A License to Spin the Wheel

The license plate of my car has the numbers 3866. “Eight”, or “bā” in Mandarin, is the luckiest number in Chinese numerology because it sounds like “fā”, the Mandarin word for “generating wealth”. In Cantonese, “six” has a similar homophonic distinction, but also a similar pronunciation to the Mandarin word for “flow” and is considered beneficial in business, i.e. “cash flow” or “customer flow”. Even the “three” sounds like the Chinese word for “birth”, thus rendering it auspicious as well, since birth is part of the three traditional major events of a man’s life (birth, marriage and death).

Numerology is big business in Asia. License plates with all eights are sold for over US$100,000 in different Chinese provinces. Shortly after I came to Taiwan, I remember reading about the lucky winner at an auction held by the Taiwanese DMV for a “super 8” plate, one containing six 8’s. I don’t remember how much was paid, but it was some astronomical amount. Just a few years ago, someone paid NT$ 3.5 million (over US$120,000) for another “super 8” plate. The car to which the plates were registered was worth only NT$600,000, or a little more than a sixth of the cost of the Taiwanese version of a vanity plate. It was intended to be a Father’s Day gift, which, in Taiwan, falls on August eighth, or “bā-bā”.

Since I have never had an accident in my car and it has never given me any major mechanical headaches, I could give credit to the luck of the numbers. The fact that I usually only drive on long trips to bigger cities and rarely around Chiayi doesn’t hurt either. I have also considered how the letters “LT” that precede the numbers may have had any impact on my driving past or future. While the “T” does not have much of a descriptive history, the “L” comes from the ancient hieroglyph for an oxen goad and the Semitic shepherd’s crook. Maybe the “L” metaphorically protects me and any riders, much like a goat-herder’s staff keeps the wolves at bay.

Taiwanese license plates are simply black numbers with a white background, definitely better than the old New Jersey puke-yellow-on-dull-blue that I remember. I saw that the design has been changed and the plates now looks like they have been partially faded by the sun. And, of course, they had to retain the assertion that NJ is the Garden State. If only I had a more favorable attitude towards cranberries, then I wouldn’t snicker every time I hear that nickname.

I must admit though that I do prefer the colorful displays put forth by various American states. However, that may not last for long. I read about an Oklahoma man suing the state because he objected to a picture of a sculpture on his license, arguing that it violated the idea of separation of church and state. The statue, Sacred Rain Arrow, depicts a mythical Native American warrior aiming an arrow straight up in the sky in an attempt to end a drought. Various renderings of the work appeared at the Olympics and the Smithsonian, but apparently, the “Christian” saw the license as a means of endorsing a specific religion. Incidentally, one of his main arguments is his refusal to pay extra for a plate without that small bit of Oklahoma culture. I wonder how he would felt with a white cowboy riding a bucking bronco. Would he have taken the animal rights tack? Somehow I doubt it.

The Not So Wild West Comes to Taiwan

Just the other night, I saw a commercial about some breath-freshening agent. As is often typical with memorable TV ads, one remembers the storyline, but forgets the actual product. It might have been toothpaste, maybe mouthwash, possibly breath mints. What stuck in my mind was the warning that appeared at the bottom of the screen, which to me, signaled the final submission of Taiwanese society to the morals of the so-called enlightened West.

A party full of Asians is in progress as the advertisement opens. A man at the bar eyes a pretty woman across the room, who returns the gaze with an alluring grin. Right there, I realized how bogus this set-up was. Western women, who have striven for equality, especially over the last half-century, have arrived at a place where they can stride across a room and walk up to a man, confident in their beauty, personality, sexuality, ability and whatever other “-ty” they want to exhibit. On the other hand, stunningly attractive Taiwanese women, like the one on TV, have perfected that bored look that screams, “Drop dead. I want nothing to do with you,” a look that Western women rarely use. In my opinion, this facial expression stems from centuries of Asian women being forced to cultivate their appearance instead of their minds and thus resulting in an attitude that says, “If you want any of this, you need to show that you’re worth it.”

So when the beauty in the ad glides towards the relative handsome guy, perhaps it is a recognition of the fact that a higher percentage of Taiwanese women enter university than men and a growing percentage of women are entering the Taiwanese workforce and political arena. In the words of an earlier American ad, Taiwanese women have come a long way, baby, and can now confidently approach a man and deal with him as a peer. However, we soon see that the man is not an equal to this Asian Diana because he has bad breath and has nothing to remedy his malady. So, he resorts to drinking the water out of the fish bowl at the end of the bar. Here is where a cautionary notice appears at the bottom of the screen stating that ingesting fish bowl water is not good for one’s health and places the fish’s life in peril.

In Taiwan, there are warning labels on cigarette packs with pictures of rotting teeth and gum disease that remind me of the black lung pics Larry Flynt used to put on the backs of his Hustler mags. In China, I saw poster-size blow-ups of bloody traffic accidents above the urinals at highway rest-stops, condemning drinking and driving. Similar to broadcasts in the States, Japanese wrestling broadcasts lead off with the notice that “trained professionals” perform the stunts and that one should not try them at home. Such warnings I can live with. And admittedly, the wording for the admonishment on the above ad is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it made me wonder if Taiwanese had gotten as ridiculous as Americans who need a warning label on a cup of boiling hot coffee before sipping it to test its temperature. (It’s coffee in a Styrofoam cup, so, of course, it’s hot, stupid.)

Helmets on motorcyclists became required only about a decade ago. Now, middle school students are told to wear helmets if they ride a bike to school. Backseat riders have to buckle up or the fines will be meted out. People still put toddlers in bamboo chairs strapped onto the footboards of scooters, though there is a call to ban such seating. The Chiayi night market no longer wraps around the athletics stadium. Instead, it has been set up next to a department store on Bo-ai Road, where the vendors are provided with safer electric power and cleaner running water for the price of being better regulated by the government. After a legislator had visited the US and was so impressed by our treatment of our pets, he introduced and was able to enact a law prohibiting the sale of dog meat.

Before you know it, the Taiwanese government is going to make medical insurance compulsory. We’ll all have ID’s with dreaded computer chips storing all our info. At the first sign of sickness, we’ll have to pay around NT$100 (or US$3) for a visit to a doctor and not have to pay anything for the prescription. The birth of a baby will cost a few thousand NT$, not US$. Even dental care will be covered.

Wait a minute, that’s right, we already have all that in Taiwan.

Who’s enlightened now?

A Non-national Day?

Double Ten Day, the national day of Taiwan’s alias, the Republic of China, has come and gone. There was a big parade in Taipei and President Wang gave a speech about all that he has done for the ROC in the past year and will do in the next. Yet, with his dismal approval rating, I wonder how many people actually listened to him. When I explain to new teachers or folks back home that this is the national day of the country, they imagine parades and fireworks that make kids throughout the States, from big cities to small farming towns, “oooh” and “aaah” on the Fourth of July. However, whereas the Fourth of July probably would rank below Christmas and almost tied with Thanksgiving as favorite holidays for Americans, Double Ten Day probably doesn’t even break into the top five for Taiwanese, lagging far behind the big three of the lunar calendar, Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. Tomb-sweeping Day, as morbid as it may sound to a Westerner, probably ranks higher in importance, while 2-2-8 reaches to the hearts of most Taiwanese more than a holiday commemorating a historical event in mainland China that occurred when Taiwan was a colony of Japan.

When I first arrived to Taiwan, the Double-Ten parade reminded me of the May Day parades in the old Soviet Union. Military hardware, much of it from America, was rumbled through the streets of Taipei. Tanks, SAM batteries, rocket launchers with new missiles developed by the Taiwanese, troop transports and communication trucks were spaced between brigades of marching soldiers, military police on motorcycles, Navy Seals straddling rubber rafts on the backs of trucks, even the women’s auxiliary strutting their stuff. As martial law was still around, it made sense to make this show of strength, especially since the mainlanders had the same kind of show for their national day festivities.

However, with growing democratization, the parade got mellower. High school bands were invited to perform and floats began to appear. Students dressed as ancient warriors performed dance routines in front of the reviewing stand, where fewer uniforms were present and a growing number of politicians got a better view of the procession. In recent years, instead of soldiers in their pressed uniforms and with their precision movements, ordinary citizens in color-coordinated outfits strolled down Ketagalan Boulevard creating the Double-Ten symbol. There were still some exihibits of martial ability, but the parade come off more as a fun-fest, especially when it was capped off with a well-choreographed fireworks and laser-light display.

Unfortunately, we here in Chiayi could only enjoy the proceedings from our sofas. I remember seeing a parade once going down Jung Shan Road, but it consisted of a few elementary school marching bands and some police officers on their personal scooters, all of them staying on the shoulder of the road. Though the government buildings would be decorated with Christmas lights from the beginning of October to Chinese New Year twenty-something years ago, the effort is rarely made anymore. One year, there was an excellent fireworks show, but it has not been repeated due to a lack of funding.

Apparently such fiscal concerns are going to affect the Taipei parade in the near-future, as the Ministry of Education has announced that there is no money in the budget to fund the performing middle school bands. I wonder if that will lead to the parade reverting to a showcase of Taiwan’s military might. It’s quite possible, since cram school classes and the need for catch up on sleep on the weekend would prevent Taiwanese high schoolers trying to raise money for the band with activities like a car wash or a bake sale.

Can "Chopsticks" be Played on the Spoons?

A girl got me to master chopsticks. And it wasn’t my wife.

Just before my senior year in high school, Sheryl was my girl at the Methodist summer camp I had gone to in South Jersey. Being half Native-American, the contrast of her tanned skin to my sunburned Mick-Kraut pale face was offset by our mutual love for and different skills at anything athletic. We were “the couple” at camp. Two months later, at the South Jersey United Methodist Youth Conference in Ocean City, we hooked up again. However, for some stupid reason, it was decided by our circle of friends to eat Chinese one evening. Unfortunately, at the restaurant, Sheryl ran into the guy with whom she had been “the couple” at a camp earlier that summer. In the end, my inability to master the chopsticks (Hell, the only ethnic food in my neighborhood was pizza or kielbasa.) and my use of a fork to finish the meal made me lose face and lose out to the other guy. You can imagine my mother’s surprise when the first thing I said upon my return from the conference was that I wanted to buy a pair of chopsticks. It may not have been a religious awakening, but it certainly was a widening of cultural boundaries. The funny thing was that Sheryl and I had a few dates the following year, one of which to a Chinese restaurant, where I saw guys making fools of themselves tossing food onto the floor before deciding to use a single chopstick to stab a dumpling.

Well, I’m here to tell you that for every white guy who flips a piece of kung-pao chicken across the room, there’s an Asian holding a fork like a Hollywood mass murderer looking for his next victim. I have seen it all over East Asia. My wife was a travel agent when we married, so we have usually stayed at very nice hotels whenever we have travelled abroad. It didn’t hurt that the Taiwan dollar was so much stronger than most of the other region’s currencies, enabling us to stay, for example, at the Hilton in the “Golden Ghetto” on Bali or the Jumeirah in Shanghai. And since we usually traveled on traditional Chinese holidays, at least half of the clientele at these luxury hotels was Taiwanese or Chinese.

The Western-style breakfasts served at these hotels is one of my favorite aspects of vacationing. While my wife enjoyed Chinese dishes like glass noodle soup or congee, I savored the western offerings, such as omelets and pancakes almost like what Mom used to make, bangers and beans similar to those served on cold Welsh mornings before hiking the Brecon Beacons, or rye bread with cold cuts and cheese, reminding me of my Uni days in Vienna, usually all eaten in one sitting. It was during these meals that I could observe Asians dealing with Western cutlery.

One of the problems Asians seem to have is judging the size of their mouths. Since Chinese meat dishes are usually prepared by cutting them up in small pieces, there is a certain elegance in watching one pick up a piece of pork with chopsticks and place it in her mouth. The same can be said when eating vegetable, since only a small amount of spinach or cabbage can be gathered and raised to the mouth. Such refinement, such delicacy is totally lost when a businessman uses a fork to push a mound of greens onto his spoon and tries to squeeze it into his mouth, sometimes leaving strands hanging off his lips in such a way to remind me of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

When eating hot pot, inch-long chunks of corn on the cob are often thrown in as well, requiring the eater to assume a wider grip on the chopsticks in order to pull them out of the soup. Though I’m sure I looked rather clumsy at first, I can now easily accomplish the task. However, there is something disturbing when an Asian at an five-star hotel restaurant impales a piece of corn on the sliced side and then holds it up like a lollipop, which, instead of licking, he bites into beaver-like to scrape the kernels into his mouth, his head tilted back so that he doesn’t lose a morsel. Meanwhile, his eating partner holds his portion sideways, twirling it with a steak knife while his left forefinger guides it.

I have often been perplexed at why such eating behavior occurs when chopsticks are usually available, since the restaurant is serving Asian food. Perhaps it is the incongruence of trying to use chopsticks with a plate, instead of having a bowl of rice into which the food can be placed. However, you know something is wrong when a customer has a typical basket of steamed bāozi, and waves each bun on the end of a fork like a rubber mallet, biting around the edges of it before getting into the meat-filled center.

Slurping noodles, though abhorrent to the Western ear, is necessary and quite fun when using chopsticks. But to see an Asian scooping up a clump of pasta larger than his mouth, biting into half of it and sucking in the rest, much like a snake does with a mouse, is outright disgusting.

So, for all those newbies arriving in Asia who always ate Chinese take-out with silverware, remember that you have an Asian doppelganger in need of Western etiquette lessons.