About Me

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Yilan, Taiwan
I just returned back to the States after 11 years in Taiwan with my daughter. Taiwan is an excellent base for us explore Asia, while living in relative (gun free) safety, while benefiting from a cheap and efficient national health care system. The people are amazing too. I have Taiwanese friendships that are 20 years old and I'm always making new ones! My coworker here in CO is from Taiwan.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Pensive Independence Day: Penitence and Prayers for Peace

Okinawa Peace Memorial Park, Itoman
Another 4th of July came and went, and unlike the usual oblivion and neglect I regard the 4th living abroad, this year's was quite meaningful. It was saturated with historical significance, perhaps foreshadowing murky and morose nuances. In light of the current atrophy of the geopolitical world, my day was suggestive; full with sinister symbols and of ominous forebodings.


Of course if I wanted to celebrate the 4th of July, in Yilan, I could go to Taipei and join the younger expats at bars with their theme nights, but that's not my scene. The only other American I know here is my coworker from Brooklyn and Independence Day is really not highly regarded enough to merit any mention. Somehow synchronicity had a different agenda.

It was day two of our two week holiday in Okinawa. I had an itinerary of course, but we were always open to what the day had in store. It was morning, we ate our breakfast (muesli and cereal we brought from Taiwan) and I decided we walk to the nearby bus station in Naha City and see about getting a bus to the second royal residence outside of town (also a World Heritage Site), as we saw the Palace the previous day.

On our walk we passed the touristy Okinawa Bus headquarters. They have day bus tours that can hit 3 or 4 sites in one go, plus lunch. It's not exactly my way to see a place. At 8:25 in the morning it was incredibly hot, so we decided we might as well check it out as we passed by, it had AC. I walked up to the counter and asked about what was available. There was a bus about to leave and it was hitting some of the places on my list anyway. Plus my kid was begging me to go. It seemed like fortuitous timing, and I'm not that dense, I bought our tickets and quickly boarded.

Into the bowels of the Underworld, Gyokusendo
There were 3 other passengers on board. Fortunately it wasn't a gas guzzling coach, but more of a mini bus, yet it was so empty. There was a friendly Chinese couple from Shanghai, who has been living in Oregon for the past 10 years, and a Japanese woman from Tokyo who acted as or interpreter as our guide spoke zero English.

Habu mating (so the exhibit said)
We did a quick stop at Okinawa World, that was far too rushed. This place was on my kid's list for the Habu Snake Museum (and show which our tour didn't have time for), and on my list for their famed Eisa Show. The most famous snake in Okinawa is the venomous Habu. We saw warning signs for it everywhere but fortunately didn't run into any. 


What was on both of our agendas was the Gyokusendo cave.  Caves are a familiar travel adventure for my daughter and I. We have been to some massive, dangerous caves on our Borneo travels. Gyokusendo was more like Disney Land, the pathway was stable, man made, everything was lit, sometimes with colored lights for effects, there wasn't the chocking stench of bat guano that layered handrails. Even so, the safety and sterility of it all, was relaxing, unlike our previous cave encounters.

Serenditous crossing of paths with my old friend Monica at her luxurious hotel, ANAクラウンプラザホテル沖縄ハーバービュー.

The 25 minute Eisa show was everything I expected. Unfortunately we couldn't film or photograph the show itself. Although we sat in the back, Z was called to the center to put her head into one of the Dancing Lions for good luck. It must of worked because we had an intimate turtle encounter while snorkeling a few days, had an unplanned crossing of paths with a dear friend, and another providential Eisa encounter at the more interesting Ryukyu Mura.



Before lunch we stopped at the extensive Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Park. It was blistering outside. I had to drag my kid away from the air conditioned museum to check out to me, the more interesting grounds, which were once the site of the Japanese military headquarters. The memorial commemorates the 3 month Battle of Okinawa in 1945 and the end of WW2. It honors the deaths of 149,329 Okinawan civilians, Japanese soldiers and 14,009 American soldiers by unit. Their 240,000 names are inscribed on The Cornerstone of Peace, a set of onyx stone walls that stretch out for meters in all directions from the pond to the ocean cliffs. It was overwhelming. Okinawan families were instructed to commit seppuki (hari-kiri) or ritual disembowelment if the Japanese lost. Locals were mobilized to fight for the Japanese as Okinawa was the only site of Allies fighting on Japanese soil. Entire families' names gone in a flash to a bomb or ritualized suicide. The place was pulsating with melancholic grief. Just a few days in Okinawa and already I had a vague understanding that Okinawans weren't necessarily Japanese, which made their exploitation all the more bitter.


I was thankful that my maternal grandfather who was in the Navy in Asia during WW2 survived, or there would be no Kathy and Z story. I explained all this to my daughter, along with how my paternal grandfather (who is still alive and she knows) fought in the same war (in Japan and Germany) with the air-force. She was immensely fascinated that this war somehow radiated its tentacled effects even to her- to her very existence.

Facing that wall of names, death was so indiscriminate against which side was who, in that glaring summer light all were pawns. Peace is a park beyond accusation, where all can be guilty and paradoxically innocent. It reminded me of one of my favorite Rumi quotes, "Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doings is a field-I'll meet you there."

My 4th of July prayer




The Japanese commander has his ashes in a special tomb as he also committed seppuki. We made our way there, past the pond to a shaded gazebo. It had a stunted tree adorned with people's written prayers on colorful paper.  Behind was Peace Hill, where all the collective ashes are resting.While my daughter rested in the shade, I was moved quite literally, to a do few round of peaceful warrior and write my own prayer.  I saw a blank piece blown to the ground which invited me to participate. I wasn't condemning of any particular group.

The whole world or my understanding of it, is like that flimsy yellow paper, that even a small wind can blow it off, so fragile. How events could snowball into the atrocities of war is a meditative discipline worthy of daily devotion. It starts somewhere, with someone.

Himeyuri Monument
Down the road, we hopped on our bus beside the southern tip of the island and came into another grim memorial of the Battle of Okinawa, the Himeyuri Monument. This was perhaps even more personal, as a teacher, with my daughter. The site was where 222 girls and 18 teachers from a Confucian "Lily Girls" were recruited to be nurses for the Japanese military. Unlike most Okinawan students, they practiced a strict form of gender separation and were discouraged from talking to boys. Suddenly, they were thrust into the ugliness of war and living in unspeakable conditions (See the Himeyuri Girls). Their clinic was in a network of cave that in the end had to be entered vertically with a rope. I could see a bit of the cave entrance and tried to imagine how it must of been to be a teenager nursing dying soldiers in such conditions.

Afterwards we lunched and got to know our fellow travelers a bit better. We made our way to the Outlet Mall outside of Naha City, which I totally needed to hit, as I forgot to pack my clothes! I was wishy-washy if I should come here and shop for clothes for a 2 week trip, seemed like such a waste of limited funds. The Universe answered my question by just our coming on board this day tour! All we had time for was an hour and I spent the whole time at the Gap trying on clothes.



We were stuck in a traffic jam on our way back to their bus depot and all along I was occupied by what the day meant, seeing these memorials on this day, couldn't be a coincidence. The day was full of happenstance.   Why this day, the Battle of Okinawa, of the effects of WW2, and of the state of the political climate now, the US presidential election, Brexit. I could only interpret that I must be emancipated from the ugly and horrific tyranny that is always around the corner for us humans and our systems, our comfortable choices to be manipulated. That the foundations of America, of world war and Asia, are closer and closer intertwined. Do we never learn that we must repeat history? Praying for peace, practicing peace continually is more a necessity now than ever, and yet I've always ever grown up in a Cold War mindset.

Peaceful  Warrior in front of Peace Hill

 The mystery and peace practice is applying this enigmatic truth of Grace to my dualistic psyche (Ponder the Rumi quote, which is also the essence of real Christianity). The dilemma is that this is impossible without a superlative, universal Being/state of Being, to absorb my ineptitude. The nightmare is when a country drowns in the collective shadow of following a charismatic medium who embodies all that is undeveloped, ugly and hideous in ourselves. The world we are in today is in that trippy, Hypnagogia state between waking and sleep. We are on the threshold. What will they ask of us civilians, soldiers, girls and teachers next time?

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Eight Ways from Sunday: 8 Years in Taiwan

萬事開頭難 wàn shì kāi tóu nán - All things are difficult before they are easy

It's been 8 influential years here in Taiwan! These photos are a day or two after our arriving from Colorado. Z was still nursing and in diapers. Although I had friends in Taipei, I didn't know a soul in Tainan, let alone ever been there before. I was excited to start our new life there. I had complete, blind  faith (is there no other kind?) that this was exactly where I should be after I agreed to take that leap.


Jul 23, 2008

Why did I take my nursing toddler to  a foreign country all by myself? No I don't have family in Taiwan, I'm not Asian at all. It was a combination of reasons. I was getting ansy, living for 2 1/2 years in the States after living abroad so long, I felt stuck. My bro's insane toxic divorce was extremely stressful for the whole family. It was infecting me and my kid.

Plus I had lived in Taipei for a year and half some time before Z was born. Taiwan was good to me. Living and working in Spain, Germany, Ireland and S. Korea, as well as traveling through 20 other countries, Taiwan was my first choice for uprooting with my kid. I didnt even consider another place. In Taipei,  sixteen years ago, I quickly paid off my undergrad loan, had a comfy lifestyle, was able to save enough to travel for the next 2 years and made lasting friendships that thrive still. Taiwan was and still is a safe place to raise a child in comparison to other countries I worked in.

There is this hurtful stereotype of westerners in Taiwan. That we can't somehow "make it" at home so we come here. Thats almost right, but its still far from the truth.  It depends on what your definition of success is, and mine hasn't been monetary. Coming here was a choice with real sacrifices. True, I didn't think I could raise my kid and be a productive citizen in the US those first critical years after giving birth. Not without renouncing precious time away from my kid. I was living on food stamps and Medicaid when Z was born, I appreciated that, I was fortunate enough to recieve aid and mother fulltime, but it wasn't sustainable or ideal. Obviously with a Master's degree finding a job wouldn't have been a problem, but I didnt want to work and have someone else raise my kid, even by my mom whom I trust. I wanted to be independent, be an active mom and live abroad.

I thought I could just return to Taiwan, pay off my grad loan and save. I could work in a kindergarten and bring my kid to work there too. And that's exactly what I did. Unfortunately it hasn't turned out the way I hoped, at least financially. The school I worked for charged me 14,000NT a month for her halfday bilingual preschool- and with a teacher's discount. Starting from scratch and having to pay such a high tuition for her for 5 years was like 2 steps forward one back.

So instead of getting out of my loan debt, the focus has been more on Z's Mandarin, and enjoying traveling around the area. I had little goals along the way; bite the bullet and work for a sadist manager for 5 years until I got my APRC.  Save enough for little holidays around Asia. I didn't really dream big. Working and being a mom, I had little energy for imagination. By 9pm when she was in bed, I was too brain dead for anything more meaningful than mindless HBO. Perhaps thats turned into a habit, an excuse for not improving my Mandarin. Yet, exhaustion is real.

I would have left Taiwan long ago for a higher paying job were it not for Z's fluent Mandarin. Its a difficult language, it takes years of daily, painful study. I believe she has some grander scheme in her future where this skill will help the world be a better place. Until then I do my part and try to be a good enough mom and teacher. I pay my income taxes to Taiwan, volunteered when I could and make the case for the world to recognize Taiwan's sovereignty.

Thank you Taiwan for welcoming us with your tolerance, kindness and generosity! Its been a privilege teaching your precious children. I am humbled for your embracing us with your friendships and support. Living here has been such a blessing, despite the challenges. Its a sacrifice being away from our family, and sometimes I questioned if it was worth it.


Still in diapers, July 24, 2008

But this past 8th year has been our best in Taiwan, and espouses my case that staying here was the right decision. No we didn't win the lottery, I didn't meat Mr. Right, I still drive the same junkie old scooter I had since my first year in Tainan. As I write this I'm still dead broke after coming back from travels in Japan. Yet, a worthwhile job with excellent management had found me. My daughter absolutely relishes her school, admires her teacher and cherishes her classmates. She frequently echos how she prefers to stay here in Yilan, at least until she graduates from 6th grade- especially when I was crushing on moving to Okinawa. Our contentment and appreciation are gifts.

Finally after years of praying for a dream, I have a dim revelation of a practical goal. It finally dawned on me after ending a relationship, that no one but myself is responsible for my happiness. I know its cliche, maybe I am the cliche single, liberal mom. But I want to save and pay off my grad loan, get out of this mentality of hand to mouth survival, improve my Chinese, and my Taiwanese friendships that are now 16 years on. I need to change some habits, mental strongholds about my relationship with money that are rooted from childhood. This is bigger than me. I still have lots to learn from Taiwan and I hope even more to contribute back. 

With God all things are possible. “在人這是不能的,在 神卻凡事都能。”

Friday, July 22, 2016

Ballet Basics and Getting Off on the Wrong Foot

Talk about dancing to a different tune. I blame the Taiwanese dependence on tests, and focusing on the end result, not the process, along with just people with petty personalities. Actually, I think on a higher level, forces of darkness (The Shadow Trickster) were trying to steal my radiant source of weekly joy, my beloved 90 minute Wednesday ballet class from me.

Mid June,  it got real with this new dance studio, when I told them Z wasn't happy with her teacher (the owner) and wanted to quit. I had already paid for her June classes and wanted the rest of money back, but she refused. Bear in mind that we were communicating through Facebook messager. I was typing in English and a friend was helping her translate.

Refusing to give me my money back basically forced me to bluntly tell her all the reasons why my kid hated her class. It wasn't enough for me to say diplomatically, that my kid's and your personality doesn't match, so can we just cancel. I kept on reiterating that I however loved my adult class (different teacher).

She demeans the girls, ("You're the worst class, the others dance better than you") - although they are the very beginning class, she hit Z hard (she showed me, totally crossed the line), the teacher is on her phone messaging and chatting most of the time, and she doesn't demonstrate any of the movements herself (like every dance teacher I know does) but basically instructs them orally, while grabbing limbs roughly and forcing the girls' bodies. I had mean teachers before (but they could dance), I also understand that dance teachers have to adjust kids' bodies, pats, are normal, but hard smacks, um nope crossed the line.

I basically commented that I would be curious to ask the other girls what they thought of her using her phone in class too, considering how much the classes cost, and that's when she said I could have my money back and I wasn't welcomed to join the adult class anymore too. It spiraled and got ridiculous fairly quick. I doubt she would of acted the same had I been a Taiwanese mother, for sure she would of reimbursed the money.

Fortunately, my ballet teacher and a mother/fellow student in my adult class, "the peacemaker" helped to have a face to face, saving face meeting. This woman was almost unable to meet me. She took Z not liking her that personally. I think she was humiliated because she lost face with so many people, by threatening to withhold my money and barring me from my beloved class. She's just an insecure person. I was as gentle as a dove meeting her (my attending the class was on the line). We blamed it on a communications breakdown (and not her pettiness).

Those two were able to convince her that my kid's class dissatisfaction and my class, were separate and I was able to remain in the adult class. However for July, since I would be in Okinawa for 2 weeks, she said I couldn't pay for 2 weeks but had to pay for the full month, even though I would only attend 2 classes. (In what world is this good business?) So I told my adult classmates, " Happy Summer, see you in September! " As I'll be out of town for August.

I blame the Taiwanese education of tests on this as well because, the teacher said she felt stressed to have Z's class be very good for some test they would take with teachers from Taipei. Of course I had no idea. I told them that Z just started and we are more concerned that she enjoy dancing and not be stressed, humiliated and bullied. The trickle down effect of sacrificing the means for the ends.

After we return in September I will look for another dance studio in Yilan for Z or some martial arts. My kid still wanted to dance but this teacher totally spoiled so much joy out of learning, its a pity.  I however mourned last Wednesday when I was here in Yilan  but unable to go.