So I am back in Taipei now after a very extended journey. It was Chinese New Year last week, which happened to perfectly coincide with my whole family going to Hawaii to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday, so I went there to surprise them. A very solid week, but more on that later. First, a travel diary of my trip back to Taiwan from Hawaii...

4:21AM: woken up by my dad 45 minutes earlier than needed to go catch my plane. i don't know what sort of physiological change is made as soon as a man becomes a father, but as soon as it happens 2 things automatically happen...1) they must arrive at the airport no less than 4.5 hours before their flight leaves, just to be sure 2) they must be in charge of packing the car. all fathers take pride in being able to pack a trunk really really efficiently, and there are even cases i've seen where everything must be prepared the day before the family leaves just to make sure everything fits in the car.

4:58: i find myself behind a chinese family of 5 that has, no joke, 17 piece of luggage, including 3 golf bags...you would think if you were coming all the way from china, you could share clubs?

5:10: still waiting behind annoying family

5:16: dad is getting visibly upset and uses death stare to intimidate 16 year old member of chinese family

5:18: chinese family finally finishes, but counter clerk lady waves a first class passenger ahead of me to check in, dad bullrushes counter...she doesnt take it well

5:25: i finally check in for the flight from the big island to honolulu

5:35: after saying goodbye to my folks, i am "randomly" selected for a security check along with 2 other dark-skinned guys with beards and a 98 year old lady to even out the "randomness".

5:41: after feeling my sandals for bombs and effectively destroying my bag, as well as checking my passport and asking if uganda is in the middle east ("uhhh no"), the security guards decide that i am just a guy with a sweet beard (i wish) and let me through.

6:16: with lots of time to kill, i check out the magazines. 5 different magazines are lined up beside eachother exclaiming that "Justin has hurt Britney again, she hates him, etc..." however, apparently OK!!!!!! magazine didnt get the memo, as they are claiming that "Britney receives flowers! Justin says he loved her from the start! He apologizes!" Where the fuck have they been. Hey, by the way, completely stolen from Sportsguy, but who would've thought that there would be a time that christina aguilera would be sexier, more stable, and cleaner-looking than britney spears? britney won the battle, but christina is taking the war.

6:56: finally get on the plane only to find that I have apparently crashed a group trip run by some organization euphimistically named "75 years young and older anonymous".

6:58: i am selected to sit next to the emergency exit, no big deal. i swear, i get picked for this all the time. i am going to start putting it on my resume: May 2001-Present-Unfailingly chosen to sit next to emergency exits on planes due to responsible nature and confident stride.

7:32: the flight attendant says nothing to me about turning my ipod off as the plane takes off. thank you for being realistic hawaiian airlines.

7:38: Sue, a 77 year old pensioner from Twin Oaks, California asks me if i want to join the milehigh club...ok im joking, but i swear she was giving me looks. although, come to think of it, it may have been more of an emergency exit knowing nod about how we were superior to everyone else on the plane.

7:46: Shit, I try to shield my ipod from the only other young person on the plane, the girl next to me, as "Forever in Blue Jeans" by Neil Diamond comes on. "Money talks, but it don't sing and dance, and it don't walk." What the fuck does that even mean Neil? I think Neil Diamond is just so unbelievably bad that he is somehow good, paving the path to fame and fortune in the same way that Snakes on a plane, tofu, Bon Jovi and pink collared shirts have somehow become, and stayed, popular. By the way, did anyone else go through their teenage years, or in my case until last year, thinking that Neil Diamond was the father of Mike Diamond from the Beastie Boys? No?....I've embarrassed myself. Although, I never did believe that rumour that he was the father of Dustin Diamond from Saved by the bell, that's just ridiculous.

7:51: Shit, now "Everything I Do I Do It for you" by Bryan Adams has come on. this is an embarrassing shuffle. All I need next is Rod Stewart to come on and i'll complete the undesirable troika of tight pants, aging soft rockers, how embarrassing. Actually, from the ages of 5 to 7 this was my favourite song, and let me tell you serenading babes with it in grade 1 was a surefire way to get the right space on the floor for naptime, no big deal.

7:57: Arrive in Honolulu, only 4 people break their hips while trying to get off the plane! Senior Citizen Flander's Field over here.

8:05: stopped by security

8:07: stopped by different security

8:13: security asks to see my boarding pass...i think america really needs to calm down with this crap.

8:28: I've got alot of time to kill so I head to the book/magazine place...oh crap britney shaved her head. no less than 12 magazines have her on the cover. OK!!!!!!!!!!! magazine seems to have gotten it right this time. she really is the gift that keeps on giving isnt she. Hey, remember when that random guy offered Britney 33 million dollars to sleep with her a few years back? I bet the bald, chubby mother of 2, reject of k-fed wishes she had taken that dude up on his offer.

9:55: Another chapter in the American security saga. Despite a waiting room with innumerable seats, they have the door to the waiting area locked so nobody can get in. I make myself comfortable on the floor in the hallway…a little too comfortable because I then pass out on a small japanese lady’s shoulder. I have decided that I am a massive hypocrite. For example, if someone passed out on my shoulder, I would probably kick them in the shin until they woke up.

10:23: All over the place surfers are wearing “Eddie Would Go” shirts, which are in honour of the late surfing legend, Eddie Aikau, who would go and surf any wave, as legend would have it. I saw a poster for a surfing contest in his honour, which is somewhat ironic. I mean, it sounds like Eddie went, and Eddie didn’t come back. So

Hasn’t Eddie’s willingness to go anywhere proven to be a little, not smart?

11:14: Isn’t it amazing how 2 seemingly normal words, such as “up” and “grade” can be combined to create the sweetest of all words: upgrade. Ah, just speaking it makes me smile. I hear my name over the loudspeaker, which was lucky since I heard it in between songs (thankfully cooler than Neil and Bryan this time). I went up and they gave me a new ticket.

11:21: I didn’t really know what I was in for, until I saw the sweet and beautiful 4C. This wasn’t just first class, this was super first class, where the rich and beautiful co-mingle to create a contemporary aristocratic getaway from the peasants.

11:24: I do not belong here.

11:26: This is the first time I’ve ever been in first class, let alone super first class, and I am afraid I am embarrassing myself. “Would you like a beer, sir?” “Is it free?” “Everything is free up here sir.” “Those are the sweetest 6 words I’ve ever heard, bring me 2 my dearest.”

11:29: People are calling me “sir”, without adding, “you’re making a scene”. I swear the air is sweeter up here.

11:34: I am getting some attention from all of the rich Japanese businessmen and power couples. Hilariously, I hear one of them say something about “actor” and “Matt Damon.” Now, as far as I have understood from what people have told me in Taiwan, similar to the difficulty some white people have in telling Asians apart, Asians have difficulty telling white people apart at times. So, I will attribute their conversation to this problem. However, I do make a point of telling the guy beside me that I told Brad Pitt that I thought Babel sucked, and that I did all the work on Good Will Hunting and Ben Affleck didn’t do shit. Incidentally, as far as I gather for the rest of the flight, the only English my seatmate understands is “smoked salmon”.

11:40: they hand me my complimentary slippers, noise-cancelling headphones, socks, etc… all of which I stole later.

11:55: As the plane takes off, I’ve already drank 3 beers and I need to slow down.

Next 9 hours: I watch several bad movies, drink way too much and eat bowl after bowl of free icecream, I could get used to this.

4:00PM: It is now Sunday afternoon in Japan instead of Saturday night in Hawaii, and I get off the plane, sufficiently wasted and very proud of myself for stealing an extra pair of socks from the plane.

4:03: I giggle like an idiot when I see a sign that says “You are not permitted to bring social evil goods into Japan”. I try to explain the hilarity to the smoked salmon guy, but he doesn’t understand. I love seeing mis-translated English in Asia, although the best one I’ve heard is the story Maloney heard about the gynecology department in a hospital in Beijing being labeled the “cunt examination room”.

4:10: pass out partially on the floor and partially on a chair at the gate for my next flight.

5:04: I wake up feeling very uncomfortable, which was probably enhanced exponentially by the large screen tv that was playing a Phil Collins concert to a very large crowd of people. “Take, Take me home” will remain in my head for 2 full days.

6:30: My flight takes off

8:47: Flight lands in Taipei

9:33: Catch another hilarious, pink, satin-curtained bus, which obviously has tv screens playing asian reality game shows where people basically cut their own arms off and others come perilously close to death, on a continuous clip.

10:20: Arrive home, it’s good (?) to be back amongst the wondrous beauty that is Taipei.

So, Hawaii was pretty special. We had a little house on the beach, on the big island of Kona. Read a lot of books and walking along the beach, where there were many turtles lying around. At any point in the day we could look out on the ocean and see humpback whales breaching and every night just ridiculous sunsets to watch. I’m thinking about 2 more months in Taiwan, who’s coming to visit?

apparently, i am already starting to lose my passion for this very prestigious job of teaching english good. it's not that i mind it so much, it's just that it isnt really something that excites me when i get up in the morning. i am enjoying interacting with alot of the people, and some of the kids are hilariously cute, but there are other times when all i can think about is heading off again. there have been several instances though where i've done a pretty good job of amusing myself. tonight they made me sub for a late friday night class, so i just played scrabble with the kids for 2 hours, followed by some impromptu dodgeball in the very small, rather breakable classroom. and then there was yesterday, when i was just really bored, so i decided to teach the teenagers in my class how to play beerdie, with the accompanying ruse that they had to speak english when they bet on the outcome of the games. unfortunately, water had to be subsituted for beer, but i was playing pretty well and one of the kids was pretty close to throwing up from chugging so much water, no big deal. so, consider beerdie exported to asia.

so i finished teaching a 3 week intensive course with that aforementioned bunch of teenagers, and despite convincing them that i was a gay, 32 year old father of 3, they asked me if they could treat me to come to the asian version of pizza hut buffet, which was pizza hut buffet accompanied by chicken fried rice and some other very random stuff. it was actually pretty interesting just hanging out with the lot of them, and it was especially nice that they paid for my meal, but i paid them back in kind by sitting still for, no joke, a 20 minute session of the entire class lining up to take my picture while i smiled awkardly.

my mom sent me a great package with a few tshirts and my sweatpants. unfortunately, but hilariously, one of the shirts was a blue RDS shirt, which uses a chinese symbol that is found everywhere here. ive been told it means in the middle. so, as i am walking around with a symbol meaning "in the middle," which is very much open to interpretation, i found myself sitting in the bank today and had the female tellers pointing and laughing at me and my shirt, as they evidently interpreted my shirt as meaning "in the middle" in terms of my sexual preference. its a good thing i have thick skin, most likely thanks to you mcgloughlin, ferg, mikey, etc..., because i sure as hell am used to being laughed at in asia, haha.

ive mentioned the unbelievable traffic and danger on the streets here, the waves of scooters that come rushing at you every time you cross the street, and the pollution. i found myself empathizing with a lady as i watched her get cut off and thrown into a gnarly scooter accident yesterday. she sat up and looked around very shocked. i ran over and tried to console her, but i think i made things worse, as i consoled her in english and she started bawling. i somehow then made it even worse than before, as i wheeled her scooter off the road because the light was changing and we were about to be run over by another wave of scooter-riding asians, and she started to scream louder as she thought the evil white man was stealing her bike. i really just cant win here haha.
but no, things are great. anyone swinging through taiwan sometime soon? you know you are.... holla at yo boy.

If, for some reason, you don't think pollution and air quality and all that global warming jazz is a big problem, then I would implore you to get your ass to Asia. I mean, with Al Gore doing his thang and all of the recent attention coming to global warming, I would hope that the movement is going to gain some momentum and make some serious changes. But, as I read Tony Blair remark, even if Britain lowered its emissions to Kyoto standards right now, China's pollution would more than make up for it within a few years. Extend that time period abit, and I am sure Asia would more than make up for any changes made by the rest of the world. And seriously, atleast in Taipei, the pollution is stifling. I walked up a flight of stairs today out of the subway station and found myself gasping for air as i walked down the street. Now, this may be as big a condemnation about my level of fitness as it is about air quality, but I am going to take the typical route and blame it on Asia.

I have tried to play basketball a bit. It is pretty funny because we don't live in an area that usually attracts many white people, so I am quite the novelty at the playground where I play. In fact, I sometimes even draw a bit of a crowd, which is especially frustrating when I feel the pressure and embarrass myself, sigh. The other day I was getting eyed by a group of 15 year olds who then invited me to play with them. So, before we started to play, they introduced themselves as Taiwan Shaq, Taiwan Iverson, etc... So, I introduced myself as Canada Arvydas Sabonis, but I don't think they got the joke. Before we played a real game, they wanted me to play against their best player, who was, of course, named Taiwan Kobe (Kobe Bryant is a demigod in Taiwan, apparently that whole rape thing didn't make it here). So they forced me to play 1 on 1 with Kobe, and I am proud to say I beat him, no big deal.

I got the idea from Maloney about how to really confuse people here. He does it in Shanghai by asking someone if they "know Mr. Chang, he is friends with Mr. Lee and Mr. Wong?" Here, all you have to do is ask if someone knows a girl named Candy, as every third girl has for some reason have chosen that name. On that note, more amazing names: Slevin (as in the movie Lucky Number Slevin ie. he named himself after a horse in a movie), and my new favourite, Bear.

On the note of all the really weird/pathetic foreign white people who live here, allow me to give you a sample of some conversations I've had about their futures with them, no joke:
#1:
Me:"So man, how long are you going to stay in Taiwan for?"
Him:"Oh I think I'm going to stay for the whole year of my contract, one of my goals when I got here was to learn the language before I left."
"Oh ya, and how long have you been here for?"
"About 8 months"
"So how long have you been taking Chinese lessons for?"
"Oh I haven't started yet."
"Uh, you know it's a pretty hard language to learn, right?"
"Ya you're right, I may have to stay a few extra months."

#2:
Me: "So what are you planning to do after you leave Taiwan?"
Him: "Oh I think I am going to go to law school."
"Have you written the LSAT yet?"
"What's that?"

#3:
Me: "So, why are you in Taiwan?"
Him: "Oh I am starting a business in the States with my buddy, but he is busy for the next few years so I came here until that starts up."
"What's he busy with?"
"Oh he has a family and he's an executive for Cisco."
"Oh wow, so what's your business plan?"
"We are going to model people's backyards to look like Fenway Park."
"Uh, oh, that's...interesting."
"Ya, my friend is just taking a while to leave his job, so I've been here for awhile."
"Oh ya, why is he reluctant?"
"Well he has 3 new kids and a $300 000 a year job, so I guess that's why."
"Uhhh ya, you don't say? So he's been reluctant to leave his high-paying executive job and risk providing for his family so he can start a business changing people's backyards to look like Fenway Park? Weird."
"I know!"

"When you don't know whether to do something or not, just think about what you want to look back on when you're an old fart. I always think of myself in a rocking chair, and a little smile comes to my lips when I think of what I did when I was young."
-Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley