Rants from Purgatory

Taiwan's green spaces

2010-06-15T14:30:00.000-04:00

Another thing I love about Taipei is how easy it is to reach the excellent hiking spots that surround the city. Taipei is surrounded by mountains and steep hills, most of which are unpopulated but for a few farmer's huts and hiking trails. To a certain extent, this is because Taiwan's hills are often so steep so as to be prohibitive to building., in part because of the risk of earthquake or typhoon-triggered landslides. However, even in the relative flats west of Beitou or out in Neihu, there are surprising swathes of forests or farms. I suspect that a significant contributing factor in emptiness of Taiwan's hills is the everpresent urbanity of Taiwan's culture.

Taiwanese people seem to fully embrace city life for all it is worth. (Ok, since I lived in Taipei my whole time here, my sample might be skewed. Whatever.) When I asked my older students what they do for fun, the answer I got was, more often than not, “I go shopping in the nightmarket.” Taiwanese people don't really drink socially in the same way we do in Western countries. So when people want to hang out with their friends, they usually meet at the markets to graze for cheap food or tacky clothes. The idea of having a house out in the hills with a a yard doesn't really fit with their view of life.

The park areas are not just less traveled than American parks, they are also all but devoid of wild mammals. Oh, there are mammals, just not wild ones. I have seen water-buffalo and goats, I have seen cats, and even a pack of feral corgis (yeah, that happened.). I have seen birds of every variety, including an eagle big enough to snatch up one of those corgis. I have even seen a number of venomous snakes. But I saw very few wild mammals. The only mammals I saw worth noting were martins up in the high mountains and monkeys in a group of temples on the east coast. Comparatively, during a half an hour stroll in the neighborhood around my parents house, I saw two rabbits, four deer, unknown quantities of squirrels and chipmunks, and a muskrat, as well as a flock of turkeys, a hawk and a pair of turkey vultures in the sky.

So, the hills are empty, but for the concrete staircases that serve as hiking trails and the macheted farmers paths that lead to small bamboo or vegetable plots. Older people and the rare family with children climb, but for the most part the trails are without the sort of weekend crowds one would expect in an American city park.

But while the Taiwanese hiking community may be small, it is dedicated. In many places, elderly guys that don't work for the Parks Service can be seen maintaining a certain section of trail or park.. Out in Wulai, there are hot springs that feed directly into the cold Wulai River. There is a group of 60-year-olds that build hot tubs out of boulders and sand on the side of the river, apparently rebuilding and maintaining them every weekend. On Elephant Mountain close to Taipei 101 (which is neither populated by elephants nor much of a mountain), there are distinctly homebrew-looking ropes and pathways up the cliffs, and even a Mcguyvered gymnasium to be found on the forested trails.

Even stranger, for those like myself that have an innate desire to explore off the beaten path, most hiking paths in Taipei feature a plethora of side trails. These deerpath avenues lead to little ramshackle cottages built for weekend cookouts by families living in the city, or to small vegetable gardens cut out of the jungle or amongst a bamboo patch. Other paths might have been cut as an access route to some local farmer's PVC water pipes, slurping from hillside streams.

All of these little sidepaths are especially helpful for the wonderful running-drinking club, the Hash House Harriers. Through the lens of the weekly beer-fueled chases, I saw parts of Taiwan I would never have seen. Were it not for the abundant sidetrails, as well as very lax property rights and a general lack of fences, it would be nearly impossible for the Hash runners to bring runners to different locals every week.

For the uninitiated, hash runners are not drug couriers evading Taiwanese policemen by taking backcountry trails, but rather an expat-in-asia institution of serious runners and drunken fools, waiguoren and locals, that chase after a designated “hare”, who leaves a trail of flour to follow. From rocky slick anklebreaker steps down steamy forest hills to the muddy clay embankments of a terraced rice patty, steep tea fields to buffalo pastures and indeed to crowded nightmarkets, the hash runs everywhere. Following the 5-10km trek, the club assembles for something of a roast, telling occasionally truthful stories about each other with plenty of Taiwan beer shots. The atmosphere is sophomoric at best, with shades of British ol'boy public school humor and frat-house conventions like mandatory nicknames (Gerbil's Graveyard, Sheep Shagger) or drinking chants. It certainly is not for everyone, but for those that enjoy, or at least are willing to put up with, the dumbassery inherent in the activity, the hash is the best way to be introduced to Taiwan's mountains.

Make no mistake, those mountains are pretty great and well worth being introduced to. Close to the city, Yan Ming Shan national park offers excellent (albeit weather dependent) views of Taipei and the ocean. To the south, Sanxia and Wulai's steep canyons are quite scenic, and the wind-swept buffalo pastures of the north east coastline's cliffs are fantastic. However, even these sights are dwarfed in beauty by what can be found in the mountains in east-central Taiwan.

By far the most famous natural sight in Taiwan is Taroko Gorge, and rightfully so. The intricate, deep canyon system an hour north of Hualien is stunning, due to its cake-like layers of white marble, and winding beautiful roads and bridges that are threaded through tunnels and caves and twisting valleys. Hiking is wonderful, but the best way to see it is by renting a scooter in Hualien and zipping down the highway to the park. Don't worry if you have never ridden a scooter before. Just tell the renters you have with a straight face and they will rent away. Learning to drive a scooter is not too hard. Heck, the first day on one, I only fell twice.

Almost as beautiful was Xue Ba National Park. Xue Ba is a park chuck filled with 10,000ft mountains, including Xue Shan (Snow mountain, the second largest mountain in Taiwan) and DaBaJian, a fierce peak with a giant square stone plateau top featured on Taiwan's 500NT bills. My friends and I hiked the Wuling Quadruple ridge, four of the “Hundred peaks of Taiwan” connected by knifeblade granite ridges. Each of the peaks and ridges is quite unique in topography and vegetation. Pintian Shan is largely bare rock and gravel, and the ridge is covered with tall fir forests and dwarf bamboo prairies. Dwarf bamboo is worth noting, because of how difficult it is to walk through. The grass is often not too high, only a couple inches. Bushwhacking is nearly impossible however, because the damn stuff is tough enough to push away your foot when you try to step on it. Other areas feature regular bamboo thickets perched on either side of a 500ft cliff and hemlock trees that have been twisted and bent by the wind to look like full sized versions of bonsai miniatures. The trail quality throughout the park ranges from clear corridors across bamboo plains to rope-and-root supported scrambles. Xue Ba's peaks were truly unlike any I have seen.

Taiwan truly should be a famous hikers mecca. There are reasons it isn't, of course. There is a widely held but eminently false belief that Taiwan is a concrete slab of bike and computer parts factories floating in the pacific. A more justifiable reason is the root-canal pain involved with anything related to Taiwan's parks services bureaucracy, and specifically getting permits to go on trails. It is all worth it though to see the spectacular scenery that the little jade notacountry has to offer.

Food In Taiwan

2010-05-20T08:57:00.001-04:00

As I get ready to leave Taiwan, I have realized that many of my earlier observations from when I first arrived here may be, more or less, hogwash. At the very least, some amending would be helpful. But rather than rehash old stories and perceptions, why not fall back on the lazy blogwriter's crutch: lists! So, I present to you, part one of my favorite things about Taiwan.

As any knife fighter or cliche-ridden grandma will tell you, the quickest way to a man's heart is through the stomach. While culinarally-adept women may not be particularly common in my social circles, I certainly did begin to fall for Taipei due to its amazing assortment of boutique restaurants and nightmarket-style local cuisine.

To begin with, let me be clear; there are certain things that Taiwan as a rule does not do well, namely bread and cheese. Some might protest that, in Waiguoren(foreigner) enclaves like Tienmu or Shida, this bakery or that restaurant will remind you of home. I don't buy it, and regardless the overall point stands. Cheese is absurdly overpriced, I assume because it comes from the gilded steers of Kiwi Midas's palace and is personally cultured by Rupert Murdoch. Worse, Taiwanese bakeries follow the (in my opinion awful) Japanese tradition of letting no piece of bread go uncovered by mayonnaise, sugar, and/or dried pork fibers.

But these failings not withstanding, there are worthy feasts to be had in the winding, crowded backallys that embody Taipei nightlife. The nightmarket is the organ that pulses life through Taipei and is glue that bonds Taipei's pauper and prince alike*. Even the corporate shopping malls of Ximending or the area around Taipei 101 were built to resemble the flea-market atmosphere of the more organic shopping growths of Shilin or Gongguan. Vendors grilling pork and spicy calamari or baking salted pheasant eggs and red-bean cakes in wafflemaker-like contraptions inhabit makeshift-looking stands built in front of pharmacys or clothing stores.

Stalls selling noodles or one of the many varieties of dumplings can be found on any given side alley, along with fruit vendors or soup shops. And of course, the everpresent Milk Tea alchemists synthesize iced tea-and-fruit concoctions with milk, juice, and/or small jelly-like blobs to be sucked up with a straw. Of course, my personal favorite eateries are the breakfast nooks that fry to order sandwiches(sanmingzhe), wraps(danbings), turnip cakes(loboagao), fried dough (youtiao), or whatever else one may desire that can be cooked in vegetable oil. Nothin' better than an egg and doughstick sandwich with a glass of sweet soy milk. At 56NT(under $2USD) for the lot of it, quite affordable too.

Of course no city that lacked foreign cuisine could really hold my attention the way Taipei has. If you are looking for Asian food, Taipei is predictably wonderful. Late night Mongolian hot-pot restaurants or Tepanyaki joints can frequently be found even if you are far from the main shopping areas. Sushi chains offer reasonably priced snacks inside subway stations and in street shops with conveyer-belts bringing food to your table. Aaarthula's (man, I cannot spell that name) runs an amazing Sri Lanken Curry operation, with wraps for now or frozen containers for home, out of a modest concrete cube in the Xindian nightmarket. Hong Kong or Korean style restaurants litter the commercial districts, and Vietnamese, Indian, or Thai restaurants hustle for hungry nightmarket cruisers.

More surprising is the quality of the western-style restaurants. Certain cuisines, such as Italian or Mexican, are never really done right (though I can vouch for one Pizzaria in particular, called the Pizza Bar, on BaDe Road between the RT Mart and the KMT headquarters). But by and large the European and American style restaurants are very good. N.Y. Bagels is a solid starting point for homesick New Yorkers. Jake's Country Kitchen sports meals straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting in Tienmu, and Frankies in Yonghe serves fantastic South African meat pies. In particular, Taipei sports many very good burger joints. In Shida, Evan's American style hamburgers competes with KGB's(Kiwi Gourmet Burgers), and elsewhere one can find any kind of burger, from delectable sliders to massive towers of meat and cheese and toppings.

Coffeehouses of varied expense are quite common. While one can find plenty of Starbucks, they are merely one comparatively expensive chain competing against other established brands such as the Japanese import Ikiri Coffee, or the local franchises Dante's and Mr. Brown's (complete with racist mascot!). On top of this, there are a plethora small mom-and-pop operations selling expresso-based drinks. Even 711 sells a decent latte for $1.61 USD.

Actually, one of the most interesting things about Taipei is how few monopolies you see among the chains. McDonalds competes with Burger King and Japanese Mosburger (complete with “burgers” prawns between rice-buns). 711 competes with FamilyMart and Hilife. KFC competes with local chain Two Peck. Subway competes with a whole roster of ex-Subway franchises that took the Subway stuff, changed the name, and stopped sending royalties back to the states. Heck, even Dunkin Doughnuts competes with Mr. Doughnut (though, as I have previously mentioned, they are both owned by the same company – shades of Deus Ex's coffee competition).

As I am going home to Westchester, I won't exactly be without quality cuisine. Still, there is definitely something special Taipei's food. When I am stateside and peckish, I will surely miss the halogen-lit streets that have filled my belly so many times in the past two years.

*I almost certainly borrowed that phrase from somewhere other than Mark Twain. Imitation is the most sincere form of... something. Probably theft.

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China Vacation II: Yangshou

2010-03-14T21:36:00.005-04:00

Rode back to out to Guilin on another 19 hour sleeper train. Took the bus from Guilin, and I arrived in Yangshuo around 3pm. After a bit of searching, I found my hostel amid the town’s tout-infested pedestrian arcade. Monkey Jane’s hostel-and-bar is in a narrow, six or seven story building tucked into a back alley. The big draw for the hostel is the rooftop bar, sporting a panoramic view of the city and the Li river. Nice place, nice people, and frequent beerpong tournaments.
On my first full day in town, I took a bus out to Yangdi, a little river town north of Yangshuo. From here, people frequently take leisurely bamboo boat rides down through what is considered the most beautiful section of the Li river. The river banks are lined with persimmon orchards and vegetable fields, and water buffalo frequent the shore. Most people arriving into Yangdi are quickly herded into bamboo boats or ferries. There is a hiking path that follows the river, however you have to cross the river three times to get to the village at the end. This presents a problem, because trips across the river are not free. You need to negotiate for each ride, often with little knowledge of what constitutes a fair price and with few alternate options. The folks in Yangdi got me and a nice Dutch couple for 10 Yuan a person, and getting across for so little was like pulling teeth. The other boat rides cost 5 just for myself.
Got to Yiping, the town on the other end of the trail, and found a bus to take me back to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is filled with tourists, a surprising percentage of whom are Israeli. Israelis are common travelers across the non-Muslim countries in East Asia (as in, not Indonesia or Malaysia). Americans are, comparatively, not. I saw the most Israelis while staying at Mama Naxi’s in Lijiang, but Yangshuo had plenty to put together a quite large Rosh Hashana dinner. The people who were organizing it were nice enough to invite me.
Celebrating Jewish holidays with Israelis was strange. I am not an especially religious person, but I always celebrate the holidays because I like the familiarity of them. Familiar, this dinner was not. For one, though I was not the only American, I was the only person who did not speak Hebrew. American Jews typically put something of a tune to their prayers to help remember them. Israelis can understand the prayers word-for-word, so they recite them somewhat conversationally. They also include more Sephardic (Middle Eastern) traditions, whereas most American Jews are Ashkenazi (European). I was surprised at some of the differences, such as blessing pomegranates, whereas they assumed such traditions were universal.
However, strangely, they didn’t find my unfamiliarity surprising, and insisted on explaining the common prayers along with the different ones. This gets to the other thing. This might just be my own insecurities, but I felt many Israelis saw me as less Jewish, because I was not Israeli. Again, this is just the impression I got, and it might not have been anything.

A casual observer might have noticed how I am not in any photos, or that I clearly took all my pictures from Google Image Search. On my last day in China, tragedy struck. I was sitting on the roof in the early afternoon reading my email when some guys who worked at the hostel invited me to go climbing with them. We were going to the “secret beach” along the Li river, which they said was neither much of a secret nor much of a beach, but did have a cliff you could climb up and jump off into the river. I was told to not bring anything too valuable, so I left my laptop, money, and passport in the safe at the hostel. I brought my wallet so I could rent a bike and climbing shoes, my camera and a backpack to put it all in.
This was a mistake, and I recognized it as such as soon as I arrived at the beach. You see, the cliffs are on the far side of the river from the beach, and we had to swim to reach it. The idea of keeping an eye on my bag became unrealistic. I could risk having it stolen, or just turn around and back back to town. I hid my bag under our bikes, in the hope that moving them all around would protect me. There was an foreigner hanging out at the beach, and I figured that his presence would dissuade thieves. I also, stupidly, thought that I might improve my chances by hiding my valuables within my bag, so that anyone rummaging through would have a hard time grabbing something quickly. So I put my wallet in my shirt and left the camera at the bottom of the bag.

The swim across the river would not be easy in the best conditions. The river is about 30 or 40m across and quite deep, with a slight current. Big ferries hauling tourists from Guilin to Yangshuo frequently appeared at the bend of the river, leaving the water choppy with their wake. Worse, we were swimming in climbing shoes which pretty much meant our legs were useless for forward propulsion. The swim to the cliffs was a bit difficult. It became much more so after I had tired my arms out climbing up the cliffs.
After we had been climbing for about fifteen minutes, the old guy started waving to us and shouting. I swam back to the other side (which in it self was a bit scary. I am not the strongest swimmer to begin with and I got caught in the middle with a procession of ferries to dodge) and asked him what was up. “Um, yeah, well I took a short nap. I heard something moving the bikes, but I figures it was nothing. Then, when I woke up, your bag was gone.”
Let’s recap. Within my bag was my wallet, camera (with every picture I took), glasses, raincoat, shoes and shirt. I was left with nothing but a bathing suit I was wearing and some soaked rental climbing shoes. We looked around for a while to see if the bag was stashed, and then headed back to town. On the way, I ran over some broken glass and popped my tires(couldn’t see it, no glasses). The guys from the hostel had to get back into town to get to work, so I was left walking barefoot and half-naked back to Yangshuo. This is also the state I went to the bank in to get some money to buy some sandals once I reached town. Needless to say, it was uncomfortable.
I took a night bus back to Hong Kong and flew to New York the next day. Because I could not access my Taiwanese bank account in China, I carried all the money I spent on the whole two-and-a-half week trip with me. This saved me after I lost my wallet, because I had enough cash on hand to finish the trip. Arrived in JFK in New York with exactly five US dollars. I kicked around Westchester for a week then flew back to Taipei.

Fourth-quarter theft aside, the trip was great. The places I went were beautiful beyond description. However, I was disappointed about one aspect of the trip; I wish I had more opportunities to talk to the local people in the places I went. My only real conversations with Chinese people were other tourists, on trains or in bars, and almost never with people living in the places I visited.
Part of the reason for this is my crap Chinese. I just did not have enough skill with the language to hold a substantive conversation. But the bigger reason was that it was hard to find people who were not trying to sell me something. Once I left Guangzhou, all the places I visited were very poor. Even middle-class Chinese view Westerners as obscenely rich, pampered, and lazy. The idea of taking an extended vacation half way across the world just proves this stereotype to them. I was fish to be hooked, a rich fool to be taken.

Despite the above, the trip was fantastic. Southern China is beautiful and I would recommend it over the typical Beijing-Shanghai tour everyone does in China. There was just more to do at every place, and otherworldly terrain to do it in.

China Vacation II: Yunnan

2010-03-13T21:51:00.008-05:00

I arrived in Kunming mid-day and quickly made my way to the hostel, Cloudland. Kunming is not a town with a whole lot of worth to tourists. Like Guilin, there is a serious lack of restaurants and street food. Unfortunately, the hostel had very good food, both Western and Chinese. I say unfortunately, because I am sure I could have found somewhere to eat and explored the city to boot, but the hostel’s restaurant reduced my incentive.

Kunming was a nice spot to do my laundry. But while I was there, I headed out to West Hill, a big cliff overlooking the lake and the city. The cliff was nice, as were the various little temples carved into the high cliff face. The surrounding countryside is littered with half finished Chinese Mcmansion developments and tiny farms, leading straight up to the city limits. Then, pavement as far as the eye can see. The lake is an obscene bright milky green color, with so much crap in it that even the waves and splashes are opaque green. The whole lake looked like a green tea latte. A dock worker with five teeth was confident that the color is natural.

Hopped a night train out of Kunming. After an agonizingly slow approach into town, I arrived in Dali in the early morning. Dali is an odd town, in that many of its hostels and restaurants are run by expats and the focus of its tourism industry is backpackers. The “old town” sits beside Erhai lake, in a large valley surrounded by mountains. The Swedish guys and I took a gondola up into the mountains directly overlooking the town and hiked along the old road there. There were a bunch of Chinese tourists at the start, some of which decided that a 12k hike is a good thing to attempt in heels. Nearly every woman who reached the chairlift down the mountain at the end of the path was carrying her shoes.

Dali is a nice town, but I was on a tight schedule so I left the next morning for Lijiang. In Lijiang I stayed at Mama Naxi’s, a family-run hostel in the backstreets of Lijiang’s old town. Mama Naxi’s hostel is a tornado of good food and disorganization. Mama Naxi is happy to help you plan your trips to wherever, but sometimes getting her to do so involves chasing her around the hostel as she finds empty beds for new arrivals, cares for the multitude of cats and dogs that live in the courtyard, and critiques and criticizes the staff in their waitressing or food preparation. It is quite an experience.
At about 1pm, the crowds of Chinese tour groups arrive to Lijiang’s once-pleasant streets and transform it into Disneyland. One of the biggest draws of Chinese tourists to Yunnan are the minority groups that reside there. This creates an odd situation where most shopkeepers end up wearing decorative “ethnic” costumes that would not look inappropriate in Latin America over their jeans and t-shirts. The Chines tourists also seem to get a kick out of foreigners, and would try to take photos of any they came across.

One night I went out to the bars with a guy from Morocco and two Danish girls. We started drinking with some businessmen from Hong Kong, and watched the strange festivities at the bar. The music was kinda weird, and the dance floor was set up like a stage and was surrounded by cops. However, the oddest thing was absolutely the drink auction. The owners of the bar made a Bloody Mary, than held an auction for it. Not for a charity; all proceeds went to the bar. It was just a regular mixed drink. And it sold for $20,000 yuan. That is almost $3,000 U.S. Dollars. The guys we were drinking with said the auction winner gives the drink to his girlfriend as a gift. According to my expert analysis, the whole enterprise was freaking insane. Maybe I am just not a romantic.

Mama Naxi arranged a van out to Leaping Tiger Gorge, and since she runs the biggest hostel in Lijiang, about half the people on the trail at any given day come from her place. The van driver demonstrated the typical Chinese driving method; lean on the horn and pass everyone, at any time, in any place, regardless of incoming traffic. Now, make no mistake, the van did not drive especially fast. No one in China does. But everyone wants to pass regardless. It could be because of the little engine-drawn carts that get the peasantry from A to B. These three-wheeled boxes are powered by an exterior engine that Henry Ford would have scoffed at. They run at about the same pace as the bicycle or donkey drawn cards, but the pull loads of unrestrained bricks that occasionally fall off the back.

After three hours of windy mountain roads, we arrived at the town by the beginning of the gorge, had lunch, and started on the trail around noon. It was hot. There is next to no tree cover until you get to the high point of the gorge, about the “28 turns” or switchbacks of the ascent. Along the trail are farms and villages, plus about seven or eight guesthouses. It is not too hard, but the sun is strong and because of the trip from Lijiang people end up doing the hardest part of the trip at hottest point of the day. I got to the guesthouse around 4:30. The guesthouse was cheap and clean, with a mountain view room for about $8. A Norwegian guy ho had been hiking with me sat and drank beer and bet how long it would take everyone else to reach the way-point.
When traveling on the cheap, you deal with a lot of things that make life harder. Long bus rides, crap food and accommodations, questionable hygiene, etc. At a certain point, you convince yourself that the difficulty of the trip makes you tough. I met some people that completely dispelled this notion, by comparison. In Lijiang, I met an orthodox couple from Israel,who kept kosher. Vegetarian food is almost non-existent in China, mind you, so this meant they cooked everything for themselves. Vegetables, mostly. With them, they carried their own miniature kitchen by necessity. But they were traveling easy compared to a Dutch couple who were on a bike trip. From Amsterdam. By bike. They traveled through Germany, the Balkans, Turkey, to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, to China. They said they were traveling to Melbourne. In Leaping Tiger Gorge, I met a friendly Brit with one leg. He did all twelve kilometers of the trek, with mountainous elevation change, on crutches. Planned to see Tibet the same way.
As I noticed the last time I was in China, one of the most frustrating things about the country is how the locals treat you like walking wallets to be plundered at every opportunity. You pay about $50 Yuan to enter the gorge. But then the locals set them selves up in little pissant toll booths at every scenic spot. The most aggravating example of this is the decent to the river, at the end of the trek. You pay $10 Yuan to take the trail down. But then, you have to pay another $10 Yuan to get back up. I don’t mind paying $20 Yuan (less than $3USD), but being nickle-and-dimed at every corner is not fun.
After finishing the hike, the next step is finding a ride back to Lijiang. After waiting for the prerequisite number of weary hikers to fill out the van, we headed back down the gorge via the low road. Decades ago, the low road was a different hiking route. Now, it is a partly paved, avalanche-prone vehicle road. In fact, an avalanche happened mere minutes before we embarked, and a large part of the hillside had been deposited onto the road and over the cliff on the other side. Trees and the remaining embankment hung precariously about a hundred and fifty feet above the road. The driver, along with every other person in the van, kept a very nervous eye upwards while driving over the gravel-covered section of the road in the fall-zone.
Mama Naxi gave me a hug and a good luck charm on my way out of Lijiang, which I hung off my daypack. I took a night bus to Kunming, arriving at 5:30. After buying my train ticket ticket, I went back to Cloudland Hostel to wash up and eat breakfast. I found a couple of British girls to go with me, I hopped on a bus for a short visit to the Stone Forest. The Stone Forest is a series of stone pillars and narrow canyons and boulders jutting naturally from the rolling hills.
Anyone who thinks America’s national parks are too disneyfied, too accessible and commercialized, should contemplate China. China’s geographically convenient wonders are ruthlessly exploited, and set up for the inevitable crowded busloads of flag-following tourists from the coastal cities. In the Stone Forest, tour groups wearing “indigenous” fake-leather cowboy hats or ethnic costumes shout and spit and point their way through the central labyrinth of paths and view-spots. At times, they seem like a nasty caricature of tourists from any country, simultaneously herded moneypots to be leeched off by the locals and shameless exploiters, gawking and mocking the local culture and people.
Luckily, Chinese tourists by and large are a tame lot, not likely to stray from the beaten, paved, railed, flag-led path. This left decent chunk of largely unoccupied park to explore, and explore I did. Deep in the back of the (not that large)park, there is a trail leading off the map to the “Eternal Mushroom”. Remembering the Chinese penchant for grandiose names for unassuming locations, I was skeptical. However, with time to kill and a desire to avoid the camera-wielding masses, the girls I was with and I headed out to see that fungus-like rock. The mushroom was predictably a non-sight, but on the way we saw pagodas, fields of corn and rice growing out from among the otherworldly rocks, and dilapidated shacks perched on the edge of muddy ponds. Really beautiful stuff.
After getting back to Kunming, I hopped in a sleeper train back towards Guilin.
Next, Yangshou!

China Vacation II: Return of the Dragon!

2010-03-13T06:23:00.002-05:00

Here comes the much delayed, 80's style sequel to my trip from last March.

So, when I traveled around southern China in September, I wrote a pretty detailed account of my trip. I became very busy since then and it has been taking up space on my harddrive and doing little else. No Longer. Here is the first piece.

I arrived in Hongkong around noonish, and hectic does not begin to describe the location of my hostel. Chungking Mansion is a 17 story apartment complex, broken into four blocks each with its own pair of elevators. The ground floor is devoted to money exchanges, samosa stands, and cellphone accessory stores. There are few Chinese people to be seen, and inhabitants are largely Indian and Nigerian.
The building must have at least twenty hostels, all of which have their own touts looking for people with luggage to bring in. One pitchman even went as far as to give me the wrong floor number when I asked how to get to my hostel, as if I just wouldn’t notice. My room in the hostel is a very decent sized closet, roughly 6ft/8ft if you include the bathroom. That said, it is clean and relatively cheap, and comes with a private bathroom and in-room wifi and air conditioning. Honestly, I couldn’t ask for more.

As I have recently discovered, I am in desperate need of a tailor. I know this, because every ten feet I walked outside of Chungking Mansions, a new Indian fellow would tell me and then kindly offer to help remedy my problem. They were rarely impressed with my professed poverty or my lack of desire to haul formal wear a thousand miles across China and back.

I will say that, were I of the shopping persuasion, Hong Kong would have been a great place to free myself from the burden of having money. Many have described Hong Kong as one big shopping mall, and while that is an exaggeration I can see how people would get that impression. The sidewalks are crowded, messy places, and wholly unfriendly to pedestrian use. Luckily, woven through the city’s center is a string of pedestrian walkways. Many of these walkways actually run through shopping malls, with is great in that you pray for even momentary breaths of air-conditioning after walking around for a couple hours, but crappy in that it made me want to sucker-punch the next person I come across wearing Burberry. People shouldn’t be allowed to look both entitled and emo. It is like their marketing department took the villain in every 80’s highschool movie and made them watch Requiem for a Dream 12 times, and then photographed them.
From Hong Kong, I went to Guangzhou. The less said about Guangzhou, the better. It seems like a great city to build a factory in. I did a run with the local hash runners, which was nice. I won too, though it hardly counts. Great group of guys, but they didn’t really run. 90% were walking the whole way. Afterwards, the bash was at this odd restaurant where the menu consisted of emus and ostriches and crocodiles and the like, and the entrées are displayed in a small zoo. The run itself was a bit odd too, because we saw many homeless families who appear to live in the park we were running through. I do mean families, too, living with kids around little campfires with plastic jugs of water and maybe a hammock. They seemed as surprised to have an American bounding through their ranks as I was to happen upon them.
I grabbed a sleeper bus out of Guangzhou to Guilin. The beds on the bus were a cozy five feet long, and curled in such a way as to make sleeping on your side highly uncomfortable. I got a decent amount of sleep, but was surprised to find that I had to unexpectedly switch busses. In a half-asleep daze I forgot my hat and compass, but managed not to lose anything more vital than that.
Guilin was a bit disappointing, honestly. The area features this amazing Karst Topography, giant rock pillars and bulges jutting out of the otherwise flat ground. Unfortunately, the city has a shocking dearth of street food, or even restaurants or coffee shops. Really, its a travesty. I was in town only a couple hours in between my bus dropping me off at 8am and my 19 hour train ride to Kunming at 5pm. I saw a couple parks and really walked my feet off, but the lack of eats, or just places to sit down, hurt the whole experience. I will have to return to Guilin on the way back from Kunming, but I will keep my trip as short as possible and instead go quickly to backpacker-Mecca Yangshou, an hour to the south.

Next, on to Kunming.

China Vacation 03

2009-05-20T23:45:00.009-04:00

We arrived in Pingyao early in the morning after a comfortable night train ride from Xian. The walk from the train station to our hostel was memorable, in that the shops were not open yet, hawkers were out in force, and we were the only tourists on the street. We were bleeding cows trying to cross the piranha-laden Amazon, or the Beatles in Help! It was a strange experience.

Pingyao is a little walled village in a dusty coal mining region. It used to be a banking center for China, kind of along the lines of Greenwich CT. Now, the town’s economy appears to be largely directed at domestic tourism. The flag-led tour groups were even more omnipresent within the confined space of the old walled city than they were anywhere else we saw.

Every nook and cranny is coated with chokingly thick soot from the neighboring coal mines and industry. The little town is so smoggy that you can stare directly at the sun unaffected, like you are wearing dark shades. You want to shower after every time you go outside, just from the pollution.

Although, to be fair, that could be because I was bedridden much of the time we were in Pingyao. To speak discreetly, my stomach had a party and nothing was invited. Not sure what I ate that caused it. Luckily, the hostel was pretty nice and the Houston-Portland playoffs were on TV, albeit a couple hours delayed (Yao is just as big in China as one might think, but so is Kobe and Lebron). I can think of worse situations to be indisposed at length.

One thing that was easy to notice in Pingyao was how much smaller people there were than in the bigger cities. This is especially true with older people, who are dwarfed by the younger generations. However, even the younger crowd is smaller in Pingyao than a similar group of people from Xian or Beijing. One could quickly differentiate local residents and domestic tourists in Pingyao by height alone. Telltale signs of how hard life in the country in China still is.

From Pingyao, we took a “hard sleeper” to Beijing. My parents were worried about the prospect of a night in a hard sleeper train, but it turns out that a soft sleeper only affords you more luggage space and a door. The hard sleeper, by contrast, is only mildly smaller and less comfortable than the more expensive option. I slept rather well.

It was hard to tell where we were as we approached Beijing. The city is similar in size and population to the Greater Los Angeles metro area. There are no high-rises to be seen near the center of the city, and the massive blocks dismay pedestrians attempting to hike between the historical sights near the Forbidden City. Instead of apartment buildings, people appear to live in small Hutongs. Hutongs are little grey-brick neighborhoods, accessible via claustrophobic, winding, and often dirt-paved alleyways. The Hutongs are cool to walk around and have character out-the-wazoo, but they do make life difficult when trying to explain to your cabbie how to get back to your hotel.

Of course, the Beijing accent does not help things in this regard. In general, I feel that I was reasonably successful at communicating throughout the trip. While I am certainly not ready to discuss the nuances of eastern philosophy quite yet, I am quite capable of haggling and dealing with basic transportation issues. The one exception to this was in Beijing. Beijing’s accent is unusual. At best, it sounds like the speaker is pretending to be a pirate by throwing hard “Arrrrr”s into their conversation. At worst it sounds like they are dipping with their left lip and clenching a fat cigar with their right. Needless to say, confusion occurred.

The first place we decided to explore was the Forbidden City and the surrounding parks. There appears to be few traditional public parks in Beijing. Instead, the city has converted the gardens of the imperial court and the larger temples. These gardens have many of the things one might find in a large park in a western city; gazebos, lawns, public work out spaces, etc… We even saw a bumper car ride, with American flag bumper cars, a block from Tiananmen Square. But the most common sight to be seen in the parks of Beijing is the hackey-sackers.

When Americans hear the phrase “hackey sack”, they usually think of college-age hippie assholes, flicking vaguely tribal looking beanbags around with the sides of their Birkenstocks. Yeah, the Chinese don’t truck with that nonsense. They kick stacks of metal washers, “artfully decorated” with a handful of day glow feathers to keep the bottom always pointing down. Rather than hippies, Beijing has middle aged men and women kicking around their washer stacks and acting like shills for the ever-present hawkers that lurk at the edges of the crowd and wait for someone showing interest. Oh, and for the record, those shills are sick-nasty at hacking. They put to shame every sandal-wearing degenerate one trips over on American campuses (you know who you are!).

People say you go to Shanghai for ten years of history, Xian for a thousand years, and Beijing for a hundred. Having learned a bit about the last decades of the Ming dynasty, I cannot help but feel like Beijing got the short end of the stick. All the major historical sights in Beijing are clear demonstrations of how far removed from reality the Chinese political leadership was for hundreds of years until Sun Yat-sen helped organize their ouster.

The Forbidden City is a good place to start. When talking about the Forbidden City, it is only fair to compare it to other buildings of similarly tremendous scale. Unfortunately, the Forbidden City in many ways comes up lacking. The problem is that there are no arches in Chinese architecture. That put a limit on how complex the buildings could be. What is left is a very big network of triple-scaled, bland buildings, with cobblestone parking lots in between them. Compared to St. Peter’s Basilica or even the Summer Palace, and the whole thing comes off less awe-inspiring than just… meh. It reminded me of nothing so much an artfully decorated prison.

But in a way, that’s what it was. The Forbidden City was only accessible by the Emperor’s female family, harem, and eunuchs that served as administrators to the empire. I don’t get the impression that the Emperor got out very much. Having an exclusive city dedicated to yourself is great if you want to be a deity-figurehead, but it also puts a lot of power in the hands of those who interpret your decrees from on high. The Forbidden City was a tool to empower Middle Kingdom middle management.
The Summer Palace was much nicer. While the Forbidden City felt sterile and empty even when filled with crowds of people, the gardens and temples of the Summer Palace were warm and inviting (and also filled with crowds of people). One of my favorite aspects of the Summer Palace is the adjective-heavy names that every room or pagoda has. “The Hall of Benevolence and Longevity”. “The Gardens of Nurtured Harmony”. “The Outhouse of Splendiferous Tranquility”. “The Bedchamber of Pimptastic Crunknasticance”. Ok, so I made up the last two, but you can see what I mean.

The Summer Palace has some hilarious and interesting (read: absurd and terrible) history. It was repeatedly burned down by British and French marines throughout the late 19th century. The Dowager Empress then took funds out of the Chinese navy to rebuild her vacation home. Just another sign of how much the Royals had checked out by the end of the Qing dynasty.

However, it must be noted that my knowledge of this period comes largely from reading the placards in the museums. The current Chinese leadership has found itself in an awkward position when discussing Chinese history. They are clearly proud of China’s culture and accomplishments. Every description of any building or shard of pottery is laden with superlatives. The Most important incense holder. The Greatest south-facing, two floor teahouse. Yadayadaya. But on the other hand, the Communists want to demonstrate why all the painful aspects of the Communist takeover were vitally necessary. So everything is described as graceful and magnificent on the one hand and inept or oppressive on the other.

The next day, we woke early to take a tour van out for a hike on the Great Wall. While the oft-cited claim that it is visible from space is false (indeed, due to it being built out of the same rocks as the mountains it passes through, it is often barely visible just a couple miles away), the Great Wall is still really cool. Totally pointless, of course, but really cool.

I mean, look at those mountains. Would you take an army through that? Of course not. You would do what the Mongols did when they invaded; go to a nice, accessible spot of the Wall, and buy off the guards. In fact, the Wall does not look like a wall so much as a big highway. Those mountains would be much harder to traverse if not for the nice paved walking path running through them.

The Wall is not in particularly good shape, and indeed, more accessible regions of it have disappeared completely. While I am sure the elements have done a number on it through erosion, the biggest factor in the Wall’s decomposition has been theft. Whenever a nearby peasant wanted to build a house, they probably just knocked some bricks out of the wall for it. The section I was at was in such good shape specifically because it was not running through a populated area.

One last thing worth noting about the Wall is the hawkers. Yes, there were people trying to sell things up in the mountains, too. The “Mongolians” that followed us around on the Wall spoke as good English as any group of salesmen we encountered. They were selling postcards, t-shirts, and warm beer. They were even helping people who looked like they were having trouble with the steep staircases or might be in danger of falling. I couldn’t imagine buying things that I would have to carry back into Beijing from them, but all in all the hawkers on the wall were a great bunch.

The strangest thing about going home to Taipei was how nice the air felt upon exiting the plane in Taiyuan International. Taiwan is not known for its superior air quality, but the improvement over Beijing was refreshing. Likewise, while China is by no means a “Third World” country, Taipei has all the middle class affluence of an American city. Really, the two places feel totally different

What I had heard from people in Taiwan was that people in China are very rude. I did not find this to be the case at all. With the notable exception of the cabbie in Hangzhou, everyone we met was impeccably polite and helpful. More recently, I have heard that this is because we are foreigners, and they are less polite to other Chinese. For their part, Taiwanese have a reputation in China of being spoiled and pretentious. This disparity in views is revealing.

When Taiwanese go to China and leave the more affluent cities of Shanghai or Hong Kong, they are really going to a totally different country. Taiwanese have not had the same cultural experience as the Chinese have had, because by and large Taiwan is a middle class country. They must go to China and act like foreigners. But the Chinese treat Taiwan as just another province. In the same way that a big of gawking and discussion on “how people live here” would go over worse in Oklahoma if it came from a New Yorker than if it came from a Malaysian, the Chinese must bristle over their “compatriots” acting like rich Waiguoren (foreigners) rather than Chinese.

Or anyway, that’s my pop-psychology explanation. But what the hell do I know?

Anywhoo, I flew back home to Taipei the day after my Parents left for New York. I spent my last day wandering around Beijing, but nothing noteworthy happened. The trip on the whole was great, but it was nice to be back in Taipei. Coming back to work was rough, but isn’t it always after a vacation? I have some new stories of my Taiwan exploration in May (and by the time I write about them, June), so there should be another post coming soon for that. Hope you enjoyed reading about the trip.

China Vacation 02

2009-05-07T12:02:00.006-04:00

After a day of exploring the metropolitan streets of Shanghai, we hopped on a train to the lakeside city of Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a beautiful, old man-made lake and park area surrounded by an otherwise incredibly ugly industrial city. Our first experience of the city was a bad one. We exited the train station and hopped into the first cab that offered his services. Given that the first cab was an unlicensed cab, we would have been better off walking. This particular gentleman responded to my inquiry about how much to take us to the lake with an English “fourteen”.

Or, anyway, I thought he said fourteen. I tried to confirm the fourteeness of the price while the driver was weaving on and off the road and more than occasionally driving against traffic in the wrong lane. Our esteemed chauffeur responded to me with grunts. He did however quickly clarify his position on the price of the trip after dropping us off, explaining that the price was actually forty, not fourteen. He was rather insistent on this matter, and our dialogue boiled down to this.

(Note, that this conversation happened in Chinese, which means that, in the absence of a better translator I have opted for a little flexible interpretation of the major points.)
Cabbie: “You Pay Me 40 Yuan Now, you Dumb white Foreign schmuck!”

Me: “While I hear and understand your proposal, I must respectfully disagree. You initially stated that the cost of your services was only fourteen yuan.

Cabbie: “I am going pretend like I am calling someone to get you in trouble, all while speaking so fast that there is no way you will be able to understand me! Meanwhile, I will shout and grab your arm in the hope that you are intimidated into paying me to go away.”

Me: “I am unfortunately unable to understand the finer points of your arguments due to the velocity of your verbiage. Regardless, you have no hope of receiving the sum you feel is deserved. My parents and I are going into this yonder Starbucks, to drink lattes that each cost more than the difference between our two proposed fees for your services. I recommend you call the police to mediate our predicament, or, barring that, kindly go fornicate yourself.”

Shockingly, the cab driver followed us into the Starbucks. The baristas confirmed that yes, the man was trying to rip us off (a fair price from the train station was apparently 11 or 12 yuan). They then proceeded to mock the cab driver until he left in embarrassment. He did not go far though, but instead sat in his car giving us the finger for, I kid you not, almost twenty minutes while we idly drank our coffee. Some people just cannot let go.

The rest of our time was spent wandering around the lake in Hangzhou. We visited the White Snake Pagoda (There we went again by ourselves. Wait, that’s not how it goes? Never mind). Not too much else happened. We ate beggar’s chicken, and later some great curry, then headed back to the train station via an 11 yuan taxi ride.

The next day we went to Suzhou. Suzhou is known as the “Venice of China”, and whoever dubbed it this clearly had never been to Venice. The canals and gardens were still rather beautiful though, as was the pagoda complex with the two year old Hyatt hotel tastefully integrated with the 500 year old temples. Suzhou was scenic, relaxing, and rather uneventful. So, I will talk about a phenomena we witnessed throughout the trip; the hawkers.
In most tourist locations around the globe, one can find the product that the region is most noted for producing. Predictably, China’s hawkers most often sell cheap plastic crap. I don’t want to seem like I am disparaging it, however; it is really nice cheap plastic crap. Singing peanuts! Surprisingly bright green laser pointers! A gelatinous pig that reforms after you smash it to the ground! All and all, great stuff.

Many cities have hawkers selling things by the street side, but China’s are pretty impressive. By and large, they do not speak any English. They do, however, see foreigners as wallets with legs. So, in an attempt to overcome their communication difficulties, they use the tool most easily available to them; the word “Hello”.

Or, rather, “HelloHelloHello! Helllllloooooo! Hellllloooo? Hellololo!!! Hello!” They seemed to be trying to fit every aspect of their sales pitch into a single, oft-repeated word. The hawkers will follow you wherever you go, saying “Hello?”. When I threw them a little “Wo Bu Yao” (I don’t want), they just laughed and continued saying “Helloo? Hello? Hello!”
After Suzhou, we took a night train to the ancient city of Xian. Xian was one of the first capitals of China, and it looks the part, but other than the old black-brick walls that surround the city center, it hardly looks the part. Much of the city looks quite modern, with tree-shaded wide roads flowing between five or six story buildings on either side (it even has a Walmart!).
This impression did not last once we reached the quite-old Muslim Quarter, however. There, one can see lams and pigs being butchered on the sidewalk, along with cricket shops, little old ladies making dumplings, and, of course, legions of hawkers. The Great Mosque, a mix of Chinese architecture and Islamic calligraphy, is quite beautiful. The thick coat of dust that covers every inch of the place reminds visitors of its rather impressive age (700AD). I thought this was one of the more interesting parts of the trip.

The same cannot be said for the Terracotta Warriors. We took an hour long bus ride out into what one might call the suburbs of Xian to see the “World Wonder”. I was not impressed. That’s a bit strong. I just feel like I got little out of it that I could not have by reading National Geographic. It is big. The tour guide was friendly but largely unhelpful, and mostly just repeated what was on the signs. There are lots of statues, most of which are in broken piles. I don’t know. It just did not do it for me.

After about two hours of looking around, we headed back towards the bus and back to Xian. Later that night, we boarded a night train to Pingyao, which I will write about, along with Beijing, in the next post.

China Vacation 01

2009-04-27T20:31:00.010-04:00

So, I am going to break up my writing about the China trip into two or three posts, with this first one covering my time in Macau and Shanghai.

I began my trip in Macau. Macau is an odd city. The Portuguese conquered/leased it in much the same way that the British did in Hong Kong. However, while the British turned Hong Kong into a world class trade and financial center, Macau built Casinos.

This has had a strong impact on the distribution of wealth in the city. There are certainly has rich neighborhoods. The eastern side of the Island is littered with jewelry and electronics shops of all kinds. But outside of the hotel/casino areas of the city, Macau appears significantly poorer. Decrepit high-rises litter much of the island’s skyline, looking like background props from Half Life 2’s dystopian City 17.

With a few exceptions, things seemed better at the street level. While the building style and markets and congestion all feel Asian, something about the winding alleyways and boulevards came off as distinctively Iberian. Maybe it’s the Portuguese signs or the smell of paella coming out of the neighborhood cucinas. Or maybe I’m full of crap and it was all in my head.

I arrived in Macau around 11:30 and promptly decided that I would walk the length of the island tip to tip, to see all the fortresses and cathedrals and temples and whatever. The city is pretty small, but this plan still turned out to be as ill advised as one might guess. Most every monument or historical sight on the oversized pile of coral and casinos and catholic relics is atop its own big goddamn hill. Perhaps I was just overly ambitious, because by the time I had to return to the airport I had completely grouchified myself.

It is well known that casinos are built and designed specifically to prevent their patrons from leaving. Food and entertainment is available and subsidized if not comped entirely, and there are no windows or clocks to remind gamblers how long they have been emptying their wallets. Many have described Macau to me as one big casino, and though I never made a bet while there, I began to see the resemblance while trying to get back to the airport.

The shuttle bus to the airport leaves from a 3x10 foot square of pavement in front of the hydrofoil ferry station. From that same strip of nothing leaves the shuttles for every casino, resort and hotel on the island. The thing is so crowded with people and vehicles that the bus passed by twice before I could flag it down to get it to stop. Worse, the fare is $4.20. You cannot buy tickets in advance and no, they do not give out change thankyouverymuch. I ended up losing a twenty because I had only $4.15 otherwise.

This was especially a problem because I was running low on patacas, the currency for Macau. That’s right, Macau, with just over a half a million people and no sovereignty to speak of, has a currency. It is pegged to the Hong Kong Dollar, and they charge a hefty sum to convert from dollars or yuan. Imagine if the 711’s of Vegas only took casino chips. It is, for the record, a total racket.

In the end, I reached my plane on time only because it was seriously delayed by smog in Shanghai. I got into the city late and made my way to the hotel by bus after spending the Taxi Salesmen *coughcough* I mean “Information Stand” that No, I really didn’t want to spend 200 Yuan on a airport car rather than 25 on a bus ride. It’s funny how different a single place can look from night to day. I was confronted with dark, deserted streets. The hotel was in a semi-residential neighborhood wedged between the convention center and the freeway belt road. The only visible sign of life was the construction crews idly chatting while on break from resurfacing the street.

Upon waking in the morning, I was presented with quite a different view. The streets were almost unrecognizable, with teeming sidewalks of shopping pedestrians. Even the over represented and oft repeated pattern of dvdshop/friedchickenplace/hairsalon seemed more unique and welcoming each time. In Shanghai, people live in gated projects that seemed gloomily authoritarian in the dark, but that morning they bustled with a warm sense of community as the locals hung laundry or picked through the the vegitible stands that appeared to have sprouted from previously abandoned alleys.

Upon exploring deeper into Shanghai, I made a startling discovery; the Shanghainese have gone to great lengths to make their city appear to be an affluent American suburban town. The restaurants are nicer chains of the Noodles & Co variety, the shops are exclusively selling western luxury brands, and the coffee shops have spread in the same kudzu-like fashion that they have back home. Honestly, Shanghai is two Chic-Fillets away from being a Maryland urban planner’s wet dream.

The one exception to Shanghai’s strict rule of modernity is a little tourist trap neighborhood surrounding the city gardens. This collection of teahouses and trinket hawkers has all the authenticity of the China section in Epcot, and the crowds require loads of jostling and not a few sharp elbows to navigate. Still, the buildings and especially the gardens are undeniably beautiful. The gardens feature rivers of gold fish and rockeries. Rockeries, in case you had never heard the term (I hadn’t) are artistically arranged piles of stones that take up most of the area. Yeah, they do that.

The garden also featured a small art museum, filled with cool paintings. Most of the paintings were of guys getting high on opium and talking to monkeys. I am not making this up. China appears to prefer the streetcarnameddesireBrando-style Buddha statues, rather than the apocalypsenowBrando-style Buddhas favored by Chinese take out places back home. Not sure what the reason for that is.

In other areas of the city, newly built high-rises dominate. They are architecturally beautiful, but have contributed to the city’s pollution a surprising amount. Everyone knows China is polluted. But Shanghai’s evil air makes your throat feel raw faster than other areas with far more industry. One reason that I heard for this, beyond the city’s tremendous population (26m!), is all the construction and the lack of adequate building codes. I was told that, in most countries, before doing blasting or other similar construction activities, you need to wet down the area your working on to minimize the amount of dust you kick into the air. Shanghai doesn’t do that. So, with new skyscrapers being built all the time, there is a lot of dust.

More about other cities in the next one! Woo! Something to Write About!

Taiwan Journal 11: Hashrun and Kenting

2009-04-06T11:28:00.003-04:00

Well, it has been a while since I posted. In the mean time, quite a bit has happened. More importantly, I have had the opportunity to screw up in a couple of notable and hopefully entertaining ways.

One somewhat legitimate (but utterly untrue) reason for the lack of posts recently is that for weeks my computer was thoroughly incapacitated by viruses. I was unable to solve my problems independently. His presented me with a problem; while there is no shortage of places that could fix my PC, I was not sure who I could find who spoke English. Computer repair is necessarily jargon-laden, and my Chinese just barely escapes the purview of shopping and transportation. I eventually found a guy by searching the English language teacher forums. I called him up and asked him where I could drop off my laptop. He told me not to worry, and that he could come by to pick up the laptop in fifty minutes.

This made me pause. I was suppose to hand my computer to someone I have never met without even knowing his permanent base of operations? Though it was broken, my computer remained a reasonably valuable piece of technology and I was handing it over to a guy in a station wagon. I consoled myself by thinking that, because the guy was a foreigner and the expat community is pretty small, if he screwed me over I would probably be able to track him down. Still, when he called me later that night to tell me he had cleared my PC of Trojans and viruses, and that he could drop off the laptop whenever I was ready, I was quite relieved.

I finally had the opportunity to help lead a run with the Hash Run. The club paired me up with Kevin, one of the older members of the club. Kevin only hares (the run leaders are called the Hares) one run a year, but he has been doing it for a long time. He therefore goes (far) out of his way to make sure he is bringing the club to virgin territory. So we drove out to Dashi, a town south of Taipei close to Chang Kai-Sheik’s burial place. Dashi has a nice mix of farms and jungle hills, but what it lacked was hiking trails of any kind. That was what the “weed whacker” is for.

When I say “weed whacker”, I am not talking about a thing for cutting down dandelions or scrub grass with a spinning plastic whip. This thing is a gas powered buzzsaw at the end of a four foot pole. It cut through saplings and bamboo quite nicely, thank you very much. It is a tool that is appropriate for leaving a “pretty radical” section of lush jungle “smooth as a baby’s butt”, as Kevin says.

So we pieced bits of road and farms together by cutting trails in the hills. At first, Kevin would lead with the weed whacker and I would remove the debris. Now, as some of you might know, I have an irrational phobia of spinning sawblades swung close to and in the direction of my person. The motor is pretty loud, so I would have to get right next to Kevin to tell him anything. Every comment would usually lead to him terrifyingly swinging the whole tree-felling apparatus around in order to reply with a helpful “what!?!” I have had sawblade and woodchip related nightmares quite often recently.

Mind you, on this subject I am a total hypocrite. Once I had my chance with the weed whacker, I happily unleashed a fern holocaust on the jungle. I was like a villain from an episode of Captain Planet. Something about having a diesel-powered cutting device in my hands made me want to violate nature. Only pure willpower allowed me to stifle maniacal laughter as I hacked and gouged a trail through the thick underbrush.

Note: sunny photos are not of my hash run

Rain kept many people from the run, but it was still a pretty good time. However, the whole day I was something of a failure as a navigator. The plastic bag of flour I carried to leave a trail for the other runners sprung a leak early in the run. This meant I had to use chalk to mark the path, and chalk washes away pretty quickly in the rain. Nobody got totally lost, but the run was not as clearly marked as it should have been. After the run, my fellow hashers went out of their way to ensure that I got utterly sloshed. I readily obliged, which was fine until I was asked to help everyone reach the restaurant for the bash. Let’s just say that, while we did reach the restaurant, missteps occurred along the way.

This past weekend, I went down to Kenting for the annual music festival. Kenting is a big national park on the southern tip of Taiwan. My friend Kelly planned the trip and organized rental vans for a group of twelve of us to drive down in. Kenting’s music festival itself was nice I’ve heard, but for me and my friends it was just an excuse to go south for a bunch of wild beach parties on a long, two day weekend.

The parties were pretty wild, too. They were concert/dance clubs in these little coves on the beach. Cheap too, since the 7/11 was just down the street so there was no reason not to BYOB. The music was good and the air was filled with the lights from the many amateur fireworks displays launched from either side or within the crowd. I wont go into too many specifics, but the music kept playing until about 7am, I knew people who slept in McDonalds rather than “splurging” for a tent, and at least one of the people I was with ended up passed out on their tent rather than in it. Good times.

Going to the beach is a little odd in Taiwan. I knew from talking to my students and friends that many Taiwanese people are either incapable of swimming or terrified of the ocean. And yet they still go to the beach decked out in swimwear. I was confused about this until my friend Yvette pointed out that they are just taking pictures of themselves. And truly, that was what they did more than anything else I saw. People were posing, smiling, making funny faces, and jumping in the air all so that they could have pictures of themselves doing all those things, at the beach. The pictures were not to remember the trip, instead they were the purpose of the trip. I am sure I must be missing something, but it was a strange spectacle.

Prior to the trip, I had talked to a bunch of people about driving down to Kenting who had done it before. They all warned me about hellish traffic due to people traveling during Tomb-Sweeping Day weekend. They told me to expect to sit in traffic for hours on the trip back on the Sunday after the festival. On the way down around 1am Saturday morning we sat in pretty bad traffic too, which seemed to hint that Sunday would indeed be bad.

So, once in Kenting I spent a decent amount of time wailing like Cassandra and advocating that we delay returning until Monday, or drive north on smaller roads of Taiwan’s east coast rather than the big superhighway that everyone and their mother would be on. I was ignored, and this caused me not a little bit of consternation. Of course, irony of ironies, we hit zero traffic on the drive back. It took us just six and a half hours to drive the length of the island, two hours less than the trip down. I felt like quite the douchebag for making such a fuss the whole weekend. Still, glad I was shown to be wrong.

Friday I am off to China to hang out with my parents. I am sure that trip will arm me with much to talk about. So, more should be coming fairly quickly.

Travel Blog 10: Chinese New Year

2009-02-09T10:27:00.004-05:00

So, through some circumstances that I would rather not get into, I finally decided that I need to buy a real blanket. I had been making due for the past four months with a pile of sheets, towels, and a couple piddly little things that didn’t cover my whole body. Sad, I know. But no longer, for I bought an “inexpensive” quilt this afternoon.

When I say “inexpensive”, what I really mean is that I got completely hosed. You know you got took when the rest of the staff gives your salesman a round of applause as you leave. It felt vaguely like a midget head butted me in the groin.

So Chinese New Year was relaxing and uneventful. I did some exploring around the city, down in Xindian. Xindian is a beautiful little river town south of Taipei. Nice parks, cool riverwalk, and some seriously delicious Sri Lankan curry wraps. Not much else to say.

This past weekend I went to Pingxi for its famous lantern festival. Basically, at the end of Chinese New Year, people let off these person-sized hot air balloons fueled by a butane ball of fire. Hundreds and hundreds of these “lanterns” were let off and, even in the rain, the streets were packed with onlookers and foodstands. Sometimes the lanterns are set off wrong and either run into trees or catch fire in the air and crash.

Some memorable things from the hash run… Singing karaoke in an old family farm house surrounded by high-rise apartments. Drinking with the mayor and police chief of the town of Danshui. Getting lit and shooting off fireworks in the streets. Learning to play Liars Dice in Chinese. Good times.

Anywhoo, nice photos in this one will hopefully makeup for my lack of gab. Chinese classes are going well. I am really making progress.

Taiwan Journal 09: Yultide, Fireworks, Assorted BS

2009-01-16T10:36:00.005-05:00

So it has been a while since I updated the blog. I expect to settle into a once-a-month vibe here, due to the fact I am quite busy with work, and therefore rarely have time to go on adventures and write about them. Oh, and the experiment is over.

Christmas time in Taipei is a little odd for expats. 8-12 time zones away from the family dinners that typify late December and without a common day off for everyone on the 24th, holiday events are typically spread out over a couple of weeks of drinking and general debauchery. I actually had a pretty relaxed December on the whole compared to how it could have turned up. Highlights included homemade eggnog at the Voice, Turkey dinner at Graeme’s house, and being given the frat-esq nickname of “baby jewsas” by the Hash Run. I also co-hosted something of a Hanukah party, where I grated and fried Taiwanese sweet potatoes into latkes.

New Years Eve, on the other hand, was pretty wild. The whole city watches fireworks shot off Taipei 101. My housemate Caroline and her friend Jennifer convinced me to go with them to a party held in the rooftop suite of a big hotel. Hosted by a nightclub and featuring inexpensive booze and a pair of DJ’s the party was a popular destination for young expats. English teachers made up a sizeable portion of the crowd, with the margins filled out by Taiwanese locals and Hispanic students. Taipei’s universities host a surprising number of Latin American students, brought here by the generous scholarships given to citizens of Taiwan-recognizing countries.

At midnight the lights on the world’s tallest building (and much of the city surrounding it) went dark. The fireworks were shot off without a countdown or any related fanfare. The attendees of the party squeezed up on the concrete railing on the roof’s edge, drinking and posing for pictures with chattering teeth.

Taiwanese really do party hardly. When one of my adult students mentioned that she takes a glass of wine before bed, many in the class responded with shock (“You get drunk every day!?!”) Clubs often charge steep cover rates but then have an open or very affordable bar, figuring that many people will only come to dance and socialize, and the booze will be undrank. Many of Taipei’s watering holes therefore go out of there way to cater to foreigners. One local establishment offers four free drinks to the first 400 patrons on Wednesday nights, just to stir up business. There, English (and sometimes Spanish) is more common than Mandarin.

On an unrelated topic, I have begun learning to ride a motorcycle. Though most Taiwanese ride clutch-less scooters, I figured why not jump right into the real thing. Jennifer has agreed to let me wheel around on her bike a couple times, and I am slowly getting the hang on riding. Loads of fun.

I also finally started serious Chinese classes. I am being tutored six hours a week in one-on-ones. Truthfully, I should have started sooner. Many of my stock phrases that I had been leaning on for the past couple months were so mangled that they only occasionally led me to be understood. Chinese grammar and vocabulary are both quite logical, simple, and intuitive. The tones are a different matter entirely. Long story short, I suck pretty hard. But I am getting better.

I usually do my homework in the Mr. Donut near the school. Mr. Donut is the Asian variant of Dunkin Donuts. It sports a varied selection of fried pastries, ranging from traditional Boston crème to Indian curry-stuffed doughnut holes. I’m a fan.

What I am not a fan of, however, is Mr. Donut Radio. You see, many Taiwanese franchise stores feature loudspeaker announced commercials. The “programming” on Mr. Donut Radio is only unique in its brevity. Each cycle is only a minute and 43 seconds, and these friendly infomercials cycle continuously. While picturing this, note that Mr. Donut is not the model of efficiency in service. At best, your average customer is subjected to the pro-donut propaganda four and a half times before they can bite into their bearclaw. Honestly, I spent an hour in there yesterday studying, and last night I had crème-filled nightmares.

Anyway, I will certainly have tones to talk about after Chinese New Year, for which I have a week vacation. Till then...

Taiwan Journal 09

2008-12-13T09:03:00.004-05:00

Short one this week....

An example of the absurd level of friendliness that is prevalent on Taiwan. So the hash run this week took me to a crazy climb up a cliff right by 101. This rope-and-rock ladder climb inspired me to recreate the trek again that next morning with my friend Phil. So, 9am we were back on the mountain, slightly hung over but otherwise feeling pretty good. That is, I felt good at the beginning, before climbing 4000m of stairs. By the time I got to the top of the ridge I was a tired thirsty hungover wreck.
So Phil and I see a little building that we think is a restaurant right off the trail. There are tables and stuff all set up, so the assumption was not that crazy. We walk in and ask the little old man there for a cup of water. Just as he hands us a teacup of boiling hot water (the only safe kind on the ridge) we realized that this was not a restaurant. Rather, we had barged into this man’s home and he served us anyway. It was, needless to say, awkward. So we sat there, trying to quickly drink our scalding water and escape our Ricky-Gervais-esq situation and flee down the hill.

(From half way up, then from the top of the ridge)

Other than the usual festivities of the Hash Run, this week has been pretty quiet. So, lacking any spectacular events to describe, I would like to write a bit about my neighborhood.
I like the neighborhood I live in quite a bit. Far more than the view presented to me as I trudged up the hill to my townhouse residence in Washington, approaching my apartment after a night out or on the way back from work really makes me feel like I am coming home.

A lot of this has to do with the overall atmosphere of my street. Longjaing Rd is a tree-lined little avenue both close to many built up areas of the city and wholly separated from the nonstop bustle that surrounds it. The street is lit primarily by the cool fluorescents of the supermarket and the red lamps of the restaurants. The door to my building is in a little narrow alley off the main street, like most apartments here. I can always here the family across the alley playing basketball or piano as I go up the stairs to my apartment.
Hmmm… More on this subject later…

Taiwan Journal 08

2008-12-03T21:40:00.000-05:00

This week has been a little odd. My bosses gave me six more hours a week, pushing my grand weekly total to 15 class hours (about 21 hours of actual work with prep time and grading). Not enough, but getting there. I also came down with a pretty bad cold, and simultaneously ran out of contact lenses and broke my glasses. So I spent a couple days wandering the streets drearily, stuffed up and blurred. All I did Sunday was cook up a big batch of chicken soup, which I have been nursing slowly since.

I finally bought new frames for my lenses yesterday. I had to find frames that fit my lenses, so my choices were limited, and I’m not crazy with that I ended up with. These glasses should have come with a complementary soul patch and Steve Jobs man-crush. On the other hand, seeing is important. Or so they say.

Yesterday I had a hankering for Pizza, so I had lunch in the Domino’s across the block from my school. I should have skipped it. First of all, one can barely call Dominos “Pizza” under the best of circumstances. However, this vaguely sinofied pizzaspawn was a monstrosity. Ham under the cheese, not nearly enough sauce, etc. Worse, they sold it for roughly what a Domino’s personal pizza would cost in the States. Problem is, the local Taipei bakeries sell something kind of like pizza for a dollar (US$) a slice. And it is actually good.

Dominos only strength as a franchise is how cheap it is. But Taipei is loaded with far cheaper, far better fast food. The traditional American Fast Food model doesn’t quite work here because of the strength of the local competition. McDonalds has found success by rebranding itself as a semi-respectable restaurant, McCafe. Burgerking is a ghost town except for the employees. KFC… well, what can I say. Taiwanese people love fried chicken.

Today I took the train out to Fulong, to reach the Caoling Historic trail. Or, the Tsaoling Historic Trail. Every other signpost had a different English spelling. I guess I should have just been happy that they were in English at all. The trail led from the beach in Fulong, cutting across the peninsula inland to the cliffs and buffalo pastures above Dali, and eventually arrives in the woods above the surfer town of Dashi. The most notable thing about the hike was the wind on the cliffs. This was SERIOUS wind coming off the Pacific. Drunk-walking wind. Weatherman-in-a-poncho wind. The buffaloes did not mind. I also poorly timed my trip, so by the end I was coming down the mountain into Dashi at 5:20, through the jungle in the dark. Made me think of the many varieties of poisonous snakes (vipers and cobras mostly) that inhabit the island. Loads of fun.

I had tons of great photos of the trip, but somehow between last night when I was looking at them ant today when I wanted to upload them, they were deleted. I don’t know what happened.

Oh, and lastly, to all the naysayers out there, the Samson Experiment will continue until the end of winter.

2008-11-23T21:10:00.002-05:00

Taipei is choc-filled with semi-feral dogs. Collared mutts with no masters roam BaDe Rd between the Beer Factory and the Main Station. I have heard that the locals are too Buddist to authorize wholesale slaughter of vagrant dogs without clear cause. There is something to this. The island is rabies free, and the dogs don’t beg or raid garbage cans that I have seen. That said, the other day I had a woman, complete stranger to me, hanging off my arm in fear at a crosswalk while a pack of pooches wandered by. Yesterday I took the bus south to Wulai, a little mountain town known for its hot springs and aboriginal culture. On the bus I met a couple of French backpackers who were equally ambivalent about what to do in Wulai. After viewing the town’s offering of tacky “aboriginal” art and sausage-on-a-stick stands, we decided to find our way towards Nedong National Forest. The tourist information center pointed us down the river, and an hour and a half later we arrived at the park. Well, the outside of the park anyway. Upon arriving we were turned away, due to the park being closed for mudslides or renovations or chupacabra infestation or whatever. The guy at the gate didn’t speak English.
As fate would have it, closer into town there is a small resort labeled an “amusement park” on the side of the ravine overlooking Wulai. The “amusements” include a decrepit ropes course, some fairground style games, and a “forest walk” path whose wooden boards could not be more slippery were they were greased with bacon fat. The only way into the resort is a gondola up from the river just south of town. The whole place feels like it is one gondola mishap away from being the local for a late 70’s slasher movie. Really creepy.
My work situation is quite odd now. I have only been given ten hours a week of work, which puts me in the awkward situation of having too much free time and not enough money to spend during it. I cannot easily pick up work elsewhere, because it would break my contract with Kojen and subject me to penalty fees. My work situation is going to have to change soon, one way or another.

Taiwan Journal 06

2008-11-07T09:21:00.004-05:00

Missed last week for no particular reason. You know, beyond laziness.

For Halloween, my boss “volunteered” me to dress like a gorilla and go from class to class playing games with the children. An unanticipated consequence of this is, now when I sub for another teacher, the children greet me as “Monkey Teacher Ben”. Know what I don’t need? Dignity.

Actually, there was one good result of Halloween; I made a small girl cry. During my vocabulary-word-laden retelling of the legend of sleepy hollow, I removed a zombified head mask from my bag. This elicited a bout of terrified laughter. But then I passed the head around the class, eventually having it end up on the desk of one girl who really did not want it. Thankfully, this experience prepared me for the waterworks caused by me telling a different girl to team up with the fat kid. I know, I am such a dick. What was I thinking?

Yesterday I went downtown to pickup my new visa, and ran into the anti-China protests. President Ma’s negotiations with mainland diplomats have caused considerable consternation here, specifically because the Chinese delegation will not address Ma as “President”. The protests outside the President’s residence and Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial were huge, complete with food stands, loudspeaker trucks, and T-shirt carts (sporting multilingual “Yes We Can” shirts, no less). Many people wore ribbons with “Taiwan is My Country” written in Mandarin, English, and Russian. The chant for the day translates roughly to “Communist Bandit Go Home”, or so I was told. Surrounding the many government buildings were large portable barbed wire blockades and legions of riot police.

I witnessed the crowd surge on a firetruck, breaking off its mirrors and trying to physically block its path. Later that night, protesters attacked the riot police with sticks and bottles. This must of made the police feel rather odd, given that I imagine they are rather nationalist themselves (how many cops do you know who you would not classify as “nationalistic”?).
The truth is though that the protesters have little reason to complain. The negotiations are merely aimed at making travel and trade between the two countries less difficult, and did not touch on any independence-related issues. Meanwhile, Taiwan has practical autonomy guaranteed by the US, so long as it does not provoke a war by actually declaring independence. The relatively small (23 million) republic has no chance in a war against the Peoples Republic of China without American help, and it hardly seems worth it over a title and a vote in the UN.

Taiwan Journal 05

2008-10-27T00:43:00.009-04:00

So, it seems that I joined a club last week; the Hash House Harriers. Every Sunday, they go out and run through the hills around Taipei. The “Hare” runs first, leaving piles of flour for the rest to follow. The trails thread through winding trails, switch-backed roads, farms, cemeteries, temples, and even bamboo-laden undergrowth. Every so often, the hair leaves an X in the path and the trail ends, to pick up somewhere else.

Once everyone has reached the end, the runners gather for “down downs”. This continuous stream of toasts and curses end once everyone is drunk enough to begin stuffing themselves and mortifying onlookers in a local restaurant. The Hash Runners are made up of a mix of Taipei locals and English-speaking expats. Taking shots with a middle-aged Taipei businessman whose knowledge of English seems to be limited to “Lets Get Fucked Up!” Apparently, the tradition began in Malaysia by British colonial officers who used the hash runs to work off the previous night’s hangover.

My exploration of Taipei’s surrounding hills has not been limited to hash runs, however. Last week I decided to take a trip to Maokong valley, in the south east corner of the city, to ride the famous Gondola that’s advertised across the city. According to the map, the trailhead was just a short walk from the Subway stop, and indeed it was. That did not stop me from getting lost and heading down what I thought was a trail but in fact was a driveway. This driveway extended through the fields of a tea farm, and ended at the farmer’s septic tank. The farmer watched me confidently marching down the path to his septic tank with puzzled amusement. Once I returned he was happy to point me in the correct direction.

This path led me, predictably, up well maintained and adorned continuous sets of stairs. After climbing about 3/4ths of the way up the hillside, the trail spontaneously led through a small covered market, with venders selling noodles, trinkets, and incense. The reason for the incense, and indeed for the whole market, is the massive complex of temples just up the hill. There are Taoist, Buddhist, Shinto, and Confuciust temples all right next to one another. The between the humidity and the incense, it was difficulty to breath near the top of the hill.

In the end, I reached the gondola above the temples only to discover that it was closed for maintenance. This left me to walk back on the (thankfully) downhill trail into town. I got home and found that the grocery store was selling a pound of calamari for $50NT (about $1.75USD). What I did not realize when I bought them was that the little squids had not been gutted. And squid ink gets everywhere. Something to keep in mind.

Next week is Halloween, and I have been “volunteered” by my boss to dress in a gorilla suit to amuse the kids before I head out to a party. Many clubs here offer an open bar after a $600NT ($18USD) cover charge, so I am sure that it will be an interesting night.

Taiwan Journal 04

2008-10-18T06:26:00.004-04:00

Taiwan Journal 04

I woke up Thursday to blue skies and decided today would be as good a day as any to go for a hike. After a too brief consult with my map and guide book, I headed out the door towards Yangmingshan National Park. Yangmingshan is located in the northern mountains directly overlooking the city, and so I was looking forward to picturesque views of the city. There are buses that will take you right into the park, but I noticed that there was a trail from the city limits that leads directly into the park, and decided to take that route.

I soon discovered that this “trail” consisted entirely of a rather steep set of staircases, weaving between the backyards of houses perched on steep slope. This trail took me to a road in the hills, at which point it abruptly died, leaving me to find my way through little slippery alleyways tucked between mountain streams and chain link backyard fences. I eventually reached a little wooded valley town at the park’s entrance. After a 3km clime, my hike began.

The designers of Yangmingshan have made an unfortunate decision. At one point or another, they decided visitors to the park should be fully capable of visiting all of the park’s locals in their Sunday best, with no fear of getting dirt on their cuffs. With this in mind, they paved almost every inch of trail with cobblestone or concrete. The well maintained stone steps I greatly appreciated during my ascent of Cising Mountain. But the poured concrete on the more gently sloping trails had become slick with rain and lichen and were treacherous even in my hiking boots. Cising Mountain itself was interesting, but the view was ruined by wind and fog that apparently covers the peak every afternoon (as I learned from a helpful sign I passed on the way down).
I have been playing a good deal of basketball since I arrived. Yankee pitchers may be the local sports stars, but every kid in my classes with any athletic interest plays basketball. The reasons for this are not hard to fathom. There are plenty of basketball courts across the city, most of which are lit and some even are sheltered from the rain. The courts are packed with quick little slashers with respectable handles, but surprisingly bereft of good pure shooters. They get away with lacking an outside game by calling touch fouls on every play that they miss. It is a little annoying, but considering that I am a good 2-4 inches taller than any other player, I cannot complain too much.

Classes are going well. I have a class of teenagers, a class of 8-10 year olds, and a class of real munchkins. My immigration papers are coming along in good time. I am considering investing in a scooter to expedite my travels out of the city. With the scooter comes a face mask to save my lungs from exhausts at stoplights. Almost every scooter driver wears one, as do many pedestrians when the newspaper reports high levels of pollution. Some days look like SARS day at Disneyland here, no joke. But ironically, everyone here smokes. Go figure.

Taiwan Journal 03

2008-10-08T21:23:00.010-04:00

Back on it for a short one…
Weather in Taipei thus far could be accurately described as “soupy”. When it rains it is warm and foggy, when it doesn’t it is hot and humid. I have acclimated and the weather does not bother me too much. But it does make me incredibly thirsty. This, mixed with Taiwan’s questionable drinking water, means I have had ample opportunity to explore Taiwan’s many bottled drink options.
In many cases I have been pleased with what I have found. 7eleven offers $17($0.50USD) iced teas that have served me well, and there is a far better variety of canned and bottled coffee drinks than the US has. Where I run into problems is when I want a non-caffeinated drink late at night. There are many juices, and milks, and juice-milk combos. But they are often terrible. Most fall into one-of-two categories; “Soapy” or “Salty”. Neither category is what you want when parched. And one must be careful when buying large bottles of water to read the label carefully, to make sure your not getting “Lactic Acid Drink” or “Pocari Sweat”. Delicious.

Today is Yom Kippur, and last night I found a “synagogue” to go to for services. It was a reasonably nice service, with my only complaint being that, since it was being held in a hotel room in the Taipei Sheridan and because I accidentally came early and therefore ended up in the front row, when the service went in an unexpected direction in regards to the melody of the prayers or the order of the service, I felt that my confusion was prominently on display. I am not going to the service today, because 9 hours of synagogue is too much for me. I am fasting though, drinking only water. I am making the exception for water because, as I mentioned above, I am sweating all the time here. I have not pee’ed clear once since I got here and I’m worried that I will get ill if I do not drink.
Anywhoo… I found out about my classes. Ill be teaching a mixed bag of high-schoolers and munchkins. I seem to be having some problems with my Debit card, which is Really convenient especially since I need to pay my rent and deposit… today.

Taiwan Journal 02

2008-10-08T08:51:00.003-04:00

Taiwan Journal 2

So, I am starting to settle in here. I have found a new apartment, walking distance from the school (and fixed my door). I have begun training and meeting the other teachers. I am increasing my still-sparse Chinese vocabulary. I am figuring out where to eat, what’s worth buying, where to go out, etc. So far, so good.

A couple things worth noting. As anyone who has attempted to walk with me around cities like New York or Washington knows, I am an avid jaywalker. I treat crosswalks and pedestrian traffic lights with bemused disdain, and traverse streets wherever traffic patterns allow. Taipei seems to have cured me of this habit. At first I waited at walk signs based on a “when in Rome” philosophy. Now I do so out of genuine mortal fear.
Lest you think I exaggerate, let me explain. People in this city cannot drive. Every day is like a rally race at a sweet sixteen party. People swerve. They accelerate until right before they stop. They ignore one-way signs. They drive up onto curbs to park, even when people are on those very curbs. They go straight through red lights. Honestly, they don’t even drive that fast. It’s not recklessness so much as a genuine lack of skill.

Of course, cars are only a small portion of the vehicles on the road, and that brings me to an entirely different dilemma. My new housemate’s theory is that people drive cars so poorly because they are use to driving scooters, and expect them to handle the same. More than three quarters of drivers are on scooters, rain or shine. When a red light turns green, you can tell without even looking from all the buzzing Vespa engines.

The Taiwanese scooter is an All Terrain Vehicle. It will be driven down highways or alleyways, over dirt or grass, off curbs and down sidewalks. Riding down sidewalks is a convenient way for the Taiwanese Scooter-enthusiast to avoid rush-hour congestion, or just to see the city from a different perspective. In any city this would create interesting choices for pedestrians, but the way buildings are constructed in Taipei makes it especially nerve-wracking. Most buildings’ in Taipei have their ground floor set back as to create an overhang under which pedestrians walk. With shops to one side and pillers, food venders, and parked bikes to the other, there is little room for a weary ambler to avoid oncoming scooters. About once a day someone reenacts the scene below from True Lies, with me as the bellhop pushed into the fountain (fast forward to about 2:45).

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True Lies - Mall Chase - Every10Mins.com

I actually have a bit more written that needs a little editing. That, along with a bunch of photos, I will put up tomorrow morning (in my new place!).

Taiwan Journal 01

2008-10-03T21:54:00.016-04:00

So, here I am in Taiwan. I do not have a permanent address or a working cell phone, but I am here. I have signed my contract and received my assignment, working out of the head office in downtown Taipei. Hoorah.

(Canada, then Alaska)

It took about twenty-three hours for me to travel from JFK to Taipei. There were two stop-overs, a short one in Detroit and a slightly longer one in Osaka. The plane was old and uncomfortable, with only a single projector screen on the long trip from Detroit to Japan. The “highlight” of the films presented was the Wakowski Brother’s Technicolor disaster Speed Racer. However, anticipating the possibility of a nice view for the flight, I had made sure to secure a window seat on the right side of the plane, facing away from the sun for most of the flight. For this foresight I was rewarded with beautiful views of Canadian, Alaskan, and Siberian mountain ranges, which I dutifully gawked at for a healthy portion of the flight.

(Siberia)

I arrived at my temporary apartment in Taipei around 12:30am. I currently need four keys to open the many doors between the street and my room, though when I first arrived I needed five. The alley my building is on is not particularly well lit, and the locks are stubborn. After putting my things down in my room I decided to take a walk to look for a snack. Upon returning I was unable to figure out how to open the first lock (you have to turn it, pull out, then push in). I assumed that I had the wrong door, or worse even the wrong street. So I spent a half an hour trying belatedly to find the right one, worrying that my first night in Taipei would be on the street.

(Sky over Japan)

I eventually found my way in to discover one of my housemates returning from a bar. He asked me if I wanted to go with him to the 7eleven around the corner. I agreed and closed the door to my room, only to realize that the door had locked and I had left my keys on my bed. My new housemate was completely sloshed and as such the advice he gave was less than useful. After a couple aborted attempts to use a credit card to open the door, I made an executive decision that however much it would cost to repair the door was worth less than reaching my bed after my long flight. So with one swift kick I gained entrance. The bolt from the handle hit the wall opposite the door and I promptly collapsed asleep.

(View From Apartment Balcony)

Taipei seems like a pretty cool city so far. It is like a cross between the city in Blade Runner and an old sauna. Many of the buildings look like duct tape was a vital building material. Much of the architecture was built in the 50’s and 60’s. The Kuomintang had to build quickly during that period to accommodate a million refugees from China. However, they were convinced that they would quickly reconquer the mainland, so the buildings did not have to be built to last. The past fifty years have not been kind to them.

Mopeds absolutely own the city, due to the fact that many of the side streets are too narrow for cars and sidewalks are considered more of a luxury than a necessity. The most surprising thing I have noticed is the prevalence of “western” food. Sandwiches and hot dogs seem almost as common as dumplings and noodles, even with street venders.

(View From my Room)

I am going to try to keep this blog well stocked with stories and photos from my time here, as well as the occasional political rant.

Georgia, Russia and NATO

2008-08-12T12:29:00.001-04:00

By now, anyone has been following the recent events in Georgia knows the box score of the current hostilities, but Ill recap just in case.

In 1991, Georgia declared independence from the Soviet Union. Though it flirted briefly with democracy, a semi-fascist oligarchy headed by Eduard Shevardnadze was quickly set up and ran the country until 2003. During this time, Russia began to build up the separatist aspirations of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two provinces on the Russo-Georgian border. They even went as far as to issue Russian passports in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both regions have held de facto autonomy since 1992 due to the threat of Russian military action.

The situation changed after the “Rose Revolution” of 2003. With both Russian and American support, Mikheil Saakashvili forced Shevardnadze to abdicate and was elected President a month later. The election of a legitimate, democratic government in Georgia coincided with increased American interest in the region. Georgia wanted a powerful backer to help it reclaim territories lost to Russian influence, whereas the threat of nuclear proliferation and a desire for allies in Central Asia to help combat “Global Terrorism” were the principle drives behind American support for the Caucasus state.

The current war was touched off when Georgia invaded the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, killing Russian “peacekeepers” in the process. Technically, the Georgians were in the right here. South Ossetia is recognized by the UN as part of Georgia, and so they were technically just maneuvering on their own territory. The truth is that they have no more right to South Ossetia than Russia has to Georgia. On the other hand, if every group in the Caucuses with a Glorious Past and a grudge actually had independence, the map would look like you dumped out a bag of Skittles on it. Regardless, Russia responded by sending couple tank columns down into Georgia.

Of course, the Russians had motives beyond protecting the “poor oppressed Ossetians”. Russia has been bitter ever since NATO declared Kosovo independent from Russia’s historic little buddy Serbia. Vlad Putin has been peeved because of discussions about Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO. Putin wants to use this war to promote an undeclared Russian Monroe Doctrine. The West, and especially the United States, stays the hell out of the Former Soviet Union. Or, to quote Vladimir Putin, “Georgia’s OUR bitch.”*

Russia cannot be allowed to dictate who the US and NATO works with. The idea that American overtures to former Soviet states were part of a plan to encircle Russia was pure paranoia. Fear of Russia may be what drives Eastern Europe into America’s arms, but beyond the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, America has little interest in messing with Putin’s Russia. We have quite enough enemies, thank you very much. The Russia just wasn’t really on NATO’s radar.

That is, until now. I think that Putin and President Medvedev may have miscalculated with this war. Georgia and Ukraine were very close to getting NATO membership earlier this year, and would have if not for opposition from Germany. The strongest case against Georgia and Ukraine entering NATO is that it would be unnecessarily provocative to bring in a country with an active border dispute with Russia. The Russian offensive may succeed in clearing up this issue. Meanwhile, Russian artillery and the inevitable civilian casualties it causes are upsetting Europeans use to more civilian-friendly American precision bombing. Europe has been stuck in the idea that full-out war only happens to silly little brown people and cowboy Americans. What a change a week makes.

The situation in Georgia is completely up in the air and I can’t speculate on its result, but I will say that this war will most likely lead to Ukraine’s ascension into NATO and the EU. This war may make Georgians look like unreliable allies, but Ukraine is unscathed. Had Georgia made it into NATO, I doubt that Russia would have risked this war. As it is, the Georgian war may just lead to Russia feeling more encircled than it did last week.

*I have no evidence that Mr. Putin ever said this.

The United States and Turkey

2008-08-07T11:25:00.005-04:00

For the past couple of years, Turkey has been struggling with something of a crisis of identity. Turkey, long at the crossroads between the West and Asia, has spent almost ten years negotiating for membership in the European Union. While it remains strictly secular by law, in practice Turkey is a devoutly Muslim nation and is far more pious than many in the European club it wishes to join. This dichotomy between Turkey’s secular construction and Islamic content may be the cause of many of its headaches domestically and internationally. It is also the strongest basis for making sure Turkey continues to grow closer to the west.

Criticism of Turkish ascension to the EU typically takes three distinct forms. The first concern that many in Europe have is Turkey’s economic strength. This complaint is patently unfair. Turkey’s GDP per capita is above that of Romania, which ascended to the EU in 2006. More open trade with Europe would certainly accelerate Turkey’s growth, as would the strong increase in foreign investment associated with EU ascension.

A second concern about Turkey joining the EU, famously voiced by Pope Benedict XVI, is the idea that Europe is, by definition, Christian. I am sure that the 10 million French, British, and German Muslims would be delighted to hear that. The Pope later recanted, but widespread xenophobia remains throughout the EU. Europeans hate genocide and ethnic cleansing, but love their results. Regardless, the complaint is bullshit. Nations of the Anatolia peninsula have been part of European politics longer than the Church has. No one denied that Istanbul was part of Europe back when it was called Constantinople.

The most legitimate concern about Turkey has been the strength of its democracy. Turkey has been a Democracy in the South-East Asian sense of the word, in that sovereignty with the people, so long as the people don’t do anything to upset the military. What really pisses off the military is anything that would go against the legacy of Kemal Ataturk. This includes anything that would deny the inherent Turkishness of Turkey, and any hint of religion in politics.

So the electoral success of the mildly Islamist AK party, and of its leader Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has upset the secularists in the military greatly. Their fears are unjustified. AK’s most anti-secular action, the repeal of a ban on headscarves in Universities, is hardly a first step on the road to a Caliphate. Saudi Arabia had a similar ban on headscarves in Universities, in that they disapproved both of women learning and cross dressers. The most likely effect of the ban on headscarves in Turkey was that women in poorer and more religious areas were less likely to attend school.

Regardless, the Chief Prosecutor had asked the Constitutional courts to ban AK. This was no mean threat: the constitutional court has banned more than twenty political parties since its inception. Last week, the court decided not to do so. This event, along with the recent negotiations in Cyprus, demonstrates the strength of Turkey’s democracy and its determination to join Europe. But Turkey needs help overcoming European fears. This is where the United States comes in. America should start going to bat for Turkey in a visible way regarding its EU ascension.

Turkey is one of America’s most important allies in a number of ways. They are a regional power in the Middle East on the level of Iran in terms of size and strength. Even if Turkey does not make it into the EU, they are likely to negotiate some sort of free trade agreement that will accelerate their growth similar to how NAFTA has sped up Mexico’s. That will leave it as an increasingly powerful power with a strong economy and a growing population. They have long standing ties to the United States through NATO, and maintain friendly relations with Israel as well as its neighbors. They did not back us in Iraq, but who can blame them? All we did was create a mess on its southeastern border, and stir up trouble with its large (20%) Kurdish minority.

On top of this, they are tough. Global Fire Power.com ranks their military as 8th in the world, ahead of Great Britain’s, for whatever that’s worth. In a time when most of our “allies” in the region kowtow to our face and stab at our back (think Pakistan and the Saudis), Turkey is upfront with its displeasure with the US. So much so that it has been willing to go into Iraq to bang on the PKK (anti-Turkish Kurdish militias), even though the Kurds are America’s only reliable ally in the country.

Here is the problem. The United States is very unpopular among most people in Turkey. The Iraq war and the perceived anti-Muslim trend in American foreign policy are certainly aspects of this widespread resentment. However, foreign policy is a “what have you done for me lately” business. We have been asking a lot of favors from the Turks recently and have not done much in return.

US support for Turkey’s EU bid would be perfect for this. It would be visible and easy to understand. We would piss off the Germans and others in Europe, but who cares? Europeans will get over it. If Turkey perceives that it is continually being rejected by the West, it might not.

Iraq and McCain

2008-07-11T13:23:00.008-04:00

So far, the conventional wisdom has been that, as a campaign issue, Iraq is a wash for Obama and McCain. Many commentators have argued that, though the Iraq war is highly unpopular among the electorate, McCain's position on the war makes him look principled and his military background gives him important foreign policy experience. Americans are also somewhat torn over the war itself, due to fears that an American pullout could precipitate a civil war.

The ongoing negotiations over the Status of Forces agreement have dramatically changed Iraq as an election issue. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has demanded that any agreement between the United States and Iraq have a clearly stated withdrawal timetable. Obama has long stated that he is in favor of just this sort of timetable, but McCain has claimed that insurgents would merely lie low until the United States leaves, then return to terrorizing the country.

This argument made much more sense a year ago than it does now. Al Qaeda in Iraq is largely defeated across the country and the Mahdi Army seems to accepted the legitimacy of the current government in Iraq, if not the occupation that protects it. Iraq, the government and the people, want a sign that the United States is not there to stay. This is a fair request and it makes sense to honor it.

One must remember what our primary mission in Iraq is. It is not to protect the Iraqi people, though that is a necessary component. Our goal in Mesopotamia is and has been to leave behind a friendly, strong democracy. But democracy is messy and democratic allies cannot always be depended on to fall in line on every issue. There is a real belief that any government supported by an occupying force is destined to be a sycophantic marionette, with strings held in the Green Zone and in Washington. If Maliki's government is to wield any power and maintain the trust of the people it governs, it must dispel this belief.

Iraq holds all the cards in a negotiation with the United States. Maliki can credibly claim that he cannot present a Status of Forces agreement to the Iraqi people without a timetable for withdrawal. The Bush administration, conversely, has all the negotiating flexibility in the world. They can hardly threaten to pull out immediately as opposed to agreeing to pull out eventually. And they need the Status of Forces agreement to legally distinguish our current presence in Iraq from an aggressive occupation.

I do not understand why McCain has not used this opportunity to adjust his position on Iraq. He has said that "We will come home with honor and with victory," but America announcing that it will leave Iraq may be instrumental to that victory. If the Iraqi government asks us to go and we refuse, we would reignite the civil war and insurgency that the Surge helped avert. In McCain's own words, "it's obvious that we would have to leave" if we are asked to by the Iraqi government.

McCain should come out loudly in favor of bowing to Maliki's wishes for a set timetable. if he did so he would essentially force the issue on the Bush administration, because the Iraqi's would be guaranteed of getting a good deal from whoever wins in November, and could turn down any deal they did not like until the end of the year.

McCain then could brandish his foreign policy experience untainted by the occupation in Iraq, because he could declare it a resolved problem. He could focus on displaying his warrior's courage and Churchillian resolve on serious but politically unambiguous problems like Afghanistan and Pakistan. He could say that the success of the Surge, which was his baby as much as it was Petreus's, is what allowed for this policy adjustment. It would define him as strong yet flexible, displaying a visible change from the past eight years of "Stay the Course."

I just don't get why this has not already happened.

Casus Belli

2008-06-30T11:27:00.014-04:00

The new edition of The New Yorker features a piece by Seymour Hersh, reporting that the Bush administration has initiated large-scale covert operations within Iran aimed at destabilizing the regime, and that Congress has given him $400 million to do so. US Special Ops and the CIA have been encouraging Baluchi, Ahwazis, and Kurdish dissident groups within Iran to increase attacks targeting the government and the Revolutionary Guard.

There is very significant support for US actions against Iran on both sides of the isle on the Hill. While very few Americans are in favor of a military strike against Iran, the tone of the Democratic Primary and the vote to declare the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group certainly indicate there is a strong anti-Iran movement within the Democratic Party. Obviously, the $400 million would not have been allocated without the support of Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate. However, despite this support, the White House has kept Congress largely out of the loop in regards to the Pentagon’s actions in Iran.

“I suspect there’s something going on, but I don’t know what to believe. Cheney has always wanted to go after Iran, and if he had more time he’d find a way to do it. We still don’t get enough information from the agencies, and I have very little confidence that they give us information on the edge.” – Congressman David Obey, House Appropriations Committee Chair

Congress is not the only ones being kept out of the loop. Admiral William Fallon, David Petreus’s predecessor as head of CENTCOM, resigned due to disagreements with the White House over America’s Iran policy. Specifically, he ran into oppositi on from the Vice President’s office while trying to rein in Special Ops forces operating within his theater but not under his control.

These covert operations have been ongoing for at least the past six months, without a significant heightening of tensions between the United States and Iran. However, recent events involving Israel are worrisome. In May, Israel conducted a large practice operation in the Mediterranean involving over 100 planes, coincidentally the same distance west that Iran is east. Shabtai Shavit, a former head of Mossad, has said that Israel has “about a year” to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment industry. Former Ambassador John Bolton theorized that Israel may attack late this year, after the presidential election but before Obama or McCain take office. The goal of these attacks would be to cripple Iran’s Uranium-enrichment industry. Israel has launched similar strikes in the past, in 1988 against Iraq and last fall against Syria. However, without American assistance it is highly doubtful that such an attack would be successful against Iran, due to its size and mountainous terrain.

Worse, Iran has indicated that it will respond to any Israeli attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the thirty-five mile wide shipping lane into the Persian Gulf through which 40% of the world’s oil is shipped. A combination of mines artillery, and rockets could largely shut down the strait to commercial shipping. US Naval officials have said that the United States will not allow Iran to close off the Persian Gulf, and that any attempt to do so would be viewed as an act of war.

Here is the problem for the United States. It is very difficult to stop artillery and rockets coming out of unfriendly territory. Iran does not have to stop every oil tanker to hurt the US. Even the potential of a threat has driven the price of oil up. Imagine if an actual threat materializes. And due to the relative shallowness of the strait, every ship Iran sinks is a potential obstacle, making the shipping lanes even more dangerous. Case-in-point; the Israelis have been unable to stop rocket and mortar attacks coming out of Gaza, a 5 mile wide strip that they know like the back of their hand. How does the US stop similar attacks coming out of a much bigger territory in Iran without invading?

Gaza Strip drawn to Scale with Strait

Putting boots on the ground in Iran is the last thing the US wants to do. Remember, these guys trained Hezbollah. They are not going to line up for us in nice tank battles the way Saddam did. We don't really have a major opposition group to back like we did with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. We cannot cannot successfully wage a limited war with Iran.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail. A top aid to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came out in favor of negotiations, and cautioned against top Iranian officials using "provocative and illogical declarations and slogans," a reference to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's frequent predictions of the destruction of Israel. Recent developments in North Korea have shown that negotiations, combined with economic sanctions, can yield positive returns.

The United States has to be very careful with this issue. We have to hold Israel on a tight leash in regards to Iran. According to Shavit, getting American approval is "not a precondition" for an attack. This is bull. While Israel's fears of an Iranian nuclear program are justified, there are better ways of dealing with it than a preemptive strike that is unlikely to do more than delay weapons production. While we are doing as much to support Israel as we do, and when we will likely be the recipients of Iranian reprisals, they had damn well better wait for America to sign off on any attack.

The American congress should hold still-President Bush to a tighter leash as well. Both Barak Obama and John McCain promise to end the shoot-from-the-hip policies and byzantine power struggles that characterized the past eight years of American foreign policy. It would be a shame if, in his last days in office, Bush led us into a disaster like this.

How to be a Cartoonishly Evil Corporation; KBR in Iraq

2008-06-18T09:39:00.003-04:00

It is often brought up by members of the Left that we went into Iraq because Mr. Cheney wanted to help his friends in Haliburton steal all the Muslims' oil. This would sound more like shrieking paranoia were it not for the good people over at KBR. Formally a Haliburton subsidiary called Kellogg Brown and Root, KBR has for the past five years been doing its best to act like a corporation in a Grisham novel. It is amazing how little press some of this stuff has gotten.

So KBR is currently the primary vendor of food and other supplies to American soldiers. It has been paid $24 billion dollars since the war began, largely from no-bid contracts. It has been alleged that these contracts were given due to the company's political connections to the White House, via Dick Cheney. But what's a government sponsored monopoly between friends? If that were all, KBR would be barely more evil than Juan Trippe's PanAm in The Aviator.

Now there are plenty of stories coming out of Iraq highlighting the sort of shadyness and incompetence that KBR regularly displays. KBR found a great way to save money, for example, by taking waste water, pouring some chlorine into it, filtering it, and piping it back to American Soldiers for bathing and laundry use. KBR is also under investigation for ignoring the warnings of its electricians about shoddy wiring, which may have led to the electrocution and death of 12 service members in Iraq. But where KBR really goes into Grisham territory is the story of Jamie Leigh Jones.

Jones was an employee of KBR in Iraq in 2006. She was roofied and raped by one of her fellow employees. This in itself is not too uncommon for female contractors in Iraq. What made Jones's case special was her employers reaction to the news. You see, one might expect that when a company is presented with a terrible situation like this, they would quickly move to assist and console the victim. If for no other reason than to limit their financial liability. KBR decided to go a different route.

After Ms. Jones saw a US Army physician and was given a rape kit, which confirmed that she had been drugged and raped by multiple parties, she was promptly escorted by KBR security to a shipping container. There she was held against her will for four days, until she managed to beg a cell phone from one of her guards. She called her father, who contacted Congressman Ted Poe. Poe contacted the State Department, which sent two Foreign Service Officers to rescue Ms. Jones.

Just like any Grisham-esq corporate thriller, the behavior of KBR makes very little sense. Why lock the poor girl up? At that point, why not kill her? I mean, if your banking on the "Iraq is the Wild West and therefor laws don't apply" theory, why not take it to its logical conclusion? Jones was not just raped. She ended up needing reconstructive surgery after the incident. It seems a bit unrealistic to expect her to cool her heels and get over it.

Of course Iraq is the Wild West, according to the Bush Administration, and KBR is a protected company. So the the Justice Department is in no rush to investigate and even though Ms. Jones returned form Iraq two years ago there has been little progress on her case. Her best hope for justice is to wait until January when the new administration comes in.

KBR's protection by the Bush administration has been reemphasized this week by new allegations against them, this time by an ex-US army official who says he was fired for contesting "$1 billion in questionable payments".

"The official, Charles Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Smith said that he was forced from his position in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations. Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company.
'They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify,' he said. 'Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn't going to do that.'"

Smith was replaced by an outside contractor, who immediately authorized the payments.

In other news, KBR is opening up a new division dedicated to growing out handlebar mustaches and tieing damsels to railroad tracks. This is following revelations that KBR will soon begin feeding America's troops in Iraq a balanced diet of clubbed baby seal and recycled orphans.

Muqtada Rebrands, and the "Status of Forces" agreement

2008-06-14T12:01:00.017-04:00

This weekend saw two important events happen in Iraq, both of which make me optimistic about the political future of that country.

Firstly, PM Maliki has announced that the negotiations between Iraq and the United States for a new security agreement have reached an impasse. The Bush Administration has been promoting an agreement that would give American military personnel and contractors legal immunity from Iraqi courts, authority to conduct military operations without consulting the Iraqi government, control of Iraq's airspace and borders, and over 50 bases. The Iraqi's, conversely, are looking for an American guarantee to defend Iraq's borders from foreign invasion.

Many of these provisions are deeply unpopular in Iraq. Ayatollah Sistani has vocally opposed the deal, and had Maliki conceded to it he would have confirmed his critics accusations that he is merely an American puppet. The Bush administration has said that it "remains confident" that a deal will be reached by the end of July. Though this may be an optimistic estimate, some sort of deal will certainly be reached before the UN mandate for American forces runs out in December.

Secondly, Muqtada al-Sadr has announced that he is restructuring the Mahdi Army. The Mahdi army is already the largest distributor of humanitarian aid in Iraq. Much of the Mahdi rank-and-file will be turned into a civilian organisation focused on "religious, social and cultural affairs", increasing the organization's political strength. Meanwhile a smaller and more secretive group would continue attacks on, Coalition forces. "The weapons will be held exclusively by this new group, and they should be pointed exclusively at the occupier." Likely, the "new group" will be primarily made up of the Iranian trained Special Groups that have been so effective against both American and Iraqi forces. "We will not stop resisting the occupation until liberation or martyrdom," Sadr has said.

It may seem odd that these two events are signs of progress. Why is it good that the Iraqi government is repudiating the United States, and that a prominent politician is pledging to continue to kill American soldiers? Because both events hint that there will not be a cataclysmic civil war when we leave.

Both of the above mentioned events are proof of growing nationalism within Iraq, and a growing faith in the ability of the government to maintain stability. Maliki would not have stood up to the Bush administration over the Status of Forces agreement if he believed that the only thing holding him in power was American military might. And Sadr would not begin to demilitarize his militia at all if he did not see a route to power though democracy, or if he predicted a full scale civil war would break out soon. His only incentive to transform the Mahdi army into a civilian force is to expand his influence amongst the moderate Shiites.

Iraq is going to be messy. There are too many factions within the country that have an interest in a weak central government. Not just the Mahdi Army, but also the Sunnis and the Kurds, and above all the Iranians. But the Iraqi army is becoming increasingly capable of putting up a fight to the militia groups, and the country is unlikely to completely splinter apart the minute we leave.

Here are the facts; there is a finite amount of time that America can expect to maintain the current level of soldiers on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Withdrawing from Iraq would would allow the American military to refocus its efforts on Afghanistan. Recent events there have certainly emphasized the need for more American boots on the ground in Kandahar and the rest of eastern Afghanistan.

The United States needs to drastically reduce its presence in Iraq, and soon. John McCain often says on the campaign trail that we should not leave Iraq until we have achieved "victory." But what does Victory entail? The vision of a Switzerland on the Euphrates just aint gona happen. A more realistic model may be India. India is also subjected to ethnic tensions and regular terrorism, but none the less has maintained a vibrant democracy. Perhaps if the United States began to move towards the door, we would be able to largely appease the Sadrists while still assisting the government.

What should be kept in mind, by both Mr. Bush in the waning days of his presidency and by both presidential candidates, is that their chief duty in Iraq is the stewardship of American power. Every action taken in Iraq by the United States must keep this in mind. When the NeoCons said that the post 9/11 world is a new and dangerous place for a superpower, they were not wrong. America cannot afford to dictate the next eight years of its foreign policy based on the "we broke it we bought it" theory.

What really is preventing us from declaring Victory? I am not talking about a gaudy speech on an aircraft carrier, but instead Bush and Petreus (or McCain and Petreus or Obama and Petreus) announcing that they believe that Iraqi can stand up on its own, and that America will withdraw, not as a defeated occupier, but as a friend and ally of the Iraqi people.

Chuck Hagel at the Cato Institute...

2008-06-12T16:59:00.005-04:00

I traveled to the Fun Loving Cato Institute today, for a free sandwich.

Oh, and Chuck Hagel was speaking there too.

Senator Hagel was speaking at the Cato institute today with two goals in mind: Hawk his book, and give a "I am running to be Obama's VP, but don't tell anybody" speech. He all but endorsed Obama, saying that he thought that America needed a "Thoughtful" presidency and then advocating most of Obama's signature foreign policys (on Iraq, Iran, etc...). When asked by the President of the Cato Institute whether he would accept an offer of the #2 spot on a presidential ticket from either of the candidates, Hagel coyly remarked that every politician would have to at least consider the offer of the vice presidency, though the Vice Presidential candidate for the Republicans should not have the sort of policy disagreements with McCain that he has.

I had not had an opportunity to see Hagel speak before this, and he certainly impressed me as a thoughtful and wise politician. I do not know how seriously the Obama campaign is looking across the isle for a VP, but they could do a lot worse than the senator from Nebraska. The man perspires sincerity, with a kind of exasperated, "lets cut the BS and get to work" vibe.
Sure, he is out of line with the Dems on a bunch of social issues, and Sure he would present a host of succession problems for year 7-8 of an Obama administration if he goes for the top seat as a Republican. And I know that he is not one of those swing-state guys that people like to attach to tickets.

Obama-Hagel lends credence to Barak's "New Politics" message of getting beyond the Clinton-Bush partisanship, and will certainly pull across a couple wavering elephants with him. This will be especially important in those Great Plains states that usually go Red but that Obama dominated in the Primaries. He will need those states too, because I just don't see Obama winning in a 51% election. If it comes down to Ohio-Penn-Florida, McCain is the next president.
Obama's 50 state strategy is the only strategy that could work for him, because if he does not get large defections from the neglected branches of the Republican party I don't think he can win. On the other hand, one of the oddest things about the speech at Cato was how the crowd seemed to want him to throw his hat in with Obama formally, so they could have an excuse to Punish the Republican party. The President of the Cato Institute straight up said that he might go with Obama if Hagel was his running mate. This is an institute named after a guy who was almost a caricature of conservatism!
(Full Disclosure, the above point is not true, as I recently found out. The institute was named after a couple of 17th century British libertarians who wrote under the alias Cato, not the Cato of Rome. But my point still stands.)

I expect that if Obama wins in November, it will be because he is running a much better campaign than McCain is, not because of his VP choice. But Hagel should still be brought in. He is leaving the Senate this November, and a man as sensible as he appears to be should not be allowed to waste in retirement.

Memo to Obama: Keep Gates

2008-06-10T15:46:00.012-04:00

Richard Armitage and Michèle A. Flournoy have recently brought up that after the election there will be a time when many of the high level national security positions will be unfilled while the new administration's recommendations get confirmed by Congress. This leaves the United States unacceptably vulnerable, given that "2009 may well be the most precarious period in recent American history." Armitage and Flournoy bring up a number of sensible solutions to this problem, but there is an obvious one they missed: hold on to some people, specifically Robert Gates.

Now, I am all for the "throw the bastards out" philosophy; the ability to remove demonstratively failing leadership is the best argument for democracy. But many of the catastrophes that Gates currently presiding over were not of his creation. Given the state of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when Rumsfield stepped down, I believe that Gates has performed admirably.

There have been a number of columns recently praising Robert Gates for his decision to sack General Mike Moseley and replace him with General Norton Schwartz. Schwartz is notable for not being a fighter pilot. The Air Force has been dominated by fighter pilots for quite some time, and this is reflected in their procurement priorities (cough cough F22 cough). Schwartz's elevation will hopefully bring some reason to the Air Force's priorities.

He has advocated negotiations with Iran, to the chagrin of the Bush administration. Together with General Petraeus, Gates has made an effort to get the military to actually focus on the two wars it is currently waging, rather than continually preparing to go twelve rounds with the Russia or China.
I believe that Obama would see the most benefit from holding on to Robert Gates. If he wins in November, it will be largely attributed to his message of "a new kind of politics." What better way to visibly deviate from the fierce partisanship that has characterized the past 16 years than to keep a high ranking Republican cabinet member? Also, it would send a signal to America's enemies that, though Obama may be less bellicose that Bush, he ain't no pushover. McCain might not want to retain any Bushies for the purely political reason of not wanting to appear to be W's third term. But Obama should strongly consider Gates' s retention as a good first act of his presidency.

Speculation on the Future of the Mahdi Army

2008-06-09T11:16:00.009-04:00

David Ignatious has written an excellent piece on Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Quds Force. It’s a quick read and has some good insights in it.

The Quds Force is like a Persian hybrid of the French Foreign Legion and the Dulles-era CIA. While organizationally its placed within the Revolutionary Guard, it has often been reported that Soleimani reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The Mission Statement of the Quds Force is the export of Islamic Revolution, and to meet this goal it trains and supplies terrorist groups around the globe. Hezbollah is a Quds Force darling, as was the Northern Alliance against the Taliban back when America's only interest in Afghanistan was bemoaning exploded Buddahs. The US State Department has labeled the Quds Force a "Terrorist Organization", which is technically accurate but besides the point. First and foremost, the Quds Force works for Iranian interests.

Nowhere is this cleared than in Iraq. Ideologically, Muqtada al-Sadr is Iran's most natural ally. He is wants to establish a Shia Islamic state in Iran, and is no great fan of America. There is only one problem; the guy is a legitimate Iraqi nationalist. Unlike the Badr Brigade and the SIIC (Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the dominant mainstream Shia party), Sadr and his family sweated out the Saddam era in Baghdad. So while he is very willing to take those nice Iranian-made RPG's and shaped charges thankyouverymuch, he is much less comfortable taking his marching orders from a Persian sugar-daddy. The Badr Brigade and a large number of "moderate" Shia politicians make no such claim.
The alliance between Sadr and Iran is a marriage of convenience. Iran supplies the Madhi Army, and Sadr keeps America on its toes. So here is the question; what happens when it looks like the US is really out the door? This brings me back to Soleimani.

Iran would certainly prefer a nice pliable SIIC government next door than a demonstrated hardcase like Sadr. Currently, Iran supplies both sides of the Shia-Iraqi bloodfeud, largely to keep things fun for Coalition forces. So if Obama or McCain gets in and starts making serious motions towards getting out of dodge, what is Iran's response?

There are two ways of looking at this; either Iran wants the US stuck in Iraq, or it just wants America out of the neighborhood. Personally, I subscribe to Gary Brecher's theory that the US military would get seriously bloodied if we tried to take on Iran while we were in Iraq, due to the vulnerability of our ships in the Gulf and Iran's demonstrated ability to manage Iraqi insurgent groups. Keeping the US in Iraq allows Iran to score points off us largely free from retribution. But the Iranians may just figure that the past five years of war have worn out the American electorate's appetite for conflict, and having a large American presance next door is more likely to do harm than good. In that case, Soleimani may try to keep a lid on the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade as much as possible, so the US feels it is safe to leave.

Ok, so now here is the scenario. America has largely pulled out of the country, leaving behind a couple of "military advisers", pilots flying from Iraqi bases, and probably a handful of special-ops. The Iraqi army is still just the Badr Brigade dressed up in a different uniform. Sadr is probably the most popular Shia politician in Iraq, because he can claim that he is the only major player to have fought both Saddam and the Americans. But right there his advantages end. Sadr's best troops are the Quds-trained "Special Groups", but I wonder whether their loyalties lie more with Muqtada, or with their suppliers in Iran. Sadr will no longer be able to polish his rep by fighting and denouncing coalition forces.

At that point, whats to keep Soleimani from deciding that Iran can better retain influence in Iraq without the obstinate, nationalistic Sadr? Nobody wants to have chaos on their borders. So Sadr sees his supply lines from Iran largely dry up, and his best troops no longer heeding his call. At this point, Sadr's options become very limited. Once you look past his glower, theatrics, and penchant for impersonating Darth Vader on magazine covers, Sadr looks a lot like a guy who is riding a political movement rather than a guy who can maintain one. He might try his luck with democracy, but reports coming out of areas controlled by the Mahdi Army don't seem to indicate the sort of local support that continues on once the occupier has gone home.

Of course, all this is dependent on the assumption that the Iranians don't chose to continue to support Sadr after America leaves. Unfortunately, guys like Soleimani don't often submit themselves to teary, tell-all interviews with Barbra Walters. But I just cannot see the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army coexisting for long, and I cannot see Iran backing a gamble like Sadr when a known quantity like the SIIC exists.

The Logic of the Suicide Bomber

2008-05-30T11:49:00.004-04:00

War Nerd Gary Brecher, over at The Exile, has written an excellent article about criticisms of suicide bombers. He basically argues that people think Muslims are crazy for being suicide bombers only because we cannot imagine dieing for some poor neighborhood in Gaza City or Basra. But Europeans have no problem dieing for a cause.

"Normal military service in a 19th-century army at war was pretty close to wearing a suicide vest anyway. Fredericksburg, if you were a Federal; Pickett's Charge, if you were a Reb; those were pretty much suicide missions. And the death you could expect was a million times scarier than the one a modern suicide bomber gets. An Iraqi "martyr" can count on instant, painless death. They usually find the bomber's head totally popped off the body--that's how they ID the bomber. So it's basically death by beheading, and it's worth remembering that beheading used to be a privilege in Europe, the honorable death they reserved for VIPs."

I was just cued into Gary Brecher by Demid recently, and I must say that I am impressed. The guy looks like Dwight Shrute, but he argues like a cross between Steven Levitt and Tyler Durden. Good Stuff.

Scared to Death in Pakistan

2008-05-29T17:16:00.005-04:00

I happened upon This Crazy Report in GQ this afternoon. Its really long and reads more like a travel diary than a piece of journalism, but it does give some great insights into whats been going on in Pakistan since the death of Benazir Bhutto. My favorite part of the article comes when the author is interviewing Nawaz Sharif. Sharif is the head of the Pakistan Muslim League, the second largest political party in Pakistan. He is also an ex-Prime Minister who was deposed by Musharraf's coup.

"Nawaz has made the restoration of the judiciary his first principle. He says this without my asking, because he knows it’ll play well with me, the American democracy freak convinced that the one way for the world to succeed is for everyone to look like us. “Our first priority is to reinstate the judges. To restore the judiciary to the status of November. And to abandon the role of military in politics. These are our primary objectives.”

"He does not mention that he himself had the Supreme Court stormed by military forces when he was in power. I ask him what he’ll do about the militancy. And he turns the question around, like every question, to make it about Musharraf. “These problems have always cropped up whenever there is a dictatorship in this country. They never posed any problems under democracy. These are the so-called fruits of dictatorship that we are seeing at this time.” The one plank of his political platform is “Go, Musharraf, go.” Because Musharraf is of course the root cause of every problem. It’s normal politics, but played at an extraordinary frequency."

"I think to myself: If Musharraf is gone, and things are still bad, what will they do then?"

A common theme in the article is that everyone in Pakistan uses Musharraf to excuse all the country's ills, as though his removal will magically improve the economy and introduce stability and safety.

The only person in the interview who deviates from this point of view is Humayun Gauhar, a Musharraf hanger-on. Gauhar treats Musharraf's political rivals as a bunch of corrupt phonys whose ascension would lead to even more instability than the General has presided over. Gauhar comes off as a stereotypically corrupt bureaucrat treating every broken rule, greased palm, jailed dissident and assassinated rival as business-as-usual. Shockingly, he advocates America deposing President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and reinstalling Mullah Omar and the Taliban. This man has had the ear of Pervez Musharraf for years, and even ghost-wrote his autobiography.

Nothing in the article is particularly encouraging. Scratch that. Everything in the article is downright scary. Remember, these guys have nukes. I cannot believe that we are worried about Iran at this point.

Assassinating Terrorist Leadership

2008-05-29T12:09:00.004-04:00

Reach Out and Touch Someone...

StrategyPage.com has put up this article describing the military's strategy of political assassination to defeat Al-Qaeda. The idea is that if the military or the CIA manages to take out Bin Ladin or Zawahiri, then Al-Qaeda will fall apart.

This strategy does not seem to make much sense to me for two reasons. First of all, the decapitation strategy has not been very successful for the Israelis in regards to Hamas, which is a much more structured organization than Al-Qaeda.

But perhaps a better reason to keep Bin Ladin & Co breathing is that they have thus far not proved to be very effective leaders. There is Increasing Evidence that Al Qaeda is losing the ideological war within the Islamic world. Whose to say that Al Qaeda would not just splinter into multiple radical groups if central leadership was removed? Bin Ladin was always more of a financier than a manager, and since 9/11 his assets have been largely frozen. Perhaps he would be more dangerous as a martyr than he is as a fugitive.

Look, I don't want to seem like I wouldn't be happy to see Bin Ladin's head sitting on a pike on the White House lawn. It would totally make my day. But people seem stuck with this idea that our campaign against Al Qaeda is all about revenge, rather than victory. We don't win in Afghanistan by killing Al Qaeda, we win by leaving a stable government to prevent the next Al Qaeda. I am just not sure if the military, or the American people in general, have really thought through what that involves.

Pharma-Future

2008-05-26T22:22:00.005-04:00

So I was watching TV last evening and I saw this commercial for some Midol alternative. It was clearly a Midol alternative, because the commercial described all the symptoms which, I've heard, Midol is suppose to cure. The odd thing was that it kept on comparing itself to every pail reliever other than Midol. Struck me as odd.

Anyhoo, the commercial got me thinking about pharmaceutical companies. Critics of socialized medicine, and defenders of pharmaceutical companies in general, often defend high drug prices as being necessary to stimulate innovation. If GlaxoSmithKline or Pfizer do not stand the chance of reaping great rewards, why should they funnel millions of dollars into research?
But how much of that money is being sent towards research for diseases, as opposed to the next Viagra? Why should these corporations look for cures for chronic illnesses when a suppressant is so much more profitable? As Mr. Rock once said, the money is in the medicine, not the cure.

That is not to say that the medicine is not a worthy goal. But I am beginning to worry that PharmaCo's incentives are skewed to towards curing less urgent afflictions. Like having babies or feeling anxious or staying awake. I feel like every time I turn on the TV I see that birth control commercial with the desecrated girly Twisted Sister song. Maybe I'm watching the wrong shows.
What I am wondering is what percentage of new medicines that are patented each year are for life threatening illnesses, as opposed to chronic conditions or less necessary pills. Better question, what percentages of their profits come from medicines for life threatening illnesses?

The Economist just had an article about the growing popularity of "cognitive enhancers", which typically would fall under the purview of non-necessary pharmaceuticals and are even more commonly used than the article implies. America's university system practically runs on Adderall already, especially Ivy League and other very competitive schools. I suspect that study drug use will soon become commonplace among the general population.

Would any of this change due to universal health care that covered prescriptions? It seems like the trend already is for PharmaCos to focus development efforts on drugs that may not even be covered by insurance. So how much could universal health care really change their research patterns?

I really do not know too much about health care in general, so I could be missing something really big here. Im just kinda thinking in text.

The Sistani Fatwa

2008-05-23T16:17:00.010-04:00

There are rumors that Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the most influential cleric in Iraq is considering a fatwa directed against the United States. Some have said that Sistani has already issued an edict authorizing attacks on coalition forces in Iraq. Given his history of supporting law and order in Iraq, this seems unlikely. What seems more likely is that he will announce, in some form, that it is time for America to leave. The results of such a fatwa would be tremendous, to say the least. It could completely reverse the recent spate of positive developments, and could make America's current position untenable.

Juan Cole offered some interesting possibilities as to why al-Sistani would do such a thing on his blog,such as to stop a potential assault on Iran using Iraq as a base of operations, to regain influence amongst poor Shiites, or because he genuinely believes that Prime Minister Maliki can control the country without foreign assistance. Between the above reasons, the first and second are most likely. Sistani recently has come out in support of Muqtada Sadr’s demand that any treaty for permanent US bases be subject to a referendum, and is vehemently opposed to any such deal.

If Sistani begins openly opposing Coalition forces in Iraq, America could find its options severely limited. Sistani will not meet with any American official, thus ruling out a negotiated settlement. He could claim the allegiance of Iraq's 17 million Shiites, and the Iraqi government would be hard-pressed to oppose him. Worse, such an edict may cause the "Awakened" Sunni's to give up on being reconciled into the government. Opposition by Sistani would stymie any American efforts to maintain order in all but the Kurdish north. Unless America is prepared to reconquer Iraq and begin using more extreme counterinsurgency tactics like British-style concentration camps, there would be only one remaining option. America would have to leave Iraq.

Of course, this in it self may not be such a disastrous outcome. One can easily imagine the following scenario; Sistani declares that American forces must leave Iraq, and likely Maliki stays mum on the subject. At that point, why can't the US declare victory and go home? Hold a press conference saying that the Iraqi government has proved that it can handle itself, and declare that the US will begin moving divisions out of Iraq by the end of the year.

Sistani's hypothetical fatwa would turn Iraqi opinion decisively against the US occupation. In such a case, President Bush should heed the popular will. Even at the risk of further violence erupting, it is not worth America formally becoming an occupying power. It has been said that democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. I wonder if Sistani really knows what he wants.

Hatred in Sports

2008-05-20T11:58:00.011-04:00

Ok, so lemme get this off my chest first. I hate the Spurs. So Much.

I hate the Flopping, I hate the Hack-a-Shaq, I hate the dirty fouls.

But most of all, I hate that they Win.

Duncan Face

Unfortunately I also realize that the Spurs may be a significant reason I follow Basketball.

Elaboration; I am a loyal fan of the New York Knicks. The Knicks reached the NBA finals in 1999, then quickly began a precipitous decent into the basement of the NBA. The cause of this fall from grace was not age or injury, though those certainly contributed, but instead gross mismanagement. During the tenure of Scott Layden and Isaiah Thomas, I was forced to take up the cause of surrogate teams, such as the Kings and the Suns.

I am not a very successful bandwagon-hopper however. Both of the above teams were very successful in the regular season, and were thumped by the eventual champions from LA or San Antonio. after a couple of years, even the most devoted fan becomes fatalistic about his team's post-season chances. So when New Orleans won the first couple games in their series, I almost knew how it was going to end. I kept flipping away from Game 7 like I was avoiding the painful scenes in a Ricky Gervais sitcom.

That said, so long as someone has a chance to beat the Spurs I will watch the playoffs. Without the ability to root for a team, I am content to root against one. I wonder if RedSox fans use to watch Yankees games the same way, back before the Sox curse was lifted and Massholes started to outnumber home crowds in baseball stadiums across the country.

Long story short, all one needs to care about an athletic contest is a reason to care about the result. whether that reason is loyalty, hatred, or a bookie that has an appointment with your kneecaps if the Saints don't cover the spread. Any excuse to care is a great reason to watch.

The Hornets Get a Taste of Some Ol' fashion Texas Home Cookin'

2008-05-16T09:24:00.014-04:00

I hate the Spurs so much right now.

Defying the basic principles of Newtonian Physics, every slightest ounce of contact between a Hornet and a Spur led to said Spur flying through the air as though he had been dropkicked by Andre the Giant. In the span of a minute, Paul and West accumulated three offensive fouls courtesy of Duncan and Bowen flailing through the air. Add on a technical and a frustration foul, and the Spurs were up by 20. Thank you, Dick Bavetta!

And then there was the Cheap Shot.

You see that gentleman on the right, sprawled out in pain? Yeah, that is David West, after being body checked in the spine by Rob "I Murder Children" Horry. West had been combating back spasms all series, a fact that Big Shot Bob used to his advantage. Thats just Spurs Championship Basketball. Just ask Steve Nash.

As much as I hate them, I honestly cannot blame the Spurs too much. This is all the fault of David Stern, for his unwillingness to crack down on flopping. After the ugly rough-n-tumble basketball of the 90's, Stern changed the rules to limit the amount of contact allowed on defense, in order to increase scoring. The effect of this is that the best way to defend someone on the perimeter is to wait for any amount of contact, then make like the Italian National Soccer Team. But really, why is this good for the sport? Who wants to watch this crap?

What Happens in Vegas... sucks.

2008-05-15T15:39:00.006-04:00

Just a Heads up.

I should have known what was coming. For those of you who do not know, What Happens in Vegas is a romantic comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton “You Got Got!” Kutcher. The plot is, Diaz and Kutcher meet and get drunk in Vegas, and end up getting married. Kutcher ends up winning a $3 Million payout from the slots, and Diaz stays married with him in order to get a piece of the cash. Hyjinx ensue.

Now, here’s the thing. Logically, there is no good reason to see this film. On paper, it had all the necessary ingredients for a crap buffet. No-longer-young actress who peaked in a mid-90’s Jim Carrey Vehicle? Check. Guy whose chief claim to fame is an obnoxious MTV show? Check. Rob Cordry? Check. (By the way, when did Rob Cordry turn into a poor man’s David Koechner?) )

So, How has leaving the show worked out for ya Rob?

But for some reason, I wanted to believe. The trailers were legitimately funny. I was deceived. The trailer wizards managed to inject comedic timing into the trailers that was sorely lacking in the film. The movie was chock full of unnecessary exposition and painfully delivered lines by Diaz, who spoke like one of those kids selling candy on the subway. Worse, they kept on referring back to be Vegas theme, with lines like "You bet on me. And you made me bet on myself."

"HellomymnameisCameronandIamsellingthesechocolatestogetsomemoneytokeepmeoffthestreets"

The movie was genuinely terrible. I left the theater feeling like I had been mugged. And worse, I cannot blame anybody but myself for going.

PS, How sad is it for your career when your getting burnt by Pauly Shore? YOU GOT GOT! YOU GOT GOT! YOU GOT GOT!

Gotta Love the Military-Industrial Complex

2008-05-15T13:33:00.004-04:00

"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Eisenhower was one smart cookie.

Check out this article about upcoming spending projects for the Pentagon. Note how much the Navy is getting.

I mean, do we REALLY need another aircraft carrier? The US Navy has more Supercarriers than every other nation combined. As a matter of fact, we are the ONLY navy to have ANY supercarriers. We have 7, not including this new one. The British and French are planning to build 1 a piece. I think the Russians were gona build one, but then the Cold War ended and they gave up.
And Destroyers!?!?! $3.2 Bn on Destroyers? Didn't those go obsolete in WW2?

This is why the US government is so deeply in debt? I mean, is this really worth it? Why are we still preping for a brawl with the Soviets? Am I missing something?

Shoutout to the Democracy In America Blog over at the Economist for the Heads Up

I mean... Really?!?!?

2008-05-14T14:33:00.000-04:00

Aid at the Point of a Gun

Robert Kaplan argues that the United States should militaraly force aid on Myanmar.

The magic of this is that an enormous amount of assistance can be provided while maintaining a small footprint on shore, greatly reducing the chances of a clash with the Burmese armed forces while nevertheless dealing a hard political blow to the junta.

Ok, let’s take a step back here. We are talking about a regime that is so xenophobic that it doesn't want to allow humanitarian workers on its soil. Why would they put up with foreign troops carving out any sized beachhead? Even if you dismiss the military capabilities of the Myanmar Junta, this still implies making a potentially long term commitment of American military resources. Aren’t we already a bit overstretched as it is?

Mr. Kaplan then goes on to argue that just the threat of American military intervention would motivate India, China and Thailand to put pressure on Myanmar on their own. That seems unlikely to me. China is preoccupied with the Olympics, Tibet, and, oh yeah, the MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE they just had. The Indian government is having trouble getting the US-Indian Nuclear cooperation treaty ratified and cannot appear to be kowtowing to America on other issues. And for some reason I just cannot see Thailand doing anything to piss off their neighbors. I don’t see their incentive.

Kaplan spends the remainder of the column worrying about the aftermath of the intervention, when the Junta will inevitably fall. He seems to treat whether or not to intervine as if it were a very difficult issue. It is not. This is a gimme.

Food For Thought: Iraq

2008-05-14T10:50:00.000-04:00

Two articles that should be read if you want a decent picture of what’s going on in Iraq recently:

This Three Page Article from the New York Times,
And This Short Interview with Ret. Major Will McCallister

The New York Times article is about the Iraqi army's recent successes in Basra. Roughly a month and a half ago, Iraqi PM Maliki declared that all Sadrist forces in Iraq had to disarm. He then ordered the Iraqi army into Basra (a Sadrist stronghold) to enforce his decree.

The assault looked like a bad idea from the start. al-Sadr had actually been pretty quiet for a while, holding his militias to a ceasefire with Iraqi and Allied forces. Many thought that al-Sadr was willing to seek a role in Iraqi governance by democratic means, and unnecessarily provoking him would only decrease the legitimacy of the upcoming elections.

Initial reports were not promising. Significant segments of the Iraqi army refused to fight. The Mahdi army (al-Sadr’s militias) was well entrenched with a friendly population supporting them. Even with American and British assistance, it looked like Maliki was cruzin’ for a bruisin’.

Or so it seemed. Maliki fired any officer in his army who refused to fight in Basra, and pressed on. Eventually, the two sides worked out a new ceasefire in the city. Iraqi and British forces cracked down hard on any segments of the Mahdi Army that Violate the ceasefire, but have otherwise managed to create relative stability within the city.

Will McCallister argues that the ceasefire is holding because al-Sadr is allowing the Iraqi Army to clean house for him. The idea is that any parts of the Mahdi Army that do not acknowledge al-Sadr’s ceasefire are a political liability in the future, so it is better to have them killed/dismantled. Meanwhile al-Sadr keeps his hands clean and avoids creating additional division within his own ranks through a power struggle.

So then, who won? All in all it appears that the Battle for Basra yielded positive results. However, one has to ask if al-Sadr’s powerbase was significantly damaged by the fighting? It certainly appears that Maliki has become stronger, but is that a good thing? Maliki, mind you, has far deeper ties to Iran than even al-Sadr does.

More importantly, where does this leave the US? The results of any positive or negative development in Iraq can be used as proof that we should withdraw or stay in the game.

The way I see it, it is clear that we have become much better at dealing with Iraq in the past year. Things are getting better. What also seems clear is that the US Army is reaching its breaking point in terms of troop levels in the field. So unless we are prepared/able to leave Afghanistan to our allies, I do not see how we can keep a large infantry presence in Iraq much longer.

But most importantly, I am seeing how completely unreliable the reporting and analysis coming out of Iraq is. This may be due to the complexity of the situation on the ground, or to the media’s weariness of covering a seemingly endless conflict. But the only dependable info coming to the US is already months old. Anything concerning events more recent than that is likely to be bunk.