小虎燕 - Small Tiger Sparrow Form

Here is a video of me performing the small tiger form. This was back in October so I am late in getting it up. You can tell the form still needs some cleaning up but it's nothing I'm embarrassed about.

Announcement

I've made an official decision to run the Taipei Marathon. I'm going to be living in Taiwan for a year, as a former runner it would not be right to neglect this opportunity. I'll also have to soon stop referring to myself as a "former" runner.

Me running the Northeast Regionals for BU (the only Varsity Cross Race I ran) 10k through Van Cortland State Park in about 34:08

I've enjoyed two Kung Fu performances (for some mediocre pictures and videos please check my picasa account - link of the left) so far so it is time for me to train my body in a different way for a little while. That's not to say I will not be studying Kung Fu in the park anymore, it's just to say that while I do this my legs will pretty much be spent and it just won't be my primary focus for a short time.

The date is December 20. Given my current fitness level this should be enough time. For sure I have more time to devote to training than when I ran the Boston Marathon in 2003. That being said I intend to beat my time.

The Gauntlet has been thrown, now to work through the Chinese registration website.

Life’s about the Journey

Life is about the Journey. I was a runner. I won several high school races including some big invitationals and even our sectional championship. I set my high school track record for the 3.2km (2 mile). As a freshmen and sophomore I was not only the track team’s lead distance runner but also our number one Tennis player.

I feel sorry for someone who lists their high school accomplishments out like this and speaks with a great deal of pride. This short list of sports victories has little meaning. But my time in high school was not a waste, I can tell you what did have meaning: an intense and diligent training schedule that lasted the entire four years of high school, running 45 weeks out of the year, waking up at 5 am to run through the cold rain and snow, running through windy snowstorms, running down unknown trails, running on my own, desperately working to bring a greater sense of meaning to my life. This is what meant something. I’m not that tall and only have so much natural talent so I had to work that much harder to win those races. Winning those races, creating that list above meant I had to struggle through the training. The struggle that created the list, that is what has meaning.

Winning those races was nothing more than superficial compared to the training, but it also gave the training direction and a purpose. Without the goals I set for myself I would not have had any need for the training. Life is about the journey, but a worthwhile journey requires a worthwhile goal.

Fast-forward to today and the time I am spending in Taiwan. I have a very real and meaningful goal: the pursuit of fluency in Mandarin and to study as much modern culture as I can. These goals are leading me on a new journey. I am meeting friends and getting thrown into awkward situations. I am able to view this culture and the world in a new way.

In contrast with most of the other foreigners I meet, my goals are very different. Typically their reason for leaving their own country is an escape. Life wasn’t great back in their respective country, family troubles, girl problems, and crappy jobs without a clear or bright future... so they came to Taiwan for a change. They have come here for an escape.

Escape is an end. Escape is the goal. Once you have arrived in the foreign country you have already satisfied your goal. They no longer have an objective; they no longer have a direction or a compass. Instead they are left drifting; they are controlled by the external forces that they encounter.

Typically these people don’t learn the language, not past the most basic and childish level. They are exposed to only one side of the culture and are never actually able to immerse themselves to a point learning. They end up forming a community with other foreigners and isolate themselves. Their interaction with the locals is limited to English speakers. They are severely limited. Most men end up indulging in women and never really accomplishing anything significant. The journey that is their life has no depth; they are just being guided by the waves that are their most basic desires.

By resisting the superficial pleasures I’ve been able to develop a lot of real friendships with a variety of people. I meet very few people my own age but through my job (teaching English) I’m able to study how children behave and grow up in modern Taiwan. I get to study Taiwanese parenting culture.

By studying Shaolin Kung Fu I’m able to associate with the older generation. The only way this is even possible is with my Chinese since they can’t speak English. My interaction with them grants me a view into a piece of Taiwan that very few foreigners would have a chance to experience. I am daily acquiring invaluable knowledge, knowledge much more valuable than the superficial fun and games that most foreigners enjoy.

Life is about the journey, no, life is a journey. If your journey lacks a goal then it lacks direction. You are as good as a person drifting in a small boat out at sea with no paddle. A goal, a compass, a direction – this is your oar. You don’t necessarily have to reach your goal, but you now have the ability to take control of your life for yourself, you have the ability to add meaning to your life and truly live well. The meaning of life is to live.

What it means to be an American

Before I came to Taiwan

America is a sad country full of people who have an undeserved sense of entitlement. The result is our economic recession. How can we have unions in the auto industry "protecting" our uneducated factory workers and their $70K+ a year salaries while a fresh engineering graduate in Japan may make $30k. How can Ford afford to pay so much more and expect to produce the same quality product when our employees will be gone right at 40 hours a week while 40 hrs a week to those same Japanese workers sounds like a holiday. How can the CEO of a company claim a 7 figure salary while the company is not able to earn a profit? I had heard about people working to death in Taiwan and Japan fairly often, but not so much in the US. Why? Too lazy to work to death?

What's more we are far too dependent on credit, especially empty credit. I know plenty of personal examples. What happens when bills come due? Despite learning about the roaring 20's and America's entrance into the great depression, we never really learn.

America thinks they're on top. Wrong. European and Asian fashions are far more trendy. We've been looking up to Japanese technology for the past several years. What do we have? A better economy, well how long can that last with the above mentioned comments? Population power? Not with China and India. If America is number one, they are too fat and dumb to stay there for long and I'm thinking we're not actually number one at all.

After living in Taiwan for four months

I'm proud to be an American. I am proud to be an American. Yes the above comments remain true, but our own arrogance is double sided. We have an over-sized ego and an undeserved sense of entitlement. This drives us to only accept the best, to push ourselves and demand high quality. Even our cheap merchandise is high quality. I'm in Taiwan and when you buy something cheap here... well you better not be attached to it. If you want something good, you can definitely get it, but be prepared to pay as much as, or perhaps more than you would have if you were still in the US (with exceptions of course).

Even as I'm visiting friends and examining lifestyles of some of the more wealthy here in Taiwan, I'm left with a great sense of American pride. Looking at things like how buildings had been built, yea those uneducated workers in the US are doing a much better job than the ones here. Our final products (I'm specifically talking about buildings here) have a different style and, while I prefer the Asian one, it's obvious which has a higher quality.

What about the working conditions? Well, I have Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese friends and I have been exposed to a lot of different opinions towards work. Americans are among the hardest workers in the world. That doesn't mean they spend 100 hours a week working. But perhaps in 40 hours they used more effort than others did in twice that time.

In the West we're more focused on outcomes. Here they are focused on "how hard did you work." Well the most common measure of effort is time. We don't usually say, I burned 10,000 calories working on that report. No, we say I spent all night from 8pm till 7am this morning. We use time, even in the US. But I don't care how long you spent on your report. I care about the content. In the US the focus is on the end product and this is how our hard work is judged. In Asia the focus is more along the duration of work spent and this determines whether or not you are a hard worker.

I want the world to know that I was, and continue to be, a big critic of the US. Despite that I am proud to say that I am an American and I have faith in the future of the US. Can we be number 1 forever, of course not. Maybe we aren't even number 1 right now, but that's not to say we don't have potential.

Studying Chinese Language and learning the culture -- studying the culture to learn the language

Studying a foreign language is a gateway into a new culture. Thoughts and ideas are expressed, and phrases are structured to directly reflect the culture. Learning the language is the gateway to understanding the people.

Chinese, however, requires more than just the study of the language. Often times proverbs consisting of only 4 or 8 characters (words) entail a great deal of meaning. They are the profound morals of ancient tales. If you were just to hear or read the proverb without knowing the story, you'd be missing meaning. To understand the language and be fluent, you have to study the culture. Now the language is insufficient for communication and studying the culture becomes equally important.

For example if I were to translate one proverb I just studied: Towards oneself spear shield. 自相矛盾。 The meaning is that someone is being a hypocrite or is contradicting themselves. The story behind this phrase is that a salesman was boasting about his spears and shields. He said there's no shield in the world that his spears couldn't penetrate. Naturally his shields were also the strongest in the world and he boasted there were no spears able to penetrate them. When asked what would happen if one of his spears were used against one of his shields, the man had no answer. A foolish and blatant hypocrite, the moral and meaning of the story is summed up in those four character above, literally: self, towards, spear, shield.

This is a relatively simple example of the entanglement of culture and language. Often times only the first 4 characters of an 8 character proverb are written somewhere. If you know the proverb and the culture behind it, this is all you need to grasp the meaning. Take someone like me, however, who is proud to recognize these characters but can't decipher the meaning: People before earlier come. Well it ends up meaning, after you know the rest of the proverb and the culture behind it: "Greater than all who have come before him."

Now Chinese love to quote and reference these proverbs. They've been learning them for years and it's totally common for them to bring them up when talking about business. So if you truly want to master the Chinese language and communicate without hindrance... studying Chinese culture and history is a requirement. As if studying the language itself wasn't a daunting task, now we've all got more work to do. The good news is that the study is quite rewarding.

New Shaolin form

Today it has been 9 full weeks of learning Shaolin Kung Fu in the park. I've just now begun to learn a new form. My teacher says I'll learn it quickly: in three days. I spent over two months on the last form and now I'll begin learning a second one. This is fitting. I believe there will also be a performance on the 26th of this month. Look for a relevant update around that time.

Ghost Month in Taiwan: A silly superstition -- a sensible faith

Early last month I was surprised on a morning run. I had retreated, from running against traffic on the road, to the sidewalk. I expected a haven. I found a woman burning what I thought to be garbage outside of her front door and in the middle of the sidewalk. I was frightfully forced back to the road where I decided the oncoming traffic was less of a threat than random sidewalk fires. On later runs I noticed people setting up tents in the streets. They put tables out and filled them with food. I paid little attention to them, assuming that this must be a season of graduations and weddings and the tents were for hosting celebrations.

My coworker was later advised not to buy a new scooter as it was Ghost Month. Ghost Month is a time when the deceased ancestors of the past are released and run through the world of the living. It is a time for the living to pay respect to those who have come before and ease their suffering. The woman I saw outside burning had been burning ghost money on the street as an offering and I would later see many more people doing this. The tents were not for family celebrations: they were offerings to the ghosts. These offerings included a lot of Chinese foods, but also Coca Cola, Heineken and many other fairly common things we eat all the time.

If you are thinking the same thing I was when I learned about these offerings then you are no doubt wondering: “So what happens to the food?” I asked my friend exactly this. The ghosts don’t eat it… so how long is it left there? After a couple hours the living will then eat the food, but that’s not the point. The food serves as an offering for the ghosts and so later eating it yourself can bring good luck. My initial impression of Ghost Month: utterly superstitious. But this holiday is celebrated widely across Taiwan and China, so are all Chinese really superstitious?

Our first impressions need always be reconsidered from a different perspective. I imagined the life of a traditional Chinese raised here and then moved to the US to see the holidays I experienced growing up Catholic.

The first thing that came to mind was the weekly receiving of the sacrament. Imagine explaining how, after undergoing a service and prayer it is time to drink the blood and eat the body of your savior? Your savior died almost 2000 years ago. Of course even non-Christian Americans are familiar with the meaning behind the body and blood of Christ and its well know that it is a symbol. But taken out of context it seems as if we are cannibals that believe eating our savior will lead us to salvation: a glorious life after death. It would be foolish not to ask: “Are you some cult of want-to-be vampires?” (This is not meant as an insult to the Catholic faith; I’m demonstrating the profound meaning surrounding relativity)

Now contrast the existence of ghosts with the existence of an omnipotent god. Americans are primarily monotheistic. It is commonplace among Western faiths to think of only one god and anything else is old fashioned. In general this god’s beginning coincides with the beginning of time itself – his origin is unexplainable. Conversely the gods that are worshipped, or the ghosts here in Asia have a distinct origin. They are the spirits of our ancestors. They came before us and have an easily defined, dare I say, easier to believe origin.

My first impression was that these ghost-fearing Chinese are silly and superstitious. After a bit of thought I realized these superstitions are less surprising then those I’ve grown desensitized in the West. Ghost Month is not superstitious in the least, it is religious. I am not of this faith, yet it seems more logical than my own estranged faith.

---These are just the opinions of an Engineer working abroad as a foreign teacher. Don’t be offended but I invite you to offer me any criticism; be it constructive or otherwise.