hey Max, do you want to go eat dinner?"

Max: "What is this word.... dinner?"

Matt: "I will travel to Phenom Krun... I heard it is a nice place."

Max: "I don't know this word... niceplace."

Sometimes he would talk to himself in Russian...and while shitting or showering he sang to himself. I asked him why he came to Cambodia and why he only has a tiny bag, unfit to go to school with..... he said (Russian accent)

I In Moscow talk with girlfriend bad things fighting and we both feel not so good...... I tomorrow next day get airplane to Bangkok and will swimming in sun." He didn't even bring shoes! Max kept talking, "Bangkok very good, but girl too expensive... Now Cambodge, I am king! Take many girl for small moneys... then use my camera for the proofs!

He showed me his cellphone, and scrolled through a dozen or so pictures he'd taken, all of prostitutes or bar girls he'd encountered on his journey; Max especially liked pics of girl's asses. Max's English was almost non-existent, but he could discuss three things and he repeated them to me hourly- girls, Tom Yam (a spicy Thai soup) and the beach.

Later on in our journey, Max and I bumped into a German girl in a restaurant; she could speak Russian, but not English, but soon her Austrian boyfriend came along, he could speak German and Enlgish.

Max hadn't met any Russian speakers since his trip started two weeks earlier... so he excitedly told her his whole story, she then translated to the boyfriend, who translated to me. Here is Max's story, told to me third hand, while I sat next to him, eating Tom Yam; Max insisted that I buy Tom Yam anytime we ate together.

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, I got in a huge fight with my wife. She was angry because I forgot to shut the door when I went to work that morning... I told her to shut the fuck up, and we haven't talked since. The next morning, I woke up on the couch and went to work. When I got to the office, my boss came in to see me. He was waving around a plane ticket, saying he had a ticket for Bangkok, but couldn't leave work. He asked if I was willing to take it.

I graciously accepted, but was then told that the plane took off in less than 3 hours. I ran home, but my wife had changed the locks. I quickly ran to a drug store, bought a small bag, a snorkel, a pair of flip flops and some sunglasses.

I landed in Bangkok, wearing my suit and shoes (from work) but left those in my first hotel room. I used the extra space in my bag for a bottle of Vodka.

This was Max's story. Max was a sex tourist and a total bonehead, but he was very friendly and I found him to be quite endearing. Later that night, Max invited me out to a bar to see a girl. When I declined, Max noted that I had turned him down on this 3 nights in a row. Max asked me if I was gay.

Matt: I'm not gay Max... but I do have a girlfriend in Taiwan.

Max hit me on the arm.

Max: That is okay.... I have the wife!

That night, Max hopped in the shower, sang some Russian songs and went out to explore Cambodia.

I read my book for a while and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, Max was gathering his belongings and running out the door. Outside the hotel window, there was a black Mercedes and a shady, Russian-looking guy outside, smoking a cigarette. In the back seat were four teenage Cambodian girls.

Max hugged me and explained that me met an ex-KGB member who offered to put him up in a 4-star hotel, where he'd pay for all the food, the room and the girls. Max was genuinely scared that he'd offend me, but tried to explain that he was low on cash and almost out of Vodka.

After that I hopped more buses to cross more bumpy roads, seeing more lush green fields and more shacks. I'd go on to have more fun, but never met any more Max's.

bang bang

In August, 2007, I spent about 3 weeks in Cambodia... here is my best:

13 Aug 2007


I rented a book fit for the the Wicked Witch of the West and followed my –not to scale- touristy map I ended up on a dusty, rural, dirt road. There were cows the size of VW bugs blocking the road and naked children jumping rope and kicking hacky sacks- hacky sacks are HUGE in Cambodia. The road was understandably full of pot holes and ruts and my bike wasn't handling it too well. I asked a person if I was going the right way and he assured me that it was down this road, so I kept on trekking.

Exciting event 1 : The bike chain broke.

I continued pushing my bike through the dirt, hoping to find a bike shop on this road, with nothing but dusty shacks selling dusty Pepsi cans and farms.

In contrast to the polite Californian rain, which always gives 2 days notice and always starts out slow to give us ample prep time, Asian rain comes out of nowhere and comes with brute force.

Exciting Event 2: It started raining hard as shit,

I was without raincoat and the drops were actually stinging my skin. The people around me kept on kicking hacky sacks, jumping rope, walking with cows... as if nothing was happening, but I could barely walk.

The dirt road became thick, slippery mud in about 30 seconds.

Because I am an idiot, I still kept going, but this clearly wasn't my day. I was slipping and sliding all over the place, my shoes were sinking into this swamp, and I was pushing this POS bike around.

Exciting Event 3 : Dith!

God decided to smile at me and out of nowhere came a tuk tuk.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/PICT2817.JPG

A tuk tuk is like Cinderella's beautiful carriage, except they replaced the handsome white horse with an old, smog spitting motorcycle. For the first time on my trip, I was actually happy to see one of these morons and I gladly accepted the ride. He spoke English, he loaded my bike into the cab and he knew how to get to the Killing Fields. If I thought I was slipping around a lot on my feet, this motorcycle was ridiculous… the backend was flying around left to right, spitting mud on my carriage, but I was cool right to left and I was right behind him the whole time, enjoying the ride.

Exciting Event 4 : Dith is a bigger bone-head than me

We went a few kilometers and then the damn thing ran out of gas! The man informed me that just up the road a little, he knew of a woman who sold gasoline from 2 liter soda bottles, he said he'd push us to the "gas station" and we'd soon be on our way. So this guy is pushing his little South-East Asian legs off but not getting far at all (because of the mud). Sitting in the tuk tuk, I started to feel like some kind of slave driver, so I got out and I pushed with him.

To refresh your memory- Rural Cambodia, still pouring rain, 2 idiots (one of them with white skin and a huge nose) are pushing a motorcycle taxi through ankle-deep mud, passing cows and rice farms on either side. Then, a garbage truck came flying down the road, honking his horn- thanks (The Asian sign for, "I'll hit you if you don't move.").

Exciting Event 5 : America is good man

As the truck passed us, it went through a puddle and splashed us like a scene from a cartoon. Both of us were covered in wet mud, from head to toe; even in my mouth. The tuk tuk driver was worried about the 10 dollars he was hoping to squeeze out of me, so he's apologizing and using his muddy T-shirt to wipe my face and arms off.

At this point, I was laughing uncontrollably, as we're still trying our best to push this fucking motorcycle taxi with my decrepit bicycle hanging out the end. The man, relieved that I wasn't upset, was now saying to me, "You are good man." "America is good man."

I concurred.... "Yes, Dith (his name was Dith) America is a good man."

Finally, we made it to the gas lady, we filled up a few liters and we were off to the killing fields. I wandered around the fields, while my tuk tuk man "waited-me" outside. After I was done, I got in the tuk tuk, ready to go to my hotel. The man turned around to talk to me. This happens often and usually the next question is, "You like lady?"--- but it was 2:00 in the afternoon! This guy surprised me though and said, "You like machine gun?" I pause for a minute, taken off guard.

"Yeah, Doesn't everyone?"

Exciting Event number 6: You shoot big gun

"Very close, is shooting range. You shoot big gun, I take you picture, so cool."

I guess I wasn't ready for my adventure to end, and I had a few hours before my bus, so I said OK. We drove back to the "main road" and down another short muddy road and ended up at what looked like a restaurant or something.

Cambodia had a civil war/ genocide... Well it turns out (who would've guessed) the Soviets and the Vietnamese were supplying the bad guys with an excessive amount of weapons and the Americans were funding the counter-insurgency, hoping to meddle without actually meddling.
When the war finally ended, the country was left with a huge number of guns, grenades, rocket launchers, etc.

I don't know if there is something in Buddhism that teaches this, but Asians are by far the most inventive, most entrepreneurial people on Earth. It is because of this that Taiwan and Korea are doing so well these days, it is because of this that China will rule the world one day, it is because of this that the Cambodians built shooting range, where people can fire M16's, Ak-47's and Tommy Guns.

I went in and sat down, and was handed a "menu." Aside from beers and sandwiches, the menu had a list of various guns, flame throwers and rocket launches with prices next to them. At the bottom of the menu, in big letters it read:

YOU MAY NOT TAKE ANY PHOTOS OF THIS MENU.

I got an Ak47, because it sounded the coolest. I went inside a proper, cement shooting range and the guy told me what to do. I fired 25 bullets in about 90 seconds, I paid him 30 dollars, I took some photos and that was it.

We tuk tuk'd home in the rain, I packed my bag and now I am in Siem Riep. My clothes are stil covered in mud.

Dear Friends,

I still live in a foreign, often strange, often funny country. Though I don’t write it down as often as I used to, my life is still foreign, often strange and often funny. Here are a few from the past few weeks.

***

Last night I went out with a good friend of mine, a fellow teacher from Oklahoma. Accompanying us was his Taiwanese wife, half a dozen of her cousins and friends and a few other Americans. Somehow, the table became centered around me, and before I knew it, I was telling the whole group a story about my teenage years, when (among other things) I spent my free time dressed as a bumble bee, handing out balloons to children of white trash families. This invariably led to my story of the time that I was accosted by a mentally disabled preteen (while dressed again as a bumble bee) who proceeded to hug me so hard I thought I would turn blue from a loss of blood and oxygen to the head. In the end, his parents pried him off of me, while I gasped for air and the boy screamed and cried.

The point of this is that I had a crowd of Chinese people rolling, crossing oceans and historical divides and doing it all in Chinese. Notorious BIG once expressed the pleasure he felt from “rocking” a crowd of thousands “from the front to the back.” Ss someone who considers himself to be pretty funny, this experience gave me a similar feeling.

***

I recently got into a band called Dengue Fever… I recommend listening to them.

***

I stepped in quick sand today. After sitting through two hours of Indiana Jones, the worst two hours since the last terrible movie I saw, I said that I didn’t believe in quick sand. It does, and Taiwan has it; it almost killed me today. It may have ruined a pair of shoes too.

***

Last Friday was our high school graduation. It felt so strange to think it was just another Friday for me, but for many of these kids, it was one of the real turning points in their lives. One of my ex-students would be going onto study Engineering at Penn State; this kid, Taiwanese through and through, got 60 points higher than me on the American SAT! Another of my kids would be moving across Taiwan to study for his teaching degree. Another kid named Jay came to me and shook my hand. He looked me in the eyes and apologized (he threw a hot dog at me in class once- not as a joke, he threw it while he shouting FUCK YOU). I then looked him in the eyes and apologized for calling him a “real asshole”- teachers make mistakes too.

The one that will stand out 10 years from now though, is a student named Lucifer. I taught him English conversation for the past two years. Because of me, he can flawlessly say things like, I seldom go to the movies, or What are some of your hobbies and interests? When I met Lucifer, his English name was Andy, but there were three other Andy’s in his class. He came to me one day and asked that I call him Damien; a week later it was Satan; eventually he settled on Lucifer. If these seems odd, consider that I’ve had students in the past named Azzip (whose best friend was Pizza), Garfield, Helios, Piggy, Duck, Dinosaur, Amigo (she was a girl) and Isnt (so many opportunities for Abbott and Costello scenes).

Anyways, back to Lucifer. At this point, I’ve taught (not exaggerating) over a thousand high school students and I’ve found some patterns. In a class of thirty, about 4 will despise me- they’ll wish death upon me and make it fairly well known (hence yelling FUCK YOU while throwing hot dogs). About 20 will be completely oblivious to my existence… rarely noticing that I am in front of them with a book and a white board. The remaining students want nothing more than to be with me 24 hours a day. These kids show up 5 minutes early to class and leave five minutes late. They come up with reasons to hang around, like sweeping the floor, erasing the white board, ratting on their classmates who cheated or talked during silent time, asking what to study for a test that is three moths away, etc. When I try to escape to the office, they just follow me there.

In the first few months of teaching, I loved these kids. They noticed how wise and wonderful I was. They gave a purpose to my otherwise useless existence. They listened to me and nodded their heads. By October of my first school year however, I wanted to be left alone during break time. I didn’t care who cheated on which test, I didn’t particularly care what Rebecca did last weekend. I wanted to go to my office alone and bitch about my students. This is hard to do with students present.

Lucifer was one of those kids that was always around, but I liked him. He showed me his international coin collection, and I made it a habit to get a few coins for him when I went abroad. He’d bring me ice cream or chocolate sometimes. I asked him once, how his high school exit exams were going once… They are very (he paused for a moment) BULLSHIT! I smiled… I liked Lucifer and I liked watching him as he went through these monumental years of his life.

So… I was particularly excited to congratulate him at his graduation; I bumped into him as the ceremony was ending… I gave him a hug and asked how he was feeling…

I feel… I feel I don’t understand… I am so happy, but really too sad.

Often, broken English pads simple statements, giving them a very profound quality. I liked that this emotion mixed him up; I liked that he had a whole life of bitter-sweetness ahead of him, though he didn’t really know it yet.

I am a man though, so I don’t crying

I lied to him… I told him that I cried at my graduation and was proud of it. Lucifer looked down for a minute… when he looked back up at me he had tears in his eyes…

Really?? He asked in a choked voice.

I assured him that it was okay… I told him that any grand moment from that point on may make him laugh or cry, but that the most special would do both. We parted ways, I went back to my office, remembering why I had wanted to be a teacher in the first place, 100% sure that I knew what to do with my life.

***

I got hired to teach in an ESL kindergarten for the next school year. The government (non-linguists that they all are) is convinced that teaching English to five year-olds will hinder their ability to fluently speak Chinese in the future. This not only contradicts all linguistic research done in the past 100 years, but discounts that most of these children are already bilingual (Taiwanese and Mandarin).

It is actually illegal for a foreigner (I am a foreigner) to teach kindergarten. The manager of the school, a Harvard educated woman named Catherine, assured me that when the police come for their monthly inspection, I will be notified by a secret code over the intercom and I will have a few moments to leave the classroom and hide in the attic.

I can’t help but remember hiding our cat in the garage when the landlord came by to visit.

***

I’ve recently developed an addiction to batting cages and air hockey.

***

missing you all, love mattto

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