1987, Kaohsiung
War of the lotus - by Ma Tai-i
Having recently moved to Kaohsiung, into what was known among foreigners as the MTV building overlooking the park, I became increasingly curious about the various events in both locations.
I took a short cut through the indoor stadium which was unusually elaborately decorated, like the inside of a temple. All the gods were there. Buddha, Ma Dzu Shou Xing (寿星 , Baosheng Dadi (保生大帝) and a wholly host of frightful looking demons with big eyes and beards. It didn't occur to me that with long brown hair, a full face beard, in fact the only beard besides the idols, I might have fit right in.
The seating faced a stage like a performance center. The crowd was mostly older people, agrarian type, not the usual city rabble, and people with far too many tattoos. I walked up the aisle and asked one who looked reasonably educated hoping that he spoke English. “ Excuse me sir, what religion is this activity?”
All eyes were upon us. What's this foreigner doing at this activity? He looks like Jesus.
He stammered in English,” Confucius.”
2 seats away another man countered,” Buddha”
And another, interjected with all too familiar vulgar expressions, “$@#%@#@ Madzu!”
Others rose up and offered less than polite corrections.
I was reminded of a barroom arguing about the football teams and I got the hell out of there as the noise levels rose too high.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Good Neighbors 2003 Taitung
Good Neighbors 2003 Taitung
Living in the Carp Mountain village in Taitung was almost idyllic. The entire neighborhood was occupied by people who owned their home. So, everybody was committed to long term relationships. Nobody openly defied the 'residential neighborhood ' designation by running a small factory in their house. The residents were all educated, government employees, public school teachers or owned their own business. Except for the gossip mongers, there was only one drawback. On the corner across from my house w as a unkempt house with newspaper taped to the windows. The residents were unemployed, gathered recyclables for sustenance. From the house early in the morning a rooster crowed. Late at night was the sound of Majong tiles rattling, breaking glass, fighting, swearing, screaming. And “ Peiwon, you stupid thing. You will ever amount to anything! Ah Ching, discipline your child or I'll do it for you.” followed by a sharp WHACK and a small creature wailing.
Two doors down from there was a companion house of pretty much the same description but without so much violence. This was the home of a large tattooed fellow whom I came to know, as “Huh-ma”, Hippopotamus.
The house in between them belong to my dear friend Michael Yi, his wife Rose and their lively inventive son, Kyle. Rose had been a school teacher, her father a school principal. She had kindly referred many students to our small house school. Michael and I were always sharing tools and parts for DIY projects.
Ah Ching lived with his mother, his daughter, and his sister who soon moved out, and his brother who was worn out and burned out from drugs and drug rehabilitation. Ah Ching's wife had left him a few weeks after Peiwon was born.
Ah Ching and Huh-ma were good friends from school years and continued in the mischievous pattern that had developed then. When I asked the neighbors about these social misfits, I was told lurid tales of drug addiction, alcohol, crime and gangs.
It was the hardest thing for me to sleep at night with the noise. It was even harder to hear them hit the little girl. Between the Majong all night and the rooster at 5 am, I was losing sleep. And, I feared that it would affect my own children.
I went to the neighbors, one by one and asked what could be done. They all gave me the standard Taiwan answer that we hear all to often,” Mayo Ban-fa!” Nothing can be done. Impossible!
I had a good mind to go over and tell them to shut the hell up. I wanted to tell them that they were going to raise that girl to be a hell child, that they would do well to sell their house(s) and move to a neighborhood more conducive to their lifestyle.
I prayed.
On my roof one night, amidst the night noise, I had a chat with God. “ Look, if there is anything that I can do to help remedy this situation to help them to raise their child better, to stop drinking, to get work, to be more considerate, by all means let me know and I will do it.
I started walking on their side of the street,” Ni how!” Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. I looked for a chance to bum a smoke, to borrow hand tools. And gradually I built a simple greeting relationship.
I sat around their house and had a beer. I taught Peiwon how to write, how to ride a bicycle, how to find programs other than horror films and bad Chinese romance on TV; Telli tubbies, Captain Planet, National Geographic and such. I know that it piqued the Granny that I was changing her favorite program but she quickly got with the program.
“Hey, Peiwon, my TV is broken and it's time for my favorite program can I watch your TV?” As I took the remote from Granny and switched to Cartoon Network or Disney.
Peiwon would take a small tea cup from the Chinese tea set on the table and pour a cup for me which triggered Granny to bark, “ Peiwon! I told you don't touch that!” and here came the whack.
And just before it did, I said, “ Well, thank you Peiwon, You are the perfect little hostess. You are so polite.“ as I pulled her out of harms way.
I knew that I was really overstepping the boundaries of propriety here. But if I was gonna make the change, it would require desperate and novel tactics. I knew that as a Taiwanese I would never get away with this. My foreigner status gave me carte blanche.
My big break came when I had to install an a/c unit in one of the classrooms. It wasn't really too heavy for me. But sometimes there is more to be gained in feigning inferiority than in asserting superiority. I trudged over to Huh-ma's house, dirty and sweaty .” Can you help me move my a/c unit?
“ Sure. “ Huh-ma was a mountain of a man. And he looked fierce with all those tattoos. But he was gentle as a kitten.
I could see an expression of fear creep over Kat's face as I led the sweaty big fella up the stairs to the second floor. I could read the thoughts in her head, 'Is he gonna case the house so he can rob us when we are not home? Why are you bringing this lug into our house?'
I can't imagine what the other neighbors thought when they saw me going about with these guys. It was an important step in building. Just how much building we would later find out.
I tried to explain to Granny that she needed to be more encouraging and rewarding to Peiwon rather than constantly punishing and criticizing. Try to find something to reward her for every day. Anything. I used a little balance scale for a model. One one side put I rewards. On the other side I put punishments. At the end of the day, which way will the scale tip? I explained to her how the child will become what Granny says that she is. So, if Granny says that he is stupid, she is likely to become stupid. If Granny says that she is smart, then Peiwon would become smart.
It took some time, but after a couple of months of modeling and gentle leading, Granny changed her tone of voice when speaking to Peiwon. She whacked her less often. Some of my fondest memories of life in that neighbor hood were there in Ah Ching and Peiwon's house.
After a time, quite naturally, Ah Ching and his next door neighbor Michael began to chat, share tools and stories.
The time came for us to buy a house. It was a mess. It was across the street from Ah Ching. It had not been cleaned in decades. It needed a complete remodeling inside and out and had to be done on a budget.
I had to do it myself and I had to find a work crew. I asked Ah Ching and Huh-ma to work with me one day , just to try them out. They did a good days work. Ah Ching had experience in every aspect of construction. He had all kinds of tricks up his sleeve. Huh-ma was a good muscle man. So, Ah Ching handled the more delicate tasks, laying cable, mixing and setting cement, while Huh-ma worked along side him to do the more laborious tasks, carry the bags upstairs, pull the cable through the conduit. We worked together for a good 4 months, peeling the tile from the inside and outside of the house, knocking out the bathrooms completely and rebuilding them at new locations, tearing out walls, cutting holes for bigger windows. It was very satisfying work. Peiwon, now 6 years old, would bring tea, cigarettes, betel-nut and Whis-bih for her father, her boney little legs and shorts that hung too loose, slippers that couldn't stay on her feet, round face and big ears, she was a little work site imp.
The job site was always alight with music, laughter and joy. At times I wished it would never end. But it did. The screaming and fighting diminished . The drinking tapered off. The rooster never stopped crowing . The sound of the Majong tiles never fully ceased. But it was whole lot easier to live with. And when each of us looked across the street we could say, look what I helped build.
Living in the Carp Mountain village in Taitung was almost idyllic. The entire neighborhood was occupied by people who owned their home. So, everybody was committed to long term relationships. Nobody openly defied the 'residential neighborhood ' designation by running a small factory in their house. The residents were all educated, government employees, public school teachers or owned their own business. Except for the gossip mongers, there was only one drawback. On the corner across from my house w as a unkempt house with newspaper taped to the windows. The residents were unemployed, gathered recyclables for sustenance. From the house early in the morning a rooster crowed. Late at night was the sound of Majong tiles rattling, breaking glass, fighting, swearing, screaming. And “ Peiwon, you stupid thing. You will ever amount to anything! Ah Ching, discipline your child or I'll do it for you.” followed by a sharp WHACK and a small creature wailing.
Two doors down from there was a companion house of pretty much the same description but without so much violence. This was the home of a large tattooed fellow whom I came to know, as “Huh-ma”, Hippopotamus.
The house in between them belong to my dear friend Michael Yi, his wife Rose and their lively inventive son, Kyle. Rose had been a school teacher, her father a school principal. She had kindly referred many students to our small house school. Michael and I were always sharing tools and parts for DIY projects.
Ah Ching lived with his mother, his daughter, and his sister who soon moved out, and his brother who was worn out and burned out from drugs and drug rehabilitation. Ah Ching's wife had left him a few weeks after Peiwon was born.
Ah Ching and Huh-ma were good friends from school years and continued in the mischievous pattern that had developed then. When I asked the neighbors about these social misfits, I was told lurid tales of drug addiction, alcohol, crime and gangs.
It was the hardest thing for me to sleep at night with the noise. It was even harder to hear them hit the little girl. Between the Majong all night and the rooster at 5 am, I was losing sleep. And, I feared that it would affect my own children.
I went to the neighbors, one by one and asked what could be done. They all gave me the standard Taiwan answer that we hear all to often,” Mayo Ban-fa!” Nothing can be done. Impossible!
I had a good mind to go over and tell them to shut the hell up. I wanted to tell them that they were going to raise that girl to be a hell child, that they would do well to sell their house(s) and move to a neighborhood more conducive to their lifestyle.
I prayed.
On my roof one night, amidst the night noise, I had a chat with God. “ Look, if there is anything that I can do to help remedy this situation to help them to raise their child better, to stop drinking, to get work, to be more considerate, by all means let me know and I will do it.
I started walking on their side of the street,” Ni how!” Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. I looked for a chance to bum a smoke, to borrow hand tools. And gradually I built a simple greeting relationship.
I sat around their house and had a beer. I taught Peiwon how to write, how to ride a bicycle, how to find programs other than horror films and bad Chinese romance on TV; Telli tubbies, Captain Planet, National Geographic and such. I know that it piqued the Granny that I was changing her favorite program but she quickly got with the program.
“Hey, Peiwon, my TV is broken and it's time for my favorite program can I watch your TV?” As I took the remote from Granny and switched to Cartoon Network or Disney.
Peiwon would take a small tea cup from the Chinese tea set on the table and pour a cup for me which triggered Granny to bark, “ Peiwon! I told you don't touch that!” and here came the whack.
And just before it did, I said, “ Well, thank you Peiwon, You are the perfect little hostess. You are so polite.“ as I pulled her out of harms way.
I knew that I was really overstepping the boundaries of propriety here. But if I was gonna make the change, it would require desperate and novel tactics. I knew that as a Taiwanese I would never get away with this. My foreigner status gave me carte blanche.
My big break came when I had to install an a/c unit in one of the classrooms. It wasn't really too heavy for me. But sometimes there is more to be gained in feigning inferiority than in asserting superiority. I trudged over to Huh-ma's house, dirty and sweaty .” Can you help me move my a/c unit?
“ Sure. “ Huh-ma was a mountain of a man. And he looked fierce with all those tattoos. But he was gentle as a kitten.
I could see an expression of fear creep over Kat's face as I led the sweaty big fella up the stairs to the second floor. I could read the thoughts in her head, 'Is he gonna case the house so he can rob us when we are not home? Why are you bringing this lug into our house?'
I can't imagine what the other neighbors thought when they saw me going about with these guys. It was an important step in building. Just how much building we would later find out.
I tried to explain to Granny that she needed to be more encouraging and rewarding to Peiwon rather than constantly punishing and criticizing. Try to find something to reward her for every day. Anything. I used a little balance scale for a model. One one side put I rewards. On the other side I put punishments. At the end of the day, which way will the scale tip? I explained to her how the child will become what Granny says that she is. So, if Granny says that he is stupid, she is likely to become stupid. If Granny says that she is smart, then Peiwon would become smart.
It took some time, but after a couple of months of modeling and gentle leading, Granny changed her tone of voice when speaking to Peiwon. She whacked her less often. Some of my fondest memories of life in that neighbor hood were there in Ah Ching and Peiwon's house.
After a time, quite naturally, Ah Ching and his next door neighbor Michael began to chat, share tools and stories.
The time came for us to buy a house. It was a mess. It was across the street from Ah Ching. It had not been cleaned in decades. It needed a complete remodeling inside and out and had to be done on a budget.
I had to do it myself and I had to find a work crew. I asked Ah Ching and Huh-ma to work with me one day , just to try them out. They did a good days work. Ah Ching had experience in every aspect of construction. He had all kinds of tricks up his sleeve. Huh-ma was a good muscle man. So, Ah Ching handled the more delicate tasks, laying cable, mixing and setting cement, while Huh-ma worked along side him to do the more laborious tasks, carry the bags upstairs, pull the cable through the conduit. We worked together for a good 4 months, peeling the tile from the inside and outside of the house, knocking out the bathrooms completely and rebuilding them at new locations, tearing out walls, cutting holes for bigger windows. It was very satisfying work. Peiwon, now 6 years old, would bring tea, cigarettes, betel-nut and Whis-bih for her father, her boney little legs and shorts that hung too loose, slippers that couldn't stay on her feet, round face and big ears, she was a little work site imp.
The job site was always alight with music, laughter and joy. At times I wished it would never end. But it did. The screaming and fighting diminished . The drinking tapered off. The rooster never stopped crowing . The sound of the Majong tiles never fully ceased. But it was whole lot easier to live with. And when each of us looked across the street we could say, look what I helped build.
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