Dear Mom,
So after your recommendation about the Black House novel by Peter May, I ordered it for Terry. It finally showed up quite recently, so I was able to get it to her thanks to the Book Depository. Despite coming from the UK, it only took about ten days to arrive. I’ve no idea when she’ll read it, but she has an almost 2 hour MRT journey every day on which to kill the time. I’m sure it will help.
I can’t believe how much time has passed since my last letter. I guess we’ve been quite busy. The last letter was in early January… so well, let’s see. We finally got our well earned holiday in January, which came suddenly. Though one week was devoted to Chinese New Year, we managed to get away from Taipei for a few other days for a restful holiday in Fushan near the East Coast of the island. Actually, for the most part, the weather was cool but pleasant.
Fushan is a mostly national reserved area that sits between Yilan and Taipei. The weird aspect of Fushan is that you actually have to drive all the way to the East Coast to visit it, even though it’s actually located cheek by jowl next to Taipei. The large mountain range precludes the construction of a more convenient road connecting the two. Perhaps it’s a good way to choke off development…
Well, 2019 is recognized as the Year of the Boar or Pig. I’m not sure exactly why that’s a good thing, except here the Pig is the animal of choice for many farmers. It is associated with a lot of positive benefits, and it’s practically impossible to avoid eating pork. Many locals who employ Muslim workers from Indonesia struggle with understanding why Muslim workers can’t eat pork! Chinese New Year always lasts an absurdly long time, nearly two weeks. It ends with the Lantern Festival, which is usually a big deal. Taipei City didn’t host that big a Lantern Festival celebration this year, which went to the South of the Island, but there was a weird section of one of the main city roads that was turned into a boulevard of light. Walking up the street, where there are usually lots of cars, and listening to Strauss’s Waltzes was quite absurd for me.
Of course, the holiday coincided with the set up of the exhibition website. That took almost three weeks of work to get it working. I wasn’t working daily on it, but when I start a task like that… I really focus on getting it done. The trouble with any task like that is obvious: it’s hard to know when you’ve reached the goal, esp. when the project manager had variously conflicting and unresolved priorities. More recently, we went to check over the final proofs for the exhibition, most of which turned out fine. Out of 57 prints, we had issues with only about 10% of the total, not a bad rate! The exhibition marches forward.
Another day, another story. Thursday brings us an earthquake, and it’s a bit of a rattler at about 4.5 where we were. At the epicenter it rated over a 6 in the east of the island. Hualien was hit by a major earthquake last year that destroyed several poorly built buildings, with quite a few casualties. This time round injuries were limited, but a couple of (I guess) already weakened buildings tilted in Taipei. They didn’t fall down, but they will now have to be torn down.
Living in the ring of fire means that one has to get used to dealing with these kinds of events on an irregular basis. But Taiwan’s infrastructure is much more robust than in 1999 when we were hit with rolling powercuts for months afterwards. This time the power didn’t even flicker for a moment.
With all of Taiwan’s ‘dangerous events’… I’ve often thought of writing an article entitled, “The Ten Ways You Might Die in Taiwan” … thoughts of which are quite quickly pushed to the back of my mind given how Taiwanese view death. Even though the article would be tongue-in-cheek. I think that kind of humor doesn’t translate well.
So the exhibition is almost here… I’ve been working lots of hours to get the website up and running. The challenging thing is always to work with people who don’t see the world in exactly the same way. Designing a website that works needs to take those differences into account. With Facebook, it’s been a real trial getting posts up and running. At one point, we got blocked entirely from FB. But that was rescinded.
So Friday (11th) is set up day, and probably by the time you are reading this, the opening will be over. Our aim is to collect a fair bit of money from donations, photograph sales (framed on canvas), lottery tickets (with our prizes), and other small income sources. We’re hoping that we’ll be able to sell enough photographs …. you’ve already seen my three in the previous letter. Turns out I’ve already sold one to a lady in Hualien! Can you guess which one?
That’s pretty much it for now. I have been in touch with Katrina Beatty but again I haven’t heard much from her yet. I expect to get something of a reply but I don’t think it will provide any more information than we already have.
I will be sending some warm weather thoughts in your direction.
Best Wishes & Love
Kenneth