An Anniversary Not to Remember

           Originally, my wedding anniversary was March 15. On my wedding day, I was not warned by any soothsayer like Julius Caesar was, but then again, things didn’t turn out as tragic or as fatal as it did for him. However, the Ides of March were, and apparently, are not that auspicious either, according to a numerologist my wife saw over a year ago.

In Taiwan, numerology goes beyond simply birthdates. The number 8, for example, is extremely lucky because of its similar sound to the Chinese word for “wealth”. Thus, the more 8’s on your license plate, the better everyone else knows that you paid extra for registering your Mercedes. At the other end of the spectrum, 4, due to its homophonic qualities to the word for “death”, is shunned. Elevator buttons on buildings, particularly hospitals, do not have a fourth floor.

Parents-to-be carefully search for names with fortunate stroke-counts or are made up of words which have roots from favorable numbers. If, in the future, they feel that they were mistaken the first time, undoubtedly evident by a child’s lagging school grades, parents change their child’s name in order to find that right combination, usually with the paid advice of a fortuneteller.

I think that all of this started centuries ago with the ultimate numerological prize, the numbers racket. Seen as a way to raise funds, the predecessors to the triads created a whole mythology to the game in order to entice more players. The evolution of it is mind-numbing. Info-mercials offer silver or platinum bracelets engraved with your own personalized lucky number ensure protection, prosperity and happiness. Calendars and call-in shows dispense advice on dates for various actions, from installing an oven to opening a business. Women plan Cesareans down the half-hour to give their child a promising beginning.

When I first moved to Taiwan, I witnessed a huge man (by Taiwan standards), 6’3”, easily 125 kg, wearing a small, triangular, red, satin halter over his chest and huge gut, holding a child’s school chair, one leg of which was longer and used as a writing tool. Those seeking enlightenment would ask a question, for example, the winning number for the Hong Kong lotto, which at the time was the basis for the local underground numbers games. Then, the behemoth, already in an eyes-rolled-back trance signifying that the resident god of the temple had entered his corporal self, would take up the chair with an assistant and proceed to “write” on a square wooden desk. The hopeful would watch how the longer leg glided across the desk’s surface and try to interpret the word the shaman was sketching. If they guessed incorrectly, he would return to the top of the square and repeat writing the word. If correct, he would bang the chair on the desktop loudly a few times, seemingly saying “Hallelujah! Now go win some money and don’t forget to make your offering.”

However, then came the tricky part. The devotees needed to translate the character or characters into numbers. Let’s say the medium wrote the Chinese words for “airplane”. Would it be the stroke count of the words? Maybe “747”! How about “DC-10”, with the “D” substituted with “4” and the “C” being “3”, so the answer would be 33 (43-10=33). Or maybe it was the flight numbers for a crash that occurred a week before, emphasizing how a silver lining can be found anywhere.

As for my anniversary, the problem wasn’t March 15, a great date that prevented me from committing the faux pas of forgetting it. The root of our supernatural numerical miscalculation stemmed from a deeper, more arcane, more (dare I use the word) Oriental belief. It seems that my lunar birthdate combined with my wife’s cannot allow us to reach our optimum potential if we are married in the second month of the lunar calendar. It was actual much easier to explain it in Chinese, which sort of added to the mystery of it all.

After my wife explained it to me, I asked, in my deepest Tonto-voice, “So, Kemosabe, in how many moons do we renew our vows?” When she replied, “Who’s Gimme-Wasabi?” I asked for details on how to remedy our numerical plight, thinking that there would be some sort of Buddhist/Taoist ceremony or at least a bunch of paperwork that needed to be stamped.

A photo shoot was required. That’s all, just a couple of pictures done on an auspicious day chosen by my wife’s number guy. No holy water or rice wine spread around the couple or a feast afterwards. No kitchenware to be busted or ghost money to be burnt. The only witnesses were the photographer and his assistant. We showed up at the wedding boutique of a friend, where my wife got into a gown and some hair extensions and looked great, while I had to squeeze into some formal wear. The actual session lasted for about an hour and a half, an hour shorter than the one we did more than two and a half decades before, to the relief of both of us.

The later photo-shopping made my wife look even younger while I looked like an Irish thug in a tux. She put them on Facebook, so old high school “friends” I haven’t spoken to in decades were congratulating and wishing us good luck, like she was my new Asian mail-order bride.

            The jury is still out as to whether the change has made any real difference. My wife, looking at the glass half-full, says that since business hasn’t gone down, it has helped. Me, on the other hand, can’t help but wonder why these “experts” don’t take their own advice and live the good life. I’ve been told it’s because they wish to impart their wisdom to the masses, sort of like Buddhist bodhisattvas who could have gone to Nirvana, but decided to stick around to help direct our poor souls. However, for a small fee, of course.     

Typhoon Soulik

“Typhoon grass” is a knee- to thigh-high, wide-bladed wild grass that grows in forests at lower and middle elevations in Taiwan. It is a very sturdy grass, with prominent ribs running parallel to its axis. The feature that gives it is name are faint markings traversing across the blade, like folds in the grass. The first time I was introduced to it, I was told to count the lines and that’s would be the number of tropical storms that would pass over Chiayi. When I came up with a dozen and a half after counting the ribs, I was then taught to count the traversing lines, which was the proper method of meteorological storm predictions.

Before coming to Taiwan, the only encounter I had every had with a tropical storm was in 1972, when Hurricane Agnes passed through Florida while my family and I played Monopoly in a trailer just outside Orlando during our trip to Disney World. Though I didn’t know it at the time, Mom and Dad had thought that it would have been a better idea to bunker down for the day than to try to outrun the storm. I remembered their worried looks every time a gust rocked the caravan, as well as the tractor trailers flipped over on the sides of I-95 the next day on our drive back to Jersey. A few years later, on a trip to Hersheypark, I saw a seven-foot high line on a wall at the entrance of a roller coaster noting the height of the flood waters from the same Hurricane Agnes. I imagined myself treading water amongst all these attractions and realizing that I couldn’t ride them.

Since most typhoons come from the east and are dampened by the Central Taiwan Mountain Range, Chiayi City, does not suffer as much as other areas of the island, like the mountainous regions of Chiayi County east of us. After twenty-eight years in Taiwan, typhoons, if anything, are an inconvenience. If it arrives on a weekday, my wife complains about how we have to close the school and lose money, while I prefer to look at the glass half full and point out that we didn’t actually lose anything, just didn’t make any money. That’s when she usually turns around and walks away shaking her head. Though I am the beneficiary of an unexpected day-off, I am not really delighted. At least with snow days when I was a kid, I could go out and enjoy the weather. Instead, I get to watch old movies on TV or read on Facebook how teachers new to the island are getting excited or were disappointed by the typhoon.

Four days before Typhoon Soulik hit us this past weekend, new reports from western agencies were predicting the catastrophic destruction it would bring. “Typhoon Soulik Could Devastate Taiwan” ran one headline. Local broadcasters replayed clips from American news programs predicting the impending crushing onslaught of nature, as if to say, “Hey, Mom, look, I made the Sunday papers.” On Saturday morning, local reporters fanned out across the island for stories of the wreckage Soulik had left. One female correspondent found a traffic light dangling precariously at an isolated intersection in a flat rural area and, in that atypical hysterical voice that young Taiwanese women often use, exclaimed how “frightening” the situation was. However, the cab driver she interviewed said that it would not be a problem until it became a problem, namely, when it actually fell onto the middle of the road, which it did not as he proceeded through the intersection.

Here in Chiayi, we escaped any real damage. On Saturday morning, the rain had subsided, but there were still gusts swaying trees. A few broken tree limbs could be seen in New Chiayi Park and a sign or two had been damaged. The worst destruction of the night was caused by a car accident just opposite the park. A white sedan had apparently lost control on the curve leading to the intersection of Nanjing Road and Shinyeh Road and plowed in a cell phone shop on the corner. Though the winds were gusting rather high, it was evident from the force of the impact that high speed and slick roads were the cause. A pile of debris piled in front of the destroyed gate prevented anyone from entering the shop and helping themselves to some Samsungs or Motorolas. Two dented and scratched doors from the sedan under shattered display cases were the only remains of the car. The mangled shop gate shuttered and clanged occasionally in the wind.

My intention is not to belittle the carnage and tragedy that’s this terrible force of nature unleashes. Soulik caused terrible damage to the north of the island and “wreaked havoc” (a favorite broadcasting description) for businessmen and vacationers hoping to take international flights. In contrast to their A.M. broadcasts, Saturday evening’s news showed cars crushed under trees, roofs turned into twisted slats of metal and landslides coming to rest just meters from residents’ backyards. Thousands were evacuated, hundreds rescued, just over a hundred injured and 3 dead.

The fact is that Taiwan is used to this kind of stuff. The Taiwanese know to stay indoors and lock the dog in the bathroom instead of taking it out for a walk in the middle of a storm. They get home before the weather turns bad and listen to the authorities when told they are in a danger zone and need to be evacuated. And this is why I can’t understand why so many American Northeasterners died from falling trees or carbon monoxide poisoning when Sandy hit last year. They are told how to prepare for blizzards the same way Taiwanese, and for that matter, Floridians are told to prepare for tropical storms. Hurricanes and blizzards are basically the same thing; it’s just a difference of degrees. I wonder what New Yorkers are going to do when the big earthquake hits.

Metric vs. Imperial, Japanese House vs. American Head

With all the logical, scientific arguments for going metric, the fact remains that it is an aesthetically barren method of measurement. One hundred and eighty-five centimeters just doesn’t have the same ring as 6’1”. It sounds impressive, but you’re not quite that two meter mark, which, if you were, would then put you in that class of freaks known as the NBA. 6’1”, on the other hand, sounds like you had just the right measure of DNA and nutrition to put you over the national average height of every country and region in the world with the exception of the Dinaric Alps, home of Yugoslavian resistance fighters since Roman times.

When I first walked on basketball courts in Chiayi, the Taiwanese players would express a sham awe by saying, “Oooo, NBA!” With a national average height of barely 5’ 6” at the time, it was easy to impress them. However, once I got in a game, they soon realized that this white man couldn’t jump. Twenty-eight years later, thanks to improved diets, I am often not the tallest guy on the court. Since I’m still heavier and wider than these young upstarts, I can still box them out for rebounds, though I’ve had to rely on my hook shot more and more to get my bulk between the ball and the defender.

The main disadvantage to my height was with the house I lived in for seventeen years after marrying. It was a government-owned house provided to my father-in-law, a retired civil servant. There were two parts to it, with the back half (three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, dining room) being constructed in the early ‘50’s, while the front was a pre-World War II traditional Japanese-style building, one floor, built on foot-high stilts, with two large tatami, or reed mat, rooms. A six-foot wide walkway ran parallel to these rooms, which were bordered with shoji, sliding doors made of a wooden lattice with a paper covering.

The frames along which these shoji glided were built from hinoki, or the wood of the Taiwanese cypress, a hardwood desired for its straight grain and ability to resist rotting. Hardwood is the apt label, since at five-foot eleven, my head came in contact with these doorways so often that I literally had dents in my scalp. It wasn’t until after a decade or so that I finally learned to placate the house gods and mastered a supplicant’s gait in which I bowed my head while shuffling from room to room.

The bathtub posed another problem. Half my body would have to remain above the waterline, with me either sitting upright to soak my sore legs after an afternoon of b-ball or by having my feet resting on the opposite wall straddling the faucet so that I could lie in the water to ease my back. One of my few requests for our new house was an American-size tub, in which I can now stretch out.

Obviously, clothing was a problem. Seamstresses were required to make the narrowest of hems on pants’ legs because there wasn’t much extra cloth available. Though the neck of dress shirts would be fine, the sleeves were almost always too short. Buying size 11 shoes was a task, though the selection has improved over the years.

A few times a month, I jog on a series of trails near a local reservoir. Many Taiwanese arrive there as early as dawn, thus rustling out any kind of wildlife that may be on the paths when I get there, usually around 9 or 10. Unfortunately, since these trekkers are under 5’8” (170cm), I usually end up pulling a cobweb or two off my face that stretch across the trail. And even though I feel bad about altering nature, I sometimes need to snap back a twig or a bamboo branch that is at eye height, but gives no one else a problem.

Of course, there are advantages to being tall. I can place both feet firmly on the ground when stopped at a traffic light and not perform a balancing act on tiptoes like most Taiwanese women on scooters too big for them. Looking over everyone’s head in a crowded department store to see the signs for the elevator or restroom is another one. I enjoy driving my car with the windows down, my elbow resting comfortably on the door and tapping the roof along with ZZ Top or the Stones blasting from the radio. Meanwhile, Taiwanese drivers whose heads are barely visible above the door seem to be raising their hand to answer a question when trying to do the same.

Perhaps the best experience where height played a key factor was at the fireworks festival at Yanshui, where they shoot thousands of bottle rockets from “beehive” platforms. As the crowd gathered in anticipation for the lighting, my son, two friends and I stood in the middle, at least a head taller than anyone around us. When the fireworks were launched, at least a half dozen hit the face-shield of my helmet and more my shoulders, a truly intense adventure that we repeated at different locations in the town that night.

However, the best part about being tall is that my wife, at an even 5’ (150cm), always has to look up at me. Now, if only I could get her look up to me.

They say it's your birthday/ It's no birthday to you.

The secret to Asian women looking young right up into their fifties is not a cream or good nutrition or wearing long sleeve jackets, wide-brim hats and masks while driving the car on a sunny day. It is the outright repudiation, even abolishment of any birthday celebrations. Middle-aged Taiwanese women do not exchange greeting cards or cakes or presents. They’ll accept a phone call or even a hug from their grown children, but they will refuse any gift because it would signify, perhaps legitimize an aging process. When asked about their age, they ignore the question and the questioner. If forced to answer, they simply state the year they were born, using the Republic of China calendar, in which the year 1 is the same as 1911 by the western reckoning. By doing this, a 50-year-old would say, “I was born in 52,” which in and of itself sounds much better than “one-nine-six-three”, the literally Chinese rendering of “nineteen sixty-three” and which can easily mean “one thousand, nine hundred sixty-three” in Chinese. Such large numbers affect the sensitivities of the age-conscious females.

If you happen to be so ill-mannered, so impertinent to take the time to render the math required to figure out a woman’s age with the above cryptic answer, then you need to be aware of the Taiwanese perspectives on birthdays. From the Western point of view, it is the anniversary of the day of one’s birth, centered solely on one’s entrance into this world. From the Taiwanese attitude, the mother’s pregnancy constitutes the first year and that a newborn is already a year old at birth. Thus, it is not surprising when a six-year-old in first grade claims he is eight. You can show the child the math and explain how by western computation he is only six, but he will refuse to accept it because his mother told him he was eight. Obviously, this sort of addition doesn’t work in a middle-aged woman’s favor as it tacks on additional mileage.

Secondly, there is another word for “birthday”, one little used by the younger, more self-centered generations and has become the quasi-legal basis for the abrogation birthdays by older women. “Mŭ-làn-èr” literally translates to “mother’s difficult day”. Thus, out of respect for the pain and suffering of child delivery, one should not celebrate a birthday. This is probably the basis for why traditionally everyone became a year older at the turn of the Chinese lunar New Year and birthdays were not commemorated. Thus, my older son, who was born in January, could have been considered two years old two weeks later.

As with many newer “traditions”, the celebration of birthdays with a cake probably stems from when American servicemen were stationed on Taiwan. Of course, the Taiwanese have added their own twists to it by adding taro paste or custard pudding filling. How I miss licking the chocolate off the beater whisks when Mom made my b-day cake. Anyway, most Taiwanese children do not get any gifts for their birthdays, and birthday parties are almost unheard of. Scheduling a party between all of one’s friends’ cram school classes would be nearly impossible.

So, out of respect for my wife’s wishes, we will not be going out to dinner this weekend. She has told me not to buy her any flowers or anything for the upcoming her-mother-suffered-day. What I am going to do is wish her a happy birthday, give her a kiss and try to reassure her that she’s not getting older, she’s getting better. She probably tell me to get out of here.