Taitung Blog

Taiwan Driving Test

2007-11-23T03:33:00.000-08:00

I sat my Taiwan Driving Licence test two days ago.

It was actually the second time I had gone to sit the test, but I wasn't allowed to the first time, because I don't have a Chinese name. My ARC has my English name, my health insurence is in my English name, my motorbike registration is in my English name. EVERYTHING in fact is in my English name, and indeed I am entitled to have everything in my English name, just as the Taiwanese aborigines are no longer required to have a Chinese name and can choose to use their original name in their native language. Everything, that is, except my driving licence.
"We can't have your English name, as it won't fit. Look, there's only enough space."
"Can't you just put my surname and first name, or surname and initial?"
"No, because then your name will be different from your ARC. Police will look at the cards and get confused."
Good. "But if I have two cards, both with my English name, both with the same photo, what's the problem?"
"No."
And they wouldn't allow me to sit the test until I'd gone to the Immigration department and put a Chinese name on my ARC.

How good a driver are you?

2007-11-23T03:30:00.000-08:00

I'm practicing for my taiwanese driving licence. Finally. Wish me luck!

You can too, if you feel up to the challenge. It can be quite worth taking multiple times, as the questions are randomly selected and some of them are amusing.

"If you have an accident, you should a) drive on without stopping b) check to see if anyone is hurt or c) lie to the police."

"If you fall down from oil on the road, you should a) don't worry about it, keep going B) report it at the nearest police station or C) put branches or something on the road to warn other motorists."
Strangely, C is the correct answer.

www.mvdis.gov.tw

hit skip to get past the first sequence, then find the "english" button - should be at the top right of the page. Then Driver's Guide. Then at the bottom of the page there is a "Written Test Simulation. You have a choice of two tests, car or motorbike, I'm studying for the motorbike so that's what I do.

Questions...
1-15. The button on the left means YES, on the right means NO.

At the bottom of the page, click the middle button to finish the test and get a score. 85 is a pass. On the score page, the left button will allow you to resit the test with the exact same questions, the right button will boot you back to the test selection, and doing it again will have different questions.

Enjoy! :)

Surfing poem

2007-11-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

Towering high and frothing free
The water rushed in a living wall
A powerful mass of leaping surf
Drops of water splashed and sprayed
And sole in the water
Small in the water
A surfer waited alone.

An army of many charged together
Wave after wave of surging power
Chased by the wind, by typhoon brought hither
Together they charged, wild and free
And tiny in the water
Frail in the water
A surfer waited alone.

Wind inspired them and set them free
Free with the joy and spark of the sea
Water drove them and gave them purpose
An unstoppable destiny and righteous fate
But down in the water
Tiny and weak
A surfer waited alone

He waited for the one, the king of the waves
That towered o’er the rest with majesty and glory
Thundering forward with a deafening roar
A mughty surge on the whind whipped sea

And alone in the wature
Miniscule on the sea
A surfer scrabbled in haste

He turned and paddles with frantic energy
An hitched a ride on the majestic wave
Which leant him its power, its speed, it’s thrill
As it leapt joyously to the jagged reef.

Alternative ending 1

And alone on the wave
Riding the barrel
A surfer flew in exstasy

Alternative ending 2
And smashed on the rocks
Ripped by the coral
A body floated alone

Speech to the Taitung Government

2007-11-11T07:01:00.000-08:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/Taitungknight/SpeechToTaitungGovernment
A series of photos designed as a visual aid to accompany the speech.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is David Eason. I first came to Taiwan in 2000, seven years ago, and it’s been an interesting few years. I moved around a lot, lived in different cities, went to different places. My mother had cancer and I went back to New Zealand for a time. And then I came back here. Now I've been asked to speak today about teaching English in Taiwan, about my experiences here, and also about my country. So its my pleasure to be here today to talk to you about that, but on the way I'll also be covering some more serious subjects including cancer, the environment, and why I came back. I'll be offering you an outsider's view of Taitung. Right now it's a very wonderful place and a very exciting time.

A friend of mine once gave me some advice. He said “Don't go to Korea! Don't go to Korea! It's got a really bad reputation. The children are terrible students and the people are unfriendly. Come to Taiwan!”

Well, what is Taiwan? I did a bit of research, and found that it's got an Asian culture, without the rigidity of Japan, the corruption of China, or the poverty of Indonesia or Vietnam. It's got an interesting history, with the English, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Japanese all coming here, as well as Chinese people and indigenous peoples. I thought it was exciting! All these different cultures, all these different languages, different kinds of food.

The first month I was here I was running round in a frantic daze, overwhelmed by everything. Everything was new, exotic, exciting! New food! And of course I couldn’t speak the language, so I was getting by with universal sign language. “I want that one!” *point* *$ sign* *liu* *What on earth is “liu”?* And boy, there was some strange food...

The traffic! It was just crazy! Just crossing the road was a new experience! I was shown how by a friend. Walk straight out, looking the wrong way away from the incoming traffic which miraculously stops, and when your reach half way turn your head and again looking away from the traffic keep walking. Somehow everything just stops and nothing hits you. No one honks their horn or yells at you. It's a very weird, nerve wraking experience.
Things on bikes. I never knew before I came to Taiwan how much or what you could put on a scooter. Small children, with no helmets or safety belts clutching on to mum's back. I was always expecting them to fall off, knowing the attention span of children. “Oooh look, what's that?” *point* *fall*. But somehow, they never did. I saw whole families squashed together on one tiny scooter. There would be a child standing at the front, and then mum and dad sitting on the seat with another child crammed in the middle, and then there’d be baby hanging on mum’s back like a baby monkey. I saw dogs on scooters. You couldn't take my dog on a scooter, if it saw a cat or another dog, it would be off straight through the traffic, just leaping out like an arrow shot from a bow. But here they were, little lapdogs sitting happily on the bike with their mistress.

It was great! Learning a new language was fun! I'd learn a few words, and then go out and try them, and people understood me! What a rush! And there were all these pretty girls eager to teach me. Speaking of pretty girls, everywhere I went there would be gaggles of girls, giggling and pointing. They were cute, pretty, with nice hourglass figures instead of pear shaped ones like in New Zealand. Now, every time I go back, I am struck with just how huge New Zealand women are.

What I was experiencing was culture shock. It happens to everyone, and there are different stages, about five altogether. The first is the“honeymoon period," where everything is new and exciting, the second is one of unhappiness and disatisfation. Then there's acceptance and balance. The last stage is called "reverse culture shock," which is when a person returns home and finds it hard to fit back in.

Sure enough, six months after I arrived things weren't quite so hot. The traffic was dangerous and infuriating. All the streets were dirty. All the buildings were concrete monstrosities. Just horrible grey after horrible grey. I never ate at any Portuguese or Dutch or even Indigenous restaurants. I never saw any Portuguese or Dutch historic buildings, or very many Chinese ones for that matter. You know the ones you see in photographs or postcards or tourist magazines. Temples, government buildings, elegant mansions with flowing rooves. They're all gone. I only saw apartment buildings and shops and factories.

I had noticed by this time the highly intensive farming practices which occur in Taiwan. Hundreds of cows or chickens or pigs crammed into as small a space as possible where they would be forced to walk and sleep in their own excrement, where they never had a chance to walk let alone graze. It's horrifyingly cruel and it's disgusting. Just as you can measure a man by how he treats those beneath him, so you can measure a culture by how they treat their poor, their disabled, and how they treat their animals.

The food was at best mediocre, at worst nauseating. Intestine soup. Blood cakes. Chopped up duck heads. Those cute ducks! I remember feeding the ducks as a boy.. Mum and I used to go sit on the riverbank and throw bread to them. Now here I was, eating soup with duck bills and brains floating in it...

But it wasn't all bad. Looking back, I enjoyed my time in Dalin, Chiayi. In my free time in Dalin, I would often go exploring. I'd go walking through town, or up canals to see where they went. I'd ride my scooter up in the hills or mountain roads, and drink tea with tea farmers and little restaurants high up above the plains. I went up Ali Shan, rode my scooter all the way up and camped in the forest, in a hammock between two trees. In the morning I woke up to the sound of monkeys chattering in the trees. Alishan I thought was pretty, with pink cherry blossom everywhere, and wonderful views. There was this ancient old grandfather tree, and a historic railway, which was really interesting.
The only thing that spoilt it was the drive up there, with hillside after hillside covered with betelnut (binglung). These ugly stringy palms are the leading cause of mouth and throat cancer in Taiwan. Hillsides planted with betelnut are prone to flooding and landslides. It's the curse of Taiwan.

It's the people I remember most. I shared an apartment with two Taiwanese girls who were working at the Tzu Chi Buddhist hospital there. I became very good friends with one of them, Michelle. She was very quiet, very peaceful, and we found it very easy to talk to each other. We went to the night market together, we went for walks together. I used to try to get her to do things she wouldn't normally do, to get her to push the boundaries of “respectability," to show her that she could have fun in ways that she would never have thought of. I think she found me refreshing, because I didn't have rigid ideas of what a woman should say or think or do.
One time she took me to her home in Northern Taiwan somewhere, I've no idea where. Her parents were farmers, in a small, very simple house. It only had one story and a few rooms. There were a few sparse pieces of heavy wooden furniture, a tv, a shrine a spartan toilet and a very basic kitchen. The farm was tiny, a couple of small fields, less than a tenth the size of a New Zealand farm. It’s a subsistance farm. Her family were nice though, and we were talking about history, religion and even philosophy in very basic English and Chinese.

We went to Peng Hu together, which I found to be very beautiful and very refreshing after mainland Taiwan. There was no industry or over cultivation, instead there were idyllic seaside farms, with a single milk cow and walls made from coral hauled up from the sea. The fields were fertilised with seaweed. There were quaint little villages where the houses were old but maintained, and they were true cultural icons, real pieces of heritage. I thought Penghu to be a piece of Taiwan which got left forgotten by the wayside, a group of islands that time had passed by. It was like a photo, I thought, of what Taiwan would have been like fifty years ago before it got rich. I liked it.
My other good friend was Justin, who describes himself as a “New York Franco Italian man-thing.” We used to eat together, get into trouble together. It was because of Justin that I discovered the video parlours, where a group of friends could get together, rent a room and watch a dvd. And of course it quickly became apparent that that would be how couples could sneak away and spend some time together in a culture which frowned apon such activities. We don’t have these places in New Zealand.

Justin had a Taiwanese girlfriend who was rather ugly (I thought), and she was about ten to twenty years older than him. And it turned out she was a complete psychopath. They broke up and she started stalking him. He was terrified! He wouldn't answer the phone, he made his friends answer the door and tell her he wasn’t home. It was funny, disturbing and yet pitiful. This poor woman, obviously “on the shelf”, was throwing herself desperately at a last chance of a relationship.
I’d never experienced this before. In New Zealand there isn’t this pressure to get married. There’s a tv show about two people who find romance in a rest home. It’s called “One foot in the grave.” My aunt got married when she was over fifty. But in Taiwan there’s this idea that “You’re thirty. You’re too old. You’re past it.” It was a shock to me.
There were a lot of attitudes I found very disturbing. I met all these girls who had very strong ideas on what a “good girl” was supposed to do. Never go out unless chaperoned. Never go out in the sun, because white skin is beautiful. Never exercise, and starve yourself because you don’t want to get big. Live at home until you get married. Pitiful. Crippling. But that was then.
Now... well, attitudes are changing. Men and women are changing, their roles are changing. Women are becoming more highly educated and those men who refuse to adapt are starting to be left behind. My attitudes have changed too. Now, I don’t pity women who live like that, because it’s a choice. And while there are lots like that, there are also plenty who aren’t. In New Zealand, we are brought up believing men and women are equal, that a woman can and should do anything a man can do. But after living in Taiwan I’m thinking differently about this. In a family, the children need both a mother and a father. At school, children need female and male teachers. Male police might be better at physical confrontation, but female ones might be able to better avoid a confrontation, and they might deal better or with more tact in social situations. Both are good. So, although I still don’t like the strict social roles in traditional Taiwanese society, I am also questioning traditional New Zealand society. What is right? Can we define roles? Who should define them, and how? If we could define these male/female roles, what would be best?

There are many situations like this, where my opinions are changing. An example is the family situation in Taiwan where children are forced to work such long hours until they finish school and get a job, from which point they must continually give money to their parents. I used to think this was terrible, as children often had no freedom and no real childhood, and consequently as adults they often were lacking in creativity or personality, or had “Hello Kitty” fixations at age thirty. Living at home until marriage meant they never learnt the maturity that comes from paying your own bills, cooking your own food, and negotiating with and living with other people on an equal basis.

And that’s an outsider point of view. But the West has other problems. The working population is getting older. People are living longer. When they retire, the government won’t be able to support them if they haven’t saved enough money, and if they don’t have the support of their family a lot will be in trouble.
We’ve also got a problem with young people who don’t want to study, or working age people who don’t want to work. But if Mum and Dad were depending on them for their retirement you can bet they wouldn’t allow their children to sit at home on the unemployment benefit.
In New Zealand the government pays for a lot of things. Retirement, the unemployment, benefit, study subsidies, housing subsidies. But because of this a lot of families have lost the close family inter-dependency that Taiwan has. Some say we’ve lost “family values” or “family morals.” So while there are some things I don’t like about the Taiwan family system, there is also a lot that I do like, and I’m sure that when I have children of my own I’ll be considering both New Zealand and Taiwanese ideas.

Anyway. Going back to culture shock. After six months in Taiwan, I wasn’t very happy. About that time I had a long weeknd, so I took some time off and had a holiday. I went to Taitung, then Hualien whereI went out on a boat and saw some dolphins. Then back to Taitung and then up to Taichung to see a friend and go to a museum where I saw the famous terracotta warriors. And all the time I was on the East Coast I was struck by the beauty. Those beautiful forests! No bingnan! Well, a little, but not everywhere like the West Coast. Sunshine sparkling on a glittering sea. Beaches, ports, painted fishing boats. Coconut palms waving at the park. There were aboriginal buildings and culture in abundance. In Taitung, I met a wonderful girl at the aborigine museum out by the railway station, and she very kindly showed me around and gave me a personal guided tour. Very special. Very kind. I went back to Chiayi thinking “What on earth am I doing here?” So I finished my contract and then went to Hualien.
A woman tried to stop me. She was a buxiban owner, and she wanted a teacher. She showed me her school, and took me up onto the roof. Her arm swept grandiosely across the countryside, which consisted of rice paddies, multi story apartment buildings, light industry, and, in the distance beneath the smoggy haze, bingnan covered mountains. “Don’t go to Hualien!” she pleaded emotionally. “This is Taiwan countryside!”
You have no idea, I thought in silent response.

Hualien’s a wonderful place. Li Yu Tarn was pretty and peaceful. The beach was huge, sandy and good fun playing in the surf. Except one time when I went swimming there in a storm surf, and almost got drowned.
There was a road there, north of the beach, a tree lined avenue. It had beautiful elms overhanging the road, the sunlight filtering down through emerald green leaves. It’s cool, breezy, and driving along you’d drive through a couple of sleepy little villages.
The trees are all gone now. Cut down. Now it’s just another dusty country road. But when I was there I loved that road and it’s trees. It was a fabulous place for a Sunday drive.

One of the things I really liked about Hualien was the feeling I got that someone truly loved the place. Truly cared for it. Schoolchildren had drawn murals on school walls, or in certain public places. There’s a lovely drive going up round the hill, with gentle curves and elegant mosaic patterns put into the retaining wall. There were parks full of trees. The river was beautifully landscaped – okay, so it was full of raw sewage and stank to high heaven, but it looked good and someone had obviously put a lot of effort into it, And this feeling of care, of love was very refreshing after the West Coast.

But I found it hard to find work in Hualien. I was scraping by all year. There were too many Westerners and not enough work to go round. So when I was offered a job in Taitung, I came here.

In many ways the two and a half years I lived here, working for Hess, were the best years of my life. I met some wonderful people, we had some great times. We had some fantastic parties, with singing and dance and poetry. We’d go swimming at San Yuen, snorkling, jumping off the rock at Dulan. We’d camp by the beach, have a bonfire, and go swimming in the middle of the night, with starlight and phospherescence in the water.
There are the aborigines and their cultural festivals, with singing and dance and shiau mi jio, and the amazing sense of “togethereness” and cameraderie when dancing in the circle together.

Taitung’s a special place. It’s small, it’s quiet, it’s beautiful. And one of the best things about it is everyone who’s here is here because they want to be here. All the westerners are here for a reason. Many of them are surfers. Some are studying Chinese or aboriginal languages. Some do marathons. Some do photography, or film, or caligraphy or yoga. Everyone’s doing something. Someone once described Taitung as “an artist’s colony”, and it is. Not just the Westerners either: Taitung has more than it’s share of artists, musicians, sculptors, poets and painters. It’s a very special place with a vibrant and active sense of culture, both old and new.

But the best thing about Taitung is the wonderful woman I met, Lisa Chen. She’s funny, outgoing, courageous, loving, and smart. She loves the outdoors. And she’s more than a little crazy, which is probably a good thing. Maybe she has to be crazy to be with a guy like me. When I was in New Zealand someone said “Wow, she’s beautiful! How did a guy like you get a girl like her?” To which I replied “I took her places she’d never been before.”
The worst thing about Lisa was that I met her after I’d quit my job and booked my airfares home. I left Taitung in 2005 and it seems I’ve been trying to get back ever since. I spent a month in Vietnam and a month in New Zealand and then came back to spend time with her to try and make the relationship work. I lived in Kaohsiung and came here in weekends. We’ve been cycling, we’ve been snorkling, we went to Lan Yu, and we’re making strange new cuisines. Together we’ve explored almost every river we can find, we’ve raised environmental awareness about keeping places clean.

These are some pictures of what we do together. I don’t usually tell people where they are, because I don’t want just anyone going there. If people want to go there, they should treat the rivers with respect. Take their trash out. Don’t leave fishing lines or traps or rubbish in the water. Do a first aid course. If someone knocks their head or twists their ankle they’re a long way from help and they’re going to have to do it themselves. Practice rock climbing, learn some of the techniques. Do a river safety course. Think about every situation up there. “Can I do it? What happens if something goes wrong? What happens if I fall? Is it safe to cross the river here?” This is what I do, but I know what I’m doing. I don’t tell people where it is because I don’t want to feel responsible because someone has gone up there and drowned. I don’t want hordes of people having barbeques and leaving a garbage pit behind. I don’t want roads and hotels and shops and another Jrben. Respect the river. It’s dangerous. It’s beautiful. It’s fragile. You’ve got something very special here, but you have to protect it and look after it or you will lose it.

In November 2005, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Stage 5 cervical cancer. Mum asked “What’s after stage 5?” She was told “Nothing. There is no after stage five.” They did some tests and found that it had spread to her liver and her intestines. The doctors couldn’t say how long she had to live.
So in December, Lisa and I went to New Zealand for Christmas. We had Christmas with my family. Lisa got to meet all my father’s family and my mother’s family. I showed her a bit of Christchurch. Spent some time with my mother. Then Lisa and my brother and I did a quick tour of the South Island. Up to Hanmer, where my family goes camping every year. Through the gorgeous Lewis Pass, to Reefton where I lived for a year. White water rafting on the Buller. Down to the Pancake rocks and blowholes. Back through Arthur’s Pass. We saw the Viaduct, which replaced this little road down the side of the mountain. The Devil’s Punchbowl. Bealey Spur, where my uncle has a hut.

Then we went back to Taiwan – for a while at least. But I wasn’t happy with teching children, and I wanted a change. In April I returned to New Zealand to join the police, and to spend time with my mother.

New Zealand is a country about the size of Japan, with a population of about 4 million. We’re famous for our scenery and the natural beauty of our country. We ahve amazing adventure tourism in New Zealand – white water rafting, bungee jumping, swimming with dolphins, skiing, heli skiing, caving, anything you can think of.

We’ve got a good education system, we’ve produced more than our share of scientists and inventors. Earnest Rutherford, who split the atom. Richard Pearse, who made the first aeroplane eight months before the Wright brothers. We invented the jet boat, the world’s smallest GPS reciever, the thermette amongst many others. That’s quite impressive for a small country at the bottom of the world. Maybe it’s partly because of our education system. It’s also partly because we a re so far from anywehre, and especially in the early settler days we were so far from support or help that if something was broken or needed building we had to build it or fix it ourselves. There’s a saying in New Zealand, “kiwi ingenuity and number 8 wire,” which means we can fix anything with some farm fencing wire.

But those early days are gone now. Today most people are brought up in cities, not on farms, and if something is broken we just take it to the shop or buy another one. But even today, because we are so far away, because we are so small, we still have to be different. Anything we can make can be made in America or Japan or China. We can’t compete with them. Japan makes millions of cars every year, and so they can make them cheaper and faster than we ever could. We can’t compete with that. So we go for small niche markets. Like clay pigeon shooting. A friend of mine invented a new throwing arm for clay pigeon shooters, to sell in America. Does Japan care? Is Mitsubishi going to stop making cars and start selling throwing arms? That’s a niche market.
One of the niche markets we’ve got is making outdoor gear, like jackets, tents or sleepuing bags. That’s because New Zealand has every kind of land. We have deserts, we have swamps, we have forests and mountains and plains. And we have a population that loves to get out tehre hiking or hunting or sailing. It’s because we are so close to Antarctica and we supply both the New Zealand and American bases there.

And it’s because of Sir Edmund Hillary. Have you heard of him? He is famous worldwide because he was the first man to climb Mount Everest. But he is revered everywhere in New Zealand because, after climbing Everest, he didn’t say “I am the greatest, I am wonderful.” He said “I’m just a bee keeper, nothing special” and then spent the next fifty years building bridges and schools and hospitals in Nepal. He spent the rest of his life using his fame to help other people. He’s a true hero.

Another hero is Sir Peter Blake, who won two American Cups and the Whitbread round the world. But he also did a lot of environmental work and set up a trust encouraging environmental awareness and developing leadership.

Two of my heroes are my mum and my dad. My dad’s a very hardworking man, which can make him hard to live with. He works 40 hours a week at his regular job, and then in the evenings when most people sit in front of the tv he’s working or doing Melaleuca training or studying. At weekends when most people relax, have a few beers, play some sport, dad will be cutting firewood or teaching people how to sail, or doing the bees. But so much of what he does is helping other people! Most of the honey we make he gives away. Every time he cuts firewood he gives some to my sister and their family.
He spends so much time at the yacht club, teaching, arranging classes, organising rescue boats. He does the accounts for the yacht club, the lodge and the church, He’s also doing Melaleuca, and he firmly believes that when he does so he’s helping people’s lives. And the vast fortune he’s making from it, about $100,000 a year at the moment, is so he can help people in places like Thailand or Vietnam.

And there’s my mum. She’s very different from my dad. Very laid back, very kind, very loving. She’d be just as happy spending a day doing a jigsaw puzzle with the family, which dad would say is a “huge waste of time.” My grandfather says she used to lock herself in the toilet with a book when it was her time to do the dishes.
But she’s very giving of herself, especially of her warmth and her time. She’s gone to visit several friends in hospital with terminal disease, or cancer. She used to teach English to refugees, but she didn’t just teach English. She helped them get jobs, she took them for walks, she even taight them to drive.

And as I said, she had cancer. It was a shock. Thankfully, when I had got to New Zealand, she had beaten it. The doctors couldn’t belive it. A complete recovery from Stage five. But in the year that I was there it came back. She was feeling sick, feeling uncomfortable all the time, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t sleep. She went in to hospital for some tests, and they found her body was full of hundreds of tiny tumours. Now, we always knew that the cancer might come back, but we were thinking 5-10 years. This was six months.
Mum couldn’t breathe if she was lying down, so she had to sleep in an easy boy. Her hair turned snow white, and she’d be sitting in front of the tv, alseep with her mouth open. It was as if she’d aged 20 years over night. It was horrific.

Back into it. The chemotherapy. The juicing. The “quarantine” days after the chemo when the immune system was down. I learnt some things. I learnt that the most common person who gets cancer is the housewife. It’s not someone who works with pesticides, or who works in a chemicals factory, it’s the housewife. It’s all the chemicals in cleaning products, the stuff you clean your floors with, wash your dishes with, clean your hair with. The stuff you breathe in all day, every day in your home. They’re called “personal care” products, and even in America there are no legal requirements for companies to test the chemicals or even to list them. There’s formaldahyde in coloured toilet paper. Ammonia in some hair rinses. That’s one of the reasons we’re passionate about Melaleuca. It’s about getting all of the chemicals out of the home, replacing them with safer, natural products.

I learnt about juicing. I asked dad why we didn’t just buy juice from the supermarket. He said “because most of it is reconstituted. That means they take the juice, thenm they boil it down and concentrate it when they ship it, then they add water to it to make it up before they sell it. When they do that, it loses a lot of the goodness. A lot of the vitamins aren’t as effective if they’ve been cooked.” So every day we would buy fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, wheat grass, and we would squeeze it ourselves for Mum to have fresh juice.

So Mum was doing a lot of things. Chemo, Melaleuca, juicing, drinking oxygenated water. She did a lot of mental things too. Postitive thinking. She went to laughter yoga. Just laughing for half an hour, once a week. Something worked. Or a combination of what she was doing worked. In May this year the doctors said the cancer has gone into “full remission.” And now she has to keep juicing, keep up the yoga, keep doing what she was doing and stop it coming back.
She’s beaten it twice. Part of that is mental. If you think “Oh no, I’ve got cancer, that’s it, I’m going to die,” *sob*, then that’s it. Goodbye. But if you think “Fuck it. I’m going to fight. I’m going to do whatever I need to do because I want to live”, then that’s half the battle. And the hospitals and doctors will work harder for you.

When I was living in New Zealand I was living at home. I was working forty hours a week at a factory. I was trying to get fit for the police. I was doing ju jitsu, yoga and pilates as well as running and swimming. But I was missing taiwan more and more. I missed Lisa. I missed my friends. I missed being able to go up a river in the middle of the day. I missed having a fire at the beach with my friends. I was working 40 hours a week, living at home, and i couldn’t even afford to go to the pub.

One evening we went to see “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore. Have you seen it? It’s a very good, well researched movie. A very important movie. It’s about global warming, and how we as people are causing it. The environment is in trouble. Even now the weather is more erratic and more extreme every year. It’s a huge concern, and it’s a problem for everyone. In every country, pollution is a problem. In every country, water supply and clean energy is a major challenge. In New Zealand there are lots of people already doing things about the environment. But in taiwan there aren’t so many. There are some, but not many. Not enough. And that’s a reason to come back, to add another voice.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to come back. I realised that I haven’t finished yet. There are things I want to do. There are things I want to say. Taitung is a very special place, at a crossroads in time, and I want to be a part of it, a voice in it’s future. I want to be involved in scouting. I want to do Melaleuca – because if I get fifty households doing Melaleuca that’s fifty households not using chemicals for cleaning. That’s fifty tons a year of poisons and toxins that aren’t going out to see. That’s what I want.

I’m a Waiguoren. That means “outside country person”, an outside voice. Every country, every business, every person needs that: an outside person looking at things with new eyes. When I look around, I sometimes understand the logic, it makes sense to me. And when I look with my other eye, I see everything through New Zealand eyes. I question everything. Why do you do this? Why don’t you do that? And that’s valuable. What if I’m wrong, what if I say something stupid like “You shouldn’t eat rice, you shoudl eat potatoes”. Well then you think “Everyone eats rice. Taiwan is well suited to growing rice. It’s healthy , and it’s cheap, and if I buy rice then I’m supporting farmers.” So if I say something, and I make you think about it, and you realise that you are doing the right thing, then that’s wonderful. That’s the value right there. Not that I’m always right, or always wise, because I’m not.

With that in mind, what do I see with my New Zealand eye?

Here’s a question. Where are all the old buildings? New Zealand has lots of old, historic buildings. So does America and Britain. You see them in postcards, on magazines. But I come to Taiwan, and where are they? Only the churches still have any. There must have been some once. Where did they go? Why does New Zealand have any and not Taiwan?

The difference is that New Zealand was discovered in 1792, America in 1460. When we grew as countries it was over periods of hundreds of years. Along the way we realised “Hey! We’re cutting down the forests! The birds are disappearing! We’re losing old historic buildings! Do something about it! And, because we were changing at a slower rate, we could do something about it. But Taiwan? You did all the growth in one generation. Two at the most. Taitung thirty years ago had no cars, only bicycles or ox carts. The roads were very narrow.

You went from being a very poor third world country to a world leader in electronics in one generation. An “Asian Tiger”, that’s what they call you. That’s one hell of an achievement. The roads, the electricity, the sewage, the trading and democratic advances. It’s a fantastic achievement. It’s incredible. But it’s also the source of all your problems. The environment’s in bad shape. You’ve lost a lot of cultural buildings. The rivers running through Taitung stink of sewage. You’ve lost things along the way.

Since I’ve returned to Taitung, I’ve been hearing a lot of things like “How can we promote tourism in Taitung? It’s the only undeveloped place in Taiwan, how can we develop it? There’s a lot of pressure, a lot of intensity. “We’ve got to develop this, and we’ve got to do it now.

Hey! HEY! STOP! SLOW DOWN! What’s the hurry? Look at where you’ve come from! Think about where you want to go! You’ve got something so valuable, something that no one else has right now! You’ve got a choice. You can choose what you want to keep. Choose what not to lose. Choose what is important. You can sit down and decide what Taitung will look like in fifty years time. Taipei can’t do that! Kaohsiung can’t! It’s too late! Chiayi can’t! You’re the only place in Taiwan that can choose!

What’s the hurry? Is it about money? Is there pressure from Taipei businesses to build hotels and develop things? You’re the county government! It’s your job to manage Taitung for the benefit of the Taitung people. That’s your responsibility. That’s your job. That’s got to be the focus.

There is a huge amount of money to be made. But. Look around you! How many hospitals were there in Taitung thirty years ago? You’re rich now! You have good cheap health care, and several modern hospitals. Your parents had to go to a small, dark little hospital that they didn’t trust. There’s a 7-11 on every corner. If your parents wanted water they went to the pump and pumped water. There was no electricity. Many couldn’t afford shoes. They rode bicycles. Now everyone’s got one. You’re rich now! How rich do you want to get? If you had three scooters, would you be happier? What if you had twenty scooters and six tvs, but every river was polluted and poisined, would you be happy then?

Forget about the money. You have one question. Is this the right thing for the people of Taitung in fifty years? Because you will never have this chance again. The people will love you for it. And if you do it right, the money will come anyway.

There’s a saying in business “You can make somethig good, you can make something fast, you can make something cheap. Pick two.” So you can make something fast and cheap, but it’s not very good, like China, or you can make something fast and good, but it’s expensive. Or you make it good and cheap, but it’s slow. Maybe that’s a good thing.
So, looking at taiwan, what happens if we do it fast and cheap? Let’s build some resorts, whack in some hotels, get some shops, and what do we have? JrBen. It’s ugly. A valley full of Binglang, an eyesore of hotels. And a lot of money. But how much of the money goes to Taitung? There was the construction, but only two of the hotels are locally owned! Most of the money goes to Taipei or Kaohsiung! The tourists don’t even stop here, they get off the plane and go straight to Jrben, stay in a hotel, and then leave! How does that benefit the people here?

San Yuen beach! Picture this: five hotels. Water sports. Jet boats. Taitung people can’t go to the beach. The profits go to Taipei. What I’m saying is this: if you allow Taipei and Kaohsiung developers to develop Taitung, the money will go to Taipei and you will get another Kenting. You know what? Kenting is closer! You can’t compete with Kenting because it will always have more money and it’s closer! Kaohsiung people will always go there! Taipei, TaiJong, Kaohsiung, they all have amusement parks. They all have waterparks and fancy foreign restaurants. We can’t compete. Why are we trying?

Think about what I’ve talked about today. I’ve talked about New Zealand. We’ve got the same problem. We’re small, far away, we can’t compete. What do we do? Do something different! Find a niche market! I’ve shown you Penghu. They’re doing something different, and they’re doing very well. Clean, unpolluted, pretty, and the tourists love it! Think about the pictures I’ve shown you. Taitung has some of the prettiest countryside as anywhere in Taiwan. Anywhere in the world.

You could make Taitung the Adventure Tourism capital of Taiwan. Hangliding, snorkling, all the sports I’ve shown you today you could do here. You’ve got the most beautiful countryside in Taiwan. Forget Hualien! Come to clean, unspoilt, undeveloped Taitung! We’ve got the safest , most adventurous sports. You could do that. BUT you have to do it right. You focus on quality. Safe tourism. No one dies in Taitung! No one ever dies in Taitung! You want to be able to say that. So you need safety checks, helmets, life jackets, rescue boats. You set the toughest safety guidelines in Taiwan because you go by New Zealand or Australian safety guidelines, and you have inspectors to enforce them. If operators don’t measure up they lose their licence. If there’s an accident there’s an inquiry and someone probably loses their job.

This is Taitung. You’ve got a wonderful place. It’s the most beautiful place in Taiwan. It’s undeveloped, and unspoilt. And you are at an incredibly exciting time because you have a choice.

Ladies and gentlemen, thankyou very much.

Photos

2007-11-11T05:59:00.000-08:00

Please look at my photos!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Taitungknight/TaitungTaidong02
A selection of photos taken from rivers in Taitung and Hualien

http://picasaweb.google.com/Taitungknight/SpeechToTaitungGovernment
A series of photos designed as a visual aid to accompany the speech.

An accident

2007-11-10T09:47:00.000-08:00

In the news yesterday a person drowned in the Beinan river. A teacher had decided to take twenty of his students swimming there, and a girl somehow got sucked into a whirlpool. She struggled and screamed, and a man leapt in to save her. He managed to do so, kudos to him, but he was sucked down and was drowned instead.

One of my students apparently regularly goes swimming in rivers. I asked her "Where do you find whirlpools? Where do they appear?" She didn't know, and neither did anyone else in the class. "What do you do if you get caught in a whirlpool?""Pray.""Say goodbye.""Relax and make my peace with god.""Scream."

So I taught them. I showed them where you find whirlpools, how water moves around rocks, how eddies are formed, what happens in a waterfall. Most whirlpools in rivers occur when a major tributory joins a river. It smashes through and hits the far wall, and it can get confused and go upstream, downsteam, up, down, anywhere. Where the water is confused like that, you can get whirlpools. Waterfalls are similar although opposite: it's water falling down not sucking down. You still get the same washing machine effect though.I taught them what do do if they're caught in one. Swim like bloody buggery and try to get out. But if you can't... then compose yourself, take a really big breath and go with it. It's like a rip, if you fight it you can wear yourself out and then you're in the same place only exhausted. The water will take you down and tumble you about. Protect your head. If you get knocked unconscious then you're helpless and you'll start breathing which is really bad if you're underwater. But the water wants to go somewhere, and it will spit you out. Somewhere. Eventually. But if you hold your breath and keep your wits then maybe you can do something, like grab the rock wall and pull yourself downstream. THEN swim up.

I think I got a bit angry. :)

They were amazed I knew so much about this. Of course, in New Zealand if you do any kind of dangerous sport, then it's encouraged for you to do safety courses and first aid courses and learn what you need to know if things go bad. And people want to teach other people, because often the teachers are the ones who go on Search and Rescue missions.

But why didn't the teacher know this? Why didn't he teach his students this? Why didn't he teach them what the dangers are, and where to find them? Why didn't he teach them what to do? Why didn't they have life vests, or at the very least, a rope!? And if he didn't know, then why on earth did he take twenty students there to go swimming?

Rivers are wonderful places, they are beautiful, essential and fragile. They can also be bloody deadly. When we go there, we need to respect them, and be responsible for ourselves. Pick up our litter. Do a first aid course. Do a water safety course. It's because people fail to do this that we have police telling surfers "you can't do this today because it's dangerous" even though surfers know the sea, the beaches and themselves better than anyone else. If they allow surfers, maybe an idiot with no idea of the sea will take 20 schoolchildren swimming in a typhoon.