Lost in Translation: Marijuana Culture

With surprising frequency in Taipei I see pretty, clean cut girls - who look like they bathe regularly - wearing pastel t-shirts with pot leaves on them, or tote bags with the leaf design. This is weird to me, because back home I'm pretty sure there's a rule that says you can't wear a pot leaf if you shower more than fortnightly, nor may you have a serious job or engaging hobbies. Wearing a pot leaf isn't about the occasional Saturday night, it's about a manifest commitment to underachievement. Or at least in America it is.

I started wondering if there was much smoking going on in Taiwan. Not really, according to WeBeHigh.com: Pot isn't popular among the Taiwanese, what's available isn't very good, and pot possession is punishable with up to 3 years in prison. Drug trafficking is punishable by death.

All those pot leaves aren't political or lifestyle statements. They're just a strange refraction of pot subculture done Taiwan-style.

What would Marley think?

Pixar, move over. It's DOGGY POO!

James and I spotted this 30-minute Korean Claymation masterpiece at the mall awhile ago. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to own a movie best described as a turd biopic.

We were expecting weird and zany. And it was definitely weird, but not very zany. More religious, actually: The movie begins with a dog taking a dump in the middle of a road (predictable, right?). Then the next 25 minutes are consumed by Doggy Poo crying and moaning, "Why did God make me? I am just a Doggy Poo, what am I good for?"

Finally, Doggy Poo finds a dandelion sprout to fertilize and he turns into a beautiful flower. That's the happy ending.

I'm thinking about making a movie. I think I'll call it Leslie Poo. It will dramatize the events that transpired 24 hours after the time I accidentally chewed and swallowed an entire Thai chili. But it will be more horror/shocker than uplifting spiritual.

Lantern Festival

Today my boss and her husband took James and me out to a spicy hot pot dinner. Boss and Boss' Husband are stoked on me being a Christian because they're Christians too. They asked me to say grace at dinner.

It's cool we pray to the same God, but Boss is always hassling me to go to church. I've told her I sometimes go to church in Taipei, which is true: I went to church twice in December. But today she hounded me into promising I'd go to church with her sometime.

"Boss, I won't understand anything."

"Maybe you will!"

Dress up in tarty Santa suits, pretend I work at KFC, go to Chinese Church - the things I do for this woman. Good thing I find her so endearing.

Boss also made sure to point out the congealed duck blood in the soup.

"That's blood. We are Christians, so don't eat that."

"Christians don't eat blood? I didn't know that."

"Really? No Christians in Taiwan eat blood."

"Oh. Well, in America nobody eats blood."

I've had blood before at Dim Sum, it's not my favorite, but I figured I better lay off if all the other believers at the table were. To satisfy my conscience, I went home and Googled "Can Christians eat blood?" The English-speaking Christian blogosphere appears to have no beef with blood eating.

After dinner we walked to the Taoyuan Lantern Festival. There were lanterns that looked like dragons, radishes, tigers, Buddhas, SpongeBob SquarePants, Nemo, and lots and lots of oxen.

People were lighting incense at several altars on the grounds. Boss and Boss' Husband looked uncomfortable as we lingered past the Buddhas. Their 7-year-old daughter, Jane, tugged on my arm and pulled me along.

"You are a Jesus! You cannot see!" she told me.

James and I said bye to Boss and her family. But we stayed at the festival to watch a rock concert. I could sing along with more than half the songs. The ubiquity of Rock 'n Roll still amazes me: Here we were at a traditional festival, not another foreigner in sight, and the set list included "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," "It's so easy to fall in Love," "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," and "Light My Fire."

There were also some contemporary numbers, including a Black Eyed Peas song. Nothing pulls at my patriotic heartstrings like a Taiwanese bass player rapping, "Here in the U.S.A. we got the Bloods and the Crips and the KKK."

When the concert ended, a giant bull on a pedestal lit up and started smoking. It's eyes blinked, the pedestal rotated. There were laser lights and blaring Chinese music. I could feel the drums vibrating in my chest.

Chinese New Year is such a bangin' holiday.

Speak English in the Colonel's House

Today my boss and I took the cram school brats to KFC. The mission was half experiential English lesson, half local advertising. Boss thought it would be good for business if the neighborhood saw me out on the town with the kiddies.

For dramatic effect, she made me stand behind the counter with the KFC manager while the students whispered their orders to the two of us. I even got to handle the money. It was almost like I was really working at KFC, kind of like a premonition - because that's probably what I will be doing eight months from now, or whenever I return Stateside.

On the upside, taking the kids to the Colonel's house gave me perhaps the one good excuse available outside the continental U.S. to bark "This is Kentucky Fried Chicken! Speak English!"

While I scraped mayo off my chicken burger, Boss discussed our upcoming joint teaching demonstration. The two of us are looking to pick up hours at another cram school, but first we must host a demo for prospective students and parents.

Thankfully for me, I realized awhile ago that whenever a cram school boss uses the phrase "demonstration" what they really mean is "dog and pony show." I would probably go farther in this business if I had a pyrotechnics certificate than a masters in education.

Boss: "Maybe we can bring some costumes."

Me: "Hmm... Maybe. I'll think about it."

Boss: "Or maybe I can come dressed as a clown."

I concentrate on my mayonnaise-drenched chickenwich.

Boss: "You know, with the nose? I can be the clown and then you can teach them some sentences. You think that is good idea?"

Me: "Maybe. Let me think about it."

I can't decide if I should let her keep holding the reins on this one because this is her country and she knows what the people want, or if I should try and dissuade her from the circus act out of my own sense of shame.

It's a toughie.

Alone

James went camping with the school he works at, so I am home alone for the rest of the week with only the cram school students to entertain me at brief interludes. I'll probably start talking to myself shortly.

still got it

Today I found a space on the train next to a group of guys wearing prep jackets and sporting what I refer to simply as androgynous Asian rockstar hair.One was beatboxing while another did the robot. I tried not to look at them, as I got the feeling they were doing so for my benefit and I didn't want to encourage them. But they began giggling and looking at me, so I knew the approach was imminent. One came up and addressed me in Chinese.


Me: Ting bu dong. (I don't understand)

Him: Oh. You don't speak Chinese?

Me: No.

Him: Oh. Where are you from?

Me: America.

Him: Oh.

He turns back to his friends and they discuss amongst themselves.

Him: Your eyes are so beautiful.

Me: Oh. Thank you.

Him: How old are you?

Me: 22.

He laughs maniacally.

Me: What?

Him: You look so young!

Me: How old are you?

Him: 17.

Me: Oh, I'm way too old for you.

Him: I like your smile.

The conversation died shortly thereafter.


Maybe I should go back to the U.S. and troll for prom dates.

Kenting!

Our seat-of-our-pants excursion went off without a hitch in Kaohsiung, because Kaohsiung isn't a nice place. Kenting is a very nice place, and it was on our way there where we ran into problems.

Guidebook said it would take 2.5 hours to get there by bus. It took 4, stop-and-go traffic the whole way. Not only was it Chinese New Year, but once there we learned there was a hip hop festival going on - mostly Chinese rappers, but the headliner was Lil Jon, best known for the time-honored classic, 'til the sweat drops down my balls. Skeet-Skeet!

I tried to be cool about it: There's no point in traveling internationally on a limited budget if you aren't willing to put up with the waiting, the miscommunications and assorted delays along the way.

But just because the journey doesn't drive you nuts, doesn't mean your travel buddy wont either. As we trudged through the back alleys and side streets of Kenting - met only by no vacancy signs and front desk clerks shaking their heads - I started verbally threatening to murder James in his sleep. To which he responded, "But where?! WHERE will we sleep? If you know, then I'll get a head start on you and go there immediately!"

Eventually we took a cab several miles south to Sail Rock, a low-key strip of hotels that turned out to be more our pace (less boozy, no MC HotDog).

The cheapest room we could find was $2,500 NT, three times what Guidebook said we'd have to pay. Still, once we got to the beach it was all worth it: perfect weather, warm sand, a setting sun.

Unfortunately, we had to share the sand with 500 other people and a four-wheeler rental outfit. Watching dozens of four-wheeler newbies (not a helmet among them) roar past was unnerving. When we got up to skip rocks, some began using our towels as a marker to pivot around - proving once and for all you can take the four-wheeler out of America, but you can't take the cracker out of the four-wheeler rider.

Thursday we went back to Kenting, at a loss for what to do: We didn't trust ourselves to rent a scooter (the mode of transportation most use to see the national park nearby). We killed time perusing surf shop trinkets, figuring we couldn't justify margaritas at the local Mexican dive before 11 a.m.

"Let's go to Frog Rock Park" James announced, seeing a sign for it leading down a tree-lined street.

"Do you think there'll be a rock that looks like a frog, or a rock that a bunch of frogs live on?" James asked as we walked.

"Well hopefully it will be both - maybe a magical frog rock that all the frogs worship and do its bidding."

The way to Frog Rock was a rocky coastal path. Frog Rock was a rock that looked like a frog, I guess. Actually, we couldn't figure out which rock it was, but as we walked farther we found a tiny hidden beach - separated by craggy boulders from the big private beach owned by a luxury hotel.

Next order of business was finding a spot hidden from view where we shimmied into our bathing suits.

From Kenting

We spent a couple hours playing at our surprise beach and then beat it back to town for Mexican food and fruity drinks before the whopping ten hours of bus rides back to Nankan.

We got home at 3:30 a.m., exactly four days after we awoke and started our journey. In case it doesn't sound like it: I had a really good time.